"Most Violent Place On Earth
June 24, 2010: India and Pakistan have resumed peace talks, the first time since the Mumbai terror attack in late 2008. While this is the first meeting of senior officials (the foreign secretaries) since then, there has been plenty of communication. India has been pressuring Pakistan to shut down the many Islamic radical organizations that were allowed to flourish there over the last three decades. In the late 1970s, Pakistani leaders got the idea that Islamic conservatism would solve the problems of corruption and disunity. It didn't work, and spawned Islamic radical groups that used terrorism to try and settle the dispute with India over who should control Kashmir (both nations control parts of it, the result of a dispute dating to the 1947 dissolution of British colonial India into independent India and Pakistan). Although the decision to embrace Islamic radicalism has backfired, and the Islamic terrorists are now at war with the Pakistani government (and any Pakistanis who refuse to submit to religious rule), the Pakistani government cannot afford to crush all Islamic radical groups. That's because about a third of the population still believes in Islamic radicalism (as a cure for all that ails Pakistan), and most Pakistanis support the use of terrorism to get all of Kashmir. That won't happen, because India has defeated (but not completely eliminated) the Pakistani Islamic terrorists in Kashmir. In light of all that, the foreign ministers from the two nations will talk, and talk, and talk. Both countries want a solution. The Pakistani leadership knows they have problems (chiefly religious radicalism, corruption and tribalism), but no one has come up with workable solutions. India has had many of the same problems, but the Indian solutions do not always fit in Pakistan.
As more and more Taliban and other Islamic terrorists flee the tribal territories, they are finding they have a hard time recruiting in the lowlands (Punjab and Sind). So the Islamic radicals have taken advantage of the high unemployment and are offering up to $400 a month. This is attracting recruits, for the dangerous business of carrying out terror attacks. But these kids are mercenaries, even if they are screened for loyalty when recruited.
Indians got a reminder of why the Maoists are a problem, when coal industry officials revealed that they are hampered from increasing production (and helping to deal with growing power shortages) because of growing Maoist activity. The Maoists are looking for extortion payments, along with some benefits for workers and others working in the coal producing areas. The coal companies resist Maoist demands, and the Maoists interfere with mining operations.
Despite the growing casualties from the Indian anti-Maoist campaign, Pakistan is still suffering about four times as many casualties (4,000 dead so far) this year. One difference is that in Pakistan, only about five percent of the dead are security forces personnel, while in India it is 20 percent. Indeed, both nations have lost about same number of police and soldiers this year (240 in Pakistan and 220 in India). South Asia (which includes India, Pakistan and adjacent areas like Sri Lanka, Bangladesh, Nepal and Bhutan) appears headed for a bloody year, with terrorism war causing over 10,000 dead and up to 50,000 casualties overall. Add in adjacent Central Asian conflicts (Afghanistan and Kyrgyzstan), and you nearly double that. That makes this part of Eurasia the bloodiest on the planet, with the decline of violence in Congo."
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