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world today Setting a
healthy precedent public
money Comparison,
not competition Regional
rhapsody growth loans
of federal loads Newswatch firstperson world
today In the Western hemisphere
much of the debate surrounding terrorism is concentrated in military Military action and defence operations, as common approaches adopted by the United States, Israel and others to justify their counter terrorism efforts, have been the consequence of this approach. It is critically contested that these states and particularly Western democracies are powerful actors and in order to survive and to preserve their position, they have usually been responsible for exploiting terrorism in the 'production of particular insecurities' where their 'security intellectuals' such as state officials, academic institutions, private think-tanks and media have the authority to identify the threats and dangers and to determine the best solutions to counter those threats. Throughout the cold war period into the present day 'War on Terrorism' these powerful states have been remarkably successful in inflicting the ideology and practice of terrorism in the wider world by defining it as a threat to human rights and democracy -- deflecting the terrorist tag onto its victims. Evidence has indicated time and again that strategies adopted by these states have justified large-scale killing of civilian populations, destruction of physical and economic infrastructure, assault on humanitarian well being of the people, political repression, imprisonment, torture, disappearance and other violations. Furthermore, these states have always worked against the democratic aspirations of the peoples around the world and supported dictatorial regimes that prevented democracy in Africa, Asia, Middle East, South-America and many other places on the earth which have the potential to endanger the financial, political and strategic interests of their ruling class as well as the Western states. In his book, Killing Hope: US Military & CIA Interventions since the World War II, William Blum, a former State Department employee comments on how American counter-terrorism policy has facilitated in overthrowing more than 40 foreign governments and bombing some 25 counties resulting in the "end of life for several million people, and condemned many million more to a life of agony and despair." In 1985, President Ronald Reagan received a group of bearded men with turbans in the White House. After welcoming them, he spoke to the press and called them as "the moral equivalent of America's founding fathers". These were Afghan mujahideen fighting the 'evil' Soviet Empire. The United States and other Western countries involved in promoting democracy in Afghanistan against 'repressive' communist regime proclaimed their support for the Afghan insurgency. The then US Secretary of State, George Shultz, further strengthened this line of argument in one of his speeches on terrorism. He said "we must understand that terrorism, wherever it takes place, is directed in an important sense against us, the democracies -- against our most basic values and often our fundamental strategic interests". At the end of the Cold War that culminated in the defeat of the Soviet Union, the face of terrorism changed. The terrorists of yesterday became the heroes of today, and the heroes of yesterday became the terrorist of today. The new enemy of the West -- the Islamic extremists particularly the disciples of Afghan mujahideen -- were now labelled as the ones seeking to destroy the Western values. In his November 2001 address to the nation, US president G W Bush expressed his views about the same 'men with turbans and beards' who were earlier invited to the White House by his predecessor who equated them to America's founding fathers. Bush called them as terrorists ruthlessly destroying his country's values. "They hate our freedom -- our freedom of religion, our freedom of speech, our freedom to vote and assemble." According to most of the definitions, terrorism is an illegitimate use of threat by non-state individuals, groups and those states that are involved in 'harbouring' terrorists. This threat is a deliberate and systematic use of political violence to intimidate and coerce governments and communities. It is designed to affect populations by creating a psychological state of fear in order to influence decision makers to change policies, practices or systems that are related to the perpetrators' political objectives. The central meaning of world terrorism policy implies that the West and particularly the democratic states are innocent victims of terrorism due to their stand for the rule of law. They are the champions of democracy and provider of human rights seeking to foster a world that promotes peace and non-violent settlement of disputes. The terrorists, on the other hand, are those elements who destabilise these every efforts. They are uncivilized and undemocratic people attempting to impose their will by force and by creating fear in the public. The terrorists are usually non-state individuals and groups responsible for killing innocent civilians through kidnapping, hostage taking, hijacking, suicide bombing and beheading. The states only 'counter' terrorism when undemocratic, extremist and totalitarian forces attack them and in doing so their basic aim is to target terrorists and not the civilian population. All civilian deaths therefore as a result are 'collateral damage' and 'accidental' and hence justified. The United States is the epicentre of power and its state officials and defence experts have long perceived terrorism as their raison de´tre. Moreover, private sector think tanks, research institutes and academia also serve the purpose of the state in this regard. The Department of Defence, the Pentagon, the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) and the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) are responsible for countering terrorism in the United States followed by a number of private think tanks and academic and research institutes such as the Georgetown Centre for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS) and Rand Corporation. It is therefore, often very difficult to disentangle the private and official think tanks and departments as many of them are allocated large amount of budget to carry out counter terrorism studies and programmes. The State Department and its subordinate agencies have been provided large amounts of money to fund the dissemination of information on terrorism and for providing crucial support to other agencies and think tanks. Most of these think tanks and their experts have been involved in working closely with the government. For example, the US Air Force funds the US Rand Corporation. The prestigious Georgetown Centre for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS) had a senior government official working for it. At one point it was a former director of the CIA. The mass media, whose structural links to government and the corporate system are already strong, is also inclined to buy the state's line. Often it is terrorism experts, coming from specialised think tanks, who supply the media with their expert comments. These experts tend to follow the approved semantics of the state. They model and select the facts accordingly to fit them in the official scheme of things, as an effective propaganda system. This blurring of boundaries between state departments and private institutions and the current political system which grants powerful states the means and resources to portray threats such as terrorism as 'true' representations have attached subjectivity and limitation in defining what terrorism is and who terrorists are. The states, therefore, have the right to define terrorism. They can set the parameters as to what are its practices, who its proponents are and how it must be countered. It is like being recognized as an authority on the subject, giving the states the legitimacy to determine what others must believe. It is, thus, this production and construction of the concept of terrorism which emerges as 'requirement' when a state attempts to define itself through its resolve to remove this given threat. Michel Foucault, a French philosopher and one of the most influential thinkers of the 20th Century, has presented his analysis in this regard. His most common concern was the idea of power, its relation with knowledge and how it manifests in a given historical context. He suggests that it is power in fact that produces knowledge. All power requires knowledge and all knowledge relies on and reinforces existing power relations. Thus there is no such thing as truth, existing outside of power. Truth is not something external to social setting, but is instead part of them. This reflects the ways in which through history both power and truth developed together in a mutually sustaining relationship. In a simple sense it can be understood that some discourses are more powerful than others because they are located in the institution of power. For example, if the state-controlled media or state officials create our perception on terrorism, then our worldview will be limited to the perception provided by the state's elite. Furthermore, since discourses bring with them the power to define, the representations on terrorism are therefore embedded in the power that states have. This suggests that the states produce terrorism as a threat because in order to maximise their power and sustain their identity there must be a 'threat'. For states, it will always be a particular kind of interest in representing what terrorism is and who terrorists are. These interests are usually linked to the identity of the states. The states in this sense not only are facing insecurities but also they become the providers of the solutions to those insecurities as well. Counter terrorism has become the major focus for national security policy in the West. It is through the acts of military and defence that the states' credibility of being strong is viewed. The fact is that counter-terrorism, as in 'fight for liberation and democracy', results in civilian killing, destruction of property and infrastructure and humanitarian crises. Ironically, these actions lack political imagination because they do not offer a shared future but one that is narrowly focused on a highly individualised sense of security and hence is not a realistic way forward in the discussion of terrorism from either historical, political or moral (legal) points of view.
Setting
a healthy precedent Provision of quality health
services to people is one of the foremost duties of a state. But Other similar instances of huge government funds going waste are the National Rural Support Programme (NRSP) and Punjab Rural Support Programme (PRSP) which being rendered useless simply because of official neglect. The projects run under these programme work as long the government is there. The day it leaves, the projects end because there exists no mechanism to ensure the participation of local people in them, though this participation is a basic ingredient for a project to survive and sustain. It is in this backdrop, that we need to see the Punjab government's efforts at setting up a quality health services delivery system that does not go the same way as earlier programmes have gone. To achieve this end, the provincial government launched a a pilot health project in district Gujrat soon, soon after the first local government elections were conducted under the devolution of power plan in 2001. Over the years, this project has achieved several desired results, receiving accolades from independent national and international evaluators. Recently, the National Commission on Governance Reforms (NCGR), headed by former State Bank of Pakistan governor Dr Ishrat Hussain, has done a thorough study on the project, proposing that it should be replicated in other parts of the country. Many people might have heard about the Gujrat health project but very few really know what it means and what exactly are the factors that have led to its success. When these question were put to Dr Talat Iqbal, Executive District Officer (EDO) Health in Gujrat, he put the project's success to the fact that it had all the required ingredients from the start. "These include much-needed political will, vision, monitoring by the patient welfare societies, donations from expatriates, industry and others and the local community's participation," he says. Talat says a baseline survey was conducted with input from all the major stakeholders well before the project was launched. "Then the district government, the provincial government and the National Commission for Human Development sat together and reviewed the strengths and weaknesses of the already launched health programmes. First of all, the real health needs of the community at union council were evaluated. After that we conducted an analysis of BHUs and allied services. Once this was done, a detailed programme was charted out on how to provide the missing links that can turn the current useless public health system into a useful one," he adds. "It was realised that it was community participation that could put life into the dying public health system." Talat says this was the turning point. "Now an independent observer can see that the strongest link in the whole chain is the local community which oversees the functioning of BHUs at the union council level. Today, there are patient welfare societies in union councils and they have elected office-bearers. These societies strictly monitor the activities of the BHUs and see that no irriegualty occurs at all." An interesting feature of the project, Talat says, is that many BHUs in Gujrat have been upgraded. "They have ambulance service, emergency rooms, labour rooms, pathological laboratories and many other facilities" which other BHUs in the countries don't have. "People can have quality medical facilities at BHUs in Gujrat and they can get themselves tested for diseases like hepatitis A, B and C and diabetes. They can also their blood tests and ultrasound tests conducted at highly subsidised prices." All this does sound strange, especially when it is compared with what's happening at BHUs anywhere else in the country. In district Gujrat's case, this upgradation was made possible by the donations made by people. Talat says Gujrat has the largest number of Citizen Community Boards (CCBs) managing health projects. "What people did here was that they formed CCBs and arranged 20 per cent of the BHU upgradation costs. The remaining 80 per cent was provided by the local government. There was no lack of trust involved because the boards were themselves responsible for managing the upgraded BHUs. It's an effective public-private partnership where the government has provided the human resource in the form of BHU staff and infrastructure in the form of BHU buildings while operational costs and supervision of the BHU are the responsibility of the community." Talat says now anyone can ask the medical officer as to why he or she came late to the BHU. "Complaints can also be forwarded to the district government if the monitoring society feels that way." But he denies the impression that the project succeeded in Gujrat only because the district in now the epicentre of political power in the country. Punjab Chief Minister Pervez Elahi, district nazim Gujrat Chaudhry Wajahat Hussain and the president of the ruling Pakistan Muslim League Chaudhry Shujaat Hussain all come from the same family in Gujrat. "But this does not mean that the project would have failed otherwise. If this had been the decisive factor, no government project would have ever failed in the home districts of former and sitting prime ministers, chief ministers and governors." Talat tells The News on Sunday that people of Gujrat living in other countries and local industrialists have provided most of the funds needed for the project, that is, 20 per cent funds that CCBs are required to generate on their own. According to him, in some areas in the district people now ask for quality health and education services, unlike in the past when they would always ask for carpeting roads and streets. Dr Muhammad Ajmal, Senior Director (Operations) of the National Commission for Human Development (NCHD) says the baseline surveys in Gujrat were conducted by his organisation, though they were then assessed by independent evaluators as well. "Shell Pakistan and the United Nations Development Programme were just two of the bodies that assessed the data. The NCHD also provided training to health officers and staff at the BHUs." Dr Muhammad Ajmal tells TNS that a highly praised component of the Gujrat health project has been a school health programme launched by the NCHD in collaboration with the City District Government Gujrat. Under this project, the commission trained teachers in a way that they could screen their students and find out if any of them were suffering from diseases like visual and hearing impairment and dental, skin and personal hygiene problems. The local community also provided glasses to the poor students whose eyesight was found to be weak. According to Dr Ajmal, the commission has provided computers and vehicles to the BHUs to facilitate their staff in doing their duty. "When the project is replicated in other parts of the country, these things will be provided by the provincial government." Muhammad Javed, spokesman for Punjab ministry of local government, says the success of Gujrat health project is in fact the success of local community. "People are willing to spare their time and hard-earned money for the reason that they are confident that they will be spent on their welfare. This confidence and awareness are lacking in other parts of the province. That's why billions of rupees to be spent through CCBs are lying unutilised with the district governments," he says.
It's a catch-22 turning
into a Gordian knot. The members of the federal and provincial legislators
who "Nothing," says Saeed Ahmed, secretary Punjab Assembly. His office is responsible for running the administrative and financial affairs of the provincial legislature but he points out it does not have the authority to recover the money spent on former legislators who now stand disqualified. In fact, nobody does. "Before they are disqualified, their election is notified by a competent authority (the Election Commission of Pakistan in this case), they duly take oath of the office and most importantly they do perform the functions they are supposed," says Saeed. Going by this logic, "the money spent on them is a legal expenditure" unless, of course, a court of law thinks otherwise. But he does know of a single disqualification in which the court also ordered the recovery of the money. Before treating the issue as good as resolved, it may be enlightening to know how much money does it involve. "It's difficult to know the annual or monthly average expenditure on a member of the (provincial) assembly. In fact, expenses vary from member to member, depending on things like the distance they have to travel to attend a session of the assembly or their membership of various committees of the house," says Saeed. Still, it's not altogether something to be dealt by cost accountants. There exists a law -- The Provincial Assembly (Salaries, Allowances and Privileges of Members) Act 1974 -- which governs the expenses to be incurred on a provincial legislator. Similar laws exist in other provinces and at the national level. Some of the provisions of this law were amended, deleted or added as late as July 2006 to considerably raise the money being spent on the members of the assembly. According to its latest version, a member is entitled to draw a monthly salary of Rs 10,000, house rent at the rate of Rs 10,000 a month, electricity and gas charges of residential accommodation not exceeding Rs 3,000 per month, medical facilities including those for spouse, minor children and unmarried daughters "of the standard admissible to a Class-1 officer of the Government," telephone bill worth Rs 5,000 for a phone used at residence, an office maintenance allowance of Rs 10,000 per month and a sumptuary allowance at the rate of Rs 5,000 per month. Along with these monthly payments, a member is also entitled to receive money in lieu of his participation in the sessions of the assembly, the meetings of its committees and/or involvement in any other official business. These include a daily allowance of Rs 650 and a conveyance allowance of Rs 400 per day (both these allowance also apply to three days preceding a session and three days coming after a session; in the case of committee meetings they apply to two extra days each at the beginning and the end). A member also gets a travelling allowance "for every journey performed to attending a session or a meeting of a Committee" or any other official business at the following rates: "(a) where the journey is performed by rail, an amount equal to the fare of the class travelled plus half fare of the AC class; (b) where the journey is performed by air, the fare of the business class; and (c) where the journey or any part of it is performed by road the fare at the rate for the purposes mentioned in the Punjab Travelling Allowance Rules for the time being in force for officer of First Class; Provided that if the journey is performed by personal car, the mileage allowance shall be five rupees per kilometre." Other allowances include an accommodation allowance of Rs 1,500 per day "for the period of residence on duty" (if no official residence is provided) and an additional travelling allowance of Rs 40,000 "per annum for travel by him or his family within Pakistan at any time". In the light of these provisions, a member of the Punjab Assembly draws Rs 43,000 a month in salary and other monthly allowances. If he travels about 100 kilometres on his personal car to attend a session to last for four days and he is not provided an official residence, he will be additionally drawing Rs 18,350. This excludes expenses incurred on medical facilities and 'additional travelling'. For someone who gets disqualified after six months in the office, the amount adds up to Rs 368,100 (provided there is only one week-long session of the assembly each month and provided money for medical facilities and additional travelling is not taken into account). This is meagre when compared to huge sums of money being wasted by the government on non-sensical development schemes, maintenance/redesigning and refurbishing of official buildings and purchase and upkeep of official vehicles. But for a country like ours, it's the cumulative burden of all these 'small' expenses that is breaking the bone of the economy. So why not recover them? The money spent on the five former members of the Punjab Assembly who were disqualified at various stages of their tenure must be running into many millions. One of them, Rana Tajammal Hussain, was disqualified only early last month in the fourth year of the assembly's existence. Another, Imtiaz Lali, is still trying to fend off disqualification through a stay order. If he fails, he may have the dubious distinction of remaining a member of the current assembly for the longest period of time without being eligible for it. A lot of public money, in the meanwhile, would have got spent on his salary and other perks and privileges. Mohsin Abbas Syed, director legislation and parliamentary affairs at Punjab government's law department, says courts avoid ordering the recovery of this money because the disqualifications, first of all, are not done with a retrospective effect. "Any law or legal decision to be implemented retrospectively is bad. It creates more complications than it resolves." This means people get disqualified for the future, without having an effect on what they did, earned or spent in the past. Of course, disqualification in the first place means that the disqualified person was either not qualified to fight the elections or ineligible to sit in the assembly as a member. But "all disqualifications are done while legalising all the actions done by the disqualified person while in office," says Mohsin. This means he was doing official work even though he was not qualified to do so. "So, it makes sense to not recover the money spent on him." Even if his tenure before disqualification has no legal basis (de jure), he in practice acts as a legislator (de facto), says Mohsin. "It is this de facto doctrine that is used when the governments are declared unconstitutional. For instance, when the government of Balakh Sher Mazari was dismissed by the court and Nawaz Sharif's restored (in early 1990s), all actions of the former were given a legal cover." Mohsin argues that a solution of the problem may lie in putting a time limit on how long legal battles on disqualification can go on. "All cases should be decided within six months after an assembly comes into being." His second suggestion is to authorise an independent election commission to deal with these cases as a sole and final authority. "This will go a long way in checking these cases from lingering on indefinitely." Because this system is still far from being in place, the first disqualification in Punjab Assembly took place almost one and a half years after it came into being. The Gordian knot of ineligible people sitting in legislators incurring public expenditure persists too long to be untied with one slick administrative or legal move.
Comparison,
not competition Several sessions at the provincial and national assemblies have seen heated debates on the need to increase salaries, allowances and other perks and privileges of public representatives. Many a time these heated discussions have yielded results, leading to considerable increase in the emoluments of these legislators. This is one battle-front where MPs belonging to the opposition as well as the ruling parties are seen planning moves together for their collective benefit. A cursory look at the draft of an act describing salaries, allowances and privileges available to Punjab Assembly members shows that it makes repeated references to the privileges enjoyed by a class 1 officers as a yardstick for determining the benefits the MPs have. This creates the impression as if a government servant cost the government as much as a provincial legislator does. But this is not true, at least according to a class 1 employee of the Punjab government who works at the civil secretariat in Lahore. He tells The News on Sunday on the condition of withholding his name that most legislators are under the impression that all civil servants have multiple means of income which they don't. He also disapproves of the comparison between the emoluments of civil servants and largislators, saying that "a civil servant's only means of income is his salary. But for an MP, all emoluments received from the state are just pocket money. We all know that it is not a poor man's game to contest an election." The official says even if the comparison is made, the allowances and privileges enjoyed by the legislators are manifolds more than the ones available to the civil servants. "They get raises in multiples but we get them in fractions. Having similarities on one or two counts is not enough to draw parallels," he adds. An analysis of the revised draft of basic pay scales, allowances and pension of civil servants employed with Punjab government becomes quite relevant here. The revisions were made in July 2005, presumably because the earlier provisions were no longer seen as keeping pace with ever-increasing inflation. How far the finance department has been successful in bridging the gap is anybody's guess. According to the draft, Punjab government employees in Grade 17 are entitled to receive Rs 1,240 every month under the head of conveyance allowance if they do not have an official vehicle to commute. Entertainment allowance at the rate of Rs 500 per month is allowed for employees working in Grade 19. The maximum amount allowed under this head is Rs 975 per month and that is available only for Grade 22 officers. Officers below Grade 19 are not entitled to receive this allowance. The special daily allowance for a Grade 17 officer has been revised to Rs 640 as compared while previously it was Rs 500. Here a civil servant comes at par with a provincial legislator who is allowed a daily allowance at almost the same rate. A Grade 17 officer can also travel by air at government expense and in case of displacement, either due to recruitment or transfer, receives carriage charges at the rate of Rs 0.008 per kilometer per kilogram. Deputation allowance and additional charge allowance have both been set at 20 per cent of the pay of an employees subject to the condition that the amount does not exceed Rs 6,000 per month. Under the revised pay scale, the minimum salary a Grade 17 officer can draw is Rs 7,140 while the maximum is Rs 17,840, with an annual increment at the rate of Rs 535. Passing an advance course form National Institute of Public Administration can earn an officer an extra Rs 500 a month. But even among the officers, these benefits are not evenly distributed. For instance, those working in the powerful Police Service of Pakistan (PSP) seems to be enjoying some extra benefits. The uniform allowance available to PSP officers posted in Punjab has been increased approximately five-times from Rs 250 per month to Rs 1200 per month now. The washing allowance for police has been doubled from Rs 50 per month in the past to Rs 100 a month now. A carefully done calculation shows that a legislator in the Punjab Assembly can walk away with Rs 43,000 a month even if he or she does not attend a single session of the assembly. This is something a Grade 17 officer cannot even dream to earn lawfully. In case, he does not attend his office he makes no money. Suggestions have been made in the past to increase the take-home salaries of civil servants to a reasonably high level and to do away with a number of perks. The late Dr Mehboobul Haq had even made a suggestion that the perks and privileges of the civil servants should be monetised. There are others who suggest that the salaries of civil servants should be raised to a level which creates some sort of a balance between the economic conditions of a gazetted officer and the powers that he has. Though it is very unlikely that government officers get the salary packages being offered by the corporate sector, the salary of the civil servants should be revised to a level where the temptations to take bribes can be averted, is how the exponents of a case for raising the government officers' salaries argue. Rana Sanaullah, deputy opposition leader in the Punjab Assembly, agrees. He says he raised the issue of meagre house rent being provided to civil servants on the floor of the assembly last year. "At that time the house rent for ministers was raised to Rs 35,000 per month, though the officers of grade 17, 18, 19 and 20 were drawing Rs 414, Rs 728, Rs 1,292 and Rs 3,136 per month respectively as house rent. "Is it possible to even find a single room against this sum even in the most backward of localities in Lahore?" he asks.
Regional
rhapsody India-China relations are currently at a fascinating moment. The outcome deserves watching, for the future of much more than these two countries could possibly depend on the result. On the one hand, there has been the recent reopening of the Nathu La border pass between the two countries. Nathu La lies on the fabled Silk Road, and as much as 80 per cent of the commercial interaction between India and China used to be conducted through it before the animosity between the two countries forced its closing in 1962. The pass is both a symbol and a possible propellant of the growing commerce between the two countries. Trade between the two nations has increased manifold in the past years, from a measly $117.4 million in 1987 to $18.7 billion last year. Relations have improved on other fronts, too, with China recognising the Indian annexation of Sikkim, in return for India accepting that Tibet is a part of China. Both countries have signed a number of strategic and military agreements and their oil companies have actually successfully jointly bid for contracts in Canada. A few years ago, in 2002, direct flights between New Delhi and Beijing started, removing an astonishing anomaly. Till then there wasn't a straight way to fly between the two most populous nations on the earth. On the other hand, there is a potential of recurrence of tensions between the two sides. The Bush administration is really eager to have India serve as a junior partner in its global containment of China. To repeat a quote I've used previously, the thinking of the US foreign-policy establishment is distilled in an April column in the Wall Street Journal by President Clinton's Defense Secretary William Cohen, in which he writes of India and the United States: "Perhaps, however, our greatest long-term confluence of strategic interest is shaping the positive emergence of China as a global power." The US-India nuclear deal, in which the United States has offered quite generous terms to legitimise a nuclear weapons power operating outside the ambit of the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty, is a bribe to India in return for its long-term cooperation in this project. To add to this, there has been the June 2005 military agreement between the two countries that will further strengthen their strategic partnership. China, in response, has made moves to increase its nuclear cooperation with Pakistan. The problem in India-China relations has been the scar that the 1962 war left on the Indian psyche. The Indian version is that a peaceful India bending over backward to be friendly to China was stabbed in the back by its larger neighbour. Never mind that research by a number of historians has complicated the picture, with Indian rigidity over the British-era boundary demarcations and an aggressive 'forward policy' at the border (with astonishingly little manpower to back it up) being contributory factors to the conflict. Indian policy-makers blame China as the party fully responsible for the war, and have ever since 1962 perceived China as a possible aggressor yet again. China's attitude towards India has instead been that of disdain. As several contributors to 'The India-China Relationship', a book published by the Columbia University Press, explain, China has never seen India as more than a regional power. Even China's nuclear programme did not take India into account as more than an afterthought. This is unlike India which explicitly cited China as the reason for its nuclear testing back in 1998. Now, the quality of the Chinese leadership is extremely dubious, and I have no illusions about this. I don't think I've ever felt as outraged in my life as when I read the news of the 1989 Tiananmen Square massacre of numerous innocent protesters. My visit last October to Dharamsala, the seat of the Tibetan government-in-exile, to interview the Dalai Lama and other members of the Tibetan community only reconfirmed for me the often brutal nature of the Chinese regime. One of the most revealing conversations I had was with a monk who heads the Tibetan ex-political prisoners association. The monk, Ngawang Woebar, fled to India after a spell of incarceration for his views. His description of Chinese repression in the region and its large number of Tibetan political detainees (1,200, according to his organisation) brought home for me again the dreadful nature of the Chinese occupation of Tibet. But even for people as concerned about human rights as me, the question arises: What does one do about the Chinese government? It is certainly too big to be isolated. The only way out is to be pragmatic and engage the regime without necessarily embracing it. The rivalry between India and China in the region has anyway forced the Indian government into befriending some unsavory dictatorships, which is a problem for a democracy like India. Most infamously, both governments have engaged in a competitive bidding for the despicable cabal heading Burma, which is ranked as one of the worst leaderships in the world. The Burmese junta has deftly played the security fears of both nations off each other, with the result that India has betrayed the Burmese democratic cause that it initially espoused, globally exemplified by the imprisoned figure of Nobel Peace Laureate Aung San Suu Kyi. On a lesser note, India partially lifted its arms ban on Nepal out of fear that its embargo was making King Gyanendra become too close to China. What will an India-China reconciliation mean for Pakistan? On the surface, it may not bring good tidings. After all, the China-Pakistan friendship is partly based on China's desire to counter India. (Much of the impetus for the China-Pakistan camaraderie came from the India-Soviet alliance, which, in turn, was partially a reaction to the US-Pakistan military pact. The chain reaction goes on and on.) But it doesn't have to be a zero-sum game for Pakistan. If India-Pakistan relations continue to improve, then Pakistan can be in the enviable position of having good relations with the world's two most populous countries. China in the recent past has shown itself to be pragmatic enough to be able to maintain decent ties simultaneously with both nations, and it won't necessarily draw away from Pakistan to assuage India. The future of India-China relations may determine the future of the world. Not only does the fate of the one-third of the global population contained within these two behemoths depends on the outcome, but, indeed, so may the prospects of the entire international community. Amitabh
Pal is the Managing Editor of an American magazine, The Progressive (www.progressive.org),
a monthly political publication founded in 1909. This is his regular monthly
column for Political Economy.
growth Despite a robust economic
growth of 6.6 per cent in its Gross Domestic Product (GDP) during the Independent observers, therefore, mince no words when they attribute sluggishness in the economic growth mainly to a slow growth in the agriculture sector and a decline in the growth rate of large scale manufacturing (LSM) sector. In fact, LSM sector has been the single largest contributor to this sluggish performance. The growth of LSM sector during 2005-06 has remained much below the target -- 10.68 per cent against the target of 14.5 per cent. This is mainly due to poor performance of heavyweight industries like textile, sugar and engineering. In the last fiscal year, LSM sector grew at an impressive rate of 15.6 per cent. If figures for 2005-06 are compared with those of 2004-05, the sector has experienced a decline of 46 per cent in its growth rate. Agriculture, which contributes nearly 22 per cent to total GDP and employs 44.8 per cent of all labour in the country, has always had an important impact on the growth of economy. This sector suffered a decline in its growth due to natural reasons like weather and decline in crop production. Agriculture plays a vital role in Pakistan's exports because it is a major supplier of raw material to local industry as well as being a market for industrial products. Last year when Pakistan achieved its highest ever GDP growth rate of 8.6 per cent, it was mainly because of impressive growth in textile sector as well as in agriculture production. In a way, this explains why the growth of the manufacturing sector is so closely linked to growth in the agriculture sector. Any change in crop pattern has had a serious impact on the overall economic growth of the country. This is what happened during the last fiscal year as well. Shortage in raw cotton production affected the production of yarn, textile and made ups, ultimately hitting the LSM production and exports. Coming back to LSM sector, textile industry contributes substantially in it. LSM accounts for 69.5 per cent of all manufacturing in Pakistan. According to the Economic Survey 2005-06, the overall manufacturing sector recorded a broad-based growth of 8.6 per cent against a target of 12 per cent in 2005-06. In the last fiscal year, the sector registered a growth of 12.6 per cent. According to the government, the slow growth of LSM sector was mainly on account of a slowdown in the growth of the textile sector which grew at the rate of 4.27 per cent in 2005-06 against 24.7 per cent in 2004-05. Read these statistics along with figures of slow growth in the agriculture sector and the link will become all the more obvious: The industrial sector suffered a setback because of non-availability of raw material -- that is, cotton, yarn and sugarcane -- solely dependent on the performance of agriculture sector. Textile industry accounts for over 60 per cent of the total exports of Pakistan and any change in cotton crop pattern directly hits it. The decrease in the cotton production to about 12.34 million bales in 2005-06 against the target of 15 million bales was the main reason for decline in textile production, even though the textile sector has increased its capacity through huge investment in machinery and parts. The raw cotton production was 14.6 million bales in the last fiscal year. Sugar crisis also contributed to the decline in the growth rate of LSM sector. Late crushing of sugarcane and shortage of irrigation water affected the overall sugarcane crop production, adding significantly to reduction in the growth of LSM sector. Sugar production declined by 2.4 per cent to 2.887 million tons in 2005-06 against 2.958 million tones in 2004-05. According to Pakistan Sugar Mills Association data, the sugar crop yielded 44.30 million tons of sugarcane in 2005-06 season, against 47.24 million tons in 2004-05. As a result of this drop in the yield, sugarcane crushing dropped from 32.1 million tons to 30.17 tons as compared to 45 million tons in the two previous years. Other major industry that had an impact on the overall manufacturing sector was engineering, which could not perform well due to shortage in the supply of iron and steel products. Pakistan Steel's 48 ovens were not giving enough production as they were passing through an overhauling process during 2005-06. This put a heavy pressure on the engineering sector as a whole. According to the government statistics, the steel items which registered a negative growth during the fiscal year of 2005-06 included coke (-77.39 per cent), pig iron (-43.99 per cent), billets (-47.95 per cent), HR/CR sheets (-22.83 per cent). These negative figures notwithstanding, many economists are still optimistic about Pakistan's economy. They say it still has a lot of potential to grow at a comfortable pace despite its in-built weaknesses and heavy dependence on agriculture production. "If we exclude cotton, sugar and steel products from over all percentage of large scale manufacturing, the total growth of the remaining sector was still 12.86 per cent, which is quite impressive," says Muzammil Aslam, an economist working with Khadim Ali Shah Bukhari, a brokerage house. He says there is nothing that the government or the industries can do to improve the situation because Pakistan's economy is driven by agriculture which is affected by weather and natural calamities. He says: "Even though automobile sector registered a slow growth of 27 per cent against the previous year's growth of 32 per cent, we cannot say it is a bad growth." And there are some other bright spots which are fast emerging as significant contributors to the country's GDP. The figures given in the Economic Survey of Pakistan 2005-06 attribute overall GDP growth mainly to sectors other than agriculture and large scale manufacturing. For example, engineering goods group grew by 6.46 per cent, non-metallic mineral products grew by 9.49 per cent, leather products registered a growth of 10.91 per cent, chemicals grew by 9.08 per cent, pharmaceuticals grew by 14.83 per cent and electrical goods by 11.78 per cent. But the fact that Pakistan's economy is heavily dependent on cotton and textile has always caused worries to the country's economic managers. Textile and its ancillary industries are also facing a cut-throat competition in the international market, particularly after the end of textile export quotes which ceased to exist in 2004, after being phased out by the World Trade Organization (WTO). The main competitors of Pakistani textile products are China, India and Bangladesh. Some economists are already adding the competition factor to their analyses. "Pakistani textile sector faces problems due to high cost of production and rising cost of doing business in the country," says Dr Shahid Hassan Siddiqui who heads Research Institute of Islamic Banking and Finance. He says the government has not provided local industries with a level playing field so as to be able to compete in the international market. "Pakistan has not finalised free trade agreements with some important country, which has also put an impact on over all economy of the country," he says. It is interesting to note that the government has given a number of incentives to the textile industry in the past. Recently, on July 15, 2006, the Economic Coordination Committee (ECC) under the chairmanship of the prime minister announced a Rs 25 billion textile package that was much awaited by textile industrialists. Moreover, the State Bank of Pakistan has also cut export refinance rates to facilitate local industries. In another recent development, the state bank allowed a one-time concession to the textile sector so as to realise its latent potential and in order to promote its export competitiveness. Under the concession, the industry was allowed to refinance its outstanding fixed term loans availed from banks and Development Financial Institutions for import of plants and machinery with loans to be treated at par with those falling under the state bank's Long Term Financing for the Export Oriented Projects (LTF-EOP) scheme. Still the performance of the textile industry is not improving. In fact, despite all these incentives, most of the textile industrialists are not happy with the state of affairs, raising hackles among analysts. "Our industrialists, instead of taking measures to improve the quality of their products, have been heavily depending on the subsidies and support from the government," says Dr Shahid Siddiqui. He adds it is a sad state of affairs that even after 59 years of independence our industrialists demand crutches from the government, which is affecting a sustainable industrial growth in the country. The industrialists, on the other hand, believe increasing input costs, shortage of electricity and other facilities, increase in petroleum prices and growing mark-up rates are the factors contributing to slow growth in large scale manufacturing sector. "It is very difficult to be competitive in a situation when you have to meet the cost of production and you have to face very aggressive competitors like China and India," says Mukhtar Aslam, an industrial at Korangi industrial area in Karachi. He says due to high cost of labour and raw materials, Pakistani exporters are losing their share in the international market. All these roadblocks do not mean that Pakistan is facing a bleak economic future. Even though the economic growth decreased in 2005-06 as compared to the previous year, the growth target for the current fiscal year (2006-07) -- set at 7 per cent -- is quite achievable, only if nature shows some mercy. Though some analysts fret that the heavy monsoon rains might have had a negative impact on the cotton crop in many areas of Sindh and southern Punjab, others are upbeat that the rains will have a very positive impact on the sugarcane crop. The nature in a way has already given back what it seems to have taken away. Federal
loans of federal loads 'Obtain soft loans to off-load the expensive ones' is the policy that the cash-starved Muttahida Majlis-e-Amal (MMA) government in the Frontier has adopted to overcome its financial burden. This is because these loans make the provincial government to pay high mark-up to the federal government on the borrowed money. The provincial government, as claimed by a provincial minister, is looking to generate its own resources so that it does not remain dependent only on the money given by the federal government and foreign donors. Though local and provincial banks are offering loans to the provincial government at 3 per cent to 6 per cent mark-up, the authorities in Peshawar are paying up to 16 per cent as interest on the loans obtained from the federal government. These loans now stand at a staggering Rs 70 billion. Realising that the offer being made by the banks may help it save billions of rupees, the Frontier government has put up a case before the federal government that it is allowed to retire its expensive debts and save money on paying the mark-up. But it is yet to get any positive response from the Center. The Frontier government claims it will save Rs 20 billion in the coming few years if it is allowed to adjust its loans before the deadline for paying them arrives. This, the provincial authorities say, will help them allocate more money in the annual budget for development projects. "We have requested the Center to allow us to prematurely retire our loans which have quite high interest rate of 10 per cent to 14 per cent. We are being offered loans by different local banks at a mark-up rate ranging between 3 per cent and 7 per cent," Asif Iqbal Daudzai, spokesperson for the provincial government, tells The News on Sunday. Asif, who is also the provincial minister for information and public relations, claims the federal government is reluctant to accept the request. Though the premature payment of federal loans will save the province a huge amount of money, the government move to obtain more loans to do so is being criticized by many people who believe the government should rather go for generating resources instead of looking for other lenders. The government claims it is already exploring this option. "We are a financially stricken province and we always face problems in presenting our annual budget. But we have adopted some policies during the past few years due to which we hope the situation will improve," says Asif Iqbal. He claims that the provincial government has provided some incentives to the agricultural, industrial and power sectors. He also says that 121 industrial units with Rs 26 billion of investment have been set up in the province under the current administration and soon the Frontier will get Rs 1.5 billion as gas royalty from the central government. "We have also strongly presented our case on profit being earned on the hydro-electric power being generated in the province. If we get even 50 per cent of what we claim, our economical condition will get a sudden boost." Given the geographical distribution of power generation in the country, his optimism is not all that out of place. "Pakistan generates 40,000 megawatts of electricity out of which 25,000 megawatts are produced in the Frontier," says the young provincial minister. Asif also claims that the provincial government has decided not to obtain any fresh loan. All those expensive loans for which the province is suffering were obtained by the previous governments, he adds. "I am not sure about the mark-up but the total amount that we owe to the federal government is around Rs 70 billion, though we have paid back around Rs 10 billion during the past few months." Haji Mohammad Adeel, a former finance minister of the province, believes the government has no other resources to off-load the expensive loans but to depend on local banks for more loans. "The province is generating only five per cent of its annual budget from its own resources. For the rest, it depends upon its share in the federal divisible pool, sales tax and other federal sources," says Adeel. He, however, claims that it is not just the Frontier but all the other provinces which have adopted the strategy of prematurely retiring the expensive loans so that the money being spent on mark-up money is utilised on development projects. "There are some loans which involve 15 per cent to 18 per cent mark-up and we have to pay huge amount of money every year only to pay this mark-up. If the banks are offering loans at much lower interest rates, then why not avail the opportunity and get rid of costly debts?" But he is not sure if local banks in the province, especially the Bank of Khyber, has enough money to issue loans which can retire all or at least most of the money owed by the provincial government. "The strategy also involves some other factors. For instance, only long term loans have low mark-up but those obtained for short term always have high mark-up. Similarly, the premature retirement of loans also requires the consent of federal government. I have heard the Center is already reluctant to adjust the huge amount of loans already returned by the province well before the due date," Adeel points out. But he also notes that there are some loans on which the provincial governments should have as much right as the federal government when it comes to their rescheduling and other relaxations on their terms and conditions, provided by the foreign donors after 9/11. "If foreign donors have given relaxation to the federal government, its advantage should also be passed on to the provinces which desperately need it." Abdul Akbar Khan, a senior member of the joint opposition in the North West Frontier Province Assembly, lashes out at the federal government for providing expensive loans to the provinces at mark-up much higher than that being charged by foreign donors. "The federal government should convert its loans into donation, realising the financial condition of the province. If that's not possible then it should at least withdraw the high mark-up to provide relief to the federating units," says Akbar Khan, who is also the parliamentary party leader of Pakistan Peoples Party Parliamentarians (PPPP) in the NWFP Assembly. Despite being a member of the opposition, he favours the steps taken by the provincial government for getting rid of expensive loans. "It does not matter whether we are in opposition or in government. Our priority is to work for the rights of the province and its people. We will support every step of the government which seeks to put right the injustice being done by the federal government." But he apprehends the provincial government may not be able to take advantage of lower mark-up rate being offered by the local banks because interest rates are already shooting up ... again.
Some people, when they win an election and get into government, believe in keeping a clean desk, with not a paper or file in sight. A clean desk gives a sense of relief and a plan for impending disaster. Cynics say nothing matters very much in life, and very few things matter at all. Even the most cynical, however, would agree that how a country chooses to govern itself does matter. It matters, for instance, that the Constitution should not be chopped and changed until it bears little resemblance to the original. You cannot have a basic law if its very basics keep being altered. Governments expand to absorb revenue. This is equally true of Pakistan, where governments have been living beyond their means for years. Now, we're being told that under the new fiscal responsibility law, governments will have to cut back on spending to ensure that they don't continue running up huge deficits. I'll believe that when I see it happening. The thing about such formulas is that they fail to take into account the fudge factor. In the days of the first Benazir government, for instance, the Ministry of Finance regularly overstated the percentage by which the budget deficit had been reduced. Projected revenue was also regularly overstated in budget estimates, forcing the government to resort to utility price hikes and other levies -- the so-called 'mini budgets' -- to make up the shortfall. Every government since the 1980s has resorted to this mini budget device, in one form or another. Accounting nomenclatures may have changed, but the name of the political game is the same. When the Nawaz Sharif government took over from the Benazir government, it said it had inherited an empty treasury. When the second Benazir government took over from the Nawaz government, it, too, said it had inherited an empty treasury. This has continued to be the pattern, with every incoming government saying it has inherited an empty treasury. If a new government comes in following next year's elections, the incoming crowd will doubtless invoke the empty-treasury syndrome again. The world gets better every day, then worse again in the evening. "Saarc for a better tomorrow" read banners put up by the Capital Development Authority on the streets of Islamabad in December 1988 on the occasion of a summit meeting of the Saarc countries. Needless to say, there were no banners reading: "Saarc for a better today". But it's more focus on better todays that we need if our tomorrows are to have any chance of getting better. We speak of unemployment as though work were a four-letter word. Work is a four-letter word, of course, but not that kind of four-letter word. Bureaucrats, however, operate on the principle that if you're good, you'll be assigned all the work, but if you're really good, you'll get out of doing it. That's not the kind of bureaucracy we need. Bureaucrats spend most of their time in meetings. Call any bureaucrat in Islamabad, and his PA is likely to tell you: "Sahib is in a meeting." But meetings, no matter how high-level, are no substitute for progress. The only alternative to perseverance is failure. Government inflation is always worse than statistics indicate; finance officials and central bankers are biased toward inflation when the money unit is weak. The purchasing power of currency is always lost far more rapidly than it is ever regained. In fact, in our case, it has never been regained. In 1962, petrol cost Rs 3 per gallon; today, it costs 75 times as much. The same sort of phenomenal increases are seen in the prices of goods and services across the board. Incomes, however, have not gone up by anything even remotely like as much. Massive government expenditures obscure the evidence of bad judgment. The Bolan Medical College complex in Quetta was originally budgeted at Rs 70 million when construction began in the mid-1970s. It eventually ended up costing more than Rs 700 million. The Jinnah Terminal at Karachi Airport was budgeted at Rs 2,500 million when construction began in the early 1990s. It ended up costing more than Rs 5,500 million. If the container terminal at Port Qasim had been built when it was first proposed in the early 1980s, it would have cost Rs 350 million. By the time it was built in the late 1990s, the cost had soared to Rs 2,500 million. Examples of such massive cost overruns have now become legion in this country, where hardly any big government project comes within the original estimate or completion schedule. Completion delays have become the order of the day, and every delay means more money down the drain. But this was not always the case. In the 1950s and 1960s, many major government projects were completed on time and within budget. The most noteworthy example of this was the Indus Basin Project. On the signing of the Indus Basin Treaty between Pakistan and India in 1960, the Water and Power Development Authority was entrusted with the work of constructing sixteen components of the mammoth Indus Basin Project (IBP), including two dams at Mangla and Tarbela, five barrages, one gated siphon and eight inter-river link canals to transfer water from the western rivers to the eastern rivers in Punjab. In addition to the IBP components, Wapda also built four other dams, one barrage and one lift-irrigation scheme. These projects, including the $ 1.4 billion Tarbela Dam and the $ 400 million Mangla Dam, were all built without any cost overruns or completion delays, proving that Pakistan could build even mega projects in a timely and cost-effective manner. If we could do it then, we should also be able to do it today. We certainly have more technical skills available in the country today than we had thirty or forty years ago. We also have more avenues of funding open to us today than we had back then. The key to the success of any such enterprise, however, is sincerity and integrity, and a can-do spirit. When Egypt's relations with the United States soured back in the mid 1950s, the US government pulled out of helping Egypt to build the proposed Aswan Dam. The Soviet Union had not yet offered to help, and Egypt was very worried about how the mammoth project would get built. That was when a senior Pakistani engineer living in Karachi said, "Why is Egypt worried? We'll build the dam for them." As it turned out, Egypt didn't need our help because the Soviets eventually came in and built the project. Yet the words of that Pakistani engineer sum up the kind of can-do spirit we need in this country today.
Ghinwa Bhutto, the
Lebanon-born widow of Mir Murtaza Bhutto, assumed the leadership of Pakistan When Ghinwa became the chairperson of PPP-SB, she set for herself two main tasks: Bring her husband's killer to justice and to empower common people of Pakistan. In 1997, she fought elections, unsuccessfully, against her mother-in-law Nusrat Bhutto. While in 2002, the Election Commission of Pakistan disallowed her to be an election candidate for not possessing the required minimum academic qualification. She calls herself a die-hard leftist and believes in socialism as the solution for all the problems the world is facing these days. A staunch anti-imperialist, she sees herself as a binding factor between people living in different regions and countries. Last week, The News on Sunday had the opportunity to talk to her while she was in Lahore. She talked candidly and at length about a number of national and international issues. The excerpts follow: The News on Sunday: What made you enter Pakistani politics, given the fact that you had virtually no political experience before Mir Murtaza's death? Ghinwa Bhutto: It was a sense of duty that forced me to be a part of Pakistani politics. It was a personal duty as well as a public one. Imperialism has declared a global war against people whether it is in Pakistan, Iraq, Afghanistan, Palestine or Lebanon. I believe people can defeat imperialism only if they can realise their power. I chose politics to make people aware of their power. Also, I did not want to take away the option from my children to be a part of Pakistani politics if and when they wanted. Though it will be totally their own decision, but if I had not joined politics in Pakistan, they would have been left without the option of joining politics as career. TNS: Are these the only reasons for your entry into politics? Or was it Mir Murtaza's sudden death that forced you to assume the mantle of a politician? GB: yes, Mir's untimely death forced me into Pakistani politics. Before that tragic incident I never even thought of joining politics. But after his death, I vowed to fulfil the mission left incomplete by my husband. I did not want the forces that had killed Murtaza to believe that they had won. TNS: What was Mir Murtaza's mission? GB: It was Mir Murtaza's dream to empower people in Pakistan in the real sense of the world. TNS: How do you think you will be able to realise this dream? GB: We will be doing it by strengthening people's movements and trade unions and by mobilising people. We believe it cannot be realised through electoral politics alone which has failed to empower people. If elections are the only option available to the people of Pakistan, then we will always have same people in the government. It is in this context that we should see the impact of election-based politics. It's because of this that most of the political movements in Pakistan have resulted in strengthening military dictatorships instead of empowering people. But politicians in Pakistan are not ready to learn from their mistakes. Democracy does not just lie in holding elections. It is a process in which people are accorded priority in the decision-making process. But here in Pakistan, people are important only as far as voting is concerned. After the elections they are given no importance. Politicians who make promises during their election campaigns do not even bother to fulfil them. I think the best possible solution lies in strengthening the unions in every field of polity and in mobilising common people. TNS: But election results and a number of recent political events have shown that people have very little interest in politics. How do you plan to overcome this political apathy? How will you mobilise people? GB: Apparently it seems very difficult to mobilise people in Pakistan but if you look at the history of political movements, you will find out that all big movements became possible when a combination of factors got together. A movement needs a right kind of leader at the right moment and at the right place. I think the present situation in Pakistan as well as in the rest of the world is very critical. It's the right moment for launching a people's movement. The gap between the rich and the poor is increasing, people don't enjoy any political rights, a dictatorial regime headed by a general is making a mockery of the democratic and constitutional principles, the province's rights are being trampled upon. In the international context a single superpower is using all its military might to attack people anywhere it likes. Since 9/11, America has been trying to colonise people through force. It has attacked a number of countries, including Iraq and Afghanistan, though it's suffering one defeat after the other in these countries. It has not been able to accomplish the tasks it has set for itself in Iraq or in Afghanistan. America's failure has turned it mad and that's why it's targeting innocent people by itself or through its agents like Israel. All this makes for the ingredients of a successful people's movement. The only thing that is left is the right person at the right place. Already we have seen it happen in Lebanon where Hizbullah has been able to defeat Israel because it enjoyed overwhelming support by the people in Lebanon. Hamas has done the same thing in Palestine. TNS: But analogy of Hizbullah and Hamas seem a bit misplaced. Both the organisations are hardliner Islamic militias. Their success does not mean that a party like yours, which has an avowedly leftist, socialist ideology, will be able to follow in their footsteps... GB: Though there is an impression that Hizbullah and Hamas are hardliner religious parties, in fact they are not. They are real representatives of the people. In fact, it is the circumstances that have forced them to use religion as a means to mobilise people. Do you think that Hizbullah has been able to defeat Israeli only through the support of Shias in Lebanon? No, the Shias do not make even half of the population of Lebanon. It is impossible for them to win a war against as big a military force as Israel without the help of all the people in Lebanon. Even Christians in Lebanon support Hizbullah which unlike Taliban does not want to impose its religious ideology on others. Hizbullah is a nationalist force, not a religious one. Even Ismail Haniyyeh (a senior leader of Hamas) says that they are not fighting against Israel because the people living there are Jews. But he says they are fighting against the Zionists. They are fighting against Israel because Palestinians living in Gaza and West Bank are left with no other option to free their homeland. Hezbollah or Hamas are not religious parties, they are nationalist parties fighting for the rights of their people. In this sense, their ideology is as socialist as that of PPP-SB. In Pakistan, we are facing the same situation as the Lebanese and Palestinians. Our rulers should realise that if people are not allowed to fight for their rights on political grounds, the only option left for them is violence. TNS: Coming back to Pakistani politics, how do you see the present situation in the country? GB: The present situation in Pakistan shows that (President Pervez) Musharraf is unable to tackle things politically. He is very nervous and the killing of Bugti is a clear sign of his nervousness. The killing defies any logical reasoning. It is a decision made because of confusion and miscalculation. In fact his boss America, which brought him into power, is also feeling insecure which is forcing General Musharraf to make decisions which make no logical sense. Why should he choose to kill Bugti, if he can talk to Taliban in Waziristan? In fact, you need political will to tackle issues politically, through the ways the constitution provides you. But dictators cannot develop this will. TNS: The government claims it has initiated scores of development projects, especially in Balochistan, and is also constructing a network of highways there. How much do you think is all this a manifestation of the government's earnestness to solve people's issues? GB: It is correct that infrastructure and big development projects are very important but do keep in mind that people cannot eat roads. At the same time, spending on highways and big development projects shows that the government has wrong priorities. If you spend on highways, you cannot spend on education and health which are more important than having big highways in country. Also, the current process of development ignores people's own priorities. People should have the right to decide which development projects they want to spend money and which ones they don't want. Development without empowerment cannot pacify people's feelings. TNS: Do you think that the restoration of the 1973 constitution in its original form will help empower the people and thereby resolve all the different issues the country is facing these days? GB: Restoring the 1973 constitution is not enough in the present situation. The constitution was made some 33 years ago, and it suited the circumstances of those days very well. We are of the view point that it should be amended according to the present needs of the country. If we wish to save the federation, the provinces should be given maximum autonomy, not just politically and administratively but also financially. They should not be dependent on the Centre for funding. They should be able to collect their own revenues. Also, there should be a real devolution of power and the local governments should have all the administrative and financial authority without having to look at the central and the provincial governments for solving people's issues. TNS: What do you think of the opposition's politics? Will it result in the empowerment of people, especially with the signing of the Charter of Democracy by two Pakistan People's Party, Pakistan Muslim League (Nawaz) and other components of the ALliance for the Restoration of Democracy (ARD). GB: The Charter of Democracy is just an eyewash. It has nothing to do with common people. Why they (Benazir and Nawaz Sharif) feel the need for a Charter of Democracy when they are out of power? In fact, both of them want to ensure their own survival than being interested in people's well being. Now they are talking about ensuring that no armyman takes over power in the future. What about those who have already done so? Will they (Benazir and Nawaz Sharif) bring them to book as well? The charter can change nothing. It is yet another document supported and sponsored by the United States. The change that Pakistan requires to become a genuine people's democracy will not come through some type of charter. It will come through the support of the people which at present both Benazir and Nawaz Sharif do not have. TNS: How can you claim that people are no longer more supporting Benazir Bhutto? GB: Ten years ago she had much more popular support than she has now but she failed to deliver when she came to power. If she was unable to do something for the people then, how is it possible that she will be able to deliver now? In fact, she does not have the courage to take the plunge. She is always afraid of taking bold decisions. She instead makes compromises to secure her position. Without the ability to take the initiative, it does not matter how much support a leader enjoys. TNS: But Benazir enjoyed rode to power on the wave of an enormous popular support in 1988... GB: Benazir basically does not have political sense. She is unable to comprehend the extent of popular support that she enjoyed then. Given her popularity, she could have negotiated her entry into government from a position of strength, Instead she chose to cut secret deals with the intelligence agencies. TNS: Are your differences with Benazir only political? GB: Of course, these differences are more political than personal. I am a die hard anti-imperialist. I hate America's imperialistic policies. Benazir is totally different. She loves American policies. She always work on the lines provided to her by the Americans. Her politics directly or indirectly always supports imperialism. TNS: How do you see Benazir's role in Mir Murtaza Bhutto's death? GB: She issued the licence to kill Mir Murtaza Bhutto. Is it possible that an operation to kill the brother of the prime minister, who is also a provincial assembly member, is conducted without the prior permission from the top? Everybody knew that the police were not happy with Murtaza after he went into police station looking for Ali Sonara (a senior member of his party). Those who allowed the police to fire at Murtaza's boys should have understood that it could result any untoward incident. TNS: Despite talking so vehemently about people's power, why have you failed so far in translating your ideas into solid political support? GB: We are unable to gain political power because Pakistan has been plagued by a political culture that totally rely on the use of power and money. It's a culture started by Zia and both Benazir and Nawaz Sharif have follow in his footsteps to let it continue. We have refused to use money as a means to gain our political motives. We in Pakistan need to recreate a political culture that is based on ideology. TNS: How do you see your own role in Pakistani politics? GB: I see for myself a cosmopolitan role, a global role which brings people living in different regions of the world closer together. TNS: How do you see the future of Mir Murtaza's children? Do you think that Fatima and Zulifkar Junior have a future in Pakistani politics? GB: Yes, certainly they have a future in Pakistani politics but, that is, if they want to become politicians. The decision is totally theirs. All I can ensure is that they don't feel that I have taken this option away from them.
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