Dangers of POK’s disaster politics

In the second week of May the United Nations announced closing all its operations and offices in Bagh district in Pakistan Occupied Kashmir...

In the second week of May the United Nations announced closing all its operations and offices in Bagh district in Pakistan Occupied Kashmir (POK) following attacks on its officials by radical elements. The statement read: “In view of the current situation and the prevailing tension, the UN Pakistan has decided to suspend work with immediate effect.” Earlier, in the first week of May, all the humanitarian groups here went on a token strike, suspending their work for a day.

Over the last one year there have been threats against other NGOs as well on the issue of employing women. In Bagh district alone, there are 50 NGOs, national and international, engaged in reconstruction and rehabilitation programme, following the 2005 earthquake. In May itself, there have been three attacks. On May 1, a driver of UN Human Settlements Programme was attacked and two members of National Commission for Human Development were beaten up. Elsewhere in the region, two members of ARC were harassed while on a picnic. Earlier in Bagh the houses of two UN officials were burnt. According to Louise Paterson, the country director of ARC, on May 6, the Awami Action Forum (AAF) , a group with local support from religious sections, threatened to attack the vehicles of the UN and other NGOs, if they were found to carry women workers.

While there have been numerous threats from the beginning to some NGO or other since last year these have become formal and open, and they are being issued by and through the AAF. There is a suspicion that the administration is siding with the culprits for political reasons.

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However, it will be unfair to blame only the local administration for the growth of groups such as the AAF. The problem did not start in June 2006, when the AAF started issuing threats, it started much earlier, in fact immediately after the earthquake. The moderate sections in Pakistan and elsewhere were apprehensive of the involvement of various militant groups in the immediate relief work. The military initially denied any such development. Subsequently, as international aid and workers started pouring in, everyone found the militant groups working closely with the military. The International Crisis Group, in one if its reports titled Pakistan: Political Impact of the Earthquake, extensively mapped this militant-military nexus in earthquake relief.

Unfortunately, after initial apprehensions, even the international aid agencies started working closely with the militant groups. Some of these organisations even engaged the militant groups in reaching out to the victims. While a section in Pakistan and elsewhere was apprehensive about this development, the seriousness of the situation relating to earthquake was such that the moderates did not question it. Even if they had, it would not have mattered, as the Pakistan military had by then decided to use the jihadis to reinvent their sagging image in POK. Before the earthquake, there was frustration amongst the local population vis-à-vis the jihadis, especially from mainland Pakistan. Numerous reports highlighted how the jihadis had become a nuisance. The military used the disaster to change this equation by letting the jihadis also lead from the front.

Such threats to those engaged in the reconstruction process means eventual closure of all NGO activities. Kashmiri society, cutting across the LoC, has been the most liberal of all Muslim societies in South Asia. Now, there is a danger of creeping radicalisation on both sides of the line. If the AAF is doing moral policing in POK, in Kashmir Valley one witnessed the Dukhtaran-e-Millat going on an offensive in the past year. Is it possible, that the sudden upsurge in the growth of radical groups on both sides of the LoC led by the AAF and Dukhtaran in the last one year, are not two independent phenomena? What if Bagh is only a symptom, not the disease?

The POK government headed by Attique Ahmed Khan should realise that, more than attacks from radical elements such as the AAF, it is the response of the state that is crucial to creating confidence among the international donors and aid agencies.

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The writer is a visiting fellow, CSRS, Jammu University and assistant director, IPCS, Delhi