Lawless North turns hostile to NGOs

---

Ashfaq Yusufzai
Threats to non-governmental organisations (NGOs) have brought development work to a halt in Pakistan's lawless North West Frontier Province (NWFP).
NGOs have been accused of proselytising, squandering money on themselves and pushing a U.S.-led agenda.
"There is a strong public disapproval of NGOs," says Sanaullah, an NGO employee in Swat who gave only his first name. "Anti-U.S. sentiment drives the disapproval," he insists.
In June, residents of Allai in NWFP's Mansehra district forced the closure of NGO activities in the area on the charge that development workers were forcibly converting Muslims to Christians. Proselytising is a serious charge in Muslim majority Pakistan, and the accused can be imprisoned for life.
Last month, a 1,000-strong mob torched a vehicle belonging to Relief International in Mansehra, which was devastated by an earthquake in October 2005. They were protesting the NGO's failure to deliver on quake-relief promises.
On Apr. 8, the office of the non-profit National Rural Support Programme was set on fire. Two motorcycles parked nearby were burnt.
"The NGOs have not helped the survivors," Roman Ali, one of the protestors
in Mansehra, later told IPS. "They spent millions of dollars from the international community on their own luxurious lifestyles. None of the NGOs in our area kept their promises to rebuild the infrastructure like schools and health centres destroyed in the earthquake," he charged.
On Dec. 22, 2006, a printed 'fatwa' calling upon Muslims to wage a "jihad against NGOs", including the UN and human rights organisations, was distributed in lawless Darra Adamkhel town, 35 kms south of the provincial capital Peshawar.
It was issued by an unknown university degree-holder in Arabic, Islamiat and political science called Mufti Khalid Shah. He urged the people to attack workers, offices and vehicles of NGOs "promoting the agenda of the Jews and Christians".
Residents of Darra Adamkhel said they did not know much about Shah but said copies of the 'fatwa' had been pasted in the mosques and the markets of the town. The town has become a battleground. Last week, pro-Taliban groups sought to cleanse it of "anti-social elements", killing a self-proclaimed leader of a criminal gang, Ameer Said.
Even Peshawar is no longer immune to the breakdown in law and order. On Jul. 18, a phony bomb was planted outside a clinic in upscale Defence Colony. A handwritten note in very poor Urdu warned the staff to shut down their "unIslamic business" within a week. The clinic has been providing contraceptive services.
"(Consider) this to be your last warning. (For now) we are just placing a replica of a bomb outside your clinic. Next time it will be a real bomb, capable of destroying the whole building. Wind up your programme within a week," the message read. On top of the note were two words written prominently, 'Al Jehad and Al Shahadat', while Jehadul Islami was written at the bottom.
Nayyar Syed who works in the clinic told IPS they had received "an anonymous call a day before calling us to wind up our business. The caller had dubbed us America's puppets," he said.
"This led to the closure of three clinics of the Marie Stopes Society that were providing reproductive health services to the Afghan refugees in Peshawar," said Tariq Khan of the independent Human Rights Commission of Pakistan (HRCP). Khan said that the NGO had also closed down two clinics in Swat and Bannu, two of the NWFP's 24 districts.
The growing hostility towards the NGOs has forced them to demand security from the government at a meeting held on Aug. 16 in Peshawar that was organised by the South Asia Partnership - Pakistan (SAP-PK), an NGO.
Expressing concern over the law and order situation in the NWFP and the tribal areas, they criticised the authorities for having done little to recover a vehicle belonging to Khwendo Kor, a Peshawar-based NGO, which was taken away by gunmen last week in Karak district of the NWFP.
Yasmin Begum from the NGO told IPS that two staffers had also been kidnapped but they were subsequently released. The vehicle, however, remains untraced.
The meeting was attended by representatives of the HRCP, Society for the Protection of the Rights of the Child (SPARC), Aurat Foundation, Strengthening Participatory Organisations, SAP-PK, International Rescue Committee, Shirkat Gah, Khwendo Kor and Marie Stopes.
"It will be a big blow if NGOs in the tribal or remote areas were to cease their work for security reasons," said HRCP's Mohammad Imran. This is what the militants want, he added.
The latest NGO to come under threat is Kohat Area Development Organisation whose chairperson received a phone call last week warning them that their offices would be bombed if they did not shut down four centres and expel their female employees and trainees. The NGO is currently training 84 women in computer skills and tailoring.
…..
IPS