PESHAWAR, Sept 25: Pakistan Tehrik-i-Insaaf (PTI) chairman Imran Khan on Wednesday urged the government to declare a ceasefire if it was serious about holding peace talks with militants in Pakistan.
The PTI chief also called on the government to allow militants to open an office in Pakistan similar to the Afghan Taliban office in Qatar to facilitate the dialogue process, DawnNews reported.
Speaking to media representatives after visiting injured persons of the Peshawar church bombing at the Lady Reading Hospital, Khan said that on one hand, there were talks of holding negotiations whereas on the other, war was still ongoing. How would it be possible to hold peace talks, he questioned.
The PTI chairman moreover said that after the fourth All Parties Conference (APC), it was decided to hold peace talks; however no solutions had come about.
Khan stressed that the government should take negotiations seriously, adding that it should declare a ceasefire.
Furthermore, he also said that the government should allow militants to establish a political office in Pakistan to hold peace talks in the absence of which negotiations would not be possible and the decade-long war against terrorism would continue.
While discussing the Peshawar church bombing which killed 81 people, Khan alleged that the tragedy had been politicised. He said 170 blasts had taken place in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa in the past nine years under previous governments, but PTI had not politicised those tragedies.
Operation in Karachi (Credit: centralasiaonline.com)In Pakistan, the wheel of history has brought the Muttehida Qaumi Movement (MQM) up against a sheer battle for survival. Today the ethnic party of Mohajirs (Urdu speakers from India), is squeezed between a wary, experienced Punjabi prime minister and a Sindh based PPP – that no longer seeks compromise to stay in power.
Small wonder that MQM chief, Altaf Hussain – who fled to London under Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif’s first tenure – has denounced the ongoing operation in Sindh as a reminder of the “genocide of Mohajirs” suffered in 1992 under ‘Operation Clean up.’ In so doing, he has appealed to third and fourth generation of Mohajirs, whose fathers may have been killed during that decade in police encounters and extrajudicial killings.
Apparently, the MQM miscalculated when it invited the army to conduct the operation. The first sign that the operation was not to their liking, came, when it’s former MPA, Nadeem Hashmi was arrested for the murder of two policemen – and the party protested by shutting down Karachi and a few urban areas in Sindh. Hashmi’s sudden release from an anti-terrorist court would show the MQM still has political leverage.
But essentially, US plans to withdraw from Afghanistan and the election of a `Taliban friendly,’ government have contributed to the MQM’s woes. In the wake of 9/11, the party reinvented itself as the secular alternative to `Talibanization.’ However, given that the Mohajir-Pashtun conflict is ethnic in nature, the MQM went on a limb to prevent the `Pashtoonization’ of Karachi. As violence erupted in Karachi, it prevented ever migrating Pashtuns from settling there.
After 9/11, US support for Gen. Pervaiz Musharraf facilitated him to patronize the MQM – allowing the ethnic party to reach its hey day. It contributed to the longest tenure for MQM’s Ishrat ul Ebad to govern Sindh – notwithstanding the murder and army kidnapping cases lodged against him in 1992. Former president, Asif Zardari, learning from the rocky tenures of his prime minister-wife, Benazir Bhutto, molly-coddled the MQM – enabling the PPP government to complete its tenure.
The downside was that for the last five years, the MQM and the Awami National Party (representing Pushtoons) fought on ethnic basis for the control of Karachi. The PPP, saved its coalition with the two parties by desisting from action against politically affiliated criminals. Adopting the maxim `If you can’t beat them, join them,’ it patronized armed Baloch groups from Lyari to keep control.
While the PPP government abdicated power, the land mafia dug in and brutal Taliban elements entered Karachi. Murders sky rocketed and extortion, kidnappings for ransom, vehicle thefts and mobile phone snatching soared. All this happened as the US presence in Afghanistan made weapons more accessible than ever. It resulted in 7,000 people being killed in the city in the last five years alone.
Given that Karachi is the back-bone of the nation’s tax base, the business minded Sharif government has focused on returning peace to the city. Senior police officers have been transferred and Rangers deputed to crack down in Karachi. The PPP, now acting as a junior partner of Sharif’s government, coyly says it needs to act against all criminal elements, regardless of party affiliation.
However, the absence of justice in Pakistan’s political system makes the MQM woefully aware that its real “crime,” is being out of power!!
For example, Scotland Yard has only now reinvigorated the three-year-old murder case of Imran Farooq – that implicates MQM chief Altaf Hussain. As Altaf’s demi-God personality comes under challenge, his followers have passionately rallied around him in a `now or never’ battle for survival. Media reports nevertheless, talk about cracks within the MQM – among those who support Ebad’s governorship, and others who want to stay in opposition.
At the end of the day, Sindh seeks an even-handed operation that will rid the province of all criminal elements – regardless of patronage. Presently, the culture of nepotism and absence of just policies keeps people coalescing around ethnicity. In the urban areas – and a mega city like Karachi, it fans a culture of violence that promotes fear and intimidation.
Today the biggest stake holders of Sindh – Sindhis and Mohajirs – need to rid themselves of ethnic prejudices and work together to promote rational policies and good governance. That means taking a lesson from developed nations – where race, ethnicity religion, sect and gender can no longer be used to discriminate and obstruct the common good.
LONDON, Sept 12 — For two decades, Altaf Hussain has run his brutal Pakistani political empire by remote control, shrouded in luxurious exile in London and long beyond the reach of the law.
He follows events through satellite televisions in his walled-off home, manages millions of dollars in assets and issues decrees in ranting teleconferences that last for hours — all to command a network of influence and intimidation that stretches from North America to South Africa.
This global system serves a very localized goal: perpetuating Mr. Hussain’s reign as the political king of Karachi, the brooding port city of 20 million people at the heart of Pakistan’s economy.
“Distance does not matter,” reads the inscription on a monument near Mr. Hussain’s deserted former house in Karachi, where his name evokes both fear and favor.
Now, though, his painstakingly constructed web is fraying.
A British murder investigation has been closing in on Mr. Hussain, 59, and his party, the Muttahida Qaumi Movement. His London home and offices have been raided, and the police have opened new investigations into accusations of money laundering and inciting violence in Pakistan.
The scrutiny has visibly rattled Mr. Hussain, who recently warned supporters that his arrest may be imminent. And in Karachi, it has raised a previously unthinkable question: Is the end near for the untouchable political machine that has been the city’s linchpin for three decades?
“This is a major crisis,” said Irfan Husain, the author of “Fatal Faultlines,” a book about Pakistan’s relationship with the United States. “The party has been weakened, and Altaf Hussain is being criticized like never before.”
Mr. Hussain’s rise offers a striking illustration of the political melee in Pakistan.
His support stems from the Mohajirs, Urdu-speaking Muslims whose families moved to Pakistan after the partition from India in 1947, and who make up about half of Karachi’s population. Since the 1980s, the Muttahida Qaumi Movement has fiercely defended Mohajir interests, and in turn it has been carried to victory in almost every election and to an enduring place in national coalition governments as well.
Mr. Hussain fled to London in 1992, when the movement was engaged in a vicious street battle with the central government for supremacy in Karachi. The British government granted him political asylum and, 10 years later, a British passport.
London has long been the antechamber of Pakistani politics, where self-exiled leaders take refuge until they can return. The former military ruler Pervez Musharraf lived here until recently, and the current prime minister, Nawaz Sharif, lived here until 2007.
Mr. Hussain, however, shows no sign of going back. The Muttahida Qaumi Movement has an office in Edgware, in northwest London. But these days Mr. Hussain is mostly at home, in a redbrick suburban house protected by raised walls, security cameras and a contingent of former British soldiers he has hired as bodyguards.
From there, he holds court, addressing his faraway followers in a vigorous, sometimes maniacal style, punctuated by jabbing gestures and hectoring outbursts. Occasionally he bursts into song, or tears. Yet, on the other end of the line, it is not unusual to find tens of thousands of people crowded into a Karachi street, listening raptly before an empty stage containing Mr. Hussain’s portrait, as his disembodied voice booms from speakers.
“The cult of personality surrounding Altaf Hussain is quite extraordinary,” said Farzana Shaikh, an academic and the author of “Making Sense of Pakistan.” “He is immensely charismatic, in the way one thinks of the great fascist leaders of the 20th century.”
In Karachi, his overwhelmingly middle-class party is fronted by sharply dressed, well-spoken men — and a good number of women — and it has won a reputation for efficient city administration. But beneath the surface, its mandate is backed by armed gangs involved in racketeering, abduction and the targeted killings of ethnic and political rivals, the police and diplomats say.
Other major Pakistani parties indulge in similar behavior, but the Muttahida Qaumi Movement frequently brings the most muscle to the fight. An American diplomatic cable from 2008 titled “Gangs of Karachi,” which was published by WikiLeaks, cited estimates that the party had an active militia of 10,000 gunmen, with an additional 25,000 in reserve — a larger force, the dispatch notes, than the city police.
Many journalists who have criticized the party have been beaten, or worse, driving most of the news media in Karachi to tread lightly. In June, the Committee to Protect Journalists, a lobbying group based in New York, accused the party of organizing the killing of Wali Khan Babar, a television reporter.
In the West, the party has avoided critical attention partly because it has cast itself as an enemy of Islamist militancy. In 2001, Mr. Hussain wrote a letter to Prime Minister Tony Blair of Britain, offering to help Britain set up a spy network against the Taliban.
Critics of the party have frequently questioned the role of British officials in facilitating its unusual system of governance. Pakistani exiles from Baluchistan, also accused of fomenting violence, have faced criminal prosecution. But Britain is not the only node of Mr. Hussain’s international support network.
Through the Pakistani diaspora, the Muttahida Qaumi Movement has active branches as far afield as the United States, Canada and even South Africa, which has become an important financial hub and a haven for the group’s enforcers, Pakistani investigators say.
Two police interrogation reports obtained by The New York Times cite militants from the movement who say they traveled to South Africa in between carrying out political assassinations in Karachi. One of those men, Teddy Qamar, confessed to 58 killings between 2006 and 2012, the police say. In an interview, Anis Hasan, the party’s joint organizer for South Africa, denied any link to organized violence.
But if Mr. Hussain seemed immune to scrutiny at his London stronghold, his luck started to turn in September 2010 after Imran Farooq, a once-influential leader in the movement who had split from the party, was stabbed to death near his house in Edgware.
Soon after, Mr. Hussain appeared on television, mourning Mr. Farooq with a flood of tears. But over the past year, the police investigation has turned sharply in his direction.
In December, officers from Scotland Yard’s Counter Terrorism Command searched the movement’s London office. Then in June they went to Mr. Hussain’s home and arrested Ishtiaq Hussain, his cousin and personal assistant, who is now out on bail. The police impounded $600,000 in cash and some jewelry under laws that target the proceeds of crime.
Mr. Hussain was not available for an interview, his party said. But a senior party official, Nadeem Nusrat, speaking at the movement’s London office, denied any link to Mr. Farooq’s killing. “Our conscience is clear,” Mr. Nusrat said. “We have nothing to do with it.”
Mr. Nusrat said the impounded money had come from political donations. And he rejected accusations, also the subject of a police inquiry, that Mr. Hussain has directly threatened political rivals, in some instances by warning that he would arrange for their “body bags.”
“It’s all taken out of context,” Mr. Nusrat said.
Mr. Hussain has receded from public view during the recent furor. There have been rumors about mounting health problems, which Mr. Hussain’s aides deny. But he cannot return to Pakistan, they say, because the Taliban could kill him. “In Pakistan,” said Muhammad Anwar, a longtime aide, “nobody can guarantee your life.”
Then there are the legal threats: over the years, dozens of murder charges have been lodged against Mr. Hussain in Pakistan, although some have been quashed in court. A more pressing question, perhaps, concerns the impact on the streets of Karachi if Mr. Hussain is forced to step down.
Some fear that without his guiding hand, tensions within the movement could split it into hostile factions — a frightening prospect in a city where political violence already claims hundreds of lives a year.
“However viciously the party conducts itself, there is an order within the apparent disorder,” said Ms. Shaikh, the academic.
Even if the British government wished to crack down on Mr. Hussain, she added, it might find itself subject to appeals from the Pakistani authorities. “The fear of Karachi going up in flames is so great,” Ms. Shaikh said, “that no government can take that risk, as long as Altaf Hussain is alive.”
General Officer Commanding Swat, Maj Gen. Sanaullah NIazi (Credit: tribune.com.pk)
Speaking as we would expect from an army chief, Chief of Army Staff (COAS) General Ashfaq Parvez Kayani has said the military would not allow terrorists to ‘coerce’ the government or people into talks, and that the army had the capability of taking the war to them. General Kayani’s strong words reflect public outrage and national revulsion over Taliban attacks that left at least eight security personnel dead within the past 48 hours. The most senior officer among them was the General-Officer-Commanding Swat, Major General Sanaullah Niazi, whose vehicle was hit by an improvised explosive device in Upper Dir. A lieutenant colonel was also killed in the attack. The army chief stressed the armed services had the ‘ability and will’ to take the battle to the terrorists and would not allow these elements to take advantage of a quest for peace.
Any talks with terrorists must take place from a powerful position; the government must not appear to be cowering before them.
Certainly, this is what seems to be happening now. Following the call by an All Parties Conference to pursue a course of dialogue to solve security issues, the Tehreek-e-Taliban Pakistan has put out a set of demands which include a troop withdrawal from tribal areas and the release of all Taliban prisoners. At the same time they seem to be bent on continuing their war against the state. Dealing with a force that speaks from a perceived position of strength by accepting any of its terms or even hinting this could happen would be a disaster; quite possibly a fatal one. No state can afford to allow itself to be weakened in this fashion.
General Kayani, whose primary role, of course, is to defend the nation, has done well to speak out forcefully. His words act as a reminder of the act of folly that political players may have been moving towards. Any talks with terrorists must take place from a powerful position; the government must not appear to be cowering before them — and the army chief’s expression of a full readiness to take them on is reassuring given the developments of the past few days and the farcical terms put down by the TTP for talks, which more and more people of rationality believe it would be foolish to attempt to pursue, at least, at the present point in time.
Eid security (Credit: thenews.com.pk)Islamabad, Aug 8: The Islamabad Capital Territory (ICT) Police have finalised a comprehensive security and patrolling plan on the eve of Eidul Fitr and also augmented the security at public places, worship places and other important buildings to thwart any untoward incident, a police spokesman said.
IGP Islamabad Sikandar Hayat has directed all officials to remain on high alert and fully prepared during Eid days. As per security plan chalked out by SSP Islamabad Muhammad Rizwan, more than 2,500 policemen would perform security duties. Patrolling would be made in various sectors to check possible house burglaries during Eid holidays. However, people have also been appealed to inform relevant police stations before their departure to native areas.
Eid prayers will be offered at 507 places in Islamabad including Masajid, Imambargahs and open places which will be covered by armed guards and policemen. Four SPs, nine ASPs/DSPs, 17 Inspectors will overall look after security arrangements in their respective jurisdictions.
Special Quick Response Force (QRF) teams have been constituted for immediate assistance to citizens while vehicles, earlier serving with various squads, will be on patrolling duty to ensure vigilance during Eid days.
Falcon squads and police commandos including contingents of lady police will also patrol in the city to ensure sense of complete security to citizens on Eid occasion.
According to the plan, policemen would also patrol in the various sectors and police in charges of circles would ensure proper security at the Eid congregations in various locations.
Superintendents of Police (SPs) will conduct checking of security and patrolling duties in their respective areas and to ensure coordination among all the mobile police teams.
More than 140 policemen lead by two SPs, two ASP/DSP, four Inspectors would be only deputed for the security at Faisal Mosque on Eid day while walk through gates and scanners would be installed as a part of security measure.
Sub-Divisional Police Officers and Station House Officers would be responsible of the security around worship places. They may be provided additional force on their request for the effective patrolling and security at Eid congregations in various sectors.
Duty rosters have been prepared by the in charges of police stations and policemen would patrol in various sectors during day and night timings to ensure protection to properties during Eid holidays.
The mobile officers and police guard posted at Mosques, Imambargahs, public/picnic places will take notice of the beggars hovering around the premises and will take legal action against them.
Special focus is to ensure safety to properties and stop incidents of theft and car-lifting during Eid holidays. As a part of security measures, police pickets would be erected at all important entry and exit points for checking of vehicles and SPs of each Zone will visit these points to brief the deployed cops about effective checking and security.
The mobile patrols and squads of Islamabad Traffic Police would also remain present in markets, shopping plazas and at prominent points during Eid congregations. Bomb disposal squad will remain available at short notice and all public places, parks, play grounds will be kept under strict vigilance and security cover.
Islamabad Traffic Police (ITP) on special directions of SSP (Traffic) Dr. Moeen Masood has made a special plan and 250 traffic personnel will be deputed at various locations lead by SP, three DSPs and 9 Inspectors. Traffic deployment in shopping areas, markets will be augmented while the patrol cars and pairs will patrol in their respective areas to facilitate the general public.
KARACHI, Aug 1: Mamnoon Hussain, president elect of Pakistan, told the BBC Urdu website that political parties were backing groups of criminals, land-grabbers, and extortionists and that this fact had been highlighted in various decisions of the courts.
In his first interview after getting elected as the 12th president of Pakistan, the Karachi-based senior politician said that whenever he thinks of resolving the law and order issue of Pakistan his mind comes to Karachi first adding that he was well aware of the practical situation in the city.
Elaborating further on the topic he said that Karachi would have to be given special attention as it was the driving force of the entire country and that the city was vital to the country not just from the economic aspect but from every angle.
Talking about the deteriorating law and order situation of Karachi Hussain said that full fledged action to eradicate crime was not taken in the past as the criminals, land-grabbers, and extortionists had the backing of political parties and that this fact had been mentioned in various court verdicts.
He added that the situation could not improve until the practice was ended and criminal elements were brought to justice.
Hussain said that there was need for intelligence agencies to come together under one platform and for political parties to stop backing criminals.
Reminiscing about Agra the president elect said that if the Pakistan Muslim League – Nawaz (PML-N) government initiated peace talks with neighbouring India, he wished to be part of the process and hoped to play a role in this regards, as Agra was his birthplace.
He further said that he wished to visit Agra, especially, to see the Taj Mahal.
Mamnoon Hussain was born in India’s Agra city on 1940 and he migrated from India with his family to Pakistan during the 1947 partition of the sub-continent.
KARACHI, Pakistan — Usman, who limps on a leg bowed by the polio he caught as a child, made sure that his first three children were protected from the disease, but he turned away vaccinators when his youngest was born.
He was furious that the Central Intelligence Agency, in its hunt for Osama bin Laden, had staged a fake vaccination campaign, and infuriated by American drone strikes, one of which, he said, had struck the son of a man he knew, blowing off his head. He had come to see the war on polio, the longest, most expensive disease eradication effort in history, as a Western plot.
In January, his 2-year-old son, Musharaf, became the first child worldwide to be crippled by polio this year.
“I know now I made a mistake,” said Usman, 32, who, like many in his Pashtun tribe, uses only one name. “But you Americans have caused pain in my community. Americans pay for the polio campaign, and that’s good. But you abused a humanitarian mission for a military purpose.”
Anger like his over American foreign policy has led to a disastrous setback for the global effort against polio. In December, nine vaccinators were shot dead here, and two Taliban commanders banned vaccination in their areas, saying the vaccinations could resume only if drone strikes ended. In January, 10 vaccinators were killed in Nigeria’s Muslim-dominated north.
Since then, there have been isolated killings — of an activist, a police officer and vaccinators — each of which has temporarily halted the campaign.
The war on polio, which costs $1 billion a year and is expected to take at least five more years, hangs in the balance. When it began 25 years ago, 350,000 people a year, mostly children, were paralyzed. Last year, fewer than 250 were, and only three countries — Afghanistan, Nigeria and Pakistan — have never halted its spread at any point.
While some experts fear the killings will devastate the effort here, Pakistan’s government insists that they will not, and has taken steps to ensure that. Vaccinators’ pay was raised to $5 a day in the most dangerous areas, police and army escorts were increased and control rooms were created to speed crisis responses.
But the real urgency to finish the job began earlier, for a very different reason. Two years ago, India, Pakistan’s rival in everything from nuclear weapons to cricket, eliminated polio.
“Nothing wounded our pride as much as that,” said Dr. Zulfiqar A. Bhutta, a vaccine expert at Aga Khan University’s medical school.
Bill Gates, who is the campaign’s largest private donor and calls beating the disease “the big thing I spend the majority of my time on,” said that Pakistan’s desire to not be further humiliated “is our biggest asset.”
After India’s success and hints from the World Health Organization that it might issue travel warnings, Pakistan’s government went on an emergency footing. A cabinet-level “polio cell” was created. Vaccinators’ routine pay doubled to $2.50. More than 1,000 “mobilizers” were hired to visit schools and mosques to counter the ever-swirling rumors that the vaccine contained pork, birth control hormones or H.I.V., the virus that causes AIDS.
Mullahs were courted to endorse vaccination. They issued 24 fatwas, and glossy booklets of their directives were printed for vaccinators to carry.
Perhaps most important, local command was given to deputy commissioners, who have police powers that health officials lack.
Pakistan is closer than ever. Although cases will not peak until after the summer monsoons, there have been only 21 so far this year. A few years ago, 39 substrains of the polio virus circulated; now only two do. About 300,000 children live in areas too dangerous for vaccinators, but almost all the sewage samples from those areas are clear of the virus.
Ultimately, though, success will depend on more than political will and the rivalry with India. In the wake of the recent killings, it will rely most of all on individual acts of courage, like those by prominent imams who pose for pictures as they vaccinate children.
Or by Usman, who appeared with his polio-stricken son, Musharaf, in a fund-raising video asking rich Persian Gulf nations to buy vaccines for poor Muslims elsewhere.
Or by volunteers, like the women of the Bibi family, in Karachi, who formed a vaccination team. Two of them, Madiha, 18, and Fahmida, 46, were gunned down in December. Television news showed female relatives keening over their bodies. Not only are those women still vaccinating, but Madiha’s 15-year-old sister also volunteered for her spot.
“All the children of Pakistan are our children,” said Gulnaz Shirazee, 31, who leads the team. “It’s up to us to eradicate polio. We can’t stop. If we’re too afraid, then who will do it?”
A Moving Target
If there is one spot on earth where polio may make its last stand, it is a cramped slum called Shaheen Muslim Town No. 1 in Peshawar, a hotbed of anti-Western militancy. Since sampling began, its sewers have never tested negative for the virus.
It is a neighborhood of migrant Pashtun families who rent rooms briefly and move on, looking for menial jobs picking fruit or making bricks. On a recent sunny afternoon, its alleys were full of carts drawn by donkeys whose faces were decorated with the red prints of hands dipped in henna. Many women wore the full burqa popular in Afghanistan.
In this part of the world, virtually all those with polio are from the Pashtun tribe, in which resistance to vaccination is highest. It is Afghanistan’s largest ethnic group and the wellspring of the Taliban, but a minority in Pakistan. Pakistani Army sweeps and American drone strikes have driven many Pashtuns from their mountain valleys into crowded cities.
Peshawar worries even Dr. Elias Durry, a normally optimistic polio specialist with the W.H.O. “You can get 90 percent vaccine coverage, and come back a few months later, and it’s 50 percent,” he said. “People just move so quickly.”
Shaheen’s sewers are concrete trenches about a foot deep, into which wastewater, rendered milky white by dish soap, flows from pipes exiting mud-brick houses. A child reaching into one for a stick to play with showed how easily the virus, carried in fecal matter, could spread.
Though the area has clean water from a well, the steel pipe it flows through at times dips inside the sewerage trench. It has dents where trucks have banged it, and it is pierced by connectors, some attached just to rubber hoses.
“Piped water with sewage mixed in is worse than no piped water,” said Dr. Bhutta of Aga Khan. “Sometimes rural populations have it better. They carry water from the river, and they defecate in open fields, so there’s no mixing.”
Pakistani children suffer diarrhea so often that half the country’s young are stunted by it. Polio immunity is low, even in vaccinated children, because other viruses crowd the gut receptors to which the vaccine should attach.
At the clinic in Shaheen, the doctor running the polio drive, an ophthalmologist, complained that he got too little police help.
“I have 28 teams, so I requested 56 constables,” he said. “I was given 12.”
He said the underpaid officers inevitably knocked off at midday because their station house serves a hot meal.
The same problem was echoed in Gadap Town, a Karachi neighborhood where vaccinators were killed in December. As a team worked its way from house to house with a reporter, it had every reason to feel secure: because the visit was arranged by an official, six officers with AK-47s came along.
But another team passing by was guarded only by an aged sergeant with a cudgel.
“Yes, we have a security problem,” Dr. Syed Ali, a local official, said quietly on a side street. “What is a stick in front of a gun?”
The isolation and poverty of the Pashtun tribe underlie its resistance. Many of its imams are from Islam’s fundamentalist Deobandi sect, which emerged in the 19th century as a reaction to the British conquest.
Many Pashtun neighborhoods receive few government services like health clinics, paved streets or garbage pickup, but get shiny new billboards trumpeting the polio fight paid for by Western donors.
“People tell us, ‘We need schools, we need roads, we need housing, and all you bring our children is polio, polio, polio,’ ” said Madiha, a black-veiled Gadap vaccinator.
In the middle of last year, it became known that in 2011, the C.I.A. had paid a local doctor to try to get DNA samples from children inside an Abbottabad compound to prove they were related to Bin Laden.
Even though the doctor, Shakil Afridi, who is now serving a 33-year sentence for treason, was offering a hepatitis vaccine, anger turned against polio drops.
Leaders of the polio eradication effort could not have been more frustrated. They were already fighting new rumors that vaccinators were helping set drone targets because they have practices like marking homes with chalk so that follow-up teams can find them. Now, after years of reassuring nervous families that the teams were not part of a C.I.A. plot, here was proof that one was.
“It was a huge, stupid mistake,” Dr. Bhutta said.
Anger deepened when American lawmakers called Dr. Afridi a hero and threatened to cut off aid if he was not released. The W.H.O. and the Unicef, afraid of offending the United States, did not protest publicly. Unicef’s executive director, Anthony Lake, is a former White House national security adviser, which put the agency in an awkward position, an agency official said on the condition of anonymity because of the sensitivity of the issue.
But the deans of a dozen top American public health universities wrote a letter of protest to the Obama administration. Mr. Gates said he endorsed it, though he was not asked to sign. He also said he discussed the issue with Tom Donilon, the former national security adviser, though he would not give details of the conversation.
Fistfuls of Rupees
New opposition has forced the adoption of new ground tactics.
Dr. Qazi Jan Muhammad, the former deputy commissioner of Karachi East, called his approach “a mix of carrots and sticks.”
Whole apartment buildings were missed, he discovered, because Pashtun watchmen were shooing away vaccinators.
“I had the police tell them: ‘Either you let them in, or you go behind bars,’ ” he said.
He had traffic circles blocked so teams could approach each car, and he led some teams himself holding fistfuls of rupees, worth about a penny each.
“I saw a girl, about 11, carrying her 2-year-old sister,” he said. “I gave her a 10-rupee note and said, ‘Will you allow me to give drops to your sister? You can get sweets for yourself.’ ”
“She told all the children, ‘A man is giving away 10 rupees,’ and they all came rushing. I vaccinated 400 kids for only 4,000 rupees.”
The sewers of his district, which has several million inhabitants, are now virus-free.
At the Front Lines Again
The country’s new determination has also brought Rotary International back to the front lines.
The club, founded in Chicago in 1905, started the global polio eradication drive in 1988. It has had chapters in what is now Pakistan since 1927, and is now led by Aziz Memon, a hard-driving textile magnate.
Mr. Memon, 70, and other Rotary-affiliated executives have used their money and political connections to keep the pressure on. They compensated the killed vaccinators’ relatives and held news conferences at which the families urged others to continue fighting.
Rotarians also work in places that terrify government officials. In an industrial neighborhood in Karachi, where both gangs and the Taliban hold sway after dark, Abdul Waheed Khan oversaw a Rotary polio clinic in his school, Naunehal Academy. A big, gregarious man, he angered the Taliban by admitting girls to his academy and offering a liberal arts education instead of only Koran study. His only security was local teenagers who ride motorcycles beside his car to keep anyone from pulling up alongside.
In March, he hosted Dr. Robert S. Scott, the 79-year-old Canadian chairman of Rotary’s polio committee, who flew in to vaccinate children to prove that the fight would go on despite the December killings.
“I had a fatwa put on my head,” Mr. Khan said in April as he led a tour of the clinic. “They said I was Jewish. I had a friend issue a counter-fatwa saying I was a good Muslim.”
On May 13, Mr. Khan was killed by gunmen who also wounded his 1-year-old daughter.
His clinic will not close. “No one can replace Waheed, but life has to go on,” Mr. Memon said.
‘This Is Good Work’
Rotary also sponsors a tactic used to reach children from areas too dangerous for home visits: “transit point” vaccinating.
At a tollbooth on the highway into Karachi, Ghulam Jilani’s team takes advantage of an army checkpoint. As soldiers stop each bus to search for guns, Rotary vaccinators hop aboard. On a typical day, they reach 800 children.
Yes, Mr. Jilani said, the soldiers’ presence may intimidate some resistant families into complying. Also, he added brightly: “We scare them a little. We say, ‘You are entering a city with the disease. Don’t you want your children safe?’ ”
About 90 percent comply, he said, sometimes after a public argument between a father who believes the rumors and a mother, outside their home and at times backed by other women on the bus, insisting the children be protected.
Near the Afghan frontier, where thousands of children live in valleys under Taliban control, teams do the same at military roadblocks. At hospitals, which are usually guarded by soldiers, nurses will pack extra doses of the vaccine on ice for families willing to smuggle it to neighbors.
Some frontier clan chiefs have lost their government stipends for opposing vaccination, and officials have threatened to deny national identity cards to their clans. But the chiefs are in a bind; the Taliban have assassinated many for cooperating with the government.
Mr. Memon of Rotary opposes what he called “these coercive gimmicks.”
“We can’t twist arms,” he said. “We want to win them over with love and affection.”
Among hundreds of men wearing turbans and topees at Karachi’s main train station, Muhammad Arshad stood out in his blue baseball cap with Rotary’s bright yellow gearwheel.
Threading his way through the crowd squatting on Platform 1, he picked out children under age 5.
“What a nice boy,” he said to Sohail Ameer, chucking his infant, Abadur Rahann, under the chin. “May I give him drops against polio?”
Mr. Ameer agreed, and it was over in seconds. Abadur looked nervous, but he did not howl and squirm like some.
After the December killings, Mr. Arshad worried briefly, he said. “But then I thought: This is good work, and God will protect me.”
Friendly strangers came up to the Rotary table to suggest he play it safe and quit. He replied that the railroad police would protect him.
His wife tried the hardest.
“But I told her,” he said. “If a man has to die, he can die even at home. I’m going back to work.”
ISI office targeted in Sukkur (Credit: tribune.com.pk)
KARACHI, July 25: A series of blasts rocked the southern town of Sukkur late Wednesday as militants rammed an explosive-laden vehicle into a compound of Pakistan’s premier intelligence agency, security officials said.
At least nine people were killed, including five attackers and four agency officials in what was an unprecedented attack in the otherwise peaceful town.
Police said the attackers detonated two bombs — one outside a police building and a car bomb outside the ISI office in the town, located around 500 kilometres from Karachi, the main city of Sindh province.
A police official said apparently a suicide bomber first blew himself up in front of a police building and then a second suicide bomber detonated the explosive-filled car outside the ISI office.
The terrorists had seized control of one government building, sparking a shoot-out between the militants and security forces in the high-security Barrage Colony area.
The exact number of casualties was still unclear as TV channels put the death toll between seven to ten but there was no confirmation from the hospital.
Sources told Dawn that four agency officials were among the dead including ISI’s deputy director Maj Zeeshan, Azizullah, Asghar Ali and Nazeer Ahmed. There was no official confirmation of the death of the agency officials.
Major General Rizwan Akhtar, head of the paramilitary force, Sindh Rangers said that all attackers had been killed and the ISI compound had been cleared of the militants.
“All three militants who seized the compound have also been killed and the building completely cleared of terrorists,” said Akhtar.
He said the front wall and gate of the ISI office had been blown away by the impact of the first blast.
A senior police official said it appeared to be “an organised terrorist attack”. Militants have launched such sophisticated attacks before, but Sukkur has been traditionally immune from such violence.
No group has claimed responsibility for the attack so far.
In May 2009, a suicide attack outside a police building next to the local ISI headquarters in the eastern city of Lahore killed 24 people.
In November that year a powerful car bomb ripped through ISI’s headquarters in the northwestern city of Peshawar, killing 10 people and destroying part of the fortified building.
A month later in the central city of Multan two suicide attackers fired at soldiers while driving a truck bomb past security checkpoints in an attempt to approach the local office of the ISI.
In another elaborately planned attack last year, militants attacked Kamra, a major airbase, and damaged an aircraft.
The year before, Pakistani Taliban gunmen attacked a naval base in Karachi, the country’s biggest city. Ten military personnel were killed in the 16-hour assault.
In 2009, they attacked the national army headquarters in the garrison town of Rawalpindi, close to the federal capital.
Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif has strongly condemned the attack, which he said resulted in the “loss of precious human lives and injured many”.
—DawnNews correspondent Asif Mehmood contributed to reporting.
Value Chain Monthly Magazine recently talked to Majyd Aziz, Former President Karachi Chamber of Commerce and Industry, to solicit his views on the economy, especially the Federal Budget 2013-14. (The interview done on June 23, 2013 was published in the July 2013 issue
1. On the face of it, the recently announced federal budget has not imposed a new indirect tax except for a 1% increase in GST. Do you agree with this view that no new indirect taxes have been imposed?
Yes, GST has been raised from 16 percent to 17 percent and FBR expects to collect over Rs 63.5 billion while at the same time it estimates an additional Rs 18.5 billion to be realized through Federal Excise Duty.
2. What in your view are the venues for increasing direct taxes?
The prevailing culture of people to keep away from the tax net is one prime factor in government depending on indirect taxes to achieve the targets. However, the worst part is that it is through the complicity of corrupt elements in FBR that people are facilitated in evading their tax responsibilities. Moreover, FBR has seldom played the role of a facilitator and so there is a sense of averseness when it comes to entering the tax syndrome. It is therefore more convenient for FBR to reach towards the revenue target by relying more on indirect taxation.
The country has become a laughing stock in the comity of nations since her tax-to-GDP ratio is about 8.5% and continuing to decrease every year. The ideal way to collect direct taxes is to reduce the percentage of income tax and making it attractive for taxpayers to document their businesses or earnings. Although the Finance Minister did announce a reduction of 1% in corporate tax, i.e. from 35 to 34%, the bare fact is that it created ripples and not waves in corporate corridors.
It is incumbent upon FBR to identify tax evaders, to formulate a practical strategy to induce them to pay taxes, and to ensure that those who are identified are not allowed to escape the net. In well-established societies, people who pay taxes are aware that in return they would be able to get good schools, better health facilities, peaceful law and order environment, workable and sustainable physical infrastructure, accountability of errant bureaucrats and politicians, and a better and safe future for themselves, their families and businesses. When the state abdicates its responsibility, when the state wastes precious resources, and when the state treats citizens with scorn and disdain, then it loses the moral high ground to demand taxes and levies from those citizens who are obligated to pay their share in the country’s financial resources pool.
3. Will the 1% rise in GST have a significant impact on the cost of doing business and on inflation?
Government spin doctors regularly show their faces on various TV talk shows and vehemently and forcefully try to impress upon the viewers that the added 1% is not something to worry about and that there would be no negative impact on inflation or even on cost of doing business. The worrisome thought is that for the next five years, the country would be listening again to ill-informed political sycophants in the same manner and style witnessed in the last five years.
Why wouldn’t this increase in GST have an impact? There is a multiplier effect on everything that costs more or costs less. It is very simple to say that the end-user or end-consumer would not feel the added cost and would bear it in normal stride. On the contrary, whenever prices rise, for whatever reason, the impact is immediately felt and there is then the reaction to take this increase, add some more, and then pass it on. In cases where it is impractical to pass the added cost, then the producers absorb the increase and, in the process, either reduce their profit margin, either cut corners, or resort to non-documentation tactics. Another factor is that in many markets, the goods are often sold on credit and most of the time, the settlements are delayed or the credit period is longer. In that scenario, the working capital of the seller comes under pressure since the tax portion is also part of the credit given to the buyer.
4. People, business, and industry rightly expect the state to repair the infrastructure, especially the power sector, but this can’t be done without higher tax revenues. Then why is a rise in taxes resented by them?
There is generally a trust deficit between the business sector and the tax collectors. At times, there are many different tax collecting agencies, each with its own priorities and own dynamics. Trade and industry, as well as households, all expect the government to plan and provide the required and needed infrastructure so that the wheels of economy move smoothly and the citizens enjoy quality of life. Inspite of continuous lobbying and representations, Pakistan’s trade and industrial sectors are being denied their rightful share of sustainable infrastructure and the blame more often than not lies at the portals of the policymakers and the government of the day. The availability of resources is fundamental for development of any infrastructure and the low resource mobilization precludes any notion of initiating mega infrastructure projects.
The situation becomes more depressing when the government has to resort to external financing and agreeing to stringent conditionalities set by the international development financing institutions. These measures further alienate the people from the government and at times become the catalyst that sparks discontent and restlessness in the country. However, the scenario becomes deplorable when the government squanders away the resources on frivolous adventures and non-developmental expenses. That is why any increase in duties and taxes also results in agitation by trade and industry.
5. The Federal PSDP has been allocated Rs 540 billion out of which Rs 222 billion will be spent on repairing the power sector. Do you think this investment will improve electricity production and cut losses?
Public Sector Development Projects are meant to being about the positive change in the country and through which various facilities and improvements are conceived, planned and approved. Usually, due to myriad reasons, PSDP funds are under-utilized and the blame eventually is placed on non-implementation of the projects. Furthermore, whenever FBR is unable to reach revenue targets and the non-developmental expenses become a budgetary headache, or at times when natural calamities inflict monumental losses of lives and assets, the government diverts allocated PSDP funds to tackle these issues. Therefore, while PSDP funds are supposedly the outcome of a planned vision, the performance at the end of the year tells a different story.
The allocation of a formidable amount of nearly 50% of the Federal PSDP (including Federal financing of Rs107 billion while another Rs118 billion to be arranged by the Water and Power Development Authority (WAPDA) from its own kitty) towards the power sector manifests the government’s desire to address its election campaign promise to resolve the menace of loadshedding and power outages. Among the various measures in the energy strategy, such as resolution of the circular debt, prompt availability of fuel, fast track conversion of generation to coal, immediate introduction of renewable energy, etc, a very crucial step is to rehabilitate and upgrade the existing power network. Years of neglect, corruption, sabotage, use of shoddy material and other factors have affected the network in many areas. Even USAID has undertaken to provide funds and expertise to improve the power network in selected areas. The proper and judicious utilization of the funds would go a long way in bettering efficiency, reducing transmission and distribution losses, providing proper voltage to end-consumer, and maybe, just maybe, reduce costs for the power producing units. Hence, this step of the government needs to be conditionally lauded provided it achieves the purpose and objective.
6. The budget assumes that in 2013-14 exports will touch $26 billion. Will that be possible?
The government is to be complimented for focusing on a doable target rather than setting unconsidered export targets. There are many factors that debilitate a high enhancement in export figures. The horrible infrastructure scenario is a significant cause for snags in improving the country’s production of goods and services. These shortages also result in high production costs due to non attainability of economies of scale. The country’s agriculture output is also pathetically low with an annual growth not exceeding 3 to 3.5%. The agriculture sector still relies on out-dated farming equipment and methods and there is low awareness of seed technology and productivity enhancement tools. Inheritance plays a major role in division of agriculture lands and this cultural custom always impacts the cost of production and reliance of modern farming equipment. Thus Pakistan is not able to produce substantial cash crops at cheaper prices.
Pakistan has not been able to channelize software exports through a transparent and friendly official process and thus most of the software exports are out of the legal domain. Information technology software development is a 30% annual worldwide growth opportunity that this country should not miss. Mineral exports have picked up substantially in the last few years. However, the major impediment has been the mindset of the miners and the middlemen who do not subscribe to global market dynamics. They take the prevailing price as the benchmark figure and are averse to reducing it when world demand slows down. This creates frustration among exporters and the hard-earned space in global minerals market is lost to other countries whose miners are tuned in to the world market trends.
A very important factor that can enhance the export base is the attitude of the government and the official policy makers in export promotion. The present scenario is that there is a Trade Development Authority of Pakistan that is more or less concerned with improving the trade base and facilitating exporters. However, the desired advancement and effectiveness of this vital organ is nothing to write home about. Furthermore, the steps taken by the government in areas such as increase of sales tax, the withdrawal of subsidies, the late payment of duty drawback and rebate cheques, the display of cronyism and favoritism, and the proverbial red-tape and bureaucratic indolence, have all contributed towards the stagnation of exports. The stranglehold of big time exporters and godfathers, especially in the affairs of export based trade associations and chambers, have demoralized small and medium exporters who suffer from a perpetual lack of a level playing field.
There is this hope that Pakistan would be able to obtain GSP Plus status from the EU on January 01, 2014. This would surely enable the exporters, especially textiles-based, to increase exports to EU countries. At the same time, there is a need to introduce Track II diplomacy by the business community by lobbying vigorously in Washington with Congress, with labor federations, with government officials, and with business counterparts so that Pakistani products also get a wider window for entry into the United States at competitive rates vis-à-vis regional competitors. Moreover, efforts should be made to enhance exports to Afghanistan, China and India. This strategy would pave the way for boosting the export figures otherwise the stagnation in exports would in a couple of years would prove to be an unmitigated disaster.
7. To reduce the cost of doing business and contain inflation, the exchange rate of the Rupee must be stabilized, in fact improved by at least 5% but for that we need higher exchange reserves. Besides borrowing from the IMF, what other options Pakistan has and how useful they could be?
There is scant possibility of reduction in cost of doing business while the hope is that inflation would be contained in single digit figures. It should be noted that external circumstances impact upon the domestic cost of production, such as global oil rates, strong foreign currencies, and changing goalposts through various policies (introduction of Non-Tariff Barriers, denial of preferential trade facilities, regional economic blocs, etc). The incidence of imported input in textile exports is over 30% and therefore this also affects the cost of production. The continued deterioration of the Rupee in the last five years from Rs 60 to nearly Rs 100 has had a wrecking-ball impact on the various inputs.
Normally, a depreciating currency does help a country in marketing products at a favorable rate in the global marketplace. This induces buyers to source their requirements from a country that has a low currency rate, skilled manpower, and capacity to produce. Notwithstanding these advantages, Pakistan has not been able to cash in these advantages, albeit in whatever status these are. Therefore, improvement in the value of the Rupee would not bring about any marked improvement in the cost of production.
The country’s Foreign Exchange Reserves continue to dwindle down inspite of pronouncements from the State Bank of Pakistan. The situation is precarious, to say the least, and these are less than two months of imports bill. The inclusion of reserves held by banks and private citizens as if these are Treasury’s reserves is another way of hoodwinking the world. Recently, the IMF team was here and probably not satisfied with the presentations given by the Pakistani economic managers. A loan of $5 billion is being sought. What this new loan would do is to rollover the outstanding loan already due to IMF. The proverbial begging bowl has been polished once again.
Pakistan’s finance managers are banking on a steep increase in foreign remittances from expatriates and expect this amount to cross $15 billion. They are hoping that the Pakistani Diaspora would use official channels to remit the money. The government is also contemplating new incentives to boost up foreign remittances. The financial managers are advised to study the Indian, Sri Lankan and Philippine models as these are success stories. The distressing news that Saudi Arabia would deport over 50,000 Pakistani workers should be viewed with serious consternation. This would negatively impact on the inflow of remittances.
Pakistan can be the recipient of foreign exchange through export proceeds, remittances, foreign investment –portfolio and capital, grants, and foreign loans. It is advisable and important that the government concentrates more on generating revenue from domestic resources and the ideal way is to broaden the tax base, remove untargeted subsidies, facilitate capital investment, reduce the GST rate so that more units are brought into the net as it would increase revenue and not decrease as is publicized, and more importantly drastically reduce non-developmental expenses, especially colonial-era ostentation, casual foreign visits, all kinds of wastage, unbridled corruption, and excessive unannounced holidays. Prosperity comes through a full force activity of the economy. As US Congressman and Vice Presidential candidate Paul Ryan stated: “Borrowing and spending is not the way to prosperity.”
ISLAMABAD, Pakistan — One of Pakistani President Asif Ali Zardari’s most trusted aides was killed in a suspected suicide bombing in the volatile port city of Karachi on Wednesday as he stopped his armored vehicle to buy some fruit, police said.
Pakistan has suffered a spate of attacks since Nawaz Sharif was sworn in as prime minister last month, underscoring the challenges facing the nuclear-armed nation in taming a Taliban-linked insurgency.
A senior police officer in the city said Bilal Shaikh — Zardari’s security chief, who was always spotted next to the president during public appearances — and two others were killed in a prosperous area of eastern Karachi.
“It seems that the suicide attacker walked up to Bilal Shaikh’s vehicle and blew himself up outside the front passenger seat of the vehicle where Shaikh was seated,” the officer, Raja Umar Khattab, said. About a dozen people were wounded. A police escort was accompanying Shaikh’s sport-utility vehicle at the time of the attack.
No one asserted responsibility for the blast, which took place on the eve of the start of the Muslim holy month of Ramadan, which begins in Pakistan on Thursday.
The latest wave of attacks has ended a period of relative calm after a May election that marked Pakistan’s first transition between elected civilian governments. In early June, Sharif won a parliamentary vote to become premier for the third time.
Last weekend, at least five people were killed when a bomb ripped through a busy restaurant street in the eastern city of Lahore, Sharif’s home city. On June 30, at least 28 people were killed in the southwestern city of Quetta when a suicide bomber struck in a largely Shiite neighborhood.
Shaikh, who had survived an assassination attempt near his home in Karachi about a year ago, used to change his routes several times while traveling around one of Pakistan’s most violent cities.
Like Zardari, he belonged to the Pakistan People’s Party, which had been in power before the May election. Taliban-linked militants had previously targeted the secular party.
Zardari and Sharif issued separate statements condemning the attack, a private TV channel reported.
It was the first attack in Karachi since mid-June. At least nine people were killed when a bomb targeting the convoy of a senior judge exploded in the old city area. The judge survived. The Pakistani Taliban asserted responsibility for that attack.
