THE short-term economic prospects of Pakistan remain grim, according to Asian Development Bank, despite the billions of dollars of new aid and debt relief being promised to it for being a frontline state in the war against terrorism.

The Bank which watches Pakistan closely, says Pakistan’s GDP growth this year will be 2.6 per cent instead of the earlier projected 4 per cent and 3.9 per cent of last year. The growth projection for next year is 3 per cent. And that is about the same as population growth. And that means there will hardly be any increase in the per capita income of Pakistanis.

The World Bank says the country has failed to meet the reform goals it had set for itself and macro-economic stability remains elusive. The economy, says the Bank, has become increasingly vulnerable and balance of payments crisis have recurred recently. It cautions Pakistan’s external debt indicators have even exceeded those of the highly indebted poor countries (HIPC), mostly of Africa. The total debt burden according to the State Bank of Pakistan, is 107.3 per cent of the GDP, with the external debt forming 56.2 per cent.

This bleak scenario is not the outcome of the September 11 terrorist attack in the US and its tumultuous aftermath. It has been in the making for a long time and became far worse in the 1990s as a result of poor economic growth, heavy borrowing and tardy investment.

The World Bank says Pakistan’s track record as a reformer has been weak and turbulent. Between 1988 and 1999 Pakistan had nine IMF-supported reform programmes, none of which was completed. Progress was, however, made in some areas, particularly trade liberalisation and banking sector reforms. In fact, the total of the deals with the IMF was reported to be 16 in all, out of which only one was reported to be honoured in full before 1988. And the present government claims to have honoured the Standby Agreement in full, save one point. But that is only for nine months and for only 596 million dollars.

Now a World Bank delegation led by its vice-president Ms Mieko Nishimizu is here to formulate the Poverty Reduction and Growth Facility to which the US, Germany, France and Japan attach a great deal of importance. Projections of its target had varied from 2 to 3 billion dollars. In view of the importance attached to this package and the preference of Western nations to route more of the aid through IMF and the World Bank, the aid coming through this package should be substantial.

But while finance minister Shaukat Aziz places the loss to Pakistan as a result of the war between one billion to three billion dollars the ADB’s Western Asia Programme director Yoshikowasaki places that figure at one billion dollars — the same amount which the World Bank had projected earlier.

But the ADB director is talking largely of trade-related losses, which could be far more if the losses arising out of the heavy war risk premium and rise in shipping charges are accounted for. Shaukat Aziz on the other hand talks of the losses arising out of fall in exports, loss of revenues through economic contraction and drop in foreign investment.

President Bush has promised one billion dollars assistance after his meeting with Gen. Pervez Musharraf. But it is not clear whether it includes the 600 million dollars committed earlier through the Exim Bank and OPIC for trade promotion and as investment guarantees for US investors. It seems there is much talk of large aid and debt relief for Pakistan but too little of that is readily forthcoming. Then, if the war ends early will the aid commitments remain effective or just peter out?

Because of reduction in economic activities following the war and convulsions at home, the revenues projection for November is only Rs 33 billion against Rs 36.1 billion collected in October. And the tax collection of Rs 107.7 billion for the first four months of this financial year ending October 31 is quite below the collection of Rs 112 billion made in the same period of last year, not to talk of the higher target for the first four months of this year of Rs 117.3 billion which means a short fall of Rs 9.6 billion.

While the government’s resources may have improved by the virtue of bilateral assistance, the industrial sector and the exporters are hit hard by the impact of the war. There is resistance in the US against the concessions indicated to Pakistan textiles both in terms of increased quota and reduced import duties from the US textile industry. Similarly Spanish and Portuguese textile industries are resisting the concessions to Pakistan textiles agreed to by the European Commission. All that makes the Pakistani exporters impatient and unhappy.

In the current context when the link between extreme poverty and terrorism has been acknowledged, fighting poverty in Pakistan demands top priority. It is also acknowledged as one of the causes of religious extremism. But fighting poverty becomes too tough a task in a country in which about 40 per cent of the people live below the poverty line of a dollar a day. And after the number of the absolute poor has doubled within ten years reversing that trend becomes all the more imperative.

And that has to take the form of relief to the very poor along with employment creation through large public sector activities. And the increase in employment has to be sustained by helping private sector investment to create more jobs.

Promotion of small and medium industries demand top most priority in this area as they can provide employment to a large number of persons at a low investment cost. And they can provide employment quick and start production early.

If a large number of small and medium industries are to come up quick the provincial bureaucracy has to be far more helpful and become truly promotional instead of trying to control such enterprises. The banks too have to be far more helpful instead of following the old norms of being difficult with small borrowers with small or no collateral of the traditional kind.

The banks have in fact, to play a very radical role. How can we expect the West to come to our help if our banks were not helpful to the investors and the small and medium enterprises? They should provide investment loans on the basis of proper studies and make sure the loans are well utilized.

They should follow the example of the IMF and the World Bank which not only study the projects for which loans are sought but also watch the progress of the project thereafter and the way the loan is used. Such post-lending monitoring on the part of our banks is essential if they are to avoid more loan defaults. The State Bank of Pakistan has not only to regulate the scheduled banks but also help them with a part of the requisite funds, judging by the kind of lending they propose to do. The banks cannot be left in the doldrums for too long with too little money to lend as they have not been able to recover the defaulted loans.

We have to make the best use of the resources we have as the Western countries may be providing additional aid or debt relief for only a period of two or three years — the period they intend to stay engaged in Afghanistan. We were earlier told the IMF and the Paris Club between them would offer a total of 8 billion dollars as new aid and debt relief. But it appears that major donors like Japan and the US are not inclined to a large debt write-off. They prefer debt rescheduling on more concessional terms than before.

However, when the Paris Club meets in December only then shall we know how its members view our debt burden of 38 billion dollars. But the Paris Club members want the IMF’s PRGF to be finalized prior to that. And that seems to be a slow process and is proving pretty vexatious for the Pakistani negotiators. Delay in this area goes against Pakistan. But in view of our bad record with the IMF its officials want to scrutinise the aid package and Pakistan’s commitments in minute detail.

Meanwhile to give real meaning to the talk of poverty reduction, the government has to hold down the prices of essential items. That cannot be achieved by fixing maximum prices for essential items as has been done by the city administration in Karachi. Nor can that be achieved by the federal government by directing the provinces to make availability of 51 essential items easier in the month of Ramazan. And that task is to be undertaken by the utility stores in 412 outlets in the country. They would reduce prices of 200 items by 5 to 10 per cent. If that happens, it is a welcome development.

Meanwhile, the number of utility stores has been reduced from around 650 to 412 and the supplies available there are small in number. The stores are poorly maintained. We are now told the previous regimes had saddled the utility stores with loss of Rs 600 millions by placing orders for unnecessary items. But now the finance ministry would return Rs 150 million with which the stores can buy new stocks.

A combination of high unemployment, low wages, and high pries is a breeding ground for poverty. And as long as there is little investment in the productive sectors of the economy unemployment will be wide spread in a country in which over one million people enter the job market every year. Hence investment promotion demands the highest priority, and preferably low cost investment at least for a period of ten years.

Meanwhile effective measures have to be adopted to check population growth so that the pressure on the labour market is reduced eventually. There is too much to do in too many sectors and pretty quick. The new aid and debt relief should be able to take care of them partly if poverty is not to increase and become a breeding ground for terrorism.

LIFE — a blend of challenges, joys and pains — is a priceless godly gift that human beings cherish to enjoy. This urge is especially strong during the adulthood. Sane people frown gory acts. To them it is reprehensible to kill others and unthinkable to end one’s own life.

Sanity and violence being poles apart, suicide bombers are rare in human society. And yet paradoxes do occur. Highly educated sane adults belonging to affluent segments of society put their lives on the lines. Prolonged deprivation and continued injustice create a feeling of helplessness that frustrates them beyond measure and they resort to unorthodox means to achieve their ends.

Those who become suicide bombers kill others and in the process destroy their own lives. The unusual phenomenon that compels sane people to behave in an abnormal manner needs deep reflection. We must learn from the policy errors made in the past, correct the mistakes and transform mother earth into a safe haven for human life to flourish in the future.

The wilful ramming of passenger-loaded aircraft into the Twin Towers in New York City and the Pentagon in Washington on September 11 caused shock, agony and anger in the US and condemnation worldwide. These dastardly acts were strongly deplored by Pakistan and other countries. The culprits do not deserve mercy. They should be identified and brought to justice. On that fateful day the US stood on a high moral ground. Its credibility might have soared still higher if a team of neutral experts had been named to critically analyze the causes behind the monumental tragedy that hit the world like a thunderbolt. Many catastrophes can be averted if the basic causes of extremism and desperation are fairly addressed.

Instead, the US employed a media blitzkrieg and delivered judgment even before the identity of the hijackers was established. This mindset creates doubt that the tragic incident is being used as a cover for settling old scores and for tightening US control of the vital oil-rich region. The military offensive against Afghanistan aims at restoring the wounded pride of America and accomplishing its strategic goals. A vengeful policy runs counter to the oft-declared US goal of promoting democratic norms in the world and promoting political cultures based on pluralism. America’s war against terrorism (in Afghanistan) might go down in history as the most uneven war ever fought between two antagonists — one a military titan and the other a pigmy by any military standards.

The outcome of the war in Afghanistan, the future of Mulla Mohammad Omar and Omar-led Taliban government and the fate of Osama bin Laden are vital issues that deserve full consideration. However, this is not the focal point of this discussion and is left to be dealt with later.

The Taliban are neither the creation of Pakistan nor Islamabad has the clout to influence their decisions. The prevailing misconception on this score has been planted by India and some western countries succumb to the falsehood because it suits them for a variety of reasons. The Taliban emerged like a phoenix out of the chaotic political chaos and anarchy that existed in Afghanistan in 1994. At that time the Afghan president, Prof Burhanuddin Rabbani, declined to vacate his office after completing his prescribed tenure of duty; Prime Minister Gulbadin Hikmatyar was sidelined to such an extent that he could not enter Kabul; Defence minister Ahmad Shah Masood had the capital under his control. Kabul was largely destroyed in the struggle for power in that period.

Pakistan’s decision to recognize the Taliban government proved to be hasty. After some initial success, the Taliban misgoverned Afghanistan, failed to unify their war-torn country, and isolated themselves in the comity of nations by their rigid policies, inflexible attitude and selective interpretation of the tenets of Islam. As Afghanistan ceased to be a functioning state, Mulla Omar increasingly became headstrong and arrogant. Former Saudi intelligence chief Prince Turki Al-Faisal told the Arab News that on one occasion Mulla Omar used abusive language while criticizing Saudi Arabia’s leadership.

Because of their tunnel vision, inexperience in administration and rigidity, the Taliban harmed not only their own country but also provided opportunities to vested interests in the world to malign Islam and portray it in the murky colours of their own choice.

Pakistan hoped that the Taliban would prudently administer their country to promote peace and security inside Afghanistan and around it. This demanded virtues of compassion and foresight. Instead, the Taliban adopted their strange philosophy. They maintained an ambivalent stance on the Durand Line and ignored the friendly advice given to them on many subjects — the Bamiyan statues, the gender issue, the policy on keeping girls schools open, and their defiant attitude towards the UN and its agencies. Despite considerable external pressure, Pakistan had continued to recognize the Taliban government in the hoe that this last link may benefit the Taliban as well as other powers.

Pakistan seeks peace and security for all regional countries and for itself to promote development activity. Afghanistan’s needs for rehabilitation and reconstruction are far greater. This country sympathizes with the people of Afghanistan for the hardships being faced by them. Outside assistance can begin to flow into Afghanistan only after a modicum of peace is established here.

Pakistan shuns terrorism because it has itself been a victim of this phenomenon. The US thinker Noam Chomsky blames India for committing ‘state terrorism’ in Kashmir. Words fail to describe the magnitude and intensity of the genocidal and brutal acts committed by the security forces of India in which 70,000 Kashmiri freedom fighters have been killed for their ‘crime’ of demanding their right of self-determination to decide their own future in accordance with the UN Security Council resolutions once accepted but later reneged on by India. India’s state sponsored terrorism also extends to its eastern region that has been off-limits to the rest of the world for the last fifty odd years.

Once upon a time the sun did not set in the British Empire. The ground realities have since changed. Prime Minister Tony Blair devotes considerable time and effort and travels far and wide in smoothening the rough edges of the US-led and UN-mandated plan to combat global terrorism. He will earn the support of many countries if he devotes time in providing justice to the people of Palestine and Kashmir who were wronged by his predecessors in office.

The situation in Afghanistan casts dark shadows on this country. Political parties that were repeatedly rejected by the electorate during the polls held in the past exploit the unsuspecting and simple people of Pakistan with their catchy slogans to arouse religious sensitivities. In a politically plural society like Pakistan every political party has the right to express its views on issues of national concern. This should however be done in a responsible manner without disrupting the daily routine of civil life and without indulging in acts of violence and forced closures of markets and transport services.

Pakistan cannot afford further damage to its already bruised economy merely to enable political parties with no significant public support to build up their vote banks. Perhaps, some park in every major city may be reserved for holding political demonstrations and processions should be totally banned. All roads, markets and transport services should be kept functioning as their closure or disruption adversely affects the national economy. Such a measure may be given constitutional protection.

Political parties can criticize government policies but in a manner consistent with the universally accepted democratic norms. The government’s decision to combat terrorism is in our national interest. This policy should be implemented in letter and spirit. The silent majority and many major political parties that are expected to figure prominently in the elections due next year support this course.

National unity is the need of the hour. At this critical juncture we should be led by reason, not emotions. Let political parties show wisdom, sink their political differences and stand united in the interest of our motherland. Prudence demands of us to rise to the occasion and demonstrate, in our thoughts and actions, that we are guided by the motto of unity, faith and discipline given to us by the Father of the Nation.

The writer is a retired general of Pakistan army.

PRIMITIVE man, like other animals, followed his instincts and killed his enemy as swiftly as the job could be done. Archaeologists who have dug up prehistoric skeletons have found no evidence of torture. Even human sacrifices were made without prolonged suffering.

Torture, the systematized use of violence to inflict the maximum amount of pain in order to extract information, to break resistance or simply to intimidate, is a product of civilization. But to reintroduce it now would be one of the greatest setbacks for civilisation imaginable.

Before the American authorities rush into it with the righteousness that comes from a conviction that they might be extracting information that could forestall a terrorist nuclear attack on Manhattan they would do well to ponder the course the debate on torture has taken over the three and a half millennia of western civilization. It has been abolished for good reason.

Both the Greek and Roman civilizations left detailed records of the use of torture. Both of them prohibited torture for a citizen, but allowed it for outsiders. In ancient Athens a slave’s testimony was not considered reliable unless he had been tortured. Rome tortured the early Christians.

But the Church, repelled by this torture of Christians, used its growing influence to abolish torture throughout Europe. Until the time of Pope Innocent IV in the thirteenth century it was practically unknown in the western world.

The Inquisition brought it back. Heretics were forced to undergo a very systematic use of torture. A magistrate sat by carefully logging the instruments used, the length of the torture and the confessions extracted.

Nevertheless, the undercurrent of revulsion remained and by the seventeenth century the use of torture began to die out. In 1640 it was abolished in England by law, although the torture of suspected “witches” continued for some time. After the 1789 revolution, France made the use of torture a capital offence. Most German states and Russia abolished it early in the nineteenth century.

In the twentieth century torture returned with a vengeance, reaching proportions that dwarfed even the darkest Middle Ages. Although it was the Nazis who re-introduced the use of large-scale torture, it had been used sporadically in the civil war that followed the Russian revolution and it was Mussolini’s fascists that were the first government in the twentieth century to make torture an official policy of state. The black shirts invented their own particular technique — pumping a prisoner full of castor oil to “purge him of the will to exist”.

Spain under Franco continuing using torture right through into the 1970s and even democratic Spain has had its scandals, with the use of torture being unearthed against Basque dissidents. In Britain in the early 1970s torture was used against IRA detainees. During a London court hearing in 1999 on whether General Augusto Pinochet, the former strong man of Chile, could be extradited to Spain to stand trial for the use of torture, his lawyer argued in his defence that, “there’s torture everywhere, including in Britain and Northern Ireland”.

In 1984, after many years of debate, the UN finally approved a legally binding treaty against torture. The list of those who fought for it in these years included the expected — Scandinavian governments and Holland — and the quite unexpected — the U.S. administration of Ronald Reagan. A majority of the world’s countries had decided that whatever the supposed value of torture in extremis, it was in practice so cruel, so lacking in positive results (information obtained by torture is rarely valuable), and so degrading of the user that it was impossible to justify.

As the arrest of Pinochet showed, it is a UN convention with teeth and there are a growing number of instances of other well-known torturers lying low in countries where they believe they can escape the long arm of persecution- the convention allows states to prosecute a suspected torturer even if the crime were committed in another country.

If the U.S. wanted to use torture it would have to withdraw from a UN convention it has solemnly ratified — no easy legal task — and live with the opprobrium of having undermined what is regarded all over the world as a serious and important step forward in mankind’s quest to build a consensus on what are crimes against humanity and on how they should be punished. Its “torturers” would face the possibility of arrest should they ever travel abroad. The US has plenty of other ways of garnering the information it so earnestly requires. Torture would provide no short cut to the truth and it would set back the cause of civilisation a long way. — Copyright Jonathan Power

THE Post Office is asking for $5 billion over their present budget because people are using the mail 10 per cent less than before the postal scare.

Even the Laughlan family has become unnerved. Mark Laughlan came home from work and spied the mail on the hall table. His wife, Karen, took the mail into the kitchen. She picked up a letter and Mark shouted, “Don’t open it!”

“It’s a birthday card from Grandma for Buzzie.”

“Why would she send a birthday card?”

“For one reason, it’s Buzzie’s birthday, and she always puts $5 in with the card.”

“How do we know it’s from Grandma?”

Karen said, “I know her handwriting.”

“Suppose someone stole Grandma’s birthday card from a mailbox and sprinkled it with you-know-what?”

Buzzie, their 13-year-old, came into the kitchen and said, “Is that birthday card for me?”

Karen said, “We don’t know because your father won’t let me open it.”

Buzzie said, “She always sends me $5. Can’t I get the money without the card?”

Mark answered, “It has to be unsealed, and I’m not doing that.”

Buzzie said, “Uncle Harry said he sent me a present. Where is it?”

“It was tied with string so I threw it in the trash dump.”

“But it could be a baseball glove,” Buzzie cried.

“Or a terrorist bomb.”

Karen asked, “Mark, does this mean we can’t open any mail?”

Mark replied, “You can still open junk mail.”

“Why?”

“Terrorists don’t stuff anything in junk mail because they know a lot of people throw it away without reading it.”

“Suppose grandma calls and asks me if I liked my birthday card?” Buzzie asked.

Mark replied, “Tell her you can’t open it because you have to be vigilant.”

Karen said, “I don’t think she’ll buy that. Why do we get any mail if we can’t open it?”

“Because whoever is stuffing you-know-what in letters would want us to be afraid.” Buzzie complained, “I knew I wouldn’t have a birthday.”

The mail is now piling up in the Laughlan kitchen. The only good that has come of the mail scare is that Mark keeps writing to the gas company that “the cheque is in the mail.”

He figures they have to believe it whether they want to or not.”—Dawn/Tribune Media Services

GENERAL Pervez Musharraf’s visit to New York had begun on a high note, with an address to the United Nations General Assembly, a meeting with President George Bush — their first since their respective, through of course vastly different processes, assumptions of power — and signs of goodwill and expressions of admiration everywhere.

It ended on a day when a plane accident near New York’s JFK international airport threw everything into turmoil and raised fears, later proved to be unfounded, of another terrorist hit. And barely a few hours after the general flew off, news came from Kabul that the Taliban had withdrawn and elements of the Northern Alliance had entered the Afghan capital.

In a joint press briefing with Mr Bush after talks at the Waldorf Astoria, President Musharraf had sounded confident and upbeat about the fact that the US president agreed with Pakistan’s position that the Northern Alliance should not be permitted inside Kabul. Mr Bush was quite firm on this point, although American defence officials could not but have known the logic of their policy of helping the Alliance through constant pounding of Taliban troops defending Kabul in the north. Perhaps they had not quite anticipated that a Taliban withdrawal or retreat would take place so suddenly and so soon, before a political arrangement could be worked out. The Alliance leadership was also said to have given a commitment to the US that it would not seek to take over the capital city.

But now everyone is confronted with an accomplished fact, and one premise on which General Musharraf extended his cooperation to the US has disappeared. The Northern Alliance has inserted itself into a position where it will seek to dictate the formation of an interim administration, and its hostility to Pakistan is well known and well established. Efforts will be made to reclaim this situation, but Pakistan is feeling a little red in the face. There may even be a sense in Islamabad that the US has let it down on this particular issue, and those who oppose Pakistan’s backing of the campaign against terrorism will recall all previous instances of “betrayals”. For the Bush administration, this may be temporary embarrassment; for Pakistan, it poses a new dilemma.

Another small cloud has formed on the F-16 question. Why General Musharraf decided to raise this at all at this particular moment will remain a puzzle. Now he has to explain what to all intents and purposes is a rebuff. Pakistan had bought a fleet of the fighter aircraft in the 1980s but before they could be delivered, the first of US nuclear sanctions were slapped on Islamabad in 1990, cutting off military supplies. Pakistan pointed out that the planes had been paid for, and the US could not keep both the planes and the money given to it.

Finally and grudgingly accepting the fairness of Pakistan’s stand, the Clinton administration came to a settlement based on repayment of Pakistan’s money partly in cash and partly in the form of commodities. This bargain was worth some $500 million or so, and it is not clear whether this constituted full payment of the money paid by Pakistan for the jets. But for all practical purposes the question was considered as settled.

So why did General Musharraf choose to raise it now and ask to buy the F-16s again? People believe that there’s one thing about the general on which there is agreement: that he is candid and confident. At a briefing for Pakistani journalists on Monday, he was frank about the issue and, in his own military way, explained that it was really a matter of “optics and perception”. He indicated that the people of Pakistan would have welcomed the F-16s as a symbolic manifestation of the new relationship with the US.

Many will differ with this assertion, which shows the gap between the way military men and politicians think. The ordinary people of Pakistan could hardly be interested in the acquisition of F-16s. They believe that we already spend too much on the military, which then dictates our politics. They cannot ride in F-16s, and, if asked, they will surely say they would rather have $500 million worth of public buses and trains. They’d also much rather have US and other foreign aid coming in to improve the basic quality of their lives and give them more hospitals and schools and jobs. It is clear that, seeing the US administration’s accommodating post-September 11 mood, reflected as well in Congress, the military just conjured up the F-16 demand at the last minute. The eyes of everyone in every military establishment light up when they see the prospect of acquiring new weapons, and in GHQ also, some bright person must have suggested capitalizing on the current situation by seeking to get a few F-16s.

Good try, but it didn’t work and unnecessarily injected a controversial note into the Musharraf visit. It also underlined the fact that while Washington is definitely embarked on working out the contours of a new relationship with Islamabad, it is not about to jeopardize its already burgeoning ties with New Delhi, and all of us might realize that. The New York Times quoted a former Clinton administration official who worked on South Asia as saying: “The United States has a new role in South Asia, and that is as a kind of guarantor of stability for Pakistan. At the same time, it wants to deepen relationship with India. The trick will be whether officials in all three capitals can accommodate this.”

The Times said administration officials do not rule out the possibility of releasing the fighters in the future, holding back an important carrot, but at the moment they are looking at more modest possibilities such as providing spare parts and helicopters for border security. Secretary of State Colin Powell told the paper: “They (the Pakistanis) would like to have the planes, but at the moment we are restarting our military-to-military relationship in a more serious way, and the planes are not an issue that we expect to be discussing in the near very future.”

A far more useful outcome of the current US interest in Pakistan will be economic relief that can help the majority of the country’s people to lead less burdensome and more productive lives. For the present, the Musharraf visit can best be described as an important milestone in Pakistan’s efforts to take its place again in the international community. But here again much depends on whether the military regime will remain firm in its new policy of containing extremism once the Afghan crisis ends and in returning Pakistan to democracy.

At the dinner given in his honour on Sunday, General Musharraf surprised many (and many pleasantly) by his outspoken criticism of extremist elements who held the vast majority of Muslims to ransom, had distorted Islam’s teachings, and pitted one sect against the other. But at his press briefing on Monday, he appeared to draw a line between religious extremists who created domestic strife and Pakistan-based ‘jihadi’ organizations like Jaish-i-Mohammad and Lashkar-i-Tayyaba. He did say that if such organizations became involved in religious extremism at home, they would be checked, but added that they were involved in the freedom struggle in Kashmir and a distinction should be made between them and those spreading intolerance and dissension.

Pakistan’s western benefactors may not see the line as clearly drawn as General Musharraf sees it, and many Pakistanis too feel that there is a domestic spin-off from the ‘jihadi’ organizations’ activities that contributes to the frenzied atmosphere in which sectarianism and fanaticism breed. After all, it was Ziaul Haq’s religious zeal that led to the creation of the cult of righteous war in Pakistan with which the establishment was methodically indoctrinated by the military dictator. This, in turn, led to the establishment’s meddling in Afghan affairs, to patronization of the Taliban, and to the Taliban then providing a congenial home for militancy and all kinds of retrogressive trends. These are all links in a chain, and unravelling them will test General Musharraf’s abilities.