Pak-Afghan border’s tribal and human rights

By: Ghulam Hussain Mohib

All the resources, powers and sovereignty belong to human being throughout the world but it’s strange that in spite of this power the same human being is clamoring for these human rights. It shows that the violation of all these rights are being done by human being itself. These human rights problems are different in different circumstances of the world. If we look at in the content of Pakistan, we see a number of incidents in connection with human rights violation and the people of every province considered themselves as victim of atrocities and helpless. There is a territory in Pakistan which is on Pakistan Afghanistan border is called tribal area of Pakistan. It is 2500, Km long border and has a population of about 10, million. The area of this border is dispute for Afghanistan but not for Pakistan. It is very strange that in spite of being the territory of republic of Pakistan the people have no human rights and have no democratic rights. FATA is a region has an important geographical back ground and has a wonder full culture. According to constitution of Pakistan it is a part of Pakistan but not in real. It is administratively divided into seven zones from north to south and these zones are called Agencies every tribal agency is equal to a district. If we analyze human rights condition in this territory we can easily conclude that the people of FATA are still living in 19^th century. The people of tribal areas have been deprived of basic human rights since last seventy years. They have no right of legislation in parliament although they have MNAs and Senators in parliament. FCR which was implemented by the British government for special circumstances but no democratic or dictatorship government has ever tried to change that law and no one tried to bring tribal into main stream. All powers are in the hands of political agent. All members of a tribe are made responsible for the crime of a single man which is called collective responsibility. These are those territories which were used as a shield during Afghan war. Training centers were established in these territories and from there Afghanis were sent to fight against Russia. As the tribal are on the Pak-Afghan border so the movement of terrorists was very easy and they crossed border with no hurdle but now Pakistan army has nearly controlled the situation. Now the terrorists are using Afghanistan soil for their heinous activities. After the incident of 9/11 Pakistan and Afghanistan bore a lot of losses but the most who were affected were tribal 3062 people have been lost their lives during the last four years. A distinctive numbers of prominent Malaks have been killed targeted  just in Mohmand Agency. They include the following (1) Malik Dara khan,(2) Mohammad Afzal (3) Zahir shah (4) Abdurrehman (5) Fazal Manan (6) Chamchamar(7) Sher Mohammad and (8) Malik Walayat Shah. Some other elders who were killed in bomb blasts were Malik Kachkol and Malik Saleem etc. A number of general public were the victim of terrorism and lost their precious lives millions of people were made IDPs from Bajure, Mohmand, Khyber, Orakzai, Kuram and Waziristan and are living in camps. When returned their home territories they have no homes for them. Everything was destroyed by military operations. Now these destructed homes are to be built from the scratch. The terrorists mined all the territory and a very alarming situation and the Govt; has to clear the area. The people of Waziristan are pressing the Government for this problem because two small towns of Waziristan Miran shah and Mer ali were destroyed during military operation. Now Major General Noman has announced the establishment of a complaint cell in south Waziristan which is ray of hope for tribal. The tribal of FATA are very backward even financially. According to a survey report FATA has poverty rate of 73% because there is no industrial zone in FATA. When the border with Afghanistan was open the people of FATA led a prosperous life but all the routes have been closed since last sixteen years due to which the people of FATA are leading a very poor life and hundreds of thousands of people have become jobless. The youngsters of FATA who are educated their main problem is joblessness and all the employees of projects are taken from the settled areas of KPK province. The people of Kuram agency has strike in Peshawar. Their demands were (1) compensation of their destructed homes should be made. (2) financial help should be extended to the 18, thousands families of IDPs.(3) approval of NDRA and cadet college should be given. The education ratio in FATA is 17% . 126 schools in Mohmand agency were destroyed by terrorism in which primary boys, girls and even higher secondary schools are included. Only 46 of them were hardly re-constructed on the other hand there are three tehsils in Mohmand agency Khwaizai, Baizai and Ambar where there is no high school. The students of read till middle and then disconnect their education career. Same is the case whith Teerah in Khyber agency , Mamund and Charmang area of Bajure agency and other parts of tribal areas where educational and health facilities are near to zero. One reason of the above problems is that the government employees do not perform their duties because of the presence of terrorism. Same is the situation in jails of FATA there are no health facilities in jails due to which most of the prisoners are victim to disease like hepatitis-c. Another problem is that of missing persons in FATA were people are taken illegally and even no one is allowed meet with them. There is another alarming problem in Mohmand Agency where mobile network service has been shut down since last one year due to which every field of life has suffered a lot of problems and difficulties. Now to provide them with basic human rights. This the first in the world history that people of a region want to merge a country but the state is no ready to accept them. They should be merged with Khyber Pakhtunkhwa so that they may get their basic human rights which are enjoyed by other people of Pakistan, like legislation, access to High court, Supreme court and financial rights Pak-Afghan routes should be opened. The mineral resources in FATA should be utilized and exploited so that jobs should be provided to them. There are opportunities for tourism in FATA which can be made a source of income education and health should be specially dealt with in FATA. Now it is time to know these tribal as citizens of the global village of 21^st century. There are several organizations with the name of human rights in Pakistan but they are also silent about FATA. …….