Voice For Peace Wants To Help People

The Voice For Peace wants to help the people who are in the conflict region. At the moment the people of tribal areas are in great trouble and needing urgent help. The tribesmen are being killed without any reasons. There is no justification for the killing of women and children as they have committed no crime. They must be spared in the battle. I am needing your advices as how the Voice For Peace will be able to play a role for ending violence in tribal areas and other parts of Pakistan. I am just sharing the editorial of a leading Pakistani newspaper with you.
The UN has described Pakistan's humanitarian crisis as massive, possibly one of the biggest in the world. An agency accustomed to all kinds of human distress seems genuinely over-whelmed. The nature of the crisis is in many ways unique. Within days, over two million people have had to leave homes, often only with the clothes on their backs. They have been displaced into a hostile situation, with high heat, poor sanitation and sickness at camps adding to the misery of those already traumatized by conflict. Many homes have been destroyed, standing crops devastated. In a bid to save them and escape the inhospitable climatic environs of Mardan and Swabi, a few hundred families have been attempting to venture back. To add to the complications, only about 15 percent of the IDPs are based at camps. The remainder are scattered in many locations, often with host families who themselves struggle to cater to their needs. The world now seems to be waking up to the scale of the crisis. The US has pledged $110 million for the displaced and made an eloquent appeal for more donations. The cash-strapped UN agencies are doing what they can; so too are many local groups. But the reality is that the mass displacement represents a kind of nightmare. The situation, like the one that immediately followed the 2005 earthquake, is almost impossible to deal with. There are far too many people involved, far too few facilities.

But the Pakistan government must remember that it is us who will live with the consequences of events currently unfolding within our country. We can only meet disaster by losing sight of this reality. The government, therefore, must take a primary role in deciding what is to be done and how the awful misery of the displaced can at least be eased if not eliminated. We need to think along innovative lines: the possibility of moving camps up to cooler climatic zones, possibly in the Murree area, should be considered. Urgent needs, such as that for safe drinking water must too be identified and made a priority. This step alone could help combat disease such as the outbreak of diarrhoea reported from Jalozai.

Other measures too are needed. One is the question of law and order at the camps. There have been reports of gangs involved in robbery or extortion operating at some of them. Surely it is not beyond our capabilities to police these settlements better. The fact that the IDPs live in fear of criminals is unacceptable. They fear too that the Taliban who many believe will linger on in their areas. Confidence needs to be built on this point too. Other accounts speak of NADRA teams seeking Rs50 to look up details of their record for IDPs, who while fleeing aerial shelling and bullets neglected to bring their NICs with them. This is absurd. NADRA can do without the money and displaced persons need to be rescued from the added burdens of this kind placed on them as a consequence of a decision taken in some air-conditioned office. Schemes to support 'host' families too need to be implemented.

The task is a gigantic one and expands beyond the camps. Scenes of widespread devastation have greeted IDPs who have returned to Buner and parts of Swat. These people will need help to re-build lives. Pakistan must persuade the world and its own people to help deliver this. It must also step up its own efforts and do what it possibly can. Otherwise IDPs who are today helpless victims will return home with anger in their hearts. We must remember similar frustrations have contributed to the rise of the Taliban. This reality alone should be enough to compel us to gear up aid efforts.
http://thenews.com.pk/daily_detail.asp?id=178655