|
|
|
|
 |
 |
   |
change An
unfinished life This
Punjab and that Taal
Matol frontier Rethinking
Balochistan RIPPLE EFFECT
Disbanding or redesigning the National Accountability Bureau might be a difficult task By Nadeem Iqbal Prime Minister Yousaf Raza
Gillani's maiden order of disbanding the controversial National On March 29 this year, in his address to the National Assembly, Prime Minister Gillani announced that NAB would be redesigned and brought under the control of the judiciary. Later, federal law minister Farooq Naik said that the Law Ministry was considering different ways to repeal or amend the NAB Ordinance as it was protected under the schedule. However, a highly placed source in NAB said that the majority of NAB employees comprise people working on deputation from income tax, secretariat, attached bankers from private and public banks, retired army personnel belonging to intelligence agencies, FIA etc. These employees can be simply sent back to their parent bodies, said the source, while retired officials laid off. Of the total five wings of NAB, two investigation monitoring wings and the financial crime investigation wing are the main wings. The financial crime wing consists of bankers drawn out from different banks. Official sources disclosed that around 50 bankers are working with NAB which is costing their banks around Rs 35 million a year. Working in NAB is quite attractive; in addition to drawing salaries from their parent bank or government department, these employees also get 20 per cent additional allowance from NAB plus bonuses which almost doubles their salary during this attachment or deputation. Therefore, postings in NAB are most sought-after and done through highest-level recommendations. Although army men have a major share in NAB, with many regional offices' heads that are shared by the Navy and the Air force, the main force consists of retired army personnel who are loyal to President Musharraf. Sources say these officers are a cause of harassment for civilian officials working with different government departments and also indulge in political witch-hunting. Similarly, under provision of voluntary return and plea bargain, sources say that many politicians have gotten away with depositing less than agreed money for extending political favours to Musharraf. A civilian officer serving in NAB confided to TNS that in 2004, after the president decided to transfer anti-corruption operations and the Economic Crime Wing of FIA to NAB, it recruited over 700 people against these vacancies that originally belonged to FIA. To date, NAB has had five chairmen. Of them three -- Amjad Hussain, Khalid Maqbool and Munir Hafeez -- were serving lieutenant generals while Shahid Aziz was a retired Lt. General. One feature common to all of them was that they were close confidantes (Shahid Aziz being his relative) of President Musharraf and helped him consolidate his grip on power and kept his opponents at bay. The incumbent chairman Nawid Ahsan, secretary general Finance, is also believed to be quite close to Musharraf. In a write up 'Towards a Corruption Free Society in Pakistan' posted on the NAB website, Nawid says: "Since its inception, NAB had adopted the typical enforcement based approach in the fight against corruption. Irrespective of their status and social standing, NAB has prosecuted the corrupt and has recovered over Rs.200 billion of looted public money so far. However, experience has shown, as it did in the developed countries, that corruption is too complex a phenomenon to be controlled with the enforcement strategy alone. Controlling corruption on a sustainable and long term basis requires a broader vision and multi-faceted strategy, banking heavily on Awareness & Prevention of corruption in addition to the old enforcement approach." Despite remaining in operation for around eight years, NAB has not developed into an independent institution enjoying the trust of the people. It is mainly seen as a tool to strengthen the Musharraf regime by arm-twisting, defying politicians. The charter of democracy concluded between Benazir Bhutto and Nawaz Sharif in 2006 talked of replacing politically motivated NAB with an independent accountability commission, 'whose chairman shall be nominated by the prime minister in consultation with the leader of opposition and confirmed by a joint parliamentary committee with 50 per cent members from treasury benches and remaining 50 per cent from opposition parties in the same manner as appointment of judges through transparent public hearing. The confirmed nominee shall meet the standard of political impartiality, judicial propriety, moderate views expressed through his judgements. After the dismissal of five political government on charges of corruption, accountability has been a major issue facing this country. In the 1990s, many political initiatives were taken to introduce corruption control mechanism but none could win the support of opposition political parties. In Feb 1997, the caretaker government of Malik Meraj Khalid issued four ordinances making the accountability process effective since 1985 onward. In May the same year, Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif got a Ehtesab bill passed from the parliament that exempted the period between 1985-1990 from the purview of accountability. The bill provided by establishment of Ehtesab Bureau was headed by the then ruling party's Senator Saifur Rehman with powers to investigate and another Ehtisaab Commission headed by Justice (r) Ghulam Mujaddid Mirza to oversee the investigation and file cases in courts. Benazir Bhutto, then opposition leader, accused the Ehtesab Bureau of victimising political opponents. In 1998, Benazir criticised the bureau: "On the basis of a proposal of the PPP government, the office of an independent prosecutor was created in the form of the Chief Ehtesab Commissioner by the Ehtesab Ordinance, 1996. The Chief Ehtesab Commissioner, a judge from the Supreme Court appointed by consensus between Leader of the House and the Leader of Opposition was to spearhead an impartial inquiry into misconduct and corruption on both sides of the house ensuring equality, fair play and honesty. But a guilty PML(N) regime stained its hand with the execution of the independence of the Accountability Commission by stripping the Judge of all powers and making him a nothing more than a rubber stamp for its own malafides, malicious, politically motivated dramas to cover up the default of leading luminaries." One wonders if the NAB would be redesigned as was done in 1996 by the PPP government and would also have the confidence of the opposition parties.
By Kashif Noon It has been a year now that we lost 'Hamu.' The memory has not faded; it has somehow, got itself etched in sharp relief against the backdrop of our lives and times that we spent together; almost seventeen years. He still lives on in our
conversations and sometimes in our dreams. The inevitability of life and
death It was a balmy July morning that I took a train from Bahawalpur -- where I was posted -- for Sibbi, where Hamad was posted as Assistant Commissioner many moons ago. I was travelling from a very hot part of the country to the hottest part of the country and cursing myself for getting convinced to come and visit him. His logic was that even his mother had refused to come to Sibbi in such weather and what are friends for, if they cannot oblige. The train journey, as they go in Pakistan, was uneventful; full of delays, strangers trying to get friendly and breakdowns etc. I reached Sibbi station and there he was with his posse of Levies. My mood as expected was boiling. I greeted his lopsided smile with loose and perhaps incoherent barge of invectives in various dialects and vernacular. Suddenly the Levies who were standing in formation, a little distance away and out of earshot, gave me a 'Salam-Fung' (Salute with Rifles). My angry diatribe was stalled in its tracks. I suddenly assumed a posture of sobriety and purposefulness. The people at the station suddenly started at me and with a misplaced and unearned sense of importance, I strutted out of the station. He was still smiling his lopsided smile and remarked: "Jee Noon sahib, how did you like the way I handled the situation?" I had no answer then and I still don't have one. We were together in Mansehra on District attachment as a part of our training. The Assistant Commissioner at Mansehra was an old class fellow of Hamad. He made very comfortable arrangements for our stay. One day we were advised by the AC to pay a visit to a Baba Tannaka, a religious faqir. The Baba was a legendary figure, perhaps still is, but his mode of blessing was somewhat disturbing. He used to hit the devotees who went to pay their respects, with a stick, on their heads. We were told that Prime Ministers were among his proteges. A tehsildar accompanied us. The Baba was sleeping when we arrived. The tehsildar, somehow, convinced the minions of the Dargah to wake up the Baba. When we approached him for getting his curious blessings, Hamad asked me to go ahead first, as I was older and a senior at the university. When I approached the Baba and lowered my head, I was expecting a gentle tap on the head, but to my surprise the Baba vented his bad mood and hit me real hard with his stick and raised his hand for a second stroke. That was enough. I grabbed the stick on his second intended stroke and me and Baba started struggling for the possession of the stick. The audience was shocked and through the corner of my eye I saw Hamad laughing in fits. I must have presented a scene from a Punjabi movie but the situation was resolved. Later I asked him why he did not go first. He tapped his head and said: "kidneys, Noon sahib!". Later, he told me he had realised that the Baba didn't like being disturbed and he was expecting a good hard blow. Such was his sense of humour and habit of playing pranks. These and other memories vividly come back to me as I write this. It makes me laugh and cry at the same time. I did not see Hamad's face in the shroud, although I was told that it is a necessary ritual. Why shouldn't I remember him as full of life and zest? The supreme irrelevance of death has taken away a beautiful person from us; what it can not take away is the treasure trove of memories that still make me smile and will continue to do so for as long as I live. Syed Hamad Amjad Raza was Additional Registrar, Supreme Court of Pakistan, and a close confidant of CJ, Justice Iftikhar Muhammad Chaudhry. He was murdered on May 14, 2007. Punjabi University, Patiala, organised the first All-India Punjabi Conference I have attended a number of
Punjabi conferences both in Pakistan and India, courtesy Fakhar Zaman, Asad Mufti, an expatriate living in Holland, had a novel idea of holding a Punjabi conference at Punjabi University Patiala, India. And there was a novel way of organising it by remote control, using the modern communication revolution. The effort could best be described as 'he came, he saw, he conquered.' A phone call came from Holland that a conference would be held, asking the participants to send their particulars. Then another call came from New Delhi that all formalities were complete, this time asking the participants to go get their visas. Getting an Indian visa is no mean task if you happen to be a Pakistani. If you are found roaming near the Indian embassy on week days, a spook would immediately approach you; if you enter the Indian embassy on a holiday to get visa you may well imagine your fate. But the Indian embassy was especially opened to give visas to Pakistanis on a holiday to cross Wagha on foot; a rare favour indeed. And the credit goes to Mufti's counterpart in India, veteran journalist and peace activist Kuldip Nayar. Since we were already late, we had the experience of travelling by an ordinary bus to Patliala in six hours. It was late in the evening and the weather was pleasant so we arrived in good spirits. The bus driver offered to drop us at the gate of Patiala University, saying he was going the same way. Waris Bhawan, a student who was doing his PhD on the Naxalite Punjabi poetry, was kind enough to drop us at the university guest house. Though the invitation stated that the conference was for three days, we discovered that the India-Pakistan conference was for one day while the next two days were reserved for the All India Punjabi Conference. The biggest question discussed by every Punjabi lover in India is the future of Punjabi. UNESCO in one of its report about languages had projected that, in fifty years, Punjabi would be an extinct language. At the conference, both hosts and guests dwelled at length on this threat to Punjabi. The Indian Punjab is facing the challenge today which the Punjabis in Pakistan have experienced since the creation of Pakistan (or since the British introduced Urdu as a medium of instruction in united Punjab); a language slowly and gradually losing its place in society if economics is not attached to it. It is but natural that the majority which want a secure future for the next generation would like to get their children well-versed in English. They may also like to switch over to English/Hindi at home. Although a lot of work has been done for the promotion of Punjabi in Indian Punjab, there's something that is forcing the common Punjabis, particularly middle classes, to shun their language and switch over to English. Some analysts do find an unbreakable relation between Punjabi language and Sikh religion -- their sacred book Granth Sahib is in Punjabi -- but it seems economic forces are putting up a much bigger challenge which, if not tackled, would cause immense damage to Punjabi. The All India Punjabi Conference was inaugurated by Chief Minister of Punjab, Sardar Badal. He called upon the Punjabi diaspora settled in India and abroad to promote Punjabi language and culture. He further said the government would amend the law under which it would be mandatory to make Punjabi compulsory in all schools up to class 10. He announced a number of steps to be taken for the promotion of Punjabi. The conference was also addressed among others by veteran journalist Kuldip Nayar, MP Tarlochan Singh and Dr. Jaspal Singh,Vice Chancellor of Patiala University. On the occasion, Punjabi writer Prof. Pritum Singh, dramatist Gursharan Singh, Author Dilip Kaur Tiwana, academician Dr. T. R. Sharma and actor Raj Babar were honoured by Patiala university. The world's first Punjabi search engine (Punjabi Khoj) along with university's website was also launched. Punjabis from all over India came in hundreds to attend it, including Imroze, the life companion of Amrita Pritam. By Shoaib Hashmi This was brought on by
first the news that Indian film star Madhuri Dixit was to be awarded the
title Back in Mughal times there was a tradition of titles which carried on to the end; the great Ghalib was given the titles of Khan Bahadur and Najeeb Ud Daulah by the last king Bahadur Shah although the king was by then king in name only and a pensioner of the British. But the big lovers of titles were of course the Brits themselves. They always had their hierarchy of lords and dukes and earls right down to the baronets, and even for their commoners they had their orders of knights with a 'sir' to go along with the name. The knights too had their own hierarchy as kings and queens kept new orders, one queen making the 'Order of the Garter' wherein the male knights actually wear a garter just above one knee. There are also knights of the 'Bath' and of Saint Michael and Saint George designated as K B and K C M G. The king's eldest son is traditionally Prince of Wales and the second son is equally traditionally Duke of York, causing people to quote Shakespeare at the time of Edward VIII abdication crisis, "York is the worthier". It is perhaps less known that since the Wars of the Roses the king, or queen, has also been Duke of Lancaster being descended from John of Gaunt. And in central London where Gaunt held vast properties prayer for the Queen are still said for 'Our Lord Duke'! When they came to India they thought it would be a good idea to keep the natives at bay, so they not only brought their own orders -- Ganga Ram and Fazal-e-Husain being 'Sirs'; they also instituted local orders of 'Khan Bahadur' and 'Khan Sahib' for Muslims and the equivalent Rai Bahadur and Sardar Bahadur for Hindus and Sikhs. The people, who really revelled in titles and orders, were of course the Rajas and Maharajas of the princely states. First, the Brits played them off against each other by the number of guns, from eleven to twenty-one or thirty-one, they were allowed to fire off to salute themselves on their arrival. They cheated by sticking to the number given them by The Paramount Power at the borders of their states, and more inside the states. As far as I remember, only the Nizam Of Hyderabad had a salute of one hundred guns. Of course, we have our own medals and awards which will be conferred on Independence Day and actually handed out on the 23rd of March, the weather being so much better. Some of them are reserved for foreigners who have done us service, and one of them was conferred on Mr. Dilip Kumar but I don't think we are about to confer one on Madhuri, though if we ever took a vote on it she'd get one hands down.
ANP has been trying to bring peace to NWFP by talking to Swati militants, though not without criticism By
Rahimullah There was a time when the secular and nationalist Awami National Party loathed the Taliban, both Afghan and Pakistani, and termed them a creation of Pakistan's military establishment. But that was when the party was in the opposition. As any pragmatic ruling
party would do, the ANP has been trying to adjust its policies in line with The next round of talks in Peshawar, this time held at the royally named Shahi Mehmankhana, brought the militants and the ANP-led coalition government close to a proper peace accord. The mood was upbeat as the negotiators came out of the meeting room with the Swati militants led by Muslim Khan hiding their faces from cameras in keeping with their belief that picture-taking was un-Islamic and the ANP and PPP leaders keen to tell waiting print and television reporters that a breakthrough had been made in the negotiations. While the government side was discreet about the points of agreement during the talks, the militants' representatives highlighted the seven demands that they had made and claimed 70 per cent progress in the negotiations. Both sides hoped their next round of talks would prove decisive and bring them closer to an agreement. Despite the claims of breakthrough in the peace talks and the heightened hopes among common people for return of normalcy in restive Swat, it would be naive to believe that a durable solution to the dispute could be found easily. The Pakistan Army would have to decide how far it can go to accommodate the militants' demand for withdrawal of all its troops from Swat. More than 20,000 soldiers have been operating in Swat since Nov 4 last year when the military started taking action against the militants led by rebel cleric Maulana Fazlullah after the failure of the paramilitary Frontier Corps to check the growing violence. A statement by Major General Nasser Janjua, commander of the troops in Swat, before the start of the NWFP government's peace initiative was meaningful. He said that Maulana Fazlullah would have to lay down arms and face trial in a court when asked about amnesty to the maverick cleric and his followers. It remains to be seen if the military would now change its stance and allow the provincial government to announce a general amnesty or insist on excluding some from the list of militants who could be forgiven as part of the reconciliation process. It is possible that the military would let the ruling political parties shoulder the responsibility of tackling the problem and restoring peace in the conflict-hit tribal and settled areas of NWFP. The ANP-led provincial government has already given in to the demand by the militants for enforcement of an amendment form of the Nizam-i-Adl Regulation 1999 in Swat and elsewhere in the erstwhile Malakand division. This law was itself an amended form of the Shariah Ordiance promulgated in 1994 to appease the followers of the Tanzim Nifaz Shariat-i-Mohammadi (TNSM) founder Maulana Sufi Mohammad following their uprising against the state in Swat in particular and in other parts of Malakand region in general. Subsequently, Sufi Mohammad expressed dissatisfaction with the Shariah laws put into practice and accused the then PPP-led government of shortchanging by merely renaming the courts as Qazi Courts and the judges as Qazis! While Sufi Mohammad was in jail after his arrest in Dec 2001 for taking several thousand ill-equipped and poorly trained of his followers on his Afghanistan misadventure to fight on the side of the Afghan Taliban against the US-led coalition forces, his son-in-law Maulana Fazlullah took over leadership of the TNSM in Swat and started campaigning aggressively for enforcement of proper Shariah. Though the NWFP government recently freed Sufi Mohammad and signed an agreement with him in the hope of using his influence to pacify the militants, it soon realised that he doesn't have much influence in Swat. Therefore, it began talking to 32-year old Fazlullah's followers and the talks are now on course leading to a decisive phase. Matters have been compounded by the fact that Fazlullah's faction of TNSM is now part of the Baitullah Mahsud-led Tehrik-i-Taliban Pakistan (TTP) and it would have to seek guidance from the South Waziristan-based Taliban commander while finalising a deal with the NWFP government. On his part, Baitullah Mahsud is also negotiating with the PPP-headed federal government and the army and the two sides on May 14 started a prisoners' swap as part of confidence-building measures prior to a new peace agreement. Security checkpoints on roads in the area have also been dismantled or are no longer manned by regular soldiers. In the next stage, the army would withdraw troops from the Mahsud tribal territory in South Waziristan. He is also demanding pullout of troops from Swat and Darra Adamkhel, payment of compensation to tribal families that suffered human and material losses in military operations. Any deal with Swati militants would have to be blessed by Baitullah Mahsud and the TTP as he came to the help of Fazlullah's men when they were fighting the military in Swat. Apart from enforcement of Shariah, other Swat-specific demands of the militants are an end to roadside military checkpoints, release of all those arrested as a result of the army's operations and compensation to families that suffered human and material losses during the fighting. The militants also want the government not to ban Fazlullah's FM radio channel, which he used to spread his religious and political messages and is even now able to occasionally use to communicate with his men and the people of Swat. Another demand is return of Fazlullah's headquarters comprising a mosque and madrassa in his village, Mamdheray, near Mingora in Swat so that he could resume his activities there. Though the NWFP government is mum about the extent of its willingness to accept these demands, the negotiating team sent by Fazlullah was claiming that the ANP and PPP leaders who talked to them were willing to accede to their terms. However, the militants' leader Muslim Khan said the government had to show independence and come out of the control of the US and President General (r) Pervez Musharraf if it wanted to conclude a durable peace accord with them. In fact, the militants during their Peshawar talks distributed copies of a long TTP statement which bitterly criticised the US and Musharraf and held them responsible for the suffering of Muslims in Pakistan and Afghanistan. It accused President Bush's administration of occupying Islamic countries such as Afghanistan and Iraq and killing innocent Muslims. It blamed Musharraf for facilitating the US invasion of Afghanistan to topple the Taliban regime and allowing the Americans to bomb Pakistani villages in FATA. The statement even pledged to put Musharraf on trial for committing excesses against the people. The hardline stance of the Swati militants could land the ANP-PPP coalition government in trouble. The latter would have to accept most demands of the militants in a bid to pacify them and bring peace and stability to Swat. The ANP in particular is hard pressed to make Swat peaceful after having won seven out of the eight NWFP Assembly seats from Swat. It also won one of the two National Assembly seats from the Swat, the other going to the PPP. Ironically, the ANP is being criticised from all sides, ranging from the religious parties JUI-F and JI to Pakhtun nationalists in Mahmud Khan Achakzai's PMAP, which accused it of appeasing Taliban militants despite the fact that they had beheaded opponents and forcibly tried to enforce Shariah in their areas. Criticism also came from the Human Rights Commission of Pakistan, which expressed concern over the ANP-led provincial government's policy of giving concessions to militants engaged in terrorising civilians, bombing girls' schools, NGOs offices and businesses and warned that this would encourage others to raise arms against the state and manage a bargaining position. Ironically, the leading ANP negotiator in the talks with militants was Afrasiyab Khattak, who is a former chairman of the HRCP.
Rethinking
Balochistan By Arif Tabassum The word 'reconciliation'
is dominating the political culture of Pakistan since the Feb 18 elections.
On Asif Ali Zardari, in his first speech after the elections, apologised to Balochistan on past injustices. A few years back, Musharraf also apologised to Balochistan on previous injustices and in result, the saga of mega projects was told for years but instead of development these mega projects created unrest in the province. Recently, PPP announced an All Parties Conference (APC) on the Balochistan issue and also set up a reconciliation committee. As part of the reconciliation process, Balochistan National Party's chief, Akhtar Mengal has been released, the Frontier Corps (FC) check posts removed from Quetta and Gawadar and the control over Dera Bugti lessened, but none of the mentioned actions got much appreciation by the political majority of the Balochistan. It raises a fundamental question: why are the people of Balochistan so suspicious about the reconciliation in the province? Seeking an answer to this question is not easy. It seems that none of the taken steps are going to solve the fundamental and real problems of the province, which include control over resources, self-determination and autonomy. Thus Baloch nationalists, in particular, are seemingly disengaged from the reconciliation process. The arrest of leaders and workers, disappearances and military operations are considered as the many parts of the main problem. Now most of the Baloch nationalists are demanding legal actions against those behind the military operations and are not ready to sit with previous government stakeholders in APC. Balochistan is the most complex province. It is a resource-rich but most deprived and poor part of the Pakistan. It lacks industries, which can give employment opportunities to its population. The public sector has limited openings and most of the rural areas are without basic services including education and health. The private sector only comprises on small businesses, which feeds scores of families. Agriculture and livestock are deemed as a backbone of the economy but due to lack of public support and years-long drought in the province, it is severely damaged and solid remedial actions are in vain. Above all, depriving the province from its due share of natural resources royalty, the economic condition is more than worse. All this contributes in raising the poverty ratio and as a ripple effect, there is unrest in most part of the province. There are also fundamental political issues of Baloch and Pashtun populations. Pashtuns are struggling for their political identity and term the Pashtun districts of North Balochistan as Southern Pashtunkhwa. They are of the view that Pashtuns are given less attention to develop their areas and similarly under-represented in the assemblies and deprived from enjoying their resources. A group of Balochs demand total control over territory and its resources as a sovereign region. Another group of Baloch nationalists want provincial autonomy and major share of the provincial income. In all these complex political issues, the control over resources, due share of income and equal authority are common demands. Currently, the fruit of provincial resources is enjoyed by the federal government. Natural gas is taken out from Balochistan but hardly two per cent of the province's population gets benefit from it. The transporters of the whole province have access only to three CNG stations, located in Quetta city. The natural gas of Balochistan is purchased at many times less rate than of the other provinces. The natural resources of Saindak and Rekodak are given to foreign entities on the orders of federal government. Gawadar port is neither providing employment opportunities to the local population nor does the province has any say in its functions. The huge coal resources of Chamalang in Loralai district is improving the milbus economy rather than the province. The agriculture and livestock sectors are not provided with the federal subsidised services that could improve the local economy. The posting and transfers of higher provincial bureaucracy is controlled by the federal government. These fundamental issues have never been discussed in the past. The present reconciliation process rather lacks the understanding of these issues or is deliberately ignoring them. It seems that the present PPP-led federal government is merely interested in peace-keeping and improving the security situation in the province. Thus the people of the Balochistan suspect this process and are of the view that by improving the security situation the intention is to exploit the resources in a more secure manner. The recent actions of Akhtar Mengal's release and removal of FC check-posts can be termed as confidence building measures (CBM); it can create some flexibility in nationalists to come close to the overall reconciliation process, but if these actions are propagated as the solution of problems, it will prolong the distance and create new resentments. If the current government is really serious to reconcile with the people of Balochistan, it needs to do more. It must solve the issue of disappearances with immediate effect, the over draft of the province should be paid from the federal resources, the cantonment constructions be dismantled and levies system be restored and remove the actors from the present power structure who remained behind military operations in the province. Such CBMs can move forward the reconciliation process and it can pave the way to discuss the fundamental problems of the province. Unless the federal government is not ready to recognise the control of the province over resources as an issue, the process would not proceed with inclusive participation of nationalists. To do more the federal government and leadership has to: • Recognise the nature of provincial autonomy and should deal with the federating units under their own circumstances. It must dismantle the concurrent list and give more legislative powers to the province. • Understand the nature of the provincial problems rather than the symptoms • Rethink the National Finance Commission Award with special regard to the Balochistan. • The gas of Balochistan must be purchased on equal rates with other provinces. • The present overdraft of the province should be paid by the federal government as start-up. • The control over Gawadar port should be given to the province or a reasonable part of its income be utilised by the provincial government. • The newcomers must not have the right of vote in Gawadar, because it will affect the representation of the local population in assemblies and can take them out of the process. • The reconciliation committee must include the political and tribal leadership of both Pashtun and Baloch populations. This committee should be authorised to hold talks with several groups on the fundamental issues and its recommendations should be immediately implemented. It must have basic mandate to reconcile practically, otherwise this committee will remain ineffective as of the previous government. • The control of Saindak and Rekodak should be taken back from the foreign firms or the province could rethink and hire other firms on provincial conditions. • The Pashtuns of the province must be given their own political identity and given equal opportunities in civil services, equal access to public services and due representation in the assemblies and senate. • The function of Chamalang should be redesigned • The exploitation by security forces in the name of peacekeeping should be stopped. (The writer is a Quetta-based socio-political analyst. Email: ariftabassum@yahoo.com)
RIPPLE
EFFECT Much is made in Pakistan, and other developing countries, of how the state and its subordinate security apparatus, particularly the intelligence agencies, try and influence, manipulate and often harass the media. At best, the relationship between the two sides is an uneasy one with the media often trying to look behind its shoulders and be wary of efforts to co-opt it and infiltrate it. Even in India, the level of 'cooperation' that the state and its intelligence agencies receive from the media is far greater than that seen in Pakistan -- and this shows up in the way the Indian print and electronic media cover foreign policy issues, particularly Pakistan, Kashmir and terrorism (often conflating all three together). In Pakistan, since the press and electronic media seem to be far more independent on this score at least, there is considerable tension between them and such institutions of the state. However, this is not to say
that the occasional planted article or letter may find its way into a
newspaper -- and sometimes this can be done and happen in a way that it
appears not as a The point however is that such efforts, of the state trying to manipulate or browbeat the media, are often met with stiff resistance from the latter -- and perhaps the best example on this score is the way the media reacted to the PEMRA restrictions of Nov 3, 2007 or other related attacks on it. In this context it is somewhat surprising -- though not all that unexpected really -- to find that even in the freest of democracies there has existed (and possibly still does) a working relationship between the intelligence apparatus of the state and the media, one in which the latter willingly becomes a partner. In this regard, a long article published some 31 years ago in Rolling Stone magazine by investigative journalist Carl Bernstein is relevant. For professional journalists at least, Carl Bernstein really needs no introduction but there may well be readers who do now know who he is. Along with Bob Woodward, a colleague of his at the Washington Post, Bernstein broke the Watergate story during President Richard Nixon's term in office and which led eventually to his resignation in 1974. He left the Post in 1976 and then was in the news not so much for his journalistic reputation but for less worthy things such an extra-marital affair which was revealed while his wife was pregnant with their second child and being arrested for drunk driving. Woodward did not leave and in fact his work flourished -- he is currently an assistant managing editor at the Washington Post -- and has won numerous awards. However, back to Bernstein. On his website I came across the Rolling Stone article mentioned above and it suggested a strong relationship between the CIA and many sections of the mainstream media during the Cold War era. However, it would be fair to assume that such a relationship still exists, though its modus operandi may have changed. For instance if one follows the exploits of former New York Times reporter Judith Miller, whose stories prior to America's invasion of Iraq on Saddam Hussein's alleged cache of weapons of mass destruction were used as the partial basis for the military action itself, one will find a link between intelligence leaks to major news sources in the form of 'investigative reports' and then the use of those 'reports' by the government which leaked the information to justify a particular cause of action. One could say that this is precisely what may have happened with Judith Miller's stories -- as in most of them were published on the front page of the New York Times, were explicitly mentioned by senior US government officials when the Iraqi invasion was being sold to the American electorate, and then all of them turned out to be false. In fact, if this were to happen at any half decent credible newspaper the reporter would have been summarily punished, if not sacked then at least transferred to a post where he or she would not be in a position to make such a mistake again. Miller however only left the Times after her role in the controversy surrounding the exposure of a covert CIA agent, who also happened to be a US diplomat's wife, came to light. As for the Bernstein piece, it says that in the 1950s one of America's most widely-read syndicated columnists went to the Philippines to cover an election. The journalist however did not go "because he was asked to do so by his syndicate" or even "by the newspapers that printed his column" but he went "at the request of the CIA." Bernstein then goes on to allege that in the past 25 years (counting back from 1977, that is) over 400 US journalists had carried out covert assignments for the CIA and that the record of this was "on file at CIA headquarters" in Langley, Virginia. He writes that the journalists involved "provided a full range of clandestine services -- from simple intelligence gathering to serving as go betweens with spies in Communist countries." They shared the contents of their notebooks with the agency and editors shared their staff. And it was not as if the journalists were third-rate has beens whom no good news organisation would employ, Bernstein said, but included Pulitzer Prize winners, "distinguished reporters who considered themselves ambassadors without portfolio for their country." In most cases, they were not operating on their own and the documents, Bernstein writes, showed that the journalists assisted the CIA with the knowledge and consent of their news organisations. Bernstein explains that the job of a spy was/is not often, as many a layperson would think, to collect information for his or her country but rather to help in the recruitment of someone who would, or to act as a 'handler' for such a person. This person, i.e. who would do the actual spying, would usually be a citizen of the country from where the intelligence is to be gathered. And because of this, he writes, those who worked as foreign correspondents for US media organisations had an ideal job because in the course of their professional duties it was likely that they would come across individuals -- often in important positions in government, academia, society and so on -- and with access to information and knowledge of use to the US government. Among the print and television organisations that, according to Bernstein, cooperated with the CIA in this 'endeavour' have been CBS, Time Magazine, the New York Times, ABC, NBC, the Associated Press, United Press International, Reuters, Hearst Newspapers, Scripps Howard, Newsweek and the Miami Herald. The
writer is Op-ed Pages Editor of The News. Email:
omarq@cyber.net.pk
|
|
Accountability Bureau (NAB) is being reinterpreted by the PPP government as
being 'difficult'. It argues that the schedule six of the Constitution
forbids any repeal or amendment in the National Accountability Bureau
Ordinance 1999 without the prior sanction of the president. However, sources
in NAB confided to TNS that NAB could be rendered ineffective without the
consent of the president.
has taken its toll and dulled the sharp edges of grief. Now, whenever we talk
amongst ourselves, we tend to remember the good times, the pranks, the
goof-ups, the things that were ordinary at that time but have now acquired
the lustre, the rosy tinge, which all memories do, in due course.
but this time was a different experience because the organisers and the hosts
were different.
of Padma Shri, and then the picture of her receiving the medal from the
president. At least I presume that it is a medal though the title is supposed
to go along with the name. It did the heart good for it to happen to a
beautiful woman, and for services to film, and it carried on a tradition
which is one of the oldest wishes of man.
ground realities upon coming to power in the NWFP after the Feb 18 elections.
The ANP-led coalition government wasted no time to set up a six-member
ministerial committee to organise a peace jirga and hold talks with the
militants in Swat. After the first round of negotiations held at the
delightfully named Fishing Hut government guesthouse by the scenic banks of
river Swat at Chakdarra , the two sides agreed to a ceasefire.
the federal level it is seen as a process of 'democracy as revenge' but
between the lines, PPP is trying to reconcile with the remnant of a
eight-year long dictatorship and controlled-democracy. Through reconciliation
and national consensus, in Sindh, PPP paid special attention to make MQM part
of the system. Likewise the ANP led government in NWFP is tending to
reconcile with the militants and extremists in the interest of the province.
result of deliberate act. In addition to that, some reports,
like those in newspapers in any other country, have to come from intelligence
sources but there is nothing wrong with that as long as the story is not a
deliberate attempt at either disinformation or misinformation and the source
is credited in a way that the reader can tell that it is from the
intelligence community.