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Govt Claims Crackdown on Extortion Mafias after Big Protests

Traders Demand Protection from Extortionists (Credit: thenews.com.pk)

Karachi, March 19: “In our profession, we don’t look at whether we’re strong, but if the other party is able to pay up,” says I*, with a 9mm pistol in hand, as he sits outside his apartment in District East. “This is give and take. No one is doing a favour. We ask for money to spare someone’s life and they pay up for the same reason. It’s a simple formula.”

Becoming an extortionist in Karachi is the easy way out to not just bankrolling a political party’s operations but also to rise in the murky hierarchy of criminal operations in Karachi.

Small-time criminals with no affiliation to gangs or political parties can easily call someone up, say that they are from so-and-so party or gang and make an extortion demand. Their entry into the city’s criminal operations has complicated how extortion works in Karachi, since it has become difficult to identify where the demand is actually coming from.

Instead of relying on other sources, every gang and criminal group in town is extorting money to be able to meet its budgetary needs. Almost all political and nationalist parties are involved in extorting money in Karachi, say observers. By one estimate, over Rs50 million is collected from traders, businessmen, shopkeepers, industrialists, factory owners and construction companies in Karachi, relying on a tried-and-tested formula of blackmail or asking for a ‘donation’ or ‘protection money’ on a daily, weekly or monthly basis.

They are assisted by a network of employees, relatives, guards and drivers, and use cell phones, verbal demands conveyed by boys on motorcycles and written slips of papers to convey their calls for money. There is also a system of surveillance in place, so traders are told of where their children go to school and what their family members are up to so that they know that the extortionists are keeping an eye on them.

A*, who works at a textile mill in SITE, is one of the many victims of extortionists.

“I had to stop going to the office for a few days. If I didn’t have anyone to support me I would have gone crazy,” he said.

Extortionists are known to call up traders and industrialists with their demands. While A never paid up, he was convinced that someone from his inner circle had provided his details to criminal groups.

Others have paid up or negotiated the amounts asked for them. According to one account, the amount can be discussed and brought down. Others have just shifted their families to other cities or countries.

Those targeted by extortionists play a cloak-and-dagger game, changing vehicles and cell phone numbers to escape their insistent calls.

The police also help traders deal with extortionists and advise them to negotiate. One industrialist, who spoke on condition of anonymity, said that he shifted his family abroad because he was convinced that they would always use them as a way to get to his cheque book.

Sindh Home Minister Manzoor Wassan and police officials have said that extortionist groups are not new to Karachi. But while it was once easy to know who was behind that mysterious phone call asking for hundreds of thousands of rupees, Karachi is far more complicated now with the myriad groups operating throughout the city, and those using their names to inspire fear in their victims.

Resistance isn’t a strategy either. Over half a dozen traders in Karachi, especially in the South district, have been killed for refusing to pay up.

Problems have also emerged with different groups battling out for turfs.

Paying extortion doesn’t mean the other group won’t approach you for money, and this has also seen a decrease in share for groups that were traditionally the sole operator in extortion. In some areas, the turfs are neatly demarcated and work with mutual understanding, given the political deals between the groups’ leaders or parties. But with the involvement of criminal groups with no political affiliation, a turf war has emerged and results in a renewal of target-based killings.

But there is no one to turn to. The police have been deemed as being ineffective in dealing with the situation; since it is highly politicised, few traders actually lodge First Information Reports (FIRs) with the city’s cops.

Even with the initiation of an Anti Extortion Cell, few have stepped up to register complaints and prefer to reply on personal connections to rid themselves of the extortionists. Despite the furore over extortion, Karachi police chief Akhtar Hussain Gorchani has only received 15 complaints in 10 days. “I thought extortion had reached a limit but I am confused at the few numbers of complaints received by the Anti Extortion Cell,” he told The Express Tribune. “Either people can’t develop trust in the police or there’s some other reason.”

Crime Investigation Department SSP Fayyaz Khan said that criminal gangs have complicated the city’s situation, since they use the names of influential political parties to back up their demands. He said there is violent retribution for those who refuse to pay up.

This also makes it difficult to estimate how much money is extorted from Karachi, though a source said that at least Rs10.5 million was demanded from the traders on Tariq Road each month. In his testimony to the Supreme Court of Pakistan last August, the DG Rangers said that extortion is a ‘normal practice’ and at least Rs10 million is collected every day, from shopkeepers to the city’s prominent businessmen. The negotiated amount that is paid is far less than what is being demanded.

For complainants who don’t have someone influential backing them up, they can’t find a way to track who has made the extortion demands over the phone. Often, a caller will use a single phone number to dial 20 traders and make demands, but the process of verification is difficult. The police do not appear to have access to trace calls, and requests end up going through several levels, from the SHO to the SSP to the DIG to the additional IG, who will then forward it to the Intelligence Bureau who will ask the Inter-Services Intelligence to help. It can take up to three months to trace calls through the official route, which makes the notion of listing the cell phone numbers being used in complaints useless.

*Names have been changed to protect the privacy of individuals

SOME BHATTA PRONE AREAS (according to police sources):

Gulshan-e-Maymar, Gulistan-e-Jauhar, Sacchal, Gadap, Malir, Gulshan-e-Hadeed, Bin Qasim, Lyari, Old city areas, Garden, Golimar, Pak Colony, Site, Shershah scrap market, Saddar, Napier Road, Kharadar, Mithadar, New Karachi, Surjani, Ranchore Line, Soldier Bazaar, Shah Faisal Colony, Korangi, Landhi, Kharadar, Liaquatabad, Sohrab Goth, Orangi, Qasba, Banaras, Kati Pahari, SITE, Baldia, Gulshan-e-Iqbal, Essa Nagri, Old Sabzi Mandi, Abul Hassan Ispahani Road, Hassan Square, Bahadurabad, Quaidabad, Keamari, Tariq Road, Sharafi Goth, Korangi, Lyari, Kharadar, Mithadar, New Karachi and Quaidabad.

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Why Karachi Grew Divided

MQM chief Altaf Hussain (Credit: nation.com.pk)
It was no coincidence that ethnic violence first broke out with the creation of the Mohajir Qaumi Movement (MQM) in 1985, shortly after Gen. Zia had held non-party elections as part of his plan to usher in controlled democracy.

That year, the Mohajirs led by a former Karachi university student, Altaf Hussain contested as independents and won a landslide victory. Encouraged by Gen. Zia ul Haq to organize on non- political grounds, the refugees from India mobilized in Karachi on the basis of their separate ethnic identity and registered as a political party.

In April 1985, I was tipped off by our crime reporter that gunshot victims had begun to pile up at a hospital in the north of Karachi. Word was that a speeding Pashtun mini-van driver had killed a Mohajir college girl, Bushra Zaidi. The accident itself was not news. Indeed, not a day went by when the newspapers did not report traffic deaths. Terrified of the speeding vehicles, the young women often held hands as they ran across this particular intersection. But that day, the young college girl that tried nervously to cross the road was struck down and died.

Bushra’s death became a cue for the unemployed Mohajir youth. They banded, in the newly armed MQM, to fan out throughout the city and destroy mini-vans dubbed “yellow devils.” They also burnt down rickshaws and taxis owned and operated by Pashtuns. It was a direct assault on the livelihood of the migrants from the north of Pakistan who bought their vehicles on high interest loans and raced their callously-stuffed passengers at high speeds so that they could repay the loan sharks. The Pashtuns reacted in the only way they knew; they shot back and killed the Mohajir assailants.

Government hospitals were caught unaware by the first major incident of ethnic violence under Gen Zia. The Abbasi Shaheed Hospital overflowed with victims of gunshot wounds. Medicines and blood were in desperately short supply. Frenzied crowds gathered on the lawns to donate blood and medicines for the victims, rushed in every few minutes by make-shift ambulances that were more suited to carrying vegetables than people.

For the next several days, the riots between Mohajirs and Pashtuns left 65 people dead and 158 injured. It was a vision of things to come. Over the next two decades tens of thousands of people would lose their lives as the MQM fought with the indigenous ethnic groups – Sindhis, Balochis, Pashtuns, and Punjabis – and the military alternately used and killed Mohajir youths in an attempt to wrest back control.

It was an era of the Cold War when the US Republican administration, led by President Ronald Reagan, used Zia’s regime as a conduit to fight against the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan. No sooner did the arms, bound for Mujahideen fighters, land at the Karachi Port than they were smuggled out and sold in the black market. The alacrity with which gun licenses were issued to ethnic groups made it appear that Gen. Zia preferred that they fight each other than fight his military rule.

Gen. Zia’s patronage of the MQM unfolded before our eyes. His ministers would call on the MQM chief Altaf Hussain at his home in Azizabad – a lower middle-class Mohajir neighborhood in Karachi. High walls cordoned off the MQM’s head-office – Nine Zero, Azizabad – also known as Markaz or the “Center.” At the Karachi Press Club, we talked about how Mohajirs had achieved the stuff of dreams: a lower-middle class party that kept key establishment figures waiting to meet their chief.

The MQM chief, Altaf Hussein’s personality lent an air of mystery to the party he had created. A dark-skinned man who wore dark glasses at all times, Altaf began the MQM as a movement for the rights of Muslim migrants from India who had arrived to create Pakistan. The MQM talked progressive politics, criticizing the feudals who oppressed Sindhis. But the MQM chief operated in a distinctly feudal style. Altaf Hussain projected himself as “Pir saheb” (spiritual leader), whose infatuated followers saw his likeness on the leaves around them.

Years later, MQM stalwart and former Karachi Mayor, Farooq Sattar acknowledged to me in a recorded interview what I had long known – namely, that in 1984, the “intelligence agencies allowed the MQM to come up to counter the PPP”. The purpose, he said, in a tone, that suggested that it was an open secret, was to prevent the Sindhis from gaining power.

The senior MQM leader referred to the 1983 Movement for Restoration of Democracy, through which tens of thousands of Sindhi villagers – who had protested against Gen. Zia’s execution of the elected prime minister, Zulfikar Ali Bhutto – were strafed by helicopter gunships in their own settlements. At the same time, Sindhi intellectuals, writers and journalists who supported the MRD were imprisoned and tortured by the military.

Decades later, the former Chief of Army Staff, Gen. Mirza Aslam Baig too acknowledged on television that the MQM was created by his predecessor, Gen. Zia ul Haq as a political measure to counter the Sindhi insurgency that grew after the murder of PPP founder, Zulfikar Ali Bhutto.
The press was still controlled by the military government but statements poured into Dawn from readers that the government ought to nationalize private wagons and buses and confiscate the driving licenses of reckless drivers.

In the forefront were educated Urdu-speaking professionals, bewildered by the sudden upsurge of violence. Their women councilors – many of them newly elected in Gen. Zia’s government – appealed for a ban on guns and for dialogue. But such expressions of hand wringing had nothing to do with the insidious workings of the military, which secretly patronized the ethnic party for political purposes.

Moreover, whilst educated Mohajirs were shocked by the violence, the reprisals by Pashtuns convinced many to organize as a political party. Since Pakistan’s creation in 1947, many Mohajirs had come to dislike the fact that they did not fit into a native ethnic group – Sindhis, Baloch, Pashtuns and Punjabis. Their feud with the Pashtuns convinced many that the Indian refugees needed a party to guarantee their survival. It would provide a groundswell of support for the MQM.

(Chapter 2 – Ethnic Violence in Sindh: The MQM Saga)

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Karzai Calls on U.S. to Pull Back as Taliban Cancel Talks

Afghan Grief after Massacre by US Soldier - (Credit: pressirtv)
KABUL, Afghanistan, March 15 — Prospects for an orderly withdrawal of NATO forces from Afghanistan suffered two blows on Thursday as President Hamid Karzai demanded that the United States confine troops to major bases by next year, and the Taliban announced that they were suspending peace talks with the Americans.

Getting talks started with the Taliban has been a major goal of the United States and its NATO allies for the past two years, and only in recent months was there concrete evidence of progress.

And the declaration by President Karzai, if carried out, would greatly accelerate the pace of transition from NATO to Afghan control, which previously was envisioned to be complete by 2014. Defense officials admitted there was a major divide between Mr. Karzai’s declaration and the American goals of training the Afghan security forces and conducting counterinsurgency operations. Successful counterinsurgency requires close working relationships with rural Afghans to help build schools, roads and bring about other improvements.

Asked if it was possible to take all American forces out of villages by 2013 and still train Afghan security forces and conduct counterinsurgency operations, a senior American defense official replied, “It’s not clear that we would be able to.”

Mr. Karzai declaration came in reaction to widespread Afghan anger over the massacre by an American soldier of 16 civilians in Kandahar on Sunday, and the decision of the military authorities to remove the soldier from Afghanistan, which was reported on Wednesday.

The Taliban statement, issued in English and Pashto on an insurgent Web site, said talks with an American representative had commenced over the release of some Taliban members from the Guantánamo Bay prison, but accused the American representative of changing the preconditions for the talks.

The statement did not make clear what preconditions were objectionable, but the statement emphasized that the Taliban were only interested in talking with the Americans, and criticized “propaganda” about the talks that American officials had issued. Zabiullah Mujahid, a spokesman for the Taliban reached by cellphone at an undisclosed location, said the statement suspending the talks was genuine but declined to discuss it further.

It was unclear if the two developments might have been related. But both came to light just as Defense Secretary Leon E. Panetta had left Afghanistan after a tense two-day visit that included talks with Mr. Karzai, and the Afghanistan president’s announcement in particular appeared to be a surprise. On Wednesday, President Obama said in Washington that the timetable for an Afghanistan withdrawal would not change.

Defense officials traveling with Mr. Panetta in Abu Dhabi said that the tone of the meeting between Mr. Karzai and Mr. Panetta was more positive than Mr. Karzai’s statement would indicate, and that he made no demands of the defense secretary — suggesting that the statement was in part aimed at a domestic audience enraged not only by the massacre but also by recent Koran burnings.

The officials acknowledged that Mr. Karzai told Mr. Panetta during their meeting that American troops should be confined to major bases by next year, but the officials sought to publicly tamp down the differences and portray the two countries as working together. “Secretary Panetta said, ‘We’re on the same page here,’ ” the Pentagon press secretary, George Little, quoted Mr. Panetta as telling Mr. Karzai.

Mr. Panetta, speaking to reporters after the meeting, said he had told Mr. Karzai that the military pledged a full investigation of the massacre and would bring the gunman to justice. He said that Mr. Karzai had not brought up the transfer of the suspect, an Army staff sergeant, to Kuwait.

Although the move was likely to further anger Afghans, who had called for him to be tried in their country, Lieutenant Gen. Curtis M. Scaparrotti, the No. 2 American commander in Afghanistan, told reporters that the Afghans had been informed of the move ahead of time, and he said that “their response is that they understood.”

General Scaparrotti said that the American military would likely not make the suspect’s name public until and if he was formally charged. He did not say when that might happen. “We are conscious of due process,” he said.

American officials said in recent weeks that there had been no talks of any substance since January, when Ambassador Marc Grossman, the United States special representative for Afghanistan and Pakistan, and his team last visited the region. Even the meetings held then did little to move the process beyond the “talks about talks” stage, and the Afghan government had not yet begun to play any significant role in the effort, despite statements from Mr. Karzai to the contrary, the officials said.

The main obstacle appeared to be executing the first set of confidence-building measures: A prisoner swap that would transfer five senior Taliban leaders held at Guantánamo to house arrest in Qatar in exchange for a Westerner being held by the insurgents.

The plan faced a series of difficulties, notably uncertainty about what conditions the five Taliban would be living under in Qatar, and American lawmakers on both sides of the political divide expressed deep skepticism about the release of the insurgents.

Faced with substantial political opposition, the Obama administration wanted to wait to release the men until it could get a direct exchange for the Westerner, the American officials said. But it appeared Thursday that the Taliban had grown tired of waiting for the Americans to begin the process, and that the insurgents feared the conditions under which their compatriots would be housed in Qatar would be too restrictive.

“Acknowledging their involvement in Qatar talks was a significant move for the Taliban. They expected that the U.S. would move quickly with confidence-building measures,” said Michael Semple, a fellow at the Carr Center for Human Rights Policy at Harvard’s Kennedy School. “The transfer of Taliban leaders to Qatar was top on the list. The Taliban announcement of suspending engagement in Qatar is a response to their frustration at the U.S.’s slowness to deliver.”

Mr. Semple said a series of crises to beset the Americans in the Afghanistan conflict since the start of the year had added another layer of uncertainty to the talks, emboldening Taliban hardliners to press back against the peace effort. “The Taliban also believe that the U.S. mission in Afghanistan is in disarray and their hardliners want to take advantage of that by launching a new fighting season.”

Still, the Taliban statement appeared to leave open the door to a resumption of the process, terming their move a “suspension.”

Angry over its exclusion from the first round of talks, which involved the Taliban opening a political office in Qatar as well as the proposed prisoner releases, Mr. Karzai’s government has tried to establish its own track for peace talks, saying Saudi Arabia should be an intermediary, and sending its own envoy to Guantánamo to talk to Taliban prisoners.

The Taliban statement repeated previous declarations by the insurgents that they viewed Afghan government officials as puppets of the Americans and would not hold talks with them. “Hamid Karzai, who cannot even make a single political decision without the prior consent of the Americans, falsely proclaimed that the Kabul administration and the Americans have jointly started peace talks with the Taliban,” the statement said.

The Taliban were only at the stage of discussing prisoners and the Qatar office, the statement said, adding, “neither have we accepted any other condition with any other side nor have we conducted any talks with Karzai administration.”

On the withdrawal of American forces to major bases by 2013, Mr. Karzai said that Afghan authorities were capable of taking charge of security in rural areas. The massacre Sunday took place in a rural part of Panjwai District, in southern Kandahar Province.

The shooting suspect has been described by sources as a 38-year-old staff sergeant in the Second Battalion, Third Infantry Regiment, Third Stryker Brigade, Second Infantry Division based at Joint Base Lewis-McChord in Washington State.

Elisabeth Bumiller contributed reporting from Abu Dhabi, U.A.E.

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International Crisis Group Weighs in on Balochistan

Balochistan on Map (Credit: news.bb.co.uk.)
India hasn’t done it; neither has America nor Israel. I am behind the crisis; I created it and I am responsible as well as answerable. Yes, India and America, both opportunists par excellence, are now taking advantage of our weaknesses but no one can break Balochistan away from me but me.

Baloch demands have always been political in nature-political empowerment and economic freedom. Balochistan as a whole has never demanded secession and whatever the large majority has been asking for has always been within their constitutional rights. A large majority of Balochistan has always wanted-and continues to want-to remain within Pakistan’s constitutional and democratic confines.

Over the years, there have been three major Baloch demands: effective political representation, administrative control and an end to exploitation of indigenous resources. Over the years, Rawalpindi has always responded with a military solution. But, pure political problems have no military solutions. Baloch opposition has been-and is being-pushed from being political in nature to militancy and insurgency. The Baloch, in that sense, have been forced to pick up the gun.

The Army has always responded with three of its most favourite tools: an indiscriminate military operation, a divide-and-rule policy plus bribing the Sardars, the Mirs and the Nawabs. Imagine; dividing up your own population, using Pashtun religious elements against Balochs and strategizing that this would bring Balochistan under centralized control. Imagine; appeasing the Sardars but leaving the other seven and a half million Baloch residents marginalized both economically and politically. It never has worked nor will it ever work.

GHQ has no solution. What then is the way out? How can we keep Indian and American wolves at bay? As a first step, here’s a set of six recommendations from the International Crisis Group (ICG) that makes lot of sense: An immediate end to all military operations; release all political prisoners; no political role for any intelligence agency; produce all detainees before the courts; give provincial jurisdiction over policing and ensure local stakes over each and every provincial resource.

In the next phase, bring about a new Balochistan run by a representative political as well as administrative structure-and no more cantonments please. Why is Gwadar Port Authority’s head office in Karachi?

Why is the wellhead price in Sind and Punjab up to four times higher than for wells in Balochistan? How many Baloch residents sit on the Boards of PPL, OGDC or Sui Southern? To be certain, America is not going to determine the future of Balochistan. Neither will India or Israel. What I do in the following 360 days is what will determine the future.

One out of every two residents of Balochistan is below the poverty line. Only one out of every two residents of Balochistan has access to clean drinking water. Only one out of every two children goes to primary school. Only one out of every three children is immunised. Balochistan’s crisis is surely heading in the wrong direction and there is no military solution.

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The Democracy Train Chugs Along

In a developing democracy, what is important is the systemic entrenchment through constitutional norms and uninterrupted electoral processes; the issues of public propriety and moral turpitude get sorted out as the democratic polity takes roots. Indeed, with each election, the system receives new vigour. The UK, the US and our neighbor India have all traversed this path. The Senate elections have taken the country one step forward in its democratic journey. Indeed, the elections point to many an interesting fact and development.

Firstly, this is the first post-constitutional reforms Senate elections. Now the upper house is occupied by the members who have been returned by the legislators elected in the 2008 general elections. Thus, the Senate elections have led to the expunction of the last vestiges of the Ziaul Haq and Musharraf era political system. True, many newly elected members may also have been part of the previous system, but now they stand on a much sounder constitutional pedestal. Yet, surprisingly this qualitative leap in the development of democracy has been lost on much of the political and media space. Why?

Actually, the alleged use of pelf and power in the elections has stimulated such a raucous debate on political morality that the underlying virtue of the graduating democracy has gone unnoticed. The media gurus do not reckon that democracy works like a mechanic in a garage, perennially engaged in fixing the malfunctioning vehicles. And that until the socio-political realities of the common men are transformed, the face of democracy would seem like a façade, carried on by the ruling elites. But even in the same democracy are latent the seeds of redemption for the shackled masses. Hence the cliché: even a bad democracy is better than autocracy.

Many of us were unhappy when General Ziaul Haq lifted martial law, in lieu of the infamous 8th Amendment to the constitution that drastically distorted the parliamentary system, and led to the dismissal of as many as four elected governments at the hands of the establishment-sponsored powerful presidents. Yet, a political process of sorts was triggered by the end of martial law. And a wish to revive the original 1973 Constitution remained kindling in the heart of every democrat worth his salt. The wish was finally realised much later by the present parliament, the very members who are berated day in and day out.

Secondly, the Senate elections have also shown that democracy not only reforms misgovernance but also chastens errant leadership. This time round, none of the parliamentary parties, not even the PML-N, allowed the system to crumble just to deny the PPP more seats in the Senate. It is a departure from the past when the political system was marred by perpetual confrontation and fissures and the main political parties — the PPP and the PML-N — went so far in hurting each other that they ignored the cost of their bellicosity. As a result, both suffered at the hands of the establishment.

Thirdly, the Senate elections have also set the course for the coming electoral alliances. One can now cautiously predict that the present coalition may give way to some kind of electoral understanding, if not an alliance. The fact that the PPP leadership has stitched together varied rather hostile political forces for more than four years reflects not just President Zardari’s ‘magical management’, but there is logic behind the coalition partners’ affinity. The PML-N is overtly anti-establishment, a fact not palatable to the PML-Q and possibly the MQM. And the PTI is too soft on the ‘fundos’, hence not acceptable to the PPP and the ANP.

Fourthly, the successful conclusion of the Senate election also shed a new auspicious light on our political system: the establishment’s power to stall or influence the electoral process seems to have been diluted by the ongoing democratic process. Politicians do not seem as pliable as they used to be in past decades. Probably that explains why President Zardari has survived so far and so successfully; why he has proved wrong all those who predicted the fall of his government before the Senate polls; and why he warded off an array of real and perceived threats — the contempt proceedings, the Memogate affair, and the Swiss case.

However, it is too early to say that the country is out of the woods as far as the establishment’s political ambitions are concerned. The country’s social and economic conditions are too precarious, requiring not only democracy but good governance. Hence, the PTI received much response from the despondent electorate. But of late, Imran Khan too is finding it hard to keep the momentum of his popularity going. Some pundits are already talking of his bubble having burst and pointing to his being present more on the TV channels than amidst the hordes of his ‘tsunami makers’. They attribute the fading of his charisma and puritanical politics to the entry of a host of tainted politicians into the PTI.

The other promising leader Nawaz Sharif may retain his popularity in his stronghold Punjab, but not enough to get a clear majority in the National Assembly. To be fair, he may not form the next government, not because he has lost his popular base to Imran Khan but because he has too many forces arrayed against him, including the establishment and possibly the US. Unless he relents on his anti-establishment rhetoric and takes back the powerful and wealthy rump of the PML-Q turncoats, his chances of capturing power are rather dim. Therefore the PPP-PML-Q-ANP-MQM alliance, bolstered by a Seraiki ethnic appeal, may still manage to retain much of the present count in the Centre and provinces.

The smaller parties and independents can also play a useful role in breaking a tie that may develop in a hung parliament. Their role may also be more pronounced if the seats are divided among all the major political parties.

Lastly, the Senate elections have aroused an interesting debate as to the ethical side of elections. The stories of big bucks being used to ‘buy’ votes (read the elected representatives) are being circulated in the media. A petition has been filed in Balochistan requesting the court to inquire into the alleged misuse of public funds to buy off provincial assembly members. Likewise, a technical hitch to the legality of by-elections has led to the passage of the 20th constitutional amendment, which ‘ensures’ a neutral interim government and an independent election commission.

Thus the train of democracy that has been derailed many a time before is now chugging along. It is has crossed many a station and many more are still to come. What is important is that it must not be allowed to be derailed. If it is, then there is no possibility of getting it back on track, let alone getting it to reach the destination — a peaceful, progressive and welfare state.

The writer is a lawyer and academic. He can be reached at shahabusto@hotmail.com

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Cultural Ignorance behind the Koran Burning in Afghanistan

Koran burning in Afghanistan newkuwaititimes.net

The Koran burning incident, which has raged in Afghanistan since the last couple of weeks, is symptomatic of the mutual misunderstanding with which the US and regional players have bumbled on for the last 10 1/2 years – with no clear goal in sight.

If the US goal in Afghanistan was to train the security forces to handle their own defenses, the incident of US soldiers burning the Koran outside Bagram prison – allegedly to thwart planning by Taliban soldiers against them – indicates that the decade long war has not taught American soldiers basic cultural norms of Muslim societies.

The Afghans have refused to buy the argument by US soldiers that the notes written on the Korans by Taliban prisoners may have been code words for an insurgency. Instead, the issue has touched a far deeper chord than the video of US soldiers humiliating the corpses of Taliban soldiers…which was repeatedly played in the US media.

The Koran burning incident has thrown world leaders into a bind. Afghan President Hamid Karzai, knowing that his fate will be decided by the Afghans after his US patrons leave, has turned to the Ulema (religious clergy) to defuse the crisis.

On the other hand, US President Barak Obama – with his multi-cultural upbringing – has apologized, but failed to contain the violence that has infiltrated into the Afghan security forces.

If the US had taken a leaf from history, it would found the need for greater sensitivity in a cultural milieu where tribal Afghans have fought off Western influences like the plague.

For example, the former Soviet Union was forced to end its modernity campaign in Afghanistan shortly after its invasion in 1979, after Russian literacy workers were murdered by conservative Afghans. Millions of Afghans migrated to Pakistan, where they coalesced into the Mujahidin. These “holy warriors” were subsequently funded and armed by the US against the Soviets in Afghanistan… in a movement that has fathered the Taliban.

Today, with history come a full circle, Afghan conservatism raises new challenges for the Obama administration.
The Koran burning issue has already spilled into Pakistan where the religious parties (who served as the mid-wives for the Taliban during the 1990s) have used it to capitalize on anti-US sentiment.

In Pakistan, the victimization of religious minorities and even Muslims suspected of sacrilegious acts mushroomed after 1984, when the Gen. Zia ul Haq’s military coup was followed by passage of the Blasphemy Laws to award the death penalty for insulting the Prophet of Islam and the Koran.

In 1994, I visited Gujranwala town in the Punjab to see how a Muslim who had even memorized the Koran, suffered the ultimate penalty for alleged blasphemy. The unfortunate Muslim, Hafiz Farooq Sajjad whose Koran caught fire…it is impossible to verify how it happened… was spotted by his neighbor while the Holy Book was burning, and reported he had burnt it on purpose.

As the news of the Koran burning spread through the town, the clerics announced it from the mosque. An angry mob descended on Sajjad’s home, tied him to the back of his motor bike and dragged him till he died of his wounds.

The most virulent Muslim sects have since emerged from the small towns of the Punjab – groups like the Anjuman Sipah-i-Sahaba Pakistan and the Lashkar-i-Jhangvi – who have singled out Shias, Christians, Ahmediyas and even Muslims for extermination.

Only last week the anti Iranian group, Jundullah took responsibility for singling out Shias traveling in a passenger bus in Pakistan’s northern areas – whence they were forced to disembark and shot on account of their sect.

In this complex scenario, where nations use religious and ethnic groups to fight proxy wars in the Pak-Afghan region, the dangers of religious extremism rise in proportion to incidents like Koran burning.

Indeed, as the Taliban claims military successes in Afghanistan… the religious extremists moving across the porous borders to Pakistan carry the seeds of intolerance that threaten to destabilize the nation still further.

If history repeats itself, and the unexpected always happens, how incapable must Man be of learning from experience. – George Bernard Shaw

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Hindus Oppose Bin Laden film that Portrays Pakistan on Indian Soil

Bin Laden film settings (Credit: onenewspage.co.uk)
Indians have protested against the shooting of a film by Oscar-winning director Kathryn Bigelow on the hunt for Osama bin Laden on the grounds that the film-makers were portraying Pakistan on Indian soil.

Bin Laden was killed by US special forces in Pakistan in May last year.

The film-makers, denied permission to film in Pakistan, converted parts of the Indian city of Chandigarh to look like the Pakistani city of Lahore.

But for right-wing Hindus, the use of India to portray sworn enemy Pakistan was too much.

“They have made Chandigarh like Pakistan, as if it is Pakistan,” said Vijay Bhardwaj, a leader of the radical Vishva Hindu Parishad group.

“We strongly oppose this and we will not let them put Pakistani flags here and we will not let them shoot for the film.”

Billboards with Urdu signs were put up on shops in a market in the north Indian city and auto-rickshaws were running with Lahore number plates. Burqa-clad women and men dressed in traditional Pakistani clothes roamed the streets.

The small group of protesters shouted slogans and some of them were seen arguing with cast and crew members as police tried to intervene.

The protesters said the government should have denied permission to make the film on Indian soil.

Bigelow, who won an Oscar for her Iraq war movie The Hurt Locker, was developing a film on the hunt for Bin Laden before the al-Qaeda leader was killed in the Pakistani garrison town of Abbottabad.

The film, Zero Dark Thirty, is due for release in late 2012.

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When is Journalism Really Independent?

Islamabad, Pakistan: Two Pakistani journalists filing reports home from Washington are quietly drawing their salaries from US State Department funding through a nonprofit intermediary, highlighting the sophisticated nature of America’s efforts to shape its image abroad.

Neither of the two media organizations, Express News and Dunya News, discloses that their reporters are paid by the nonprofit America Abroad Media (AAM) on their websites or in the reports filed by their correspondents. Though the journalists have worked under the auspices of AAM since February, AAM only made their links to the news organizations known on their website Wednesday, after being contacted by the Monitor.

The lack of transparency by the Pakistani organizations involved could heighten Pakistani mistrust of the US government, which is seen as having an undue level of influence in their country’s affairs.

“If an American journalist working as a foreign correspondent in Pakistan was paid in a similar manner, would it be morally or professionally acceptable for his news organization or audience?” asks Badar Alam, editor of Pakistan’s prestigious English-language Herald magazine.

The amount currently allocated for the project is some $2 million over two years from the public diplomacy funds allocated by the State Department, according to State Department officials in Washington familiar with the project. That includes salaries for the two correspondents – Huma Imtiaz of Express News and Awais Saleem of Dunya News – and a bureau for both TV channels.

Aaron Lobel, president of AAM, says his organization receives donations from a number of private funders, too, which it mainly spends on its programs on international affairs that run on Public Radio International in the United States.

The timing of AAM’s website disclosure – after contact from the Monitor – was a coincidence and the update had been planned for “several months,” he says. “We are a small organization with two web guys. They are really working hard on the new site – not just about the Pakistan project but on everything we do. Yes, it would have been better to have a lot of information [before]. We have been preparing this site for a long time to provide that information.”

“The content production is done first and foremost [by] Pakistanis who are here and work with their channels back home to produce content,” says Lobel.

Sometimes the Pakistani journalists and editors at home come up with stories. But AAM also holds production meetings where the group’s managing director, Aliya Salahuddin, suggests stories, says Lobel.
“I understand the fears that define the joint ventures that comprise the US-Pakistan relationship. [But] we are very proud we have a good relationship with Dunya and Express. It allows Pakistani journalists to cover the US with a Pakistani perspective. I haven’t encountered any Pakistani channel that doesn’t want to work with us,” he says, adding that AAM is hopeful of partnering with more Pakistani channels in the future.

Both reporters cover a wide variety of stories, some related to the US government and others not.

In her work for the English-language newspaper the Express Tribune, a respected national Pakistani daily that is a part of the Express Media Group, Huma Imtiaz regularly quotes unnamed US officials, at times from the State Department and at times from the Department of Defense.

In a story published Aug. 16, “Strings attached: Talk of US scorecard rubbished,” Imtiaz interviews a Department of Defense official who contradicts an earlier Wall Street Journal report that the US government was making decisions on aid based on Pakistani performance and cooperation.

She has also written for The New York Times, though not since drawing a salary from AAM, and published one essay for the Indian Express on being a Pakistani journalist in America when Osama bin Laden was captured. She also writes for Foreign Policy’s website, where she is credited only as the correspondent for Express News in Washington.

Awais Saleem’s reports include stories on cricket in Chicago and Pakistani fashion in the United States.

Neither reporter was willing to comment on the story.

Making a clear connection

AAM’s ombudsman, Jeffery Dvorkin, insists there is no US government involvement with content production.

“My role as ombudsman is to help AAM ensure there is no effort by its funders, including the government, to interfere with any of the content produced. Thus far, there have been no efforts of this kind. Secondly, AAM continues to make it clear to the government and to all funders that in order for AAM to proceed with this initiative, the government could have no involvement in content production or selection,” he says.

Mr. Dvorkin says his only misgiving was about Lobel’s ability to be the AAM’s chief fundraiser and remain involved editorially at the same time – an issue that has since been resolved with the imminent hire of new managing editor.

But the lack of transparency, particularly by the Pakistani news organizations, raises ethical issues for all parties involved, says Richard Wald, a journalism ethics professor at Columbia University in New York City.

“The essential question here is not who pays, but who knows who pays,” says Professor Wald. “In a correct world, if there were such a situation, people should make the connection clear – not simply to the editors and management of the Pakistani papers – but to the receivers of the information so they can judge it on their own.”

He adds there can be a place for government-funded access to reporting for things like equipment and travel so long as it is clear where the funding is coming from.

The State Department official counters that both the US government and AAM “encourage” the channels to make their ties clear. “We’re very proud of this program,” the official says. But eight months into the program, officials from AAM had not reached out to the channels regarding disclosure.

The official notes that this is part of a broader effort to reach out, including bringing Pakistani journalists to the US for short visits under the International Visitor Leadership Program.

Defending his newspaper’s decision not to disclose the source of Imtiaz’s funding, Express Tribune editor Mohammad Ziauddin told the Monitor: “The lady reports in conjunction with the [nongovernmental organization AAM]. The lady has been recruited by us in consultation with the NGO in a way we do not need to mention this. By putting that line we would be putting this into perspective but since we already edit [her stories] according to our thinking we do not need to. Editorially we sensitize it to a great extent.”

He adds that the process of building links with government officials is commonplace the world over. “I know a number of instances where a correspondent has landed in Pakistan and has been won over by our own information departments and briefed by our government agencies. Obviously they would like to keep his sources intact and at times he or she obliges [the government].”

Ziauddin adds that the partnership was conducted “as an experiment” and in the future the newspaper intends to pay for its own correspondent in Washington, just as they do in London.

Countering environment of misinformation

Christine Fair, a Pakistan expert and assistant professor at Georgetown University in Washington, says it is important to remember that the US government is operating in an environment of misinformation, where anti-US stories in Pakistan seeded by the Pakistani security establishment are commonplace.

“Is anyone calling them out on this? The Pakistani press is the freest press that money can buy,” she says, adding: “The larger story is the Pakistani media is up for sale to as many people want to buy it. This fiction is that the country is really benefiting from some independent media. The US government wants to get into this game to counter this ISI [Inter Services Intelligence] propaganda.”

Naveed Kashif, chief operating officer of Dunya News, also stated that since final control resided with the channel, they did not feel the need to declare the partnership with AAM to their viewers.

(Editor’s note: the original version of this story gave the incorrect name for the chief operating officer of Dunya News.)

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Taliban linked Jundallah Owns Sectarian Killings in Pakistan’s North

Shias protest killings in Kohistan (Credit: nation.com.pk)
Gunmen have killed at least 18 Shia Muslim bus passengers in a sectarian attack in the northern Pakistani district of Kohistan, officials say.

The attackers are reported to have checked the identity cards of all the passengers before removing the Shias and shooting them.

About 27 other passengers on the bus were spared.

Meanwhile, a Chinese woman was shot dead with a Pakistani male companion in the city of Peshawar, police say.

Bus attack

Kohistan is not known for militancy, but it borders the Swat valley, which has had a Taliban presence in the past.

The attack took place close to the remote and mountainous area of Harban Nala, approximately 130 miles (208 km) north of the capital, Islamabad.

Four buses were travelling in a convoy from the city of Rawalpindi to the northern town of Gilgit.

“Armed men hiding on both sides of the road attacked,” local police chief Mohammad Ilyas told the Agence France-Presse news agency. Local officials say that the men who ambushed the bus were wearing military fatigues.

It happened in an area dominated by Sunni tribes, Reuters quotes a policeman as saying.

Prime Minister Yousuf Raza Gilani has condemned the attack, insisting that such incidents would not deter the government in its resolve to fight “the menace of terror”.

Correspondents say that more than two-thirds of Kohistan’s 500,000 people live a nomadic life and move up and down the country in search of pastures.

Kohistan is 7,400 sq km of sheer mountains, rising from 2,400m (7,874 ft) to 3,700m (12,139 ft) with virtually no plains.

Sunni extremists allied to or inspired by al-Qaeda and the Taliban routinely attack government and security targets in north-west Pakistan, in addition to religious minorities and other Muslim sects they consider to be infidels.

The BBC’s Aleem Maqbool in Islamabad reports that there are frequently complaints from Shias that the Pakistani state does little to stop the attacks and has even released from custody notorious militants accused of carrying them out.

Last month more than 30 Shias were killed in an attack on a mosque in north-west Pakistan.

Chinese targets

The Chinese woman, 40, and her Pakistani companion, 22, were killed by gunmen on motorbikes while walking in the Kohati bazaar area in the historic centre of Peshawar, police said.

It was the fifth shooting or bomb attack in north-western Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province since Thursday, raising concerns that violence is worsening following a relative lull in recent months.

The father of the dead Pakistani said that his son had been working as a translator for the Chinese woman while he was on holiday from studying English literature at university.

The BBC’s M Ilyas Khan in Islamabad says that while a motive for the attack is unclear, it is not unusual for Chinese people to be targeted in Pakistan.

  • In 2009 a Chinese engineer was kidnapped in the Dir region of north-west Pakistan. He was released after five months
  • A Chinese beautician kidnapped during the Red Mosque siege of 2007 was released several months after being abducted
  • One of two Chinese engineers kidnapped by militants loyal to Taliban commander Abdullah Mehsud in 2004 was killed during a rescue bid by Pakistani forces.