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Editorials
Monday, January 31, 2000Warning to Pakistan
on helping terroristsTHE United States used to give Pakistan hundreds of millions of dollars a year in aid. But aid was cut back sharply in 1990 because of concern over a Pakistani nuclear weapons program. Currently Pakistan receives only $6 million a year, for counter-narcotics support and health programs for women and children.The issue: The United States has warned Pakistan that it could be branded a state sponsor of terrorism.
Any hope for a resumption of large-scale U.S. aid would be dashed if Pakistan's military rulers, led by Gen. Pervez Musharraf, refused to heed a warning that their government could be branded a state sponsor of terrorism.
The Clinton administration warned that could be the result if the Pakistani army continued to support terrorists blamed for the hijacking of an Indian Airlines jetliner to Afghanistan in late December. Pakistan has denied involvement in the hijacking.
The group tied to the incident, Harkat ul-Mujahedeen, has been declared a terrorist organization. If the State Department determines that a government has repeatedly provided support of international terrorism, it can designate that government as a state sponsor of terrorism.
The fact that the warning was issued publicly suggests that such a designation may be imminent. That would drive relations with Pakistan, once a U.S. ally, to new depths.
The accusations of terrorism go both ways. When three people were killed and 40 wounded last Friday in two bomb blasts in the Pakistani port city of Karachi, the government quickly blamed the blast on Indian agents. However, Washington has not issued a similar warning to India. U.S. relations with India have improved while relations with Pakistan have worsened.
Unless Pakistan takes prompt action to crack down on the terrorists or institute democratic reforms, President Clinton is expected to bypass Pakistan on a trip scheduled for March. In addition to Pakistan, Clinton is to visit Pakistan's archenemy, India, and Bangladesh.
The U.S. interest in Pakistan has declined since the Cold War days when India was aligned with the Soviet Union and Washington needed an ally in the Indian subcontinent. The Soviet invasion of Afghanistan heightened Pakistan's importance.
SINCE the collapse of Soviet communism relations with India have improved. Last October Pakistan reverted to military rule. The army apparently incited skirmishes along the border with Kashmir, which Pakistan claims.
How much leverage the United States has in this situation isn't clear. However, the government is already in financial straits and may be susceptible to pressure. In any case, Washington can't ignore Pakistan's link with terrorism.
Jefferson’s paternity
ONE hundred and seventy-four years after the death of Thomas Jefferson, the foundation that owns his Monticello plantation in Virginia has concluded that the author of the Declaration of Independence and third president of the United States probably fathered at least one and perhaps all of the six children of his slave, Sally Hemings.
The Washington Post reported that the Thomas Jefferson Memorial Foundation based its conclusion on the findings of a committee of historians and other scholars it established after genetic tests indicated Jefferson's paternity.
Previously the foundation had resisted taking a position on the Jefferson-Hemings liaison and on a DNA study released in November 1998.
A team of researchers conducted DNA tests that compared the Y chromosome in males who trace their ancestors to Jefferson with that of male descendants of Hemings.
The tests showed a match between the descendants of Hemings' youngest son, Eston, and a male line of Jeffersons.
Some descendants of Jefferson argued that the DNA results were inconclusive and that one of several Jefferson males could have been the father.
But the report released by the Monticello foundation said all the evidence indicates Thomas Jefferson was the father. It said one of the strongest indications was the fact that the dates of the conception of Hemings' children matched the dates of Jefferson's visits to Monticello.
Whether the relationship between Jefferson and Hemings was based on friendship, love or force isn't known.
But Dianne Swann-Wright, director of special programs at Monticello, noted that all of Hemings' children who reached adulthood "lived out their lives as free people, and they were the only African-American family, nuclear family, at Monticello to do that."
THE findings might have shocked earlier generations, but in the more candid atmosphere of discussion of matters sexual that prevails today the evidence of Jefferson's long-rumored miscegenation caused hardly a murmur.
Now the foundation faces the task of deciding how to present the facts about Jefferson's paternity in programs at Monticello. It's another step in the process of America's coming to terms with the history of slavery -- in this case involving one of the greatest of all Americans.
Published by Liberty Newspapers Limited PartnershipRupert E. Phillips, CEO
John M. Flanagan, Editor & Publisher
David Shapiro, Managing Editor
Diane Yukihiro Chang, Senior Editor & Editorial Page Editor
Frank Bridgewater & Michael Rovner, Assistant Managing Editors
A.A. Smyser, Contributing Editor
