Honour killing in Sindh

PPP and MQM Coalition Govt. should take Notice of the issue.

40 women killed during May

HYDERABAD, SINDH: [SindhWeek.Com Report] Abbas Kassar, Coordinator of Peace and Human Rights Trust, Sindh, have issued an alarming reports on situation of women in Sindh, province of Pakistan. The report says that in month of May 2009, in Sindh province, 40 women were killed under honor killing, 20 women were gang raped, 43 women were kidnapped and 3 women were buried without coffin. The report elaborates that 175 men were also killed including killed in honor. The PHRT is a London based human right organization have chapters in Pakistan to watch human right situation.

Mr Kassar, a senior journalist and Coordinator of PHRT term this report “The human rights situation in Sindh is very alarming. Peace and Human Rights Trust has made a report for the month of May while reports of June and July is also ready to release” This is meant to open the eyes of rulers that they have failed to protect human rights of people especially of women.

Waves Of Hope

Operation Rah e Rast is said to be the most crucial step against militancy in Pakistan.On various forrums, as Pakteahouse etc I have supported the peace agreement with TNSM leaders though I have a point that nothing can satisfy Taliban except an authoritarian rule like Afghanistan in Taliban Era….

But the peace deal has exposed them and implementation of Nizam e Adal by the secular ANP will be a blow to the religious politics in Pashtoon areas…..

And the result is achieved as the religious parties have come openly in support of Taliban….Thus Taliban and JUI and JI have been exposed.

The most crucial and important aspect of the operation is the mass support to the Army Action and it is obviously due to the harsh comments  of TTP and TNSM leaderships after the agreement.

Peoples of Swat were of the opinion that Army and Taliban were the same, But the current operation has very possitive feedback from the people of Swat and this is the clear sign of winning this Battle against the monsters….

We the peoples of Swat appreciate  all the Officers and Soldiers of the Security forces, i.e Police FC and The Army

Dailytimes : We may be defeated by refugee camps

Prime Minister Yousaf Raza Gilani says the Swat operation is a fight for the “survival of Pakistan”. True. But we could be defeated in this fight by the developing crisis of the refugee camps in Mardan and elsewhere in the NWFP unless we do some emergency reorganisation. When the provincial government asked the people of the Malakand region to leave their homes to give the Pakistan Army a chance to take on the Taliban without too much collateral damage, the local population readily agreed. But their reception at the camps is turning out to be a trauma they did not anticipate.

The camps have been hurriedly put together in Mardan, Swabi and other places in the NWFP, and first reports are not very heartening. Around 200,000 have moved out of the target areas; an additional 300,000 are on the move and are expected to reach the camps by the beginning of the week. They will have joined the earlier 500,000 that fled the conflict zone and have been absorbed in various parts of the province, including the old deserted refugee camps used by the Afghan refugees in the past. That makes a total of one million refugees. The NWFP government projects a figure of 1.5 million as the war in Swat goes into attrition.

The National Disaster Management Authority (NDMA) disagrees with the numbers on the basis of registration because registration is the only way you can officially compute the size of displacement. It is true that many Swatis and people from other areas have moved in with their relatives outside the region but the coming flood of refugees is mostly going to be looked after by the state of Pakistan. The prime minister has already given Rs 1 billion to the NWFP government but it is organisation and expert handling that is missing. The first images appearing on the TV channels tell us that both are in short supply.

If this is the case, we may be defeated by the Taliban because of the refugee camps. We had a much better record of handling the displaced persons after the 2005 earthquake in Azad Kashmir and parts of the NWFP. Have we forgotten the lessons?

The 2005 earthquake was a sudden natural calamity and we could not have organised rescue and settlement beforehand. Adverse publicity of government performance went on for weeks before organisation caught up with the homeless. Beyond 2005, we had decades of experience of handling the Afghan refugees most of whom were lodged in the NWFP. Where has that expertise gone?

The plight of the first arrivals in the camps in Swabi and Mardan is quite pathetic. Coming from a cold area they are specially affected by the hot weather. The camps are pitched in open fields with only tent canvas to fend against the summer sun. Despite claims by officers, there is no clean drinking water, which is what the refugees need in the scorching heat to which they are not used. Children are specially affected by the new conditions but medical facilities are absent at the camps. Registration itself is problematic. Because each family has to be issued a special permit before facilities can be made available, hundreds are lining up in front of a single man registering them and issuing permits. This in itself is suffering.

All this could have been avoided. The plan to take military action should have included detailed plans of looking after the displaced population. And that could have been prepared in light of the experiences of the Afghan refuge camps and the 2005 earthquake. More significantly, the NWFP government could have studied the flaws in the policy of looking after the displaced people of Bajaur after the recent operations there. There were positive and negative lessons to be learned there. Unfortunately, Pakistan has once again been found standing dazed with its pants down before a population of refugees.

The so-called “national consensus” against the Taliban is not total, but it is quite broad and inclusive. The plight of the refugee camps will not only strengthen the Taliban, it will erode the national consensus too. No major politician has visited the refugee camps as they painfully come into existence.

IDP’s : Unwelcome in Karachi

Ali Arqam Durrani

Swat Peace treaty is condemned by the PTH visitors and many of them are amazed with the behaviour of the people living there.But someone should ask the migrants of their pain and agony.When fanatics were beheading policemen and FC sepoys, the Army personnel did not fight. Fanatics were targeting political workers from ANP. Was there any other option left. Now in Karachi ethnic bloodbath is on the cards. Amid the rhetoric, the victims i.e The IDP’s have no way home and are unwelcome everywhere…

By Qurat ul ain Siddiqui

KARACHI: ‘I am not at ease here,’ admits Mohammad Salaar, surveying the bustle and traffic at Safora Chowk in Karachi’s Gulistan-i-Jauhar area. ‘The political culture of the city is unfavourable for displaced families like mine which didn’t opt to stay at a refugee camp.’

Salaar is one of thousands of internally displaced persons (IDPs) who fled military operations in the Federally Administered Tribal Areas last August. According to City District Government Karachi officials, between 100,000 and 300,000 IDPs have settled in Karachi in the past few months. Many have yet to adjust to their newly adopted home. As Salaar puts it: ‘Life in Karachi is not very favourable for us Pashtuns. I am only here because I have relatives on whom I can rely. We haven’t been helped by the government in any manner.’

Born and raised in Bajaur’s Damadola district, Salaar left his home village seven months ago. He now works as a day labourer in Karachi while living with his family in a cramped room in Sohrab Goth for which he pays Rs 3,000 per month. For Salaar, adjusting to the difference between life in his hometown and this sprawling metropolis has been challenging. But the likelihood of returning to Bajaur any time soon is rather small. Like thousands of other IDPs, Salaar finds himself in limbo, unwelcome in Karachi and unable to return home.

Urban Nightmare

Salaar’s anxieties about Karachi are shared by many IDPs. Sher Khan, a cobbler who hails from Bajaur’s Mamond area and settled in Karachi’s Machar Colony five months ago, feels particularly vulnerable. ‘Apart from having to adjust to a different routine and lifestyle,’ he says, ‘the political climate is also problematic as our ethnicity is not viewed favourably.’

Khan claims that one of his relatives who used to live near Karachi’s Steel Mill was killed some months ago. He also narrates the story of two other Pashtun men who bore no affiliation to any political party but were recently killed. Following their death, Awami National Party workers identified them as party workers. ‘I know they were apolitical,’ insists Khan. ‘The political parties are using helpless, poor people like us for their own purposes.’

Salaar and Khan are made further insecure by a government campaign to register IDPs in an attempt to identify needs and provide humanitarian assistance. More than 552,000 IDPs have already been registered in the North West Frontier Province. In coming weeks, registration will be completed in the Punjab and Karachi under the auspices of the Ministry of States and Frontier Regions. The registration exercise is aimed at profiling and documenting IDPs, but in the politically and ethnically charged environment of Karachi, Pashto-speakers fear this is a means to target the community.

Troubled Passage

Sadly, Salaar and Khan’s problems began long before they arrived in Karachi. Salaar left Bajaur after his house was destroyed in mortar shelling. ‘My father barely survived the tortuous journey and my mother died during the shelling that destroyed our house,’ he recalls, adding, ‘when my family was escaping, we spent seven days charting through the mountains with the children. We were starving and thirsty and my eldest child became the victim of a helicopter gunship. I cannot tell you how helpless and desperate I felt at that time.’ Even now, Salaar thinks about his late son constantly. ‘I think about how I had to leave his body there and how I could have saved him, but could not.’

Bajaur under the Taliban

In the past few months, IDPs have proved a valuable source of information about the Taliban in FATA. Salaar and Khan are no exception. They explain that most of the militants in Bajaur are Pakistanis, but they are commanded by an Afghan national, Jan Wali, who is popularly known as Sheena Mujahid. ‘Apart from Pashtuns, there are also Chechens and Uzbeks, but they are not in any large numbers,’ adds Salaar.

‘Everybody welcomed sheena when he first came to Bajaur,’ says Salaar. The militant commander banned music and television but people were grateful for the campaign ‘because it suited the Bajauris and our society.’ But Sheena didn’t stop there. Salaar claims that the commander issued a form and told the men of Bajaur that they would be paid if they filled it out. ‘A lot of people signed that form,’ Salaar says.

Khan confirms Salaar’s account of Sheena’s activities. ‘Every time we questioned the security personnel in the area as to why they did not attack Sheena Mujahid, they would say, ‘if we kill the hero of the movie, the movie will end,’’ he says.

Khan also explains that the Taliban is Bajaur and Swat must be kept distinct. ‘Bajauri Taliban do not destroy girls’ schools and they have never treated innocent civilians with brutality like the Taliban of Swat have done.’

No way home

Even though Khan and Salaar do not explicitly object to Taliban presence in Bajaur, they do not plan to return in the foreseeable future. ‘Even though the operation seems to have stopped, there is no place to live,’ says Salaar. ‘I have three children, a wife, and my father is very old. It will not be possible to live there if there is a chance that the military operation might start again.’

Similarly, Khan, who complains that IDPs have yet to be compensated for losses sustained, is reluctant to return. ‘We still have land in Bajaur, but with the destruction and mass migration, what are we going to do even if we do go back? How will my children go to school?’ Shaking his head and recalling how his house was bulldozed, Khan softly adds, ‘this war has consumed us