People displaced by war on terror flock to Karachi

[Naveed Yaseen]

By Amar Guriro
KARACHI: Forty-year old Muhammad Arif Khan is a roadside vegetable vender in Bara Bandi, a small mountainous village five kilometers from Mangora city in Swat, NWFP. He is a man well acquainted with the sound of bombs and gunship fire but the last blast he heard on September 8, merely a kilometer outside his village, terrified him.

“It was early morning and I had just opened my vegetable stall when all of the sudden, I heard a bang and fell down. The first thought that came to mind was take my family and flee, so I left my native village the very next day with some of my relatives,” he said.

He talked to this correspondent at the Human Right Commission of Pakistan’s (HRCP) Karachi office during a joint press conference by human rights activist Iqbal Haider and Abira Ashraf of People’s Resistance (PR). Arif said that he came to Karachi with 26 members of three families and arrived in Landhi, where, as he said, thousands of tribals dislocated by the war on terror are living.

“We are not happy here in Karachi as my children’s education is being affected. I came to Karachi as I have many relatives in here,” he said. He added that majority of the people from his area are not happy about coming to different parts of Sindh. Despite that, hundreds of people come in every day from NWFP.

He said that he has never found any Taliban in his area, adding that what the US and Pakistani armies call Taliban are merely tribal residents of NWFP fighting for their rights. “We believe that in most cases, it is not NATO forces, but the Pakistani army that is involved in most of the attacks on the local tribes,” he said.

Addressing the press conference, PR leader Abira Ashraf said that some 700,000 innocent civilians, including a large number of women and children, are displaced from their native localities in NWFP and Balochistan because of the war on terror. “US and NATO forces, as well as the Pakistan army, are involved in attacks on the innocent people of FATA,” she said.

She condemned the killings in the name of religion in Swat, Waziristan, Bajaur, Gilgit, Parchinar and other areas, and demanded that the international community take efforts to rehabilitate those displaced by the war on terror.

Iqbal Haider said that by adopting double standards, that is support religious elements on one hand and launching a war on terror on the other hand, the US is encouraging terrorism rather than curtailing it. “The hardcore criminals of the past, most of them bus conductors and watchmen, joined Jihadi groups and these groups have become very powerful,” he said. “However, nobody is keeping a check on them or freezing the financial support that they are getting in billions of US dollars. Yet, the US has launched an operation against these groups in which the innocent civilians are the only victims.”

Recent attacks have left thousands displaced in NWFP. Haider demanded that the government assure the safety of these people’s lives and property. In Balochistan, although there are tribal elements not religious groups, but still, it is the innocent Baloch are suffering at the hands of the armed forces. “Indiscriminate killings of innocent civilians only empower the terrorists,” he said.

Answering a query, he said that the PPP-led government has continued with the policies of Pervez Musharraf. “Musharraf initiated talks with the Taliban and till September 5, 2006, his government had had four rounds of dialogues with the Taliban. The current government is doing the same thing after assuming power,” he said, adding that President Asif Ali Zardari rushed to Britain as his first official visit. “I personally believe that it would have been better if he went to China,” commented Haider.

He demanded the rehabilitation of all civilians displaced in NWFP and Balochistan in their native homes.

http://www.dailytimes.com.pk/default.asp...08_pg12_12