The people and their armed forces

June 18th, 2011

Reports in the foreign press have suggested, quoting unnamed American officials, that army chief General Ashfaq Pervez Kayani has been “feeling the heat” in his job because of rising anger and discontentment among the military’s rank and file, following the May 2 raid by US Navy SEALs which led to the killing of Osama bin Laden in a compound in the garrison town of Abbottabad (the incident raises legitimate questions which need answers).

These reports also follow what many considered to be an unprecedented public statement by the military, following the most recent corps commanders’ conference. However, as has already been said on these pages, the response left a lot to be desired.

For instance, the only admission of mistake — which seemed to have been forced by parliament following a tense in-camera briefing — has come when the director-general of the ISI offered to resign. However, when it came to questions on how US helicopters could fly from our western border all the way to a city an hour’s drive from Islamabad, the explanations given by the air force were less than satisfactory.

This was followed by the PNS Mehran attack in which a major naval and air force installation was under attack for almost a day. Instead of admitting that there has been a serious security lapse, the navy chief, albeit in response to a question, suggested that there had been no such lapse. This he said after the terrorists who attacked the base managed to destroy two aircraft worth over $70 million (roughly Rs6 billion). Then, a journalist who had written on the attack and had suggested that it may have been linked to al Qaeda sympathisers in the navy — who had been arrested for these ties and were not being released — was found dead soon after.

Even now, the right questions are not being asked, even by many Pakistanis, especially those sitting in parliament. For instance, apart from the issue of how the Americans penetrated so far inside Pakistan, the equally, if not more, pressing question is: How was Osama bin Laden living in Abbottabad for so many years without anyone noticing the presence of the world’s most wanted terrorist? Many people are questioning the fact that the performance of an organisation that receives over a quarter of the federal budget, and far in excess of what education and health combined receive, has not been satisfactory. But this should not only be seen in light of its relations with America and whether it can stand up to Washington, but also in relation to its past — and some say ongoing — support of militant and extremist outfits. Sending proxy warriors to fight the ‘jihad’ in Kashmir is no longer an option but questions need to be asked — why did the military even engage in such a policy in the first place? Who created the Taliban and who enabled their success in setting up a government in Afghanistan? Who allows the Haqqanis and their allies sanctuaries inside Pakistan, especially given that the cost of having extremists — foreign or homegrown — on our soil has now become known to all of us, since the militants have now chosen to point their guns inward? Who decided that there are some Taliban who are ‘good’ and some who are ‘bad’, given that they all have close links with each other? Did the people of this country, or their elected representatives, have any say in all of this? And please, for once, we would like an honest answer.

In this context, General Kayani reportedly telling his soldiers that dependence on US dole has brought Pakistan to such a pass and that Pakistan does not like interference by the US but also that it cannot go to war with Washington needs to be welcomed as realistic. Let us also remember that US presence in Pakistan is in fact a response to the presence of militants and extremists in the region. The officers’ corps should realise it is now time to return the ownership of foreign policy as well as security matters to the people of Pakistan through their elected representatives.

Lawlessness in Balochistan

June 18th, 2011

The ruthless murder in Quetta of boxer Abrar Hussain, a three-time Olympian, cannot be condemned vociferously enough. Hussain was a man who represented the country with pride, was not a political figure of any kind and had no affiliation that would have suggested his life was in danger. The banned Lashkar-e-Jhangvi has claimed responsibility for the murder and, if they are to be believed, this is further confirmation that terrorism cannot be negotiated with, it must be defeated by force. Lashkar-e-Jhangvi is notorious for fanning sectarian flames and it would appear that Hussain was murdered for no other reason than being a prominent figure from the Hazara community. That Laskhar-e-Jhangvi still has the power to carry out such an audacious attack is an indictment of the current and previous governments. The terrorist group has been involved in attacks for well over a decade now, including an assassination attempt on former prime minister Nawaz Sharif, bombing French engineers in Karachi, involvement in the kidnapping of Wall Street Journal reporter Daniel Pearl as well as scores of sectarian attacks. Lashkar-e-Jhangvi also has ties to the Taliban and al Qaeda, which makes the impunity with which they are allowed to operate a cause for international outrage. Although technically an outlawed organisation, Lashkar-e-Jhangvi has had no problems in recruiting men and proselytising their cause. As the continued operation of Lashkar-e-Taiba under the Jamaatud Dawa banner shows, such bans exist only on paper.

In condemning such attacks, we tend to forget the victims of the violence. Let that not be the case with Abrar Hussain. He was only 50 years old and in his short life had represented Pakistan at the Olympics, even winning a gold medal at the Asian Games in 1990. For his efforts in making Pakistan a force to be reckoned with in boxing he was awarded both the Sitara-i-Imtiaz and the Pride of Performance. In memory of his life and accomplishments, his murderers must be apprehended and the ban on Lashkar-e-Jhangvi enforced.

On accusations by the media

June 19th, 2011

On June 17, the Inter-Services Public Relations (ISPR) issued a statement where it expressed concern over what it said were “unfounded and baseless insinuations” on the involvement of the Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI) in the death of journalist Saleem Shahzad by “some sections of the media”. The statement went on to say that “such negative aspersions and accusations were also voiced against the ISI in some previous cases but investigations proved those wrong”. Given the sensitive nature of Shahzad’s killing and a public denial by the ISI of any involvement in his death, the release of a statement by the ISPR warrants a comment, not least because it comes just as the Supreme Court has taken up the matter. For starters, the media has highlighted the threat that the journalist had received from intelligence agencies on various occasions. In one particular case, following a story that he did in 2010 on Mullah Baradar, the journalist sent an email to Human Rights Watch (HRW) and the All Pakistan Newspaper Society (APNS) alleging that two officials of the ISI had met with him regarding the said story.The journalist concluded that the meeting constituted an indirect threat to stay away from such reporting. When his body was found, this communication was made public by HRW and the APNS. That the media highlighted this does not amount to “negative aspersions” being cast.

The other aspect relates to the point made that “such negative aspersions and accusations” were also made against the ISI in the past “but investigations proved them wrong”. In the past, accusations were made on the involvement of intelligence agencies when journalist Hayatullah Khan was killed in 2006 after reporting that an al Qaeda terrorist had died as the result of a drone strike and not, as claimed by the government and the military, in an explosion. At that time, fingers were pointed at the agencies because Hayatullah’s reporting had embarrassed the government of Pervez Musharraf. However, no investigation was conducted into the death, and if one was, then its findings were never made public. The same can be said also for the dozens of people who have died in Balochistan over the years or been picked up and held incommunicado for long periods of time. Only the Supreme Court has come to their rescue.

Taxes and the budget

June 19th, 2011

If the PPP government possesses a single ability, it is that of compromise. One may even call it cowardice and a willingness to appease every faction if it will prolong their rule. Since coming into power in 2008, they have already given in to the PML-N on the restoration of the judiciary, to the military on placing the ISI under interior ministry supervision and to the MQM on petroleum prices. Now, in his final speech of the budget debate in parliament, Finance Minister Abdul Hafeez Shaikh has given in one once again. Initially, he had said that Pakistan could not afford untargeted subsidies. Then, in his budget speech, he made an exception for buying wheat and fertiliser. Now, while alluding to pressure from parliamentarians, Shaikh has said that the subsidy will be increased even more.

The pressure Shaikh was under is obvious. Agricultural interests are over-represented in parliament and so tend to get their way. This PPP government, bereft of allies it can trust and facing immense pressure within its own party, has stuck to the rhetoric of deficit reduction but compromised on it in practice. Since curbing expenditures has now been shown to be a political impossibility, the only option the government has to reduce the deficit is to substantially increase its revenue.

The chairman of the Federal Board of Revenue (FBR), has made all the right noises about increasing tax revenue and targeting those who do not pay their fair share of taxes. The words are comforting to hear but the reality in Pakistan is that rhetoric always outpaces reality. Not only will it require immense political will to collect taxes from the rich, who include parliamentarians from both the PPP and the opposition parties, but it also needs a depoliticised, incorruptible FBR. Past experience has taught us that the FBR combines inefficiency with corruption. The government now has to make a choice between fiscal discipline and real politic. The IMF is already going to be breathing down our necks for giving in on subsidies. If we continue our profligate ways, they may decide to turn off the aid spigot.

Raid on Bajaur

June 19th, 2011

Militants from Afghanistan attacked several villages inside Bajaur Agency on June 16. They have been repulsed by a combination of official and private forces, and the Afghan ambassador has been called in for an upbraiding in Islamabad. Earlier, Upper Dir was the target for militants from across the border. The battle against terrorism has entered its most murky phase as identities of ‘enemy and friend’ become mixed. The irony is that the Americans say they strike elements that are enemies of Pakistan, while Pakistan protests to Kabul — and indirectly to the US — for raids inside Pakistani territory describing the ‘enemy’ differently. Yet some Pakistani observers think that the Upper Dir raid was carried out by a mixture of Afghan and Pakistani militants formerly ousted from the Malakand Division by the Pakistan Army.

Bajaur is the smallest tribal agency with the largest population, which means it is — or was — the most prosperous agency with most people employed in the Gulf and in Karachi. But it is also next to Kunar in Afghanistan, which has a strong al Qaeda presence. Kunar has for sometime been under al Qaeda’s influence and this is where alZawahiri was found to be hiding while he came to Bajaur, according to reports. Maulvi Faqir Muhammad, the most dreaded al Qaeda commander, has sworn revenge against Pakistan for Osama bin Laden’s killing. The Pakistan Army attacked Bajaur in 2008 and has control over the local population, but incursions from Kunar continue to destabilise towns. The truth is more complex than diplomatic protests can make clear. Pakistan’s loose hold on Bajaur is undermined by a loose hold of Kabul in Kunar. The raiders who come across the Durand Line are a mix of Taliban from both sides. Al Qaeda flourishes in these circumstances, aided by confusion over the designation of the enemy.

The good thing is that Islamabad and Kabul are talking as cooperating neighbours. But the third party with better battle outreach than both, the US, is increasingly being seen as the common foe.

__________________
Kon Kehta hy k Main Gum-naam ho jaon ga
Main tu aik Baab hn Tareekh mein Likha jaon ga

Osama bin Laden’s successor

June 20th, 2011

People who know al Qaeda knew that Aiman alZawahiri will run al Qaeda because he has been running it all along. He is the man who, by his own admission, wants to become the caliph of Pakistan, if not the entire Muslim world. He has written a critique of Pakistan’s current Constitution in his booklet Morning and the Lamp being circulated by the madrassa network in Pakistan as the next constitution of the country.

AlZahawiri’s rise has been steady but dogged, overcoming differences of opinion within al Qaeda and its international cells. Osama was vatic and otherworldly; alZawahiri was the operational brains with his doctrine of the ‘near enemy’ and takfeer (apostatisation).

Aiman alZawahiri came from a privileged family of doctors in Egypt. Himself a qualified physician, he was to acquire a PhD in surgery from a Pakistani medical university while living in Peshawar. Reading Syed Qutb, he favoured applying violence to end the jahiliyya of Muslim societies not living under sharia. Al Qaeda was created in Peshawar in 1987-88 when the intellectual leader under Osama bin Laden was the great Palestinian scholar Abdullah Azzam. Joining late, alZawahiri soon began to monopolise Osama and pushed Azzam to the margin, some say causing him to be killed in Peshawar with his two sons.

Osama was persuaded by alZawahiri’s argument in favour of al adou al qareeb (enemy who is nearby) in opposition to Azzam’s global vision of jihad which was described to Osama as al adou al baeed (enemy who is far away). This was, in effect, the beginning of the narrowing of the vision of al Qaeda. Once this strategy was adopted, jihadists were permitted to vent their own local and regional angers on the ‘near enemy’ who happened to be fellow-Muslims.

AlZawahiri wanted the US to come out and fight far away from ‘fortress America’ and he succeeded when America invaded Afghanistan in 2001, although he miscalculated the fury of Washington’s response and had to hightail it out of Afghanistan into Pakistan’s tribal areas, only to face a Pakistan Army allied with the US and its international brigade of scared governments. But this was the moment of the Pakistan Army’s punishment for having created an entire underworld of proxy warriors during the 1980-90s. AlZawahiri strategic skills later netted him the entire jihadi network plus army officers who decided to retire and join al Qaeda.

He had Arab terrorists gravitating to the tribal areas but the best thronging al Qaeda camps were the warriors whom the military had trained and been using for raids in Indian-administered Kashmir. One such person was Ilyas Kashmiri who created his Brigade 313 to take revenge on the Pakistan Army for having reneged on jihad. Then there were retired majors and captains enslaved to alZawahiri’s jahiliya and takfeer, willing to kill army personnel and army officers. The old practice in the army of letting officers go on tableeghi furlough helped in this process. Army chiefs began to be targeted in Rawalpindi.

Some say alZawahiri had put Osama away in Abbottabad in 2005 with the help of his local moles so that he could get better control of al Qaeda. If he did that it proved effective, because the forces arrayed against the state of Pakistan became stronger through integration. The Punjabi Taliban were put under the Haqqani network, although Pakistan thought the network was its asset. AlZawahiri totally overpowered Sufi Muhammad’s Tehreek-e-Nafaz-e-Shariat-e-Mohammadi and occupied Swat; he converted to takfeer Maulana Abdul Aziz of Lal Masjid in Islamabad through his Arab proselytiser Sheikh Essa and came closer to the prize he has always sought: The capital of Pakistan.

Pakistan and its elected parliament have made the rest of alZawahiri’s journey easy. If things continue as they are, the number of al Qaeda and Taliban sympathisers will only increase and a point could come when this reaches a critical level.

The defiance of Saudi women

June 20th, 2011

As the Arab Spring has continued and even grown in strength, tyrannical regimes throughout the Middle East, from Syria to Bahrain, have faced demands to step down from citizens who finally want a say in how their lives are governed. Saudi Arabia, as totalitarian as any other state in the region, has faced a protest no less brave but one with a more modest ambition. In Saudi Arabia, women are not permitted to drive. Eventually enough of them had enough of this injustice to take to the streets — in their cars. It may seem faintly ridiculous that in the 21st century women are being denied such basic rights but such is the plight of women in Saudi Arabia.

It may be tempting to dismiss the driving protests as somehow less important than the masses demonstrating in other Arab countries but that would be a mistake. For the women of Saudi Arabia, this is not just about driving. This protest allowed them to make their voices heard and to finally speak out against their second-class status. As a way of gaining publicity, this protest has been of immense help to Saudi women. In one attention-grabbing move, the protestors, doing nothing more than getting behind the wheel of a car, highlighted the hypocrisy and sexism of its rulers.

One person who should be remembered for her role in these protests is Manal alSherif, who conceived the idea and was arrested for violating public order when she set up a group on Facebook asking women to post photographs of themselves driving. AlSherif was picked up by the thuggish security services but the protests continued. An important point made by the protestors is that Saudi law itself does not ban women from driving; rather the clergy have issued fatwas against it and the monarchy dare not take on the clergy. For those who supported the protestors, it is important to remember that ending the de facto ban on women driving is only the start. Saudi women need to fight to ensure they have the full panoply of rights. After that, all of Saudi society needs to ensure that the clergy do not have veto power over the functioning of the state.

__________________
Kon Kehta hy k Main Gum-naam ho jaon ga
Main tu aik Baab hn Tareekh mein Likha jaon ga

Will the Taliban talk peace?

June 21st, 2011

Afghan war stakeholders — apart from the Taliban and Pakistan — agree that the Americans are talking to the Taliban. But the ‘real’ Taliban say they will not talk. Yet somebody is talking, perhaps a part of the Mullah Omar faction. (We know that the Pakistan-based Haqqani network is not.) This should be cautiously welcomed if the Taliban are willing to lay down their arms and work for a peaceful solution.

The situation remains fluid and there are reports that some kind of process is on to lure the Taliban to the American side. One report says that 1,700 fighters have agreed to join the ‘peace programme’. But the Taliban are 40,000 strong and are mostly in the south. And the south is not talking.

And if the south is not talking, the fighters of the north, where the insurgency is weak, may renege later if al Qaeda gets the Taliban back on the warpath. The Taliban leaders worth talking to are mostly located in Pakistan; hence Pakistan should be approached. And Pakistan is angry and full of defiance. Some Americans at the top are aware of this and are in favour of not offending Pakistan too much. They even suggest that the Americans should pocket some pride in order to benefit at a later stage, when US President Barack Obama is able to show that he has started withdrawing troops without hurting America’s security.

Money is being shelled out generously to the Taliban who wish to talk. This is bound to fail because the Afghan rule is: Take the money but yield no ground. (Pakistan has tried this and suffered). Afghan President Hamid Karzai is happy, thinking that the Taliban will be in talks, which might strengthen his tenuous hold on Afghanistan. But the truth is that if the Taliban that matter start talking, Karzai will have to pack his bags and leave. He is aware of this and is talking to Pakistan in order to open up options in the event that this happens. Yet everybody thinks that Americans can’t win this war but that it can leave only after talking to the Taliban.

Pakistan has its own angle, but it is isolationist because it doesn’t convince anyone outside Pakistan. It wants a share in the process that underpins the departure of the Americans and wants an Afghanistan that doesn’t threaten its security — and that means doing something to lessen India’s presence in the country. The world can’t understand this because it wants Pakistan to normalise relations with India by plucking the Pakistan Army out of its paradigm of permanent India-centric war mode. Also, it knows that Pakistan’s hold on the Taliban is dubious and that, at the best of times, Afghan warlords like Gulbuddin Hekmatyar whom Islamabad supported were not willing to back its policies to the hilt.

There are more complications. Pakistan is in the process of changing its threat-perception from anti-terrorist to anti-American. Pakistani analysts agree that the Americans will never leave Afghanistan but will have a considerable residual presence there to bother Pakistan by targeting its nuclear weapons in a kind of nutcracker strategy in tandem with India. They think that after the American exit more drone attacks will take place and that India will start acting up too. But Pakistan’s anti-American strategy is sharply isolationist and can succeed only if al Qaeda undergoes a transformation and stops killing Pakistanis.

When one says that the Taliban should be brought around a table to talk peace, one is talking about Pashtuns since, by and large, Taliban supporters come from Pashtun dominated southern and eastern Afghanistan. As history shows, they are persistent in fighting wars, creating long deadlocks before a final pyrrhic victory — most historians point to foreign invaders getting bogged down in Afghanistan without mentioning the suffering imposed on the Afghan nation.

Pakistan must honestly participate in a UN-backed process of talks among the main stakeholders in Afghanistan and cooperate with the US in the achievement of peaceful borders and an elimination of al Qaeda’s jihad against Pakistan. As it jockeys for a place of advantage, Islamabad should see to it that more flexible players in the game don’t end up isolating it because of its inflexibility.

Desertification in Pakistan

June 21st, 2011

A recent report has revealed that as much as 80 per cent of Pakistan’s land is arid. The United Nations Convention to Combat Desertification defines the term desertification as land degradation in dry lands. This news is troubling, given that the country is largely dependent on agriculture and reduction in the area of arable land may lead to food insecurity. The irony here, however, is that intensification of agriculture is actually one of the reasons behind desertification. Others include population pressure, water logging and salinity — the latter two of which have the capacity to rapidly destroy agriculture in the country. Here, too, it must be considered that an increase in population — which translates into an increase in the demand for foodstuffs — leads to an expansion of settlements and other urban infrastructure into arable land.

Going by the results quoted in this report, it would be safe to assume that the environment in general and the agriculture sector in particular have been mismanaged in the country. We need to ensure that we use the correct methods for agriculture, such as not overusing the land and soil, rotating crops frequently, irrigating land wisely and using the appropriate, preferably organic, fertilisers. True, the nation has other extremely pressing problems as well, but at the end of the day, the land we live in and fight for must be tended to.

Under the United Nations Millennium Development Goals, Pakistan has committed to increasing its forest cover from an existing 5.2 per cent to six per cent by 2015. But efforts must be taken to make sure that tangible steps, such as breaking the hold of the timber mafia, are taken. It is time that the environment was made a priority and not the slightest deterioration was tolerated. Steps should be taken to review and set in place proper drainage systems, and efforts made to reclaim land lost to water logging and salinity, or, in some areas, to reduce the impact of the salts. Steps should also be taken to control population growth in the country and planners should take care not to extend cities to arable land.

__________________
Kon Kehta hy k Main Gum-naam ho jaon ga
Main tu aik Baab hn Tareekh mein Likha jaon ga

Commissions and conclusions

June 22nd, 2011

The government has finally witnessed Chief Justice Iftikhar Muhammad Chaudhry nominate Justice Javed Iqbal to head the judicial commission to probe the Abbottabad raid by the US in which Osama bin Laden was killed, while Justice Saqib Nisar will head the commission to probe journalist Saleem Shahzad’s killing.

Lawyers had taken the Pakistan Federal Union of Journalists petition to the honourable Court, asking it to safeguard human rights against a government bent upon brushing the death of journalist Saleem Shahzad under the carpet. Sadly, while the government delayed forming the commission on Saleem Shahzad, another journalist was thrashed in Islamabad, possibly by the same culprits. Meanwhile, out in the streets, the opposition was excoriating the government on turning its face away from the Abbottabad raid.

The chief justice has added two very relevant conditions to the matter of commissions: That the members nominated to them be commensurate in stature with the status of the Supreme Court judges heading them; and that the reports presented by them to the government be made public or the chief justice will make them public himself. The commission probing the death of Saleem Shahzad will look into the circumstances in which Pakistani journalists in the past have been brutally murdered or beaten up.

The terms of reference for the Abbottabad commission will have to supersede the resolution of the joint parliamentary session because much that has contributed to influence the public mind is tendentious and seeks to prejudge the issue. The most important term would have to relate to the circumstances that led to the location of Osama bin Laden in a city compared to America’s West Point. The US has already declared that the top leadership of the Pakistan Army did not know that Bin Laden was living in Abbottabad, but the commission will have to ignore that.

The commission will also have to ignore the arrest of persons who are said to have secretly facilitated the American attack. More importantly, it will have to find out — and make public — who was in dereliction of duty in the matter, so that corrections can be made. One must recall that the parliamentary resolution was more focused on violation of Pakistan’s sovereignty and had recommended measures to the Pakistan Army aimed at preventing this in the future. One wishes that the parliament had waited for the findings of the commission to arrive at a balanced view of what had actually transpired and what could be done about it.

The public view has already matured in the interim. What looked like an anti-army emotion is now tempered with the realisation that the army cannot be thoughtlessly made the butt of criticism. A weakening of the military leadership is in nobody’s favour and might land Pakistan in more trouble. The nation must realise that the army alone is not to blame for the general decline of security in Pakistan. However, a sympathetic view of our army is only possible if we have an informed and balanced view of what is actually going on. If the public believes the current conspiracy theory, that the US, India and Israel are together bent upon destroying Pakistan, then no army in the world can save us.

Commissions have not had a good innings in Pakistan. Some recent commissions have suffered from premeditation on the basis of media reports. Some commissions have been shelved with a big ‘secret’ written on the file, like the famous Justice Hamoodur Rehman Commission report on East Pakistan and the Justice Shafiur Rehman Commission report on the death of General Ziaul Haq. If self-correction is the sincere aim, the advice of Chief Justice Iftikhar Chaudhry must be heeded. Past commissions reports were often shielded from public view in order to help the army save face. This time they should be made public for the good of the army.

Targeting girls

June 22nd, 2011

There are times when even the most optimistic among us must despair. The case of nine-year-old Sohana Javed is one such moment. The young girl was captured, drugged and outfitted with a suicide belt by the militants and it was only through good fortune that she was detected near a police check-post in Lower Dir before she could detonate. Even if it was not clear before, the sheer inhumanity of the militants can no longer be denied. Talk of intelligence failures is all well and fine, but when the enemy is willing to go to such lengths to inflict violence on society there is very little that can be done beyond taking the fight to them. Peace talks, which militants have previously used as nothing more than breathing space to regroup, cannot work when one side is willing to use and exploit minors as expendable foot soldiers in their war.

This horrifying indication should also show everyone that the military operation carried out in Dir in 2009 was a complete failure that only temporarily defeated militants in the area. Dir has now become a front for a host of militant groups, including the Tehreek-i-Taliban Pakistan, the Maulana Fazlullah-led Swat Taliban and even the Tehreek-e-Nifaz-e-Shariat-e-Muhammadi. Kidnappings, target killings and bombings have been on the rise in Dir almost exactly since the government said the area had been cleared of militants. Above all, it is clear that without the army’s assistance, the police and paramilitary forces are not capable of holding an area. Dir is a strategically vital area since it borders Swat, Bajaur Agency, Chitral and Afghanistan. Leaving it to the militants is as good as admitting defeat in the fight against militancy.

In talk of war, however, we should never forget the human toll militancy has taken on this country. Sohana Javed may have been the first girl to be drugged into carrying out a suicide bombing but the militants have destroyed the lives of countless girls across the region. From the wanton bombings of girls’ schools to the flogging of a young girl in Swat, the militants have specifically targeted girls and that is just one more reason that they need to be stopped.

__________________
Kon Kehta hy k Main Gum-naam ho jaon ga
Main tu aik Baab hn Tareekh mein Likha jaon ga

Hizbut Tahrir and the armed forces

June 23rd, 2011

A military spokesperson has confirmed that Brigadier Ali Khan, serving at the General Headquarters in Rawalpindi, has been detained for questioning for having alleged links to Hizbut Tahrir — an extremist organisation that was banned in Pakistan in 2004 — and it has been made clear that the brigadier had no links to the Taliban.

What is upsetting is that Brigadier Khan was allegedly hobnobbing with an organisation opposed to democracy — according to them, whoever supports democracy is a kafir — that believes in imposing khilafat on the world. Hizbut Tahrir is not an extension of al Qaeda but its desire to impose khilafat brings it close to the ideas propagated by al Qaeda leader Aiman alZawahiri. Hizbut Tahrir was allowed to operate in Pakistan together with a more lethal organisation, al Muhajiroun, under General Musharraf.

Hizbut Tahrir has, to some extent, penetrated the armed forces, as indicated by a military spokesperson. Colonel Shahid Bashir, a former commanding officer of the Shamsi Air Force Base, was apprehended by the military police in 2009 for his connection with the banned group. Along with him were others: A retired PAF squadron leader-turned-lawyer, Nadeem Ahmad Shah, and a US-educated mechanical engineer, Awais Ali Khan.

What is disturbing about Brigadier Khan being detained is that he was an ideal army officer, with a brilliant career and credentials second to none: His father was in the army as is his son-in-law, while his younger brother is a colonel serving in the intelligence service. The attraction of Hizbut Tahrir is significant because it comes laced with the thinking of UK-based Pakistani extremists. As a UK-based outfit, most of its members are Pakistani youths since Pakistanis form a majority of Muslims living there.

Based on the teachings of a Palestinian cleric, Hizbut Tahrir remains mysterious in its British manifestation. For some time, people suspected that cleric Omar Bakri headed it, then the suspicion was centred on Abu Hamza alMasri. (Bakri has been deported and alMasri is in jail because his outfit, al Muhajiroun, celebrated 9/11 and supported al Qaeda.) In Pakistan, its leaders have been sporadically jailed. Hizbut Tahrir once used the media for spreading its message but now it has gone silent. Its manpower often comes from UK-based alienated youths who land teaching jobs in English-medium schools in Pakistan.

It was in 2009 that a Hizbut Tahrir leader, teaching at a college in Lahore, aired what may be called the organisation’s plans. He said that “the organisation’s aim is to subject Muslim and western countries to Islamic rule under Shariat law, by force if necessary. Islamic rule would be spread through indoctrination, and by military means if non-Muslim countries refused to bow to it”. As for the strategy in Pakistan, he said it was “to influence military officers, persuading the army to instigate a bloodless coup against the present government. It is the military who hold the power in Pakistan and we are asking them to give their allegiance to us.”

Hizbut Tahrir may not be aligned with al Qaeda but its language does not differ from the one used by al Qaeda ideologues. The fact is that while Pakistan has a system of representative democracy which is functional, its Constitution declares it an Islamic republic where a Federal Shariat Court ensures the practice of Shariat. The Pakistan Army’s actions against Brigadier Ali Khan to find out why such an officer should betray his country’s Constitution are understandable, as is the process started by General Ashfaq Parvez Kayani to ensure that the army remains professional, free of all potentially disruptive ideologies floating around in the Islamic world.

The example of Brigadier Khan will have a good demonstrative effect and it will help the forces develop the capacity to detect designs of organisations who wish to make inroads into our military for their hostile objectives.

Violence in Karachi

June 23rd, 2011

The intersection of politics and ethnicity in Karachi has ensured that whenever there is trouble in the city, these two toxic elements will combine to lead to even more lethal violence. It is not clear which of the two factors led to the violence that has taken over 50 lives in the past week but, ultimately, it does not matter. There is no tangible difference between the two in the metropolis. Political parties that should be more sensitive to igniting sectarian tensions have instead been fanning the flames. The MQM distributed to the media a recording, complete with Urdu translation, purportedly showing a Pakhtun cleric preaching hate and violence. This is a classic case of there being faults on both sides. There is no doubt that many preachers, some of whom are Pashto-speaking, have used their pulpit as a platform for spreading hate, but for the MQM to point this out now will be viewed by some as an incitement to violence against the Pakthun community.

At this point, there is no longer any value in assigning blame. The grievances of Karachi’s various ethnic communities have been simmering for so long that it is not possible to ascertain which side was first responsible for inciting violence. The political parties themselves need to stop playing the blame game and realise that since they can cool down tensions with the wave of a hand, they will all end up being blamed for the violence. The initial response has not been encouraging. The actions of the peace committee set up by the three main power brokers in the city — the MQM, the ANP and the PPP — has not inspired much confidence. Its proposal was to remove party flags and wall chalkings from the city, hardly a move that will deter murderers.

Conspiracy theorists will suggest that the rise in violence has coincided with the dip in the reputation of the Rangers following their pointblank murder of an unarmed civilian. We must resist the temptation to lionise the paramilitary force and not see them as the balm that will heal Karachi. The solution lies with the politicians, not the armed forces.

__________________
Kon Kehta hy k Main Gum-naam ho jaon ga
Main tu aik Baab hn Tareekh mein Likha jaon ga

Pakistan-India relations: Going nowhere?

June 24th, 2011

Indian Foreign Secretary Nirupama Rao arrived in Islamabad on June 23 for two days of talks with her Pakistani counterpart, Salman Bashir, and if you thought there was any chance of things moving forward this time, Indian Foreign Minister SM Krishna whispered from across the border: Don’t expect much. He didn’t have to say it: Pakistan is going through another spasm of instability at home because of al Qaeda and the US even as the two mainstream parties — PPP and PML-N — seen as stakeholders in normalising relations with India are at each other’s throat. They both tried to garrotte each other in Kashmir where pledges were made that are totally incompatible with the normalisation of Pakistan-India relations.

India has the Mumbai terror attack card to play because the public opinion in India is stuck on it and there is more jingoism in the media there than Prime Minister Manmohan Singh can handle, despite his helpful peace-seeking remarks. The heat is off Kashmir as far as Pakistan is concerned, even though India is hardly handling the trouble in the Valley any better. The Indian policy of bothering Pakistan in Afghanistan instead is working and Pakistan is taking the bait to further damage its standing at the global level. Being a revisionist state, Pakistan suffers vis-à-vis India if India does nothing. Pakistan says India is creating trouble in Balochistan but can’t procure any proof of this. Some Pakistani officials lump India together with the US and Israel and are blaming the ensemble for attacking the PNS Mehran base in Karachi.

India hides its policy of doing nothing on peace talks by harping on about the 2008 Mumbai attack by Lashkar-e-Taiba (LeT) and asking Pakistan to cough up or punish the culprits. Pakistan is famously dragging its feet on the LeT trial in an anti-terrorism court and no longer even pretends that the world is not laughing over its prevarication. Instead, more scandals are surfacing about the Mumbai attack from a trial that has unfolded in the US against those who planned the attack together with LeT. Meanwhile, officers in the Pakistan Army are being apprehended, confirming the global fear that an increasingly unstable Pakistan is being undermined by its ‘rogue’ elements.

Pakistan’s relations with India are bedevilled by other factors too. Pakistan is alone in the region because last time it was dominant in Afghanistan it made the regional states suffer. Now everyone wants it to clean up its jihadi organisations lined up behind al Qaeda; and India is hiding behind this universal demand. Instead of asking the world to help it hunt down and eliminate these terrorist militias, Pakistan is trying to switch its enemies: The US is taking the place of al Qaeda, an organisation which is bad in the eyes of only 11 per cent of Pakistanis according to a recent poll. The media have projected to the hilt this new ‘strategic adjustment’ which favours India by isolating Pakistan.

Yet the Pakistan-India dialogue has been restarted under pressure from American and European diplomacy. Why is the West pursuing Pakistan-India peace? Because getting out of Afghanistan will be more realistic and peaceful if India and Pakistan stopped their confrontation in the region. The realisation that the Afghan crisis is nothing but another manifestation of the Pakistan-India proxy conflict is not new. The problem is that Pakistan is unwilling to abandon its old threat perceptions; and India is too willing to benefit from the fallout of the Mumbai attack and the rapidly deteriorating political and economic situation in Pakistan. The current pantomime is of no use. In India and Pakistan, people are too convinced of their separate morally correct assumptions to support any real change. What is to be done?

The ball is in Pakistan’s court because it can’t live with the current status quo, while India can. Economists on both sides thinks that the two should stop trying to resolve their disputes and take up the project of free trade and an integrated South Asian market allowing cross-border investments and communication arteries. This can be done without giving up Pakistan’s claim on Kashmir. Conditions of peace and cross-border movement will rescue Pakistan from its famine-threatening economic paralysis and encourage a grateful international community to give a helping hand.

The public’s opinion

June 24th, 2011

Pakistan, thanks to our complete inability to stay out of the news, has become the world’s favourite country to analyse, dissect, count and figure out. We complain about being the focus of so much attention yet eagerly lap up what foreigners are saying about us. The latest focus of outrage is an opinion poll conducted by the US-based Pew Research Center, which would seem to confirm everyone’s worst fears about Pakistan. According to the survey, Pakistanis on the whole would have preferred Osama bin Laden not being killed by the US; don’t want the army carrying out military operations against militants; and harbour a deep mistrust of India. And, most worryingly for the government, President Asif Ali Zardari is staggeringly unpopular.

The last point drew government ire. In a massive case of overreaction, the government attacked the survey, speculating that it may be a plot to destabilise democracy in the country. Criticisms were also made that the survey sample was too small and so the results should be discounted. Leaving aside the fact that the government should have more important things to do than comment on an opinion poll, the government obviously has no idea what constitutes a statistically significant sample. Pew had a sample of 2,000 people from a geographically diverse area, which fulfils the criterion for a scientifically valid survey. As for Zardari’s unpopularity, that is hardly surprising given the economic and security crises the country is facing. In a country where Zulfikar Ali Bhutto’s PPP remains the only party to win power in two consecutive elections, anti-incumbency feelings tend to be even stronger.

What should truly worry the government is not the survey but what it says about the country. By a margin of 20 percentage points, India is seen as a greater threat than the Taliban. Concerns about sovereignty remain limited to the US, with Osama bin Laden’s presence in Abbottabad not being of great concern. The picture revealed is that of a country in denial. While the poll shows that a majority of the country sees terrorism as a problem, we disapprove of any strong measures to tackle it. This schizophrenia is by far the biggest problem the country faces today.

__________________
Kon Kehta hy k Main Gum-naam ho jaon ga
Main tu aik Baab hn Tareekh mein Likha jaon ga

Withdrawing from Afghanistan

June 25th, 2011

After its 10-year adventure in Afghanistan, the US finally seems to be looking for a way out rather than conjuring new ways to get further bogged down in a country that no foreign invader has ever successfully invaded. But US President Barack Obama’s Afghanistan pull-out speech should not be seen as a hasty withdrawal; rather by next year he will have removed only the 33,000 troops that he himself sent to the country as part of his much-hyped ‘surge’.

The president will never admit that much but the surge has failed to the extent that he sees no point in keeping these troops around. The extra soldiers were supposed to help train Afghan police to carry on the fight against the Taliban. Given the fact that the US, too, has now approved negotiations with the Taliban, the surge has not been anything remotely resembling a success.

Even with this initial drawdown, the original Isaf troops who have been bogged down in Afghanistan will remain. And for Pakistan that may be a good thing. If the US decides to wash its hands off Afghanistan altogether, the focus will turn even more heavily on Pakistan. Drone attacks will become even more frequent and, having failed to defeat the Taliban on its own, the US will be even more insistent that Pakistan’s military tackle the Taliban in North Waziristan and elsewhere on its own.

US and Nato troops may still remain in great numbers in Afghanistan but Obama’s announcement is nonetheless a policy shift. And it is one that is likely to make Pakistan and its military continue its double game. With the US likely to be out of the picture soon, the military leadership may feel that Pakistan will need the Taliban as a buffer against India and to secure its interests in Afghanistan more than ever. As predictable as it is that this is what the military will be thinking, it is important to point out that this is a flawed tactic. Empowering the Taliban only leads to greater militancy at home. It is also high time we abandon our obsession with India and realise that peace, not confrontation, is the way ahead.

Piracy drama

June 25th, 2011

Human drama invariably engages people — all the more so when it involves pirates, danger at high sea, diplomatic rows and, of course, the suffering of families. Even those with no personal association with the four Pakistani sailors who returned home after 10 months in the custody of Somali pirates, as part of the 22-man crew of the MV Suez, which was captured last August, could not help but be moved by the touching homecoming and the scenes witnessed at the Governor’s House, where the former hostages were taken and feted at a grand reception.

But while there is indeed reason to rejoice, we should also ask some questions. The return of the men came only after many months and the payment of a ransom of $2.1 million, 0.11 million of which had been raised in Pakistan. Worse still, the seas remain unsafe, the MV Suez came under pirate attack again, after it was rescued and the Combined Task Force comprising six countries, including Pakistan, set up to patrol the waters around the Horn of Africa remained entirely ineffective. Pakistan had indeed held command of this force from November to April — but seemed unable to work out a means to save the hostages, who have stated they suffered starvation and torture while in captivity.

As a victim of piracy, Pakistan needs to take a lead in devising a strategy to make the vital stretch of water around Somalia safer. It is currently considered the most dangerous sea zone in the world; insurance rates for ships navigating it have soared and some companies have suspended operations in the area. The well-organised operations by pirates continue; the lack of an effective government in Somalia does nothing to help while piracy has benefitted many in Somalian coastal towns. African commentators also point out that ‘piracy’ by European and Middle Eastern trawlers fishing in Somalian waters and forcing fishermen to resort to piracy to survive have been ignored. All these issues need to be addressed, otherwise we may see more abductions, with no guarantee of happy endings.

Cycle of brutality

June 25th, 2011

The unusual ceremony at the Lahore zoo where the Punjab University Department of Zoology adopted two tigers for a period of one year, agreeing to pay Rs1.21 million for the upkeep of the endangered animals, goes well beyond the issue of conservation alone. As university officials pointed out, the project will assist in research and a better understanding of the life of tigers. But perhaps the most significant point was made by the vice-chancellor of the university, Dr Mujahid Kamran, who spoke of the cycle of brutality in our society.

Certainly, we have been seeing more and more violence in every form such as attacks on suspected criminals by mobs and jirga verdicts that mete out terrible punishments. These cannot entirely be disconnected from each other. The atrocities also often include the terrible treatment of animals we see. The cycle extends from here to similar cruelty to children, women, minorities and other vulnerable groups in society. We need a holistic approach to tackle these problems and prevent them from worsening. The issue of how we treat animals has received very little attention in a situation where they are many other events of a still more grave nature which affect the lives of humans.

But the whole matter should be treated as one that seeks to create an overall change in the way society operates and to create greater humanity within it. This process needs to extend to animals as well. This could be an important start in altering mindsets that see brutality as a normal part of life. Children everywhere in the country grow up in this culture. Perhaps the words spoken at the Lahore zoo, and the emphasis placed on ending the circle of torture, can play some role in achieving a goal that could make our country a better place for everyone to live in and to learn to share with species of all kinds.

__________________
Kon Kehta hy k Main Gum-naam ho jaon ga
Main tu aik Baab hn Tareekh mein Likha jaon ga

PPP-PML-N squabble

June 26th, 2011

Pakistan is grateful that the Azad Kashmir elections are in process because the pre-poll mutual abuse between the two mainstream parties in the country was becoming unbearable. The PML-N and PPP crossed all limits as the nadir reached in civilised conduct took the political polish off both of them. In Azad Kashmir, where both are trying to make new inroads, trusting that vote is hate-based, they went at each other’s throats with gusto, but they could be in for a surprise: Both could be popularly blackballed for verbal misconduct, in Azad Kashmir as well as in the 2013 general election in Pakistan.

The PML-N was always uncomfortable with the right-wing media label of ‘friendly opposition’. The label was bestowed because columnists-turned-anchors knew that the PML-N flourished on emotions of revenge and sadism based on past jurisprudence of intercourse of the two parties. PML-N chief Nawaz Sharif was unwillingly sticking to what he thought would be a new moderate image of an elderly statesman, while the hawks — PML-N has rare doves — pulled him towards the hate-vote syndrome, telling him he would lose an entire chunk of Punjab. ‘Friendly opposition’ rankled relentlessly, although anywhere else in the world it would be a good ‘democratic’ image to cultivate.

The Azad Kashmir polls began the new phase in PPP-PML-N relations. The PML-N came out like the alpha lion it is, ruling Punjab; the PPP was the fox that survived through ambivalence (vis-à-vis the army), surreptitious defiance (vis-à-vis the Supreme Court) and Benazir Bhutto’s reconciliation (vis-à-vis the PML-N). It had loosed Punjab Law Minister Rana Sanaullah on the PPP as a shot across the bow, warning of how Mian Sahib himself will launch the big salvo later on. At the centre, it was fire-breathing Chaudhry Nisar Ali Khan who attacked anything that moved in the PPP ramparts till it cloyed even the cigarette-sellers of Lahore. The PML-N was turning back to the days when the unsavoury job was done by Sheikh Rashid Ahmad, disenchanted by the PML-N and still hostile towards the PPP.

The fox came out firing from both holsters at Benazir Bhutto’s birth anniversary, making it look like the ‘Sindh card’ all over again. President Asif Ali Zardari began by calling Nawaz Sharif a maulana, with multiple innuendos contained in the term: That he was the illicit political offspring of General Zia; that he was a covert abettor of the jihadi elements in Punjab that are killing Pakistan Army soldiers as henchmen of al Qaeda; and that he was aligning with Jamaat-e-Islami in the Azad Kashmir polls. There was also the clinching reference to the Pakistan Army whose prestige was bouncing back in the media after a low point reached in the wake of the Abbottabad raid, the PNS Mehran base attack and journalist Saleem Shahzad’s killing.

The Sindhi fox had tricked the Punjabi lion. Zardari said that the PPP will not be anti-army at the instigation of the PML-N, a role-reversing remark that made many PML-N loyalists squirm in the presence of Nawaz Sharif. Here is a Sindhi, disliked by the generals because of his WikiLeaks double-dealing, trying to cosy up to a predominantly Punjabi army. The PML-N camp saw the Zardari bouncer as an almost successful attempt to widen the gap between the army and the Sharifs. Nawaz Sharif’s attempt at being subtle backfired on him. He thought that by standing firm on the commissions, he was telling the army to distance itself from the PPP, but that did not happen. The inner circle glowered and Mian Sahib was forced to bite his nails once again. So on June 20, Punjab Chief Minister Shahbaz Sharif declared that the army was the crown of his head and its generals were his brothers.

Mian Sahib’s loneliness is of his own creation. He pushed back all the white flags thrust at him, first by the Q-League of Chaudhry Shujaat, then the MQM willing to ditch the PPP and then the Pir of Pagaro trying to fell a Sindhi by a Sindhi ruse. And then there was the eternal foe, Pervez Musharraf’s APML, and a stubbornly menacing Imran Khan. Zardari, with infinite flexibility, took the entire caboodle minus Musharraf and Imran on board and it looked like he gave as good as he got in the eyes of all objective observers.

Pakistan-India relations

June 26th, 2011

The consensus analysis of the recently concluded talks between the Pakistani and Indian foreign secretaries in Islamabad is that they did not lead to any major breakthroughs. That is true enough, given that the two countries are no closer to breaking the long-standing impasse on the Kashmir and terrorism issues. But that Pakistan and India were able to hold amiable talks and promise to follow them up with ministerial-level discussions in New Delhi next month is in itself a sign of progress. The hope for normalised relations and an end to decades of mistrust from doves on both sides has led to unrealistic expectations. As long as the spectre of the 26/11 Mumbai attacks of 2008 hangs over the two countries, small confidence-building measures are the best that can be hoped for. Indian Foreign Secretary Nirupama Rao was correct in calling the dialogue a “part of a process” and small steps can help move the process along. For instance, there can be a relaxation in the visa process and regular exchanges of prisoners, especially fishermen whose only crime is to accidentally cross the maritime border.

Ultimately, though, Pakistan has to make a tough decision: Does it consider India a potential friend or a permanent foe? And that decision will be made not by foreign secretaries or even at the presidential level. It is the military that must change its thinking. So long as the army is ambivalent about its support for militant groups, like the Lashkar-e-Taiba, which stage attacks in India, peace will remain an illusory dream. Since the military hijacked the home-grown Kashmir uprising of 1989, aiding militants has done nothing to further our claims to the disputed area and led to international condemnation. But it is in our national interest to neutralise the Indian front as quickly as possible, so that Islamabad is able to cope with the trust deficits that are emerging in Pakistan-US and Pakistan-Afghanistan relations with more equanimity.

It is now time for the military to understand that its policy has been a failure, both on moral and tactical grounds. Until it comes to that realisation, peace talks will yield only marginal benefits and not a complete normalisation of relations.

__________________
Kon Kehta hy k Main Gum-naam ho jaon ga
Main tu aik Baab hn Tareekh mein Likha jaon ga

Compassion for prisoners

June 27th, 2011

In all the theoretical talk surrounding the ups and downs of Pakistan-India relations, we sometimes forget that political disputes often have real-life consequences in people’s everyday lives. Take the case of Dr Syed Mohammad Khalil Chisti, an 80-year-old virologist from Karachi who was sentenced to life in prison in Ajmer for allegedly murdering a relative over a property dispute. Chisti’s trial took 19 years to conduct and neutral observers had some doubt about his guilt despite the court verdict. Now Chisti is ailing and, under Indian prison rules, should be allowed release on compassionate grounds. His mercy petition has been lying on the desk of Rajasthan Governor Shivraj Patil for over 10 days now and no action has been taken on it. But human rights activists are confident that Chisti will soon be released.

It is always troubling when the case of one person is seen as a microcosm of relations between the two countries. But prisoners have always been used as bargaining chips in talks between Pakistan and India. Whenever there is a thaw, prisoners are exchanged and even lists of prisoners being held in each country are exchanged. Undoubtedly, just because Pakistan holds an Indian prisoner or vice versa does not automatically make that prisoner not guilty of whatever crime he has been accused of. But the sad fact is that the majority of prisoners being held by both countries are fishermen whose only crime was to cross the maritime border, most likely without knowing that they had done so. In such cases, the prisoners should be released within a matter of days, not held for years.

Each case should be decided on humanitarian and legal, not political, grounds. Both countries also need to respect international law and provide all prisoners from the other country with immediate consular access. These prisoners, both countries need to remember, are not pawns in their great game, used to gain points when needed and otherwise forgotten when convenient. The release of the crippled Dr Chisti would demonstrate India’s commitment to basic standards of humanity. If he is indeed released, then Pakistan, too, needs to make a similar gesture. Even such small beginnings show the two countries can live at peace with each other.

The plight of PIA

June 27th, 2011

The national carrier, Pakistan International Airways (PIA), has recently come up with a five-year plan to revive its flagging fortunes. Unfortunately, the plan seems to involve little more than borrowing and spending more money. The management of PIA has told the Public Accounts Committee that it needs billions of rupees to add 16 new aircraft to its fleet and also needs its debt, which is over Rs100 billion rupees, to be restructured. The plan, if accepted, is extremely foolhardy and will do little to stem the bleeding. What PIA needs right now is not another spending splurge; rather it should tighten its belt and cut losses.

As long as the international price of oil remains at stratospheric levels, PIA, and indeed every other airline, will find it hard to maintain profitability, as the price of crude oil is nearly $100 a barrel. What PIA should do, however, is run more efficiently. This will mean taking on the unions and their political connections. Right now, PIA has more employees per aircraft than any other airline in the world. Layoffs are inevitable if PIA wants to become profitable but it will require a chairman and management willing to face the political consequences of such a decision.

PIA also needs to make better use of those profitable assets which it possesses, such as the landing rights at international airports which it has already paid for. This, too, will require overcoming stiff union resistance. When PIA came to a deal with Turkish Airlines, where the national carrier would have been paid for allowing Turkish Airlines to use some of its routes, the unions erupted since any such deal would have meant flying fewer PIA international flights and a subsequent reduction in the workforce. The management was not able to withstand union pressure then, and it does not seem to have the gumption to do so now. Without that courage, any plans to reduce losses will have a minimal effect at best.

Heroin habits

June 27th, 2011

An alarming new report by the UN Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC) states Pakistanis consume $1.2 billion worth of heroin a year — 1.8 per cent of the global market. The frightening reality we see is, of course, reflected all around us. We have all come across drug users or heard of families whose lives have been destroyed by drug use. The details on drug use in Pakistan, released as part of the 2011 World Drug Report, reveal that Pakistan suffers due to its proximity to Afghanistan, which produces almost 90 per cent of the world’s opium. A considerable portion of it reaches across the border — and there have been some studies which indicate the price of the substance has not risen at the same pace as food or other essential items, a paradox that does nothing to discourage the use of the drug. There are also other facts that simply cannot be ignored. A UNODC study last year found growing drug use among women, a group that had previously been seen as free from problems of addiction. Another study, based in Larkana, had also found a growing population of injectable drug users — raising the risks of AIDS transmission and hepatitis.

The Pakistan Anti-Narcotics Force has claimed it has succeeded in preventing smuggling and seizing large quantities of heroin. But in more realistic terms, we need to assess if enough is being done to combat the drug problem. A UNODC and WHO mission which visited the country earlier this year had advocated better treatment for addicts. In most cases, drug users continue to be treated as criminals and not victims. This is, of course, a proposal that needs to be seriously considered. But we also need to do more to create awareness, and prevent the flow of the lethal white powder into our country by imposing better border controls, if the problem is to be effectively dealt with and the use of a drug that has destroyed millions of lives cut down across our country. For now, the problem continues to grow and that is disturbing.

__________________
Kon Kehta hy k Main Gum-naam ho jaon ga
Main tu aik Baab hn Tareekh mein Likha jaon ga