EDITORIAL:Separating strategy from politics

[arsa]

Friday, January 23, 2009
According to the “foreign policy agenda” issued by the White House under President Barack Obama, the United States will “increase non-military aid to Pakistan and hold it accountable for security in the border region with Afghanistan”. This has been interpreted by a section in the press in Pakistan as “linking” an increase in aid to Pakistan to American security along the Afghan border. But surely the agenda does not deviate from the principle of a change of policy that favours strengthening Pakistan’s economy as it functions as an ally of the United States, does it?

In the midst of a somewhat upbeat week in the fight against the terrorists, the NWFP Governor, Owais Ahmad Ghani, has called for “the withdrawal of foreign troops from Afghanistan”. He said that their presence is “endangering the security of the entire region”. This pronouncement goes further than the official line by Pakistan on the issue of drone flights over Pakistani territory. The government as well as the army have told the US that drone attacks into Pakistani territory were not helpful and must be discontinued.

Governor Ghani seems to be overstepping his official brief by echoing the popular emotion which has not yet been embraced by the state of Pakistan because the exit of the NATO-ISAF forces from the region has not been publicly analysed by Islamabad. The governor spoke even as Pakistani troops mounted a successful operation against a group of Al Qaeda men in Khyber Agency on Wednesday, including four Arabs and three Afghans. Among them was also Zabi ul Taifi, a senior Al Qaeda operative allegedly wanted in connection with the July 7, 2005 Al Qaeda attacks in London.

The army’s advance into the Mohmand agency has also been successful after a period of heart-breaking news. Umer Khalid, the chief of Tehrik-e-Taliban Pakistan (TTP) in the Mohmand tribal region, was killed along with four other key commanders in a military operation in Lakaro area on Wednesday. The operation against the Taliban was spearheaded by artillery fire and helicopter gunships. This is good news for Pakistan because Mohmand is the stepping stone to the main objective of getting at the TTP chief Baitullah Mehsud in South Waziristan who plans and executes terrorism in all parts of the Tribal Areas, including Swat. One reason Swat is being allowed to be punished by the terrorists in the Provincially Administered Area (PATA) is that the Federally Administered Tribal Areas (FATA) have to be tackled first as the real origin of mischief.

The world does not agree with Governor Ghani’s statement that “the roots of terrorism are in Afghanistan and not in Pakistan”. That the exit of “foreign forces” from Afghanistan will lead to peace in the region is also questionable — there were no such foreign forces in Afghanistan when the Taliban joined hands with Al Qaeda in 1997 and gave refuge to Osama bin Laden. Therefore, wh ile it may be emotionally satisfying to get foreign forces out of Afghanistan, it is not yet clear whether it would strategically benefit Pakistan, besieged as it is with Al Qaeda and Taliban elements in all parts of its territory. *

SECOND EDITORIAL: Don’t reinstate!

The PPP government has decided — in fulfilment of a promise made by its late leader Ms Benazir Bhutto — to reinstate more than 7,000 government employees sacked between November 1996 and December 1999. The package will cost Rs 8 billion at a time when the people of Pakistan are suffering from power shortages simply because the government has not been able to pay more than Rs 7 billion to the private sector power producers as against a total arrears bill of Rs 120 billion. The employees to be reinstated, with arrears paid and seniority preserved, are the ones fired between November 1996 and December 1999.

The PPP government has decided that the 7,000 people suffered “political victimisation” at the hands of the PML government which had chucked them out on charges of “political favouritism”. Instead of bringing the entire case to the court of law, the government has decided to promulgate an ordinance to implement the planned reinstatement. This is going to be a politically disastrous decision on many counts, the uppermost being the state of the economy where “laying off” is more advisable than “taking on”. The PPP’s pledge to convert contracted employees into regular ones is also going to haemorrhage the corporations, many of which are already teetering on the edge of bankruptcy.

The decision has also created internal rifts. The Minister for Parliamentary Affairs, Dr Babar Awan, who is the party’s media trouble-shooter, is not convinced that this is the right thing to do at this time. The Law Minister, Mr Farooq H Naik, who is going to draft the ordinance that will reinstate the employees is also not in agreement from the legal point of view. And the outspoken Defence Minister, Mr Ahmed Mukhtar, says, “State-run organisations including Pakistan International Airlines are already facing severe financial problems and the plan is not viable in the current circumstances”.

We don’t know how the Adviser on Finance, Mr Shaukat Tareen, has agreed to accept the PPP manifesto’s economically unrealistic part at this time — “roti, kapra” and “makan” — in the state sector. The flak in the coming days will be unbearable from those who think the PPP had made other more realistic pledges that it has not fulfilled. The outside world, so far willing to bail out the government with aid, will be dismayed at what is about to happen. Our advice is: Don’t do it!
Daily Times