| 12 June 2004 | Saturday | 23 Rabi-us-Saani 1425 |
Truth about torture?
A crusader for press freedom
The long awaited incentives announced by President Pervez Musharraf on Thursday for the agriculture sector reflect an earnest desire on the part of the government to create an enabling environment for the farm community to boost agriculture production and, at the same time, lift the lot of the rural population.
Water being the mainstay of the sector, the package proposes the lining of 87,000 water channels at a cost of Rs66 billion under a crash programme. Pakistan boasts of one of the world's largest irrigation networks. But age has taken a heavy toll of this system. As a result, more than 50 per cent of irrigation water flowing through the channels of the network is wasted because of widespread seepage.
Theft of water is also rampant because of the dilapidated condition of these watercourses. The result is that farms at the tail-ends are invariably short changed.
For years now experts have been pointing out that the next best thing, in the absence of a big storage system, is to save the water from being wasted through seepage.
If done, this would increase the supply of irrigation water by almost equal to the amount which a big dam like Kalabagh is expected to yield. Another 2.88 million acres of irrigation water is expected to become available when the new dams under construction come on stream.
So, even before a big dam is taken in hand for construction, the farm sector is likely to get enough water to bring significantly more land under cultivation. By correctly anticipating the farmers' need for increased resources to accomplish this gigantic task, the government has offered a cultivator-friendly loaning and repayment scheme.
Not only has the cost of investment resources been reduced drastically, import duties on various agricultural inputs and machinery, including tractors, have been significantly lowered, even abolishing the custom duties on some farm implements.
Pakistan's is basically an agricultural economy. Even today, after all these years of industrialization, the farm sector continues to contribute more than 25 per cent to the country's annual Gross Domestic Product (GDP).
So, any incentive and concession given to this sector should always be seen as a profitable investment. One only hopes that the farm community would make the best use of what is being made available to it under the new package and help add to the wealth of the nation.
A word of caution would be in order though. Our experience of official help for the agricultural sector has not been very encouraging. In the 1960s and the 1970s, the farm sector was given huge concessions and incentives and, rightly so.
But a large part of the benefits of this generous help was hijacked on both occasions by the big landowners. The resources transferred to the farm community through these programmes was blatantly wasted by big farmers on luxuries in a few urban centres instead of being reinvested in the farm sector and in the rural human resource development schemes.
The major reason for this has been the accumulation of most of the cultivable land in the hands of a few while most of the landless rural tillers are at the mercy of the absentee landlords for even food and shelter. To correct this situation and effectively reduce rural poverty there is an urgent need to take in hand a just, fair and equitable land reform programme.
Truth about torture?
The existence of a White House memo arguing the use of torture in "defence of national security" is disturbing to say the least. The memorandum, drafted by a team of lawyers and presented to President Bush, shows that what has been going on at US prisons in Iraq, Afghanistan and at Camp X-Ray in Guantanamo Bay was no aberration on the part of lower-ranking US troops and officials but was part of Washington's policy to deal with detainees in its so-called war on terror.
Although it is unclear whether the arguments contained in the memo were employed by Mr Bush to actually authorize the use of torture in interrogating prisoners, its mere existence only reinforces the view many, especially in the Muslim world, hold that America regards itself as a law unto itself and that when it comes to dealing with the rest of the world, it does not really care for international norms, principles and conventions.
If the policy advice in the memo is taken at face value, then for all intents and purposes the law, in Washington's fight against terrorism, is what the White House says it is.
The US government should make this document public and clarify whether any policy changes were made in the light of it. The fact that US government lawyers were directed to work on something like this, with the full knowledge of the Pentagon, itself indicates that there was an inclination to sanction the use of torture and that the sanction in fact was approved at the highest level.
In any case, it is becoming increasingly difficult to differentiate between the tactics and policies of the US government and of those nations which Washington often accuses of grossly violating human rights and international law.
A crusader for press freedom
In the death of Zamir Niazi, Pakistan has lost a relentless crusader for press freedom. Till the very last, and despite his failing health, Zamir Niazi remained dedicated to the pursuit of one single aim dear to him - the freedom of expression.
The chief merit of his first book, The Press in Chains, lay in the stupendous amount of facts he was able to gather. In its broad sweep, the book covers the period stretching from the late 18th century to the last one.
It begins with the arrest of James Augustus Hickey, whose Hickey's Bengal Gazette exposed the evils of graft in the East India Company (circa 1780), and ends with the misfortunes of the press in Pakistan.
In the process the reader is taken through the ups and downs in the fate of the press and pressmen during the anti-colonial struggle, the birth of Pakistan, and the suffering under successive dictators.
The book records in detail the draconian laws meant to gag the press, the infamous Press and Publications Ordinance, the notorious Press Trust, the institution of "press advice", the closure of newspapers, the hounding of journalists during the years of the anti-communist witch-hunt and finally the persecution of newspapers and newsmen under cover of the "ideology of Pakistan".
The blackest day was, of course, May 13, 1978, during Ziaul Haq's dictatorship when journalists were whiplashed in public. Zamir Niazi never indulged in politics nor professed loyalty to any party.
He spared no one, because his yardstick was freedom. He noted with regret that there were some black sheep among journalists who cooperated with despots in persecuting the press and were rewarded in various ways, including the sale of newsprint in black market.
A modest man, Zamir Niazi began his career with this newspaper as a sub-editor in 1954. He retired from the profession in 1990 but continued to work on new books. In all he wrote and edited six books, and was working on two more. It is doubtful if anyone else would fill the void created by his death and continue the work of recording the travails of the press for posterity.