LAHORE, Pakistan–Opposition politician Imran Khan learned a hard lesson yesterday about how bitterly divided Pakistani students are toward President Gen. Pervez Musharraf.

Over the last week, 500 to 1,000 students have protested daily on the campus of the Lahore University of Management Sciences (LUMS), a leading university in Pakistan.

Police barricades and warnings have not intimidated the several hundred students who continue to demand an end to martial law, arbitrary arrests of activists and curbs on press freedom.

But at Punjab University, a student demonstration against emergency rule turned sour yesterday when Khan was arrested as he made an appearance. He had been evading house arrest for several days.

Khan, one of the most vocal critics of Musharraf’s unconstitutional methods of staying in power, was at first hoisted upon students’ shoulders as they chanted “Go Musharraf Go” and “Down with Musharraf.” His coming-out then degenerated into a farce.

Members of the hard-line Jamiat-e-Tuleba, the student arm of the country’s largest Islamist party, the Jamaat-e-Islami, bundled Khan into the Centre for High Energy Physics shortly after and handed him over to police.

Khan is the last of Musharraf’s opposition leaders to be rounded up following the Pakistani president’s Nov. 3 declaration of emergency. Police took him to an undisclosed location, sources said.

Hundreds, if not thousands, of political workers, lawyers and human rights activists have been held under house arrest or indefinitely detained.

Khan is revered as one of cricket’s all-time greats and admired for his charitable work, especially a hospital he set up for poor cancer patients.

He drummed up the money for that by motivating young people to go out and fundraise for him, as “mini-Imrans,” he said.

Khan hoped to rally the students for protests against Musharraf as well.

Pakistani students have been criticized in the past as a group that largely spends its time comparing designer clothes and electronic gadgets when not in the library studying.

“I want to get the students out,” Khan said last week.

“If you have to (make) sacrifices, this is the time. What you cannot do is sit on the fence anymore.”

The small, but increasing vocal and demonstrative student movement follows in the footsteps of the defiant lawyers’ movement.

What haunts the government is the memory of the starring role students have played in toppling previous leaders at key moments over the last 40 years.

In 1968, students were at the forefront of resistance against the despotic, corrupt regime of president Ayub Khan, one in the long line of generals to rule this country. Despite a repressive security apparatus at his disposal, Ayub Khan was forced to step down a year later.

Young people also turned out en masse against prime minister Zulfikar Ali Bhutto, the father of Benazir Bhutto, Musharraf’s biggest rival and herself a former premier. The elder Bhutto was ousted from power in 1977, then hanged in 1979.

With those examples in mind, later Pakistani governments launched a campaign to depoliticize college campuses, banning political activity and clamping down on student unions.

Many observers were therefore surprised, and in some cases exhilarated, by the political rumblings beginning to take form on various campuses, particularly LUMS.

At a recent demonstration, about 150 students met at Beacon House National University, a liberal arts institution, to support the university’s dean and human rights activist Salima Hashmi, who had been jailed for two days and recently released.

Encouragement from some university administrators has fuelled some of the student protests.

At LUMS University, the vice-chancellor and faculty members gave the students their blessings to stage demonstrations on campus.

Still, the relatively small student protests held at public universities were hardly examples of complete unity.

Of the 27,000 students at Punjab University, only a couple of hundred showed up for the demonstration yesterday.

“The Jamiat don’t allow us to protest,” said Afsa Mehmood, 19, who sported a black armband decrying the emergency.

“They are in favour of the government and they have the power to silence us.”

Students at both the old and new campuses of the university lamented the influence of the Jamiat group in organizing their own student protests and other activities.

At Punjab University yesterday, Jamiat students pulled Khan off the shoulders of their secular classmates, and prevented him from leading the rally.

Tempers flared and frustration soared as the smaller, less vocal secular contingent tried to battle the more impassioned Jamiat leaders.

“He wanted to be a hero on our shoulders,” said Salman Zaman, 22, and a Jamiat follower.

“We didn’t want that,” Zaman said.

“We didn’t want our protest to be hijacked by any one political agenda.”

Many conscientious objectors, including some who said they feared Islamist groups, turned to art to express their frustrations.

Like Bilal Ashraf, 22, sculpted a project called “This is Enough.” In it, Pakistan is depicted as a woman with no arms, her eyes blindfolded, and her head thrown back.

Her dress, a long papery gown, is a collage of newspaper headlines on the judiciary’s crisis.

The edges of the gown are frayed, and are beginning to burn at the bottom. But limbless and without sight, she (Pakistan) is helpless.

“Educated Pakistani youngsters have been kept at a distance from politics for decades,” said retired Brig. Rao Abid Hamid of the Human Rights Commission of Pakistan.

“This movement is just in its infancy. Give it time.”

Six decades after the British partitioned Pakistan from India, families broken by the border struggle to stay in touch

The Globe and Mail, Wednesday, August 15, 2007
SONYA FATAH

AMRITSAR, INDIA — For a long time after 1947, Karkar Singh’s mother and aunt sent news to each other through lovingly penned letters. Their homes were hardly 40 kilometres apart by road, but it would be four months, each time, before either received a response by mail. They kept writing, filling each other in on family news for 20 years, until the bonds began to weaken, the connection harder to sustain. Eventually, the letters stopped coming.

Mr. Singh’s mother lived in the village of Majhupura on the western edge of Indian Punjab, about 10 kilometres from the Pakistan border. His aunt and her husband, Karnal Singh, lived 30 kilometres inside what is Pakistan today.

Until 1947, when Pakistan was born, they lived close enough to visit regularly. But Karnal Singh, who worked as a driver at the Bata Shoe Factory, was reluctant to leave his job, his home and his land when the borders were drawn, cutting him off from his family on the other side.

The British exit from India, leaving behind two states – Hindu-dominated India and a Muslim Pakistan – sparked a mass migration of Hindus and Sikhs from Pakistan, and Muslims from India, separating thousands of families.

As the two countries celebrate 60 years of independence, some of these long-standing ties endure, despite the odds, to keep India and Pakistan connected.

Mr. Singh, 60, made three arduous journeys to Delhi before securing a visa to visit his aunt and cousins in Pakistan. Eventually, with the purpose of visiting Sikh religious sites, he booked a train to Pakistan.

“I didn’t feel any differences between us,” he says of the reunion with his relatives 12 years ago. “Our language is the same; our feelings for each other were very strong.” The only difference, he said, was of diet. In Muslim-dominated Pakistan, his cousins eat meat. But that, Mr. Singh says, wasn’t a problem. “They cooked separately for me.”

While it has been more than 30 years since the countries last went to war, deep hostilities and suspicions linger. Since India’s then-prime minister, Atal Bihari Vajpayee, made peace overtures to Pakistan in 2000, a sometimes-rocky progression has been made toward relaxing the draconian laws that prevent person-to-person interaction.

While there has been an increase in trade and traffic and a greater exchange of ideas, most has happened at a government level or among the upper class. For those of modest means, reaching out has been more difficult.

Gardeep Singh, 55, of Todi Bind, five kilometres from the border, has travelled to Pakistan to visit his maternal uncle, who, like him, is a farmer.

Born in India after partition, he has made every effort to maintain ties with his family on the other side.

“We’re all Punjabis. They are one of us. Even though my mother and my uncle passed away two years ago, my heart wants to keep the ties. There is no difference between us,” he says.

His brother, Vasan Singh, 60, has not been to Pakistan. “It’s too much of a hassle,” he says, citing the cost and burden of travelling to Delhi for a visa.

Theoretically, people could maintain contact through phone communication, which has become much more accessible in recent years. But calling Pakistan is not always a good idea.

Mr. Singh says police interrogated his nephew when he called family members in Pakistan after returning from a visit five years ago. “We don’t call because we don’t want to be harassed.”

Some say the reason for police supervision is linked to the significant illegal border trade that takes place. Indian liquor passes into Pakistani hands in exchange for heroin from Afghanistan and Pakistan.

Almost everyone in the border area knows someone who has been involved in the smuggling trade. India’s border security force has cracked down, but the black-market trade continues, people say, in part thanks to corrupt officials.

People here say their relatives in Pakistan struggle to get visas to visit.

“Our relatives from Pakistan just don’t get visas to visit Punjab,” says Pacho Kaur, 60, whose brother lives on the other side. “They’ve never been here, they’ve never met our families. We don’t know why.”

Ms. Kaur’s brother lives in Lahore, where he drives a horse-drawn carriage. She has visited him many times, but can only apply for a visa every 15 months.

“It feels like I’m in the Punjab when I’m there. It feels the same,” she said, echoing the feelings of almost everyone else with family across the border. “All his children showed me so much love, my heart stayed there with them.”

After 60 years, a patchwork of letters, photographs and occasional visits has kept a generation of separated families connected. But in these villages – distant from the innovations of the Internet and e-mail – it’s hard to imagine how much longer the connections can hold.

“We’re poor, we have no connections, so we can’t get across and we can’t get visas,” says Kartar Singh, who lives in a small concrete house with baked mud floors and earns 3,000 rupees ($80 Canadian) a month working in a fabric printing factory. “The rich bend all the rules and make it, but we, with our families across the border, are left struggling to connect the past and the present.”

His son, Divender Singh, 25, doesn’t know if that bond is tangible. “We don’t know our cousins. We don’t recognize their faces. When we can’t meet them or talk to them, they are, more or less, dead.”

United they began

1940: India’s Muslim League endorses the idea of a separate Muslim nation.

Early 1947: Britain says it will leave India no later than June, 1948.

Aug. 13, 1947: Sir Cyril Radcliffe submits his partition map, demarcating the hastily drawn border between India and Pakistan that in some places cut villages, and even individual houses, in two along what became known as the Radcliffe Line. Sir Cyril’s justification was that no matter what he did, people would suffer. The division was done in secret, and no Indians were allowed to review it, since disputes likely would have arisen and delayed the partition.

Aug. 15, 1947: At the stroke of midnight, the country of Pakistan comes into being as an independent, largely Muslim state with East and West provinces separated by more than 1,500 km of Indian land. At the same time, India gains its independence as a secular Hindu nation.

1947-48: Many Muslims and Hindus find themselves on the “wrong side” of the border, and as a result, an estimated 14.5 million people cross to the other side. Hundreds of thousands of other people die in widespread communal bloodshed.

1949: The Awami League is established to campaign for East Pakistan’s autonomy from West Pakistan.

1970: The Awami League, under Sheikh Mujib, wins an overwhelming election victory in East Pakistan. The government in West Pakistan refuses to recognize the election results, leading to rioting.

1971: Sheikh Mujib is arrested and taken to West Pakistan. In exile, Awami League leaders proclaim East Pakistan independent on March 26, leading to a civil war. About 10 million people flee to India as troops from West Pakistan are defeated with Indian assistance. The new country is called Bangladesh.

Sources: BBC, Reuters

As the political crisis deepens, a new book reveals just how powerful the generals really are. Sonya Fatah reports

– Trapped between international pressure to combat terrorism and domestic demands that he restore true democracy, Pakistani President Pervez Musharraf came very close to declaring a national state of emergency this week.

It was the latest indication that his political fortunes have been in a freefall since a month ago yesterday, when he ordered the military to silence the rebellious radicals at Islamabad’s infamous Red Mosque. That battle left more than 100 people dead, including one of the mosque’s leaders, Abdul Rashid Ghazi.

In a Globe and Mail interview two months earlier, Mr. Ghazi offered an explanation for agitating against the state that went beyond religion. And while they would not endorse his actions, many Pakistanis would agree with his analysis:

“We feel that the system in Pakistan has completely failed. Nothing is working properly. … This system may be fulfilling an elite class of less than 1 per cent, but the majority of the people are suffering.”

The system he was criticizing is the subject of an explosive new book by Pakistani academic Ayesha Siddiqa. Called Military Inc.: Inside Pakistan’s Military Economy, it paints a picture of that “elite class” – military officials, retired armed-forces personnel, the civil bureaucracy, feudal landlords, media and business groups. Dr. Siddiqa takes readers into the murky labyrinth of the Pakistani military’s hidden wealth and power.

Imagine you’re a real-estate developer thinking of building a sprawling luxury residential complex in the leafy suburbs of Islamabad. You might get in touch with the Defence Housing Authorities. Need to buy tons of cement to get construction under way? Call Askari Cement Ltd. Need a loan? Insurance? Askari’s sister companies can cover you. Want to build a quality school in your new development? Try the Fauji Foundation.

What do these companies have in common? They’re all businesses built by a military that has insinuated itself in almost every aspect of the Pakistani economy. From cereal companies to major land holdings to cement and construction companies, the military and its civilian cronies have their hands in every pie, as Dr. Siddiqa details. Moreover, its financial affairs – known as “milbus” – are off the record. Pakistan’s defence budget is significantly higher than those of such sectors as education and health, yet it doesn’t even record its pension payments.

But Dr. Siddiqa, a defence analyst, has worked as head of research for the Pakistani navy – she knows the numbers because she had internal access to documents and records. She has detailed the incriminating facts she gleaned there, such as the military ownership of the National Logistics Cell, the country’s biggest freight company, or the four army-run foundations that conduct huge cross-sector projects, own significant assets and employ retired military personnel. Dr. Siddiqa also writes that 12 per cent of Pakistani state land is owned by the military.

Such information about Pakistan’s military economy, she suggests, explains a great deal about its struggling political state. The military is a monopoly with vested interests and searching for power in places such as Afghanistan, Dr. Siddiqa argues.

WHAT DOES A GENERAL

KNOW ABOUT EDUCATION?

The army’s economic empire is not news in Pakistan. It’s virtually impossible to meet someone here who doesn’t have a story about it – the former general who has won the contract to repave all pedestrian walking zones in Karachi, or the militarily connected journalist who just happened to come out ahead in the land “lottery” and came away with a lush, generous swath of property practically for free.

And as Mr. Ghazi pointed out in his interview, the current Minister of Education is a retired general. “What are his qualifications?” Mr. Ghazi demanded. “What does he know about education?”

Military influence extends into key political posts, beginning of course with President Musharaff, formerly General Musharaff. Pakistan’s ambassador to the United States, the country’s most important and strategic military partner, is a retired general, as is the head of the country’s National Accountability Bureau.

“They have their interests,” Dr. Siddiqa said in an inteview. “I’ve not suggested anywhere that they got into politics because of economic interest. They did because of their political power. Once they have it, now they are not going to leave.”

The subsequent “search for justice and better governance” has led to a mushrooming of alternative ideologies, Dr. Siddiqa said, leaving a door open for Islamists as well as secular critics of the government.

Mr. Ghazi’s father had good relations with Pakistan’s last military ruler, General Zia-ul Haq, and once worked for the powerful Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI). The land occupied by the Red Mosque was given to him by the government. For years, the family’s ties with intelligence services allowed them to pursue their own agenda, which partly explains why Mr. Musharraf took so long to act against them – a fairly typical pattern in the military’s push-and-pull relationship with radical Islamists.

“The Inter-services agency has an overt role in [the Red Mosque],” said Najam Sethi, editor of two English daily newspapers in Pakistan. “They were old buddies. But I think the ISI disowned them some time ago. Basically the ISI led these guys up a garden path and then as [the clerics] became bolder and bolder, they reached the stage where things had to be ended.”

Indeed, in 2004, Mr. Ghazi and his brother were accused of harbouring terrorists in the mosque. A rocket launcher was discovered in his car. The details of these episodes were recorded, but Mr. Ghazi was quietly let off the hook.

“The links with the military organization were clear even then,” said Samina Ahmed, South Asia director for the Belgium-based International Crisis Group.

The military and radical Islamists frequently work together, she said. For example, during the October, 2005, earthquake that devastated northern Pakistan and Pakistan-controlled Kashmir and took more than 80,000 lives, well-organized teams of banned jihadi groups were the first to arrive on the scene and begin rescue efforts.

The Red Mosque’s Islamist leader has taken his extremism to his grave, but there are many more centres of extremism in the country. “We are not interested in personalities,” Mr. Ghazi said. “We are interested in systems. If Musharraf goes, another of his kind will come in his place.”

Indeed, despite the President’s sagging fortunes at the moment, a change in the system seems highly unlikely. Dr. Siddiqa estimates the wealth of the military at $20-billion and says military governments have run Pakistan for half of its 60 years, so the future looks bleak: “The bottom line is, the army doesn’t want any critical analysis, and the military is a very strong institution.”

With the people of Pakistan still out of the decision-making process and a weak leadership in place, the military continues to run the show. “The current leadership is elitist and people have no option. The military makes sure that it keeps the recyclable politicians in politics.”

Sonya Fatah is a New Delhi-based reporter.

The bestseller blues

Ayesha Siddiqa’s Military Inc. is a hit, but the controversy surrounding it has caused problems.

To begin with, a launch party planned for the prestigious Islamabad Club was cancelled abruptly. The publisher hunted for an alternative venue, but no major hotel would provide a home. Finally, a hastily arranged gathering was held at the home of a non-governmental organization.

“I really didn’t expect this kind of a reaction,” Dr. Siddiqa says over coffee in London. “I was expecting a little reaction, but last year Newline [an English-language monthly in Pakistan] ran an entire chapter of my book, and there was no response.”

But the book’s publication comes at a sensitive time, with President Pervez Musharraf under fire and many Pakistanis on the defensive. Dr. Siddiqa says she has lost friends because of what she has written and has even been suspected of treason.

An English-language daily reported that an Indian diplomat’s car was parked in her driveway, sparking a whisper campaign that accused her of being an agent for New Delhi.

Sonya Fatah

The Globe and Mail, Saturday, August 11, 2007
SONYA FATAH

THIMPHU, BHUTAN — Monarchies have inspired bloody revolutions, internal dissent and anti-royalist demonstrations. But not in the remote, Himalayan kingdom of Bhutan. Here, it’s the King who is trumpeting democracy and calling for a one-person, one-vote system.

So far, the citizens have resisted the call. The consensus among the Bhutanese is that democracy is a bad idea. Bhutan will become another India, people say, pointing to the host of internal conflicts in the neighbouring country. They also fear democracy might widen class differences and increase social conflict.

Under the benevolent eyes of the monarchy, peace has been Bhutan’s inheritance, they say.

Still, democracy is the King’s wish, and the reluctant Bhutanese are gearing up for their first general election.

Bhutan’s transition toward democracy was led by former king Jigme Singe Wangchuck as part of a plan to develop and modernize Bhutan. He stepped aside in December, making his eldest son, Oxford-educated Jigme Khesar Namgyel Wangchuck, King.

It was the father who first determined that Bhutan would turn toward democracy, and speculation on the reasons for his decision includes the self-destruction of the Royal Family in nearby Nepal and the rise of a Maoist guerrilla movement there. Early in his reign, the Royal Family of neighbouring Sikkim was overthrown after India stirred up trouble among Sikkim’s Nepalese population. Bhutan’s Nepalese community, many of them living in refugee camps, has reason to resent the existing powers in Bhutan.

The country is also largely rural — the majority of its people are farmers — and although its development has been impressive over the past 40 years, with increased life expectancy, literacy and income, the country will have to face more complex challenges as time goes on.

Bhutan has been making baby steps away from absolute monarchy for years.

“Democracy is not a new concept,” said Lily Wangchuck, who heads the governance unit for the United Nations Development Program in Bhutan. “That’s a Western perception. There has been an unprecedented process of decentralization over the last four decades.”

Devolution of monarchial power began in earnest in 1981 for this country of fewer than 700,000 people. People elect their own village and town representatives, but those votes are cast on a one-household, one-vote basis. A council of ministers, appointed by the King and handpicked from Bhutan’s civil service, took over the handling of daily government affairs in 2001.

But this time out, in elections scheduled to be held in two rounds in February and March — academics from the University of Canberra and the Australian National University helped to set up the election process and the shape of the government that will follow — the individual right to vote will be embraced for the first time.

The idea isn’t appealing to most people — yet.

“We like only the monarchy,” said Kinley Chuki, 18, who is getting a diploma in education and helps run the family-owned general store on the main street in Paro. “If democracy comes, we will become like India.”

Bhutanese feel that the monarchy has been a force for stability and unity. They have awful tales to tell about the “former times,” a general reference to the turbulent period that predates 1907, the year the monarchy was born.

Ms. Chuki’s grandmother, Nimdem, 80, who spent most of her life picking apples in an orchard near Paro, says she fears democracy will create greater class cleavages.

“Under democracy, only upper-class people with backgrounds will be successful.”

Citizens have been slow in engaging in the nascent political process, even the creation of parties to vie for votes has been a struggle.

A former minister and the brother of Bhutan’s queens — four sisters who are married to the former king — lead the People’s Democratic Party. Bhutan’s Prime Minister Lyonpo Khandu Wangchuck and six cabinet ministers resigned to contest elections, a move widely seen to bring legitimacy to the election process, but one that has also brought dissatisfaction as would-be candidates, having given up their jobs, find they have been sidelined by political candidates.

This year the government held two rounds of mock elections to prepare voters for the real thing. Still, the Bhutanese are struggling to understand the process and its purpose.

“The King’s concern is to develop Bhutan, which is why he is asking for democracy,” said Pema Gyeltshen, 49, a junior high school teacher in Thimphu, Bhutan’s capital, who also sells prayer flags at a monastery. “But hardly 50 per cent of the people know what democracy is.”

Not everyone is afraid of a future in a democratic Bhutan. For students like Ugyen Tenzing, 24 and Tenzing Dorji, 25, graduates of Bhutan’s only degree college, political change is healthy.

“People haven’t recognized it yet but democracy is a good thing for people because they can participate in a democracy,” Mr. Tenzing said.

The country, romanticized by many as the “last Shangri-La” on Earth, also has its skeletons.

Many fear that democracy will result in accusations of human-rights violations against the country’s Nepalese population.

The Bhutanese-Nepalese, known as the Lhotshampa or southern Bhutanese, came and settled in the southern part of the country in the early 20th century.

In the 1980s, a new law required all Bhutanese to wear their national dress at public and official events, to school and at work. Nepali, which had been introduced as a language in schools around 1950, was cut from school curriculums.

Many Nepalese saw this as a direct threat to their inclusion in Bhutanese society.

An exodus of Bhutanese-Nepalese occurred between 1988 and 1993 after a series of brutal acts, including rape and murder, were committed against the southern Bhutanese, many of whom still live as stateless people in camps on the Nepal side of the border.

There are no human-rights groups in Bhutan at the moment but that, like many other things, is likely to change when the first Bhutanese-elected government comes to power next year.

For Dorji Wangmo, 24, and a graduate of Sherubtse College, reform in Bhutan is inevitable.

“There is no choice. Change had to happen. That is the future.”

The little kingdom

Bhutan is a tiny, remote and impoverished kingdom nestling in the Himalayas between its powerful neighbours, India and China. Almost completely cut off for centuries, it has tried to let in some aspects of the outside world while fiercely guarding its ancient traditions.

The Bhutanese name for Bhutan, Druk Yul, means Land of the Thunder Dragon, and it only began to open up to outsiders in the 1970s.

The Wangchuck hereditary monarchy has wielded power since 1907. In December of 2006, Jigme Khesar Namgyel Wangchuck succeeded his father, Jigme Singye Wangchuck, who came to the throne in 1972 at the age of 17, assuming the title of Druk Gyalpo or Dragon King. Concerned with the spiritual as well as material well-being of his people, he promoted a concept known as gross national happiness.

Bhutan’s ancient Buddhist culture and breathtaking scenery make it a natural tourist attraction. But tourism is restricted. Visitors must travel as part of a prearranged package or guided tour. Backpackers and independent travellers are discouraged.

King Wangchuck has gone to great lengths to preserve the indigenous Buddhist culture of the majority Drukpa, who have a common culture with the Tibetans and other Himalayan peoples.

National dress is compulsory — the knee-length wrap-around gho for men and the ankle-length dress known as the kira for women.

But by the 1990s, attempts to stress the majority Buddhist culture and the lack of any political representation had led to deep resentment among the ethnic Nepali community in the south. Violence erupted and tens of thousands of Nepali speakers fled to refugee camps in Nepal.

Television was introduced only in 1999, because for years Bhutan had a deliberate policy of isolation, fearing that outside influences would undermine its absolute monarchy, freedom and culture.

The state-run Bhutan Broadcasting Service launched the first TV service as part of celebrations surrounding King Wangchuck’s silver jubilee. The launch marked the end of a general ban on television.

Radio broadcasting began in 1973 and the first Internet service was introduced in 1999.

Media freedom is restricted by the government. There are no private broadcasters, but cable television is said to be thriving with rival operators offering dozens of channels.

Source: BBC

Return to happen in weeks, former Pakistani PM asserts

The Globe and Mail, Monday, July 23, 2007
SONYA FATAH

LONDON — Even at the cost of being jailed, former prime minister Benazir Bhutto says she plans to end her eight-year-long self-imposed exile within weeks to fight for the restoration of democracy in Pakistan.

“My return is not tied to any dialogue,” Ms. Bhutto said in an exclusive interview with The Globe and Mail. “My return is going to happen.”

Ms. Bhutto had earlier avoided setting a specific date for her return, saying only that it would be before the end of this year. However, after hearing of the supreme court’s reinstatement last week of Iftikhar Mohammed Chaudhry as Pakistan’s chief justice, Ms. Bhutto says confidence in the independence of the judiciary may mean a return as early as September.

Ms. Bhutto says talks between her party and General Pervez Musharraf are about ensuring that free and fair elections take place this year, and not about power-sharing agreements. Regardless of how those negotiations turn out, she will return to Pakistan, she said.

Back-door diplomacy between Ms. Bhutto’s party, the Pakistan People’s Party (PPP), and Gen. Musharraf has been afoot for months now. There has been much speculation about deal-making between the two. Analysts believe Ms. Bhutto could be prime minister with a suited – not uniformed – Pervez Musharraf as president.

Gen. Musharraf recently declared his intention to continue on as army chief: a nec-

essity, he said, as a result of the recent spate of suicide bombings.

That, Ms. Bhutto says, is not acceptable.

“A uniformed president blurs the distinction between democracy and dictatorship and unless the uniform is taken off, then Pakistan will continue to be seen as a military dictatorship.”

Ms. Bhutto had been expected to return to Pakistan before parliamentary elections scheduled for October of 2002.

At the time, analysts said opposition parties had not generated enough momentum to secure Ms. Bhutto’s confidence in a return.

In the past six months, however, opposition parties have been at the forefront of a serious political effort to challenge military rule. Sustained protests and an unprecedented series of suicide bombs over two significant events – the Red Mosque affair that ended in bloodshed in the country’s capital, and the suspension and subsequent reinstatement of the country’s top judge – have weakened Gen. Musharraf at home and abroad.

For Ms. Bhutto, there could be no better time to return. But whether she has the power to control Pakistan’s strong military and intelligence agencies is questionable.

Numerous roadblocks lie in her path. The much-amended Pakistani constitution prevents a twice-elected prime minister from being elected a third time, courtesy of Gen. Musharraf, and Pakistan’s previous military dictator, Gen. Mohammed Zia-ul-Haq, empowered the President to dissolve the National Assembly.

Moreover, a long list of corruption charges in several countries has plagued Ms. Bhutto’s reputation. The charges have never been proven, but they have hung like an albatross around her party.

In addition, Ms. Bhutto will have to win a two-thirds majority in Parliament to have effective control over policy making. And finally, whether Ms. Bhutto and Gen. Musharraf, both of whom are mega-personalities, can share power with such conflicting agendas remains to be seen.

Ms. Bhutto says military intervention lies at the heart of Pakistan’s many problems today: “The military, since the days of Gen. Zia-ul-Haq, has used religious parties in an attempt to give Islamic legitimacy to an illegitimate military rule and today we are facing the consequences of repeated military intervention.” Gen. Musharraf has marketed the military as the only solution to the extremist problem.

Ms. Bhutto’s agenda for defeating Pakistan’s growing internal problems stands in striking contrast to that of Gen. Musharraf. He and the Afghan President, Hamid Karzai, have had hostile relations during the “war on terror.” Ms. Bhutto plans to work closely with Afghanistan to bring about stability in both countries. Gen. Musharraf believes in signing peace agreements and negotiating with radical groups; Ms. Bhutto says she will have zero tolerance when combatting “political” madrassas (religious schools) where terrorist ideologies are carried out.

“He and I speak from different vantage points,” Ms. Bhutto said. “He needs the extremist issue to legitimize his rule. I don’t. I need the people’s support.”

If anyone has the people’s support, Ms. Bhutto’s party has it. Her father, Zulfikar Ali Bhutto, also ruled Pakistan. In 1977, he was ousted by his much-trusted armed forces chief, Gen. Zia, and was subsequently hanged.

Ms. Bhutto was the darling of Pakistan and the international media when she first came to power in 1988, after Gen. Zia’s mysterious death in a plane crash after an 11-year reign. A graduate of Harvard University and Oxford University, Ms. Bhutto, then 35, was the first female prime minister in the Muslim world. But Ms. Bhutto’s governments were plagued by problems: an increase in ethnic violence in Karachi, her brother’s murder, and accusations against her husband, Asif Zardari, of blackmail and corruption.

Moreover, Ms. Bhutto was unable to move legislation because of petty differences with opposition parties and because of her lack of control over Pakistan’s military.

That means her government will focus on its internal strategy of four Es: education, employment, energy and the environment. Ms. Bhutto has yet to detail how exactly that agenda will be carried out.

Ms. Bhutto says the Election Commission needs to do much more to convincingly preside over a free and fair election this year. More than 30 per cent of the electorate is not enrolled, she says. Without free and fair elections, she will have no guarantee of power.

“The last time I could not contain the military and the intelligence because the power over the military and intelligence was not with me – it was with the President. This is why I say to the people of Pakistan, ‘Give me a mandate that I can make a change.’ ”

A burgeoning middle class is rapidly developing a taste for the roasted bean – and Starbucks is taking notice

The Globe and Mail, Tuesday, July 17, 2007
SONYA FATAH
Special to The Globe and Mail NEW DELHI — Among hot beverages, India is synonymous with just one: tea. But a lifestyle revolution driven by a burgeoning middle class is luring young Indians to caf�s where cappuccinos, lattes and mochas are the drink of choice.

South Indian-style coffee – boiled with milk and served in stainless steel tumblers – has long been sipped in India’s southern states of Karnataka, Tamil Nadu, and Kerala. But a new coffee-drinking culture has emerged since India’s plantation owners have crept into the caf� business, launching a cultural revolution that has seeped into India’s urban centres.

Today, there are about 750 caf�s across India, two-thirds of which are owned and operated by Caf� Coffee Day, a company that plans to have 1,400 caf�s across India in five years’ time, as well as 10 in Pakistan and 10 in Austria.

“I expect this market to grow 40 per cent annually for the next three years,” says Jagdeep Kapoor, director of Samsika Marketing Consultancies. “That is going to be huge.”

In the next two decades, analysts expect there will be as many as 5,000 caf�s in India.

It’s taken a decade for India’s largest chain to create a caf� culture.

There were only a handful of Caf� Coffee Day outlets in the late 1990s, all in India’s six largest cities. But the chain, which is owned by the Bangalore-based Amalgamated Bean Coffee Trading Co. Ltd., has mushroomed since 2001, now boasting 401 caf�s in 72 cities and aiming to cross the 500 mark by the end of the year.

India is also attracting global attention. Starbucks Corp. is eyeing New Delhi or Mumbai for its first outlet. Italian coffee company Lavazza is already here, after acquiring Barista Coffee Co. Ltd.

Starbucks is keeping mum about its strategy in India, as it navigates strict Indian laws on foreign ownership in the retail sector.

“We are looking forward to offering the finest coffee in the world, handcrafted beverages, legendary service and the unique Starbucks Experience to customers in India, first in either Delhi or Mumbai, in the near future,” T. May Kulthol, a company spokesman, said in an e-mail.

But other players in the coffee sector are watching the global giant closely, amid speculation it may buy an Indian chain to gain a quick footing.

“They are scared of us. We are not scared of them,” scoffed Naresh Malhotra, director of Caf� Coffee Day. “Let them come in. It will make for a greater awareness for coffee.”

Caf� Coffee Day must also worry about another giant, Tata Coffee Ltd., which sold its share in Barista to the Italians and is developing its own brand, Mr. Bean Coffee Junction. From its first test location in the southern city of Kochi – near India’s famous plantation country – Tata plans to expand the concept to five stores in Bangalore, Chennai and Hyderabad.

“If these stores are a success, then we will go in for a franchise model and rapidly expand,” said M.H. Ashraff, managing director of Tata Coffee.

The company is the country’s largest coffee conglomerate, producing 10 million kilograms of coffee from its estates, spread over 7,000 hectares in Karnataka state. Caf� Coffee Day’s parent company, Amalgamated Bean, sources coffee from the 5,000 acres of coffee plantations it owns in the south.

The market, analysts say, has space for all. With a forecast of a 6- to 9-per-cent annual real growth rate in gross domestic product over the next two decades, the value of the Indian consumer market is expected to triple as a result of productivity increases, growing openness of the Indian economy and demographic changes, according to a report released by McKinsey & Company.

India’s big cities are expected to boom in the next three decades. Analysts forecast that the country could have as many 35 cities with a population of over one million, and 300 smaller metros, with 100,000 to one million people each.

Coffee plantations were started in Southern India around the 18th century when the East India Co. discovered it could profit from growing the plant in its eastern colonies. Some even trace coffee’s heritage to a few centuries earlier.

Today, most of India’s coffee – about 60 per cent of it – is grown in Karnataka, in the country’s south, along the slopes of the Western Ghats range.

Analysts say the caf� culture change is less a reflection of a coffee drinking culture and more about a lifestyle revolution.

“On-premise consumption has increased substantially. There is a lot of young culture – a lot of college students and a lot of student kids would like to hang around and there was no such wholesome place available,” Mr. Kapoor says.

Coffee in India

Popular Indian lore says that

Baba Budan, a revered Muslim holy man from India, discovered coffee on a pilgrimage to Mecca in the 16th century. He smuggled seven coffee beans out of the

Yemeni port of Mocha wrapped around his belly. On his return home, he settled on the slopes of the Chandragiri Hills in Kadur district, or what is now Karnataka. The hills of this famous coffee-producing region were later named after him.

Indian latte

Kaapi is a sweet milky coffee made from dark roasted coffee beans and chicory, popular in the southern states of Karnataka and Tamil Nadu. The most commonly used coffee beans are Peaberry, Arabica, Malabar and Robusta grown in the hills of Kerala, Karnataka and Tamil Nadu.

578,000

Number of people employed in Indian coffee industry

201,498

Mega-tonnes of Indian coffee

exported in 2005-2006

Source: Coffee Board of India

The Globe and Mail, Wednesday, July 11, 2007

SONYA FATAH

By decisively ending the standoff at the Red Mosque, Pakistani President Pervez Musharraf has answered international critics who questioned his commitment to fighting extremism, but risks drawing the wrath of other radicals who hold considerable power in his embattled country.

His biggest ally in the West, the United States, was quick to offer support yesterday. “The government of Pakistan has proceeded in a responsible way,” Pentagon spokesman Tom Casey said. “All governments have a responsibility to preserve order.”

General Musharraf suffered early embarrassment as the moral squads of the mosque went from attacking CD shops earlier this year to abducting brothel owners and finally holding Chinese massage attendants in increasingly bold actions that met with scant consequences.

But by first negotiating with the Islamist leaders and then acting decisively when talks proved fruitless, he was able to back up his assertions that, when needed, he can move fairly but decisively against extremists.

“The international reaction is very good,” said Najam Sethi, editor of The Friday Times and The Daily Times, two English-language publications in Pakistan. “Gen. Musharraf will be seen as finally putting an end

to this.”

Within Pakistan, however, the Red Mosque situation has been the source of much criticism that is unlikely to wane. Many feel that the mosque, once a favourite haunt of the country’s intelligence officers, was allowed to develop into a militant outfit because it was useful to the military’s aims in places such as Kashmir and Afghanistan.

“This was scripted to a point, and then the actors got autonomous,” Mr. Sethi said. “It got out of the government’s hands and then they didn’t know how to deal with it. In the end, the only way to deal with it was to end it this way.”

Some have even accused Gen. Musharraf of provoking the standoff to draw attention away from the pro-democracy campaign he sparked when he fired the chief justice of the Supreme Court, and to demonstrate that his strong leadership is needed in the face of calls for him to relinquish power along with coming elections.

There’s also fear that radical madrassas in other parts of the country will respond violently to the siege of the Red Mosque, particularly in the northwest frontier region, which borders the tribal areas and Afghanistan. During the standoff, militants there reacted by attacking law-enforcement officers, killing at least 19 people. Attempts yesterday to keep the news media at a distance from the scene was probably part of an effort to minimize the spread of reaction.

But for the most part, few in Pakistan opposed the final decision to attack the mosque. Gen. Musharraf is seen to have made the right conciliatory moves before being forced to react.

He will, however, be asked some hard questions about why the Red Mosque affair dragged on for six months. Greater scrutiny is also required into the role of Pakistan’s military and intelligence agencies in exacerbating the problem of extremism by tolerating elements that further government goals, although political will for that sort of introspection is unlikely.

The Globe and Mail, Thursday, July 5, 2007
SONYA FATAH
NEW DELHI — A few years ago, Pervez Hameed was browsing the Internet when he came across the term “bed and breakfast.” He knew nothing about the concept but was intrigued.

His wife, two sons and mother lived together in a six-bedroom house in an upscale residential area in south Delhi. The Hameeds loved company. Mr. Hameed’s wife, Lubna, was a great cook, and they had extra space. A bed and breakfast sounded like it was right up their alley.

The couple converted three rooms, got the necessary government permissions, sent out marketing messages to overseas networks, and set up a website: http://www.delhibedandbreakfast.com. In May, 2005, they entertained their first guest and reorganized their lifestyle to accommodate, at first a trickle and then a steady stream of foreign travellers, medical tourists, and business people. By early this year, almost 700 visitors had passed through their home.

Mr. Hameed was one of the first in India’s capital city to embrace B&B culture. A little over a year after he opened the doors to his home, the Ministry of Tourism launched a bed and breakfast program with tax incentives, calling on residents of Delhi’s swanky southern suburbs to follow in Mr. Hameed’s footsteps.

India is struggling to keep up with an influx of foreign tourists, businessmen and official visitors flocking here in increasing numbers every year. Its major cities boast dozens of five-star hotels and luxury properties but cannot cope with the demand for rooms.

In 2005, 93 approved hotels provided 10,159 rooms. In 2006, that number sprang to 120 hotels with 12,091 rooms, but the shortage is still a concern. Last year the tourism ministry recorded 3.92 million foreign visitors to India, and “we are expecting a growth rate of 13 to 15 per cent this year,” says Raj Vir Mittal, an assistant director in the Ministry of Tourism. He points to new flights offered by Thai Airways, Continental Airlines and Finnair as a reason for the influx.

And with 90,000 additional visitors expected to arrive in Delhi for the 2010 Commonwealth Games, the government’s B&B plan may be coming just in time.

Getting approved as a B&B takes about a month, and is not a terribly bureaucratic process. Police provide official verification stating the owner does not have a criminal record. The owner of the house presents ownership documents. Finally, a committee comprised of tourism officials and police inspects the facilities and approves or rejects the property.

To date, the Ministry of Tourism’s “Paying Guest Residential Accommodation” website reflects 78 approved properties. “On the one hand there is huge demand and on the other you have a massive inventory of rooms lying vacant within private houses, which owners would be only too happy to let out to tourists,” said Atul Chautvedi, director of the Ministry of Tourism, on the launch of the program.

The government hopes to provide 30,000 rooms in two years, but currently only 240 rooms have been added to Delhi’s accommodation offerings. There is some confusion about the tax advantages, and some residents expressed discomfort about opening their homes.

For Mr. Hameed, the experience has been fulfilling. Their home has grown to offer amenities such as wireless Internet, tour packages and beauty treatments. But the government’s program means that, despite a head start, the Hameeds can expect competition.

“There are any many more beautiful properties and good hosts that will enter the market but we have established our credibility,” Mr. Hameed said.