SACW | Feb 28, 2007 South Asia: anti terror laws; Afghanistan Impasse; India: Pogrom in Gujarat, 5 years on

[Harsh Kapoor]

South Asia Citizens Wire  | February 28, 2007 | Dispatch No. 2368 - Year 9

[1]  Eminent jurists begin probe into counter-terrorism laws in South Asia
[2]  The Case for Withdrawal from Afghanistan (Tariq Ali)
[3]  India: The Pogrom in Gujarat, 5 years on
     - Five years after Godhra and the pogrom (Dionne Bunsha)
     - Truth Trickles Out: The Gujarat Pogrom Five 
Years Later (Zahir Janmohamed)
     - Five years on, India's "modern-day Nero" prospers (Krittivas Mukherjee)
     - Godhra: Jafri's quest for justice continues (Ojas Mehta)
[4]  India: The Hindu Right and its Film Censors in Gujarat 
    -  Ban on Films : Break the Silence (Editorial, EPW)
    - Film on India pogrom is boycotted (Henry Chu)
[5]  Conference on War, Imperialism and 
Resistance in West Asia (New Delhi, 12-14 March 
2007)

____


[1]

  EMINENT JURISTS BEGIN PROBE INTO COUNTER-TERRORISM LAWS IN SOUTH ASIA

26 February 2007

The Eminent Jurists Panel on Terrorism, 
Counter-terrorism and Human Rights is holding 
public hearings in New Delhi on 27-28 February to 
assess the responses of South Asian countries to 
acts of terrorism and their impact on human 
rights.

The Panel will be represented by its Chair, 
Justice Arthur Chaskalson, former Chief Justice 
and first President of South Africa's 
Constitutional Court and Professor Vitit 
Muntarbhorn, leading human rights advocate and 
Professor of Law in Bangkok, who is currently 
United Nations' expert on human rights in North 
Korea. The hearing will be co-organized by the 
Institute of Social Sciences (ISS) and the 
International Commission of Jurists (ICJ).

"South Asia has lived through serious terrorist 
threats, both past and present. In response, 
countries have resorted to extraordinary laws, 
many of which have raised considerable concerns 
as to their impact on human rights and the rule 
of law", said Justice Chaskalson. "In times when 
the world is struggling to find a measured 
response to terrorism we want to hear about the 
experiences and the lessons to be learnt from 
South Asia."

The public hearing is part of a global inquiry by 
the Panel. It is the eleventh in a series of 
hearings held around the world by the Panel, a 
high-level and independent group appointed by the 
ICJ in October 2005. The Panel will issue a 
global report in autumn 2007.

"States have a duty to protect their citizens but 
must do so within and not outside the rule of 
law", said Professor Muntarbhorn. "We came here 
to listen to a wide range of perspectives 
reflecting both the demands of security and the 
need to protect human rights."

In two days of public hearings at the Ashok 
Hotel, the Panel will hear testimonies from 
present and former state officials, leading 
lawyers, senior retired judges, journalists, and 
national and international civil society 
organisations. Participants are coming from 
India, Nepal, Sri Lanka, Bangladesh, and the 
Maldives. The Panel will subsequently travel to 
Pakistan to complete its study on South Asia.

Justice J.S. Verma, former Chief Justice of India 
and former Chairperson of the National Human 
Rights Commission will speak in the opening 
session of the hearing. Following the hearing, 
the Panel members will hold private meetings with 
senior government representatives in New Delhi, 
including the Minister for Home Affairs.

On Friday 2 March 2 at 12.00, the Panel will hold 
a press conference at the Press Club of India to 
share its conclusions with the media. Individual 
members of the Panel will be available for 
interviews upon request.

Background

The Panel is composed of eight judges, lawyers 
and academics from all regions of the world. It 
exercises its mandate independently, with the 
logistical support of the ICJ Secretariat and its 
network of organizations. Justice Arthur 
Chaskalson, former Chief Justice and first 
President of the Constitutional Court of South 
Africa, chairs the Panel.

The other members are Hina Jilani (Pakistan), a 
lawyer before the Supreme Court of Pakistan and 
the UN Secretary General's Special Representative 
on Human Rights Defenders; Mary Robinson, now 
Head of the Ethical Globalization Initiative, and 
former UN High Commissioner for Human Rights and 
former President of Ireland; Stefan Trechsel 
(Switzerland), former President of the European 
Commission on Human Rights, and judge at the 
International Criminal Tribunal for the former 
Yugoslavia; Georges Abi-Saab (Egypt), former 
Judge at the International Criminal Tribunals for 
the former Yugoslavia and for Rwanda; Robert K. 
Goldman (United States), Professor of Law at 
American University's Washington College of Law, 
a former President of the Inter-American 
Commission on Human Rights and former UN expert 
on counter-terrorism and human rights; and 
Justice E. Raúl Zaffaroni (Argentina), a judge at 
the Supreme Court of Argentina.

The Panel has held hearings in Australia, 
Colombia, East Africa (Kenya, Tanzania and 
Uganda), the United Kingdom (in London on current 
counter-terrorism policies and in Belfast on 
lessons from the past), North Africa (Algeria, 
Morocco and Tunisia), the United States, the 
Southern Cone (Argentina, Brazil, Chile, Paraguay 
and Uruguay), South-East Asia (Indonesia, 
Malaysia, the Philippines and Thailand) and the 
Russian Federation. Other countries or regions 
where the Panel will also hold hearings include 
Pakistan, Canada, the Middle East and Europe. The 
final report of the Panel is expected to be 
published in autumn 2007.

For further information on the public hearing and 
to arrange interviews with the Panel, please 
contact:

In New Delhi: A.N Roy from ISS (at +91 11 261 21 
902, or +91 98 10 52 80 22 or anroy at issin.in) or 
Isabelle Heyer from the ICJ (at +91 981 8642632 
or heyer at icj.org).

In Geneva: Yayoi Yamaguchi from the ICJ (at + 41 
22 979 38 00 or yamaguchi at icj.org).

______


[2]

counterpunch.org
February 27, 2007

THE CASE FOR WITHDRAWAL FROM AFGHANISTAN
The Khyber Impasse

by Tariq Ali

It is Year 6 of the UN-backed NATO occupation of 
Afghanistan, a joint US/EU mission. On 26 
February there was an attempted assassination of 
Dick Cheney by Taliban suicide bombers while he 
was visiting the 'secure' US air base at Bagram 
(once an equally secure Soviet air base during an 
earlier conflict). Two US soldiers and a 
mercenary ('contractor') died in the attack, as 
did twenty other people working at the base. This 
episode alone should have concentrated the US 
Vice-President's mind on the scale of the Afghan 
debacle. In 2006 the casualty rates rose 
substantially and NATO troops lost forty-six 
soldiers in clashes with the Islamic resistance 
or shot-down helicopters.

The insurgents now control at least twenty 
districts in the Kandahar, Helmand, Uruzgan 
provinces where NATO troops have replaced US 
soldiers. And it is hardly a secret that many 
officials in these zones are closet supporters of 
the guerrilla fighters. The situation is out of 
control. At the beginning of this war Mrs Bush 
and Mrs Blair appeared on numerous TV and radio 
shows claiming that the aim of the war was to 
liberate Afghan women. Try repeating that today 
and the women will spit in your face.

Who is responsible for this disaster? Why is the 
country still subjugated? What are Washington's 
strategic goals in the region? What is the 
function of NATO? And how long can any country 
remain occupied against the will of a majority of 
its people?

Few tears were shed in Afghanistan and elsewhere 
when the Taliban fell, the hopes aroused by 
Western demagogy did not last too long. It soon 
became clear that the new transplanted elite 
would cream off a bulk of the foreign aid and 
create its own criminal networks of graft and 
patronage. The people suffered. A mud cottage 
with a thatched roof to house a family of 
homeless refugees costs fewer than five thousand 
dollars. How many have been built? Hardly any. 
There are reports each year of hundreds of 
shelter-less Afghans freezing to death each 
winter.

Instead a quick-fix election was organised at 
high cost by Western PR firms and essentially for 
the benefit of Western public opinion. The 
results failed to bolster support for NATO inside 
the country. Hamid Karzai the puppet President, 
symbolised his own isolation and instinct for 
self-preservation by refusing to be guarded by a 
security detail from his own ethnic Pashtun base. 
He wanted tough, Terminator look-alike US marines 
and was granted them.

Might Afghanistan been made more secure by a 
limited Marshall-Plan style intervention? It is, 
of course, possible that the construction of free 
schools and hospitals, subsidised homes for the 
poor and the rebuilding of the social 
infrastructure that was destroyed after the 
withdrawal of Soviet troops in 1989 could have 
stabilised the country. It would also have needed 
state help to agriculture and cottage industries 
to reduce the dependence on poppy farming. 90 
percent of the world's opium production is based 
in Afghanistan. UN estimates suggest that heroin 
accounts for 52 percent of the impoverished 
country's gross domestic product and the opium 
sector of agriculture continues to grow apace. 
All this would have required a strong state and a 
different world order. Only a slightly crazed 
utopian could have expected NATO countries, busy 
privatising and deregulating their own countries, 
to embark on enlightened social experiments 
abroad.

And so elite corruption grew like an untreated 
tumour. Western funds designed to aid some 
reconstruction were siphoned off to build fancy 
homes for their native enforcers.. In Year 2 of 
the Occupation there was a gigantic housing 
scandal. Cabinet ministers awarded themselves and 
favoured cronies prime real estate in Kabul where 
land prices reached a high point after the 
Occupation since the occupiers and their camp 
followers had to live in the style to which they 
had become accustomed. Karzai's colleagues built 
their large villas, protected by NATO troops and 
in full view of the poor.

Add to this that Karzai's younger brother, Ahmad 
Wali Karzai, has become one of the largest drug 
barons in the country. At a recent meeting with 
Pakistan's President, when Karzai was bleating on 
about Pakistan's inability to stop cross-border 
smuggling, General Musharraf suggested that 
perhaps Karzai should set an example by bringing 
his sibling under control.

While economic conditions failed to improve, NATO 
military strikes often targeted innocent 
civilians leading to violent anti-American 
protests in the Afghan capital last year. What 
was initially viewed by some locals as a 
necessary police action against al-Qaeda 
following the 9/11 attacks is now perceived by a 
growing majority in the entire region as a 
fully-fledged imperial occupation. The Taliban is 
growing and creating new alliances not because 
its sectarian religious practices have become 
popular, but because it is the only available 
umbrella for national liberation. As the British 
and Russians discovered to their cost in the 
preceding two centuries, Afghans never liked 
being occupied.

There is no way NATO can win this war now. 
Sending more troops will lead to more deaths. And 
full-scale battles will destabilise neighbouring 
Pakistan. Musharraf has already taken the rap for 
an air raid on a Muslim school in Pakistan. 
Dozens of children were killed and the Islamists 
in Pakistan organised mass street protests. 
Insiders suggest that the 'pre-emptive' raid was, 
in fact, carried out by US war planes who were 
supposedly targeting a terrorist base, but the 
Pakistan government thought it better they took 
the responsibility to avoid an explosion of 
anti-American anger.

NATO's failure cannot be blamed on the Pakistani 
government. If anything, the war in Afghanistan 
has created a critical situation in two Pakistani 
provinces. The Pashtun majority in Afghanistan 
has always had close links to its fellow Pashtuns 
in Pakistan. The border was an imposition by the 
British Empire and it has always been porous. 
Attired in Pashtun clothes I crossed it myself in 
1973 without any restrictions. It is virtually 
impossible to build a Texan fence or an Israeli 
wall across the mountainous and largely unmarked 
2500 kilometre border that separates the two 
countries. The solution is political, not 
military.

Washington's strategic aims in Afghanistan appear 
to be non-existent unless they need the conflict 
to discipline European allies who betrayed them 
on Iraq. True, the al-Qaeda leaders are still at 
large, but their capture will be the result of 
effective police work, not war and occupation. 
What will be the result of a NATO withdrawal? 
Here Iran, Pakistan and the Central Asian states 
will be vital in guaranteeing a confederal 
constitution that respects ethnic and religious 
diversity. The NATO occupation has not made this 
task easy. Its failure has revived the Taliban 
and increasingly the Pashtuns are uniting behind 
it.

The lesson here, as in Iraq, is a basic one. It 
is much better for regime-change to come from 
below even if this means a long wait as in South 
Africa, Indonesia or Chile. Occupations disrupt 
the possibilities of organic change and create a 
much bigger mess than existed before. Afghanistan 
is but one example.

Tariq Ali's new book, Pirates of the Caribbean, is published by Verso.


______


[3]       INDIA - THE GUJARAT POGROM 5 YEARS ON :


The Hindu
February 28, 2007

FIVE YEARS AFTER GODHRA AND THE POGROM

by Dionne Bunsha

There is no violence but the atmosphere of fear 
and prejudice still prevails. Gujarat is a 
society divided - where minorities are segregated 
and face social and economic boycotts. Muslims 
have been pushed into ghettos.

FOR SOME of us, camping is a relaxing outdoor 
getaway. For Mehdi Husain Vanjara, it is a way of 
life. He has been living in a tent in a relief 
camp on the outskirts of Modasa town in north 
Gujarat for five years. His entire family of 
eight is crammed into this tiny tent on a dusty 
plot of land.

"There's not even a light here. We burn diyas at 
night," says Mehdi from Kau-Amlai village. "My 
three daughters wash dishes and earn Rs.200 each 
a month. That's how we survive." When 62 homes in 
his village were burned during the communal 
carnage of 2002, Mehdi had to flee to Modasa, the 
nearest town, for shelter. Since then, he hasn't 
been able to return home. Local Muslim charities 
have built tiny 10x10 feet rooms for refugees 
here. Mehdi is still waiting for his allotment. 
For five years, he has been camping in the 
darkness.

There are still 81 relief camps with around 
30,000 refugees across Gujarat. The campsites do 
not have basic amenities like water or 
electricity, even though its residents are paying 
municipal taxes. In Modasa, refugees pay Rs.30 a 
month for water from a local contractor. "There 
are no gutters, no place to wash clothes, so 
fights break out often. But at least we are 
safe," Mumtazben Sheikh, a widow, told me. Safety 
is the only thing this campsite has to offer. But 
for those who have survived the carnage of 2002, 
it is a top priority.

On February 27, 2002, 59 passengers died in a 
fire inside the Sabarmati Express when it halted 
at Godhra station. The reason for the fire is 
still disputed. While the Railway Ministry 
reports say it was an accident, the Gujarat 
police insist that it was a terrorist conspiracy 
to kill several kar sevaks on board the train who 
had been sent by the Vishwa Hindu Parishad (VHP) 
to the site of the Ram temple in Ayodhya for a 
Maha Yagna. Within hours of the Godhra tragedy, 
Gujarat Chief Minister Narendra Modi declared it 
was a terrorist attack. The call went out: `Blood 
for Blood.' The next day, Muslims across the 
State were targeted in a pogrom that lasted more 
than two months, killed more than 1,000 people, 
and left more than 200,000 homeless.

Five years later, there is no violence but the 
atmosphere of fear and prejudice still prevails. 
After the attacks, the minorities have been 
`taught a lesson.' They must now live as `second 
class citizens' in Gujarat, the `Hindutva 
laboratory' to build the `Hindu Rashtra.' Gujarat 
is a society divided where minorities are 
segregated, face social and economic boycotts, 
and constantly fear for their safety. Muslims 
have been pushed into ghettos. Juhapura, 
Ahmedabad's biggest ghetto, has a population of 
over 300,000 people but no civic amenities. Only 
recently, it was made part of the city's 
municipal area. Many elite Muslims - judges, 
doctors, lawyers, businessmen - have been forced 
to move to Juhapura. No one in a `Hindu area' 
will sell a flat to a Muslim, even if he or she 
is willing to pay a premium. There is not a 
single bank in Juhapura, not a single State 
transport bus passes through here.

After the 2002 violence, many other mini-ghettos 
emerged in cities and even small towns like 
Modasa. Places where refugees have been settled 
are now growing into Muslim colonies. In 
Ahmedabad, some survivors of the worst massacres 
of 2002 live on the edge of the city's dumping 
ground. They are living on the margins amid the 
smoke from smouldering garbage, crows circling 
above, and fumes from the small workshops nearby. 
Ironically, this new ghetto is called `Citizen 
Nagar.' The aggressors are in power; the victims 
have been jailed. For instance, Babu Bajrangi is 
an accused in the Naroda Patiya case, the worst 
massacre in which there were inhuman atrocities 
against women and children. Today he is a 
self-styled missionary who forcibly brings back 
Patel girls who marry outside their community; he 
boasted to me that he has `rescued' more than 706 
girls so far. Recently, Gujarat's theatre owners 
refused to screen the film Parzania because he 
had threatened violence if they did.

Babubhai is free but several witnesses face daily 
danger to their lives. They are threatened and 
told to turn hostile in court, to `compromise.' 
And they have nowhere to turn. If they dare to go 
to the police, they face the risk of being put 
behind bars. Several witnesses in the Naroda 
Patiya case who named top Hindutva leaders in 
their police testimonies were framed in a murder 
case and jailed for over six months. There are 
several others like them. Despite the 
intimidation and a daily struggle to survive, it 
is amazing how witnesses have shown the strength 
and courage to fight for justice.

The Best Bakery case, which received the most 
media attention, ironically ended up with a sad 
outcome. After several twists and turns, the 
local accused were jailed, but so was Zaheera 
Sheikh, the main eyewitness. She was punished for 
perjury. Zaheera turned hostile in the Vadodara 
district court. Later, she appealed to the 
Supreme Court saying that she lied in court 
because a BJP MLA had threatened her family into 
a compromise settlement. Yet, when she turned 
hostile again during the re-trial, she was jailed 
for perjury. So far no investigation has been 
ordered into the MLA's alleged role in Zaheera's 
second U-turn. The big fish always get away.

The Supreme Court criticised the government for 
"fiddling while Gujarat burned." Yet none of the 
big guns has been punished. Zakia Jafri, wife of 
the former MP, Ahsan Jafri, has filed a case 
against the Chief Minister and 62 others. But the 
police complaint lies in cold storage in the 
Gandhinagar police station, a stone's throw from 
Mr. Modi's residence.

It is a rocky road to justice in Gujarat. In 
district courts, the accused pass lewd comments 
while women testify about how they were raped. 
When refugees in Lunawada dug up the mass graves 
where the police buried their relatives, the cops 
filed a case against them. You really cannot rely 
on the Gujarat police, unless you are blessed by 
politicians in power. Of the 4,252 communal 
violence cases filed during the pogrom, the 
Gujarat police closed more than half of them as 
`true but undetected.' They said that there was 
not enough evidence to file a charge-sheet. In 
fact, the police suppressed or buried a lot of 
the proof. They refused to take down eyewitness 
complaints. The Supreme Court ordered the Gujarat 
police to review these cases again. Since they 
did not do this, human rights groups filed a 
legal notice. Last year, the police re-opened 
most of the 2000-plus cases that they had closed. 
But no one has been punished for closing the 
cases and scuttling the process of justice.

In Gujarat these events are supposed to be too 
`sensitive' to talk about; they should be 
forgotten and people should move on, is the 
refrain. The people who would most want to forget 
are the victims of the carnage, but they are not 
allowed to. There can be no peace and 
reconciliation without justice and the rule of 
law. People are still living through the 
nightmare. Raising such uncomfortable questions 
disturbs `Gujarati Asmita' (pride). It is an 
excuse to suppress important questions like human 
rights abuses or who will really benefit from the 
Narmada dam. The Gujarati middle class has been 
fed so much propaganda that it is intolerant to 
any alternative view. That is why the Narmada 
Bachao Andolan office is often ransacked and 
Medha Patkar is physically attacked if she steps 
into Gujarat. And cinema owners are too scared to 
screen a film like Parzania that may anger the 
Bajrang Dal because they have no confidence that 
the police will protect them. It is selective 
democracy.

What else can we expect from a political 
formation that draws ideological inspiration from 
M.S. Golwalkar who wrote in We, Our Nationhood 
Defined, 1939: "The foreign races in Hindusthan 
must entertain no idea but those of the 
glorification of the Hindu race and culture, i.e. 
of the Hindu nation, and must lose their separate 
existence to merge in the Hindu race, or [they] 
may stay in the country, wholly subordinated to 
the Hindu nation, claiming nothing, deserving no 
privileges, far less any preferential treatment - 
not even citizen's rights." Gujarat is today's 
laboratory for testing and realising not Mahatma 
Gandhi's vision of Hindu-Muslim amity and 
communal harmony but Golwalkar's 1939 vision. The 
Sangh Parivar organisations make no bones about 
this. Across the State, they have put up boards 
saying: `Welcome to the Hindu Rashtra.' It is 
understood that not all are welcome. Some are 
still camping in the darkness, waiting for the 
light.

o o o


alt.muslim
February 26, 2007

TRUTH TRICKLES OUT: THE GUJARAT POGROM FIVE YEARS LATER
Some have accused assessments by anti-communalism 
activists of what transpired in Gujarat as being 
excessively sentimental. This indeed may be the 
case, but it is not without reason.
by Zahir Janmohamed

Still waiting to heal
I was uncertain if the ghazal concert by Jagjit 
Singh would still be held in Ahmedabad, Gujarat 
on that fateful day, February 27, 2002. I had 
reason to believe otherwise: just a few hours 
earlier, I received a call while working in a 
Hindu slum in Ahmedabad that communal violence 
had erupted. Apparently a train of Hindu pilgrims 
was attacked somewhere, I was told, and that I 
should immediately return home. An American Hindu 
colleague of mine and I both waited for the bus 
to take us across town to the Hindu host family 
with whom I was staying. But as my Hindu friend 
in the slum community received text messages 
about what was really ensuing, he ran out and 
said, "No Zahir, you specifically have to leave." 
I was eager to know why but he never budged. "Its 
for your safety," he kept imploring.

It was only on the rikshaw ride home that the 
picture emerged: our Hindu driver carefully 
skirted all the Muslim majority locales in 
Ahmedabad as off in the distance, we could see 
fires flaring up in only Muslim populated areas. 
As we drove through a mixed Hindu-Muslim 
neighborhood, we found ourselves stuck in a 
massive traffic jam, only later to learn that 
just a few hundred yards ahead of us a Hindu mob 
had stopped a car full of Muslims, removed them 
from their vehicle, and burned them alive.

It is difficult to say this without sounding 
profoundly naive and perhaps insensitive, but at 
the time, it seemed pretty normal. Perhaps that 
was a reflection of the company I kept. I had 
arrived just twelve days earlier to work on 
micro-finance issues and I was posted to work in 
a Hindu slum area. I never took much notice of 
this: my intention in working in Gujarat was to 
understand my ancestral homeland and to learn and 
to help people, regardless of their religious 
background.

When I returned home later that day, my boss Raju 
bhai assured me that the violence was nothing 
unusual. India blows off some steam from time to 
time, he told me, and that the violence would 
flare up for a day or two and then subside. 
Perhaps he had a point, I thought. Despite 
romanticized notions of Gujarat being tolerant, 
probably on account of it being the birthplace of 
the non-violent sage Mahatma Gandhi, communal 
violence between Hindus and Muslims in Gujarat 
has flared up intermittently since 1969. Between 
1987 and 1991 alone, for example, 106 
Hindu-Muslim skirmishes erupted. But neither he 
or I had any ability to know that what would 
transpire in the subsequent months would amount 
to a State sponsored pogrom against Gujarati 
Muslims in what many of have rightfully called 
one the darkest chapters in India's history.

We ended up going to the Jagjit Singh concert 
that night. After all, in the Hindu area where I 
lived and where the concert was held, I had no 
way of knowing that just a few miles away in the 
Muslim locales, some of the worst violence was 
ensuing, already on that first night. It is 
difficult and troubling to think about that 
concert, let alone to muster the courage to admit 
that I attended, while so much chaos erupted 
around me. Within the confines of the manicured 
lawns of the concert setting, Singh's lyrics, 
many taken from poems by Muslim poet Mirza 
Ghalib, hearkened an India ripe with Hindu-Muslim 
synergy, an India that I found disappearing in my 
subsequent six months working with the 85,000 
displaced Gujarati Muslims in Ahmedabad alone.

I do not wish to recount the details of what 
happened in Gujarat, as that has been extensively 
documented, most exceptionally in Human Rights 
Watch's "We Have No Orders to Save You," and 
journalist Dionne Bunsha's Scarred: Experiments 
with Violence in Gujarat. Nor do I wish to recall 
the personal toil of witnessing violence on this 
scale--that is far too personal to elucidate in 
this space and at least for me, in the guise of 
non-fiction. But I wish do elucidate two points 
from that episode that have sinced shaped my 
activism.

The first is that the initial telling of a 
historical event is seldom the complete or even 
accurate version. When the violence reached an 
unbearable level, I thought that my presence, as 
a Gujarati Muslim, was endangering my dear Hindu 
friends. So I left for New Delhi where I soon 
found myself addressing a gathering of NGOs about 
my experiences. But I learned that speaking about 
Gujarat is partly about giving testimony and 
partly about withholding information. I remember 
telling that gathering that contrary to popular 
notions of Indian communal violence, the violence 
in Gujarat was most acute in mixed locales and 
that the only safe areas were Muslim ghettos. 
That fact rattled the notion that communal 
violence is minimized when Hindus and Muslims 
intermix. Gujarat proved just the antithesis - 
Muslims were most vulnerable when they lived in 
close proximity to their Hindu neighbors. I told 
that group, much to their dismay, that I 
understood why many Gujarati Muslims had built 
ten foot walls to protect their families and 
their homes. Thinking of communal harmony was 
privilege that many Gujarati Muslims could not 
afford to think of as they witnessed the mass 
scale rape of women and the pillaging of their 
homes.

This self-censorship was magnified when I 
returned to the US and I began showing 
photographic proof that the initial train attack 
was burnt from the inside and was likely the work 
of the Hindu pilgrim themselves. At one event in 
LA, I was nearly punched in the face by an angry 
audience member. Needless to say, I learned to 
finesse my message, especially when speaking to 
audiences who believed the mistaken notion that 
what transpired was a tit-for-tat riot.

Part of the problem in achieving an honest 
dialogue on this issue is that the Gujarat 
violence is viewed as a problem of the past and 
as an aberrant blotch on India's record that 
evaporated when the violence subsided. This could 
not be farther from the truth. Lingering problems 
exist within Gujarat, the least of which are the 
palpable tensions. And while antagonism against 
Muslims thankfully has not manifested itself in 
brutal violence since 2002, there is still 
widespread curtailment of the rights of Muslims, 
Christians, Dalits, and others in India. India's 
central government may now acknowledge what 
transpired in 2002, but there is still strong 
denial at the popular and governmental level 
within Gujarat.

For example, eighty-seven Muslim men have been 
held since 2002 for "starting the train fire" and 
"igniting the violence," despite India's Supreme 
Court own acknowledgment which found the Hindu 
nationalist BJP group complicit in the violence. 
Hemantika Wahi, the standing counsel for Gujarat, 
recently responded to possible news that these 87 
may be set free and also to charges India's 
draconian anti-terror laws have been used to 
target Muslim by noting that "Not all Muslims are 
terrorists but all terrorists are Muslims." Most 
recently, a film called "Parzania" by Gujarati 
director Rahul Dholakia about the 2002 violence 
was prevented by theater owners in Gujarat from 
being screened, despite the fact that the filmed 
had already cleared India's rigorous (and often 
politically slanted) film censor bureau.

Film's like Dholakia's are promising, partly 
because they help usher in a more honest 
discussion of what transpired. After all, it was 
not long ago that those who called the violence 
pre-planned and orchestrated by the state were 
called absurd. But often the truth trickles out, 
and though its pace may be frustrating, it is 
still nonetheless cathartic for those who seeking 
a public reckoning of the pain they endured.

The second lesson Gujarat taught me is not to 
compare two historical tragedies. When I spoke at 
college campuses throughout 2003 and 2004, I 
often found it tempting, especially when 
addressing Muslim audiences, to compare the 
Gujarat violence to another barbaric act, that of 
the slaughter of Palestinians in Jenin, which 
also happened in early 2002. I had reason to make 
this comparison: Muslims throughout their world 
expressed justifiable outrage over Israel's 
incursions into Jenin but remained largely silent 
over the pogrom against Muslims in Gujarat. But I 
quickly learned to cease making such comparisons, 
partly because I refused to participate in an 
effort to pit and to measure the suffering of one 
people against another.

I have been called many things in the past five 
years, most of which are not suitable to publish 
on this site. But perhaps one of the most unfair 
criticisms leveled at me and other activists 
working against communalism in India is that 
somehow our assessment of what transpired in 
Gujarat is maudlin or excessively sentimental. 
This indeed may be the case, but it is not 
without reason. I will always remember 12 
year-old Sadik, who I met in a relief camp just 
shortly after the violence ensued. He fled for 
relief after he witnessed his father burned alive 
and his mother raped and then immolated. He never 
did speak to me - or to anyone - during the six 
months that I saw him in the camp. But at night, 
after the aid workers would leave, I often found 
Sadik sitting alone in the corner, crying quietly.

I am not sure what has happened to him since but 
I suspect there are nights when he still cries 
and wonders why, five years later, his tears are 
still needed.

Zahir Janmohamed is an associate editor of 
alt.muslim and the co-founder of The Qunoot 
Foundation.


o o o

FIVE YEARS ON, INDIA'S "MODERN-DAY NERO" PROSPERS
27 Feb 2007 05:00:59 GMT
Source: Reuters

by Krittivas Mukherjee

AHMEDABAD, India, Feb 27 (Reuters) - He was 
accused of being a "modern-day Nero" who sat back 
while thousands of Muslims were butchered, but 
Narendra Modi has not only survived as chief 
minister of India's western state of Gujarat, he 
has prospered.

Middle-class Hindus in Gujarat have put behind 
them the horrific communal riots of 2002, as they 
grow richer in a state that has become a model of 
economic development and attracted investment 
from India's biggest industrialists, analysts say.

"The middle-class attitude is shorn of any moral 
compunction when it comes to the riots," said 
Gagan Sethi, head of the Centre for Social 
Justice, a local group fighting for the 
riot-affected.

"Their apathy has only emboldened Modi."

Human rights groups say some 2,500 people, mostly 
Muslims, were beaten or burnt to death in the 
western state of Gujarat five years ago, although 
officials put the toll at about 1,000.

The riots erupted after a fire broke out on a 
train carrying Hindu pilgrims on Feb. 27, 2002, 
killing 59 people.

India's Supreme Court compared Modi to Roman 
Emperor Nero, remembered in popular legend as 
playing his lyre while Rome burned. Modi's 
Hindu-nationalist government looked elsewhere 
while innocent people were burning and was 
probably deliberating how to protect the killers, 
it said in a 2004 judgement.

The United States revoked a visa for Modi the 
following year, on the grounds that he was 
responsible for severe violations of religious 
freedom. But that has not detered some of India's 
leading industrialists from courting and praising 
Modi.

"Industry doesn't concern itself with questions 
of political morality or ethics or even justice," 
said Zoya Hasan, an eminent academician and 
member of the National Commission on Minorities.

Five years after the riots, and despite a 
national outcry, little has been done to catch 
the culprits, rights groups say, leaving Muslims 
in Gujarat disillusioned, alienated and afraid.

Modi has put himself forward as a champion of 
right-wing economics, a popular platform among a 
people famous throughout India for their business 
acumen, not least in the diamond trade.

"So long as he makes money, his business 
flourishes, the middle-class Gujarati Hindu is 
happy," said Nisad Ahmed Ansari, a Persian 
scholar and politician. "They skirt moral issues."

BOOMING ECONOMY

Under Modi's leadership, Gujarat has become one 
of India's fastest growing states, with some of 
its best infrastructure. His government has 
turned around several loss-making state-run 
companies and boasts impressive rates of job 
creation.

Industry says it supports Modi because he helps them.

"Gujarat today is about good governance, 
pro-active bureaucracy, solid infrastructure," 
Pankaj R. Patel, head of the Gujarat Chamber of 
Commerce and Industry, told Reuters.

"There is political will to prosper economically."

But all this means little for the state's 5.2 
million Muslims, virtually relegated to 
second-class citizenship, many of whom pursue 
either menial jobs or small businesses from their 
ghettos.

Modi's success feeds off a history of communal 
tension in a state which was invaded and 
plundered over the centuries, mostly by Muslims.

"In Modi, middle-class Gujaratis found a hero who 
first successfully projected Muslims as the 
villains and then assured them protection from 
that community," Sethi said.

In the streets of Ahmedabad, the state's main 
city, many Hindus say their chief minister has 
done them proud.

"Modi-ji says today we can go anywhere with our 
heads held high and we don't need to worry about 
Muslims. It is true," said Hitenbhai Patel, an 
Ahmedabad shop owner.

India's main opposition Bharatiya Janata Party, 
to which Modi belongs, has stood by the chief 
minister since the riots, even though its leaders 
have described the 2002 violence as a stain on 
the country's image.

Modi's office turned down a request for an 
interview, but the chief minister has repeatedly 
said his only consideration is to promote 
economic growth without favouring one section of 
the community over another.

"I do nothing for Muslims or for Hindus," he told 
the Times of India this month. "Whatever I do, I 
do for 50 million Gujaratis."


o o o


Deccan Herald
February 27, 2007

GODHRA: JAFRI'S QUEST FOR JUSTICE CONTINUES
From Ojas Mehta DH News Service Ahmedabad:

Five years after the brutal Gujarat riots claimed 
her husband, Zakia Jafri's desire for justice is 
as strong as ever.

"I will not rest until I get justice. I trust 
that the Supreme Court will not fail me," Zakia, 
wife of former Congress MP Ehsan Jafri, who was 
slain by a violent mob on February 28, 2002 told 
Deccan Herald.

Over 40 persons had died in the Gulbarg society 
massacre in Ahmedabad, where a crowd of 15,000 to 
20,000 had been allowed a free reign between 
10.30 am and 5.30 pm on the fateful day.

Speaking from Surat where she now lives with her 
son Tanvir Jafri (44), Zakia's voice still chokes 
with emotion when she recounts the incident that 
killed her husband.

Zakia feels that she has the Jessica Lall and the 
Nitish Katara case to look back on to resurrect 
her faith in the Supreme Court.

She still remembers the day when then Ahmedabad 
police commissioner P C Pande had paid a visit to 
their place at 10 am following rising tension. 
She recalls how a crowd hankering for revenge had 
got her husband worried enough to call Pande 
home. And she remembers how the police had asked 
the residents of the society to keep the gates 
closed even as the mob baying for blood to get 
revenge for the Hindus killed in Godhra kept 
ballooning.

Zakia survived as she had remained upstairs with 
other women and children but Ehsan Jafri had been 
cut to pieces and burnt by the mob.

Help was just 800 meters away, with the police 
commissionerate building located in the same 
area, never arrived.

Zakia had filed an FIR against chief minister 
Narendra Modi, state ministers and several others 
for abetting the crime but action is still to be 
taken.

Meanwhile, Tanvir, claims that he has enough 
evidence and affidavits to get the culprits of 
Gulbarg massacre punished.

Zakia asserts that her husband's soul can only 
rest in peace if she fights and gets justice for 
him.

o o o

Ahmedabad Newsline / Indian Express
February 27, 2007

'NO CHANGE IN STATE'S ATTITUDE TO MINORITIES, RIOT-HIT'
Panel discussion, exhibition on Day One of 
six-day event marking Gujarat riots; activists 
lash out at State Govt
Express News Services

Ahmedabad, February 26: More than 25 civil 
society organisations have joined hands to 
organise a six-day-long series of programmes to 
commemorate the Gujarat riots of 2002 _ Sach ki 
Yadein Yadon ki Sach _ which got under way here 
at Gujarat Vidyapith on Monday. The first 
programme of the series was a panel discussion by 
various social activists on "revisiting 150 years 
of 1857, 100 years of Satyagrah and 5 years of 
Gujarat Carnage."

Speaking on the occasion, noted social activist 
Teesta Setalvad observed that there has been no 
perceptible change in the State Government's 
attitude towards minorities in the last five 
years.

"There is a deliberate attempt to look at the 
burning of train at Godhra and the subsequent 
riots through different glasses," Teesta observed 
adding, "While most of the riot accused are 
roaming freely, as many as 87 people from Godhra 
are incarcerated under POTA and are behind the 
bars for last five years.

Coming down heavily on the State Government, 
Teesta said that while Chief Minister Narendra 
Modi refuses to comment on the ban of releasing 
the movie Parzania, his indulgent silence on Babu 
Bajrangi's imposition of the ban speaks volumes. 
"Who is running the state? Narendra Modi or 
Bajrangi and people like him?" she asked.

She also raised an alarm on political apathy 
towards the entire issue. "Why are the protests 
and remembrances so apolitical? Why is the 
opposition silent on the issues of justice and 
rehabilitation of riot victims?" she asked.

"There have been a lot of talks on the role of 
Gandhian institutions during the riots and post 
riots, but one may also look at the role of the 
premier educational institutions in Ahmedabad and 
Baroda," Teesta observed, adding that in spite of 
being autonomous by nature, their silence only 
indicates that 'fascism' has been deeply 
entrenched in the Gujarat civil society.

A recent study by "Citizens for Justice and 
Peace," reveals that till date as many as 8,700 
riot-hit people are still living in camps without 
BPL cards or ration cards, Teesta said adding 
that going by that study, only about 15 families 
got a compensation of Rs 40,000 while a majority 
had to do with meager or no compensation. "There 
has been no justice for women who were victims of 
gender violence during the riots," she further 
pointed out.

"The Nanavati Shah commission has enough evidence 
to ask extremely uncomfortable questions to the 
State Government," Setalvad said adding that as 
the report of the commission is expected by the 
end of this year along with Assembly Election, 
the civil society needs to remain extremely 
vigilant and prepared to take to streets if such 
a need arises.

Speaking on the occasion, Sophia Khan, Director, 
Safar said that while the state government has 
been making tall claims regarding the state being 
peaceful and investor friendly, the current peace 
is an uneasy calm that is a result of silenced 
justice. "A lot of people ask me why we are 
observing this commemoration programme? Why are 
we reopening the wounds," Sophia said adding that 
the wounds of the riot victims are far from 
healing. "It is only the civil society which is 
trying with their limited means to heal the 
wounds, while at the State's level, the process 
hasn't even started so far," she added.

Others who spoke on the occasion included Mallika 
Sarabhai from Darpana, Zakia Jawhar from Action 
Aid, Ila Pathak from AWAG and so on.

Later, an exhibition of paintings in Mithila 
tradition on the context of Gujarat carnage of 
2002 by Santosh Kumar Das was inaugurated at 
Amdavad ni Gufa as a part of the programme.



______


[4]  THE HINDU RIGHT AND ITS FILM CENSORS IN GUJARAT:


Economic and Political Weekly
February 17, 2007

BAN ON FILMS
Break the Silence

The Gujarat government has not banned the film Parzania,
which is based on the poignant and true story of a Parsi
family in Ahmedabad that was caught in the communal pogrom
of 2002. The same Bharatiya Janata Party government led
by Narendra Modi did not ban Aamir Khan's films Fanaa
or Rang De Basanti last year either. It is just that Modi's
government has nurtured an atmosphere in the state that
encourages fundamentalists to intimidate and dictate terms
to anyone who does not toe their line.

Last year, Aamir Khan earned their wrath for speaking about
the plight of those displaced but not rehabilitated by the Narmada
dam and later for criticising the Modi government over the
Vadodara communal clashes that claimed six lives. Overnight,the
film actor was declared to be "anti-Gujarat"; Rang De Basanti
had to be pulled out of theatres and Fanaa could not even be
released. When the Supreme Court was petitioned in June last
year to order the state government to ensure security to theatre
owners, the court said that it cannot intervene and that it was
up to the theatre owners to seek protection from the government.
Of course, the theatre owners knew better and preferred not
to show Fanaa at all. Again, the state governments of Punjab,
Meghalaya, Nagaland, Goa, Andhra Pradesh and Tamil Nadu
banned the film based on Dan Brown's Da Vinci Code because
they feared a few Christian groups who claimed it portrayed
Jesus Christ in an unconventional light. The Andhra Pradesh
High Court not only quashed the ban but also ordered the
state government to pay the costs of litigation to the petitioner.
The fate of Parzania in Gujarat has been decided by Babubhai
Patel, better known as Babu Bajrangi because of his affiliation
with the Bajrang Dal; the Gujarat Multiplex Owners' Asso-
ciation made no bones about the fact that it is his word that
they would go by. Dara and Roopa Mody, whose 10-year old
son Azhar had "disappeared" when the family along with a
number of terrified Muslims were sheltering in the home of
former Congress MP Ehsan Jafri (who along with his family
was burnt by the mob), had expected that their five-year
desperate search for their son would come to an end when
the film was screened in Gujarat. Their hope was that the film
would jog someone's memory somewhere, and they would then
know for certain what his fate was. What the communalists
have ensured is that no one in Gujarat will see the film and
be reminded of those terrible events five years ago. It is not
surprising though that a film which could potentially have
allowed us to confront this shameful episode from our recent
even what might disturb or offend the state or a section of
society, seems increasingly alien and dangerous in "globalised
and self-confident" India. Since the 1990s, an aggressive
intolerance of the freedom of expression in the arts, by
minorities of various kinds and even in politics is becoming
more and more common, practised mainly but not entirely
by the communalists. But without the freedom to disturb, the
freedom to express simply means the right to conform. During
the making of Water, filmmaker Deepa Mehta had to face
violent destruction of the sets at Varanasi because the film
dealt with the plight of widows in the India of the 1930s and
her detractors decided that she was showing Hindu rites in
a harsh light. She had to continue the rest of the film in
neighbouring Sri Lanka since the then BJP government in
Uttar Pradesh seized upon the "public law and order" issue to
direct her to end the filming. It is this same mindset of arrogant
intolerance that allowed the Bajrang Dal in Madhya Pradesh
to recently beat up a group of foreigners who they "suspected"
of carrying beef in their lunch packs.

No society can claim to be humane or profess to be democratic
if it allows such intolerance to continue and grow. Govern-
ments remain silent (or are quite comfortable, as in Gujarat,
with the vigilantes) while the fundamentalists run riot precisely
because citizens too remain silent. We must break our silence
and speak up against the shrill voices of bigotry.

o o o

Los Angeles Times
February 25, 2007

FILM ON INDIA POGROM IS BOYCOTTED
Theater owners fear more violence. But the 
filmmaker says wounds sometimes need to be 
reopened.
by Henry Chu, Times Staff Writer

AHMADABAD, INDIA - Five years ago, this city was 
in flames. Mobs of Hindu extremists rampaged 
through Muslim neighborhoods, setting shops 
ablaze and pulling people out of their homes to 
butcher them in the streets in broad daylight.

When the bloodletting was over, more than 1,000 
people - possibly twice that number - lay dead in 
one of the worst religious pogroms in India since 
it gained independence in 1947.

Many victims were listed as missing, including 
the young son of a friend of Los Angeles-based 
filmmaker Rahul Dholakia, who spent the next 
several years bringing the family's painful story 
to the screen.

The result, "Parzania," is being shown in 
theaters across India, but not here in Gujarat 
state, where the tragedy occurred. Cinema owners 
are refusing to show the film, saying it could 
spark more violence in a state still run by the 
Hindu nationalist party that was in power during 
the riots and that is widely accused of fomenting 
them.

The unofficial boycott of the movie has drawn 
outrage from Indian filmmakers and civil 
liberties groups. So far, their criticism has 
gone unheeded.

"We now have peace in Gujarat," said Manubhai 
Patel, who heads an association of Gujarat 
multiplex owners. "We don't want to remind the 
public of the riots episode all over again."

It may be too late for that. If nothing else, the 
controversy over "Parzania" has succeeded in 
refocusing attention on the events of Feb. 28, 
2002, and the justice that has been disturbingly 
elusive since.

Caught on camera

Only a few convictions have been recorded in 
cases stemming from the massacre, despite 
manifold witness accounts of atrocities, some of 
which were caught on film by news cameras.

Entire families of Muslims were incinerated in 
their homes by crowds of cheering Hindu 
extremists armed with knives and clubs, witnesses 
said. Women were chased down and gang-raped, or 
had kerosene poured down their throats and set 
afire. Children were hacked to death in front of 
their parents, who then met the same fate.

Terrified survivors reported that police often 
stood idle or blocked victims from escaping. In 
some instances, residents who frantically 
telephoned for help said officers told them they 
were under orders not to intervene.

The blood-soaked frenzy was ostensibly in 
retaliation for the burning of a train in the 
nearby town of Godhra the day before, an attack 
that killed 59 Hindu passengers. Hindu activists 
blamed the fire on disgruntled Muslims, but a 
preliminary investigation raised serious doubts 
about that theory. A full judicial inquiry is 
expected to deliver a report this year.

Indians in the rest of the country, where people 
of different faiths live in tolerant peace if not 
unalloyed harmony, were shocked by the carnage. 
For Dholakia, who had moved to the United States 
in 1990, the dreadful headlines turned personal 
when he discovered that 13-year-old Azhar Mody, 
whose family he had known for several years, had 
vanished in the pandemonium. He remains missing.

"I felt somewhat responsible because I'm a 
GujaratiŠ. I felt it was my duty as a filmmaker 
to say something," said Dholakia, who is Hindu by 
upbringing and lives in Corona. "I had to tell 
this family's story."

"Parzania" was shot over three months in 2004, on 
a $700,000 budget, most of it financed by two of 
Dholakia's friends. The stars of the film, 
including well-known actor Naseeruddin Shah, 
worked for free. (In the movie, the family's 
names, the missing boy's age and other details 
have been changed.)

From the outset, Dholakia knew he had undertaken 
a controversial subject. He made an American 
character prominent in the story and wrote most 
of the dialogue in English, broadening the film's 
international marketability in case it couldn't 
get past India's censors.

Before it hit theaters in this country, 
"Parzania" was screened at film festivals in Los 
Angeles, Palm Springs and other venues around the 
world.

To Dholakia's surprise, his movie survived 
official Indian scissors with only three small 
cuts. The riot sequence remained intact, almost 
painfully so, given its graphic scenes of 
immolation and other acts of savagery. The 
sequence was filmed in the southern city of 
Hyderabad because, Dholakia said, it would have 
been politically impossible to shoot it in 
Ahmadabad.

It took nearly a year and a half to persuade 
Indian movie houses to screen the film. That 
cinema owners in Gujarat refused is not 
surprising. Such bans are not uncommon in India, 
where religious groups vociferously defend their 
faiths from perceived attack. Last year, "The Da 
Vinci Code" was not screened in several states 
because of protests from the nation's small 
Catholic community.

But Dholakia has no patience for those who allege 
that his movie could trigger renewed violence.

"Cinema never causes riots. Politicians do," he said.

His riposte was a thinly veiled reference to the 
government of Narendra Modi, Gujarat's top 
official and a senior member of the Hindu 
nationalist Bharatiya Janata Party. Many in India 
believe that Modi bears direct responsibility for 
fanning the sectarian strife that exploded in 
2002.

After the Godhra train fire, statements from Modi 
- such as, "Every action has an equal and 
opposite reaction" - were seen as giving license 
to the armed fanatics who raged through 
Ahmadabad's crowded streets and across Gujarat.

Evidence also has surfaced that the attacks may 
not have been as spontaneous and uncontrolled as 
officials say. Critics have noted that the mobs 
were able to pinpoint Muslim shops and warehouses 
that were outwardly indistinguishable from their 
Hindu-owned counterparts.

Cases dismissed

In the aftermath, survivors filed thousands of 
complaints and cases with police, who in some 
instances also were the accused. But the path to 
justice for most victims has been thwarted. In 
the year and a half after the riots, more than 
2,000 cases were summarily dismissed by local 
courts, often on grounds of insufficient 
evidence, despite abundant witness accounts.

Recently, human rights activists scored a victory 
when the Supreme Court ordered the tossed-out 
cases to be reopened.

But persuading victims to resume their legal 
fight has been difficult. Survivors say they have 
been harassed by authorities or even arrested and 
jailed on trumped-up charges when they tried to 
file charges against police.

"The police hold the power here, and they abuse 
it," said Johanna Lokhande of the group 
Nyayagraha, which works on behalf of the 
survivors.

The group has asked 930 people in Ahmadabad to 
press on with their reinstated cases; fewer than 
200 have agreed. Many of those who declined are 
afraid of official reprisals or ostracism and 
intimidation by neighbors.

"The chances get bleaker by the day, because 
incidents of violence, incidents of harassment, 
keep happening," Lokhande said.

Five years ago, Noor Jehan Shekh watched 
attackers pour chemicals on her husband, then set 
him afire. Today, she and more than a dozen other 
riot widows and their children live a 
poverty-stricken existence in an encampment built 
to house those who lost their homes.

"We are still dealing with the shock. We can't 
forget those gory images," she said. "We should 
receive justice."

Although Shekh's ordeal continues, many others in 
India have forgotten about the convulsive 
violence that killed so many so brutally.

Dholakia said making "Parzania" was part of the 
struggle to ensure that what happened is not 
forgotten - and not repeated.

"Sometimes it's necessary to reopen wounds, 
because the solution to hate is to have a healthy 
debate and open debate about it," Dholakia said. 
"It's better to have it out in the open and 
discuss it.

"You cannot just avoid it."

henry.chu at latimes.com

Times staff writer Shankhadeep Choudhury contributed to this report.


______


[6]


A 3-DAY CONFERENCE IN DELHI ON 12TH-14TH MARCH 
2007 ON WAR, IMPERIALISM AND RESISTANCE IN WEST 
ASIA

Dear Friends,

West Asia is currently becoming the global 
flashpoint, with US imperialism seeking to 
remould the region to its liking. Israel, its 
closest ally in the region, is also seeking to 
destroy the Palestinian nation, as well as stamp 
out all resistance to its own apartheid policies. 
The catchall slogan of "War against Terror," post 
9/11, is providing a cover for the aggressive 
designs of the US-Israeli axis.

Military strikes against Iran now loom on the 
horizon and the UN Security Council itself is 
being manipulated for that purpose. To highlight 
the above issues and generate a wider solidarity 
for the people under occupation and military 
threat in the region, we are holding a 3-day 
Conference in Delhi on 12th-14th March 2007. The 
Conference would also work towards building the 
widest unity against imperialist forces in West 
Asia and also put pressure on the Governments in 
South Asia including India to oppose war and 
occupation in the region.

We have received a very good response and would 
have leading thinkers from West Asia – from 
Palestine, Israel, Lebanon, Iraq, Iran, etc.- to 
speak on the above issues. We will be very happy 
if you can take time out and participate in the 
above conference. The details of the conference 
are as follows:

Venue: India International Centre Auditorium
Dates: 12th-14th March 2007
Time: 9:30 AM - 5.00 PM

Will appreciate if you can forward this to others in
your network.
Looking forward to your participation,

Yours truly,

S.P.Shukla Aijaz Ahmad Achin Vanik Seema Mustafa Kamal
Chenoy Anu
Chenoy Prabir Purkayastha Feroze Mithiborwala Meena
Menon

On Behalf of the Committee on War, Imperialism and
Resistance: West Asia



_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/

Buzz for secularism, on the dangers of fundamentalism(s), on
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Asia. SACW is an independent & non-profit
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