DWS, Sunday 30th June to Saturday 06th July 2013

	DWS, Sunday 30th June to Saturday 6th July 2013
The DAWN Wire Service (DWS) is a free weekly news-service from Pakistan's largest English language newspaper, the daily DAWN. DWS offers news, analysis and features of particular interest to the Pakistani Community on the Internet. DWS is sent by e-mail every Saturday. What’s Inside? National News | Editorial | Columns & Articles	For suggestions and comments: Email: webmaster@dawn.com Website: http://dawn.com Fax: +92(21) 35693995 Please send all Editorial submissions and Letters to the Editor to: letters@dawn.com
NATIONAL NEWS
Terms to be worked out tomorrow: Dar: Talks for IMF loan in crucial phase By Mubarak Zeb Khan ISLAMABAD, June 29: Finance Minister Ishaq Dar said on Saturday that the government had entered into a crucial phase of policy-level dialogue with the International Monetary Fund (IMF) to strike a deal for a fresh loan package.. The country’s economic team, headed by Mr Dar, held the first round of talks with IMF officials on Saturday to explain the measures taken in the budget for 2013-14 to revive economic growth and to brief them about the state of economy during the previous financial year. “We are expecting that Pakistan and the fund’s officials will work out details of the fresh loan on Monday,” the minister told Dawn. “Whatever the size of the loan package, it will have to be negotiated on Pakistan’s terms,” he said. Since Pakistan has to repay $3 billion to the IMF during the next financial year, the already dwindling foreign exchange reserves will certainly come under strain. “We need loans only to repay the previous government’s debt liabilities,” Mr Dar claimed, adding that his economic team was capable of steering the economy out of crisis over the next couple of years. He said Pakistan had no option but to go for the IMF loan. He also ruled out reports about a ‘plan B’, saying neither can dollars be printed in Pakistan nor could these be raised from other sources to repay the fund’s instalments which will become due soon. The minister did not divulge details of his home-grown plan to spur economic growth, but said it would help to run the economy over the next few months. The IMF team is in Islamabad these days in order to make an assessment of the economy as part of consultations before finalisation of any package. “It is the right of the fund to review Pakistan’s economy” and the job had been done, Ishaq Dar said. The visit is also a part of the fund’s post-programme monitoring. Under the new programme, both sides will agree on actionable plans in the next few days which will become a part of the Letter of Intent (LoI). The IMF’s assessment of Pakistan’s economy will also become a baseline of comfort for multilateral — Asian Development Bank and World Bank — or bilateral donors for giving any loan to the country. A positive assessment will facilitate loans. The IMF had held consultations with Pakistan in Dubai last week, but the government asked the agency to send its representatives to Islamabad for further negotiations. Finance Minister Dar said the “Article IV consultation” was over and now the discussion was being held on the new loan package. The fund’s representatives have held a series of meetings with officials of the Federal Board of Revenue, State Bank, the economic affairs division and the finance division. “I have full support of and confidence in the competence of my team,” Mr Dar said. However, he added, he would soon appoint a new chairman for the FBR. “I will bring a competent and honest man to head the country’s top tax machinery,” he said, adding that the contract of the incumbent chairman would end on Sunday. The finance minister said a task force would be constituted soon to work on a fast track basis for expanding the narrow tax base. “We will increase the tax-to-GDP ratio over the coming years.” Defending his taxation measures, he said the government had taken bold, politically unpopular decisions to lift the economy from the quagmire it was stuck in. He said Pakistan needed the loan because of depletion in foreign exchange reserves with the State Bank. The current reserves are not sufficient for meeting the import bill for three months _ a minimum requirement for a stable economy. The country’s average monthly import bill is $4bn.
Endgame in Afghanistan: Zardari asks West to heed ‘legitimate concerns’ By Baqir Sajjad Syed ISLAMABAD, June 29: President Asif Ali Zardari has called upon Western countries to accommodate the “legitimate concerns” of all stakeholders in negotiations on the future of Afghanistan as they strive to salvage the troubled Doha process.. The president conveyed the worries to British Prime Minister David Cameron, who arrived here on a two-day visit on Saturday. Mr Cameron will hold extensive discussions with the Pakistani leadership over the state of bilateral relations and the Afghan peace process. While welcoming Western efforts for rescuing the Doha process, President Zardari recalled Pakistan’s “constructive approach…towards ensuring durable peace in Afghanistan” and called for taking “into account legitimate concerns of all the stakeholders”. During the talks, Pakistan and the United Kingdom will evaluate the progress made in the Enhanced Strategic Dialogue since 2011. The focus of his discussions will naturally be on Afghanistan because of developments in the peace initiative that saw the Taliban opening their political office in Doha, Qatar. The British government has been closely coordinating its efforts for peace in Afghanistan with Pakistan and has held three trilateral summits with Pakistani and Afghan leaders. The British prime minister flew into Islamabad from Kabul, where he had gone to reassure Afghan President Hamid Karzai of the international community’s support in days ahead. This is Mr Cameron’s second visit to Islamabad, but the first after the PML-N government was installed earlier this month. The British prime minister conveyed Afghan government’s willingness to talk with the Taliban and get past the controversy at the opening of their office in Qatar. A source, who attended the meeting, said that Mr Cameron encouraged Pakistan to continue its role for promoting peace and reconciliation in Afghanistan by using its clout with the Taliban. Pakistan was credited for contributing to the opening of the Taliban office in Doha and is now trying to coax the insurgency leadership to return to the agreement on holding talks with the US and Afghan High Peace Council after the row over the name of the Doha office and hoisting of the flag. The two controversial signs have been removed by the Qatari government, but the Taliban insist that they have not backed down on the matter. Pakistani strategists have concerns about the post-2014 Afghanistan, which they believe will have serious implications for Pakistan’s security. They feel perturbed over the US indication of giving India a bigger role in Afghanistan. BILATERAL TIES: President Zardari expressed satisfaction that the Pak-UK Enhanced Strategic Dialogue had institutionalised the bilateral consultation process in all areas of cooperation. He called for expansion of the scope of UK foreign direct investment in the fields of energy, infrastructure development, agriculture, agro-based industry and mining. Mr Cameron will meet Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif on Sunday.
Minister for power to visit India ISLAMABAD, June 29: Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif said on Saturday that he had decided to send the water and power minister to India to explore potential areas of cooperation between the two countries.. Speaking to members of the Pak-India Joint Business Council at the Prime Minister’s Office, he said: “We are facing acute electricity shortage and any assistance in the power sector will help us in addressing the problem.” Expressing satisfaction over the visit of Indian businessmen under the auspices of the council, Mr Sharif said: “It is reassuring that both sides are sitting together and talking to each other.” He said his government was pursuing investor-friendly policies. The prime minister said it had always been his endeavour to bring the two countries closer to each other so that they could benefit from each other’s experience. He said his party had pursued a policy of friendship and cooperation with India during its previous stints in power and the same policy of amity would be followed this time to promote peace and prosperity in the region. Indian members of the council informed the prime minister that India could be of great help in providing support in medical science, higher education and technical and vocational training. The meeting discussed non-discriminatory market access and agreed that the industrialists of both countries should be provided a level-playing field.—Amin Ahmed
Rangers search jail for clues to attack on judge By Imran Ayub KARACHI, June 29: A heavy contingent of the Rangers seized six cell phones in a search operation carried out inside the central jail here on Saturday after leads found during investigation into Wednesday’s bomb attack on Justice Maqbool Baqar of the Sindh High Court.. The jail authorities insisted on calling it a routine operation, but over 200 paramilitary soldiers were deployed to search every nook and corner of the facility during the hours-long exercise. “It’s a routine operation which was completed successfully,” IG Prisons Nusrat Mangan told reporters. “Some 200 Rangers personnel took part in the operation. They searched every barrack. We have seized six cell phones and other stuff not allowed in prisons.” He did not explain the participation of Rangers in the operation. On June 18, a search operation by the prison police had led to recovery of nearly 450 cell phones and drugs from prisoners. “Prison is not a place where someone is investigated. There is a defined mandate for jails. We keep carrying out such operations only to keep checks and maintain jail discipline,” the IG said. Another worrisome development of late was a twin hand-grenade attack on the central jail that sowed fear in the densely-populated adjoining localities, only days after the authorities decided to shift ‘high-profile’ inmates to other cities. According to sources, the fresh operation was most probably linked with investigations into the attack on Justice Baqar. Brief details of the search operation shared by Rangers Col Shafiq Niazi suggested some crucial development related to the case. When specifically asked about the link, he said: ‘Not exactly, but it could be one of the reasons.” “We conducted the operation along with jail police and administration on directives of the Sindh home department,” the Rangers spokesman said. “There were some clues and findings that led to this operation — the first carried out by the Rangers in the recent past.” The sources said the police during the investigation had reached the conclusion that one phone call linked to planning of the attack on the judge had originated from the prison. “The officials suspect one of the six phones found in the prison was used for that call. The phones will be analysed technically and schematically to help set the course of the probe,” they said.
Rs40bn loss: SC takes notice of report on EOBI By Nasir Iqbal ISLAMABAD, June 29: The Supreme Court on Saturday took notice of reports that the Employees Old Age Benefits Institution (EOBI) had caused a loss of Rs 40 billion to the exchequer by investing huge amounts in private sector projects without approval of its board of trustees (BoT). Chief Justice Iftikhar Muhammad Chaudhry took the action on a note sent by the court registrar, based on a TV programme aired on June 27, suggesting that the institution had violated article 9 (security of person) and 24 (protection of property rights) of the constitution. The court issued notices to Attorney General Muneer A Malik, Director General of the Federal Investigation Agency Saud Mirza, the secretary of the ministry of human resources development, the chairman of the EOBI and its former chairman Zafar Iqbal Gondal to appear before the court on July 1. The note mentioned the following schemes: •Land purchase at exorbitant rate: a deal with the Defence Housing Authority to purchase a plot of land for Rs16bn, although its market value was a mere Rs1bn. The deal caused a loss of Rs15bn to the EOBI. The payment was made in spite of the issuance of a stay order by the Lahore High Court against the sale of the land. Following the deal, it initiated contempt proceedings which are still pending in the court. The director general (investment) of the EOBI was arrested in the scam. According to the Transparency International, a business tycoon was said to be involved in the deal. •Purchase of a plaza in Islamabad: The EOBI purchased the Crown Plaza for Rs1.2 billion, though its actual price was Rs550mn, causing a loss of Rs650m. A case relating to the purchase is pending in the high court. Surprisingly, the sale agreement was signed by an unauthorised person. •Purchase of two Prado jeeps for personal use: The then chairman, Gondal, bought two 4,300cc jeeps for personal use, causing a loss of Rs41m to the organisation, though government policy allowed purchase of 1,300cc cars only. •Purchase of controversial land in Sukkur: Due to alleged pressure put by a PPP Senator, two disputed plots of 40 kanals were purchased in Sukkar for Rs120m, an amount much above the market value. The sale agreement was made with a person who was not the sole owner of the property which belonged to three persons. Despite the payment, the land is still under occupation of land mafia. •Development of a cricket ground: A huge amount of about Rs70m was spent on the development of a cricket ground in Islamabad, which did not generate any income. •Purchase of seven plots from the CDA: It was alleged in the TV report that contrary to an order of the LHC, seven plots of land were purchased from the Capital Development Authority for Rs20m. •Purchase of land in Lahore area: Allegedly, 40 kanals and16 marlas land was purchased in Sehjpal village near Lahore through an unknown company for Rs1.4b, an amount 300 per cent above its market value. The former chairman is accused of having received commission and kickbacks over the deal. •Purchase of four floors of a plaza/hotel: Allegedly the former chairman purchased for the EOBI four floors of a plaza/hotel of a close relative for Rs250m and its parking area for Rs320m and spent Rs50m on its renovation. No revenue was generated from the property which was worth Rs100m according to its market value. •Construction of a seven star hotel outside Lahore airport: Work on the project began in 2005 at an estimated cost of Rs4bn to 5bn. Later, Gondal stopped the construction, started “digging a well” at the site and spent Rs550m on it. The matter went to court which imposed heavy fine on the EOBI. The episode caused Rs9bn to the organisation. •Construction of a motorway: Allegedly, the former chairman involved the institution in bidding of Rs6 billion for the construction of M-9 Motorway contrary to rules which do not allow any risky investment. •Purchase of land near Karachi airport: Allegedly, the former chairman and others purchased for the EOBI the land having market value of Rs200m for Rs2bn from a person other than the owner. The deal caused huge loss to the EOBI.
Pakistani gets jail for ATM fraud in US NEW YORK, June 29: A Pakistani man who participated in two multi-million-dollar ATM heists targeting debit card processors was sentenced in Brooklyn federal court on Friday to 18 months in prison.. Imran Elahi pleaded guilty last year to access device fraud and conspiracy, largely for his involvement in two precision strikes: a $9m heist in 2008 involving RBS WorldPay and a $14m hack in 2011 against Fidelity Information Services. The cyber crimes were strikingly similar to the $45m global ATM heist that Brooklyn federal prosecutors revealed last month, when US Attorney Loretta Lynch charged eight defendants with using stolen debit cards at thousands of ATMs worldwide over a period of hours in a coordinated attack. That effort involved MasterCard Inc prepaid debit cards issued by Bank of Muscat of Oman and National Bank of Ras Al Khaimah PSC. Prosecutors praised Elahi for waiving extradition upon his arrest in the Netherlands last May and agreeing to cooperate with the government.—Reuters
Committee to propose steps for Aafia’s repatriation By Iftikhar A. Khan ISLAMABAD, June 29: Federal Minister for Interior Chaudhry Nisar Ali Khan has formed a committee to make recommendations to the cabinet to facilitate Dr Aafia Siddiqui’s repatriation to Pakistan, said an official announcement on Saturday.. However, the composition of the committee remains a mystery with even the interior ministry’s spokesman unaware about it. “I am not aware of the composition and do not even know if such a committee has been formed,” Interior Ministry spokesman Umar Hameed said. Dr Siddiqui, declared by the Federal Bureau of Investigation as the most wanted female terrorist facilitator, is serving an 86-year prison term in the US. Dr Siddiqui and her family have denied all allegations levelled by the US against her, including a murder attempt during her days in the US army base at Bagram, Afghanistan. Meanwhile, an official told Dawn that composition of a task force on missing persons had almost been finalised, adding a formal announcement to this effect was expected next week. The task force will prepare a list of missing persons after holding deliberations with security agencies, their families and human rights organisations and propose ways and means for their early return. The task force will also look into the recommendations prepared by a commission on missing persons headed by retired Justice Javed Iqbal. The interior minister said the task force must be in place by next week for preparing a transparent policy in the light of the Supreme Court’s orders on the issue. He said processing of mercy petitions should be restarted and all processed cases be sent to Aiwan-i-Sadr for decision. The minister asked Gilgit-Baltistan Chief Secretary Younus Dhagha to step up investigation into the recent murder of 11 tourists at the base camp of Nanga Parbat and keep him posted about the progress.
Gwadar to benefit both Pakistan, China: PM By Our Reporter ISLAMABAD, June 29: Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif has said that friendship with China is and will remain the cornerstone of Pakistan’s foreign policy and it has been a factor for peace and stability in the region.. Speaking to Chinese Ambassador Sun Weidong, who called on him at the Prime Minister’s Office on Saturday, Mr Sharif said he was looking forward to his visit to China next week which he hoped would help strengthen bilateral ties. The premier said he had set up a high-level task force headed by a federal minister to explore avenues for enhancing economic cooperation with China. He conveyed his deepest condolences to the government and people of China and the bereaved families of those Chinese tourists who had been killed in Gilgit-Baltistan in a recent militant attack. The perpetrators would be brought to justice, he assured the ambassador. APP adds: Mr Sharif said that Gwadar Port project was the hallmark of Pakistan-China strategic partnership which would bring economic dividends for both countries. He expressed satisfaction that Pakistan’s and China’s shared vision of establishing a ‘long-term economic corridor’ was moving forward. He said Pakistan was committed to taking bilateral relations with China to higher levels and it greatly valued China’s economic support and cooperation.
Improving ties with India high on Nawaz’s agenda: Dobbins By Anwar Iqbal WASHINGTON, June 29: Improvement in relations with India is fairly high on Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif’s list of priorities, says US envoy James Dobbins. . Ambassador Dobbins is America’s special representative for Afghanistan and Pakistan who visited South Asia recently for talks on a new US initiative for holding direct talks with the Taliban. He visited New Delhi, Kabul and Islamabad where he discussed the latest peace initiative with Prime Minister Sharif and other leaders of his government. A transcript, released on Saturday, quoted Ambassador Dobbins as telling journalists in New Delhi that any improvement in India-Pakistan ties “will almost automatically improve Afghanistan’s situation.” The US envoy said he had met Mr Sharif twice in little more than two weeks, first shortly before he became prime minister and then again during his recent trip to the region. “My sense is that an improvement in relations with India is fairly high on his list of priorities,” Ambassador Dobbins said, noting that the prime minister had an overwhelming set of problems facing him, most immediately economic pressures. “But on the external front, and I think he understands that internal and external affairs are related, my sense is that improving relations with India seems to be his priority.” Ambassador Dobbins said the United States would engage the Taliban even if they continued to attack US-led forces in Afghanistan because “you don’t hold peace talks after the war, you hold peace talks during wars.” He added: “The Taliban haven’t asked us to stop fighting and we don’t expect them to stop fighting just because they’re talking.” The objective of the talks, he said, was a reduction in violence and ultimately an enduring peace. But the US was not naïve enough to think that this would happen quickly and it was certainly not a precondition for just talking.
‘Brain-eating’ amoeba claims another life By Our Staff Reporter KARACHI, June 29: The ‘brain-eating’ amoeba, a waterborne organism, has claimed another life here. . Executive District Officer for health Imdadullah Siddiqui said 40-year-old Tahir Ansari died at the Aga Khan University Hospital on Saturday. His is the third death caused by the waterborne infection in the city this year. Mr Ansari, a resident of Lines Area, had no swimming history, but Mr Siddiqui said he had visited a graveyard early this week where he washed his hands and face with water from a reservoir. The victim was married and had three sons and a daughter. Naegleria fowleri, an amoeba found in rivers, lakes, springs, drinking water networks and poorly chlorinated swimming pools, emerged in May last year and killed 10 people till October, official records show. According to a recent report, up to 41 per cent of the water supplied to the city does not have sufficient amounts of chlorine. Of the 1,445 samples tested for chlorine, 44 had no chlorine at all, 546 had less than standard quantities of the disinfectant, and 855 were found satisfactorily chlorinated. Primary amoebic meningoencephalitis is defined in medical literature as a rare but typically fatal infection caused by Naegleria fowleri.
Quetta, Peshawar rocked by blasts: Suicide bomber kills 28 Hazara men and women By Saleem Shahid QUETTA, June 30: At least 28 men and women of Shia Hazara community were killed and 60 others injured in a suicide blast in the Aliabad area of Hazara town on Sunday night. “A suicide bomber blew himself up near a barrier close to Ali Ibn-Abu-Talib Imambargah,” DIG (Investigation) Syed Mobin Ahmed told Dawn. . The proscribed Lashkar-i-Jhangvi has claimed responsibility for the attack. A spokesman for the group who identified himself as Abubakar Siddique told a private TV channel that his group had carried out the attack in the Hazara town. At least nine women were among the dead. Sources said that an unidentified man on a bicycle tried to enter the area and when people standing near the barrier tried to stop him he blew himself up. The blast occurred at the Balkhi Chowk which is near to the Imambargah. Capital City Police Officer Mir Zubair Mehmood told reporters that prayers were being held inside the Imambargah when the blast took place. He said the target of the bomber was Imambargah but he could not reach there because people responsible for security of the Imambargah stopped him at the barrier. He said the head and parts of the bomber’s body had been found. Eyewitnesses said a large number of people, including women and children, were at the place at the time of the blast. Press photographer Saeed Ahmed told Dawn that human flesh and limbs were lying all over the place. Soon after the blast, the sources said, security personnel rushed to the blast site and cordoned off the area. They did not allow even rescue personnel to enter the area for fear of a second blast. Hazara town resounded with gunfire after the explosion. Two hand-grenades were found at the blast site which the suicide bomber reportedly carried. The injured and the bodies were taken to the Bolan Medical College Hospital and the Combined Military Hospital. Hospital sources said the death toll could rise because at least 10 of the injured were stated to be in serious condition. Several nearby buildings and vehicles parked in the area were badly damaged by the blast. This was second bomb attack in Hazara town over the past five months. The previous blast, caused by explosive in a water-tanker on Feb 16, killed about 100 people and left over 200 injured. Balochistan Governor Mohammad Khan Achakzai and Chief Minister Dr Abdul Malik Baloch condemned the blast and expressed grief over the loss of lives. They expressed sympathy with the bereaved families. Official sources at the Chief Minister’s Secretariat told this reporter that the chief minister who was in Islamabad on an official visit, decided to return to Quetta after coming to know about the attack. “The chief minister has directed officials concerned to ensure adequate medical treatment of the injured,” they said.
Quetta, Peshawar rocked by blasts: Attack on FC convoy leaves 18 civilians dead By Mohammad Ashfaq PESHAWAR, June 30: At least 18 civilians were killed and 46 injured in a car bomb attack on a convoy of the Frontier Corps in Badbher area on the outskirts of Peshawar on Sunday. . Almost all the victims were poor vendors selling fruits, vegetables and corn cobs while the others were passersby and commuters. The area was littered with parts of human limbs and flesh, vegetables and fruits. Two FC personnel suffered injuries in the blast. All the dead and most of the injured were civilians from Badbher and nearby villages of Mashokhel, Mashogagar and Sheikh Mohammadi. No group claimed responsibility for the attack till late in the night. The dead included three teenage brothers identified as Tariq, 13, Riasat, 16, and Sadararat, 18, sons of Zarmash, a resident of Badbher village, officials at the Lady Reading Hospital said. Zarmash is a daily wage worker in Saudi Arabia. The injured were taken to the Lady Reading Hospital. Peshawar Deputy Commissioner Mohammad Javed Marwat said initial reports put the death toll at 16, but it could go up because condition of some of the injured was critical. He said police were looking for the culprits in Badbher and nearby villages. Convoys of security forces have come under frequent attacks on the road linking Peshawar with Kohat in jurisdiction of Badbher and Mattani police stations. The car which caused the blast was parked in front of the local market near the Badbher police station. “Around 40kg of explosives was used in the bomb,” Abdul Haq, in-charge of the bomb disposal unit, told journalists at the blast site. He said that four to five mortar shells had been placed inside the car and detonated with a remote control. Soon after the blast, FC personnel fired in the air which created panic in the area. Former information minister Mian Iftikhar Hussain was the first politician to reach the hospital to inquire after the health of the injured. Talking to journalists, he expressed concern over the killing of civilians and said: “It is the responsibility of everyone to condemn terrorism and help victims irrespective of whether one is in the government or not.” He said the provincial government headed by Pakistan Tehreek-i-Insaf had been issuing statements about the need to hold talks with militants but the latter kept on killing innocent civilians. He said if the government was interested in holding talks it should immediately form a committee and start the process of negotiations. Later, Senior Minister Sikandar Hayat Sherpao also visited the hospital.
Prices of petrol and CNG increased By Ikram Junaidi ISLAMABAD, June 30: People suffered a double blow on Sunday as the government increased the prices of petroleum products and CNG with effect from Monday. . The price of petrol has been raised by Rs2 per litre and that of high speed diesel (HSD) by Rs2.16, according to an official of the Oil and Gas Regulatory Authority (Ogra). The petroleum ministry has also imposed an additional nine per cent GST on CNG, increasing it to 24pc. As a result, the price of CNG has gone up by Rs2.54 to Rs75.48 per kg for Region-I (Potohar, northern Punjab, Khyber Pakhtunkhwa and Balochistan) and by Rs1.85 to Rs66.75 for Region-II (central and southern Punjab and Sindh). Earlier in the day, oil marketing companies had announced an increase in prices of petrol and diesel by Rs2.66 and Rs3.66 per litre, respectively. But later a spokesman for the Ministry of Finance said the government had decided to adjust 66 paisa in petroleum levy on petrol and Rs1.50 on diesel. Ogra spokesman Afzal Bajwa told Dawn that the authority had recommended to the government to keep the prices unchanged, but the recommendation was turned down. After the adjustment in levy, the new ex-depot price of petrol will be Rs101.77 per litre, Rs2 more than the previous rate of Rs99.77, and that of HSD will be Rs106.76, Rs3 more than the earlier rate of Rs104.60. The prices of kerosene have been raised to Rs96.29 per litre from Rs93.79, light diesel to Rs92.17 from Rs89.13 and high octane blending component (HOBC) to Rs126.77 from Rs124.41. Besides the import parity price of petroleum products and profit margins of dealers and oil companies, the government charges petroleum levy at Rs14 per litre on HOBC, Rs10 on petrol, Rs8 on HSD and Rs6 on kerosene. The government has also started charging 17pc GST on sale price of petroleum products, one per cent more than the previous rate of 16pc.
Cameron calls for tough action against terrorists By Baqir Sajjad Syed ISLAMABAD, June 30: British Prime Minister David Cameron urged Pakistani leadership on Sunday to be uncompromising with terrorists and pledged more support for their counter-terrorism measures.. “This is a battle that, yes, requires tough and uncompromising security response,” Prime Minister Cameron said at a joint press conference with his Pakistani counterpart Nawaz Sharif on the lawns of PM’s House. The British prime minister was the first foreign head of government to visit Islamabad since the formation of the new government. Mr Cameron’s comments came as a large number of people died in terrorist attacks in a market on the outskirts of Peshawar, in Miramshah and Wana and Quetta. Over 40,000 people have been killed in militant violence in Pakistan since 2004 and the economic losses have been estimated at about $60 billion. About 2,500 people have been killed in terrorist attacks this year alone. In his talks with the Pakistani leadership, Mr Cameron committed to provide technical support for the new counter-terrorism policy that the PML-N government intends to develop; and equipment for dealing with improvised explosive devices, the weapon of choice for the terrorists. The UK, which is already engaged in a process of security dialogue with Pakistan, would also be helping the country bolster the security of its infrastructure in addition to sharing expertise on safeguarding sporting events. “We will stand together and conduct this fight against extremism and terrorism together,” Mr Cameron said. The British prime minister had three years ago (July 2010) sparked a serious row with Islamabad by telling an Indian audience that Pakistan would not be allowed to “look both ways” while promoting export of terrorism. But speaking alongside Nawaz Sharif on Sunday he looked to have got a deeper insight of the complexity of the issue as he suggested a host of measures that need to be undertaken in the battle against terror — countering extremism and radicalization, investing in education, tackling poverty and addressing the issues that promote extremism and radicalization. Britain is particularly interested in counter-terrorism cooperation with Islamabad because most of its share of radicalism- and terrorism-related woes has been linked to groups operating in Pakistan. Mr Sharif agreed with Mr Cameron that terrorism posed a more serious threat than ever not only to his country but also to the world. “Pakistan has suffered the most in terms of human and financial losses. We are, therefore, resolved to tackle the menace of extremism and terrorism with renewed vigour and close cooperation with our friends,” Mr Sharif noted. AFGHANISTAN: Mr Cameron asked the Pakistani prime minister to develop cooperative relationship with Afghan President Hamid Karzai to facilitate resumption of the reconciliation process that faltered because of the controversial opening of the Taliban office in Doha, Qatar. “I also welcome, Mr Prime Minister, what you’ve said about the vital importance of the relation between Pakistan and Afghanistan. I profoundly believe that a stable, prosperous, peaceful, democratic Afghanistan is in Pakistan’s interests, just as a strong, stable, peaceful, prosperous and democratic Pakistan is in Afghanistan’s interests. And I know that you and President Karzai will work together towards those ends,” he said. Before coming to Islamabad, the British prime minister had visited Kabul in an effort to convince President Karzai to agree to talks with the Taliban. Pakistan’s role in the opening of the Taliban political office in Doha was widely acknowledged by the international community. Islamabad is said to be still contributing to the process by trying to coax the Taliban to return to the process after the controversy at the opening ceremony after which the plaque of their preferred name of the office — Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan — and their flag was removed by Qatari authorities. However, Mr Karzai’s frayed ties with the Pakistani leadership are proving to be too unhelpful. The acrimony was reflected at Mr Cameron’s media interaction in Kabul, where President Karzai said: “We have reports of Pakistan making such efforts (supporting the Taliban). I don’t know what Pakistan’s benefit is in following an agenda of weak governance in Afghanistan.” Western leaders believe that improved relations between Mr Karzai and Pakistani leaders could greatly facilitate the troubled peace process. Prime Minister Cameron had earlier this year hosted a summit with President Zardari and President Karzai at Chequers to improve ties between the two sides. The summit, which was the third such event hosted by the British prime minister, was attended by the military and intelligence leadership of both sides. But, British officials now agree that Chequers failed to achieve its objectives with Pak-Afghan relationship dipping to new lows. At Sunday’s press conference, Mr Sharif said he valued the British efforts for a rapprochement with Mr Karzai. “I have assured Prime Minister Cameron of our firm resolve to promote the shared objective of a peaceful and stable Afghanistan,” he said. TRADE: The two countries agreed to an upward revision of the bilateral trade target to £3 billion by 2015. They had earlier committed to a target of £2.5bn. The British High Commission noted in a statement that the trade target revision signalled UK’s confidence in Pakistan’s economic future.
Altaf takes back decision to quit MQM leadership By Azfar-ul-Ashfaque KARACHI, June 30: Shortly after MQM chief Altaf Hussain withdrew his resignation announced earlier over a perceived attempt by the London Metropolitan Police to falsely implicate him in the Dr Imran Farooq murder case, party leaders and parliamentarians in Karachi staged a protest demonstration outside the British deputy high commission on Sunday afternoon. . He told scores of workers, gathered at the party’s Nine Zero headquarters to persuade him to take back his decision, that he did want arrest of the killers of Dr Farooq but it was better for the United Kingdom to stop hatching a conspiracy to falsely implicate him directly or indirectly in the murder case. It all started in the early hours of Sunday when Mr Hussain told a private television channel over phone in London that he was voluntarily quitting the MQM as its leader (Quaid) because the London Metropolitan Police had raided his house and taken away many things in connection with the Dr Farooq murder probe. “When the house of a person who happens to be the leader of millions is raided, then it becomes imperative for him to leave the party leadership on legal and moral grounds,” he said. Sources in the MQM said that Mr Hussain did not take anyone in the party in London and Karachi into confidence before announcing such a major decision, which came as a shock even for them. As the TV channel ran the breaking news of Mr Hussain’s announcement, MQM workers and sympathisers, including women, flocked to Nine Zero to reaffirm their allegiance to their leader and shouted slogans that they would never accept this decision of their leader. Some MQM leaders told journalists that two decisions regarding quitting the party and to return to Pakistan were not even in Mr Hussain’s hand and it was the sole prerogative of party workers to decide on the two issues. The crowd was emotionally charged, some people were seen crying, and MQM legislators and members of the 1coordination committee declared that they would also leave their offices and responsibilities if Mr Hussain did not take back his decision. The workers announced that they would not end their sit-in till Mr Hussain reversed his decision. Similar sit-ins of workers were also held in Hyderabad and other cities and towns. Finally, Mr Hussain started his telephonic address. In an intense speech, which was covered live by every news channel, Mr Hussain told his workers that he was being treated as a suspect in the murder probe of Dr Imran Farooq and last week the Scotland Yard and Metropolitan Police raided his house in London and seized many things. “Today I am being asked from where the money comes...don’t they know that hundreds of thousands of followers silently give donation and do not even demand a receipt that this (donation) is only for you.” He said that it was not possible for him to continue leading the MQM while staying in the UK amid such serious allegations regarding involvement in the Dr Farooq murder case or suspicions of money laundering. He said that until a decision on these allegations the MQM coordination committee would lead the party. Mr Hussain said he did not violate any law and would never do so while staying in the UK. He said that if Dr Farooq murder case was taken up by courts he would not engage any lawyer, solicitor or barrister and would defend his case personally and would accept every decision of the court whether in his favour or not. “I do not want to show the world that I have no faith in courts.” He said the British intelligence agencies must find the killers of Dr Farooq and bring them to justice, but they should not try to directly or indirectly implicate him in the murder. He said the British establishment could easily take him down and no-one would know about it. MQM workers and leaders rejected his decision and said they would not consider an MQM without him. They assured him that they would never leave him come what may and would face all the consequences along with him. Mr Hussain asked his workers to leave aside their emotions and think that it would not suit him to lead the party until these allegations were proved wrong. Hearing this, the MQM workers told him that he was not allowed to take this decision and everyone in the MQM could be replaced but not him. Mr Hussain said people and television anchors would criticise him for taking back his decision. Upon which, the MQM workers told him that they did not care about them and he should reconsider his decision. He announced that he would continue to lead the party because his workers considered him their leader. Earlier, Dr Farooq’s widow, Shumaila Imran, also appeared on various television channels and, in a choked voice, appealed to Mr Hussain to reconsider his decision. Later in the evening, MQM leaders and its parliamentarians held a demonstration in front of the British deputy high commission in Karachi in protest over the police raid at Mr Hussain’s house and his alleged media trial. Dr Farooq Sattar told reporters that the step taken by the London Metropolitan Police gave an opportunity to MQM opponents to spread negative propaganda against Mr Hussain. He said the MQM would approach courts in the UK and outside against the media trial of Mr Hussain and his party. The MQM also submitted a memorandum to the British deputy high commission.
4 volunteers, 4 soldiers killed in blasts Dawn Report WANA / MIRAMSHAH, June 30: A “mysterious” explosion near Wana killed four volunteers of an Amn Lashkar (peace committee) and wounded 15 others and a bomb blast claimed the lives of four soldiers and left 12 injured in Miramshah on Sunday.. Officials said volunteers of the Lashkar, formed to restore peace in the area by clearing it of Taliban militants, were chasing a group of suspects in the Tiarza area after a rocket attack on Wana when explosives placed along the road went off and hit their vehicle. But local people said that security personnel had started firing and shelling after the rocket attack and the vehicle was hit by a mortar shell fired by them. They said that one of the rockets fired from the nearby area dominated by the Mehsud tribe landed near the airport, another near a flour mill and yet another on a road. No casualty was reported. The soldiers were killed when explosives went off on a road and hit an army truck which was part of a convoy going to Bannu from Miramshah. According to the local people, a curfew had been imposed around villages along the main road in the area to ensure a “safe passage” of the convoy.
Rs40bn EOBI scam: SC asks FIA to finalise probe in 10 days By Nasir Iqbal ISLAMABAD, July 1: The Supreme Court ordered the Federal Investigation Agency (FIA) on Monday to complete investigations into the Rs40 billion Employees Old-Age Benefits Institution (EOBI) scam in 10 days without taking into consideration ranks, position or political clout of the accused.. A three-judge bench headed by Chief Justice Iftikhar Muhammad Chaudhry had taken notice on the basis of media reports about investments made by the EOBI in the private sector without approval of its board of trustees. According to the reports, huge investments were made in DHA schemes, Crown Plaza was purchased in Islamabad, two 4,300cc Prado cars were bought for personal use of EOBI officers, two controversial plots were purchased in Sukkur, investment was made to develop a cricket ground in Islamabad, seven plots were bought from the CDA, 40 kanals and 16 marlas of land was purchased in Lahore, four floors of Plaza Hotel were purchased in Lahore, investment was made for construction of a seven-star hotel in front of the Lahore airport, M-9 Motorway was constructed and a Rs200 million land was purchased near the Karachi airport. The EOBI provides compulsory social insurance. It extends old-age benefits to insured persons or their survivors. Under the EOBI scheme, insured persons are entitled to avail benefits like pension after retirement, invalidity pension in case of permanent disability, old-age grant for an insured person who attains the age of superannuation but does not possess the minimum threshold for pension, and survivor’s pension in case an insured person dies. Secretary of the Human Resource Development Abdul Khaliq told the court that the media reports were based on facts, although certain chain or links were missing. He said requests had been made to the authorities concerned to put the name of former EOBI chairman Zafar Iqbal Gondal on the exit control list (ECL). He said currently the EOBI was without a chairman because Mr Gondal had been sent back to his parent department – the auditor general of Pakistan. The court ordered Interior Secretary Qamar Zaman Chaudhry to strengthen the FIA by allowing it to use service of officers from other departments, if required, to complete the inquiry into about 80 transactions made on the instructions of the former EOBI chairman. “Serious efforts have to be made to collect concrete evidence, instead of spoiling the same,” the chief justice observed. The directive came after FIA Director General Saud Mirza informed the court that former director general investment Wahid Khurshid and retired Col Ali Hassan Mirza and his daughter Maham Majeed, both EOBI officers, had been arrested. He said EOBI officers Mohammad Qasim Parvez and Iqbal Daud would be arrested soon after the expiry of their transit bail. The court ordered its registrar to procure orders about the bail granted by the Islamabad High Court and the Hyderabad bench of the Sindh High Court. Mr Mirza told the court that the FIA had the evidence that a considerable amount of money paid for purchasing different properties came back in the accounts of Zafar Iqbal Gondal as kickback and commission. Huzaifa-ur-Rehman, who had reported the corruption on a private TV channel, assured the bench that he would hand over documentary evidence of corruption in the EOBI. Mr Rehman informed the court that he had been receiving threats from certain quarters. The court ordered the interior secretary to take adequate measures for protection of the journalist. Secretary Abdul Khaliq told the court that he had issued directives on May 7 this year not to purchase land or other property without adopting a transparent procedure and approval of EOBI’s board of trustees. He placed on record a list of 18 properties purchased privately from the DHA in Rawalpindi and Islamabad. Most of the transactions, prima facie, appeared to have taken place without following transparent procedures and Public Procurement Regulatory Authority rules, the court said. DHA’s Director Town Planning Tariq Kamal informed the court that over 400 kanals of land had been given free to Bahria Town under an agreement signed on June 2 last year for building an expressway connecting Islamabad and the DHA valley and then Bahria Town sold 321 kanals to the EOBI. According to the agreement, Bahria Town was responsible for development and marketing of plots. Mr Kamal admitted that the DHA did not benefit from the agreement and said that he was removed when he objected to it and informed DHA Chairman Lt Gen Javed Iqbal about it. He told the court that he had been receiving threats from Nawaz Khokhar after which he sent a letter to Malik Riaz of Bahria Town on Dec 8. The court directed the interior secretary and inspectors general of Islamabad and Rawalpindi to look into the matter. The case was adjourned to July 12.
Govt hopes for $5.4bn from IMF, $5.6bn from others ISLAMABAD, July 1: Pakistan and the International Monetary Fund (IMF) are reported to have reached closer to an agreement on a $5.4 billion loan package. . The country’s economic team, led by Finance Minister Ishaq Dar, held a four-hour-long meeting with the IMF delegation, led by Jeffery Frank, on Monday to sort out details of the programme. In addition to the $5.4bn IMF package, Pakistan will also get a $5.6bn loan from the Asian Development Bank and the World Bank as well as countries like Japan, the United States and the United Kingdom. The total volume of the loan will be $11bn. According to a source, the IMF programme will pave the way for getting the additional loan from donor banks and the three lending countries. “We have reduced the gap between various thorny issues,” the source claimed and said further progress would be achieved in a day or two. “The talks are moving in the right and positive direction,” the source added. The two sides had reached an understanding on reducing the fiscal deficit target, a source privy to the meeting told Dawn. The IMF wanted the government to reduce the fiscal deficit to 4.5 per cent over three years. The target has been left for Islamabad to decide if it wants to do it through reduction in expenditures or withdrawal of subsidies and tax exemptions. Pakistan has also agreed to restart its privatisation programme from Sept 30. A comprehensive plan for the purpose would be ready in the next few months, the source said. Finance Minister Ishaq Dar told journalists that the talks would continue for another couple of days. “We have had positive talks today,” he said, adding that people should wait for the results. He said he would not accept any new tax condition being attached to the programme.—Mubarak Zeb Khan
Fazl’s advice to PML-N government: Tackle terrorism to revive economy By Amir Wasim ISLAMABAD, July 1: Jamiat Ulema-i-Islam-Fazl chief Maulana Fazlur Rehman has said the government needs to take up the issue of terrorism on a priority basis considering it a national emergency if it wants to revive the country’s economy.. In a statement issued here on Monday by JUI-F’s spokesman Jan Achakzai, the Maulana urged the PML-N government to prepare a comprehensive “national anti-terrorism strategy” because only the federation could take effective measures to restore peace. The Maulana asked Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif to consult his political allies on this national emergency because any further delay would exacerbate the security situation in the country. “The impression of paralysis in decision-making on such a vital issue will disillusion the people and, therefore, the new government should come up with a proper strategy and present a clear roadmap for political and administrative measures,” he said, adding that restoration of peace should be the number-one priority of the government. The JUI-F chief urged the government to seek suggestions and cooperation of civilian and non-civilian state institutions, including the army, and make them a part of the national strategy to deal with the menace of terrorism. He said that both institutional and political measures should be made part of the policy. The JUI-F chief was of the view that wheels of the economic engine had been jammed by terrorism. “No investment will come to Pakistan and production capability will remain frozen if we fail to work for peace through a well-thought-out national strategy,” he said. The Maulana said that if investment came only to the Punjab, it would not be a good omen for the future of the country as a whole. “For how long we will keep burdening the middle and lower classes with direct and indirect taxes for budget financing,” he asked. The Maulana observed that the people of Pakistan were getting impatient with every new wave of price hike due to short-term economic measures. APP adds: Meanwhile, Maulana Fazl called on former prime minister Syed Yousuf Raza Gilani at the Gilani House in Multan on Monday. They discussed matters pertaining to kidnapping of Mr Gilani’s son Syed Ali Haidar Gilani. Later, talking to newsmen, Maulana Fazl said he visited the Gilani House to express solidarity with the former prime minister and he would raise voice at all forums for the recovery of his son. He said Pakistan was concerned over terrorist activities and decisions of parliament and recommendations of all parties conferences needed to be implemented.
Thousands attend funeral of Quetta blast victims By Saleem Shahid and Amanullah Kasi QUETTA, July 1: Amid a pall of gloom and heavy deployment of security personnel, thousands of mourners laid to rest the victims of Sunday night’s suicide attack in the Hazara Town graveyard on Monday.. At least 28 people, nine of them women, were killed and 60 injured when a bomber blew himself up near a barrier close to Ali Ibn-Abu-Talib Imambargah in the Aliabad area of Hazara Town on Sunday night. And two of the injured succumbed to their injuries on Monday morning, taking the toll to 30. Caskets containing bodies of the deceased were brought to the graveyard amid tight security. A heavy contingent of police and Frontier Corps personnel had been deployed in and around the graveyard and all entry points to Hazara Town had been sealed. Talking to journalists after the burial, Hazara Democratic Party (HDP) president Abdul Khaliq Hazara, member of the Balochistan Assembly and leader of Majlis-i-Wahdatul Muslimeen Syed Reza Agha and Balochistan Shia Conference (BSC) leader Daud Agha criticised the government and law-enforcement agencies for their failure to protect people’s lives. They said although hundreds of security personnel had been deployed in the city terrorists were carrying out attacks when and wherever they wanted. They said about 400 people had been killed over the past six moths in bomb attacks in the city and security forces were unable to arrest any of the culprits. They accused the security forces of leaving members of Hazara community and Shias at the mercy of terrorists. Meanwhile, a six-member team headed by the SP investigation has been formed for the blast probe.
FO defends Pakistan’s role in Afghanistan By Baqir Sajjad Syed ISLAMABAD, July 1: After having been accused by Afghanistan of pushing a power-sharing formula involving the Taliban, the Foreign Office on Monday defended Pakistan’s role in the war-torn country and said it always tried to make a positive contribution. . “Pakistan wants to see a peaceful, united, prosperous and stable Afghanistan. To that end Pakistan has been making constructive contribution,” FO spokesman Aizaz Chaudhry told Dawn. During a meeting with Afghan Ambassador to Pakistan Umer Daudzai on Friday Foreign Affairs and National Security Adviser Sartaj Aziz had proposed a power-sharing formula involving the Taliban and other stakeholders in Afghanistan for ending the war there. The proposal did not go down well with the Afghan government which was already critical of Pakistan’s involvement with the Taliban. Afghan President Hamid Karzai had during a press interaction over the weekend, after his talks with visiting British Prime Minister David Cameron, lashed out at Pakistan for trying to divide Afghanistan into Taliban ‘fiefdoms’. “For six months there have been efforts to bring fiefdoms to Afghanistan,” Mr Karzai said, adding that Islamabad was trying to get Taliban into power in “one or two” provinces. In an interview with Reuters on Monday Afghan Deputy Foreign Minister Ershad Ahmadi disclosed that the proposal had been made by Mr Aziz at a meeting with Mr Daudzai. According to Reuters, the proposed formula envisaged “a form of federalism and ceding power in some Afghan provinces to the Taliban”. Pakistan has always tried to play the role of a peace broker in the Afghan conflict. Those efforts were intensified over the past year and a half which led to the setting up of Taliban’s political office in Doha to serve as a point of contact with the insurgent group. Islamabad’s role in the process, though not fully known yet, was largely about using its clout with the Taliban to persuade them to talk to the Americans and the Karzai government. The initiative, however, soon ran into trouble with the Taliban naming the Doha office as political office of the Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan and raising a flag. Mr Karzai protested and the name and flag were removed by the Qatari authorities. Intense diplomatic activity followed to salvage the process by pacifying agitated Karzai and trying to improve relations between Kabul and Islamabad. Mr Karzai has agreed to get past the Doha office opening controversy, but his scepticism about Pakistan and the latter’s negative view of Karzai coupled with its obsession with the Taliban are preventing things from moving forward. The ties are instead deteriorating and at a faster pace. Afghanistan also feels offended by Pakistan’s frequent calls for an intra-Afghan dialogue. An Afghan official, speaking over phone, explained that the Afghan government believed that there was no need for intra-Afghan dialogue in the presence of an elected government and other functioning state institutions. US Special Representative for Afghanistan and Pakistan James Dobbins told Dawn: “Taliban desired to share power, but wanted a bigger share than what others might give them.” He thinks Pakistan enjoys significant influence over Taliban, but was not in a position to dictate terms to the insurgent group. Pakistan and the US also differ significantly in their reading of the situation in Afghanistan. Pakistani assessment is that the Karzai administration has a nominal control over the country, while Taliban influence was growing. The Americans to the contrary think that Afghanistan has made significant progress since the Taliban days and its people would not like to see the situation reversed. They (US) believe that Taliban may be militarily a significant force, but not a dominant one. A Pakistani source expected status quo in reconciliation efforts to continue till US Secretary of State John Kerry’s anticipated visit to Islamabad later this month. “Much depends on talks with him (Kerry), where we will put our perspective on the table,” he said.
Enforced Disappearances: SC disappointed over commission’s performance By Our Staff Reporter ISLAMABAD, July 1: The Supreme Court has expressed disappointment over the working of the Commission of Inquiry on Enforced Disappearances (CIED) set up three years ago and over non-implementation of its recommendations by the departments concerned. . A three-judge bench headed by Justice Jawwad S. Khawaja which had taken up a number of cases relating to missing persons also expressed on Monday concern over non-cooperation by intelligence agencies in tracing the missing persons, especially when they had been blamed for their disappearances. Attorney General Muneer A. Malik was of the opinion that the CIED and the interior ministry were not on the same page on the issue of missing persons; besides the commission could not follow strictly its terms of reference. But he requested the court to let the commission function and complete its job. He said the issue of missing persons was a legacy of dictatorial eras and would take decades to be resolved. He said it had taken 15 years to settle such issues in the western world. The AG said the issue of missing persons could be divided into four categories. The first belongs to those where direct evidence is available; the second where circumstantial evidences are available; in the third category there is no clue or evidence; and the fourth where disappearances are not enforced. Mr Malik stressed the need for a database to be shared by commissions on human rights, high courts and the Supreme Court and said there was a possibility that many of the people might have been picked up because of matters relating to national security. He said progress in investigation into enforced disappearances was difficult in the absence of a proper legislation. It will be difficult to answer questions of the court when the trial of persons detained in internment centres will start and how long will they be kept in the centres. Democracy was derailed in the past because of these issues, the AG said. He admitted that he did not have any information about any government plan to set up a task force for the recovery of missing persons. Mr Malik said he held a detailed discussion with the secretary to the prime minister who also expressed concern over the issue and assured that the government intended to settle it. Meanwhile, Advocate Inamur Raheem moved an application on behalf of Abida Malik stating that the Military Intelligence (MI) did not have powers to arrest, detain or investigate any civilian on the basis of such information or evidence as held in the 1977 Saifuddin Saif case. It was a rejoinder to a reply submitted on behalf of the MI saying that being subject to the Army Act 1952 the agency or its personnel could not be investigated by any court, not even the Supreme Court. Abida Malik had earlier requested the court to order production of her husband Tasif Ali alias Danish who went missing on Nov 23, 2011 and was allegedly picked up by Major Haider of the MI. The matter was reported to the Sadiqabad police station on Dec 5 last year. The Lahore High Court heard the case on March 19 this year, but dismissed it. Advocate Raheem argued that it was the duty of MI personnel to collect, co-relate and analyse information relating to the enemy and provide security clearance for employment and deployment of troops. No institution or agency could be above the law, he added. He said the apex court in a number of cases had held that if any action of the military authorities was without jurisdiction the superior courts were obliged to interfere. He contended that the MI’s reply was not sustainable in the eye of law because under the dictates of Article 189 of the constitution all the judicial and executive authorities were bound to obey and follow the orders of the apex court. Besides, Advocate Raheem said, there was no bar on the jurisdiction of the Supreme Court under any provision of the constitution. He requested the court to reject the MI’s reply and initiate contempt proceedings against it.
Three workers gunned down in sleep By Our Staff Correspondent QUETTA, July 1: Three labourers died and four others suffered injuries when gunmen sprayed them with bullets in Tambo area of Nasirabad district on Sunday night.. Police sources said unidentified gunmen attacked the labourers, who worked for a road construction company, in their sleep. Those killed were identified as Abdul Jabbar, Dur Mohammad Mengal and Gul Mohammad Jamali and the injured were Madad Ali, Khadim Hussain, Habibullah and Qadir Bakhsh Nichari. The dead and the wounded were taken to Dera Murad Jamali Government Hospital by police and the FC troops. The injured were later referred to a Larkana hospital because of their precarious condition. The bodies were handed over to relatives after completion of formalities. A search operation was launched in the area to hunt the attackers. However, no arrest was reported till Monday evening.
Nawaz directs agencies to cooperate with Balochistan govt, nab bombers By Saleem Shahid QUETTA, July 2: Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif directed intelligence and security agencies on Tuesday to extend full cooperation to the Balochistan government and ensure the arrest of terrorists involved in suicide bombings and target killings in Quetta. . Talking to journalists after presiding over a high-level meeting on security at the Governor’s House, Mr Sharif said his government would hold consultations with parliamentarians, heads of parties in the province and the people concerned on the threat posed by terrorism and other heinous crimes and work out a security plan to rid the country of the menace. The meeting was attended by provincial Governor Mohammad Khan Achakzai, Chief Minister Dr Abdul Malik Baloch, Chief Secretary Babar Yaqoob Fateh Mohammad, Home Secretary Akbar Hussain Durrani, Inspector General of Frontier Corps Maj Gen Obaidullah Khattak, Balochistan IG Mushtaq Sukhira, federal ministers and heads of intelligence agencies. Mr Sharif came to Quetta on a brief visit along with federal Interior Minister Chaudhry Nisar Ali Khan, Information Minister Pervez Rashid, Minister for States and Frontier Region Abdul Qadir Baloch, Director General of Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI) Lt Gen Zahirul Islam, Director General of Intelligence Bureau (IB) Aftab Sultan, Pakhtunkhwa Milli Awami Party chief Mehmood Khan Achakzai, senior vice-president of the National Party Mir Hasil Khan Bizenjo and Balochistan’s Senior Minister Sardar Sanaullah Zehri. The prime minister told reporters that he had directed the ISI, IB and other agencies to extend all possible cooperation to the provincial government in restoring peace in Balochistan. The agencies should ensure the arrest of terrorists involved in the Hazara Town suicide bombing. This would be a test case for them, he added. Mr Sharif said he had also ordered that the issue of missing persons be resolved and strict action taken against elements involved in killing citizens. “I assure you that Quetta will be rid of the menace of target killings and terrorism and it will become a peaceful city,” he said. Mr Sharif said it was not difficult to control the law and order situation in a city which had only 20 bazaars, streets and roads. “Terrorism will no more be tolerated in Quetta and other parts of the province.” He said the federal government would help and support the provincial government in its efforts to restore peace and maintain law and order. The prime minister said the police force would be equipped with modern technology to combat terrorism and the federal government would also provide best police officers to Balochistan according to its needs and requirements. He said all agencies would cooperate with the Balochistan government in its efforts to curb terrorism and other crimes. Intelligence agencies should make coordinated efforts, share information and cooperate with each other. This will produce positive results. Mr Sharif said a special task force had also been set up in Quetta. He said all tangible steps would be taken for restoring peace in the country and the federal government would also extend necessary help and cooperation to Sindh and Khyber Pakhtunkhwa for the purpose. “I will meet leaders of political parties and other people to discuss the law and order situation after returning from China,” he said. “We cannot tolerate terrorism any more and will take all possible steps to uproot it from our society.” The prime minister said his government would try to solve problems being faced by people from Khyber to Gwadar. At the high-level meeting, the chief secretary, home secretary, FC chief, IG and senior officials of intelligence agencies briefed the prime minister and other leaders on the law and order situation and measures taken by the provincial government with the help of security forces. The prime minister also held a meeting with a delegation of leaders of the Hazara community and assured them that all steps would be taken to protect them. He directed the authorities concerned to address their complaints. He also issued directives for providing best medical facilities to the injured and prayed for their early recovery.
Pakistan rebuts Afghan claim about power-sharing formula By Baqar Sajjad Syed ISLAMABAD, July 2: Islamabad has accused Kabul of spoiling the atmospherics through unhelpful comments, as a war of words between the two raged despite international efforts to span the acrimonious divide. . “The negative statements from the Afghan leadership and officials tend to vitiate the atmosphere and constrain development of close and cooperative ties between the two countries,” Foreign Office spokesman Aizaz Chaudhry said on Tuesday. The spokesman’s comments followed claims by Afghanistan that Pakistan had floated a proposal that the Karzai administration share power with the Taliban by giving them control of some provinces. The Pakistani proposal, which the Afghan government claimed was conveyed by Foreign Affairs and National Security Adviser Sartaj Aziz to Ambassador Umar Daudzai, was denounced by President Karzai as an attempt to “create Taliban fiefdoms” and promote “an agenda of weak governance in Afghanistan”. The spokesman said the claim was a fabrication and Mr Aziz had expressed no such notion in his meeting with Ambassador Daudzai. “As is well known, it is not our policy to encourage any fissiparous tendencies. In fact, Pakistan has always supported a peaceful, stable and united Afghanistan,” he added. He hoped that the Afghan government would reciprocate Pakistan’s “constructive efforts”, and collaborate for peace and stability. British High Commissioner Adam Thomson, while addressing a press conference at the High Commission, said that during his recent visit to Afghanistan and Pakistan Prime Minister David Cameron had urged leaders of both countries to work together. The high commissioner hoped that “things will move forward”. The Americans too had been trying to defuse the situation, a diplomatic source said.
IMF deal to end power subsidy By Khaleeq Kiani ISLAMABAD, July 2: The government on Tuesday claimed to have reached an understanding with the International Monetary Fund (IMF) for a new $5.25 billion bailout package under which power sector subsidies will be eliminated gradually in three years.. “The issues have been settled with the IMF mission. The paper work will be completed on Wednesday,” a government official told journalists late in the night. In his view, the finalisation of a letter of intent and memorandum of economic framework will be done on Wednesday.“There is convergence on almost all issues. Only formalities remain to be completed,” another official said. “Hopefully, the two sides will jointly brief the media about the completion of talks on Wednesday,” he said. He said the government had agreed to remove all power sector subsidies in three years to achieve full cost recovery and the outstanding dues of the power sector, payable by the public and private sector consumers, would be recovered within six months. He said the government had handed over a detailed energy plan to the IMF mission, but it had yet to be decided if the subsidy should be limited only to 100 units of monthly electricity consumption or 200units. The two sides would hold discussions on this issue on Wednesday, he added. The government also committed to conducting a ruthless taxation audit and take strict administrative measures, including swift and forceful defence of court cases holding up billions of rupees in taxes, to yield more revenues but did not agree to impose more taxes, the official said. He said the overall objective of the new programme would be to reduce fiscal deficit to 4-4.5 per cent of the GDP. Another official said the finance minister was likely to brief the prime minister in the morning about undertakings given to the IMF. Finance Minister Ishaq Dar did not talk to journalists waiting outside the finance ministry at about midnight and angrily said since he had not invited them, he could not appear before cameras on a daily basis. He also directed security personnel not to allow journalists to enter the finance ministry during his stay there. The Extended Fund Facility (EFF) would carry an effective interest rate of 9 per cent and a repayment period of up to 10 years. Pakistan’s quota with the IMF currently stands at about 1.1 SDRs and since it would be availing 300 per cent (four times) of its quota, the total size of the programme works out at 3.5 SDRs or $5.25 billion (1SDR=$1.5). In net present value terms, the EFF becomes comparatively cheaper given its longer repayment schedule.
Kayani, Isaf chief review border coordination By Our Staff Reporter ISLAMABAD, July 2: The commander of international forces in Afghanistan, Gen Joseph Dunford, quietly visited Rawalpindi on Tuesday. . The ISPR, the military’s public affairs division, issued a brief statement on the Isaf chief’s day-long trip during which he met army chief Gen Ashfaq Parvez Kayani. “It was a routine coordination visit, the two discussed matters of mutual interest with particular focus on border coordination measures,” it said. It was one of the rare visits in which no statement was issued even by the US embassy. No official was ready to share details of the trip due to heightened sensitivities in the wake of renewed acrimony between the governments in Kabul and Islamabad. Isaf commanders have frequently visited Pakistan and discussed a wide range of issues from border coordination to trouble shooting in the vacillating US and Afghanistan ties with Pakistan. Gen Dunford has lately been unsuccessfully trying to defuse tensions between Pakistan and Afghanistan. During one of his recent visits, he said in a press statement that “communication and cooperation between Isaf, Pakistan, and Afghanistan are critical for regional stability”. He was then able to persuade Pakistani and Afghan leaders to meet at a trilateral forum meeting in Rawalpindi on June 8. According to sources, safety of the equipment being taken out of Afghanistan and the US equipment in Afghanistan that could be handed over to Pakistan had also been part of recent discussions between the two sides. Almost 300 containers containing equipment being shipped out of Afghanistan daily enter Pakistan. The safety of the convoys, quite a few of which were attacked in the past, has always been a major concern both for Pakistan and the US.
Aziz meets Indian minister, stresses talks on all issues BRUNEI DARUSSALAM, July 2: Prime Minister’s Adviser on Foreign Affairs and National Security Sartaj Aziz said on Tuesday it was necessary for Pakistan and India to address all outstanding issues through confidence-building measures (CBMs) to ensure lasting peace and security in the region.. Mr Aziz, who met Indian External Affairs Minister Salman Khurshid in Brunei on the sidelines of the Asean Regional Forum (ARF) meeting, said he had reviewed the CBMs with India, which was the desire of peoples of the two countries. The meeting was held in a warm and cordial atmosphere and discussions focused on building better relations between the two countries, said a Foreign Office spokesman. Mr Aziz said trade and economic cooperation between Pakistan and India could act as a catalyst and raise the confidence level on both sides that would allow a sustained peace process. He appreciated the recent visit of the Indian energy mission to Pakistan in which trade in electricity and gas was discussed. Both ministers discussed steps needed in this regard. They also agreed that the Pakistan-India Joint Business Council meeting which concluded in Islamabad on June 29 was another important mechanism that would help in taking the process forward. Referring to the positive outcome of the ARF meeting, both leaders were of the view that regional cooperation would give an impetus to economic development and prosperity of South and Southeast Asia. Decisions taken at the ARF should be translated into action soon. The ministers expressed the hope that the bilateral dialogue process would be resumed in a few months. The Indian minister conveyed greetings from Prime Minister Manmohan Singh and expressed his government’s desire to engage with Pakistan on all issues and work to improve bilateral relations. Mr Aziz informed Mr Khurshid that Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif was giving priority to improving relations with India by picking up the threads from the Lahore process of 1999.—APP Our Correspondent in New Delhi adds: Speaking to Doordarshan after a meeting with Sartaj Aziz, Mr Khurshid said India wanted quick progress on a slew of measures envisioned by the new Pakistani government to boost bilateral ties. He said ‘incidents’ and ‘events’ disrupted the move forward but both countries kept their commitment intact for progress in ties. In separate comments, the Indian minister conditionally supported a Pakistan-backed move to re-induct the Taliban into Afghanistan’s political mainstream. “We (hope to) take forward this important relationship and find resolutions to all issues that are of contentious nature that arise from time to time, but first of all take those positive openings that are available in people-to-people contact, strengthening our institutional contacts,” he said. He expected both countries to ensure “that we move forward on the vision that has been given over the years that gets interrupted by incidents and events but where the general direction we both remain committed to. And it’s important we show quick progress, and we reciprocate this vision and this determination on the part of the new government of Pakistan”. According to Doordarshan, Mr Khurshid urged the Pakistan government to free an unspecified number of Indian fishermen lodged in jails across there. Mr Khurshid was quoted in separate news reports as spelling out India’s Afghanistan policy. “We support the efforts made by the government of the Islamic Republic of Afghanistan to establish a peaceful dialogue with all armed opposition groups,” he said. “But this must be a broad-based Afghan-led Afghan-owned reconciliation process, within the framework of the Afghan constitution and internationally accepted red lines. This dialogue must involve all sections of the Afghan society and armed opposition groups, including the Taliban,” Mr Khurshid said. “The reconciliation process must not undermine the legitimacy of the Afghan state and government and the political, social and economic progress witnessed in Afghanistan over the past decade, to which members of the international community have contributed in great measure,” Mr Khurshid was quoted as saying. India had played an important role in the reconstruction and rehabilitation of Afghanistan, he said.
SC extends cantonment poll deadline to Sept 15 By Nasir Iqbal ISLAMABAD, July 2: The Supreme Court extended on Tuesday its deadline to Sept 15 for holding local bodies elections in all 53 cantonment boards in the country after receiving a commitment from the federal government that the polls would be held by that date. . On Jan 3, the court had set May 5 as the date for holding the elections after the expiry of the existing set-up being run by military officers, on a petition filed in 2009 by former vice-president of Quetta cantonment board Advocate Raja Rab Nawaz challenging the absence of local bodies in the cantonment boards for 14 years. “Thus in view of the commitment made on behalf of the executive, we allow and extend the period up to Sept 15,” observed Chief Justice Iftikhar Muhammad Chaudhry, who heads a three-judge bench seized with the matter. The bench had on Monday asked Attorney General Muneer A. Malik to submit a written statement on Tuesday after holding a meeting with Defence Secretary retired Lt Gen Asif Yasin Malik and Secretary of the Election Commission of Pakistan Ishtiaq Ahmed Khan on the subject. The AG submitted a one-page statement containing an undertaking by the defence secretary suggesting that the process of local government elections in all cantonment boards will be completed by Sept 15. There are 53 cantonment areas, 13 of them small ones like Mangla, Pannu Aqil and Loralai. During the regime of retired Gen Pervez Musharraf, the military authorities strengthened their hold on cantonment areas and the station commander (head of a cantonment board) started reporting directly to the corps commander of the area. The last elections were held in October 1998 and the cantonment boards have been without public representation for 14 years in violation of the constitution. On May 5 last year then prime minister had granted a one-year extension to 31 cantonment boards. The period expired on May 5 this year. The elections were to be held under the Local Government Ordinance 2002. The attorney general informed the court that the government was contemplating necessary amendments to the relevant laws for holding the elections but since the process was yet to commence it would take time and, therefore, the request for extension be granted. “The amendment is necessary in the cantonment laws because the local government set-up will also require elections of nazims and naib nazims,” Rab Nawaz said while talking to the Dawn. The chief justice praised the attorney general for his efforts to persuade the executive to hold the elections and expressed the hope that the provincial governments as well as the Islamabad administration would make similar arrangements for holding the local government elections all over the country as early as possible in accordance with the law. He observed that in view of the principle of good governance and constitutional provisions the local bodies played an important role in ensuring people’s welfare. The chief justice also asked the attorney general to take up the issue of local government elections with the provincial chief secretaries and relevant officers and tell them that it was a constitutional command.
US drone kills four in N. Waziristan By Our Correspondent MIRAMSHAH, July 2: Four people were killed and two others injured by a US drone which attacked a house in North Waziristan late on Tuesday night. . According to sources, the drone fired four missiles on the house near Miramshah bazaar in Sirai Darpakhel area. They said the drone continued to fly over the area after the attack, triggering panic among residents. Local people rushed to the area and carried out rescue work.
Appointment of NAB chairman: PM initiates consultation with opposition leader By Khawar Ghumman ISLAMABAD, July 2: Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif has formally initiated consultation process for the crucial appointment of the chairman of National Accountability Bureau (NAB). . Confirming that the prime minister has sought input from the leader of the opposition in the National Assembly to find a suitable individual for the top accountability office of the country, an official of the Prime Minister’s Office said a formal letter had been sent to Syed Khursheed Shah of the PPP. However, the increasingly cagy media wing of the PM Office neither confirmed nor denied writing of the letter to the leader of the opposition. The newly appointed additional press secretary to the prime minister, Arshad Munir, refused to comment on the development, saying this was between the offices of the leaders of the house and the opposition. However, talking to Dawn, Leader of the Opposition Khursheed Shah confirmed that the prime minister had sent a letter to him as part of the consultation and suggested two names for the office of the NAB chairman — retired Justice Rehmat Hussain Jaffery and a former federal secretary, Khawaja Zaheer Ahmed. The nomination of Justice Jaffery by the government side was quite a jaw-dropping development because he belongs to Larkana, the home district of Bhuttos, and, most important, he passed the judgment against Mr Sharif in the plane hijacking case in 2000 and awarded him life imprisonment. However, according to some quarters close to the PML-N leadership, in private conversations Mr Sharif has always hailed Justice Jaffery for giving him life imprisonment because any other judge at the time when retired Gen Pervez Musharraf was virtually ruling the roost could have handed him death sentence. Only recently Justice Jaffery was made member of the Judicial Commission, which confirms appointment of judges. Khawaja Zaheer, on the other hand, was one of the nominees the PML-N suggested for the caretaker chief minister of Punjab. Asked about the nominees of the opposition for NAB chairmanship, Mr Shah said: “Verbally, I have given the government two names — retired Justice Sardar Hassan Raza and retired Justice Mamoon Kazi — as required under the constitution when the other day (Finance Minister) Ishaq Dar contacted me for the purpose.” Mr Shah, who was in Karachi on Tuesday, said he would reply to the letter after returning to Islamabad. He said if the government accepted one of the nominees of the opposition, the selection would be easy. Mr Shah said the constitution allowed the leader of the opposition to give two names for the NAB chairmanship, citing two judgements of the Supreme Court.Section 6 of the National Accountability Ordinance (NAO) says there shall be a NAB chairman, to be appointed by the president in consultation with the leaders of the house and the opposition, who shall not be removed except on the grounds provided for ejection of a Supreme Court judge. On May 28, the apex court set aside the appointment of retired Admiral Fasih Bokhari as chairman of NAB on a petition filed by the then leader of the opposition in National Assembly, Chaudhry Nisar Ali Khan. Chaudhry Nisar had pleaded that the government didn’t carry out “meaningful consultations” with him in selecting Admiral Bokhari as NAB chairman. Admiral Bokhari is the second NAB chairman who has been sent home by the Supreme Court. On March 10, 2011, the apex court had declared the appointment of retired Justice Deedar Hussain Shah as illegal, also on Chaudhry Nisar’s petition. Both Admiral Bokhari and Justice Shah had been chosen by President Asif Ali Zardari. Retired Justice Tariq Mehmood, who now practises as a Supreme Court lawyer, said it seemed that the two sides would agree on one of the four names because they all carried good reputation. Referring to the two SC judgments, Justice Tariq said the government now had no other option but to listen to the leader of the opposition. “Now the PML-N will get a taste of its own medicine,” quipped Justice Tariq, arguing that the PPP would play a vital role in the appointment of the next NAB chairman.
JUI-F may join federal cabinet, says Fazl By Amir Wasim ISLAMABAD, July 2: Jamiat Ulema-i-Islam-F (JUI-F) chief Maulana Fazlur Rehman said on Tuesday that his party could join the federal cabinet, but hastened to add that the issue had not yet been discussed with the PML-N since the matter was not on the party’s priority list. . Talking to reporters after a meeting with Finance Minister Ishaq Dar, the Maulana said he had met Mr Dar only to exchange views on some budget priorities and matters relating to development funds and needs of various constituencies. The issue of joining the PML-N led coalition could come later, he said when asked about the possibility of his party joining the federal cabinet. At the moment, he said, his party wanted 100 per cent agreement with the PML-N on national issues and policy on drone attacks, revisiting the foreign policy, economic revival and energy crisis. The Maulana said his party wanted to assist, advise and facilitate the PML-N government which was facing enormous challenges. He said the JUI-F had had already apprised the PML-N government of the urgency and importance of devising a comprehensive anti-terrorism strategy, adding that the country could not afford any delay in policy initiatives.
COUP IN EGYPT: Army chief ousts President Morsi, suspends constitution CAIRO, July 3: Egypt’s army ousted President Mohamed Morsi on Wednesday and declared the head of the constitutional court caretaker leader. . Army chief Gen Abdel Fattah al Sisi, the defence minister in Morsi’s government, also announced in an address a freezing of the Islamist-drafted constitution and early presidential elections. He said a “strong and capable” government would be formed and would have “full capacities”. The army chief said a panel would be formed to look into amendments to the constitution and a law would be drafted to regulate parliamentary elections. The army’s dramatic move came after millions of Egyptians took to the streets to call for Mohamed Morsi’s ouster, accusing him of betraying the 2011 revolution that led to the departure of Hosni Mubarak. After the announcement, delivered by Sisi in a televised address, Mohamed Morsi denounced the move as “illegal” and urged Egyptians to “peacefully resist the coup as he himself will do”, a senior aide said. The elected Muslim Brotherhood president, who came to office on June 30 last year, remained out of sight in a Republican Guard barracks surrounded by barbed wire, barriers and troops, but military sources denied media reports that he was under arrest. “For the sake of Egypt and for historical accuracy, let’s call what is happening by its real name: military coup,” Morsi’s national security adviser Essam El Haddad said in a statement, warning of “considerable bloodshed” to come. Another presidential aide, Yasser Haddara, said his message to supporters was to resist the “military coup” peacefully and not use violence against troops, police or other Egyptians. In what may have been his last official statement, Morsi’s spokesman said it was better that he die in defence of democracy than be blamed by history. “It is better for a president, who would otherwise be returning Egypt to the days of dictatorship, from which God and the will of the people has saved us, to die standing like a tree,” spokesman Ayman Ali said. “Rather than be condemned by history and future generations for throwing away the hopes of Egyptians for establishing a democratic life.” Liberal opponents said a rambling late-night television address by Morsi showed he had “lost his mind”. The official spokesman for the Muslim Brotherhood said supporters were willing to become martyrs to defend Morsi. “There is only one thing we can do: we will stand in between the tanks and the president,” Gehad El Haddad said at the movement’s protest encampment in a Cairo suburb that houses many military installations and is near the presidential palace. The Muslim Brotherhood’s political arm, the Freedom and Justice Party, refused an invitation to meet Gen Sisi before the army chief’s address, saying it only recognised the elected president. At least 16 people, mostly supporters of the president, were killed and about 200 wounded when gunmen opened fire on Tuesday night on pro-Morsi demonstrators at Cairo University. The Brotherhood accused police of the shooting. The interior ministry said it was investigating and the governor of Giza province, where the clash occurred, submitted his resignation. Jubilant crowds across Cairo cheered, chanted pro-army slogans and set off fireworks after the overthrow of President Morsi. Men, women and children waved red-white-and-black Egyptian flags as confetti twirled in the air, protesters stood on each other’s shoulders and families snapped pictures in Tahrir Square, the centre of demonstrations that drew millions out against Morsi and his Muslim Brotherhood. CALL TO BATTLE: Military chiefs, vowing to restore order in a country racked by protests over Morsi’s Islamist policies, earlier issued a call to battle in a statement headlined “The Final Hours”. They said they were willing to shed blood against “terrorists and fools” after Morsi refused to give up his elected office. Armoured vehicles took up position outside the state broadcasting headquarters on the Nile River bank, where soldiers patrolled the corridors and non-essential staff were sent home. In a show of force, several hundred soldiers with armoured vehicles staged a parade near the presidential palace, and security sources said Morsi and the entire senior leadership of his Muslim Brotherhood were barred from leaving the country. Security sources said the authorities had sent a list of at least 40 leading members of the Brotherhood to airport police. In a last-ditch statement a few minutes before the deadline, Morsi’s office said a coalition government could be part of a solution to overcome the political crisis. But opposition parties refused to negotiate with him and met instead with the commander of the armed forces. As the ultimatum expired, hundreds of thousands of anti-Morsi protesters in Tahrir Square let off fireworks, cheered and waved Egyptian flags in celebration. The Brotherhood’s Egypt25 television station continued to broadcast live coverage of a rally of tens of thousands of Morsi supporters, even as the army moved tanks into position to prevent them from marching on the presidential palace or the Republican Guard barracks. Oil prices in the United States rose to a 14-month high above $100 a barrel partly on fears that unrest in Egypt could destabilise the Middle East and lead to supply disruption. The massive protests showed that the Brotherhood had not only alienated liberals and secularists by seeking to entrench Islamic rule, notably in a new constitution, but had also angered millions of Egyptians with economic mismanagement. Tourism and investment have dried up, inflation is rampant and fuel supplies are running short, with power cuts lengthening in the summer heat and motorists spending hours fuelling cars. Yet despite Islamist talk of martyrdom and warnings of civil war, the dominant mood in Cairo streets was one of elation rather than foreboding.—Agencies
Six soldiers die in attack on Peshawar checkpost Bureau Report PESHAWAR, July 3: At least six paramilitary soldiers were killed and 12 others injured in an attack by dozens of militants on a security checkpost on the outskirts of the provincial capital late on Tuesday night. . Around 80 soldiers of the Frontier Constabulary, six policemen and some Khasadars (tribal policemen) were manning the checkpost, located on the border with the Frontier Region Peshawar near Shamshato area. Tehrik-i-Taliban Pakistan spokesman Ihsanullah Ihsan, in phone calls to reporters, claimed responsibility for the attack. According to a statement issued by the FC headquarters in Peshawar, a number of militants were killed when soldiers fired back. The militants who were armed with heavy weapons stormed the checkpost at midnight. A gunfight continued for two hours. Several vehicles parked inside the checkpost were damaged and some rooms destroyed. The slain FC personnel were identified as Jawad, Arshad Ali, Rowais, Ali Haider, Abbas Buland and Iqbal. The injured included nine FC soldiers, two Khasadars and a police constable. They were taken to the Lady Reading Hospital. The funeral prayer of the deceased was held at the FC headquarters and attended by FC Commandant Abdul Majeed Marwat.
Nawaz warmly received in Beijing BEIJING, July 3: Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif was accorded a warm welcome when he arrived at the airport here on Wednesday for a five-day official visit. . Chinese Vice-Foreign Minister Zhai Jun received the prime minister and his entourage. Senior Chinese officials, Pakistan’s ambassador to China and senior diplomats of the Pakistan Embassy were also present on the occasion. A contingent comprising personnel of the three services of the People’s Liberation Army presented salute to the prime minister. Mr Sharif was accompanied by Begum Kulsoom Nawaz, Federal Minister for Planning and Development Ahsan Iqbal, Adviser to Prime Minister on Foreign Affairs Tariq Fatemi and Balochistan Chief Minister Dr Abdul Malik Baloch. The prime minister has been invited for a five-day visit by Chinese Prime Minister Li Keqiang. Punjab Chief Minister Shahbaz Sharif has also arrived here to join the prime minister’s delegation.—APP
SC wants treason probe completed without delay By Nasir Iqbal ISLAMABAD, July 3: In an unexpected development, the Supreme Court wrapped up on Wednesday further proceedings on petitions seeking prosecution of former president retired Gen Pervez Musharraf on treason charges. But at the same time the court expressed confidence that the federal government would honour its undertaking of following the law in respect of treason charges without unnecessary delay. . “We, therefore, dispose of these petitions in the above terms with the observation that the federal government shall proceed as per undertaking dated June 26, 2013, without unnecessary delay,” said an order dictated by Justice Jawwad S. Khawaja who heads a three-judge bench seized with the matter. In a one-page written statement submitted on June 26, Attorney General Muneer A. Malik had assured the court that the government would proceed in accordance with the law and prosecute Gen Musharraf for treason after taking political forces into confidence. He also submitted details of actions envisioned by the government in the light of the petitions and the process through which actions to initiate treason charges against Mr Musharraf would be taken. The petitioners and the respondent were generally satisfied with the closure of the proceedings. “We are satisfied with the order because our plea that initiation of treason charges is the sole prerogative of the federal government has been accepted,” Advocate Qamar Afzal, who represented Mr Musharraf, said while talking to Dawn. Sheikh Ahsanuddin, one of the petitioners and former president of the Rawalpindi High Court Bar Association, said the court had accepted their prayers to try the former military ruler under Article 6 of the Constitution. He said the attorney general had already informed the court about the government’s intention and set the ball rolling by setting up a four-member special inquiry committee comprising officers of unblemished record. Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif had also made a commitment on the floor of the National Assembly about trying Gen Musharraf for proclaiming the Nov 3, 2007, emergency, he added. Mr Ahsanuddin, however, criticised the government for not giving a timeframe about completion of the investigation by the special committee. But everybody was confused about the fate of the SC’s April 9 order of putting the name of Gen Musharraf on the exit control list (ECL). “The name of Gen Musharraf will remain on the ECL because the court disposed of the petitions but did not recall its order of putting his name on the list,” explained Advocate Mohammad Ikram Chaudhry, the counsel for one of the petitioners. It was Advocate Mohammad Ibrahim Satti, representing Mr Musharraf, who raised the issue of ECL, but was assured by Justice Khilji Arif Hussain, a member of the bench, that his client would get a fair trial and also suggested to him not to ask everything from the court. The court said in its order that it was consciously, deliberately and, as submitted by Ibrahim Satti, not touching the question of “abrogation” or “subversion” or “holding in abeyance the constitution” or indeed the question of suspending or the issue as to abetment or collaboration in the acts mentioned in Article 6 of the constitution. “This is so because any finding/observation or view expressed by us may potentially result in prejudice to the inquiry/investigation or subsequent trial should that take place as a result of such investigation,” the court said. It said the attorney general had already informed the court that the government had constituted an inquiry committee comprising senior officials of the FIA and it would be up to the committee to undertake the investigation and finalise a challan against the accused. “We can expect that such investigation shall be concluded without unnecessary delay,” the court said, adding that the counsel representing the respondent had also stated at the previous hearing that the matter should end in view of the statement filed by the government on June 26. “In addition, we have taken into consideration the Jan 23, 2012, resolution of the Senate and have also taken judicial notice of the speech of President Asif Ali Zardari asking the parliament to act in the matter of treason and that of the prime minister in the National Assembly,” the order said.
Govt APC on 12th to evolve strategy against militancy By Khawar Ghumman ISLAMABAD, July 3: The PML-N government officially announced on Wednesday that it would hold an all parties conference on July 12 “to discuss and evolve a national strategy to curb militancy and address the overall law and order and security situation in the country”. . Before leaving for China where he will be staying till July 8, Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif issued an official statement about his decision to convene a meeting of heads of all political parties represented in parliament. In his speech in the National Assembly on June 18, Interior Minister Chaudhry Nisar Ali Khan had indicated that the government planned to take all political parties sitting in parliament on board to formulate a national security policy. Besides energy crisis and economic challenges which the PML-N government blamed on its predecessor, a sudden spike in terrorist attacks over the past four weeks has taken the prime minister and his cabinet by surprise. Some political observers were of the opinion that being a centre-right political party its government would be spared by the Tehrik-i-Taliban Pakistan (TTP) and other militant outfits, but the myth stands shattered. Except Lahore, all three provincial capitals — Quetta, Peshawar and Karachi — have suffered attacks resulting in the killing of scores of innocent people. So much so, the TTP killed 10 foreign mountaineers in Gilgit-Baltistan on June 23. It will be interesting to see if Mr Sharif continues to stick to his old stance — talks with the TTP — he had taken in recently held APCs, at a time when militants have refused to give any room for discussion to the new government. The PML-N chief was the main speaker at the JUI-F-sponsored APC held in Islamabad on Feb 28 which unanimously agreed to negotiate peace with militants through a broadened tribal jirga. The JUI-F was given the task of convening the jirga, but the initiative lost the steam because of political parties’ focus on the May 11 elections. Signed by about 30 political and religious parties, the declaration said: “All the religious and political parties and Fata elders participating in today’s APC announce that the present, interim and the next elected government and the (future) opposition will be bound to implement all the steps agreed upon.” The declaration’s main focus was on dialogue with the Taliban. Earlier on Feb 14, the Awami National Party had also held a multi-party conference, but in-camera. It too supported calls for negotiations with militants. Although Mr Sharif didn’t participate in the conference, his PML-N supported its outcome. Now in the government, and confronting the increased terrorist attacks, mostly claimed by the TTP, the PML-N leadership has no option but to take a leading role in developing a consensus on how to counter the menace. In a recent statement, Pakistan Tehreek-i-Insaf chairman Imran Khan also urged the prime minister to take the army chief on board because without military’s input and agreement there could be no effective counter-terrorism strategy. But to make suggestions or recommendations as an outsider and to be in the thick of things are entirely different scenarios which the PML-N leadership must have realised in the short span of four weeks. The PPP government also had its share of APCs on the similar issue of law and order and militancy which were also attended by Nawaz Sharif. On Sept 30, 2011, then prime minister Yousuf Raza Gilani had managed to get heads of all political parties as well as entire top military leadership under one roof. Mr Sharif was one of the leading participants in the meeting which adopted a 13-point resolution asking the government to take an initiative with a view to negotiating “peace with our own people in the tribal areas” and putting in place a proper mechanism for the purpose. Mr Sharif had put some tough questions to the military leadership on the occasion. Although it was an in-camera meeting, Mr Sharif was widely quoted by the media as having criticised the security establishment for running the country’s foreign and defence policies in total disregard to parliament. He called for putting everything on record before parliament. There has been no change in the military leadership, except former ISI chief Lt Gen Shuja Pasha who has been replaced by Lt Gen Zahirul Islam, since Mr Sharif gave his opinion on militancy at the PPP-sponsored APC. Now Mr Sharif is prime minister and also holds the portfolios of defence and foreign affairs. It can be anybody’s guess if his government will wait for November when Army Chief General Ashfaq Parvez Kayani is due to retire, to formulate its new security policy or go ahead forthwith considering the serious level of threat posed by militants. Coming months will determine the future of civil-military relationship in the country.
FO says Pakistan stands by Afghan peace efforts By Baqir Sajjad Syed ISLAMABAD, July 3: The Foreign Office said on Wednesday that Pakistan remained committed to assisting reconciliation efforts in Afghanistan despite a running diatribe unleashed by the Afghan government. . “Pakistan will not be deterred in its efforts to support the international community’s efforts to bring peace and stability to Afghanistan,” Foreign Office spokesman Aizaz Chaudhry said while responding to allegations by Afghan army chief Gen Sher Mohammad Karimi that Pakistan controlled the Taliban. Pakistan’s ties with the Afghan government have been on the downturn since the start of this year -- about the time Pakistan’s efforts for reconciliation got into top gear. Pakistan has been involved with the process for over 18 months now, but the real activity started with the release of Taliban prisoners and subsequent provision of safe passage to the insurgents willing to join the ‘Doha process’. The Karzai government, because of its bleak political future and the presidential elections scheduled for 2014 drawing closer, has increasingly felt vulnerable as the process moves forward. Pakistani officials say the Afghan leaders vented their frustration by launching vitriolic attacks against Pakistan and raising unnecessary controversies. “Pakistan has exercised extreme restraint in the face of highly provocative language used by the Afghan civil and military officials over the past few months, not to mention some totally fabricated accusations,” the spokesman said. “The Afghan army chief’s comments are yet another attempt to malign Pakistan. The allegations that Pakistan controls the Taliban and has unleashed them on Afghanistan have no basis,” Mr Chaudhry said. The FO may feel upset over the context in which Gen Karimi may have spoken about Pakistan’s influence on Taliban, but not long ago Islamabad claimed credit for having helped open the Taliban political office in Doha by persuading the insurgent group to join the peace process. US Special Representative James Dobbins, while talking to Dawn during his visit to Islamabad last week, had said Pakistan had significant clout with the Taliban, but not necessarily a controlling influence. The British too have a similar assessment of Pakistani ties with the Taliban. In an indication that Pakistan too may be losing patience with the Afghan rants, Mr Chaudhry accused Afghan officials of being “insincere”. He said Pakistan had begun helping the reconciliation process on the request of the Afghan leadership.
Fata reforms process to continue: Zardari By Amin Ahmed ISLAMABAD, July 3: President Asif Ali Zardari endorsed on Wednesday recommendations of a ‘Grand Assembly’ of the people of Federally Administered Tribal Areas and said the process of reforms in Fata would continue to integrate tribal people into the mainstream of national life.. Addressing the gathering at the Aiwan-i-Sadr, he said further reforms would ensure people’s active role in socio-economic development and fight against militancy. The recommendations for reforms were made by an earlier ‘assembly’ held in Peshawar last month. Among other measures, the assembly has called for setting up a Fata council to be elected on the basis of adult franchise; extension of the jurisdiction of high court and the Supreme Court to Fata; and letting people decide about the status of Fata – whether it would be a separate province, merged with Khyber Pakhtunkhwa or retain the present status. Organised by the Shaheed Bhutto Foundation, the assembly was attended by a large number of people, including tribal elders, religious leaders and political and social activists. Mr Zardari said a number of measures had been taken over the past few years for the development of tribal people. A new era of reforms had been ushered in after more than a century. Referring to differing points of view about peace and reforms in the region, he said some people believed that for tribal areas peace was more important than reforms because in their opinion reforms should follow, not precede, peace. Another view, he said, was that political reforms acted as a catalyst for peace. The president said: “We believed that reforms and efforts for peace should go hand in hand and that people of tribal areas, more than the land, should be given strategic importance. We firmly believed that dynamics of reforms will release energies to promote peace and development.” He said that the change and forward movement was the destiny of the people and that would continue. Mr Zardari said the people of tribal areas had rendered sacrifices for the country and had suffered most in the war against militancy. Militants targeted men, women and even children, but the people defied the militants and took them on. He said the militants attacked schools and young girls like Malala, but their cowardly acts had further strengthened the resolve of people to spread education and these sacrifices would not go in vain. The president said he had been continuously pleading the case of tribal people before the international community and had been calling for expediting work on reconstruction opportunity zones in the conflict-ridden areas to provide economic opportunities to the affected people. Earlier, Chief Executive Officer of the Shaheed Bhutto Foundation Khalid Shafi presented to the president the ‘declaration for reforms’ adopted in Peshawar on June 22.
PIA’s board of directors reconstituted By Our Staff Reporter LAHORE, July 3: The government reconstituted the board of directors of the Pakistan International Airlines (PIA) on Wednesday.. The new board comprises prominent businessmen – Aslam Khaliq, Mian Mohammad Mansha, Naseer N.S. Jaffer, Arif Habib, Sarfaraz A. Rehman and Imran Khan. Aviation Secretary Mohammad Ali Gardezi and Finance Secretary Dr Waqar Masood Khan are ex-officio members of the board. Omar Sharif Bokhari, a member of the dissolved board, told Dawn: “The PML-N government has taken the decision in haste because the new board will have to undergo a lengthy process of approving acquisition of new planes, which the PIA needs without delay.” He said the government should have filled the vacant slots on the board, instead of dissolving it. “The new members will take not less than six months to understand the matters in the national flag carrier.” Mr Bokhari said some members of dissolved board, despite having been associated with the previous government, had expressed dissent on certain deals. He said the outgoing board had approved acquisition of eight narrow-bodied fuel-efficient planes this year on lease “and this proposal again needs the approval of the new board that may create problems for PIA”. PIA spokesman Mashhood Tajwar said the tenders for new planes (approved by the previous board) had been floated and would not be affected by the reconstitution of the board. The government has also advertised for the post of managing director and the hiring process will begin after two weeks.
Pakistan, IMF agree to $5.3bn bailout package By Khaleeq Kiani ISLAMABAD, July 4: Pakistan and the International Monetary Fund agreed on Thursday to a $5.3 billion bailout package. An additional $2bn request will be considered by the IMF Executive Board on Sept 4.. Finance Minister Ishaq Dar and Jeffrey Franks, the head of the visiting IMF staff mission, told a joint news briefing that Pakistan would have to take a number of prior actions, including reduction in fiscal deficit, implementation of an energy plan to put the sector on a stable footing, revival of the privatisation programme and making monetary policy adjustments and, above all, getting these steps approved by the political leadership at the federal and provincial levels to qualify for presentation of the package to the IMF management and executive board for approval. Mr Dar said the two sides “have reached an agreement for a 3-year programme of at least $5.3bn under an Extended Fund Facility”. He said Pakistan had requested the IMF management through a conference call to increase the present level of access of 348 per cent of quota ($5.3bn) to 500pc of quota ($7.3bn) with appropriate front loading of disbursements to match Pakistan’s repayment obligations under the previous IMF program-me so that net outflows are not more than fresh disbursements. Answering a question about an increase in electricity rates as required under the programme, the minister said details of the tariff rationalisation would be announced by the prime minister as part of his energy plan, but the poorest of the poor would be protected from tariff adjustments. “The programme aims at stabilising Pakistan’s economy and creating an enabling environment for revival of growth,” he said. He pointed out a long list of policy directions to qualify for the programme approval by the IMF board. The list includes fiscal consolidation, containing inflation, resolution of energy crisis including settlement of circular debt, promotion of social safety nets, strengthening the financial sector, improving business climate, promoting foreign investment, restructuring public sector corporations, reviving the privatisation programme, strengthening corporate governance and building foreign exchange reserves with exchange rate stability. “This agreement will be reviewed by the IMF management and finalised before going to the executive board, which will consider the proposed agreement in early September, subject to the timely completion of prior actions to be taken by the authorities,” said Mr Franks. He said the entire amount of loan programme would be payable in three years (36 months) involving about 3pc floating interest rate and repayable over a period of 10 years, making it easier for the authorities to service outstanding loans. Mr Franks said the focus of the programme was economic growth for which the government would have to take some difficult decisions necessary to stabilise the economy. He hoped that the other donors would also increase their support to Pakistan as almost half of its requirements would be provided by the IMF while the remaining would have to be arranged through other lenders like the World Bank, Asian Development Bank and large bilateral lenders. He said Pakistan would have to take a number of prior actions to enable the IMF board to approve the $5.3bn package. The actions include reduction in fiscal deficit to 6 per cent of GDP, introduction of a comprehensive energy sector reform plan to contain shortages and put it on stable footing, tightening of monetary policy to keep inflation at an acceptable level, improving tax collection through administrative measures and plugging of loopholes in the shape of discretionary tax exemptions, strengthening of public sector enterprises and privatisation of some of them, simplification of trade policy, improvement in climate for doing business and protecting the social sector. Mr Franks said Pakistan would have to take the entire package to the Council of Common Interests for approval to ensure that federal and provincial governments were on the same page on fiscal consolidation. The condition for the CCI approval has been incorporated to ensure a broad and deep ownership of the bailout package and associated policy initiatives and reform process. The minister said the government had inherited a broken economy and Pakistan had been saddled with huge payment liabilities of the previous government to retire earlier IMF loans without having adequate foreign exchange reserves. “Resources from the previous loan were not efficiently utilised with the result that sufficient reserves are not available to service them. We are paying others’ borrowings,” he said when reminded his party’s slogan of breaking the begging bowl. The public debt, which was about Rs3 trillion in 1999, has increased to Rs14.5trn as of June 30, 2013, and almost Rs2trn of which was built up only last year. The debt-to-GDP ratio has increased to 63pc that will reduce to 61pc this year with a further 2pc cut next year. “You have to appreciate that your net loan is not going up. We are not adding to loan, but taking loans to reduce debt stock,” Mr Dar said. He said the government had negotiated a home-grown programme. “We are entering a new programme for good of the country. A better tomorrow dawns only when requisite pains are borne today, the pains which are the result of the fiscal and financial indiscipline practised in the last few years.” Responding to a question about privatisation, the minister said Pakistan was injecting Rs450bn into the loss-making entities, which was not sustainable. The government would have to improve companies like Railways and PIA to make them profitable and privatise others which are profitable to reduce this bleeding, he said. Mr Dar said the IMF had demanded elimination of all tax exemptions, but en bloc reversal of statutory regulatory orders (SROs) was not possible and the fund had been convinced that charitable organisations like Imran Khan’s cancer hospital could not be subjected to commercial taxes. He, however, said the two sides had agreed to review all SROs and do away with those created through nepotism and favouritism.
Ecnec approves four projects of 3,500MW capacity By Our Staff Reporter ISLAMABAD, July 4: The government approved on Thursday five projects of about Rs1.3 trillion. Four of the projects are in power sector having a combined generation capacity of 3,511 megawatts. . The approval was given at a meeting of the Executive Committee of the National Economic Council (Ecnec) presided over by Finance Minister Ishaq Dar. The government plans two nuclear power projects of 2,117MW in the coastal region near Karachi. These will be known as K-I and K-II and will cost Rs958.7 billion. The meeting decided to do away with the discretionary power of the finance minister to grant anticipatory approvals for clearing development projects. The minister said every project should be discussed by Ecnec which would now hold frequent meetings. He said completion of the 3,511MW projects would produce power at low cost and make a substantial addition to the national grid. Mr Dar said the prime minister had decided that the focus of new energy projects would be on their completion in shortest possible time and production at low cost. The committee decided to revise the estimated cost of Neelum-Jhelum Hydroelectric Project to Rs274bn from Rs84bn and to investigate the huge cost overrun and delay. The ministry of water and power was asked to complete the transmission lines for the 969MW to be generated by the project. The cost of the combined cycle Nandipur Power Plant of 425-525MW capacity, comprising three gas turbines, was revised upwards to Rs57.38bn from Rs22.33bn. Ecnec also approved the Pakistan Remote Sensing Satellite (PRSS) Project located in Sindh and Punjab with a cost of Rs19.69bn. Part of the National Satellite Development Programme, the project will carry optical payload that will produce high-resolution earth images with stereo capabilities in accordance with international standards. Ecnec approved the addition of three lanes to the Kashmir Highway from Peshawar Mor to GT Road in Islamabad (with a bridge for additional carriageway). The project also envisages rehabilitation and improvement of the existing two lanes, addition of one more flexible pavement as 3rd lane and two rigid pavements as 4th and 5th lanes (each 3.65m wide) on the northern and southern carriageway of the 11km highway. The cost of the project has been revised to Rs4.69bn from the initial estimate of Rs2.19bn. The finance minister said finances for the projects should be arranged in time and work on them should be monitored regularly to ensure their completion on schedule.
Nawaz meets president of China, seeks to expand economic ties BEIJING, July 4: Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif, who is here on his first foreign visit since assuming power, met Chinese President Xi Jinping on Thursday.. Since his victory at the polls, Mr Sharif has sought to expand and strengthen economic ties with China in his quest for overcoming weak growth, inflation and power outages of up to 20 hours a day. His first meetings in the Chinese capital included appointments with leaders of the state-owned financial giants, China Investment Corporation. China Development Bank and China Power Investment Corporation. President Xi, during his meeting with Mr Sharif at Beijing’s Diaoyutai State Guesthouse, said the prime minister was China’s old and good friend, good brother and good partner. He said strengthening strategic cooperation with Pakistan was a priority for China’s diplomacy with countries on its periphery. He warmly welcomed Mr Sharif and recalled his meeting with him in 2010 and said he had happy memories of that meeting and the issues discussed with him. “I have great liking for you and your brother,” Mr Xi said in lighter vein. The Chinese president said: “We are proud that you have chosen China for your first overseas visit.” “Pakistan is a great country and we have enormous love and affection for it,” he added. Mr Xi said his country hoped to move ahead with plans for a “China-Pakistan economic corridor”. “All-weather strategic cooperation is the precious wealth our two countries share,” Mr Xi said. He expressed the hope that the visit would prove to be fruitful because a lot of homework had been done by both countries.Mr Sharif told President Xi that Pakistan was faced with numerous challenges and had an uphill task to pull the economy out of the current difficulties. He said that despite difficulties he was determined to surmounting the challenges. Mr Sharif said that he was fully aware of the security situation in parts of Pakistan and his government was working on a plan to improve it. He said his country had to address the economic challenges in tandem with internal and regional security issues. He said that failure to address these issues was not an option for him, adding Pakistan believed China would stand by its friend and neighbour. Mr Sharif expressed the hope that tangible outcome would emerge in the coming days. Both sides are expected to decide to work on different projects and strengthen their multifaceted cooperation. The prime minister thanked Mr Xi for China’s help and support and said he had chosen the country for his first overseas visit to consolidate and develop friendship. He said his country welcomed Chinese investment and would work to create a friendly environment for it. Pakistan hopes to expand economic exchanges, especially in developing basic infrastructure, and welcomes Chinese business investments. Mr Sharif will attend a China-Pakistan Energy Forum in Shanghai and meet a power company in the southern city of Guangzhou before flying home on Monday. Mr Sharif is hoping to attract Chinese investment in major projects, including rail and road links between the Chinese border and the Arabia Sea port of Gwadar, the control of which was transferred to a state-owned Chinese company in February.Mr Sharif is due to hold talks with Premier Li Keqiang on Friday, according to a schedule provided by Pakistani officials. Premier Li – the first foreign leader to visit Pakistan after Mr Sharif’s election – said in Islamabad that his country was ready to speed up work to upgrade the Karakoram Highway as part of a proposed economic corridor between the two countries.—Agencies
Brotherhood leaders held, top judge sworn in as president CAIRO, July 4: Egypt’s army rounded up the leadership of ousted president Mohamed Morsi’s Muslim Brotherhood on Thursday as a top judge took office after an abrupt end to the Islamist’s first year in power.. The Brotherhood called for a peaceful protest on Friday over the “military coup” as the army turned the screws on the group by arresting its supreme leader Mohammed Badie “for inciting the killing of protesters”, a security official said. Anger gave way to gloom as thousands of the Islamist movement’s supporters rallied at a Cairo mosque, surrounded by the army. “It’s a soft military coup. The military was smart, using the cover of civilians,” said one, 26-year-old Ahmed al-Sayyed, in reference to the mass anti-Morsi protests. Military chief General Abdel Fattah al Sisi announced Mr Morsi’s overthrow on Wednesday night, citing his inability to end a deepening political crisis, as dozens of armoured personnel carriers streamed onto Cairo’s streets. The crackdown came as Chief Justice Adly Mansour, 67, was sworn in as interim president at a ceremony broadcast live from the Supreme Constitutional Court. Later, Mr Mansour delivered an address praising the massive street demonstrations that led to Mr Morsi’s ouster. He hailed the youth behind the protests that began on June 30 and brought out millions around the country. June 30 “corrected the path of the glorious revolution that took place on Jan 25,” he said, referring to the revolt against Hosni Mubarak that began on Jan 25, 2011, and led to his ouster 18 days later. Mr Mansour will serve until elections at a yet-to-be determined date, said Gen Sisi, as he laid out a roadmap for a political transition that includes a freeze on the Islamist-drafted constitution. A judicial source said the prosecution would on Monday begin questioning Brotherhood members, including Mr Morsi, for “insulting the judiciary” as the charges began to pile up. Other leaders of the movement would be questioned on the same charges, including the head of its political arm Saad al Katatni, Mohammed al Beltagui, Gamal Gibril and Taher Abdel Mohsen. Mr Morsi and other Brotherhood leaders have also been slapped with a travel ban. A senior military officer said the army was “preventively” holding Mr Morsi and that he might face formal charges linked to his prison escape during the revolt that overthrew Mr Mubarak. Mr Morsi had issued a defiant call for supporters to protect his elected legitimacy, in a recorded speech hours after the military announced his ouster. “We had to confront it at some point, this threatening rhetoric,” the officer said. “He succeeded in creating enmity between Egyptians.” Mr Morsi’s rule was marked by a spiralling economic crisis, shortages of fuel and often deadly opposition protests. Thousands of protesters dispersed after celebrating wildly through the night at the news of his downfall. Egypt’s press almost unanimously hailed Mr Morsi’s ouster as a “legitimate” revolution. “And the people’s revolution was victorious,” read the front page of state-owned Al Akhbar. Mr Morsi’s opponents had accused him of failing the 2011 revolution by concentrating power in Brotherhood hands. His supporters say he inherited many problems from a corrupt regime, and that he should have been allowed to serve out his term until 2016.—Agencies
Govt considers closing missions in 22 countries By Baqir Sajjad Syed ISLAMABAD, July 4: The government is planning to shut 22 of the country’s overseas missions, besides cutting down on perks and privileges allowed to diplomats and staff posted abroad, due to budgetary constraints. . The closure of embassies and consulates would mean a one-fourth reduction in Pakistan’s diplomatic footprint globally. The country currently has some 70 embassies across the world. Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif, a source said, had consented to his Special Assistant on Foreign Affairs Tariq Fatemi’s ‘austerity’ proposals, but would approve it on his return from China. Five missions identified for closure in the first stage are in Port Louis (Mauritius), Santiago (Chile), Naimey (Niger), Belgrade (Serbia) and Sarajevo (Bosnia). The plan to open a consulate in the Iranian port city of Bandar Abbas has been shelved. However, the missions chosen for closure have left many baffled. The government had indicated its intention to focus on trade diplomacy, but closing missions in Latin America and Africa could limit its prospects of reaching out to the emerging markets in those regions. Similarly, till last year there was focus on developing military ties with Serbia to diversify defence procurements. Pakistan had long pursued its case for opening a consulate in Bandar Abbas with the Iranian authorities. Though there has been no agreement on the issue yet, the government had made allocations for it. A diplomat commented that a consulate in Bandar Abbas would have been critical if Islamabad were to pursue the gas pipeline project with Tehran or develop the North-South trade corridor. The sources said there was little debate on the matter in the ministry. The move comes in the wake of the government’s decision to reduce all non-development expenditures by 30 per cent. The government has set itself a target of saving Rs40 billion this year by reducing the operational expenses of various ministries. The budget allocated in fiscal year 2013-14 for overseas missions is Rs10.9bn against previous year’s allocation of Rs9.74bn. A retired diplomat familiar with budgetary matters estimated that the government could save Rs180 million by closing down five missions, while full implementation of the proposal to shut 22 missions could yield savings of up to Rs1bn. But, some diplomats believe that reduction in diplomatic presence by closing embassies could prove to be ‘costlier’ than the apparent savings projected by the financial wizards. “A number of proposals are being considered to cut the expenditures. But, there is no final decision as yet. It is work in progress,” said Foreign Office Spokesman Aizaz Chaudhry. In addition to closing missions, the proposed austerity measures include a host of other spending cuts — something which has angered the diplomats who think that reduction in their allowances would make it difficult for them to live at foreign stations. Foreign service officers are planning to make a representation to Mr Fatemi. According to one of the sources, the Foreign Service Officers Association had sought an appointment with Mr Fatemi on July 9, but there was no confirmation of the date of the meeting being requested by the association that has remained dysfunctional for years. Allowances for renting houses, health and overseas posting are intended to be reduced by 30 per cent. Similarly, the education subsidy for children of diplomats is proposed to be cut to 80pc. Moreover, missions in Europe, America and Australia are likely to be declared as ‘non-family stations’ for the non-diplomatic staff.
Missing persons: Database planned to identify duplications By Nasir Iqbal ISLAMABAD, July 4: A special meeting convened by Attorney General Muneer A. Malik on Thursday decided to develop a database as a first step to identify duplications which will eventually help in finding out the whereabouts of persons said to be missing for quite some time. . The meeting was attended by Defence Secretary retired Lt Gen Asif Yasin Malik, the law secretary and representatives of law officers of the four provinces. A source privy to the meeting told Dawn that the participants had agreed that emotive and chronic cases of enforced disappearances needed to be handled carefully keeping in view the requirements of national security as well as fundamental rights of citizens enshrined in the constitution. The meeting was held against the backdrop of conflicting information about the missing persons during the hearing in the Supreme Court on a daily basis. At the last hearing on Monday, the attorney general had stressed the need for a database to be shared by high courts, the Supreme Court and the human rights commissions. He said the issue of missing persons could be divided into four categories — the first where direct evidence is available; the second where circumstantial evidences are available; the third where there is no clue or evidence; and the fourth where disappearances are not enforced. The source said the database would help determine the actual number of missing persons since every agency or organisation involved in the case being heard by the apex court had different figures and identities. The meeting decided to ask advocates general of the four provinces to submit complete lists of missing persons they had to the office of the attorney general. The Commission of Inquiry on Enforced Disappearances (CIED) headed by retired Justice Javed Iqbal and the attorney general’s office will also submit their lists of missing persons. The Khyber Pakhtunkhwa government will be asked to submit a complete list of people detained in internment centres set up in Lakki Marwat, Kohat, Landi Kotal and Parachinar in the Kurram Agency. The internment centres were set up under the Action in Aid of Civil Power Regulations 2011 which allows the civil government to confine people accused of terrorism. Former attorney general Irfan Qadir had admitted before the Supreme Court On Jan 24 that about 700 suspected terrorists were in the custody of the government under the 2011 regulations. Meanwhile, a three-judge SC bench headed by Justice Jawwad S. Khawaja hinted at constituting a commission comprising members of civil society, including Defence for Human Rights chairperson Amina Masood Janjua, to visit the internment centres and examine the condition of the inmates. The bench said that a simple statement by intelligence agencies that they did not have the custody of a particular person would no longer be acceptable by the court. “The days are gone when courts used to accept the denial by the spy agencies about the custody of certain disappeared persons,” it said. The court ordered Deputy Attorney General Dil Mohammad Aliza to identify the officials of the armed forces who were not abiding by the directives of the court or the CIED so that the court could proceed against them. The court made it clear that it was exercising judicial restraint in the missing persons’ case because the new government was sensitive to the matter and wanted to resolve it as soon as possible.
Two militant commanders killed in operation Bureau Report PESHAWAR, July 4: Law-enforcement personnel killed two important militant commanders during an operation in the southern fringes of the provincial capital on early Thursday morning. A police officer lost his life and a constable suffered injuries in a gunbattle during the operation. . Personnel of police, anti-terrorist squad, military and Frontier Constabulary took part in the operation in Mattani area. All exit and entry points were blocked and landline and cellphone services were suspended. The crackdown was launched following an attack by militants on an FC post in Shamshatoo area late on Tuesday night in which six personnel were killed. Mattani and adjoining areas close to the semi-autonomous Frontier Region Peshawar have seen an uptick in militant attacks in recent days amid reports that militants belonging to the Darra Adamkhel chapter of Tehreek-i-Taliban Pakistan again infiltrated into the area. A senior police officer said that on the basis of intelligence reports the personnel raided a mud-house in Mattani. The raid ensued a fierce gunbattle with militants living in the house. “The militants were using women as human shield,” city police chief Liaquat Khan told Dawn on phone from the area. “One of our officers laid down his life while trying to save the women.” Two militant commanders killed in the action were identified as Rohul Amin and Adnan who, according to Mr Khan, were behind the FC post attack. “Rohul Amin was involved in target killings, attacks and beheadings.” He said law-enforcement personnel were engaged in a fierce gunballte with militants in Sharikera and Sra Dargai in the FR Peshawar. “The fighting is going on with intense gunfire. It appears that a large numbers of militants are there,” he said, adding that it was a forested area and forces were facing difficulty.
Decision on quota system due as extension expires next month By Amir Wasim ISLAMABAD, July 4: Busy in choosing persons for high offices “on merit”, the government appears to have lost sight of the fact that it has to decide by the middle of next month the fate of the provincial quota system provided in the constitution. The 1973 constitution had fixed a period of 10 years for the provincial job quota and the governments in the 1980s and ’90s extended it for 40 years that is going to expire on Aug 13.. The cabinet of former prime minister Raja Pervez Ashraf had decided in principle in its last meeting held on March 7 to extend the period for another 20 years (up to 2033), but the constitution will have to be amended for the purpose. This important provision has been one of the main causes of friction between the federation and small provinces. If the government desires to retain the quota system it will have to amend Article 27(1) of the constitution titled “Safeguard against discrimination in services” soon to avoid a situation the country had faced in 1993 and 1999. When the initial 10-year period expired in 1983, the military ruler Gen Ziaul Haq amended the constitution after a cabinet decision and extended the period to 20 years. This act was later provided a constitutional cover through the controversial Eight Amendment. The 20-year extended period expired in 1993 during the first government of Nawaz Sharif and the federal cabinet decided to continue with the job quota for provinces in federal government departments. Despite the cabinet’s decision, the constitution was not amended till 1999 and politicians from smaller provinces still allege that during that period an imbalance was created in the allocation of jobs and it has still not been corrected even after the amendment. Through the 16th Constitution Amendment Act 1999, the last amendment carried out by the second Nawaz government before the October 1999 military coup the period was extended from 20 to 40 years. “It has been felt that since equal opportunity of education and other facilities are not yet available to all citizens of Pakistan, the period of 20 years specified in (c) of Article 27 ibid be extended to 40 years,” the ‘statement of objects and reasons’ of the amendment said. Under the present formula, 7.5 per cent appointments in the federal government departments and institutions are made on the basis of merit. The quota for Punjab and Islamabad is 50 per cent, Sindh 19pc, Khyber Pakhtunkhwa 11.5pc, Balochistan 6pc, Federally Administered Tribal Areas and Gilgit-Baltistan 4pc and Azad Kashmir 2pc. When contacted, Minister of State for Parliamentary Affairs Sheikh Aftab Ahmed said that so far the government had not found time to look into the constitutional matters because it had been busy dealing with crucial issues like the energy crisis, corruption and revival of economy. He said the issue would be taken up at an appropriate time. “Surely, if a system has been working well, it should continue,” he said when asked about the stance of the government on the matter. Syed Khursheed Shah, then Leader of Opposition in the National Assembly, said the PPP would support such an amendment because it was much needed. He said his party would itself introduce the amendment through a private member bill if the government tried to use delaying tactics. Mr Shah said the previous PPP government had agreed in principle to extend the period for 10 to 20 years since the people in smaller provinces, particularly Balochistan and Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, still did not have equal opportunities to get education and other facilities. Article 27 of the constitution says: “No citizen otherwise qualified for appointment in the service of Pakistan shall be discriminated against in respect of any such appointment on the ground only of race, religion, caste, sex, residence or place of birth: Provided that, for a period not exceeding (forty) years from the commencing day, posts may be reserved for persons belonging to any class or area to secure their adequate representation in the service of Pakistan.”
Athar made Vice Chief of Air Staff ISLAMABAD, July 4: The government on Thursday appointed Air Marshal Syed Athar Hussain Bukhari as Vice Chief of Air Staff (VCAS) of Pakistan Air Force. . He succeeds Air Marshal Farhat Hussain Khan, who has retired. The senior most air marshal is appointed as the VCAS. Air Marshal Bukhari became the senior most air marshal after the retirement of Air Marshal Khan, Air Marshal Wasim ud Din and Air Marshal Mohammad Hussain. Air Marshal Bukhari was commissioned in PAF as a pilot in 1978. He has commanded a fighter squadron, a fighter wing and an operational PAF base. He did his air command and staff course from Iran and is a graduate of National Defence University, Washington. He got his Master’s in war studies from National Defence University, Islamabad. Command and staff appointments held by Air Marshal Bukhari included director general joint operations (GHQ), Deputy Chief of the Air Staff (Training) and Deputy Chief of the Air Staff (Personnel) at Air Headquarters, Islamabad. He has been decorated with Hilal-i-Imtiaz (Military) and Sitara-i-Basalat. Later this year, the government will be making more key appointments, including that of Chairman Joint Chiefs of Staff Committee and Chief of Army Staff.—Staff Reporter
Ties with Pakistan important: US By Anwar Iqbal WASHINGTON, July 4: The United States recognises the importance of its relationship with Pakistan and is not seeking to downgrade the ties, says the State Department.. At a Wednesday afternoon briefing, the department’s spokesperson Jen Psaki rejected suggestions that a reduction in the Obama administration’s aid requests for Pakistan indicated Washington’s desire to downgrade its relationship with Islamabad. The US aid to Pakistan “has been very extensive over the course of the last several years and Secretary of State John Kerry, when he was in the Senate, was a very big advocate” of this assistance, Ms Psaki said. “Absolutely not,” said the US official when asked if a reduction in US aid requests to Congress for Pakistan indicated the desire to lower its relationship with the country. She confirmed media reports that Secretary Kerry might soon visit Pakistan, possibly on July 28, but did not announce a date. “The secretary is looking forward to visiting Pakistan. He would like to be able to spend some time on the ground,” Ms Psaki said. “He recognises the important relationship we have with Pakistan. As you know, he also has spoken…[to] the prime minister several times, actually, since he was elected. And I think that further confirms the importance of the relationship.” Responding to another question, she said “we’re eager to go” to Pakistan. Asked if Pakistan had protested against a July 2 drone strike that killed 17 people in Fata, Ms Psaki said: “We have an ongoing dialogue, of course, with the government of Pakistan. I don’t have any specific calls or readouts of that sort to tell you about.” Asked to comment on a recent statement by the Afghan army chief that Pakistan controlled the Taliban and if it wants it can end the war within a week, the State Department official said she will have to take a closer look at the statement “and figure out and talk with our team about where we are”. Meanwhile, other US officials said that there was no real reduction in US aid requests for Pakistan for 2014. They pointed out that the aid requests met the $1.5 billion annual target specified in the Kerry-Lugar-Berman bill. They noted that Washington’s highest priority in the new fiscal year was supporting power generation projects in Pakistan.At a Wednesday afternoon briefing, the department’s spokesperson Jen Psaki rejected suggestions that a reduction in the Obama administration’s aid requests for Pakistan indicated Washington’s desire to downgrade its relationship with Islamabad. The US aid to Pakistan “has been very extensive over the course of the last several years and Secretary of State John Kerry, when he was in the Senate, was a very big advocate” of this assistance, Ms Psaki said. “Absolutely not,” said the US official when asked if a reduction in US aid requests to Congress for Pakistan indicated the desire to lower its relationship with the country. She confirmed media reports that Secretary Kerry might soon visit Pakistan, possibly on July 28, but did not announce a date. “The secretary is looking forward to visiting Pakistan. He would like to be able to spend some time on the ground,” Ms Psaki said. “He recognises the important relationship we have with Pakistan. As you know, he also has spoken…[to] the prime minister several times, actually, since he was elected. And I think that further confirms the importance of the relationship.” Responding to another question, she said “we’re eager to go” to Pakistan. Asked if Pakistan had protested against a July 2 drone strike that killed 17 people in Fata, Ms Psaki said: “We have an ongoing dialogue, of course, with the government of Pakistan. I don’t have any specific calls or readouts of that sort to tell you about.” Asked to comment on a recent statement by the Afghan army chief that Pakistan controlled the Taliban and if it wants it can end the war within a week, the State Department official said she will have to take a closer look at the statement “and figure out and talk with our team about where we are”. Meanwhile, other US officials said that there was no real reduction in US aid requests for Pakistan for 2014. They pointed out that the aid requests met the $1.5 billion annual target specified in the Kerry-Lugar-Berman bill. They noted that Washington’s highest priority in the new fiscal year was supporting power generation projects in Pakistan.
Nawaz, Li hold fruitful meeting: 2,000km road to link Gwadar with Kashgar BEIJING, July 5: China and Pakistan set their sights on Friday on developing a transport link through rugged mountains and troubled lands, a route they hope will boost economic growth and bring critical oil supplies to power-hungry China much faster. . A broad agreement for the Pak-China economic corridor was among eight pacts signed following a meeting in Beijing between Chinese Premier Li Keqiang and Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif. The 2,000km transport link was described as a “long-term plan” to connect Kashgar in northwestern China to the port of Gwadar, likely by road in the beginning and possibly by rail later. Pakistan is hoping to attract greater Chinese investment to revive its moribund economy beset by inefficiency, corruption, political instability and chronic electricity shortages, while expanding two-way trade that exceeded $12 billion for the first time last year. For its part, China wants Pakistan to crack down on insurgents from China’s Xinjiang region who are said to have taken refuge in Pakistan’s northwest alongside Al Qaeda-linked extremists. Pakistan says it has killed or extradited several of those militants over the past few years, but acknowledges that some remain at large in the area. Another agreement is for a fibre-optic cable to be laid from the Chinese border to Rawalpindi which will boost Pakistan’s access to international communications networks. China is to provide 85 per cent of the financing for the three-year project’s $44 million budget, with Pakistan covering the rest. Mr Sharif’s visit to China is his first foreign trip since returning to power last month, highlighting the importance Pakistan places on its 63-year-old relationship with its most important ally in the region. The two cooperate closely in diplomatic and defence affairs. “Let me tell you very candidly and very sincerely that what I am witnessing here on my visit to Beijing, it reminds me of the saying our friendship is higher than the Himalayas and deeper than the deepest sea in the world, and sweeter than honey,” Mr Sharif told Mr Keqiang at the start of their meeting, employing the usual effusive language with which the two nations describe their relationship. A joint statement issued after the meeting affirmed their support for an Afghan-led peace effort in the country following the withdrawal of US troops next year. It said they would “work with the regional countries and the international community to help Afghanistan achieve peace, stability and security”. Hopes for road, rail and pipeline links from Kashgar to the presently little-used port at Gwadar received a major boost when control of the port was transferred to state-owned China Overseas Ports Holding Company Ltd in February. The statement said a joint committee would be set up which would oversee the upgrading and realigning of the 1,300km Karakoram highway running from Kashgar to Abbottabad over mountain passes as high as 4,693 metres. If the transport link takes off, oil from the Middle East could be offloaded at Gwadar, which is located just outside the mouth of the Gulf, and transported to China through Balochistan and the rugged Karakoram mountains. Such a link will vastly cut the 12,000km route which Mideast oil supplies must now take to reach Chinese ports. According to the joint statement, Pakistan and China resolved to promote the policies aimed at advancing the cause of peace, cooperation and harmony in the region. During their meeting, Mr Sharif and the Chinese premier reaffirmed their commitment to pursue people-centric policies to mitigate poverty, promote social and economic development and diminish the roots of conflict. Mr Sharif reaffirmed the commitment of his government to further promote and deepen the bilateral strategic cooperation. The Chinese premier thanked Mr Sharif for choosing China as his first destination for foreign visit after coming to power. Mr Sharif said the recent political transition in Pakistan was a historic development which would create political cohesion, social stability and economic growth. “It will also improve governance and lead to sound macro-economic management, thus creating an enabling environment for foreign investment in Pakistan,” he added. The two sides reviewed with satisfaction the development of China-Pakistan relations and were of the opinion that the relationship had acquired growing strategic significance in the emerging dynamics of 21st century. They resolved to continue to deepen the strategic partnership in the new era. The two leaders appreciated that Asia was the engine of global economic growth and more than 40 per cent of the global population resided in this vibrant and dynamic region. A major urbanisation and technological advancement is under way in the region which will unleash enormous potential for regional economic development. The two countries decided to further deepen practical cooperation in all sectors and strengthen coordination and cooperation on international and regional issues. This has been agreed under the guiding principles of the Treaty of Friendship, Cooperation and Good-Neighbourly Relations between China and Pakistan signed in April 2005 and on the basis of the existing close cooperation.—Agencies
$5bn from lenders expected in six months By Khaleeq Kiani ISLAMABAD, July 5: Pakistan is expecting to receive about $5 billion from multilateral lenders in six months following a deal with the International Monetary Fund (IMF) and from UAE’s Etisalat on account of privatisation proceeds of Pakistan Telecommunication Company Limited (PTCL). . A senior government official said that apart from more than $3 billion expected upfront from the IMF, two major multilateral agencies — the World Bank and Asian Development Bank — are expected to resume programme lending to Pakistan suspended for more than three years now and disburse about $400-500 million each by January 2014. About the $800 million held up with UAE’s Etisalat for more than seven years now as proceeds of the PTCL privatisation held in 2005, the official said the ministry of finance had started engagement with the PTCL’s new management to realise the money on a war-footing. On Friday, Finance Minister Ishaq Dar and his aides held separate meetings with delegations of the World Bank led by Country Director Rachid Benmessaoud and a team of Etisalat headed by PTCL President Walid Irshad. The minister called for resolving the dispute with Etisalat over the transfer of properties of PTCL and removing all hurdles within 10 days so that the longstanding issue could be closed soon. Informed sources said that the minister had assured the Etisalat delegation which included the Chief Executive Officer for Asia, Mr Jamal Jarwan, and Etisalat Pakistan chairman Abdul Rahim Nooryani that the process of transfer of titles of about 120 properties in the name of PTCL would be completed this month while the matter concerning 10 disputed properties was in courts for adjudication and could be sorted out later. He expected the Etisalat team to resolve the issue in the spirit of brotherly relations between the two countries. Among the prime subjudice properties is a 50-acre land at Gizri currently under the control of the Defence Housing Authority. It is said to be about a billion rupees. Senator Dar told the delegation that the present financial situation in the country demanded an early settlement of the issue so that the receivable could ease Pakistan’s foreign exchange situation. He assured the delegation of a fair, transparent and equitable resolution based on established commercial rules. The Etisalat delegation told the minister that they had been making serious efforts for seven years to get titles of the 131 properties transferred after which the outstanding payments due towards Pakistan could be made. The minister told the delegation that the government had recently concluded the agreement with the IMF, settled outstanding dues of Private Power Producers and he himself had made a commitment on the floor of the National Assembly to resolve the issue with Etisalat soon. “We will resolve this issue with Etisalat and where there is a will there is a way. We need some out of the box thinking on fast-track basis,” he told the Etisalat team. At a separate meeting with a two-member delegation of the World Bank, the finance minister discussed resumption of its lending programme and said he hoped that the relationship between the government and the World Bank would be mutually beneficial. Mr Rachid Benmessaoud said that the international community was quite optimistic about positive developments in Pakistan and the World Bank was ready to help Pakistan in the energy sector and revenue mobilisation.
No radical shift in new anti-terror strategy By Baqir Sajjad Syed and Iftikhar Ahmad Khan ISLAMABAD, July 5: The PML-N government’s yet to be unveiled counter-terrorism policy renews the commitment to fight terror, but contains no radical shift in the strategy for dealing with the problem other than a rare acknowledgment that ‘enabling environment’ existed in the country for growth of extremism and terrorism.. The proposed strategy advises the government to use imprisoned terrorists and former militants for opening dialogue with terrorist groups which may be ready to renounce violence. A brief of the draft policy titled National Counter-Terrorism and Extremism Policy, shared with Dawn, shows that it would have five elements — dismantle, contain, prevent, educate and reintegrate — as against the 3Ds — development, dialogue and deterrence — a strategy adopted by the previous PPP government for curbing militancy. It is said that the PML-N government will move from the “mono-faceted approach” that relied exclusively on the use of force, to a more comprehensive strategy which would deal with the issue from different angles. Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif is expected to share the blueprint of the strategy with national leaders at an all parties conference (APC) on July 12 in an attempt to develop a consensus on challenges posed to national security by the tightening grip of militancy and extremism that has claimed over 48,000 lives and cost the national exchequer more than $60 billion over the past 10 years. The draft document puts the National Counter Terrorism Authority (Nacta), set up in 2009, at the centre of the strategy as the “national coordinator” tasked with execution and monitoring of the new policy.The Nacta has so far remained dysfunctional because of lack of clarity about its status. Initially it was placed under the interior ministry but certain stakeholders had opposed the arrangement and wanted to see it directly controlled by the prime minister. The first strand of the proposed policy called ‘dismantle’ has elements ranging from strengthening security forces and anti-terror laws, police reforms, improved intelligence sharing and border management and putting in place robust threat assessment mechanisms to integrating military action in restive areas with civilian follow up. In an oblique criticism of military operations conducted so far, the document says that there was an extra focus on ‘clear’ phase, but ‘hold’ and ‘build’ stages were not properly undertaken. Describing this as a “serious flaw”, it proposes that civilian follow-up should pave way for withdrawal of military from the cleared areas. The second and third pillars namely ‘containment’ and ‘prevention’ have provisions for beefing up security infrastructure, improving emergency response in the event of terrorist attacks, victim management, speedy justice, revision of curricula and a review of foreign policy, particularly with reference to relations with neighbouring countries. The ‘education’ part is mostly about countering extremist propaganda, promoting an alternative view to “blinkered and bigoted” interpretation of Islam and media campaigns against violence. On talks with militants, the proposed strategy suggests dialogue with jihadi organisations that are ready to renounce violence. For this purpose, the government is advised to engage former militants and terrorists lodged in jails. This makes the fifth element of the strategy, which has been named ‘reintegration’. The draft explains the reasons behind the rise of militancy in the country, blaming the United States for sowing the seeds of “jihadi networks” during the CIA war against communism in the ’80s. Extremist ideology preached at madressahs, media propaganda and proxy wars carried out by foreign spy networks have been listed as other causes.
SC to decide fate of GST charged from backdate By Nasir Iqbal ISLAMABAD, July 5: The Supreme Court said on Friday it would determine at the next hearing whether general sales tax was recoverable on petroleum products from June 13 this year and on compressed natural gas (CNG) from July 1, 2007. . A three-judge bench, headed by Chief Justice Iftikhar Muhammad Chaudhry, said it would also determine whether the additional nine per cent GST prescribed under section 3 of the General Sales Act 1990 could be levied on CNG and, if so, was it not discriminatory. The court will also determine whether the gas infrastructure development cess at the rate of 17pc plus nine per cent is recoverable since the payment of the cess is not recovered on taxable activities or taxable supplies. When court started proceedings on a suo motu notice it was informed by its office that the court’s June 21 order had not been implemented. In that order the court had held that recovery of 17pc GST from June 13 without approval of the budget by the National Assembly was illegal. Attorney General Muneer A. Malik informed the court that the Finance Act had levied the increased GST on petroleum products with effect from June 13 this year and that on CNG from July 1, 2007. “There are no two opinions that the executive has to generate revenue by levying taxes to run the government affairs for the welfare of its citizens and, being a democratic government under the constitution, taxes have to be levied on the basis of rationality and particularly keeping in view that the citizens are suffering from so many miseries. “Therefore, the government which is for the people, of the people and by the people is equally responsible to extend all possible facilities to its citizens to ensure enforcement of their fundamental rights enshrined in articles 9, 14 and 24 of the constitution,” the court observed. The court asked the attorney general to submit a comparative study of taxes, duly levied by the Finance Act, to ascertain if the end consumers of petroleum products and CNG have been treated equally with other taxpayers. The AG is also required to inform the court about the collection of GST, as directed in the June 21 order. The chief justice regretted that because of the additional nine per cent GST the consumers of CNG had to pay 26pc tax, although the maximum rate of GST was 17pc. The court said every commodity in the market had become expensive only because of an increase in the GST rate, whereas billions of rupees had been siphoned off because of corruption, but no-one was ready to weed out this menace from society. “Virtually, there is no department or organisation left in the country which is free from corruption,” the court said, adding that the burden should not be put on people if the national kitty was empty because of corruption. The case will be taken up on July 24. CNG STATIONS: In a separate case, the Supreme Court ordered the Oil and Gas Regulatory Authority (Ogra) to submit a complete record of genuine and licensed CNG stations in the country. The Federal Board of Revenue is required to assist Ogra in compiling the report. The FIA’s Additional Director (Legal), Mohammad Azam Khan, informed the court that during a recent visit to CNG stations from Lahore to Gujranwala it transpired that there were 16 CNG stations within a radius of 8.5km on the GT Road, whereas the distance between two CNG stations in a city should be three to five kilometres. Advocate Iftikhar Gillani, representing Ogra, informed the court that the authority had identified at least 349 CNG stations located either near schools, mosques or hospitals. Ogra has already issued notices to these CNG stations. The court was unconvinced with the performance of Ogra and said such stations should be closed immediately. It said the authority was reluctant to take action against influential people and those involved in gas theft. But Ogra Chairman Saeed Ahmed Khan explained that the authority had nothing to do with gas theft since the issue related to SNGPL.
IMF scripts the tune By Khurram Husain IT’S the oldest script for any incoming government, and despite their best efforts to avoid using it, the new PML-N government has bowed to the inevitable. . The script always begins with the same words: “We inherited a broken economy.” Then come the string of inevitable measures, first of which is an approach to the IMF for a loan. Then come the price increases, followed by the shrill commentary in the media and the government goes on the defensive as the opposition smells blood. It’s no different this time. Everybody knew, months ago, that an approach to the IMF would be inevitable in the early days of this government. People scratched their heads when the first intimations from those close to the party’s leadership suggested that the government would like to initially try and tackle the moment without going to the fund. The general sense of puzzlement picked up a notch following the budget, and the announcement of a revenue target, and foreign inflows projections that seemed unrealistic. Wasn’t the budget the first opportunity for the government to demonstrate its intent, and seriousness of purpose? If so, why did they pass up the opportunity to take the bull by the horns? Now the clouds of uncertainty have lifted, and the script has been revealed. And mandate or no mandate, it turns out the script for this government will not be very different from that of previous governments. Very few people believe that a bad decision has been made. “It’s necessary at this point,” says Salim Raza, who served as State Bank Governor the last time when Pakistan went to the IMF. But a number of questions are raised in the wake of the accession. “What is the secret agreement on the downward adjustment of the rupee?”, asks Dr Hafeez Pasha, who has dealt with the IMF as finance minister in the past. With the State Bank now locked out of intervening in the currency markets to support the rupee, he argues, the rupee is going to have to slide and the size of the facility is also insufficient to cover the financing needs of the forthcoming fiscal year. Between all the expected inflows in the coming year — from Coalition Support Fund (CSF), to auction of 3G licence to dues from PTCL privatisation to the Eurobond floatation to the China safe deposit and resumption of loans from other multilateral lenders, “we are still left with a net financing gap of $3 billion”, he says. “Now if they give us over $3 billion from the facility in the first year, it might just put us over the hump, but the situation on the external front remains fragile because this is still the best case scenario.” For Salim Raza, the largest risk is the size of the domestic debt. “If interest rates are going to go up, which looks likely, each percentage point increase means 85 billion rupees of additional debt service cost.” “A lot will also depend on the timing of the removal of the subsidies,” he continues, saying the IMF will be watching progress on this front very carefully. Shaukat Tarin, former financial adviser who oversaw the last approach to the IMF and presided over its implementation until resigning in February 2009, is a little more upbeat. “I don’t see any stiff prior actions, the fund has been soft on Pakistan if you ask me,” he says. Bringing the deficit down should not be as hard as it seems in his opinion. The math is simple, according to him. There’s a five-rupee difference between the average rate determined by Nepra and the rate at which electricity is sold. Even a three-rupee increase in the average tariff gives you almost Rs250 billion. “They’ll end up spending close to 550 billion on subsidies if they don’t rationalise the tariff,” he says, arguing that this is a big threat to the fiscal framework, but also presents an excellent opportunity to stabilise things if recoveries can be improved. Tarin served as financial adviser in a time of currency stability. Much of the devaluation in the currency had been done in days prior to accession to the facility. This time too, he says, rupee stability hinges on inflation. “If you can control inflation, you’ll have a stable currency,” he says, pointing out that the expected hikes in the power tariff will present the biggest challenges on the inflation front. But he agrees that the days of quietly supporting the rupee through State Bank interventions in the currency markets are now over. “The fund will frown on this practice,” he says, before adding that in his opinion, the rupee is probably already overvalued. The old script goes exactly like this. Circumstances force a new government to accede to an IMF programme. The accession is followed by “rationalisation” of key prices like power and fuel. The rupee comes under pressure, inflation rises, interest rates go up. And the incumbent government spends the rest of its time in office managing the quandary that leaves it stuck between the imperatives of stabilisation on the one hand, and the dire need to restart growth on the other. From here on, if the new government doesn’t take swift and bold action — not mere announcements — the initiative will comprehensively pass from their hands. And it would all have happened before any money has even been disbursed, since the fund has asked for “prior actions” before they will even consider granting the loan facility to Pakistan in September.
Nawaz envoy meets Singh By Jawed Naqvi NEW DELHI, July 5: Pakistani premier’s special envoy Shaharyar M. Khan met Indian Prime Minister Manmohan Singh here on Friday and conveyed Islamabad’s “sincere desire” to move forward on improving relations with India. . He also delivered a letter from Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif containing warm expressions of goodwill and good wishes for Dr Singh, the government and people of India, a statement released by the Pakistan High Commission here said. The letter also conveyed Pakistan’s “sincere desire to move forward on improving relations with India. These sentiments were warmly reciprocated by (Mr) Singh,” the statement said. The special envoy also met National Security Adviser Shivshankar Menon and Foreign Secretary Ranjan Mathai. He will also call on External Affairs Minister Salman Khurshid. Mr Khan’s meeting with Dr Singh comes after Mr Khurshid’s talks with Mr Sharif’s Special Adviser on Foreign Affairs Sartaj Aziz in the Brunei capital Bandar Seri Begawan on Thursday. The two sides had decided to resume official-level peace talks within the next two-three months. Both sides, according to local reports, are also working on arranging a meeting between the prime ministers. It is important, according to Mr Aziz, to ensure that talks get the necessary political momentum. Trade has been the main driver of the India-Pakistan peace process, which had stalled after the 2008 Mumbai terror attacks. The renewed dialogue started in February 2011 and has yielded a liberalised visa policy for increased people-to-people contact and fostering trade, besides a considerably shorter negative list of products embargoed for trade between the neighbours. Soon after Mr Sharif’s election as prime minister on May 12, Dr Singh had sent India’s special envoy for Pakistan and Afghanistan, Satinder K. Lambah, to Lahore to meet the winner. Staff Reporter in Islamabad adds: The government has appointed Ambassador Khan as its pointman for Track II diplomacy with India. “The prime minister has given Ambassador Shaharyar Khan the responsibility of conducting Track II diplomacy in order to improve our ties with India,” Foreign Office Spokesman Aizaz Chaudhry said at a media briefing. “Track II diplomacy has been a part of the overall peace process between Pakistan and India, and complements the bilateral efforts for peace,” Mr Chaudhry said. The PML-N government’s strategy is to deal with softer issues like trade and people-to-people contact in the official dialogue, leaving the more difficult issues like Kashmir, Siachen and Sir Creek to backchannel discussions between ambassadors Khan and Lambah.
Hazara official kidnapped in Quetta By Our Staff Correspondent QUETTA, July 5: A senior government official belonging to the Shia Hazara community, which is facing a ruthless persecution campaign launched by religious extremists, was reported on Friday to have gone missing, believed kidnapped. . Jannat Ali Hazara, a section officer of the health department, had left home on Thursday for his office in the Civil Secretariat on Thursday but he neither reached the office nor returned home, this was stated in a complaint lodged by his brother Sadiq Ali, also a government official. Police believe that Jannat Ali was whisked away by gunmen from near the bicycle stand outside the secretariat. A few days ago, Manzoor Bukhari, a section officer of the home department, was kidnapped from Sariab area when he was returning home from a mosque. According to sources, police have raided several places to trace the kidnapped officials, but without any success.
11 killed in suicide attack on Pak-Afghan border By Saleem Shahid QUETTA, July 5: Eleven people, including seven members of the Afghan border force, were killed and 12 others injured when a suicide bomber struck on the Afghan side of the Friendship Gate on the Pak-Afghan border near Chaman on Friday.. According to sources, a man on a bicycle blew himself up when members of Pakistan and Afghanistan’s border forces were checking people crossing the border. Afghan police commander Akhtar Mohammad was reported to be among the dead. According to an official of the Afghan border force, the commander appeared to be the target of the bomber. Security personnel took the bodies and the injured to a hospital in the Afghan border town of Spin Boldak. Two of the injured were taken to the Chaman Civil Hospital. All the personnel of Pakistani border force were safe. The border was closed after the attack. AFP adds: Afghan officials said the attacker had crossed from Pakistan to Spin Boldak. “A suicide bomber wearing a vest of explosives crossed the border into Kandahar’s Spin Boldak district this morning and blew himself up,” Kandahar governor’s spokesman Javed Faisal told AFP. Kandahar police chief Gen Abdul Raziq confirmed the attack.
PTI chief not to attend meeting on national security By Khawar Ghumman ISLAMABAD, July 5: It may just be a coincidence, but Pakistan Tehreek-i-Insaf (PTI) chairman Imran Khan will be out of the country when Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif will be hosting a meeting of the heads of political parties to formulate a national security policy. . The absence of Mr Khan from the meeting will surely be noticed because the PTI has emerged as a major political force after the general elections and the party has been stressing the need for a national counter-terrorism strategy. The PTI will be represented at the meeting by its vice-chairman Shah Mehmood Qureshi and Khyber Pakhtunkhwa Chief Minister Parvez Khattak, who is also the party’s secretary general. Dr Shireen Mazari, the spokesperson for the party, said Mr Khan’s visit to the UK was scheduled before the government announced its plans to convene the meeting in the parliament house. “The PTI chairman has an appointment for medical check-up which can’t be deferred,” she said. Mr Khan, who is recuperating from a back injury he suffered due to a fall from a lift during an election rally, will be staying in London till July 24 where after medical check-up he will be spending some time with his sons. Ms Mazari said the absence of Mr Khan from the meeting would not make any difference because, according to her, the government had nothing concrete to discuss at the meeting. She said that like previous such events, the proposed meeting would prove to be a futile exercise. Before the government announced its plans to convene a meeting on national security, the PTI-led Khyber Pakhtunkhwa government had demanded of the federal government to organise a meeting with the army chief so that something tangible on security issues could be discussed. Two previous such meetings organised before the general elections by the Awami National Party and Jamiat Ulema-i-Islam-Fazl were boycotted by the PTI. Ms Mazari said the PTI representatives would attend the proposed meeting and gauge the government’s seriousness in addressing the issue of militancy. The PTI would give its suggestions and see how this initiative was taken forward by the government, she added. INTERIOR MINISTER: Talking to media personnel in his office on Thursday, Interior Minister Chaudhry Nisar Ali Khan said that Chief of Army Staff Gen Ashfaq Parvez Kayani would be invited to the proposed meeting. He said participants of the meeting would include the four chief ministers and heads of all law-enforcement agencies. The minister said unlike previous such meetings, the government would seriously consider recommendations to be made by politicians in finalising the national security policy. PTI MEETING: A meeting of the central executive committee of the PTI discussed the future strategy of the party. The meeting was presided over by Mr Khan. According to a press release, Mr Khan stressed the need for making the party more active, particularly in Sindh and Balochistan. Vice-Chairman Shah Mehmood Qureshi, President Javed Hashmi, General Secretary Parvez Khattak, Additional Secretary General Saifullah Khan Niazi and Central Information Secretary Dr Mazari attend the meeting.
Editorial NEWS
Humanity required: Stay on executions THIS is a country with serious law and order problems in several areas. While many remedies can be explored, the least acceptable is that implied in a complaint made by the Sindh High Court Bar Association in a petition against the targeted killings of lawyers and others in Karachi: that capital punishment is not being meted out to prisoners on death row, which, in the petitioner’s view, sends out the message that those responsible for heinous crimes go unpunished.. This newspaper opposes capital punishment, not just for being a cruel and degrading punishment but also because it is only in a few cases that guilt is proved beyond a shadow of doubt. Most countries have removed this punishment from the law books. The strong pro-death penalty lobby in Pakistan, though, has meant that we have not done so, even though the country is amongst the states with the highest number of prisoners on death row. A middle ground of sorts was found in recent years when the earlier PPP government took charge: a de facto moratorium over executions being carried out has been in place since 2008, the only exception being the hanging in November in Mianwali Jail of a soldier sentenced to death for having killed a superior officer. As an interior ministry official informed the Sindh High Court on Friday, the presidential stay on executions expires today. He added that the current government is also reviewing the moratorium policy. This should take the direction suggested late last year by the presidential spokesperson, who said that the government was planning to introduce a bill in parliament converting the death penalty into life imprisonment. It is to be regretted that this bill never emerged. The current government should take up the matter. Furthermore, the state would be better advised to turn its attention to the glaring flaws in a justice system where those who commit crime get away with it more often than not, and where the rates of successful prosecution are abysmal even in cases where suspects have been arrested. The problems are well known: to name just a few, the limited capabilities of investigators, the lack of forensic expertise, the inefficiencies in piecing evidence together to build a solid case. Meanwhile, there are factors that compound crime, such as petty or juvenile offenders being incarcerated with hardened criminals, and our jails being merely places to keep prisoners rather than functioning as correctional facilities. The moratorium on executions should be extended and the country should work towards abolishing the death penalty altogether.
Ignored and condoned: Torture in custody IN recent days, rights activists have increased pressure for effective rules against torture in custody. These efforts counter the frequent incidence of suspects being tortured by policemen who are keen to extract a confession, for money or to satisfy their own flawed sense of justice. Only a few days ago, an accused was allegedly beaten to death in Sharaqpur (Sheikhupura), his bones broken in many places. The reaction of the police, as reported in a section of the media, aptly summed up the official apathy to a dire problem: “So many die [in Pakistan] every day.” As routine matters go, many people are tortured in custody daily, an activist told a seminar in Lahore recently: one for each of the 13,000 police stations in the country. . Pakistan is a signatory to the UN Convention Against Torture, the supposed extra cover for the accused along with the guarantees offered in the Constitution. In Punjab, the Police Order 2002 is in place, under which a policeman convicted of inflicting “torture or violence to any person in his custody” can be jailed for five years. Even the recent signing of the UN convention by Pakistan and the improvement in local laws have had minimal impact. At the most, whenever a scandal manages to break out from within the dreaded walls of a thana, an official or two is suspended. A report unveiled in Lahore last week had 57pc of the accused saying they were tortured in custody. More than half of the accused covered by the study said their families had paid the police not to torture them. With each case, fear and insecurity increase manifold, and calls for the implementation of effective laws become louder. Yet the shameful acts continue to be institutionally ignored; in fact they are silently condoned in the name of quick justice. For all those sick with violence, especially the brand perpetuated in the name of the state, these harrowing stories emanating from the lockups are more than just distressing.
Remarkable fortitude: Trekkers’ visit to Pakistan BLOOD must still stain the rocks at the Nanga Parbat base camp where gunmen shot dead 10 foreign trekkers and their guide last Sunday. For those who know this area, it would have been unimaginable that such an assault could take place at all. Most climbers approach the mountain from another, relatively more hospitable side; this route — the base camp is a good 10 to 12 hours’ slog from where the jeep track peters out — is taken only by those with the steeliest of resolve. With the nearest settlements also hours away, one can only wonder at the intensity of the gunmen’s ruthless determination to kill the mountaineers.. It is through the same lens of steely resolve, though of a different kind, that non-climbers can understand the commitment of the more than two dozen foreign mountaineers who arrived in Islamabad just a few days later. Even while acknowledging that the men and women who set out to conquer mountains know that death is their constant companion, their fortitude given the recent slaughter is remarkable. Pakistan’s Karakorum destinations were once very popular with climbers from across the world, but their numbers have plummeted in recent years and with it, the local economies. The trekkers who arrived on Thursday are a much-needed reminder that what was once a stream of visitors is now a trickle, but worth saving nevertheless before it dries up altogether. The importance of apprehending those that carried out the base camp massacre then cannot be overstated. Law enforcers have said that leads are being pursued and the area searched. They should take this as a test case: unless the crime is solved, we risk more of the same and lose any chance of being able to resuscitate the tourist industry in the area.
Need for restraint: Altaf Hussain’s speech IT was, in the end, the briefest of resignations, and very much in keeping with previous such episodes. But there was also something new about Altaf Hussain’s early morning speech and quick change of heart yesterday. For the first time, the MQM supremo acknowledged that the London police consider him a suspect in the Imran Farooq murder investigation. Mr Hussain also confirmed that British authorities recently raided his home in London and confiscated unspecified material. While railing against an international conspiracy against his person, Mr Hussain pledged to cooperate with British authorities — and defend himself in a trial, if he is eventually charged in relation to Mr Farooq’s murder in September 2010. This is a good sign: the MQM boss, while denying any involvement, has indicated his willingness to respect the judicial process. The protracted telephonic back-and-forth between Mr Hussain and MQM activists and supporters also had an important essence: the workers’ demand that Mr Hussain take back his resignation reflected just how much he is still the core of the party and how unforeseeable and unmanageable an exit by the MQM boss is.. Beyond that, however, there are many uncertainties and fears, particularly for Karachi. A basic reality needs to be kept in mind here: the investigation that has riled Mr Hussain and outraged the party is being conducted by British authorities and is a nearly three-year-old process. The thoroughness of that painstaking process is matched by its fairness: no one has yet been charged, not even Mr Hussain yet, many days after his home was extensively searched and evidence presumably gathered. So to decry that process as a witch-hunt or a political vendetta of some kind is to stoke an extreme partisanship that in the context of Karachi in particular can have potentially very dangerous repercussions. The emotionalism that was on display yesterday when the media was subjected to yet another verbal lashing by the MQM exemplifies the problem: little good ever comes when the heart starts trumping the head. Difficult as it may be to maintain equanimity and poise in the face of an unprecedented test for the MQM leadership, there is the unhappy reality of Karachi — Hyderabad and other pockets of Sindh too — to consider. Violence, that can start on a mere rumour, has brought a once vibrant city to its knees, triggering uncomfortable reminders of the horrors of the late ’80s and early ’90s. Karachi needs a political hand and it is very much in the MQM leadership’s control to ensure that legal troubles for its chief in London do not spill over into unrest on the streets of Karachi.
Are we prepared? Flood measures WHILE Pakistan is no stranger to the devastating effects of floods, the recent inundation of homes, in fact whole villages, in the Indian state of Uttarakhand is a grim reminder that preparations for the monsoons should start early. The figure for the dead and missing is in the thousands — despite the meteorological department’s claim that it had given the state authorities prior information of what to expect. Pakistan’s own experience with the floods of 2010 in the four provinces and in other parts of the country, as well as the 2011 deluge that mainly ravaged large parts of Sindh, both events affecting millions of people, are still fresh in memory. The following year also saw rain damage. As the monsoons approach, parts of the country are already witnessing heavy showers. Flash floods in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, for instance, have caused some damage to infrastructure and dwellings. While the authorities there have been warning riverine communities to move from their homes, not much has been done to remove encroachments or to instal flood warning systems. In Sindh, while reportedly considerable work has been done to strengthen embankments, the encroachments along the river and canal banks remain a concern, although the provincial authorities have said that these would be removed. The weeks ahead will tell us to what extent the authorities have learnt their lesson from the previous catastrophes.. But besides the physical impediments there are other factors such as food insecurity, disease and the loss of livelihood that are an outcome of natural calamities. How well are the authorities prepared to deal with these? For example, is there a plan to have children immunised? Childhood vaccinations are necessary in any case but for communities vulnerable to natural disasters they could prove the difference between life and death. True, the dreaded floods may never strike or at least not with the same intensity as they have in preceding years. But having a coordinated plan and strategy would prove invaluable in case the trend sustains itself.
Red herring: Suspension of officials IN Pakistan’s context, the suspension of a subordinate is best described as a responsibility-shedding tactic. Unfortunately, the political bosses find this a nifty way to divert attention from their own incompetence. We can see this in the aftermath of the attack on the Ziarat Residency and the Nanga Parbat tragedy. The Ziarat attack had stunned the country, but all that the people got as a sop more than a week later was an announcement by Balochistan Chief Minister Dr Abdul Malik Baloch that he had suspended the deputy commissioner and five police officials because they had “failed to protect the Quaid-i-Azam’s Residency”. Up in the north, the mountaineers’ murder may not have caused emotions to be as bruised, but the cold-blooded slaughter of a peaceful group of trekkers nevertheless sent shockwaves across country. They were tourists and had no motive other than that of scaling Pakistan’s daunting peaks. Then Interior Minister Chaudhry Nisar Ali Khan sprang into action which saw the federal government suspending the Gilgit-Baltistan chief secretary and the inspector general of police, causing the GB chief minister to criticise the move.. In similar fashion, after acts of terrorism in Karachi, high-ranking police officials have often enough found their services being suspended by the government. Certainly, suspensions and transfers may be necessary where dereliction of duty or abuse of the law is detected. But unfortunately, our politicians appear to use this tactic to absolve themselves of the blame. They must realise and feel themselves responsible for the sober truth: tens of thousands of Pakistanis have been killed or wounded by the militants over the years, but neither the Musharraf government nor the PPP-led dispensation that followed managed to formulate a comprehensive counterterrorism strategy. Merely suspending police and other officials does not cause people to forget where the buck stops.
Realisation dawns: PTI’s call for anti-terrorism plan AS the sprawling militancy and terrorism complex continues to rain down violence across Pakistan, a slight shift in political perceptions was witnessed on Sunday when PTI chief Imran Khan called for a joint civil- military strategy to fight terrorism. Until now, Mr Khan has talked more about drones and talks with the TTP than about the threat that militancy poses to the stability and security of Pakistan. But with the PTI’s government in KP rocked by a series of attacks in the province and violence in other parts of the country continuing unabated — in addition to Peshawar, Quetta and North Waziristan also suffered serious attacks on Sunday — there is perhaps the beginnings of a realisation within the PTI that the internal threat is real and serious and can only be countered by a firm resolve and coherent plan. So while Mr Khan did repeat on Sunday his standard trope of a ‘political settlement’, he appeared to acknowledge, by seeking the input of the army chief via the prime minister, that a military response is also part of the overall solution.. Perhaps in seeking the input of the army chief, Mr Khan and the other politicians who seem to discount the threat of militancy will be able to get a clearer picture on the scope and magnitude of the danger. While the right-wing political parties may prefer to focus on conspiracies and exaggerated external threats because of expediency or perhaps even out of sympathy for the militants’ explicit goal of overthrowing the state and replacing it with a severe so-called Islamic model, there is a sense that mainstream centrist and right-of-centre politicians do so largely because they are ignorant of the facts. After all, until returning to power in Islamabad last month, the PML-N leadership had been out of the national security loop for more than a decade — in which much has changed on the security front. And Mr Khan had been a fringe, or non-existent, parliamentary figure until the recent elections — meaning his knowledge of the threat that militancy poses will have been accumulated almost entirely outside official channels. An authoritative briefing by the leader of the institution on the frontline in the fight against militancy could do a world of good for the present political leadership of the country. Drones and the possibility of talks eventually with elements of the TTP can be part of the overall, long-term strategy to fight militancy — but first, clarity is needed on what the threat of militancy means for Pakistan.
Economic revival: Cameron’s offer THE main focus of British Prime Minister David Cameron’s visit to Islamabad was on encouraging Pakistan’s new political leadership to cooperate with Afghanistan to facilitate the Doha initiative. Mr Cameron correctly observed that “a stable, prosperous, peaceful, democratic Afghanistan is in Pakistan’s interests, just as a strong, stable, peaceful, prosperous, and democratic Pakistan is in Afghanistan’s interests”. Mr Cameron also used his visit, the first by any foreign head of government since the PML-N took over last month, to remind the Pakistani leadership that the battle against terrorism “requires a tough and uncompromising security response”. It should, however, be appreciated that he also realised that several other measures were needed to boost the efforts against militancy. These included “countering extremism and radicalisation, investing in education, tackling poverty, dealing in all the issues that can fuel extremism and radicalisation”. . Mr Cameron was eager to provide technical support to Islamabad to shore up its security response to terrorism and he pledged his government’s willingness to help it in the revival of its economy; without the latter terrorism cannot be effectively combated. He vowed to revise upward the bilateral trade target from £2.5bn to £3bn by 2015 and support Pakistan’s quest for greater, duty-free market access for its goods to the European Union. Importantly, the second annual Pakistan-UK trade conference is to be held later in London where among other areas, the energy sector must get the much-needed emphasis. Pakistan’s efforts in the war against militancy cannot be overstated. Thousands of Pakistani lives have been lost and the country’s economy has been badly affected. They may not be the only factors, but a deteriorating economy and rising poverty are major contributors to the increase in radicalisation in the country. Extremism cannot be curbed through the use of force alone. The effort needs to be diversified with improvements in sectors such as education and health and with the provision of jobs. The world should realise that a stable Afghanistan needs a stable Pakistan. Mr Cameron is well-placed to drive the message home.
After the revolution: Anti-Morsi demonstrations DISILLUSIONMENT with revolution is a universal phenomenon, so is the jealousy with which every revolution guards itself. That the hopes of the Egyptians have not been realised since Hosni Mubarak’s ouster goes without saying. President Mohammed Morsi’s government has failed to address any of the problems that had led to the Tahrir Square uprising. Mr Morsi has accumulated more powers than he should, the economy is in tatters — tourism has especially been hit — and he has behaved in a way that has often aroused judicial wrath and annoyed the media. But Egypt is not the only Arab country where the fall of dictators has been followed by restlessness among large segments of the masses who feel they have been denied the fruits of revolution. This restlessness may be justified, but it must be seen against the backdrop of the legacy of decades of authoritarian rule. . Whether it was Ben Ali, Muammar Qadhafi, Ali Abdullah Saleh or Hosni Mubarak, the strongmen had lent phony stability to their states by crushing all opposition and silencing the media. While the liberals went into hibernation, Islamist parties used the time to organise themselves, spread their message and extend relief services to the deprived. This helped them both during the agitation for democratic reforms and at the polls. As elections results show, Islamist parties have become a major force in electoral politics in these countries. President Morsi’s mistakes are many, and he has yet to indicate he accepts pluralism. Nevertheless, the dissidents must realise that he is a democratically elected ruler. While protest is their right, they have no moral authority to seek his ouster through violent means, such as yesterday’s attack on the Muslim Brotherhood headquarters in Cairo, and create conditions that may tempt the army to abort Egypt’s nascent democracy.
Wrong approach: Pak-Afghan acrimony IT’S become a near-daily feature of Pak-Afghan relations: one or the other side is blasting away at the other for all manner of sins, perceived and real. Now, it is the alleged faux pas by Sartaj Aziz, Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif’s senior-most adviser on national security and foreign policy, that has riled the Afghans. Mr Aziz, according to Afghan officials, has suggested that Kabul accept some kind of power-sharing agreement with the Afghan Taliban, wherein, again according to Afghan officials, parts of the country may eventually be ceded to Taliban control. Predictably, Pakistan has denied any such suggestion was made but has not exactly gone out of its way to placate the irate Afghan officials, including President Hamid Karzai.. The tremendous difficulties associated with crafting a relatively stable and non-threatening Afghanistan post-2014 are well known. In truth, there are few good options when it comes to stabilising a country with virtually no history of stability or a central government and where the commitment of the international community to engineering long-term stability is certainly suspect. But within that framework of uncertainty, there are at least two things that Pakistan needs to correct when it comes to this country’s approach towards its long-troubled neighbour to the west. First, the Karzai-bashing has to stop — both because it is unseemly and because it is counterproductive. The army’s antipathy towards Mr Karzai appears to have trumped better sense in the army leadership, and the Foreign Office. Trying to so contemptuously sideline the Afghan president in the reconciliation process that Pakistan otherwise maintains should be Afghan-led and Afghan-owned is a bad idea. At the very least, Mr Karzai will be in office until April next year, and after the presidential election a Karzai could still be in office, or possibly a Karzai ally. Erratic, aggressive or plain contradictory as Mr Karzai may have become, the reality of the Afghan presidency as an important player — whether positive or as a spoiler — cannot be wished away. Pakistani policy as well as its posturing should reflect that reality. Second, Pakistani policy towards Afghanistan and the articulation of that policy needs to reflect a humility that assuages old fears of this country’s true intentions. Using its undeniable, and un-denied, clout to nudge the Afghan Taliban to the negotiating table is one thing; rooting for an eventual takeover of Afghanistan, or just parts of that country, by the Taliban is quite another. Some clarity on that front would go a long way towards clearing the air.
Shady deals: EOBI scam THE multi-billion-rupee Employees Old-Age Benefits Institution is under the scanner. Taking suo motu notice the Supreme Court has ordered a thorough probe, based on media reports, of allegedly illegal investment of funds meant for pensioners and their survivors in risky property ventures and other businesses by the EOBI management. The details that have emerged so far show that the institution’s management had in the last three years purchased several properties in different cities at prices much above the market value. Some senior officials are alleged to have received huge kickbacks. All these purchases are said to have been made in a very opaque manner and without the approval of the trustees of the institutions. Moreover, some influential elements in the real-estate business are also alleged to have gained from ‘dishonest’ deals. At risk is the huge sum of Rs40bn that the workers have contributed to the institution to secure small but crucial monetary benefits on attaining superannuation.. The EOBI is one of the several social safety net programmes instituted outside the country’s budget to fulfil the constitutional provision that requires the state to provide to “all persons employed in the services of Pakistan or otherwise social security by compulsory social insurance or other means”. Hundreds of thousands of pensioners and/or their survivors depend on the money that they receive from the fund. Until the investigations are complete and a final report submitted to the court, it would be premature to debate whether all or some of the deals that were made were risky or shady. But the initial statements by the investigators that they have prima facie evidence to prove wrongdoings by the senior EOBI management raise fears that a part of the pensioners’ money could already have been lost. If the allegations are proved after the probe, it would be a major challenge to make the guilty pay back the money looted from pensioners for whom old-age benefits are crucial for survival.
Politics of priorities: Economics and militancy THE government prefers the economic route to addressing the country’s problems. It says once the national economy has been corrected the rest will fall in place. While there’s little doubt that economic failure has contributed to radicalisation, Maulana Fazlur Rehman disagrees with the government’s view, as do many others. The maulana, who advised the PML-N government to prepare a national anti-terrorism strategy, says militancy must be tackled first for there to be any hope of economic revival — a valid enough point of view. The PML-N will come up with its own, probably diplomatic, answers to the national-policy demand by those who believe that the development impetus could go to waste without investment in the system to fight terrorism. But even if slight shifts in political views vis-à-vis militancy are becoming discernible, what is still common to both parties is the general lack of will to look terrorism squarely in the eye. . In many instances, as in the case of the PTI government in KP, the call for direction from the centre may be dictated by an urge to absolve oneself of the responsibility of fighting militancy. A national policy and strategy to fight the threat is very much needed but so is personal commitment and party clarity over how this issue has to be dealt with. Eminent politicians such as Maulana Fazlur Rehman should not be solely dependent upon a national guideline to categorically condemn the killing of innocent Pakistanis. They have used their right to condemn the drones without first seeking approval from Islamabad. Now there is no reason why they cannot try and be influential in building opinion against militant strikes on their own, contributing towards an agreement which the country so desperately wants at this moment.
Beyond a new face: NAB chairman’s appointment AS the search for a new National Accountability Bureau chairman, the third in under three years, heats up, the now-usual spate of short-lived media and political interest is picking up once again. The reasons are obvious enough: NAB is the investigative and prosecutorial body that can target high-profile politicians and government officials; the installation of a new chairman of NAB requires consultation between the government and the opposition, always a delicate dance; and the Supreme Court has unceremoniously removed the last two NAB chairmen while also leaning on the accountability bureau to initiate politically sensitive investigations and prosecutions. All of that makes for lurid headlines aplenty and feeds the sprawling, evergreen tree of conspiracy here.. Inevitably, the focus is also lost. Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif’s endorsing as one of his party’s two nominations a judge who famously convicted him at the behest of Gen Musharraf’s regime is indeed a pleasant surprise. And the PPP nominating two individuals who are reasonably well regarded by the wider legal community is also a good step. But none of that will bring the country closer to what it really needs: an independent, powerful, politically non-aligned and transparent accountability set-up. NAB may have steered clear of some of the worst partisan excesses of the Ehtesab Bureau era but it is nowhere closer to fulfilling its designated purpose. In fact, under the previous PPP government, it appeared to be little more than a carefully deployed roadblock meant to protect politicians and influential players. Part of that was surely because of a fierce superior judiciary that on several occasions showed inordinate interest in certain cases with potentially embarrassing political overtones. Whatever the case, NAB did not quite cover itself in glory over the past five years. Even now, as the PML-N government inches closer to appointing a new NAB chairman, little is clear about the future of accountability. During the last parliament, both the PML-N and PPP evinced some interest in setting up a new accountability commission but, conveniently, never quite got there. So will the next NAB chairman be a stopgap appointment, someone who will wave the flag of accountability while the politicians move purposefully towards a new, toothier accountability set-up? While legitimately and reasonably concerned about accountability becoming a cudgel to beat the government or the opposition, the politicians appear to have gone to the opposite extreme: playing with the process instead of giving accountability some real substance. No witch hunts does not mean no accountability of anyone, ever. A new NAB chairman should mean more than just a new face at the helm.
Business of extortion: Karachi gangs IT could be a scene from a book or a film: a man sets up shop and begins to do well. But all too soon, the stranger of whom he has been warned arrives — the goodwill of the gang dominant in the area must be bought. Or, the entrepreneur receives a note demanding money. Taped to the paper is a bullet. In fact, this is one of the most basic realities of operating a business, no matter what the scale, in Karachi. Ironically, it is in the days leading up to Ramazan and Eid that the operations of various extortion gangs in the city are in full swing. And because many areas in the city are the domain of more than one gang, trading and business concerns often find themselves having to pay up to several different parties.. It is well known which groups run extortion rackets: they range from quasi-criminal gangs allegedly supported or even run by mainstream political parties to criminal rings and, in recent years, extremist/militant outfits that are increasingly flexing their muscles. What is shocking, though, is the fact that while the racket is expanding, there are few signs of an effort to crack down on it. Figures collected by the Citizens-Police Liaison Committee show that so far this year, 630 extortion-related complaints have been registered, as compared to 589 last year; the police say that this racket runs into hundreds of millions of rupees annually, and that this will be a record year. But businesses and law-enforcement authorities seem to have reached a point where they treat the shakedowns as routine and even build the cost into their financial outlay estimates. Meanwhile, the impact this practice has on the country’s economy goes unremarked, although it includes implications for everything from investment levels and insurance to the banks’ risk assessment and loans. Unless the country’s financial hub stops resembling gangland, can a positive long-term projection of the economy really be made?
No more favours: Journalists and PM’s tour AT the vanguard of the campaign for an end to the state lavishing special gifts on a select few, the media must show that it is keeping a respectable distance from the government. Ideally, the media houses should have voluntarily decided to eschew the option of the state paying for journalists accompanying senior officials on tours abroad. But they chose an official ban over voluntary withdrawal — even when the bar appeared imminent. The old practice has now been discontinued by the government, and the expenses — air fare, hotel bills, etc — of the small group of six media persons covering Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif’s current visit to China are reportedly being borne by their own organisations. While, in keeping with international practice, journalists should ideally be on board the prime minister’s plane to have access to the leader, the government’s move to curtail state expenditure on them during foreign trips is a positive one.. If journalists, per chance, had earlier found themselves beholden to the official interest because of the government’s ‘hospitality’ they must feel free now that ‘condition’ finally stands removed. This first step needs to be followed up and expanded upon. The larger tradition of various state institutions sponsoring trips of their favourites, among them journalists, and the government benefiting media houses through special measures, must also be done away with. An effort should be made to ensure the ban is not lost to any urges of expediency and that journalists are not compensated with hidden offerings later on. It will not be an easy act to follow, yet it is essential to the reputation both the government and the media must have of being independent, non-discriminatory entities focused on the good of the country and its people.
Democracy in danger: Morsi’s departure THREE hundred and sixty eight days after becoming the country’s first freely elected president, Mohamed Morsi is in military custody and his Muslim Brotherhood-led government disbanded. Once again, the Egyptian military is calling the shots and the country’s political future is shrouded in uncertainty. The only thing that is clear is that the Egyptian street has become a formidable, even decisive, player in the country’s politics, with ordinary citizens massing on the streets in great numbers for the second time in a little over two years to oust a leader who seemed unshakeable. Perhaps that is what justifies, in the anti-Morsi protesters’ minds, looking to the army to forcibly remove a freely elected president when it is the army that has been the principal impediment to democracy over the past 60 years: if the army oversteps its mandate or clings to power, the anti-Morsi masses may already believe they will be able to organise themselves to take on the army too.. Still, the rampant contradictions in the movement to oust Mr Morsi cannot be overlooked. A recent op-ed in The New York Times eloquently captured some of the problems. “Egypt has a dilemma: its politics are dominated by democrats who are not liberals and liberals who are not democrats,” the op-ed stated. Much of this has to do with the decades-old distortions in the Egyptian political system — distortions sustained by the West’s blind focus on stability in the Middle East over all other considerations. Repression of the Muslim Brotherhood, for example, seems to have imbued it with two vital attributes: sympathy from significant sections of the public and an ability to remain organised in the face of fierce persecution. That organisational capacity and vein of sympathy for its cause helped Mr Morsi and his Muslim Brotherhood sweep the parliament and presidential elections. Would those outcomes have necessarily occurred had the Muslim Brotherhood been allowed political space under repressive Egyptian regimes? Similarly, autocracy deprived those striving in Egypt today for democratic values — individual rights and freedoms, civil liberties, protection of women and non-Muslim groups — of an acceptance of democratic principles. So the solution to Mr Morsi’s overreach was not to use street protests to get him to adjust course but to oust him altogether. Much as Mr Morsi made choices that sat uncomfortably within a democratic framework, the onus is on Egypt’s people to accept the principle of democratic continuity and the notion of incremental change. Anything else, and the door inches open for a far more dangerous non-democratic option.
The rot in cricket: PCB politics THE remarks of Najam Sethi, the acting chief of the Pakistan Cricket Board, that the game is at its lowest ebb in the country are hardly a revelation. Every cricket fan is aware of the fact: the national team is not winning, and what should be of greater concern, is not playing well. Foreign sides are staying away because of security fears, and there are scandals involving players and umpires. The PCB head was quoted as saying “…we have been embarrassed enough”. To the sources of embarrassment that he listed could easily be added the functioning of the PCB itself. Many had argued, with citations from the PCB constitution, that Mr Sethi’s appointment lacked legal basis. His appointment was challenged in court just as suspended PCB chief Zaka Ashraf’s new tenure was alleged to have been secured illegally. The malaise goes deeper. Mr Sethi himself confirmed that some of his detractors within were so incensed by his appointment they asked the International Cricket Council to suspend Pakistan’s membership.. Given the complex situation, the question is whether the board right now requires an expert of the game or whether a hard-nosed administrator is the need of the hour. Mr Sethi’s record on both counts is limited, even though his role as care-taker chief minister in Punjab for the last election has been drawn upon to justify his new assignment. He is on record as having said that chief selector Iqbal Qasim was the only member of the national selection committee he knew, or knew of. His task has become more complicated after Mr Qasim resigned yesterday. On the same day the Islamabad High Court allowed Mr Sethi to continue as acting PCB chief. However, the court has set him a 90-day deadline to hold elections. If that were not tough enough, from his views in the media, the acting PCB chief aspires to leave a far greater imprint on cricket in Pakistan. At this juncture one can only wonder what direction his efforts will take.
Out in the open: Police station in a tent IT is not often that people find cause to view the country’s police force with empathy. As a department it is generally regarded as corrupt and inefficient, and as a force it often inspires fear among ordinary people. This is a country where torture in police custody is so common that being detained for questioning can effectively be worse than being hauled up before the judge. But there is another side to the picture, although unfortunately it provokes more derision than the sober reflection that the issue merits. This country’s police force is also severely ill-equipped and under-funded. Indeed, policemen have been known to complain that the culture of bribery that is rampant in the department is, to some extent, driven by sheer need.. Consider, as an example, a report in this newspaper’s Sindh pages yesterday. In Larkana district, a police station has, for three months, been operating out of a tent. The Arija Phirhiwaro police station was established in 2006 but was allotted no premises, so the staff occupied a building where there should have been a health unit. But this building’s condition has deteriorated so much that it is impossible to carry on using it. Though the tent provides shelter to police personnel and suspects arrested in minor cases, the records are still in the old building — and endangered. What capacity do these personnel have to function effectively? And, this is not a police station in a remote rural slot; Larkana has produced two of Pakistan’s most prominent prime ministers. If this is the situation here, the ground realities prevailing at other stations in forgotten backwaters can only be guessed at. Before the police can be expected to perform, should they not first be provided the means of doing so?
Tougher days ahead: IMF loan THE government and the market are jubilant over the ‘successful conclusion’ of a new loan of $5.3bn from the IMF. And why not? The loan will ease pressure on diminishing foreign exchange stocks and relieve the government of worries of how to repay over the next 12 months what the country already owes to the Fund. But is it really a ‘step forward’ for the new government, which had promised voters so much? Although the announcement of the agreement on the loan hides more than it reveals, from whatever has so far been divulged it is clear the people should brace themselves for greater hardship. When Finance Minister Ishaq Dar said a “better tomorrow dawns only when the requisite pains are borne today”, he was signalling towards a tougher future for the people in whose name the loans are secured and who must repay these generosities with sacrifices. . The help from the IMF is necessary not only to repay its existing debt but also to obtain budgetary support from other multilateral lenders. However, the government has not lived up to its pledge of not accepting tough conditions, such as the ones which would raise the energy prices to prohibitive levels, stifle investment and fuel inflation. All the high talk that Mr Dar had indulged in over the last few days was little more than rhetoric to begin with. Some of the steps demanded by the IMF had already been incorporated in the bud-get — raising tax revenues (albeit through the old practice of burdening existing taxpayers), liquidation of the power-sector debt, etc. Others, like a hike in borrowing costs and increase in electricity and gas prices, have also been initiated and now the gap will have to be met before September when the Fund holds its meeting to give the final nod. Still Mr Dar is not sure if the Fund will give him the additional $2bn — over and above the amount agreed on so far — he desperately needs to match the foreign exchange outflow. Nor is anyone certain if all the provinces —– especially Sindh and KP where the PML-N’s opponents rule — will agree to cut their expenditure to cut fiscal deficit to 6pc from the budgetary target of 6.3pc when the minister takes the agreement to the Council of Common Interest for broader political ownership, which is another condition for the loan. The IMF loan and support from the other lenders will provide only some breathing space for the government. It will have to take measures that hurt if it wants to fix the economy.
Quality needed: Pakistani missions AS part of the government’s recently announced cost-cutting measures, the Foreign Office is set to pare down its international footprint with the closure of up to a fourth of the country’s present 70-odd missions across the world. Good idea or bad idea? The raw numbers can make a case either way. With fewer than 500 career officers and a staff complement that is roughly three times that size, the Foreign Office is not quite the overstaffed entity that other institutions have become. Then again, for a country with a small international economic footprint and a relatively narrow foreign policy, the case for consolidation can appear straightforward. For example, in Africa and Latin America the closure of a few outposts may be more than manageable if other missions regionally are made to pick up the slack.. Numbers alone, however, are a misleading yardstick. For one, it is not the size of the officer corps but its competence that matters more. The dozens of economic and commercial officers at Pakistani missions abroad, for example, may be a good idea in theory, but a performance evaluation may suggest that few economic benefits have accrued to Pakistan because of these posts. Merely stating that economic and trade dip-lomacy are priorities, as the newly installed government claims, without developing a coherent strategy and installing quality officers to implement it is largely meaningless. If across-the-board cuts have been mandated by the government, then the Foreign Office too must learn to tighten its belt. But within that paring back is an oppor-tunity to rethink how the Ministry of Foreign Affairs goes about its overall business. From recruiting a better quality of officer to ensuring adequate career opportunities and training to formulating policy that goes beyond the talking points dictated by GHQ, there is much room for improvement. Ultimately, though, it is the product itself, not just the image, that has to be fixed: if Pakistan is to be better regarded internationally, it will first have to put its own house in order.
Lack of perspective: Tirade against KP police WHILE the political leadership’s dithering and mixed signals on the fight against terrorism has left confusion worse confounded, there is no retreat into the comfort of demurral for the law enforcement agencies on the frontline. The nature of their work — and the ruthlessness of their adversaries — makes it a battle starkly drawn in black and white, one in which their lives are at risk every hour, every day. The KP police are among the LEAs most directly impacted by the militancy raging in the tribal areas that abut the province and further north. Sixty-five policemen have been killed in the first six months of this year alone. The perils they contend with on a daily basis cannot be overstated. This is what makes the KP chief minister Pervez Khattak’s scathing denunciation of the force, that too at a public forum — a workshop organised by the police on thana culture — so perplexing and ill-advised. Granted, he acknowledged their sacrifices, and his criticism was specifically concerned with corruption in the force, but the vehemence of his tirade overshadowed his earlier positive observations regarding the police’s performance. . Aside from the fact that corruption in the force, while undeniably present, is widely held to be not as endemic as among police elsewhere in the country, the chief minister’s outburst betrays a lack of perspective in appreciating the crucial role played by the KP police as the first line of defence in the fight against militancy. The force is already reeling from continued onslaughts that have depleted its strength. It is also reported that police personnel are increasingly seeking appointments in sectors that do not confront the militancy head on, such as the motorway police, FIA, etc. The last thing the beleaguered force needs is further demoralisation.
Columns and Articles
Restructuring PIA By Moazzam Husain PAKISTAN’S national airline lost Rs33 billion last year. This is more than what a fully loaded Boeing 777 would cost. . Few who know the airline business would have expected PIA to make a profit last year. Since the start of the financial crisis in 2008 the global airline industry has been hit by a double whammy. It has seen a cut in business travel and a drop in leisure travel. On the other hand, high crude oil prices have squeezed yields. That said; one cannot let PIA off the hook. This is for two reasons. First it has not adequately taken advantage of market opportunities available to it and second, it has let its costs creep well beyond global industry benchmarks. On the market opportunities front, we have a significant Pakistani diaspora in North America and in Europe. This represents an alluring, captive market that would be the envy of any legacy national carrier. Western airlines typically do not fly to Pakistan. All PIA has to do is operate direct flights from North American and European cities into major Pakistani cities offering the proposition “fastest way to get you there”. The two main ingredients of this proposition would be affordable fares and on-time performance. Sadly though, PIA has conceded two thirds of this market to other (mostly Gulf-based) carriers. Financially, this corresponds to Rs60bn in annual revenue that PIA’s competitors have taken away. Even if half of this can be won back over three years then the airline is looking at a 9pc annual growth rate at a time when most other airlines are stagnant. And this is just on the back of business regained in one segment: the Western hemisphere. Now to be fair to PIA, the Gulf airlines (and airports) are driven by more than commercial considerations. They are in fact strategic play pieces, part of a larger vision to position these countries as world destinations and to build their image and global profile. This is not unlike the motivation for which countries host the Olympic Games. It can be argued therefore that PIA is often up against competition of a variety that goes beyond the commercial and profit motive. Still it must cherry pick, then focus on and build its star routes, anchored in the proposition “fastest way to get you there”. In these markets, traditional marketing has given way to search engine marketing, using which customers search flights, obtain fares and compare routings and timings. Digital media has opened up new customer touch points which include price comparison websites and social media. It is not uncommon, for example, for customers to be engaging with the airline on Twitter — in real time — discussing meal options on a specific flight. In addition most airlines have launched their own mobile apps allowing their customers to book tickets, to check-in and to manage their frequent flier accounts from their mobile phones. Similarly, the domestic market from which PIA derives half its revenue is clearly underserved. The domestic travellers seek convenient flight times and on-time performance. Then there is a segment seeking budget fares. Service propositions can be developed around these needs and have existed in the past. And while the global airline industry may be facing overcapacity, for PIA there is latent demand in the domestic sector offering several years of growth opportunity. The other main segments are outbound travel from Pakistan for business and for leisure. Here the in-flight experience and holiday airfares are important ingredients of the customer proposition. Then there is the religious travel segment and finally the expatriate Pakistanis in the Gulf region who are time poor and baggage heavy. It doesn’t make sense to increase market share when each flight is losing you money. This brings us to the second issue: costs creeping beyond industry benchmarks. While much is made of overstaffing, in fact PIA’s cost inefficiencies are in its fleet, that last year guzzled Rs61bn worth of fuel. This represents 55pc of total revenue. In terms of the global airline industry, fuel makes up 35pc of total costs. Meanwhile Australia’s Qantas — perhaps because of carbon tax considerations — keeps it as low as 28pc. PIA’s 55pc is therefore hard to accept. In addition PIA’s load factor at 70pc is below par. Lastly, the fleet downtime is high with aircraft kept on the ground for want of spares or payment for fuel. From the perspective of a strategic operating plan, an airline’s business analysis does not begin with aircraft but with the market forecast. However, once the traffic estimates are ascertained, then the most optimal aircraft solutions are found. If it turns out that the aircraft available from within the airline’s fleet are a poor fit with requirements then a fleet restructuring may become necessary. Alternately it may become necessary for reasons of fuel efficiency or aircraft obsolescence. If this turns out to be the case then the management and the airline board would need to be given a free hand to take the necessary decisions without outside meddling or interference. They must also be allowed to choose between buying and leasing the aircraft and to evaluate and decide on the most viable financing plan. Needless to say, a onetime bailout may be extended against a sound business plan so that the airline is recapitalised and these ratios can be fixed. The other 45pc of the expenses are non-fuel expenses. Whilst drastic reductions in manpower expenses may be unrealistic, airlines around the world have taken fiscal cost control measures which have included contract renegotiations, process improvements and restructuring agent commissions. But if over half of my expense is fuel, then half the time of my management looking for cost savings should be spent here. The writer is a business strategist and entrepreneur. moazzamhusain.com
Anchoring KP province By Anjum Altaf I LEARNT there is just one flight per week from Lahore to Peshawar and it returns three days later. This prompted an investigation of how Peshawar is connected to the outside world. . Here is some quick information on the flights per week to Peshawar and their origins: none from Central Asia; one from East Asia; one from Afghanistan: one from Punjab; two from Balochistan; four from within Khyber Pakhtunkhwa; four from Islamabad; 10 from Sindh; and 56 from the Middle East. While KP is part of Pakistan, it seems reasonable to infer that its economic engine is in the Middle East. One might post oneself outside Peshawar airport to determine the nature of the economic engine. I doubt one would see investors armed with briefcases and laptops. Much more likely that the vast majority would comprise migrant workers returning home for a break with the type of consumer goods that unskilled and semi-skilled migrant workers come back with. This would confirm that KP is a manpower exporting economy. It does not generate enough jobs to employ its labour force; nor does the rest of Pakistan put together. The type of work for which the human capital of KP has been equipped by its governments is to be found in sufficient numbers in Karachi and, at a living wage, mostly in the Middle East. This is not an outcome of the recent unrest in the province. It has been so for a long time. I wrote a paper in 1992 — The Spatial Pattern of International Labour Flows from and to Pakistan — which showed that the NWFP (as it was then called) was the province with the highest relative outmigration from Pakistan (about three times the national average) and the lowest return migration to Pakistan (about half the national average). There was little for people to do in the province and little for them to come back to. Within the NWFP, Peshawar district had the highest relative outmigration (over six times the national average) and the lowest return migration (about a fifth of the national average) suggesting that better prepared workers were even more likely to leave the province and even less likely to return. Clearly the prospects for socioeconomic development would be dented if those most likely to contribute were left with no alternative but to exit. It might be argued that there is nothing really problematic with the above scenario — we are part of a global economy and labour moves to where the jobs are. There are many sociological and political reasons to argue to the contrary. Think of the inner cities in the US that were reduced to pockets of poverty after the flight of the affluent to the suburbs. The pathologies that arise from such phenomena are a source of concern to social scientists. One could surmise that the rise of social and religious conservatism in KP is an outcome of its manpower-exporting economy, anchored in the Middle East, which transforms labourers into small-property owners imbued with the values of its host society. For an economist, the aspect of interest is not that labour moves to where the jobs are but why jobs are not in KP. Is it a desert capable of growing or producing nothing? Since few would subscribe to that judgement a search is needed for a plausible explanation. The corollary to the above is that there has been very little investment in KP from neighbouring Punjab or from Karachi, despite the fact that the province is rich in energy potential and many kinds of natural resources. At the very least one might have expected over the many preceding decades some relocation of industry attracted by lower land and labour costs in KP. An examination of the reasons for the absence might be a good place to start in designing a new development strategy for the province. A thought experiment might trigger some ideas. Imagine KP as an independent country no longer eligible for allocations from a federal budget. What might it do to generate its own revenues and how might it go about attracting foreign direct investment from its neighbouring countries? One could add an analogy to the thought experiment. There was a time when Mexico was exporting its labour across the border to the US for agricultural work. The shock of suspension of the arrangement in 1965 was the catalyst for a border industrialisation programme designed to provide alternative employment. By the end of the century, almost 4,000 factories financed by US investment were generating 25pc of Mexico’s GDP, almost 50pc of its exports, and about 10pc of its formal employment. The analogy might seem far-fetched but is suggestive of a vision to develop the province. Central to the vision is identifying the type of industry compatible with the province’s natural resource endowments, the type of infrastructure and skills required to operate the industries, the type of incentives needed to attract back skilled labour, and the downstream industries that would cater to the consumption needs of workers with rising incomes to keep money circulating in the domestic economy. In thinking of a border industrialisation programme it might be useful to re-examine the experience of the Hattar Industrial Estate located on the Punjab-NWFP border presumably to attract capital investment. By all accounts it has not been a success — a recent report indicated that abandoned and sick industrial units exceeded in number those that were operational and under construction. The reasons remain to be fully examined. Khyber Pakhtunkhwa is a rich province poorly served by its governments. Its citizens deserve better. They are too desperate to leave and too much in debt to find the time or energy to protest but such good fortune may not last forever. The writer is dean of the School of Humanities, Social Sciences and Law at the Lahore University of Management Sciences.
The missing PM By Cyril Almeida ANYONE seen him around? Sixty-plus, portly, formerly bald? Won an unexpectedly solid mandate a few weeks ago? Sharif? Nawaz? Where is he? The prime minister has pulled a disappearing act. And left behind is a stuttering, directionless government that, like many before it, seems to think talk is action.. It began with the budget. Forget sand, this was a line drawn in water — the government believing it could invent whatever numbers it wanted because the IMF wouldn’t push very hard in the end. And as if to reinforce the belief that the IMF wouldn’t push very hard in the end, the Taliban got their office in Doha and the boys here broke out the halal champagne to celebrate their triumph. Five, ten, fifteen billion to prop up an ailing Pakistani economy in return for bringing the Afghan Taliban to the negotiating table? Surely, yes. So Dar gave us the ridiculous exercise of a budget of made-up numbers — and it took just 36 hours for the first fiction to manifest itself. Good idea/bad idea, smart move, dumb move, once Dar decided against giving federal employees an increment, he needed to stand his ground. That, after all, was the only way to demonstrate the government is serious about the business of putting its fiscal house in order. But to cave so early on a measure so small in the larger scheme of things — the sharks circling instantly knew what it meant: there is no will for reform. And if the will is lacking, so is the vision: Dar opted to spur growth by pumping money into the usual project-oriented development budget instead of getting the state out of the state of over-regulation it has found itself in. Budget, fail. And through it all, Sharif was missing. (When your multi-million-dollar watch is a bigger talking point than anything you’ve said during your first budget cycle, you know something’s not right, and probably very wrong.) India was supposed to be the big foreign-policy breakthrough Sharif would work on — and work on soon. And that meant dealing with the boys too. The Indians have long wanted two gestures to help them move on from Mumbai: wrap up the trial in the Pindi ATC of those implicated in the Mumbai attacks, and muzzle Hafiz Saeed and ilk a bit. Sharif bought into that idea and suggested speeding up the trial. Sorry, that currently isn’t possible, the boys demurred. And that was that. On the US, the Sharif camp is selling the line that the PM is taking personal interest in sustaining the relationship. Swell idea. But let’s see how that’s working out. SRAP Dobbins visits Pakistan and he’s told he’ll only be seeing Sartaj. Then Sharif decides to join the meeting — something the N-League is bandying as a sign of a hands-on PM. In the world of diplomacy, though, it’s just a sign of no coordination and little preparation. But the real kicker is what happened next: Gen K also decided to join. And it was the government that had to relay to the Americans the second addition to a meeting the government had earlier insisted it wanted to keep one-on-one. Egg, face. Real embarrassment, though, had already been delivered. In the wake of Doha, the Foreign Office put out a smug, self-congratulatory statement that made the eyes water. Why was Sharif’s Foreign Office claiming credit for a long-running process that he couldn’t possibly have had anything to do with all these years while sitting in the opposition? Why not just ask the boys to use the ISPR to put out their smug, self- congratulatory message? So much for the PM-as-FM-and-DefMin idea getting off to a good start. Epitomising Sharif not putting a foot wrong between the election and government-formation and not putting a foot right since government-formation is Balochistan. The de facto PM Nisar has been busy snarling and growling about all manner of security and intelligence failures in the province. But where’s the action? Why not sack the IGFC Balochistan or the ISI sector in-charge, the principal operational drivers of security policy in the province? On and on, and on, the list goes. Are we talking to the TTP or preparing to fight them? Is the power sector being fixed at the cost of creating a new class of super rich? How will the country’s drift towards international isolation be slowed, let alone reversed? The one question that Sharif has attempted a half-hearted answer to is Musharraf. But he had little choice: the budget session was ending and the Supreme Court had asked the government what it intends to do with Musharraf. Sharif had to speak. So what has happened to Sharif? When on the rare occasion he has been seen and on the even rarer occasion he has been heard, he looks like he has the weight of the world on his shoulders. Never a great orator or particularly animated to begin with, Sharif appears listless and enervated. His own party is worried — and even more worried that they have no real answers to why he’s disappeared on them. Could this be the beginning of a replay of May 2008 to Oct 2011, when the PML-N slept through the first three years of the last assemblies before Khan jolted Sharif into action? Maybe, maybe not. But it’s another reason to want Khan back to his nagging and taunting best — and soon. Khan appears to be only man on earth who can goad Sharif and the PML-N into action. The writer is a member of staff. cyril.a@gmail.com Twitter: @cyalm
Mobile phones and violence By Hajrah Mumtaz GALLING as it is to have to consider it, could Rehman Malik have been right?. There were many things about which he was wrong, and many instances when he should have put a little more thought into what he was saying; but one area where his comments remain unsubstantiated was regarding the effectiveness of the cellular phone network shutdowns that have become an annoying feature of life over the past year or so. The logic is simple: these days, violent extremists of all ilk are increasingly tech savvy and one of the tools in their arsenal are mobile phones. Not only can the hardware be used to trigger bombs from remote locations, the device is used by terrorists and criminals alike to keep in touch or coordinate an attack. In the 2003 attack in Rawalpindi on Pervez Musharraf, the suicide bomber was tipped off about the timing of the convoy’s departure via mobile phone. As a result, Pakistanis had to get used to waking up, with or without warning, to dead mobile phones. This was not just a major inconvenience: there were reports of people being unable to call for help in medical or security emergencies, for example. Many households and even businesses no longer maintain landline numbers. Mr Malik and the government he represented took a lot of flak for this; obviously, barring a few very specific situations, it is nearly impossible to demonstrate positively that the suspension of the cellular phone network managed to ward off an assault of some sort — an attack that didn’t take place could be an attack thwarted or one never planned in the first place. But now comes the news that some academics have drawn a link between expanding cellular network coverage in Africa and rising levels of political violence. Published in the May (volume 107) issue of the American Political Science Review, the research undertaken by Jan H. Pierskalla and Florian M. Hollenbach argues that “the availability of cellphones as a communication technology allows political groups to overcome collective action problems more easily and improve in-group cooperation, and coordination. ….[W]e are able to show that the availability of cellphone coverage significantly and substantially increases the probability of violent conflict.” Africa is the world’s fastest-growing mobile phone market, having maintained an annual growth rate in the sector of almost 20pc since 2007. This has had its benefits: mobile banking, faster communication between traders and customers and so on. Politically, the technology is said to have played a role in the Arab Spring in North Africa (and elsewhere); in Mozambique, mobile phones have helped improve voter education; in Namibia the device has helped citizens make government officials more accountable. But so far, there had been few studies on the downsides. This paper at hand then, would be it. Amongst other key findings, the paper also notes that greater mobile phone coverage increases conflict in “areas with structural conditions that favour violence” as compared to those where conditions are such that violence is less likely. Pakistan is not Africa; but it certainly is a place where structural conditions favour violence. That should certainly leave Mr Malik and his erstwhile team feeling quite happy, if not vindicated. But by this argument, then, the sector ought to be shut down altogether. After all, if no one had a mobile phone — or only the privileged were allowed them — extremists would not be able to communicate or coordinate easily. This is a ludicrous line of thought (though in Pakistan, one never knows. We don’t want to go putting the wrong ideas into the head of some little genius. Which is why I must also say that, as the authors of the paper themselves point out, an earlier study on the links between mobile phones and violence observed in Iraq the effect opposite to that in Africa: there, the technology is helping decrease insurgent violence). If violent extremists and criminals can use certain technology to their advantage, should that technology be shut down? I’ll choose to ignore here the benefits of cellular phone technology such as those listed above. As a parallel example, consider the fact that for years books and the written word were in the Western world the purview of the clergy and the elite; ideas, it was generally held, were too dangerous to be allowed to get close to the common man. And, consider the cataclysms that occurred in the Catholic world when Martin Luther translated the Bible into the vernacular from Latin, making it more accessible. The printing press was for similar reasons thought of by certain quarters as a deeply dangerous device, words being too pure and precious to be automatically duplicated, and ideas and ideologies being too dangerous to be allowed to be widely disseminated. If there exists the possibility that a certain technology can be used to their advantage by those with mischief in their hearts, should it not be developed / accessed at all? It would help if technology were to be thought of as a brick wall in the middle of a motorway; it’s not evil, but it can cause a lot of damage. The trick for Pakistan to learn is to combat extremists on their own ground, rather than inconveniencing the citizenry. If they’re tech-savvy, the state needs to be even more so. As for violent political groups’ ability to communicate, clamping down on it is merely addressing the symptom: Algerian independence was won through radio communication, and the Iranian revolution took place on the back of the cassette tape. In every case it is the root causes, the structural fault lines that must be addressed to curtail political violence. The writer is a member of staff. hajrahmumtaz@gmail.com
Pakistan’s influence By Moeed Yusuf FOR long, many have talked of successful political reconciliation in Afghanistan as the last hope to prevent prolonged instability in the country post-2014. . One significant part of the reconciliation process is the effort to bring the Afghan Taliban ‘in’ — ideally into the current political system. The recent announcement and acknowledgement of formal talks between the US and Qatar-based Taliban interlocutors was therefore rightly welcomed. The hype didn’t last, however; it ended as abruptly as it was created. Even before the talks have taken off in earnest, pundits are busy telling us that they are dead in the water. Surely, the process has gotten off to an undesirable start. All key actors have already threatened to pull out. The Taliban don’t want to recognise the Afghan government but President Hamid Karzai won’t put his weight behind the effort without that recognition. The US can’t ignore domestic political realities and begin releasing prisoners without putting a transparent process in place. The Taliban are dogmatic about their brand of Sharia and to a large extent, about eviction of the foreign presence from Afghanistan. The list of these seemingly irreconcilable differences could go on. But playing these up beyond a point is neither here nor there. What has ensued since the announcement of formal talks is hardly surprising — surprising it would have been had everything gone smoothly. You could have asked anyone in the business of analysing the Afghan conundrum at any point over the past year and discovered that the process was going to be tedious; that it would be a long shot; and that more than likely talks would not work. Why? Precisely because the kind of meltdowns we have witnessed over the past fortnight were entirely expected. So pointing to the fact that things are going terribly is stating the obvious. Apart from running the process to the ground prematurely, it serves no purpose. Policymakers need ways to break through these initial barriers. The process is already starting too late and there are few concrete answers to these questions still. What would it take from this point on to make this work? While each of the key players will have to remain flexible and make decisions antithetical to their reflexive stances, let me focus specifically on what Pakistan can do to help. First, Pakistan must remain involved and the world must continue demanding its help. For the record, I have been a longtime critic of Pakistan’s traditional overreach in Afghan affairs. But that and the current situation are very different. It is difficult to fathom what good it would do for the country with the most clout over the Afghan Taliban and physical access to some key Taliban leaders to sit back and let the process wither. More than ever, Pakistan needs to play a proactive role — a constructive one with the singular objective of nudging the Taliban to negotiate sincerely. Simultaneously, pressure needs to be put on the Taliban to revise violence levels in Afghanistan downward. It may seem outlandish but a win-win arrangement could be found if Pakistan (and others with influence) pushes the Taliban to cease attacks on Afghan and international presence while peace talks progress. As a quid pro quo, the international and Afghan forces would reciprocate with a localised ceasefire. Tools such as drone strikes or other counterterrorism measures would then only be used against Taliban factions who breach the commitment. Not to gloss over Pakistan’s fairly dicey relationship with Mullah Omar and company, the security establishment has some potent sticks in hand. The modest number of Taliban prisoners still in custody is an obvious one. The families of these and other Taliban is another card that has usually come in handy in crunch time in the past. And then there is always the threat of Pakistan tightening the screws on Taliban presence or on their activities from Pakistani soil. Used prudently and selectively, these could have some impact. I see no realistic possibility of the Pakistani security establishment choosing to turn actively against the Taliban — both for fear of reprisals and because they envision the Taliban having considerable hold over the Afghan areas bordering Pakistan post-2014. But just what message the Pakistani military-intelligence combine sends to the Taliban matters. Retaining ties and using them positively is one thing; but any hint that Pakistan will be willing to back the Taliban if things go wrong in Afghanistan after the exit of the International Security Assistance Force is quite another. It would embolden the insurgents and remove any compulsion for them to reconcile with the US, Kabul or other Afghan opponents. Afghanistan’s descent into the abyss may then become a self-fulfilling prophecy. As far as one can tell, Pakistan has avoided crossing this fine line thus far. It must continue to do so. Finally, if the number one goal is to see the reconciliation talks proceed — it should be as Pakistan, like each of the other actors involved, stands to lose immensely if they don’t — all other irritants have to be tuned out. Perhaps the most worrying is the Islamabad-Kabul relationship. It is difficult to exaggerate how deeply resentful the Pakistani diplomatic and military circles are of President Karzai’s constant finger-pointing at Pakistan. Their reasons notwithstanding, putting him down at the cost of affecting the talks is hardly sensible. Islamabad may have faltered on this count already. If it had used its leverage prudently, it could have possibly nudged the Taliban to avoid irking Karzai by hoisting their flag in Qatar — they have almost been pretending to be the government in waiting. As far as I can tell, there wasn’t much of an effort from anyone to hold the Taliban back. Such situations will keep arising; it won’t hurt for Pakistan to remain prepared to use its influence positively when they do. The writer is South Asia adviser at the US Institute of Peace, Washington, D.C.
Patwari, thana and Titanic By Kunwar Idris IT is customary for our leaders to hold the patwari and thana culture responsible for the indignities suffered by the people. Every politician pledges to put an end to it. . The so-called culture persists, nevertheless. The explanation is simple. Most leaders don’t mean what they say and those few who do, have no alternative to offer to the age-old patwari’s revenue circle or to the police station headed by a station house officer (SHO). The plain fact is there is no alternative for either. In a society where the vast majority of people own small land holdings, (or plough the larger holdings of others) and crime is rampant, the officials who keep the land records and those who are supposed to take cognisance of crime should be at hand and accessible. Seemingly, the worry of the leaders is corruption in the system. That is no justification for depriving peasant farmers of a service that no one else can provide at a lesser cost or a lower rate of bribe. Corruption is a national phenomenon. The higher one goes, the bigger is the demand and the lesser the access. Village folk would be travelling longer to reach, say, an office with computerised records and only to pay more for a service that is available at their doorstep. Notwithstanding the abuse of authority and the resultant bribery, it is hard to overstate the usefulness and ready accessibility of these two institutions that are rooted in our history. As the British colonised India, they followed two golden rules to gain trust. First, the people must rely on the virtue of the rulers, not their ability; and second, and more important, whatever was working should not be disturbed. Those remained the cardinal principles of their long rule. The age-old local institutions of the patwari and SHO were thus protected. Some myths grew around both. Like ‘ooper Parwardigar nichey patwar’ (God in the heavens and patwari on earth). And when a deputy commissioner treated a village woman kindly she prayed for him to become a thanedar one day. The two officials may no longer be the recipient of such tributes but their pivotal role in a backward and troubled society remains undiminished especially in the rural areas. The SHOs hold sway even in larger cities like Karachi. That explains ministers fighting over their appointments. Some time ago, this writer needed help from the police. Having once been head of the provincial administration, I spoke to the inspector general of police (IG). The SHO of the area came to ask why there was need for me to bother the IG when “this humble servant is always there at your service”. That was indeed a polite rebuke for ignoring him. After all, the IG could do no more than to tell him to attend to my problem. All of us, whatever the level of our profession or commitment to the public good, have some grand notions of reform. Personally, I subscribe to the colonial wisdom which was not to disturb whatever is working. That, by and large, was the ruling thought till Z.A. Bhutto — a barrister, a rabble-rouser and a feudal chieftain all rolled into one — transformed that ‘fatalistic’ thinking into Islam, socialism and all-power-to-the-people. Ironically enough, as a landlord he himself could not ignore neither the patwari nor the SHO. In due course of time Bhutto’s version of Islam degenerated into religious strife, his socialism ended in a bungled nationalisation effort and the elite, not the common man, challenged the writ of state at every turn. Some lawyers think that he would not have been hanged had the SHO refused, or even delayed, registering an FIR against him. Starting as mere slogans, Bhutto’s actions caused enough public discontent to pave the way for the emergence of Ziaul Haq and later Pervez Musharraf. We live in a Pakistan forged by Bhutto, Zia and Musharraf. It is not the country that Jinnah had envisioned. Elections are held to bring stability to democracy. Here they have shaken the democratic structure to its core. The emerging lesson is that in order to function, a democracy must be underpinned by a strong and secure civil service. Westminster cannot function without Whitehall. If our political leaders are not prepared to follow the essential features of a parliamentary democracy, they should give earnest thought to the presidential system which largely blurs the line dividing politics from administration and public representatives from civil servants. Altaf Hussain thinks, and Imran Khan agrees, that the Titanic of the ummah is sinking. The ummah will surely survive, but Pakistan, the self-styled champion of Islam, may not. It is said that once the hull and lower decks of the “unsinkable” Titanic were filled with water and the vessel’s sinking appeared certain, the band playing to the cruising gentry on the upper deck struck the tune Nearer my God to Thee and went to the bottom of the sea. Revelling on Pakistan’s upper deck are the nobility who imagine their Titanic is also unsinkable. There is no orchestra to strike the fatal tune. Altaf Hussain and Imran Khan, the two leaders who always march to the beat of their own drum, should be heeded this time round. kunwaridris@hotmail.com
Pakistan incorporated By Muhammad Ali THE 2013-2014 budget should not be the yardstick to measure the new government’s performance or strategic direction on account of the short time period they had to finalise the budget proposals. . However, the expected creativity was lacking, and the burden of state deficits seen to be shifted to existing taxpayers, which is not a long-term solution. For years we’ve heard the rhetoric of “broadening the tax base” which seems to have been falling on deaf ears. This could be either because the concept’s implementation methodology is not fully understood, or it is felt that tough measures required to bring taxable economic activity into the net would be difficult in a country driven by social and political pressures. But the answer is simple: document the economy — in a way which benefits economic activity. The classic example is that of corporatisation of businesses. Sixteenth-century Europe cashed in on this centuries ago. Register businesses by introducing a fair system of taxation which motivates businesses to file tax returns, and in the process document the economy. If incorporated, individuals can also take advantage of limited liability, hence shared risks and easier access to finance. Yet, despite the corporatised form of business dominating the developed world for the last few centuries, we’ve only managed to corporatise 2pc of our businesses. Around 63,000 businesses out of an estimated three million operate in the form of a company structure. An economic model driven by corporatisation of all businesses, irrespective of their size, sector or form, with every business contributing a share of its profits to the exchequer will help the state reduce taxes across the board and grant relief to the public. Changes in duties and tax rates alone will not help us take the tax-to-GDP ratio to a level of 15pc or higher. Something more needs to be done. Once we realise that ‘something’ needs to be done, the next question is: ‘what?’ The first, most obvious answer is political will. After recognition of this need, achieving an incorporated Pakistan over the next five years is a doable task. The second is already being worked on — the Corporate Laws Review Commission established in 2006. During my tenure as chairman, Securities and Exchange Commission of Pakistan, we set up a dedicated secretariat to give impetus to this project, and to complete the research on and drafting of a new company law. Till date, we have been making ad hoc amendments to the existing company law. The proposed law is to be developed on specified principles, including the simplification of processes of registration, development of audit standards, giving investors a wider array of corporate structures, and moving towards a regime of proportionate regulation and enforcement without hassling the investors. The third, and related requirement is that of taxation. Presently, incorporated entities pay taxes at a rate of 35pc, and are subjected to greater audit and regulatory requirements; whilst partnerships and individuals pay tax at a rate of 25pc, with little or no reporting or regulatory requirements. How then are we incentivising documentation? There is historical justification for this anomaly — the decision to encourage small businesses may have been right at the time that it was taken, but the business world has changed since then and the same objective can be achieved today by regulating entities in proportion to their size, as opposed to discouraging incorporation by levying higher taxes. Fourth is a conducive regulatory environment. If our businessmen perceive other jurisdictions to be more business-friendly with lesser possibility of unfair treatment, then we are doing something wrong. There has to be a revamp of the regulatory structure in Pakistan, especially in terms of development of HR. Austerity measures should never compromise the quality of HR and foreign regulators need to be invited to Pakistan to impart skills, knowledge and training. This, coupled with market-based compensation packages and a performance-based work environment, will minimise the potential for misuse of power by the regulators. It would also expose the regulators to their role in developing the economy of Pakistan, as opposed to merely policing it. Last, an acceptable rate of taxation needs to be ensured. The basic principle driving higher collection of taxes should be that if the government needs more money, it should encourage people to make and declare more money rather than avoid investing, and try and hide profitability to evade taxes. The classic example is that of Far Eastern and Middle Eastern countries, which have kept the tax rate low but enforced it strictly, and their businesses are willing to pay the taxes as they are perceived to be fair. If we were to reduce our tax rate further and ensure that all businesses in Pakistan, irrespective of their form and size, are registered and subject to taxes, will we be better off or worse off? We also need to rethink whether tax rate should be a function of the form of business or its profitability. The latter would be a more plausible answer — a business earning a lower level of absolute profit should be subject to a lower tax rate irrespective of its form, especially when its accounts and operations are more transparent, subject to greater regulatory scrutiny and it is therefore less likely to evade taxes. The federal government should consider taxing corporations at a rate which is lower than other forms of business. To avoid the possibility of tax loss in the short term, the transition can be phased out over the next few years. These recommendations are neither difficult to execute, nor will they require a lot of courage. But they do require political will — and from the gradual reduction of the corporate tax rate in this year’s budget, it seems that the will does hopefully exist. The writer is the former chairman, Securities and Exchange Commission of Pakistan.
Tale of two Waziristans By Zahid Hussain TWISTING and turning along the rugged mountains, a newly constructed highway has changed the landscape of South Waziristan which not too long ago was described as the headquarters of the Pakistani Taliban’s ‘Islamic Emirate of Waziristan’. . The sight offers a sharp contrast to the forbidding feeling that surrounds the neighbouring agency of North Waziristan, the epicentre of violent militancy. Last week I travelled to these two largest tribal agencies that form the eye of the storm in the battle against the militants. Cutting through the region inhabited by the Mehsud tribe, the 110-kilometre-long Jandola-Makin road has opened up the territory devastated by the insurgency. Tribesmen are trickling back to their homes in the districts cleared of the Taliban. The situation is still tenuous, however, in parts of the agency, with militant bands lurking on the fringes. Life is slowly returning to normal in Sararogah town, once the Taliban’s operational nerve centre. Most of the families are back to a completely changed environment. A new market, a technical school and a basic health unit have been built on the ruins left by the fighting. It was a completely different scene from the one I had witnessed when I visited the town soon after the army operation at the end of 2009. Sararogah had been reduced to a pile of mud bricks and twisted iron. Amid the rubble was a ramshackle student hostel which the Taliban had used as their base. It had also served as a training school for suicide bombers. Booklets with detailed instructions for making bombs were scattered on the dusty floor as well as ammunition and vests with pouches tailored for suicide bombers. This training centre was thought to be the main one used by militants who had unleashed a wave of terror that shook the country. There was then strong evidence of South Waziristan becoming the main sanctuary for Al Qaeda-linked foreign fighters. By driving out the Taliban from a large swath of land the offensive has broken the myth of the territory being the graveyard of the army. That success was made possible because of the toughened resolve of the military and full support from the political leadership. It was that rare unity that helped win a critical battle against the Taliban. New hope has emerged from the rebuilding of Sararogah and the construction of the road networks linking regional trade routes. But there is still a long way to go before peace can return to South Waziristan. The soldiers are still engaged in fighting the Taliban in parts of the agency making it hard for the population to return to their homes. While there is a ray of hope in South Waziristan, the situation in North Waziristan is extremely tenuous. The tension is palpable as one arrives in Miramshah. The town and the adjacent areas are mostly under night curfew. The army garrison headquarters looks like a sub-ground bunker given the heavy security around it. IED (improvised explosive device) attacks have taken a huge toll on Pakistani soldiers. Suicide attacks are also commonplace. On the surface, it seems to be business as usual in the town, but beneath it there is a lurking fear of the unknown. The presence of a lethal brew of militant groups has earned the region the reputation of being the most dangerous place on earth. It is not surprising that the origin of most acts of terrorism inside Pakistan can be located in North Waziristan with thousands of militants from outside and across Pakistan turning the agency into a jihadi training base. The continued insecurity in parts of South Waziristan is also attributed to these militant sanctuaries in the north. Most of the top Tehreek-i-Taliban Pakistan (TTP) commanders, including Hakeemullah Mehsud, are now said to be operating from their hideouts in the agency. Several Punjabi militant groups, which are associated with the TTP and Al Qaeda, have set up training camps in Mir Ali and Miramshah districts which also house Uzbek fighters. Then there are Afghan Taliban groups who may not be interested in fighting Pakistanis, but are focused on battling the coalition and Afghan forces across the border. Security officials aver that militant violence in Pakistan cannot be stopped without eliminating these sanctuaries. But the option of a military operation in North Waziristan has become a highly divisive issue despite the escalation in militant violence. While conceding that such an operation is imperative for national security, the military leadership wants the civilian government to take ownership. This dithering and indecision has already come at a huge cost given the rising power of militant groups. There is also growing concern in the international community over the region becoming the centre for global jihad. “A military operation is still doable at the moment, but further delay would be disastrous,” said a senior military officer. A good opportunity to launch the operation emerged last year following the attack on Malala Yousafzai. It was akin to October 2009 when the attack on General Headquarters (GHQ) created an enabling environment for the operation in South Waziristan. But unlike then, no political consensus could be developed on North Waziristan. The military wanted a clear mandate from the political leadership before launching the offensive. The effort by the PPP-led government to achieve a consensus among the main political parties failed. The main opposition came from the PML-N which was fearful of a possible backlash in Punjab. The opportunity was lost thus granting greater space to the militants and making Pakistan and the region more insecure. Thousands of Pakistani soldiers and officers have laid down their lives securing South Waziristan and other tribal territories, but that tenuous control may fall apart if North Waziristan is not cleared. The success in South Waziristan could be repeated in North Waziristan if tough decisions are taken, before it is too late. The writer is an author and journalist. zhussain100@yahoo.com Twitter: @hidhussain
Reducing risk By Shuja Ahmed IT can be argued that constant improvement of working conditions in developed countries is one of the key factors for effective performance of public organisations. . It has become a legal requirement for any organisation to make sure that working conditions are suitable and the employees are safe. In other words, organisations are now required to ensure that health and safety regulations are fully observed at workplaces. Thus, team leaders and managers are required by law to provide a safe working environment. However, working conditions in developing countries in general and Pakistan in particular are deteriorating day by day mainly because of the lack of new health and safety rules and the poor implementation of existing regulations. Thus, the uncongenial health and safety situation has led to several incidents in the recent history of Pakistan. Recent work situations in some organisations indicate that workers are being bullied in offices and humiliated by their bosses. These workers are not fully protected against harassment, blackmail or various forms of discrimination including those involving gender, ethnicity and religion. These issues affect the mental capabilities of employees. However, the physical abilities of workers are affected by the unavailability of a risk-management plan and resources for its implementation. For instance, factory workers are put to work in an extremely harsh environment and without the proper equipment or special skills required for doing a particular job. In other situations, workers have time limits for completing various tasks and there is a failure to comply with health and safety rules. This violation of rules is taken seriously neither by the team leaders nor the employees. Consequently, the likelihood of danger increases. However, violations take place in organisations where laws and regulations are not being followed or where people don’t fear the consequences of breaking laws. Thus, there are various potential risks. Some are considered more damaging than others. Some of them are likely to occur more than others and some can be stopped or reduced quickly. It is important to identify risks and prioritise the major ones. After identifying the risks, the next thing to do is to assess them. This exercise will give the manager an idea of what can be done to avert serious risks. The nature of risks can be internal or external depending on the location of work. Nevertheless, it would be useful to examine separately the factors which cause these risks. With regard to indoor work, the risk potential can be devastating if not managed properly by team leaders. The failure to manage internal risks can ruin business and damage the image of organisations. The best way to begin the process of managing risks is to create awareness among workers about health and safety responsibilities because poor awareness and lack of care on the job is a major cause of accidents at workplaces. Thus, health and safety measures if put in place can help reduce risks to one’s person and mental health. Like traffic rules which help in reducing major road accidents, safety regulations can help us handle difficult situations within organisations effectively. In addition to awareness, various methods of averting risks can be employed at the workplace. For example, the danger of a fire breaking out can be effectively managed through fire extinguishers, alarms, the safe use of ladders and other tools. Organisations here need to develop a strong fire alarm system. It would help create a safe environment and workers would feel secure. They would not have to deal with fear or worries during work. However, outdoor work requires the team leader to look out for external factors which are a potential danger for team workers outside the premises of the organisation. They have to consider logistics, transport and weather factors for tasks supposed to be done outside. It is the manager’s duty to make sure that his team members know what needs to be done in an emergency. They should know where to go and how to reduce risks. The employees can be informed through team briefings and safety manuals. In addition to this information, team leaders can arrange for health and safety courses for their team members in order to learn the various techniques of reducing internal and external risks in both manual and technological handling. The process of lawmaking is driven by the needs created by social, economic and political changes in society. These changes create disturbances in every aspect of society. For example, they create disturbances in social organisation which creates the need to maintain social control. Similarly, organisational change also creates the need to formulate new rules which can regulate the changing world of work. In addition, the use of the latest technology within the organisation also requires a regulation system that can be upgraded. In Pakistan, rule-making and its implementation does not seem to keep pace with technological changes in industrial and commercial organisations. This has caused several accidents at the workplace. However, the more depressing fact is that apparently no lesson is being learnt by our policymakers and law-enforcement officers to manage work-related risks. The new government will face various challenges including organisational effectiveness. But its performance will be judged from the ability of organisations to deliver services effectively. Thus, the organisational development strategy of the government needs to incor-porate all the latest health and safety regulations in order to achieve the goal of effectiveness. The writer is a researcher at Royal Holloway, University of London.
No end to turmoil By Najmuddin A. Shaikh IT would be no exaggeration to say that the Muslim heartland is aflame and that in large measure the turmoil is attributable to not just a struggle against authoritarian rulers but also to a sectarian divide that seems to be growing. . The blast near an imambargah in Quetta that killed 30 people was only the latest incident of sectarian violence that has almost become the norm in Pakistan since the Iran-Iraq war of 1979-87. The Iran-Iraq war was deliberately made out to be a religious war when in fact it was essentially an effort on Saddam Hussain’s part to regain, during a period of near chaos in Iran, the control of the Shatt-al Arab that it had lost to Iran in 1975. Certainly, the Iraqi Shia had no hesitation in fighting his Iranian co-religionists and accepting that this was a battle between the Arab and the Ajam. In other parts of the Muslim world, and particularly in Pakistan however, vast sums of money were poured into the coffers of willing Sunni and Shia religious figures, by Saudi Arabia and Iraq on the one hand and Iran on the other, to portray this as a Sunni-Shia conflict. As much as Gen Zia’s Islamisation, this conflict created the Sipah-i-Sahaba and the Tehreek-i-Nafaz-i-Fiqah-i-Jafaria. Now in Syria what started out as a struggle against an authoritarian regime has become a Shia-Sunni conflict in which more than 100,000 people have been killed and more than two million have become refugees. The regime’s forces have been reinforced by the Shia Hezbollah from Lebanon, the Islamic Revolutionary Guards from Iran and Shia volunteers from Iraq. Iraq’s Shia Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki has turned a deaf ear to US pleas that Iranian planes carrying arms to the Assad regime should not be allowed to cross Iraqi air space. For him and his Shia supporters, assistance to the Syrian regime is essential to maintain Shia domination in Iraq and to limit Al Qaeda’s activities there. On the other hand, in a development reminiscent of the jihadi struggle against the Soviet Union’s occupation of Afghanistan, Sunni fighters from all over the Muslim world — Saudis, Iraqis, Lebanese and even Chechens — have joined the insurgent ranks in Syria. These men, allied with Syrians of extreme views, have become the most effective fighters against the regime primarily because it is to these extremist groups like the Jabhat al-Nusra, that much of the assistance from Sunni Arab countries and individual donors from these countries has been given. Qatar’s role in directing assistance to these groups has been particularly worrisome for the other ‘Friends of Syria’ who fear that the triumph of such groups will give a new fillip to anti-Western Islamic extremism. While the US continues to push for an international ‘Geneva II’ conference to bring together representatives of the Assad regime and the insurgents and to work out a peaceful solution, the prospects of such a meeting taking place are dim. Even if the meeting does take place it is unlikely to yield results. This is because in deference to the insurgents’ views, the Americans continue to maintain (evident from the latest State Department comment on Syria) that “a transitional governing body would exercise full executive powers and shall be formed on the basis of mutual consent; since the opposition will never agree to Assad staying, he can have no role in the transition.” To expect that Bashar al-Assad will attend a conference just to agree to his own ouster is clearly unrealistic. There is no end in sight for the conflict. So one can expect that the divisions and hatreds created by almost two years of conflict will only be further exacerbated as the conflict drags on. The effect on Syria’s neighbours particularly Iraq and Lebanon will be serious. Iraq is now experiencing as much if not more sectarian violence than at the height of the American war in Iraq. Lebanon where there had always been a fragile balance between the Maronite Christians, the Sunnis and the Shias is now perilously close to a civil war. In Egypt, attention is focused on the large-scale demonstrations against the Morsi government and the calls made during these demonstrations for Morsi’s resignation and for fresh elections. This of course is the principal cause of concern for those who want to see stability in Egypt but in terms of the sectarian strife that is tearing the Muslim world apart one must note that even in Egypt the Shias, who form a miniscule part of the population, have come under attack. This flows at least in part from the Syrian situation. If this can happen in Egypt will other countries remain unaffected? In Turkey demonstrations against Tayyip Erdogan’s allegedly authoritarian rule have gained momentum but have not acquired a sectarian colour. But is it possible that if there is more turbulence the Turkish Alawis — who are distinct from the Alawites in Syria but also viewed by the Sunni Turks as an offshoot of the Shia sect — will become a target? Will the Shias who comprise 15pc of the population in Saudi Arabia find themselves under even greater pressure from a regime that in October 2011, after Shia demonstrations, promised to crush any further unrest “with an iron fist”? There was a time when Pakistan was the voice of moderation in Islamic councils and had the power to influence developments in the Arab world. Today, however the situation is very different. Religious and other leaders in Pakistan, as our new government knows only too well, are heavily influenced by developments in the Arab world. The sectarian divide in the Arab heartland will surely translate into more extremist activity in Pakistan, funded as in the past by governments and individuals in the Gulf countries. At this time, high priority must, therefore, be attached to curbing such organisations as the Lashkar-i-Jhangvi and to direct, blunt talks with our friends in the Gulf to stem the flow of funds to such organisations. The writer is a former foreign secretary.
Musical chairs in Australia By Mahir Ali A WEEK ago in Canberra, a funny thing happened on the way to the next federal election. Australia got a new/old prime minister.. Perhaps it’s not all that strange. After all, something very similar occurred on the eve of the 2010 election, when Kevin Rudd, who had less than three years earlier led the Australian Labor Party (ALP) to a landslide victory after 11 years of conservative rule under the thoroughly unimpressive John Howard, was dumped by the party in favour of his deputy, Julia Gillard. The development was perplexing, particularly for those who viewed it from a distance. Rudd reportedly received a call, among others, from a bewildered Barack Obama; such a move would have been inconceivable, after all, under the United States constitution. But then, despite its Senate and House of Representatives, Australia’s political system is more akin to Westminster, and it is not unprecedented for parties to change horses in midstream. Perhaps the best-known precedent was Paul Keating’s ultimately successful effort to dislodge Bob Hawke in the early 1990s. What’s more, Hawke himself had been parachuted into the leadership on the eve of the 1983 elections, largely because Labor wasn’t convinced it could make a sufficient dent in Malcolm Fraser’s Liberal majority under Bill Hayden. In 2010, opinion polls suggested the shine had worn off Rudd in the two and a half years he had been in the prime ministerial lodge. A hostile press, much of it owing primary allegiance to its owner, Rupert Murdoch, reinforced that impression. The ALP’s internal polling — estimates of popular opinion that are not intended to be publicly aired — suggested that Labor’s majority was tenuous. It wasn’t inconceivable that the Rudd government could be of the one-term variety. The party panicked. The factional leaders told the deputy prime minister, Gillard, that she should challenge her boss for the top post. She had been remarkably successful in her capacity as deputy, both in opposition and in government. It was widely reported that the leading bureaucrats in Canberra waited for Rudd to travel abroad (a pursuit he clearly relished) before putting forward documents that needed to be signed. Papers that would have languished on Rudd’s desk were rapidly put through by acting prime minister Gillard. Unlike her boss, she was also consultative. There was no reason to suppose she would make a worse prime minister. And in many ways she didn’t. Although the 2010 elections yielded a hung parliament, Gillard’s negotiating skills enabled Labor to win the support of not just the Greens but also ostensibly conservative independents who preferred her approach to that of the deeply right-wing Liberal Party leader Tony Abbott. During her tenure, Gillard has managed to pass more pieces of legislation than any previous Australian prime minister. These include, most notably, a new formula for funding schools (which finally cleared the Senate on the day Gillard was deposed) and a widely welcomed scheme for funding disabled Australians. On the other hand, a carbon tax that was instituted after Gillard had promised that she wouldn’t legislate one has been inexorably exploited by the opposition and a hostile media as a travesty. In the circumstances, it isn’t one. In fact, what ought to be a greater concern is its relative ineffectiveness in lowering Australia’s contribution to producing greenhouses gases. That may be insubstantial on a global scale, yet the opportunity of setting a salutary example has been allowed to lapse. Not because the government did nothing, but because its narrative has been poorly sold. The opposition has been able to capitalise on the idea of rescinding the carbon tax, after succeeding in convincing the electorate (again with the enthusiastic assistance of the Murdoch press) that it is an unnecessary burden on families. This is notwithstanding the fact that Australians enjoy an enviable standard of living among members of the Organisation for Economic Development and Cooperation, and sailed rather smoothly through the global financial crisis thanks to stimulus packages and other initiatives by the Rudd and Gillard governments. One of the subsequent issues du jour is the regular arrival of asylum-seekers on rickety boats from Indonesia and elsewhere. In this context the Labor government has demonstrated some of its worst populist instincts — and to not much avail. The foreign minister, Bob Carr, authoritatively declared last week that most of the asylum-seekers are would-be economic migrants, suggesting they are merely seeking a better life rather than fleeing persecution. He had the gall to say this just weeks after a boatload of Hazaras — whose urge to escape their existence, whether in Pakistan or Afghanistan, could hardly be decreed gratuitous — drowned in murky waters at a fatal distance from the presumably promised shores of Christmas Island. Whether the Rudd government will rescue the discussion on such affairs from the predictable quest for the lowest common denominator that scars so many Western democracies remains to be seen. What it has already done is rescued the ALP from the prospect of electoral annihilation. There is even the faint possibility of a Labor victory — although it must be weighed against the notion that Gillard attracted hostility to a deplorable extent on the grounds that she is a woman – an unmarried one at that — and an atheist to boot. Gillard had decreed that the next elections would take place on September 14. Rudd can bring the date forward or push it back. He is, at the moment, the preferred prime minister by a fairly wide margin, and it may well be wise to go to the polls sooner rather than later. His reputation will depend to a considerable extent on whether the ALP can achieve a majority. Gillard’s tenure, meanwhile, may well be viewed far more kindly by future historians than it is by most of her contemporaries. mahir.dawn@gmail.com
The same war By Rafia Zakaria “THE minstrel and the music, and the melody have all changed. Our very sleep has changed; the tale we used to hear is no longer told. . “Spring comes with new adornments; the nightingales in the garden sing a different song. Nature’s every effect has undergone a revolution. Another kind of rain falls from the sky; another kind of grain grows in the fields.” So wrote the poet Akbar Allahabadi following the end of the War of Independence in 1857, his lament for a world gone and a war lost. The mutiny, as the British called it, spanning from 1857 to 1858, had ended. It had not been successful. The East India Company now took formal control of the country. Its presence had been exposed now, not as a goodwill project but as an occupation whose goal was the extraction of resources. This happened roughly 156 years ago last week and the aftermath of the loss was brutal, both in intellectual and actual terms. In his book, War of Civilisations: India AD 1857, Indian historian Amaresh Misra describes what followed as the “untold holocaust.” As per his research, nearly 10 million people died in a murderous campaign led by the British against those who had dared to rise up against their rule. Conventional figures had asserted that the total count of those killed had been somewhere around 100,000. Misra’s estimates may well be true. The task of recording history in that era, as in nearly all of them, was dominated by the British; it is unsurprising that they would fail to make a careful count of the numbers that fell. As the British author Charles Dickens bluntly said, “I wish I were commander-in-chief in India ... I should proclaim to them that I considered my holding that appointment by the leave of God, to mean that I should do my utmost to exterminate the race.” If extermination was the goal, then the difference between 100,000 and 10 million was just a matter of zeroes. The truth of the sentiment was substantiated by the poet Mirza Ghalib, a resident of Delhi during the war, who wrote in a letter that “they killed the helpless and burned houses. Hordes of men and women and commoners and noblemen poured out of Delhi from the three gates and took shelter in the small communities and tombs outside the city … the city had become a desert”. It took a long time to win the struggle that began then and we all know how it ended. The British eventually left, and the subcontinent was divided into two. The question of whether what they left behind was too ravaged, too thoroughly looted to ever recover is an open one. The Kohinoor diamond was cut and became part of the crown jewels, just the most well-known of pilfered treasures; countless petty British officers scattered around the decaying empire acquired all sorts of treasures, happy to cart them back to England for display as their exotic acquisitions from conquered lands. Those tangible takings were the physical scars of colonialism and, ironically, they seemed to have been the easiest to contend with. Far more pernicious and potent have been the intellectual orientations that were the product of a legacy of having been conquered. The old era, whose passing Allahabadi so eloquently lamented, was gone forever. The fact that modes of scientific progress and Enlightenment ideas had arrived as the harbingers of this death, and on the backs of an oppressive project of occupation, would taint them forever. The Muslims of the subcontinent suffered a special and complete condemnation, unsure of how to accomplish the purification of ideas and concepts that were inherently good but circumstantially poisoned. Scientific education, female education, the development of statutory legal systems, all required an expunging. One hundred and fifty six years, then, have perhaps not been enough to solve these conundrums. Post-colonial Pakistan, watching the overt withdrawal of American and Nato forces next door, seems embroiled again in the same confusions. The Tehreek-i-Taliban, the self-styled soldiers of Muslim authenticity, burn down girls’ schools because girls’ education is a symbol of Westernisation. Many oppose them, mostly silently, but the schools keep burning down and buses that cart students to and fro come under attack. The proponents of girls’ education continue to stress its importance for progress. It is akin to the same battle Sir Syed Ahmed Khan fought so many years ago. One of the catalytic events that set the war of 1857 in motion was the rumour that the cartridges used by Indian soldiers in the British army were sealed with pork or beef fat, thus violating both Hindu and Muslim dietary restrictions. With this, any doubt that the true intentions of the British were indeed nefarious was eliminated. In contemporary Pakistan, the (misplaced) suspicion that a polio vaccination programme was a stand-in for a CIA spy operation seems to have done just the same. What is left of the actual public health programme to immunise children is a widely held belief that it is a means of sterilising Pakistan’s population. Some truth requires complete condemnation, the misuse of something into a disavowal of the thing itself. The curse of colonialism for Pakistan thus seems to be not simply the physical ravaging, the successful entrenchment, of regional and religious rivalries that had not existed before, or even the confusions about identity. It seems also to be an eternal condemnation to fight over and over again the same war, where ideas — because of their attachment to Western war interests — are condemned completely and mistrusted wholeheartedly. Female literacy, public health, democracy and its attendant freedoms are hence all condemned to be viewed with a suspicion that cannot be extricated from the burdens imposed on them by history. The writer is an attorney teaching constitutional law and political philosophy. rafia.zakaria@gmail.com
Don’t resume hanging By I.A. Rehman AMONG the first acts of the new rulers is their reported decision to roll back one of the most ennobling policies of the previous government — the moratorium on execution of death sentence. The folly of the move is simply appalling.. The four-year moratorium followed a policy decision that the government was considering the abolition of the death penalty. What prevented a logical culmination of that move is not known. However, throughout these four years there has been no significant public agitation for a resumption of capital punishment, except for a recent demand by some Karachi lawyers, backed most unfortunately by the honourable chief justice of the Sindh High Court at a non-judicial forum. With due respect to them, reason does not support the view that resumption of hanging will turn the killing fields of Karachi into rose gardens. The case for abolishing the death penalty has never been effectively presented. The concept of the death penalty is a hangover from the mediaeval period before humankind discovered the value of reformative justice. It has been demonstrated on numerous occasions that the killing of a human being in prison is as inhuman an act as murder. The death penalty has also been opposed on the ground that instances of wrong conviction have been admitted even in countries with the most efficient systems of justice. The weaknesses of our system are too obvious to deny possibilities of miscarriage of justice. A 2007 study showed that in Sindh, 70pc of death sentences awarded by trial courts were set aside or commuted to imprisonment because of flawed investigation. Capital punishment being irreversible, no remedy is available if a person’s innocence is established after his execution. One shudders to imagine what might have happened if the sentence of death awarded to Maulana Maudoodi and Maulana Abdul Sattar Niazi by a military court in 1953 had been promptly carried out. Fears of miscarriage of justice have persuaded most sensible Muslim scholars to follow the dictum that it is better to let a culprit walk free than hang an innocent person. Pakistan has ratified the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights (ICCPR). This and the ratification of the Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights mark Pakistan’s acceptance of the international human rights mechanisms. Islamabad cannot for long ignore the need to ratify the protocols to the ICCPR, the second of which calls for abolition of the death penalty. That many people in Pakistan want the perpetrators of heinous crimes to be beheaded even without a trial cannot be denied. This only confirms the brutalisation of society as a result of the derogation of the law under military dictators and the many seasons of blood-letting under one holy banner or another. The people, especially their dim-witted leaders, have been drained of the last vestiges of humanitarianism, tolerance and compassion. Those who protest day in and day out against the brutalising effects of drone attacks on terrorists cannot perceive that anti-Shia pogroms, butchering of people by militants, giving the people a licence to kill blasphemy suspects, and execution of convicts in jails have similar effects on society as a whole. The arguments advanced in favour of the death penalty have been rebutted many times over. The first argument is that capital punishment deters crime. Wrong. Europe began overcoming serious crime by relaxing the death penalty regime and the American states that retain capital punishment have failed to contain the crime rate. In Pakistan itself, during 1999-2003, when the death penalty regime was fully operational, no less than 3,336 persons were awarded the death penalty, an average of 667 per year. Meanwhile, as a result of the abuse of the Diyat law the number of convicts sentenced to death during 2004-2008 fell to 1,827 — an average of 366 per year. During the moratorium years (2009-2012) the number of convicts sentenced to death fell to 1,188, an average of 297 per year. A fall in conviction rate may not decisively prove that the moratorium does not breed crime but it is an important indicator. The second argument is that abolition of death penalty deprives the victim family of appropriate satisfaction. Appropriate satisfaction cannot mean revenge killing. Providing a victim family adequate reparation is society’s responsibility. It is wrong to blame a culprit alone for his crime and ignore society’s failure to create a climate conducive to good order. The victim’s family gets no material relief from any hanging. The remedy lies in creating a cover of social security for victims of murder or similar crimes. The third and the most serious ground is that Islam enjoins the death penalty. Many learned religious scholars maintain that Islam provides for capital punishment for only two offences — murder and fasad-fil-arz (mischief in the land, perhaps equivalent to anarchy/ treason). According to them there is no unanimity on death for blasphemy and nobody has proved that Islam prescribes death sentence for the 25 or so other offences that now carry capital punishment in Pakistan. Indeed it is because of the abuse of the Diyat and Qisas law that the state allows those condemned to death to buy freedom by paying money to victims’ families or bullying them into forgiving them, which makes a further mockery of justice. That explains the low execution figures during 1999-2003 — an average of less than 33 executions per year. During 2004-2008, the execution rate rose to an average of 60 per year but that had only a marginal effect on the crime rate. Those who use the religious argument to defend the death penalty may look at the havoc caused by the abuse of the Diyat law; in the hands of unscrupulous men it has become a licence to get women killed by their brothers who are then pardoned by their fathers. The Diyat law is consistently exploited to pardon the accused before they are convicted, in total breach of the law. The new government will gain nothing but worldwide obloquy by resuming executions and that too without a public debate. n
The sheepish half grin By Jawed Naqvi THE sheepish half grin worn by Peter Sellers in The Party was writ all over the Indian foreign ministry this week after Edward Snowden probed asylum in New Delhi. . Seller’s depiction of an Indian staffer in a Hollywood film unit who accidentally wangles an invitation to the high party thrown by the movie’s producer could serve as a marker for India’s ceaseless quest for the diplomatic high table. The quest though keeps pace with embarrassing rebuffs. In the movie, the high table turns into an awkward stool for Sellers dressed as an Indian maharajah, as he is sandwiched between two regular invitees. The actor, however, keeps his grin intact, as did the Indian foreign ministry when the Snowden request was brought to its notice. The United States had not been spying on India, India’s foreign minister declared. It was only carrying out some technical monitoring of the system to tackle communications pertaining to terrorism. Is it all working smoothly, then? A wanted renegade operative from India’s external espionage agency is enjoying safe asylum in the US after he was monitored for plying the Americans with sensitive information. A widely reported honeytrap in which a woman from the US embassy walked away with a flash drive full of India’s security plans not too long ago, was presumably also a myth. America’s European allies are up in arms against the perfidy of being spied upon by Washington. India says there’s nothing to warrant such a response from New Delhi. There are not too many newspapers actually debating the Snowden affair in the country. The Hindu alone seems to be standing up for a transparent policy on the issue with any degree of seriousness. “India was not always so servile to the American narrative of world affairs,” wrote author Vijay Prashad in The Hindu on Wednesday. In the 1950s, for example, the Indian government was not unaware of attempts by Washington to spy on India, and it was made clear to the US that this was unacceptable. Prashad recalled how in the early 1950s, Prime Minister Jawaharlal Nehru told his foreign secretary, Subimal Dutt that his government was “fully aware of the clandestine activities of a number of foreign missions in India,” with a particular focus on the “Americans [who] indulged in such activities”. Nehru was not going to put up with any spying, nor could the soft bribery of parties and friendship be allowed. “These Americans in India are lavish with their money and with entertainment,” Nehru wrote in 1954. “They invite large numbers of our officers and other citizens, entertain them and, more especially, offer them alcoholic drinks in large quantities. Many of our people who go there talk freely and even loosely.” As Prashad observed, Nehru and his aides sought to foster a healthy caution of the motives of both superpowers regarding India. “His was not a sentiment that one could say is now anachronistic — faded away with the end of the Cold War. Nehru wanted to promote the dignity of the new India. That ethos should remain alive and well.” Separately, The Hindu’s report of Snowden’s asylum probe and India’s response was blunt. “With no firm guidelines for considering asylum requests, India took the safer political option of staying out of the diplomatic storm swirling out of fugitive whistleblower’s … request for political asylum made to several countries.” The Indian foreign ministry confirmed receiving a communication requesting asylum from Mr. Snowden at its mission in Moscow, according to the newspaper. “We have carefully examined the request. Following that examination we have concluded that we see no reason to accede to the request,” said an official spokesperson. No explanation was given for the strange decision. The asylum request made in Moscow was among a bunch of 21 submitted by WikiLeaks legal advisor Sarah Harrison to the Russian consulate at Moscow’s Sheremeteyo airport where Mr Snowden is living in the transit zone. “The documents outline the risks of persecution Mr Snowden faces in the United States,” said a WikiLeaks statement. India’s foreign minister, Salman Khurshid, was attending the Association of Southeast Asian Nations’ summit in Brunei when the news came in. He virtually reiterated the defence put up by US Secretary of State John Kerry during his India visit last month. “This is not scrutiny and access to actual messages. It is only computer analysis of patterns of calls and emails that are being sent. It is not actually snooping specifically on the content of anybody’s message or conversation,” Mr. Khurshid said. Asylum requests under international law are arguably governed mainly by the 1951 United Nations Convention Relating to the Status of Refugees. According to the convention, a person may be granted refugee status if he has a “well-founded fear of being persecuted for reasons of … political opinion, is outside the country of his nationality, and is unable to, or owing to such fear, is unwilling to avail himself of the protection of that country.” In Snowden’s case, there is a dichotomy between the exigencies of transparent democracy, an ideal he says he is sworn to represent come what may. In this endeavour, he has the support of a large number of fellow countrymen whose dreams of a free society they believed they lived in lies shattered by his revelations on America snooping on Americans. On the other hand, in the eyes of the American state he has breached arcane laws of secrecy, a charge which qualifies him to be punished as a traitor. India seems too afraid of losing the awkward stool it currently occupies at the party to speak up with Nehruvian clarity on the issue. On the other hand, it may be afraid of skeletons tumbling out of its own cupboard of illegal snooping on Indians at home. The party is on. The writer is Dawn’s correspondent in Delhi.
Seizing the moment By Khurram Husain IT’S been almost a month since Nawaz Sharif took oath and we’re still waiting. . The first big opportunity for the new government to demonstrate its tough new approach was the budget, and by most accounts that opportunity has been fumbled. The government raised expectations that it has big energetic plans ready to be unveiled when they went public from high party offices saying there will not be an approach to the IMF for at least three to six months. This was stated by none other than Sartaj Aziz himself, adviser to the prime minister and former finance minister. The venerable Mr Aziz had a nice take on how this would be accomplished. “First get our own plan implemented, raise revenues, narrow the deficit, then go to the Fund with a dynamic situation rather than a static one,” he said. Now that the government has comprehensively climbed down from the position, they’ve gone ahead and climbed up another tree: no new taxes. The finance minister is right to emphasise that he will negotiate with the Fund on his own terms, but one wonders whether he’s really gone into these meetings prepared with an economic road map. Coming up with one is typically a long exercise requiring input from dozens of qualified economists. If we can’t take a “dynamic situation” to them, can we at least know what sort of letter of intent the government has carried to the parleys? Absent such a policy statement — and many of us were thinking the budget was going to be this statement — it’s hard to see what our terms really are in these negotiations, except that there will be “no new taxes”. Frankly speaking, most taxpayers I’ve spoken to don’t fear taxes as much as they fear the taxman. And here they’ve found little to be relieved about. The incremental powers handed to the tax bureaucracy are stupendous — they can paw through bank account details for example — but nothing stupendous has been done to reform tax administration or to remove discretionary powers of issuing SROs. So is another climbdown in the works? Might the government have to eat a few more of its words before the fiscal year ends? The key words for the IMF are: “prior actions”. It’s possible that for a while to come these words will prick the new government the same way two other famous words pricked their predecessors: “do more”. Prior actions means that the IMF will ask for some conditions to be met before any funds are disbursed. Thus far in its various pronouncements, the Fund has stood by this position. Many in Pakistan have sought comfort in the thought that the IMF does Washington’s bidding, and as in the past, this government will also get its conditionality softened by offering other forms of support to the US government. It may not work this time. Wiser counsel in D.C. frowns on such thoughts, and patience with Pakistan parading its problems before the entire world is thin today, compared to 2008. Besides, relying on such forms of comfort would be a colossal failure of the PML-N’s own election promise to do whatever is necessary to wean Pakistan off its addiction to foreign-funded bailouts. Which brings us back to the fast-eroding honeymoon period that the government is currently enjoying. This moment will not last much longer. Soon the commentary in the media will get increasingly critical, and the fatal moment when people ask aloud “what is the difference between this government and the last” may not be that far off. For the PPP government, that moment came somewhere around August when Naveed Qamar managed to persuade his cabinet colleagues that it had become necessary to pass the international price of oil to the consumer at the pump. In one fell swoop, as prices hiked, the inevitable words poured forth and it was said all over the channels that this government was turning out to be exactly the same as the previous one. This government must do everything it can to avoid running into that cul-de-sac. This is the moment to act and failure to seize the opportunity will see the initiative pass to the opposition, which is waiting for its own ‘I told you so’ moment. They can start by expediting the announcement of the new energy policy. It’s good that they are talking and thinking on a large scale, and it’s good that below the radar, in the meetings of the Economic Coordination Committee (ECC), some crucial decisions have been taken, such as diverting 60 mmcfd of unused gas from the Guddu thermal power stations’ supply to the fertiliser network gasping for its vital feedstock. This proposal has sat in limbo for around a year now and movement on it is a good sign. It’s also good that the same ECC has decided to import 300,000 tonnes of urea, sending a signal to the fertiliser companies that the days of subsidised gas are running out. Minister Water and Power Khwaja Asif spoke of the “bloated balance sheets” of these companies in an interview he gave to me a few days ago. So below the radar, some movement is definitely taking place, and decisions long stuck are being cleared. But at the top there appears to be stasis. The impression one gets is of a great deal of energy bottled up at the cabinet level, unable to find its way out because the valve at the top is shut. It’s time to uncork this bottle. It’s time for the new government to make plain to us the road they intend to walk, indeed down which they intend to take us all. Then they need to put some actions behind those words, by not climbing down from publicly stated positions. The moment will pass faster than they realise if they don’t move to seize the initiative. The writer is a Karachi-based journalist covering business and economic policy. khurram.husain@gmail.com Twitter: @khurramhusain
Dialectics of criticism By Aasim Sajjad Akhtar CRITICISM is arguably the heart and soul of the project of modernity. Dissident minds have been at the forefront of almost all organised efforts to transcend the deadweight of the past and build a new and better future. . Even before the onset of modernity the historical struggle to better the human condition was premised upon the constant questioning of dogmas of all kinds. In the modern era, this struggle has intensified to the point that, à la Marx, all that is solid melts into air. In this country, genuine and substantive criticism is often conspicuous by its absence. Young people who should be encouraged to ask questions and demand reasoned responses are instead taught to obey the rules and uncritically absorb dominant ideas. It is thus that many otherwise brave ‘sons of the soil’ find themselves compelled to leave this land of the pure and make their homes in countries in which intellectual and political independence is — at least on the surface — a collectively cherished ideal. The most prominent symbol of this ‘forced’ migration is the diasporic intellectual. Once upon a time the term ‘brain drain’ was used by economists to indicate the human capital losses suffered by underdeveloped countries due to emigration. In today’s globalised world, the émigré academic is celebrated as a cultural repository transcending boundaries, able to enrich both ancestral and adopted homelands. Postmodern romance notwithstanding, there are serious questions about the role that diasporic intellectuals should play given that they are so often viewed as ‘representatives’ of the societies from which they hail. In the post-9/11 period certain ‘Muslim’ intellectuals based in North America and Western Europe have become authoritative figures that have come to play a larger-than-life role in shaping public discourse in their adopted countries. It is of course impossible to clump the diasporic intelligentsia into one ideological or political bracket (and this is quite aside from the fact that many highly skilled individuals who have settled in Western countries — such as doctors in the US — do not even engage in the act of public criticism). This is precisely why it is necessary to be skeptical about the intellectuals and ideas that have been projected by the popular media in recent times. In a nutshell, a significant number of Muslim émigré intellectuals in Western countries have become the face of a relentless cultural critique of contemporary Muslim societies. The sophisticated version of the argument goes something like this: nothing like the rationalisation of religion that took place in early modern Europe has come to pass in Muslim societies. The majority of Muslims are hence insular and intolerant and Muslim ‘civilisation’ at large backward and stagnant. By way of contrast, Euro-American societies are democratic and Western ‘civilisation’ forward-looking. What some of us would call imperialist interventions motivated by the logic of capitalist profiteering are depicted as ‘just wars’ through which hapless Muslim masses steeped in conservatism are rescued from themselves as much as the hereditary despots that have ruled over them for decades. Viewed in historical terms, this narrative is not dissimilar to that which proliferated during the era of high European colonialism in the 19th and early 20th centuries. The crucial difference is that the judgement on the colony is now delivered not by foreign conquerors but by the ‘authentic representatives’ of the natives. There is no denying that the judgement — whoever is delivering it — contains large grains of truth. Contemporary Muslim societies are indeed beset by innumerable ills that fly in the face of the most fundamental human norms. Ruthless criticism of all such retrogressive practices from within society is an urgent imperative. Any public intellectual worth his/her salt in Muslim societies must engage with these uncomfortable truths without any resort to apologism. In the absence of such a principled criticism from within, diasporic intellectuals in the service of the Empire are provided with an opportunity to pose as legitimate representatives of the backward post-colony. A convenient case for humanitarian intervention is concocted and the crimes of imperialism are glossed over. We live in an era in which certain ideals — such as the need to defend ‘human rights’ — are projected as universals and defining features of any ‘civilised’ society. Yet at the same time the logic of combined and uneven development remains deeply entrenched and the most ‘civilised’ societies are devising more novel and sophisticated ways to sustain their subjugation of the less ‘civilised’ societies. To further complicate the situation, the conservative intelligentsia within societies such as ours takes refuge in cultural critiques of the West as a means of deflecting attention from real internal contradictions within. Tremendous influence is waged by this segment of intellectuals over the mass of the population in large part due to the patronage of the state. This explains why we are unable to transcend the incredibly simplistic worldview in which Muslims and non-Muslims are self-contained entities and necessarily opposed to each other. It is in this context that we must remain alive to the dialectics of criticism. The act of criticism cannot be taken out of its context lest it becomes a tool in the hands of the powerful and a weapon against the weak. It cannot be abstracted from the multi-dimensional structures of power within which we are all ensconced, both within our own societies and globally. Our immediate concern in this country must be to take on the dominant forces within that keep ordinary people in chains. The diasporic intellectual is entitled to augment our struggle, but does the cause no good whatsoever by toeing the line of the self-proclaimed forces of reason and progress (read: imperialism). The former ‘sons of the soil’ do us the biggest possible favour by devoting their energies to exposing the grand myths of Empire. The writer teaches at Quaid-i-Azam University, Islamabad.
Clear case of overkill By Faisal Bari “NO public or private organisation, private firm or individual, national or international, shall undertake any geospatial data collection, production or analysis work and surveying and mapping activities unless they are registered with the Survey of Pakistan for such purpose as may be prescribed.. “The qualifications of staff and suitability for such work shall also be certified by Survey of Pakistan in the prescribed manner.” And “Before registration, the Survey of Pakistan shall obtain clearance of such firms, organisations and individuals from concerned agencies as it may deem appropriate.” “Concerned agencies” here is a nice touch. On May 20, the president promulgated an ordinance for the constitution and regulation of the Survey of Pakistan. The bill was to be taken up by the National Assembly on March 11, 13 and 14 but the house could not do so due to the paucity of time, after which its tenure was completed on March 17. Prior to this, the cabinet had okayed the bill, which was moved by the then minister for defence, Syed Naveed Qamar. Certainly, there was a need to reconstitute the Survey of Pakistan and modernise it. The quality of its work needs improvement and it needs to get much better at using modern techniques for imaging and creating/maintaining digitised data/maps. But the ordinance does much more than this: it is an attempt — by agencies, it seems — to control the production and analysis of all sorts of data. It is a case of overkill. If you have a smart phone with a GPS tracker that records the path you take as you drive, you are breaking the law if you are not registered with the Survey of Pakistan, according to this ordinance. If a police officer makes a sketch of a crime incident, he is in violation. If you are using Google Crowd-sourced maps to map your neighbourhood, you are violating the law. If you have taken a photograph of Badshahi Masjid and uploaded it on Flickr, you might be in violation if your camera tags the geo-coordinates. There are valid security concerns with mapping and digitisation: we do not want knowledge of our defence and other strategic assets to be on maps that go into the hands of unauthorised personnel. This concern is not unique to Pakistan. All countries have similar security concerns and all of them have laws ensuring that breaches of security do not occur. But they have not created draconian laws to achieve the purpose — you do not use a sledgehammer to do the work for which the tools of a jeweller should suffice. When I do household surveys, and especially in cases where I am trying to collect longitudinal or panel data, I want to map the surveyed households through GPS so that I can locate them again a few years later when I want to revisit these households. The ordinance has made this illegal (it allows students/ researchers to do limited mapping but only students/researchers of public-sector institutions). I have to now register myself with the Survey of Pakistan and get its permission and the permission of agencies before I can carry out any surveys. And they will also ensure I have the qualifications to do this work. If this is not a sledgehammer, I don’t know what is. Have you tried to get a no-objection certificate, a permission letter and/or a licence? It’s worse than having your teeth extracted. Will the Survey of Pakistan work any differently? More importantly, what will this sledgehammer approach achieve? Will it address security concerns? All it will achieve is making life difficult for researchers and citizens and some of the industry that wants to make profits through digitising information on and about Pakistan. The ordinance goes on to make any copying illegal too. Consider the broad language used here: “Except as provided under this act, any act of copying, digitising or printing any geographic map or photograph or satellite imagery shall be prohibited” — the sledgehammer again. The penalties for violating the law are severe. “An individual who engages in geospatial data production, analysis and surveying and mapping activities in violation of the provisions of this act shall be liable to be imprisoned for a term which may extend up to one year and a fine of up to one million rupees.” In the aftermath of the 2005 earthquake and again after the 2010 floods, we were involved in initiatives that mapped the areas where the devastation had occurred through satellite imagery and later, using GPS coordinates. We tried to organise the monitoring of the rehabilitation and reconstruction efforts. If such a situation were to arise now, we would have to run the risk of being declared criminals to do such work. We want to map all primary and secondary schools in each district. This could, with other information, allow us to see where we need more schools and where we need to rationalise the ones that are present; it could help us identify clusters and design training, etc, based on clusters. But all of this will now require us to get a certificate from the Survey of Pakistan. The government has added Article 19(a) in the Constitution to give citizens basic rights over information. Yet it has also imposed this ordinance. The two are not compatible. Security concerns should be addressed, but these concerns should not be allowed to become a blanket cover for laws/ordinances in broad strokes. We have seen this many times, around the world. Rights advocates should be vigilant against such moves by the government/establishment and the security agencies. As is typical of this sort of legislation, there were no consultations with stakeholders before the ordinance was promulgated. One hopes that as this ordinance lapses, the new government will do a thorough rewriting of the law before it brings it back to parliament for approval. The writer is senior adviser, Pakistan, at Open Society Foundations, associate professor of economics, LUMS, and a visiting fellow at IDEAS, Lahore.
Ceremonial camouflage By Asha’ar Rehman THE previous government was a real example of how much ceremony can be created around a lack of initiative to benefit the people. . Poets would be celebrated at the presidency, books launched at Governor House and every now and then, prime minister Yousuf Raza Gilani would stand proudly, decorating a long line of the deserving from a tray of medals — just as somewhere else a celebrated athlete or a prominent singer’s heirs would be offering useless trophies for auction. The government would occasionally be moved by a news item to pledge a few lakhs to a dying performer in aid of its commitment to promote cultural causes. Also, a private-sector business concern would extend assistance to a celebrity in need with as much pomp and publicity and ceremony as would be generated by the handing over of a cheque by a minister to a showbiz personality lying on a hospital bed. The biggest celebratory chants, inevitably, were reserved for democracy, and consequently, for parliament that was supreme. The party in power, the PPP, never tired of paying itself compliments for the great services it was rendering for the establishment of democracy or the people’s rule in the country. For each protest about the denial of basic benefits to the people, someone somewhere would be honouring a project by affixing to it the initials of Benazir Bhutto, she being a more recent icon of democratic struggle in the country than her father, the original democrat, Shaheed Zulfiqar Ali Bhutto. We have since moved on from the feudal period to much more austere times — and on to a competition among the pious and the humble and the most visibly modest. The current rulers need not look too far into the past to discover the perils of feeding people empty rhetoric in the name of pursuing grand causes. Everyone from the media to the local political activist is talking about the need for a national campaign for cost-cutting. The emphasis on ceremony as a way of shirking work, however, remains, even if the public manifestations of it have changed. The rulers of today shun wasting the people’s money on dikhawa, showing off. The gentleman who heads the Khyber Pakhtunkhwa government is required by the current situation to not occupy the chief minister’s residence in Peshawar. If he does shift to the house, he must do so under visibly trying circumstances. He is not supposed to use the official aircraft to travel to attend a wedding of a dear one. In case he has been guilty of committing the sin, he must next be seen to have paid for the trip from his own pocket. The house he presides over, the provincial assembly, must come up with clear messages of its own in an effort to live up to the prestige associated with an august elected gathering. Thus, it is not enough for a provincial officer to call up a transport company and ask for mandatory stopovers of its buses for namaz. This has to be flashed as a statement of intent by those with the people’s mandate, and the content is befitting of the passage of a resolution in the KP Assembly. In other news, honest, sincere elected men queue up to publicly declare they will not be taking salaries for the good work they will be doing. In a more durable expression of the commitment of the new guard to resolving issues, a federal minister has been duly spotted travelling by train between Lahore and Rawalpindi, assigning to himself a turnaround of the railways and such crucial tasks as approving leave applications of senior railways officials. If this is not ceremony enough, the railways eagerly marks the eventual arrival of one of its trains in Bahawalpur by distributing packets of hot, steaming biryani among the passengers. There are differences of course. If the previous government specialised in parroting the democracy refrain informed by its sacrifices over these long years, the current one is wedded to the ideals of sovereignty and national honour. In contrast to the territorial type of sovereignty, the economic version is easier defended, which necessitates the loud ritual of breaking the begging bowl. It is not so clear whether the message got through to the IMF or not but the people of this country have been vociferously and repeatedly reminded that the IMF cannot dictate to the present set of Pakistani negotiators. No new taxes are to be imposed on Pakistanis who are told that a plan ‘B’ is ready in case the terms put up by the proud seekers of loan are not acceptable to the lender who is always driven by self-interest. For whatever little knowledge of economy the people of this country may have, they have to just look around to acknowledge that a ‘B’ category plan to further tax the taxable has already been set in motion. Behind the grand ceremony built up by expressions of modesty and sincerity, their bills have increased and are increasing because of revisions in taxes and power tariffs and the consequential hike in commodities and services. On the other hand, camouflaged in the current rulers’ pious acts is their unwillingness to take up the real problems such as terrorism. If economy is a subject where ceremonial rituals have changed but not the underlying thrust visible during the previous government’s tenure, the content change on the militancy front has made it mandatory for the new rulers to come up with fresh expressions of honesty neatly wrapped in religion. Amid strikes by militants, the first step towards fulfilling the promise of finding a solution through talks, mandated by the electorate, is still awaited. There is so much ceremony around but not as yet the man who is willing to take up the challenge on the people’s behalf. Should someone stand up on their behalf, the people may be willing to excuse him his occasional personal flight at their expense. The writer is Dawn’s resident editor in Lahore.
The unflattering truth By Irfan Husain SOME nicknames cling to people like indelible stains. So when the late Khalid Hasan, Pakistan’s finest satirical columnist, dubbed Akbar S. Ahmed “Anthro-Panthro”, the name stuck.. For those not familiar with the background, Akbar Ahmed is an ex-civil servant who, according to Khalid, named a street after himself while serving as a district officer in Balochistan many years ago. Trained in anthropology (hence the nickname), he has written about Pakhtun tribes, customs and history. In 1999, he was an Iqbal fellow at Cambridge University when Musharraf appointed him high commissioner to the UK. However, within a few months, Ahmed was caught up in a scandal that led to his removal from the post. For years, he had been involved with the Jinnah film project, and had persuaded a number of Pakistani expats to contribute. This was in response to Richard Attenborough’s movie about Gandhi that had won worldwide acclaim in the 1980s. Much to his credit, his persistence paid off and the movie was completed. But sadly, here is when things went off the rails: Jamil Dehlavi, the director, sued Ahmed to get his contracted fees. He went on to accuse him of taking the credit (and the money) for the script when the real scriptwriter was Farrukh Dhondi, the Indian-born author. (At the last Karachi Literary Festival, Dhondi confirmed his role to me.) According to a Guardian report, £51,500 were paid to Akbar Ahmed, and £35,000 each to his son and son-in-law. Ahmed denied all charges of wrongdoing, saying that he took “nothing for his role as head of the project, but like Jinnah, was entitled to his professional fees”. And while he claimed his relatives had earned their fees, Dehlavi denied that they had contributed to the film in any way. After the story broke, the Musharraf government withdrew its support and £1 million from the project. Although the film was completed, it could not find a distributor. In Pakistan, a heated controversy broke out over the choice of Christopher Lee to play Jinnah, as well as the surreal script. Finally, the film sank without a trace. So why am I resurrecting this long-buried skeleton here? Frankly, I had not even thought about Akbar Ahmed and the 13-year old scandal until I was invited to speak at the launch of his book The Thistle and the Drone at the House of Lords recently. The only reason I accepted was that the organiser is a dear friend I couldn’t say no to. While I have not read the book, the author’s long-winded introduction suggested it was about how tribal structures in Pakistan, Afghanistan, Somalia and Yemen are being destroyed by the American drone campaign. According to Ahmed, this reflects the long-standing neglect of the periphery by the centre. As we had been instructed to keep our comments brief, I made two quick points. Firstly, when we oppose a policy, we should be able to suggest a viable alternative. In Pakistan’s case, we have a large area where our army cannot or will not enter to clear it of the terrorists who infest it. These jihadis are using this sanctuary to launch attacks across Afghanistan and Pakistan. Over 40,000 Pakistanis have been killed by them. Should they continue to be allowed to commit mayhem without any reprisals? Secondly, I said that while it was easy to romanticise tribal societies, we should not forget that it was tribal elders who kept women locked up in their homes, not allowing them to study and work. And at every election, jirgas issue edicts prohibiting women from voting. Both points I made were opposite to the book’s central argument, so the author went into a long defence of his thesis. I will not try and encapsulate the discussion beyond saying that the host, Lord Sheikh, and a panellist, Vijay Mehta, sang the book’s praises at great length from prepared texts. I have been to many book launches, including my own, and have never seen an author showered with so much flattery. In the question and answer session, one gentleman sang Akbar Ahmed’s praises for having written such a fine book, and said he would make it a point to get a copy. When finally asked what his question was, he replied: “I would like to ask the author what we can do to promote his book.” If that wasn’t cringe-making enough, at the end of the session, Ahmed asked two young Americans who had apparently accompanied him from Washington to say a few words. Both declared what a privilege it had been to study under the professor. Friends in the audience said later they had never seen such a public display of sycophancy. This is the only time I have met Akbar Ahmed. Apart from the old scandal about the Jinnah movie, I think what put me off was his constant use of the title of ‘ambassador’ before his name in all his emails. In the US, retired officials can carry their job titles for life as a courtesy. But as he served as our envoy in London for around six months, I think this is stretching it a bit. This is from a column I wrote in this space at the time: “What makes this scandal specially reprehensible is that the subject of the film was a man of such absolute and towering integrity. Not even his worst enemy has ever accused him of financial impropriety… For his name to be associated with a project that has become the centre of controversy … is a national disgrace.” irfan.husain@gmail.com
Vacuum in Kashmir By A.G. Noorani IT is tempting to say that Prime Minister Manmohan Singh’s visit to Srinagar on June 25 along with Congress president Sonia Gandhi reflected the same inadequacy of his current policies on Kashmir as does the limited rail link he inaugurated the next day between Banihal in Jammu and Qazigund, the gateway to the Valley. . They flagged off the first train on a mere 18-kilometre section of what is planned as a rail link to connect India’s vast railway network. It would connect Jammu, via Srinagar to Baramula, near the Line of Control. However, the most critical sector between Katra and Banihal (117km) “has progressed only up to 12 to 14pc”, the comptroller and auditor-general reported. Nonetheless, there is some tangible achievement, though in the shape of a rail link “within Kashmir rather than to Kashmir”. But the gains of the prime minister’s policies on Kashmir are far more slender. This is a pity because it is accepted at all hands that he is sincere and is eager to break the deadlock. All the more worrying, then, was the total absence of any policy announcement during his two-day trip to Srinagar. His silence can only mean that he will take no initiative before the polls due in 2014. As has been the norm for 25 years, there was a complete shutdown in the Valley during the prime minister’s visit. On the day before, eight soldiers were killed and a dozen others were injured in a Hizbul Mujahideen attack in Srinagar to signify that militancy is not dead. Praise for the army and denunciation of terrorism are par for the course. All he could exhibit was a frayed age-old hat. “Those who shun violence, we are ready to talk to them.” This was coupled with a plea to the people “to regularly participate” in elections. They are due next year. Chief Minister Omar Abdullah’s National Conference is in coalition with the Congress that rules at the centre and has a miniscule presence in the Valley. What gains of the coalition has he to show to the people? He is in office but he is not in power. He has been overruled on every single issue — revocation of the Armed Forces Special Powers Act; restoration of Kashmir’s autonomy; return of lands grabbed by the army; rehabilitation of surrendered militants, etc. He has repeatedly asserted that economic advance alone will not satisfy the people. In October 2009 he had said at Anantnag in the presence of Dr Manmohan Singh, “the youth of Kashmir didn’t pick up the gun 21 years ago for money, but for political reasons”. In July 2010 he was more explicit: “The cure of the Kashmir issue lies in politics; it’s not about jobs, roads, bridges and governance. The centre has to find a solution through meaningful talks.” The question he refuses to answer is what steps has he himself taken politically to improve the situation. Syed Ali Shah Geelani, frail and in poor health, has been under house arrest for a long period. Omar Abdullah’s is the most repressive government since the days of Bakshi Ghulam Mohammed. The former army chief Gen V.K. Singh said in June 2010 what his predecessors in office and corps commanders in Kashmir have been saying all these years. “I feel there is a great requirement for political initiatives which take all the people forward together. Militarily we have brought the overall internal situation in Jammu & Kashmir firmly under control. Now, the need is to handle things politically.” In the three years that elapsed since he spoke as he did, militancy declined further still; but there is not the slightest sign of any political effort at conciliation. Frustrated by repression, angered by mistreatment at the hands of the police, within as well as outside Kashmir, humiliated by the centre’s apathy, Kashmir’s youth seems once again to be ready to take up the gun. This time the lead is taken by the well-educated. If this trend continues the leaders’ movement will no longer be able to restrain and control the young. Riyaz Wani’s recent report in the weekly Tehelka is alarming and bears quotation in extenso: “A clutch of youth between 18 and 25 years of age, relatively well-educated and from middle-class families, are consciously joining jihad and redrawing the militant landscape of the Valley. …‘They don’t cross the Line of Control to get training. They get a gun or snatch it from security personnel or policemen and learn to operate it,’ says a police officer. ‘Some of them join militancy seeking thrills and a sense of importance and belonging in their lives.’ In contrast to the past few years, when they preferred to lie low, militants in Kashmir are now going on the offensive. …They are technologically savvy and use Internet-based communication software that defy easy interception and surveillance like Viber, Kakao Talk, Skype and other Voice over Internet Protocol … technologies.” The police estimate the strength of the militants to be 133; the army pegs it at 325. Avenues of protests are shut. ‘Interlocutors’ sent by New Delhi since 2001 failed miserably because none had anything to offer on behalf of the government. In such a situation one would expect Kashmir’s political parties and politicians to provide leadership and fill the political vacuum. They stage, instead, a contest in extremism, each trying to establish himself as more ‘patriotic’ than the rest. The Hurriyat not only split in 2010 but splintered thereafter; some of its constituent parties also split — the Muslim League, the People’s League, the Muslim Conference, and the People’s Conference. The only way out of this morass is improvement in relations between India and Pakistan and their accord initially on some limited measures which relieve the tensions and raise the people’s morale. Of this there is, sadly, little sign — and militancy will not die unless and until India and Pakistan settle the Kashmir dispute. The writer is an author and a lawyer.
Terrorism’s long shadow By Abbas Nasir IN its first month in office, the government may have got most of the optics right but it is still to come up with a road map to tackle terrorism.. At least for now the appointment of Muneer Malik as attorney general, advertising key public-sector jobs and most of all facilitating a government in Balochistan belonging to Baloch and Pakhtun nationalists are no more than optics. Look at Balochistan. If the current state of affairs continues with Baloch youth still disappearing and their tortured bodies being found dumped later and if Hazara Shias continue to be slaughtered, how would a Malik government be different to Raisani’s in substance? Kudos to the prime minister for quickly rushing to Quetta after the latest bombing targeting the Hazaras as this was in contrast to his predecessor, who was moved only by a long-drawn-out protest sit-in by the battered community in sub-zero temperatures last January. But even this will amount to nought if those suffering are offered no more than the shoulder of a high and mighty to cry on occasionally. More, much more, is expected of an elected government and, so far, nothing substantial seems to have been done. The prime minister instructed the security set-up in the province and more significantly the all-powerful services intelligence agencies to make hunting down the perpetrators of the Hazara bombing a “test case”. Unless the prime minister’s instructions are followed up with accountability in case of failure his words won’t amount to anything more than mere bluster. And bluster isn’t going to steer Balochistan out of the crisis it’s been pushed into. Balochistan’s carefully woven social and ethnic fabric is being ripped to shreds by sectarian terrorists as well as by death squads that, according to some Baloch nationalists, are acting on behalf of the military-intelligence establishment. The situation demands concrete measures. Not for a moment can one deny the excesses against non-Baloch by the separatists active in the province but surely the state must stand for rule of law. It’ll be useful to remind ourselves that the current round of violence was triggered by Nawab Akbar Bugti’s killing by the military. All efforts should be aimed at strengthening Chief Minister Dr Malik Baloch’s hands as there can be nobody better placed to start a dialogue with the militants than him. Reliance on murderous thugs can only boomerang as it’ll create a bigger and bigger constituency for the separatists. It is equally incumbent on Dr Malik and my good friend Hasil Bizenjo to leave the government if at any point they feel they aren’t being given the leeway to make decisions in Balochistan’s interests. They shouldn’t offer themselves as punching bags for someone else’s ‘strategic’ blunders. Mian Nawaz Sharif must now realise that he must see things from Islamabad’s perspective rather than Lahore’s as his party had the luxury of doing over the past five years. These five years were great and delivered his party many, many benefits. PML-N ruled the Punjab, was able to ‘govern’ well and also recreate its significant constituency among the bureaucracy and the powerful political groups through patronage. At the same time it gained the sympathy of the masses by effectively using opposition rhetoric. The party’s greatest achievement was that somehow it was able to remain largely immune to terrorist attacks. Whether the Tehreek-i-Taliban Pakistan didn’t attack the province to avoid incurring the wrath of a majority of Pakistanis or Lahore cut deals with them as is alleged will likely remain unknown. What is important now is that the governing party has to move beyond all that. The militancy rooted in some of the tribal areas and most specifically in the federally administrated North Waziristan Agency has to be dealt with. The government has the popular mandate. Whether it wishes first to take steps towards, what many believe will be futile, talks or move quickly to evolve a consensus to take military action is its prerogative. What it doesn’t have is an endless amount of time. All foreign trips to attract investment particularly in infrastructure projects will remain pointless till the security situation is better. As things stand being able to afford the risk premium sought by those wishing to invest/work in Pakistan would be beyond the country’s reach. So, the metros, four-lane motorways, enhanced power generation capacity, improvements in basic education and health systems will only remain a dream, unfulfilled manifesto pledges till such time as we are able to sort out the law and order mess. Without doubt the provincial authorities and the Assembly in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa need to worry more about strengthening the security cordon around Peshawar in particular instead of chasing red herrings such as whether the Daewoo coaches stop for prayer breaks. Equally, the PPP government in Sindh must understand that its win in the last election may be its last victory there if its criminal neglect and alleged complicity in the alarming lawlessness in Karachi continues and if it cannot deliver better governance to its support base in the interior. It is a great shame that on the one hand the party claims credit for a ‘policy of reconciliation’ aimed at creating a political culture conducive to democracy in the country and on the other can’t ensure the life and liberty of the citizens in the provincial capital. Karachi is recognised these days from images of rioters, armed police, Rangers and their armoured personnel carriers, the corpses of the murdered and the sobbing faces of those who have lost their loved ones. Unless the PPP and the MQM (despite being totally taken up by the travails of its leader in his London sanctuary) can join hands to sort out the mess in the city of lights at some point, I suspect, the big foot of the federal government will descend with all its consequences. Battling terrorism indiscriminately ought to be a collective priority. The sooner we understand this the better it will be. The writer is a former editor of Dawn. abbas.nasir@hotmail.com
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