Kurram Agency violence
Tuesday, 30 Jun, 2009
UNLESS tackled with all the seriousness the bloodletting demands, the situation in Kurram Agency could get out of hand and have wider repercussions. More menacingly, the Taliban have made their deadly presence felt. Clashes over the weekend between rival tribes led to at least 36 more deaths, the total from 12 days of fighting going up to nearly 90 killed with hundreds injured. Because of the military’s focus on Swat and South Waziristan, the fighting and consequent humanitarian disaster in Kurram Agency seem eclipsed. But the truth is that a minimum of 3,000 people have been killed in the sectarian clashes there that have been going on intermittently since 2007. Geographically, Kurram Agency is vulnerable to outside influences because it juts into Afghanistan. It also borders North Waziristan, a Taliban bastion. The surreptitious entry of the Taliban from Dir and Swat has exacerbated the sectarian conflict to the disadvantage of the Shia community.
The true sufferers of the conflict are the people, thousands of whom have been forced out of their ancestral homes because they belong to the wrong tribe. The militants control all highways, including the key Thall-Parachinar road. This has served to block the supply of food and medicines. As Medecins Sans Frontieres said recently, it is finding it extremely difficult to provide relief to the sick because medical supplies are getting increasingly scarce, and even hospitals have been attacked. Electricity sometimes remains out for months. This has forced many Bangash tribesmen to move into Afghanistan. The local elders have complained to the government that they were unable to play their role in effecting peace because outside presence has sidelined them. Recently, an all-party conference in Parachinar appealed to the government to launch an operation to clear Kurram Agency of the Taliban.
It is a measure of the government’s ineffective role in the Kurram Agency killings that Isaf officials from Afghanistan have tried to bring the warring factions together and end fighting. One can understand the government’s reluctance to open another front at a time when Swat cannot be said to have been fully cleared of the Taliban and the operation in South Waziristan has just begun. But given the people’s misery, the government has no choice but to make its presence felt meaningfully and ensure peace. The first job is to open roads, especially the Thall-Parachinar route, rush food and medical supplies to the people and restore electricity fully. The government should also look into the claim recently by elders from six tribes that there was foreign interference in the area, and that some local tribesmen had been recruited by a foreign power to perpetuate trouble in the agency.
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Solutions needed
Tuesday, 30 Jun, 2009
ALL is not well in Balochistan. The simmering insurgency there shows no sign of abating. But why should it? After all nothing has been done on the ground to meet the demands of the disgruntled Baloch. The provincial budget with an outlay of Rs72.2bn hardly reassured those in the province who are demanding control over their resources. Be it the gas in Sui, the mineral wealth of Saindak and now the deep-water port in Gwadar, one knows well that the underdeveloped province will not be the major beneficiary of these projects. Even the NFC which divides taxes collected by the centre among the provinces works against Balochistan, which is contributing handsomely to the treasury but gets very little in return. The allocation is made on the basis of population and Balochistan happens to be sparsely populated. The province needs proportionately more funds to develop infrastructure throughout its sprawling territory and make facilities accessible to its scattered population. Long overdue, a new NFC Award is being promised but nothing has been delivered. And, with summer in full swing, it is a major blow to a water-starved province to be deprived of 30 per cent of its water entitlement.
Seen against this backdrop, it is shocking that Islamabad doesn’t seem to be in a hurry to put matters right. Since the PPP government assumed office more than a year ago it has been reiterating its commitment to negotiate with the Baloch to resolve problems that have already been identified — many of them by committees and subcommittees set up by the centre itself. An apology has been offered by the president and the need to grant autonomy to the province has been conceded. But this is just talk and no one walks the walk. As a result we now have a hardening of the Baloch nationalists’ stance which may take them to the point of no return. On Sunday Sardar Akhtar Mengal, head of the BNP-M, said that even a compromise is not acceptable on the national rights of the Baloch. It is disturbing that the nationalists are now convinced that they are being taken down the garden path with offers of dialogue and negotiation that are designed to appease and not necessarily solve any problem. This is most disquieting because our failure to respect the political sensitivities of one province led to the loss of half the country. We cannot push another province over the brink. The government itself says that there is many a foreign power interested in continued turmoil in Balochistan. Why should we so willingly help?
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Up for barter
Tuesday, 30 Jun, 2009
OUR collective conscience is silent each time humanism stands compromised. The age-old price tag slapped on the female of the species is a common example as young girls continue to be ‘auctioned’ to the highest bidder or traded in transactions such as vatta satta and other forms of barter. The latest reported victim is eight-year-old Zahida who was ‘married’ to a teenager in Karachi. Reports say the bargain was engineered by her father who wanted to marry the groom’s sister. The great paradox is that these incidents abound at a time when women’s rights’ awareness is at an all-time high across the globe. The prime culprit remains the state; it has consistently failed to enforce laws that provide protection or establish shelters for victims. Secondly, it extends implicit sanction to such excesses by overlooking the provision of legal aid, women police personnel and stations, and laws that guarantee security and women-friendly legal processes. On the other end, child marriages such as Zahida’s not only sustain a self-perpetuating cycle but throw up tragic consequences — loss of education, rise in infant and maternal mortality, and more victims of domestic torture. These ‘marriages’ are one of our saddest social truths that are not just embedded in poverty and ignorance but in the menace of male supremacy. Also, this practice has to be seen as a heinous form of child abuse and the Child Marriage Restraint Act of 1927 that prescribes imprisonment for perpetrators should be brought into force.
Despite Pakistan’s status as a signatory to the United Nation’s Convention on the Rights of the Child and the Stockholm Declaration and Agenda for Action that protect children from abuse, low-income segments of the country remain bereft of the concept of child rights. Organisations such as Unicef and Sparc need to initiate aggressive advocacy campaigns that target rural, feudal and low-income environments, focusing on elders who have the power to curb such customs. Last but not least, parliamentarians must overhaul existing laws, police stations and relevant authorities to ascertain that ‘conventions’ extend beyond paper. Healthy childhoods cannot be distant dreams but realities made possible through sensitised legislature and media.
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OTHER VOICES-Sindhi Press Punjab’s undue outcry
Tuesday, 30 Jun, 2009
REPORTEDLY the Indus River System Authority has decided to close the Taunsa-Panjnad canal supply at a meeting presided over by President Asif Ali Zardari. The purpose is to provide relief to Sindh but this raised an undue hue and cry in Punjab. The PML-N and PML-Q were up in arms in the Punjab Assembly last Thursday.
The prime minister, however, managed to calm down the Punjabis when he asserted that the distribution of water would be on the basis of the 1991 accord and the share of one province would not be diverted to another. He categorically stated that there was a temporary shortage which is now over.
The politicians of Punjab, irrespective of their political and ideological differences, present a united front when the interest of the province is at stake. Unfortunately this is not the case in Sindh. Never has a minister threatened to resign in the interest of the province. There is a stark difference between how the politicians of the two provinces deal with matters.
History is witness to the fact that Punjab did not implement the water accord and Sindh has suffered unfair treatment. Ironically when the Punjabis claim they have been treated unfairly, the representatives of Sindh assert that they will be the first to launch a protest. Why is it that the latter does not feel the need to do the same for their own province?
In fact the issue has been further complicated due to the non-implementation of the water accord which was signed during Nawaz Sharif’s government in 1991. Punjab has always benefited from this lack of implementation. Sindh has not got its due share while Punjab has taken water forcibly.
Lower Punjab tributary areas linked to the Indus through the Chashma-Jhelum and Taunsa-Panjnad links should not be a permanent burden on the Indus. The Chashma-Jhelum link canal carries 11 MAF of water, or double the capacity of the [proposed] Kalabagh dam. The Taunsa-Panjnad link accounts for 4.93 MAF. Together these two canals divert 16 MAF of water which is equal to the flow of the Ravi river. In fact the link canals are inter-provincial canals and should be regulated as such.
Punjab claims that the Mangla Dam belongs exclusively to it. But the loan [taken for its construction] was paid off by all the provinces jointly. There is no authority to stop Punjab from this irrational and unjustified act. It appears Punjab has got veto powers.
The prime minister has provided assurances that the water accord will be implemented which means that currently this is not the case. Until it is, the dispute will continue to grow. — (June 27)
Selected and translated by Sohail Sangi