Sayed Ishaq Gailani, an extremely important public personality from Afghanistan, recently traveled to Pakistan for a Pakistan-Afghanistan Track 1.5/ II initiative “Beyond Boundaries” organised by the Center of Research and Security Studies in partnership with its Afghan counterpart, the Women and Peace Studies Organisation. An additional note to his visa said: Not valid for cantonment and restricted areas. Passports of other delegates traveling for the Beyond Boundaries initiative, carried the same restriction. was This additional note reflects the narrow vision that gave birth to this new restriction. Even a person like Gailani, who spent 26 years in Pakistan with a circle of friends that includes generals, politicians and judges, could not escape this. His daughter is married in Pakistan. And the Gailani family in general enjoys considerable clout here.
As Pakistani delegates of the Track II were advocating joint efforts to ease tensions and expand people-to-people contacts, Mr Gailani stunned them all into silence by pointing to the new visa regulations. He embarrassed us even more by recalling an incident when the only five-star hotel in Peshawar refused him a room on the same pretext: visa not valid for cantonment. The hotel is located on the fringes of the cantonment. The perplexed Gailani, who was a presidential candidate in 2014 too, eventually called up an old friend, a retired general, for help. The general kindly offered him his place for the night—and, lo and behold, the general happens to live in the Peshawar cantonment.
Kabul Airport. Photo: Dr Ayesha Siddiqa
We hope the Pakistanis don't want to destroy 35 years of hospitality, and the goodwill it generated, by pursuing policies that have created more problems than solving them, says Mulla Abdul Hakim Mujahid, a member of the executive board of the High Peace Council
The Track II delegates eventually moved to Lahore for the formal dialogue and an Afghan arts exhibition. Here too the hotel for them was located in the cantonment. Here too we suffered equally embarrassing moments when we were all turned back. Sorry sir, Afghans not allowed. One wonders whether such a restriction is necessary at all and if the establishment considers it “unavoidable” (which we don’t think is the case). Why apply this restriction to prominent public figures and those who are known to Pakistan’s elite?
We sincerely hope these conditions originated at the lower levels of the security bureaucracy and also pray that Pakistani missions be sensitized about the sensitivity involved in this process.
Another issue pointed out by the Afghan delegates was the rude questioning at the border or the airports if they had been to India. This defies common sense because most of those arriving by flights are politically, intellectually or economically influential opinion multipliers. And imagine how their stories of treatment at the airports only adds to the already negative perceptions of Pakistan in Afghanistan. Since most of the Afghans are eventually allowed to enter Pakistan, one is tempted ask how does this interrogation—in many cases insulting—help the intelligence apparatus figure out whether these people have any link whatsoever with Indian or Afghan intelligence? The only impact it has is to generate more negativity for the Pakistani image.
A bazaar in Herat, Afghanistan. Photo: Dr Ayesha Siddiqa
Similarly, this is also the story of Afghan refugees, who are now allowed to live on in Pakistan until March 2017. Mulla Abdul Hakim Mujahid, a member of the executive board of the High Peace Council, also participated in the Beyond Boundaries dialogue. He, too, vented his frustration over the treatment meted out to Afghan refugees. The harsh attitude towards Afghan refugees has created a lot of problems and acrimony in Afghanistan. “We hope the Pakistanis don’t want to destroy 35 years of hospitality, and the goodwill it generated, by pursuing policies that have created more problems than solving them,” said Mujahid, who served as the Afghan Taliban’s ambassador to Pakistan and to the United Nations until the post-9/11 military intervention that brought down the Taliban regime.
Mujahid and other Afghan delegates recalled that many of the 350,000 Afghan returnees have brought back countless stories—regardless of how true or half-true—of victimization and harassment by police and border security forces. This has injected more bad blood and further sullied Pakistan’s image.
Of course, they should all go back but did they really need to be forced out in a way that has filled them with bitterness and rancor, asked Pakistan’s former ambassador Mian Sanaullah. We have turned them into enemies instead of goodwill ambassadors. He called the absence of caution, planning and coordination among the provinces and the central governments extremely clumsy and short-sighted.
Our request: Please don’t securitize people-to-people contacts. While the security apparatus, including intelligence agencies, are an essential element of nearly every state and do play an important role in protecting the people and territory of a country things can go wrong even with a small restriction if the security establishment acts as the linchpin for decision-making on issues such as visas, education cooperation, medical treatment and trade.
Imtiaz Gul heads the independent Centre for Research and Security Studies in Islamabad
