Daily Times Editorial Dec 6, 2014

London conference The conference in London hosted by the UK and Afghanistan was focused on the future of the latter country after the withdrawal of all but a few thousand US/NATO troops by December 31. The conference was attended by British Prime Minister (PM) David Cameron, President Ashraf Ghani of Afghanistan, US Secretary of State John Kerry and PM Nawaz Sharif. Addressing the conference, Nawaz Sharif laid out Pakistan’s policy vis-à-vis its troubled neighbour. He told the conference that Pakistan and Afghanistan had agreed to fight terrorism together without discrimination. Expressing strong solidarity with the people of Afghanistan, Nawaz Sharif made a strong plug for the international community to do more to support Kabul in its endeavours to bring peace and development to the country. Nawaz Sharif pointed to the national unity government formed in Afghanistan after the presidential elections (albeit after a fair bit of controversy regarding rigging in the election) as a milestone. He welcomed President Ghani’s call for a dialogue with the Taliban (although it must be admitted there are so far no signs the latter are interested). Nawaz Sharif pointed to the historic new beginning in ties between Pakistan and Afghanistan manifested in the first visit of President Ghani. The two sides had agreed not to allow their territory to be used against the other. It is of interest to note that although FATA is being cleared by Operation Zarb-e-Azb of terrorists, including the Haqqani network, there is so far no word on Mulla Omar’s Quetta Shura’s fate. However, the encouraging development is that the Tehreek-e-Taliban Pakistan forces sitting on Afghan soil are being squeezed by US airstrikes and actions by the Afghan forces and tribes. PM Nawaz Sharif reiterated his government’s resolve to deepen security and economic cooperation between the two countries, including bilateral and transit trade, investment, and fast tracking the CASA-1000 and TAPI projects, both of which have been hamstrung for years because of security fears in transiting through Afghanistan among other reasons. The PM also emphasised that Pakistan would follow up the Heart of Asia-Istanbul process to strengthen Afghanistan’s ability to stand on its own feet after the western withdrawal. Whereas the US, UK and other attendees pledged to support Afghanistan even after the withdrawal, there are a number of negatives attending the ability and will of the donors to fulfil this pledge. In any case, this conference was not expected to, nor was it designed for, any new aid pledges for Afghanistan. However, some of the factors that cast a shadow of doubt over Kabul’s ability to continue to attract critical aid are donor fatigue due to the global economic crisis, and Afghanistan being seen as a bottomless pit in which billions of dollars of aid since 2001 has disappeared due to corruption and waste, for which both donors and recipients are blamed. President Ashraf Ghani being a professional financial expert is expected to improve this area of governance in order to inspire confidence in the donor community that they are not throwing good money after bad. The issue is critical to the survival of the government and its ability to overcome the challenge of the Taliban, which is already intensifying since the beginning of this year and is expected to exponentially increase as soon as the western forces depart, especially in the absence of a peace process between Kabul and its enemies. COAS General Raheel Sharif’s extended visit to the US raised a few eyebrows at home because of the extraordinary protocol he was extended. The realists among us ascribed this to the recognition by Washington that without the army on board, no change of direction could be expected to succeed vis-à-vis combating terrorism as an allied effort. General Sharif was at pains in Washington to assert that the army was battling terrorists without discrimination, which opened the door to a convergence of positions amongst Washington, Islamabad and Kabul. As far as the military operation in FATA is concerned, it could be considered the first major step to implement General Sharif’s doctrine of regarding non-state actors as the biggest threat, as he delineated in his speech in Karachi the other day. This is all to the good, welcome, and long overdue. But the ticklish question of Mulla Omar and the Taliban remains unanswered so far. That is the real test of the new paradigm.

Daily Times Editorial Dec 4, 2014

Back to talks? Imran Khan may have delivered his usual fire and brimstone speech at the rally in Islamabad on November 30, and one could be forgiven for thinking that he had declared open season on the government, but as in so much else in our politics, this may have proved an illusion. The portents after the November 30 rally seem to point in the opposite direction. Both the Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaaf (PTI) and the government are sending signals that they are prepared to return to the negotiating table to sort out the crisis. On the PTI’s part, not unusually, Imran Khan’s bloodcurdling threats to shut down sequentially major cities and then the country as a whole, did not survive long. Whether it was the response of the business community that vociferously rejected the PTI’s Plan C to shut down trade and business in the targeted cities of Lahore, Faisalabad and Karachi, or a cooler rethink by the PTI’s think tank regarding their party’s capacity to carry out the threat in practice, subsequent statements by the party spokespeople have indicated their willingness to cancel at least the first phase of Plan C if talks with the government begin by December 6. Prime Minister (PM) Nawaz Sharif in London indicated that talks and shutdowns could not go hand in hand and if the PTI was willing to return to the talks, the government would welcome it, provided the agitation was wound down. Whether this can be regarded as emerging convergence or merely the restating of the respective positions only time will tell. The PM has charged Finance Minister Ishaq Dar to lead the government side in exploring the possibility of resuming the talks. From the PTI’s ranks, Shah Mahmood Qureshi is the point man. Both restated their respective positions along the lines above and each promised that if their precondition was met, they would prevail upon their respective leaders to pave the way for the negotiating table to be trotted out. The PM did not refrain however from criticising the agitational politics of the PTI nor its inadequacies of governance in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa. He pointed to the new ways of doing things that he and Leader of the Opposition Syed Khursheed Shah were setting the precedents for, which essentially revolved around settling issues through dialogue and within democratic norms. Imran Khan on the other hand delineated once again his simplistic notions of how the problems of the country could be fixed. Just 200 competent professionals appointed to the right posts would be sufficient to transform the country into a land of milk and honey in which 110 million people would as a result be lifted out of poverty. Further, he has stated that had he been in power, he would not have sent the army into the tribal areas. Instead he would have restored peace through talks (presumably with the militants who went through the preliminaries of such an exercise last year and then showed their fangs). If only life, and the problems of Pakistan, could be so easily resolved. The central question remains whether, should the talks resume, as they should, the two sides can reconcile their respective positions and move forward. The PTI continues to insist that the government set up a judicial commission to probe the fairness of the 2013 elections and touts its concession that it has retreated from its maximalist demand of the resignation of the PM until the commission reports. Only if the commission finds the mandate false would he be asked to go. What this insistence ignores deliberately perhaps is that the government cannot ‘set up’ such a commission. Only the Supreme Court (SC) can. And that august institution has already been requested to do so by the PM sending a letter to this effect to the Chief Justice of Pakistan some months ago. Properly speaking, if the PTI is so keen on the judicial commission, it should redirect its demand to the SC. How the apex court might respond to such a request cannot be second-guessed. But the implication of the PTI’s insistence that the government accede to a demand it has already agreed to and acted upon is that the talks, provided they resume, will hit this fundamental obstacle at the very first post. A breakdown then could mean a return to agitation by the PTI, with incalculable results for the normal life, economy and stability of the country.

Daily Times Editorial Dec 3, 2014

Afghan fiasco Alarming media reports about the critical shortage of weapons, ammunition and equipment in the Afghan security forces underline the precariousness of the situation the country is being left in on the eve of the withdrawal of the bulk of the US-led NATO forces by end-December. One police chief in Sangin district of Helmand province in the southwest of the country, known to be one of the toughest Taliban-infested areas, bemoaned his inability to hand out grenades to all his officers. He said Taliban attacks could only be beaten back if and when the army supported them, otherwise they were helpless. Considering the US has poured $ 61 billion in building and training security forces numbering some 350,000 men, this is a failure to plan properly for a time when Afghanistan will largely have to stand on its own feet, which is now upon us. Police and Afghan National Army (ANA) units deployed in remote or insurgent-infested areas are particularly vulnerable. That vulnerability is bound to increase (and perhaps spread into areas considered more firmly under the government’s control) once western military and economic aid dwindles post-withdrawal, and particularly after western air power is no longer available to back up anti-Taliban operations. Already, the problem is underlined by the fact that 4,600 security forces personnel have been killed in Taliban attacks this year. Afghanistan’s east, southeast and southwest are the most vulnerable areas as they are traditional Taliban strongholds (the first two have the added advantage for the Taliban of access to Pakistani soil across the border). But by now the Taliban have spread into and established their deadly presence in many other areas hitherto considered relatively stable, like the north of the country. After 13 years of the longest war in the US’s history, the balance sheet of the campaign does not inspire confidence. In response to criticism that President Barack Obama’s administration is about to repeat the blunder of a premature withdrawal from Iraq, Washington is trying to hedge its bets. The remaining US troops who will remain as part of the 12,500 NATO force after December have recently been freed up by the US President to engage the Taliban if necessary. However, most analysts, including Afghans, are apprehensive that the withdrawal of air support will make the fight against the Taliban that much tougher. General John Campbell, commander of the western forces in Afghanistan, has tried to reassure the critics by saying limited close air support would be available next year and new aircraft for the Afghan Air Force are in the pipeline. However, that will take three to four years, by which time it may all be over bar the shouting. The planning of the western occupying forces has suffered from some glaring flaws since 2001. Poppy cultivation was not touched for fear of sparking off a general revolt by farmers without alternatives. The result: Afghanistan today supplies 90 percent of the world’s heroin today and this illicit trade fills the coffers of the Taliban and local warlords, continuing if not exacerbating the country’s troubles. The facts stated above point to hesitation in creating a truly effective ANA and security forces, dogged as the project’s heels were by Taliban sympathisers’ ‘blue-on-green’ attacks (members of the Afghan security forces attacking western soldiers). The most glaring gap is obviously in giving the ANA air capability, both jets and helicopters, in order to combat the tough fighters of the Taliban. These and other, economic facts, highlight the absurdity of the whole notion of ‘nation building’ under foreign occupation. Be all that as it may, the US-led west is leaving President Ashraf Ghani holding the baby. He intends to shake up the ANA and the security forces by getting rid of deadwood and promoting commanders who are capable of fulfilling the task of overcoming the Taliban. President Ghani’s main focus for now is on five provinces, Kunduz and Baghdis in the north, Ghazni and Nangarhar in the east bordering Pakistan, and Helmand in the south. The proposed changes will be rung in first in these provinces over the next 2-3 months. Once this phase of the shake up is over, President Ghani will have to turn his attention to Paktia, Paktika and Kunar provinces in the east, which border Pakistan and are considered the stronghold of the deadly Haqqani network that is reportedly hosting the Tehreek-e-Taliban Pakistan leader Mulla Fazlullah on Afghan soil. As this listing indicates, President Ghani has his work cut out for him. But it also shows that past suspicions aside, Afghanistan and Pakistan are converging on the terrain of fighting a common enemy: terrorism.

Daily Times Editorial Dec 2, 2014

Shutdown threat Mercifully, the Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaaf’s (PTI’s) November 30 rally in Islamabad generally passed off peacefully. The exception to this outcome were some Jamiat-e-Ulema-e-Islam protestors clashing with convoys of the PTI coming from Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, which resulted in 11 workers of both parties being injured in Karak, and some crackers thrown at a media van near the site of the rally. It appears then that good sense by and large prevailed, not the least because the PTI supporters seemed better organised and disciplined than their previous foray on and after August 14. However, that is where the good news begins and ends. In their speeches at the rally, the PTI leaders trotted out more or less the same script of allegations and accusations against virtually all and sundry, but focused as usual more on the government, former Chief Justice of Pakistan Iftikhar Mohammad Chaudhry, former Supreme Court (SC) Justice Khalilur Rehman Ramday, and the Election Commission of Pakistan. However, the new and even more dangerous escalation promised in Imran Khan’s ‘Plan C’ is a shutdown of major cities like Lahore on December 4 (since reportedly being reconsidered as to the date by the PTI’s core committee), Faisalabad on December 8, Karachi on December 12, and the entire country after that on December 16 (an unfortunate, ill considered choice coinciding with the fall of Dhaka in 1971). Plan C, according to Imran Khan, is contingent on the government agreeing to a complete audit of the 2013 elections and the setting up of a judicial commission to probe rigging. Now while bringing cities or even the whole country to a standstill remains a possibility, it certainly would not do any good to the country, and arguably, the fortunes of the PTI itself. Disruption of normal life in these metropolises, let alone on a wider scale throughout the country, would only entail huge economic and other losses, while threatening the outbreak of violence between the PTI supporters and the law enforcement agencies (not to mention the possibility of clashes with the PML-N supporters in Punjab and the PPP's in Karachi). Desperation seems to ooze out of this latest escalation by Imran Khan, given that Plans A and B (whose maximalist demand was the resignation of the prime minister through street pressure) failed to materialise. In reserve Imran has kept Plan D, which he thunders will be even worse, without revealing any details of what the next step may be if Plan C does not deliver. And how can it deliver? If the two main demands to which the PTI has clung are examined, any audit of any seat any only be dome through the election tribunals (which PTI has never seriously pursued and has by now given up on) and the judicial commission is in the SC’s court, which has failed so far to respond to the prime minister’s request for setting up such a commission despite the passage of four months. This implies that all these ‘Plans’ and the ultimatums accompanying them are merely steps along the path of a strategy of escalating demands and pressure and nothing else. The objective remains the same: unseating an elected government by force on the basis of spurious and unsubstantiated allegations. Were that to come to pass, it would set a horrendous precedent and lay the ground for any government in future running the risk of being overthrown in like fashion (even one, if he ever comes to power, one led by Imran Khan). The ability to see the implications of his position has either escaped Imran or he has sacrificed such wisdom to his overweening and impatient ambition. The government seems to be divided between its hawks and doves, with the former ruling out any return to negotiations with the PTI at pistol point and the latter still holding out an olive branch to the PTI. On November 30, the PML-N (PTI says “the government”, using taxpayers’ money) choked virtually all the television channels with long running advertisements highlighting Imran Khan’s contradictory and bellicose statements over time in a concerted effort to discredit him and blank out coverage of the PTI rally (an oxygen the party has been relying on so far). Imran Khan’s ‘Plans’, when seen in conjunction with Sheikh Rashid’s continuing incendiary speeches at PTI rallies, promise looming violence, a development unlikely to help anyone, and certainly not the country.

Daily Times Editorial Nov 30, 2014

War of insult The level of the political discourse in Pakistan has never been known for achieving any kind of heights. But even our low standards have been kicked into the gutter by the manner in which political rivalry and contention are currently being conducted. This low tone has been set, first and foremost, by Imran Khan and his acolytes in the Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaaf (PTI). The party’s chief has not hesitated since the 2013 elections to assail all and sundry, institutions as well as individuals, with vitriolic assertions, accusations and calumny only slightly removed from the lower depths. Now, on the eve of the November 30 ‘big show’ by the PTI in Islamabad, Imran Khan has launched (once again) into the present governments in Punjab and the Centre, former Chief Justice of Pakistan Justice Iftikhar Mohammad Chaudhry, the Election Commission of Pakistan, the caretaker governments in Punjab and the Centre overseeing the 2013 elections, and even the police as being responsible for rigging, which resulted in a false mandate for the PML-N. He goes so far as to lump the PPP along with the PML-N as targets for his wild and woolly charges, including the latest Platonic wisdom that Punjab and Sindh have been turned into ‘police states’. Imran claims 5.5 million extra ballot papers were printed at three Lahore printing presses for the elections and distributed amongst the candidates of the PML-N for the purpose of rigging. He demands a probe into the charges but not under Nawaz Sharif because it would not be a fair one since the prime minister is the beneficiary of the rigging. The sit-ins, Imran insisted, were intended to bring the riggers to justice and were certainly not intended as a move to invite martial law, which accusation was a travesty of his lifelong struggle. However, in the same breath Imran saw no difference between the present incumbents and the 111 Brigade, throwing in for good measure that the ‘third umpire’ was not the military but the Almighty! The best response to such arrant nonsense would perhaps be silence and sympathy for the embarrassment the author of such charges is causing himself and his party. However, since no such embarrassment seems to furrow Imran Khan's brow, the government has fielded Information Minister Pervaiz Rasheed to pay Khan back in his own coin. In a press conference on Friday, the normally mildly spoken minister went overboard, a la Imran Khan, in trying to prove the accuser of the government an absconder, feudal lord, and agent of the international oil mafia, who was assigned to sabotage the visit of the Chinese president through his sit-in since agreements for production of power from coal were to be signed (these were later completed when Nawaz Sharif visited China, the minister reminded us). Not stopping there, the minister whaled into Khan with allegations of earning huge sums abroad for unrevealed services to foreigners, holding a suspiciously large amount of cash in hand, and being a defaulter of agricultural income tax while his luxurious lifestyle was financed by hidden hands. To add icing to the cake, Pervaiz Rasheed trotted out facts and figures to show that the Sharif family paid huge amounts of taxes. Have both sides lost the plot? Imran Khan’s wild and unsubstantiated accusations and allegations hardly found traction beyond his adoring circles. The government so far had been well served by a demeanour of patience and restraint. Now it seems to have striven for, and arguably achieved, the same guttersnipe level as the PTI. Could it be that these exchanges, amongst reasons related to previous court orders being flouted, has persuaded the Lahore High Court to exercise judicial restraint and question why the judiciary should be dragged into such political matters while dismissing a petition seeking the halting of the November 30 rally? Interior Minister Chaudhry Nisar has stated that the PTI has signed an agreement regarding the terms and conditions for the rally. Any deviation from these, the minister emphasised, would bring the law into action and the resultant outcome would entirely be the responsibility of the PTI. The citizen can only marvel and scratch the head at the shenanigans going on in the country. PTI has the right to protest peacefully, for which an NOC has been issued. But can the party guarantee that its professed peaceful aims are compatible with its leadership’s foaming at the mouth? In the interests of the country and the democratic system which, with all its flaws rooted in the slow reform of a still young dispensation, nevertheless offers the best hope of stability and progress, we hope both sides will show exemplary restraint and responsibility and not plunge us into another unnecessary crisis to add to the list of all the others we are confronted with.

Daily Times Editorial Nov 29, 2014

Summit breakthrough? The gloomy mood that had gripped the 18th summit of the South Asian Association for Regional Cooperation (SAARC) was dispelled somewhat on the last day by the public display of bonhomie between Prime Ministers (PMs) Nawaz Sharif and Narendra Modi when they not only shook hands warmly, but smiled for the cameras to lay to rest the prognosis of a failed summit. However, realistically speaking, the fact that one agreement on a regional electricity grid was signed while two more on road and rail connectivity could not, reflects the long road ahead before South Asia (SA) can revel in a newfound closeness. Whereas the foreign office in Islamabad refuted suggestions Pakistan was the sole country playing an obstructionist role on these agreements, it argued that it was the remaining “internal processes” that had yet to be completed and therefore the agreements could not see the light of day. Even if we take the foreign office’s statement at face value, how is that in one day the ‘internal processes’ on electricity connectivity were ‘completed’ while the other two were not? One may be forgiven for some scepticism. Perhaps it was the thaw between the PMs of Pakistan and India on the last day to which the electricity grid agreement is owed rather than any ‘rapid’ progress on the ‘internal processes’. Be that as it may, the smiles wreathing the faces of all the SA leaders when Sharif and Modi shook hands reflects how precarious is the SAARC project. While the breakthrough on the electricity grid can only be welcomed, given that the region can greatly benefit from energy surplus countries passing on its benefit to energy-deficient neighbours, there are reminders of just how difficult South Asian integration still is. Apart from the pending road and rail agreements, two incidents, one a renewed exchange of fire between Pakistani and Indian forces in the Charwah sector and a rebel attack in Indian Held Kashmir (IHK) near the Line of Control (LoC) underlined on the vey day the chink of light became visible in Kathmandu that a considerable distance still has to be traversed by Pakistan and India before normalisation of relations, peace and development for mutual benefit can follow. For one, the festering conflict on the LoC and Working Boundary urgently needs to be defused, the broken off Pakistan-India dialogue resumed, and ways and means found for a political solution for the vexed question of Kashmir. That dispute not only is a legacy of partition, it is difficult of resolution because of the trajectory the dispute assumed since then. India has long ago abandoned any notion of a plebiscite to allow the Kashmiri people the right to decide whether they wanted to remain with India or Pakistan despite the solemn commitment of then PM Nehru and his initiative to take the problem to the UN Security Council. India has steadily retreated from what proved to be an embarrassing international commitment that it feared would lead to Kashmir acceding to Pakistan. For years now, and particularly after the Simla Accord of 1972, India has been adamant that Kashmir is an integral part of India (implying there is nothing to discuss). However, facts are stubborn things and the long running unrest in IHK refutes India’s complacent stance on any given day. India awaits an enlightened leadership that would recognize the problem for what it is, and even if it was not prepared to allow the Kashmiris their right to decide their destiny, would engage with the Kashmiri leadership to find a political solution. Pakistan has long indicated (implicitly) that it has realistically acknowledged the unlikelihood of the plebiscite ever taking place and stated from time to time that any solution acceptable to the people of Kashmir would be acceptable to it. Unfortunately, India has not taken up Pakistan’s offer with a long-term vision to remove the canker of this long running sore and move to more productive areas of interaction with Pakistan and SA generally. Recriminations regarding the past do not help anything of course. Statesmanship from Islamabad and New Delhi could defuse the Kashmir thorn in their side and open the door to the integration delineated in the SAARC summit’s 36-point final communiqué. But for that to happen, the requisite political will is a sine qua non.

Daily Times Editorial Nov 28, 2014

SAARC realities The 18th South Asian Association for Regional Cooperation (SAARC) summit in Kathmandu, Nepal, seems to be playing out to the old, tired script. All eyes were focused on whether the Pakistani and Indian prime ministers would meet on its sidelines to nudge their stalled interaction forward. Unfortunately, far from this desirable outcome, reports indicate they did not even make eye contact or exchange normal courtesies, not even a handshake. This lingering friction between the two largest and mutually conflicted countries of South Asia has once again put paid to hopes for the SAARC summit yielding agreements amongst the eight member countries to push the agenda of cooperation, integration and mutual benefit that underlies the whole concept of the regional grouping. In fact, the first fruits of this disappointing alienation of Pakistan and India from each other appeared when three agreements on sharing railways, highways and energy failed to achieve consensus. And the likelihood of such consensus being achieved, even in the retreat that the eight leaders will enjoy, seems distant. This lack of outcome is doubly depressing since if the speeches of the leaders are anything to go by, conceptually they all appear on the same page. For example, Prime Minister (PM) Nawaz Sharif in his address to the summit underlined the need for the region’s countries not to fight each other but rather fight together against poverty, illiteracy, disease, malnourishment and unemployment. He emphasised his vision of a dispute-free South Asia. The PM advised the SAARC countries to build convergences, minimise divergences and augment complementarities in order to bridge the gap between the promise and reality of SAARC. Nawaz Sharif, amongst other points, underlined the need to invest in youth (given the demographic bulge in South Asia), energy, communications, connectivity and integration. On tapping into youth’s creative energy, the PM pointed out that South Asia boasted amongst its population of 1.5 billion one-fifth of people between 15 and 24 years of age, which is the highest proportion of youth in any population in the world. Their potential is undeniable, as is the absence of sufficient focus on this resource, both within the SAARC countries and in the region as a whole. The regret expressed by Nawaz Sharif was informed by the fact that South Asia represents only six percent of world GDP on purchasing power parity basis, just four percent of world trade and a measly three percent of foreign direct investment. A quarter of global humanity in South Asia remains mired in poverty and its concomitant fallouts, prominent amongst them being disease, illiteracy and the lowest human and social indicators. What this means is that South Asia has not been able to take advantage of its cultural affinity, shared geography and history and its unique synthesis of cultures and traditions. Nawaz Sharif would like the region to engage in an interactive process that would reveal the beauty and strength of the true South Asian identity. Expanding on the need for building on the inherent strengths the region possesses, Nawaz Sharif wants SAARC to effectively address common issues such as socio-economic disparities, women’s empowerment, health and education, without losing sight of the worst affliction: widespread poverty. Estimates speak of 43 percent of the population of South Asia living below the poverty line. In terms of numbers, this is a staggering sea of deprived humanity, around 645 million souls. Of course, as Nawaz Sharif pointed out, this requires a high level of coordination at the national and regional levels, which is nothing if not conspicuous by its absence. By now, there is hardly anything left to argue about as far as the potential of South Asia is concerned. Its traditional strengths, including agriculture, now stand poised to take off with the help of the growth of industry, commerce and technology that permeate the South Asian scene today. However, none of the strengths and potential of the region can be taken advantage of so long as some states, particularly Pakistan and India, remain prisoners of history, ancient and relatively recent. If SAARC is to be nudged off the rock on which it seems stuck, Pakistan and India first and foremost will have to show statesmanship and vision of an extraordinarily high calibre to get beyond the things that divide them, embrace the things that do or could unite them in cooperation, and through their mutual extending of the hand of friendship, bring the enormous benefits of a new South Asian order to all the countries of the region.