Terror and chaos in Karachi
January 16th, 2011
Even after reconciliation between the ruling PPP and MQM in Karachi over accusations made about target killings, people kept dying at the hands of killer gangs. The toll on January 14 was a shocking 22 dead in 24 hours. Indications persist that violence continues to emanate from political, religious and ethnic causes. The ruling trio — the PPP, MQM and ANP — are engaged in a three-way war of accusations and are hardly in a position to find a solution to the downward spiral of a city that is the economic heart of the country.
The killers have become sensitive to media reporting too, murdering Geo News reporter Wali Khan Babar before shooting and injuring ANP leader Bashir Jan in Orangi Town. As if to indicate the triangular nature of the urban war, victims included the PPP’s secretary district west, Naveed alias Noori, two MQM workers, Hammad and Zafar Sheikh, while two from the ANP had been attacked earlier.
Karachi has ample evidence of terror linked to the activity of bhatta (protection money) by criminal gangs who use murder as an instrument of persuasion. The reign of terror at Pehelwan Goth was still fresh in the minds of Karachiites when the courts exonerated those accused of killings, allowing them to walk free because of lack of evidence. The police have frequently used sign language to make the case that their work is greatly hampered by the fact that ruling politicians are involved in this score-settling homicide; yet the killing patterns reveal the presence of organisations other than the linguistic-ethnic ones. The last surge of target killing took place in mid-December, putting an end to the impression that killing stops every time federal interior minister Rehman Malik visits the city bearing an olive branch from PPP chief Asif Ali Zardari. This time the olive branch was bigger in size than ever before; yet the triangular spree of violence has swelled instead of going down. Pakhtun-dominated settlements — Sohrab Goth, Quaidabad, Banaras, Keamari, Jangabad, Luqman Colony, Machar Colony, Yasrab Colony, Maymar Complex, Decent Complex, Al-Asif Square, Gulshan-e-Akakhel, Quetta Town and New Sabzi Mandi — have often seen violence, indicating that the ANP doesn’t control and direct the entire Pakhtun community, most of whom originate not in Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa but in Mehsud-dominated South Waziristan.
Sectarian killing is also rampant and recently the reverse-trend of killing Sunni doctors alerted the stricken people of Karachi to the rise of Lashkar-i-Muhammad. In 2008, the Tehreek-i-Taliban Pakistan (TTP) boasted that it had the capacity to control and rule Karachi. Its linkages to the madrassa network of Karachi are well-known. And madrassa-linked religious ‘high threat’ groups in Karachi, too, are known to the outside world: al Qaeda (Qari Zafar Group), the Tehreek-i-Taliban Pakistan, Lashkar-e-Jhangvi and the Sipah-i-Sahaba Pakistan. The medium threat groups are: Sipah-i-Muhammad Pakistan (SMP), Harkatul Mujahideen al Alami, Harkatul Jihad al Islami, the Tehreek-i-Islami Lashkar-i-Muhammadi and Jandullah.
Ethnic politics has solidified in Karachi and social scientists say ethnic-based conflicts take a long time dying off. But two other developments starting in the 1980s have complicated the situation: the early quartering of al Qaeda in the city — a majority of the Arab terrorists surrendered to the US by Musharraf were caught from Karachi — and the pouring in of overseas money into the seminaries which proliferated and may stand at 3,000 today.
The pressure from the ethnic grassroots is such that the ruling trio has succumbed to it, instead of cooperating to put it down. All three political parties are secular in outlook and opposed to al Qaeda and the Taliban. When they are targeted by religious terrorists, other than in Karachi, they tend to stand up for them against one another. Benazir Bhutto was meant to die in Karachi, not in Rawalpindi, and the killers were directed from South Waziristan. A workable solution to this will only materialise when the three parties who rule the city can act in a non-partisan manner and purge their ranks of those in cahoots with various mafias.
Zardari-Obama meeting
January 16th, 2011
It may sound callous to say this, but President Asif Zardari’s visit to Washington for Richard Holbrooke’s memorial service had less to do with honouring the deceased diplomat than an opportunity to hold an impromptu summit with the Americans. On the surface, the Pakistan-US alliance appears to be as strong as ever. US President Barack Obama and Zardari said all the right things. Obama has pledged to continue helping Pakistan develop its economy to the point that it is no longer reliant on international aid. Both leaders also condemned terrorism and mourned the assassination of Salmaan Taseer.
Read between the lines of the diplomatic doublespeak, though, and it is clear that there are several unaddressed issues and points of contention. Pakistan’s ambassador to the US, Husain Haqqani, quoted Obama and US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton as saying that they will find ways to “strengthen Pakistan’s economic reform process.” This appears to be an oblique reference to our inability to pass the reformed general sales tax (RGST) through parliament and our refusal to end electricity subsidies, both of which have been demanded by the US and the IMF. While the US may wish for Pakistan to stand on its own two feet, for as long as we are dependent on it for staying afloat, such demands will be a stark reality of relations between the two countries. Indeed, US Ambassador to Pakistan Cameron Munter admitted as much when he said that American financial assistance will lead to American interference.
Even more than economic issues, the ever-present spectre of terrorism also continues to cast a pall over Pakistan-US ties. For the best part of a decade, US policy has been to throw money at the problem, all the while urging Pakistan to ‘do more’. As the talks in Washington showed, this is likely to continue. The US has already been making noises about a possible military operation in North Waziristan, which Pakistan has been resisting, saying that troops are preoccupied with flood relief. As is likely, in the future more international terrorism plots that originated from the tribal areas will be unearthed. When that happens, the gentle exhortations will turn into full-fledged demands. It is only then that the shaky foundations of this supposedly solid relationship will be revealed.