Home away from home
Yan Wei

WHEN he entered a souvenir shop in Wuhan for some tea mugs 46 years ago, Thomas Stapleton immediately found himself the center of attention. “All 200 workers stopped work, circled me and smiled,” he said, smiling as he recalled his early days in China. “Everybody was excited to have an English devil visiting their shop.”
Stapleton shared his numerous experiences in China with Beijing Review just after attending an evening reception held recently in Beijing’s Foreign Experts Building in honor of the winners of this year’s Friendship Award, the highest honor the Chinese Government confers on foreigners. The 86-year-old British pediatrician claimed the award for his contributions to a Chinese military medical university. Talking about the changes that have taken place in the country, Stapleton, who has made some 40 trips to China since 1960, could not help exclaiming in amazement.
As China opens its doors, foreigners are no longer a rare sight that tends to trigger screams of disbelief or be mischievously tagged “devils.” However, their role in China is all the more valued. Stapleton, as well as other Friendship Award winners, are examples of how foreign talent can help China in various fields, including economic development, technology, education and culture.
A Chinese love affair
Stapleton’s love affair with the Fourth Military Medical University in Xi’an began when he visited the city in 1979 as a guest of the Chinese Medical Association. He said he was deeply impressed by the dean as he showed him around the college library. In the library, Stapleton found a section of books devoted to English literature. The discovery heartened him, as the dean shared his belief that it is important for medical students to be educated not only in medicine but also in the culture and literature of the world.
Two years later, he wrote to the dean, asking him to send military medical students over to the University of Sydney in Australia where he was teaching. He had one or two Chinese undergraduates with him each year for two months until he retired back to England in 1983.
However, he continued to render support to the university. In England, he arranged for doctors from the university to go to Oxford to do research free of charge, while providing lodging for them in his own house. According to the Fourth Military Medical University, he has sponsored over 40 young teachers and doctors to study in England, with an estimated expenditure of over 1 million pounds. When the university celebrated its 50th anniversary in 2004, he set up a scholarship named after him with a donation of 200,000 pounds.
“I am a pacifist, one who does not think countries should solve their problems by having wars,” he explained. “So I decided when I retired, I would infiltrate the military of several countries with peaceful ideas, because as military doctors grow up they are likely to meet with important people.”
He also had military doctors from many other countries, such as Japan, Russia, Pakistan and Thailand, with him.
Chinese soldiers have a good reputation in Oxford, he said, adding that whenever he sent a Chinese doctor to Oxford, the professors would say, “Another one of old Tom’s Chinese soldiers, and of course we’ll take him.”
Asked what the Friendship Award meant to him, “old Tom,” as he is affectionately nicknamed, replied, “As I see it, it is a recognition of the help that I have tried to give to your people and your country.”
Simple environmental techniques
This sentiment is echoed by Roland van Asch from New Zealand. “This is the national award of the highest level for a foreign expert,” he said. “I am honored to receive an award like this. It gives me a lot of satisfaction. I feel I have made some useful contributions to the people in China.”
Van Asch, 58, was in charge of an Australian-sponsored forest resource project in west China’s Qinghai Province from 2002 to May this year. The project involves around 5,000 local residents in four counties surrounding Xining, capital of Qinghai.
In sharp contrast to the modern, prosperous cities in the east, this area is still plagued by poverty. Given the difficult life of the rural dwellers, van Asch underscored the need to fight poverty in this ecologically vulnerable region.
He said the two objectives of the project-to improve management of the forest areas and to reduce poverty-were interrelated, as the poor people depend heavily on natural resources to survive. The project helped lessen farmers’ dependence on natural resources by introducing new farming technology and providing training so that they can diversify their sources of income.
Van Asch and his fellow workers on the project first showed the farmers what impact they could have on the environment by conducting short-term demonstrations. For example, they told the farmers to stop grazing an area for one year and let them see the changes.
When they asked farmers to stop grazing the lands, they provided them with incentives, such as introducing new farming technology or training one or two members of their families to become hairdressers, drivers or welders. They also provided them with solar cookers so that they could stop using trees for fuel. “A solar cooker is equivalent to one daughter in terms of labor saved in collecting vegetation for fuel,” van Asch quoted a farmer as saying.
Once the farmers saw the change, they were willing to start solving the problem. “Farmers are very practical people,” he asserted. “If they see it is a good idea, they will try it. In fact they are bound to change more quickly than the government officials suppose.”
He remembered that when they tried to introduce a simple farming technology-new seeds, fertilizers and different types of livestock-local government officials thought that the ideas were too simple to work, but the farmers were willing to try. Once shown to be successful, the simple technologies were adopted by many farmers.
Foreigner friendly
Foreign experts have different comments on working in China but they all seem to enjoy the experience. Van Asch found it difficult to reach a common understanding with Chinese partners.
“Translation and interpretation may not be that accurate, and people have a different cultural understanding,” he remarked. “Misunderstandings are probably the biggest problem that we face.” He believes “being patient” is crucial when working in a different cultural situation.
However, Jan Wolter Post, a 32-year-old Dutchman with a Chinese wife, thinks China suits him, though not perfectly. The young award winner currently works with the China Chongqing Automobile Research Institute as a senior researcher. He won the award for helping China make a major breakthrough in natural gas vehicle technology.
“The nice thing about working here is that you can achieve a lot in a short time,” he said. “It is very rewarding to see that the effort you put in is making an impact on the industry.” At the same time, he observed that something that can be a problem in Europe could turn out to be easy to achieve in China and vice versa.
In Europe, everybody has a driving license. With their driving experience, everybody can assess the performance of cars. In China, however, not everybody drives a car, and the problem is that people who are not used to driving cars do not always realize the importance of certain aspects, according to Post. At the same time, he noted that making prototypes is much easier in China than in Europe.
Post commented that China is open and friendly to foreigners from the government perspective. “You don’t feel you are aliens,” he added. Unlike what he had learned about China, he feels that China is a more open country than many people think.
Stapleton also noted there is widespread misunderstanding about China in the West. He said he was upset at the misreporting in England about the situation in Tibet, when he returned from his first visit to Tibet five years ago. There was nothing about the improvements that have been made and nothing about the development of agriculture, he said, adding that some quarters are always trying to find things to criticize about China.
“Not everything is all right in China,” he said, “but things have improved and this is what matters. Besides, the attitude of people is so nice here”.

(The Daily Mail-Beijing Review Articles Exchange Item)



Women abuse in India
Amjed Jaaved

India has once again blamed Pakistan for involvement in the Mumbai train blasts. The basis for the allegation is the decision given by the speedy trial court. Such courts are a convenient mechanism for pronouncing judgments, under India’s Prevention of Terrorism Act, congenial to the Indian government.
Two cornerstones of the Mumbai-blasts prosecution case are intercepted internet or telephonic messages and alleged hand-to-hand (hawala) money transfers linking Pakistan.
The crux of the ‘charge sheet’ against ISI, or for that matter against Pakistan, is that: (a) Two email addresses (ibn—chand@yahoo and smellofflower@yahoo.com) were used by the Mumbai-based Lashkar-e-Taiba (LeT) suspects to keep in touch with their ‘handlers’. (b) Corroborative evidence gathered by narco-tests of LeT’s Mumbai chief Faizal Sheikh, arrested two months ago. (c)The email ibn—chand@yahoo.ca was being used by Mohammad Ali Chhipa, a Lashkar member who was arrested from Hazrat Nizamuddin railway station by the Delhi Police special cell on May 8 this year along with other members with 4.5 kg of RDX. Chhipa had allegedly told the police that he and his colleagues had used both the emails for communications with Rahil. Later, Firoz Deshmukh and Noman—both from the Islamic Research Foundation and arrested for their involvement in the 7/11 blasts—also, allegedly, used the same mail IDs for communications with Rahil who by then had escaped to Dhaka. Rahil Sheikh, a prime suspect in the Aurangabad arms haul case, was later arrested. (d) Another suspected e-mail address is nmkhokar786@hotmail.com.
India’s Telegraph Act makes intercepts inadmissible as evidence. But, the POTA attaches evidentiary value to the telephonic, telegraphic and internet conversations. Any mischievous police officer with malafide intent can misinterpret a conversation to send a person to the gallows.
The brutality of the law was brought into limelight when S. A. R Geelani was implicated for attack on the Indian parliament (December 13). He was awarded death penalty by the fast-track court on the basis of wrong translation of the three words “delhi kya korua’’ , “what has happened in New Delhi”, picked up from his one-minute conversation with his brother. The police translated the three words as “what have you done’’. The Kashmiri equivalent for the police translation is “yeh kya korua” which the lecturer did not use in his conversation.
The conversation between S A R Geelani and his brother Shah Faisal was in Kashmiri. Not to speak of linguistic mastery, the police official intercepting the conversation on December 13 (date of attack on Indian parliament) did not know a single word of Kashmiri language.
Next day, the Special Cell brought in an ‘expert’ to translate the conversation. But the Special cell’s expert was a person, who knew only tidbits of the Kashmiri language, not intonations or linguistic nuances. He was educated only up to the sixth grade. He could only read and speak Hindi, not write it. As such, his spoken translation of the conversation was converted into a written text by another person. It is this translation that was used as key evidence to charge Geelani.
The POTA usurps Constitution-of- India safeguards for fundamental rights (part 3, articles 13 – 35). The rights include “life and liberty of the person” (article 21) and “freedom of expression” (article 19). It also violates article 21 which provides that “no person shall be deprived of his life or personal liberty except according to procedure established by law”. The POTA is also called a “draconian’ law. Verily so, as penalties under this law are akin to those stipulated in Draco’s code of 610 BC to forestall future revolts by common men. The code provided death penalty for even trivial offences like stealing an apple, or an earthenware utensil. The POTA violates international-human-rights standards, which provide the framework for international protection and promotion of human rights. It is also incompatible with international human rights standards and treaties, particularly the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights (ICCPR), to which India is a party.
India has signed but not yet ratified the UN Convention against Torture and Other Cruel, Inhuman or Degrading Treatment or Punishment (CAT) to validate torture under POTA. However, notwithstanding non-ratification, adherence to international human rights standards has been upheld by the Supreme Court of India in a number of decisions (for example, Vishaka & Others vs. State of Rajasthan & Others: 1997(6) SCC24).
When asked about the POTA, in an interview to The Hindu, Dato’ Param Cumaraswamy, former United Nations Special Rapporteur on Independence of Judges and Lawyers said: “Past experience had shown that draconian legislations did not provide much safety to the state against terrorists or militants but were used only to protect the safety of the government in power”.


Need for breathing space

Can one imagine when (and if) Daniel Ortega Saavedra and his ex-revolutionary Sandinistas are swept back into office in next Sunday’s general election the late US president, Ronald Reagan, saying calmly from his grave, “Here we go again”, and then, after a thoughtful pause, “So what?”
It was Reagan, after all, who said of the Sandinista regime: “If we ignore it, it will spread and become a mortal threat to the entire New World.” The Sandinistas were “just two days drive from Harlingen, Texas” and, as secretary of defence Caspar Weinberger added, “defending the mainland ranks above all other priorities”.
Rhetoric like this cost Central America — there were also left/right civil wars in El Salvador, Guatemala and Honduras — hundreds of thousands of lives and left villages and towns decimated. They were unnecessary wars and the US had no business supporting a small, unyielding, landowning class against a small minority of the underdogs who dared use violence against them. The history books have revealed what many of us covering the wars suspected at the time that the reports of Soviet or Cuban support for the rebellions were misleading or exaggerated. In the early days, Cuba lent a hand with basic arms supplies. But Moscow rebuffed all attempts to get involved.
Similarly, the guerrillas were depicted by Washington as terrorists incarnate; the army and the “Contras” (conservative irregulars and death squads sometimes funded and trained by the US) were protected from scrutiny and their operations vigorously defended. But as we now know from a UN investigation in Guatemala, in part financed by the Clinton administration, only 3 per cent of the deaths were caused by the rebels and 97 per cent by the government forces. So revealing was the UN report of the role played by the CIA in the Guatemalan war that president Bill Clinton went to Guatemala and said: “For the United States it is important that I state clearly that support for military forces and intelligence units which engaged in violence and wide-scale repression was wrong.”
This led The Washington Post to editorialise: “We Americans need our own truth commission.” But seven years after Clinton’s mea culpa on behalf of the US, we have two men who held high positions in the Reagan administration and were deeply involved in the murkier side of this clandestine war holding important posts today — Elliot Abrams is deputy national security adviser in the White House and John Negroponte is the director of national intelligence.
In Nicaragua, as the election campaign proceeds, the US has not been reticent about throwing its weight around. While one can only surmise what is going on in the background, in the foreground, the US ambassador, Paul Trivelli, has publicly intervened in the electoral debate on the side of Ortega’s opponents. It has been 16 years since president Daniel Ortega, the guerrillas’ former commander in chief, decided to stop the fighting, call an election, and then lost in a landslide. Since then, Nicaragua has been a democracy, albeit with a heavy dose of corruption that has helped insure that Nicaragua remains the poorest country in Central America and, after Haiti, the second poorest in the hemisphere. El Salvador, in contrast, which suffered an even bloodier civil war, has done well, partly by cosying up to Washington.
If Ortega does win on Sunday, Washington has some tough decisions to make. It can choose to work to undermine him, which will not be difficult given the precariousness of the economy. Withholding aid and discouraging private investment will be sufficient to give him a hard time. Or it can decide to let bygones be bygones and deal with him in the expectation that he is the reformed character he presents himself as.