EDITORIAL

Long-term plan for Sidr-hit people needed

We presume by now the wintry chill has further intensified the hardship and privation of the Sidr-hit denizens in the coastal districts where the catastrophe has levelled high and low. Not to speak of the marginal and landless farmers, even the once affluent landowners are now entirely dependent on relief for their survival. When it comes to speaking about extreme destitution losing whatever they had, their affliction and trauma are identical. With the hopes of nabanna or new harvest all shattered, the survivors will have to rely on succour for a pretty long time, perhaps until April or May next year.
   A news item datelined Barguna has saddened all and sundry over the arrest of succour seekers. The district police held 12 relief seekers, branding them 'ruffians'. They were arrested during a demonstration that was staged to seek adequate relief in the Sidr-stricken Barguna district. They were sent to jail in the afternoon. This is sheer highhandedness on the part of the law enforcers because seekers of relief may question and resent the mode of and irregularities in distribution of relief materials.
   We expected that the Upazilla administration in cooperation with the various government agencies must have restored and repaired the damaged rural infrastructure like roads and culverts to facilitate relief operations. Pitiably enough that has not happened at all places. Whatever may be the extent of damage, the road links should have been established within the first 10 days in the flat landmass with the collaboration of Union Parishad office bearers.
   While the masses in the cyclone-ravaged areas are struggling for survival we are shocked to learn that some NGO workers are bothering borrowers for realising the money. In view of this army chief General Moeen U Ahmed's suggestion that the NGOs waive payment of loan instalment until April in the cyclone-hit areas considering the suffering of the victims is worthwhile. He said the banks and NGOs should waive loan instalments at least until April next year considering the distress of the hapless cyclone-hit people. His observation is justified when he says that the job of the NGOs is to "help the poor people, not to chase them for recovery of loan instalments. Media reports have it that they are pressing them for repayment. It is not desirable at all.”
   Much though we are aware that the newspapers are replete with horrid tales of haplessness and misfortune, we have been profoundly touched by the telling pictorial report of 85-year-old Anoara Begum of Mirzaganj in Patuakhali, front-paged by a Dhaka-based contemporary. Widow of the late Mohammad Howlader of Rampur village, she returned home dejected and empty-handed from a place three kilometres off as she has no VGF card. Our question: If an old widow like her is not eligible for a VGF card then who is? We suggest that the local UP men be taken to task forthwith. We wish recurrence of such inhuman treatment is avoided at all costs.
   As we have observed earlier, the civil society speaks aloud about the importance of local government, the gross fault in disaster mismanagement and failure to address the destructive effects and aftermath of the calamity, of necessity, falls on the local administration system. Having these in view, will it not be cogent to surmise that a serious shortage of competent officials and an efficiency gap have resulted on account of rapid double or triple promotions of civil servants in consideration of political loyalty under successive governments? Indeed, now it is time to evaluate the ability of the politicised members of the bureaucracy. Last but not least, long-term plan for rehabilitation of the affected people brooks no delay.

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Fighting in the tribal areas in Pakistan

Barrister Harun ur Rashid

The tribal areas in Pakistan - formerly known as federally administered tribal areas - have become a melting pot for jihadis from all over the world. The Afghan and Pakistan Taliban, al-Qaeda, Chechens, and the Islamic Movement of Uzbekistan are reportedly among the militants who train and take refuge in the tribal region.
   Furthermore, since the beginning of the Afghanistan war in 2001, members of the Taliban have advanced into leadership roles in some parts of the tribal lands, particularly the agencies of North and South Waziristan and Bajaur.
   The rise of the Taliban has upset the political balance in the tribal areas, where there have been cases of tribal leaders getting killed for questioning the Taliban's growing power or working too closely with Islamabad. However, the Taliban's religious extremism is not a new element in the tribal lands. Long time foreign correspondent and Pakistan-based author Kathy Gannon writes "extreme tribal views are not new,” and predate the international counterterrorism operation in the region by decades.
   The Pakistani government appears to take a harder stand on al-Qaeda to please the United States and offensive action by the use of helicopter gunship and artillery to attack militants are consistently being reported.
   Observers believe that such attacks help sustain the illusion that Pakistan government is taking effective action. The truth, observers believe, is that the soldiers have lost will to fight. Nothing illustrated the disarray of Pakistani soldiers more clearly than the capture of hundreds of troops in August by the Talibans.
   
   Difficulties
   There's no border security, there's no border guards, there's no border control,” says Amin Tarzi, a regional analyst for US. The tribal lands joined Pakistan rather than India after the former gained independence in 1947, but Islamabad historically has had minimal control over the fiercely independent Pashtuns.
   One of the difficulties is that for the area's tribesmen, being citizens of Pakistan is secondary to their Pashtun identity, and they regard foreigners, including Pakistani forces, with suspicion.
   Historically, Islamabad has exercised limited authority over the tribal agencies, but after the 9/11 attacks, the region came under the scrutiny of the United States as Taliban and al-Qaeda members took refuge there.
   Under US pressure, President Musharraf ordered a counterterrorism manoeuvre involving the deployment of eighty thousand Pakistani troops over the course of the operation, which took place mainly in the agencies of North and South Waziristan. But the operation backfired when the forces failed to win a decisive victory.
   The conflict became increasingly unpopular with the Pakistani armed forces, the core of Musharraf's support, among which there is a sense they are fighting their own countrymen under the US pressure. Pashtuns are the second-largest ethnic group represented among the troops.
   On top of that, the military's operation in the Waziristan agencies stirred up the Pashtun desire for vengeance. Observers say the more tribes people are killed, the more tribal people seek revenge.
   
   Peace deals
   By June 2006, Musharraf realised he had to negotiate with tribal leaders to end the unpopular conflict.
   Since 9/11, Musharraf has been trying to control militancy in the tribal areas through various peace agreements. But so far, these deals have brought negligible success.
   The Pakistani government has little means to force tribal leaders to hold up their end of the bargain, given the unpopularity of military intervention in the region. Also, the peace agreements came under wider criticism amongst the tribal leaders.
   In March 2007, the government signed another deal with pro-Taliban militants and tribal leaders in the Bajaur agency. The tribesmen and the militants agreed not to give foreign militants safe haven in the area and the government pledged not to make arrests without consulting tribal elders.
   But bombings and attacks on government property in the area followed, prompting renewed government efforts in August 2007 to negotiate with tribal elders and the militants. The militants insisted they were not responsible for the new violence while at the same time demanding the release of fellow militants arrested by government forces.
   In August and September 2007, the government also signed peace treaties with different tribes in Mohmand agency, in which the tribes made similar promises of not sheltering foreigners or supporting the militants.
   Experts agree that resolving the complex political issues in the region will take a long time. Observers concede that it's not as easy as just providing infrastructure in a region where people have a long-standing code of behaviour, but suggest that building roads and providing services can function as one step to draw tribal leaders "into the system.”
   Putting the US troops into the tribal lands is no solution but security in the region could be boosted by offering Pakistan counterinsurgency training and providing intelligence.
   The best hope would be to hold an informal meeting between Karzai and Musharraf to resolve how to control the tribal area on both sides of the border as well as the movement of insurgents across it.
   However, Karzai critics rule that out saying he hardly has any control over the tribal chiefs and war lords of different areas within Afghanistan itself. He hardly enjoys any support amongst the tribal leaders in the Pakistani side of the border. No easy formula is likely to work in this troubled area.
   The current fighting in the federally administered tribal areas in Pakistan reminds one of what the British General, Andrew Skeen had said in the early 1900s: "When planning a military expedition into the tribal areas, the first thing you must plan is your retreat. All expeditions into this area sooner or later end in retreat under fire.” It is amazing that even after nearly hundred years this advice seems to hold truth.
   The writer is a former Bangladesh Ambassador to the UN, Geneva.

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Mohammad Ilyas Dayee in Lashkar Gah

The beautiful red flowers of the pomegranate tree used to cover Helmand, a province which was famous for the luscious red fruit. But these days a different sort of flower blooms, as more and more of Helmand's sandy soil is given over to the opium poppy.
   "I had 1,500 pomegranate trees five years ago,” said Abdul Jabbar, a resident of Nawzad district. "They gave a very good yield. We loved the orchard, and I would never have destroyed it, but what else could I do? There was no market to sell the fruit. Birds would destroy the pomegranates on the branch, or else we'd pick them and they would rot at home.”
   He finally decided to cut his losses and grow poppy.
   "The government says it's against poppy, but drug traffickers go from house to house and buy our crop and give us a lot of money,” he said. "Find me a market for my pomegranates. Everyone hates poppy cultivation.”
   Pomegranates cannot hope to compete economically with opium, which provided Helmand's farmers with an estimated US$530 million in 2007. Last year, this one remote province in southern Afghanistan furnished nearly half the world's opium and its major derivative, heroin.
   An average farmer can earn over 4,000 dollars per hectare for poppy, while the yield for pomegranate is barely one-tenth of that. Added to that is the problem of markets and storage.
   But farmers like Abdul Jabbar say that they would prefer fruit to opium, if only the government would provide storage facilities and help them develop markets. The government, in turn, insists that farmers are not asking for help but are rushing to cut down their trees to make way for poppy.
   While exact figures are difficult to come by, Helmand farmers say that the majority of the province's pomegranate orchards have been destroyed in the past few years. This corresponds inversely to the astronomical rise in opium production over the same period. The amount of land given over to poppy in Helmand has nearly quadrupled in the past two years, rising from some 27,000 hectares in 2005 to 103,000 in 2007, according to the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC).
   Runaway poppy production has been fuelled by the growth of the Taleban presence, which has made control all but impossible. Widespread corruption among government officials has contributed to the failure of a loudly-trumpeted crop eradication effort, and leads to a disdain for the law among citizens of the province.
   Expensive alternative livelihood projects have mostly failed, in part because of the same factors - the insurgency and corruption.
   Opium is easier to store and sell than almost any other commodity, insist Helmand's farmers.
   "I used to have 300 pomegranate trees, now I have just 20. The rest of my land is being used for poppy,” said Jahan Gir Aka, a farmer in Babaji district.
   There was simply no market for the fruit, he said. "I believe that if the government could find us markets at national and international level, all of Helmand's farmers would go back to growing pomegranates,” he added.
   Another problem is the absence of adequate storage facilities for pomegranates, which are perishable.
   Naseem Kharotai has a shop in Bolan, near Lashkar Gah, and has 500 kilograms of pomegranates to sell.
   "If I don't sell them soon, they will rot,” he said. "If we had cold storage, we could earn a good income on pomegranates. They aren't very expensive right now, but if we had storage facilities we could sell them at a higher price in winter.”
   Pomegranates keep well when stored properly, he said.
   In neighbouring Kandahar, where the United States Agency for
   International Development has helped provide cold storage and quality control, earnings on pomegranates have nearly doubled.
   But security problems have held back development in Helmand, and farmers complain that the government has been slow to provide assistance. For their part, officials say the farmers are not asking for help.
   "Not a single farmer has come to us to ask for help in finding markets of building storage facilities,” said Engineer Ghulam Nabi, the head of the department of agriculture in Helmand. Even if they did, the government has limited resources, he admitted.
   "If the farmers come to us to demand markets and storage facilities, we might be able to do something for them,” he said. "We don't have the capacity to do it on our own, but we could seek assistance from donor organisations. The important thing is that the farmers should come to us.”
   The internationally-funded counter-narcotics programme, which in the past few years has pumped well over 100 million dollars into alternative livelihood programmes in Helmand, might be able to help.
   But Engineer Abdul Manan, head of Helmand's counter-narcotics department, told IWPR that it was not the job of his office to help farmers with other crops.
   "No one has come to us to ask for such services,” he said. "If they do, we can send them to the department of rural development. But we do hope that farmers will turn to other crops than poppy for their livelihood.”
   It will take more than hope, however.
   Nano Aka, a farmer in the Nawzad district, is against growing opium poppy. But he too cultivates the crop because, even with the risk of eradication, harvesting wages, tithes to local mullahs and bribes for the government, it brings him more income.
   "I really don't like poppy,” he said. "No one would grow it apart from the fact that it brings in money. Me, I like cultivating pomegranates.”
   The author is an IWPR staff reporter in Helmand.
   -Institute of Peace and War Reporting

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LETTERS

Repealing Article 70

Dear Editor:
   It seems to me that Article 70 of our Constitution is undemocratic. After achieving independence in 1971, Bangladesh adopted a new constitution based on the fundamental principles of democracy.
   At that time, the Article was incorporated into the constitution in order to ensure party discipline. But today's socio-economic situation and political climate/environment of the country are significantly different from those of the past. In addition, the Article is in clear contradiction with the democratic spirit of our Constitution. Because if leads to the establishment of party dictatorship. I think it is irrelevant today.
   Article 70 forbids an MP, who is elected as a nominee of a particular party, to vote against that party in the parliament or to abstain from voting defying party directives. Those who fail to comply with this Article risk losing their membership of the parliament. The article thus limits the free role of MPs. Not only that, it is a major impediment to discordant views within the party structures. So it hinders internal democracy of political parties.
   Saleh Md. Shahriar,
   Chittagong University.

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Islamabad Diary

Dear Editor:
   Junaid Iqbal regularly contributes to the weekly Holiday on events or situation in Pakistan. The Holiday authorities should devote at least a page of the weekly for events in Pakistan and India. We used to get picture of different regions of Pakistan before pre-independence days of Bangladesh under the caption 'Lahore newsletter', 'Peshawar newsletter', 'Karachi newsletter' or 'Quetta newsletter' in different English dailies/Periodicals of Dhaka.
   It will be good if he can contribute in a similar manner by giving suitable minor captions for such paras or stanzas. It will also be welcomed, if he can throw light on the present Pakistani films on a regular basis.
   A Subscriber,
   Dhaka.

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In appreciation of Janata Bank

Dear Editor:
   A good thing must be appreciated and brought to the notice of the concerned people else the enthusiasm created in the minds of the performers will disappear. We came to know from a picture that Janata Bank has been adjudged as the best bank in Bangladesh for the year 2007 by the New York-based financial magazine The Global Finance and was awarded for brilliant performance. The ambassador of Bangladesh to USA received the award on behalf of Janata Bank from Josef D. Giaraputo, President and Publisher of the Magazine in Washington DC.
   After seeing the picture I thought being one of the old executive of the bank I should take the pen to express my feeling and gratitude on my own behalf and on behalf of the bank to the "Global Finance”. Employees of Janata Bank inherited the progressive qualities from its origin, that is UBL (United Bank Ltd) which was regarded to be the best bank during those days.
   It seems that bankers of Janata Bank nurtured and improved those qualities carefully which helped them achieve the distinction. They also proved that they are the best bankers in the country possessing the best qualities that successful bankers should posses.
   M. A. Alim,
   Ex. Banker
   42/B-1, Indira Road
   Dhaka.

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Cyclone shelters for cattle

Dear Editor: Human shelters are not enough - now the cattle/livestock have to be protected. It is the basic economy of the rural area. The Govt could not visualise such a need - hence the vacuum in planning. How the relevant departments would solve this problem; besides transferring some cattle from the districts not affected by the recent hurricane? The fallen trees would provide some fertiliser effect. The long-term plans need urgent review. More breeding of cattle needed. A Mawaz, Dhaka.

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Sidr-hit people need succour

Dear Editor:
   Millions of people have lost everything in the southern coastal areas of the country as the consequence of the cyclone Sidr.
   The victims are passing their days like sub-humans in half naked condition without drinking water, food and house to live in. They are suffering from hunger and disease and crying for succour.
   At this juncture of great national calamity, tragedy and untold sufferings of the people we cannot sit idle only by expressing our sorrows and sympathies. It is time for action and not contemplation.
   The magnitude of loss of life and property are so great that our government alone can not tackle the situation and mitigate the sufferings of the people single handedly.
   It is imperative that all of us make all-out and concerted efforts to extend all possible help and assistance and supply relief materials to the cyclone-affected people to mitigate their sufferings.
   We suggest that in all districts, upazilas, towns, unions, wards, mahallas, bazars and markets which are not hit by the recent cyclone, local relief committee: in ccordination with and under the supervision of local respectable and honest personalities may be formed.
   The local relief committees may collect donation in cash and kind, clothes, rice, sugar, salt, lentil, plastic bottles and jars, CI sheet utensils etc from door to door from the local people.
   The local relief committees may deposit all the donated and collected money and materials to the local administration for onward transfer and distribution to the cyclone-affected areas.
   If the above proposal is accepted by our government, the Ministry of Disaster Management and Relief may take initiative in the matter, arouse interest and moral duty among people for donation of money and relief materials and issue necessary instruction and guidance to all local DCs, UNOs and Government officials to coordinate and cooperate with the local relief committees.
   O. H. Kabir,
   Dhaka.

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