South Asia Citizens Wire | 29-30 Jan., 2005 via: www.sacw.net [1] Bangladesh: Madness of violence (i) Bangladesh: Grenade attack on opposition party (Press release - Amnesty International) (ii) Action Alert: Protest the assassination of Shah AMS Kibria (Drishtipat) (iii) Women activists say people's life utterly unsafe (iii) One by one Opposition leaders are being killed (Mahfuz Anam) [2] Pakistan: A H Nayyar - Pacifism with a method (Ammara Durrani) [3] India: Citizen's Letter to India's Prime Minister seeking release of those unfairly held on charges of organising the Godhra train fire [4] A Report of The Fourth Meeting of All India Secular Forum [5] India : On The Godhra train fire that triggered the riots (i) 'But who lit the fire?' (Praful Bidwai) (ii) The Deadly Reach of Rumor (Editorial, Los Angeles Times) [6] India - Upcoming event : The Festival of Non Violence by Darpana's Centre for Non Violence through Arts (Ahmedabad, 30th January - 7th February 2005)
-------------- [1] [ In the past year there has been repeated, abuses by Islamist vigilante groups (including the Bangla Bhai operation in the North-West of Bangladesh) who are running a campaign of attacks on minorities ; rising wave of hate speech in public rallies which incite acts of violence against the Ahmadiyyas and the Hindus and Buddhists; even cinema halls, sufi shrines, traditional village fairs and cultural functions have been targets of bomb attacks. There have been a series of assassinations of respected secular intellectuals, journalists and academics; assassinations and violence against opposition party Awami league leaders has continued. While all this political and public violence in society grows domestic violence and acid attacks against women are apparently also growing. Its getting pretty hot as the state looks askance . . . . ] (i) Amnesty International - Press release, 01/28/2005 BANGLADESH: GRENADE ATTACK ON OPPOSITION PARTY The latest grenade blast at an opposition party rally is part of a pattern of violent attacks against the party leadership, and the government's failure fully to investigate previous attacks is deeply concerning, said Amnesty International. Five people including the former Finance Minister and senior Awami League leader, Shah AMS Kibria, were killed in the grenade attack on a rally in Habiganj district, northeast of the capital Dhaka, yesterday evening. Scores of people were injured. Another grenade attack on an Awami League rally in Dhaka left 22 people dead and hundreds injured on 21 August last year. Amnesty International is urging the Bangladesh government to fully investigate the attacks and bring the perpetrators to justice. It should establish an investigating body independent of the government, with a mandate to investigate not only the recent attack but any possible links to the previous attacks. It is of crucial importance that inquiry into these attacks is conducted by people known for their independence and impartiality, and trusted by the human rights community as well as the opposition. At the same time, the government must ensure that all evidence relating to the attack is kept intact. Any state institutions or employees whose negligence may have facilitated the attacks should be removed from any position where they could influence the inquiries. "The government has failed to investigate previous attacks with the rigour and determination they deserve," said Catherine Baber. "Unless such inquiries are conducted thoroughly and impartially, they will lack credibility and the culprits will be sheltered from justice." Following the 21 August grenade attack, the government instituted a judicial inquiry, but its impartiality was brought into doubt when Prime Minister Begum Khaleda Zia was reported to have announced before its conclusion that the opposition might have carried out the attack themselves in order to tarnish the government's image. Although the inquiry judge submitted his report on the August grenade attack to the authorities on 2 October, the government has failed to make public the content of that report, or to announce what steps it is taking to address the attack. The Awami League, as the aggrieved party, has not been informed of any steps the government has taken. The inquiry judge at the time told journalists that he had identified the perpetrators and a link to "foreign enemies" but gave no details. The present attack is a stark reminder of the growing vulnerability of opposition politicians and an apparent lack of determination on the part of the government to ensure their safety and security. Amnesty International is urging the highest authorities in Bangladesh to condemn the attacks and to ensure that no political pressure influences the outcome of the inquiry. o o o (ii) ACTION ALERT: Protest the assassination of Shah AMS Kibria **** Do not circulate this alert after Sunday, February 20, 2005 **** 1. The situation 2. Take action 3. Sample email/letter/fax 4. About Drishtipat 1. The situation: Awami League (AL) leader and former finance minister Shah AMS Kibria was assassinated in a grenade attack in Habiganj on Thursday, January 27, 2005. The attack also left four other AL activists dead and over 70 injured. This is the latest in a string of deadly attacks on cultural organizations and political parties religious minorities over the last few years, all of which remain unsolved mysteries. It also comes a little less than five months after a similar grenade attack on Leader of the Opposition, Sheikh Hasina, that left 22 people dead and hundreds injured. As Bangladeshis, it is our duty to express concern and outrage at the government's inability to identify the perpetrators, let alone capture the terrorists and ensure justice for the victims. Failure to hold the government accountable at this crucial juncture will only lead to further deterioration of the law and order situation in Bangladesh. 2. Take action: Contact the Bangladeshi mission in your country to express your concerns and demand that the government aggressively confront these enemies of the state, whoever they may be. Forward this message to your friends and acquaintances who have email. Print copies and distribute them to those who don't. Contact information for the missions in Australia, Canada, the UK and USA are given below. Information for other missions can be found from the Ministry of Foreign Affairs website at: www.mofabd.org/. Please send a copy of your email to [EMAIL PROTECTED], and drop us a line if you've sent a letter or fax. High Commission for the People's Republic of Bangladesh , Australia: Representative: High Commissioner Mr. Ashraf-ud-Doula Address: 21 Culgoa Circuit, O'Malley ACT-2606,Canberra, Australia Phone: +(61)2 6290-0511, +(61)2 6290-0522, +(61)2 6290-0533 Fax: +(61)2 6290-0544, +(61)2 6290-0566 E-mail: [EMAIL PROTECTED] High Commission for the People's Republic of Bangladesh, Canada: Representative: High Commissioner Mr. Rafiq Ahmed Khan Address: 275 Bank Street, Suite-302 Ottawa, Ont. K2P 2L6, Canada Phone: + (613) 236-0138, + (613) 236-0139 Fax: + (613) 567-3213 E-mail: [EMAIL PROTECTED] High Commission for the Republic of Bangladesh , UK: Representative: High Commissioner Mr. A.H. Mofazzal Karim Address: 28 Queen's Gate, London SW7 5JA, UK Phone: 0870 005 6703 Fax: 0207 225 2130 E-mail: Embassy of the People's Republic of Bangladesh , USA: Representative: Ambassador Syed Hasan Ahmad Address: 3510 International Drive, Washington DC 20008, USA Phone: + (1) 202 244 0183 Fax: + (1) 202 244 5366, + (1) 202 244 7830 E-mail: [EMAIL PROTECTED] 3. Sample email/letter/fax: A sample is provided for your convenience, but you are highly encouraged to write a personal account to best convey your thoughts anc concerns. Your Excellency _______, As a concerned citizen, I am writing to express my outrage and shock at the assassination of senior Awami League leader Shah AMS Kibria and demand that the perpetrators be brought to justice. I, along with many members of the Bangladeshi expatriate community, have been dismayed at the impunity at which these attacks have been carried out over the last few years, and alarmed at their increasingly brutal and brazen nature. After the assassination attempt on Opposition Leader Sheikh Hasina on August 21, 2004, I had hoped that the government would take appropriate measures to aggressively pursue these terrorists and dismantle their infrastructure to deter further attacks of this kind. Yet, in the five months leading to the assassination of Mr. Kibria, the government hadn't even been able to identify these terrorists, let alone bring them to justice. It is with great disappointment that I must ask why it is failing us on this crucial issue of national security. When assurances of utmost effort are followed by stalled investigations, and over a course of a few years at that, one wonders if the government is simply unable or unwilling to carry out its responsibilities. Needless to say, its failure to deliver will only lead to further deterioration of the law and order situation in Bangladesh. We cannot afford to sacrifice the democratic values we have come to live by on the altar of terrorism. As a citizen of Bangladesh, I demand to know who these terrorists are, and what concrete steps our government is taking to protect Bangladesh from these enemies of the state, whether they are foreign or domestic. Thank you for your consideration. Sincerely, ______________ [About Drishtipat Drishtipat is a non-profit, non-political expatriate Bangladeshi organization committed to safeguarding every individual's basic democratic rights, including freedom of expression, and is opposed to any and all kinds of human rights abuses in Bangladesh. [...]. Contact information: Address: Drishtipat, P O box 1581, NY NY 10156, USA Email: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Web: www.drishtipat.org] o o o o (iii) Daily Star - January 30, 2005 WOMEN ACTIVISTS SAY PEOPLE'S LIFE UTTERLY UNSAFE Staff Correspondent Seventy-two leading women's rights activists and members of civil society in a joint statement yesterday demanded the government instill sense of security among the citizens through restoring public confidence in the administration and judiciary of the country. They termed the killing of former finance minister Shah AMS Kibria in grenade blasts on Thursday a tragedy for the nation and sign of serious moral degradation. Condemning the killing, they demanded immediate identification of the criminals through proper and transparent investigation into the incident. People's lives of late have become utterly unsafe. Lack of sincere efforts by the government to curb crimes has pushed the country towards an uncertainty, the statement said. A tendency of taking law into hands is growing in the society contributing to further worsening of law and order, it pointed out. In reference, they mentioned the vigilantism by Bangla Bhai and his men. They regretted that despite the prime ministerial order Bangla Bhai is still at large. Referring to bomb and grenade blasts that killed over 140 people since 1999, the right activists said they were not any isolated ones, rather well-orchestrated acts of violence by a powerful gang. Besides, they expressed concern over the failure of the government in preventing repeat of such attacks. In some cases, they observed, the government failed to bring the culprits to trial even after police had submitted charge sheet against them. The statement was signed among others by Sultana Kamal, Khushi Kabir, Hamida Hossain, Ayesha Khanom, Shirin Akhter, Advocate Sigma Huda, Sara Zaker, Mita Haque, Rounak Hossain, Farida Akhter, Tasmima Hossain, Advocate Salma Ali, Dr Naila Khan, Aasha Meherin Amin, Shahin Anam, Laila Kabir and Dr Sonia Amin, Aroma Dutta, Saida Kamal Ila Chanda and Maleka Begum. o o o o (iv) ONE BY ONE OPPOSITION LEADERS ARE BEING KILLED Mahfuz Anam URL: www.thedailystar.net/2005/01/29/d5012901033.htm ______ [2] News On Sunday 30 January 2005 A H NAYYAR - PACIFISM WITH A METHOD None of our nuclear weapon scientists seems to have realised the terrible significance of their work and broken ranks to help inform the rest of society about the nuclear threat that we all now face. Instead they have chosen to happily accept the privileges and status that the government has heaped upon them By Ammara Durrani Dr A H Nayyar, who has a PhD from Imperial College, London, has recently retired from the Department of Physics at Quaide Azam University, Islamabad, where he taught for over 30 years. He has also held several visiting appointments abroad, including at Princeton University, USA. He is currently a visiting fellow at the Sustainable Development Policy Institute, Islamabad. He is active in the peace movement, and is serving as President of the Pakistan Peace Coalition. He has published widely on issues of education reform and peace. In December 2004, he was awarded the Star Award for Activism by US-based Association for Communal Harmony in Asia (ACHA). In an e-mail interview with Political Economy, Nayyar shed light on various aspects of debates on nuclear weapons, educational reforms, India-Pakistan peace process and energy politics in the region. Excerpts follow: PE: Why should natural scientists like you feel the need to play a socially active role in areas of peace, human rights and education? Shouldn't you instead be busy in addressing the many industrial and technological problems that Pakistan faces? AHN: Scientists are also citizens of their society and have to make choices of how to fulfill this role. There have been many scientists including some of the most eminent such as Albert Einstein, who have chosen to try to combine their roles as scientists and citizens. Einstein, for example, wrote many articles and essays for the general public on issues of war and peace, capitalism and socialism, and so on, including explaining why he was a pacifist and a socialist. One of the major problems confronting our country, the region and the world is the threat of nuclear weapons. Physicists have been central to the development of nuclear weapons. They have also been part of campaigns against nuclear weapons everywhere. In fact, the very first anti-nuclear group was founded by some of the scientists who had been involved in building the bomb in 1945 for the US and realised the danger they had brought to the world. Many of these 'citizen scientists', as my friend Frank von Hippel of Princeton University calls them, were harassed by their governments for their anti-nuclear activism. But they persevered and have established a tradition of scientists taking seriously their social responsibility. In Pakistan, we have not been so fortunate. None of our nuclear weapon scientists seems to have realised the terrible significance of their work and broken ranks to help inform the rest of society about the nuclear threat that we all now face. Instead they have chosen to happily accept the privileges and status that the government has heaped upon them. For citizen scientists, the challenge is to use their technical knowledge and expertise to educate policymakers and the public about the consequences of having nuclear weapons. In particular, they are well placed to challenge the claims of the scientists in the nuclear weapons complex who always push for more and bigger and more sophisticated nuclear weapons and missiles. They can also help humanity chart a path towards nuclear disarmament by tackling the many technical problems that are involved in getting rid of nuclear weapons. Along with the threat of nuclear weapons, the key questions that face Pakistani citizens are those of poverty, illiteracy, extremism and injustice. Scientists and other professionals need to take more seriously their responsibility to use their skills in understanding and solving problems in the public interest to try and address these concerns. PE: Your work on changes in Pakistani curricula generated a lot of political controversy last year. What lessons did you learn from that episode, and what are your post-debate reflections? AHN: The work you are referring to was a 2003 study done by a number of academics on the state of curricula and textbooks in Pakistan's public schools. Our report (available from SDPI, Islamabad), entitled "The Subtle Subversion", exposed how our children are being fed bigotry and hatred and filled with the most extreme, narrow-minded and violent ideas of Islam and what it means to be Pakistani. Our report made a series of recommendations to try and change this including reforms in the Ministry of Education, curriculum and textbooks. The report and its proposals gathered a lot of support. It also attracted a lot of hostility. Rather than engage with our findings or our suggestions, the criticism came as attacks on our character mixed with blatant lies, baseless accusations, and conspiracy theories. Some of the attacks came from hawks who want Pakistan to remain forever hostile to India. Others came from Islamic political parties determined to push for an ever more extreme Islamic Pakistan. The two groups were united by a desire to maintain the ideological stranglehold their ideas have had over the education system for two decades. We learnt some important lessons from this whole process. We saw just how important control of the education system is to the Islamist groups--they even created the Anjuman Tahaffuze Nisab to co-ordinate their opposition to any reform. We were also surprised by the depth of resistance to reform from within the educational bureaucracy. It was amazing to see this bureaucracy collude with hawks and Islamic ideologues by lying about our report to parliament. They claimed that a government appointed committee had examined and rejected our report. The committee, in fact, had agreed with our findings and supported our recommendations. This response from the bureaucracy was not because of any overwhelming ideological commitment on the part of high officials, but more, in my view, to their proverbial inertia and a narrow, short-term view about the future of the nation. Officials seem to be more worried about damping down controversies than about what is good for the nation. They thus become very susceptible to pressure from groups that threaten to take to the streets. It is not just bureaucrats who give in to pressure. The education minister at that time came under so much attack from Islamic political groups that she found it expedient to declare herself a fundamentalist. What was even more disappointing was that the rest of the government, despite all its rhetoric of reform, did not come to her support. But with time, and a lot of effort from civil society and progressive members of parliament, it seems that the government has finally agreed that there is a need to revise curricula and textbooks. The recent statements from the new education minister are encouraging. However, the battle is not over. The recent case of the Aga Khan Examination Board shows that the pressure from those who have an ideological stake in the existing system is continuing. PE: One feels that the anti-nuclear and peace groups in Pakistan did not address the A Q Khan nuclear proliferation controversy, as they should have. They lost an important opportunity to strike home their point. Do you agree? AHN: No, the peace movement has always warned of the many dangers of Pakistan's nuclear weapons programme--the danger of nuclear war, the risk of nuclear accidents, the inevitable arms race, the health and environmental impacts of nuclear facilities, the diversion of public money from social needs, the risk of proliferation and the prospects of Pakistan being seen as a danger to the international community. Many of these fears have been realised, including the A Q Khan affair. Sadly, those in power in Pakistan do not yet understand the full seriousness of the harm the nuclear programme has done to us. The peace movement has a long way to go. Many of us in the Pakistani peace and anti-nuclear movement who have followed our nuclear weapons programme closely over the past three decades were not surprised by the revelation that A Q Khan was running an international network selling nuclear information and technology. Some people made a lot of money from being in this business. It was common knowledge in Islamabad that not only was A Q Khan above the law but was also living beyond his means. He used his power and his money to build up a cult of personality around himself, with lots of support from successive governments. Among other things, he paid for the reprinting in Pakistan of a book The Islamic Bomb in which he had several sections critical of him taken out and replaced with praise. As part of this and other efforts, including books published about himself, he used the enormous unaccounted money at his disposal to buy journalists. It is hard to believe that A Q Khan and his subordinates were involved in this trafficking without government permission or knowledge. This is clear both from the enormous security that surrounds Pakistan's nuclear weapon facilities, its officials and scientists, and the countries to whom nuclear information and technology was sold. There is no way that these people could have traveled to North Korea, Iran and Libya (and anywhere else they went) without government knowledge, to say nothing of taking with them entire centrifuges and other components. The choice of countries was not random; North Korea, Libya and Iran all have had close strategic relations with Pakistan since the days of Z A Bhutto. There is another aspect to the spread of knowledge and technology from Pakistan's nuclear complex that is perhaps even more important. Many of us have long worried about the growing presence of radical Islamists in our society and seen it happen in the nuclear complex. The loyalty of the Islamists is as much, if not more, to the Ummah and Jihad as to the country. It was no surprise to learn that senior scientists from the Pakistan Atomic Energy Commission had been trying to share their expertise with the Taliban and al Qaeda. It will be much harder for the government to deal with religious radicals in the nuclear programme, some of whom are to be found at the very highest levels in these establishments. The problem will persist even when they retire, since they will take their knowledge with them. As long as the Jihad is able to mobilise Muslims by pointing to injustices against them, such people will always have an incentive to play a part in the 'grand struggle'. PE: You have been playing an active role on the India-Pakistan Track II diplomacy front. What is your reading of the current situation vis-a-vis India-Pakistan peace? AHN: Track II efforts have been very successful in some ways. At the end of 1996 about 150 Pakistanis chose to cross the border at Wagah and travel across India by train all the way to Calcutta for a convention of the Pakistan-India Peoples Forum for Peace and Democracy. Now we have hundreds of people going across the border in both directions to these and other such meetings. The phrase 'people-to-people diplomacy' has now become a part of the diplomatic lexicon, and is often welcomed by governments. Another measure of success is how these people to people processes have expanded from peace activists to include a multitude of new horizontal contacts between the business community, journalists, writers, lawyers, parliamentarians, artists, students etc. This is creating a diverse array of interest groups who see the benefits of improved relations and peace between the two countries. It seems that there is greater caution on the part of the Pakistani government about the increasing people to people contacts. This may be because decision-makers here fear that as relations improve, the Kashmir dispute will disappear from the radar screen of the international community. This apprehension is mistaken. In fact, the new people to people ties and growing sense of their shared interests, if allowed to flourish, will inevitably add to pressure on India and Pakistan to resolve their disputes, most importantly of Kashmir. Nonetheless, the present dialogue between the governments is very encouraging. But we have still to see some concrete results. Suspicions persist, and are fueled by powerful forces opposed to peace on both sides. The situation is not helped by the two countries continuing their arms race, testing missiles and making nuclear weapons. There is obviously still a lot of work to be done by civil society in Pakistan and India to push their respective leaders to make real commitments to resolve their disputes and make peace. It will take a long time, a lot of political courage and perseverance to undo fifty years of conflict. PE: You have also been participating in various dialogues between Kashmiris from both sides of LoC. How do you view the prevailing Kashmiri attitudes and concerns? Are Kashmiris changing as a people? AHN: The peace movements in India and Pakistan have always taken the Kashmir issue very seriously. It was and remains one of the core issues in the Pakistan-India Peoples Forum for Peace and Democracy. Activists from both countries, including Dr Mubashir Hasan and I A Rahman from Pakistan and Tapan Bose and Gautam Navlakha from India have been speaking to Kashmiri leaders on the respective sides to better understand the situation and what Kashmiris want. This has included helping to organise meetings of Kashmiri civil society groups so that Kashmiris could talk to each other about their future. I have been involved in meetings with Kashmiri leaders from Azad Kashmir and in a recent historic conference in Kathmandu that brought together Kashmiri leaders from both sides of the LoC for the first time. From my meetings with leaders of Azad Kashmir I gathered that they were all eager to have an intra-Kashmiri dialogue to create a Kashmiri voice in the India-Pakistan negotiations. In Kathmandu, the Kashmiris met in a closed session, without Pakistanis and Indians, to talk to each other. They chose not to give a blueprint for a final resolution of the dispute. Rather, the consensus was that the violence in Kashmir must end, and steps be taken to improve the social and economic situation (specially restoring the rule of law), and that the dignity and welfare of the Kashmiri people must be of paramount importance in any effort to find a solution. They agreed that any solution must be sought peacefully, must be honourable and feasible. All the Kashmiri leaders I have met believe that the process of Kashmiris meeting and talking to each other needs to grow, especially across the LoC. It is a good sign that the governments of Pakistan and India seem to recognise the need to allow this kind of interaction. An agreement on allowing bus services across the LoC would be a big step forward. PE: Energy diplomacy and politics has resumed centre stage in our region beginning last year. How do you view the responses and strategies of various governments currently involved in the energy game? AHN: An important energy issue that has been engaging the governments of Pakistan and India is the prospect of gas pipelines from Iran and Turkmenistan through Pakistan to India. All the governments involved want the pipelines. There is also a sense among the governments of India and Pakistan and the larger international community that these pipelines would create increased mutual dependence between the two countries and so help improve their relations. A problem for all these governments in coming to agreement is the question of security of the pipeline and the supply of gas. There are armed groups in Afghanistan and Pakistan who might find threatening the pipeline a way to strike at or blackmail these states. The present crisis in Balochistan undoubtedly adds to concerns about the viability of securing gas pipelines. The other countries involved in the proposed pipeline projects will see in the present crisis good reason to make alternative arrangements to buy and sell gas, ones that might be more expensive but would be more secure since they would not involve Pakistan. The Musharraf government seems to recognise its vulnerability, but rather than seek a solution that would meet genuine Baloch demands it has chosen to threaten massive use of military force. Not only would this be completely unacceptable, it would certainly add to Baloch grievances in the long term, and perhaps imperil the stability of Pakistan. _______ [3] [ CITIZEN'S LETTER TO INDIA'S PRIME MINISTER SEEKING RELEASE OF PEOPLE BEING UNFAIRLY HELD ON CHARGES OF ORGANISING THE GODHRA TRAIN FIRE URL: www.sacw.net/Gujarat2002/lettertoPM012005.html ] o o o Released by Shabnam Hashmi (ANHAD) Dr. Manmohan Singh Prime Minister of India South Block New Delhi-110001 January 28,2005 Dear Dr. Singh, Justice U.C.Bannerjee's interim report on Godhra train burning confirms that there was no conspiracy by the local Muslims to burn the train. One recalls this conspiracy theory, manufactured by Narendra Modi, was used as a pretext to launch the Anti Muslim pogrom in Gujarat. Mr. Modi came up with this thesis based on his political calculations and Sangh combine launched itself into the massacre of over two thousand innocents. Interestingly Mr. Modi concocted this conclusion out of his hat in barely half hours time, and despite the Collector of Godhra pointing out to the contrary, Modi asserted that it was a pre-planned conspiracy by Muslims. He decided to take the bodies to rouse the communal passions and rest is the horrifying history, which hopefully should never ever be permitted to repeat itself. Mass hysteria was generated on the ground that Hindus have to take revenge of the killing of Kar Sevaks by Muslims. Mr. Haren Pandya, who was later killed, told the citizens tribunal about the state officials being told to sit back when the Hindus will be taking revenge of Godhra killings. Mr. Vajpayee the then prime minister while shedding the crocodile tears also went on to justify the carnage by stating, "but who lit the fire?" The Citizens tribunal with eminent judges and social workers after painstaking investigation concluded that it might have been an accident and that there was no evidence of the conspiracy by Muslim groups. Also despite the lapse of over two and a half years no evidence has been produced and no definitive accused located who was part of this massive conspiracy, since it was not one. Irrespective of these logical points, the propaganda mill of RSS family asserted this motivated falsehood in an aggressive manner and large section of civil society was made to believe that Muslims burnt the train. The state Government arrested over two hundred Muslims under draconian POTA act on the charge of being part of the conspiracy to burn the train. Surprisingly despite the provisions of Railway act the train accident was never investigated by the compliant rail minister, Neetish Kumar in an effort to appease his BJP allies, and failed in his duties and obligations by not investigating the horrific train accident. The simple facts pointing to the conclusion that it might have been an accident were put under the carpet. We as a nation have a lot to learn from the antics of RSS family. Over two hundred innocent Muslims who have been rotting for 'burning the train' need our attention immediately. We demand that all those who have been put behind the bars on the charge of burning the train be immediately released and suitably compensated for the torture and humiliation, which they have suffered during this long period. It is also urgent to attempt to formulate provisions so that the likes of Modis cannot usurp the due process of law to pursue their divisive politics. Sincerely yours 1. Aditya Mukherjee 2. AD Golandaz 3. Ali Asghar-COVA 4. Amit Sengupta-Editor,Commentary & Analysis,Tehelka 5. Ammu Abraham 6. Anand Patwardhan 7. Anil Chowdhary 8. Anish Mokshi-IIT Mumbai 9. Anu Chenoy 10. Anu Fern 11. Apoorvanand 12. Arjun Dev 13. Asghar Ali Engineer 14. Cletus Zuzarte 15. Digant Oza 16. Dolphy D'souza 17. Dr Ram Puniyani 18. Farha Naqvi 19. Fr.Cedric Prakash 20. G N Devy 21. Gauhar Raza 22. Gita Hariharan 23. Harsh Kapoor 24. Harsh Mander 25. Humra Qureshi 26. I.K.Shukla 27. Indu Prakash Singh 28. J G Krishnayya 29. J. Sri Raman- journalist and Convener, Movement for People's Unity, Chennai 30. John Dayal 31. Kamla Bhasin 32. Kamal Mitra Chenoy 33. KM Shrimali 34. KN Panikkar 35. Ra Ravishankar-University of Illinois (Urbana) 36. Malika Sarabhai 37. Manorma Dewan 38. Mansi Sharma 39. Mukul Dube 40. Mukundan C. Menon, CHRO, Keralam 41. Nalini Taneja 42. Nandita Das 43. NFIW 44. Poornima Joshi 45. Pralay Kanungo 46. Prashant Bhushan 47. Purshottam Agrawal 48. PVS Kumar 49. Rahul Roy 50. Rizwan Qaiser 51. Saba Dewan 52. Sandeep Vaidya 53. S.Irfan Habib 54. Shabi Farooq-San Francisco 55. Shabnam Hashmi 56. Shalini Gera 57. Sheelu-Tamilnadu Women's Collective 58. Shishir Kr. Jha 59. Shivali Tukdeo-Urbana, IL àUSA 60. Smita Shah 61. Shubha Mudgal 62. Shweta 63. Shyam Benegal. 64. SM Shahed 65. Sohail Hashmi 66. Stalin 67. Sukla Sen-Ekta (Committee for Communal Amity) 68. Suma Josson 69. Swami Agnivesh 70. Tarun J Tejpal 71. Vincent-NCDHR 72. V Ramchandran 73. Virendre Prakash 74. Zakia Zowher 75. Zoya Hasan Copy to Mr. Shivraj Patil Home Minster, Govt. of India ______ [4] [ www.sacw.net | Communalism Repository 29 January 2005 URL: www.sacw.net/DC/CommunalismCollection/ArticlesArchive/secforum29012005.html ] A REPORT OF THE FOURTH MEETING OF ALL INDIA SECULAR FORUM at Mumbai 22-23 January This is an effort to form an All India platform to assist and promote the activities which enhance secular and democratic values. The earlier meetings in this direction took place at Pachmadhi, Hydrabad and Mumbai. This meeting was hosted by CSSS and around fifty activists from different parts of the country participated in the same. Most of the participants have been associated with different endeavors to promote the secular values and to combat the threat of communalism. The defeat of BJP has given us some breathing space to gear up our activities, it is an important repreive, which can be used to make our network stronger, to streamline and broaden our activities. One major point which emerged was that diverse groups which are working on this issue and the mass organizations of progressive parties need to be involved in this effort for this platform to be more effective. At the moment we can think of a federation with a fine balance between the central and local initiatives and responsibilities. Different groups presented the type of activities in which they are engaged and also pointed out the other activities which are under planning process or are needed to supplement this cause. Experiences of training workshops, resource centers, theater workshops, mohalla committees, youth groups, music concerts, experiments in inter community living and interaction through programs were narrated. The threat of Hindutvisation of Adivasis came out as the stark reality and the ways to combat this were discussed. The experiences of activists in the RSS attempts to communalize the places of worship and the efforts of local groups to stall that came as a rich experience for the forum participants. Multilayered efforts of activists from Ayodhya, to halt the march of communal forces were recounted. Various tasks to further the cause of secularism were delineated- pooling of resources-manpower, legal assistance and awareness (handbook on Communalism and Law for activists),the curricula and structure of the workshops being conducted by different organizations needs to be reviewed and enriched by drawing from each other to draw up the probable structure of different types (targeted for social workers, teachers, students) and durations of these( 1 day , 5 day , 7 days, 10 days), and follow up of workshops has to get the top priority. We need to network the groups with the aim to help the local activities through providing manpower, books, poster and CDs for workshops. We also have to think in the direction of linking the secular groups through a newsletter and by starting a web site, the need for working towards a curriculum for children and to promote EKTA clubs in colleges was also underlined. Various activists have taken responsibility for coordinating work in different states and they will be in touch with the secretariat for assistance. The points for discussion, the understanding around which we work has emerged from the three earlier meeting. These points were circulated and it was requested that activists will respond to those points so that a provisional draft can be prepared. ______ [4] [On the Godha Train Fire ] [Along with the below articles, please do also read : "Truth about Godhra" by Siddharth Varadarajan (January 23, 2005) now available @ Parts I-VI URL:communalism.blogspot.com/2005/01/truth-about-godhra-pts-i-vi-by.html Part VII URL: communalism.blogspot.com/2005/01/truth-about-godhra-pts-i-vi-by.html ] o o o o (i) Frontline Volume 22 - Issue 03, Jan. 29 - Feb 11, 2005 'BUT WHO LIT THE FIRE?' by Praful Bidwai The Banerjee Committee report on the Godhra train fire, corroborated by independent expert analysis, knocks the bottom out of the "conspiracy" theory hatched by Hindutva forces to rationalise the terrible pogrom of Muslims that followed. [Photo] MANISH SWARUP/AP [Caption] During the post-Godhra violence, in Ahmedabad. BARELY seven weeks after the butchery of Gujarat's Muslims began on February 28, 2002, Atal Bihari Vajpayee stunned the world by virtually defending and justifying the carnage even while describing it as a "tragedy". India's Prime Minister, addressing a Bharatiya Janata Party meeting in Goa, taunted and chided Muslims by saying "wherever they are, they live separately", and nonchalantly asserted: "If a conspiracy had not been hatched to burn alive the innocent passengers of the Sabarmati Express [at Godhra], the subsequent tragedy in Gujarat could have been averted. But this did not happen." He then rhetorically asked: "But who lit the fire?" Vajpayee had (belatedly) visited Gujarat just 10 days earlier. There, he had made remarks regretting the communal killing and mildly reprimanding Chief Minister Narendra Modi. This raised the expectation that he would sharply demarcate the BJP and its national government from Modi, in particular his obnoxious "action-reaction" rationalisation for the worst carnage in independent India's history. Vajpayee disgraced himself and brought ignominy to his high office by supporting that very rationalisation. But that he should have done so at that fateful moment was no accident. For Hindutva, Godhra was and remains a powerful symbol, yet another concentrated re-creation of a long history of victimhood, of the subjugation of "non-violent", "peace-loving" Hindus by ruthless and violent aggressors. Godhra served as a justification for demonic retaliation and retribution - Hindus "getting even" with their oppressors by finally "waking up" and taking to arms. The inherent justice presumed in this retribution overwhelmed, in the eyes of BJP supporters, all other injustices and iniquities, including the gross disproportion in the violence (2,000 Muslims killed and many more raped, while 59 Hindus died) and the complete communalisation of the State, or the sheer perversity of taking the "eye-for-an-eye" logic to its conclusion. The image of the burning coach has been politically exploited ever since. As has the presumed idea of a prior conspiracy to kill 59 kar sevaks returning from Ayodhya, the Modi government has accused and harassed more than a hundred Muslims for being part of the "conspiracy" and has filed 10 charge-sheets against them. This "conspiracy theory" and the vicious politics associated with it has now been dealt a grievous blow by the interim report of the U.C. Banerjee Committee appointed by the Railway Ministry, which has concluded that the fire in Coach S-6 was purely "accidental". The report's principal conclusion, ruling out the "petrol theory" and the "miscreant activity theory", has been stridently attacked both by the BJP national leadership and the Gujarat police on substantive grounds (it lacks substance and ignores weighty evidence that Muslims threw fireballs or lighted rags into Coach S-6), as well as procedural ones (regarding the timing of its sudden release just prior to the elections to three State Assemblies, without notice or warrant). BJP general secretary Arun Jaitley has attacked Banerjee as an unreliable "retired justice" handpicked by Lalu Prasad for political reasons. He has repeatedly sought to discredit the report's main findings on the ground that it ignored "evidence" that 140 litres of petrol had been purchased from a nearby petrol pump and that some men threw an inflammable liquid into Coach S-6 from near the toilets. The criticism is plain unconvincing because Jaitley has not read the report; nor did he provide any evidence that contradicts its findings. On the face of it, Banerjee's conclusion fully conforms to several accounts of the causes of the fire, including the first forensic laboratory report, the eye-witnesses' depositions (including of the railway staff who observed Coach S-6 from the cabins), and published photographs of the coach, which show that the smoke and the fire started from the top, rather than from the bottom. All these suggest that the fire was not caused by inflammable fluid thrown on to the floor. Gujarat police officials claimed, while appearing before the Nanavati-Shah inquiry commission, that there was indeed a conspiracy, "hatched at the Aman Guest House two days before the carnage", which was linked to a "terrorist outfit". The officer concerned, however, refused to name the outfit. Gujarat officials also contradictorily claim that "60 litres of petrol" and "120 litres of flammable material" were poured into Coach S-6 to cause the fire. Questions do arise about the timing of the release of "an interim report" just five weeks short of the final one that is due by February 22. But the Railway Board's records reportedly show that a request had been made to Banerjee to submit an interim report by January 15 (The Hindu, January 18). A delay of two days is hardly abnormal. Yet, it must be admitted that the report's sudden release has created some misapprehensions and made it needlessly vulnerable to political attacks. The BJP's capacity for sheer childishness and mulishness must not be underestimated. It generally thinks that whatever does not favour it must be "prejudiced", inherently wrong and the result of a "secularist conspiracy". For months, it refused to accept politically the verdict of the last Lok Sabha elections, which by any standards were free and fair. Nevertheless, the Banerjee Committee would have enhanced its own credibility had it released the interim report somewhat earlier, or waited until after the elections. As for the Gujarat police, the less said about their record in the Godhra case the better. They have unfailingly barked up the wrong tree and indicted as many as 131 people under POTA (Prevention of Terrorism Act) for the burning of the coach, of whom 104 have been arrested and detained. Their application of this draconian law is so full of double standards (all of Gujarat's 300-odd POTA detainees are non-Hindus, see Frontline April 7, 2004), their record of intimidating witnesses and accused so appalling, and their communal prejudice against Muslims so intense, as to cast doubts over all their claims. Even so, let us assume that they are right in saying that a conspiracy was hatched to attack the train carrying militant kar sevaks. That still does not get them off the hook of establishing the causal link between the conspirators and the actual initiation of the physical processes that started the smoke and the fire in Coach S-6, eventually killing 59 people. They have to detail and validate the precise sequence of steps through which the process took place - whether caused by "conspirators", or accidentally. They have completely failed to do that. All the forced confessions they extract and the fanciful hypotheses they manufacture about the fire, without a rigorous forensic analysis, will have no credibility unless they produce clinching evidence about what killed the 59 victims (was it asphyxiation from smoke, soot and toxic gases, or burns from the fire?) and through what processes. ONE can only hope that the Banerjee report has such a convincing hypothesis, which bears scientific and forensic scrutiny. But its principal finding is strongly corroborated by the report of an independent inquiry by engineers and experts under the auspices of an activist group with an excellent record - the Hazards Centre of New Delhi. The report is authored by two Indian Institute of Technology (IIT), Delhi professors - Dinesh Mohan with expertise in safety and human tolerance to injuries, and Sunil Kale, with expertise in thermodynamics and fluidisation - an Indian Railways mechanical engineer with experience in coaching, and the Hazards Centre's Duny Roy, with some solid work in occupational health, hazards and safety. It is written in a simple, easily accessible manner and illustrated with slides that bring out the specific nature of damage to Coach S-6. The report's greatest merit is that it adopts an analytical framework that is systematic and rigorous - going through the pattern of the fire sparks on the coach, the type and causation of the fire, the depositions of 41 surviving passengers of the coach to the police, a critique of the post-mortem reports pertaining to 27 cases, and a correlation of the injuries sustained by 56 passengers with the spread of the smoke and the fire. The report establishes that: * The fire probably originated in the region between the last two cabins (8 and 9) and it is highly unlikely that it could have started on the floor of the passage or the floor outside the toilets by someone throwing inflammable fluid. * The resultant dense and high temperature smoke spread along the ceiling of the carriage and eventually resulted in a flash-over when the fire engulfed the entire coach from the top. * In the above circumstances, people must have gathered trying to escape and been subjected to dense and toxic fumes and radiative heat, resulting in asphyxiation and death. (All quotes from the original.) The Hazards Centre report does not claim to be the last word on the subject and calls for "a dual strategy of experimental and computer simulations" to understand the process of combustion so that its results could be used for "deciding the location of fire detectors" and other safety interventions. Several elements of the report are noteworthy. It analyses the damage to Coach S-6 by comparing it with six other burnt coaches, including one that is now parked at Jagadhri. This caught fire while under maintenance in the washing line of Delhi Junction Station in November 2003 and has a burns-marks pattern similar to Coach S-6. The patterns indicate that the heat was more severe on the upper half of the coaches and greater at one end of the coach in both cases. This fits in with the pattern of burns sustained by the victims: most of these are on the upper portions of their bodies and few below the abdomen. This could not be the case had the fire originated from the floor. Had the fire started on the floor of the passage or the floor outside the toilets, "inflammable plywood and foam in three tiers of seats would not be available for the fire to burn in this area. If the fire was started by an inflammable fluid on the floor, the flames would have been noticed right away in a very crowded carriage, precluding the possibility of a long smouldering source", says the report. In all likelihood, combustible material placed below the lower berth (bench), including clothing and plastic goods, caught fire accidentally, probably because of a half-lighted match, a cigarette butt, or a cooking stove. This probably set the plywood base of the seat on fire, and then the latex foam on the seat. The foam creates "enormous clouds of hot, dense, asphyxiating, black smoke and this itself becomes the source of ignition for other materials as the temperature rises to flash point". Latex foam and the rexine (vinyl fabric) covering the berth as well as laminated plastic partitions (sunmica) and vinyl flooring (linoleum) produce extremely poisonous gases on combustion, including hydrogen cyanide, free isocyanates and carbon monoxide, along with dense smoke. It is this toxic smoke that probably caused a majority of the deaths, while direct fire burns were responsible for far fewer casualties. THE report demonstrates how the post-mortem examinations were done in a hurry in the railway yard, each lasting an average of 38 minutes, and are unreliable. But the injury reports are far better and strengthen the main conclusions that the fire started in the luggage below one of the seats "in the 8th or 9th cabin and then spread through radiative and convective heating from the overhead smoke". The Hazards Centre report highlights one major feature of the expertise now available with many NGOs (non-governmental organisations) and people's movements, through their capacity for public-spirited scientific and technological analysis. Such groups are able to do a far better job than governments of understanding hazards and analysing safety issues. This has been demonstrated time and again in the recent past - during the reconstruction effort after the Uttarkashi, Killari and Gujarat earthquakes and the Orissa super cyclone, as well as during the Bhopal gas disaster. The Banerjee committee would do well to draw upon such expertise before producing its final report. And the BJP would do well to accept that the truth about Godhra lies outside fanciful and communal conspiracy theories. o o o o o (ii) Editorial from Los Angeles Times dated Saturday, January 29, 2005 THE DEADLY REACH OF RUMOR An Investigation In India of the 2002 burning of a railroad car filled with Hindu pilgrims has found that the fire may have been an accident aboard the train and not the work of a Mus-lim mob. The horrible significance of this al-ternative explanation Is that 50 deaths in the train fire triggered the revenge slaughter of more than 1,000 of India's minority Muslims In a wave of religious fanaticism. An even harsher light Is now cast on the govern-ment's response at the time. In February 2002, Hindu nationalists controlled the federal and Gujarat state govern-ments. Their responses to the train fire and subsequent violence were slow or nonexist-ent, their Investigations essentially worth-less. When voters returned the opposition Congress Party and Its allies to office last year, the new national rulers appointed are-tired Supreme Court judge, U.C. Banerjee, to Investigate the fire. Last week, Banerjee Is-sued a report saying there was no evidence to show the fire had been caused by Muslims pouring gasoline onto the train and lighting It. An independent group of engineers con-curred, saying the fire appeared to have been started by a passenger's cigarette or flames from a cooking stove. The Banerjee commission is due to Issue a final report within weeks. If It credibly sticks to the conclusion that the fire was an acci-dent, the findings should be discussed not just in federal cabinet meetings but In village councils and schools, to amend a sorry pe-riod in the nation that prides itself on being the world's most populous democracy. India's Supreme Court can pride itself on demanding investigations and trials when state officials Initially tried to avoid doing anything. Each passing month makes It more difficult to find the ringleaders of the ri-ots and put them on trial, but truth Is Itself a partial form of justice. If the fire aboard the Sabarmati Express as It stopped in the town of Godhra was an accident, politicians should use the report as a cautionary tale about sectarian grievances. Wild rumors are deadly, and it is up to gov-ernment to search for the truth and protect those most at risk. ________ [5] [Upcoming event] Darpana's Centre for Non Violence through Arts Presents: THE FESTIVAL OF NON VIOLENCE 30th January / Sunday / 8.30 pm ROMEO AND JULIET Directed by American director Betty Bernhard Performed by Darpana Performing Group 31 January / Monday / 8.30 pm V FOR . . . Created by John Martin and Mallika Sarabhai Performed by Mallika Sarabhai with the Darpana Performing Group 1st February / Tuesday / 8.30 pm THE MAHATMA AND THE POETESS A play by Tom Alter and Mrinalini Sarabhai 2nd February / Wednesday / 8.30 pm A solo by Lushin Dubey, Theatre World Directed by Arvind Gaur Music direction Sangeeta Gaur 3rd February / Thursday / 8.30 pm BITTER CHOCOLATE A bilingual solo performance by Lushin Dubey, Theatre World Directed and scripted by Arvind Gaur Music direction Sangeeta Gaur 4th February / Friday / 8.30 pm BHOMA By Budhan Theatre Written by Badal Sircar Directed by Dakshin Chhakra 7th February / Monday / 8.30 pm SOCHO KABHI AISA HO TO KYA HO A play written by Madhyam Communication for Development Written by Ranjit Gadhvi Directed by Archan Trivedi For further information contact: Natarani, Darpana Academy of Performing Arts, Usmanpura Ahmedabad - 380013 Phone: 27556669 / 27560971 E-mail: [EMAIL PROTECTED] www.darpana.com _/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/ Buzz on the perils of fundamentalist politics, on matters of peace and democratisation in South Asia. SACW is an independent & non-profit citizens wire service run since 1998 by South Asia Citizens Web: www.sacw.net/ SACW archive is available at: bridget.jatol.com/pipermail/sacw_insaf.net/ Sister initiatives : South Asia Counter Information Project : snipurl.com/sacip South Asians Against Nukes: www.s-asians-against-nukes.org Communalism Watch: communalism.blogspot.com/ DISCLAIMER: Opinions expressed in materials carried in the posts do not necessarily reflect the views of SACW compilers. ------------------------ Yahoo! Groups Sponsor --------------------~--> Take a look at donorschoose.org, an excellent charitable web site for anyone who cares about public education! http://us.click.yahoo.com/O.5XsA/8WnJAA/E2hLAA/nJ9qlB/TM --------------------------------------------------------------------~-> Yahoo! Groups Links <*> To visit your group on the web, go to: http://groups.yahoo.com/group/act/ <*> To unsubscribe from this group, send an email to: [EMAIL PROTECTED] <*> Your use of Yahoo! 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