Karachi curfew

January 18th, 2011

The ‘semi-curfew’ announced by the interior minister for Karachi on January 16 has brought more confusion than results. Six more people were killed in the city on the same day and tensions persisted in many localities, bringing the threat of more killings over the next few days. There was some doubt as to precisely what the curfew consisted of, and what was meant by the term. Police appear to have interpreted it to mean restrictions in movement in areas where search operations were to be conducted. A pillion riding ban was also reimposed — as has happened in the past when there is unrest in Karachi.

There must be some doubt as to what can be expected from these measures. This is all the more so as key partners appear not to have been taken into confidence on the ‘curfew’. The ANP has expressed displeasure over this and is clearly concerned about possible harassment. Building consensus among all the groups who can play a part in bringing peace in Karachi would appear to be a vital step in ending violence.

The steps announced for Karachi seem to constitute of nothing more than a band-aid placed over a large, gaping wound. Far more drastic measures are needed to stop the flow of blood. Rehman Malik had, a few months ago, announced a major intelligence-gathering operation to identify those engaged in the killings in Karachi. What has come of this? There seems to be no word. The imposition of a partial curfew, the ban on passengers aboard motorcycles and even the aerial monitoring of areas is unlikely to bring results. A different tactic is needed. The elements creating unrest need to be identified and removed surgically. The interior minister has alluded to the possibility that a ‘third party’ is working to create tensions between coalition partners in Karachi. This is certainly possible. But the focus then should be on finding those who work with this ‘party’.

We need to see action. Words serve no purpose in the final run. The latest measures seem to be nothing more than first aid. We must hope they will be followed up by more aggressive treatment, otherwise the sickness ailing Karachi will continue to take its toll and lead to yet more deaths in a city that has already seen too many.

When will the appeasement end?

January 18th, 2011

Lahore saw Tehreek-e-Hurmat-e-Rasul stage a protest against the Pope on January 16 to inspire more fear among the few remaining conscientious citizens hurt by the way a fanatic took the life of Governor Punjab Salmaan Taseer. And there was nothing the Punjab government could do, scared as it is of losing its rightwing vote to religious parties. And the speakers bayed not only for the blood of the chief cleric of the Catholic Church, but also for the blood of those who think the clergy will ultimately back off from the pro-blasphemy law campaign after being handed a walkover by the governments at the centre and the provinces.

Clerics of all brands were there, as if to take by the forelock the opportunity of uniting once again and causing Pakistan’s faltering democracy to collapse in the name of religion. Pope Benedict XVI, who has no army and no drones to deploy, was just an excuse to show muscles to the jittery administration. The Barelvis, Deobandis and Ahle Hadith were all there, repeating the arguments against not touching the blasphemy law despite its known misuse against the poor sections of Pakistani society. No political party could have organised the rally: people from all over Punjab had joined the protest on motorcycles, cars, buses and on foot, a major portion also coming from the small cities to Lahore on trucks.

The procession that tore down the remaining banners mourning the killing of Governor Taseer and the new ones welcoming the new governor, Latif Khosa, was led by the second-in-command of the most powerful single jihadi organisation, the Jamaatud Dawa, banned by the UN Security Council after the Mumbai terrorist attacks in 2008. According to a report in this newspaper, the leaders of the march “spewed hate speech upon hate speech, targeted minorities, incited people to violence with impunity and roused people to adopt the way of jihad.” Speakers praised the killer of Governor Taseer and warned the already frightened media commentators against opposing the fatwas inciting people to violence. Jamaatud Dawa leader Abdul Rehman Makki said that Mumtaz Qadri “played his due role and the police department should be proud of such a true lover of the Holy Prophet (pbuh)”.

Extremism rules when reason has fled and passion is made to dominate people’s lives. And the only way to sustain reason in people’s lives is action by the state against those who incite people to resort to extreme action. All religions reach out to reason by mandating ‘moderation’ which, in the case of Islam, is the exact meaning of ‘adl’ (middle). One measure of how far our weaponised clerics and their violent seminarians have strayed from the path of Islam becomes clear when the more visible but minimally gifted clerics confront the best-known Pakistani Islamic scholar, Javed Ahmad Ghamidi. Mr Ghamidi — who can no longer come out in public because of threat to his life — clearly says that the man-made law on blasphemy is wrong because it is against the spirit of Islam as interpreted by the country’s majority jurisprudence, the Hanafi School.

Extremism bans argument and scares those who disagree with its exponents. Extremism catches on when backed by elements that effectively challenge the state itself. The leader in the Lahore rally was the Jamaatud Dawa, whose banned publication has already boasted that the pro-blasphemy law agitation was organised by it. There was a time when it listened to the state and its intelligence agencies; it is now being seen as a power no longer under Pakistan’s control. Its ban by the UN cannot be carried out and is stuck in the court of law. Its new guise in Lahore is scary because it has crossed the limit set by its two ‘guided’ rallies — one in Lahore against the ‘stealing of Pakistan’s waters by India’ and the other in Islamabad signalling Pakistan’s intent to bring the Kashmir dispute to another boil — and now threatens the state. Is there a ‘revolution’ concealed behind the agitating clerics who boycotted the 2008 elections? If there is, then who will be its guide and mentor? Somewhere in Fata, al Qaeda is watching the scene carefully.

Deweaponising the country

January 19th, 2011

With a new round of target killings rocking Karachi, it is heartening to see that the political parties are finally taking a lead in proposing solutions. The MQM, which is the most important stakeholder in Karachi, has submitted a comprehensive deweaponisation bill in the National Assembly Secretariat that, if passed, would outlaw the private ownership of all weapons. On its merits, the bill deserves support. Even a bill as utopian as this one, which seeks to halt not only the future ownership of weapons but also to decommission all existing arms, is important as it begins a conversation about gun ownership and use in society.

While supporting the bill, though, it is important to acknowledge that legislation alone is unlikely to halt the distribution and procurement of weapons. For one, political parties themselves are armed to the teeth. Activists of all major political parties in the country have not shied away from using violence to defend their interests. It requires a willing suspension of disbelief to assume that they will turn in their weapons without complaint. Even if this bill, which is likely to encounter major opposition from the political parties, passes, the question of implementation will dog the law-enforcement authorities. The country’s existing gun laws, lax though they might be, are routinely flouted. Far more stringent regulations will have an even smaller chance of success. Those who use their weapons to foment political and ethnic strife in the country are not going to voluntarily give up their source of power. Without vigorous police action accompanying the legislation, the truism that if arms are outlawed only outlaws will have arms will come true.

It is also important to keep in mind that easy access to weapons is a symptom, not the cause, of violence in Karachi and elsewhere. Deweaponisation is a law-enforcement solution that has to be accompanied by a political solution. Until all the stakeholders in the country agree that they will not recourse to violence at the slightest provocation, no amount of legislation will halt the country’s downward spiral. Halting violence requires political courage and this bill is the first, small sign that we may finally have acquired it.

Tunisia and Pakistan

January 19th, 2011

President Zine alAbidine Ben Ali has fled Tunisia after 29 years of trying to make Tunisia a modern state with the help of repression against the Islamist trend — and free market capitalism. The last-named path has brought to an end his ‘Tunisia model’ which he thought would prevent the extremist-inspired massacres of next-door Algeria from creeping into his country. World food prices have spiralled upwards and have caused hardship to the poor classes whose only care is for food. President Ben Ali refused to undermine his economy with a subsidy and has had to leave. His successor, caretaker Prime Minister Mohamed Ghannouchi, has announced a subsidy and release of all political prisoners.

The Tunisian crisis was triggered by a man who burnt himself to death against the confiscation of his vendor’s cart by the police. The Arab world has responded with copycat attempts in Egypt, Algeria and Mauritania, where the common man is hard pressed to buy food he can afford. In all three, the regimes are corrupt, repressive and ‘modern’, promising the world a postponement of Islamist takeovers opposed to modern economics and devoted to jihad. The people of Tunisia are glad their dictator is gone and want Tunisia to become uncorrupt and prosperous in quick time. That alas is not going to happen.

President Ben Ali’s ‘model’ allowed women’s rights and the most open economy in the Arab world. It develops that the people don’t really care about such things in the face of oppression and hunger and will soon pressure the current caretaker government to allow the Islamic parties to function after lifting the ban on them. The economy will respond to the food subsidy by developing strong inflationary pressures. After that, Tunisia will turn its back on what it had promised to the world over the last two decades: low poverty, high literacy and dignity without democracy. The middle class the old regime boasted will lean in favour of religion in its first flush of freedom and set in motion what has already happened in Algeria and Egypt.

Tunisia attracted attention by trying to remain steady and calm in the disturbed region of the ‘Maghreb’. It did that by banning the religious parties and by ‘mosque management’, hiring, training and paying the salaries of imams, even mandating government-prescribed Friday sermons at mosques. Like Tunisia, Morocco has also sought to stem Islamic radicalism. Its young King Mohammed VI has embraced what could be called ‘freedom management’, allowing the Islamic opposition, but in a rubber-stamp parliament. At the same time, however, he gave Morocco a new progressive family law, letting women have unprecedented rights in marriage and divorce.

Tunisia is a small state of nine million compared with Egypt which has millions serving the cause of the radicals, and even then its economy will have to be supported with external help. But this support will come from quarters that will append ‘conditionalities’ to spending money, usually called ‘belt-tightening’. Rich states like Kuwait can ride out the food crisis by dishing out a $4 billion subsidy, but Tunisia will not be in the same boat. Elections have not meant peace and tranquillity in the Islamic world: Iraq, Lebanon and Afghanistan are examples of one sort, and Egypt and Algeria of another sort where people have embraced religious extremism.

In Pakistan, a food crisis is upon us, and non-targeted subsidy, we find, is not the answer. Pakistani politicians are either not aware of the trouble they are inviting by preventing indirect taxes like the RGST and alignment of oil prices to international levels, or want the creation of chaos as a mechanism for their own return to power. One doesn’t have to look for Islamic radicalism — al Qaeda and its minions are killing innocent people and unleashing sectarian mayhem. If the Tunisian people take a close look at Pakistan they would see that their post-Ben Ali utopia is going to be short-lived. Pakistani leaders are thinking vaguely of ‘revolution’, some leaning to the French model, others to an Islamic one, but totally ignoring the burgeoning tentacles of the monster of extremism that is slowly but surely devouring their society.

__________________
Kon Kehta hy k Main Gum-naam ho jaon ga
Main tu aik Baab hn Tareekh mein Likha jaon ga

Refuge for a dictator

January 20th, 2011

It is quite ironic that the secular former Tunisian President Zine alAbidine Ben Ali has been able to find asylum in Saudi Arabia, not exactly known for its secular proclivities. There are serious questions to be raised about why Saudi Arabia has had no compunctions in hosting some of the world’s most repressive dictators. Mr Ben Ali is not the first Muslim autocrat to find refuge with the House of Saud. The far more vicious Idi Amin of Uganda also spent his final days living in exile in Jeddah.

Why is Saudi Arabia so comfortable with providing sanctuary to the oppressors of Muslims worldwide? For it remains a fact that Muslims around the world are oppressed far more by their own dictators and autocrats than by any ‘foreign’ power. Examples of this can be found in many countries in the Middle East, where the presence of oil has led, by and large, to high living standards but personal freedoms, especially those relating to expression and speech, remain more or less absent. In that context, one would have to say that Pakistan fares far better in that its print and electronic media, notwithstanding the constant threats to journalists from all kinds of mafias and state and non-state actors, is much more free than say, the media of many a Gulf state. Yes Pakistan does not at all have an admirable record of dealing with its religious minorities but significant sections of the media, especially the English, are vociferous in their criticism of government failings.

This issue is significant because one of the reasons for growing radicalism among Muslims is the perception ordinary people in the Muslim world have of their governments and those who run them. This perception is true, to a great extent, in Pakistan as well, with the rulers seen as elitist and out of touch with the wishes and aspirations of ordinary Pakistanis. However, in many countries in the Arab world, this frustration and disaffection takes on a whole new meaning because those who experience it cannot find any real avenues (barring the internet) to vent their anger and resentment. That needs to change, or the scourge of extremism in much of the Muslim world will not go away anytime soon.

A deadline for reform?

January 20th, 2011

It took someone like Finance Minister Abdul Hafeez Sheikh to finally tell the PML-N that its charter of 10 demands was not going anywhere. While promising “tangible steps to overcome lapses in governance” he declined to accept the 45-day deadline given by the largest opposition party in the National Assembly. As January ushered in the New Year, Prime Minister Yousaf Raza Gilani announced that his government would accept what looked like a 10-point ultimatum whose non-implementation in short order would unleash a united opposition move for removing the PPP coalition from power.

It was obvious to anyone with enough economic sense that the charter was fuzzy in the extreme and emanated from the PML-N’s inner lack of cohesion over what should be done during a period when the ruling PPP was constantly inviting death with its governing blunders. The two demands that the PPP government was able to meet — reneging on the RGST and taking back the oil price adjustment — were patently wrong and would have gone against the conscience of any honest opposition party. Most other demands pertained to long-term remedies and are familiar in Third World states struggling to achieve good governance.

The government said yes to the agenda of ‘corrections’ and sat down with PML-N experts, led by Senator Ishaq Dar, the party economist who is close to its top leadership. It also broadened the scope of consultations and pledged to study proposals of reform put forward by other parties in the opposition or allies acting like opposition. The government team that sat across the table to the Ishaq Dar team included economists who would have made compelling arguments to Mr Dar about the ‘emotional’ nature of the ‘charter’ which is demanding corrections in 45 days in areas that would normally take over a decade of strict implementation, even in advanced countries. Instead of flying off the handle, Mr Dar has initially reacted carefully: he called the meeting positive.

The ‘end-this-corruption’ demand contained in the charter was applicable to the PPP, whose scrutiny in the media has tended to scandalise the nation, but no one can end deeply-embedded corruption — like stopping the massive graft that has been taking place in the tax collection machinery for the past many years — in a month, in any part of the world. Another demand pertaining to the enforcement of the ruling of the Supreme Court on the National Reconciliation Ordinance required the government to write letters to Swiss authorities for the revival of Mr Zardari’s money-laundering cases. In other words, drag President Zardari down and send him to jail. Other demands included asking the government to investigate corruption scandals, reduce non-development spending by one-third and set up an independent election body.

Anywhere else in the world, the PML-N’s charter of demands would have been deemed a non-starter and a damper for the initiating party. It might still be the case that Nawaz Sharif has deflected some very heavy pressure from the hawks within his own party to pull the PPP down and go for elections while he was basking in approval ratings of almost 80 per cent. Votes in Pakistan are hate-based and if you are in the opposition and not going for the kill all the time, you will fare well in approval polls. Mr Sharif also had to compensate for some of the unorthodox things he was doing, like issuing snide remarks about the army intending to interfere in democracy, and pushing back an MQM most able to help in yet another collapse of the PPP in power.

Immediately after the PPP ate humble pie on the RGST and the oil-price adjustment issues, the Federal Board of Revenue and the State Bank went on record as telling the government that the economy was moving towards hyper-inflation. The PML-N seemed to lose its reputation of a party of thinking people. Because Mr Sharif was not willing to jump into the abyss of the unknown together with MQM and JUI-F — both of whom he cordially despises — the PPP was able to get the MQM to relent from its aggression and thus preclude a no-confidence vote against the prime minister. Now the PML-N hawks must ponder how their ploy to push their leader to follow old toppling reflexes has come to grief.

__________________
Kon Kehta hy k Main Gum-naam ho jaon ga
Main tu aik Baab hn Tareekh mein Likha jaon ga

Retrenchment in KESC

January 21st, 2011

In times of crisis, difficult decisions must be made and, given the severity of the energy sector’s difficulties, measures such as the sacking of 4,000 employees at the KESC may be understandable, if somewhat regrettable. The utility company serving the commercial and industrial capital of the country needs to become financially viable and, unfortunate as it is, laying off some of its workforce may well be a necessary component of that strategy. Of course, at the same time, it must not lose sight of its social responsibilities as a major corporation.

Unemployment is high, so the sense of uncertainty those laid off by the KESC feel is an understandable emotion. Yet they must understand that a major reason for high unemployment is the energy crisis, which raises the cost of production at industrial units and forces them to run at less-than-optimal capacity. If the company were able to successfully turn itself around and were able to not only cut its costs but also cut down its significant line and transmission losses, and make a real dent in catching theft of electricity, then the decision to sack so many people and the criticism that it may have attracted will be mostly forgotten. The utility provider did earlier, according to reports, give the staff members laid off an option to voluntarily leave and all those who opted for it were given hefty severance packages. However, many chose to not take it and they are the ones who have been retrenched. In that context, the company’s claim that had they opted for the voluntary separation scheme they would have been far better off, does make sense.

It has to be said that the KESC is not the only major organisation in the economy that has been saddled with a very large and inefficient workforce. Several state-owned corporations such as Pakistan Railways, Pakistan Steel and others come to mind and many could cut down on their costs if those employees who did not contribute anything to productivity were asked to leave. That may sound a bit harsh but crucial to the economy getting back on track is the condition that precious resources such as labour as used efficiently.

A welcome law

January 21st, 2011

The passing into law of a bill tabled to prohibit the manufacture, sale and use of disposable syringes, other than the auto-destruct ones, in the Sindh Assembly recently, must be lauded as a step in the right direction to control the spread of contagious diseases. Usage of old syringes is one of the major reasons behind the spread of blood-borne diseases such as hepatitis B and C, and HIV. And this is not always on purpose — if a used syringe is not disposed off, there is always the danger that someone may accidently become infected by coming into contact with a syringe used on a person with infected blood.

The needles of glass syringes can be reused several times and are not always sterilised properly when reused or repackaged. If not cautious, doctors may use such syringes for immunisation as well as curative purposes. Another factor behind the reuse of syringes is the lower cost associated with this practice. While educating the public, keeping track of syringes and reducing their price to do away with the incentive to reuse needles are all options, the most fool-proof one is, perhaps, to use auto-destruct syringes. These syringes block the plunger after the first use, making it impossible to draw fluid into them more than once.

Around a billion syringes are being used in the country, and if reuse of needles is factored in, a large number of people face the risk of infection. Tackling this issue will go a long way in controlling the spread of related diseases. A major step has been taken by the Sindh Assembly, but the job is only half done till implementation of this law is ensured. The federal ministry of health kept extending the registration date of disposable syringes for 16 years, till it was finally ordered by the courts, on a petition filed by the Pakistan Medical Association, not to do so under the Drug Act 1976. This law must not be treated in a similar manner and should be followed to the letter.

A series win at last

January 21st, 2011

Pakistani cricket fans are used to dark days, so we can be forgiven for thinking that an entire generation of supporters would grow up without having the chance to experience the thrill of a Test series win. After all, this is a team that hadn’t won a series since 2006-7. In that time, we have been through the cessation of all cricket at home, thanks to a terrorist attack on the visiting Sri Lankan team, had the typical revolving door of captains and seen superstars suspended from the game, awaiting possible life bans. It’s so hard being a Pakistan cricket fan that even a Test series win against a struggling New Zealand team will be seen as the first sign of a resurgence.

Without ever dominating the Kiwi attack, our batsmen were able to grind out competitive scores. Our forte, the sudden and inexplicable collapse, was mostly averted. Our only bowler with significant experience was Umar Gul, yet everyone was able to chip in with penetrating spells. Let’s not forget that captain Misbahul Haq, himself the most consistent batsman on either side, is building a new team. Only one player has survived from the last time we played New Zealand, just over a year ago. This is a significant achievement.

But we shouldn’t get carried away either. Salman Butt, Mohammad Amir and Mohammad Asif, the three cricketers accused of spot fixing, will soon face their day of reckoning. The rocks around which our batting revolves, Younus Khan and Misbahul Haq, are at the fag ends of their career. And New Zealand themselves are in crisis, having not won a single Test series since 2008. One Day International cricket is a different beast to Tests, and when the World Cup commences in a month’s time we will have a better clue as to whether this is a renaissance or just a false dawn. Until then, we should savour this rare victory and look to the future with guarded optimism.

__________________
Kon Kehta hy k Main Gum-naam ho jaon ga
Main tu aik Baab hn Tareekh mein Likha jaon ga

A desired but disowned operation

January 22nd, 2011

An extraordinary situation came about in Karachi on January 20, as five more people lost their lives in the ongoing target killing violence: the massive operation launched against terrorists in the city by the paramilitary Rangers has been disowned by the main political stakeholders. Sindh Home Minister Zulfiqar Mirza said he should have ordered the operation but he came to know of it only after it began unfolding; Federal Interior Minister Rehman Malik, too, expressed his ignorance about the operation and added that the Sindh chief minister had not been consulted either.

The operation was no small mopping up of criminals: on its first day on January 17, it netted over 400 people in pre-dawn raids in Orangi, with the help of 700 Rangers personnel. When asked, a brigadier of the force said: “The paramilitary unit comes under the [federal] ministry of interior and no operation could be launched without the ministry’s knowledge. Everyone, including the home ministry, is consulted and obviously involved.”

Rehman Malik’s other observation was a give-away: he did not condemn the operation carried out by the Rangers ‘on their own’, knowing full well that Rangers are commanded by in-service army officers. He, however, launched into the time-tested but patently absurd theorem that a “third party” was involved in a sinister plan to kill the three main political stakeholders of Karachi: the PPP, MQM and ANP. When a Pakistani bureaucrat or politician names a ‘third party’, he usually means the ‘foreign hand’, which is a cipher for the evil trio of India, Israel and the United States.

He then went on to deliver the following gem: “It doesn’t matter if they are from South Africa or Bajaur or Balochistan, they all have the same agenda: to break down Pakistan, to destabilise us.” There will be a loud guffaw in many capitals of the world on this, as it is Pakistan which is globally recognised as terrorism’s ground zero where not-so-secretly ‘state-patronised’ terrorist groups train local and foreign killer to destabilise neighbourhood states.

Few residents of Karachi will have believed what the PPP ministers have said, but they all think the operation was good for the city as it removed the doubt of partiality of the operation being in favour of one side or the other. The January 26 meeting of the PPP, MQM and ANP will take stock of the casualties; and the side that has lost least during the operation will be accused of having launched a ‘deniable’ operation. The ANP has already declared that it would prefer a clean sweep of the killers through a military operation. Will the PPP and the MQM, too, opt for that path?

The truth is that all three parties are deeply intertwined with the weaponised mafias of the city. This was made unavoidable as a part of the give-and-take arrangement with the underworld, a well-known phenomenon all over the world where empowerment is sought outside the parameters of law. The stress suffered by the stakeholders from the latest ‘deniable’ Rangers operation has been felt by all three parties. The MQM is too disciplined to make a rash expression of pain after the Orangi operation. The PPP, however, has clearly shown signs of stress, not only in the complaint registered by Home Minister Mirza but also by one of its ministers, Nabeel Gabol (who, on January 21, was reported to have taken back his resignation).

The MQM feels it can sort things out through a meeting with Chief Minister Qaim Ali Shah, much reassured by the top-level PPP leadership in Islamabad. The ANP-PPP relationship is holding out better than the PPP-MQM relationship. The only faction which feels left out is PPP Sindh, led by the chief minister. Party leader Asif Ali Zardari, on the other hand, is not only firmly in the saddle as far as the party is concerned but also has the larger picture of what is going on in Karachi. He knows that the demand for governor’s rule will gather strength as time passes and the killers of Karachi continue to have the run of the city. Finally, someone other than the elected politicians will have to sort out the mess, and we all know who that someone is. Hence, the Orangi operation.

Another doctor killed

January 22nd, 2011

While investigations are still underway, from the nature of the murder — nothing was stolen and the doctor was shot several times as his car slowed down over a speed bump — it is clear that Dr Imran Wasi was yet another victim of the monster of target killing that has engulfed Karachi. According to his family, the doctor, who had been working at Lyari General Hospital for the past 15 years, had previously expressed concern about working in the area, and had hinted at wanting a transfer from the hospital. His family believes that he was targeted because he was an Urdu-speaking doctor. Last year, at least nine doctors were killed in the city, according to the Pakistan Medical Association’s (PMA) Karachi chapter. And with this latest killing, residents of a Karachi neighbourhood known for its declining healthcare facilities have been deprived of an ENT specialist.

Moreover, the inefficiency of the police in securing the safety of doctors is obvious by the fact that at least two police vans had been deputed near the crime scene, apart from two policemen who were deployed for duty at a nearby shop. When one compares this to the ‘efficiency’ the police showed in arresting hundreds of people for violating a pillion-riding ban — which was announced late in the night, meaning that many of those arrested did not even know about it — it becomes quite evident that our law-enforcement agencies have their priorities completely wrong.

It is shameful that the city cannot protect its care-givers, who fall to bullets because the state that is supposed to protect them has miserably failed in its primary responsibility. Following the killing, the out-patients department of three major government hospitals in the city were shut down in protest and the PMA plans to take out a protest rally on January 29. The city’s doctors are angry and afraid and they have every right to be — the provincial government and the police have stood by as silent spectators as the target killers have gone about doing what they do best with impunity. Only recently, the city police claimed to have arrested killers of city doctors but one doesn’t know what became of these arrests. Were the suspects eventually charged for the crimes that the police accused them of, or was this yet another exercise in inefficiency?

__________________
Kon Kehta hy k Main Gum-naam ho jaon ga
Main tu aik Baab hn Tareekh mein Likha jaon ga

Pressure on the KESC

January 23rd, 2011

Since the Karachi Electric Supply Corporation (KESC) was privatised by the Musharraf government in November 2005, nothing has gone right with it. Now, with the country generally in the energy doldrums, KESC has attracted more mischief by firing over 4,000 of its employees. The employees knew what they had to do in a city fast getting out of control of its administrators: they resorted to hooliganism, arson and loot, according to the FIR registered against them by the KESC bosses. However, there seems to be intense pressure on the power company to reinstate all the cashiered staff.

It was downsizing, as the private sector calls its belt-tightening, with a golden handshake scheme offered to those being laid off. But the culture of the inherited KESC staff — based mostly on inefficiency and complacency reinforced by the belief that they could never be fired — was not that found in the private sector. And there were politicians — with PPP in the lead — outside the KESC offices, promising the protesters all the blessings of a totalitarian utopia without regard to how they will pick up the pieces if the party running the privatised utility decided it was time to cut its losses and leave. After the Supreme Court, in its wisdom, undid the privatisation of the Pakistan Steel Mills, the state was not able to run it, reverting to its pattern of appointing corrupt men to it for money-gouging.

The KESC privatisation was opposed by those who insisted that public utilities should not be privatised, much like primary schools, and that since multinational companies (MNCs) who bought them were predatory and ‘profit maximising’, the idea of selling anything, least of all an essential service, should be shunned. Others more ‘political’ in their thinking simply asked the people not to cooperate with the new operator and use ‘kundas’ to steal electricity because it was either too expensive or not being supplied. In June 2009, after there was a prolonged blackout due to rains, voices were raised in the Senate in favour of a government takeover of the KESC. An MQM senator said that “imperial conspiracy attempts are being made to turn Karachi into a non-industrial city”.

We don’t know if Chief Minister Qaim Ali Shah has changed his mind after seeing how debt as high as Rs400 billion has arisen out of the country’s public utilities, but in 2009 he was new enough to his job to lay the blame on those who had privatised the city’s electricity. Most PPP leaders are not aware that Benazir Bhutto had revised her father’s socialist creed of nationalising private enterprises, big and small.

The KESC was privatised by the Musharraf government when Pakistan was not such an attractive place to invest in. The interested party had come in and then tried to run away after grasping the enormity of the challenge of a system that state ownership had allowed to run down. The sale was ‘leveraged’ with friendship. The KESC has tried to explain why its system couldn’t hold up after it was privatised, but no one believes it, and critics keep referring to the halcyon days when it was run by civil servants whose Rs86 billion debt was converted into government equity after privatisation.

KESC is in trouble also because the gas supply to it is being progressively cut. If it reverts to furnace oil, the power rate will spiral to a point where power theft will increase because the utility will have little choice but to increase the tariff. In November 2010, it notified its consumers that its quota of gas of 276 million cubic feet per day had been cut to a mere 100 million. Anyone will find an electricity service impossible to run in Karachi these days. The city has gotten out of control and cannot be classified with megapolises like Mumbai, with their notorious crime underworlds. Karachi is a different kind of city where hardly any business can be plied without paying bhatta to several categories of extortionists. Mumbai loses six per cent of its electricity to theft; Karachi loses far more.

So, in this regard, let us not boast of our outmoded socialist credentials by encouraging popular vandalism at a time when anyone doing business in Pakistan should be patted on the back.

Stop gunning for Veena Malik

January 23rd, 2011

One has to question the logic of some of our television anchors gunning for Veena Malik, as they have been doing of late ever since the Pakistani actress came on the popular reality show Bigg Boss in India. Surely, we do not expect Ms Malik to don a burqa on the show? Besides, as she told an interviewer on Express News on January 21, she is an entertainer and melodrama, as well as other aspects of her behaviour for which she is now being criticised by many self-styled guardians of morality, only to be expected. Besides, let us not lose sight of the sanctimonious hypocrisy that characterises this issue, since one can say with some certitude, that many of those who are now disapproving of her behaviour on the show and equating it with an insult for Pakistan would have regularly watched the programme. Not only that, most of these people would also have no qualms about watching Pakistani films, in which actresses certainly do not dress in conservative attire

At the risk of sounding pessimistic, the way public opinion has come out on this issue is not entirely unexpected, since much of what passes off as public discourse in this country is shaped by an overarching framework that is based mostly on intolerance and hatred for the other, along with a decades-old indoctrination through the mainstream curriculum, whereby India is demonised . Hence, since Ms Malik happened to visit India, she is deemed to have caused an insult to her country because she dressed in a manner that was unbecoming of a Pakistani woman (this conveniently ignores the fact that women in this country do sometimes dress in a similar manner) and cavorted with a Hindu man. The latter shows double standards as well, perpetuated by the patriarchal and misogynistic society that has evolved in Pakistan over the years. Had a Pakistani man gone on the show and befriended a Hindu girl, these same people would have been applauding him and his behaviour. This is based on the misguided notion that a country’s honour is somehow tied to that of its women. If there’s something this country’s good at, it’s sanctimonious hypocrisy.

__________________
Kon Kehta hy k Main Gum-naam ho jaon ga
Main tu aik Baab hn Tareekh mein Likha jaon ga

A near miss

January 24th, 2011

How safe are we? That is the question raised by the recent 7.2 magnitude earthquake which had its epicentre in Dalbandin, Balochistan but was felt in much of the country. That the earthquake did not cause massive loss of life and property can be attributed to luck and nature. Since the earthquake originated in the relatively unpopulated Dalbandin and struck at a depth of as much as 84 kilometres, the country was able to escape the death and destruction that accompanied the 2005 earthquake.

The problem is that we may once again confuse luck with fate. Despite our experience with the 2005 earthquake, there are no signs that we have learnt anything. There was a demand after the collapse of the Margalla Towers in Islamabad after the 2005 quake, for earthquake-resistant buildings. Construction companies boasted in ads that their buildings met the standards required to withstand even the most destructive quakes. That turned out to be nothing more than a short-lived fad. It is an open secret that building associations in all major cities of the country are in bed with land mafias, abetting their desire to take shortcuts in search of profits.

High-rise buildings are death traps. They are shoddily constructed, lack fire escapes and are rarely up to international standards. Given that major earthquake fault lines run through much of Pakistan, this is a risk we cannot afford. We need to demand that buildings that are not safe be reinforced or demolished. Cities like Los Angeles and Tokyo, that are under constant threat of earthquakes, have pioneered earthquake engineering that allows their buildings to withstand even the most severe quakes. Given that Pakistan falls under that same high-risk category, we need to emulate them. That will not be possible without enforced zoning laws and an end to the culture of corruption that has poisoned the construction industry in the country.

Learning from our neighbours

January 24th, 2011

The court martial of Indian Lieutenant-General PK Rath on charges of corruption in the Sukna land scam is sure to provide fodder to the usual suspects in Pakistan. Look, they will say, this proves that the Indian Army is as corrupt as its counterparts in Pakistan. But we should be taking a very different lesson from this case. Both civilian politicians and the military in India have been implicated in corruption scandals. Yet the difference between the two countries is that in India, the guilty have been held responsible for their misdeeds.

PK Rath’s crime was that he provided a No-Objection Certificate to, and signed a Memorandum of Understanding with, a private construction company without informing his superiors. The involvement of the army in business deals will sound familiar to Pakistanis. We finally have a Supreme Court that is not beholden to, or afraid of, the army, so some of its commercial activities are now being scrutinised. That is what happened in the Makro case, but given the scope of the army’s business interests, this reflects only the tip of the iceberg. What is unthinkable is that the Pakistan Army would hold its own accountable in a transparent manner.

In the recent past, Indian generals have been hauled up on charges as diverse as sexual assault to possessing property disproportionate to their incomes. Even in the Sukna land scam, it was a sustained public outcry that prompted action. At an earlier court martial, it was recommended that Lieutenant-General Avadesh Praksah, who was also involved in the corruption controversy, be fired. The then army chief, Deepak Kapoor, however, decided to let Prakash off with a mere slap on the wrist. A public hue and cry erupted, leading to a stern, ultimately successful recommendation from the defence minister, calling on Praksah to be relieved of his post. This is a good example of the fact that in India, it is the civilian set-up that is in charge. Before pointing fingers at India, we should ask if we can say the same of ourselves.

Jailed violence

January 24th, 2011

As if we did not have a tough enough struggle keeping militancy under check, it seems that jails scattered across the country are serving as breeding grounds for militants. Given the overcrowding in jails, dangerous militants invariably end up being incarcerated with ordinary criminals — many of them young and highly impressionable. According to a report in this newspaper, intelligence agencies have found that when these prisoners are released, they are swiftly scooped up by terrorist organisations, who keep in touch over mobile phones with their operatives in jails. Corruption on the part of jail staff means prisoners can easily obtain phones. Calls tapped by agencies say the recruitment of militants in this fashion is not unusual. In view of these findings, a proposal to set up separate jails for militants is reportedly being given some serious thought.

Militants are often the best trained and most educated members of prisons. They also have links with an elaborate support networks in the form of their organisations. This places them in an ideal position to lure others to their cause. The best educated — such as Ahmed Omar Saeed Sheikh convicted in the Daniel Pearl case — have been known to win over their jailers as well.

Under the circumstances, the suggestion that separate jails be set up seems wise. We hope this will happen. But on a wider level, the report about the goings-on in jail is a reminder that more attention needs to be given to reforming ordinary criminals, rather than merely detaining them. This holds especially true of younger criminals jailed for petty crimes. If militants can mould their minds, perhaps other forces can reshape them, and help transform them into useful members of society. Rehabilitation should be the focal purpose behind decisions to imprison people. This, too, should be thought about as part of any new strategy on jails.

__________________
Kon Kehta hy k Main Gum-naam ho jaon ga
Main tu aik Baab hn Tareekh mein Likha jaon ga

Another epitaph for ‘strategic depth’

January 25th, 2011

The death in custody of retired ISI officer Colonel Amir Sultan, alias Col Imam, who had been abducted by the Taliban early last year, points, once again, to the blunder of ‘strategic depth’ as national policy towards neighbouring Afghanistan. Some reports have ‘Taliban sources’ saying that he died of a heart attack, but his mentor General (retd) Hamid Gul says Col Imam was never a heart patient and that he had been killed by Indian agents and American private security firm Blackwater. Col Imam was kidnapped along with another former ISI officer, Khalid Khwaja, in March 2010. His captors demanded ransom and the release of Taliban prisoners by Pakistan. Mr Khwaja was shot by the allegedly Punjabi Taliban, on a purported phone call from Islamabad, where the caller accused him of being a CIA agent.

Col Imam was an icon of Pakistan’s Afghan policy after 1996, which ousted the Indian embassy from Kabul and facilitated the inauguration of the ‘Islamic’ government of Taliban, one of the cruellest in human history. Islamabad recognised the Taliban government in a manner typical of the Kargil Operation in 1999. The then prime minister Nawaz Sharif didn’t know who had okayed the recognition, because he hadn’t. Foreign Minister Gohar Ayub followed orders that came from a source other than the prime minister; but that was, more or less, routine in Pakistan by then.

Trained by Col Imam in camps that also trained terrorists for infiltration into India, the Taliban did something in Mazar-i-Sharif that began the regional isolation of Pakistan in pursuit of the policy of ‘strategic depth’. They finally got hold of Mazar-i-Sharif in 1998 and this came at the cost of a massacre in which hundreds of locals were killed, including Iranian diplomats, in the city’s consulate at the hands of men sent in from Pakistan. The good colonel claimed the Taliban who invaded Mazar-i-Sharif were unarmed and were mostly traders! He also put the blame on Iran for asking the Hazara Shias to resist and start the massacre.

The American-trained Colonel Imam was a commando officer who trained the mujahideen in camps run by Pakistan and the US. He was sent into Kandahar in 1994 to keep the Taliban going in the right direction but he soon moved to the more ‘strategic’ location of Herat, where he was given the dubious title of ‘king of Herat’. Today, India has a presence in Afghanistan with the help of the international community to prevent Pakistan from repeating 1996; and Iran is aggressively pressuring Herat through infiltration to forestall another Pakistani attempt at checkmating its neighbourly interests in Afghanistan. The Mazar tragedy of 1998 had brought the Taliban and Iranian troops eyeball-to-eyeball on the border, with Iran blaming Pakistan for the confrontation.

The Punjabi Taliban — a group of fighters from Lashkar-e-Taiba, Jaish-e-Mohammad, Harkatul Jihad al Islami, Harkatul Mujahideen, and various other jihadist groups — are all the product of the Pakistani state, which is proved by the statement given out by Khalid Khwaja and Col Imam saying that they were going to the Taliban territory in North Waziristan on advice from ex-army chief Mirza Aslam Beg and ex-ISI chief Lt-Gen (retd) Hameed Gul. The Punjabi Taliban wanted their men held by the ISI released, and finally killed the two ISI hostages when this was not done.

The Taliban have denied that they had anything to do with the killings, but the truth is that when post-kidnap demands were communicated, they contained one from the Afghan Taliban too, asking for the release of an Afghan Taliban leader captured outside Karachi. What is most significant is the fact that the Taliban and al Qaeda care little for Pakistan’s official policy of ousting India and targeting the Americans in Afghanistan. What they have in their cross hairs is Pakistan itself, and they see the Pakistan Army and the ISI as a hindrance in the realisation of this objective. Pakistan needs to change its Taliban-linked policy in the region in order to stave off the internal crisis generated by its totally misguided ‘strategy of depth’ against India. This would be completely in line with furthering our national and security interest.

__________________
Kon Kehta hy k Main Gum-naam ho jaon ga
Main tu aik Baab hn Tareekh mein Likha jaon ga

Terrorism in Russia and Pakistan

January 26th, 2011

No one has so far claimed responsibility for the suicide attack on January 24 at Moscow's Domodedovo airport, killing 35 and injuring 84, but chances are that it would be attributed to the Chechen Islamist warriors of North Caucuses.
The terrorist outfit is called the Islamic Caucasian Emirate and has attacked many cities in the past decade, challenging Russia's sovereignty in the Caucasian region. The latest attack is far more lethal and symbolically far more potent than the one carried out in the Moscow subway system in March 2010, killing 40, or the one carried out at the Moscow-St Petersburg rail line in 2009.

Many of the terrorists killed fighting the separatist Chechen war against Russia have been of Arab origin, indicating the strong links the Caucasian region of Russia has with the Gulf region, going back to the uprising of Imam Shamyl against the Tsar in the 19th century. The emir of the Islamic Caucasian Emirate is a Chechen, Doku Umarov, and succeeds a number of earlier leaders killed by Moscow. The al Qaedalinked Arab terrorists killed so far have been: Ibn al Khattab in 2002, Abu al Walid al Ghamdi, killed in 2004, Abu Hafs al Urduni, killed in 2006 and Muhammad bin Abdullah bin Saif al Tamimi and Saif al Islam al Masri, killed in 2005.

The emirate terrorists are spread out in the mountains of North Caucuses and in Dagestan and are directed by al Qaeda from its stronghold in Pakistan. The extension of al Qaeda activity into Central Asia and the Caucasus began after 1996, when it returned to Afghanistan from Sudan and was able to interface successfully with the Pakistan-supported Taliban regime in Kabul. Jihadi outfits fighting Pakistan's covert war aligned themselves with the al Qaeda strategy, foremost among them being Dawat wal Irshad, headquartered in Lahore, facilitating the movement of such Central Asian rebels as Juma Namangani of Tajikistan.

Afghanistan was persuaded by those handling the Afghan civil war to recognise the rebel state of Chechnya under exSoviet army officer Dzhokhar Dudayev, leading the Chechen revolt. This step was most unfortunate because the world was not ready to recognise a province of Russia, after having established the rule of recognising the breakaway republics of the Soviet Union as independent states. Not even the Organization of the Islamic Conference was willing to pass a resolution in favour of an independent Chechnya.

Pakistani security agencies incorrectly took on Russia by encouraging the Taliban to accept a Chechen poetstatesman and ex-president of the breakaway Islamic republic, Zelimkhan Yandarbiyev, as a roving ambassador in Afghanistan. This was followed by extensive visits by Zelimkhan in Pakistan, where he went around meeting prominent religious leaders and outfits busy fighting Pakistan's covert war. As reported by Russia's Itar-Tass news agency on February 22, 2000, General Musharraf asked “former acting Chechen President Zelimkhan Yandarbiyev to leave the country immediately“ . Islamabad had finally corrected course on what it had earlier initiated. But by then, Afghanistan was reaching the dreaded date of 9/11 when it was to send its exiled Chechen warriors across the Durand Line to the tribal areas of Pakistan to join Central Asian Uzbeks to swell al Qaeda's international ranks. Zelimkhan thereafter ran away to Qatar, where he was killed in a bombing, allegedly carried out by Russian security services.

The latest Moscow blast will be linked to al Qaeda and, unfortunately, al Qaeda will be linked to Pakistan, because speculations abound about its leaders Osama bin Laden and Ayman al Zawahiri hiding somewhere in Fata. Pakistan has been a victim of the warriors al Qaeda has brought along.
Chechens and Uzbeks have attacked innocent Pakistani citizens and killed them mercilessly. Their allies in Pakistan, the jihadi and sectarian outfits, have broken free of the state's patronage and are now killing their own former murders as well as innocent Pakistanis. They, in all likelihood, will have been behind the suicide bombing in Lahore on January 25 when a teenaged bomber struck a police checkpost, killing over a dozen people. This, one could say, is yet another blowback of our misguided policy of so-called `strategic depth'.

In the Name of Honor

January 26th, 2011

On January 23, a couple was gunned down by the woman's brothers for marrying against the family's wishes. According to reports, the girl's family defended their action by saying the woman' s father had died of a heart attack upon hearing the news of the wedding, adding that she had also taken gold jewellery with her.

Clearly, the question of honour, though not spelled out, comes into play. Allegedly, the father died of shock because his daughter had, by marrying of her choice, maligned the family honour. The fact that she was a grown woman, able to make her own choices in life, seems irrelevant. What is shocking, however, is that this `honour' killing took place in an urban city, rather than the rural backwaters of the country where the lack of education and the prevalence of ancient customs can be held responsible for the brother's senseless response. And then, of course, there is the allegation of thievery. Neither action, however, justifies murder.

However, this attitude of meting out justice as we see fit has become part of our new culture. We no longer seem to need the courts. We lynch suspected thieves and blasphemers, we decide how the Aasia Bibis should be tried and under what laws, and threaten protests and killings to manoeuvre which bills should be presented in parliament and which should be turned into law.

It is precisely in order to change this culture, to show that there is no excuse for taking the law into one's own hands, that the culprits should be dealt with strictly. No matter what the reason, the issue should not have been resolved with guns. It is time that police authorities and the courts stepped up and made an example of the culprits, so the next time the male members of a family decide to `defend' their `honour', they pause to consider the ramifications. This killing should serve as a wake-up call to civil society to realise that we have a long way to go in terms of bringing education and the concept of women's rights to the masses. Much more needs to be done in this area, before age-old customs of women being treated as chattel are done away with.

__________________
Kon Kehta hy k Main Gum-naam ho jaon ga
Main tu aik Baab hn Tareekh mein Likha jaon ga

Mourning death

January 27th, 2011

Once more, we have heard the customary words of condemnation from leaders; again we have read reports of how police had received warnings of attacks on processions taken out to mark the Chehlum of Hazrat Imam Hussain. But this does not change the fact that more people have been killed by suicide bombers in both Lahore and Karachi and that the minority Shia sect has again been targeted. Things can simply not be allowed to continue along this path. We already have a badly damaged society. There are wounds across its body that continue to fester and bleed. We wonder how much more injury it can sustain before it is destroyed forever.

Police argue, with some degree of accuracy, that it is extremely difficult to stop suicide attacks. The bomber who struck a police cordon guarding the route of the main Shia procession in Lahore and the one who rammed his motorcycle into a police van in Karachi, both fall in this category. Three policemen were among the 13 killed in Lahore; four others — alongside the bomber — died in Karachi. But while it is true that stopping determined bombers is hard, the fact is almost all of us know who the forces behind these attacks are. Why, we must ask, has more not been done to disband the extremist forces that operate across the country? We can only assume their links with powerful groups which see them as a ‘strategic’ weapon is a factor in this. Apparently this ‘strategy’ is more important than the lives of citizens who perish and die each time a bomber detonates his vest.

The time has come to decide, once and for all, if we wish to save our country, or not. Already distrust and increased disquiet among minority groups is eating away at its soul. What we have left is a hollow shell, which can be filled with life again only if there is an end to the tactics that have allowed sectarian organisations to continue to operate, nurtured by support from organisations such as the Taliban who have done so much to fill the air we breathe with hatred.

Flimsy shelter

January 27th, 2011

The earthquake that rocked many parts of the country on January 19 mercifully inflicted little damage. But while people in the town of Dalbandin, like others close to the epicentre of the tremor, are obviously relieved they have been spared any loss of life, they are compelled at present to spend freezing winter nights protected only by canvas tents. Around 250 houses are reported to have collapsed in Dalbandin and the nearby settlement of Nokkundi. Almost all of them were mud structures, least able to withstand the jolts of a quake that measured 7.2 on the Richter scale.

Millions of people across the country live in housing that is just as unsafe. Estimates suggest that up to 70 per cent of people live in homes that offer inadequate shelter — these houses have usually been constructed using poor quality materials. It is not only quakes that leave them vulnerable. The worst brunt of the floods which swept across the country from July to September last year was borne by just such shelters. Even when there are no floods, death as a result of the collapse of dilapidated roofs, most often after rains, is a regular event taking .

Pakistan has since the 1950s spent a smaller and smaller percentage of its budget on providing housing to its people. This is one reason why the number of people living on the streets in all major cities has continued to increase quite dramatically from one year to the next. It is also true that in a country prone to natural disaster of various kinds, shelter is an essential need. The failure to address it means people everywhere remain at acute risk. This time, the people of Dalbandin and surrounding areas were fortunate. It would be unwise to leave them in the hands of fate by failing to prioritise the need to offer safe housing to people everywhere in the country.

A matter of trade

January 27th, 2011

The government’s consistency in pushing for greater market access for Pakistani goods in foreign markets is one of the few positive highlights of its economic policy, the most recent example of which was the prime minister calling upon the European Union to seek WTO approval for its temporary trade concessions. Unfortunately, when India raised objections to the deal, the EU began to get cold feet. The prime minister’s personal intervention will be necessary to get the deal back on track and we are grateful that he seems cognisant of his role.

Earlier last week, the administration sent a trade delegation to Turkey to seek more open access to the fastest growing market in the European region. Such measures are consistent with the first half of the president’s mantra of “trade, not aid” and we applaud the government for its efforts. But we would like to remind it that trade concessions alone will not get the country anywhere in terms of reviving economic growth. Even as the government was busy courting trade deals abroad, economists at home were pleading for urgent fiscal reform. Unless the government is able to curb its own deficit, the private sector will not have any room to breathe and all the trade concessions in the world will not be enough to keep businesses afloat.

As things stand right now, the government is borrowing nearly the entire available lending portfolio of commercial banks, leaving almost nothing for the private sector. It is also printing money at absurd rates, sharply raising inflation levels — and thus interest rates — to levels that make it all but certain that a new financial crisis is just around the corner. So while we applaud efforts to increase Pakistan’s market access, we would like to say that economic policy efforts are futile unless there is a serious plan to combat the ballooning fiscal deficit.

__________________
Kon Kehta hy k Main Gum-naam ho jaon ga
Main tu aik Baab hn Tareekh mein Likha jaon ga