Jeopardising development

The drama in Islamabad shows no signs of ending any time soon. It was bad enough that the president of China had to cancel his trip (and spend an extra day in India to boot). But now international lenders are starting to worry, as was evidenced by the comments made by Asian Development Bank President Takehiko Nakao. Losing face only costs temporary embarrassment. Losing creditworthiness with one’s lenders can be a far more expensive and long-term affair. We would appeal to the protesters’ sense of patriotism, but they long since made it abundantly clear that they are more than willing to achieve their political ends. We would like to address the voters of Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa with a very simple request: if the PTI continues its protests in Islamabad, the only lender currently willing to finance the Dasu Dam, which will bring in $8 billion worth of capital investment and construction jobs in your province, will likely pull out. Instead of once again becoming — literally — the powerhouse of Pakistan, Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa will be reduced to a rump province.

We could, of course, list the multiple levels on which this would be bad for the country. Yes, it would require us to borrow money to build the dam, but this is the good kind of debt: the kind that builds critical infrastructure for the country. It would substantially increase electricity production capacity at the lowest possible marginal price and with the lowest possible environmental impact. And we could potentially lose it all because a leader cannot seem to understand the concept of proportionality. Does any of this matter to the chest-thumping nationalist supporters of the party? Or is their lust for power too great for them to care? Even take a look at the whole exercise of not paying your utility bills. How is that going to unseat a popularly-elected government? Perhaps, the only thing that this will achieve will be to cause major problems for all those who do burn their electricity bills, since the party leader will not be around to help get their connections restored. Such ideas are nothing more than populist gimmicks and do little to resolve any serious problems.

Enter new ISI chief

Naming the next chief of the Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI) a full month and a half before the incumbent’s retirement will no doubt raise some questions about the move being punitive. Yet such a view would overlook the strategic advantages involved. Not only does it put to rest disruptive speculations and mischievous rumours that so often swirl around such appointments, it also allows time for both the incumbent and his successor to work together to ensure a smooth transition. And a smooth transition in such a pivotal office — and one so dissimilar from any other posting that simply relying on experience alone does not help — is paramount. The post Lieutenant General Rizwan Akhtar is set to take over demands a range of expertise, and the ISI chief-designate has a packed resume. Having recently spearheaded the politically-sensitive Karachi Operation as the DG of the Sindh Rangers, he has also commanded troops in the rugged and unforgiving terrain of the Federally Administered Tribal Areas.

However, make no mistake: while he seems to possess the skills necessary for the job, DG ISI will be an entirely different challenge — one that has tested the resolve and character of the best. However, the most interesting bit of information that has come to the fore about the new DG is his diplomatic skills and tilt. It is being reported that, when at the US Army War College Lt Gen Akhtar wrote a paper back in 2008 advocating that Pakistan “must aggressively pursue rapprochement with India”. How far he will continue to hold this view, let alone pursue it, is anyone’s guess — but it is good to know that the man occupying such an important post cannot be charged with being unnecessarily hostile towards, or sceptical of, Pakistan’s archrival. Distancing his institution from the current political mess (whether the involvement is real or perceived) and ensuring water-tight country-wide intelligence monitoring over backlash from Zarb-e-Azb will be the two files he needs to open first.

Published in The Express Tribune, September 24th, 2014.

Damning ECP report

That there is an urgent need for a complete overhaul of the electoral process in Pakistan there is not a shred of a doubt. The release of the Election Commission of Pakistan (ECP) draft report on the conduct of the 2013 elections underscores this, and gives some pointers for the future. (Confusingly, the ECP later promptly denied ownership of the report, ignoring the fact that it was posted at its own website.) Few are going to read its 175 pages; and the social media was quickly awash with conspiracy theorists who found themselves, in their eyes, proven right — to say nothing of the revolutionaries in Islamabad who fell on the ECP confusion like vultures on a carcass. Nonsense. The 2013 election was the most scrutinised out of the 11 general elections that Pakistan has held, and international observers were unanimous in saying that they were ‘fairer than any previous elections’ — which is not to say that they were entirely free and fair because they were not, but in relative terms compared to previous ones they were.

The report points to failures in the provision of security and an electoral management system that ‘struggled to exert effective control at the lowest level’ — that is the level of the polling station and the management thereof. Returning Officers (ROs) tasked with scrutinising the applications of candidates pre-poll delivered inconsistent results, the scrutiny window was too narrow and the centralised scrutiny cell set up in the ECP Secretariat failed dismally. The Result Management System (RMS) failed to work as well, in part because those operating it were not properly trained for the job. Coordination between the ECP and its partners was abysmally weak at every level. Line departments, the police and the civil administration were all open to political influence. There are no surprises in the ECP report, which is a portrait of bungling incompetence everywhere. That said it does not form the basis of an invalidation of the election per se, but it does make crystal clear what needs fixing before Pakistan treads the electoral road again. It is equally clear that the ECP needs to manage its information flow a little more efficiently, as it managed to make itself look more than a little foolish on this occasion.

Pakistan and CERN

The news that Pakistan is now an associate member of the European Organization for Nuclear Research, better known as CERN, while welcome, holds some caveats that ought to prompt some serious introspection. Associate membership means that Pakistanis can now attend sessions at the CERN council; Pakistanis can apply for CERN staff positions; numerous educational opportunities are now open for students and budding physicists; it also means that Pakistani scientists have access to valuable research and data that they would not have been able to access before. But some of the benefits are mismatched. The ability to win contracts for hi-tech equipment for example, is likely to go unused as Pakistan is currently incapable of making any. Also, CERN and Pakistan have mismatched priorities. The Swiss institute is concerned with clues within the tiniest shards of an atom that might reveal the origins of space and time, “the fundamental structure of the universe,” as their mission statement reads. That aim is fundamentally divergent from Pakistan’s fixations — weapons and energy. (The concerns look mundane in comparison, if not less important.) The institute’s and the state’s purposes, then, are not aligned, and for its own end perhaps what Pakistan can learn — or wants to learn — would be limited at best. The biggest benefit, however, has less to do with the direct, tangible value that comes from the associate membership. Since the beginning, Pakistan has been isolated and shunned for its nuclear ambitions. Whether this isolation was in the form of American sanctions put in place in the ’90s, or the tedious, alarmist use of ‘nuclear-armed’ as an adjective to describe Pakistan in foreign publications, the stigma has persisted. (Pakistan’s refusal to sign the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty has not helped.) The associate membership may, above all, be an acknowledgement of Pakistan as a legitimate nuclear power that may have a positive role to play in atomic research. That helps mitigate the stigma to no end.

Fighting IS

War can produce some strange bedfellows, and the battle that is expanding by the day to prevent the spread of the Islamic State (IS) movement has produced some very strange bedfellows indeed. The threat presented is so large that it has forced countries normally at one another’s throats to make strategic alliances and use their air assets in a coordinated way to fight a common enemy. There can be no underestimating the reality of the threat presented by the IS, and it is not only regional. The IS has both global ambitions and global support, with young radicalised men and women going to fight in support of the IS in considerable numbers. They come from Europe, the UK, America and Canada and Australia and many other countries. The entity they join is a well armed courtesy of Americans who left behind vast amounts of modern equipment when they left Iraq, well led courtesy of the Sunni ex-members of the Iraqi armed forces, and very wealthy courtesy of the innumerable banks they have looted to fund themselves. It is not going to be defeated by bombing alone and at some point boots — though the nationality of the feet they will be on is an open question — will have to go on the ground. For the moment, the Kurds are doing much to hold the line on the ground, but refugees are pouring into Turkey and there is a major humanitarian crisis to match the geopolitical one. Western nations are turning diplomatic somersaults as they juggle fifty shades of cognitive dissonance brought on by making air strikes in Syria that are in support of the Assad regime — and there is a dawning realisation that this is a fight that is going to take years and has been centuries in the making. Jordan, Bahrain, Qatar, Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates all put assets in the air to strike IS targets, a display of Arab unity unseen for over half a century. The US and France have already gone into action and the UK is likely to join the fight within days. Expect no early resolution, and a heavy leakage of blood and treasure.

Published in The Express Tribune, September 25th, 2014.

__________________
"I am still learning."

A stumbling block

There were five new polio cases confirmed in Pakistan on September 25, bringing the tally for 2014 to 171 — and rising. There is going to come a point, and it may not be far off, when this year’s polio outbreak becomes truly out of control. The five cases are spread across the country — two from Fata, one from Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa, one from Karachi and one from Balochistan. So far this year Punjab has reported two cases. The cases in Karachi and Quetta are said to be in families where there is ‘vehement refusal’ to receive the vaccine. The family in Quetta believe that the anti-polio campaign is part of a Western plot to limit the growth of the Muslim population. There are also anecdotal reports of families allowing only girls to receive the vaccine, out of fear that the boys in the family may be rendered impotent if vaccinated. Of further concern are reports that the vial is not being maintained to keep the vaccines at an optimum temperature, and that some of the vaccines being administered are sub-standard. It is reported that there is to be an emergency meeting in Islamabad, chaired by the Minister of State for National Health Services, Regulation and Coordination, to be attended by the chief ministers of the four provinces. However, the meeting cannot take place soon enough. Outside of Pakistan there is growing alarm at the way cases are mounting. The Director of the World Health Organisation, Dr Margaret Chan, was blunt in her assessment. She commented that Pakistan was the single most important stumbling block along the road to ending polio’, and that nine out of 10 children in the world that have polio live in Pakistan. There is a meeting of the Independent Monitoring Board for Polio on September 30, and it is at least possible that further restrictions will be placed on those who travel to and from Pakistan. Travellers are already required to have a valid polio vaccination certificate before boarding international flights. The consequences of losing the fight against polio are unthinkable, and as of today we are not winning.

Elusive narratives and floods

Representatives of the Pakistan government are busy at the United Nations in New York. Foreign Secretary Aizaz Ahmed Chaudhry was in action on September 24 when he addressed the fifth ministerial meeting of the Global Counter Terrorism Forum (GCTF). There were brave words saying that Pakistan stood with the international community in dealing with the threat posed by foreign terrorists. Foreign terrorists? Coming from the representative of a government that has singularly failed to develop a national counter-terrorism strategy that is owned by all stakeholders, this might be considered ‘a bit rich’ as the saying goes. He babbled on about the need to develop a ‘persuasive logic’ in response to radical narratives, observing at the same time that there has not been an ounce of visible effort to create a narrative that countervails that purveyed so effectively by the extremists within our midst. And logic has never played much of a part in the national skills-bank. In another forum the Adviser to the Prime Minister on National Security and Foreign Affairs Sartaj Aziz told the UN Climate Summit on the same day that climate change was ‘the unresolved issue’. Doubtless, thousands in Sindh and Punjab stood up waist deep in floodwater to applaud him. Once again we agree, and equally forced to point out that this and successive governments have managed to bungle, fudge, prevaricate and generally cock-up national responses to repeated inundations. Speaking in an unrelieved stream of broken-backed clichés, Mr Aziz wrapped up by placing the begging bowl for an additional five billion dollars annually to enable Pakistan to adapt to the impacts of climate change. He made a fair point when he said that Pakistan has a very low carbon footprint and suffers disproportionately from the effects of bigger beasts than us, but the dysjunction between words and deeds was painfully obvious — and both men were decidedly 1.5 litre engines for a three litre job.

India’s Mars mission

On September 24, an Indian satellite, successfully entered Mars’ orbit. It is, and ought to be, lauded as a spectacular achievement, one for which the Indian Space Research Organisation deserves full credit. After a crippling global recession and American disinterest in space programmes, Mars, a planet that stimulated our collective imagination for so long, seemed to no longer hold our interest. The Indian mission has reinvigorated that interest.
No longer is space the exclusive domain of rich countries. India should be proud of its institutions, its scientists and its government (the mission began under the previous Congress-led coalition) that made this endevour possible. It is an oft-heard complaint that money that was spent on the mission, $74 million, could have been spent elsewhere. The response to that charge bears repeating: it is miraculous that only $75 million was spent on this programme, making it the cheapest so far. Second, of course the money could have been spent on any other over-burdened sector in a country where 300 million people still live below the poverty line, but there are certain things that cannot be quantified that easily — self-esteem and national pride, for example. The collective pride over this achievement transcends all those barriers — class, religion, caste, language — that have hampered India’s progress since its inception. Almost a billion and a half people can declare themselves to be amongst the newest members of a very short list of countries with a viable space programmes. Of course this gives Pakistan plenty of soul searching to do. Our own nascent space agency, Suparco, still occupies itself with weather patterns and tracking natural disasters, which should be overseen by a separate body. Given the litany of Pakistan’s problems, the country hardly looks at the world outside of itself — other worlds, in this case. These problems keep Pakistanis in a constant state of crisis management, always worrying about the immediate rather than the future. This seems unlikely to change soon.

Published in The Express Tribune, September 26th, 2014.

__________________
"I am still learning."

Dodging the bombers

A very large blast occurred in the Gizri area of Karachi on the evening of September 25. The target was Superintendent of Police (SP) Farooq Awan, a much-decorated officer with a 30-year career battling terrorism and other crimes. He was slightly injured, possibly because he was in an armoured vehicle but two passers-by were less fortunate and were killed in the blast which injured eight others. There was massive concentric blast damage to properties in the area and the explosion was heard many miles away. It knocked out power lines in the area and was heard as far away as Malir. This was the third attempt on the life of Mr Awan, and by far the most determined. A number of features are worthy of attention. The blast was caught on CCTV cameras that showed a man parking a Suzuki pick-up truck and then walking away from the area. The truck was later briefly examined by two men on a motorcycle. The vehicle-borne improvised explosive device (VBIED) contained up to 50 kilogrammes of explosives and would have been remotely detonated.

This would mean that the person setting it off would have had to have line-of-sight with the bomb to ensure it detonated at exactly the right moment and therefore was in the vicinity continuously since the VBIED was parked. Secondly, the bomber had knowledge of the route that the target was going to take. It is not known if the target varied his route home — which should have been standard procedure for such a senior officer with a history of attacks on his life — but the fact is that the bomber knew where and roughly when his target would appear. This points to excellent intelligence on the part of the attacker(s) perhaps via monitoring police communication channels or possible infiltration of the police by those who would be privy to the movements of senior officers — or quite possibly a combination of both. There are extremist sympathisers within all the police and security forces in the country, as well as within the armed forces as shown by the recent Navy attack. If Pakistan is to fight extremism successfully it needs to look inwards as well as outwards.

Sitting ducks

After the most recent murder of Zafar Bhatti, a pastor who was jailed because he was accused of blasphemy —murdered by a policeman no less — it seems it is not only the law that works against religious minorities, but the people who are meant to safeguard it as well. It is indeed surreal that policemen, of all people, would take the law into their own hands, and brazenly murder the already-vulnerable individuals, whom they have sworn to protect. Evidently, the police officer who killed Bhatti and injured another inmate, a British citizen diagnosed with paranoid schizophrenia also charged with blasphemy, did not believe that the laws of the state were adequate to deal with the accused men. The matter, then, extends far beyond the bigotry and extremism that necessarily accompanies these murders; it also indicates a crippled and ineffective justice system unable to assert its authority. That isn’t to say that Pakistan’s laws are adequate themselves; they persecute the weak, the defenceless, the poor, but a better legal system alone cannot save lives if it does not have the personnel to enforce it.

Under such immense pressure, the courts must prove their mettle. Virtually everyone involved — judges who dismiss blasphemy cases, lawyers who defend the accused, the accused themselves — is endangered (Rashid Rehman was killed earlier this year for his role in defending a professor accused of blasphemy) but the state needs to investigate and punish Bhatti’s killer all the same. With all the attention on those accused of blasphemy, the willing executioners tend to escape scrutiny. That must not be allowed to happen. Also with cases like these, a more responsive warning system is urgently required. Extra-judicial killings, especially of those accused of blasphemy, occur with tragic regularity and the warnings are almost always there. The victims were threatened by other inmates and police officers for many days before Bhatti was murdered. It should not only have been Bhatti who took those threats seriously.

A Pakistani to be proud of

Pakistan and Pakistanis are more likely to be the target of brickbats than plaudits, and the news that Asma Jahangir, former President of the Supreme Court Bar Association, is to receive a prestigious human rights award is all the more welcome for that. The Right Livelihood Award Foundation is often described as ‘the alternative Nobel Prize’ and with considerable justification. It was established in 1980 “to honour and support those offering practical and exemplary answers to the most urgent challenges facing us today”. Asma Jahangir is in good company with other talented winners. The Right Livelihood Award Foundation was set up after the Nobel Foundation, in a move clearly out of step with the times, refused to create awards honouring those who worked to defend the environment and international development. The awards will be presented in front of the Swedish parliament on December 1.

The citation for Asma Jahangir sums up in a nutshell just why it is that she is being honoured. She receives the award of 500,000 kroner ($70,000) for “defending, protecting and promoting human rights in Pakistan and more widely, often in very difficult and complex situations and at great personal risk.” This being Pakistan, a country that smears its heroes and lauds its villains, there will doubtless be those who raise a hue and cry asking ‘What has she done’ and ‘Why not honour X, Y or Z rather than Asma Jahangir.’ The haters and trolls will be out in force on the social media and aspersions on her character and worth as a human being will be cast far and wide. Ignore them for the trash that they are. Asma Jahangir is a woman to be proud of, one that provides the finest of role models amidst a crop of role models that are mediocre at best, dubious at worst. And Pakistan would be a better place if there were a few more like her.

Published in The Express Tribune, September 27th, 2014.

__________________
"I am still learning."

Unfreezing government hiring

At 1.5 million employees, the government of Pakistan is the single largest employer in the country. While that number sounds like a lot, it only represents about 2.7 per cent of the total labour force of about 57.1 million, according to the Pakistan Bureau of Statistics. Taken as a percentage of total workforce, that is among the smallest governments in the world. So the Nawaz Administration’s decision to end the hiring freeze for government jobs is certainly a justifiable decision. However, while we certainly welcome the idea of vacant positions being filled, we find the reason for the government’s decision distressing. The cabinet took this decision not as the result of some careful and well thought out plan to increase government hiring to fulfil necessary public functions, but as a response to a political crisis where the government feels it can placate voters through populist means. It represents the same old broken mentality that the only way to reduce unemployment in the country is for the government to hire more workers. We thought the centre-right PML-N was opposed to that sort of thinking.

Contrary to popular perceptions, the civilian part of the government is actually neither too big nor too expensive a burden on taxpayers. Indeed, it can and should be increased in order to provide better services to citizens and that does mean that the government should hire more people. But the hiring decision should be preceded by a plan of what services to provide, an assessment of how much manpower the government will need and how much it currently has. Instead, the current approach appears to be ‘hire now, assign later’. Beyond the few vacant positions that have defined functions, what will all the rest of the new government hires do? Would that not be a tremendous waste of public money? The PML-N can defend this practice all they want, but it is materially no different from what they have always accused their political rivals of doing. That is truly a pity, because this opportunity to improve the quality of government services is going to be wasted on a futile populist exercise.

The PM at the UN

Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif addressed the 69th session of the United Nations General Assembly on September 26. He made a solid and plodding speech that held no surprises, and was in large part a restatement of what has been said before but with a nod to the future. He made reference to the Kashmir issue, and perhaps with the memory of the Scottish referendum in mind said that the Kashmir problem has to be resolved in line ‘with the wishes of the people of Jammu and Kashmir.’ He lamented the cancellation of secretary-level talks with India, and rightly pointed out that South Asia in general had missed many opportunities to benefit from the latent prosperity of the region. Looking wider he welcomed the change of regime in Kabul, as well he might as outgoing president Karzai had a famously-fractious relationship with Pakistan. It is to be hoped that the new incumbency in Afghanistan will start with a clean sheet, and a reboot of the relationship between our two countries.

Terrorism — domestic and foreign — was touched upon, with the elephant in the room of the crisis provoked by the rise of the Islamic State being recognised as a global threat (and uncomfortably close to our backdoor, but the prime minister dodged that particular bullet). The people of Gaza were in need of a lasting solution to their myriad miseries and the UN itself was in need of substantial reform. It was not a speech to light up the General Assembly, and offered standard fare from a menu that most would be familiar with. Palatable but bland. The PM’s stay in New York has been characterised by missed opportunities to interact with his fellow leaders either formally or informally, and his meeting with “the Pakistan community” in New York was limited to fewer than 80 people photographed as he addressed them from a podium. Somewhat fewer than the Indian PM is to address later at Madison Square Garden, where an audience of thousands is expected.

Asian Games gold

Congratulations to our fellow cricketers for winning the gold medal in the Women’s Cricket competition in the ongoing Asian Games. In fact, through this feat, the team managed to retain the honour which it had won in the last Games. In a pulsating final, Sana Mir’s team repeated the joyous scenes of a similar win at Gunaghazou in 2010 by prevailing over Bangladesh. The match was reduced to seven overs a side due to bad weather and the experienced Pakistan team defended the 47-run target they had set their Asian rivals astutely to add another regional title. Their task was, though, undoubtedly made easier by the absence of arch-rivals and the most potent team in Asia, India. The Board of Control for Cricket in India decided not to field even a second string team considering the nature of the competition where only Pakistan and Sri Lanka were recognised as top-ranking international teams.

The Pakistan Cricket Board (PCB) sent a powerful Pakistan team to the event led by Sana Mir and including some of the stalwarts of the women’s game in the country. While a win surely be lauded the PCB has to take serious steps to build back-up for these players. The women’s game is confined to a pool of at most 30 players and needs to be expanded to the leading regions around the country. The Asian title can be the right kind of tonic and the board must rope in some decent sponsorship for women’s cricket and make the body self-sustaining. It is also important to reward players since a win of this magnitude with the prolific media coverage can inspire young girls to take up the sport. The win also draws focus to the immense potential of the women’s cricket team, whose importance is often overlooked and downplayed by the disproportionate level of attention given to the men’s cricket team — which has done little in the recent past to make the country proud.

Published in The Express Tribune, September 28th, 2014.

__________________
"I am still learning."

Where is the writ of the state?

Despite repeated assurances from the state of its established writ in conflict-stricken areas, the claim is challenged repeatedly in very similar ways. The latest, being a Taliban-style court established in the Frontier Region (FR) Peshawar, a short distance from the provincial capital. An area that has been cleared of militants more than half a dozen times. The problem is multi-pronged; the reemergence of such courts is an indication of not just a flawed policy of countering terrorism locally but carries markers of a failure of a decade-long war in the region. Tribal elders of Hassankhel who have been publicly executed, kidnapped and humiliated by the militants have had not many options but to either leave or face their wrath, in the years following 9/11. Geographically, the area is located on the confluence of the Khyber Agency and FR Kohat’s Darra Adamkhel; an area that has been aching the government’s controls for as long as the conflict.

A tribal elders’ revelation that the courts are specifically dealing with cases of extortion, not to resolve the problem but to negotiate the amount is astonishing on many levels. It does not only highlight the failure of the government and its security agencies, who have made little progress to trace phone calls made by extortionists but a more darker side of the problem, where locals are forced to accept the power of non-state actors: a state within the state. The lack of effort on the part of the government to end the ‘special status’ of the seven Federally Administered Tribal Areas and the adjoining six buffer zones called Frontier Regions, is also a major reason that the endless cycle of militancy never ends. The denial on behalf of the government that such courts do not exist is also not new. We have heard this before. It’s an open secret that people from many areas of K-P travel to these courts to pay extortionists. Instead of denying it the authorities should probe into the matter and find a solution before the militants grow stronger and those that believe in the state’s writ also sink into the scepticism of its claims.

Polio priorities

And so it is revealed that perhaps one of the major impediments to battling polio is the will of government stakeholders themselves. It is embarrassing that government health representatives from Gilgit-Baltistan and Punjab were the only ones present at a recent high-level meeting called by the prime minister’s Polio Monitoring Cell. Not only should all provincial health ministers have been at the meeting, but considering that Pakistan has been attempting to eradicate polio for decades now, even those in higher positions of power should have been there to lead provincial representatives. Ideally, officials who failed to attend the meeting should be considered for demotions or impeachment as they displayed a lack of motivation towards their responsibilities, likewise indicating unclear intentions and mixed priorities towards battling polio.

Once elected, it is not the officials’ responsibility to show commitment as that should have been gauged prior to electing or appointing them; once they are in office, we move beyond this basic question. Their real responsibility is to devise and implement effective plans to combat polio. Short-term campaigns and drives are being held but there is a need for long-term vision and planning as well. It seems that maybe the primary cause this country does not advance, or does so at a snail’s pace, is that once officials are elected — or usually in Pakistan’s case, appointed — to a certain stature or salary, they neglect their duties to the office and to the people. Rather than serving the people, they falsely believe that citizens are there to serve them. And alas, this is why we are pathetically one of only three countries in the world with a polio epidemic still on our hands. As a country facing mass poverty and starvation, the people certainly do not have resources to waste on useless officials. In this case, it is the Cell’s responsibility to drop anyone showing a lack of will and instead choose a team of people that will deliver results. Passive attitudes will not work.

Decline of tourism

World Tourism Day fell on September 27, but passed with barely a ripple in Pakistan which once had a thriving tourism industry. It was a popular destination for adventure tourists trekking in Northern Areas (now Gilgit-Baltistan) and cultural and religious tourists from the world over who would come to the shrines at Uch Sharif, the Thatta necropolis and the ruins of Mohenjo-Daro. Hunza had an entire economy that was largely dependent on tourism and banks lent freely to those wanting to build hotels and guest houses. Most of those that were built are ghosts of their former selves now, and the tourism industry nationally, both domestic and international, has all but collapsed. The Swat valley was a minor idyll, and one of the few places in Pakistan where ski-tourism was well established.

The Taliban put an end to that, as they have done for much of the mountaineering that foreign groups used to enjoy, contributing as they do to a sense of insecurity and fear when it comes to selecting Pakistan as a destination. Swat has enormous potential for tourism. It is more accessible than Gilgit-Baltistan, is home to a vast range of historic artefacts, and between 1988 and 2004 tourism was a backbone industry. Today, not only is tourism stumbling year-on-year but local people say that the government has no interest in preserving and maintaining the very cultural objects and sites that bring in the tourists in the first place. Some of them are simply decaying and neglected; others are being wilfully destroyed by those who see them as relics of an idolatrous past. What the Taliban have not desecrated, natural disasters such as the floods of 2010 — which destroyed about 128 hotels — have. It is still possible to re-invigorate tourism in Swat and elsewhere in the country, but that needs political will, something difficult to find in these distracted days.

Published in The Express Tribune, September 29th, 2014.

__________________
"I am still learning."

Attack on IDPs

There seems to be no end to the plight of the IDPs from Fata. Despite their enforced migration from the tribal belt for their own betterment, their problems have multiplied. The bomb that killed eight people, including three minors, on September 28 in Hangu’s Khwaja Muhammad IDP camp is a grim reminder of the vulnerabilities faced by these homeless tribesmen. It’s been four years since the people from Orkazai have been living in camps in Hangu district of Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa. These IDPs have been protesting against the government for their repatriation for more than a year now. While the military has claimed to have cleared the Orakzai Agency of militants a long time ago, they have been told that their return is not possible to the agency because of the volatile law and order in their native areas. The inevitable question than is — how secure have they been in the camps? The answer to which is not difficult to find from the chain of events in the last few months. The very threat because of which these people escaped has followed them. This might be the first major attack that has resulted in deaths but definitely not the first time that the IDPs of Orakzai have been targeted. A similar attack was reported back in June, when rockets were fired at the same camp, militants had threatened them to vacate or face the consequences. Several families, who could afford, had to further migrate to Kohat and Peshawar. Those who could not, now live in a state of perpetual fear and ask: what is our fault? The numbers keep increasing, Pakistan now has more than two million IDPs from the conflict in Fata alone. A strong feeling of deprivation has already engulfed the people of Fata, particularly those that have been displaced. The Uthmanzai Wazir, the largest tribe from North Waziristan, has called for a grand Jirga to march towards Islamabad on October 10. Similar protests have been held by the homeless from the Khyber Agency. The bomb attack in Hangu will further exacerbate the feeling of victimisation. But does the government have any plan to relocate these people back to their homes? Or, is this another failure which will come back to haunt us in the near future?

Deaths in Balochistan

The ongoing crisis — that in effect is a low-intensity war — in Balochistan continues to take lives on all sides. There are estimated to be around 2,000 political activists killed in the last eight years. Some of that number have simply ‘disappeared’ and are presumed dead, others are found by the roadsides riddled with bullets whilst yet others turn up in gunny sacks, sometimes dismembered, at others decomposed beyond the point of easy identification. One such instance occurred on September 24 when two sacks containing human remains were found near Rakshan Nadi in the western Panjgur district. Nationalist party workers quickly proclaimed the remains to be of party workers. The blame game started immediately, and as there is never any conclusive investigation of the killings in Balochistan, nor a successful hunt for the killers and consequently no prosecution, blame is hurled indiscriminately with or without foundation. Baloch nationalists invariably blame the government agencies and entities, and in places where the insurgency is hot — such as Panjgur — there are frequent clashes between security forces and Baloch nationalist and separatist groups. The government has commented that some neighbouring countries are involved. Rival groups also clash between themselves, adding much confusion as to who is doing what to whom and why. Inasmuch as anything is clear the entire province is touched by violence and decades of distrust — indeed outright betrayal on occasion — and virtually nowhere can be considered safe and secure. Sectarian killings are common, and doctors and teachers regularly gunned down. Innocents are caught in the crossfire or die as ‘collateral damage’ in bombings. Both the provincial and federal governments are unable or unwilling to get a grip of a resolution to the many and complex disputes that can be owned by all stakeholders, and it is difficult not to conclude that there is an artificial state of ‘managed instability’ in the province.

Some simple advice

The Asian Development Bank (ADB) has projected a 4.2 per cent growth rate for Pakistan, warning at the same time that the current political situation and flood damage could pose downward risks to its economy. The lending agency’s projections were made in its flagship annual report — the Asian Development Outlook (ADO) Update — that also stated that an improvement in economic reforms and improving the security situation would help revive investment and aid business confidence. These were standard remarks and should awaken the government that has, so far, acted on sentiment ever since the PTI and the PAT have been carrying out their sit-ins in Islamabad. The political impasse has caused a delay in the visit of the Chinese premier along with the International Monetary Fund (IMF) putting off its loan tranche. The government had done reasonably in its attempt to put the economy back on track — in the one year it had been in power — after holding the 3G spectrum auction and raising money through the issuance of Eurobonds. Power projects with Chinese help were also planned and foreign exchange had stabilised. But now the gear has shifted as the government desperately looks to blame everything on the sit-ins in Islamabad, while backtracking on committed reforms to the IMF. During his visit to Pakistan, the ADB president also said that the political standoff needs to end soon. It seems like the government, in its own sneaky way, has decided to play the blame game instead of doing what it promised more than a year ago. Flood damage, an uncertain security environment and the political impasse need to be resolved for any move towards progression. For once, it was hoped that the government would be able to take a stand rather than taking a step back and pleasing whoever applies the most pressure. The ADB states that economic reforms need to continue for several years for their effect to be translated into progress. Here, the government is looking like it has been cornered while just in its second year.

Published in The Express Tribune, September 30th, 2014.

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"I am still learning."

A discerning student of Pakistan’s history should be able to identify a common thread in all military-led administrations of the country. Without exception, every coup-maker has leaned on local governments for legitimacy. Similarly, without exception, every civilian politician at the national level has attempted to curb local government. The national project has always attempted to weaken provincial and parochial identities instead of building on them, even though the latter may have contributed much more substantially to the national project. One unit was the original sin of the national project. The idea of having administrative units is one unit rehashed. The underlying idea is to make the existing constituent units, i.e. Punjab, Sindh, Balochistan and Khyber Pakhtunkhwa irrelevant as the one unit idea attempted to do in the 1950s. This strategy is bound to fail because it militates against the historical experience of these provinces and how these were first constituted after being colonised by the British. More importantly, it goes against the spirit of the Lahore Resolution as the basic document of the country as well as our fragile federalism that we need to safeguard at all costs. However, what the MQM says needs to be investigated. The underlying grievance that the representatives of submerged subnational communities within the constituent units have is that they do not have a piece of the sovereignty pie. Predictably, they point to India where new linguistic states have emerged out of the original colonial provinces, forgetting that even there the issue remains an extremely contentious one. In Pakistan, as in India, the issue is that the conventional nation state model without suitable amendments in line with our requirements fails to appreciate the multiple identities of the citizens of the state. Before the British colonised the subcontinent, the people of this region existed in overlapping sets of multiple identities where contending the sovereignty of identity groups was negotiated and power was shared on several levels. The British brought with them European notions of nations and nation states. Consequently, instead of multiple identities being reconciled with each other to arrive at a cohesive Pakistani identity (suggested by Faiz Ahmad Faiz in his essay on Pakistani culture), we have sought to, at varying times, impose either a Pakistani or a Muslim identity or both, top down, at the expense of other identities. Multiple identities — unity in diversity — if and when expressed as functions of political geography can lend Pakistan that elusive, cohesive Pakistani national identity that we have been searching for for decades now. Pakistan needs to be a federation of communities in addition to being a federation of constituent units. In Pakistan, one feels the idea of reinventing the wheel is bound to be a disaster. Instead of rethinking provincial boundaries, the focus should be on ensuring devolution of sovereignty at the local level that will satisfy in great measure the minority subnational communities within the subnational constituent units. This is what Musharraf’s local bodies system attempted to do. Unfortunately, the nazim (mayor) system was too complicated and incomprehensible. Instead, we need elected tehsil (sub-district) boards that ensure representation of all sections of society. These boards should not comprise more than 11 members with four general members who can be from any community, three reserved women members, one reserved labour member, one reserved peasant member and two reserved minority members, all elected by popular adult franchise. They should choose from among themselves a chairperson of the board. The function of this basic unit of governance would be presiding over the administration of local bureaucracies at the tehsil level in addition to acting as arbitration councils for local disputes to supplement the formal legal system. The chairperson should be the chief executive of the tehsil and should form a veritable bridge between the local MPAs and the populace at large. Furthermore, all the tehsil boards should have a national convention every year in the federal capital. This national convention should act as a de facto third house of parliament where the local representatives can come together and discuss pressing local issues and give expression to the wider public opinion for the National Assembly and Senate to act on. This tricameral, triangular interaction between the federal government, provincial governments and local governments would ensure that people at the very grassroots level are given a say in national affairs and that all sections, especially marginalised sections, are represented in full measure. This system will deal a deathblow to biradari (community) and caste politics as well as ensuring greater cooperation amongst various communities. The underlying principle for such reorganisation of the Pakistani state is as follows: Pakistan is a multicultural, multireligious, multiethnic, multilingual and multinational state. A Pakistani citizen has multiple identities encompassing multiple situations and multiple classes. The reconciliation of these identities on individual, local, provincial and state levels can contribute to making Pakistan one whole. This principle can be given the fullest expression only through a rational and elegant local bodies system integrated with the national and provincial systems of the country. The result would be a real federation, not just of constituent units but a federation of communities.

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Success is simple. Do what's right, the right way, at the right time.

Another year, another session. The agenda this time round ranged from human rights to social equality and security concerns but, while the speeches were top-notch as always, the sessions did not go so far as to generate consensus over tangible actions. The delegates that had converged on Manhattan for the 69th regular session of the United Nations (UN) will be leaving the Big Apple for their own homelands soon. As the biggest diplomatic soiree on the planet comes to a close today, the question we should be asking ourselves right now is: does the UN still belong in our world?
The answer of course, is that it depends. For some, the UN represents all of the noble stuff when you let liberal-pacifist ideas run wild. For others, it is nothing more than an elitist club, with membership fees, meetings and consequent perks. The only common strand in the two dissenting camps is that the UN has never been fully synchronised with the world it is grounded in. It is either too slow to act and hence becomes redundant or it envisions futuristic resolutions that are far ahead of the times.
The UN was dreamt up after civilised Europe had been left browbeaten in the wake of the horrors of the Second World War. Learning from the ineffectiveness of its predecessor, the short-lived League of Nations, the new organisation was given a more ambitious mandate, including international peace and security, promotion of human rights, social and economic development, protection of the environment and providing humanitarian aid in times of crises. Since then, the UN has taken on many roles through its various agencies. It now has dedicated branches concerned with the protection of cultural heritage, providing pre- and post-natal healthcare to females in developing countries and reducing truancy rates in schools. It employs the very best of what the world has to offer in terms of personnel and counts within its ranks visionary thinkers and Nobel laureates.
From a political perspective, the UN seems stuck in a time capsule of sorts that was buried and forgotten when the world was a very different place. The victors of the Second World War, especially the US, created an interdependent system that ensured the perpetuation of their dominance through intricate global links. However, in an interesting turn of events, the UN also became the prime patron for providing legitimacy to newly born, postcolonial nations as well. Moreover, the emergence of the Cold War between the former USSR and the US also put the organisation in an inimitable place. As a result, the UN came to be recognised as the international hub for conducting the affairs of diplomacy. The UN was and still is the medium of choice when leaders of member states desire to communicate important messages to the world and beyond.
While enjoying prominence since its early days, the UN has seen its fair share of trouble as well. Through delayed action (or even inaction) in times of crises like the ones in Rwanda and the Balkans, the UN has drawn sharp criticism even from some of its ardent supporters. But with one foot firmly planted in the past and the other mid-stride towards the future, it is no wonder that the UN has been found wanting in the present. One example of this is the UN Charter itself that, while trying to reconcile the diametrically opposed, just ends up being full of inherent contradictions. For instance, the notion of humanitarian intervention, firmly rooted in the UN Charter, tends to counteract another one of the UN’s celebrated ideals, that of territorial integrity. Additionally, while the UN may pass visionary resolutions regarding international justice and civil, human and socio-political rights, it does not possess a framework for implementation and, furthermore, remains dependent on its member states because of jurisdiction issues.
The organisational structure of the UN does not help its cause much either. On the one hand, the General Assembly, which hollers of equality and participation, lacks any decisive power and often becomes a mouthpiece for all 193 members to trump each other in cloaking bellicose semantics in idyllic diplomatic garb. On the other, the Security Council, with its permanent, veto-enabled members, is still trapped in the power politics of the post-war and Cold War days, and has failed to pay heed to calls for genuine structural reform through the integration of emerging powerful states like Brazil and Germany. It is true that the secretary general of the UN is an important and visible person but the jurisdiction of the bearer of this particular office reaches no further than “condemning” certain actions and “showing concern” over others.
The truth of the matter is that the UN will only ever have as much power as we bestow upon it. Even with its transcending nature, it is composed of self-centred nation-states that seek to maximise their own interests on a priority basis. Consequently, crippling transnational issues like climate change generate little concern. There is also the important issue of funding and, with paltry contributions from members, the UN lacks the monetary support required for a more robust implementation of its charter. Furthermore, critics blame the UN for perpetuating old power structures that might not be relevant any more and there is some truth to that assertion. However, even with the US openly laying claim to the UN as rightfully theirs, the world has changed too much. The UN is rapidly losing legitimacy to a trifecta of contesting entities: transformative regional blocs and economic unions, resurgent nation-states and unrestrained non-state actors.
But no matter what you think of the UN’s unique position, the fact remains that it is the only game in town where the ones not playing risk being ostracised. So far, for better or for worse, we as political beings have been unable to imagine a working alternative to the UN. That might very well be because the UN has continuously been evolving to take on new roles and manages to muddle through new challenges. Additionally, it has been able to fulfil one of the most important purposes for its establishment: keeping the peace but only up to a degree of course. The fact remains that in an insecure world chockfull of advanced nuclear, biological and tactical weapons, the UN has prevented the outbreak of World War III. But with the situation in the Middle East, Africa and Eastern Europe rapidly spiralling out of control, that might just be about to change

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Success is simple. Do what's right, the right way, at the right time.

Rangers operation in Karachi

Less than a week after SSP Farooq Awan survived a powerful bomb blast in Karachi, the Rangers submitted a report in the Senate claiming that they have decimated the Taliban network in the city. The ongoing targeted killings, street crimes and kidnappings show that the all-is-well report that the Rangers have prepared on the one-year targeted operation does not represent the true picture of the state of affairs in the city. The representatives of both the ANP and the MQM rightly grilled the Rangers’ representative on the claims made in the report. Reports of targeted killings come in from nearly all parts of the city on a daily basis, especially from the Sakhi Hasan area of North Nazimabad, which is located close to the militant stronghold, Manghopir. Even the attack on SSP Awan bore resemblance to a similar attack carried out on the Crime Investigation Department’s Chaudhry Aslam, who was believed to have been targeted by Taliban militants. Targeted attacks on law enforcers have become the norm since the operation began in September last year. Yet, the Rangers insist that they have decimated the Taliban network in Karachi. The role of the law-enforcement agencies needs to be questioned, along with their effectiveness in spearheading the surgical operation. If arresting political activists is the solution to the ongoing violence, why are people still being targeted? What about those who are being targeted because of their sects? If the Rangers’ focus is only on political activists, who may target people working for rival parties and ethnic groups, then perhaps their strategy needs to be revised. They must account for the fact that apart from battles between the armed wings of political parties, several sectarian groups are also present in the city and play a significant role in the ongoing violence. Lastly, the government and the Rangers heads need to shed light on the claims of ANP Senator Shahi Syed that elements from within the law-enforcement agencies are aiding criminal groups. The law-enforcement agencies in the city need to address the loopholes that allow violence to continue in Karachi. Only then can claims about their good performance be accepted.

Afghanistan — a new beginning

After days of political turmoil, blame games and obscure solutions, Ashraf Ghani was finally sworn in as Afghanistan’s president. This is indeed a welcome development for a country that has witnessed more misery than peace. The presence of President Mamnoon Hussain, along with heads of nationalist political parties at the swearing-in ceremony, is a symbolic gesture of endorsement for the political transition. The Foreign Office in its ritualistic statement informed us that at a bilateral meeting between the two presidents, matters relating to the “political transition in Afghanistan, Pakistan-Afghanistan relations and regional cooperation were discussed”. The Chief Executive Officer of the country, Abdullah Abdullah, was also present at the meeting. All of this was happening while a suicide bomber killed four people in an attack on the airport in Kabul, a reminder that all is not well in that country. Our relations with Kabul have not been the best over the years. A few days earlier, the outgoing president, Hamid Karzai, had blamed Pakistan and the US for the continued war in Afghanistan. President Ghani’s actual problems have only just begun. The rise of the Taliban in the past year will pose a huge challenge, as indicated recently with the massive attack in the strategically located province of Ghazni. The fear of growing Indian influence and the Bilateral Security Agreement, which will allow for some American presence in Afghanistan, are all factors that will need to be considered by the Afghan and Pakistani leaderships. All stakeholders need to ensure that the Afghan soil does not become a playground for proxy wars. The presence of our president shows Pakistan’s willingness to back a new beginning in Afghanistan. There has been much debate about Pakistan’s changed foreign policy, with particular reference to Afghanistan. Now is the time to bring about ‘positive’ change and press for cooperation beyond mere statements. The mistrust needs to end now.

Keep the moratorium

The problem with having a death penalty is that if a person is wrongly convicted of a capital crime and executed, there is no ‘reboot’ option. Dead is dead, and if the state kills in error, then that is no less murder than death at the hands of a common criminal. There are 8,526 people convicted of capital crimes in Pakistan, where there are 27 offences that are legally punishable with the ultimate sentence. Many of these offences are crimes that in many other countries of the world would never be considered as capital crimes. Drug smuggling, arms trading and sabotaging the railways are among the things that can attract a hanging sentence, along with blasphemy, rape and “assault on the modesty of a woman”. Some of those on death row have been there for many years, their fate literally hanging in the balance. To hang or not to hang is deeply polarising for the people of Pakistan, with a section of the populace and judiciary in favour, and a vocal group of civil society activists and lawyers against. The matter has been on hold since 2008, when the then PPP government introduced an informal moratorium. That is being challenged this week when the apex court on October 1 takes up a petition filed by the Watan Party, which wants an explanation from the government as to why there is a delay in the executions of sentenced prisoners. On December 5, 2013, the government informed the Human Rights Commission of Pakistan (HRCP) that it intended to maintain the moratorium — which leaves the death penalty on the statute books and does nothing to resolve the impasse. Considering that between 60 and 70 per cent of cases initiated in Pakistan are fabricated in whole or part, the possibility of there being a miscarriage of justice with irreversible, fatal consequences is unacceptably high. Innocent people could be hanged and probably have been. With this in mind, we are committed not just to a continuation of the moratorium, but the removal of death as a sentencing option for the judiciary.

Published in The Express Tribune, October 1st, 2014.

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"I am still learning."