Rohingya: UN Mission Seeks Sanctions on Myanmar

By: Azhar Azam

Tatmadaw – Myanmar (Burma) armed forces – committed large scale gang rapes and other forms of sexual violence (against Rohingya Muslim Women) in Rakhine State, a shocking report by UN fact finding mission found.

Constituted by Human Rights Council, the report further stated that the rapes were often perpetrated by Tatmadaw soldiers in public spaces and in front of the families and the communities to maximize humiliation and trauma.

Women and girls were systematically abducted, detained, and raped in military and police compounds. The victims were brutally tortured with knives and sticks before and during rape and marked by deep bites.

Thousands of Rohingya Muslims were killed and injured as well. Mass killings were perpetrated in several areas while in some cases, hundreds of people died. In Min Gyi and Maung Nu, men and boys were separated and killed.

In Min Gyi, women and girls were taken to the nearby houses, gang raped, then killed or severely injured. Houses were locked and set on fire. Bodies were transported in military vehicles, burned, and disposed of in mass graves.

Villagers were killed by soldiers, and sometimes by Rakhine Buddhists, using large bladed weapons. Others were killed in arson attacks, burned to death in their own houses. In some cases, people were forced into burning houses, or locked into building set on fire.

Children were also subject to serious human rights violations including killing, maiming, and sexual violence. Children were killed in front of their parents, and young girls were targeted for sexual violence.

Of approximately 500,000 Rohingya children in Bangladesh, many fled alone after their parents were killed or after being separated from their families. The mission met many children who were shot, stabbed, and burned.

An unknown number of people were drowned from capsized boats, or crossing river. The Tatmadaw also killed Rohingya Muslims during their journey and border crossings. At least 392 villages were partially or totally destroyed.

Two waves of violence swept in Rakhine State in June and October 2012 after the murder and alleged rape of a women and the killing of 10 Muslim pilgrims. The State’s two largest groups are Rakhine Buddhists and Rohingya Muslims.

A campaign of hate and dehumanization of the Rohingya Muslims had been underway for months and escalated after 8-June-2012, led by Rakhine Nationalities Development Party (RNDP), various Rakhine organizations, and radical Buddhist monk organizations, and several official and influential figures.

It was spread through anti-Rohingya or ant-Muslim publications, public statements, rallies, and boycotts of Muslims shops. The Rohingya Muslims were labeled ‘illegal immigrants’, ‘terrorists’, and portrayed as an existential threat that might ‘swallow other races’ with their ‘incontrollable birth rates’. In November 2012, the RNDP cited Hitler and argued that ‘inhuman acts’ were sometimes necessary to ‘maintain a race’.

The international independent group termed these gross human rights violations, shocking for their horrifying nature and ubiquity as well as amount to the gravest crimes under international law.

It pressed the international community, through the United Nations, should use all the diplomatic, humanitarian, and other peaceful means to assist Myanmar in meeting its responsibility to protect its people from genocide, and humanitarian and war crimes.

The mission also urged the Security Council to ensure the accountability for crimes under international law in Myanmar, preferably by referring the situation to the International Criminal Court. It also recommended the Security Council to adopt targeted individual sanctions, including travel bans and assets freezes and arms embargoes on Myanmar.

Relevant regional organizations, including the European Union and ASEAN, should develop strategies to ensure accountability for perpetrators of crimes under international law in Myanmar, the report recommended.

Pakistan: The Epicenter of Hybrid War

By: Azhar Azam

The United States cynically luvs to dominate the world whether it is economy, technology, or military. It detests any country to spearhead or any nation-state to pose a threat to the dominance of the United States.

While to the ire of the United States, China’s blooming marches in each and every field – from trade to space – has mutilated the US crave to solitarily influence the world at will, the rationale behind the US push over China.

China is a gigantic economic power with the world’s largest population and the biggest market. It needs strong and consistent economic drive to remain stable. And China’s Silk Road project – Xi’s idée fixe – unwraps a sublime opportunity.

The flipside is that the China-Pakistan Economic Corridor (CPEC) – the jewel in the crown of Chinese One Belt-One Road (OBOR) mega project – has exceedingly fired up the US angsts. The United States perceives OBOR as a peril to its geopolitical supremacy.

Unlike the Soviet Union’s fiasco when it came across Pakistan – this time, the United States is fluffing to find such a valiant ally to counter China as both Pakistan and China share monumental rapport and also CPEC is crucial for Pakistan’s economy.

As the likelihoods of conventional warfare dry up in modern days; the United States is now deeply converging onto another type of feud – Hybrid War – to impede China’s economic strides, the fulcrum of which is CPEC or the land of Pakistan.

Hybrid War is used as a catchphrase to describe a non-linear or non-traditional warfare which strategizes to destabilize an opponent by clandestine maneuvers such as political disruption, economic subversion, propaganda campaigns (including social media), and cyber assaults in addition to employing conventional warfare tactics.

Delving the depths of cloak-and-dagger activities, nearly all components of hybrid war are deployed toward Pakistan on the back of its increasing geopolitical importance – which serves as the ‘Zipper’ to the Eurasian integration. The ultimate target explicitly is the Pakistan’s nuclear stockpile – the cornerstone of its national security.

Several external factors, with the help of some domestic political and social elements, are running propaganda campaigns to dent core ‘national security’ interest of Pakistan. They are inciting people, especially from the deprived zones, against the national security institutions, hoping to harvest a political-military conflict.

Economic cataclysm is also an important component of irregular warfare which has unfortunately miffed the Pakistan’s economy. The combination of these internal and external elements has purposely restrained the country’s economy to grow.

The menaces of outspread corruption, bad governance, illegal money transfers, nepotism, and marginalization of youth not only substantially paled the Pakistan’s economy but also relayed US and UK an opportunity to place Pakistan on FATF grey-list.

On the global front, Pakistan’s frenemy – the United Sates – has also beckoned to maim the vulnerable economy by influencing IMF, in case Pakistan decides to solicit a bail-out package from international financial institution.

Unarguably India and Pakistan are inevitable foes but as the New Cold War begins in the backcloth of Sino-US trade conflicts and strategic disputes in South China Sea; Pakistan is taking the toll for championing its unprecedented friend, China.

The devised Indo-US strategic partnership is the secret endeavor or the hybrid assault to contain Pakistan by fanning ‘ethno-regional identity conflicts’ – supported by Indian-backed terrorist activities in Balochistan and Gilgit-Baltistan and terrorist attacks from Afghanistan – alongside developing India into a military might against China.

The United States had also offered India its Patriot air defense system (PAC-3) to shift the balance of power in favor of India as the system is capable of intercepting enemy’s tactical and cruise missiles and aircrafts.

However India annoyed the United States by going for five battery Russian S-400 Triumf for $6 billion, which embraces the same capability as does the PAC-3. Both the American and Russian air defense systems carry high price tags.

India will be deploying these systems alongside China and Pakistan borders. Although it will stance serious intimidations to Pakistan’s national security, however Pakistan’s all-weather ally, China, has already bought S-400 which can deployed to shield either of them.

Israel is also accompanying India to posing hybrid threats and causing unrest in Pakistan. It is now the second-largest arms supplier to India. With the help of Israeli Aerospace Industries (IAS), India is developing short-range and long-range surface-to-air (SAM) missile systems (SAM).

Azriel Bermant – research fellow at National Security Studies, Tel Aviv – opined that Pakistan might be a real nuclear threat to the United States and Israel, instead of Iran and North Korea. The recent republication of his jaundiced analysis could just be a tip of the iceberg, steering at hybrid war on Pakistan.

While the activities of the US navy in South China Sea drive to repress China’s influence, Indian naval presence on Chabahar port in Iran and Duqm port in Oman can target China, Pakistan, and their central CPEC project.

It is due to this Indo-US strategic naval fusion which has goaded China and Pakistan to shore up their naval collaboration and expand maritime surveillance and security in the Indian Ocean to deal with the US contrived proxy, India.

In the newest concept of hybrid war, the United States and India are manipulating the mainstream media to impair the international reputation of Pakistan; implementing a series of disinformation programs, hypothetical analysis, and odious Op-eds.

They oscillate the western minds that Pakistan is a land of terrorism and poverty to prevent the country’s potential CPEC-linked growth – awaited by connecting the economies of European Union, China, Iran, and SAARC.

The media onslaught on Pakistan army and its intelligence service – ISI – is the key gambit of Indo-US hybrid ‘shelling’ on Pakistan to malevolently obscure the country’s remarkable achievements in war on terror.

It is evident that the United States has distinctly reformed its regional strategy to live off India against China and Pakistan but the christened superficial alliance is doomed to collapse because of India’s inability to play a key role in the mixt geopolitics.

Is ISI a Rogue Organization and a State within a State?

By: Azhar Azam

Pakistan is known for its vulnerable economy, chaotic politics, and modest human development index. But when it comes to strategic significance, military capability, and warfare expertise – the poor South Asian country transcends even the best.

The country’s army the most battled-hardened military force in the world on the basis of several yardsticks including physical agility, combat efficiency, and motivation. Its special services group (SSG) tops the 9 most elite special forces in the world.

And the mainstay of the Pakistan’s phenomenal strategic and military capability is the covert arm of its military, Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI) – rated #1 intelligence agency in the world ahead of United States’ CIA and Britain’s MI6.

Mulled as the most paranormal spy organization worldwide, it developed itself into a formidable espionage and counter-espionage force multiplier in 1980s during a close cooperation with CIA to pawn Soviet invasion in Afghanistan.

ISI has exceptional command and control system. It has thousands of active agents network with zero agent rate (no agent captured). It has a unique mission success rate of about 95%. It has ensured vibrant Kashmir freedom movement.

Before 1980s, Afghanistan soil was continuously been used by its archrival, India, to undermine peace in Pakistan. The Soviet Union was also siding India to choke Pakistan, in the backdrop of its alliance with the United States.

Pakistan could no way afford to be sandwiched between India on the eastern border and Soviet Union on the western front – both of them who were responsible for bisection of the country in 1971.

ISI prophesized the rotten threats to national security with Soviet annexation of Afghanistan. Meanwhile, the United States was also in quest of an opportunity to ‘fix’ its Sputnik-era foe. So, the Soviet aggression obliged a common pitch to both CIA and ISI to protect their national interests.

Pakistan eventually fought and won the biggest war in the history not only for itself but also for the United States; without any US military footprint on the Afghan soil. It devastated 15-training camps, responsible for terrorist activities in Pakistan.

Astute Gen. Hamid Gul is characterized as the godfather of ISI. He was a close comrade of Gen. Zia-ul-Haq and Gen. Akhtar Abdul Rehman, who masterminded the Afghan war against Soviet Union and reportedly served as a ‘vessel’ to US & Saudi financial and weapon support to Afghan mujahideen.

The Pakistani spymaster was presented a piece of Berlin Wall by German people in gratitude for delivering the first blow to the Soviet Union. India accused Gul for his active role in spearheading Kashmir movement.

The United States counted Gul a valuable friend until he turned into a strong US critic after its imposed sanctions on Pakistan over its nuclear program without treating India with the same gage.

Most of the ISI achievements (video) are untold, except for a few. It was ISI that helped to secure Pakistan’s western border. It was ISI that aided to nurture Pakistan’s nuclear program. It was ISI that protected Pakistan’s nuclear assets.

It was ISI that disrupted CIA’s ‘Independent Kashmir’ movement. It was ISI that eliminated the largest terrorist organization of its time, Al-Zulfiqar. It was that ISI that played a key role in razing the jinx of terrorism to bring peace in Pakistan.

The Ojhri camp was a disastrous incidence. Gen. Javed Nasir, who later became ISI chief, was the in charge of the team, responsible for cleaning up the Ojhri camp adversity. He personally carried high explosive blinds with his owned hands and along with his team, cleaned up the area in record 15-days while the US and the French experts estimated that at least 6-months were needed to finish the task.

Most of the Pakistanis are hoodwinked that Gen. Ahmad Shuja Pasha, then ISI head, downplayed Pakistan on Raymond Davis in 2011. He actually boxed CIA into corner by bargaining Davis for scaling back the US drone program and CIA secret missions in Pakistan.

During the course of the negotiations, Pasha exchanged some harsh words with CIA counterpart Leon Panetta in Langley. He left the meeting fragmentary and departed back to Pakistan after Panetta’s vindictive tone riled him. He reminded him that Pakistan is a sovereign country and ‘my boss is Allah, not America’.

So, from nailing-down India to Russian fold, post 9/11 US invasion in Afghanistan, American cyclic deceits, leading war on terror, consolidating ties with Russia, growing conflicts in Middle East, and bolstering ties with China – ISI has succeeded enormously without conceding national interests.

There is no example in the history that a least-resourced intelligence agency has honed to laudably take on a number of heavily-funded and technological advanced shadowy organizations of the world simultaneously including two superpowers.

After utter failure to vying ISI in intelligence – some international media outlets have constantly mingled the mantra since long that ISI is ‘a rogue organization’, ‘a deep state’, or ‘state within a state’. They also charge ISI for providing support to militants in Afghanistan.

Unfortunately, some domestic ostensible political leaders also patronize this nemesis’ notion against ISI – adding that it subverts elected governments, manage elections, and operates beyond the control of the government to cover their errs and to dent the unprecedented contributions of these anonymous protagonists.

In fact, the veracity is far away from such motivated, disingenuous, and fabricated narratives. Empirically, ISI operatives work for their very own institution, very own government, and very own country.

ISI is very professional and disciplined organization which operates under the military command and serves its own government. And a number of international intelligence experts, scholars, writers, and ex-spy officers acknowledge it in the several articles and interviews.

Michael Scheuer, an ex-CIA officer who worked with ISI for almost 20 years, out-rightly rejects (video) the forged impression that ISI is a rogue organization. He slams the US administration for the deteriorating situation in Afghanistan.

‘ISI is a very disciplined and very able intelligence service that protects its own country and supports its own government.’ ‘We have created a mess in Afghanistan; they (Pakistan) have to sort it out.’

Ex-CIA and US army chief, Gen. David Petraeus denies (video) as much as explosive support to militants as some of the journalists believe. Talking on the ISI links with Afghan militants, he tipped that as an intelligence service, you have to do this.

Former RA&W chief, AS Dulat says ‘the most powerful intelligence agency is, either KGB which no more exists, or ISI, because they are very anonymous’.

Vinod Sharma, an Indian political editor, concludes his analysis ‘much as India’s ineptitude and worst hurt me as an Indian, I have to admire that Pakistan – a nation that is 1/6th India’s size and10th India’s GDP – has achieved through the ISI, whose successes have been nothing short of spectacular’.

Seven Pakistani Universities Make to Top-1000 in the World

By: Azhar Azam

Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) has been declared the best university in the world for an eye-wetting seventh consecutive year, according to the fifteenth edition of QS World University Ranking 2019.

The private research university from the United States now holds the ‘fierce’ record that previously it shared with Harvard University – after QS Quacquarelli Symonds conducted research on universities from 85 countries.

Stanford (#2), Harvard (#3), and Caltech (#4) – all the top-4 positions were attached to the US institutions. The British global higher education analysis firm ranked United Kingdom’s Oxford and Cambridge at #5 and #6 respectively.

Two compatriot Singaporean universities – National University of Singapore (NUS) and Nanyang Technological University (NTU) – were tunefully the best schools in Asia, ranked #11 and #12 correspondingly.

A total of 12 universities from the United States occupied the top-25 slot. United Kingdom (5), Switzerland (2), Singapore (2), and one each from China, Japan, Australia, and Hong Kong also comprised the listing.

Seven Pakistani Universities Made to Top-1000, Two Through to Top-500

The compilation also includes seven universities from Pakistan as well which have been ranked amongst the top-1000 universities in the world for 2018-2019.

Pakistan Institute of Engineering and Applied Sciences (PIEAS=397) dethroned National University of Sciences and Technology (NUST=417) to emerge as leading Pakistani university in the latest periodical.

Beating the odds, PIEAS made to the top-1000 chronicle and outpaced all other competing universities from Pakistan to earn the top rank in the country. The contemporary institute has also topped in all three rankings conducted by Higher Education Commission (HEC) so far.

The analysis found that PIEAS ‘has excellent experimental and computational facilities for conducting research and development projects in cutting-edge technologies’. It has also the highest proportion of PhDs in its full-time faculty.

Established in 1997, PIEAS is the only Pakistani university which is ranked #47 in ‘Top 50 Under 50 2019 – a young universities’ cluster with the age of below 50 years since it was established. It was also ranked #128 in Asia in 2018.

NUST however also bettered its last year’s position and stepped-up to #417 from prior =431-440 bracket. Its rank in Asia was #91 in 2018.

As of 2018-2019, two universities from Pakistan bag the prestige of being placed in top-500 listing in the world.

The other five universities in the QS Top-1000 are: Quaid-i-Azam University (QAU=551-560), Lahore University of Management Sciences (LUMS=701-750), COMSATS Institute of Information Technology (CIIT=751-800), University of Engineering & Technology (UET=801-850), and University of Punjab (UOP=801-1000).

LUMS and NUST made to QS ‘Most Employable Graduates’ Listing

However when it comes to producing ‘most employable graduates’, Lahore University of Management Sciences (LUMS) takes the tethers and turns out to be the highest ranked Pakistani university in the slot =201-250, according to QS Graduate Employability Rankings 2018.

LUMS’ employability ranking sides with some world’s best universities such as George Washington University (USA), The University of Exeter (UK), Humboldt-Universitat zu Berlin (Germany), and Hiroshima University (Japan).

Its employable graduates ranking is also very close to University of Oslo (Norway), University of Delaware (USA), University of Vienna (Austria), and India’s top university – Indian Institute of Technology Bombay (IITB).

LUMS argues that 84% of its students are offered employments soon after they complete their graduation. The average salary of a LUMS business graduate is PKR 138,923 – mostly placed in FMCG, Conglomerate, Chemicals, Energy, and Financial sectors.

NUST is only the other Pakistani university which had appeared in the respective rankings =301-500, behind LUMS. It says that 92% of NUST graduates get an employment, go for further studies or start their own business.