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Saarc and Pakistan

25 August 2005, 18:00 PM
LETTERS TO THE EDITOR
By Masood Khan, Chicago, US
25 August 2005, 18:00 PM
I really appreciate Mr. Dev's viewpoint, but may I take the liberty to state that unless and until the Kashmir problem is resolved according to the wishes of the Kashmir people, there will be no forward movement in Saarc. I also have to remind Mr. Dev that India and Pakistan went to war over Kashmir, and as of now, both these countries are armed with nuclear weapons. Therefore, it will be catastrophic if there is a war between these nuclear-armed neighbours.

Mr. Dev has talked about democracy in Pakistan. Well, what kind of democracy we can find in a third world country? There is no democracy in third world countries, there is only "Lootocracy", which means loot and grab. The same type of system exists in Mexico, which is a neighbour of the only world power. By the way, Mexico has been democratic for the last 110 years. Democracy has not worked for the Mexicans. So, do Pakistanis yearn for democracy? I don't think so. The poor masses of Pakistan don't need democracy. What they need is good governance, food to eat, a good educational system, and jobs. May I ask what kind of democracy China has and why in the world China is advancing so fast without joining the democracy club. Isn't the rapid advancement of China giving headache to the only superpower of the world?

As to what happened in 1971 in East Pakistan which later became Bangladesh, well do we Pakistanis like it? I don't think so. The responsibility lies with Mr. Yahya Khan and the so called democrat, Mr. Bhutto. If the two wings of Pakistan were not governable then they should have been separated peacefully. It was a mistake to station the Punjabi army over there.

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As for Taliban, well this is the creation of the superpower who now disowns them. Let's not forget that these are the people that kicked the Soviets out of Afghanistan and that led to the downfall of the Soviet Union and which made the US the only superpower of the world. After the Soviets were defeated in Afghanistan, the US disowned the Afghan (Mujaheddin) Taliban.

The Saarc dream, well what kind of dream I simply don't understand . May I mention here that the Indians here in the US don't buy Pakistani products. Many Pakistani products are of superior quality and cheaper compared to Indian products, but the Indians won't touch it. When I talked to Indian gentlemen about this, they told me that their community won't buy Pakistani products and so the Pakistanis are also avoiding Indian products. Believe me this is happening in America.

So at this juncture Saarc is almost dead.