Filed under: Indian Subcontinent | Tags: 9/11, Afghanistan, AfPak, Air Strikes, Al Jazeera, Al-Qaeda, American Imperialism, Asif Ali Zardari, Baitullah Mehsud, Barak Obama, Bill Clinton, bin Ladern, Central Asia, CIA, Colonialism, Congress Government, Drone Attacks, Fata, Federally Administered Tribal Areas, Hillary Clinton, Humeira Iqtidar, India, ISI, Malakand, Manmohan Singh, Militants, Mujahedeen, Mullah Omar, New Delhi, NWFP, Obama Administration, Pakistan, Pakistani Army, Pakistani Government, Pakistanis, Partition, Pashtun, Pervez Musharraf, Racism, Ruling Class, South Asia, Soviet Union, Swat Valley, Tehreek Nifaz e Sharia Mohammadi, US interests, US military, US occupation, War on Terror, White Supremacy
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June 2009
Source: Liberation
Even as the US military offensive intensifies in Afghanistan, a parallel offensive by the Pakistani Army, clearly under US pressure, in the country’s autonomous region of Federally Administered Tribal Areas (FATA) and North West Frontier Province (NWFP), is underway. Estimates suggest that over 10 lakh civilians are being forced to flee the Swat Valley, one of the major theatres of the war, in what is being called the biggest displacement of people since the Partition (1947). While US air strikes recently massacred 150 civilians, mostly women and children, in Afghanistan, Pakistan’s military strikes are said to have killed hundreds of (more…)
Filed under: Indian Subcontinent | Tags: Afghan Taliban, AfPak, Benazir Bhutto, Buner, Chand Bibi, Colonialism, Fata, Feminism, Flogging, Honour Killing, Imperialism, Iran, ISI, Madrassa, Malakand, Maulana Fazlullah, Militarism, Mujahideen, Mullah Omar, Nizam-e-Adl, Pakistan, Pakistani Army, Paternalism, President Asif Ali Zardari, Protests, Punjab, Racism, Saba Mahmood, Sharia, Shirin Ebadi, Sindh, Sufi Mohammed, Swat, Swat Flogging, Swat Taliban, Taliban, Tehreek Nifaz e Sharia Mohammadi, US bombing, US Drone Attacks, US Invasion, War, Women's Rights, Yusuf Raza Gilani
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( Dated Piece | 30 April 2009 )
Source: Open Democracy
The distorting glare of the mainstream media obscures a more complex reality in restive Pakistan
Who are the ” Taliban” in Pakistan? Islamist militants in the country have won significant international attention after wrestling control over the Swat Valley, the restive region in northern Pakistan where elements of sharia law are now in place. Yet these militants do not self-identify as “Taliban”, unlike the Afghan Taliban who chose the name for themselves, and preferred it to the then generic term “mujahideen”. The term “Taliban” means students; the original Taliban were educated in madrassas, religious schools. Groups and individuals that are being labelled the “Taliban in Pakistan” (TIP) are very different from their Afghan counterparts in important respects. It is pertinent not just to think through the implications of these differences but also to raise questions about why distinguishing details are being lost in the media frenzy of recent months.
In Swat, the group that has gained the most notoriety in recent months calls itself Tehreek Nifaz e Sharia Mohammadi (TNSM). This can be roughly translated as the “Movement for the (more…)
Filed under: Indian Subcontinent | Tags: Adolph Hitler, Awami League, Bangali Intellectuals, Bangladesh, Bangladeshi War Criminals, Collaborators Act, Colonialism, Dhaka, East Pakistan, Ferdousi Priyabhashini, Geneva Convention for Genocide and Torture of Women, Geneva Conventions, Genocide, German Nazis, International Crimes Tribunals Act, Jamat-e-Islami, M.A. Hassan, Mass Killing, Mujibur Rahman, Muslim League, National Liberation, Nazi, Nazis, Nezam-e-Islam, Pakistan, Pakistan Democratic Party, Pakistani Army, Pakistani Home Department, Pakistani Occupation Forces, Pakistnai War Criminals, Peoples Republic of Bangladesh, Second World War, Shaheed, Sheikh Hasina, Sheikh Mujibur Rahman, Torture, UN Secretary General, United Nations, War Crimes, War Criminals, West Pakistan, Ziaur Rahman
"Innumerable Bodies Found" (Bodies of intellectuals brutally tortured and killed by the Pak Army and their collaborators are found dumped in a ditch in Rayer Bazar.)
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16 January 2009
Source: The Daily Star
When Awami League Chief Sheikh Hasina announced her election manifesto in a jam-packed hall room on December 12, everyone was listening with rapt attention. Suddenly her supporters gave a huge round of applause breaking the silence. The jubilant applause was a clear message to Hasina, other politicians, foreign diplomats and journalists in the air-conditioned hall room of a five star hotel where the announcement had been made: even after 37 years people are highly emotional about this long-standing issue.
Hasina’s election pledge about trying war crimes has uplifted the spirits of not only the party workers, but has given hope to the entire nation despite its growing disillusionment from past experience of successive governments including the AL’s, of ignoring this popular demand. Bangabandhu Sheikh Mujibur Rahman’s government had initiated the trial of the war criminals but could not continue due to the (more…)
