Re-Imagining Pakistan

Re: # 460

Majumdar,

His head is stuck in the arse of Jinnah.

New aid crisis in Pakistan
The Pakistani government has blocked food aid to war-torn Balochistan.
By Gretchen Peters | Correspondent of The Christian Science Monitor
ISLAMABAD, PAKISTAN – Pakistan`s military government is preventing aid groups from helping more than 80,000 people - many of them acutely malnourished children - who have been displaced by a widening civil war in remote southern Balochistan, say international aid workers and diplomats.

An internal assessment by the United Nations Children`s Fund (UNICEF), shown to the Monitor, paints a disturbing portrait.
In the Monitor
Thursday, 12/21/06

UNICEF and Pakistan provincial health officials, who surveyed the area in July and August, report that 59,000 of those suffering are women and children and that 28 percent of the children under 5 were ``acutely malnourished.`` Six percent of the children were so underfed that they would die without immediate medical attention.

``I would say this now qualifies as a `crimes against humanity` situation,`` says one foreign observer who has interviewed delegates from the region.

For six months, aid agencies and diplomats have been pressing Pakistan authorities to permit them to distribute aid packages, which include emergency rations, tents, and medicine. The UN won`t deliver aid without permission from the host nation, says Robert van Dijk, the top UNICEF officer for Pakistan.

He and other aid workers say provincial officials have continued to assist his local staff in monitoring conditions in southern Balochistan, but more senior provincial and federal officials have simply refused his requests or derailed efforts with endless bureaucratic hurdles.

``We have tried everything to get our aid there,`` says Mr. van Dijk. ``I even know of aid groups that tried to deliver relief without permits, but they got turned back on the road.``

Meanwhile, reports from the region indicate the situation has grown even more wretched with the onset of winter.

Pakistani authorities have dismissed the UNICEF report as overblown, saying the majority of people in Balochistan were already dirt-poor and nomadic, and that most of those displaced by fighting returned home after an important rebel leader was killed in August.

``This report is untrue,`` said Maj. Gen. Shaukut Sultan, a spokesman for the military. ``Almost all of those people have gone back.``

Van Dijk agrees that some did return home in September, but says a recent UN assessment showed that other villagers have since been displaced.

``When we went back there recently, we found the same numbers of people,`` he says, ``and even worse conditions - among the worst I`ve ever seen.``

Pakistan`s other conflict

Villagers are caught in a conflict between the government and rebel tribesmen, who took up arms last year to demand greater autonomy for the Baloch people and a larger share of the resources in the gas-rich, sparsely populated province.

Vast Balochistan makes up 40 percent of Pakistan`s land area, but is home to only 4 percent of its 170 million people. Because of federal formulas that dole out development funding for roads, schools, and hospitals based on population alone, the impoverished province lags far behind other parts of the country in development and social indicators.

The homelands of the rebel Bugti and Marri tribes sit atop rich oil and gas fields the government wants to exploit.

Their struggle has remained largely out of view of the global media, which focuses instead on Islamabad`s wavering efforts to root out the Taliban and Al Qaeda along the Afghan border.

But it`s grown into a major conflict - and a major challenge for President Pervez Musharraf, who has dispatched thousands of paramilitary troops to put down the rebellion. During 2006, the rebel tribesmen bombed civilian buses, rocketed military bases, and attacked gas pipelines.

In August, a Pakistani military operation killed one of the main rebel leaders, 79-year-old tribal chief Nawab Akbar Khan Bugti. On Tuesday, a former lieutenant of Mr. Bugti, who surrendered to the government in June in return for amnesty, was killed by a land mine.

President Musharraf says tribal chiefs like Bugti keep their people poor and backward in order to maintain control. He has repeatedly pledged to bring development and economic investment to the province.

But Bugti`s death sparked widespread rioting among his supporters in the provincial capital of Quetta, and four months later, the insurgency shows no signs of abating.

Strategic neglect?

Frustrated aid workers and diplomats are increasingly concerned about the widening humanitarian crisis - and furious they are being denied access to the area.

Six months since the UNICEF assessment, a Western diplomat says: ``The UN is now desperate. They are literally begging us for help.``

Just this week, the government abruptly canceled a planned tour to Balochistan by a visiting delegation from the European Commission.

There are aid-worker reports that military trucks rounded up displaced people and hid them ahead of earlier visits by local aid groups.

Why wouldn`t Pakistani authorities let relief workers in to help? ``The official logic is that they can`t guarantee safety for the internationals, or even for local aid groups,`` says Samina Ahmed, head of the International Crisis Group`s (ICG) office in Islamabad.

``The unofficial logic, I suspect, is basically neglect more than anything. This is just not a priority for the government, and they probably hope they will all go back home if everyone ignores them,`` she says.

Compounding the lack of aid access is the fact that the displaced families have decamped across wide, isolated areas.

``These are small groups - some as small as 10 or 50 people,`` says van Dijk. ``And they roam around. They don`t have permanent dwellings.``

In the isolated districts of Naseerabad and Jafarabad, where the bulk of the displaced villagers have gathered, one eyewitness describes the refugees as ``utterly desperate.``

``It`s very upsetting to see children in this state,`` says the local resident, who did not want to be named for fear he would be arrested. ``They have no shelter, little clothing, and almost no food.``

A climate of political oppression, in which more than 150 Baloch activists have been arrested and taken to undisclosed locations, only amplifies the crisis, say human rights workers and opposition politicians.

Some analysts wonder why the UN hasn`t pushed Pakistan on the issue more publicly. ``It`s quite clear that quiet pressure is not working here,`` says one Pakistani political analyst. ``This situation demands a strong, international condemnation.``

Ms. Ahmed of the ICG says that, ``The UN has a mandate and UN agencies have a responsibility to help people. My concern here is that if agencies don`t meet their mandate they lose credibility.``

The UN is not alone in being unable to provide aid. Other organizations, such as Oxfam, CARE, and the International Committee of the Red Cross, have also been trying to gain access to the region.

Baloch politicians meanwhile complain that millions of dollars in US military hardware, given to the Pakistan military to fight Islamic insurgents in the tribal belt, have been diverted to Balochistan and used against the rebel tribes.

``Are the American people aware of how their donations are being used?`` asks a Baloch politician angrily.

As debate over the issue rages behind the scenes, van Dijk says supplies of medicine and food are sitting in Quetta warehouses, and could be distributed in as little as two weeks.

On Wednesday, an hour after the Monitor interviewed van Dijk about the crisis, his office suddenly received a letter from the Pakistani government giving permission to deliver some initial packages.

``This should have happened 10 months ago,`` he says. ``If it would have happened then those children who died would still be alive. I don`t know how many more have died by now.``

Manto mian,

Still at it?

Regards

Dear follower of the Racist casteist Hindu Fascist bigot Gandhi,

Any thoughts on your blind following of the Gargoyle pre-1947?

By the way they put up another statue of Gandhi in Europe... thought you`d like to see the picture- scroll down






























Gandhiji.

(Note: when I make sweeping statements regarding Pakistanis, it is implicit that on individual basis, there will be exceptions.)

#453 NTSyed sahib,

I said that there is an undercurrent of anti-Semitism many Pakistani interactors here on this website display. Nothing that you have said in #453 counters that.

#450 Hamidm2

You are talking like mian Mushy – and just like him, you miss the whole point. You are saying that your strategy was wrong – and the objective of separating people on the basis of religion was a-okay!

I could give you a long lecture but am tired so here is the short version.

If the objective was to wrest Kashmir from India by force, the jihadis were your (Pakistanis’) most potent option because jihadis do not suffer from some of the ``limitations`` of the regular army (if one could call your Pakistani army by that term):

(1) jihadis have no sense of army-like professionalism (as was amply evidenced when they cut off the testicles of captured soldiers in that prequeal to Kargil (and for all I know, ate it! (Nothing about this lot will surprise me.))),

(2) jihadis do not care if the loss is inevitable and (unlike the 90,000 Pakistani soldiers in 1971) will never give up when any sane person will give up because sane people do not like to die in vain,

(3) jihadis do not care if they get paid for their ``services`` or not,

(4) jihadis have more appeal to the illiterate masses of Pakistan because they are perceived as self-sacrificing individuals in cause of Pakistan’s state religion (as distinguished from the Pakistani khakis who are perceived as watching out for their own selfish institutional interests)

Guess what, your guys (read Mushy and his khakis) knew that, too. It was not a “mistake” to use jihadis – it was your “best shot”!

And what happened? Well, you idiots still lost.

And you idiots lost not because the jihadis did not do what they were sent in to do!

In fact, backed by your ISI and their agents recruited in India – the jihadis and their Pakistani masters tried EVERY dirty trick in the book. But you guys still lost because (a) the Indian public opinion supports the policies of the Indian administration, (b) the same characteristics which make jihadis potent weapons, make them virtually uncontrollable, and (c) the same people that the jihadis claim to “liberate” suffer the worst at jihadi hands – much worse than they would ever suffer at the hands of what you, being the moron that you are, called “occupiers” (a title which in that part of the world only legitimately belongs to the Pakistani khakis)

Therefore my dear, it was not the choice of “tactics” which turned your whole country into such a bunch of losers!

I also know what WOULD have worked – but suspect that you guys are incapable of understanding that whole concept. The only circumstances under which Kashmir would have been a goner from India would have been if (i) Kashmiris were truly discriminated against in India (like the Pakistanis did the Bangladeshis) AND (ii) they had no recourses like the ability to contest elections and approach the court systems AND (iii) they had used peaceful means to press for their demands. The problem of course is that you guys were rather weak on (i) and (ii) and being Pakistani progenies of the vamp and his whole approach, that (iii) would be an “alien” concept to you all – it would have been too “Gandhian”!

I am coming to the conclusion that if there are ninety-nine ways to “win” and just one very difficult way to “lose” – the Pakistanis will definitely find that one way. You guys have a perfect track record of doing that – starting with your blind herd-like following of the vamp pre-1947!

Therefore my dear, in actuality your blunder that cost you Kashmir (and the rest of what was YOUR country) preceded 1947.

Now go do ibaadat to the vamp for “saving” you all! If you search under my interacts, I am sure you can locate your Jinnah bhajan, too!

ATTN CHOWK-STAFF:

HOW DID YOU MANAGE TO PUT YOUR HEADS AS WELL AS BOTH FEET UP YOUR REAR ORIFICES?

(Parodied on mantolives post):

``#398 by Mantolives on December 19, 2006 3:32am PT

How did you manage to put your head as well both feet up your rear orifice. ``

++++

IT LOOKS LIKE CHOWK-STAFF ARE THE CHAMCHAS/SIDE-KICKS OF MANTOLIVES!

Re: # 455
[...life doesn`t have a back button...]

no - it doesn`t... so what do pakis do now?... how do they get out of the jiahd hole?...

Pakis must join forces and find a way out... so far the only plan has come from Ntsyed - he is planning to use his inadequate manhood to get out of the jihad hole... a terrible plan indeed... the guy is inadequate in more ways than one, including brain matters :)...

Re: # 454

Dude - you guys f**** goats for ``rights of passage``... from what I hear - the goat is never impressed and that is saying something about your size.... :)... don`t take it your heart, but you pakis have nothing - no manhood, no backbone....

On the otherhand - we invented Kamasutra - the bible of sex and sensuality... or should I say - the koran of sex and sensuality ... [ hmmm, that doesn`t sound right ...].... so, if and when you graduate from female goat to human female - you need to use our ``tools``, our research for the purpose... wink, wink...

#450 by hamidm2 on December 20, 2006 7:45am PT

sorry..life doesn`t have a back button..now you`re stuck with the jihadi tag for a long long time...

if ever there is a jihadi cartoon equivalent of dilbert, there is sure to be a paki version of asok..

Re: # 451 by mohar11

``...and start making a ladder - you need a long one to get out of this hell-hole you have dug for yourselves... ``

naaaaaaah.....we have big enough penises to do that anytime we want. Since, according to latest reports, there`s a shortage of reliable ones in India, Indians are also welcome to use ours, if they wish to crawl out of their own holes....hmmmm...``their own holes``....that sounds funny in more ways than one....LOL

enjoy your holidays

:-)~~

Re: # 435 by bjkumar

``Be it spreading hatred against the Jewish folks. ``

You silly silly boy. Look here and here

Woman beaten on Jerusalem bus for refusing to move to rear seat

By Daphna Berman

A woman who reported a vicious attack by an ad-hoc ``modesty patrol`` on a Jerusalem bus last month is now lining up support for her case and may be included in a petition to the High Court of Justice over the legality of sex-segregated buses.

Miriam Shear says she was traveling to pray at the Western Wall in Jerusalem`s Old City early on November 24 when a group of ultra-Orthodox (Haredi) men attacked her for refusing to move to the back of the Egged No. 2 bus.........In her first interview since the incident, Shear says that on the bus three weeks ago, she was slapped, kicked, punched and pushed by a group of men who demanded that she sit in the back of the bus with the other women. The bus driver, in response to a media inquiry, denied that violence was used against her, but Shear`s account has been substantiated by an unrelated eyewitness on the bus who confirmed that she sustained an unprovoked ``severe beating.``

``I said, I`m not moving and he said, `I`m not asking you, I`m telling you.` Then he spat in my face and at that point.........Four men surrounded me and slapped my face, punched me in the chest, pulled at my clothes, beat me, kicked me. My snood [hair covering] came off...``

Shear says that when she bent down in the aisle to retrieve her hair covering, ``one of the men kicked me in the face. Thank God he missed my eye. I got up and punched him. I said, `I want my hair covering back` but he wouldn`t give it to me, so I took his black hat and threw it in the aisle.``

`Stupid American`

Throughout the encounter, Shear says the bus driver ``did nothing.`` The other passengers, she says, blamed her for not moving to the back of the bus and called her a ``stupid American with no sechel [common sense.] People blamed me for not knowing my place and not going to the back of the bus where I belong.``

According to Yehoshua Meyer, the eyewitness to the incident, Shear`s account is entirely accurate. ``I saw everything,`` he said.

Now think about the following:

1) Are Pakistanis spreading hatred against Jewish Folks?

2) Is this what your American passport and patriotism, not to mention the $5 billion+ charity to the ``poor`` Jewish lambs worth?

Think think think

:-)~~

Re: # 445

Mantolives,

``FOLIO,

Get a life. ``

Qadiani Mantolives, please have a normal life as a Qadiani in Pakistan and then start advising others.

Re: # 450
[... pakistan should have supported the indigeneous kashmiri freedom fighters ...]

Pakistan did that at start - from 1989 to 1993... by then Indian Army had pretty much crushed th rebellion... thats` when pakis realized that kashmiris are no good at fighting - so they started pushing the afgan war left-overs and took over the entire operation and turned into hardcode jihad...

It was a no-win for you pakis: if you just ``supported`` the ``indigeneous kashmiri freedom fighters`` - the fight would be over long time ago - the gentle kashmiris were no match for indian army.... but then by taking the fight over as your own - you radicalized your own population...

YOur mistake was to be so obsessed about kashmir... that`s your original sin... and unfortunately, you still are continuing the same mistake.... Kashmir has nothing to do with you pakis - you f**** goats as ``right of passage``, for crying out loud :)... neither it`s going to give any economic benefits... you have nothing to gain and everything to lose by obsessing with kashmir...

and that`s exactly what you did and are still doing... At the end of 20 years of obsession - you have gained nothing and lost a lot... so stop being idiots - do not reinforce your mistakes... and stop digging since you are already inside a hole... and start making a ladder - you need a long one to get out of this hell-hole you have dug for yourselves...

Enjoy the holidays... :)

bjkumar,

`` Yet how many Pakistanis here show the guts to denounce those acts?!! ``

i do ! ......... in hindsight i denounce those acts, not because of what they did to the indian occupation forces in kashmir, but because of the blowback in pakistan ..... pakistan should have supported the indigeneous kashmiri freedom fighters instead of creating this cadre of wild-eyed jihadis who are causing more havoc on the right side of the border instead of rigting the wrongs on the wrong side of the border ....................

......... it was a mistake and i apologize on behalf of the pakistani nation ...... i hope that makes you happy

Manto mian,

(the common Pakistani is hundred times more tolerant and accepting of differing points of view on politics and religion than an Indian )

You have a point on politics. Few Indians would accept any other political system than democracy. Whereas Pakistanis would have a multitude of views some would recommend a western style secular democracy (you I presume), some would favour military rule while others would recommend Islamic system.

But on religion I am not sure. If chowk is representative of most Indians, Indians would appear to be fairly agnostic bunch of people, I have yet to see any Indian Hindu or most IMs (Nasah, Ballu for instance) argue that their faith ought to be the basis of constitution or that their Proph is the biggest Man, their book is the best book etc. Whereas on the Pakistani side their appear to be a fair number of people (to be fair people like u, tahmed sahib, salimbhai are not ones) who would want Pak to be a theocracy and would threaten any dissenter with murder.

Regards

Taikonaut,

Why do you need a bunch of losers- mostly expatriates- to appreciate anything of Pakistan`s?

Just like they will deny history ... they will continue to fool themselves with this narcissistic megalomania. From the looks of it, despite all of our hang ups which has more to do with political evolution than any thing else, the common Pakistani is hundred times more tolerant and accepting of differing points of view on politics and religion than an Indian (though that simply means that we don`t burn people for following a religion other than ours but we pretty much do everything else)...

Other than the constitution - written by Dr. Ambedkar who was a prominent member of the anti-Gandhi anti-Congress camp pre-1947- there is hardly anything good about India and constitution clearly has not been enough to change their mentality.