An inexplicable delay

IT speaks of the apathy of the government to the dismal state of women in Pakistan that the prime minister’s secretariat has so far not appointed a chairperson for the National Commission on the Status of Women. Since March when the tenure of the last chairperson, Majida Rizvi, ended, the commission has been without a head. In fact, the nominated members’ seats are also lying vacant. The commission was set up with great fanfare in 2000 on the initiative of the president with the aim of promoting the emancipation of women, bringing about gender equality and eliminating discrimination against women. This was a very broad agenda, but its more significant function was to monitor all women-related laws and government policies and undertake research on them. Under the leadership of Justice (retired) Majida Rizvi, the commission reviewed the Hudood Ordinances and strongly recommended their repeal.

Not only has the government ignored this recommendation — it has not even been placed before the National Assembly — it is also cold shouldering the commission itself. This approach is counterproductive. The idea of having an independent body of this kind is to make the administration and all organs of the government feel answerable to someone representing the rights of women. This is needed in a country that does not have a strong tradition of female participation in public life to ensure that their rights and interest are adequately protected. Commissions on women in other countries are generally statutory and independent bodies and the chairperson is a strong personality who can challenge the vested interests. It is a pity that the NCSW has been stalled at an early stage because it had begun to show independence. Given the oppressive treatment of women in our society, the need for a watchdog body to monitor government policies is absolutely vital. A commission with women of stature and strong moral standing as its members and a chairperson of calibre is meant not only to keep an eye on the treatment being meted out to women but also serve as a pressure group that cannot be sidelined or ignored.

In recent months, Pakistan’s image in terms of the status of women has plummeted to new depths. It is not reputed to be a place where women’s rights receive due protection and where women enjoy equal opportunities in all walks of life. In fact Pakistan has the dubious distinction of being one of the few countries where gender discrimination is enshrined in the legal system. It is a country which ranks 120th out of 144 in the gender development index of the UNDP and violence against women is so rampant that the HRCP reported 670 rape and gang rape cases in 2004 and honour killings have been on the rise. The names of Mukharan Mai, Sonia Naz and Shazia Khalid have come to signify the brutalization of women in Pakistan. True, the presence of a strong commission on women may not prevent all such abuses, it would certainly mobilize opinion against these and pressure the government into taking action. What is also important is that the presence of such bodies be made visible in the places where such horrific incidents occur. Thus activists not only from the commission but also NGOs should be mobilized to visit the victims of violence, provide them succour and legal aid and help in bringing the criminals to justice.

A horrifying tragedy

IT is a tragedy within a tragedy, for what happened on the Tigris in Iraq on Wednesday is too staggering for words. In the number of people killed and the way men, women and children were drowned or crushed to death, the tragedy is Baghdad’s biggest in living memory. It overshadows the trauma on Ashura when the twin blasts in Baghdad and Karbala on March 2, 2004, left 223 persons dead. That people packing a bridge should have believed in a rumour goes to show how all Iraqis think death is lurking round all the time, everywhere. Any day, any place, any occasion can see a terrible bloodbath taking place. The stampede on the bridge followed an attack earlier in the day on a Shia mosque. The number of people killed in that act of terrorism was, compared to what followed an insignificant 25. The attack on the mosque was later claimed by a Sunni organization, reported to be close to Al Qaeda. This is highly doubtful, because Al Qaeda is not a sectarian organization, and the man leading the insurgency, Abu Mosab al Zarqawi, is not known to have espoused sectarian causes. Nevertheless, given the attack earlier in the day on the Shia mosque, the people on that bridge readily believed someone who pointed to a man and said he was carrying explosives. That started the fatal stampede.

One political consequence of the tragedy could be a worsening of the sectarian problems. Already, the constitution has become controversial because of the Sunni opposition. Its rejection in the referendum scheduled for October could open up Pandora’s box for Iraq and lead to greater violence of every kind — sectarian, ethnic and political. The Sunnis and most Shias are opposed to a federal constitution, while the Kurds of northern Iraq welcome it because it gives them the autonomy denied to them by the unitary system Iraq has so far had. Being in a majority, the Shias would like to maintain the unitary system so as to preserve Iraq’s unity. Bomb blasts, mass killings and tragedies of the kind that occurred on Wednesday will continue so long as Iraq remains under foreign occupation.

Dig, dig, dig

KARACHI’S hapless motorists and commuters are being made to suffer some torrid problems of late. A significant proportion of the city’s major thoroughfares have been dug up for months and there seems to be no end in sight to the traffic jams that millions are being made to experience daily. Understandably, road building is an integral part of a city’s infrastructure development and if done with proper coordination and planning can lead to significant socio-economic benefits. However, carried out in a haphazard manner, with no coordination or planning, and without keeping in mind the interests of road users, such an exercise can have terrible problems of inconvenience and disruption. A report says that construction work and digging in the vicinity of the planned underpass in Clifton has caused massive losses to local businesses and shops. Not only that, the effects of ill-planned and chaotic road digging and construction can also have an adverse psychological impact on motorists.

Also, road construction work with no semblance of planning or coordination between the various civic agencies involved is something not confined to Karachi alone. However, since Karachi is the country’s commercial capital and because of the sheer scale of the road digging currently going on in this city, the impact has been particularly severe and noticeable. If roads are to be re-carpeted on such a large scale, the task should be divided so that work on one road begins only after that on another is completed because that way the traffic so diverted will be accommodated on alternate routes. The traffic madness in Karachi is primarily caused by haphazard digging, repair and recarpeting of roads.The agencies involved in these processes do not bother to plan and coordinate their work with the result that several roads are dug up all at the same time or that a road only recently carpeted is dug up again. It is time these agencies learnt to coordinate their work so as to avoid unnecessary inconvenience for motorists and other road users.

Unrest in Waziristan

WAZIRISTAN is once again in the news. Every day there are reports of rocket and missile attacks — 45 in one single night recently — the ambush of army conveys, killings of prominent tribal elders including former senator Malik Faridullah and other pro-government tribal elders, demolition and destruction of tribal dwellings and numerous detentions and arrests.

According to government statistics, 300 civilian have been killed and about 800 injured so far while the number of dead army personnel is more than 250 and more than 600 have been injured. Only in July this year, 41 persons were reported killed; 24 by the US-led allied forces and 17 by Pakistani forces.

Recently, the authorities warned the tribesmen not to come near military installations otherwise they could be killed. This has now been followed by the imposition of dusk to dawn curfew in Miranshah and the surrounding areas.

The unfortunate part of this bizarre saga is that despite the government’s claim that the situation is under control and the local population is cooperating with the army, the unrest, which was earlier confined to South Waziristan, has now spread to North Waziristan, and has the potential of spreading to other areas also. The government’s claim is also not tenable as recently it was announced that an additional 4,000 troops will be sent to the area making the total number 74,000 as against the government’s claim that the number of the insurgents is between 70 and 80. Is it not the right time for the government authorities, particularly the army higher-ups (as the governor and the political administration have been sidelined long ago) to pause and reconsider their strategy that has not produced the desired results? If anything, the situation has worsened.

A pertinent question is why is all this happening when before the military action early last year everything was normal and peaceful in the area. The para- military forces that had been in the area since independence were respected. They mingled freely with the tribal population. Similarly the political agent, who was the head of the administration and a venerated figure, was considered by the tribesmen as the custodian of their rights and privileges.

At present, the military personnel dare not come into civilian areas without heavy escort and the political administration is working under the protection of the military. The current situation has been described by an English language daily as comparable to the “pre-independence crackdown” because of its ferocity and bloodletting. Can any one be proud of this state of affairs 58 years after the former colonial power had left the area?

The main reason for the crackdown in Waziristan is the failure of the American and the Afghan forces to control the insurgency on their side of the border particularly in Khost, Paktia, Zabul and Paktika as these provinces have always been the most volatile and nationalist-minded in Afghanistan and have never accepted any foreign presence in their areas — in fact they are violently opposed to foreign presence anywhere in Afghanistan.

To hide their failure the Americans particularly their former ambassador Zalmay Khalilzad and their Afghan surrogates had been accusing Pakistan of harbouring hostile elements who had allegedly been launching attacks across the border.

Pakistan as a faithful ally of the Americans had been launching military operation in Waziristan resulting in the killing of hundreds of civilian and military personnel. Even if it is accepted for argument’s sake that some sympathetic elements on our side of the border had been assisting the Afghans to help them get rid of the occupying power, is it not the responsibility of the forces on the Afghan side, who are better equipped than the Pakistani forces, to interdict the so-called infiltrators and destroy them?

Another reason for the failure of the government to pacify the tribesmen is their widely held belief that Pakistan is doing all this only to please the Americans. The Americans have been confirming this themselves through the statements of the former commander of the American forces in Afghanistan General Barno and others including Colonel Crawford, the director of military operation in Afghanistan who recently told a breakfast meeting in Washington that the Pakistani forces were helping to direct artillery fire at suspected hideouts inside Pakistan. Unfortunately the Pakistani government has not been able to dispel this impression.

The other reason for the mistrust of the tribesmen is the frequent flouting of the understandings and agreements that the army authorities had repeatedly reached with the tribal elders. The Shakai agreement, which was signed between the authorities and the tribal elders in April last year, could have been a precursor for better relations, had it not been violated with the killing of Commander Nek Mohammad, his influential host Malik and his two sons. I wish our military had drawn lessons from the British who always avoided killing influential tribesmen as according to them a “dead tribesman is a far more dangerous enemy than a living one.”

The authorities have to understand that the tribesmen put full faith in any understanding that they reach with their interlocutor whether an individual or a group of people. Even now, one’s word is considered as sacrosanct as a written agreement. Once this is flouted or broken, the tribals consider themselves free to go to any lengths to redeem the situation.

The lack of trust in the government was recently voiced by a tribal jirga where the tribesmen vowed that they would not cooperate with the authorities either in maintaining law and order or in the implementation of development work as the government had repeatedly been breaking its promises. A list of Maliks who had been cooperating with the government was circulated with a warning that they would be eliminated unless they withdrew their support from the government. To make the threat a reality, a number of pro-government Maliks including ex Senator Malik Faridullah were assassinated.

Side by side with these negative developments, the tribal elders have been offering pragmatic and positive advice to the corps commander, Peshawar, who is in charge of the operation. He was told that the tribesmen should be taken into confidence before any military action is taken in their area. And no searches of homes particularly where there are womenfolk, should be carried out without the presence of the tribal elders and ulema of the area.

Will the government heed this sanguine advice? I have my doubts. The government’s argument is that they cannot do so as whenever they have told the tribesmen of an action it has been disclosed to the other side. This happens owing to lack of trust to which I have made a reference earlier.

The government has to understand that they can undertake collective territorial responsibility only when the nature of the offence has been disclosed to the elders of the area, and then they are given enough time and full opportunity to apprehend the culprits. If they refuse to do so or are unable to deliver, then the government is free to take punitive action in which the tribal elders would generally participate on the side of the government. The current policy of the government to shoot first and then consult is not working and will not work in the future.

The army can take a lesson from the time-tested mechanism which the British followed in such situations. When the tribal elders failed to persuade the erring tribe to give up the culprits or pay the fine imposed by the government, the political administration would warn the tribesmen, of the area through red-coloured leaflets dropped from aeroplanes that action would be taken after 72 hours and that they should vacate the area.

This warning would be repeated after 24 hours, this time with white leaflets. After the expiry of the deadline, action would be taken to demolish the dwellings of the culprits and arrest them. In many cases the tribesmen would agree to release the kidnapped persons and pay the fine, whatever the case, before the action was initiated. After the desired action, the government would then reconstruct the demolished area and business would resume.

In essence, the problem in Waziristan is the lack of trust and confidence in each other’s word and actions. The interest and involvement of foreign elements has further complicated matters. Unfortunately, the government has, for reasons best known to it, abandoned time-tested methods for dealing with the tribesmen through jirgas consisting of the acknowledged representatives of the people and respected ulema.

At times, the government goes through the motion of holding a jirga but usually after military action has been taken and involving only pro-government elements. In good old days, the government, recognizing that all matters pertaining to the tribal areas, even those of law and order were basically of a political nature would handle it through political authorities under the guidance and supervision of a civilian governor who was designated (and continues to be so) as agent of the central government for the tribal areas. Military action was the last option which the government would consider and that also only after the tribal elders had been taken into confidence and if possible after gaining their support. Even during military action, traditions, customs and the sensitivities of the people were a prime consideration.

Abundant patience is necessary for the success of negotiations with the tribesmen — even if these negotiations drag on for days, until such time that the tribals are exhausted, become impatient and consequently are amenable to accepting some reasonable solution.

The current strategy that the government is pursuing is totally devoid of this important element. Usually one witnesses a high-up going in a helicopter either to Wana or Miranshah and after addressing the jirga of those loyal to the government, hurrying back to Peshawar. Alternatively, the tribesmen are chaperoned to the provincial headquarter, addressed by some high and mighty official, given a meal and then sent back. This is unsatisfactory. The grimness of the current situation proves this abundantly.

The writer is a former ambassador.