Tuesday, March 04, 2014

Seizing the moment

The TTP’s surprising offer of a month-long ceasefire was followed by an equally unexpected government response that air strikes targeting the militant group would also be suspended. The twin announcements give hope, however slight, that the moribund peace process could be revived. The next few days will be crucial as both sides size up the other’s intentions. Any attack, like the horrible one on an Islamabad court on Monday, will bring the sincerity of the TTP into doubt. Denials alone won’t be accepted and the government will need proof that the militant group is not involved. The government will also have to figure out why the TTP decided on a ceasefire now. If it is because the air strikes had spooked them into submission then trying to negotiate a favourable peace might be a wise option – all the while retaining the right to use force if called for. However, if the TTP was hurt by the military attacks and is now looking for a breather so that it can regroup to its former strength then agreeing to a ceasefire may end up being counterproductive. The judgements made by the government will be crucial.

Once the TTP has satisfied the government that its ceasefire call is genuine – and the only proof of this will be if no attacks are traced back to the militant group – it will be time to reconvene the negotiating committees. This time, though, the government should learn from its previous negotiating debacle. And it should not agree to a premature withdrawal of troops from the tribal areas either. Last time, the TTP demanded the release of its prisoners and then ended up slaughtering FC men. That alone should preclude setting any TTP men free – at least until every prisoner they are holding is released. This is the first time the TTP has offered a ceasefire unilaterally, signalling that it may be weaker than before. The fight against the TTP may still have its final reckoning on the battlefield but till then the state needs every peaceful victory it can get.

Killings continue

The speculation surrounding the on-off-on negotiations with the TTP makes it inevitable, and even understandable, that the first impulse after every attack is to wonder who is behind that. Let us not forget in the midst of all the theorising, though, that 11 blameless people were killed on Monday after what appears to be a bombing-and-firing attack on an Islamabad court. Thousands have now perished in a war that was not of their making. As we investigate who was responsible for this attack, we should do so in the hope that a measure of justice can be afforded to those who died, and their grieving families. The first suspect that comes to mind – the TTP – has denied that it was behind the attack. Since one of the victims, additional sessions judge Rafaqat Awan, had previously dismissed a case against Pervez Musharraf for the Lal Masjid operation it is possible that some militant group that shares at least ideological affinity with the TTP, may have been involved. A new group calling itself Ihrar-ul-Hind led by one Asad Mansoor has claimed responsibility; he says he was in TTP in the past and has left it. What the TTP does against him will provide the proof of their sincerity for peace through a dialogue. Imran Khan and Maulana Samiul Haq have already blamed forces who want to destroy any chance of peace.

The TTP spokesman has said it is not his group’s responsibility to uncover the attackers. Yes, the primary responsibility lies with the government, but if the TTP is sincere about its ceasefire offer then it too should be eager to find out the truth. It can start by naming the groups that are affiliated with it and those that are not. The day of a tragedy of this magnitude is not one in which to indulge in conspiracy theorising. Talking vaguely of a third force is highly irresponsible as it allows the guilty to escape justice. The government, for its part, will not only have to track down the culprits, it should also know better than to let its guard down. Strikes against this break-away group will be justified even during the ceasefire. Just because a ceasefire has been announced does not mean that the country will be spared violence.

The big win

Technically speaking, it wasn’t actually a great knock – an 18-ball 34 runs that culminated with two consecutive sixers that didn’t even come off full-blooded shots. But in the annals of Pakistan’s cricket history, Shahid Afridi’s match-winning innings played in a crowded stadium in the outskirts of Dhaka on Sunday will go down as a fabled one, just below Javed Miandad’s memorable demolishing of India with a last-ball six in Sharjah almost three decades ago. It wasn’t a final like that Austral-Asia Cup clash in 1986 but it was still a must-win game against old rivals India with both teams battling for survival in the ongoing Asia Cup. Pakistan’s ship was sinking fast with a familiar hara-kiri act while chasing a modest victory target of 246 when Afridi came to the crease. Even his die-hard fans doubted whether Lala, suffering the worst batting slump of his international career, would go on to become his team’s saviour. But somehow Afridi managed to regain his big-hitting prowess when it mattered most and turned the tables on the ashen-faced Indians.

The timing of the win couldn’t have been better. Barring any major upsets, it has helped Pakistan, the event’s defending champion, reach the Asia Cup final. Perhaps more importantly, the result has once again sent a clear message to the rest of the cricket world that it is incomplete without its most colourful team – Pakistan. It might not have big money like India or the clout that countries like England and Australia – the other two members of the Big Three – possess but when it comes to producing exciting cricketers like Afridi, Pakistan is second to none. The win against India comes as a confidence-booster for Pakistan’s cricket chiefs as they prepare to lock horns with the Big Three. As the only country still against the take-over of the International Cricket Council (ICC) by an oligarchy led by India, Pakistan will need all kinds of ammunition to take this fight to a point where it can achieve some kind of respectable outcome from it. Sunday’s Asia Cup triumph has certainly added some firepower to its depleted arsenal thanks to a man known to his fans as ‘Boom Boom’.

Wednesday, March 05, 2014

Watching the courts

The most surprising thing about the Supreme Court’s demand that CCTVs be installed at all district courts within 48 hours is that this most basic of security measures hadn’t already been in place for years. Every place, from department stores to hotels, makes use of this technology to either deter would-be criminals or make it easier to identify them after the fact. We already know that judges are vulnerable; one of the reasons there is such an abysmal conviction rate for suspected terrorists is that lawyers and judges are terrified of being targeted by militant groups. This underscores how the duties of the men in robes make them potential targets. We can be certain that the houses of parliament and GHQ and many other government buildings already have CCTV installed. Why then haven’t courts been provided the same facility? This is the kind of lax approach we have taken to security that ends up costing lives. The state seems to have the attitude that since militants are determined to attack us no matter what there is very little we can do about it.

Even if CCTVs had been installed in the Islamabad court it is unlikely the attack would have been thwarted. Where the footage would have been invaluable, though, was in seeing if any of the attackers got away and then being able to identify them and hopefully apprehend them. At a time when everyone is speculating over who is responsible for the attack, being able to interrogate one of the attackers could have settled the question conclusively. Of course, we need to do a lot more than just have CCTV facilities. Prevention of attacks through timely intelligence needs to be made a priority, followed by responding rapidly to any attacks. There are some reports that the police took 45 minutes to arrive at the Islamabad court after the attack, when it should have taken no longer than a few minutes. Recall how militants have been able to breach the GHQ, naval bases, jails and police training academies without any seeming problem. The ease of infiltration can be achieved only if there is inside help or security that is laughably incompetent. Whatever the case may be the frequency of terrorist attacks in the country show that the state has yet to implement an effective defensive security policy.

Lily-white Hollywood

Hollywood exists as a myth-making machine that sells us dreams and aspirations but its greatest trick has been to convince us that this industry monopolised by old, white men is actually a bastion of liberalism. Consider this: the historic Best Picture win for 12 Years A Slave at the Academy Awards is the first time that a film written, directed and starring black people has been honoured. The standard Hollywood trope for movies dealing with slavery, genocide and the Holocaust, from Dancing with Wolves to Schindler’s List and Amistad, is to make the evils perpetrated against minority communities as a challenge for a saintly white hero to overcome. What makes 12 Years A Slave so harrowing and such an important contribution to cinema is that it exists to show the evils of slavery in all its horrors and not present a sanitised version to assuage white guilt. As welcome as the Best Picture nod may be, the academy should use it not to pat itself on the back but to reflect on why it took so long. The first time a black actor won an Oscar was back in 1939, when Hattie McDaniel got the Best Supporting Actress statuette for Gone With the Wind, a film suffused with nostalgia for the Confederacy where slaves would rather remain in blissful captivity than be freed by the evil Unionist. After picking up her award, McDaniel had to go and sit at the back of the segregated auditorium.

The 12 Years A Slave win does show that Hollywood, and indeed the US, has made slow progress since then but it is nowhere near enough. The US may have a black president but he is still subjected to near-daily racist caricatures. The continued existence of white privilege afflicts Hollywood, where there may be a few black stars but positions of power in the studio, the director’s chair and the writers’ room are still lily-white. That is a reflection of the country as a whole. Instead of the blatant racism of the Jim Crow era, code words like ‘welfare’, ‘food stamps’, ‘law and order’ and ‘the war on drugs’ are used to justify policies that target African Americans. Across the south, Republicans are trying to restrict the black vote, this time replacing literacy tests with more subtle tactics like legislating for more stringent voter identification to be provided at polling stations. One movie cannot overthrow a system rigged against African Americans but it can provide hope for gradual change.

__________________
Ye sab tmhara karam hai AAQA k bat ab tak bani hoi hai
May is karam k kahan ti kabil ye HAZOOR ki band parvari hai

Thursday, March 06, 2014

The talks scene

The first meeting of the reconvened government and TTP negotiating teams may also be their last. It seems both sides have realised the futility of having negotiators who do not have the authority to make decisions on their own and need to keep going back and forth to get approval for everything under discussion. The likely composition of the reconstituted government negotiating team is sure to lead to much argument and debate. The inclusion of members of the PML-N should be a foregone conclusion since the ruling party now has to step up and accept responsibility for the peace talks strategy rather than try to hide behind third-party negotiators and the military. Apparently the PML-N also wants the Khyber Pakhtunkhwa chief minister or a representative of his on the committee. This would be an interesting political ploy since the PTI is the party most associated with the call for peace talks but which has also blamed all previous failures in negotiation on the government. Bringing the PTI into the fold may force it to play a more constructive role rather than be critical from the sidelines. However, there can be a case for the proposal to include military representatives, including from the ISI, as part of the negotiating team to be shelved. The military has to play its role in the battlefield in case an operation is needed.

The TTP, too, needs to be held responsible for the conduct of negotiations. During the previous, unsuccessful attempts at peace talks a member of its shura claimed responsibility for an attack in Peshawar even as the TTP distanced itself from the attack. All Shura members need to commit to the talks and directly take part in them, although they should never be granted the meeting with Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif that they desire. Getting the TTP involved will force the leadership of the militant group to answer for their possible involvement in any attack, such as Wednesday’s bombing in Kurram Agency which killed six security personnel. The TTP cannot have it both ways by announcing a ceasefire and then continuing to murder at will. In his press briefing today, TTP mediator Maulana Samiul Haq said he expected more attacks from the ‘third force’. In such a confusing scene as this, with so many militant groups able to strike at will, such talk may or may not have elements of truth. But this is not important. It must be realised that the real conflict lies between the TTP and the state. All other confusions stem from it. Conspiracy theories should not be allowed to obscure TTP’s terrorism. For negotiations to succeed with such a deadly force, what is required is for all to be clear-headed and firm about the nature of what they are up against.

Winning streak

Within a span of two matches and that too in a one-day tournament largely seen as an irrelevant one, Pakistan’s players have once again underlined the fact that nothing unites this fragmented nation like cricket. Thanks to our national cricketers, especially Shahid Afridi – whose back-to-back, match-winning knocks in the ongoing Asia Cup have catapulted Pakistan in Saturday’s final – the country has experienced the sort of joy that has become rare in these troubled times.

From Karachi to Khyber, and even in embattled Waziristan, millions of Pakistanis rejoiced when Pakistan came back from the jaws of defeat to topple India with the help of two last-over sixers from Afridi last Sunday. Two days later, Afridi hammered seven more to help Pakistan achieve their best run-chase in history to edge hosts Bangladesh and set a date with Sri Lanka in the title clash. There were other heroes as well in the three-wicket triumph on Wednesday like the young Ahmed Shehzad who hit a crafty century and come-back man Fawad Alam who contributed 74 valuable runs, but it was really Lala’s heroics that sent the entire nation in frenzied celebrations. Come Saturday and hundreds of millions of Pakistanis will be glued in front of their TV sets hoping that Misbah & Co will make it three wins in a row. Winning the Asia Cup final won’t be easy considering that Pakistan’s rival – Sri Lanka – has proved itself as the team to beat in this tournament. When the two sides clashed in a league game earlier in the tournament it was the islanders who reigned supreme. But the final is likely to be a different ball game since for now Pakistan has the momentum. Having won the match of the tournament – against India – the defending champions will settle for nothing less than the Cup. And if Afridi and his team-mates click again, it will be difficult to stop the Pakistani juggernaut.

Polio nightmare

Pakistan’s unfortunate status as the global centre of polio is becoming ever-more established. Over the past months there has been talk of travel restrictions being imposed on Pakistan because of its failure to control polio. This is beginning to look more and more like a reality as our polio nightmare continues. The World Health Orghanisation has announced that, based on sophisticated DNA testing, a new case of polio in Syria and another in China have been traced back to Pakistan. Another may have been discovered in Israel. The testing services now available allow a case to be traced back to its place of origin – and this place is again and again proving to be Peshawar, where sewerage water is reportedly contaminated by the polio virus.

Clearly we need to combat this situation – for the sake of our own people, and the rest of the world. Success has been limited, with yet another meeting held in Islamabad Tuesday urging more effort, given that 24 new cases of the virus have emerged already this year, mainly in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa and Fata. This undoubtedly is linked to the fact that at least 20 anti-polio workers and security staff protecting them were killed in 2014 alone. Meanwhile myths concerning the negative effects of the vaccine continue to be circulated. This is a grim story; and the fact is that regular meetings held in government offices are not going to change anything. We need to face the fact that we are confronting a crisis, one that could engulf the world and make it impossible to eradicate a disease that has been wiped out from all but three countries. The fear is that Pakistan’s failures could alter this situation and mark the return of the virus. We need to handle the situation as an emergency and use whatever action is required to eliminate polio by dealing with the groups that deny people vaccination and also with the logistical problems that hold back campaigns.

__________________
Ye sab tmhara karam hai AAQA k bat ab tak bani hoi hai
May is karam k kahan ti kabil ye HAZOOR ki band parvari hai

Saturday, March 08, 2014

The dying desert

It took the deaths of 32 children in the last month for the Sindh government to be shamed into doing something about the famine in Tharparkar. According to some media reports, in the last three months, over 120 children have died due to drought-related illness. The initial response by the provincial government was pathetic, with Chief Minister Qaim Ali Shah announcing the provision of 60,000 bags of wheat. Given that at least 175,000 families have been hit by the drought this was nowhere near sufficient and even this meagre offering never made its way to the affected families. It is only when PPP chief Bilawal Zardari took note of the drought and ordered action from the government that Qaim Ali Shah gave a press briefing and vowed to spend Rs100 million on relief efforts. The Sindh High Court has now also swung into action and is seeking answers from the Sindh chief secretary. Former Supreme Court chief justice Iftikhar Chaudhry has written to the Supreme Court urging suo motu notice of the tragedy. Despite his announcement, Qaim Ali Shah’s briefing betrayed the flippant attitude the provincial government has tended to show towards those it governs. He said that famine was an annual problem in the backward Tharparkar, as if famine is a natural state of affairs rather than a preventable outcome of government incompetence. If indeed Tharparkar periodically suffers droughts, then the government has no excuse not to have a plan of action ready.

The Tharparkar famine is symbolic of the way the PPP has tended to govern in Sindh. Its representatives tend to spend most of their time in Karachi and pay little attention to development in rural Sindh. This is one of the immediate factors in the province lagging behind Punjab in almost every indicator, from literacy to infant mortality. The federal government, too, has shown a shocking lack of concern for the plight of citizens in Tharparkar. When there is flooding in other parts of the country the NDMA and other agencies are forced into action and money is immediately forthcoming. Even civil society has been shamefully missing and there have been no relief drives and mobilisation efforts for Tharparkar. Now that some attention has been focused on the area, we need to make sure that Tharparkar is not quickly forgotten. The drought has led to the deaths of the livestock that farmers rely on to make a living and so they will need continued aid and help restarting their businesses. By ignoring the famine for so many months, the government has only made its effects worse. It will be a long time before the citizens of Tharparkar recover.

Tough task

So much attention is lavished on the identity of the chief election commissioner (CEC) that we tend to forget the person is only the first among equals. When Fakhruddin G Ebrahim was given the post everyone assumed that his integrity and strength of character alone would be enough to ensure an independent Election Commission. That was an impossible wish given that the other members of the ECP were not of the same calibre. Now it seems like the government and opposition parties have agreed on former Supreme Court justice Rana Bhagwandas as the next CEC. That the decision took this long and needed prompting from the SC is scandalous enough. But that will soon be forgotten as everyone rushes to praise the appointment. True, Bhagwandas, like Ebrahim, bears unimpeachable character, something he showed when he refused to take oath under Musharraf’s second PCO. But the position requires bureaucratic skill as much as good intentions; and doubts should persist about the ability of any chief, no matter how strong his character, to reform a rotten system.

The question is whether Bhagwandas’ recent service as chairman of the Federal Public Service Commission will make him ineligible for the CEC post. Should he overcome that challenge he will find himself in challenging situations similar in scope and difficulty to those Ebrahim faced. The ECP has so far been backing the provinces in their contention that the local bodies elections need to be delayed indefinitely because of many issues. At some point the patience of the SC will run out and a fixed election date set. Bhagwandas will need to be prepared for such an eventuality and ensure that the ECP is not caught unprepared to hold elections. It will also be expected to be scrupulously fair in approving candidates and thus avoiding the farce that was created by returning officers before the general elections. All the while, pressure will be brought to bear on the ECP by interested parties. Expecting the chairman alone to ensure the independence of every other ECP member is putting too much burden on an individual for a problem that is essentially institutional. Bhagwandas has a task before him that may be beyond reach.

March for her

In times of conflict women are often forgotten. We think of soldiers on the frontline of battle, of men wielding guns or hurling grenades. As we mark March 8, International Women’s Day, we need to think of women caught up in conflict at a time our country is locked in one. Women are the worst sufferers when IDPs stream into camps leaving behind homes and lands. Today tens of thousands of women in our country have been driven away from home. Some have been unable to return for years, continuing as best they can to manage in hostile conditions. When death lurks in neighbourhoods in Karachi, it is women who suffer the greatest fear brought by the sound of gunfire, and women who grieve over the bodies of those killed as a result of sectarian, ethnic or political violence. Women have been victims too of bomb blasts and drone attacks. The battle to bring back the missing is led by women such as Farzana Majeed who have walked kilometre after kilometre, seeking to draw attention to the fate of the young men taken away. Farzana’s brother is among them. So are the brothers, the fathers and the husbands of others. We must remember too that in ‘smaller’ disputes also it is women who are killed or sacrificed to ‘protect’ the ‘honour’ of men, or given away as compensation.

But their sufferings mostly go unnoticed. On this day we must resolve to ensure this does not remain the case. The sacrifices made by women should be in our thoughts as we mark the 8th of March. The day after all is not just about posters, rallies and speeches but about real lives and those caught up in the gruesome reality that grips our country, affecting women the most even if their stories remain untold. We need to turn the spotlight on to them so they can be given the help and support they need.

__________________
Ye sab tmhara karam hai AAQA k bat ab tak bani hoi hai
May is karam k kahan ti kabil ye HAZOOR ki band parvari hai

Monday, March 10 2014

Streets of Gujarat

In a likely preview of the passions incited by the upcoming Indian general elections, which will run from April 7 till May 12, activists of the arriviste Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) were arrested in Gujarat after protesting outside a BJP office. The rallies were organised by the party’s leader and recently-resigned Delhi chief minister Arvind Kejriwal. The protests then spread to Delhi and there were clashes between workers of the two parties. The AAP has put all the blame on the BJP, a claim of some merit since the party controls Gujarat and none of its members were arrested. The intensity of the clashes signals a sea change in Indian politics, where the Congress Party, marred by accusations of incompetence and corruption and reeling from the unexplained illness and likely absence in electioneering of the Nehru-Gandhi family matriarch Sonia Gandhi, is expected to take an historic beating at the polls. The AAP, with its recent success in Delhi and a message of anti-corruption that has excited voters in geographically diverse urban areas coupled with a lacklustre showing on the hustings by Rahul Gandhi, is now seen as the main hurdle to a BJP victory. Hence the fear and trepidation that manifested itself in such a violent way on the streets of Gujarat.

For international observers, the site of Gujarat as a major rallying point for AAP supporters will also be a curious one. The world associates BJP governance in Gujarat with chief minister and prime ministerial candidate Narendra Modi’s conduct during the 2002 rioting that led to the deaths of hundreds, possibly thousands, of Muslims. The US and UK had even made Modi persona non grata for his role in the deaths. But in India Modi is using the supposed Gujarat economic ‘miracle’ as the centrepiece of his campaign and as proof that the BJP will be better stewards of the country than the current government. The AAP sought to expose these claims as hollow, explaining that the economic growth in the state, while better than the national average, has come at the cost of human development with poverty and child mortality still remaining extremely high. The so-called ‘Modi effect’ is actually yet another example of the market-led model being touted as a panacea to all woes. The AAP may have a style that alienates some: Kejriwal latest stunt was to try and go to Modi’s official residence and show that the chief minister is not accessible to the people. But even if one disagrees with their approach, the party should be celebrated for providing an alternative to the ubiquity of this flawed model.

A cup of failure

Pakistani fans will remember this year’s edition of the Asia Cup for their team’s memorable win against India in a league match of the tournament that concluded in Bangladesh on Sunday. They could have remembered it for another reason as well but Sri Lanka made sure that the Pakistanis will not defend the title. Buoyed up by opener Lahiru Thirimanne’s glorious ton, the islanders gave a clinical performance to shrug aside the Green-shirts and regain the regional title with a five-wicket triumph in the finale. They aptly underlined the chinks in Pakistan’s armour both at the top of the batting order and in their otherwise potent bowling attack. They weren’t the first team to do that. Pakistan’s bowlers allowed lowly Bangladesh to milk them for 326 runs in an earlier game. Minnows Afghanistan, too, batted with authority against Pakistan in what turned out to be a close game. The only match where Pakistan bowlers sizzled was in the crunch clash against the Indians.

Its below-par showing with the ball comes as a wake-up call for Pakistan’s think-tank just a year before World Cup 2015. Pakistan relies too heavily on spin ace Saeed Ajmal, which doesn’t augur well for the team’s chances in major events. The team’s pace battery has been dogged by injury problems with the likes of Mohammad Irfan and Umar Gul, either out of action because of fitness reasons or unable to give their best because of them. Pakistan will have to go back to the drawing board to figure out ways to ensure that their bowling regains its teeth ahead of the World Cup. In the meantime, the various positives to come out of the Asia Cup for Pakistan include a successful comeback of Fawad Alam. The youngster has added much-needed reliability to what has mostly been a brittle batting line-up. Two match-winning knocks in successive games must have boosted the confidence of the seasoned Shahid Afridi which is good news for Pakistan ahead of the forthcoming World Twenty20 championship which gets underway in Bangladesh later this month. Pakistan fell short of winning the Asia Cup but if it learns from its mistakes, and from teams like Sri Lanka, there are strong chances that the national team will be able to win back the World T20 crown.

Bus through barriers

The joint working group on cross-LoC trade has agreed to a number of proposals which could make it easier for the divided people of Kashmir to reach out to each other across the tall mountain barriers that divide the two halves of the territory. The suggestions for multiple entry visas for Kashmiris, and a bus service linking Kargil and Skardu make sense. It would certainly make the destroyed lives of many Kashmiris so much simpler. The families divided by the barricades set up by politics still shout across to each other over the roar of the Neelum River and in the past there have been heart wrenching scenes as people who have not seen each other since 1947 meet. Easing their pain would be a step in a very positive direction.

The matter of Kashmir also needs to be thought of in a broader light. The agony faced by its people was highlighted recently by the incident involving the expulsion of students from a university in Kashmir for supporting Pakistan in a cricket match. The threat of sedition charges hung over them for some time. This is obviously ludicrous. The people of Kashmir naturally have opinions and views of their own. Their voices have been silenced for far too long and other hardships added to their lives by denying them access across a tract of land divided now for over 66 years by the LoC. Changing this reality is crucial and small steps can help. And not just one bus service but many others need to be initiated to make it more possible to bring people closer together. The people of Kashmir must be given more freedom to move and not be limited to boundaries created by those who try to dictate how people should act and behave.

__________________
Ye sab tmhara karam hai AAQA k bat ab tak bani hoi hai
May is karam k kahan ti kabil ye HAZOOR ki band parvari hai

Tuesday, March 11 2014

Governing hunger

The only heads to have rolled so far for the negligence that led to the famine in Tharparkar are those of the Mirpurkhas commissioner, the Thar deputy commissioner and some medical personnel. There are some more names that should be added to the list, with Sindh Chief Minister Qaim Ali Shah being the most obvious. That over a hundred children died in Tharparkar without the chief minister having a clue is bad enough; that when he finally visited the area he thought it would be a good idea to partake in a massive buffet dinner or throw a sumptuous lunch for the PM who luckily refused to join the party, shows just how clueless and out of touch he really is. Another person who might want to consider resigning in shame is Faqir Mohammad Shah, the PPP legislator from the area who, from the comfort of Islamabad, said that deaths in such numbers are commonplace in Tharparkar and that the situation was under control. Leader of the opposition, the PPP’s Khursheed Shah backed that up by accusing the media of sensationalising the issue. Here we saw, even as other PPP leaders like Bilawal Bhutto Zardari were busy trying to get relief supplies to Tharparkar, just why the party has been accused of being insensitive to the needs of rural Sindh despite ruling it for the last six years.

Thankfully, with the issue now dominating the national media, other actors are stepping into the breach. Much of the PPP leadership is now aware of how badly their governance in Sindh has failed while the prime minister also paid a visit to Mithi where he was briefed on the situation and announced a Rs1 billion security passage. Of course, the problem with such visits is that the security theatre all our politicians love so much ends up hurting the very people whose plight is being addressed. The prime minister’s trip was no different as access to a hospital in Mithi was blocked by the security team. The ultimate responsibility for the entirely-preventable tragedy in Thar, though, lies with the provincial government. It is they who have been elected to take care of the everyday needs of their constituents and who have the constitutional authority to do something about such situations. This was the same conclusion reached by Chief Justice Tassaduq Hussain Jillani who, in a suo motu case, lambasted the government for its insensitivity and refusal to accept responsibility. Even though now is a time to take action and make sure the situation does not get any worse, accountability will be needed to ensure that the people of Sindh never die of malnutrition because of an unresponsive government again.

The worst part

The country is suffering the effects of governance in crisis and the worst part is that the government seems to have deliberately inflicted it on us. Too much time has passed since the PML-N government took oath for the rash of vacancies and reliance on caretakers and ad hoc appointments to be a coincidence. Now, to provide proof that the government is deliberately trying to keep regulators weak and subservient, we find out that leadership vacancies at the Securities and Exchange Commission of Pakistan (SECP) and the Competition Commission of Pakistan (CCP) will not be subject to the usual rules and regulations. The Supreme Court had decreed that a commission be appointed to review candidates and names only finalised after due process. But exempting these two keys positions from that process gives the impression that the government wants a pliant leadership that will serve the interests of its favourites.

Both the SECP and the CCP are major regulators who exist to protect the public from the depredations of the moneyed elite. Should they be in the hands of pliant chairpersons there will be no one around to check if the stock market is being manipulated or cartels formed. While circumventing a process laid down by the Supreme Court is an extreme example of the government’s deliberate mismanagement and may be overturned by the court itself, the problem extends far beyond the SECP and CCP. The government also managed to browbeat the head of the State Bank of Pakistan to resign and then appointed a caretaker who will surely allow the government to continue borrowing at an unprecedented level, release precious dollars into the open market to prop up the rupee and print money without a thought on the ravages of inflation. As the government readies itself for mass privatisation of state-owned enterprises, the ad hoc nature of governance will allow for national assets to be sold without a competitive process to PML-N favourites. The loss, ultimately, will be felt by a public that has been short-changed by a government that was voted into power on the basis of claims that it would be an efficient steward of the economy.

Positive signs

Pakistan recently signed an agreement with a Dubai-based power company, ANC, to construct two 660MW coal-based power generation plants at the Pakistan Power Park in Gadani. Other infrastructure to support the venture is also to be put in place, including a jetty – with US$2.5 billion expected to come in as a result. This is obviously good news for Pakistan, which is in desperate need of both energy and money to lift up a flagging economy. This is not the only piece of good news. Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif has also said that there are plans to put up ten plants at the same location, six of them to be constructed by China and one by Pakistan. The scheme goes further and also involves 12 other power plants which are to go up in Sahiwal in Punjab. So, some solid thinking may be on, and these relatively small power plants may for now be an answer to a problem that clearly needs to be urgently solved.

But the plan put forward is only a start. The energy crisis we face is so great that many other measures will need to be taken if it is to be resolved. Also, the power plants will naturally not begin producing energy immediately. Although Finance Minister Dar has said that the power park is to be completed on a war footing, it will be some time before these plants become productive. And during this period Pakistan’s struggle to meet its needs in the energy sector will be hard. The PM is quite correct, though, when he says that acquiring power needs to be made a priority. Without its availability Pakistan stands at a literal halt, unable to run its industries, mills or even fans in households. The crisis needs to be dealt with systematically if we are to gain the results that are needed. We must hope now that things continue to proceed smoothly.

__________________
Ye sab tmhara karam hai AAQA k bat ab tak bani hoi hai
May is karam k kahan ti kabil ye HAZOOR ki band parvari hai

Friday, March 14, 2014

All set to talk

In disbanding its original negotiating committee the government has all but admitted that its initial strategy for talks with the TTP was a flawed one. The government’s choice to have journalists and former diplomats as its go-betweens was doomed for failure as soon as the TTP decided to appoint political figures with mass followings of their own, which they then serviced to the TTP cause. The new committee, reported to include Federal Secretary Habibullah Khattak, Additional Secretary to the Prime Minister Fawad Hasan Fawad and Additional Secretary Fata Arbab Arif, along with Rustam Shah Mohmand of the PTI, should be more savvy in its dealings with the TTP since its members have experience in Fata as bureaucrats and will also be better placed to make quick decisions without having to constantly refer to the government. The presence of a PTI representative is particularly noteworthy as it brings into the fold the party that is most strongly associated with the decision to negotiate with the TTP. That the PTI also happens to be the ruling party in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa also adds to its value as negotiators.

The newly-minted cooperation between the PML-N and PTI was sealed when Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif met Imran Khan at his residence and secured his all-important assent for the current negotiating strategy. Imran Khan changed tack somewhat when he agreed that military action may become necessary against factions of the TTP that refuse to renounce violence. The central figure in coordinating the actions of the negotiating committee and engineering the détente between Nawaz and Imran appears to be Interior Minister Chaudhry Nisar Ali Khan, who will need to add to his duties by regularly providing updates on the state of talks with the TTP. With the TTP’s negotiating group now in North Waziristan to set up a meeting between the government side and the TTP shura, the talks will soon enter the vital stage where demands will have to be made and accepted. For all the speed and conviction with which the ceasefire was agreed and progress made, this promises to be the trickiest part of the negotiation. TTP demands for a withdrawal of troops from the tribal areas and the release of their prisoners may be a bridge too far for the government. The issue of who will guarantee that the TTP will adhere to its verbal or written promises is also a key one. How groups operating from the Afghan soil are tackled is another tricky matter. The better strategy may be to adopt one of Imran’s ideas and start with things like getting the TTP to support the polio immunisation drive. Lasting peace with the TTP will be difficult to forge and starting with more manageable demands may be the best prospect for success.

Skewed

The Council of Islamic Ideology (CII) wants to formally legalise a social ill that is already prevalent in our society. Under the current law, the minimum age for marriage is 18 for boys and 16 for girls but this is observed only in the breach as cultural traditions have tended to have more weight than the force of written law. Now the CII has declared that there should be no age limit for marriage, declaring that a girl can be married off at any age and her wedding consummated once she reaches puberty. This is a ruling that is both inadvisable and ahistorical. As life expectancy has increased through the ages so has the socially acceptable age at which marriages take place. Girls who have barely reached their teens do not have the maturity to deal with the responsibility of marriage and those who are forced into it usually have to endure the marriage because their parents want to express tribal solidarity, keep property within the family or simply for economic reasons so that the child becomes someone else’s property. None of these reasons should be good enough for the CII to endorse a practice that we desperately need to wipe out.

The government has the authority to decide if it should accept CII recommendations. In this case the decision should be swift and simple. The CCI advised another change in the law which should be similarly rejected. Right now, men have to obtain permission from their current wives before contracting another marriage. The CII would prefer if men had the right to marry anyone without needing consent from those they are already married to. In the minds of the CII members, so long as the men are able to provide equal time to their wives the question of assent need not be considered. This recommendation, too, makes light of the rights of women since there are considerations other than time that a women would take into account before allowing her husband to take another wife. At a time when we should be devising ways to increase the rights of women, both on paper and in the unwritten traditions of society, the CII has instead taken the opposite tack. We wonder why the CII and its members do not give their views on customs that involve the handing over of women to settle a dispute, such as ‘vani’ and ‘swara’, and against ‘honour’ killings or jirga-ordered gang rapes. These are undisputedly anti-Islamic. Yet even though such barbarities continue and are regularly reported, the CII has not seen it fit to comment on them. Priorities then are quite evidently skewed. There is much this body could do to create a state which stands closer to the ideals of Islam. Greater social equity would be one step in this direction. Yet these issues are ignored, and others raised which do not serve us well as a society. We need more safeguards for vulnerable citizens and a wider focus on the issues which contribute to injustice rather than a tunnel-visioned approach that keeps us locked in behind barriers, creates unnecessary controversy. The CII’s failure to take up issues that can contribute towards this is disturbing. Its rulings, one should keep in mind, reflect only the view of some and do not convey a consensus view. These views must be rejected as antithetical to our human rights obligations. A new and better balanced CII may also be considered.

__________________
Ye sab tmhara karam hai AAQA k bat ab tak bani hoi hai
May is karam k kahan ti kabil ye HAZOOR ki band parvari hai

Saturday, March 15, 2014

The last stand?

Pervez Musharraf’s last attempt to spare himself the ‘indignity’ of appearing as a defendant in a courtroom has failed. The former dictator has now run the gamut of excuses, ranging from health concerns – which he felt could not be addressed in Pakistan – to worries that he would be targeted by someone from the security team assigned to him, and it is finally time for him to face the music. The special court constituted to hear Musharraf’s treason case rejected his lawyers’ pleas that another six to eight weeks were needed to vet his security. It has now made clear that Musharraf is expected to appear before the court in person on March 31 or else a non-bailable warrant will be issued for his arrest. Musharraf is still admitted at the Armed Forces Institute of Cardiology in Rawalpindi but the medical reports he presented in court showed no imminent threat to his life, so there is no reason left for him to dodge his day in court. True, security is always an issue with public figures, even more so after the blast at an Islamabad court, but that is simply not a good enough reason for justice to be delayed. Were Musharraf to have his way, the security problem, or any other excuse that could be concocted, would exist indefinitely so as to avoid accountability for his crimes.

The ISI and the interior ministry did brief the court about threats to Musharraf’s life but there was nothing new in that since he has always been on the hit list of various militant groups. What Musharraf and his lawyers cannot explain is why these threats should come in the way of his trial. Why, for instance, can he not be airlifted in a chopper from the AFIC rooftop to the National Library premises instead of deploying thousands of security people on roads who are desperately needed elsewhere? Musharraf has been given security consummate to that of any former leader and the security team is regularly changed so that no one knows who will be guarding him. Musharraf is known to be an inordinately proud – some would even say vain – man who wants only to avoid appearing in court. But in trying to uphold his dignity he has succeeded only in showing himself to be a man who is afraid of facing judgement for what he did. The ex-commando could never have expected to face such a fate. Throughout his tenure, from 1999 to 2008, he had acted as a ‘strongman’ style leader, known for his bombastic, arrogant manner. For most of us, ruled for more than half of our 66-year history by military dictators, Musharraf being held accountable for his wrongs would have come as a surprise if it were not for a judiciary that is no longer willing to resort to that ‘law of necessity’ that in the past has been used to defend so many unlawful deeds. It can be said we have a stronger, independent judiciary. But we also have a stronger military, one that is secure in its own role and will certainly rise higher in the eyes of the people by not being seen as an obstruction to justice. Those trying to make it seem otherwise are doing no service to either the military or the country at large. Of course the final act in this drama has still to unfold. We do not know what goes on, if it does, behind the curtains, and for now the moving finger keeps writing. Along with the central plot, there may be developments along the sides to watch. Developments that lead up to March 31 will be watched with anticipation and much conjecture. The case sets key new precedents, puts down new markers and, as it proceeds, strengthens a constitution that till now has been treated as nothing more than bits of paper that can be scribbled on or simply screwed up and tossed aside.

Murdered

An 18-year-old girl is dead because those who had the power to help her just didn’t care. This girl from Muzaffargarh had been gang-raped by five men and, unlike most victims who are taught by society that being raped is somehow their fault and something they should be ashamed about, she had the courage to go to the police and identify the rapists. It didn’t make an iota of a difference. After a cursory investigation the police submitted a report to the local court that allowed them to be released on bail. This despite the fact that the police should have known that the girl did not come from a privileged background and would surely be in danger of being targeted by the accused. Their release was the last straw. The girl died after setting herself on fire outside the police station. Her mother says she was ‘tortured’ and treated with contempt. Just to rub even further salt into gaping wounds, an FIR for suicide has been lodged against her. This was no suicide. The girl was murdered, first by the men who so brutally raped her and then by the authorities that treated her case so casually. Justice for rape victims is hard to find and that is mostly the case because the men who hold the levers of power have no interest in dealing with crimes against women. The ‘suicide’ has illustrated the agony and frustration the victims suffer.

Consider the MNA from this girl’s area. In recent weeks Jamshed Dasti has been in the headlines for his moral crusade against alcohol consumption and partying in the parliamentary lodges. But his past shows how selective that morality is. Mukhtaran Mai, another victim of gang rape in Muzaffargarh, had revealed how Dasti threatened her and her family with dire consequences unless she withdrew her case in the Supreme Court against her rapists. Publically, Dasti castigated Mukhtaran Mai for distorting the image of Islam and being a puppet of NGOs. Keep in mind too that she was gang-raped on the orders of a tribal council. In both the Mukhtaran Mai and the teenage girl cases we see how the weak and powerless are preyed upon and treated not as autonomous human beings but the property of others who can be used and discarded at will. That rape can be committed with such impunity is down to the culture of our country, where you have the Council of Islamic Ideology only grudgingly accepting the use of DNA evidence in rape cases and still saying it is of less value than the testimony of four men. Little wonder then that survivors of rape either live in silence or fight fruitless battles for justice. Justice, and the ability to deliver it, is a basic pillar of a state’s legitimacy. In our country that pillar seems to have crumbled. Building it up again is the only way to avoid incidents as horrific as the one in Muzaffargarh. No citizen, no 18-year-old, should feel they have no choice but to take such drastic measures. Others have felt the same way, setting themselves alight outside governors’ houses, assemblies or press clubs. Is there anyone to hear them? We cannot continue to pretend any longer that we do not hear their cries for help and their screams of pain. Or can we?

__________________
Ye sab tmhara karam hai AAQA k bat ab tak bani hoi hai
May is karam k kahan ti kabil ye HAZOOR ki band parvari hai

Monday, March 17, 2014

The Afridi affair

The saga of Dr Shakil Afridi, the doctor who played spy for the CIA, continues. It is difficult to say if the Frontier Crimes Regulation (FCR) commissioner’s decision to reduce Dr Afridi’s prison sentence by 10 years and lower his fine by Rs100,000 has changed anything at all. Afridi still has to serve 22 years in jail and pay Rs220,000, even though there is absolutely no proof that he is guilty of the crime for which he was convicted. The Afridi case has been bizarre from the start and shows only that the state was determined to put him behind bars as quickly as possible and without drawing much attention. In that they succeeded but may have ended up perverting the course of justice. At the centre of the case stands the matter of precisely why Afridi is behind bars. It is widely believed that he is being punished for conducting a fake immunisation campaign in collusion with the CIA which in 2011 led the agency to Osama Bin Laden’s hiding place in Abbottabad, possibly on the basis of DNA evidence obtained by the doctor from the Khyber Agency. But this charge never came up in the convoluted trial process. Instead, other accusations were brought against him including links with militants associated with Mangal Bagh and the death of a patient in the past. Afridi claims that he was kidnapped by the militant group and did not work for them willingly. Since his case was decided under the FCR, Afridi had significantly fewer legal protections than would have been provided to him under normal Pakistani law. In August last year, the then FCR commissioner had said that charges against him should be dropped – leading to conjecture of a deal with Washington. The matter was referred back to a Fata tribunal and the relevant political agent who handed it back to the new FCR commissioner.

The proper thing to do would be to dismiss the case against Afridi and then retry him, not under the FCR but in a proper court where he has the right to legal representation, to see the evidence against him and to appeal the verdict. It would also be in the interests of the state to charge him with the crime of conspiring with a foreign intelligence agency rather than on the apparently trumped up militancy charges. Afridi has never denied working with the CIA and the case would be easier to make. The government is understandably nervous that such a case would draw lots of public attention and anger the US. Such political considerations, however, should not trump our interest in justice. Afridi’s admitted work for the CIA ended up giving credence to the TTP’s assertion that vaccination campaigns are a conspiracy. He has made Pakistan a more dangerous country for public health workers, especially those affiliated with foreign-funded NGOs. For this, and for doing the bidding of the CIA, Afridi should face justice. But it should not be the flawed justice of the FCR, even if he is being shown slight leniency under that system.

Flight into nothingness

In this age of Google and GPS the idea that there is anything which cannot be tracked down is quite unfathomable. Malaysian Airlines flight MH370 has been missing for more than a week and with every passing day more questions are raised than answers revealed. We know so far that the Malaysian authorities are guilty of incompetence on a staggering scale. Likely in order to cover for their mistakes, the Malaysians did not share for a long time the fact that they knew the plane had ceased communicating with ground authorities forty minutes into its flight. They also did not reveal that their military recorded radar signals showing how badly the plane had veered off course. Now that this information has been made public so criminally late, the search for the plane has been shifted from the South China Sea to two considerably larger zones in the southern Indian Ocean. No one is sure how long it will take for the plane to be found or if we will ever know the cause of its likely crash but one has to wonder if the Malaysians are guilty of gross negligence since they did absolutely nothing despite MH370 continuing to fly for hours after losing contact. As more pieces of information are pieced together it may emerge that this was an entirely avoidable tragedy.

For now, lots of questions persist. Was this a case of a hijacking gone horribly wrong? One of the plane’s transponders was turned off for no discernible reason, hinting at the possibility of foul play. Already there is speculation that this was the work of Uighur militants although investigations into the backgrounds of the passengers did not yield any supporting evidence. Who were the two passengers travelling on stolen passports? We have not been told yet but it appears as if they may have been asylum-seekers. What was found in a search of the pilots’ homes? The Malaysian police chief at a press conference said that a flight simulator was inexplicably found at the pilot’s home, but he could not explain why it had taken a week to finally conduct the search. Is it not another sign of incompetence? If it was a hijacking then why didn’t the hijackers make contact with the ground to negotiate for their demands? No one has an answer to this vexing question yet. So the search goes on, now with more than 20 countries, including Pakistan, involved, but we have inched only slightly closer to the truth of what happened that fateful day.

__________________
Ye sab tmhara karam hai AAQA k bat ab tak bani hoi hai
May is karam k kahan ti kabil ye HAZOOR ki band parvari hai

Wednesday, March 19, 2014

Talking security

Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif chaired the first meeting of its kind as the chief ministers, key federal ministers, chief of army staff and other military and intelligence officials discussed the security of the country. Given the importance of the attendees it is perhaps a little disappointing that the meeting seems to have been convened only to rubberstamp the security policies that the government has been touting ever since it came into power. Among the decisions reached, all of which are part of the national security policy the government unveiled last month, one was to set up a joint intelligence directorate to better coordinate intelligence-sharing between the various agencies and to have a rapid response force that can immediately provide help after a militant attack. There may have been a paucity of ideas at the meeting but at least it gave the prime minister an opportunity to brief government and military officials on the progress of peace talks with the TTP. Here, Nawaz Sharif was more encouraging as he insisted that talks with the TTP would only be held in accordance with the constitution. This presumably means that expected TTP demands like imposing their interpretation of Shariah law in the country will not be accepted.

The prime minister was perhaps being a little optimistic at the meeting when he said that it would be up to the TTP to tackle the threat of any splinter group that has opposed the ceasefire and talks and is still carrying out attacks. The TTP has distanced itself from attacks that took place recently, with the new Ahrarul Hind group claiming responsibility for them, but it has not condemned the attacks outright or offered to take action against the group. One reason the government may not agree to the TTP demand of releasing all its prisoners is that many of them would have grown even more bitter during their years of imprisonment and may just end up carrying out further attacks against the state after being freed. The TTP's claims about 300 women, children and other non-combatants being secretly held by the state have been denied by state officials repeatedly. But we have as yet no way of ascertaining the truth that may lie somewhere between TTP media manoeuvrings and the state's concern with ‘security’. Be that as it may, what must always be upheld is due process and human dignity and rights. Innocent people caught between militancy and counter-militancy are not exactly an unheard of possibility here. And, unfortunately, as hearings in the Supreme Court have made clear, the practice of abducting people and holding them indefinitely leads to alienation that militancy of all kinds feeds upon. If there is an element of truth in the claims, the situation needs to change – not to appease the TTP but for the sake of justice.

Drought disaster

Even as some in the Sindh government, including Chief Minister Qaim Ali Shah, quibble over semantics and whether what is happening in Tharparkar qualifies as a famine or not, many residents of the drought-stricken area continue to wait for food and medication. The recriminations have already begun, with the Sindh health secretary having issued show-cause notices to 450 doctors for a supposed dereliction of duty. At the same time, the Supreme Court, having taken suo motu notice of the government’s response to the crisis in Tharparkar, has been grilling the health secretary and chief secretary. Among the questions posed by the court which went unanswered was why the government was not ready for a disaster of this magnitude given that it had received warnings from the Food and Agriculture Organisation five years ago about the increased likelihood of droughts in the area. Despite knowing that a drought could hit at any time, the provincial government had done nothing to prepare Tharparkar. Hospitals in the area were uniformly substandard and even today, more than two weeks after news of over a hundred children dying was known to all, they do not have sufficient medicines to treat residents. Chief Minister Qaim Ali Shah may have called the famine a naturally-occurring phenomenon but the plain truth is that all the deaths were caused by malnutrition and that is something the government could and should have done something about.

The disorganised and tardy nature of relief efforts leaves no confidence in the ability of the provincial government to respond to disasters of such magnitude, even though forecast. Soon it will be the government of Punjab that is being tested. Reports are emerging of a similarly devastating drought having hit Cholistan, causing mass migration. There is no water in the area as reservoirs have dried up and pumping stations remain inoperable. The Punjab government seems not to have realised the extent of the problem in Cholistan or made any effort to provide water to its citizens. As with Thar, the National Disaster Management Authority (NDMA) has been missing in action. The NDMA was specifically set up after years of flooding to ensure the effects of natural disasters are minimised. It has been so ineffective at its job that the scattered efforts of NGOs appear more effective and coordinated. But disasters like the one which hit Tharparkar and which is looming in Cholistan need full fledged and direct government help. This, sadly, has rarely been forthcoming.

__________________
Ye sab tmhara karam hai AAQA k bat ab tak bani hoi hai
May is karam k kahan ti kabil ye HAZOOR ki band parvari hai