Sunday, December 11, 2011

Pakistan to revisit terms for Afghan Transit Trade

Trucks carrying oil and containers at the Pak-Afghan border.—File Photo

ISLAMABAD: Pakistan has decided to revisit the conditions for Afghan Transit Trade (ATT) on the basis of concrete evidence suggesting that the facility was grossly being misused in many ways, official sources told Dawn.
They said since the closure of the route for Nato forces in Afghanistan, there had been instances of Nato supplies reaching the land-locked neighbour in the name of Afghan Transit Trade.
Answering a question, a senior official said there was no immediate timeframe for lifting of embargo on Nato supplies through Chaman and Tourkham borders. “Since the current terms have been violated by Nato, new terms of cooperation will be discussed with the United States after our own internal exercise”, he remarked.
He said the negotiations on carriage will take into account the colossal loss caused to the roads by heavy Nato containers, if and when a decision was taken to remove restriction on the supplies clamped in the aftermath of attack on two military posts in Mohmand Agency.
He revealed that the government under the previous arrangements was getting only Rs410 per truck for handling and loading at Port Qasim Karachi, while the contactors hired by Nato dominated by Afghan cartel end up making huge profits.
Another source said the government was mulling proposal to levy special tax on Nato trucks even before the November 26 incident. He said the Communications Ministry upset by the losses caused to roads and infrastructure was discussing modalities for establishment of designated check-posts at Chaman and Tourkham borders to collect the amount.
Various parliamentary committees in the recent past had expressed their concern over the damage caused to the roads by Nato containers and recommended levy of special tax on NATO containers.
A huge chunk of budget for repair of the roads is spent on account of damage caused by heavy Nato trucks for about a decade. Before the Nato supply was halted, hundreds of trucks used to cross Tourkham and Chaman borders every day.
About the Afghan Transit Trade, an official said it had remained controversial from the very beginning. “It has a history of damaging interests of the local industry on one hand and discouraging legal imports on the other”.
He pointed out that the production of televisions in Pakistan quadrupled in four years after inclusion of the item in the negative list for Afghan transit trade in 1996.
Pakistan had signed an agreement with Afghanistan in 1965 to facilitate foreign trade of its land-locked neighbour. The agreement has been massively abused by the unscrupulous
elements to import products way above their actual demand in Afghanistan meant only to push back the products into Pakistan.

The agreement resulted in massive smuggling of black tea, tyres, electronic goods, kitchen items, home appliances and other such goods into Pakistan. Every body knows that Afghans prefer green tea, but black tea in huge quantity was imported only to make money by misusing the facility.
In short, the ATT resulted in a quasi-legal smuggling in many ways. The majority of the imported products booked for Afghanistan just went through the motions never to reach Afghanistan after being rerouted in the border areas of the now Khyber Pakhtunkhwa. A big quantity also finds its way back into the country flooding the markets in the major urban
centres of the country with the goods imported under the ATT.

With each passing year the abuse increased, pushing products into the local markets which not only undermined the local manufacturing but also the legal imports. While the loss caused to the manufacturing sector forced many foreign investors to close down operations in the country, it also discouraged the legal imports of many items particularly tyres and
spices, due to in-competitive prices. This, in turn, deprived the government of substantial loss in terms of investment, corporate taxes and duties.

The agreement was abused to such an extent that an otherwise necessary service extended to the land-locked country turned it into the major cause for smuggling into Pakistan. It was all the more troubling as it was hard to keep track of the movement of imported goods bound for Afghanistan due to rampant corruption and political influence during all stages
of transit from Karachi, the nation’s only port-city.

The strong concerns of the manufacturing sector and the importers worst hit by the trade under the cover of ATT had forced the government time and again to make addition in the prohibitive list.

Former envoy challenges SC decision

“We have pled that the Dec-1 order is not a final decision but an interim order. And interim orders cannot be reviewed,” said the former Supreme Court Bar Association’s president Asma Jahangir while talking to Dawn.

ISLAMABAD: Former ambassador to US Husain Haqqani is in no mood to give up without a fight.
This was evident on Saturday when through his firebrand lawyer and human rights activist, Asma Jahangir, he challenged the Supreme Court office’s decision of the previous day in which the registrar had rejected Haqqani’s petition against the court’s Dec 1 order in the memo case.
In the first hearing of the case on Dec 1, the SC had appointed a commission to probe the scandal and had stopped Haqqani from leaving the country. In addition, it had asked the president, the army chief, the ISI head and Haqqani to submit their replies to the court. The SC began hearing the case because PML-N leader Nawaz Sharif had petitioned it to do so.
Two days ago, Haqqani had submitted his reply to the court, requesting that Nawaz Sharif’s petition be dismissed and asking for damages for the ordeal he had suffered. The former ambassador had also moved a petition challenging the Dec 1 order of the apex court on Nawaz Sharif’s petition on the memo scandal.
However, on the same day, the Supreme Court Registrar’s office returned Haqqani’s petition challenging the order. The registrar was of the opinion that a court’s order could not be recalled; it could only be reviewed. The registrar’s office had also objected that Haqqani in his petition had cited no specific grievance and that hence it was not clear whether he was critiquing the entire order or those portions that dealt with him.
On Saturday, Ms Jahangir challenged the registrar’s decision.
“We have pled that the Dec-1 order is not a final decision but an interim order. And interim orders cannot be reviewed,” said the former Supreme Court Bar Association’s president while talking to Dawn.
The new petition has also pointed out that no one could be deprived of his rights guaranteed under the constitution.
In such cases, a judge is asked to look into the matter.
Hence, it is likely that Haqqani’s appeal would be referred to some judge of the Supreme Court who would in his chambers decide whether the petition should be entertained or not.
In the main petition moved on Friday, which was rejected, Haqqani had contended that the SC order was influenced by the media hype in the country which was often motivated by ulterior motives and that it had been based on the accusations of a dubious individual.
In addition, he had argued that the petition had not mentioned any violation of fundamental rights and hence was not maintainable.
He had further pointed out that if the memo issue fell within the jurisdiction of the High Treason (Punishment) Act, 1973 or the Prevention of Anti-National Activities, 1974, then only the federal government or a provincial government could take cognizance.

Blast from the past; Cash for nukes attempt that failed

A bag full of dollars was dropped in General (r) Ziauddin Khawaja's office by a North Korean General Kang who at that time was serving as Defence and Commercial Attache in the North Korean Embassy in Islamabad. -AP File Photo



ISLAMABAD: General (r) Ziauddin Khawaja, former DG ISI, has disclosed for the first time that North Korea had attempted to bribe him by providing him 0.5 million US dollars in Benazir Bhutto’s last tenure as prime minister, in 1995.
“They wanted an expedited cooperation between the two countries on the missile programme, which was going on between the two countries in that era,” said General (r) Ziauddin while exclusively talking to Dawn at his Lahore residence.
Khawaja, was heading the Directorate of Combat Development, currently known as Strategic Plans Division (SPD). He was directly involved in Pakistan’s defense agreements with North Korea.
The retired general while answering a question said that, a bag full of dollars was actually dropped in his office by a North Korean General Kang who at that time was serving as Defence and Commercial Attache in the North Korean Embassy located in Islamabad.
Khawaja asked General Kang why he was giving him such a large amount of cash. The North Korean General told him that his government is distributing money among the relevant officers dealing in defence cooperation with his country.
General Khawaja said that he immediately informed the then Chief of General Staff (CGS) General Jahangir Karamat who spoke to the then Chief of Army Staff General Abdul Waheed Kakar who was on a foreign trip at the time.
Khawaja added that General Waheed consulted with Prime Minister Benazir Bhutto and ordered him to return the money after two or three days.
“General Kang was called at the Headquarters of the Military Intelligence, General Headquarters in Rawalpindi, where the money was returned to him by the then MI Chief, Major General Ali Kuli Khan in my presence,” said Khawaja.
Ziauddin Khawaja is living a retired life in Lahore these days. He was nominated Chief of Army Staff by the former prime minister Mian Nawaz Sharif, on 12th October 1999 soon after the removal of General Pervez Musharraf but the orders of the prime minister could not see the light of day as the military launched a coup.

Balochistan – a human rights free zone

“Every missing person is my son,” says Abdul Qadeer Baloch, whose son Jalil Reki went missing and was found dead two-and-a-half years later. 

Every year on this momentous day, 60-year old retired bank employee Abdul Qadeer Baloch organises special events in Balochistan capital, Quetta, to mark the international human rights day. He has organised, for instance, hunger strike camps and convened press conferences to raise the voices of the families of the disappeared Baloch political activists, students and professionals.
Qadeer had remained absolutely aloof to such hardcore activism until February 13, 2009, when officials attired in plainclothes whisked away his son Jalil Ahmed Reki, 35, from Quetta. The disappearance of a breadwinning son turned Qadeer’s life upside down. He eventually joined the Voice for Baloch Missing Persons (VBMP), an organisation representing the families of missing persons, to campaign for the release of his disappeared son.
Jalil Reki, Qadir’s missing son, had regularly operated as the central spokesman for the Baloch Republican Party, a nationalist political group seeking self-rule for the resource-rich Balochistan province. He was articulate, charismatic and well-connected with the local media. Qadeer made every attempt possible to seek the release of his missing child but completely failed to bring him back from the custody of the captors. After his involvement in similar missing persons’ cases, Qadeer realised his was not the only family which had a loved one listed as ‘missing’.
“Every missing person is my son,” Qadeer assured as he was recently promoted as the vice president of the VBMP. With more organisational responsibility came more pressure. In October, two secret agents reached out to Qadeer in Quetta warning him to immediately and unconditionally end the demand for the release of the disappeared activists.
“They warned if I wanted my son alive then I should end the hunger strike camp,” Qadir shared his insecurity with the media soon after being warned in person and also on telephone.
Qadeer would have routinely snubbed this warning if he had been contacted two years ago. In the past one year, the situation in Balochistan has dramatically changed. The bullet-riddled dead bodies of at least 220 missing persons have been found from different parts of the province in the past eight months.
Thus, Qadeer and his friends were totally cognizant of what he bills as the “nasty capabilities” of the captors of their loved ones. He took the threats seriously but it was no longer practically possible to abandon an organisation which funnelled hope to the relatives of hundreds of other missing persons.
“Quitting wasn’t simply an option” said Qadeer. Those who had warned him stood by their words. On November 24, the tortured and bullet-infested dead body of Qadeer’s disappeared son was found in Turbat district.
This year brings a totally different international human rights day for Qadeer. He says his young son’s killing has not undermined his resolve but given him a reason to stand beside those who still await the return of their loved ones.
‘Moral Crisis’
There is increasing international concern about human rights violations in Balochistan. Official denial of access to international media, human rights groups and researchers and increased role of agencies further make it difficult to independently analyse the crisis in Balochistan.
On November 16, the deputy spokesman of the US Department of State, Mark Toner, expressed concern over the situation in Balochistan.
Amnesty International’s Pakistan researcher Mustafa Qadri terms Balochistan as one of Pakistan’s “greatest moral crises”. The province, he says, has fast become a “human rights-free zone” with security forces and armed groups acting with total impunity.
Qadri, whose London-based global human rights watchdog has actively sought an end to killings and disappearances in Balochistan, says there are no excuses for the government to continue “such policies” in Balochistan.
“The failure of the state to protect its citizens’ right to life has left all of Balochistan’s diverse communities living in constant fear of abductions, torture, and targeted killings. The state continues to suppress the Baloch community’s right to freedom of expression whether with respect to nationalist politics or calls for justice for victims of enforced disappearance,” he claims.
The Human Rights Commission of Pakistan (HRCP) has decided to dedicate this year’s international human rights day to the people of Balochistan in order to urge Islamabad to “make vigorous efforts to ensure respect for the rights of the people in the long suffering province.”
Zohra Yusuf, HRCP’s chairperson, says at least 107 new cases of enforced disappearance have been reported in Balochistan in 2011, and the ‘missing persons’ are increasingly turning up dead.
“Bodies of at least 225 ‘missing persons’ have been recovered from various parts of the province since July 2010,” she reveals, “It is scandalous that not a single person has been held accountable for these disappearances and killings.”
Alarming Trends
With numerous existing indicators, there are valid reasons to paint a murky future scenario for Balochistan vis-à-vis the state of human rights.
Firstly, defenders of democracy, champions of human rights and the advocates of press freedom are all being forcefully dragged into the ongoing conflict. At least two HRCP coordinators, eight journalists and one campaigner for the IDP (internally displaced persons) rights have been tortured and killed in less than a year.
In addition, the so-called ‘kill and dump operations’ provide a glimpse into the prevalent and sophisticated network of illegal torture cells maintained inside Balochistan. For example, when activists, such as Qadeer’s son, disappear from Quetta and are found dead 856 kilometres away in Kech district, it gives a clear idea about the extraordinary operational and logistical capabilities of people involved in such regular and untraceable operations.
Meanwhile, an underground armed group calling itself as the Baloch Musla Defai Tanzeem (Baloch Armed Defence Organisation) recently issued a hit-list of four journalists in Khuzdar district warning to kill them all if they reported the activities of Baloch nationalists. At least two former presidents and two members, of the same district press club have been murdered in recent past, highlighting the threats faced by journalists working in Khuzdar.
Amidst the crises, the governments at the centre and the province do not currently have an engagement policy in Balochistan to give an idea where it stands on the issue of disappearances, killings and warnings to defenders of human rights. It demonstrates absolute official indifference toward the issue while the attacks on defenders of democracy and human rights are taking place with flagrant impunity showing a total absence of an accountability-driven system.
The number of unknown, shadowy armed groups is increasing day by day. Emboldened over lack of official action against them, these groups have become less reclusive, more assertive and more selective while singing out their targets.
Turning a blind eye, the provincial and central governments and the executive and the judicial branches of the government continue to throw the issue of human rights into each other’s court. Additionally, the government has not either completed or initiated investigations into killings for which it has been blamed, such as the murder of Professor Saba Dashtiyari of the University of Balochistan, to assure its commitment to independently probe blatant attacks on educators and free-thinkers.
The government has also not fulfilled the promise it made unveiling the Aghaz-e-Haqooq-Balochistan Package that all missing Baloch persons would be released.
Decades of unabated attacks on dissenters have eroded Balochistan’s political landscape to such an extent that violence has knocked out an ambiance of political dialogue.
Malik Siraj Akbar is a freelance journalist based in Washington DC.

Taliban leader hopeful of peace accord on Bajaur


KHAR, Dec 10: The fugitive deputy commander of the outlawed Tehrik-i-Taliban Pakistan (TTP), Maulvi Faqir Mohammad, has confirmed he is in peace talks with the government and that an agreement is in sight.
He said the government had released 145 members of the group as a “gesture of goodwill” and the militants had pledged a ceasefire.
“Talks with the government are in progress and both sides are likely to sign a peace deal very soon,” he told Dawn on phone from an unknown location on Saturday.
Fata additional chief secretary Fazal Karim Khattak, however, denied peace talks or contacts between the government and militants.
“Faqir Mohammad’s claim is baseless and a pack of lies,” Mr Khattak said.
He said the government would hold talks with only those people who surrendered weapons and gave up militancy.
Maulvi Faqir said if an agreement was signed for ceasefire in Bajaur Agency, the TTP would be able to sign a comprehensive peace deal with the government in Swat, Mohmand, Orakzai and South Waziristan as well. “Bajaur will be a role model for other areas.”
Maulvi Faqir parried a question about the basis for the negotiations.
Maulvi Faqir had signed a peace deal with the government after security forces launched an operation against militants in Bajaur and dismantled their hideouts. He then reportedly moved to Kunar province in Afghanistan.
The local administration also denied that Maulvi Faqir had returned to Bajaur’s Mamond tehsil in Bajaur and said “the administration doesn’t have any information about the TTP commander.”
Agencies add: Maulvi Faqir said the Taliban were negotiating with the help of local tribal elders in Bajaur.
“These peace talks are continuing only in Bajaur but certainly we will start such peace talks in other areas after we reach a written agreement,” he said.
Previous peace deals between Pakistan and militants have rapidly unraveled, and were criticised by the United States and at home for allowing militants space to regroup before launching new waves of attacks.
In late November, two senior Taliban commanders confirmed peace talks with the Pakistani government in South Waziristan tribal district.
“We are satisfied with these talks, and want to initiate such talks in other areas,” Maulvi Faqir said.
The commander refused to give details of the negotiations.
“Talks are going in right direction and soon we will be able to sign a written agreement,” he said.
At the end of Sept, Pakistan’s government pledged to “give peace a chance” and talk with its homegrown militants.
Maulvi Faqir said the government had realised that there was no military solution to the conflict in Pakistan. “We have no wish to fight against our own armed forces and destroy our own country,” he said.
“There has been development in our peace talks, but the government would have to show more flexibility in its stance, and restore the trust of Taliban by releasing their prisoners and stop military operations against them.”
He said that Pakistan and Afghanistan should unite against what he called foreign occupations by non-Muslims.

Pakistani Taliban spokesman denies peace talks

A Pakistani Taliban spokesman and another commander have denied the group is in peace talks with the government.

PESHAWAR: A Pakistani Taliban spokesman and another commander have denied the group is in peace talks with the government.
The militants contacted The Associated Press by telephone Sunday, a day after Maulvi Faqir Mohammed, recognised by many as the Pakistani Taliban’s deputy chief, announced the group was negotiating with the government. He was the first named commander to confirm talks.
Spokesman Ehsanullah Ehsan denied the claims, saying there would be no negotiations until the government imposed Islamic law, or Shariah, in the country. He has previously denied reports of peace talks by unnamed commanders and intelligence officials.
“Talks by a handful of people with the government cannot be deemed as the Taliban talking,” Ehsan told The Associated Press by telephone from an undisclosed location.
Maulvi Faqir Mohammed has long been identified as the group’s Bajaur head. But he reportedly fled to Afghanistan in recent years to escape army operations.  He has long been identified as head of the Pakistani Taliban in Bajur and said a deal with the government there could be a “role model” for the rest of the border region.
But another commander, Mullah Dadullah, also now claims to be Taliban chief in Bajur. Dadullah contacted the AP on Sunday and denied the group, also known as the Tehrik-e-Taliban, or TTP, was negotiating with the government.
“As TTP chief responsible for Bajur, I am categorically saying there are no talks going on between the government and the Tehrik-e-Taliban at the Bajur level or the central level,” Dadullah said, also speaking from an undisclosed location.
Ehsan, the spokesman, said Dadullah rather than Mohammed was the head of the Pakistani Taliban in Bajur.