Price of inaction
PAKISTAN’S drift towards international isolation is only matched by the state’s denial of this truth. On Wednesday, the joint US-India statement issued at the end of Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s visit to Washington D.C. contained direct language seemingly focused on Pakistan. It is worth reproducing the relevant part of the text: “The [US and Indian] leaders stressed the need for joint and concerted efforts, including the dismantling of safe havens for terrorist and criminal networks, to disrupt all financial and tactical support for networks such as Al Qaeda, Lashkar-e-Taiba, Jaish-e-Mohammad, the D-Company and the Haqqanis. They reiterated their call for Pakistan to bring the perpetrators of the November 2008 terrorist attack in Mumbai to justice.” On the same day, the US Treasury department announced sanctions against three Pakistanis, including Fazlur Rehman Khalil, and two Pakistan-based entities for links to the LeT and Harkatul Mujahideen, the foremost of the Kashmir-orientated militant groups in the country. Certainly India has its own reasons for trying to build an anti-Pakistan alliance, but our refusal to address militancy concerns has created more space for Delhi’s anti-Pakistan rhetoric. Take the official reaction by the Foreign Office yesterday in which the FO spokesperson focused on a UN terrorist watchlist and denied that the US move is “binding” on Pakistan.
Therein lies the problem: while Pakistan continues to baulk at acting against certain militant groups, the countries under threat from those organisations are moving closer to each other in order to counter the threat. Consider that the joint US-India statement also refers to “dismantling” terrorist safe havens: is that an ominous sign that however remote the possibility at the moment, the US and India have begun contemplating the possibility of targeted counterterrorist operations on Pakistani soil at some point in the future? Surely, that would be nothing short of a catastrophe for Pakistan with unknowable consequences for peace and security in the region. Yet, the country’s national security and foreign policy apparatus remains indifferent to or unaware of the storm that appears to be brewing. In truth, many of Pakistan’s problems are self-inflicted. The best that has ever been managed when it comes to pro-Kashmir militant groups is to put the state’s sponsorship of jihad in cold storage, as was done by Musharraf in the early part of the last decade. But, a decade on, the security establishment seems bent on continuing the policy of politically mainstreaming the leadership of groups such as the LeT, HuM and now even the Punjabi Taliban. That is what allows Hafiz Saeed and Fazlur Rehman Khalil to address rallies, appear routinely on TV and to go on organising their ranks and developing their organisations with a brazenness and confidence that has the rest of the world looking on with alarm. Truly, the outside world can legitimately ask why the Mumbai-related Rawalpindi trials are stuck in limbo. The signals from D.C. are clear: if Pakistan doesn’t act, others will.
Wazirabad scuffle
THE anti-government ‘go Nawaz go’ slogan seems to have gone viral, thanks largely to the campaign being run by the PTI and PAT in Islamabad. Over the past few days, we have come across numerous reports of the slogan being raised in different forums, usually where members of the PML-N are present. Understandably, the N-League is extremely displeased with the frequent repetition of the stinging phrase. Patience in the party’s ranks is wearing thin and matters came to a head at an event in Wazirabad in Punjab’s Gujranwala district, where the prime minister had come to distribute cheques to flood victims. The situation turned ugly when PML-N workers, reportedly led by a provincial lawmaker, thrashed PTI supporters for raising the slogan after Nawaz Sharif had left the venue. As per remarks on television, Taufeeq Butt, the MPA in question, said similar treatment would be meted out to protesters who raised the dreaded slogan again. Deplorable as the violence is, what is totally unacceptable is the PML-N leadership’s apparent defence of the brutal tactics its activists applied to silence their opponents. Tweeting after the incident, Maryam Nawaz appeared to gloat over the ‘performance’ in Wazirabad, warning PTI supporters “not to mess with lions”. Political dissent is an essential ingredient of democracy. Yet what has been observed about both sides — the government as well as those in Islamabad calling for its departure — is that there is a visible lack of tolerance. We can question the timing and occasion where slogans are raised, but stamping out dissent through brute force smacks of authoritarianism. A few days ago, another protester raising the ‘go Nawaz go’ slogan was beaten up at a function in Lahore. Instead of using such methods, protesters can firmly but in a non-violent manner be asked to take their demonstration elsewhere. Meanwhile, party leaders would do well not to encourage any hooliganism in the lower cadres, which could worsen matters. All sides need to use democratic methods to express dissent, as well as to counter it.
Unfair protections
THE Competition Commission of Pakistan is back in the news with an important order against three state-owned construction companies. When they were formed, the National Logistics Cell, the Frontier Works Organisation and the National Construction Limited, were allowed an exemption from furnishing various types of sureties for work they undertook for the federal and provincial governments. Their competitors in the private sector, by contrast, have been required to furnish these sureties, ranging from bank guarantees to secure performance bonds and mobilisation advances, and retention money adjustment for example. Since such sureties tie up large amounts of the contractor’s funds, private parties say these exemptions give the three state-owned companies a huge unfair advantage, and place “burdensome terms” on their private-sector competitors. The CCP finds that the exemptions were originally granted to “allow growth under protection to achieve economies of scale”. Since their establishment decades ago, the economy has opened up to encourage greater private-sector competition but the exemptions have remained in place. The CCP finds that the three state-owned companies “no longer need protections in the form of exemptions”, keeping in mind “their ability to compete abroad”.
It is heartening to see the CCP asserting itself in an important matter. Providing a level playing field for all players is a key function for the government. Since the exemptions distort the market in the key construction sector of the economy, they create barriers for entry for other players, the CCP says. And since hundreds of billions of rupees flow through government contracts for construction in any given fiscal year, the size of the market that private parties are being discouraged from entering is enormous. Of particular concern is the fact that two of these companies enjoying exemptions come under the Ministry of Defence. The defence production sector has long enjoyed exemption from the structural adjustment measures undertaken by the government over the past three decades. If companies in this sector are enjoying profitable years while the rest of the public sector sags under the weight of accumulating losses, it is because exemptions of this sort have been granted in many other forms as well. Perhaps the CCP should look into similar uncompetitive practices in other state-owned enterprises in the defence production sector, which has escaped the brunt of budget cuts and subsidy rollbacks that other SOEs have had to suffer over the decades.
Published in Dawn, October 3rd, 2014