PNS Mehran — how many attackers?

The filing of the FIR by the Pakistan Navy in the PNS Mehran case seems to suggest that the civilian and military authorities are not on the same page regarding possibly the worst attack ever on our armed forces. While the government, through the interior minister, has said that terrorists were part of the attack, and of these two may have escaped, the FIR, filed in Karachi on May 24, states that between 10 to 12 people stormed the naval base, out of which only four were killed while the rest escaped. This discrepancy may seem minor, especially when compared to the massive intelligence failure that permitted such an attack to be successfully pulled off, but by now the authorities should have known how many people were involved in the attack, what their names were and where they lived, given that the attack wasn’t something that happened and was over in a flash butlasted almost 17 hours. That they can’t even agree on the number of attackers shows that an investigation has barely begun and this will only serve to embolden the militants.

Flames and smokes belches out from a Pakistani military air base after an attack by militants in Karachi on May 22, 2011. Militants stormed one of Pakistan’s biggest military bases in the country’s largest city late May 22, At least 10 people were wounded as blasts and gunshots rang out at the sprawling base used by the Air Force and Navy in the centre of Karachi.

The ease with which military installations were attacked and how, according to a BBC report, the attackers knew, for instance, the barracks where Chinese engineers were being housed, hints at some kind of collusion or help from the inside. Those who may have sympathy for the cause of the terrorists may be in low-level positionsbut they need to be identified and removed from the services. Another internal inquiry, which is what the government has promised, will not suffice since these may be less concerned with gathering information and more with hiding failures.

What is needed even more than independent enquiries is an improvement in the intelligence-gathering capabilities of the agencies. Even if they do not support militant groups now, we know that the military used them as part of their Kashmir and Afghanistan policies of the 1990s. This alone should be a huge advantage in gathering intelligence about them. Without knowing where militant groups are going to attack in advance, the agencies all but ensure they will attack often and successfully.

STREET BUZZ ON OBL

By: Fatima Rizvi

According to the White House spokesman OBL was not armed but he resisted the armed men who shot their way into his room. Exactly how he resisted is not clear but this resistance was the reason that he was shot by a precision shot above his left eye while he was resisting. OBL’s body was buried according to Muslim rites at sea. No real explanation for the hurry. Photographic evidence is being studied because it is very gruesome and may be released later.

The street is asking questions. Was OBL really there? If he was then why was he shot and killed? Why bury him at sea in a hurry unless it was not OBL at all or because he is alive and in custody and being water boarded. Is the gruesome photographic evidence being manufactured?

Read Complete Article: http://www.zoneasia-pk.com/ZoneAsia-Pk/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=4458:street-buzz-on-obl&catid=70:free-talk&Itemid=84

Why my attackers failed but gave me strength

ISLAMABAD: The wee hours of late Saturday brought a metamorphosis in my life. Not just that I was muffled, picked up, tortured, and humiliated. No absolutely not. Rather the torture has removed the remaining fear, if there was any in my heart and mind, and has instead given me the realization that we have to die fighting for this country.

My love for this country is based on some reasoning which is inspired by my firm belief that we can neither change our past nor our national identity. I learned this during my stay abroad for one and a half years when I went for studies, first in the US and then in UK. Lord Curzon’s words that “exile is a nursery of nationalism” always keep resounding in my ears.

Let us suppose I decide to settle abroad. I will again be Pakistani-British or Pakistani-American and the prefix ‘Pakistan’ cannot be dropped from my identity. It is always counted where you’re rooted in. So I have to stay attached and take care of my country wherever I am.

Having decided to live and die on this land, I have a dream to see Pakistan where brains, not batons reign supreme, where people can question the use of public money, where all institutions can be held accountable without any fear or favour, where our children love to live instead of fear to live, and where we are governed by the rule of law and not on the basis of personal loyalties.

The message of my captors for me was to become a status quo abiding person, not law abiding. They forced me through violence to accept their views and become a silent spectator to the rot without questioning what was happening to my beloved country.

I instead learned a different lesson from the torture and humiliation, to stand guard for this country, help the oppressed, keep questioning the high and mighty and continue the struggle to make this land livable and safe for the next generation.

The captors thought themselves to be heroes but emerged as villains and will go down in the history with same status. I feel pity for them. They were born innocent but forced to become sick minds. Instead of cursing them, I only pray for them because they don’t know we’re fighting for their betterment too.

My captors were probably not aware that I was also hit by a car in December 2004 that left me with compound fractures in my left leg. But I never bowed to those attackers either. Although I’ve forgiven my captors but not forgotten the perpetrators of this act that should be exposed and this mind-set be eliminated once and for all.

I believe in reporting with a moral force without any personal grudge against anybody or any institution. Whenever I write about anyone, the concerned people have always been approached for their version to balance my reporting. It is however a different story that those without answers to our questions try to propagate as if the stories are being planted and we are being bribed for doing this.

Such excuses are crafted by the individuals and institutions not inclined to revisit their conduct. But they don’t know that we, by virtue of our profession, have been tasked to unfold the truth, no matter who is affected by whatever way.

Some consider journalism as a shortcut to rise on the ladder to political power but we are here to protect the interest of people, neither our own nor of the rulers.

I have no words to thank so many of my well-wishers in Pakistan and abroad for consoling me and praying for me. I didn’t know many of them before. I was amazed to note how they struggled to reach me. Due to the flood of calls, I could not attend most of them. It was a silent majority that rose against the oppression of a tiny minority claiming to have monopoly on violence.

There was a mixed reaction to this incident. Those who didn’t know me gave me a new strength and conviction, emboldened me further and offered all-out help. People, who know me for years, were concerned about me and my family’s security. They think that I should think about my children. This is a question which comes to every parent’s mind. I would like to explain that the fight we are into is for my children and for the children of all Pakistanis.

We have to see the broader picture. Pakistani media is fighting the war for the future of this country. The country’s neighbours China and India, are emerging as superpowers but we, in spite of our immense capabilities, are on the decline. There are many who are even worried about its existence. The situation calls for internal accountability and restructuring the society but vested interests and pro-status quo forces seem to be strong, at least for the moment.

But we have to fight on and they don’t realize that a change is in progress, it is bound to come, sooner than later. I’m ready to pay any price for speaking up. Thomas Horaceman, who is considered the father of the public education system in US had said: “One should feel ashamed to die until one has done anything for humanity.” And I stand by his words.

God Has a Bureaucracy

Afghan Christian refugees in India are in a fix. Back home, they fear persecution. In India, they are not granted refugee status. ANDREW CLARANCE reports

WHEN ALI Mirzia visited India for the first time, he came as an Afghan contestant at the Asian Kickboxing Championship in Mumbai. He left as the welter-weight gold medallist. He was back in 2008, this time as a refugee, escaping religious oppression. Ali is an Afghan Christian. He converted to Christianity in his native country, the hotbed of Islamic intolerance. In India, he registered with the United Nations Human Rights Commission (UNHCR) in January 2008, but his appeal for refugee status was rejected after he failed a determination test. He filed an appeal, but early this year, his case was closed. “I cannot go home. My life is on the line. They will ask me to renounce my faith. I can’t do that.” Since then, Ali says, his case has been reopened, but he is yet to hear from the UNHCR.

Unique solution Obaid Jan with friends in his barsati, reminiscing about home

Obaid Jan, like Ali, fled to India in 2007 with his family to escape persecution. He leads the Afghani Church in Delhi. “As soon as we arrived, we applied for asylum. But officially, I’m still an illegal entrant in India.”

He expected things to change once he was here. Instead, he was nearly run over by a car while walking through Malviya Nagar. “My assailants returned, but I managed to run away. I keep receiving death threats from these people,” he says, without naming who ‘they’ were, but hinting they are fellow Afghan nationals. Hameed Ullah, Obaid’s friend, was assaulted by motorcyclists in the Hauz Rani locality of Malviya Nagar on 14 June 2010. He had to be admitted to hospital. In his words, this was the beginning of the persecution against him and his community.

Saheeba Meenai, a senior lawyer with the Socio Legal Information Center (SLIC) under the Human Rights Law Network (HRLN), works with the UNHCR as a legal aid and advice partner. She says that the refugees are given the best possible legal protection and aid. “Our lawyers accompany them to police stations to lodge complaints and register cases. We are sensitising the police that these people are not illegal immigrants but refugees.”

‘Some Afghans are just trying their luck to settle in India. They enter on tourist and student visas and apply for refugee status,’ says Nayna Bose, UNHCR

Obaid and Hameed have a different story to tell. After the attack, Obaid went to register a complaint, accompanied by a lawyer from SLIC. They police refused to take it down, stating he had no evidence to prove he had been threatened, as he could not provide the registration number of the motorbike. The reason he could not do so, he says, is because he had barely managed a glimpse of his attackers. Finally, after much pleading, his lawyer managed to register the complaint on 26 June 2010. It ends with the plea “… I am very scared as we are isolated… and there is no one to look after us if something happens. Please do something to protect me and my family”. Both told TEHELKA they are sure they were attacked because they had converted.

There is a back-story to this attrition. In early 2003, Abdul Rahman, a 41-yearold Afghan, was granted asylum in Italy. Back home, he was facing a death sentence because he had converted to Christianity. He was arrested and held in a prison outside Kabul, before he managed to escape following international pressure. Since then he had become the face of the cause of Afghan converts.

In 2004, the Afghan Constitution was ratified in accordance with Islamic Laws. On 31 May 2010, the Deputy Secretary of the Lower House of the Afghan Parliament, Abdul Sattar Khawasi, called for the execution of Christian converts from Islam, after a documentary was aired on an Afghan television channel, showing Christian converts with their names and faces.

In India, the process of granting refugee status follows its own dynamics. “We want the process to be as fair as possible. We assess the claims of all the asylum seekers using the same criteria and recognise as refugees, those who fall within the the definition as given in the 1951 UN Convention Relating to the Status of Refugees,” says Nayana Bose, the Associate External Relations Officer at the UNHCR.

Till 30 June 2010, there were 13,729 refugees recognised by the UNHCR in India, the majority (8,976) being Afghans. Christians make up about 1-2 percent of this total, about 100-150 in all, according to Obaid. Neither the UNHCR, nor the Indian authorities claim to have any figures based on religious affiliation. Once in India, the average Afghan, irrespective of his religion, struggles to make ends meet. On the basis of the refugee certificate, about 60 percent get work in the informal sector, volunteering as guides and interpreters for medical tourists. “There are about four or five families with relatives in rich countries like the US or Australia, who send them money. Very few get support from our churches here. The situation is bleak. Last week I got a call from an Afghan friend, who told me he has no money to buy food. There is another woman in Mehrauli, who has not eaten for two days now,” says Obaid.

The UNHCR gives 2,250 as assistance to the principal applicant of a refugee family for three months. Other family members get 750. Till 2007, refugees got up to six months of assistance. Bose says that the idea of cutting back on the support span was to decrease dependency on the organisation. “We want to help equip refugees with the skills required in an urban context . Like most organistaions , the UNHCR funding has also decreased. Before stopping the financial assistance for a refugee, each individual case is reviewed to see whether or not that person or family is able to find work in the informal sector and make a lving. The idea is to help refugees use their skills and increase their abilities to generate an income.”

WE WERE the last (Christian) family to leave Kabul. Had we not left that day, we would have been arrested,” says Aman, another refugee. He came to India in June 2010. Having registered with the UNHCR, he will have to wait between four months and two years to get a refugee status card.

Obaid got his card in January this year. Others are not as lucky. After a final rejection by the UNHCR, they are left in limbo. They stay back in the country trying to make ends meet. Most of the Afghans live in well-networked pockets in and around Delhi, like Mehrauli, Sheikh Sarai, Ashram and Madangir. “We get attacked for having converted, so we live in closed communities. We have a good network among ourselves and help out each other but there is only so much we can do,” says Obaid.

“There are a lot of Afghans who came to India for different reasons. Many come on Tourist, Student and Medical Visas. A few among them apply to the UNHCR, seeking asylum.,” says Bose, when asked about repatriation. She refused to divulge the number of cases rejected by the UNHCR.

But according to Obaid, “Many do not have the money or resources to go back to Afghanistan. And for Christians, it is all the more difficult.” Result: many stay back illegally. After all, for the Afghan Christian, says Obaid with an air of resignation in his voice, there is no home.