Was Benazir Working for the Americans?

 

By Dr Sachithanandam Sathananthan,

The author  earned his Ph.D. from the University of Cambridge. He serves as a Visiting Research Scholar at the Jawaharlal Nehru University School of International Studies.

Sep 12, 2008
There is great euphoria among Pakistani liberals over the presumed ‘return to democracy’. They are yet to discover Late Neo-colonialism. The manoeuvres against Musharraf bear uncanny resemblances to organised ‘people’s power’ the CIA unleashed during ‘colour revolutions’ and upheavals against Hugo Chavez.

The widely expected victory for PPP leader Zardari in the presidential election brought to ahigh pointthe tortuous process of regime change inPakistan. Anyone who has followed the ‘colour revolutions’ that installed pro-American rulers in Georgia (Rose Revolution, 2003),Ukraine(Orange Revolution, 2004) and Kyrgyzstan(Tulip Revolution, 2005) could surely not have missed the tell tale signs.

The earliest foreboding surfaced in the backroom manoeuvres by United States (US) and British intelligence services to engineer panic about the security ofPakistan’s nuclear assets. It was a repeat of the duplicitous hysteria they generated over non-existent weapons of mass destruction thatIraqallegedly possessed. A carefully worded article, co-authored by former State Department officials Richard L. Armitage and Kara L. Bue, signalled the shift in US policy. After formally acknowledging then President Musharraf’s many achievements, the authors continued: ‘much remains to be accomplished, particularly in terms of democratization.Pakistan must…eliminate the home-grown jihadists…And…it must prove itself a reliable partner on technology transfer and nuclear non-proliferation.’ And the denouement: ‘We believe General Musharraf…deserves our attention and support, no matter how frustrated we become at the pace of political change and the failure to eliminate Taliban fighters on the Afghan border.’

Translation: Musharraf has to go.

Almost simultaneously a 2006 country survey in The Economist, titled ‘Too much for one man to do’, began on a jingoistic overkill: ‘Think about Pakistan, and you might get terrified. Few countries have so much potential to cause trouble, regionally and worldwide’. The following year a Carnegie Endowment report faulted western governments that ‘contribute to regional instability by allowing Pakistan to trade democratisation for its cooperation on terrorism’. Senior US State Department officials repeatedly accused Musharraf of ‘not doing enough’ to combat Islamists within Pakistan and prevent their infiltration across the Durand Line into southern Afghanistan.

Sensing the way wind was blowing, then Benazir Bhutto redoubled efforts to convinceWashington and London that, if she were to become Prime Minister, she would gladly do their bidding. She underscored her enthusiasm to serve and ensured her party was fully responsive toAmerica’s Late Neo-colonialism. She summoned senior party members toDubai on 9 June 2007 for a ‘briefing’ by a team from the US Democratic Party’s National Democratic Institute (NDI), ostensibly on the subject of elections inPakistan. The ruling Republican Party’s International Republican Institute (IRI) had conducted the previous four ‘briefings’ in June and September 2006 and March and April 2007. Benazir leaned towards the Democratic Party in the last one no doubt as a hedge against the party’s possible victory at the forthcoming US Presidential Election.

Even a cursory knowledge of US Imperialism’s standard operating procedure is sufficient to surmise at least some among the IRI and NDI officers were covert intelligence operatives; and that their ‘briefings’ went beyond ‘tutelage of natives’. Rather they have been grooming the PPP asAmerica’s satrap.

Benazir’s predilection to collaborate with the West has its roots in the Bhutto family’s micro political culture. Her grandfather, Shah Nawaz Bhutto was a minor comprador official in the British colonial regime. The British rewarded his ‘loyal’ services with the title Khan Bahadur and later appointed him President of a District Board and still later elevated him to knighthood.

Her father Zulfikar Ali Bhutto’s populist programmes did not dilute that legacy, which left a lasting impression on Benazir; she firmly believed the path to political power in Pakistan meanders through the Embassy of the United States, the current neo-colonialist.

She promised to offer the International Atomic Energy Agency access to Dr Abdul Qadeer Khan to ’satisfy the international community’, an euphemism for the major powers; and to allow the US-led International Security Assistance Force in Afghanistan to operate inside north-western Pakistan. By the time Benazir visited the Senate in September 2007, she had convinced the Bush Administration of her unswerving loyalty; for ’she received a standing ovation from a select gathering of US lawmakers, diplomats, academics and media representatives. This contrasted sharply with her previous visits to theUScapital when she received little attention.’ To deepen ‘Washington’s renewed interest in her, Benazir cautioned that supporting Musharraf was ‘a strategic miscalculation’ and pleaded ‘the US should support the forces of democracy’, which, of course, refers to her PPP.

So, President George W Bush enabled Benazir’s return from exile by arm-twisting Musharraf to promulgate the National Reconciliation Ordinance (NRO). The NRO of 5 October granted amnesty to politicians active inPakistanbetween 1988 and 1999 and effectively wiped the slate clean of corruption charges for Benazir and her husband Asif Zardari. Three weeks later Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice made it appear the Bush Administration wished to bring together ‘moderate’ forces, implying a scenario in which Musharraf and Benazir would join forces as President and Prime Minister respectively; and Deputy Secretary of State John Negroponte corroborated Rice: ‘Our message’, he intoned, ‘is that we want to work with the government and people of Pakistan’.

However, Musharraf saw through the US Administration’s transparent ploy to lull him into believing it would not remove him and install Benazir in his place. So, he swiftly invited Nawaz Sharif, leader of the Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz (PML-N), back from exile inSaudi Arabiato counter Benazir. But he could not consolidate his position, especially because he mishandled the judiciary, and was compelled to resign on 18 August 2008.

In a nutshell, the reason for ‘Washington’s renewed interest’ in Benazir is Musharraf’s firm opposition to US Late Neo-colonialism, to its manoeuvres to occupy, pacify and ravagePakistan. In the 19th century British colonialism waged the ‘war on piracy’ on the high seas ostensibly to bring ‘the light of Christian civilization’. But the British were the most successful pirates, as Spanish and Portuguese historians would gladly confirm. The ‘war on piracy’ was the duplicitous justification trotted out to dominate lucrative maritime trade routes that were in the hands of Chinese, Arab and Tamil maritime empires and to invade kingdoms and/or countries essential to control trade and plunder resources. During most of the 20th century heroic anti-colonial movements and anti-imperialist wars rolled back much of colonial rule, which in some instances however morphed into neo-colonialism. Indonesia after Sukarno, Iran after Mosaddeq and Chile after Allende are well known examples.

The ‘war on terror’ and ‘promoting democracy’ are the 21st century equivalents of the 19th century British gobbledygook. American Late Neo-colonialism purveys them as moral justification and uses as political cover for intervening and, where necessary, invading resource-rich and strategic countries to overthrow nationalist leaders, install puppet regimes and savage the countries’ wealth. And of course theUSis by far the most powerful terrorist force.

It succeeded inIraq(for now); but the CIA-organised regime change could not dislodgeVenezuela’s Hugo Chavez, who rejected the neo-colonialist 1989 Washington Consensus and supported alternative nationalist economic models.

Politically challenged Pakistani liberals — a motley crowd that includes members of human rights and civil liberties organisations, journalists, analysts, lawyers and assorted professionals — are utterly incapable of comprehending the geo-strategic context in which Musharraf manoeuvred to defend Pakistan’s interest. So they slandered him an ‘American puppet’, alleging he caved in to US pressure and withdrew support to the Afghan Taliban regime in the wake of 9/11 although in fact he removed one excuse for the Bush Administration to ‘bomb Pakistan into stone age’, as a senior State Department official had threatened.

Nevertheless American discomfort with Musharraf’s government was palpable by late 2003, after he dodged committing Pakistani troops to prop up the Anglo-American invasion ofIraq. When he offered to cooperate under the auspices of the Organisation of the Islamic Conference (OIC), naïve Pakistani media and analysts lunged for his jugular, condemning him once again for succumbing to US demands. But in fact he nimbly sidestepped American demands: he calculated that diverse ideological stances of the 57 Muslim member-counties would not allow the OIC to jointly initiate such controversial action and therefore Pakistan’s participation cannot arise, which proved correct.

Washington of course was not amused and the Bush Administration grew increasingly hostile to Musharraf’s determination to prioritise Pakistan’s interests when steering the ship of the state through the choppy waters of the unfolding New Great Game, in which the West — led by the US — is manoeuvring to contain growing Russian and Chinese influences in Central and West Asia. His foreign policy decisions over time convinced Washington that under his leadership,Pakistan would side with enemies of US andBritainin the New Great Game. First, he refused to isolateIran; instead he vigorously pursued energy cooperation to build the Iran-Pakistan-India gas pipeline in the face of stiff American opposition. Second,Washington was alarmed by Musharraf’s preference for deepening Pakistan-China bilateral relations and forging nuclear cooperation; and more so when he offeredBeijingnaval facilities at the Gwadar port on Balochistan’s Arabian Sea coast overlooking the entrance to theStrait of Hormuz, a strategic chokepoint through which passes approximately 30 per cent of world’s energy supplies.

Perhaps the last straw was his success in gaining Observer Status for Pakistan in the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation (SCO). Russia and China are spearheading the SCO, which includes four other countries: Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan and Uzbekistan; Iran and India are also Observers. The SCO is widely perceived as a rising eastern counterweight to western security and economic groupings and Islamabad drifting towards the SCO was simply unacceptable in Washington.

To rub salt into its wounds, Musharraf refused permission to interrogate Dr. AQ Khan and firmly rejectedWashington’s demands that NATO troops be allowed into the North West Frontier Province (NWFP) to hunt down Osama bin Laden and his associates.

By early 2006 it was clearWashingtonwas looking for nothing less than a pliable leader inIslamabad, a firm political foothold inPakistanand a Pakistani foreign policy that complemented US strategic aims in Central Asia.

What perhaps angered Washington the most were actions Musharraf took to wind down the ‘war on terror’ within Pakistan.

Immediately after taking power, he outlawed three Islamic extremist groups and, after 9/11, intensified military operations in the Federally Administered Tribal Areas (FATA) bordering Afghanistan.

Washington would have gone along with Musharraf had he focussed on military operations to curb Islamists. Military action alone cannot defeat guerrillas; but it can kill many of them and in turn induce new recruits — well known points reiterated by William R Polk in Violent Politics (2007) – so that the so-called ‘war on terror’ would not end any time soon.

That could supplement US Administrations’ assiduous manufacture of the ‘Islamic threat’ through the 1990s to launch an endless ‘war on terror’ — the New Cold War — to rescue America’s permanent war economy. For after the collapse of the Soviet Union, the US economy (and by extension west European economies) faced perhaps its biggest crisis: the ‘Communist threat’ ceased to be credible; it could not be exploited to terrify the American people into acquiescing to rising military expenditure that keeps wheels of the permanent war economy rolling and to expanding the repressive security apparatuses.

So the Bush Administration deftly replaced the ‘Communist threat’ with the ‘Islamic threat’, no doubt following Machiavelli’s famous advice in The Prince, that a wise ruler invents enemies and then slays them in order to control his own subjects. The apparently counterproductive bombings, arrests, torture, kidnappings and disappearances (sanitised as Extraordinary Rendition) carried out by US forces while the CIA covertly funded, armed and supported Islamists are intended not to eliminate the ‘Islamic threat’ but to contain it within manageable limits and to spawn the next generation of ‘terrorists’.

Sometimes, plans go awry; ‘culling’ may not contain the resistance, as seen in Afghanistan from time to time. Nevertheless, the strategy is to ‘feed terrorism’ and simultaneously ‘cull terrorists’ so that the perpetual New Cold War oils America’s moribund permanent war economy.

Musharraf, however, did not play ball. He complemented military force to defeat Islamists with political initiatives.

He signed a peace treaty with tribal elders in North Waziristan (within FATA) to marginalise the Islamists. To combat the Islamists’ religious ideology, he promoted ‘enlightened moderation’, a veiled reference to secularism and tolerance. Musharraf’s vision of a secular Pakistan has its roots in exposure to Mustafa Kemal Ataturk’s legacy when he attended school in Ankara during his father’s diplomatic posting to Turkey. In fact, after taking power in Pakistan he often held up Ataturk as his role model. He planned to ‘wean away’ the people from the ‘extremists’ through education is how he described his approach to this writer. Towards this end, he introduced educational reforms and re-wrote school history text books; enacted laws protecting women’s rights and diluted Islamic laws against women; and he liberalised the media. To deny Islamists their traditional rallying cry — Kashmir — he opened path breaking negotiations with India to remove that arrow from the Islamists’ quiver.

When Musharraf skilfully combined military operations against Islamists with a political front promoting secularism to ideologically disarm them, the US administration saw red. By secularising Pakistani society over time Musharraf would de-fang the ‘Islamic threat’ within Pakistan and extricate the country out of the contrived orbit of ‘war on terror’.

That would greatly diminish Washington’s leverage to intervene in the country to distance Islamabad from Beijing and exploit energy resources abundantly found in Balochistan and, in the long run, perhaps derail US administration’s well laid plans to bring Afghanistan to heel and to dominate Central Asia and its oil-rich Caspian Sea basin.

But Musharraf was in no mood to back down. So the Bush Administration slipped regime change into gear. Taking advantage of his missteps, the anti-Musharraf media blitz, NGO and student mobilisations, lawyers agitations, protests by political parties and civil society organisations seemingly coming from all directions in fact displayed a fantastic degree of organisation, coordination and financing clearly beyond the ken of the fratricidal activists and often ad hoc institutions and never witnessed before in the country. Very likely they will not be seen again either; indeed later the activists were singularly incapable of organising any significant agitation when three women were buried alive for defying their parents’ choice of husbands. The manoeuvres against Musharraf bear uncanny resemblances to organised ‘people’s power’ the CIA unleashed during ‘colour revolutions’ and upheavals against Hugo Chavez.

The Bush Administration began reaping the rewards of unseating Musharraf within 24 hours of his resignation. Chief of Army Gen Ashfaq Parvez Kayani travelled to Kabul to meet NATO and Afghan commanders on 19 August. About 10 days later Chairman of the US Joint Chiefs of Staff Admiral Mike Mullen informed a Pentagon news conference on 28 August that Kayani and his lieutenants held a ’secret meeting’ with their US counterparts on a US aircraft carrier, reminiscent of American gun boat diplomacy in Latin America and unthinkable in Pakistan under Musharraf’s watch.

Mullen touchingly chronicled how he ‘learned to trust’ Kayani and bent over backwards to emphasise that Kayani is no American puppet, that Kayani’s ‘principles and goals are to do what’s best for Pakistan.’ But a few sections of the US media, weaned on decades of Pentagon-speak from the debacle in Vietnam to the illegal invasion of Iraq, saw through the verbal obfuscation. And when a reporter pointedly queried Mullen whether Kayani’s ‘goal for Pakistan also aligned a hundred per cent with the US goal’, the Admiral waffled: ‘[Kayani] knows his country a whole lot better than we do. And again, I just think that’s where he is, that’s where he’ll stay.’ Translation: US administration has got Kayani on tight leash.

And to maintain there is no substantial change from Musharraf’s policies, Kayani’s spokesman Maj-Gen Athar Abbas and Mullen alleged the meetings had been arranged several weeks earlier, when Musharraf was President, to facetiously imply he had approved the contacts.

The import of ‘coordination’ between American, NATO, Afghan and Pakistan militaries will become clearer over the next weeks and months. For now the suspicion is unavoidable that the US Administration has at long last begun frog-marching Pakistan into the US-created Afghan quagmire to further destabilise the country and justify intervention.

Musharraf had resolutely opposed precisely this eventuality. He rejected US demands that the Pakistani army assist NATO forces inAfghanistan. He underlined the country will not repeat the catastrophic mistakes of the 1980s when it got embroiled in America’s war in Afghanistan against the then Soviet Union, for which the Pakistani people continues to pay a heavy price. Rather, he insisted his army will fight onlyPakistan’s war within Pakistan’s borders.

The consequences of the PPP leadership following theUSinto the Afghan quagmire will soon be evident. Already, within 16 days of Musharraf’s resignation, US forces carried out the first ground assault in Angoor Adda area within Pakistan’s borders — which Musharraf had disallowed — with the connivance of the new leadership. Obviously there is more to come since the Bush Administration has eagerly caricatured the Pakistan-Afghanistan border as ‘The New Frontier’ in the New Cold War.

For the moment, there is great euphoria among Pakistani liberals over the presumed ‘return to democracy’. The comments by Ayesha Tanmy Haq are typical: ‘We have removed a dictator by the citizenry showing that real power lies with them.’ The hapless liberals have yet to discover Late Neo-colonialism and its devious manoeuvres for regime change; they have in fact effectively legitimised them by opposing Musharraf. They are agonisingly unaware of the labyrinthine geo-politics and economic imperatives underlying the New Cold War. They are blissfully going along with the collaborationist leaders who are bartering away the country’s future for the proverbial pieces of silver.

Is Geo an Extension of CIA in Pakistan?

By Moin Ansari

 

Why does Geo collude with foreign media?

Why does it focus on creating chaos and general discontent?

Why does it act like an instrument of an political party?  

Why does Geo behave like the arm of a foreign force?

Why did Geo deliberately broadcast false bad news about the economy when the stock market was booming?

What hand did Geo play in scaring the foreign investors away from Pakistan?

Why did Geo repeat the false news about the growth figures which led to the crash of the stock market?

Why does Geo show wrong Pakistani maps?

Why does Geo almost never cover the insurgencies in India?

Why is Geo so infatuated with Anti-Pakistan Bollywood films?

Why is Geo bent upon creating a “Indianization” of Pakistan? 

Why does Geo pay so much attention to Bollywood?

Why does Geo show dead bodies? Is this all part of a psy-op or is it part of an agenda?

Why does Geo generally show the Indian version of events and why does its news sound like a translation of CNN news?

Why did Geo not focus on showing 250 million people sleeping on sidewalks in India?

Why is Geo not reporting Gen. Kayani’s statement that he suspects a foreign hand in the assassination to destabilize and denuclearize Pakistan? The silence is deafening!

“Why does Geo almost never cover the insurgencies in India?

Why is Geo so infatuated with Anti-Pakistan Bollywood films?

Why is Geo bent upon creating a “Indianization” of Pakistan?

Why does Geo pay so much attention to Bollywood?”

 

 

Mr Husain Haqqani of the Hudson institute is on the payroll of JINSA and AIPAC (public information posted on Rupee News) is a known neocon with his own agenda. His wife Ms. Isphani is involved with VOA and Geo pursuing the same Neocon agenda.

 

A company is known by the company it keeps. Geo certainty deals with some “colorful” characters. Its genesis, consultants, and affiliations leave much to be desired.

We have attempted to put together a thesis and a case on why Geo has exacerbated the conditions in Pakistan and why it is biased. We discuss the origins of Geo and its connections with shady operatives. The information on the CIA psy-ops discusses how the CIA operates in other countries.

 

Geo has connived with shady characters who are associated with foreign powers. Geo’s track record in showing dead bodies, and repeating nonsense on the economy, and providing place and comfort to the enemy.

 

Geo employs a lot of good reporters, but it also employs program hosts whose credentials and loyalty to Pakistan is questionable. For example, Mr Shaharyar Azhar is a known follower of Neocon philosophy and ideas always highlighting the negative news about Pakistan and not taking India or other countries to task. There are reports in the press that Geo has been instrumental in the campaign of disinformation about Pakistan. It has become a willing or unwilling instrument of those who wanted to destabilize Pakistan.

 

The Government of Pakistan and the ISI got wind of Geo plans and recommended to the President to take action against Geo. The Emergency imposed by the previous government was to thwart the campaign of disinformation that was running concurrently by Time magazine and Newsweek Magazine and the Neocon News agencies in the West.

 

Geo’s dangerous general policies are the main reason that the Pakistan was not allowing Geo to resume its transmission. Amazingly Geo is now starting a new “English News” channel to continue its activities against the country. Where is the funding for all this coming from?

Whether Geo is an unwilling victim of its sponsors and her affiliates in the USA or India, or is Geo running a planned campaign and got caught with its pants down.

 

Some facts about Geo, and some example of how Geo demorolizes the population and the general body of the Pakistani dispora.

 

GEO IS RESPONSIBLE FOR THE CRASH OF THE STOCK MARKET: Geo repeatedly telecasted false news about the Pakistani economy, the political situation and hence the stock market crashed in Pakistan In a pre-orchestrated campaign.

 

Geo focuses on the negative news and instead of focusing on solutions it shows bodies of dead people in contradiction of PEMRA and all decency requirements.

 

Geo focuses on petrol prices but does not inform the viewers that most private cars in Pakistan now run on CNG (liqufied petroluem gas) which costs $5 for a tank full. Most people driving cars are not affected by the rise in petrol (gasoline) prices.

 

In a planned manner Geo suppresses and ignores good news like 5.1 billion dollar of oil refinery in Pakistan

 

Geo usually ignores good  news like $28 Billion Emar international island development

 

Geo is averse to good news about Pakistan–there is no discussion of the Bullet Trains in Pakistan.

 

Geo does not focus foreign interference in Pakistani affairs.

 

Geo did not discuss the 89 separatist movements in India in 2007 …from Seven Northeastern sister states, to the Naxalite insurrection, to Bihar to Kashmir, to Assam etc…

 

Geo Dramas: 50 percent of the dramas are Indian dramas on Geo and 25 percent are with mix cast (Indian and Pakistani) and Indian film

 

Geo focuses on showing beheading of people and other depressing news.

 

Geo did not cover for 36 hours the killing of 3000 Muslims in Gujrat?

Urdu is not used by many hosts. Morning host shows are in English and “Urdlish” (a horrible combination). The younger generation is being spoiled by using them as instruments of hedonism.

 

Some of the shows are way beyond the pale on being modern. Nudity is not modernity. Science and Technology is modernity.

 

Geo plays into the hands of the opposition parties. It does not discuss opportunities for development.

 

When Mr Shaharayar interviewed the President of Azad Kashmir, he interrupted him and did not allow him to speak about the problems with the article of accession of Kashmir to India (which is now lost) if it ever existed.

 

Geo continues to use Indian jargon like “partition”. Partition signifies a temporary dissection of the whole. India was never whole. Even during British times there were more than 500 states in the Subcontinent. Some of them banded together to make Pakistan and others banded together to make India.

 

Discussion of Kashmir, Manvanagar, Junagarh are non-existent on Geo. Most Geo maps show Kashmir as part of Pakistan. Azad Kashmir is never shown. Some Geo maps sill show the Nothern Areas as part of India or part of Kashmir.

Kamran Khan was getting Rs 25 lakh per month. Income vs. salary?

Dr Shahid Mahmud used to get Rs 22 laks per month. He was a member of NSF student.

Hamid Mir the Editor of “Ausaf” get Rs. 22 Lakh per month.

Nadia Khan gets Rs 6 lacs per month. Income vs. salary?

 

When Geo was not able to broadcast the 8-hour cricket match, Geo said they lost 1 billion Rupees, After the ban Goo kept on broadcasting for 36 hours without any income?Let us investigate the players involved with Geo from information that is publicly available. We see these links which will be analyzed.

 

Geo was started with the help of an ex US Naval Petty Officer by the name of Hazinski who has links with Mr. Casper Weinberger and many Indian channels.

According to (http://www.intelligentmc.com/people.html) “Most recently, he re-designed the central International Broadcast Center for the Voice of America in Washington and is consulting on new network launches for the VOA”. Mr Hazinski is the principal of the company called IntelligentMC (http://www.intelligentmc.com/Welcome.html,2870 Peachtree Road #713, Atlanta, GA 30305-2918, USA, email: info@intelligentmc.com, url: http://www.intelligentmc.com).the other principal of Intelligent MC is Mr. Todd Frantz. “Todd comes to IMC from 10 years at CNN in Atlanta”. He has links to “Cox Center for International Mass Communication Training and Research at The University of Georgia”

David Hazinski, associate professor at the University of Georgia’s Grady College of Journalism and Mass Communication, is the principle architect of GEO-TV and managed the station’s launch. Hazinski was contacted by the Jang Group, Pakistan’s largest newspaper publisher and GEO-TV’s owner, after he shepherded the successful launch of a similar station in India in January 2001. Aaj Tak, the first all-news, Hindi-language channel in India, now has a 60% share of the news audience in India.

As one of the owners of Intelligent Media Consultants, an Atlanta-based company that helps its clients design efficient and profitable network operations through the creative application of broadcast technology, Hazinski has worked all over the world launching news operations in markets starved for unbiased reporting. “This is really the cutting edge of technology and journalism,” says Hazinski, a former NBC news correspondent who says he and his partners have helped launch at least a dozen news operations in the last 10 years. “These are new markets. They haven’t been exposed to lots of TV.”

Because most of Intelligent Media’s clients are unfamiliar with broadcast news techniques, Hazinski says he is able to tailor unique approaches that maximize their limited budgets. “These people are willing to try new things because they don’t want to pay the outrageous costs associated with news production in the United States,” he says. “Right now, based on what we learned in Pakistan, we’re convinced we can launch a network today for half of what it would have cost three years ago. And no one would see any quality difference on the air – even if we aired it in the U.S.”

At GEO-TV’s main broadcast center in Karachi, Hazinski built a newsroom around 24 Mac G4s running Final Cut Pro. News footage is captured with 40 Sony PD150s and 15 PD100s. NewTek Video Toaster 2 systems are used at bureaus in Islamabad and Lahore to switch between the main broadcast center.

In addition to designing a systems approach for GEO-TV, Hazinski helped teach the station’s staff how to use the equipment and how to produce television news. Greg Pope, a freelance editor and producer formerly with CNN, spent one month in Karachi this summer training GEO-TV’s news staff, which primarily consists of newspaper journalists. “We basically had to convert people from print journalists to TV journalists,” says Pope, adding that he had never taught production techniques in a classroom setting to non-English speaking students. “These print people were basically issued cameras and editing equipment and within months were transformed from pen and paper to this new electronic media. Some of them didn’t even know how to use a keyboard when we started.”

 

Considering the steep learning curve for the Pakistani journalists, Pope says he was amazed at their perseverance and enthusiasm. “These people are tired of having Western news and government news shoved down their throats,” says Pope, who estimates that he taught 100 people to shoot and edit video. “They want their own voice. They want to represent themselves in their own way.”

 

But there is still a chance that the government will shut down GEO-TV. Pope says that while he was training the news staff, it was widely believed that there were spies for PTV within their ranks. However, in recent years the Jang Group has won many battles for freedom of the press, so there is hope that GEO-TV will succeed. “If they have minimal government interference, [GEO-TV] will change the face of Pakistan,” says Pope.

 

Geo has been blamed for participating in and highlighting events per CNN instructions.

 

Saboteurs trained in Afghanistan have been inserted into Pakistan to aggravate extremist passions here, especially after the Red Mosque operation.

 

Chinese citizens continue to be targeted by individuals pretending to be Islamists, when no known Islamic group has claimed responsibility. . A succession of “religious rebels” with suspicious foreign links have suddenly emerged in Pakistan over the past months claiming to be “Pakistani Taliban”. Some of the names include Abdul Rashid Ghazi, Baitullah Mehsud, and now the Maulana of Swat. Some of them have used, and are using, encrypted communication equipment far superior to what the Pakistani military owns.

 

VOA Launches Urdu TV For Pakistan, 11/13/2005

Washington, D.C. – The Voice of America (VOA) will launch Beyond the Headlines-its new television program in Urdu-on Monday, Nov. 14. The half-hour program will air on GEO TV in Pakistan at 7:30 p.m. Monday through Friday and on selected international satellites, including AsiaSat (Virtual Channel 409) and IOR (Virtual Channel 420).

 

Beyond the Headlines (Khabron se Aage), a fast-paced, contemporary production designed with young and urban Pakistanis in mind, will continue VOA’s 63-year tradition of broadcasting accurate and balanced information. Programs will examine international developments, technology, politics, social issues, education, religion, sports, and entertainment.

“We look forward to opening this important new channel of communication between the American people and Pakistan,” said Steven J. Simmons, a member of the Broadcasting Board of Governors (BBG), which oversees all United States international radio and television services. Simmons is chairman of the BBG’s Voice of America Committee, and has played a key role in increasing radio and TV service to Pakistan, including Beyond the Headlines.

 

“We’re particularly delighted with our partnership with GEO TV, the leading cable/satellite broadcaster in the Urdu language,” Simmons added. “This new program, together with our expanded radio service, demonstrates our growing commitment to reach the people of Pakistan with new, engaging programs on both radio and TV.”

 

“The links between Pakistan and the United States are strong and growing, and our new show is a reflection of that,” said VOA Director David S. Jackson. “Beyond the Headlines will focus not only on the big issues of the day, but also on features, business, and culture stories that illuminate the world we live in. For example, we’ll show how Pakistanis live and work and go to school in the U.S. We want to provide a unique mix of stories that viewers can’t find anywhere else.”

Farah Ispahani is the managing editor and executive producer for Beyond the Headlines. She joined VOA earlier this year, bringing more than 20 years of experience in print and television media at such news organizations as CNN, ABC, and NBC. Before she joined VOA, Ispahani, who is a fluent Urdu speaker, was instrumental in the launch of CNN’s Paula Zahn Now and Anderson Cooper 360.

 

Anchoring Beyond the Headlines will be Aneka Osman. A familiar face to Pakistanis, Osman worked as an English language news anchor on Pakistan Television. She has covered regional and national security issues, Pakistan-India relations, the conflict in the Middle East, and Pakistan’s general elections. She has also worked on Prime Television, the UK-based Pakistani channel, and on the Business Plus Channel.

Ayaz Gul is VOA Urdu’s Chief Reporter and Pakistan Coverage Coordinator for Radio Aap ki Dunyaa (Your World Radio), VOA’s Urdu radio service, and Beyond the Headlines. Gul, who is based in Pakistan, has been filing on-the-scene reports in Urdu and English for VOA since 1996, and his reports are translated into numerous languages throughout VOA. Prior to joining VOA, he worked for the Japanese network NHK and for the German news agency DPA as a reporter specializing in Pakistan’s foreign and domestic news.

 

VOA’s Urdu Service broadcasts 12 hours a day of news and information to millions of Pakistanis and other Urdu speakers on Radio Aap ki Dunyaa. The program is distributed by medium wave at 972 kHz, digital audio satellite, the Internet and a three-hour shortwave broadcast. The launch of Beyond the Headlines adds two-and-half hours of television to the Urdu Service’s weekly broadcast schedule.

 

The Voice of America, which first went on the air in 1942, is a multimedia international broadcasting service funded by the U.S. government through the Broadcasting Board of Governors. VOA broadcasts more than 1,000 hours of news, information, educational, and cultural programming every week to an estimated worldwide audience of more than 100 million people. Programs are produced in 44 languages.

For more information, call VOA’s Office of Public Affairs at or E-Mail publicaffairs@voa.gov