Attack on Ismaili community
IT is the vibrancy and plurality of Pakistan that the militants wish to destroy. In targeting Ismailis in Karachi, the militants have grotesquely reiterated their message to the country: no one — absolutely no one — who exists outside the narrow, distorted version of Islam that the militants propagate is safe in Pakistan. The Aga Khan has spoken of “a senseless act of violence against a peaceful community”. In their hour of desolation, it is only right that the Shia Ismaili community’s supreme leader has taken a dignified line and sought to comfort what will surely be a deeply anxious community. There is though clear sense recognisable in the attack. As the Peshawar school massacre delivered a devastating psychological blow to the country, so will the Karachi attack prove to be an immensely demoralising episode. And as the Peshawar school massacre forever altered the basic school-day routine of tens of millions of Pakistanis, so yesterday’s attack will tighten the already suffocating blanket of fear over various Muslim sects and non-Muslims. The darkness continues to engulf this country.
The brutal attack against the Ismaili community also raises some very specific questions in the context of Karachi and the security policy being pursued in the provincial capital. Clearly, whatever the state has done over the last 18 months in Karachi, there is no rational expectation that no more terrorist attacks will occur or that all terrorist attacks will be foiled. But there is a sense that the militarised strategy being pursued in Karachi is the wrong one — and that the focus of that militarised strategy, ie the MQM’s militant elements — is too narrow. There are still areas — several ethnic ghettoes — in Karachi that remain effectively cut off from the rest of the city and where law-enforcement personnel only enter on occasion. A strategy based on raids, arrests and, if necessary, killings can never rescue such neighbourhoods from the militants. Then, there has been virtually no discernible action against the extremist mosque-madressah-social welfare network that serves as an indoctrination and recruitment nexus for militants. Simply breaking up existing cells of militants does little to ensure the next generation of militant cells and groups are not being created.
In addition, what of the capacity of an intelligence apparatus that has to keep track of a wide spectrum of threats in Karachi? Surely, that is a task too far for the military-run intelligence agencies alone. There are occasional noises about the civilian-run intelligence and law-enforcement apparatus being part of the operational and strategic loop, but few believe that to be the case anymore. Finally, for all the problems with a military-dominated security policy in Karachi, why has the Sindh government allowed itself to become near irrelevant? The civilian side of the state needs to be more influential and assertive in the security domain, but in Sindh it appears that the government has nil interest in such an endeavour.
Afghan policy change?
FIRST, the good news. Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif’s Kabul visit with army chief Gen Raheel Sharif and DG ISI Gen Rizwan Akhtar in tow, and his emphatic, unprecedented denunciation of violence by the Afghan Taliban is the clearest sign yet that the Pakistani state is edging towards a far-reaching change in its Afghanistan policy. The symbolism in particular was striking. The prime minister spoke alongside Afghan President Ashraf Ghani, the present-day leader of the governance structure that inherited power from the Afghan Taliban in 2001, and criticised what has long been considered by the security establishment here as a loyal ally of the Pakistani state — the Afghan Taliban. If words and symbolism alone do not make policy, there is at least a genuine sense now that Pakistan’s consistent, years-long articulation of wanting to turn the page on Afghanistan may have some substance to it. Consider also that Gen Sharif separately announced via the ISPR the resumption of a road-building project — Torkham to Jalalabad. This underscores Pakistan is also looking to Afghanistan as a trading partner and not viewing it simply as a security conundrum.
Now, the perhaps not-so-good news: it will take a lot for the change in attitude to be replicated by a change in posture and policy on both sides. Both the Pakistanis and Afghans have immediate and medium-term demands of each other. For Pakistan, the issues of anti-Pakistan militants finding sanctuary along the Pak-Afghan frontier and better border management remain urgent priorities. The security establishment here appears to believe that securing Fata and thwarting major terrorist attacks inside the country can only be assured if the banned TTP is denied space and resources everywhere. The ability for some of the TTP leadership and its cadres to cross the Pak-Afghan border with relative ease and find sanctuary in Afghanistan therefore continues to be a key concern of the army. On the Afghan side, the immediate concerns are to tamp down the massive so-called spring offensive of the Afghan Taliban and to bring the latter to the negotiating table as quickly as possible.
The Afghan difficulty with Pakistan lies in the extent to which Pakistan believes, or claims, it can help address Afghan concerns — and vice versa. Past experience suggests otherwise. But then past experience has not had a civilian and military leadership on the Pakistani side and a president on the Afghan side who are willing to engage with each other to this extent.
Circular debt plan
THE government has agreed with the IMF to implement a plan to reduce the circular debt next year to reportedly half of what it is today. The circular debt has been a millstone around the neck of the power sector for almost a decade now, and this is not the first time that the government has announced its intention to reduce it. Still, this time what is different is that the plan that has been announced sounds a little more realistic than before — if only because ordinary folk will be footing the bill. Going by the details that have emerged, particularly from the interactions of the Fund team with the media, the plan involves reducing the subsidy outlay by not passing the full benefit of oil prices to the consumers, the privatisation of some power-sector entities and a multi-year tariff that incorporates larger system losses into the tariff. What this means is that the circular debt is to be eliminated by passing on the costs to the consumer, through higher power tariffs, particularly to pay for theft, as well as lower reductions in oil prices at the pump. The idea is to improve the financial health of the three distribution companies to make them attractive for investors at the time of privatisation.
Nobody denies that better management of energy-sector entities is necessary to deal with the chronic power crisis and the best way to accomplish this is to increase the role of the private sector. But doing so at the cost of the customers is debatable. At the very least, the details regarding the multi-year tariff ought to be made public, either by including them in the Letter of Intent for the next tranche of the Fund programme, or through the Nepra website. Approval of the tariff should also be done through a public hearing by Nepra where representatives of the public ought to be allowed to air their reservations. Reducing the circular debt is a national priority. But the manner in which this goal is reached ought to have some consensus behind it.
Published in Dawn, May 14th, 2015