EDITORIAL: Luckily, the situation in the Chaman border town has returned to normal. Hundreds of people had been staging a protest sit-in at the Chaman border with neighbouring Kandahar province of Afghanistan since the government decided that only holders of valid passports and visas, instead of identity cards, would be allowed to travel across.
Things took an ugly turn when the security personnel tried to break up the protest demonstration, arresting several of their leaders. Protesters attacked government buildings and also pelted the FC’s headquarters in the city with stones, to which security personnel responded by firing blank shots, rubber bullets and tear gas shells.
Sadly, at least 40 people, including 17 security personnel, were injured before the negotiations between some tribal elders, local political leaders and the administration officials helped return to some semblance of normality.
The local communities backed by various political parties, including the Balochistan Awami Party, Pakhtunkhwa Milli Awami Party, Jamiat Ulema-e-Islam (Fazl), Jamaat-i-Islami, National Awami Party, and Pashtun Tahaffuz Movement, as well as traders’ organisations had been demanding reversal of the new border crossing rules. Theirs is an understandable concern, so is the government’s.
If these parties can suggest a workable via media it should be properly articulated. Until now, thousands of people from Pashtun tribes living astride the border freely travelled both ways every day for work, business purposes, to meet their relatives or seek medical treatment in this country.
Majority population in Chaman depends on border trade. The city’s markets are normally awash with all sorts of products. Trade is main source of earning livelihoods in the area, argue their supporters; hence the insistence on doing away with travel documents requirement.
Genuine merchants need not worry, however. After trouble at Chaman, the Badini crossing in the Qila Saifullah district, used for repatriation of illegal Afghan nationals, is being opened for trade with Afghanistan. The government remains apprehensive since at stake is the security issue.
The travel documents restrictions have been imposed to stop the ingress of terrorists, their supporters and facilitators disguised as regular people through the border crossing.
As regards the agitators’ demand, it is true that there has been a long-standing ‘ease of movement’ arrangement for tribes living on either side of the Pak-Afghan border.
But contrary to a general misconception, there never was a formal agreement to that effect. It was a facilitative process that came to be seen as matter of right over the years. Perhaps, it can still be restored provided the government on other side puts a leash on terrorists ensconced on its soil.
Copyright Business Recorder, 2024