Controversial project (Kishanganga hydropower project)
 

THE fast pace of work on the controversial [B]330MW Kishanganga hydropower project [/B]being constructed by India on the Jhelum River has spawned fears here that [B]Islamabad may lose its case even before the legal battle to resolve the issue begins at The Hague`s international court of arbitration[/B]. Reports say that [B]India has already completed two-thirds of the project and that it is planning to finish it by 2014, two years before Pakistan is scheduled to complete its 1000MW Neelum-Jhelum project in Azad Kashmir. Under the Indus Basin Water Treaty, the country that completes its project first gets priority rights over the river`s water.[/B] A series of disputes on hydropower generation projects initiated by India has given rise to concerns that New Delhi is trying to control the river water and thus `strangulate` Pakistan`s agriculture and economy. Many experts also believe that, given the situation, a future war over water between India and Pakistan cannot be ruled out.

Repeated Indian attempts in the past to find loopholes and technical flaws in the 50-year-old water treaty that can be used to New Delhi`s advantage have hardly been helpful in easing tensions over water-sharing between the two neighbours. [B]In the case of the Kishanganga project, Pakistan alleges that India is diverting its water through a 23km-long tunnel in violation of the water treaty, and that this would result in a 21 per cent shortfall in the river`s inflow for Pakistan`s Neelum-Jhelum project. The diversion of water will also reduce the Neelum-Jhelum project`s energy-generation capacity by 10 per cent and severely affect Pakistan`s agriculture.[/B] We will have primarily ourselves to blame in case of such an eventuality. Successive governments in Islamabad have failed to raise and resolve crucial water issues, including this one, that have arisen from time to time with India to the peril of Pakistan`s agriculture and economy. While Islamabad must vigorously pursue the case at international forums to protect its economic interests, [B]India should remember that the failure to satisfy Pakistani concerns will only delay the realisation of the dream of a prosperous South Asia whose various parts are at peace with one another.[/B]

Arbitration proceedings initiated(Pak-India water disputes)
 

AMID elaborate security arrangements, [B]a ten-member delegation of the International Court of Arbitration, accompanied by both Indian and Pakistani officials and lawyers, visited the project site of the disputed Kishanganga dam in Kanzalwan in Indian Kashmir and Neelum-Jhelum hydropower project in Azad Kashmir in mid-June to make an assessment of the state of ongoing construction work at the two places.[/B]

This is the f[B]irst concrete activity by the World Bank-nominated CoA since it was called in to arbitrate in May last year by Pakistan in the latest dispute between the two neighbours over India`s use of its share of the rivers of the Indus water system.[/B] The court, after the end of the visit, [B]has made no remark yet about its assessment of the situation as it exists on the ground. [/B]India had originally initiated plans for the [B]303-megawatt project in 1984 but did not pursue it for a long time[/B]. [B]It was after finding Pakistan`s Neelum-Jhelum project making progress on the other side of Line of Control that India revived it. [/B]“[B]This project is of strategic importance to India…we have to move heaven and earth to ensure the earliest commissioning of the project,” the then minister of state for power, Jairam Ramesh, said in 2008.[/B]

India has a reason to feel satisfied as the Kishanganga project is now in full-swing. Arshad Abassi, a Pakistani water expert, is of the view that [B]Kishanganga “is far ahead of Pakistan`s Neelum-Jhelum project.[/B] [B]Technically, whoever builds first establishes the right to the river. Due to the negligence of Pakistan`s water and power ministry, it is likely that we will lose the case.” Kishanganga is officially due to be ready by 2014 while Neelum`s date of completion is 2016.[/B]

[B]The negligence was clearly visible when the Court of Arbitration held its first meeting in January this year. No formal business could take place because Pakistani team of lawyers had not come prepared. The court asked Islamabad to file its case by April 15 which it didn`t. It deposited its memorandum by the end of May. Now the court has fixed July 15 for Pakistan to present and argue its case. Then, India will submit its reply in six months. So, for [U]India it is a blessing in disguise as it will get enough time to speed up completion of the power project.[/U][/B]

On May 9, Senate Standing Committee on Water and Power was informed by [B]Indus Water Commissioner Sheraz Memon that former special assistant to the PM on water resources and agriculture Kamal Majeedullah was responsible for causing the delay in taking the case to the Court of Arbitration (CoA) as he insisted on hiring a lawyer of his own choice. Responding to queries of committee members, he said that “I had insisted during the first meeting of the CoA to obtain a stay order against construction of the Kishenganga dam by India but Kamal Majeedullah did not agree with it.”[/B]

Memon said that Pakistan [B]would lose much of its water share in Neelum River if India succeeds in completing the construction of the tunnel, through which the water of Kishenganga river is to be diverted to produce 330 MW power.[/B] [B]The water will then join the Wullar Lake and ultimately flow down to Neelum-Jhelum. The Indian scheme will reduce Pakistan`s energy generation by 10 per cent.[/B] Memon informed the committee that [B]India has completed 15 per cent construction work on Kishanganga dam. But some members pointed out that India has already completed 43 per cent of the work. Pakistan would lose the “water priority right” if India completes 50 per cent work on the dam.[/B]

Pakistan finds Kishanganga`s design contrary to the provisions of Indus Water Treaty, as is the case with other numerous power projects, planned or initiated, that enables India to control and even block river flow into its territory. [B]Pakistan has also voiced objections to the planned diversion of the Kishanganga`s waters to the [U]Wullar Lake, the largest fresh water lake in Asia,[/U] as this would further deplete river discharge into the country.[/B]

The [B]water disputes between Pakistan and India have assumed such intensity over the years that Americans fear these could ruin the prospects of peace in the subcontinent.[/B] According to US embassy cables accessed by Dawn through Wikileaks, as published in this newspaper on June 22, US ambassador in India, David Mulford, could judge even in 2005 in a confidential cable that “even if India and Pakistan resolve the Baglihar and Kishanganga projects, there are several more hydroelectric dams planned for Indian Kashmir that might be questioned under the Indus Water Treaty by Pakistan. These dams have the potential to destroy the peace process or even to lead to war”.

[B]Some of these dams included under-construction then, now completed, 450 MW Dul Hasti Dam, the proposed Bursar, Pakul Dul and Sawalkote projects, all of them having 1000 MW capacity. Some other projects on Chenab river, as reported by Wikipedia, include Salal Hydroelectric Project, Kirthai Dam, Uri project I and II, Nimoo Bazgo, Dumkhar dam and Chutak dam.[/B]

In a cable dated November 3, 2008, then US ambassador to Pakistan, Anne W. Patterson claimed that “officially, India dispels Pakistani claims but, unofficially, the Indian side admits that `structural constraints of Baglihar Dam and weather constraints` have resulted in a reduction of Pakistan`s share of water.”

Ms Patterson also stated that “Privately, Pakistani officials acknowledge they are very worried about future plans of India to build numerous other dams (reportedly up to eight additional dams) on the Chenab River and the likelihood that water scarcity driven by India`s increased usage will become a more frequent occurrence in Pakistan.” A Congressional report in the US puts the figure at 33.

According to another cable, a former Indian High Commissioner to Pakistan, G. Parthasarthy, had told American diplomats that the Swiss neutral expert`s decision in Baglihar dam case that favours India has “set precedents” for future construction of dams. In the cable dated February 14, 2007, he said: “A lot of projects that were held up are now possible,” referring in particular to the Kishanganga Dam project. US Ambassador Mulford noted in a comment that, “India has the green light to complete and/or build similar dams on other rivers throughout Jammu and Kashmir is a fact likely not lost on anyone in energy-starved New Delhi.”

[url=http://www.dawn.com/2011/07/11/arbitration-proceedings-initiated.html]Arbitration proceedings initiated | Magazines | DAWN.COM[/url]

[SIZE="5"]Anti-terrorism policy[/SIZE]

30 july 2011
EVEN as the constant threat of terrorist attacks looms over Pakistan and the world continues to describe the country as an exporter of terrorism, the focus of domestic authorities seems to be on all the wrong issues. In his address to a UK-based think tank on Thursday, Interior Minister Rehman Malik reportedly claimed that all terrorists arrested in Pakistan had visited the Tableeghi Jamaat`s centre in Raiwind. The statement seemed designed to provide international analysts and journalists with a new story rather than advance the discussion on Pakistan`s terrorism problem. While some militants may have been attending its gatherings, the group is a missionary organisation that has never been accused of violence, and, in fact, condemns it. Rather than singling it out — which could encourage more followers to develop anti-state views — the minister could have focused on the real problem.
It is an open secret that numerous organisations banned for their involvement in militant activities have simply developed fronts. Jamaatud Dawa, positioned as a charity, has deep links with the banned Lashkar-i-Taiba, Ahle Sunnat Wal Jamaat is simply the new name adopted by Sipah-i-Sahaba Pakistan, and these are just two of multiple such instances. In public, these fronts openly hold rallies and propagate extreme views; in private their operatives remain free and continue to plot attacks. An organisation is presumably banned because its members have carried out terrorist activity, but in Pakistan they are routinely acquitted or charges are never brought against them. The recent release of Lashkar-i-Jhangvi head Malik Ishaq, believed to be behind the attack on the Sri Lankan cricket team and several other incidents, is a case in point. He received a hero`s welcome, including from the ASWJ chief. What has the state done to prevent the creation of an environment where a militant charged in dozens of terrorism cases cannot be tried because of poor investigation and prosecution and then openly be feted when he is acquitted?
Both international and domestic observers have also accused Pakistan of a selective approach to cracking down on various organisations. Hizbut Tahrir, for example, which is not known to have carried out violent acts (although it openly opposes state constitutions and democracy) has been banned, while some groups with definite links to militancy have not. Whether the failure to target the right groups and prosecute militants is the result of a lack of commitment to fighting terrorism or the weakness of the prosecution system, both areas fall under the interior ministry`s purview. Rather than diverting attention to speculative statements with dubious implications, the interior ministry would do well to focus on these glaring failures.


[FONT="Arial Black"]Slashed PSDP[/FONT]


PUBLIC-SECTOR investment in development and the expansion of the economic and social infrastructure is crucial to sustaining higher growth levels, generating employment opportunities, mitigating poverty and reducing income disparity. It is also an important tool for delivering balanced regional development. Public-sector development spending acquires greater importance in the wake of drying-up private investment in order to push growth. Hence, it is considered bad policy to slash public-sector development funding to protect the government`s non-development expenditure during a financial crunch. The cuts in development spending during an economic downturn only deepen recessionary trends in the economy.
This is precisely what the Planning Commission has conceded in its analysis of the PSDP for the last fiscal. The PC admits that the government has played a key role in prolonging economic recession in the country. “Reduction in the PSDP for the financial year 2010-11 has adversely impacted the overall economy by further prolonging the economic recession due to delay in meeting energy and water shortages, impeding employment generation and delaying achievement of the Millennium Development Goals,” it says. Little wonder then that public investment dipped to 3.3 per cent of GDP in the last fiscal year, from 5.6 per cent in 2006-07, at the cost of economic growth that has slowed down to 2.4 per cent, the lowest in South Asia.
True, the financial crunch facing the government led it to stop funding for projects crucial to the economic uplift of the people. Yet it must accept its failure to reform the tax regime and administration to improve resources and create fiscal space for development. As the government`s financial problems are expected to linger for a while because of the delay in the implementation of fiscal reforms, the PC has proposed the privatisation of some major infrastructure development projects through “outright sale or through public-private partnership mode”. While the involvement of private investors in mega projects like the Diamer-Bhasha dam should be encouraged, it should not be used as a pretext by the state to abdicate its responsibility to invest in the expansion of Pakistan`s social and economic infrastructure.

[SIZE="4"]Targeting the media[/SIZE]

IN what is yet another reminder of the intolerance that infects Pakistani society, the offices of a media group were recently attacked in several cities and towns in the interior of Sindh. Equipment was vandalised while staff members were attacked; copies of newspapers were also burnt. As per reports, hawkers have also been threatened and warned not to distribute certain newspapers. The attacks — allegedly carried out by some Sindhi nationalists — are said to be in reaction to the airing of a TV programme in which the idea of a `Karachi province` was discussed. Media organisations and journalists` groups have rightly termed these acts of violence as attacks on media freedom as well as freedom of expression. In a democratic society, people have the right to criticise and to disagree. However, resorting to physical attacks and thuggish behaviour to make a point is unacceptable.
The media has for long been targeted by both the state — authoritarian as well as democratic dispensations — and religious and ethnically motivated elements in Pakistan. During the recent violence in Karachi, belligerent supporters of some political groups put pressure on media outlets to toe a certain line where coverage of the events was concerned. If such behaviour continues unchecked it will embolden other non-state actors to `fix` whoever disagrees with their line of thinking. Most people appear to oppose the idea of a `Karachi province`. However, to slam the door shut on all debate on the issue is an undemocratic reaction. Ideas must be countered with ideas; logic and reason must be the tools of discourse, not boorish attacks and intimidation. When debate and discussion are disallowed, it does not bode well for any society. Perhaps media and journalists` groups need to get together and chalk out a collective strategy to deal with the aggressive attitudes of various militant and political groups.

[SIZE="4"]Turkish transformation[/SIZE]

31 july 2011


THE resignations by Turkey’s military chiefs on Friday dramatically highlight the stunning changes in the relationship between the civilian and military leaderships. Without a shadow of doubt, civilian power is now supreme in Turkey. Less than a decade ago, the generals would have expressed their anger by overthrowing the government for the fifth time; this time, with one-tenth of the generals in jail, they had no choice but to accept the reality of civilian supremacy and submit their resignations to Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan. Quickly, President Abdullah Gul appointed a new chief of the general staff to replace Gen Isik Kosaner. The army, navy and air force chief were upset over the arrest and scheduled trial of a large number of military officers, including a serving general, on a charge of conspiracy to topple the elected government. The coup was to be preceded by bombings at public places, including mosques, to discredit the ruling AKP, widely seen as an Islamist outfit.

The credit for the transformation of the Turkish scene goes to Mr Erdogan. He avoided the mistakes committed by his mentor, the late Necmettin Erbakan, who formed party after party each time it was banned. Mr Erbakan was prime minister briefly before the generals forced him to resign. His mistake was that he clashed with the generals directly without realising that Turkey had secularism deeply entrenched not only in the armed forces but also in the judiciary, politics, media and the academia. Mr Erdogan was more cautious. He declared that he accepted secularism, avoided taking the military head on and — in the first term — was especially cautious. Gradually, particularly after the AKP’s second win in 2007, he started chipping away at the power of the powerful security council, headed by a general. This he combined with an undiluted commitment to Turkey’s pro-European orientation.

His other achievements that have added to the civilian government’s prestige include continued economic growth, reforms to conform to the Copenhagen criteria, a rapprochement with Kurdish activists and a greater role in regional politics. Even though Mr Erdogan failed to get a two-thirds majority for his party in June’s election, the AKP government is more powerful than ever before — maintaining a single-party monopoly of power for a third time. No wonder, the generals find it difficult to fall foul of a civilian government with a record of spectacular successes. However, it would be folly to think that all is hunky-dory in Turkey, for the polarisation between secular and Islamist forces could sharpen and continue as before, although, one hopes, without jeopardising the democratic process.

[SIZE="4"]Quetta bus attacks
[/SIZE]



TAKING advantage of the prevailing state of lawlessness in Balochistan, sectarian militants have seemingly escalated their attacks against Shia targets in the province. At least 11 people were killed on Saturday as gunmen opened fire on a vehicle in the provincial capital; reports indicate that all the victims were Shia. The attack follows Friday’s incident in which at least seven people were killed when gunmen attacked the office of a private transport company in Quetta. Police officials say the victims were waiting to board a coach to Iran. Proscribed militant outfit Lashkar-i-Jhangvi has claimed responsibility for both attacks. Overall, Balochistan is gripped by lawlessness. A nephew of the Balochistan chief minister was killed in a gun-and-bomb attack in Mastung on Friday. It is quite obvious that several fronts are simultaneously open in the province. Baloch political activists often turn up dead, while ‘settlers’ in the province are also routinely gunned down. Baloch separatists and security forces have also been involved in clashes. Exploiting such a situation where the writ of the state barely exists, sectarian terrorists have set their sights on the Shia community. Countless members of the Hazara community have been gunned down in targeted killings, while attacking buses carrying pilgrims provides militants with ‘soft’ targets.

Quetta is a transit point for pilgrims heading to the shrine cities of Iran and on to Iraq by land. A fair number of visitors choose the land route as flying to the holy sites is not an option for many people considering the high air fares. However, the state has completely failed to provide adequate security to these people. The government needs to put into immediate practice a plan to protect buses as well as bus stations, hotels and other points where pilgrims gather before their onward journey to Iran. Perhaps security forces should escort the caravans to the Iranian border in order to deter potential attacks. The government should note that if attacks targeting caravans continue unchecked, the reaction may spread beyond Quetta as people from all over Pakistan pass through or stop over in the city en route to Iran and Iraq.

[SIZE="4"]Bara bats for peace[/SIZE]




THOSE behind the militancy in Pakistan are essentially aiming to destroy a way of life. They have blown up schools and have tried to enforce a strict code that disallows all kinds of cultural expression. Cricket is a national passion and a particular favourite with Pakistanis living in the northwestern parts of the country. Sadly, it is also a sport that has received special attention from the militants. In so-called jihadi literature, one occasionally comes across a dark chapter focusing on the ‘evils’ that the game is infested with behind its ‘civilised façade’. However, the organisation of a local cricket tournament in Bara was a statement of the public’s resolve to live by their old values. And a strong statement it was — a tournament spread over five weeks that concluded without incident on July 26.

The event was one of the many both the people and the government have fallen back on to restore normality in the tribal areas and the adjoining Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province. In recent months, there has been an emphasis on organising cultural activities such as art exhibitions in parts that have been troubled by militancy, and, as in the case of the Bara tournament, the people’s response has been very encouraging. Praiseworthy also was the Khyber Pakhtunkhwa government’s decision to not forfeit its right to holding the national games in the face of strong opposition. Long delayed, the games were finally staged in Peshawar a few months ago, amid tight security, yet managing to send across positive signals. There are other examples such as the sporting activities witnessed in the camps of refugees uprooted by last year’s floods that can be quoted as proof of sport’s power to help normalise and rehabilitate. Such activities must continue to protect and sustain lives in Pakistan’s militancy-hit areas.

[SIZE="5"]Softened stances[/SIZE]
1 Aug 2011


THE government and the Supreme Court appear to have softened their hitherto uncompromising stances on the transfer of senior officials acting on the SC’s instructions in the Haj scam case. This is a welcome development. On Friday, on being informed by the attorney general that the government needed extra time to discuss the matter, the six-judge SC bench delivered a more flexible order, providing the government with a way out of what was becoming a virtual impasse. The executive too responded more cordially than it has in recent days, with former law minister Babar Awan saying that the government would respect and implement the SC’s orders. With the court reiterating its respect for parliament and the executive, and the government announcing — after a meeting, presided over by the president and prime minister, of the province’s chief executives and governors — that there was no danger of a clash of institutions, better sense seems to have prevailed. Indeed, another confrontation between the judiciary and the government is the last thing the country needs, given the multiple challenges that it already faces.

But, given past instances of similar confrontation between the two, is it now realistic to hope that future clashes involving the supreme judiciary and the executive will be avoided? The impression that has so far been created is one of a Supreme Court focusing too minutely on what it sees as the PPP administration’s transgressions and a government, often with its back against the wall, unwilling to implement the SC’s orders. The executive’s indicating contempt for judicial reasoning or the court’s passing orders that appear to undermine the government’s authority does not serve the cause of either justice or good governance and only demoralises the public. It is in this context that Justice Javed Iqbal’s remarks on Saturday that the government, in fact, had not flouted the court’s orders, and that there was only an “an element of delay in implementing some court decisions” are reassuring.

Nevertheless, it is incumbent on the government to ensure that probes into corruption cases are allowed to proceed smoothly. Now that the SC has met its demand for more time, the ball is in the executive’s court, and it should implement as soon as possible the supreme judiciary’s orders with regard to the transfer of officials. Meanwhile, the investigation into the Haj scandal must be pursued in a free, fair and transparent manner. It should be remembered that confrontations between the executive and the SC do nothing for the massive backlog of court cases pending trial.

[SIZE="4"]Peace rally[/SIZE]


IN any city scarred by frequent bouts of bloodshed, peace rallies comprised of representatives of political parties and civil society are a heartening sign that there is, in fact, a consensus among the citizenry that violence must be shunned. In this respect, then, the government-sponsored peace rally held in Karachi on Saturday and attended by a large number of people was a welcome event. That said, unless accompanied by a strong determination to dismantle the lethal framework of political rivalry that can lead, in the final tally, to hundreds of deaths, such rallies are at best a cosmetic display of concern. And so, while rivals MQM and PPP, along with members of other political groups, jointly waved flags for peace, at least 10 more people were gunned down in a city where in recent days inter-party rivalry has manifested itself in ethnic as well as politically-motivated killings.

The organisers of the rally should ask themselves some hard questions: why was the peace rally restricted to the upscale area of Clifton where political tensions have been minimal, if any? Why did they not reach out to affected areas like Orangi Town and Malir where the death toll has been high? It is the residents of these areas who would be most in need of reassurance and hope from those in whose hands lies the key to peace. The truth is that unless the MQM, the PPP and the ANP take some share of the responsibility for the violence perpetrated by their supporters, and jointly decide to curb its spread, volatile localities will continue to witness mayhem. Apart from the political parties reining in their trigger-happy activists, there is also a need for durable structural reforms. One of the more important aspects of the latter is the depoliticisation of the police, who are unable to perform their duties because of pressure from various political groups, resulting in a weak prosecution and the acquittal of suspects — even those caught red-handed. As important is the need to rid the city of arms that can be all too easily acquired. More than rallies, it is such measures that would bring about a durable peace.

[SIZE="4"]Political Parties Act[/SIZE]


REPEATED calls to extend the Political Parties Act of Pakistan to Fata have not achieved much. From time to time various political figures make promises in this regard, but no concrete action has been taken. On Friday, the demand was repeated by the Muttahida Qabail Party whose chairperson, Malik Habib Orakzai, pointed out that even though elections are held in the tribal areas, the political agents wield far more influence than the elected representatives. This is ironic, given how much is made of the democratic project in Pakistan and the current government’s self-congratulatory attitude in this regard.

Political parties constitute the cornerstone of any democratic society, offering the people choices for change and channels through which to peacefully mobilise. Particularly given the unrest in Fata and the war in Afghanistan, it is necessary to institute a broad set of political reforms that work towards restructuring governance in the area and bring the tribal people into the mainstream. Fata has historically been considered a semi-autonomous region but modern times demand that the state’s attitude towards it change. As citizens of Pakistan, the people of Fata need to be treated as equal and must have access to all the rights and safeguards available to the rest of the citizenry. This includes the extension of the Political Parties Act so that the tribespeople can engage in mainstream party politics like the rest of the country. This is a demand that has come frequently from various tribal leaders as well. As Mr Orakzai pointed out, elections already take place in the region. The lack of coverage by the Political Parties Act, however, means that tribal political candidates may have party affiliations but can only contest elections as independent candidates. There is little sense in this. Bringing Fata into the mainstream begins with formalising political activity.

[B][CENTER][SIZE="5"][U]Rethinking aid[/U][/SIZE][/CENTER][/B]

02 Aug 2011

[SIZE="4"][B]By Dr Nicolas Martin [/B][/SIZE]
[B]
If they help foster democratic institutions, the US and Europe might find, unexpectedly, that the Pakistani people are more reliable allies than the military-dominated establishment.[/B]

THE ongoing popular revolts in the Arab world should warn western governments that the hope of creating regional political stability by providing aid to authoritarian regimes is misplaced.

This warning is particularly relevant to the case of Pakistan, where western support of three military regimes over half a century has prevented the consolidation of democratic institutions.

Without the accountability that comes through sustained mass political participation, the state has failed to deliver basic services such as healthcare, justice and education. The result is that popular grievances against the military and political establishment are finding a violent outlet in militant groups such as the Taliban.

At a time when America is rethinking its military aid budget to Pakistan — in light of possible evidence that the Pakistani security establishment may have harboured Osama bin Laden — it needs to think carefully about where its aid money is going. Events in the Arab world suggest that, unless it goes into fostering democratic institutions and an effective state that benefits the general public, it will only serve to postpone the inevitable onset of civil strife.

American policy towards Pakistan has aimed to maintain political stability by buttressing a status quo in which the military and a small number of powerful political clans dominate. During the Cold War, it was hoped that this would also prevent communism from gaining a foothold. Gen Ziaul Haq collaborated by preventing the re-emergence of the leftleaning PPP — whose rise to power in 1970 had allowed the have-nots to erupt onto the political scene for the first time — through severe restrictions on political parties and by localising politics.

The result was a return to the parochial politics of the colonial era where candidates were elected on the basis of tribe, caste, faction. This kept communism at bay but also prevented the re-emergence of mass political movements aiming to empower the disenfranchised. The return to personalised, kinship-based politics, reinforced by Gen Musharraf’s local government scheme, has plagued Pakistani politics ever since and is one of the root causes of Pakistan’s troubles.

Nevertheless, in a thought-provoking and widely influential new book entitled Pakistan: a Hard Country, Prof Anatol Lieven argues that traditional kinshipbased power structures with the dominant clans at their heads make political life somewhat stable. And further, they prevent an Islamic revolution. He argues that, thanks to these kinship and patronage networks, Pakistan lacks extreme class divisions and that even the poorest Pakistanis can count on the charity of powerful chiefs and relatives to subsist. This makes them immune to radicalisation. So long as unpopular American political pressures and violations of national sovereignty don’t plunge the country into civil war — by splitting the army into rival pro-American and proTaliban factions — the country will muddle along as it has always done.

But it is more plausible to see things the other way around. Kinship and patronage networks don’t mitigate political instability and social exclusion; they exacerbate it. In these arrangements, politicians look after the narrow interests of their kinsmen and personal followers, generating violence and only benefiting a select few.

Take the example of political bosses who manipulate the judiciary and the police in order to protect wanted criminals who happen to be relatives, henchmen or just political supporters. This makes a mockery of justice and leads to a culture of criminal impunity where people with connections get away with heroin trafficking, bootlegging, murder, highway robberies, land grabs and kidnappings.

The result is chronic insecurity of life and property, particularly for the poor, who are the most frequent victims of land grabs and cattle theft, and who constitute the vast majority of the up to four million heroin addicts living in Pakistan. The existence of millions of bonded labourers — reported by the Human Rights Commission of Pakistan and the International Labour Organisation — also raises serious questions about the extent of charity towards the poor and the claim that Pakistan lacks extreme class divisions.

Personal connections and patronage networks also prevent effective service delivery by almost every other state institution. Hospitals and schools are often poorly staffed because doctors, nurses and teachers who have powerful friends and relatives can get away with claiming their salaries while not doing their jobs. This is because political patrons often guarantee employment, regardless of performance, in exchange for political loyalty. The poor majority who can’t afford private alternatives are thus deprived of reliable healthcare and education. They end up sending their children to medical quacks and to free madressahs that promise heaven in exchange for martyrdom.

The man on the street knows perfect ly well why he and his family are denied access to justice and basic welfare services: precisely because personal relations prevent state institutions from doing their jobs. It was this recognition that brought the Taliban the support of many of the rural poor when they overtook the Swat valley in 2009. For with the Taliban’s religiosity, crucially, came the possibility of impartial justice, regardless of rank and social relations.

Although people’s enthusiasm for theocracy has its limits, and many Pakistanis are appalled by Taliban brutality towards women, musicians and barbers, they may still support militants if they can provide them with the justice, security and basic social welfare that their elites have conspicuously failed to deliver. If they help foster the democratic institutions and practices that could help deliver these goods, America and Europe might find, unexpectedly, that the Pakistani people are more reliable allies than the military-dominated establishment whose power they have buttressed for over 60 years. ¦ The writer is a Fellow at the anthropology department of the London School of Economics. He has carried out extensive fieldwork in rural Punjab in Pakistan.

[SIZE="4"][COLOR="DarkRed"]Cost of borrowing[/COLOR][/SIZE]

2nd August

THE State Bank of Pakistan took a sensible decision over the weekend to reduce the cost of borrowing — even if marginally. It should help the government to slightly slash the cost of domestic debt and ease pressure on the budgetary deficit, lower inflationary expectations and, possibly, spur private credit uptake. The reduction of 50bps in the key discount rate to 13.5 per cent is based mainly on two assumptions: the average headline price inflation for the current fiscal would not exceed 12 per cent and the government would restrict its domestic borrowings for financing fiscal deficit. The decrease in the rate also aims to spur private investment and revive the slowing growth.

The rate had remained unchanged since December, indicating the bank`s desire to reduce borrowing costs whenever it found an opportunity to do so. What if the bank`s new script goes awry? It is difficult to rule out this possibility. Risks remain. Inflation could soar on the back of rising energy prices and supply constraints. The fiscal deficit could shoot up and the government could be forced to renew its borrowing spree to support its budget if it fails to raise tax revenues and obtain sufficient multilateral and bilateral assistance in the wake of deteriorating relations with the IMF and the US. Still, the risk is worth taking. The small, symbolic reduction in the rate should send a signal to the market that the government wants to give growth a chance. After all, how long can we afford to sacrifice growth in the name of stabilising the economy and controlling cost-pushed inflation? It is time to strike a balance between economic stabilisation and growth. Fiscal problems are difficult to overcome without growth. If the move pays off it will pave the way for further gradual cuts in the rate, which is crucial to woo back private investment that fell to just above eight per cent last fiscal.

Also, it will convey a message to the banks that they must make an effort to overcome their aversion to risk-taking and must start lending to the private sector. Yet it will be naïve to expect the banks to immediately `open up their coffers` for the private sector or the private investors to rush to invest their money. Both will wait for the announcement of the next monetary policy to see the way the cookie crumbles before taking decisions. The government, meanwhile, may start implementing the long-delayed fiscal and structural reforms. It must remove the structural imbalances and work for improving the energy supply as an expression of its desire to revive growth.

[SIZE="4"]Blood in Hama[/SIZE]


SYRIA may not yet be experiencing the kind of chaos witnessed in Libya, where there is a higher death toll and more human suffering, but Bashar al-Assad has proved himself a brutal ruler. He recently exacted a horrible price from the people of Hama for rising against his tyranny and demanding democratic reforms. He had withdrawn his army from Hama about a month ago, but put the city in a state of siege by having it surrounded. On Sunday, his army entered the city again and used tanks and machineguns to remove the barricades in what was perhaps the most brutal crackdown since the uprising began in mid-March. The exact casualty figure is not yet available, but a minimum of 130 people are said to have been killed. Sunday`s massacre is in addition to at least 20 killed on July 29, the 17th consecutive Friday of protests, which saw 500,000 people in Hama facing bullets as they demanded regime change. The same day, 300,000 people attended a funeral in the eastern city of Deir Ezzor. The overall picture that emerges is sickening: over 1,700 killed, 13,000 in detention and 3,000 `disappeared`. The government says the fatalities include 500 soldiers. However, the dissidents lament that loyalists kill soldiers who refuse to fire on demonstrators.

The opposition and neutral observers say Sunday`s brutal crackdown was designed to coincide with Ramazan in a vain bid to crush the uprising. However, this will not be that easy, for the regime`s opponents are now more united than ever before. Deserters are in the thick of the anti-Assad battles and, despite differences, opposition activists, secular and Islamists, have combined to fight for their rights; the Syrian diaspora is helping the underground activists, and there are defections among diplomats and Baath loyalists. President Assad knows that a Libya-like intervention is not possible in his country. That only adds to his intransigence and cold-bloodedness. It is a pity that, while Ben Ali and Hosni Mubarak have bowed to the people`s will, Presidents Qadhafi, Ali Saleh and Assad continue to spill their own people`s blood to stay in power.


[SIZE="4"][COLOR="DarkRed"][CENTER]Mango diplomacy[/CENTER][/COLOR][/SIZE]


EID seems to have come a month early for Pakistani-Americans. The Pakistani mango has finally made its way to the US, the result of an effort that was reportedly launched in 2006 and involved lengthy negotiations with American authorities and the development of the necessary pest-control expertise and facilities here at home. A small number of Pakistani growers and packers are now able to meet America`s certification requirements for fruit imports, and the first shipment of chaunsas landed last week in Chicago, where a mango-themed event was held to mark the occasion. And in true Pakistani style, boxes of mangoes have been sent around — in this case to the White House, Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, various members of Congress and other prominent Americans.

Excitement among Pakistani-Americans aside, the development is also an example of successful collaboration between Pakistan and the US that can use diplomacy to achieve tangible results. Last week`s shipment was the culmination of a sustained effort by people in both countries dedicated to boosting Pakistan`s agricultural exports to the US. According to Pakistan`s ambassador to the US Husain Haqqani, plans to export mangoes had been included in the strategic dialogue with America for the last couple of years, and the late Richard Holbrooke and Ms Clinton were active advocates. Pakistani producers received USAID assistance to prepare their fruit for export to the US, and technical experts on both sides, including the agriculture ministry here at home, worked to build the required capacity in Pakistan. There are still challenges: restrictions on import locations and sanitation requirements on arrival mean logistics costs are high, and only the chaunsa variety is currently being exported. But the combined efforts of Pakistani and American officials have managed to achieve a positive result for Pakistan`s agricul- tural sector, and perhaps even for the US-Pakistan relationship.

[FONT="Comic Sans MS"][B][CENTER][SIZE="4"]Our circular path[/SIZE][/CENTER][/B][/FONT]

August 03, 2011

[B]It is high time we broke the vicious cycle, stopped taking ad hoc decisions and developed a national consensus on major issues. If we don’t, our crisis of governance will deepen.[/B]

By Tasneem Siddiqui


LIKE all other countries, Pakistan has its own peculiarities. To development practitioners, the most peculiar thing emerging from its more than six decades of a chequered history, is that instead of linear progression the country continues to move in circles or jogs in one spot.

Had it actually progressed, we would have been a middle-income country long ago. Initially, one thought that this circular movement was restricted only to our economy, but on closer examination, the same syndrome appears in other areas as well. In fact, the recent move of the Sindh government to go back to the 1979 local government system and 1861 Police Act tops it all. Before we analyse the implications of this decision, let us note some of the controversial moves of previous governments.

In 1954, a decision was taken to bull doze the provinces for the formation of One Unit. The argument was that not only would it cut costs it would also bring about much-needed improvements in administration. But just after 16 years, we were back to square one. This time the argument was that the break-up of One Unit would provide a way for the people to have their problems solved at their doorstep.

In 1972, commissioners’ posts were abolished because they were thought to be creating bottlenecks; this decision was reversed in a few years because without the commissioners, coordination was found to be impossible. Both decisions were taken by the PPP.

How our educational system has been destroyed during the last 40 years is known to everyone. It started with the nationalisation of all private schools and colleges in the early 1970s, which were providing quality education at no expense to the government. The process was reversed on a selective basis after the 1977 coup. Every regime thought it fit to tinker with the system. The result is that despite a plethora of educational polices, and expenditure of billions of rupees on parallel systems, our literacy rate remains the lowest in the region.

We have seen the same cycle in our political development or the lack of it. After every 10 years, we undergo the rigours of martial law.

Now let us come to the real issue. It is ridiculous to talk about the efficacy and the need of elected local government 65 years after Pakistan’s birth, especially because in 1947 we inherited elected local boards in rural areas and municipalities in the towns. They were working efficiently and diligently. Take, for example, KMC’s performance before Partition. Karachi was one of the best managed and cleanest cities east of Suez. So were our other district towns.

The need was to strengthen these institutions and give them more powers. They were also nurseries for our budding politicians. But what did we do? We bureaucratised the system. In place of elected mayors and chairmen, we appointed administrators from the civil or military bureaucracy. It is interesting that, except for Yahya Khan, all the military dictators, held local bodies elections, but none of the political parties considered it fit to have an elected local government.

When Pervez Musharraf seized power in 1999, one of the first things he did was to devise a new local government system. His devolution plan which was implemented in 2001, contained wideranging reforms, including the abolition of the district administration and a new Police Order.

Since the new system was imposed by the centre, bypassing the provinces, they took the district governments as rival power centres and a negation of provincial autonomy. At the same time, the abolition of the district administration altogether was widely criticised.

A decade’s experience has shown that as far as municipal functions and development of infrastructure are concerned, elected people, by and large, performed well. The three tiers: union council, town and district government were well-conceived and needed time to consolidate. This was in spite of the fact that some of the institutions like the local government commission, the district ombudsman, etc were either not established or not allowed to work.

Now instead of removing the flaws of the system and strengthening it, the Sindh government has decided to go back to the 1979 system and also revived the commissionerates. It is interesting to note that from day one, politicians of all hues have been decrying the role of the bureaucracy, and often refer to it as the epitome of arrogance and inaccessibility. Now the same politicians want to replace the elected nazims with ‘colonial symbols’.

It is also interesting to note that on the one hand the PPP is celebrating the implementation of the 18th Amendment which gives the provinces their much needed autonomy, and on the other, it has weakened the elected local government system which is the basis of democratic governance.

All over the world the trend is towards decentralisation, de-concentration and devolution of powers at the local level. Accepting the principle of subsidiarity, most of the things are done at the local level. Only the residual part moves upward.

It is unfortunate that our politicians are neither ready to accept an elected local government as the third tier of government with full financial and administrative powers and constitutional protection, nor do they want an independent and professionally sound police force. They also refuse to believe that the main cause of our failure in our social sector is that we have excluded the would-be beneficiaries from the decision-making process.

It is high time we broke this vicious cycle, stopped taking ad hoc decisions and developed a national consensus on major issues. If we don’t, our crisis of governance will deepen and we will continue to regress on all counts. ¦ The author is a social activist.


[SIZE="4"][B][FONT="Comic Sans MS"][CENTER]Charity begins on the concert stage[/CENTER][/FONT][/B][/SIZE]


By Mahir Ali


THE album cover depicted a starving child. I recall a high-school teacher in the late 1970s holding it up as an example of an insult to Pakistan. It was, in a sense, but not without cause. The recording he was referring to was The Concert for Bangladesh.

The event took place 40 years ago this week, and its significance stems not so much from Pakistan’s role in the circumstances that prompted it, but from the fact that it was the western rock aristocracy’s first notable foray into philanthropy.

In August 1971, Bangladesh, as a nation struggling to be born, did not weigh heavily on the western conscience. What had been taking place in what was then formally still East Pakistan was peripheral to common concerns. It was occurring far away, and western governments did not much seem to care.

The Nixon administration in the US was particularly callous in its outlook. Which is not surprising, considering it was still ruthlessly unleashing its firepower in Indochina. The idea of another Vietnam did not appear to bother it much, particularly as it was chiefly perturbing India, a perceived ally of the Soviet Union.

The sitar maestro Ravi Shankar was disconsolate, however. Indian students in the US had been trying to persuade him to stage benefit concerts for the refugees pouring into India. No one, however, had much of an idea how to go about it. Shankar realised he couldn’t hope to raise much more than $10,000, which would be a drop in the ocean. At least $50,000, he thought, would be a more respectable figure.

When they met in Los Angeles in June 1971, he decided to share his concerns with George Harrison. The latter didn’t have a clear idea of what was going on in the subcontinent, but he looked upon Shankar as a guru and was keen to address his concerns. What if he was able to gather a few friends for a truly memorable concert, he wondered. He made a few phone calls, and New York’s Madison Square Garden was booked for a pair of concerts on Aug 1.

Harrison’s band, The Beatles, had broken up the previous year. In the run-up to the concert, there were rumours of a reunion. But Paul McCartney wasn’t interested, and John Lennon angrily turned down Harrison’s invitation when the latter made it clear that Yoko Ono wouldn’t be welcome on stage. However, Ringo Starr, according to his own account, turned up uninvited. (Almost a decade later, a Beatles reunion was portended once more on behalf of a different, albeit not entirely unrelated, cause: Kampuchea; in the event, only McCartney attended.) Harrison was able, however, to stir some famous friends, notably two enormously talented recluses: Eric Clapton and Bob Dylan. In both cases, it was uncertain whether they would turn up on the day in question. But they did. Dylan had reportedly bristled at the suggestion that his repertoire should include old protest songs such as Blowing in the Wind. But he did, and the questions “How many years can some people exist/Before they are allowed to be free?” and “How many deaths will it take till they know too many people have died?” must have sounded particularly pertinent, given the context.

He also played the apocalyptic A Hard Rain’s A-Gonna Fall, with its poignant concluding verses: “...Where the people are many and their hands are all empty/Where the pellets of poison are flooding their waters/ Where the home in the valley meets the damp dirty prison/ Where the executioner’s face is always well hidden/ Where hunger is ugly, where souls are forgotten….” In terms of popular culture, the concert was also notable because no Beatle had performed live in the US in 1966, and this happened to be Harrison’s first solo appearance anywhere. Dylan, too, had graced the stage only thrice since 1966. Notwithstanding his initial doubts, the appearance was palatable enough for him to consider returning to the stage more or less permanently a couple of years later.

But the context was hardly irrelevant, although it was overtly referenced only twice during the proceedings: in the exquisitely poignant Bangla Dhun, on which Shankar passionately duetted with sarod maestro Ali Akbar Khan. The latter’s father, Ustad Allaudin Khan, had tutored Shankar, who lamented that his guru’s property “was completely burned and destroyed by troops from West Pakistan”.

In its cover story in the week after the event, the magazine Rolling Stone noted: “It wasn’t only the glamour of the event that made it memorable, or the brilliance of the music, or even the impossible pantheon gathered on stage. It was more than that: the George Harrison benefit for the starving children of Bangladesh was a brief, incandescent revival of all that was best about the sixties.” Many years later, Bob Geldof was more than willing to acknowledge the influence of the Concert for Bangladesh as a pioneering event on the long road to Live Aid. Charity singles and benefit concerts are a constant phenomenon nowadays — and they continue to attract a degree of controversy — but they were a novelty in 1971. Several thousand times more than Shankar had hoped for was raised by Harrison’s endeavour, although, for a variety of reasons, it took a while for it to reach the beneficiaries. Sales from the album and the concert film continue to benefit Unicef.

As for the Pakistan connection, Rolling Stone’s report of the concert mentioned East Pakistan’s status as “a lighting rod for misery”, recalling the unprecedented havoc wreaked by the 1970 cyclone and floods, but also, “as if to conspire with nature” the Pakistan army’s launch of “one of the most brutal slaughters in modern history”.

A pertinent, if imperfect, analogy can perhaps be found in Pablo Picasso’s (possibly apocryphal) response to a German officer’s query as to whether he had painted Guernica, a hellish depiction of the aftermath of a Nazi air raid on a Spanish village. “No,” the Spanish artist is said to have responded, “You did it.”

[FONT="Arial Black"][SIZE="5"][CENTER][B]Partners in denial[/B][/CENTER][/SIZE][/FONT]

August 04,2011
[B]
Pakistanis must understand that they cannot defeat terrorism without defeating extremism.[/B]

By Touqir Hussain


THE US, Pakistan and Afghanistan are facing serious national challenges. They are trying to solve them together but instead of looking at the broader strategic picture and developing a sound common strategy they are giving primacy to their own national interests that has led to poor policy responses with horrendous consequences for all.

As for the US, there is impatience and a quickness to resort to force of arms. There is also a belief, rooted in military superiority and a sacrosanct self-image of an indispensable, exceptional and saviour nation that is doing so much public good through a morally superior foreign policy, that its interests, worldview, and strategies are beyond challenge. Coupled with it is a feeling stemming from the capitalist mindset that with money you can fix anything and buy anything including friendships.

But the world has changed. It contests America’s self-image and is no more amenable to American will as it used to be except in troubled countries like Pakistan. In fact, even in Pakistan the US is having trouble. Gone are the days when Washington could treat these countries as clients and work through pliant regimes presiding over compliant populations. The populations are now becoming increasingly politically aware and assertive and the social order as well as its foreign policy underpinnings are under challenge.

The US does not understand this nor the fact that its militaristic and unilateral response to this changed world, which admittedly has come to pose some serious threats to its security such as from terrorism, has created more problems than it has solved. The war in Afghanistan has virtually been lost but Washington denies it. Not only did the military campaign in Afghanistan lack a political strategy but also, in the rush to war, there was little effort to comprehend the nature of the threat or the enemy. The enemy was Al Qaeda. It could and should have been defeated directly. But the route adopted to defeat Al Qaeda (through defeating the Taliban) was not a wise course of action. It betrayed little understanding of the conflict ed, violent and broken Afghanistan left behind by the US when the Soviets withdrew.

Nor did America show any understanding of a sanctioned, aggrieved, isolated Pakistan unbound by America and left to its own devices. Colossal damage came to be done to Afghanistan and Pakistan in the decade following the Soviet withdrawal. The damage was caused by themselves and Washington’s neglect and poor policies. And the militarised response to 9/11 has made things worse. Pakistan is now involved in multiple wars.

But Pakistanis too are in denial. On one side we have the discredited ruling elite still banking on Washington to solve all of Pakistan’s problems, and on the other we have a large chunk of the population caught up in the frenzy of anti-Americanism. Both are wrong. The Americans may have left a ‘mess’ behind after the Afghan war in the 1980s but it was gladly taken over by the Pakistan Army and improvised on to nourish its own strategic ambitions in the region, widely radiating radical thoughts. Now thanks to Washington’s ill-conceived response to 9/11, the ownership of this mess, that variously trades as antiAmericanism, ultra-nationalism and extremism, has become public property over which no one has any control.

Pakistanis have to understand that they cannot defeat terrorism without defeating extremism. For that they have to acknowledge the existence among themselves of religiosity, the laws, social norms and the national security concepts however legitimate that give rise to extremism. As a consequence, Pakistanis see an enemy in a friend and a friend in an enemy. They hate terrorism but live with extremism. No wonder civil society is confused. The divide is no longer between the secular and the religious, the conservative and the liberal, the moderate and the extremist. All these tendencies have come to live within the same soul.

Pakistanis have to do some serious soul-searching. Among other things they must understand that Pakistan’s external ambitions have come to be in a zero-sum relationship with its internal order, and what looks like democracy does not work as such. The media’s exuberance and judicial activism are meaningless if they do not improve the quality of democracy and governance, and act only as a mood enhancer.

As for the Afghans they too have to realise that they cannot blame all their misfortunes on Pakistan. Afghanistan has had serious fault lines — ethnic, linguistic, sectarian and tribal not to mention a competitive and conflict-prone geopolitical environment. Many must wish they had accepted the Durand Line and not played up the Pakhtunistan issue historically. The chickens are coming home to roost. The fact is Afghanistan’s problems go beyond the Taliban issue. Even if there were no Taliban, Afghanistan would have had problems.

Now all three are asking each other to follow policies to make up for the failure of their own failed policies. This will not work. Afghanistan has to get its act together. As for Pakistan, neither America nor anti-Americanism will help. Pakistan does need America but on the basis of a normal relationship. That will not happen until Pakistan itself makes a strategic choice to become a normal country and the US too makes necessary adjustments to its foreign policy and makes it one that is not militarised or imperial in nature. Both countries are facing challenges that neither can solve alone. ¦ The writer, a former ambassador, is Senior Visiting Pakistan Fellow at the Johns Hopkins University.



[FONT="Arial Black"][SIZE="4"][B][CENTER]Wages of brinkmanship[/CENTER][/B][/SIZE][/FONT]

[B]The constitution and the laws have so often and so arbitrarily been changed and circumvented that they have lost much of their sanctity. The people consider them as tools in the hands of oppressors and hypocrites.[/B]

By I.A. Rehman


THE people of Pakistan have been living on edge for as long as one can recall. One of the recent causes of their despair has been what is commonly described as a confrontation between the executive and the judiciary and every conscious citizen realises that it could lead to a national catastrophe.

For months, a short thriller was screened before a captive audience. The judiciary told the government that it would not tolerate defiance of its constitutional authority, that its patience was running out, and that it was holding its hand only to avoid a total institutional collapse. The executive kept swearing that it could not even think of defying the judiciary’s authority, that there was no conflict between the state organs, and those hoping to profit from a clash of institutions were worse than fools. Yet the people all the time felt that the two state organs were facing one another in a manner that was not friendly, to put it mildly.

Recently, the script underwent a change. The prime minister protested that his authority was being encroached upon and declared that parliament would decide who was transgressing its authority. He did not name the other party but everybody understood what was meant. Immediately, the people were told of a grave crisis. Some people said parliament was higher than the other organs of the state, some others said parliament was being used to cover up corruption. All sorts of busybodies jumped into the fray — some pledging loyalty to one side, some to the other. A showdown appeared unavoidable. Then the earlier script reappeared, both sides offered relief to each other and as suddenly as the crisis had erupted a ceasefire took effect.

Unfortunately, this film cannot be allowed to run forever for several reasons. First, the people easily get bored with stale fare. Secondly, this game of brinkmanship can get out of everybody’s hands. A slight slip by either side can push the country over the precipice.

Thirdly, and more important than anything else, the people’s misery is growing by the day because the government is all the time camping in the fencing arena. It is not seen to be attending to the issues of governance and some of its leading ministers are either travelling or issuing statements on matters they hardly understand or are entrusted with.

While there are many things that divide the executive and the judiciary a major cause of a prolonged and wasteful confrontation between the two relates to the posting, transfer and promotion of civil servants. The government apparently did not learn the lesson it should have when the Supreme Court struck down the package of senior bureaucrats’ promotion. That order was given on a petition by the aggrieved officials and not in the exercise of the court’s suo motu jurisdiction.

However, there have been quite a few instances when the apex court has taken the initiative on its own to seek a review/cancellation of the government’s decisions. There may be some room for a discussion on the limits to the judiciary’s legitimate intervention in the executive’s domain but nothing can justify undeserved promotion of favourites and punishment of officials who are generally seen to be carrying out their duty.

The complaints against the federal government are many and varied (and the provincial governments may not be far behind). These include the secret grant of ministerial status to persons not known for any merit, appointment of favourites as advisers to ministers/ministries, re-employment of retired officials whose shady past is quite well known.

The people have not been able to find any reason to justify the government’s insistence on appointing some persons to certain posts despite valid objections to their selection and its determination to remove certain officials who were handling ‘sensitive’ cases. The treatment meted out to senior officials, from Tariq Khosa to Zafar Qureshi and Hussain Asghar, particularly in view of the fact they were probing cases of corruption, have undermined the government’s claims to uprightness.

It is possible that professional rivalries within the ranks of the bureaucracy have made some contribution to the government’s loss of credibility. Likewise, the government alone may not be responsible for losing public confidence by its failure to fill key vacancies in time. The people did not like the delay that was allowed in implementing the new formula for the appointment of judges or in the nomination of members of the Election Commission, and now they cannot appreciate the foot-dragging in the selection of a new head of the National Accountability Bureau.

The government’s position generally is that the actions for which it is criticised have been taken in the exercise of its lawful authority. True, the prime minister, as the country’s chief executive authority, has the power to appoint, transfer and promote civil servants but this authority cannot be exercised arbitrarily, whimsically and in narrow selfish interests. Like justice, executive authority should not only be exercised fairly and justly, and in public interest, it should also seem to be so exercised.

Everybody knows that public perception often matters more than fact and many governments and individuals have come to grief because of public perception of their being incompetent or corrupt or both even though they might not have been guilty to the extent commonly assumed.

There is thus urgent need for the government to prevent the public perception from getting more and more adverse to it. It will not solve its diffi culties by staying in the denial mould. Nor is it a game that can be won by exposing the flaws in its rivals’ characters and conduct. It has to prove, to the citizens’ satisfaction, that the charges levelled against it are wrong and baseless. Take the allegation that the prime minister ‘lied’ to parliament over the plots allotted to journalists. The accusation of ‘lying’ to parliament is much too serious to be ignored and the prime minister has a duty to prove that the charge is untenable.

The real problem, apart from incidents that cause friction between institutions, perhaps is lack of understanding of the art of governance. The cliché that all institutions should stay within their constitutional and legal limits has no meaning in Pakistan. The constitution and the laws have so often and so arbitrarily been changed and circumvented that they have lost much of their sanctity and the people consider them as tools in the hands of oppressors and hypocrites.

Besides, constitutions and laws guarantee just governance only when they are grounded in social justice and equity, conditions that are not met in Pakistan. Even good constitutional and legal frameworks cannot deliver unless their practitioners consciously evolve conventions to sustain them. And that will depend more on restraint in exercising legal power than on keenness on all sides to exhaust the limits of authority.





[FONT="Arial Black"][CENTER][B]Confronting China[/B][/CENTER][/FONT]

[B]The problem for the US is that when China takes over the disputed islands, the undersea oil deposits will belong to it.[/B]

By Brian Cloughley


FOR years I have suspected that in Washington there is an influential organisation which could be called the ‘US Agency for Disruption of International Diplomacy’.

It appears to have the job of identifying sensitive matters that could embarrass or insult other countries if they were made public, then publicising them as widely as possible.

If such an organisation exists (and I’m only half-joking), it has recently had considerable success. China seems to be the top nation to be told that its affairs are the business of the United States rather than of its own government, and the ‘Agency’ ensured maximum publicity for what it hoped would be a lip-smacking humiliation.

Sixty years ago, China took control of Tibet, and the chief religious figure, the Dalai Lama, fled to India in 1959 and still lives there, a potent symbol of Tibetan culture — and a most controversial person, so far as China is concerned. The government would rather keep international attention away from him because it wants to maintain stability in Tibet. At the very time of grave differences between the US and China, Washington decided to play the Dalai Lama card. So just after America’s highest ranking military officer, the loosemouthed Mullen, visited Beijing and declared “I told the Chinese, the United States isn’t going away ... We’ve operated in the South China Sea for many decades, and we will continue to do that”, it was announced that President Obama would welcome the Dalai Lama in the White House on July 16.

Beijing reacted predictably, observing that Obama’s provocation “grossly interfered in China’s internal affairs, hurt the feelings of Chinese people and damaged Sino-American relations”, which was absolutely correct.

Bingo! — What a score for the ‘Disruption Agency’. Washington insulted the most powerful nation on earth (for it could destroy America economically tomor row if it wanted to — well, that is if the Republican Party doesn’t do it first) and continued in immature effrontery by having two of yesterday’s never-were men, Senators Kerry and McCain, declare that China’s claims to islands and their associated territorial waters in the South China Sea are a threat to America’s national security.

They had the impudence to criticise China concerning its stance about the South China Sea. Note the name: The South China Sea. It’s not the North American Sea or the West American Sea: its 9,000 miles from Washington. The United States of America has no right to poke its nose into the region. But these two declared that China’s perfectly reasonable assertion of its claims is contrary to American policy.

The problem for the US is that when China takes over the islands — as undoubtedly it will in the course of time — the vast undersea deposits of oil and gas will belong to China, so US oil companies will be unable to make profits. Naturally, China is flexing its naval muscles in the region, which caused Laurel Kerry and Hardy McCain to announce that “If appropriate steps are not taken to calm the situation, future incidents could escalate, jeopardising the vital national interests of the United States.” The vital interests of the United States? What vital interests, apart from wanting to make money from exploiting oil and gas deposits? What business is it of the United States if the littoral nations of the South China Sea have disagreements about sovereignty?

On July 15, the US House of Representatives Foreign Affairs Committee, so often a theatre of unconscious comedy, declared that China was involved in “gunboat diplomacy” — as if America is not involved in battleship intimidation, all round the world.

The US Navy’s 7th fleet has been conducting exercises in the South China Sea along with ships of Vietnam and the Philippines, two of the countries at odds with China concerning ownership of the Paracel and Spratly Islands, the main areas about which there are disputes.

The message could not be made more clear, and China, quite rightly, resents this belligerent confrontation. The aircraft carrier USS George Washington is “continuing daily operations” which improve “a strike fighter squadron’s ability to train for encounters with an increased number of enemy air threats”.

But there would be no air threats of any sort if US ships were not there, trailing their coats.

There are pundits who scoff at the new Chinese aircraft carrier because it will take the Chinese navy perhaps 10 years or so to learn carrier skills. Yes, it probably will, if they want to go that old-fashioned route. And they’ve got the patience and could do it if they want. But, of much more importance, in the meantime China has developed very long-range and most accurate missiles that will in their eventual hundreds destroy US warships within moments of the US navy taking any offensive action.

A long time ago, returning to my embassy in Islamabad after lunching with the Chinese defence attaché, a man of humour, culture and intelligence, I reported to my ambassador, an equally civilised person, that I had been told that the Chinese were not troubled by the most recent US diplomatic absurdities. “Of course not,” he said: “they think in centuries, while we, poor fools, think in decades at most.” The Obama administration should disband the ‘Diplomatic Disruption Agency’ and consider establishing a ‘Bureau of Modesty and Foresight’. It should think in centuries. In Mandarin. ¦ The writer is a defence analyst.




[B][FONT="Arial Black"][SIZE="4"][CENTER]
When Neruda smiled at Nehru[/CENTER][/SIZE][/FONT][/B]


By Jawed Naqvi


I HAVE been riveted to an Indian reprint of Pablo Neruda’s memoirs. Strangely enough, it gives a clue about the trouble people, especially from Pakistan, have with Indian visas and the harassment they face at the customs.

I know Pakistanis who genuinely love India but are routinely denied a visit permit. I know Indians who have taken a different citizenship in Europe and America and they too have to struggle these days to find a benign visa officer at an Indian mission in their vicinity. It is an uphill struggle that seldom yields fruit.

We are told the problem has been compounded by the Headley affair whereby a Pakistan-born American citizen used his Indian visa to carry out terror attacks in India. The fact is that terrorism has become only another handy ruse for the government to execute a wider policy rooted in fear — a fear that preceded the advent of terrorism as we define it today.

Mahatma Gandhi had dreamt of a country with an open mind that would welcome ideas and cultures from afar. Sanskrit shlokas are routinely flaunted in official literature — ‘Vasudhaiv Kutumbukam’ (‘The world is a family’) and ‘Atithi devo bhava’ (‘A guest is an incarnation of god’), but in practice the opposite is true.

After the British handed over power to an ideologically regressive Indian elite, narrow nationalism surged to take the lead in prescribing what was good or bad for the country. It went after visiting missionaries after independence and still continues to target foreign nuns, priests and their Indian colleagues though all that these worthy people have done is to set up hospitals and schools for the poor in the name of Christ. Secular ideas too are frowned upon.

In fact, before contemporary terrorism became an issue, the Indian government was discouraging left and liberal scholars from abroad from being invited to political discussions on public platforms. I would have thought at least Jawaharlal Nehru was not an ideological bigot, but Pablo Neruda has disabused me of this cold comfort.

It happened that two or three years after independence, there were concerns in the international pacifist movement opposed to nuclear weapons that India though avowedly peace-loving had been wavering somewhat in joining the campaign. The head of the World Peace Council at the time, the Nobel Prize-winning French scientist Frederic Joliot-Curie, asked Neruda to carry a letter to Nehru. Here is how it went, in Neruda’s words:

“I boarded the plane for Bombay. I was going back to India 30 years later. It was no longer a colony fighting for its emancipation, but a sovereign republic: the dream of Gandhi, whose first Congress I had attended in 1928. Perhaps none of my friends from those days were alive, revolutionary students who had confided their stories of struggle to me, like brothers.

“I got off the plane and headed straight for the customs. From there I would go to some hotel, deliver the letter to the physicist friend Raman, and go on to New Delhi. I hadn’t counted on my hosts. My suitcases were taking forever to get out of the place. A number of people I thought were customs inspectors were going through my baggage with a fine-tooth comb. I had seen many inspections, but never one like this.

“My luggage did not amount to much, only a medium-sized suitcase with my clothes, and a small leather bag containing my toilet articles. But my trousers, my shorts, my shoes were lifted and checked over by five pairs of eyes. Pockets and seams were explored with meticulous attention. In Rome, I had wrapped my shoes, so as not to soil my clothes, in a wrinkled newspaper I had found in my hotel room. I believe it was Osservatore Romano. They spread the page on a table, held it up to the light, folded it carefully as if it were a secret document, and finally put it aside with some of my papers. My shoes were studied inside out, like unique samples of fabulous fossils.

“This incredible search lasted two hours. They made an elaborate bundle with my papers (passport, the address book, the letter I was to hand the head of state, and the page from the Osservatore Romano) and ceremoniously secured it with sealing wax before my eyes. Then I was told I could go on to a hotel.

“Using all my will power so as not to lose our proverbial Chilean patience, I remarked that no hotel would allow me to register without identification papers and that the object of my trip to India was to hand the prime minister a letter, which I could not deliver because they had confiscated it. ‘We’ll talk to the hotel and they will take you in. As for the papers, we’ll return them to you in due time.’ This was the country whose struggle for independence was part of my experience as a young man, I thought. I shut my suitcase and my mouth simultaneously. …” Neruda describes a virtually silent meeting he had with Nehru.

“Dark, cold eyes looked at me without feeling. Thirty years before, he and his father had been introduced to me at a huge rally for independence. I mentioned this to him, but it produced no change in his face. He replied in monosyllables to everything I said, scrutinising me with his steady, cold eyes.” After the meeting Nehru asked Neruda if he could do something to make the visit pleasant. Neruda found his moment of revenge and requested permission to visit the Taj Mahal. When the hotel manager told him he could go to Agra, Neruda enjoyed his own perverse moment by turning down the offer as he had a plane to catch.

“Five years later, in Moscow, I had occasion to sit on the annual Lenin Peace Prize committee, an international assembly of which I was part. When the moment came to present and vote on the year’s candidates, the Indian delegation proposed Prime Minister Nehru’s name. The shadow of a smile crossed my face, but none of the others on the jury understood it, and I voted affirmatively. The international prize consecrated Nehru as one of the champions of world peace.” ¦ Dawn’s The writer is correspondent in Delhi.

[FONT="Fixedsys"][SIZE="4"][B][CENTER][FONT="Century Gothic"][SIZE="5"]Military as an obstacle[/SIZE][/FONT][/CENTER][/B][/SIZE][/FONT]

05 August, 2011

The fear of India physically taking over Pakistan — perhaps a valid concern at one point but no longer so — has been exploited to its own advantage by the military for decades on end.

[B]By S. Akbar Zaidi[/B]


ACADEMICS who work on the political economy of Pakistan have no doubt in their minds that Pakistan’s military, primarily its army, remains the dominant power in any equation regarding the distribution and use of power and force in Pakistan.

Despite the recent, softer transitions in the balance and distribution of power which have created far more space for democratic government, civil society, the judiciary as well as for the media, this dominance in Pakistan’s political settlement persists. While it is very possible that there may have been some small, and probably temporary, erosion in the dominance of the military, the military nevertheless remains the hegemon.

The hegemony of the military over the state and its institutions in Pakistan is articulated in numerous ways. The most obvious, of course, is outright military dictatorship, in different guises and forms but always clearly with the military leadership ruling.

Three coups and four general-presidents have between them ruled Pakistan for almost 35 years. At these long junctures, the military both ruled and governed. In circumstances when there has been a civilian dispensation, particularly during 1988-99, the military might not have overtly governed. Clearly, though, this was the institution which held unchallengeable power over the state, including the various governments, and enforced its military rule.

In addition, numerous wings and organisations of the military, such as Military Intelligence and the ISI in particular, have dominated the political and public sphere in Pakistan. The latter has perhaps gone rogue, with a sense of independence of which even the establishment in the military might not be fully cognisant. Even in times of civilian or democratic dispensations, the ISI has played a fundamental role, both domestically and in the region.

There is consensus amongst academics and political analysts, as well as amongst the increasingly aware and astute lay public, that it is the military which continues to determine Pakistan’s Afghanistan policy, the military and political anti-Taliban policy especially regarding drone attacks, all nuclear-related issues and perhaps even foreign policy more generally. The military also plays a crucial, perhaps even exclusive, role in determining Pakistan’s position on Kashmir and India, positions which might even receive some public support. Any peace process with India must factor in these points.

Pakistan’s Kashmir and India policy has been held hostage by the military since 1948. Just as the military has directly meddled in domestic affairs undertaking coups, it has also provoked and instigated wars with India in 1965 and 1999. At other times, just as Pakistan’s military has covertly managed Pakistan’s domestic affairs, academic scholarship shows that it has also meddled in Kashmir and elsewhere in India creating, arming, training and supporting so-called jihadi organisations.

Extensive academic research on the military, as well as conventional wisdom, support the claim that one reason why the military has dominated Pakistan’s own state and its governments has been because the military continues to use the ‘India card’. The fear of India physically taking over Pakistan — perhaps a valid concern at one point but no longer so — has been exploited to its own advantage by the military for decades on end. Pakistan’s military depends on India to claim legitimacy in order to establish its own hegemony over the political economy of Pakistan. Any civilian peace process, such as the one just restarted, is hampered by this heavy burden from the past.

Some political analysts might even advocate that any India policy or peace process must factor in the military’s concerns and opinions. This is playing to the devil. This is also exactly why civilian governments have still been unable to make use of their political and democratic agency and independence, and break away from the shadows and fear of a dominating military.

If anything, and not just India-specific policies, all policies, whether foreign or domestic, must be made by civilians alone. Military and so-called security factors need to be considered, but governments which claim legitimacy from the people are answerable to the people, not to the MI, ISI or GHQ. What is best for Pakistan and for its people must be determined by democratic and civilian governments, not by the military.

If Pakistan is to become a democracy, the ubiquitous role and position of the military in all walks of life must be put aside, once and for all. However, realignment of power between institutions takes decades, unless there is a revolution which sweeps aside old power blocs and vested interests. In the absence of any foreseeable revolution in Pakistan, these changes are going to take time but they will not happen unless civilian institutions — government, civil society, the judiciary — enforce their writ on the military and take away from the military what it perceives to be its terrain and its prerogatives: India, Kashmir, nuclear policy, Afghanistan and so on.

In an environment where power continues to lie with the military, any peace process with India, as well as attempts at democratisation in Pakistan, will fail. For those who want peace in South Asia and better relations among all countries, the hegemony of the military within Pakistan will have to be challenged. Not only will this be good for the region but, and most importantly, it will be good for the people of Pakistan. It will also certainly strengthen democracy in the process.








[FONT="Fixedsys"][SIZE="4"][B][CENTER][FONT="Century Gothic"][SIZE="5"]A bureaucracy trampled[/SIZE][/FONT][/CENTER][/B][/SIZE][/FONT]


[B]By Cyril Almeida[/B]

MEMORIES can be tricky sometimes, so let’s take a trip down memory lane.

“The chief minister was in a strident mood. He made it clear that the agitation launched by the MRD but actually spearheaded by the PPP would not be allowed to succeed. He reminded us (Punjab commissioners) that there was a long queue of officers waiting to become commissioners, DIGs, deputy commissioners and SPs and that anyone found less than enthusiastic about the ‘political’ dimension of his work would be shunted out.” The chief minister in question? Nawaz Sharif.

Yep, the same Sharif who has been urging bureaucrats to follow their conscience and the letter of the law in recent days wasn’t quite so charitable back when he was chief minister of Punjab in 1986.

Aminullah Chaudhry, a bureaucrat who joined the Civil Service of Pakistan in 1967 and rose to the senior ranks of the bureaucracy until his arrest as one of the ‘hijackers’ of the Musharraf plane in 1999 before turning approver and helping secure a conviction against his patron, Nawaz Sharif, has done all of us a favour by putting in black and white how the bureaucracy has, over the decades, been used and abused by politicians and by cunning and conniving bureaucrats to enhance their wealth and status.

At times, it’s difficult to decide whether Chaudhry’s book, Political Administrators (OUP 2011), makes for prosaic or wretched reading.

“Despite my (Chaudhry’s) best efforts to humour him, the behaviour of Chaudhry Sher Ali, mayor of Faisalabad, became increasingly unbearable … I finally had a detailed talk with him in order to ascertain what his problem was … He was quite frank in admitting that he had ‘invested’ considerable sums of money in the process of getting elected as mayor and he now wished to ‘recoup’ his losses by taking a number of administrative initiatives. He made it a point to highlight his family relationship with the chief minister (Nawaz Sharif) and the fact that he meant to exploit it, if I stood in the way,” writes Chaudhry, who was then commissioner of Faisalabad division.

“In March 1987, when the chief minister visited Kamalia, I raised the issue with him. Nawaz Sharif expressed his surprise … [but] the significant point is that he did not promise to rein in Sher Ali. This made my decision easier.” Chaudhry put in a request to be transferred out and Sharif obliged in short order, moving him to the post of secretary local government and rural development.

Chaudhry’s extensive time in Punjab also brought him in contact with the younger Sharif, another present-day champion of letting the bureaucracy get on with its work without fear or favour.

“In two cases Shahbaz (serving as chief minister of Punjab in the late 1990s) took controversial decisions. In the first, he recommended and secured an accelerated promotion for a DMG officer holding the position of secretary of agriculture and thereafter allowed this individual to take long leave and join the private employment of an organisation he had dealt with in his capacity as a provincial secretary. In another, he allowed the secretary transport to proceed on long leave and take up employment with a transport company.” The younger Sharif’s fixation with loyalty at the cost of other principles didn’t change with age. Chaudhry writes: “Well before becoming chief minister (following the 2008 elections), Shahbaz Sharif asked a former chief secretary and inspector general of police to draw up lists of officers who were to be removed and another of long time ‘loyalists’. …Within a week over 3,500 contract employees of the government were sacked without following due process, and hundreds of DCOs; EDOs; DDOs; TMOs; officers of the health, education, local government and community development, housing and physical planning departments; CCPOs, DPOs, DSPs, SPs, SHOs transferred … Even a fiercely loyal member of the provincial cabinet was forced to comment adversely on this large-scale mayhem.” But it wasn’t just the Sharifs. The military features prominently in Chaudhry’s tale of the manipulation and distortion of the bureaucracy.

“In May 1997, Lt Gen (retd) Tanvir Hussain Naqvi called on Anwar Ahmed Khan, the deputy commissioner of Rahimyar Khan, and complained that agricultural land allotted to him under a particular scheme had been illegally occupied….

“After a preliminary probe, it emerged that a certain retired army subedar would scour the area for allottees like Naqvi and put them in touch with locals keen on buying land … According to the subedar, Naqvi had sold the land for a hefty amount against a receipt which the subedar had in his possession….

“When Gen Naqvi protested again, Anwar confronted Naqvi with the subedar.” An “acrimonious” confrontation ensued, the general feeling “insulted” by the lowly subedar with the receipt and the deputy commissioner arguing he couldn’t do what the general wanted because of the small problem that the general had already sold the land he now wanted cleared of ‘encroachers’.

“Lt Gen (retd) Naqvi left the office in a rather foul mood, loudly expressing his views about ‘unhelpful’ deputy commissioners who could do with a bit of sorting out.” Naqvi later became the chairman of the National Reconstruction Bureau under Musharraf and dismantled the British-era commissionerate system altogether.

And then there was the man who truly terrorised the bureaucracy: ZAB.

“The visit of the prime minister to various parts of the province had driven the administration into a state of frenzy. Phone calls were made to deputy commissioners of districts which Bhutto had already visited and every possible detail elicited. Each aspect of the itinerary was carefully examined and all eventualities catered for. No deputy commissioner wanted to be caught napping, as Bhutto’s annoyance could spell disaster.” Civilian or uniformed, PML (N, Q or whatever) or PPP, the 70s or the 2000s — they’ve all bent the bureaucracy to their will, governance be damned. And the crafty among the bureaucracy have figured out how to pad their nests and puff out their chests in front of the public while bowing and scraping before their political masters.

How does anyone run a country like this? You don’t really. You preside over a mess that ends up like the Pakistan of today.









[CENTER][B][FONT="Fixedsys"][SIZE="4"][FONT="Century Gothic"][SIZE="5"]Bin Laden’s last laugh[/SIZE][/FONT][/SIZE][/FONT][/B][/CENTER]

Even a decade later, the US has failed to subdue the Taliban.
[B]
By Khalid Aziz
[/B]

SIMONE de Beauvoir, the French existentialist writer, was on the dot when she remarked, “If you live long enough, you’ll see that every victory turns into a defeat.” With that in mind, one must inquire now what happened to the euphoria of the US ‘victory’ when the Taliban surrendered Kandahar on Dec 7, 2001. In 2004 and then again in 2007, Osama bin Laden said that he would bleed the US into bankruptcy, as he had done earlier with the Soviet Union. Today, it is quite clear that the military situation in Afghanistan is chaotic and appears to be failing.

Even when the neo-cons were at their peak under the Cheney-Rumsfeld team, there were warnings that “attacking Pashtuns, renowned for xenophobia, warlike spirits, and the love of independence, is a fool’s mission”, in the words of columnist Eric Margolis in 2006. “Pashtuns are Afghanistan’s ethnic majority. Taliban is an offshoot of the Pashtun people. Long-term national stability is impossible without their representation and cooperation.” In hindsight, we can see that the war in Afghanistan was poorly conducted and led against one of the most backward and ill-equipped of adversaries. It would appear that modern warfare cannot succeed over an ideologically driven opponent in an underdeveloped nation. Furthermore, once the US military began running the national agenda of the war in Afghanistan and Iraq, all dissent evaporated and even the media in the US became slavish, thus allowing mistakes to go unchallenged.

The curtailment of liberty and the criticism of government policies by harsh new homeland security legislation took away the US’s edge in honest intellectual analysis. Today, it is possible to clearly see that this method of manag ing war almost brought a superpower to the verge of financial disaster. It is astonishing to note that after remaining engaged in Afghanistan for a decade, the US has not succeeded in subduing a medieval force — the Taliban.

In the process, the US cre ated a huge financial black hole for itself. With its debt at an astronomical level of $14.6tr, it will make $600bn a year in interest payments. This is equal to its defence budget for one year. Admiral Mike Mullen, chairman of the US Joint Chiefs of Staff, told businessmen in Detroit that “the national debt is the single biggest threat to national security.” Yet one could ask that as a military man, did he not have a hand in creating it?

The US failed in its strategy in Afghanistan because its military was so sure of success that it lost touch with the harsh Afghan reality. On a number of occasions, potentially more sound policy advice for stabilising the situation was suggested, such as by the British and Dutch in 2007, but it went unheard.

President Hamid Karzai’s woes have multiplied with the killings of his closest confidants. The assassination of his half-brother Ahmad Wali, followed by that of the former governor of Uruzgan, Jan Mohammed, and later the mayor of Kandahar, have deprived him both of influence and advice regarding peace talks with the Taliban.

It is clear that without a successful peace deal with the Taliban, President Karzai’s relevance in an ordered withdrawal of troops will be diminished. If there is no peace deal by December 2014, when the majority of the US troops will be withdrawn, then the US will still be in Afghanistan implementing a containment plan based on a counter-terrorism ring of fire in bases bordering the Pakhtun belt in Southern and Eastern Afghanistan. Will this be a de-facto partition of Afghanistan? Whether so or not, this will usher in another period of blood-letting that will continue to destabilise the region — particularly Pakistan.

Why can’t Afghanistan be stabilised after the expenditure of so much money and the concerted efforts of countless minds? There are a number of reasons behind this failure and I highlight just a few.

The first failing was the absence of an exit strategy at the start of the US intervention in November, 2001. A review of the US objectives shows that from the initial, limited aim of removing the Taliban government, the US took over the job of redesigning the Afghan state. This, obviously, was a formidable task. Recreating a tribal nation is impossible. That mission was bound to fail.

Afghanistan has always been a loosely-run nation where a king retained control by balancing the tribes and strongmen as well as shaping the ethnic dynamics. He often used the military to bring about change when other methods of persuasion failed. As long as the king could provide patronage and kept the resources flowing to the strongmen in the countryside, peace was ensured. Afghanistan remains the same today and patronage trumps policy. To expect otherwise was unrealistic.

When the Taliban were ousted in December 2001, President Karzai began rebuilding the state by relying on strongmen who can be considered the nouveau riche created by the drug trade rather than being traditional leaders of their tribes as in former times. For example, Gul Agha Sherzai, a drug entrepreneur, emerged to lead Kandahar, Jan Mohammed became the governor of Uruzgan and Sher Mohammed Akhundzada the governor of Helmand. The same sort of leaders emerged in other parts of the country. Such an administration compromised the very justification for the invasion. Meanwhile, Pakistan’s role in fanning the flames to neutralise growing Indian influence was yet another cause of Afghan instability.

Secondly, in a country composed of various ethnicities of whom the Pakhtuns constitute 45 per cent of the population, the Tajiks 22 per cent, the Uzbeks 6.4 per cent and the Hazaras and Aimaks 5.6 per cent and 5.4 per cent respectively, the new structure denied the Pakhtuns their share. Furthermore, no space was kept in the Bonn design for reconciled Taliban, thus declaring hostility to a political compromise with them.

These ethnic imbalances are now reflected in the rebuilt Afghan army and police. These groups will lose coherence as soon as their mentors, who belong to foreign countries, are withdrawn. When this happens insecurity will return to Afghanistan after the 2014 withdrawal deadline.

The unpromising situation leads one to conclude that Afghanistan may after all constitute Bin Laden’s last laugh.






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[FONT="Century Gothic"][SIZE="5"]Reforming the US political system[/SIZE][/FONT][/SIZE][/FONT][/CENTER][/B]


[B]By Timothy Garton Ash[/B]

AMERICAN politics have become so hopeless that I begin to be hopeful. From anger and disgust flow the energy for reform. In a CNN poll, 77 per cent of Americans say elected officials in Washington have behaved like “spoiled children” in the crisis over the debt ceiling; 84 per cent disapprove of the way Congress is doing its job.

A couple of years back, it was still vaguely original to describe America’s political system as dysfunctional. Now the word is on every commentator’s lips. More than that: it’s official.

In his address to the nation at the height of the crisis, urging patriotic compromise, Barack Obama said “the American people may have voted for divided government but they didn’t vote for a dysfunctional government”. Announcing the final deal, just 27 hours before default day, he talked of “the crisis that Washington imposed on the rest of America”. But he’s one of those elected officials in Washington too.

Why does the system work so badly? Decades of gerrymandering mean that politicians have to worry more about being deposed by members of their own party in primaries than convincing undecided voters in elections. This is what the Tea Party did to prominent Republicans before last year’s midterms, putting the fear of Tea into moderate Republican members of Congress. It is now a verb — “he was primaried”.

The undue influence of money also distorts US democracy. A Supreme Court ruling last year means that unlimited private money can be spent on political broadcasts. Politicians scuttle from one fundraising meeting to the next. Special interests and lobbyists infect the whole legislative process.

Meanwhile, Senate procedures have evolved so that you need the “supermajority” of 60 votes to prevent legislation being filibustered out. Culture wars dating back to the 60s, and partisan networks such as Fox News on the right and MSNBC on the left, increase the hysterical polarisation.

Throughout the cold war, the sense of facing a full-spectrum Soviet threat contributed to cooperation and compromise across the aisle, facilitated by centrist Democrats and Republicans. Somehow, neither the threat from Al Qaeda nor the competition from China has had the same effect.

On one thing, however, Democrats and Republicans all agree. In the great game of politics, there can be only two teams: Republicans and Democrats. Ballot access regulations, for example, are stacked against outsiders. This is a two-party political cartel: a duopoly. Yet two of every three Americans now say they would like another choice in elections.

Some states have politics that are even more dysfunctional. Two years ago the government of California was reduced to handing out IOUs because it could not pay its bills. Gerrymandering here has been so outrageous that in the 2004 elections not one of 153 federal and state seats changed sides.

Yet if California led on the way down, it may lead on the way back up. Thanks to two state-wide referendum votes, the corrupt business of redrawing constituency boundaries has been taken out of politicians’ hands.

Last week a citizen redistricting commission presented maps of new boundaries for state and national elections that should produce more genuine democratic competition. Thanks to another referendum initiative, next year’s state and congressional races will begin not with the traditional party primaries, but with a single open one.

The two best-performing candidates from the open primary, of whatever party, will go through to a run-off in November 2012. This autumn, civic initiatives will present further proposals for reforming the governance of California. Nobody knows how this will work. The effects may be quite different from those desired.