Business Recorder Column March 31, 2020

Origins and challenges of coronavirus pandemic

Rashed Rahman

The current COVID-19 illness gripping the world is caused by the coronavirus SARS-CoV-2, the second severe acute respiratory syndrome virus to emerge since 2002. As a result of its rapid spread, whole cities, regions, even countries are in lockdown, with hospitals under pressure from patient surges and shortage of protective and curative equipment. China, where the initial outbreak occurred in Wuhan, is breathing easier since the pandemic is in decline, affording a gradual and incremental loosening of the lockdown in Wuhan and other parts of the country. This success has enamoured a large part of world opinion to the China ‘model’ of combating the virus.

But before we examine the China ‘model’ and contrasting approaches elsewhere (that arguably have ‘elevated’ the US and Europe to the dubious distinction of the worst afflicted parts of the globe), it may be instructive to trace the origins of the virus and its subsequent rapid spread globally.

The earlier SARS epidemic was ascribed to originating in bats, subsequently spreading to humans. The current coronavirus is ascribed to the consumption of pangolins in Wuhan. Whether this is later proved scientifically or not, these ascriptions point the way towards understanding the origin of pathogens and their transmission in contemporary times.

The literature argues that industrialised modes of agriculture for profit maximisation produce pathogens such as Salmonella and Campylobacter at the site of production centres. But COVID-19-like viruses originate on the ‘frontiers’ of capitalist production, where the drive for profit maximisation has taken a serious toll of forests and wildernesses and given birth to a taste for wildlife as exotic food. The processes of natural selection that created immunity from pathogens has been eroded by industrial-type production of agricultural, livestock and poultry products, leaving them free to infect local human communities and travel up the supply and interconnectedness chain to large cities and then the world. Exotic wildlife products extracted at the edge of forests and wildernesses in periurban areas also can follow the same path. In short, capitalist agricultural and food production as well as the exotic wildlife products so much in demand may between them be the culprits responsible for transmission of pathogens and deadly viruses worldwide. Of course the real villain remains unfettered capitalism, for whom neither nature’s increasingly delicate ecology nor human welfare can be allowed to stand in the way of the drive for maximisation of profits. In this schema, profits, not people, are priority.

To tackle these capitalist practices is a bigger question encroaching onto the domain of politics and economics. However, that is a debate to be explicated another day. Currently, the issue of how to tackle the coronavirus pandemic, learning from other countries’ successes and failures, is top of the agenda.

China’s approach to tackling the virus, starting from the epicentre Wuhan, was predicated on a suppression programme, going all out fast enough to drive the outbreak into extinction (or as near it as to pose no further major threat). Given that despite its embrace in the last four decades of capitalism, the Chinese regime is still communist, permitted a mobilisation of lockdown measures that other, less disciplined societies have found difficult if not impossible to emulate. Without getting bogged down in the debate about balancing virus suppression measures with minimising economic hardship for the poorest because of its appreciation that half-hearted incremental strict measures would only cause greater and longer pain than a total approach, and being bolstered by its social safety nets to mitigate economic hardship for the most vulnerable, China’s ‘blitzkrieg’ against the coronavirus has succeeded beyond imagination. Infections from returning travellers or local infections are declining and dwindling to insignificant proportions. An estimate of Chinese efficiency and discipline can be gauged from the fact that when the pandemic first broke out in Wuhan, the Chinese authorities built an isolation 100-bed hospital on the outskirts of the city in 10 days, a project the Americans said would take a year!

For reasons of political structure and culture, not many countries, even if they wish to, will be able to emulate the Chinese ‘model’ in toto. However, the most important and critical steps can and must be taken by more liberal regimes the world over if mankind is to see the back of the coronavirus pandemic with minimum human deaths and in the shortest time frame of economic and social disruption as possible.

Experience has shown that, short of the total Chinese approach, the priority has to be mitigation, i.e. ‘flattening the curve’ of infections by reducing the rate of the spread of the virus so as not to overwhelm the healthcare sector (which in Pakistan is already inadequate in terms of hospital beds, equipment, etc, let alone specialised isolation facilities). Those detected as having been infected need to be quarantined, and the population at large induced to practice social distancing and other preventive measures. These measures may not end up being implemented as efficiently as in China, but they will act as mitigatory effects.

Another aspect of the suppression of the coronavirus outbreak must consist of tracing those who may have been in contact with the infection and putting them through the testing and quarantining routine. In addition, private hospitals and other spaces that can be used as isolation centres for the infected must be commandeered to strengthen the capacity in the public sector for this purpose. Testing volume must be dramatically increased to cover all suspected infections to the extent humanly possible. China’s dispatch of medical teams and equipment to Pakistan in this hour of need is one more proof of the bonds between the two neighbouring countries.

Last but not least, medical professionals must be prioritised as far as protective equipment is concerned otherwise we risk losing our ‘frontline’ force in this war. Equally, the Corona Tiger (youth) Force Imran Khan wants to raise to provide the poor and daily wagers food supplies at their doorstep must be provided protective gear and trained in preventive measures so as to avoid turning acts of kindness into sources of further infection.

rashed.rahman1@gmail.com

rashed-rahman.blogspot.com

Business Recorder Editorial March 31, 2020

Not letting our guard down

The coronavirus pandemic fatalities toll in Pakistan is still comparatively low at 21 deaths so far, especially compared to countries like China, Italy, Spain and the US. But this should not lull us into complacency since the number of cases is still rising and has crossed 1,500 so far, with Punjab now overtaking Sindh. In a press conference on March 27, 2020 after a meeting of the National Coordination Committee, Prime Minister (PM) Imran Khan spelt out the steps the federal government was taking to meet the challenge of the coronavirus pandemic. First and foremost, the federal government has lifted the ban on goods transport but the ban on public transport will continue. Food-related industries are to continue to function to ensure an adequate and uninterrupted supply of essential goods and discourage panic buying that has been in evidence in some areas, but factories must take all necessary precautions to prevent a spread of the pandemic. This is an inherently tough task since distancing in a work environment is not easy. Imran Khan compared Pakistan’s situation favourably with countries like Italy, Iran and the US, but stated the federal government was preparing for the worst-case scenario of a possible sharp rise in the number of cases. This is wise since the experience of countries worst afflicted shows the tendency of the pandemic to acquire an exponential rise after a relatively slow start. However, on the question of contact with opposition leaders to forge a consensus countrywide on combating the pandemic, Imran Khan flatly refused and trotted out as justification his ‘corruption’ mantra. While admitting the failure of the federal and Balochistan governments to handle the influx of returning pilgrims from Iran at Taftan well, Imran Khan announced that gas prices would be kept stable, a relief fund set up to mitigate hardship amongst the poor, and a youth platform established called Coronavirus Relief Tigers (CRT) to provide food items at the doorstep of daily wage earners whose localities were sealed to prevent the spread of the virus. The only concern regarding the CRT is whether the country can provide sufficient protective equipment to the young volunteers to keep them safe from infection by the virus. The PM also appealed to Pakistani expats to donate generously to a fund being set up under the State Bank of Pakistan to bolster the country’s foreign exchange reserves against any possible decline and the rise of the dollar vis-à-vis the rupee. Both trends have been seen in recent days and, with the economy bound to suffer because of the necessary lockdown, both these trends may continue. Next week, Imran Khan announced, a fund for monetary assistance to daily wage earners would also be set up, which would be in addition to the Ehsaas programme.

On the day PM Imran Khan spoke to the press, there were mixed reports of congregations in mosques for the Friday prayers. Although the clerics have by and large swung round to the necessity of curbing prayer congregations in mosques, this sentiment will receive a shot in the arm from Maulana Fazlur Rehman’s endorsement of the call to avoid such gatherings. Meantime the encouraging news is that China has sent a medical team and equipment to help Pakistan in its fight against the virus. What needs to be learnt from the experience of China and other countries is that mass testing is crucial but only of those carrying symptoms. This has proved critical elsewhere in helping flatten the curve of fresh infections to avoid the healthcare system being overwhelmed. The only other lacuna is the stubborn insistence of Prime Minister Imran Khan not to seek to take the opposition on board while laying aside his political positions in the interests of a holistic national effort so badly required. As it is, efforts, although positive, are still dispersed amongst the federal and provincial governments, amongst the latter the Sindh government’s performance being praiseworthy. It should not be forgotten that the virus is no respecter of boundaries; it has flattened the world. What the crisis needs according to healthcare experts is a whole-of-government approach centring on prevention, detection, response and mitigation. Surely the conjuncture facing the country today enjoins on Imran Khan the duty to help bring together all the country and its political forces to pull together and help the country face this enormous challenge.

Business Recorder Editorial March 27, 2020

Sports fallout

There is hardly any aspect of life that has not been impacted by the coronavirus pandemic. It comes as no surprise then that sports, that flagship of competitive humanity, should also be affected. In recent days, a rash of cancellations and postponements of major world sports events and tournaments has been in evidence. But perhaps the biggest blow was delivered on March 24, 2020 when the International Olympic Committee (IOC) announced the postponement of the Tokyo Olympics scheduled to be held July 24-August 9, 2020. The postponement decision had been on the cards for days if not weeks as the coronavirus pandemic rolled over the globe, inducing lockdowns in many countries worst affected and social distancing appeals in all the rest. Sports imply spectators, which implies crowds. That meant that such gatherings simply could not stand in the face of the fear that the coronavirus pandemic could spread through contact between players and players, players and fans, and spectators and spectators. Thus almost all major sports have announced cancellations and postponements of events and tournaments in recent days, a long list that includes football, cricket, tennis and others. Athletes and their respective national Olympics associations had been cogitating the viability of the Tokyo Olympics in the current situation for weeks. But the decision finally came after the IOC spoke to Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe and local organisers. The decision pushes forward the games, which will retain the Olympic flame already set alight in Fukushima without the usual attendance by athletes and spectators, to no later than summer 2021. The flame will be stored and remain in Fukushima until the new schedule of the Tokyo Olympics is announced. Putting a brave face on a devastating blow to Tokyo’s organisers of the event, who have already spent $ 28 billion on arrangements and completed so many stadia and sites well ahead of time, the IOC and Tokyo organisers agreed that the Olympic Games in Tokyo could stand as a beacon of hope to the world during these troubled times and that the Olympic flame could become the light at the end of the tunnel in which the world finds itself at present. One difficulty that looms in summer 2021 is that the World Athletics championships are scheduled for August 6-15, 2021 in Eugene, Oregon and the international federation of swimming has planned its world championships in Fukuoka, Japan on July 16-August 1, 2021. However, both bodies have agreed to show flexibility and reschedule if necessary to accommodate the Tokyo Olympics in a crowded international sports calendar.

Life, as so many have commented by now, seems unlikely to ever be the same again in the wake of the coronavirus pandemic. In all aspects, work, personal, social, and yes, sports, things will have to be organised very differently than what has been the norm in the past. Even should the pandemic abate of its own accord combined with the precautionary measures the world is taking, or succumb to the discovery of a vaccine cure sometime in the near future, it seems bound to leave an indelible impression on human affairs across the board.

Business Recorder Editorial March 26, 2020

Pompeo’s dash to Kabul

US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo dashed to Kabul in an unannounced visit on March 23, 2020, just one day after hopes for a breakthrough in the stalled intra-Afghan dialogue were raised by a Skype video conferencing exchange between the Taliban and Afghan government. However, despite long meetings with rivals Ashraf Ghani and Abdullah Abdullah, a frustrated Pompeo was unable to heal their rift. Returning to Washington via Doha where he met the Taliban, an exasperated Pompeo announced the US was cutting $ one billion aid to Afghanistan, with another cut of $ one billion in 2021 and further cuts after that. The step marks a devastating blow to a country whose GDP is merely $ 20 billion. The immediate cut alone constitutes 20 percent of Afghanistan’s crucial aid from the US. There are indications that Washington now is committed to withdrawing its troops by the agreement deadline of April 2021, irrespective of what happens because of the rift at the top of the Afghan ruling structure, the risks entailed in ignoring continuing and increasing attacks by the Taliban after the agreement, and the added affliction of the coronavirus pandemic that potentially could devastate a poor country struggling with the war.

To recall, the US-Taliban agreement signed on February 29, 2020 in Qatar envisaged a reduction in violence leading hopefully to a ceasefire and a prisoner swap between the Afghan government and the Taliban to pave the way for the intra-Afghan talks between the two sides, scheduled originally to begin on March 10, 2020 in Oslo, Norway. All this was to create the conditions for a foreign troops reduction if not withdrawal, particularly of the bulk of US forces from Washington’s longest war abroad. The prisoner swap as laid down in the US-Taliban agreement was intended to free 5,000 prisoners by the Afghan government against 1,000 held by the Taliban. However, the flaw in this arrangement was the exclusion of the Afghan government from the Qatar talks. This led to the perception in the Afghan government that it was being abandoned by the US and thrown under the Taliban bus. Lacking any other leverage, Afghan President Ashraf Ghani initially refused to release the prisoners prior to the start of the intra-Afghan dialogue, particularly since the Taliban consistently described the Kabul government as a US ‘puppet’. This ‘offer’ was in turn rejected by the Taliban, creating the semblance of an impasse in the peace process. With no doubt some pressure from Washington, President Ghani then softened his stance and offered to free the prisoners in groups, 1,500 before and 3,500 after the intra-Afghan talks started. That too was flatly refused by the Taliban. Meanwhile, Taliban attacks against the Afghan security forces have been on the uptick since the Doha agreement, compelling Washington to remind the Taliban of their commitment to reduce violence. This admonition does not seem to have had the desired effect. So the scenario resembles nothing more than a merry-go-round of Afghan government offers through statements and their rejection by the Taliban, whose attacks against the Afghan government forces continue. It is to break this impasse that the US Special Representative on Afghanistan Zalmay Khalilzad restarted his efforts to get the intra-Afghan dialogue back on track. The solution he suggested was ‘virtual engagement’ via video conferencing and this has transpired in the presence of the US and Qatar delegations.

Pompeo had his work cut out for him in Kabul. First and foremost, he had to assure the Afghan government that the US is not ditching it or leaving it to its own devices. This was never easy, given the declared intent of Washington to withdraw its forces. Second, Pompeo had to persuade President Ghani to show greater flexibility on the prisoner exchange to remove the roadblocks to a continuation of the intra-Afghan dialogue, which still has many miles to go and many other issues to discuss apart from the prisoner swap. Third, Pompeo had to put the best face possible on the compulsion to have separate meetings with President Ghani and Abdullah Abdullah, the two rival candidates and claimants of victory in the Afghan presidential elections (both have taken oath of office of the president separately). This was necessary to push both ‘incumbents’ to work together in the interests of peace. Now Pompeo’s ire after his failure to persuade in Kabul has strengthened the perception that the US intends to withdraw no matter what the consequences. That may well end up throwing the whole peace process off kilter.

Business Recorder Column March 24, 2020

Pakistan Day musings

Rashed Rahman

Pakistan Day, March 23, 2020, passed this year in novel fashion. The coronavirus pandemic caused the cancellation of the traditional military parade on the day as well as the proliferation of symposia to reflect on the importance of the anniversary of the passing of the Lahore (later dubbed Pakistan) Resolution passed by the Muslim League in its historic meeting in the Punjab capital in 1940. Being a national holiday, the day produced a ‘natural’ lockdown across the country.

Speaking of lockdowns, whose necessity and efficacy are now the subject of debate here and throughout the world, reference can be had to Prime Minister Imran Khan’s second address to the country on the coronavirus emergency. He argued that given Pakistan’s concrete circumstances and limitations, a total, countrywide lockdown would cause great hardship to the (at least) 25 percent of the population below the poverty line and critically dependent on daily wages. Instead, Prime Minister Imran Khan argued, people should voluntarily and responsibly exercise social distancing and eschew unnecessary coming out of their homes or indulging in panic buying of goods of everyday use.

The two main opposition parties, the Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz (PML-N) and Pakistan People’s Party (PPP) critiqued Prime Minister Imran Khan’s address as betraying the absence of any plan with the federal government to combat the pandemic. Both parties insisted there was no alternative to an immediate and complete lockdown.

This disagreement was overtaken by the Sindh and Gilgit-Baltistan (G-B) governments imposing a 15-day and indefinite lockdown respectively on March 22, 2020. Even the ruling Pakistan Tehreek-i-Insaaf (PTI) government in Punjab followed suit with the announcement of a 14-day lockdown the next day. These developments reflect the alarm in these provinces at the rise in cases of those suspected of being infected (5,650 according to Special Assistant to the PM Dr Zafar Mirza), confirmed (646 according to Dr Mirza, 799 according to media reports), and fatal (six so far). Against this stands the lonely figure of five cases of recovery from the infection.

Pakistan’s figures so far compare with those worldwide of 188 countries affected, 300,000 people infected, 13,000 deaths and the recovery of 95,000 people from the infection. After the virus first emerged in Wuhan, China, Italy today is the worst hit country, having surpassed China’s toll of infections and fatalities (the latter in dramatic decline due to the stringent lockdown and amazing healthcare mobilisation by China). The US is the third worst hit country, not the least because President Donald Trump as usual fumbled when the pandemic first hit. Europe, with the dubious distinction now of the centre of the global epidemic, has gratefully accepted the help in terms of equipment and medical personnel offered by China, Cuba and Russia. These humanitarian gestures will endear these countries to people all over the world.

The Human Rights Commission of Pakistan (HRCP) hit the nail on the head when it argued for rethinking our national priorities so that people, not profits, shape the country’s economic system, keeping in view the coronavirus situation that demands an immediate increase in allocations for health, low income housing and social safety nets in the federal and provincial budgets (implying less spending on our war machine). The HRCP demanded rights-based economic measures without further delay. It also stressed the need for government to invest in providing protective gear to medical staff on the front line of the struggle against the pandemic. Further, HRCP demanded the testing for the corona virus to be nationalised and made free of cost, and small businesses to be provided non-collateralised credit and tax breaks provided they retained their staff.

HRCP’s statement and its thrust can equally be applied to the world at large. Those arguing that China’s model in tackling the outbreak cannot be reproduced in democracies offer at best a foolish argument, given that even democracies impose stringent and necessary measures in times of war or crisis. Better the suspension of ‘normal’ life and work for a short period than a contribution to rising fatalities as the patchwork shutdowns and voluntary social distancing fail to prevent the outbreak from spreading and the number of cases rising exponentially (as has happened in Italy, Spain and France, in that order of seriousness). As things stand today, 35 countries are in lockdown, with some one billion people worldwide confined to their homes. Perhaps much more is needed in this direction.

Self-medication is as useless as it could prove detrimental to people’s health. Hence anti-malarial drugs that people all over the world started using in an effort to prevent or cure the corona virus are now being discouraged if not positively banned. So far, there is no cure for the affliction, although scientists are working day and night in a number of countries to develop a vaccine. The most optimistic forecasts still speak of at least a year before such a vaccine could become available after clinical trials.

Humanity’s capacity to overcome the pandemic should not be underestimated. In the past, and the Spanish flu that killed 50 million worldwide at the end of World War I and then died out naturally deserves special mention as the closest in living memory, the level of scientific and medical knowledge and technology available today is incomparably more advanced and hopefully will prove capable of finding a vaccine/cure that will banish the coronavirus from our collective lives.

However, no ‘vaccine’ seems capable of curing the undeniable questioning of the current dominant capitalist system as incapable of meeting the people’s healthcare and other needs and wresting itself away from ‘service’ to the interests of the rich. It is at seminal moments like this in world history that revolutionary changes insert themselves into the consciousness of humanity, challenging all received wisdom and complacent arguments for the status quo.

Life, work, love, are all going to change immeasurably in the wake of the coronavirus pandemic. The signs of this radical change are already there even before the virus has been defeated. With its passing, is it possible to imagine a world reverting to ‘business as usual’ in the interests of the global capitalist moneybags? In that intriguing question lies the terrain on which the struggle for revolutionary change post-coronavirus may well be fought.

rashed.rahman1@gmail.com

rashed-rahman.blogspot.com

The March 2020 issue of Pakistan Monthly Review (PMR) is out

The March 2020 issue of Pakistan Monthly Review is out. Link: pakistanmonthlyreview.com

Contents:

1. Professor Dr Maqsudul Hasan Nuri: Security Perceptions and Pitfalls of Cognitive Biases.

2. Rashed Rahman: Book Review of Husain Haqqani’s Reimagining Pakistan.

3. Dr Maria Rashid: Book Review of Dr Ayesha Khan’s The Women’s Movement in Pakistan.

Rashed Rahman
Editor, Pakistan Monthly Review
Director, Research and Publication Centre

Business Recorder Editorial March 20, 2020

Pandemic threat

It comes as no surprise that in a world struggling to cope with the corona virus, Pakistan’s healthcare system, which is known not to be top of the line, should fail to grapple with the enormity of the task. The worst lapse has been the failure to manage suspected infected carriers at our borders, of which the Taftan border with Iran, one of the countries worst hit by the pandemic, presents the worst example. Travellers from Iran comprise overwhelmingly religious tourists, some of whom may have visited the holy city of Qom, considered one of the worst centres from which the virus has enveloped Iran. At the Taftan border crossing, the returnees were herded together without any precautionary measures and then some of them allowed to travel to their homes in the rest of the country. The alarm was raised by Sindh Chief Minister Murad Ali Shah, whose province so far has reported the highest number of cases. An interesting sidelight on this issue was thrown up when reports said Special Assistant to the Prime Minister Dr Zafar Mirza was pulled up by Prime Minister (PM) Imran Khan for travelling to Taftan to oversee arrangements for the quarantine of returnees from Iran on the grounds that this was a provincial remit. This reflects a failure on the part of the PM to grasp the gravity of the problem, which potentially is not less than a national catastrophe, requiring all authorities, federal and provincial, to pull together to combat the threat without quibbling about jurisdiction. The pandemic’s rapid spread globally after it first emerged in Wuhan, China, should have alerted the Pakistani authorities to the danger. However, so far, with the exception of Sindh whose Chief Minister, Syed Murad Ali Shah has led from the front, the authorities in the rest of the country have responded to the crisis haltingly, with delays, and despite some efforts, inadequately. Hospitals throughout the country appear unprepared for the possibility of being inundated with corona virus cases, to the detriment of these institutions’ ability to treat the other patients that throng their corridors, particularly public sector hospitals. Doctors and nursing staff in many of these institutions have been protesting inadequate safety equipment such as protective suits. The markets have seen a radical drop in customers, while some panic has persuaded people to stock up on things of everyday use in anticipation of the total lockdown of public places, which so far is at best, with the exception of Sindh, a partial and patchy measure. Unfortunately, as often happens in such situations, some unscrupulous people have been trying to exploit the crisis by hoarding, smuggling and overpricing items much in demand, such as face masks and sanitisers. It is by now almost axiomatic that the impact on the global economy (and Pakistan’s) could tip the world into recession. Although some emergency funding on soft terms is being offered by the World Bank (WB), Asian Development Bank (ADB), International Monetary Fund (IMF) and other international financial institutions, the former two having committed to providing US dollars 238 million and 350 million, respectively, it remains to be seen in Pakistan’s case whether adequate funds are available to make the necessary arrangements of equipment (especially testing kits and ventilators) to prevent a major health catastrophe.

It seems obvious by now that the government needs to arrange the wherewithal on a countrywide basis for testing for the virus, quarantining those discovered to have been infected, and find the right balance between the need to ensure public safety by a lockdown and the day-to-day needs of the public. Businesses are beginning to close down to prevent gathering people within the same space. While this could entail some hardship for the poor and other classes of working people, social safety nets may have to be put in place and expanded to mitigate economic hardship. Finally, it is citizens who must rise to the challenge by practicing social distancing and avoiding public spaces and unnecessary travel outside their homes. This unprecedented global pandemic may change forever the way we live our lives, but there is hope if we learn from the success of China, the country originally struck by the corona virus, in bringing the pandemic’s spread to a halt and rolling it back.

Business Recorder Column March 17, 2020

Losses, only losses

Rashed Rahman

Three bits of news last week became the focus of a lot of attention in the media, social media and public exchange. First came the news of the arrest by the National Accountability Bureau (NAB) of Mir Shakilur Rehman, owner and Editor-in-chief of the Jang/Geo media group on March 12, 2020. Then the growing anxiety about the coronavirus pandemic hit a peak. Last but not least, the sad but not entirely unexpected news of ailing Dr Mubashir Hasan’s passing away on March 14, 2020 in Lahore.

Mir Shakilur Rehman and the Jang/Geo group had been on NAB’s radar for at least 18 months prior to the arrest of Mir Shakilur Rehman. According to media reports, the group had received at least a dozen notices from NAB pertaining to its coverage of news about NAB’s activities that did not sit well with the controversial accountability watchdog. There are also reports about pressure being exerted on the group from time to time to ‘go easy’ on NAB, but clearly the independent stance of the media group and its unwillingness to toe the media censorship line led to the arrest of its Editor-in-Chief on spurious charges relating to a 34-year-old case of land allotment in Jauhar Town, Lahore.

NAB alleges Mir Shakilur Rehman was the beneficiary of exemptions regarding 54 kanals of land in the housing society in 1986, an alleged ‘favour’ bestowed upon him by then chief minister Punjab Nawaz Sharif. Mir Shakilur Rehman refutes this charge by pointing out that this was a transaction between two private parties and he had the record to show that nothing illegal transpired. NAB, in its by now notorious style, called Mir Shakilur Rehman to its office in Tokhar Niaz Baig in Lahore and, expressing dissatisfaction with Mir Shakilur Rehman’s replies to its (verbal) questions, arrested him on the spot. This action violated NAB’s own laid down procedure and defied the Islamabad High Court’s direction to NAB not to indulge in arrests of those under investigation without solid evidence or proof. The court was moved to issue this direction when faced with case after case of NAB jumping the gun to arrest accused before even investigations had been completed, only for those charged eventually being freed on bail when the courts could not be satisfied by NAB as to its findings against the accused. Now NAB has ‘summoned’ ailing Nawaz Sharif back from London, in another farcical move when it is common knowledge the return of Nawaz Sharif is still subject to his treatment and state of health.

The matter of Mir Shakilur Rehman’s arrest is of course by now sub judice, but Special Assistant to the Prime Minister on Media Dr Firdous Ashiq Awan’s disingenuous attempt to use this fact to suppress any criticism of the arrest was self-serving at best. In a ‘leaked’ interaction with select journalists, Dr Awan tried to distance the Pakistan Tehreek-i-Insaaf (PTI) government from the arrest, trotting out once again the by now tired claim that the government had nothing to do with NAB’s actions. She even tried to buttress her argument by pointing to the ‘embarrassment’ being caused to the PTI government by NAB’s inept handling of (almost exclusively opposition figures’) cases, which has turned ‘villains’ (in her view) into ‘heroes’. Unfortunately for Dr Awan and her government, there are fewer and fewer takers by the day for her claims and arguments.

The attack on Editor-in-Chief Mir Shakilur Rehman and attempts to relegate Geo to unreachable channel positions through pressure on cable operators is the latest in repressive measures against the media. Dawngroup has suffered similar treatment. Both media groups complain of being denied government advertising, an issue on which the Dawngroup has now had recourse to the courts. These steps, it should be understood, came on the crest of similar measures against the media entire (chillingly effective), accompanied by attempted repression of critical and dissident opinion on the social media (not entirely effective). The steps taken against the major (and some relatively minor) media groups portend a determined assault on freedom of the press and expression. They emanate from the military-imposed and -backed PTI government and the deep state. This is actually a reflection of the establishment’s paranoia, insecurity, and quixotic campaign to suppress all dissenting opinion. A society without the freedoms of press and expression is a society in chains, something the people of Pakistan have a long and glorious track record of resisting, and which shall not pass without a fight.

The coronavirus pandemic has badly exposed the hitherto not fully understood risks and implications of an interconnected world and a globalised economy. The latter is in free fall as we speak because of the disruption of global supply chains and the restrictions on public gatherings in an increasing number of countries worldwide. A post-corona world will appear as strange and bewildering to our complacent assumptions about life and work in contemporary times.

The passing of Dr Mubashir Hasan is nothing less than the end of an era that saw left-wing populism emerge, win power, and then decline and perish on the altar of Zulfikar Ali Bhutto’s misguided arrogance, class betrayal, and abandonment of what the Pakistan People’s Party (PPP) originally stood for. Dr Mubashir was a founding member of the PPP. In fact the party was founded at his residence in Lahore in 1967. He played a critical role in framing the original manifesto of the PPP and organising its mass base. After the PPP was installed in power in 1971 following the Fall of Dacca, he served as its Finance Minister till 1974, overseeing the nationalisation of the commanding heights of the economy and land reform on his watch. By 1974, it was obvious that Bhutto, having ridden to power on the shoulders of the Left within the PPP, abandoned it (and its constituencies, the working class and peasantry). It is no surprise then that when the agitation against Bhutto’s regime erupted after allegedly rigged elections in 1977, the masses did not come to his rescue. The rest, as they say, is history.

Dr Mubashir did not rest on his PPP laurels after his disillusionment with the direction Bhutto had taken. He went on to join the PPP-SB of Ghinwa Bhutto, the widow of slain son of Zulfikar Ali Bhutto, Mir Murtaza Bhutto. He was also a founder member of the Human Rights Commission of Pakistan (HRCP) and the Pakistan India People’s Forum for Peace and Democracy. An intellectual and political giant of his generation, his passing marks the parlous state of progressive causes in Pakistan in the absence of worthy successors to past generations of fighters for the people’s cause.

rashed.rahman1@gmail.com

rashed-rahman.blogspot.com

Business Recorder Editorial March 13, 2020

An unnecessary controversy

On March 4, 2020, Prime Minister (PM) Imran Khan, during an address at an event in Islamabad, let slip a remark that Pakistan would repay its mountain of debt through selling the gold extracted from Reko Diq in Balochistan. This has aroused a delayed irritated response from the government’s allies in the National Assembly on March 10, 2020. Aslam Bhotani, an independent MNA from Balochistan, on a calling attention notice, raised the issue. Mr Bhotani supports the Pakistan Tehreek-i-Insaaf (PTI) government but where an issue concerning his home province was concerned, he could not restrain himself from voicing his concern at the PM’s remarks. He lamented that Balochistan, despite being a resource-rich province, continued to face problems and deprivation. He reminded the house that Sui gas was discovered in 1952 but even today not more than 10 percent of the people of Balochistan have it. Further, he continued, the province only got two percent share of the Saindak gold-copper project with 48 percent going to the federal government and 50 percent to the Chinese company running the project. Bhotani also alluded to the fact that Balochistan produced 2,000 MW electricity against its requirement of 1,200 MW but it received only 600-700 MW, leading to 12-14 hours load shedding in many areas. He concluded by underlining that Reko Diq belonged to Balochistan and its youth would not tolerate any (further) injustice, pointing out that Balochistan was neither a derelict province nor for sale. Similar concerns and sentiments were voiced by some other MNAs from Balochistan. Sardar Akhtar Mengal, head of the Balochistan National Party-Mengal that is an ally of the government, observed that no answer to the PM’s remarks was forthcoming. He questioned whether the statement was not against the 18^thAmendment. Mengal’s bitterness was obvious as he recounted how Balochistan’s resources had been blatantly looted and asked rhetorically whether the province was seen as a conquered area. He pointed out that Rs 300 billion reserves of gold and silver from Balochistan were extracted and sold but the province only got a paltry two percent share of this treasure. He said Article 158 of the Constitution, which gives priority to the needs of the province in which a gas wellhead was located, continued to be violated. It was left to Parliamentary Secretary Khiyal Zaman and Minister for Parliamentary Affairs Ali Mohammad Khan to attempt to smooth the ruffled feathers of the government-allied Balochistan MNAs. The former ‘conceded’ the right of the provinces over their resources under the 18^thAmendment. The latter said the PM wanted to rectify the mistakes of the past and was a strong believer of provincial autonomy and the rights of the weaker provinces. Whether this will prove sufficient to calm down the irritated government allies only time will tell.

It could be that PM Imran Khan is not fully cognizant of the sensitivity of issues surrounding Balochistan’s natural resources. Amongst other grievances, this one has a long history dating back to the early years after independence. In the government’s own interest, perhaps the PM should invite experts to fill in the gap in his knowledge on this touchy issue so that such unnecessary controversies are avoided in future. Having said that, it is also bewildering that PM Imran Khan is dreaming of the riches to be reaped from Reko Diq at a time when the issue is before the International Centre for Settlement of Investment Disputes (ICSID). On July 12, 2019, the ICSID had awarded the Tethyan Copper Company a whopping $ 5.97 billion ($ 4.08 billion penalty, $ 1.87 billion interest) for terminating its Reko Diq mining contract. Pakistan is bending its back to obtain a continuance of the stay granted by the ICSID on enforcement of the $ 5.97 billion award. Until the issue is settled at the ICSID, dreaming of riches from Reko Diq is pie-in-the-sky. In fact it is a nightmare. PM Imran Khan has a thin majority in the National Assembly. He needs his allies to ensure his government is not deprived of even this razor-thin advantage. All the more reason not to indulge in kite-flying that unnecessarily irks allies and in any case is premature in the face of the ICSID proceedings.

Business Recorder Editorial March 12, 2020

Terrorism still simmering

The martyrdom of Colonel Mujeebur Rehman at the hands of terrorists should give us pause for thought. The intelligence-based operation by the security forces in Granni Sheikhan area of D I Khan was based on information that some terrorists were hiding in that area while preparing attacks on the security forces and police. The terrorists opened fire when they were surrounded. In the exchange of fire, Colonel Rehman and two terrorists were killed. ISPR described the unnamed terrorists as high value targets. It also informed that weapons and ammunition were seized from the terrorists’ hideout. The Tehreek-i-Taliban Pakistan (TTP) claimed responsibility for the killing of Colonel Rehman, and their spokesman, Mohammad Khorasani, said army troops had raided their position on March 9, 2020. Prime Minister Imran Khan praised the martyred officer and all those from the military and security forces who had made sacrifices to free Pakistan of terrorism. While we condole the death of a brave officer and appreciate the successes of the military and security forces against the terrorists who at one stage had made Pakistan a byword for terrorism, it remains a painful task to remind ourselves how we got here.

Pakistan got embroiled in the Afghan inferno about four decades ago. Pakistan-Afghanistan relations had been rocky since Independence in 1947 because of the latter’s irredentist claims to the Pashtun areas of Pakistan. In fact Afghanistan’s was the sole vote against Pakistan’s admission to the UN. The differences simmered until 1973, when events in Pakistan and Afghanistan took a new turn. In Pakistan, conflict in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa and a nationalist insurgency in Balochistan followed the then Prime Minister Zulfikar Ali Bhutto’s dismissal of the National Awami Party-Jamiat-i-Ulema-i-Islam coalition government in Balochistan. A similar coalition government in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa resigned in protest. While these events were unfolding here, Sardar Daud overthrew the monarchy and declared Afghanistan a republic. Bhutto feared the Pashtun nationalist Sardar Daud would fish in the troubled waters of Pakistan’s Balochistan and Khyber Pakhtunkhwa. That was the embryonic beginning of the Afghan mujahideen, initially consisting of Islamist student leaders and professors of Kabul University who fled to Pakistan to escape Daud’s repression. By 1978, when Daud was assassinated in a Communist coup, Pakistan had raised the stakes through supporting the Afghan mujahideen. Afghanistan was rocked in that period by internal conflict and power struggles within the ruling People’s Democratic Party of Afghanistan (PDPA). The turmoil led to the Soviet invasion and occupation of Afghanistan in 1979. With the West joining in, Pakistan became the staging post for the mujahideen struggle while hosting millions of Afghan refugees. The Soviets departed in 1989 but Afghanistan’s troubles and internal strife continued until the Taliban seized total power in 1996. Pakistan’s support to the Taliban had unforeseen consequences. A by-product of that engagement emerged in 2007 in the shape of the TTP. During Musharraf’s regime, these local extremist groups were both attacked and cajoled, a posture that ended up falling between two stools: annihilation and appeasement. By December 2014 when terrorists carried out the massacre of students and teachers in the Army Public School Peshawar, sufficient political will was finally gathered to deal with the terrorists in an effective and meaningful manner. While the military’s operations broke the back of the terrorist resistance, they could not prevent the survivors fleeing to the relative safety of the poorly policed border areas of Afghanistan. Despite these setbacks, the fear amongst informed observers was that from the safety of their bases across the border, the TTP would look to resurrect itself inside Pakistan through sleeper cells either left behind or newly created to carry on the terrorist campaign. This is the context for the D I Khan operation referred to above. The consequences of flirting with extremist forces for strategic reasons may have triggered the birth of home-grown terrorist groups, but it is our armed forces and security forces that are having to ‘mop up’ the remains of a much depleted terrorism threat.

Business Recorder Column March 10, 2020

Women on the march

Rashed Rahman

Despite the threats and attempted intimidation by the retrogressive forces in politics and society, the Aurat(Women’s) march was held on March 8, 2020 in many cities throughout Pakistan. Rallies were held in Islamabad, Karachi, Lahore, Multan, Peshawar, Quetta, Sukkur and many other smaller towns. An aroused, conscious and brave women’s community is blazing a new path in Pakistan’s retrograde, backward, misogynistic and patriarchal society where women are denied their human, gender, social, economic and political rights.

The reactionary patriarchal and misogynistic forces that attempted to paint the Auratmarch in lurid colours as something bordering on vulgarity, moral laxity or against our religion, either deliberately or out of ignorance twisted their interpretation of slogans such as “Mera jism, meri marzi”(My body, my right) in this direction. In actual fact the slogan speaks to the parlous state of safety of women from harassment, sexual assault and rape, etc. It also envisages the agency of women in deciding about their life choices, e.g. whom and when to marry, to have children or not, etc.

The reaction from the Jamaat-i-Islami (which held counter-rallies under the rubric Haya– modesty – march), accompanied by the burqa-clad girls and women of Jamia Hafza and Lal Masjid, chose to vent their hatred of the Auratmarch in Islamabad by allegedly pelting it with rocks and batons when the two rallies were separated by a mere police tenting barrier. At least one Auratmarch participant was injured. Thankfully, the police intervened to quell the disturbance.

Elsewhere, the rallies went off peacefully and without any adverse incident. However, the strict security measures by the police to pre-empt any trouble emanating from the wild threats flung at the Auratmarch in recent days had the effect of dampening the spirit of this year’s march in the ‘absence’ of the public. Roads and venues were sealed off, resulting in the marchers not being able to interact with the general public. An empirical observation that the numbers in this year’s march did not match those of last year can be explained by reference to the threats hurled at it in the build-up to the day, and perhaps the lingering shadow of the coronavirus affliction that militates against crowds.

It is interesting to note the respective attitudes towards the Auratmarch of the mainstream political parties. The ruling Pakistan Tehreek-i-Insaaf gave its support, but not before Dr Firdous Ashiq Awan had resurrected General Ziaul Haq’s retrogressive slogan ‘Chadar or char diwari’(Veil and sanctity of home)  and condemned unnamed NGOs as working for values repugnant to Islam and our traditional culture. The Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz too supported the march with reservations about some of its slogans and demands that in their view transgressed the acceptable according to our social norms. The Pakistan People’s Party on the other hand unequivocally and without ifs and buts came out in support of the march.

Maulana Fazlur Rehman had exposed his mindset on the eve of the march by threatening to stop it by force, but fortunately his bluster was exposed on the day as just hot air, since his party, the Jamiat-i-Ulema-i-Islam-Fazl did not move a muscle. The Jamaat-i-Islami showed its hate-filled intimidatory nature in Islamabad, but was quickly defanged. The PPP Chairman Bilawal Bhutto Zardari has asked for action by the authorities against the goons who attacked the Islamabad rally.

What the opponents of the Auratmarch and women’s mobilisation miss, are ignorant of, or steeped in received patriarchal and misogynistic ideas is the origins of women’s subjugation historically, the factors that contributed to this outcome in antiquity, and how it has played out throughout history ever since. Early human society was not stratified into classes or dominant-subservient groups. Primitive means of production (including land) were collectively owned and used. The turn came when private property arose. This had a number of consequences. Monogamy came to be established because the owner of private property wanted to make sure his true progeny (males only, by the way) inherited his wealth. In the institution of monogamous marriage, women were treated like little else than chattel.

Through the long unwinding course of human history, this was the ‘model’ for human society. It was only in modern times that women began to stir against the deprivation of their rights, enjoyed by men as a matter of entitlement. As examples of how things changed, one can quote in the political sphere the gaining of adult franchise for women, only conceded after protracted struggle and in an uneven sequence globally, largely in the 20^thcentury. Now the Auratmarch is demanding more. The cry is equality in the political, economic, social and personal domain.

This is not as outlandish as our Neanderthal misogynists attempt to portray it. If our religion Islam is studied in its true spirit, it was nothing less than a revolution in social norms, especially vis-à-vis extending rights to and empowering women. But our monopolists of religion (the religious parties) forget this fundamental aspect of Islam and justify patriarchal and misogynistic control and repression of women by falling back on ‘traditional’ values, which as explained above, stem from the great counter-revolution in gender equality encountered in the wake of the emergence of private property.

The Auratmarch and women’s mobilisation in the third year of its holding is now a fact of life and deserves our unstinting support. The only question remaining is to assess whether the demands of the women’s movement can be achieved solely by a women’s platform (which by the way has rightly won the admiration and support of all progressive and liberal elements in our society) or whether such a platform also needs to strategise a wider and more effective movement of resistance that can feed into the kind of change needed that would not be less than a social revolution.

rashed.rahman1@gmail.com

rashed-rahman.blogspot.com

Business Recorder Editorial March 10, 2020

Unabated slaughter

The hopes for peace raised as a result of the US-Taliban withdrawal deal in Doha have been dealt an early and perhaps fatal blow. While attacks against the Afghan security forces all over Afghanistan and a US air strike in response in recent days indicated the difficulties inherent in the situation on the ground, the slaughter of Shia Hazaras at a rally in Kabul to commemorate Abdul Ali Mazari yielded 29-32 dead and 58-61 wounded. This is the deadliest assault since the Doha deal. While the Taliban have denied responsibility, Islamic State (IS) has claimed it. The glaring security lapse at a rally to commemorate a Hazara leader kidnapped and killed by the Taliban some years ago indicates the fraught conditions of ensuring a reduction of violence that is supposed to lubricate the withdrawal of foreign forces. The lapse is even more concerning because last year the same rally was subjected to a mortar barrage, killing at least 11 people. Reports say two gunmen fired on the rally with machine guns and lobbed grenades on the crowd from a nearby under construction site. Although the two attackers were eventually killed by security forces, the failure to secure the site of the rally must stand out as a serious security failure. President Ashraf Ghani condemned the attack as a “crime against humanity”. Pakistan too condemned it while hoping the peace process would continue. Fortunately, Abdullah Abdullah was at the rally but escaped unharmed. The withdrawal deal hinges, amongst other things, on the Taliban not only reducing their own attacks but controlling al Qaeda and IS otherwise the US military may be forced to remain. US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo tried to peddle a ‘glass half-full’ theory by arguing violence has come down overall, but this is unlikely to being any comfort to the Hazara victims of this atrocity. IS in particular is known to be targeting Shias on a sectarian basis and may not be amenable to Taliban control. As if all this were not enough, the intra-Afghan talks scheduled for March 10, 2020 seem stalled over the Afghan government’s refusal to go along with the prisoner swap agreed between the US and the Taliban in Doha.

US President Donald Trump is not known for pulling his punches. In a tacit admission of Washington’s defeat in the ‘graveyard of empires’, a defeat perceptive analysts had predicted as long ago as 2001, Mr Trump admitted in answer to a reporter that a total Taliban victory after the US and NATO troops withdraw could not be ruled out. The basic flaw in the invasion and occupation of Afghanistan over the last 19 years was the notion that outside occupying forces could construct a viable state able to defend itself against the insurgents. To add to what looks increasingly like the Afghan government being thrown to the wolves, Washington failed to accord any weight or status to the Afghan government during the parleys, and seemingly expected decisions taken over its head (e.g. the prisoner swap) to be swallowed without demur. The prisoner issue seemed the only card left in Ashraf Ghani’s deck, and he has duly played it to remind not only the Taliban, but his supposed ally the US that it cannot simply be ridden roughshod over. Although President Trump is right in arguing that the US cannot stay another 20 years on top of the past 19 years to hold the Afghan government’s hand, realistically speaking the ability of President Ashraf Ghani’s government to resist the looming Taliban thrust for exclusive power is open to serious question. The US, after its fundamental mistake of invading and occupying Afghanistan in 2001 rather than seeking other means of combating al Qaeda and bringing the Taliban to heel, now seems set to ‘cut and run’ without a thought for what may follow. The Afghan Taliban’s past (and suspected continuing) ties with groups al Qaeda and IS are likely to compound the failure of the deal, but Pakistan must also be alert to the possibility of the Afghan Taliban favouring a revival of the Tehreek-i-Taliban Pakistan from its safe havens across the border on Afghan soil

Business Recorder Editorial March 7, 2020

Nawaz Sharif’s repatriation

The government of Prime Minister (PM) Imran Khan’s Pakistan Tehreek-i-Insaaf has taken the extraordinary step of writing a letter to the UK authorities for the repatriation of former PM Nawaz Sharif who is in London for medical treatment. The government has alleged that Nawaz Sharif has violated the eight-week bail extended to him for the purpose by the Islamabad High Court (IHC) by staying on in London for the last more than three months. Special Assistant to the PM on Information Dr Firdous Ashiq Awan told a press conference on March 3, 2020 after briefing the federal cabinet on the issue that a medical board formed by the Punjab government on the directives of the IHC that had allowed Nawaz Sharif to leave for London for treatment has now reached the conclusion that Nawaz Sharif is quite well and therefore able to return since he has not been admitted to any hospital and has been seen frequenting restaurants in London. She added that the Punjab government has written a number of letters to Nawaz Sharif seeking his latest medical reports but instead he had submitted a certificate that is not acceptable to the medical board to ascertain his health condition. Not surprisingly, PML-N president and leader of the opposition Shahbaz Sharif, who accompanied his brother to London, reacted bitterly to the government’s move. First and foremost, Shahbaz argued, the government did not have the authority to write such a letter. The government’s haste, he added, betrayed its criminal intent. He underlined that attempting to stop Nawaz Sharif’s treatment is tantamount to murdering him. Last but not least, he accused PM Imran Khan of acting out of personal enmity and political vengeance.

While the exchange outlined above comes as no surprise, the issue needs to be approached calmly, rationally, and according to the law. The IHC had granted an eight-week bail to Nawaz Sharif for medical treatment in London when local doctors seemed unable to control his complicated afflictions. The court had also directed that Nawaz Sharif could seek an extension in his bail by applying to the Punjab government. Now any rational and responsible government has to be guided in its decisions and actions by the law and rules. If the Punjab government decided not to accede to Nawaz Sharif’s bail extension, this had to be based on some facts and evidence. However, according to Dr Firdous Ashiq Awan, the medical board set up by the Punjab government has not received Nawaz Sharif’s latest medical reports but a medical certificate instead, which, according to Dr Awan herself, does not allow the medical board to assess the state of his health. In that case, how can the medical board declare that Nawaz Sharif is now hale and hearty, based on the thin argument of being seen in London’s restaurants? At best, the government should have approached the IHC to direct Nawaz Sharif to supply his latest medical reports instead of jumping to the conclusion that he was well and able to return. Second, an approach to the IHC regarding the issue of allowing or rejecting an extension in Nawaz Sharif’s bail period may have been the correct and wisest course. Last but not least, does the government not know that there is no extradition treaty between Pakistan and the UK? If by some stretch of the imagination the UK government were to move to repatriate Nawaz Sharif, this would be open to challenge in the British courts. It may be recalled that the UK government, despite its desire to extradite Julian Assange to the US to face serious charges, has been unable to do so despite ‘capturing’ him from the Ecuador embassy in London because the issue is now in court. One would have thought there were bigger and more important issues for our government to focus on, not the least of which is the threatened fallout of the global coronavirus epidemic on our already faltering economy. Instead the concentration on pursuing Nawaz Sharif does arouse suspicions of political victimisation.

Business Recorder Editorial March 5, 2020

A short-lived ‘peace deal’

Before the ink had even dried on the US-Taliban peace deal struck in Doha, Qatar, the other day, the Taliban started their attacks on the Afghan security forces and civilians, ending the brief ‘reduction of violence’ partial truce. On March 2, 2020, a bomb blast at a football match in Khost killed three brothers and wounded 11 people. The same day, an attack on an Afghan army post in Badghis killed at least one soldier. The Taliban have declared they will not attack foreign troops but will target Afghan government forces. Adding to the perception that the peace deal may unravel even before anyone expected are the diametrically opposed positions of the Afghan government and the Taliban. The former says the prisoners swap that forms part of the Doha deal could be discussed at the intra-Afghan talks while the Taliban have categorically rejected such talks until their prisoners are released. All that remains to watch now is whether, in the face of Taliban attacks on the Afghan forces, President Ghani will continue to adhere to the partial truce till the intra-Afghan talks. Right now, all bets on this are off. While innumerable obstacles existed and have been pointed out by informed analysts regarding the prospects of the deal, the real sticking point that has come to the fore is the refusal of Afghan President Ashraf Ghani to release 5,000 Taliban prisoners in exchange for 1,000 captives held by the militant group. Ghani argues that the Afghanistan government did not commit to the prisoner swap but left open the possibility that the issue could be discussed in Oslo at the intra-Afghan talks. But with the Taliban putting the prisoner release as a prior condition for those talks, their future too is under a cloud. Even the venue is now contested, with the Taliban saying they are discussing where the talks should be held (implying Oslo is no longer the settled location).

With the Taliban publicly celebrating the Doha deal as their victory over the US, Washington’s position will come under stress in trying to keep the Taliban to their commitments. Seemingly irrevocably focused on bringing its troops home, the US may not have sufficient leverage to prevent the accord from unravelling. The prisoners swap conundrum has underlined a fatal flaw in the US’s approach to its Afghan endgame. Keeping the Afghan government sidelined while Washington virtually handed the Taliban their main demand of the withdrawal of foreign forces on a platter is a strategy whose chickens now appear to be coming home to roost. The Afghan government and other anti-Taliban forces may not be in a position to assert it, but the deal has forced them to try and salvage some space for their continued existence in power. Whether this can be achieved by carving out a share in power for the triumphant Taliban remains a moot point. In an eerie replay, the US seems to be making the same mistake as in Vietnam when it virtually abandoned its propped up South Vietnamese regime, only to see it crumble within two years of the Geneva Accords of 1973. Withdrawing from an unwinnable war makes sense, but historians and others will have much to mull over when examining the confused and contradictory aims and objectives of Washington over the long course of 19 years on Afghanistan’s battlefields. What should worry Pakistan is the possible fallout of a breakdown of the peace deal and reversion to war in its neighbouring country. Not only could this pose some old and some new security concerns, an Afghanistan continuing in turmoil would negate the possibility of the Afghan refugees returning to their homeland. All the hopes of peace ushering in new economic opportunities as a result of a peaceful Afghanistan providing a connectivity gateway to Central Asia and beyond could disappear in a puff of smoke. The plans for the CASA-1000 transmission line and the TAPI gas pipeline too could recede further into the distance. The stakes for the people of Afghanistan are so high as to answer to the description of a life and death matter, but Pakistan may not be able to escape the fallout of renewed and continuing hostilities between the Afghan factions.

Business Recorder Column March 3, 2020

An expedient deal

Rashed Rahman

The signing of the ‘peace’ deal between the US and the Taliban in Doha on February 29, 2020 has been touted by Pakistan as proof of its role as a peace maker and facilitator in ending the 19-year-old Afghan conflict. But even the quietly triumphant note in Pakistani statements cannot ignore the difficulties still remaining in implementing the terms of the agreement. Foreign Minister Shah Mehmood Qureshi, fresh from his ‘victory’ in Doha, had to concede it would not be a “smooth affair” but then dumped any adverse possibilities in the lap of unnamed “spoilers”. In a press conference on March 1, 2020 after his return to Islamabad, Qureshi revealed he had suggested a number of steps to US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo (who, reports say, attended the Doha signing ceremony reluctantly and only as a ‘guest) to build on the “great progress” reflected in the deal. Some of these steps included a prisoners swap, the start in timely fashion of the intra-Afghan dialogue, and reconstruction aid to an Afghanistan battered by almost half a century of wars to provide the conditions for a return of the Afghan refugees.

On the face of it the suggestions appear good, but there are attendant uncertainties that no side is willing to admit publicly. First and foremost, Afghan President Ashraf Ghani has categorically rejected a prisoner swap of 5,000 Taliban prisoners with 1,000 held by the Taliban. On March 1, 2020, President Ghani made clear the Afghan government had made no such commitment. That is obvious since the Afghan government has studiously, and perhaps deliberately, been kept out of the Doha talks process from the very beginning. Although Ghani committed to honouring a partial truce that has seen a reduction of violence, he faces internal disquiet over the deal in which the government and other Afghan anti-Taliban forces were conspicuous by their absence. Ghani did leave the door ajar a crack by adding the prisoners swap issue could be discussed as part of the intra-Afghan dialogue due to start in Oslo on March 10, 2020. While the run of comment portrays the deal as a critical first step to peace, many Afghans see it as little more than a dressed-up US surrender that will ultimately see the Taliban return to exclusive power.

The intra-Afghan dialogue is still uncertain to start as scheduled since the make-up of the Afghan government delegation is still undecided. On the one hand, Ghani and his rival for the presidency, Abdullah Abdullah, are still at loggerheads over the controversial 2019 presidential election that has been officially declared as having been won by Ghani but which Abdullah hotly contests, going so far as to threaten the formation of a parallel government, in a weary replay of the previous presidential election that was only settled by a surface power-sharing arrangement negotiated by the US. On the other hand, who from civil society and other groups will form part of the government/anti-Taliban delegation is still not known. Ghani would prefer loyalists for the latter slot but that could produce a credibility issue and objections from the Taliban, who have consistently refused so far to meet the Afghan government they have dismissed in the past as a ‘US puppet’.

President Ashraf Ghani has outlined the key issues attending the Oslo talks. Amongst these he has listed the Taliban’s ties with Pakistan, accused of harbouring them since 2001, as well as their ties to terrorist groups (particularly al Qaeda) and drug cartels. It bears recalling that while in power the Taliban strictly banned drugs, but in opposition they were far from averse to taking advantage of the drug trade to finance their insurgency. President Ghani would also like clarification as to what would be the place in the new dispensation for the existing Afghan security forces and civil administration. For all this, Ghani’s desire for a verifiable mechanism to monitor and ensure compliance by the Taliban begs a whole host of questions about how this is possible and who will take responsibility for it. So far, the only taker for this role is the US, which is hardly a disinterested party and, given US President Donald Trump’s undisguised desire to withdraw US troops as soon as possible so he can boost his chances of re-election, may turn a blind eye to violations of the Taliban’s commitments in order not to disrupt the troop withdrawal. The UN may have been a better choice but there appears no consensus or will there to take on this sticky task.

Even if the above roadblocks get sorted out in time and the Oslo talks begin, despite the Taliban’s agreeing to an “inclusive government” of which they would be a part, the exact terms of such a power sharing arrangement promise difficult and testy exchanges. Afghans generally are torn between a desire for peace after decades of conflict and dread of the Taliban’s return to power, given their hardline track record in power 1986-2001. Women in particular fear the Taliban have not changed their medieval mindset and may, once they are in control, reintroduce the restrictions on women’s education and work that made life for Afghanistan’s women a living hell.

Potential external ‘spoilers’ may include Iran, which has categorically dismissed the deal, arguing the Us had no right to take decisions about Afghanistan’s future, and may be just manoeuvring to extend its presence in Afghanistan that is the US’s valuable listening post for the volatile region. It should not be forgotten that Iran too hosts a large numbers of Afghan refugees, a potential source of trouble for any future Taliban government.

Those with memories of the US withdrawal from the Vietnam War may be unsettled at the similarity of the two processes, despite differences of time and context. Then US President Richard Nixon, after winning the 1972 elections, agreed to withdraw US troops from that unwinnable war that took a heavy and bloody toll of the Vietnamese people. Within two years of the signing of the Geneva Accords, the world was treated to the spectacle of desperate people clinging to US military helicopters trying to get away before the Vietnamese people’s forces arrived in Saigon. In that negotiation too Washington did not include its ‘puppet’ South Vietnamese government, which crumbled before the determined assault of the patriotic and revolutionary Vietnamese resistance forces.

Of course the differences too are glaring. The Vietnam War was part of the US’s war on communism. The Afghan conflict has pitched the US behemoth against an extremist religious movement that has fought it to a standstill. But the end result may not be very different, with the triumphant Taliban sealing their victory with exclusive power once the actual and potential threat from the US abates and vanishes. No one in their right mind expects the US to be able to muster the political will to return to combat in Afghanistan whatever the Taliban’s violations of the ‘solemn’ agreement signed in Doha.

The Taliban’s ultimate triumph therefore seems only a matter of time. Will that outcome fulfil the hopes of Pakistan that peace and prosperity will follow? The jury is still out as it is contingent on whether and to what extent the anti-Taliban forces resist the onslaught. A new civil war cannot be ruled out. What effect continuing conflict will have on Pakistan’s security also is up in the air since the Tehreek-i-Taliban Pakistan is still sitting across the border on Afghan soil, poised to strike.

Welcome to one more expedient deal by Washington, with an uncertain and potentially worrying fallout.

rashed.rahman1@gmail.com

rashed-rahman.blogspot.com

Business Recorder Editorial March 3, 2020

Disasters waiting to happen

The train-bus collision between Khairpur and Rohri on February 28, 2020 killed 19 people and injured more than 30 (one report quoted a figure for the injured at 40-45). The death toll is likely to rise if some of the critically injured submit to their injuries. The crash took place at an unmanned railway level crossing. Tragic as the incident is, it should come as no surprise. There are almost 2,500 such railway level crossings that are unmanned, unsupervised and have no barriers for road traffic when a train is approaching. This accident is not the first of its kind and, given the neglect of what is a public safety issue, unlikely to be the last. Unfortunately Railways Minister Sheikh Rashid has, as is his habit, refused to take even moral responsibility for the accident, shifting the blame for unmanned, unsupervised, ungated level crossings onto the provincial governments. To add salt to the wounds, he demanded the provinces should pay the railways for the cost of fixing the problem countrywide. One may be forgiven for thinking that the cost of ensuring proper management of railway level crossings would not be too high. If need be, the federal and provincial governments could put their heads together in a collaborative effort to eliminate the problem, which is nothing less than more disasters waiting to happen. Reports say the bus driver’s negligence is to blame. That is certainly true as far as not taking account of the onrushing train is concerned. But given our driving habits, this too is not something new or out of the ordinary. One can quote many such accidents from the past.

Reportedly, 2019 proved the worst year for the railways in terms of accidents, loss of life and injuries. In June 2019, three people were killed when a passenger train, the Jinnah Express, hit a freight car near Hyderabad. Unlike in other democratic dispensations where the minister concerned accepts moral responsibility and resigns, Sheikh Rashid decided to cling to his office and merely apologised to the country. In October 2019, one of the most horrifying accidents in our history occurred when three carriages of the Tezgam Express travelling from Karachi to Rawalpindi caught fire near Rahim Yar Khan. More than 70 people lost their lives in the inferno. Then too Sheikh Rashid tried to pass the buck by claiming the fire broke out because some passengers were using a gas cylinder to cook food on board the train. However, so far this remains just a claim since no final report on the incident has so far seen the light of day amidst speculations the fire was in fact caused by a short circuit in the carriages involved. When the Supreme Court was hearing a case about the losses being incurred by Pakistan Railways, Sheikh Rashid was grilled by Chief Justice of Pakistan (CJP) Gulzar Ahmed regarding the running of the organisation. The CJP asked Sheikh Rashid to brief the court about the October 2019 accident. CJP Gulzar Ahmed admonished the minister, saying he should have resigned (as is the norm in democracies). Instead, the redoubtable Sheikh replied that 75 people had been dismissed after the tragedy. But the CJP was having none of this and told him sternly that the other day he had told the court that two people were fired. The CJP asked the minister when he would dismiss high-ranking officers instead of low-grade employees. He went on to paint the minister’s organisation as a 19^thcentury railways in which there is little else but plunder. Sheikh Rashid had better take some time off from his politicking (including frequent appearances on television) to concentrate on his ministry’s travails.