Profiting from violence

So many British security firms are cashing in on the violence in Iraq that armed private security men now outnumber most of the national army contingents in the country.

Thousands of former soldiers and police officers from Britain, the US, Australia and South Africa are earning wages as high as 600 pounds a day to protect western officials, oil company executives and construction firm bosses in Iraq. The SAS is said to be suffering an unprecedented loss of personnel as its highly trained soldiers are lured by lucrative private security work.

With business of around one billion pounds, British companies are estimated to have the biggest share of private security contracts in Iraq. According to experts, between 1,200 and 1,500 former British soldiers and police officers, including former SAS, Marines, paratroopers and RUC officers, are working in Iraq. Some privately estimate that the total number of foreigners working for private security companies now exceeds the 8,700 British troops there.

Apart from the major US and British companies, dozens of small firms have set up shops in Iraq. Former British and American special forces members speak of their concern that smaller firms are hiring personnel with little experience with firearms and have no interest in setting out the circumstances in which their employees may use their weapons.

The presence of thousands of armed westerners and others, including Gurkhas and Fijians, says much about America's fear of military casualties. Security firms are escorting convoys.

Armed men from an American company are guarding US troops at night inside the former presidential palace where Paul Bremer, the American proconsul, has his headquarters. When a US helicopter crashed near Fallujah last year, an American security firm took control of the area and began rescue operations.

Details of the number of companies in Iraq - there may be as many as 400 - are further complicated by the number of security firms that are subcontracted by larger companies on a daily or weekly basis. Larger companies such as Control Risks complain that many are unregistered and uninsured.

Much of the money being earned by British companies is coming from the British taxpayer. It is learnt that the British Foreign Office and Department for International Development have spent nearly 25 million pounds on hiring private bodyguards, armed escorts and security advisers to protect their civil servants. That figure is set to increase sharply in July when sovereignty is handed over to an Iraqi administration.

The largest contract is with Control Risks, which has earned 23.5 million pounds. It employs about 120 staff to protect about 150 British officials and contractors.

Meanwhile, according to another development the black flags of Muharram are draped over the front of the School of Arts, banners of mourning erected by Shias at the vast campus of the University of Baghdad.

The words praise Imam Hussein's revolution against the Omayads and they seek to draw all students - Christian as well as Sunni - into their tears of martyrdom. "Yes, yes for the Army of Mehdi," says one.

There are other, more political emotions displayed on the walls; posters of Sheikh Yassin, the Hamas leader assassinated by Israel, wishing his soul a swift path to paradise, condemnation of American killing of civilians in the Sunni city of Falujah.

But religion is now being established on the campus. Before the American invasion, about half the female students would wear the veil. Today, almost 75 per cent of the girls wear head scarves.

Not necessarily a bad thing if this is their choice, but lecturers are reporting an unhappy phenomenon. The students who demand to leave class to take part in demonstrations suggest that lecturers are not sufficiently sympathetic to religious students. Another poster notes ruefully that "When Danger is Past, God is Forgotten."

On the other side of the town, at the ancient University of Mustanseriyah, the dean removed pictures of Ayatollah Ali Sistani and other Iraqi Shia leaders from the walls of the College of Sciences.

The Shia students closed the university for two days, preventing those of other sects from entering the building and objecting to the dean, Dr. Abdul-Samia al-Janabi. He, it should be added, is a Sunni. Some say the demonstrators included non-students.

You would think there were more pressing problems. The library of Baghdad University was gutted by arsonists a year ago - its twisted metal shelves lie amid piles of bricks and ashes to this day although a Japanese donor has offered to rebuild it - and even the English department has few books.

The anti-war movement "Voices in the Wilderness" has been sending volumes to the College of Arts and one lecturer made the remarkable - and, I suspect, accurate - observation that the American occupation, though widely hated among students, has ignited an interest in American drama. Tennessee Williams, Eugene O'Neill and Arthur Miller are now set books. Who would have thought American tanks could promote "Death of a Salesman"?

So it was with something approaching wonderment that one teacher invited me to come to his drama lecture yesterday morning and to ask his students anything - and I repeat anything - I wished. Of the 19 women, I noticed, 15 wore the veil. One of them was the first to speak - but hers were not the prepared words of the Saddam era.

"I want to tell you that we are suffering and you should care more about us," she said. "We don't have enough books and we live in insecurity and we are frightened of being kidnapped and we as a people are being humiliated by your American and British occupation." She looked at me in case I was offended. Then she smiled sadly and added these words: "You do not care about us."

All the girls and about half the ten male students nodded. "We need protection," another young woman added. "It was not like this before." But surely, I said - 'but surely' has become the occupier's all-purpose get-out phrase in Iraq these days - but surely you can now speak freely.

Just over a year ago, I said, two Iraqi secret policemen would have been listening to our conversation - which would not have been a conversation at all. There was laughter. "Yes, there is more freedom like that," the second girl said. "But now we have freedom without law."

So I asked about Saddam. Did they talk about Saddam among themselves? And at this point something almost palpable drifted darkly through the room, something cold and disturbing, a silence so acute that we could all hear the voice of the lecturer speaking in the next room. My host leant towards me. "This is one taboo that I don't think they have got over yet," he muttered.

Then a girl in a black abaya put up her hand. "I am from Karbala," she said, "and under Saddam we were treated most cruelly and taken from our homes - even my father - merely for worshipping at our shrines and many of us were killed in 1991 and this was a terrible thing." Karbala is a Shia city and in front of her a boy from Falujah - a Sunni city - turned and smiled and nodded his agreement.

Another young woman with her blond hair uncovered, in a striking white blouse, said that she had to speak. "I want someone to establish a scholarship in human rights here. Our human rights were taken away from us and destroyed. This is now the most important thing in my country. We must have human rights."

I asked how many of the students in the class had lost family or friends in last year's invasion. Slowly, six of the 29 students raised their right hands. One boy was almost in tears. "Five of my best friends - all dead," he said.

And thus we came full circle, death and human rights and still that fear which haunts the most enlightened of Iraqi minds. "Please end the occupation," another young man said.

"It is not good for us, it isn't good for you. You treat us worse than you treat a cat. But we are like you. We are intelligent, cultured people, just like your people."

And somehow I thought that maybe the University of Baghdad will pull through, that with these voices - a chrysalis of freedom - both the Saddams of this world and the American occupiers will have a hard time of it. - (c) The Independent.

Anti-pollen allergy strategy at last

It was well over a decade ago that pollen allergy was first recognized as a health problem in the capital. If untreated, it often resulted in serious impairment of quality of life, and in extreme cases even death, for pollen allergy sufferers.

Now at long last, the Islamabad Capital Territory administration has embarked on what seems to be the first concerted effort to tackle the problem. The ICT administration has recently formed a Pollen Allergy Relief Management Society (Parms) to counter the problems.

Similar allergy relief societies already exist in many other temperate countries like the US, Europe, Australia and South Africa, etc., where airborne tree, grass and weed pollen cause debilitating allergies in susceptible people. (The word pollen is derived from the Greek word meaning fine flour.)

One measure undertaken by Parms is the establishment of a pollen allergy camp (March 22-27) at Aabpara Community Centre where doctors and paramedical staff from Islamabad's major public health institutions, as well as local homoeopathic doctors and hakeems, were at hand to provide free treatment and advice to people suffering from pollen allergy. Several hundreds of allergy patients were reported to have visited the camp on the first day.

Parms intends to increase the number of such medical camps during the next autumn and spring seasons, which are also the pollen seasons. It also intends to hold the camps earlier, before the start of the pollen season, which in spring lasts from about the beginning of March until mid-April at least.

The print and electronic media, together with some vocal allergy specialists in the capital, have helped to increase public awareness about pollen allergy in the last couple of years.

Last year in spring, for the first time the daily pollen count (per cubic metre of air) for Islamabad was monitored by the Pakistan Meteorological Department, and the pollen count index was published in the newspapers daily. This, together with talks and programmes over television and radio on pollen allergy, have helped to intensify public awareness about the problem.

Only last spring, it was a rare sight to see somebody moving around the capital wearing a white mask to shield himself from pollen. This spring, however, it has been common to see people moving around with white masks on from the beginning of March, whether he be a poor worker riding to work on his bicycle or a middle class man shopping at Jinnah Supermarket.

Previously, action undertaken by the ICT administration to tackle pollen allergy was limited to ad hoc (and controversial) felling of the paper mulberry tree, whose large amounts of highly allergenic pollen is believed to be mainly responsible for the rising incidence of allergy.

This time, in addition to establishing Parms, the administration is reported to be also considering a plan to systematically remove the mulberry trees, replacing them with other low- or non-allergen trees.

Recently, some large-scale felling of trees in certain green belts were undertaken. But this appeared to have been done more for VIP security reasons rather than to reduce pollen. Thus, any attempt to portray the felling of trees which is primarily done for security reasons as an effort to alleviate pollen allergy would, therefore, be tantamount to deceiving the public.

In any case, wanton destruction of the mulberry trees as a preventive measure to pollen allergy has long been opposed by local environmentalists. Some allergy specialists say that the patients suffering from mulberry pollen allergy could very well develop allergy to another kind of plant once the mulberry was eliminated, and therefore it is not practical to eliminate one plant after the other.

One medical practitioner argued in a letter-to-the-editor in Dawn last spring that nowhere in the world were trees being eliminated to solve the allergy problem. Instead of destroying the mulberry trees, he suggested promotion of the more scientific preventive measure of vaccinations for allergy sufferers.

Many allergy specialists tend to agree that immunotherapy, which attempts to switch off the allergic reaction by repeatedly injecting small doses of allergen extracts, given over many months or even years, is the only treatment that treats the cause of the allergy instead of just the symptoms.

Allergy patients in Islamabad are fortunate to have this immunotherapy facility at their doorsteps in the National Institute of Health.

Generally, however, awareness and knowledge of pollen allergy plus appropriate medication can reduce the severity of allergic symptoms and help sufferers to cope with the disease. This is where the newly established society has an important role to play, providing free medical guide and support for people suffering from allergy.

It would even be better if the society can have a telephone helpline, where allergy sufferers can call up for information. Parms could also consider setting up stores at the allergy camps, offering patients a complete range of allergy relief products like masks, nebulizers, inhalers, air purifiers, air filters, etc.

Delay in textbook publishing

Kawish recalls that the Sindh chief minister had promised among other things that textbooks would be provided to schoolchildren free of cost. However, it writes, only a few days are left for the beginning of new academic year in schools and the Sindh Textbook Board has yet to publish textbooks.

According to information, the process of printing the books will continue in April and due to the cumbersome supply system, they will arrive in schools in May. In June and July, schools will be on summer vacations. Thus a large number of students will begin receiving the books only in August.

The daily says that last year also the government had planned distribution of free textbooks, but due to the flawed procedure, the students received the books in September and wherever the books were distributed, they did not include the entire course. Time lost in waiting for the books was more valuable than the price of the books and the children had to suffer.

Ibrat points out that Federal Finance Minister Shaukat Aziz told a National Finance Commission meeting that the federal government was not in a position to give 50 per cent of the divisible pool to provinces which would get 40 to 45 per cent under the coming NFC award.

Finance ministers of Sindh, Balochistan and the NWFP opposed the idea and asked what justification the federal government had in backing out of its earlier promise of giving 50 per cent of the divisible pool to the provinces, particularly since it was claimed that the financial position of the country had strengthened.

The paper argues that devolution of power is a cornerstone of government policy and this will remain incomplete without making the provinces financial viable. It also backs the demand of the provinces to consider revenue generation for deciding the share of each province and adds that throughout the world, revenue generation by federating units is kept in view while distributing resources among them. But this is not so in Pakistan where population is made the sole basis for resource distribution.

Awami Awaz writes that Federal Water and Power Minister Aftab Sherpao, while seeking a loan for the Kalabagh Dam, has told the World Bank country manager that a consensus has been evolved on the project in the country.

The daily terms the statement a travesty of facts and says that the minister has chosen to ignore opposition to the project in Sindh, the NWFP and Balochistan.