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ACHA PEACE BULLETIN
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http://www.groups.yahoo.com/group/ACHAPeaceBulletin
A publication of Association for Communal Harmony in
Asia (ACHA) www.asiapeace.org
Editors:
David Campion, PhD campion@lclark.edu
Pritam K. Rohila, PhD pritam@open.org
Subscription is free.
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Volume IX, No. 11, November 15, 2005; Next Issue, December
15, 2005
CONTENTS
PEACE &
HARMONY NEWS FROM & ABOUT SOUTH ASIA
South
Asia
- South Asian leaders meet in Dhaka
- After Diwali, Eid goes place now
India
- Ex-India President Narayanan dies
- Good humor, not gunfire on border
- Bill on religious content in textbooks in India
- Delhi readies
five meeting points on LoC in Jammu & Kashmir
- Indian government to hold peace talks with ULFA rebels
- Book banned “for offending Sikhs”
Pakistan
- Pakistan postpones
F-16 purchases
- Open up Kashmir,
Pakistan
urges
- India hails
Pakistani quake plan
Pakistan-India
- India
and Pakistan
open first point at LoC
- Pakistan
to boost trade with India
- Kashmir phone link unites quake victims
Nepal
- Music aiming to boost Nepal peace
PEACE
EDUCATION AND TRAINING
- Fall
Semester, Transcend Peace
University
PEACE EVENTS
- Sixty years After World War II:
Lessons for Peace
Building
(Readers are invited to submit similar information
from other areas of South Asia to help us
broaden of our coverage. Please send the info to pritamr@open.org, a week before the
date of publication of the next issue of the ACHA Peace Bulletin)
PEACE
& HARMONY NEWS FROM & ABOUT SOUTH ASIA
* South Asia
South Asian
leaders meet in Dhaka
Dhaka, BBC South Asia,
November 9
A
two-day summit of South Asian leaders has begun in Dhaka
aimed at boosting trade and fighting terrorism. Addressing the summit, Indian Prime Minister Manmohan Singh issued a
challenge to the region to work more closely together. “We cannot be the crossroads of Asia but remain disconnected within our own region,” he
said. About
40,000 police are on the streets of Bangladesh’s capital to protect two
presidents, four premiers and a king.
Critics say the 21-year-old group has often failed to deliver for the
1.4 billion people it represents. The
region is home to half the world’s poor.
The World Bank says about 40% live on less than $1 a day.
Mr
Singh said: “The honest answer is that regional economic co-operation in South Asia has fallen far short of our
expectations.” Bangladeshi Prime
Minister Khaleda Zia said that “mindsets and perceptions emanating from the
past” were affecting regional co-operation.
Mr. Singh outlined several proposals for increasing economic and
humanitarian co-operation in the region, including a regional mechanism for
disaster relief and management and a regional food bank to meet shortages
caused by natural calamities
At the last summit in January 2004 the leaders agreed to set up a
free trade area by 1 January next year but negotiations have since stalled over
disputes about which industries will remain protected by high tariffs. India has also called for a joint
approach to tackling terrorism. Last
month more than 60 people were killed in bomb blasts in Delhi
and India’s Prime Minister
Manmohan Singh has hinted that militant groups backed by Pakistan might be to blame.
On Friday he also said the danger of emerging “failed states” was
a concern for South Asia’s security. He did not specify any countries, but said:
“We see signs of the ills of disaffection, alienation and conflict not only in India
but also across our neighborhood. We
have to be alert to these developments and deal with the dangers that lie
ahead.” Discussions are also likely on
the entry of Afghanistan
into the regional fold. India
has in the past been accused of acting like a big brother at the summits. India
has recently expressed concern over bombings in Bangladesh. It has also raised the
issue of the flow of immigrants from Bangladesh
to India, a charge Dhaka denies. India has added more troops on the border with Nepal,
where political unrest and violence continue.
The SAARC meeting was postponed in
January this year following the Indian Ocean
tsunami. In the past, some SAARC
meetings have been postponed because of the inability or refusal of one or more
leaders to attend.
Full story: http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/south_asia/4428436.stm
After Diwali, Eid goes places now
Rediff-India Abroad, November 7
Scores of non-resident Indian
Muslim leaders from all over Britain
celebrated Eid-ul-Fitr at a reception hosted by the Indian High Commissioner
Kamalesh Sharma at the India House in London.
Addressing the gathering,
which also included leaders from Hindu and Sikh communities, Sharma on Sunday
said India
can pride itself because of its religious tolerance and cultural diversity
which are its strength. That was the
reason why the people in India
celebrated different religious festivals with the same gusto, he said. NRI industrialist Sir Ghulam Noon, spoke
highly of the religious tolerance practiced in India, which he called a melting
pot of all religions.
Referring to the bomb blasts
in Delhi on the
eve of Diwali and Eid, Sir Noon praised resident of the Indian capital for
showing terrorists that they could not be cowed down by acts of terrorism. “Terrorists belong to no religions. How could
they be Muslims when they kill innocent people during the Holy month of
Ramadan?” he asked.
Echoing his sentiments, Lord
Adam Patel said terrorists who resorted to violence in the name of religion
were enemies of their own religion. Bollywood actor Syed Jaffrey said religion
teaches people to get rid of their hatred and jealousy. Prominent among others who spoke on the
occasion included Samshuddin Khan of the Indian Muslim Federation, UK.
Full story: http://us.rediff.com/news/2005/nov/07eid.htm
* India
Ex-India President Narayanan dies
New
Delhi, BBC South Asia,
November 9
Former
Indian President K.R. Narayanan has died at the age of 85, the defense ministry
has said.
Mr. Narayanan had fallen into a coma a week ago after being admitted to
hospital with pneumonia. Mr. Narayanan was the first member of the Dalit or
untouchable caste to become president, a position he held from 1997 to
2002. Correspondents say Mr. Narayanan
had been suffering from poor health for some time. He had a long association with the Congress
Party after India’s
first Prime Minister, Jawarharlal Nehru, appointed him to the diplomatic
service. Mr. Narayanan was admitted to the Army's Research and Referral Hospital
in Delhi on 29
October suffering from pneumonia and kidney failure, defense ministry spokesman
Sitanshu Kar said. Analysts say Mr.
Narayanan’s rise to the presidential office from the Dalit caste was seen by
many as an affirmation of India’s
democratic roots.
The caste system
was banned in 1950 but centuries of tradition made it difficult to break
entrenched attitudes. Mr. Narayanan's
rise to an important if largely ceremonial role was considered a remarkable
achievement. He preferred not to focus
on his background but did talk on the subject in a 1998 television interview,
saying: “If you can see one consistent tendency in India, one trend in India,
from the time of the Buddha onwards, it is the slow, but steady movement of the
lower classes among the scale of the class system. “But it has been very slow. It took 2,000
years. But it is something which is going on.”
Before becoming president, Mr. Narayanan served as Indian ambassador in Beijing and Washington. He won a seat in parliament in 1980 and
enjoyed an impeccably clean reputation.
Full story: http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/south_asia/4421482.stm
Good humor, not gunfire,
on border
Tawang, Arunachal Pradesh, Subir Bhaumik BBC News, October 25
They fought a bloody war and
followed it with 40 years of tension, but things are a little more relaxed for
Indian and Chinese troops on their Himalayan border now. “One Chinese
soldier ran away with our weapon as a joke and returned it after a while,” says
an Indian colonel whose Madras
regiment holds the Wangdung region. “Another
snatched some Indian rupees and later returned them with some yuan as
interest,” says the colonel, Karandeep Singh.
Back in 1962 it was here, in the Tawang-Bumla area, where the Chinese
army broke through. Tawang-Bumla is now
the command of Indian colonel, Brijender Singh.
His father, Chander Bhan, and uncle, Hoshiar Singh, fought the Chinese
in 1962. Hoshiar Singh, a brigadier, was killed. “My father died recently and when he heard we
are friends with the Chinese, he advised me not to lower my guard. That we will
never do but we are now friends with the Chinese,” Col Singh told the BBC. “We now have in place a system of regular
border meetings to exchange notes. It is working. There's absolute peace on
this frontier.”
The Indians now attend the Chinese national day celebrations at
their border posts on 1 October and the Chinese reciprocate on Indian
Independence Day on 15 August. Cultural
troupes enliven the celebrations and even families of Indian and Chinese
officers meet each other and exchange gifts.
“I did not see the war or the tension that persisted for almost four
decades after it, but now the mood is clearly one of friendship,” says Lt Rohit
Bali of the Rajput battalion, which holds the Bumla pass. As one climbs into Bumla, a board warns the
visitor – “You are now under enemy observation”. As Lt Bali briefs us, he keeps referring to
Chinese positions across the border as “enemy locations”. But such language is only a reminder of the
past history of border tensions that nearly brought Indian and Chinese armies to
the brink of war on two occasions after the 1962 war. Gone are the days of aggressive patrolling
and “area domination” tactics that both armies resorted to in the four decades
after the 1962 war. In 1986-87, this
correspondent was witness to the aggressive Indian response to alleged
violation of the border by Chinese troops.
The Chinese, alleged the Indian army, had crossed the line at four
points and set up posts in areas the Indians said were theirs. The Indians crossed the line in at least two
places to set up posts just to remind the Chinese that they were prepared to
meet any challenge.
Wangdung was one area where the Indians responded in strength in
1986-87 during “Operation Checkerboard”, as the Indian response to the Chinese
move forward was christened. In that
area now, Chinese and Indian troops play an occasional game of volleyball and
score points with light banter rather than with guns. The Chinese have moved away their regular
troops from the border and deployed light-armed border defense regiments in
recent months. “We cannot do that but we
have scaled down our forward deployment in response to the Chinese gesture,”
says Brig Abhay Kumar, who commands the brigade at Tawang. Brig Kumar says because it is so peaceful on
the border, Indian military formations have been able to deploy much of their
strength to fight insurgencies in north-east Indian states like Assam. Just
outside the headquarters of the mountain brigade that Brig Kumar commands
stands the Tawang war memorial, which honors Indian soldiers who died fighting
the Chinese army in October-November 1962.
But as India and China
push ahead with negotiations to find a durable settlement of their border
problem and their armies scale down tension on the frontier, the war memorials on
either side of the border are the only reminder to the years of conflict gone
by.
Full
story: http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/south_asia/4363452.stm
Bill on religious content in textbooks in
India
New Delhi, The Hindu, October 20
The Union Human Resource Development
Ministry is working on legislation to set up a National Textbook Council to
monitor school textbooks produced outside the government system — including
Shishu Mandirs/Vidya Bharati schools run by the Sangh Parivar and madrasas — as
recommended by the Central Advisory Board of Education (CABE). Some penal provisions are being considered
though the Ministry is still working on the modalities of implementing them.
Given the way the Indian education system is structured where the Government
does not have a direct interface with schools, the penal provisions will in all
likelihood be implemented through affiliating boards. Another issue that the
Ministry is grappling with pertains to textbooks within the government stream.
A case in point being the Gujarat Government school history books which
eulogise Hitler.
By and large, the Ministry has accepted the recommendations of the CABE
committee, headed by historian Zoya Hasan, in toto. The Council, as per the
draft, will be an autonomous and independent body. It will double up as a forum
where citizens can register complaints. The
CABE Committee had advocated a Textbook Council after it found that textbooks
used in schools run by religious and social institutions contained a great deal
of communal propaganda material. The CABE committee scanned textbooks used by
Vidya Bharati schools, including Shishu Mandirs, and madarsas across 11 States.
It also examined textbooks brought out by private publishers.
Full story: http://www.southasianmedia.net/index_story.cfm?id=245396&category=Frontend&Country=INDIA
Delhi readies 5 meeting points on LoC in
Jammu & Kashmir
New Delhi, Indian Express, October 20
With Islamabad expected to move a formal
proposal soon on allowing Kashmiris to cross the Line of Control to meet
relatives or help in relief work, New Delhi has done some groundwork and is now
looking to take forward its own proposal of five meeting points for divided
families along the LoC. The five
points—Poonch, Rajouri, Suchetgarh, Uri and Tangdhar—were suggested by India
but are yet to take off. Pakistan
has been mulling over this proposal and, of late, has shown an inclination to
consider it positively. India
is also open to have an additional meeting point in the Kargil sector.
In the wake of the devastating earthquake that has taken a heavy toll on both
sides of Kashmir, sources said, these points
could be opened to address the immediate need for divided families to meet each
other. There are some areas like Poonch where this can be done faster. South Block officials, however, point out
that India
will first wait for a Pakistani proposal in the matter. Then the question of
modalities will come into play and while there is a mechanism in place for
special travel documents for Kashmiris to cross the LoC, these have still to be
discussed between the two sides. Moreover,
Musharraf did not spell out any details and left some issues open like getting
political leaders on both sides of Kashmir to
cooperate in the reconstruction effort. This has raised some concern here.
Full story: http://www.southasianmedia.net/index_story.cfm?id=245383&category=Frontend&Country=INDIA
Indian government to hold
peace talks with ULFA rebels
New Delhi, Associated Press (AP),
October 20
Indian National Security Advisor M.K. Narayanan will hold peace
talks on October 24-25 in New Delhi
with eight representatives of the United Liberation Front of Assam rebels
fighting for an independent homeland in the country’s northeast, a Press Trust
of India said. Assam’s state government has
offered a peace deal with the ULFA and the National Democratic Front of
Bodoland. The NDFB responded with a
ceasefire in October last year and has held informal talks with the Indian
government. The ULFA also accepted the
government’s offer for talks, but decided to continue fighting government
forces in the state.
Book
banned “for offending Sikhs”
Chandigarh, Asit Jolly, BBC News, October 15
A school textbook has been banned in the northern
Indian state of Haryana for references offensive to Sikhs. Authorities
banned the book after complaints of “derogatory” material about the 10th
religious head of the Sikh community, Guru Gobind Singh. Chief Minister Bhupinder Singh Hooda said all
available copies of the book had been seized.
The book was issued to students at the Delhi
Public School in the town of Hisar in western
Haryana. The chief minister said he had
directed the deputy commissioner of Hisar to conduct a thorough inquiry into
how the text was permitted in a school book.
The ban was imposed following a complaint from the president of Punjab’s main Sikh political party, the Shiromani Akali
Dal. Its leader, Prakash Singh Badal,
said a chapter of the textbook bore derogatory and fictitious narratives,
stating that Guru Gobind Singh killed a Pathan trader who sold him horses. It
also, in one section, depicted the guru as an old man repenting his
“sins”. Mr Badal demanded “stern action
against all persons responsible for publishing and prescribing the book as a
school text”. Describing the book as
“highly objectionable and hurtful of religious sentiment”, he warned it could
provoke communal tension.
Full story: http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/south_asia/4345478.stm
* Pakistan
Pakistan postpones F-16 purchases
Islamabad,
BBC South Asia, November 4
Pakistan’s President Pervez
Musharraf says he will postpone the purchase of F-16 fighter planes from the US. He said Pakistan needed
to focus on reconstruction in the wake of the quake that killed more than
70,000 people. Pakistan had been expected to buy more than 50 planes at up to $40m
each. Quake reconstruction is put at $5bn. The president also accused the West
of double standards when it came to giving aid for the earthquake victims,
saying they had not given enough.
President Musharraf made his announcement on the F-16 purchase after
touring a US army field
hospital in Muzaffarabad in Pakistan-administered Kashmir. “I am going to postpone that... we want to bring
maximum relief and reconstruction efforts,” he said. Pakistan
has long sought the jets but the US
only approved the sale in March after years of sanctions concerning Islamabad’s nuclear
program. The F-16 deal has been
controversial because long-term rival India believes it will upset the
regional balance of power. Pakistan already has about 30 F-16s, delivered
before the US
embargo was imposed in 1990, but was anxious to increase its fleet. India
has criticized the sales, saying they will hinder its own peace moves with Pakistan. Since last year, the nations have been
involved in a peace dialogue aimed at resolving the dispute over the divided
region of Kashmir, the cause of two conflicts
and which both countries claim in its entirety.
Separately, President Musharraf told the BBC in an interview that Pakistan
needed more Western aid to rebuild in the aftermath of the quake. Gen Musharraf accused the world of double
standards, saying Pakistan
had not received the level of aid given after Hurricane Katrina or the tsunami.
Speaking to the BBC ahead of a donors’
conference to raise money for reconstruction, Gen Musharraf called on the
international community, the Muslim world and ordinary Pakistanis to give
generously. He also suggested that
donations from the West were low because few Western nationals were caught up
in the earthquake. “I would say the
damage here is much more [than the tsunami], the magnitude of the calamity here
is much more,” Gen Musharraf said. Jan
Egeland, the UN’s humanitarian coordinator, described the needs in Pakistani
Kashmir as “unique”, and called for an aid boost before winter sets in. Mr Egeland said the UN had received $130m
(£74m) in donations, but more was urgently needed. “If people are dead by next year, reconstruction
is of no use," he said. "I've
never seen this kind of a logistical nightmare before. We have 15,000
devastated villages.”
Full
story: http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/south_asia/4405818.stm
Open up Kashmir, Pakistan
urges
Islamabad, BBC South Asia,
October 18
Pakistan President Pervez Musharraf has offered to open the
Line of Control (LoC) dividing Kashmir to help
families find loved ones after the earthquake.
“We will allow any amount of people coming across... to meet relatives and
assist with reconstruction,” he said. He was speaking in Muzaffarabad in Pakistan-administered Kashmir. India
welcomed the plan, saying it backed greater movement across the LoC. Both sides
are to improve phone links to allow Kashmiris to call relatives. More than 40,000 people are confirmed dead in
the 8 October earthquake, most of them in Kashmir. India
and Pakistan both claim Kashmir and have fought two wars over it since
independence, but began peace talks last year.
Meanwhile, Pakistan
has banned the export of tents as relief teams struggle to provide shelter for
quake victims, particularly those stranded in remote mountain valleys. An
estimated 1.5 million tents are required.
The United Nations says about 500,000 people have yet to see any
help. It has so far received just 5% of
the money it says it needs to fund its relief operation – about $13m has
arrived following an emergency appeal for $272m, with a further $50m
promised. President Musharraf’s proposal
– after touring the ruins of Muzaffarabad, close to the epicenter of the quake –
was the latest in a series of initiatives that have arisen from the earthquake
disaster. Kashmiris, he said, should be
able to cross at points other than the road between Srinagar on the Indian side and Muzaffarabad
on the Pakistani side, the existing transit route in the region. “If India
agrees, we would like to work out the formalities.” As far as aid went, Gen Musharraf said he
hoped that people would receive most of what they need within two to three
weeks. He proposed that political
leaders on both sides should interact to “assist each other with the
reconstruction efforts”. The BBC’s Aamer
Ahmed Khan in Karachi
says that opening up the Line of Control could make a huge difference to the
relief effort.
Our correspondent says that in Kashmir and elsewhere in Pakistan there has been much anger directed at
President Musharraf’s government after an Indian offer to deliver aid in Indian
helicopters foundered because Pakistan
insisted on the pilots being Pakistani. India, which has flown several planeloads of
relief to Pakistan,
was swift to welcome Gen Musharraf’s proposal. “This is in line with India’s
advocacy of greater movement across the LoC for relief work and closer
people-to-people contacts,” foreign ministry spokesman Navtej Sarna. “India
is willing to facilitate such movements but we await word from Pakistan
about the practical details of implementing this intention.” India says that on Monday it
offered to supply medicines and other materials directly across the Line of
Control in areas where Indian troops could get to quake victims more easily
than Pakistani troops.
Weather fears
Earlier on Tuesday, the UN’s World Food Program (WFP) said it was
facing one of the toughest challenges it had ever faced – and time was running
out for survivors. “The aid agencies have managed to give some help to hundreds
of thousands of people,” WFP executive director James Morris said. “But there
are an estimated half a million more people out there in desperate need, who no
one has managed to reach.” According to
the UN, more than three million people have been left homeless. Pakistan
says it needs thousands of special winterized tents from abroad to house families
living in the open. Improved weather on
Tuesday meant that helicopters resumed operations in Pakistan-administered Kashmir. Soldiers
used mules to reach victims living in steep villages along some of the region’s
remote valleys where no medical help is available. A doctor in the town of Balakot in North West
Frontier Province told the BBC that an eight-year-old girl was brought to his
medical team 10 ten days after the quake.
He said she was severely dehydrated and unconscious. She had been
trapped under rubble and given up for dead, the doctor said. But later, when
the rubble was being cleared, she was found.
Aid agencies and correspondents
say the need for more helicopters remains the most urgent priority in
Pakistan-administered Kashmir. Local officials in Pakistan-controlled Kashmir say the toll may be as high as 54,000. In
Indian-administered Kashmir, officials say
1,400 people were killed.
Full story: http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/south_asia/4353924.stm
India hails Pakistani quake plan
Islamabad, BBC South Asia, October 18
India has welcomed Pakistan’s
offer to open the Line of Control (LoC) dividing Kashmir
to help families find loved ones after the 8 October earthquake. Pakistani President Pervez Musharraf made the
offer, saying it would also boost reconstruction efforts. “This is in line
with India’s
advocacy of greater movement across the LoC,” Indian Foreign Ministry spokesman
Navtej Sarna said. More than
40,000 people are confirmed dead in the earthquake. India
and Pakistan both claim Kashmir and have fought two wars over it since
independence, but began peace talks last year. The
BBC’s Aamer Ahmed Khan in Karachi
says that opening up the LoC could make a huge difference to the relief effort.
India, which had flown several planeloads of
relief to Pakistan,
was swift to welcome Gen Musharraf’s proposal. Mr Sarna said it reflected India's
support for “greater movement across the LoC for relief work and closer
people-to-people contacts”. “India is willing to facilitate such movements
but we await word from Pakistan
about the practical details of implementing this intention.” Gen Musharraf’s offer came after he visited
the badly-damaged capital of Pakistani-controlled Kashmir,
Muzaffarabad. Kashmiris, he said, should be able to cross at points other than
the road between Srinagar
on the Indian side and Muzaffarabad on the Pakistani side, the existing transit
route in the region. On Tuesday, the UN’s World Food Program (WFP) said it was
facing one of the toughest challenges it had ever faced – and time was running
out for survivors. “There are an estimated half a million more people out there
in desperate need, who no one has managed to reach,” executive director James
Morris said. According to the UN, more
than three million people have been left homeless. Pakistan says it needs thousands of
special winterized tents from abroad to house families living in the open. Improved weather on Tuesday meant that
helicopters resumed operations in Pakistan-administered Kashmir. Soldiers used mules to reach victims living
in steep villages along some of the region’s remote valleys where no medical
help is available.
Full story: http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/south_asia/4355048.stm
* India-Pakistan
India, Pakistan open
first point on LoC
Rediff-India Abroad, November 7
Army officers from India and Pakistan on Monday shook hands and
exchanged pleasantries at the frontier point Chakhan-Da-Bag as the first of the
three points on the Line of Control was opened for earthquake relief work. Brigadier A.K. Bakshi and his Pakistani
counterpart Tahir Naqvi exchanged white flags and hugged each other as hundreds
of locals and scores of journalists converged on both sides of the divide for
the landmark occasion.
Emotional locals from both
sides then took over as they rushed to talk and embrace their near and dear
ones separated for half a century. Indian and Pakistani scribes were also seen
hugging each other and clicking photographs.
“It’s a good feeling,” Army officer Santanu Ghose said after shaking
hands with Pakistani Colonel Ali Khan across the white ribbon marking the LoC.
India and Pakistan
had decided to open three points on the LoC to facilitate relief work in the
wake of the October 8 quake which devastated both sides of Kashmir
killing thousands of people. The
crossing point at Kaman in Uri will open on November 9 while Tithwal in
Tangdhar on November 10. All the three points
were to open on Monday but opening the other two points were delayed due to
non-completion of work, including laying and clearing roads of landslide debris
and de-mining in the area. Relief
material for the earthquake victims will be sent through these crossing points
and people would be able to cross the LoC once their names are approved by both
sides.
Full story: http://us.rediff.com/news/2005/nov/07quake.htm?q=tp&file=.htm
Pakistan to boost trade with India
Ferozepur, AP, October 20
In a move aimed at boosting bilateral
commercial ties with India, Pakistan may include about three hundred new
commodities in the list of goods permitted for trade with India. Pakistan National Assembly member Tahira
Asif, who along with three other Pakistani mps is on a personal visit here,
told reporters today that the number of commodities in the new list of goods
permitted for export-import with India was likely to go up to 400
from the current 127. For stronger trade
ties with India
and other SAARC countries, she said Pakistani government has made a tremendous
change in its policies. There had been
an incredible improvement in Pakistan’s
fiscal situation as evident from the increase in GDP growth rate which had
touched an all time high during current financial year, she said.
Full story: http://www.southasianmedia.net/index_story.cfm?id=245519&category=Frontend&Country=MAIN
Kashmir phone link unites quake victims
Muzaffarabad and Srinagar, Reuters,
October 20
India and Pakistan gave hope to quake-hit
Kashmiris Wednesday in allowing Kashmiris across the heavily militarized
frontier for the first time in 16 years to speak to relatives by phone. The two sides lost no time in restoring
telephone links between the two Kashmirs.
Dozens of anxious Kashmiris queued up in Srinagar to speak to relatives on the
Pakistani side. The phone link came a
day after Pakistani President Pervez Musharraf made a dramatic appeal to India
to allow Kashmiris to cross a heavily militarised frontier dividing the
Himalayan region to help each other rebuild.
India
welcomed the proposal but there was no immediate word on the details. Authorities installed the free telephones in Srinagar and the border
towns of Uri and Tangdhar. “I called my
aunt in Muzaffarabad,” Srinagar
resident Abdul Rehaman said referring to the capital of Pakistani-administered Kashmir. “Thank
God she and her family survived but their house is completely damaged.”
The telephone link – cut since a revolt against New Delhi’s
rule erupted in Indian-administered Kashmir in
1989 – is seen as the first sign the two countries are trying to bridge
political differences to help quake victims.
Opening phone lines and allowing divided Kashmiris to help each other to
rebuild would create goodwill, officials and analysts said. India offers to help repair phone lines
India said Wednesday it had
offered to help Pakistan
repair telecom networks in earthquake-devastated areas. “Pakistan Foreign
Office said that it was grateful for the offer and would revert to us if any
specific assistance was required,” the foreign ministry said in a statement. “Pakistan
has told India
that nearly 40 percent of the telecom infrastructure disrupted by the October 8
quake has been restored,” it said.
Full
story: http://www.southasianmedia.net/index_story.cfm?id=245297&category=frontend&Country=main&pro=0
*Nepal
Music aiming
to boost Nepal
peace
Charikot, Nepal, Charles Haviland, BBC News, November 5
Amrit Gurung and his folk-rock band Nepatya
had already spent two grueling weeks on the road in their bus, brightly painted
on the outside but cramped inside, stopping for concerts every two days. At
a brief halt by quarries in Nepal’s
bleak uplands, mist swirling around, Amrit said the worst thing in the
countryside was fear. “People are so
terrified of the gun, [of] Maoists and army people,” he said. “Everywhere, there is the gun. So people
cannot walk from village to village. From the villages they don’t want to come
to the market towns.” Nepatya were
playing eight concerts on a tour of the country, aiming to spread a message of
peace and give hope to Nepal’s
rural population, traumatized by nearly a decade of conflict. Some 200,000 people watched the Sundar Shanta
Nepal
(Beautiful Peaceful Nepal) Traveling Peace Concert, which toured the country
from east to west and back again. The
concerts, Amrit said, encouraged people to start moving, meeting and talking to
each other again. They were already bringing cheer to people long deprived of
it. Illustrating his point, the winding
road led through villages where Maoist red banners were draped over the road,
then back into land patrolled by security forces. Late that evening, tired but upbeat, the
convoy of musicians and dozens of backup staff arrived in Charikot. There followed a whistle-stop operation to
set up the stage in the town’s biggest open space, a school, with a distant
backdrop of the snowy Himalayas.
Early next morning Sita Raut and her family threshed millet
outside their whitewashed house near the town, corn cobs hanging to dry from
the eaves and garlands hung from the windows for Nepal’s festive season. Sita spoke of the raw pain she has suffered
as one of this area’s many victims of conflict-related violence. Her husband Parsuram, a postman, was shot
dead by the army. The military said they had mistaken him for a Maoist and
later apologized. Along with her
grief-stricken parents-in-law Sita is now bringing up her sons, Sahadev and
Sobit, as a widow. “I’m suffering,” she
said. “Every time my parents-in-law
remember their son, there is sorrow and pain, tears in every eye in this home.” But she found some comfort in the visit by the
musicians, many of whose songs she knew through the radio. “I want to go to the concert. I hope its
message will be that there will be peace talks, soon, to end everyone's
suffering.”
That day Charikot almost burst with enthusiasm for the musical
spectacular. By midday old men and
women, toddlers and babies and innumerable teenagers had turned up for the
show. Some had walked for hours, organisers said. Sita got a place near the front, separated
from her sons by being in a women-only enclosure. Amrit Bahadur Pandey, 70, told the BBC that
conflict had become a way of life in the area and that he simply wanted to be
part of such a big gathering, the largest ever seen in Charikot. “I’m curious to know if a concert can bring
peace,” he said. The musicians – ranging
from Meera Rana, a popular singer for 40 years, to singers in their 20s – each
had solo spots, with a grand ensemble finale appealing for peace. People danced with exuberance rare since Nepal’s
conflict began, and Nepatya brought the house down with their hard-edged
transformations of folk songs.
Amrit Gurung had written a song about one of Charikot’s
atrocities, a Maoist attack on a bus last year which killed some 15
people. The tight schedule, organized to
allow people to travel back to their villages before nightfall, prevented its
performance. But Amrit addressed words
from the stage to victims in the audience, including a widowed young mother
whose daughter was 20 days old at the time of the attack. “Music definitely heals wounds,” the young
singer Swaroop Raj Acharya told the BBC.
For one day at least, a conflict-hit town was able to put its recent
violent history to one side. Thanks to radio relays, the series of concerts reached
millions. Some have called the high
turnouts a unanimous vote for peace – the peace which they say Nepal’s
rebels, rulers and politicians have all failed to bring.
Full story: http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/south_asia/4406630.stm
PEACE EDUCATION AND TRAINING
In February Semester
(February 20-May 15, 2006), Transcend Peace University (TPU) will offer the
following 33 onsite and online courses.
Deadline for registration is January 30, 2006, and Cost per course is
500 Euros for EU/Western Europe, North American, Japanese and South-East
Asian/Australian, participants, and 200 Euros for all others. More info is
available from tpu@transcend.org,
+40-724-380511, or www.transcend.org/tpu
1. Peaceful Conflict Transformation – English, Johan Galtung
2. Peaceful Conflict Transformation – French, Wilfried Graf
3. Peaceful Conflict Transformation – German
4. Peaceful Conflict Transformation – Japanese, Akifumi Fujita, Kyoko; Okumoto, Katsumiko Nakano
5. Peaceful conflict Transformation – Russian, Olga Vorkonova
6. Fredelig Konflikt Transformation, Michael K. Sørensen
7. Transformacion Pacifica de Conflictos, Sara Rozenblum de Horowitz
8. Conflict Care and Reconciliation, S. P. Udayakumar
9. Deep Culture in Conflict Culture, Johan Galtung, Wilfried Graf and Gudrun Kramer
10. Democracy and Development, Paul D. Scott
11. Dialogue, Peace and Development, Katrin Kaeufer and Claus Otto Scharmer
12. Economics and Peace, J. Galtung, D. Goalstone
13. Gender and Militarism, Gal Harmat
14. The Human Right to Food, George Kent
15. Law and Mediation, Mitra Forouhar, Poul Rynning
16. Learning Peace, Alicia Cabezudo, Magnus Haavelsrud, Catherine Hoppers
17. Missed Opportunities: Iraq and the Balkans, Jan Øberg
18. Mathematics and Peace, J Galtung and D Fischer
19. Nonviolent Tools and Philosophy, Jørgen Johansen
20. Peace and Arts, Olivier Urbain
21. Peace Building, Gudrun Kramer
22. Peace Business – English, Howard Richards and Jack Santa- Barbara
23. Peace Business – Spanish, Sara Horowitz
24. Peace Futures, Sohail Inayatullah
25. Peace and Film, Paul D. Scott
26. Peace and the Global Compact, Fred Dubee
27. Peace, Gender and Violence, Zulfiya Tursunova, Celia Cook-Huffman
28. Peace Journalism – English, Jake Lynch and Annabel McGoldrick
29. Peace Journalism – German, Nadine Bilkman
30. Peace and Literary Expression, Marisa Antonaya
31. Peace Museums, Christophe Bouillet
32.