| 23 April 2004 | Friday | 02 Rabi-ul-Awwal 1425 |
Riyadh bombing
Tree-felling must stop
Prime Minister Zafarullah Khan Jamali's views on plea bargaining seem to indicate the government's new thinking on corruption and accountability. Speaking at an international conference in Islamabad on the UN Convention against Corruption on Tuesday, the prime minister called arbitration "itself a part of corruption".
Arbitration is an accepted form of the legal process if it means an out-of-court settlement between parties. However, what the prime minister had in mind was plea bargaining. In principle, it is untenable.
It whitewashes corruption because the person accused of it avoids punishment by surrendering part of the loot. This way he dodges the stigma attached to a conviction. Since the military government launched its accountability drive, there have been cases in which politicians, high-profile public servants and businessmen profited from plea bargaining.
The most celebrated case is that of Admiral Mansurul Haq, a former navy chief. He surrendered a huge amount of money as part of a plea bargain. Even though the man still faces many cases, he has been allowed to keep part of the kickbacks he was accused of receiving in a submarine deal. There were also some businessmen who were let off after they agreed to pay part of the taxes they had evaded.
There is, of course, the other view - that plea bargaining gets results; otherwise, the due process of law may well drag on for years. That possibility cannot be helped, because that is what law is all about.
There can be no short cut to justice. In every case, the suspect must be allowed to defend himself, and if convicted, to go in appeal. Through it all, the ends of justice must be met.
But this is possible when the accountability is a permanent and transparent process, and the entire legal and administrative system is attuned to the due process of law. No special laws need be enacted through ordinances, nor special "summary trial" courts established to push through corruption cases. That brings us to the real problem with accountability in Pakistan.
Accountability becomes the buzzword when there is a change of government, especially if there is a military take over. Immediately, the generals start a so-called accountability process to sort out the politicians whom they dispossessed.
After Ziaul Haq's coup in 1977, it was the PPP and the Bhutto family that were targeted under cover of accountability. The Musharraf regime turned its attention on the PML-N and the Sharif family.
It also continued to hound for the PPP and the Bhutto family, profiting from the cases made against them by the Sharif government. Motivated by political considerations, the accountability process has been selective.
The turncoats were ignored. Faisal Saleh Hayat was accused of corruption, but the moment he changed loyalty, he got the prized post of the interior minister. Many other politicians, too, fall in this category.
To rid society and government of corruption, accountability must be a continuous process that should have nothing to do with a change of government. Pakistan already has a plethora of laws against corruption.
What is needed is their enforcement without fear or favour or selectivity. More important, the axe of accountability should not fall only on those who are out of power; it must also be applied against the high and mighty while they are still in positions of power.
What passes for the accountability process today lacks credibility and the people see it for what it is - a blatant misuse of legal power for political purposes.
Riyadh bombing
Saudi authorities have confirmed, with some relief, that the death toll in Wednesday's car-bomb attack in Riyadh is no more than four and the number of those injured is 148; earlier reports had suggested a much higher casualty figure.
The terrorist attack came on the heels of sustained encounters the Saudi law enforcement agencies have had with the militants in and around Riyadh over the past two weeks. This was the sixth attempt by the militants in recent days to cause mayhem and destruction in the Saudi capital, the earlier five having claimed the lives of five militants and as many security personnel.
The death toll in similar attacks in Riyadh last year was 51. Saudi authorities have blamed Al Qaeda sympathizers for carrying out the latest as well as last year's attacks. Earlier, American intelligence sources had also warned of terrorist strikes in Saudi Arabia, forcing Washington to withdraw its non-essential embassy staff from Riyadh last week.
Historically known as Najd, Riyadh and its surrounding Qassim region are the Saudi monarchy's ancestral home as well as the birthplace of the puritan Wahabi creed. Targeting this very heartland of the kingdom, the militants are trying to send a symbolic message to the entire nation.
Crown Prince Abdullah declared in a cabinet meeting last Monday that Saudi Arabia would confront this "deviant minority" with full force and with every citizen acting as "a member of the security forces."
The militants have turned on the Saudi government for its support to America in the latter's war on terror, demanding that all Americans leave the kingdom and their military infrastructure be dismantled.
The challenge faced by the Saudi government is formidable and requires active support from citizens. Prince Abdullah's initiative for the gradual democratization of his country's political system, under which an advisory body comprising nominated members and acting as consultants to the king is in place, is a good beginning.
The process should be carried forward to expand the scope and the role of this body, giving it more democratic substance and a greater say in matters of public policy in order to defeat the militants' designs.
Tree-felling must stop
The felling of age-old trees off The Mall in Lahore to clear the way leading to the chief minister's office is regrettable. The damage this has done to the city's already stuffy environment cannot be reversed, but one must oppose the reported plans of the Punjab government to take over the land in front of the Lahore Zoo and trade off this for 10 kanals of the neighbouring Bagh-i-Jinnah as a recompense.
Originally named Lawrence Garden and built by the British, the historical park has some of the city's finest varieties of plants and trees, and provides some breathing space to many of Lahore's citizens condemned to living in the claustrophobic concrete jungle that the city has become.
It is regrettable that the Punjab government, instead of planting more trees in the province's urban centres, should be robbing them of open spaces and trees. Lahore has particularly been a victim of this mindless development spree, with more than a hundred trees recently felled by the works department as it built an underpass on the canal.
Is it a mere coincidence that these trees also happened to be in the way of the chief minister's private residence in Gulberg? Likewise, the sumbal trees that once adorned Davis Road or those huge banyan and pipal trees in front of the Falletti's Hotel on Egerton Road, are no more.
The menace of felling trees is not confined to Lahore alone. Karachi's cantonment boards and the city district government both have shown commercial greed to be their sole motivating factor when it comes to the environment.
A recent case in point is the felling of a huge pipal tree next to Frere Hall on the main Abdullah Haroon Road. It is acts like these that explain the failure of our city and provincial governments to enforce environmental laws. The fact is that violators cannot also be the enforcers.
It is time members of civil society and concerned citizenry raised their voice against this sort of destruction and vandalism by the very same authorities that are supposed to protect the environment.