Round-up of regional news

On your mark, get set… get married

He is getting on my nerves, said a young unmarried Pakistani woman. She was referring not to Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif's recent resort to military courts in Karachi and Sindh, but to the 'prohibitions on marriage' he chose to impose through a notification issued in late November.

The new order, as originally reported in the press, said that all marriage ceremonies for the next three years will have to take place in the period between two of the five daily Muslim prayers of Asr and Maghrib. The Asr prayers are said in the late afternoon and the Maghrib prayers at sunset. Effectively, it leaves people—depending on the time of the year they choose to get married—between one to two hours in which to get it over with.

The order made an allowance for weddings for which invitation cards had already been sent out, but strict implementation is planned for after the Muslim festival of Eid-ul-Fitr in the third week of January. A day after the notice was issued, a spokesman clarified that the government did not intend to restrict wedding times to between the Asr and Maghrib prayers, adding that "all" it wanted was to ensure that wedding ceremonies were held before sunset.

The new ordinance is the second in Sharif's campaign to use state authority to transform the traditionally lavish marriage ceremonies into simple affairs. He had ordered a two-year ban on serving food at weddings just a month after coming to power in 1997. (The ban is to end in March next year but an extension is likely.) The new order took people by surprise since there had been talk that even the earlier one would be watered down and that at least one dish would be allowed to be served at wedding parties.

In the two years since it was imposed, the food-ban has been implemented selectively. Where the enforcing authorities have been strict, usually in the case of the lower and middle class marriages, even bridegrooms have ended up spending their wedding nights in the lockup. On the other hand, people with influence have been openly flouting the law. The less powerful have had to resort to more discreet methods for entertaining marriage guests, such as using the basement of banquet halls and restaurants for 'underground' marriage parties. There have also been instances where the whole lot of guests were taken to posh diners under the garb of 'routine clients'.

The new order is obviously an attempt to restrict wedding ceremonies to a period of the day when it would be difficult for people to break the law under the cover of darkness. However, the difficulties that the new ban can cause are unlimited. What, for instance, if the poor guy and his baraatis (marriage procession) fail to turn up within the time prescribed for the holy ritual by the state? Will he have to wait for the next day, or what could be even more frustrating, fix an altogether new date for the marriage? And what if it happens all over again?

Those beginning to feel the weight of the 'reformist' Sharif ideas are wondering what the prime minister may be contemplating next. Instructing people whom to marry and whom not to? Placing restrictions on couples, asking them not to see each other before they are 'legally' and 'religiously' declared man and wife? Limiting the number of marriages in a family—in case population control manages to surpass other important issues on the government's list of priorities? The possibilities are endless.

The question now being asked is if the army will be given the job of seeing that the new marriage order is being followed. Such an arrangement would be in the fitness of things. If armymen can hold courts to punish terrorists in Karachi, if they can build roads in Lahore, if they can remove encroachments in cities, if they can be asked to supervise entry tests to colleges in the North West Frontier Province, supervising marriages will be but a small matter.
-Asha'ar Rahman  
Moratorium on hartals
Bangladeshis are not sure how seriously they are to take the ruling Awami League's recent call that hartals be banned permanently, a call that enjoins upon the opposition Bangladesh Nationalist Party (BNP) to announce a similar ban too. Considering that the Awami League (AL) had used strikes often lasting for days to create an impossible situation for the BNP to provide any real governance, the scepticism is understandable.
The AL's call came after a three day hartal called by the BNP protesting what it called an attempt on the life of bnp chairperson Khaleda Zia while commemorating 7 November at a mass meeting. That was the day in 1975 when a military uprising had swept her husband, the late Gen Ziaur Rahman, to power. Although Gen Zia was killed five years later, 7 November has always been observed as a 'Day' and even former president Gen Hussain M. Ershad, who was not in any way connected with the event (he was at a defence college in India at the time), kept up the tradition. But Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina would have nothing to do with anything connected with Gen Zia. She decided instead to move the 'Day' forward and declared 3 November to be National Mourning Day. On this date in 1975 four AL leaders had been killed in jail; the party had been ousted out of power with the assassination of Sheikh Mujibur Rahman some months earlier.

Between celebration and mourning, this year's 7 November BNP meeting was disrupted and Begum Zia had to leave the venue in a hurry, finding her way through a mist of tear gas. The next day, 8 November, was the day the judgement on the murder of Sheikh Mujib and his family was to be announced and it passed without event. But even before Sheikh Hasina could properly celebrate the verdict against her family's killers (see pg 6), the BNP called a two-day hartal beginning 9 November to protest against government policies in general but specifically against what it saw as an attempt on Begum Zia's life.

The strike turned out to be violent and a number of activists from both sides were killed. So, as protocol demands, Begum Zia extended her hartal call for another day. Dhaka citizens felt that winter had finally arrived. Summer, it is generally observed, is too hot for serious street politics.

Having herself called so many hartals in the past, Sheikh Hasina is well aware of their potential. She therefore declared that the AL would never call a hartal and asked the BNP to follow suit during a meeting with national media leaders.

Khaleda Zia didn't make any immediate comment but one of her old/ new party leaders Moudud Ahmed, ex-BNP minister under Gen Zia before deserting the BNP for the Jatiyo Party (JP) of Gen Ershad, under whom he served as vice president of Bangladesh, and again a BNP leader after losing both his sents in  the 1996 parliamentary elections, immediately responded to the press.

Barrister Ahmed would know about hartals. As a JP leader he himself was ousted by a hartal that stretched on ad infinitum. He said that the hartal call was acceptable provided the AL compensated for the loss incurred to the national exchequer due to the total 173 days of hartal called by the AL between 1991 and 1996. (The BNP calculates that amount to be BDT 519 billion/USD 10.8 billion) He also said that the AL should resign within a month and call for mid-term polls.

Newspaper polls have shown that over 75 percent of the people support the joint moratorium on hartals. And while most people haven't taken the matter too seriously, everyone knows that pressure to swear off hartals is on from both within and without. It may be possible to ignore the public opinion of the Bangladeshis themselves, but foreign buyers and investors aren't as accommodating. Bangladesh is facing pressure to end this method of politicking. At numerous international investors' fora it has been said that the conflict between the two leaders is the main cause behind lack of investor interest. The parties will have to do something to show that they aren't going to shoo investors away.

With this year's floods having damaged USD 4 billion worth of resources, and pressure mounting on the ready-made garments and frozen food sector the country's two main exports the politicians will have to respond somehow and with something.
Elephantine trouble
THE LAWNS of the United Nations Sculpture Garden now has a life-size 7000-pound bronze African bull elephant, a joint gift from Kenya. Namibia and Nepal to promote the cause of wildlife awareness. But some days before the sculpture was to be unveiled on 18 November by Secretary General Kofi Annan. Nepal's permanent representative to the UN, Narendra Bikram Shah, decided that the elephant was too well endowed. Reported the chairman of the group that had funded the sculpture, Hans Janilschek: "1 received a call from the ambassador from Nepal, who said: 'The penis is enormous. We brought in an expert to look. There has to be a surgical operation.'  Where this expert came from I do not know."

This led to a meeting at Under-sec relary General Alvaro Desoto's office. The solution was ingenious: plant some bushes to block the view.

"Positively impressed"
Since fleeing Bhutan more than eight years ago, around 100,000 Lhotsampha refugees have been surviving on hope, willpower and the largesse of Western aid agencies in UNHCR-run camps in Jhapa in south-eastern Nepal. Talks between Bhutan and Nepal have so far been unsuccessful, and India, through which the refugees streamed into Nepal, has refused to be drawn into the matter, insisting it is a bilateral matter.

A joint ministerial committee formed in July 1993 reached a deadlock in early 1996. However, recent reports suggest that Bhutan and Nepal are inching closer to a breakthrough. Both sides are keeping their cards close to their chests as January 1999, when foreign ministers of the two countries will meet in Kathmandu to discuss repatriation of the refugees, nears.

Patralekha Chatterjee met Francois Fouinat, Director, Asia and the Pacific, United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) in New Delhi and talked to him about the Lhotshampas and other refugee groups in South Asia. Fouinat was on his way back to Geneva after a visit to Nepal and Bhutan.

•On his assessment of the situation of the Bhutan refugee crisis:
This has been our concern for a number of years since UNHCR has been helping the refugees in the camps in Nepal. We are as interested as anyone else to see if there can be a solution to this problem because the refugees have been living in the camps for so long. The fact that so many people continue to live in camps is obviously some thing nobody likes.

It was with a lot of expectation that 1 undertook a visit to Bhutan and Kathmandu. And I must say that I was positively impressed by what I noticed to be the determination of the new government in Bhutan to bring about a solution to  the problem in the bilateral framework that has been established to negotiate on this issue with Nepal. I conveyed my impressions to the Nepali authorities. I hope some positive developments will take place soon between the two countries aiming, or at least beginning, to find a solution to this long-standing and difficult issue.

•On the constraints ahead:
I suppose the fact that this question has been stalled for so many years suggests there are no easy solutions. There are so many dimensions and as people dealing with refugees, we are also of the opinion that this is not a simple and easy situation and it will need a combination of political determination, understanding and sensitivity to reach a solution."

•On the condition of the refugees:
As far as refugee camps go, these are among the best looked after.

•On India's role:
There seems to be a feeling on both sides that the bilateral approach is what they will be following.

• On whether Asia's financial crisis has affected unhcr's attitude towards refugees in the region:
To some degree. The fact that economic activities are diminishing in the region means that the most vulnerable fringes of the workforce which are probably the illegal immigrants are being targetted. This is an accepted development. The problem is that, sometimes, among these most vulnerable fringes, you find people in a refugee situation. They are refugees but have not gone through the former channels. This is what we call mixed migration.

Take the case of Malaysia and Indonesians. When you are repatriating thousands of illegal immigrants, there is always a possibility that a few among them who need genuine protection also get mixed up in the crowd. This is a problem because movements of people are taking place in the Asia-Pacific region in a large scale across borders.

• On the situation of the Sri Lankan refugees in India:
Repatriation has stopped since 1995 and right now, there is no immediate prospect of resuming repatriation.

•On the Rohingyas and the talks between Myanmar and Bangladesh:
I think we are now seeing the end of this long-festering problem. Two hundred and thirty thousand out of the 250,000 refugees have gone back safely to Myanmar. The remaining 20,000 should be also returning home soon.

•On their safety:
One of our largest operations is in that region. There is a lot of international staff and activities to monitor their situation and also to help the refugees to reintegrate.

•On political obstructions to UNHCR activities in Myanmar:
No, I don't think there are any.

Arming farmers
The recent proposal to set up an armaments factory in Sri Lanka to supply firearms to farmers to protect themselves and their crops against wild animals (read elephants), raises more problems than it solves. It also comes at a time when elephants are being slaughtered indiscriminately in the country—eight were killed within one week in September. Implementing the proposal would encourage more such killing, or maiming of wildlife, while creating a community of armed men and women who can become a menace to society, especially during festivals when, fortified with alcohol, people usually take the law into their hands to settle old scores and resolve family feuds.

This is not to discount the problems faced by people living close to wildlife. Parks and reserves are not insular, and wildlife, especially elephants, spill over and frequently roam outside the borders. Elephants can easily destroy a year's staple food crop of a peasant family in a single night, and at times the destruction includes death of family members. Unless such losses are compensated for adequately and promptly, farmers will continue to call for killing wildlife that pose a threat to them.

Since competition for natural resources is a fact of life, the number of animals any conservation area can support depends on how much the people are willing to tolerate these animals. Many farmers have already lost their patience with the marauding elephants in the face of mounting losses and absence of relief from the authorities concerned. In many rural areas, there are no protective fences to keep wild animals at bay, and farmers have to stand 24-hour vigil; during the cultivation season, the vigilcan extend for three or four months. This is a serious drain on a family's labour and health.

But the solution hardly lies in arming the farmers. Instead, efforts have to be made to figure out why so many elephants are being killed in Sri Lanka. Many of the elephants that fell victim to the farmers were tusk-less bull elephants. These are killed neither for the ivory (which they lack) nor for the meat (elephant meat has never been popular in Sri Lanka). Instead, as well-known Zimbabwean conservationist Graham Child points out, the real cause may lie in the way the farmers perceive the value of elephants. The average Sri Lankan finds nothing worthwhile in having elephants around. For many who live next to protected areas, elephants are a curse, and their killing akin to the removal of pests.

A combination of high human population growth and the declining fertility of land has led to increased encroachment and degradation of forests inhabited by wildlife. It takes about five square kilometres of land to support an elephant in the wild. By that reckoning, the 4000-odd elephants estimated to be in Sri Lanka need almost a third of the country's land area to survive. The existing protected areas cover only 12.5 percent of the land area, enough only for 1600 elephants.

One of the ways to mitigate human-elephant conflicts is to encourage sensible land use, and to ensure that losses caused by elephants are promptly and adequately compensated. For people who face the many problems associated with poverty, elephants must surely be a luxury, a luxury that they cannot afford. So far, the amounts paid as compensation have been much too inadequate. The Department of Wildlife Conservation, after receiving USD 5 million through the Global Environmental Facility, is now negotiating a further loan of USD 40 million. But a substantial amount of these funds usually go to expatriate consultants. If only a portion of these financial resources were spent to improve the lives of people affected by elephant depredations, it may be possible to enlist their support in reducing the slaughter of elephants.

The other option, arming the farmers, can only be a prelude to disaster.

-Charles Santiapillai Jayantha Jayewardene

Don't miss this bus
It was at a meeting in New York in September this year that the prime ministers of India and Pakistan agreed to establish a roadlink across the Wagah border. But, despite many rounds of top-level talks between officials of the two countries, the New Delhi-Lahore bus service, described as "one of the few areas of convergence of views" in the bumpy dialogue process, has yet to get off the mark.

A luxury bus carrying 50 passen gers did leave New Delhi on 6 No vember for its 526-kilometre journey. But it could not cross over as, the Indians claimed, nobody was there to receive them. Pakistan, for its part, clarified that the delay in launching the New Delhi-Lahore bus service was due to "bureaucratic problems holding it up", and not because of Pakistan "dragging its feet", as charged by Indian officials.

The bus service is not simply what defence experts would call a 'confidence building measure'; it is a matter of great human interest. The emergence of nation-states in the Subcontinent after the departure of the British put in place unique demographic patterns, such as the presence of transnational ethno-lingual and religious communities.

South Asian Muslims, who make up nearly half the followers of Islam worldwide, are almost equally distributed in Bangladesh, India and Pakistan. Punjabis are spread over many parts of India and Pakistan, besides the two Punjabs. Villages and towns of Pakistan's central Punjab are packed with people from Jullandhar, Batala, Ambala, Amritsar, Hoshiarpur, Gurdaspur and many other parts of what are now in the Indian states of Haryana, Himachal Pradesh and Punjab. The family of Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif are originally from around Amritsar and so strong are their memories that they have named their new housing settlement near Lahore after the village they left behind in India. For that matter, former Indian prime minister Inder Kumar Gujral was born in Jhelum, now in Pakistan.

Sindhis inhabit the most compact desert in the world, the Thar, stretching across the borders of the two countries. Kashmiris are divided along the two sides of the Line of Control. Most of Sikhism's holy places are in Pakistan as are shrines of many revered Muslim saints in India.

The urge to travel to meet separated families, nostalgic neighbours and old friends is strong. But mutual suspicion and a history of unflinching animosity have never allowed normal means of travel to become a routine affair. Tough visa regulations, an airfare that is too high for most Indians and Pakistanis and the Samjhota Express train that runs between India and Pakistan twice a week, fail to ease off the pressure of long rows of would-be travellers outside the diplomatic missions of the two countries.

That is why many in Punjab and elsewhere had welcomed the news of the start of the three-times-a-week bus service across Wagah. But the proposed Delhi-Lahore bus service ended up where all good intentions to improve Pakistan-India ties usually do: nowhere. There is a view that easing cross-border contact will facilitate terrorism, implying that tough travel restrictions (in place now) will curb it. One has only to look at the situation in both countries to see how unfounded this argument is. On the contrary, such projects of great public interest are more likely to help cool down sentiments of hostility. This is an issue the parliamentarians of the two countries (who themselves do not need visas to travel across) must take up and pursue to make a difference to the lives of thousands of ordinary citizens who wish to see old faces and places.

"Why I look forward to this bus service is because of the comfort that my 75-year-old father will have in travelling to his native village in the hills of Himachal Pradesh. For, in any case, the old man has to take a bus after getting off the train," said a young Punjabi bureaucrat.

The nostalgia for the places where they were born and brought up before they chose to migrate is widespread, especially among the older generation. Said one of them summing up the sentiment: "We have our dead buried there."
-Najum Mushtaq