Date: Saturday,February 20, 2016.

Possible census delay?

NOBODY ever said that the population census would be an easy exercise. Now that the time has come to deliver on a promise that was made last year to hold the population census by March 2016, suggestions are being floated that the exercise needs to be postponed.

The latest such suggestion has come from Sardar Akhtar Mengal of the BNP in Balochistan. He has argued that the security situation in his province is not conducive to holding such a large exercise, and that the presence of a large number of Afghan refugees is an obstacle; that they should be ‘repatriated’ before the population count.

Take a look: Need to create awareness of census stressed

The chief minister of Balochistan and his predecessor have made similar arguments. Earlier, the government hinted that the exercise might prove difficult to carry out according to schedule because of the large number of troops required, which the army apparently cannot spare at the moment given its commitments in the anti-terror operations in the country.

The census commissioner had told the media in January that he might need more than 350,000 troops for the exercise — one for each of the 167,000 census blocks and more for overall security of the military personnel.

These hints and suggestions regarding the difficulties facing the exercise are coming far too late in the day. The announcement to hold the census was made in March last year, and we have had a full year almost to prepare for the mammoth exercise.

Yet work didn’t begin in earnest until at least September, five months down the road, when the first funds for the immense logistics were released by the finance ministry. Delays have also hit the surveys of the mauzas and blocks along the way.

The security situation was known all along and it defies understanding why it was not addressed as a priority earlier. Likewise for the presence of refugees in Balochistan and Khyber Pakhtunkhwa.

If the state can identify who is and who is not a refugee for a repatriation exercise, why can’t it do the same for a census exercise? None of these reasons are convincing when raised so late in the day.

Not only this, the government is also displaying its famous disregard for broadening ownership and stakes in the complex exercise.

All but one of the members of the governing council of the Pakistan Bureau of Statistics, which is tasked with conducting the exercise, are from Punjab, as are all of the bureau’s executive members. Some of the provincial assemblies have passed resolutions complaining about this.

Having lost time, and failing to evolve a consensus among the provinces about the holding of the exercise, the government now appears to be looking for an excuse to back out of its commitment. Let’s hope this is not so.

JNU controversy

THE past few days have witnessed quite a stir on many university campuses in India. In various cities, students have marched to denounce the arrest in Delhi of Kanhaiya Kumar, president of the Jawaharlal Nehru University Students’ Union on charges of sedition.

Mr Kumar’s detractors claim he raised anti-India slogans at an event on campus — a charge he denies — held to mark the execution of Afzal Guru.

Political undertones are evident in these developments as Mr Kumar comes from a leftist background, while those leading the campaign against him mostly belong to the ABVP, a student outfit linked to the Hindu supremacist Sangh Parivar.

The student leader was thrashed by lawyers as he arrived for a court appearance in Delhi; police reportedly did little to stop the attack.

The controversy is yet another example of India’s lurch towards the hard right. In today’s India, those disagreeing with the Sangh’s version of how things should be are usually branded as ‘anti-national’.

These toxic levels of ultranationalism are diametrically opposed to democratic values; as we in Pakistan know all too well that if space is ceded to the hard right, very soon democratic principles come under attack.

The hard right in India has been rising steadily ever since it made its violent national debut with the destruction of the Babri Masjid in 1992.

Thereafter, the Sangh’s influence, especially that of the RSS, has been increasing, particularly in the political arena, so much so that under the BJP’s watch, the saffronisation of India is undeniable. While once the RSS worked in the shadows, today it proudly hosts massive public meetings to display its muscle.

Moreover, baiting minorities, especially Muslims, has become kosher, even though many of India’s artists and intellectuals have spoken out against the rising levels of intolerance. This is unfortunate because India has a largely secular constitution and prides itself on being the world’s largest democracy.

But when freedom of expression is threatened and dissent is crushed, secularism and democracy face imminent threat. Sedition is a very serious charge and should not be thrown around loosely.

It appears that a hard-hitting speech made by Mr Kumar critical of the Sangh had a role in his arrest.

Even some ABVP activists have spoken out against the witch hunt. Indian state and society need to reflect upon these developments; what is clear is that ultranationalism and hyper-patriotism are the first step towards the extinction of fundamental rights and freedom of conscience.

Vaccination refusals

THE apparent apathy of both state and society to Pakistan’s polio problem can in some measure be attributed to the fact that this is an issue that has become calcified.

The back and forth between a state with sluggish capacity and a population that is in general under-educated, continues.

The situation has been worsened by a number of attacks, many of them proving deadly, in recent years on polio workers who in any case face a monumental task in ensuring that each and every child in the country is vaccinated.

Though the number of families refusing the OPV has decreased after the act was made an offence inviting arrest last year, Karachi’s experience during the ongoing polio drive has highlighted a new dimension: some two dozen schools have refused to let polio teams enter their premises (even though they had earlier been sent letters in this regard from official quarters), relenting only upon the intervention of senior authorities.

Much can be read into the reasons cited by the schools for their unwillingness to cooperate. These managements insisted, first, that their students had already been vaccinated as a matter of course, following routine immunisation schedules; and second, that parents objected to their children being administered the drops in their absence and without their express consent.

Worth pondering on is the possibility that the parents’ reluctance may stem from reasons other than the commonly cited ideological/religious ones, especially the trust deficit that is known to exist between citizens and the state apparatus.

Questions have been raised, after all, about the efficacy of the drops; for example, often it has not been possible to maintain the cold-chain process.

There have been reports of expired or compromised vials. Plugging this trust deficit requires long-term engagement and regular awareness drives.

Meanwhile, the predicament that schools find themselves in is easily solved: administrations could require copies of the children’s routine immunisation records to be provided, which would immediately identify those who have already been administered the polio vaccine

Lifting of Iran sanctions

MORE than a month after most other countries in the world lifted sanctions against Iran, Pakistan has finally followed suit. It is a welcome step, even if it appears to have been reluctantly taken and has come rather late. As a contiguous neighbour, Pakistan ought to have moved faster and deeper down the road to restoring normal economic ties with Iran than most other countries. This is especially true given the natural complementarities between the economies of the two countries. Iran has a surplus of energy but is food deficient, while Pakistan is food secure but energy deficient. Nevertheless, the fact that our own raft of sanctions, mostly issued through the Foreign Office, has now been lifted has cleared the way for parties on both sides to start re-engaging with one another. And this is precisely the point where the road towards the resumption of normal economic ties comes into view before us.

That road, it is becoming increasingly clear, is longer than what most might envisage. Even the act of lifting our own sanctions against Iran proved slightly more complex than imagined. The step was undertaken on prodding from the Iranian side during the prime minister’s visit to Tehran last month, at the time the UN Security Council endorsed the nuclear deal through Resolution 2231. The language of the draft notification issued by the Foreign Office to lift Pakistan’s sanctions then had to be vetted by various stakeholders within the government, such as the ministries of defence and law and the State Bank. This process could have begun sooner, considering that the IAEA had confirmed Iran’s compliance with the terms of the nuclear deal as early as Dec 2, 2015.

Now that the lifting of the sanctions has been notified by the Foreign Office, the hard part of actually rebuilding economic ties can commence. No further legal obstacles stand in the way of private-sector parties to start engaging with the neighbouring economy, but significant logistical obstacles still remain. Banks need to build counterparty arrangements with Iranian banks so LCs can be processed, the road linkages need to be upgraded significantly to handle the clearing of containerised cargoes, and a clientele needs to be developed by traders on either side of the border. A visa regime needs to be developed that will facilitate a growing and thriving trade relationship through easier visa rules and by enhancing people-to-people contact. In time, air and rail links must be expeditiously built as well. The road to a $5bn trade relationship is still a long one, and much work remains to be done. The private sector can be counted on to step up to the opportunities that will come its way, but at the moment it is the government that must shed the impression that it is being dragged reluctantly to the finish line.

Stain on ‘honour’

MEETING documentary filmmaker Sharmeen Obaid Chinoy at the Prime Minister House in Islamabad earlier this week, Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif termed ‘honour’ killings a ‘stain’ on society. Acknowledging that this was one of the most critical problems facing the country, the prime minister went on to promise that the premiere of Ms Chinoy’s documentary on the subject, A Girl in the River: The Price of Forgiveness, will we be held at the Prime Minister’s Office on Monday, Feb 22. Mr Sharif’s observations do raise a question or two. Primarily, did it take a short film — or perhaps the international spotlight on it following its nomination to the Oscars in the relevant category — to bring to the government’s attention the fact that this crime most dishonourable is amongst Pakistan’s most pressing worries? Had the government and its leadership so far remained oblivious to an evil that has for decades invited opprobrium from amongst the more civilised sections of society, and wreaked endless grief amongst countless families and communities? If so, then the fact that the ‘stain’ of ‘honour’ killings has finally been recognised at the top levels of governance can only be welcomed with relief. If it took a while for the administration to cut to the chase, it can only be hoped that now that the issue has been recognised in its full import the resolve to counter it will be of such proportions as to turn the situation around.

Attitudes around ‘honour’ killings have in fact become Pakistan’s dirty little secret. In the headlines, the news around women, equality and choice has in recent years been pledge after pledge by those in positions of power to build bridges of equity and empowerment. In all fairness, the country has indeed managed to pass fairly significant pieces of legislation in this regard. But when it comes to engineering a sea change through awareness-raising and altering hidebound attitudes that are wrongly attributed to notions of culture and tradition, there is often frantic back-pedalling — as though the challenge is far too daunting to take on. Yet the legislative changes required have already been achieved, with there being no leniency any longer for the perpetrators of such acts. Now what is needed is a concerted push to spread awareness about the heinousness of this act, the fact that the law will not tolerate it, and the apprehension and trial of the guilty and their colluders.

Liberal visa regime

AS both diplomats and political experts have stressed, one key way of improving Indo-Pakistan ties would be to bolster regional integration and trade. However, integration — as well as peace and normalisation — will remain a pipe dream unless the visa regime in the subcontinent is liberalised in the true sense of the word. Speaking at a programme in Lahore recently, Indian high commissioner Gautam Bambawale said there was no better way of improving relations between Pakistan and India than trade. This is quite true, while calls for an integrated and connected South Asia are also imminently sensible. But what are the respective governments doing to encourage trade or even people-to-people contact? Not much apparently. For example, the exercise of getting a visa for the other country by the average citizen remains a test of endurance and commitment. In Pakistan, citizens can apply for an Indian visa through courier services, which saves a trip to Islamabad. But the process is both lengthy and bureaucratic, with applicants having to secure ‘sponsorship’ letters from their Indian hosts, as well as attaching a thick file of paperwork. In India, those desiring to visit Pakistan have to come to New Delhi from across the far reaches of that vast land to lodge a visa application with the Pakistan High Commission.

If one is lucky enough to get a visa, the modes of transport to cross the border are relatively limited. For instance, the Thar Express — the train service that links Sindh and Rajasthan and which has been running for 10 years now — continues to suffer from inadequate infrastructure. Police reporting in both countries is also an odious, archaic procedure. Both governments can easily remedy this situation by easing visa procedures and making them less complicated, increasing the options for cross-border travel and reopening deputy high commissions in Karachi and Mumbai, respectively. Once people can freely meet and trade, and work with each other, the animosities of old can give way to a relationship based on trust and good neighbourliness.

Source: Editorials
Published in Dawn, February 21st, 2016

__________________
The world is changed by your example, not by your opinion !

Date: Monday, February 22nd, 2016.

Militants online

THOUGH many amongst Pakistan’s religious right prefer interpretations of faith anchored firmly in the past and shun most aspects of modernity as ‘innovations’, they have few qualms about using technology to their advantage.

For example, as noted in a recent report in this paper, the ‘cyber team’ of Jamaatud Dawa seems to be quite an active concern. Young, tech-savvy men are at the forefront of an operation designed to transmit the message of a group with barely disguised links to religious militancy.

Volunteers stream footage from rallies, send out live tweets and update websites.

In fact, the team claims to be active in 45 cities and towns in Pakistan. Its members say they are countering hostile propaganda from “anti-Pakistan” elements, which, surprisingly, include the TTP as well as the militant Islamic State group, along with ‘secularists’.

Of course, this is a far cry from the ideology of old, according to which photography and film-making were both deemed unacceptable. But perhaps it is the ubiquitousness of technology, as well as the challenge posed by even more ferocious militant groups, that has caused JuD to change tack.

JuD is not the only militant group to embrace technology. A plethora of jihadi and sectarian outfits in Pakistan as well as internationally have used cyberspace as a recruiting ground and a propaganda outlet.

Also read: JuD’s new ‘Cyber Team’ a far cry from conservatism of old

Al Qaeda and IS have both used technology to their advantage to communicate their message and boast of their gruesome ‘exploits’.

In fact, as many experts have noted, cyberspace is a key battlefield for counterterrorism agencies the world over. Some may term this acceptance of technology by the hard right and militant outfits as hypocrisy, for they are using the same fruits of modernity that they have long railed against.

However, this also reflects a sense of pragmatism — in a world of smartphones, laptops and instant messaging, the extremists know they won’t get too far by sticking to antiquated methods. Hence the ‘battle for hearts and minds’ is being waged in cyberspace.

Accountability laws

IT is a bad idea to compound the original wrong. A week in which Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif shockingly attacked the National Accountability Bureau ended with the continuing speculation that the government may be seeking to instal a supra-commission to act as a brake on the workings of NAB.

Given the PPP’s recent hostility to NAB and the PTI’s own struggles with accountability in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, the PML-N government appears to believe it may have the numbers in both houses of parliament to amend the NAB ordinance. That may be true, but it would set a terrible precedent — and set back the democratic project itself.

NAB is a flawed institution and accountability legislation needs to be redone, but to improve systemic accountability, not effectively defang it.

Currently, the threat of legislation is precisely that — a threat meant to curb what the government sees as unnecessary and unwanted interference in the workings of the administration.

Perhaps the government ought to consider what lies behind its present troubles with NAB: the delay by the PML-N itself in framing new accountability laws that are transparent and could be effective.

Having failed to reach an agreement with the PPP in the last parliament, the PML-N has not until now been interested in pursuing a deal in this parliament. With accountability effectively in limbo, the Supreme Court intervened publicly, demanding answers of NAB in court and exhorting the organisation to pursue accountability with a new vigour.

Meanwhile, behind the scenes, the military establishment has likely also encouraged NAB to probe corruption by politicians — the recent enthusiasm for investigations in Sindh in particular surely being no coincidence.

While the administrations at the centre and in the provinces may have some legitimate grievances about the motives behind some corruption probes, they have no defence when it comes to explaining the political delay in framing new accountability laws.

Now that the PML-N government has shown fresh interest in NAB, some first principles ought to be revisited. The country needs a powerful and independent accountability body that is mandated to probe corruption in all institutions and by all public officials — civilian, military, bureaucratic or even judicial.

While the judiciary has baulked at outside oversight and the military is likely to resist it too, the political class would do the country and itself a great service if it can draw up legislation that makes accountability real — and across the board.

Poor state of health

ONE of the most dismal numbers to come out of Pakistan is the paltry allocation of budgetary resources to health.

The figure stands below 0.7pc of GDP, both provincial and federal combined, and is among the smallest expenditure heads in the budget.

Even for a country known for its misallocation of resources, the smallness of this number is staggering, especially when we consider the kind of health emergencies that plague the land.

From diseases such as polio, TB and hepatitis, to malnutrition among a large proportion of the population, to high infant and child mortality rates — among the highest in the region — Pakistan shoulders some of the world’s biggest health-related burdens. How then do we justify such meagre resource allocation to the health sector?

Economic surveys that are the government’s own telling of the health story show that the myriad programmes being run in the health sector are the authorities’ response to the challenge.

Data is presented on the availability of food, which, apparently, is sufficient to handle the nutritional needs of the entire country.

The availability of cereal, pulses and milk has only increased over the past five years. However, the data on calorie intake shows a deterioration, with 22pc of our population in the undernourishment category and in the same league as countries that are food deficient.

Lack of food then is not the issue; the problem is how the food that is available is allocated, whether through market mechanisms that are highly distorted by speculative interests or through an ineffective, corrupt government.

The story is the same whether one looks at hospitals and medicines, or access to doctors. In general terms as well, both the centre and the provinces are more geared towards serving the interests of the rich, through the construction of roads and bridges, than of the poor.

Public-sector spending on health, which is the mainstay for meeting the health requirements of the poor, is a dismal 0.7pc of GDP as mentioned above. But when one adds private-sector spending, the figure jumps to 2.8pc of GDP; this is four times what is spent on the poor.

This shows that whatever allocation of resources to the health sector there is in the country, most of it is through private healthcare providers that serve the interests of those with more money.

It is no exaggeration to say that the poor have been left to their own devices while the rich have built for themselves a comfortable world where all basic needs are amply catered for, and sealed away behind a wall of high prices.

The state of public health in the country paints a truly dismal picture, especially when it comes to the skewed manner of the allocation of available resources.

__________________
"Allah is sufficient for us;an excellent guardian is He!

Date: Tuesday, February 23rd, 2016.

Literary festivals

THAT spring has been ushered in with literary festivals in both Karachi and Lahore is befitting. The KLF has over the years grown into a solid institution, drawing large crowds from a cross section of society and providing an essential counterpoint to the narratives of violence and conflict that have so befuddled Pakistan in recent years.

Now that the success of the event has been cemented, the organisers must use the space to step back and assess how further diversification can be achieved and how the level of intellectual content can be raised further; there is no reason for complacency, especially with the Lahore Literary Festival setting the bar high.

This year’s iteration of the LLF, which concluded on Sunday, deserves praise for an excellent line-up of litterateurs, academics, and cultural personalities, and it is highly unfortunate that what had been planned as a three-day event had to be downsized, as well as have its venue changed at the last minute, as a result of what was either incompetence or plain vindictiveness on part of the Shahbaz Sharif administration.

First came the news that the Punjab government was planning to withdraw the NOC for the festival to be held at the semi-government-run Alhamra Arts Centre, which is where the LLF has been held over the past three years.

Then, under the garb of security worries, the event organisers were asked to reduce the number of foreign attendees.

Crowning these impediments was the government requiring a change in venue, again apparently because of security concerns — the irony being that the new venue was Avari Hotel, just down the road from the Alhamra on the Mall.

Unsurprisingly, people are wondering whether sabotage was being attempted, given that some of the organisers of the LLF happen to be leading the opposition to the Orange Line metro project that Chief Minister Sharif is known to take a personal interest in.

The citing of security concerns certainly comes across as disingenuous, especially given the fact that such an event has proved possible year after year in Karachi, where the levels of crime and unrest are much higher. The KLF has brought its city prestige and cultural richness, and Mr Sharif needs to recognise the potential of the LLF to do the same for Punjab’s capital.

The city administration ought to have been doing everything within its power to give the event a boost, rather than trying to pull it down.

Census: now or never

WHATEVER may be the logistical difficulties, or the objections of various elements in the provincial governments, the population census must be held on schedule. At the moment, there are growing signs that the government will announce a postponement.

However, thus far the difficulties cited in holding the vital exercise are not of a kind that should necessitate further delay. The window of opportunity is narrow and must be availed of.

Those objecting that there are not enough troops available for the exercise should realise that the situation in the country is not likely to show a dramatic improvement for a number of years, and the census cannot be delayed that long.

Those arguing that ground realities, such as the presence of large numbers of refugees or non-domiciled migrants in the provinces, make the census impracticable or unfair should know that only a proper count can establish population ratios and indicate the demographic trend of various language groups and ethnicities.

It is not possible, nor is it logical, to present the case that the census will make any given ethnic group a ‘minority’ in its own province given the presence of migrants or refugees. In the absence of a reliable census, the numbers don’t exist to make such an argument.

As the government prepares to take the decision to the Council of Common Interests, where the likelihood of the exercise being shot down altogether is quite high, it is worth asking a few important questions. For instance, why was no CCI meeting held for more than 10 months?

Why did the authorities wake up so late to the logistical demands of the census? Why has no effort been made thus far to build some sort of agreement among the various contending parties who are apprehensive about what a new census might find?

A now-or-never moment appears to be taking shape. This is perhaps the only year in which the present government can pull off something as large as the census exercise. Postponing it further will only mean that the same obstacles will be angrily debated all over again, only to pave the way for further delay.

By next year, the government’s focus would have shifted towards the general elections, and the next opportunity to even think about a population count will present itself only after a new government is in power after the 2018 elections.

Our policymakers cannot afford to ignore the matter till then. The urgency to sort out the differences, and develop out-of-the-box solutions to the shortage of army personnel and other logistical issues, is growing by the day. Much depends on the census — from socio-economic planning to resource allocation to the delimitation of constituencies.

Rescuing the exercise and ensuring it is held on time ought to now be the government’s priority.

Pathankot steps

AFTER weeks of relative inactivity, at least on the public front, the Pakistan-India relationship appears to be inching forward. The registration of an FIR in Pakistan appears to have paved the way for a series of next steps.

The first of those steps is likely to be a trip by Pakistani investigators to India to gather evidence on the basis of which collaborators and architects of the Pathankot air base attack may be formally charged.

Thereafter, though the sequence of steps has not yet been publicly revealed, or perhaps even decided, there will be several major opportunities for bilateral dialogue in March: first, between the foreign secretaries at a Saarc conference in Nepal mid-March; next, between foreign adviser Sartaj Aziz and Indian Foreign Minister Sushma Swaraj at a ministerial gathering to conclude the Saarc conference in Nepal; and finally between prime ministers Nawaz Sharif and Narendra Modi at a nuclear summit in Washington, D.C. that both leaders are scheduled to attend.

As the flurry of high-level diplomacy late last year demonstrated, bilateral dialogue can quickly and meaningfully be restarted if the political will exists and dialogue is backed by the relevant institutions on both sides of the border.

The Pathankot attack is an early and serious test of the intentions of both the Pakistani and Indian establishments.

Thus far, Pakistani officials have for the most part said the right things and demonstrated a refreshing candidness about the role that Pakistani organisations and citizens may have had in planning and executing the attack in Pathankot.

While not officially confirmed as yet, there has been no attempt here to downplay the Jaish-e-Mohammed role that India has alleged in the Pathankot attack.

Perhaps then India should heed the suggestion of Pakistani officials such as Sartaj Aziz that the resumption of dialogue and the Pathankot investigation can proceed simultaneously.

For reasons of both security and prosperity, the governments of India and Pakistan owe it to their publics to restart and sustain a bilateral dialogue.

__________________
"Allah is sufficient for us;an excellent guardian is He!

http://epaper.dawn.com/DetailNews.ph...2_2016_009_004

Karachi transport scheme

COMMUTERS in Karachi deserve to be recognised for their bravery and resilience, for they have to make do with a public transport system that is truly mediaeval. Buses are rickety, overcrowded, too few in number and rashly driven, while the KCR — the city’s commuter railroad — was put to pasture in 1999. Taxis have almost disappeared from the city’s thoroughfares, while rickshaws routinely fleece commuters. In such a dismal scenario, the inauguration of the Green Line Rapid Bus Transit plan by the prime minister in the city on Friday comes as a ray of hope. The multibillion rupee federally funded project is due to be completed in a year and is designed to carry 300,000 passengers daily on a key route running through the heart of the metropolis. The prime minister used pleasant-sounding adjectives while describing the project, saying it would result in a “brighter and developed” Karachi. We hope this rhetoric and optimism is translated into reality.

Though one rapid bus route will not radically alter the city’s transport landscape, it is an important first step. What Karachi needs is an integrated public transport system that utilises bus routes and commuter railroads and that is affordable and comfortable for the commuter. For decades, successive governments have miserably failed to achieve this. The provincial government has announced its own Orange Line Bus project; we hope these schemes are complementary and don’t work at cross purposes. Moreover, the federal, provincial and city governments must listen to experts and civil society to ensure the transport solutions are in the best interest of Karachi and its people. Badly planned and executed schemes will only add to the mess and increase the congestion and chaos that has become a hallmark of the city’s traffic. Many a pipe dream has been sold to the people of Karachi in the name of a workable public transport system; we hope the current initiatives succeed in giving commuters in the metropolis respectable and safe transport options worthy of a city of its size.

Obstinacy over Siachen

IT was once thought to be a ‘low-hanging fruit’ of the dialogue process: an agreement to demilitarise Siachen and for troops on either side of the Actual Ground Position Line to withdraw to their pre-1984 positions.

But on Friday, Indian Defence Minister Manohar Parrikar informed the Indian parliament that his government will not withdraw from Siachen because it could trust Pakistan to reoccupy areas vacated by India and therefore put India at a strategic disadvantage in the glacier region.

Know more: India won’t quit Siachen, says minister

Mr Parrikar’s assertion is both unfortunate and untrue. Pakistan has offered a mechanism for not only verifying mutual withdrawals from Siachen, but a joint patrolling system that would ensure that neither side ingresses into the region again to grab any territorial or military advantage.

The Pakistani suggestion is not only sensible, but cost-effective, transparent and verifiable too. Yet, India has always baulked at the idea.

Also read: Killer Siachen — 'where a Pakistani soldier dies every four days from the cold'

Part of the problem is history. In 1984, India grabbed an advantage in Siachen that its military has prized ever since and is loath to give up.

The Kargil conflict in 1999 is thought to be the Pakistani response to India’s territory grab a decade and a half earlier — but a response that only gave the Indian military further reason to dig in its heels domestically.

After the Kargil conflict, inside India, the military leadership has effectively told every political government that withdrawal from Siachen would amount to betraying the sacrifices of Indian soldiers who gave up their lives to protect it.

But there is also a practical aspect to the Indian military’s insistence on occupying Siachen: the investments in infrastructure over the years have made the glacier an attractive high-altitude training ground at relatively manageable costs (the recent deaths in an avalanche notwithstanding).

Meanwhile, for Pakistan a withdrawal to the 1984 positions would reverse the advantage India gained and also rationalise military expenditures — a factor that matters to Pakistan given the significantly smaller budget of the military here as compared to India’s.

Yet, why the Indian military is determined to remain in Siachen and why the Pakistani military would prefer a withdrawal are perhaps beside the point.

Read: Indian soldier rescued from Siachen dies

Siachen is a conflict of egos more than an actual strategic gain — if the Indian government cannot even contemplate a sensible solution to the Siachen issue, then what of the bigger disputes between the two countries?

What is also disturbing is that Mr Parrikar’s statement attempts to predetermine an outcome of the Comprehensive Bilateral Dialogue.

If each issue on which Pakistan’s position has some merit and legitimacy is dismissed by India at the very outset, then how is dialogue supposed to proceed?

Siachen is not a symbol of India’s strength or Pakistan’s weakness, but of the foolishness and terribleness of war.

The real value of Siachen lies in making a success story of a meaningful peace process.

Nabbing Asim Hussain

SIX months after he was detained under charges of terror financing, a reference against former petroleum minister Asim Hussain is finally before a court. Even though he was initially picked up on serious charges of maintaining links with terrorists, which were later changed to money laundering, and then again for allegedly having had a role in the stock market crash of 2008, the reference filed before the court contains nothing about these. Instead, the case is built around three major allegations: land fraud for the commercial utilisation of land allotted for charity purposes, building assets abroad through money laundering, and gas curtailment to the fertiliser sector that caused a large loss to the national exchequer.

The gas-related allegations are the crux of the reference, accounting for 97pc of the Rs462bn worth of the alleged corruption. The reference argues that the burden of gas load management was made to fall on fertiliser companies unfairly, and contrary to an ECC decision of 2001 that placed the fertiliser sector on top of the merit order list in gas allocations. Because of this curtailment, the reference claims, fertiliser production in the country fell and the price rose by more than 100pc over three years, necessitating resort to fertiliser imports and price subsidies, the total value of which came to Rs450bn according to figures that were given in the reference. The logic is a bit puzzling for a number of reasons. ECC decisions are subject to change, and a new merit order list that had been drawn up later in the Musharraf era clearly put domestic consumers on top. The figure of Rs450bn in losses incurred due to gas curtailment to the fertiliser sector also needs further scrutiny, since it is not clear how it has been calculated and is suspiciously close to estimates that were given by fertiliser industry representatives in those days of the total losses that would be incurred by the state if a complete shutdown of the sector were to take place. In any event, gas allocations is a highly complex executive decision to be made by the government in power and will always leave some sectors facing losses and crying foul. It will be interesting to see, once the detailed documents are released, how far NAB investigators actually understand the intricacies of such a complex issues upon which they have chosen to build their case.

Source:Editorials
Published in Dawn, February 28th, 2016

__________________
The world is changed by your example, not by your opinion !

Date: Monday, February 29th, 2016.

Pak-Afghan cooperation

WITH the Quadrilateral Coordination Group on Afghanistan pressing for the resumption of talks between the Afghan government and the Afghan Taliban, it was always likely that Taliban groups either opposed to talks or seeking to gain an advantage at the negotiating table would ramp up attacks inside Afghanistan.

Adding to that possibility is the onset of the main fighting season as winter winds down in Afghanistan. Yet, attacks such as the one that took place in Kabul on Saturday, in which a suicide bomber struck near the defence ministry, carry a particular danger.

In the past, the Afghan government has reacted with great anger to attacks in the capital city and has accused Pakistan of not doing enough to stop the alleged planning and coordination of such attacks from its soil.

While the accusations may well have been exaggerated, it is likely that a fresh wave of attacks, especially in Kabul, could undermine efforts within the QCG to lessen the mistrust between Afghanistan and Pakistan and damage the talks process itself.

Intelligence cooperation and border management remain, as ever, the areas where Pakistan and Afghanistan need to do much more.

The high-level delegations that travel back and forth between Islamabad and Kabul and to border areas only appear able to achieve limited, short-term successes.

Neither Afghanistan nor Pakistan appear willing to have the frank discussions necessary at the political, military and intelligence levels to make the border less porous.

Nor do the outside powers in the QCG, China and the US, appear to have the inclination or tools to nudge Afghanistan and Pakistan closer to lasting solutions.

It is a strange, dangerous situation. With Zarb-i-Azb now in its last phase, a final ground offensive in North Waziristan will dislodge more militants and likely send a number of them scrambling across the border into Afghanistan.

Meanwhile, the Afghans are bracing for what is likely to be the most ferocious fighting season ever — with eastern and southern Afghanistan remaining unstable. It makes sense, therefore, for Pakistan and Afghanistan to cooperate — and yet intelligence cooperation and border management remain piecemeal and ad hoc.

Perhaps, then, the best hope is for the soon-to-be-resumed Afghan peace talks to produce quick results.

Drawing the main or even some Taliban factions into peace negotiations will create some leverage over those groups to discourage the most destabilising attacks, like those in Kabul.

And, pursuant to a deal, a more stable Afghanistan would allow it address Pakistan’s security concerns regarding anti-Pakistan militant sanctuaries along the border.

Until then, the Pak-Afghan focus should be to cooperate when violence spikes rather than descend into a blame game.

Protection for women

AFTER seemingly glacial progress towards legislation dealing with violence against women, Punjab has surprised many by enacting, in some respects, perhaps the most comprehensive legislation passed on the issue thus far by the provinces — excluding Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, which has yet to do so.

The Protection of Women Against Violence Bill 2015 defines violence to include domestic violence, sexual violence, psychological and emotional abuse, economic abuse, stalking and cyber crime, as well as abetment of such acts.

Although it has been criticised for not criminalising domestic violence, the legislation nevertheless has the capacity to facilitate victims from the initial reporting stage to resolution of the dispute.

Some of the stipulated measures include a dedicated toll-free number to lodge complaints, protection officers to inform defendants of complaints against them, protection centres, shelter homes and expedited court proceedings.

Moreover, the legislation makes provision for practical hurdles, such as sanctioning alleged perpetrators of violence if they offer resistance to protection officers. It also takes into account the cultural realities that make women dependent upon their spouses in various aspects.

For example, under this law an aggrieved woman cannot be forced out of the house.

It is thus with good reason the passage of this law has been generally welcomed by progressive segments of society, and excoriated by those on the right. Moreover, as the country’s most populous province where the vast majority of crimes against women occur, Punjab is well placed to spur the momentum for change.

Not only should KP expedite the enactment of its own women protection law, but Sindh and Balochistan must ensure that the mechanisms for implementation — still woefully lacking — are put in place without further delay in order to give teeth to the legislation they passed in 2013 and 2014, respectively.

However, and this brings us to the larger issue, this apathy is symptomatic of the deep-seated misogyny prevalent in Pakistan — which is often, and disingenuously, couched in the language of religion.

This social conditioning condones gender-based violence almost as a male prerogative, and for which women themselves are held responsible by virtue of their appearance or behaviour.

Changing mindsets is always a challenge but not an insurmountable one. The media — particularly the entertainment industry — can play an important role here. It is high time that the ideal of feminine virtue ceases to be a woman who stoically endures mistreatment at the hands of men, without a murmur of complaint.

Nanga Parbat ascent

IT is always uplifting to witness a historic feat of endurance, and all the more so when a Pakistani is part of the team.

Six months before mountaineering season opens, a small team of four climbers, including Ali Sadpara of Pakistan, made history when they made the first winter ascent of Nanga Parbat on Friday.

The feat comes after 29 teams had already made the attempt in previous years, many of them including members of the present team.

Over the decades, attempts to summit Nanga Parbat have produced some of the most brutal mountaineering legends, earning it the nickname ‘killer mountain’ because more people have died trying to summit it than any other mountain in the world.

Given its fierce reputation, the climbing team that just fulfilled its long-fought goal of being the first to ascend the peak in winter has rightfully taken its place in mountaineering history.

The team deserves all the congratulations that will inevitably be coming their way as they return to sea level.

Ali Sadpara was part of a team that attempted a winter ascent last year as well. This year he played a crucial role in the ascent, when he was part of an advance party that carried essential supplies to Camp 3 at 6,700 metres almost a month before the summit attempt began.

Mountaineering is one of the most challenging pursuits in the world, and very few have the heart and mind to be successful at it.

Pakistan can afford to take greater pride in the accomplishments of our mountaineers, and greater interest in what the mountainous north has to offer by way of opportunities for travel and challenges.

The northern areas have produced some of the finest mountaineers in the world, famous for their stoutness of will and refinement of manners.

Hearty kudos to the team that made this historic ascent, and for us the achievement is all the more special because Ali Sadpara was amongst them.

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"Allah is sufficient for us;an excellent guardian is He!

REPORTING on trouble spots such as Balochistan or the operation against extremists in the northwest has often brought threats, even violence to the country’s media organisations and their workers. But this past week brought to light a new dimension of the issue that renders the field even more treacherous for media persons and their organisations. On Friday, towns and cities across the country saw protests organised by various religious organisations against the execution of Mumtaz Qadri, the self-confessed killer of Punjab governor Salmaan Taseer. Some of these demonstrations and sit-ins turned violent, with the ire reserved mainly for representatives of the news media. The worst incident occurred in Hyderabad, where an angry mob descended on the Press Club and set fire to furniture, computers, and other equipment, and assaulted journalists and staff. In Lahore and Karachi, the offices of electronic news organisations came under attack; in other places where protesters gathered, DSNG vans and media staff were pelted with stones or roughed up. Over half a dozen media people were injured, with their equipment burnt or destroyed. The reason? News organisations were exercising their right of editorial judgement and making their own decisions about the extent to which they wanted to cover the protests or the man on whom they centred. Indeed, the same reason caused protesters to physically assault a couple of media men in Karachi on the day that Qadri’s execution took place.

Where the protesters turned violent in their effort to dictate to the media, the state on its part too did not refrain from making the attempt. On Tuesday, when Qadri’s burial was scheduled and his supporters started travelling towards Rawalpindi where the funeral was to be held, Pemra tweeted an advisory asking channels to “[…] refrain from inciting sectarianism, hatred or violence through shows […]” etc. While this had an effect on some of the channels, the fact remains that the authorities were presumptuous enough to assume that this country’s media freedoms, won at such hard cost, could very easily be eroded. While the violence against media persons is deserving of the strongest condemnation, the state must shoulder its share of censure as well. Media organisations should, meanwhile, continue to stand fast against any attempt to influence their output, and ensure that criticism cannot be levelled against them through remaining impartial, honest, and operating in the context of the highest ideals of journalism.



THE staging of the much-awaited Pakistan-India World T20 game in Dharamsala on March 19 has snowballed into a major crisis amid threats of disruption from Hindu extremists besides stiff opposition from the authorities in the northern state of Himachal Pradesh who have refused to provide security for the match citing a January attack on an Indian army base as the reason. ‹ The Pakistan Cricket Board has asked for security assurances from the Indian government, and the authorities here have reportedly constituted a security team that will be sent to India to assess security measures before the players are given the final go-ahead for participation in the International Cricket Council event. While diplomatic tensions have prevented a bilateral series between the two archrivals for over three years, the current circumstances have put the onus on the Indian government and the Indian cricket board — BCCI — as hosts of the mega event, to ensure the smooth organisation of the match. An objective review of Pakistan-India cricket over the past many decades shows that matches held in India are prone to interventions by political and other forces that have jeopardised tours by Pakistan.

In fact, the unease and animosity that surround the matches between the two countries have often overshadowed the significance of the competition itself. These instances have caused resentment among Pakistani players and officials. Having said that, the PCB’s faltering stance on India’s rather aggressive posture leaves a lot to be desired as well. A constant state of indecision reigns at the PCB on such occasions, something that has justifiably earned the ire of critics and former players in the country. Believing them to be sufficiently embittered by the events of the past few months, one had expected PCB officials to pre-empt the emerging scenario in India and to unequivocally lay down their terms — before both the ICC and the BCCI — for the team’s participation in the World T20. Their belated onslaught, therefore, does not guarantee a favourable result at the moment.



THE prime minister’s initiative to plant 100m trees across the country over the next five years under the Green Pakistan programme is a welcome step. Too much of our national conversation is dominated by politics and talk of mega projects, so an ambitious programme centred on a green initiative comes as a breath of fresh air. As it is, we have missed our target for increasing forest cover to 6pc by 2015, and by the looks of it, that target will remain elusive for many more years to come. In addition, coastal mangroves, non-timber forests in the mountainous areas and the preservation of biodiversity are also important goals that need to be either added to the programme, or addressed through similarly muscular plans.

But it is hard to escape the feeling that the programme has been launched on somewhat capricious grounds. It takes its inspiration from the Great Green Wall of China, a project launched to halt the growth of the Gobi desert. That programme was launched in 1978 and will continue till 2050, and is possibly the largest ecological engineering project in the world today, seeing over 259,000 square kilometres of arid land brought under tree cover since its inception. Another Great Green Wall project is under way in Africa, through donor support, to plant a belt of trees on the southern fringe of the Sahara desert to serve as a natural barrier to its expansion. Green walls are used for these purposes for containing growing desertification where the line between arid and arable land is in sharp relief.

Desertification in Pakistan is a much more complex process, and the programme as envisioned by the prime minister is not designed to hem the desert in. It is simply a massive tree plantation drive to preserve and better manage the forest and wildlife resources of the country. That is a laudable objective, and the programme deserves to be pursued strenuously. But it would be better if it can be dovetailed with other, existing programmes that seek to increase tree cover and preserve biodiversity. Some programmes already in play include the Reducing Emissions from Deforestation and Forest Degradation, or REDD+, under UN auspices, as well as the World Bank’s Forest Carbon Partnership Facility. Merely transplanting ideas from another country to address ecological issues will not work, for the simple reason that the ecology of the two countries can be very different. The Green Pakistan Programme contains a few other dimensions that make it more than just a massive tree plantation drive, such as regular stocktaking of forests and their degradation. But for the initiative to have a meaningful impact on the ecology of Pakistan, it will need to be aligned with a broader set of programmes and build on the resources made available by REDD+ and FCPF. Let’s hope the programme grows bigger in the years to come.

Published in Dawn, March 6th, 2016
http://www.dawn.com/newspaper/editorial

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"The greatest glory in living lies not in never falling ,but in rising every time we fall". (Nelson Mandela)

Saudi ‘Thunder’

THE prime minister and army chief have just wrapped up a visit to Saudi Arabia which saw them witness the ‘North Thunder’ military exercises. Held under the kingdom’s aegis, the exercises saw troops from 20 Muslim states, including Pakistan, come together for war games in Hafar al-Batin, a town located close to the Iraqi border. The drill reportedly involved thousands of troops and equipment taking part in exercises ostensibly meant to sharpen counterterrorism skills. However, considering the fractured state of the Middle Eastern chessboard and the nature of the Saudi-led coalition, there is some speculation about the ‘real’ intent of the exercises. After all, considering that the manoeuvres were explicitly designed to cement “Islamic and Arab unity”, the fact that Iraq and Syria, which fall under both categorisations, and Iran, which qualifies under the first, were not invited is fuelling speculation. Those with knowledge of the affair say “all aspects” of cooperation were discussed by the Pakistani leadership with their Saudi counterparts. But there are troubling accounts in the Saudi media by analysts who say the drill was also designed to send a message to those who ‘interfere’ in the affairs of others — a veiled reference to Iran.

Ever since the Saudi-led coalition was announced last year, Islamabad has appeared to maintain strategic ambiguity about what role this country will play in this alliance, even though Sartaj Aziz has told parliament that Pakistan will not commit ground troops to the coalition. It appears that participation in such exercises is designed to reassure the Saudis of Pakistan’s overall commitment; after all, defence cooperation between Islamabad and Riyadh goes back decades and joint military exercises are not new. However, participating in war games is one thing; committing Pakistani troops to a coalition that may invade a sovereign state is entirely another. Should this grouping be used as a vehicle to invade Syria, then Pakistan must be quite clear about where it stands.

The civil and military leadership did the right thing by resisting Saudi pressure to join the Yemeni conflict. That ruinous war has achieved very little, while aggravating the humanitarian situation in that impoverished country. As for Syria, things appear calm at this point, with the ceasefire holding. We hope this paves the way for a permanent, negotiated end to that brutal conflict. However, should things go awry and hostilities resume, and if the Saudis and their allies decided to intervene militarily in Syria, Pakistan will have to make a decision. When, and if, that time comes, this country must keep the people and parliament in the loop and not become part of any exercise that would not only violate the sovereignty of another country, but also affect the security and stability of this country, along with putting our troops in the middle of a devastating, open-ended civil war.

Child abuse law

THE passage by the Senate on Friday of the Criminal Law Amendment Bill, 2015 has finally put in place some much-needed sanctions against child abuse in Pakistan. The bill, which was passed by the National Assembly in December, raises the age of criminal responsibility from seven to 10 years of age, and brings in a number of important changes to the Pakistan Penal Code by taking a broader view of acts that constitute child abuse. Among the various components of the bill, sexual assault of minors is punishable by seven years’ incarceration, whereas earlier only rape was criminalised. Similarly, child pornography, which did not previously find a mention in the PPC, is now punishable by a seven-year prison term and a fine of Rs700,000. Child trafficking within the country has also been recognised as a criminal act; earlier, traffickers only attracted sanctions if they removed children from the country.

In a country where around 40pc of the population constitutes under-18s, these changes to the law were long overdue, not to mention legally required as per our international obligations. After all, Pakistan has been a signatory to the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child since 1990, but its laws were woefully, shamefully inadequate in protecting minors from sexual abuse whether at the hands of predatory adults or older children. This was highlighted time and again in the media through stories of children violated in the home, in the school/madressah or on the street. However, as is the wont of societies that are reactive rather than proactive, it took a particularly horrific case — that of the child abuse in Kasur district — to shock the country into acting against the paedophiles amongst us. In that instance, it emerged over the course of a few weeks in August 2015 that scores of minors — perhaps as many as 200-plus — had been sexually abused for years and their ordeal filmed in order to blackmail them and their families. While it is encouraging that there is now legislation in place to deal specifically with crimes against minors, there must be, as always, steps taken to ensure implementation of the law as well as awareness of the issue to make it easier for children themselves to recognise sexual abuse and report it. Maintaining a prudish silence on such matters only leaves our children vulnerable to those who would perpetrate unspeakable acts of brutality against them.


AFTER the tension-filled events of the past two weeks, the focus has finally shifted to cricket itself with the Pakistani men’s and women’s teams flying out to India on Saturday for the ICC World T20. Needless to say, players and officials on both sides of the border, and millions of fans, must have heaved a sigh of relief following the recent events that witnessed allegations and counter-statements from Indian and Pakistani politicians. This clearly took the shine off a tournament that will see all the top cricketing nations competing. The episode has exposed the growing influence of external elements, especially in India, that seem hell-bent on exploiting public sentiments to thwart the recent efforts for better relations between the two countries. Cricket’s popular appeal has often been used by rulers in Pakistan and India to iron out diplomatic tensions. But the current situation astonishingly saw politicians and cricket officials from both sides swept along by the events instead of controlling them. From the beginning, the Indian authorities and the ICC ought to have shown greater determination to create a congenial atmosphere for the teams and tournament. Unfortunately, that did not happen.

For a genuine fan, cricket itself could be the casualty here. The inflamed passions of the Himachal Pradesh chief minister and Shiv Sena miscreants notwithstanding, every single seat at the 25,000-capacity stadium at Dharamsala had been sold out a month in advance. Pakistani authorities, concerned for the safety of their players, thankfully presented their terms to both India and the ICC. Their efforts have duly paid off with the contentious game at Dharamsala being shifted to Kolkata, besides the pledging of security assurances by the Indian authorities. The challenges for the Pakistan team in India today are likely to be far greater compared to a decade ago. And cricketing performances by Shahid Afridi and his men in New Zealand, and more recently in the Asia Cup, have left much to be desired. However, they can silence their detractors by doing well at the ICC World T20.

Source: Editorials
Published in Dawn, March 13th, 2016

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The world is changed by your example, not by your opinion !

THE meetings are preceded by photo-ops and followed by press releases. The optics suggest a congenial atmosphere. The public statements emphasise the ground that was covered and endlessly reiterate vows to make Pakistan safe and secure again. And yet, very little is in fact known about what transpires in meetings between the political and military leaderships of the country. Friday produced yet another example of a meeting at the Prime Minister’s Office at which military and security matters were discussed, but nothing shared about the specifics of decisions taken. Instead, there were the usual platitudes about satisfaction with the progress of military operations in Fata and rooting out terrorism from the country. Clearly, not every meeting must result in new and far-reaching decisions taken. Frequent and sustained consultation between the political and military leaderships also augurs well for national stability. But when decisions are taken, the country needs to be informed about what they are — allowing for necessary discretion when sharing operational information, for example.

Consider the cryptic description of ‘issues related to the military’ that were discussed on Friday. Were they service matters that required the executive’s authority? Or were they, as has been speculated recently, connected to weapons purchases that the military is considering? On the issue of military purchases, there is an additional reason for more information and some semblance of transparency: new military hardware tends to be prohibitively expensive and can involve significant national budgetary outlay. Given the stress and strains on military hardware in recent years with large-scale operations in Fata, maintenance, replenishment and upgradations are inevitable and should be seriously attended to. Pakistan’s soldiers need and deserve the best possible equipment within the reach of national resources. Yet, there will inevitably be trade-offs: the acquisition of which hardware is prioritised and why should be known to the country. The experience across the world suggests that when such decisions are made in secrecy, controversy and scandal inevitably follow. The military needs to be more forthcoming with the country about what it considers to be necessary and why when it comes to defence hardware needs.

The PML-N government, however, is also to blame for the present opaque state of affairs. The prime minister himself appears to have no interest in his parliamentary responsibilities, which includes informing the country’s elected representatives of key decisions being made by the government. Rare is the parliamentary session in which Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif is in attendance and that lack of interest appears to have infected his cabinet colleagues. The interior minister is an advocate of greater parliamentary scrutiny, but does little when it comes to the practice of sharing meaningful information with elected representatives. The slew of NAP-related numbers frequently spouted has not enhanced anyone’s understanding of state policies and the actions being taken. Surely, a little more transparency is both needed and wanted.

Rain-related deaths

A TRAGEDY that could have been prevented is a tragedy compounded. What else can be said of the lives lost in various towns and villages of Azad Kashmir as the weekend drew near? Several parts in the north have been experiencing torrential rain in recent days — a spell that had been forecast by the Meteorological Department. And, as unfortunately happens every year, the heavy downpour triggered landslides and rockfalls in the mountains of AJK and Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, as well as the collapse of homes. The pain of those who have lost loved ones does not bear thinking of, particularly given that most of the communities in the area find it hard to make ends meet and have little state support even in times of difficulty. Considering that this is a cycle of rain-related disaster that manifests itself every year, in one part of the country or another, it would be logical to expect the state to put out warnings during the period when rain is expected, with teams helping shore up houses, clearing drainage channels and so on. But again and again, it is the lack of preparedness and the authorities’ incapacity in the context of disaster management that is exposed.

Where Pakistan is doing very little to mitigate the effects of natural disaster, it is also ignoring and failing to regulate activities that are bound to worsen the impact of it. Take, for example, the unregulated construction of homes and substandard building materials that are in common use in towns and villages across the country. There is little effort on the part of the government to either make people aware of the dangers, or to spread awareness about which materials are better suited where, or even to have a role in creating housing for the poor, particularly in the rural areas. Then, there is the issue of illegal tree felling. While Khyber Pakhtunkhwa is working on its ambitious and admirable Billion Tree Tsunami project, in its backyard of the Galiyat, the timber mafia operates with impunity. It has been known for a long time that generally in Pakistan, deforestation is occurring at an alarming pace. In both these examples, the government — whether federal or provincial — has a role to play in reducing the level of death and destruction. Unfortunately, it seems to prefer inaction. As the Met department forecasts further rains, sadly enough we may see more tragedy.

Kurdish ‘federal region’

EVEN though all sides to the Syrian conflict have condemned it, the declaration of a ‘federal region’ by Kurdish fighters is a move fraught with dangerous consequences for the entire region. The Kurdish fighters have been in control of a strip of Syrian territory along the Turkish border, and this has served to strengthen Ankara’s certitude in its policy, for President Recep Tayyip Erdogan’s government sees the multilateral Syrian conflict only through its Kurdish prism. Syrian Kurds have been living in that country for ages and had no separatist ambitions. The degeneration of the Arab Spring into a debilitating civil war and the entry of non-Syrian militants into the country provided an opportunity for battle-hardened Kurds from outside Syria — as those from Iraq and south-eastern Turkey — to enter the conflict and make their presence felt. Their morale went up when they liberated Kobane from the militant Islamic State group and made Ankara uncomfortable.

The ‘declaration’ comes at a time when the negotiators at Geneva are having a tough time, and even though a peace formula is yet to be worked out, the ceasefire is by and large holding. At such a time, a unilateral declaration by the Kurdish group, which claims that Arabs, Turkmen and Assyrians in northern Syria are part of it, will only complicate matters and pose a threat to Syria’s territorial integrity. With Kurdistan in Iraq already having autonomous status, a Kurdish ‘federal region’ in Syria will serve to strengthen separatist tendencies among Kurds in Iran and Turkey and make Ankara’s handling of the insurgency in its east much more difficult. The recent bomb blast in the Turkish capital has made Turkey step up its bombing of Kurdish targets, thus reducing the chances of a peaceful solution to the 40-year-old insurgency. The condemnation of the ‘federal region’ move by the government and Syrian opposition is not enough; what all sides should realise is that only an overall peace settlement acceptable to all sides will pre-empt the creation of such a region.

Source: Editorials
Published in Dawn, March 20th, 2016

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The world is changed by your example, not by your opinion !