Himachal shows the way
THE Himachal Pradesh Government has taken a decision that is well worth emulation throughout the country. The Cabinet has decided that in future the practice of according guard of honour to Ministers during tours will be done away with.

Avoidable strike
THE resort to a strike by public sector bank employees amounts to committing a sin in today's circumstances. Very few will sympathise with them, going by the record of functioning of these banks.

Crash of a system in making
THE plane that crashed near Arakkonam near Chennai on Monday was no ordinary plane. Nor the eight men who perished were ordinary passengers.

ADMIRAL BHAGWAT AFFAIR
by Pran Chopra
LOOKING back on it through the fog of controversy which surrounds it yet, one can discern five different aspects of the battle raging between the Ministry of Defence and the dismissed Chief of the Naval Staff. All five aspects are so different from each other that it seems hard to believe they are parts of the same structure. But so they are.

Thackeray’s last desperate move
by Rahul Singh
A time-tested principle for any politician who is in decline is for him to do, or say something, dramatic to get back on centre-stage. The more outrageous and attention-catching, the better. Mr Bal Thackeray, the head of the Shiv Sena, falls neatly into this category.

The problems of Benazir Bhutto
From M.T. Butt in Islamabad
FORMER Prime Minister Benazir Bhutto is facing so many charges of corruption that she has at times been required to appear in hearings in two cities on the same day. She had pleaded with Pakistan’s Supreme Court to have all the cases transferred to the Sind High Court in Karachi, where she makes her home base.

Vietnam, India have historical links
By T.V. Rajeswar
VIETNAM, the south-east Asian nation of 79 million people, has the rare historic distinction of having successfully fought against China, France and the USA and remaining unscathed. After France surrendered in Dien Bien Phu in 1954, after a thoughtless attempt to reimpose its colonialism, the Americans willingly accepted the role of “saving Asia from communism.” By the time they finally fled Vietnam in April 1975, about 58,000 Americans were killed while the Vietnamese deaths were nearly three million.

75 Years Ago

Judge exceeds maximum powers
LUCKNOW: “Travelling for European and Indian ladies on the Indian Railways becomes highly dangerous, when such beasts as the accused are found prowling about the railway stations. In the interest of the general travelling public it is necessary to give exemplary punishment in this case, both as a warning to others and as a lesson to the accused himself whose conduct has been of a most revolting character.”

Himachal shows the way

THE Himachal Pradesh Government has taken a decision that is well worth emulation throughout the country. The Cabinet has decided that in future the practice of according guard of honour to Ministers during tours will be done away with. Only the Governor, the Chief Minister, the Speaker and the Chief Justice will be given the ceremonial guard of honour. That is how it should be. Besides being a big burden on the police, the exercise had become a mockery because the size of the ministries had been increasing everywhere at an alarming rate and so was the desire of the ministers to be on tour. Now that the Himachal Pradesh Government has taken a laudable lead, the Centre and the States should also pay attention to two other eyesores. One is the ostentatious display of security by sundry VIPs. It has become fashionable to have more and more security guards. In fact, the number of the guards has come to be considered as the barometer of one's importance. (Compare this with the situation in say England where even the Prime Minister is accompanied only by a few motorcycle borne guards.) Not only that, many of these guards are used as domestic servants. When the VIP travels, these armed people come in handy to harass ordinary people. There are also numerous instances where the security guards have been misused by the VIPs or even their wards to settle their personal scores. In Chandigarh, the son of a VIP made his guard to fire during a scuffle at a cinema hall.

Equally blatant is the misuse of red lights atop the vehicles. There was a time when only the top functionaries of the government were allowed this facility. The list of officials has been growing unmanageably long ever since and today even middle-ranking officials are allowed to have it. The list must be curtailed drastically because of security considerations and also because of the nuisance value and misuse of the red light. And then, there are hundreds of others who continue to flaunt it although they are not authorised to have it at all. The policemen do not dare to challan them because of their political clout. And when there is some attempt to punish them, the VIPs manage to get it scuttled through their "connections". Even the vehicle that is allowed to have the red light is expected to switch it on only when the authorised person is sitting inside. But the lights are found to be on even when the vehicles are carrying only the VIPs' son or other family members or even the driver. Recently, the son of a Haryana legislator was arrested near Solan while taking his friends on a joyride, with the siren blaring. Such misuse of power must stop. The love for the trappings of power has gone beyond all limits of decency. Still, the megalomania of the so-called servants of the public knows no bounds. That is why they have earned the "title" of being modern-day maharajas. These self-styled kings must be made to realise that the country has suffered the likes of them for centuries and Independent India cannot afford to maintain their paraphernalia any longer. The taxpayers' money is for the betterment of the people and not for fulfilling the personal grandiose fantasies of the battalion of leaders and bureaucrats bursting with self-importance.

Avoidable strike

THE resort to a strike by public sector bank employees amounts to committing a sin in today's circumstances. Very few will sympathise with them, going by the record of functioning of these banks. The volume of business per employee in these organisations is too meagre compared to that in foreign private banks. Yet the 12 lakh employees, including bank officers, who struck work on Tuesday are not to blame for the inconvenience caused to the general public. They were forced to take to this painful course of action by the Indian Banks Association (IBA), representing the bank managements. The employees have a solid case and they have every right to fight for it. The wage settlement finalised previously between the employees' representatives and those of the banks was valid till October 31, 1997. The staff members of these banks have been struggling all these months for a fresh settlement but without success. Initially, they wanted a 56 per cent increase in their pay and allowances, but now they have reduced it to 20 per cent, excluding superannuation benefits. They have been pleading for the acceptance of their demand with retrospective effect — which means since the date the previous arrangement ceased to be applicable. The bank managements are adamant at a mere 8 per cent upward wage revision, that too including superannuation benefits and not retrospectively. They IBA has been refusing to budge from its stand on the pretext of "bad health" of the banks. One fails to understand how the central government staff can be given a 30 per cent pay hike and those working in government-controlled banks not even 20 per cent. And how can any management bypass an established practice of according benefits to its staff "with retrospective effect"?

The unrealistic attitude of the IBA has led to great resentment among the employees, who are already in the grip of fear due to certain other factors, a product of the changed economic climate in the country. There is a constant threat of retrenchment and wage freeze. There is unending talk of privatisation. Will they be consulted before such major decisions are taken? What will be the position of their employment? Thus, the employees have no idea of what the future holds in store for them. They deserve a sympathetic treatment. A way out of the present impasse must be found before January 19 when the United Forum of Bank Unions and certain other organisations will hold a meeting to decide their future course of action, which may include an indefinite strike. That will be a crippling development for the country's economy as also for the public.

Crash of a system in making

THE plane that crashed near Arakkonam near Chennai on Monday was no ordinary plane. Nor the eight men who perished were ordinary passengers. It was an airborne early warning (AEW) radar platform, the Indian version of the more formidable Airborne Warning and Control System (AWACS) of the USA, with its distinct mushroom-like antenna on the roof, which starred in all debates about global security in the eighties. And the men were highly experienced scientists and radar operators. They were testing improvements in the rotodome housing the ultra sensitive radars. Initial analysis indicates that the rotodome collapsed and the plane too, housing sophisticated computers. The plane itself was old but the Centre for Airborne Systems (CABS) has so far flown it for about 150 hours purely as a platform to test and perfect the radars. To this extent the accident causes a setback to the designing and building of a reliable airborne early warning system by several months, if not years. One redeeming feature is that the CABS has two other planes fitted with the rotodome and computers, meaning that the main work of building a swadeshi model can be resumed soon. In other words, once the exact reason for the crash is identified, necessary corrections can be made in the two available “platforms” and the interrupted testing can restart.

These radar-mounted planes are extremely useful in times of war. The type India is developing can spot about 200 objects from a distance of 100 km and also calculate the speed and direction. It can thus advise fighter pilots to fire missiles or take evasive action well in time. True, all modern jets have highly accurate radar devices but with the help of the system they get advance information which means gaining a few extremely precious seconds. The plane works on the principle that a radar can see much more from a height than from the ground. Since the rotodome rotates (that is why the name) it can scan 360 degrees; but the flip side is that it also absorbs lot interference, technically called clutter. But thanks to the amazing power of the computer, this chaff is separated from useful signals and crucial information is conveyed to pilots and their commanders through state-of-the—art communication equipment. The men on board the ill-fated plane were to undertake precisely these coordinated tasks.

The project is not a hush-hush thing, though newspapers are now covering the technology part of the accident in great detail. In fact, this plane, with its ungainly backload, has been a regular feature of successive Bangalore air shows. As self-reliance in defence services goes, the AEW system, even if delayed by some time, is a giant step for the Air Force. It would have highly enhanced the offensive capacity of such deadly jets as MiG 29, Mirage-2000 and SU-30.

ADMIRAL BHAGWAT AFFAIR
Five aspects of the controversy
by Pran Chopra

LOOKING back on it through the fog of controversy which surrounds it yet, one can discern five different aspects of the battle raging between the Ministry of Defence and the dismissed Chief of the Naval Staff. All five aspects are so different from each other that it seems hard to believe they are parts of the same structure. But so they are.

First, an important assurance. Second, a deep sense of distress. Third, a dangerous mystery. Fourth, a hope. And fifth, a canker of scepticism which undermines the hope. The assurance first. While the battle went on between Admiral Vishnu Bhagwat as the Naval Chief and the Defence Minister, it appeared to many people, not only in this country but around the world (judging by the telephone inquiries received) that India was also going to join the company of those failed democracies in which power has been captured by the armed forces, either under their own flag or else behind a puppet politician who would only be their front. Or in which a clever politician has divided the armed forces into lobbies and used one or the other as a base for his personal power when the political system broke down.

The inquiries were uncalled for. But they were understandable in the circumstances which prevailed for a couple of weeks. Though this is not the first time that civil and military relations have come under a strain — the Defence Secretary and the three service chiefs have not been on talking terms for some time — they have never been as bad as in recent days, when charges flew, unrestrained and in public, between a super-charged Defence Minister and the self-righteous Naval Chief for whom his voluble wife did the talking. With serving or former chiefs of the other two services, the Air Force and the Army, taking up cudgles on behalf of the Admiral, it did appear as though the military forces as a whole were throwing down the gauntlet against civilian supremacy over them. This is what caused questions to be asked who would be in charge if a security crisis blew up.

But as it turned out, there was not a single statement, either in public or, as far as is known, in private, by any serving or former military chief or by any other senior officers in any of the three services, which questioned the well-established tradition in India that the final authority over the military remains with civilians. No one questioned either the formal position that as the Head of State the President, who is also the first citizen, is the commander-in-chief of the armed forces, or the operative position that the Ministry of Defence and the civilian government control the military.

The controversy remained limited to the much less dangerous issue, though it is an important one, as to whether the supremacy of the Defence Ministry over the military rests with the Defence Minister or with the Secretary to the Ministry. In other words the basic point at issue turned out to be not the balance between the civil and military components of the defence structure, but rather between the administrative civil service, which normally consists of non-specialists, and the chiefs of the three armed services, who reach the peak of their position after some decades of experience in an exceptional area of specialisation.

This latter is also an important issue. But it is not a threat to security or to the supremacy of the civil side. Nor is it peculiar to the Defence Ministry. It has afflicted many governments and many ministries in our own country whenever highly skilled specialists have chafed under the control exercised over them by high profile generalists in the IAS (or before that in the ICS). In fact, my own introduction to this problem began in Chandigarh 40 years ago as I watched some battles between ICS secretaries to the Ministry of Irrigation and the chief engineers of the Bhakra project, who were at that time the cream of an elite corps formed by the irrigation engineers in Punjab. But this particular civil-military episode in the form of a naval battle has reassuringly re-asserted the civil-military balance, which is what happens when a generally accepted but untested proposition is put to the test and prevails.

But a deep distress remains because a spectacle has been enacted which has defamed the country, has blotted some fine reputations in an honoured part of the national apparatus — the armed forces — and has rocked the equation between the Ministry of Defence and the chiefs of the defence services. This equation is always a sensitive one and needs to be handled with care. But lately it became a football.

However, the most disturbing part of it is that the whole spectacle was entirely avoidable, both as an issue and as an incident. With foresight and wisdom, the government of Rajiv Gandhi set up a very competent committee almost a decade ago under Mr Arun Singh to examine this very issue, along with many others, and according to all available information, it submitted an excellent report. But neither that government nor its successors did much about it. In the meantime, the equation deteriorated further till a point was reached when the Secretary to the Ministry of Defence and the chiefs of all the three services practically stopped talking to each other. It was in this atmosphere of mutual sullenness and festering hostility that a dispute over the appointment of a Deputy Chief of Naval Staff, in normal times a relatively routine and minor matter, became an incident which unleashed a dangerous war.

Why did it do so? The reasons are so unclear that, like many a mystery, they have ignited very damaging speculation, dangerous both for Defence Ministry and for the services. There is no visible reason why the ministry insisted on appointing a candidate whose credentials have been thrown open to question on many grounds which have been aired in the media, some of them on good evidence. First, he was wholly unacceptable to Admiral Bhagwat. In other lines of work unacceptability to the boss might not be reason enough for rejecting a candidate who is otherwise suitable. But in military service it is, no matter who is at fault, because any operation can end in disaster if the chief and his deputy are at loggerheads. Why was he then sought to be thrust on an unwilling chief instead of being suitably accommodated elsewhere?

Nor does his suitability shine forth very much. He is on record with such allegations against his superior in the service that they would astonish anyone who believes that a person aspiring to such a responsible position as the Deputy Chief of Naval Staff should exercise greater restraint and discretion. Since these allegations are on record their demerit is much higher than of the media reports against him, unconfirmed but uncomfortably detailed and not convincingly refuted as yet, concerning doubtful activities connected with the purchase of naval equipment from Russia. These reports, for all that they are unproven, have only ignited further speculation that funds had to be raised in a hurry for some unspecified purposes or persons.

Against such a background it seems even stranger that his appointment was considered, whether pressed or not, in spite of the fact that it was not recommended by the Naval Chief (as it is required to be under the Navy Act for some reason though a similar recommendation is not required under the rules governing appointments in the other two services.) Was his promotion an important enough issue for precipitating the unprecedented step of summarily dismissing a serving chief?

Still more serious is the cause for another worry. Allegations have been made against Admiral Bhagwat which should not be allowed to end there, either way. If they are true, and can be proved on grounds which can be made public, the matter must go beyond the termination of his services. If they are true but cannot be disclosed in public then steps must be taken in camera to prove their bona fides. But if they are not established in either manner then they will only fester into suspicions which will do no credit to anyone, including the Defence Minister or anyone for whose wishes the Minister might have shown undue deference in trying to choose this candidate as the Deputy Chief.

But if the allegations are found to be untrue in hindsight, then there must be due and prompt recompense. One cannot understand how it happens that even as late as January 10, that is more than a few weeks after the decision to sack Admiral Bhagwat must have been taken, announcements and leaks from the Ministry of Defence are able to mention only some minor infringements on his part, and they fail to justify the action taken against him.

Unfortunately, his redoubtable wife has not taken the course most suited for the vindication of her husband. In a television interview on January 6, she was asked why she had not taken recourse to the court, being herself a reputed lawyer, if she was as convinced as she appears to be that the Admiral had been wrongfully dismissed. She said she would do so if “they” stopped his pension. While there are some legal technicalities (relating to pension rules) which might help her there, one would have thought sufficient cause had been given her already by the series of allegations made against him by the Defence Minister himself — if the allegations are false. If these mysteries are allowed to remain unexplored for long, the results can be bad for the personal respect in which the Admiral and the Minister are held; and, worse, it would be bad for the morale of the defence services, both among those who agree and those who disagree with the minister or the Admiral.

There is some reason for hope in the fact that — if one goes by the statements of the Defence Minister — urgent attention is now going to be paid to the basic grievance of the heads of the three services that they have no role to play when decisions are taken about the highest matters of national security although they are more affected than most others are by the consequences of these decisions. This was the theme of the most important part of the Arun Singh Committee report, and, therefore, the prolonged neglect it has suffered is all the more unfortunate. Correspondingly, there is greater reason for some hope because of the statements by Mr Fernandes.

But there is skepticism on many counts. First, the overall quality of decision making has suffered a great deal since the days of Mr Arun Singh. Second, the mood has become more cantankerous among all parties to the controversy and the differences between them have become sharper. Third, the credibility of all parties — the political class, the civil service, the military services — has been badly hurt by recent controversies, particularly by the latest, in which no one has shown great rectitude. Therefore, even unanimous recommendations by them may not command the respect they must receive if they are to resolve this very intricate matter.

But, fourth, the matter itself has become more complicated. It was proving difficult enough to reconcile the conflicting claims of the three services. Now these have to be reconciled with the latest position taken by each of the three services: that while they have no problem with the supremacy of the political leadership of the Defence Ministry, they cannot accept that the Defence Secretary is also above them. This position runs counter to the operating principle of all ministries, including the Defence Ministry, that their operational head is the secretary, not the minister.

It is doubtful that all these intricate matters are going to get resolved satisfactorily by the deadline announced by Mr Fernandes, that is the end of January, and anything decided de novo within this short time may create more problems than it will solve. The only practicable alternative would be to use the widely praised Arun Singh Committee report as the base, modify it as may be unavoidable in the light of the change of circumstances since then, put it on trial for a limited period of time, and then review how it has worked. That is roughly what would happen to any new proposals as well, but at least the basis would be something which, as everyone agrees, has been better worked out and enjoys wider acceptability than anything rushed through in the present circumstances.

(The author, a former Editor of The Statesman, is a well-known political commentator.)

Thackeray’s last desperate move
by Rahul Singh

A time-tested principle for any politician who is in decline is for him to do, or say something, dramatic to get back on centre-stage. The more outrageous and attention-catching, the better. Mr Bal Thackeray, the head of the Shiv Sena, falls neatly into this category.

At one time, he used to inspire fear, mixed with a little respect. After all, his word could close down the commercial capital of the country. A lot of people in Mumbai, if not in the rest of Maharashtra, swore by him and by the party that he founded and commanded as its supremo, named after the redoubtable Maratha warrior, Shivaji.

Mr Thackeray also had a nice sense of humour and a certain charm. Even some of his detractors fell for his charm. He exerted a strange fascination. So much so that some editors and columnists often wrote in his praise, ignoring the fact that he has confessed that one of his great heroes was Adolf Hitler.

He was respected enough by the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) to forge an alliance between the two parties in Maharashtra. That alliance came to power during the last state poll in 1995 and still has a little over a year to go.

To be sure, the BJP-Sena victory was to a large extent due to the failure of the Congress party, which was widely perceived to be corrupt. The Maharashtra electorate clearly felt that it was time to give somebody else a chance, a feeling that was reflected in other parts of the country as well. I wonder what they feel now.

The fact of the matter is that the BJP-Sena Maharashtra government has been a non-performing one. None of the grandiose promises it made to the Maharashtra electorate when coming to power have even come close to being fulfilled. The vow to provide decent housing to four million slum-dwellers in Mumbai has not got off the ground.

The law and order problem in Mumbai is worse than it has ever been. Extortion has become common, with accusing fingers being pointed at the Shiv Sena. One Shiv Sena minister has been removed for corruption and a second one faces serious charges of graft. Even the Chief Minister, Mr Manohar Joshi, is himself embroiled over having unduly favoured a land developer, the Sahara group.

On some issues, there has been a complete somersault. The Enron power project was going to be thrown into the Arabian Sea, said the Sena before coming to power, because it was a corrupt deal in which the earlier Congress government had made illegal money. The allegations were never substantiated and the deal was re-negotiated on terms that were more favourable to Enron than earlier! When asked to explain, Mr Joshi declared that he had been misled by the Press! The man is a disaster.

He also happens to be the President of the Mumbai Cricket Association (MCA) and the Vice-President of the Board of Control for Cricket in India (BCCI). How he got himself elected to these two posts is another story, but one would have thought that at least he would have the interests of cricket at heart, particularly of Mumbai cricket. Think again.

His supremo, Mr Thackeray, has declared that he will not allow the forthcoming Pakistan cricket tour of India to take place, come what may. Following that announcement, Mumbai, the cradle of Indian cricket which has nurtured the likes of Sunil Gavaskar and Tendulkar, is struck off among the venues for matches between the Indian and Pakistani teams, thereby depriving the MCA of much-needed revenue.

But that does not satisfy Thackeray. His followers damage the Ferozeshah Kotla pitch in Delhi, where the first match is due to be played on January 28. He also issues a barely-veiled threat against Pakistani diplomats in India. Mr Joshi has no other option than to support his leader. Clearly, for him politics comes before cricket.

If that is indeed so, he should immediately resign both his cricketing posts. That is, if he has any self-respect and love for the game, which is a big if. A former Indian cricket captain, the respected Nari Contractor, has already gone on record, calling for his resignation. Others must do so, including Ajit Wadekar, another former and equally respected captain. Sadly, he had a hand in Mr Joshi’s appointment in the first place.

The vandals who dug up the Delhi Kotla pitch must also be punished, not only by a term in jail, but with hefty fines as well. After all, it is going to cost quite a bit of money to repair the pitch. That money must come from those vandals, or from Mr Thackeray, who goaded them to do the criminal act and then praised them for it. The courts should decide the punishment and the amount of the fine. That is the only way to teach such people a lesson.

Mr Thackeray knows that his Shiv Sena is going to be voted out of power in the next election in Maharashtra. He and his party have been a miserable failure. The threat against the cricket series is his last desperate throw of the hand.

The problems of Benazir Bhutto
From M.T. Butt in Islamabad

FORMER Prime Minister Benazir Bhutto is facing so many charges of corruption that she has at times been required to appear in hearings in two cities on the same day.

She had pleaded with Pakistan’s Supreme Court to have all the cases transferred to the Sind High Court in Karachi, where she makes her home base. Still, she must have counted her blessings when the court agreed to move a case from the Lahore High Court to the bench in Rawalpindi, where some other cases against her are currently being heard.

Bhutto and her husband, Asif Zardari, are involved in 20 court cases for alleged financial irregularities during her rule as Prime Minister from 1993 to 1996. “Not only I but everybody knows that I have been entangled in cases to force me out of politics,” Bhutto says.

“But the conspiracy will not succeed. What I am facing is classic victimisation by a fascist regime. The government has wasted $ 18 million from the public exchequer on my character assassination, but failed to dent my political position.”

This is challenged by Senator Saifur Rehman, chairman of the newly-established Ehtesab (accountability) cell, appointed in 1997 by Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif to investigate the Bhutto family’s dealings while in power.

“We have successfully laid hand on the loot and plunder of the Bhuttos, who will be sentenced by courts on the basis of solid evidence collected by us and produced in court,” says Rehman. “Allegations of political victimisation are baseless”.

He used corporate lawyers and detectives to investigate the Bhutto inside and outside Pakistan. Their efforts strengthened the government stance by unearthing secret accounts held in Switzerland by Zardari, Bhutto and her mother Begum Nusrat Bhutto. They are charged in Switzerland with allegedly depositing now-frozen “ill-gotten money”.

Rehman claims the investigations have led to the recovery of seven billion rupees from Pakistani businessmen, who in his words, took undue benefit by bribing the Bhuttos.

The Bhutto investigation is just the latest development in an almost medieval see-saw family feud.

When Bhutto was Prime Minister, her government instituted more than 100 cases against the Nawaz Sharif family’s industrial empire. Sharif’s 75-year-old father and his siblings were put behind bars on corruption charges. Banks were ordered to stop loans to the dynasty, resulting in the closure of family businesses and most of their factories.

However, Bhutto’s Government did not touch Sharif personally as he was not a director in any of the companies.

When Sharif reclaimed power in 1997, his government sacked several senior bureaucrats who worked closely with Bhutto. Some have testified against her in court.

Bhutto’s family life is tortured. Her husband has been in jail since November 6, 1996, the day her government fell. He is facing several charges, including masterminding the killing of her brother, Murtaza, who died in a police shoot-out in 1996.

“I was kept in jail by Nawaz Sharif for two years (during Sharif’s first term in government) and nothing was proved against me,” says Zardari. “Again, I will be out of prison when the present government goes and nothing will be proved against me as I have not committed any irregularity.”

Bhutto’s mother suffers from loss of memory because of a serious fall after the murder of her only son, the last surviving male of the Bhutto dynasty. She has since been under constant medical treatment in London.

Bhutto has enrolled her three small children in a Dubai school. She spends most of her time in Karachi, but visits Dubai to meet the children, London to inquire about her mother’s health, and the jail to see her husband. She spends whatever time is left in politics and attending court.

However, the government has now banned her from travelling abroad so she must do without the trips.

“At the moment, Ms Bhutto is entangled in corruption cases too much and the allegations of corruption have stuck,” says Dr Shirin Mazari, who edits the weekly magazine Pulse and teaches at the Quaid-e-Azam University in Islamabad.

“She stands thoroughly discredited in the public eye, and her political prospects have been highly damaged.”

Bhutto has brought together a multi-party anti-government alliance, including former government allies which changed camps for various reasons during the past year. However, most of these parties are not represented in Parliament.

Despite these alliances, militants from her own Pakistan People’s Party are demoralised and have yet to recover from the shock defeat in the 1997 general elections. The party’s performance in the recent local council elections in the major province of Punjab was dismal.

The government’s goal is to inflict further damage on Bhutto as soon as possible by getting her convicted on a corruption charge in Pakistan or elsewhere, ending her political career. But she may have found an ally in the judiciary. The judicial process in Pakistan is painstakingly slow: cases progress at a snail’s pace, often irking the government which wants speedy trials. — Gemini News.

Vietnam, India have historical links
By T.V. Rajeswar

VIETNAM, the south-east Asian nation of 79 million people, has the rare historic distinction of having successfully fought against China, France and the USA and remaining unscathed. After France surrendered in Dien Bien Phu in 1954, after a thoughtless attempt to reimpose its colonialism, the Americans willingly accepted the role of “saving Asia from communism.” By the time they finally fled Vietnam in April 1975, about 58,000 Americans were killed while the Vietnamese deaths were nearly three million. The USA had mobilised 6.5 million people who took turns in fighting and the US armed forces in Vietnam, at the height of hostilities, had reached half a million. Nearly eight million tons of bombs and 75 million litres of dioxin and other defoliants had been dropped over Vietnam. The cost of the war for the USA was $ 352 billion while the Korean War cost only $ 18 billion.

The defoliant attack was a ruthless environmental war, code-named Agent Orange, which began in 1961 and for the next nine years this deadly chemical was rained down from the planes, killing almost all plant life, flattening the jungle and laying bare the countryside. A recent study by a Canadian agency disclosed that the long-term toxic effect was still present in Vietnamese soil and nearly 70,000 people suffered from physical and mental disabilities. This “environmental genocide” embroiled the UN, the Geneva Protocol and the Hague Convention of 1907. The use of Agent Orange and its terrible legacy has left the US Government open to the charge of committing a war crime against the Vietnamese people and someday it may have to face it.

Throughout the entire Vietnam War, the USA had never formally declared war. North Vietnam, which emerged victorious and merged with the South to become the unified Vietnam in 1975. In his confessional “In Retrospect” published in April 1995, Robert McNamara, who was the principal architect of the Vietnam war, conceded that “we were wrong, terribly wrong. We owe it to future generations to explain why.” The admission was 20 years too late. After the Korean war in 1950 the Domino Theory gained considerable support in the USA, which believed that there was a worldwide communist conspiracy to overthrow one government after another by waging wars of liberation. The Americans saw France’s defeat at the hands of North Vietnam’s communists as a proof of this theory. Apart from McNamara, who was Secretary of State, McGeorge Bundy, considered as one of the best and the brightest intellectuals, was the National Security Adviser to Presidents Kennedy and Johnson. Bundy was also responsible for leading the USA into the Vietnam quagmire, and he had the arrogance to suggest that USA should threaten to use nuclear weapons in Vietnam, a prospect that was indeed seriously considered at one stage. Bundy also lived to realise his blunders until his death three years ago.

These days when apologies are demanded and are offered sometimes and refused sometimes for the various war crimes committed by nations, the USA has neither apologised for the Vietnam War and the terrible defoliants, nor paid any compensation. For its part, Vietnam had never demanded any apology or compensation from any of the nations who fought against it. When South Korean President Kim Dae Jung visited Vietnam recently, he voluntarily expressed his regret for his country’s alliance with the USA and fighting with them in Vietnam, but the Vietnamese authorities themselves did not raise the issue.

Vietnam has moved ahead of its war memories and its setbacks. It abandoned its Soviet style command-led system of economy and opted for “Doi Moi” - economic reforms. However, though officially announced the reforms were caught up in political wrangling between economic pragmatists and Communist Party stalwarts who are in power, a phenomenon which strongly resembles the happenings in India. Singapore’s senior minister Lee Kuan Yew, who is looked upon as an economic policy adviser by Vietnam, had urged that country that it should decisively move forward on the reform path. Vietnam has licensed hundreds of foreign projects with a combined capital of $ 31 billion. But as in India, there’s a long gap between theory and practice.

All the same, in less than 25 years after the prolonged and debilitating war which ended in 1975, Vietnam has already recorded appreciable progress. The country is self sufficient in food, and indeed a large exporter of rice. It has adequate power supply and the roads and communications are in good shape. A tally at the end of 1998 by the well known Asiaweek puts Vietnam ahead of India in many fundamentals: Vietnams per capita GDP is $ 1705, while India’s $ 1,680, GDP growth 8.8 per cent for Vietnam while India’s 5 per cent, and more importantly Vietnam’s literacy rate is 92 per cent whereas India’s is a mere 52 per cent.

India has had a 2000-year long association with this vibrant nation. The Cham kingdom was established by maritime traders and warriors from south India in the second century AD which lasted a thousand years and flourished along with the Srivijaya kingdom in the Java-Sumatra isles and the Angkor civilisation in Cambodia. The architectural remains in the Myson valley near Da Nang and the Cham museum in that city show the great cultural and civilisational influence which India wielded in those ancient times. A thousand years later, India played an active role in bringing about the Geneva Accord in 1954, in the wake of France’s defeat in Vietnam. The USA however sabotaged the accord which led by stages to the US war in Vietnam. At the height of the war, Prime Minister Indira Gandhi accorded recognition to Ho Chi Minh’s regime in 1972, ahead of many Afro-Asian countries and later sent technical and agricultural experts to help Vietnam emerge from the ravages of war. Jawaharlal Nehru and Ho Chi Minh had a personal relationship which is remembered in Vietnam.

75 YEARS AGO

Judge exceeds maximum powers

LUCKNOW: “Travelling for European and Indian ladies on the Indian Railways becomes highly dangerous, when such beasts as the accused are found prowling about the railway stations. In the interest of the general travelling public it is necessary to give exemplary punishment in this case, both as a warning to others and as a lesson to the accused himself whose conduct has been of a most revolting character.”

With that observation the Sessions Judge of Fyzabad sentenced to 10 years’ rigorous imprisonment under each of the Sections 307 (attempt to murder) and 397 (robbery or dacoity with attempt to cause death), both sentences to run consecutively, Muhammad Yusuff for a cruel assault on a helpless lady. The lady was Miss Teresa Alva, an Anglo-Indian nurse.

Against this sentence Muhammad Yussuff, the accused, made an appeal which was taken up by the Judicial Commissioner for Oudh. He found the accused guilty of both the charges and dismissed the appeal, but reduced the sentences to 7 years’ rigorous imprisonment under each count, both sentences being in excess of the maximum period of 14 years as laid down by Section 35(2) Proviso (A) of the Code of criminal Procedure.