| June 13, 2005 | Monday | Jumadi-ul-Awwal 5, 1426 |
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Proliferation of illegal arms
Sale of kidneys
IT may not have been a path-breaking speech. But most certainly, Mirwaiz Omar Farooq’s ideas spelled out at a symposium in Karachi on Friday must be recognized as being the most potent he has so far come out with. The ideas are pregnant with possibilities, and though he left some aspects of the Kashmir question deliberately vague, he still managed to drive home the point. A consistent theme throughout Friday’s speech, and remarks made by him earlier in Islamabad, has been the Kashmiri leaders’ impatience with the status quo and their understandable desire to end the agony of their people. He made it clear that converting the Line of Control into a permanent border was no solution and that since the UN had failed to resolve the issue it was the Kashmiri people who must now take the initiative and hold the centre-stage for a solution. More important — and this is something Pakistan and India should take note of — the Mirwaiz said the people of Kashmir could not wait for Islamabad and New Delhi to agree to a solution and that it was time the Kashmiris themselves came out with new options. The reference to a united states of Kashmir and to Tashkent gives us an inkling of the Kashmiri leader’s thinking born of frustration, for as he declared at the symposium, he saw no light at the end of the tunnel.
On the question of “other options”, Pakistan has demonstrated extraordinary flexibility, the most important example being President Pervez Musharraf’s seven-region formula, besides gradual demilitarization. It is also in the spirit of exploring new possibilities that Pakistan has been urging India to talk to the Kashmiri leaders. As for Islamabad, the Kashmiri leaders’ current visit demonstrates its readiness to listen to the people of Kashmir and accept them as an equal partner in any dialogue on the future of Kashmir. Regrettably, India has not yet found it necessary to do so. Of the triangular talks proposed by the visiting Kashmiri leader, two sets are already in progress. Pakistan and India are pursuing a “composite dialogue” while the Kashmiri leaders have already had meetings with President Musharraf and Prime Minister Shaukat Aziz. It is time India realized that it could push the peace process forward and make a major contribution towards finding a solution to the nearly six-decade-old problem by talking to the All Parties Hurriyat Conference.
As witnessed during the Afro-Asian peoples’ liberation struggles in the last century, all freedom movements often differ on tactics while sharing a common goal. This is true of the Kashmiri leadership too. Syed Ali Shah Gilani, who represents a section of the APHC, has not come to Pakistan on this journey. This speaks of some fissures in the APHC ranks which may interfere with the search for a solution. It is not clear also when India will begin talking to the mainstream Kashmiri leadership. But the coming of that hour is inevitable. All colonial powers sooner or later talked to freedom fighters — the French in Algeria, the Americans in Vietnam and the Israelis in Palestine — and for that reason one can foresee a day when New Delhi will begin talking to the Kashmiri leaders. Before that hour comes, the Kashmiris should close ranks. All Kashmiris united on a common platform with a common goal are likely to achieve their aim sooner than a leadership that is divided. And everyone should leave them alone to come to a decision without pressure.
WITH the country awash with illegal arms, it is no surprise that the crime graph is constantly on the rise and that there has been no let-up in the number of incidents involving terrorist attacks. Speakers at a press conference held recently in Peshawar in connection with the Global Week of Action Against Guns were critical of the government’s lethargy in tackling the spread of illegal weapons, which according to estimates, number 10 million countrywide. Regretting the government’s failure to set up a commission for the implementation of the UN’s programme of action against arms, they pointed out that although Pakistan was a signatory to the UN Firearms Protocol, the treaty had not been ratified by Pakistan’s parliament.
It is regrettable indeed that Pakistan has not lived up to its international commitments to making the efforts necessary to eliminate the menace of illegal firearms at home. There have been some attempts at deweaponization, but the authorities have had little success in recovering illegal arms, the vast majority of which continue to elude detection, as religious and politically-motivated militias still hold on to huge caches of arms. Moreover, the possession of weapons has a certain cultural sanction made so mainly by the tribesmen of the north and Balochistan who are loath to give up their arms, even if these are in contravention of the law of the land. Greater border vigilance (to prevent the smuggling of arms into the country) has been in force after 9/11 and the Pakistan Ordnance Factories have attempted to provide jobs to the arms manufacturers of Darra Adamkhel in order to halt illegal production. However, while restrictions on the sale and display of firearms may have slowed down production, much still remains to be done if the gap between the number of illegal weapons and the far fewer licensed ones is to be plugged. Obviously, this calls for more effective enforcement of related legislation and a stricter adherence to the provisions of the Firearms Protocol awaiting ratification. But more than that, there should be greater emphasis on creating general awareness about the dangers of a rampant gun culture that has caused thousands of lives to be lost.
THE report carried by this newspaper about three unemployed young men who sold their kidneys in order to provide for their families should remind lawmakers that a draft bill on cadaver organ transplant has been lying with the Senate since 1992. In the absence of a cadaver organ law, and given the grinding poverty that governs large parts of the country, Pakistan is on its way to becoming a lucrative hotspot for illegal kidney trade. Around 10,000 kidneys are needed in the country each year, but only a small fraction of this is procured from living donors. As a result, renal patients — including many from abroad — are increasingly turning to those who are ready to sell one of their kidneys. Impelled by poverty, the number of those prepared to do so is multiplying — especially as word spreads among villagers, groaning under the stifling weight of feudalism, of a quick way to pay off mounting debts.
One can understand that the fear of the religious lobby that is opposed to such transplants is chiefly responsible for the reluctance of lawmakers to move ahead and enact the bill into law. But surely, they must realize — and convey this to conservative elements — that countries as orthodox as Saudi Arabia have made cadaver organ transplant legal, as have a number of other Muslim countries. What then is the harm in the dead providing a new lease of life to those who otherwise would be fated to die? Unfortunately, even as the government dillydallies over the issue and puts off legislation, the kidney trade is acquiring the worst aspects of crass commercialism, with greedy middlemen and unscrupulous doctors ready to divide the spoils after giving the donor only a part of the price. Legislation is needed immediately if the commercial sale of kidneys is to be stopped.