Bin Laden raid sparks rare criticism in Pakistan
Outraged Pakistanis stepped up calls for top government officials to resign following the daring American helicopter raid that killed Osama bin Laden and embarrassed the nation.
Some of the sharpest language was directed at the army and intelligence chiefs, a rare challenge to arguably the two most powerful men in the country, who are more accustomed to being feared than publicly criticised.
The Pakistani army has said it had no idea bin Laden was hiding for up to six years in Abbottabad, an army town only two and a half hours' drive from the capital, Islamabad. That claim has met with scepticism from US officials, who have repeatedly criticised Pakistan for failing to crack down on Islamist militants.
But with anti-American sentiment already high in the South Asian nation, many Pakistani citizens were more incensed by the fact that the country's military was powerless to stop the American raid.
Some lawmakers and analysts expressed hope that civilian leaders can seize on this anger to chip away at the military's power, but others doubt that even an embarrassment of this scale will shake the status quo.
"It was an attack on our soil, and the army was sleeping," said Zafar Iqbal, a 61-year-old retired bureaucrat in the central city of Lahore.
He singled out the leaders of Pakistan's army, air force and the main intelligence organisation - Gen. Ashfaq Parvez Kayani, Air Chief Marshal Rao Qamar Suleman and Gen. Ahmed Shuja Pasha - saying they all should be forced to resign.
"All three of these men have brought insult to us, and they deserve all the punishment," said Iqbal.
The direct criticism of Kayani and Pasha was particularly striking because the two men enjoy a vaunted status in Pakistan due to their role in protecting the country from external threats, especially archenemy India. Some also feared that bad mouthing the shadowy spy agency, known as the Inter-Services Intelligence agency, could cause trouble and possibly even harm.
Kayani has also had strong backing from the US and other NATO countries, which have sought to enlist his help in battling militants along the country's border with Afghanistan.
It is unclear whether anyone will actually be forced to step down. The Pakistani government is viewed by many as totally unresponsive to the numerous woes plaguing the nation, from a struggling economy to frequent terrorist attacks.
"It is not time to sprinkle salt on wounds," said Pakistan's Information Minister Firdous Aashiq Awan when asked about the calls for senior officials to resign. "It is time to apply ointment on the nation's wounds."
The Pakistani military also denied reports that the ISI chief, Pasha, planned to resign in the wake of the bin Laden raid.
US Navy SEALs swooped into Abbottabad by helicopter before dawn Monday, killed bin Laden and were on their way back to Afghanistan before the army could respond. The army has said it had no prior knowledge of the operation - a claim backed up by the US.
"No one other than the ISI and army chiefs are responsible for this disgrace of American attacks on our homeland," said Jaffar Ali, a 35-year-old bank employee in the southern city of Karachi. "It is a complete failure of our security."
In contrast, former Pakistani Foreign Minister Shah Mahmood Qureshi, a lawmaker for the ruling Pakistan People's Party, fixed the blame squarely on President Asif Ali Zardari and Prime Minister Yousuf Raza Gilani - likely motivated in part by past conflict with the two men.
"This is a great violation of our sovereignty, but it is for the president and prime minister to resign and no one else," Qureshi told reporters Saturday in the central city of Lahore.
The main opposition leader in parliament, Chaudhry Nisar Ali Khan, took a less selective approach. He said anyone from Zardari on down who can be faulted for what happened in Abbottabad should resign.
"This is a call coming from every street of Pakistan," Khan told reporters in Lahore.
Qureshi, the former foreign minister, said parliament should conduct a thorough inquiry into the raid.
Ayesha Siddiqa, a Pakistani defence analyst, said the civilian government should broaden its focus and seize the opportunity to conduct a comprehensive assessment of the country's military and intelligence agencies - a process that could reign in the amount of money they receive and reduce their power over Pakistani politics.
"I don't want something that just looks at where they went wrong this particular time," said Siddiqa. "It should go beyond this one event."
Others held out little hope that Pakistan's civilian leaders have the skill and authority to take on the army, irrespective of the ripples from the bin Laden raid. Many of them are viewed as corrupt and only looking out for their own self-interest.
"Can we fix ourselves? Take a look around. Does anyone think Asif Zardari has what it takes?" Cyril Almeida wrote on Friday in an editorial in Pakistan's leading English-language newspaper, Dawn.
Zardari and Gilani met with the head of Pakistan's army, Kayani, and other senior officials in Islamabad on Saturday to discuss the bin Laden raid, said the prime minister's office. Gilani plans to brief parliament about the raid on Monday.
It is unclear where bin Laden was located before he moved to Abbottabad. Residents of Chak Shah Mohammad, a sparsely populated village close to Abbottabad, denied a report in the New York Times Saturday that bin Laden had lived there for two and a half years with his family before moving to Abbottabad.
"I don't think the kind of people you and the intelligence agencies are looking for are here or have ever lived here," said Mohammad Shazad Awan, a former army soldier who has driven a public minibus in the area for the last 12 years.
But residents of Abbottabad were also not aware that bin Laden had been living there for such a long time.
Awan, who said he works on the side as an informant for the government, said many Pakistani intelligence operatives were in Chak Shah Mohammad on Friday asking whether bin Laden had lived there.
A senior Pakistani intelligence official said he could neither confirm nor deny the report, which cited information from one of bin Laden's three wives who were detained after the raid. He spoke on condition of anonymity in line with the agency's policy.
Fanatic's death a hollow victory
Whatever excuses might be made for Hone Harawira's on-air farewell to deceased al Qaeda supremo Osama bin Laden, it has to be said that it was spectacularly ill-judged.
Seen in context - the original interview on TVNZ's Maori-language news programme Te Karere is easily located - it can, in part, be construed as consistent with Maori tikanga: Harawira farewelled bin Laden as he travels to "your ancestors who wait for you beyond the veil of death".
But asked whether the dead terrorist "fought for self-determination of his people and for his beliefs", Harawira spoke of bin Laden's people mourning "for the man who fought for the rights, the land and the freedom of his people".
That's piffle. Bin Laden was a pitiless mass murderer and should no more be excused for his sincerity than Hitler, Stalin, Mao Zedong or Pol Pot, who were all sincerely committed to their causes.
In any case, Harawira should have known what impact his statement would have and it is somewhat pathetic for him to cry foul about "racist media" reports.
That said, there are disturbing elements about the killing of bin Laden. You don't need to have been directly bereaved on 9/11 to think that the man got what he deserved. But the unseemly cheering and chanting in the US that greeted the news was uncomfortably reminiscent of the reaction in some parts of the Arab world to the original attacks.
In almost 10 years since 9/11, the US-led "war on terror" has cost more than 100,000 lives in Iraq alone (two-thirds of them Iraqi civilians), including 4400 US troops. The bill is US$1.2 trillion and counting.
If the assassination of bin Laden is a victory, it is a hollow, Pyrrhic one. If it is a triumph, it is symbolic only. And the world is not a safer place now that he has gone: there is no shortage of successors ready to do his filthy work.
With most of the Arab world embroiled in a struggle for democracy and freedom against despotic regimes, many of which have enjoyed US sponsorship, the geopolitical landscape has changed. Any exultation should be muted indeed.
Telcos' antics fooling no one
The reaction of the telcos to the Commerce Commission edict that they must slash their mobile termination rates has been predictable.
The commission cut rates from 14c to 7c a minute for calls and from 9.5c to 0.06c for text messages, and they will fall further each year until 2014.
Unsurprisingly, Vodafone and Telecom say there is no reason for mobile call prices to fall as a result of the ruling - although charges for landline-to-mobile calls are likely to drop soon.
What is both surprising and disappointing is that the big players' public position is now shared by 2degrees, whose arrival in the market gave the duopoly the shake-up that regulators had failed to achieve.
2degrees, whose market share has almost trebled, to 11 per cent, in the past year, once howled about the mobile termination rates - the fees telcos charge each other for a call or text that originates from a rival network - calling them a barrier to competition.
Yet no sooner had the commission announced the reduction of the rates than 2degrees' chief executive, Eric Hertz, said that prices could come down over the coming months, but could not say when this would be.
It's a distinct change of heart from the man who said in December that mobile operators could afford to lower prices if the termination fees fell. It lends weight to Adam Smith's famous pronouncement that "people of the same trade seldom meet together, even for merriment and diversion, but the conversation ends in a conspiracy against the public, or in some contrivance to raise prices". It also makes one wonder what attitude the British-American company will take if, as some industry observers predict, it captures a third of the market.
2degrees can claim some moral high ground, since it has so consistently undercut, typically by 50 per cent, the other operators. Telecom and Vodafone have so such excuse. Having so strenuously resisted measures, including number portability, that would have opened the market to competition, they were not likely to take this lying down.
Vodafone, the largest mobile phone operator, is expected to appeal the decision, which it has described as "extreme" and "significantly below cost".
The company's head of public policy, Hayden Glass, tried to argue on Morning Report on Friday that, because termination rates were a cost when telcos incurred them and a revenue stream when they charged them, the change would be somehow fiscally neutral - an audacious piece of sophistry which suggests a dim respect for consumers' intelligence.
Telecom and 2degrees, meanwhile, are claiming that they anticipated the commission's move and, presumably as a sign of the good faith that has hitherto been so conspicuous by its absence, have already cut charges.
Customers who know a rort when they see one will be doing the maths over the coming weeks and will doubtless follow the suggestion of Telecommunications Users Association chief executive Paul Brislen - a poacher-turned-gamekeeper who used to have Glass' job - and pester their providers for a better deal
Failing that, they can vote with their wallets. There are plenty of players in the market, and it's the work of a few minutes to change providers these days. It's up to customers to ensure the chill winds of competition blow through an industry that has been sheltered from them for far too long.
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