| 19 October 2004 | Tuesday | 04 Ramazan 1425 |
A losing battle for British soldiers?
Cricket's golden son
Terrorism: causes and consequences
Karachi lost its economic dynamism as a consequence of a series of ill-advised actions taken by a succession of Pakistani leaders over a period of four decades. It all began with the decision of President Ayub Khan to move the country's capital from Karachi to a new city he was to call Islamabad. That move deprived the city's well-educated, well-trained, highly experienced and politically inclined work force of jobs in the government sector.
A significant number of these people belonged to the Mohajir community. This community had come to Karachi, pulled by the promise of a better life in the capital city of the country they or their parents had fought hard to create. The move of the capital, therefore, was more than an economic loss. It was also a kind of betrayal.
The second shock was felt by the city a decade after the decision by Pakistan's first military leader to relocate the country's capital. While Ayub Khan punctured the public sector, Zulfikar Ali Bhutto inflicted an equally serious blow on the city's private economy. A series of nationalizations of privately held assets ordered by Bhutto devastated private enterprise in the city. Even when Ayub Khan took with him government functionaries to Rawalpindi-Islamabad, there was still a great deal of economic life left in Karachi.
Some of it was, in fact, the consequence of the model of economic development the military administration had pursued in the 'sixties. This model had produced a vibrant private economy. In the 1960s, Pakistan developed a commercial banking and insurance industry that was remarkable in its scope, depth and reach for a country at its stage of development.
This was not the only part of private enterprise that had grown under the patronage of Ayub Khan. The Karachi Stock Exchange also worked remarkably well. It was able to draw capital from the increasingly prosperous upper and middle-income groups into industry, commerce and finance. KSE's market capitalization increased significantly during the period of Ayub Khan. During that time established as well as new entrepreneurs used "initial public offerings" - or IPOs - to mobilize private savings and put them to use in their enterprises.
Karachi's economy would have survived the departure of the civil servants from the city had Zulfikar Ali Bhutto not killed private entrepreneurship. That Bhutto played that role in Karachi's economic travails is surprising since his affection for the city was not hidden from view and manifested itself in many different ways. Not well tutored in economics, he seemed not to have realized that by killing the private sector he was killing the goose that had laid so many golden eggs in the city.
Bhutto's nationalization of large-scale industry, finance, insurance and large-scale commerce drained modern sector jobs from the city's economy. Once again, the burden of this change in public policy fell on the shoulders of the Mohajir community.
Karachi's growing economic malaise didn't go unnoticed by Bhutto. One way of addressing the city's problems, he thought, was to bring large public sector construction projects to the city. Bhutto realized that it would take more than erecting monuments at some busy roundabouts to create jobs the young needed. Something considerably bigger had to be done. The way Bhutto went about reviving Karachi's fortunes laid the ground for ethnic conflict in the city - between the Mohajirs and the Pushtuns.
It was during the Bhutto period and mostly because of his efforts that Pakistan undertook one of the largest construction projects in its history, the building of a steel mill near Karachi. The project provided new employment opportunities first to labour from the various ethnic colonies that had sprung up around the city, and subsequently to the workers who manned the mill once it was operational. It also attracted new migrants to the city from the country's northern areas.
The pattern of job creation by the construction and operation of the steel mills offers a useful insight into the first of the many conflicts that were to turn Karachi into one of the developing world's more turbulent cities. As with most other large projects, the mill was constructed by workers drawn predominantly from the Pushtun, Punjabi and Kashmiri communities.
Once the mill became operational, the construction workers were sent home and the thousands of people employed to operate the mill were hired mostly from the Mohajir community. Since no other major construction job was undertaken, unemployment levels in the Pushtun communities increased significantly.
The workers employed in the mill found a political patron once the Mohajir Qaumi Movement became a potent force, something that happened after Bhutto left the political scene, a development to which I will return momentarily. Since the mill was a public sector enterprise, the MQM was able to use its political clout in the 1980s to expand the payroll with the employment of the members of the community it represented. Some of the employees were "ghost workers" in the sense that they did little real work but turned up only to draw their monthly paycheques.
When in the late 1980s and the early 1990s, ethnic violence erupted in Karachi the steel mill became one of several battlegrounds. The immediate cause was Islamabad's attempt to improve the efficiency of the mills by reducing the number of workers it employed. This retrenchment the Mohajir community was not prepared to accept. It was now sufficiently agitated to practise a new kind of politics - that of challenging the authority of the state by resorting to violence.
But let me return to the chronological history of the development of the factors that came together to bring so much violence to Karachi. After Bhutto's departure, another national leader stepped in the late seventies and eighties to adopt policies that compounded Karachi's growing problems. The new military president's approach to Karachi's growing economic and political difficulties was not motivated by any desire to find solutions for the city's failing economy. Ziaul Haq sought a political opportunity for himself from the city's difficulties.
He was in search of ways to soak popular support out of Bhutto's political party the PPP, which had a significant presence in the city. He tried to get to that goal by encouraging the disgruntled Mohajir community to coalesce into a new political force, the Mohajir Qaumi Movement or the MQM. It didn't seem to bother the military president that the development of politics on ethnic basis in a city with so many ethnic fault lines meant courting long-term disaster.
Even this might not have happened had President Zia offered some political space within his system to the party whose growth he was promoting. But Zia was not inclined to develop political institutions. Once the PPP's influence had been checkmated in Karachi, he left the MQM to its devices and opened space in the city for the forces representing radical Islam.
The MQM quickly gained political potency in the eighties and the nineties by practising the politics of agitation and violence. It acquired considerable support for itself as reactionary forces normally do in periods of economic distress.
The MQM, in its formative period, was a reactionary movement in the sense that it was reacting against the established economic, political and social order. The organization adopted the use of violence as a political tool for intimidating its followers as well as its opponents. A new element was thus added to those that were already present to turn Karachi into a violent place.
It takes at least two large ethnic groups to produce ethnic politics and violence spurred by ethnic interests. As discussed in the first article of this series on Karachi (September 28, 2004), by the time the city's economy went into a tailspin, it had two distinct and spatially separated ethnic groups - the Mohajir and the Pushtuns.
There was little social interaction between these two communities. While the loss of opportunities in both public and private sectors had turned a segment of the Mohajir community towards the politics of violence, the Pushtuns were still reasonably satisfied with their situation. This changed suddenly with an incident at Sohrab Goth.
The Sohrab Goth community of Pushtuns owes its origin to an entrepreneur who set up a store in the village of that name in Karachi's outskirts, selling imported merchandise smuggled into the country. Soon Sohrab Goth became the site of a "Bara" market, so called because of a similar bazaar in a village of that name, near Peshawar, which also sold smuggled goods.
In 1981, thousands of refugees from Afghanistan moved to Karachi and settled in the vicinity of Sohrab Goth. With the Afghans came drugs and weapons and Sohrab Goth became a part of a long supply chain. This chain linked the poppy producing areas in Afghanistan, small drug processing plants in Pakistan's tribal areas, and smuggling centres such as Sohrab Goth that fed the international drug markets.
Islamabad came under intense pressure from a number of foreign governments and agencies to move against this community of Pushtuns. This was done on December 12, 1986, when the government sent bulldozers to demolish the shops and houses that were alleged to be a part of the long drug chain. Reaction to the operation came quickly; two days later, on December 16, hundreds of Sohrab Goth residents descended on Orangi, a community of mostly Mohajir residents.
What ensued was ethnic violence of the type Pakistan had not known in its history. It left 170 dead and thousands injured. For several days, the government seemed to have lost control over Karachi's outskirts. The army was called in to bring peace to the city. Karachi now had another angry group to contend with - the Pushtun community.
While the Mohajir community's anger was channelled into political violence by the MQM, the Pushtuns sought solace in religion. Radical Islam along with a number of its institutions - in particular "deeni madressahs" - had arrived in Karachi along with the Mohajir community in 1947, at the time of Pakistan's birth. But it was not until the late eighties that it became a formidable political force. That happened for a number of reasons and Sohrab Goth was only one of them.
The other contributing factors included the first war in Afghanistan, the arrival of political zealots who had fought in that war, and the preaching in the religious seminaries by conservative ulema. As is now well-recognized, radical Islam has flourished in situations of economic distress; in the late 1980s and most of 1990s Karachi faced serious economic difficulties. It presented a good opportunity for radical Islam to take root.
Three raging storms have hovered over Karachi's sky for several years now. These are the storms caused by economic difficulties faced by the young and the failure of the city to provide basic services, by ethnic rivalries that cannot be contained by the political system, and, finally, by the arrival of radical Islam. Will these storms clear and bring light into city once again? The answer to that question depends on how the state tackles some of the problems that have produced this turbulence in the first place.
A losing battle for British soldiers?
In the past three months, British forces in Iraq have been attacked more often than at any time since the invasion. It is a largely untold story, however, since few British journalists have been able to get on the ground to report the situation for fear of kidnap, and it can be difficult to get access to the military.
Peter Kilfoyle, the former Labour defence minister, spoke for many at the weekend when opposing the redeployment of 650 British soldiers nearer to Baghdad on the grounds that "We are putting our troops in harm's way and subject to the vagaries of how the Americans do things". This is true, but with two caveats: British troops are already in great danger in the "peaceful" south, where armed resistance to the occupation is intense; and "how the Americans do things" already makes life very difficult for British soldiers.
Last month, I spent 12 days working between the British stronghold in Basra and the more northerly town of Amara, dubbed the "wild west". Embedded with the Territorial Army, but seeing the work of regular soldiers as well, I discovered that in these areas, and on the roads in-between, troops are being shot at with small arms, mortars and rocket-propelled grenades every single day. Six have been killed in the past two months, and one described to me how he lost his kidney on a run-of-the-mill job to pick up mail and a broken television.
Soldiers told me the reason there had not been more casualties was poor shooting, but they didn't expect such incompetence to last. In the run-up to January's proposed elections, things are likely to get worse, not to mention the predictions of increased activity during Ramazan.
Amara has been under almost non-stop attack since late summer when the rebel Shia cleric Moqtada al-Sadr declared holy war on British forces. The leadership of the town - tribal and divided in its nature - has pledged allegiance to Sadr. In August, one unit was shot at more than any British battle group since the Korean war.
In what has been dubbed the Battle of Cimic House, the Princess of Wales's Royal Regiment came under siege at an HQ set up in the downtown home of the former governor of Maysan province; in 10 days they were bombarded with 428 mortar rounds, 57 rocket-propelled grenades and countless 107mm rockets, and 86 small-arms attacks were counted. The troops fired 30,000 rounds of ammunition, more than was used in the whole of last year's "war" phase. There is no accurate record of the number of Iraqi casualties, but the soldiers I spoke to expected it to be high.
At the same time as the onslaught in Amara, 200 men of B Company, 1st Battalion The Cheshires, were also besieged in their compound in Basra. In May, 60 Iraqis died in the Battle of Danny Boy - a checkpoint 15 miles south of Amara. A recent raid on the HQ of the Office of the Martyr Sadr (the cleric's organization) in Basra uncovered dozens of mortars and "improvised explosive devices" and 155 artillery shells - a hollow victory as such weapons are easy to replace, particularly through the porous border with Iran.
The number of attacks has meant that troops are often unable to leave camp to work on the decrepit infrastructure. Nor do they take their "soft hats to win hearts and minds", an approach seen after the fall of Saddam. Soldiers must wear helmets and body armour outside their heavily fortified camps. Many spoke to me of their frustration at not being able to get out and work on the promised rebuilding of Iraq.
In a briefing, Captain Donald Francis, a spokesman for the Multinational Division (South-East), said that the British had 90 per cent consent in the area, but it didn't seem like that on the ground. He admitted that there was evidence that the British had become a problem in the eyes of the local people, and that they were trying to fix that by moving bases from populated areas and agreeing with Basra council not to turn the city into a battlefield.
In the recent heavy fighting, Francis estimates that between 100 and 150 Iraqis had been killed, but no real records are kept. He said: "We are not into body counts or how many people we kill. Every time we kill an Iraqi we will create a nationalist, and we are not in the position to wipe him off the face of the earth. We haven't got enough guns or soldiers."
So the mission was not to kill, but to neutralize "anti-Iraqi forces" - a term coined by the coalition to describe the people shooting at them, even though most armed militants are Iraqis.
An unusually frank military spokesman, Francis admitted the invasion brought with it some strategic mistakes. Disbanding the Iraqi army was a big one. "We took away something which worked in its own way," he said. "Security has been an issue since the day we arrived." But this is only one of the problems facing occupied Iraq - unemployment is very high and the failing infrastructure, including lack of power, oil, water and sewerage, will take years to fix.
Almost 65 per cent of the population of Basra does not have a tap supplying drinking water, sewage runs in thick green channels along the sides of roads, 60 per cent of the fuel is still smuggled out of the country while Iraqis wait in line for overpriced petrol and still the power works on a "three hours on, three hours off" basis - as it did under Saddam. This adds up to a frustrating picture for the average Iraqi, never mind the young militant.
The danger facing British troops is that this already perilous situation becomes explosive when mixed with the repercussions of US behaviour in Baghdad, Najaf and Fallujah. As many soldiers were keen to point out: "Whatever happens in Baghdad and Najaf trickles down to here." Any redeployment of British troops to the north will intensify this danger - dramatically so, if they are put under US military control - but it will not have created it.
One evening I drove with British soldiers through downtown Basra, escorting a couple of American National Guards to the Basra Palace compound. Traffic was heavy, and the larger American sat twitching in the back. He wished he had taken the "chopper" the few miles up the road. An ambulance approached, its blue lights cutting through the darkness. A soldier up on top of our Land Rover waved the ambulance on. Peering out of the window on the back door, the American panicked: "Whoa," he said, "they should have shot that guy."
No vehicle, ambulance or otherwise, can drive past a US convoy for fear of suicide bombers. Back in the camp at Basra Air Base, I described the scene to a senior British officer, who sighed: "Don't they see it's a chicken-and-egg situation". It was an apt metaphor for the whole country. Until the violence stops, a new Iraq can't be built. Until a new Iraq is built, the violence won't stop.-Dawn/The Guardian News Service
Cricket's golden son
In one of my cricket columns, I had written that Keith Miller and Bishen Singh Bedi were two of my favorite cricket persons. Bedi was so overwhelmed to have his name linked with that of Keith Miller that he called me up to thank me for the "great honour" I had conferred on him. Keith Miller died last week on the same day as Christopher Reeve, the actor who played Superman. Thus on a single day the world was made poorer. Keith Miller was no Superman but would surely have been a knight in King Arthur's Camelot.
I have written a lot about Keith Miller and the last time I did so was for the magazine section of this newspaper in the series "Gallery of Cricket Persons" that I write. I recalled my friendship with him and of the many happy hours I had spent in his company. Someone mentioned to me that I could have been delivering a eulogy. It seems a prescient observation, though it seemed a little sick at the time, and here I am, a few weeks hence, writing an obituary.
Keith Miller was 84 years old and had been ailing for some time, and when one is at that treacherous stage of one's life, the rage one feels (at the dying of the light) subsides. Keith Miller passed away peacefully. His death should not have been unexpected, yet I had believed that he was like Kipling's old soldiers who never die but just fade away. I was more than saddened. Public sorrow for me became personal grief.
I don't want to write about him as a cricketer. He wasn't the world's best batsman. He wasn't the world's best bowler and he wasn't the world best slip fielder. But on a given day, he could be any one of those. Keith Miller played cricket on his terms, and what he sought from the game was enjoyment. He could have been the twelfth man carrying drinks and he would have lit up the cricket ground.
I don't even want to write about him as a person even though he was a close, personal friend and there was a special bond between us. But Keith Miller was a true friend of Pakistan cricket, and when Pakistan toured England in 1954, I remember Kardar telling me that soon after the team arrived, he received a telegram from Keith Miller in which he offered this encouragement: "You can beat them." Kardar told me that the telegram lifted his morale no end. Pakistan who had patronizingly been dismissed as "the babes of cricket" had someone like Keith Miller in its corner.
When I had gone to England in 1962 to do the commentary for BBC, Keith Miller had sought me out and told me that I shouldn't be intimidated by the big names who would be doing the commentary and by the experts (Norman Yardley and Freddie Brown) and that he had heard me doing some of the county games and that I was as good, if not better, than them. "Don't be bullied by them and don't let them patronize you," he had said. I hardly knew him at that time but that he should have gone out of his way to buck me up said something of the man and it was that "something" that made him such a special person.
An even better example is when he turned up to play in a benefit match that the Karachi Cricket Association had arranged for Adhu, one of its low level functionaries, a jack of all trades but of modest means and humble origins. It was a fine gesture by KCA but it was not one of those grand benefit matches. It was played at the Karachi Gymkhana but it was an inspired decision as well as an insolent one to have asked someone of the stature of Keith Miller to play in this match. But he came happily.
It was on this occasion that I met him for the first time, and Kardar had asked me to look after him so I took him to lunch. He seemed more keen to talk about his days as a fighter-pilot in the Royal Australian Air Force, once he found out that one of my brothers too had been in the air force and been awarded a M.B.E. But enough cricket was discussed and a basis had been laid for a relationship that would ultimately develop into a close friendship.
In 1967, I had gone to England once again to do the cricket commentary. As I surveyed the press box at Lord's, I found seated there or huddled at the bar some of the most famous names in cricket. My son Javed was then six years old and I decided to get the autographs of some of these cricket legends and present the autograph book to him. When he got a little older, he would know its value.
He still has it. I got autographs from Learie Constantine, Richie Benaud, Freddie Truman, Len Hutton, Trevor Bailey and John Arlott. When I went to Keith Miller, he seemed surprised that I wanted his autograph. I told him it was for my son. He asked me his name and how old he was. He then wrote in the autograph book: "Dear Javed, hope to see you play at Lord's".
Keith Miller was the golden boy of cricket but he was also the English summer. The writer Sir James Barrie captures the magic: " rural cricket match in buttercup time, seen and heard through the trees, it is surely the loveliest scene in England and the most disarming sound. From the ranks of the unseen dead, forever passing along our country lanes on their eternal journey, the Englishmen fall out for a moment to look over the gate of the cricket field and smile". When I first came across this passage, for some unknown reason I thought of Keith Miller. He too would have looked over the gate of the cricket field and smiled.
Rightly his death is being mourned all over the cricket world. Too late to tell him now that I valued his friendship as if it was some priceless diamond. He was not just a great man. He was also a good man.
Terrorism: causes and consequences
Terrorism has emerged as the most pressing concern of governments, and after 9/11, the sole superpower has launched a war against terror, in which those who do not support it are deemed to be against it. A careful analysis of the causes of terrorism would lead to the conclusion that it is the state terrorism launched by the superpower, that has given birth to terrorism at popular level.
The doctrine of pre-emption, which the Bush administration has adopted, creates a system under which the US, that bore the brunt of the terrorist attack of 9/11, has the right to use its awesome force against any state or organization that may be suspected of having plans to use terrorist methods against it. The rationale is that having access to overwhelming force, the US would not wait to be attacked and subjected to damage of catastrophic proportions, but would act in a pre-emptive manner to destroy the weapons of mass destruction prepared against it, and to annihilate those governments involved in drawing up such plans.
Present evaluations link the phenomenon to militant Islam, some elements of whose followers seek to establish a theocratic Islamic state by attacking and undermining the existing order that is dominated by the West. Two observations need to be made on this theory. Firstly, Islam, whose name means "religion of peace", does not preach violence, but seeks to create a harmonious society, in which the rights of all, Muslims and non-Muslims alike are protected.
Secondly, terrorism has existed over the centuries, and was practised by the Jews in Palestine in the period immediately after the Second World War, while a terrorist act by a Christian triggered the First World War. The current tendency to view the war against terrorism as a conflict between civilizations distorts realities to justify what is seen as a neo-imperialist drive to dominate the Islamic world.
Religious extremism does exist, among certain groups within all religions. In Pakistan, various religious sects and schools of thought emerged over differing interpretations of the Islamic value system that tended to encourage sectarian violence. Some of the "jihadist" thinking was nurtured in a small number of religious schools, but the main impulses to encourage militancy came from abroad.
The Iranian revolution of 1979, which overthrew the Shah, tended in its early years to encourage Shia communities to assert themselves, through militias and youth movements. This produced a reaction among the Sunni hard-liners who launched their own militia, the Sipah-i-Sahaba. The tussle in the Khomeini period between Iran and Saudi Arabia affected Pakistan in the shape of religious extremism and militancy that resulted in a crisis of law and order, owing to frequent clashes between the religious militias.
The other impulse for militancy came from the United States, which sought to promote the spirit of religious fervour in the Afghan jihad against the Soviet occupation of Afghanistan in late 1979. The CIA assembled thousands of Islamic militants from nearly 20 Islamic countries.
The services of Osama bin Laden were utilized and the American media praised his role in building up resistance against the Soviet forces. The US also provided liberal funds to support madressahs that were training Afghan militants. These militants later became the nucleus for the Taliban. All this was done to inflict the maximum damage on America's cold war rival.
Once the cold war was over, following the Soviet defeat in Afghanistan to which the Muslim religious sentiment contributed hugely, the United States made a U-turn in its perceptions, and identified Islam as the successor threat to communism. Pakistan was subjected to sanctions, and the jihadist movements that were utilized in Afghanistan were now described as containing extremists and enemies of western civilization. However, the boost that madressahs, and Islamic militants had received, could not be switched off.
In fact, the indigenous movement that was launched by the Kashmiris in 1989, to which India responded with ruthless repression, now aroused militancy in support of the Muslim freedom fighters in Indian-held Kashmir. Some of the foreign mujahideen, who had fought in Afghanistan, also turned their attention to this theatre.
Within Pakistan, militancy in support of the oppressed people of Kashmir gained momentum, and several new organizations were established, based largely on Kashmiris living in Pakistan and Azad Kashmir. The movement in Kashmir was considered legitimate because the right of the Kashmiris to self-determination had been recognized in United Nations resolutions.
Besides the historical facts relating to South Asia, the roots of terrorism lie in injustice, whether political or economic. When the legitimate rights of people are violated, and peaceful avenues for redressing their situation are blocked, the affected groups may turn, as a last resort, to terrorism. Perhaps the most blatant injustice has been committed against the Palestinian Arabs, whose homeland has been converted into a Jewish national home, through the backing of Britain and the United States.
Though the Jews suffered from victimization and genocide in Nazi Germany during the Second World War, they have resorted to similar tactics against the Arabs in Palestine, most of whom have become refugees, and whose lands continue to be expropriated by Israel, with the connivance of the US. Such is the state of despair, and revulsion over Israeli tactics that the Palestinians have turned to terror.
They have accepted a series of proposals that have progressively eroded their position; Israel flouts them after accepting them with US backing. The real solution to the problem of terrorism, whether in Palestine or Kashmir, is to respect the resolutions of the UN, which the great powers implement in other cases where they suits them. Russia is facing a similar problem in Chechnya where it seeks to perpetuate its hold on an oil-rich region, without accommodating legitimate demands for autonomy.
Since the events of 9/11, as the US has relied on pre-emption on the basis of overwhelming force, and has shown scant regard for human life or legitimate concerns in Islamic countries, the militant groups have risen up even in places where terrorism did not exist, such as Iraq. No matter how deeply they resent the crusade against Muslim countries, this militant response is not the answer, especially when it is directed against the legitimate authority within the country. The most regrettable aspect of this situation is that it projects a wrong image of Islam.
To cope successfully with terrorism, the governments of Islamic countries need to move decisively against groups organized to use force against the legal authority, including resort to assassinations, that may be based on political or sectarian differences. Not only should such organizations be banned, but also those involved in terrorist acts must be meted out deterrent punishment.
At risk is peace and stability within the land, as well as the image of Islam as one of the great religions of the world. The adoption of the approach based on enlightened moderation, demands that the advocates of extremism and terrorism must be brought to book, and their influence eliminated.
However, the remedy for the curse of terrorism requires broader international action to counter the trend towards extremism. Such action should address the root causes, which is best done by a world body such as the United Nations. Both the solution of political problems, and the reform of the economic order can be best done under the overall direction of the world body, whose charter has the two aims of ending the scourge of war and of promoting the economic and social well-being of mankind.
Though the responsibility for defeating or overcoming terrorism has been assumed mainly by the United States, since it was the target of the 9/11 attack, the terrorist outrage was related to its unqualified support to Israel. As the sole superpower, it has a primary responsibility for safeguarding peace and stability in the world. However, the manner in which it is performing this role has not only earned it unpopularity on account of its seeming indifference to human rights, but has produced a terrorist reaction in the countries it has occupied.
While resort to criminal acts by terrorists must be dealt with by the governments concerned, with technical or financial assistance where needed, the long-term solution of terrorism lies in removing injustices from the world, which would be best coordinated by the UN. However, the Organization of the Islamic Conference (OIC) can play a significant role in the Islamic world by implementing the Pakistan-sponsored resolution it adopted unanimously at its summit in Malaysia last year on adopting "enlightened moderation" as the guiding principle to promoting progress and to improving its international image.
Terrorism limits the effectiveness of efforts to improve the quality of life within the country through development. When it turns against friendly foreigners helping with economic projects, as has happened with the Chinese engineers in Gwadar and the Tribal Areas, it damages important relationships, and discourages investment into projects designed to end poverty and deprivation. Terrorism is thus a crime not only against the law, but also against the people and their foreign friends. That is why coping with it has emerged as the top priority of the government.