| 16 April 2004 | Friday | 25 Safar 1425 |
Bulldozing the NSC bill
Vacating Bala Hissar
By supporting Mr Ariel Sharon's Gaza plan, President George Bush has repudiated several decades of American policy on the Arab-Israeli conflict. Washington now officially supports the usurpation of more Palestinian land by the Israelis.
After a meeting with the Israeli prime minister at the White House on Wednesday, Mr Bush scuttled previous US administration policy by declaring that Israel might retain "some" Palestinian land.
This means that the Bush administration now supports Mr Sharon's sinister plan that provides for the pullout of Jewish settlers from the Gaza Strip and their rehabilitation in larger West Bank settlements.
Till then the American position on the Sharon plan was that it should be considered an interim step that would not clash with the US-backed roadmap. But, at Wednesday's press conference, the president said one had to take note of "new realities on the ground".
This was a reference to the illegal settlements successive Israeli governments have built in the West Bank, especially around Al Quds, so as to surround the holy city with Jewish population centres.
Already, Israel comprises 78 per cent of the Turkish sanjak of Palestine as it existed in 1917 when Britain occupied it. The remaining 22 per cent consists of the Gaza strip and the West Bank which have been under Israeli occupation since 1967.
Over the years there have been some terrible events - the 1973 Ramazan war and the two intifadas - spilling a lot of blood. But Israel seems determined to retain the Palestinian lands, no matter what it costs in terms of blood, strife, and instability in the Middle East.
A visionary American president, Jimmy Carter, and two Arab and Israeli leaders - Anwar Saadat and Yitzhak Rabin - had the wisdom to bury the hatchet and sign what President Bill Clinton called "the peace of the brave". But, following Mr Rabin's murder, successive Israeli governments have sabotaged the Oslo peace process.
Hopes were aroused when President Bush last April unveiled the roadmap - supported also by Russia, the EU and UN - which visualized a total Israeli withdrawal from the occupied territories and the emergence of a sovereign Palestinian state in 2005.
The roadmap called for a halt to settlements activity and stipulated disbanding of those which came into being after March 2001. But Mr Sharon has continued to build new settlements and strengthen and expand the existing ones. All along, the Bush administration did nothing to dissuade Israel from these illegalities.
Now, with the latest bombshell, Mr Bush has knocked the bottom out of the very roadmap he himself had presented a year ago. At the White House on Wednesday, Mr Bush justified Israel's violations of the roadmap by saying the final settlement would not involve return to the 1949 armistice line because of the "existing major Israeli population centres". In other words, the US has already underwritten Israel's annexation of parts of the West Bank.
The Bush government has outdone all previous US administrations in kowtowing to the Zionists. It was at Mr Sharon's behest that the US began undermining President Yasser Arafat's leadership.
Egged on by Tel Aviv, Washington began making extraneous demands like the need for reforms in the Palestinian Authority, thus side tracking the real issue - the need for Israel to withdraw from the occupied territories so that the Palestinians could live in freedom and peace in their own land. The latest shift in US policy is a blow to hopes for peace in the Middle East.
Bulldozing the NSC bill
The Senate's hurried passage on Tuesday of the bill calling for the creation of a National Security Council is astounding. The Treasury members passed the bill by a majority vote within three minutes, and that too in the absence of the opposition members who had walked out of the house over an unrelated issue.
The very need for establishing the NSC, as proposed under the 17th Constitutional Amendment and as part of the Legal Framework Order, remains intensely controversial. The bill's passage now without a debate being allowed on its contentious provisions in either house of parliament makes the whole exercise highly questionable.
Given the safe majority the government has in both houses, one wonders why the process had to be rushed through without giving the opposition a fair chance to make its viewpoint on the issue officially known and recorded.
The ruling party's conduct of the whole affair smacks of the dubious methods and practices often followed by despotic or similarly inclined governments, bulldozing constitutional amendments without so much as the formality of a preliminary debate.
In this particular case, it is all the more regrettable because the new law, for the first time, assigns the military an important constitutional role in policymaking and governance.
Turkey - besides India, Israel and the US - is the only other country that has an NSC that gives its serving generals an important say in national policymaking. The NSCs in other countries are totally subservient to democratic institutions.
Their role is strictly restricted to offering advice, only as and when asked for by the chief executive on national security matters which are clearly defined. The danger in Pakistan's case is that our Constitution is silent on what constitutes a threat to national security and what does not.
This leaves too much to the discretion of the generals who have traditionally played a dominant role in deciding the policies and fate of governments. One wishes there were an open debate on this critical issue at a time when the country is still plodding its way through the uncertain course of a democratic transition.
Vacating Bala Hissar
The report that the Frontier Corps will vacate the historic Bala Hissar fort situated in the heart of Peshawar is welcome news because this means that this precious piece of cultural heritage will hopefully be opened to the general public for visits.
Built by Mughal emperor Babur between 1526 and 1530, the fort was destroyed in a war soon after, only to be rebuilt by Humayun. It then came under the control of the British after the annexation of Afghanistan in 1849. After independence it passed over to the Pakistan Army.
Since then, it has been the headquarters of the Frontier Corps, a paramilitary arm of the army. The decision to vacate the fort had been taken quite some time ago but bureaucratic red tape delayed the vacation. In the end the president had to step in to speed up the process.
Attock Fort is another example of a Mughal-era structure in use of the armed forces. There may be other equally important historical buildings which have been given over to some government agencies for occupation.
These too must be vacated soon. In this we need to follow the example of other civilized countries, where buildings meant to house schools or colleges are not handed over to one government agency or other to occupy.
As far as historically significant buildings are concerned, these should be preserved and kept open for the public to visit so as to create an awareness of the country's history and culture.
Provincial governments should draw up a list of all such structures which are now being used to house government offices or agencies so that they can be vacated, protected and preserved.