Abhijith Nadukunnel James Terrorism
Abhijith Nadukunnel James
Terrorism
(Impacts in Pakistan due to Terrorism in Pakistan and Afghanistan)
What is Terrorism?
Terrorism in simple words is use of the violence in order to create the terror among the masses of people, to achieve political or religious aim. The term terrorism was added after its usage in French during the period known as reign of terror in 1793-94. Economists Walter Enders and Todd Sandler defined terrorism as premeditated use of violence by an individual or groups to obtain a political or social objective through the intimidation of a large audience beyond that of the immediate victims.
History of Terrorism in Pak and Afghan Regions:
Pakistan and Afghanistan are the Muslim nations in south east Asia. Pakistan got its freedom in 1947 from the British and is the only Muslim country to have the nuclear weapons. There was a fundamental change that changed the character of the Pakistani society, and it was the Soviet-Afghan war which began in 1979. This provided the breeding ground for the terrorism in the region. After the withdrawal of the Soviets from the region, the people of Pakistan had been forced into violence and weaponization plaguing Pakistan with so called Talibanization. And same goes with Afghanistan, as the as the Soviets left Afghanistan in 1989 the war between Mohammed Najibullah’s government (backed by communists) and mujahideen continued and the government fell after the fall of Soviet Union in 1991. By the mid-1990s Afghanistan had divided into different groups and this division set the stage for the Taliban to gain the power in Afghanistan.
Pakistan and Afghanistan had equal role in the events after 9/11 terrorist attacks in the United States. The constant conflicts and instabilities in Afghanistan after the 9/11 attacks had very negative impacts. And due to the US invasion, Afghanistan not only saw a huge incoming of the refugees from Afghanistan, but also witnessed the sudden rise in the scale of terrorist attacks in Pakistan. These major development in the terrorism drastically affected growth in almost all the sectors in the Pakistan’s economy. Pakistan continues to the heavy price in economic and security terms due to these developments and hence a huge portion of the precious national resources, such as men and recourses in the form of materials have been diverted to deal with the emerging security challenges for the past few years. The rapid rise of violence and terrorism in Pakistan due to the instability of Afghanistan over the years not only caused the serious damage in Pakistan’s economy, but also caused the wide spread of human sufferings due to the random attacks on the civilian population.
Effects of Terrorism:
The rise in terrorism in Pakistan has disrupted the nation’s economic and trading activities. Due to this there has been a rise in the cost of business and the disruption in the production market which lead to not meeting the export orders. Due to this, the Pakistani products have gradually lost their market share to other competitors. This had a major impact on this country who mainly focus on exports. However, after facing long lasting violence for more than a decade the Pakistan has achieved progressive and significant improvement in the country’s security and the growth in the last few years. This has been achieved by comprehensive counter terrorism measures taken by the government under the framework of the National Action Plan (NAP) and the struggle and sacrifices of the security forces. Due to these efforts there has been a major decline in the number of terrorist attacks and the causalities suffered. There was 25% reduction in victims and 7% reduction in terrorist attacks in Pakistan from 2013 to 2014 (Global Terrorism Index, 2015). In 2016, there was 27% reduction in terrorist attacks and 12% reduction count in deaths (U.S Country Report on Terrorism, 2016). Also, the country needs to assess the counter terrorism measures and policies to find out if the amount of resources provided to tackle the terrorism is beneficial. The amount of Anti-terrorist funding in the country has gone significantly high after the attacks of 09/11. The policies to tackle terrorism yields more than 50000 victims which includes the army personnel and 118.32$ billions of monetary costs from Pakistan’s economy since 9/11 (Pakistan Economic Survey, 2016).
In this backdrop, success in counter terrorism has played a major role in creating a better economic environment where the results are now started appearing in terms of a rise in growth of economy in different sectors. As a result, the incidents due to terrorism is declining.
During the past 16 years the direct and indirect costs incurred by Pakistan due to the terrorism is around 123 Billion Dollars.
Terrorism has a bad effect on overall economic activity of a country. For example, in 2001, Israel had 47 terrorist incidents per million people and observed a 4-percentage point drop in real GDP per capita growth. Similarly, in 2003, Russia had 0.97 terrorist incidents per million populations and faced a 0.08 percentage point decline in real GDP per capita growth. However, *Tavares in 2003 studied the determinants and costs of terrorism at the aggregate level, determined by GDP growth and suggested that the economic cost of terrorism is less severe in those countries which have better developed institutions. During this period, Pakistan GDP growth fluctuated considerably. The below figure shows that in 2009, GDP increased by two percent to 3.60 percent as compared to 1.60 percent in 2008 and decreased by 0.5 percent in 2010. It further decreased to 2.96 percent in 2011. In 2009 and 2010 GDP growth was a positive rising but it decreased again in 2011.
Withdrawal of American Aid to Pakistan:
However even after Pakistan’s efforts to curb down the terrorist activities in the region, the United States is not considerably happy and accuses Pakistan on giving safe havens for the Afghan Taliban and it’s Haqqani Branch in Pakistan. Hence the president Trump’s administration decided to withdraw military aid Pakistan, and this is considered to be the most significant punitive actions against the Pakistan since 2001. America has considered to suspend the military aid permanently in the future if Pakistan does not change it’s stand in bringing down the terrorist activity.
According to the analysis, the country Pakistan is still not completely out of the economic impact due to the terrorism. Pakistan should make sure to have enormous resources to enhance productive capacity of the economy by repairing damaged infrastructure and to create a better investment atmosphere. The security situation will play the major role in the future flow of the investment. After adoption of National Action Plan by the All Parties Conference (APC) and its subsequent implementation which is overseen by the apex committees of the provinces. There have been improvements in the overall security situation in Pakistan in the recent months as a result of concerted actions by the Government of Pakistan. However, peace and stability in Afghanistan and the region are vital for the complete revival of Pakistan’s economy and to keep stability in the system.
