Monitoring ‘infiltration’
HECTIC diplomatic activity by the international community makes one hope that it may not come to the crunch and the danger of a war in South Asia may after all be averted. British Foreign Secretary Jack Straw’s visit to the region was followed by Russian President Vladimir Putin’s invitation to President Musharraf and Prime Minister Vajpayee to hold talks during the Almaty conference on regional security which begins tomorrow. Now two American diplomats — Defence Secretary Donald Rumsfeld and Deputy Secretary of State Richard Armitage — are to visit Islamabad and New Delhi to continue the efforts to bring tension down and avert a war. This is in addition to the telephone diplomacy through which world leaders have kept themselves engaged with Pakistan and India. The latest in this round of peace diplomacy was the statement by US Secretary of State Colin Powell on Friday.
In a television interview Powell spoke at length about the Indo-Pakistan situation and said things that would be music to Indian ears. He ruled out third-party mediation and referred time and again to the need for Pakistan to “do more” to end what New Delhi calls “cross-border terrorism.” While Washington was doing all it could to avoid a war, it was “pressing President Musharraf very hard” to stop “infiltration activities” across the Line of Control by “terrorist organizations.” Secretary Powell was quick to balance the statement by saying America was asking India “to show restraint.” Earlier, President Bush had made it clear that President Musharraf “must stop” the infiltration. There was a lot of waffle in Powell’s interview, but to the BBC he said he had indications that Pakistan had given instructions to stop infiltrations across the LoC. State Department spokesman Richard Boucher also said the US had some indications that Islamabad had given instructions for stopping infiltrations. If infiltration ceased, said Secretary Powell, he would be asking India to withdraw its forces.
Evidently, President Musharraf’s repeated declarations that no infiltration is taking place across the LoC seem to have gone largely unheeded in international circles. In fact, statements from world leaders, including Pakistan’s “friends and allies,” seem to attach greater credence to Indian allegations. Also the real issue — the right of self-determination of the Kashmiri people and the gross human rights violations by the occupation forces — seems to have been completely lost in the din and noise about “cross border terrorism.” One way to remove any doubts about Pakistan’s claims could be for the UN to post international monitors along the LoC. India has always been averse to the idea, because it knows that the Kashmiri people’s insurgency will continue in any case. A way out could be for Pakistan to opt unilaterally for the posting of international monitors on its side of the LoC. Such a team of monitors should be able to report impartially on the truth or otherwise of infiltration from Azad Kashmir into occupied Kashmir. Let those who are harping on the “cross border” theme support this proposal.
Meanwhile, those world leaders who are asking Pakistan to “do more” to defuse tension also, in all fairness, advise India to do a spot of reflection on the causes of the present stand-off and the overriding need for a solution of the Kashmir issue. Without a resolution of this dispute, any pretext would be good enough for India to launch, or threaten to launch, a war on Pakistan.
Midwives’ training
IN a country where over 80 per cent of total births take place at home, it is surprising that barely five per cent of the midwives who help deliver the babies have had any formal training. Most midwives are self-taught practitioners and carry out the last-minute risky emergency procedures associated with childbirth, administering injections, performing incisions and stitching up wounds without using proper and clean surgical instruments. No wonder Pakistan has one of the highest mother and child mortality rates in the world. Women who do survive these unhygienic procedures based on trial-and-error on the part of the untrained midwives live to carry infectious diseases and complications. Some of these problems and deficiencies were brought out on Friday when the National Committee for Maternal Health celebrated the International Midwife Day for the first time in Pakistan.
It is important that the ministries concerned and public sector health providers pay attention to the lack of proper midwife training facilities in the country. Given the economic limitations of an average Pakistani household and the traditional cultural orientation of our people, most Pakistanis prefer childbirth at home rather than in a maternity home. The least the government should do is to offer midwife training workshops and short courses through the public sector basic health care units. Such a programme will not only be financially sustainable but it will also involve the communities it benefits and, thus, help reduce mother and child mortality rates.
Water, water, nowhere
THE water supply situation in the twin cities of Islamabad and Rawalpindi is getting more and more unsatisfactory with each passing year. Complaints from consumers have increased manifold and even officials from the Capital Development Authority (CDA) admit to this. It is not only the lower income G Sector of the capital that has been hit by water shortage, but the problem has been causing frustration among consumers in some of the higher income F sub-sectors as well in recent years. What the CDA has been doing for several years now is appeal to residents every now and then, especially whenever the water situation is worse than normal, to stop wasting water. The CDA actually slaps fines on residents who “waste” water on washing their terraces and cars and watering their lawns. These are, no doubt, necessary measures as residents do need to participate in efforts to save every precious drop of water. However, the question remains: why is the water supply becoming more and more irregular and unreliable in increasingly larger areas of the twin cities?
What the CDA seems to fail to recognize is that the water problem that consumers have been facing may be symptoms of a problem that is actually much more serious than it thinks it is. The increase in population in the twin cities has put considerable pressure on the demand for water. At the same time, global and regional changes in weather and climatic patterns have also had their toil on the availability of rain water. Added to this, unchecked drilling of tubewells in the twin cities is lowering the ground water level very rapidly. To top it all, the quality of the water available is unsatisfactory with several reports about contamination.
The water supply situation in the twin cities can only get worse if the relevant authorities do not come up with a long-term plan for significantly increasing the current levels of availability. We cannot afford to depend solely on nature nor on the existing storage facilities for our water supply any more. It is important to think and plan ahead, consider viable solutions, including exploration of new sources of water and augmenting the potential of the existing ones to increase the water supply in the twin cities and implement these without delay.