| February 18, 2002 | Monday | Zilhaj 5, 1422 |
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Ashcroft’s blabber
Enforcement is key
THE Turkish proposal for establishing an enlarged Euro-Asia trade region has a lot to commend it. Professor Dr Suku S. Gurel, the Turkish minister of state, who unveiled the vision of this new trade region in an interview with this newspaper the other day, has very rightly argued that great opportunities exist for Turkey and Pakistan to make joint efforts to realize the trade and economic potential for mutual benefit in an enlarged Euro-Asia market. Turkey is linked to Europe and Central Asia while Pakistan can serve as a gateway to Central Asia. With the advantage of their strategic locations, the two countries could take the initiative for the development of a vast market which can even be enlarged to take in North Africa and Southern China. So, a vast market between Casablanca and Urumq could be established for the benefit of a large number of countries, most of which are at present in a state of under-development because with the exception of a few, none of them belong to any prosperous economic or trading grouping.
Most of the highly active trading blocs like the EU, NEFTA and ASEAN concentrate on increasing the prosperity of their members and try to join hands with blocs already on the high curve of development. This practice has marginalized less active blocs like ECO and SAARC. In fact, ECO to which both Turkey and Pakistan belong and SAARC which includes Pakistan have remained hamstrung and there appears to be no hope of these blocs making any headway in the near future. So, it is in the interest of Turkey and Pakistan to come together and try to translate the vision of an enlarged Euro-Asia market into a reality. By paying more attention to education and skills development they can enhance their ability to make the most of the other principal resource of the region — oil — for the benefit of all members of the proposed grouping.
However, before mounting an initiative, it is imperative that the official economic managers of Pakistan and Turkey and the private business leaders should sit together and discuss the proposition thoroughly in order to identify all the pitfalls and hurdles in the way of establishing a Euro-Asia trading bloc. A lot of hard work is needed, like studying the various comparative economic advantages and disadvantages of the potential members and finding out how best to exploit the advantages for the benefit of all and also to see how the disadvantages could be overcome. At the moment the economies of both Pakistan and Turkey are not doing well. Both are under IMF programmes. However, they could begin by first identifying their respective economic advantages and trying to put them in the perspective of mutual benefit so that the results could inspire the other potential members of the proposed bloc to come forward and join the exploratory initiative. The reconstruction of Afghanistan offers Pakistan, the gateway to Central Asia, and Turkey, the gateway to Europe, a good opportunity to cooperate and test the idea of a wider trading bloc. Lessons learnt in this cooperative endeavour in Afghanistan could be put to profitable use when Ankara and Islamabad actually launch efforts to establish the proposed Euro-Asia regional trading bloc.
US Attorney-General John Ashcroft has a habit of landing himself in controversy. First, it was his extreme right-wing views, especially on race and religion, that created problems for him when it seemed that the US Senate would reject his nomination by the president. However, the events after September 11 have allowed him to truly come into his own. Acting largely under Mr Ashcroft’s advice, the Bush administration has embarked on a treacherous voyage where the rights allowed to non-US citizens and residents by the American Constitution have been steadily abridged. Now it is his remarks on Islam that have angered many, including several Muslim groups in America. Mr Ashcroft has been quoted as having said in an interview that Islam is a religion in which “God requires you to send your son to die for Him while Christianity is a faith in which God sends His son to die for you”. Such remarks are quite in line with Mr Ashcroft’s unabashed evangelical leanings but coming from a person of his position in the US administration, they can have an unfortunate effect on the trend of opinion in the country on the supposed role of Islam as a motivating factor in the spread of militancy and extremism in various parts of the world.
In fact, it would be fair to say that he is prejudging a religion which, going by his comments, he seems to know little about. Such remarks can only add to the anguish and pains of the families of the hundreds of people (including dozens of Pakistanis) who were detained after Sept 11 and who continue to be held without charge. They will only serve to deepen the prejudice and misunderstanding large numbers in America and the West have about Islam. By virtue of his office, Mr Ashcroft presides over the Justice Department, of which the FBI is a part. So, one can well imagine the kind of message such comments send to FBI officials involved in the interrogation of Muslims suspected of having links to terrorist organizations. Such comments are also quite contrary to the oft-repeated pronouncement by the Bush administration that the ‘war against terror’ is not aimed against Islam.
IT is heartening to note that the government recognizes the seriousness of the problem of deforestation. Inaugurating the annual spring tree planting campaign in the capital the other day, the federal minister for environment said that tree plantation should be carried out on a war footing. The ministry ought to be tackling the problem in no less a spirit because less than five per cent of the country is left covered in forests, whereas the minimum desirable is twenty per cent. In fact, according to a World Wildlife Fund (WWF) survey, Pakistan is one of the countries where the rate of deforestation is the fastest in the world. So it is reassuring news that the environment ministry plans to plant a total of 72 million saplings in the four provinces during this spring’s campaign.
It is not that laws to check deforestation are lacking. There is the Pakistan Environmental Protection Act 1997, under which the government is supposed to set up environmental tribunals, and more significant there is the new Forest Policy 2001, which envisages tree cutting in a planned manner, making the planting of five to ten plants mandatory for the cutting of one tree. The problem, however, lies in the slow and weak enforcement of these laws and policies. Environmental protection agencies exist in all the provinces but unless these are activated through injection of funds and specialist staff, no amount of anti-deforestation laws or new forest policies would help to halt, let alone reverse, the deforestation process in the country.