The Friendship Gate — Baab e Dosti — at Chaman symbolises various dimensions of the Pakistan-Afghan ties. While it represents the formal border between the two countries, it also underlines numerous issues that cast their negative shadows on relations.
Despite several attempts and operational improvements, the Chaman and Torkham border crossings often present sad scenes involving incoming or outgoing Afghans as well as trucks carrying trade cargo. Officials on top have been briefing successive Prime Ministers, Presidents, ministers and top army brass about steps being taken to facilitate Afghans’ entry and exit. There have been repeated assurances by top most state functionaries but when it boils down to the borders (Torkham, Chaman, Ghulam Khan), things hardly move.
The human propensity to exploit the needy always trumps the need for facilitation and hamane treatment of the border-crossers.
The downside of all this is that systemic opposition from within state agencies to easement in movement of people and goods between Afghanistan and Pakistan continues to generate hatred and resentment. The opposition stems from personal monetary benefits of officials that represent various agencies at the border including FIA, Customs (FBR), FC and several civilian and military intelligence agencies. All these agencies are present at the Torkham crossing in Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa as well. In fact, conditions at Torkham are reportedly worse than those at Chaman. Most of the complaints stem from ill-treatment of Afghan women and children as well as high-handed conduct with truckers and traders.
Complaints of bribes and maltreatment of people arriving at or leaving Chaman abound. Situated nearly 120km to the northwest of Quetta, this border post keeps resonating with protests over humiliating handling of women and children in particular — something that is breeding resentment.
Afghans with passports and formal visas usually pass through with relative ease but the worst affected are those who belong to communities, for example within a 250km radius i.e. tribes that straddle both sides of the border. These residents have special passage rights but often face misplaced objections by officials.
Pakistani officials explain and justify management in their own way; they say Afghans who possess no visa, or visas that appear suspect do invite tighter scrutiny. Deception by traders i.e. concealing contrabands in trucks under the declared items, or attempts to move undeclared cargo under the cover of transit trade are other reasons for strict official handling of containers.
Reality is that, for example, the scanners at Torkham operate only for limited hours. They often go out of operation, or experience a “glitch” that causes the “need” for physical inspection of the cargo. That means inordinate delays. And herein kicks in the extractive way of clearance by officials because no trader or trucker wants to lose time. Hence the self-serving manipulative handling.
The same happened to three state-of-the-art scanners that Japan donated in 2019 to facilitate the Afghan transit trade cargo at Karachi. But lo and behold, Customs officials at Karachi dedicated only one scanner for the transit trade, and that too for limited hours during the entire week.
During a visit to the port in April, officials told us that two scanners were “out of order”. We have requisitioned the repair work and waiting for response, was the answer.
This extractive regime obviously fills the people and traders with anxiety and dislike if not contempt. This way of handling of course yields financial dividends — millions of rupees every day — for all officials present there, yet their personal gains end up generating more resentment as well as sullying the image of the country ever more.
Nearly 20,000 daily wage workers, cart-pullers and commuters are direct victims of the new visa restrictions, trade regulations and the so-called crackdown on cross-border “smuggling”. What should they do? They pick up cheaper things in Afghanistan into Pakistan and vice versa: they are called smugglers.
Such crackdowns are mere shambolic at best. As massive smuggling and illegal passage of Afghans with or without visas goes on daily, official do stage “crackdowns” every now and then to convey to the rest of Pakistan that “we are doing our best to stem smuggling and the flow of illegal.”
In reality, any real crackdown on these activities, particularly between sunset and sunrise, potentially dry up revenues for officials, hence they cannot eliminate it altogether.
The borders and ports are connectors and a gateway to friendly relations. But corrupt practices there simply subvert that function and instead become a source of hatred, dislike and ultimately contempt for the country. This is what Chaman and Torkham as well as Karachi stand for.
Wonder how we can turn this around.
Published in The Express Tribune, February 20th, 2023.
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