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shallowwater · #20 Tuesday, May 12, 2009

1. Simply unforgivable.

SIXTEEN years, more than what a life sentence is in many systems of jurisprudence, is what Aftab Masih has spent in the Kot Lakhpat Jail. That too, on death row. The Chief Justice Iftikhar Chaudhry, Justice Khalilur Rehman Ramday and the Chief Justice of the Lahore High Court, Khwaja Muhammad Sharif, who had been visiting the said jail to meet with condemned prisoners discovered Aftab Masih languishing there, who had been sentenced by a speedy trials court way back in 1993. The LHC CJ has directed the Jail Superintendent to appear before the court and explain the details of the case. The details about the status of his appeals have not been found. This is, of course, a travesty. It speaks volumes about the state of the justice system in the country. If the said judges hadn't made the trip, Masih would still be there, unaware of his fate and the jail bureaucracy would not have been too pushed about him.
The current political government, after taking the political wind out of the sails of the Swat militants by signing the Nizam-e-Adl regulations, has decided to go into an all-out war against them. The decision to go into war is correct. But the need for the aforementioned regulation emerged only because it was a longstanding, curiously secular (despite the nomenclature) demand of the people of the valley. It had merely been hijacked by the militants. The lethargic justice system still has many unresolved land property cases that had been initiated back when Swat was merged into Pakistan proper as a tribal area and not a princely state. Even though Malakand's claim to a different system might have been greater, everybody across the country has an axe to grind against the judicial system. When militant groups present a different, seemingly better (it is anything but) system, they will get local support.
Cases like Aftab Masih's might become one of the many footnotes in the history of Pakistan's descent into chaos. The battle for Pakistan must be won through war in some parts of the country, but through better service delivery of the state in all parts of the country.

2. Battle for survival.

PRIME Minister Yousuf Raza Gilani cannot be blamed for exaggerating the situation when he told a press conference, after he had presided over a special session of the Federal Cabinet on Saturday, that launching the military operation against militants holding sway in Swat was a matter of survival for Pakistan. There was no disputing his point that the government was left with no option but to resort to the use of force after the failure of the peace accord caused by militants' refusal to lay down arms. The Cabinet endorsed the military action aimed at wresting back the control of Swat from insurgents, but cautioned the government to ensure that it ends soon with minimum collateral damage. It was good to hear from the PM that there was no truth in the reports about capping our nuclear programme.
Mr Gilani had to do a lot of explaining to dismiss the perception that the operation had been launched under immense pressure from the international community that coincided with President Asif Zardari's visit to Washington. But he would find few takers for his view that it was not possible to take the Cabinet and Parliament into confidence before launching the offensive, especially amid media reports that the decision had been taken well ahead of the President's departure for the United States. The Obama Administration started mounting pressure on Islamabad to renounce the peace deal signed between the NWFP government and the Tehrik Nifaz-i-Shariat-i-Muhammadi in February this year. It appeared to be carrying on the legacy of the combative Bush regime that remained averse to the idea of any negotiated settlement with elements, whom it continued to accuse of sponsoring extremism across the border. Mr Zardari's pledge to take the ongoing military offensive in Malakand Division to its logical conclusion notwithstanding, he should also have lodged a protest over the continuing drone attacks in the tribal areas during his meetings with President Obama and other officials of his Administration. It was about time that the Americans were told in no uncertain terms that the frequent violations of our airspace by the Predators flown from Afghanistan could not be tolerated. There is no doubt that the latest military offensive against insurgents has been launched with greater public backing than the previous two actions conducted before the signing of the peace accord. But while tackling the growing insurgency, the government need not lose the focus of taking appropriate measures for the rehabilitation of the millions of internally displaced persons that has turned out to be a serious humanitarian crisis. The government should ensure proper management of resources, funds and manpower to make their stay in the camps as comfortable as possible. Donor agencies and foreign governments should also be approached to extend help.

3. Imperative need.

THE power shortage in the country is so acute and disruptive of socio-economic activity that all available and assured sources of supply should be tapped to tide over the crisis in the shortest possible time. If the Central Asian states of Tajikistan and Kyrgyzstan could meet that requirement, there should be no hesitation to go ahead in entering into a deal with them, and the agreement that President Asif Zardari, President Hamid Karzai and World Bank President Robert Zoellick reached in this regard at Washington on Saturday should be welcome. And one would not dispute Mr Zoellick's contention that Central Asia could help energy-starved South Asia, but for that the situation in Afghanistan, through which the transmission lines are to pass to bring power across to Pakistan, would have to be peaceful. As it is, it is unpredictably dangerous and, according to all indications, would continue to be so for the foreseeable future, constituting a formidable roadblock to the execution of the project. There is, therefore, little likelihood of Pakistan drawing benefit out of it in the near future, which is our imperative need.
That brings in the importance of the Iran-Pakistan-India gas pipeline, which would make electricity available to us in a much shorter time. That would not only be a far securer source but also significantly cheaper. We must implement the project even if India opts out, as the government has repeatedly said, and not give in to US pressure to put it on the backburner. Nevertheless, the idea of utilising the abundant energy resources of Central Asia by South Asia would, if it materialises, prove to be mutually beneficial. The World Bank and other international financial institutions are agreed to render technical assistance for the development of the Central Asia-South Asia Regional Electricity Market and the Central Asia-South Asia Transmission Project expected to cost $680 million. The project stipulates the availability of an expanded volume of power in the future that would "catalyse additional energy investment and trade" and cover the four countries of Tajikistan, Kyrgyzstan, Afghanistan and Pakistan and the region as a whole.
The three leaders also discussed economic cooperation in general between the two regions, as well as in certain infrastructure projects between the two countries, like the development of the Peshawar-Kabul rail link and upgradation of the Peshawar-Kabul road link.