Developmental package for Northern Areas
Khalid Khokhar

Federally Administered Northern Areas (FANAs) of Pakistan often described as “mountain desert” constitutes some extremely sensitive strategic landscape of Pakistan. With the partition of the Sub-continent in 1947, the Muslims dominated areas in North started revolt against Hindu Dogra rule, as some of its parts were under loose administrative control of Hindu Maharaja of Kashmir. The revolt, based on two-nation theory, culminated in success and the present territories now called Northern Areas (NAs) came into existence as a separate administrative entity. The Northern Areas have been divided into six districts: Gilgit, Skardu, Ghizer, Diamar, Gangchi, and Astore. The region comprises an area of 72,486 sq. km, with Chinese province of Xinjiang to the north, Indian-held-Kashmir (IHK) to the east, Azad Jammu and Kashmir (AJK) to the south and Afghanistan and Central Asia, through the Wakhan Corridor, to the west. According to the most recent census, the population is estimated at 2.0 million. The Federally Administered Northern Areas are governed through Northern Areas Legislative Council (NALC) and Kashmir Affairs and Northern Areas (KANA).
The FANAs clearly lag behind the rest of the provinces of the country. Constitutional development in the Northern Areas has followed a markedly different route due to the peculiar characteristics of the area. The areas that today make up Northern areas were once part of British Empire serving as a bulwark against Russian expansionism in Central Asia. Colonial administrators oversaw but never fully controlled the region through a combination of British-appointed agents and local tribal elders. Soon after Independence, Northern areas continue to be governed primarily through the Frontier Crimes Regulation (FCR) of 1901. A political agent was initially given charge of the region. In 1952, the KANA joint secretary was given the responsibility of administering the Northern Areas as “political resident” based in the federal capital. He yielded extraordinary powers, heading the local administration, judiciary, financial and revenue. In 1969, a Northern Areas Advisory Council (NAAC) was created but it was devoid of decision-making powers. Under Zulfikar All Bhutto, the agency system along with the FCR was abolished in 1974, and Gilgit and Baltistan were transformed into districts like those in Pakistan’s settled areas. Under the Northern Areas Council Legal Framework Order (LFO) of 1994, the NAC became the Northern Areas Legislative Council (NALC). However, it lacked meaningful legislative powers and wielded no control over the executive, which still consists of bureaucrats appointed by the KANA minister. Absent from decision-making forums in Islamabad, the Northern Areas also have no voice on the budget. In May 1999, the Supreme Court of Pakistan delivered a landmark judgment on the constitutional status of the Northern Areas in response to Constitutional Petition 17 of 1994. Declaring that Pakistan exercised de facto as well as de jure administrative control over the Northern Areas, the Supreme Court decreed that the people of the region were not able to exercise their right to govern through their chosen representatives because the NALC could not be equated with provincial government.
President General Pervez Musharraf has announced a historic package on October 23, 2007 by giving maximum financial and administrative autonomy for the people of Northern Areas as harbinger of new era of progress. The constitutional package as announced by President has empowered the public representatives of NAs which was the longstanding demand of the people of this region. Nations can only be kept together if their people are given the right to determine their destinies. Some significant reforms include; the 52 amendments proposed in the LFO have been approved. These amendments gave the Legislative Assembly the status of an assembly. The assembly will get full administrative and financial autonomy and the executive matters will come under a chief executive. The assembly will be given powers similar to those that are given to the National Assembly in Pakistan. The minister of Northern Areas will be known as the Chairman of the Northern Areas. It would also elect a chief executive enjoying administrative and financial authority. The Northern Areas Legislative Assembly has been empowered to prepare and pass its annual budget. The waiver of agriculture loans will greatly help the people who have small land holdings and will assist them in concentrating on increasing their agriculture yield. The package will bring about a revolutionary change in the lives of the common man and facilitate them in solving their day to day problems in a better way.
No reforms are possible without the economic development of the area. The political rights are secondary, and development must remain the priority, at least for the foreseeable future. In order to bring this region at par with the rest of the country, the Government has announced a comprehensive package for the uplift of the Northern Areas. Some of the salient features of the developmental package include; the construction of a hospital and establishment of a Cadet College at Chilas. Provision of electricity to the far flung areas has been accorded. The electricity requirements of Skardu and Gilgit would soon be met after completion of the Sad Para Dam and Naltar Dam projects respectively. Underlining the need for fast-track socio-economic uplift of the Northern Areas, the budgetary allocations for NAs, which stood at Rs 800 million in 1999 had now crossed Rs 7.5 billion. President Musharraf announced setting up of Northern Areas Development Working Party (NADWP) to be headed by Additional chief secretary, for approval and execution of the development projects in various sectors. The Government announced one thousand (1000) new posts in various civil departments for the current fiscal year to help meet the requirements to be generated under the new package. Under the new autonomy package, a boundary commission would be constituted to sort our demarcation of boundaries between the NWFP and the Northern Areas in an amicable manner. The loans up to Rs 50,000 for 12,500 Zarai Tarakiati Bank Limited (ZTBL) borrowers are being written off while the interest on the Small and Medium Enterprises (SMEs) loans will be waived off. Korakorum Highway upto Khunjarab Pass would be widened and upgraded and the Central Asian Republics (CARs) would be connected through a new road network. The National Vocational and Technical Education Commission (NAVTEC) would open vocational and technical education centres in Northern Areas for skill enhancement of local youth and to enable them get jobs in various fields. He also announced to upgrade Rehamanpur and Dagoni areas to sub-divisions, so as to meet the requirements of population. The people of Northern Areas, who were neglected in the past, were now being empowered with increase socio-economic development as well as through financial and administrative authority. He said the two new hydel projects - a 16-megawatt and a 14-megawatt project - costing Rs 2.8 billion would be constructed at Naltar near the 18 megawatt hydel project, which was constructed with the finance and technical assistance of China and recently started generating electricity. The government would encourage the Setting up of fruit processing industry in the Northern Areas to exploit the economic potential of this area.
Road infrastructure has a profound and enduring impact on the economic fabric with pivotal role in propelling country’s economic growth on swift velocity. The most effective and sustainable way to address the scourge of poverty is to link backward and far-flung areas with the developed areas. Rs 520 billion will be spent on rehabilitation and upgradation of highways and motorways in the country during next five years. Karakoram Highway (N-35) a vital road linking the Northern Areas of Pakistan with the rest of the country, provides connection between Pakistan and China and the link is extended up to Kyrghstan and Kazakhstan through a treaty called Traffic and Trade Framework Agreement. President Gen Pervez Musharraf has inaugurated construction of Rs 8 billion Lowari Tunnel project on July 8, 2007, which would connect the landlocked and most backward mountainous Chitral District with the rest of the country throughout the year. The Northern Areas Central Development Working Party (CDWP) approved Rs 160 million for the construction of various roads in Skardu district.
Pakistan has taken some concrete steps to provide meaningful autonomy to the Federally Administered Northern Areas extending civil and political rights to its people. The federal government’s effort to grant self-government is largely responsible for bringing peace in the region. The elected and representative government in Islamabad has ensured that political reforms are locally driven and not centrally dictated. The constitutional reform package coupled with economic development programme will frustrate the nefarious designs of anti-Pakistan elements. The Government has envisioned a bright future for the people of the NAs and extensive efforts are being made to ensure the realisation of their aspirations. It will go a long way to empower the people towards self-rule and self-governance.


Axis of excellence
Tang Yuankai

OVER the past five years, 44-year-old Na Heli has seen his home village, where his family has resided for five generations, replaced by Beijing Olympic Park. The park will be the heart of the Beijing 2008 Olympic Games. Covering a total area of 1,135 hectares, the park was designed to be a multi-functional community with business centers, exhibition halls, large-scale stadiums and entertainment facilities after the Games is finished. “We lost our nests, but there is such an imposing Bird’s Nest standing there,” said a smiling Na, referring to the 100,000-seat National Olympic Stadium, a centerpiece venue for the 2008 Olympics in Beijing that will host the opening and closing ceremonies.
Na’s village was chosen as the construction site for the Olympic Park in August 2002. While most villagers found it difficult to leave their homes, Na’s 71-year-old father Na Zhong was the first villager to accept government relocation arrangements. After moving to his new apartment in Beijing’s northern suburbs, the father spent several hours traveling on buses back to his former village almost every day to see the construction of the Olympic competition venue progressing. In March 2004, the father was one of the first selected torchbearers and the oldest for the Athens Olympics torch relay. He completed the 400-meter run, but soon afterward died of a heart attack, meaning he missed the second part of his Olympic ambition, to see the games in Beijing.
Na Heli is bidding to become an Olympic torchbearer for next year, in memory of his father’s long-cherished Olympic dream. Even if he does not get the opportunity to eventually run with the Olympic torch, he has still made contributions to the Beijing Olympics in his daily work. Like most of his fellow villagers, he took a job offered by Beijing Xin’ao Group, the developer of the Olympic Park, after losing his farmland to the project. He is now a manager in the company’s property management department. Optimistic about the future use of the Olympic Park as a business and entertainment center after 2008, Na said, “The Olympics will only lift the curtain for a boom in this area.”
Ancient city
Beijing, with a recorded history of more than 2,000 years, was built as the national capital for a unified regime in the late 13th century. Today Beijing is one of a few cities in the world that maintains an ancient city layout, with a symmetrical plan on a north-to-south axis. The axis of the ancient city starts from Yongdingmen in the south and ends at the Bell Tower in the north over a distance of 7.8 km, with the Forbidden City, the imperial palace, as the axle center. The buildings and space along the axis were invariably symmetrical, mapping the fluctuant contours of the city. On this axis was the cream of urban architectural construction and urban planning. Even today, the axis remains the most important cultural vein of the city, presenting a blend of urban sights and natural scenery.
The landscape designers for the Olympic Park, Sasaki Associates and Tianjin Huahui Architecture and Design Company, defeated 86 competitors for the job by combining historical themes with the city’s ancient plan. The Olympic Park is an extension to an expansion of the city’s north axis made for the 11th Asian Games in 1990. The two design partners planned a 2.3 km-long boulevard across the Olympic Park, which is geographically an extension of the axis to the north and symbolizes the timeline of Chinese history from 3,000 B.C. to present day. Replicas of China’s most recognizable artifacts and architecture from different dynasties in Chinese history will lie along the boulevard according to a historical timeline. A 48-meter high hill will be built at the Olympic Park. People standing on top of the hill will be able to overlook the Bird’s Nest, the Forbidden City and Tiananmen Square, which all stand neatly on the city axis.
Top honor Located at the northern end of the Beijing Olympic Park is a 680-hectare forest park, known as the “city axis leading to nature” by its designers. Fully grown trees will forest about 80 percent of this park. In May, the design of the forest park, by the Urban Planning and Design Institute of Tsinghua University, grabbed top honor at an international garden design competition in Rome. “This international prize for this yet-to-be-finished project is our salute to the Beijing Olympic Games,” said Professor Hu Jie, Director of the Urban Planning and Design Institute of Tsinghua University and head designer of the project. Born in Beijing, Hu believes the best design for Beijing’s axis is to reflect the harmonious coexistence of man and nature. “We hope to bring nature to our city,” he said.
Hu added that in order to make the forest park a window on Chinese civilization and traditional architecture, they had adopted skills from traditional Chinese gardening. Hu said they had enlisted suggestions from gardening experts from Beijing Forestry University on how to best showcase Chinese characteristics in garden design. “We also intend to make the best use of Beijing’s terrain,” Hu said. According to Hu, the design has been heavily influenced by the classical gardens of the southeastern city Suzhou, which are known for their rock arrangements, in east China’s Jiangsu Province. Designers have also adopted new water recycling technology, which processes and reuses sewage water. To make the reclaimed water even cleaner, it is recycled for a second time in an eight-hectare wetland area in the park, added Hu.

(The Daily Mail-Beijing Review Articles Exchange Item)



The way to peace with Turkish Kurds
Jonathan Power

When the Ottoman Empire collapsed, Greeks, Arabs, Armenians, Jews and Palestinians demanded their own homelands. The Kurds lacked the resolve that comes from possessing a single ethnic origin and thus were relegated to the sidelines of the nationalist drama.Most of the world’s 20 million Kurds live in the rugged mountains where Turkey, Iraq and Iran meet, although well over a million have emigrated to Istanbul, Baghdad, Tehran and Beirut, often assimilating well with the local people. There has been a Kurdish prime minister in Turkey and today the economy minister, Mehmet Simsek, is a Kurd.
But just as the Kurds of Istanbul appear cut off from the political attitudes of the rural Kurds of southeast Turkey, so too the Kurds of Iraq, Turkey, Iran, Syria, Russia and the Lebanon might as well be six different peoples. Of course, when Saddam Hussein bombed Iraq’s northern Kurds in the wake of the ending of the first Gulf War, they poured across the mountains into Turkey and the Turkish Kurds helped them.
And today, after the Iraqi Kurds have entrenched their autonomy in the Iraqi constitution, there has been some buzz on the Turkish side of the mountains about building a new, united Kurdistan. But most of the time Kurdish leaders from these countries do not meet, do not talk, and often speak different languages. Atatürk, the founder of modern Turkey, thought that it would be relatively easy to make a Faustian bargain with the Turkish Kurds, offering them full and complete citizenship in exchange for demanding they give up their language, traditions and identity. But many Kurds never sat easy with this arrangement. From the beginning they resented the banning of the use of Kurdish language in the schools and law courts. The first major revolt broke out in 1925 and was brutally repressed.
In the time since the violent PKK emerged in the 1980s, spearheading a new revolt, the best estimates suggest that war with the central government led to the destruction of over 2000 villages and the creation of over 2 million refugees. After the capture in 1999 of its leader, Abdullah calan, the movement lost steam. But two years ago, under the leadership of his brother and in the face of what seemed like broken promises from the government of Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan, the PKK returned to the gun.
At this point the tale becomes weirdly convoluted. Rogue elements within the military, determined to find a way to derail Turkey’s EU entry bid, stirred up the Kurds to support the PKK by running them guns and also acting as agent provocateurs, as when in early 2006 they blew up a Kurdish bookshop in the town of Seminole. The local prosecutor, in his zeal to nail the army, prepared an indictment that seemed to point a finger at Turkey’s senior general, Yasar Büyükanit, who earlier on in the war, as the local commander, was probably responsible for many of the army’s harsh tactics. This pushed Erdogan, who for most of his tenure has had a politicized army on his back, to publicly denounce the prosecutor and support the military.
But behind the scenes the government went into high gear to improve Kurdish life. Within a couple of years water and electricity have been brought to almost very Kurdish village. And in the most recent elections Erdogan’s governing party racked up a spectacular victory among Kurdish voters.

—Arab News