Economic aspects of Shariat

The Muttahida Majlis-i-Amal (MMA) wants the shari’at to be enforced in the national economy, education and the judiciary. It is incumbent upon us to take stock of its advocacy, identify the changes it will require, and bring out the ease or difficulty of accomplishing them. Let us begin with the economy. Those wishing to get hold of the relevant chapter and verse in the Quran and Sunnah may refer to a work that I have found to be helpful, namely: Abdur Rahman I. Doi, Shari’ah: The Islamic Law (London: 1984).

Let it first be noted that the shari’at is concerned much more with trade, taxation and the distribution of wealth than it is with the organization and processes of production. It seems that the modes of production current at the Prophet’s (pbuh) time were deemed acceptable and no innovations relating to them were enjoined.

Praiseworthy is the merchant who is truthful, honest and reliable. He weighs and measures correctly, and all units of the commodity he is selling will conform to the sample displayed earlier to the buyer. Laws requiring accuracy in weights and measures and honesty in business dealings are on the statute books in Pakistan. To that extent the shari’at is already enforced. Laws should also be made to ensure truth in advertising; exaggerative or otherwise misleading advertisements must be forbidden.

The shari’at requires that contracts of purchase and sale to be written down and signed not only by the parties concerned but also by witnesses. These signatories should be acting of their own free will, and they should be mature and alert enough to understand the agreement that is being made. Thus, as a general rule, minors may not make, or witness, contracts. Once a contract has been “signed, sealed and delivered,” it cannot be repudiated unilaterally. Needless to say, its object must be lawful: Muslims cannot agree to sell grapes to wine makers, or supply weapons to rebels against legitimate authority or to killers who intend to commit murder. All of this is already taken care of by the existing law and, once again, the shari’at with regard to these matters is honoured.

Two or more persons may come together to undertake a commercial or industrial enterprise. Obligations accepted by one partner are binding on the other. According to Imam Malik, each partner is to bring in his own “tools,” but other jurists hold that the “tools” are to be acquired, and paid for, by the association as a whole. Some of the jurists maintain also that it is unlawful for any one of the partners to “hold a predominant share in the stock of tools.”

In applying these interpretations to our present-day forms of organization, the reference to “tools” will obviously have to be taken to cover more than screwdrivers, pliers, and wrenches. It would include land, buildings, machines, furniture, office equipment and supplies, and a whole variety of other things needed to run a business enterprise. It could also be interpreted to mean the capital invested in the enterprise.

Another form of partnership is called “qirad,” meaning that one of the partners is “dormant.” He entrusts funds to a trader to use them in his trade, and the two of them share the profit in some mutually agreed proportion. The silent partner remains the owner of the funds in question, and the trader bears any losses that may result from his negligence. A related form is called “mudarabah” in which one party provides funds and the other provides managerial skills and work and the two sides share the profit in some agreed proportion.

That one set of persons may own an enterprise and another may manage it is thus an approved form of organizing and operating a business. The view that none of the partners may have a predominant share in the “stock of tools” may be relevant only to some very small and elementary types of associations and ventures. Moreover, it should be placed in juxtaposition to the idea of proportionality between investment (funds, skills, labour) and returns, which is well accepted in the shari’at. There can then be no objection to corporations in which many persons hold variable amounts of stock, and in which the managers may or may not own any.

Hoarding is forbidden. Laws in British India and, later, in Pakistan have also forbidden it with reference to the necessities of life when they happened to be in extremely short supply. That is surely the way it should be. But it is not clear whether this prohibition applies to goods and services which are not in the nature of necessities and which, at the time in question, are not particularly scarce. Can a farmer, for instance, withhold his harvest of peanuts from the market, which is already saturated with them, for a few months until the price comes up to a more satisfactory level? It seems to me that the shari’at will not regard the farmer’s action in this case as hoarding. But let us leave it to the learned among the MMA leaders to come up with a more definitive answer.

We now enter a more difficult terrain. The shari’at calls upon us repeatedly to take all elements of uncertainty out of purchase and sale. A man may not attempt to sell anything that he does not own. The object offered for sale must be physically present on the spot in full view of the prospective buyer. A transaction is not lawful unless the price and the mode of payment are clearly set forth. A sale is not consummated until the buyer has taken actual delivery of the object he has bought. And he may not re-sell it until after it has reached his premises and come into his possession. A man may not sell “fish or birds” that are still to be caught; nor fruit on a tree that is unripe.

Let us imagine a case for purposes of illustration. “Jamali” calls “Kamali” on the telephone and decides to buy from him a hundred bales of cotton of a certain standardized quality at two dollars per bale. He then calls “Haleema” and makes a deal to sell her the same cotton at three dollars per bale. He then calls Kamali and asks him to deliver the cotton (which he had initially contracted to buy) at Haleema’s warehouse. He has made three telephone calls and earned one hundred dollars without actually meeting either Kamali or Haleema and without going through the hassle of loading and unloading the product.

The shari’at says this whole exercise is unlawful. Further, it forbids all speculative buying and selling. What are the likely consequences of enforcing its disposition in this regard? Starting with a relatively minor thing, the ban on selling unripe fruit may have to be reconsidered because in our time, unlike the old days, a great deal of it is transported to distant markets and, if taken in a ripe state, it will simply rot on the way.

Contracts for work to be done over an extended period of time will become invalid: for instance, contracts to build homes, roads, and bridges; contracts to supply “fish and fruit” and all kinds of other foods to the army (among many others). The requirement that the object to be sold should be available for physical inspection in its entirety belongs to periods when the means of communication and transportation were still in a primitive stage, and when transactions had to be made through face-to-face encounters.

Most of the transactions currently made at stock exchanges, commodity exchanges, and financial markets will have to be forbidden. These are speculative deals made in anticipation of market trends. In the vast majority of cases the objects bought and sold-stocks, commodities, currencies-are never physically transferred and delivered. Brokers receive directions on the telephone, make book entries, and credit or debit the customer’s account according to the movement up or down of the relevant prices.

The shari’at disapproves of speculative buying and selling because of the risk arising from the uncertainty that surrounds the transaction. It would be great if uncertainty could be taken out of our lives. But that cannot be. A more feasible objective would be to minimize the element of uncertainty as much as possible. The issues for the “mujtahids” of our day to consider may then be as follows: (1) Would the outright abolition of stock exchanges have a crippling effect on our economy? (2) Can buying and selling in the stock market be made “real” so that the object of the transaction does physically change hands?

The Quran forbids usury. Nothing will be gained by attempting to establish a distinction between usury and interest. The majority of our jurists hold that the two are the same in the eyes of the law. What is then to be done? Living in the so-called “global village,” and functioning in a deeply inter-dependent world economy, there is no way we can abolish interest unless the rest of the world does the same, which it has no intention of doing in the foreseeable future. There is no doubt that even the Saudis collect interest on the funds they keep in American and other banks.

Interest on borrowings and bank deposits is not a fit subject for “ijtihad,” because the injunction against it is loud and clear. But it is a fit subject for the application of the law of necessity which the Quran recognizes, and which our medieval jurists have reaffirmed. Our judges have invoked this law only for legitimizing usurpers of political authority. The “necessity” of condoning interest is manifestly greater than that of legalizing a military coup. It would be in the fitness of things for the ulema and our legislators to declare that interest may be tolerated as an unavoidable evil.

The shari’at has a good deal to say about taxation and distribution, and I hope to address these issues next week.

The writer is professor emeritus of political science at the University of Massachusetts at Amherst, USA.

E-mail: syed.anwar@comcast.com

PM’s principles, people’s issues

THE chief reason, and perhaps the only one, for the current drift in Pakistan’s politics is that it is conducted by leaders who are either provincial or parochial or retired generals.

It is true irrespective of the party to which they belong and whether they support the government or oppose it.

Anyone would be hard put to name a leader out of the active lot who is recognized and trusted across the country. More than the lack of democracy or its present freakish variation, it is thus a leadership without a national outlook or mass appeal which is to be blamed for the misfortunes of the country.

The successive “saviours” of the nation or its ideologues have been banishing or jailing dissenters and mavericks to avoid challenge to their power or creed. They chose political cronies to hang around but preferred to share power, or their thoughts, with the army and civil bureaucracy. In the process their own calibre and credibility took a beating.

Now, with the back of the bureaucracy broken and Musharraf’s BNR (Bureau of National Reconstruction) having taken democracy to the grassroots, politics is descending to the districts where the jobs and funds lie rather than move up to the national plane where the laws and policies are made. After all, by now it is axiomatic that all politics is local and about patronage.

The descent of politics from the national to the local level shows itself in many absurdities and contradictions in what our leaders say or do every day. Kashmir as a long festering problem and the recent killings of Shias at prayer in Quetta may be taken up as two tragic examples to back this rather severe indictment.

First, the prime minister himself — on Kashmir. Answering a question in BBC’s Question-time Pakistan, Zafarullah Jamali sounded both profound and mystical in propounding that negotiations with India will be on the issues relating to Kashmir but not on its principle. That leaves a man of mean intelligence guessing about the difference between a principle and an issue and what the prime minister really wished to convey to his own people, to India and to the rest of the world.

For Pakistan the principle is that the accession of Kashmir either to India or Pakistan through a fair and impartial plebiscite as envisaged in the UN resolutions of 1948 is yet to be decided. Thus, if plebiscite is the principle the issues to be negotiated with India are how quickly and impartially can it be held in the whole state as it was under the Dogra rule and British suzerainty. Would it be practicable or otherwise make sense in the context of the argument and agony spread over the past 55 years, and the geographical and demographic changes the territory has undergone since then?

The fact of the matter is that by suggesting mediation, indeed pressing for it, Pakistan has already conceded that plebiscite is no longer a feasible or possible proposition. The principle of it remains alive only in rhetoric at the hustings or lies buried in the archives of the United Nations. Any mediator will make his own determination about what is achievable and equitable in today’s circumstances.

Our prime minister needs to be reminded of what by now is accepted and practised by his counterparts in other lands: individuals have principles, nations have only interests. The interest of Pakistan as also of the people of Kashmir and of the 140 million Muslims of India, if not all of its population, lies in the resolution of the dispute and not in its smouldering to burn or decay one day. The people of Kashmir should not be condemned to live forever under the shadow of bayonets and the people of India and Pakistan in fear of war.

As interests are the determinant of state policy, principles are a politician’s choice for his conduct. Mr Jamali should be content if his friends, foes and the people at large agree that his own principles embedded in liberal thought and a sense of justice aren’t reduced to a mere question of his becoming the prime minister. On that count, the indications are that he would find little assurance.

Now, on to another subject and the principles of another set of leaders. The opponents of General Musharraf hold that he had no right to amend the Constitution. Their opposition is to the principle of it, the authority given to him by the Supreme Court notwithstanding. Whether the amendments made are for the good of the people and stability of the government is also not material. But these very objectors to the amendments in principle are quite willing to accept that part of the LFO which suits them, acquiesce in another part but reject yet another.

The most vociferous among the opponents — the religious alliance — are glad to benefit by the increase in the number of seats and the conditions which kept the established leaders out of the elections and enabled more of them to come in. They do not object to the presidential protection to the local councils (district governments) because they dominate them though it is a provincial subject. Their objection is now confined to the National Security Council, the president concurrently remaining the army chief and his power to dissolve the National Assembly.

The principle they espouse is that the Constitution can be amended only by the parliament following the procedure laid down in the Constitution itself. The only way to demonstrate adherence to this principle is to demand scrapping of the LFO in full and holding elections afresh. Conversely, the principle the prime minister and his ministers assert is that the Chief Executive (now president) was empowered by the Supreme Court to amend the Constitution and the LFO would make the country more democratic and stable.

Yet they are eager to bargain with the opposition for their own survival in power but not with India for the safety of the country and the prosperity of its people. It should be the other way round — in keeping, or losing, their own office they should stick to the principle that the Constitution stands validly amended; in negotiating on Kashmir the national interest should be the principal determinant.

The reaction of the leadership to the Quetta carnage has been predictably trite. The prime minister neither informed the people nor comforted the aggrieved by remarking that the incident was pre-planned and foreign hand could be behind it. Maulana Fazlur Rahman thinks only perverse minds would blame the religious parties for it. The surprised governor of the province thinks it is a message — by whom and for whom he doesn’t elaborate. The interior minister says he wouldn’t allow anyone to take law in his own hands, as if they would ask for his permission in the future. Of all the people Meraj Mohammad Khan also sees a Zionist plot in it.

But it was left to the imagination of the government spokesman and minister, Sheikh Rashid, to connect the Quetta mass murderers with the unarmed youth who raided Pakistan’s embassy in Kabul last Tuesday. The Quetta incident indeed must be investigated against the background of continuing turmoil in Afghanistan for the victims were all ethnic Hazaras and Shias. The Hazaras were ruthlessly persecuted by the Taliban. Their mass grave was discovered in their home plateau of Bamyian after the Taliban were ousted from power. Though forming one-fifth of the population, it is for the first time that Hazaras (they are all devout Shias) have got a share in the government in Kabul.

The two mass murders of Hazaras in Quetta in quick succession (eleven constabulary recruits were shot dead barely a month before the bigger mosque massacre) could be the result of their blood feud with the Pakhtoons. Hazaras, the underdogs of history, are now among the rulers in Kabul and Taliban, once the ruling Pushtun class, are now on the run. The tribal loyalties as well as feuds cut across the Pak-Afghan frontier. But it would be irresponsible to hastily suggest that some elements in the government in Kabul were involved in the crime.

Pakistan is staking its own peace and resources to exterminate the rebels against Karzai. If Sheikh Rashid is right in his suspicion, all our aid and intelligence has made the Afghans only our enemies once again. Perhaps for once the “agencies” and Sh Rashid should let the foreign office conduct our relations with Afghanistan as it does with every other country.

Whoever is found responsible for the two massacres of Hazaras, the essential truth must be emphasized that the state policies which promote sectarianism are bound to lead to sectarian violence. No vigilance or punitive action can alter that fact. Lastly, a sad thought. In the trauma over the Quetta crime the murder of priest George Ibrahim in Punjab went unmourned. The death of just one man and that too of a Christian is not enough to jolt the conscience of the people or the power of the rulers.

A transparent decision ?

BOTH Dawn and the Business Recorder carried the same news item on July 4, under different headings — ‘PS signs deal with Indian firm’ (Dawn) and ‘Indian firm to supply iron ore to Pak Steel’ (BR): “... The evaluation of offers and considerations were spread over a period of 24 months and finally the transparent decision to award contracts based on lowest price and recommendations of the PNC (price negotiation committee) was taken by the competent authority....”

This message was apparently transmitted by the contract winners (we will call them ‘A’) and referred to the contentious appraisal of nine offers. Two of the bidders concerned, the losers, (whom we will call ‘B’ and ‘C’) are now challenging the decision.

The qualifying word ‘transparent’ inevitably is used when matters are anything but transparent, and the ambiguous designation ‘competent authority’ is usually used when an authority is far from competent and does not wish to be pinpointed.

The affairs of Pakistan Steel Mill are ostensibly managed by a board of directors comprising the PSM chairman, Lt Colonel Afzal Khan, and other members nominated by the government, amongst whom the armed forces are well represented: Air Marshal Shahid Hamid (DG, Air Weapons Complex, Wah), Vice-Admiral Taj Muhammad Khattak (chairman, Port Qasim), Sajid Hassan (additional secretary, ministry of finance), Muhammad Ramzan Bhatti (member, CBR), Syed Ali Raza (president, NBP), Tariq Kirmani (MD, PSO), Tariq Rehman (MD, EMCO), Abdul Hafeez Choudhry (joint secretary, ministry industries and production), Khalid Amin Qureshi (joint secretary, ministry of industries and production), Ejaz Ali Pirzada (director, finance PSM).

PSM is one of the charges of our ministry of industries and production, under its minister Liaquat Jatoi. Jatoi is a malleable man, who way back in 1990 was found suitable to be a provincial minister by none other than the notoriously corrupt absconder, Jam Sadiq Ali (brought back from exile by Ghulam Ishaq Khan to be his chief minister in Sindh). Jatoi survived Jam, but when Benazir Bhutto returned to power in autumn 1993 with her chief minister, Abdullah Shah, Jatoi, with multiple corruption cases filed against him, decided it was time to vamoose and boarded a dhow for Dubai. He lived there in style, in his chosen self-exile, until Benazir was dismissed for the second time. He has now been politically resurrected and rehabilitated by the white-washed Chaudhry Shujaat Husain and appointed minister.

The secretary in Jatoi’s ministry at the time of the 2003 Steel Mill scam was engineer doctor Akram Sheikh, a government servant who had previously served as the managing director of the Heavy Mechanical Complex at Taxila, as managing director of Pakistan Steel, and as secretary Ministry of Communications. He retired on June 13 2003 and is now executive director of the Higher Education Commission and chairman of the Pakistan Engineering Council.

The PSM chairman, Lt Colonel Mohammad Afzal Khan, a retired ‘gunner’ of the Pakistan Army, joined PSM in the mid-1980s. In 1987, when general manager Security (Watch & Ward), an FIR (No.03/87 Bin Qasim PS) was lodged against him for his alleged involvement in the murder of a PSM employee, Hafiz Chandio, and he was sacked. He was reinstalled, with the help of ‘friends’, in 1989 and posted as the PSM general manager in Lahore. He returned to Karachi in 1994 as acting director, marketing, and in June 1995 was dismissed for the second time, charged with corruption and favouritism. Again, his ‘friends’, in high places and the lowly dealers’ mafia brought him back to the Mill.

He lasted until March 1996 when for the third time he was sacked having been found guilty of massive corruption and misuse of power. FIR 01/97 was registered against him in January 1997 by the FIA on the charge of misuse of his official position and the deliberate sale of finished products to bogus dealers using fictitious documents. (Also cited in the FIR was a PSM dealer, Chaudhry Abdul Razzak whose daughter was married to Colonel Khan’s son in 1999.)

In 1998, Khan wangled not only another reinstatement in PSM but also an elevation to the post of managing director, and the following year he was appointed chairman.

These facts were related by The Herald, in its issue of September 2001. In the November issue Colonel Khan came out with his defence, pleading that he had always been a ‘symbol of accountability’ and ‘had sacrificed his career three times guarding the interests of Pakistan Steel, every time without any inquiry, charge sheet, show cause notice, explanation or personal hearing.’ Colonel Khan’s term expired on June 30 2002. He sought an extension of his contract, Minister Jatoi recommended that he be given a further two years, and Prime Minister Jamali confirmed that he be allowed to continue with PSM until December 2004.

Back now to the Dawn news item. The iron ore supply contract signed in August 1997 expired on August 31 2002. At PSM’s request it was extended up to November 30 2002, then to March 31, 2003, and finally up to June 30, 2003.

For the ore contract for the next five years (2003-2008) suppliers were asked on November 9, 2001, to prequalify. The prequalified suppliers submitted their bids by November 25, 2002, which bids were computer-evaluated by the PSM Price Negotiation Committee chaired by Chairman Afzal Khan. All the bidders were called for negotiations on February 6, 2003.

After the negotiations were completed the negotiated bids were again computer-evaluated on February 7 and again on February 26, 2003. Six bidders, amongst which were ‘B’ and ‘C’, were short-listed. ‘A’ was not on the short list, not one of the chosen six.

Then, suddenly after office hours on March 9, a Friday, the goal posts were moved. The criteria for evaluation were changed without consulting the PNC members. Faxes were sent to the bidders abroad. The weekend closure (Saturday and Sunday) and different time zones were not taken into consideration. The bidders were asked to respond by the evening (PST) of Monday March 12. Not even one full working day was allowed to reconsider bids worth around $150 million. Why? To accommodate ‘A’? The bidders complained to the to the minister, to his secretary, and even to the prime minister, who directed minister Jatoi to hold an inquiry. Jatoi thereupon appointed a committee on June 2 comprising: the retired Major-General Mohammad Mohsin, chairman, National Fertilizer Corporation, Zahid Hussain, chairman PIDC, his ministry’s joint secretary, Mohammad Hasan Zaidi, and deputy secretary, Ilyas Dar.

The committee called and questioned all concerned. — including the complaining PNC members, PSM officers, and bidders ‘A’, ‘B’ and ‘C’. Distressed, they wrote a 50-page report recommending that offers received be scrapped and bids re-invited. Other options were also suggested.

The report arrived at the desk of engineer doctor secretary on June 12 with which he agreed. He accepted that there had been serious lapses on the part of PSM, that all was not right, all was not well, but a bureaucrat to his finger tips, the next day he advised the minister to send the report to the PSM board, and that same day retired in full glory from the government he had so well served.

The minister did not follow his secretary’s recommendation. He did not send the report to the Board, but sat on it for eleven days. On June 24, 2002, he ordered PSM to fax the existing suppliers:

Pakistan Steel intends to extend the validity of current FOB Contract further for the period up to June 30, 2004, on the same terms and conditions of contract dated 1.9.1997. (Your) confirmation in this regard must reach us positively by June 26, 2003.”

Two out of the three regretfully expressed their inability to supply, and the contract was signed with ‘A’ on July 2, 2003. ‘B’ and ‘C’ have requested the prime minister for a review.

Apart from the impropriety, the nation stands to lose heavily both in cash and in kind. However, it is never too late — the situation can yet be salvaged. This nation is internationally deemed to be corrupt. Such is our destiny — we were born to be corrupt, and yet we persevere in ‘demanding’ accountability. If this government adheres to the norm, it will keep its mouth firmly shut.

Our deeply flawed Afghan policy

THE ransacking by angry Afghan mobs of the Pakistan embassy in Kabul last Tuesday is a stark reminder of the fragile nature of Pak-Afghan relations. Reports from Kandahar about continuing anti-Pakistan protests over the weekend show things may get even worse.

Earlier this month, tensions had risen after a deadly bomb attack on a mosque in Kandahar by Taliban remnants and the slaying of over 40 Shiites in a Quetta imambargah that we swiftly blamed on the “foreign hand” — a thinly disguised reference to Kabul. The current row was apparently triggered by Pakistan’s decision in late June to deploy army troops in Mohmand agency ostensibly to prevent fleeing Taliban and Al Qaeda militants from crossing over into Pakistan to launch cross-border attacks.

That led an exuberant General Musharraf to claim that Pakistan had established its writ in the tribal areas for the first time in 50 years. Afghan provincial authorities in eastern Nangarhar and Kunar provinces were not amused, swiftly alleging that Pakistani troops had crossed into Afghan territory and established several border posts. While the Pak-Afghan border remains poorly demarcated and contested by both sides, these alleged incursions sparked exchanges of fire between Afghan and Pakistani forces, killing soldiers on both sides.

Matters took a turn for the worse when Musharraf publicly questioned the extent of Afghan President Hamid Karzai’s authority across Afghanistan, chiding him for the unrepresentative nature of the Afghan government. In response, the Afghan foreign ministry reportedly lodged a complaint with Pakistan over “armed intervention and provocations” along the border and over Musharraf’s remarks.

Karzai too retorted with strong words, “Afghanistan does not interfere in anyone’s affairs and neither does it want others’ interference in its affairs... Musharraf’s statements are a matter of sadness and regret for me.” Protests by angry Kabul residents against Pakistan’s alleged border intrusions followed Karzai’s rebuff.

Analysts have blamed the deterioration in bilateral relations on the recent border clashes. While the border flare-up was a contributing factor, tensions between the two sides have been simmering for quite some time. Afghan officials have openly blamed Pakistan for providing sanctuary to remnants of the Taliban. When President Karzai came to Islamabad last April, he had handed over a list of Taliban suspects believed to be hiding in Pakistan. Just days prior to Karzai’s visit, the Bush administration had dispatched presidential envoy Zalmay Khalilzad with a new brief to Islamabad. While American military commanders in Afghanistan had long complained about Islamabad’s complicity in the resurgence of the Taliban, Washington was willing to turn a blind eye as long as Pakistan delivered on Al Qaeda.

But as Washington’s attention shifted to Iraq and the Middle East, a reinvented Taliban/Hekmatyar alliance began to mount a concerted guerilla campaign against US and Afghan troops. With this new pattern of attacks on coalition forces threatening to destabilize the Afghan interim administration, Washington decided to change gears. Khalilzad conveyed to senior Pakistani officials in no uncertain terms Washington’s desire to see an immediate end to Islamabad’s alleged support to the Taliban.

Why did our establishment continue to play with fire? With a large Pakhtoon population of its own, Pakistan has legitimate economic, political and strategic interests in Afghanistan with which it shares a border of some 2,400 kms. A key irritant in bilateral relations since 1947 has been the refusal of successive Afghan governments to accept the Durand Line as an international border.

Beginning in the early 1970s, Islamabad sought to offset Kabul’s irredentist territorial claims and dampen Pakhtoon nationalist sentiments by supporting Islamic extremists inside Afghanistan. After the Soviet withdrawal, Pakistan’s Afghan policy centred on support for Gulbadin Hekmatyar as a legitimate Pashtun successor to central power. When Hekmatyar failed to deliver, Pakistan swiftly found an alternative in the Taliban.

The fall of the Taliban left Pakistan in the lurch. With the traditionally pro-India, Shurae Nazar Tajiks controlling the central government in Kabul, the prospect of using its long border and deep ethnic links to regain a strategic foothold in Afghanistan proved too tempting for Islamabad to forego. Since it could not openly antagonize Washington by supporting anti-Kabul elements, it adopted a two-pronged strategy. Lending verbal and material support to the Americans, it continued to cultivate and harbour Taliban and other Pashtun power brokers.

Pashtun discontent over their marginalization in the past Taliban power structures obviously helped its cause. India’s growing influence with the Panjsheri ruling clique in Kabul gave Islamabad added incentive to reactivate support to its Pashtun clients. The last straw was Kabul’s decision to allow India to set up its consulates in key strategic border cities in eastern and southern Afghanistan close to Pakistan. Reports that New Delhi was extending assistance in policing and intelligence tasks could not have come at a worse time. With trade talks between Islamabad and Kabul dragging on, India also began to reap the benefits of its emerging strategic partnership with Tehran through Herat, West Asia’s new nerve centre of trade and smuggling. Taking this alliance a step further, India and Iran are now co-funding the construction of a road through Iran and north-western Afghanistan to complete a sea route between Central Asia and Indian ports.

But all of Pakistan’s genuine concerns put together do not justify its treatment of our western neighbour as a colonial outpost. There is much truth in what Musharraf had to say about the dangerous power vacuum in Afghanistan. But it is neither his business to castigate the president of a neighbouring country, nor does it serve any purpose. What it does is fuel tensions and further undermine the already shaky credibility of moderate Pashtun leaders like Karzai. That plays straight into the hands of New Delhi and its allies in Kabul.

All is still not lost. Islamabad needs to redress the security-obsessed nature of its engagement with Kabul. The need is also to counter Indian threats to its legitimate interests inside Afghanistan with the geographical and economic advantages it enjoys over its eastern neighbour. Before putting all our eggs in one basket once again, we should step back in time and assess the fallout of the disastrous pursuit of that elusive ‘strategic depth’.

By supporting the Taliban, Pakistan had singlehandedly managed to annoy Russia, China and even Iran. By pursuing a lopsided policy of establishing Pashtun fundamentalist hegemony inside their country, it had all but alienated even the potentially sympathetic elements inside Afghanistan.

The only real threat to our national security on the western front is an unstable Afghanistan. Our abiding (image and) role as the sponsor of the Taliban is hardly an attenuating factor. But it seems that we are not a nation good at learning from past mistakes or adapting to changing circumstances. Perhaps that is why the broadening of trade and commercial ties has been put on the back burner. Perhaps that is why the establishment is foolishly rehashing the Taliban in the hope of securing an ultimate strategic bargaining chip in Afghanistan. As in the past, this fatally mistaken policy is likely to come and haunt us sooner or later.

The writer is a political analyst based in Islamabad

Bush’s trip to Africa

PERHAPS wisely, President Bush’s trip to Africa this week began from Senegal, a country that has made great political and economic progress in recent years, and includes Botswana, the fastest-growing developing country in the world, as well as South Africa and Nigeria, two regional powerhouses. By visiting African success stories

— including Uganda, another country that has made progress _ the president will force the world to focus, at least momentarily, on some of the good news coming from the continent, a laudable goal.

But the bad news will be hard to avoid. For the president will also be travelling near Sudan, Liberia and Congo, sites of horrific conflicts. In South Africa, Botswana and Uganda, he will be at the centre of the AIDS crisis. Everywhere, he will encounter leaders of countries where infant mortality is high and curable diseases are still rampant.

Three sets of issues should therefore concern Mr. Bush: security, economic development and health. In all three, his administration has lately been active, but the strength and endurance of its commitment remain questionable.

In recent months, it helped push a bill through Congress authorizing $15 billion to be spent on AIDS and HIV internationally over the next five years. The Millennium Challenge Fund, if it gets off the ground, may encourage some of the better-governed countries in Africa to become more so.

The administration also helped negotiate behind the scenes in Congo and called for money to help African nations work jointly on peacekeeping and against terrorism.

—The Washington Post