Afghanistan in a bind

Given the security situation in Afghanistan, it is clear that the general and presidential elections scheduled for September cannot be held as planned. A hint to this effect has come from the United Nations which says that the required 90-day deadline for announcing the dates of the elections has already passed.

Earlier, the Afghan government had announced the moving back of the elections to the end of September as against the middle of the month, but now that too seems to be a remote possibility.

The voter registration process has hit snags following attacks on registration centres in recent weeks that have left many dead and wounded. Aid workers have all packed up and left the country after a series of attacks on foreign personnel across Afghanistan, including in the less hostile northern provinces.

The killing of 11 Chinese construction workers and five aid workers belonging to the French charity Medicins sans Frontieres and the consequent closure of the latter's operations in Afghanistan speak of a serious deterioration in the security situation over the past two months.

Nato's pledge, made at its June summit in Istanbul to send more troops to Afghanistan has also not been met. All these factors leave the Afghan government little choice but to postpone the elections yet again.

A multi-party UK MPs' committee returning from Kabul last week termed the security situation there as dangerous, saying that if promised "resources are not provided soon Afghanistan (may) implode, with terrible consequences."

Referring to the continued hold of the warlords over much of the country and the threat posed by the remnants of the Taliban, Sir John Stanley, a member of the committee, was quoted as saying: "Afghanistan is on a knife-edge."

The committee has attributed Kabul's failure to control the situation to the lack of practical support by the international community, concluding that "fine communiques and declarations are no substitute for delivery of the forces and equipment which Afghanistan needs on the ground."

The comment sums up the dire situation, where the writ of the Karzai government is confined to the capital and that of the Nato-led International Security Assistance Force to Kunduz in the north besides Kabul. The rest of the country is ruled by warring tribal chieftains, with poppy cultivation and multi-million dollar drug trade keeping them firmly in control.

This is hardly the scenario under which elections can be held, especially in a country that has no tradition of representative rule nor any institution in place that can oversee a transition to democratic rule.

For this Afghanistan needs all the logistical and monetary help that it can get from the international community, particularly the US and its western allies who pledged it such support at Tokyo, Berlin and lately at Istanbul, following the fall of the Taliban regime in December 2001.

This includes, first and foremost, the dispatch of additional Nato troops to Afghanistan to help Kabul extend its writ beyond the capital and over the provinces. Disarming the warlords and engaging the tribal chiefs, including those believed to be Taliban sympathizers, should be the next steps to help restore some semblance of peace and order to the crisis-ridden country.

Unless a dialogue and a process of normalization are begun soon, it is hard to see how elections can be held, poppy cultivation and drug trade stopped and the task of reconstruction begun.

Vehicle theft on the rise

The significant rise in vehicle theft incidents in Karachi in the past six months reflects poorly on the law enforcement agencies. On an average, almost 30 vehicles are stolen in the city daily, which is about 17 per cent higher if compared to the same period last year.

The bulk of these vehicles are taken to other parts of the country largely through the exit points from Karachi to Balochistan. They are then resold on the basis of forged documents.

This lucrative business is not a new phenomenon; successive governments have failed to curb it. More recently, a dangerous trend has emerged indicating that sometimes stolen vehicles are used for acts of terrorism in the city. This is one more reason for the government to take this problem seriously.

Over the years the provincial budget for law and order has continued to rise but with no tangible results to show for it. In the current fiscal year, Rs10 billion has been earmarked for law and order, which is a 12.5 per cent increase over the previous year.

Of this, the Sindh police will get a total of Rs6.6 billion, with Karachi police receiving three billion. The Anti-Car Lifting Cell (ACLC) has been unable to check the rising incidence.

One reason may be that despite the increase in funds given to the police, the resources at the disposal of the ACLC are poor. It is said that if more is spent in this direction, not only will car theft be curtailed, the conviction rate of vehicle thieves, which at present is negligible, will also rise.

What we see instead is that a large part of the funds of the provincial police force goes into protecting the VIPs or in luxuries for the top police officials. The upward trend of car lifting has also created a widespread suspicion about the involvement of a section of the police in this lucrative racket.

Unless these problem points are tackled with resolute action, the crime graph will continue to rise no matter how much more money is spent on the police force.

Fighting tuberculosis

Stressing that Pakistan has the sixth highest incidence of tuberculosis in the world, doctors at a recent seminar in Karachi pointed out that no new drug for this potentially fatal disease had been made available in the past two decades.

This disclosure should cause the public much alarm. With the emergence of drug-resistant bacteria, not only are some forms of medication proving ineffective against the disease, but, given the highly contagious nature of TB and its high recurrence rate, these germs can go on to infect a large number of people.

Tuberculosis kills as many as 60,000 people in the country each year, and has been declared a national emergency. Strenuous efforts, as part of a global war against the disease, are afoot to check its spread.

However, more action is needed, and greater cooperation between the medical community and TB patients is required to halt the disease in its tracks. Some 250,000 new cases of TB are recorded annually - a figure that could well rise in the years to come if prevention methods and treatment do not keep pace with the number of patients contracting the disease.

The national strategy to combat TB, one which seems to have worked well in other countries, is reflected in DOTS (directly observed treatment, short-course) where the TB drug is administered to patients under supervision for a specified period of time.

DOTS ensures that patients do not leave off halfway through treatment, thus causing multi-drug resistant bacterial strains to multiply. The treatment for this complicated form of the disease is far more expensive than conventional therapy - a point that has serious implications, for TB generally strikes poor, congested localities where most are unable to afford the drugs needed for its cure.

Greater effort at informing the public about the disease and its disastrous consequences for one's economic and physical health, would be a major contribution to reducing the incidence of TB in the country.