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  #551  
Old Friday, June 22, 2012
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Some tolerance, please

June 22nd, 2012

Lawyers, of all people, should recognise basic concepts like ‘innocent until proven guilty’ and ‘every defendant has a right to legal counsel’. These concepts are the bedrock of their profession. The legal fraternity, however, it seems would prefer not to extend constitutional rights to those it disagrees with. That is the only conclusion one can draw from the decision of various bar associations across the country to ban Zahid Bukhari, counsel for tycoon Malik Riaz, as well as Aitzaz Ahsan, who represented former prime minister Yousaf Raza Gilani, from their premises. Their thinking seems to be that Riaz, by accusing the chief justice’s son of accepting bribes from him, has ridiculed and questioned the integrity of the Supreme Court and so his lawyer must be tarred. Mr Ahsan has been treated in a similar manner, too, as his client was found guilty on charges of contempt of court.

As a contrast, consider that Eric Holder — before he became attorney general of the US — represented those accused of terrorism being held in Guantanamo Bay and that, too, pro bono. Holder was incensed that the US government was denying these men free and fair trials and so was willing to work without pay on their behalf. He considered their right to attorneys and a trial so sacrosanct that he was willing to be associated with men allegedly involved in waging war against the US. Yet, he has now risen to become the top law-enforcement official of his country.

Some would say that the legal community in Pakistan has shown a distinct lack of tolerance ever since it won its great victory and the chief justice along with other justices of the Supreme Court, who refused to accept General (retd) Pervez Musharraf’s PCO, were reinstated. First, there was the deplorable way Musharraf-loyalist Sher Afghan Niazi was treated. Then, who can forget the way lawyers showered the murderer of Salmaan Taseer with rose petals and praised Mumtaz Qadri’s lawyer. In the case of Mr Ahsan and Mr Bukhari, the lawyers should follow the lead of the man they claim to protect — the chief justice. When allegations were made against his son, he immediately took suo motu notice on the matter and recused himself from the case. The lawyers need to demonstrate the same tolerance.


Militancy and polio

June 22nd, 2012

Among the many casualties of the militancy that is plaguing the country, one of the least reported is the resurgence of polio. The 22nd case of polio this year was discovered on June 10, which also happened to be the ninth such case in Khyber Agency. There are many reasons why the government and the World Health Organisation have not been able to eradicate polio in Pakistan, with a general mistrust of vaccinations being prominent among them. But by far, the biggest cause is the propaganda campaign by militant groups to convince people in the tribal areas that polio vaccines are actually part of a Western plot.

Recently, the announcement by top pro-government warlord Hafiz Gul of North Waziristan, stated that as long as drone strikes are not stopped in the area, there will be a ban on administering polio jabs. Further, militants and people of Waziristan alike have vowed to continue boycotting the polio vaccination drives until the government electrifies the region. They have accused the government of siphoning off millions set aside for electrifying the region and want their demands met before polio vaccines can be administered again.

Pakistanis who should know better have also been responsible for giving the militants easy victories. Dr Shakil Afridi, in his quest to help the Americans find Osama bin Laden, would administer one dose of a Hepatitis vaccine in order to collect DNA samples but would never return to complete the vaccinations. Not only did he thus end up giving vaccinations that were completely ineffective, once his actions came to light, he handed the militants a great victory by seemingly offering them proof that vaccination campaigns were part of a Western plot. Ever since then, Western aid workers have found it even more difficult to gain the trust of locals and as a result, vaccination programmes have been badly affected. For the sake of our children, we need to make such public health issues our main priority.


Entertaining electricity

June 22nd, 2012

Patrons visiting the Cinepax in Rawalpindi — the only cinema complex in the twin cities — were not amused when they were made to turn back on June 16 due to the cinema experiencing a power crisis and its backup power arrangements also failing. While films are again being screened at the centre, the repeated power cuts create a host of problems. The power crisis has deprived people of the entertainment they yearn for during the holiday season when children and students are anxious to keep themselves occupied.

However, the problems run deeper than that. For many months, theatres in Lahore, including the giant Alhamra complex — the biggest public sector centre for music, dance, theatre and art in the Punjab capital — have been badly affected by the power crisis. Attendance at these theatres has fallen because the repeated power cuts have left the halls sweltering in heat, with people even fainting in some cases. This is no way to encourage the arts in the country. They are already in a poor state and the power cuts are pushing them back further.

Cinemas have only recently seen a revival in the country with the act of visiting halls to watch films only recently returning as a normal part of life. During the 1980s, it had almost completely vanished as a result of the policies implemented by the government of General Ziaul Haq. This time, it is not official policy but the lack of electricity, which has struck hard. Depriving people of entertainment is a matter to be taken seriously. We must also consider the huge revenue losses suffered by the cinemas and theatres. Will they be able to survive these? For many private owners, this question is up in the air.

It would be a tragedy if we lose what limited means of entertainment we have left in the country as a result of a crisis that simply needs better management. If things continue in this manner, we could see the gradual effort of bringing joy in the form of music and film back into people’s lives fading once more, as the screens and stage lights flicker off.
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  #552  
Old Saturday, June 23, 2012
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Change in prime minister

June 23rd, 2012


Former prime minister Yousaf Raza Gilani, after being unseated from parliament by the Supreme Court, leaves behind a murky record, even as his party elects his replacement. His term in office was tainted with bad governance and serious allegations of corruption, including against some of his close family members. The media took care of him before the Supreme Court did what was expected.

His cabinet fared no better. The first nominee of the party to succeed him was issued warrants for arrest in a case of graft in which Mr Gilani’s own son was involved. It was the shocking so-called ‘ephedrine case’ involving colossal sums. If the favourite nominee cannot stand, the next nominee, who handles the energy portfolio, is equally tarnished by allegations of taking money from the power producers. There are other ministers named in corruption cases who will probably get their comeuppance under a new government. One minister who looked after religion (sic!) is cooling his scared heels for having allegedly cheated pilgrims during Hajj.

Mr Gilani’s government was hounded by an ‘activist’ Supreme Court. It fell foul of the all-powerful military and was run precariously with the help of allies who were skittish at the best of times. Three big partners — the PPP, the ANP and the MQM — banded together because they feared an unforgiving, revengeful opposition. The MQM frequently parted ways — temporarily, of course — and repeatedly called upon the military to step in and establish order. The JUI-F’s Maulana Fazlur Rehman frequently wavered and was hardly a reliable ally for the PPP as the party could never really know which way he was leaning. It is for these reasons of internal uncertainty that the JUI-F and the PML-N have fielded their own candidate for prime ministership. And they are working on the weak spots in the majority that is still holding up, thanks mainly to the masterstroke of President Asif Ali Zardari in taking the PML-Q on board. The MQM can no longer put pressure for more concessions because of the big chunk of the PML-Q seats in parliament. The numbers were with the PPP but there was an outside chance that a new short-term PPP coalition may not come about.

The PPP got a rough deal from the military establishment, which would not give it the elbow room it needed to use foreign policy to resolve some of the problems that the Musharraf government had left behind. It also feared this kind of treatment from a ‘dismissed’ Supreme Court because it had gone activist with 6,000 suo motu cases.

Gilani restored the Supreme Court but took his time, meanwhile leaning on the alternative ‘Dogar Court’ by inducting more judges in it. It was a miscalculation that the PPP paid dearly for in the months that followed. It had reposed trust in the new ‘reconciliation’ with the PML-N, little realising that inside that party, old familiar passions of winning through ‘enmity’ rather than opposition were quivering with new life. One lakh lawyers of Pakistan, most of them from Punjab, merged with the PML-N’s ‘long march’, forcing Nawaz Sharif to realise that ‘friendly opposition’ didn’t suit Pakistan after all.

The establishment traditionally did not like the PPP. It had special rancour for President Zardari whose nimble pro-change politics went against the entrenched ideas it had imposed on all governments. And who can decide the circular argument of whether the Supreme Court was encroaching because it wanted to dictate or it was forced to intervene because the government was simply dysfunctional and had to be nudged out because of corruption? Given the fact that most governments in Pakistan end up being corrupt, one has to accept that some of what happened to the Gilani government was unfair.

In Pakistan, corruption is rampant like in most developing countries, but takes a special edge because of uncertainty. Mr Gilani may proudly claim that he almost completed his tenure, but the fact is that he has left behind the same kind of uncertainty that was there in the 1990s, when corruption took root under the ‘toppling’ Article 58. One can only hope that his replacement will fare better.


Googling for good

June 23rd, 2012


The cyber world giant, Google, rarely stays out of the news. It has recently launched what is being counted as its first philanthropic effort, a website to help save endangered languages around the world. Experts rate that out of around 7,000 languages currently spoken, nearly half could become endangered by the end of the century. The cultural diversity this would remove from our midst — in a world that, in many ways, is growing narrower by the day, largely as a result of globalisation brought to us through TV and the internet — is frightening to contemplate.

In this context, the Google initiative is interesting, with an especially designed website to be set up for this. Only time will tell how successful this effort will be. It is uncertain how languages can be promoted, given that the issue is such a delicate one, with many aspects of life, mindsets and thinking involved. Naturally, a website alone cannot achieve this, but it may well help create awareness about the matter and bring together experts from around the world to examine and comment on the issues involved.

The matter of language is very relevant to Pakistan. This is a country which has faced language riots over the question of what its national language should be during the early years of its history. Even today, language deeply divides people in a nation where many barely-known dialects are spoken, some with no script of their own. The issue of language is so wrapped up in all kinds of beliefs that some experts have warned in the years to come that even Punjabi — the language spoken by the majority of Pakistanis — may become an endangered one. The reasons for this are simple. Because of the notions created by politicians, which link up to ideas of inferiority and class, it is said that Punjabi speakers, it is said, are less and less willing to speak the language with their children. Censuses conducted show that many parents instead opt to speak Urdu with their children — and, of course, we have elevated English to a position of superiority, which makes it even harder for the local languages to find their place in the country today.
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  #553  
Old Tuesday, July 03, 2012
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Protesting doctors

July 3rd, 2012


The simmering dispute between the Young Doctors Association (YDA) and the Punjab government has turned especially vicious. As the doctors — demanding better pay packages — continued the two-week strike they had called towards the end of June, the police swooped in on July 1 to arrest members of the organisation as its council met at the Services Hospital in Lahore. The key office-bearers managed to escape, while other doctors are behind bars. Last-ditch talks with senior doctors, who made efforts to bring the strike to an end had failed. The ruthless Punjab government action has made an already ugly situation far worse. Young doctors at other hospitals have joined the protest, in some cases walking away from wards. This is a very grave situation for the patients and even more worrisome yet, as the YDA says it is in contact with peers in other provinces, with plans to expand the strike.

The whole matter should have been dealt with months ago when the YDA agreed on a deal with the Punjab government. The organisation now claims that the terms were not adhered to. The Pakistan Medical Association has backed the young doctors’ demands, but not their methods, stating that it could have been possible to handle the whole issue with more finesse.

A wider view and a broader vision are required to resolve the dispute. The YDA has made its mistakes and seriously sick patients have suffered as a result. But the matter cannot simply be treated as a disciplinary offence, as the Punjab government is doing. The brain drain of doctors in the country is a very serious issue and we need to figure out a way to retain their services. It is also true, as is the case around the world, that it is young doctors who basically keep hospitals performing optimally, handling the bulk of the work. Most in the medical profession agree that junior doctors are badly underpaid. The methods they used to negotiate this injustice may be questionable, but the Punjab government can hardly claim to have handled the matter any better. As a result, a crisis that should have been solved a long time ago lingers on and threatens to assume increasingly ominous dimensions as the bitterness grows.


Extremism grips the Muslim mind


The topmost topic of discussion in Pakistan today is undoubtedly extremism, causing concern among both liberal citizens and the ulema representing the major schools of thought in the madrasa network. The same holds true in other parts of the world, including expatriate Muslims in Europe and the US where extremists are being arrested on suspicion, and in Asia, where Muslim majorities and minorities seem equally inclined towards extreme views of life.

The latest sad news is that in Mali’s ancient Unesco-protected city of Timbuktu, salafist followers of al Qaeda have attacked mausoleums of mystic saints, the same way the Taliban have attacked the tombs of Sufi saints in Pakistan. This has happened in the wake of similar attacks in Egypt and Libya last year, both having gone through the ‘pro-democracy’ Arab Spring in recent times. Replying to the Unesco’s appeal to stop destroying the tombs, the extremist vandals have said: “We are subject to religion and not to international opinion. Building on graves is contrary to Islam. We are destroying the mausoleums because it is ordained by our religion”. Their organisation, Ansar Dine, is made up of militants of various nationalities, including Malians, Algerians and Nigerians.

Another extremely violent offshoot of al Qaeda, called Boko Haram, has wreaked havoc on Nigerian Christians. Last week, too, a Somalia affiliate, al Shabaab, launched coordinated attacks on churches in northern Kenya. Gunmen killed 15 Christians and wounded over 40 in separate attacks on two churches in a town bordering Somalia. In February this year, al Shabaab announced its merger with al Qaeda, which was followed by a statement by the Muslim Youth Centre that it had now become part of al Qaeda, in East Africa.

Indonesia, once known to be moderate in its thinking, also seems to have become prone to violence and intolerance. In May this year, a church was attacked by a mob in Jakarta, which hurled stones, bags of urine and death threats at the congregation. Since then, local government officials in the province of Aceh, in Sumatra, have closed at least 16 churches, citing lack of permits. In 2007, it was noted that in the previous three years, there were 108 cases in which churches and other places of worship were damaged, forcibly shut down and, in some cases, even demolished by extremist groups in violent and indiscriminate attacks.

The delicate political balance between Malaysia’s ethnic and religious groups was rocked by a series of attacks on churches last year, after a high court ruling stated that a Catholic weekly, The Herald, could use the word ‘Allah’ in its Malay-language edition, overturning an existing ban. The supposed fear in Malaysia is that Christians are plotting to convert Malays, who make up some 60 per cent of the population and, under the constitution, must also be Muslims. So sensitive is the issue that the high court was forced to suspend this ruling.

In Pakistan, too, al Qaeda’s partners seem to be growing. The ‘announced’ followers of al Qaeda are the Tehreek-i-Taliban (TTP), the Lashkar-e-Jhangvi (LeJ) and the Jundullah. The TTP, now spread around the country and concentrated in Karachi, targets Sufi tombs; the Jandullah attacks Shias in Iran; and the LeJ kills Shia Hazaras in Quetta. Everywhere, from Africa to the Far East, nations with Muslim majorities seem to be veering towards intolerance and fanaticism. Pakistan is in some ways a good example of this because of the location of al Qaeda’s leadership in the region. It is also present, in force, in Yemen and is inspiring killings in Iraq.

Al Qaeda is looking for a state that it could run with enough internal revenue to launch its global jihad through terrorism. Only Pakistan qualifies because it is internally weak, externally isolated and politically fragmented. The political parties are back to their old tricks of toppling each other’s governments and most Pakistanis seem to be unmindful of the fast-shrinking writ of the state.
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  #554  
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Nato routes and our national pride
July 5th, 2012


Pakistan has lifted its seven-month long ban on the Nato supply route in return for an apology from the State Department in Washington. The ‘conditionality’ set by parliament in Islamabad contained two items: apologise and stop the drone attacks. The first seems to have been taken care of, given US Secretary of State Hilary Clinton’s remarks on July 3 where she offered her “deepest regrets” at the loss of the lives of Pakistani soldiers in the Salala attack. The second could be resolved in a resolution in a recent development whereby it was reported that America and Pakistan could perhaps, undertake “joint defence” against militants/terrorists. The Defence Committee of the Cabinet (DCC) in Islamabad has put its stamp of approval on the deal, which will net Pakistan over a billion dollars of aid plus, possibly, fee for each supply truck that passes through Pakistan.

Clearly, the army, which runs policy in Pakistan, is on board. The decision to go soft was taken a month earlier when Foreign Minister Hina Rabbani Khar had announced that Pakistan was mindful of the economic and political power of the Nato partners of the US and could not afford to alienate them by making their forces suffer in Afghanistan due to the stoppage of their supplies. She had also announced that Pakistan was willing to separate the matter of drones from the supply route issue and would pursue it with Washington till an agreement was reached in favour of Pakistan.

Pakistan has a way of inserting itself into traps that it cannot abide for long. The army lost its cool over the killing of Osama bin Laden in Abbottabad in May 2011, little realising what it looked like to the outside world and went over the edge when the Salala incident took place in November. Vent was given to rage, which should have been controlled for the sake of national interest. The media was allowed to go berserk spreading passions of revenge the country was too weak and too wracked to satisfy. The next wrong thing to do was handing over the issue to parliament where much was made of national ‘ghairat’. The foreign policy of any state — powerful or weak — must be separated from matters of national pride so that statesmanship can be practised and conflict avoided.

The big mess that sincere observers soon began to note was the delay that parliament was allowing in its preparation of ‘guidelines’ for Pakistan’s foreign policy. It succumbed to the baser instincts of revenge and offering insult and let slip the moment when America was more favourably inclined to accept Pakistan’s stance. In this period of bad blood, Pakistanis forgot their more pressing crises and focused on America’s apology, which they thought should be self-demeaning in the extreme. On the other hand, there was much negative and ‘terminal’ (like the dismissal of prime ministers) going on in Pakistan to provoke the columnists in Washington into dubbing Pakistan a state in conflict with itself.

Then, someone unleashed the Difa-e-Pakistan Council (DPC) on the long-suffering people of Pakistan. Made up of shady semi-terrorist elements and mujahideen that the state once employed in its asymmetrical wars, the DPC asserts that they will engage only in peaceful agitation against the decision.

Although it is quite clear from all this that Pakistan did mishandle the situation, but as the senior partner in this relationship, the US could have also done well to express its regrets over the Salala incident much earlier. That would have led to a quicker normalisation of relations and cooling of tempers on both sides and would have also enabled both the governments to solve the issue of the Nato supply routes much earlier.

Is there a lesson in all this for Pakistan? Yes, three lessons. Don’t fly into a rage of ‘ghairat’ because states don’t do that. Don’t hand over diplomacy to parliament, which is bound to mess things up further. And no matter what happens, don’t isolate yourself in the world because in today’s state of international law, isolation is another name for defeat.


Foul or fair

July 5th, 2012


A man once hailed as a hero, Greg Mortenson, whose Central Asian Institute (CAI) set-up schools for girls in northern Pakistan and in Fata, as well as engaging in other philanthropic works, was recently embroiled in controversy once again. Previously, American journalists had questioned the accounts he had given of his deeds in his best-selling book, Three Cups of Tea, and also the integrity of the CAI as a whole.

As a climber, Mortenson said he became enamoured by Pakistan after being rescued by local people from a mountain. Up until now, he had remained undeterred by all the controversy and continued his work, notably in Gilgit-Baltistan. However, trouble refuses to stop stalking him. Recent reports reveal that Mortenson is now locked in a dispute with a local manager in Skardu, who is refusing to hand over the property of three schools worth billions to the CAI. Mortenson’s former manager has been reported as saying that the schools were built with the community’s money, and in fact, belong to his own branch of the CAI. A local spokesman for the Institute has said that the dispute is nowhere near being settled and talks have failed. Meanwhile, new allegations and rumours continue to emerge. There has been doubt expressed about the manner in which schools apparently funded by the CAI have been run and local people seem to confirm that Mortenson took credit for projects he did not complete himself. There are, however, many who still admire a man who took extreme measures to assist the people of the region, where even governmental development efforts are non-existent.

So, is Mortenson a hero or a villain? We still do not know. The fact that he is American and conjecture about possible links with the CIA add to complications. The fact, however, is that today, Mortenson stands badly discredited. Whether he will be able to build back a lost reputation remains to be seen, but the popular consensus is appreciative of Mortenson’s work for a people and country he owes little, or nothing at all, to.
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Loss of sanity

July 6th, 2012


As a nation, we seem to have collectively lost our sanity. Incidents that highlight our society’s extreme intolerance take place on a regular basis and yet, we do nothing to reform this state of affairs. The latest such tragedy took place at Chanighot in Bahawalpur, where an enraged mob beat up and set alight a deranged man accused of desecrating the Holy Quran. The incident stems from growing intolerance and hysteria over blasphemy and the failure to amend laws that lay down a death sentence, as well as the failure to introduce reforms that could help ensure that the law is not misused and those accused of blasphemy, at least, have access to a fair trial before a court of law.

This is not the first instance of an accused being killed for alleged blasphemy before a court verdict has been delivered. In this case, the accused was arrested by the police after being blamed for desecrating pages of the Holy Quran. Soon after news of the alleged blasphemy spread, a mob surrounded the police station where the accused was being held. It may be noted that Bahawalpur and most of southern Punjab is home to hundreds of seminaries and the various organisations that run them. This may explain the terrible sequence of events that followed. The police station was attacked, vehicles parked outside burnt and despite resistance from the police, who tried to dissipate the mob through using tear gas canisters and batons, the alleged blasphemer was dragged away. In what must have been a horrific spectacle, he was then burnt alive in public. His screams of agony moved no one to intervene and police officials, some of whom had also been injured in the attack, stood by helplessly.

According to a police official, the man in question was mentally unstable. Two FIRs against 1,500 to 2,000 people have been filed but not a single one of these persons has actually been named in them. This latest outrage makes it clear that the law needs reform without delay. But even if it is reformed, the only way to actually control such incidents is to reform the mindset that believes in murder and violence in the name of faith and in taking the law into one’s own hands. Without that, we will continue to witness such bigotry and intolerance, whose perpetrators actually believe that what they did was right.


Clash of institutions

July 6th, 2012


The stand-off between the Supreme Court and the government could threaten our system of checks and balances. Shaken by the corruption allegations against Chief Justice Iftikhar Chaudhry’s son Arsalan Chuadhry and finally finding itself in the crossfire after years of popularity, the Supreme Court has essentially declared itself beyond the purview of financial accountability. Some would say that by claiming that the Public Accounts Committee (PAC) cannot probe the conduct of judges, including whether they were given additional plots of land, the Supreme Court has elevated itself above those that it judges.

Having been stung by Yousaf Raza Gilani’s disqualification by the Supreme Court and with his replacement, Raja Pervaiz Ashraf facing the same threat, the PPP is on course to pass a law exempting government officials from charges of contempt of court. The PPP may be using standard legislative powers to protect itself but the end result is likely to be as hurtful for the separation of powers and can lead to a further clash between institutions. Even if the Supreme Court, in the judgment of the government, had overreached by charging Mr Gilani with contempt, to pass a law based on that would be a folly. Recall that in 1997, the Nawaz Sharif government wanted to pass an almost identical law to reign in the Supreme Court, when Sajjad Ali Shah was chief justice. Sharif’s supporters then went on to raid the Supreme Court, an act that certainly qualifies as contempt and should have been severely punished. The PPP, blinded by its own narrow interests, seems not to have realised that.

The fact is that every institution needs to be kept in check by other independent government institutions. The PPP has already submitted itself to the mercy of the Supreme Court in the case of Mr Gilani. One can only hope that further confrontation between the executive and judiciary does not take place.


Renaming Gaddafi Stadium

July 6th, 2012


One of the several despotic regimes that were swept away by the revolutionary tides of the Arab Spring was that of Libyan ruler Muammar Gaddafi. The dictator, who ruled his country with an iron fist for 42 years, was ousted from power in 2011 after a rebellion and was killed soon after. With his removal from power, along with other great changes that have taken place in Libya, another possible change that is being talked about is the renaming of Pakistan’s largest cricket ground, the Gaddafi Stadium. The ruling Libyan National Transitional Council has unofficially asked Pakistan to rename the Gaddafi Stadium. This message was conveyed to the Pakistani embassy in Tripoli.

The Libyan dictator had enjoyed a warm friendship with former Pakistan prime minister Zulfikar Ali Bhutto and as a mark of that friendship, the erstwhile Lahore Stadium, was renamed after Gaddafi following a speech he gave at the second Organisation of Islamic Conference summit in 1974 in Lahore, where he supported Pakistan’s right to develop nuclear weapons.

The world is changing fast and so should Pakistan. We cannot remain stranded in a 1970s ideological time warp. Gaddafi might have been a friend of Pakistan’s but we have to move on and as a gesture of goodwill to Libya, acceding to its request will not be an unwise move. Pakistan is full of heroes who served the country diligently and their contributions should be accorded the recognition they deserve. In such a scenario, it would be advisable and appropriate to rename the country’s premier Test centre after someone who has served Pakistan cricket conscientiously. Stalwarts like Justice AR Cornelius, who was the true pioneer of the country’s cricketing structure, Pakistan’s first Test captain Abdul Hafeez Kardar and Air Marshal Nur Khan could be considered for this honour. Such a gesture would be a fitting tribute to the services that the true heroes of Pakistan have rendered for the country.
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Facing up to rage

July 7th, 2012


Following its decision to reopen Nato supply routes through its territory, the government has come in for fierce criticism from the opposition. This was not unexpected. The reaction from the JUI-F and the PTI, flaying the government for its announcement, which came immediately after US Secretary of State expressed regret over the Salala incident, has not come as a surprise. Both parties have a hard line policy as far as Nato supplies go; other parties, of course, are eager to hone in on any issue that can place the government under pressure, especially with elections not all that far away.

Some of the questions the opposition and media ask do make sense. This needs to be acknowledged. There has, for instance, been the point raised as to why parliament was not consulted given that during the discussion on the issue, the verdict had been that any restoration of the Nato routes should be linked to an apology over the Salala incident and an end to drone attacks. Ambassador to the US, Sherry Rehman has answered this point fairly sensibly when she says that in a large democracy like Pakistan, not everything can be put before parliament and some matters have to be decided upon at the highest levels of power. The most important point made by Ms Rehman is that the whole matter has been kept in the open and not hidden behind screens as has been the case in the past.

Indeed, given this reality, and the fact that we know that the military establishment inevitably has a great deal to do with deciding matters, especially those with as much significance as the Nato supply route issue, it is a wonder why no one has raised a voice against these institutions and continue to target the government alone. The establishment, after all, had a key role to play in urging that the supply line be suspended and it is a virtual certainty that it knew about the plans for resumption. The fact is that in our country, some entities are open to attack from all quarters, while others remain well shielded. No entity should be treated differently from others and this is something we need to ponder upon seriously as the waves of criticism against the government continue to come in.


Farida Afridi

July 7th, 2012


Farida Afridi was shot dead in cold blood for the crime of being a decent, caring human being. As the executive director of the human rights NGO, Sawera, Afridi was working in Fata performing the most thankless of jobs: trying to improve the plight of women in an area where many people have never even considered the concept of women’s rights. For that, she had to pay the ultimate price as she was killed by armed gunmen, most likely members of the Taliban, as she drove from her home in Hayatabad, Peshawar to Jamrud in Khyber Agency. Apart from taking away a valuable activist, the militants, through their brutality, will also ensure that there is a chilling effect as fewer NGOs and women will be willing to risk working in an area that needs their efforts the most.

Afridi’s ruthless murder also highlights the need for reform in Fata. Since Fata is not bound by Pakistani laws, those working there do not have the rights guaranteed to Pakistani citizens by the Constitution, and thus makes it easier for militants to operate. Last year, Zarteef Khan Afridi, who worked for the Human Rights Commission of Pakistan, was also shot dead by militants in Jamrud. This shows that NGO activists are a prime target in Fata. They are denounced as agents of the West who are out to corrupt the people of the region. Recall how hard Maulana Fazlullah campaigned against polio vaccinations, claiming that these would make men sterile.

People like Afridi may be doing some of the most vital work in the country and for that they deserve the best protection the government can provide. In Fata, this means that the army must pursue her killers. The murders of NGO workers may be the most visible work of the Taliban but they have ruined countless other lives in the area too. This is a menace that cannot be tackled by regular law-enforcement measures. Military operations are the only way to prevent the murders of future Farida Afridis.


Aiming for de-weaponisation
July 7th, 2012


The recent ruthless killing of eight people at a shop in Quetta, once again, highlights the serious issue of target killings that afflicts the country. We live in a country where people are killed because of their ethnicity, their beliefs or for other reasons that may stem from enmities of various kinds.

Meeting after meeting at various government levels have discussed this problem and attempted to find solutions for it. So far, nothing has worked. Given the situation, there are some simple facts we need to acknowledge. One of the most basic ones is that the spree of murders will simply not be stopped until weapons — including the automatic guns used so often by assassins on motorcycles — are removed from the hands of the general public. Violence is known to be high in countries where weapons are readily available to large populations and Pakistan is known to be one of the most heavily weaponised countries in the world. This, of course, is the legacy of the Afghan War against the former Soviet Union, which since 1979, has brought a flood of guns into the country and made crimes of all kinds a common occurrence. Karachi, in particular, is said to have one of the highest number of small arms among all the cities in the world. But elsewhere, too, people appear able to use rocket launchers, grenades, missiles and other weapons at will.

There have been several calls for de-weaponisation in the past. One attempt to do so was made under General (retd) Pervez Muhsarraf, which failed. People simply refused to hand over their arms, largely because they had no faith in the law and order mechanism and believed that they needed guns to protect themselves. Their thinking is not entirely illogical given the ground realities. However, some plan has to be put into action to reduce the number of guns in circulation. It will not be an easy task, but it may prove the only way to end the menace of target killings and other kinds of murders we witness across the country on a daily basis.
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Turbat killings

July 8th, 2012


The situation in Balochistan is now so grim that its seems as if all sides have decided that they have little option but to pursue wanton violence as a primary tactic. The massacre of 18 people — most of whom were from Punjab — in Turbat as they were trying to make their way through Iran to Europe, reflects similar incidents where ethnic Baloch and Hazara Shias have been attacked for no reason other than their ethnicity or sect. It is unfortunate that the Baloch have been made to feel so unwelcome at home that they are now trying to intimidate, murder and drive out those they consider ‘settlers’. A little-known group called the Baloch Liberation Tigers claimed responsibility for the attack, which follows a steady build-up of rhetoric against Punjabis in the province that was invariably going to turn bloody.

The most unfortunate aspect of such attacks is that it ends up blaming civilians for problems not of their making. The fact is that the province is being run not by the elected provincial government, but by the military and the FC, whose head is a senior military officer. Historically, too, the grievances of the Baloch date back to previous military operations. Blaming all Punjabis, several of whom have lived in Balochistan for decades, for a situation many blame on the Punjabi-dominated military is counterproductive and unlikely to win any new converts to the Baloch cause. Essentially, those who carry out and condone such attacks are guilty of the same mistake as the oppressors of the Baloch: they group all people according to their ethnicity and then hold them collectively responsible for their woes.

Saner minds need to prevail. The military’s role in Balochistan needs to be curtailed and replaced with a policy of negotiation by the civilian government. Baloch groups that employ violence need to be cast aside. Keeping Balochistan a part of the federation must be the centre’s primary objective. However, if the Baloch continue to feel like strangers in their own land, separatist sentiments will continue to rise and lead to further violence. The government has shown a distinct lack of urgency to even begin implementing its four-year-old Balochistan package. The violence in Turbat should finally catalyse their efforts and prompt a change in this state of affairs.


The aftermath of Nato supplies resumption

July 8th, 2012


Pakistan has reopened the Nato route on the basis of a consensus developed inside the Islamabad-Rawalpindi establishment, but it is not acceptable to much of parliament and all extra-parliamentary parties, while the media leads a familiar public chorus of disappointment and rejection. One should accept this pattern as normal national reaction to foreign policy decisions of an economically-troubled Pakistan.

The practical side of this reaction was led by the religious parties, forcing one to think about the cleavage between them and the political parties. On July 6, the Jamaat-e-Islami (JI) and the Jamaatud Dawa (JuD) took out rallies in Karachi, set US flags on fire and proclaimed that political leaders were ‘slaves of the US’. JuD and Muttahida Shehri Mahaz protested in Multan, while JI took out a rally in Rahimyar Khan. In Lahore, Jamiat Ahle Hadith came out on Lawrence Road, its rising star, Allama Ibtisam Ilahi, saying that the rally would move towards Islamabad (sic!) to stop the Nato supplies.

The political parties have been leading the assault on TV channels where TV anchors are painting a sorry picture of ‘proud’ Pakistan having to prostrate itself at the feet of an unjust superpower determined to harm the Muslims of the world. Out of the whole lot seeking to consolidate their vote banks through the Nato supply route, Imran Khan’s Pakistan Tehreek-i-Insaf was most aggressive. But it did not stage any show of real muscle on July 6, which the religious parties had designated as a day of protest. It had once joined the more ‘decisive’ opposition of the Difa-e-Pakistan Council (DPC), but then sought to stand aside after it was accused of taking orders from the ISI.

But if the general perception was correct that the intelligence agencies were behind a predominantly jihadi DPC, the orders were not clear on July 6. The DPC did not come out as aggressively as one had anticipated. It is possible that in the coming days, Nowshehra’s Maulana Samiul Haq will make good his threat of attacking the convoys going to the Khyber Pass, the border post that allows 70 per cent of the Nato supplies to go to Afghanistan. He might ask the DPC to coordinate its protest with the assault the Tehreek-i-Taliban Pakistan (TTP) has pledged in its latest message. Samiul Haq’s madrasa has trained several of the Afghan Taliban and is a power to reckon with inside the terrorist community despite his weak political clout compared with the JuD.

In the coming days, the JuD will face the dilemma of what to make of the signals emanating from Islamabad and Rawalpindi. It came out swinging with both fists when the first signal contrary to what the GHQ and the Foreign Office were trying to do. Hafiz Saeed, his name mud in the international community and lots of dollars riding on his head, must ask himself where he is being led by his masters. He is not Syed Munawwar Hasan seeking a better public profile for his tired little party through the post-Nato route pantomime orchestrated by a semi-literate media. He is powerful, his party capable of fielding an entire army and hurtling it into Afghanistan if the suicidal state of Pakistan wants to once again put its oar into another civil war after the Nato armies exit.

What is off-putting is the spectacle of the parliamentary opposition trying to gain electoral mileage from the Nato route affair. The PML-N has gone back to what it was before it confessed to cussedness and signed the 2006 Charter of Democracy with the PPP in a grand gesture of ‘normalisation’. It has used the judiciary’s spat with the PPP as an instrument of overthrowing the government through street power. The JUI-F’s Maulana Fazlur Rehman has done the same with one eye blinking in the direction of the TTP, but he is always flexible enough to save his party from being damaged through extreme action. Nato route terrorism in the coming days will decide where Pakistan will land next. July 6 was a damp squib.
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Selective accountability

July 15th, 2012


Finally, the National Accountability Bureau (NAB) has moved an accountability court to reopen cases of corruption pending against PML-N leaders Nawaz Sharif and his brother, Punjab Chief Minister Shahbaz Sharif. These cases were set aside after a stay order was granted by the Lahore High Court following a petition filed by the Sharifs in October last year. There were three cases against them: one on Hudaibiya Paper Mills, one regarding assets beyond known sources of income, and one on the Ittefaq Foundry (wilful loan default). NAB got off the tail of the Sharifs in 2001 after they were packed off into exile. The Musharraf regime that replaced the PML-N government, sought to revive the cases in 2007 after the Sharifs returned to Pakistan against the former ruler’s wishes.

The farce of accountability that is carried out in Pakistan has over the years, deepened the country’s faultlines and defamed the principle of holding rulers accountable. Before returning to Pakistan, the Sharifs got together with PPP leader Benazir Bhutto to issue the Charter of Democracy in 2006, which was the beginning of a phase of reconciliation in Pakistan. It was based on a confession that the two parties had victimised each other in the past to the detriment of the state. Nawaz Sharif was open-minded about the way he had hounded the PPP leadership through his Ehtesab Bureau run by a person possessed with the demon of revenge rather than justice.

The ‘reconciliation’, alas, did not last, and, in fact, became a cuss-word in the media, which was unwisely critical of the ‘friendly opposition’, and this was taken to mean that the two mainstream parties should go back to the politics of vendetta — read accountability. The message was that the nation wanted war again, a pattern of voting based on hatred, and a revival of accountability under which the PPP chief Asif Ali Zardari had spent over a decade in jail without being definitively found guilty.

The Sharifs fell for the ruse of ‘long marches’ and rough language on a media hungry for ratings. The judiciary, not treated too well by the PPP, bounced back and started scrutinising its governance with a magnifying lens. The more the PPP faltered the more the PML-N sharpened the knives of its damning propaganda. In this atmosphere of resumed hostility, in May 2012, Adviser on Interior, Rehman Malik, then interior minister, fired his salvo, saying the Sharifs had defrauded the government of $32 million and must face a revival of investigation against them.

We seem to have gone right back to the dark days of a process that Pakistan is incapable of getting right. Look at what the PML-N says: “Malik had lodged cases through the Federal Investigation Agency during Benazir’s second tenure and had the 75-year-old Mian Muhammad Sharif and 16-year-old Hamza Shahbaz arrested”. An emotional Shahbaz Sharif swears that if found guilty, he would quit politics. The tormentors in the PPP say it is tit-for-tat accountability, but fear that the judiciary, the final arbiter, is with the PML-N, which means that this time, too, accountability is political and threatens to further politicise the process of law. Now we come to the crux of what is wrong with accountability in Pakistan: it becomes a part of dirty bipartisan politics and people seem to vote again and again for those accused of corruption.

The PML-N has done significant damage to the PPP’s chances of doing well at the polls. The media — the unofficial watchdog of public affairs — has done its job of taking the incumbent party down on the question of governance. People are predicting that the PPP will crash to its lowest vote in history. But what will happen to the PML-N after NAB gets going on the Sharifs? Even if the media is kind to the party after accusing the PPP of ill-will, the PML-N is bound to suffer. Who will catalyse this process through sharply hostile rhetoric? Not so much the PPP as the PTI. By setting NAB on the Sharifs, the PPP is actually helping Imran Khan as the ‘third presence’ in the next legislature.


FC and missing persons

July 15th, 2012


Despite the denials it has heard over many weeks, the Supreme Court has left no doubt that it believes the Frontier Corps (FC) is behind the continued ‘picking up’ of people from Balochistan. Losing patience with the paramilitary force, a three-member Supreme Court bench, hearing the case on missing persons at its Quetta registry on July 13, ordered the FC and its inspector general to produce the eight persons who had vanished in the province, in ten days’ time. July 24 has been set as the date for the men to be brought before the court.

Chief Justice Iftikhar Muhammad Chaudhry and other members of the bench made it quite clear that they were running out of patience. The repeated failure to reveal where the men are, have quite obviously angered the Court, which is not willing to debate the matter any further. It has also sought more information on, specifically, 14 persons who went missing in the Khuzdar region some weeks ago. The demand of the Court, that people must be given access to justice, is one that most citizens of the country would definitely agree with. The question now is whether the FC will comply with the court order. So far, it has shown little willingness to do so, despite increasingly strident court action — and nor is there any evidence that it is ready to follow directions from the provincial government.

The ongoing case is an important one for many reasons. It will determine whether the Supreme Court is able to reinforce the writ of the state in the province where chaos has continued to prevail over the last many years. If it fails in its efforts to bring justice to the people, we will then have little hope for the future of Balochistan and it will be hard to move forward from this position of despair. This position is not an enviable one. No one knows who is in charge of matters in Balochistan; we can only assume that the forces that play their role from behind the scenes are pulling the strings. And until they are exposed, we can have little hope of seeing a brighter future in which people are able to live without fear and in peace.
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The Taliban apologists amongst us
July 16th, 2012


The Taliban’s top spokesman has told the international media that the attack on policemen from Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa (K-P) in Lahore on July 12, was carried out by his outfit because ‘they were from north-western Pakistan and were involved in the torturing of Taliban fighters’. The targeted policemen were deployed at prisons in K-P. A day later, on July 13, an Awami National Party (ANP) gathering in Kichlak in Quetta was attacked with grenades and Kalashnikovs. This leaves no doubt that the Taliban are now zeroing in, once again, on the ANP.

The Punjab police chief has hazarded that the attacks in the province could be the Taliban reaction to the reopening of the Nato supply routes by the government. The Taliban also owned up to the attack on the Pakistan Army soldiers near Sialkot looking for casualties that had occurred earlier when a military helicopter crashed into a canal amid rumours that it had been shot down. Earlier, a police picket on Babu Sabu motorway junction in Lahore had been attacked. It is possible that in the coming days, attacks on the ANP will take place in the increasingly vulnerable cities of Peshawar and Karachi.

There is no doubt that the Taliban are a power to reckon with in Pakistan but what should be worrisome is the similarity of worldview between them and the other power centres inside Pakistan. The Taliban have pledged to disrupt the Nato supplies, while the national media is overwhelmingly projecting a near universal opposition to the reopening of the Nato routes. The Difa-e-Pakistan Council (DPC), with elements actually interfacing with terrorists, has been out on the road going to Islamabad, gathering unprecedented popular support from the roadside cities on the strength of distribution of bounties that one of the organisations in the DPC with big money has been distributing. The opposition inside Parliament is up in arms against the reopened route and have joined, at least in spirit, with the clerics of the DPC in attacking the elements of the agreement reached by Pakistan with the US on the new terms of the supply route.

The Chief Justice of Pakistan says Parliament is not supreme — however, everyone knows that it is neither parliament nor judiciary that is supreme but the military, which controls policy inside and outside the country. Its power is so wide-ranging that people believe that if it wanted to stop the DPC from creating a pro-Taliban environment in Pakistan, it could have prevented its long march. This makes governance almost impossible — especially in a country where a sizeable chunk thinks that the Taliban view is the right view. As the Supreme Court goes after the prime minister, the weakened parliament is faced with a consensus led by the Taliban and their globally active master al Qaeda.

The Taliban are finally projecting their power into Balochistan where the writ of the state was heretofore challenged by the Balochistan Liberation Army. One can say that it has come late because the Afghan Taliban leadership has always been traced to Quetta where some elements of the Quetta Shura control terror in Afghanistan. If the Taliban took their time, it could only be on the basis of a consideration of not falling foul of the Baloch nationalists. It is now more or less certain that the Tehreek-e-Taliban Pakistan is sure-footed enough in north-western Balochistan, along the areas where Afghan refugees have consolidated their power after decades of sojourn and have subordinated the local Pashtun population to their power of intimidation. What is worrying is not that the Taliban and their master al Qaeda have spread their wings all over Pakistan; what is alarming is that the thinking of the important institutions, the media, the political parties inside and outside Parliament, and the army seem to be in agreement with this isolationist global terrorist movement.

Today, if you want to do politics in Pakistan and want to survive, push two buttons: one anti-American and the other pro-Taliban saying they have become terrorists because of America and will go back to being good citizens the moment the Americans leave Afghanistan.


Ratings downgrade

July 16th, 2012


The decision by international ratings agency, Moody’s, to downgrade Pakistan’s credit rating from B3 to Caa1, is a reflection, both of our dysfunctional political system and our economic predicament. At a time when our government is at loggerheads with the judiciary and no one is quite sure how that tussle is going to play out before the next elections while, simultaneously, we are facing large loan repayments to the IMF even as our foreign exchange reserves dwindle, it is no surprise that Moody’s has taken this step. The actual impact of the downgrade will not be too severe, since Pakistan does most of its borrowing from the IMF and not international capital markets. Hence, we won’t suffer from the higher interest rates a lower credit rating brings.

The effect of a ratings downgrade is mostly psychological, but even that can have serious real-world effects. Foreign investors, to the extent that they exist in the country, will now be even more wary of entering Pakistan. The rupee is likely to plunge even further. It is expected that foreign direct investment in the country will fall below one billion dollars and that there will also be a serious decline in remittances because of the state of the global economy. What this means is that the government will go into further debt and its foreign exchange reserves will decrease. What Moody’s has essentially done is not to hurt our future prospects as much as admonish us for our past economic performance.

The next step should obviously be to put our economy on a stronger footing. This will require political courage, something the present government has never possessed. It has backed down just about every time its allies have protested against the removal of power subsidies. But since Pakistan is an oil-importing country, this subsidy is costing us dearly. To decrease our balance of payments deficit, it is essential to end the subsidy. Ours is an economy that is on life support and that fact was merely recognised by Moody’s. Instead of blaming our woes on our junk bond status, we need to figure out why this happened and what we can do to rectify it.
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A PPP-PML-N joint strategy?
July 17th, 2012


First, there was the NAB flurry about getting the Sharifs cornered in the accountability courts as tit for tat for the savage rhetoric let loose by them against the ‘corrupt’ PPP government. Then, there was the speculation that the two parties might come together in deciding the date of the next election and a political strategy of how to cope with it, given the rising tsunami of Imran Khan. There was also talk of the PML-N getting its perspective right on the judiciary, making it more realistic as the world complained about ‘lack of restraint’ on the part of judges now getting used to firing prime ministers.

A caretaker government as the institution that will conduct the next election headed by a neutral prime minister plus cabinet has always aroused suspicion about the fabled ability of President Asif Ali Zardari to subvert persons and institutions in his party’s favour. It was expected that there will be a battle royale over the issue after the election is announced. Bickering over judges’ appointment between the two parties has already resulted in the transfer of authority of induction to the Chief Justice of Pakistan. Will more bickering denude the parties further of their legitimate powers? This must weigh upon the minds of the politicians on both sides. Will they do something about it?

Speculations started brewing in Islamabad. ‘Credible sources’ said that the ruling PPP and the PML-N were close to ‘working out a deal that would result in both naming a consensus caretaker prime minister and finalisation of a date for election to be held before the end of the year’. Two persons were named, both unlikely: human rights lawyer Asma Jahangir and Pakistan’s UN envoy Abdullah Hussain Haroon. The choice of Ms Jahangir would clearly have been a message to an ‘excessive’ Supreme Court, while Mr Haroon would have been suspect because of his connection to President Zardari. Rumours began to circulate about a joint PML-N-PPP stance vis-à-vis the judiciary in favour of parliamentary supremacy.

Soon enough, the PML-N denied proposing Ms Jahangir or Mr Haroon for the slot of caretaker prime minister and termed the news a baseless rumour. It actually blamed the PPP for floating the story to malign the PML-N in the eyes of its supporters and said that ‘when the time comes to choose caretakers it will consult all the opposition parties including the Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf’. Alas, last time it did so in the case of Justice (retd) Fakhruddin G Ebrahim as Chief Election Commissioner, it was slightly put off by the 84-year-old’s remark that only two elections had been held fairly in the past and in both cases, the PPP was returned to power. To be fair, he also criticised the PPP’s decision to push through a change of rules of contempt of court through a legislation. People started recommending that maybe Pakistan should follow India and Bangladesh on the rules regarding an election commissioner’s age. The catch here is that if the PPP and the PML-N fail to jointly choose a caretaker government, then Mr Ebrahim will get to appoint one under the 20th Amendment.

Whatever may be the outcome of these speculations, the truth is that both parties feel threatened by ‘third parties’. The judiciary is increasingly relying on its street power and Imran Khan, appearing unmindful of the sensitivities of the PML-N when declaring that parliament was no longer supreme. The Court was possibly leaning on judicial memory of what the PML-N had done to the Sajjad Ali Shah Court. The other growingly threatening factor is the rise of Imran Khan as the leader who beats the ideologues of the PML-N on slogans of change. The ‘wave’ he might create with his radical message behind an ‘Islamic welfare state’ will cut into the vote bank of the PML-N as the PPP shrinks in Punjab.

The threat of Imran Khan as he sallies forth into Waziristan with one lakh supporters should shine some light in the dark corners of the mindset that empowers other institutions and parties by cutting the ground from under the bipartisan system Pakistan has enjoyed for the past 20 years.


DPC protest — now in Chaman
July 17th, 2012



In the wake of its long march from Lahore to Islamabad, the Difa-e-Pakistan Council (DPC) decided to repeat the trick, this time going from Quetta to Chaman to protest the reopening of supply routes. Even the leaders of the DPC must know that their protests alone will have little to no effect on the government’s decision to reopen supply routes but they must also be aware that these shows of strength are valuable in their own right. Through sheer force of numbers, the DPC, which is made up of groups that could not muster huge crowds individually, has now made itself an entity that needs to be taken seriously.

Of course, part of the reason the DPC has now become such a vital force is that it is being coddled, appeased and even supported by mainstream political parties. It comes as no surprise that religious parties like the Jamaat-e-Islami and the Jamiat-e-Ulema Islam – Fazlur Rehman have extended their best wishes to this coalition of extremist groups. What is more disappointing is that even the Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI) has shown a willingness to support the DPC, despite the presence of militant groups such as the Jamaat-ud-Dawa in leadership positions. The PTI has always insisted that its opposition to the US was principled in nature and did not imply support for militant groups. However, that claim will ring hollow so long as its representatives continue to attend DPC rallies.

The turnout at its rallies and the complete absence of action from the authorities against this coalition of militant groups would suggest that the DPC is being kept as a bargaining chip by the military establishment. Making demands of the US is a lot easier when the military can point to the supposed popularity of this anti-American force. However, the military should also be aware that such phenomena have the tendency to slip away from their masters as is evident with our jihadi non-state actors. The army thought the mujahideen of the 1980s and then the Taliban which took over in Afghanistan in the 1990s were under their control. Now, the military is being attacked by its former protégés.
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