More troops for Afghanistan

President Hamid Karzai's plea to Nato for sending troops to Afghanistan has coincided with two bomb explosions in Jalalabad on Wednesday. In Istanbul to present his case before the Nato summit, the Afghan president said he wanted the alliance's troops "today - and not tomorrow."

The 26-nation alliance has agreed to increase the strength of its troops to 10,000 in that war-torn country. At present the Nato-led International Security Assistance Force has a strength of 6,400 deployed in Afghanistan. In addition, there are 20,000 American troops.

But at the moment, the ISAF's activities are confined to capital Kabul and Kunduz. The rest of the country is either controlled by warlords or is at the mercy of elements hostile to the Kabul regime.

All of them may not be Taliban supporters - in fact, some of them may be outright bandits - but the net effect of the situation is lawlessness in a large part of the country. This makes one wonder whether it would be possible to hold the general election in September.

Originally scheduled for June, the elections had to be postponed to September because of the anarchy in the countryside. Then earlier this month, the election commission expressed its inability to notify the delimitation of constituencies three months before polling, as required under the law.

By implication, thus, it was asking for a postponement. Now it appears doubtful if a September deadline can be met. The Taliban are doing all they can to sabotage the electoral process.

Last week there were three incidents that go to show the extent of instability in the country. On June 27, gunmen wearing army uniform murdered six policemen near the Iranian border.

On June 26, in the eastern Nangarhar province, the Taliban bombed a bus that was carrying the election commission's female staff, killing two. A day earlier, near Zabul, the Taliban murdered 16 people who were found to be carrying voter registration cards.

The three incidents serve to underline the Karzai government's failure to restore conditions of normality in the country for elections to be held as a credible process. No wonder, no less a person than Mr Kofi Annan should have expressed his scepticism about a nation-wide election in September.

Speaking to reporters in New York last week, the UN secretary-general said there were not enough troops on the ground. Elections could be held only if Nato sent more troops, he said, but "that is a big if."

The truth is that after nearly a year of its existence in Afghanistan, Nato force has little to show for itself. This is Nato's first operation outside Europe, but it has done little to improve the security environs and go beyond Kabul and Kunduz.

One wonders whether more troops will necessarily guarantee a peaceful Afghanistan. The Bonn accord was a consensus among non-Taliban Afghans, and even though Mr Karzai is a Pakhtoon himself, the Pakhtoons in the county are not too happy with the make-up of the regime now in control in Kabul.

Dominated by Tajiks, it lacks the essential ethnic balance that could have made it acceptable to all elements of Afghanistan's polyglot society. In any case, European soldiers are hardly the stuff that can fight a determined insurgency in Afghanistan. Ultimately, there has to be a political settlement.

The warlords must be won over by a mix of military force and political persuasion, for without the cooperation of the warlords, there can be no peace and security in the countryside. And if there is no peace, there can be no election, whatever the number of Nato and American troops deployed on the ground.

In SBP's view

The third quarterly report (2003-04) of the State Bank of Pakistan, released on Tuesday, is hopeful that the 6.6 per cent economic growth target set for the coming year will be achieved.

At the same time, the report warns that the strong growth is "not without costs" and points to some areas of concern. These include fears of a rise in inflation and the appreciation in interest rates as a consequence, the depreciation of the rupee against the dollar as a result of a worsening external account deficit and continued poor performance of the Central Board of Revenue in its tax collection drive.

At the same time, the SBP report says that the silver lining of high growth is that, historically, poverty in Pakistan has declined in such periods. The report also talks about the challenge of poverty reduction and suggests that more jobs need to be created for the unskilled labour class in the short term while training should be given to these workers so that in course of time they can qualify for jobs requiring a higher order of skills.

Overall, the State Bank gives the government a mixed report card. It criticizes the handling of the wheat shortage earlier this year and is also wary of the shortfall of Rs5.6 billion in development spending.

At the same time, there is appreciation for maintaining fiscal discipline, positive developments in the banking sector and overall sound macroeconomic management. While this is encouraging, the main challenge for the government in the coming year would be to address the issues of inflation, the growing deficit in the external account and low tax collection figures.

In all these areas, there should be an element of consistency and determination. If these issues remain unresolved, all the achievements made in other areas of the economy will be overshadowed, which would not auger well for the country.

Prisoners' rights

The US Supreme Court's decision to strike down the Bush administration's policy of denying terrorism suspects the right to defend themselves is a long over-due judicial step on the issue.

The judgment came after 14 of the more than 600 detainees at the American naval base at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, filed a petition challenging Washington's policy to detain them indefinitely without granting them the right to a trial before a US court.

The Supreme Court has ruled that the principle of habeas corpus (under which prisoners can challenge their detention) relates not to those who are imprisoned but to the party which is responsible for detaining them.

In the court's view, the legal rights of the prisoners remain unchanged regardless of where they are being held. The court has disagreed with Washington's view that non-US citizens labelled 'enemy combatants', regardless of their guilt or otherwise, do not have the right to defend themselves in a US court.

It says that the view that the naval base in Cuba is outside US territory and hence American law does not apply there is also untenable because for more than 100 years, Guantanamo Bay has been under America's "complete jurisdiction and control".

This judgment may have come very late, and only after two lower courts had upheld the US government's view. However, it will perhaps now force the Bush administration to alter its policy of holding foreigners suspected of involvement in terrorist acts in prison without a trial.

It shows that the superior judiciary in America is quite aware of the fact that unbridled executive authority can sometimes lead to terrible injustices; thus, it is willing to act to limit the use of executive authority.

One hopes that the US government will be chastened by this ruling and modify its policies vis-a-vis foreign detainees, held not just in Guantanamo Bay but elsewhere too - in places like Iraq and Afghanistan in the course of its war on terror.