South Asia Citizens Wire | 7 July, 2006 | Dispatch No. 2269 [1] Sri Lanka: Call For An End To Killings and A Return To Negotiations (Peace Support Group) [2] Pakistan: Hobson's choice for Pak (M B Naqvi) [3] UK: Bad bargain made in the mosque (Kenan Malik) [4] India: Minority Appeasement! (Ram Puniyani) [5] India: Dark side of learning (Shiv Visvanathan) [6] USA: Protest against the invitation to Narendra Modi (Action Alert by Friends of South Asia)
___ [1] PEACE SUPPORT GROUP PRESS RELEASE CALL FOR AN END TO KILLINGS AND A RETURN TO NEGOTIATION FOR PEACE IN SRI LANKA The Peace Support Group, Sri Lanka, is outraged and saddened by the increasing violence in the country and the deaths of civilians caught up in the conflict. In April, according to available records, 191 persons including 90 civilians were killed as a direct result of the conflict. In May 2006, that figures stands at 171 deaths, with 83 of those being civilian and 8 being of children. These figures make it clear that civilians have become the primary targets of the conflict in its present phase. The most recent incidents in this tragic saga are the attack on a bus carrying civilians in Kebitigollewa on June 15 in which 64 persons died, and the concerted land and air attacks on Vavunativu in Batticaloa, in Sampur and Mutur in Trincomalee and in Kilinochchi and Mullaitivu in the Vanni District on the same date. The indiscriminate killings of civilians in Mannar on June 17, which has also led to largescale displacement, only reaffirms our concerns. We particularly condemn the indiscriminate use of claymore mines by the LTTE and by other paramilitary groups. Through placing mines on roads and in public places, not only do you heighten the vulnerability of civilians, the principles of international humanitarian law are flagrantly violated, as are the principles of Security Council Resolution 1674 on the protection of civilians in wartime and in armed conflict situations. The status quo at present remains that acts of indiscriminate violence are committed and that accountability is denied. There is also a trend of retaliatory killings and attacks which pave the way for a cycle of violence in which each act is justified by claiming the commission of a similar act by the 'other' party. The rising number of disappearances and extra-judicial killings is also a matter of grave concern to us, as is the seemingly random distribution of guns to villagers by the Police in areas such as Gomarankadawela and Welikanda, in the aftermath of civilian killings that have taken place there. In April 2006, 18 bodies of young men were found; many had been gagged and bound before killing; some of them had been decapitated. In May the number of bodies found in public places in the North and East is 14. In June, there has been a sharp increase in the abduction/recruitment of children in the Eastern province in areas under government control, particularly in the Eravur Valaichchenai area, In addition, there is concern regarding the potential militarization of civilian administration, which is demonstrated for example, by the appointment of a retired army officer as the District Secretary the seniormost administrative official - of Trincomalee District at the end of May 2006. The violence is also creating a steady and increasing flow of civilians out of the areas of the North and East to other parts of the island, and to other countries including southern India. Much of this displacement remains invisible and therefore unaccounted for. The sense of insecurity that prevails throughout the country in general makes the displacement particularly problematic for Tamils, and to a lesser degree for Muslims, who are viewed as a security threat by any host community. The anxiety of those living in these conditions day after day is compounded by the impunity that prevails with regard to gross violations of human rights. The investigations into many extra-judicial killings are slow and seem designed to exhaust the survivors and witnesses of these acts of violence, even in cases in which testimonies and other evidence have enabled the identification of perpetrators. Among the key cases for the period from November 1 2005 to May 31, 2006 that we wish to cite are: - the rape and murder of Ilayathamby Tharshini (20) of Punguduthivu in Jaffna on November 17 2005; - the disappearance of four Tamils, two women, one man and a child, from the 100 Houses resettlement Scheme in Pesalai and the discovery of burned human remains in a house that had been set on fire in the Scheme on December 23; - the assassination of five Tamil school boys in Trincomalee on January 2 2006; - the assassination of six young Sinhala men, farmers, in Kalyanapura, Gomarankadawela on April 22, 2006; - the killings of 7 young Tamil men in Nelliady junction on May 5, 2006; - the disappearance of 8 Tamil men from a kovil in Manduvil, Jaffna on May 6, 2006; - the murder of 13 persons including 2 children in 3 separate incidents on Kayts island in Jaffna on May 13, 2006; - the killing of eight Sri Lankan visitors to the Wilpattu National Park on May 27, 2006; - the murder of 12 Sinhala persons including 10 villagers working as labourers on a construction site in Omadiyamadu, Welikanda on May 29, 2006; While we in no way make a distinction of violations on ethnic grounds, there is also no denying that the impunity we are referring to in the context of the on-gong conflict has a very sharp and specific impact on the Tamil community living in the North and East of Sri Lanka. The continuing violation of the Constitution by the Government of Sri Lanka by the non-implementation of the Seventeenth Amendment to the Constitution thereby preventing the establishment of an independent Human Rights Commission and independent Commissions for the police and the public service, apart from undermining the Rule of Law, suggest that the culture of impunity will increase. In the above context, the country and the people of Sri Lanka as a whole face perhaps the biggest challenge in our post-independence history. A slide back to war and the collapse of the Ceasefire will mark the beginning of an era of destruction and deprivation in which every Sri Lankan will suffer. It is the primary responsibility of our political leaders as well as of leaders of our communities and of the international community to work together to devise means of preventing a return to war and of returning to the path of negotiation for a just and sustainable peace. We call on the government and the LTTE, as parties to the Ceasefire Agreement, to return to the substance of that Agreement and ensure that the commitment to civilian protection is guaranteed. We also call on them to publicly reaffirm their commitment to the principles of international humanitarian law. We call on the international community to explore the possibility of creating a mechanism for the monitoring and protection of the human rights of civilians in the face of the increasing number of violations that are occurring in the context of the conflict. Among the modalities that could be provided for in the creation of such a mechanism would be: - the establishment of an expert panel of investigators, including forensic expertise; - the creation of witness protection measures that would enable survivors of violations to give testimony in security; and - the establishment of guidelines for the work of the mechanism through a broad process of consultation with all constituencies.; - the provision of technical support and assistance to national and international HR agencies in Sri Lanka. The mechanism and functional framework for these interventions could be in the form of the proposed Emergency Human Rights Committee which could be convened by the Co-chairs with the collaboration of other countries which are also committed to the reinforcing of the peace process in Sri Lanka. The international community has issued strong statements to the LTTE, through the banning of the organization within the EU, and to both the LTTE and the government at the conclusion of the Co-Chairs meeting in Tokyo in May 2006. The protection of civilians and respect for established and universally accepted norms and standards of human rights and humanitarian law have been at the forefront of their concerns. We now call on the international community to exercise all its powers to prevail on the LTTE and the government to maintain the ceasefire and to enter into negotiations that will break the present stalemate. Signatories: Sunila Abeysekera Rohan Edrisinha Jehan Perera Paikiasothy Saravanamuttu Joe William 22nd June 2006 _____ [2] Deccan Herald July 7, 2006 Rice's visit HOBSON'S CHOICE FOR PAK by M B Naqvi Pakistan has performed yeoman's service to America vis-a-vis al-Qaeda threat US Secretary of State suddenly appeared in Islamabad on June 27 on her way to Kabul. It was several days ago. But its impact continues to be discussed. She was here in Islamabad only in March along with President George W Bush. US Sectaries of State do not travel to countries like Pakistan so many times in a year. The visit's context and purpose is anyhow significant. Obvious context was Afghanistan. NATO military commanders, Americans and Afghan President have long complained that Pakistan is not stopping the Taliban, who, having regrouped and re-equipped inside Pakistan with official assistance, are raiding Afghanistan. Taliban's recent offensive is notably large in size. Both sides have suffered heavy casualties. Even so the casualties of the newly created Afghan Army may prove crippling. Pakistan has been under this pressure for long to be more cooperative with Afghans and NATO forces. What Pakistan can do on the subject is not obvious. After all the Taliban are rising like a political Tsunami in the tribal areas of NWFP and parts of Balochistan. The governments of the two provinces largely comprise religious clerics that were Taliban's progenitors. Under their benign neglect, if not support, the Taliban have prospered and expanded their activities in areas that abut on Afghanistan. Indeed Taliban have begun performing some of the functions of state: maintaining peace and order while the Pak Army remains confined to its encampments. They administer rough and ready justice against alleged criminals, usually hanging them up. Pakistan Army has deployed nearly 90 thousand troops alongside the Afghan border. But the border remains porous and no authority has ever been able to seal it off. There is a history: Taliban used to be valuable assets of ISI and Pakistan's other intelligence agencies. They were sent to Afghanistan to conquer it and they did (except the Northern Alliance dominated northern strip). Northern Alliance was supported by India, Iran and other countries. These old links seem to have survived. But can they be suddenly snapped? That is not the nature of the beast. For Pakistan these are abnormal times, being a partner of the Americans in the War on Terror. It has performed yeoman's service to America vis-à-vis al-Qaeda threat and Americans are quite happy. But Americans also want the war enemies to include Taliban. Pakistan Army began to fight them and has so far lost 600 soldiers in three years. This war could not go on because of Taliban's political rise. Public support for Taliban in the heavily affected FATA Agencies means their influence is now spreading to NWFP's settled districts, especially Kohat, Dera Ismail Khan and DG Khan. Both sides could see the futility of this war. Pakistan's hardline not producing results except its Army's casualties plus needless collateral damage on the civilian population. How much did the Taliban suffer remained uncertain. The Americans could not be unaware of the recent approaches being made by both sides to end this war. Only recently did the so-called 'militants' (read Taliban) have offered a month's ceasefire which is holding since June 25, except for one incident in which several soldiers died. Pakistan has replaced the Governor of the NWFP (who directly governs Tribal Areas on behalf of the President of Pakistan) and the Corps Commander of the Army. The new incumbents want to form a Grand Jirga and have promised to strengthen the old offices of the Political Agents and revert to old methods of settling disputes through jirgas. All ideas of modernisation of FATA seem to have been buried and the quest is now to go back to the methods that the British had perfected. Fact is that the Taliban are also proving an ever harder nut to crack by both western armies and Afghan troops inside Afghanistan. Not that dealing with them in Pakistan is any easier. Pakistan has apparently no further stomach to sink deeper into a quagmire. Even the whole Army can get bogged down and not conquer Tribal Areas, armed to a man. Inside Afghanistan, Mullah Umar has just proclaimed through Al-Jazeera that he is still in Afghanistan and is controlling fairly large areas in that country. It is hard to conquer a political force by military means. The NATO, US and Kabul government have to sort our their Taliban problem inside Afghanistan themselves - most probably the way Pakistan is attempting. In Pakistan's case, the pressure from the Americans to persist can be seen in various contexts. Rice did not fail to publicly impress on President Musharraf that the upcoming 2007 elections should be free and fair. This was clearly unwelcome to Islamabad and it has taken umbrage and protested loudly that it is no business of Rice as to how Pakistan conducts its elections. The fear is widespread that Rice may also have requested some support vis-à-vis Iran which is obsessing American Administration. Pakistan is Iran's neighbour and its ability to side with the US is limited thanks to political and sectarian make up of Pakistanis. Americans cannot but require from Pakistan some cooperation in their envisioned military operations. Pakistan's ability to provide open support is strictly limited. Pakistan can be embarrassed no end on the subject. If this creates some more distance between Islamabad and White House, few would be surprised. Taliban are rising like a political tsunami in the tribal areas of Balochistan _____ [3] The Times July 06, 2006 BAD BARGAIN MADE IN THE MOSQUE by Kenan Malik Government has conceded responsibility for its Muslim citizens to unelected clerics ARE MODERATE MUSLIMS refusing to take responsibility for rooting out extremists within their communities? Or is the Government ignoring the advice of Muslim leaders about how to deal with extremists and assuage alienation? It was unfortunate for both sides that this week's spat between Tony Blair and Muslim leaders should break out on the same day as the publication of the Times/Populus poll on Muslims in Britain. For the poll reveals how out of touch with reality are both sides in the debate - and how dangerous are the assumptions common to both sides. The starting point in any discussion about terrorism and extremism seems to be that Muslims constitute a community with a distinct set of views and beliefs, and that, for them, real political authority must come from within their community. Mainstream politicians, so the argument goes, are incapable of engaging with them; only authentic Muslim leaders can. So there has to be a bargain: the Government acknowledges Muslim leaders as crucial partners in the task of rooting out terrorism and building a fairer society; in return Muslim leaders agree to keep their own house in order. The argument this week was really about who was, or was not, keeping their side of the bargain. * Click here to find out more! But the trouble is the bargain itself. Not only is it rooted in a picture of the Muslim community and its relationship with the wider British society that is false, but also the cosy relationship between the Government and Muslim leaders exacerbates the problem it was meant to solve. At first sight the results of the poll may seem to confirm the picture of a Muslim community set apart from the rest of society: 7 per cent of Muslims approve of suicide bombings in Britain; 2 per cent would be proud if a family member joined al-Qaeda; more than one in ten believes that the cause, if not the actions, of the 7/7 bombers was legitimate. A more careful reading of the poll, however, tells a different story. For a start, it reveals that Muslims and non-Muslims share a surprising number of attitudes. Three quarters of non-Muslims think Muslims should do more to integrate; so do two thirds of Muslims. Virtually the same proportion of Muslims and non-Muslims are offended by public drunkenness and by women wearing revealing clothes. A third of the general population has close friends who are Muslims - a high figure given that they make up less than 4 per cent of the population. Nearly nine out of ten Muslims have close non-Muslim personal friends. The poll suggests that both Muslims and non-Muslims believe that Britain is a deeply Islamophobic society, but it also suggests that this perception is unwarranted. More than half the general population understands why Muslims might feel offended by people getting anxious about Muslims carrying large bags on the Tube or the buses -- a higher figure than the proportion of Muslims who feel offended by this. Almost a third of non-Muslims object to the police monitoring imams. Nearly 60 per cent think that Muslims have made a valuable contribution to British life. This is not a picture of a nation in thrall to Islamophobia. Nor is it a picture of a uniform Muslim population that responds in the same way to all questions and whose primary, or only, loyalty is to Islam. Few policy-makers have, I suspect, an image of Muslim communities as identical but the stereotype of homogeneity is what animates current policy towards Muslims. The Government has long since abandoned its responsibility for engaging directly with Muslim communities. Instead it has effectively subcontracted its responsibilities to so-called community leaders. When the Prime Minister wants to find out what Muslims think about a particular issue he invites the Muslim Council of Britain to No 10. When the Home Secretary wants to get a message out to the Muslim community, he visits a mosque. Rather than appealing to Muslims as British citizens and attempting to draw them into the mainstream political process, politicians of all hues prefer to see them as people whose primarily loyalty is to their faith and who can be politically engaged only by other Muslims. The consequences of this approach are hugely damaging. "Why should a British citizen who happens to be Muslim have to rely on clerics and other leaders of the religious community to communicate with the Prime Minister?", asks Amartya Sen, the Nobel prize-winning economist, in his new book Identity and Violence. Far from promoting integration, government policy encourages Muslims to see themselves as semi-detached Britons. After all, if the Prime Minister believes that he can engage with them only by appealing to their faith, rather than their wider political or national affiliations, who are Muslims to disagree? If politicians abdicate their responsibility for engaging with ordinary Muslims, is it surprising that those Muslims should feel disenchanted with the political process? Or that disenchantment should take a radical religious form? The policy of subcontracting political responsibility allows politicians to wash their hands of the alienation of sections of the Muslim community. And it allows self-appointed community leaders with no democratic mandate to gain power both within Muslim communities and the wider society. But it does the rest of us -- Muslim and non-Muslim -- no favours. It is time that politicians dropped the pretence that there is a single Muslim community and started taking seriously the issue of political engagement with their constituents, whatever their religious faith. _____ [4] Issues in Secular Politics July 2006 I MINORITY APPEASEMENT! by Ram Puniyani While the opposition to reservation is on its peak, another front has been opened by those opposed to affirmative action of any sort. It may be a common observation by now that the most 'consistent' political and social force opposed to any sort of affirmative action is the communal politics, the politics of RSS affiliates. Surly there are other elite affluent sections who also are diehard opponents of affirmative action and reservation but for communalists, reservation/affirmative action is a red herring. So it was not much of a surprise when Rajnath Singh, the current BJP chief , came down heavily against the 15 point scheme for minorities, which aims at all round upliftment of the minorities, more so the economically deprived sections of minority. Mr Singh, (26th June 2006), went to label the cabinet decision to allocate 15% of the funds for social welfare schemes for minorities as the 'appeasement' of minorities, an oft repeated allegation of this political outfit. The central cabinet in its meeting on 22nd June approved Dr. Manmohan Singh's new 15 point program for minority welfare, including ways to prevent communal riots. In a comprehensive proposal the prime minister has asked for introduction of ways to enhance the living conditions, and allocation of 15% of funds from welfare budget for minorities. The aim of the proposal is to upgrade the facilities for minority education, modernize madrassa education and to provide scholarships for meritorious students. The program lays emphasis on equitable share in economic activities and employment. It also touches on different facets of lives including the rural housing schemes. Before we take up the issue whether all this is appeasement or is a much needed measure to ensure that minorities also are able to progress like any other community, it is imperative that we have a brief look at the implementation of National Rural Employment guarantee scheme (NRES) in Gujarat. Reports indicate that Muslim minority is not able to take the benefit of this scheme as the Sarpanchas and concerned officials have been preventing Muslims from registering for this scheme. They are sent back couple of times, after which they get a subtle message and keep away from approaching the authorities. Currently Rajinder Sachchar committee is in the process of finalizing its report about the status of Muslim minorities in India. What ever one could glean from the parts of report, and from the document prepared by a voluntary organization for presenting to the Sachchar Committee, (National Study on Socio-Economic Condition of Muslims of India, Indian Social Institute, Delhi, May 2006) makes one sit up with deep sense of anguish. The current socio economic status of Muslim minorities in particular, has slipped down in the human development indices. Also their abysmal representation in jobs, the more of them living below poverty line and more of them being illiterate, leaves no doubt in one's mind that without serious affirmative action, this community will go on being deprived more and more. The additional problem of post communal violence ghettotization is adding salt to the wounds, as in the ghettoes the living conditions go down and threatened psyche, fuels the conservative ideology. Earlier, Gopal Singh Commission report had also brought to our attention a similar fact in the decade of early 1980s. It showed that only 3.41% students in Engineering colleges are Muslims, only 6.77% of them are registered at the employment exchange, in private sector they are 8.16%, borrowers under bank loan schemes-9.41% getting 3.37% of borrowings, poor representation in judiciary. No action was taken based on this report, which has been gathering dust since. Later data (Shariff, India Development Report, OUP 1999) also shows that Muslims continue to get their share from artisanship and petty trade as compared to other social groups; in contrast their income is far below the national average and less than that earned by Hindus from this source. NSS data (Rounds 50 and 55 for years 1993 and 1999-2000) reveal the unsettling trend of increasing disparity between Hindus and Muslims during 1990s with respect to the consumption, education, employment and landholdings, though literacy rates of both communities showed gradual improvement. While the charges of appeasement abound and have been made part of the social common sense the reality is the contrary. No doubt the earlier governments have appeased the Mullahs and conservative sections of society for electoral purpose; it is also true that the Muslim community has been getting marginalized by the day. Right after partition, the elite Muslims left for Pakistan and majority of the Muslims remaining here were the poorer one's, coming from Shudra background and now living as ajlafs with Islamic identity. They were bypassed in the social development process so the percentage of their representation in jobs, bank loans, higher education and other social benefits has been declining constantly. During last two decades when communal politics has been on the rise their situation is worse off, and without a determined effort they can in no way come close to the national averages of social and economic indices. The problem is not that, they are being appeased but that most of the development schemes for minorities have been too few and whatever were there, have not been implemented properly. Communal outfits, irrespective of which religion they derive their identity from, generally stand for status quo, so any measures which can lead to social transformation are shirked and opposed, some times upfront, sometimes in a subtle way. Since the opposing to reservation for Dalit/OBC will be an electoral hara-kiri, so Mandal is not opposed directly, instead Kamandal (Rath yatra for Babri demolition) is engineered. To oppose the Mandal II, 'Youth for Equality' or some such forum is created. In case of Muslims where talking of reservation, barring at few places, is not a rewarding electoral strategy, the opposition to this can be upfront under the banner of Minority appeasement. As such, communal forces are opposed to minorities' welfare and have been opposing it right since the formation of Congress in 1885. At that time Congress was charged with appeasing Muslims as Congress regarded Muslims as a part of Indian nation. The most ghastly manifestation of this came up when a Hindutva trained volunteer, Nathuram Godse, killed the father of the Indian nation, Mahatma Gandhi on the same change of Muslim appeasement. And now we have Mr. Singh opposing the welfare measures and labeling these overdue measures as minority appeasement! _____ [5] The Times of India July 5, 2006 DARK SIDE OF LEARNING by Shiv Visvanathan One of the oddest things about the controversy around the Knowledge Commission is that everyone quizzed it about reservation and no one asked it about knowledge. What does knowledge mean for the new post-industrial societies we are dreaming of? What makes this even odder is that it is the Indian national movement that created the idea of a post-industrial society. Ananda Coomaraswamy, geologist and art critic, coined the term during the debates of the swadesi movement. We realise that knowledge is not a singular term. The history of knowledge is about how different knowledges interacted with or subjugated the other. Without Arabic knowledge, the modern West would not exist. Alternately western science has often sought to museumise other forms of know-ledge. The first question we ask then is how we adjudicate between forms of knowledge. Does tribal knowledge yield to scientific knowledge about the forest? Does OBC have many craft communities listed within? How do we respond to their knowledge in this process of change? It would be terribly parochial if the commission were to restrict itself to scientific knowledge. India is a land proud of its diversity whether of the 1,000 varieties of mango, or 50,000 varieties of rice. Yet there is a correlation between poverty, or more accurately, subsistence and diversity. The question the Knowledge Commission would face is do we sustain the sites of diversity or do we go for market choice? The battle between industrial choice and the cultural idea of alternatives will be a poignant one. Justice is about access, but what kind of access to diversity are we going to guarantee? Any society that wants to be secular and is searching for a new locus of merit must adjudicate between fairness and justice. The two have often been confused. When a Brahmin girl gets 98 per cent in school and fails to get admission in a Chennai medical college, we face a sense of unfairness. How does one communicate to her what scheduled castes and tribes have undergone? One must realise that knowledge through the instrument of the census has a paradoxi-cal role to play the instrument designed to eliminate caste entrenched it further. Can knowledge help create secular identities we are looking for, the sense of professionalism, the idea of citizenship? Can these provide an escape from the nested identities of caste and ethnicity or must we invest in caste as the identity kit of the 21st century? Knowledge creates community but it can also threaten community. Knowledge also imposes a structure of deskilling. The question we will face in the future is how do we rework the idea of progress in a society caught in so many different time warps? Can justice to the Dalit be also justice to the tribe? Try answering it through the debate on the Narmada dam. Do we recognise the diversity we are so fond of that the diversity of our agriculture and craft belongs to specific communities? Does the Knowledge Commission argue for their IPRs or does it go for the latest agricultural technologies which might create an enclosure movement in the countryside? The crisis of agriculture is a double crisis of knowledge and inequality. Do we go for biotechnology or for a diversity of agricultural styles which maximises security? One can't think of knowledge only around IT and e-governance. The questions have to be of a different kind. But it does emphasise one thing. If we start with reservation and knowledge as opposite poles, we lose our creativity. Both economic growth and justice need a different idea of progress. Inequality cannot be understood through profit and GNP. One has to measure access to nutrition, information, community, water to understand inequality. Ours has not been a know-ledge-centred debate. We are still relying on a colonial form of knowledge - the census and a colonial tactic, reservation. Both of these ideas see society as stock, when society should be seen as a set of flows. Empha-sising reservation and neglecting atrocities will not do. This will help us evade the fact that often the worst caste atrocities are not the infliction of the Brahmin but of the new OBC classes. The OBC is both the victim and perpe-trator. In fact, to ignore it creates new forms of identity politics which threaten the pursuit of justice. It would be paradoxical if a Knowledge Commission were to reorientalise India in the name of caste. Max Weber once hinted that democracy is a function of two vocations, science and politics. Just as politics challenges the hegemony of expertise, science questions the urge to populism. Democracy needs the tension between the two, the see-sawing battles between knowledge and politics. But to create these battles we need institutions like the university which bracket knowledge without reducing it to an applied science, an ideology or a utopia. The university also has to think about new philosophies of justice, sustainability and vulnerability. It cannot do so if it is not protected from the immediacy of politics. To deny it that possibility is to deny democracy new ways of dreaming and dreaming politics in particular. The Knowledge Commission should dream of conditions beyond the immediacy of current politics. The writer is a social scientist. _____ [6] [ACTION ALERT! - Protest Narendra Modi/Ashok Bhatt's invitation by FIA-GANA ] Dear Friends, As you might know, there are two Gujarati conferences in New Jersey this summer, and they have both invited Narendra Modi, as per newspaper sources (http://ia.rediff.com/news/2006/jun/20guj.htm?q=np&file=.htm ). It is not certain whether or not Modi will be allowed to come this time, but it is quite alarming that he has been invited in the first place. Please find below a letter that we and various allied organizations plan to send the organizers of the Gujarati convention on July 7-9th, organized by the FIA and GANA (www.fianynjct.org). The letter is to register protest at the invitation of Narendra Modi as well as Ashok Bhatt, the main architects of the violence in Gujarat 2002. We are collecting both organizational endorsements as well as individual signatures. As time is of essence, please send in your signatures and endorsements ASAP. Email them to [EMAIL PROTECTED] . Also, please circulate this letter widely. * For organizational endorsements: please send in the full name of the organization, city,state and also the webpage for the group (or a one-line description of the group). * For individual signatures: please send in First and Last name, city, state (and any relevant affiliation). Thanks! Campaign to Stop Funding Hate =============================== To Mr. Ramesh Patel, Mr. Rambhai Gadhvi, Dr Sudhir Parikh, Mr. Jayesh Patel, Mr. Prakash Shah, Mr. Jagdish Patel, Mr. Magan Patel, Mr. Jitendra Fadia, Mr. Naresh Bhadiadra, Mr. Mahesh Patel Members of the Organizing Committee, First Gujarati Convention Gujarati Associations of North America (GANA) and Federation of Indian Associations-New York, New Jersey and Connecticut 355 Shawn Place North Brunswick, NJ 08902 Dear GANA and FIA, We, the undersigned organizations and individuals, who believe in a secular, democratic and pluralistic Gujarat, write to you with deep concern over reports that your organizations have extended invitations to Gujarat Chief Minister Narendra Modi and the Gujarat Health Minister Ashok Bhatt to attend the GANA convention on July 7-9, 2006 September 2006. FIA-GANA's invitation to Mr. Modi is being reported by several news agencies [1], while Mr. Bhatt is listed as an "invited dignatory" on the FIA poster for the conference [2]. If this is true, then we wish to register our strong protest at these invitations. We believe that GANA's slogan of " Gujarat ni asmita " (Gujarat's dignity) is only undermined by honoring individuals such as Mr. Modi and Mr. Bhatt, who have a long record of participating in sectarian hatred and communalism, and does no justice to Gujarat's long tradition of hospitality and tolerance. As you are aware, Mr. Modi and Mr. Bhatt are both regarded as chief architects of the carnage that engulfed Gujarat in 2002 in which more than 2000 Muslims lost their lives and 200,000 more fled their homes, and in which concerted sexual violence against women was employed to an unprecedented degree. * Mr. Modi has been charged in an Indian court of law with crimes against humanity and genocide. He is a member of the violent and extremist communal organization, the Rashriya Swamsevak Sangh (RSS) has never expressed regret for his failure to take preventative measures to stop the violence, indeed took measures or made statements to incite it, and punished conscientious police officials who did take preventative measures by promptly transferring them out to inconsequential postings/assignments. The policies of the State Government of Gujarat, of which he is the chief executive, have been and continue to be discriminatory toward Muslim and Christian minorities; the law is applied and enforced in a discriminatory manner, and those fighting for justice have been continually harassed by the state machinery. The Human Rights Watch in its recent report notes, " The Gujarat state government, led by Chief Minister Narandra Modi of the Hindu nationalist Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), not only failed to take appropriate action to prevent the violence, but has since failed to properly investigate the crimes committed. It has consistently sought to impede successful prosecutions of those allegedly involved in the massacres, leading the Supreme Court and National Human Rights Commission (NHRC) to intervene on several occasions ." [3] Many other human rights organizations, including Amnesty International, Human Rights Watch, Commonwealth Initiative for Human Rights, Citizen's Initiative, People's Union for Civil Liberties (PUCL), People's Union for Democratic Rights (PUDR) have documented the extensive complicity of the state government, led by Mr Modi in orchestrating the violence against Muslims in 2002. It is for this reason that the U.S. government decided to deny him a visa in 2005, and some Congressmen introduced a resolution "condemning the conduct of Chief Minister Narendra Modi for his actions to incite religious persecution ." [4] * Mr Bhatt also took an active role in instigating and overseeing planned violence against Muslims in the post-Godhra carnage in 2002, according to several human rights reports. The Concerned Citizen's Tribunal Report notes that on 27th February, 2002, "Shri Ashok Bhatt and Shri Pratap Singh Chauhan, met at Lunavada in Panchmahal district along with others. In this meeting, the manner and methods of unleashing violence on Muslims were planned in detail. " [5] Furthermore, several media reports have established that Mr. Ashok Bhatt was present in the Police Control Rooms in Ahmedabad [6], where, as Human Rights Watch report noted, "repeated pleas for help were blatantly turned down. [7]" The National Human Rights Commission in India also noted the participation of Mr. Ashok Bhatt in the riots, saying "A number of persons holding responsible positions in public life alleged involvement of some Ministers and MLAs in these riots. They mentioned that Shri Gordhan Zadafia, Home Minister and Shri Ashok Bhatt, Health Minister were monitoring the progress of riots from the City Police control room. " [8] Additionally, eye witness reports collected by the Concerned Citizen's Tribunal suggest that Mr. Bhatt was responsible for inciting arson and destruction in the Naroda Fruit Market and the Paldi-Ellis Bridge in Ahmedabad. [9] We find it shameful that organizations supposed to represent the collective interests of Indians and Indian Americans in the United States would choose to invite people such as Mr. Narendra Modi and Mr. Ashok Bhatt to their conferences, and thus implicitly endorse and promote their agenda of sectarian hatred and violence. Yours sincerely, ________________________________ [1] Two Gujarati conventions vie for attention in US, Sheela Bhatt, June 20 th 2006, Rediff India Abroad, available at http://ia.rediff.com/news/2006/jun/20guj.htm?q=np&file=.htm , also see Speculation rife over Modi's US visa, July 1, 2006, NDTV available at http://tinyurl.com/o2nbd [2] http://www.fianynjct.org/event.pdf [3] DISCOURAGING DISSENT: Intimidation and Harassment of Witnesses, Human Rights Activists, and Lawyers Pursuing Accountability for the 2002 Communal Violence in Gujarat, by the Human Rights Watch, 2006 http://hrw.org/backgrounder/asia/india/gujarat/ [4] H.Res. 160 in the 109th Congress, available at http://www.govtrack.us/congress/billtext.xpd?bill=hr109-160 [5] State Complicity, in Concerned Citizens Tribunal - Gujarat 2002 , Vol 2, available at http://www.sabrang.com/tribunal/vol2/compgovt.html [6] Praveen Swami in Saffron Terror, Frontline Volume 19, Issue 06, 2002 writes "Health Minister Ashok Bhat sat in the Police Control Room in Ahmedabad through the first two days of violence. Given his portfolio, it was an odd place to be -but not given his past. Bhat, along with Union Minister of State for Defence Harin Pathak, faces charges of having incited a mob that murdered a police constable in the course of communal violence on April 25, 1985" http://www.hinduonnet.com/fline/fl1906/19060080.htm [7] Background to the Violence, in Compounding Injustice: The Government's Failure to Redress Massacres in Gujarat , 2003, Human Rights Watch, NewYork, available at http://hrw.org/reports/2003/india0703/ [8] Report on the visit of NHRC Team headed by Chairperson, NHRC to Ahmedabad, Vadodra and Godhra from 19-22 March 2002, available at http://nhrc.nic.in/guj_annex_1.htm [9] The Accused, in Concerned Citizens Tribunal - Gujarat 2002 , Vol 2, available at http://www.sabrang.com/tribunal/vol2/accused2.html -------------------------- http://stopfundinghate.org © 2002-2003 THE CAMPAIGN TO STOP FUNDING HATE. _/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/ Buzz on the perils of fundamentalist politics, on matters of peace and democratisation in South Asia. 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