February 20, 2013

CAMERON CALLS COLONIAL-ERA MASSACRE IN INDIA ‘SHAMEFUL’

[In 1919, Brig. Reginald Dyer, a British officer administering martial law, ordered 50 soldiers to open fire on a crowd of about 10,000 unarmed Indians protesting a postwar extension of World War 1 detention laws. A British inquiry concluded that 379 people were killed and 1,100 wounded, but an Indian inquiry estimated that 1,000 died.]
By Gardiner Harris
Associated Press
British Prime Minister David Cameron on Wednesday laid a wreath at the site of
a notorious 1919 massacre that cost the lives of hundreds of Indians
 in Amritsar, India
NEW DELHI – Britain’s prime minister laid a wreath at the site of a notorious 1919 massacre that cost the lives of hundreds of Indians and has long been seen as one of the British Empire’s most shameful episodes.
David Cameron was the first serving prime minister to voice regret about the Jallianwala Bagh massacre in Amritsar, although Queen Elizabeth made a similar appearance in 1997 that at the time caused an outpouring of pained reflections about India’s colonial history under Britain. Mr. Cameron’s trip, perhaps because it is his third one here or because Britain’s role in India has become relatively less important, has caused far less comment and consternation.
“This was a deeply shameful event in British history – one that Winston Churchill rightly described at that time as monstrous,” Mr. Cameron wrote in the visitor’s notebook at the pink granite memorial.
Like the queen before him, Mr. Cameron did not offer a full apology, a fact that was duly noted by Indian media. Britain’s colonial history is so replete with regrettable episodes that officials have quietly worried that an apology for one episode might lead to an outpouring of demands for similar apologies all over the world.
In 1919, Brig. Reginald Dyer, a British officer administering martial law, ordered 50 soldiers to open fire on a crowd of about 10,000 unarmed Indians protesting a postwar extension of World War 1 detention laws. A British inquiry concluded that 379 people were killed and 1,100 wounded, but an Indian inquiry estimated that 1,000 died.
Fortunately for Mr. Cameron, Prince Philip was not on this trip. When Queen Elizabeth visited the Amritsar memorial in 1997, the queen’s royal consort was overheard griping that the memorial’s official signage “vastly exaggerated” the death toll, a fact that he said he had learned from Brigadier Dyer’s son when the two men were cadets in the Royal Navy before World War II.
The nearly sacrilegious remark touched off a storm of commentary, little of it beneficial to the visitors. The Amritsar massacre is seen by many Indian historians as a crucial moment in the country’s struggle for independence.
Mr. Cameron’s trip is intended to bolster the two countries’ business and trade ties and perhaps strengthen his support among 1.5 million British voters of Indian descent. On Tuesday, Indian Prime Minister Manmohan Singh asked for Mr. Cameron’s assistance in the increasingly embarrassing bribery investigation into India’s purchase of 12 AgustaWestland helicopters made at a plant in Britain.
AgustaWestland’s parent company, Finmeccanica, is based in Italy, and the company’s chairman and chief executive, Giuseppe Orsi, was arrested recently on corruption and fraud charges after investigators charged that Finmeccanica had engaged in an elaborate scheme to bribe Indian generals to win the contract, charges that at least one of the top generals has firmly denied. The case has become a black eye for Mr. Singh’s governing coalition.
While stressing that Finmeccanica is “an Italian company,” Mr. Cameron promised to “respond to any request for information." 
Hari Kumar contributed reporting.

TOP MEMBER OF TALIBAN IN PAKISTAN IS CAPTURED

[Afghan officials, including members of the intelligence agency, the National Directorate of Security, said its agents, aided by Afghan Army special forces, had captured Mr. Muhammad on Sunday along with four other militants in the Mohmand Dara District of Nangarhar Province in eastern Afghanistan. The district borders Pakistan.]

By Matthew Rosenberg and Jawad Sukhanyar
KABUL, Afghanistan — The Afghanistan authorities have captured a senior member of the Pakistan Taliban in a stretch of mountains near the frontier between the two countries, Afghan and Pakistani officials said on Tuesday. One Afghan official said the militant, Maulvi Faqir Muhammad, had been arrested after American airstrikes, some carried out via drones, had flushed him out of a more remote haven.
Although Mr. Muhammad, picked up over the weekend, had lost much of his standing in the Pakistan Taliban over the past few years, his arrest was likely to please Pakistani officials and further improve the already warming relations between Kabul and Islamabad. “This is big news,” a senior Pakistani security official said.
Afghan officials, including members of the intelligence agency, the National Directorate of Security, said its agents, aided by Afghan Army special forces, had captured Mr. Muhammad on Sunday along with four other militants in the Mohmand Dara District of Nangarhar Province in eastern Afghanistan. The district borders Pakistan.
A member of the Pakistan Taliban, formally known as the Tehrik-i-Taliban, also said he had heard of Mr. Muhammad’s capture, and that the news was spreading quickly among the many militant factions that make up the Islamist movement.
Shukrullah Durani, the governor of Mohmand Dara, said the five men had been carrying an AK-47 assault rifle, hand grenades, a pistol and a radio when caught about 4:30 p.m. They were driving a white Toyota Corolla — one of Afghanistan’s most common cars, and thus a low-profile way to travel — and were passing through the village of Hazarnaw, he said, adding that authorities had been tracking the men for some time. Except for the district governor, Afghan and Pakistani officials spoke on the condition of anonymity, citing the political delicacy of the case.
Pakistani officials have in the past year often complained that Afghan and American authorities were doing little to capture the wanted militant leader. To the dismay of Washington, they repeatedly sought to draw equivalence between his case and longstanding accusations that Islamabad let the Afghan Taliban use Pakistan as a rear base.
Mr. Muhammad, believed to be in his 40s, fled to Afghanistan in 2010 after an offensive by Pakistan’s military on his stronghold in the Bajaur tribal agency. He was at the time a deputy leader of the Pakistan Taliban, an offshoot of the Afghan Taliban movement.
Mr. Muhammad continued to attack Pakistani forces in Bajaur after taking refuge in the isolated valleys of Kunar and Nuristan Provinces in northeastern Afghanistan, prompting Pakistani complaints of American and Afghan inaction.
At the same time, though, he fell out with the leadership of the Pakistan Taliban after trying to open peace talks. But in recent months, as the Pakistan Taliban have made limited overtures toward holding such talks, colleagues have appeared to welcome Mr. Muhammad back.
Afghan officials have long denied that Mr. Muhammad operated from their territory. Intelligence officials in Kabul said that he had been caught on Sunday while crossing into Afghanistan, and they suggested that he had lacked a base of operations on the Afghan side of the border.
But another official, an intelligence agent who works in northeastern Afghanistan, said Mr. Muhammad’s trail had been picked up in recent days because he had been trying to flee Kunar Province. Mr. Muhammad felt there were too many airstrikes by the American-led coalition there, the intelligence official said. Many were carried out by drones, and Mr. Muhammad, knowing the effectiveness of drone attacks targeting Islamist militants in Pakistan’s border areas, feared that the Americans had been hunting him.
American officials offered no comment on Mr. Muhammad’s capture, referring questions to the Afghanistan government.
Ismail Khan contributed reporting from Peshawar, Pakistan; Sharifullah Sahak from Kabul; and an employee of The New York Times from Asadabad, Afghanistan.