Editorial: The News - 24 June 2013

Tourists’ killing

In an incident that appears to be unique in the history of Pakistan, nine foreign tourists and their Pakistani guide have been murdered in an attack that by mid-afternoon on Sunday was being claimed by the Tehreek-e-Taliban Pakistan. There have been rare instances of foreign tourists being attacked or robbed, and two or three reported murders over decades, but never a mass slaying such as this. The area the trekkers were killed is extremely remote, about 18 hours’ walk from the road. One Chinese man is reported to have survived but this is unconfirmed as yet. Their killers, according to the TTP, were the Junud-e-Hafsa faction and were acting in revenge for the killing of TTP chief Waliur Rehman Mehsud and as a protest against American drone attacks. Ehsanullah Ehsan speaking for the TTP said that ‘This will tell the international community about our feelings and sentiments against the killing of our fighters’. Such are the bald facts, and more details will eventually emerge.

Reaction has been swift; Interior Minister Chaudhry Nisar Ali Khan immediately suspended the IG Police and the chief secretary of Gilgit-Baltistan. The National Assembly passed a unanimous resolution on Sunday afternoon condemning the attacks. Suspensions and condemnations aside, this incident is going to echo around the world. It is said that the tourism industry in Gilgit-Baltistan was in ‘recovery mode’ and that, while not exactly booming, there was a sharp rise in domestic tourism and foreign tourists were also beginning to reappear. Pakistan has the potential – and the infrastructure – to be a world-class destination for adventure tourism, but the attack in Bunar Nullah is going to seriously knock back the much-needed recovery. Reports from local people say that there were no threats against tourists and security for tourists was either very light or wholly absent. This has changed in the blink of an eye as the TTP has brought foreign tourists into its sights, and foreign missions are going to be reviewing the travel advisories for their nationals. The interior minister is reported to have told the Chinese ambassador that Pakistan, rather than the Chinese people, were the target of the attack – which was designed to give the impression that Pakistan was an ‘insecure country’. On the evidence of the past fortnight with mass slaughters countrywide this is a difficult perception to gainsay. Whoever did the killing will have been local to the area, familiar with the mountains and moving around in them. Sealing roads or putting extra guards on tracks and trails will be meaningless as they can be easily circumvented. The jobs of hundreds of people in the tourist industry are now on the line and the image of Pakistan worldwide has just taken another kick in the face. The message from the TTP: all foreigners anywhere in Pakistan are considered targets.

Disasters

Early monsoons have wreaked havoc in the northern Indian states situated at the foot of the Himalayas. The worst affected is the state of Uttarakhand, which hosts a large number of tourists and pilgrims to holy sites at this time of the year. Cloudbursts have induced massive landslides and flash floods in the Mandakini River in the Rudraprayag district, the site of the most revered Hindu shrine of the state. The swollen river washed away houses, shops, apartment buildings, hotels and bridges on its way — along with unsuspecting locals and visitors. Flood-related deaths have also been reported in Himachal Pradesh and Uttar Pradesh and in neighbouring Nepal. The reported death toll has risen to 600, while more than 50,000 people are still stranded in the affected areas. This disaster was so unpredictable that even the most capable agencies would have been caught off guard – and the Indian military has been deployed to rescue the affected.

Disasters such as these offer deep insights about the climate change issues we face the world over. Extreme weather events around the world are taking place with greater frequency and have been attributed to global warming – a result of the indiscriminate plunder of the Earth’s natural resources. The unprecedented floods in Pakistan in 2010 that submerged one-fifth of the its total area and directly affected 20 million people and then again in 2011, forest fires in Russia in 2010 due to record high temperature, Hurricane Sandy in the United States last year which caused massive destruction, and now this disaster in India all indicate that countries must expect such events in the future and invest in disaster preparedness infrastructure. Pakistan must also closely watch for weather systems approaching the country that may cause a disaster situation — and start preparing from now for the inevitable human and material losses that come with these disasters. The consequences of the devastating floods in Pakistan — the worst in 2010 – over the past three years still linger. People are displaced, crops ruined, and homes destroyed. The government must take effective measures to counter natural disasters before they strike so that precious lives can be saved and affected populations are rehabilitated quickly. The people of those areas that faced the worst flooding in the past three years have suffered enough; it is hoped the new government has a more hands-on approach when it comes to tackling natural disasters.