accountability
Shadow of the 1990s
The NRO that was promulgated in October 2007 not only gave a safe exit to army, it also paved way for holding of free and fair election in a coercion-free environment and return of popular democracy
By Nadeem Iqbal 
After the Nov 28 deadline, the National Reconciliation Ordinance, essentially a political deed, is once again open to judicial review. The politicians too have been forced back to the politically turbulent mid-1990s and subjected once again to the will of the establishment.

A gentleman feudal lord
The road to a constitutional and democratic Pakistan is bumpy and journey on it is arduous, but politicians like Mustafa Jatoi (1932-2009) opted for it and removed many hurdles in the course of this struggle
By Adnan Adil
Being a feudal lord, no matter how privileged, is not a popular thing in this country, at least not among our educated urban class. Ghulam Mustafa Jatoi was among the country's top few feudal lords and yet was widely respected for his decency, gentle mannerisms and steadfastness to democratic ideals in a society ridden by political hysteria and repeated military interventions.

Ammad Hussain, a farmer from Chakwal district of arid Potohar region, owns 80 acres of agricultural land. He knows very well that the best time for sowing wheat crop is before November 15, but he has not been able to sow the crop on even one acre of his land.

"There is absolutely no moisture in the soil. Last year, luckily for us rains were in time in our area that made it possible for me to cultivate wheat crop in the second week of November. We also received rains at regular intervals after that. That was why we had a bumper crop but the atmosphere is not conducive to wheat cultivation so far, this year. We will have to wait for wet-spell to cultivate wheat," he tells TNS.

According to him, situation is the same for every farmer in his area. "They are all praying for rain". Hussain says wheat cultivation is costly and farmers cannot afford to waste their hard earned money in the prevailing conditions. "With no moisture in the soil, any effort to sow wheat crop is just like throwing the seed and fertiliser in the dark," he says.

Hundreds of kilometers away from Chakwal, in Bahawalpur district, Faqeer Ali, a farmer who owns 12 acres of agricultural land in Chak 117DB in tehsil Yazman, too has not cultivated wheat crop so far, but for some other reasons. His crop of sugarcane is still standing in the field. "Sugar mills started buying sugarcane from farmers on November 22 in my area. I think it will take at least 10 more days to get rid of sugarcane and then I will start preparing my land for the next crop which will also take a week. So, I cannot sow wheat crop before December 15. All sugarcane growers are facing the same situation," he says. Ali knows that with every passing day after November 20, he is going to lose 10-15 kilograms of the yield. Unluckily, the situation in the paddy and cotton belts is not very different.

Wheat, being the staple food, is cultivated on the largest acreages in almost every part of the country. In 2008-09, according to Ministry of Food and Agriculture data, the country produced 24 million tonnes of wheat on 8.61 million hectares of land. The sowing area for this year is the same as that of last year, but the government has set the wheat production target for 2009-10 at 25 million tonnes. Agriculture experts believe that conditions are not conducive to achieve the target this year.

"Last year, nature played a very important role in achieving the target of 24 million tonnes wheat production in the country. Rains were on time. The situation is totally different this year. Kharif crops are still standing in the fields because either farmers are not getting good rates or millers are not buying their produce," says Ibrahim Mughal, Chairman Agri Forum Pakistan. According to him Punjab's share in wheat production is around 80 percent. "Last year around 65 percent of wheat crop was cultivated in Punjab before November 20, but this year not more than 25 percent crop has been cultivated until now. The area under wheat cultivation will not reduce drastically this year because farmers have no other option but to sow wheat but it is more than tough to get the targeted wheat production," he thinks.

Pakistan has been divided into different wheat production zones based on cropping patterns such as cotton–wheat, rice–wheat, sugarcane–wheat and maize–wheat. Of these, rice–wheat, cotton–wheat and sugarcane–wheat systems together account for about 65 percent of the total wheat area, whereas rain-fed wheat covers more than 1.50 million hectare area.

The situation in cotton-wheat and rice-wheat systems is not much different. Farmers in these areas have also been facing problems in sowing wheat timely. "Wheat sowing is very slow in Multan and its adjacent areas this year for different reasons," Faizul Hassan Bhutta, President Pakistan Kissan Board's Multan chapter, tells TNS. According to him, last year the cotton growers who cultivated their crop late in the season faced dire consequences. "They got 50 percent less yield than those who cultivated in the start of the season in April. A viral disease 'leaf curl' attacked cotton crop last year, but the crop that was cultivated in the start of the season survived the disease while the later cultivated crop could not. The late growers of cotton crop also got lesser rate, that is why, this year many farmers in our region are not sowing wheat because they want to cultivate cotton crop in time to get maximum profit," he says.

According to him in DG Khan, Rajanpur, Muzaffargarh and Layyah districts wheat is cultivated on more than 2.1 million acres. "These areas totally depend on canal water for irrigation but so far they have not got enough water to sow the crop. The farmers are getting canal water fortnightly. The situation was the same last year but timely rains made it possible for farmers to sow their crop in the month of November," he says.

Both federal and provincial agriculture officials have their own justifications. They do not think that late sowing of wheat crop is going to affect the production target. "I think 90 percent of wheat in Punjab will be cultivated in the next 10 days," Peer Walayat Shah Khagha, Chairman Provincial Standing Committee on Agriculture, tells TNS. He admits that there are some delays in wheat sowing. "No need to worry, Inshallah, we will achieve our target" he says.

Dr Qadir Bux Baloch, Agriculture Development Commissioner in Federal Ministry of Food and Agriculture explains, "historically, wheat-sowing in our country starts in second week of October and ends in second week of January. Shortage in irrigation water has also been a continuous problem. Though there are some problems in rice and sugarcane growing areas, these are not going to affect heavily the wheat production target. The management practices in wheat cultivation have changed drastically during last year because of the rate we have given to farmers. Due to these practices, per acre average yield of wheat reached 27 mound last year. In 2007-08, it was 24 mound per acre so we have also seen vertical growth last year. I hope we will achieve 25 million tonnes of wheat target easily."

Agriculture scientists believe that timely sowing of wheat is crucial to get good yield. "The best time for wheat sowing is October 15 to November 15," says Dr Zahid Ata Cheema, Chairman Department of Agronomy, University of Agriculture Faisalabad. According to him wheat cultivated after November 15 would reduce the yield to 15 to 20 kg per acre per day. "The wheat yield will be reduced by 8, 16, 32 and 50 percent respectively every fortnight after Nov 15. In late-cultivated wheat crop, the yield reduces due to lesser growth period and high temperature at the time of crop maturity. These late-cultivated crops have lower germination, smaller heads, shrunken grain and lower biomass. Timely sowing of wheat alone can result in additional two million tonnes in national wheat production target," says the agriculture scientist. "In-time irrigation and use of fertilizer at the crucial stages of the crop can compensate for the late sowing to some extent, but the key to get maximum yield is timely sowing," he concludes.

With Muslims preparing to celebrate Eidul Azha with religious zeal, around 390,000 internally displaced persons (IDPs) of the South Waziristan agency are struggling hard to find even a shelter anywhere in the southern settled part of the NWFP. After fleeing their homes in the troubled tribal area in the wake of military operation Rah-e-Nijat against militants, the IDPs have been refused homes on rent in parts of Dera Ismail Khan, Bannu, Tank and even Peshawar to avoid the wrath of the government in case they proved to be supporters of militants.

Not a single tent village has so far been established either in Dera Ismail Khan or Tank, the two districts where six registration points have been set up, five of them in Dera Ismail Khan and one in Tank.

Over 56,000 families comprising over 392,000 individuals have so far been registered at these registration points of which 36,700 families and 275,000 individuals have been verified through Nadra and other departments concerned. Many of them will have to celebrate their Eid in tents, which have miserably failed to protect children and elderly persons from the chilling cold of November. Their only luxury will be sacrificial meat if provided by the government, private organisations or kindhearted individuals. Though a few displaced families have been gifted new clothes in parts of Dera Ismail Khan and Tank, it is not enough to console and comfort these shattered people living under the open sky, miles away from their homes.

The NWFP government, keeping in view the worst law and order situation all over the province and the displacement of hundreds of thousands of people, has announced to observe Eidul Azha with simplicity. The provincial information minister has announced no official celebrations would be observed on the Eid to express solidarity with the victims of terrorism.

"It does not matter how we celebrate our Eid. We want our town to be cleared of the mess forever. We have been forced to leave our homes thrice, we don't want to do it again," said Abdul Rahman Wazir of the Laddha town, currently residing with a friend in Dera Ismail Khan along with his wife, father and four children. Recounting the miseries they faced during their three-day long journey after leaving their home in haste, Abdul Rahman said several families are still stranded due to imposition of curfew while others have taken long route via Balochistan to land in Dera Ismail Khan.

Around 400 students of the Razmak Cadet College are also displaced as the facility has been shifted to Peshawar due to the law and order situation in the North Waziristan. The students of the college were once kidnapped in large number and were rescued after an aggressive operation. "We have been suffering a lot. Over 100 students have been dumped in one bungalow, rented by the administration in Hayatabad. Despite the fact that huge amount is being paid against a single student, over 10 to 20 students are living a single room which is also being used as a classroom in daytime," complained a student, who wished not to be mentioned.

No substantial help has so far been received after the United Nations has formally appealed to the world to help the IDPs in these trying times. According to an official of the United Nations High Commission for Refugees (UNHCR), 20 per cent of the registered 392,000 IDPs were having multiple registration, 11 per cent were not having computerised ID cards while two per cent others do not really belong to the affected areas. "We have distributed 14,000 tents among the IDPs while 35,000 more tents will be distributed soon. Besides, 37,000 kits of non-food items -- comprising kitchen sets, sleeping mats, plastic sheets, mosquito mats, blankets, quilts, bed sheets, buckets and soaps -- have been distributed among the affected people," an official of the UNHCR, wishing not to be mentioned, told TNS.

The official said two registration points in Dera Ismail Khan have been closed after decrease in the flow of IDPs from the affected South Waziristan. "No special package is being given to IDPs on Eidul Azha," admitted the official. The IDPs are being given Rs5000 per month to run their family affairs.

Like that of Swat, thousands of tribesmen coming down from South Waziristan have not registered their families at the verification and registration points and are not interested in having any package. Thousands of tribesmen are living with their relatives and friends in Dera Ismail Khan, Bannu, Tank, Lakki Marwat, Kohat, Karak and Peshawar while many others have got houses on rent. A number of displaced people have moved to the Zhob district in Balochistan, parts of Punjab and Karachi. They have lost their jobs, having no source of income, but are bearing huge expenses away from their homes.

"I tried to help financially a family living in my hujra but it refused with thanks. The children of the family seem to be really missing their town on this Eid. None of them even asked for new clothes or toys," said Mir Ali, a resident of Bannu, who is hosting an IDP family. The head of the guest family has asked Mir Ali to find him a job so he could earn bread for his six children and a spouse. A number of relatives of Mir Ali have been hosting families coming from Waziristan.

The government has given Rs2.5 billion to the Fata Secretariat in Peshawar to support the IDPs. Prime Minister Yusuf Raza Gilani visited the IDPs in Ratta Kalachi in Dera Ismail Khan last week where he announced the government would divert the development funds for the help and rehabilitation of the IDPs of Waziristan.

Each displaced family will also be provided Rs25,000 during the rehabilitation phase. Students belonging to the Mahsud are also promised admission to all schools on priority, so that they can play an important role in the progress and development of the country.

Not only the IDPs from Waziristan but those from Bajaur will also celebrate their Eid in tents. Thousands of residents of Bajaur Agency are still residing in Katcha Garhai Refugee Camp where a tent-village for IDPs was established. Families from Malakand can also be seen living in roadside tent villages in Sher Garh, Sakhakot, Mardan and other parts. The miseries of the IDPs of Swat, Bajaur, Waziristan and many other areas will take a long time to end. Waiting for help, these displaced and needy people can be seen in long queues outside a wheat godown on Kohat Road near Bhanamari. Hopefully, besides some joy and relief, this Eid will also bring peace for these people.

After the Nov 28 deadline, the National Reconciliation Ordinance, essentially a political deed, is once again open to judicial review. The politicians too have been forced back to the politically turbulent mid-1990s and subjected once again to the will of the establishment.

Although NRO is being widely seen as a 'Get Zardari' tool, political pundits agree that the corruption charges will not remain restricted to only ruling politicians but will open up a huge Pandora's Box. Presently, most key players and institutions other than presidency claim to operate from a high moral ground.

With the opening of the debate on NRO, not only will the judiciary's capacity to process these cases by separating cases of political victimisation from corruption be questioned, the role of FIA and NAB's role in investigating these cases will also be assessed.

It is important to understand the political context in which NRO came about. What we know as NRO was an outcome of an agreement between Musharraf and Benazir, but we do not know the details of this agreement. Musharraf says that NRO was Benazir-specific and was aimed at holding free and fair elections. PPP General Secretary, Jehangir Badar, on the other hand, claims there was a lot more to it than this. One expects these details will come to light when NRO will be taken up by the Supreme Court of Pakistan.

This tug of war among different power players is also reflected in media, where a lot of leakages are being made by these power mongers.

Under the National Reconciliation Ordinance, of the total of 3000 cases involving over 8000 persons, only 34 are of a political nature filed against politicians mainly belonging to PPP. In fact these cases were framed as a part of justification for dismissing the Benazir government in 1996 on charges of corruption. This was very much in line with the decade of 1990s, when dictators or quasi-autocrats dismissed elected governments, the higher courts upheld the terminations while charges of corruption or bad law and order remained unsubstantiated to date (The basis of these charges, interestingly, were newspaper reports),

Saifur Rehman was credited for getting most of the proofs against the PPP's ruling couple and kept PPP-led opposition at bay -- rather out of the political arena -- which ultimately provided the military with a space to intervene.

The NRO that was promulgated in October 2007 not only gave a safe exit to army, it also paved way for holding of free and fair election in a coercion-free environment and return of popular democracy.

Zardari himself was released in 2005 after remaining in jail for eight years and was sent abroad in what is widely seen as a deal with the Musharraf government. However, in the whole of 2006, when Mushaarraf was firmly saddled on the seat of the power, he put the opposition under pressure. As the potential threat to him was mainly posed by Benazir Bhutto rather than Nawaz Sharif – who remained committed to 10 years of self exile under Saudi guarantee -- PPP was specifically targeted.

Wasim Afzal, a senior bureaucrat -- known for effectively investigating cases against Benazir-Zardari under Saif Ur Rehman -- was inducted as additional chairman of National Accountability Bureau (NAB) to vigorously pursue cases against Benazir. A banker once associated with NAB for investigating white collar crime confirmed to TNS that NAB did not do any new investigation of Benazir Bhutto cases but remained stuck to the one already investigated under Nawaz Sharif. In early 2007, as a first step toward confidence building between the military government and PPP, Wasim Afzal was removed from the assignment.

Politically, it seems that things are moving toward a quid pro quo between Zardari and Sharif, with the former lobbying for amending the controversial seventeenth amendment which includes deleting the constitutional bar for his getting elected as prime minister for the third time and the latter not pressing for the president's resignation on moral grounds. In the coming weeks, Nawaz Sharif's role will also be quite crucial to defuse the prevailing political temperature.

In addition to President Asif Ali Zardari, there are two other PPP federal ministers -- Ahmed Mukhtar and Rehman Malik -- who are under pressure to resign on moral grounds as they had sought erasure of the cases against them under NRO. They claim that these were cases of witch-hunting and they did not ask for relief under NRO. Minister for Information and Broadcasting Qamar Zaman Kaira said the NRO beneficiary ministers will not resign, as they were accused and not convicted, terming the demand unjustified.

One expects a lot of wheeling dealing among presidency, judiciary, army and PML-N while other players – ANP, PML-Q, JUI-F – may side with any one of the main players. MQM has already started distancing itself from the presidency by demanding to separate corruption cases from criminal cases. MQM leadership is giving the impression as if criminal cases are of minor significance compared to that of corruption. Under the cover of NRO, MQM was absolved of criminal cases against it by the then president Musharraf for its support against independent judiciary movement.

Therefore, it can be argued that in the past the objective of all anti-corruption laws and mechanisms framed by respective dictators and establishment-sponsored regimes was not to uproot corruption but to keep politician under pressure. These politically half-dead and half-alive politicians are prone to dance to the tune of establishment.

No wonder, the pillory campaign against politicians precedes the actual filing of cases against them in court of laws and once in court these cases remain pending for decades without any decision.

All said and done, the politicians have also failed to draft a consensus anti-corruption framework, which is improved through practice. In the present scenario, parliament's sovereignty is put under test by legislating a new accountability law. The government also has to enhance its capacity to investigate cases of corruption independently and file them in courts for effective prosecution.

Being a feudal lord, no matter how privileged, is not a popular thing in this country, at least not among our educated urban class. Ghulam Mustafa Jatoi was among the country's top few feudal lords and yet was widely respected for his decency, gentle mannerisms and steadfastness to democratic ideals in a society ridden by political hysteria and repeated military interventions.

Today, Pakistan is not a perfect democracy but despite all the failures and shortcomings it does have a constitution and a federal parliamentary democratic system. Here, no military dictator, howsoever powerful, could succeed in establishing the kind of autocratic rule which one sees, say, in the Middle East. Each time the junta took over it was finally made to exit thanks to a stiff resistance from the country's political class. A political leadership always existed in this country that may not be revolutionary but made efforts to establish a representative polity. Mustafa Jatoi was one such leader though not as shining as the likes of Nasrullah Khan, Wali Khan, and Benazir Bhutto.

Mustafa Jatoi inherited political legacy from his grandfather, Imam Bakhsh Jatoi, the biggest landlord of Sindh, who was one of the four members of Bombay's legislative council from Sindh in 1923, 1927 and 1931. A graduate from Karachi Grammar School, Mustafa Jatoi himself made his way into politics through local bodies system as chairman of the district board, Nawabshah, his home district where he would lord over hundreds of miles of agricultural land in Keti Jatoi.

Gen Ayub Khan's Basic Democracy could not survive but gave the country several top-notched politicians including Zulfikar Ali Bhutto, Mustafa Khar and Mustafa Jatoi. In the 1960s, all three were members of the legislative assemblies indirectly elected through local councillors. There they became friends and later joined hands to found the Pakistan People's Party (PPP). Zulfikar Ali Bhutto was leading the PPP and his colleagues, including Mustafa Jatoi, could never come out of Bhutto's banner despite efforts they made to chart a new path. In 1986, Jatoi left the PPP after developing differences with Ms Benazir Bhutto who was not comfortable in getting along with senior party leaders. Jatoi founded his own National People's Party that could not fly like many other paper parties and remained confined to Jatoi's hometown.

One major contribution Mustafa Jatoi made was during the Zulfikar Ali Bhutto government as a chief minister of Sindh for four years (1973-77). After the PPP's Sindhi leadership took power both at the Centre and the Sindh province, it antagonised the interests of Karachi's powerful Urdu-speaking middle class, and Sindhi-Mohajir tension led to mass unrest. Removing a bit hawkish Sindhi Mumtaz Bhutto, the PPP brought Jatoi in power that pacified Karachi and restored peace and harmony. His political statesmanship in harmonising conflicting interests of two major ethnic communities in Sindh is no small achievement, given how this divide played out violently in the later years.

The high time, however, in Jatoi's political career came during the Gen Ziaul Haq's military regime when he led the PPP after the Bhutto ladies went into self-exile following the hanging of Zulfikar Ali Bhutto. Bhutto's killing sent the passions of Sindhi nationalism running high in the face of brute force used by the military junta that used gunship helicopters to put down the Sindhi agitators in the 1983 movement. Jatoi was at the forefront of Movement for Restoration of Democracy (MRD) and courted arrest along with many other members of the landlord gentry in Sindh, something new and revolutionary for this class.

Jatoi was in contact with Ziaul Haq during the military rule, as it was proved by historical accounts afterwards, and was offered to become the country's prime minister leaving the PPP. Jatoi refused and in it lies his greatness. He knew that in the presence of Zulfikar Ali Bhutto's children, he could never rise to the office of prime minister, but he did not ditch the Bhutto family. Had he done so for his personal gains, it would have been a setback to the movement for the restoration of constitutional and democratic rule in the country.

At the same time, during the tumultuous agitation against Gen Zia, Mustafa Jatoi did not allow extreme Sindhi nationalist passions against the Punjabi-dominated military to assume the form of insurgency. At this precarious juncture of the country's history, Jatoi played a historical role in solidifying a federal democratic Pakistan. In the following years, he stood vindicated by political developments as Sindh supported federal parliamentary politics of Ms Benazir Bhutto dismissing the slogans of confederation and independence raised by other Sindhi nationalists.

In an atmosphere driven by anxiety and brazen partisanship, Pakistanis will take some time to appreciate the statesmanship displayed by politicians like Wali Khan and Mustafa Jatoi who in their respective provinces worked to integrate the people in a federal structure under stress both from the centrifugal separatists and the centripetal Punjabi-dominated civil-military bureaucracy.

The road to a constitutional and democratic Pakistan is bumpy and journey on it is arduous, but politicians like Mustafa Jatoi opted for it and removed many hurdles in the course of this struggle. A thorough gentleman and statesman, Mustafa Jatoi will be remembered as a nation-builder of Pakistan from Sindh.

Mustafa Jatoi died in a London hospital after prolonged illness on 20 Nov 2009.