The New Nation - Internet Edition

The big tax evaders

FOUR public limited commercial banks that were owned by the State until very recently and four government specialised banks reportedly owe Taka 895 crore as income tax arrears to the National Board of Revenue (NBR). According to sources close to the NBR, these financial institutions of the government have not been paying income tax since the 1986-87 fiscal year. Before this, Bangladesh Petroleum Corporation also owed to the NBR Tk 1,300 crore, which the revenue administration realised through budgetary provision in the last fiscal year. It is gathered that the NBR requested the Ministry of Finance to deposit the amount to the government exchequer.

That so many government institutions evaded tax payment for such long periods of time is difficult to accept. This glaringly shows how deep default culture has penetrated into the financial sector of the country. This also reveals a chronic weakness that the public administration suffers from. The hard fact is that the government had not been tough with the financial institutions under its own control. It is not clear how these financial institutions could prepare annual balance sheets and close accounts without making mention of their income tax. Audit firms along with the administration of the concerned bodies should be made answerable for such violation of laws.

Government bodies are supposed to be the first institutions to abide by the laws. The practice of breaking legal barriers is a crime. Violation of law by the public bodies is sure to encourage others at the private level to do the same. Without establishment of discipline at the public level, it is difficult to bring order at the private level.

Costs of higher energy prices

PRICES of energy determine production costs which then translate into competitiveness of industries and services. Energy prices-- remaining stable or declining-- can contribute in a big way towards improving the health of enterprises. The opposite conditions will erode competitiveness. The above are universal considerations. Bangladesh cannot be oblivious to the same. Thus, the news of the coming hike in the prices of gas and power is but a bad omen for the economy that has been otherwise struggling in different ways for the last two years. The higher price of power to the tune of 18 per cent has been decided. It will come into effect immediately. Gas price hike to the tune of 65 per cent was proposed and this change in price is also likely to be implemented soon.

Higher energy prices are least desirable for the economy burdened with soaring production costs already from different factors. The prices of fuel oils remain at an all time high level from an earlier price adjustments. Therefore, the yet higher overall energy costs--from higher gas and power prices -- may make difficult the economy's recovery when the private sector was seen to be active leading to a resurgence of economic activities.

It is an utter reflection of the sloth in critical decision making that the prices of fuel oils have not yet been scaled down notwithstanding the government's pledge to that effect and the fall in oil prices in international markets. If government had declared downward readjustment of fuel oil prices by now, then that would have a cushioning effect on the rise in power and gas prices. But not doing that and raising by a substantial margin the price of gas and power, means the creation of a vicious trio that may affect the economy.

Tourism to face the challenge of climate change

Mohammad Shahidul Islam

Climate change is one of the greatest global challenges in general, and to sustainable development and the UN Millennium Development Goals in particular. Catalyzing grassroots action by the tourism sector to combat this challenge is at the centre of World Tourism Day [WTD] 2008 Theme, Tourism: Responding to the Challenge of Climate Change. The official host country of WTD 2008 is Peru.

For long time The World Tourism Organization [WTO] has been trying to raise awareness of climate change issues to the international tourism industry so as the industry to take vigorous part in the reduction of carbon emissions and pollution in general. Tourism is perhaps the first industry worldwide that is directly affected by the quality of the environment but has also the aptitudes to alleviate the effects of climate change.

In the Bali conference, UNWTO had to face criticism for climate change. The Secretary-General of the World Tourism Organization, Francesco Frangialli said "We are all part of the great global economic pattern of tourism" Mr. Frangialli said. "Whether we come here to enjoy the beaches or the conference halls - or both, we are contributing to local commerce, to jobs, to investment and to export income. In so doing we are providing sustainable livelihoods through a long supply chain which we must increasingly help to make carbon clean. And we must start now." The UNWTO Secretary-General has also said that in the past year the tourism sector - private and public stakeholders - had begun to unite in its support of the UN Secretary-General's roadmap for a more climate responsible world.

Climate is an essential resource for tourism, especially for the beach, nature, and winter sports tourism sections. Changing climate and weather patterns at tourist destinations and tourist generating countries can significantly affect the tourists' comfort and their travel decisions. Changing demand patterns and tourist flows will have an impact on tourism business and on host communities, as well as knock-off effects on related sectors, such as agriculture, handicraft or construction. In small island states and developing countries, where tourism is a major economic activity, any significant reduction in tourist arrivals will have serious employment impact and engender further poverty. Tourism is part of the problem and will be part of the solution.

UNWTO took on two side events at the Bali Summit last year in collaboration with the Ministry of Tourism and Culture of the Republic of Indonesia to underscore the interrelated impacts of climate change and tourism.

The results of a scientific analysis that showed tourism is estimated to contribute some 5% of CO2 - approximating its global economic contribution, but far below its contribution to the economies of developing countries.

The Davos Declaration agreed by stakeholders in October 2007 and subsequently supported at a Tourism Ministerial Summit in London and UNWTO's General Assembly.

These comprised a framework for a long range carbon-neutral sectoral strategy. As part of UNWTO's embryonic efforts to execute the Davos Declaration, the General Assembly held in late November in Colombia agreed that the 2008 World Tourism Day (WTD) Theme has been "Tourism - Responding to the Challenge of Climate Change". To this end, UNWTO has considered an international campaign which will build up towards the global WTD celebrations on 27 September.

For the last couple of years, UNWTO together with the United Nations Environment Program (UNEP), the World Meteorological Organisation (WMO) and supported by the World Economic Forum (WEF), has been urging "action by the entire tourism sector to face climate change as one of the greatest challenges to sustainable development, and to the Millennium Development Goals in the 21st Century."

These continuing initiatives in the Tourism sector are part of the overall UN effort to build up a common skeleton in defending the climate change challenges.

Climate change is not a theoretical concept for tourism. It is a phenomenon that affects the sector and certain destinations in particular. The tourism industry also contributes to the greenhouse effect, largely through the transportation of tourists. There is, nowadays, wide acceptance of the burning need for employing tactics to face the changing climatic conditions and take precautionary actions against future impacts. The world must respond in a holistic way to the challenge of climate change. Responsible tourism could be the only recipe for combating climate change, the experts believe.

It doesn't matter what would be the thematic upshot of Tourism: Responding to the Challenge of Climate Change but it is unambiguous that each country has to design and develop national plans to counter the climate change challenges, and that such a plan must principally involve each Ministry, authority and department.

The crusade against climate change is no longer only an environmental affair, but is now principally an economic policy issue, and one that involves energy, infrastructure, industry, transport, construction, households, services, water supply, agriculture and last but not least, a major transformation in lifestyles.

India factors in Afghanistan crisis

Gregory r. Copley

The U.S. conduct of the war in Afghanistan has created an enormous potential for instability in Pakistan, which Washington has claimed is a major 'non-NATO ally' on which it depends.

U.S. and Western media reporting currently portrays the problems facing ISAF as coming into Afghanistan from Pakistan, but the reality is the reverse of this: stirring the problem in Afghanistan causes problems to flow into Pakistan.

Always brushed aside in Washington discussions is the reality that Pakistan still cares for 3.5-million Afghani refugees remaining from the earlier proxy war which the U.S. waged from 1980 to 1988 against the Soviet Union in Afghanistan. And, with the U.S.-led conflict against the Taliban in Afghanistan since September 11, 2001, the problems continue to pour from Afghanistan into Pakistan. Moreover, as the U.S. intelligence community is well aware, this is a problem which is exacerbated not only by the Taliban alliance with the so-called al-Qaida movement, moving into Pakistan from Afghanistan, but also because of covert support by the Indian Government and its intelligence services - principally RAW, the Research & Analysis Wing - for the jihadist movement.

India's involvement follows an historical geopolitical pattern, but much of it is institutionalized as 'payback' for Pakistani Government support for the Muslim separatist movement in Indian-occupied Jammu & Kashmir over the past decades. At the same time, close U.S.-Indian intelligence ties at a formal level and within the Afghan battle space mean that India is feeding a range of 'tailored intelligence' into the U.S. system which shapes U.S. political and intelligence perceptions of the situation, encouraging the belief that 'Pakistan is the problem' in resolving the counter-Taftban conflict in Afghanistan.

There is no doubt that it is comforting for many U.S analysts and journalists to have a scapegoat for the frustrations of the conflict, and it certainly avoids any self-examination by U.S. policymakers, or any considered view of recent and longer-term history.

One reality is that ISAF has only some 47,000 troops on the ground in Afghanistan, and not all of those are along the Pakistan-Afghan border. Moreover, quite separately from anything which could be blamed on Pakistan, the Afghan Helmand province is home to a significant proportion of ISAF troops and yet still cultivates some 50 percent of the opium poppy produced in Afghanistan. Some 70 percent of the opium coming from Afghanistan - and funding the Taliban and aZ-Qaida/Iranian-linked terrorist movements in the region and as far a field as Kosovo and Bosnia - is produced in five Afghan provinces bordering Pakistan.

These are provinces 'controlled' by ISAF, not by Pakistan, and the nexus between the drug mafia and the Taliban/al-Qaida is evidenced by the amount of money which Taliban members are paying to defectors from the Afghan security forces and other officials, as well as in the purchase of weapons for their own use. Indeed, the Taliban/al-Qaida ability to generate income and control derives not just from trafficking in narcotics on their own account, but also on their ability to charge "transit fees" and to demand payments for protection.

The whole process of poppy cultivation, transportation, processing, and the like is more than merely a Taliban/al-Qaida event; it is pervasive through much of Afghan society, and divides the population from both ISAF and national governance. Opium poppy cultivation in Afghanistan rose from 104,000 hectares in 2005, to 161,000 hectares in 2006, to 193,000 hectares in 2007, despite the fact that 13 out of 34 Afghan provinces have been declared to be "drug free". In terms of quantities produced, opium production rose by 59 percent from 2005 to 2006, and 30 percent from 2006 to 2007.

Afghanistan's internal opium economy is worth some $4-billion, some 53 percent of the Afghan GDP (and some $5O-billion on the international market). Clearly, if the bulk of the Afghan economy is narcotics driven, then the ability of either the Afghan Government or ISAF to control the situation is limited, quite apart from the Taliban/al-Qaida input.

It is not surprising, therefore, that some 60 to 70 percent of the Afghan Parliament is occupied by former mujahedin, ex-communists, drug barons, and warlords, who not only control both houses of Parliament but, as a result, prevent the establishment of the Central Government's writ across the country. It is clearly not in the interests of most of the lawmakers that the national Government should exercise law and order across the land, and, meanwhile, Pres. Hamid Karzai is hardly in a position to marginalize these lawmakers.

Indeed, 2008 is proving to be a pivotal year for Pres. Karzai. He has been unable to create any sustainable agriculture and employment in the country, and has been unable to create a climate of security. This situation is unlikely to improve: non-Pushtuns, and particularly the Afghan Tajik population, remain concerned that any unity within the Pushtuns would work against their interests, and consistently attempt to marginalize them. Pres. Karzai is a Pushtun.

The recent (2006-07) creation of the United National Front (UNF) party - essentially a new incarnation of the old Northern Alliance - Qed by former President of Afghanistan Burhanuddin Rabbani) threatens Pres. Karzai, and he has launched a new party, the Hizb-e-Jamhuri Khwahan Afghanistan, to counter the UNF. So the instability in Afghanistan extends far beyond the issue of the resurgence of the Taliban or the presence of remnants of al-Qaida (or groups or individuals claiming allegiance to al-Qaida).

As well, the Afghan National Army (ANA) is falling behind in its recruiting, retention, and capability goals. It should have had 150,000 men on strength by 2006, but it still stands at only some 70,000 troops, and its units are not capable of undertaking independent operations. The National Police force (ANP) has fared little better. Some 58,000 personnel of the ANP, Highway Police, and Border Police have received training - mostly from Germany, with U.S. assistance - and of these some 12,000 have received specialist training.

Only the presence of ISAF forces, in fact, keeps the nominal writ of the Afghan Government alive, and then only because of the advanced technology, logistics, and skills of the foreign military forces.

Indeed, far from the solution being to 'put U.S. boots on the ground' in Pakistan, ISAF should wish for Pakistani 'boots on the ground' in Afghanistan, but this would only compound Pakistan's own problems, as well as its costs in human and economic terms. It may be that the U.S. feels that Indian activities which put weapons in the hands of tribal members inside Pakistan keeps Pakistan on the defensive, and forces it to deal with the problems of the tribal areas - which have remained outside the control of then central Government since the times of British occupation in the mid-19th Century until the 21st Century - but the reality is that Indian stimulation of jihadism or tribal unrest in the Pakistani Federally-Administered Tribal Areas (FATA) and elsewhere merely compounds the problem in the entire region.

The Afghan Government of Hamid Karzai is actively cooperating with the Indian intelligence agencies through the Afghan intelligence agencies, the Ministry of the Interior, and the Ministry of Borders and Tribal Affairs (under Karim Barahowie), in launching covert activities against Pakistani areas. Part of this may be out of concern over earlier (post-Soviet occupation, but pre-9/11) cooperation by Pakistan with the Taliban, although clearly Pakistan abandoned and then turned on the Taliban after the "Global War on Terror" began, and it became clear that the Taliban was engaged in supporting the spread of international terrorist activities.

Whatever the reason for Pres. Karzai's support for Indian use of Afghanistan as a base of operations against Pakistan, it is clear that the U.S. Government is aware of the cooperation and the input of substantial amounts of direct and indirect weapons and financial support to the jihadist, criminal, and terrorist movements operating inside Pakistan, and yet does nothing about it. Massive quantities of munitions, much of it identified as coming from India, have been captured by Pakistani forces operating against insurgents in Swat, FATA, and Balochistan. Apart from the strong presence of Indian advisors dominating the Afghan Government, India has established a string of consulates and intelligence posts inside Afghanistan along the border with Pakistan.

The Indian Government has created a string of "consulates" along the Afghan side of the Pakistan border, largely as intelligence collection facilities, and a large number of Indian intelligence officials were working closely with Afghan intelligence officials. This has caused the Pakistan Government some concern, given that the U.S. has facilitated the Indian intelligence build-up against Pakistan to be conducted while the Pakistan Army and Government have been working with the U.S. in the area. There is more than a little feeling in Islamabad that this has been an act of poor faith on the part of the U.S. toward Pakistan, on which the U.S. is completely reliant.

At the same time, Pakistan, now facing a major food and energy shortage, continues to pump economic and other aid to the Karzai Government in Afghanistan. Pakistan has committed some $3OO-million to reconstruction in Afghanistan, and even while I was with Prime Minister Yousuf Raza Gilani on May 22, 2008, he was called by Pres. Karzai asking for Pakistan to release a further 30,000 or more tons of wheat aid to Afghanistan. Apart from that, however, the well-financed Afghan black market has the ability to finance wheat and flour smuggled across the border from Pakistan, causing Pakistani domestic prices and supply into a precarious position.

Despite the reality that this is a long-term process, the U.S. Government has kept hinting - and privately insisting - that it should be allowed to put "boots on the ground" and intervene militarily in the complex FATA and other tribal areas of Pakistan, even though the U.S. has been unable to manage affairs inside Afghanistan, or even to prevent the Afghan unrest from spilling in human, ideological, corruption, narco-trafficking, and weapons trafficking terms into Pakistan. Indeed, there is no consciousness of the reality that the situation began to unravel in Afghanistan as a direct result of U.S. Pres. Jimmy Carter's moves to destabilize and overthrow the Shah of Iran, which gained momentum in 1978 (and to which this writer had close, first-hand knowledge).

The Carter destruction of the Shah, with all of its unforeseen consequences, led to the downfall on April 29, 1978, of Afghan Pres. Mohammed Daud Khan, whom the Shah had long supported. The coup, led by Khalq-faction (communist party) chief Nur Mohammed Taraki, led to an invitation to the USSR to send troops into Afghanistan, and the war began which has continued in various forms until this day. This writer spent considerable time in Tehran during the 1970s, with the Shah, and then in Pakistan, watching these events unfold, and watching the tide of unrest and instability move across the Durand Line from Afghanistan into Pakistan.

And even as the U.S. funded the anti-Soviet mujahedin in Afghanistan - via Pakistan and with the help of then-Pres. Mohammed Zia ul-Haq - India maintained a strong presence in Kabul, as it does now. This is a strategic imperative for India, but U.S. officials should not be unaware of the consequences of India's, or the U.S.', actions.

[Pakistan has significantly controlled the supply of weapons in the country, while trying to control the porous border with Afghanistan. It has issued a ban on new weapons' licenses, a ban on displaying any kind of weapons, and a ban on the possession of illegal weapons. It has recovered some 600,000 weapons in the past few years, along with 3.5-million rounds of ammunition. It has promulgated a new Anti-Terrorism Act and established Anti-Terrorist Courts to deal speedily with terrorism cases. It has dramatically reorganized, retrained, and upgraded its police forces. It has required the registration of the madarasas - Islamic schools - some of which were once used as recruiting facilities for jihadist fighters. The Government had, by May 2008, registered 14,800 madarasas and was in the process of registering a further 400, while at the same time legally demanding that these schools adhere to a Government-approved curriculum and keeping a check on foreign students at these facilities. New madarasas can be opened only with Government permission.

Substantial new immigration controls have ensured that the normal flow of people into Pakistan through airports and official checkpoints can be strictly monitored through the PISCES (personal identification secure comparison and evaluation system) process.

The Pakistan Government has banned seven sectarian organizations, seven jihadi organizations, and one ethnic organization which were believed to have been engaged in questionable activities. The entire Government has reoriented its approach to intelligence and security at a strategic level, creating a capability which is now world class, and which has as a key component its counter-terrorist wing (CTW).

As a result, Pakistan now cooperates with more than 50 governments worldwide.

Pakistani security forces had, since the start of the "Global War on Terror" and until late May 2008, conducted 407 raids on suspected foreign nationals in the country, arresting 871 individuals, of whom 600 were extradited. Pakistan was responsible for busting al-Qaida's Anthrax Network in 2003, the al-Ghuraba Network in September 2003, the big UK-based Anglo-Pakistani network (March 2004), the Jandullah Group (June 2004), the Amjad Farooqi Network (September 2004), the Abu Faraj Network (May 2005), the Abu Talha Network (September 2004), the Hussain Bana Network (October 2005), the Taliban Media Support Network (October 2005), the Hamza Rabbia Network (November 2005), a key London-based network (August 2006), and a major suicide bomber group (February 2007), and so on.

The list of arrested senior terrorist figures, and the list of killed senior terrorist leaders, by Pakistani forces, is significant. It has also arrested (as of late May 2008) 298 senior Taliban figures, and most of these were repatriated to Afghanistan Government care. However, not only has the Afghan Government failed to account for what happened to these Taliban, the Pakistan Government has since identified that some of them were released by the Afghan Government despite being on so-called wanted lists of the Karzai Government. As a result, the Pakistan Government has, for the moment, stopped handing over some arrested Taliban figures so that they could be questioned by Pakistani officials.]

Clearly, however, as anyone who has viewed the Afghan-Pakistan border can attest, there is no possibility that neither the Pakistan Government- nor the NATO forces-could control ingress and egress across the border, the 2,560km of the Durand Line. The terrain along the border, barren and mountainous, is not only difficult to access, but also determines the life and hardiness of the tribal populations along it. And, of course, many of these tribal peoples have been divided by the arbitrary nature of the border drawn (or approved) by Sir Mortimer Durand, the Foreign Secretary of the British Indian Government, in 1894-95.

The U.S. Government quietly wants to insert Special Forces units into these areas to pursue Taliban and/or al-Qaida leaders, and has already violated agreements with Pakistan by launching air strikes into Pakistani territory several times in 2008 alone. But if the U.S. wanted to "put boots on the ground", it would be best served by offering to put US Army Corps of Engineers capabilities into the tribal areas to help build roads, clinics, schools, and the like, to ensure that the underpinnings are secured for the creation of a stable, educated, and productive population which can be persuaded to become Pakistani, removing them from the influence of either the funds and weapons being offered, tantalizingly, by the new generation of minor and major Afghani warlords, or their own maliks, the tribal chiefs or elders.

This is no easy task: the Pakistani tribal areas have a population of 3.8-million, of whom 90 percent live below the poverty line. But first, however, US policymakers have to decide whether they really wish to win the conflict they are fighting in Afghanistan, or merely whether they wish to find someone to blame for their failure.

GREGORY R. COPLEY, President of International Strategic Studies Association, Australia.