domenica 29 maggio 2011

Sri Laka, L'ONU deve agire subito per i crimini di guerra dello Sri Lanka



Il report, pubblicato oggi 26 Aprile 2011, afferma che decine di migliaia di civili sono stati uccisi nel nord dello Sri Lanka da Gennaio a Marzo 2009 e continua affermando che il governo singalese ha bombardato intenzionalmente le stesse aree in cui lo stesso esecutivo invitava  i civili a rifugiarsi. Il report dà credibilità alle dichiarazioni che affermano che sia il governo sia le Liberation Tigers of Tamil Ealem (LTTE) hanno commesso serie violazioni di diritto internazionale umanitario e di diritti umani.
“Circa due anni dopo la fine del conflitto, questo report delle Nazioni Unite, smaschera le azioni commesse dal governo e i suoi sforzi nel evitare che sia fatta giustizia” Ha affermato San Zarif direttore di Amnesty International Asia-Pacifico.
“Il segretario generale delle Nazioni Unite Ban-Kimoon deve assicurare che le Nazioni Unite istituiranno una Commissione di Inchiesta con lo scopo di raccogliere prove sulle dichiarazioni denunciano i crimini commessi da entrambe le parti, per determinare chi ha fatto del male a chi, per poi passare al gradino successivo che consiste nel assicurare chi è sospettato di questi crimini davanti alla giustizia in modo trasparente e tempestivo”
Il report aggiunge importanza anche alle altre testimonianze rese sin dalla fine del conflitto. Queste includono accuse riguardanti la sottostima del numero di vittime residenti all’interno delle zone del conflitto abbandonate in quelle zone e private degli aiuti umanitari incluso cibo e forniture mediche.
Le LTTE hanno reclutato bambini soldato, hanno detenuto civili come ostaggi usandoli come scudi umani sparando a tutti coloro che cercavano di scappare. “ I racconti dei testimoni oculari sopravvissuti al combattimento hanno descritto una atmosfera truce. Essi hanno vissuto nella paura più profonda, soffrendo le ferite e le perdite, privati del cibo e dell’acqua e delle cure mediche. Coloro che sono sfuggiti sono stati detenuti per due anni senza alcun processo. Come possiamo negargli che sia fatta giustizia oggi?”
“In una dichiarazione dell’agenzia di stampa governativa del 21 aprile 2011, si leggeva che il governo dello Sri Lanka chiedeva all’ONU di non pubblicare il report e di rigettare le sue scoperte”
Cina, Russia e altri stati sostenitori della campagna governativa contro le LTTE hanno bloccato le indagini dell’ONU sui presunti crimini commessi dal governo durante la guerra, condividendo la posizione del governo di Colombo nella creazione, nel Giugno 2010, di un Panel di Esperti che ha prodotto il report.
Gli stati sostenitori hanno guardato alla Lesson Leart Reconciliation Commission (LLRC) del Governo singalese come un possibile sostituto della Commissione di Inchiesta sui crimini di guerra.
Il report dell’ONU rinforza la posizione di Amnesty International che afferma che la LLRC non è imparziale e non ha dimostrato la volontà di investigare e perseguire i crimini dichiarati. “E’ tempo che il governo che ha oscurato la sorveglianza internazionale dei crimini si faccia da parte. Gli altri governi che sono rimasti nel silenzio devono ora farsi avanti e chiedere giustizia per le vittime del conflitto” ha affermato Sam Zarif.
Amnesty International fa appello anche alle autorità nazionali deli altri paesi perché attraverso l’esercizio della giurisdizione internazionale si riesca ad investigare sui crimini identificati nel report e a perseguirli nelle corti nazionali. “Una inchiesta internazionale, specialmente sulle violazioni commesse dalle LTTE, aiuterà il processo di riconciliazione in Sri Lanka” ha aggiunto Sam Zarif.

mercoledì 25 maggio 2011

Rashid: perchè gli Usa vogliono il mullah Omar vivo

Ahmed Rashid: Why the US needs Mullah Omar alive

Mullah Mohammed Omar seen in video grab from 2001 Mullah Omar was a reclusive figure even before his Taliban government fell from power in late 2001
 
Undated file photo of Taliban leader Mullah Omar Mullah Omar rarely left Kandahar when the Taliban ran Afghanistan
 
http://www.globalsecurity.org/security/profiles/images/mullah_omar_1.jpg

As the Taliban dismisses reports that its leader Mullah Mohammed Omar has been killed in Pakistan, guest columnist Ahmed Rashid says that many, including the US, are anxious to keep him alive because his support would be critical for the success of secret peace talks with the Taliban.
Even the mere rumour that Mullah Omar had died at the hands of Pakistan's Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI) was enough to create enormous panic and uncertainty in the ranks of the media and within both the Pakistani and Afghan Taliban.
Sparked by an Afghan TV report, the rumour was quickly denied by the Taliban.
''This is pure propaganda. This is not possible at all,'' said Taliban spokesman Zabihullah Mujahid, who claimed that Mullah Omar was safe and sound inside Afghanistan.
The rumours had spread because Mullah Omar had not been seen or heard from for many days.
Most of the Afghan Taliban leadership are known to have moved two years ago from their original base in Quetta, in Pakistan's Baluchistan province, to Karachi and Hyderabad in Pakistan's south, where they would be safer from any US-launched drone missiles.
The move followed a threat by General David Petraeus in 2009 that the US could target Quetta with drones if Mullah Omar's whereabouts were ever known.


Unifying factor
However, since then things have changed. The US is now involved in secret peace talks with the Taliban and at least one interlocutor has been named by the US press as Tayyab Agha, the close confidante of, and at times private secretary and spokesman, for Mullah Omar.
Pakistan's ISI has been pushing for these talks for several years and now that the US is engaged (US mediators have met at least three times with the Taliban in recent months) both the CIA and the ISI are anxious to keep Mullah Omar alive.
Mullah Omar's blessing would be needed at the conclusion of any peace deal so that more hardline Taliban commanders would be forced to accept the terms of any agreement and not go off to join al-Qaeda or other rejectionists.
Moreover, other Afghan faction leaders - such as Jalaluddin Haqqani (who heads up a Pakistan-based militant network operating in Pakistan), his son Sirajuddin, and the faction led by former Afghan mujahideen Gulbuddin Hekmatyar - all pledge their loyalty to Mullah Omar.
Thus Mullah Omar is the only unifying factor within the Taliban and his premature death would quickly fragment the Taliban.
Mullah Omar has not been seen by his supporters for several years. Only a few top leaders of the Quetta Shura - the key decision making body of the Taliban - are known to have access to him.
It is unclear whether he is still in charge of running the day-to-day operations of the Taliban. But it is doubtful given the need for him to remain constantly hidden.
Until a few years ago he was known to travel on a motorbike into Afghanistan to visit his commanders and study their needs, but that no longer happens.
After Bin Laden
Now seasoned commanders will come to Quetta or Karachi from Afghanistan to replenish their money, ammunition and food and to take back fresh recruits, but they will rarely be able to meet Mullah Omar.
And it is not just the CIA and ISI who have an interest in the matter.
Germany is keen to ensure the Taliban will attend a conference in Bonn conference in December. That meeting will commemorate the 10th anniversary of the original Bonn Conference that established the Afghan interim government in 2001. For that to happen Mullah Omar will have to give the go-ahead.
Now that Osama Bin Laden has been killed, it is hoped that Mullah Omar will now be able to distance himself from the global jihad ideology of al-Qaeda and appear more as an Afghan nationalist. He had a personal relationship with the Arab militant but never an organisational one (the Taliban never swore an oath of loyalty to al-Qaeda as many other groups did).
It is now in everyone's interests - the US, Nato, Pakistan, and Afghanistan - to keep Mullah Omar alive for the time being.
He is needed for the endgame that is fast approaching in Afghanistan, as the US and Nato prepare to withdraw their troops.

lunedì 9 maggio 2011

Maldive, la polizia disperde manifestazione antigovernativa.

Per il settimo giorno consecutivo la popolazione scende in piazza contro l'aumento dei prezzi. Il presidente Nasheed: "Rivolte pilotate politicamente". Circa 300 feriti dall'inizio degli scontri.

Interview: Pervez Musharraf

by Mike Giglio

domenica 8 maggio 2011

U.S. Demands More From Pakistan in Bin Laden inquiry

U.S. Demands More From Pakistan in Bin Laden Inquiry
Warrick Page for The New York Times
As the U.S. asked questions, Osama bin Laden's killing was protested in Abbottabad.
WASHINGTON — Pakistani officials say the Obama administration has demanded the identities of some of their top intelligence operatives as the United States tries to determine whether any of them had contact with Osama bin Laden or his agents in the years before the raid that led to his death early Monday morning in Pakistan.
Multimedia
(From right, Lt. Gen. Ahmad Shuja Pasha and Gen. Ashfaq Parvez Kayani, the chiefs of Pakistan's intelligence and military. )



The officials provided new details of a tense discussion between Pakistani officials and an American envoy who traveled to Pakistan on Monday, as well as the growing suspicion among United States intelligence and diplomatic officials that someone in Pakistan’s secret intelligence agency knew of Bin Laden’s location, and helped shield him.
Obama administration officials have stopped short of accusing the Pakistani government — either privately or publicly — of complicity in the hiding of Bin Laden in the years after the Sept. 11 attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon. One senior administration official privately acknowledged that the administration sees its relationship with Pakistan as too crucial to risk a wholesale break, even if it turned out that past or present Pakistani intelligence officials did know about Bin Laden’s whereabouts.
Still, this official and others expressed deep frustration with Pakistani military and intelligence officials for their refusal over the years to identify members of the agency, the Inter-Services Intelligence Directorate, who were believed to have close ties to Bin Laden. In particular, American officials have demanded information on what is known as the ISI’s S directorate, which has worked closely with militants since the days of the fight against the Soviet army in Afghanistan.
“It’s hard to believe that Kayani and Pasha actually knew that Bin Laden was there,” a senior administration official said, referring to Pakistan’s army chief, Gen. Ashfaq Parvez Kayani, and the ISI director-general, Lt. Gen. Ahmad Shuja Pasha. But, added the official, speaking on condition of anonymity because of the diplomatic sensitivity of the issue, “there are degrees of knowing, and it wouldn’t surprise me if we find out that someone close to Pasha knew.”
Already, Pakistani news outlets have been speculating that General Pasha, one of the most powerful figures in Pakistan, may step down as a consequence of the Bin Laden operation.
The increasing tensions between the United States and Pakistan — whose proximity to Afghanistan makes it almost a necessary ally in the American and allied war there — came as Al Qaeda itself acknowledged on Friday the death of its leader. The group did so while vowing revenge on the United States and its allies.
Pakistani investigators involved in piecing together Bin Laden’s life during the past nine years said this week that he had been living in Pakistan’s urban centers longer than previously believed.
Two Pakistani officials with knowledge of the continuing Pakistani investigation say that Bin Laden’s Yemeni wife, one of three wives now in Pakistani custody since the raid on Monday, told investigators that before moving in 2005 to the mansion in Abbottabad where he was eventually killed, Bin Laden had lived with his family for nearly two and a half years in a small village, Chak Shah Mohammad, a little more than a mile southeast of the town of Haripur, on the main Abbottabad highway.
In retrospect, one of the officials said, this means that Bin Laden left Pakistan’s rugged tribal region sometime in 2003 and had been living in northern urban regions since then. American and Pakistani officials had thought for years that ever since Bin Laden disappeared from Tora Bora in Afghanistan, he had been hiding in the tribal regions straddling the Afghanistan-Pakistan border.
A former Pakistani official noted that Abbottabad, the site of the Pakistani equivalent of the West Point military academy, is crawling with security guards and military officials who established a secure cordon around the town, raising questions of how the officials could not know there was a suspicious compound in their midst.
“If he was there since 2005, that is too long a time for local police and intelligence not to know,” said Hassan Abbas, a former Pakistani official now teaching at Columbia University.
Mr. Abbas said there was a tight net of security surrounding Abbottabad because Pakistani officials were concerned about terrorist attacks on sensitive military installations in the area.
Art Keller, a former officer of the Central Intelligence Agency who worked on the hunt for Bin Laden from a compound in the Waziristan region of Pakistan in 2006, said the Qaeda founder’s choice of the garrison town of Abbottabad as a refuge in 2005 raised serious questions. Bin Laden certainly knew of the concentration of military institutions, officers and retirees in the town — including some from the ISI’s S directorate, Mr. Keller said. And because the military has also been a target of militant attacks in recent years, the town has a higher level of security awareness, checkpoints and street surveillance than others.
If Bin Laden wanted to relocate in a populated area of Pakistan to avoid missiles fired from American drones, Mr. Keller said, he had many choices. So Mr. Keller questioned why Bin Laden would live in Abbottabad, unless he had some assurance of protection or patronage from military or intelligence officers. “At best, it was willful blindness on the part of the ISI,” Mr. Keller said. “Willful blindness is a survival mechanism in Pakistan.”
The trove of information taken by the commandos from the compound occupied by Bin Laden may answer some of these questions, and perhaps even solve the puzzle of where he has been in recent years.
A senior law enforcement official said Friday that the F.B.I. and C.I.A. had rapidly assembled small armies of analysts, technical experts and translators to pore over about 100 thumb drives, DVDs and computer disks, along with 10 computer hard drives, 5 computers and assorted cellphones. Analysts are also sifting through piles of paper documents in the house, many of which are in Arabic and other languages that need to be translated.
In Washington and New York alone, several hundred analysts, technical experts and other specialists are working round the clock to review the trove of information. “It’s all hands on deck,” said the official, who spoke on condition of anonymity because of the continuing investigation.
Technical specialists are recovering phone numbers from several cellphones recovered at the compound. The experts need to distinguish foreign telephone contacts from any numbers in the United States, which undergo a separate legal review, the official said.
“We’re also looking through notes, letters, e-mails and other communications,” the official said. “We’re looking at who owns the e-mails and what linkages there are to those people.” The official said that the initial analysis would involve searching for information about specific threats or plots, or potential terrorists sent to the United States or Europe, and that the F.B.I. was pursuing a small number of leads from the information reviewed so far.
Helene Cooper reported from Washington, and Ismail Khan from Peshawar, Pakistan. Eric Schmitt, Scott Shane and Mark Mazzetti contributed reporting from Washington.

giovedì 5 maggio 2011

Ancora sul caso di Mukhtar Mai

The injustice of rape

By Razeshta Sethna | From the Newspaper

The injustice of rape

GOING by the charged reaction to the Mukhtar Mai verdict, it is clear that loopholes in the investigation mechanism and the law need to be fixed. Women victims of violence in Pakistan do not find redress whether through the courts or the country’s policing and investigation apparatus.
The police refuse the mandatory registering of cases, and incomplete evidence-gathering through a weak investigation process results in judicial irregularities. It doesn’t take the Mukhtar Mai case alone to show how or even why women are dealt poor cards.
The acquittal of five of the six accused of gang-rape was not simply because an SC bench ruled against Mukhtar Mai for reasons circulated (some suggesting the incident was fabricated; that her testimony alone was unacceptable) but because investigating authorities and lawmakers were lax, ill-equipped, unable to produce DNA and semen tests which should be used as required evidence in rape cases.
Her case goes back to 2002, when she was gang-raped on the orders of the local panchayat as punishment for her 12-year old brother’s alleged illicit liaison with an older woman from the powerful Mastoi tribe. Fourteen men were initially charged, an anti-terrorist court sentenced six to death; and in 2005 the Lahore High Court overruled the judgment acquitting five, and commuted the sentence of the main accused to life imprisonment.
Omission of key evidence is negligence, say social justice crusaders as the SC ruling becomes cause for debate, with the press weighing the decision on their own turf without exercising restraint: a talk show host even set up ‘court’ for the slotted one hour cross-examining Mukhtar Mai on the ‘witness stand’ not as a victim but as a ‘shamed woman’.
Is the sensitive issue of rape understood as a crime with enormous psychological scars inflicted on the survivor aside from grievous bodily harm, scars remaining for a long time? In a country with misogynist politico-legal institutions rape shield laws could benefit women victims.
They are statutes (in the US and Europe) prohibiting evidence about a victim’s character history, repute or past conduct
during a trial, making it easier to report the crime. When Mukhtar Mai decided to make her rape case known publicly, believing that justice would take its course, she was prepared to accept the court’s judgment but given the alleged accusations of ‘a fictitious gang-rape’, her case has highlighted that justice for women is perhaps impossible under the current scenario.
Two opposing schools of thought have emerged after the judgment. Criticised furiously, the decision to release the alleged perpetrators could in the future not only impact other such rulings setting a dangerous precedent. Because the state did not provide a watertight prosecution as was the case in 2005 due to the lack of independent evidence gathering, the SC bench had no choice: the flipside was keeping five men in jail for nearly a decade without evidence.
Justice Nasir-ul-Mulk’s dissent judgment believes Mukhtar Mai’s testimony because the fundamental statement in any rape case is of the victim constituting as important evidence. But in Pakistan the inefficient criminal justice system, the patriarchal mindset of the police and judiciary and the lack of sufficient medico-legal facilities frighten victims.
Justice Nasir-ul-Mulk’s statement concurs that the jirga played a role in the rape and four persons facilitated and assisted the main accused but doesn’t find sufficient evidence to stamp the charge of gang-rape on the accused. Jirgas cannot be allowed to arbitrarily punish in the form of watta satta marriages and gang-rape to settle disputes without being answerable to the law.
In a Pakistani court of law, the burden of proof is on the woman victim. “The high court … erred in holding that the delay in lodging of [an] FIR is fatal to… corroboration. The court had overlooked that there was corroboration of the complainant’s testimony,” the judge explains. Mukhtar Mai’s statement was not adequately recorded by the police nor have courts taken the statement as evidence. There were no sperm tests or DNA tests done to corroborate her version.
In 2010, the Human Rights Commission of Pakistan stated that according to police reports 2,903 women were raped. Eight women were raped everyday, including at least 51 gang-rape cases. The prospect of sitting in a police station and then a courtroom in Pakistan especially is enough to deter many women from bringing their cases forward.
Portrayed as ‘immoral’ and party to the crime even her testimony at the case registration stage is botched and later her ability to identify her rapist (s) in court lead to character insinuations often by the police, media and even politicians. Historically the act of rape is about wielding power, about punishing women and morally condemning them and this takes on an uglier face in patriarchal societies.
Circumstantial evidence is not admissible. However, unrepressed tolerance of women’s rights is expected from the superior judiciary when the crime reads heinous bodily harm. Why is it recurrent that often the legal paraphernalia silently expresses visible negation of the victim and her fate? Most importantly, protecting women legally has failed in Pakistan.
The Federal Shariat Court ruled that the Women’s Protection Act, 2006 was unconstitutional because it sought to amend the Zina and Hudood Ordinances so that rape is not a confession of adultery.
There’s a fallacy that regular evidence (medical examination, the victim’s testimony) is not permissible in zina and rape trials.
Because zina remains an offence there is a risk that a victim reporting rape could be charged with zina. With the new amendments the procedure for a complaint is stricter ensuring that those making an accusation of rape cannot be tried falsely for adultery.
The Mukhtar Mai case will silence many women. It has become a symbol of everything that is wrong with Pakistan. Not because the Supreme Court has failed but because the entire mindset we live with has failed to understand what it entails to protect women and their rights.
The writer is senior assistant editor at Herald.
razeshtas@gmail.com

mercoledì 4 maggio 2011

Blood on the tracks (di Mahir Ali, Dawn, 4 maggio 2011)


Blood on the tracks

NOTWITHSTANDING the litany of denials over the years from Pakistani political and military leaders alike, it turned out this week that Osama bin Laden was in Pakistan after all.
And not in North or South Waziristan or any other tribal territory, but comfortably ensconced in the neighbourhood of the Pakistan Military Academy in Kakul, on the outskirts of the pleasant hill station of Abbottabad, within easy reach of the federal capital. Oh Abbottabad, we are leaving you now
“ To your natural beauty do I bow
Perhaps your wind`s sound will never reach my air
My gift for you is a few sad tears…”
These verses are attributed to the man who founded the city in the mid-19th century as the capital of Hazara district, Major James Abbott, presumably more competent as an army officer than as a poet. It is unlikely that any such thoughts ran through Bin Laden`s mind in the moments before he saw the last of Abbottabad.
The element of surprise was crucial to the US special forces operation that sealed his fate. It was a comprehensively planned affair rather than a spur-of-the-moment attack: the trusted Bin Laden courier, unnamed at this point, who proved to be the key to unlocking the mystery of the Al Qaeda chief`s whereabouts was apparently tracked for years, and the compound had been under surveillance for months.
Even so, the evidence that it housed Bin Laden was circumstantial: the raid was evidently based on the strong suspicion, rather than the certainty, that the Pimpernel who had successfully eluded his enemies for nearly a decade would be found therein.Small wonder, then, that Barack Obama and his national security team, who followed the operation in real time from the White House Situation Room, were mightily relieved when it yielded the desired result. As a consequence, Bin Laden now sleeps with the fishes, in Godfatherly parlance, his mortal remains having reportedly been consigned to a watery grave.
It is possible that sanitised footage of the operation will surface in due course, but it won`t help to settle the most crucial questions that have arisen in the wake of the dramatic events near Abbottabad.
Arguably, foremost among these is whether elements in Pakistan`s military intelligence, or the broader army, were aware of Bin Laden`s presence in the country; conjectural estimates of his sojourn in Kakul range from a few days to several years.
Not surprisingly, voices in the US have already begun demanding that this aspect of the scenario be fully investigated. It`s hardly an unfair demand, and it comes in the wake of WikiLeaks revelations about the CIA viewing Pakistan`s ISI as effectively a terrorist organisation.
Often enough the same charge can be flung at the CIA, of course. It could also reasonably be argued, though, that Al Qaeda`s antics played a significant role in facilitating the impunity of the CIA and the Pentagon. Who can seriously doubt, for instance, that Bin Laden and his cohorts provided an ideal focus for the US just as it was casting about for a new foe in the wake of the Soviet Union`s demise?
That the US and its underlings were on the same side as Bin Laden and his small group of followers in the crusade against communism is a much-remarked-upon historical irony, and those who vehemently deny that the CIA directly assisted Bin Laden`s group often conveniently ignore the fact that numerous recipients of American largesse and military training — the Hekmatyars and Haqqanis of this world — also eventually fell in with the Taliban, who provided a sanctuary for Bin Laden`s forces.
What`s more, a fantastical notion of the role of Arab recruits to the jihad in bringing the Soviets to their knees enabled Bin Laden to assume he could provide the same service vis-à-vis the US of A.
But then, this sordid saga overflows with ironies — it would take a fairly voluminous tome to list them all. Perhaps what matters most of all is whether the targeting of Osama bin Laden at this juncture serves more than a symbolic purpose for the US.
Back in the late 1990s, before he was cast as the personification of evil, the Al Qaeda chief was perceived chiefly as a financier of Islamist terrorist operations. After the mass atrocities perpetrated on Sept 11, 2001, when the Taliban regime in Kabul demanded proof of Bin Laden`s complicity as a prerequisite for handing him over, a special forces strike of the sort carried out in Abbottabad this week could conceivably have beheaded Al Qaeda.
Instead, a full-fledged military assault was unleashed — and Bin Laden was able to escape from Tora Bora. His operational role in subsequent terrorist attacks has been dubious. His death clearly does not spell an end to the threats posed by Islamist violence.
Al Qaeda may have expanded into a multinational with largely autonomous franchises in various parts of the world — thanks in large part to the American reaction to 9/11, and particularly the gratuitous invasion of Iraq — but its core appears to have remained small.
This week`s decapitation could lead to a short-term surge in retaliatory attacks, but in the longer run the impact of Bin Laden`s death may not register on the Richter scale.
This year`s popular surge across much of the Arab world can be interpreted as a kind of defeat both for Al Qaeda and for Washington: after all, it was green-lit neither by the sad example of Iraq nor by the prospect of international jihad. As a signpost for the future, it seems considerably more valuable than anything the Americans or the Bin Ladenites had to offer. n
Whether Osama bin Laden`s removal from the realm of the living to the ocean of the dead makes for a substantially better or safer world remains to be seen. He certainly deserves no tears. The blood on his hands was all too real. But it does rather pale in comparison with the blood on the hands of successive US commanders-in-chief. Hence, the claim that `justice has been done` rings only partially true.
mahir.dawn@gmail.com

Unauthorised raid must not serve as precedent, US told


Unauthorised raid must not serve as precedent, US told

By Baqir Sajjad Syed | From the Newspaper
Pakistan army soldiers and police officers patrol past house, background, where it is believed al Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden lived in Abbottabad, Pakistan on Monday, May 2, 2011. Bin Laden, the mastermind behind the Sept. 11, 2001, terror attacks that killed thousands of people, was slain in his hideout in Pakistan early Monday in a firefight with US forces, ending a manhunt that spanned a frustrating decade. – Photo by AP


ISLAMABAD: More than 36 hours after the US killed Al Qaeda chief Osama bin Laden in a stunning operation in the garrison town of Abbottabad, embarrassed Pakistani leadership tried on Tuesday evening to shrug off some of the discomfiture and, for the first time, came up with its own narrative of the events that had led to the detection and eventual elimination of Bin Laden, while reminding the Americans that their unilateral action should be an exception and not a rule.
“This event of unauthorised unilateral action cannot be taken as a rule. The government of Pakistan further affirms that such an event shall not serve as a future precedent for any state, including the US. Such actions undermine cooperation and may also some time constitute threat to international peace and security,” a statement issued by the Foreign Office said.
“The government of Pakistan expresses its deep concerns and reservations on the manner in which the government of the United States carried out this operation without prior information or authorisation from the government of Pakistan.”
‘Red lines’ earlier conveyed to the Obama administration by Pakistan had specifically stressed on ‘no foreign boots on Pakistani soil’.
The statement spelt out why it was taking the raid as an exception.
“The government of Pakistan recognises that the death of Osama bin Laden is an important milestone in fight against terrorism and that the government of Pakistan and its state institutions have been making serious efforts to bring him to justice.”
The statement, however, appeared to be contradicting the initial official reaction issued on Monday which was seen by many as an attempt to possibly express helplessness about, if not justify, the US Navy Seal strike team’s incursion under CIA command. It said: “This operation was conducted by the US forces in accordance with declared US policy that Osama bin Laden will be eliminated in a direct action by the US forces, wherever found in the world.”
Information Minister Firdous Awan had gone one step further by giving it the cover of international law when she said the US action had been conducted in exercise of a UNSC resolution.
Was Tuesday’s reaction just an afterthought? Or did the blowback the military got over the perceived violation of national sovereignty push the Foreign Office to restate its policy of ‘no tolerance’ for foreign military action on its soil?
The message, on the face of it, seemed to have been designed to silence public criticism and questioning at home about the conduct of the operation, but it also contained a nuanced note for the international audience, particularly India, which has been mulling plans for a long time for targeting groups based on Pakistani soil it consider as a threat.
In this context the statement reminded the international community of Pakistan’s cooperation in counter-terrorism efforts, including the arrest of some high-profile terrorists.
“Pakistan, being mindful of its international obligations, has been extending full and proper cooperation on all counter-terrorism efforts, including exchange of information and intelligence. Pursuant to such cooperation, Pakistan had arrested several high-profile terrorists.”
Further cautioning against any future incursion, the statement reminded about the importance of public support for the military and government, which it feared to lose if a unilateral action was to happen again.
“The government of Pakistan and its armed forces consider support of the people of Pakistan to be its mainstay and actual strength. Any actions contrary to their aspirations, therefore, run against the very basis on which the edifice of national defence and security is based.”
Telling the Pakistani version of how US detected Osama’s presence in Abbottabad, the statement said that ISI had been sharing information about the compound, which was raided by the US forces, with CIA and other friendly intelligence agencies since 2009. This flow of information about presence of foreigners in the surroundings of Abbottabad continued till mid-April.
“It is important to highlight that taking advantage of much superior technological assets, CIA exploited the intelligence leads given by us to identify and reach Osama bin Laden, a fact also acknowledged by the US president and secretary of state, in their statements.”
The statement reiterated that neither the country’s civilian nor military leadership had knowledge of the US operation in advance.
It recalled that Pakistan Air Force had reacted to the incident by scrambling its jets into action.
While the Foreign Office said PAF had gone into action minutes after the receipt of information, a statement by White House Adviser John Brennan used to corroborate that indicated that PAF fighters weren’t able to detect the invading aircraft.

Osama Bin Laden killed in Pakistan (Da Amnesty.org)

http://www.amnesty.org/en/news-and-updates/osama-bin-laden-killed-pakistan-2011-05-02


Osama Bin Laden killed in Pakistan

2 May 2011
Osama Bin Laden, the leader of al-Qaida, has been killed by US forces during an operation in Pakistan, US President Barack Obama has said.
"Osama Bin Laden took credit for and supported acts around the world which amounted to crimes aganist humanity.  He also inspired others to commit grave human rights abuses," said Claudio Cordone, Senior Director at Amnesty International.
"His death will put an end to his role in organizing or inspiring such criminal acts. We do not know the full circumstances of his killing and and the others with him and we are looking into that."

Pakistan must bring justice to rape victim

21 aprile 2011

http://www.amnesty.org/en/for-media/press-releases/pakistan-must-bring-justice-rape-victim-2011-04-21

AI Index: PRE01/221/2011
The Pakistan Supreme Court's acquittal of five men charged with the gang rape of Mukhtaran Mai highlights the failure to bring perpetrators of such crimes to account, Amnesty International said today.
“A woman has been brutally gang-raped but the Pakistani authorities have failed to bring anyone to account for this horrific crime, sending a green light for abuses against women to be committed without fear of punishment,” said Sam Zarifi, Asia-Pacific Director at Amnesty International.
“This failure discourages victims of sexual violence to report their cases to the police or the courts and also allows for Pakistan’s informal parallel justice mechanisms ('jirgas') to continue violating women's rights, ordering women to be killed for supposed infringements of their families’ or community’s 'honour', punitively raped or forcibly married to settle disputes to pay for the alleged crimes of their family members.”
“Amnesty International believes Mukhtaran Mai’s safety may be at risk and urges the Government to ensure her protection against reprisals and to ensure that the perpetrators of gang rape, and those who order it, are brought to justice without recourse to death penalty.”

Security with human rights

http://www.amnesty.org/en/library/info/ACT30/001/2011/en

L'incubo si è concretizzato


By Ismail Khan | From the Newspaper
3 maggio 2011
To quote a now-retired senior intelligence official, “The mere thought of Bin Laden having been killed or captured in Pakistan gives me nightmares.” – File Photo by AP
PESHAWAR: A nightmare that Pakistan’s security establishment dreaded for years has finally happened.
The “what if” question — if Osama bin Laden was killed or captured in Pakistan – continued to haunt the key US ally in the war on terror of many, many years. To quote a now-retired senior intelligence official, “The mere thought of Bin Laden having been killed or captured in Pakistan gives me nightmares.”
The death of the most wanted man in the world could not have come at a worse time for Pakistan. Instead of resolving many of the issues surrounding his mysterious escape from Tora Bora in eastern Afghanistan and his whereabouts thereafter, his death has spawned many more questions. What happens next? Both for Al Qaeda and Pakistan??
Osama’s dramatic end is a significant psychological blow to his Jihadist platform that has since given birth to a stew of several more Jihadist organisations. As Abdul Bari Atwan, the editor of the British-Arabic newspaper, Al-Quds al-Arabia, once noted: Before 9/11, Al Qaeda had just one address; its mountainous hideout in Tora Bora. Now it has many addresses. The Al Qaeda in Iraq, the Al Qaeda in Yemen, the Al Qaeda in the Arab Peninsula, the Al Qaeda in Maghreb and the Al Qaeda in Pakistan and Afghanistan, not to mention its several other affiliates spread across the globe, many in the sleeper cells in the US and Europe.
Indeed, the shy and seemingly introvert Osama remained an inspiration figure for the Jihadists throughout the world, bringing in fighters from virtually everywhere to fight the war in Afghanistan and other Islamic conflict zones.
But his utility for Al Qaeda stops there. In the present scheme of things, he had chosen to lie low, away from the battlefield, leaving the overall operational command to his deputy, the Egyptian doctor — Ayman Al Zawahiri. It is, by all accounts, Zawahiri, who is doing most of the leg work for Al Qaeda and galvanising support for it. Therefore, what was de facto until Sunday may become de jure with Dr Zawahiri succeeding his leader to take control of Al Qaeda.
For Pakistan the implications are two-fold: On the internal front, a threat from Al Qaeda and Taliban to avenge Osama’s death now looms large and the duo has shown its capacity in the past to cause havoc in the country. This will pose a formidable challenge to the government and the security and military apparatus,
But what the more daunting and challenging task before Pakistan would be to cope with what may now become a more assertive United States.
The opportunity provided to Islamabad by the arrest of US spy Raymond Davis to convince the Americans to reduce CIA’s footprints, cut down if not entirely shut down drone operations and an overall cut of 25 to 40 per cent in its Special Operations forces and other personnel now seems to be standing on its head.
It is a strange twist of luck for Pakistan which had declined a US offer of the Status of Forces Agreement (Sofa) with Islamabad a few years ago, finding it to be “too intrusive”. The Sofa that was scrutinised by the Joint Chief of Staff Committee was found to be too intrusive for Pakistan’s comfort. But when the ISI chief, Ahmad Shuja Pasha, went to Washington last month to offer its version of the Sofa, he found the Americans least interested.
If Bin Laden’s presence in a major urban centre and that too close to a prestigious military training institution could be any pointer, it might as well prompt the US to ask for more intrusive surveillance of our territory, including the urban areas and not just the rugged tribal backyards.
Indeed, most of Al Qaeda’s so-called high value targets were captured from Pakistan major urban cities. Khalid Sheikh Mohammad from Rawalpindi, Ramzi Binalshibh from Karachi and Laith al Libi from Mardan. Also captured from Abbottabad last month was the Indonesian Umar Patek, implicated in the Bali bombings.
Therefore, if Islamabad is in a state of shock and embarrassment, it is understandable. It may not only be wanting on giving plausible explanations of its inability to track down Bin Laden in Abbottabad not just to an already-suspicious Obama administration but also to its nation who would want to know how the Americans managed to fly helicopters all the way from Afghanistan (if it is to be believed) undetected in the military parlance ‘nap of the earth flying” by our radars to carry out a raid and go back just like that, when the stated policy is that no foreign forces would be allowed to carry out land operation in Pakistan – unless of course there was some knowledge of the operation at some level at the top.

La verità verrà fuori



Di Kamran Shafi, 3 maggio 2011

SO then, Osama bin Laden has been killed by American Navy Seals in Abbottabad Cantonment, Pakistan, in an operation directed and run by the Americans themselves in a helicopter-borne assault from Afghanistan.
Whilst we will ask where the ghairat of the ‘Ghairat Brigades’ was, when four foreign helicopters crossed our border and after flying for an hour over our ‘sovereign’ territory, swooped onto Abbottabad; whilst we will definitely ask where our ‘self-respect’ is; now that the Americans have done what they said they would do if they had the intelligence — go after who they consider their enemies no matter where they are holed up — it is more important to ask why our much-vaunted Deep State didn’t know Osama bin Laden was living in Abbottabad Cantonment all these years?
And to ask why everyone and Charlie’s aunt in the security establishment went blue and red with anger when told that Osama and his close advisers were hiding in Pakistan?
Why, yours truly has been called a traitor deserving of death when I suggested that only given what the establishment itself told us about Osama’s failing kidneys and need for regular dialysis there was no way he was living in a cave on some remote mountain. Why indeed, did the Commando puff out his chest and glare at Hamid Karzai when the Afghan president suggested that Al Qaeda’s top leadership was hiding in Pakistan? Why the stout denial all these years?
From news that is filtering out, CNN with the help of Google maps, already told us early on Monday morning London time, that Osama was living with his youngest wife and some other members of his family and tens of armed guards in a house eight times bigger than all the other houses in the area: walls 12 feet high; no telephone connection; no cellphone signals emitting from the house, et al.
I mention this because the quite preposterous house should have stuck out like a sore thumb and been the subject of some suspicion on the part of the Mother of All Agencies which routinely bugs people’s telephones and has the equipment to pinpoint a cellphone to within 10 metres.
However, we are being told to believe that no one in Pakistan, not the Hazara police, not the IB, not the ISI, not MI, had the slightest idea just who lived in that absurd house located not far from the Pakistan Military Academy where officer cadets, the future leaders of the Pakistan Army, are trained. (Incidentally, where, not a week ago, the COAS asserted that the army had broken the back of the terrorists!) Indeed, one should have thought that a cantonment with not only this academy but three regimental centres which train recruits and turn them into soldiers should have been a most sensitive station. I can only say if they didn’t know, why didn’t they know? The truth will out one day.
The American government denies, as some claimed, that our security state was aware of this operation and that our intelligence agents were part of it, and the Pakistan government has confirmed the US stance. Indeed, President Obama’s statement made in Washington DC clearly said that he was briefed in August, almost nine months ago, that Osama’s trail was getting hotter and that it was on last Friday night that he was told Osama had been positively tracked down to a location in Abbottabad in Pakistan, at which point the US president ordered the operation.
According to Mr Obama, he telephoned President Zardari with the news of the operation after he had been informed of its success.
At the time when 9/11 happened and my own son disappeared on me for four agonising hours during the aftermath of the tragedy (he was working in World Trade Centre Building 4 at the time), I had condemned the Al Qaeda leader for only using Afghanistan to further his own agenda of taking over Saudi Arabia (and then the ummah) and not having done anything for the poor of that desperately poor nation.
There was no Bin Laden hospital or school or clinic or dispensary or road or welfare project built in Afghanistan with his hundreds of millions. Indeed, it was only the bribes he paid the Taliban that ensured their protection for him.
But back to the operation and my hope that what we are being told is not another lie. The end-game is here, sirs, and will now quicken with Osama bin Laden’s elimination. Calls for a withdrawal from Afghanistan before 2014 will increase in tenor and frequency.
However, the Americans will simply not leave Afghanistan to the wolves: for fear of strengthening the cousins, the Afghan and the Pakistani Taliban. But they will ask for more cooperation from us because they will simply not take more casualties, inflicted on their troops from terrorists from our side of the border travelling by way of Parachinar and other routes.
We should be aware that Osama being run to ground in Abbottabad will heighten American suspicions of us, regardless of what we might say. We should also take very serious note of what American leaders are saying about us. While some people might be right in characterising congressman Dana Rohrabacher’s saying we have been playing the Americans for suckers as the view of just one conservative, we must recall Secretary Clinton saying: “I’m not saying that they’re at the highest levels, but I believe that somewhere in this government are people who know where Osama bin Laden and Al Qaeda is, where Mullah Omar and the leadership of the Afghan Taliban is, and we expect more cooperation to help us bring to justice, capture or kill those who attacked us on 9/11.”
Truth will out, only this time it will bring great peril to us if we don’t shape up.
kshafi1@yahoo.co.uk

Pak military caught in the crossfire

Un nuovo dlemma (dal quotidiano pakistano Dawn 3 maggio 2011)

Di Qaim Moini

THE death of Al Qaeda chief Osama bin Laden in a fortified compound in the scenic city of Abbottabad has perhaps raised more uncomfortable questions than it has answered. For one, the narrative that the terror outfit`s key minds are in hiding in the inaccessible badlands of the tribal areas that straddle Pakistan and Afghanistan has been seriously challenged.
Osama`s death in an urban centre deep inside Pakistan is the most high-profile scalp that has been claimed in the battle against transnational Islamist militancy. Yet there are quite a few examples from the past that show that while the tribal areas of Pakistan may be where militants are most visible, it is in the country`s cities and towns where militant leaders often choose to lie low to avoid detection.
Al Qaeda`s attacks of Sept 11, 2001 prompted America to take action against the terror network based in this part of the world. Several key operatives of the global jihadi network have been picked up from Pakistan`s urban areas. Perhaps the first of such high-profile catches was Abu Zubaydah, picked up by American and Pakistani intelligence operatives from a `safe house` in Faisalabad in March 2002.
Other raids netted Ramzi Binalshibh, who was apprehended in September 2002 following a shoot-out in Karachi`s Defence neighbourhood, while in March 2003 Khalid Shaikh Mohammad was picked up from Rawalpindi. Later in the same year, Khalid`s relative and fellow Al Qaeda operative Ammar Al Baluchi was arrested from Karachi. In 2005, Abu Faraj Al Libi was seized in Mardan while more recently Umar Patek, a suspected member of the Al Qaeda-linked Jemaah Islamiyah, was captured in Abbottabad.
This is not to say the militant presence in Fata is minimal. Rather, it would be fair to assume that Al Qaeda`s and its allied concerns` presence in the tribal belt mainly consists of foot soldiers and second- and third-tier leaders. Though US drone strikes in Fata — along with causing considerable `collateral damage` — have managed to take out some major militant names such as Abu Hamza Rabia, Usama Al Kini and Baitullah Mehsud, most of militancy`s big guns have been picked up, dead or alive, from this country`s urban areas.
And now, with the death of Osama, the international spotlight is shining quite harshly on Pakistan, mainly because of the fact that the country`s security apparatus failed to pick up the scent of the world`s most wanted man a few hours` drive from the federal capital. Though suspicion will always remain of the security establishment`s connivance with a section of the militants, a more balanced analysis of the situation shows that tracking down terror operatives in cities is not an easy undertaking.
No doubt, it is a huge intelligence failure on part of the Pakistani security establishment. Simply denying the fact that operatives of Al Qaeda or other militant outfits are hiding in Pakistan will not change the fact that they are, while the claim that Al Qaeda`s back has been broken also remains to be tested.
The challenge now for Pakistan`s security establishment (and one repeatedly mentions the establishment as there is little the political government can apparently do in this matter), should it choose to accept it, is to track down the cells of both foreign and local militant outfits operating in the nation`s cities and towns and neutralise them. The consequences of not doing so will be grave, as will be discussed later.
This is a challenging proposition. As security analysts have observed, it is easy for militants to blend in in the cities where they can potentially become invisible. For as past incidents have shown, neighbours have had no idea of who was living next to them until after the suspects were whisked away by intelligence personnel, often after violent exchanges. As opposed to this, the activities of militants are much more visible in areas like Fata, hence members of the militant leadership escape to the cities.
The other issue is that many local groups have ideological or religious links to concerns like Al Qaeda. Hence members of these groups can provide food, shelter and medical help to incognito militants. Then, of course, the fact that the jihadis may have sympathisers within the security and intelligence communities must be considered.
Yet it is clear that after the Osama episode Pakistan`s intelligence apparatus will need to work overtime in trying to dismantle the networks of both foreign and local militant groups, as well as keeping better tabs on suspected terrorists seeking refuge in the country`s cities and towns. Strategic doctrines of `good militant, bad militant` should also be discarded, as militants can turn their guns on the state anytime.
That the country will now face immense pressure to root out militancy goes without saying. Yet there is another factor the security establishment must consider. It has been confirmed by the government that the Osama operation was a solo American outing. If the Americans or anybody else makes a habit of launching these types of operations within Pakistan, without joint cooperation or while bypassing Islamabad, to take out suspected militants, it can have unsavoury consequences for Pakistan internally and abroad. Within the country, there will be questions about Pakistan`s `sovereignty` being violated. Internationally, the impression that Pakistan is a safe haven for global terror and that the Pakistani state is incapable of tackling militancy will be strengthened.
The security establishment, taking along the political government, must do what needs to be done to clean house and prevent militants of all stripes from using Pakistan both as a staging ground as well as an R&R stop for recuperating jihadis.
The writer is a member of staff.
qasim.moini@dawn.com

Was Osama killed by US troops....?

http://www.allvoices.com/contributed-news/8957178-was-osama-killed-by-us-troops-or-his-own-guard

Was Osama killed by US troops or his own guard?

Lahore : Pakistan | May 02, 2011
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The United States has placed a $25 million bounty on Al-Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden
The United States has placed a $25 million bounty on Al-Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden
 
Al Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden was killed along with his son and three bodyguards in a helicopter assault on a mansion in the northern city of Abbottabad late Sunday night to bring to an end the biggest-ever manhunt by the United States.
Reports suggest that Bin Laden was shot dead with a single bullet to his head when he resisted capture, but an official indicated that the 54-year-old mastermind of the biggest and most devastating attack on US soil might have been killed by one of his own guards in line with his will to avert his capture.
“From the scene of the gunbattle it doesn’t look like he could have been killed at point blank range from such a close angle, while offering resistance,” said an official, who visited the scene of the night assault soon after the departure of the US assault team from the sprawling compound in Thanda Choa, now called Bilal Town, at stone’s throw from Pakistan Military Academy, Kakul.
Details are sketchy about the circumstances leading to the raid on the living quarters inside the large compound surrounded by unusually high walls and fences, but background discussions with government and security officials do help in reconstructing the high drama that culminated in the death of America’s most wanted man.
These officials told that helicopters were hovering over the area at around half past midnight and it took the US assault team of 25 Navy SEALs and CIA hitmen about 40 minutes to “clear the area” and take away the body of the man they had been hunting for nearly a decade.
One of the two helicopters involved in the assault went down during action and one official who visited the scene said there was no evidence to suggest that it might have been hit by a rocket or shot from the ground.
“There was no evidence of the helicopter having been shot down,” the official said. “From the wreckage it appears to be more a case of a crash,” he said.
But he said the one loud explosion heard during the gunbattle might have been caused by the departing assault team which bombed the chopper into pieces after retrieving their men and completing their mission.
The body of one of Bin Laden’s guards, whom the official described as either an Afghan or a tribesman, was lying in the compound.
Bodies of Bin Laden’s two other guards were found in the living quarters, the official said. Interestingly, the US assault team took away Bin Laden’s body, leaving behind a number of women and children.
Officials said that one of those killed was Osama’s son.
This has shattered the long-held belief and myth that the Al Qaeda leader was surrounded by a group of heavily-armed diehard fighters.
Bin Laden’s two wives, both in their early 50s and one of them of Yemeni origin, were among those left behind, the official said. A third woman, who was wounded in the late-night attack, was taken to a military hospital.
The official said that a total of nine children were also seized from the compound. They are said to be boys and girls aged between 2 and 12 years.
Among the children, the official said, one was Bin Laden’s 11-year-old daughter. The women and children are now in the custody of Pakistan’s security agencies and a senior security official said that those rounded up would be subjected to interrogation to reach to the bottom of the whole story.
“We would want to know the whole story. How and when did the entire band come to this part of the region? Where was Bin Laden all these years? And was he actually there when the assault took place?” the official said. “There are a whole set of questions which need to be answered,” he said.
“One of the women who spoke a smattering of English said they had moved to the compound a few months ago,” the official said. “But we would want to know how did they come to this place,” he said.
The compound known as Waziristan Haveli among the locals, said a local resident, was owned by a transporter from Waziristan.
“The Waziristanis were good people. They used to socialise with the local community, attend their weddings and funerals,” the resident said. “But nobody had a clue to the presence of Osama and his family there,” Jehanzeb Jadoon said.
But even by the local standards, Jadoon said, the forewalls were 15 to 20 feet high with barbed wire. “This was unusual for a place like Abbottabad,” the official concurred.
But a security official said that the Waziristani transporters’ connection could give them clues as to how the Bin Ladens managed to travel all the way to this place. Security agencies have now launched search for the Waziristani owner of the sprawling compound, adjacent to an agricultural land that provides the shortest route to the nearby military academy.
The mansion was built some five years ago, Jadoon said and the official acknowledged that it might have been built close to a high security zone to protect it from the prying eyes of foreign intelligence operatives and electronic surveillance and predator drones.
This would make sense, an analyst said. “Osama was known to suffer from kidney ailment and was always in need of dialysis,” the analyst said. “But that he would live a quiet family life with his wives and children, away from the rugged hot-zones of the tribal regions, in a picturesque and scenic place like Abbottabad was beyond anybody’s imaginations.”

martedì 3 maggio 2011

Abbottabad

http://www.guardian.co.uk/books/2011/may/02/abbottabad-town-poem

Abbottabad – pretty Himalayan town, pity about the poem

The town's founder, a British general, loved it so much that he wrote a poem about it. But as Stephen Moss found out it might be one of the worst poems ever.
Abbottabad
A Pakistan army soldier stands on top of the house where it is believed al-Qaida leader Osama bin Laden lived in Abbottabad. Photograph: Anjum Naveed/AP
There is some argument over whether General Sir James Abbott founded Abbottabad. Herbert Edwardes, another soldier and administrator in the Punjab, has his claims. But it was Abbott who managed to put his name to the place, and he really should have left it at that. The encomium he composed when he left the hilltown he loved must be one of the worst poems ever written.

Perhaps Abbottabad, as Abbott rather unenterprisingly called the poem, sounds better in Urdu. I haven't been able to locate a copy in that language, though there is said to be a translation and it surely can't be any worse than the English version. Or maybe it was written in Urdu and this is a literal translation by someone for whom English is not their first language. The oddly garbled line "And we leave our perhaps on a sunny noon" suggests that may be the case.

William McGonagall was a contemporary of Abbott, and evidently an influence. "The trees and ground covered with snow / Gave us indeed a brilliant show" is pure McGonagall. Indeed, in many respects, Abbott out-McGonagalls the master. The Tay Bridge Disaster reads like Homer after Abbottabad.

Abbott's poem is notable chiefly for its non-sequiturs. "To me the place seemed like a dream/ And far ran a lonesome stream." It takes genius to produce a couplet in which the second line bears no relation to the first. One begins to suspect satirical intent – or perhaps brain damage. "The wind hissed as if welcoming us / The pine swayed creating a lot of fuss" … "And the tiny cuckoo sang it away." WTF? as William Empson might have said. And does that final word "thwart" make any grammatical sense?

Abbott left his beloved Abbottabad in 1853. He eventually retired to the Isle of Wight, and does not seem to have written another line. Thank God. He married late in life, and it is possible his wife and young son distracted him. Their service to English literature is incalculable.
• Stephen Moss stood for the Oxford professorship of poetry last year. He came eighth (out of 11), but feels he might have won under an AV (alliterative verse) system.