Sherpao demands compensation for bomb blast, operation victims in NWFP

Daily Times, PESHAWAR: Pakistan People’s Party Sherpao (PPP-S) Chairman Aftab Ahmed Khan Sherpao on Sunday asked government for early compensation to victims of blasts and military operation. Addressing a press conference, he said the government had so far failed to compensate the blast and military operation victims and further delay would devoid government of public sympathies. He condemned terrorist attacks in the provincial capital and other parts of country and asked the government to adopt extra security and rescue measures to reduce public causalities in such attacks. He said masses were backing the military operation against militants and if the government failed to kept their sympathy, it would turn into anger. He said there should be political input along with military operation and tribesmen from Waziristan, Bajaur and Mohmand agencies be taken into confidence. He said it was necessary to make civil administration in Swat and other militancy-hit areas effective once they were cleared from militants. He criticized the federal government for not releasing Rs 10 billion in the head of net hydel profit to the provincial government as promised by Prime Minister Yousaf Raza Gillani. staff report


http://www.dailytimes.com.pk/default.asp?page=2009%5C11%5C16%5Cstory_16-11-2009_pg7_15

Pakistan Government Response to Victims of Terrorism

Pakistan Package for Victims of Terrorism Under Study, ISLAMABAD: The government has decided to work out an assistance package under the Benazir Income Support Programme (BISP) for victims of terrorism.

Presiding over a meeting on the BISP and National Database Registration Authority on Friday, President Asif Ali Zardari said that assistance of professionals running charity organisations might also be sought to make the programme more effective and attract funds from international donors to help people affected by terrorism.

Presidency’s spokesman Farhatullah Babar told reporters that the president had appreciated extension of the BISP to Gilgit-Baltistan where more than 50,000 deserving families were being helped by the programme.

During her recent visit, US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton had announced $85 million for the BISP.

‘The world community recognises and appreciates the usefulness of the programme and the way it is being managed,’ the spokesman said.

The president stressed that success of such initiatives required complete transparency and impartiality in the process of selection of beneficiaries and disbursement.

BISP chairperson Farzana Raja informed the meeting that cash grants, Waseela-e-Haq, poverty surveys, Benazir Smart Card, mobile banking, health/accident insurance, vocational training and emergency relief packages were major components of the programme.

‘The transparency in cash grants is being ensured through functional separation mechanism and individual payment mechanism details are available on BISP website,’ she said.

Ms Raja said that under the Emergency Relief Package, Rs28 million had been paid to 3,965 families hit by terrorism in Fata and Bajaur. An amount of Rs26 million had been paid to 3,729 families affected by earthquake in Balochistan, she added.

She said that an agreement had been signed with the United Bank Limited to make payments to the people who had been displaced from Swat and Malakand.

An amount of Rs3.82 billion, she added, would be distributed among them by Dec 5. Nadra chairman Ali Arshad Hakeem said the authority was engaged in various projects and also assisting some foreign countries.

The projects include machine readable passports, identity cards and civil registration, electronic and highway toll collection, IDP registration and cash disbursement, kiosk and e-Sahulat and BISP.

He said that Nadra was assisting Sudan, Kenya, Bangladesh and Nigeria and the UNHCR in biometric refugee registration system.

The authority, he said, was also working with the BISP and the World Bank in developing a poverty database in the country based on the bank’s poverty scorecard which employed proxy mean testing based on 13 variables.

The Hidden Aftermath: Peshawar's Bomb blast victims

Pakistan Bomb-blast victims lack trauma care counseling. 

PESHAWAR--The huge bomb blast in the western Pakistani city of Peshawar on 29 October which left 117 people dead, many more injured and an unknown number of trauma victims.

According to the New Delhi-based Institute of Conflict Management, the blast was the latest in violence that claimed 6,715 lives in Pakistan in 2008 (2,155 civilians, 3,906 “terrorists” and 654 security forces personnel) and at least 650 so far in 2009.

“I fell to the ground with the impact, and could not see anything for some minutes. All I heard were screams and cries for help,” said Muhammad Idrees, 40, who sells bracelets at the market. Many of those who died were women and children out shopping.

Most of the dead and injured were taken to the government-run Lady Reading Hospital, the largest public-sector medical facility in Peshawar. Doctors at the hospital said they struggled to cope.

“The thing is no hospital in the world is equipped to deal with the kind of situation you see when over 300 seriously injured people are suddenly brought to a hospital. Naturally problems occur,” Hamid Afridi, head of Lady Reading Hospital, told IRIN.

With 86 consultants and over 800 other doctors available, Afridi said they were not lacking staff and that support from nurses and medical students living on the premises was at hand, but there was a need for “more formalized trauma care”.

While the hospital has a large accident and emergency care department, staffed by 62 doctors and headed by a trauma care specialist, “we need even more expertise given the situation we now face”, Afridi said.

Panic attacks

Hundreds of people who were not injured are psychologically affected. “I suffered panic attacks for days, even though I was not injured in the blast but just heard the enormous boom some distance away,” said Azhar Khan, 30.

Adnan Hussain, 14, lost all his immediate family members in the blast - including his parents, four sisters and a three-year-old brother. He suffers a far deeper sense of loss. “He weeps when he is alone, so we try to keep him busy,” Adnan’s paternal uncle, Ayaz Khan, said. The family - from the town of Rawalpindi in Punjab Province - were shopping in Peshawar when the bomb struck.

Others suffer in different ways: “My son was a shopkeeper at a stall selling clothes in this market. I know he is dead, but it would give me some sense of mental peace if I could see his body,” Ameera Bibi, 60, told IRIN. Accompanied by her daughters, Bibi still regularly visits the site of her only son’s death.

“The survivors of such incidents need counselling, but there is not much awareness of the need. More and more victims of terrorism are, however, now seeking help and that is a good sign,” said psychologist Asif Khan.

Posted by Hal Newman • November 14, 2009 •

Government Compensations to the Victims of International Islamic University, Islamabad

International Islamic University should be acknowledged for honouring the victims of terrorist bomb blasts in the University few months. The university should develop long term strategies for protecting the lives and livelihood of the families of those who lost their lives in the terrorist attacks. For instance, a special category of scholarships should be established for the victims of terror, for taking care of the students from school to the university.

Read the news report below:

Government Compensations to the Victims of International Islamic University, Islamabad

International Islamic university victims compensation

Compensation announced for IIU victims
Islamabad, Nov 12: The government has announced compensation of Rs0.3 million each for those who lost their lives in twin suicide bombs on October 20 on the premises of the International Islamic University (IIU). Around 40 persons, who sustained injuries in the bomb blasts, would get Rs0.1 million each, says a press release issued by the IIU here on Wednesday.
An amount of one million rupees has already been announced for Pervaiz Masih, who sacrificed his life to save hundreds of female students who were present in the cafeteria when the blast occurred. "Now the government should focus on erecting boundary walls around the IIU to ensure security of students," it said. The news

Pakistani participates in Global Survivors of Terrorism get together in Jordan

Major (Ret.) Tahir Wadood Malik, a survivor whose wife was killed in the 2009 United Nation World Food Program bombing in Islamabad is one of those who participated in the Global Survivors Network gathering in Jordan. He is also one of the key supporters of GSN. You can find more about Mr Malik at his blog: 
 http://gsntahir.wordpress.com/2009/11/12/i-am-a-survivor-of-terrorism-went-to-amman-jordan-to-meet-survivors-like-me/


Please visit the facebook group of the Global Survivors Network at the following address: 
http://www.facebook.com/group.php?gid=202548629609




Please read the press report of the event. 
Marking Jordan’s 9/11, global survivors of terrorism speak out By Taylor Luck

AMMAN - Carie Lemack said she looks forward to working with “the best group of people I never wanted to know”.

Lemack, who lost her mother in the September 11 attacks in New York, travelled to Amman to mark “Jordan’s 9/11”.

Together with Ashraf Khaled, who lost his father and in-laws when his wedding was attacked four years ago, Lemack on Monday launched the first international advocacy group and support forum for those affected by terrorism.

In an event marking the fourth anniversary of the Amman hotel bombings, 18 people from different continents, cultures and backgrounds, whose lives have been irreversibly transformed by violence across the world, formed the Global Survivors Network.

“Disease, natural disasters, fate do not discriminate. But terrorism does. It discriminates against the innocent. We, in Jordan, know this firsthand,” Her Majesty Queen Rania said in a statement marking the occasion.

The Queen described the triple bombings of the Radisson SAS, Grand Hyatt and Days Inn hotels, which killed and injured scores of people, as “horrific and cowardly brutality”.

“The perpetrators of this ideology think that through violence and destruction, they can erode the ties that bind the nations of the civilised world. But they are wrong,” she said.

“The more they kill, the more they blow up and tear down, the more they fortify our determination to stand together for security and freedom. I am proud that the Hashemite Kingdom of Jordan is leading the way in this effort,” she said.

Queen Rania highlighted the Global Survivors Network as a tool to bring together “those concerned or affected by the scourge of terrorism”, noting that the organisation provides information, support and solidarity.

“...It [the network] sends a powerful message of resilience: If global terrorist attacks have achieved anything, they have made us stronger, more resolute and more united against extremism and for peace,” the Queen said.

Lemack, who was an early advocate of the 9/11 Commission and the implementation of its recommendations in the US, said the global network strives to be an international movement away from politics.

“For so many people, terrorism is just a one-day event. 9/11. 7/7. 3/11. But it is so much more than one day - it has life-long and generational ramifications and we need to stop it,” Lemack said.

The media often focus on the immediate carnage of terrorist attacks, she said, spending days analysing and profiling perpetrators while leaving survivors as statistics.

The global network comes as part of an overall effort to “reclaim the narrative” of terrorism, and put faces to each statistic to dissuade the future targeting of civilians.

“People want to hear stories where everything comes out OK, but this is not often the case. They may be uncomfortable and unfortunate, but these are stories that are important to talk about,” she said.

Gill Hicks took matters into her own hands to transform herself from “victimised by terrorism” to a “survivor of terrorism”.

The former architect lost both her legs in the July 7, 2007 bombings in London. Through the traumatic experience, Hicks said she saw “the best in humanity”.

“When they discovered my body, covered in ash, all they knew was ‘one unidentified, estimated female’. Those response teams worked their hardest to save my life because I was a human being, without knowing or caring my race, my religion or how much money I have. That is a pretty powerful message,” she said.

Shortly following the attacks, Hicks established Making A Difference for peace (MAD) to develop proactive peace efforts and bridge cultural divides in the UK and elsewhere.

She expressed hope of promoting the stories of survivors to prevent future terrorist attacks.

“No one should have to go through this,” she said.

The sense of loss is all too recent for retired Major Tahir Wadood Malik, who lost his wife Gul Rukh Tahir in the bombing of the UN World Food Programme office in Pakistan last month.

“I dropped my wife off at 7:45am, told her that I would pick her up at 5:00pm. At 2:30 in the afternoon I came to claim a dead body,” he said.

“I’ve fought two wars... and fought counterinsurgency. I thought I knew death, but I wasn’t prepared for this,” he said.

The WFP representative in Pakistan told him of the planned meeting in Amman, and after giving it a thought, Malik said he decided to make the journey to Amman to learn from other survivors how to live with loss and become empowered.

Noting recent attacks, such as in Peshawar and Islamabad, he stressed that each victim affects a whole family, creating hundreds of Pakistani survivors each week.

“What do you do about it? Keeping quiet is no longer an option; we have to talk,” he said.

Medical services, social and psychological support for terror victims in Pakistan are lacking, he said, adding he hopes to use the network to reach out to people in his native country.

Dr Habiba Rahim Shah said she still receives death threats at her home in Swat Valley, where two of her uncles and one of her cousins were killed in a series of attacks.

“My uncle was killed for talking about peace in a mosque following prayers. The Taliban are going home to home looking for reasons to kill,” Shah told The Jordan Times.

Due to the violence, she has not returned home in over a year, and continues her work in Islamabad. With death threats piling up at her house in Swat Valley, she said she is beginning to fear for her life in the Pakistani capital.

Febby Firmansyah Isran suffered burns over 40 per cent of his body in the 2003 bombing of the Jakarta JW Marriot. Although the physical wounds have healed, the mental and emotional scars remain, he said, particularly in the wake of the recent Jakarta bombing at the same hotel earlier this year.

“When I saw the news, it just all started coming back. This just has to stop,” he said, noting that he hopes to use the network to create more awareness in Indonesia.

“People only want to help when you are in the hospital. Once you leave, you are on your own as a survivor,” he said.

“The truth is our only power to stop this violence,” said Henry Kessy, who was seriously injured in the 1998 bombing of the US embassy in Tanzania.

Yesterday marked an emotional reunion for Kessy, who said he had the chance to meet with colleagues who previously served in the US embassy in Kenya and are now posted in Amman.

The network is actively looking for survivors of terrorism from Egypt, Iraq and around the world.

Through its website, www.globalsurvivors.org, which is to be translated into Arabic, the organisation aims to link survivors with NGOs, potential access to medical and psychiatric support as well as toolkits and guidelines to provide support for those affected by terrorist attacks.

“Nobody can help survivors more than survivors themselves,” Khaled noted.

Also part of the network, a documentary is being developed to follow the survivors’ journeys, detailing their daily lives and the lasting impacts of terrorism.

Filming on the project, which is being carried out by Moxie Firecracker Films, is expected to start by the end of the year in Amman, Bali and elsewhere, Lemack indicated, expressing hope that their stories will make people think twice about supporting the killing of innocent people for political means.

“If we can prevent one person from ever having to join the network, then it has all been a success,” Lemack said.

Also during yesterday’s event, presided by HRH Prince Raad deputising for Queen Rania, survivors along with ambassadors and officials representing the US, the UK, Spain, Pakistan, Australia, the EU, Kuwait, Saudi Arabia, Turkey and Iraq among others planted trees around the Amman Martyrs Memorial.

Jordan Times, Tuesday, November 10, 2009