| January 23, 2003 | Thursday | Ziqa’ad 19, 1423 |
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Pipelines under attack
In the name of crime control
BANGLADESH has adopted a correct position by rejecting India’s demand that Kathmandu should become the permanent venue for holding the summit conferences of the South Asian Association for Regional Cooperation. As pointed out by Bangladesh, the Saarc charter stipulates that all South Asian capitals will host summit conferences by turn. For that reason, summit meetings have been held at different Saarc capitals regularly, except when extraordinary circumstances warranted a change or postponement. However, the summit scheduled for Islamabad for this month had to be postponed because of Indian prevarication.
The summit was to be held in the wake of India’s decision to start pulling back its troops deployed on Pakistan’s border and the Line of Control in Kashmir after a nine-month long military standoff. Pakistan reciprocated the move. This not only averted what would have been a devastating war, but the mutual pullback contributed to a lessening of the tension that had been generated following the terrorist attack on the Indian parliament building in December 2001. An Indian presence at the Islamabad summit would have proved helpful in further lessening tension and bitterness between the two countries. In fact, in the given context, Mr. Vajpayee would have been the principal focus of attention among the Saarc heads of government if he had chosen to attend the summit. That would have also provided an opportunity for the Indian and Pakistan prime ministers to meet on the sidelines of the summit and explore the possibilities of starting a dialogue on bilateral issues. However, Pakistan kept on asking India to inform it of its decision so that it could go ahead with the preparations for the summit. India kept avoiding a definite answer, thus leaving Pakistan with no option but to cancel the summit.
Saarc’s lack of growth is a matter of regret. Pakistan and India may blame each other for the regional grouping’s stagnant state, but the people of Saarc and the world at large blame both for the lack of progress in regional cooperation in South Asia. As against Saarc’s inactivity, other regional groupings have made remarkable progress. The European Union is, of course, the most outstanding example of economic, political and cultural integration. Nearer home, the Association of South East Asian Nations has achieved admirable progress in economic and cultural cooperation. Like Asean members, Saarc nations too have enormous potential for growth which has remained largely untapped. Because of the Indo-Pakistan disputes, military spending eats up a lot of the Saarc nations’ budgets. This wasteful diversion of resources into military channels is invariably at the expense of the social sectors. No wonder there is widespread poverty, and, barring Sri Lanka and Maldives, literacy rates are shockingly low.
Trade among the Saarc nations is far below its potential, because their major trading partners are Western Europe, North America and Japan. Nor have the South Asian states made any progress in the direction of cultural exchanges. Visa restrictions between Pakistan and India are severe, and the exchange of cultural troupes, books, newspapers and periodicals, and TV and film programmes is a rarity. If Pakistan and India cannot solve their political disputes, the least they can do is to make progress on the cultural front. If they do this, other Saarc states are likely to follow suit, and this will constitute at least some progress towards achieving the ideals for which Saarc had come into existence in Dhaka in 1985.
THE rocket attack on two pipelines supplying gas from the Sui fields to the north of the country has exacerbated an already serious gas supply crisis. As a result of Monday’s attack, the supply of 200 million cubic feet of gas has been interrupted, forcing the Sui Northern Gas Pipeline Limited (SNGPL) to stop all supplies to CNG stations and industrial areas in Punjab and the NWFP. The northern parts of the country have been experiencing serious supply problems since the onset of winter. Because of the cold weather, the demand for gas has risen dramatically, forcing the utility to divert supplies to domestic consumers at the expense of industry. This has led to the shutdown of many industrial units in Punjab and the NWFP. The latest attack, following on the heels of a less serious one in early December, has made the supply situation even more precarious. The attack took place near the Punjab-Balochistan border in the tribal areas of Rajanpur district in Punjab.
The authorities believe that the attack was an act of sabotage, and have beefed up security. There are also reports that the pipeline was damaged during a clash between the Mazari and Bugti tribes. The most important gas fields in the country are situated in an area where tribal wars are fairly common and where the people are well armed. Given these circumstances, offering protection to this vital installation is not an easy task. The security forces have to contend with fiercely independent tribesmen who often use heavy arms, including rockets, to settle tribal scores. There is also the perennial problem of locals demanding concessions from the gas companies, and resorting to violence if their demands are not met. The authorities have a responsibility not to allow such rows to spin out of control. Apart from providing more effective security, the authorities must also closely monitor the currents and cross-currents of tribal politics in these areas and offer to mediate to defuse potential conflicts before they pose a threat to the country’s vital installations.
THE new Capital City Police in Lahore have randomly set up pickets at various places in the city in an apparent bid to control crime. Rights groups and citizens have complained about this form of policing. They allege widespread harassment on the part of the policemen who stop, frisk, search and insult people at will, sniffing their mouths and asking questions like ‘where are you going?’ and ‘why are you going there?’ The police, say the complainants, play havoc with traffic as they go about checking and searching vehicles, erecting barricades and creating bottlenecks during the morning and evening rush hours. Despite these motions, there has been no let-up in the growing incidence of crime in the city. This is hardly an agreeable aspect of the activism of the newly revamped city police department. Lahore police have a bad reputation in dealing with crime and with citizens, in that rampant corruption in the police rank and file is known to abet in, rather than check, crime.
The problem is not unique to Lahore. Islamabad has known this kind of police harassment of citizens for years, and Karachi, given the plethora of its urban problems, has been a city that periodically experiences spasms of this form of police picketing. If statistics are any guide, such picketing only adds to people’s problems and does little to check crime, which continues unabated ostensibly with the connivance of the police. The kind of complaints coming from Lahore negate all norms of civil society, and worse still, the police have nothing to show in terms of any meaningful reduction in crime. Just goes to show that no amount of outward measures, such as picketing and random checks of vehicles, can really make any difference to the worsening crime situation unless a well thought-out plan for creating a more humane, efficient and professionally trained and motivated metropolitan police force is put in place.