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SOUTH ASIA INTELLIGENCE REVIEW
Weekly Assessments & Briefings
Volume 3, No. 35, March 14, 2005
Data and
assessments from SAIR can be freely published in any form
with credit to the South Asia Intelligence Review of the
South Asia Terrorism Portal
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Schooling for Terror
Guest Writer: Amir Mir
Senior Assistant Editor, Monthly Herald, Dawn Group
of Newspapers, Karachi
General Pervez Musharraf's much-publicized plans to modernize
the country's 10,000 religious seminaries have met with
little success primarily because of his administration's
failure to enforce the Madrassa Registration and Regulation
Ordinance 2002, which was meant to reform deeni madaris
(religious seminaries) by bringing them into the educational
mainstream.
Three years
after the first commando President of Pakistan promised
sweeping reforms to ensure that the religious schools are
not used any further to propagate extremist Islam, the country's
traditional religious school system that is now rotten to
the core, continues to operate as the key breeding ground
for the radical Islamist ideology and as the recruitment
centre for terrorist networks.
The campaign to reform the country's notorious deeni
madaris was launched by General Musharraf in a bid to
fight extremism in the aftermath of the September 11, 2001,
terror attacks on the United States. Many of the Pakistanis
who fought alongside al-Qaeda and Taliban troops in Afghanistan
had been educated in these religious seminaries, which are
spread across the country. The privately funded Islamic
schools are commonplace throughout Pakistan and a majority
of them owe their existence to General Zia's Islamisation
drive. The curriculum offered there is undeveloped and pertains
mostly to religious instruction. Some of the books taught,
including Mathematics, date back hundreds of years. The
result is, the madaris graduates simply cannot compete
against others for employment. Absent any real understanding
of society and social complexities, they want destruction.
They seek to bring society onto their own level, and the
only thing they identify with is the religion.
Yet these madaris do provide free education along
with boarding and lodging, and this attracts the poor. There
are no exact figures about how many madaris may be
operating in Pakistan, but rough estimates suggest that
there are some one million students studying in over 10,000
madaris.
Since the beginning of 2002, General Musharraf has campaigned
to reform the religious schools. In a televised address
to the nation in January 2002, the General unveiled a new
strategy which would see madaris teach Mathematics,
Science, English, Economics and even Computer Science alongside
their traditional Islamic programme. "My only aim is to
help these institutions overcome their weaknesses and providing
them with better facilities and more avenues to the poor
children at these institutions. These schools are excellent
welfare set-ups where the poor get free board and lodge.
And very few madaris run by hardliner parties promote
negative thinking and propagate hatred and violence instead
of inculcating tolerance, patience and fraternity", said
Musharraf in his address.
While embarking on several initiatives to combat zealotry
and broaden educational offerings, the Musharraf administration
announced a number of measures to make deeni madaris
participate in the modernization programme. These reforms
included a five-year, $1 billion Education Sector Reform
Assistance (ESRA) plan to ensure inclusion of secular subjects
in syllabi of religious seminaries; a $100 million bilateral
agreement to rehabilitate hundreds of public schools by
United States Agency for International Development (USAID),
besides increasing access to quality education and the enforcement
of Madrassa Registration and Regulation Ordinance 2002 which
required deeni madaris to audit their funding and
foreign students to register with the Government. At the
same time, a Federal Madaris Education Board was established
to enable the students at the religious schools to benefit
from the national education system by learning Mathematics,
English and vocational sciences in addition to the normal
madrassa education.
However, three years down the road since Musharraf's historic
January 2002 announcement, the so-called modernization campaign
has largely failed, and hardly a few cosmetic changes could
be introduced in the madrassa system. Most of the
religious leaders and Islamist organisations rejected the
Government legislation requiring religious seminaries to
register and broaden their curricula beyond rote Koranic
learning. Under the reform programme, drafted on the advice
of the Bush administration and financed by USAID, special
Government committees were constituted to supervise and
monitor the educational and financial matters and policies
of deeni madaris. Most of these schools are sponsored
by the country's leading religious parties, be it Jamiat
Ulema-e-Islam, Jamiat Ulema-Pakistan, or Jamat-e-Islami
Pakistan, while many others are affiliated with jehadi
groups which preach an extremist ideology of religious warfare.
The result is that the deeni madaris are increasingly
seen as breeding grounds for the foot-soldiers of the global
menace of militant Islam, who are motivated and trained
to wage jehad - be it in Kashmir, Afghanistan, Bosnia,
Chechnya, or other parts of the world. Thus the Bush Administration
believed that there were madaris in Pakistan that,
in addition to religious training, give military training
to their students. Probably acting under these very apprehensions,
the office of US Defence Secretary Donald Rumsfeld leaked
in October 2003 a secret memo, perhaps deliberately, to
the American media. In the memo, which was actually intended
for Rumsfeld's top military and civilian subordinates, the
American Defence Secretary wondered: "Is the US capturing,
killing or deterring and dissuading more terrorists every
day than the madrassas and the radical Muslim clerics
are recruiting, training and deploying against America?"
Three months later in January 2004, the International Crisis
Group (ICG) report titled, Unfulfilled Promises: Pakistan's
Failure to Tackle Extremism further strengthened the
American fears. The report stated: "The failure to curb
rising extremism in Pakistan stems directly from the military
Government's own unwillingness to act against its political
allies among the religious groups. Having co-opted the religious
parties to gain constitutional cover for his military rule,
Musharraf is highly reliant on the religious right for his
regime's survival." The ICG report observed that Pakistan's
failure to close madrassas and to crack down on jehadi
networks has resulted in a resurgence of domestic extremism
and sectarian violence. "The Government inaction continues
to pose a serious threat to domestic, regional and international
security… If the US and others continue to restrict their
pressure on Musharraf to verbal warnings, the rise of extremism
in Pakistan will continue unchecked. By increasing pressure
on Pakistan, a major source of jehadis will be shut
off and Islamic militancy, as a whole will decrease", the
ICG stated in its concluding paragraph.
Almost a year later, in December 2004, a report produced
by the Congressional Research Service (CRS) presented to
the American Congress pointed out: "Although General Musharraf
vowed to begin regulating Pakistan's religious schools,
and his Government launched a five-year plan to bring the
teaching of formal or secular subjects to 8,000 willing
madrassas, no concrete action was taken until June
of that year, when 115 madrassas were denied access to Government
assistance due to their alleged links to militancy… Despite
Musharraf's repeated pledges to crack down on the more extremist
madrassas in his country, there is little concrete
evidence that he has done so. According to two observers,
most madrassas remain unregistered, their finances
unregulated, and the Government has yet to remove the jehadist
and sectarian content of their curricula. Many speculate
that Musharraf's reluctance to enforce reform efforts is
rooted in his desire to remain on good terms with Pakistan's
Islamist political parties, which are seen to be an important
part of his political base."
The Lahore-based Daily Times wrote in its February
25, 2005, editorial titled 'Madrassa registration has
become a joke': "The National Security Council, we are
being told, is going to discuss the issue of registering
the madrassas. Might we ask what has happened to
the much-touted madrassa registration ordinance 2002?
Apparently nothing! …The facts are interesting. Registration
forms were sent out to all the madrassas after which
the Government waited for the seminaries to get themselves
registered. That did not happen. The number of madrassas
that did register was a bit of a joke. What did the Government
do? Nothing! Why cannot the all-powerful General Musharraf
follow up on an eminently sensible scheme?"
However, a World Bank-sponsored working paper published
in February 2005 came up with a new angle, stating that
"enrolment in the Pakistani madrassas, that critics
believe are misused by militants, has been exaggerated by
media and a US 9/11 report." The study claimed that less
than one per cent of the school-going children in Pakistan
go to madrassas, and the proportion has remained
constant in some districts since 2001. The study titled
'Religious School Enrolment in Pakistan: A Look at the
Data', conducted by Jishnu Das of the World Bank, Asim
Ijaz Khwaja and Tristan Zajonc of Harvard University and
Tahir Andrabi of Pomona College, sought to dispel general
perceptions that enrolment was on the rise saying: "We find
no evidence of a dramatic increase in madrassa enrolment
in recent years". The funding for the report was provided
by the World Bank through Knowledge for Change Trust Fund.
The World Bank study found western media reports highly
exaggerated in terms of number of student and total religious
schools. "The figures reported by international newspapers
such as the Washington Post, saying there were 10
per cent enrolment in madrassas, and an estimate
by the International Crisis Group of 33 per cent, were not
correct. It is troubling that none of the reports and articles
reviewed based their analysis on publicly available data
or established statistical methodologies. Bold assertions
have been made in policy reports and popular articles on
the high and increasing enrolment in Pakistani religious
schools". The study found no evidence of a dramatic increase
in madrassa enrolment in recent years, stating that the
share of madrassas in total enrolment declined before
1975 and has increased slowly since then. Since 2001, total
enrolment in madrassas has remained constant in some
districts and increased in others, the report added.
However, the South Asia Director of ICG, Samina Ahmed, has
challenged the findings of the World Bank study, which questioned
the validity of madrassa enrolment statistics provided
by the ICG and other expert analysts. Ahmed was quoted in
the Dawn newspaper on March 11, 2005, stating: "The
authors (of the World Bank report) have insisted that there
are at most 475,000 children in Pakistani madrassas,
yet Federal Religious Affairs Minister Ejazul Haq says the
country's madrassas impart religious education to
1,000,000 children." She asserted that the World Bank findings
were directly at odds with the ministry of education's 2003
directory, which said the number of madrassas had increased
from 6,996 in 2001 to 10,430. She added that the madrassa
unions themselves had put the figure at 13,000 madaris
with the total number of students enrolled at 1.5 to 1.7
million.
Questioning the methodology of the World Bank study, Ahmed
said: "The trouble is that the authors based their analysis
on three questionable sources: the highly controversial
1998 census; household surveys that were neither designed
nor conducted to elicit data on madrassa enrolment,
and a limited village-based household educational census
conducted by the researchers themselves in only three of
102 districts." She said the 1998 census was not only out
of date as the authors themselves admitted, but their 2003
educational census was also of little value because it was
based on a representative sample of villages, suggesting
madaris were mainly a rural phenomenon. She quoted
a 2002 survey conducted by the Institute of Policy Studies
which found that a majority of madrassa students came from
backward areas. "If the findings of the World Bank study
were to be taken at face value, then Pakistan and the international
community had little cause to worry about an educational
sector that glorified jehad and indoctrinated children
in religious intolerance and extremism", the ICG director
concluded.
In short, the Musharraf regime's failure to reform the country's
10,000 religious seminaries and to crack down on jehadi
networks has resulted in a resurgence of extremism and sectarian
violence in the country. The Pakistani military dictator's
priority has never been eradicating Islamic extremism, but
rather the legitimization and consolidation of his dictatorial
rule, for which he seems dependent on the clergy. And the
mushroom growth of extremists will continue unabated until
and unless the Mullah-Military alliance in Pakistan is effectively
put to an end.
Manipur:
Terrorist Diktats Rule
Bibhu Prasad Routray
Research Fellow, Institute for Conflict Management
If the first two-odd months of year 2005 are any indication,
the militancy-ridden State of Manipur appears to be moving
into a more vicious cycle of violence. 74 fatalities have
been reported in 132 militancy-related incidents between
January 1 and March 10, 2005. Militants account for more
than half of the fatalities with a total of 39 deaths, but
there was 25 civilian fatalities as well. In comparison,
the entire year 2004 - which saw significant escalation
as a result of enormous political mismanagement and widespread
civil disturbances - was witness to 219 insurgency-related
deaths (Civilians-50; Security Forces (SF)-41; Militants-128).
Year 2003 had seen198 fatalities (27 civilians, 23 SFs,
148 militants).
Visibly,
the current fatalities within militant ranks have been the
result of continuous military operations since September
2004 in a 'synchronised onslaught', for which some successes
have been claimed, though 10 SF personnel have already fallen
to militant attacks. But the claims of SF 'successes' are
ambiguous at best. The Naga-inhabited hill areas have been
traditionally free from the militancy perpetrated by the
Meitei outfits, and it is mostly the Valley, which witnesses
a majority of militant incidents and engagements with the
SFs. There appears to be little change in this pattern,
and 112 of the 132 incidents this year have taken place
in the five districts of Imphal East, Imphal West, Bishnupur,
Thoubal and Churachandpur, suggesting little weakening of
the insurgent will or ranks. Districts sharing the international
border with Myanmar - Chandel and Ukhrul - have been somewhat
marginally affected with 10 and 5 reported incidents, respectively.
More significant is the 'element of spread' of violence
which involves at least 16 outfits. All major as well as
many fringe groupings, of the 30 odd outfits in the State,
with an estimated 10,000 cadres between them, have been
involved in the violence this year.
Crucially, the largest proportion of this violence has been
focused on the well protected neighbourhood of the capital
city, Imphal. Manipur has a 14,000 strong police force (both
armed and civil) - the third strongest in the region behind
Assam and Nagaland - four India Reserve Battalions (IRB),
as well as very strong contingents of the Army and para-military
forces, with a large proportion of this Force dedicated
to the protection of the State capital and its inhabitants.
However, it is the capital city along with the twin districts
of Imphal East and Imphal West that have already witnessed
56 of the 132 militancy related incidents in 2005. Militants
of different groups have been able to lob grenades, extort
money and shoot at police personnel and civilians in the
capital and in its vicinity, and have demonstrated fairly
dramatically that not even the 'saturated' capital city
is adequately secured; the state's control over the other
Valley districts could hardly be better.
Nevertheless, while linking the SF's 'synchronised onslaught'
with the United National Liberation Front's (UNLF)
February 2, 2005, call for a peace process with the Government
of India may not be a good idea, the fact that a militant
group known for its obstinate stand against any negotiated
resolution of the conflict has finally broken its silence
reflects definite shifts in the prevailing scenario. The
UNLF has mooted a four-point proposal to bring the 'Indo-Manipur
conflict' to a logical conclusion:
- A plebiscite under United
Nations (UN) supervision to elicit the opinion of the
people of the State on the core issue of restoration of
Manipur's independence.
- Deployment of a UN peace-
keeping force in Manipur to ensure the process is free
and fair.
- Surrender of arms by the
UNLF to the UN force, matched with the withdrawal of Indian
troops. Handing over of political power by the UN in accordance
with the results of the plebiscite.
While these
terms make nonsense of the proposal and would be rejected
out of hand by Delhi, they are in keeping with a standing
convention in the region for militant groups to set out
with such extreme demands, and then to barter each element
of such an immoderate position against significant advantages
for the group and its leadership at the negotiating table.
The offer of a negotiated settlement by an obdurately violent
group like the UNLF is, consequently, a significant movement
forward.
The Revolutionary People's Front (RPF), the 'political wing'
of the People's Liberation Army (PLA),
has also come out with a statement that appeared to suggest
qualified approval of the UNLF's move. RPF 'president' Irengbam
Chaoren stated, "We will be watching how New Delhi reacts
to the UNLF central committee's proposal as well as the
latter's next move." Delhi is still to respond, though reports
suggest that it is 'examining' the Chief Minister's plea
to consider the proposals with urgency.
SF operations and peace offers notwithstanding, militants
in Manipur still continue to issue diktats and also appear
to be able to secure substantial obedience on their decrees.
This is the case, not only with the directives of the better
known groups who are known to have perfected the act, such
as the Kanglei Yawol Kanna Lup (KYKL),
but even fringe outfits such as the Manipur Human Rights
Protection Guild (MHRPG) and the United Socialist Revolutionary
Army (USRA). Thus, apart from the continuation of its 'drive'
against the 'corrupt' education system, a campaign which
has targeted a number of officials, teachers and students,
and which enjoys a certain measure of popular support from
the people, the KYKL has also put a ban on 'cabin restaurants'
which it has described as a 'major factor in the moral degeneration
of our society' as they facilitate 'immoral' promiscuity
among boys and girls. On at least two occasions, owners
and workers in such restaurants have been shot at by the
outfit's cadres for violating the order.
Incidents of extortion also remain at an alarmingly high
level. Unidentified terrorists shot at and injured Th. Kulachandra,
Principal of the Manipur Institute of Technology-Takyelpat,
at Mongsangei in the Imphal West district on March 2 after
he failed to meet an extortion demand for Rs. 500,000. The
MHRPG orchestrated an attack on the Japanese-funded sericulture
project office in Bamon Leikai in Imphal East District.
Reports suggest that the attack was carried out for the
non-payment of 'taxes' which the outfit had imposed on the
officials associated with the project. The non-descript
People's United Liberation Front (PULF), through a notification
on February 18 and a subsequent attack on a vehicle, managed
to stop all transport for four consecutive days along the
important Imphal-Moreh road, hailed as one of the future
trade routes between India's Northeast and South East Asia.
The PULF action was the result of the transporters' failure
to accede to its repeated 'requests' for 'payment of tax'.
The United Kuki Liberation Front (UKLF), through a press
note on January 15, had demanded that the Irrigation and
Flood Control Department to clear their 'annual departmental
taxes' before January 23. The response of the department
is not known. However, past practices reveal that resistance
to such diktats has been infrequent. An insight into an
ingenious method of 'taxation' came to light with the arrest
of 16 transport agency proprietors by the Imphal West district
police, on March 8. These proprietors had purchased Government
taxation forms (Sales Tax form no. 35 & 36) from the KYKL,
at a price of Rupees 500,000 each and had managed to evade
paying tax to the Government. Inquiries revealed that the
KYKL had forced two taxation officers to put their signatures
on copies of such forms, and these were later 'sold' to
the transporters.
Nevertheless, Manipur Chief Minister Okram Ibobi Singh seems
encouraged by recent SF 'successes'. On March 10, on the
occasion of the surrender of two militants - an event of
great rarity in the State, though commonplace in other conflict
theatres in the region - the Chief Minister asked for a
better 'rehabilitation package' that could help bring more
and more militants back into the mainstream. The Chief Minister
said, "The Government's surrender policy has to be revamped
so as to make it a more comprehensive one, and to ensure
proper rehabilitation of surrendered militants." Previously,
on March 7, the Chief Minister also claimed to have received
positive signals from two other militant organisations (who
he chose not to identify) regarding peace talks with the
Government.
Regrettably, however, given current ground realities, the
increasing levels of violence in the State, as well as the
rising demonstration of public dissatisfaction - both with
the political leadership and sections of the SFs - any optimism
regarding the resolution of the multiplicity of insurgencies
in Manipur in the foreseeable future would be altogether
misplaced.
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Weekly Fatalities: Major Conflicts
in South Asia
March
7-13, 2005
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Civilian
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Security
Force Personnel
|
Terrorist
|
Total
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BANGLADESH
|
0
|
0
|
7
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7
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INDIA
|
Assam
|
2
|
1
|
2
|
5
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Jammu
&
Kashmir
|
5
|
1
|
19
|
25
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Left-wing
Extremism
|
9
|
5
|
0
|
14
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Manipur
|
2
|
0
|
1
|
3
|
Nagaland
|
1
|
0
|
1
|
2
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Total (INDIA)
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19
|
7
|
23
|
49
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NEPAL
|
1
|
0
|
22
|
23
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PAKISTAN
|
2
|
0
|
0
|
2
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SRI LANKA
|
3
|
0
|
0
|
3
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Provisional
data compiled from English language media sources.
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INDIA
Seven persons killed during
Naxalite attack in Andhra Pradesh: A group of nearly 40
left-wing extremists (also known as Naxalites)
of the Communist Party of India-Maoist (CPI-Maoist), including
15 women, killed five police personnel and two civilians after
raiding a police station at Chilakaluripet in the Guntur district
of Andhra Pradesh on March 11. The
Hindu, March 12, 2005.
Three persons killed during serial bomb blasts in Assam:
At least three persons are reported to have died during serial
bomb blasts and grenade explosions suspected to have been triggered
by the outlawed United Liberation Front of Asom (ULFA)
between March 9-11, 2005. These explosions, primarily targeting
Government installations, occurred in capital Guwahati, and
the Sivasagar, Dibrugarh, Tinsukia, Chirang, Bongaigaon, Nalabari,
Kamrup and Dhubri districts. The ULFA 'commander-in-chief',
Paresh Barua, while claiming responsibility for the bomb explosions
also said that such attacks would continue as long as the 'conflict
between India and Assam lingered.' Assam
Tibune, Sentinel
Assam, March 10-12, 2005.
NEPAL
Former Prime
Minister Sher Bahadur Deuba among 20 detainees released: The
Government on March 11, 2005, released former Prime Minister,
Sher Bahadur Deuba, and at least 19 senior political leaders from
house arrest. Among the others released include former Home Minister,
Purna Bahadur Khadka, spokesperson of the Nepali Congress (Democratic),
Minendra Prasad Rijal, former parliamentarian of the Nepali Congress
(NC), Hari Bhakta Adhikari, and NC leader Haribol Bhattrai. These
leaders were detained on February 1. Nepal
News, March 12, 2005.
PAKISTAN
Tribal militant
Abdullah Mehsud is dead, indicate reports: Media reports,
yet to be confirmed by the authorities, have indicated that the
Waziristan-based tribal militant, Abdullah Mehsud, had succumbed
to injuries sustained during a military operation on March 5,
2005. An unnamed spokesperson for Mehsud claimed on March 13 that
he "died of his wounds" on March 10. The spokesperson told tribal
journalist, Sailab Mehsud, who "Abdullah wished to be called first
to give the news of his martyrdom." However, military regime spokesperson,
Maj. Gen. Shaukat Sultan, said he had no information to confirm
Abdullah spokesman's claim. "I am not in a position to say either
yes or no. I have no confirmation yet," he told Daily Times.
Secretary (Security), Federally Administered Tribal Areas (FATA),
Brig. (Retd) Mahmood Shah, told The News that there was
no circumstantial evidence to prove that Mehsud was wounded in
the March 5 operation or that he managed to break through the
siege by the troops on that occasion. Daily
Times, The
News , March 14, 2005.
SRI LANKA
No direct funds
to the LTTE, says World Bank Country Director: In a statement
issued on March 7, 2005, the World Bank Country Director for Sri
Lanka, Peter Harrold, said that the bank has no intention of providing
funds directly to the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE).
Harrold stated this in response to a call by the ruling coalition
partner, Janatha Vimukthi Peramuna (JVP), on March 6 to withdraw
a statement by the former in an interview to the Sunday Times
where he is quoted as recognising the LTTE controlled area as
"a kind of unofficial state". Later, Harrold stated that he was
misquoted and added that all funding for the North and East, "is
disbursed through the official Government channel of the North
East Provincial Council." Daily
News, March 8, 2005.
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The South
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