LETTER FROM INDIA : BIN LADEN KILLING AS SEEN FROM NEXT DOOR

[ That he maintained such a life in a garrison town two hours from the Pakistani capital appeared to confirm India’s official position that it is in Pakistan’s nature to protect terrorists. In the world according to Indians, the myth of Pakistan as an ally in the war against terror died that night with Bin Laden. The chalk outlines on the floor of the Abbottabad mansion would include, besides the contours of Bin Laden’s last pose, the map of Pakistan.] 

By Manu Joseph

Ayman al-Zawari (left) the perceived
leader after bin Laden's death

DATELINE — As the news of Osama bin Laden’s death spread around the world, the jubilation in India had as much to do with where he was found as the fact he had been dispatched.

The headline in The Times of India read: “US Kills Osama, Blows Pak Cover.” Mail Today announced: “Osama Killed, Pak Wounded.” India Today described Pakistan on its cover as “Terroristan.”

Many Indians relished the fact that Bin Laden was found in Pakistan, in a large mansion, in the company of a wife U.S. officials described as “young.”

That he maintained such a life in a garrison town two hours from the Pakistani capital appeared to confirm India’s official position that it is in Pakistan’s nature to protect terrorists. In the world according to Indians, the myth of Pakistan as an ally in the war against terror died that night with Bin Laden. The chalk outlines on the floor of the Abbottabad mansion would include, besides the contours of Bin Laden’s last pose, the map of Pakistan.

Bin Laden’s death in Pakistan was particularly satisfying for those Indians who have resented what they took to be the world’s propensity to lump India and Pakistan together.

Modern India, despite its horrible flaws, they would say, is a product of democracy, new capitalism and the unambiguous moral values of Hinduism, which does not define humanity as Hindus and so could not be bothered to call anybody infidels or try to convert them. (There are zealots among Hindus, but their numbers are comparatively few, and their influence has been diminished by the Indian preoccupation with prosperity, whose currency is peace.)

By contrast, they would point out, in Pakistan this year, a woman was sentenced to death for blasphemy. A liberal who protested the country’s blasphemy law was killed and the killer greeted by his supporters with rose petals.

The attacks in the United States on Sept. 11, 2001, did suggest crucial cultural and political differences between India and Pakistan, but in the Indian view, America’s circumstances led it to reward Pakistan. With both the United States and China wooing Pakistan and heavily arming it in their own interests, Indians could only watch as their neighbor reaped the benefits.

Bin Laden’s death in Abbottabad need not mean that the United States will distance itself from Pakistan, or that India would want that. But many here believe that at least now, the outside world is viewing Pakistan’s chaotic political and military leadership and its intelligence agency, Inter-Services Intelligence, much the way Indians have long viewed them. That is why they relish Bin Laden’s death.

When Pakistan’s former president and military chief, Gen. Pervez Musharraf, appeared on Indian television, his interviewer, Karan Thapar, told him that the fact that the C.I.A. did not share the intelligence about Bin Laden with Pakistan was “a slap on the face of Pakistan.” General Musharraf nodded reluctantly.

Mr. Thapar then said Pakistan had been “caught with its pants down.” General Musharraf, who had once led Pakistan to war against India, wryly responded, “Well, aren’t you enjoying using these terms?”

Mr. Thapar then insisted that the Bin Laden episode was not an embarrassment, but a “humiliation” for Pakistan. General Musharraf let out a sad chuckle.

Setbacks are nothing new for Pakistan’s military. It fought three disastrous wars with India. According to India, its neighbor has since the 1980s sought vengeance by unleashing terrorists on Indian soil. Pakistan has consistently denied this and accuses India of killing its own civilians through terror.

When Mr. Thapar asked General Musharraf why the Pakistani military could not detect U.S. choppers as they flew in from the west and remained in the country’s airspace for more than two hours, General Musharraf said, matter-of-factly, that most of Pakistan’s radars “are focused more towards your side.”

On the streets of Pakistan, among ordinary people, India provides less cause for concern.

Mohammed Hanif, a Pakistani journalist and the author of the novel “A Case of Exploding Mangoes,” a satire of Pakistan’s military, said in an interview: “People of Pakistan don’t wake up in the morning fearing an Indian attack. They wake up fearing a bomb going off in a mosque or a bazaar. But Pakistan’s army’s reason for existence is India. Even after fighting its own Muslim brothers on its own turf for 10 years, and losing more soldiers than it ever has in a confrontation with India, Pakistan’s army remains India-centric.”

The Indian government understands the complexities of Pakistan, but the average Indian sees no distinction between those who control Pakistan and its people. He imagines a nation that blasts Indians to bits. That is unfortunate, because Indians who travel there are struck by the aspiration of ordinary Pakistanis to be warm to Indians. And Pakistan is a vastly different country from what most Indians imagine.

For instance, most Indians might find it hard to believe that there are Hindu temples in Pakistan and that they are not apologetic shrines where persecuted minorities hide and pray. They are as vibrant as temples in India and are sustained by Hindus who have prospered in Pakistan. In fact, outside one temple in Karachi, a man stood at the door and refused to let in Muslims who had begged him for a quick peek. He was unmoved, but he let me in because I was Indian.

Manu Joseph is editor of the Indian newsweekly Open and author of the novel “Serious Men.”

@ The New York Times 

BIN LADEN SONS SAY U.S. BROKE INTERNATIONAL LAW

[The statement, prepared at the direction of Omar bin Laden, who had publicly denounced his father’s terrorism, was provided to The Times by Jean Sasson, an American author who helped the younger Mr. Bin Laden write a 2009 memoir, “Growing Up bin Laden.” A shorter, slightly different statement was posted on jihadist Web sites.]

By Scott Shane

Omar bin Laden, a son of Osama bin Laden,
and his wife, Zaina Alsabah, in 2008.
He has denounced his father's terrorism.

WASHINGTON — The adult sons of Osama bin Laden have lashed out at President Obama in their first public reaction to their father’s death, accusing the United States of violating its basic legal principles by killing an unarmed man, shooting his family members and disposing of his body in the sea.

The statement, provided to The New York Times on Tuesday, said the family was asking why Bin Laden, the leader of Al Qaeda, “was not arrested and tried in a court of law so that truth is revealed to the people of the world.”

Citing the trials of Saddam Hussein, the former Iraqi leader, and Slobodan Milosevic, the former Serbian leader, the statement questioned “the propriety of such assassination where not only international law has been blatantly violated,” but the principles of presumption of innocence and the right to a fair trial were ignored.

“We maintain that arbitrary killing is not a solution to political problems,” the statement said, adding that “justice must be seen to be done.”

The statement, prepared at the direction of Omar bin Laden, who had publicly denounced his father’s terrorism, was provided to The Times by Jean Sasson, an American author who helped the younger Mr. Bin Laden write a 2009 memoir, “Growing Up bin Laden.” A shorter, slightly different statement was posted on jihadist Web sites.

Omar bin Laden, 30, lived with his father in Afghanistan until 1999, when he left with his mother, Najwa bin Laden, who co-wrote the memoir. In the book and other public statements, the younger Mr. bin Laden had denounced violence of all kinds, a stance he repeated in the sons’ statement.

“We want to remind the world that Omar bin Laden, the fourth-born son of our father, always disagreed with our father regarding any violence and always sent messages to our father, that he must change his ways and that no civilians should be attacked under any circumstances,” the statement said. “Despite the difficulty of publicly disagreeing with our father, he never hesitated to condemn any violent attacks made by anyone, and expressed sorrow for the victims of any and all attacks.”

Condemning the shooting of one of the Qaeda leader’s wives during the assault on May 2 in Abbottabad, Pakistan, the statement added, “As he condemned our father, we now condemn the president of the United States for ordering the execution of unarmed men and women.”

In explaining the killing of Bin Laden, Obama administration officials have cited the principle of national self-defense in international law, noting that Bin Laden had declared war on the United States, killed thousands of Americans and vowed to kill more.

The sons’ statement called on the government of Pakistan to hand over to family members the three wives and a number of children now believed to be in Pakistani custody and asked for a United Nations investigation of the circumstances of their father’s death.

None of Osama bin Laden’s sons other than Omar, who lives in Saudi Arabia and Qatar, were named in the statement; Ms. Sasson said she believed it was approved by three other adult sons who have not lived with their father for many years. Before Osama bin Laden fled Afghanistan in 2001, he had at least 11 sons, one of whom was killed in the assault last week, and nine daughters, by Ms. Sasson’s count.

In addition to the statement, Ms. Sasson shared notes on what Omar bin Laden, who declined to be interviewed directly, had told her by telephone in recent days. The notes describe Mr. Bin Laden’s struggle, as he came of age, to understand and eventually reject his father’s embrace of religious violence.

Mr. Bin Laden told Ms. Sasson that the death of his father “has affected this family in much the same way as many other families” that experience such a loss. But he also described a childhood of “upheavals and relocations” that, she said, “caused his mother and siblings great upset and danger.”

Mr. Bin Laden said that by the age of 18, after Al Qaeda had plotted the bombings of two American Embassies in East Africa and two years before the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks, he had concluded “that the course of action his father was taking was not for him, irrespective of what his father’s wishes were,” Ms. Sasson said.

Eventually he asked his father’s permission to leave Afghanistan with his mother and younger siblings. He told Ms. Sasson that he “thanks Allah that his father granted his permission for this departure, otherwise the grief the family faces could be even greater.”


@ The New York Times