CRS report criticises madrassa reform
WASHINGTON: A report presented to Congress points out that although President Pervez Musharraf vowed to begin regulating Pakistan’s religious schools, and his government launched a five-year, $113 million plan to bring the teaching of “formal” or secular subjects to 8,000 “willing” madrassas, no concrete action was taken until June of that year, when 115 madrassas were denied access to government assistance due to their alleged links to militancy.
The report produced by the Congressional Research Service (CRS) and written by its Asian affairs analyst K Alan Kornstadt, notes that President Musharraf set a December 31, 2002 deadline for such schools to register with the government or face closure. In November 2003, the government decided to allocate about $50 million annually to provide assistance to registered seminaries, especially by paying the salaries of teachers hired to teach non-religious subjects.
In July 2004, Pakistan’s then-education minister announced government agreements with private companies to provide computer education at all of the country’s public schools. She later declared Islamabad’s intention to provide financial grants to madrassas that seek to “impart modern-day education”.
According to the CRS report, the US Agency for International Development (USAID) is implementing a five-year, $100 million bilateral agreement, signed in August 2002, to increase access to quality education throughout Pakistan, with an emphasis on Balochistan and Sindh.
“Yet the most notable project is Education Sector Reform Assistance (ESRA), which accounts for more than three-quarters of the USAID-reported $77.7 million budgeted to date. In this project, USAID contracted with the North Carolina-based Research Triangle Institute to strengthen education policies and planning, increase the capacity of teachers and education administrators, improve youth and adult literacy, expand public-private partnerships to improve access to and delivery of education services, and establish teaching methods that instil democratic attitudes and behaviours among children and educators and draw families into the life of the school community,” the CRS document states.
In financial year 2005, USAID will increase its funding for its Primary Education and Literacy programme in Pakistan to nearly $67 million, almost tripling the 2004 outlay of $24 million. There are concerns, however, that US funding to assist Pakistan’s education reform efforts has thus far been too small to have significant effect. Some analysts suggest that donors such as the US may do best to direct their resources at reform of Pakistan’s public education sector, as they see in this the most effective and least controversial means of reversing the influence of Islamic extremists and their threat to Pakistani stability.
According to CRS, while wealthy citizens are able to send their children to private, English medium schools, the vast majority of Pakistanis must choose between a deteriorated public system that can be physically difficult to access and religious schools that will feed, clothe, and oftentimes house their children for free. “Some analysts are critical of Pakistan government for what they view as excessive spending on the military in a country where abject poverty is rife. Corruption and economic demands also are factors. In many locales, schools and textbooks are available, and teachers are paid, but never report for work.”
Pakistani officials, the report points out, insist that President Musharraf is serious in his aims to bring madrassa curriculum closer in substance to that provided in non-religious schools, with the long-term goal being a curriculum that is nearly identical.”
Some Western NGOs, working with private donations, have teamed with local Islamic groups to reform madrassa curricula. “Despite President Musharraf’s repeated pledges to crack down on the more extremist madrassas in his country, there is little concrete evidence that he has done so. According to two observers, ‘most madrassas remain unregistered, their finances unregulated, and the government has yet to remove the jihadist and sectarian content of their curricula’. Many speculate that Musharraf’s reluctance to enforce reform efforts is rooted in his desire to remain on good terms with Pakistan’s Islamist political parties, which are seen to be an important part of his political base.”
The CRS document stresses that more than three years after its creation, the Pakistan Madrassa Education Board appears to have had “little success in fulfilling its mandate”. Resistance to reform efforts is not limited to Islamist groups, but can also been seen in the statements of Pakistan’s top political leaders. The September 2004 replacement of Education Minister Zobaida Jalal with former intelligence chief Lt Gen Javed Ashraf Qazi was seen by some analysts as a “setback” to reform efforts.
Yet other observers see the move as potentially shielding the government from criticism by conservatives as it goes ahead with reform efforts. The CRS report says that even setting aside the question of President Musharraf’s sincerity and full commitment on this issue, resistance to the reform of Pakistan’s madrassas is “fierce”, and the schools identified as the most immediately threatening to Pakistani society and US interests - though small in number - may be immune to governmental pressure due to their access to external funding sources and their close connections to powerful Islamist politicians.
http://www.dailytimes.com.pk/default.asp?page=story_3-1-2005_pg7_11
NEWARK, N.J. (AP) - A long-running feud over property in Pakistan led a man to call a New Jersey police department and falsely accuse a relative of being an al-Qaida member plotting to blow up the "British Embassy" in Toronto, the FBI said.
Bukhtiar Abdul Latif Katchi, 34, of Los Angeles, was arrested Tuesday afternoon at his home and charged with making a false bomb threat. The relative, who was not identified, lived in Plainfield, N.J., and the two had been quarrelling over a piece of land in Pakistan, said Steven Siegel, an FBI special agent in the Newark office.
Katchi faces up to 10 years in prison if convicted. He was being held without bail pending a hearing Thursday. He has agreed to go to New Jersey to face the charge, said U.S. attorney's spokesman Thom Mrozek.
Katchi had made previous false accusations linking the relative to terrorism "but none had risen to this level of federal involvement," Siegel said.
The relative was thoroughly investigated and cleared of any terrorist links, Siegel said.
"The vast majority of investigations like this are poison-pen cases, anonymous calls or letters saying: 'Mister X is going to blow something up.' Unfortunately, in this day and age, they know we have to follow up every lead, no matter how preposterous it might sound," Siegel said.
The investigation wasted the time of numerous law-enforcement agents since the call was received last week.
"You had guys working 24-7 on this," Siegel said.
Pedro Ruiz, acting special agent in charge of the FBI's Newark office, said the case should serve as an example to others.
"When someone acts so irresponsibly that they would make a false alarm of this magnitude, their actions put the general public at risk. Those actions will not go unpunished," Ruiz said.
Katchi was accused of making an anonymous telephone call to the North Plainfield Police Department on May 8 from a pay phone in California. During the call, he told a dispatcher an individual who was a member of al-Qaida living in New Jersey was planning to bomb the "British Embassy" in Toronto, court documents said. Britain has a consulate in Toronto but does not have an embassy there.
After an investigation by the FBI's Newark and Los Angeles offices that included agents from the terrorism task force interviewing Katchi's relative at his home, agents then questioned Katchi.
He admitted placing the call to North Plainfield police and falsely accusing his relative, adding he came up with the idea after watching news coverage of a small explosion outside the British Consulate in New York City on May 5, the same day as Britain's national election, court documents said.
http://cnews.canoe.ca/CNEWS/World/WarOnTerrorism/2005/05/17/1044282-ap.html