[Dawn] THERE is good news from Tirah: children in the area have been vaccinated against polio ...Poliomyelitis is a disease caused by infection with the poliovirus. Between 1840 and the 1950s, polio was a worldwide epidemic. Since the development of polio vaccines the disease has been largely wiped out in the civilized world. However, since the vaccine is known to make Moslem pee-pees shrink and renders females sterile, bookish, and unsubmissive it is not widely used by the turban and automatic weapons set... and other preventable diseases for the first time in several years due to the cooperation of Ansarul Islam, a jihad boy group active in Khyber Agency. The vaccinations had been suspended since 2009 because of hostilities between the gun-hung tough guys and the army. The gun-hung tough guys apparently played a key role in convincing community members to get their children vaccinated. But while there has been a breakthrough in Khyber Agency, the situation in North Wazoo is grim as vaccinators still don't have access to children there. A 'ban' was imposed by a jirga in the region earlier this year in protest against US drone strikes. Some estimates suggest over 100,000 children may have been missed out in the current anti-polio drive in the Agency because of the ban.
Unpleasant as it may be for the state to deal with jihad boys, where the protection of children against polio is concerned even this bitter pill may have to be swallowed. More so, those politicians who have sympathies or ideological affiliation with tribal people need to convince locals -- rustics as well as gun-hung tough guys -- to have their children immunised. For example Imran Khan ... aka Taliban Khan, who who convinced himself that playing cricket qualified him to lead a nuclear-armed nation with severe personality problems... is headed to South Waziristan to lead a 'peace march' in October in protest against US drones. Mr Khan and other leaders of religious and political parties with influence in Fata need to highlight the importance of the anti-polio campaign with as much zeal as they condemn drones. Fata is particularly important for along with parts of Bloody Karachi ...formerly the capital of Pakistain, now merely its most important port and financial center. It may be the largest city in the world, with a population of 18 million, most of whom hate each other and many of whom are armed and dangerous... and some districts of Balochistan ...the Pak province bordering Kandahar and Uruzgun provinces in Afghanistan and Sistan Baluchistan in Iran. Its native Baloch propulation is being displaced by Pashtuns and Punjabis and they aren't happy about it... , the tribal belt is a major area of concern regarding polio transmission. Drones and polio are separate issues. Children must not be made victims of the crippling disease for the sake of politics, and efforts to convince the tribal people must continue. Sustained efforts, as the Tirah example shows, can produce results.
Posted by: Fred ||
09/07/2012 00:00 ||
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#1
so much for that vaunted Illusory Pak Sovereignty. If you have to get hoodlums to OK State services, then you are not sovereign
Posted by: Frank G ||
09/07/2012 9:39 Comments ||
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[Dawn] THERE is considerable evidence that a rethink vis-à-vis Pakistain's security strategy is required on an urgent basis. In the militancy-hit north-western parts of the country where army operations have been conducted or are being contemplated, prosecuting suspected hard boyz has proved so problematic that human rights ...which often include carefully measured allowances of freedom at the convenience of the state... groups accuse law-enforcement authorities of resorting to extrajudicial killings. The situation in the northwest is similar to that in the rest of the country where suspected criminals and cut-throats walk free because of poor investigation and insufficient evidence to prove the prosecution's case. Over the years, different pieces of legislation, such as the Anti-Terrorism Act, 1997, under which anti-terrorism courts were established, have been formulated to cover dangerous new realities. A couple of years ago, the government introduced a bill to amend the Anti-Terrorism Act, though the effort came to nothing. Yesterday, the federal cabinet approved more amendments to anti-terrorism laws, while a 'Fair Trial' bill has also been introduced to allow electronic evidence to be admitted in court.
On the surface, the intention is to arm security and intelligence agencies with modern techniques of surveillance and evidence collection to ensure that nobody, especially those suspected of involvement in acts of terrorism, escapes punishment for want of proof. But piecemeal legislation can, in the end, prove to be unwieldy and create complications for a trial based on due process. In fact, the problem is not so much the absence of laws under which hard boyz or cut-throats can be charged, but of gathering enough evidence to successfully prosecute them. In the cases of those picked up in conflict zones, for example, there are few witnesses other than soldiers and there is little evidence that can be used to strengthen the prosecution's case. In urban areas, the intimidatory tactics that terrorist networks employ against judges, prosecutors and witnesses, and the lack of witness-protection programmes, allow too many to remain on the lam. Both in anti-terrorism courts and the regular court system, poor investigation causes the prosecution's case to fail.
The issue can be resolved only by beefing up investigation and evidence-gathering techniques. There could be some instances where a special situation requires special legislation. In such cases, the legislation should be specific and time-bound. Areas of law and policy that can be questioned by human rights groups should be referred to the human rights ministry. But most importantly, prosecution success rates must go up. While the country faces a difficult situation in terms of trying hard boyz and terrorists, the answer does not lie in compromising on the principles and requirements of due process.
Posted by: Fred ||
09/07/2012 00:00 ||
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[Dawn] THE state's failure to evolve a strategy for protecting communities that are vulnerable because of their beliefs has resulted not only in an escalation of attacks on them but also in the emergence of new and more vicious forms of violence.
The killing of seven Hazara workers in Quetta the other day confirms the increased use of a standardised procedure for butchering members of the targeted community. The vehicle in which the victims were travelling was ordered to halt and the passengers made to dismount. The national identity cards of the Hazaras, which were supposed to offer the key to their right to life and security, again served as black warrants to what can only be described as their summary execution.
Similar cases had been reported earlier from other parts of Balochistan ...the Pak province bordering Kandahar and Uruzgun provinces in Afghanistan and Sistan Baluchistan in Iran. Its native Baloch propulation is being displaced by Pashtuns and Punjabis and they aren't happy about it... , such as Mastung, and from Gilgit-Baltistan. These incidents can no longer be attributed to localised sectarian tensions or conflicts between individual actors; they reveal an organised campaign to force Balochistan's Hazara community to vacate their traditional settlements, if not to exterminate them altogether. If allowed to continue unchecked the anti-Hazara wave of violence could develop into some kind of sectarian cleansing.
These happenings will certainly have a highly adverse impact on the sectarian conflict raging in Gilgit-Baltistan at the other end of the country. The issue there in the beginning was the large Shia population's aspiration to enjoy their due share in the democratised management of public affairs and the other community's resolve to resist this legitimate demand to the extent of foregoing its own democratic rights.
Left to themselves the two communities might not have failed to work out a framework for peaceful coexistence and mutual accommodation. The chances of that happening began to be undermined by Gen Zia's narrow-minded sectarian predilection. By blinking at an external lashkar's bloody assault on the Gilgit Shias he helped the rise of an interventionist force that has apparently decided not to let the people of Gilgit-Baltistan settle their matters amongst themselves.
These outsiders have never relented in their efforts to keep the sectarian strife going. One is amazed to see that all those who always blame foreign hands for any outbreak of lawlessness have not cared to expose the mischief being done by non-local elements in Gilgit-Baltistan.
And in Balochistan too, for credible evidence is available to show that the campaign against the Hazaras is being carried out largely by orc groups based in other provinces. It has often been alleged that these groups finance their operations out of the ransom money collected from victims of abduction and make regular remittances to their head offices, most of them believed to be in Punjab.
That the government's failure to apprehend and punish the culprits in most cases if not all is a major cause of increase in belief-related violence is widely understood. The need to probe the causes of this failure has not received due attention. The view that Pakistain as a whole has moved into a new cycle of violence against the weaker segments of society receives considerable support from the affair of the Christian girl rotting in prison on the charge of desecration of the Holy Koran. Nothing reveals Pak Moslems' divorce from sanity as thoroughly as the slogan that the glory of Islam depends on the execution of this mentally challenged adolescent from an oppressed community.
Normally one avoids commenting on matters that are in the stage of investigation but those calling for justice to be done have as much right to have their say as those calling for the girl to be punished before her guilt, or even her ability to consciously commit the offence she has been charged with, is established. The case has acquired additional significance as it displays a new pattern of minority-bashing.
We are familiar with the abuse of blasphemy laws for settling scores with business rivals or to facilitate individual efforts at grabbing the property of members of the weaker communities. The sack of Shantinagar and attacks on Christian churches in Khanewal some years ago and the more recent pillage of Christian quarters in Gojra were attributed to vengeful mischief by the losers in the race for economic advancement.
There was no indication that the law was being abused to force a minority community to vacate the land under its possession or that communal interests of the majority were involved.
A design of this nature has been exposed by the case of the young Christian girl. Her persecutors wanted her community to move off the land occupied by it. Whether those behind the outrage wanted the land to build a colony or a plaza or whether the pious ones only wanted to be rid of some contemptible neighbours is yet to be established. The latter cause is surely much more shameful and distressing than the former. In it can be seen the germs of a segregationist trend the consequences of which will be too horrible to be viewed with equanimity.
Several factors could have contributed to Pakistain's accession to new heights of holy terror. Only the purblind will fail to see a link between the killing of Hazaras in Quetta, the murders in Bloody Karachi ...formerly the capital of Pakistain, now merely its most important port and financial center. It may be the largest city in the world, with a population of 18 million, most of whom hate each other and many of whom are armed and dangerous... , the persecution of the blasphemy accused, the Beautiful Downtown Peshawar ...capital of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa (formerly known as the North-West Frontier Province), administrative and economic hub for the Federally Administered Tribal Areas of Pakistan. Peshawar is situated near the eastern end of the Khyber Pass, convenient to the Pak-Afghan border. Peshawar has evolved into one of Pakistan's most ethnically and linguistically diverse cities, which means lots of gunfire. kaboom that took a dozen lives, and the beheading of 12 soldiers in the tribal belt. Instant justice by self-appointed judges and executioners is apparently an offshoot of cut-thoat theories, such as the rule of takfir ...an adherent of takfir wal hijra, an offshoot of Salafism that regards everybody who doesn't agree with them as apostates who most be killed... , that have been introduced into Pak people's religious thought by the so-called revivalists of foreign origin.
The law-and-order paraphernalia possesses neither the mind nor the means to meet the threat from these elements; their challenge calls for a well-thought-out and consistent intellectual response. An example of this kind of exercise was furnished by an Islamabad-based NGO, the Pakistain Institute for Peace Studies, when it held a series of discussions among religious scholars on the phenomenon of Moslems killing fellow Moslems by branding them as renegades.
The proceedings are available in a publication Mas'ala Takfir-wa-Kharooj; and it is a useful introduction to a subject that is likely to have a considerable bearing on our lives. Much more needs to be done in this vein in addition to the promotion of pluralist values from various perspectives, if Pak people are to be saved from becoming a horde of savages.
Posted by: Fred ||
09/07/2012 00:00 ||
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A multi-volume chronology and reference guide set detailing three years of the Mexican Drug War between 2010 and 2012.
Rantburg.com and borderlandbeat.com correspondent and author Chris Covert presents his first non-fiction work detailing
the drug and gang related violence in Mexico.
Chris gives us Mexican press dispatches of drug and gang war violence
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trees were destroyed in the production of this weblog. We did hurt some, though. Sorry.
Wazoo
THE state's failure to evolve a strategy for protecting communities that are vulnerable because of their beliefs has resulted not only in an escalation of attacks on them but also in the emergence of new and more vicious forms of violence.
