Needed: a fuller explanation

A NEWSPAPER report last week had alleged that a former chairman of the Evacuee Trust Property Board (ETPB), Lt-General Javed Nasir, was involved in selling land belonging to the board at prices below the market rate during his tenure and had since left Pakistan. On Saturday, the general appeared at a news conference in Lahore, thus physically and rather dramatically disproving the news that he had fled the country. He also denied allegations of any wilful wrongdoing and said land deals during his chairmanship of the ETPB were signed in all honesty, and if any of his subordinates had made wrong evaluations of land prices, the mistakes should not be laid at his door. The general, whose claim to notoriety must be considered as resting more on his crusading days as head of Inter-Services Intelligence, might believe that this is the end of the matter. Unfortunately, it is not.

Accusations of corruption have clung to the ETPB for years, and as head of the organization during which several suspect lands deal cases were finalized, Gen Nasir cannot absolve himself of responsibility. At the very least, he should make public the manner in which the cases concerned were decided, and the military government owes it to the nation to come out with appropriate details. The chairman of the National Accountability Bureau (NAB), Lt-General Munir Hafiez, has said allegations against Gen Nasir are being investigated; a NAB official had earlier also said investigations were being conducted, but that there was no case pending against Gen Nasir.

It is important that the factual position should be laid before the public not only because this is what justice and morality demand, but also because the finger of suspicion has been pointed at a person who held a senior rank in the military, which, as the current ruling force in the country, has embarked on a drive to disqualify opposition politicians whom it charges with corruption. There have been other instances also of senior members of the armed forces being implicated in scams and scandals, most notably a former naval chief of staff. The alleged use of secret intelligence funds by ISI to help political favourites is a story in itself. When the military regime lays such stress on the need to fight corruption, its credibility can suffer if the process is perceived as being selective and directed only against politicians, particularly those who are seen as challenging the Musharraf constitutional agenda.

It is well established by now that corruption pervades all sectors of society, and members of the armed forces, sent to man civilian administrative posts because of the repeated spells of military rule, have been as exposed to temptation as anyone else. Even among politicians, corruption cases against some are being pursued and publicized much more than against those, such as the stalwarts of the PML(Q), who are generally believed to be tagging along with the government’s plans for constitutional changes. The NAB chief was specifically asked about this at news conference in Lahore on Saturday, and from accounts published in newspapers, he could not really come out with any clear-cut answers. No one disputes the fact that corruption in public life has enervated the state, although whether corruption, rather than misgovernance as a whole and the inability to improve the lot of the average citizen, has been the major crime of successive governments can be well worth a debate. But any campaign against corruption will also fail if it is not entirely objective in its thrust, and this is a danger that now dogs the NAB-led effort.

Dangers of unilateralism

AS if Israel’s continued aggression against the Palestinians were not enough of a criminal act, the unilateral US-British air strikes on Iraqi positions on Sunday can send the Middle East spiralling into further chaos and violence. All that the strikes accomplished was the killing of eight Iraqi civilians, besides wounding nine others. Could one then blame an average Arab in the streets of Baghdad, Cairo or Riyadh, for harbouring a heightened sense of outrage and animosity towards the West? Nothing could be potentially more dangerous to world peace and stability than a Middle East seething with anger and a sense of injustice over the Anglo-US policy of persecution of those that these two powers consider, inconvenient or hostile to their hegemonic designs. As in Palestine, one does not see how terrorism, in the wider Middle Eastern and global context, could be rooted out by using and condoning the use of brute force against innocent civilians. How else does one define state terrorism?

In the post-September 11 world, perhaps the most dangerous aspect of the so-called ‘global’ war on terror is the lack of vision and circumspection on the part of Washington. In the last eleven months, the military action in Afghanistan, the treatment of prisoners in US jails, Washington’s tacit approval of Israel’s reoccupation of Palestinian territories and now the strikes against Iraqi civilians, have only proved one thing beyond a doubt: that Washington and London are as prone to exercising brute force as the worst despots. Is it any wonder then that so far the axe, by and large, has fallen on innocent civilians, while the so-called terrorists and their masterminds have eluded justice? The world coalition the US managed to put together to fight terrorism is all but dead in the face of American unilateralism, which, if it continues to be practised risks making the world a more dangerous place than ever before.

Action, not words

THE Sindh police chief’s assurance that rickshaws in Karachi will soon be fitted with silencers is sweet music only as an old refrain. Speaking at a workshop, the IG said that within “five to six” months, the city’s 28,000 rickshaws will be fitted with silencers. Such remarks might no doubt be well-intentioned but after years of official apathy and indifference to the ever-increasing level of air and noise pollution on Karachi’s roads, it is time for some action. In fact, one is constrained to believe that perhaps government functionaries make such statements from time to time simply to give the general public the illusion that something is being done, when in fact the situation on the ground hardly bears that out.

The IG made these remarks at a seminar where the topic was how to promote “compliance” and “enforcement” of anti-pollution laws, with specific reference to motor vehicles. The real issue in the case of Karachi is the simple one of installing silencers on rickshaws and making them switch over to CNG from a mix of low-octane petrol and diesel oil for fuel now widely used by these vehicles. The change-over is meant to reduce the level and density of noxious fumes given out by rickshaws and trucks run on diesel-mixed fuel oil. New Delhi is a good example of a South Asian city where firm action by courts and the government eventually forced the city’s public transport fleet of buses and rickshaws to instal silencers and use CNG for fuel. There is no reason why the same cannot happen in Karachi — that is, only if there was less talk and more action.