Business Recorder Editorial Jan 23, 2018

Another negotiations offer

Newly installed Chief Minister Balochistan Mir Abdul Quddus Bizenjo has offered yet another olive branch to the self-exiled Baloch leaders. Being the youngest chief minister ever to grace the seat of power in Quetta as a result of the ousting of former chief minister Nawab Sanaullah Zehri, Mir Bizenjo is sufficiently cognizant of the traditions of Baloch tribal society to speak of the self-exiled leaders with the respect expected, especially the Khan of Kalat, Agha Suleman Dawood Ahmedzai. The other dissident leaders were described by Mir Bizenjo as sons of the soil, which casts their credentials in an unusual patriotic light. The Khan went into exile some time ago promising to bring up Balochistan’s case before the International Court of Justice. Not much headway has been apparent in this cry from the heart at the situation prevailing in the Khan’s home province for many years now. While the offer of renewed negotiations with the self-exiled leaders appears appropriate if an end to the troubles in Balochistan is aimed at, there are many questions revolving around the present and past such offers. It may be recalled that when Dr Abdul Malik of the National Party was chief minister (a tenure he shared with his successor Nawab Zehri of the PML-N), he too tried to reach out to the exiled leaders. In fact it was reported at the time that he had travelled to London to meet the Khan and all other exiles to be found there. However, Dr Malik’s well intentioned peace making foray ran aground when he could not satisfy his exiled fellow Baloch whether he had the mandate and power to implement the commitments he was prepared to make regarding the exiles’ honourable return and respectful treatment at home. This was in the context of the by now well known fact that it is the military that calls the shots in Pakistan’s poorest and most troubled province, particularly where the nationalist insurgency is concerned. Not much has changed on the ground since, which makes Mir Bizenjo’s effort open to question too. Only time will tell whether this new offer is more than ritual noises.

One case of an exile returnee is evoking great interest. The late nationalist giant Nawab Khair Buksh Marri’s son Gazain Marri returned from almost two decades of self-imposed exile some months ago. It was not clear whether he had negotiated the terms of his return with the authorities. Certainly his initial arrest on arrival at the Quetta airport raised eyebrows. Since then, the government of Nawab Zehri that seemed interested in his incarceration is gone and the courts have either acquitted or granted bail to him in the cases against him. A free Gazain is a rare poster for the reconciliation policy. That policy has yielded, it is claimed, the surrender of over 2,000 insurgents over the last two years, although independent observers are sceptical about the credentials of those who purportedly have come in out of the cold. Speaking of posters, the Free Balochistan variety that appeared in public spaces and on transport in the UK and then the US have been removed by those governments, with the US in particular emphasising that it upholds and respects Pakistan’s sovereignty and territorial integrity. However, there is little room for complacency here as the human rights concerns about Balochistan, including the phenomenon of disappearances and extra-judicial executions could cause problems with the west sooner or later. Logic and the greater national interest suggest that there is no escape from engaging with the insurgents at home and the exile leaders abroad if the fire in our house that allegedly opens the door to foreign interference, particularly Indian, is to be doused. Of course this does not mean accepting separatism but within the four corners of our constitution and laws, there is much middle ground for negotiation. Separatism has been fuelled by a sense of grievances unaddressed. If these can be taken up and addressed in the manner indicated above, it could offer hope of a genuine negotiated political settlement of Balochistan’s troubles, to the satisfaction of all stakeholders.

Business Recorder Column Jan 22, 2018

A police state?

Rashed Rahman

The jury is still rightly out whether Pakistan is a democracy. And this question lingers despite the repeated reiterations by politicians and powerful institutions that democracy has arrived and is here to stay. Against these claims must be juxtaposed the realities on the ground.

A democracy inherently is a law and rights based political construct. Any state and society laying claim to being democratic has to be judged on the touchstone of whether all aspects of the state’s functioning is lawful and whether citizens’ rights are upheld and protected. On these two litmus tests at least, Pakistan appears to be a police state masquerading as a democracy.

Consider some evidence for the above assertion. Extra-judicial disappearances, torture in secret locations and murders are no longer exceptional. What started as a set of measures to quell the nationalist insurgency in Balochistan that started in 2002 have by now spread to all parts of the country. Alongside these illegal and inhuman acts by state institutions (with the deep state centre-stage and immune from accountability even before the highest judicial forums) freedom of expression, another inalienable right in a democracy, has been virtually strangled. The strangulation began from the electronic media some years ago, and by now has laid low even the print media. Having ‘conquered’ the mainstream media thus, the powers-that-be turned their attention to social media. The five bloggers who were disappeared about a year ago, and whose blogs suddenly sprouted blasphemous material after they were disappeared (a virtual death sentence today in Pakistan), went through the ‘normal’ treatment at the hands of their abductors before being released. They chose discretion as the better part of valour after regaining their freedom and fled the country with their families, fearing for life and limb. They could, despite their ordeal, consider themselves lucky to have escaped alive.

While our judiciary, unable to dent the backlog of 1.8 million pending cases, has proved not to have been able to play the role of protector and defender of citizens’ legal and human rights, our notorious police, freed of all fetters in the name of reform, has used its brutal methods with a vengeance of late. In Karachi, trigger-happy anti-car lifting policemen in plain clothes chased a car that did not stop when asked to, and shot dead a young man, Intizar Ahmed, home for vacations from his studies abroad. Given Karachi’s volatile security and crime milieu, it should surprise no one that someone would think twice about stopping when challenged by gunmen out of uniform on the city’s streets. MQM-London’s leader in Karachi, Professor Hasan Zafar Arif, was found dead in his car in the rear seat in a remote location with signs of bloody violence on his face and body. The police however, have declared his death as being due to ‘natural causes’. Baloch nationalist students of Karachi University and Sindhi nationalists throughout the province have been the recipients of the unwanted attentions of the security agencies.

Lest anyone think only Karachi or Sindh as a whole has such incidents, a young woman journalist Shehzadi has been disappeared for the second time for taking up the case of an Indian national, Hamid Ansari, incarcerated in Pakistan while pursuing a love interest, from Lahore (initially) and now Islamabad (after being ‘recovered’). A young man, Raza Khan, running a children’s people-to-people contact effort with counterparts in India under the rubric ‘Aghaaz-e-Dosti’ has been disappeared some weeks ago from Lahore. No sign of him so far. Journalist Taha Siddiqui was lucky to have escaped an abduction attempt. Hamid Mir was not so lucky, barely escaping multiple bullet wounds. Raza Rumi escaped firing on his car but his driver was tragically killed. SSP Malir Rao Anwar has been suspended for the extra-judicial murder of Naqeebullah Mehsud, a young aspiring model from Waziristan seeking fame and fortune in Karachi. The SSP has yet to join investigations or be charged. Such is the arrogance and sense of entitlement of our police ‘encounter specialists’.

The list of such unlawful transgressions is too long to be contained in this space. Thousands have disappeared without trace, leaving their families and dear ones in the agony of not even knowing whether their loved ones are alive or dead. The Commission on Enforced Disappearances turned out to be a damp squib unable to or even unwilling to unravel the cocoon of impunity in which the security agencies have wrapped themselves. But why blame the Commission alone? Even the superior judiciary has failed to protect citizens’ right to due process and a fair trial in such cases.

While the existence of the deep state is not acknowledged officially and this allows its components to act freely and unlawfully without fear of retribution, the police is an older affliction. At independence we inherited a colonial police, whose role was defined by the British-imposed 1861 Police Act, itself modelled on another colonial police force, the Irish Constabulary. The Irish-South Asian colonial experience has many similarities apart from this one. The purpose of the police set up by the British colonialists in South Asia was control of the restive natives vying for freedom from colonial oppression. This is the force, complete with a colonial structure, culture and mindset that we inherited and used intact till 2002. In that year, the ‘Plato’ of the Musharraf regime enacted the Police Order 2002 to abolish the executive magistracy (tasked with restraining a police force immersed in the culture of colonial brutality) and concede autonomy to a force far from ready or deserving of being trusted with such a responsibility. The result of this ill-conceived and ill thought through measure that failed to take account of the character of the police as inefficient, corrupt and brutal, has arguably led to the rise in ‘encounters’ as the autonomous police’s modern day answer to crime, lawlessness and terrorism. No marks for guessing where this will lead.

In the 1960s, Latin America saw a rash of guerrilla struggles break out, inspired by the Cuban revolution and in resistance to the military dictatorships that dotted the continent. Disappearances made their first appearance there. The families, especially the mothers of the disappeared, are still struggling for full accountability vis-à-vis their disappeared loved ones to date, despite the rollback of military dictatorships and the emergence of democracy all over Latin America in subsequent decades. Judging by this example and the lack of response to Mama Qadeer’s efforts on behalf of the disappeared in Balochistan, Pakistan seems doomed to become a black hole of disappearances.

About three decades ado, when the Left in Pakistan collapsed (a decade before the Soviet union’s implosion), it became clear to perceptive observers that the age of mass repression had passed (with obvious exceptions such as Balochistan). What seemed to loom on the horizon in its place was the targeting of critical or dissenting individuals, who could be relatively easily dealt with through extra-judicial methods. It seems we are there today, with extremely weak resistance from political or civil society, legal and human rights defenders, despite exceptional individuals still holding high the banner of liberty.

It seems that without a revival of the Left to wage a principled struggle against the injustices meted out by a police state, Pakistani citizens are likely to suffer much more in this vein.

rashed.rahman1@gmail.com

rashed-rahman.blogspot.com

Business Recorder Editorial Jan 20, 2018

Cursing parliament

The row that has broken out over Imran Khan and Shaikh Rasheed’s cursing parliament during their address at Tahirul Qadri’s rally in Lahore the other day shows little sign of going away any time soon. While the latter threatened to resign, the former cursed parliament for having allowed a disqualified alleged ‘money launderer’ and ‘thief’ to become chief of a political party. The reference is obviously to former prime minister Nawaz Sharif. The following day, fiery denunciations of the erring duo accompanied the adoption of a resolution of condemnation supported by all parties except the (absent) PTI. Leader of the Opposition Syed Khursheed Shah posed a very pertinent question to Imran Khan: “Do you want a dictator to lock up parliament and then bow before him?” This was a pointed dig with reference to Imran Khan’s self-confessed flirtation with General Musharraf in the hope that the military dictator would appoint him prime minister. Asif Zardari, who had ‘shared’ the stage at the Lahore rally with Imran Khan (albeit separated in time and space), argued that the government’s set legislative agenda could be blamed for passage of the bill appointing Nawaz Sharif head of the PML-N but not parliament. Foreign Minister Khawaja Asif demanded that both the abusers be brought before the house and arrested if they failed to turn up. The resolution adopted at the end condemned both Imran Khan and Shaikh Rasheed, calling them vulgar and cheap. Away from the heated atmosphere in the house, Prime Minister Shahid Khaqan Abbasi felt it was wiser to leave the issue to parliament’s appropriate committee (privilege of the house), since its committees were fully empowered. The PML-N leadership met with Nawaz Sharif chairing and, amongst other matters, contemplated bringing in legislation providing punishment for contempt of parliament. Nawaz Sharif asked the rhetorical question why the cursers don’t quit parliament. If the PTI’s track record is any guide, this is a distant prospect only a few months from scheduled general elections when they had no hesitation in returning to parliament after announcing their resignations during the 2014 Islamabad sit-in.

What Imran Khan seems bent upon is exposing his inappropriate ways at every given opportunity. For one, he seems ignorant of the difference between parliament as an institution and parliamentarians (divided amongst discrete parties) who have the right to, and more often than not do, differ with each other, but within the confines of parliamentary norms and language. That is a skill Imran Khan has yet to acquire, partly at least because of his infrequent appearances in the house (40 appearances reportedly in the last four years). The distinction mentioned above and acceptable parliamentary norms and language seems equally lost on the PTI legislators and supporters. The former, following in their leader’s footsteps, repeated the abuse against parliament and the presiding Deputy Speaker the following day. What lies behind this behavior? The most likely and appealing explanation is that Imran Khan (and his supporters) are frustrated at not being able to overthrow the government (by hook or by crook) despite their best efforts over the last four years. They need to be reminded that parliament is the supreme lawmaking body in a democracy. It has given the country the basic law of the land, the constitution. In principle only parliament has the right to amend that constitution, although in our sorry history every military dictator has been empowered by the judiciary to play around with that sacred document, which has threatened again and again to turn Pakistan from a lawful society into one run by the law of the jungle (might is right). But Imran Khan in particular has shown over the years his narcissistic sense of entitlement, and this leads logically to the dichotomy where he curses a parliament that has not endowed him with the prime ministership he craves, but is likely to praise one that may anoint him in future. However, Mr Khan needs to relearn the lesson that the road to the highest office lies through parliament, the embodiment of the will of the people.

Business Recorder Editorial Jan 18, 2018

A damp squib

The loud and maximalist claims by the opposition parties participating in Tahirul Qadri’s sit-in on The Mall Lahore yesterday turned out to be hollow. The rally’s failure to stir the masses or the imagination despite two major opposition parties, the PPP and the PTI, and a host of smaller ones being present, was owed to a number of factors. First and foremost, the rally organisers were unable to achieve a critical mass of participants. Ignoring the tall claims of the opposition parties, the fact that even the 25,000 seats the organisers claimed had been provided at the venue showed gaps and empty seats belies any exaggerated claims by the organisers. Crowd estimation is an inexact science at best, but no estimate, whether from sympathetic or hostile sources exceeded 16,000, although the organisers claimed an exaggerated figure of 50,000. Some 6,000 unarmed police and Rangers were deployed or on standby to provide security to the venue, guard sensitive sites and ensure the rally passed without incident. Unarmed because the Punjab government, while monitoring the rally closely, wished to avoid any repetition of the Model Town Lahore or Kasur incidents of a trigger-happy force letting loose on unarmed protestors. The relatively low turnout put paid to any thoughts of continuing the sit-in beyond the midnight closure imposed by the Lahore High Court, which attempted to balance the right of peaceful protest with the rights and convenience of citizens at large. Even this limitation did not satisfy The Mall traders community, who had petitioned the court to disallow the rally in consonance with its 2011 order (unimplemented to date) banning rallies and protests on The Mall except in the confines of Nasser Bagh or Attique Stadium. The second factor that ensured the rally’s tall claims ended less in a bang and more of a whimper was the disunity on display within an ostensibly united opposition. Tahirul Qadri was unable to persuade Imran Khan to share the stage with Asif Zardari, leading to a ‘two-phase’ rally that took something away from its weight and importance. So much so that when Imran Khan arrived on stage and saw his party leaders sitting cheek by jowl with PPP leaders, he commanded them to move away and only sit next to him. Tahirul Qadri was even unable to deliver on his promise that the combined opposition leadership would hold a strategy meeting in the container and issue an agreed set of demands. None of this transpired due to the glaring rifts in the ‘united’ opposition front. While Qadri may take away whatever crumbs fell from the rally’s table as compensation and try to put a brave face on the outcome by declaring a future strategy within two days, on the evidence of the rally not much is expected to emerge anytime soon. Even the much dreaded disruption to normal life and traffic gridlock that usually accompanies blockage of the city’s main commercial artery failed to materialize except on The Mall itself. Everywhere else life went on normally and for once the traffic police seem to have managed the situation relatively well.

Apart from numbers and disunity, what was said by the leaders at the rally failed to fire the crowd, let alone the country at large. Imran Khan railed against parliament and contemplated his fellow traveller Sheikh Rashid’s threat to resign from parliament. Perhaps someone should remind him that given his record of non-attendance of the house, he may not even be missed! The PPP in the person of Bilawal Bhutto and Khursheed Shah rose to the defence of parliament against the abuse heaped on it by the Sheikh Rasheed-Imran Khan duo. Asif Zardari fell back on the ‘patriotic card’, accusing Nawaz Sharif of weakening the country because he had reminded people of what happened in 1970-71 when Sheikh Mujibur Rehman was denied power despite his mandate, in the context of recent happenings in Balochistan. Given the off-the-mark speeches, relatively low attendance and glaring contradictions within the ranks of the opposition, it would not be amiss to describe the much touted ‘final assault’ on the government in the shape of the Lahore rally as not much more than a damp squib.

Business Recorder editorial Jan 16, 2018

FATA merger games

The passing of the Supreme Court and High Court (Extension of Jurisdiction to FATA) Bill 2018 by the National Assembly the other day promised that the new day anticipated to be dawning for the people of the tribal areas had finally arrived, and not a moment too soon. Alas that initial euphoria may prove premature. Concerns are being voiced by different quarters that the government may seek to delay or dilute the Bill’s provisions as well as its spirit. The Bill allows the President (on the government’s advice of course) to delay signing it even if the Senate also passes it. What on earth is intended to be accomplished by putting such a roadblock in the path of what should have been a historic first step towards the long neglected people of the tribal areas finally enjoying all the rights of citizenship they have been deprived of for long, and even after independence for 70 years? The Bill also allows the government to apply its provisions selectively and in stages to the tribal Agencies that constitute FATA. Last but not least, the failure to repeal the notorious colonial-era FCR holds the risk of the new system of justice (if and when it is applied) colliding with the antediluvian system of collective tribal punishment and ‘managing’ security on the frontier that the British bequeathed as a legacy of their own imperial designs to Pakistan. It is a sad commentary on our history that the FCR system remained in force all these years after independence and continued to subject the tribal people to the farce of ‘justice’ being dispensed by Political Agents appointed by the government for each Agency, and against whose arbitrary verdicts no forum for appeal was available. And yet when it appeared that repeal of the FCR was an idea whose time has come, the government has behaved like a shrinking violet in refraining from consigning it to the dustbin of history where it belongs. The half-measure envisaged in the Bill, which will result in FATA’s judicial system being suspended between being neither fish nor fowl, is being viewed by critics as the government’s intent to thwart meaningful reform to bring FATA into the national mainstream.

Why is the government bent upon raising hopes that FATA will emerge into the modern light of day at last only to dash them with the next breath? It appears that the government is tactically avoiding a break on the issue with its two allies, the JUI-F of Maulana Fazlur Rehman and the PkMAP of Mehmood Khan Achakzai. Both have publicly and vociferously opposed the merger of FATA with the Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province, less, it is suspected, because of any cogent reasons and more as a vested interest in retaining their political clout in the tribal areas. If so, this appears the proverbial case of the tail wagging the dog. It is also being speculated that Nawaz Sharif’s current crop of problems are impinging on the project to mainstream FATA as soon as possible. Arguably, the phase-wise implementation of the Bill in different Agencies of FATA may be intended to avoid the complexities of replacing a long established but unacceptable order with the new one. But logically the clearing of FATA after the military operations there should if anything have helped accelerate the process rather than it being deliberately dragged on. If it is political expediency revolving around keeping the two recalcitrant allies on board and making concessions to Nawaz Sharif’s current considerations, this is both unfair and unjust in terms of the tribal people’s long awaited journey out of the colonial-imposed darkness they have suffered in for too long and into the sunshine of full citizenship with all its constitutionally mandated rights palette.