Fata ‘development’
Monday, 20 Jul, 2009


IT’S a catch-22 situation: lasting peace depends on development, and uplift work can’t commence in earnest until peace is restored. That is the situation today in vast swathes of the Federally Administered Tribal Areas where the state is struggling to wrest control from Taliban-backed insurgents. South Waziristan is being bombarded every other day and Bajaur, Kurram, Mohmand, North Waziristan and Orakzai are also far from peaceful. Kurram, for instance, has been all but cut off from the rest of Pakistan for nearly two years. When a consignment of cement can’t reach the place, it is easy to see why development work is at a standstill. Many parts of the tribal belt are no-go areas, even for those responsible for their administration. Officials at the Fata Secretariat remain barricaded in Peshawar, and it would be interesting to know how many top officers there have ventured deep into the tribal areas in recent months.

Yet we are told that all the funds — Rs5.61bn to be precise — allocated for Fata development were utilised in the last fiscal year. It needs to be asked how this was possible at a time of conflict. A breakdown of the spending may shed some light for those who are unable to locate precisely where this ‘development’ work took place. What progress has been made on the ground and how much money was consumed by ‘administration’ and the perks that come with it? On Wednesday, the Fata Annual Development Fund for 2009-10 was approved during a meeting held at the Governor House in Peshawar. Of the total outlay for the current fiscal, nearly 90 per cent has been earmarked for ongoing projects. The nature of these schemes is anybody’s guess but chances are that they have more to do with paperwork, ‘strategising’ and expenses incurred in Peshawar than physical work in the field.

Infrastructure development, job creation and the provision of essential services such as education and healthcare facilities hold the key to a healthier future for the people of Fata. If it is to prosper, the tribal belt needs to be brought into the mainstream of Pakistani society. Otherwise this deprived region will remain a breeding ground for extremism. The Political Parties Act must be extended to Fata so that its people are given real choices and true representation in parliament. The archaic Frontier Crimes Regulation needs to be replaced, as promised by the government last year, by a more just and effective penal code. It is understandable that the successful implementation of such measures hinges on the cessation of hostilities. But somehow, against all odds, ‘development’ work continues in Fata.


*********************************************


Pressure on history
Monday, 20 Jul, 2009


IT is not difficult to see why there is a clash between attempts to preserve the past and the pressing needs of today. A growing population and its ever-increasing housing and other requirements put extraordinary pressure on historical monuments especially in a bustling city like Lahore where scores of such relics are struggling to maintain their original look and keep their extensive premises. An official report says that more than 3,000 people are encroaching on space that belongs to these monuments. Can the government do anything to rectify matters? Going by an official handout, authorities in Lahore appear all set to launch a massive anti-encroachment drive against those who illegally reside or do business in and around the city’s 124 historical monuments.

All the concerned departments, including the police, are being mobilised to make the campaign effective.

The current drive should take note of a similar effort in 2007 when city authorities moved against encroachers, equipped with a Supreme Court order for their eviction. The resistance put up by the occupants was so strong and the hue and cry they raised so vociferous that the government had to backtrack after having removed only a fraction of the encroachments. Moreover, the little that was removed came back soon enough. In the absence of any official plan to provide the encroachers with alternative housing and business concerns, the latest drive will certainly meet a similar fate. The encroachers will not let this be an easy task for the government. They will resist the demolition squads and wait for encroachments to return even before the debris is removed. Any anti-encroachment drive, therefore, should not just involve bulldozers and batons but also plans to resettle those it displaces. Short of that, Lahore’s past and present will keep struggling to survive in an uneasy and uncertain coexistence.


***********************************************



A costly non-probe
Monday, 20 Jul, 2009


THE futility of asking the UN to investigate Benazir Bhutto’s murder has now become obvious, with the probe team chief saying it would fix no “criminal liability”. Then what is the probe all about? After all, the aim of every investigation into an act of crime is to find out who committed it and give justice to the guilty. As he defined it at his Friday’s press conference in Islamabad, UN commission chief Heraldo Munoz said the mandate of his mission was limited to determining “the facts and circumstances of the assassination”, and that “the mandate does not include a criminal investigation”. This means we have asked the UN to conduct a costly non-probe that in the end is programmed to prove nothing. We are also reminded here of the investigation by Scotland Yard, whose finding limited itself to determining the cause of Ms Bhutto’s death. Again, the all-important question — who killed Benazir Bhutto? — remained unanswered.

The Muslim world’s first woman prime minister was killed at a time when the PPP was not in power. The party’s demand that the UN should investigate the Pakistani icon’s murder was indicative of its lack of trust in the Musharraf government. However, even after it came to power after the February 2008 election, the PPP still had a resolution passed by the National Assembly asking the world body to investigate what indeed was a crime that had stunned the world. One could understand the UN investigating Rafiq Hariri’s assassination. He was anti-Syrian, and Damascus had troops and influence in Lebanon. A situation like this did not exist in Pakistan on Dec 27, 2007.

Before the assassins struck, Benazir Bhutto had written a letter to Pervez Musharraf naming the persons she thought wanted to assassinate her. Indeed given her lineage and gender, she had reason to suspect that, with the elections approaching, the powerful lobby well-entrenched in Pakistan’s establishment since Gen Ziaul Haq’s days could eliminate her. Benazir Bhutto’s murder was a crime against a Pakistani citizen committed on Pakistani soil. For that reason, there is no alternative to a high-level investigation by Pakistan itself.