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politics Newswatch review uplift Cronyism
v Rule of Law Of
the two mosques in our street
politics The
dramatic spate of in political violence across the country since the end of
the Lal Masjid debacle has left the country on edge. Some might say that it
is predictable that such a fallout has ensued from the week-long siege and
eventual storming of the mosque. Others have insisted -- in typically
conspiratorial fashion -- that the whole spate of violence is being
orchestrated by our omnipotent intelligence agencies so that the government
can stave off the serious political challenge that it has come up against in
recent months. Either way things are bad, and they are quite likely to get
worse. It so
happens that Pakistan is at a conjuncture unlike any other that has gone
before it. The state's hitherto jihadi allies have realised that things are
not as they used to be, and want the state to understand that they cannot be
discarded without consequence. Accordingly they have have Meanwhile,
the discontent with the army's domination of state and its increasingly
vicious penetration of society has reached a feverish pitch. The chief
justice has become a symbol of this discontent, and the lawyers have been the
chief representatives of the public voice. It is another matter altogether
that the quite spontaneous movement to which the chief justice's deposal gave
rise has not been taken to the people in a manner that might have completely
overwhelmed the Musharraf junta. To be sure, it has become clear in no
uncertain terms that there is great resentment at the army's role in the
wider social sphere and that it no longer occupies that exalted position over
and above the 'civilians' that has allowed it to rule the roost for as long
as it has. These
parallel 'situations' should not be seen as separate. They are very closely
intertwined. And it is in attempting to understand the various happenings in
the country over the past few months in a holistic manner that one can
identify the disease and then consider if there is a cure, what it is, and
how it may be administered. In the first instance it is imperative that one
recognise that the internal struggle within the army over the manner of
engagement with jihadi forces is not one that has emerged only today. In fact
it has persisted since the Zia period which is when the ideology of Islamic
jihad actually found space within an otherwise highly secular army, deeply
influenced by the 'professional' traditions inculcated by the British. Be
that as it may the struggle remained non-antagonistic because the army as a
whole was unified in its decision to use the ideology of jihad as a means of
achieving its highly secular strategic objectives in Afghanistan and the
larger southwest Asian region. It was
perhaps inevitable that a small but growing number of officers and jawans
would not simply adopt jihad as a functional tool but in fact becoming deeply
committed to it at an ideological level. However, uptil quite recently, this
influential strand of officers and jawans continued to operate freely,
because the army as an institution continued to instrumentalise religion both
to maintain its dominant political position in the country and to assert its
influence over Afghanistan and the struggle of Kashmiris for
self-determination. In fact the independent corporate interests of the army
ensured that these two ideologically opposed camps within remained clear on
the larger objective of securing the army's dominant position and the myriad
perks and privileges that this position entails. Regardless
of whether this non-antagonistic contradiction started to become more acute,
the fact On
numerous occasions over the past 6 years, it has not even been clear that the
'professional' camp led by Musharraf has wanted to totally disengage with
jihad. And it still might not want to, playing a dangerous double game trying
to appease the Americans on the one hand and keep its options open vis a vis
jihad on the other. It would appear that the spate of attacks after the Lal
Masjid operation speak to this long-standing contradiction. And then
there is the popular discontent against the army's role in Pakistan.
Following the decision of the Supreme Court to reinstate the Chief Justice,
the army will have to admit both political and moral defeat. This does not
mean that it will go easily, especially if the momentum of the lawyers'
movement does not persist. Decades of manipulation of the political process
will continue to rear its ugly head in the shape of co-opted and badly
disorganised political parties. Yet it is difficult to see things going back
to the way they were uptil the recent past when the army could distinguish
itself from 'inept' politicians and rule the country on account of its
reputation for being 'clean' and 'efficient'. The fact
that jihadi ideology and politics has made inroads into a fairly significant
section of society, and that where it has not it garners distant admirers, is
a direct product of the army's role in state affairs. The army has,
alongside, other institutional interests and propertied classes, prevented
the establishment of an open political process, precisely because such a
process might threaten the army's dominance as well as the influence of some
of its junior partners. At least part of the strategy has centered around
filling the vacuum created by political and cultural repression through
religious groups, including those committed to using violence to achieve
their parochial ends. This strategy seems to have worked in containing
anti-establishment politics and reducing mainstream parties to negotiating
agents, but its costs are now becoming fully apparent. In a
worst case scenario this long-standing ambivalence within the establishment
about ties with radical groups willing and able to use violence will
degenerate into something resembling civil war. However, even in this
scenario, it is extremely dangerous to support Musharraf under the guise that
this is the best available option. Aside from the fact that this means that
one would be supporting American imperialism against one's own people, it
also suggests that the army can be trusted to 'do the right thing'. In fact
the army is very much the root cause of the problem. The army has paralysed
the political process, cynically instrumentalised Islam and built up a huge
corporate empire in the process. There is no evidence that the army wants to
give up its position of high privilege, and it is likely to subject
Pakistanis to all of the fallouts of its games so long as its own interests
remain intact. Thus one
hopes that the lawyers maintain their pledge of not resting easy now that the
CJ has been reinstated. One hopes that a critical mass of politically
conscious Pakistanis become active to augment the popular struggle. One hopes
that political parties recognise that sooner or later they have to trust the
people rather than rely on backroom contacts with an army that eventually
stabs them in the back. One hopes that the cynical use of religion in
politics eventually becomes a bad memory. This is admittedly a long
wish-list, but by no means an unrealisable one so long as everyone who should
puts their hands up to be counted.
Newswatch Commentators
have often warned of the danger inherent in the office of the president of
the United States becoming an imperial presidency. The military power wielded
by the president is so immense that there is a tendency for the holder of the
office to see the world as his private bailiwick where he can do whatever he
likes and ride roughshod over whomever he likes whenever he likes. This
tendency is clearly evident in President George W. Bush's actions, and
nowhere more so than in his invasion and occupation of Iraq in violation of
every canon of international law and in flagrant defiance of world public
opinion -- including, increasingly, public opinion in his own country where
his approval rating has now sunk to 29 per cent, the lowest level for any
president in sixty years. Warnings
concerning the danger of an imperial presidency go back to the days of James
Madison, the fourth president of the United States, and other founders of the
American republic. As the
San Francisco Chronicle's columnist Robert Scheer notes in an article
published by TruthDig.com on July 18, 2007, George W. Bush is the imperial
president that Madison and other founders of the United States warned the
American people about. Scheer
writes that Bush ''lied to the nation into precisely the 'foreign
entanglements' that George Washington feared would destroy the experiment in
representative government, and he has championed a spurious notion of
security over individual liberty, thus eschewing the alarms of Thomas
Jefferson as to the inalienable rights of free citizens. But most important,
he has used the sledgehammer of war to obliterate the separation of powers
that James Madison enshrined in the US Constitution.'' With his
'war against terrorism' Bush has asserted the right of the president to wage
war anywhere and for any length of time, at his whim, because -- as Scheer
notes in a perceptive comment -- "terrorists will always provide a
convenient shadowy target." The
'continual warfare' that Madison warned of is justifying the primary role of
Congress in initiating and continuing to finance a war -- the very issue now
at stake in Bush's battle with Congress. The Iraq
war has already cost the lives of more than 600,000 Iraqi civilians,
according to a study conducted by the respected British medical journal 'The
Lancet'. It has also cost the lives of close to 4,000 American soldiers, with
no end to the killing in sight. The war
has so far cost American taxpayers about $ 500 billion, and Bush now wants
Congress to appropriate tens of billions of dollars more for the war in the
military spending bill for fiscal 2008 (which commences on October 1 this
year). Bush has
threatened to veto any legislation passed by Congress that would set
timetables for the draw down of US troops in Iraq or dictate a change in
mission for remaining forces. Senate
Minority Leader Mitch McConnell, Republican-Kentucky, said last week that it
was pointless to adopt amendments in the military spending authorisation bill
for fiscal 2008 that would provoke a presidential veto. But
Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, Democrat-Nevada, said exhausted troops and
an American public fed up with the war deserve more than an expression of
disapproval by Congress. "Our votes, not our voices, will prove whether
our resolve is firm and whether we are prepared to lead," said Reid. In his
'Political Observations,' written years before he became the fourth president
of the United States, James Madison emphasised the dangers of an imperial
presidency bloated by war fever. "In war," wrote Madison in 1795,
at a time when the young American republic still faced its share of dangerous
enemies (including British King George III's troops stationed in North
America) "the discretionary power of the Executive is extended and all
the means of seducing the minds are added to those of subduing the force of
the people." Drawing
an analogy between King George and President George W. Bush, Robert Scheer
writes: "How remarkably prescient of Madison to anticipate the spectre
of our current King George imperiously undermining Congress' attempts to end
the Iraq war." When the
prime author of the US Constitution explained why that document grants
Congress -- not the president -- the exclusive power to declare and fund
wars, Madison wrote, "A delegation of such powers (to the president)
would have struck, not only the fabric of our Constitution, but at the
foundation of all well organised and well checked governments." Because
"no nation could preserve its freedom in the midst of continual
warfare," Madison urged that the constitutional separation of powers
that he had codified be respected. "The Constitution expressly and
exclusively vests in the Legislature the power of declaring a state of
war,the power of raising armies," he wrote. 'The separation of the power
of raising armies from the power of commanding them is intended to prevent
the raising of armies for the sake of commanding them," Madison wrote. Referring
to Madison's words, Scheer says: "That last sentence perfectly describes
the threat of what President Dwight Eisenhower, 165 years later, would
describe as the 'military-industrial complex,' a permanent war economy
feeding off a permanent state of insecurity." In other
words, the military-industrial complex always needs an enemy to justify the
money spent on the military and its weapons systems. Those weapons systems
are manufactured by US corporations and sold to the Pentagon at prices that
generate huge profits for the manufacturers. To ensure that Congress
continues to authorise the money needed to finance all this, the
military-industrial complex employs a legion of highly-paid lobbyists. Many
of the lobbyists are former senior US military officers. As
Scheer notes, the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1990 deprived the military
profiteers of a raison díetre for the massive war economy supposedly created
in response to it. Bush found in the 9/11 attacks an excuse to make war even
more profitable and long lasting. Hence,
the war against Iraq, a country that never had anything to do with the 9/11
attacks.
The
Kargil crisis Ironically,
it was Nawaz Sharif who found himself in the midst of an international crisis
for not being able or willing to keep his army chief's activities under
check. Musharraf writes that it was the Kargil conflict which initially
"soured" his relations with the prime minister. He devotes a whole
chapter in his book on the issue in order to vindicate himself and shift all
the blame for the Kargil crisis onto Nawaz Sharif. Kargil,
a small town on the Indian side of the Line of Control (LOC), is located in
the frigid high mountains of northern Kashmir. According to Musharraf's
narrative, in early 1999 "Kashmiri freedom fighting mujahideen occupied
the Kargil heights that the Indian army had vacated for the winter".
When Indian soldiers returned to their posts in early summer, Musharraf had
already moved several He
insists that by July 4, the day cease-fire was declared, the Indians
"did achieve some success, which I would consider insignificant. Our
troops were fully prepared to hold our dominating positions ahead of the
watershed." (p.93) In the
meantime, the world leaders were getting very alarmed by this bloody flare-up
which they feared could lead to a nuclear war between the two South Asian
rivals. There was "intense international pressure" on Nawaz Sharif,
according to Musharraf's own admission, and there was talk about Pakistan
army being a "rogue's army". (p. 95) On July
3, Nawaz Sharif flew to Washington to address President Clinton's concerns
about the situation, but not before asking his army chief one more time:
"Should we accept a cease-fire and a withdrawal?" Musharraf
writes that his "answer was the same: the military situation is
favourable; the political decision has to be his own." (p. 97) In
Washington, on July 4, as one can recall, President Clinton confronted Nawaz
Sharif with satellite Yet,
Nawaz Sharif's going off to Washington and negotiating a cease-fire was no
more of a mystery than Field Marshall Ayub Khan's taking off to Tashkent to
negotiate the end of 1965 war with India. The
problem is that in launching the Kargil operation, Musharraf and a few of his
commanders that he had taken into confidence, had learned nothing from the
past mistakes. He claims that the operation he initiated "on the snow
clad peaks and in the boulder ridden valleys of the Northern Areas" was
"a tactical marvel of military professionalism". What he does not
realise is that this "marvel" was merely a thoughtless repetition
of the same old and failed strategy the venerable Field Marshall had employed
in Kashmir in the August of 1965, touching off an all-out war with India. It
was the same old story of reliance on volunteer militant fighters, now
available ready-made in all shapes and forms of mujahideen zealots, to cross
the LOC in Kashmir, followed by deployment of regular troops, followed by
denials when the other side turned the heat on, and the whole operation
undertaken without a full and sober assessment of its military, political and
international-diplomatic consequences. Why did
Musharraf not oppose the cease-fire at the time it was negotiated, if he was
so sure that it was a bad idea, and left the "political decision"
to the prime minister? Here is a rather implausible explanation: "As
the chief of the army staff, I found myself in a very difficult position. I
wanted to explain the military situation, to demonstrate how successful we
had been and point out political mishandling that had caused so much despair.
But that would have been disloyal, and very unsettling for the political
leaders." (p. 95) Coming
from a self-assured politician-bashing general, it certainly is an odd
statement. What seems closer to truth is that the reckless Kargil operation,
undertaken secretively in disregard of its grave political and security
consequences for Pakistan and the region, had raised a storm of criticism in
both the domestic and the foreign media, as is also evident from Musharraf's
own complaint that "All kinds of carefully placed articles had appeared,
including a one-page advertisement in a newspaper in the United States,
maligning the army and creating a divide between it and the government."
(p.137) Any attempt to justify what he had done would have prolonged the
questioning of his judgement and his competence as chief of the army. That
seems to be the real reason which kept him quiet in the immediate aftermath
of the Kargil crisis. While
writing in retrospect, from his secure presidential perch, Musharraf can
afford to be himself again, a military general with overflowing confidence.
And that is what is really important for a proper assessment of what his
rule, or military rule in general, means for Pakistan. Quoting Richard Nixon,
Musharraf says that a leader must never "suffer paralysis through
analysis". (p. 131) This is surely not a very reassuring precept coming
from someone who leads a modern state. The case
of Balochistan A
specific example of this narrow militaristic approach to complex domestic
issues is also encountered in Musharraf's thinking on the current political
unrest in Balochistan and methods adopted by his regime to contain that
unrest. He writes: "Balochistan
is Pakistan's largest province in area but smallest in population. It is also
the most backward.... Ninety-five per cent of Balochistan is administratively
a 'B area', where the government does not exercise total authority and the
local sardar or chief plays an important role. Only 5 per cent is an 'A
area', which comes under the regular government. A few of the sardars in B
area have been manipulating and blackmailing every Pakistani government for
decades, using militant mercenaries that they maintain as their local militia
forces. They have also kept their own tribes suppressed under their iron grip
through indiscriminate use of force. I have taken upon myself to convert all
the B areas into A areas and establish the government writ there."
(p.59) This is
indeed a stark depiction of a complex political and social problem. Shorn of
its colonial and historical accreditions, the persistent Baloch demand for
political autonomy and control over their natural resources is simply reduced
to the problem of enforcing the government's writ. And, as is common
knowledge, the enforcement is being accomplished through a massive military
and para-military operation, third of its kind in Balochistan since
independence and perhaps the most brutal. On top of it, innumerable
complaints are being voiced about human rights violations and
"disappearances". All this is bound to be counterproductive, as
past experiences with domestic military operations have shown. If the problem
was just to convert B areas into A areas, that objective could have been
achieved more peacefully and effectively by extending to all the people of
Balochistan their entitlements to full citizenship, such as adequate means of
livelihood, education, health care, electricity, communication and
transportation services, thereby raising their sense of identification with
the nation and the national government. Unfortunately,
today there are more military and paramilitary soldiers posted in Balochistan
than there are teachers at all levels of educational institutions. In fact,
what is happening in Balochistan today is part of a continuous process of
building the Pakistani state into a highly centralised, unitary and
authoritarian political structure in which the army establishment has come to
play a decisive role. Such a political structure remains impervious to the
basic needs of people, operates in a neo-colonial framework and is inimical
to pluralistic democracy. Who
rules Pakistan? There is
an interesting chapter in Musharraf's book in which the author picks up the
question of why democracy has "eluded Pakistan since its birth in
1947". He starts out by defining democracy with textbook precision as
"rule by the people". This is followed by an indisputable
observation that "What we in Pakistan have consciously created instead
is rule by a small elite -- never democratic, often autocratic, usually
plutocratic, and lately kleptocratic -- all working with a tribal-feudal
mind-set ..." (p.154) But then
he makes a strategic omission in his next statement: "This small elite
comprises feudal barons, tribal warlords, and politicians of all hues."
Missing conspicuously from this statement are the army generals who have
ruled Pakistan directly and indirectly over most of its history. They could,
of course, be included with some justification, in any of the categories of
feudal barons, warlords, or politicians of all hues, but that is not what is
intended. The generals are said to be the monitors of good government who
occasionally stage military coups to "save the nation". In
reality, however, the generals have not only ruled Pakistan for extended
periods of time, they have shown a great appetite for politics and political
engineering of "what we in Pakistan have consciously created...."
It was General Ayub Khan, who first swept aside whatever the civilian
politicians had accomplished in the first decade of independence and started
out afresh "to establish political institutions and stable instruments
of government." Even
before he took over the reigns of government, he was obsessed with thoughts
of doing something with the political "problem" in the country. On
a sleepless night in October 1954, he sat up in a hotel room in London and
wrote a document on how the people of Pakistan shall be governed. The
document was later incorporated in the constitution of Pakistan when he took
over, putting the country on the road to "controlled democracy" and
a powerful unitary state. Each
subsequent military ruler has made his own contribution to enhancing the
power of the central state over its citizens and its constituent units. When
Musharraf took over as head of the state he, too, set himself a political
agenda with two major priorities laid out in his book -- first, to "instutionalise"
the army establishment's de facto role and power in conducting the affairs of
the state, and secondly, to centralise state power in the federal government
on the pattern of militaristic hierarchy of control and command. In
support of his first project, he starts out by asserting that there are
"three power brokers" in Pakistan's political system: the army, the
president and the prime minister, and affirms that: "Imposing
checks and balances on the three power brokers of the country was always high
on my agenda." (p.170) Although the power of all the three is to be
checked and balanced, his argument revolves mainly on the need to check the
prime minister's power in order to make him "govern better".
Referring to the interregnum of civilian democracy between 1988-1999, he
writes: "It
almost invariably happened that the prime minister would refuse to listen,
and this refusal would lead to intense acrimony between him and the president
or even the army chief. This invariably resulted either in the dissolution of
the assembly by the president or, once the power of the president to dissolve
the Assembly was removed, the danger of the imposition of martial law by the
army chief." (p.170) In order
for the country to escape that "danger" in future, Musharraf
proposed and got enacted, by a simple majority vote of the National Assembly,
the establishment of a National Security Council (NSC), on which are
represented "four men in uniform", the three army, navy, air force
chiefs and chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Committee. The
Council is to meet regularly and keep pressure on the prime minister to
"perform", which will help "sustain democracy and avoid
martial law". Musharraf
also argues that there will be no need for the army chief to remove the prime
minister and take over "because he has an institution available to voice
his concerns (and the concerns of a worried people) to the prime minister and
can then allow the constitution and the political process to take its
course." (p.171) Some
consolation indeed, for the future prime ministers. The
reader is also assured that the NSC is to be a "consultative body"
only. However, one cannot help but note that the raison d'etre behind the NSC
is army's monopoly over the coercive power of the state which it has used in
the past to overthrow elected civilian governments, not withstanding the
after-the-fact rationalisations (the imminent destruction of the country, the
doctrine of necessity and its various versions). On the other hand, the
president and the prime minister derive their power and its limits from the
constitution which Gen Zia once dubbed as a mere "piece of paper".
One can take Musharraf's word for it, but the "consultative" role
of the NSC with four men in uniform on it can indeed be quite formidable and
intimidating, to say the least. Musharraf's
second political project of centralising power in the federal state appears
as point 2 of his seven-point political agenda, announced shortly after his
1999 coup, which states: "Strengthen the federation, remove
interprovincial disharmony and restore national cohesion." (p.149)
However, there is no proposal in his book specifically aimed at structural
changes in the existing relations of power between the centre and the
federating units, highly centralised as they already are. What we have is a
plan to "devolve power to the grass roots", which seeks to forge
direct links between the central government and the local level
administrations, bypassing the provincial governments. According to Musharraf,
"Pakistan has had a central (federal) government and large regional
(provincial) governments, but the local affairs have been either unregulated
or managed by the provincial governments." (p.172) His
Local Government Ordinance 2000 creates a three-tier administrative structure
of elected bodies, the District Council, the sub-district or tehsil Council
and a multi-village Union Council, each headed by a nazim or administrator.
The delivery of services and public goods are transferred from the provincial
governments to the district administrations, and direct budgetary allocations
can be made to the district and lower level bodies by both the central and
provincial governments. It has
been a usual practice for Pakistan's military rulers to fall back on projects
of local level democracy after overthrowing the elected national governments
in order to claim popular legitimacy for their rule, Yahya Khan's short-lived
rule being an exception. Ayub Khan crafted "Basic Democracy" as a
truly indigenous form of Pakistani democracy. Zia-ul-Haq relied on the
holding of party-less local bodies' elections to shore up his democratic
credentials and Musharraf points to his Local Government Ordinance (LGO) to
project himself as a true democrat. All have a record restricting the
jurisdiction of provincial governments, and suppressing movements of
provincial autonomy with military force. Ayub conducted such army opperations
in Balochistan, Yahya in East Bengal when it was part of Pakistan, Zia in
Sindh, and now Musharraf again in Balochistan. While
Musharraf takes much credit for having introduced grass roots democracy with
his LGO the implementation of which he calls a "silent revolution"
on the authority of World Bank (p.151), he is also compulsively attracted to
a militaristic, hierarchal power structure in governing the country. He
contends that Pakistan was in "dire need of unity of command", by
which he means a "single authority", not only in the political
system but also over and above the bureaucracy and the military. (p. 177) Interestingly
enough, he considers his military uniform as the symbol of that unity of
command and single authority. He
admits quite candidly that he had given "verbal commitment to retire
from the army and remove my uniform by December 2004", but realising the
gravity of the domestic and international situation, particularly "the
war against terror", he came to realise that "removing my uniform
would dilute my authority and command at a time when both were required
most". (pp. 176-177) Referring
to the concerns abroad about military's involvement in politics, he says:
"I am still struggling to convince the West that Pakistan is more
democratic today than it ever was. Ironically, to become so it needed me in
uniform." (p.333) Overview Musharraf
is fourth in the line of army chiefs of Pakistan who have ruled the country
directly as heads of the state. His memoir can be read as the summation of
how these men have charted the direction in which Pakistan's political system
has evolved, with the army located at the centre of its structure of power
and privilege. It is
claimed by this president in uniform that the army is "the last
institution of stability left in Pakistan". (p. 149) Perhaps no one will
dispute that army has emerged as the only institution in Pakistan that can
claim stability, and has established its de facto power in the political
economy of Pakistan. The question is how did the army achieve that kind of
exclusive stability and power, and whether it is conducive to the long-term
survival of Pakistan as a democratic state? According to Musharraf's
narrative, corruption of the politicians who are elected to exercise
legislative and executive power lies at the root of military's ascendency. At
some point when the political and financial corruption of the politicians
gets out of hand, the military as an honest broker springs to action, removes
the incumbent government, and "saves the nation". But
corruption is by no means the exclusive endowment of the Pakistani
politician. Political and financial corruption is inherent in the political
economy of capitalism, although it can be more blatant and visible in
countries like Pakistan where property relations of capitalism are
underdeveloped. To check
or contain the ubiquitous problem of corruption, stable capitalist
democracies provide for an independent and constitutionally empowered
judiciary as one of the three branches of the state, the other two being the
executive and the legislative. The concept of checks and balances applies to
these three branches of the state, not to the so called "three power
brokers" as conceived by Musharraf. Army is only part of the executive
branch of the state whose job is to take orders from the incumbent government
and defend the territorial borders of the state. So long
as Pakistan's military high command continues to cross the boundaries of its
constitutionally allocated role and pre-empts the judiciary from performing
its functions, setting itself up as the "saviour of the nation", so
long as the army chief does not learn to accept orders from the
constitutionally recognised executive head of the state and instead
tries to impose his counsel on him or takes military action to displace him,
and so long as the army establishment continues to spread its tentacles into
the political sphere and manipulate the process of elections to the
legislature, the army will indeed be "the only institution of stability
left in Pakistan". The rest of the instititutions, the foundations of a
modern democratic state -- an executive that rules by consent and not
command, a legislature that represents all the people and a judiciary that
understands and upholds the rule of law -- will either wither away or exist
in a crippled and corrupt form. Unfortunately, in that case, there will also
be no end to the crisis of governance in Pakistan. --
Concluded
uplift In the
month of June, the Government of Pakistan presents its annual budget divided
in two sections: federal budget and provincial budget. In the current year
government of Pakistan presented total budget of 1, 874 billion rupees which
is considered as the biggest budget of Pakistani history. Federal government
shares 1, 353 billion rupees while the rest of the budget is divided into the
provinces. For the Development incentives, 520 billion rupees have been
allocated, 52 per cent of which will be spent on infrastructure and 48 per
cent on the welfare of the people. Rs.747 billion have been allocated for
Public Sector Development Programme (PSDP). Although
the development budget has been further categorised under rural and urban
divisions, the government takes this development budget as a whole and there
is no visible categorisation in this Unfortunately
rural development in Pakistan is massively ignored as compared to urban
development. Interestingly much of the money is generated through agriculture
(rural areas) but is mostly spent on beautifying urban areas -- ironically
with perverse effects on urban poverty as well -- solving traffic problems,
and maintenance and widening of already constructed road. Contrary to that,
rural areas have been deprived of the least services to cover for people's
basic necessities. According
to the World Bank Report on Rural Poverty in Pakistan (April 2007) 60 per
cent of the rural population in situation of poverty depends on non-farm
activities for the source of their livelihood in rural areas. Thus the rural
poor are largely composed of such people as crafts men, shoe mender, fisher
folks etc. but the budget does not give any space to them.
Statistics
from Eight 5 Years Plan shows that 68 per cent of total population lives in
rural areas, total literary rate is 27.5 per cent but 57 per cent of this
total literacy rate is urban areas, 47 per cent people can avail save
drinking water, 14 per cent can enjoy sanitation facilities. Ironically 60
per cent of those 14 per cent are available in urban areas only. For the
rural areas development budget is commonly understood as agriculture budget.
This year, an amount of 1.5 billion rupees have been allocated for
agriculture and livestock. Subsidy has been given to growers: a tube-well
subsidy of 25 per cent is payable on electricity charges -- centre and
province will share this subsidy -- and a subsidy on DAP (fertiliser) bags.
However, budget does not address land owners with less than 5 acres, which
maintains the phenomenon that the agriculture budget has always been biased
in favour of landlords, despite new measures in the current budget to
facilitate access to credit for agricultural purposes targeted at
agricultural labor, tenants and other landless farmers. Only 24
billion and 5 billion 240 million have been released for education and health
respectively. This meagre allocation represents a stark reduction from the
previous budget, which would badly affect rural areas. Effects of such cuts
on urban areas cannot be negated, of course, but the already unforgivably
neglected rural areas would undeniably suffer most of the lot. The government
unfortunately could not balance between the primary and higher education
level. Most of the funds have been utilised to perpetuate higher education
while primary units situated in rural areas had been practically ignored.
Another part of the problem is that the district governments are given
increased responsibilities in education, but that it is not given the
capacity to make use funds for this purpose. In addition, the budget mentions
that 815 urban health clinics will be constituted in the big cities, but
nothing is specifically mentioned concerning rural health centres. According
to the statistics (The News June 15), the provincial government of the Punjab
announced an allocation of Rs. 6.5 billion for water supply and sanitation
schemes, 26 per cent of the total 718 water supply schemes being allocated
for rural sewerage and drainage and 20 per cent for urban ones, 45 per cent
for rural water and sanitation schemes and 9 per cent for urban water and
sanitation schemes. Rs. 328 million will be spent on ongoing programmes
whereas Rs. 275 million will go on new schemes. Total
allocation in agriculture, food, irrigation, forestry and fishing has been
enhanced from Rs. 10.71 billion to Rs. 16.57 billion. The proportion is
commendable as a comparison between urban rural funds allocations but such
announcement have been made many times before, without the fate of rural
populace having ever been improved. The
Ministry of Housing and Works has been ordered by the prime minister to
include in the budget construction of 37000 houses in Islamabad for low paid
employees on ownership basis. However, rural people, who also have pressing
housing needs, have been badly ignored in this regard. The houses of the
rural poor are self-built, vulnerable and face imminent destruction in case
of harsh weather and natural calamities, most of them being constructed
without concrete, cement and other essential ingredients for house building. Current
budget increases allocation of funds for Pakistan Bait-ul-maal. According to
the government 70,000 households would benefit. With the government's food
assistance programme to 1,500,000 poor and needy people, the total number of
beneficiaries through Pakistan Bait-ul mal would reach 2,200,000 households.
Ironically the rural/urban proportion has not been discussed. In other words,
the rural poor and needy households have deliberately been ignored. These
allocations required practical actions to distribute food and income among
the deserving people. If the government does not establish a system of
transparent funds transfer to the deserving households, the effectiveness of
the Bait-ul-maal would be undermined. Last
year, the Government of Pakistan announced an internship package in the urban
areas for the educated youth of country in order to eliminate unemployment.
The current budget does not provide any vocational training for the
unemployed non-farm youth of rural areas and there is very little investment
for providing job opportunities as only two dairy farming companies have
committed to set plant in rural areas. In the
home every month, needs are reassessed and the budget income gets allocated
in the more vulnerable sections of the home's maintenance, where needs are
most pressing. The Government of Pakistan should consider the rural areas as
the most vulnerable section of its national maintenance, with pressing
concerns in every field of life for instance getting fundamental facilities,
infrastructure, per capita income etc. That is
the only way to close gulf between the rural and urban areas. To achieve a
sustainable balance in economic policy is required so to reduce poverty and
disparities between the urban and rural developments. Strong mechanism should
be constituted so that implementation of the allocated funds could
transparently approach to deserving sectors and announced funds, no matter
how meager they, be at least could reach the poor and vulnerable of the rural
country. Cronyism v Rule of Law Denying the establishment of a true democratic structure and freedom of judiciary is in fact strengthening the hands of forces of obscurantism By Huzaima Bukhari & Dr. Ikramul Haq The
pseudo intellectuals of Pakistan keep on criticising the higher judiciary of
Pakistan for lack of courage and unity to stand up against a usurper of
power. These so-called intellectuals do not realise that it is the people's
will and power that alone forces the barrel of gun to renounce unlawful rule.
Nowhere in the world has this task ever been performed by the judiciary. It
is basically a political question and not a legal issue. Even if judiciary
declares that certain coups detat was illegal, how can it force the usurper
to abdicate? Judiciary
has no power (physical) to get its order implemented by force? The
responsibility for failure of political leadership in Pakistan to counter
intervention of civil-military bureaucracy cannot be The same
is true for clergy, who keep misguiding the people in the name of religion
but always join hands with the military. The latest episode of Lal Masjid/Jamia
Hafsa is a classical case for study. A number of innocent people were made
scapegoats by the forces of obscurantism. The final crackdown at early hours
of July 10, 2007, resulting in a loss of life of hundreds of people including
members of security and law enforcement agencies, exposed both the ugly faces
of clergy and their mentors in the government. The nation will have to pay a
very heavy price for this bloodbath, happened due to mishandling and criminal
culpability of certain elements in the government. In the coming days this
unfortunate event will have backlash in the tribal areas where already
pro-Taliban forces are reuniting and getting the support of masses. The
mighty in their lust for money and power want to rule the world despotically
for which they have to create cronies to fulfill their agenda; the best
examples being those of Iraq and Afghanistan where puppet governments are
acting against their own peoples. The Bush administration wants its
'partners' [in fact cronies] in 'War against Terrorism' [sic] to do more and
more. Those who chose to become friends of the USA against its proxy war in
Afghanistan after the aim and objectives achieved by the master found
themselves in the line of fire. These were the wages of unconditional
submission before the despots. It is an
historical determinism that the power and lust for money brings a crony in
conflict with the master, who can tolerate everything but threat to his own
authority. So if one remains a crony, survival is possible, but the moment
that crony aspires to pose some threat to the master, his days are numbered.
There are great lessons for every crony to learn from history, but they
seldom do so for the simple reason that lust for money and power is hard to
overcome. Behind
the whole bizarre episode of March 9, 2007 lurks a continuous struggle
between the different organs of state to display their supremacy. Control of
state with the barrel of gun cannot be matched by judicial activism. It is
the sole responsibility of political leadership to galvanise and mobilise
people's force to counter any extra-constitutional move by any adventurer so
nobody can ever dare to take such a step. Courts are meant to interpret the
law, whereas enforcing the will of people and countering any despotic rule is
always a political question that cannot be solved in the courts. Since
our leadership has failed, the entire society is now in the line of fire. The
worsening law and order situation testifies to the fact that progress and
tranquility cannot be achieved by merely toeing the policies of aggressors
and oppressors. The
quote from Aristotle's The Politics, "when laws do not rule, there is no
constitution" fits most aptly to Pakistan's political evolution and
constitutional history. Our military and civilian rulers have always acted in
an identical manner in violating all established norms of rule of law and the
result as predicted by Aristotle is before us. Every ruler has mutilated (a
very mild term to describe what really happens with the supreme law of the
land) the constitution to suit his or her needs and to perpetuate dictatorial
regime under one pretext or the other. The role of judiciary in endorsing
these unconstitutional rules remains the most lamentable chapter of our
history. The
issue of ousting of chief justice cannot be examined in isolation. The
conduct of each government since 1948 was to waste or plunder public money,
forcing the people into international debt enslavement and mercilessly
flouting all rules and laws. So if we failed to have true democracy or a
responsible government it is really not surprising. The
three constitutions we framed were merely pieces of paper having no sanctity
as even the framers of these documents violated them. The constitution of a
country is a living and vibrant document that determines the future direction
of the nation, provided there is respect for the document and for rule of
law. In a country where a single person is authorised (by self-acclaimed
decree or through an authority itself lacking competence under the law) to
amend the supreme law of the land, there can neither be democracy nor
constitution. In a
democratic set-up, the electoral process ensures dominance of the people over
those who hold political offices. Here in Pakistan we want to determine it
through a self-imposed president cum-what-not, who has almost veto power over
everything. This brand of 'sustainable democracy' and 'responsible
government' is unknown to the students of constitutional law anywhere in the
world. The
electoral process is tainted with disqualifications, in some cases on purely
political considerations to keep certain actors outside the process. One
wonders what useful purpose this unjust process can yield. It is only bound
to frustrate franchise, forcing them to believe that the entire electoral
process is a selection exercise to ensure that men from the King's party
reach the corridors of power to join the bandwagon of the rulers of the day. It is
extremely unfortunate that due to despotic rule, forces of obscurantism are
getting support of masses merely for the reason that people who matter in the
land are following the agenda of USA and its allies that is detrimental to
the interest of the Muslim World as a whole. Denying the establishment of a
true democratic structure and freedom of judiciary are in fact strengthening
the hands of forces of obscurantism. The
so-called advocates of enlightenment should consider this point if they want
to make this society a place worth living. If they continue to resist the
establishment of a true democratic culture in society the forces of
obscurantism will continue to thrive. (The
writers are leading social researchers, tax advisers, authors of many books
and members of Visiting Faculty of LUMS). Of the two mosques in our street Not long ago, religious students and maulvis were humble and humane. What has happened now? By Muhammad Ahsan Yatu There
were two mosques in our large street, one near its southern end, and the
other at the northern end. The latter was bigger and was also serving as a
small madrasa. The students would come from the remote villages of Hazara.
These poor children had bright eyes and innocent face. Every one loved them
and the street community would bear their expenses, happily. They were
regular visitors to our home. They would feel so glad when they would meet my
caring mother. She would treat them as special guests and offer them with
love and respect whatever best she could cook hurriedly. During
vacation the children would go back to their villages, and on return would
bring a special gift, corn flour packed in small bags. They would carry the
bags through a long journey to Rawalpindi to present it to my mother. That
degree of reciprocity and affection, I have not seen again. I
remember asking my mother once, "Isn't it inappropriate to accept their
gift that they carry through so long a distance?" "It will hurt
their little heart. It will hurt their mothers' hearts. Do not say it ever
again." My mother silenced me by saying this but continued talking to
herself, "Why a These
children would stay at the madrasas, till they would get enough education to
become maulvis (religious scholars). Afterwards they would teach in a mosque
or a madrasa in Rawalpindi or elsewhere. There was a balance between the
students and the opportunities. Almost all of the religious teachers would
find a place. Those from our mosques, who stayed in Rawalpindi, would come,
though occasionally, to see us. Our relationship with the students and the
maulvis ended when we moved to Islamabad. The
religious students I knew and I saw, and I saw many of them becoming maulvis,
were humble and humane. Where are those children? Where are those maulvis?
Where are those days? Where is that balance? The
mosques of our street were managed by the masjid committees. Each had four
members. All of them were reasonably educated, Matriculate or above. They
were respectful people. The children used to stay away from them. They would
not stop us from playing. All that they would say was, 'play in the ground'.
In those old days there were many grounds in Rawalpindi. All have now been
buried under concrete structures. Some of
the managers were quite strict to their children. They would not allow them
to go out, but to the house of the roosee, whose occupants were relatively
more educated. The word roosee meant the Russians; and that was how the
socialists were known among common people in those days.
Our home was the house of the roosee. Where
have those wise mosque managers gone? The
children of Jamia Hafsa -- whom we saw leaving the besieged premises before
the start of the 'Operation Silence' --
were not different from the children of our mosques. But their eyes
were asking saddening questions, "Why are we being humiliated and
harassed? What have we done? One day your flowers become our necklace, the
other day your bullets hit our head: Who are we? Who are you?" The
people would raise similar questions after the chase that began in the wake
of 9/11. "Is it their sin that they were born in Bajaur or Bahawalpur?
Is it their sin that they were born to poor parents? Is it their sin that
when General Zia declared Jihad against the Soviets they were in a madrasas
and not in a grammar or government schools? Is it their sin that they were
motivated and trained for Jihad, and sent to Afghanistan?" "They
were not the sinners. We, who did not care for them, are the sinners. We, who
send our children to Canada, Britain, France, the US, and Australia for
education or job or green card, and send the children of the others to
Afghanistan, Kashmir, and elsewhere to kill and be killed, are the
sinners." These were the common answers to the saddening questions. General
Zia's Afghan Jihad could be a policy blunder; and liberal Benazir and General
Babar's creation, the Taliban, could be the extension of the same blunder;
and the resurgence of the Taliban in General Musharraf's period could be a
matter of 'national interest'; but, what are thousands of madrasas and their
over five million children all about? We have
devised a new caste system, which is worse than the one that our ancestors
had lived by, two thousand years ago. Shame on us, we are the ugliest social
architects around. What have we turned ourselves into; a nation at war with
wisdom and peace; a nation at war also with itself. All
those generals, bureaucrats, politicians, businessmen and the managers (Maulanas)
of the madrasas, who planned, funded and executed the religious extremism do
not deserve benefit of doubt. They are the architects of Pakistan's social
and political decline. All of them knew that they were doing a terrible
wrong. They knew what was good and bad for children. They knowingly pushed
the children of others into the Afghan and Kashmir furnace. That it would
also affect them one day, to see that far was beyond their capacity. We the
common people of Pakistan have no hope that our ruling elites will ever
behave. Neither will the present managers of the madrasas. The elite led by a
corporate army thrive on chaos. So do the Maulanas of the madrasas. There is
no conflict between them. Clash in Lal Masjid should be seen in the light of
the behaviour of other maulanas. Before the operation none sided with the
maulanas of the Lal Masjid. None tried for reconciliation. The most effective
maulanas left for London to take part in an all time useless drama, the All
Parties Conference (APC). Why
did the friendship between the generals and the Ghazi brothers break? The
only possible reason is that the treason from within is not tolerated. Who
betrayed whom and why are the questions, whose answers will not be known
soon. The army
in its present shape will not change its perceptions and actions. It will
continue to transgress. It cannot become an army as it used to be in the
pre-partition days, which was committed to its sole purpose, to act as
required by the state. The wise managers of the madrasa have become extinct.
The madrasas with their present environment cannot become the centres of
modern knowledge. If we want to stay normal, we will have to nationalise both
army and the madrasas. This is the first step to end the new caste system.
The remaining steps include free and fair elections, social and economic
justice, the rule of law etc. etc. issue Not for sale The Supreme Court decision on PSO sell-off has been welcomed because the public opinion is that the government must not privatise profit-making entities By Shahzada Irfan Ahmed The
Supreme Court of Pakistan's decision to stay privatisation of Pakistan State
Oil (PSO) has put brakes on government's ambitious rather hurried
privatisation. The court decision given on July 12, 2007 stayed the sale of
all but 3 per cent of the government's 54 per cent stake in PSO that was
expected to fetch around $800 million to the government. The
three-member bench comprising Justice Javed Iqbal, Justice Abdul Hameed Dogar
and Justice Falak Sher hearing the case observed that privatisation of PSO
was a national issue and the court would decide whether it should be allowed
or not. Though there were two petitions filed by MNA Pir So far,
PSO is the largest oil marketing company (OMC) in Pakistan and is engaged in
the storage, distribution and marketing of petroleum products. It owns 3,800
filling stations across the country and a 78 per cent share in black and 57
per cent in white oil in the market. The last year profit of the company was
to the tune of Rs 30 billion and its annual trade volume was $6 billion. The
defence ministry had similar observations against PSO privatisation plan for
long. It was only in January 2007 that it had withdrawn its objections on the
issue. It had cleared PSO for privatisation only after getting assurances
that the petroleum needs of the armed forces would be fulfilled on priority
in the PSO -- post privatisation period. Being a public sector entity, the
company was the only reliable source for armed forces for supply of petroleum
products in normal and emergency situation, the ministry had contended. The
Attock Group on the other had filed a petition in the Supreme Court after the
Sindh High Court (SHC) had its plea to take part in the bidding. The group
had been disqualified from bidding by the Privatisation Commission (PC) on
grounds that it had failed to disclose the required information in its
statement of qualifications (SOQ). The
Attock Group is backed by the Pharaon Group of Companies, whose sponsor is
Saudi investor Dr. Ghaith R Pharaon. The group owns Pakistan Oilfields Ltd
and several other energy firms. Justice
Mrs Qaiser Iqbal of the Sindh High Court had dismissed Attock Group
application against its exclusion from the bidding process. The reason cited
was that Dr Ghaith, who is the chairman of the Attock Group, has been
proceeded against on several counts in Pakistan and the United States.
Charges against Attock Group proved correct as it was established that it had
not disclosed this information to the privatisation commission. The
allegations levelled by the privatisation commission against head of Attock
Group were:
2. Dr.
Ghaith R Pharaon is a fugitive and faces BCCI-related criminal charges under
indictments in Washington, New York, Georgia and Florida. A US court issued
warrants for his arrest in 1991. He is also wanted by the FBI. 3. A
Cayman Islands court gave an award of $ 2.1 billion against Dr. Ghaith R
Pharaon and in favour of the BCCI liquidators in 2001. A settlement for $175
million was, however, subsequently reached. 4. Six
cases were instituted by the Pakistan Customs intelligence against Attock
Petroleum Limited for fraudulent exports to Afghanistan. Another three cases
were instituted in respect of the seizure of smuggled Iranian petroleum. The
track record of a bidder, Dr. Ghaith in this case, was considered on the same
grounds on which the Supreme Court of Pakistan had acted before giving its
historic decision in Pakistan Steel Mills case. Another
negative development regarding PSO sell-off is that British Petroleum (BP)
has withdrawn itself from a consortium bidding for stake in PSO. This
decision came the very day when the Supreme Court gave its stay order.
However, the company (BP) has repeatedly said that its decision had got
nothing to do with the court orders and taken in advance. The
Supreme Court decision on PSO sell-off has not come as a surprise for many.
The proactive role it had played in declaring the privatisation of Pakistan
Steel Mills void on valid grounds had invited praise from all and sundry. Ahmed
Nabeel, Chief Operating Officer (COO) of a Karachi-based brokerage house,
says the Supreme Court decision has not hurt the market sentiment at all.
"The current downward slide is only because of the recent spate of
suicide attacks. It's wrong that the judicial crisis and the stay order have
had any bad impact on the stock market," he says. He says
the public opinion is that the government must not privatise profit-making
entities like PSO. Instead, it should privatise organisations that are
suffering ever-increasing losses for years. He says hopefully that PSO will
perform better in the market because there will be no ifs and buts regarding
the sale of the company. The common sentiment is that the Supreme Court would
finally rule against the privatisation of this profit-making entity, he adds. In this
context, the statement of Pakistan International Airlines (PIA) chairman that
there are no immediate plans to privatise PIA seems strange. The national
flag carrier suffered a loss to the tune of Rs 28 billion last year. The
officials of the privatisation commission are very careful in talking about
privatisation of PSO. One of them, on conditions of not being named, tells
TNS is that all that he can say is that any decision coming from the Supreme
Court of Pakistan will be implemented in its true spirit. Impacting
development Pakistan
Environmental Protection Act, 1997 is the basic legislative tool in country
to frame regulations for protection of the environment along with
development. Under section 12(1), for new development projects which are
likely to cause adverse environmental impacts, it is mandatory to file an
Environmental Impact Assessment (EIA) for review and approval prior to
project construction with the Pakistan Environment Protection Agency (PEPA).
This is applicable equally to both public and private sector projects. The
Federal Agency set up under the act has delegated its powers to the
provincial Environmental Protection Agencies (EPAs) for its implementation. According
to lawyers and environmentalists it is one of the best pieces of legislation
in Pakistan. However, ironically, among the main hurdles in its
implementation are the government agencies. The Ahmed
Rafay Alam, an environment lawyer, thinks that most government departments
are not aware of the legal requirement. The result is that government
departments, such as development authorities, support the projects without
checking for compliance with the EIA regulations. "EIA's use is limited
to obtaining a No Objection Certificate (NOC) and hence issues concerning
conservation of resources and protection of environment are not addressed
properly," he says. Rafay
tells TNS that EIA is, in fact, a system for identifying and introducing
measures to prevent environmentally adverse impacts caused by development
projects. "EIA is a policy and management tool for both planning and
decision-making." He thinks that EIA identifies, predicts, and evaluates
the foreseeable environmental consequences of proposed development projects,
plans, and policies. "The outcome of an EIA study assists the decision
maker and the general public to determine whether a project should be
implemented and in what form. EIA can be an effective instrument to achieve
sustainable development," says Rafay. The
concept of sustainable development was introduced at United Nations
Conference on Environment and Development held in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil in
1992. Principle 4 of the Rio Declaration, stated 'In order to achieve
sustainable development, environmental protection shall constitute an
integral part of the development process and cannot be considered in
isolation from it.' Principle 17 stated that 'Environmental impact
assessment, as a national instrument, shall be undertaken for proposed
activities that are likely to have significant adverse impacts on the
environment and are subject to a decision of a competent national authority.'
In
Pakistan's context, environmental concerns in planning of development
projects remains largely unbeknown to both planners and constructors even
after a decade of EIA's implementation in the country. Ronald deSouza
ex-chairman Shehri, Karachi tells TNS that situation is almost the same in
all the provinces and the government authorities are not ready to assess
environmental impacts of certain projects. "They have not conducted EIA
for mega-projects like the Lyari Expressway and Bandal island in
Karachi," he says. He says according to WWF's Living Planet Report 2006
it is the Sheikhs of Dubai who damaged the environment most in the recent
years, while Karachi has been handed over to them for 'development' by our
government. "We are not against development. We just say that it should
be according to rules and regulations formed by the government itself,"
says Ronald. Mir
Sajjad Hussain Talpur, deputy director EIA and Monitoring PEPA, admits while
talking to TNS that private developers and even some officials of different
environment departments are not fully aware of environment problems. This is
the reason why some of them consider EIA anti-development. "As
the environment act was promulgated in provinces in 2000 so there is issue of
capacity building in provincial EPAs," he says. Monitoring of projects,
according to Sajjad, is also not up to mark so far but the PEPA is helping
EPAs to manage their shortcomings. "We have given mobile monitoring vans
to Punjab and Sindh EPAs to make them more vigilant," he says. Environment
experts believe that there are large implementation gaps in both public as
well as private-sector projects. More often than not, the EIA is carried out
merely as a formality and in order to obtain approval from the EPA. Hammad
Naqi, Director Fresh Water and Toxic Programme WWF, says that in most of the
cases private parties hire a consultant to prepares report and submit it to
EPA. "The department in most of the cases approves it as they do not
have sufficient expertise and workforce to review it according to rules and
regulations," says Naqi. Another
major problem, according to Naqi, stems from the fact that monitoring and
evaluation of the actual environmental impacts of projects is not carried
out. "The absence of proper monitoring and evaluation mechanism is now a
major handicap for effective environmental management, even in instances
where a proper EIA has been carried out," he says. According to him, in
many of the projects, like cement factories in Chakwal, are not fulfilling
the requirements they submitted to EPA through EIA. But since there is no
authority to hold them accountable, they go about business as usual. He says
being a government department EPA never raises any objection on public sector
projects. "I think there should be an independent EIA commission to
review both public and private sector projects. We have already invoked the
court in the New Murree Project, and Canal Bank Widening Project and now we
are planning with Shehri, an NGO of Karachi to appeal in court against some
of projects in Karachi that having adverse effect on environment." Public
hearing is a very important part of EIA because it allows the inclusion of
views of those who are likely be affected and those who are interested in the
proposed developmental activity. "The key objectives of public
involvement are to obtain local and traditional knowledge that may be useful
for decision-making; facilitate consideration of alternatives, mitigation
measures and tradeoffs; ensure that important impacts are not overlooked and
benefits are maximised," says Naqi. According to him, in most of the
cases public hearing is not carried out because authorities know that they
have no answers of public queries. Government
officials admit that proper implementation and monitoring of all projects is
not possible with the workforce and expertise they have so far. "Saving
environment is relatively new thing both for private and public sector as
before 2000 they have no problem to carry out some project the way they
want," says Maj (R) Shah Nawaz Badar, Secretary Environment Protection
Department Punjab. He says that it is a kind of propaganda that we do not
care about EIA of public sector projects. "There are many public sector
projects, including Canal Bank Road Widening project, for which we have not
issued NOC so far on the basis of its impacts on environment," he says. |
|
unleashed whatever
force they have -- by no means negligible -- on their erstwhile patrons. In
this deadly game parts of the establishment that still have a soft corner for
the radical Islamist agenda are holding on for dear life, knowing that on the
one hand that the agenda of the army high command -- following from the
agenda of its imperial patron -- is no longer as it was only a few short
years ago, and that on the other hand they still have at their disposal a
lethal infrastructure that may yet deliver them to their 'Islamic' utopia.
of the matter is that it was after the start of Bush's 'war on
terror' that the battle lines were actually drawn. And it has taken almost 6
years for things to apparently come to a head. It is impossible to say
exactly how serious the internal rift actually is, or to what extent the camp
with sympathies for jihad still exercises power at the level of the high
command, but in any case, a long-term policy of supporting jihad cannot be
undone overnight.
battalions of troops belonging to the Northern Light
Infantry (NLI), a paramilitary force not fully integrated in the Pakistan
army, in "support" of the mujahideen. As he puts it, "Our
field commanders were fully engaged in supporting them in the face of growing
momentum of the Indian operations." In practical terms, this
"growing momentum of the Indian operations" amounted to a massive
Indian air and ground attack by "more than four divisions" of the
Indian army to expel "five battalions" of Pakistan's NLI troops
from their side of LOC. They "also started crossing over and bombarding
positions of the Pakistan army," says Musharraf. Outnumbered and
outgunned the mujahideen and the supporting soldiers from Pakistan were being
picked one by one by the Indian fire. Nevertheless, Musharraf remained
convinced that his fighters will be able to repel the
"disproportionate" Indian assault.
surveillance pictures showing a massive buildup of
Indian war machine on Pakistan's international borders and the prime
minister, no less a "patriot" than Musharraf one would assume,
realised that withdrawal was the only alternative to another devastating
all-out war with India. He agreed to cease-fire and withdrawal from the
Kargil heights. But Musharraf in his book protests: "He went off and
decided on a cease-fire. It remains a mystery to me why he was in such a
hurry." (p. 97)
regard. Ironically in Pakistan there is
no specific definition of the rural areas and according to the last census
reports both urban and rural localities are further divided into rural/urban
population. For instance the District Census Report of Layyah 1998 says:
"The urban population of the district was 144 203 or 12.9 % of the total
population of the district, which grew at an average rate of 5.0 % during
1981-98 and had increased from 4.9% observed during 1972-81." Therefore,
there is no rural and urban area specification as such. Hence in this regard
the definition of rural areas is questionable.
shifted to the
judiciary. The result of lack of political wisdom of Pakistani leaders is
obvious -- the complete subservience before dictators, military or civil
hardly matters. Instead of leading the people and having full faith in them
they have always opted to win favour of the mighty, who in return, insist on
treating them as cronies. 
madrasa, they should have been in the schools and nearer
to their mothers. It is cruelty? Isn't it?"
Fazal Ali Shah
Gillani and the Attock Group against the PSO privatisation, it is commonly
believed that the objection raised by the former has more weight than the
latter. The said MNA had raised the objection that it was not a sane decision
on part of the government to put such a profit-making entity on sale. He had
also termed the plan as, he said, it would deprive the state of a national
oil marketing company catering local demand in peace and war times. 
1. The
US Federal Reserve Board assessed in 1997 a $37 million fine against Dr.
Ghaith R Pharaon and permanently barred him from the US banking sector. An
appeal against the fine was rejected by the US Supreme Court in 1998.
general view held in
government's planning and development departments about EIA is that it is
anti-development. It inflates the project cost and makes it a hindrance in
achieving the targets of economic growth set by the state. 