| December 5, 2003 | Friday | Shawwal 10, 1424 |
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A wrong move
PCB: change of command
THE report submitted recently to the Security Council by officials representing its five permanent members should serve to dispel the misgivings created by the Karzai government against Pakistan. The report, drafted after a fact-finding mission visited Kabul, finds no evidence of Pakistan’s interference in Afghanistan’s affairs. Not only that, it considered Pakistan’s role in that country satisfactory. This is in contrast to the charges being hurled against this country by Kabul. President Hamid Karzai himself and his foreign minister, Dr Abdullah Abdullah, have been foremost in vitiating the atmosphere by levelling baseless allegations against Pakistan. Specifically, both have accused Islamabad of aiding and abetting the Taliban in their violent acts.
No doubt, the Taliban have managed to come out of the shock of the loss of their power after the US-led attack in 2001. Between then and now, they have quietly managed to regroup in a small way and have resumed their anti-government activities. Several factors have helped them. One is the sympathy they enjoy in certain sections of Pakhtoon tribesmen on both sides of the Durand Line. Another is the difficult terrain of the area. The more than 3,000-kilometre-long border is mountainous and provides an excellent hiding place for guerrillas. Thus, even the most well-equipped security force would not find it easy to seal off the entire border. However, the most important factor that helps the Taliban is Afghanistan’s internal condition.
While it is wrong to say that the Karzai government is weak, the truth is that it has not been able to control the country side. Warlordism is as old as Afghanistan, but the monarchy used to keep the tribes pacified by giving the warlords a sense of participation in the central government. This policy of appeasement may have provided a modicum of peace and stability, with the monarchy running the country as a tribal confederacy. But Afghan society has since been badly fractured by long years of civil war, and such a policy is no longer valid.
In the north, Uzbek warlord Rashid Dostum maintains a powerful militia and does not even bother to come to Kabul, even though he is a cabinet minister. A plan exists for disarming all militias, but this is a difficult task. The exact strength of the militias is not known, although the number of troops they command is said to vary between a maximum of half a million and a minimum of 100,000. More important, the new Afghan army being raised by Kabul is still small and may not be in a position to take on the militias. As for the Nato-led International Assistance Security Force, it has gone out of Kabul in a small way but has a long way to cover. No wonder, in this situation, the Taliban manage to flex their muscles.
The challenge before the Karzai government is to bring the warlords under control by political rather than military means. Cooperation with Pakistan on intelligence matters should be of obvious advantage: greater coordination between security officials on both sides will prove far more effective than baseless allegations of interference against Pakistan. This country has been a victim of terrorism and has suffered a great deal on account of religious extremism. Islamabad can thus only wish to see conditions of peace restored in Afghanistan, because peace and tranquillity in that country are in Pakistan’s own interest.
THE Pakistan Atomic Energy Commission’s (PAEC) decision to renovate the Karachi Nuclear Power Plant (Kanupp) and make it operational by January 2004 is ill-advised and irrational. The 125-megawatt (MW) Kanupp facility was built by a Canadian firm in 1971 and has completed its operational life. To renovate it and resume operations is not advisable as the risks and costs of doing so far outweigh the benefits accruing from the plant. Even during its 30 years of its operation, the plant’s performance was erratic and its output remained below capacity for most of its life. Having completed its productive life, the plant now deserves to be scrapped. Instead, the management of the PAEC announced last month that the plant would become operational from next year after renovation and replacement work has been carried out. Experts say that the revived plant would be economically burdensome and risk-prone. There are fears that if the plant resumes work, radioactive leakage could possibly occur as the tubes in the plant are over three decades old and can rupture or break at any time, threatening people’s safety.
The very idea of restarting a 30-year-old nuclear power plant that has completed its shelf life is hard to accept. Also, the power the plant can produce is infinitesimal in terms of overall power production in the country. Both hydro-electric power and thermal power generation is safer, cheaper and more viable. Pakistan currently has an adequate power generation capacity. So the government, instead, needs to concentrate on line losses that stand at 25 per cent for Wapda and 40 per cent for the KESC. The internationally accepted level is under 10 per cent. Most of these losses are due to power theft as well as old and inefficient distribution lines. This is where the government should focus its attention as any decrease in line losses will more than cover the production capacity of Kanupp. Reviving a long moribund nuclear plant should be the least plausible consideration that should enter the calculation of our power planners.
THE departure of Lt Gen Tauqir Zia from the helm of the Pakistan Cricket Board brings to an end a chequered period in the fortunes of the country’s most passionately-followed and avidly-watched sport. The general’s four years as chairman of the PCB were, to say the least, laced with controversy. From the inclusion of his son in the national squad to the recent public spat between the coach and the chief selector, and then the dispute last week between PTV and a private channel, there was never really a time when the cricket board wasn’t in the spotlight. Under his tenure, the chief executive of the PCB and the chief selector both were allowed to work on the side as cricket commentators — a policy that did not go down well with many followers of the game.
However, in a country where every cricket follower believes he should have a say in the selection of the national team, the head of the PCB will never be able to satisfy everyone. To his credit, Gen Zia did lay the foundations for the future and many young cricketers, some quite promising, were introduced under his stewardship. The concept of a national cricket academy — used very successfully by the world’s best team, Australia — was introduced for the first time, in an effort to give some sort of structure and direction to searching out and nurturing raw cricketing talent found in abundance in the country. In addition, lucrative sponsorship contracts were signed, including a $43 million five-year broadcasting deal with a private TV channel. The president who happens to be the PCB patron will now decide whom to appoint as its new head. Keeping in mind the ups and downs of Pakistan cricket in the past four years, one hopes that the new chairman will be someone with a deep interest in and understanding of the game. It should be clear by now to everyone that running cricket is not necessarily a general’s cup of tea, not even in Pakistan, and is something that had better left to those professionally qualified for the job.