Daily Times editorial Jan 15, 2013

Finally, Raisani’s just desserts It took three days of a sit-in in freezing and wet weather by the Shia Hazara community in Quetta with the bodies of their dead in the bomb blasts to nudge the governing PPP into motion. After a bevy of ministers failed to persuade the protestors to give up their extreme form of protest triggered by the community’s desperation, Prime Minister Raja Pervez Ashraf personally visited Alamdar Road, Quetta, the site of the sit-in, and after talks with the protestors, finally took the decision late Sunday night that had been staring everyone in the face. Raisani’s government was dismissed and Governor’s rule imposed. Resisting the widespread calls for Quetta or even the whole province to be handed over to the army, the government conceded police powers to the Frontier Corps (FC) and left the door open for calling in the army if the Governor saw fit. At the time of writing these lines, the notification to this effect seems to have been issued and the protestors have reportedly called off the sit-in and prepared to bury the dead belatedly. It should be noted in passing that according to our religious and cultural norms, deliberately not to bury the dead the same day or at best the next day constitutes about as extreme a form of protest as can be imagined. That may be the main reason why a government slow to respond was finally forced to confront the issue head on. The government should learn a lesson or two from this debacle. Some things need doing, are inescapable, and doing them at the right time and before damage to repute and standing ensues is usually a good idea. Timing, after all, is everything in politics. In the present case, the government has come across as hesitant, reluctant, and a late convert to the warts, flaws and blemishes of the Raisani government. The chorus of voices from all of the PPP’s coalition partners and political parties outside it was lent added weight by the voices from within the PPP’s own ranks, who argued that Raisani was a disaster, and must go. Raisani’s government followed the practice instituted during Musharraf’s benighted rule to include virtually all the Assembly members in the treasury, privilege a few lucky ones with ministries, and thereby reduce the whole idea of parliamentary democracy to a farce. All the ministers of Raisani’s administration, as well as treasury members, had a great time siphoning off development funds from the poorest province’s poorest people. Allegedly, some of them were even involved in crimes (or at least providing protection to the perpetrators) such as kidnapping for ransom, especially doctors, an enterprise that led to much agitation by the province’s medical fraternity. Reports that Raisani had been ready to quit but was asked to hang in till the elections are circulating in the media. The only credence that can be placed on such reports is that criticism from all quarters, including the Supreme Court’s conclusion that the government of the province was not being run according to the constitution, may have finally got under Raisani’s otherwise thick skin. His facile attempts at humour over the years he was chief minister included an element of cruel indifference to the plight of his people. An example of this in the present context is when he facetiously offered to send tissues to wipe the tears of the Hazara community, a remark that compares in infamy with Marie Antoinette’s famously ascribed remark about cake instead of bread. Raisani and his corrupt and incompetent team were tolerated by the PPP leadership all these years, a fact that poses a big question mark over its political wisdom. The greatest irony in the belated solution the PPP leadership has sought for Balochistan’s immediate crisis lies in the fact that having rejected the Hazara community’s demand to hand over Quetta to the army to prevent any adverse development later, the Hazaras (and the Baloch generally) have got the ‘gift’ of the FC instead. Given its track record in the province, hardly a secret by now, of pursuing the decapitation of Balochistan's intelligentsia through its kill and dump policy, an FC with police powers has greater scope for mischief. Whether the FC succeeds in tracking down and bringing to justice the tormentors of the Hazara community or not (and there are serious doubts since not one murderer of the Hazaras has been caught to date), the police powers handed to the FC on a plate risk even more abuse and extrajudicial killings in the province. That way lies greater trouble, unrest, and threats to the federation’s unity and solidarity. Raisani was a disaster, and had to go, better late than never. An empowered FC may prove a bigger disaster, leaving the government with nowhere to go.