Wednesday, August 28, 2013


Karachi needs peace, not only for the sake of the people who live there but for the country as a whole. Any hope for calm or anything resembling normalcy has, however, slipped further from our reach with the resumption of gang wars in Lyari, as areas in the locality are attacked with rockets and the ugly sound of gunfire rings out across it all through the night. Several people have been killed and scores injured as reports of more violence continue to come in. While this problem persists, there can be no hope of an end to violence in the city. The MQM has demanded, in the name of the constitution, that the army be called in to restore order. While army deployment may be questionable, the government clearly needs to find some way to restore order in a city where rule of law has clearly fallen apart. Past record of the PPP government in this respect is hardly reassuring, and the centre also seems to be taking its own sweet time in outlining any definite plans regarding Karachi. Such delays lead us to question if there is even any will at their end for such plans. But steps need to be taken urgently to tame Karachi’s mafias, gangs and ‘political’ parties. Hundreds of families from the Katchi community, which had fled Lyari for Badin and other districts in June and July this year to escape violence, gathered at the Karachi Press Club on Monday, as they returned home. They demanded safety which does not seem possible for now, thanks to the callous indifference of the political forces for which their plight exists only to be used for political exploitation.

Lyari is not the only area in Karachi to suffer gang activities; the city has been terrorised by gangs operating as extortion mafias. Violence is also driven on by sectarian warfare, as a consequence of which the spokesman of the Ahle Sunnat Wal Jamaat was gunned downon Sunday, triggering protests. We obviously need decisive answers and decisive action. But as things stand now, none seem to be available with everyone looking on as Karachi continues to crumble under the weight of violence that has overwhelmed it. The lack of official clarity on what should be done is criminal. The sooner it ends the better. Perhaps some good will come as the Supreme Court resumes hearing on the Karachi law and order case today.


The government’s decision to seek a further $12 billion in loans from the IMF over the next three years will throw Pakistan even further into the debt trap. The most optimistic thing the finance minister has been able to say about the new loan is that it won’t send the country into default. While this may be an improvement on previous governments, admitting that we need further financial assistance but that it will not make us completely insolvent is hardly an achievement worth boasting about. IMF and World Bank loans never come without strings attached and in this case will likely mean imposing higher prices on consumers for essential goods and services like electricity. Dar has denied that there are any conditions to the loans saying that any painful measures taken are those which the government would have carried out anyway. It is hard to take this assertion at face value. The GST has already been increased and the cost of electricity has gone up in a tacit admission that the government cannot raise more revenue through taxation. We can also expect deficit financing to rise by 1-1.5 percent of the GDP as the government pays off the circular debt. Even then, this loan will be like taking an aspirin to treat cancer since the circular debt rises by as much as Rs1 billion a day, having snowballed already to Rs70 billion since it was cleared in a controversial move a few weeks back.

Essentially Pakistan is taking on new foreign debt to pay off previous loans. We do not know yet how much interest the IMF will charge us for this latest bailout but we can be sure that it will ensnare us in yet another cycle of indebtedness. To eventually escape it we will have to find new sources of revenue – at home. Punishing the honest few who pay their taxes or have them withheld should not be an option. Broadening the tax net is essential. It is feared that the closeness of Nawaz Sharif’s government to big business may not help and we may see punitive measures like further increases in the price of electricity and gas and more indirect taxes. These are all counterproductive measures that the IMF will expect us to take just to qualify for its latest loan. Far better to reject more external debt than to draw even more blood from suffering citizens.


The US should have learned its lesson about costly foreign interventions after the quagmires in Afghanistan and Iraq over the last decade but it seems poised to make the same mistake in Syria. All we know so far is that chemical weapons have been used in the civil war between the forces of President Bashar al-Assad and those who seek to topple him. There is no confirmation yet of which side deployed the chemical weapons. That apparently does not give the US pause, which now seems to be waiting to decide only when it will intervene in Syria, not whether it should. When it actually does, the US will be unlikely to have UN cover since the Russians may veto any resolution for military action at the Security Council. This will be Iraq 2.0, where the Americans get bogged down in a country they know nothing about and where morality during a time of conflict is so fluid that no side is entirely free of taint. All that is left for the US to decide is if it wants to spare itself any casualties and launch only an air war or if it will have boots on the ground.

The US does not seem to want to admit that even a light presence in Syria will spiral out of control. It is also not entirely clear which side should be supported. Assad may be a brutal dictator massacring his own people but many of his opponents have ties to extremist militant groups, including Al-Qaeda. It could also end up in an Egypt-like situation, where a long-serving dictator is ousted but powerful institutions – despite elections having been held – are not inclined to observing the norms of democracy. The US would be better served to stay out of the conflict altogether than to take sides in such a complex situation. US military adventurism in Syria will have little credibility. Previous claims about weapons of mass destruction in Iraq were so off base that American credibility is unlikely to be restored anytime soon. While the situation in Syria is tragic, any US involvement will only multiply that effect.