 Good morning, everyone. Thanks for joining us this morning for this event on Pakistan's policing and the role of the Pakistani police in countering terrorism. I'm Moid Yusuf. I direct the South Asia program here at USIP. And I'm very honored to be joined by my colleagues here on the panel who I'll introduce in a second. To start off, just to let you know that the Pakistan-South-Asia program at USIP does a lot of work in terms of addressing intolerance of diversity in Pakistan, countering violent extremism, working on areas which the civil society in Pakistan hold close to their heart in terms of challenging the violence and the extremism that we see unfortunately increasing in Pakistan over the years. And one of our priority areas in terms of addressing the weakness in the state's capacity and legitimacy is policing and the criminal justice system. So this event is part of the work that USIP has been doing over the last three years in this policing and criminal justice space, trying to work with the Pakistani police on various analytical and programmatic issues through civil society and sometimes directly in terms of helping them build their capacity of working on this counterterrorism and countering violent extremism space. USIP doesn't work in the hardware space. It's not about bullets and guns and giving them helmets and everything. It is about the software. It is about the capability of the police to analyze crime, to understand how to react to crime, to see what international best practices and models are in terms of addressing some of the challenges that Pakistan faces. And the bedrock of our work in Pakistan have been the two gentlemen sitting to my right, Bob Pareto and Mr. Tariq Parvez. And Mr. Tariq Parvez has joined us all the way from Pakistan for this seminar and a number of other meetings that he's holding in Washington this week. So once again, this is a very, very important event for us because it helps us showcase some of the institute's work on Pakistan in this sector over the past two or three years. What we'll do here, this is an on-the-record event. It's being webcasted as well. We'll go in order of Mr. Tariq Parvez, Mr. Bob Pareto, and then Ambassador Robin Raffael, about 10 to 12 minutes each. And then we'll open it up for a discussion based on what they say. Let me introduce Mr. Tariq Parvez to you and before that, just mention once that one of the elements of our work is research and analysis here. And this particular event builds on our most recent report, which looks at the Pakistani police and the importance of the Pakistani police stations and the police encountering violent extremism and it's available. And please do pick it up on your way out. We've also recently produced a book on Pakistan's counterterrorism challenge. And one of the chapters in this book focuses specifically on the Pakistani police and has been written by a serving Pakistani police officer who's held fairly high positions in the counterterrorism domain. Another chapter focuses on the legal issues and the criminal justice space in terms of countering terrorism in Pakistan. Mr. Tariq Parvez is the former director general of the Federal Investigation Agency in Pakistan. Also, more importantly, at least to this work, is the founding director of Pakistan's National Counter Terrorism Authority, which is a body that was set up to coordinate all counterterrorism functions, civilian and military intelligence and law enforcement in Pakistan to work directly under the prime minister's office. Unfortunately, ran into a number of bureaucratic problems and has not really taken off as envisioned, but still remains one of the key institutions in Pakistan in terms of counterterrorism coordination. There's a long bio here which is available. I won't go into that, but he's one of the most decorated and celebrated retired police officers of the police service of Pakistan. All yours. I thank you very much, Moid. To begin with, I'm grateful to the USIP for inviting me here, providing me an opportunity to share with you my views on different aspects of counterterrorism in Pakistan. It's certainly an honor to be here with you today. Well, to begin with, I was told that I'll have 15 minutes and now Moid has cut it down to between 10 and 15. You said 10 and people go on to 15, so it's 15. OK, thank you. Well, to begin with, as we all know, Pakistan is one of the worst victims of terrorism in the world today. For humanitarian reasons, we've lost about 50,000 innocent lives killed by the terrorists after 9-11. In terms of economic costs, we've lost billions of dollars, according to some more than $100 billion. And more importantly, we have become more fragmented in terms of cohesiveness of the society. It seems as if we are on the path of a society at war with itself, fighting within itself. At the very outset, I would like to make two basic points. The first one is that counterterrorism is the primary responsibility of the police. There are a number of stakeholders in counterterrorism, but counterterrorism is about arresting terrorists, collecting evidence, interrogating them, and then putting them into the courts for conviction. That's an exclusively policing role. And everybody else, the intelligence or any other organization, has to play a supportive role. That's the first point. The second point I wanted to make was that a very important aspect of the police role in counterterrorism is the level of trust between the public and the police. The public is what you can say like water to the terrorists. And if the public cooperates with the police, if the trust level is high, then the effectiveness of the police is increased manifold. So these were the two basic points around which I'll be building up my case. Police is fighting valiantly, but there are weak areas which need to be improved. My discussion today briefly, very briefly, because you can't talk much in 15 minutes, would be divided into four parts. Firstly, I'll give you a brief overview of militancy in Pakistan. Second, a brief overview again of the police system in Pakistan. And thirdly, areas of concern in police response and then some ideas on the way forward. In Pakistan, broadly speaking, we can divide militancy into three categories. One is militancy in the name of religion. You can call it mittenar. What I've done is that I've tried to lump all militant organizations which use religion to justify their militant acts into one group, no matter what the targets, no matter what the murders or printouts. But if they are using religion to justify militancy, then that is mittenar or militancy in the name of religion. The second type of terrorism in Pakistan is by the sub-nationalists, primarily in Balochistan. Third is ethnopolitical, which is primarily in Karachi. Just to give you an idea of the relative significance of these three types of militancies, during 2013, out of the total terrorist attacks in Pakistan, 64% were carried out by mittenar, 24% by sub-nationalists, and 12% by ethnopolitical militant groups. So that brings out the point that the most active group in Pakistan, as far as terrorism is concerned, is mittenar, militancy in the name of religion. But surprisingly, if you divide up the number of people killed by the terrorists, the share of the mittenar people, mittenar militants, is 80%. 64% attacks killing 80% of the people of the total terrorist scenario. Very broadly, what are the trends in militancy? As far as mittenar is concerned, it has become more variegated, widespread, lethal, and involved in criminality. When I say variegated, what I mean is that from a one-dimensional militancy in the 1990s, Shia Sunni terrorism, it has now evolved into nine more forms. There is dobandu-brelvi killing. There is anti-communal killing. There is militancy for enforcement of Sharia. There is militancy for enforcement of what you can call the vice and virtue brigade, anti-West, anti-Afghanistan, anti-India, all inclusive. Nine, the point I want to make is that with the passage of time, if whatever we are doing we continue, the variants of mittenar are going to increase, finding expression into new areas. They have become widespread. In 1990s, they were only in Punjab. sectarian terrorism was in Punjab. Today, we have all over the country. It's become lethal. In 1990, it was a simple hit-and-run terrorist activity. Today, we have sophisticated suicide attacks, coordinated attacks. And criminality. In 1990s, there was hardly a case. I can say this from my own experience. I don't have the statistics right now. There was hardly a case of militants being involved in crime. Whatever the reason, there were other sources of funding or whatever. Today, according to the police officers, the main source of funding of the militants, particularly mittenar, is crime, kidnapping for ransom and all that. As far as sub-nationalism is concerned, they're confined to Balochistan. But a new trend is discernible. And that is the involvement of the middle class. Previously, the sub-nationalists were herded mostly by Sardars. It was more a tribal affair. But now, Dr. Al-Nazar, with his group, is basically from the grassroots level. And that, I think, is something very, very significant development. As far as ethno-political is concerned, although they are confined to Karachi, and the number of attacks isn't much, but Karachi is the economic hub of Pakistan. And if you destabilize Karachi, you are destabilizing Pakistan. The important point to be kept in mind when we talk about ethno-political militants is that according to some analysts, police officers, even the Supreme Court, some of the acts are perpetrated by the militant wings of mainstream political parties. That's Karachi. This was a broad idea of how the militancy in Pakistan looks like. Now we come to the police system. We have two types of police laws in Pakistan. Two provinces have one type of law, which is the Police Act of 1861. It is in Sindh and Balochistan. And two provinces have Police Order 2002. That is Punjab and KPK. Now Police Order 2000 to 1861 is the Police Act we inherited at the time of independence. Police Order 2002 was a major effort to reform the police. And the most important components of this act was to de-politicize police, number one, and to make accountability more effective. This was started by General Musharraf. But as soon as we got elections, I believe it was 2004, the elected chief ministers forced General Musharraf to amend Police Order 2002 so that they have the political control of the police again. The police in Pakistan is based on provincial basis. There is an inspector general of police who heads the police. And so we have seven police forces in Pakistan, one for East province, four provinces, one for Islamabad, five, Gilgit-Baltistan, and Azad-Kesme, seven. It comes to a total of 400,000 people. The biggest police force is of Punjab, 177,000 people. And the smallest police is of Gilgit-Baltistan, 5,400 people. Now, what is the police response to counterterrorism? Firstly, in terms of the system, the police responded in two dimensions. Number one was to set up specialized counterterrorism agencies, like counterterrorism department, like rapid response force, the military part. And the second was to strengthen the police station because the first responder is the police station. The unit which is the cutting edge of the police administration is the police station, which interacts with the community 24-7. We will not be talking about the specialized agencies, as Mohd has pointed out, but focus instead on the police station and improving the police trust because it is the police station and the police units which are responsible for trust or lack of trust between police and the community. But let me add very briefly the working environment in which the police is working today in Pakistan. In 2013, 334 police officers were killed. So that means that hardly a day passed without the news of a police officer being killed by a terrorist. And this year, in Karachi, during the first six months, 100 police officers have been killed, only in Karachi. And personally, I think that it's a form of a blowback effect of whatever is happening in North Wajiristan. Then the police leadership, one of our outstanding officers, Mr. Safad Ghayur, Inspector General of Police, always leading the troops from the front was killed by the terrorist in a suicide attack. The point I want to make is that despite all constraints, the police is fighting back. And you'll be surprised. We have eight cases of police constables who knew that the suicide bomber was approaching them. And even then, they decided to move on and to grapple. There was one video which was amazing in the sense that the suicide bomber was going to attack premises. And the police officer is there to check him. And the suicide bomber says, I am going to blow myself up. Stay away from me. But the police constable, he moved on and he grappled. And he was blown up with a suicide bomber. So that's the type of response from the police. Now, what are the major areas of concern? The first major area of concern, and I'm talking from the perspective of the public trust in police, is the police image and performance which needs considerable improvement. Because of complaints of corruption, rude behavior, professional incompetence, and selective accountability. The accountability is there, but it's selective. By that, I mean, I'll explain it later also, that the police misconduct is addressed only if it is highlighted in the media, or only if some influential person gets involved. Otherwise, as far as the common man is concerned, the police complaints go largely unaddressed, such is the system. And well, I can tell a lot of stories, but I would like to move on. Let's move, passes me on, and please wind up. The second area which is responsible for adversely impacting on public trust is political interference. In fact, if you ask me, what is the single most important factor responsible for a police, poor police performance, I would say it is political interference. This political interference has a number of negative fallouts. One in which we have done some work also, the USIP, is the brevity of tenure. Now, this is something which the police officers would talk about, but the public wouldn't know about it. We carried out an exercise to find out what is the average tenure of police officers of different ranks. And we found that the average tenure of a provincial police chief was nine months, and the average tenure of the police chiefs of the mega cities was four months or four and a half months. During the last three years, Karachi's police chief, now Karachi is sort of a mini hub of terrorism, so much happening there. And the police chief was transferred after every four months during the last three years. Now, what do you expect him to do? What do you think that he can formulate policies? Do you think that he can think long term? Do you think that he can hold people responsible? No, not at all. The mindset is totally different when you also know that well. It depends on the will of the political masters. So as you go down the hierarchy, when we come to the police station, the cutting edge of police administration, it was three months in the whole country and less than three months in Karachi, where you would expect that. Now, how sharp a cutting edge can be if the SHO or the in charge of the police station knows that he's going to be there only for three months? Can you hold him responsible? Can you hold him accountable? Can you ask him what is he doing or what is he not doing? Can he develop a rapport with the community? He wouldn't even know who is the good man or who is the criminal or who is not. So this is one, why? Now you can ask me, why is it so? Because the political leadership has control over the postings and transfers of police officers. And they get people posted. Whenever somebody refuses to do anything, he is transferred back. It's not his performance. The system does not provide for calling the explanation or hearing out the police chief before his transfer. Second, political interference is in selecting the police leadership. Now, like every department, police has its share of honest and competent and outstanding police leaders. And we have our share of corrupt and dishonest police leaders. Now, the political parties in selecting a particular police officer has, I would say, influences the entire culture of the department. If they select a honest leadership, in one of the provinces these days, luckily, the political party has absolutely made it clear that there will be no political interference in postings and transfers. And we can feel the difference, although it's been less than a year. But still. So unless we do something about the political interference, and there is very strong resistance, because the basic ethos of the political culture in Pakistan is that if you want to be a successful political leader, you've got to have the police control over the police. Second, laws. Now, we have laws, lots of them. But they're either deficient or not implemented. I'll give you two examples. Number one is the Anti-Terrorism Act, which is the basic law for countering terrorism in Pakistan. The definition of the terrorist act is so broad that you can rope in almost everybody. You might be surprised to know that the acts of the demonstrators in Islamabad, we agree or not agree with it. That's a different aspect. But the cases under the terrorist act were registered against Tahirul Qadri and Imran Khan. You can condemn the acts, certainly. But they were no stress of imagination called to call these acts the terrorist acts. Similarly, the police overreaction and killing of 14 people in Lahore, Model Town, certainly condemnable, absolutely disgusting and sinful act of the police. But it's not terrorism. Again, the case was registered under the Anti-Terrorism Act. Similarly, according to the research we carried out, 20% of the cases were decided by the courts as not being terrorist acts. Now, 20% is a large number. Imagine the police had to investigate those cases and then to send them up to the court, and these were transferred to other court. Then there is a high rate of acquittal. Now, Anti-Terrorism Act or anti-terrorism law has a basic role of serving as a deterrent to the terrorists. I have interrogated a number of terrorists who were just not bothered about having been arrested because they said we'll be out of the jail within a couple of years. So no problem. Just rough out the first few weeks, and then it's OK. According to some analysis, the conviction rate is 20%. Now, imagine the terrorists also know about it, that the rate of conviction is only 20%. But this is, now, this impacts on the level of public trust also because if the public cooperates and the terrorists, they come out, they are acquitted. Well, number one, when they come out, they target the police officers who interrogated them. They target the public who gave information to the police. So what is the impact that the public says that let's stay away from this. We don't have any witnesses. They're not prepared to become witnesses. They're not prepared to give any information. So this is one aspect. And in fact, the USIP is already carrying out a study to evaluate the effectiveness of Anti-Terrorism Act as an instrument of counter-terrorism. The second is police laws are deficient. As I've already stated, there is a tussle going on between Police Order 2002 and the Police Act 1861. For that, at this point in time, the Police Act 1861 seemed to be winning out because it was there since 1947. And it gives total control over the police to the political leadership. And Police Order 2002 aims to have an accountable police through Independent Police Compliance Authority. And it's a fixed and tenor. Police Order 2002 has fixed the tenure of the provincial police chief as three years and the capital city police officers as three years. Even in the provinces where they say that Police Order 2002 is implemented, the tenor factor is out. They don't stick to it. Way forward, some of the ideas, it's a very wide subject, but some of the areas, again, by way of emphasis, the way forward, number one is ensuring primacy of police in the counter-terrorism role. And primacy means giving them adequate resources, giving them adequate authority, giving them training, technology, and taking measures which lead to improvement of trust in the community. And the second is the trust factor. As a police officer, I can say that the trust level is extremely low, and which makes policing very difficult for us in Pakistan. So specifically, the first, I would be suggesting three measures for the way forward. The first one is encouraging internal reform. The reform effort has to come from within the police. And luckily, at this point in time, we have a group of officers who have international experience, who have served in UN peacekeeping missions. Some of them have done their masters from universities abroad. We have two police officers, I know, who've done their PhDs, one in Al-Qaeda and another one in probably forensic science or something. So this group of officers are committed to change when they go back home. And the good thing is, and the USIP is playing a role in bringing them together so that there is a forum for them to articulate their thoughts and to come up with specific suggestions. Second is the police reforms group. That's the retired police officers. And we started off by having informal discussions about different incidents or whatever was happening. And then we decided to form a group, which is police reform group. And interestingly, what happened was the serving police officers established contact with us to agitate certain issues in the public which affect them adversely. But they couldn't do it because they can't write in the public. They can't trust themselves in the media. And so that is a nexus, which again, I would say, the USIP is also encouraging it. But we're doing it on our own also because that's our department and this thing. So this nexus of the serving police officers within, retired police officers outside. And we have developed a group in the media and others who are committed to change. Second is public awareness sustained campaign to identify and address public issues. The point here is that public is disillusioned with police performance, yes, by all means. But the objective is to highlight the issues due to which the public is disillusioned and to suggest ways and means to do something about it. Brevity of Tenor, I wrote an article in one of the newspapers and I was surprised, in fact, for me it was something routine. But I was surprised by the public response that we didn't even know about it. That Tenor was so less, you're absolutely right. So that was one. But the second area was that one of the provinces decided to dismantle a counter-terrorism department because the police was not good enough and to raise a new department called the Counter-Terrorism Force, manned exclusively by retired and serving military officers. There was an uproar in the police department. Oh my god, what are they going to do? And it indicated lack of confidence also. So a sustained media campaign was started by the retired police officers, the group PRGs. And one of the factors, I wouldn't say, one of the factors which led to the reversal of this decision by the government was the media campaign built up. This indicates that if you go to the media, you can have tangible results. And thirdly, to evaluate laws to improve framework for police performance. There is no legal audit. There is no legal audit. As I said earlier, we have lots of laws. But there is no legal audit to find out the effectiveness of these laws. This should be from the perspective of the courts. This should be from the perspective of the police officers, from the perspective of the prosecutors. And this will get together and see which laws are effective. Because laws provide the framework. If the framework is defective, then we can't do much about it. Well, terrorism is a tactic which is likely to be here for some time. So let us think long time. We have to take measures to improve and develop institutions which has the role of counterterrorism. Thank you very much. Thank you. Thank you, Tarak Sir, for this very, very comprehensive and coherent analysis of the situation. We'll come back to questions when all the panelists are done. I just wanted to share two anecdotes in the lighter vein, having followed this police work for a while from USIP's perspective. And otherwise, I was in Karachi recently and you're talking about tenure. And the day I landed in Karachi, the police chief of Karachi was removed rather unceremoniously by the government. So I was with a couple of police officers, serving police officers. And I asked them, what happened? I heard this guy had a very good reputation. And he said he made a tactical error by selecting constables for the police. And he ended up selecting all of them purely on merit. So the political government didn't really like it. And the other one was this fascinating conversation about the Anti-Terrorism Act. Where the court had thrown out a case saying that this doesn't fall under the terrorism act jurisdiction. And so this investigating officer was being asked by a senior police officer on why was this put under ATA? When an identical case sometime back was put under the sort of regular system. And he said, well, in that, we found out that only one bullet was fired. Here, there were 12 bullets fired. So I decided to put it under the Anti-Terrorism Act. So it's fairly arbitrary in how they do it. Let me introduce Bob Purito quickly. He's the executive director of the Purito Group, which advises the US and foreign governments on reforming security security institutions. Bob was previously the director of the Security Sector Governance Center at USIP. He's had a career as a US Foreign Service Officer, spent a long time with the INL and the Department of Justice, really standing up and analyzing police forces around the world. And if any of you follow the police, you couldn't have missed his name, including his book, The Police in War, which is one of the most sort of red books if you're looking at policing around the world. And Bob, as I said, has been the key mover and shaker for USIP in terms of all our work in policing in Pakistan. Bob. Thank you very much, and welcome this morning. It's a pleasure to be here. It's a particular honor to be on this panel with the co-author of our latest report on Mr. Tariq Pravez. The report countdown, I'm sorry, counterterrorism role for Pakistan's police stations is available in the back. So please pick one up if you haven't already done that. As Tariq has pointed out, maintaining law and order in Pakistan's major urban centers is the responsibility of Pakistan's four provincial-level police forces. Policing in Pakistan is a provincial-level responsibility, not unlike in the United States. But the difference is that there is a national uniform police officer corps, the police service of Pakistan. This is an elite corps of people who are recruited through a merit-based civil service examination, and they served throughout the country, which provides continuity for the police. The basic institution of law enforcement in Pakistan remains the police station, which provides the full range of police services. It is often the most visible and physical manifestation of government at the local level. As in all countries, the police are the face of the government in Pakistan. Given this primary responsibility for both security and governance, the report that we've written argues that provincial police should be given primacy for controlling the various kinds of terrorism violence that Tariq has outlined. Terrorist violence, sectarian violence, and insurgent violence all in urban areas. Using paramilitary forces or the army, as has been done in Karachi, or creating militarized police units that kill or capture terrorists in the streets is not an effective solution to countering terrorism. In fact, the most effective solution is to identify would-be terrorists before they commit crimes using information provided by citizens to the police. That's this law enforcement-based approach is the basic system we use for countering terrorism in the United States. It's basically the system that you use for countering terrorism in Europe. It's an information-based system. It fundamentally relies on good relations between the police and the community. We believe that this approach to countering terrorism really should be formally assigned to the local police station, building on the advantages that accrue from its position as the basic law enforcement institution in the country. Police stations have a pervasive presence in Pakistan. There are more than 1,400, almost 1,500 of these spread throughout the country. Local police, which is where local police work, are integrated into the community. They are a repository of information about local conditions, local personalities, and criminal networks. There also is referred the first responders to terrorist incidents. Effective local law enforcement can remove terrorists from the streets for committing ordinary crimes. Terrorists often commit crimes to obtain funds. This is true in Pakistan, where kidnapping for ransom and armed robberies are tools that are used by the Pakistani Taliban to raise money for their activities. To be effective, however, the assignment of this new responsibility, and it would be a new responsibility at the police station level, must be accompanied by an infusion of resources and by developing new procedures and training programs. These modernizations, however, are consistent with international practice. There's nothing really new here. They are long overdue, and that they should be undertaken to provide the type of policing required by Pakistan's increasingly urbanized environment. And those of you who may have noticed the prestigious ICG published a report in January that made this point. These reforms would also be cost effective, because they would utilize existing institutions and personnel and would involve ending a range of current practices which, frankly, are wasteful and counterproductive. So what are the problems here? And I can see Hassan Abbas sitting there thinking, hmm, let's see, we're going to use the police station. The police station has a lot of problems. And I would agree, the police station does have a lot of problems. And we've heard that Pakistan police station culture, this so-called Thana culture, is authoritarian. It's often corrupt, and it's extremely resistant to change. Political elites have we heard who oversee the police have vested interest in trying to prevent change that would reduce their authority and narrow the opportunities that currently exist to exert influence or to obtain illicit financial benefits. Moreover, local police are overwhelmed with new demands. The basis for our report is a series of interviews that Tariq and I conducted in Pakistan with police officers who came together at Tariq's invitation from all over the country. So one of the points that police officers made to us is that we're drowning in a whole range of new requirements that have been levied on us, because Pakistan is changing from a primarily rural to a primarily urban country. One police service of Pakistan officer told us that he had been instructed by various local politicians in the previous few weeks to do the following things, to help the electric company disconnect city residents who had illegally tapped into the power lines, to dispense polio vaccine to children at police roadblocks, to prevent the pricing, the illicit pricing or the irresponsible pricing of vegetables in vegetable markets, and finally to monitor kite flying to prevent fights over the intentional cutting of kite strings in kite flying contests, anyway. This officer was also struggling to meet the demands for personnel protection, for personal protection from politicians and other influentials. At any given time, from 40 to 60% of police station personnel may be engaged in Pakistan today in providing VIP protection. And this is particularly true of these rapid reaction units that were created to fight terrorism, but as a practical matter are being divided up into small groups of two or three officers and assigned out to do guard duty at buildings or the homes of influential people. However, as we have heard, the situation in Pakistan is reaching a crisis point. In August, as Tarik has said, terrorists were reported to have killed the 100th police officer in that city just this year. And so hopefully in times of crisis and then some change may actually become possible. So what should we do? What should be done? The report outlines a four step process that would be required for the police station and its personnel to assume a more formal responsibility for countering terrorism and extremist violence, providing a key role to the local police in combating terrorism would begin, first of all, by developing standard operating procedures for the police to define the role of the police and then providing the training programs that would enable them to be able to perform the tasks that are assigned. It's hard to believe, but currently in Pakistan, there are no standard operating procedures for police in responding to terrorist incidents or standard operating procedures for the police in protecting their own stations. We spoke with one officer, surrounded by a group of colleagues who all were nodding their heads when he said this, but he said, I want to tell you about my experience. He said I was nearby when a suicide bomb blast went off. He said my first reaction was fear. He said I had to control myself because my first reaction was to run away. But after I got control of myself, he said I ran to the scene. When I reached the scene, he said I realized I had no idea what to do, nor did anyone else who came. And so without that kind of pre-thinking, the development of standard operating procedures which exist in police forces around the world and then the training so that this becomes second nature for personnel who respond to violence, local police simply become bystanders along with everybody else. Second, information collection, record keeping and communication between police stations and police stations in higher authorities is antiquated. For those of you that have been in Pakistan police stations, you'll know that in most cases, records are kept by hand in large, very attractive leather bound volumes. These volumes however, never leave the station. Police station record keeping must be computerized and networked by introducing new procedures for information collection, new equipment and computer trained personnel. Modernizing the current system and employing computer literate personnel has been done in major, in model police stations in the major urban centers. We visited several where thanks to US assistance, you had computer trained people, new computers, everything being logged into a system. The only trouble with the system is it never left the police station because the system, the police stations, even the most modern were not networked together. And so each police station at its own database, but nobody could tap in. Third, each provincial police force has a counterterrorism department as we've heard. Each has a trained rapid reaction force, but these provincial counterterrorism departments really need to formally be given an enhanced role in coordinating counterterrorism reporting and enforcement. So for reforming the bottom up, that will be met by reforms coming from the top down. CTDs, counterterrorism departments already play a role. They provide expertise. They also try to collate, analyze and disseminate information. But this could be done far more effectively in a far more timely manner. And because now, believe it or not, most of the counterterrorism or terrorism related information within the Pakistani police circulates by circular, which moves at the rate of mail. Finally, improvements in police capacity must be accompanied by efforts to improve police community relations so that citizens will be more willing to work with the police. Last year, Tariq and I did a similar report entitled Empowering the Pakistan Police and copies are available at the back again. What we did is we interviewed serving police service of Pakistan officers and we asked them to tell us what they were doing in their own constituencies. And what we got was an amazing variety of very innovative ideas. The problem was that these ideas lasted only so long as that particular officer was in charge when he was posted out, as we've heard, every three months or every six months, the reform stopped. And so what we would argue is that we have proven methods to improve police community relations all in a counterterrorism context. What we need to do is institutionalize these reforms across the forces in Pakistan. These are proven. They were done under existing legal authorities and within existing financial resources. So there is an untapped resource here. What we believe is that if Pakistan would manage to fully integrate the police station and the local police into its counterterrorism effort, it would be able to utilize an existing resource that has so far either been sidelined or has been ignored in favor of creating paramilitary forces or special police units. You know, prior to Ferguson and the television coverage of that event, it used to have to try to explain what a militarized police unit looked like. But I think now we all have very vivid images of what the militarized police look like. This is not to say that these kind of units are unnecessary. They are unnecessary. And in situations where you have armed attacks by large forces, say the one that occurred at the airport in Karachi, you do need these people. They are effective in dealing with that kind of incident. But mostly they are not present when terrorist incidents occur and it's the local police officer who has to take the immediate action or better yet, it would be the local police officer who would take preventive action. We had one case in which a police officer told us he had given a little training course to his constables that he had developed himself. And it was a one-week course in how to be alert to terrorist in your community. And he said one of his officers the next day when the course ended was talking to a man who ran a little restaurant. And this man said something strange is happening here. Every day a man comes and he buys 10 lunches. And he takes them over to a house and we look at the house and there doesn't seem to be anything there. So the police raided the house. Of course it was a terrorist cell. Okay. So we believe, and the report argues, the better solution lies in empowering Pakistan's local police to fulfill their mandate, to protect their communities from terrorism and extremist violence through modernization and reform. Thank you. Thanks. Thanks, thanks Bob. And again the reports that Bob mentioned are available here so feel free to pick one up. Moving right along, given the time to Ambassador Robin Raffael who's a senior advisor for Pakistan to the special rep for Afghanistan and Pakistan, SRAP at the Department of State. She was also the civilian assistance coordinator in Pakistan and coordinated much of the increased US civilian assistance effort in Pakistan between 2009 and 11. She was based in Islamabad then. She is also the first assistant secretary of state for South Asian affairs, which was a portfolio she held in the 90s during the Clinton administration. Ambassador. Thank you very much Maweed. And for me as well, it's a great pleasure to be back at USIP and to be on a panel with old friends and real experts on the police business. I'm just gonna make a few comments on US programs and the US perspective on all of this. As some of you probably know, the US has been assisting Pakistan with law enforcement since 1982. Our programs actually go back a long way. That was when we signed the first letter of agreement with the government of Pakistan. The programs under that letter of agreement included law enforcement reforms, aviation support, border control training, corrections administration, prisons administration, and then a fair amount of counter-narcotics activities in those days, CROB substitutions, small development projects, small roads and so on. Since 2002, when we restarted our assistance program after the sanctions in the 90s, we developed a nationwide police program for KP, Sin, Punjab, Baluchistan, Islamabad, the levies in FATA, the Frontier Corps and the Frontier Constabulary, and several of the federal law enforcement agencies. And the goal was to increase the ability of the Pakistan police to maintain peace and security, to extend government authority, particularly along the Pakistan-Afghanistan border, and to disrupt terrorist organization activities. And there was particular emphasis from 2002 on, as you might imagine, on KP and the FATA region. Now I just wanted to say that we are sometimes accused of providing all our assistance to the military, so I wanted to assure everybody that we do understand and agree with the findings of the many studies, the one that Farido has done and all of the work that you've done and Hassan Abbas and the International Crisis Group and everybody, we get that terrorism is a law and order problem. And that the police and the civilian intelligence agencies are responsible for gathering the data and working with the communities to find out who's who and to prosecute these people. We also understand that good policing is community policing. We've understood that for a number of decades here, starting after the 60s, it didn't quite reach Ferguson as we've all seen, but it will now, I assure you. So we understand that, that working with the communities is key. We of course know that police do need better facilities, more training, and better equipment, and that there's a need to integrate the police with the judiciary, so that you can have an integrated approach and more people can get convicted, more than 20%. And we also understand that there's a great need to enhance the role of women police in the Pakistani system. Now over the last five years, our program has focused on training, equipment and infrastructure. On the training side, we've had police advisors at the provincial level working with the various inspectors general of police to determine the needs on a province by province basis. We've also had at the national level the Department of Justice program, which helps to develop modern curriculum, both for the National Police Academy and academies in the provincial areas, with a focus on curriculum for issues such as leadership, management, intelligence analysis, modern command and control and communications, but also human rights, forensics, investigatory, ballistic training and so on, and also first aid. Lately we've been focusing on urban police and Karachi, again with advanced forensic training and facilities such as closed circuit TV and cameras and so on. And we've also had dedicated training for women police, primarily in the leadership area. On the equipment side, the whole idea was to enhance security and mobility and communications. So we've provided hundreds of vehicles, bulletproof vests, radios, binoculars, night vision goggles, this kind of thing. Primarily, the bulk of it has gone to KP, but also to the other provinces. On the infrastructure side, the idea was to construct or renovate police stations, headquarters, barracks, training centers to help expand the presence of the police among the community throughout the country to improve their security and improving their own training capability so they could train each other. What we've done specifically in that regard is in KP, the new joint police training center, that's in Noshara. Classes started there in June of 2014. The Java Dick Ball police lines, again in KP, providing accommodation and administrative buildings for 600 KP police. The Spina Tana complex for the Frontier Corps, again housing 400 of them, and a lot of construction and renovation of the key police station center that our other panelists have talked about. Since 2009, the US has committed roughly $250 million to these activities, and the peak years for our funding were 2010 and 2011. After that, budget started to decline, in part because of the overall contraction of our foreign assistance budgets, but also because even though this is such an important arena for activity in Pakistan and great need for infrastructure and reforms and training and all the rest, we had trouble spending our money. Now, in part that was because in that period, as you will recall, there was increased tension in US-Pakistan relations, particularly in 2011 because of the Abbott-Abad raid and the Raymond Davis affair and the incident on the Pakistani border where 24 soldiers were killed in a friendly fire accident. So tensions increased on a bilateral level, and the first sort of victim of that in any assistance relationship has to do with security, law enforcement. People become suspicious. So we had less cooperation at a political level, and that did trickle down to our actual programs. And I know that it was frustrating to many people involved with the police and police officers because on a personal, individual level or the level of their own police station, they wanted the assistance, but it became impossible to take it. And on top of that, we started having problems with getting visas for people who were involved with police training and so on. So we couldn't get the people in to actually do the work. And of course then, as overall security deteriorated in Pakistan, we fell victim to the short tours problem or our own people weren't required and many didn't wish to stay more than a year because it was an unaccompanied assignment and so on. So we've, despite understanding what needs to be done, our efforts have been somewhat constrained. Now going forward, what we've decided to do is focus more on training and to use more Pakistani subject matter experts as master trainers. And because of the work we've done in the past, there's a larger cadre of these sorts of people. We're also focusing on joint police prosecutor training, again to help integrate these key elements, the policing and the judiciary. We're also helping to develop in Sin province a new curriculum for new recruits into the police sector with more modern methods and modern courses. And we're using in that program, a lot of retired police who bring a lot to the table in addition to some outside experts. And again, in all of our training, we emphasize in addition to the usual sort of subjects and more modern approaches to various things, the whole issue of human rights and sensitivity to the community and sensitivity to issues like gender violence and so on. So that's what we're doing. We're hoping as we go forward that we'll be able to expand our programs again and have more ability to move around the country, which is key when we're investing our funds. We'd like to have people be able to actually have eyes on the police stations and the new facilities and so on. And I just add one further point from our perspective. There is a lot of cynicism and skepticism about Pakistani police. And you can think, oh, how are they? It's such a big challenge. How will they ever really reform? But I think you can see from our panelists here and a lot of the studies that have been done that there is huge potential. Pakistani police can reform. One of the favorite examples, at least of the foreigners, is the national highway and motorway police that patrol the road, the freeway between Islamabad and Lahore. And the thing that's so amusing about that situation is that foreigners, I have to say, not to mention politicians and others, sometimes think they can get away with speeding or doing whatever they wish in traffic in Pakistan. Not so on this highway. You run into these national highway and motorway police and you've had it. If you speed, you get a ticket. Doesn't matter who you are. And I think there's a lot of pride in that service. So it can be done. And there are many, many police officers whom I've met over the years who are dedicated to their work, to reform, to a system where they have freedom to appoint on merit and all the rest. So I think the leadership is there and the US and others, the European countries, the UN who've all been involved in law enforcement reform can help. But there are some key steps that Pakistan alone can take and that is when it comes to the whole depoliticizing of the police force to rewarding and promoting and appointing on merit. Outsiders can't do the political will part but we certainly can help with the reform and modern equipment training and so on which we're more than willing to keep on doing. And I think we're seeing the light at the end of the tunnel in terms of prospects. Thank you very much. Thanks, sir. Thank you. Thanks Ambassador Afail and to all the panelists here. We've got about 15 minutes or so for any questions or comments. We have mics which will come to you if you raise your hand and let me know. And I can, or please let us know who you want these directed to and also introduce yourself as you speak. Let's just start in the front. Thank you. Hassan Abbas of National Defence University. Thank you very much for excellent presentations. Very informative and very thoughtful. I have a few questions for all of the presenters. First in regards to Taik Sahib and Voprito, anything you can share with us as regards the role of the intelligence side. When I say that because even if the police station, which is a great idea to strengthen the basic police station system, ultimately they'll be dependent on, in some shape or other, on civilian intelligence. So the role of the Pakistani Intelligence Bureau or Special Branch. And also what you, Mr. Taik referred to is about the lack of research which is being done institutionally. So we have this in Pakistan National Police Bureau. Any prospects or there's some more chances of funding for, or whether this National Police Board can play some role in streamlining research that can be done then and link all these police stations. That was a question for those two speakers for Robin. My question is, it's great to hear that the United States, ultimately the people in the government, they get it that the police is playing a very critical role in counterterrorism. Frankly, with all the disrespect, the statistics show a slightly different story because maybe that transformation into funding support, when one's awareness happens, then it has to translate into funding. My question to you is whether I've seen the Pakistani military and air force and Navy officers regularly coming to United States in about, I think, nine various military institutions. For a year long, I teach also the Pakistani military officers who come for a year long training. Whether there was ever any consideration that the Pakistani police comes to the American police academies, I know that in FBI academy, there were a couple of officers who came, but similar to what the Pakistani military gets, which is great, which is excellent. But for any corresponding parallel thing for Pakistani police officers who come on a regular basis to the American police academies or law enforcement teams. Thank you very much. Why don't we take another one here and then we can go to the panelists. And I'll come to all of you as I've seen that. Thank you. I'm Akbar Khoya, a former World Bank official, with a note of thanks to USIP and the panel. I do understand there are governance problems in Pakistan, whether it's parliamentary governance, judicial, or even economic governance. And my questions focused on, basically, there are perceptions in Pakistan. The governance structure of US assistance to Pakistan is very weak. As compared to the losses that Tharek identified, almost $100 billion lost to Pakistan economy, after 9-1-1, 50,000 killing. I would like to have your comment on US assistance to Pakistan. It's effectiveness. Thank you. Okay. That's it. Would you like to start with my answer? Do you think? Yeah, sure. Responding to the question raised by Hassan, the first is about the role of intelligence bureau and special branch, certainly. There can be no two opinions about the importance of specialized agencies like intelligence bureau, particularly. Special branch, as far as counter-terrorism, is concerned has a sort of a secondary role and has been replaced by counter-terrorism department. But I certainly agree with this thing that there is a need to integrate the intelligence collection, intelligence sharing coalition at the national level also. This is one of the roles which was supposed to be performed by NECTA, national counter-terrorism authority. But unfortunately, it hasn't taken off so far. But I agree with you that besides the support from the community and the specialized intelligence agencies do have a role, the weak point here right now is lack of connectivity and lack of coalition. In fact, I think one of the weak areas and intelligence agencies, and maybe the United States can help us in that, is lack of qualified analysts. You do get intelligence, you do get information, but then you have to analyze it professionally and indicate different dimensions of that intelligence. So organizationally, NECTA can play that role. And technologically, we need connectivity between the intelligence agencies, themselves, and then between the provincial police forces and the agencies. That's one. Second is the role of the national police bureau. As I said earlier, the conflict is going on between two police laws. Police Order 2002 and Police Act 1861. Right now, the political opinion is in the favor of Police Act 1861 because it gives total control of the police to the political leadership. In Police Order 2002, national police bureau had a very important role. In fact, I think it was sort of a GHQ of the police. It was visualized as that, having a role of the police management board, a secretariat of the National Public Safety Commission, and other coordinating factions. But again, like NECTA, it has not been given the importance it deserves. If you wanted to perform a better role, then probably you will have to sort of rethink its relationship with the Ministry of Interior and think of ways and means to upgrade its status. If it is going to be an attached department of the Ministry of Interior, it's going to get ignored and will not be possible for it to play that role. But the system says that the role of the National Police Bureau is important. Their laws says that it is important. But on practice on the ground, it isn't really playing that role. Although the President had a discussion with the President Chief of National Police Bureau and he called a meeting of the police management board after many, many years. And they made certain suggestions. That's a good beginning. But he needs to be encouraged. I think this is something which can be followed up. Just for the benefit of the audience, the police board is essentially the entity where all the police chiefs from the provinces come together and supposedly this supra body, which can take certain decisions on the police board. Thanks very much. In terms of countering terrorism and other types of violent extremism, what we've done in the United States is over since 9-11, we've had a program to sensitize local police in terms of, first of all, to be on the lookout for terrorist-related information but also to know what you're looking for. And so when the officer opens the trunk of the car and he sees chemicals and fertilizer bags and whatnot, he doesn't think, oh, this man's a farmer. No, he thinks this man's a bomb maker. That kind of thing needs to happen within Pakistan so that two things happen. First of all, the local police officer is going about his business, knows that it's his responsibility to be aware and then to provide this information up his chain of command. Right now, I think many police officers in Pakistan think that, well, counterterrorism is the role of these glitzy specialized units. Or maybe it's better if I don't look because it can be dangerous if you get these people excited. And secondly, if he has this information, he has to have a mechanism in which to feed it into the system and then it has to be able to go somewhere. And so if he goes back and duly reports to the guy on the computer in his station and he logs it in the computer and then the computer doesn't attach to anything else, then it dies right there. And secondly, since you mentioned the National Police Bureau, right, fortuitously because the USIP is currently, as I understand it, the USIP Academy is currently talking with the State Department Counterterrorism Bureau about a grant of assistance to be able to do training and other kinds of assistance. And so looking down the road there, maybe we can promote that, which would be very helpful, I think. Thank you. Hassan, when I say we understand that counterterrorism is a law and order issue, it means that we know we shouldn't be counting on the military to do that. It doesn't mean that suddenly we're gonna shift on to police training. And as I mentioned, we've struggled to spend the money that we did commit. And there are a lot of issues there, as I mentioned, when there was a brief downturn in bilateral relations, we couldn't get visas and so on and so forth, and the security sector is the first to be hit by suspicions and so on. But I think, so there are those constraints, but we're working through them. And I think with regard to training for the police here, again, it's a sort of thing where identifying appropriate people, getting them permission to leave or to be away and all, it's complicated. You are right that it's an important experience for people to have, not just for the training, but the acculturation and all. I have long been a proponent of our military education and training program because I think that's marvelous work. So I think for the future, that's something we should explore, but it's easier said than done in terms of practical constraints. I would just emphasize in terms of this, qualified analysts, analytical training of intelligence and data is one of the things we're working into curriculum. So I agree that's important. And in terms of our overall assistance program, we allocated a huge amount of funding and then found that it was difficult to spend it with this, since 2009 and the Kerry Luga-Burman Act. It was difficult to figure out how to most appropriately and most effectively spend a large amount of money. There's a bit of an irony there or a paradox. The good news was we had a lot of money. The bad news was we didn't have a lot of good practice in terms of how to spend it. But I think we're getting much better in setting our priorities across the civilian sectors, not only in the law enforcement, but across the sectors and setting priorities in conjunction with our Pakistani counterparts. And in fact, we have dispersed over $4 billion since civilian assistance since 2009. So despite the many constraints, we've managed to do a lot of work. Could have been perhaps better focused or more efficient or whatever, but we have got a lot of work done. Thank you. Excellent. If we can, I'll try and take one round because we're out of time. If you can just make your questions very brief, please. Hi, my name's Aman Shree. Thank you for a wonderful explanation of what's happening in Pakistan and the Pakistan Police Force. With the amount of casualties that the Pakistan police faces every year, what efforts can be made, are being made to make sure that at an individual level, police officers don't take on the mentality of soldiers in terms of treating the civilian population they're supposed to protect as enemies. Excellent. Thank you. Two gentlemen here. Thank you very much for a very interesting panel. My name is Michael Schupler. I work with Search for Common Ground. I'm the Asia Regional Director there. I have two questions very briefly. You've spoken a lot of sort of what would fit, I guess, into the disruption of the kind of side of counterterrorism. I wonder if you could speak a little bit to the role you feel that police are playing and should be playing in the prevent side, particularly in the prevention of recruitment of young people in civilian organizations. The second question I have is around communications. I wonder if you could speak to what you feel the highest leverage points would be in the media space to transform both the image and the relationship between police and citizenry. Hello, my name is Nathan Shirk. I'm with the Cindy American Political Action Committee. And thank you all for the presentation you gave. One of the feeling among the SIN ethnic groups while in SIN is that not just the government, specifically the police, is biased against their culture and their heritage and that their complaints are not investigated as well. They also are victim of abduction and demand for bribes. How do you overcome the lack of trust with ethnic minorities between the police and such ethnic groups? And then the second question is in regards to U.S. funding for training, how do, since Pakistan first needs, is the only one that can depoliticize the process, isn't U.S. worried that by training and funding of police that is highly politicized, it might harm the view the population has of the U.S. and the police when they are victim of abuses committed with U.S. training? Okay. We'll take the remaining two and then we'll end and ask the panel to have the last word on whatever they want to answer because we're running out of time. Thank you very much. My name is Mavish Munira. I'd like to thank the panel for a very informative session. My question is pertaining to developing trust. I fully agree with that point but I'd like to also hear your thoughts on the correlation between the lack of due compensation in the form of salaries and benefits to the police and corruption in the form of taking bribes and turning a blind eye perhaps towards filing FIRs or taking note of robberies in particular because there is a perception in the Pakistani public that because the police is not due to be compensated the police is in a manner of speaking more prone to taking bribes and indulging in corrupt activities. Thank you very much. The general one at the back and we'll end at that. Thank you. Hugo Rosemont from King's College London and as with regards to the capacity issues that several panelists raised, to what extent would you see a role for the private sector in supporting the police in addressing this issue be it from a sort of industrial perspective or perhaps more broad here is some sort of information. Private sector and the police. Robin, should we start with you and then go down? Okay, just very quickly, I'll speak to two points. One, whether we're worried about training when there's a uncertain relationship between the police and the communities I would simply say the whole point of training is to reverse that and as I mentioned our training includes a heavy emphasis I would say on human rights, respect for minorities, respect for women and so on. So there's an effort in the training to steer police towards more sensitivity to the communities and the elements within. So I think best to continue the training then to step away for fear of what people would think. I would add one point someone mentioned the police role in trying to counter whatever trends cause the recruitment of youth and so on to these various terrorist groups. And I would simply say that there's a lot of thought both in Pakistan among the NGOs and among the donor community and a lot of experimentation with how you actually counter violent extremism in a society. I can't say that anybody's found the magic formula but there's a lot of activity aimed at that. One of the things we've been doing for example is in Karachi City a whole series of programming with youth from sports tournaments to setting up internet cafes having leadership conferences and so on within the city particularly in neighborhoods that are troublesome and disadvantaged. So we and others as well are trying various ways to get at this problem. Thank you. The first question was about recruitment. Yeah. We have, while I agree with the possibility of extremists getting recruited in the police department or other department, there is a possibility but we do have elaborate systems to ensure that such candidates are weeded out initially through security vetting and by different agencies, not only police by intelligence agencies also. And then during the course of service there is a regular system to keep a watch on any changes that takes place in the thinking of anybody who comes to notice. So does it answer that? I think somebody else has it. That's... Okay. Then the second question was... Uniturization of the police. Militarization, how to prevent militarization of police? I think that the best way to prevent militarization of police is to emphasize the non-military aspect of policing within the society, like emphasis on human rights training, emphasis on rule of law, and greater emphasis on less use of force and taking people on board through persuasive means or through other means. And I think that there is a change coming about in the thinking of police also. You might have noticed that in the latest case in Islamabad, police chief of Islamabad, he asked to be transferred rather than lose force on the demonstrators because his point of view as a professional police officer was that we should not use military means or we should not use force against this crowd. And as a result, the political people didn't agree and he was posted out and that's okay. And after that, some more police officers also took this stance. Similarly for Lahore, police officers wanted to have orders and writing. Previously, whatever happened was that this man has to be thrown out. The force has to be used no matter what happens. But now because of the independent judiciary, the media is coming up and showing everything. There is a tendency in the police officers to ask for writing, for orders and writing and according to rule of law. And I think these are the basic values which need to be owned by the police to have less emphasis on the use of force and more on policing by consent. A lot of the questions here were about the relationship with the police and the public and this whole issue of trust. And a lot of the ideas that are in the reporter are based in a certain respect. On a conversation we had with the police officer who tried to do what we recommended. I mentioned this person before but he had developed a course on his own and he taught it to his constables. And it was terrorism awareness and participation in the national counter-terrorism effort. He said the result that he got was quite remarkable. He said these men who had sort of been going about their regular duties for years and years suddenly became inspired by this. They had through this course been, first of all, given new information and new skills. And secondly, they've been enrolled in the response to this national crisis. And for the first time they felt they were a part of the official response. They just weren't people that were sort of incidentally getting killed in a lot of duty. But they were people that had been sort of empowered through this training with a response that made sense and then they could go and offer assistance. And so a lot of the ideas that are in our report are based on that approach. That if you train the police, if you empower the police, if you professionalize the police, then a lot of the problems that we see here begin to go away. And the professional police officer who believes in what he's doing doesn't take bribes, no matter what his compensation is. It just doesn't happen. Tariq said there are always honest police officers in every force regardless. And so it's that spirit that we wanna try to mobilize in the recommendations that are in this report. Thank you. Well, we've ended exactly in 90 minutes except that I started five minutes late and we've ended five minutes late. So you can call it the South Asian punctuality here. I apologize for that. Let's join in thanking the panelists and I'll just end by saying two things rather than summarizing everything. One, I think Hassan's question was very pertinent in terms of US assistance going in and maybe not as much to the police as it should in the military. What I would also reverse this to say is policing a priority even for the Pakistani government? I think that's the first question. What are the demands put on the table? And I would say that there's a shortcoming on the other side in this. And the other one I was quite surprised actually that we didn't hear anything about the civil military dynamic of policing which is also huge in Pakistan on who plays what role, how, but we'll leave it for another day. Please join me in thanking the panelists and thank you to all of you. Thank you for the free, nice to see you. Nice to see you. I'm ready to go. I'm Dan, but I was missing town. Oh, you are? Okay. I appreciate your support. Wait a minute. Don't go away. Okay. What? I never get back to my commentary at all. So no one ever told me that this meeting actually took place from where it's gonna happen. So thank you for being here. That's my second one. Thank you. Thank you. Just talk right here for a minute.