Thursday, September 26, 2019
#Pakistan - Working for the Wealthy, Islamabad’s Poor Struggle to Live
In Islamabad’s irregular settlements, the city’s poor struggle just a stone’s throw from posh bungalows.
Four-year-old Surraiya has big dreams. “I want to become a doctor,” she says with a smile, as she attends school in one of Islamabad’s irregular settlements — a katchi abadi. She and the other students work in the daytime and in the evening sit on mats and a handful of chairs under an open sky to learn.
In March, Pakistani Prime Minister Imran Khan said that his government would build some 5 million houses for the poor. It was to be one of his government’s top priority schemes. Khan vowed to start the effort in April. So far not much can be seen on the ground.
Pakistan’s capital is known for its posh bungalows and trendy cafes, a place for the country’s wealthy and politically connected to mingle. But there is another side of the city as well.
This katchi abadi, the local term for an irregular settlement, is in the G-11 sector of the city, and one of around 50 in Islamabad. The parents of children like Surraiya are domestic workers, most of the mothers are maids. They live there with no basic services.
There is no plumbing for water, no electricity or paved roads. Makeshift houses are made from bamboos, tarpaulin and tin sheets surrounded by bushes and hidden by trees; separated, the katchi abadi stand just a stone’s throw from posh bungalows.
Over the decades, some katchi abidis have transformed from tent cities to proper cement houses such as this one in H-9 sector. Despite the cement houses, it is still considered an irregular settlement. Photo by Mashal Baloch.
Hope, however, blooms even in the worst of conditions and for these children it came in the form of a woman who has been working tirelessly to change their lives for the better.
Tauheed Sohail has been teaching voluntarily at the katchi abadi in the G-11 sector for more than four years. Children are unavailable in the morning as some of them work along with their parents and many stay homes taking care of their younger siblings while their mothers are out working as maids in the neighboring posh areas.
“I just wanted to teach for a while but never thought I would get attached to children,” Sohail says. “It is silly to expect the government to do everything, specially the kind of governments we have had.”
She has 57 students enrolled in nursery and kindergarten. She wants her school to be registered as a welfare trust. At first, she used to purchase the books and other materials for students herself, later her friends and family helped.
Two weeks ago, as per schedule, Sohail arrived to teach slum kids and to her surprise officials from the Capital Development Authority (CDA), the developing authority responsible for planning and the development of Islamabad, were there to inquire about the irregular settlement. Someone had complained on the citizen’s portal about the residents of this particular katchi abadi. The Citizen portal is a mobile application set up by the Khan government designed for Pakistani citizens to file queries and complaints.
Sohail talked to the CDA officials and told them not to encroach on the area, as a case has already been filed in the Supreme Court of Pakistan against the demolishing of the settlements. She said, “even I showed them the stay order of the court but they did not consider it.”
The tents were bulldozed after she left. One of the tents that was demolished belonged to Asia Bibi.
“We will move to another place if they bulldoze us again,” she added.
Back in January 2014, a petition was filed by Amin Khan, resident of the G-11 katchi abadi in Islamabad against the Federation of Pakistan and the National Database and Registration Authority (NADRA) before the Islamabad High Court, requesting the issuance of a computerized national identity card (CNIC) to the petitioner Amin Khan. Instead of addressing the contentions raised by the petitioner, the judge presiding over the matter directed the Ministry of Interior to explain how katchi abadis were allowed to emerge in different parts of Islamabad and asked for their evacuation.
As the gap between rich and poor widens, the katchi abadis grow. People move to Pakistan’s urban centers in search of employment but many move to katchi abadis, located on government land, to avoid unaffordable city rents.
Some 23,000 families lived in the I-11 sector of Islamabad that was said to be one of the biggest katchi abadis; it was demolished in 2015 by the CDA. Today the site offers a different view. Huge buildings are replacing the mud houses; the rich replacing the poor.
“It was midnight when shelling and tear gases were fired at us for evacuation” said Nasir Khan, “we faced worse treatment than Indian-administered Kashmiris.”
Khan’s family moved to Islamabad about 35 years ago from Mohmand Agency in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa for economic reasons. Since then he has sold fruits in a market that is near his previous residence in the former katchi abadi. Now he lives 12 kilometers (7.4 miles) from the market.
After the eviction and demolition, Khan, activists and political workers of the Awami Workers Party (AWP) submitted a petition to Pakistan’s apex court.
“Actually, the land had belonged to the government and CDA,” says Khan. “Everyone had to pay a respective amount of money as a bribe to lower officials at CDA to reside there.”
Along with his family, Khan lived there along with 40 other people in a house of six rooms.
His petition asks for fundamental rights of housing and dignity, which the constitution of Pakistan already ensures. The petition reads, in part:
Pakistan is a country of the elite, where the downtrodden struggle for equal rights on daily basis.
After being bulldozed by the Capital Development Authority (CDA), residents of a katchi abadi are rebuilding their makeshift houses. Photo by Mashal Baloch.
According to the director of housing in CDA, the recognition and regularization of katchi abadis depends on CDA approval, which in turn depends on central government approval.
Some questions sent by The Diplomat to the CDA were not answered, such as inquiries about allegations of lower CDA officials being involved in taking bribes from katchi abadis or questions as to why residents of katchi abadis have not been provided alternate residences prior to the demolition, as in the case of the I-11 katchi abadi.
Kids sit on a charpoi in front of a makeshift house in the G-11 katchi abadi in Islamabad. Photo by Mashal Baloch.
Syed Safdar Ali, a spokesperson forwarded The Diplomat’s questions to the concerned authorities in the CDA, but nothing was heard back from the officials.
Bilal Minto, an advocate who has been fighting for the rights of Katchi abadis in Islamabad says, “katchi abadi shouldn’t be demolished until the residents are provided alternates.”
About the registered katchi abadis in the country’s capital, Minto said that these are the settlements which host most of the domestic workers in the houses of government officials and judges.
“The biggest dilemma is that neither provincial governments nor federal government takes this matter seriously. Officials think that ones who talk of downtrodden classes and their fundamental rights are just creating issues.”
Minto personally has been told he is “just wasting his time while working for poor and their housing need.”
Minto submitted a draft law which included various schemes to provide housing for the poor. For example, housing projects could be subject to a mandatory provision that they must reserve 5 percent of the housing constructed for the poor. The law would look to authorities like the Defence Housing Authority (DHA) and private operations, like the Bahria Town development, for implementation.
The solution to Islamabad’s housing problem seems to be lost in a haze of loopholes. Average Pakistani citizens can only wonder whether apathy, on the part officials, is to blame — or is it a crime to expect more?
Akhtar believes what is needed is a thorough change of policies to focus on the poor, providing basic necessities and free housing. He adds, “because [the] government and its institutions, such as the Army make housing societies for the elite to earn money. So, definitely, it needs a political revolution.”
Four-year-old Surraiya has big dreams. Photo by Mashal Baloch.
Imran Khan's international visits harming Pakistan, says PPP
A PPP leader said that instead of fighting his country's cases, Prime Minister Khan turns against Pakistan on foreign visits and it has become an excuse for the Indian media to ridicule Pakistan.
Pakistan's Opposition PPP on Thursday said that Prime Minister Imran Khan has become a "security risk" for the country and he should be banned from international visits as his irresponsible remarks during overseas tours have harmed the country.
Pakistan People's Party (PPP) Senator Mustafa Nawaz Khokhar in a statement on Thursday said instead of fighting his country's cases, Prime Minister Khan turns against Pakistan on foreign visits and it has become an excuse for the Indian media to ridicule Pakistan.
"Previously, when he had gone to Iran he had accused his own country of being a terrorist state and now he has made Pakistan a laughing stock yet again. During his recent US visit, he has accused Pakistan Army and ISI to have trained Al-Qaeda which is harmful to the country," said the senator.
Khan while speaking at the Council on Foreign Relations (CFR) think-tank in New York on Monday said that Pakistan "committed one of the biggest blunders" when it joined the US war on terror after the 9/11 terror attacks by the al-Qaeda.
Asked how Osama bin Laden had managed to stay in Pakistan undiscovered, Khan had said: The Pakistani Army, ISI, trained Al-Qaeda and all these troops to fight in Afghanistan and then maintained links with the militants afterwards."
Criticising the prime minister for his statements, the PPP senator said that at least Khan should be banned from holding press conferences or delivering speeches while abroad.
"Foreign Minister Shah Mahmood Qureshi himself is an aspirant to be the prime minister so he cannot be trusted. It is possible that Qureshi intentionally puts Khan on wrong track," he said, adding this is the "height of irresponsibility" from a country's representative blaming its army and premier intelligence agency of training Al-Qaeda.
"PM Khan needs to understand the difference between a container and an international forum. He concluded by saying that PM Khan's foreign visits are a threat to national security," the PPP senator said.
Khan's comments at the New York think tank ahead of his speech at the United Nations General Assembly drew flak from the Opposition parties which termed it "highly irresponsible" and said that he had become a "security risk" for the country.
#Pakistan - Our army, ISI trained al Qaeda, military backs all my decisions — gems from PM Imran in US
SRIJAN SHUKLA
In an interview with thinktank Council on Foreign Relations, Pakistan PM Imran Khan said he's more worried about India right now than probably even Pakistan.
The Taliban of today is not its 2001 self, and India is being run by radical Hindu supremacists: These are a few takeaways from Pakistan Prime Minister Imran Khan’s chat Monday with Richard Haass, the president of the New York-based thinktank Council on Foreign Relations (CFR).
Khan discussed a host of subjects during the interview, where he also fielded questions from the audience.
He talked about how al Qaeda and other jihadi groups were trained by the Pakistan army and its infamous intelligence agency, the ISI, during the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan between 1979 and 1989, and also weighed in on Islamabad’s silence on the persecution of Uighur Muslims in China. The Print brings you some highlights.
On Pakistan’s relationship with jihadis
From time to time, several Pakistan leaders and former army and intelligence officers have talked about the military establishment and the ISI supporting jihadis. When Khan referred to the fact Monday, he became, perhaps, the first Pakistan prime minister to acknowledge the scale of this support.
“I can tell you one thing… The Pakistani army, ISI, trained al Qaeda and all these troops to fight in Afghanistan. There were always links between — there had to be links, because they trained them,” said Khan.
“The resistance (against Soviet invasion of Afghanistan) was organised by Pakistani ISI training these militants, who were invited from all over the Muslim world to do jihad against the Soviet Union. And so we created these militant groups to fight the Soviets.”
Khan also claimed that Pakistan paid a heavy price when it joined the US to pursue the same groups in the aftermath of 9/11, which was masterminded by the late al Qaeda chief Osama bin Laden.
“Now, as I said, after 9/11, when we did a 180-degree turn and went after those groups, you know, not everyone agreed with us,” he said. “Within the army people didn’t agree with us. And so, as I said, there were more insider attacks in Pakistan.”
At one point in the interview, Haass asked Khan whether the ISI was aware of Osama bin Laden’s whereabouts before he was killed in Pakistan’s Abbottabad by US Navy SEALs in 2011. Khan replied that if there was contact between bin Laden and the ISI, they were “probably at low levels” of the intelligence agency.
Asked if Pakistan had investigated how bin Laden lived under the radar in the country for so long, Khan said there had been an inquiry by a judicial panel, the Abbottabad Commission, but he didn’t know its conclusion.
On civilian-military balance
When Haass asked Khan about the perception that the “preponderance of power” in Pakistan was in the hands of “the head of the army and the head of intelligence”, the latter fashioned his answer as an attack on his predecessor, Nawaz Sharif of the Pakistan Muslim League (Nawaz).
He argued that “democracies function because of moral authority”. “If democracies lose their moral authority, then the physical strength and authority lies with the army,” he said. “In our country because space was given, due to a lack of moral authority because of corrupt governments, the army — you know, naturally there’s no vacuum. So it moved in.”
Khan then claimed that the army had supported each of his decisions — including an austerity campaign that cut into military spending — in the 13 months he’s been in office.
On a reformed Taliban and peace Afghanistan
The Pakistan-brokered peace talks between the Taliban and the US, which has been fighting its longest war in Afghanistan, collapsed recently after an American soldier died in a terrorist attack.
Despite being party to the peace dialogue, the Taliban has been responsible for a wave of terrorist attacks in Afghanistan, bent on derailing the upcoming presidential election.
In this light, Haass asked Khan whether it was worthwhile to expect any kind of lasting peace in Afghanistan after the US troops left, as President Donald Trump desires. On another occasion, an audience member sought to draw attention to the Taliban’s persecution of women and minorities.
To both these questions, the Pakistan leader replied that a lot had changed since 2001, when the US attacked Afghanistan and unseated the Taliban, and that the group was now reformed.
“I feel that this is not the Taliban which was there when — in 2001 who was displaced by the US. Things have changed… They have learned,” said Khan.
“Taliban realise that they cannot control the whole of Afghanistan. The Afghan government knows that they cannot — you know, there needs to be some sort of a peace deal. There has to be a political settlement,” he added.
Khan, however, did not cite any example to explain why he thought the Taliban will now be “more accommodating”.
Love for China
At the event, Khan was repeatedly asked questions on Pakistan’s relationship with China, including whether he feared Islamabad’s sovereignty would be undermined because of Beijing’s growing role on the back of President Xi Jinping’s ambitious Belt and Road Initiative (BRI).
“I mean, what would China — how would it impinge on our sovereignty? Maybe they would say, don’t have a good relationship with the US. But the Chinese have never, ever interfered in any of our foreign policy, in any of our domestic policy, for that matter,” Khan replied.
Asked how he felt about the treatment of Uighur Muslims in China, Khan said Pakistan took up “issues like these” privately with Beijing.
“We don’t make public statements, because that’s how China is. And I again repeat, I mean, China has come to help when we were right at the rock bottom. So I would not publicly talk about it,” said Khan.
When Haass asked him whether economic growth at the cost of democracy or human rights was a model worth emulating, Khan said it was admirable how China had uplifted people out of poverty and controlled corruption.
On India and Hindu nationalism
Khan also reiterated his criticism of the Narendra Modi government in India.
“I’m more worried about India right now than probably even Pakistan, because India is not heading in the right direction. If you see what has happened in India in the last six years, it is frightening for some of us,” he said.
“It’s not the India I know of Gandhi and Nehru. It is this ideology that has taken over India, of Hindu supremacy.”
Khan said he had repeatedly tried to reset relations with India, especially after Modi’s re-election, but that didn’t happen. “That’s when we started thinking this is something — there’s some sort of an agenda going on,” he added.
#Pakistan - Imran Khan is done being the PM of Pakistan. He now wants to worry about India all the time
NAILA INAYAT
People may die of dengue or lose jobs and slip into poverty because Pakistan’s economy is sinking. But Imran Khan must not lose sight of India.
Pakistan is fighting a dengue outbreak. More than 10,000 people have been infected and at least 20 have died so far. But these figures have been provided by government officials, so there is every reason to believe there could be many more affected or those that might have died. The Imran Khan government, living up to its reputation, has been unable to deal with the outbreak effectively because it wasn’t prepared for the dengue season before it set in.
However, the government tells us that it is not their fault that the dengue situation is alarming. We are told we can’t blame the government. If Pakistan’s cities have roads with puddles of water, overflowing gutters, improper sanitation and non-existent garbage collection in various constituencies, then who should the people blame if not their leaders?
After all, it was Imran Khan who taught us that when things are not working fine, understand that your corrupt leaders are the reason. Leaders of his Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI) would call Nawaz Sharif and Shahbaz Sharif “dengue brothers”; while Imran Khan himself had the best solution when the epidemic was on the rise in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa in 2017: When winters start, dengue cases will disappear on their own. How prophetic! We are glad that the prime minister’s solution to contain dengue didn’t involve asking Pakistanis to stand for thirty minutes daily.
But PM Khan’s focus couldn’t possibly have been on the dengue situation. There is so much riding on Khan’s ‘Mission Kashmir’ that even mentioning the word dengue could mean that the person is conspiring against him when he was all set to deliver his speech at the United Nations.
‘All is well’ in Pakistan
Imran Khan and his government have been blessed with what is called “positive reporting”, an idea that might resonate with “all izz well”. During Imran Khan government’s first year of rule, the media, under severe censorship, looked the other way when it came to reporting on the incompetence and lack of direction that resulted in several U-turns.
So, all is well. Inflation has touched 10.49 per cent in 2018 – but all is well. About a million people lost their jobs in the last fiscal while four million were pushed into poverty – but all is well. A total of 66 cases of polio have been reported in Pakistan this year, up from 12 cases last year, and there is no clear policy on how the government plans to address the issue or even stop polio vaccinators and health workers from getting attacked due to ‘mistrust’ among people. But all is well.
It wasn’t always so. When Imran Khan was in the opposition, all wasn’t well with Pakistan, we were told. Everything – from the legislature to the executive to the judiciary – was wrong. But suddenly, everything has fallen into place, so much so that the prime minister feels he can be “more worried about India right now than probably even Pakistan”. Yes, that’s true. He is worried about India. Lucky you, India; you can have a leader who can forget nearly all of his problems for you. Critics have asked the PM to “first worry about his country”, but what is there to worry when all is well?
Everything everywhere is well – except in Kashmir, because Kashmir still hasn’t become a part of Pakistan.
Not Pakistan’s PM anymore
Imran Khan is done being the prime minister of Pakistan. He is now the ambassador of Kashmir, the wannabe mediator of Saudi Arabia-Iran-United States conflict, and the leader that the world looks up to. Just when and why he becomes all of these, we are not told. Looking at the current issues Pakistan has with its three neighbours India, Afghanistan and Iran, the prospects of Imran Khan becoming a world leader don’t look bright enough. Last year, he wanted to resolve the dispute between Saudi Arabia and Yemen. But that was last year; PM Khan now has new resolution opportunities. It’s a different matter that PM Khan doesn’t even shake hands with the opposition leaders in Parliament, let alone deal with issues concerning Pakistan or resolve disputes between other nations.
We were told we should be proud that the prime minister of our country was going to raise the Kashmir issue in the United Nations like no other Pakistani leader ever had before. The only thing we weren’t reminded of was how every Pakistani leader had told us the same thing before they went out on their customary UN outing. Kashmir and Palestine have always found place in the UN speeches of those who came before Khan – Benazir Bhutto, Nawaz Sharif, Asif Ali Zardari – and likely will in speeches of those who will come after him. It’s the ride every leader of Pakistan gets to take. But no Pakistani leader will go to the UN and tell them about their plans. Because there is no plan. In the end, they will just come back home disappointed. Like Imran Khan has.
It seems for now we have to settle with a prime minister who, after successfully creating a Naya Pakistan, is now busy becoming a world leader. Let those suffering from dengue know that they are on their own with fluctuating platelet counts.
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