Sound and fury
November 23rd, 2012
For all the talk of deweaponisation in the last few days, it’s clear what the drama is really about
: politics. Any genuine concern for law and order is at best a secondary concern for Karachi’s main political parties; that much was obvious from the way the debate shaped up this week. Trying to avoid a special focus on Karachi and deflect any talk of a military operation there, the MQM argues that deweaponisation should take place not just in Karachi, but across the country. The ANP argues for the opposite, likely in part because stripping people of arms would be culturally unacceptable in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa and Fata, but mainly because it wants the focus to remain precisely where its political rival does not want it to be — on Karachi. Meanwhile, in a glaring display of lack of concern about policy effectiveness, the ruling party supports both moves in an attempt to protect its political alliances. Proceedings in the National Assembly and the Senate this week were thus a farce, with parliament becoming a forum for political parties to one-up each other rather than address citizens’ concerns.
Lost in all this rhetoric were the practical challenges of carrying out deweaponisation, whether in Karachi — where it has been tried and has failed — or elsewhere in the country. Who, for example, would carry it out? In Karachi, at least, with an overwhelmed police force and the Rangers’ ability to operate effectively in the city in question, the military would likely have to be called in, which would be a political minefield. Who would be targeted?
A first step might be to choke off supply lines, focusing on curbing smuggling rather than trying to retrieve huge amounts of unlicensed arms from their owners. Whatever the answers, the lack of substance in this week’s debates proved that the conversation was about political posturing and appearing to be concerned about law and order.
And ultimately, regardless of the methods used, deweaponisation in Karachi would run into the same road block that other law and order problems do: the extent to which violence and politics are intertwined in this city. Short of a no-holds-barred, bloody military operation — which would only temporarily relieve political rivalries, as previous operations have done, rather than addressing them — the only way to tackle the problem is for all the city’s major political players to reach a sustainable agreement on arms control. But as this week’s drama has proved, nothing will change as long as they continue to view Karachi as a zero-sum battleground rather than a city in which millions of people are trying to survive.
Kasab’s execution
November 23rd, 2012
The secret execution and burial of Ajmal Kasab, the sole gunman to survive the 2008 tragedy in Mumbai, revives the memory of a senseless but well-planned act of mass murder that brought Pakistan and India to the brink of war. Four years later, many questions still remain unanswered on this side of the border: who were the brains behind the slaughter of the innocent civilians? What did they propose to achieve? Where and how were the gunmen trained and armed? Who brainwashed them into undertaking that ignoble mission? Who provided the operational facilities, including the boat journey to the Indian port? And why did these activities go unnoticed in Pakistan? Subsequently, the authorities in Islamabad acted to establish facts that distanced the state from the work of a few fanatic killers. But that doesn’t serve to hide the shortcomings in the working of Pakistan’s anti-terrorism apparatus and its inability to keep tabs on organisations — not necessarily banned — which manage to amass enough resour-ces to run clandes-tine cells that undertake fiendish operations of such magnitude.
The Pakistani part of the trial is dragging on, prompting allegations from New Delhi that Islamabad is not serious. The fact that the prosecution came up with some new information about the Pakistani handlers of the suspects and the money transfer mechanism to shed some light on the case gives hope that the case will be pursued with speed and that justice will be done so that those responsible for the massacre are exposed. Above all, Pakistanis deserve to know what the government intends to do to ensure that such a tragedy is not repeated. The issue is linked to the hydra-headed monster that terrorism has become for us. Militants are now operating throughout Pakistan and feel free to choose their targets, strike at will and plan operations abroad. The lesson to be drawn from the Mumbai events and its aftermath is that the government must make efforts to ensure that the state and citizens unite to root out what has become the biggest threat to our peace of mind as well as to our own and regional security.
No end in sight
November 23rd, 2012
As the doctors’ strike in Balochistan expands in scope, there has been a parallel increase in the people’s misery. While previously the strike was limited to government hospitals, doctors in private healthcare facilities have now joined the protest. Matters took an even uglier turn on Tuesday when emergency services and out-patient departments were shut in reaction to the rough treatment meted out by the police to protesting medics on Monday. In a related, equally disturbing development, doctors’ bodies in Sindh on Tuesday also threatened to stop work if their colleagues in Balochistan were not freed and cases against them, lodged in reaction to Monday’s protest, not withdrawn. Doctors in Balochistan have been on strike now for over a month; the protest was sparked by the kidnapping of eye specialist Dr Saeed Khan, who was abducted in October. Several doctors have either been killed or kidnapped in the restive province in the recent past.
The police action against protesting doctors is condemnable while it is well-known that security in Balochistan is very poor. We sympathise with the plight of doctors, yet there can be no justification for adding to the grief of the people by denying them medical care. Harrowing images came out of Quetta on Tuesday, of patients desperate for medical attention. Doctors in public and private facilities need to immediately return to work and pursue their rights through other methods of protest. While industrial action may be an acceptable mode of protest in other professions, when it comes to doctors it is literally a matter of life or death for patients, so shutdowns of hospitals should be out of the question. Also, instead of adopting a confrontational posture, the Balochistan government needs to respond to the medics’ demands, especially by recovering the kidnapped doctor and providing the medical community with adequate security.