Worrying disclosures

President Pervez Musharraf's revelations in a TV interview on Thursday serve only to confirm what many people had long suspected - that some armed forces personnel were involved in one of the attempts on his life.

That the conspirators did not belong to the higher ranks - a point emphasized by the president - does not lessen the gravity of the crime or the breach of security and discipline inherent in it.

It is possible to understand why foreigners expelled from Afghanistan might conspire to kill the president. What is cause for concern is that some Pakistani soldiers should lend support to such plots.

As disclosed by the president, they had been brainwashed and that those who agreed to collaborate with Al Qaeda were religious extremists. This brings us to two crucial points - religious extremism and the army's involvement in politics, for there is a link between the two.

While the army's involvement in politics began even before the 1958 takeover by Ayub Khan, it was Gen Ziaul Haq who began to subvert the norms of integrity and discipline of the army to perpetuate his rule.

His most perverse decision was to flood the armed forces' training institutions with religio-political literature, pamphlets and so forth. The purpose was to help some religious parties indoctrinate cadets and young officers with their own obscurantist interpretations of Islam.

The results of that dreadful decade are there before us. Many of those cadets later rose in ranks and authority to acquire positions of power and take control of sensitive institutions, including the ISI.

The situation reached a point when, aided by liberal doses of American military and economic aid, sections of the ISI trained and armed religious elements for the 'jihad' in Afghanistan.

This enabled fanatics to control well-armed militias throughout the country, because Pakistan had become a training and recruiting ground for the jihadi organizations. Some religious parties developed a stake in the perpetuation of the so-called jihadi culture.

No wonder, they were shocked beyond belief when, in the wake of 9/11, Islamabad made a U-turn in its foreign policy and helped Washington overthrow the Taliban government in Kabul - hence their implacable hostility towards General Musharraf.

Religious fanaticism is a fact that cannot be wished away. It is to be seen in bomb blasts and massacres at places of worship and in the targeting of foreigners. What is more, those inspired by the Al Qaeda philosophy are utterly indifferent to the consequences of their actions in terms of the loss of innocent lives.

The situation cannot be reversed overnight: it has to be a long haul. But what can and must be done soon is, firstly, to weed out the shady elements from the ranks of the armed forces and, secondly, to end the army's involvement in politics.

A prolongation of the army's political role will only add to problems rather than solve them. Military men are ubiquitous in civilian spheres, and that is a source of both corruption and political disorientation.

Ultimately, it is a civilian dispensation and an uninterrupted democratic process that can take on the menace of religious militancy. Democratic institutions need to be strengthened, and the armed forces required to stick to their professional responsibilities.

That the president should have provided details about the assassination attempt to a TV channel and not to parliament shows how unimportant democratic institutions have become in the eyes of generals. A full-fledged debate on the security concerns raised by the latest disclosures is necessary.

Lessons of Hyderabad deaths

Details are now beginning to emerge as to what caused contamination of the water that was being supplied to Hyderabad, resulting in the death of 13 people over the past two weeks.

Investigative reports in the press make it plain that the Manchhar lake is the source of the deadly water supply. The Sindh irrigation department customarily releases saline water from the lake into the Indus river before the beginning of the monsoon season every year.

The problem arose this year because of inadequate inflow of fresh water in the river downstream from Sukkur barrage. Had the inflow been normal, the Manchhar water, though highly toxic, would have become diluted and harmless by the time it reached Kotri barrage from where Water and Sanitation Agency normally pumps it out to Hyderabad.

The irrigation department did not warn Wasa of the highly toxic nature of the released water because of the non-existence of coordination between the two departments. Reports suggest that even if such a mechanism existed, given the limited filtering facilities available with Wasa, it would not have been possible to fully sanitize the highly toxic water and make it fit for human consumption.

There are a few lessons to be learnt from the whole tragic episode. One, a communication mechanism must be put in place between two or more government departments and agencies dealing with water supply and drainage.

Two, the Manchhar lake, which environmentalists have long warned has become an ecological disaster since the drainage into it of the Right Bank Outfall Drain carrying toxic industrial effluents, needs to be rehabilitated by finding an alternative method for safe drainage of the RBOD.

Third, civic authorities need to be prepared to handle emergency situations like the one experienced in Hyderabad in recent days. The loss of life and the spread of water-borne diseases could have been minimized if timely action had been taken by the authorities concerned.

No-Smoking Day

The call by doctors, ahead of World No-Smoking Day on May 31, for a ban on the promotion of tobacco products must be heeded by the government. Faced with strong and effective anti-smoking policies adopted by governments in developed countries, tobacco firms have now shifted their attention in a big way to Third World countries.

The government has decreed a new, more specific health warning which is now to be printed on the front of all cigarette packets, and PIA put a ban on smoking on all its flights. Laws already exist about the sale of cigarettes to underage children, but there is no enforcement mechanism.

Bans on smoking in public transport are equally ineffective. Since there are no consumer laws worth the name or any strong anti-smoking lobby here, it is perhaps only to be expected that tobacco manufacturers will have a field day.

True, some progress in this country has been made in the sense that cricket series are no longer sponsored by tobacco companies and no tobacco ads are aired in the daytime, but a lot more needs to be done to discourage smoking.

Events involving young people such as concerts and sporting events (though not cricket) are often targeted. Public opinion on the issue has yet to develop, and there is obvious need to undertake education campaigns with greater intelligence and vigour. Only a multi-pronged strategy can make events like no-smoking days meaningful.