Silencing hatred

February 7th, 2011

The bill passed by the Senate imposing restrictions on the misuse of loudspeakers and amplifiers in the federal capital to spread sectarian hatred is a welcome step. The use of such means to disseminate highly inflammatory messages is well known to all of us. We hear them in all our towns and cities. While attempts have been made in the past to crack down on the spread of such messages, they have not proved effective for very long. One reason for this is the lack of commitment of authorities to ensure that the laws are properly implemented by mosque imams and also by others who have sometimes relayed highly objectionable messages from functions arranged within their homes. In some cases, complaints to police have brought no results at all.

The step taken by the Upper House is a good one. But there is more that needs to be done. Similar measures need to go into force in all the provinces and some mechanism devised to ensure that the laws are enforced. The issue goes beyond that of sectarianism. Living with constant noise is hazardous to one’s physical and mental well-being, and this means that the noise pollution created by loudspeakers needs to be curbed as far as is practicable. Administrations across the country need to ensure that, this time round, the laws do not remain simply a part of written documents stowed away in files, but are actually brought into force.

While the Senate’s desire to deal with sectarianism is a positive move to deal with a menace which threatens to tear apart harmony within communities, it is insufficient to tackle the menace that has reared up over our society. The ban on the use of loudspeakers must be combined with the implementation of other laws, including a crackdown on widely available CDs and tape cassettes that incite hatred, sometimes handed out at mosques and madrassas. Their impact is disturbing. We must do everything possible to remove such material from the public realm and, by doing so, rebuild the lost harmony that is so urgently required in our country.

A voice from the past

February 7th, 2011

The discovery, three years after her assassination, of two BlackBerry phones used by Benazir Bhutto during the last days of her life adds a new saga to the story. Material retrieved from the sets, found from Bilawal House, includes some 32 text messages and emails sent by her in the weeks before she was murdered. It is assumed that the FIA forensic team will also have obtained a record of phone calls made using the devices. The development could bring forth important new evidence in a case that remains shadowed by all kinds of doubts and mysteries.

The theme that seems to be emerging from the BlackBerry data echoes much of what we have heard in the past. Benazir was deeply anxious about her security and had messaged Pakistan’s ambassador to the US, pointing out her desire to convey her fears to the US administration. She had written in much the same vein to friends in the international media.

It is perhaps significant that in these haunting messages from the past, Benazir had spoken of growing extremism as the main threat to her life. This falls in line with most versions we have heard regarding the events that took place at Liaquat Bagh on that wintery night on December 27, 2007. Of course, it cannot be denied that the failure of the Musharraf administration to provide her with adequate security led to her death. Perhaps there is need to look at the matter in a little more depth. Given the time lag between Benazir’s killing and the discovery of the phones from her family home, the possibility of some kind of tampering should not be ruled out. We hope FIA experts will also look into this. But the messages from the phones could offer new leads into the assassination. The historic nature of the messages may also be significant, and we hope that after a suitable time, these will be made public for all to access.

Devolving power regulation

February 7th, 2011

It is sometimes difficult to support the idea of a policy that will result in an increase in prices for the already struggling consumer, yet the suggestion by the Punjab and Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa governments to devolve the regulation of the power sector from the federal to the provincial governments is a sound one. The strongest reason for this is the fact that it would save the government upwards of Rs125 billion a year.

By devolving power regulation to the provinces, the federal government would remove one of the inconsistencies that developed as a result of the Eighteenth Amendment, where oil and gas are to be regulated by the provinces but electricity is regulated by the federal government. Given the interconnectedness of the energy sector, it makes sense to have regulation at only one level. The advantage of power being regulated at the provincial level is that the federal government would no longer need to spend Rs125 billion every year in trying to equalise the prices of electricity between provinces.

It would also have the added advantage of rewarding regions with lower rates of power theft with lower tariffs. Of course, this also means that some areas would see a significant rise in electricity prices, which is the most troubling consequence of this policy. Prices in Sindh and Balochistan, for instance, would be up to 50 per cent higher than in Punjab and Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa. But it is important to understand that one major reason why this difference exists is due to the much higher incidence of power theft in these regions. The most sensible way to close that gap is not through an artificial and unaffordable subsidy but rather through a concentrated effort in reducing theft and line losses. Why should the people of Sindh and Balochistan suffer because of thieves amongst them? It is time that the government went beyond rhetoric and took decisive action against this chronic problem.

It’s time to talk

February 8th, 2011

What looks like breaking of the Indo-Pak ice at Thimphu in Bhutan should not be allowed to peter out in mutual stonewalling. The foreign secretaries of India and Pakistan appeared to make headway on February 6 in bringing on track the stalled dialogue process, as they agreed to carry it forward to “resolve all outstanding issues in a constructive manner.” The 2008 terrorist bombing of Mumbai must not forever shadow the bilateral equation. Two years are enough to lick the wounds and assuage public feelings of outrage; after that, the business of running the two neighbouring states must be taken in hand. Indian Foreign Secretary Nirupama Rao has repeated the words framing Prime Minister Manmohan Singh’s policy towards Pakistan in her 90-minute meeting with her Pakistani counterpart, Salman Bashir. We hope that these words have not become simply a routine drill to counter an equally unmoving position from the Pakistani side.

If this exchange is genuine and not choreographed to maintain the deadlock, then the next step will have to be taken in the same spirit: a meeting between Indian Foreign Minister SM Krishna and counterpart Shah Mahmood Qureshi after consigning to oblivion the meeting they had in July last year, where no ground was given during talks and Mr Qureshi ended up rather ham-handedly accusing Mr Krishna of having arrived without a brief.

Enough of looking-over-the-shoulder rhetoric for both sides! India’s ‘terrorism first’ line is suffering from fatigue inside India. An opinion piece in India’s prestigious daily The Hindu observed: “Further delays in the resumption of dialogue with Pakistan will not make it easier to get satisfaction on the terror front. An entire year has passed since the Manmohan Singh government decided it was time to find a way to break the dialogue deadlock and kick-start the process of engagement with Pakistan.”

The tenor of Indo-Pak relations over the last decade has been characterised by India insisting on Pakistan letting up on cross-border terrorism and Pakistan insisting on talking of all the items of disagreement, including Kashmir. Preconditioning dialogue means dooming it beforehand. If India trims its sail, under much persuasion from the international community, will Pakistan, too, bend a little?

Pakistan has just celebrated its Kashmir Day with a countrywide holiday and Kashmiri leaders in Pakistan — who, not long ago, said that jihad is no solution — are once again talking of (covert?) war. For some months now, the very jihadi organisation accused by India and the international community of carrying out terrorist attacks in India and Afghanistan has been allowed to spearhead public agitation on three crucial national issues: the river waters Pakistanis think is being stolen by India; the blasphemy law which threatens the minorities in Pakistan; and the Kashmir issue which the said jihadi organisation thinks can only be resolved through war, even nuclear war.

Out of the two stalling states, Pakistan is in deep internal trouble. Its economy is belly-up, posting its lowest growth rate, and inflation threatening to go hyper. Because of terrorism and regional disaffection, governance is at its lowest ebb. There are foreign and local terrorists on its soil who bomb any place they like and kill whomever they choose, anywhere in the country. Under pressure from shortages and natural calamities, the people are adopting extremist views and embracing xenophobia not suitable for a state in such dire need of external support. The courts are bending in the face of extremism and are not protected against terrorist threats when hearing cases against terrorists.

Those in India who think it’s no use talking to Pakistan when it is sinking should know that waiting for Pakistan to evaporate from the face of the earth may take too long and lose India the chance to help Pakistan at arriving at a bilaterally acceptable solution to disputes which will actually be Pakistan’s ‘self-correction’ in disguise. It is quite possible that Pakistan has lost its ability to set things right at home even if it wants to, in which case it needs to be helped rather than challenged.

Hindus under attack

February 8th, 2011

The assault on members of minority communities continues. Over the last few months, violence directed against Hindus in Balochistan has been increasing. In the most recent incident a trader, Ramesh Kumar, was killed in what appears to have been a kidnapping attempt in Quetta gone terribly wrong. In both Sindh and Balochistan, it is thought Hindus may be the particular target of criminal gangs involved in abduction for ransom as the community frequently groups together to pay out the amount and recover the victim.

Following the incidents of kidnapping in Balochistan, leaders of the community have threatened to quit the province and leave for India. The provincial minister for minority affairs has meanwhile warned that unless action is taken to offer Hindus better protection, they may be forced to take action that would “embarrass the province and the country”. It is likely that this too alludes to a movement across the country’s eastern border. Many thousands of Hindus have headed that way over the last few decades, as their lives have become less and less secure, and their numbers have picked up again in recent years.

There is a disturbing element attached to the plight of the Hindus of Balochistan. Some who represent the community have expressed the apprehension that the ‘kidnappings’ in Balochistan may in fact be the work of security agencies, that ‘pick up’ Hindus on the basis of suspicions that they may be ‘Indian agents’ involved in fuelling the insurgency in Balochistan. Accusations that India is stirring up trouble in Balochistan have been voiced more than once by the interior minister and by those in the security establishment and their sympathisers in sections of the media. But even if there is some truth in this, there is no reason to believe that the Hindus in the province are playing any role in fomenting the unrest. Most of them are, in terms of ethnicity, Baloch, and have lived in the province for generations. Furthermore, by and large, they have no affiliation or affinity with nationalist groups – who, it should be noted, are made up mostly of those from the majority community. The whole issue of abductions and kidnappings of Hindus in Balochistan needs to be investigated keeping mind this context of alleged Indian involvement in the province.

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

Benazir’s murder and Musharraf

February 9th, 2011

After failing to get former president General (retd) Pervez Musharraf to respond to investigations pertaining to the assassination of Benazir Bhutto, the Federal Investigation Agency (FIA) is getting ready to approach the Anti-Terrorism Court-III in Rawalpindi to get him declared a proclaimed offender from law. The exact words from the prosecutor were: “the court could be requested to declare him as a proclaimed offender if Musharraf does not submit himself before the law.” The FIA considers him an absconder in its latest report on the killing of the former prime minister and leader of the PPP.

What is more, investigators say they have found no direct evidence against the former president so far, but that he could not be completely cleared at this stage. The FIA has proceeded on the basis of a Joint Investigation Team (JIT) of the FIA, which had investigated former intelligence bureau chief Ijaz Shah and former director general of the crisis management cell of the Ministry of Interior Brig (retd) Javaid Iqbal Cheema. More directly, the trial of Saud Aziz, former Rawalpindi CPO, and Khurram Shahzad, the then SP of Rawal Town division, has led investigators to the conclusion that the suspicious behaviour of the two, before and after the killing, could be linked to Mr Musharraf.

TV discussions Monday night revealed that the FIA had sent a questionnaire to Mr Musharraf relating to the case but that he had not responded. Those defending him have declared non-receipt of the questionnaire and have dismissed the position that he could be declared a proclaimed offender. But, more ominously, the FIA’s attachment of an email message to their statement before the court points to possible complicity: The said email sent by Musharraf to Ms Bhutto says that “her security depended on the nature of her relations with him.” This, the investigators say, could be interpreted as a threat.

Further, Ms Bhutto is mentioned as saying that Musharraf was annoyed with her because she was inclined towards a political reconciliation (with Nawaz Sharif); that in her letter to Mark Siegel, a foreign journalist, she had stated that she felt threatened from Mr Musharraf, former Punjab chief minister Pervaiz Elahi and Brigadier (retd) Ijaz Shah. A news leak had earlier revealed that the plot to murder Ms Bhutto was hatched in the house of a brigadier, but this was quickly dismissed by the government as rumour not founded on truth.

One could point to a number of other details appearing in Ms Bhutto’s last book, so far not highlighted in the case. Qari Saifullah Akhtar, leader of Harkatul-Jihad-al-Islami, linked to al Qaeda, first noticed as a co-accused in the coup-attempt against Ms Bhutto’s government by some army officers, was mentioned by Ms Bhutto like this: “Enter Qari Saifullah Akhtar, a wanted terrorist who had tried to overthrow my second government. He had been extradited by the United Arab Emirates and was languishing in Karachi central jail. According to my second source, the officials in Lahore had turned to Akhtar for help” (Reconciliation: Islam, Democracy & the West; Simon & Schuster, p. 221).

Akhtar was in the custody of the government. Why was he let out before her arrival? After Ms Bhutto’s assassination, he was found not guilty by a court and is at large. The spoor leads to al Qaeda because a commander of al Qaeda had owned to killing an ‘American asset’. Then there is a series of bits of evidence of army officers acting at the behest of al Qaeda — as in the murder of Brigadier (retd) Faisal Alvi who had published a statement in the British press that he had informed COAS General Kayani that some military top brass were working with al Qaeda.

An intercepted phone call of the leader of the Taliban, Baitullah Mehsud, indicated he had got Ms Bhutto killed in Rawalpindi. The accomplices who facilitated the act are currently in jail facing trial, but no one dares take seriously their connection with a powerful Taliban-linked madrassa in Nowshehra in Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa. There is new emerging evidence that a phone call from Islamabad to the terrorists of Fata can get people killed. An army general sitting on top of all this in 2007 has to explain a few things.

Dull lessons

February 9th, 2011

Some of the reasons for the crisis we face on the educational front has surfaced in the survey conducted by the Fair and Free Election Network’s (FAFEN) Education Monitor Division in 137 schools for girls in 87 districts of the country. The survey, not entirely unexpectedly, found that 72 per cent of the schools had no sanitary staff and 49 per cent did not have facilities for clean drinking water. Past monitoring of schools by various organisations have come up with similar findings, with schools across the country found to lack even the most basic amenities, such as boundary walls and furniture.

FAFEN’s findings on the state of development in the country have not been limited to education. In the past, the organisation has found similar disarray in the basic health care sector. These findings, more than the accounts of infighting between allies or the antics of various individual politicians, say a great deal about the state of democracy in our country. It amounts to a virtually criminal offence, or at least the worst possible demonstration of inhumanity, that while our children attempt to obtain an education in these dire circumstances, our parliamentarians — from both sides of the political divide — seek more perks and privileges for themselves to cushion their already luxurious lives.

What is also disturbing are the findings from the survey of a reluctance to disclose information. Most of the schools surveyed were reluctant to give out details of sanitary staff or others on their rolls. The ratio of children per teacher, at 45, was highest in Fata — a region that reflects some of the lowest development statistics anywhere in the country. Perhaps this accounts for the militancy that has, over the years, flourished and grown in all the tribal regions of the country.

Findings such as these are reflective of the reasons why we find ourselves in such a mess. More than anything else, we need education to move forward; our little girls need it at least as much as the boys. There are many accounts from the developing world of how learning for girls can help uplift entire families and act to empower women. This is something we desperately need, but it cannot happen unless priorities are set right and the state of schools improved drastically.

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

The art of going wrong collectively?

February 10th, 2011

President Zardari is looking around for support among parties that have collectively or singly sought the end of his party’s rule in the recent past. He wants to discuss “important national issues” at an all-parties (or round table) conference (APC) with them because the PPP government is too weak to take decisions that the masses would reject unless their political leaders persuaded them not to do so.

There is a whole list of ‘national issues’ pertaining to the economy on which he has already had the measure of the opposition; there is also the additional issue of Raymond Davis, an American who has killed two men in Lahore, whose politically ordained acquittal from a Lahore court could mean a serious rupture of relations with the United States. What will the opposition tell him?

We have already sized up the parties opposed to the government in respect of their proposed ‘solutions’ for the ailing national economy and come to the conclusion that the solutions are either impracticable or ineffective as applied to the immediate needs of the economy. If the APC backs what political leaders and retired bureaucrats from the Foreign Office are recommending on TV, then it will be a collective blunder. And if the PPP government does not act upon its recommendations, then it will have burned another bridge to its survival in power.

The government is already in consultation with the largest party in the opposition, PML-N, about what to do with the economy. It looks like a kowtow because the consultations followed the issuance of an ultimatum by Nawaz Sharif, who is struggling to find middle ground between hawks and doves in his own party. The interim report from Mr Sharif on how the consultations are going is negative, which could mean that the results of the APC would come to nought or that it will be boycotted.

The media is somehow convinced that since the PPP government has proved to be incompetent it must be pulled down constitutionally, through a no-confidence move in parliament. This ‘verdict’ of TV anchors and hosts may be founded on the mistake of not objectively examining the country’s overall governance, under attack from terrorism and general insecurity that comes from the isolationism of Pakistan’s army-driven foreign policy. Mr Sharif is frequently accused by TV hosts of being a ‘friendly opposition’, as if the constitution allowed only a hostile opposition, its instincts honed on toppling governments.

There is a hint of indirectly revealed truth in Mr Sharif’s reluctance to topple the PPP coalition government. He may think that it would be the wrong moment to take over and run the country because of the conditions prevailing in the country, which prevent normal governance. He has had a taste of it in Punjab, where his party has not covered itself in glory after the ouster of the government of Chaudhry Pervaiz Elahi. His brother, Shahbaz Sharif, has been highly regarded as an administrator in the past but, this time around, he has failed to tame the province, despite an affectionate electorate.

Facts being revealed in respect of Raymond Davis tell us that, under international law, Pakistan must treat him as a diplomat and let him go. At least three TV discussions carried out with experts from Pakistan, the UK and the US reveal that the Foreign Office had accepted, without demur, a notification from the US Embassy in Islamabad designating Davis as an American diplomat. But most retired generals and diplomats want Pakistan to stand up on its hind legs and punish the American. The idea is to end the ‘American nexus’ once and for all.

Will the APC look seriously at the consequences of defying international law and then advise the government not to fly off the handle? Or will it recommend standing up to a superpower widely perceived as a bully, hanging Davis and kicking out ‘thousands of Blackwater terrorists’ that our Urdu columns keep telling us are infesting Pakistan? Alas, chances are that the APC will announce unrealistic earth-shaking decisions instead of pragmatic solutions. And if the government comes out of the APC saying it can’t execute its directives, it will look worse than it is looking now.

Shedding deadwood

February 10th, 2011

The extensive federal cabinet has held what Prime Minister Yousaf Raza Gilani has said would be its last meeting in Islamabad and its members have handed in their resignations, which will now, in line with the Constitution, be sent to the president. The decision to disband the cabinet, announced by Mr Gilani a few days ago, also falls in line with a Constitutional requirement under the Eighteenth Amendment. The Amendment stipulates that the cabinet size should be no more than 11 per cent of parliament — which makes for 49 ministers. The outgoing cabinet, with some 60 members — many times larger than the bodies that run the US, the UK, France or Germany — had been the subject of some ridicule, with the government’s own financial team also calling for austerity measures including less spending on ministers.

By dismissing the body, Mr Gilani also takes a stride towards implementing the 10-point agenda of Mian Nawaz Sharif, before the February 24 deadline runs out. The step makes it harder for Sharif to insist the agenda is being ignored, as he has been doing, given the reversal in the petrol price increase, steps to recover loans and now the cabinet cut. The measure also illustrates a commitment towards ensuring better governance. It was also becoming apparent that the government needed to make changes to ward off the heated criticism it has been facing on a number of fronts.

It is as yet unclear how many of the ministers who have resigned will be re-inducted and how many new faces may appear. Inevitably, a process of lobbying for the prestigious slots is already on in Islamabad. For the citizens of the country, what may matter significantly more than the actual size of the cabinet is the issue of what it can achieve. Competence and integrity are both vital factors in this. So is teamwork. It must be hoped that the new, smaller cabinet will do better on this front than the body that has bid farewell — and thus play a part in establishing a more efficient administration capable of taking the country out of the crisis it faces.

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

Women and suicide-bombing

February 11th, 2011

Near Khar, Bajaur agency’s headquarters, authorities have arrested a would-be female suicide-bomber wearing an explosives-laden vest. In all, six people were apprehended after a tip-off that women were being trained as suicide bombers. Bajaur is where terrorists are most under pressure because our security forces have carried out a series of effective military operations in the area since August 2008.

Bajaur also has the distinction of experiencing the first woman suicide bomber attack, although women have been reported as receiving training in neighbouring Malakand for attacks in Afghanistan. A woman wearing a bomb under her burqa had struck near a UN food distribution point on December 25. It is not possible to confirm if the women involved in such attacks do so of their own volition or are forced into doing so. Indeed, there is evidence that they have been forced to kill themselves ‘in the name of Islam’ by their handlers who often happen to be their close relatives.

In Khar, three more girls meant for human sacrifice were discovered from the house of a Taliban warrior charged with handling the suicide brigade. The girl caught wearing a suicide-vest was under his care, which conforms to the pattern earlier discovered in Malakand-Swat where a girl had actually succeeded in running away from an underground nursery of suicide-bombers for sale to Taliban commanders in South Waziristan.

The induction of women in suicide-bombing is not new and was first adopted in the Middle East and in Tamil Nadu in India. It indicates a level of desperation on the part of the terrorists who seem to confront better pre-attack detection methods employed by victim societies. There are additional factors too, especially applicable in the case of Pashtun families involved in the Taliban terrorist enterprise. Perhaps this can be explained sociologically, especially given a deeply conservative and misogynistic society that sees a girl as a burden and a liability. Meena of Malakand was told by her brother: The place for a woman is either at home or in the grave. If you leave the house I’ll cut off your head and put it on your chest. What better end than earning some money by sending her to her grave in the way of Islam?

Late commander of the Taliban, Baitullah Mehsud used to buy suicide bombers from all over the Tribal Areas which, in turn, exploited the ‘market’ in south Punjab where ancillary jihadi organisations, earlier nurtured by the state, served as suppliers. It was discovered by the Punjab police that most of the south Punjab outfits that supplied suicide-bombers to the Taliban and al Qaeda also committed crimes to collect funds for their patrons who were already assisted by private funding from the Middle East.

Punjab, too, has been on record for buying suicide bombers to settle personal scores. In 2008, Bhakkar in Punjab — adjacent to DI Khan in Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa — experienced a blast that left over 26 people dead. Rs1.2 million were paid to someone who trained suicide bombers for warlord Baitullah Mehsud, and the bomber was delivered at Bhakkar one day before the incident. The target was killed, but so was PML-N MNA Rashid Akbar Khan Niwani. The induction of women is the beginning of a new tactic and indicates difficulties experienced by the terrorists in the face of the growing capacity of the Pakistani security agencies to prevent male suicide attackers. A woman is difficult to detect as a suicide-bomber as she wears an all-covering burqa to hide her body under Islamic injunctions. It is also improper to body-search a woman in public places unless there is a special arrangement made for doing so.

In the coming days, a more desperate al Qaeda and a more hunted Tehreek-i-Taliban are expected to resort to using women-bombers. The tragedy is that women are more dispensable in Pakistani society and are prevented by their low social status from resisting their induction into the terrorist enterprise. The Taliban routinely bomb girls’ schools in order to further reduce the nation’s ability to educate itself and make progress in raising its collective consciousness which is already at a low level. We may be on the threshold of a new trend in killing.

Disarray in the air

February 11th, 2011

The chaos that has overtaken PIA has affected thousands of passengers, with many of them stranded at Islamabad International Airport, and according to some reports, inflicted a loss of Rs750 million on the airline. Dozens of domestic flights and a few international ones have failed to leave the ground. Pilots, engineers, flight attendants and ground crew have all joined in. Show cause notices, dismissal orders and attempts to arrest the striking crew have not had the slightest effect. Nor have attempts to talk with representatives of the Joint Action Committee made up of PIA employees. A new round of talks on February 9 failed, after government representatives refused to commit to a dismissal of the PIA MD as demanded by employees. There was also an ugly clash between Airport Security Force personnel and officials.

The real issue, of course, is the deal with Turkish airlines, which employees wish to see cancelled. Under it, in a plan which PIA managers say was aimed at reducing the massive losses suffered by the airline, it had been decided to sell some key routes to Turkish Air. These included the routes to Manchester and New York, usually plied by packed flights. PIA staff, who fear massive lay-offs once the deal goes through, have been expressing their reservations. They also ask how selling off some of the airline’s most lucrative routes can curb losses and point out that while PIA says it is in a state of loss, it still doles out massive salaries to senior staff.

The issues raised by the employees are relevant. What is still more crucial is that the matter be handled coolly, logically and with the purpose of bringing long-term, rather than merely short-term, benefit to PIA. A huge mistake was made by failing to talk to employees earlier and take them into confidence before the deal was signed. As things stand now, the government also needs to review the deal. It must assess what its impact will be and do all it can to save PIA from slipping into a still greater state of crisis. The multiple issues within it need to be examined, but all those who keep the airline flying must be consulted rather than going about matters in the way the Turkish deal was handled.

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

Good riddance

February 12th, 2011

There is no sight quite as pathetic as that of a dictator who refuses to accept his time is up. It took 18 days of peaceful but resilient protests to convince Hosni Mubarak to finally step down. Just a day before his resignation, the despot gave a foolishly defiant speech in which he declared that he would continue in office till September. As a sop to the protesters, he said that he would transfer some of his powers to Vice-President Omar Suleiman. It appears that he has handed over the reins to the Higher Military Council with Defence Minister Hussein Tantawi in charge. Of course, this should be seen as a transition to a free and fair election so that the people of Egypt can choose their own leader. This is because Mubarak came from the army which is very much part of the status quo. So even if the army is to run the country for now, it must set a clear timeframe for polls and transfer of power to an elected government.

The protesters don’t want a new boss who is in all respects the same as the old boss. They have clearly shown, in over two weeks of largely peaceful demonstrations, that their only goal is democracy and the Egyptian military cannot provide that.

The fact that Mubarak had to go must also have dawned on the Obama administration which had cautiously been hinting that the days of the US propping up the Egyptian dictatorship were over. They must now put their fears about the Muslim Brotherhood taking over to one side and make this shift official by threatening to turn off the spigot of funds unless free and fair elections are speedily conducted.

After the disastrous reception to his speech, Hosni Mubarak had only two options. Knowing that the protests were only going to get more fierce after his latest speech he could either relinquish office or unleash the full might of the military on his citizens. Of course, had he opted confrontation he would have lost all his allies and there was no guarantee that the military would follow his orders. One thing is for sure: he will not be missed.

Talks without normalisation

February 12th, 2011

The familiar slow dance of India-Pakistan talks is on again. The decision to talk was taken in April 2010, by the prime ministers of the two countries in Bhutan, and now the foreign secretaries have declared that the talks will actually start. But before that, a meeting between the foreign ministers will take place in the coming days and weeks — perhaps to diffuse the unpleasantness that they had caused in July last year by doing the opposite of what they were supposed to do: promote trust and confidence.

In Pakistan, interest in these talks has dwindled over time, perhaps, because everyone knows that Pakistan has stiffened its stance on talks in the post-Musharraf period and expressed this new toughness through Jamaatud Dawa, the global terrorist bugbear that Pakistan refuses to tame.

India and Pakistan’s foreign ministers’ scuffle last year was said to have been caused by Indian Minister for External Affairs SM Krishna’s insistence on the ‘piecemeal’ approach, while Foreign Minister Shah Mehmood wished to focus on what has come to be known as ‘composite dialogue’. The composite talks contained a number of ‘baskets’, some of them created after the issue of Kashmir as firewalls that Pakistan had to breach before getting to the ‘core’ of the India-Pakistan quarrel. Now, the issues being talked about are nine instead of the original five or so, indicating how, with the passage of time, disputes escalate and tighten the space for normalisation.

If the two ministers have a successful meeting and Jamaatud Dawa doesn’t queer the pitch again by launching another adventure, then the two governments will start talking of counter-terrorism, humanitarian issues, peace and security including CBMs, the Kashmir issue, Sir Creek, etc.

In India, the coalition government of Manmohan Singh is hamstrung by hostile public opinion and the media, although the prime minister himself is convinced that applying the ratchet of Mumbai to the talks would get India nowhere, especially when Mr Singh is thinking of regional economic ‘connectivity’ under Saarc to boost India’s status.

Pakistan can only benefit from his approach. Here, both the mainstream parties are in favour of normalisation with India as a way of ‘softening’ the tough stances adopted on the complex bilateral issues. But in this case, it is the Pakistan army and the ISI that call the shots and vet all documents to be signed. The test-firing by Pakistan of Hatf-7 cruise missile is a symbolic accompaniment to the news that the stalled talks are on again.

In the case of Siachen, the Indian army seems to have the upper hand in an otherwise civilian-dominated India. After Musharraf’s ham-handed adventure at Kargil the Indian public opinion, too, has hardened; and the recent unfortunate downturn in the Indo-China equation has not helped either. The Sir Creek affair is even more shocking and something no one outside the region can understand: both states have failed to meet the UN deadline for declaring their economic zones because of the Sir Creek dispute, but insist on arresting each other’s fishermen as a shameful bilateral pantomime.

Jamaatud Dawa has also added to the Kashmir dispute the question of river waters that India is presumably stealing under the Indus Water Treaty. As to why Jamaatud Dawa should raise the issue of waters in a mammoth rally in Lahore is incomprehensible. When Pakistan’s Indus Water Commissioner Jamaat Ali Shah declined to say that India was stealing Pakistan’s water, he was replaced after a record four terms at the job. Since Pakistan is going for international arbitration on the issue — it did not get much satisfaction out of an earlier resort to this on India’s Baglihar Dam issue — there will hardly be any discussion on it during the composite dialogue.

Pakistan says: Let there be resolution of disputes before normalisation. Since this process started a couple of decades ago, this approach has only worsened the state of disputes. Will it work this time? Most probably, it won’t.

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

The future of the Kurram Accord

February 13th, 2011

On Friday 3 February, 2011, a jirga composed of the elders of Fata announced a peace accord between Shias and Sunnis at Parachinar, the headquarters of the Kurram Agency. What has happened immediately to disarm suspicion is the opening of the Parachinar-Tal Road that has isolated the Shia community of Kurram since 2007 and exposed them to harm, as they tried to go to their homes through Afghanistan. The jirga has appealed to the government of Pakistan to ensure the execution of the accord, meaning clearly that it should re-establish its writ in the agency and ensure that the roads opened through a cross-sectarian agreement are safe from the Taliban adventurers known to be under no single command. One guarantor of the accord is a Taliban commander in Kurram, Fazal Saeed, declaring that “anyone violating the new accord would be punished according to shariah.”

Does this mean that both the Shias and Sunnis will observe the accord under the authority of the Taliban? Why has the Fata jirga concluded this accord between the two warring sects under the authority of the Taliban and not under the authority of the government of Pakistan? And if the Taliban are going to implement the accord how will the Shias — whom they consider apostate from Islam — submit themselves to their authority except as second-class citizens?

The government moved first in the direction of alleviating the suffering of Kurram in 2008. It got the two sects together in Murree and signed its own accord. This accord pledged the warring parties to vacate their forward positions, disarm their warriors and allow the Shia IDPs to return home in peace. The government was the guarantor of the accord but it decided not to act after the Taliban attacked the Shias again. After that, as Baitullah was succeeded by Hakimullah as head of the Taliban, the killings actually doubled. Interior Minister Rehman Malik gave the Taliban a 72-hour ‘ultimatum’ to cease offences and get out; when they did not, he simply forgot Kurram.

For all his talent at sorting out issues, Rehman Malik was overreaching himself. He was not aware that the peace at Kurram would come only after the army reclaimed the agency from the Taliban. The Kurram Shia community dropped out of the radar of Pakistan’s strategy when they refused to take part in General Zia’s covert war against the Soviet Union in Afghanistan. The general allowed the Sunni mujahideen to sort out the Kurram Shias before he died. The Shia leader Ariful Hussaini, who General Zia was accused of killing in Peshawar, was a Turi from Kurram. Zia allowed a similar massacre of the Shias in Gilgit the same year.

To some, the army has its reasons for not caring for the sufferings of the Kurram Shias, who form 40 per cent of Kurram’s population of one million. Since their ‘strategic abandonment’, they have fled in trickles to cities like Tal, Hangu and Kohat in Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa, where there are now significant pockets of Shia population. This area is now the target of the Taliban. An informally named ghetto, Shiagarh, has been an obvious target, located just 10 miles from Kohat going to the city of Hangu.

The Shias of Kurram Agency or Hangu travelling to Peshawar through Darra Adam Khel have been intercepted by the Taliban and beheaded, while Shias have, at times, blocked the Kohat-Hangu road and kidnapped Sunnis to exchange for the kidnapped Shias in Darra Adam Khel. The Taliban have come as far as Peshawar to put down a Shia leader, knowing that the Shias fleeing from Kurram have also landed with their friends in Peshawar. In Kohat, such notorious persons — including one particular ex-MNA known for his alleged links to al Qaeda and for his nexus with Lal Masjid in Islamabad — are known to be behind attacks on Shias. Pakistan’s paramilitary forces fight the Taliban, but every time the latter catch hold of our paramilitaries, they release the Sunnis on the basis of some swap deal but behead the Shias. The Kurram accord has little chance of holding unless the Shias swear allegiance to the Taliban against Pakistan. For the time being, however, they must wait, like the people of North Waziristan, for the writ of the state to return to their region.

Unemployment figures

February 13th, 2011

If the unemployment rate is as low as the government claims it to be, then even the minor uptick in the number of people without work would not be cause for worry. Yet we find ourselves highly sceptical of the data emanating from the Pakistan Labour Force Survey for fiscal year 2010, which suggests that the unemployment rate was a meagre 5.6 per cent. We are not certain as to whether the error is a genuine methodological flaw or whether the government is deliberately fiddling with the numbers, but all anecdotal evidence suggests that the real rate of unemployment is significantly higher.

Regardless of the source of the error, we would urge the government to come up with more accurate computations about the state of the Pakistani labour force. It is bad enough to provide inaccurate information to the public. It is even worse if the government is using this data in its own planning efforts.

A 5.6 per cent rate suggests that unemployment is not a serious problem in the country, yet the overwhelming majority of economists and public policy experts agree that it is one of the most serious economic concerns facing Pakistan today. If the government cannot get itself to admit the problem, then how can it be expected to work towards a solution?

It is highly likely that the labour force survey is just another in a long line of symptoms showing that the current administration has neither the wisdom nor the courage to confront the country’s economic challenges and would rather hide behind distortions and platitudes. We remain confounded as to why that should be so. The economy is admittedly in bad shape and it will take strong efforts to get it back on track, but there is a near-unanimous consent amongst experts as to how get the task done. It is time for the administration to cease commenting and start taking charge of the economy. The government owes it to the people to be honest about the scale of the problem as well as the hard measures that would be needed to move towards a solution.

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

Taliban in charge?

February 14th, 2011

Sometimes one is forced to wonder who is in control of this country. A few days after Shia and Sunni tribal elders from Kurram Agency reached a peace agreement in Islamabad, the Tehreek-i-Taliban Pakistan (TTP) chief in the agency, Fazal Saeed, told a press conference (addressed from a secret location) that his organisation would ensure that the peace deal was respected and would punish violators if the government or the jirga failed to do so. Coming from an organisation that is banned and guilty of crimes of the most horrendous nature, the whole thing seems a little high-handed, to put it mildly — as if the TTP is presiding over a government which is subservient to it.

The situation should not be taken lightly. The authorities need to assert the writ of state. We should not need a militant outfit to enforce peace agreements or act in other ways to keep order. The situation also demonstrates that, many months after the task to wage war on them began, the TTP remains an active, confident force, able to make its voice heard and impress on people the notion that it is fully in command of swathes of territory and, as such, in charge of their lives, determining whether or not it agrees with certain peace deals and warning that it is willing to mete out punishments under ‘Sharia’, or rather its interpretation of it.

All this is farcical. We have lost control of our country to a band of thugs. The territories they hold need to be wrested back from them. The government needs to ensure that it is the force in charge of affairs rather than a redundant entity with no real ability to influence events in large tracts of the country. This would amount to chaos — and we seem to be descending towards it at a perilous pace.

A novel measure

February 14th, 2011

The Sialkot Tehsil Municipal Administration (TMA) has said it will be using eunuchs to collect outstanding water supply charges as a measure to recover at least some of the Rs20 million outstanding in dues, due to the failure of the staff to collect them. The community of eunuchs has welcomed the decision and expressed confidence that they will be able to bring in every paisa the people have failed to pay, presumably over a period of some years. The Sialkot TMA’s decision falls in line with a December 2009 Supreme Court suggestion, while giving directions for eunuchs to be given the same rights as other citizens of Pakistan — that eunuchs be employed to recover outstanding sums of money.

The court had noted the considerable success of this measure in India. There is every reason to believe, given the similarity in social traditions, that the move will work here too. The Sialkot experiment should prove interesting. Eunuchs can create embarrassment by raising a commotion and fear of their ill-will is deeply rooted in our society. But beyond the issue of employment for eunuchs, the court had also ruled that their inheritance rights and constitutional rights be protected. This includes the right to vote and to hold identity cards. We wonder what has been done to deal with this aspect of the issue.

There is also a need to create wider social acceptability for eunuchs. The loan recovery idea is welcome, as it offers them some means of earning an income other than by begging. But the stigmatisation of the community, which leads to them being prevented from using public transport and venues, needs to be dealt with. The loan recovery drive is largely based around the fear eunuchs generate. There is also a need to eradicate this fear and make attempts to mainstream the group which currently occupies an awkward place on the outskirts of society.

Working on contract

February 14th, 2011

The interest taken by the Supreme Court bench hearing the Hajj scam case in the long-standing issue of retired officers being rehired on contract is encouraging. The re-employment of officials on this basis holds up the employment of others available to fill posts, who could also, perhaps bring new skills to the jobs assigned to them. It also, of course, allows favours to be meted out and encourages nepotism.

The court has been told by the attorney-general that there are currently 152 such employees. Of these, 15, including the director-general of the FIA and the inspector-general of Sindh police, are to be removed. The court also inquired as to why retired army officers were being appointed as secretaries and what qualifications they possessed to make them suitable candidates for these posts.

The questions raised by the bench are highly relevant ones and need answers. The unfortunate tradition of re-employment on contract has grown more and more deeply entrenched over the years. It has disrupted the system of promotion within government departments and thwarted career opportunities for promising mid-level officers, while the practice of bringing in army officials to fill posts previously held by civilians amounts to an act of injustice against those who have devoted their careers to the civil services. Military officers receive substantial perks, which should mean they do not require ‘rewards’ in other forms.

The apex court’s observations help focus attention on a crucial issue. We must hope it will lead to the situation being remedied. Merely ordering the exit of a few officials hired on contract is insufficient. What we need is for a policy to be put in place against such hiring and the system of promotions laid out within departments to be fully implemented. Unless this happens, nepotism and ad-hocism will remain in place and, as a consequence, our administrative set-up will continue to grow weaker and less able to serve the interests of the people. We have already seen this happen over a period of years. The process needs to be halted before it completely corrodes the mechanisms used to run the state.

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

Tense talks

February 15th, 2011

Behind the diplomatic words, uttered through closely clenched teeth, the tensions are so obvious there seems to be little sense in denying that they exist. The trilateral US-Pakistan-Afghanistan talks, scheduled originally for February 23 and 24, were intended to work out a plan for the endgame in Afghanistan and plans for a US troop pull-out. Both Islamabad and Washington have been denying a link with the ongoing Raymond Davis saga. But few doubt that Washington’s announcement on February 12 of a ‘postponement’ due to ‘political developments’ in Pakistan is linked to growing ire over the detention of the man who the US says enjoys diplomatic immunity and must, under the Vienna Convention, be freed.

There have been reports that the mood in Washington is growing angrier by the day with talk of expelling Pakistan’s ambassador to the country. This has been denied by Husain Haqqani. Tempers in the US capital will not be helped by the statement from the Tehreek-i-Taliban suggesting that Raymond Davis be hanged immediately, as a spy. The affair appears already to have cost Pakistan its foreign minister, with Shah Mahmood Qureshi reported to have lost his post under US pressure, following his apparent questioning of Davis’s immunity.

The affair is a complicated one. The delay in the crucial talks to discuss the future of Afghanistan will, without doubt, serve as a setback to the process — especially as we do not yet know when it may be possible to resume them. The talks, held periodically to assess stability in Afghanistan and tactics in the region, would have been the first since US President Barack Obama spoke of his vision for Afghanistan in December last year, reasserting plans for a complete pull-out by 2014 and a troop reduction this year but promising a longer term commitment to the region. Details would have been discussed the meeting that has been postponed. For all the brave words in public, Pakistan Foreign Office sources concede the delay in this dialogue is damaging — especially as it is still far from clear how the Davis affair will conclude, how far anti-Americanism will continue to grow as it lingers on and what impact it will have on the crucial issue of Pakistan’s sovereignty as well as on its longer term relations with Washington.

Faiz — poet of all ages

February 15th, 2011

South Asia is celebrating the birth centenary of Faiz Ahmad Faiz (1911-2011), an Urdu poet in the classical tradition whose poetry (as he lived) was read and recited by the citizens of Pakistan in the same manner as Allama Iqbal’s before him. The classical tradition seems to have paused after him. He harked back to Ghalib with his great love poems while linking himself with Iqbal with his hortative address to the common man.

He was the last of the five ‘greats’ — Anis, Mir, Ghalib, Iqbal, Faiz — of Urdu poetry. One can imagine Ghalib reading Faiz and marvelling over such metaphors as dard ayay ga dabay paon liyay surkh chiragh (‘And pain will come tiptoe carrying its crimson lamp’) from his early Naqsh-e-Faryadi days. And how would he have reacted to dard ki kaasni pazeb? Ghalib would have recognised the classical style of Faiz but would have loved the new metaphor and the colloquial touch of that wonderful tautology koi nahin, koi nahin aayay ga because he himself had begun intruding common speech into ghazal.

The pathos of Faiz sprang from his feminine acceptance of pain as a way of overcoming the foe, in lieu of preventing the infliction of pain through acquisition of power. This set him apart from Allama Iqbal. If Iqbal was ‘masculine’ in his expression of power (the hawk metaphor), Faiz was ‘feminine’ in his passive opposition to powers of tyranny and exploitation. His political affiliation never surfaced in his poetry except that he voiced the aspirations of the common man, the downtrodden and the exploited. When he first rejected autocracy and dictatorship, many marginalised him politically as a ‘poet of the Left’. Today, his ideological adversaries find solace in his verse.

Faiz’s father, Sultan Muhammad Khan, was Afghanistan’s ambassador to England and wrote the two volumes of Amir Abdur Rehman’s biography in English, which were to be become a basic document in the dispute over the Pakistan-Afghanistan border. Faiz Ahmad Faiz studied Persian classical poetry in his father’s great library in Sialkot while still in his teens and started writing ghazals as a teenager. He gained admission to Government College on the recommendation of Allama Iqbal, who had known his father in London. Faiz completed his MA in English at Government College and MA in Arabic at Oriental College Lahore, and became a lecturer in English at MAO College Amritsar in 1935 where he came under the influence of Professor MD Taseer. He married Englishwoman Alys Faiz, sister of Taseer’s wife, the nikah being solemnised in Srinagar by Kashmiri leader Sheikh Abdullah. He became a founder-member of the Progressive Writers’ Movement while teaching at Amritsar.

Faiz’s first collection of poems Naqsh-e-Faryadi came out in 1941 when he was teaching at Hailey College of Commerce in Lahore. He edited Lahore’s progressive literary journal Adab-e-Lateef till 1942, when his friend Majeed Malik took him to the British Army Public Relations Department in Delhi. In February 1947, he joined Lahore’s Progressive Papers Ltd as chief editor of two dailies, The Pakistan Times (English) and Imroze (Urdu), under the inspired leadership of Mian Iftikharuddin while taking part in the labour politics of the city. In 1951, he was arrested along with Communist leader Sajjad Zaheer for conspiring to overthrow the government of Liaquat Ali Khan. He remained in jail till 1955 and wrote some of his best poems, which to this day are recited by people of all political stripes. He was also arrested and jailed in 1958 under the first martial law.

His poetry was lyrical, above politics, (despite accusations to the contrary) and, therefore, eternal. His collections, such as Naqsh-e-Faryadi (1941), Dast-e-Saba (1953), Zindan Nama (1956), Dast-e-Tah-e-Sang (1965), Sar-e-Wadi-e-Seena (1971), Sham-e-Sheheryaran (1977) and Meray Dil Meray Musafir (1981) became a part of the national psyche. With time, even the rightist circles who had opposed him earlier began to recite his lines to express the collective emotion. Why is Faiz everyman’s poet today? What offended us in his post-1947 lines of disenchantment with the new state and its social injustice, today reflects our ethos as we protest at the intolerance and violence embedded in a security state dominated by the military — ahle tabal-o-alam as he put it.

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

An ad hoc decision?

February 16th, 2011

A full bench of the Supreme Court has proposed the appointment of two retiring members of the Court as ad hoc judges: Justice Khalilur Rehman Ramday, who was already ad hoc for one year, and Justice (retd) Rehmat Hussain Jafferey, who had retired as Supreme Court judge in November 2010. The appointments have been made under Article 182 of the Constitution “to work for a period of one and two years, respectively”. With two new elevations, the Court was already full strength.

It is the pendency problem that has compelled the Court to retain the two ad hoc judges. In normal circumstances, and given the new strength awarded to the Court by the recent constitutional amendments, this would have passed without notice. Much of the additional load of work has originated from public interest litigation — also noted as suo motu notice — and close surveillance of the executive’s execution of court orders.

The current president of the Supreme Court Bar Association (SCBA), Asma Jahangir, has raised some objections to the appointment of ad hoc judges. This, too, is nothing out of the ordinary. The lawyers working at the apex level are a part of the total judicial machinery that renders justice to the nation. The lawyers at the SCBA offer support or opposition, given their current representation. Under the last president, the SCBA could not have disagreed with the ad hoc appointments.

Ms Jahangir has verbalised some reservations that have been recorded at the political level about the tendentiousness of the Chaudhry Court. One can say that the lawyers elected her to give voice to the widely-held opinion that the Court has been crossing its constitutionally established boundaries. She has found fault with the method of passing a full-bench resolution and called it inappropriate. The other objection pertains to the reappointment of Justice Ramday.

Her remark was: “It comes to my notice time and again that, by and large, lawyers who appear in the Supreme Court in different cases were counting the days of Justice Ramday’s retirement.” Her objection to judicial ad hocism is also routine and it has been offered in the past too: “It stalemates the judicial process of fresh appointments.”

Ad hocism was once the habit of the executive because of its dominance of the judiciary as an institution. The famous Judges’ Case of 1996 had stated that “appointment of ad hoc judges against the permanent vacancies at the Supreme Court violates the Constitution”. It is to be noted that in the present case, the ad hoc judges have been appointed in addition to the full strength of the Court.

An officer of the Court has explained that the ad hoc appointments were necessitated by the load incurred by long hearings incurred by the 18th Amendment — five months — and similarly time-consuming cases like the NRO review case, the Bank of Punjab case, the Hajj scandal and the Reko Diq dispute. In addition, there was the tendency of the Court to hear suo motu cases.

The Court has been aggressive and not too discreet with obiter dicta on the part of the judges, in particular Justice Ramday, against whom Ms Jahangir has complained. The community of lawyers, once squarely behind the restoration of the Iftikhar Chaudhry-led Supreme Court, has been feeling uncomfortable with this tendency. Also, the overall ‘activism’ of the Court has led to the polarisation of legal opinion and politicisation of the Court itself. Judicial activism entails a backlash that has been felt by the Indian Supreme Court, where it all started, compelling it to roll it back. Some decisions of the apex court, especially in the domain of the economy, have had the effect of discouraging investors from the country. In economic terms, such a stance is seen by some to be isolationist and encroaching on the jurisdiction of the executive.

Prominent lawyers, once agitating for the restoration of the Court under Justice Iftikhar Muhammad Chaudhry, have felt that their work is greatly hindered by the suo motu direction of the apex and high courts. In fact, it has been argued that the high courts are not even legally immaculate in this regard. The current voice of dissent has correctly arisen from within the legal community.

Confused status

February 16th, 2011

The confusion over the Raymond Davis affair continues. The divergent statements coming from various PPP members add to this — especially when combined with the fact that the matter is before a court. It has also, apparently, cost former foreign minister Shah Mahmood Qureshi his job. The lack of agreement over whether or not Davis has diplomatic immunity and whether all the technical requirements in this respect had been fulfilled, has lingered on since the consulate employee shot dead two young men in the crowded Mozang area of Lahore late last month. PPP Information Secretary Fauzia Wahab’s most recent statement — maintaining that Davis is indeed protected by immunity and cannot be prosecuted — simply adds to the chaos. The law minister immediately said that Ms Wahab was making a ‘personal’ comment and the courts would decide the matter, while the same line has been taken by the Foreign Office in talks with the US ambassador in Islamabad.

Some two weeks after the incident, we still do not know exactly who Raymond Davis is; neither do we know exactly what happened at Mozang and, of course, we can only guess what will happen in the future. Ms Wahab’s comments, however, imply that her party may be considering giving in to mounting US pressure, even if this comes at the cost of our sovereignty. Islamabad has, after all, lost large portions of this already — as a result of drone attacks and other acts that assert Washington’s supremacy over us. The fact is that Mr Davis shot dead two people in broad daylight. It is odd we still know only little about who these men were and why they were carrying a gun. The third victim, run over by a consulate vehicle, appears to have been forgotten almost entirely.

The rule of law needs to be adhered to in the Davis case. But the mysteries that surround the affair need also to be solved. They go well beyond the issue of diplomatic immunity and raise key questions about what exactly is happening on our soil and for what reasons.

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