In the balance
October 17th, 2012
The will-they, won’t-they pendulum on North Waziristan seemed to momentarily slip towards the possibility of a military operation but it appears, in fact, to resolutely be stuck on, no, there will be no significant military operation in North Waziristan any time soon. The army claims the launching of an operation is a ‘political decision’ thereby seemingly tossing the matter into the civilians’ lap, while the political leadership hems and haws and occasionally deploys Interior Minister Rehman Malik to add to the confusion. In theory, the decision to launch a full-scale military operation in North Waziristan ought to lie with the civilian leadership. In acceptable practice, the decision ought to be taken by the civilians in close consultation with the army. In reality, the decision will be taken by the army itself.
That reality is very significant in the context of the ‘national consensus’ that the army insists must be created before an operation in North Waziristan can be launched. But what has the army-led security establishment done to try and create the much-touted national consensus? Not very much — unlike during the run-up to earlier military operations in other parts of the north-west.
If North Waziristan has militants of every stripe projecting power from there into Pakistan proper, Afghanistan and beyond, it is also a black hole of information — nothing really gets out. Privately, senior security officials admit that the panoply of militant groups must be taken on sooner rather than later if the security situation in the country is to slowly be pulled back towards normality. Privately, senior security officials admit that from Al Qaeda to the Haqqanis and from Punjabi Taliban to foreign militants from countries as diverse as the Maldives — yes, the Maldives — to Sudan and groups such as the Uzbeks, Chechens and Arabs, North Waziristan has become a global hub of terrorism and militancy. But next to nothing has been done to educate the Pakistani public about the nature of the threat in North Waziristan and what the proper response to it is. How, then, will the national consensus for a military operation in North Waziristan be developed?
And if the mapping out of the threat has been poor enough, even less is known about the army’s strategy to eventually fight it. Are the Haqqanis eventually in line for some kind of financial and military squeeze? Is the policy really to slowly win over some groups temporarily to clear the way for a fight with others? Is there a plan to prevent militant leaders from escaping the battle zone as they have in operations elsewhere? If Pakistanis are told nothing, not even the barest details, how can they form a consensus?
Need for oversight
October 17th, 2012
Security guards’ involvement in the looting on Monday of a van carrying cash is not the first case of its kind in Karachi or in other Pakistani cities. As in many such cases the crime was committed with commando-style precision: two motorcyclists trailed the van that belonged to a currency exchange company; the guards-turned-robbers inside the vehicle had it stopped at a given point, held the manager inside the van hostage, transferred the loot, estimated at over Rs10m, to those on motorcycles and all four vanished. A few hours later, gunmen robbed a bank at Gulistan-i-Jauhar, killed a security guard, injured another and decamped with Rs3.6 million. While in one case, the security guards turned criminals, in the other they were the victims. This highlights the dilemma the authorities face, because private guards generally now outnumber the police and are very much needed. A wholesale denunciation of all security guards and their employers would be unfair, because quite often those on duty fight back and get killed, and their sacrifice needs recognition. The issue is how to eliminate the black sheep among the tens of thousands of uniformed security guards throughout the country and make security at banks and other enterprises foolproof. We also know that many security agencies are not very meticulous in following government regulations.
Most security agencies stand registered with the government, but merely screening the employers is not enough; what is needed is the vetting of every single candidate through a system that is modern and comprehensive and not confined to routine police verification since that can be managed easily, especially in the rural areas. Nor should verification be a one-time affair. Given the extent of organised crime with suspected links to terrorism, all security guards need to be vetted yearly to guard against a possible change in outlook. Further, every person performing guard duties and carrying arms should be readily identifiable as such. Regrettably, instances are growing where gunmen in mufti accompany certain persons. This is an affront to citizens, to say nothing of being openly threatening. The government must ensure that all private guards don uniforms.
Spying janitors
October 17th, 2012
Now that we’ve established lawmakers should not be dual nationals, let’s extend this principle to government-employed janitors, gardeners and peons too. They might, after all, overhear details about the actual pace of development of our nuclear programme or what we really think about China while they are watering the plants or fetching tea. Who knows whom they might leak such sensitive state secrets to. Speaking of which, the bureaucrats they would be fetching the tea for should also obviously come clean about any other passports they might be concealing as a way to cover up their divided loyalties. As should the chairman of the proposed federal drug regulatory authority, so that he or she is in no danger of colluding with foreign pharmaceutical firms.
The truly unfortunate part of all this is that none of it is made up. Punjab has asked all government employees, from top bureaucrats to support staff, to submit proof they are not dual nationals — despite the fact that as Pakistani citizens they have the right to simultaneously maintain the passports of certain other countries. Meanwhile, the opposition has demanded in the National Assembly that the person in charge of the much-needed central drug regulatory authority not be a dual citizen. There, is, of course, a simple explanation for this extension of the principle to jobs far from the country’s top public offices (which it makes sense to limit to those who have no other passports): demonise dual nationality and earn populist credentials while positioning yourself in opposition to a ruling party that doesn’t even want legislators to have to meet the constitutional, and far more justifiable, requirement that lawmakers not be dual citizens. So what if this strategy results in a witch-hunt of dual nationals who quite legally happen to work anywhere in government? If it serves a political purpose, no initiative is too absurd.