Welcome change in Indo-China ties

THE HISTORIC SUMMIT between visiting Chinese President Hu Jintao and Indian Prime Minister Dr. Manmohan Singh in New Delhi will have far-reaching impact on the economies of the two nations. Asia’s two most populous countries where more than one-third of mankind lives have agreed to bury their hatchet settle through negotiations their border dispute and substantially expand trade and investment. The two-way trade is to be doubled by the year 2010 to US $40 billion. The two Governments will take adequate steps to encourage investment and tourism. They will also help promote cooperation in nuclear field.
We in Pakistan are anxiously awaiting the visit of the Chinese Head of State. Who will have wide-ranging discussions with Pak leadership on exploring avenues for further expanding already continuing cooperation in various fields including defence production and nuclear technology China has been our most trusted friend and the ties between the two neighbours continue to grow from strength to strength. In fact, Pak-China friendship is a model for other nations to emulate. China has always contributed enormously towards our economic development.
Pakistan’s energy needs are growing fast growing. President Musharraf has launched the ambitious programme for building mega dams which will not only help save millions of acres feet of water going waste into the sea but will also generate additional hydroelectricity that will go a long way in narrowing down the gap between supply and demand of energy for our future needs. However, hydroelectricity generation potential is quite limited. Accordingly, the next option is to generate power through nuclear plants. China’s assistance in this field is substantial. While Indian authorities have clinched a nuclear cooperation deal with the United States they are also looking up to China for assistance in this vital field. Islamabad should welcome Chinese assistance to India in generation of power through nuclear technology. This underscores the need for Asian nations to look towards East for economic cooperation. Chinese technology is cost-effective and it is in India’s t own interest to take maximum advantage of relying on less expensive technology.
Indo-China deal should help expand cooperation among Asian states. Chinese assistance in Pakistan’s communication, defence production, telecommunication, port development, nuclear power generation, etc. is quite substantial and we need much more from Beijing. Pakistan looks for ward to further expanding economic cooperation with China. While Chinese and Indian leadership has decided to close the chapter of animosity and herald a period of cooperation, Islamabad would like the existing ties with Beijing to grow further for our mutual benefit. The improvement in Chinese relations with New Delhi is doubly welcome to Islamabad. Pakistan and India have embarked upon a composite dialogue to settle all outstanding issues. Beijing could facilitate substantive progress in the continuing peace process between two nuclear-armed neighbours.
 

Trial under focus

Human Rights Watch, which used to consistently condemn Saddam Hussein’s regime for its brutal abuse of power, this week condemned the trial of the fallen dictator. He was found guilty of the 1982 murders of 148 people in Dujail after he survived an assassination attempt outside the town.
The organization criticized a range of judicial shortcomings in the process. It is certain that, in every way, Saddam’s trial was far from normal. Nobody ever doubted that he held the power of life and death over every Iraqi and that he was the ultimate arbiter of everything that happened during his absolute rule. Indeed Saddam himself asserted this during the case. The question was, however, whether there was enough actual evidence to link the dictator directly with the massacre of the largely Shiite townspeople. Human Rights Watch believes there was not.
What is overlooked is that flawed though Saddam’s two trials may have been, they represented the re-awakening of due legal process in a country which was long subject merely to the deadly whim of a dictator and his henchmen. Had Saddam been carried off to the Hague like Slobodan Milosevic for a trial, the proceedings might have been more orderly and dispassionately judicial. Their impact would never, however, have been the same as seeing the man examined and judged by Iraqis in an Iraqi law court. Imperfect though Saddam’s trials may have been, they were in no way lynch law. No victim of Baathist terror was ever treated so fairly. Some have said that it might have been better if Saddam had been shot out of hand when he was discovered cowering in a hole on a farm outside Tikrit. His two sons had already been killed. Had the dictator himself perished that way, the death would have been over and done with. The victors, however, wanted Saddam’s brutality exposed to the world in what they assumed would be an open and shut case. They expected Saddam to remain the confused, beaten and pathetic figure they dragged out of the ground. This was just one more in the immensely long list of US miscalculations about Iraq.
Saddam’s trial has put an immense strain on Iraq. It has encouraged Sunni insurgents and Shiite militias to more murderous violence with defense lawyers, judges’ relatives, witnesses and Justice Ministry officials falling victim to killers. If and when Saddam finally goes to the gallows, it seems horribly inevitable that more Iraqi lives will be lost in merciless bombings timed to demonstrate the anger of die-hard Baathists. The execution itself will also begin the process of turning Saddam from monster into martyr. To the undoubted horror of the Americans, Saddam has conducted himself with considerable arrogance during his trial. In years to come, this behavior will be falsely presented as courage. As a man who knows he has absolutely nothing to lose, Saddam has harangued the court, the elected Iraqi government and the occupation forces, seizing every opportunity given him by the Americans for one last huzzah, which will probably echo long after the brutal dictator is dead.

—Arab News