| 26 August 2004 | Thursday | 09 Rajab 1425 |
Tasman Spirit: the polluter pays
Defence housing schemes
Harassment of journalists
Passive smoking lawsuit
Bus passengers' ordeal
Turkey's future
Calling cards
Rainy season
Parking at Karachi airport
Tourism in Pakistan
Setting an example
Loudspeaker ban
Schoolbags
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I am writing in response to the article by Eric Reeves under the title "Sudan: a case of regime change" (Dawn, August 24).
There is no doubt that what is happening in the Darfur region of Sudan is a violation of basic human rights and human dignity. It is also a clear evidence of the failure of the self-imposed Sudanese regime. The need to change the government is not an issue we can dispute. However, how and by whom this government should be changed is a matter on which I totally disagree with the writer.
Mr Reeves's proposal for external forces, which he referred to as international actors, to assume the responsibility of changing the Sudanese government is based on the assumption that these international actors are rationale, impartial, well-intentioned and have the right (and capacity) to act on behalf of the Sudanese people. I find this assumption a fundamental mistake.
Let us examine the situations in the occupied Palestine and Iraq. The Israeli government continue to violate all basic rights of existence of the Palestinian people on their own land.
The Israeli state is the only state that has challenged the largest number of UN resolutions calling on it to abide by international law. And yet Israel is offered the highest level of impunity by the same intentional actors who have assigned themselves as the creators and protectors of new world order.
Why should these international actors care for the people of the Darfur region and contribute to the violations against the Palestinian people? Doesn't this expose the irrationality, partiality and ill-intentions of those international actors?
Now let us look at the legal and moral justifications for the 10-year-long sanctions on the Iraqi people and the invasion of their country in violation of international law.
Where are the weapons of mass destruction that were used to justify brutal inhumane sanctions that led to death, malnourishment and illiteracy of hundreds of thousands of young Iraqi children? What did the so-called rationale and impartial defenders of human values and dignity do to stop the killing and abuse of Iraqi prisoners and, even worse, Iraqi women on the streets?
Let me also correct some of the intentional mistakes that the media is propagating by trying to present what is happening in Darfur as genocide organized by the Arabs against the Africans.
Please take a look at the physical features of both the so-called Janjaweed militia and the Darfurian people they target. They all share identical African features. They all profess Islam, and they share the same Arabic names. The fallacy of Arabs and Africans in Sudan has to be resisted so that we can see the real issues underlying the problems of Sudan.
The ideal course of action for Sudanese, within and outside Sudan, who don't approve of this government and its crimes against the people of Sudan is rise to the challenge and unite their efforts to force this government to step down.
They have already done so vis-a-vis Nimari and Abood military regimes. In both instances, the Sudanese showed the world that they were able to demonstrate the highest levels of unity, determination, self-control that averted bloodshed and chaos. And let our African friends in Nigeria, Chad, Rwanda and Libya put their own houses in order first.
MOHAMED EL MUNIR SAFELDIN
Islamabad
Tasman Spirit: the polluter pays
Like Mr Nasim Ahmad Khan ("Remembering the Tasman Spirit Episode", August 14), in the beginning I held the KPT responsible for the disaster, but after looking into the available data and the records by and by I got convinced that the KPT and Pakistan have a strong case for claiming compensation which could be a few billion dollars. Most of my countrymen forget that the KPT and Pakistan are the aggrieved parties.
The universal norm is that the polluter of the water of a port pays. The removal of the debris and the cargo of a foundered or a grounded ship is the responsibility of the ship owner, not of the port authorities, whether the ship gets grounded in a port in New York, Hamburg, Tokyo or Karachi.
In the case of the Tasman Spirit, the owners and the operators of the ship acted four days too late when they sent Endeavour-2, for the lighterage operation. The ship was too large to berth beside the Tasman Spirit. Their response was not immediate.
Salvaging ships and removing their debris is costly. Ports on their own usually do not do it, and giant salvaging companies have come into existence. The cranes and the gear they use for the cleaning operations of ships as large as the Tasman Spirit will make any port shudder at the thought of buying them.
The salvaging company that the Greek ship owners hired for removing the debris of the Tasman Spirit did a poor job. Many experts today maintain that the "subsequent break-up of the vessel was due to the negligence of the salvage company M/s Tsalviris Russ."
The P&I Club that later successfully removed the debris were technically more competent. But, perhaps, even they would not have come to the rescue of Pakistan if the KPT had not detained the eight-man crew of the Tasman Spirit and M/s Tsalviris in a five-star hotel which is in sharp contrast to the treatment meted out to Pakistani shipping crews by the port authorities abroad whenever they spill oil. They are either fined or are thrown in jail.
AZMAT ANSARI
Karachi
Defence housing schemes
One is surprised at the remarks of President Musharraf in which he says that defence housing schemes are the best in the country and that he sees nothing wrong with their working. He has also said that criticism of this scheme comes from some disgruntled individuals.
The DHA schemes, which have been artificially supported by the armed forces, were primarily meant for retired defence officers. However, with the passage of time these schemes became a milking cow as officers started to sell their land to civilians at great premiums, with the result that the areas have become dominated primarily by civilians.
In the case of Karachi, the DHA, which is one of the largest residential areas, has been developed at the expense of the rest of the city. This is because the military used its good offices to ensure that prime land was allotted to it and enough funds were given to develop the area into a veritable oasis for people desirous of living in clean and well-developed surroundings.
Ironically, greed got the better part of the DHA management with the result that the planning of the DHA in Karachi is short-sighted and bound to create problems for us in the future.
Take for example the width of the main roads, like the Zamzama Boulevard or 26th Street. Already, within a decade of their development, these areas have become traffic nightmares.
This problem will increase with the passage of time. Barring a few exceptions, most roads in DHA, Karachi, are comparatively narrow but traffic continues to increase. The DHA has no solution for this mess.
Another irony is the priority that is given to developing the DHA. While the head of the DHA and the Clifton Cantonment Board is one person, the quality of civic maintenance in Clifton and Defence is vastly different.
These are some of the issues that highlight the manner in which the DHA has been developed at the expense of the rest of the city and the problems it has forced on us for the future.
NISAR KHAN
Karachi
Harassment of journalists
This is apropos of reports about threats made to Dawn columnist Ardeshir Cowasjee by a Sindh minister. The press should be able to investigate and publish stories free from harassment and retaliation by the government or its agents. Both Mr Cowasjee and Dawn are widely respected and are promoters of free and rational thought.
At a time when Pakistan is making international headlines almost on a daily basis, it is highly regrettable that members of its government, federal or state, abuse their power by intimidating others who, in this case, are those who write in the press. If the minister concerned disagreed with Mr Cowasjee's article, he should have given his reason in the form of a letter to the editor.
Pakistan must move forward and continue to respect the presence of a free press in its society. In order to succeed as a nation, we must treat one another with respect and dignity. As Pakistanis living abroad, we are saddened by events such as this one.
The vision provided by Mohammed Ali Jinnah is clear; we need to remember the reasons for the creation of Pakistan and continuously grow to fulfil this vision.
AMINA KHAN
Member, executive board, Association of Pakistani Professionals Washington, DC
Passive smoking lawsuit
A district court in Tokyo recently ruled in favour of an employee who suffered health problems as a result of passive smoking. The court in its ruling held that the company failed to take sufficient safety measures at the workplace to protect employees from tobacco toxins and awarded 50,000 yen as compensation to the victim.
In Pakistan, a significant number of people suffer as a result of passive smoking in offices and public places. I frequently come across victims of environmental tobacco smoke.
According to scientific research, passive smoking is a proven risk factor in lung cancer, heart attacks and several other diseases. I wonder if there are lawyers in the country who can take such public health cases to the courts.
We do, in fact, have a law in Pakistan which bans smoking in offices and public places, but it is rarely, if ever, implemented. Taking such cases to court will not only raise public awareness of the hazards of passive smoking but may also persuade the authorities concerned to enforce the Prohibition of Smoking Ordinance 2002.
JAVAID A. KHAN
Karachi
Bus passengers' ordeal
I set off from Karachi for Quetta along with my wife and three children on the night of July 31 by bus. At 2am the bus came to a stop because the highway was blocked ahead.
Near the town of Wadh, a subdivision of Khuzdar district, bus drivers had blocked the RCD highway in protest against the looting of three coaches an hour earlier travelling from Quetta to Karachi. Traffic was blocked for a total of nine hours with hundreds of buses, trucks and cars stuck on either side.
No government or law-enforcement official bothered to come to the help of the passengers during this long period. Many of the buses had women and children passengers and one can imagine the fear and discomfort they all must have experienced.
At around 10 in the morning, a tehsildar accompanied by a few levies' personnel reached the spot and negotiated with the drivers and finally the blockade was removed and traffic allowed to pass.
Such incidents make one believe that Pakistan is suffering from a 'crisis of penetration', one of the five crises that a nation-state can experience in its national development. The others are crises of identity, legitimacy, participation and distribution.
The one relating to penetration primarily refers to the effectiveness of government penetration and effectiveness against lawlessness and disorder. The concept of a nation-state as defined by the International Law Commission in 1933, better known as the Montevideo Convention, on the Rights and Duties of States highlights that a state is sovereign in its internal and external affairs and is duty-bound to provide security to its citizens.
The convention was followed by the League of Nations which was the precursor of today's United Nations. Hence, its guidelines vis-a-vis the duties of a state serve as a paradigm for all UN member-states to follow. Many important principles of international law regarding territorial sovereignty and collective security are based on the Montevideo Convention.
Given the experience my family and I went through on our way to Quetta that night, I can safely say that Pakistan suffers from this crisis in particular and the state is quite unable to enforce its writ.
DR MANSOOR AKBAR KUNDI
Quetta
Turkey's future
Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger has advised Turkey to seek its future in an association of Muslim nations rather than try to join the European Community with Christian roots. (Dawn, August 12).
This is sincere and sound advice worth consideration by Turkey. The head of the Ankara chamber of commerce has said that a number of politicians, specially in France, Germany and Austria, have publicly opposed Turkey's membership on the grounds that a poor Muslim country would be too big and too culturally different (Dawn, August 7).
Such reactions of other member-countries smack of a biased and prejudicial stance against Turkey. Turkey is a powerful Muslim state. It can play a pivotal role to bring together all Muslim countries to form a Muslim bloc in place of the dormant OIC to resurrect Muslim political power in the political affairs of the world with one voice.
GHEEWALA A.G.M.
Karachi
Calling cards
Franchised by the PTCL, calling card-producing companies have slashed tariffs for long distance calls during different time segments. That is really a welcome step.
Rapidly-growing communication networks throughout the world have narrowed differences, enabling person-to-person contact at the touch of a button. Ironically, organizations or persons enjoying the facility of the National Telecommunication Corporation (NTC), a public-sector organization, cannot have access to the calling card codes like 1012 and 1018.
The authorities concerned are requested to ensure the facility for all, without any discrimination.
AIJAZ MANGI
Lahore
Rainy season
The rainy season in Pakistan brings widespread disease for the people, especially those who have no access to clean drinking water. Most of the population has to drink water drawn from wells, which gets infected in the rainy season. It is not economically feasible for poor people to boil water, as recommended by experts.
What is the best way to clean a well and make water fit for drinking, using potassium permanganate or other substance? Will some expert kindly write on this issue?
MALIK YOUNAS
Islamabad
Parking at Karachi airport
I was going to Islamabad for a day on an official assignment and I thought it convenient to utilize the long-term parking facility at Karachi airport. I had three pieces of luggage with me but there was no trolley in the parking lot.
I asked the security man at the lot why there were no trolleys there and how passengers were expected to carry their luggage from the parking area, which is quite far from the departure gate. He said the CAA did not allow it.
I think there are many passengers like me, especially women, who travel alone and park their car in the long-term parking area. The CAA needs to look into this.
DR SHAHNAZ AHALLWANI
Karachi
Tourism in Pakistan
In his letter "Tourism in Pakistan (Aug 20), Mr Navaid Husain says that tourism can be promoted by improving security for tourists. I totally agree with this opinion, but disagree with him when he calls for providing social freedom to foreign tourists by legalizing night clubs, bars and disco clubs.
This will spoil the youth. By legalizing all this, it will be virtually impossible to control them. Moreover, this is not in accordance with Islam.
SHAHRUKH A.K. ABDALI
Karachi
Setting an example
Just a few days ago, the police in Quebec, Canada, came upon an important high official, the chief justice of the superior court in Quebec, on a highway. She had hit a maintenance vehicle parked on the roadside.
The police made no allowance for her rank, followed the law, took her for a breath test and found her at fault. The incident led to her voluntary resignation.
Unfortunately in Pakistan, offending high officials pull rank and get away with all manner of infringements like tinted windows and worse, and it is the police who get into the dock for having dared to check them.
Your paper should have carried this news; it has some educative value for those with rank who are expected to set an example.
KHALID AHMAD
Montreal, Canada
Loudspeaker ban
One is happy that the chief minister has announced a ban on the misuse of loudspeakers in Sindh. It is requested that this ban should be extended to schools, particularly those that function in residential areas.
Every day at about 7am, we can hear the PT exercises being conducted in a school nextdoor with the help of a loudspeaker. My parents, who are both above 70, say that the noise greatly disturbs them.
Attempts to request the school administration to desist from this practice have not yielded anything. I would be grateful if the ban on loudspeakers is extended to schools.
NAJMA KHAN
Hyderabad
Schoolbags
Schoolchildren are seen carrying heavy bags which bend their backs. In fact, they look like labourers who carry bricks or sacks on their shoulders. This spectacle makes me feel empathy for the children.
There is an urgent need to lessen the weight of schoolbags, as well as burden of schoolchildren. This is not an issue that will require involvement of the prime minister.
I request the federal and provincial authorities to highlight this problem and constitute a task force to solve this problem.
AFSHAN ZIA
Karachi
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