Business Recorder Editorial February 26, 2021

Resurgence of terrorism

 

The killing of four women vocational trainers in North Waziristan on February 22, 2021, an attack on their vehicle that wounded the driver but mercifully spared the fifth woman, has once again focused minds on the abiding terrorist threat even after the military operations in the tribal areas from 2014 onwards. Ironically, the gruesome incident took place on the fourth anniversary of Operation Raddul Fassad that the Director General (DG) Inter Services Public Relations (ISPR) Major General Babar Iftikhar summed up in a press briefing on the day. Whether the timing of the attack was a coincidence or a deliberate tactic to send the message that the terrorists were still in business is not known, especially since there was no claim of responsibility. Just a day before, a night attack in the Shewa area ended with the driver of a vehicle killed and 10 people taken away. There have been unmistakable signs for some time in the tribal areas of an uptick in the targeted killing of civilians and deadly clashes between the militants and the security forces. Despite the DG ISPR’s claims of success in the anti-terrorist campaign, including 375,000 intelligence based operations over four years to curb urban terrorism and dismantle the remaining militant networks, the caution by informed observers that the problem had merely been ‘exported’ rather than scotched is proving correct. The Tehreek-i-Taliban Pakistan (TTP) and its splinter groups have found safe havens across the border on Afghan soil. Fencing the border may have helped, but has proved insufficient to halt cross-border attacks altogether. Ominously, these groups have reunified in a Shura-i-Mujahideen, a process overseen by al Qaeda, according to a UN report. The report says TTP has been responsible for over 100 cross-border attacks in the period July-October 2020. Despite the military’s successes in counter-terrorism, the existence of sleeper cells left behind by the retreating militants cannot be ruled out. The security forces have claimed they have killed the key suspect of the attack on the women, Hassan alias Sajna, the very next day. But that success too cannot be taken as the last word on the subject.

The military’s claims of success against the terrorists in the tribal areas need to be tempered by the realisation that the many-headed hydra of terrorism is still alive and kicking, despite severe losses. In the tribal areas, the presence of the terrorists is evidenced by threats to music shop owners, barbers, etc, and warnings to women not to work with NGOs. This monster needs a sustained, multi-faceted, long haul approach to be defeated. Despite successes, our efforts apparently still fall short. Tribal elders friendly with the government, who could potentially mobilise the public against the terrorists, are themselves prime targets, along with surrendered militants, NGOs and the security forces. In North Waziristan in particular, the situation is deteriorating to near where it was before Operation Zarb-i-Azb in June 2014. One untried and possible option may be to use Pakistan’s influence with the Afghan Taliban to help quell the TTP. Whereas Pakistan has nudged the Afghan Taliban into talks with the US, the militants have not decreased their violence. However, perhaps they could be persuaded to help Pakistan achieve that in its tribal areas and border regions. Since the Afghan government is unable to control the Afghanistan-Pakistan border areas, perhaps the Afghan Taliban can assist, at least to the extent of denying the TTP its safe havens in the area. All this notwithstanding, Pakistan needs to carry out the uncompleted task of bringing its plethora of civilian and military intelligence agencies together on one platform to share data and intelligence in order to become more effective against the terrorists. And not let down its guard or slip into the complacency and inertia that creeps into an inherently long, tedious counter-terrorism effort.

Business Recorder Editorial Feb 25, 2021

Vaccines first and foremost for the rich?

 

World Health Organisation (WHO) Director General (DG) Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus in a virtual press conference with German President Frank-Walter Steinmeier on February 22, 2021 has blasted wealthy countries for hogging Covid vaccines, which is depriving poorer countries from getting them. So far we were privy to concerns that the rich and poor within countries may get unequal treatment in terms of access to the vaccines. Now the issue has assumed a global dimension, with fault lines running along the material divide. According to the ONE campaign, a global organisation co-founded by U2 singer Bono, the Group of Seven (G-7), the rest of the European Union (EU) and Australia have through direct deals with manufacturers between them bought nearly 1.25 billion more doses than they need to inoculate their entire populations. As the WHO DG has stated, this has meant that the previously agreed vaccine allocations for poorer countries under the Covax programme have been reduced. He also revealed that funding is no longer a problem as fresh contributions from the US, EU and Germany mean the money is there to procure doses for the poorest countries, but it was worthless if there was nothing available to buy. Tedros urged the wealthy countries to first check whether their deals with pharmaceutical companies were undermining Covax, which poorer countries are relying on as they await even their first doses. The first wave of Covax vaccines, if they become available, is scheduled to be shipped out between late February and end June 2021. Some 145 participating economies are set to receive 337.2 million doses, enough to vaccinate over three percent of their combined populations. Covax hopes to raise this to up to 27 percent in lower income countries by end December 2021. The world’s biggest vaccine maker, India’s Serum Institute, on February 22, 2021 urged other countries to be ‘patient’ since it had been instructed to prioritise its home market. President Steinmeier seemed to endorse this stance by arguing that countries were understandably focused first and foremost on protecting their own citizens, but it made sense for the wealthier countries speeding ahead in the vaccine race to ensure that people in poorer countries were jabbed at the same time. He warned that if the wealthier countries refused to grant the necessary solidarity, we should not be surprised if other countries fill this vacuum, using it for their own ‘purposes’. Tedros called for intellectual property rights on Covid-19 medical goods to be waived to facilitate greater knowledge sharing and the rapid scaling up of production.

The inequality fault lines within and between countries have exposed the myths of global capitalism that private entrepreneurship is the only effective source of innovation and progress, and that markets are the best regulators of supply and demand and the optimal distribution of goods. For decades, Big Pharma has deprioritised vaccines as insufficiently profitable. This has been consistently the case from the Ebola outbreak in West Africa to the current Covid-19 pandemic. In the latter crisis, governments have funded Big Pharma with taxpayers’ money to rapidly develop a Covid-19 vaccine. Big Pharma thereby secured a cost-reduced development and risk-free launch of a new product. For Big Pharma, profit continued to trump all else. In contrast, at least two state-owned companies, Russia’s Gamaleya Institute and China’s Sinopharm, were successful in developing effective vaccines. All this points to the fact that relying on private sector vaccine development not only is too costly and exploitative, it is also inefficient since it prevents scientists from collaborating and sharing research to come up with the best possible vaccine in the shortest possible time. As to distributional efficiency, Tedros’ statements above should suffice. What the developed countries wedded to global capitalism fail to realize is the contradiction at the heart of their approach. An uneven (for the reasons adumbrated above) roll-out of the vaccine will in the end prove much costlier for the wealthy countries too as even if their own peoples are rendered safe, with the rest of the world still vulnerable, the disruption to travel and supply chains will lead to an inevitable global economic disaster to add to the economic and health pain already suffered. In an interconnected world, either we strive for immunity through vaccination for all, or there will be no immunity, with its enormous human and economic costs incalculable.

Business Recorder Column February 23, 2021

International Mother Languages Day

 

Rashed Rahman

 

February 21 is celebrated worldwide as Mother Languages Day. In Pakistan too, even a cursory glance at the activities and events held in the country on the day this year (2021) reflects the growing awareness on the issue. In the federal capital Islamabad, the Cultural Forum in collaboration with the Pakistan National Council of the Arts (PNCA) arranged the sixth Pakistan Mother Languages Literature Festival. The Festival continued the legacy of celebrating the linguistic and cultural diversity of the country. Speakers at the Festival emphasised the need for the state to take measures for the promotion of linguistic diversity in Pakistan. Country Director Friedrich Naumann Foundation, Birgit Lamm said she was thrilled by the enthusiasm Pakistani people showed for their languages and cultural identity. Writer Jami Chandio from Sindh pointed out that Pakistan is the only federating country that has only one (official) national language whereas in the federal spirit all major languages should be declared national languages. Journalist Asma Shirazi insisted that all major TV channels should allocate time for different Pakistani languages (notwithstanding the regional languages channels, of which the latest addition is a Punjabi channel). Other speakers underlined the importance and need for scientific and technological development in our diverse languages to meet modern day requirements.

The Balochi Labzanki Dewan, Quetta, organised a seminar at which speakers said global cultural and linguistic harmony and solidarity could only be established through the promotion of all languages spoken in the world. However, the trend is that of the about 7,000 languages currently spoken in the world, 516 have become extinct. (UNESCO too has confirmed the threat to linguistic diversity as more and more languages disappear from the world). In Pakistan, over 70 languages are spoken but their continued existence, especially the marginal ones, is threatened due to the neglect of the state. The death of languages leads to the abandonment of culture, history, art and literature (and, one might add, identity), as all these owe their existence to the mother tongue. Speakers pointed to the failure of the 18^thAmendment to provide constitutional protection to all the languages spoken in the provinces. Education in the mother tongue, they continued, is a basic human right because it enables children’s cognitive abilities. (In their early years, children have little problem being multi-lingual; in fact this arguably also helps cognitive development). The speakers pointed to the fact that countries that gave importance to their mother tongues made more rapid progress. Local languages, especially in Balochistan, faced difficulties because of a lack of curriculum in schools (and text books and teachers). In the past, local languages as the medium of instruction up to primary level was started but not continued. Pakistan, the seminarists underlined, is a country where people from different cultures speak their own languages, a sign of diversity and versatility. The government therefore should take necessary steps for the development and promotion of mother tongues, which in the context of Balochistan means promoting Balochi, Brahui and Pashto, and providing funding for this purpose.

In Lahore, rallies to mark the Day congregated before the Punjab Assembly, demanding Punjabi be made compulsory for primary classes and optional thereon. Ironically, they carried placards and banners demanding the passing of a Punjabi Language Bill from a Punjab Assembly that does not allow speeches in Punjabi! Unlike Sindh, which adopted Sindhi as an official language in 1972 (sparking off language riots in support of Urdu), and Khyber Pakhtunkhwa adopting Pashto as an official language four decades later, Punjab, despite ‘recognising’ Punjabi as an official language in 2013, remains a prisoner of its history. That history is rooted in the Muslim Punjabi elite and intellectuals’ resentment against Sikh rule and the embrace of the British colonialists’ imposition of Urdu and English to replace Punjabi and Farsi. This cultural ‘hara kiri’ dictates the sense of confusion amongst Punjabis today as to their identity, having jettisoned long ago their linguistic and cultural legacy that defined them since time immemorial. As if this historical tragedy were not enough, Punjab’s elite bought into the Pakistani state’s narrative revolving around ‘one nation, one language’, a misplaced concreteness that arguably fed into the separation of East Pakistan that still celebrates in Bangladesh February 21 as Language Martyrs Day after the revolt against Mr Jinnah’s attempt to foist Urdu as the national language on his visit to Dhaka in 1948.

No country has fallen apart for granting genuine provincial autonomy and a national status to all mother tongues. On the contrary, a policy of accommodation of diversity has served to strengthen states that adopt it. Those agitated by what this may mean for Urdu should rest secure in the knowledge that Urdu has established itself since Independence as the lingua franca and means of national communication. Its importance therefore is unlikely to diminish if regional languages are accepted as national languages.

The disrespect of mother languages in our history as an independent state has arguably fed into our struggling 50 percent literacy rate of dubious quality. The exception to this trend is Sindh, largely, it could be argued, because it adopted Sindhi as the medium of instruction in schools (thereby avoiding the reluctance of poor children to enter school where they struggle with a ‘foreign’ medium of instruction, and vast numbers drop out). UNESCO and the world’s experience has proved beyond a shadow of a doubt that adopting the mother language as the medium of instruction (at least till primary level) accelerates literacy and cognitive ability, yielding in the final analysis a well educated people that can help their country’s development in the modern age.

This government’s attempt to ‘impose’ a Single National Curriculum indicates we are still mired in the ‘one nation’ syndrome that flies in the face of our multi-ethnic, multi-national, historically received reality. Accommodating diversity of languages and cultures binds federations, redresses a sense of marginalisation, welds bonds of solidarity between diverse peoples and communities, brings pride to our breasts, and helps preserve and transmit this rich, diverse heritage to ourselves and the world.

 

 

 

 

 

rashed.rahman1@gmail.com

rashed-rahman.blogspot.com

Webinar hosted by me for voicepk.net on anti-rape campaign

 Link to webinar hosted by me for voicepk.net on "Bohat ho giya (Enough is enough), Let's fight rape": https://fb.watch/3MN8SLFz60/

Rashed Rahman

Editor, Pakistan Monthly Review (link: pakistanmonthlyreview.com)

Director, Research and Publication Centre

Business Recorder Editorial February 19, 2021

Private members’ Bill on RTI

 

Vice Chairperson Transparency International-Pakistan (TI-P) Justice (retd) Nasira Iqbal has responded to a complaint received by the watchdog platform regarding a private Senate members’ Bill on the Right to Information (RTI) law, which is meant to exclude parliament from the definition of public bodies, by writing a letter to Chairman Senate Sadiq Sanjrani urging him to withdraw the controversial Bill. The private Bill, titled “Right of Access to Information (Amendment Act) 2021”, wishes parliament to be excluded from the definition of public bodies bound to provide information to citizens. The complainant has delineated the objections to the Bill by pointing out that the amendments aimed at excluding the Senate, National Assembly, their secretariats, committees and members as a whole from the definition of “public body” as contained in Section 2(ix)(c) of the Right of Access to Information Act 2017 are unconstitutional as these proposed amendments violate Article 19-A of the Constitution. The right to information according to Article 19-A clearly stipulates: “Every citizen shall have the right to have access to information in all matters of public importance subject to regulation and reasonable restrictions imposed by law.” Justice (retd) Nasira Iqbal’s letter quotes a judgement of the Lahore High Court (LHC) that declared: “Right to information is another corrective tool which allows public access to the working and decision making of the public authorities. It opens the working of public administration to public scrutiny.” The LHC judgement goes on to point out that this necessitates a transparent and structured exercise of discretion by the public functionaries, underlining that Article 19-A empowers civil society to seek information from public institutions and hold them answerable. In a democracy, the LHC judgement continues, parliament is the supreme institution and it is a fundamental right of every citizen to have access to its functioning. Excluding the Senate, National Assembly, their secretariats, committees and members as a whole from the definition of public body is tantamount to treating the people’s representatives as being above the rule of law and accountability. The LHC judgement concludes on the note that no such example can be found in any democracy where parliamentarians are considered above the purview of the RTI law, which serves as a tool for ensuring more open and inclusive governance.

Parliament and its bodies are formed after citizens elect their representatives through democratic elections. It seems obvious that such an institution rests on the fundamental premise of accountability and answerability in the public domain. To exclude it from the scope of the RTI law is to make a mockery of democracy and citizens’ rights. As it is, the working in practice of the Right of Access to Information Act 2017 more often than not runs afoul of the bureaucracy’s timeless penchant for keeping information in their purview close to their chest and denying it to the ‘hoi polloi’ (otherwise known as citizens). Now for parliamentarians to wish for a legal sanction to adopt the same attitude and practices would demean the democratic character of parliament and reduce it to a farcical closed circle without even a whiff of the time honoured principles of accountability and answerability. As it is, democracy in Pakistan still has a long way to go before it can be considered to have sunk deep roots. This makes it even more imperative that the best practices of democracy as they have evolved over time be embraced, rather than ‘clever’ ways to avoid transparency, accountability and answerability. It is now for Senate Chairman Sadiq Sanjrani to persuade the private members to withdraw this controversial Bill.

Business Recorder Editorial February 18, 2021

SC’s order on Justice Isa

 

The February 11, 2021 order by the Supreme Court (SC) barring Justice Qazi Faez Isa from hearing cases concerning Prime Minister (PM) Imran Khan has elicited a far bit of concern from the lawyers’ community. Pakistan Bar Council (PBC) vice chairman Khush Dil Khan and Peshawar High Court Bar Association president Khalid Anwar Afridi have both weighed in, urging the honourable SC to revisit/review its order in the larger interest of the smooth functioning of the SC and safeguarding the independence of its judges so that they can discharge their constitutional duties to dispense justice without fear or favour. Khush Dil Khan has proposed the convening of a PBC meeting at the earliest to discuss the situation in the light of its importance and significance. The SC order came during the hearing of the case related to the proposed plan to distribute Rs 500 million development funds among the ruling Pakistan Tehreek-i-Insaaf (PTI) legislators. PM Imran Khan has dubbed the media reports on the matter incorrect. The SC order argued that to uphold the principle of no bias and impartiality, it would be in the interest of justice that Justice Isa should not hear matters involving the PM, citing the moving of a petition against the PM by Justice Isa in his personal capacity. But the strange and unprecedented order was not where the matter apparently ended. On February 12, 2021, Justice Isa wrote to the SC Registrar, with copies to Chief Justice of Pakistan (CJP) Gulzar Ahmed and all the SC judges, questioning why the February 11, 2021 order was not shared with him before releasing it to the media. Dubbing the entire incident as shocking, Justice Isa also wanted to know why the settled practice of sending an order/judgement to the next senior judge was not followed, depriving him thereby of the opportunity to give his views and/or signature on the order (if he concurred with it).

This incident is unprecedented, overturning as it does the long-standing practice of our courts as well as the British and US courts stretching back over time. Although the CJP has the sole prerogative to form benches, normally it is left to the judges themselves to evaluate whether their presence on a particular bench would not be appropriate, leading to them recusing themselves. The idea of ‘forced recusal’ (and that too, based on the roster of SC benches for the week ending February 19, 2021, across the board) does not form part of the judicial practice of any country. The reasons are obvious. By the time a judge rises to the status of the apex court, it seems logical that he/she would have attained a level of knowledge, experience and wisdom to be the best judge of the appropriateness or otherwise of hearing a particular case. No bench, even if it is headed by the CJP himself, is expected to ‘decide’ about another brother judge to be recused. The respect, dignity and credibility of the court depend on adherence to its best practices, not the ‘invention’ of new rules. The fact of the matter is that Justice Isa is under a cloud for quite some time. Having weathered the presidential reference moved against him, Justice Isa regretfully remains in the shadows. On the appeal of the Bar Councils, and in the interests of the respect, dignity, credibility of the SC, the February 11 order merits a revisit/review by the SC.

Business Recorder Column February 16, 2021

Anti-corruption mantra, anyone?

 

Rashed Rahman

 

Amidst the hectic to and fro of nominations for the upcoming Senate elections, the video scandal showing some Pakistan Tehreek-i-Insaaf (PTI) Members of the Khyber Pakhtunkhwa Assembly receiving wads of cash for their votes in the 2018 Senate elections has dented, if not destroyed, the high moral ground from which Prime Minister (PM) Imran Khan and his party launched their (continuing) anti-corruption mantra. In response to the growing scandal, the PM has set up a three member ministerial committee to probe the affair. The ‘honest’ PM does not seem to see the contradiction in his government being a judge in its own cause. The committee lacks credibility, composed as it is of Federal Minister for Science and Technology Fawad Chaudhry, Minister for Human Rights Shireen Mazari and Adviser to the PM on Accountability and Interior Shahzad Akbar. If anything, sceptics and critics are inclined to view this committee and its intended ‘probe’ as an attempted whitewash of the scandal.

Interestingly, some commentators on television have revealed that Imran Khan was shown videos of such bribery shenanigans of Members of Provincial Assemblies from his party much earlier. They have also alleged that the PTI government was behind the release of the video publicly now as an attempt to bolster the government’s floundering case for an open ballot in the Senate elections to prevent just such goings on. However, these commentators hold that the ill thought through gambit has backfired if not blown up in the government’s face. As an aside, reflect on Interior Minister Shaikh Rashid’s latest two cents in which he says even an open ballot will not prevent horse trading and bribery, allegedly a fact of life in every Senate election.

Speaker National Assembly Asad Qaiser stands accused of involvement in the video skullduggery. Of course he has denied it vociferously. Defence Minister Pervez Khattak is accused of being a central figure if not the main force in the scandal. Circumstantially, it needs to be recalled that the MPAs concerned came from Aftab Sherpao’s Qaumi Watan Party (QWP) to the PTI, and were allegedly being bribed to stay loyal to the PTI in the 2018 Senate elections. Pervez Khattak was once a luminary of the QWP.

As though all this were not enough, Federal Minister for Water Resources Faisal Vawda faces disqualification proceedings before the Islamabad High Court (IHC) and the Election Commission of Pakistan (ECP) for failure to reveal his dual nationality when he contested the 2018 general elections for a National Assembly (NA) seat. The PTI has nominated him for the Senate election now, a move seen by analysts as an attempt to render these proceedings defunct as he would resign from the NA once elected to the Senate. But even if the IHC and the ECP find the petitions against him infructuous as a result, Vawda could, in legal experts’ opinion, be haunted by his hiding the truth about his dual nationality through a false affidavit, since he would no longer qualify as sadiqand ameen(honest and truthful). Readers need to recall that these were the very grounds on which the Supreme Court disqualified Nawaz Sharif.

Sadiq and ameen Jahangir Tareen, the architect and reputed ‘ATM’ of the PTI, stands disqualified because of the sugar and other scandals. The importance of Jahangir Tareen for the rise to power of Imran Khan can also be assessed on the basis that he ‘engineered’ the south Punjab large landowners who are reputedly perennial collaborators of the establishment (since British colonial times) into joining the PTI-led coalition to ensure a majority, without which even the tissue thin credibility of the PTI government would not have been possible. Now his waning fortunes within the PTI may be reviving since his extraordinary ‘herding’ skills are required for the upcoming Senate elections.

Last but certainly not least, the hype about Imran Khan being an ‘honest’ and well meaning man despite his self-confessed lack of ‘homework’ before taking office (which has translated into arguably one of the most inept governments in our history) needs to be tested on the touchstone of the fact that he accepted office on the basis of a general election widely believed to have been orchestrated if not rigged by the military establishment and after coming to power, had his illegal ‘palace’ in Bani Gala regularised for a paltry sum of money (purportedly a ‘fine’) while the rest of the illegal residents of Bani Gala were left crying that this was discrimination and injustice.

A perusal of just these few facts indicates that Imran Khan and the PTI have never taken the trouble to glance at their own reflection in the mirror of corruption that is endemic to our politics and national life, including our ‘holy cow’ institutions. Forget the corruption of state institutions whose example and practices have impacted society’s values across the board. Are we not aware of the ‘corruption’ that bedevils all elections in Pakistan? In general elections this is not confined to ‘pork barrel’ promises but takes the open form of material bribery of voters. An endemic, systemic state of corruption cannot be rooted out by targeting selectively the leaders of the opposition through a by now thoroughly discredited National Accountability Bureau as little more than the instrument of a political witch-hunt. ‘Accountability’ in our history, through successive regimes from Farooq Leghari, Nawaz Sharif to Pervez Musharraf and the present day, has been little else.

Indian PM Jawaharlal Nehru was fond of saying: give me 70 percent work and I will accept 30 percent corruption. In our experience, these percentages are incrementally veering towards the latter being 70 percent and the former a dubious 30 percent, a reversal-in-progress that is impacting and likely to destroy whatever is left of the state and its institutions’ functioning. Nawaz Sharif is still remembered for building the motorways. Perhaps that was a time when the percentages had not yet ‘reversed’. Now, in exile and therefore beyond the reach of our army of anti-corruption crusaders of dubious credentials, Nawaz Sharif speaks boldly against the top brass of the military in the belief and with the supreme confidence that history is on his side. Only time and circumstance will show whether he, our latest unlikely hero (of which our panoply stretches back through time), will be proved right or not.

 

 

 

 

 

rashed.rahman1@gmail.com

rashed-rahman.blogspot.com

The February 2021 issue of Pakistan Monthly Review is out

 The February 2021 issue of Pakistan Monthly Review is out. Link: pakistanmonthlyreview.com

Contents:

1. Hassan Basharat: Afghan peace process: What is Pakistan's dilemma?

2. Key address by Dr Fidel Castro Ruz.

3. Professor Dr Maqsudul Hasan Nuri: Cuban-Soviet relations in Africa (1975-1980): 'Partner-proxy' relations: a theoretical debate – III.

4. Liliana Plumeda and Carlos Vargas: IWC Report MEXICO.

Rashed Rahman

Editor, Pakistan Monthly Review (link: pakistanmonthlyreview.com)

Director, Research and Publication Centre 

Business Recorder Editorial February 6, 2021

PM and missing persons

 

On Prime Minister (PM) Imran Khan’s bidding, a recent order of the Islamabad High Court (IHC) on missing persons was presented in the federal cabinet’s meeting on February 2, 2021. IHC Chief Justice (CJ) Athar Minallah in his judgement on the issue had stated that the PM and the government could be held responsible for their failure to protect the constitutionally-guaranteed rights of citizens, since the buck stops at the top. The judgement went on to state that enforced disappearance is the most heinous crime and intolerable in a society governed under the Constitution (or, one might add, any society). The judgement related to a petitioner whose son went missing in 2015 and despite the poor father’s running from pillar to post, no trace of the man could be found. Of course this is the disconcerting pattern of almost every case of missing persons that finds its way to the courts. The basic reason for this injustice is the embedded impunity enjoyed by the security services, widely believed to be the authors and practitioners of these heinous acts. The IHC CJ did not confine himself to the current PM and government, but sought the assistance of the Attorney General  for Pakistan (AGP)to submit a list of all the PMs and federal ministers who held office since 2015. The AG was further asked to inform the court why exemplary costs may not be imposed on all those who may be declared responsible for the failure of the state to give a satisfactory explanation for the disappearance of the petitioner’s son. In short, the IHC CJ has put the current and past governments since 2015 on notice in this case. If this becomes a legal precedent, a veritable Pandora’s box may be opened up regarding the heinous practice of enforced disappearance from its early beginnings about 20 years ago, seemingly justified by the security agencies as necessary to combat fundamentalist terrorism generally as well as the nationalist insurgency in Balochistan. The practice has reaped hundreds if not thousands of people missing, and from its early avatar of the ‘kill and dump’ policy in Balochistan that has delivered many dead bodies drilled with bullet holes and bearing marks of torture, it has by now spread all over the country. Enforced disappearance not only threatens the life and well being of the missing, it has proved a heart rending torture for the families and near and dear ones of the ‘disappeared’, whose wails and cries for news of their loved ones and pleas to try them in a court of law if they have committed any crime have gone unnoticed by the powers that be. The Commission of Inquiry on Enforced Disappearances (COIED) set up in 2011 under former Justice Javed Iqbal who is the present chairman of the National Accountability Bureau (NAB) has failed to provide justice to even the victims whose cases have been reported to it, which in any case seems an insignificant number compared with the extent of the problem. Nor has the COIED held even a single perpetrator of the illegal practice of enforced disappearance responsible or taken any action against the same who, as mentioned above, seem to enjoy an unbreachable impunity even before the courts. Many instances are by now part of the record that if and when the security agencies have had the admission wrung out of them by a court that a disappeared person is being held by them in some detention centre, the incarcerated person still cannot be confident of being charged before a court of law, released, or even allowed to meet his grieving family and loved ones.

It is good, if not encouraging, that PM Imran Khan has been shaken awake by the IHC verdict. His reported statement in the cabinet meeting that he did not want even a single person to be missing contrasts with the continuation of enforced disappearance during his over two years in office. Since the impunity in which the security services are cocooned is the heart of the problem, it will be a test of the PM’s rhetoric that he and the military are ‘on the same page’ whether he can penetrate this dark barrier. If not, his agreeing with and acceptance of the IHC verdict may become one more in a long list of promises unkept.

Business Recorder Editorial February 4, 2021

Press freedom under attack in Modi’s India

 

Indian Prime Minister (PM) Narendra Modi’s Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) government appears to be rattled by the protest of tens of thousands of farmers camped on the outskirts of the capital New Delhi in the biting cold since November 26, 2020. These farmers are demanding the withdrawal of new agricultural laws by Modi’s government that they say will end guaranteed pricing, place them at the mercy of corporate buyers instead of government controlled markets, leading to the possible loss of their small holdings of land. Despite decades of economic growth, up to half of India’s population still relies on growing crops on small parcels of land, typically less than three acres. The hitherto huge but peaceful farmers’ protest took on militant hues on India’s Republic Day on January 26, 2021, when a contingent of protestors, taking advantage perhaps of the mass breach of barriers erected by the police, entered the Red Fort in Delhi and raised a Khalistan flag instead of India’s national tricolour. In the ongoing melee, a witness and relative of a man who died reported to journalists on the ground that he had been shot dead by the police. Reports in mainstream and social media to this effect followed, but were later negated by the clarification that the man had in fact died when his tractor overturned. The Modi government has pounced on the earlier incorrect reports to have its supporters in at least five states file charges against several veteran journalists, including Rajdeep Sardesai, a prominent anchor on the India Today TV channel, and Vinod Jose, executive editor of Caravanmagazine. The cases by residents of those states (largely those ruled by the BJP – no surprise – according to Anand Sahay, President of the Press Club of India) were filed under as many as 10 legal provisions, according to the Editors Guild Of India, including sedition, promoting communal disharmony, and insulting religious beliefs. In language disconcertingly similar in all the filings, the journalists named are accused of having provoked the protestors for political and personal gains through false, misleading information online. In blatant kowtowing to government pressure (and not acceding to legitimate ‘requests’, as Twitter’s mea culpa pretends), Twitter blocked about 250 accounts and tweets, including farmer protestors and a prominent news magazine. Indian media associations and international press freedom organisations such as Reporters Without Borders have condemned all these actions, including Twitter’s, as a shocking case of blatant censorship.

Anand Sahay has rightly described the Modi government’s move as a criminal act to ascribe the reporting of a developing story to motivated reporting. He may well have added that this is not the first occasion the Modi government had attempted to stifle the media, nor, given its Hindutva agenda, is it likely to be the last. Authoritarian, right wing, fascist regimes are endemically prone to shooting the messenger. Of course for this to be happening in the ‘largest democracy in the world’ certainly gives pause for thought. Press freedom in India has shrunk under Modi, while being marked by attacks on and intimidation of journalists. Of course the BJP government goes blue in the face denying this. However, India slipped two places in the annual World Press Freedom rankings by Reporters Without Borders in 2020, which noted constant press freedom violations, including political violence against journalists and increased pressure on the media to toe the Hindutva line. It is regrettable that journalists all over the country are now more or less in the same boat as the media in Indian Illegally Occupied Jammu and Kashmir since its illegal annexation. But that should encourage journalists across the length and breadth of the country to unite and fight in the cause of press freedom, without which democracy runs the risk of being reduced to either a hollow sham or the expedient handmaiden of the Hindu Rashtramobs.

Business Recorder Column February 2, 2021

Military coup in Myanmar

 

Rashed Rahman

 

On a cold, wintry morning of Monday, February 1, 2021, the Myanmar military proved the weeks-long rumours of an impending coup correct. In early morning raids and other steps, the civilian de facto leader of the country, Aung San Suu Kyi and other senior government leaders were detained, a one-year state of emergency declared, an internet and communications blackout imposed, banks and all TV channels except the military-owned Myawaddy TV shut down and soldiers patrolled the streets of the capital, Yangon. The coup came just hours before the first session of the newly elected parliament in the November 2020 elections that Suu Kyi’s party, the National League for Democracy (NLD), swept, garnering 83 per cent of the votes cast. The military-backed Union Solidarity and Development Party won just 33 of the 476 seats, much to the disappointment of army chief Min Aung Hlaing.

The military retaliated by levelling allegations of voting irregularities. Min Aung Hlaing’s office issued a statement that fresh elections would only be held after the Election Commission (EC) is ‘reconstituted’ and voter lists ‘investigated’. The EC responded by denying there had been any voter fraud, arguing that errors such as duplication of voters’ names were not enough to impact the result.

The coup has been greeted with widespread international condemnation. US Secretary of State Antony Blinken issued a statement calling for the release of all detained government officials and civil society activists, respecting the people’s will, and reversing all the military’s actions immediately. Similar sentiments flowed from the self-described ‘international community’ (read the west).

Myanmar was in a perilous state even before this aborted election. The country has been awash with weapons for decades, not only because of the long running nationalist/ethnic insurgencies by minorities. With millions unable to feed themselves, a crisis exacerbated by the coronavirus pandemic, and the arrest along with the NLD leaders of the chief minister of Karen state, one of the ethnic minorities with a long history of armed struggle since the first military coup that overthrew Suu Kyi’s father and national hero Aung San, the NLD’s call for peaceful protests may well be accompanied by a resurgence of the ethnic minorities’ insurgencies.

One set of speculations surrounding the coup and its timing revolves around the personal agenda of army chief Min Aung Hlaing. He is under US sanctions since December 2019 and under investigation by the International Criminal Court for serious human rights abuses of the Rohingya Muslim community/refugees. The military’s crackdown on and expulsion of the Rohingya also impacted Aung San Suu Kyi’s repute since she did not come out unequivocally against this treatment of the Rohingya. Despite this issue ‘sullying’ her Nobel Peace Prize of 1991, earned while she spent 15 years in detention from 1989 to 2010, Aung San Suu Kyi retains immense popularity amongst her people. It will be no simple matter for the military to overcome the peaceful protests and also possible armed ethnic insurgencies. Army chief Min Aung Hlaing is reported to have stashed away considerable investments abroad. He is due to retire later this year. Perhaps the coup is his way of safeguarding his wealth without questions asked and clinging to power despite his impending retirement.

Myanmar was under isolationist military rule for 50 years from 1962 to 2011. Amongst its few friends and supporters was China. Beijing has assumed (so far) a meaningful silence on the coup. It remains to be seen whether China resurrects its generous aid and investment relationship with Myanmar once again under the military’s thumb. In 2015, because of domestic and international pressure, the military, having released Aung San Suu Kyi from her 15-year internment in 2010, allowed elections under the 2008 Constitution drafted by the ruling military junta, which allocates 25 per cent seats in parliament to the military, control of key ministries such as defence and home affairs and veto powers on constitutional issues. Despite these formidable powers of and control by the military, Aung San Suu Kyi’s NLD scored a landslide victory. This led to the formation of the first civilian government since the 1962 military coup. But even this ‘flawed’ democracy has now been demolished to prevent the NLD from forming a stronger government as a result of its November 2020 election sweep.

A military prone to coups, clinging for an interminable period to power, denying democracy and the rights of ethnic/national minorities. Why does this sound so familiar? Admittedly, unlike the Egyptian and Myanmar militaries, ours has only ‘intermittently’ mounted coups. Most of our military dictators have not been able to stay in power for more than a decade. With all the weaknesses and flaws of our political parties, the people of Pakistan have time and again shown their rejection of military rule. They may not be entirely enthused about the civilians in power in our history, but apart from members of the permanent collaborationist elite clique in our society, the people of Pakistan have time and again rejected military rule.

Ah, but tarry a bit. Unlike the Myanmar military that lives in a world of its own (supported by its few friends like China), ours is far more sophisticated in its ‘management’ of our polity. New and increasingly sophisticated means of control have flowered on our horizons over the years since military coups are by now frowned upon by even the west (unlike in the past), which finds sham democracies in the erstwhile Third World the best shell to protect and promote its capitalist interests. One such means of control over state and society is our version of the Union Solidarity and Development Party, which today provides the ‘democratic’ window dressing to military control from behind an increasingly flimsy veil (no prizes for guessing its name). Alas, what we sorely lack is a leader of the courage, conviction and principles the world has come to associate with Aung San Suu Kyi, her failure to address the difficult Rohingya question notwithstanding.

 

 

 

 

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Business Recorder Editorial February 2, 2021

SC verdict in Daniel Pearl case

 

The Supreme Court (SC) verdict on January 28, 2021 by a 2-1 majority in the appeal of the Sindh government against the Sindh High Court’s (SHC’s) April 2, 2020 overturning of Omer Sheikh’s conviction for kidnapping and killing a US journalist, Daniel Pearl, has raised a number of contentious issues. Although the SC verdict is still only a short order extending the benefit of the doubt to Omer Sheikh and the co-accused and ordering their release, the Sindh government, without waiting for the detailed judgement, has filed a petition for review/suspension of the order. The federal government too is preparing to file its own review petition soon. Daniel Pearl’s parents too will challenge the SC verdict. Two factors have impelled the two governments to make haste in this matter. One, the verdict has to be complied with immediately as no other charges exist against the accused and they are being held, since the SHC verdict reducing Omer Sheikh’s sentence to seven years rigorous imprisonment and a fine of Rs two million, under the West Pakistan Maintenance of Public Order Ordinance 1960, which translates into preventive detention since he has been in prison since 2002. Two, the US’s virulent reaction has forced the authorities’ hand. The US Secretary of State Antony Blinken, the White House spokesperson and the US Justice Department have expressed outrage at the verdict and the last has sent a formal proposal to Pakistan on January 29, 2021 to take custody of Omer Sheikh to stand trial in a US court. The Pearl family too have reacted with shock and anger at the outcome of the case and pleaded for justice to be done, if necessary through US intervention. The US reaction prompted Foreign Minister Shah Mahmood Qureshi to call US Secretary of State Antony Blinken, ostensibly to congratulate him on his appointment and discuss a broad range of issues, but observers were quick to note that the Daniel Pearl case also came up. Despite Shah Mahmood Qureshi’s formulation that the case should be resolved through legal means, this remains a hollow assurance since it is the SC alone that will pronounce on the review petitions, starting February 1, 2021.

The case has once again highlighted the poor quality of our law enforcement agencies’ investigation and prosecution abilities. Interestingly, the conviction of the accused by an anti-terrorism court and sentence of death was badly exposed in the appeals procedure that indicated the absence of the theoretically higher bar of evidentiary evidence in the terrorism courts. Nor does the fact that the accused have been in prison longer than the SHC reduced sentence speak well of the creaking judicial system’s ability to bring cases to a timely conclusion, such an important case not excepted. The result is the absurd outcome of being forced to retain the accused in prison through a preventive detention law. Omer Sheikh’s track record indicates the character and proclivities of this man. British-born, he dropped out of the London School of Economics, disappeared into the Balkans, and resurfaced in India, where he was imprisoned for the kidnapping of four foreign tourists in Illegally Indian Occupied Jammu and Kashmir (including a US citizen). Omer Sheikh was subsequently released in a hostage swap. He was believed to be part of the conspiracy to assassinate Pervez Musharraf, and called then President Asif Zardari from his prison cell in Pakistan pretending to be the Indian External Affairs Minister and threatening an impending attack. But his most heinous and grisliest adventure was the decapitation of Daniel Pearl after he was kidnapped and circulating the horrible crime via a video. In the last case, he was not just an abettor but widely considered the mastermind. Does such a person deserve clemency or freedom? The problem of course is that judges can only decide cases on the basis of what is presented before them in court. If that material is inadequate, flawed or unconvincing, judicial principles lay down that the accused must be given the benefit of the doubt. The real fault of course lies with the investigation and prosecution process, about which, in the light of this debacle, the less said the better.

Business Recorder Editorial January 29, 2021

Madrassa reforms

 

Like in the past, the long-standing struggle to reform the madrassas has once again run into snags and evasion by means of entangling the current government in legal and official complexities. As an indicator of this fact, it needs only to be pointed out that despite efforts by successive governments stretching back to 2003, so far only 295 out of an estimated 30,000 madrassas in the country have applied for registration. Nor have their sources of financing or lists of students been forthcoming. The rampant practice of building madrassas on government or private land through encroachment could not be checked either. It may be recalled how the Lal Masjid clerics and their student body in the affiliated madrassa next door invited a bloody tragedy in Islamabad. Every effort over the years to streamline the affairs of madrassas and bring them into the mainstream as far as education is concerned has been unsuccessful because of the resistance of the mullahs organised in five main madrassa boards that function collectively under the banner of the Ittehad-i-Tanzeemaat Madaris Pakistan. This august body held a meeting in Lahore on January 25, 2021 where a decision was taken to offer suggestions to the government on the registration issue. Registration was ‘agreed’ after prolonged discussions between the government and the madrassa boards as part of the enactment of the Islamabad Capital Territory Waqf Properties Act (ICTWPA) 2020 on September 24, 2020. This law forms part of the Financial Action Task Force (FATF) requirements. Despite the ‘agreement’, the madrassa boards took up the matter on October 2, 2020 after the Education Ministry advertised in the national dailies that the madrassas should get themselves registered in their respective districts. Now the clerics and their students have taken up cudgels against the ICTWPA 2020 through a protest on January 26, 2021 before the National Press Club, Islamabad, claiming the government had backstabbed them through a law that violates their integrity and they would therefore continue boycotting the registration process.

Madrassa reform is not a new idea in Pakistan. As long ago as General Ayub Khan’s era, when Auqaf departments were first set up, the attempt to register madrassas was stymied by the formation of the five boards representing the Barelvi, Shia, Deobandi, Ahle Hadith and Jamaat-i-Islami madrassas that then claimed that all madrassas were managed by them. The idea was resurrected by General Pervez Musharraf in June 2001 with the formal registration process starting in 2003. The pattern of the madrassa boards’ evasion of registration and reform shows that even after successive governments have discussed and agreed the way forward, the boards simply shift the goal posts. Why this has happened and what it signifies can only be understood if we glance back at the mushroom growth of madrassas, thanks to Gulf Arab funding, during the Afghan wars that then fed recruits into the so-called jihad outfits that later mutated into active militant organisations. Foreign funding may be a thing of the past, at least substantially, but in the meantime the madrassas have acquired the kind of heft and clout that would be the envy of any political formation. To hold onto this advantage, reinforced by street power, the madrassas have resisted all attempts to bring them into the mainstream through their registration and reform of their curricula. Since the madrassas’ financing remains obscure and non-transparent, if not a closely guarded secret, this situation could run afoul of the FATF requirements. Pakistan simply cannot afford to invite the draconian punishments under the FATF. The Lal Masjid proved how difficult it is to restrain these elements from taking the law into their own hands and challenging the writ of the state, but a combination of persuasion and pressure has to be applied to straighten out a long-standing threat to state and society that now could drive the country into dire economic and other circumstances if Pakistan falls foul of the FATF conditions.