Pakistan in the limelight

It is now difficult to pick up a western newspaper or listen to a western news bulletin in which Pakistan does not figure either in the lead story or on the foreign news pages.

Whether it is the Dr. A.Q. Khan inspired network of underground nuclear proliferators, the President Bush proposals for curbing proliferation, the hunt for Osama bin Laden on the Pak-Afghan border, or, more positively the prospects for promoting Indo-Pakistan amity through talks or cricket, Pakistan has probably enjoyed or suffered, depending on the point of view, more column inches of coverage in the last couple of months than it did even during the immediate aftermath of 9/11.

The tone of the coverage, with the exception of the stories on Dr. Khan, has tended to be largely positive. Even the proliferation stories have not been wholly negative at least in so far as coverage of official statements has been concerned. P

akistan has been given credit, albeit grudgingly, for initiating actions that would prevent proliferation in the future even while questions have been raised about the past.

Realistically however one must recognize that as new details are unearthed about the activities of Khan's associates in Switzerland, Malaysia and elsewhere, this is a story that will not only continue to grab the headlines but will also draw attention to past wrong doings and to proposals, outlandish or otherwise, to impose international controls or supervision on Pakistan's nuclear programme.

Realistically one must also recognize that the actions taken by the Pakistan government against the Pakistani proliferators have been perceived as being no more than a slap on the wrist and that such forbearance has been prompted by the degree of public support that Dr. Khan continues to enjoy as the "father of the Pakistani Bomb".

There is an implicit question mark about whether this support, in the face of clear evidence of Khan's venality and irresponsibility, has not been galvanized by the forces of extremism. There is an implicit resurrection of earlier apprehensions about the prospect of Pakistan's nuclear capabilities coming under the control of such elements

The coverage of the efforts Pakistan has mounted in the tribal areas to comb out foreign extremist elements and to coordinate its activities with those undertaken by the Americans on the Afghan side of the border has been positive. The commander of American forces in Afghanistan has been forthright in his praise for Pakistan's resolute action.

He has backed away from his earlier claims that Osama would be captured by the end of the year emphasizing instead the continuing campaign against the Al Qaeda and the Taliban.

Other reports however maintain that the officials in Pakistan have confirmed that the CIA chief, George Tenet visited Pakistan a couple of weeks ago in the context of this campaign and the American need for Pakistani cooperation.

This confirmation gives credence to the report in the British tabloid, (the Daily Express), attributed to informed American sources that Osama, along with a band of hard core supporters, has been located by intelligence in an area that straddles the Pakistan-Afghan border.

It would not be unreasonable to presume that the intensified military activity by Pakistan in the tribal areas has been undertaken to ensure that as American forces move into this area (if it is in Afghanistan) Osama and his cohorts cannot escape into Pakistan or (if this area is in Pakistan's tribal area) that the tribals can be pressured into capturing and handing him over.

If he is captured, the boost to President Bush's election campaign will be immense. Cynics suggest that Bush's election campaign managers would be delighted if could be located, kept bottled up and then captured with a flourish closer to the November election date.

Much would be forgiven if Pakistan's cooperation brought about such a happy denouement. This is probably an unnecessarily cynical view. If he is found he will, I have no doubt, be captured immediately for fear that he would otherwise find some way to escape particularly given the number of ardent supporters he has among the Pakistani and Afghan extremists in the area.

Of course the principal preoccupation of Bush's political advisers will be with the impact Osama's apprehension will have on Bush's elections prospects but one can assume that in American foreign policy establishment there will be concern about the reaction of Pakistani extremists if he is captured by Pakistani forces and is then handed over, as foreign minister Kasuri has said he would be, to the Americans.

In drawing rooms in Pakistan, the chattering classes have no hesitation in offering the view that the extremists playing upon the prevalent anti American sentiment would be able to mount massive disruptive demonstrations, and perhaps more, if this were to happen. This is probably what the American embassy officials are hearing and reporting.

As regards Indo-Pakistan relations the agreement reached between the two foreign secretaries on the agenda for the "composite dialogue" and the time-table laid down for the various meetings has received positive coverage.

The decision to go ahead with the Indian cricket team's tour of Pakistan has however captured even greater attention and that perhaps is how it should be in cricket-crazy South Asia.

Some have said that the hesitation on the Indian side was prompted by the fear in the BJP that a defeat of the Indian team would adversely affect the BJP's election prospects.

This, it seems to me was unfair. The tour was a necessary ingredient, if one may so term it, of the BJP's campaign to push rapprochement with Pakistan as a BJP achievement and, given the Indian team's recent winning streak, there was a good chance that their performance in Pakistan would give a "sports" dimension to the BJP's "feel good" slogan for the election campaign.

There was however a concern for security particularly in Peshawar and Karachi. Cricket fans in Karachi are protesting against the fact that this premier city of Pakistan has been allotted only one one-day match while the three tests will all be played in Punjab but these protests will be in vain.

Despite PCB chairman Shahryar's valiant efforts both ends of the country, Peshawar and Karachi, have been deemed to be too "volatile" because of the extremists to permit a longer sojourn by the Indian team.

Perhaps he is not wrong in suggesting that securing Indian consent to play even one-day matches at these venues, was a major advance. One can even go along with the view that this agreement underlined the Indian desire to be as cooperative as possible.

The inescapable truth, however is that the tour schedule has served to bring into the limelight the volatility of the security situation in Pakistan and the inability of the Pakistani government to convince the world that these fears are exaggerated.

Why is this so? President Musharraf has appealed to the ulema and mashaikh to help eliminate extremism and sectarianism. He has talked of ridding Pakistan of foreign extremists.

This has been well, if somewhat sceptically, received. The fact of the matter is that alongside such exhortations appear reports that the extremist parties - banned parties - collected the majority of the hides (worth Rs. 720 million) of the animals sacrificed at Eid this year and that the government was powerless to prevent this even if there are well founded suspicions that the collection involved a measure of coercion.

The fact is that nothing has yet been done about the reform of the Madressahs nor has any concrete action been taken to revise laws that give primacy to an extreme interpretation of Islam.

Pakistan is no longer a pariah state. The spokesmen for the hyper-power and its allies have sought in the past couple of months to place the best possible interpretation on the actions Pakistan has taken and not to dwell on what contributed to the present difficulties.

But we should be under no illusions about the misgivings and doubts that such statements camouflage or gloss over. They exist and will surface in official statements with the same intensity as is visible in the media if long promised and long overdue corrective action is not taken.

It can be argued and rightly so that the government or, more accurately, President Musharraf, cannot afford, beleaguered as he already is, to open any more fronts.

But it can also be argued that much time has already been wasted and that his present difficulties have acquired their present dimension only because of past inaction.

President Musharraf is a man of courage. He has, in certain areas, done what was needed. He has earned himself the level of extremist enmity that has prompted repeated assassination attempts against him.

It seems that this has not deterred him from issuing verbal warnings but the question is whether it will spur him on to take the concrete and resolute action that is needed and that his more pusillanimous advisers may oppose.

Clearly a crackdown or even decisive moves in that direction will have to wait upon the completion of the Indian team's tour of the country and perhaps even upon the completion of the ongoing military operation in Waziristan.

The president and his team must however ensure that preparations are taken in hand for what needs to be done both administratively and by amending existing laws. It must also be made clear that the government will no longer be blackmailed by extremist forces.

In this context, a full operation has to be mounted to ensure sectarian peace during the forthcoming month of Muharram. Such peace should be enforced by the authorities and not bought by pandering to the sentiments of the extremists as has been done in the past when Muharram processions were banned or allowed to proceed only along extremist prescribed routes.

Draconian punishments should be sought from the courts, under well publicised existing laws, for any disturbance of the peace. This Muharram could be used by the government to repair the erosion of its authority and to serve notice of what it intends to achieve in the future.

The writer is a former foreign secretary of Pakistan.

A patwari replies

I have received a short letter from a patwari whom I shall call S.H., with a long narrative on the woes of his profession. "Sir", says the letter, "I have read your column 'Power of the Patwari.' Unfortunately I have been rotting in this department for six years. Believe me I have never taken a bribe nor given it. For decades you people have only been presented one side of the picture about us. Today I'll show you the other side. Now you decide whether we are oppressors or oppressed."

The narrative is four foolscap pages of closely written Urdu. I shall use his own words, try not to miss any salient point. By the way, S.H. is a double graduate. He begins with an event from the sixties.

"President Ayub Khan once came for shikar to the hills of Chakwal and was put up in Dohman dak bungalow. He was accompanied by a large retinue of ministers, army officers, bureaucrats and local bigwigs.

After the shikar the president and some 200 of his party had lunch of roast mutton, fried liver, chickens, partridges and many other delicacies. Later he decided to listen to the local problems. During this session an old man wailed that for some time the patwari had been exceeding his exactions and tormenting the villagers, and called for riddance from his tyranny.

"The president frowned angrily and looked at the commissioner who signalled to the DC who summoned the patwari to explain. On this a young man got up from the crowd and said he was the patwari and that whatever the old man had said was true. Ayub Khan was amazed at this boldness and asked him why he had been acting like that.

The mna said, 'Sir, this splendid feast of maunds of fine food cooked in desi ghee was arranged by me. Whatever is being spent on the shikar, all the facilities and comforts for you, are being paid for by me. I am not a rich man's son and couldn't afford them from my pocket, so I had to rely on my official domain to finance them.'

"There was a sensation and the officers were flabbergasted. In the pindrop silence someone shouted, 'The man is mad!' The patwari replied, 'No sir, I am not mad. I am saying all this with full responsibility.'

What happened afterwards is a long story of enquiries, but ultimately the matter had to be dropped. The man was Chaudhry Shah Nawaz who retired as girdawar and is still living.

But even now patwaris are subjected to the same old treatment, although they continue to play a very important and key role in the revenue administration of the government.

"Since day one the patwari is targeted for his alleged rapacity, and targeted so bitterly that in society he has become the symbol of contempt. In the print and electronic media he is presented as a despicable and nauseating character who thrives on cruel exploitation and has acquired an almost legendary reputation.

He is credited with power of life and death over the rural populace; that he can put a thousand acres at the disposal of whoever he pleases, or deprive anyone of whatever little land he possesses, and these fanciful charges are strengthened by numerous false examples.

To our misfortune none of us has studied beyond matriculation and, as a community, we have been unable to rebut these allegations, with the result that the layer of their dirt is getting thicker by the day.

"My own views about patwaris were the same before I accidentally joined the profession. That is why I made the solemn vow not to involve myself in corruption. I am not writing this to blow my own trumpet, but only to place before you the woes and tribulations of a patwari.

His job is complicated and highly technical, and he learns it in two years of very hard work. Placed in lowly Grade 5, is a field worker who carries a heavy burden of revenue record and walks miles with it every day in his patwar circle, to the tehsil office, the union council, or waits long hours outside a courtroom for his turn to give evidence.

Will you believe that he gets no TA or DA, unlike field assistants of other departments and ordinary police constables?

"The actual duty of the patwari is to keep the revenue record of his circle up-to-date, a highly professional job. But most of his time is spent in doing other chores on behalf of the government. He distributes atta for the food department (and makes up any shortages from his own pocket).

In my time I have distributed sugar among villagers. Then there is Eid duty, zakaat duty, checking voters' lists, providing audience for ministers' public meetings, and, worst of all, election duty in which he must convey election staff from one place to another, and arrange their board and lodging - all from his own pocket.

All other officials receive election allowance except the patwari who is made to spend thousands on this work. In short, if any government department wants anything done in any village he has to oblige, and suffer enquiries in case of any lapse.

"It is completely false to say that the patwari may do what he likes with the land record. The charge is based on ignorance of procedure. The register of landowners (haqdaraan-i-zameen), the jamabandi, is revised every four years.

Two copies of the new jamabandi are prepared. One remains with the patwari while the other becomes inaccessible to him when deposited in the district revenue office.

If he changes an iota in his own copy it carries no weight unless the same change is made in the other copy, whose entries are available to the public on demand.

"The authorities have never given a thought to the fact that whereas patwaris collect government revenue in crores their own salary is a meagre 3,500 rupees, plus of course the obloquy, disgrace and dishonour that are freely showered on them on the basis of a bad reputation.

Yes, they are also paid the princely amount of ten rupees per month for stationery! If you ever come across a patwari please do ask him how many chits he receives every month for reservation of a rest house for some officials, how much he spends on feeding them as long as they are in the rest house, and how they consider this as the right of state guests.

"Another problem. Except at rare locations there is no patwar-khana, and the patwari has to rent a place for his office. As you know, there are always two parties in a village, politically at loggerheads.

So if he hires a couple of rooms from one of them the other party thinks he has sold himself to the landlord. This is a constant worry, apart from the cruel reality that he travels on his own, pays the office rent himself, and incurs the enormous expenditure detailed above (on special duties, boarding and lodging of official guests, etc.).

How can he be expected to do all this and also feed his family honestly on 3,500 rupees a month?"

S.H. closes his narrative by suggesting some amelioration of the patwari's lot through designation of his job as a technical trade, provision of office premises, sanction of motor cycle advance on easy instalments, setting up of a government committee to look into public complaints against the patwari and the patwari's tale of woe about his service conditions. Maybe this will help, but what about his sullied reputation if all that he says is true? Who will remedy that?

NPT authors and proliferation

That of the 191 UN members, 186 have signed the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty since 1968 shows that the principle of nuclear disarmament has gained almost universal acceptance. India, Israel and Pakistan remain outside the ambit of the treaty and have consistently refused to submit to inspection of their nuclear installations by the IAEA. Nevertheless, they have offered to co-operate with that agency in preventing the spread of atomic weapons technology.

The international community sees little credibility in their assurances since they have developed their nuclear arsenals, and have been vying with one another in the production and testing of missiles which can carry nuclear warheads.

Among these, Israel with half the population of Karachi or Mumbai, was the first to develop nuclear capability, thanks to the French and later, American technical assistance in a bid to dominate the Middle East region.

Today, Israel owns an arsenal with nuclear bombs ranging from 200 to 400 according to the reckoning of the western intelligence sources. Until the conclusion of the NPT, there was no concept of non-proliferation of weapons technology but the states used to keep their new-newfangled weapons a closely guarded secret lest their leakage to adversary jeopardize their security.

It was precisely for this reason that the American nuclear scientists, Rosenbergs, were given death sentence. They had passed on the atomic weapons secret to the Soviets who using the recipe developed the bomb in 1949.

But the execution of Rosenbergs did not stop the spread of nuclear secret to France and China which developed the bomb in 1960 and 1964, respectively. Nor did Britain lag far behind.

Not content with the kind of weapon which could annihilate Hiroshima and Nagasaki, the five nuclear powers embarked upon the production of even deadlier generation of this weapon called hydrogen bomb and a matching delivery system of varying range so that no place on earth could escape its fatal impact.

They kept testing the efficacy of their bombs with the US testing them in Nevada and Alaska; Russia in Siberia, China in the Gobi desert; France until 1996 in Murora Atol in the Pacific, causing widespread contamination of the environment and ecology.

In 1986 the French navy sank the Green Peace Rainbow Warrior along with the crew who were monitoring the fall-out effect of the test explosions in the Pacific.

After completion of the serial testing of its nuclear weapons, France signed the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty and joined in the chorus that the nuclear upstarts submit to the diktat of the CTBT. Again India and Pakistan have defied calls by the international community to accede to the CTBT.

What prevents the two South Asian adversaries from signing the CTBT is the same that prevents them from signing the NPT. But the reason for each is different.

Islamabad's nuclear programme is India-specific since its reportedly forty bombs and their range are limited to the Indian territory, and could be used in case Pakistan's conventional defence collapses in the face of a massive Indian onslaught. Hence Pakistan's reluctance to embrace the no-first-strike doctrine. In this, India sees a real threat of automatic escalation of conventional to nuclear war.

Since India detonated its first nuclear device in May 1974, Pakistan has been pressing it to sign a bilateral, regional or global non-proliferation treaty but India has been outrightly rejecting its proposals on the ground that the non-proliferation issue is neither bilateral nor regional; it is global, therefore unless and until all the existing nuclear powers agree to dismantle their nuclear installations and destroy their arsenal and capability to produce nuclear weapons, India will not deweaponize itself unilaterally.

For New Delhi argues that India feels threatened not only by Pakistan but by others also, meaning China. In fact, the Indian Defence Minister George Fernandes once called the People's Republic of China India's enemy number one. And given the long-running Sino-Indian territorial dispute in the northeast and northwest, they both have reason to see each other as adversaries.

India's panoply of nuclear arms aims at Pakistan and China but the advanced Agni can hit Lebanon if fired from bases in Gujrat and Indonesia if delivered from the naval base of Andaman and Nicobar.

It may also reach India's friend and ally, the Russian Federation. This means that India has ambition to become a global power equal to the big-five in whose exclusive club it wants to force its entry.

After all, India has been desperately seeking entry into the Security Council as a permanent member armed with veto power.

In this respect, the United States and the former Soviet Union have encouraged and even assisted India in attaining the power status equal to that of China.

In other words, they helped India covertly to develop nuclear capability to serve as a countervailing force vis-a-vis the People's Republic of China. It is no secret that the Americans allowed Israel to sell to New Delhi important components of nuclear arms development it had stolen from the US.

It, doubtless, is a criminal act of proliferation of nuclear weapons technology which was never investigated. The American CIA had sent a real photographs of an under-construction nuclear facility at Dimona in the Negev desert to President Eisenhower, but the information was ignored and no action was taken despite reminders by the Agency.

Later, the pilferage of weapons-grade plutonium from a Pennsylvania laboratory, too, merited no attention. Furthermore, the Sunday Times in its issue of February 5, 1986, published the statement of Israel's nuclear engineer, Vanunu, disclosing that Israel had surreptitiously developed the capability to make 200 nuclear bombs in addition to hydrogen bomb and chemical weapons and was developing neutron bomb.

This was a revelation of the same proportion as the confession of Dr. Abdul Qadeer Khan but the nuclear watchdog, IAEA, and the authors of the NPT and CTBT, shut their eyes to Israel's clandestine activity.

Instead, Israel had Vanunu abducted from London and brought to Tel Aviv via Rome and had him sentenced to prison terms. Reason? Israel can do no wrong. It is common knowledge now that France supplied nuclear reactor and reprocessing plant to Israel while Norway provided heavy water and the US nuclear reactor and training to Israel's scientists. The big powers took no action to prevent Israel and the racist Pretoria regime from collaboration in nuclear weapons programme from 1967 to 1979.

In short, the western powers, in particular the US, have contributed substantially to the transfer of nuclear know-how, equipment, technology and training to Israel, India and the Pretoria regime on the one hand and branded Pakistan as the arch proliferator, selling technologies to Iran, Libya and Democratic People's Republic of Korea, on the other.

Though the three of them have denied having had any dealings with Dr. Qadeer and the named middleman, including two Pakistanis, one, a businessman and the other, a scientist, three Germans, one Dutch and one Sri Lankan based in Dubai.

The government of Pakistan took prompt action against the suspects, ignoring the nation-wide demand for judicial inquiry into the affair but it seems that George Bush is not satisfied with General Musharraf's decision and insists on tougher measures. It is feared that this could be a prelude to the imposition of American control on Pakistan's nuclear arsenal.

Instead of contemplating US control of Pakistan's arsenal, George Bush should pay heed to the advice of the IAEA Chief, Mohammed EL-Baradei to "abandon the unworkable notion that it is morally reprehensible for some countries to pursue weapons of mass destruction, yet morally acceptable for others to rely on them for security".

In one word: double standards. For Article VI of the NPT enjoins on the nuclear powers to initiate prompt negotiations aimed at nuclear disarmament simultaneously with general and complete disarmament of conventional weapons.

Thirty-four years have elapsed since but the disarmament still eludes us. On the contrary, the authors of the NPT are engaged in vertical proliferation of their genocidal weapons on the one hand, and threatening to disarm the fledgling nuclear powers on the other.

Pakistan today is caught in a predicament and the only way out is its accession to NPT so that it can rehabilitate its credentials as a responsible and law-abiding member of the international community.