RAW: Destabilizing South Asia
Mamoona Ali Kazmi

THE Research and Analysis Wing (RAW) of India was created with a mission to use and exploit political dissent, ethnic divisions, economic backwardness and criminal elements within targeted states to foment subversion, terrorism and sabotage. Further defining the role and corking of RAW, Dr. Shastra Dutta Pant writes, "RAW is the creator Brahma, the Supreme Being, who creates the nation. It gave birth to Bangladesh. RAW is Yamaraj the God of death. It has already killed half a dozen countries including Goa, Daman and Diu, Hyderabad, Pondicherry, Jammu, Kashmir and Sikkim. RAW is found who takes care of politics_ economy, religion, water policy and people's policy of other countries". RAW is found to have been involved in promoting terrorise and destructive activities in neighbouring countries. RAW is indulged in creating instability and chasms in the polities of other countries and sowing the seeds of dissensions and hostility, in the realms of ethnicity, religion and gender. Thus, it contributes to disturbing communal harmony and ultimately disintegrating the country.
RAW was established at the end of 1950 to study international activities. Interestingly, RAW is not a regular organ of the state rather it is an unnatural organ hence it is non accountable before Lok Sabha and Rajya Sabha of India. To the contrary, RAW enjoys the power to supervise all levels throughout India. RAW creates huge pressure in framing India's external policies, especially relating to its neighbouring countries. The Indian Ministry of External Affairs does nothing more than implementing the policies worked out by RAW so in a way RAW makes the foreign policy of India.
The absolute power enjoyed by RAW makes her more fearsome agency than its superior KGB, CIA, Mi-6, BND and the Mossad. RAW is given a list of countries considered to be India's principal regional protagonist, which includes Pakistan, China, Sri Lanka, Bangladesh, Nepal, Bhutan. Sikkim, Maldives etc. Its high priority goal is the expansion of Indian Territory through systematically crafted covert operations in all these countries to coerce, destabilize and subvert them. It has annexed small and weak states through deception. Merger of Bangladesh with India is RAW's ultimate goal.
Another important goal of RAW is to turn India into a super power enhancing its strategic, political and cultural influence in the Indian Ocean and by creating a long-lasting monolithic Indian sub-continent. In order to fulfil its objectives RAW uses different techniques such as destabilization, disintegration, secession Movements, creating Anarchy, weakening neighbour's economy, preventing neighbours to have an independent foreign and defence policy.
Being the traditional enemy, India always tried to create chaos in Pakistan and RAW performs this duty very efficiently. Since its inception RAW tried in one way or the other to destabilize Pakistan. After Fast Pakistan started demanding autonomy how 1969 onwards, RAW extended open and full cooperation to the movement leading to the dismemberment of Pakistan and creation of Bangladesh. In fact, this was more a war between India and Pakistan rather than the movement of autonomy.
RAW from time to time inflicts harm to Pakistan, sometimes in the form of ethnic movements and sometimes in the form of sectarian clashes. RAW has an extensive network of agents and anti-government elements within Pakistan, including dissident elements froth carious sectarian and ethnic groups of Sindh and Punjab. According to published reports as Many as 35,000 RAW agents have entered Pakistan from 1983-93, with 12,000 are working in Sindh, 10,000 in Punjab, 8000 in North West Frontier Province and 5000 in Balochistan. As many as 40 terrorist training camps at Rajasthan, East Punjab, Held Kashmir, Uttar Pradesh and other parts of India are run by the RAW 's Special Service Bureau (SSB). Throughout the Afghan War, RAW with the assistance of KGB planned and executed terrorist activities in Pakistan to deter her from supporting the Afghan liberation movement against the Soviet Union.
The US attack over Afghanistan inn 2001 provided a big opportunity to RAW to accomplish its goal of destabilizing Pakistan. Since 9/11, Indian influence has increased tremendously. RAW has established Consulates and Trade Missions along the Pak Afghan border to destabilize Balochistan and North West Frontier Province (NWFP). Several agents of RAW captured in FATA, Wazaristan and other Southern Eastern areas provided that Indians had managed to penetrate deeply in collaboration with Indian allies in the region. Recently a spy had been killed by Taliban in Afghanistan. Reportedly that spy disclosed that an Indian intelligence official named C R Garg working as Attach and PS to Indian ambassador had offered as much as US $ 2000-3000 per foreigner killed in Pakistan.
According to sources, the US authorities strongly believe that RAW and some other Indian intelligence agencies base been the only source of terrorism in Pakistan. Janes information group, the world's foremost source on intelligence information, reported in July 2001 that the Indian spy agency RAW and the Israeli spy agency Mossad have created tour new agencies to jut trace Pakistan to target important religious and military personalities, journalists, judges lawyers and bureaucrats. In addition, bombs would he exploded in trains, railway stations, bridges, bus stations, cinemas, hotels and mosques of rival Islamic sects to incite sectarianism. Pakistani intelligence agencies also said that RAW had constituted a plan to lure Pakistani men between 20 and 30 years of age to visit India so they could be entrapped in cases of fake currency and subversion and then he cocked to spy for India.
It is also revealed that India has given forty billion rupees special fund to its intelligence agency (RAW) for creating instability in Pakistan, China, Afghanistan and Bangladesh to achieve the target of becoming a decisive power in the region. Moreover, not only RAW but several other Indian agencies have also been given important assignments to carry out subversive ac sties in Pakistan.
It is an open secret that India is unabatedly meddling in the internal affairs of neighbouring countries through RAW. Apart from Pakistan and Bangladesh, Nepal and Sri Lanka are also the victims of RAW's wicked designs. India engineered internal strife acid conflicts in Nepal through RAW to destabilize the successive legitimate governments and prop up puppet regimes which would be more amenable to Indian machinations. In Sri Lanka RAW is the founder of Tamil tigers and has been fomenting trouble since the 1980s, keeping the island steeped in civil war.
There is a need that international community should check the activities of RAW as it operates in a Mafia style, each time overstepping the limits of Intelligence operations. It has not, only indulged in cross-border terrorism, but also played a very significant role in creating and funding terrorist and extremist religious parties within India and other countries of the region. The Hindu extremist parties which are involved in terrorist activities in India such as the Hindu Dharnia Raksha Santiti (lIDES), Bajrang Dal (BD), Rashtria Sawayamsevak Sankh (RSS), Shiv Sena (SS) etc enjoy complete backing and support of RAW. The agency uses these patties not only to carve out a role for itself in the internal politics but to divert the international focus front its terrorist activities. For that matter, it allowed these parties to carry out violent activities in India and throw onus on neighbouring countries. Fact of the matter is that Indian RAW is responsible for the present fragile situation of the South Asia.

Israel can’t find peace with bombs
Rosa Brooks

IT is a new year in an old and bloody world. In Israel, politicians jockeying for power have launched the most lethal military assault on Palestinian territory in decades. Israel has justified its bombardment and invasion of Gaza on the grounds that Hamas broke a fragile, temporary cease-fire. The Israeli government is right to consider Hamas’ rocket attacks on Israeli civilians inexcusable, but the timing of the Israeli military offensive has more to do with politics than anything else.
Ehud Barak, Israel’s Labor Party defense minister, and Tzipi Livni, the foreign minister from the centrist Kadima party, are both contenders for prime minister in Israel’s Feb. 6 national elections.
Adding to the time pressure is US President-elect Barack Obama’s upcoming inauguration. As long as President George W. Bush was in the White House, Israel could count on a US administration that was not merely “supportive” of Israel but blindly, mindlessly so. Obama may be less willing to offer Israel blank checks. Thus this New Year’s military offensive, timed for the crucial window before Israeli elections and Obama’s swearing-in.
In a strictly military sense, Israel will “win” this battle against Hamas. For all its threats and bravado, Hamas is weak, and its weapons — terrorism, homemade rockets — are the weapons of the weak. Since 2001, Hamas has fired thousands of unguided Qassam rockets at Israel, but the rockets have killed only a handful of Israelis.
Israel’s military, in contrast, is one of the most modern and effective in the world (thanks in part to an annual $3 billion in US aid). Israel can easily bottle up the tiny Gaza Strip and its 1.5 million people.
But if there is no reason to doubt Israel’s ability to pulverize Gaza, there’s also no reason to think this offensive will improve Israeli security. Destruction of Hamas’ infrastructure may temporarily slow Hamas rocket attacks, but sooner or later they will resume. The Israeli assault may even strengthen Hamas in the long run and weaken its moderate secular rival, Fatah. As Israel should know by now (as we all should know), dropping bombs in densely populated areas is a surefire way to radicalize civilians and get them to rally around the home team, however flawed.
Israel has no viable political endgame here: There is just no clear route from bombardment to a sustainable peace. But the damage caused by this new conflagration will not be limited to the Israelis and Palestinians. Israel’s military offensive already has sparked outrage and protests throughout the Arab world. The current crisis also may destabilize the more moderate governments in the region — in Egypt, for instance — where leaders now face popular backlash if they don’t repudiate Israel.
And if you think that none of this really matters for those in the United States, you are kidding yourself. Arab and Islamic anger over Palestine continues to fuel anti-Western and anti-US terrorism around the globe.
It is time for the United States to wake up from its long slumber and re-engage — forcefully — with the Middle East peace process. Only the United States — Israel’s primary supporter and main financial sponsor — can push it to make the hard choices necessary for its own long-term security, as well as the region’s.
In January 2001, the Taba talks between Israel and the Palestinian Authority came achingly close to a final settlement, but talks broke down after Likud’s Ariel Sharon was elected prime minister on Feb. 6, 2001. Sharon refused to meet with Yasser Arafat, and newly inaugurated Bush had no interest in pushing Israel toward peace.
Eight years later, Israel faces another election, and the Americans are about to swear in a new president. When he takes office, Obama needs to push both Israelis and Palestinians to sit back down, with the abandoned Taba agreements as the starting point.

—Arab News

Small boys could play big game
M J Akbar

THERE is only one relevant question in an election year: who will win? The pundits have begun to get themselves into the usual tangle, most of the tangle created by the spin of bias.
The right thing to do would be to admit that no one really knows, but that would reduce a column to just one sentence. Since pundits get their money from columns rather than sentences, this is an inadequate solution to their dilemma.
If they must stretch their wisdom to a thousand words, may I offer a suggestion? They are making a mistake by looking at the big boys. The elections of 2009 might well be a game whose result is determined by the small boys.
Allies, rather than principals, could be the key to the formation of the next coalition in Delhi. It will also depend on how many seats the Third Front gets, and on which side its partners fall if they have to choose between the UPA and the NDA.
The three major allies of the Congress are Lalu Yadav in Bihar, M Karunanidhi in Tamil Nadu and Sharad Pawar in Maharashtra. There is bad news for the Congress in all three states. The Chennai street is buzzing with talk about a triumphant return for Jayalalithaa.
Between the pain of family feuds and the disgust of unprecedented corruption, the DMK seems to have lost it. It is often forgotten that the DMK has been in power in Delhi for two terms, first as an NDA partner and then in the UPA. That is a lot of temptation for DMK ministers in Delhi to handle, and they handled it by succumbing totally. They may have begun life from the usual humble origins, and they could be out of office soon, but trust me, they will never be poor again — for many generations.
In Maharashtra, the Congress is facing a double-whammy. There is a dip in both voter-support as well as in the cadre. The voters have shifted to the Opposition after two nearly-full terms of a best-forgotten chief minister, who has had, uniquely, to be dropped twice. A good section of the Congress cadre has moved to Sharad Pawar, who has been building his party as a regional force for the state, on the lines of Telugu Desam and DMK/AIADMK.
He has nominated an heir, his daughter, and the next general election may see her shift into the Lok Sabha from the Rajya Sabha. His best legacy is not a victory in 2009, but a strong party structure that can survive the ephemeral phases of democracy.
Pawar is sharp enough to see the future clearly. For 2009 is a transition, not a horizon.
The UPA bastion in the east is crumbling. Nitish Kumar, with the simple offer of good governance, has made substantial inroads into Lalu territory. Muslims are moving towards him in substantial numbers, and Lalu Yadav’s traditional vote-bank rhetoric about the BJP will not stop the drift, since the voter has made good governance his pre-eminent priority.
The Congress has the difficult task of not only preventing erosion in its own numbers, but also compensating for the losses that will be suffered by its allies.
Since 1991, allies have gained far more from alliances with the Congress than the other way around. Lalu Yadav has boxed the Congress into just four seats out of 40 in Bihar. When a party does not contest seats, it withers at the roots, which is what has happened to the Congress.
Mulayam Singh Yadav will not concede more than 15 seats out of 80 in UP; Mamata Banerjee will keep the Congress down to 10 out of 42 in Bengal. Congress will gain in states like Kerala and Punjab, and could improve its numbers slightly in Rajasthan, but that will not easily offset losses in big states like Maharashtra, Andhra and Tamil Nadu.
One assumes that Congress believes it can use the BJP bogey to bring in the Left and Third Front parties into its coalition after the results. This will not be easy. The Left believes it has been betrayed, and abused, by Dr Manmohan Singh, inside and outside Parliament, over the strategic alliance with the United States.
It is not likely to hand over leadership of any alliance it supports to the Congress. Congress might offer to prop up a minority government from outside, but other parties will recall what happened to Inder Kumar Gujral and Deve Gowda. They might prefer stability to a temporary triumph.

—Khaleej Times