After Phet Disaster

Cyclone Phet came and went. Luckily, it had lost much of its intensity as it continued on its trajectory along the coast of Balochistan and Sindh and did not cause the large-scale devastation feared earlier. By Monday, the Met office had downgraded Phet to a “well-marked low-pressure area” hovering over the Indian state of Rajasthan. It added that there was little chance of heavy rain in Sindh anymore. But it was not completely smooth sailing for the coastal belt.
Several deaths were reported in Karachi while power had still not been restored to parts of the metropolis by Monday evening. Many areas of Thatta and Badin — where the storm made landfall — also remained inundated. Yet it seems Balochistan has borne the brunt of the stormy weather. Although there were no reports of fatalities as people were evacuated from the vulnerable areas, the material damage has been considerable.
The torrential rains and gusty winds accompanying Phet tore along the Makran coast, particularly affecting Gwadar and Lasbela districts. Power supply, which had been disrupted in many coastal towns as the storm struck, has not been restored, while countless houses have collapsed. Certain areas are reportedly under four feet of water. Dozens of boats in Gwadar have also been damaged. Contact with the affected areas of Balochistan is also difficult as key roads and bridges are either damaged or have been washed away.
Though all the affected areas in Sindh and Balochistan need attention, the latter province requires a little extra effort on the government’s part. Claims of neglect following the far more destructive cyclone of 2007 are still fresh in the people’s mind. The inattention of the past must not be repeated or it will give disgruntled elements the chance to exploit the situation. The prime minister’s promise of aid should be fulfilled through immediate action and aid. Speedy reconstruction and relief efforts should be ensured. There is also a need for officials to come up with a long-term plan that can minimise the risk to settlements from the havoc that natural disasters wreak.

Peace Returns to Swat

On Thursday, a statement released by the Human Rights Commission of Pakistan welcomed the restoration of peace in Swat, citing the reports of a fact-finding team. This is encouraging and testifies to the Pakistan Army’s efforts since the military operation was launched last year. However, lasting stability hinges on several factors and requires more than the efforts of the army alone.
First, the security forces must refrain from adopting a ham-fisted approach. No illegal practices should be associated with the army. Yet the HRCP fact-finding team says that the security forces were in some areas committing human rights violations. These include extrajudicial killings, arbitrary detentions and the forced displacement of families of suspected militants. This is counterproductive and must cease since it tarnishes the image of the army while alienating the local people.
Secondly, the role played by the army in maintaining peace must slowly but surely be handed over to non- military agencies such as the police. The task of infrastructure development and rehabilitation must also be entrusted to civi- lian bodies. That the army repaired and rebuilt over 200 schools is praiseworthy, for instance, but sends the signal that civilian organisations are not in charge. The confidence of the people will not be restored unless the region appears safe enough for the army to be seen to be taking a back seat.
Third, the region needs a more efficient justice system. This will not only restore confidence in the state but also reduce the need for illegalities such as arbi-trary detention and extrajudicial killings. Only 57 of the nearly 3,000 cases registered against suspected militants since May 2009 have so far been decided, and there have been three convictions. This is unsurprising since there is only one anti-terrorism judge for the seven districts of Malakand division. Such deficiencies must be addressed if peace in Swat is to be sustainable.

40 Million under Taliban Rule

Human rights group Amnesty International said Thursday that nearly four million people are effectively living under Taliban rule in northwest Pakistan and have been abandoned by the government.
The 130-page report entitled “As if Hell Fell on Me: The Human Rights Crisis in Northwest Pakistan” is likely to ruffle Pakistani officials who believe they made great strides last year in regaining ground from the Taliban.
The London-based organisation said there were credible reports that at least 1,300 civilians were killed during fighting in the northwest in 2009.
There has been little official word on civilians hurt in anti-Taliban campaigns.
“Nearly four million people are effectively living under the Taliban in northwest Pakistan without rule of law and effectively abandoned by the Pakistani government,” said Amnesty's acting head, Claudio Cordone.
The group called the Federally Administered Tribal Areas (Fata) a “human rights free zone” and said more than one million displaced people were “in desperate need of aid”.
It urged Pakistan and the Taliban to prevent loss of civilian life and allow unfettered aid workers' access to provide food, shelter and medical supplies to the injured and displaced.
“We have an historic opportunity regarding Fata right now,” Amnesty's Asia-Pacific Director Sam Zarifi .
The international community has put up donor funds and Pakistani troops are operating in an “unprecedented” six of the seven tribal agencies, he said.
“The old tribal order has been hugely disrupted by the Taliban and we have a civilian government in Pakistan that has talked about short and medium-term reform. There is an opportunity to do something about the people of Fata.”The British colonial-era law governing Fata denies residents basic rights and protections, including their rights to political representation, judicial appeal and freedom from collective punishment.
“The Pakistani government has to follow through on its promises to bring the region out of this human rights black hole and place the people of Fata under the protection of the law and constitution of Pakistan,” said Cordone.
Amnesty, which based its report on nearly 300 interviews with residents in the northwest, accused Pakistan of launching “heavy handed” operations, including “indiscriminate or disproportionate attacks”.
It said the Taliban were guilty of systematic abuses, killing those who challenge their authority and imposing their rule through torture and other ill-treatment, targeting women, teachers, aid workers and political activists.
Insurgents increased the likelihood of civilian casualties by dispersing themselves in communities and blocking roads to prevent villagers from escaping “heavy bombardment by government forces”.
But a Pakistani security official contacted challenged Amnesty to visit Swat, where commanders say a decisive battle last year returned much of the northwest valley to relative normality after a two-year uprising.
Significant territory that fell to the Taliban had been regained and urgent efforts were being made to stabilise the areas allowing the displaced to return as soon as it was safe, the official said.

Public Voice!

A majority of Pakistanis don’t approve of Islamabad’s decision to join the US-led war on terror but, at the same time, they don’t believe that the Taliban are fighting for Islam, according to a survey carried out by the Pak Institute for Peace Studies (Pips).
Findings of the “Radicalisation in Pakistan” survey released on Tuesday show that 63.6 per cent of the respondents were against joining the war on terror, and 46.3pc were of the opinion that the Taliban were not fighting for Islam.
Even among those who sounded sympathetic to the militant organisation, 39.7pc condemned its acts of violence, such as attacks on girls’ schools, cinemas and CD shops. But about 22pc of them did not know how to respond to such acts.
According to the survey report, Taliban has sympathisers mostly in Balochistan (49.4pc) and Punjab (30.1pc) who believe that they are fighting for Islam.
Surprisingly, there are not many Taliban sympathisers in Fata and Khyber Pakhtunkhwa. Only 22pc respondents in Fata and 25.3pc in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa believe the Taliban are fighting for Islam.
However, 45.7pc of the respondents in Fata did not respond to the question.
The report reveals that Taliban do not enjoy much support in Sindh, AJK and Gilgit-Baltistan.
The respondents appeared concerned about the condition of Muslims and 77.7pc thought that they lagged behind other nations. Most of them (31.2pc) were of the opinion that this is because they had deviated from Islam. Only 18.1pc maintained that it was due to their backwardness in the fields of science and technology.
Another significant finding is that a large number of people (46.8pc) want religio-political parties given a chance to rule the country, despite the fact that the electoral performance of these parties were not “impressive’ in October 2002 when analysts attributed whatever success they achieved to the strong anti-American sentiments in the country.
The respondents also expressed interesting views on Jihad.
Very few (2.7pc) were of the view that Muslims had failed to progress in the world because they had lost their passion to fight against their enemies. About 28pc people believed that Jihad should be waged against cruelty and not to spread Islam to every corner of the world as five per cent of the respondents believed.
A large number of the respondents (20.4pc) were concerned about religious differences in the country. They blamed these disagreements for sectarianism and religious extremism.
However, a large number of people (21.6pc) did not take the disagreements seriously and said that these had been preordained and prophesied. The survey clearly captures growing religiosity among the masses.
Not surprisingly, 65pc of the respondents said a person who did not pray five times a day could not become a better Muslim. Nearly 59pc of them said the struggle for implementation of Sharia was also Jihad.
However, about 81pc of the respondents considered female education as “extremely necessary” and only a small percentage (12.5) thought it was “not very important”.
Nearly 23pc of the people surveyed said they did not listen to music, and (15.8pc) of them said it was because of religious reasons.
Interestingly, 51pc of the total sample endorsed Junaid Jamshaid’s decision to quit singing.
The respondents were from all urban and rural areas in the four provinces, Fata, Gilgit-Baltistan and Azad Kashmir (excluding military restricted areas).
The survey population was selected through probability/random sampling. Most of the people (53.4 and 14.8pc, respectively) belonged to urban areas and small towns. But a significant proportion (29.9pc) came from the rural community. A large majority of the respondents were either in intermediate (29.3pc) or pursuing a graduation or master’s degree (37.5pc).
Only 8.3pc of the people were not literate and 2.2pc had received only madressah education.
Interestingly, the general perception about the wars in Afghanistan and Kashmir is at variance with the recent militant discourse.

VAT imposition Vs Education sector

With the beginning of the new academic year from April, parents of children studying at private schools are already paying from Rs10 to Rs50 more on a textbook, depending on the syllabus. But they fear that with the imposition of value-added tax (VAT) in the new budget on the education sector, prices of education-related items will go skyrocketing.
Already uncomfortable with the surging inflation rate, parents now feel really perturbed over reports of VAT imposition on the education sector. Even the stakeholders in the education sector oppose the government’s move to levy VAT. In case of levy of a new tax, the stakeholders may not feel the pinch and ultimately parents will have to swallow the bitter pill of paying extra.
Publishers say the prices of books published by the Sindh Textbook Board have also risen by Rs1.5 per book for class ninth and tenth and 25 to 45 paisas per book from class one to eight in the last one year.
Like every year, paper makers enhance the rate of paper in the peak season in January for the new session and later they reduce the price in April after the book buying spree fades.
However, there was some stability in the prices of stationery items as claimed by manufacturers. Parents also bear an increase in the monthly fees and annual charges by private schools, uniform and shoe prices, school van charges, etc.

Teachers’ protest in Karachi

A protest drive by government school teachers in Sindh has left educational activities in a number of the province’s districts paralysed for the past several days. The teachers are demanding benefits and allowances granted to educators in the other three provinces which, they say, the Sindh government is not willing to extend to them. Teachers say a summary prepared by a government committee for the grant of benefits has been rejected by the chief minister. The government says the summary is under consideration.
Protests have been staged in various towns and cities across the province, including at the Bhutto mausoleum in Garhi Khuda Bakhsh. However, matters took a nasty turn when the protesting teachers clashed with police in Karachi on Thursday. The police resorted to tear-gas shelling and a baton charge to keep the teachers away from Governor’s House, where they wanted to deliver a memorandum to the governor. On Wednesday, the provincial education minister had criticised the teachers’ associations, for their protest drive, in the Sindh Assembly, saying they had “destroyed education”. He claimed that half the teachers do not show up to take classes, adding that the devolution of the education department to the city and district governments was responsible for the sorry state of education in the province.
In this tug-of-war between the government and teachers, the children of Sindh are suffering the most. Teachers’ representatives have said the protests will continue till the summer vacations and may carry on after the holidays. This is a grim prospect. Educators have every right to peacefully protest and pursue their demands, but this should not be at the cost of children’s education.
A compromise between both sides must be reached. Both the teachers and the government equally share the responsibility of improving the quality of education in Sindh. On the teachers’ part, securing benefits without improving their performance and standards is a questionable goal. On the government’s end, putting the blame for the rot in the education system on past governments will not solve the issue. Concrete measures need to be taken by all stakeholders to improve the falling standards of education in Sindh’s public schools.

Poor Nation Money Wasted

The country is facing severe economic issues, some of which are spiralling out of control. Due to factors as varied as mismanagement, terrorism and the power crisis, the output of the country’s industries has plummeted to an unprecedented low, foreign investment levels are dismal and workers are being laid off in large numbers.
The agricultural sector is in no better shape. It is suffering from the effects of long-term governmental mismanagement, outdated technology and global climate change. The ranks of the newly poor are swelling while inflation is rampant. Even the prices of daily essentials are on the increase while shortages are endemic. The country’s health, education and poverty alleviation systems are in a shambles. These are the grim realities of life in Pakistan today.
It is shocking, therefore, that the Punjab government has sanctioned the purchase of a Rs25m bulletproof Mercedes Benz for the use of the provincial governor, Salman Taseer. This is money, incidentally, that the government apparently does not have. Reportedly, the sum is to be drawn in advance through a supplementary grant before the close of the financial year as a special case by relaxing the rules. What is the pressing need for such a purchase when the federal and provincial governments have announced austerity measures that apply to all kinds of official expenditure from the presidency downwards?
Even if a case were to be made for the governor’s need for security, bulletproof vehicles — albeit older models — are already available. This extravagance amounts to rubbing salt into the wounds of the country’s population, wounds that the policies of the ruling elites have inflicted over the decades. Such an obscene display of wealth underscores the disparity between the rich and the poor and tips the balance towards anarchy and rebellion. Pakistan, which is fighting an insurgency in its north-western parts, simply cannot afford this crass profligacy.