GENERAL Pervez Musharraf’s speech was anxiously awaited here, not least by Pakistani Americans who, since September 11, have seen their fairly settled lives suddenly acquire a degree of uncertainty. The US reaction to the speech must, no doubt, have been as anxiously awaited in Pakistan.

The speech began at 9.30 am Washington time, and was carried live by CNN for about 20 minutes before domestic events claimed the network’s attention. An interpreter was at hand who attempted a simultaneous translation for CNN, but, as there has been occasion to note previously, the network was poorly served by the gentleman, whoever he was.

The State Department’s reaction came at just after 2 pm in the shape of a statement by Secretary of State Colin Powell, barely in time to make Sunday’s Pakistani newspapers. The White House comment came later, at around 5pm and was published in Pakistan on Monday.

Working on a 10-hour time difference between here and Pakistan, there was understandable impatience among the Pakistani press corps to obtain the views of the State Department. But the Bush administration opted for a measured response rather than an instant comment, both because what it said would have regional repercussions and perhaps because (this is purely speculative) it first wanted to get a sense of what New Delhi was likely to say so that it was not seen as being entirely at cross-purposes with India.

It is quite likely that the administration, which had been billing the speech as a major event, had some idea of the line General Musharraf would take in his speech: there had been references in press briefings during the preceding few days to some of the

earlier, pre-September speeches by the general in which also he had talked of the perils posed by extremism for Pakistan.

At the first State Department briefing after the speech (on Monday), an Indian journalist, the same of whom distinguished mention has been made in a previous Notebook, raised his hand, was recognized, and asked whether the Musharraf speech had been sent to Washington to be edited. He was met by a flat ‘No’ from spokesman Richard Boucher.

The sequential bit having been taken care of, one can move on to the reaction itself. The US welcome has been unqualified, in contrast to official statements relating to the other actions taken by General Musharraf since September — reactions that always had a “but” or “however” caveat attached to them.

Neither the White House nor the secretary of state made their welcome sound conditional, although later the hope has been expressed that the general will carry through with the measures he has outlined.

The administration as well as sections of the US press have been quick to notice that, apart from its immediate implications for defusing tensions with India and restraining militant activity carried out from the soil of Pakistan, the speech also has enormous significance for Pakistani society.

It seeks to turn it away from the theocratic course set for it by another military dictator.

If General Musharraf means what he says — his history of reversal on earlier progressive measures and his attempt to justify jihadi activity is not so ancient as to have been totally forgotten — then two points arise.

He would have done what no political government had attempted or indeed could have got away with, precisely because the military would not have permitted any other course to be adopted.

To that extent, any elected civilian government could be grateful to the general for having cleared the decks of at least some obstacles towards progress. But, equally, the general and the military might feel that they have undertaken these policies at considerable risk, and they might not be in any mood to share the credit with anyone else.

Political parties and all elements of civil society should seriously consider how this would affect the restoration of democracy in Pakistan.

The general is at present everyone’s favourite in America, and is being depicted as a courageous leader who has dared to do what no other Muslim leader has been able to do in recent times. So democrats should expect no help from this quarter at least for the foreseeable future.

Otherwise, too, Pakistani liberals must now be torn between admiration for a military ruler and commitment to their basic democratic instincts.

Second, there is an inevitable logic to what General Musharraf has started to do. He must also restore joint electorates, go back to his earlier decision requiring a proper inquiry before a case for blasphemy can be registered, and rescind other Zia era laws and regulations.

Just as there was no halfway house when he joined the “fight against terrorism”, half measures will not do in the task of social reformation that he professes to have undertaken.

In this connection, an e-mail from a young Pakistani woman living in the Gulf may be of some relevance. Writing how thrilled she was to hear of the general’s emphasis on eliminating extremism, she said: “But I fail to understand why, when the other day, I filled in an application form at the Pakistan embassy for my passport renewal, I had to declare on this that I do not consider Ahmadis to be Muslims. I signed for the sake of obtaining my passport, but I do think it a most demeaning and shameful thing for anyone truly moderate and Muslim to do.”

Why, indeed, are we expected to make this declaration on our forms if all citizens are considered equal and we are expected to be a tolerant Muslim society?

IN delivering a memorable eulogy on her death, Adlai Stevenson pointed out that Eleanor Roosevelt would rather light candles than curse the darkness. It is against the present prevalent gloom and doom that we should acknowledge that a candle was lit on December 5, 2001 when the historic agreement was signed at Bonn which brought to an end a most tragic and unfortunate period of Afghanistan’s history.

The venue of the signing of the agreement was Koenigswinter where, in 1994, I had the privilege of addressing a gathering of leaders in the field of environmental law in commemorating a festschrift in honour of a friend, mentor and colleague, Wolfgang Burhenne.

Following years of internal strife, foreign invasion and brutal theocratization, Afghanistan next became the target of a US led military coalition action in retaliation against terrorist attacks in the US on September 11 last year. The country was subjected to the most ferocious and devastating bombing that brought about untold human misery and which further aggravated a fragile economy. The Bonn Accord seems to bring an end to all this and has successfully orchestrated a vision of peace and nation-building in which all sections of Afghan society will, hopefully, join.

The Bonn Accord establishes an Interim Authority (Article I(1)), a Special Independent Commission for the Convening of the Emergency Loya Jirga (Article V(4)). On December 22, 2001, the power was finally transferred to the Interim Authority which shall thereafter be the repository of Afghan sovereignty with the power to represent Afghanistan in external affairs and occupy its seats in the United Nations (Article I).

The Interim Authority shall give way to an Emergency Loya Jirga, which shall be convened within six months of the establishment of the Interim Authority and shall facilitate a broad-based fully representative government elected through free and fair elections to be held within two years of the convening of the Loya Jirga. The Bonn Accord also has provisions for an International Security Force (Annex I) and visualizes an important role for the United Nations and the UN Special Representative during the interim period (Annex II).

The first significant aspect of the Bonn Accord that needs to be mentioned here is that it does not have any provisions on the role of the US or the coalition forces in Afghanistan. It is possible to suggest that, after December 22, 2001, the US and the coalition forces have no role to play in the affairs of Afghanistan. It appears that the provisions on the International Security Force, which will be put in place with the intervention of the UN Security Council, will replace the US-led coalition forces.

It may be recalled that the US-led coalition military action in Afghanistan did not have the support of the Security Council required under Chapter VII of the UN Charter. The binding nature of the Security Council Resolution 1378 (14 November 2001) and other relevant resolutions relating to Afghanistan is, therefore, appropriately highlighted in Article V(5).

The other notable aspect of the Bonn Accord is its central commitment to human rights. Article V(2) requires the Interim Authority and the Emergency Loya Jirga to act in accordance with basic principles and provisions contained in “international instruments on human rights and international humanitarian law to which Afghanistan is a party”.

The reference to “international instruments on human rights” is to the corpus of resolutions and treaties such as the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, 1948 and the 1966 Covenants on civil and political rights and on economic, social and cultural rights, which have internationalized the protection of human rights. The United Nations has been mandated with the development and implementation of a programme of human rights education to promote respect for and understanding of human rights. The United Nations is also to assist the Interim Authority in establishing an independent Human Rights Commission.

The reference to “international humanitarian law” in the Bonn Agreement, on the other hand, includes the four Geneva Conventions of 1949 which deal with the protection of the victims of war and armed hostilities and were adopted by the world community after World War II. These replaced the earlier Hague Conventions of 1899 and 1907.

The four Geneva Conventions are (1) Convention for the amelioration of the condition of the wounded and sick in armed forces in the field; (2) Convention for the amelioration of the condition of the wounded, sick, and shipwrecked members of armed forces at sea; (3) Convention relative to the treatment of prisoners of war; and (4) Convention relative to the protection of civilian persons in time of war. The third Convention dealing with prisoners of war (the “POW Convention”) provides for the humane treatment of the POWs. The captor is to provide appropriate nutritional facilities and to ensure hygienic living conditions.

It allows the captor to solicit information, but it is unequivocally provided that “no physical or mental torture, nor any form of coercion, may be inflicted on prisoners of war to secure from them information of any kind whatever. Prisoners of war who refuse to answer may not be threatened, insulted or exposed to unpleasant or disadvantageous treatment of any kind.” The POW Convention also forbids coercive indoctrination and brainwashing of POWs.

But, perhaps, the most significant aspect of this Convention is that it provides that all POWs “shall be released ... without delay after the cessation of active hostilities.” Similarly, the fourth Convention dealing with civilians (the “Civilian Convention”) enjoins that the civilians be treated with respect for their person, honour, family rights and religious convictions. Resort to any brutality, physical retaliation, intimidation, terrorism, collective punishment, reprisals and taking of hostages is also forbidden by the Civilian Convention. No coercion can be used for obtaining information.

Under Article II(6) of the Bonn Agreement, the United Nations has the right to investigate human rights violations and, where necessary, recommend corrective action. This means that both the Interim Authority by virtue of its sovereign status and the United Nations have been given the right, under Article V(2) and Article II(6), to look into all the illegalities that may have been committed or are being committed by the combatants including the Northern Alliance or the US-led Coalition Forces. This would provide an appropriate juridical opening to investigate the alleged horrors and war crimes that still haunt Qila Jangi and Mazar-i-Sharif.

The UN Special Representative has been assigned an important role. As a supra-national authority, he is to “monitor” and “assist” in the implementation of all aspects of the Bonn Agreement. And, as a pioneering provision in international law and relations, he has been given the ability to attend on “invitation” the meetings of the Interim Administration (read Cabinet) and the Special Independent Commission on the Convening of the Emergency Loya Jirga (Annex II(4)).

The most remarkable feature of the Bonn Accord is, however, its focus on women. There is a promise that the long night of darkness for women in Afghanistan is to end soon. The preamble recognizes the need for a “gender sensitive”, multi-ethnic and fully representative Government. The Interim Administration was selected with due respect to the ethnic, geographic and religious composition of Afghanistan and to the “importance of the participation of women” (Article IIIA(3)). Further, there is a requirement for the necessary participation of women in the Interim Administration and the Emergency Loya Jirga (Article V(4)). It is also noted that a woman has been nominated the Deputy Prime Minister. All this augurs well for the future of the women in Afghanistan.

Lastly, the Bonn Accord has also focused on humanitarian support from the United Nations and the international community particularly donor countries and multilateral institutions for the rehabilitation, recovery and reconstruction of Afghanistan (Annex III). The United Nations and the international community have been invited to create a fund to assist the families and other dependents of the martyrs and victims of war, as well as the war disabled (Annex III (5)).

The United Nations, the international community and regional organizations are urged to combat international terrorism, cultivation and trafficking of illicit drugs by providing Afghan farmers with financial, material and technical resources for alternative crop production (Annex III (6)). The fight against terrorism, drugs and organized crime is also highlighted in Article V(3).

Over thirty-five years ago, a distinguished Afghan statesman, Mr. Abdul Rahman Pazhwak, the president of the United Nations General Assembly in 1966, commented that if the United Nations can be said to have an ideology, that ideology surpassing all others, would be human rights. Today, the resonance of this eloquence is beginning to be felt, for the first time, in his native Afghanistan.

INDIA has promulgated a more stringent version of the infamous “Terrorist and Disruptive Activities Act (TADA)” in order to invest its Security Forces and the law enforcement agencies with draconian powers.

It is especially targeted at the Indian-held Kashmir and is designed to intimidate the Muslim community, especially in Uttar Pradesh where, since many years, it votes, en bloc, against the ruling BJP. The new “Prevention of Terrorism Ordinance (POTO)’ was promulgated on October 17, 2001 by the Union Cabinet to replace the TADA which was allowed to lapse after widespread public protest against it. The president of India, K. R. Narayanan, gave his assent to POTO on October 24. The Ordinance comes into force but would have to be confirmed by both the houses of the parliament.

The salient features of POTO are:-

* It makes it a duty of any person having information relating to offences under the Ordinance to pass the relevant information to the investigative agencies;

* Failure to report and to disclose information about a terrorist act is an offence. Investigators are empowered to extract such information from anyone they suspect of having it. The failure to reveal information could invite a three-year imprisonment. According to one view, this provision will affect media persons;

* People holding property derived from the commission of terrorist acts or acquired through terrorist funds, can be punished, even if they did so unknowingly;

* A person found in unauthorized possession of arms in a “notified area” will be presumed to be linked with “terrorist acts”;

* It defines a ‘terrorist act’ as “act done by using weapons and explosives or other substances and method in a manner, which cause or are likely to cause death or injuries to any person or loss or damage to property or disruption of essential services, with intent to threaten the unity or integrity of India or to strike terror in any section of the people”;

* It provides for a probe into an alleged offence by an officer not below the rank of DSP, while the arrest of the accused has to be immediately intimated to a family member;

* It provides for the presence of a lawyer on behalf of the accused during the latter’s interrogation; * It makes it mandatory that the confession of the accused be in the presence of a police officer not below the rank of DSP for it to be admissible as evidence;

* A person can be detained by the police for three months without being charged or tried. Under TADA, this was six months.

The Indian Constitution puts limits on the powers of the state to make any law which takes away or abridges the right of the Indian citizens enshrined in it. The Constitution clearly states that any law made in violation of this constitutional safeguard would, to the extent of this contravention, be void. It also provides that all laws in force in the territory of India before the commencement of the Constitution would also be void if they were in contravention of this provision. While justifying the promulgation of POTO, the Indian government argued that, in extraordinary times, extraordinary laws were needed and in this connection it referred to the laws which the United States and the United Kingdom have enacted to prevent terrorism. Thus, the Indian Government has implicitly acknowledged that the promulgation of POTO was indeed in violation of their own Constitution.

The Chairman of the Indian National Human Rights Commission, Justice J.S Verma, has pointed out that certain provisions of POTO have the potential to be misused by the enforcement agencies and pose serious threat to human rights. Justice Verma has also said that the changes in POTO proposed by the government are not significant and are designed only to hoodwink the public opinion. Civil liberty groups and eminent legal experts, including former law minister Ram Jethmalani have also opposed POTO and described it as another variant of TADA, which is bound to be misused. The Amnesty International has advised the Indian Government to strengthen its “weak criminal justice” rather than enact a controversial new anti-terrorism law that endangers human rights standards. The Amnesty International is also concerned that the new draconian law is likely to end up victimising the socially and politically marginalized.

The Congress and Communist parties have also opposed POTO. They have pointed out that the existing laws are sufficient to tackle terrorism in India. Some of the allies of the ruling BJP also apprehend that POTO may be used against political opponents. The All Parties Hurriyat Conference (APHC) has described POTO as worse than TADA and has expressed apprehension that the new measure will be used as a weapon to further victimize the Kashmiris.

The writer is a former Ambassador of Pakistan

A MAJOR cause of the pervasive poverty in Pakistan is the low employment rate along with very low wages. In a country with 143 million people barely 38.8 million are employed and they include part-time workers and seasonal labour in agriculture.

The low employment rate is the result of almost half the entire population being under 15 years and the small number of women in regular employment. Women form only 9.4 per cent of the employed population, while the total labour force is 29.4 per cent of the population.

And to add to that, productivity of the labour is very low in every sector because of lack of literacy and poor skills in an age of technological revolution and information technology. While 49 per cent of the people are officially estimated to be literate, inclusive 36.8 per cent of the women, the reality is far worse. What that means is nominal literacy or simply the ability to write one’s name or read it.

The effective literacy may not be more than 15 per cent. Dr Mahbubul Haq used to argue that although the literacy rate was claimed to be 30 per cent, effective literary was not more than 10 per cent. We need a real qualitative jump in education now, not a simple numerical leap.

Recently The Economist of London highlighted a World Bank report which said that “over half those over the age of 15 in Pakistan cannot read with understanding and write a short simple statement about their every-day life.” And that is the World Bank’s definition of literacy. The British magazine also said higher income did not mean higher literacy. In Egypt more than 40 per cent of the adults cannot read. In Ecuador with a similar income per head the literacy rate was only 9 per cent.

What is striking is that out of five countries having the highest massive illiteracy rates, four are Muslim states — Pakistan, Egypt, Algeria and Saudi Arabia. The exception is India which comes third in this table of illiteracy.

Evidently it is not lack of resources alone which stands in the way of literacy or education in a country. The political will of the rulers and their resolute efforts to promote real literacy, along with the cooperation of the leaders of society including the religious elements, are of the essence.

The Education Policy of Pakistan seeks to achieve 55 per cent literacy by the year 2003, and 70 per cent by 2010. These goals are achievable easily if what is sought is nominal literacy and not real literary as defined by the World Bank. What we ought to seek now is real literacy and quality education.

We are now spending 2.3 per cent of the GNP on education, while the ideal of the political leaders was 5 per cent. To add to our own expenditure on education the donors came up with assistance through the Social Action Programme I and II. But much of the money spent on the projects went down the drain. We ended up with too many ghost schools and ghost teachers. This trend has to be reversed in the new Pakistan which Gen. Pervez Musharraf is trying to build now. Not only more money has to be spent on education but also effective steps taken to ensure quality of literacy.

Religious preachers, particularly in the rural areas, have been discouraging female education and, in particular, co-education. The feudal lords have hardly shown any excitement about educating the masses of their areas for fear it may lead to resistance to the feudal order. Women have been the worst victims of such an order.

It is acknowledged by all the experts that educating women is the key to combating our population explosion. And that alone with employment of women brings down the population growth. In our region Sri Lanka and Kerala provide the best example of achieving low population growth through this strategy.

But the religious elements want the women stay at home and not seek work outside. That was what the Taliban did in Afghanistan, forcing even highly educated women to sit at home.

If we are to have a liberal or egalitarian society now we have to help more and more women acquire quality education and enable them play a larger role in the economy. The western donors are ready to help Pakistan in this area. They are for a swap of some old loans for additional spending in the education sector. The European Union leaders now say they are ready to help Pakistan modernise its education system.

One of the reasons why a small number of persons went into the labour force in recent years was the fact that a sizable number of them joined the madaris. They provided not only education in the holy Quran but also provided a source of moderate income to them. Ultimately when they went out for Jihad they were paid better and if they died in battle their parents were compensated well.

One of the reasons for parents sending their children to Jihad was financial problem because they had several sons. This situation may not have arisen if there were ample employment opportunities in the country along with decent wages. But such employment avenues have been getting fewer and fewer and unemployment became a major problem even for the skilled and the qualified.

Now the madaris are to teach Pakistan studies, mathematics, science and English. In this age of computers and internet such broader education is essential instead of narrow religious education alone. If such education is a success those who come out of the reformed madaris should be able to get jobs.

But the jobs would be forthcoming only if there is increasing investment and the economy expands. While the industrial sector expands agriculture has to be modernised and upgraded through massive investment. The modernised agriculture can provide employment to the rural workforce and keep them engaged there, instead of rushing to the cities and adding to the congestion and crimes there.

In the former Soviet Union or Yugoslavia where I was once taken to a mosque I saw few young men there while the old people were plenty. When I commented on that feature of socialist Muslim life I was told: “When a young man has a good job and a car and an equally-earning girl colleague, he is likely to drive into the countryside during the holidays rather than come to a mosque.”

These days there is a massive unemployment of the highly educated in Pakistan. MBAs in Karachi are looking for jobs for long. Others who have got IT degrees are faring no better. Many major firms, instead of expanding, are contracting their operations and the staff. Many of them are working on nominal wages or just to gain experience in their fields. Such prolonged unemployment in the face of high cost of living turns the young against society and the social system. Some of them hence joined the ranks of the Jihadis.

John Lloyd writing in the Financial Times last Saturday under the headline “wanted — the next big idea” says “if the world is to survive this century it must find a way to organize — even to civilize — opposition to liberal democracy and to capitalism.” The World Bank President James Wolfensohn talks of including the excluded around the world and make them partners in the new world. Many others have said the same.

President Musharraf too wants what John Lloyd suggests. But he has not come up with a new big idea. He wants Pakistan to return to the ideals of its founding father, the Quaid-i-Azam, and seeks to create a liberal, tolerant and prosperous Pakistan. How far he can succeed in that depends on the kind of cooperation he receives from all of us in replacing the old order with the new, and a closed society with its hidden pleasures with an open and equitable one.

Massive unemployment brought Hitler to power in Germany, and then to World War II. But the massive unemployment of the Great Depression of the 1920s and early ‘30s brought the New Deal of the President Roosevelt in the US. We too now need a new deal, not only in the thousands of Madaris but also in the whole country. Rapid spread of real literacy, quality education, employment for all, and fair wages have to be the goals of that policy.

But unlike in Roosevelt’s US, liberal foreign assistance is available to us along with large scale re-scheduling of the old debt. Social sector assistance too can be plenty. That will create many jobs, like teachers of the new subjects in the madaris.

Along with that, the country has to opt for large scale new investment following helpful new official policies. And that has to come along with a higher savings rate than 14 or 15 per cent.