Fighting An Army's Empire Options

[kataphraktoi]

Fighting an Army's Empire

Pakistani Farmers' Land Battle Underscores Tension Over Military's Economic Power

By John Lancaster
Washington Post Foreign Service
Sunday, June 29, 2003; Page A19


VILLAGE 5/4-L, Pakistan -- "Ownership or death" is the slogan that farmers here have adopted in their fight for the title to land their forefathers first tilled nearly a century ago. But the farmers have a formidable foe: Their landlord is the Pakistani army.

A contractual change instituted three years ago transformed the farmers from sharecroppers to renters. Many tenants are angered by the change, which they say is intended to drive them off the land at Okara Military Farms -- a 17,000-acre grain and dairy operation that is one of numerous Pakistani businesses run by the military. The tenants are refusing to pay their rent, and have staged a number of protests, several of which have turned violent.

The army has responded by cutting off water to the fields of rebellious tenants, sending troops to surround their villages and arresting hundreds of protesting farmers, some of whom say they or their relatives have been tortured to force them to pay rent. Seven villagers have died in clashes with police or paramilitary forces since the protest erupted in 2000, leaders of the tenant movement say.

As tensions between the army and the tenants have escalated in recent months, the standoff in this fertile region of Punjab province has become a focal point for growing public anger over the military's control of prized economic assets in Pakistan, from farmland and profit-making universities to major industries such as cement production and trucking.

Land is a potent symbol of the privileged status enjoyed by the military, which has ruled Pakistan for most of its 56-year history. The army chief of staff, Gen. Pervez Musharraf, is also the president.

Rapid population growth, insufficient water and a legacy of feudalism have made productive farmland increasingly scarce in Pakistan, where agriculture still provides the largest source of employment. Yet the military continues to dominate -- and occasionally add to -- a real estate empire that includes horse farms, tracts of irrigated croplands and prime residential property in major cities, much of which is allotted to senior officers as part of their retirement package.

In that light, the Okara Farms dispute is "a symbol of the resentment people feel about the army's monopolization of power and resources," said Aasim Sajjad Akhtar, a Yale-educated economist and coordinator of the People's Rights Movement, a non-profit group that has taken up the tenants' cause. "They've become such a huge corporate empire in this country, and the land-grabbing is just one part of it."

Army officials accuse groups such as Akhtar's of exploiting the Okara Farms tenants to further a leftist political agenda that has nothing to do with the facts of the dispute. They say they are charging the farmers below-market rents and deny efforts to drive them off the land. The contractual change, they say, is intended to improve the efficiency of a farming operation originally set up by the British in 1913 to feed their colonial Indian army troops and horses -- similar to the purpose it now serves for Pakistan's military.

"This is not an issue of human rights," said Maj. Gen. Mahmud Shah, director general of the Remount, Veterinary and Farms Corps, which oversees Okara and 23 other military farms. "This is a law-and-order situation."

The courts have supported that claim. In 2001, the high court in the provincial capital of Lahore ruled that in refusing to pay rent to the army, the farmers were "in possession of the property without any lawful basis."

"Legally they can't succeed," Hasan Rizvi, a former visiting professor at Columbia University in New York who has written several books on civil-military relations in Pakistan, said of the tenants' campaign. "To me, the villagers are being used."

But the army's assertion of ultimate authority over the land is also open to question, military experts say, because the actual owner of the land is the Punjab provincial government. The army pays a token fee to use the land, and two years ago the province refused an army request to transfer title to the property free of cost, according to a copy of an April 2001 letter from the Punjab Board of Revenue.

"The issue is there are two parties fighting over land which doesn't even belong to them," said Ayesha Siddiqa-Agha, an Islamabad-based military analyst for Jane's Information Group. Siddiqa-Agha worked in the late 1990s as deputy director of defense auditing under Pakistan's auditor general, the government's chief spending watchdog.

Army officials say Okara Farms provides the military with milk products as well as fodder for pack mules -- used to haul army supplies over rugged mountain passes -- and thoroughbred race horses and polo ponies that the army raises for sporting use.

Under the old sharecropping system, which dates to the farm's inception in 1913, the army supplied seed and fertilizer to the tenants, who then gave the army half of their crop. But three years ago, after concluding that corrupt civilian managers were stealing some of the army's share, military officials instituted a rent system, Shah said.

Because Pakistan's legal code provides fewer protections for renters than sharecroppers, the move sparked a rebellion from villagers, many of whose families had worked the same land for generations and saw the change as a first step toward transferring ownership to military officers and private corporations.

Last year, the army called in the Ranger paramilitary force to quell the protests and force the villagers to adhere to the new system. But the situation has only grown more tense. While some tenants have begun paying rent, many still refuse. As a result, Rangers are preventing movement in and out of several villages, including this one, to pressure protesters.

Last week, a foreigner paid a visit to Village 5/4-L -- the numerical designation is a legacy of British rule -- avoiding military roadblocks by means of a dirt track that bounced through dry fields. Situated on a flat plain crisscrossed with irrigation canals about 100 miles southwest of Lahore, the mud-brick village is home to about 4,000 people, many of whom appeared fully engaged with the protest.

Among them was Bashir Ahmed, 65, who hobbled over on crutches to display the scar from a leg wound he said he suffered when Rangers opened fire on protesters in a neighboring village last summer. "I'm a poor man, and I can't pay the contract fee," said Ahmed, gaunt with a graying mustache. "They shot us because we were protesting for our rights."

As he lay in his hospital bed after he was wounded, Ahmed said, Rangers "forcibly" inked his thumb and made an impression on a rental agreement, which he has subsequently refused to honor.

Ghulam Nabi Chaudhry, 22, said he was arrested on May 9 as a means of putting pressure on several of his brothers, who work as tenant farmers and had refused to pay rent. Chaudhry, a locksmith who says he suffers from a heart condition, said he was beaten on the buttocks with leather shoes and a piece of a tire, and at one point was made to stoop over for 10 minutes while a heavy load of bricks was piled on his back.

"They told me, 'Your brothers are not paying us contract money and that is why you are behind bars,' " he said. After three days, he said, he was released when one of his brothers forked over 15,000 rupees -- about $260 -- in back rent.

Army officials say the Rangers have acted with restraint, and that in several cases villagers have been killed by gunfire from protesters' weapons. They deny the stories of coercion and torture. "This is all fabrication," Shah said.

© 2003 The Washington Post Company

[minx]

this is so grim and gloomy
:ph34r:

but i also wonder if info in biased?

[sinopak]

Biased??

The farmers are tennants, right?? tenannats, as the definition of the word indicated, are not the propety owners. This is attempt at blackmail, if property is not protected there, property all over Pakistan will be in jeopardy.

Just cuz I live in a rental property for 40 years or a million years, it does not make the property mine, right?

[minx]

sino..
by biased i meant my lack of trust in the report about the circumstances.. what this report mainly points out is the atrocities faced by the farmers.. only thing posted regarding the army is their denial.. just on the basis of this little info it is very difficult to even comment on the situation .. let alone try being judemental..

Under the old sharecropping system, which dates to the farm's inception in 1913, the army supplied seed and fertilizer to the tenants, who then gave the army half of their crop

there are countless draw backs of the feudal system prevalent in pakistan..
people keep talking about abolishing feudalism...
and a majority vehemently sides with this need..
but look , if this report even barely reflects the dilemma faced by our society's agricultural segment.. ull see that even farmers are unwilling to accept any change towards modernization...
its a pity...
yeah rite the land being fought over is not the property of the army and the farmers.... in that case it is logical that who ever has leased the land by the owners (provincial government) gets to decide whats the best way to manage it..


this is such a darn vast issue that even trying to nail it with a few posts or many posts is impossible.. :unsure:

[sinopak]

Minx


yaar, what atrocities, here a policeman tells you to stop, you stop, how come?? In Pakistan a policeman tell you to stop and it's OK to disobey?? I find it so incredible that Pakistanis continue to see themselves in a world in which they need not exercise responsibility, a world in which they are unaware of their own selves and the requirement to exercise autonomy of the self.

I very much agree that farmers - Kaysan - find it difficult to accept the socila changes brought about by modernity - but really I don't think this is the proper frame or context to see this issue in, because we will once again be abandoning responsilbiity of the individual towards him or herself. Clearly all the options for the kaysan are unenviable, but life is not stasis or utopia, it is in fact Open, this is in fact an Open Universe and it is so realized when responsibility or autonomy of the self is insisted upon.

This is a attempt by far left leaning politicial operatives to seek a victory over sanity - the issue is really rather simple at it's core, do tennants have the right to confiscate property that does to belong to them, Do they have a right to a veto power over what owners can and can not do with their property.

We have a tremendous challenege, it seems to me, in Pakistan, with regard to this issue. Feudalism, repression and oppression and the ever present, demoralizing stasis of poverty are no strangers to us, regretably, but we ought to avoid a trap that so many in Pakistan unfailingly opt to be caged in, we need to think more and feel less.

This is not a issue about poor landless peasants; afterall I am not rich and am most certainly landless, is my recourse then to confiscate someone else's property?? or stage acts of disobedience till such time as my "demands" are met?? This is in fact the core of the failure of the notion of "social justice" - stealing from peter to pay paul - cuz peter is louder than paul?

This kind of misguided compassion (and yes, that's a generous characterization) is exactly the kind of thing that continues to rob Pakistani "Liberals" of credibiltiy - their adherence to Liberal principles when it suits their particular sense of morality and the complete abandonment of not just those principle but of rationality itself - it is for exactly such reasons that majorities in Pakistan continue to distrust and associate with liberal thought, the abandonment of reason itself - indeed, is this not "self righteous" means, to abandon the general for the particular.

Just imagine the implications if such a action were to be allowed to succeed in a country where the vast majority are landless, poor and uneducated - path to hell paved with good intentions.

[minx]

:hitwall SINO..
pakistanis are one of the most gullible nations in the world..
un fortunate but yes..
capability to think rationally and radically within limits is as good as non-existant...
what people in general think about and their major concern isss being able to find basics and sustain their families..
everything else comes after wards...
as long as this attitude, majbooree it can be called exists,,,, they will remain gullible.
will keep on being used by others , generally the politicians, feudals and industrialists for their own money and politically enriching games..
its the truth...
they are generally like herd,, to be herded...
it is unfortunate but true...
so many things to blame... poverty yessss.... jahliyatt...call it lack of common sense and appropriate education...
most think with their stomach and not their minds..
here i've said it .
this is no excuse to assert someone elses lands or assets, but the general law of the jungle is snatching and grabbing.... who ever gets their hand on whatever...
i aint saying its the end of the world... there are better exceptions.... im just talking about the majority and its very saddening :((
there is a saying in punjabi" wadda badmash"... meaning whoever is the biggest goon gets what he wants... same goes for everyone public or military..

:hitwall

[sinopak]

Minx

Interlocutors here, with whom I have had several such conversations, consistently miss out on a theme that you have outlined - the concern with basic survival.

I had put to them, in the hope of producing a debate, whether it is ethical or moral to be poor? With regret allow me say, that a majority of Pakistanis cannot agree that it is immoral to be poor. The position presented to them was whether a person who over riding cncern is his next meal can be closer to God or is it the person with a full belly and time on his his or her hands to contemplate the meaning of spiritual or religious endeavour, to concentrate on his or her relationship with the creator.

Of course as you are aware of my reputation here as a kaafir, munafiq and assorted colorful expressions of affection, and in that capacity, allow me say that if today we find ourselves the Shikar of these obscuritanists and those who corrupt noble Liberal ideas, and that we find ourselves further away from a religiosity idealized in Quran and Sunnah, it is precisely because we refuse to take responsibility for ourselves and instead have surrender our conscience and will to action to those who profit in our herding.

On this board, there is a thread seeking advice - employment was offered to faithful, the faithful was troubled that his employer used "interest" to generate or increase their profits and whether it was acceptable for his unemployed person to accept empoyment with this company. I highlight this to demonstrate the levels of absurdity to which we have fallen - Afterall, if the ethic of responsibility for oneself is not present, how can responsibility towards any other flow? yet the flower of our youth, the best amongst us, do percieve life and their will to action in exactly such a frame.

"Jiske laati ous ki bhaiss" is a familiar truism, but even confronted with this, actually confronted with anything, ultimately responsibility for our actions and consequences are our own.

[minx]

Sino...
i have seen that pakistanis have very little petience to sustain a discussion. it invariably diverts to a hostile argument and then to open brutal abusive attitude..over petty things..

i've come to a point in my life where i do not bother with an a discussion unless im sure of the other's capability to match my level of patience and humour..
i aint saying im almighty in these attributes... im just saying i know my capacity and hope for a match ..
the best alternative is to present a case and then hear... agree or disagree judging the others flexibility.... when needed keep ur opinions to ur self... end the discussion at an amicabl level... and sit alone and devise ur own results....

share ur observations if someone is willing to hear other wise just stfu.. :ermm

On this board, there is a thread seeking advice - employment was offered to faithful, the faithful was troubled that his employer used "interest" to generate or increase their profits and whether it was acceptable for his unemployed person to accept empoyment with this company. I highlight this to demonstrate the levels of absurdity to which we have fallen - Afterall, if the ethic of responsibility for oneself is not present, how can responsibility towards any other flow? yet the flower of our youth, the best amongst us, do percieve life and their will to action in exactly such a frame.

"Jiske laati ous ki bhaiss"  is a familiar truism, but even confronted with this, actually confronted with anything, ultimately responsibility for our actions and consequences are our own.

i did not get one thing about this example uve mentioned...what level of absurdity are u refering to.. i think i missed the point...

[sinopak]

Minx

"did not get one thing about this example uve mentioned...what level of absurdity are u refering to.. i think i missed the point..."

That a job with the IT dept of company is sought, presuamably, because it pays and allows one to sustain him/herself and family
That interest is the cost of money
That a job is offered with a company in this economy And one is wondering if it would be acceptable to accept the offer of employment with a company that also uses interest to increase it's profits.

The absurdity I was pointing to was the education to be a competent empoyee in the IT dept of a company, wanting to be a professional and yet have questions about the advisablity of notions such as the cost of money; it's like 2+2 never coming up with 4, a surrender of reason by one trained in a discipline based on reason.

[actionman]

Minx

"did not get one thing about this example uve mentioned...what level of absurdity are u refering to.. i think i missed the point..."

That a job with the IT dept of company is sought, presuamably, because it pays and allows one to sustain him/herself and family
That interest is the cost of money
That a job is offered with a company in this economy And one is wondering if it would be acceptable to accept the offer of employment with a company that also uses interest to increase it's profits.

The absurdity I was pointing to was the education to be a competent empoyee in the IT dept of a company, wanting to be a professional and yet have questions about the advisablity of notions such as the cost of money; it's like 2+2 never coming up with 4, a surrender of reason by one trained in a discipline based on reason.

Sinno,

There is nothing absured about discussing an issue, which your not sure about or don't have any knowledge off, and there is also nothing wrong or absured about asking someone who has more knowledge than yourself regarding that particular thing.

Of course we must be define our own paths and not take for granted, what one says or thinks. But to define your path, you must first have sufficient knowledge of the subject for you to be able to differentiate between right and wrong and which turn to take. I'm not talking about making tea or coffee, i'm talking about the true form of Islam, in which interest is haram.

Seeking advice and discussing it with other people does not make you a lesser person, heard of research??? and at the end of the day, you make the decision, for which you are responsible and must live with. Surely that is responsibility, and from which no one can run.

absurdity is people making hasty decisions without doing their research, people making false statements without any evidence or proof and pretending to be, what they're cleary not.

[sinopak]

Actionman

Yaar, for God's sake pick up a dictionary, research the difference betwen interest and usury - usury is forbidden in all thre abrahamic faiths - and please do try to follow the conversation. Next we shall be wondering if it is preferable or permissible to go shoeless if shoes made of cow hide that has not butchereed according to religious specs is permissible or not??

Remember Islam is the middle path, a path that avoids extremes, if only common sense was not so uncommon.

Anyway, I'm sorry if I offended you or made light of a predicament you thought very serious, I'm sorry, OK?

This post has been edited by sinopak: Jun 30 2003, 08:35 PM

[ABCD]

OK YOU GUYS KNOW THAT I AM VERY CRITICAL OF FELLOW PAKISTANIS AND THIS IS ANOTHER REASON WHY


WHAT THE FUC%, READ THE TOP OF THE ARTICLE AND NOTE THE SOURCE OF THE ARTICLE,

AS USUAL ITS A FOREIGN WRITTEN BY A FOREIGN JOURNALIST

Its not that hard you see, there are alot of Indian lovers out there who like to talk #### about Musharaf and his government no matter what.

No matter what happenns they want to make the Pak Army look bad, this goes back all the to the 1971 Bangeli War where many Journalists around the owrld believed that Pakistan Army killed over a million Bengali's in cold blood.

Furthermore they felt that Pakistan got away with it, and they want to hit them as much as possible.

And regarding the issue of land, these people were tenats hired by the Army to work the land, they never owned it or payed for it, yet they lead on that it is there land.

What kind of B.S is that, the Pak Army defends this country and they get some acres while these people out no where demand land that never belonged to them

Anotehr B.S propaganda by an Indian Lover, just like the bull #### on the Thal Canal, Mangla Dam, Kalabagh Dam.

Use your brains once and while and put two together.

This post has been edited by sinopak: Jul 1 2003, 05:24 AM

[minx]

boys..

there is no way of telling about the validility and authenticity of articless pasted here.. (IMG:http://forum.pakistanidefence.com//style_emoticons/PDFEmotionIconsv10/wacko.gif) how come??