| May 4, 2003 | Sunday | Rabi-ul-Awwal 1, 1424 |
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The Kurdish tangle
Camel kids’ travails
GOING by the recent reports in the media, Al Qaeda is very much alive in Pakistan, even if considerably weakened. On Friday, Pakistan handed over three Arab members of Al Qaeda to the US. At the same time, Islamabad asked Washington to give reasons for putting some Pakistan-based organizations on its terrorist list. A more bizarre report concerned what is thought to be an Al Qaeda plan to attack the largely empty and non-functional US consulate building in Karachi by crashing a plane into it. In sizing up the problem of terrorism, one is struck by the extent of its tentacles in Pakistan and the ease with which Al Qaeda operated here until recently. Basically, the problem goes back to the US patronage of religious militants in the context of Afghanistan in the eighties.
The US armed and funded Afghan and Pakistani volunteers for jihad against the Soviet occupation of Afghanistan. In this it had the full cooperation of the Zia government and some religious parties. This turned Pakistan into a recruiting and training ground for Pakistani youths and foreign volunteers for the jihad in Afghanistan. Some religious parties — now zealously pursuing an anti-US policy — made full use of the CIA’s covert aid to organize well-armed and well-funded militias. The tragedy was that even after the Soviet withdrawal, these parties were allowed to pursue an agenda of their own. Especially during the period of weak civilian governments (1988-99), these parties enjoyed virtually unrestricted freedom to organize and maintain para-military forces independent of state control. In the case of Afghanistan, these parties backed the Taliban government and recruited and trained Pakistani youths for taking part in the Taliban’s war against their adversaries. Their policies also exerted a divisive impact on domestic politics. In their misplaced zeal for jihad, some of the parties turned quite a few madrassahs into breeding grounds for militancy.
September 11 and its aftermath dramatically changed the scenario. The jihadi organizations opposed Islamabad’s decision to throw in its lot with the US in its war on terrorism, especially its attack on Afghanistan. The end of the Taliban regime, Islamabad’s crackdown on terrorist networks, and the banning of some of the religious militias broke Al Qaeda’s back. But the organization is still there and enjoys the sympathy of certain parties and sections of society. Pakistan has no choice but to eliminate terrorism and cooperate with the world community’s fight against this menace. Incalculable damage has been done to Pakistani society and its image by terrorism. Particularly, attacks on churches, mosques and imambargahs have defamed Pakistan the way nothing else has.
Now that some of the religious parties have a sizable strength in the federal and provincial assemblies, it is time they encouraged their followers to work for strengthening civil society. It is important to note that terrorism in Pakistan emerged and flourished with the active support of non-political and anti-democratic forces. Clearly armed militancy has no future within the country or without. It is plain enough that the phenomenon is detrimental to Pakistan’s fundamental interests and to the Pakistani people’s aspiration for economic, cultural and political development in an environment of religious and ethnic tolerance, peace and social justice.
AFTER suffering years of severe repression under Saddam Hussein, the Kurdish population of Iraq is now looking to the future with both hope and misgivings. While the Kurds are understandably euphoric over the ouster of the Saddam regime, they are also aware that the special status they had enjoyed for over a decade may well come to an end. Following the first Gulf war, the Kurds managed to gain an unprecedented degree of autonomy because their areas in northern Iraq were protected by western air patrols. With the no-fly zones no longer in place following the ouster of the Saddam regime, the Kurds are now deeply concerned about their future place in a post-Saddam Iraq. Any move for self-government by the Kurds is likely to annoy the Turks. Turkey has a large Kurdish population of its own and is worried that giving greater autonomy to the Kurds might encourage separatist elements among Turkey’s Kurds. There was alarm in Ankara when the Iraqi Kurds stormed into the oil-rich town of Kirkuk following the fall of Baghdad even before the Americans had occupied it. However, the Kurdish fighters bowed to pressure and left the area once US troops entered Kirkuk.
The Kurds are now keen to return to their homes in northern Iraq, which they were forced to flee under Saddam. The Baathist regime had followed a policy of ethnic cleansing in the north because it wanted the areas around Iraq’s oilfields to be ethnically more diverse. Thousands of Kurds were expelled and Arabs brought in to settle there. There was severe ethnic tension in the area following the ouster of Saddam as the Kurds proceeded to evict Arabs forcibly from what were once Kurdish homes. The Kurdish problem is a tangled one that must be tackled in a manner that does not unduly upset other regional powers. The Iraqi Kurds realize that independence is not a realizable goal in the given geo-political context. Greater autonomy is perhaps the best option for the restive population. With Turkey too under pressure to grant more autonomy to its Kurdish population, matters could yet be amicably resolved if a spirit of accommodation prevails.
THE return of 15 minor camel jockeys from Dubai the other day shows how organized the child smuggling racket is. The under-12-year-olds had been in the UAE for over four years, and were rescued by the Pakistan embassy when their Arab patrons brought them over for passport renewals. The children belonged to the impoverished rural southern Punjab, where parents are known to sell minors because of utter poverty. The unfortunate children are ‘bought’ off by the middlemen running the camel-jockey racket and then ‘sold’ at a higher price to their principals in the UAE. Alternatively, parents are offered a monthly stipend to let their children be part of the dangerous sport. Although the authorities in the Gulf states have long banned the use of children as camel jockeys, they tend to turn a blind eye to the practice by the influential locals.
Minor children are used as camel jockeys as part of the age-old Bedouin tradition in many Gulf states. The cruel practice was outlawed because it causes physical and mental damage to children who are tied to the back of the camel as the beast runs. The trauma makes the young jockeys shriek and cry which in turn makes the camel run faster and faster. Children are known to fall off the camel’s back and get trampled under the running animals’ hooves; many of those who survive are known to develop severe mental and psychological disabilities. Some of the rescued children just brought back home to their parents have provided clues as to the whereabouts of the people involved in the racket. It is time the government came down hard on these criminals, who must be tracked down and given exemplary punishment to deter the heinous crime. That said, there is also a dire need to address the wider problem of poverty in the rural hinterland which forces some parents to sell their children for a paltry sum.