Nasim Ahmed


There seems to be no end to bad news - and more bad news. We had not got over the tragedy and agony of the Siachen avalanche that buried more than a hundred of our brave soldiers in a snowy grave when another bolt from the blue hit the nation in the shape of the Bhoja airline crash near Islamabad.And all the while killers have been busy both in Karachi and Quetta shooting innocent citizens on a daily basis without any check by the state.

Nobody seems to be in charge anywhere. The rant and bombast of Rahman Malik notwithstanding, the administrative machinery - from the level of the local SHO up to the minister and prime minister - seems to have broken down completely. There is no stopping the marauding murderous gangs who have a free run of the country from Khyber to Karachi to Quetta. The citizens of Karachi are being killed like flies, everyday, but nobody seems bothered. Chief Minister Qaim Ali Shah and Governor Sindh Dr. Ishrart-ul-Ebad, while wasting time distributing largesse and patronizing their political favourites, for over a week Lyari remained a scene of pitched battles between police and the criminal gangs holed up in their dens under the shadow of the so-called Aman Committees. In one day alone, 15 people were killed and the week's toll was over 50. Can a state in control allow such indiscriminate killing of innocent citizens by gangsters ruling their little fiefdoms under the patronage of members of the ruling clique?

On the other side, Hazaras are being continually targeted but the Balochistan government is unable to do anything about it. In Balochistan, unexplained killings, disappearances and kidnappings have become the order of the day. Baloch young men who have suffered brutalities at the hands of law enforcement agencies, in turn take it out on the Punjabi settlers. In the process a large number of teachers, doctors and peaceful professionals and businessmen have fallen victim to blind revenge killings.

The same administrative meltdown is visible in other parts of the country as well. In Gilgit-Baltistan, Shias are the helpless, hapless victims of target killers whom the local administration is unable to rein in. The spreading anarchy and chaos was best illustrated by the attack on the Bannu jail from where about 4,000 prisoners were sprung free without much resistance by the security staff. How could than 300 militants riding in about 50 vehicles and armed with lethal weapons pass through more than six security check-posts on the way undetected? Nor were the law-breakers intercepted on their way back, although the operation lasted for many hours and urgent calls for help must have gone out to security forces in the surrounding areas.

And there is no accountability at any level. No one seems to be answerable for what is happening in the country. The government has locked itself in an all-consuming institutional confrontation with the judiciary, challenging the latter's authority to establish the rule of law in the country and, ironically, describing its efforts to end corruption as a challenge to its democratic mandate. Nothing could be farther from the truth. The rule of law and the constitution can only put democracy on sounder footings, not weaken it.
But the PPP government thinks otherwise. It has gone out of its way to protect and promote the corrupt and the incompetent. There is a string of corruption cases before the courts involving the highest in the land. In any other country, government ministers tainted by allegations of corruption would resign to facilitate the course of justice. But here no efforts are spared to shield the corrupt from the prying eyes of the law and justice. Instead of distancing itself from the corrupt, the government, in fact, promotes them to higher positions in brazen defiance of the court orders. The elevation of Babar Awan, Khosa, Raja Pervez Ashraf and many others illustrates the point.

The Bhoja airline crash is symptomatic. The responsibility of the Civil Aviation Authority is yet to be established. But we know what fate the Karachi Steel, PIA, the Railways and many other state enterprises have met at the hands of political appointees. There is a general deterioration in all spheres of society and government, and no rescue efforts are under way.

The system is breaking down for the simple reason that for years the rulers have preferred political favouritism over the requirements of merit. The deserving and the talented are sidelined and political cronies and sycophants are rewarded and put in their place. Honest and competent officers who try to do their duty by the book are punished and transferred. The process which started years ago has reached its zenith under the present political dispensation.

Any hope for a change for the better must wait until the next elections. But merely replacing one party by another for a five-year stint in power will not change much unless we rise above party politics and learn to respect merit and the rule of law and constitution. This is the real challenge that we face today.

-CuttingEdge