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Afghans Return Deadline May Be Extended
The deadline for the repatriation of Afghan nationals will probably be extended till 2018, as political parties on both sides of the ideological spectrum have increased pressure on the government in this regard. The decision was taken on Monday at an in-camera conference of parliamentary parties, chaired by Federal Minister for States and Frontier Regions (Safron) Lt Gen (retd) Abdul Qadir Baloch. The participants in the meeting, however, decided that a new date for the deadline would not be announced to the public. Speaking to reporters after the conference, Pakistan Tehreek-i-Insaf vice chairman Shah Mehmood Qureshi said they had arrived at the decision to repatriate 1.5 million Afghan nationals by the end of 2017. Other participants at the conference, however, explained that the date could be extended up till 2018. Mr Qureshi said it was strange that even political parties in the government were not on the same page regarding repatriation. “We noted that there was no national law regarding refugees in the country...we must do something about this,” he said. Yet even senior members of the PTI appeared to have differing opinions on the subject, with Khyber Pakhtunkhwa Chief Minister Pervaiz Khattak opposing the extension of the deadline. “There has to be a deadline — the issue of repatriation cannot be left open-ended,” he told the media. One of the participants at the conference told Dawn that Mr Khattak had vehemently opposed an extension of the earlier deadline set for March 31, 2017. “He said that his own shops had been rented out to some Afghan nationals but that did not mean that it added to the province’s economy.” Mr Khattak had gone on to say that his province had suffered because of the presence of many undocumented people and demanded a plan to deal with the situation. The participant, speaking on condition of anonymity, said they had decided to ‘unofficially’ extend the deadline to 2018 but would not announce it publicly as it could negatively impact...
7 Soldiers Martyred In India’s Deadliest Provocation
Seven Pakistani soldiers were killed on Monday when Indian troops violated ceasefire along the Line of Control (LoC) in the Bhimber Sector of Azad Jammu and Kashmir in the latest and deadliest provocation that Islamabad warned might lead to ‘strategic miscalculation.’ Monday’s incident compelled Pakistani government and strategists to analyse the current situation with an aim to find out what the Narendra Modi administration wanted to achieve by ratcheting up tensions along the LoC. Although the two nuclear-armed rivals have frequently exchanged fire at the LoC and Working Boundary in recent months, this is the first time since 2003 that the Pakistan Army has suffered causalities in such a large number in a single day. That was the reason the reaction from Pakistan’s political and military leadership was swift, condemning the Indian aggression with a vow to hit back befittingly. Those who lost their lives while on duty include Havaldar Zafar Hussain, Havaldar Ibrar Ahmed Awan, Lance Naik Muhammad Shoukat, Lance Naik Muhammad Haleem, Sepoy Pervez, Sepoy Muhammad Ilyas and Sepoy Muhammad Tanveer. Their funeral prayers, held in Jhelum, were attended by army chief General Raheel Sharif and other senior army officials. In a statement, the Inter-Services Public Relations (ISPR) said the army chief was briefed on the current situation along the LoC after the funeral. According to the military’s media wing, the army chief said Pakistan would continue to give an effective response to Indian provocation and pledged to leave ‘no stone unturned to defend the motherland’. On the diplomatic front, Foreign Secretary Aizaz Ahmed Chaudhry summoned Indian High Commissioner Gutam Bumbanwalay and condemned the “unprovoked ceasefire violation by the Indian occupation forces on the LoC, resulting in the Shahadat of seven Pakistani soldiers in Bhimber area.” According to an official handout, the foreign secretary deplored increasing Indian ceasefire violations at the LoC and Working...
Dream Debut: Gwadar Port Ships Off First CPEC Cargo
Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif on Sunday launched from Gwadar port the first shipment of trade goods to arrive from China via the China-Pakistan Economic Corridor (CPEC), officially kicking off trade activity at the harbour and across the multibillion-dollar road network. “Today we have gathered to witness the dream of CPEC turning into a reality, further strengthening bilateral ties between China and Pakistan which have stood the test of time, he said while addressing the launch ceremony of the first mega pilot trade cargo, attended by the three services chiefs, joint chiefs of staff committee chairman, Balochistan chief minister, members of the federal cabinet, Chinese dignitaries, a number of envoys and others. Terming the arrival of the trade convoy from Kashghar to Gwadar a ‘watershed event’, the premier said “CPEC, conceived by the leadership of China and Pakistan, has materialised, bringing a dawn of immense trade and commerce opportunities for the whole region.” Premier Nawaz said Pakistan is a proud partner of China and assured that his government would leave no stone unturned to complete all development projects under the aegis of CPEC on time. He lauded the Chinese President Xi Jinping’s “vision of shared regional prosperity which coincides with Pakistan’s vision of development of 2020” and called it “the need of the hour in a conflict-ridden and increasing polarised world.” “CPEC is the fusion of President Xi’s concept of ‘one belt and one road’ project which integrates trade activities of various regional countries through enhanced connectivity, thus transforming Pakistan into a major hub of commerce,” he added. Premier Nawaz said Pakistan enjoys a unique geostrategic location at the crossroads of three major engines of growth – South Asia, China and Central Asia – and by serving as a major trade hub, would change the fate of region’s three billion people. He reiterated that CPEC would open a world of opportunities for China, Pakistan and the region....
Deporting Sharbat Gula
SHARBAT Gula became the world’s most famous refugee after a photograph of her appeared on the cover of a 1985 issue of the National Geographic. She made headlines again recently when she was arrested by the FIA for living in Pakistan illegally on forged papers. She was charged under Section 14 of the Foreigner’s Act and for violating the Pakistan Penal Code, the Prevention of Corruption Act and the Nadra Ordinance. She was slapped with a fine of Rs110,000 and was ‘fortunate’ enough to be jailed for only 15 days and not for years, as provided for under the law. What is highly disconcerting, however, is that she was deported as soon as she was released. Sharbat Gula suffers from hepatitis C. She is also a widow and a mother of four children; she deserved to remain in Pakistan on health and humanitarian grounds. Desperation, abject poverty and the lack of better opportunities have driven many Afghan refugees to take residence in Pakistan illegally. In other words, they have no other choice, and it goes against the core norms of international human rights for Pakistan to punish these individuals for violating its immigration laws. Amnesty International also recently voiced this sentiment in a press release that further tarnished Pakistan’s reputation for its recent treatment of refugees. Following the APS attacks, Pakistan has hardened its stance on Afghan refugees. Scores have been subjected to harassment and torture in violation of the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights, the Convention against Torture and Other Cruel, Inhuman or Degrading Treatment or Punishment (CAT) and the Convention on the Elimination of all Forms of Discrimination Against Women. These conventions, which Pakistan has ratified, make no distinctions between the treatment of citizens, refugees or those who are illegally present in a country. Pakistan must have a more long-term and inclusive strategy to deal with Afghan refugees. While it is true that Pakistan is not a party to the...
Turning Afghanistan Into a More Modern State
From 2009 through 2012, Washington Post reporter Joshua Partlow covered the war in Afghanistan and the United States’ frustrated efforts to turn a former terrorist haven into a modern state. In his no-nonsense writing style, Partlow explains in “A Kingdom of Their Own” how Washington ended up supporting the extended family of Hamid Karzai, its choice for president in a country that had never held a Western-style election for its highest office. He also tells why, after 15 years and America’s longest war, a well-functioning, modern and responsible government has remained out of reach in the rugged southwest Asian country. A reader may wonder why this country has spent billions of dollars and several thousand lives to bring a sort-of democracy to Afghanistan. The answer is simple: Afghanistan was where Osama bin Laden and al-Qaida hatched plans to attack the United States on 9/11. The George W. Bush administration wanted to create a stable government and ally there. The U.S-led NATO alliance in Afghanistan has accomplished several things. Primarily, it has kept the Taliban from re-establishing a national government, though the fighting has been hard and the results tenuous. (The Taliban is what originally allowed al-Qaida to use Afghanistan as a base.) Second, with intense U.S. oversight, NATO allowed an elected president, Karzai, to assume power for the first time in Afghanistan’s history. Yet the tribal nature of Afghan life continues to confound national unity. “President Karzai’s dream throughout his presidency was to find a peaceful resolution to the conflict with the Taliban,” Partlow writes. “He mentioned that goal when he was sworn in for his second term, and he pursued the prospect of peace talks until he left the palace. The record of those efforts has not been written; most of it took place in the shadow worlds where spies and militants intersected.” Karzai’s goals were not what Washington wanted. The Bush and Obama administrations sought to turn the...
“People That Hate Us”: What can Afghans expect from President Trump?
If Hillary Clinton had won Tuesday’s race for the White House, the world would now have a good sense of who her top officials would be and what her foreign policy would look like. With a Secretary of State-turned-president, Afghanistan could have expected business to carry on pretty much as normal. With Donald Trump coming into office in January, however, nothing is certain. The US is Afghanistan’s main backer in terms of funding and foreign troops and also has a substantial continuing influence on government policy. Whatever readers may think about the US role in Afghanistan, any major or sudden shift in US policy would be bound to have huge repercussions. So, despite AAN being the Afghanistan, not the America, Analysts Network, senior analysts Thomas Ruttig and Kate Clark have had a first attempt at working out what the Trump presidency might mean for Afghanistan. Foreign policy was not exactly a key issue in the election campaign and Afghanistan – where America is fighting its longest war ever – barely featured at all. It got one (factual, rather than policy) mention in the first Clinton v Trump televised debate (see video in this article) and failed to make it into the second and third debates at all. Associated Press has tried to find a reason why this happened: The next president will face a new set of tough choices on Afghanistan early in his (…) term, including whether to increase or reduce U.S. troop levels and, more broadly, whether to continue what might be called Obama’s minimalist military strategy. The difficulty of these choices may explain, at least in part, why Trump and Clinton have been largely silent on Afghanistan. The most striking mention of Afghanistan probably came when Trump campaign spokeswoman Katrina Pierson appeared on CNN in October 2016 and, speaking about 2007, said: “Remember, we weren’t even in Afghanistan by this time. Barack Obama went into Afghanistan.” Perhaps, she mistook the ‘surge’ for the 2001 invasion. During a campaign...
More Carnage in Balochistan
THE blight in Balochistan continues. This time a shrine in a remote, mountainous region of Khuzdar has been attacked and the death toll and number of casualties are devastating. It was the third monstrous attack in the span of three months – lawyers killed by the dozen in August; policemen killed by the dozen in October; and, now, members of the public killed by the dozen. The numbing scale of the disasters is difficult to process even in terms of a province that has been in the throes of every possible kind of violence for over a decade. Perhaps one day the people of Balochistan will be able to ask why they were cursed to suffer the violence of state and non-state actors alike, a macabre circularity that has seen them experience bloodshed in the name of security and insecurity. Then post-attack rituals too are wearyingly familiar. In the immediate aftermath, the state stands exposed. Neither is the state able to deliver an acceptable level of security that prevents such devastating attacks nor is it able to quickly arrange for the kind of medical attention the victims require and material attention for the victims’ families. It usually takes the extraordinary intervention of senior government or military leaders for medical care to be made available. Afterwards, it does not seem to occur to that very same leadership that what is really needed are stronger institutions and better service delivery so that if — when — another attack occurs, medical care automatically swings into action. Difficult as it may be to strengthen institutions in the midst of long-term conflict, actual performance is so dismal as to call into question the very competence and priorities of the country’s leaders. As ever, it is the citizenry that has to suffer because of the leadership’s failings. A day later, the devastation at the Shah Noorani shrine was already receding and a congratulatory narrative taking its place because of the Gwadar port inauguration. To be sure, the potential for...
Dealing with Trump’s America
At about one on the morning of November 9, Hillary Clinton conceded the election to her Republican Party rival, Donald Trump. This was an utterly unexpected turn in events. Before the results started to come in on the evening of the day before, no serious political analyst had predicted a Trump victory. The real-estate’s supporters had either not been covered by the experts or had kept their views to themselves until they entered the voting booth. They turned out massively to vote for their hero. A vast majority of them were the country’s white citizens. Now that the voters in the US have cast their votes and elected a new president to succeed Obama, the question remains as to how will the elections affect the evolution of the US political system? One of the more important consequences of the way the election was fought was to remove the veneer of respectability from public discourse. Trump scoffed at this tendency to be polite as “political correctness.” Certain things were not to be said openly; they may have been acceptable in the “locker room” but not in the public space. But that was not the right approach. People should express themselves openly. Only then they will get some response from the policymakers. This attitude gave latitude that was quickly exploited by the “angry white men” who are Trump’s largest support group. But this loss of inhibition was not confined to the political right. It also affected the left, it crept even into the commentary in newspapers and magazines of repute. To take just one example from the many that are available. It is hard to find so many pejoratives in one sentence written by a highly respectable columnist. This is what Roger Cohen had to say about Trump: “The campaign, thanks to Trump, has involved a kind of magical mystery tour of all that is vile, vulgar, repugnant, primal, violent, bullying, petulant, hateful, dishonest, superficial and lazy in human nature.” Trump’s behaviour “has offered a primer in how democratic...
Through Aide, Pakistan Reaches Out to Trump
Pakistan has approached US president-elect Donald Trump through one of his close aides, seeking to develop an ‘understanding’ with the new administration on issues ranging from war on terror to the complex nature of geopolitics in South Asia. The development came just days after Trump’s stunning victory in the US presidential election shook the entire world, including Pakistan, where policymakers are now discussing options on how to deal with the enigmatic leader given his radical stance on international and regional issues. Since Trump being the next president of the US is now a reality, Pakistan has decided to follow a ‘proactive’ approach to reach out to the Republican leader. A senior official with the knowledge of that ‘proactive’ approach told The Express Tribune that Pakistan’s Ambassador in Washington Jalil Abbas Jilani wrote a letter to Trump on behalf of Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif to congratulate him on his victory, as well as his government’s desire to work with his administration. But, apart from these diplomatic manoeuvres, the government is also relying on ‘unconventional’ approaches, such as reaching out to the Trump administration through his advisers. One of his advisers that have been approached by Pakistan is Sajid Tarar, a Pakistani-American, who came to the limelight after he founded a movement in the US seeking support of Muslims for Trump in the run up to the race for the White House. It was a bold and to some extent unpopular move on his part due to the fact that the majority of American Muslims as well as those of Pakistani origins supported Trump’s rival Hilary Clinton. With Trump’s unexpected victory, Tarar has now emerged as the most sought after person in the US. He was one of the 36 advisers appointed by the Republican candidate for the hard fought election campaign. Tarar, who originally hails from Mandi Bahuddin, is expected to be given a key role in the Trump Administration. On Sunday, in an exclusive interview by phone from...
Da’ish Forms Nexus with Other Groups
The deadly suicide bombing at the Shah Noorani shrine in Khudzar, which has been claimed by the Islamic State, also known by its Arabic acronym Da’ish, shows the threat is not perceived, it’s very much real. Former interior minister Rehman Malik said on Sunday that he had spoken about the presence of Da’ish in Pakistan based on documentary evidence. “Instead of taking action to stop the cancer from metastasizing, the government remained in denial mode,” Malik told journalists in Islamabad. “Today, we are shocked to know that Da’ish has claimed credit for the carnage at the shrine in Khuzdar.” Law enforcers in Peshawar lend credence to what Malik says. They believe that Da’ish has formed a nexus with other terrorist groups, TTP-Jamaatul Ahrar in particular, to carry out terrorist attacks in the city. In background interviews, senior officials of law enforcement agencies told Daily Express that three terrorist groups TTP-Jamaatul Ahrar, TTP Tariq Afridi group and Da’ish have contracted a sort of marriage of convenience, wherein Da’ish carries out attacks and TTP-Jamaatul Ahrar claims responsibility for it. “Most recent attacks, including targeted killings taking place in Peshawar, have been carried out by Dai’sh,” said a senior counterterrorism official. “Under an arrangement among these groups, TTP-Jamaatul Ahrar has claimed credit for all these attacks,” he added. In the past, the group’s spokesperson, Ehsanullah Ehsan, had repeatedly denied affiliation with Da’ish. The official admitted that in the past everybody denied Da’ish’s footprint in the country. “But now the situation has changed, especially after the law enforcement agencies, including Intelligence Bureau and Counterterrorism Department, managed to arrest dozens of facilitators and local leaders of the group,” he added. According to information gleaned from these detainees during interrogation, the Da’ish’s local leader belonged to Mattani, a village located about 20 kilometres south of Peshawar near...
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I am also a member of National Assembly’s Standing Committee on Information and Broadcasting. Recently, we held a meeting with the Director General of Radio Pakistan and we told them to initiate such local programs (like Constituency Hour) in regional languages to educate and inform people. Even Indian Radio can be heard in FATA which is being used for propaganda purposes and must be closed. Therefore, we should launch some standard and quality programs like CRSS that will change the taste of the listeners.