information
No news is not so good news
Local journalists have fled Swat. There is no way to confirm the scale of the humanitarian crisis except to go by what the ISPR claims -- which to media experts is absolutely unacceptable
By Aoun Sahi
"I left my city Saido Sharif on May 16. It was difficult to work in a situation where both the security forces and the Taliban were not allowing free flow of independent information," says Fayaz Zaffar, correspondent of Aaj TV in Swat. He was among the last local journalists covering the military operation in the valley. On April 26, he says, the Taliban issued a letter to journalists warning them against practising "bad journalism" and asking them to discuss news reports with them before filing.

Pain is very personal
A few brief glimpses -- among hundreds of thousands more -- from the camps inhabited by people now called internally displaced
By Naeem Safi
Pain--has an Element ofBlank--
It cannot recollect
When it begun -- or if there were
A time when it was not.
Emily Dickinson
Pain is personal -- a deep, dark emptiness -- may be some part of which can be traced in the blank eyes of those who are feeling it. But that is the thing with feelings -- it is hard to express the best and, unfortunately, the worst with words. It's beyond the faculty of language. No wonder observing a few minutes of silence is the best way for nations to express feelings.

The News on Sunday asks leading political analysts and former army generals about the strategic importance and timing of the ongoing Operation Rah-i-Raast, the tactics being employed by the security forces, a possible exit strategy, the role of a civilian government and external pressures.

Here is what they have to say…

This time army seems determined. This is obviously because of the will of the government and the army. And of course, there was external pressure too.

The questions arising in the minds of the people, and of course mine, are: will the government and the army be able to eliminate the Taliban this time? How long will this continue? What will be the fate of IDPs? etc. People also want to know as to what the strategy of the government is to protect and rehabilitate the hugely displaced population. We also want to know the exit strategy of the government. The government must come up with clear plans taking people into confidence regarding its operational and exit strategy.

I believe this operation is delayed action. This action should have been taken months ago. And this is also true that now the perception of public is changing. The majority of people is now sick of the Taliban, and want peace and to get rid of the militants. The suspicions, doubts and confusion about the links between the army and the Taliban were there. Now the fog is clearing.

This is also to be seen whether this operation continues or is derailed by something like Mumbai attacks, incidents in Punjab or some other attacks. These things can derail the operation. I strongly feel that the issue of IDPs needs to be tackled carefully. The present efforts, however, seem insufficient.

Ideally, the ongoing Operation Rah-i-Raast should be viewed as counter-insurgency but at the moment the tactics seem more attuned to low-intensity conflicts. This is a function partly of capacity constraints and partly of lack of COIN training for the Pakistan Military. Heavy artillery and air power should be kept in the barracks in such asymmetric operations. Yet, lack of quick transport and special forces preparedness in sufficient numbers is forcing the state to use a risky strategy where collateral damage becomes more likely. Within the constraints, however, they are doing the best they can from what I can determine.

Also, remember, the real test is yet to come. The militants shall be flushed out -- that was not an issue even in the first two phases of Rah-i-Raast -- but the tougher part is holding and normalising the area. That is where the Pakistan Army had shied away but cannot afford to do so this time round. The areas will have to be held on to by troops (Frontier Constabulary (FC) preferably) for some months as political normalisation begins and the civil service returns to normality.

The timing of the operation was perfect. This is besides the point that the military should never have stopped the last operation when it did; rather it should have gone on to eliminate the Taliban no matter what. At the heart, this is an ideological battle, one where the state must have popular support for its actions. Any military operation before the recent sea change in Pakistani sentiment would have been counter-productive. Tactically it makes it tougher now but that's the wrong way to think about it.

I think there should be no 'exit' in the short term. The FC has to be installed in the region to ensure that the militants do not return as they did on previous occasions. Apart from that, the active cessation of the operation will depend on how well it progresses. Once that is over, then the government, not army, has to determine how to deal with locals, miscreants who surrender, and the broader governance issues. In domestic COINs, you never see exit strategies such as in Iraq or Afghanistan since local armies have the luxury of staying on for as long as they want. At this point, my sense is that speedy withdrawal will not be forced by locals if the operation goes well.

Tactically, the militants will be run over (some eliminated, some will go underground). But that is only part of the story. The key is to see how the state deals with the affectees of the saga. How much collateral damage has taken place? How does one pacify the locals? How effectively will the ANP government deal with the locals and the certainty with which the army can say these militants will not be allowed to return? My sense is the future is more turbulent than we think. Peace will return, but only temporarily.

I have been for a dialogue with the Taliban and was even for the Swat deal, but beyond that, if the state was not going to tackle them now, then when?

Unless Pakistani political leadership removes contradictions within it and stops taking dictation from external players, the issue of militancy cannot be resolved.

This military operation, launched after the American pressure, also shows a clear failure of political leadership in Islamabad and NWFP. I am against the operation. It shows political defeat.

Now that it has been launched, they should conclude it swiftly to create an amicable environment engaging the 'good' Taliban in dialogue with full sincerity. The federal and the provincial governments do not appear to be sincere in their efforts.

In Swat, there are three types of Taliban: One group consists of criminals in the guise of the Taliban; the other is of those who have crossed the Durand Line, and the third are the real Taliban.

The focus of this operation should be to eliminate miscreants and criminals, followed by a dialogue with the 'good' Taliban, asking them to separate themselves from the extremists. The rest of the Taliban should be forced to leave or face consequences. If the 'good' Taliban do not break any law and just want Islamic system then there is no harm in enforcing that system in Swat because it is an old, unheard demand.

I don't understand why we are killing our own people. Look at the 1.5 million displaced people. This cannot continue for long. If this goes on the situation will further destabilise Pakistan.

America wanted to engage Pakistan Army in this operation for a long time but has finally jumped into it itself.

Calling the All Parties Conference (APC) was not a bad decision. The ultimate solution of this problem is political -- not war. America wants to drag Pakistan in this war. If Prime Minister Yousaf Raza Gilani should identify the enemies when he publicly says that enemies have a bad eye on Pak nukes and the government will not let this happen.

The ruling political leadership hesitates to name Israel, America and India, who are the enemies of Pakistan. Unless Pakistani leadership takes indigenous decisions this crisis will continue. The solution is to bring the 'good' Taliban on board, create peace and bring displaced people back to their homes after crushing the miscreants. Also, make this operation quick. Otherwise, it will be too late.

The Swat operation is a military operation against an insurgency, using conventional forces that have been inoculated for battle against an irregular force through a three-part training programme that prepares them for such fighting. This approach was developed for FATA operations under then Director General Military Operations Major General Ahmed Shuja Pasha and continued since then. A full-blown counterinsurgency operation would involve civilian, political and economic aspects that need to be dovetailed and the development of civil affairs capabilities inside the army to work with teams from the civil administration and with local police forces. The latter would then hold and rebuild the areas once the military clears them. Otherwise, the risk is that the areas would revert back to the militants.

This dovetailing does not appear to be the case in Swat or even FATA as yet. The often quoted lesson is that the military alone cannot win such wars: it is the civil and the police that help sustain victory after the military buys time and space for them to act.

The timing of the action has to be decided by the civil authorities. In this case, they waited for the deal to fail so they could point to the inability of the Taliban to deliver their end of the bargain. The deal was foredoomed. And the cost of the subsequent military actions has been high for both the locals and the military, as a result of the long delay before acting against the militants.

You cannot deal with militants from a position of weakness or perceived weakness. Aerial attacks run the risk of higher collateral damage. Cordon and clear are the most appropriate tactics. The army seems to be following that approach but given the long delay and the advance warnings to the militants, they have dug in. The battle may get too costly.

If the military has an exit plan, it would not make sense to announce it, nor its timing. Ideally, the government needs to have a strategic plan for the region and FATA. It needs to be proactive in that regard and not react to developments as they occur nor rely on overseas aid to pull it out of this hole. A better coordinated plan with the provincial authorities and the military, involving the civil, police, and local populations need to be crafted and applied according to local conditions in Swat and in each Agency of FATA.

It depends on the planning being done in Islamabad and with Peshawar. If only military action is being planned then we may see a repeat of earlier actions and the Taliban will re-appear. The army is not designed to hold the area indefinitely or to police it. It is not embedded inside the communities. For that we will need an enhanced police and rangers' presence in Swat.

To say if the Army acted on its own implies that the army acted on its own. That does not seem to be the case. Further, Pakistan has to act in its own interest not because the United States or some other power pressures it to act

The army operation seems to be the final option after local security forces failed to restore peace in Swat and after the law and order completely deteriorated and political efforts failed to bring peace by tackling the militancy through dialogues and deals.

Nizam-e-Adl regulation deal was not given enough time and Sufi Muhammad and his group should have been given more time to ensure what they had promised with the government. The operation was the last choice to restore peace.

The pressure from external forces like America and other parts of the world actually came after the Swat deal was enforced and the pressure increased after the situation started going worse. Sufi Muhammad and his supporters cannot be separated from the Taliban and militancy as they had been lodging armed movements in their areas taking law and order into their hands after 9/11.

This army operation should not continue for long. In my view this operation should end in four to five weeks. The area should be cleared off the militants. And instead of rethinking the possibility of further dialogue and deals, there should be a strong civil administration in the area to bring peace and maintain law and order.

Besides, the army cannot remain in this situation for long. The strategy can be changed and some force can be sustained in disguise but the operation will have to be concluded swiftly. People are also fed up of this situation and want peace in their area. And if the peace is not restored at the earliest displaced people will start protesting.

Most importantly, the government must generously and honestly focus on the rehabilitation of the displaced people bringing them back from the shelters and camps. It should also develop the valley fully.

Sometime after the World War II, Britain was led by wartime Prime Minister Winston Churchill while General Eisenhower led America. And a great deal of talk was generated about the 'Special Relationship' between the two countries and how neither took any step without consulting the other. After a little while Jackie Kennedy charmed the French President Charles De Gaulle with her immaculate French. German statesman Konrad Adeneur wormed his way into the American consciousness and there was no more talk of a special relationship.

When I think of the present day, I suppose there is a special relationship between America and us! But it is a peculiar relationship getting more peculiar by the day. Each day there are reassuring statements about how Pakistan is in good hands and our nuclear arsenal is secure. And each day there are alarming statements about how America is worried about our nuclear assets falling into the hands of the Taliban.

Every now and then the Prime Minister is forced to reiterate "our nuclear deterrence will be retained at all costs, and no amount of coercion, direct or indirect will ever force Pakistan to compromise on its core security interests"! Right alongside there is a statement by Admiral Mike Mullen, Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff telling Senators in a congressional hearing that "Pakistan has put tight safeguards in place for the protection of its nuclear assets," and the Admiral is satisfied that it is secure!

It is a neat little game being played by both sides, with each side sticking to its guns without wanting to jeopardise the basic premise of friendship. Last week the Americans upped the stakes by a definitive statement by the State Department that they had in place a plan to take out our nuclear weapons in case of a threatened takeover by the Taliban. They took care to see that it was not seconded either by Mullen or the President.

I really think that no one has taken the trouble to think the thing through. It is true that the Taliban are a formidable force, with all sorts of foreign help, and so they could conceivably take over our nuclear weapons -- and then who could they use them against? The only time nuclear weapons have actually been used in history was on Hiroshima and Nagasaki and both of them were a whole ocean away from the attacking force.

I don't want to question the American concern about nuclear weapons falling into the hands of unthinking yahoos. But has anyone given some thought to what they could do with them. I seem to recall thinking this when we first we first acquired them, and trying to think things through, and getting nowhere!

"I left my city Saido Sharif on May 16. It was difficult to work in a situation where both the security forces and the Taliban were not allowing free flow of independent information," says Fayaz Zaffar, correspondent of Aaj TV in Swat. He was among the last local journalists covering the military operation in the valley. On April 26, he says, the Taliban issued a letter to journalists warning them against practising "bad journalism" and asking them to discuss news reports with them before filing.

"An overwhelming majority of journalists left the area during the first week of May. Before leaving home, I used to stand on my rooftop to sense what was going on in the area… Swat is now without journalists," he says. Zaffar and his cameraperson have been provided with bullet-proof jackets and helmets but, ironically, are not trained to cover the war.

As of now, the only source of information about the operation and on-ground situation in Swat is the daily handouts of the Inter Services Public Relations (ISPR) that usually report 40 to 70 militant casualties against two to 10 of security personnel. A small number of civilian casualties are also often reported. The Taliban mostly denies ISPR's figures.

What is to be believed in a situation where independent news items and pictures are missing? In a press release recently issued, Reporters Without Borders assert that currently there are no arrangements for media organisations to either enter or report from the battleground. "It is now impossible to get independently-sourced information about what is happening in the Swat valley. Journalists are fleeing en masse. None of them wants to stay there anymore. We urge the authorities to issue journalists with permits allowing them to circulate during relaxed curfew hours. We also call for immediate measures to guarantee the security of journalists, so that they can return to the valley and resume working there. The Swat valley has become a lawless area without news media and without journalists. This situation is unacceptable and must be remedied by the government at once".

Qasam Khan, Chief Editor Daily Salam and vice chairman Swat press club tells TNS that besides national dailies, six regional newspapers, Chand, Shamal, Salam, Khabarkar, Azadi and Awaz-e-Swat, were published in the valley. But at present, "there is a complete blackout of news from Swat, Buner and Dir with no source of dissemination of news in the area. There were around 100 reporters and correspondents in the area. All of them have fled," he says.

Khan says that journalists have been working in dangerous circumstances for the past two years. During the last one year or so three journalists have been killed in the Swat valley and threats were issued to different newspersons on regular basis. "The Taliban commanders got annoyed when we referred to them as rebels rather than mujahideen. They wanted us to use the term fidayee (suicide attacker) instead of suicide bomber, which upset the security forces."

Presently, all means of communication, including mobile phones and landline phones, do not work in the operation area. This has forced people to rely on ISPR for the latest update.

Media experts, however, refuse to toe the government line. Because, in conflict situations it becomes all the more important to have independent sources of information so that those adversely affected by the fighting get the society's attention.

Adnan Rehmat, media analyst and country director of Internews, says: "The government and security forces are the biggest beneficiaries of information blackouts as they can then attack suspects without accountability and with disregard to constitutional guarantees on human rights as well as manage to downplay the magnitude of the problem and thereby ward off criticism."

Likewise, he adds, militants and terrorists are also major beneficiaries as they can literally get away not just with murder and atrocities but also potentially craft an appearance of being major victims. "All this is what is happening in Swat. Just like in the military offensive against militants in Sri Lanka in recent months, absence of media means the scale of casualties and the size of the humanitarian crisis was not fully known."

With the governments always anxious to give the impression of being in control in times of crisis, they downplay the size and scope of problems of the affectees, which leads to inadequate relief responses. For Rehmat, this means that conflict affectees are the biggest casualties of conflicts. There is no way to confirm if the affectees, particularly tens of thousands of those still strapped in regions where military operations are taking place, are beyond harm.

"Are they starving? Are they being deliberately killed by terrorists or becoming inadvertent victims of security forces' singular ambition to wipe out the militants? How many casualties and survivors really are there? Who knows? And that's unacceptable. Those trapped, terrified and traumatised can only get help if we have information about them. Which we don't know. At the cost of the hapless affectees whose voices and views have been silenced in the din of fighting and the absence of media," opines Rehmat.

Muhammad Riaz, President Khyber Union of Journalists, while sharing his concerns, tells TNS: "I have not read even a single independent report from the ground in Swat for the fortnight or so, because almost all Malakand-based journalists have left the area and are now living with their friends or in refugee camps in Peshawar or Mardan". He says that some reports are coming but through international media, thanks to their "contacts with the high-ups or the fixers who are in good books of both the security forces and the Taliban. Riaz thinks that by doing so the security forces have been promoting their own version of embedded journalism -- "It is neither benefiting the security forces nor the displaced people".

Riaz believes that the government is not interested in the independent coverage of the operation. "We met Federal Information Minister Qamar Zaman Kaira on May 16 to discuss the security of journalists in the Malakand division. He didn't assure us of the safety of the journalists who are willing to work in the operation area. To me, it's criminal to deprive people of the independent information. If this heavy-handed policy of government of stopping the media continues, the public cannot be blamed for believing in rumours," he says.

Rifatullah Orakzai is working as a correspondent with an international media organisation. He had been working in Swat and is currently based in Peshawar. Working in such a hostile areas, he says, "is like signing your own death warrant".

Orakzai claims that many journalists, including him, have a lot of exclusive information. We cannot publish it otherwise we will have to face the consequences. He believes the figures of civilian casualties are much higher than those reported by the government.

Mian Iftikhar Hussain, NWFP Information Minister, tells TNS that "A war is going on in Swat and its adjoining areas and during wars norms of any profession cannot be practiced. We are for flow of independent information from Swat but in areas where military personnel are being martyred, how can we ensure safety of the media people, who are already on the hit list of militants. Even police and levies are unable to move freely in the areas."

Pain--has an Element ofBlank--

It cannot recollect

When it begun -- or if there were

A time when it was not.

Emily Dickinson

Pain is personal -- a deep, dark emptiness -- may be some part of which can be traced in the blank eyes of those who are feeling it. But that is the thing with feelings -- it is hard to express the best and, unfortunately, the worst with words. It's beyond the faculty of language. No wonder observing a few minutes of silence is the best way for nations to express feelings.

Can one write about the blankness in the eyes of a mother from Swat who has left the dead body of her husband on a bed behind locked doors, and fled the area with her children to survive -- physically, of course. She, carrying the newly acquired title of the widow… Can all the gory metaphors really make one feel what the children, women, and men of Swat are actually going through?

What words would you choose when you meet an old man, who is bent down with age, carrying his entire refuge in a plastic bag on his shoulder, empty gaze fixed on earth and mouth slightly open with fatigue, with rubber slippers that are stitched together with multicoloured threads, dragging his feet which have become one colour with dust, as if the dust is slowly taking over his body.

"We were 17 in total when we left Chinärgè," Muhammad Zaman, 73, narrates, "but at Barikot we realised we were walking through a curfew zone. Everyone around us panicked and ran for their lives in the mountains to hide from the army... It was late at night, when I climbed down to Dargai with strangers, and then walked all the way to Mardan in the hope that I might find my sons, Munir and Nazar Hussain, among the crowd. Spent a night there and came back to Jalala. It's been four days and I'm still looking for them."

A very old man handed over his two granddaughters to some strangers, pleading to take care of the little girls -- for God's sake. If this is not the only case, then the history of the lost children of Balakot might be repeating.

A family left a boy, who had polio, back in the valley inside their locked home, because they had to cross the mountains on foot. They left some dry bread and water by his side. Now the mother is a living dead, praying for his life but with very little hope.

These are just a few brief glimpses. There are hundreds of thousands more. One does not even have to use one's imagination to lose it. It takes thousands of years for cultures and cultural landscapes to develop. These IDPs are the victims of pride.

The damage done to a people and a culture is irrecoverable, but no one seems to be aware of that. The government is asking for more from the donor countries, but the majority of IDPs and their hosts yet have to see the first sign of any government presence. On the other hand, the government is refusing to acknowledge the total failure on its part for not being able to plan things properly. It still has to own this mess along with everything that is going on. Even the All Parties' Conference was just another drawing room meeting, some participants denying the government's announcement of their support for the military operation. It is not surprising that the overwhelmed locals and volunteers in Mardan, Charsadda, and Swabi find it hard to believe that the government was not aware of the scale of the catastrophe. Chomsky has rightly observed, "Hypocrisy is the standard. It's ugly, but it's the standard."

The media has got something new to sell. The TV channels are feeding their huge 24-7-transmission bellies, and some even have the courage to make skits on the scarcity of naswaar in Mingora. TV talk shows are a good pastime. And an FM radio correspondent, reporting about the plight of pregnant IDP women in Mardan, thinks it would be a good idea to add, "…and since khan saab is seldom satisfied with fewer kids, so we have a lot of such pregnant cases here." After all, it's all about entertaining the audience.

And the audience, in this theatre, is playing its role. There are stalls on every other crossing, with loud speakers screaming and banners showing in big bold letterings the names of the 'concerned' individuals and organizations.

If it were not for the people of the immediate districts that absorbed the major load of the IDPs, the world would have witnessed a disaster of much greater proportions than what it is coping with now. The locals are mostly farmers living in farmhouses. They still have not shown any sign of displeasure or fatigue to their guests. But they too fear the time when there will soon be no grain in their stores.

It is true that some of people supported the Taliban. But regardless of the time and the context, has not movements throughout history gained sympathies of a few common men? Masses are like a herd of sheep, they will cheer and dance if ushered towards a sports festival, and will support any gun that promises a better future (and is frequently pointed at them). May that promise come from a red banner, a green banner, a white one, or the bright blue; along with them -- no God, one God, or more than one gods, there will always be a few to follow them.

Email: safinaeem@gmail.com

RIPPLE EFFECT

The media can sometimes have good reasons for selling a war. For example what should it be doing in the current situation in Pakistan where the military is apparently carrying a full-fledged operation against the Taliban? According to a recent statement by the president, this campaign is all set to expand -- to FATA, specifically Darra Adamkhel and the Waziristan regions.

Of course war is a bad thing and it leads to death and destruction and, as we are now seeing, displacement on a massive scale. And yes the Taliban are the product of the civilian-military establishment itself (more the latter) and have been used by the state for its own ends in the past. But it is also true that now the monster has gotten out of control and is eating the rest of the body like a cancer, and if we don't cut it and throw it the rest of the body too will eventually become malignant and die a violent death. So what is to be done right now?

How do you talk to those who seem to revel in slitting people's throats, who rejoice in blowing up schools, who drag out and target singers or teachers from their homes, accuse them of prostitution and kill them? What do you do with animals (for want of a better word, really) who drag out a dead body from its grave, cut off its head and hang the head and the body on a public square? The scene is not the Dark Ages of Europe but rather 2009 in present day Pakistan. What do you do with people who sole raison d'etre (at least some of the time) seems to be to subjugate women and make sure that they do not leave their homes -- at the pain of death of course -- even if they need to seek urgent medical treatment or if they are the sole breadwinner for their family and need to step out to buy food supplies. We have heard of one Shabana and one teacher (Hamid Mir's story) who were killed by the beasts in this way but surely among an affected population of some two million, there must be many more Shabanas and teachers.

What do you do, indeed, with those who kidnap members of the minority -- Sikhs in this case -- hold them hostage and then demand ransom money from them to the tune of several dozen million rupees? And then they (the kidnappers) have the audacity to say that this is jiziya (or the tax that minorities are supposed to pay the state in an Islamic welfare state) -- and while they do this, they hold their families (women and children) hostage and tell the men to arrange the funds or risk their women and children being forcibly converted. What kind of animals are these?

Do you talk and negotiate with such 'people'? And this is not to say that such 'people' were not talked to or negotiated with. But whenever there were negotiations, and whenever these resulted in any 'agreements' we never got any peace. All that happened was that the militants gained strength by using the respite given to them by the 'peace' (which never really materialised) deals to regroup and consolidate their power. This is precisely what we see in North and South Waziristan where the writ of the state effectively doesn't go beyond the military or FC forts (and that too is sometimes open to debate).

Those who speak against the military operation and who advocate a return to dialogue need to understand the current situation in the light of all this. Perhaps dialogue can come at a later stage when the government and the state talk from a point of strength and not weakness -- unlike in the past when it was often the other way round or when all that the government gave were concessions to the militants.

********

The good thing about being on several mailing lists is that you get all kinds of things to read -- and that is good if you happen to be a journalist (probably good even otherwise).

And it's not often that you get a story that is 12 years old in your mailbox. But that is what I got the other day -- a story that came in the Baltimore Sun, written by Gary Cohn, Ginger Thompson and Mark Matthews and published on Jan 27, 1997. According to their story, a declassified "CIA training manual" revealed details of torture methods used against "suspected subversives" (read leftwing activists) in Central America during the 1980s (must be during the Reagan era).

The story said that the CIA had always denied that any such abuse took place in Central America but that the training manual effectively proved that it was lying. The newspaper said that it had filed a Freedom of Information Act request in May 1994 and this culminated in the declassification of the "Human Resource Exploitation Training Manual – 1983". It said that the agency also declassified a Vietnam-era training manual called "KUBARK Counterintelligence Interrogation -- July 1963" which also taught torture.

The report said that torture methods taught in the 1983 manual included stripping suspects naked and keeping them blindfolded. The report noted that human rights abuses by unit working in the Central American country of Honduras and known as Battalion 316 were "most intense" in the early 1980s at the height of the Reagan administration's war against communism in Central America. The newspaper had run a series on the torture abuses in the 1980s and this included in large part testimony by a former Unit 316 member who said that he was taught by CIA agents to find out what the subject hated and what he or she liked. Once the interrogator found out what the subject (i.e. the person being interrogated) hated, then that could be used to make the situation "intolerable" for the subject and he may then become more cooperative if that thing which he or she hated was taken out of the interrogation room. Another former Unit 316 member told the newspaper the following: "The first thing we would say is that we know your mother, your younger brother. And better you cooperate, because if you don't, we're going to bring them in and rape them and torture them and kill them."

The report also referred to testimony given by a former CIA deputy director before the US Senate where he said that the CIA trained the Hondurans and that this consisted of actual coursework. "The course consisted of three weeks of classroom instruction followed by two weeks of practical exercises, which included the questioning of actual prisoners by the students," the former deputy director was quoted as telling a Senate panel.

The writer is Editorial Pages Editor of The News.

Email: omarq@cyber.net.pk