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Afghan President Blames Pak based LEJ for Kabul Blast

Carnage in Kabul (Photo newsday.com)

KABUL: Afghan President Hamid Karzai Wednesday blamed the the sectarian militant group Lashkar-e-Jhangvi (LeJ) for a bomb at a Kabul shrine which killed 55 people, demanding justice from Pakistan, his spokesman said.

The comments are likely to antagonise further already tense relations with Islamabad, which boycotted Monday’s Bonn conference on the future of Afghanistan following NATO air strikes that killed 24 Pakistani soldiers.

“The president said he blamed the Pakistan-based militant group Lashkar-e-Jhangvi,” said Aimal Faizi following reports of a purported claim from the faction, blamed for scores of similar attacks on Shia Muslims in Pakistan.

“The president said that he will demand Pakistan take executive measures in this regard since this group is based in Pakistan so that justice can be done,” Faizi added.

Karzai’s comments came as he visited victims of the Kabul blast in hospital. He returned to Kabul earlier Wednesday after cutting short a trip to Europe to deal with the fallout of the unprecedented attack on Afghan Shias.

Pakistan asks Kabul to share blast evidence

Pakistan asked Afghanistan to provide evidence to support accusations that LeJ is responsible for the attack.

“Lashkar-e-Jhangvi is a banned organisation. We would encourage Kabul to share with us evidence, if any through official channels,” foreign office spokesman Abdul Basit told AFP by text message.

Afghan victims buried as fingers point to Pakistan

An Afghan official had earlier claimed that the bomber who attacked the shrine in Kabul was a Pakistani, affiliated with the sectarian militant group Lashkar-e-Jhangvi (LeJ).

Afghans were Wednesday burying 59 people killed in unprecedented bombings against Shia Muslims as officials blamed Pakistani militants, accusing them of trying to whip up Iraq-style sectarian violence.

Investigators are poring over who was behind the coordinated attacks in the Afghan capital Kabul and northern city of Mazar-i-Sharif that the Taliban, the main faction leading a 10-year insurgency, have denied carrying out.

The LeJ has not previously claimed responsibility for any attacks in neighbouring Afghanistan.

Experts suggest that if Lashkar-e-Jhangvi or indeed any other Pakistani militants orchestrated the attacks, then elements in the Afghan Taliban may have played some part, possibly in facilitating the strikes.

Tuesday’s blast on the holiest day in the Shia calendar marked the first major attack on a key religious day in Afghanistan.

The twin blasts have prompted fears of a slide into sectarian violence in Afghanistan.

Lutfullah Mashal, a spokesman for Afghanistan’s National Directorate of Security intelligence agency, confirmed that an investigation into the tragedy was now under way.

Sediq Sediqqi, a spokesman for the Afghan interior ministry, said the attack was the work of “the Taliban and their associates”, adding no-one else carried out such suicide attacks in Afghanistan.

An Afghan security official speaking on condition of anonymity said the bomber was from the Kurram agency in Pakistan’s border region and was connected to Sipah-e-Sahaba Pakistan (SSP).

The Afghan source added the attack aimed to “inflame sectarian violence in Afghanistan” but did not provide any evidence to back up his claims.

The official added: “This is not the work of the Taliban or if there is any Taliban involvement, it is very minimal.”

A Western security official speaking anonymously also suggested Pakistani involvement though stressed it was not clear whether this was “institutional”.

“We’re particularly looking at TTP (Tehreek-i-Taliban, the Pakistani Taliban) although at the moment we don’t have any proof,” he said. The source added he believed the attack “aimed to weaken Afghan society”.

A Pakistani security official speaking anonymously said Lashkar-e-Jhangvi was closely associated with the Pakistani Taliban.

But he added: “This group is on the run and doesn’t have the capacity to carry out attacks inside Afghanistan, particularly in Kabul.”

Pakistani security analyst Hasan Askari emphasised that there was no clear evidence at this stage of Lashkar-e-Jhangvi involvement.

“Lashkar people have ideological affinity with other militant groups operating in Afghanistan including Taliban and they support each other but they (Lashkar) have to establish that their strength is increasing,” he said.

Some analysts have raised fears of more sectarian violence in Afghanistan following the attacks but Shia leaders have urged calm in the aftermath.

 

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Millions Pushed into Hunger by Extreme Weather – Oxfam

Peruvian amazon rainforest (Credit: carinbondar.com)

“Extreme weather like the droughts in Russia, China and Brazil and the flooding in Pakistan and Australia [in 2010] have contributed to a level of food price volatility we haven’t seen since the oil crisis of 40 years ago. Unfortunately, this could be just a taste of things to come because in the next few decades the build-up of greenhouse gases already in the atmosphere could greatly increase the risk of droughts, flooding, pest infestation and water scarcity for agriculture systems already under tremendous stress.” — John Beddington, UK Government Chief Scientific Adviser (March, 2011)

Already, the UN’s Food and Agriculture Organization estimates 1 billion people are starving and another 2.5 billion are malnourished.

“Feeding some 9 billion people by mid-century in the face of a rapidly worsening climate may well be the greatest challenge the human race has ever faced,” as I argued in the journal Nature. Oxfam has been one of the leaders in making this case (see Oxfam Predicts Climate Change will Help Double Food Prices by 2030: “We Are Turning Abundance into Scarcity”).

On the eve of the international climate talks in Durban, Oxfam has released a new report that opens with Beddington’s quote and warns:

Climate change is likely to have a pernicious effect on food production in two main ways. Firstly, slow onset changes in mean temperatures and precipitation patterns are expected to put downward pressure on average yields. Added to this will be crop losses resulting from more frequent and intense extreme weather events.

Research to date has focused almost exclusively on the first impact, modeling the extent of long-run average price rises in the absence of volatility….

But this paints only a partial picture. More frequent and extreme weather events will compound things further, creating shortages, destabilizing markets and precipitating price spikes, which will be felt on top of the structural price rises predicted by the models. One need not rely on imagination to understand how this could play out for the world’s poorest people. Looking at the toll extreme weather events are taking on global food security since 2010 alone paints an alarming picture.

The whole report is worth reading, but here is their summary along with recommendations for Durban:

Durban climate talks must deliver action to prevent spiraling hunger

In the last year extreme weather events shocked global markets contributing to soaring wheat prices and imperiling food security in many parts of the world, according to research compiled by Oxfam at the start of the Durban climate talks.

This year could be a grim foretaste of what is to come as new warnings from the International Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) show extreme weather events are likely to increase in frequency and severity without action to tackle climate change.

“From the Horn of Africa and South East Asia to Russia and Afghanistan, a year of floods, droughts, and extreme heat has helped push tens of millions of people into hunger and poverty,” said Kelly Dent, Oxfam. “This will only get worse as climate change gathers pace and agriculture feels the heat. Governments must act now in Durban to protect our food supply and save millions from slipping into hunger and poverty.”

Oxfam’s briefing Extreme weather endangers food security 2010-11: A grim foretaste of future suffering and hunger? shows how several extreme weather events have contributed to food insecurity at global, regional and local levels since 2010. Oxfam warns that increasingly frequent and severe extreme weather events will compound the projected impacts of climate change on crop yields and food prices, creating food shortages, destabilizing markets and precipitating price spikes.

  • In an area of chronic vulnerability and political conflict, severe drought in the Horn and East Africa has pushed over 13 million people into crisis. In July, sorghum prices in Somalia were up to 393% higher and maize prices in Ethiopia and Kenya up to 191% and 161% higher respectively versus the five-year average prices.
  • Drought and fires following a massive heat wave in Russia and Ukraine destroyed much of the 2010 harvest and triggered a 60% to 80% increase in global wheat prices in just three months. By April 2011, wheat prices were 85% higher on international markets than the year before.
  • Heavy monsoon rainfall and multiple typhoons in Southeast Asia have killed more than 1,100 people and helped send the price of rice up about 25% and 30% in Thailand and Vietnam respectively versus the previous year.
  • In Afghanistan serious drought helped send prices of wheat and wheat flour in July 2011 up to 79% higher in affected areas over their levels a year before.

While it is difficult to attribute a specific weather-related disaster to climate change, the frequency and severity of extreme weather events such as those seen this year is set to increase due to climate change. For the poorest and most vulnerable who spend up to 75 percent of their income on food, this could have catastrophic consequences as families are forced into impossible trade-offs in a desperate bid to feed themselves.

“When a weather event drives local or regional price spikes poor people often face a double shock,” said Dent. “They have to cope with higher food prices at a time when extreme weather may have also killed their livestock, destroyed their home or farm, or stripped them of their livelihood. This toxic mix of higher prices and lower purchasing power has driven many people into crisis this year. If we don’t act in Durban, this pattern could become even worse.”

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Pakistan business hits at Barriers to Indian trade

LAHORE: Cosmetics are smuggled by donkey through Afghanistan, chemicals and medicines track through Dubai. But only a fraction of legal trade travels directly from India to Pakistan.

A baffling array of legal and practical barriers to exports between the neighbours has spurned unofficial trade worth up to $10 billion, dwarfing official exchanges of $2.7 billion.

But a recent rapprochement that looks to normalise trading relations between India and Pakistan could end a decades-old system that stifles business and saps profits through networks of middlemen, money changers and smugglers.

A booklet of 1,945 items lists trade allowed to run from India to Pakistan – but only 108 can be trafficked directly by road through the border post at Wagah, near the eastern border city of Lahore.

At old markets in Lahore, traders peddle whitening creams and hair dyes that have journeyed from India to Karachi by sea bound for Afghanistan, before being reloaded and smuggled along the Taliban-hit Hindu Kush to re-enter Pakistan.

Along the way a simple anti-wrinkle cream rises from 75 rupees (85 cents) to 160 rupees ($1.82), while black hair dye doubles from five to 10 rupees.

Tonnes of industrial chemicals and drugs travel into Dubai, where their port of origin is relabelled to hide their Indian provenance before being sent on to Pakistan. The process entails a mark-up of 15-20 percent, say importers.

But 15 years after India granted Pakistan “Most Favoured Nation” status in line with World Trade Organisation rules, Pakistan this month finally agreed to return suit, paving the way for a radical reorganisation of bilateral trade.

Pakistan has pledged to open its market to over 7,000 products from India over the next three months and says India should have MFN status by the end of 2012, a step to removing discriminatory higher pricing and duty tariffs.

The list of nearly 2,000 items allowed for trade is to be replaced by a list of disallowed items, and a second trading post has been opened at Wagah.

Observers say the rapprochement signals a seismic shift from Pakistan’s traditional and strategic antipathy to India, and a deeper economic engagement between the countries that is crucial for lasting peace in the region.

“People who are pro-trade have prevailed. For the first time our strategists are viewing economic security as a significant element of national security,” said Abid Hussein, who teaches trade policy at Lahore University of Management Science.

The IMF, which failed to agree a loan package for Pakistan this year amid stalemate on economic reforms, says that GDP growth for the current fiscal year is unlikely to top 3.5 per cent, compared with more than double that for regional superpower India.

But the Pakistan Business Council estimates that enhanced bilateral trade could bump its growth rate by 1-2 per cent. Experts predict $1.5-2 billion could be saved by routing imports directly into India and its 1.2 billion consumers.

Barriers remain, however. Businessmen want to see more land access open up along the 1,800-mile (2,880-kilometre) border, along with more options for air.

On the Indian side of Wagah, only two trucks can be loaded and unloaded at a time, hampering a burgeoning export trade in gypsum and dried dates.

Official figures show that while 4,000 metric tonnes of goods can come into Pakistan on up to 200 trucks per day, only 500 tonnes can leave in 70 trucks.

Overall land trade last year totalled 21 billion rupees in exports compared to 1.33 billion rupees in imports.

For businessmen, their biggest problem is not being able to travel freely.

“I want to export this item to India but I cannot go and cannot market my product. Visa is the main hurdle,” said Aftab Ahmed Vohna, who sits on the Pakistan-India standing committee for the Lahore Chamber of Commerce.

But powerful lobbies remain unconvinced that the hostilities that have led to three wars since independence can melt away.

Hundreds of activists in Pakistani-administered Kashmir on Friday demonstrated against improving trade, and leaders in industries likely to lose out to open competition with India are loudly demanding an opt-out.

They point to India’s protectionist policies in sectors such as agriculture, where exporters pay a 37 per cent tariff instead of the standard 13 per cent.

They fear that Pakistan will be flooded with cheaper Indian goods, strangling domestic business, although Vohna points out that free trade with India’s big rival and Pakistan’s close ally China has failed to do so.

“The main difference between India and China is confidence,” said Vohna.

“Every person argues with me that Indian goods will close our factories. I tell them if Chinese cheap goods cannot close our factories, India’s will not.”

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Wilson Center Recommends Sweeping Changes in Troubled Pakistan Aid Program

WASHINGTON: The Wilson Center today released a major new report on the controversial U.S. civilian assistance program to Pakistan, known as Kerry-Lugar-Berman (KLB). The report warns that substantial mid-course changes are necessary if KLB is to fulfill its goals for both the United States and Pakistan, and provides nearly 30 recommendations for guiding KLB forward.

“We have to get Pakistan right,” said Jane Harman, president and CEO of the Wilson Center. “This report represents an important step in that direction.”

Aiding Without Abetting: Making U.S. Civilian Assistance to Pakistan Work for Both Sides concludes that a robust program of U.S. civilian assistance to Pakistan serves important American interests. It urges Congress not to confuse security aid to the Pakistani military with economic assistance designed to shore up civilian government, address food, health, and energy shortfalls in Pakistan, and lay the groundwork for a successful Pakistan and a long-term U.S.-Pakistani partnership.

“Writing Pakistan out of the American foreign policy script is simply not an option,” President Harman said. “We should not penalize Pakistan’s civilian sector because of our serious differences with its military and should live up to our pledge to provide Pakistan with economic assistance through 2014. ”

“U.S. assistance is not a Pakistani entitlement, however. American aid should augment, not replace, Pakistani funding. We must reenergize and reform the manner in which we deliver civilian aid to Pakistan, with each U.S. aid project including a roadmap and timetable for becoming self-sustaining.”

For more information or for copies of this report, call (202) 691-4020, or email asia@wilsoncenter.org. Click here to read the full report online, in pdf format.

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Clash Between NATO and Pakistani Troops Defused

KABUL, Afghanistan, Nov. 30 — A cross-border incident involving NATO and Pakistani forces was quickly defused early on Wednesday with no loss of life, according to Brig. Gen. Carsten Jacobson, the spokesman for the American-led international coalition here.

Few details of the incident were immediately available but it apparently involved heavy artillery fire across the Afghanistan-Pakistan border in Afghanistan’s Paktika province.

The firing broke out at a time of Pakistani anger over the killing of 24 of its soldiers in a United States air strike on Saturday. Pakistan closed its border to NATO supply convoys and pulled out of an international conference on Afghanistan next week in Bonn in protest at the killings.

Separately, Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton expressed regret at Pakistan’s decision to stay away from the Bonn conference.

“Frankly, it is regrettable that Pakistan has decided not to attend the conference in Bonn, because this conference has been long in the planning,” Mrs. Clinton said in Busan, South Korea before flying to Myanmar on Wednesday.

“Pakistan, like the United States, has a profound interest in a secure, stable, increasingly democratic Afghanistan. Our gathering in Bonn this coming Monday is intended to further that goal.”

In the latest border incident, General Jacobson said it was reassuring that normal channels of cooperation and communication had been opened to resolve the issue.

“We haven’t got the details yet but the most important thing is the normal methods of cooperation worked and there were no casualties, no damage despite heavy firing,” he said.

Steven Lee Myers contributed reporting from Nay Pyi Daw, Myanmar.

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Still, Continents Away Immigrants Obey Customary Laws

Women's Action Forum Protest Customary Laws (Credit: Dawn File)
Halfway between Toronto and Montreal, ghastly details of a murder trial are unfolding. The dead are three young Muslim girls and their stepmother. Stand accused of their murder are the parents and the brother of the dead girls.

What makes Muslim parents murder their own children, especially daughters, is a question that has leapt to the front pages of newspapers all across Canada. It is, unfortunately, not the first time that Muslim parents in Canada have murdered a female child. Such murders are known as ‘honour killings’ where parents murder their daughter/s to “protect the family honour.”

It was only in December 2007 when a Pakistani father (along with his son) murdered his 16-year old daughter, Aqsa Parvez, in a suburb of Toronto. Her crime: she wanted to act and dress like other teenage girls in her school. Fewer than two years after Aqsa’s murder, another Muslim father in Canada murders not one but three daughters.

On the morning of June 30, 2009, a car was found submerged in the Rideau Canal in Kingston, Ontario, a small university town some 250 km East of Toronto. Found dead in the car were the three Shafia sisters: Zainab, 19, Sahar, 17, and Geeti, 13. Also found dead in the car was 50-year old Rona Amir Mohammad, who was the girls’ stepmother. Weeks later the Canadian police arrested the girls’ parents Mohammad Shafia, 59, and Tooba Mohammad Yaha, their 39-year old mother. The police also arrested the girls’ brother Hamed Shafia, 18, and accused the three of murdering the three teenage girls and their stepmother, Shafia’s first wife who did not bear any children.

A little over two years later, the accused are now standing trial in Kingston. As the trial proceeds, gruesome details emerge about the family that conspired to kill its own daughters. Once again, it is a familiar story where a father is unhappy with his teenage daughters and decides to kill them “to protect his family honour.”

Shafias, originally from Afghanistan, moved to Canada in 2007 and settled in a suburb of Montreal. The court proceedings reveal an overbearing father who was not happy with the way his daughters were growing up in Canada. He was particularly concerned about his eldest daughter, Zainab, who fancied a Pakistani young man of modest means. Mohammad Shafia did not approve of the relationship.

Over the next two years an acrimonious relationship develops between the father and the eldest daughter. Shafia was spying on the daughters and was aware of the digital photographs of his older daughters with their friends. He was not pleased.

While Shafia was away in Dubai for work, Zainab wedded the Pakistani young man in a small ceremony attended by her immediate family members. Missing from the ceremony was Shafia and the groom’s entire family, who also did not approve of the union.

What transpired later in the day after the Nikkah ceremony revealed that Zainab in fact got married to spite her father. According to the Toronto Star, she told her uncle: “… this boy doesn’t have money and he’s not handsome. The only reason I’m marrying him is to get my revenge. I will sacrifice myself for my other sisters. At least they will get their freedom after me.’’ Zainab told her mother after the Nikkah that she would be willing to dissolve the day-old marriage to please her mother. Soon the family was off to a vacation in Niagara Falls. On their way back from vacation they made an overnight stop in Kingston. Next morning, four dead bodies were found trapped in the submerged car.

The police suspected the family from the very beginning. The evidence found around the crime scene suggested that the submerged car was pushed into the water by another car, which also belonged to the family. Further investigations revealed that the four women were dead before the car went into water, suggesting that it was not a freak traffic accident, as was initially claimed by the parents.

The police planted surveillance equipment in the Shafias’ home and car, and also bugged their phone. The taped conversations played in the courtroom revealed a calculated plot by Mohammad Shafia to kill his daughters. They painted a picture of a man who had no remorse for killing his own flesh and blood. Geeti, who was 13, and his first wife, Rona were the collateral damage. Still Shafia is heard on tape saying: “I am happy and my conscience is clear,” and that his daughters “haven’t done good and God punished them.”

Was it really a punishment from God or from a sadist father who killed in cold blood because his daughters disobeyed him? He called his daughters “filthy and rotten children” and expressed his resolve to do the same 100-times over.

While the tapes reveal a merciless man who was a captive of his tribal norms, which he brought with him from Afghanistan, a swoop of Hamed Shafia’s computer by the police also revealed a cunning man who was searching the Internet to plot murders. Other searches conducted on the laptop computer focused on what would happen to one’s business and property if one was incarcerated.

Many in the West associate ‘honour killings’ with Muslim societies. However, the deplorable practice can be found in several non-Muslim majority societies. In India, for instance, the practice is more frequent in rural settings where village councils at times have sanctioned murdering the couple who had eloped or married without the family’s consent. Earlier this week a judge in Uttar Pradesh sentenced eight men to death and 20 others for life imprisonment for honour killings committed in 1991. In May 2011, the Indian Supreme Court had already recommended capital punishment for those convicted of honour killings, thus enabling the lower courts to award stricter punishments.

In Pakistan and several other Muslim countries, female victims of honour killings seldom get justice. While laws against honour killing have been on the books in Pakistan since 2005, however the conviction rate has been despicably low. In Khyber Pukhtunkhwa (KP), a mere 8 per cent of those accused of honour killings were convicted in 2009. *Of the 33 women and 18 men murdered in honour killings in 2009 in KP, 83 per cent of the accused were husbands, fathers, brothers and other male relatives of the deceased.

Research from Pakistan, Jordon, and other countries revealed that often mothers of murdered women approach the sharia courts as their legal heirs and sought and received pardon for the accused father, brother or other male relative of the murdered girl in a Diyat (blood money) arrangement.

The Shafias will have to face justice. Mohammad Shafia’s wealth and property cannot buy him freedom in Canada. He murdered his daughters. It was not an act of passion, but a premeditated one. Shafia thinks he acted honourably.

However, nothing is more dishonourable and cowardly than murdering children.

*Sajid, Imran A.; Khan, Naushad A.; Farid, Sumera. Violence Against Women in Pakistan: Constraints in Data Collection. Pakistan Journal of Criminology. Volume 2, No. 2, April 2010, pp. 93 – 110.

Murtaza Haider, Ph.D. is the Associate Dean of research and graduate programs at the Ted Rogers School of Management at Ryerson University in Toronto.

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Women Legislation Outlaws Best Kept Feudal Secret

Sindhiani Tehrik - key player against customary laws (reproduced image)

In 1991, a male colleague and I headed to a small town in interior Sindh, where the peasants and low-income traders were spiritual disciples of feudals in Benazir’s cabinet. We were escorted by guards through a magnificent fortress with high walls and cemented pathways, which wove into a labyrinth. My male colleague and I were taken into a grand drawing room with fine carpets and engraved tables.

The feudal lord greeted me pleasantly – the “honorary male” from a prominent newspaper. Afterwards, when we finished a frank, at times “off the record” type of conversation, he suggested I visit the women’s quarters. Politely, I rose and was escorted by the servant to the women folk. My colleague stayed back; he was after all a “Na Mehram” – a man unrelated by blood to the women.

I walked through a maze that led up to the women’s quarters. Wearing loosely draped chador (a type of veil), the women here lived in an age reminiscent of 16th century Moghul India. Never exposed to the outside world, they did not have a lot to talk about. We exchanged pleasantries; I explained I had come from Karachi to do a story. They did not know what it meant to be a journalist, nor did career prospects seem interesting to them.

When these women from feudal families went outdoors, they donned black veils with tiny holes for their eyes.  Even so, it was the feudal lord who determined the liberties the women of his family could avail; they were required to travel in chauffer-driven cars with black drapes, dress modestly at all times and under no circumstances speak to men outside the family.

I spent a night at this haveli (feudal home) living as the women did, with days and nights of solitude. At night, uniformed guards patrolled their ancient fortress. My ears picked up the changing of guards in the dead silence of the night. “Allah Sain Khair” (by God’s grace), “Maula Sain Khair” (all is safe).

I left the fortress and continued traveling across interior Sindh. My freedom was in stark contrast to the lives of these women – creatures starved even of simple sensory impulses. The time I spent reporting in Sindh would inform me of the importance of the veil. By a process of osmosis, girls grew up to believe that their path to fulfillment lay in marriage and children.

In 1993, I attended a wedding in a small town of interior Sindh. It was a private event but my journalist’s eye took mental snapshots. Women arrived in carefully designed, expensive shalwar kameez and dupattas. with matching jewelry and make-up – all designed to show their standing in the feudal hierarchy.  Chaperoned by male relatives and wearing black veils, the women showed their faces only after they were exclusively surrounded by their own sex. Outside, volunteers stood guard to stop any peeping toms.

The carefully made-up women exposed adaptations of risqué dresses worn by foreign models that one saw on CNN and the Indian ZEE television channels. Captivated by the glamorous images of women, their female viewers copied the fashions in the privacy of their homes and exposed them to other women.

Apparently, the spread of cable television in the remote areas of rural Sindh had created all sorts of unfulfilled desires among the cloistered women. On one occasion, I sat with the young wife of a feudal lord as she watched cable television in a remote town of Sindh. Turning away momentarily from watching a Western film, she sighed wistfully:

“It’s very hard to be locked indoors after living in Karachi.” Still, sensitive to small town gossip about who was a “good woman,” she had never left the house alone.

In the rare case where a young woman from a small town joined a university or medical college, she would likely join the urban women’s movement. Still, societal pressures on women to marry and have children were overwhelming. It left the women blissfully unaware that the military government had passed Islamic legislation that gave them an inferior status before the law.

                  

 Brides of the Quran

Journeying through interior Sindh, I stumbled upon large numbers of unmarried, graying women who lived in ancestral homes located in Hyderabad, Thatta, Matiari and Hala. Time hung heavy on their hands. Equipped with little education and no exposure to the outside world, these women had never been exposed to men in their lives.

In 1992, during a journalistic jaunt, I discovered a horrendous custom that kept these women housebound. Under Islamic law, women inherit property when they marry. But in the absence of male relatives, feudals in Sindh refuse to give their daughters inheritance. Instead, big feudals of Sindh and southern Punjab, who derive their power base from the land, prefer to keep their daughters unmarried.

In a more elaborate example of how feudals manipulate women’s lives for financial gain, the Syed communities – who trace direct ancestry to Prophet Mohammed – have their daughters married off to the Muslim holy book, the Quran. That literally seals their prospects of marriage.  Under this practice – called “haq bakshna” (waiver of rights) women place their hand on the Quran and waive the Islamic right to marry and inherit property.  Even more ingeniously, they are told their virginity gives them a spiritual status and a duty to dispense talismans to sick children.

The paradoxes were stunning. Feudal politicians took orders from a woman prime minister, Benazir Bhutto even as they kept their own women locked up or “married to the Quran.” Some of them were superiors in her party and took orders from the woman prime minister to wield power in their own fiefdoms. The big feudals, who form the backbone of autocratic governments, have kept their control of women well-hidden from public view.

 

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Pak Women Politicians Strike at Customary Laws

Women Politicians & Activists Pushed Prevention of Anti Women Practices Bill 2011 (Courtesy Aurat Foundation)

After twice being rejected by the National Assembly, the Prevention of Anti-Women Practices (Criminal Law Amendment) Act 2011 was approved unanimously on Tuesday. Although it still needs to be passed by the Senate, civil society in Pakistan has welcomed the move and praised the efforts of Pakistan’s women legislators in particular.

The bill was first tabled in the lower house by the legislator Donya Aziz during former Pakistani President General Pervez Musharraf’s tenure but had repeatedly failed to get clearance from other MPs, who are largely men.

The bill outlines severe punishments for practices such as “wani” and “swara,” child marriage customs, in which young girls are forcibly married to other clans in order to resolve feuds. The law would punish offenders with jail terms of between three and 10 years.

The bill also proposes a minimum sentence of five years’ imprisonment for depriving a woman of her inheritance, and jail terms of between three and five years for bartering a woman. Forcing a woman into marriage will be made a non-bailable offence, if the bill is passed into law.

‘A ray of hope’

Women’s rights activists are delighted, said Mahnaz Rahman, the resident director of the Aurat Foundation. “We have been advocating for the abolishment of anti-women laws and practices for decades,” she told Deutsche Welle. “Finally, we see a ray of hope.”

Rahman also praised President Asif Ali Zardari’s ruling Pakistan People’s Party for its role in getting the bill approved in the National Assembly, despite the fact that the author of the bill belongs to the Pakistan Muslim League (Q).

“Despite our differences with the PPP on many issues, we believe that women rights in Pakistan are better protected under the current government,” she said.

Pakistani writer and human rights activist Harris Khalique also applauded the PPP, but said it really was the victory of Pakistan’s feminists and civil society. He also expressed concern that the Senate might not approve the bill since it is “more conservative than the National Assembly” in its make up.

However, “if we have such laws, the anti-women and regressive forces will have to think twice about indulging in misogynist practices,” he said. “Take the example of the Blasphemy Law. It is only in the books but it emboldens the Islamists in their mistreatment and persecution of religious minorities. Similarly, if there are progressive laws in the country, they will improve human rights in Pakistan, irrespective of their implementation.”

Although there are number of liberal laws in Pakistan they are not always implemented by the state and law enforcing agencies. In tribal areas, where women bartering is rampant, people often obey their own systems of justice. Past attempts to undo retrogressive laws have been bitterly opposed by the powerful religious right.

Rampant discrimination against women

Women are particularly subjected to discrimination in the Islamic Republic of Pakistan because of tribal and feudal social structures that go back centuries. Anti-women groups were further encouraged by a number of laws that were promulgated in the 1980s by General Zia-ul-Haq.

But Rahman said that women’s rights groups would continue their struggle. “We will act as a watchdog to ensure the women’s protection bill is implemented,” she said but she added that society, and especially men in Pakistan, had to go through a “long process of attitudinal change.”

Author: Shamil Shams

Editor: Anne Thomas

 

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Haqqani – Between Mansoor and Military

ISLAMABAD | Tue Nov 22, 2011

ISLAMABAD(Reuters) – Pakistan’s ambassador to the United States resigned on Tuesday, days after a Pakistani-American businessman said the envoy was behind a memo that accused the Pakistani military of plotting a coup in May.

Envoy Husain Haqqani said in a Twitter message that he had sent his resignation to the prime minister. State television said his resignation had been accepted.

“I have resigned to bring closure to this meaningless controversy threatening our fledgling democracy,” he said in a statement released after his resignation.

“I have served Pakistan and Pakistani democracy to the best of my ability and will continue to do so.”

Businessman Mansoor Ijaz, writing in a column in the Financial Times on October 10, said a senior Pakistani diplomat had asked that a memo be delivered to the Pentagon with a plea for U.S. help to stave off a military coup in the days after the May 2 U.S. raid that killed al Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden.

Ijaz later identified the diplomat as Haqqani.

No evidence has emerged that the military was plotting a coup and the Pentagon at the time dismissed the memo as not credible. Haqqani denies involvement in the memo. (r.reuters.com/wes25s)

“I still maintain that I did not conceive, write or distribute the memo,” Haqqani told Reuters shortly after he resigned. “This is not about the memo,” he continued. “This is about bigger things.”

He declined to comment further.

Haqqani’s resignation followed a meeting with Pakistan President Asif Zardari, the nation’s powerful army chief General Ashfaq Kayani and its intelligence head, Lieutenant-General Ahmad Shuja Pasha.

A spokesman for the prime minister’s office said Haqqani was asked to resign and there would be an investigation into the memo.

Haqqani is a former journalist who covered Afghanistan’s civil war and later wrote a book on the role of radical Islam and the military in Pakistan.

With his crisp suits and colorful turns of phrase, he has developed close ties with Washington’s top power brokers as Pakistan’s envoy since 2008.

In the past year, he has sought to ease tempers in both capitals and find common ground during an extraordinarily tense period in U.S.-Pakistani relations that included the bin Laden raid, the jailing of a CIA contractor, and U.S. accusations that Pakistan backed a militant attack on the U.S. Embassy in Kabul.

He is close to Zardari but estranged from Pakistan’s military.

Tensions between Pakistan’s civilian government and military have bedeviled the nuclear-armed South Asian country for almost its entire existence, with the military ruling the country for more than half of its 64-year history after a series of coups.

Haqqani’s resignation was seen by many analysts as further weakening the civilian government, which is already beset by allegations of corruption and incompetence.

“They (the military) may expect much more from the government, much more beyond the resignation of Husain Haqqani, because they see that everybody perceived to be involved in this affair will be seen as anti-military and by implication anti-state,” said Imtiaz Gul, a security analyst in Islamabad.

IMPACT ON U.S.-PAKISTAN TIES?

Haqqani’s successor might include a diplomat with a less complicated relationship with the military, perhaps Pakistani Foreign Secretary Salman Bashir or Pakistan’s envoy to the United Nations, Hussain Haroon.

“Whether Pakistan’s people or its military will be represented in DC will become evident when Husain Haqqani’s replacement is announced,” Ali Dayan Hasan, representative for Human Rights Watch in Pakistan, said on Twitter.

Vali Nasr, a former senior State Department official who worked on Pakistan, said the crux of the affair was not Haqqani’s role but whether Zardari would come to be seen as having directed the memo, which would imply the president had gone outside Pakistan to request urgent assistance against his own military.

“At what point would the issue escalate to Haqqani was acting on Zardari’s behest? That would really create massive tension between the military and Zardari.”

Nasr said the issue would be unlikely to have a major impact on the strained U.S.-Pakistan relationship unless it seriously weakened or toppled the civilian government.

As U.S. officials focus on thorny diplomatic and security issues with Pakistan, Haqqani’s departure did not immediately make many visible ripples in Washington. The State Department said it had not been notified of Haqqani’s departure and the Pentagon declined comment.

Democratic Senator John Kerry, who has been heavily involved in U.S.-Pakistani relations, said he was sorry to learn of Haqqani’s resignation.

Kerry said he respected the Pakistani government’s decision but that Haqqani would be missed “as we continue to work through the ups and downs of our relationship.”

Ijaz said initially he believed Haqqani was acting under the authority of Zardari, but said later he was not sure how involved Zardari was in the affair.

Mark Siegel, a lobbyist who represents the Pakistani government in Washington, said Zardari called him when the Financial Times story appeared, asking his law firm to initiate libel proceedings against the newspaper and Ijaz.

Siegel advised Zardari against filing a case because he judged it difficult for a public figure to win a libel case in a U.S. court.

“He was irate and said the memo was a total fabrication,” Siegel said. Siegel, who has known Zardari for 25 years, said he was absolutely certain that Zardari had known nothing about the memo.

(Additional reporting by Zeeshan Haider, Qasim Nauman and Augustine Anthony in Islamabad and Missy Ryan in Washington; Editing by Peter Graff, Jon Hemming and Peter Cooney

 

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Where Dacoits and Environmentalists See Eye to Eye

Mangrove forests in Karachi (Photo Courtesy: xn--krinfo-wxa.hu)

KARACHI — It was a brutal kidnap that turned him into an eco-warrior, and 27 years later Pakistan’s “Father of the Mangroves” still lets nothing get in the way of fighting against timber “mafia” and deforestation.

“This is my life. I am very happy with it. The cause is worth living such a life,” Tahir Qureshi told AFP, walking around the sanctuary that he set up in his spare time when he still worked full-time with the forestry commission.

He was captured by a kidnap-for-ransom gang in 1984 while working in the southern district of Dadu, now devastated by floods for two consecutive years.

“They kept me for a couple of days in captivity. But when they knew I was a forest officer they released me without further argument. That inspired me to dedicate my whole life for the rehabilitation of our ecosystem,” he said.

“The robbers released me as they respect those who respect forests. Trees provide them best hideouts.

“Besides, they are among many people who consider chopping trees as a sin because trees provide us livelihood and help better the environment.”

For years, it was a lonely if mighty cause, for apart from Afghanistan, in the grip of a 10-year war between Taliban insurgents and American troops, no other country in Asia suffers from a faster rate of deforestation than Pakistan.

In 2010, it was declared a forest-deficient country because just 2.2 percent or about 1.7 million hectares (4.2 million acres) of its land mass is forested.

According to the UN Food and Agriculture Organisation (FAO) Pakistan lost an average of 42,000 hectares of forest a year between 1990 and 2010.

At the current rate, Pakistan could lose half its remaining forest cover over the next decade or so, says the FAO. The trend has been exacerbated by recent floods, the worst in the country’s history in 2010 and a repeated bout this monsoon season.

Qureshi has helped rehabilitate 30,000 hectares of mangrove along the southern coast on the Arabian Sea, including in Baluchistan, one of Pakistan’s most violent and inhospitable areas, home to Taliban militants and a separatist uprising.

Today he is a senior advisor on coastal ecosystems with the International Union for the Conservation of Nature (IUCN).

He starts almost every day with a visit to the mangroves, which he calls his kids, on Karachi’s Sandspit Beach. Wearing a khaki shirt and trousers, he wades into the swamp up to his waist to see how they’re getting on.

“We are historically a forestry-deficient country, but with the course of time the ratio has reduced alarmingly,” said the 65-year-old Qureshi.

So who is to blame? There are the timber “mafia” who hack away at mangroves and trees, trucking wood off to market by donkey and vehicle to sell as fuel, while the military and government officials are also accused of involvement.

“The current rate of deforestation is very alarming. We could lose our timber completely in two to three decades if not effectively checked,” an environment ministry official told AFP on condition of anonymity.

Hussain Bux Bhagat, a conservationist associated with the Sindh provincial wildlife department, says wildlife in the riverine forest, including birds, reptiles and mammals, also suffered severely because of deforestation.

“Particularly high numbers of grey partridge, which nest on trees and don’t leave its habitat have died because of continuing deforestation and last year’s floods,” Bhagat told AFP.

In 1947, when Pakistan was created from the ashes of British colonialism, riverine forests lined the banks of the Indus River.

They were the first line of defence against floods that have deluged the plains annually for thousands of years, as well as against shoreline erosion. Instead, the deforested areas are prone to flooding and landslides.

But riverine and mangrove forest represent only 20 percent of the forest cover in Pakistan — the rest is concentrated in the mountains of the northern provinces of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa and Gilgit and Baltistan and Kashmir.

There, officials, aid workers and residents accuse the authorities and the Taliban of being hand in glove with mafias cutting down trees.

The Swat valley was once the most popular tourist destination of the country before a Taliban insurgency began in 2007. After a major operation, the army declared the area back under control in July 2009.

But conservationists say tens of thousands of pine trees have been cut down, both during the Taliban years and under the military.

A former Forest Development Corporation (FDC) official, who spoke to AFP on condition of anonymity, said timber felling was one of the main causes of the devastation witnessed in Swat during the floods of 2010.

“Three kinds of actors participated in that: the FDC working for timber mafia, local people and the Taliban, who cut a lot to buy weapons,” he said.

“There are two kinds of timber mafias: the big ones, with a licence, and the local ones, people with no licence who bribe guards.

Numerous local residents said army trucks are seen transporting timber, but army spokesman Colonel Arif Mehmood in Swat told AFP he was “not aware” of the practice.

Others say the rate of deforestation has improved since the army restored control over the valley in July 2009. No department can provide statistics.

The Aryana Institute for Regional Research and Advocacy, a think tank, has also pointed to links between the timber mafia and Islamist militancy.

“Being shrewd investors, the timber mafia is believed to have spent part of its dividends to sponsor militancy. Huge sums are involved in the business, which has expanded to the hills bordering Afghanistan,” it said in a 2009 report.

“They invest money and energy in Talibanisation, that is how they protect their illegal businesses at the expense of the state’s writ.”

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