Sneaking US Occupation Of Islamabad

Pakistan was reported to have expelled the head of an American NGO
providing cover to Blackwater operations on Pakistani soil. Now this
deported American, Crag Davis, is back in Pakistan. And he is not
alone. Close to 2, 000 Hummers have arrived at a Pakistani port that
are not destined for Afghanistan. The world's biggest US embassy is
under construction in Islamabad. As if this is not enough, the US
embassy has hired a huge number of houses across the Pakistani capital
to serve as unofficial local franchises. Welcome to the silent
American occupation of Pakistan, with the blessing of the elected
Pakistani politicians and a silent Pakistani military.

Before the Ministry of Foreign Affairs was given orders to the
contrary, press reports of August 6 show that its spokesman, Mr.
Basit, on August 5, at the Karachi Press Club, had already given out
the fact of the 1, 000 US Marines coming to Pakistan for the
protection of the new, imperial US embassy in islamabad .Now we are
seeing houses being barricaded for US personnel all across the capital
and we know of the 300 plus 'military trainers' already ensconced in
Tarbela. In addition we have the notorious Blackwater (now hiding
under a new label, Xe Worldwide) and the rather obvious CIA front-
company, Creative Associates International, Inc. (CAII), operating not
only in Peshawar but now in Islamabad also it transpires – and a
recent reflection of this was the sealing off of the road in Super
Market [a stone throw away from the houses of senior Pakistani
officials] last week right in front of a school!

Whatever the US embassy gives out or the terrified Pakistani
leadership echoes, the reality is that there is a questionable and
increasingly threatening US armed presence in Pakistan and this may be
augmented soon by an ISAF/NATO presence. Incidentally, to add to the
suspicions of the US presence, reports are coming in of around 3, 000
Hummer vehicles, fully loaded, awaiting transportation from Port
Qasim. Will some of these go to the Pentagon's assassination squads,
who may take up residence in some of the barricaded Islamabad houses
and with whom the present US commander in Afghanistan was directly
associated? Ordinary officials at Pakistani airports have also been
muttering their concerns over chartered flights flying in Americans
whose entry is not recorded – even the flight crews are not checked
for visas and so there is now no record-keeping of exactly how many
Americans are coming into or going out of Pakistan. Incidentally the
CAII's Craig Davis who was deported has now returned to Peshawar! And
let us not be fooled by the cry that numbers reflect friendship since
we know what numbers meant to Soviet satellites.

Now another threat, in the making for some time, is becoming more
overt. Pakistan's precious and fertile agricultural land is up for
grabs to the highest foreign bidder. Pakistan is not alone in being
targeted thus by rich countries with little or no food resources. The
UN has already condemned this purchase of agricultural land as a form
of neo-colonialism. Over the past five years in a hardly-noticed wave
of investment, rich agricultural land and forests in poor countries
are being snapped up by buyers from cash-rich countries. Leading this
grab of poor country resources are the rapidly industrializing states
and the oil-rich countries who have, between 2006-2009, either
directly through governments or through sovereign wealth funds and
companies, already grabbed or are in the process of grabbing between
37 to 49 million acres of developing countries' farmland (a July 2009
report by Robert Schubert of Food and Water Watch).

Wealthy countries like Japan and South Korea are acquiring farmlands
abroad for food security while oil-rich countries are seeking cheap
water and cultivated crops to be shipped home. The land buyers from
the oil-rich arid countries are seeking water as much as land because
by buying or leasing land with sufficient water, they can divert their
own domestic irrigation water to municipal water supplies. The foreign
land purchases destabilize food security since land given to foreign
investors cannot be used to produce food for local communities – the
foreign investors' intent being to take the food back to their own
food-scarce countries. Many of the land purchases comprise tens of
thousands of acres which are then turned into single-crop farms – and
these dwarf the small-scale farms common in the developing world,
where nearly nine out of ten farms (85 per cent) are less than five
acres. Such land grabs have now been recognised as harming the local
communities by dislodging smallholder farmers, aggravating rural
poverty and food insecurity. With Gulf countries importing 60 per cent
of their food on average, Saudi Arabia and the UAE are leading the
investments into Asia and Africa to secure supplies of cereals, meat
and vegetables. The rise in demand for food imports for the GCC comes
at a time when exportable agricultural surplus worldwide has declined.
How does all this impact Pakistan? Pakistan has rich agricultural land
and adequate water although the latter's distribution has been subject
to political machinations. There has also been a seemingly deliberate
effort by successive ruling elites to undermine the country's
agricultural potential and nowhere is this more brazenly evident than
at present with power outages preventing crucial water supply through
tubewells; and many rich lands being converted into housing colonies!
Then we have had artificially created sugar and wheat shortages –
'artificial' because for the last few years our wheat and sugarcane
crops have been bountiful. As for the wonderful local fruit, that is
also being diverted to feed external populations through exports that
are not only depriving the locals of their land's bounty but also
raising local prices so only the rich elite can consume what is left.
Now it has come out that we are selling land to the Gulf states,
thereby undermining our local agriculture further. Abraaj Capital and
other UAE entities have acquired 800, 000 acres of farmland in
Pakistan (we have learnt no lessons from the sale of the KESC and the
PTCL). Qatar Livestock is investing $1 billion in corporate farms in
Pakistan. But all this produce will be taken out, so the argument that
this foreign investment will bring in new technologies into our
agricultural sector does not hold. In any case, one does not have to
sell one's land to foreign forces to acquire new technology which is
available in the open market and the government can help local farmers
acquire it. Not surprisingly, the Gulf countries are pleased with
Pakistan's rulers bending over backwards to accommodate their needs at
the expense of the ordinary Pakistani – for none of the food produced
on these lands will be available cheaply for Pakistanis; it will go to
feed the Gulf populations. Gulf countries are happy because their
imported food bill will cost 20-25 per cent less, positively impacting
on their present high inflation rate. We may import this food from
them for a price, just as our government has now decided to import
sugar from the UAE. Of course the UAE itself imports sugar so the
absurdity should be abundantly clear to all, including our
profiteers!

In the visibly servile mindset of our leaders, instead of offering
incentives on a similar scale to local farmers, Islamabad is offering
legal and tax concessions, with legislative cover, to foreign
investors in the form of specialized agricultural and livestock 'free
zones' and may also introduce legislation to exempt such investors
from government-imposed tax bans. The most worrisome aspect of such
wheeling-dealing is the government's decision to develop a new
security force of 100, 000 men spread across the four provinces to
ensure stability of the Arab investments. This will cost the Pakistani
state around $2 billion in terms of training and salaries and the real
fear is that this force will be used to forcibly eject local small
farmers from their lands. Concerns have been further heightened
because no labour laws will be applicable to corporate agricultural
companies and there will be no sales tax or customs duties on import
of agricultural machinery by these investors. Nor will their dividends
be taxed and 100 per cent remittances of capital and profits will be
permitted. So where is there even an iota of advantage for the
ordinary Pakistani as opposed to the rulers?

With the US increasingly occupying Pakistan with their covert and
overt armed presence, and the Gulf states taking over our rich
agricultural lands our rulers are voluntarily making us a colony again
– as we were under the British who used our men to fight their wars
and our cheap labor to ship the finished produce back to Britain!

Have we come full circle after 62 years of our creation?