Search

Begin New Search Political Geography Pakistan Publishing Institution International Crisis Group

1. Raising the Stakes in Jammu and Kashmir

Author:
International Crisis Group
Publication Date:
08-2020
Content Type:
Special Report
Institution:
International Crisis Group
Abstract:
What’s new? In August 2019, India unilaterally revoked Jammu and Kashmir’s semi-autonomous status, redrew its internal boundaries, and scrapped Kashmiris’ exclusive rights to immovable property and access to government jobs. To quell potential protests, the authorities ordered an unprecedented crackdown, which included detaining almost all local politicians and a months-long communications blackout. Why did it happen? Revocation of the Indian constitution’s Article 370, which gave Kashmir its previous status, had been on the Bharatiya Janata Party’s agenda for decades. Emboldened by its landslide win of a second term in May 2019, the government ordered the state’s overhaul soon afterward, without consulting Kashmiri politicians or society. Why does it matter? New Delhi claimed that its bold move would help bring peace and development to the region after three decades of conflict. One year later, its reforms, coupled with heavy-handed counter-insurgency tactics, have only exacerbated Kashmiri alienation and raised tensions with Pakistan. Kashmir’s youth continues to join militant ranks. What should be done? While New Delhi appears unlikely to reverse course, its international allies should strongly encourage it to restore Kashmiri statehood, free detained politicians and end security forces’ abuses against civilians. Pakistan’s partners should push harder for it to stop backing anti-India jihadists. Both countries should abide by their 2003 Kashmir ceasefire.
Topic:
Development, Territorial Disputes, Crisis Management, Peace, Autonomy, and Proxy War
Political Geography:
Pakistan, South Asia, India, and Jammu and Kashmir

2. Women, Violence and Conflict in Pakistan

Publication Date:
04-2015
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
International Crisis Group
Abstract:
Eight years into its democratic transition, violence against women is still endemic in Pakistan, amid a climate of impunity and state inaction. Discriminatory legislation and a dysfunctional criminal justice system have put women at grave risk. Targeted by violent extremists with an overt agenda of gender repression, women's security is especially threatened in the conflict zones in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa (KPK) province and the Federally Administered Tribal Areas (FATA). On 8 March, International Women's Day, Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif vowed that his government would take all necessary legislative and administrative steps to protect and empower women. If this pledge was in earnest, his Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz (PML-N) government should end institutionalised violence and discrimination against women, including by repealing unjust laws, countering extremist threats, particularly in KPK and FATA, and involving women and their specially relevant perspectives in design of state policies directly affecting their security, including strategies to deal with violent extremist groups. Women in the past were the principal victims of state policies to appease violent extremists. After democracy's return, there has been some progress, particularly through progressive legislation, much of it authored by committed women's rights activists in the federal and provincial legislatures, facilitated by their increased numbers in parliament. Yet, the best of laws will provide little protection so long as social attitudes toward women remain biased, police officers are not held accountable for failing to investigate gender-based crimes, the superior judiciary does not hold the subordinate judiciary accountable for failing to give justice to women survivors of violence, and discriminatory laws remain on the books. Laws, many remnants of General Zia-ul-Haq's Islamisation in the 1970s and 1980s, continue to deny women their constitutional right to gender equality and fuel religious intolerance and violence against them. Their access to justice and security will remain elusive so long as legal and administrative barriers to political and economic empowerment remain, particularly the Hudood Ordinances (1979), FATA's Frontier Crimes Regulations (FCR) (1901) and the Nizam-e-Adl (2009) in KPK's Provincially Administered Tribal Areas (PATA). The government has a constitutional obligation and international commitments, including under the UN Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination Against Women (CEDAW), to combat gender inequality and remove such barriers to women's empowerment. Repealing discriminatory legislation and enforcing laws that protect women, including by ensuring that they have access to a gender-responsive police and courts, are essential to ending the impunity that promotes violence against women. The extent to which rights violations go unpunished is particularly alarming in FATA and KPK, where women are subjected to state-sanctioned discrimination, militant violence, religious extremism and sexual violence. Militants target women's rights activists, political leaders and development workers without consequences. The prevalence of informal justice mechanisms in many parts of Pakistan, particularly in Pakhtunkhwa and FATA, are also highly discriminatory toward women; and the government's indiscriminate military operations, which have displaced millions, have further aggravated the challenges they face in the conflict zones. In KPK and FATA, and indeed countrywide, women's enhanced meaningful presence in decision-making, including political participation as voters and in public office, will be central to sustainable reform. Pakistan should invest in their empowerment and reflect their priorities in all government policies, including counter-insurgency and peacebuilding efforts. All too often, women comprise a majority of both the intended victims of the insurgency and the unintended victims of the counter-insurgency response. National and provincial legislation to enhance protections for women is a step in the right direction, but much more is needed to safeguard them against violence and injustice and ultimately to consolidate Pakistan's democratic transition.
Topic:
Conflict Resolution
Political Geography:
Pakistan

3. Policing Urban Violence in Pakistan

Publication Date:
01-2014
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
International Crisis Group
Abstract:
Endemic violence in Pakistan's urban centres signifies the challenges confronting the federal and provincial governments in restoring law and order and consolidating the state's writ. The starkest example is Karachi, which experienced its deadliest year on record in 2013, with 2,700 casualties, mostly in targeted attacks, and possibly 40 per cent of businesses fleeing the city to avoid growing extortion rackets. However, all provincial capitals as well as the national capital suffer from similar problems and threats. A national rethink of overly milita rised policy against crime and militancy is required. Islamabad and the four provincial governments need to develop a coherent policy framework, rooted in providing g ood governance and strengthening civilian law enforcement, to tackle criminality and the jihadi threat. Until then, criminal gangs and jihadi networks will continue to wreak havoc in the country's big cities and put its stability and still fragile de mocratic transition at risk.
Topic:
Fragile/Failed State
Political Geography:
Pakistan

4. Policing Urban Violence in Pakistan

Publication Date:
01-2014
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
International Crisis Group
Abstract:
Endemic violence in Pakistan's urban centres signifies the challenges confronting the federal and provincial governments in restoring law and order and consolidating the state's writ. The starkest example is Karachi, which experienced its deadliest year on record in 2013, with 2,700 casualties, mostly in targeted attacks, and possibly 40 per cent of businesses fleeing the city to avoid growing extortion rackets. However, all provincial capitals as well as the national capital suffer from similar problems and threats. A national rethink of overly milita rised policy against crime and militancy is required. Islamabad and the four provincial governments need to develop a coherent policy framework, rooted in providing good governance and strengthening civilian law enforcement, to tackle criminality and the jihadi threat. Until then, criminal gangs and jihadi networks will continue to wreak havoc in the country's big cities and put its stability and still fragile democratic transition at risk.
Topic:
Conflict Resolution, Political Violence, Crime, and Governance
Political Geography:
Pakistan

5. Education Reform in Pakistan

Publication Date:
06-2014
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
International Crisis Group
Abstract:
In April 2010, the eighteenth constitutional amendment committed Pakistan to free and compulsory education for all children between the ages of five and sixteen. Yet, millions are still out of school, and the education system remains alarmingly impoverished. The madrasa (religious school) sector flourishes, with no meaningful efforts made to regulate the seminaries, many of which propagate religious and sectarian hatred. Militant violence and natural disasters have exacerbated the dismal state of education. Earthquakes and floods have destroyed school buildings in Balochistan, Sindh, Khyber Pakhtunkhwa (KPK) and Punjab, disrupting the education of hundreds of thousands of children. Militant jihadi groups have destroyed buildings, closed girls' schools and terrorised parents into keeping daughters at home; their attacks made global headlines with the shooting of schoolgirl and education activist Malala Yousafzai in October 2012. The public education system needs to foster a tolerant citizenry, capable of competing in the labour market and supportive of democratic norms within the country and peace with the outside world.
Topic:
Education, Islam, Terrorism, and Reform
Political Geography:
Pakistan and Asia

6. Resetting Pakistan's Relations with Afghanistan

Publication Date:
10-2014
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
International Crisis Group
Abstract:
Pakistan's relations with Afghanistan have been largely characterised by mutual mistrust and devised through a narrow security prism. While it will require considerable effort to end deep-seated animosity, both countries share close ethnic, linguistic, religious and economic ties. Longstanding Afghan migration to the territories that now compose Pakistan makes them an integral part of Pakistani society. Yet, military-devised interventionist policies, based on perceived national security interests, including support for Afghan, mainly Pashtun, proxies, have marred the relationship. The incoming Afghan President Ashraf Ghani Ahmadzai has offered to expand bilateral ties, providing Islamabad fresh opportunities to improve the relationship. Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif has responded positively, but the Pakistani military and civilian leadership's preferences toward Kabul are diverging further as Afghanistan's transition draws closer. By recalibrating relations toward economic ties and seeking solutions to the presence of millions of Afghan refugees on its soil, Pakistan could engage more constructively with its neighbour.
Topic:
Conflict Resolution, Economics, Islam, and Bilateral Relations
Political Geography:
Pakistan, Afghanistan, South Asia, and Central Asia

7. Pakistan: No End to Humanitarian Crises

Publication Date:
10-2012
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
International Crisis Group
Abstract:
With three years of devastating floods putting the lives and livelihoods of at least four million citizens at risk, and military operations against militants displacing thousands more in the conflict zones of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa (KPK) province and the Federally Administered Tribal Areas (FATA), Pakistan's humanitarian crises need urgent do-mestic and international attention. Since the democratic transition began in 2008, some progress has been made, but much more is needed to build the federal and provin-cial governments' disaster and early recovery response. Efforts to enhance civilian ownership and control have also had mixed results, particularly in the conflict zones, where the military remains the dominant actor. To effectively confront the challenges, the most urgent tasks remain to strengthen the civilian government's capacity to plan for and cope with humanitarian crises and to prioritise social sector and public infrastructure development. It is equally important that all assistance and support be non-discrimi-natory and accompanied by credible mechanisms for citi-zens to hold public officials accountable.
Topic:
Democratization, Development, Disaster Relief, and Humanitarian Aid
Political Geography:
Pakistan and South Asia

8. Aid and Conflict in Pakistan

Publication Date:
06-2012
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
International Crisis Group
Abstract:
International, particularly U.S., military and civilian aid has failed to improve Pakistan's performance against jihadi groups operating on its soil or to help stabilise its nascent democracy. Lopsided focus on security aid after the 11 September 2001 attacks has not delivered counterterrorism dividends, but entrenched the military's control over state institutions and policy, delaying reforms and aggravating Pakistani public perceptions that the U.S. is only interested in investing in a security client. Almost two-thirds of U.S. funding since 2002 ($15.8 billion) has been security-related, double the $7.8 billion of economic aid. Under an elected government, and with civilian aid levels at their highest in decades, the U.S. and other donors can still play a major part in improving service delivery, supporting key reforms and strengthening a fragile political transition vital to internal and regional stability. Re-orientation of funding from military security purposes to long-term democracy and capacity building support is the best way to guarantee the West's and Pakistan's longterm interests in a dangerous region. But aid policies must be better targeted, designed and executed.
Topic:
Democratization, Terrorism, Foreign Aid, and Counterinsurgency
Political Geography:
Pakistan, United States, and South Asia

9. Election Reform in Pakistan

Publication Date:
08-2012
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
International Crisis Group
Abstract:
The stabilisation of Pakistan's democratic transition will depend to a considerable extent on the manner in which the Election Commission of Pakistan (ECP) conducts the next general elections. These are due when the Pakistan Peoples Party (PPP)-led coalition government ends its fiveyear term in March 2013, or earlier if it so decides. Rigged elections and distortions of the process by military regimes or military-controlled governments have left the ECP in an advanced state of institutional decay. If the next elections are to result in the smooth transfer of power from one elected government to another and be widely perceived as legitimate and democratic by all stakeholders, it is imperative that the ECP be truly independent, impartial and effective.
Topic:
Conflict Resolution, Democratization, and Political Economy
Political Geography:
Pakistan and South Asia

10. Islamic Parties in Pakistan

Publication Date:
12-2011
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
International Crisis Group
Abstract:
The ability of Pakistan's radical Islamic parties to mount limited but potentially violent opposition to the government has made democratic reform, and by extension the reduction of religious extremism and development of a more peaceful and stable society, more challenging. This is a reflection of those parties' well-organised activist base, which is committed to a narrow partisan agenda and willing to defend it through violence. While their electoral support remains limited, earlier Islamisation programs have given them a strong legal and political apparatus that enables them to influence policy far beyond their numerical strength. An analysis of party agendas and organisation, as well as other sources of influence in judicial, political and civil society institutions, is therefore vital to assessing how Pakistan's main religious parties apply pressure on government, as well as the ability and willingness of the mainstream parties that are moderate on religious issues to resist that pressure.
Topic:
Democratization, Islam, Religion, and Governance
Political Geography:
Pakistan and South Asia