‘We have to put in place all that is essential and necessary for any campaign to be successful. That achieved, we will go full-throttle once we start the next de-weaponization campaign,” explains Faisal Saleh Hayat

INTERIOR Minister Faisal Saleh Hayat says the government has plans to eradicate illegal weapons as part of “a cogent and durable law and order policy”, but would launch a “full-throttle” de-weaponization campaign only after all necessary prerequisites were in place.

In a recent interview with Dawn Magazine, he, however, said that the government planned to liberalize the issuance of licences for weapons of non-prohibited bores, and regulate traditional arms manufacturing in the Federally Administered Tribal Areas so that “the tribals were not thrown out of business”.

The minister cited what he saw as successes of Prime Minister Zafarullah Khan Jamali’s government in controlling terrorist activities and other crimes, but warned of a renewed threat of heroin-smuggling from Afghanistan after a surge in poppy cultivation there this year. The following are excerpts:
 

Q: Your predecessor had started a de-weaponization campaign with great fanfare, but nothing is being heard about it now, and even the crime rate does not appear to have come down because of that. Do you still subscribe to that policy, or you have your own programme?

A: Each and every policy initiative or measure regarding law and order, or any other government programme for that matter, is subject to objective conditions prevailing at the time. There was a military government when the campaign for de-weaponization was initiated. There were many factors that contributed to the initiation of that campaign — the overall environment, the regional environment, the global environment and so on.

Many of those factors haven’t changed much. Substantial progress was made during the de-weaponization campaign and close to 280,000 illegal arms and weapons were recovered, which was no mean achievement.

We have a political government in place now and any policy that is undertaken naturally takes into account the present objective conditions and certainly the ground realities. Before going into any campaign for de-weaponization — or whatever name you may give it — we have to first of all get the required and necessary ingredients in order. We have to put in place all that is essential and necessary for any campaign and any initiative to move forward. Law-enforcement agencies have a crucial and a pivotal role to play as far as de-weaponization, and crime control initiatives are concerned. There is no denying the fact that there is proliferation of illegal weapons in our society, and the government has to address this problem within a certain timeframe. It is certainly one of our priorities in the domestic security concerns of the government.

At the same time, we have to be cognizant of the fact that police reforms have been initiated only last year, and there are certain prerequisites which are essential to cope with the entire spectrum of security issues. We are in the process of putting them in order and in place whereby the police will not only be more responsive to the immediate requirements of society, but we would also be effecting a balance between their duties and their obligations, specifically viz-a-viz their responsibility toward society.

We are already in the process of providing the police and law-enforcement agencies with necessary infrastructure in the form of institutional support, capacity building, better training facilities, better equipment, better know-how, and, most importantly, an effective and efficient intelligence network, because until and unless you have the correct information, you cannot undertake any venture, specially in the field of security.



Q: Will de-weaponization be one of the normal tasks of law-enforcement agencies?

A: De-weaponization will be one of the measures, though an important one, taken in the context of pursuing a cogent and durable law and order policy. Connected to this is the formation of Public Safety Commissions, the Police Complaint Authorities, and we wish to involve the elected representatives. So, it is a very comprehensive policy on which we are working. I do not wish to start a policy simply for the sake of it. We will not embark upon a de-weaponization trail until and unless we have all the requisites for such an operation in hand.



Q: Some people wonder why the government does not relax laws about the issuance of arms licence. After all, a person with a licensed weapon will be reluctant to commit any crime with it compared to the one with an illegal weapon. What do you think?

A: The campaign is against illegal weapons and we are aware that most of the crimes involve the use of such weapons. As such, we have a policy of liberalizing the issuance of licences, but only to the extent of non-prohibited bores and calibers. We are not going to allow the proliferation of prohibited-bore weapons in society.



Q: Why, in your opinion, all previous campaigns remained unsuccessful?

A: The most important thing is the resolve of the government. The government has to be fully committed to the cause without any element of political expediency. I can assure you that any such campaign can be carried out with vigorous and success. The only problem arises when we start diluting our own resolve. That is the reason we will only start this campaign once we are, first of all, fully prepared — when all those pieces are in place — and, secondly, we will go full-throttle once we start this campaign.



Q: Has the government any plan to control or monitor arms manufacturing in the tribal areas, which is said to be the main source of illegal weapons in the country?

A: That is one of the basic concerns we are facing and experiencing. But at the same time we also have to be realistically cognizant of the fact that there is a certain culture in tribal areas which is there for centuries. Generations of those tribal people have been earning their livelihood; they have earned these professions ... in fact, they have gained proficiency in these professions. So we do not wish to put them out of their professions or out of their jobs, or deny them their genuine means of livelihood. That will certainly be counter-productive if we do that. It is just like certain medicine made by a pharmaceutical company that can heal someone, but its overdose can kill someone. So this is the area where you need to regulate the manufacturing of weapons and also their supply.

We are not allowing them to manufacture weapons which are not allowed to be produced or manufactured. There is a regulatory authority now. The tribal areas now fall within the ambit of the national rules.

The Pakistan Ordnance Factories and several other companies are sub-contracting their work to these people. We want them to remain in the profession. We wish to encourage them rather than isolate them. In fact, we wish to provide them with the necessary support to enable them to acquire modern and sophisticated production skills.



Q: Are any arms still flowing into the country from Afghanistan?

A: Certainly. We have a 2,500-km porous border with Afghanistan, which, despite the engagement and vigilance of our law-enforcement agencies there, is impossible to completely seal at each and every entry and exit point along the entire mountainous terrain. But we are trying our best to stop the inflow of weapons. We have been successful in that, and the proportion of inflow of weapons as compared to some years back has certainly come down.



Q: Can you tell us something about the state of law and order, specially in the context of sectarianism and terrorism with international connotations like that of al Qaeda?

A: Since November, when our government took over, we have achieved relatively high success rates in these two spheres. As far as sectarian violence is concerned, in the past six months we had five incidents in which 23 people lost their lives, compared to 35 people killed in 35 incidents in 2002, and 167 killed in 97 incidents in 2001. So, you can see the ratio has come down drastically.

And the same goes for cases related to terrorism. In the past six months, there have been six cases of terrorism in Pakistan, as compared to more than 35 in 2002. The situation has definitely improved and these figures speak for themselves. The same goes for kidnapping for ransom, which has dropped during the past six months. We are fairly satisfied with the overall law and order situation. We certainly achieved this through the employment of various measures. The political setup has played an important role in controlling the overall crime situation.

At the same time we also have our share of problems, which has created a blot on our actual successes. And that has been the situation in the tri-junction areas of the Sindh-Baluchistan-Punjab borders in three districts of Jacobabad, Naseerabad and Rajanpur, as well as Dera Bugti. It is certainly not connected to terrorism or any other conventional criminal activity. It was the direct result of traditional years-old tribal feud between the Mazaris and the Bugtis.

As a result of repeated cross-firing incidents, vital national installations were hit and damaged, like the gas pipelines and in certain areas electricity networks. The situation today is under control. Through negotiations as well as administrative measures, tension in that area has come down and the magnitude of the problem has certainly been diluted. We have involved the tribal elders, and we are also actively pursuing the option of convening a tribal jirga.

We have also been sending our officials to Dera Bugti for negotiations. Whatever the genuine and legitimate demands of the Bugti tribe, or of any tribe, they would certainly be met by the government. But there is no question of accepting any unreasonable demand or succumbing to pressure. We have no plans to deploy army in that area. Our police and Frontier Constabulary is there, and at times we also send Rangers to eradicate criminal activity in that area.



Q: Can you give a definite figure of people arrested on suspicion of terrorism and handed over to America, and those being held by the Pakistan government?

A: We have a very correct policy: no Pakistani involved in terrorist activity inside Pakistan and arrested by our own law-enforcement agencies would be handed over to any other country. That is the backbone of our policy. Immediately after 9/11 when the Taliban government collapsed in Afghanistan, close to 422 people were arrested from inside Afghanistan and around 40 of them — less than 10 per cent of the total — were Pakistanis. Four or five of them have since come back to Pakistan as a result of our own negotiations with the Americans.



Q: How many foreigners were arrested in Pakistan for involvement in terrorism?

A: We have arrested between 40 and 50 foreigners, including certain very high-profile al Qaeda activists, including Ramzi, Khalid Sheikh Mohammad and Yassiri who were the linchpins. We have a policy that if a foreigner is arrested, we first of all complete our own investigations, because certainly we have to know what that person has been doing in Pakistan. Once we are satisfied with our own investigations, we ask the country of their origin if it would like to take him. If the country accepts them, we send them to that country. If it says it doesn’t need him, then we hand them over to any other country that requests for his custody. We have received requests from the US for some of these people who they feel were involved in terrorist activities inside the US, and they were handed over accordingly.



Q: Do you still have US personnel, like FBI men — in Pakistan to help you track down terrorists?

A: FBI personnel are based in US embassies and consulates all over the world, just like we have our law-enforcement personnel serving in embassies abroad. The war against terrorism has become a global phenomenon to fight which we need active cooperation of all international partners at every level — at technical support level, at intelligence and information-sharing level, at the level of capacity-building of various law-enforcement agencies. Pakistan has the cooperation of not just the US government and its agencies, but also of the European Community, Japan, and several Middle East countries. Pakistan is a key frontline state today engaged in the war against terrorism.



Q: How far Pakistan has minimized the threat felt by foreign missions in Pakistan, like those of the United States and Britain?

A: There is no threat to any mission today. These missions, consulates, embassies and high commissions are working perfectly in a very calm and normal manner. We have provided them all security. There is absolutely no threat to any individual or any foreign organization. As far as Islamabad is concerned, we have undertaken certain measures that have not only enhanced the security cover, but also provided diplomats added confidence in performing their duties in as normal a manner as in any other part of the world. We have set up a VIP protection force here. Most of the diplomats who had left the country have come back now.



Q: What the government is doing to deal with the recent disturbances and violence in Northern Areas over religious school syllabus?

A: There is a slight commotion because members of a certain sect felt that their sensitivities were harmed by the introduction of a new syllabus. The Ministry of States, Frontier Regions and Northern Areas is addressing the problem. We have asked the ministry to analyze the situation and come up with viable and practical remedies.



Q: What steps the government has taken about border security to check illicit drugs transiting via Pakistan?

A: Pakistan is a transit country, there is no doubt about it. We were a net producer of drugs, but today Pakistan is virtually a zero poppy-producing country. But an alarming situation has developed in Afghanistan where poppy has been cultivated on a very high percentage of land this year, two-thirds of it being right on our border. It is estimated that opium production in Afghanistan may exceed 4,500 metric tonnes. Now we apprehend this will be transformed into heroin for being smuggled via Pakistan, Iran and Central Asian republics to the Gulf, Middle East, Far East, Europe and the US. I have recently attended two conferences in Vienna and Paris where discussions were specially directed towards devising measures to combat and to address this problem.

Whatever we may say about the Taliban regime’s excesses and gross violation of human rights, but they had stopped poppy cultivation, which is no more the case.