Tragedy gets ugly twist
THE brutal murder of Mr Palvai Purushottam Rao, the sitting Sirpur MLA (Independent) and now a Telugu Desam Party (TDP) Lok Sabha poll candidate, is deplorable for several reasons. The incident shows the violent sway of killer Naxalites in Telengana districts.

Lalita is not Lolita
IT is not difficult to understand why the alleged abuse of Lalita Oraon, the maid servant of Paris-based Indian diplomat Amrit Lugun, is making headlines in the West.

PAKISTAN AGAIN AT THE CROSSROADS
India should control dialogue impulse
by Hari Jaisingh
IS the Pakistan army planning a takeover of power again? Looking at its track record, one cannot dismiss such fears, although this is unlikely to happen at this juncture. The army has ruled over Pakistan for 24 out of the past 50 years. The fundamentalists and feudal elements have been its main support base. In recent years it has preferred to rule over the country indirectly through its well-knit control mechanism over the civil administration and the political system.

Contours of genuine cooperation
by Amar Chandel
THE visit of the Foreign Minister, Mr Jaswant Singh, to Nepal from September 8 to 11 in the midst of an election was haunted by the “caretaker” status of his government. Under the circumstances, it is rather amazing that quite a bit of forward movement was possible during these four days.

Cost of trampling on pluralistic ethos
By M.S.N. Menon
A COUNTRY in perpetual fever, men in continuous delirium — this is the portrait of Indonesia. It happens to be our neighbour-close to the Andamans — as also a rival. The present fever is over East Timor, once a Portuguese colony, annexed by Indonesia and now on the way to become independent.

Voice chat rooms are born
WASHINGTON: There’s always been one major problem with Internet chat rooms: no one ever chatted. Instead, everyone typed...and then waited for a response. But suddenly, all that has changed. Internet search engines excite (www.excite.com) and Yahoo (www.yahoo.com) have unveiled new “voice chat” features on their web sites.

In the garb of election code
by Shriniwas Joshi
I DO not know what has gone wrong with our work culture. People simply do not work. I have been watching these labourers down below for the past half an hour — they are sitting idle and smoking bidis”, the Bada Sahib made a comment standing behind the huge glasspane of his office window through which penetrated the comforting warmth of the sun on a wintry afternoon.

75 Years Ago

Communal Riot in Kohat
PESHAWAR: Communal rioting broke out at Kohat city on the afternoon of September 17 and continued until nightfall.

Tragedy gets ugly twist

THE brutal murder of Mr Palvai Purushottam Rao, the sitting Sirpur MLA (Independent) and now a Telugu Desam Party (TDP) Lok Sabha poll candidate, is deplorable for several reasons. The incident shows the violent sway of killer Naxalites in Telengana districts. The electoral atmosphere has been vitiated by this apparently political killing. Mr Purushottam Rao was never a target of the Naxalites. In fact, he was known for his soft attitude to the People’s War Group (PWG) and had a close relative in its ranks. He was a grassrootlevel politician, well-known for raising rural problems and issues in the State Assembly. Farmers had reposed their faith in him; he was the Chairman of the Primary Agricultural Cooperative Society for quite some time. The PWG’s fatal attack on him comes close on the heels of the murder of Assistant Inspector-General of Police (Sports and Welfare) Umesh Chandra in the heart of the state capital on September 4, the gunning down of Sub-Inspector M. Satish on September 10 and the killing of five policemen in the Medak district on September 13. Mr Purushottam Rao (46) was engaged in principled campaigning and those who took his life approached him in a cowardly manner, deceitfully wearing badges of the TDP. Naxalites, claiming to be practitioners of Maoist Communism in India, had taken a pro-poor and defiant stand while justifying their violent ways. Now they have stooped to the level of crude terrorism and are often used by politicians as an instrument of fear. The Telengana belt, in which the Adilabad constituency falls, is seething with Naxalites. The small town of Sirpur, where Mr Purushottam Rao was killed in his election office, gave people the freedom to come and meet their candidate. Security was not lacking but the killers had their way. Chief Minister N.Chandrababu Naidu has accused the Congress of joining hands with Naxalites and attempting to “unleash a reign of terror in the state,” especially at poll-time. He has also stated that the Congress is making “a frontal bid to grab power”. He has talked of lifting the ban on Naxalite outfits unwisely during the Congress regime. But there will be few takers for his various allegations which are aimed at creating a sympathy wave for his party. Did the Congress incite the state’s Naxalites to annihilate policemen? Has the law and order situation deteriorated all of a sudden? There is no proof of any political party joining hands with the extremists. While the law should take its own course to identify and punish the guilty, the government should not shirk its responsibility to wipe out Naxal terrorism.

Dr M.Channa Reddy lifted the ban on the PWG, talking of peaceful struggles, and not violent acts, to solve the people’s problems. There is a war between the police and the Naxalites in which the latter have the upper hand at the moment. “Fake police encounters” have failed to improve the situation. The only way out of the situation marked by blood and gore seems to be the initiation of the process of political dialogue with the Naxalites through the leaders of their major groups. Mr N. Janardhana Reddy, who succeeded Dr Channa Reddy as Chief Minister, had worked on such a proposition but, unfortunately, he could not succeed. Mr Chandrababu Naidu will not gain much by indulging in rhetorical mudslinging. The Congress has alleged that the TDP had sent thousands of outsiders for proxy voting in the first two phases of the election. The Election Commission has shown sufficient firmness by deciding to go through the third phase in a resolute manner. But the Union Government must ensure that whatever has happened at Sirpur would not happen elsewhere in the poll’s third phase or later! The TDP and the Congress should exercise verbal restraint in the interest of democracy. Attention should be turned to criminalised areas of heavily populated Uttar Pradesh and Bihar. This is the lesson from Sirpur. The Naxalites used to be thought of as Maoist Communists. Now they are bunches of vandals and terrorists! Bereft of leadership, they have forgotten their creed— “a relentless war for bringing about social, economic and political change in pockets of exploitation.”

Lalita is not Lolita

IT is not difficult to understand why the alleged abuse of Lalita Oraon, the maid servant of Paris-based Indian diplomat Amrit Lugun, is making headlines in the West. The French authorities are primarily responsible for allowing the incident to be blown up into a major controversy by the western media. The French Press is free to meet the maid in the hospital where she is receiving treatment. But the Indian media has been refused permission to get the story of her “torture” by her employers. It is an absurd restriction not only because it goes against the universally accepted principle of freedom of the Press. It is absurd also because Lalita is from an impoverished and backward region of Bihar and would logically have had difficulty in interacting with the French media, in unfamiliar surroundings in a foreign land, even with the help of an interpreter. The western media has sensationalised the incident by seeing in the plight of Lalita the story of “Lolita”. The unverified sexual abuse angle has been played up not to inform readers but to show Indians as sex-hungry friends. The reason why the story has evidently been blown out of proportion can be explained. In the Indian version of a similar incident Lalita’s age would have been immaterial for her to seek employment as domestic help in any Indian home on terms which the West would see as proof of practising slavery. Although there are Indian laws against child labour, parents from poor families force their children into virtual slavery — the more popular Indian expression is bonded labour. An opportunity to work in a foreign country, even as domestic help, is a bonus for the impoverished family of an exploited child like Lalita. Like most normal children, Lalita too was, perhaps, missing home. She was found loitering on September 5 by a man who looked to be an Indian.

The man took her to the police which, in turn, informed an anti-slavery group. She was sent to a convent where she should logically have been given better treatment than she was getting at her Indian employer’s home. She was still unhappy not because she was being ill-treated in the convent but because she was homesick. The French authorities should be asked by the Ministry of External Affairs to explain why she tried to end her life by jumping out of a room in the convent. The response of the French anti-slavery group is based on its ignorance of the ground realities in India. An incident which would most certainly have been treated as a routine experience of most middle class families in India was turned into an anti-slavery issue by the French media. Mr Lugun is a young and promising career diplomat. It was his bad luck that he happened to get caught doing what is considered unacceptable social conduct by the West. The Ministry of External Affairs would look stupid if it were to reveal the ugly Indian reality to the French authorities for bailing out Mr Lugun. The most tragic aspect of the unsavoury episode is that it does not seem to have a silver lining. Children would continue to be exploited in India in spite of laws against child labour. And Indian diplomats are not likely to become more cautious in taking under-age children from impoverished families as domestic servants during their foreign posting. The Indian system of exploitation works on the law of probability. Under this law there is one in a million chance of another Lalita running away from her Indian employer in a foreign land for the world to get to know that she is not the only child in and from India who is exploited by an insensitive class of people for the fault of having been born poor.

PAKISTAN AGAIN AT THE CROSSROADS
India should control dialogue impulse

by Hari Jaisingh

IS the Pakistan army planning a takeover of power again? Looking at its track record, one cannot dismiss such fears, although this is unlikely to happen at this juncture. The army has ruled over Pakistan for 24 out of the past 50 years. The fundamentalists and feudal elements have been its main support base. In recent years it has preferred to rule over the country indirectly through its well-knit control mechanism over the civil administration and the political system. This makes the democratic polity vulnerable, though the current strategic environment may not be conducive to a military take-over.

Whatever might be the official claims on Kargil for domestic consumption, the ill-conceived intrusion across the Line of Control (LoC) in Kashmir has certainly upset the calculations of the military establishment there. It has exposed the Pakistan Army’s dubious role in promoting terrorism in close collaboration with Islamic fundamentalists and Afghan mercenaries. In the circumstances, it has no choice but to lie low for the present.

Internal problems apart, even Islamabad’s traditional supporters, the USA included, have now a different worldview. They are unlikely to endorse any new adventure by the army.

Gen Mirza Aslam Beg (retd), an outspoken soldier, has traced the fears of an army intervention to the serious threats posed by the combined opposition. Perhaps he apprehends chaos and a general breakdown of law and order in Pakistan.

Gen Beg believes that some foreign powers are behind the present crisis. Who can it be? The United States? It is difficult to pinpoint. But the fact remains that there are many things in Pakistan which Washington does not like.

There is no doubt that the Nawaz Sharif government has squandered the people’s trust it had won during last general election. Today, the entire opposition is united in a “grand alliance” to bring down the government. It has also planned a public rally on September 17, followed by a three-day strike. If these moves prove ineffective, it may call for a week-long bandh. These are surely signs of incipient anarchy.

Mercifully, the Pakistani authorities have shown some signs of flexibility. They have already released a number of opposition activists, though the Prime Minister at one stage declared strikes as “terrorists acts”.

Mr Sharif is a man under great stress. Will he be able to withstand pressures from the hawks and come out of the present crisis?

We will have to wait and watch. Mr Nawaz Sharif is a shrewd manipulator of men and events. He can also be highly deceptive in hiding his real intentions. He knows how and when to strike. All the same, his calculations in recent months have gone haywire.

Ironically, Mr Sharif is no longer trusted by those very forces, including the USA and China, which once supported him. The signals are clear. Perhaps Mr Sharif should do some soul-searching and learn from the mistakes of his predecessors. Mere India-bashing can hardly take him anywhere. Policy-makers in Islamabad should also realise that promoting terrorism and Islamic fundamentalism will be counter-productive in today’s world.

People do not live by religion alone. There are other ingredients which are equally vital to life. Unfortunately, the Pakistani leadership has a one-track mind. Its entire global perspective revolves around “hate India”. But has Islamabad been able to achieve anything in turn? Its negative policies, aiding and abetting terrorism and the proxy war have only brought on its people untold miseries and sufferings besides disenchanting its old time allies in Washington.

The moot point now is: does the USA want to dethrone Mr Sharif? This is a difficult question to answer. The Americans have their own plans and calculations.

It may be wrong to assume that Washington is interested in foisting a military regime on Pakistan again. In any case, the army will not dare stage a coup at this time when neither the USA nor China is likely to support it. Even Saudi Arabia is unlikely to oppose American decisions.

Of course, the USA and China will ask Pakistan to check the Taliban. This is indeed the basic issue. This is, however, not a simple proposition. There are wheels within wheels. If Mr Sharif decides to crack down on the Taliban, the Islamic fundamentalist outfits will hit back ruthlessly. This may even create a civil war-like situation. In either case, the position of Mr Sharif is precarious. His survival will depend on how he plays his cards.

Mr Sharif was, of course, expected to recover the lost ground in Kargil by mounting an attack on India at the UN General Assembly session, which began on September 14. The session will continue for a month. It is now reported that Mr Sharif will not go to America. Perhaps his Foreign Minister will. This is apparently because of the present crisis in Pakistan which threatens the very survival of his regime. Or could it be that his decision is prompted by the fact that Mr Vajpayee is staying away from the UN session?

It is Islamabad’s claim that Kargil has brought Kashmir under international focus. That is true; but it has only exposed Pakistan. For the first time, the world has viewed Pakistan’s dubious games closely. It has been isolated in the international community. Even China and Muslim countries were reluctant to support it openly. Indeed, Islamabad today has been exposed as an instigator of terrorism and the proxy war against India. Pakistan will no doubt try to show itself as a victim of Indian intransigence. But there are not many takers for Pakistan’s lies.

During the past few years, India had chosen to ignore the snippings of Pakistan at the UN sessions. Both Mr Narasimha Rao and Mr I.K. Gujral as Foreign Ministers refused to be provoked. This time, India will have to respond in kind. There is growing evidence of Pakistan’s involvement in Islamic militancy all over the world. The latest is Dagestan. The Russian press has published stories about hundreds of Islamic fundamentalists from Pakistan fighting along with Chechen rebels who have already occupied part of Dagestan. Russian Home Minister Vladmir Rushailo has directly accused Pakistan of aiding and abetting terrorism in his country. Russia is bound to hammer these points at the UN.

Issues do not get internationalised just by sensational acts. Kargil was a sensational act. But only when a great power has interest in an issue will it become international. There was a time when both the USA and the UK were interested in Kashmir. This is no longer the case. For the present, the USA does not seem to have much interest in internationalising the Kashmir issue. Further evidence of it was provided by the State Department spokesman James Rubin. He warned the media against seeing a parallel between Kashmir and East Timor.

Pakistan is in no position to defy Washington. It is very close to an economic collapse. It opened up its economy earlier than India and yet its growth has fallen to 3 per cent, while that of India now stands around 7.5 per cent. Similarly, foreign investment has dried up in the case of Pakistan because the institutions which protected foreign investment have broken down. The stock market has almost ceased to function. Matters have reached such a pass that the business community refused to pay tax and went on strike!

Though New Delhi should have an open mind on the resumption of dialogue with Islamabad, it need not be over-anxious about it. It should, however, make it clear to the Sharif government that there can be no meaningful bilateral talks unless Pakistan stops its proxy war against India. Instead of curbing Islamic militants, Pakistan seems to be taking full advantage of them for its own nefarious purposes. We must make it clear to Pakistan that it has to pay a price for unleashing the Taliban on this country.

India is a mute witness of the Pakistan denouement. It can do little to influence the events. But when sense dawns on the hotheads of Pakistan, India will be ready for a dialogue. Not till then. In any case, we will have to wait for the installation of a new government in New Delhi.

Contours of genuine cooperation
by Amar Chandel

THE visit of the Foreign Minister, Mr Jaswant Singh, to Nepal from September 8 to 11 in the midst of an election was haunted by the “caretaker” status of his government. Under the circumstances, it is rather amazing that quite a bit of forward movement was possible during these four days. In fact, the useful interaction that took place may lead to the clearing of the old logjam to a considerable extent.

The talks were wide-ranging but the main focus was on the alarming growth of terrorist activities in recent days. The 1,800-km Indo-Nepal border poses a peculiar problem not normally found anywhere else in the world. There is an almost free movement of men and material across the boundary, in keeping with the age-old tradition. Pakistani agents have treated this facility as a god-send opportunity and have been furthering their nefarious agenda. Most of the ISI operatives caught recently were found to have sneaked in through this route. Most of the RDX explosive consignments have also been landing here via Nepal.

While this menace is well known in India, there is little appreciation here that Nepal is also troubled by the gross misuse of the open border. Many of the Maoist insurgents have been using Indian territory as a safe haven after committing various crimes in Nepal. The task of allowing unrestricted movement to the common people and at the same time nipping the mischief of the terrorists is nothing less than a nightmare for the security agencies.

For record purposes this goal is to be accomplished by simplifying the extradition procedures and concluding an understanding on mutual legal assistance in criminal matters. The dormant Indo-Nepal Joint Commission is also sought to be revived.

But in reality, an entirely different, refreshing method of maintaining the “facility of openness” for everyone except the inimical interests is learnt to have been finalised. This entails bringing about integrated development of the border zone. The extreme poverty in the area facilitates the task of the mischief-makers. The forging of better economic relationship has been identified as an effective bulwark against terrorism. The realisation that there was no other solution to the problem was there earlier also but recent incidents have given a renewed urgency to this pragmatism. The export promotion zones to be developed at Birganj, Bhairwah, Biratnagar and Nepalganj will be the kingpin of this new policy.

If one major outcome of the visit has to be identified, it was the success of Mr Jaswant Singh in studiously avoiding a patronising attitude. The large size of India willy-nilly gives it a Big Brother image which has hampered the development of closer bonds. Mr Jaswant Singh went out of his way to allay fears on this count. “Age-old traditional ties” is a much used and misused cliché but it is very much true in the case of India and Nepal. Despite various irritants, both have tremendous reservoirs of goodwill for each other. They can indeed develop a meaningful relationship that can be a model for international cooperation in the entire sub-continent.

In this respect, the spurt in terrorism has been a blessing in disguise. Both countries have been jolted to the reality that they just have to iron out their mutual differences if they have to triumph over the common enemy. That is why both displayed refreshing flexibility even on vexed problems such as the 35-hectare Kalapani enclave which has been a perennial bone of contention. The area lying on the tri-junction of India, Nepal and China is claimed by both countries and has caused tremendous harm to the relations. Both have now directed their joint expert group to expedite work on the demarcation of the boundary.

As said earlier, the overall focus of the talks in Kathmandu was on utilising economic relationship for better understanding. Nepal has tremendous hydro-electricity potential, which India can tap. In fact, power can become Nepal’s biggest export. The greatly delayed 6000-MW Pancheshwar project will now be taken up on priority. India has contracted to purchase the entire power generation. Similarly, field studies for the 2000-MW Saptakoshi project are to be expedited. One new feature is that the private sector will be involved in a big way in developing small and medium sized power plants.

The Indo-Nepal Intra-Government Committee is to meet in the next three months to promote trade, facilitate transit and control unauthorised trade between the two countries.

Perennial floods are the undoing of both India and Nepal during the monsoon. The Joint Task Force (JTF) has been asked to submit its recommendations within six months on flood control and forecasting in a comprehensive manner.

The presence of around 48,000 Nepalese in the Indian Army provides perhaps the most effective adhesive between the two countries. This is sought to be transfixed even further by making arrangements for better medical facilities for them and their families. The inauguration of the Rs 80-crore 350-bed B.P.Koirala Institute of Health Sciences at Dharan, a school for children of Nepalese ex-servicemen in the Indian Army and the neo-natal and maternal intensive care units at the Maternity Hospital in Kathmandu that have come up with Indian assistance are all steps in that direction.

In the garb of election code
by Shriniwas Joshi

I DO not know what has gone wrong with our work culture. People simply do not work. I have been watching these labourers down below for the past half an hour — they are sitting idle and smoking bidis”, the Bada Sahib made a comment standing behind the huge glasspane of his office window through which penetrated the comforting warmth of the sun on a wintry afternoon. It was different that busy in this “viewing exercise”, the Boss himself had been enjoying the puffs of fags from the pack of Bensen and Hedges that his junior had brought for him while returning from a foreign hop taken in public interest.

A couple of years back there was hubbub in Mumbai that a Secretary of a Department got a file stealthily signed by a Minister at midnight. Immediately the bureaucracy came to his rescue saying that the secretary concerned enjoyed the reputation of seldom showing the light of the day to the files put up to him. And that to doubt that he could do something when “empress of silence, and the queen of sleep” reigned over Maharashtra was sheer cock and bull.

Meschhi-mara kerani’ (fly-swatting officials) was coined to describe government officials in Bengal because they preferred doing not more than that. The tribe, today, exists in almost all the states and so do the dust gathering files and the flies too in offices. There is no paucity of work for them. A requisition of fly-swatters need to be placed with the Drawing and Disbursing Officers concerned.

A dear colleague of mine had, once, confessed. “We come into motion when we have to draw advance from our G.P. Fund or plead our case for seniority or attractive posting or something concerning us, otherwise we are like tortoise — reach office, get turned upside down, stay motionless and come back to our feet at five in the evening to return home.”

The above mentioned instances confirm that the doctor prescribing “Rest or Government Service” to a convalescing patient was, after all, not totally wrong.

The Election Code of Conduct, whenever it comes into operation, helps the babudom because the provisions of the Code are so interpreted by it that it adds to its state of inertia. Tennyson’s “Why should we toil, the roof and crown of things?” becomes more apparent then. The TV news report about a seriously ill pregnant elephant who had been languishing in a government-owned park and required immediate medical treatment in Lucknow zoo was one such example. The officials were shirking to shift the animal to Lucknow because it involved transfer which was banned by the Election Code. They said: “The transfer laws applicable to government employees were equally applicable to elephants too.” Remember, pachyderms in UP are eligible to draw pension when they retire from the government service. Courtesy, the then Chief Minister Ms Mayawati of BSP which has elephant as its symbol.

The Britishers had made Simla the capital of India to do “more work in one day here compared to five in Calcutta” or any station in the plains. So this tiny hill state of Himachal Pradesh can give a lesson to the babudom of UP we ‘adjust’ officials and not ‘transfer’ them during the period the Election Code remains in force. We know that “invention is the mother of necessity”. Over to you, big brother.

Cost of trampling on pluralistic ethos
By M.S.N. Menon

A COUNTRY in perpetual fever, men in continuous delirium — this is the portrait of Indonesia. It happens to be our neighbour-close to the Andamans — as also a rival.

The present fever is over East Timor, once a Portuguese colony, annexed by Indonesia and now on the way to become independent.

What is the cause celebre? Simply this, that the East Timorese, who belong to a different ethnic group and are predominantly Christian (Roman Catholic), want to be free from Indonesia. About 80 per cent of them voted for separation in a recent UN referendum.

East Timor was occupied by Indonesia in 1975. But because a Marxist movement in East Timor threatened to make East Timor a “Cuba of the East”, the USA and Australia persuaded the military rulers of Indonesia to take over East Timor. The Timorese protested. The UN never recognised the arrangement. The Timorese naturally fought back.

Indonesia is not an attractive country: it has never been a democracy. It is Muslim, intolerant of its minorities — the Chinese and Christians. As an archipelago of 5,000 islands comprising the Javanese, Moluccans, Dayaks and Chinese, the country should have gone for federalism, but it is an extremely centralised state with little autonomy. The authorities want to impose uniformity in a country of such wide diversity. One country, one people, one language — this has been the cry. And the language — Bahasa — was made up of words picked up from every dialect. Why should the East Timorese agree to remain within this Indonesian state where there is no respect for the minorities?

Some of the mediamen have compared Kashmir to East Timor. This is mischief. “Kashmir is not East Timor”, says James Rubin, the US State Department spokesman. Good that it has come from the US government. There is really no comparison. Kashmir has been a part of India and enjoys autonomy. It has its own culture — Kashmiriyat. It is part of a democratic country with a federal system. And, above all, India is a secular country, which is home to all religions, and as Saeed Naqvi, a distinguished Indian commentator says: “Indian secularism protects the world’s second largest Muslim population, of which Kashmir is a part.”

Indonesia is the third largest country in Asia after China and India, as well as the largest Muslim state in the world. It has vast resources, which is what prompted it to contest India’s claim for a permanent seat in the UN Security Council. Shows how irrational it can be. That is why we should know more of this country.

Men who ruled over Indonesia were not Ho Chi Minhs: they were lesser men and lived by slogans. And Sukarno, the first President, provides the supreme example. He was a good orator, but a rabble rouser.

The 1955 Bandung Conference of the nonaligned was perhaps the greatest event in the life of Indonesia. Then nemesis struck. Indonesia moved into the orbit of China. This was resented by the army and, of course, by the Americans, who had set up SEATO to prevent Chinese expansion into S.E. Asia. But it gave a boost to Indonesian Communism. It was closer to China than to the Indian Communists!

Sukarno replaced democracy with “guided democracy” (Nasakom). And he started a great confrontation with Malaysia. This led to Indonesia’s isolation in S.E. Asia and estrangement from India. Sukarno moved closer to China. Friendship with China was a disaster. It led to Indonesia’s withdrawal from the UN and the quixotic plan to find a new body in competition to the UN. A truly Tuglaqian project! Soon, Indonesia put on the crusader’s mantle to fight neo-colonialism as a junior partner of China. Slogans abounded by the hundreds. Indonesia saw before it myriads of goblins threatening its future. All these made it a laughing stock in the world.

Friendship with China led to friendship with Pakistan. It was an alliance of opportunism, mainly to spite India. All the time, economic problems were neglected. To cover up this failure, grandiose schemes were floated to hoodwink the people. It even made a declaration that it was about to make the atom bomb!

Enough was enough! The Americans instigated a military coup. In that event, about 80,000 Communists lost their head. Only Pol Pot can claim a “better” record.

The Indonesian political parties are products of Muslim revivalism, funded and inspired by the Arab elements in Indonesian society. (The main task of Arabs is to purge Indonesian culture of its pre-Islamic influence.) As the various parties could not come to power on their own, they sought army support. This is how the Indonesian army got politicised.

For this, one can only blame the way the country chose to oust the Dutch. It took the path of violence. So, when the war against the Dutch was over, the militias were disbanded. But they reformed as “veteran organisations”, another name for militias. There were 200 of them. The largest served the Communists. The “veterans” hired themselves out to whoever wanted their services. They became such a nuisance that General Nausition (a Christian) banned all but one. But they refused to die. Today these militias have a hand in massacre of the East Timorese.

In the meantime, the Japanese-trained army joined the Sumatran rebels in the 1958 revolt. They were anti-Communist, whereas the army based in Java was influenced by the Communists.

In the absence of any tradition, the army saw no specific role for itself, and became prone to factionalism. How to keep the army engaged became a major preoccupation of the politicians. “Liberation” of West Irian and confrontation with Malaysia helped. Sutan Sjahrir created an army of his own and put it under the Cabinet. Yet another leader, Defence Minister, Sjarifuddin played havoc with the army discipline. In the Sukarno Cabinet, one-fourth of the posts were held by the army. Thus a stage was set for the confrontation between the Communists and the army. In this struggle, Sukarno played one against the other.

The 1965 October coup by General Suharto was inevitable. And the Americans moved bag and baggage into Indonesia for a long haul. Indonesia is rich in oil and minerals. Oil came to the rescue of the paupered state. But Indonesia was not able to husband its new-found riches properly. So when the recent S.E. Asia economic crisis struck, Indonesia fell like nine pins. Inflation reached sky-high. Indonesia’s recovery depends on the USA — on the IMF and World Bank. And the USA is not going to make it smooth, for while other countries are slowly recovering, Indonesia continues to wallow in the mire. It has other plans. It wants to sever East Timor from Indonesia. Perhaps it will become a new American base in the east — a new Diego Garcia, facing Asia’s underbelly.

As for Indonesia, the economic crisis will continue; the fever will continue; the convulsions will continue and the army games will continue. And the militia will get hired by killers of all sorts.

Voice chat rooms are born

WASHINGTON: There’s always been one major problem with Internet chat rooms: no one ever chatted. Instead, everyone typed...and then waited for a response.

But suddenly, all that has changed. Internet search engines excite (www.excite.com) and Yahoo (www.yahoo.com) have unveiled new “voice chat” features on their web sites. With voice chat, Internet users who have computers equipped with a sound card, speakers and microphone can actually talk to others the world over in real time, without delay.

The two search engines are among the first of what are expected to be many sites that will offer true voice-based Internet chat services. Hearme.com (www.hearme.com), for example, is a new site that was established solely for live voice chats and already has a substantial following. In the case of Excite and Yahoo, the chat services currently in operation are free, supported by banner advertisements that appear at the top of the screen.

Already, people from all over the world are logging on to discuss such subjects as world politics, sports, literature and, as you might imagine, sex.

“This is really cool”, Mr Tim Burns, a resident of Alberta, Canada, told the DPA. Although voice chat is still relatively new, Mr Burns has logged on to the Excite voice chat board every day for the past week and has already developed a group of online friends.

“Chatting with voice is so much more personal. It opens up the Internet in a completely new way,” Mr Burns said.

Excite and Yahoo have made the experience of voice chats very easy.

In both cases, users must first register with the service, providing a name and location and then selecting an online name, or “handle.” At Excite, users then choose a chat topic from a drop-down list. To speak, Windows users hold down the control key and Macintosh users hold down the option key.

Excite allows its voice chat participants to engage in private, one-on-one conversations, as well. In addition to promoting intimacy, one-on-one voice chats can be used as a replacement for the telephone — allowing users who live far away from one another to bypass long-distance phone companies and talk cheaply over the Internet.

Those who frequent voice chat rooms are quickly realising that communicating with complete strangers by voice carries with it a different set of rules — advantages as well as disadvantages — than does communicating through typing.

“It’s actually a bit more difficult for most people to know what to say in a voice chat room,” Ms Nancy Hairston, a Massachusetts resident, told DPA. “A lot of people are afraid at first — they would type certain things that they would never allow themselves to say.”

But Ms Hairston, who, like many others, is still experimenting with the technology, believes that voice chatting will catch on.

“I’ve been participating in traditional chat rooms for some time now. But with voice, you get people’s emotions which otherwise never come out,” Ms Hairston said, adding, I like it very much.”

The quality of Internet voice chats can vary widely depending upon the quality of the Internet connections of the chat’s participants. Sending voice over the Internet and receiving it simultaneously requires a fair amount of bandwidth, so those with at least a 56k modem tend to have the best experience. In addition, even when participants are connected to the net with high-speed modems, chat rooms filled with more than about 10 persons can quickly become too crowded.

The future of real-time voice communications over the Internet, though, is bound to be bright, say experts.

75 YEARS AGO

Sept 17, 1924
Communal Riot in Kohat

PESHAWAR: Communal rioting broke out at Kohat city on the afternoon of September 17 and continued until nightfall. It started again on the morning of the 18th but was completely suppressed in the afternoon.

Military assistance was asked for and given and strong reserves of the police and constabulary have been drafted into the city which is now quiet and well under control.

The Hindu inhabitants, at their own request, have been evacuated from the city. As far as is known, some fifteen persons have been killed.

The bad characters of the city unfortunately took the opportunity of starting many fires with the result that large portions of the Saddar Bazar and the Hindu Mohalla have been burnt down. The efforts of the authorities to protect the minority are said to have been greatly hampered by the panic among the latter who used firearms freely and indiscriminately and wounded a number of police officials in uniform who went to their assistance.