30 April 2016

By Dr. Abdul Ruff Colachal

As Pakistan is struggling to come out of the US trap, Pakistan's leadership has not realized that their foreign policy, now focused entirely on India, Pakistan, Afghanistan and aid from USA and Arab world, is stained and outdated. Pakistan has lost thousands of Muslims, lost huge wealth in destruction; while the US led terror forces continue to target innocent people. Wrong policy selection has destabilized the nation.

Many would say Pakistani foreign policy is outdated and therefore redundant in modern times and yet some others say Pakistan has no time tested foreign policy at all.

Recently Russian president Vladimir Putin has instructed his foreign ministry to revise and update Russian foreign policy document in keeping with the latest developments in the world, especially Russian position in Ukraine and Syria. Presidential order means action and the foreign ministry is busy with the executing Putin's order.

Of course, Pakistan is not a great power like Russia or USA requiring regular revision of foreign policy. However, Islamabad cannot ignore the rules of international diplomacy.

Frankly, Pakistan does not enjoy any clear cut foreign policy and its diplomacy is limited only to get foreign aid from Saudi led Arab world as well as US led western capitalist world. Perhaps, Pakistani rulers believe they don't need any concrete foreign policy at all as their vague diplomacy, focused on foreign money and terror goods, has been able to get what they want from abroad.

As a result, Pakistan and to dilute its Islamic agenda and all their efforts are focused on how best to get more military aid. When Arab nations themselves have begun invading neighboring nations and killing fellow Muslims, Pakistan has a solid to reason to kill Pakistanis.

That Pakistan also, like its neighbor Hindutva India, officially promotes corruption and frauds as nation's prestige only reveals what is store for this 'Islamic nation'.

Frankly, unlike sovereign nations, Pakistan does not enjoy full sovereignty having lost it to Americans who want to make Islamabad another colony in Islamic world that could be directly controlled by Israel later, just as it does Palestine. USA and its western allies like UK had helped Israel, a nation of international criminal gangs, get Palestine under its brutal control.

Pakistan perhaps had expected USA to help and defend it form Indian arrogance but today it fears America as much as it does India. Both India and USA have a common anti-Islamic agenda being executed by powerful joint media Islamophobia. Islamabad, like Palestine and Kashmir, has reason to feel suffocation from Indo-US joint operations to destabilize Islamabad. New Delhi seeks to destroy Pakistan and wants USA to take away its nukes and transfer Azad Kashmir to India.

The problem is Americans thin their nation unnecessarily offers too much of money to Pakistan for nothing and do not think their government is paying Pakistan its due service charges for the work done by Pakistani government, intelligence and military boys, targeting Muslims.

Pakistan's foreign affairs are on auto mode and it does not in fact require any independent minister to handle it. In fact, there is nothing to handle at all. PM Nawaz Sharif, who is now busy with somehow solving the Panama leaks involving him and family, takes foreign affair on day to day business. All that Pakistan requires is aid from USA and EU and help from Saudi led GCC, rather service charges to allow their terror forces on Pakistani soil, targeting Muslims in and around. They do have some out dated guys as adviser to PM on Foreign affairs. There is no long term planning required. At present PM is busy to clear his and his family name from Panama leak scandal.

More precisely, military plays the central role in foreign and security directions.

Pakistan's proxies have extracted a very heavy price but those feeding it are oblivious to the toll on lives snuffed out, locally as well as in the neighborhood.

Increased oil supplies eased financial difficulty of many nations around the world. There has been a swing away and perceptible shifts in foreign policy in the Gulf region and on the Arabian Peninsula which have dominated the foreign policy landscape for most countries for decades.

Pakistan declined the invitation to join the war being fought by Saudi Arabia in Yemen to the considerable irritation of the Saudis who are used to Pakistan doing their bidding.

Strains in relations with USA, Pakistan had solace in Arab world as it continued to obtain aid from Saudi led Gulf States. But when Pakistan had to stick to its policy of not to take position between Sunni and Shiia fights, had refused to support Saudi war in Arab world, it finds itself in an awkward situation as it needs aid to back up its failing economy and ever increasing military expenditures. Fortunately China offered opportunity to Pakistan to compensate for the loss of resource flow form USA, EU and Arab world, there is not direct threat from Arab nations in terms of aid cuts.

Eyes, thus, turned instead to China and elsewhere, with the emergent China-Pakistan Economic Corridor (CPEC) being touted as the Uber-Fix for a myriad of economic and social woes, the fix-all to fix everything. Eyes also turned to Iran as the opportunities opened up by the lifting of American sanctions suddenly made the long-delayed pipeline project between Iran and Pakistan more of a possibility. Pakistan calculates that its rejection of Saudi request for military to fight war in Mideast can make Islamabad a ''close friend'' of Iran automatically.

Relations with India seemed to improve amid bitter argument over terror attacks like Pathankot in India and Pakistan and a halting dialogue got under way. Even relations with Afghanistan took an uptick. America warmed slightly as well and by the end of the year, the foreign policy environment was beginning to look healthier than it had for decades — but it may all have been a house of cards.

The collapse began with the attack on the Indian airbase at Pathankot that skewered the bilateral talks that were about to move to the foreign secretary level. There were efforts to keep the talks on track and there were 'contacts' between the two sides but the talks are effectively dead in the water. It is that failure by the states to resolve the Kashmir issue.

India worries that American lawmakers are far from happy with the obvious and continuing presence and capacity of Taliban groups to operate from Pakistan; so irritated are they that the latest F16 purchase has run into the sand and Pakistan is going to have to find $700 million because the US Congress refuses to use American taxpayers' money to fund the deal as a favor for Pakistani help in killing Muslims all around.

To cap four months of foreign policy discomfort, Russian President Vladimir Putin has decided to refuse the invitation to visit Pakistan in what is the diplomatic equivalent of a mighty slap in the face. Russia is not a country that is to the fore in terms of protecting the human rights of its citizenry and has its own problems with extremist groups, Muslim and otherwise — to say nothing of its interventionist positions in the Middle East and Ukraine.

Russia is a virtual super power and a powerful veto member, effectively blocking all nefarious plans of capitalist world and its secretly imperialist designs. It can take decision unilaterally and on request from USA and pressure from its arms ally India. Though it has been the subject of sanctions in the wider world yet Russia is disdainful of an invitation by Pakistan. New Delhi's strategic community argues in denying Pakistan a chance to host its president, Russia has stood firmly behind India and its terror victim claims. The reasons for declining the visit are somewhat opaque but Russia is believed to be less than delighted with the persistence and proliferation of extremist groups within India. Russia has considerable potential for Pakistan as a trading partner, but citing insufficient ''substance'' to Putin's trip as the reason to refuse the invitation, which in diplomatic terms is almost unparalleled as invitations such as this are only given after the back-channel work has been done — is virtually unprecedented.

Russia always obliges USA and India in the international arena. In fact by signing agreements with Pakistan, Russia would only help Pakistan and it does not want to give any opportunity for Pakistani regime to crawl again towards or closer to USA which is still persisting with its call to ''do more'' targeting Muslims. This is a part of the usual cooperative politics of the big powers USA and Russia.

Pakistan is being misruled by the rich, corporate and aristocratic families to promote their collective interests in the country and abroad. The leadership has no time for the people and therefore is not interested in welfare of common masses. Many Pakistanis, like many rich Arabs do, keep money and wealth abroad

Of course, currently Pakistani PM Nawaz Sharif could be busy with solving the Panama leaks involving him and his family members in money laundering. As it is Islamabad, like New Delhi is promoting a mischievous policy to help the rich and corporate lords to secretly take away money from the country and keep in foreign banks.

Even as Pakistani regime assists with US military to use the Islamic nation as a safe haven to engineer murder of Pakistanis, the Panama papers have listed over 250 Pakistanis, including senior officials and the mother of a woman filmmaker who won two Oscars this year, in the biggest-ever global data leaks as having offshore companies. According to the details given by the International Consortium of Investigative Journalists (ICIJ) through an online searchable database, at least 259 Pakistanis have been named with links to offshore companies.

They include several influential people including Abdul Sattar Dero, former general manager of the Port Qasim Authority; Shaukat Ahmed, the ex-president of the Karachi Chamber of Commerce and Industry (KCCI); and Saba Obaid, mother of renowned filmmaker Sharmeen Obaid-Chinoy. The database contains ownership information about companies created in 10 offshore jurisdictions including the British Virgin Islands, the Cook Islands and Singapore. It covers nearly 30 years until 2010.

The fresh digital cache includes names of members of Pakistan's business elite but it is not immediately ascertainable whether the documents contain names of political heavyweights like the explosive April 3 Panama leaks that named Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif's children Maryam, Hassan and Hussain among other world leaders having offshore wealth. The release of more names with link to offshore companies may soften pressure on Sharif, who faced angry opposition demanding his resignation over the Panama scandal.

Sharif last month asked Supreme Court, maybe just for the sake of it, to probe all listed in the Panama papers, while opposition parties want his probe first.

In the emerging multilateral diplomacy, Pakistan also requires a visible foreign policy to effectively pursue national interest globally according to a policy document that would guide the government and foreign ministry to advance Pakistani global interest as an Islamic nation. If the FP document works well for Pakistan the same might be emulated by other nations, especially Muslim countries to archive maximum advantages in the long run.

Pakistan should stop looking at the world through Indian prism and refocus its urgent needs abroad and ascertain the best ways it should follow in order to obtain positive results. A vague policy fully focused on India is no answer to Pakistani problems. That keep accumulating as strategic Indo-USA pivot allies jointly evolve strategy to further weaken the Islamic nation in the Indian subcontinent. Beware of poisonous snakes around.

Snakes should be feared as they are never friendly and they are harmful and can bite anyone at will as their legitimate right. They cannot be tamed or domesticated though they can be rendered harmless but for that they have to be caught first. However, Pakistan itself is in trouble- in fact invited trouble as it allowed the US and NATO forces to land in, and occupy the nation and use it for a war first against its neighbor Afghanistan and then against Pakistan by killing Pakistani soldiers and civilians at will by brutal Zionist drone methods. They bit Pakistan's foreign policy and made it impotent and irrelevant. Unfortunately, nobody in the government had bothered to remove their fangs.

Russian attitude of rejecting the Pakistani invitation for an official visit as a positive gesture to improve relations has, obviously, caused enormous strains in the already wounded Pakistani psyche. But Islamabad can clearly see the twin 'cause' of all this and it cannot do anything to set the relations right against the will of Indo-USA.

Pakistan must recognize the new reality that old Cold war is not there and the merging new Cold war is of a different kind and without any ideology involved and mutual cooperation against Islam.

Pakistan suffers mainly because it has no profound foreign policy to defend the actions abroad. UK which is supposed to take care of Pakistani interests as leader of Commonwealth in the UN refuses to do anything that helps Pakistan or Islam.

Only foreign policy document can tell what is right and wrong in a particular move by the government abroad. Putin is keen to know if there is anything wrong in his recent foreign moves.

If, however, Pakistani government says the nation can exist without any foreign policy, in fact , there is no answer.

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May 12, 2016 – 10:25 am Categories: Blogroll | Post a comment
Indian dynastic politics: Kerala is destined to be misruled by Congress, Communist alternative governments!

Indian dynastic politics: Kerala is destined to be misruled by Congress, Communist alternative governments!

-Dr. Abdul Ruff Colachal

Former foes Congress and Communist parties are now closely tied comrades in arms and they know how to play politics in Kerala by keeping the people at a distance, while advancing their own exclusive interests. For the communists, in fact, people have become the problem while the rich and corporates are their new friends. That is to say, misrule of Kerala and West Bengal has made the communists to recognize the capitalists as their 'allies' in politics.

After all poor and common masses cannot offer the communist parties money. Because they don't have money but the rich and corporates can offer a lot of black money to the parties during the poll. Communists have become 'practical' and even propagate 'convergence' theory as their own.

With opinion polls – and perhaps intelligence reports – suggesting the rout of the ruling Congress led UDF coalition government and its replacement by Communists led LDF, both the Congress and Communists are busy taking positions in the state secretariat – Congress party taking away what is left in the treasury and Communists finding 'able' replacement of agents to do business in the capital for the parties. The UDF backed rich mafia would strike quick deals and take home huge sums for the last time before the new set of mafias take charge there. New Sarithas would resurface at the state secretariat to make the let bosses happy and keep them in good humors.

The change in government would not make any difference to populations. Communists would not do anything good for the people and in order to cover up their failures, they would begin their usual favorite blame game as soon as they take change as new rulers blaming the UDF for what will not be good in the state. There ends all hopes of people who voted them to power to get rid of wretched misrule gang. The literate Keralites have got no credible alternatives.

One may call it the crude destiny of a population if it continues to suffer the ill-effects of misrule by the parties that they choose alternatively with a mandate to rule the state. Kerala, like its neighbor Tamil Nadu, has been the target of corrupt political parties led by self centered guys who want to make wealth by suing politics as business. Sons and daughters and other kin gradually replace the ruling circles.

Since the national situation is not different from that, politicians misrule alternatively the state, looting the resources according to some profitable formula. Since the corrupt Congress-Muslim League rulers of Kerala, known as a crude joke in cricket circles as god's own country' because the Congress government made Sachin – a self styled petty god fake batboy with bogus records 'set' out of match fixings by powerful mafia with government links – to emigrate from his Mumbai city to Kochi, Kerala's money centre, people have been left with no choices except accepting either Congress or Communists as their ill-fate just like in USA where the most educated Americans can choose only between republicans and democrats who follow similar polices and fool the educated people.

Both dynasty misrule and rampant corruption continue to thrive in Kerala as the rulers, including Communists are eager to 'generate' the top rich peole to compete with Indian national frauds and if possible with global business magnets.

Sons and daughters of top political leaders who assumed power in Trivandrum consider themselves as the legitimate heirs to the throne. Every former Congress and other splinter groups follow the strategy in politics. A minster Munir, son of former acting CM belonging to Muslim League, a major component as well as considered life line of UDF government, is dreaming to become the CM of the state because his father was so albeit for a brief period. However, the ML leadership thinks now Munir is 'too young' to be CM and can wait for more years but he 'deserves' to be the CM. And hence the ML does not claim CM post though it saves the government all the time from falling.

Even among UDF partners, Kerala Congress always fought for the CM chair but Oommen Chandy very tactfully denied it any chance for CM post and also kept the group from shifting its loyalty to the waiting communist led LDF where former CM and opposition leader Achuthanandan had been seeking 'converts'' from UDF until election was announced to somehow get a couple of MLAs form UDF to from alternative government.

Interestingly, a shrewd Oommen Chandy hurriedly inaugurated the incomplete the central bus station with just mere structures in the capital Trivandrum two years ago fearing abrupt fall of his government eventually as a couple of MLAs from UDF were coining with the idea of abandoning the UDF leading to its collapse, and joining the LDF to launch a new left government under Achuthanandan. CM Oommen Chandy did that possibly to make sure his name appears in the bus station as ''inaugurated by Oommen Chandy' and to claim it as the Congress achievements in the election campaign which it is doing now.

Meanwhile, the Hindutva parties led by ultra communal BJP have been trying to fish in the troubled waters in Kerala, just like it does elsewhere. They think they also have right to misrule and make Kerala a state of communal crimes; though the Congress party maintains secret link with BJP, it won't help the Hindutva now as its facing a rout situation.

Like in Tamil Nadu, BJP is in a fluid situation in Kerala too. For the first time in its history, BJP could forge alliance with ''over ambitious'' political partners in Kerala and form NDA to take on both CPI-M led Left Democratic Front and Congress-led United Democratic Front to alter the course of poll battle in the state.

In the time Modi bang, both RSS and BJP central leadership wanted to open double digit account in Kerala Assembly. They felt Kerala's untouchability towards Hindutva politics blocking lotus bloom in the state. But with 6.3 per cent cadre vote bank, electoral prospects of the BJP remained limited in Kerala's bipolar political spectrum.

To overcome the challenge, BJP found a convenient ally in Vellapally Natesan, self styled champion of Ezhava community, who was interested only in power game. Vellapally who had taken over Sree Narayana Dharma Paripalana Yogam, an organization for the welfare of Ezhavas founded by Sree Narayana Guru, a great social reformer in Kerala in 1903, found BJP a convenient ally for his political avtar. He claimed the backing of 23 per cent Ezhava vote bank in the state and have been working long to consolidate his political base and enjoyed playing the role of political power broker for long. He preached Ezhava pride and justice for Ezhavas and initiated micro credit for poor women. And, finally floated a political outfit Bharat Dharma Jana Sena and crowned his son Thushar Vellapally as its President.

BJP calculated that BJDS may help the party to infiltrate into Ezhava base that help them to win at least in three Assembly constituencies where party comes second in 2011 poll. PC Thomas led Kerala Congress and Janathipathya Rashtriya Sabha led by CK Janu, fire brand tribal leader in Kerala constituted a micro segment and publicity for the BJP. BJP was in advantageous position in the beginning as Congress was doomed in corruption and scandals and CPI-M was dipped in factional feuds. With Prime Minister Narendra Modi's mantra of development and make over India campaign fancied youth and neutral voters in Kerala.

Modi, having lost his own image of 'Mr. developmental gentleman', won't be able to add any votes to Kerala BJP bag. When the election campaign started, there was a feeling in Kerala, BJP would open account in more than three Assembly constituencies. But when poll campaign enters final leg, the halo around the BJP is fading fast. the aggressive Hindutva agenda projected by BJP and RSS during the poll campaign has no effect. ''It helped minorities especially Muslims to cast vote strategically to defeat BJP.

BJP central leadership rated Kasargod, Manjeshwaram, Nemom and Vattiyoorkavu as their prime constituencies where party has high rate of winning chances and set its eyes on 25 other constituencies where party can decide the winner. Congress-led UDF was banking on BJP strategy to block LDF from coming to power.

Strategic voting pattern always defeated BJP in Kasargod and Manjeshwaram in the past where party has a strong cadre base. In 2001, CK Padmanabhan of BJP lost to Cherkalam Abdulla of IUML for 13186 votes in Manjeswaram and PK Krishnadas of BJP too lost to C T Ahmedali of IUML in Kasargod for a margin 19000 votes. In these constituencies, CPIM came to the third position. In 2006, again in Manjeswaram CPIM's C.H. Kunhambu defeated BJP's Narayana Bhatt for 4800 votes. In Kasargod too IUML candidate CT Ahmedali trounced his BJP rival over 9000 votes. 2011, IUML candidates won Manjeswaram and Kasargod defeating BJP.

Hindutva BJP failed to understand inner dynamics of Kerala politics. When BJP joined hands with Vellappalli, Nairs shunted the party. They constitute 13 per cent of population. Traditionally Nairs and upper castes were backing BJP in Kerala. In many constituencies, Nairs may not vote for BJDS candidates and Ezhavas may not vote for BJP candidates. In fact BJP poll agenda helped CPI-M to consolidate its Ezhava base as party focused on the vote drain from the community.

The organization Hindu parliament in Kerala has announced that it would support Left Front candidates in 37 constituencies where BJDS is contesting in the state. If BJP could not convince Hindu Parliament to vote for BJDS, how the party could make an entry in the Kerala Assembly. They may have to wait in the Visitor's gallery of the Assembly for the time being.

Unlike its success of caste politics in Karnataka, BJP miserably lost its caste approach in Kerala. And it is difficult if it can ever gain any big vote bank to have MLAs in the state assembly.
Sensing the public mood, former CM and former India's defence minister AK Antony commented that ''BJP can only open bank accounts in Kerala and not in Kerala assembly.

Meanwhile Kerala people would have to suffer the misrule of Congress and Communist parties until they discover a genuine and honest leader to emerge from public life.

Maybe that time may not be too far away. Tamils have already found parties like PWA and PMK with promise of genuine governance without corruption and without intoxication of the pubic and for the real development of the state.
 

©  EsinIslam.Com

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