Who killed Sabeen Mahmud? Why did she have to die? Is she just another casualty of multiple wars raging in Pakistan today?  Did her assassins try to kill two birds with one stone? Amplify the Baloch insurgency coverage and demonize the ISI? These and other questions are being asked by many who loved and supported her and miss her badly. Will these questions ever be answered? I wouldn't hold my breath given Pakistan's history of high-profile assassinations since its birth. I'll still try and put some context around this tragedy.

Sabeen Mahmud 



The ink on China-Pakistan agreements was barely dry when western media and foreign-funded NGOs in Pakistan started playing up the Baloch insurgency. Is it a mere coincidence? Or a well thought-out plan to try to sabotage Pak-China alliance and massive Chinese investment in Pakistan?


Two key events have made headlines in Pakistan and elsewhere to coincide with President Xi Jinping's Pakistan visit. First, "Un-silencing Balochistan" gathering took place in Karachi at T2F NGO headed by Sabeen Mahmud after it was cancelled at LUMS. Second, an interview of Bramdagh Bugti, the man who is running the insurgency in remote parts of Balochistan from a Swiss hotel room, was widely published by western media.

Un-silencing Balochistan:

It is unfortunate that the tragic assassination of Sabeen Mahmud, a sincere and dedicated social activist, has served to divert public attention from the real issue of western-funded NGOs pushing foreign agendas to conspiracy theories about ISI plotting her assassination. Instead of discussing the reason for the Un-silencing Balochistan event coinciding with the Chinese President Xi Jinping's visit to Pakistan, the discussion has turned to demonizing the "big bad ISI".

Bramdagh Bugti Interview:

Bramdagh has been running a low-level insurgency in Balochistan from a Swiss hotel room for several yeas now. He was interviewed there by a German Deutsche Welle reporter and the interview was widely carried by multiple western news organizations. As expected, Bugti claimed that recent multi-billion dollar economic corridor "deal between Pakistan and China is aimed at colonizing the Balochistan province, and must be resisted".

Foreign-Funded NGOs:

There has been extensive documentation of US government funding of NGOs for the purpose of pushing US agenda around the world. The most detailed description of it became public with revelations contained in "Who Paid the Piper" by Frances Stonor Saunders. More recently, an investigative reporter Robert Parry has documented the role played by US-funded National Endowment for Democracy in destabilizing Ukraine in a piece titled "A Shadow of US Foreign Policy".

In "The Mask of Pluralism", author Joan Roelofs describes certain CIA-designated organizations, using the funds from the “dummy” foundations, funding pro-American NGOs to advance US policies.

Many countries, including India, have made several attempts to regulate foreign funding of NGOs. Just recently, Modi government has frozen the accounts of Green Peace India and put Ford Foundation on its watch list.

There are hundreds of foreign-funded NGOs operating in Pakistan. Many of them provide much needed service but some are likely being used as cover to push foreign agendas. It has been established that the CIA used one such organization to fund a fake polio vaccination campaign in Abbotabad as part of its hunt for Usama Bin Laden.

The Clinton Foundation, headed by former US President Bill Clinton and his wife Hilary, the former secretary of state, has come under severe criticism for accepting millions of dollars from foreign contributors. American media are demanding full disclosure and transparency from the couple. Shouldn't it also apply to foreign donations flowing into NGOs in Pakistan?

Baloch Insurgency Facts:

Balochistan insurgency is much bigger phenomenon in the media than its reality on the ground in Pakistan. In spite of well-known foreign funding and support, the fact is that Baloch insurgency is made up of a few insurgents who are deeply divided among themselves. So far, it's been little more than a nuisance for Pakistani military, according to Col. Ralph Peters, a US intelligence operative who has worked closely with BLA leadership.

Here's an excerpt of a Huffington Post Op Ed on Baloch insurgents:

According to Peters, one of the most serious issues with the Baloch independence movement is "deeply troubling" infighting. In fact, he is emphatic in his condemnation of such bickering; going so far as to assert: "they are quickly becoming their own worse enemies." 


In his view, individual Baloch simply don't understand that their personal feuding undermines the larger movement: "Certain Baloch fail to understand that their only hope in gaining independence is if they put their own egos and vanity aside and work together. This is the cold hard fact. They are already outgunned and outmanned. Pakistan will continue to to exploit their differences until they realize this." 


So long as the Baloch continue to engage in "petty infighting," including "savaging each other in emails," (Ralph) Peters is pessimistic they can garner widespread support in the West. In fact, he warns that such infighting could eventually put off even their staunchest supporters. 


As a result, he recommends that the Baloch leadership and activists set the example and halt their public bickering: "The Baloch leaders need to stop their severe personal attacks on each other and others. In the military, we say that you don't let an entire attack get bogged down by a single sniper. But, there are individuals out there who are causing divisions and attacking people. They tend to look at the debate as if you don't agree with me completely then you're my enemy. This undermines their cause." 


Until these leaders and activists "support the big picture," Peters offers little hope that the broader Baloch nation will be able to "work together, put aside their deep divide, and unify." This troubles Peters as he confides: "At this point, do I believe they have a good chance of achieving independence? No. But, it would be much higher in the future if they just start working together. It's frustrating that the leaders can't unite." 


Peters is also bothered by the Baloch tendancy to blame such infighting on covert operations by Pakistan's military and security services: "The region as a whole tends to blame conspiracy theories. But, I have come to believe that you never accept conspiracies when something can be explained by incompetence..."

Balochistan East Pakistan Comparison:

Balochistan is sometimes compared by some with East Pakistan. Balochistan has nothing in common with East Pakistan.

 1. Only a third of the population of Balochistan is Balochi speaking. The Baloch Nationalists are too few in number, highly disorganized and deeply divided among themselves.

2.  Almost as many ethnic Baloch people live outside of Balochistan province (in Sindh and Southern Punjab) as in Balochistan, according to Anatol Lieven (Pakistan-A Hard Country).  They are quite well integrated with the rest of the population in Pakistan. Asif Zardari, the last president of Pakistan, is an ethnic Baloch, as was former President Farooq Laghari and recent interim Prime Minister Mir Hazar Khan Khoso.  Pakistan's COAS Gen Musa was a Hazara from Balochistan.

 3. In East Pakistan, there was an election won by Sheikh Mujib with heavy mandate. Nothing like that has happened nor likely happen with a bunch of fractious Baloch tribesmen who represent only a few districts in Balochistan.  They have no political party nor do they participate in any elections as the Awami League in East Pakistan did. Even if they do so in the future, they are unlikely to win a majority in the provincial legislature given the demographics of Balochistan.

4.  Former US Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel said in a speech that "India has always used Afghanistan as a second front against Pakistan. India has over the years been financing problems in Pakistan".  BLA is being armed, trained and funded by India's RAW just as Mukti Bahini was in  East Pakistan. But the creation of Bangladesh required an outright Indian invasion which is highly unlikely to happen to nuclear-armed Pakistan.

 Summary:

Indian and western spy agencies will try and ratchet up the pressure on China and Pakistan by further fueling the insurgency in Pakistan. The issue will be played up by western and Indian media and some foreign funded NGOs in Pakistan as the work on China-Pakistan corridor proceeds and Chinese investment in Pakistan materializes.  This cynical effort could claim more innocent and well-meaning victims like Sabeen Mahmud who get caught up as pawns in the cross-fire of  international geopolitics. Pakistani leaders and people need to be aware of it and be prepared to deal with it intelligently.

Here's a video discussion on this subject:




https://vimeo.com/126093896



Who killed Sabeen Mahmud? NA-246 Results prove what. Yemen from WBT TV on Vimeo.

http://www.dailymotion.com/video/x2o3uj0_who-killed-sabeen-mahmud-w...


Who killed Sabeen Mahmud- What do NA-246... by faizan-maqsood

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Views: 711

Comment by Riaz Haq on April 26, 2015 at 8:28am

The End of Pakistan's Baloch Insurgency?


Since its beginning in 2004, the Pakistan's Baloch insurgency is caught up in the worst infighting ever known to the general public. Different left-wing underground armed groups that had been fighting Islamabad for a free Baloch homeland have now started to attack each other's camps. If the infighting exacerbates, Islamabad will have solid reasons to rejoice the end of one of the two deadly insurgencies it has been facing for nearly a decade (the other being the Taliban insurgency).

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/malik-siraj-akbar/the-end-of-pakistan... 

Comment by Riaz Haq on April 26, 2015 at 8:33am

How to Make Proxy War Succeed in BaluchistanBy Dr Amarjit Singh Issue Net Edition | Date : 20 Dec , 2014


Proxy Wars in Pakistan: Baluch Focus
Now, move to Baluchistan, which is the main site of India’s proclaimed proxy war in Pakistan. The British and Americans also have strong interest in creating an independent Baluchistan, not to mention Iran’s interest because Baluchistan is predominantly Shia, like Iran. British Prime Minister Tony Blair apparently put the idea into America’s ear that having an independent Baluchistan would solve America’s overland route problem into Afghanistan. The British SIS (or MI6) consequently initiated clandestine action with the CIA post 10/11 to foment rebellion in Baluchistan, once American troops displaced the Taliban from power in Afghanistan. Hence requisite 2 went into action. The numerical size of the rebels was relatively small when the Western powers started, but that got built to some 4-6,000 rebels, about the size of two brigades, and enough to cause turmoil, blow up army depots, harass military convoys, and launch surprise attacks at military bases. Seeing an upswing in Baluch rebellion in 2004, Musharraf sent in one division and two brigades to quash the rebellion. Soon, the octogenarian leader of Baluchistan, Nawab Akbar Bugti, Oxford-educated, and a former Governor of Baluchistan, was assassinated by Musharraf in 2006, who claimed it a victory for the Pakistani people1. In 2007, the Pakistani army resorted to indiscriminate civilian attacks in the regions of Kahan and Dera Bugti; over 200 houses were razed, and more than 100 civilians, women and children killed. In addition, Pakistani forces poured into more than a dozen cities to suppress pro-independence protests; the army further used helicopter gunships and carpet bombed entire villages in Kahan, Taratani and Kamalan Kech areas. Dozens of Baluch were shot dead in cold blood by executing squads, 400 were arrested, another 500 were kidnapped. The human rights violations were appalling.


http://www.indiandefencereview.com/news/how-to-make-proxy-war-succe... 

Comment by Riaz Haq on April 27, 2015 at 3:35pm

Excerpt From NY Times:

Who is responsible for her murder?

As Sunday’s editorial in the English-language Dawn newspaper makes plain, the answer will be hotly debated. “Clearly, in the tumultuous city of Karachi and given the variety of causes Ms. Mahmud championed, the security agencies are not the only ones perceived as suspects in her assassination. Ms. Mahmud’s work had attracted criticism and threats in the past, particularly from sections of the religious right, which viewed her promotion of the arts, music and culture with great hostility.”

The police have offered a number of possibilities. “It is a clear case of targeted killing and police are working on few possible motives of the murder,” Karachi-South Deputy Inspector General Jamil Ahmed said on Saturday. He added that an “enemy country or its intelligence agency” may have wished to give Karachi’s law-and-order situation a “complicated turn” by targeting someone like Sabeen. This is, of course, a reference to the U.S. or India—it is common for non-government organizations and rights activists in Pakistan to be accused of being “Indian agents” or dollar greedy and out to “malign” Pakistan’s interests.

At the same time, Ahmed has also said police are investigating whether Sabeen’s murder is related to “personal enmity.” According to Dawn, Sabeen’s friends and relatives informed the police that she had been receiving threats for the last “four to six weeks.”

To counter the popular belief that the intelligence agencies targeted Sabeen, the army’s public relations wing issued a rare rejoinder to critics via Twitter on Saturday, the day of the funeral.

But other narratives are also being aired: The Tehreek-e-Taliban Pakistan have denied any involvement in the murder, and the group’s spokesperson said on Sunday that “investigation by the Taliban’s intelligence wing suggests government agencies are behind the killing.”

Sabeen was shot by two men on a motorbike, who pulled up to her car as she stopped at a traffic light near T2F. Police say there are no CCTV cameras at this traffic signal, so the identities of those two men remain a mystery. It’s a climate in which the government, the army, or the hardline militants they say they are fighting can plausibly be accused of the murder of one woman guilty of nothing more than political engagement.

We know that many are criticizing Sabeen once more, asking why she bothered to risk her own life by highlighting the cause of the Baloch activists. But I also know this: this is not the first time that Sabeen acted in a way that her critics called foolish.

In 2007, when demonstrators against then-president Pervez Musharraf needed a space to plan their next move against the dictatorial regime, Sabeen welcomed them into T2F. When warned against holding a launch for a book about Pakistani military interests, Sabeen and her partner-in-protest Zaheer Kidwai invited those threatening them to come to the café to talk about what was bothering them. “Don’t bring guns; don’t bring anything. Just come,” said Zaheer, at the time.

When Punjab governor Salmaan Taseer was shot dead in 2011 for speaking out against Pakistan’s repressive blasphemy laws, Sabeen did not shy away from welcoming talks and events at T2F to discuss what had happened. “The only thing we have said no to is motivational talks,” she said wryly at the time. When I asked her why she couldn’t just give politics and political discussion a rest, if only for a little while, she replied, “There’s politics in everything. What kind of politics are we going to tell people not to talk about? People have become apathetic and they’ve given up on their right to be political.”

http://nytlive.nytimes.com/womenintheworld/2015/04/26/remembering-s...

Comment by Riaz Haq on April 28, 2015 at 7:31am

The Indian Ministry of Home Affairs cancelled the licenses of 8,975 NGOs receiving foreign funds as they failed to comply with the rules, according to news reports on Monday (BBCNDTVTimes of India,Economic Times). Under the Foreign Contributions Regulations Act (FCRA), NGOs receiving foreign funds are required to annually provide details of the contributions received, their purpose, and source. In October last year, the government sent letters to 10,343 NGOs to submit their pending documents under FCRA. As only 229 NGOs responded, the licenses of 8,975 organizations have been cancelled. India has taken a tough stance against NGOs in the past few months. Last week, the Indian Ministry of Home Affairs put grants from U.S.-based Ford Foundation on its watch list in the interest of national security. Last year, Greenpeace India was barred from accepting foreign funds.

Comment by Riaz Haq on April 28, 2015 at 7:42am

cancels licenses of 8,975 foreign-funded for lack of transparency.

India cancels licenses of thousands of aid groups

Man counts dollars (File photo)The Indian government is suspicious of foreign-funded aid organisations

India has cancelled the registration of nearly 9,000 foreign-funded NGOs saying they have failed to comply with rules.

The charities had not filed their annual tax returns for three years and had failed to explain the delay, a home ministry order said.

In the last few months, India has taken a tough stance against aid groups.

Last week, the Ford Foundation was put on a watch list and ordered to seek government permission before giving money to local organisations.

And earlier this month, India froze the national bank accounts of Greenpeace, accusing it of violating the country's tax laws and working against its economic interests by "stalling development projects".

In an order, the home ministry said notices were issued to thousands of non-governmental organisations in October last year.

The groups were asked to furnish their tax details within a month, specifying the amount of foreign funds received, sources and the purpose for which they were received and how they were spent.

The government said only 229 have replied to the notices and that it was cancelling the registration of 8,975 groups "with immediate effect". Hundreds of other cases are still being reviewed.

Analysts say Prime Minister Narendra Modi's government is suspicious of foreign-funded aid organisations and a government intelligence report last year accused many activists of taking help from foreign countries to stall India's economic growth.

Comment by Riaz Haq on April 29, 2015 at 10:09pm

Pakistan to seek extradition of top Baloch insurgents

The government is all set to approach five countries and the United Nations to seek extradition of top Baloch insurgents accused of fomenting unrest in Balochistan which has been in the throes of a low-profile separatist insurgency since 2006.

The security agencies have identified 161 training camps of Baloch insurgents, nearly two dozen of them are believed to be located in Afghanistan and two in Iran.

“We are taking up the issue of Baloch insurgents with five countries [India, Switzerland, United Kingdom, Iran and Afghanistan],” said a top security official, who did not want to be named in this report. Dr Allah Nazar, Hyrbyair Marri, Brahumdagh Bugti, Javed Mengal
and some other wanted insurgents are commanding their fighters in the province, he added.

Hyrbyair Marri, the head of the Baloch Liberation Army (BLA), has been living in self-exile in the United Kingdom where he has been granted political asylum. The BLA has been responsible for most violence in Balochistan.

Army chief General Raheel Sharif and Interior Minister Chaudhry Nisar Ali Khan had taken up Marri’s issue with British officials and sought his repatriation to Pakistan, the security official said.

Brahumdagh Bugti, the founder of the Baloch Republican Army (BRA), has been living in Switzerland seeking political asylum. The BRA has been involved in attacks on security forces, national installations and civilians in Balochistan.

The security official said Islamabad through diplomatic channels was also in contact with Swiss authorities to bring Brahumdagh back to Pakistan. “The Afghan government has assured Pakistan its full support to stop Baloch insurgents from operating from its soil,” he added.

The government has requested Iran through its Deputy Foreign Minister Hassan Qashqavi to make maximum efforts to block the influence of some Baloch separatists operating from Iranian soil, he added. “Pakistan is considering taking up the issue of Indian involvement in Balochistan unrest at the United Nations,” he added.

Earlier this month, the government quietly expanded the scope of a targeted military operation in Balochistan with the consent of the provincial government in an effort to dismantle the training camps of insurgents, the security official said. “We have expanded the military operation in Balochistan.”

The paramilitary Frontier Corps is assisting the military in targeted operations against separatists. “IGFC Balochistan Maj Gen Sher Afgun had briefed Interior Minister Chaudhry Nisar Ali Khan on such operations earlier this week,” he added.

The expansion of the operation came under the National Action Plan against terrorism, which is being executed by the armed forces across the country to wipe out militancy from the country, another senior official of the interior ministry told The Express Tribune.

http://tribune.com.pk/story/878332/pakistan-to-seek-extradition-of-...

Comment by Riaz Haq on May 4, 2015 at 9:47pm

Summary of "Free Speech for Sale"

The major points of the 1999 video which explores how granting corporations free speech has allowed them use huge financial resources to manipulate media and in effect have propaganda-like power to shape public interest:

Makes its asserstions via examples of hog farming in North Carolina and tobacco industry subverting legislation and media influence on the Telecommunications Act of 1996
Shows how push polls, pseudo polls with loaded questions -- not scientific polls -- are used to call attention to a special interest issue.

Then the special or corporate interest broadcasts a blizzard of TV advertisements (called "issue ads) oriented to their particular interest and aimed at shifting attention away from important elements of the issue and refocusing them on areas that will benefit the special or corporate interest.

Front groups are groups backed by powerful interests and having a nice-sounding name. The group creases the sense that there is a growing concern of the "issue."

Issue ads are advertisements, primarily on TV, that say they are about issues and lead viewer up to the point of saying vote for the candidate supporting the view of the special interest but not mentioning the person's name -- thus, they do not fall under election campaign contribution laws

Attorney Bert Neuborne -- asserts that unfairness comes from corporations being treated like people and being given some of the same rights. Corporations were given the same free speech rights as people by a 1978 Supreme Court decision. However, they have huge amounts of money to spend in the democratic process, thus unbalancing the fairness.

The issue ad campaigns saturate TV and cable (ex. tobacco companies) and target the propaganda message at the public -- and at public officials (by suggesting in ads that people phone the officials)

This influence changes the framework of the debate. It can make it acceptable for officials to vote against a bill regulating the special interest because the ads portray the bill as being for something evil and as just another excess of big government

Phone banks are used to make mass calls to people and describe the issue (ex., bill to regulate tobacco) in a false way and patch the people through to the officials' offices.

Video argues that the intent of the First Amendment is being subverted by these tactics and that the ideas of James Madison and the founders of the nation has been changed to mean freedom of speech for those who can afford to buy media access -- and that can be afforded only by large corporations.

Also media corporations themselves contribute to the problem by being oriented toward profit and having similar business interests, especially in gaining control of the digital spectrum (which is a public resource and could have been auctioned off for billions of dollars).

Example of the selling out of who got control of that spectrum via the Telecommunications Act of 1996 --because media did not cover it, the people never knew.

Other examples used included --
a liberal talk show personality challenged the ABC/Disney merger on his show run by ABC, which then cut his show; the shrinking ownership of media, such as ESPN and ABC, Disney; Fox, FX, etc; NBC and MSNBC and CNBC; of TCI, Comcast,QVC, linked to GE and Time Warner and Sony and PBS News Hour -- now being owned by AT&T; and a segment critical of media ownership on "Saturday Night Live" being cut from reruns of the episode because it "didn't work comedically."

"They (corporate media owners) have so many deals with each other...they are more of a club"

A tremendous danger to American society exists because of all this, the video concludes. However, it says this is not a dark conspiracy -- but simply willful people uniting to acquire wealth and power.[the same two forces cited by Bagdikian in Chapter 1]


http://hope.journ.wwu.edu/tpilgrim/j190/Freespeechforsale.vidsum.html

Comment by Riaz Haq on May 5, 2015 at 7:19am

NY Times on foreign funding of Washington Think Tanks:

More than a dozen prominent Washington research groups have received tens of millions of dollars from foreign governments in recent years while pushing United States government officials to adopt policies that often reflect the donors’ priorities, an investigation by The New York Times has found.

The money is increasingly transforming the once-staid think-tank world into a muscular arm of foreign governments’ lobbying in Washington. And it has set off troubling questions about intellectual freedom: Some scholars say they have been pressured to reach conclusions friendly to the government financing the research.

The think tanks do not disclose the terms of the agreements they have reached with foreign governments. And they have not registered with the United States government as representatives of the donor countries, an omission that appears, in some cases, to be a violation of federal law, according to several legal specialists who examined the agreements at the request of The Times.

As a result, policy makers who rely on think tanks are often unaware of the role of foreign governments in funding the research.

Joseph Sandler, a lawyer and expert on the statute that governs Americans lobbying for foreign governments, said the arrangements between the countries and think tanks “opened a whole new window into an aspect of the influence-buying in Washington that has not previously been exposed.”

“It is particularly egregious because with a law firm or lobbying firm, you expect them to be an advocate,” Mr. Sandler added. “Think tanks have this patina of academic neutrality and objectivity, and that is being compromised.”

The arrangements involve Washington’s most influential think tanks, including the Brookings Institution, the Center for Strategic and International Studies, and the Atlantic Council. Each is a major recipient of overseas funds, producing policy papers, hosting forums and organizing private briefings for senior United States government officials that typically align with the foreign governments’ agendas.

Most of the money comes from countries in Europe, the Middle East and elsewhere in Asia, particularly the oil-producing nations of the United Arab Emirates, Qatar and Norway, and takes many forms. The United Arab Emirates, a major supporter of the Center for Strategic and International Studies, quietly provided a donation of more than $1 million to help build the center’s gleaming new glass and steel headquarters not far from the White House. Qatar, the small but wealthy Middle East nation, agreed last year to make a $14.8 million, four-year donation to Brookings, which has helped fund a Brookings affiliate in Qatar and a project on United States relations with the Islamic world.


http://www.nytimes.com/2014/09/07/us/politics/foreign-powers-buy-in...

Comment by Riaz Haq on June 12, 2015 at 3:56pm

The Islamabad headquarters of Save the Children were padlocked by police while a government notification told the group to wind up its operations and ensure that expatriate staff left within 15 days.

The expulsion of one of the world’s best known non-governmental organisations (NGOs) follows years of growing distrust towards foreign charities that security services suspect are often used as covers for intelligence work.

“There were some intelligence reports suggesting some of the international NGOs funded by US, Israel and India were involved in working on an anti-Pakistan agenda,” interior minister Chaudhry Nisar told a press conference on Friday, at which he also launched a tirade against overseas rights activists campaigning against the growing use of the death penalty by the country.

“Let me clarify: offices of any international NGO found doing anti-Pakistan activities would be shut down,” he said.


Save the Children first attracted official wrath after becoming embroiled – the organisation has always claimed unwittingly – in the CIA’s efforts in 2011 to pinpoint the location of former al-Qaida leader Osama bin Laden to a compound in the town of Abbottabad.

In 2012 Islamabad gave foreign staff working for Save the Children just a week to leave the country after the country’s top spy agency, the Inter-Services Intelligence directorate (ISI), linked it to a bogus hepatitis B vaccination programme conducted in the town by a doctor called Shakil Afridi.

Under the cover of injecting householders with hepatitis B vaccine, Afridi had tried to collect DNA samples from Bin Laden family members living in the walled compound during the months before US special forces raided the building.

To the fury of US politicians, Afridi was arrested shortly after the killing of Bin Laden and sentenced to 33 years in jail by a tribal court for charges unrelated to the CIA or Bin Laden.

A leaked version of the official inquiry into the Bin Laden affair revealed Afridi told investigators a senior Save the Children official introduced him to female CIA officers, with whom he held secretive meetings in warehouses.

Afridi said they instructed him to organise a vaccination programme in Abbottabad with a particular focus on the part of town where Bin Laden’s compound was located.

Afridi insisted he had no idea he was being used by a foreign intelligence agency. Save the Children said the doctor had never been employed by them.

In a statement on Friday, the charity said it strongly objected to the sealing of its office in Islamabad and said it would raise its concerns at the highest levels.

“All our work is designed and delivered in close collaboration with the government ministries across the country and aims to strengthen public service delivery systems in health, nutrition, education and child welfare,” the statement said.

http://www.theguardian.com/world/2015/jun/12/pakistan-shuts-down-sa...

Comment by Riaz Haq on December 25, 2016 at 7:39pm

The rise of NGO's and their harmful impact on Pakistan

http://herald.dawn.com/news/1152863

The extraordinary growth that NGOs have experienced in recent years in their numbers, their outreach and their resources is unprecedented even by Pakistani standards. The number of active NGOs in the country is, at the very least, anywhere between 100,000 to 150,000, investigations by the Pakistan Centre for Philanthropy (PCP), a certification organisation for NGOs and charity institutions, reveal. By this count, there is at least one NGO for every 2,000 people. Way back in 2001, a Civil Society Index put together by the Aga Khan Foundation in Pakistan, in coordination with Civicus, an international alliance of civil society groups, put the number of “active and registered NGOs in Pakistan” at “around 10,000 to 12,000”.

The phenomenal rise in the number of NGOs could be linked to the massive injection of foreign money, especially donations and grants – and sometimes even loans – into Pakistan since 2001 (the United States alone has provided more than 10 billion dollars during these years). A major part of this money came into Pakistan due to the peculiar political and economic situation in the country. We have been through multiple violent conflicts during the last decade and a half; we have been transitioning from a dictatorship to a controlled democracy to a fully functional democracy, and our economy has been undergoing massive liberalisation. All this necessitated that foreigners came in to help with expertise and money to take Pakistan and Pakistanis through this troubled period of our history.

------

If money is any guide, charitable NGOs, which live on the generosity of local donors, receive an estimated 70 billion rupees every year, according to Malik Babur Javed, a senior programme manager at PCP. These organisations do not include all those thousands of NGOs which receive money from the Pakistani government, international charities, the governments of other countries and multilateral forums like the United Nations institutions.

Sadiqa Salahuddin, the director of Karachi-based NGO Indus Resource Centre, which has been active in poverty alleviation and disaster relief and mitigation in rural Sindh for more than 20 years, says the presence of large amounts of money creates major issues of both capacity and corruption within NGOs, even when they genuinely want to carry out development activities. She cites the instance of her own NGO which received an unprecedented amount of funds to provide relief to the victims of the 2010 floods.

The disaster called for quick disbursal and management of vast resources which her NGO was not prepared for, she says. Having her base in Karachi but working in Dadu district, she found coordination and management a tough task. “It drove me crazy. I would go to Dadu myself every week.” Even this was not always helpful. In one instance, going through the statement of expenses spent on flood relief, she found “83,000 rupees spent on toothpastes”. She would find many errors in computation of prices and other procedural irregularities, simply because she did not have enough skilled and motivated staff to handle such assignments in a challenging post-disaster environment.

-----

Critics have been quick to point out that NGOs themselves don’t practice what they preach. They say NGOs avoid accountability and transparency as much as they possibly can and, therefore, are quite averse to any form of regulation or oversight. With some large NGOs having become heavily corporatised entities, where staff earn market-based salaries and where foreign money flows in regularly, it is natural to expect some kind of transparency and accountability — to be able to ask if all those salaries are being paid to the right people and for the right purposes as well as to ensure that foreign funds are spent on the projects they are meant for.

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    Independent candidates backed by the Pakistan Tehreek e Insaf (PTI) party emerged as the largest single block with 93 seats in the nation's parliament in the general elections held on February 8, 2024.  This feat was accomplished in spite of huge obstacles thrown in front of the PTI's top leader Imran Khan and his party leaders and supporters by Pakistan's powerful military…

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    Posted by Riaz Haq on February 16, 2024 at 9:22pm — 1 Comment

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