Rehabilitation of IDPs to be an uphill task

By Afzal Hussain Bokhari

With legs casually spread out on a synthetic mattress inside a refugee tent in Mardan region, the tall visitor from the USA did not insist on having a chair around in order to speak to the internally displaced persons.

With a distinctly American accent in his English, the veteran diplomat from Washington flashed his carefully-worded questions in a perfectly relaxed manner. The vague and incoherent answers given in Swat's Yousafzai Pushto are promptly rendered into intelligible English by the attentive translator.

Special US envoy for Afghanistan and Pakistan Richard Holbrooke loves to know the culture, body language and the psyche of the Afpak region, its people and the ethnic variety in the existing demographic boundaries. In a recent interview, he is on record to have said that the US should know the culture of the tribal agencies.

During his visit to the camps of the IDPs in Mardan, Swabi and Peshawar areas, Holbrooke availed of the opportunity to have the first-hand knowledge of the hardships that internal displacement could possibly cause in the event of a conflict. Offering a word of solace to the IDPs, the US envoy said that his country had all the sympathies with them. It wanted that with possible financial help, the IDPs should soon return home.

Although there has been a respite in the practice for some weeks yet some media persons told Holbrooke that strikes by the pilotless, spy drone planes caused civilian casualties. They asked the special envoy if it was possible by any chance to put an end to such aerial strikes.

Holbrooke said that in Islamabad he had met various leaders but none of them referred to the matter. At this, Prime Minister Yousaf Raza Gillani promptly decided to set the record straight by saying that the issue of drone strikes was in fact taken up with the guest from Washington.

As far as the issue of IDPs is concerned, both our friends in Washington and the provincial as well as national leaders are unanimous on the point that the IDPs should return home as early as possible. Head of the Special Support Group (SSG) for the IDPs, Lieutenant-General Nadeem Ahmad, for instance, is optimistic of their return.

In a briefing to newsmen in City and in an exclusive interview with our sister publication Mashriq, he said that army had cleared most of the areas in Swat of the militants and their control and command system had been destroyed. These areas included Bahrain, Kalam, Wali Bagh and Char Bagh.

There were still some areas where the security forces were facing resistance but these too would hopefully be cleared soon. Military operation might also be extended to the western parts of Swat and in the surroundings of Karakar Mountains near Buner. He said that army would remain in Swat as long as complete peace and normalcy was not restored in the valley.

General Nadeem said that if and when the government so desired, the armed forces had the potential and the capability to set up emergency hospitals and dispensaries. Similarly, army could receive at airports and transport to the IDPs the relief goods sent by foreign-based charities.

He said that army had collected the statistics of IDPs through NADRA, according to which 2,68,000 families had been displaced and their members numbering between 18 and 19 lakhs had been registered. The registered IDPs would be offered financial assistance through special cards issued by the United Bank Limited.

About 1,000 IDPs or more would be handed down the cards daily through 100 card distribution centres to be set up at various places. On the basis of these cards, each affected family would be offered a special aid package worth Rs25,000 as announced by the government.

To a question that the presence of several aid agencies was creating complications in the distribution of relief goods, General Nadeem said that SSG itself was not a separate aid agency in itself but it tried to facilitate the work and coordinate the activities of various aid organisations in the country.

He made it clear that IDPs could be divided into three categories. Firstly, there were the families that were putting up with relatives in Mardan, Swabi, Peshawar and Kohat. Secondly, there were the IDPs staying in various camps and lastly, there were the families still trapped in the conflict zone. The priority of the aid agencies should be to provide help to all the three categories on emergency basis.

Chief of the Special Support Group admitted to the fact that the registration work was started in a hurry without any planning so there had initially been errors in it. Citing an example, he said that desperate to be counted as an IDP, a woman had got herself registered forty times at various booths. Such errors had led to exaggerated statistics with regard to the precise number of total IDPs.

General Nadeem said that when army verified the number of registered IDPs through NADRA, it turned out that 49 per cent of them were either wrong or cases of duplication. So these entries had naturally to be cancelled.

To a question as to what possibly was the biggest challenge before the SSG, he said that taking the IDPs back home and their rehabilitation after the end of the military operation would very likely be an uphill task before the forces.

He was of the opinion that militant leader Baitullah Mehsud was indulging in baseless propaganda to scare away innocent people out of their homes in order to increase political pressure on the government.

The security forces in Swat, Buner and Lower Dir were busy mopping up the pockets of resistance.

They were chasing the retreating militants even in caves and on mountains. Army was conducting the operation in a manner that the militants might never again be able to organise themselves in the area in future. The operation might take another two to three weeks to come to a logical end.