From: imran@panix.com (Imran Anwar)
Subject: PakistaNews Text Files Until GIF Color Restarts Soon - #0106
Date: Fri, 8 Jan 1993 14:12:57 GMT
Organization: IMRAN: Information & Media Resources, Affiliations, Networks


   Talk circulated in the trading pit that the US Agriculture Department was 
preparing to target Pakistan for subsidized sales of 1 million metric tons of 
U.S. wheat.



Pakistan to keep aiding Kashmiri separatism: prime minister
   ISLAMABAD, Pakistan (UPI) -- Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif, apparently 
reacting to remarks by a British official in India, vowed Tuesday that Pakistan 
would continue its support for Muslim separatists in India's northwestern Jammu 
and Kashmir state.
   Speaking to a religious seminar near Islamabad, Sharif said his country was 
"providing moral, political and diplomatic assistance to the Kashmiris and will 
continue doing so."
   Sharif's comments came just hours after British Home Secretary Kenneth 
Clarke told a news conference in New Delhi he would ask Islamabad to halt its 
assistance to secessionist groups operating in India. India accuses Pakistan of 
assisting Sikh militants in Punjab and Muslim secessionists in Kashmir.
   "India can't suppress the freedom movement with military might. The 
Kashmiris will win their freedom one day," Sharif said.
   Noting that the United Nations has endorsed Kashmiri self- determination, he 
called for U.N. action on their behalf.


Pakistan-Afghanistan
The govertnment on Tuesday ordered all Afghan rebel groups to close their 
offices in Pakistan by the end of the month.
   The rebels, from the most moderate to the most radical, vowed to resist.
   "We can't return as long as there is neither peace nor security in 
Afghanistan," said Mengal Hussein, a spokesman for rebel leader Gulbuddin 
Hekmatyar, once Pakistan's closest ally among the resistance groups.
   Pakistan also wants dozens of aid organizations, run mostly by 
fundamentalist Muslims from Arab countries, to close their doors and send their 
employees home.
   Most of these organizations, which formed during the Soviet intervention in 
Afghanistan from 1979 to 1989, are believed to be training mercenaries to fight 
in other Muslim countries.
   Pakistan served as the staging area for Muslim insurgents who fought for 14 
years to topple successive Communist governments in Kabul.
   But since the rebels overran the capital in late April and took power from 
the former Communist rulers, feuding rebel leaders have wreaked havoc in Kabul, 
firing thousands of rockets on the city, destroying entire neighborhoods and 
killing more than 2,500 people.
   Pakistani government officials said Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif's government 
was fed up with the bickering Afghan leaders and wants them to go home.
   On Tuesday, Pakistan told the seven major rebel groups to close dozens of 
offices in the frontier city of Peshawar and in the federal capital of 
Islamabad by Jan. 31, said a government spokesman on condition he not be 
identified.
   Peshawar said several northern African and Persian Gulf countries have 
accused aid organizations in Pakistan of arming and training Islamic 
fundamentalists who return to their homelands to try to unseat the more liberal 
governments.
   Government officials have refused to say how many aid groups have been 
ordered to leave, how many employees are involved, or what countries they 
represent.
   Even Afghanistan's moderate rebel leaders say they won't leave Pakistan.
   "It would be very difficult for Pakistan to close these offices because 
there is no peace in Afghanistan," said Abdul Jabbar Naeemi, a spokesman for 
the moderate National Islamic Front of Afghanistan.
   "The majority of Afghan leaders are in Pakistan. Even our president, 
Rabbani, has an office here," said Naeemi.
   

Britain to urge Pakistan not to aid separatist activity in India
   NEW DELHI, India (UPI) -- British Home Secretary Kenneth Clarke said Tuesday 
he would urge Pakistan to halt its assistance to underground Indian 
secessionist groups.
   Before leaving for Pakistan, Clarke told a news conference in the Indian 
capital that Britain opposed any nation providing sanctuary or support to 
militants operating across its frontiers.
   Clarke quoted a statement by British Foreign Secretary Douglas Hurd who 
urged Pakistan during a visit to Islamabad last October not to provide material 
aid to Muslim rebels in Indian Kashmir.
   Britain opposed any activity that aided terrorist violence, Clarke said.
   He pledged to crack down on illicit transfer of funds from Britain to India 
by rebel sympathizers.
   Indian Home Minister S.B. Chavan earlier told Clarke that London was being 
used as a base for money laundering by militants.
   Ethnic and sectarian violence has emerged as India's main domestic problem. 
In the past year alone, thousands of people have perished in hit-and-run 
attacks by underground extremists.
   Britain and India signed an extradition treaty last September in a move to 
combat terrorist-related activities. The treaty is to be presented to the 
British and Indian parliaments for ratification.

PAKISTAN WITHDRAWS CONTROVERSIAL DECREE
The Pakistani government, bowing to widespread protest, on Tuesday formally 
withdrew a controversial decree that had curtailed the powers of courts.
    The National Assembly passed a government-sponsored amended bill restoring 
the powers of provincial high courts to grant bail to people facing trial 
before special anti-terrorist courts.
    The controversial presidential ordinance, issued last month, had barred the 
high courts from hearing bail petitions from such people, in the first major 
curtailment of their powers since martial law was lifted in 1986.
 
FIVE KILLED IN PARTY RIVALS' SHOOTOUT IN PAKISTAN
Five people were killed and six injured when gunmen from a breakaway faction of 
an ethnic party in Pakistan opened fire on rivals in the southern port city of 
Karachi, officials said on Tuesday.
    The gunmen opened fire with Kalashnikov assault rifles when five members of 
the Mohajir National Movement (MQM) returned home late on Monday from six 
months in hiding after the army launched a crackdown on the ethnic-based party.
    "Five people were killed and six injured by terrorists from the MQM 
(Haqiqi) group," a spokesman for the main MQM party said.
    An army spokesman said the law enforcement agencies were investigating the 
incident, and one person had been arrested.
    "The killing of the MQM workers at a time when the operation clean-up was 
going on in the province has increased the sense of insecurity among Mohajirs," 
MQM party leader Azimn Ahmed Tariq said in a statement.
    The army moved into the troubled southern province of Sind in June to end 
escalating violence and included the MQM in its crackdown after finding 23 
torture chambers run by the party in Karachi to punish its opponents. The MQM 
said the charges were fabricated.
    Hundreds of MQM workers went underground and thousands were arrested, and 
the party split into rival factions.
    The party was founded 16 years ago to speak for Moslem Mohajir immigrants 
who came to Pakistan from India at the partition and independence of the 
subcontinent in 1947, and has a massive powerbase in Karachi.
    The MQM quit Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif's coalition government and 
resigned its parliamentary seats last June, accusing the army of using the 
crime crackdown to crush the party.
Xref: sparky soc.culture.pakistan:19147 soc.culture.indian:42779