Columns - Page 4

imran bakht · #31 Monday, January 24, 2011

After the floods

Dr. A Q Khan

The monsoon rains of the summer of 2010 were extraordinarily heavy in Pakistan and lasted for three months. This resulted in severe floods affecting the country from north to south. The violent floods of 1988, in which the roads to Kahuta were cut off and the water level in the Soan River had almost reached the Kak bridge, pale in comparison to the floods of 2010.
In August, the United Nations stated that the number of people affected by these massive floods could exceed the combined total of the victims of three recent mega-disasters – the Indian Ocean tsunami of December 2004, the October 2005 earthquake in Kashmir and the January 2010 earthquake in Haiti.
Whenever a calamity hits, the practice all over the world is for governments, foreign agencies and NGOs to prepare reports on the actual or anticipated damage to the economy and the loss of human lives and property. Such assessments are usually off the mark. In the case of many governments, there is usually a large discrepancy between the assessments, with government agencies exaggerating losses in an effort to receive large amounts of foreign assistance, while the foreign agencies and NGOs underestimate the damage due to restricted access to the affected areas. The main focus of these reports is on estimates of the damage caused and the costs of long-term rehabilitation.
Two important reports on flood damages and need assessment have been made public.
1. The document titled “Pakistan Floods 2010-Preliminary Damage and Needs Assessment,” which was produced by the Asian Development Bank, the World Bank and the government of Pakistan.
2. The document, “Civil Society’s Rapid Appraisal of Flood Damage and Need Assessment Process Being Led by the World Bank and the Asian Development Bank,” is a consolidated report brought out by the Rural Development Policy Institute, the Pakistan Debt Cancellation Campaign and Oxfam.
While the second report is a document of about 10 papers, the first one covers about 184 pages. Significant contributions were made by one UN official and financial and technical support was extended by the Global Facility for Disaster Reduction and Recovery. Many other organisations gave invaluable inputs, as did Pakistan’s federal, provincial and district governments, including the planning and development departments, the provincial disaster management agencies, the FATA Secretariat and the Azad Jammu and the Kashmir planning and development department.
According to press reports, the United Nations prepared an additional report titled “the Pakistan Floods Emergency Response Plan.” The two reports were coordinated for proper assessment.
If we look back to the announcements made after the 2005 earthquake, we note that first there was no mention of casualties. Then came reports of a few hundred, then a few thousand and within a week the numbers rose to scores of thousands. Incidentally, despite massive foreign assistance and contributions by domestic philanthropists, a very large number of victims are still living in tents without a proper roof over their heads, have no electricity or running water and are now facing heavy rains and severe cold. No money has filtered down to many of them.
There was a large variable in damage and rehabilitation assessment and estimates after the 2005 earthquake, ranging from $1 billion to $7 billion. The estimates or assessment of the damages caused by the recent floods also vary greatly – from $8 billion to $20 billion, or even more. The estimates of about $10 billion made by the World Bank and the and Asian Development Bank seem on the lower side due to original costs having been used, rather than the inflated rates prevailing today. They are in a position to provide the required funds and they had the various agencies and organisations in place to do the job through their workers and volunteers and to obtain the most reliable data.
The Pakistani government lacks foresight and the ability to foresee a disaster and plans for urgent response. Everything is done on an ad hoc and day-to-day basis. There are many so-called experts and intellectuals who excel in preparing feasibility reports with lots of suggestions. My own experience is that such thick reports, which contain a lot of data, are hardly ever studied by the government officials responsible and end up in cupboards and ultimately disposed of.
Here I would like to give my own views on the various assessments. In Pakistan army units and local land/revenue officials are always available on the spot. They are in the best position to assess the local damages and needs after a calamity, and to do so quickly and accurately.
I believe that the report prepared by the World Bank and the Asian Development Bank, though nearer to the mark, still lacks true estimates. This is evident from the report titled “Civil Society’s Rapid Appraisal of Flood Damage and Need Assessment Process.” The information for this report was collected from flood-affected people, local officials and civil society organisations from affected districts in Punjab, Sindh and Balochistan. Unfortunately, this report does not give any information about Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa.
The most astonishing fact that emerges from this report is the fact that the majority of the community groups interviewed expressed ignorance about any assessment conducted in their area by government and official agencies to ascertain damage and needs. This casts serious doubts on the authenticity and validity of the comprehensive report prepared by the World Bank/Asian Development Bank. Its estimates of $8-10 billion were considered too low. On the other hand, the estimates of the ministry of finance of about $30 billion were considered too high. If we make an educated guess, the estimate would be in the range of about $20 billion. It was definitely a setback for the government, which had projected the damages at $43 billion.
Extensive research has been done, and information published, on flood damages and rehabilitation expenditures by journalists, NGOs and researchers. Researcher and columnist Dr Farrukh Saleem has written extensively on this subject. His analysis and estimates are usually reliable.

imran bakht · #32 Monday, January 24, 2011

Empowering the poor

Shafqat Mahmood

A sense of gloom pervades the spirit. Another gruesome tragedy, this time in the heart of Lahore. Parents of Justice Javed Iqbal murdered in cold blood. The notion of things falling apart comes to mind repeatedly. The structures of the state are collapsing and yet the shell gives an appearance of normality. There is a government, a prime minister, a cabinet and provincial setups. Civil servants get up every morning and go to office. The superior courts appear to be functioning with reports of high profile cases filling the newspapers. Other institutions such as the Election Commission etc also intrude into our consciousness with a statement or two.
Yet, beneath all this, beneath the self-important apex structures of the state, there is complete chaos. The underpaid police assigned to maintain order is in a total shambles and for a long time has been a predatory institution. The sad part is that it is almost required to survive through corruption, given what is invested in it in terms of salaries, equipment and the general working environment.
The justice system particularly at the local level has become a joke. Corruption is rampant with an unholy alliance between different elements of the legal fraternity. The few honest judges have seen their fate after the lawyers thrashed some and others got booted out under pressure. Why should anyone resist now. It is better to team up with influential elements and go laughing all the way to the bank.
So much for law and the much abused word, order. If a system can neither protect nor give justice, it is a failure. On this bar, we already live in a failed state. Consider yourself lucky if you have so far escaped serious assault or never had to interact with the police or the courts.
If this is the state of affairs for the well to do, imagine how the poor are faring. In the villages, a common saying is that God protects you from a serious illness or a court case. The allusion is that both these things will drive you into poverty. And many have been. It may be a cry in the wilderness but today I want to focus on this, on how to give legal protection to the poor.
There is little doubt that any kind of legal empowerment creates conditions for the security of the poor and has the possibility of increasing upward mobility that ‘may’ help them to climb the economic ladder. The difficulty is not in envisioning such an outcome. It is in creating the necessary framework – legal, political, social – that allows this to happen.
It is also true that just reforming the legal system, which in itself is not an easy task, only solves one part of the problem. The challenge is to propose mechanisms that allow the poor to have a level playing field while interfacing with the legal system.
This by definition means that any intervention will be based on the assumption that the poor are unable to get justice from the system because they lack financial and social resources to compete with powerful adversaries on equal terms.
It is here that the state has to intervene by creating legal aid mechanisms. While entrenched social hierarchies are impossible to bridge through state interventions, it is hoped that the establishment of a legal aid structure for the poor would go some way towards creating the possibility of a fairer deal for them.
The task of creating such a legal aid mechanism is not easy. It means mobilising individual lawyers or groups of them to provide legal services to the poor. While these would not be pro bono or without payment, the scope of work would necessarily include more than just court appearances on behalf of their clients. It would require interfacing with the police and perhaps with the prison system to ensure that the poor are not short changed.
There are other problems. Conflicts do not arise between the rich and the poor only; quite often, they are among the poor. Any mechanism of legal empowerment would have to differentiate between conflicts that require assistance with the legal system and others that can be resolved through alternate dispute resolution methods.
ADR mechanisms have a long history in our country, particularly in the rural areas. Afraid of the complexities of the legal system, the poor often revert to local landowners or political influentials to resolve their disputes. In some areas, local panchayat’s or committees of village elders also help.
The problem with these ‘spontaneous’ alternate dispute resolution mechanisms is that they function reasonably well when disputes between equals is involved. They are largely ineffective when the dispute is between the poor and the relatively well off.
Since, legal empowerment of the poor essentially means empowering them to compete in near equal terms with the rich; the challenge will be to take into account and possibly overcome social structures and hierarchies that have congealed over a long period of time.
In any conflict between the rich and the poor, the rich have an advantage not only because of their financial resources. The wealth is usually backed up by a generation or two of upward social mobility. This means linkages based on blood, clan or tribal ties and networks based on social status. All of these add up to inroads into the state structure and in particular into its legal system.
These linkages are also carefully nurtured and this behaviour has become a part of the social ethos of the local elites especially in the rural areas. The poor are thus disadvantaged not only because they are poor but also because they do not have the social, clan, or tribal interface with important actors in the legal system. To bring about any change in this dialectic is far from easy.
The political factor also automatically becomes a part of the equation. Representative democracy in general throws up one or the other part of the local elite into positions of political prominence. While adult franchise has made a difference and has empowered the poor somewhat, it is still difficult for them to challenge the elites in an election. They do not have either the resources or the clan and tribal linkages to succeed and seldom become candidates.
The field is thus open only to the local elites and they in turn rely on the support structure of their own peer group. This means that whenever any conflict develops between the rich and the poor, the political representatives would side with people of their own class unless it suits them politically to do otherwise. This adds to the burden that the poor are carrying when interfacing with the legal system.
The task thus of legally empowering the poor means taking on an entrenched social order and that is not easy. While difficult, it is not impossible. It is a challenge worth undertaking because any change that can be brought about in the social equation of power would have a tremendous impact.
The question is how can it be brought about and who will do it?

imran bakht · #33 Monday, January 24, 2011

Side-effect

Harris Khalique

In the aftermath of Salmaan Taseer’s assassination — on the pretext of a transgression he had never made, and at the hands of not one man but fanaticism shared by many, nurtured in this society for long — the whipping up of emotions by religio-political parties continue unabated. It is a political game being played in the name of faith and even after the prime minister, the interior minister, the law minister, etc either capitulating under pressure from the right wing parties or themselves having no commitment to amend, let alone repeal, any laws introduced during General Ziaul Haq’s obscurantist rule, these parties continue to agitate.
What irony that rather than the PPP’s top leadership organising meetings and reaching out to people, and telling them how unjustified is the killing of their diehard worker and sitting governor, rallies are organised in favour of the perpetrator of the crime by those who provide legitimacy to such acts to further their quest for power. The tragedy of this proportion warranted a concerted response, the prime minister addressing the nation and educating them about what is wrong with these injunctions of the Pakistan Penal Code and why people should not be misled. At least, the able information minister could have been given the task to speak publicly to explain why the governor embraced martyrdom. The passing of a resolution for not even touching these controversial articles of the PPC by Khyber Pakhtunkhwa assembly confirms disappointment in ANP leadership.
As one had expected, the supposedly mainstream religious parties like Jamiat-i-Ulema-i-Islam, Fazlur Rahman Group (JUI-F) and Jamaat-i-Islami have taken charge of the movement that includes Sami-ul-Haq’s faction of JUI, groups of Jamiat-i-Ulema-i-Pakistan, Sunni Tehreek, etc. They are riding the public sentiment that is rooted in pure ignorance of the history of apostasy, renunciation of religion, forgiveness, reconversion, blaspheming against the holy books or prophets, and multiple interpretations offered on these issues by various jurisprudences prevalent among Muslims. People have no idea how these concepts from Judo-Christian theological traditions, guided by the expediencies of their pre-medieval rulers, got permeated into Islamic texts. People are not given an opportunity to hear out why serious religious scholars in Pakistan like Dr Khalid Masood, Javed Ahmed Ghamdi, Khalid Zaheer and the late Dr Farooq Ahmed Khan have been critical of the existence and usage of these laws promulgated through the PPC. Nor are they given an opportunity to learn about other Muslim societies.
It is not true that the majority of Pakistanis are stubborn and are not willing to understand. Whatever rituals they observe and sects they follow, they have revered humanists like Shah Latif Bhittai, Rehman Baba, Bulleh Shah, Khwaja Fareed and Mast Tawakkali for centuries. But today, even the possibility of speaking the simple truth — forget about voicing different opinions — is being snatched away. The space for any dialogue is being occupied by a rhetoric based on falsehood and an utter disregard for basic human values.
It is already late for the civil and military establishment of Pakistan to realise that, besides causing the society to rot from within, religio-political parties are creating conditions for foreign intervention which will devoid us of our already fragile sovereignty, state assets and any remaining power to manoeuvre. With our economy in a shambles, viewed internationally as breeding terrorism and having hostile frontiers, our existence is at stake. We need to curb extremism by reaching out to people at large, drying up sources of support for those doing politics in the name of religion and putting a halt to their appeasement.

imran bakht · #34 Monday, January 24, 2011

Tactical retreat or total defeat?

Cyril Almeida

HOW do you fight a fire? Starve it of oxygen. The stoic silence maintained by the PPP in the face of an onslaught from the liberals and the right appears to be part of a plan.
What plan, the liberals are screaming. They`re killing us, slaughtering those who speak out for justice, threatening and intimidating and bullying their way to a deformed, malign Pakistan. If we don`t fight back now, there`ll be nothing left to save.
They may have a point, but the visceral response isn`t necessarily a strategic, or even sensible, one.
The right — the fundos, the mullahs, the crazies, the ultra-right, call them what you will — is on the march. Dealt another punishing blow at the polls in 2008, they are like a junkie in search of the high of 2002.
(Back then, a surge in anti-American sentiment and a dictator looking to shut out the PML-N and the PPP allowed the MMA to sweep to unprecedented gains.)
Then, courtesy some bigots in a Nankana Sahib village, came the spark: a luckless Christian woman was convicted of blasphemy. Blasphemy. Christian. Woman. Instantly, she became a cause celebre for the progressives at home and the West. Instantly, the right had its agenda.
Cue your noisy, and noisome, rallies and protests, your sound and fury. Over our dead bodies! Pakistan is for Islam! We will never let this happen!
It may sound brutal — and with heartfelt apologies to Aasia Bibi — but a nobody from a nowhere village being accused by other nobodies of doing something ghastly isn`t exactly a recipe for building momentum. After the necessary hand-wringing from the progressives and perfunctory, formulaic denunciations from the right, the matter would have slipped off the national radar.
The right needed something more. Enter the brash governor of Punjab.
In politics, as in life, the unexpected happens sometimes. Salman Taseer`s defence of Aasia was not only outspoken, but, given the platform he had, it was phenomenally visible. The fire got the oxygen it needed. Last week it engulfed Taseer.
And since then, there has been nothing but stony silence from the PPP. (Bilawal Bhutto may make the occasional jiyala`s heart flutter, but the young prince`s words carry no weight, at least for now.)
The silence has been so total, so complete, so consistent that you know it is party policy. Say nothing, do nothing, starve the fire of oxygen and live to fight another day.
It makes sense as a tactic, at least for anyone who is familiar with the cacophonous, occasionally brutal bazaar of politics here and who knows a thing or two about history.
The right, historically organised but electorally marginalised, has always tried to vault to greater relevance by hawking the spectre of a godless, secular, westernised left trying to take the country away from its traditional — Muslim and Islamic — roots.
Memories are often short in Pakistan, but there are also some wonderful, gentle souls who are true servants of history. Some of them will tell you about 1970, long before the PNA rabble besieged Zulfi Bhutto.
The left was in the ascendant back then, and old Lahore became a battleground between the religious conservatives and the lefties. Forty years later, there is some hesitation to spell out the details, but it involved some paraphernalia being burned, the usual spurious allegations and a quasi mob or two.
The meta-narrative, though, was terribly familiar: build up the bugbear of the left (today, the `liberals`), then lead its takedown from the right, leaving the right mobilised, energised and popularised.
Fast forward from those halcyon days to 2011, and the PPP silence can be seen in that context.
Nothing would suit the right-wing parties more than another salvo fired from the other side. Fists pumping, bellies jiggling, beards askance, they would bay at the `enemies of Islam`.
Starve the fire of oxygen, though, and it will soon go out.
Add to this the PPP`s fear of establishment-led plots, and, from the present leadership`s perspective, it may make even more sense to avoid antagonising and riling up the right, from where the establishment has often attacked.
So, in the cut-throat world of Pakistani politics, the PPP response may make tactical sense. But does it serve any greater purpose? Does it, in security-state parlance, make strategic sense?
Assuming the PPP has some genuine interest in seeing a Pakistan different from the one the right wants to perpetuate, what comes after the silence, after the latest furore dies down, when there is time and space to think about ways of pushing back?
Looking at the present lot, you can`t help but feel the answer is: nothing.
They`ve got no ideas, they`ve got no plans, they`ve got no vision. Not about the blasphemy law, not about militancy, not the infrastructure of jihad, not even about the culture of intolerance generally. They`ve got nothing.
Which necessarily leaves you wondering: is the PPP`s absolute silence in the face of right-wing fury simply a function of wanting to hang on to power? Power for power`s sake?
And here we end up at the original, bigger problem. Messy, ugly and intractable as the dilemmas confronting Pakistan are, the threats are less worrying than the lack of commitment and will to fight them.
There is no brain trust, there are no thinkers, there is no thinking.
Knowing you want to go somewhere is only half of the problem; figuring out how to get there is the other half.
But if you don`t know where you want to go nor how to get there, don`t be surprised if the right wing hijacks you and takes you places you never knew existed.

imran bakht · #35 Monday, January 24, 2011

If the Americans remain

Zafar Hilaly

The US forgets that the weak have one weapon: the errors of those who think they are strong. It misjudged its own strength in Afghanistan, just as it did that of the Taliban. And, having bitten off far more than it can chew, it is stuck for an explanation for its lack of success. That’s essentially the problem that all US emissaries face, including the straight-talking Joseph Biden.
In many respects, Biden resembles his Pakistani counterparts. Like, for instance, his body language, which often belies the words of his carefully-crafted speeches; actually, his discomfiture with written speeches as a whole. But chiefly that, like them, he suffers from dentopedology, which is the science of opening your mouth and putting your foot in it. That said, on this particular visit it was mercifully not evident. In fact, his candour was refreshing and welcome.
A major hurdle in coming to grips with America’s Afghan policy is that the US mission statement is forever evolving, depending on what is needed to keep pace with the mood swings of the American electorate or the changing balance of opinion among its distraught decision-makers. It evolves and devolves, from nation-building; to ushering in democracy; to defeating Al-Qaeda; to worsting the Taliban (but only the “bad” Taliban); to stopping their “momentum,” to “reversing the trend” – and, sometimes, all of the above. It switches from US combat troops leaving in 2011, to not doing so till 2014, and not even then, according to Biden, if Karzai “were to ask for them to stay.” (This latest Biden utterance, which was discounted in Washington, brought his foot dangerously close to his mouth.)
US policies are equally evanescent towards Pakistan. From conducting Special Forces operations within Pakistan, to having boots on the ground, to “not having a single boot tread on Pakistani soil”; to breaking up Pakistan, to not breaking up Pakistan; to being happy with Pakistan, to warning Pakistan that “US patience is wearing thin.” Only in one respect has American policy been consistent, and that is demanding of Pakistan to “do more,” and more, and more – although one suspects that this too might change from “do more” to “do it all.”
Headlines, following Biden’s visit, varied from “US patience on North Waziristan wearing thin” to the subject not really being discussed, as the US was “already familiar with Pakistan’s stance on the matter.” Needless to say, the matter must have been discussed, with Biden making not merely a routine but a passionate reference to the delayed operation in North Waziristan. He would have been gravely remiss had he not done so, because, according to Petraeus, the success of the ongoing and spluttering “surge” depends on it.
At his press conference and in his meetings, Biden also addressed some of the points raised in the paper Gen Kayani handed over to Obama. He had some reassuring words about the US-Pakistani partnership, all of which are welcome. There was the inevitable reference to the need to fight and not nourish terrorists – an impression that has sadly gained wide currency following Taseer’s murder – lest Pakistan be consumed by them.
What neither side addressed, however – because neither wants to for its own selfish reasons – is the increasing hold that extremism is acquiring in Pakistan. This is due mostly, but not exclusively, to deteriorating economic conditions at home but also the war in Afghanistan. And this is because some would prefer the American presence in Afghanistan to be endless, because if it were not for the war the attention, the economic largesse and the military assistance being lavished on Pakistan by America would be missing.
As one American commentator said: “Were it not for Afghanistan and the nukes Pakistan could become a Congo, for all we care.” Unfortunately, that is what Pakistan will resemble if the Americans remain in Afghanistan, and the war continues to consume as much of our attention and resources to the exclusion of other spheres of life. The fact is that the Americans are as much a part of the problem as the Taliban, with the important difference being that whereas the Taliban have nowhere else to go, the Americans do. And they should go – as soon as possible.
Were they to do so, no “dominoes” would fall, just as they did not after their defeat in Vietnam, despite American forebodings to the contrary; nor would the likes of the Taliban stand a chance of getting within hailing distance of our nukes, the Pakistani army is far too strong for that. In fact, much of the poison would be drained from the current wound that is festering on account of the war; and in the absence of drone attacks or, better still, with the drones in Pakistani hands, the TTP would face a stronger, local, Muslim and no less an implacable foe in Pakistan. The score or so Al-Qaeda leaders remaining in the hills could be handled a lot more easily by US Special Forces operating from bases in the neighbouring Central Asian republics or from carriers at sea. And of course by Pakistan itself, if it came to that.
Meanwhile, in Afghanistan, power, like water, would find its own level. The Taliban would be hard-pressed to impose their will and Pakistan would be demented if it were to interfere in Afghanistan, having got its fingers burnt as badly as it did earlier when our Napoleons and Bismarcks considered it a launching pad for a similar venture in Central Asia. Of course, provided that other regional powers and India, in particular, did not get up to mischief.
Although the cunning Afghans would likely pit India and Pakistan against each other, in the hope of benefiting from the rivalry, if it ever came to a choice between India and Pakistan only a man as short-sighted as Karzai would prefer to throw in his lot with India, considering the difficulties that Pakistan could create for him; and knowing that, if he did, without the Americans around to save his bacon, it would amount to a death wish.
A similar scenario, with a few variations, such as the retention of two bases in Bagram and Kandhahar by the US, was what Biden had suggested to Obama in September 2009, before it was shot down by the Pentagon-wallas and Biden was made to look like a loose canon. Nevertheless, it is to what the US will probably revert to after the surge fails and the American electorate, already tired of the Afghan war demands an early end to combat operations.
Needless to say, by that time thousands more Americans, Afghans and Pakistanis would have been killed to no avail. Viewed thus, Biden is a far more astute and farsighted a visitor to host than American generals, whose last decisive victory occurred in World War II, not counting the “mother of all battles” that really never occurred in Iraq.

imran bakht · #36 Monday, January 24, 2011

The great blame game

M Saeed Khalid

In their visits to India in 2010, the US and French presidents as well as the British prime minister earned the dubious distinction of criticising Pakistan on a third country’s soil, in violation of diplomatic norms. The three leaders were so keen to get a share of the growing Indian pie that blaming an old and present ally was considered fair game. Some Pakistanis were so upset by this show of 21st century mercantilism that when Prime Minister Manmohan Singh later went to Berlin and got a similar sermon for Pakistan from the German Chancellor, those compatriots started referring to Angela Merkel’s anti-Pakistan rhetoric during her “visit to India.”
For the sake of accuracy, let us concede that the remarks were made when the chancellor received Mr Singh in her own capital. The Germans also tried to assuage the Pakistanis by clarifying that the chancellor’s comments had been distorted by the media. Germany has followed up by sending its foreign minister on a fence mending trip to Islamabad.
How did the other three countries – US, UK and France – whose leaders admonished Pakistan about curbing cross border terrorism, try to make up to Pakistan? Prime Minister Cameron reportedly offered to undertake a quick trip to Islamabad after a pre-Christmas ritual appearance before British troops in Afghanistan but that was politely declined by Pakistan. The Americans, as usual, resorted to telephone diplomacy to soothe Pakistan’s hurt feelings about having been omitted from the presidential visit and about going overboard on several issues to placate India for saving jobs back home.
A visit by Obama in 2011 was promised, while proposing to include Pakistan in a visit by Vice President Joe Biden. The big unknown, at least at the public level, is France as we have not heard of any effort to mitigate President Sarkozy’s un-statesman like comments about Pakistan. This probably indicates that the French, who made a great contribution to the development of modern diplomacy, have no time for Pakistan’s sensitivities.
Blaming the other can be a convenient way of shifting the responsibility for one’s own failure or incapacity. In the case of Mumbai attacks of November 2008, India accused that Ajmal Kasab and others travelled from Pakistan by sea to launch their terrorist operation in Mumbai on 26/11. Hence, Pakistan should come down like a ton of bricks on Kasab’s handlers. What about India’s failure in identifying and punishing perpetrators of the 2007 massacre on Samjhota Express or America’s sketchy record of prosecuting hundreds locked up on Guantanamo Bay?
If the Indians or others think that Pakistan could have detected and stopped those slipping out to hit India, how do you explain India’s inability to detect the movement of those attackers along its own coast and their stay in Mumbai prior to the attack. The same goes for Taliban fighters moving across the Pak-Afghan border to attack US-led coalition forces or other targets in Afghanistan. Is it not the mission of Afghanistan’s own security forces and their foreign allies to intercept the fighters coming through the frontier? India’s tendency of blaming Pakistan is well known. What is more hurtful is when Pakistan’s old friends and allies led by the super power find it necessary to harangue Pakistan and that too from Indian soil. While Cameron, Sarkozy and Obama were straining backwards to blame Pakistan to please their Indian hosts, not a single word was uttered by them about the lack of progress in bringing the attackers of Samjhota Express to justice by India.
The blame game against Pakistan reflects the desire to use public diplomacy as an instrument of pressure and propaganda against this country and its people. It helps in point scoring while avoiding serious diplomatic negotiation. Giving Pakistan a bad name helps prepare the ground for freezing the dialogue. Having followed this methodology, India can subsequently claim that her public opinion has not yet recovered from the shock of Mumbai to resume the comprehensive dialogue with Pakistan. However, this strategy has run its course. India may be feeling that the policy of no dialogue needs to be revisited. Parliamentarians from the two sides met in early January to give a people’s dimension to Pakistan-India dialogue. Some Pakistani members pointed out that while in the past, Pakistan was Kashmir centric for a dialogue, now India has become terrorism centric for restarting the dialogue process. A number of parliamentarians from both sides shared the sentiment that the blame game was leading nowhere and some rethinking was needed to move forward in relations between the two countries.
We may have realised a little late that there is no point in reaching out for a dialogue with those resorting frequently to the blame game rather than conducting business through diplomatic channels. The next step should be to take an equally serious view of ‘do more” rhetoric of some who want us to do more so that they have to do less. “Do more” should work both ways. It is understandable to hear from Joe Biden that Pakistan should do more against enemies of her own sovereignty. Must we remind the US vice president that the issue is much more complex. The internal threat to the state has grown proportionately to the government’s commitment to facilitating the mission of extra regional forces in Afghanistan.

imran bakht · #37 Monday, January 24, 2011

Anti-corruption strategies

Dr Sania Nishtar

The government and opposition factions appear to be converging on a ten-point agenda focused on eliminating some of the currently prevailing governance distortions in Pakistan. Articulated as a set of “demands” by one particular opposition party, the points have been endorsed by others and have been admirably embraced by the incumbent federal government. The ten-points, per se, are non-controversial and there appears to be a broad consensus that action towards them will contribute positively in an environment where mistrust and malfunction are now deeply ingrained. This comment is aimed at explaining that whilst these points are significant stepping stones, and are important in their own right, they are nevertheless inadequate for addressing deeply rooted systemic issues, which can only be amenable to reform at a more fundamental level. Three points are being highlighted to elaborate this further.
Six of the ten demands centre on eliminating corruption in one way or the other. The demands to dismiss cabinet members and personnel in high offices with tainted credentials, dealing with culprits of the recent Hajj, banking, privatisation and procurement scams, and bringing perpetrators of the recent commodity hoardings to justice fall under this category. Additionally, the demand to implement the supreme courts’ verdict in the aftermath of the National Reconciliation Ordinance being regarded null and void also falls within this rubric.
There is a long standing history of attempts to address corruption through disciplinary and penalising action in Pakistan. Whilst it is true that punitive action has its value as it sets an example and acts as a deterrent, it has its limitations. Political governments and decision makers, deeply entrenched in the spirit of camaraderie are reluctant to bring their peers to justice. With many opportunities to abuse discretionary powers, disciplinary efforts often take on politically-motivated overtures. Pakistan has made the mistake of focusing on corruption through the predominant focus on this approach for far too long. As a consequence, other more systemically effective means of garnering a culture of transparency in overall governance, have received little emphasis.
More than punitive action, the key to anti-corruption is to focus attention on building institutions and systems that limit opportunities of collusion, graft and arbitrage in the first place. An important aspect of this is mechanisms of oversight that can check discretionary powers, which create opaqueness in interpretation and variance in application of policies. There is potential within leveraging technology as a barrier against abuse and pilferage.
Promoting market harnessing means of regulation, fostering competition to weaken economic interests and integrity-promoting measures in the bureaucracy are other entry points. The dividends of appropriate disclosure and freedom of information and safeguards against conflict of interest should additionally be brought to bear. Furthermore, one of the most effective anti-corruption strategies has to do with building safeguards against state capture and the legacy of patronage; this can be attempted by upholding democratic principles in governance so that the systemic manipulation by vested interest groups, which has become a governance norm in our country, can be circumvented.
Punitive actions being recommended as part of the agenda, therefore, need to be supplemented with a greater emphasis on strengthening Pakistan’s key institutions in general and accountability mechanisms in particular, and implementing the country’s National Anti-Corruption Strategy, which seems to have gone into hibernation after its unveiling in 2002 and several successive attempts aimed at reviving it.
The second demand on the agenda calls for the creation of an independent accountability commission. It is widely accepted that impartial and depoliticised accountability bodies can help advance the accountability/transparency agenda. However, the past performance of commissions in Pakistan has not been promising and nothing harvests the hope that the case is likely to be otherwise this time round.
Commissions tend to fall prey to capture and end up behaving quite similar to bureaucratic structures. There are additional issues with the proposed accountability commission. The law under which it is supposed to be created and which has been pending in the parliament/ministry of law for over a year, has been criticised because of its glaring list of exclusions and loopholes, which can enable exploitation. Furthermore, accountability is a broader thread in governance and is not synonymous with anti-corruption. As an attribute, it is also relevant to the performance and financial realms.
If mechanisms to compel accountability existed and if disclosure and freedom of information laws had been implemented in their true spirit to assist with the accountability process, perhaps Pakistan’s debt burden would not have accumulated to this scale and its footprint on the lives of the common man in terms of inflationary pressures and scaled back social services would not have been this brutal. The blatant graft, which leads to massive bleeds from the system, may not have been so deeply entrenched crowding out the space for resources, which can touch the lives of a common man.
The Public Sector Development Programme would not have continued to fund public sector enterprises and infrastructure projects with meagre development resources at the cost of health and education, while options to revitalise management and privatisation for the former and private financing for the latter existed. If accountability had been institutionalised, the energy czars would have not prioritised quick turnover thermal power plants over long term sustainable investments in hydel power projects; the common man would not have to bear the weight of massive load-shedding, which is having a domino effect on employment and the economy. There is a long list of illustrative examples to highlight the manner in which lack of accountability at the decision making level has translated into the current mayhem. So, important as the agenda targets may be, it will take more than a commission to set things on the right path.
The third aspect of the agenda I would like to comment on is the call for an independent election commission. Perhaps what the agenda should have stressed on additionally is also to expedite and support what is already in the pipeline. The News on January 12 featured a seemingly non-descript but an important news item regarding the National Database Registration Authority’s efforts to install an electronic voting system and a law in the pipeline to enable that. Ideally this should be supplemented with other reforms to make the election process more facilitative for those that neither have the power nor the money to enter the run. Additionally, the illiterate voter, currently beholden to feudal interests and dynamics of ‘biradari’ will also have to be primed to the need for making the right choice. What Pakistan needs now is human capital in the right policy making roles with the hope that this will set key institutions on the pathway of recovery. The agenda demands need to be augmented to make headway in that direction.

imran bakht · #38 Monday, January 24, 2011

Sick man of Asia?

Babar Sattar

The world believes that the 21st Century will be about Asia’s ascendency. Turkey, once the sick man of Europe, is on the rise. This country with a young population comprising over 99 per cent Muslims has begun to have its own doubts about the benefits of joining the European Union. While its economy was a basket case and at the mercy of the IMF less than two decades ago, buoyed by economic growth and success many in Turkey now believe they might be better off outside the EU as opposed to being bogged down by Greece, Portugal and Ireland as part of the Union. While it has had a fling with an overt role of the military, it is democracy, fiscal discipline, secularism and cultural liberties that explain the growing strength of Turkey.
Indonesia that houses the largest number of Muslims around the world is another shining model. Its brilliant Trade Minister speaking recently at a symposium organised by the Asia Society explained that while over 88 per cent of the Indonesian population is Muslim, Indonesia is not an Islamic country. Driving around the country it becomes obvious that mosques, temples and monasteries can coexist happily. You find that the faith and religious sensibilities of the largest Muslim community on the planet is not offended simply because people are afforded the ability to chose their lifestyles and the extent to which they wish to abide by scripture and ritual. The success of Indonesia too can be explained by its sustained economic growth, democracy and religious and cultural liberties.
Amidst the latest global financial crisis that has mired the US and Europe in feeble economic activity, China and India are being viewed as engines of growth for the world economy. When the US president or European leaders visit our estranged neighbor they are visibly in a marketing mode and looking for opportunities to work with India. As part of the process to win India’s favor and lend support to its concerns, they jibe at Pakistan as well. Such finger-wagging from across the border makes us all livid. But we haven’t even begun to realise that diplomatic demarches, hollow swagger or exhibition of unrestrained anger against a ‘conspiring’ West is not going to change our fortune or the world’s opinion about us. If we keep aside nationalism, self-pride and similar extra-rational influences, our situation does look pretty dismal and scary.
This is not meant to be another self-deprecating rant aimed at adding to the pessimism all around. Pakistanis have tremendous potential. We know that. And the success and industry of Pakistani expatriates across the globe bears witness. But potential is not enough. In practical life it is performance that matters. And if we take a dispassionate measure of our performance as a state and a society, we find ourselves severely wanting. But we need not swing from self-righteous delusionalism to nihilism. We need not blame the West for all our ills or condemn ourselves to perpetual misery due to a faulty gene or unflattering history. In terms of our state of mind, we need to be self-critical and unhappy enough to want change, but not resigned to the extent that we question our ability to instill and embrace it.
There are various myths that we have come to believe that prevent the change that we need. The first being that we all know what our problems are, the question is how to get to the solution. With all due respect, there is no consensus in Pakistan regarding our problems nor do we share a vision for the future that encompasses desired solutions. The second myth is that we are haunted not because of our approach to policy formulation but lack of implementation. Again, nothing can be further from truth. Because we are still confused about our vision for the future of Pakistan, how can we even begin to formulate considered policies? The third (and probably the most disempowering and damaging) myth is that we need a strong leader who knows wherein our true good lies and is consequently able to save us. We don’t need a messiah but ordinary people inspired and angry enough to think of themselves as agents of change.
We need to start by building a consensus around a vision for Pakistan that is democratic, fiscally disciplined and welfare-oriented, officially neutral toward religion, ethnically inclusive and protective of civil liberties of all citizens. When we speak of democracy, we are not alluding merely to the formal institutions and processes of democracy, but also the culture and ethos within democratic institutions such as political parties that is imperative to sustain democracy. We need a democracy where political parties are neither personal fiefs nor heirlooms. But let us also not forget that khaki saviors waiting eagerly in the shadows will not help foster the evolution of such democratic culture. The continuing political role of the military will only delay the reform of political parties.
We were all taught early in our childhood that whoever pays the piper names the tune. We seem to have forgotten the lesson growing up. Our indiscriminate hatred for the West, our unsustainable military expenditure or our mouth-frothing mullahs will not bolster our sovereignty or reduce our dependence on the US and the IMF. We need fiscal discipline and get down to balancing our books. We have been living on borrowed cash and have now maxed out the available credit. This party is going to crash very soon. And while tethering on the verge of bankruptcy, instead of putting their heads together to agree on measures to curtail expenditure and generate revenue all our political parties are opting for populism.
We don’t need symbolic pro-people populism of the PML-N and the MQM manifested in opposition to the RGST and petrol price hike. Nobody wants to pay taxes or pay extra for petrol. But we need to cough up the funds to sustain ourselves somehow. Our political, agriculture and industrial elites do not wish to pay any taxes, the state is not willing to rationalise its military and other non-developmental expenditure, our generals and bureaucrats wish to continue with their opulent lifestyles sustained by taxes paid by less than ten per cent of the populace and the struggling masses do not have the ability to pay for petrol or commodities anymore. We have allocated no money to educate our kids despite our agreement that education is the panacea to all our ills. We have a large standing army equipped with nuclear weapons but no money to provide food and health security to citizens.
This state of affairs is clearly not sustainable. And let us not wait for any saviors. None will come. We can either allow things to degenerate further to a level where bankruptcy, mal-governance and religious and cultural intolerance lead to violent change or alternatively we can willingly embrace reform. Let us remember that intoxicated by power and privilege, our ruling civil and military elites are not sober enough to take a realistic view of the storm we are caught in and the fast-approaching deluge. The indigent masses have neither the training nor the ability to instill reform. It is the educated middle class of Pakistan that has the most to lose if it doesn’t take the initiative to instigate and lead a reform movement. It is this lot that has the potential, the ability and the incentive to provide the required leadership for change. Those of us who plan to continue to live in Pakistan and raise our kids here do not have the luxury of time.

imran bakht · #39 Monday, January 24, 2011

Might is right, according to the right

Irfan Hussain

TO show that Pakistan does not have a monopoly on hate and intolerance, a thoughtful American reader has sent me a link to the website of Politics Daily.
Here, I learned that members of the Westboro Baptist Church were planning to picket the funeral of Christina Taylor Green, the nine-year-old victim of Jared Loughner, the Arizona killer who shot a number of others, including Congresswoman Gabrielle Giffords.
The reason for the protest is that little Christina was a Catholic, and as the Westboro Baptist Church website proclaims, “God hates Catholics”. On this website there is a video clip of Pastor Fred Phelps “thanking God for the deadly killings”. Apparently, he feels that Ms Giffords was visited by God`s wrath in the form of Loughner for her support of gay rights.
While these primitive views are similar to the support Mumtaz Qadri is receiving from lawyers and clerics following his assassination of Salman Taseer, there are notable differences in the public reaction. For instance a number of citizens are planning a counter rally in which they will wear angels` wings and surround the Westboro protesters. In Pakistan, ordinary people fear to confront the mullahs who are now setting the agenda through violence and threats.
But there are other eerie similarities between the two crimes. Both Pakistan and the United States are deeply divided societies, with liberals at odds with nationalistic and dogmatic elements. Obama`s election revealed these fault lines where the rift between Republican `red` states and Democratic `blue` ones was underlined yet again.
The conservative heartland includes Arizona, the state where the recent massacre took place. Here guns are popular, with sales spiking 50 per cent after Obama`s election. Indeed gun-related violence has accounted for a million American deaths since Bobby Kennedy was gunned down in 1968. The fact that a mentally disturbed character like Loughner could buy a semi-automatic pistol over the counter shows how easy it is to buy weapons in America.
In Pakistan, despite tough licensing laws on side-arms, there is a flood of illegal weapons across the country. In Karachi you can hire a Kalashnikov by the day. If you pay for a weapon in the tribal areas, an original or a fake will be delivered at your doorstep anywhere in Pakistan, no questions asked.
More than weapons, the high levels of hate in both countries make violence part of the landscape. Crime and politics both contribute to the rising temperature. But one should not read too much into these parallels: America is still deeply wedded to the rule of law while we have abandoned any pretence at legal safeguards and effective policing.
In the wake of the Arizona killings American lawyers did not gather to shower rose petals on the killer, as their counterparts did on Qadri at a Rawalpindi courtroom. And apart from a small group from the Westboro Baptist Church, religious extremists did not stage rallies in Loughner`s support across America as Pakistani mullahs have done for Salman Taseer`s assassin.
But America does have a long history of political assassinations, ranging from Abraham Lincoln to JFK. While the National Rifle Association endlessly plugs the line “Guns don`t kill people: people kill people”, the fact is that the easy availability of guns makes it possible for angry adults and disturbed teenagers to shoot at the slightest pretext. In the UK, where it is almost impossible to legally own a pistol, gun-related violence is among the lowest in the world.
Over the years the NRA has come to acquire an inordinate amount of political clout. Now, no mainstream politician even talks about reforming the country`s relaxed gun laws. The hunting lobby is powerful, with candidates for high office having to trudge off on hunting expeditions to prove their pro-gun credentials. Sarah Palin is a prime example of the hunting-shooting `Mama Grizzly` stereotype she extols.
These lax laws are underpinned by the American constitution that upholds every citizen`s right to bear arms. The political right is fierce in its determination to prevent any amendments that might water down this right. Of course at the time this clause was inserted the new republic was under threat, and the concept of a citizen militia to defend it motivated the founding fathers.
No such danger exists now, even though some right-wing groups insist that Washington wants to place America under the control of a mysterious `world government`. Many nuts spread this bizarre conspiracy theory and stockpile veritable arsenals of automatic weapons that could put a Third World army to shame.
Faced with this growing right-wing movement, liberals find themselves at a huge disadvantage. For one, they normally respect the rule of law and tend to be non-violent. Accustomed to reasoned discourse, they are not equipped for the kind of hysterical and overheated rhetoric that is the stock in trade of channels like Fox News.
In Pakistan, although extremists enjoy little public support as demonstrated time and again in national elections, they still manage to call the shots and dictate the agenda through their bullying, and their claim to a monopoly on religious matters. Liberals are cowed down before their relentless onslaught and are unable to match the kind of street power the mullahs can summon.
Increasingly, liberal views are being drowned out as reactionary voices dominate the airwaves. TV channels, in a race for viewers and advertising, give space to the most right-wing personalities. Liberals are isolated and accused of somehow being lesser Muslims and harbouring pro-western views.
A similar smear campaign is being run against liberals in America. Barack Obama has been accused not just of being a closet Muslim by a majority of Republicans, but is believed by many to having falsified his birth certificate to prove that he was born in the United States, as the constitution requires. These lies and distortions are aimed at keeping the Democrats off-balance and on the defensive.
Such are the tried and tested tactics of the ultra right. Just as Salman Taseer is being accused posthumously of having blasphemed by his criticism of the blasphemy laws, so Obama is accused of being a socialist who wants to nationalise American industries. Both charges are absurd, but then truth is seldom something that restrains the reactionary right.

imran bakht · #40 Monday, January 24, 2011

Rejecting defeatist arguments

Ashraf Jehangir Qazi

Mushkilain mujh par pareen itni ke aasaan ho gaieen.
In a verse, Ghalib observes that beyond a certain degree, what is painful and difficult becomes easy to endure. In itself, though, this second line of the fine, soulful couplet, one of the most quoted lines in Urdu poetry, leaves the following question open: Easy in what sense – to surrender, or to overcome? Today, Pakistan is faced with the need for finding an answer to this.
Some say we have already given our answer and thereby “easily” sealed our fate as a nation. We are either too helpless and scared to resist our fate, or we personally feel “all right, mate,” and do not see our own fate tied to that of our nation. Others say it has now become “easy” to decide that we have no option, despite all the difficulties and dangers, but to take on all the obscurantist and violent forces that threaten the survival of Pakistan.
So how do we interpret this line – indeed, Ghalib?
Can we make the transition from a soft and failing state to a viable and sailing state through policies of surrender to neo-con militarism that terrorises us from abroad and domestic religious extremism that terrorises us at home? We have become a battleground between the two. Our fate, accordingly, will be that of the grass under the feet of two rutting elephants fighting each other. We surrender to them in the hope that the elephants will eliminate each other and the grass will grow again. We are unable to see that they are in effect both aligned against our future as a country.
Class exploitation generates class hatred, and the violence we see today in the garb of religion. This is especially the case in times of economic crises when the poor, and even the middle, classes are driven to the wall, while the rich flaunt their power, corruption and callousness. Religion provides solace to the poor. But it can also be exploited by religious and other zealots who despise the corrupt, liberal and Westernised elite. They are able to play on the anger, frustration, faith and ignorance of the exploited classes.
In such circumstances, far from being merely an opiate, as Marx considered it, religion can become a violent stimulant for the masses and a power play by the religious classes in accordance with their political agendas. They are able to inflame the more conservative and religiously-minded sections of the urban middle-class and power classes because these classes are being increasingly impoverished and dispossessed. The intimidation of the hated liberal elite, who are seen as largely responsible for their economic and emotional plight, provides them a measure of consolatory satisfaction, as well as a false sense of empowerment. This attitude affects even the educated among the exploited classes.
Unless we address ourselves to this class exploitation, hatred and violence will progressively consume our civil society, and thereby undermine the foundation for the future of our nation? Salmaan Taseer’s murder has highlighted this most perilous situation. The argument about the blasphemy law, furious and inflammatory though it has been, is just a symptom of a much deeper malaise. Unless that malaise is earnestly tackled, the question of obscurantist forces being taken on does not arise. The problem is that our exploitative power elite sees their survival interests in accommodating aggressively religious, obscurantist forces, as well as their murderous violence, as long as it is not directed at them. Accordingly, the underlying problem of a deeply dysfunctional and unjust political and socio-economic order is simply ignored.
But wasn’t Taseer part of that elite? Yes and no. He was part of the civilian, moderate, liberal and English-educated political elite – the junior partner. He was one of those whom my late friend Sikander Jamali perceptively described as the political “Anglo-Indians” who are rapidly becoming an endangered species with the reversion of our society to “tribalism.” This phenomenon includes new “tribal” institutions such as the military, the intelligence, and the nexus of Saudi- and Gulf-assisted seminaries and mosques. The “Anglo-Indians” of today may still wield influence. They do not wield power.
The non-liberal power elite – the senior partner – do not feel threatened by Taseer’s murder. Only the relatively moderate, liberal and educated segments of civil society do: If one of their number is targeted, it is deeply regretted. But for the power elite it is not seen as a threatening game-changer. So will the power elite forbid decrees and other public calls for the killing of targeted individuals in the name of protecting the honour of the Holy Prophet (PBUH)? The general impression is that they cannot, even if they wished to.
This has America and other “friends and allies” of Pakistan worried. They are aware of the internal strain to which they have already subjected the Pakistani army, by continuously asking it to “do more” in FATA; at the expense of alienating, among others, the religious establishment and withdrawing its troops from the border with India, from where it sees its main threat emanating. The recent assertion of power by the religious establishment – which has influence in military circles and is profoundly anti-America and anti-India – will raise further concerns in Washington and other NATO capitals about the “reliability” of the Pakistani army, as America steps up its counterinsurgency ground operations and drone attacks in Afghanistan and Pakistan with inevitable civilian casualties. These operations are also vehemently opposed by the religious establishment in Pakistan because of its ties to the tribals and strong empathy for the insurgents. Similarly, the perceived growing political influence of extremist forces will further deepen Western concerns regarding the longer-term vulnerability of Pakistan’s nuclear weapons and materials.
The murder of Salmaan Taseer, therefore, has significance much beyond its perpetration. Our response to it will portray the quality of our response to the challenges that beset our country. As of now, it appears that our response will be determined by the interplay of short-term domestic political interests, which is likely to result in an elaborate-looking matti pao (bury the matter) solution.
Several justifications will be proffered: This is not the right time to take on additional challenges; we should not further divide our society; we need to make compromises for domestic stability; we have to focus on more urgent issues; Taseer may have been innocent, but he was needlessly provocative; freedom of speech in safety is our goal, but it cannot be realised immediately; we must be realistic; we are not yet sufficiently educated; if justice is not done in this case, or in other cases, it does not mean that we are not pursuing a more just society; have patience. Etc., etc.
If these arguments collectively carry the day, as they seem most likely to, it will signal to the world that Pakistan is fast approaching the status of a failed and dangerous state. The first priority of Western strategy will be to contain the “fallout” of Pakistan’s implosion which will be seen by the US and other regional countries as a far more serious development than the evolving situation in Afghanistan. A fundamental review of our domestic and external strategies and policy measures has become an urgent necessity.
Taseer’s murder has confronted us as a nation with the question raised in Ghalib’s line. Will we find it easier to surrender to forces that are considered too powerful to overcome even though they threaten our existence? Or will we find it easy to see why we have no option but to overcome challenges that threaten to destroy us as a society and as a nation? If in practice we continue to give the wrong answer, we will tackle none of the political, security, social, economic and external challenges facing us today.
Class hatred will deepen. Religion will be used as a political explosive. Violence will spread. No one will be secure. In such a situation, progress will be impossible. We will serve neither faith nor country. The direction we will have chosen for Pakistan will be set in stone. Time will not be on our side. External military intervention will become certain. All our difficulties, indeed our fate as a nation, will be made “easy.” Our choice of answer, accordingly, should be easy to make. That is how I read Ghalib’s line.

Similar Threads
Thread	Thread Starter	Forum	Replies	Last Post
Roedad Khan Columns	AATISH	News & Articles	10	Saturday, October 17, 2009 10:32 AM
British Boer Wars 1889 to 1902 in Africa	Rana Munawar Farooq	Topics and Notes	1	Friday, May 15, 2009 08:42 PM
SQL (Structured Query Language)	Janeeta	Computer Science	0	Saturday, January 19, 2008 01:25 PM
Data Base Design Glossary:	Najabat	Computers and Technology	0	Monday, November 27, 2006 02:58 PM