Carjacking remedies
EFFECTIVELY fighting crime is a matter of constantly evolving strategies and techniques, as well as staying in conversation with every possible effort to buttress law enforcement. Unfortunately, these are areas where the police in Pakistan often find themselves lacking, particularly in Karachi, where the statistics on street crime — armed muggings, the snatching or lifting of vehicles, etc — outstrip those in any other city in the country. Data available with the Citizens-Police Liaison Committee and the Sindh police, for example, put the figure of four-wheelers and two-wheelers snatched or stolen as running into the thousands every year. According to some estimates, on an average, more than a dozen vehicles are taken away from their owners every single day. Given this situation, and especially in a country where stolen vehicles are all too often used for terrorist and criminal purposes, it would have been rational to expect that time and effort were constantly being invested in plugging the loopholes wherever they exist.
That, unfortunately, does not seem to be the case: on Monday, Karachi’s Anti Car-Lifting Unit drew the attention of the authorities to the fact that a number of security features whose availability could reduce the incidence of auto theft were not being incorporated in cars that are assembled locally. The ACLU letter pointed out that in the UK, for example, the steering column lock has been a standard feature since 1970, and that measures such as sandblasting engine and chassis numbers on windscreens and major metal parts, or embedding electronic, code-carrying chips into the plastic body of ignition keys, could help lower the statistics on carjacking. Indeed, there is really no reason why measures such as these should not be made mandatory at the assembly stage, or even at the sale/transfer point where possible. While the cost of buying a car might rise nominally, decreasing the vehicles’ vulnerability would help bring down insurance premiums. For both the law-enforcement agencies and citizens, this could be developed into a win-win situation.
LHWs’ unpaid dues
GIVEN that Lady Health Workers are a vital cog in the wheel of our sputtering health machine, the shabby treatment meted out to them beggars belief. First it was the regularisation of their services which they managed to achieve only after extensive agitation — not to mention being tear-gassed and baton-charged by police — despite a Supreme Court ruling in their favour. Now it’s their arrears that the government is dragging its feet on. According to a report in this paper, the centre owes the Khyber Pakhtunkhwa government Rs2bn in arrears due to the 13,000 plus LHWs in the province. Following devolution in 2010, the centre had pledged to continue financing the LHW programme until 2017, after which the provinces would assume the responsibility, a decision reiterated by the Council of Common Interests. However, a recent meeting of the Executive Committee of the National Economic Council decided to suspend funding from June 2015, leaving the provinces with the daunting task of finding space within their own budgets for the outlay.
Even though the programme could be much improved, the 106,000 LHWs in Pakistan play an important role in providing essential primary health services on a community level, especially in rural areas. Reports by public health experts say that households visited by LHWs are 15pc more likely to have children under three years fully immunised, an important consideration in a country where outbreaks of childhood diseases such as measles are fairly common. Moreover, with 85pc of LHWs involved in the anti-polio campaign, they are also on the frontline — in a very real sense — of Pakistan’s war against the crippling disease, one we stand perilously close to losing primarily because of the risk to the lives of polio vaccinators. Over 60 vaccinators and security personnel assigned to safeguard them during campaigns have lost their lives in attacks by militants during the last two years, with the highest number of casualties taking place in KP. It is outrageous to expect them to continue with what has become life-threatening work without the compensation owed to them.
They are not the only health workers seeking their due: vaccinators from the Expanded Programme on Immunisation in KP threatened on Monday to boycott the upcoming anti-polio campaign if their salaries — pending for the last several months — were not paid to them. Let no one think that the government isn’t doing its bit to turn a crisis into a full-blown emergency.
Debate on Yemen
THE ongoing extraordinary joint session of parliament has produced at least one consensus so far: there is no enthusiasm anywhere along the political spectrum for sending Pakistani troops to Yemen. In fact, other than the PML-N, the leadership of every party, be it from the religious right or secular left, has rejected the option of sending troops to Yemen. Even Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif could only bring himself to refer to the Saudi requests to Pakistan made public by Defence Minister Khawaja Asif on Monday, suggesting that the PML-N itself remains unconvinced of the merits of militarily interfering inside Yemen on the side of the Saudi-led coalition against the Houthis. So far at least the sensible approach appears to be carrying the day inside parliament, reflecting the consensus in rational quarters outside the house that Pakistan should not be drawn into a conflict in which it has no discernible interests to protect and where the risks are many. What though is to be made of Prime Minister Sharif’s reluctance to elucidate on his government’s policy on Yemen? Instead of leading the debate, laying out a policy for parliament to focus on, the prime minister yesterday appealed to the house to guide the government.
In the political arena, such deference is usually meant more in spirit than in substance — surely, the prime minister has no intention of allowing parliament to make a choice for the government that he does not agree with. More likely the government is juggling two other concerns: an inability to flatly reject the Saudi demands of military assistance in the Yemen campaign; and the need to give diplomatic consultations an opportunity to find a peaceful solution — at least before an expected land invasion led by the Saudis into Yemen begins. The prime minister clearly hinted at the latter when he referred to the shuttle diplomacy being conducted by himself and the Turkish president possibly producing a breakthrough later this week. Whatever the strategy of the government, it needs to heed the message of parliament: a military entanglement in the Middle East is not in Pakistan’s interest. Not at this time when there is a war against militancy to be fought inside Pakistan first. Not in Yemen, where old, tribal enmities are being given a sectarian edge by outside powers. Not in the decades-old proxy wars of Saudi Arabia and Iran. And not when the Middle East itself appears to be teetering on the brink of catastrophe.
Pakistan does have interests in the Middle East and the relationship with Saudi Arabia is vital, both for security and religious reasons. But protecting one important relationship should not come at the cost of destabilising other ties. Most of all, as underscored in parliament yesterday, Yemen is a potential quagmire that could rival Afghanistan. The public appears to understand this as does much of parliament. Will the PML-N too let better sense prevail?
Published in Dawn, April 8th, 2015
http://www.dawn.com/newspaper/editorial