NEW LAW TARGETS MAOIST SUPPORTERS IN INDIA
India’s Home Ministry has announced it will impose a fine and a sentence of as much as 10 years in prison for anyone supporting the increasingly deadly and widespread Maoist insurgency. A statement by the Home Ministry reads: “Any person who commits the offence of supporting such a terrorist organization (like Communist Party if India [Maoist]) with inter alia intention to further t he activities of such terrorist organizations would be liable to be punished with imprisonment for a term not exceeding 10 years or with a fine or with both.” The government has in the past expressed concern that some leftwing non-profit groups and purported human rights organizations have supported or provided cover for the Maoists. (Times of India May 6, 2010)
AFGHAN CIVILIANS PAY WAR TOLL
Civilians appear to be paying the heaviest cost of the war in Afghanistan, according to a statistics from the National Counterterrorism Center, with 7,000 killed and injured in Afghanistan in 2009 and 8,600 killed and injured in Pakistan, increases of 44 percent and 30 percent respectively. Terror attacks in Pakistan jumped from 1,800 in 2008 to 1,900 in 2009 while suicide bombings more than doubled from 2007, rising from 40 to 84. In Afghanistan, the number of attacks surged from 1,200 in 2008 to 2,100 in 2009. (CBS News April 28 2010)
OUTREACH TO BURMA FALTERS
A concerted effort by the Obama administration to improve relations with Burma after years of
isolation, has proven a “profoundly disappointing,” leading to the extension of U.S. sanctions on the military junta in Naypyidaw. A number of high-ranking U.S. officials, including Senator Jim Webb (D-Virginia) and Assistant Secretary of State for East Asia and the Pacific, Kurt Cambell, have visited Burma in the hopes of opening a new dialogue with the regime there. However, the administration has been discouraged by the junta’s unfolding plans for the first national election to be held since 1991 – a ballot few westerners expect to be free or fair. The regime continues to imprison the chairwoman of the primary opposition party, Aung San Suu Kyi while her party, the National League for Democracy (NLD) was officially dissolved in May for missing a registration deadline. The Obama administration has noted that the Burmese regime continues to target ethnic minorities and is concerned by reports that Burma is working on a nuclear weapons program with North Korean assistance. (Asia Times May 18, 2010)
NEW REPORT CONDEMNS ISI LINKS TO TALIBAN
The London School of Economics has published a report by a Harvard Fellow alleging that Pakistan’s military intelligence agency, the ISI, maintains deep and extensive links to the Taliban. The accusation is hardly novel: western intelligence agencies, government officials, and analysts have accused the ISI of connections with the Afghan Taliban for years. However, the report, authored by Matt Waldman, who worked in Afghanistan for two and a half years for Oxfam, adds to the bulging indictment sheet against the ISI and renewed calls in Congress for greater oversight of U.S. aid to Pakistan. Waldman interviewed “nine Taliban field commanders and ten former senior Taliban officials, as well as Afghan elders and politicians, foreign diplomats and security officials.” The report concludes that support for the Afghan Taliban is “official ISI policy” supported by at the highest levels by Pakistan’s civilian government. “There is thus a strong case that the ISI orchestrates, sustains and shapes the overall insurgent campaign… without a change in Pakistani behavior It will be difficult if not impossible for international forces and the Afghan Government to make progress against the insurgency.” (London Times June 14, 2010)
INDIA HAS AN EYE ON SCO EXPANSION
India appears to be shaking off its former ambivalence about the Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO) at a time when the international body seen by some as a counterweight to NATO has revised its rules for accepting new members. Those revisions were agreed to at a June 11 summit in Tashkent, the Uzbek capital, in which the organization pledged to increase cooperation on fighting terrorism, renewed a commitment to a nuclear-free zone in Central Asia, and warned against the unrestricted deployment of anti-missile systems. The group also called fro stabilizing Kyrgyzstan, which has been shaken by civil unrest months after an April 6-7 coup. Led by China and Russia, the SCO includes full members Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan, and Uzbekistan, as well as observer countries Mongolia, Pakistan, Iran and India. The Times of India belives “India and Pakistan are expected to be inducted as members, [but] Iran might lose out because of UN sanctions owing to Tehran’s nuclear programme.” (Times of India June 1, 2010; Xinhua June 11, 2010)