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  #471  
Old Monday, April 02, 2012
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The polio curse

April 2nd, 2012


As neighbouring India celebrates its first ever polio free year, thereby receiving permission from the WHO to be removed from the list of endemic countries, Pakistan faces a growing crisis. The situation is so bad in fact, that a few days ago a warning was issued that a global polio emergency could be declared in the country. If this happens it may result in Pakistanis being barred by the UN and WHO from travelling outside the country, in order to prevent the potentially paralytic virus from spreading. Beyond the inconvenience such a drastic measure could cause, we all know what this would do for the image of a country which already stands low in the eyes of the world.

Today, Pakistan alongside Nigeria and Afghanistan, ranks as only one of three countries in the world where polio remains endemic. The figures emerging are not encouraging. Last year, 198 cases were recorded which was the highest anywhere in the world. This year, we seem to be doing no better, with 14 cases already confirmed, nine of which are from Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa and the Fata region. The WHO has also expressed concern over the rise in cases in Balochistan, where over 70 cases were detected, including in districts that had remained polio free for years. This is indeed an alarming development.

Following a meeting of experts in Islamabad, it has been decided that immediate attention needs to be directed towards the troubled Khyber Agency, especially the Bara Tehsil, where there has been no anti-polio campaign since 2009. The movement of people out of the area is adding to problems as vaccination drives have to be set up at check points along the routes and at the Jallozai camp. Will this be enough to stop the spread of a disease rampaging out of control? We do not yet know. But, with Pakistan now regarded as the epicentre of polio in the world, a way needs to be found to bring the menace under control. This is a stain we need to wash away for the sake of our children and the future of our nation, as we struggle with a problem other countries have successfully overcome.



Denial of human rights

April 2nd, 2012


It is humiliating for any law-abiding Muslim of Pakistan to know that Hindu marriages are not registered officially in the country, which leaves the Hindu community completely exposed to malpractices of false conversion and forcible marriage. A protest gathering by Scheduled Caste Rights Movement (SCRM) in front of the Karachi Press Club on March 30, saw a demonstrating Hindu woman saying: “In 2011, a bill was presented in the National Assembly to pass a law to register Hindu marriages but so far it has seen no progress. Hindu women are being constantly victimised. In the absence of a marriage law, they remain deprived of basic social, political and economic rights”.

When a Hindu is subjected to incidents of abduction, forced conversion and deprivation of benefits from any government scheme, there is nothing anyone can do to safeguard their rights. One complaint that has arisen to the top of the rostrum of discriminations was expressed by a Hindu woman of Rahimyar Khan from Punjab: “For the past 60 years, Hindu women have been discriminated against. Girls and even married women are being abducted and later remarried to non-Hindus, which goes unnoticed because there is no law to protect us”. To protect their young girls Hindu parents preemptively marry them at a very early age.

In 2010, the Human Rights Commission of Pakistan reported that at least 25 Hindu girls were abducted and converted by force every month. Finding themselves thrown at the mercy of unconscionable Muslims, Hindus are leaving Pakistan, thus bringing the total population from 16 per cent in 1947 to a mere two per cent today. Since 2008, more than 10 Sindhi Hindu families have migrated to other countries every month. The eight to ten Hindu families who migrate from Pakistan to India every month belong to the well-off stratum; those left behind are the lowest of the low, deserving of the compassion of Pakistan’s overwhelming Muslim majority. However, the state is blind to this reality.

The three million Hindus, as per the 1998 census are still the largest religious minority in Pakistan, most of them located in Karachi, Mirpurkhas and Sukkur regions of Sindh. There was a time when Sindh was known as the most tolerant province in Pakistan, its people bound together by language and the Sufi tradition, respectful of each other’s faith. With the rise of extremism and the weakening of the writ of the state through proxy jihad and non-state actors all over Pakistan, including Sindh, the Hindu community has come under pressure. No one cares that the Constitution is being violated by the malpractices endured by the non-Muslims. Not even the passage of the Eighteenth Amendment, restoring the 1973 Constitution to its original shape — which corrected the deceptively altered text of the 1949 Objectives Resolution in respect of the minorities — has woken the government up to the situation.

The courts, looking into cases of alleged abduction and conversion followed by marriage to Muslims, are rendered helpless by the yet-to-be rationalised right to convert, backed by an aggressive clergy. One hopes that the government and the Federal Shariat Court are moved by humanity and take note of what is happening themselves. The ground reality fact is that individuals of a community who are brought to such a low level of survival will try to ameliorate their condition by converting. This in itself is enough to outlaw freewheeling conversions.

Christians in Punjab are subject to the same evil practices and many have resorted to false conversion to avoid the fallout of a rapidly criminalising majority community. The Hindus will benefit greatly if this negative social trend among Muslims is arrested through the registration of Hindu marriage, with the assurance that conversion of a non-Muslim married woman will be accepted only after the dissolution of her earlier marriage. Today, the state does not recognise the Hindu marriage and, therefore, displays a lack of respect for the sanctity of this minority community.
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  #472  
Old Tuesday, April 03, 2012
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Bin Laden’s ‘exploits’

April 3rd, 2012


It has recently been revealed that before living in Abbottabad, Osama first moved to Peshawar in 2002 and then shifted to Swat and Haripur. This information comes from Osama’s widow Amal al Sadeh, who along with his other two widows and two daughters have been handed down 45-day imprisonment along with a fine of Rs10,000 each. The court ordered their detention for illegal residency and ordered their deportation as soon as possible.

Now that more information is available, the first question that needs to be answered is: how did bin Laden manage to spend nearly a decade in the country without being detected? The US still maintains that it has not found any smoking gun which would prove that Pakistani authorities knew of Osama’s presence in the country, but an absence of proof is not enough to let them off the hook. Even if the authorities, who in this case mean the military, were not complicit in hiding Osama, they were certainly negligent in their duties.

Investigating the intelligence failure posed by Osama’s presence in the country needs to be a top priority of the commission tasked with looking into the May 2 raid that killed the al Qaeda leader. So far, the commission has shown more interest in looking into American violations of Pakistan’s sovereignty and making scapegoats of officials like former ambassador to the US Husain Haqqani, who had nothing to do with Osama’s presence in the country. The commission needs to recognise that Osama’s relatively comfortable sojourn in Pakistan represents a far greater violation of our own sovereignty than the Navy SEALS raid that killed him. Addressing this issue will also set the much-needed precedent (as well as show the rest of the world) that Pakistan’s civil and military establishment is serious about investigating just how the world’s most-wanted man lived undetected in Pakistan for so long.



Truly, a petrol ‘bomb’

April 3rd, 2012


The government’s decision to increase the price of petrol by over eight per cent is sure to lead to outrage and street protests, especially since petrol prices have now crossed the psychological barrier of Rs 100. The primary reason for this is the fact that the international prices of oil have been increasing at a stunning rate. Since Pakistan imports more than 80 per cent of its energy, the government has been left with no choice but to institute price hikes on petroleum products. Indeed, even at its current price, the government is subsidising petroleum products. What can be questioned is whether the government needed to increase the price by quite as high a percentage as it did.

It is incumbent on the government to realise that increasing the price of petrol sends ripples throughout the economy. Petrol and diesel are vital to Pakistan’s economy and so an increase in its price will lead to an attendant increase in the prices of other essentials. The transport of food, for instance, will now become more expensive which will obviously lead to an increase in the prices of essential food items. Our economy has suffered enough inflation in the last few years without the government all but guaranteeing further price increases across the board.

Buying oil on the international market has also been steadily becoming more expensive for the government because its actions have contributed to the depreciation of the rupee against the dollar. True, part of the reason for the depreciation is that Pakistan spends such a large amount of its foreign currency reserves on oil. But shortsighted decisions like deciding not to seek an extension of the IMF programme as well as worsening ties with the US have greatly contributed to the depreciation of the currency. Subsidising petrol is vital, but in order to ensure that it can afford to do so the government needs to get its economic priorities straight. It may not be able to do anything about the vagaries of international oil prices but it can seek alternatives to oil and get its own economic house in order.


Presidential pilgrimage

April 3rd, 2012


President Asif Ali Zardari’s decision to make a pilgrimage to the shrine of Hazrat Khwaja Moinuddin Chishti in the Rajasthan city of Ajmer is, of course, a purely personal one. Zardari, like thousands of others, wishes to pray at the burial site of one of the most revered Sufi saints in the history of the subcontinent and by doing so, he will pay homage to a man known for his vision, his wisdom and his message of tolerance. The visit is scheduled to take place on April 8 but, despite the nature of the trip, it is obvious that the visit will entail a great deal more than a devotional outing. Reports emanating from New Delhi indicate the government of Prime Minister Manmohan Singh is eager to use the visit, however brief, as an opportunity to initiate talks. There is discussion, too, on the protocol to be extended to the visiting head of state and other engagements to be organised for him. The visit to Ajmer Sharif provides an ideal opportunity for the Pakistani president to engage in discussions with the Indians and he ought to use this visit wisely.

There is certainly a lot for the president to talk about with his counterparts in New Delhi. At a time when a review of its ties with Washington is underway, Pakistan needs to build a circle of friends. This is especially true given that the US has hinted towards using India as a ‘threat’ with recent statements suggesting that the country would be an alternative if the Nato supply-line through Pakistan was not restored. The regional situation is a complex one and Islamabad needs to keep channels with neighbours open and cordial.

President Zardari’s visit offers a time for this process to move quietly ahead. Issues such as the supply of power from India can also be discussed; the matter has already been raised between the prime ministers of the two countries at the recent Nuclear Security Summit in Seoul. The trip to Ajmer Sharif is considerably significant, stretching well beyond the purely personal and into the arena of politics. Let us hope this bears some positive fruit so that the process of dialogue can at least be accelerated.
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  #473  
Old Wednesday, April 04, 2012
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A reward for nabbing Hafiz Saeed
April 4th, 2012


The United States has put a price of $10 million on information and evidence leading to the arrest and conviction of Hafiz Saeed, the founder of the banned group Lashkar-e-Taiba (LeT) and leader of the Jamaatud Dawa (JuD). He is now on a par with Mullah Omar and the al Qaeda chiefs of Iran and Iraq, all of whom carry the same reward. His brother-in-law and co-founder of the LeT, Abdul Rehman Makki, now carries a reward of $3 million.

Hafiz Saeed is arguably a most powerful man in Pakistan, heading the country’s biggest charity organisation called Jamaatud Dawa (JuD), a new name for the LeT which Pakistan accepts as “not banned”. The JuD runs schools and colleges — from kindergarten upwards — and has actually made a name for itself among the country’s poor caring for populations struck by natural calamities. As the mover and shaker of the Defence of Pakistan Council, a coalition of 40 religious parties and pro-jihad political parties, Mr Saeed is perhaps the spearhead of Pakistan’s non-state actors who will prevent the state from allowing the resumption of the Nato supply route through Pakistan.

The world believes that Hafiz Saeed masterminded the Mumbai attack of 2008 and, led by the US, wants Pakistan to prevent him “from moving freely in the country, freeze the assets of the groups associated with him and stop allowing LeT from acquiring weapons — in accordance with UN Security Council Resolution 1267/1989”. In Pakistan, the JuD is not considered the same as the LeT (because of the varying nomenclature) and Hafiz Saeed seems to be a highly respected person because of his jihadi slogans against the “enemies of Pakistan”, which at the present moment are the US and India. Of course, the 10-million-dollar reward is going to make him more popular among his particular constituency, since it’s primary uniting ingredient is hate for America. In fact, it will not be an exaggeration to say that for his supporters, Mr Saeed is a national symbol of Pakistan’s defiance of the US. International reports about the “connectivities” of JuD with al Qaeda and Hafiz Saeed’s past associations with the founders of al Qaeda are hardly discussed in Pakistan’s media. The latest revelations made about the various sojourns of Osama bin Laden before his death — in Kohat, Swat, Karachi and Abbottabad are also dismissed without comment.

Why the head money now? Without a doubt Washington has become wary of the gravitation of Pakistan’s jihadi non-state actors to Afghanistan after the exit of American-Nato troops. The US is leaving behind what is rated as the largest Afghan Army in history numbering over 200,000. US Secretary of Defence Leon Panetta has said that the Afghan Taliban are on the run after having suffered reversals inside Afghanistan. What he doesn’t say is that he fears that just as the Soviet Union was defeated by a combination of Afghan mujahideen and Pakistani warriors, this time too Pakistan could infiltrate its non-state actors to achieve the ‘strategic depth’ it requires to feel safe about its northwestern neighbour. What is scarier for the world is the perception that Pakistan doesn’t control its non-state actors hundred per cent, as demonstrated by the Punjabi Taliban fighting the Pakistan Army in parts of Fata.

Pride and honour breed defiance no matter what the odds. Defiance in foreign policy when no one in the world backs you is called isolationism which is another name for defeat in the given international order. When our non-state actors defeated the Soviet Union the world was on our side in the proxy war; in Kashmir the world was not with us, and we were not successful in humbling India. The blowback from the coming ‘victory’ against the US will be far more lethal than the blowback from the victory against the Soviet Union. The problem is not only that foreign policy is being handled by parliament in Pakistan but that foreign policy will be spearheaded by elements who have their own agenda which may not be the same as what is best for the country.



On the road to change in Burma

April 4th, 2012


The day that Burma had long-awaited finally arrived . Pro-democracy leader Aung San Suu Kyi has demonstrated that she is indeed the choice and hope for the future of the Burmese people. Her party, the National League for Democracy (NLD), contested polls for the first time since 1990 and won at least 40 out of the 45 seats which were at stake in the by-polls held on April 2. The by-polls were held as a result of four parliamentary members joining the government, thereby vacating the seats to be contested.

While Suu Kyi’s victory will be celebrated around Burma and the world — where she stands out as a heroic figure who has waged one of the longest struggles for democracy in modern times, spening much of the last 20 years under house arrest, barred from taking part in national politics — the question still remains as to whether the victory of the NLD, a party founded by Suu Kyi’s father, will bring any real change. Burma’s parliament, with a lower house consisting of 440 seats and an upper house of 224 seats remains dominated by the army-backed Union Solidarity and Development Party, which holds 348 seats in total. Furthermore, soldiers enrolled in the army retain another 156 seats. The result, therefore, will not mean immediate change, but it does send out a very clear signal as to where Burma wishes to head in the future.

The victory also gives Aung San Suu Kyi a chance to raise her voice in favour of faster reforms and a move towards full-fledged democracy. In a country that has known military rule for most of its history, its end in November 2010 was a welcome change for ordinary Burmese. Her success delivers a setback for the ruling party which will inevitably be weakened by NLD’s victory. There is now a greater hope that the principles Suu Kyi fought so hard for may eventually be achieved and the people permitted to have a say in decisions that affect their future and their nation. This is an interesting time for Burma as, the events of the past few days will give new courage to others around the world who are also struggling for democracy, freedom and peace for their people.
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  #474  
Old Thursday, April 05, 2012
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Sectarianism and non-state actors
April 5th, 2012


In Gilgit-Baltistan (GB), the cities of Gilgit and Chilas have suffered sectarian violence, and so far 16 lives have been lost and dozens injured. Gilgit city experienced reactive violence from events taking place in Chilas suffering 6 killed and 40 injured. And Chilas avenged the Gilgit violence through frenzied mobs that killed nine innocent citizens. It was the banned Sipah Sahaba in its new incarnation of Ahle Sunnat wal Jamaat that started the violence in Gilgit while protesting the arrest of one of its leaders. A mob of thousands marched to Karakoram Highway, intercepted a convoy of buses heading towards Gilgit, and killed 10 passengers after a show of ID cards. This was a repeat of what had happened earlier in Kohistan in neighbouring Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa when buses travelling to Gilgit were intercepted and 16 Shia passengers were asked to disembark and then shot dead.

There is a pattern in sectarian killings in Pakistan whether one likes to see it or not. The minority sect of the Shia is first apostatised through fatwas by extremist clergy and then targeted by armed men, some of whom may have served as ‘mujahideen’ and fought the state’s proxy wars. GB’s administration is helpless, and the military moves in with its usual curfew and shoot-to-kill orders. The region has always been under the tutelage of the military because of the proximity of the Kashmir border and because non-state actors are usually affiliated with Sunni outfits. A similar situation exists in Kurram Aagency where the headquarters of the agency, Parachinar, is Shia-majority but gets in the way of the foreign terrorists (most of whom are Sunni) who take shelter in Pakistan and the local Taliban warlords going into Afghanistan. The Shia Hazaras of Quetta are being targeted by the same elements while in Karachi the steady rise of the sectarian Sunni terrorist outfits is having the same effect as well. Since the non-state ‘warriors’ are anti-American, the blame is put on a “foreign conspiracy” — something that all sides buy into because of a shared revulsion for America.

The demography of the region is as follows: Gilgit has approximately one million inhabitants equally divided among Shia, Sunni and Ismaili populations. Into this map walked in the jihadi-religious parties. What was changed by the intrusion of Pakistani religious conflict was the cement of qawm (caste), language and region which had kept Gilgit peaceful for many years and had help maintain a sectarian balance.

The Shia have been squeezed a bit by the increase in the Sunni-Pakhtun population through ingress and through unrestrained jihadi radicalisation. The war against the Soviet Union in Afghanistan set the ball rolling because the Shia were not accepted in Pakistan as mujahideen and there was a difference of approach to the Afghan war between Iran and Pakistan, the latter being allied to Saudi Arabia which headed an Arab reaction to Revolutionary Iran.

The Shia majority in the Northern Areas in no way disadvantaged Islamabad as it faced Ladakh on the Indian side. But the population began to be seen by General Zia’s regime as posing a potential threat after 1980. Sectarian violence began there in 1988 as a result of Islamabad’s Iran policy. In 1988, a Shia-Sunni dispute in Gilgit over Eid led to a Sunni lashkar that comprised thousands of people from Mansehra, Chilas (GB), Kohistan and other areas in the then NWFP. In the rampage that followed, hundreds, mostly Shias, were killed, scores of villages were pillaged and burned, and even livestock was slaughtered.

In 1999, it was on General Musharraf’s watch as army chief that Pakistan’s Kashmir jihad policy increased the ranks of Islamic extremists in the Northern Areas. The Kargil conflict resulted in the influx of Sunni jihadi elements into the region. Extremist organisations like Sipah Sahaba, Lashkar-e-Taiba, Jaish-e-Muhammad, Al-Ikhwan and Harkatul Mujahideen opened their offices there, upsetting the demographic balance.

Today the sectarian conflict — together with the rise of the 40-party Difah-e-Pakistan Council — is the most glaring symptom of state implosion brought on by internal loss of writ of the state and wilful international isolation.



A defiant speech

April 5th, 2012


Bilawal Bhutto Zardari’s speech at Garhi Khuda Bakhsh on the occasion of his grandfather Zulfikar Ali Bhutto’s 33rd death anniversary had two purposes: to look back at the injustice meted out to Mr Bhutto by the Supreme Court in 1979, and to point out that the Court was targeting the PPP again. His fiery speech linked the two events to show that the PPP has always been the victim of the permanent establishment and has never really been allowed to govern freely. It was a speech that eschewed conciliation in favour of confrontation. But this is a fight that the PPP has not chosen; but rather been thrust upon by a judiciary that is exercising unprecedented power and an army that has never supported the PPP.

Zulfikar Ali Bhutto, lest we forget, was given the death penalty on false charges framed by military dictator Ziaul Haq simply because he feared the popularity of the country’s first popularly-elected leader. And while the current SC has opened a reference case into Bhutto’s judicial murder, it has pursued the case with far less enthusiasm than it has various cases against the sitting government. Bilawal pointed out in his speech that the PPP has partly suffered because it is not a Punjab-based party. Its Sindhi roots have always worked against it in the corridors of power — and there may be some takers of this thesis.

Bilawal’s speech can also be seen as the start of the PPP’s counteroffensive in the run-up to the next general elections. In the event that Prime Minister Yousaf Raza Gilani is found guilty of contempt by the Supreme Court, the PPP may well use that to portray itself as the victim of an establishment conspiracy. Thus the party that is in power will be able to campaign as the gritty underdog foiling the machinations of those who truly rule the country. The strategy is a shrewd one as it will shore up the PPP’s vote in Sindh, a province it badly needs to sweep in order to be voted back into power. In the coming months, as the PPP’s leaders address the hustings, the memory of Zulfikar Ali Bhutto will be a powerful tool at their disposal, as a reminder that the PPP has never been allowed to govern. Bilawal’s speech was perhaps the opening thrust in the election campaign.
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Old Friday, April 06, 2012
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Karachi blast

April 6th, 2012


Before the political parties and their proxies in Karachi decided to indulge in their latest round of bloodletting they might have stopped to consider that outside forces might take advantage of the violence and cause some mayhem of their own. That is what seems to have happened in Malir on April 5, where a suicide blast targeting a senior superintendent of police, Rao Anwar, resulted in the death of four people. It is still not known who is responsible for the attack but all signs point to it being the work of a militant group. One possibility is that the perpetrators belonged to the Sipah-e-Sahaba, as Anwar was on his way to appear in court in connection with the murder of a former Malir Bar Association president who is also believed to have been killed by the same militant outfit.

While the primary responsibility obviously lies with those who carried out the attack, the city’s political parties need to accept responsibility for having created a space where militant groups can cause havoc and confusion. With Karachi already on edge, the fear caused by such attacks is immeasurable. In fact, just a few hours after the attack, rumours arose that there was a second suicide blast in Malir, although these reports remain unconfirmed. Interior Minister Rehman Malik has often blamed a “third hand” for the violence in Karachi, which has always come across as an excuse for the government’s inability to get its own political allies to cease and desist from violence. The Malir attack shows that third parties like militant groups may not be primarily responsible for the violence but that they will certainly take advantage of it.

In light of the damage that has recently rocked Karachi, the political parties need to immediately purge their ranks of armed elements and restore a semblance of peace in the city. Otherwise we can expect to see similar chaos wreaked by militant outfits to destabilise Karachi.



The curious case of Hafiz Saeed

April 6th, 2012


When a bounty is placed on a person, especially by the world’s sole superpower, the normal reaction is to hunker down and stay quiet for a while. Jamaatud Dawa (JuD) leader Hafiz Saeed has done anything but that. When the US announced that it would give $10 million for any information that can be used to bring Saeed to trial, the head of the JuD decided to give a press conference in Rawalpindi, which aired on several news channels, among other things, he said that he was in Lahore if anybody needed to get in touch with him. Clearly, America has mishandled the situation because later in the day on April 4, it had to issue a statement saying that the bounty was not for the man’s whereabouts but for information that would lead to his conviction. Already seen by many people as a symbol of defiance against India and the West, the bounty comes as a boon for his image of a leader of the resistance against the Americans. The irony is that in announcing the bounty on Hafiz Saeed, the US has ended up adding to his fame, especially among his loyal constituency.

The fact is that the Pakistan government, and the international community as a whole, has been trying to nab the JuD chief for some time, but without getting any of the charges against him to stick. Twice, the government placed him under house arrest only for the courts to release him due to lack of evidence. The UN has also declared the Lashkar-e-Taiba a terrorist organisation but that has had little effect in Pakistan, where the group has been able to maintain plausible deniability simply by changing its name.

That said, the bounty does, however, increase pressure on Pakistan to deal decisively with the JuD chief. Presumably, the only way forward would be for the government to make a case against Mr Saeed that holds up to judicial scrutiny. After all, when the JuD chief taunts the US government to contact him in Lahore — since he is a free man in Pakistan — he is also thumbing his nose at the country’s civilian government which has tried and failed in arresting him for alleged involvement in the 26/11 Mumbai attacks.



Laptops for free

April 6th, 2012


On one level, the report about students in Punjab selling the laptops they were given for free by Chief Minister Shahbaz Sharif is good news since it shows that the spirit of entrepreneurship is alive and well among the youth of Pakistan. But it also reveals how totally flawed this laptop scheme was to begin with. According to a report, two billion rupees from the higher education budget has been diverted to this scheme which has now cost the taxpayer a total of four billion rupees. The first problem with the plan was that it did not target which students to hand out the laptops to and nor was income level taken into account. The result was that pricey colleges were now receiving a gift — thanks to taxpayers’ money — that they could already afford. It should come as no surprise, then, that some enterprising recipients are taking advantage of this largesse to make a bit of spare cash.

From the beginning it seemed as though the laptop scheme was more of a publicity stunt for the PML-N in the run-up to the elections. It did nothing to take into account the needs of the students. In a province where there are power outages for more than half-the-day, where a lot of students lack basic literacy skills and where there exists a shortage of qualified instructors, gifting students a laptop was not going to solve their need for a sound education. The chief minister would have been far wiser to spend these funds on improving facilities at schools and training more teachers.

Gifting laptops to students is like providing them with a high-speed sports car before they have learned how to drive. The point is not that they can’t find any use for the laptops; simply that there are more crucial tools they need to add to their educational arsenal first. The failure of this scheme provides insight into how government funded plans need to be well thought out and should be implemented keeping in mind the long-term interest of all those concerned instead of short-term glorification.
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Under curfew

April 7th, 2012


The sectarian violence that began in Gilgit and Chilas on April 3 has created anarchy and disorder for the region. A curfew was imposed after shooting broke out between gangs from rival sects, which have resulted in several deaths. The sufferings of people are growing rapidly as shortages of food and medicine are being reported and those who are gravely ill are unable to receive the help they need. The parents of a nine-month-old boy suffering from kidney failure have requested that he be airlifted to Islamabad so he can receive the care and treatment he so urgently needs. Whether this will be possible is an uncertainty as the region has been blockaded in a bid to stop the violence. As for April 6, the break in curfew was only of two hours, which was just about enough time for the city’s harried residents to get hold of essential food items and the like.

It has also come to light that when the violence broke out, around 20 children were caught in the mayhem and though the school they were enrolled at sent them home, they failed to reach their destination. The children, all under the age of 12, were reportedly given temporary shelter by a woman who lives alone. Hopefully, the break in the curfew will have ended their plight. Many people in similar situations caught up in the midst of the crisis have also complained of the indifference on the part of the authorities because initially there was no break in the curfew. There is also concern over why the impending clash was not pre-empted and why local forces failed to act swiftly enough to stop the spree of shooting. Gilgit has known bouts of acute sectarian violence in the past. And the question on everyone’s minds must be: once the curfew is eased and lifted, what then?

It is obvious that something needs to be done to stop the extremist groups from operating out of sheer disregard and callousness. The problem must be brought under check with assistance from the authorities concerned to end the sectarian violence and urgently put an end to the misery of the people of Gilgit.



Power and the people

April 7th, 2012


Punjab is threatening to fall into crisis, as a result of a power shortfall that has quite literally paralysed commercial life and left domestic consumers in deep distress. With power flickering on for one hour and then off for another in many parts of Lahore, while it remains suspended for far longer periods in other areas of the city and in smaller towns, the riots that we are seeing all over the country can only be expected. They have occurred in Lahore, Faisalabad, Gujranwala, Sahiwal, Pakpattan and Kasur among other places. The business community in Faisalabad, a commercial hub in the province, has agreed to observe a ‘black day’ against the acute power shortage on April 8, with traders and industrialists saying that more and more jobs are being lost by the day as machinery grinds to a standstill.

Given the situation, the anger and desperation of people is easy to understand. Tens of thousands of daily wagers are stated to be unable to find jobs. It is no wonder that in so many places chaos prevails on the roads with tyres being burnt, vehicles being smashed and offices attacked. People clearly feel they have no choice but to take matters into their own hands, or at least make their sentiments known. The PML-N has warned it will join the protests, while promises from the central government of a rapid improvement in the situation have yet to materialise.

Even as businesses collapse by the day, a lack of clarity persists as to the reasons for the problem. The inability of the government to purchase furnace oil, contributing to the build-up of circular debt, is said to be a key issue. So is the wastage of power through an aging distribution system and the country’s dwindling supply of gas. While a long-term approach is needed to resolve the situation, right now urgent steps are required to restore power supply and end the crisis in a province where outages lasting as long as 22 hours are being reported. Unless this is done, we will just see further mayhem and more severe economic losses.


Urban warfare

April 7th, 2012


In the past few days, Lyari once again became the focal point of the violence in Karachi with at least seven people killed there in fighting between local gangs and the police. That the violence in Lyari started almost immediately after President Asif Ali Zardari held a high-level meeting at Bilawal House, in Karachi, in which he ordered the authorities to show no mercy in taking on killers and extortionists shows just how far the situation has spun out of control. For all intents and purposes, the political parties have decided that the state’s writ no longer applies in Karachi and that their various gangs and mafias will sort things out among themselves. What this means is that Lyari, like the rest of the city, will remain vulnerable to bouts of internecine conflict with law-enforcement authorities reduced to playing the role of bystanders.

It is usually when the violence reaches such a crescendo that we begin to hear calls for the Rangers to be given greater powers, such as being allowed to shoot-on-sight, or even for the army to be deployed in the city. To fall prey to these temptations would be profoundly unwise since this is, at best, a stopgap solution and does not resolve anything beyond that timeframe. Essentially, the problem in Karachi is a political one and hence the solution to reducing or eliminating it is also necessarily political.

President Zardari should follow up his Bilawal House meeting, at which the governor, chief minister, other provincial ministers and law-enforcement officials were present, with another meeting that includes local representatives of all the political parties. As the senior partner in the coalition, the PPP needs to admit that it, too, is to blame for the violence. Right now, the state has absented itself from the violence in Karachi. It is now way past the time for it to establish its dominion over the city.
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The cult of political name-calling
April 8th, 2012


After the crescendo of what looked like a “reactive” Sindh Card, the PPP has unleashed a barrage of what is seen by the people as defamatory remarks about the PML-N leadership. It is reactive because the name-calling began in Punjab, spearheaded by Chief Minister Shahbaz Sharif and taken up later by PML-N chief Nawaz Sharif. The bellwether of this campaign was the PML-N leader of the opposition in the National Assembly Chaudhry Nisar Ali Khan. The not-so-hidden objective was to prepare the voters for the elections later in the year, relying on the traditional instinct of voting on the basis of hatred.

The attack on the PML-N in response has come from the PPP’s top leader who is also the president of the country, Asif Ali Zardari. Exaggeration and braggadocio is the staple of this ignoble exchange. There are ample grounds for this kind of mudslinging: the state is suffering from a weakened writ resulting in abysmal executive performance through a reluctant and scared bureaucracy in the face of a declining resource-base, all of which is made worse by rampant corruption.

The battleground rules are set by the media, which is intensely focusing on the dysfunction of the governments at the centre and the provinces. Instead of analysing the causes dispassionately, TV anchors base their shows on people’s raw emotion and then let the politicians get at one another’s throat in discussions that look like cockfights. The insult offered is primitive, recalling tribal societies in which honour is prized above all. The PPP recalls the arrest and incarceration of Mr Zardari for nearly a decade, without conviction, as a badge of honour while contrasting it with the arrest of Nawaz Sharif and his family by the Musharraf regime and the decision it realistically made to quit Pakistan instead of rotting in jail. One purely “tribal” blow was clearly below the belt: Mr Zardari denied that he had said that because of the ignominious “flight” of the Sharifs their father could not be given a proper funeral. The insult was compounded by the “fact” that the funeral was not well-attended and that its procession was taken to Data Darbar in Lahore to attract funeral-followers.

Imitating Nawaz Sharif, who has been making forays into Sindh and acting as if he plans to undermine the PPP in its fastness of popular support, President Zardari descended on Lahore on April 4 and proclaimed in pure hyperbole that the PPP would defeat the PML-N in central Punjab. This was meant more as a morale booster for the rather depressed provincial PPP leadership cowering before the insults unleashed by Shahbaz Sharif than as a credible challenge to the PML-N. The only factor that may upset the Sharifs is the compounding presence of Imran Khan’s Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf which is challenging their power in their homeground. Imran Khan, too, has latched on to the device of insulting the incumbents to incline the voters to abandon their traditional favourites. All this will impact society, polarise it further, and make the next polls violent. Language is a great prompter of action. Violent language is often an indicator of violent intent. A misguided embrace of international isolationism, xenophobic anti-Americanism and prophylactic acceptance of Talibanisation have bred intolerance and extremism as the “surface phenomena” of society. Shahbaz Sharif’s campaign to provoke the Punjab masses into undertaking a Long March against Islamabad is subtle exploitation of these social symptoms.

Some of this kind of behaviour is observable in all countries where problems abound without easy solutions, but in Pakistan it blends with terrorism and can be more anarchic and destructive of state institutions than anywhere else in the world. Exaggerated criticism tends to make later self-correction hard to achieve. There is no disagreement among economists that Pakistan will have to take hard and unpopular decisions to overcome the current crisis of the state. The PPP and PML-N are queering the pitch for anyone who will get to rule Pakistan next.



Punishing acid throwers

April 8th, 2012


In 2010, a young woman threw acid on her ex-fiance’s father to protest his alleged disapproval of the match. With meagre restrictions on the sale of acid and a poor record of incarcerating perpetrators, it was only a matter of time until acid attacks became a viable means of resolving disputes in Pakistan. The above case demonstrates that acid attacks have become so easy to get away with now that even women, who have traditionally been the victims of acid crimes, have begun using this destructive act to settle scores
with men.

In a cruel and ironic twist though, the law seems to be coming down harder on the women who commit acid attacks as opposed to the men. On April 5, an Anti-Terrorism Court in Faisalabad sentenced the same young woman to 34 years in prison for her crime. Punishing this young woman for her crime is not unjust in itself, for the law must be applied to men and women equally. Even the recently passed Acid Control and Acid Crime Prevention Bill do not limit itself to identifying only men as potential perpetrators. However, when we compare this 34-year sentence to the scores of acid crimes committed by men against women that go unpunished, we find ourselves asking questions: When was the last time stern action taken and such a long sentence was awarded to a man for throwing acid on a woman?

Inevitably, we end by comparing this case to other high profile acid crimes — the case of Fakhra Younus, for example, or of Zakia and Rukhsana featured in the Oscar-winning documentary “Saving Face”. Why weren’t the culprits taken to task in these cases? The fact is, as the weaker sex in Pakistan, women will be victimised at the expense of men whether they are guilty or innocent. Jailing one woman an as easy target for an acid crime will not prove the strength or swiftness of our new legislation on acid attacks. Only equal application of the law will send the signal that acid attacks are a heinous crime that an individual must be punished for, regardless of gender, affiliations or religion.
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President Zardari in India

April 9th, 2012


One of the more unheralded achievements of the PPP government has been the way it has repaired relations from the nadir of the 26/11 Mumbai attacks, when war seemed a very realistic possibility. Rather than try to be overly ambitious, the government has cautiously taken small steps towards lasting peace, with trade and regular high-level meetings inching the process forward. President Asif Ali Zardari’s trip to the shrine of Sufi saint Khwaja Moinuddin Chisti in Ajmer, which allowed him to hold talks with Indian Prime Minister Dr Manmohan Singh, was yet another indicator that the two countries are moving firmly towards setting up a lasting peace between them. By all accounts the talks were cordial and Dr Singh accepted Zardari’s offer of a return visit to Pakistan. This was also the first time a Pakistani head of state had visited India since Musharraf in 2005, marking another landmark in the slow return to normalcy.

The two countries are fortunate that they both have leaders who are committed to the peace process but that does not mean that danger is not lurking around every corner. The army could easily scuttle whatever progress has been made by working around the elected government and embarking on yet another military adventure along the lines of the Kargil conflict. In India, too, the hawks (of which significant sections of the media is a part) remains resolutely anti-Pakistan. Issues like Hafiz Saeed, who had a bounty placed on him by the US for actionable information leading to his conviction, are still unsolved. The two have so far decided to at least go ahead with lowering trade barriers with Pakistan set to grant India Most-Favoured Nation status by the end of the year. However, the rigid visa regime between the two, which makes it next to impossible for the citizens of either to visit, must be relaxed as well.

Also, as the recent landslide tragedy at Siachen has showed, both countries need to realise that perhaps the time has come to demilitarise the glacier.

Far more lives on either side have been lost to the ravages of weather than to actual combat and the cost of maintaining troops for both countries on the world’s highest battlefield should be enough to necessitate a final push for a bilateral drawdown.



Lessons from Turkey

April 9th, 2012


Successive civilian governments in Turkey, as in Pakistan, have had to tread fearfully around the all-powerful military for fear of being overthrown. In the last 50 years, the Turkish military has removed four governments from power. Finally, Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan and his ruling Justice and Development Party seem to be trying to alter the balance of power in favour of the civilians. The government’s decision to put on trial Kenan Everen, who as army chief led a coup and installed himself as president, is a reflection of the growing tide to keep the military as far away as possible from the levers of power. As a nation that would like a dose of justice for military adventurers at home ourselves, we should be cheering Turkey for its attempts to rein in the military.

There is certainly no doubt that Evren needs to be held accountable for his actions. Not only did he carry out a military coup against Turkey’s elected government in 1980, he also shredded the country’s constitution and was credibly accused of torture and executions. No country can move forward without accounting for its past. Putting Evren on trial will help the Turkish government dissuade other ambitious generals from lusting for power and will allow the Turkish people to get a sense of justice for the brutalities from Evren’s era.

None of this is to say, however, that Erdogan is the perfect vehicle for bringing the military to heel. In the past, Erdogan has shown a voracious appetite for power himself. In January, he arrested former army chief General Ilker Basbug for plotting to overthrow the government even though the evidence against him amount to little more but a few anti-government articles on the internet. Erdogan has also shown tremendous zeal in detaining opposition politicians, academics and journalists. His crusade against the might of the military is certainly laudable but the Turkish people need to watch out for some of Erdogan’s anti-democratic instincts. There will be little benefit from putting past tyrants on trial if it is accompanied by a new kind of tyranny.



Safer nukes

April 9th, 2012


The security of Pakistan’s nuclear weapons has figured into mainstream debate with the US, India and other nations on several occasions. The greatest fear of all is, of course, that the weapons could somehow fall into the hands of militants creating what could be a global nightmare. It is, therefore, good news that Pakistan has taken steps to avoid such a situation by setting up the new Special Response Force (SRF), which will add to the elaborate security procedures already in place to guard the stock of nuclear weapons.

The SRF has been trained by the Strategic Plan Division Training Academy and a passing-out parade to officially inaugurate it was held recently. A military spokesman stated that the force is intended to protect the weapons against any threat from external, as well as internal elements. The new security set-up is said to consist of expertly trained personnel with top-notch abilities to defend what is one of the country’s most important security assets. Even more significant is the fact that its actual range of ability is that its presence will make people in many places feel safer. Despite these measures, the potential of an attack cannot be denied, but the SRF ought to provide some buffer. The internal security situation remains a volatile one with the Taliban still wielding significant power.

It is also a fact that other nations had their eyes firmly fixed on the weapon. We have heard rumours of Israeli plans to take out the nukes with a strike. All such scenarios, of course, represent the highest level of danger for our country and also for the region. The establishment of the SRF should help calm fears and take some of the pressures off Pakistan as it attempts to deal with other pertinent problems linked to its relations with the US, India and also governments in other capitals who have raised the issue of nuclear security again and again.
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Why the Siachen issue must be resolved
April 10th, 2012


The Pakistan Army camp near the Siachen Glacier was buried under snow after history’s largest avalanche — about a square mile across — swept over it on April 7, burying 124 soldiers and 11 civilians under it. The rescue operation is underway, involving 240 troops and civilians with the aid of sniffer dogs and heavy machinery, supervised by Army Chief General Ashfaq Parvez Kayani himself. Needless to say, given the magnitude of the slippage, no survivors have been recovered at the time of writing.The tragedy has occurred at an altitude of over 4,000 metres in the Karakoram mountain range, the highest battlefield in the world where Indian and Pakistani troops are face-to-face in a war that no one in the world appreciates. The irony that can’t be missed is that the Indian Prime Minister Dr Manmohan Singh has offered to help! Sensible people in India and Pakistan have repeatedly advised the two armies to climb down and leave the glacier alone. Pakistan thinks that India is willing, but is dragging its feet over and an agreement to ‘redeploy’. In 2007, India’s Air Marshal (retd) Nanda Harappa advised India and Pakistan to call off their absurd high-altitude confrontation, “where Indian troops took 80 per cent of their casualties from weather and the human waste and war detritus produced by the two armies polluted crevasses and gullies that provide 70 per cent of the water used in India and Pakistan”.

The quarrel is absurd. The 1948 Indo-Pak war ended with an agreed map that delineated the Line of Control (LoC) which reached the grid NJ9842. From this point onwards, the agreed map simply said “thence north to the glaciers”, thus creating a no-man’s land. India says Pakistan moved its troops into the region beyond NJ9842 before it ‘responded’ in 1984: Pakistan says the Indian move began the conflict and that Pakistan was taken by surprise. And the two repeatedly came close to signing an agreement over Siachen only to be pushed back by untoward incidents in the plains.

And now the first big disaster has taken place. The glacier is becoming unstuck because of unnatural warming and has killed Pakistani troops forced to be there because of Indian deployment, threatening the economy of a water-scarce South Asia. A UN official, whose book Biodiversity Conservation in Himalayas has just been released says: “The Siachen Glacier in Ladakh has receded by about 800 metres in the last 20 years and is facing threat of climate change caused by military activities in the region”.

Siachen is the most unlucky natural location in the world because 3,000 Indian troops are living and operating there, “hundreds of machines and scores of choppers flying daily over the region, with the result that the environment and ecosystem have deteriorated. The two armies survive by keeping themselves warm and by artificially making the high altitude surface suitable for their activities, depositing tons of chemicals on the surface of the glacier, thereby not only polluting the headwaters of the Indus river but also raising the temperatures in the area”.

Pakistan wants a climb down on what has become a ‘supplementary’ dispute to distract attention from the ‘core’ issue of Kashmir. In 1999, by staging the Kargil Operation, Pakistan provided an excuse for the Indian hawks to advise their government to stay put. A neutral observer once said that: “India should take a fresh look at the policy that has tied it down to a dangerous and costly strategy of defending every peak and hillock “for propaganda reasons, not because of military compulsions”.

The tragedy struck just before Pakistan’s peace-seeking president, Asif Ali Zardari, went on a visit to India during which he had lunch with the Indian Prime Minister Dr Manmohan Singh, very much a man of peace himself. Now that both sides are committed to normalisation of relations through trade and Pakistan knows the consequences of its non-state actors perpetrating cross-border terrorism, perhaps, it is time for rationality to prevail over Siachen. Let us not destroy human life in South Asia just because the two states can’t find solutions to their bilateral problems.



Missing persons

April 10th, 2012


In a game of hide and seek that the Balochistan police and the Supreme Court have been playing for many months, four missing people were finally produced in the Supreme Court’s registry in Quetta. Three more people whose presence had been demanded by Chief Justice Iftikhar Chauhdry are yet to be presented in the court. It has been one of the worst-kept secrets in the country that the police and intelligence agencies have been illegally picking up people in the province and detaining them without charge. The Court’s insistence on seeing these cases through may be the last and best chance the families of these missing people, estimated to be in the thousands, have of seeing their loved ones again.

Equally laudatory was the fact that the Supreme Court forced the Inspector General of the Frontier Corps in Balochistan, (who is a two-star general) to appear in the court. The military has been the driving force behind the operations in the province and has been accused of involvement in the disappearances, but has never before been ordered to account for its actions. By setting the precedent that a relatively senior member of a paramilitary force cannot escape accountability before the judiciary, the Supreme Court is not only making it clear that it intends to take the Balochistan problem seriously, it is also showing that there will be no holy cows in this matter. The next step for the Supreme Court, should the officer not prove cooperative, is to move up the chain of command and ensure justice is served.

Right now, the Supreme Court may be the best hope we have in reducing tensions in Balochistan. It is the only institution in the country with the moral authority to act as an arbiter in the increasingly bloody fight between the military and the separatists. By producing and releasing missing persons, the Court can prove its good intentions and then proceed to punish those who have made kidnapping citizens unofficial policy. Integrating Balochistan into the rest of the country is a long process that will require years of trust-building. Decades of broken promises and unjust repression cannot be undone in an instant. But the Supreme Court has started by taking the right steps. It now needs to show the fortitude to see this through.
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Tackling the energy crisis

April 11th, 2012


It was only a scant two months ago, in February, that the federal minister for Water and Power Naveed Qamar told the National Assembly that loadshedding would come to an immediate halt. Just weeks after that brave, and some would say foolish assertion, the provinces defaulted on payments owed to power producers and the circular debt crisis became even worse. Loadshedding, instead of ending, increased to as much as 20 hours a day. So dire is the situation now that at the Second National Energy Conference, the government could not pledge an end to loadshedding. Rather, the best promise they could make was that loadshedding — after complaints from Punjab — would be equitable throughout the country. From dreaming of uninterrupted electricity, the government has now been reduced to placating the provinces that their loadshedding will be no worse than what the rest of the country is experiencing.

The other proposals adopted at the energy conference reeked of timidity at a time when boldness is needed to tackle the energy crisis. Among the ideas that were announced, all shops will close at 8 pm and government offices will get a two-day weekend. These ideas have been touted every year and, without fail, they have done little to conserve power. Just about the only tried, tested and failed idea not to be reintroduced was the ludicrous daylight saving scheme. It’s as if the government has decided to treat cancer with aspirin. There is simply no vision to get us out of our power crisis and so the government has put forward timid proposals that exist only for publicity and to cool tempers for a short period.

What makes the ineffectual proposals put forth at the energy conference truly frightening is the likelihood that our power problems will only multiply in the coming months. International oil prices are continuing to rise, while the rupee’s depreciation shows no signs of halting. A further shock to oil prices may come if the situation in Iran gets any worse and the Straits of Hormuz are closed. Since Pakistan imports all its oil, it may have to deal with factors that are beyond its control. Simply forcing shopkeepers to pull their shutters up a couple of hours early isn’t going to suffice anymore. We need an energy policy that is bold and revolutionary and we need it now.



Let justice be served

April 11th, 2012


So accustomed have we become to the misdemeanours of those in power that the news that the Ministry of Narcotics Control (MoNC) has unilaterally declared the accused in the Rs7 billion ephedrine scam innocent comes as no shock. The case, which emerged in October 2011 involved two firms from Multan, which were granted export quotas far exceeding those normally allowed for the drug, while they then ended up selling locally. The name of the prime minister’s son Ali Musa Gilani has figured prominently. According to a reported statement of the health minister who granted the quotas to these firms, it was done under pressure. The secretary of the ministry transferred out of the division after facing immense pressure to exonerate those involved in this case. A letter by the ministry — which the Supreme Court has now asked be presented to it — directs the Anti Narcotics Force (ANF) to stop its investigation into the matter. In fact, the head of the ANF, a two-star general was removed from his job (though he had just a couple of weeks left in his service) and presumably that was also done to prevent him from conducting the investigation into reports that had begun to surface on the what was allegedly happening. The ANF has challenged the decision by the government to remove its chief in a court of law and on April 10 the Supreme Court issued a notice on the matter to the prime minister’s son.

Ephedrine is known as the poor man’s cocaine and quickly leads to addiction. The International Narcotics Control Board set the annual quota of ephedrine for Pakistan at 22,000 kg but the health ministry allowed a quota of 31,000 kg. Given the sensitive nature of this case, it is all the more essential that the ANF be allowed to conduct an impartial investigation into the allegations. Perhaps the Supreme Court’s involvement may help ensure precisely that, so that no one, no matter how influential or well-connected, is spared from the long arm of the law.


Another sectarian attack

April 11th, 2012


There is no greater indicator of the strength of a state than the way it treats its minorities. A country that can successfully integrate religious and ethnic minorities is always prosperous and peaceful. By that metric, Pakistan is a failed state. On the night of April 9, six members of the Hazara Shia community were gunned down in Quetta city. Their unforgivable crime was simply having the audacity to stand outside a shop. No one has claimed responsibility for the attack yet, but the most likely culprits would be the virulently sectarian Sipah-e-Sahaba Pakistan (SSP). The SSP is technically a banned group but judging from its murderous deeds it seems to operate with impunity. That this is the second such attack in two weeks, with the last being a drive-by shooting in Quetta that killed four Hazara men, shows just how vulnerable the community is and just how little will exists to protect its right to life and liberty.

This latest in the series of attacks against the Hazara community should serve as a reminder, not only of the war being carried out against them, but also the precarious state of all minorities in the country. Forgotten till a large attack forces our attention, the Ahmadi community continues to be discriminated against, both by a government that refuses to grant them their rights, and a society that treats them like lesser beings, who are liable to be killed for just about any trumped-up reason. Instead of pursuing the terrorist groups and individuals responsible for these wanton acts of violence, the state just turns a blind eye towards them. As unacceptable as this violence against minority communities is, what makes it even worse is that it empowers the hate-filled groups that are the perpetrators of such atrocities. Throughout the 1990s they were allowed to grow in strength and daring as they targeted Shia professionals. Now, they have turned their guns on a state that coddled them for over a decade. Such is the harvest you reap when cowardice trumps justice.
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