Reining in the militants

ISLAMABAD has done well to ask the Taliban government not to allow or encourage Pakistanis to join the Afghan forces or acquire training there. This has come in the wake of reports that a number of Pakistanis had been killed in the American air strikes. While the Foreign Office’s advice to the Taliban government is welcome, one must ponder the reasons why the situation has reached a point where the concern on this score has to be taken up officially with Kabul. Basically, things have come to this pass over a period of more than two decades, which have seen a gradual erosion of state authority vis-a-vis the activities of elements operating across the Durand Line. This state of affairs proved to be of advantage to the militant parties and groups which had played a key role in the anti-Soviet war in Afghanistan.

An additional factor in that context was the overwhelming US interest in seeing the Soviets out of Afghanistan and the massive pressure, prodding and material help it pressed into achieving this objective. In the process many lines of distinction and differentiation between state authority and the diverse elements drawn into that conflict got blurred and many others ignored. In any case, it was a zero-sum game, and the ultimate loser has been state authority vis-a-vis religious militants. Helping the people of Afghanistan in their freedom struggle was one thing; letting some religious organizations run the show themselves quite another.

The man who created this frankenstein was Ziaul Haq. He let them open training camps and recruit Pakistanis for the ‘holy war’ against the Soviet Union without realizing that one day these groups and organizations would become a government within a government. As time passed and the military dictatorship gave way to democratic regimes, the militant outfits went completely out of government control. In fact, at one stage, some religious parties were running their own Afghan policies and were in a position to defy the government because of the strength and self-righteous spirit and approach of their militias. Whatever little bit of sanity was left in our Afghan policy ended when some intelligence agencies became deeply involved in the Afghan civil war and began encouraging madrassah students to drive out the warring Mujahideen factions in Afghanistan and capture power themselves. Since then, encouraged by the Taliban victories in Afghanistan, jihadi organizations in Pakistan have attempted to assert their power. This showed in the display of arms, in arming the students of the madrassahs and in using them as militias to browbeat opponents and defy the law enforcement agencies. They also openly collected funds for the Taliban, ran training camps and recruited Pakistani youths to fight the Taliban’s war against the Northern Alliance. While doing this they cared little for what the government of the day thought, said or did.

In the present situation, too, Pakistani volunteers have continued to cross into Afghanistan. Obviously, the situation cannot be reversed immediately, especially at this time when emotions are running high over the happenings in Afghanistan. Nevertheless, the government has taken some sensible steps and their effect is already visible. For instance, the anti-government rallies have been — barring some exceptions — quite peaceful. Similarly, arms are no more on display at the rallies. This gradual assertion of governmental authority and the process of reining in the militias should continue. Some of the religious parties involved in the anti-Soviet war may be quite well-meaning, but many of them have tasted the heady brew of street power and on occasions feel strong enough to defy the government’s writ. Faced with such tendencies and the possibilities that they portend in certain configurations of factors and circumstances critically affecting the state of civil society and rule of law, the government has perforce to act and assert its authority. It is a difficult task, but no one should be allowed to entertain the notion that he was above the law and that it is the writ of the government that shall prevail.

The new boat people

THE terrible tragedy that unfolded off the coast of Indonesia on Friday was a cruel reminder of some of the more unpleasant realities of today’s world. Over 350 asylum-seekers drowned while trying to reach the remote Australian Christmas Islands, travelling in a tiny and ramshackle boat. The 44 survivors, who spent 30 hours in the open seas before they were rescued, recounted the most horribles of tales. Many of them held on to planks and watched in horror as their relatives and friends were drowned. These were helpless victims not only of an unjust world divided between rich and poor nations but of unscrupulous and greedy human smugglers who exploit desperate people by promising them deliverance from poverty or persecution in some distant ‘promised land’. The tragedy also reflects how growing instability in certain parts of the globe is increasingly being met with the raising of higher barriers against asylum seekers and illegal immigrants in others. With affluent countries becoming more vigilant, desperate refugees are paying greater sums of money to agents and adopting increasingly risky modes of transportation to reach their destinations.

Most of the victims of the recent incident came from countries that have been in the throes of political upheaval for many years. The Australia-bound asylum seekers were mainly from Iraq, Afghanistan and Algeria. In August last year, a boat loaded with Afghans was intercepted while attempting to reach Australia. The Australian government, in particular, has responded by adopting extremely callous and ruthless methods to prevent this influx, and has seen a sharp upsurge in its political fortunes. Accepting asylum seekers, it seems, is no longer a popular option in most of the developed world. Ironically, a poor country like Pakistan, already home to some two million Afghan refugees, has been coming under increasing international pressure to open its borders to allow more refugees to enter — a case of blatant double standards on the part of affluent countries that are unwilling to accept even a handful of refugees.

Taxing the killer

TOBACCO has been established as one of the leading causes of cancer in the world. In Pakistan it accounts for as many as 40 per cent of the total reported cases of the deadly disease. A couple of recently released studies on the subject reveal that Pakistanis spend some Rs 562 million on purchase of tobacco products every day. The figure includes the sale of cigarettes, birris, dark smoking tobacco for hookahs and chewing tobacco. The reports in question stop short of giving any estimated health costs associated with the use of tobacco. Disturbingly and unlike trends in many developed countries, there has been a steady increase in the demand of tobacco and tobacco-based products in Pakistan.

Clearly, these products constitute a multi-billion-rupee industry, sustained by an alarmingly high proportion of the population. If chewing tobacco is included, almost 40 per cent of Pakistanis consume tobacco in some form. Thus the actual health costs associated with tobacco-related cancer and other rampant respiratory diseases must be astronomical. The government has so far restricted its effort to creating awareness about the use of tobacco, which does not seem to be an effective deterrent. Imposition of higher taxes on tobacco-based products elsewhere in the world has helped reduce its consumption significantly. It is now time to do the same in Pakistan, so as to make tobacco and related products less affordable for the general public.