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Monday, 25 May 2009 11:49 |
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Now We See You, Now We Don'tIn early June, 2009, I was in the Shah Mansoor displaced persons camp in Pakistan, listening to one resident detail the carnage which had spurred his and his family’s flight there a mere 15 days earlier. Their city, Mingora, had come under massive aerial bombardment. He recalled harried efforts to bury corpses found on the roadside even as he and his neighbors tried to organize their families to flee the area.
“They were killing us in that way, there,” my friend said. Then, gesturing to the rows of tents stretching as far as the eye could see, he added, “Now, in this way, here.”
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Down and Out in Shah MansoorIn Pakistan’s Swabi district, a bumpy road leads to Shah Mansoor, a small village surrounded by farmland. Just outside the village, uniform size tents are set up in hundreds of rows. The sun bores down on the Shah Mansoor camp which has become a temporary home to thousands of displaced Pakistanis from the Swat area. In the stifling heat, the camp’s residents sit idly, day after day, uncertain about their future. They spoke with heated certainty, though, about their grievances.
- A Weaver's Welcome by Kathy Kelly
Shortly after arriving in Pakistan, one week ago, we met a weaver and his extended family, numbering 76 in all, who had been forcibly displaced from their homes in Fathepur, a small village in the Swat Valley.
Fighting between the Pakistani military and the Taliban had intensified. Terrified by aerial bombing and anxious to leave before a curfew would make flight impossible, the family packed all the belongings they could carry and set forth on foot. It was a harrowing four day journey over snow-covered hills. Leaving their village, they faced a Taliban check point where a villager trying to leave had been assassinated that same day. Fortunately, a Taliban guard let them pass. Walking many miles each day, with 45 children and 22 women, they supported one another as best they could. Men took turns carrying a frail grandmother on their shoulders. One woman gave birth to her baby, Hamza, on the road. When they arrived, exhausted, at a rest stop in the outskirts of Islamabad, they had no idea where to go next.
- The US and Pakistan’s Aerial Bombing Will Kill Civilians and Make More Terrorists
The Soviets could not win by bombing Afghanistan, although even today, bomblets and mines left over by the Soviets kill and injure 60 Afghans a month.
And American bombings in Afghanistan are so ineffective and counter productive that even the puppet president Karzai is consistently and publicly campaigning against the air strikes. He told CNN recently that “We believe strongly that air strikes are not an effective way of fighting terrorism,” he recently told CNN, adding that “air strikes rather cause civilian casualties and do not do good for the U.S., do not do good for Afghanistan.”
- The Afghan Tragedy Continues After 30 Years
Daily life in Afghanistan is miserable. Only six percent have electricity in a country which gets as cold as Chicago in winter. Even in Kabul, the country’s capital, electricity comes for only a few hours a day. Traditional wood heating is difficult since not much wood is left in Afghanistan after 30 years of wars and forest devastation. Over 1,000 people died because of cold weather last year.
“About two million state school students do not have access to safe drinking water and about 75 percent of these schools in Afghanistan do not have safe sanitation facilities”, according to the UN Children’s Fund (UNICEF).
- War Has Arrived in Pakistan
I am very upset regarding what is happening in Pakistan.
War has arrived in Pakistan and it will be Pakistan which will be paying the price. Pakistan will definitely fail in its war. No question about it. Pathans are being beaten by American drons and by Pakistan army. Pathans are 30% of Pakistan army: the last surviving institution of Pakistan.
What has started out as a couple of million Pakistani refugees is going to become a great humanitarian disaster. Never a country of this size ha gone through this chaos before. Afghanistan and Somalia are very small countries.
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Last Updated on Tuesday, 24 November 2009 16:51 |
