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  #101  
Old Tuesday, March 01, 2011
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Time to give up the game, Colonel

February 28th, 2011


In his latest speech on February 25, Libyan despot Moammar Qaddafi said: “People who don’t love me don’t deserve to live.” If Qaddafi is true to his word, very few Libyans will be allowed to survive. Even as the dictator has lost control over much of the country and as his diplomats, including his ambassador to the UN, desert him in droves, he has stayed bull-headed and refused to concede the obvious. There has been further state-sanctioned violence in Tripoli over the last few days, with over a thousand protesters believed to have been killed. It appears Qaddafi has regained some measure of control over the capital but it is an illusion; the last gasp of a dying regime.

After a week of dithering, US President Barack Obama has finally announced wide-ranging sanctions against Libya while the UN secretary-general has also pleaded with the international community to take action. The UN appears ready to prosecute Qaddafi for war crimes. Ironically, these actions, while necessary, may serve only to box him in. The simple fact is that, apart from Venezuela and Cuba, no country wants to provide the Libyan dictator with safe passage. He has no way to get his considerable wealth out of Libya and few countries would host him in any place other than a prison. Even at the height of his unpopularity, former Egyptian leader Hosni Mubarak was on friendly terms with many world leaders who would provide him sanctuary. Qaddafi’s eccentric and erratic behaviour over the years has left him alone.

But there is no country less willing to host Qaddafi than Libya itself. After the massacre of protesters, Qaddafi has absolutely no credibility left. Many are urging the UN to stop the violence by enforcing no-fly zones in Libyan airspace to prevent Qaddafi’s air force from indiscriminately bombing its own citizens. The opposition is slowly taking over Libya piece-by-piece, including territory, the airwaves and newspapers. The emperor has no clothes but he refuses to recognise that Libya is liberating itself from his rule. Qaddafi has been boxed in. It is time for him to give up the game.

Implementing the law

February 28th, 2011


A study of the statute books in Pakistan reveals, for the most part, that a set of laws that are comprehensive and attempt to address many key areas of concern in the country or not being implemented. We know this holds true of laws even as mundane as those that apply to traffic regulations – but the problem is especially acute when it comes to laws that are intended to protect the rights of women. A host of social attitudes and discriminations come into play, especially at levels involving the police and the local administrations.

Speakers at the fourth meeting of the Implementation Watch Committee of the National Commission on the Status of Women took up a number of these issues and suggested remedies. While the PPP government has, since coming to power in 2008, introduced several legislative bills — notably the Protection of Women Against Sexual Harassment at the Workplace Act, a law campaigned for by ASHA, a network of organisations working against sexual harassment for many years — lack of implementation remains an issue.

Speakers highlighted the need for departments to enforce the law and it was pointed out that provinces needed to appoint ombudsmen to protect working women and the need to create awareness about the existence of the law and its provisions was also brought up.

We need more such seminars. Most important of all is the need to spread the message to working women — notably those employed at factories and similar set-ups. Men, too, need to be better informed about just what sexual harassment is, so that they can take a stand by exerting pressure on colleagues and acting to protect women subjected to harassment. The passage of a law is, after all, just a first step; much more needs to be done to follow up on it and turn it into something that works out in the real world.

More powers for the SBP

February 28th, 2011


It is not often that a good piece of legislation faces such little resistance in parliament. But the new banking regulations have been passed unanimously in both the Senate and the National Assembly. The bill will dramatically expand the powers of the State Bank of Pakistan to deal with financial crises, including taking over banks and replacing their managements and writing down and imposing losses on debt and equity shareholders alike.

Given the fact that the top five banks in the country control up to 80 per cent of all deposits, Pakistan’s financial sector has a very serious ‘too big to fail’ problem. If one of the major commercial banks runs into trouble, the government has absolutely no choice but to bail it out, owing to the systemic risk a bankruptcy would pose to the health of the financial system. The management of these banks, of course, knows this and thus has an incentive to take excessive risks in order to increase their banks’ profitability, a problem of bad incentives known to economists as ‘moral hazard’.

The amendments to the Banking Companies Ordinance would address this problem. If bank managers know that they can lose their jobs in the event of a crisis at their bank, they are likely to be more prudent in taking risks. If investors in stocks and bonds of banks know that they could lose their money in the event of a bankruptcy, they are likely to urge the bank’s management to be more cautious. Moral hazard and the threat of a systemic risk to the banking network, in other words, stands ameliorated with the introduction of this law.

Given the fact that at least 13 banks are in violation of the central bank’s minimum capitalisation requirements, a banking crisis is likely. Giving the central bank more tools to confront the problem before a problem arises seems like a good idea and one that we can fully support.
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  #102  
Old Tuesday, March 01, 2011
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The makings of a police state

March 1st, 2011


Federal Interior Minister Rehman Malik recently told the National Assembly that “artists, students and government employees will have to obtain no-objection certificates (NOC) from the government before leaving the country.” Why has it become necessary for the government to restrict the movement of a certain class of Pakistani citizens? He explained that “the government has decided to bring necessary changes in the passport form to check activities of NGOs and artists going outside the country.” He thinks that students, too, endanger the country by going abroad: “Pakistan is facing grave challenges to its integrity and it was time to forge unity to tackle the situation.”

The next ominous move made by Mr Malik came when he held an inter-ministerial meeting to get everyone on board on the issue of regulating “foreign visits of public servants, artists and journalists in the interest of Pakistan’s security and to safeguard the country’s prestige”. As if all this was not enough, from March 15, even visitors would be required to obtain an NOC from the ministry of interior for their visits to India. This move is even more endangering to the rights of the Pakistani citizen and brings to mind regimes during the middle of the last century, which felt endangered by subjects moving out of the ideological noose of the totalitarian state. Today, we know that the state that banned its citizens from travelling abroad did not last by reason of its citizens, refusing to accept its social contract.

Now, no one will be able to go to India unless allowed. And a large category of Pakistanis will not be able to travel abroad at all, unless some bureaucrats in the interior ministry are satisfied that they will not endanger the state. The ministry is famous for overreacting to what it deems dangerous to Pakistan. It represents the paranoia that the state feels under the military-driven perception of state security. In the case of Pakistan, it is not so much the Pakistani going abroad who endangers the state, as the Pakistani who lives inside it and has joined up with al Qaeda and the Taliban whose agents the interior ministry cannot stop from coming in.

It is unclear what the ministry is reacting to. Is it supinely accepting the diktat from certain quarters bent upon isolating Pakistan to choke off its economy and curtail the minds of its citizens? No matter what it says about the efficiency with which it will process the permissions to be granted to each citizen trying to go abroad, no one will believe that it has the high calibre section officers, who will clear the mountains of applications that will land on their tables. No matter what contortions Mr Malik goes through, he cannot ensure that sifarish will not clear the powerful, while the deserving, less powerful remain thwarted. He will not be able to guarantee that the jihadi outfits located inside Pakistan will not be allowed to travel abroad to indulge in activities of sabotage and terrorism. It is actually the Pakistani terrorist organisations — whom he has failed to ban despite UN resolutions — who require strict oversight on the part of Mr Malik.

If it is the outside world that is forcing Pakistan to scrutinise its travellers, it is almost certainly pointing to outfits that Mr Malik will not dare touch. What he is proposing is a fascist closing of the exit door on a population whose many members may soon reject the state itself. In any case, Pakistanis will not accept such police-state tactics. As far as the economy is concerned, investors will interpret Mr Malik as fearing that Pakistanis are trying to run away from Pakistan. What we hear every day is the textile sector fleeing abroad to Bangladesh, Sri Lanka and Jordan; and there is nothing Mr Malik can do about capital flight, a far more important asset than poor citizens whose security he cannot guarantee. As for the security of states visited by Pakistanis, it is their responsibility to ensure proper entry, which is what they are doing to stop the export of terror that Mr Malik failed to tackle.

Petrol retailers’ strike

March 1st, 2011


The decision by retail petroleum dealers in Karachi to go on strike only highlights the difficulty faced by the federal government in raising domestic oil prices in line with international rates. The government was expected to raise petrol prices (a decision that was not taken at the time this was written, but which may come into effect by the time this is published) but not by the 16 per cent increase that they have risen in the world market. However, this came under intense criticism from petroleum dealers and retailers who decided to go on strike for a day in the country’s largest city. They, however, seem to have underestimated public anger and resentment, since for much of the day several incidents happened in the city at petrol pumps with irate motorists and motorcyclists demanding that they be given fuel. The anger may have been fuelled further by the deduction, which should be quite easy to make, that the petrol pumps had struck a day before the planned price increase deliberately, so as to profiteer on the stocks of petrol they had in hand. This means that if an increase in the price of oil is to occur, the government should take pains to avoid mentioning it in the media till it actually happens.

At a broader level, the events in Karachi highlight the dilemma of the government in regulating oil prices. While increasing them in line with global rises has a highly visible inflationary impact, not passing on the increase is something that the government can no longer afford to do, since its budget deficit can no longer support such subsidies. In fact, such a large fiscal deficit has substantial inflationary pressures of its own. Pakistan is not an oil-rich state that can afford to give lavish subsidies on petroleum to its citizens. In fact, even Iran, a country with some of the largest hydrocarbon reserves in the world, has eliminated its subsidies on oil. It is time for Pakistan to finally confront the hard truth and do the same. This will be accompanied, one hopes, with greater efforts for conservation and finding energy alternatives.
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  #103  
Old Wednesday, March 02, 2011
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Oil price hike: Role of opposition and media

March 2nd, 2011


The latest oil price increase by the Oil and Gas Regulatory Authority (Ogra) comes in reaction to a significant increase at the global level because of tensions in various oil producing countries. Without initially going into the merits or demerits of the decision, one is compelled to say that the reaction to it by several political parties and large sections of the media has bordered on the extreme. One can understand the former because part of their job description, so to speak, is to politicise issues but the media could have responded with some critical analysis based on economic facts and realities rather than name-calling and resorting to using emotive headlines. With the use of phrases like “Govt lobs petrol bomb over masses” together with other headlines like “Altaf invites army to save country” and “Nawaz threatens another long march”, some sections of the media seem to have thrown rational argument to the winds.

The MQM has also said that it rejects the oil price increase and has given the government three days to withdraw it, after which it will announce what line of action is to be taken. The Pakistan Tehreek-i-Insaf and the Jamaat-i-Islami have threatened to do this as well. None of them, however, has suggested any alternative course of action for the government.

Now, coming to arguments based on economics, the fact of the matter is that the international price of oil has substantially increased in recent months and, since Pakistan depends solely on imported petrol, there is not much that can be done about passing this increase on to consumers, unless the government pays for the difference — which, in effect, is a subsidy. This however, adds to government expenditure and is one reason why the federal government’s budget deficit is spiralling out of control, well above the 4.7 per cent stipulated by its foreign multilateral donors. A budget deficit is usually financed by government borrowing from the central bank which, in other words, means printing more money and that in turn leads to inflation. So critics who defend their call to the government to not increase petrol prices and who support that by saying that this will keep inflation under control, fail to see that subsidies, especially those that are across the board and do not target the poor specifically, are an undue burden on the federal budget and have an inflationary impact.

Again, for the critics it should be pointed out that the amount given in subsidy is not small by any yardstick. In the last five years alone, this subsidy has cost over Rs412 billion — last year the figure was Rs146.5 billion. In fact, even after raising petrol prices from March 1 by 9-10 per cent, the government will still be subsidising oil consumption by around Rs5 billion a month.

This is precisely why political parties, especially those in the opposition, need to exhibit some practical thinking and pragmatism on this issue. Taking a populist stance may win approval from a largely uninformed — or disinformed — public but it will not resolve anything, and will certainly do nothing for the economic crisis that Pakistan currently finds itself in. In fact, if the political parties and media are keen that the general public be saved from this ‘petrol bomb’, then pressure should be brought to bear on resolving issues such as circular debt; widening the tax net; implementing the RGST; and the matter of extra spending requests to the tune of Rs45 billion made by the armed forces during this fiscal year.

Some so-called experts who think the removal of the government in tandem with hanging Raymond Davis and arresting Americans suspected of being Blackwater agents will usher in a utopia of cheap oil and full employment should understand that hyperinflation will simply throw everything connected with the state out of joint. Getting rid of the PPP government will become a meaningless exercise when the state itself starts crumbing with all public amenities shut down and law and order playing to the advantage of al Qaeda.

Stranded in Libya

March 2nd, 2011


Times of crisis often reveal the true nature of individuals — and also states. Certainly this appears to be the case in Libya, where 20,000 or so Pakistanis remain stranded in a situation of rapidly mounting insecurity and uncertainty, unable to obtain food as shortages hit Tripoli and fearful as to their own safety in such volatile times. Whereas the Pakistan Embassy in the Libyan capital and also the Foreign Office at home have been making claims that they plan to assist the stranded Pakistanis for much of the last week, in actual fact nothing has happened at all. And words, of course, won’t ease the suffering of those caught up in the Libyan turmoil — or the desperate anxiety of their families at home. What they need to see is action and there is as yet no evidence that it has been planned.

Unlike other nations, including India, which have sent flights to Tripoli to airlift nationals out of danger, PIA has stated it has received no instructions to do the same. The Foreign Office spokesperson has claimed the problem is that flights cannot land safely in Libya. This seems hard to believe given that airlines from nations other than Pakistan have been able to send in their planes with little evidence of difficulty.

The issue seems to be one of attitude. We have seen similar indifference in the past from Pakistani missions when it comes to helping nationals abroad. Those who land up in jail — sometimes for no fault of their own — most often receive no support and even when the release of persons is secured by human rights groups, our missions make little effort to help send them on their way home. We must ask what the primary purpose of these missions is. The evidence of this indifference in Libya is appalling. Thousands of Pakistanis are desperate to get out. Even the 3,000 who have registered with the embassy have been given no assurances as to when this may happen or what effort their government is making to bring them out of a country where violence threatens every life.
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  #104  
Old Friday, March 04, 2011
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Death of a state

March 3rd, 2011


Federal Minister for Minority Affairs Shahbaz Bhatti has been executed in Islamabad, by the Tehreek-i-Taliban Punjab chapter, as claimed in a pamphlet recovered from the site of the murder. He and the Christian community had been receiving threats for some time, after the conviction at a sessions court of an illiterate Christian woman, Aasia Bibi, for blasphemy. In Pakistan’s rapidly growing religious extremism, this is the second death which will probably shake the world, while Pakistani Muslims remain inured to the treatment received from the Taliban. The nation and the media are divided over a similar execution of former Punjab governor Salmaan Taseer over the controversial blasphemy law, which allows innocent people to be given death sentences.

Bhatti had predicted his death. He had earlier voiced his fear that he would be “the highest target”, following the assassination of Salmaan Taseer. He had also said that fatwas had been issued by extremist clerics calling for his beheading. The public spread of these messages of violence has continued to enjoy impunity. Now the world will mourn the death of another lonely Christian in a country where hardly anyone listens to the woes of his community and where the Punjab government has simply brushed under the carpet repeated incidents of violence against those accused of blasphemy.

The Pakistani media has not paid much attention to this hapless community that opted to stay in Pakistan after 1947 because it had confidence in the leadership of Quaid-i-Azam and openly supported him. This was also the community that later served Pakistan well in the army and fought shoulder-to-shoulder with Muslims in the war against India, winning bravery awards. This is also the community that served Pakistan selflessly in the sectors of education and health, educating even the leaders who grew up to ignore their plight in Punjab, where they are concentrated. When the Pope at the Vatican protested the conviction of Aasia Bibi, the Urdu press thought it wise to publicise the wrath of the narrow-minded cleric against him. Consequently, the world outside thinks Pakistan is drowning in its own extremism.

While the nation is in a fever from the threat it feels from the person of Raymond Davis, it is forgetting that the Taliban have a larger share in killing its sons and daughters. Even as Minister Bhatti was executed near his house, the other Taliban in Mardan attacked a girls’ school and opened fire on innocent pupils who the state is no longer able to protect. No thought is being spared for the most vulnerable sections of our society as powerful clerics appear on TV channels to threaten more violence.

Columnists don’t tire of playing down the blood-thirstiness of the religious terrorists as they invoke scenes of destruction allegedly wreaked by America through its agents. So incensed was Taliban chief Hakimullah at the allegation that he was working for the CIA that he allowed himself to be included in the snap showing the execution of ex-ISI officer Colonel Imam, just as he had had his picture taken together with a Jordanian who had helped kill a number of CIA agents in Afghanistan.

This is the death of the state through extremism. Nothing that Pakistan says is deemed reliable by the outside world. The economy is dying because its external links are snapped by the fear inspired by Pakistani thinking. Pakistanis say the country’s courts are independent and free but no one believes it to be true as terrorists are let off by judges, the latter not being protected by the state against threats of assassination. Its leaders are killed by assassins known to their victims — as in the case of Benazir Bhutto — but columnists insist that she was assassinated by America. It is quite possible that in the coming days, a protesting world would be told that Shahbaz Bhatti was executed by a group of assassins organised by Raymond Davis under orders from Washington!

Lawyers who have showered flower petals on the assassin of Taseer should take pause and look at the extremism of the death of Bhatti, a citizen of Pakistan whose only fault was that he was representing his community and protesting against its targeting under the blasphemy law.


Flood tax and the RGST

March 3rd, 2011


One can be sympathetic to the government’s need to raise revenues but levying new taxes through a presidential ordinance strikes us as a bad idea. At best, it is a temporary and incomplete fix to one symptom of a chronic problem that needs a much bolder solution than the government seems to be willing to pursue. According to the proposal, the government would impose a flood tax on those who already pay withholding taxes, although it would also eliminate some exemptions to the current sales tax regime. Both of these moves are likely to be extremely unpopular and will yield only Rs38 billion, which is not significant in comparison to the size of the fiscal deficit.

The problem with Pakistan’s taxation system is not that the tax rates are too high or too low. It is that far too many people escape being taxed altogether, either through lobbying for exemptions or by avoiding documentation. Levying a flood tax would simply burden those who are already shouldering the entirety of the civic responsibility of paying taxes. Instead of going through a constitutional backdoor for such a small sum, we would suggest that the government grit its teeth and push for the value added tax, now referred to as the reformed general sales tax (RGST). The tax has several merits, not least of which is the fact that it is not a new tax but rather a reduction in the rate of the current GST. Changes to the tax regime will yield higher revenues by eliminating the many exemptions in the system. It also has the added advantage of levying the tax across the value chain, instead of placing the entire burden on the end user, making it an inherently fairer tax.

Admittedly, the RGST is regressive in nature, since it taxes consumption — poorer segments of society consume more of their income, thus paying a higher rate of taxes. But the current proposal for the RGST has critical exemptions for essential items, thus removing at least some of its regressive nature. Passing the RGST bill may be hard, but, in the long run, it is also the right thing to do.
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  #105  
Old Friday, March 04, 2011
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Search for sanity

March 4th, 2011


Minister for Minority Affairs Shahbaz Bhatti died for taking what had been his party’s official line on the country’s blasphemy laws and the injustices committed under them, until it suddenly retreated from this stand at the end of 2010. Its cowardice almost certainly contributed to the deaths of both Salmaan Taseer and Bhatti. Yet, even though the PPP has suffered horrendous losses at the hands of extremists, it refuses to abandon its silence over the issue of blasphemy or to make any kind of attempt to tackle the monster of fanaticism that is threatening to swallow up any element of good that still remains intact within the country. Even the statements made have been lacklustre, barely rising above the purely cosmetic.

Indeed, across the political spectrum, there seems to be a singular failure to recognise how deep the crisis we face is. It seems as if all our political leaders have donned dark glasses which prevent them from seeing the true colour of the crimson blood staining our streets. We desperately need to bring all mainstream parties together and develop a strategy to defeat extremism. It is shocking that a number of them chose not to speak out over the death of Bhatti. But somehow they need to be persuaded of the need to dismantle the Taliban and get rid of the other evil forces that they have played a part in creating. This can happen only if there is a broad consensus, across institutions and civil society, of the need to disentangle elements that represent the state from these groups and recognise that they present a fearful threat to the country. Its very ability to survive is today under question.

The government needs to take the lead in developing such a consensus. The apparent helplessness — or unwillingness, perhaps — shown by the authorities in the face of repeated acts of brutality committed by gunmen who seem able to kill at will can only embolden them, and by doing so add to the risks faced by all those who challenge the growth of intolerance and hatred. Past experience should have clearly shown us that if the extremists are given an inch, they take a couple of hundred miles.


Dangerous deeds

March 4th, 2011


We live in a country where activities that would usually be considered entirely innocuous have acquired dangerous dimensions. The 35 girls injured as Taliban activists lobbed grenades into a Mardan college after shooting at the watchman, were engaged in a farewell party organised for their seniors. It is uncertain if the attack was intended only to target an educational institution for girls, like the dozens others hit in Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa, but it seems likely that the function at the college had angered the militants. It is an irony that men with bombs, guns and grenades remain free to roam the streets, while college students cannot even engage in a simple act of entertainment without coming under threat of violence.

It is also becoming increasingly clear that the Taliban remain free to attempt to imprint their violent ideology on peaceful citizens. Attacks such as the one in Mardan have an impact that stretches far beyond the immediate victims. The three dozen or so girls injured in the incident and their families will live for months, years, perhaps lifetimes, with memories of the trauma suffered. But the ripples of fear will affect many others and inevitably lead to a cutting down in extracurricular activities at colleges and schools across the north.

How long will we allow lives to be disrupted and endangered in this fashion? Why have our security networks failed to halt the militants and why do their structures remain essentially intact? These are issues we need to think about in depth. Already, the very nature of life in our state has altered. Tragically, innocent civilians are often the most effected by the wrath of the militants. The Mardan attack is a reminder that the militants remain unbowed and this will not change until there is a rethink in strategy and more effective implementation of the security plan intended to defeat them.


Crossing borders

March 4th, 2011


The Indian authorities, in principle at least, have agreed to allow a team consisting of an investigation officer, a magistrate and a doctor to come to India, talk to witnesses of the 2008 Mumbai attacks, inspect court records and review post-mortem reports. In return, they have asked for an Indian team to be allowed to interview suspects in Pakistan. The Indian decision seems to stem from fears that the chief suspect in the case, Zakiur Rehman Lakhvi of the Lashkar-e-Taiba, as well as several of his colleagues, may walk free, as Pakistani officials have been saying that without access to evidence in India, they lack material to place before the courts. Anger in New Delhi over Islamabad’s failure to bring to justice these men accused of involvement in the Mumbai attacks continues to strain bilateral relations.

Even though the gesture comes rather late in the day, it should be taken up. If there is to be any hope of defeating terrorism in the region, cooperation between New Delhi and Islamabad is essential. The Mumbai attacks underscored this. They could simply not have been carried out had groups or individuals in India not played a part in the planning of the attacks. There are also interlinkages between realities in India, most notably in Kashmir, and the rise of groups engaged in jihad in both that region and Pakistan. The issues that surround that disputed Valley and the human rights violations that take place there meanwhile give rise to the animosity for India that gives rise to attacks of the kind seen in Mumbai.

It is important that the two countries work together to defeat terrorism. Investigative teams should indeed be allowed to cross borders. There should also be open discussion on the various factors linked to terrorism, so there can be greater hope that people on both sides of the border will be free of the terrible fear of militancy that now stalks them.
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  #106  
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Culture of appeasement

March 5th, 2011


The killers of federal minister for minorities Shahbaz Bhatti must be puzzled by the way their murder, which they have claimed, is being interpreted in the media. They had put their identity on the pamphlet they threw in his car after killing the minister, and it said: (under the patronage) of al Qaeda and Tehreek-i-Taliban. They said they were from Punjab (Tehreek-i-Taliban, Punjab chapter) and were declaring their connection with the two binary organisations that are tormenting Pakistan and have brought its economy to a grinding halt.

The official interpretation of the killing of Mr Bhatti is that ‘foreign powers’ are trying to cause divisions in the country. This is what Interior Minister Rehman Malik has been saying since the murder; this is also the gloss he has been putting on most killings of the past where the Taliban had actually announced their complicity. Punjab Chief Minister Shahbaz Sharif has taken exception to anyone calling the killers ‘Punjabi Taliban’, thinking this was name-calling under a kind of provincialism practised by the PPP. In the process, the killers are let off the hook: they are not to blame because ‘foreign powers’ are doing the killing; and they are not from any province because naming the province would be base provincialism.

Many TV channels have resorted to relying on ‘experts’ like ex-ISI chief Hamid Gul to further help this effort at appeasing the terrorists. Gul has made it fashionable among callers on many a talk show to say that the CIA is doing the killing to sow seeds of discord among the Pakistanis with the ultimate goal of getting at Pakistan’s nuclear weapons. The police and the administrative officers have caught on to this practice of putting the blame on distant lands (the US and Israel) and the ‘near enemy’ (India) to abdicate their own responsibility of identifying and catching the terrorists.

The Taliban feel insulted when our officials say that the CIA is funding them to kill innocent Pakistanis. It particularly riles the chief of the Taliban, Hakimullah Mehsud, who got himself proudly photographed with the Jordanian suicide-bomber who went across the border and succeeded in killing a group of CIA officers; he also appeared in a photograph together with Faisal Shahzad who tried to blow up Times Square in New York and with ex-ISI officer Colonel Imam as the latter was being executed. The message is: We are fighting the Americans under the guidance of al Qaeda and feel insulted by your abject appeasement.

What is the psychology of this appeasement, which began in the early 2000s after al Qaeda arrived in Pakistan and hired the Taliban warlords to spread terrorism in the country? It practically forgives the terrorists, signalling that they are not the real enemy; the real enemy is India and the power that now stands behind India, the United States. The persuasion here is: Why are you killing us; we are with you in your jihad against the US. The rest of the Pakistani mind, however, is more complex. A part of it is subject to what is called the Stockholm Syndrome, seeking empowerment by embracing the tormentor instead of confronting him. And we can’t rule out the possibility that some Pakistanis actually expect the terrorists to lead the ‘game-changer’ revolution that every leader in Pakistan is loudly praying for.

The world knows what is happening. Minorities minister Bhatti knew of these realities and, if some reports are to be believed, did not trust the security detail allotted to him, not even the Christians he had as guards, because he knew that many Pakistanis secretly approve of actions where non-Muslims or apostates are killed by those claiming to speak for Islam. The ‘peace accords’ of 2004 and 2006 with the terrorists in South and North Waziristan respectively were instances of such appeasement. The terrorists were contemptuous of this appeasement and have continued killing innocent people and destroying markets and schools with impunity, declaring their identity every time. It is no use telling them that Pakistan, too, is with them in their war against America since they focus relentlessly on killing Pakistanis and taking over Pakistan. What we need to do is open our eyes and confront them.


Clearing up the confusion

March 5th, 2011


So far, for every answer given about the assassination of minorities minister Shahbaz Bhatti, many new questions are raised. It has now been established that he was staying with his family rather than in official parliamentary housing. We also know that he didn’t have his official security with him at the time of his murder. This raises a number of troubling questions. Did Bhatti refuse the security because he feared that his own guards would turn against him? Is the security provided by the state so ineffectual that an embattled minister felt safer staying in an undisclosed but unguarded residence rather than government housing? A newspaper report, published a few days before Bhatti’s killing, stated that he was among the few ministers not given a bullet-proof vehicle. Interior Minister Rehman Malik deflected a question about this by saying that it did not fall under his ministry’s purview. It is imperative that these questions be answered so that other threatened ministers can receive the most effective protection.

Finding the killers is vital not just so that justice can be served but also to establish how Bhatti was so easily targeted. Now is not the time for conspiracy theories, but it must be ascertained if Bhatti’s assassins simply tailed him to find his location or if they had inside help. Bhatti was so scared for his life — justifiably so as it turned out — that he kept the details of his daily routine limited to as few people as possible. His murder would be all the more tragic if it turned out that he was betrayed by one of those confidants.

At the same time, indulging in a blame game needs to be avoided. In Pakistan today, there is no such thing as foolproof security. As the Salmaan Taseer assassination showed, when so much of the country has been infected by a poisonous mindset, chronic insecurity is a fact of life for those who have the courage to speak out against retrograde forces. Until attitudes are changed, beefing up security will be a cosmetic measure that does little to tackle the true problem of extremism.
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Supreme court vs parliament

March 6th, 2011


The Supreme Court has rejected a parliamentary committee’s decision not to grant extensions to six high court judges and directed the government to issue the appointment notifications. A four-member bench of the apex court says the committee’s decision is “contradictory to the Constitution”. The parliamentary committee (PC) was set up in the 18th and 19th Amendments, with a bipartisan consensus in parliament, keeping in view the power and sensitivities of the Supreme Court.

The PC had denied one-year extensions to four additional judges of the Lahore High Court and two of the Sindh High Court “on the basis of assessments provided by the respective chief justices, based on the judges’ conduct and character”. The honourable Supreme Court has jurisdiction of review under the Constitution and has adjudged the reasons given by the PC for rejecting the extensions as not admissible.

There are factors to be studied to find out why the decision might be considered controversial. The matter is related to the developments in the wake of the lawyers’ movement and the restoration of the Supreme Court under Chief Justice Iftikhar Muhammad Chaudhry. A polarity developed between the executive — which had dragged its feet on the question of restoration, after earlier agreeing to it — and the judiciary. After that, because of the misconduct of some elements within the lawyers’ community, there was a split within the legal community itself, which then led to a change in the elected leadership of the Supreme Court Bar Association in favour of critics of the Supreme Court’s assertion of authority.

After the Supreme Court passed a unanimous resolution to hand out extensions to two of its retiring judges, there was criticism from some legal quarters. The critical lawyers referred to the inadvisability of relying on ad hocism in the light of the famous Al Jihad judgement, but the fact remained that ad hoc appointments were allowed by the Constitution. In the case of extensions being granted to six high court judges, the PC gave a split decision, not agreeing with ad hoc appointments.

Since negative remarks recorded by the concerned chief justices of the concerned high courts have become known, one can understand why the committee was unwilling to okay the cases. Some remarks were as follows: 1) Not at all quick in the disposal of work; 2) A ‘novice’ in legal issues and slow; 3) Not inaccessible, indulging in loose talk, rigid and prejudiced; 4) Status-conscience, moving in ultra-modern circles, indifferent in conduct to the public. The Supreme Court has adjudged the above reasons as non-applicable because the only way a judge at the higher judiciary can be subjected to any rejection is through scrutiny at the Judicial Commission provided by the Constitution. It should also be noted that inside the PC, the political representatives were split over the rejection. The PML-N was not on board with those representing the PPP. From this angle, the dice was loaded in favour of the honourable Court and its unanimous resolution to use ad hoc judges to take care of the load of work.

Some observers have noted that, in principle, ad hocism in judicial appointments is not a good thing, either on the part of the executive when it has the authority to induct judges, or the Court itself. They cite the case of India where ad hoc appointments at the Supreme Court are unknown. Given the current situation in Pakistan, unfortunately, public focus on the ‘independence’ of the judiciary — long absent under authoritarianism of all sorts — has politicised the conduct of the Supreme Court.

The best course is the middle course, where a balance is struck between the functions of the executive and the judiciary. Any trespass of one into the domain of the other — even when public outcry demands such trespass — will come to grief. And that includes judicial ‘activism’, even when it means to set the flaws in the executive function right. That is why in all judiciaries whose history is known to the world, there is a subtle process of give-and-take between the various pillars of the state — with respect for the Court accepted as the foremost obligation of everyone.


Madness unending

March 6th, 2011


We are slowly but surely becoming accustomed to madness. The sound of bomb blasts that rip through cities and decimate life is a familiar one. People in all major cities recognise it, and this is particularly true in Khyber-Paktunkhwa, which has borne the brunt of terrorist violence over the last many years. Any thoughts that violence could be receding have been shattered over the past few days.

The latest blast took place on March 4, at a mosque close to a shrine in the Akbarpura area, as people were eating food served at the place of worship following Friday prayers. The explosion was the third to take place in four days in the province. A timed device is reported to have been used, killing 11 people and injuring 43. The deaths are tragic and the sense of peace in people’s lives has been badly shattered; there is a constant feeling that they can be struck down anywhere and at any time and there is a very real threat to a way of life that has continued for centuries.

It is impossible to read into the motives of the men who planted the bomb and then detonated it at a time when maximum damage could be inflicted. But it seems plausible that their intention was to target the shrine as a place of Sufi worship that represents an entirely different kind of life to the one the militants favour — a life that promotes tolerance and the value of all human life. We have seen this menace growing rapidly over the past few years. The new wave of bombings in Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa represents an acceleration in the violence. Lives are unsafe than ever before, a new sense of danger lurks everywhere and talk of the extremists being on the run, as claimed by those in government, is hard to digest. No aspect of life is safe, everything is in flux and this sense of insecurity is having a growing impact on the lives of people everywhere. The question they all ask with one voice is when they can gain relief and if life will ever return to what is was in the times before militants took a hold on everything we know as good in our country.
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Should Rehman Malik resign?

March 7th, 2011


Like an unwanted guest who sits and chats well after dinner, Pakistani politicians can never figure out when they have overstayed their welcome. While resignations are fairly common in our politics, they are rarely an act of principle or acknowledgement of failure. Interior Minister Rehman Malik, who has overseen more disasters than most, has become a master of excuse-making and rationalisations. No matter what happens, he is always on hand to point out that it was someone else’s fault. Sometimes he may even be right but what is most galling is that, at a time when the country is in mourning, the last thing we need is a government grandee who seems affected not by the unfolding tragedy, but at the thought of losing his cushy job.

Malik indulged in a particularly crass form of blame-shifting in the wake of minority affairs minister Shahbaz Bhatti’s murder. In defending his actions, or his inaction in providing sufficient security to Bhatti, he ended up blaming the late minister himself, saying that Bhatti had refused extra protection. That may well be true, but now was hardly the time to bring it up. Malik’s tone veered between defensiveness and belligerence, neither of which suited the sombre occasion. Instead, he should have declared that he would resign his position were an independent inquiry to find that he had not fulfilled his duties.

Sadly, Malik is far from the only politician unwilling to consider resignation for dereliction of duty or even on a point of principle. Just recently we have witnessed former foreign minister Shah Mahmood Qureshi launch a crusade against the government for its role in the Raymond Davis case. As is typical, he didn’t see the need to publicly speak out while he was still foreign minister, preferring to wait till he was stripped off his office. In fact, the history of Pakistan politics is one of leaders insisting that the buck doesn’t stop with them. They prefer to blame their failures on conspiracies hatched by their enemies. Even if they don’t resign, it would be refreshing to see a politician admit to a mistake occasionally.


Missing in Balochistan

March 7th, 2011


It has long been an open secret that paramilitary forces and intelligence agencies have been holding sway in Balochistan. This was finally acknowledged by the province’s advocate general, Salahuddin Mengal, in front of the Supreme Court, when he revealed that the Frontier Constabulary (FC) was picking up and even killing people. Although not a surprise, this revelation is important because the Supreme Court is the only institution in the country that has shown the courage to take on the army. The court must now haul up senior officers of the FC to explain the role it is playing in Balochistan.

However, the Supreme Court alone cannot solve Balochistan’s problems. The utter lack of confidence the Baloch have in the army and the federal government requires much greater action. Separatist sentiment is now running deep in the province and the provincial government lacks legitimacy because most political figures have boycotted mainstream politics. Bringing them back into the fold should be an immediate priority. This would require the army to recede and take a low profile, and an accounting of all those who went missing in the province. Following that, a far greater share in the spoils of Balochistan’s economic development needs to be given to locals. From the development of a deep-sea port in Gwadar to royalties in mining projects, the Baloch feel they have been deliberately cheated out of profits from their resources. Only after this is rectified, will the separatist parties begin to tone down their rhetoric.

The most pressing and hurtful issue right now, though, is that of the ‘missing’ people. Human rights groups and Baloch political parties claim as many as 13,000 people are missing in the province, while the provincial government acknowledges fewer than 1,000 people have been picked up. Even if the true number lies somewhere in between, these statistics need to be reconciled. After that, a promise needs to be given that no citizen of Balochistan need ever fear for his life just for exercising his right to political dissent.


A case of double standards

March 7th, 2011


The petition put before a Lahore court by a man who claims to be the husband of film actress Meera, demanding that she be subjected to a medical examination to determine her virginity, is completely absurd and is yet another example of the double standards and hypocrisy increasingly becoming rampant in Pakistani society on matters related to women. The best that the court can do is to not entertain such a petition, not least because it is not as if the actress is an accused or a criminal who needs to prove her innocence. Furthermore, given the existing misogynistic climate prevailing in the country, it would seem that the objective of the petition is to embarrass and defame the defendant. Meera has already denied that she was ever married to the man and has claimed the whole matter is the consequence of a business dispute.

Our obsession with matters of morality is increasing. Women are, most often, the targets of this obsession. Indeed, no one cares very much as to whether or not a man has relations outside marriage or other aspects of his behaviour since one cannot recall ever such a case being brought before a court where a man was asked to prove anything. The focus is on women and their doings and our whole skewed concept on honour is bound with this. Women in the world of show business, like Meera or Veena Malik, are especially susceptible because they are held as torch-bearers of the nation’s honour (hence the outrage when Ms Malik becomes friendly with an Indian actor) and judged solely on that, mostly by righ-twing elements in our political parties, media and society in general. The judge in the matter must demonstrat e wisdom, not play to the galleries, and ensure that the dignity of all parties in the case is protected. This would, in fact, seem to be the key issue in deciding a matter where the claim of one adult essentially stands against the other and little proof seems to exist either way.
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Old Tuesday, March 08, 2011
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Women of the world

March 8th, 2011


March 8, International Women’s Day, has, since 1909, brought women from across the world together — reminding them that no matter where they live or what they do, their concerns and problems are often similar ones. Discrimination, after all, is still suffered in one form or the other by women almost everywhere in the world and violence directed against women is not restricted to any particular group or country. While women have come a long way in terms of the careers open to them and have succeeded in all but a handful of nations in obtaining the right to adult franchise, they still face all kinds of restrictions on civil rights, dress, conduct, education and the right to choose marriage partners.

In Pakistan, of course, the majority of women who make up half the country’s population of some 180 million people, will go through March 8 without realising its significance. The limitation on education for girls is one of the key factors that stand in their way. While enrolment at schools has gone up over the decades, today less than 40 per cent of women in the country are literate. In areas such as Fata, this figure drops to around three percent, or even lower according to some NGOs who work to promote empowerment for women in the region. This lack of learning has a profound impact on many areas of life, including empowerment, reproductive health and economic rights. Talibisation has, of course, added to the difficulties many women face. The hold of ‘tradition’, which promotes practices such as child marriage or the handing over of women to settle a dispute, refuses to recede.

Despite the oppression many face, women in Pakistan have taken many strides forward, excelling in academics, in sports and in courage. A significant number has fought back from the most difficult circumstances to seek justice for themselves after falling victim to crime. Their examples inspire others to do the same and to try and throw off the darkness that still envelops too many women in the country.


PPP failure in Balochistan

March 8th, 2011


Prime Minister Yousaf Raza Gilani has admitted to the failure of his government to implement the Balochistan package, announced with such fanfare 16 months ago. It was called the Aghaz-e-Haqooq-e-Balochistan package so as to suggest that the full extent of the provision of rights to the people of Balochistan was to commence with the initiation of the package. The beginning was proud and, admittedly, modest. But it seems that even this was not delivered. And it was not money which was lacking; it was the flaccid will of the PPP leadership.

The package was modest (aghaz) but the points so far implemented from the 38-page package are even more modest: 15 out of 61. Now the government says it will “do its best” to implement the package by the end of 2013. It says it has no money, but does it take money to convene the meetings of the concerned committees too? Senator Raza Rabbani, who had spearheaded the formulation of the package, left the committee in frustration. And after him, Interior Minister Rehman Malik, the only troubleshooter in the cabinet, took on the job and was able to convene only one meeting in four months, and that only to inform how miserably the package had failed.

It must have galled Prime Minister Gilani to hear Army Chief General Ashfaq Parvez Kayani implementing his own package in Balochistan to improve the lot of the common man there. His party’s government in Quetta was wobbly to begin with, and inaction on the package has done nothing to improve it, with important party leaders in Quetta threatening to resign and go home. What the Baloch people have lost in these days of lethargy compounded by scandals of corruption are a number of projects that could have made a difference. Most important among them were: A 500-megawatt Dera Ismail Khan-Zhob electricity transmission line; the Sabakzai and Mirani dams; a 300-line telephone exchange for Musakhel district; a cancer ward at the Sandeman Hospital in Quetta; interest-free loans for the mining sector and waiving agricultural loans of up to Rs500,000.

Meanwhile, the upheaval in Balochistan has continued, gas pipelines blown up with dull regularity and railway tracks dug up to disrupt the country’s communication with the province. The trouble in Balochistan is deeper than most people think. It is terrorism instigated from within, not inspired from without, despite our allegation that India is interfering in the province from Afghanistan. The reasons for the Baloch disaffection are all there to be seen. And the non-implementation of the Balochistan package has simply highlighted the rights the people of the province don’t have. The operation of the security agencies against the ‘terrorists’ is of no use if no measures are taken to improve the lives of the people who are in a state of rebellion.

Balochistan sustains its meagre population with great difficulty and this helps explain the sense of alienation, frustration and resentment among its population. They are doing whatever they can, including inflicting violence on the non-Baloch who have lived among them for years. Action taken to curb this violence has given rise to ‘disappearances’ which are now being looked into by the Supreme Court. The solutions suggested by the honourable court have not materialised also because the federal government has not provided relief alongside the recovery of the people who have disappeared over these years of upheaval.

Rehman Malik could have at least initiated action with regard to a commission to determine the circumstances leading to the death of Nawab Akbar Bugti; a judicial inquiry into the allotment of land in Gwadar; finances due to the provincial government on account of flood relief; a special quota in Higher Education Commission scholarships; and rationalisation of the gas royalty formula. The state of affairs in Quetta is that the Balochistan Assembly is without an opposition, since almost every MPA is a minister. However, it is alienated from the centre, which has promised dialogue with it, but delivered little. In such a situation, it is foolhardy to suggest that a foreign power is behind the unrest.
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Faisalabad blast

March 9th, 2011


There are few cities in Pakistan that have been spared the wrath of the extremists. Until yesterday, Faisalabad was one of those that had been relatively peaceful. A car bomb that exploded at a CNG station, killing at least 25 people and destroying a PIA building and gas station, has shattered that calm. Although it is not yet known who was responsible for the blast, given the sensitive location of the attack — near several military and government buildings as well as the ISI office — it is fair to assume that the Taliban or one of its affiliates is behind the bombing.

The attack comes just a few days after Punjab Chief Minister Shahbaz Sharif complained about the use of the term ‘Punjabi Taliban’. Sharif claimed that the term was being employed to sow interprovincial discord and blamed Interior Minister Rehman Malik of concocting it as a way of undermining the PML-N. The fact that his words were followed so swiftly by yet another attack, should give Shahbaz Sharif food for thought and, perhaps, force him to eat his words. The fact is that there is a group of connected extremist groups operating out of Punjab, all of which have now allied with the Taliban. The Lashkar-e-Taiba, Jaish-e-Muhammed, Harkutul-Mujhahideen and Harkutul-Ansar have all been increasingly active in the province, particularly in southern Punjab. Most of these militant outfits are offshoots of the Sipah-e-Sahaba, which itself has seen a resurrection in recent years. That this nexus is behind the Faisalabad bombings is likely. That they have been responsible for militant attacks and the spread of extremism in Punjab is beyond any doubt.

Meanwhile, the PML-N-led provincial government has adopted a head-in-the-stance posture. The government is seemingly uninterested in tackling the Taliban menace, preferring instead to wage war against its political opponents. The PML-N is staying true to its ideological roots by trying to appease or even co-opt religious elements in the country. It is not that the PML-N supports the terrorists. It just doesn’t have the same level of vitriol for them that it reserves for the PPP. If that attitude doesn’t change, the battle against extremism in Punjab will be lost.


Educational emergency

March 9th, 2011


The state of crisis of education in Pakistan is well established. Survey after survey has highlighted the terrible state of public sector schools, the poor design of curriculums and the poor output of teachers. With a literacy rate of just 51 per cent, Pakistan has also slipped lower and lower on the list of countries ranked according to their attainments in education.

A shocking new report by the Pakistan Education Task Force, a body set up in 2009 by the federal government to offer recommendations on how to implement education policies, brings home the true scale of the emergency we face and its consequences for the future of the country. It states that despite the right given to education for all by the Constitution of Pakistan, this target will not be attained during the lifetime of anyone alive today. Balochistan, at the present rate of a growth in literacy, will not attain this target till 2100. The cost of not educating people is the equivalent of one flood every year and one out of every 10 children of school-going age in the world who are not in school are in Pakistan.

The study is an important wake-up call. While the emergency seems almost insurmountable judging by the figures, it has also been stated that it can quite easily be overcome by increasing the education budget by 50 per cent. We need to declare that education is our foremost priority. This would be the logical follow-up to the good work done by the government in setting up a task force with many experts on board dedicated to exposing the truth. Beyond all matters of security, beyond the question of national defence on which we spend so much money, it is this that will determine what kind of future awaits Pakistan and what it will bring for the people of the country, who could gain so much if a place in the classroom was ensured for every child, regardless of gender, ethnic group or geographical location.


Controlling acid crimes

March 9th, 2011


There are currently at least two draft proposals currently before the National Assembly, recommending steps to control acid crimes. The Acid Control and Burn Crime Prevention Bill 2010 was tabled over a year ago and focuses on controlling the sale and production of corrosive substances. Another Bill was tabled by the Acid Survivors Foundation in June last year. Tragically, there seems to have been little progress in moving these forward.

Contrary to popular opinion, many of the victims are men and even children, but women, of course, remain the prime sufferers. According to NGO figures, 46 per cent of victims are women, 36 per cent men and the remainder children. In 2010, there were at least 115 attacks against women. Girls as young as 10 or 11 have been targeted, most often to extract revenge from their families over matrimonial issues or other disputes. The notion that women are ‘property’, who must conform to a specific pattern of behaviour appears to be a factor in many of these attacks. As is the case with other crimes, especially those perpetrated against women, the failure to punish the culprits acts to encourage under offenders. Long delays in courts, even when an assailant is apprehended, adds to the problem.

It seems obvious that we need urgent action, given the degree of physical and emotional suffering inflicted by such attacks. As is proposed in the legislation lying before parliament, tighter controls are needed on the sale of acids. The laws that exist need to be enforced. This had indeed happened over past decades but, as with so much else, the state’s ability to continue to do so has slipped. We live in a highly brutalised environment where incidents of the kind reported from time to time in the media take place with increasing frequency. The issue is one that needs to be taken up by our legislators without further delay.
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