[sacw] sacw dispatch #2 (18 May 00)

Harsh Kapoor aiindex@mnet.fr
Thu, 18 May 2000 13:46:36 +0200


South Asia Citizens Web - Dispatch #2
18 May 2000
________________________________
#1. Bangladesh: Stranded Pakistanis Long for a Country That Left
#2. Pakistan / India: The drought on both sides
#3. Pakistan: 126 Madaris involved in militant activities: report
________________________________

#1.

New York Times
May 13, 2000

Stranded Pakistanis Long for a Country That Left

By BARRY BEARAK

Barry Bearak/ The New York Times

Pakistanis stranded in Bangladesh live in 66 camps like this one, top, in
Dhaka. Muhammad Jainul Abedin, 70, above, who has lived in Rangpur camp for
29 years, wept and said, "I am going to die here," and wept. The Pakistanis
were left behind in 1971 when East Pakistan became the independent
Bangladesh. ----- RANGPUR, Bangladesh-The world ceaselessly churns out
human tragedy. The newly conquered. Newly dispossessed. Newly hungry. Newly
diseased. Newly destitute.

One calamity overtakes another, and the 240,000 "stranded Pakistanis of
Bangladesh" know they are the leftover unfortunates of distant yesterdays.

For 29 years, they have been spread across this nation in 66 squalid
camps, each a tightly packed thatch firetrap. They live as refugees, though
theirs is a more peculiar predicament. They did not leave their country;
their country left them.

In 1947, the newly created Islamic Republic of Pakistan had an East and a
West, two large chunks of territory with the behemoth India in between. In
1971, the East won a war of independence and became Bangladesh.

Left behind were those who had been loyal to Pakistan, some of them active
collaborators. In victory, they would have been patriots. In defeat, they
were traitors.

They sold their property-or had it confiscated. They were herded into
camps, often for their own protection. Their decided preference was to
leave the new nation and go to the part of Pakistan that still existed.
They expected to be welcomed. Their waiting began. Three decades later,
they wait still.

But for what? Once, they thought of Pakistan as the promised land. Now,
many are unsure they would go even if they had the chance. Steeped in
inertia, enmeshed in poverty, they are waiting because waiting is what they
do. Even the most stalwart now wonder whether they have sacrificed their
lives to a sad folly.

"Look at me-I am going to die here," said Muhammad Jainul Abedin, a frail
70-year-old. He lives in a camp in Rangpur, a small city in the northwest.
A stroke has disabled his arm. His spirit suffers a paralysis as well.

His face crumpled with tears. "Who thought we would spend 30 years living
in a filthy camp?" he said.

Mr. Abedin's son, Muhammad Zabed, was standing near. Like most families,
they live in a cramped shack, their small space reconfigured into tinier
nooks with the marriage of every son and the birth of each baby. Surreally,
on one wall they have hung posters of elegant American farmhouses, with
broad porches behind white picket fences.

"They make the room look beautiful," Mr. Zabed said. "Of course, once you
walk outside, you are back in the filth."

The government provides the camps free electricity, water and a ration of
wheat. The camps are not prisons. People can move out, though few do.
Without money, they say, there is no way to make a fresh start. They have
grown used to their limbo, waiting futilely as Bangladesh and Pakistan
figure out which is to keep them.

"These two countries, they each try to throw the ball-or should I say the
people-into the other's court," said Muhammad Mohi-Us Sunnah, the legal
officer for the office of the United Nations high commissioner for refugees
in Dhaka, the capital of Bangladesh. "It's quite pitiful, really. And no
one seems to be doing anything about it."

Indeed, his own agency offers no help. The stranded Pakistanis do not
qualify under the United Nations definition of refugees. They are waiting
to flee, but have not yet fled.

"There is no one but Allah on our side," said Abdul Jabbar Khan, one of
the stranded, though others in the room suggested that even God had tired
of their cause.

Here in Bangladesh, as well as in Pakistan, people in the camps are known
as Biharis. In 1949, when India and Pakistan were loosed from the British
Empire, millions of Muslims left largely Hindu India, some going east, some
west.

Those going east were called Biharis because most had come from the Indian
state of Bihar. In India, their religion had made them a minority. In East
Pakistan, their language did the same. The majority spoke Bengali. They
spoke Urdu.

The Biharis never quite melded into the larger population. After
Bangladesh became independent, their preference for Pakistan seemed
natural, and in those early days, 160,000 made the journey. But then the
flow suddenly stopped, with each nation blaming the other for the halt.

Ever since, the "repatriation" has suffered fits and starts-but mostly fits=
=2E

In 1979, 50,000 of the Biharis tried to walk their way to Pakistan. They
were turned back at the Indian border. In 1988, the Muslim World League, a
charity, formed a trust fund with the government of Pakistan to provide an
airlift for these "hostages of patriotism." They raised a substantial sum,
but it lies unspent in a bank.

Political instability in Pakistan has been a major hindrance. Elected
officials and military rulers change places with immoderate frequency.
Ethnic distemper pervades Karachi, the presumed spot where many of the
Biharis would relocate. And Pakistanis who migrated from India are
considered troublemakers by much of the establishment.

Until a military coup last October, Muhammad Arshad Chadri held the
feckless position of counselor general for the return of stranded
Pakistanis.

He is a disappointed man. "Anyone with compassion who has visited the
camps would understand this is a human rights issue," he said. "But where
are the human rights groups? Where are the nongovernmental organizations?"

The longtime leader of the stranded Pakistanis is Nasim Khan. He is 77, a
white-haired man with a heart condition and cataracts. For three decades,
he has fed his followers on a chimera. They have flown the Pakistani flag
and celebrated the Pakistani holidays. He made them homesick for a place
they had never been.

Most people in Bangladesh-even in the camps, the government, the news
media-think Mr. Khan still clings to a dream of deliverance. But his ideas
seem to have taken a somersault. In a recent interview, he said, "Pakistan
is not the land of honey and milks."

Indeed, he now concludes that the stranded Pakistanis would be better off
as naturalized Bangladeshis, especially if they can negotiate a "package
deal" with reparations for lost property.

The thinking of the leaders seems to be catching up to that of the
followers. In an informal survey, C. R. Abrar, who heads a research project
on migratory movements at Dhaka University, found that 60 to 70 percent of
those in the camps would now prefer a permanent home in Bangladesh.

"I was brought to a camp as a baby, and now I have my own sons," said
Abdur Rouf, 30, a sandal maker. "My future is gone, but what about theirs?
Our lives have been one big misunderstanding."

In a small meeting room in Rangpur, Mr. Khan, the venerable and eloquent
voice of the stranded, sat before a picture of himself and spoke of his
life and cause.

The room was crowded. People were asked: would you prefer to live in
Pakistan or Bangladesh? With their leader looking on, the stranded
performed dutifully. Hands lifted high, they voted for a life in Pakistan.

Mr. Khan leaned to his side and lowered his voice to a whisper. For 29
years, he had been a champion to a quarter of a million people, the symbol
of their expectations.

And yet now he softly said, "Why do we need to go to Pakistan?"

_______

#2.

DAWN
18 May 2000 Thursday

The drought on both sides

By Tahir Mirza

"POKHRAN aur Chaghi -- dono mein sookha par gaya hai." Pokhran or Chaghi,
both have been hit by the drought.

This was either a remark made by someone living in Rajasthan or a comment
published somewhere. But it was recalled by Mrs Ramdas, wife of India's
former naval chief Admiral L. Ramdas, when the couple met a group of
journalists and activists at the HRCP offices in Lahore the other day.
Admiral Ramdas heads the India chapter of the Pakistan-India People's Forum
for Peace and Democracy and he and his wife have been visiting Pakistan
over the past few days.

Mrs Ramdas, who is herself active in the cause of peace and people's
welfare, recalled the sentence during a brief discussion on how India and
Pakistan could at least work together to fight against such shared problems
as the current drought. But of course the political allusion could not be
missed, particularly because this was the month two years ago when India
conducted its Pokhran nuclear tests and Pakistan followed suit with its own
detonations in Chaghi. Both countries in their own varying ways are
suffering from the costly folly of their action.

Admiral Ramdas pointed out that in India the bomb had proved to be the
"trigger of self-delusion". It had fanned the fanaticism of the Vishwa
Hindu Parishad, the Bajrang Dal, Shiv Sena and similar other organizations.
The security situation in South Asia had become worse.

Admiral Ramdas heard from some of those present at the Lahore meeting that
the nuclear tests had had more or less the same political fallout in
Pakistan. The right-wing and jihadi parties had gained ground. The
situation here is indeed far worse because of the clout already enjoyed by
such elements due to their patronization by successive governments on
account of Kashmir and the domestic political compulsions of those who have
been at the helm of our affairs.

The present military regime's abject surrender to the mullahs on the issue
of the blasphemy law is just one indication of the growing power of the
right. No change in the law was contemplated; only a change in procedure in
registering a blasphemy case was mentioned as a safeguard against
victimization of the innocent. The suggested change was announced at a
human rights conclave held by the government in Islamabad amid much
fanfare. Now all the other promises made there will also be seen as
suspect. A few statements by the religious parties and a Friday
demonstration or two on The Mall, and the regime may beat a retreat even on
women's rights, honor killings and protection of children. Muted voices
have been heard already about the generous provision for women's
representation in local government. Many will ask - if the military cannot
get away with even a procedural change in a law and has to give way before
a few danda-wielding youth in turbans or before traders in smuggled goods -
what can it deliver? Will all the NGO whiz-kids associated with the regime
remain silent over this? Will the religious parties give back anything to
the government in the form of concessions on the training of militants for
the Kashmir jihad, medressahs or sectarian conflict? That will be the day.

We have talked long enough about the consequences -- which are extremely
real for us -- of our involvement in Afghanistan and our backing of the
Taliban. It is time this month for all of us to consider also how many of
the steps we take in the aid of what we call national security or ideology
recoil on us in the shape of strengthening the forces of fanaticism and
reaction. This goes also for India, as Admiral Ramdas pointed out. Both
Pokhran and Chaghi wait for a healing shower. Even a few drops of plain
common sense will help.

_______

#3.

Pakistan Link
17 May 2000

126 Madaris involved in militant activities: report

ISLAMABAD: Intelligence agencies have discovered that there are 126 Madaris
(religious schools) in Pakistan which are involved in militant activities.
These Madaris are reported to have been sending their students to
Afghanistan for training in warfare.

This was revealed in a report released by the Society for Promotion of the
Rights of Child (SPARC). The federal government has reportedly decided to
clamp down on these Madaris to stop spread of sectarianism and religious
militancy. The Jamiat Ulema-e-Islam (JUI) had organized a conference of
more than 5,000 religious leaders to encourage them to work together to
stop those who bring a bad name to the Madaris.

The JUI, which patronizes most of the Madaris under Deobandi school of
thought, denies any involvement in any militant activities. The report
says: "Most of the children in these schools feel trapped. They cannot
leave as they have nowhere to go. They cannot be employed in any other
sector, besides the one they are trained for as they do not possess the
required skills."

The SPARC report points out that recently steps have been taken in the
=46rontier to eradicate those Madaris which have been found involved in
militant activities. The NWFP government has also aided the Punjab
government in arresting and handing over some hardened criminals to it.
According to the report by intelligence agencies, the number of the Madaris
went up from a mere 868 in 1975 to over 8,000. At present, there are 2,512
registered Madaris in Punjab alone with 218,939 students enrolled and
almost 15-20 per cent are girls.

During the Zia era, the highest degree of Madaris was equated with a
master's degree from universities to enable a Madresah graduate to qualify
for an equivalent job. The SPARC report says that lack of political
commitment and support, poverty, malnutrition, environmental degradation,
homelessness and illiteracy have fettered the accomplishment for children
entering the new millennium.

__________________________________________
SOUTH ASIA CITIZENS WEB DISPATCH (SACW) is an informal, independent &
non-profit citizens wire service run by South Asia Citizens Web
(http://www.mnet.fr/aiindex) since1996. Dispatch archive from 1998
can be accessed by joining the ACT list run by SACW.
To subscribe send a message to <act-subscribe@egroups.com>
=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=
=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D