Trouble on the borders

For all the right reasons the Pak-Afghan border has to stay closed

The government has rightly reopened the border with Afghanistan for two days, March 7 and 8, 2017 in order to ease what was developing into a humanitarian crisis on both sides, where people were trapped by the closure. Those with valid visas or other travel documents will be allowed to cross. The border will be closed again on March 9 and the burgeoning dispute over border management between Pakistan and Afghanistan continues. All states have a sovereign right to manage their border, it is why passports and visas exist, and national borders nowhere in the world are open thoroughfares allowing unregulated crossing. Even the so-called ‘borderless’ EU states do not allow passage without a valid document. It is immaterial whether the Afghan government does not ‘accept’ the Durand line as the border, the fact is that the Durand line is the internationally recognised border and the matter has been settled for many decades. The border has always been imperfect, never adequately policed from either side, and people have moved freely as they have for centuries. Inconvenient it may be, but in a world where terrorists move through societies and cultures with the ease of wraiths, porous borders are a threat to one and all.

The border closure is a response to that as is the strengthening of controls elsewhere along the line. It is not as is being parlayed in some quarters a talked-up exercise against Pakhtuns, it is instead a belated attempt at better housekeeping and should have happened years ago. As previously noted in these columns the Afghan government has done little-to-nothing to tackle those bent on causing mayhem. That is not the fault of Pakistan and it is for the Afghan government to deal with the snakes in its own back-garden. Even as Pakistan raises its game in terms of physical security along the border, it needs to see a similar elevation in the way it presents the situation internationally. The rest of the world tends to see the problem in black-and-white, without the nuances and subtleties that require interpretation and explanation. For all the right reasons the border has to stay closed. It will not end the terrorist threat, but it does bring an element of management to it.

Published in The Express Tribune, March 8^th, 2017.

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