ISLAMABAD/NEW DELHI, May 2- India reacted furiously to Thursday’s death in a Pakistani jail of convicted spy Sarabjit Singh, who was badly beaten last week by fellow inmates, the latest incident to strain relations between the neighbours.
Nuclear-armed India and Pakistan have fought three wars since the partition of British-ruled India in 1947, although they began a peace process in 2004. They remain deeply suspicious of each other.
Singh was arrested in Pakistan in 1991 and sentenced to death for spying and carrying out four bomb blasts that killed 14 people. His family says he was an innocent farmer who was arrested after drunkenly wandering over the border.
Singh was hospitalized with a head injury on Friday after two fellow prisoners attacked him in jail in the eastern city of Lahore. India’s government and his family had pleaded with Pakistan to let him return to India for treatment.
“The criminals responsible for the barbaric and murderous attack on him must be brought to justice,” Prime Minister Manmohan Singh said in a statement.
“It is particularly regrettable that the government of Pakistan did not heed the pleas of the government of India, Sarabjit’s family and of civil society in India and Pakistan to take a humanitarian view of this case.”
Pakistan said it provided the best treatment for Singh, who it said had been comatose and on a ventilator following injuries sustained during a “scuffle” with fellow inmates.
“A sustainable and long lasting relationship between two countries has to be between people. That relation has been hurt by what has happened today,” Foreign Minister Salman Khurshid told reporters.
The latest flare-up follows an outbreak of violence in the disputed territory of Kashmir in January, where two Pakistani and two Indian soldiers were killed. It was the worst clash there since India and Pakistan agreed to a ceasefire nearly a decade ago, leading to angry reactions from both sides.
Indian opposition parties and Sarabjit Singh’s family came down hard on the government for being too soft with Pakistan. Parliament was adjourned for two hours after MPs shouted anti-Pakistan slogans.
“(The) centre is unable to give a strong answer to Pakistan’s inhuman acts. Beheading of our soldiers and now Sarabjit’s death are 2 recent examples,” Gujarat Chief Minister Narendra Modi, widely tipped as a prime ministerial candidate, wrote on Twitter.
Despite the recent strains, India and Pakistan’s relations have improved after nose-diving in 2008 when gunmen killed 166 people in Mumbai in a three-day rampage that India blamed on a Pakistani militant group. Last year, India hanged Pakistani citizen Ajmal Kasab, who was convicted of taking part in that attack.
(Reporting by Mubasher Bukhari in ISLAMABAD and Anurag Kotoky in NEW DELHI; Editing by Nick Macfie)
WASHINGTON — President Obama on Tuesday recommitted to his years-old vow to close the Guantánamo Bay prison following the arrival of “medical reinforcements” of nearly 40 Navy nurses, corpsmen and specialists amid a mass hunger strike by inmates who have been held for over a decade without trial.
“It’s not sustainable,” Mr. Obama said at a White House news conference. “The notion that we’re going to keep 100 individuals in no man’s land in perpetuity,” he added, made no sense. “All of us should reflect on why exactly are we doing this? Why are we doing this?”
Citing the high expense and the foreign policy costs of continuing to operate the prison, Mr. Obama said he would try again to persuade Congress to lift restrictions on transferring inmates to the federal court system. Mr. Obama was ambiguous, however, about the most difficult issue raised by the prospect of closing the prison: what to do with detainees who are deemed dangerous but could not be feasibly prosecuted.
Mr. Obama’s existing policy on that subject, which Congress has blocked, is to move detainees to maximum-security facilities inside the United States and continue holding them without trial as wartime prisoners; it is not clear whether such a change would ease the frustrations fueling the detainees’ hunger strike.
Yet at another point in the news conference, Mr. Obama appeared to question the policy of indefinite wartime detention at a time when the war in Iraq has ended, the one in Afghanistan is winding down and the original makeup of Al Qaeda has been decimated. “The idea that we would still maintain forever a group of individuals who have not been tried,” he said, “that is contrary to who we are, contrary to our interests, and it needs to stop.”
But in the short term, Mr. Obama indicated his support for the force-feeding of detainees who refused to eat.
“I don’t want these individuals to die,” he said.
As of Tuesday morning, 100 of the 166 prisoners at Guantánamo were officially deemed by the military to be participating in the hunger strike, with 21 “approved” to be fed the nutritional supplement Ensure through tubes inserted through their noses.
In a statement released earlier, a military spokesman said the deployment of additional medical personnel had been planned several weeks ago as more detainees joined the strike.
“We will not allow a detainee to starve themselves to death, and we will continue to treat each person humanely,” said Lt. Col. Samuel House, the prison spokesman.
The military’s response to the hunger strike has revived complaints by medical ethics groups that contend that doctors — and nurses under their direction — should not force-feed prisoners who are mentally competent to decide not to eat.
Last week, the president of the American Medical Association, Dr. Jeremy A. Lazarus, wrote a letter to Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel saying that any doctor who participated in forcing a prisoner to eat against his will was violating “core ethical values of the medical profession.”
“Every competent patient has the right to refuse medical intervention, including life-sustaining interventions,” Dr. Lazarus wrote.
He also noted that the A.M.A. endorses the World Medical Association’s Tokyo Declaration, a 1975 statement forbidding doctors to use their medical knowledge to facilitate torture. It says that if a prisoner makes “an unimpaired and rational judgment” to refuse nourishment, “he or she shall not be fed artificially.”
The military’s policy, however, is that it can and should preserve the life of a detainee by forcing him to eat if necessary.
“In the case of a hunger strike, attempted suicide or other attempted serious self-harm, medical treatment or intervention may be directed without the consent of the detainee to prevent death or serious harm,” a military policy directive says. “Such action must be based on a medical determination that immediate treatment or intervention is necessary to prevent death or serious harm and, in addition, must be approved by the commanding officer of the detention facility or other designated senior officer responsible for detainee operations.”
On Monday, Colonel House also said that some detainees on the “enteral feeding” list were drinking the supplement.
“Just because the detainees are approved for enteral feeding does not mean they don’t eat a regular meal,” he said. “Once the detainees leave their cell and are in the presence of medical personnel, most of the detainees who are approved for tube feeding will eat or drink without the peer pressure from inside the cellblock.”
Medical ethicists and the Pentagon also clashed during the Bush administration over hunger strikes at Guantánamo.
The current protest began in February and escalated after a raid this month in which guards confined protesting detainees to their cells. The impetus for it is disputed. The prisoners, through their lawyers, cite a search for contraband on Feb. 6, during which they say Korans were handled in a way they found offensive. The military says the Koran search followed routine procedures.
But both sides agree that the root cause is frustration over the collapse of President Obama’s effort to close the prison, which drew Congressional resistance, and the fact that no prisoners have been transferred because of restrictions on where they can be sent.
Congress has restricted the repatriation to countries with troubled security conditions, helping to jam up 86 low-level detainees who were designated for potential transfer three years ago; most are Yemeni. But since 2012, lawmakers have given the Pentagon the ability to waive most of those restrictions on a case-by-case basis, and it has not done so.
On Tuesday, Mr. Obama said he “I’ve asked my team to review everything that’s currently being done in Guantánamo, everything that we can do administratively.” It was not clear whether that was a signal that the administration may be considering using the waiver power to revive the transfer of low-level detainees.
Ramzi Kassem, a City University of New York law professor who represents several detainees, said he had talked to a Yemeni client, Moath Hamza Ahmed al-Alwi, who said a guard had shot him with rubber-coated pellets at close range during the raid. Since then, Mr. Kassem was told, the prisoners have been denied soap, toothbrushes, toothpaste and their legal papers.
Mr. Alwi said he had not eaten in 80 days and stopped drinking after the raid, Mr. Kassem said. He also said he was being force-fed twice a day after being tied to a restraint chair.
Mr. Kassem also quoted Mr. Alwi as saying: “I do not want to kill myself. My religion prohibits suicide. But I will not eat or drink until I die, if necessary, to protest the injustice of this place. We want to get out of this place. It is as though this government wishes to smother us in this injustice, to kill us slowly here, indirectly, without trying us or executing us.”
In his statement on Monday, Colonel House said the prisoners would not be allowed to die.
“Detainees have the right to peacefully protest, but we have the responsibility to ensure that they conduct their protest safely and humanely,” he said. “Detainees are given a choice: eat the hot meal, drink the supplement or be enteral fed.”
ANP president Asfandyar Wali Khan (Credit: pakistantoday.com.pk) The 2013 elections in Pakistan are critical for setting a clear goal post for the nation. However, the short time frame in which they are taking place has left the caretaker administration and security institutions scrambling to clean up a nation wracked by terrorism, poverty and inequality.
With the simmering insurgency on the Pak-Afghan border, the caretaker administration has tried to beef up security in the violence stricken areas of FATA, Khyber Pakhtunkhwa and Balochistan — as well as Karachi, where former incumbents from the secular PPP, ANP and MQM are under attack by a determined Taliban enemy.
But given that militants in Pakistan’s north have consistently targeted secular candidates, especially Awami National Party, while allowing rallies by Imran Khan’s Tehrik-i-Insaf, Jamiat-i-Ulema Islam (Fazlur Rehman group) and even the Pakistan Muslim League (N) — has led to questions about the outcome of the election.
In particular, civil society is questioning whether the relentlessness with which militants are killing secular incumbents and their supporters, while facilitating political parties who have a soft corner for them – will bring pro Taliban legislators into parliament.
In many areas of the KP and FATA, the poor security situation has already deprived incumbents from hoisting party flags or holding rallies. Apart from contesting as independents or putting up proxies, the ANP and PPP have not nominated candidates to many seats in Waziristan and the tribal belt bordering Afghanistan.
The anti US sentiment in Pakistan, accelerated by drone attacks and military operations… combined with increased poverty, income gap and poor governance, is a big factor that has caused the incumbents to lose ground among voters.
But the ANP – which lost many key leaders while stopping the onslaught of the Taliban in the last five years – has been worst hit. Its rallies have been repeatedly attacked and its rank and file killed and wounded across Pakistan. The party leadership has clearly spelled out the Tehrik-i-Taliban as the perpetrators. The TTP has also become the MQM’s worst enemy – kiling their candidates and attacking their election offices.
Time and again, the caretaker administration has taken note of the terrible security situation and beefed up security. The visible effects of greater law enforcement has been a drop off in mass terror attacks (like the one planned by the Lashkar-i-Jhangvi against Hazaras late April in Balochistan) and a slight drop off in violence in Karachi.
But it is a situation that has caused the PPP to hunker down and avoid public rallies. That is changing the face of the once populist party, which even refrained from kicking off its election campaign on April 4, the death anniversary of PPP founder, Prime Minister Zulfikar Ali Bhutto.
The election scenario does not look good for the Zardari led PPP, whose primary achievement seems to have been the completion of five years in power. To its detriment, the PPP government has left behind a nation that is hungrier, violent and more unstable — and still out of sync with the modern world.
Come May 11, voters across Pakistan will likely vote on the basis of feudal and tribal loyalties. Still, the government’s lack luster performance over the last five years is bound to cost them a big percentage of the votes.
This is bound to hurt the party even in its home turf in Sindh, where it is now pitted against all political forces that exercise influence in the province. The Pakistan Muslim League (N), joined by Pirs, tribal and feudal chiefs, religious parties and even nationalists have formed an anti PPP front that is almost reminiscent of the Islami Jamhoori Ittehad (IJI) — funded by the intelligence agencies in 1993 to prevent Benazir Bhutto from returning to power.
That is where the similarity ends.
Two decades ago, when Benazir led the PPP, her being a woman necessarily changed the party’s image. Keeping up the populism espoused by her father former Prime Minister Zulfikar Ali Bhutto, she led a party of the masses that touched on the promised goodness of the socialist rhetoric `roti, kapra, makan,’ (food, clothing and shelter) — even if it did not deliver. But the image of millions of people looking for change did not jive with the establishment — and contributed to her murder in 2007.
Thereafter, the default president, Asif Zardari — hands untied, amassed wealth and privileges for a coterie of supporters at the expense of the majority “have-nots.” He used the classic methods he knew of getting opponents out of the way — sweet talk and bribe.
The situation has not gone unnoticed by the Supreme Court, which recently moved against some of the political appointments made by the departing PPP government. The superior court has also moved against the “life time of perks and privileges” bestowed by the PPP’s departing prime minister to former government functionaries just before the National Assembly term concluded.
Come May 11, tribal loyalties and to some extent the background of the candidates will influence the results of elections in rural Sindh. In so doing, voters may still choose the lower middle class Sindhis from the PPP as opposed to larger feudals. Still, the situation remains dicey and not altogether in the PPP’s favor.
Midway between Karachi and Hyderabad, the coastal town of Thatta promises to be a test case in the electoral contest between the PPP – where the Shirazis and Malkanis (head of the tribal Jats) – have announced the withdrawal of support from the PPP to their own nominee. In so doing, they have put up their own candidate, Zardari’s nominee and a shadowy muscle man – Owais Muzzafar (Tappi) – accusing him of usurpation of lands and the promotion of a coastal town of Zulfikarabad, being opposed by the locals.
It has opened up the situation for an independent candidate for provincial assembly – Mohammed Ali Shah – to step into the election. Shah is president of the Pakistan Fisher folk Forum and espouses an idealistic program to fight for the rights of fisher folk as well as agricultural and livestock communities.
Shah, who opposes PPP’s Owais Muzzafar for provincial assembly, claims his candidature has caused the Thatta feudals to break away from their support for the PPP.
Whichever way the situation pans out, a sense of disillusionment with the incumbent parties as well as the existing culture of the provinces is bound to redraw its political scenario.
Till then, the candidates deserve a level playing field instead of the life and death threats they confront in their quest to represent the people.
Shahab Usto (Credit: tsj.com.pk)Leadership is all about coming up with the right answers to the fundamental questions that are related to the state and society; the rest is just fancy gimmickry and demagogy to woo the half-literate and gullible electorate.
The search for these answers has become all the more imperative as the parties are bracing for the ‘final’ round to ‘oust’ one another from the electoral arena or from the realm of probablity to form a government , though it remains to be seen how they are going to achieve their goal within the democratic parameters when none of the parties seems likely to achieve the required numbers in the elections to single-handledly form a government at Islamabad, if not in the provinces. Moreover, what alternative programme do they have that is going to salvage the country from the existing crises? Finally, do they really believe the problems lie only with bad governance, corruption etc ( as the PTI vehemently claims) and not with the fundamental national security and foreign policy paradigm, which has been jealously guarded by the establishment right from the beginning?
In addition to these queries, there are five questions of primal importance that the mainstream political contenders must answer on the eve of the elections if they have to steer the country out of the gathering storms.
First, how to forge a foreign policy that should pursue a peaceful resolution of bilateral and regional disputes without compromising on national interests, and more importantly, shunning the abstract non-state or meta-state strategic objectives?
This question arose on the very eve of the country’s creation. Kashmir and other disputes with India demanded that the state’s policies should strike a balance between social and security priorities. Unfortunately, that balance was never struck. Security trumped the social sector, sowing the seeds of both intra- and inter-national conflicts with or via India, which cost the country half its part and plunged it into regional and global conflagrations, particularly in the wake of the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan in 1979 and 9/11.
Secondly, how to drastically rehash the existing lopsided socio-economic order to change the pathetic social and economic realities faced by the millions of the dispossessed and marginalised masses? Again, this question has never been seriously addressed. Particularly after the perceived ‘failure’ of the PPP’s ‘socialist agenda’ and the tragic fall of Zulfikar Ali Bhutto, none of the political or military leaders has dared to go for a meaningful redistribution of wealth and resources. Instead, the fledgling trade unions and peasant movements were nipped in the bud by means of repressive laws and the coercive state machinery.
As a result, today on the one hand half of the population is illiterate, one-third ‘very poor’, one-fourth homeless and one-fifth unemployed, but on the other the country has seen over recent years an increasing monopolisation of industrial, financial and landed assets by a small group of political, business and bureaucratic interests. In fact, regardless of which political party is in power, the state continues to remain blindly wedded to this oligarchic neo-liberal economic model that has failed even in the west in the absence of state regulation.
De-politicisation by General Musharraf and the so-called political ‘reconciliation’ have further strengthened this oligarchic order. As a result, the weak and impoverished classes have been suffering at the hands of bad governance and rising cost of living but the rich and resourceful have been reaping the rewards of a lax fiscal regime, ineffectual accountability and an unbounded access to power.
Third, how to remove the ill will, acrimony between the powerful Centre and the smaller provinces and and the increasingly uncontrolable sectarian, ethnic and mafia-style violence within the society? This question continues to beg an answer notwithstanding the loss of the eastern wing in 1971, the recurring insurgencies in Balochistan, ethnic turf wars in Karachi, and the increasing demand for more linguistic provinces. Moreover, the recent constitutional reforms and devolution of powers to the provinces has made it incumbent upon the political (and military) leadership to evolve a consensus on maximum provincial autonomy. This question may seriously impinge upon the federation and security of the state. Already, the Centre-provinces relations, particularly with reference to Balochistan, are increasingly getting snarled up with the regional web of rivalries and proxy wars, further complicating the situation. Pakistan has repeatedly pointed to the ‘safe havens’ for insurgents in Afghanistan.
Fourth, how to stem and reverse the rising tide of sectarian and inter-religion conflicts that have traumatised society and turned the state into a pawn of regional and global jihadi and counter-jihadi wars? This question needs to be addressed politically and socially, i.e. by enforcing a stringent rule of law to develop a tolerant space for discourses among the representatives of various liberal, religious and sectarian schools. The purpose should be to help evolve an understanding on freedom of expression and respect for multi-scholastic views. So far, the mainstream leadership, both liberal and conservative, have failed to achieve it. Their myopic partisan interests and mutual distrust have not allowed the participatory democratic system to take root and help accommodate divergent views and ideologies. As a result, the ‘discourse’ has been hijacked by violent extremist outfits.
Finally, how to make the government lean, clean and accountable? This is again a primordial question that has cost many a civilian government, paving the way for the decades-long military rule. More recently, it became the ‘cause’ of the dismissal of at least three elected governments in the 1990s, the ‘lost’ decade. But surprisingly, the civilian leaderships have not learnt any lessons. The PPP-coalition government has been castigated day in and day out for its alleged ‘corruption’ and ‘inefficiency’. Indeed, the debate on good governance has acquired an all-encompassing character. Both the PML-N and the PTI are seeking the electoral approval from the masses on this count.
However, it would be wrong to assign all the fundamental structural — social, economic and political — ills to bad governance, which is a significant but only an administrative aspect of the state. No wonder, autocracy has further aggravated the state crisis by focusing only on ‘good governance’ and leaving the underlying socio-economic and political conflicts unattended. Therefore, what is important is to strengthen the institutional bases of good governance. In other words, let the requisites of good governance be fulfilled by putting in place an accountable executive, responsible opposition, reformative legislature, independent judiciary, watchful media, civil society and so on.
But unfortunately, all the ire and reprobation is reserved only for the executive, leaving out the rest of the constituents of bad governance. The PML-N, for example, at the fag end of the last government launched its ‘go Zardari’ campaign, ignoring the fact that barring a small minority, the entire mainstream leadership was partaking of the government at the Centre or the provinces. Why did they not find and fix the malfunctioning parts of the ‘system’ instead of scoring points on partisan political grounds?
And if they couldn’t, because theywere more interested in capturing power, then at least now let these questions be given the utmost priority in the electoral debates and let the electorate be educated enough to weed out the ‘inept’ and ‘corrupt’ would-be rulers, who ever they are.
The writer is a lawyer and academic. He can be reached at shahabusto@hotmail.com
As a weekly columnist for the Pakistani newspaper Dawn, I’ve become adept at writing about bombings. Pakistan suffered 652 of these last year; terrorist attacks took down everything from girls’ schools to apartment buildings and felled members of Parliament, singers, and school children—each person sentenced by coincidence to be at a given location in the moment it became a bomber’s target. Through my columns, I have offered up fumbled expressions of grief and comfort to Pakistani readers whose stores of empathy are bled daily without any promise of replenishment. I believe that these rituals of caring, made so repetitious in Pakistan by the sheer frequency of terror attacks, are crucial; in preventing the normalization of violence and senseless evil, they keep a society human.
The bombings in Boston on April 15, 2013 pose their own conundrum to those like me who are in the habit of writing about bloodier conflicts with more frequent conflagrations. There is an inherent cruelty in every terror attack—an undeniable reverberation of evil in the destruction of an ordinary moment and the forced marriage of that moment to sudden violence. Boston is no different, no more or less tragic than the bombings that have razed the marketplaces of Karachi, the school in Khost, the mosque in Karbala.
American tragedies somehow seem to occur in a more poignant version of reality… within minutes American victims are lifted from the nameless to the remembered.
And yet it seems so. Attacks in America are far more indelible in the world’s memory than attacks in any other country. There may be fewer victims and less blood, but American tragedies somehow seem to occur in a more poignant version of reality, in a way that evokes a more sympathetic response. Within minutes American victims are lifted from the nameless to the remembered; their individual tragedies and the ugly unfairness of their ends are presented in a way that cannot but cause the watching world to cry, to consider them intimates, and to stand in their bloody shoes. Death is always unexpected in America and death by a terrorist attack more so than in any other place.
It is this greater poignancy of attacks in America that begs the question of whether the world’s allocations of sympathy are determined not by the magnitude of a tragedy—the numbers dead and injured—but by the contrast between a society’s normal and the cruel aftermath of a terrorist event. It is in America that the difference between the two is the greatest; the American normal is one of a near-perfect security that is unimaginable in many places, especially in countries at war. The very popularity of the Boston Marathon could be considered an expression of just this. America is so secure and free from suffering that people have the luxury of indulging in deliberate suffering in the form of excruciating physical exertion; this suffering in turn produces well-earned exhilaration, a singular sense of physical achievement and mental fortitude. The act of running a marathon is supposed to be simple, individual—a victory of the will over the body, celebrated by all and untouched by the complicated questions of who in the world can choose to suffer and who only bears suffering.
The innocence of marathon runners and their expectations of a finish line, a well-earned victory, are markers of an America that still believes in an uncomplicated morality even while it is at war.
When terror hits the site of such faith in human fortitude, the impact is large. The innocence of marathon runners and their expectations of a finish line, a well-earned victory, are markers of an America that still believes in an uncomplicated morality even while it is at war. The runner runs, sweats, suffers, and deserves the prize; the messiness of the world has no place in that vacuum of earned achievement where victory is straightforward in a way that it can never be in actual life. The rest of the world is a more complicated place; its people are forced to digest more complicated truths whose vast gray areas rob every tragedy of the pathos available to Americans living and mourning in a universe of black and white.
Musharraf in Islamabad High Court (Credit: breakingnews.ie)
ISLAMABAD, April 18 — When the former military ruler Pervez Musharraf ended his years of exile last month, it was with a vision of himself as a political savior, returning in the nick of time to save Pakistan from chaos.
Instead, he contributed a new and bizarre chapter to the country’s political turmoil on Thursday, fleeing the halls of the High Court after a judge ordered his arrest. Speeding away in a convoy of black S.U.V.’s as a crowd of lawyers mocked him, he hurried to his fortress compound outside of the capital, where he was later declared under house arrest.
Less than five years after wielding absolute power, the retired four-star general has become the latest example of the Pakistani judiciary’s increasing willingness to pursue previously untouchable levels of society — even to the top ranks of the powerful military.
Never before has a retired army chief faced imprisonment in Pakistan, and analysts said the move against Mr. Musharraf could open a new rift between the courts and the military.
All this comes at a delicate moment for Pakistan, with elections near and only a temporary caretaker government at the helm. Though army commanders have sworn to stay on the sidelines in this election, there is fear that any tension over Mr. Musharraf’s fate could make the military more politically aggressive.
It was perhaps with that potential conflict in mind that the country’s Supreme Court was reported by Mr. Musharraf’s aides to have deputized his luxury villa — secured by both retired and serving soldiers — as a “sub-jail” late Thursday night rather than demanding that he appear outside the compound’s walls for arrest.
The tight security at his home, ringed by guard posts and barbed wire, was at first a reflection of repeated Taliban threats to kill the former general. But for now, the imminent danger to Mr. Musharraf, who ruled Pakistan between 1999 and 2008, stems from the courts.
At Thursday’s hearing, the High Court judge, Shaukat Aziz Siddiqui, refused to extend Mr. Musharraf’s bail in a case focusing on his controversial decision to fire and imprison the country’s top judges when he imposed emergency rule in November 2007.
Resentment toward the former army chief and president still runs deep in the judiciary, which was at the center of the heady 18-month protest movement that led to his ouster in 2008.
Mr. Musharraf’s fledgling All Pakistan Muslim League party was cast into crisis. A spokesman for the party described the court order as “seemingly motivated by personal vendettas,” and hinted at the possibility of a looming clash with the military, warning that it could “result in unnecessary tension among the various pillars of state and possibly destabilize the country.”
Mr. Musharraf’s lawyers immediately lodged an appeal with the Supreme Court, which rejected it. The legal team said it would try again on Friday.
The court drama represents the low point of a troubled homecoming for the swaggering commando general, who had vowed to “take the country out of darkness” after returning from four years of self-imposed exile in Dubai, London and the United States.
But instead of the public adulation he was apparently expecting, Mr. Musharraf has been greeted by stiff legal challenges, political hostility and — perhaps most deflating — a widespread sense of public apathy.
Pakistan’s influential television channels have given scant coverage to Mr. Musharraf since his return, and his party has struggled to find strong candidates to field in the general election scheduled for May 11. On Tuesday, the national election commission delivered another blow, disqualifying Mr. Musharraf from the election.
The army, once the source of Mr. Musharraf’s power, has offered little in the way of succor, apart from some armed security.
Meanwhile, Mr. Musharraf faces criminal charges in three cases dating to his period in office — the one related to firing judges and two others related to the deaths of the former Prime Minister Benazir Bhutto and Nawab Akbar Khan Bugti, a Baloch tribal leader. Attempts by some critics to charge Mr. Musharraf with treason have not succeeded.
At times, the self-described elite soldier seemed bent on shooting himself in the foot. In an interview with CNN last week, he admitted to having authorized American drone strikes in the tribal belt — a statement that contradicted years of denials of complicity in the drone program, and which was considered politically disastrous in a country where the drones are widely despised.
In returning home in such an apparently ill-considered manner, Mr. Musharraf has placed himself at the mercy of some of his most bitter enemies.
The favorite to win the coming election is Nawaz Sharif, the onetime prime minister whom Mr. Musharraf overthrew to seize power in 1999.
Meanwhile, the Supreme Court is led by his sworn enemy, Chief Justice Iftikhar Muhammad Chaudhry, whom Mr. Musharraf fired and placed under house arrest in 2007. Justice Siddiqui, who refused him bail on Thursday, is considered a conservative who has been hostile to the military.
Last week, another judge placed Mr. Musharraf on the Exit Control List, which means that he cannot leave the country until a court gives him permission.
In his 2006 memoir, “In the Line of Fire,” Mr. Musharraf wrote: “It is not unusual in Pakistan for the general public and the intelligentsia to approach the army chief and ask him to save the nation.” But as the events of Thursday suggested, it is the former army chief who may need saving this time.
Chechen brothers identified in Boston massacre (Credit: sandrarose.com)
Boston, April 16: I WAS in the middle of having Chinese food with my wife and friends yesterday afternoon when we heard the dull and deathly reverb. The water in our plastic cups rippled. We looked at one another, and someone made a joke about that famous scene in “Jurassic Park.” We tried to drown the moment in humor. But then a rush of humanity descended upon us in the Prudential Center on Boylston Street, right across from where the second bomb blast had just occurred, near the marathon’s finish line.
People gushed across the hallway like fish in white water rapids. It was a blur of bright clothes and shiny sneakers, everyone dressed up for Patriot’s Day weekend on what was moments ago a beautiful spring day. Instantly, images of the shootings in Aurora, Colo., Newtown, Conn., and Tucson came to mind. I felt my thoughts reduced to singular flashes. My life, all of it, was the first. My wife, sitting across me, was the second. I yelled out to her to run, and we did, not knowing what had happened, only that it had to be something terrible.
We ran out of the food court and onto the terrace overlooking Boylston Street. We could see people fleeing from the finish line even as, in the distance, other weary marathoners kept running unknowingly toward the devastation. What was left of the food court was a land frozen in an innocent time, forks still stuck in half-eaten pieces of steak, belongings littered unattended. I felt fear beyond words.
This was not my first experience with terror, having grown up in Pakistan. But for some reason, I didn’t think back to those experiences. Looking onto to the smoked, chaotic Boylston Street, I forgot about cowering in my childhood bedroom as bombs and gunfire rained over the army headquarters in Rawalpindi, close to our house. My mind did not go back to when I stood on the roof of my dormitory in Karachi as the streets were overrun with burning buses and angry protesters after the assassination of Benazir Bhutto. None of the unfortunate experiences of growing up in the midst of thousands of victims of terror, personally knowing some of them, helped me in that moment. Nothing made it any easier.
Perhaps, if I had been thinking more clearly and hadn’t had my wife with me, I might have gone down to try to help the wounded. But at that moment all I could think about was getting us out of there. We lost our friends, then found them again. Our cellphones weren’t working. And then, as we worked our way through the dazed throngs in Back Bay, I realized that not only was I a victim of terror, but I was also a potential suspect.
As a 20-something Pakistani male with dark stubble (an ode more to my hectic schedule as a resident in the intensive-care unit than to any aesthetic or ideology), would I not fit the bill? I know I look like Hollywood’s favorite post-cold-war movie villain. I’ve had plenty of experience getting intimately frisked at airports. Was it advisable to go back to pick up my friend’s camera that he had forgotten in his child’s stroller in the mall? I remember feeling grateful that I wasn’t wearing a backpack, which I imagined might look suspicious. My mind wandered to when I would be working in the intensive care unit the next day, possibly taking care of victims of the blast. What would I tell them when they asked where I was from (a question I am often posed)? Wouldn’t it be easier to just tell people I was from India or Bangladesh?
As I walked down Commonwealth Avenue, I started receiving calls from family back home. They informed me about what was unfolding on television screens across the world. I was acutely conscious of what I spoke over the phone, feeling that someone was breathing over my shoulder, listening to every word I said. Careful to avoid Urdu, speaking exclusively in English, I relayed that I was safe, and all that I had seen. I continued to naïvely cling to the hope that it was a gas explosion, a subway accident, anything other than what it increasingly seemed to be: an act of brutality targeted at the highest density of both people and cameras.
The next step was to hope that the perpetrator was not a lunatic who would become the new face of a billion people. Not a murderer who would further fan the flames of Islamophobia. Not an animal who would obstruct the ability of thousands of students to complete their educations in the United States. Not an extremist who would maim and hurt the very people who were still recovering from the pain of Sept. 11. President Obama and Gov. Deval L. Patrick have shown great restraint in their words and have been careful not to accuse an entire people for what one madman may have done. But others might not be so kind.
Haider Javed Warraich is a resident in internal medicine at the Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center.
Tahira Abdullah (Credit: rawa.org)What are the basic reasons for persistent poverty of Pakistani women?
Several factors contribute to exacerbate the feminisation of poverty in Pakistan. These include the increasing overall national poverty rates, of both women and men; rising inflation, food insecurity and unemployment. A female/male poverty ratio of 3:1, as acknowledged by successive military dictatorships and civilian elected governments over the past decade and a half, is shameful and totally unacceptable for a developing country like Pakistan.
Home-based, low-income, urban women workers suffer huge exploitation from middlemen, contractors and employers; but for rural agricultural women (the vast majority of women workers in Pakistan), the situation is even worse, as they do not get paid wages at all, due to being termed as ‘family helpers’ and thus sink lower into chronic poverty.
Men working in agriculture (known as mazaaras and haarees) are also exploited by the rich feudal landowners, by being either unpaid serfs/peasants/bonded labour through generations, or by being paid inadequately in kind, a fractional portion of the harvested food crop, but women peasants are not paid at all, and have no control over or access to their spouses’ wages.
Conversely, it is the women who are responsible for the food security of their immediate and extended family (husband, children, in-laws), as well as for the triple burden of work: (i) domestic household chores, (ii) economically productive agriculture, livestock, fisheries and forestry activities, (iii) reproductive functions of child-bearing and rearing. Women also suffer greater ill-health, anaemia, mal/under-nutrition, and reproductive health (RH) complications, without access to free public sector or affordable private sector RH services.
This not only increases the burden of poverty for women, but it also decreases women’s productive capacity, as well as increasing their poverty of opportunity (including lack of education, information, mobility, socio-cultural restrictive norms and other constraints). This concept was introduced by the eminent Pakistani economist Dr Mahbub ul Haq, who coined the terms Poverty of Opportunity Index (POPI), Human Development Index (HDI), Gender Development Index (GDI) and Gender Empowerment Measure (GEM). Pakistan, regrettably, still does not fare well on any of these indices.
What practical measures do you suggest to eradicate the high incidence of poverty in women in the local context?
The lesson to be learnt from the failure of the mala fide, badly conceptualised and highly politicised Benazir Income Support Programme (BISP) is that monthly charitable handouts do nothing to alleviate poverty — it was simply a meagre social protection measure to ensure votes in the next elections, and fostered dependency and beggary.
Long-term poverty eradication measures first require transfer of land to women for building women’s assets ownership in their own name, in order to increase women’s credit-worthiness and provide collateral for loans for women’s entrepreneurship.
The incoming governments (both federal and provincial) need to increase and encourage the private sector to also increase their investments in rural development, agriculture and agro-based industries, especially food crops (vs cash crops such as cotton).
Women’s and girls’ education and vocational skills training, in both rural and urban areas, needs huge investments, in order to increase women’s registration and eligibility for formal sector employment, trade union membership and labour benefits, particularly health, children’s education and social security.
It is most important that the government recognise the huge contribution women are making to the GDP, albeit invisible, unacknowledged and uncounted in national statistics, due to outmoded and unjust definitions of “labour force”, which exclude the entire agriculture sector and home-based workers from the formal, organised sector labour force.
Pakistan is a signatory to the UN Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) and is also a State Party to various UN Conventions, including several at the International Labour Organisation (ILO), and, inter alia, the International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights (ICESCR), Convention on the Rights of the Child (CRC) and Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination Against Women (CEDAW), and thus must adhere to its binding international commitments, as well as to the fundamental rights enshrined in the 1973 Constitution of Pakistan.
It is vitally important that Pakistan ratify the ILO Convention 177 and R-198 to grant recognition and formal labour status to the millions of home-based workers (as distinct from domestic staff) in Pakistan.
It is also vitally important for the federal and provincial governments to recognise the huge numbers of de facto women-headed households, to register them and to grant them formal status, resulting in their eligibility for social security, membership of the Employees’ Old Age Benefits Institution, health insurance and other benefits available to working men registered as household heads.
Tahira Abdullah is a development worker, and peace and human rights activist
Tribunal overturns ROs in Ayaz Amir case (Credit Pakistanpressfoundation.org)
ISLAMABAD, April 5– Aslam Khan Khattak passed his first — and perhaps most curious — test this week in his quest to become a member of Pakistan’s parliament: He correctly named the first person to walk on the moon.
The question was posed to Khattak by Pakistani judges, who have provoked both laughter and criticism in recent days in their vetting of potential candidates in the country’s upcoming national elections with queries that have veered between the controversial and the bizarre.
One candidate was prodded to spell the word graduation. Another was quizzed on the lyrics of the national anthem. A third was asked how she would manage to serve as a lawmaker with two young children at home.
Many candidates were forced to recite Islamic prayers to prove they were devout Muslims, and one — a prominent journalist — was disqualified because one of his newspaper columns was deemed to have ridiculed Pakistan’s ideology.
“The manner in which the exercise of screening election candidates is being conducted cannot even be termed as childish. It is far worse,” Pakistan’s Dawn newspaper said in an editorial Friday.
The source of the problem, according to critics, is a pair of articles in Pakistan’s constitution — 62 and 63 — introduced in the 1980s by former military dictator Gen. Zia ul-Haq that govern who is eligible to serve in parliament.
The former dictator sought to intensify the religious nature of the majority Muslim country, and article 62 stipulates a lawmaker “has adequate knowledge of Islamic teachings and practices obligatory duties prescribed by Islam.” It also mandates a candidate must be honest and has not “worked against the integrity of the country or opposed the ideology of Pakistan.”
Although the articles have been in the constitution for years, they haven’t played a significant role in past elections. But the Supreme Court has pressed judges vetting thousands of candidates to enforce the law more strictly in the run-up to the May 11 parliamentary election in an attempt to weed out corrupt politicians and those who may have broken basic laws, such as not paying their taxes, a common abuse in Pakistan.
The election will mark the first transition between democratically-elected governments in the 65-year history of Pakistan, a country that has experienced three military coups and constant political instability.
Former military dictator Gen. Pervez Musharraf returned to Pakistan recently to contest the election in four different constituencies, which is allowed in the country. But his nomination papers were rejected in one constituency in central Punjab province Friday because he did not meet the criteria in articles 62 and 63, said lawyer Javed Kasuri, who filed a complaint against Musharraf.
Weeding out corrupt lawmakers is widely supported in Pakistan, where public graft is alleged to be rampant. But the decision by some judges to make candidates recite verses from Islam’s holy book, the Quran, to prove they are good Muslims has sparked outrage.
Officials “don’t have the right to determine who is a good Muslim and who is a bad Muslim, and they must not reject nomination papers just because someone could not recite verses from the Quran,” said Asma Jehangir, one of Pakistan’s top human rights activists.
She said the people of Pakistan should have the right to decide the fate of these candidates themselves.
The decision of a judge in Punjab on Thursday to reject the nomination papers of Ayaz Amir, a prominent journalist and national lawmaker, also generated significant controversy.
Amir said the judge told him that an article he wrote about famous newspaper columnist Ardeshir Cowasjee after the man’s death last year ridiculed Pakistan’s ideology — a hotly debated subject in a country that has many competing storylines. The judge did not mention what was specifically wrong with the article, which discussed Amir’s friendship with Cowasjee.
“It was a case of illiteracy. The judge didn’t understand what I wrote in English,” said Amir, who plans to appeal the ruling. “Nothing was against the ideology of Pakistan.”
Amir wrote in the newspaper The News on Friday that the government should repeal articles 62 and 63 because they give too much power to religious leaders in the country. Politicians have been hesitant to act for fear of appearing un-Islamic.
“Every society has its share of outright fools, holding forth as if they have a direct line to heaven, but few societies give fools such a free rein as we seem to do,” wrote Amir.
Ishtiaq Ahmad Khan, the secretary of Pakistan’s election commission, said the problem was that the judges are dealing with subjective issues that need to be standardized, likely by the Supreme Court.
“All these things need to be debated very seriously,” said Khan. “These are very serious issues that have implications for the democratic process.”
The election commission stirred a bit of controversy itself when it forwarded a proposal to the government this week to add to the ballot the choice of “none of the above” — admittedly one that many Pakistanis might support given their low opinion of the country’s politicians. Khan, the election commission secretary, said the organization was just following the Supreme Court’s order.
Some of the questions asked by the judges clearly seemed to fall outside the purview of determining a candidate’s eligibility according to the law, prompting The Express Tribune newspaper to say the process had taken “a turn for the weird.”
Zahid Iqbal, a candidate from the Sunni Tehreek party in the southern city of Karachi, was asked for the correct abbreviation of a bachelor of law degree and the spelling of the word graduation, said the party’s spokesman, Fahim Sheikh. Iqbal failed on both counts, and the judge is expected to decide his fate Friday, said Sheikh.
Former Punjab provincial lawmaker Shamshad Gohar said a judge asked her how many children she had.
“When I said I have two children, aged seven and 11, he said, ‘Your children are too young and how will you manage to look after them after becoming a lawmaker,'” said Gohar, who assured the judge she could handle it.
Perhaps the strangest question was put to Khattak in Karachi, who was asked to name the first person to step on the moon. When Khattak said it was Neil Armstrong, the judge quickly asked who next stepped on the moon. Khattak said it was also Armstrong since he was not disabled and had use of both of his legs.
His candidacy was approved.
___
Associated Press writers Atif Raza in Karachi, Pakistan, Zaheer Babar in Lahore, Pakistan, and Munir Ahmed in Islamabad contributed to this report.
Majyd Aziz (Credit: twtrland.com)PAGE recently had a session with industrialist and business personality Majyd Aziz to solicit his views on good governance in Pakistan and the future of the foreign exchange reserves.
Majyd Aziz is a scion of the Balagamwala family that migrated from Bantva, India after Independence and settled in Karachi. Today he heads the close-knit family as well as the Group’s business ventures. The family companies are involved in imports of coal (having over 80% share), pulses, canola, fertilizer, palm kernel cake and many commodities. It is also the largest exporter of chrome ore, barite, and other minerals. It is the largest cargo-handling and stevedoring company in Pakistan. It is the largest facilitator of cement exports and also represents many global shipping lines. It manufactures value-added fabrics that are considered as the benchmark in suiting fabrics. All family members have studied in USA or UK and are actively involved in the family businesses.
Majyd Aziz is also the Chairman of the primarily government-owned SME Bank Ltd. He is a Former President of Karachi Chamber of Commerce and Industry, Former Chairman of SITE Association of Industry, and ex Director of KESC and SITE Ltd. He has represented Pakistan at various international forums and is Honorary Citizen of Houston as well as Austin, Texas, USA.
Q.No.01: How would you comment on good governance in Pakistan?
At the outset, we have to determine what we mean by good governance. A simple definition I found out is that it is the process of decision-making and the process by which decisions are implemented or not implemented. Taking that as a start and putting on my cap as a citizen of this nation, I can state with all merit at my command that good governance has become a rhetorical slogan noticeably devoid of any substance. I do not differentiate between a government that has a democratic dispensation or a regime that is under the control of non-democratic forces. In Pakistan, the element of good governance is a rare commodity.
Let me give you some prime examples. Take the last five years of the democratic environment. The major political party, one which considers its roots among the masses, blatantly demolished its own avowed rallying slogan “Roti, Kapra, Makaan” (Food, Clothing, Shelter) during its tenure. There has been a total disconnect between the politicians and the poor, the unemployed, the landless, and the disfranchised. The hierarchy of the political government spent most of the tenure in scoring political points and indulging in Machiavellian intrigues. Inspite of formidable support from other coalition partners including independents, the government concentrated on stuffing the state-owned enterprises with political appointees, ruthlessly crushed meritocracy, went on a rampage on funds in Treasury, unabashedly acted like Little Caesars, developed a fiddling Nero mindset, and politicized bureaucracy with impunity.
The Benazir Income Support Program, with all its faults, including a half-baked original vision, was regrettably utilized as a political tool rather than a pragmatic and even-handed welfare oriented project. Billions were spent on self-aggrandizement activities. Resources were spent lavishly on media to keep it from sniffing around. Foreign aid was squandered to attract voters towards the party in power. This is an example of high-profile bad governance in the previous five years.
It seems that the government was participating in a 100-yard race. It was only in the penultimate fortnight of its tenure that it made the final five yard dash at full speed to announce populist projects that would probably not see the light of the day if another party comes into power after May 11, 2013.
The Shaukat Aziz government plotted schemes enabling the banks to reap windfall profits and making the stock exchange go on a wild spree. It purposely allowed the bubble to expand and when the e.Coli hit the fan, the country went on a downward spiral that, sadly, continues till today. There was no fallback strategy designed by his government and the ensuing results proved disastrous.
The incoming government lacked a solid economic team and the performance of the economic managers during the last five years was mediocre, distressing, and seemingly lost at sea. Pakistan suffered seriously because of the lackadaisical environment prevailing in the corridors of the economic policy makers. The Monetary Policy of State Bank of Pakistan did not create any wonders and the Planning Commission wasted time, money, and expertise while its output was nothing to write home about.
The government had no pragmatic plan to tackle the energy shortages and relied on hollow promises. The Rental Power Project succumbed to outright dishonesty, chicanery and massive corruption. State-owned enterprises continue to hemorrhage scarce financial resources and are systematically being destroyed in more ways than one.
There is a sense of isolation that Pakistanis feel today. Globally, the nation’s image is at its lowest nadir due to various factors that could have been controlled but the government was unable to do it because it lacked the critical mass to catch the bull by its horns. The nation has immensely suffered from terrorism, extremism, and fanaticism.
On the home front, the Presidency was used a political tea-house with the President donning a political hat as well a constitutional cap. A continued battle raged between the Federal and the Punjab governments. The Sindh government was controlled by a non-elected nominee of the President who was considered the de facto Chief Minister. The Balochistan Chief Minister was more comfortable racing his Harley-Davidson in Islamabad rather than solving the myriad problems faced by the Balochis, especially the unrest and rebellion gathering steam in the Province. In Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, the government was in a defensive position due to the threats of the domestic extremist groups. Even the Chairman of the ruling party in KPK avoided staying in the Province.
Scandals were galore. Personalities who had access to the powers that be had their best five years. Land scams, LPG scams, Rental Power Scams, NICL, OGRA, PIA, Pakistan Railways, Pakistan Steel, etc became synonymous with the words cronyism, nepotism and corruption. Parliamentarians and politicians evaded taxes, hid their dual nationality status, forged their educational certificates and degrees, misused perks and privileges, acted like buffoons on TV talk shows but kept on espousing the slogan created by some smart copywriter that “Democracy is the best revenge”.
Q.No.02: What big challenges do you think Pakistan has been facing in terms of good governance?
Elections are round the corner and there is this hope that maybe a new government would be in a vantage position to introduce change and maybe bring about relief and sanity within the country. However, considering the distressing situation prevailing in the country, it would be an onerous task for the new government to move at a faster pace to instill confidence in the people. I foresee a period of stagnation atleast until the end of 2013. The new government would take time to settle down and in all probability it would be another coalition government. The 18th Amendment has also brought about unforeseen issues that need to be addressed as this legislation has also impacted on good governance. Moreover, the new government would be highly strapped for cash, would be still facing colossal losses in State-owned enterprises, may not be comfortable with the Benazir Income Support Program, would have to decide whether to knock at the portals of International Finance Institutions and accepting the harsh conditionalities, restore the confidence of trade and industry, and work hard in restoring the positive image of Pakistan in the comity of nations.
The new government would have to set priorities that are doable and manageable and they should give less emphasis on announcing populist measures that usually backfire largely because they either do not achieve the purpose or they become hostage to corrupt elements. The government has to announce a fast track program to revitalize the SME sector through infusion of low credit and facilitation in marketing and procurement of their products. This should be on the high list of priorities since this would provide immediate employment opportunities.
The second very important sector that the new government should focus is low-cost housing. The government should refrain from inviting foreign firms to participate in this venture. It is proposed that domestic builders using locally-made inputs are invited to develop low-cost schemes to alleviate the chronic shortage of housing that is reaching the ten million mark. The government can provide free land and zero-rate all duties and taxes on inputs used in construction of these low-cost houses.
The new government’s main challenge would be to ruthlessly go after corruption and, in the process, use all measures and means to control party members from indulging in shameless corruption practices that was the hallmark of the previous government. A concerted effort to reduce corruption would send the right signals not only to domestic investors but also to foreign entities desiring to invest in Pakistan.
It would be a big challenge for the incoming government to refrain from excessive politicking atleast for three to four years and instead it should divert all energies towards improving the quality of life and thus earning plaudits from the people. Of course, a strong stand must be taken to ensure that coalition partners, if any, do not continuously demand their pound of flesh. That, in itself, is the biggest challenge.
Q.No.03: Your views on foreign reserves:
A country’s foreign exchange reserves position is also an indicator of its macro-economic status and sustainability. Usually the benchmark is that a country must have enough to pay its import bills for atleast two months. At the beginning of fiscal year 2011-12, Pakistan’s Forex reserves exceeded $ 18 billion while today it is only $ 12 billion. In July 2011, the government’s reserves were nearly $ 15 billion out of the $ 18 billion. Today the figure has shrunk to a little over $ 7 billion. Pakistan’s monthly import bill hovers around $ 4 billion while half-yearly exports during this financial year are a shade over $ 14 billion. Of course, exports have grown by 7% compared to last year. Taking the precarious Forex situation into consideration, it can be rightly stated that Pakistan is between a rock and a hard place. The alarming factor is that the incoming government would have to deal with the electricity issue and would have to prove that it will reduce load shedding. Thus the bill for furnace oil would escalate and that would also put pressure on the reserves. Another distressing factor is that the government has to shell out $ 1.3 billion between July and November 2013 to pay off IMF. Moreover, foreign exchange reserves of banks and private citizens have remained constant between $ 4 and 5 billion. One more moot point is whether the $ 7 billion figure contains any “deposits” parked by friendly countries such as China. One point that I dispute is that the Forex reserves of banks and private sector should never be included in the country’s total reserves and only official figures must be highlighted.
It is to some extent commendable that foreign remittances are exhibiting a positive growth. It is estimated that remittances may touch $ 16 billion by end June 2013. Notwithstanding this positive situation, it is to be noted that there is going to be a formidable shortfall in revenue collection inspite of reduction of over Rs 250 billion by FBR from its earlier estimates. Will the Caretaker government negotiate a new Standby Arrangement with IMF? That remains to be seen. Furthermore, the government is still playing hide and seek in settling the Circular Debt in the energy sector.
Q.No.04: How has the issue of inflation been tackled in Pakistan recently?
The State Bank of Pakistan resorted to a tight Monetary Policy to handle the inflation issue. This text-book approach made life miserable for private sector as it made bank financing an expensive alternative. The high discount rates coupled with the excessive bank spread proved to be disastrous for trade and industry and one outcome was the exceedingly burgeoning Non-Performing Loans. Furthermore, the downslide of the value of the
Rupee also impacted severely on the inflation rate. The government professes that it has brought down the inflation rate to about 10% but this is highly debatable. Pakistani is an import-based country and with the Rupee reaching the 100 mark against the Dollar, it is improbable that inflation has drastically reduced.
The government routinely increases the rates of electricity, gas and petrol. The cost of social services continues to rise. Imported raw material is paid in foreign exchange. Land prices keep escalating. Cement and other inputs in housing construction are getting expensive too. The State Bank of Pakistan as well as the Finance Ministry have relied on theories to tackle the inflation issue rather than taking concrete steps to mitigate the sufferings of the citizens. There is zero likelihood of the new government being in a position to bring down either core inflation or food inflation. If the oil prices in the global marketplace start rising again, well, the inflation rate may zoom up to about 20% and we may see a repeat of the half-hearted measures that SBP and Finance Ministry undertook in the past.
Q.No.05: How would you comment on good governance in Pakistan as compared to its neighbors?
Pakistan is not the only country accused of bad governance. Each neighboring country has its own dynamics. Each neighboring country has its own policies and mindset. Corruption is rife in nearly all these neighboring countries. Civil liberties are targeted while human rights laws are flouted by the state. Each neighboring country is facing economic, social, and political difficulties and each of them are endeavoring to address these issues. The setback for Pakistan is that her international image has been battered by inimical external and internal forces that do not want to see Pakistan moving towards economic prosperity. Pakistan is unfortunately suffering immensely because of this negative perception. Although the populace is peaceful, save for some misguided elements, the prime dilemma is that the successive governments in Pakistan have never sincerely formulated implementable policies to make life better for the 190 million denizens. This is the tragedy that Pakistanis face, and worse than this tragedy is the apathy of these 190 million to forcefully demand their rights, to agitate for their safety and security, and to express their aspirations and demands through judicious use of their right to vote and their right to speak. The Constitution guarantees them these rights. Sadly, they do not take advantage of what is enshrined in the Constitution. Thus, bad governance is their ill-fated lot. I take solace from Martin Luther King Jr who very rightly said: “Only in the darkness can you see the stars.” I hope my fellow Pakistanis heed this advice and move ahead
