Waziristan Tribe In FATA Threatens to return to Pakhtunkhwa and Protest If Landmines Not Cleared

TANK, Pakistan -- A Pashtun tribe in northwest Pakistan endured Taliban bombs, Pakistani military sweeps, and displacement for years to return to what they hoped would be a peaceful homeland.

But an estimated half a million Mehsuds are once again threatening to abandon their towns and villages in South Waziristan if authorities fail to clear landmines and unexploded ordinance from the mountainous regions.

A major Mehsud jirga or tribal council this week warned the government to either protect their children from being blown up in landmine explosions or brace for unprecedented protests and a mass exodus of Mehsud tribespeople into Pakistani cities.

Qayyum Sher, a former Pakistani military officer and Mehsud tribal leader, says government efforts to rehabilitate his community amount to nothing if it continues to fail to protect them from the scourge of landmines.

“We are calling on the [Pakistani] army to cleanse this region from mines if they want us to live a peaceful life here,” he told Radio Mashaal. “We Mehsuds are united in demanding an end to frequent incidents where men, women, and children are either killed or lose their limbs to landmines.”

Saeed Anwar, another Mehsud tribal leader, says during the past year landmines have killed or maimed more than 70 children. Many Mehsuds returned to their homeland after a Pakistani military offensive forced them to abandon their homes in 2009. Most sought shelter in the hot and arid plains of neighboring Tank and Dera Ismail Khan.

“I think this situation [the prevalence of landmines] is a violation of international laws and conventions,” he said. “We are adamant that if the authorities fail to cleanse Waziristan from landmines, we will abandon it altogether.”

The Mehsud ordeal began soon after a handful of extremists from among the community became leaders of the Pakistani Taliban movement after the demise of the hard-line Taliban regime in neighboring Afghanistan in late 2001. Over the past 16 years, hundreds of thousands of Mehsud civilians have paid a heavy price as militants killed tribal leaders and targeted civilians while they also became collateral damage in military offensives that ultimately forced them to leave their homes.

The community now appears to have learned hash lessons from their past silence over their suffering. Anwar says they plan to protest until authorities succumb to their demands. “How can we live in a place where the lives and limbs of our children are not safe?” he asked.

Anwar pledged that the corridors of power in Islamabad will now have to listen to their demands. He accused Islamabad of treating them as lesser citizens, saying that when a landmine killed seven Mehsud children last year, authorities only offered them the equivalent of $150 in Pakistani currency in compensation while the victims of a fuel tanker accident in Punjab Province received more than $27,000 in compensation.

“Even when killed by unexploded ordinance that are left behind after military sweeps, our dead are worth less than Punjabis trying to collect fuel from an overturned tanker,” he said. “It is the government’s responsibility to clear all these mines.”

Sherpao Mehsud, the head of a welfare organization in South Waziristan, says his fellow tribespeople returned to their homeland after the government assured them of complete security.

“For nearly 10 years, we suffered in every nook and cranny of Pakistan,” he said. “We demand that Pakistan’s chief of army staff immediately dispatch professional military demining teams to clear Waziristan from the curse of landmines.”

Pakistani authorities have not commented on the demining demands. But senior Pakistani officials usually project the return of the displaced tribespeople as a major success. According to the United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs, nearly 75,000 displaced families have returned to South Waziristan.

Activist Manzoor Ahmad Pashteen says some students from his community are eager to protest to bring attention to the deadly threat of landmines in Waziristan.

“We are ready to launch a sit-in in Islamabad until authorities move to address this problem,” he told Radio Mashaal.

Hundreds of Mehsud tribal leaders are now scheduled to meet on January 22 to devise a final strategy for pushing the government to respond to their demands.

Abubakar Siddique wrote this based on Radio Mashaal correspondent Sailab Mehsud’s reporting from Tank, Pakistan.

Gandhara Rferl

source : https://gandhara.rferl.org/a/pakistan-waziristan-landmines/28983454.html

Peshawar School Massacre was used as an Excuse of a Martial Law.

Peshawar School Massacre has been used as Excuse to Hand Over Independent courts to the Militry and Also Implement a Martial law which was Objectives since last Many Years after Musharff Government was Abolished by a Lawyers Movement . 

General Mushraff who Started a Fake War on Terror and also made Taliban strong by Giving Money and Protection to Same Taliban who were Attacking Afghanistan and Also Killing Pashtuns and Baluchis only in Pakistan . 

Different name were Given to Same Monsters Taliban as TTP, Afghan Taliban , LEJ, SSP , Aswj, LET to Confuse People although they are same Products of Same madrisa,s in control of our Punjabi Establishment the Pakistan Military in Particular 

A drama of Fake war on Terror was Played on Af-Pak to grab the goodies and natural Resources worth Trillions in Af-Pak , via Playing on Both Side of War Games by Punjabi Establishment and Making Pashtuns on both Sides of Durand Line Slaves earning 50 Billion , US Dollars or 5000 Billion Pakistan Rupees by Selling Blood of Pashtuns as they are doing in Jihadi Economy since 1947. 

OK, goodbye by  Cyril Alm

Cyrill Almaeda 

They want you to believe this is a reaction to Peshawar. But they’ve wanted this for a long time: military courts. It wasn’t possible before. Too ugly, too difficult. Then Peshawar happened.

Peshawar was not sui generis, an atrocity that changed all the rules. Peshawar was the logical culmination of a long, persistent struggle.

Read: Militant siege of Peshawar school ends, 141 killed

It began somewhere in the darkness of the late 2000s. The game of cat and mouse between the military and the anti-Pak militants had begun to morph. Peshawar didn’t invent this: Peshawar gave them the excuse.

No longer confined to Fata, it had spread to the cities and Pakistan proper. Even in Fata, the nature of the fight had begun to change, from small, localised operations to full-scale war.

What to do about the men captured alive? Sometimes, you wanted to capture them alive: they provided valuable intelligence. Other times, you had no choice but to capture them alive, to take prisoners in the dozens and hundreds.

Also read: Political leaders reach consensus on

For years, the problem had been small enough to not cause much consternation. An irritant, as it were. Some were disposed of, no questions asked. Others were handed over to the courts, eventually released and then picked up again. An ugly cycle that created resentment on all sides, but still manageable enough.

Swat, South Waziristan and Iftikhar Chaudhry changed all of that. In Swat, they were picked up in the thousands. There were packed into rooms, buildings, anywhere with a lock and a key and a guard to stand watch. Too many to stay at the margins.

Also read: Military courts: a wrong move

The army wasn’t willing to let them go — the victory in Swat too important, the fight too bitter to forget. But feed them into the system and most would likely walk. It wasn’t the courts’ fault.

The system and the rules hadn’t caught up to the fact a war was being fought. From South Waziristan, they spilled out into the cities, travelling to faraway Karachi, turbocharging the militant threat there and everywhere, forcing the system to capture more and more, leaving in its wake darker and darker tales.

Also read: No distinction now between good and bad Taliban: Nawaz

It all eventually got too much. For Iftikhar Chaudhry, anyway. What the hell is going on, the crusading CJ asked. Bring us all these people, Chaudhry demanded. What are you doing to them, the Supreme Court all but yelled.

Think missing persons. They became a thing because of Chaudhry and his court. People started to ask questions. The excesses began to be talked about. The spillover into Balochistan began to be debated. It started to become uncomfortable.

Also read: Former CJ Iftikhar Chaudhry says military courts 'unconstitutional'

Think the Adiala 11. That wretched lot, accused by the army of some of the most audacious attacks, set free by the courts and then scooped up from outside the gates of Adiala.

No one remembered the Adiala 11. Except the court. The army refused to budge. The court pushed harder. Eventually, the broken, distended bodies began to turn up. Then, the horrifying spectacle in the court itself, barely recognisable humans brought in front of collapsing relatives. The public was repulsed. Surely, not in our names. It was hard to tell who the monster was, who the victim.

It all became too much. Swat and South Waziristan had already set the wheels in motion. Ideas were canvassed. Opinions were sought. We need a system to make these guys pay, the boys insisted.

Slowly, they began to get their system. You’ve heard of it in recent years. Strange names. Actions in Aid of Civil Power, Fata, Pata. Anti-Terrorism Amendment Ordinance, VII, VIII. Fair Trial Act. POPO. Amended POPO. POPO that became POPA, some say PPA. Article 245 invoked.

It was all legislative and administrative. All done by the civilians. All engineered by the boys.

Sometimes, it was presented as a favour: if you want us to do this, then these are the tools we need. Other times, it was postulated as a necessity: the problem is growing, we can’t go on like this, do this and this so that we can do what’s needed.

Always, it edged us closer to a hermetically closed system. Plucked from the battlefield or a safe house in a ghetto somewhere, kept in secrecy and done to whatever is necessary. Then, marched to either a cell or an execution chamber, depending on how relevant you are, how much repentance you’ve expressed and how lenient the system wants to be.

Think of it as a stone-crushing factory. Truck pulls up, dumps a bunch of boulders onto a conveyor belt. Sorry, you can’t ask if they’re boulders or if they need to be crushed. We know what we’re doing. Let us do our job.

The boulders bump along the conveyor belt, a few pulled off on occasion by someone or the other. Sorry, we needed that one. No, you can’t ask us why. We know what we’re doing. Let us do our job. Occasionally, a boulder is returned to the belt.

Eventually, the surviving boulders arrive at the crushing site. They stay in there a while. All that emerges are neatly packed bags with powdered stone.Nope, you can’t ask us what went on in there. No, you may not ask how they were selected. We know what we’re doing. Let us do our job. Trust us. OK, goodbye.

And then, the neatly packed bags of powdered stone are loaded onto trucks and driven away. That’s what a hermetically sealed system looks like, militarily, administratively, legally. That’s what they’ve wanted and, now, with military courts, that’s what they’ve got.

Peshawar didn’t invent this; Peshawar gave them the excuse.

We know what we’re doing. Let us do our job. Trust us. OK, goodbye.

The writer is a member of staff.

cyril.a@gmail.com

Twitter: @cyalm

Published in Dawn, January 4th, 2015 : http://www.dawn.com/news/1154893/ok-goodbye

Wahabi States of UAE and Saudia Appalling Human Rights and treatment of Pakistanis as Slaves.

By Amir Mughal 

How shameless these Citizens of Oil Rich Arab Sates [UAE, KUWAIT, QATAR, SAUDI ARABIA, OMAN, BAHRAIN] while their own countires 'enjoy' a dark record of Human Rights Abuses yet they HAVE the courage of writing letters to George W. Bush whose US Establishment supports regimes which should have been annexed and investigated by Human Rights Watch, Amnesty International, International Labour Organizations. Their rulers are indulged in every kind of luxury while Lebanon was burning not a single shopping centre and cinema was closed even for a single day in protest, they are the worst Rulers and their LOCAL CITIZENS are worse than their rulers, all day long cruising in HUMVEE and Four Wheelers with tinted class while expatriates particularly from India, Pakistan, Bangladesh faces worst working conditions and environment in the World. You can say that they are the worst amongst Racist Nations in the World.

Particularly when you go to their court their authorities will always favour their LOCAL no matter if the LOCAL [WATANI] is worst kind of offenders.

Ms Mira Al Hussein should know these facts about their state i.e UAE

KIDS AS CAMEL JOCKEYS:

QATAR: [Funny thing is that Qatar has US Military bases and enjoy excellent relations with the USA which is supposed to be a democratic entity]

There was no societal pattern of abuse of children, apart from the trafficked, juvenile camel jockeys (see Section 5, Trafficking).

The Women and Children Protection Committee of the Supreme Council for Family Affairs maintained a children's hotline called the Friendly Line for use by children. The system allowed both citizen and noncitizen children to call with questions and concerns ranging from school, health, and psychological problems to concerns about sexual harassment.

Trafficking in Persons

The law prohibits trafficking for persons; however, men and women were trafficked into situations of coerced labor, and male children were trafficked into the country to serve as jockeys in the camel races. In December, the Cabinet approved measures to ban the use of children as camel jockeys.

More than 100 children aged 4 to 15, mostly of Sudanese origin, were used as jockeys in camel races. Guardians and handlers, who often claimed to be parents, brought the children into the country and supervised their training. The boys lived in harsh conditions. They did not receive proper education, medical care, and supervision. A visit to a camel jockey compound found young, sickly, overworked and malnourished Sudanese boys. Contact between the boys and their guardian was infrequent, if at all. The boys subsisted on a substandard diet. They were made to work very long hours and trained on a daily basis to become riders.

The country also was a destination for women and girls who traveled to the country to work as domestic servants. Some reported being forced into domestic servitude and sexual exploitation.

In January, the Cabinet established the Trafficking in Persons (TIP) Implementation Committee, which was charged with implementing specific anti-trafficking reforms. It sponsored training for judges and their deputies on prosecution of trafficking-related offenses. It monitored immigration patterns for evidence of trafficking. The Government provided assistance to domestics who have suffered from abuse and provided shelter for them in deportation centers. It ran a 24-hour hotline to advise women and children in abusive situations.

ABU-DHABI, DUBAI, SHRAJAH.

The UAE has more than two million camels and camel races are among the most popular sports events in the country. The camel races take place every winter, from October to April on various tracks throughout the UAE. His Highness Sheikh Zayed Bin Sultan Al Nahyan, along with other rulers of the emirates, attends most of the races.

Camel owners are continuously encouraged by Sheikh Zayed, which includes financial incentives, prizes that include luxury cars, four-wheel-drives, mansions, yachts, cash and gold sword. One of the major events, the Zayed Grand Prize camel races, is being held at Al Wathba race track, a large 10km track, about 45km from Abu Dhabi city. Major races are also held at the Nad Al Sheba Camel Race Course in Dubai.

The jockeys are usually young boys, two to seven year olds chosen for their light weight. The beginning of the races marks a festive season for the UAE's people who are usually accompanied by traditional music and singing to the Arabian drum beats. The green, red, black and white national flag of the Emirates flutters atop high poles that line the road leading out from town.

Human rights organizations (Not permissible in the UAE) continued to express concerns that in the UAE, the lives of young boys are being put at risk for the entertainment of spectators at camel races. Information provided by them stated that very young boys would continue to be used in camel racing despite the fact that this was illegal.

The new rules published by Emirates Camel Racing Federation (ECRF) in June 2003, stipulated that any camel jockey must be aged 15 years or more and weigh at least 35kg. Although, the rules are being ignored and the allegations remain that the Emirate government has acknowledged that many racers are too young and weigh too little but avoid stopping the traffic of slaves because they themselves are camel and slave owners.

Children, usually abducted or sold voluntarily from, where else, India, Pakistan and Bangladesh to camel racing syndicate in the UAE. The weight of the jockey is crucial to the success of the venture, so young boys; even two year olds are imported! South Asian boys in particular are recruited because they tend to be the cheapest, weigh less and tend to scream louder at a higher pitch than most adults, causing camels to run faster.

The tiny riders are bound to a camel's back, often using Velcro fastenings. But sometimes the kids slip off and either get trapped underneath the camel or are trampled. It is not uncommon for children to fall off or get dragged along, sometimes to their deaths, according to a report from the London-based human rights group Antislavery International. A Pakistani boy who worked five years as a camel jockey, starting at age 4, remembers the race as noisy and dangerous, where more than 50 camels with screaming children strapped onto their backs would run. He personally saw about 20 children die, and more than a dozen injured every week. He recalls: "There was this one kid whose strap broke at the beginning of the race. His head was crushed between the legs of the running camel. Once the race has started it cannot stop. Many of these under-aged riders have been left to die from the appalling injuries suffered on the desert race courses without any medical treatment. The camels are valuable assets worth millions of dollars, instead the children are viewed as cheap and expendable. With camel racing heavily patronized by the UAE's oil-rich rulers, who have least respect in the legislature, thousands of small children from Indian sub continent face a bleak and dangerous future.

Human Trafficking & Modern-day Slavery:

The United Arab Emirates [map] is a federation of sheikhdoms located in SE Arabia, on the Persian Gulf and the Gulf of Oman. The federation consists of seven sheikhdoms: Abu Dhabi, Ajman, Dubai, Fujairah, Ras al-Khaimah, Sharjah, and Umm al-Qaiwain. The city of Abu Dhabi in Abu Dhabi is the capital. The UAE has an open economy with a high per capita income and a sizable annual trade surplus. Its wealth is based on oil and gas output (about 30% of GDP), and the fortunes of the economy fluctuate with the prices of those commodities. Since the discovery of oil in the UAE more than 30 years ago, the UAE has undergone a profound transformation from an impoverished region of small desert principalities to a modern state with a high standard of living.

The United Arab Emirates (U.A.E.) is a destination country for women trafficked primarily from South, Southeast, and East Asia, the former Soviet Union, Iran and other Middle Eastern countries, and East Africa, for the purpose of sexual exploitation. A far smaller number of men, women, and teenage children were trafficked to the U.A.E. to work as forced laborers. Some South Asian and East African boys were trafficked into the country and forced to work as camel jockeys. Some were sold by their parents to traffickers, and others were brought into the U.A.E. by their parents. A large number of foreign women were lured into the U.A.E. under false pretenses and subsequently forced into sexual servitude, primarily by criminals of their own countries. Personal observations by U.S. Government officials and video and photographic evidence indicated the continued use of trafficked children as camel jockeys. There were instances of child camel jockey victims who were reportedly starved to make them light, abused physically and sexually, denied education and health care, and subjected to harsh living and working conditions. Some boys as young as 6 months old were reportedly kidnapped or sold to traffickers and raised to become camel jockeys. Some were injured seriously during races and training sessions, and one child died after being trampled by the camel he was riding. Some victims trafficked for labor exploitation endured harsh living and working conditions and were subjected to debt bondage, passport withholding, and physical and sexual abuse.

The U.A.E. Government does not collect statistics on persons trafficked into the country, making it difficult to assess its efforts to combat the problem. Widely varying reports, mostly from NGOs, international organizations, and source countries, estimated the number of trafficking victims in the U.A.E. to be from a few thousand to tens of thousands. Regarding foreign child camel jockeys, the U.A.E. Government estimated there were from 1,200 to 2,700 such children in the U.A.E., while a respected Pakistani human rights NGO active in the U.A.E. estimated 5,000 to 6,000. The U.A.E. Government has taken several steps that may lead to potentially positive outcomes, such as requiring children from source countries to have their own passports, and collaborating with UNICEF and source-country governments to develop a plan for documenting and safely repatriating all underage camel jockeys.

The Government of the U.A.E. does not fully comply with the minimum standards for the elimination of trafficking and is not making significant efforts to do so. Despite sustained engagement from the U.S. Government, NGOs, and international organizations over the last two years, the U.A.E. Government has failed to take significant action to address its trafficking problems and to protect victims. The U.A.E. Government needs to enact and enforce a comprehensive trafficking law that criminalizes all forms of trafficking and provides for protection of trafficking victims. The government should also institute systematic screening measures to identify trafficking victims among the thousands of foreign women arrested and deported each year for involvement in prostitution. The government should take immediate steps to rescue and care for the many foreign children trafficked to the U.A.E. as camel jockeys, repatriating them through responsible channels if appropriate. The government should also take much stronger steps to investigate, prosecute, and convict those responsible for trafficking these children to the U.A.E. - U.S. State Dept Trafficking in Persons Report, June, 2005 [full country report]

HUMAN RIGHTS WATCH:

Children are especially vulnerable to labor and sexual exploitation and denial of basic rights, whether traveling alone or with family members. In several Gulf countries children are trafficked for use as beggars, and sometimes suffer terrible maiming to improve their moneymaking potential. In Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, Qatar, and U.A.E. young boys are trafficked from South Asia and Sudan for use as camel jockeys, at great risk to their lives and health. Children who migrate with their families often find that discriminatory legislation make them ineligible or unable to afford basic health care and education.

The U.A.E., with its October through April racing season, is the main destination for children trafficked for camel racing; in July 2003 Unicef estimated the number trafficked to U.A.E. alone to be in the thousands. U.A.E. has vowed to crackdown on the use of children under fifteen years or forty-five kilograms as jockeys but enforcement appears to be limited to repatriating children whose handlers apply for visa renewals. A group of twenty-one boys age six to twelve-years deported to Pakistan in May 2003 reportedly told Pakistan's Lawyers for Human Rights and Legal Aid that they had been working as jockeys for as long as five years before their deportations, and had suffered sexual abuse, denial of food, and severe beatings.

Notes and References:


US DEPARTMENT OF STATE.

Qatar: Country Reports on Human Rights Practices - 2004 Released by the Bureau of Democracy, Human Rights, and Labor February 28, 2005

http://www.state.gov/g/drl/rls/hrrpt/2004/41730.htm

UAE PRISONS .

http://www.uaeprison.com/camelkids.htm

Human Trafficking & Modern-day Slavery

http://gvnet.com/humantrafficking/UnitedArabEmirates.htm

HUMAN RIGHTS WATCH.

Support Migrants' Rights Letter to World Bank President James Wolfensohn on Eve of Annual Meetings September 18, 2003.

http://www.hrw.org/press/2003/09/migrant091803-ltr.htm

Child camel jockeys find hope By Lucy Williamson BBC News, Dubai.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/south_asia/4236123.stm

Camel jockeys trying to recover lost childhood By Andrew Hammond

http://www.dawn.com/2005/05/10/int14.htm

source: http://chagataikhan.blogspot.com/2009/04/open-letter-to-bush-from-arab-girlopen_22.html

SC asks Punjab to end ‘unlawful’ Shameful wheat curbs on Pakhtunkhwa by Nawaz Sharif Government

ISLAMABAD: Admitting a complaint against the blockade of wheat transport into Khyber Pakhtunkhwa filed by the PTI government, the Supreme Court on Tuesday ordered the PML-N government in Punjab to refrain from taking unlawful measures.


Additional Advocate General Mustafa Ramday, who was representing the Punjab government, was also ordered by a three-judge Supreme Court bench headed by Justice Jawwad S. Khawaja to tell the court on May 28 why the wheat procured in Punjab by the KP government was not being allowed to be transported out of the province.


The bench was hearing an application filed by Jamaat-i-Islami’s secretary general Liaquat Baloch on the plight of hapless citizens who are being forced to buy flour at exorbitant prices despite the fact that Pakistan is proclaimed to be “an agricultural country”.


The petitioner argued that a steep rise in the cost of living was taxing the meagre resources of the people, making it hard for them to make ends meet and put food on the table for their families.


At the last hearing on May 13, the court had asked law officers of the federal and provincial governments to help determine the constitutional consequences in case provinces failed to provide essential food items to the most vulnerable segments of society, in violation of citizens’ fundamental rights.


In its order on Tuesday, the court repeated the same directions. In an application moved by KP Advocate General Abdul Latif Yousufzai, the province deplored that the Punjab government had imposed an unannounced restriction on the movement of wheat from its territory into KP. He said for the past 20 days, trucks loaded with wheat and bound for KP were being off-loaded at checkposts.


Court refuses to issue direction to National Assembly on wheat pricing Not only is the restriction taking a toll on the transport system, the application stated, but this action was creating a shortage of wheat in the market, driving up the price of flour.


The free flow of edible commodities throughout Pakistan is ensured under Article 151 of the Constitution, the application stated, adding that the federal government had fixed the procurement target of wheat to 0.450 million tons for KP for the year 2013-2014. This target has to be achieved during the current season ending June 30, 2014, the application said, adding that millers in KP were having a hard time getting the wheat they had purchased in Punjab, back to their mills for grinding.


During the proceedings, Advocate General of Balochistan Nazimud Din floated a proposal to bring down the price of wheat. The Balochistan government, he explained, had borrowed Rs5 billion from banks to buy wheat from growers each year and had to pay Rs680 million in interest on the loan. If the federal government paid the interest instead of the province, the saving would bring down the price of wheat by at least Rs3 per bag.

When Advocate Tauseef Asif, representing the petitioner, asked the court to pass an order requiring the government to consider reducing wheat prices in the budget, the court made it clear that it would not give any directions to the National Assembly. “You are representing the secretary general of a political party which is also being represented in the parliament,” Justice Khawaja observed, asking the counsel to ask his client to raise the matter in the assembly.


The court also ordered Attorney General Salman Aslam Butt to arrange a meeting of law officers of all the four provinces as well as the respective food secretaries with the assistance of Secretary of Ministry of National Food Security and Research Seerat Asghar on priority basis and submit a detail report on the next date of hearing.


The court also said that if the government could not ensure the fundamental rights of citizens by guaranteeing food security for the masses, it should amend the Constitution and delete the provisions that require it to do so. The court, the judges said, would interfere whenever the government failed to ensure the fundamental rights as guaranteed in the Constitution.


Published in Dawn, May 21st, 2014


source: http://www.dawn.com/news/1107661/sc-asks-punjab-to-end-unlawful-wheat-curbs