Daily Times editorial Nov 12, 2012

The killing fields of Karachi The fears that the approach of Muharram may trigger sectarian killings have come true with a vengeance in Karachi, and peripherally in Quetta so far. In Karachi on Saturday, 20 people were killed, including six students of a Deobandi madrassa. These killings came after the authorities had imposed a ban on pillion riding, which does not seem to have deterred all kinds of gunmen on motorcycles from going about their deadly business. As though Saturday’s Karachi toll were not enough, Sunday saw a clash between two groups in Sohrab Goth, which soon reduced the area to a battlefield, with police and rangers attempting to restore calm at the time of writing these lines. While the killings in Karachi can be traced to a range of reasons and perpetrators, including tit-for-tat sectarian killings, targeted political assassinations and plain criminal gangs fighting each other, the Hazara community in Quetta continues to be targeted with impunity almost every other day. In neither city can the efforts of the law enforcing agencies be seen to be having much effect. The troubles in Karachi are of course of longer standing, but Quetta has now joined the killing fields of Karachi as a slaughterhouse frequented by sectarian killers. The Saturday events ironically took place when the prime minister and key members of the federal cabinet were in the Sindh capital, an occasion where the expectation of enhanced security and control was viciously shredded by the fanatics. Terrorism, sectarian conflict, crime and violence have become a way of life in the country, particularly in the big cities. The writ of the state is thereby exposed in all its weakness and ineffectuality. Arguably, these are the fruits of past (and continuing) flirtation with jihadi extremism for foreign policy goals, a venture that has not only affected Pakistan by the blowback from terrorist groups that have fallen out with the state and are challenging it to come to power and impose their narrow brand of religion, but also given space and deadly effectiveness to sectarian groups aligned with the Wahabi/Salafi school of thought. Crime, and violent crime in particular, is owed to the precarious state of the economy, with unemployment and inflation soaring and weapons being easily and relatively cheaply available. If the pattern of sectarian murders in Karachi are any guide, the motorcycle riding killers have graduated from the spread of the Kalashnikov culture in our past because of our interference in Afghanistan to now the automatic pistol, or TT culture. This is the weapon of choice for these latter day assassins because it is easily concealable and deadly at close range. In contrast, the police and law enforcing agencies are fighting violent groups and crime with one hand tied behind their backs because the killers and criminals enjoy the political protection and patronage of the parties in power in the province. Even if an accused is presented before the courts, the inadequacies of our prosecution regime, legal lacunae that fail to address the crisis emanating from terrorists and fanatics running loose, witnesses and judges’ intimidation, all combine to make the chances of conviction slim. The courts blame the police’s inefficient prosecution, the police blame the politicians, the latter blame each other, and so on, the bloody merry-go-round continues. Hopes that better sense would eventually prevail and the coalition partners in the Sindh government would come together in their own interests to tackle these problems and arrive at a modus vivendi to return the city of lights to its former glory have all been belied. If the Supreme Court (controversially, it must be admitted) has declared that the provincial government in Balochistan has lost its right to rule since it is unable to protect the lives of citizens, some may be tempted to draw a parallel with the situation in Karachi in particular and Sindh in general, which is now witnessing the conflict spilling over to the interior and cities within it such as Hyderabad. It is not enough for the government/s to keep reminding us that elections are around the corner. In and of themselves, the elections will not change the situation a jot. Only the authorities, armed with the requisite political will, can make a difference. Having said that, optimism withers.

Daily Times Editorial Nov 10, 2012

Asghar Khan case detailed judgement The Supreme Court (SC) has issued its detailed judgement in the Asghar Khan case. Such a major pronouncement with implications not only for the past misdemeanours identified in the course of the proceedings but also for the future cannot be done justice to in this space in one go. However, the main findings of the judgement offer food for thought. The court has found that former president Ghulam Ishaq Khan, former COAS General Aslam Beg, and former ISI chief General Asad Durrani had rigged the 1990 elections against the PPP. All three were held to have violated the constitution. This pronouncement by the SC does not automatically or in and by itself imply that the three top officials named have been found ‘guilty’ in the sense of being punishable under the law. The conclusion is more in the nature of an indicative instruction to the government to proceed to try these individuals to determine their guilt through due process and beyond a shadow of doubt, with appropriate punishment to follow. That constitutes a severe test of will and political judgement for the incumbent government. One of the protagonists is no longer in this world (Ghulam Ishaq Khan) and the other two have been high military officials. For the late president, a trial in the ordinary meaning of the word is not possible, but were the other two to be put in the dock, it would perhaps result in strictures against the ex-president that would mar his legacy and repute. The trial of the two generals could bring Article 6 into play, with the reaction or response of the military establishment a matter of conjecture at this stage. Even more interesting, the SC has declared that an illegal order cannot be obeyed nor made a justification for patently illegal acts. It is ironic that about six decades after the Nuremberg trials that declared the plea of Nazis accused of atrocities that they were simply obeying orders unacceptable as a defence, our jurisprudence has found the opportunity to reiterate this by now well established principle of law. The detailed judgement underlines the finding of the SC’s short order of October 19 that the president’s office must be above, and refrain from, politics. The judgement also makes a surprising declaration that the office of president is in the service of Pakistan, implying that anyone occupying such office would have to wait two years after leaving office before they could stand for elective office. Strange that an office that is itself elected should be placed in this category while elected officials such as Speakers, ministers and sundry others are excluded from this rule. It is entirely possible that this declaration will face a legal challenge. Any political cell in the presidency has been declared illegal. The list of alleged recipients of funds from the ISI includes many past and current political heavyweights. The SC has recommended that proceedings be initiated against them and the banker Yunus Habib, and the money received, if proved, be recovered along with interest. The matter of the alleged Rs 270 million doled out from IB funds to topple the Punjab government in 2008-09 has been delinked from the main body of the Asghar Khan case and notices issued separately to media and the Attorney General among others for two weeks from now. A more detailed assessment of the judgement and its implications and fallout will have to wait for a more careful reading of the text of the judgement. But in passing it is noteworthy that in an unprecedented move, the Registrar of the SC briefed the media on the detailed judgement, which has raised eyebrows. The justification presented for this ‘new’ role for the Registrar is that it was meant to avoid ambiguity or misunderstandings regarding the judgement. Fine, but is it the Registrar’s job to ensure a SC judgement is properly understood by all and sundry? Care should be taken not to set precedents that could give rise to unexpected embarrassments in future.

Daily Times Editorial Nov 9, 2012

The Swiss letter, finally After almost three years of wrangling between the PPP government and the Supreme Court (SC), the by now infamous letter to the Swiss judicial authorities has finally been dispatched. Federal Law Minister Farooq Naek has confirmed that the letter was sent by the foreign office to the Swiss Attorney General (AG) through the Pakistan Ambassador in Switzerland. The text of the letter, which became a further bone of contention with the court and resulted in three previous drafts being rejected, follows faithfully the draft approved by the SC. The court had given the government 30 days to dispatch the letter. At the next hearing of the case on November 14, the government will either present the receipt showing the letter has been received by the Swiss authorities, or explain the status of the letter’s journey. This journey of course is nothing compared to the protracted saga full of twists and turns the issue acquired since the SC struck down the National Reconciliation Ordinance (NRO) promulgated by General Pervez Musharraf as part of a political deal with the PPP when he found himself politically cornered circa 2007. The SC’s 2009 judgement, in its paragraph 178, had required the government to withdraw the withdrawal of the request for judicial assistance from the Swiss authorities authored by then AG Justice (retd) Malik Abdul Qayyum. The letter sent now says the then AG’s withdrawal letter should be treated as withdrawn as though it had never been written. Theoretically, what this means is that the 8,000 plus beneficiaries of the NRO, who included bureaucrats and others and only a handful of politicians, could have their cases reopened, if they have not already been. Despite the wide scope of the list of beneficiaries of the NRO, the real conflict with the SC arose because President Asif Ali Zardari’s name was included in the list. Charges of graft against him emanate from the 1990s, when the late Benazir Bhutto was Prime Minister (PM). The PPP government under former PM Yousaf Raza Gilani took the position that the president enjoyed immunity while in office under the law and constitution of Pakistan (Article 248) and international law, and in any case reopening the issue would be tantamount to a trial of the grave of Benazir Bhutto. Arguments on this issue before the court during the protracted process of hearings failed to settle the issue conclusively. Gilani stuck to this stance and it cost him the premiership. Under his successor, Raja Pervez Ashraf, the PPP government relented as did the court, and the letter was finally mutually agreed and written to say in general terms that the president’s legal rights and protections under domestic and international law would not be prejudiced by the sending of the letter, a compromise found acceptable by the court finally. Is this the end of the matter? After almost three years of the country’s time, money, resources and attention being wasted on what in the end turns out to have been a futile exercise revolving around finding the appropriate language to satisfy both the judiciary and the government, this question acquires piquancy. The ball now is in the court of the Swiss judicial authorities. Earlier, some legal eagles argued that a closed case under Swiss law could not be reopened in the absence of fresh substantive evidence. Others have since joined the fray to say Swiss law in this regard has changed and the cases can in fact be reopened. How much of this is partisan politics and how much informed opinion is unclear. Should the former interpretation prove correct, that could indeed be the end of a matter unnecessarily stretched out. On the other hand, should the latter legal opinion be more up to date, and the Swiss authorities were to proceed to reopen the cases, including the one against President Zardari, it remains to be seen whether the trail, if ever there was indeed one, has turned so cold as to be a dead end. Unfortunately, Pakistan’s polarized polity yields rarely to good sense, balance, wisdom. The case in question is a good illustration of our penchant for flogging dead horses.

Daily Times editorial Nov 8, 2012

Obama’s win After a closely contested presidential election that at one stage seemed too uncertain to call according to all the pollsters and analysts, in the end the incumbent President Barack Obama romped home by a wide margin in the electoral college of 303 to Romney’s 206 but a far narrower one of 50 percent of the popular vote to Romney’s 48 percent. In the US presidential electoral system, the states are given electoral college votes on the basis of population. However, one peculiarity of the system is that the winner in any state gets credited with the entire electoral college votes of that state. Political analysts do measure that success or failure against the proportion of the popular vote the winner and loser receive. Interestingly, the ‘swing’ states that were considered to be poised uncertainly, in the end were won by the Obama camp. Mitt Romney, the Republican challenger, probably lost because he fell between the two stools of the far right opinion inside the party, typified by the Tea Party faction, and the belated attempt, especially in the candidates’ debates towards the close of the campaigning, to appeal to the centre through more moderate stances. Arguably, Romney failed to appeal to the far right for being too moderate, and to the centre for not being moderate enough soon enough in the campaign. The results of the election indicate the deep divide in American society at this juncture of economic difficulties and the contrasting approaches of the Democrats and Republicans on how best to tackle the stubborn global economic crisis gripping the whole world. The economy and social issues such as healthcare, immigration, etc, are likely to be the main domestic focus of the four more years Obama has won. Whether he can heal the divisions and become a president for all the American people, rhetoric to this effect in his victory speech notwithstanding, will be key to the legacy his presidency leaves for posterity. A crucial factor in getting things done and tackling the very serious issues of budget deficits, ballooning debt and the creation of jobs is the control of the House by the Republicans, even if the Democrats still control the Senate. The implications of this ‘divided’ Congress are that Obama will very skillfully have to negotiate bipartisan support from his opponents if he is to have any hope of success. In contrast with the hype and excitement that the first black president’s 2008 victory engendered within the US and the world at large, a heightened expectation that proved disappointing in the light of what Obama managed in practice after taking office, there is likely to be a soberer mood underlying the immediate celebrations in the Democratic camp. The debate in the US and other parts of the world on whether the way out of the global economic crisis is through austerity (implying the greater burden to be carried by the ordinary citizen) or stimuli that can engender growth (recall the rescue of big banks considered ‘too big to fail’ through public funds and the rehabilitation of top managers’ perks and privileges) remains inconclusive so far, particularly in Europe. A predominantly financialised capitalism collapsed spectacularly when imprudent investment and debt mountains took their toll, taking the ‘real’ economy down with it. Unlike the Great Crash of the 1920s and 30s, the 21st century context has no Keynesian solution of public spending to stimulate purchasing power and demand to pull the sagging economies out of the hole they have fallen into. A much more cautious approach, and therefore slow recovery is the best case scenario for the foreseeable future, whether in the US or the rest of the world. Arguably, an unprecedentedly interconnected global economy is likely to sink or swim together. The economic interdependence of the present world means that foreign governments are likely to welcome continuing to do business with the ‘devil they know’. The plethora of congratulatory messages from all over the world to Obama is not just the ritual formalities that are usual on such occasions. The economy aside, many countries and regions have expressed disappointment that the early promise of a new beginning that Obama indicated in 2008, markers for which include his Cairo speech promising to reach out to the Muslim world, proved in practice to be less than satisfactory. US and NATO involvement in Libya and Syria, to take just two examples, have aroused a great deal of concern in other powers such as Russia and China as well as parts of the Muslim and broader world. While the defence, security and foreign policy establishment managed to limit the idealism of Obama, the Israeli lobby managed to paralyse in Israel’s favour the conflict with the Palestinians. The Arab Spring has produced Islamist regimes with which Washington is attempting to find a modus operandi, but these are arguably far from the kind of democratic denouement the Spring initially promised. In our part of the world, it is unlikely the next four years of Obama will bring anything radically different in terms of policy. Withdrawal from Afghanistan (following Iraq) looms and it is far from certain at this stage to what extent the lessons of the US and west’s turning away from the region in 1989 have been learnt and to what extent continued engagement with the region, especially Pakistan and Afghanistan, can realistically be expected. There is no gainsaying the fact though that Islamabad will have to cut its cloth according to what largesse or otherwise flows from Washington from now on. The US has been trying through carrot and stick methods to get Pakistan to abandon the use of proxies for jihadi extremism, but this is far from an accomplished fact, despite the enormous costs of continuing with that outdated policy for Pakistan itself in the shape of the terrorist blowback. Despite the US’s economic difficulties, no country can afford to ignore Washington, or at least only do so at its own potential peril. Pakistan will have to revisit and re-examine its relations with what may well be a far more confident Obama administration that may get tougher with Pakistan regarding Afghanistan and terrorism. The days ahead therefore promise ‘interesting times’.

Daily Times Editorial Nov 7, 2012

> Now another institutional clash? Speeches the other day by COAS General Ashfaq Pervez Kayani and Chief Justice of Pakistan (CJP) Iftikhar Mohammad Chaudhry had much in common and much to commend them. However, they did also contain some things implicitly that have aroused concern. On the face of it, the COAS in his speech to officers at GHQ seemed to be responding to recent criticism of some retired Generals charged with interfering in the political process (the Asghar Khan case, in which a former COAS and former head of the ISI have been squarely put in the dock), and corruption (in the NLC and now Fauji Fertilizers cases). The COAS’ take on this was that individuals’ mistakes in the past should be left to the judicial (due) process and guilt or innocence should not be presumed before that. Additionally, and perhaps more ominously, the COAS hinted at judicial berating and a media trial of the institution itself, which the COAS believes was undermining the public’s confidence in the military, creating rifts amongst the high command (perhaps mere speculation) and between the high command and the rank and file of the military. Obviously, any such development that impacts on the internal cohesiveness and discipline of the military is bound to arouse the concern of the top commanders. At the hands of the judiciary too, apart from the Asghar Khan case, the missing persons and law and order cases in Balochistan have seen the judiciary criticising the policies and actions of the military and its intelligence arms in unprecedented fashion. It has been a rough two years for the hitherto unassailable and immune reputation of the armed forces, starting with the Abbottabad raid and winding its way through other embarrassing revelations and open criticism. This has naturally rattled an institution and its top command, accustomed as they are to a culture of unquestioning impunity inherited from our past of being a security state. The CJP hit the nail on the head when he said in his speech to civil servants that national security is no longer measured in terms of military hardware, but rather whether a state is answering to the needs of its citizens. Were that not the case, a superpower such as the Soviet Union would not have been banished into oblivion. But where there is room for concern is the reiteration by the CJP of the “ultimate jurisdiction” of the Supreme Court (SC) in matters constitutional and legal. The letter of the law certainly conforms to the CJP’s formulation. However, in its zeal to correct “past wrongs” and set ‘everything’ right, the SC stands accused of intervening in matters beyond its turf. This activism, arguably unfettered by the time honoured juridical principle of restraint, has caused the court to become increasingly controversial, having brought it into conflict incrementally with the executive, parliament, and now potentially the military. Rights and wrongs embedded in the system inherited from a chequered past cannot be transformed to the ideal overnight with the wave of a magical judicial wand. Without in any way disrespecting the good intentions of the court, it must be reiterated, as we have consistently done in this space, that the respect and dignity of the judicial institution is too precious to allow even the shadow of doubt or accusation to fall upon it. In this regard, where there is much to commend in the SC’s judgements over the past almost three years, there are also rising concerns about conflict and clashes between state institutions, which is neither the intent of the court, nor welcome, yet seem to be the inevitable and logical outcome of the court’s well intentioned but arguably overzealous interventions in matters of great and even small import. It is not without interest to examine the process of evolution of the democratic system in the last five years. State institutions seem to be jockeying for turf and space, a process known to have been part of the evolution of mature democracies. President Zardari the other day characterised this process as the “dying kicks of the old order”, implying the certainties of the past on which state institutions may have rested so far, were yielding to new realities in which each institution had to re-examine its powers, boundaries and limitations. It is no surprise therefore that every time a powerful head of one or the other state institution speaks publicly, the common point of reference tends to be a recognition of, and respect for, the legitimate purview of each institution, and appeals for restraint as far as straying into the turf of other institutions is concerned. May this democratic evolution finally arrive at an agreed delineation of these matters that proves mutually acceptable to all institutions. There lies hope and confidence of a better future.

Daily Times Editorial Nov 6, 2012

SAARC Speakers’ conference In his address to the conference of the Association of SAARC Speakers and Parliaments in Islamabad the other day, President Asif Ali Zardari urged the regional countries to unite to fight the menace of terrorism and extremism. He underlined Pakistan’s suffering at the hands of the fanatics, enumerating the loss of 40,000 lives and Rs 80 billion in economic losses. The president said a collective approach was required to face the challenges confronting the region and to benefit from close cooperation in all fields. The parliaments of the region should play a leading role in solving complex issues by protecting political liberties, human freedoms and the rule of law, the president went on. Zardari said parliament in Pakistan had been empowered and a democratically elected government was nearing completion of its term (these may seem commonplace achievements in older and more established democracies, but given Pakistan’s chequered history, are counted amongst major achievements of the democratic order ushered in in 2008). Pakistan is poised, the president underlined, to achieve the first peaceful democratic transition through the ballot box. All this promises Pakistan is well on its way to realising democracy’s dividends, the president added. Interestingly, he argued that some people might feel parliament was still under assault from some quarters, but these were merely the teething problems of a genuine democratic transition. They represented the dying kicks of the old order, he underlined. The president’s address also dealt with the problems of drug trafficking and food security, the former providing a major source of finance for militancy, while the latter remained a serious challenge. SAARC enjoyed the advantage of cultural affinity amongst the people of the region, the president emphasised, but it must be said that these advantages have yet to be translated into a realisation of potential. People to people contact, interaction amongst parliamentarians and other such confidence building measures could certainly go a long way towards achieving the peace dividend in the region. It may be useful to recall that in the last decades of the last century as well as the first two decades of the 21st, the well known pattern of the growth of drugs trafficking in regions torn by wars has retained its virulence. In the Indo-China wars of the 1960s and 70s, for example, the area began to be characterized as the ‘Golden Triangle’ (of the drugs trade). Today, the ‘Triangle’ in South East Asia has been transformed into the ‘Golden Arc’ of the Af-Pak region. Interestingly, the president characterized heroin as a weapon of war developed by the ‘international community’ (read west) against the rival ideology (read communism), which still remained to be dismantled long after it has passed out of the hands of covert efforts to fund irregular combatants fighting the ‘enemy’ and transformed, along with kidnapping for ransom, into the main source of terrorist financing. For all our foaming at the mouth against the terrorists, not enough attention has been paid to starving the terrorists financially by interdicting drugs, stopping money laundering, and tackling the menace of kidnapping for ransom. This is doubly crucial now that the past sources of funding from certain Gulf Arab countries has dwindled to a trickle after the ‘sponsors’ of jihad themselves found they were increasingly becoming targets of those sections of yesterday's proxies that had slipped the leash. What unites, actually or potentially, the region of South Asia are the common challenges of terrorism, poverty, underdevelopment and finding SAARC’s place in the sun in the world community. Taking a leaf from the book of successful regional blocs such as the EU and ASEAN, it is obvious that the gateway to ‘heaven’ lies in economic cooperation and trade. If SAARC can move towards this goal, and recent moves bettering India-Pakistan relations offer the best hope for a long time, it can improve the lives of all its peoples while becoming a formidable trading bloc with the rest of the world. When the advantages are so obvious, all that is needed is the political will to implement these ideas.

Daily Timews editorial Nov 3, 2012

Raisani in trouble A state of suspended animation and constitutional deadlock has gripped Balochistan’s government. At the centre of the storm is Chief Minister (CM) Nawab Aslam Raisani. The ‘suspended animation’ flows from the Supreme Court’s (SC’s) October 12, 2012 interim order, in which the SC held that the Raisani-led Balochistan government had failed to run the province according to the constitution. Whereas a defiant Raisani told a press conference in Islamabad that he would appear before the SC and defend the record of his government, the hearing on Friday failed to move the impasse out of the dead end it has landed in. The hearing was postponed amidst reports that Raisani had decided to move a review petition against the SC’s October 12 order. Be that as it may, while still reeling from the apex court’s pronouncement, Raisani has now been assailed from an unexpected source. His own party, the PPP in Balochistan, has found a voice of dissent in the provincial chief Sadiq Umrani, who has suspended the party membership of the CM for three months. In addition, the speaker of the Balochistan Assembly, Aslam Bhootani, has refused to call a session of the assembly in Gwadar on November 9-10, as requested by the CM. The Speaker is of the view that after the SC’s order, summoning a session of the assembly on the CM’s request would be tantamount to contempt of court. He has asked the Governor to ascertain from the SC the legal/constitutional status of the Raisani government. This stance of the Speaker has given rise to a constitutional deadlock in the province. Raisani has tried hard to refute his critics and defend his government’s record, but the sceptics outweigh by miles those who may still be inclined to support the ‘absent’ CM, who has spent most of the last five years in Islamabad rather than in his troubled province. Sadiq Umrani has accused the CM of all sorts of violations of party policies. Despite he says, notices being sent to Raisani, he had failed to mend his ways. Umrani even went so far as to accuse Raisani of being involved in doctors’ kidnappings for ransom in Balochistan. Currently, the whole public health sector in the province has shut down after the doctors’ community went on strike in protest against the latest incident of the kidnapping of a senior doctor who has yet to be recovered. Umrani has asked the party’s high command to dismiss the Raisani government, given that the CM is damaging the image of the PPP in the province and in the country. To add to his woes, Raisani’s boast in his press conference that his coalition allies would accompany him to the SC had cold water poured over it when the ANP indicated its minister would not accompany the CM to the apex court hearing. Clearly, with this distancing from the embattled CM by the ANP, the ‘coalition’ shows signs of crumbling from within. (It needs saying that this coalition had all but one opposition member of the assembly, who has just been arrested on the orders of the SC, as either ministers or advisers or parliamentary committee heads, i.e. in positions to make hay while the sun shines without a care for the situation of the province.) Reports say the PPP is contemplating either an in-house change or the imposition of governor’s rule in the province. The former option is preferred, given that it may only be a few months until the general elections. However, whatever change of face is implemented through either an in-house manoeuvre or governor’s rule, it will make little or no difference to the ground situation in the insurgency-wracked province. The reason, which has been reiterated constantly in this space, is that the provincial government installed in 2008 has never been more than a government in name only. The real ‘rulers’ in Balochistan are the military, its intelligence arms, and the paramilitary Frontier Corps. Since this reality is unlikely to yield to either the SC’s repeated strictures in the missing persons and law and order cases of the province, or any hidden desire (so far conspicuous by its absence) on the part of the federal government or PPP high command to seriously tackle the problem of Balochistan, Raisani’s seemingly inevitable removal will not change things in the province one jot.