Wrong turn

Thursday, January 12, 2012

The gridlock has gone grave and major institutions are locked in what appears to be the final round, almost in a hand-to-hand combat. The government, the army, the Supreme Court, parliament and the political parties are making last-minute moves - there are postings, transfers, sackings and shuffling of the ranks for a showdown — if it is forced and if sanity does not prevail. The major players — the president, the prime minister, the army chief and the chief justice — have stated their positions publicly and forcefully. Speaking to a Chinese news agency on Monday - at a time when COAS Kayani was visiting that country, Prime Minister Gilani accused the COAS and the ISI chief of violating the Constitution by submitting ‘illegal’ replies to the Supreme Court in the Memogate case, which he said had no validity as they had not been approved in advance by the ‘competent authority’, in this case the government through the defence ministry. The attorney general, while appearing before the court in the same case, had taken a somewhat different line and held that since General Kayani and Major-General Pasha had been made respondents in the case, their replies were acceptable. On Wednesday, the army through the ISPR, responded with a heavy-handed statement saying that he comments made by the prime minister would have “serious ramifications” and could have “potentially grievous consequences for the country”. An army commanders meeting has been summoned and the commander of the crucial 111-Brigade, which has usually carried out military takeovers in Islamabad in the past, has been changed. The government has, on its side, removed the secretary defence and placed a PM’s confidant in his place. Parliament has been summoned to meet on Jan 12, and votes of confidence in the PM and the president may be passed in that session. The Supreme Court has fixed Jan 16 to resume hearing the NRO case.

All of this is going on in the backdrop of a deliberate policy of defiance by the PPP government. Isn’t it too late for the prime minister to say what he is saying now, when the SC has already set up a commission to investigate the case? Indeed, the timing of the PM’s statement only shows that it is the latest move in the government’s politics of confrontation. But to what end, if not to force the army and the judiciary to take some action against the government so that the PPP could claim political martyrdom? This may be a clever strategy — as otherwise its performance in the last four years has been so dismal that it cannot face the people and its political opponents on the basis of its track record. The hawks in the PPP have so far succeeded in bringing this conflict to a fast-forward mode. Saner voices are scant in the government, and in contrast the Supreme Court has been both praised and criticised for having shown unusual restraint — with its critics saying that the process of judgements on critical issues has been dragged and delayed for too long. However, the situation is now coming to a decision point. The fears are that the cornered and beleaguered president and prime minister may shoot the wrong target and precipitate a military takeover. The army is facing a critical situation; it does not want a takeover — and it should not — but it is facing insults from the highest political level. PPP politicians are abusing the Supreme Court judges in public. What is missing from the scene is the role of the political parties in and outside parliament. These parties have a huge stake in the system but they have done little to force a misguided government to correct its course. This failure is monumental, and it is this lack of in-house corrective mechanism which may lead to a collapse of the system — if it does. Weeks and months back the political parties should have rallied against the suicidal defiance being shown by the defeatist elements in the PPP. Even now, if they play their role in defence of the Supreme Court, and democracy, no military takeover will be possible. A clear line of action followed by the political parties could force the government to take a few steps back. We hope sanity will prevail. No trigger-happy hawks should be allowed to take control of the situation that is already spinning out of control.

Fighting talk

Friday, January 13, 2012

The undeclared moratorium on drone strikes is over and Americans have started targeting what they say are legitimate targets inside Pakistan. Four militants were reportedly killed on Tuesday and another four on Thursday. These attacks come after a lull since November 26 last year when a deadly Nato strike on a border check post killed 24 of our military personnel. Despite the resumption of drone strikes it would be wrong to assume it is back to ‘business as usual’ because much is moving in the complex fabric of the relationship between Pakistan, Afghanistan, the Americans and the Taliban. The most significant movement is in terms of the possibility of the Taliban establishing a camp office in Qatar. The Taliban have never had an ‘address’ before, a place where they can be contacted, messages left or meetings held. A place that is public and not hidden in any way, a place where both praise and criticism can be received, and a place within a place – Qatar – where all the parties and players find the Venn-diagram of their comfort-zones intersecting, however tangentially.

In attempting to construct a peace process with the Taliban the US has to have two key players on board – Afghanistan and Pakistan. Even if the Taliban establish an office in Qatar, they still have many of the key players in their command and control structures in or close to, Pakistan. If there is to be any reconciliation then Islamabad has to be part of the process, and given the parlous state of relations today it is clear that repairs are not limited to a little light fence-mending, but a wholesale restructuring of relations between ourselves and the Americans. American relations with the Karzai government are in some ways no less fractious than they are with Pakistan, and Karzai himself is lukewarm to the idea of a Taliban ‘address’ that is out of his direct purview. We are at a crucial juncture. Whatever gains the Americans and their allies have made in Afghanistan will be swiftly lost unless there is a negotiated peace with the Taliban that is durable and survives American disengagement. America will, despite the loss of the Shamsi base, continue to overfly drones in Pakistan and strike as it sees fit, that at least has not changed. But the incidence of drone strikes is going to have to be recalibrated, with the latest probably being a ‘marker’ to gauge reaction from Pakistan. Talking and fighting are now more closely aligned; there may be a release of Taliban prisoners from Guantanamo – to be safely parked in a Qatari garage pending further negotiation. Peace needs a seedbed, and Qatar looks increasingly like a good option.






Abuse of rules


There are many ways to misuse public funds and our leaders appear to have latched onto all of them. The latest details of politically motivated expenditure, with mala fide intent, come in a report prepared by top economist Dr Hafiz Pasha with assistance from Planning Commission experts. The document lays down how a whopping sum of Rs50 billion was used for various projects on the directive of the president, the prime minister and others wielding power – in violation of rules, since there was no approval for these ventures from the relevant forums. It is hardly a surprise that a portion of this money was spent in Multan – for reasons that are not hard to comprehend – while another Rs7 billion has been set aside for such ‘projects’ in the future. Such instances of abuse of public money, it seems, are not likely to end soon. The spending has been carried out using the notion of ‘anticipatory approval’ – a unique way to take advantage of the fact that directions issued regarding the initiation of key projects by the PM or the president are hardly likely to be turned down by any panel. The report by Dr Pasha also notes that, to some degree at least, provisions for such misuse are built into the Planning Commission, to accommodate politicians. The report recommends that such loopholes be removed.

The decline of ethics and professionalism within our institutions has been rapid and frightening. What is even more relevant in this case is the fact that development matters have been reduced to such highly politicised means. The resultant lack of sound professional judgment – on what work needs to be undertaken and where – has led to injustice and deprivation for the people. We have seen this happen in the past as well. This process of decline because of politically motivated corruption must be checked and public money should be used where it is most needed, rather than to serve political interests by bribing people to vote as per a specific pattern.

Romney wins

The long, expensive and usually blood-boltered race for the American Presidency advanced another step down the road with the victory of Mitt Romney in the New Hampshire primary. He has now won the first two of many races, which is unusual for a non-incumbent candidate. The contest has already been far from pretty, with damaging accusations made, usually of failing to be sufficiently swingeing in government cutbacks in any future administration candidates may lead. The Republicans are having difficulty in finding a ‘one nation’ candidate who would fly a flag under which most registered Republican voters would march. And it is this lack of unity or the ability to field a candidate with the political equivalent of a ‘killer app’ that is doubtless giving heart to the Obama team that is currently sitting back while the Republicans tear lumps off one another.

The Democrats are not fielding any other presidential candidate than Obama but the vice-presidential ticket is not yet a settled decision. Joe Biden has been a safe pair of hands which is as much as is usually expected of a VP – but he is aging. A name often heard among the chattering classes of the Washington beltway in connection with the VP post is – Hilary Clinton. Although she has had mixed reviews as foreign secretary, she has not been a disaster that many predicted, and has won praise for being hard-working if nothing else. She is on record as saying that she does not wish to continue ‘in post’ if the Democrats win the next election. This is not necessarily a ploy to signal her interest in the VP post, but she cannot be ruled out as the next-but-one president of the United States of America. Mitt Romney has won two primaries and acts as if he was already the presidential nominee, but two primaries do not a president make and there are plenty waiting in the wings to grease the stairs for the man who would bring his faith – Mormonism – to the White House, if he wins.

Delusional government

Saturday, January 14, 2012


There should be no doubt about this: the Gilani-Zardari government’s antics in recent days have threatened to test the limits of the country’s troubled experiment with democracy. Though sanity seems to have prevailed now after a nerve-racking Wednesday, the fact of the matter is that with vacillation and inconsistency having become the government’s only mode of operation, one can never be sure how far away the next crisis is. As Army Chief Gen Ashfaq Parvez Kayani met the corps commanders on Thursday, an unusually large number of the members of the 342-seat National Assembly turned up for the sitting perhaps precisely because of the fear of the unknown given prevailing tensions. Friday’s special session – called at great expense to the public exchequer and having caused much anxiety to an already stressed public – proved a damp squib. Unable to generate consensus on the resolution it wanted to table, the government scampered away from its original draft that even its own allies did not agree with. But the icing on the cake came when Prime Minister Gilani said: “We are politicians; if we don't make mistakes, who will? But democracy should not suffer for our mistakes.” Yes, it shouldn’t. There is genuine disillusionment on the ground with both the style and substance of his government because of which democracy has suffered both as an idea and as a process. The PPP government has tried to downplay Pakistan’s more serious problems – such as economic decline, chronic energy shortages and militancy – with rhetoric and by unnecessarily locking in power struggles with the country’s other centres of power. And all this, it seems, only to prolong its rule and complete its term in office. How then can we possibly believe the prime minister when he said on the floor of the house Friday that democracy is all that matters?

The last few weeks alone have shown that the PPP government has abandoned its celebrated politics of reconciliation and opted for an ineluctable reassertion of the values of old politics where conflict and confrontation are scored above compromise and conciliation. The only choice the PPP has now is to submit itself to the judgment of the people. Even its allies are becoming wary of its confrontational stance and have advised it to stay the path of reconciliation, write the letter to Swiss courts and avoid getting locked in a deadly embrace with other institutions. There is no other way now but to resolve problems in the political arena. And the problems are real, unlike what President Zardari thinks. A spokesman of the president said on Friday that the president was not concerned about the political crisis gripping the country. The government has not had a clear run at being the guardian of the transition to democracy. It should set its house in order before its failure truly becomes the miner's canary: a symptom of an even graver failure of democratic politics in this country.

The rehab

As reported in this newspaper, cricketer Muhammad Aamer, youngest of those convicted in the ‘spot-fixing’ matter, is due for release on February 9. He will have served half of his six-month sentence and will be living in London at an address approved by the Probation Service until he is allowed to return to Pakistan. There was some sympathy for Aamer at the time of his conviction, and many expressed the view that he had been ‘led astray’ by older and more corrupt players – which may well have been the case. Doors have been left open for Aamer. He is not being deported nor is there any ban on his return at some future date to the UK. He still has to serve a ban by the International Cricket Council (ICC) but so long as he stays straight, makes the best of what has been handed to him and keeps his bowling arm in trim – he may still have a future in the cricketing world.

The potential rehabilitation of Aamer could easily serve as both lesson and metaphor for cricket in Pakistan. Our national game has suffered innumerable blows in recent years. From the attack on the visiting Sri Lankan team to the ignominy of seeing what many regard as heroes and role-models standing in the dock in a British court to the catalogue of mismanagement that has plagued the game at a senior level – Pakistan cricket is at a low ebb. Low perhaps, but far from defunct. Our passion for the game remains undimmed and there is no shortage of young and talented men – and women let us not forget – who would happily serve their country as members of a national side. Our position as a cricketing nation is not irretrievable, neither is the position of Aamer, but the individual and the state face the same challenges – how to restore credibility in the eyes of a doubting world, how to rebuild a professional cadre of cricketers free of taint and how to purge the management of the national side of deep-rooted incompetence. Difficult, yes – but not impossible. As Aamer gets back his freedom let us turn the page and in the immortal words of Henry Newbolt ‘Play up! Play up! And play the game’.

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Be shak, Main tery liye he jeeta hoon or tery liye he marta hoon.....!(Baba Fareed)
____________Punjab Police Zindabaad____________

PM’s fate

Sunday, January 15, 2012

Aitzaz Ahsan, senior lawyer and PPP politician sidelined into political oblivion by the Pakistan People’s Party for leading the lawyers’ movement in 2007 and for representing the then deposed chief justice at the Supreme Court, appears to have made a comeback. It won’t be a stretch to say many are surprised by how he went from pariah-status to President Zardari’s darling in a matter of weeks. Reports suggest that he is being considered as a possible replacement for Prime Minister Gilani. Though Aitzaz has denied these reports as baseless, such denials are always taken as attempts to hide the smoke of a fire raging somewhere. If one were to believe the speculation and the punditry, Prime Minister Gilani may be considering resigning as part of a move to deflect pressure on the president. In recent weeks, the PPP government has sharply increased its hostility towards both the army and the judiciary. The mouthpiece of this hostility, among others, has been the prime minister who has moved from talking about the possibility of a clash between the army and the government to raising alarm that the bell actually tolls for him and his government. In the midst of this, Aitzaz has become a figure of interest, especially as someone who could lead the interim setup before the elections. Word has it that even the opposition parties – which met Friday with Nawaz Sharif in the chair to try to forge a grand alliance to press for early elections – may have agreed on the choice.

In a politically significant move, the president had invited Aitzaz to make a speech after him in Garhi Khuda Bakhsh on the fourth death anniversary of Benazir Bhutto last month. Recently, he has also nominated Aitzaz as the mentor of his budding son Bilawal. Observers say replacing Gilani may have become inevitable from the point of view of a president who is interested only in his and his government’s survival. Observers also suggest that this move would make sense as the PPP begins to lay down the planks of its electoral campaigns. Aitzaz won hearts and minds during the lawyers’ movement and for a party so inextricably associated with corruption, who better than the clean Aitzaz to lead the election campaign? On the other hand, the rumours of the PM’s replacement may be construed as attempts to destabilise and undermine Gilani. At Friday’s session of the National Assembly, the PM couldn’t even get his own coalition partners and allies to agree on the draft of the government’s ‘pro-democracy’ bill. No doubt the PM has brought ‘stability’ to the system on numerous occasions in the past but he is no longer the non-controversial, consensus-building figure that he may once have been.

Shahzad report

Despite covering nearly 150 pages, the report by the commission set up to investigate the murder of journalist Saleem Shahzad about six months ago gives little information. Even after interviewing some 41 witnesses, including 13 journalists who appeared before it, browsing through 33,000 emails sent out by the unfortunate Shahzad and conducting other investigations, the five-member commission comprising two judges, two police officers and a journalist was unable to come up with a possible motive for Shahzad’s death or go into the matter of who killed him. The ISI, which denied the charges made against it by the late journalist before he was killed, has not been accused of any involvement. The murder, like so much else in our country, will remain a mystery.

Shahzad is not the only journalist to die in the line of duty. There have been many others, and their number has increased each year with the New York-based Committee to Protect Journalists having termed Pakistan the most dangerous country for media professionals. Things have changed remarkably over the last few years. This was certainly not the case some years ago. Just a few days back, the first death anniversary of Wali Khan Babar of Geo News was marked in Karachi and in other places. The young journalist was brutally killed in Karachi last year. Reporters in remote tribal areas where conflict rages are perhaps most at risk. Five journalists in 2011 and eight in 2010 are reported to have died there while doing their job. Media persons play a vital role in bringing information before the public. They need protection so that they can continue to perform this function effectively. Their lives can be saved only if we are able to get to the bottom of cases such as Shahzad’s death. He had left behind warnings sent out to various groups stating he had received threats from certain quarters. Even this has not proved enough to track down how he was killed and why. The failure by the commission to come up with anything that helps us uncover these details places other journalists at still greater risk. Something must be done to ensure they are able to work without the constant threat of death hanging over them and their families.

The perks

For an impoverished country with an economy in freefall we seem to have a lot of very expensive politicians. Members of the national assembly have been paid benefits – ‘perks’ – worth Rs120 billion over the last four years, with an equal amount being spent on the assembly house and its staff. Looking in more detail at what an individual MNA may scoop up, they have a monthly salary of Rs120,000, topped up by another Rs100,000 per month when the legislature is sitting, and another Rs140,000 for office expenditures. Thus on a good month the average MNA will be trousering Rs360,000. Nice work if you can get it as the saying goes.

But the perking does not stop there. Factor in also the Rs48,000 for every visit the poor creatures have to make to Islamabad, the 40 free air tickets, the unlimited free use of the railways (hardly relevant as there are no railways worth having any more), free electricity and telephone and all the mobile call time they want, national and international – and you have a very beefy package indeed. Should they or their relatives ever fall sick they will be treated at government expense, and to add insult to injury it is reported that further perks are in the pipeline. Whilst it would be the height of naïveté to imagine that MNAs should somehow be self-funding and no burden on the state, it would seem reasonable to expect that they were minimally remunerated rather than pampered as they currently are. We are a poor country. Millions live on the edge of starvation. At the very least in these straitened times, our elected representatives might consider a little personal parsimony and publicly forego some of the perks that go with the job and pay a little more of their own way. Because in doing so they might just win back a little of the respect that they mostly lost decades ago.

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Be shak, Main tery liye he jeeta hoon or tery liye he marta hoon.....!(Baba Fareed)
____________Punjab Police Zindabaad____________

Arfa Karim

The death of Arfa Karim late has triggered an outpouring of sorrow which is genuine, heartfelt and nationwide. She had been in a coma since December 28 last year and on a life-support system at the Combined Military Hospital. The doctors had done their best as acknowledged by her father, but in the end she lost the battle and slipped away. The loss of any young life is tragic, but in losing Arfa the nation has lost one of its stars. She was a child prodigy who at the age of nine became the world’s youngest Microsoft certified professional in 2004. Other awards followed – the Fatima Jinnah Gold Medal for science and technology, the Salam Pakistan Youth Award in 2005 and the President’s Award for Pride of Performance. Aged ten she made her first flight in a light aircraft, and in 2006 she was invited to be the keynote speaker at the Microsoft Tech-Ed Conference.

Arfa reportedly wore her fame modestly, and we will of course never know what she might have gone on to achieve. Yet despite her youth, she is going to leave a legacy that is going to echo down the years. Her life was a fine example of what can be achieved, and that people from Pakistan can be famous for all the right reasons, rather than all the wrong ones. That people from Pakistan can stand tall in the world, earn the respect of others by their skill and expertise, and have the potential to be global leaders in their chosen profession. That she was exceptional there is no doubt, and not all children are, but all children, exceptional or not, will be able to look up to her and perhaps be inspired to aspire themselves. The nation lost Arfa Karim as she stood on the cusp of womanhood, and the threshold of a career that would never have been anything less than glittering. Today we mourn her, and tomorrow we must remember her for what she was – an example of the very best of Pakistan.

Tunisia

The people of Tunisia have celebrated the first anniversary of a revolution that catalysed ‘the Arab Spring’. Tunisia has become almost a template for how to recover from the chaos of regime change. Democracy was quick to take root, as was the process of politicisation in what was, until a year ago, a one-party state. There are now many political parties wanting to be heard and be a part of governance. The problems that were there before the revolt have not gone away. Much of the country is still desperately poor. Tunisia does not have a sustaining oil industry to fall back on as does Libya, and the once booming tourist industry is all but dead. Unemployment remains high. But the biggest achievement of the Tunisian people is that they organised and ran a credible election within months of the fall of the Ancien Régime.

Today, a human rights activist is the president and a once-jailed moderate Islamist is the prime minister who heads up a rainbow coalition of parties. As in Egypt, Islamist parties have risen in the electoral process – a process that was the freest in the modern history of the country. Islamist yes, but with a wary pragmatism that recognises that tourism must revive if the economy is to revive – and most of the tourists were Europeans, not Arabs. Human rights organisations have expressed a concern that the separation between religion and the state must be maintained, and that moderation in all things is the watchword. Going into the second year of freedom Tunisia remains turbulent, but it is the turbulence of adjustment rather than a precursor of further revolt. Thus far it seems appropriate to express cautious optimism for the Tunisian future. There needs to be inward investment and a winnowing of a myriad of political parties down to a representative homogeneity. None of this is going to be easy and the world will watch as the prototypical revolt of the Arab Spring evolves into a post-revolutionary state.

The Gitmo decade

There can be few in the world who have not heard of ‘Gitmo’ – the derisory contraction of ‘Guantanamo’ where the Americans run a notorious prison which is home to many of those captured in the last decade of ‘the war on terror’. The prison has come for many to symbolise all that is wrong about America and the way it does business with the wider world. It has become an albatross around the neck of President Obama who famously vowed to close it within a year of taking office – and never did. Now, ten years after it was opened, it has become a focus for protest for Americans, hundreds of whom rallied in favour of its closure in Washington on Thursday last week. There have been attempts to relocate the facility on the US mainland, all have failed as communities have resisted, often fiercely, the housing of the world’s most famous group of prison inmates in their locality.

The first 20 inmates arrived on January 11 2002, and today there are 171 prisoners held there. Eighty-nine of these have been cleared for release but their freedom has been blocked as a result of a law passed by the US Congress which nobody has yet been able to strike down. There have been 779 people detained at Gitmo, most of them without being formally charged with anything and without the opportunity to defend themselves at a trial. In short, the American doctrine of exceptionalism reigns supreme. Imperial America is the exception to the rules that it wishes others to play by – yet chooses to ignore if it so chooses. Why should other states fall into compliance if America so openly flouts the most basic of human rights – that of a fair trial? Theoretically the Americans can detain Gitmo inmates indefinitely, and even if there is a change in the presidency at the next elections there is not going to be a policy reversal – and if Obama wins it will not be by promising to have this blot on the American escutcheon closed.

__________________
Be shak, Main tery liye he jeeta hoon or tery liye he marta hoon.....!(Baba Fareed)
____________Punjab Police Zindabaad____________

Notice to PM

Tuesday, January 17, 2012

Everyone expected fireworks on January 16 and fireworks they got. After the attorney general told the Supreme Court bench hearing the National Reconciliation Ordinance implementation case that he had no instructions from the government in response to the six options put forward by the apex court, the bench issued Prime Minister Gilani a contempt of court notice and directed him to appear before the court on January 19. A few hours later the government, having consulted with its allies, decided the prime minister would face the court. Before the government’s decision, and responding to the court’s directives, the law minister had said the government would consult its lawyers and take a decision in accordance with the law and Constitution. If the law is what is at stake here, then let it be said that the government – given its blatant refusal to implement sundry Supreme Court orders, including in the NRO case – has become the very antithesis of rule of law, and Monday’s contempt notice thus makes perfect sense.

Indeed, under Article 204(2) of the Constitution, the SC has the power to punish any person who (a) abuses, interferes with or obstructs the process of the court in any way or disobeys any order of the court; (b) scandalises the court or otherwise does anything which tends to bring the court or a judge of the court into hatred, ridicule or contempt. The law is thus clear on the matter: by not writing a letter to Swiss authorities, the prime minister has indeed interfered with and obstructed the process of the implementation of the NRO verdict and hence violated his oath and disobeyed the court’s orders, which by law constitutes contempt of court. As for what could possibly happen on Jan 19 when, and if, the prime minister shows up at court, and refuses to write the Swiss letter – he could stand to become ineligible to be a member of parliament. Under Article 62(1)(f), a person is not qualified to be elected or chosen as a member of parliament unless he is “sagacious, righteous and non-profligate, honest and…there being no declaration to the contrary by a court of law.” Similarly, Article 63(1)(g) says a person “shall be disqualified from being elected or chosen as, and from being, a member of parliament if he has been convicted by a court of competent jurisdiction for propagating any opinion, or acting in any manner, prejudicial to…the integrity or independence of the judiciary of Pakistan, or which defames or brings into ridicule the judiciary.” If in the future proceedings the court does convict the PM, a declaration in terms of clause (f) of Article 62(1) may have the effect of a permanent clog on the prime minister’s qualification as a member of parliament or a provincial assembly. Somewhat similar oaths as that of the PM have also been taken by the co-chairman of the Pakistan People’s Party before entering the office of the president and by the federal law minister, and apparent breaches of their oaths may also entail the same consequences. Prime Minister Gilani had said on Sunday that he was only accountable before parliament and the people of Pakistan. The PM also has to answer to the court now. NAB Chairman Fasih Bokhari has tendered an unconditional apology to the court for not implementing its orders in the NRO case. In this way Bokhari may have saved himself from a contempt verdict and other consequent decisions. Will the PM also make the right choice?

More mourning

It seems just as we heave a sigh of relief, disaster strikes bringing with it an immediate reminder of just how unsafe we are. The blast on Sunday in the town of Khanpur in the Rahim Yar Khan district of southern Punjab, targeting a Shia procession taken out to mark the Chehlum of Imam Hussain and claiming 18 lives, has been confirmed as a terrorist attack. Just weeks ago there had been rejoicing that the month of Muharram had passed peacefully with no attacks on the rallies and religious gatherings traditionally staged to mark the occasion. Perhaps the security forces let their guard down just a little too soon, though it may be impossible to keep a constant watch over every Imambargah across the country. The fury of those mourning the deaths and tending to the 30 or so injured in the explosion was aggravated by the initial claim from the regional police officer that an exploding electricity transformer caused the blast. Such attempts to cover up incidents of terrorism, or statements made ahead of investigations, do nothing to help matters. The district police officer later stated the deaths were caused by explosives placed by an electricity pole along the route of the march.

The Shia community’s anger is understandable. Hundreds of Shias have died in countrywide attacks over the last few years. There has been little accountability. But we need to look at the picture through a broader lens. Certainly, those behind the Khanpur killings need to be brought to justice. There can be no doubt on this score. But we need also to deal with the factors that lead to such attacks. The hatred that has given rise to extremist groups of all kinds needs to be eradicated. Right now, it is being fanned on by CDs, video tapes and pamphlets. The media does not always help and bias runs deep through our society. We must ask why action has not been taken against forces that spread sectarian hatred; we must also ask how they were able to establish links with each other. It is only when we answer these questions honestly that we can move towards solutions and the prevention of yet more senseless killings, creating havoc in our society.

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Be shak, Main tery liye he jeeta hoon or tery liye he marta hoon.....!(Baba Fareed)
____________Punjab Police Zindabaad____________

The frenzy

Wednesday, January 18, 2012


The capacity for clear, cool-headed thinking within the ruling PPP appears to be disappearing faster than ever. The prime minister remains on what appears to be a suicidal warpath, pitching himself against other institutions and apparently readying himself to take on the role of a martyr who – in the realm of make-believe the PPP now occupies – can save democracy and battle all that it has decided is evil. This seems to include the other key institutions in the land, triggering yet more tension we can simply not afford, especially given the huge troubles we already face. Continuing the aggressive tone in his much anticipated address to the National Assembly, PM Gilani said that neither the judiciary nor the army could derail democracy. He also warned that if democracy fell, or in other words if he was ousted, others would tumble too. The PM also presented an emotive – if not quite accurate – account of how the PPP had restored the judiciary, failing to mention how the leadership had in March 2009 attempted to block the restoration as the PML-N led its march towards Islamabad. Gilani also spoke of a joint session of parliament being called soon.

What he didn’t mention amidst the display of high emotion is the role his own government has played in subverting the working of democracy by failing to abide by court orders and follow the dictates of the Constitution. No amount of emotional gesticulations can change this fact. The crisis the ruling party now faces has been brought about by itself. Much now depends on what answer Gilani offers to the court when he appears before it. Right now, the PPP government has chosen to walk down the path of confrontation and clearly has motives of its own for doing so. The disaster this can lead the country to is clearly of no consequence to it as it engages in a series of dangerous games – to save some of those who face peril under the NRO case. The PM’s ranting and raving will not hide this selfishness from the people who have already seen through the charade being enacted before them.

Licensed no more

PPP’s consigliore Babar Awan wanted ‘fame and glory’, to be known for his ‘fearless defiance’ and his special knack for being on the wrong side of the law and not having to answer to it. Well, it’s now official: the Supreme Court has temporarily suspended the legal licence of former law minister Babar Awan for not submitting a reply in the contempt case against him. The court has also directed that a new lawyer be assigned in the Zulfikar Ali Bhutto reference case and that hearing of the case will only resume once the new counsel is appointed. One can only hope that Awan’s penchant for rudeness and non-cooperation is satiated now. But one cannot help wondering: how does this make the Pakistan People’s Party look – that the chief legal aid of the party and of its co-chairperson, President Asif Ali Zardari, has fallen foul of the law? Perhaps not very surprising.

When Awan recently went on his contempt-spree against the court on Dec 1, many wondered: was this an expression of the panic gripping the government over the memo case or a sign that the party and its top leaders had opted for unyielding defiance? And then the prime minister also went the Babar Awan route. In the days ahead, one can only hope that both Awan and PM Gilani will have the courage to stand before the court and do what is required – offer unconditional apologies and prove that the government’s hands are clean by agreeing to do the right thing. Hope against hope?

Inching forward

With reports saying that Burmese opposition leader Aung San Suu Kyi would not exclude the possibility of accepting a government position if she was elected to a parliamentary seat in the upcoming elections; isolated Burma comes closer to the warmth of international relations. Since her release form house arrest last November a procession of diplomats has beaten a path to her door, apparently with the blessing of the Burmese military that runs the country behind the facade of a nominal civilian government. The Americans are to open a consulate in Burma – the first for almost 40 years – and appoint an ambassador; indications that the US is keen to do business and that the climate of repression has been sufficiently eased to allow a thaw in relations.

Thousands of political prisoners have been released recently, including some leading opposition figures who have been imprisoned almost as long as the military have been in power. The French foreign minister has now paid a visit, curbs on the media have loosened and foreign news agencies are again reporting from within Burma. All of these are positive signs, and indicate real, rather than merely cosmetic, movements on the part of the regime. What is less explicit is the motivation behind the shift, the opening up, but in all probability it is linked to inward investment and economic development. For the western states now warming to Burma are also seeing markets open up for their products and services, and a diplomatic brick in the wall which is being constructed against Chinese expansionism. China is the emerging regional hegemony, with a booming economy and a powerful currency. It has cultivated a number of countries in the region in pursuit of economic gain. The Chinese navy is looking for Indian Ocean ports. Burma has them, and the rush to bring Burma closer to the western comity of nations is no doubt in part driven by a desire to mitigate the effects of entryism by a powerful friend to the north.

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Be shak, Main tery liye he jeeta hoon or tery liye he marta hoon.....!(Baba Fareed)
____________Punjab Police Zindabaad____________

The memo case

Thursday, January 19, 2012




While the NRO cases have overshadowed the Memogate proceedings in the Qazi Esa Commission, issues have become focused as the commission has proceeded and now everyone is waiting for the main testimony of US businessman Mansoor Ijaz, when he appears before the respected judges. The main interest will not be in his statement before the commission, as he has already said what he wanted to say in his affidavits, it would be in the possible cross-examination to point out holes in his testimony. The question of a personal appearance by Ijaz has also become critical as the BlackBerry Company has refused to provide any data to the government of Pakistan but has announced it can only provide the data to its clients — Mansoor Ijaz and Husain Haqqani, if they so desire. Ijaz has sought the data but Haqqani says his phone sets are mysteriously missing and are untraceable. The commission’s chairman has sought explanations from Haqqani as to how, when and where he lost that critical piece of evidence which could lead to his exoneration. This may create doubts and questions in the minds of the commissioners.

While the commission grapples with the nitty-gritty of how to collect and collate the evidence from different players, the larger picture is that too many necks are on the line in this case, whichever way it may go. If Mansoor Ijaz can prove his case, Haqqani will be in serious trouble and if a stage of his proper interrogation comes, he may spill many beans, pointing fingers at people much higher than him. If Ijaz fails, eyes then will turn on the Pakistan Army chief and the director general of the ISI because they have stated on oath more than once that they found the evidence with Ijaz credible and worthy of action. Questions will also be raised about Mian Nawaz Sharif and his party for their decision to take this issue to such a high pitch in the apex court of the country. Many complex legal actions may follow from one side or the other, no matter who is proved right or wrong in this case. The stakes have risen to colossal proportions for all the players and whoever wins, or loses, the Memogate will be remembered as our Watergate.

New ‘normal’

The low-key diplomat and US Special Representative for Pakistan and Afghanistan, Marc Grossman, has been leading a small team of American officials in secret meetings from Doha to Munich with a shadowy representative of Afghanistan’s Taliban leader, Mullah Muhammad Omar. This week, in its effort to broker Afghan peace talks, the Obama administration launched a fresh round of shuttle diplomacy with the goal of sealing a deal for Taliban insurgents to open a political office in Qatar. Grossman has begun the diplomatic blitz, which includes talks with Afghan President Hamid Karzai and top officials in Turkey, Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates. While initial reports said Grossman would not make it to Pakistan, the State Department has now confirmed that Islamabad had asked Washington not to send Grossman to Pakistan. “The Pakistani government felt that it would be best to wait until this parliamentary review (of ties with the US in the aftermath of the Nov 26 Nato attacks) is concluded,” the State Department spokesman said. What does this development indicate? Further deterioration in a relationship that has continued to decline at a regular pace since the May 2 raid? Has the US position on Pakistan having a central role in the Afghanistan reconciliation process changed? Or is this just the usual game of putting pressure on Pakistan to tow the line?

No doubt ties are being redefined and it seems relations have fallen to new depths. The two countries are struggling to find “a new normal”. As the parliamentary committee on national security conducts a full review of the terms of cooperation with the United States and the US-led international coalition in Afghanistan, it is expected that the committee will demand explicit US assurances that there will be no violation of sovereignty: no American boots on the ground, no more unilateral raids, no manned air strikes. While the US may agree to Pakistan’s demands for more compensation for US and Nato supplies transiting its ports and roads, there is little to indicate that the US will back off from unilateral raids when it deems fit. It seems for now the status quo will remain.

One more dies

Another journalist is dead, gunned down as he prayed in the mosque he was himself paying for the construction of. Mukarram Khan Atif was a senior tribal journalist working for a private news channel as well as being a correspondent for the Voice of America radio station. The Tehrik-e-Taliban Pakistan was quick to claim responsibility for the murder, ‘justifying’ it by saying they had killed Atif for his refusal to give coverage to the Taliban on the Pashto-language Deewa radio station. Reports say that he had been receiving threats for some time but had chosen not to publicise the fact, and the TTP reportedly have said that Atif is just one of a number of journalists they are going to kill.

Journalism is a dangerous profession in Pakistan, and we hold the dubious distinction of being dubbed the ‘most dangerous country in the world’ for journalists. They may suffer at the hands of all sides – including the extremists for not publicising their cause in a way that satisfies them and a shadowy ‘establishment’ discomfited by journalistic exposure of stories that are embarrassing. Politicians have been known to threaten journalists, as has ‘big business’. In a country where so much is hidden there is little tolerance for a media that pushes accountability and transparency in public life, exposes corruption and refuses to kowtow to extremism. Today, in a climate of relative media freedom it is the investigative journalist who is the target. The journalists who dig deep into the story rather than treat it superficially, the journalists who, by so doing, often pay with their lives. The Taliban are going to carry on targeting journalists who displease them. So will the others who would have uncomfortable truths hidden. It is the job of the media and the journalists working within it to strip away the onion-layers of deceit and lies that frame so much of our lives; and they will continue to be in danger so long as there is corruption, double-dealing and deception to be exposed.

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Be shak, Main tery liye he jeeta hoon or tery liye he marta hoon.....!(Baba Fareed)
____________Punjab Police Zindabaad____________

Doom prophets, alas, confounded again

Ayaz Amir


This is no longer about the finer points of the law, if it ever was that. It has turned into a full-blown political tamasha (spectacle) but not quite in the way the doom brigade had imagined. The Zardari dispensation has not collapsed; the PPP has not grovelled, an apology of any sort the last thing on its mind; and the doom pundits, predicting demise and downfall these past three years, have some more frustration to hang on to and live with.
At times not a week but even a day is a long time in politics. The crisis the government faces has not abated but with PM Yousaf Raza Gilani having appeared before the Supreme Court (SC) to answer the contempt summons served on him, and the mountains not having erupted or the heavens fallen, things don’t look quite as apocalyptic as they first did.
To the dismay of the new breed of lawyers who, to all appearances, can’t help themselves. While PPP representatives and their allies kept their cool many lawyers outside seemed to have lost it: shouting slogans against the government and in support of My Lord Chief Justice that were singularly out of place.
The lawyers’ movement did much good. It also encouraged the spread of bad manners (badtameezi) amongst the legal fraternity. What were the lawyers hoping for? That the PM should be summarily executed?
Love or hate Zardari, and we all know his past and his achievements in the realm of high finance, but hand it to him for standing his ground and not buckling under pressure. Judicial tension is enough of a headache. Add military pressure to it and the weight can be imagined. But both Zardari and Gilani have kept their nerve. If only they were half as good in governance and administration there would be some cause for cheer.
For Zardari this is not an unfamiliar role. For the way he faced his long years in prison no less a person than Majid Nizami, undisputed father of what we like to call the ideology of Pakistan, dubbed him Mard-e-Hur (man of freedom). But I think not many people were expecting Gilani to stand firm. As prime minister he has faced many charges but they stand redeemed by his stance in this crisis, the most serious to face his government.
Highest marks for fortitude also to Asfandyar Wali and the ANP. Not for a moment did they falter or lose sight of the democratic principle, that of parliamentary sovereignty, at stake in this politico-military-judicial crisis. It is possible to charge the ANP with many things, poor governance being one of them, but these pale when seen in the light of its present stand. Kudos also is due to the MQM, the JUI-F and the Q League for standing with the government and not being distracted by the signals emanating from Aabpara and General Headquarters.
By our standards and according to our political culture these are unusual happenings. The PPP alone at this juncture would have meant something else. But with its allies on its side this standoff acquires a different character, most (although not all) political forces on one side, non-political forces on the other.
This was evident even in the overwhelming support that came for the pro-democracy resolution in the National Assembly – meant more as a signal to relevant quarters than an affirmation of democracy. Poor administrators the present lot may be but there is no cavilling with their politics. I will even go so far as to say, and please don’t hit the roof, that Zardari while nowhere near Zulfikar Ali Bhutto’s ability or many-sided talents is a far better politician than him. Bhutto had a knack for making enemies. Zardari has a knack for making friends and keeping them on his side.
So one thing is clear: this drama is not about to end any time soon. When it drags out what is anyone likely to gain? This is not about the rule of law, much as starry-eyed enthusiasts would like to see it that way. This is a power-play by other means, with some actors out in front and some behind the scenes. And it has got complicated because the PPP’s defiance, and the steadfastness of its allies, did not figure so much in the original script.
We have two cases here, the NRO case which led to the contempt charge against the PM, and the memo affair initiated by someone with a dubious reputation, Mansoor Ijaz, and picked up so enthusiastically, some would say with blind enthusiasm, by the country’s chief ideologue, ISI chief Lt Gen Shuja Pasha. The hype generated by the memo affair gave a fresh impetus to the NRO case, setting the stage for My Lord Justice Asif Khosa to wax lyrical about honesty and dishonesty.
In this atmosphere, its luridness heightened initially by Zardari’s departure for Dubai for medical treatment, it seemed only a matter of days before the curtains fell and the actors were made to leave the stage. But to prove once more that a week can be a long time in anything, the temperature has dropped a bit: the contempt charge turning into high-class political theatre and the memo affair, as it drags out in the SC-appointed commission, losing much of its dramatic appeal.
Mansoor Ijaz seemed to be laughing the most when the memo affair got going. After all, it is not every day that a publicity-seeking adventurer gets to take for a ride the entire national security establishment of the world’s only Islamic nuclear power, of which circumstance we never tire of reminding ourselves. Now as the memo affair seems less cut-and-dried than it first appeared, Husain Haqqani may be on the point of having the last laugh.
This should give rise to some relevant questions. If our vaunted knights of national security, our famous eyes-and-ears, can be fooled so comprehensively by a buccaneer such as Mansoor Ijaz, what right do we have to expect anything better of them in, say, the Abbottabad affair when we were caught – oh, the memory rankles – with our pants down?
Food for thought, food for introspection: the deadliest insult is not defeat which is part of life but ridicule. Osama bin Laden ridiculed us by living for more than five years in the shadow of PMA Kakul. The Americans ridiculed us by taking him out without our knights of national security knowing anything about it. And now Mansoor Ijaz has turned us into a global laughingstock by his funny piece of paper, or electronic mail, which alleges not that rape occurred but that rape was intended.
This must be a first in international jurisprudence, a high-level investigation into rape intended. Actual violations – of what, let us not say – such as Abbottabad or the Mehran Base attack leave us relatively unmoved. We take them in our stride and move on. But even if Mansoor Ijaz’s word is taken at face value, transgressions intended – that is, wholly in the realm of the imagination – and nowhere near even a mythical stage of implementation plunge us into turmoil. And chiefs of the army and ISI, with expressions of the utmost seriousness, hold that the issue at hand is grave and needs to be investigated. Allah be praised.
And the doom factories, never a shortage of them here, start working overtime to suggest conspiracy and national betrayal. The virtuous and not-so-virtuous wax indignant, calling down curses upon all things political, and judgments are written which are more a tribute to literature than anything to do with the law. Fantasy and make-believe take over and reality is pushed back...until a week passes and some measure of sanity returns.
Islamabad has no national theatre and no national orchestra. (It has a national library, appropriately enough well hidden from public view.) But what need of stage and orchestra when, in season and out, politics in all its manifestations does bold and sterling service for all the arts?

Email: winlust@yahoo.com

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A successful person is one who can lay a firm foundation with the bricks that other throw at him. (David Brinkley)

The Supreme Court has come down hard on the ISI and MI chiefs and ordered immediate production of 11 suspects picked up by intelligence agencies for their alleged involvement in the Oct 2009 attacks on the GHQ and ISI’s Hamza Camp in Rawalpindi. The 11 prisoners mysteriously ‘disappeared’ from outside Rawalpindi’s Adiala Jail the day they were acquitted of terrorism charges on April 8, 2010. The two spy agencies have earlier conceded before the court that the prisoners were indeed in their custody, claiming that they were recovered from terror camps. Four of the prisoners were later found dead in mysterious circumstances outside the Lady Reading Hospital in Peshawar. At the latest hearing, the spy agencies’ counsel told the court that four of the prisoners had died but the others were no longer in the custody of intelligence agencies and had been handed over to the Khyber Pakhtunkhwa government, which should be asked to produce them. The court is right to inquire how four of the prisoners were killed and left by a roadside. And it is certainly not enough for the spy agencies’ counsel to reject as “wild allegations” the news that the prisoners were found dumped on a roadside. Indeed, as the chief justice has repeatedly pointed out, the government had given the prisoners’ custody to the agencies and now it was their duty to explain where they were and also follow the court’s orders and produce them, especially since — given the confirmation that four of the prisoners are dead — there seems to be a breach of Articles 9 (security of person), 10 (safeguards as to arrest and detention) and 10A (right to fair trial) of the Constitution.

The matter of Pakistan’s ‘disappeared’ is significant. It concerns not only the rights of the missing persons themselves but also of their families who are in agony because of the inexplicable disappearances of their loved ones. The SC has been hearing cases on missing persons since 2005; the issue has been taken up by several national and international human rights bodies and has also received extensive media coverage. Despite this, there are still incidents where dumped bodies have been found and there is no one to answer for what really happened. Instead, what we saw in court on Monday was obstinacy on the part of the spy agencies, with the counsel suggesting that the court appoint someone to go and meet the prisoners in the hospital because they could not be produced before the court. When the CJ reminded the counsel that even the country’s prime minister had appeared before the court when summoned, the counsel replied: “The prime minister has not done anyone a favour; he appeared because he was an accused.” The counsel should be reminded that as things stand, the spy agencies are also being accused of allegedly taking people into custody without following the prescribed process of law. They are as much answerable to the law as anyone else and must explain the circumstances under which four of the prisoners they have themselves admitted to picking up have turned up dead and produce the remaining seven before the court, as directed, on Feb 9. Nothing less will do.

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Regards,
CHAIRMAN MAO

President Barack Obama has finally admitted that unmanned drones have regularly struck Pakistan’s tribal areas in his government’s efforts to dismantle what it alleges are Al-Qaeda sanctuaries in the region. In a forum on Youtube and Google+, Obama defended the strikes and argued that drones had not caused a huge number of civilian casualties and were precise and effective. While Obama’s admission marked the first time he publicly acknowledged drone strikes in Pakistan, it was not the first time his administration did. Last year, Defence Secretary Leon Panetta acknowledged the use of CIA Predator drones. Is the timing of the acknowledgement by Obama significant? It may have something to do with the recently announced changes in the US Defence Department’s future spending priorities, beginning with a $37 billion cut from its previously planned fiscal year 2013 defence budget. Panetta has also admitted he is working with about $500 billion less than he had anticipated having on hand, meaning that the Pentagon has to trim personnel and favourite high-profile weapons programmes, reduce the army over five years to 490,000 troops, down from a peak of 570,000, and cut down Marines to 182,000 from 202,000. The Pentagon initially will buy fewer F-35 Joint Strike Fighter stealth jets – one of the costliest weapons programme in history – and 14 navy warships will either be retired early or built more slowly. In essence, while America’s armed forces will be trimmed, the global fleet of armed drones, America’s most effective tool for targeted killings, will be boosted.

So it may make sense for the US administration to take a more ‘honest’ approach to drones. We have known for a while that the US is not too concerned about the Pakistani pulse when it comes to drone attacks and we should perhaps expect a much more expanded ‘drone programme’ in the future, against the background of an altered US military and strategic vision. Is it time for the Pakistani side to also come clean on its own position on drones? So far the government’s position has been to support the strikes privately and bemoan them publicly. Pakistan must also come clean on any agreements with the US vis-a-vis drones, clear the confusion vis-à-vis civilian versus militant deaths, and essentially abandon this nod-and-wink approach to drone attacks. And this brings us to the question: whatever happened to the parliamentary review of Pak-US ties?


With a few strokes of the pen the government and LPG producers have added enormously to the misery of people, as the prices of POL products, LPG and CNG all rise dramatically. The rates of petrol products and lubricants go up by Rs6.29 a litre, a 10 percent surcharge has been placed on CNG and LPG prices go up by Rs14 per kg. It should be noted that the use of LPG cylinders has been particularly high this winter in the north of the country, due both to the non-availability of gas because of an acute shortfall and the fact that piped gas is not available in much of the north anyway. According to the list issued by Ogra, the new price of petrol is to be Rs94.91 per litre, HOBC will be Rs118.20, HSD Rs103.46, kerosene oil Rs92.09 and LDO Rs90.21 per litre. The change comes into effect immediately. No mercy has been shown even in raising the price of kerosene – traditionally the fuel used by the poor to keep their stoves lit. Successive governments in the past had avoided raising the prices of kerosene, aware of the impact this would have on households where people struggle to put even a single meal on the table. To make matters worse, the POL price increases will inevitably trigger still more inflation, making it harder and harder for people to survive when their incomes remain stagnant.

It is understood that Ogra had suggested that no further increase be made in petroleum prices, but no heed was taken of this by a Finance Ministry which remains desperately short of cash. The rise is being blamed on international market prices and growing tensions between the US and Iran. But this will come as no comfort to people. The government does not appear to realise just how critical the situation is and that such hikes in prices cannot be sustained endlessly by people who continue to grow more and more desperate. The fact that they have nowhere to turn, no one to hear them, only makes matters worse – with people sensing a cruel indifference to their plight all through the last four years under a government that claims to stand for them.

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Regards,
CHAIRMAN MAO