| 14 September 2004 | Tuesday | 28 Rajab 1425 |
More of madness
A dangerous practice
The "uniform" controversy continues to prominently figure in newspaper columns. Hints from the government side indicate a hardening of its attitude, while the opposition, too, is girding up its loins.
Setting aside the PPP Patriots, who were the first to suggest that President Pervez Musharraf retain his uniform, PML chief Chaudhry Shujaat Hussain has come out openly in favour of the president's uniform.
Punjab Chief Minister Pervaiz Elahi, too, has joined the chorus, saying that he and his party would fight legal and political battles to ensure that Gen Musharraf remains both army chief and head of state.
And now the Punjab assembly has adopted a resolution urging the president to retain the post of army chief. Last week, the issue was apparently clinched when the president himself said 96 per cent of the people wished him to stay in uniform.
Now some foreign agencies, too, have joined the fray, one suggesting that 86 per cent of Pakistanis support President Musharraf's policies. However, support to policies does not necessarily mean that they want him to continue to be in his army uniform.
Under the 17th amendment bill, the president must cease to be army chief after December 31 this year. The president also went public with this pledge. The Constitution also makes it clear that the he cannot hold any other office of profit.
Nevertheless, the relevant clause allows parliament to exempt any office from this conditionality if parliament so decides. Since the ruling party has a majority in parliament, it is obvious that it will have no difficulty in having the relevant bill passed.
The government's prowess and proclivity for manipulating the constitutional process and having any bill or constitutional amendment passed is well established. But the issue is one of constitutional propriety. If Pakistan is to have a democratic destiny, then those at the helm must uphold and strengthen democratic norms.
Combining the offices of head of state and army chief is not exactly the best way of doing this. The pity is that this truth needs to be reiterated, even though our history of more than half a century is testimony to the havoc wrought by whimsical changes in the Constitution and the system of government.
Ignoring army chief Ayub Khan's inclusion in the Bogra cabinet, the military has ruled Pakistan four times directly. Each time the Bonapartist left the scene, there was political and constitutional crisis. Ayub's controlled democracy collapsed after 11 years of rule, and the constitution given by him was abrogated.
Yahya's military rule resulted in the shame and humiliation of 1971. When Ziaul Haq died, the country had neither a prime minister nor a National Assembly. Ironically, his protege, Mr Nawaz Sharif, got repealed all those clauses which had given arbitrary powers to the president and made the prime minister a lame-duck executive. In between Yahya and Ziaul Haq, Mr Z.A. Bhutto attempted his own grafting.
The present system is the result of the arbitrary changes made in the Constitution by authoritarians; civil and military. They have become part of the basic law without any popular support.
For that reason, it lacks the essence of democracy and is in danger of collapsing once the present set of generals is no longer there. This will automatically end what the ruling party seeks most - a continuity of policies.
Let not one individual be the fulcrum of policies; let the unhindered inter-play of democratic forces give stability to Pakistan and ensure a continuity of policies. President Musharraf's own credibility is at stake - and with little cause.
More of madness
It is ironic that Mr Ariel Sharon should now accuse the Israeli hardliners of inciting a civil war in his country. Long before assuming the premiership of the Zionist state, he had the dubious distinction of inciting the second Palestinian Intifada.
The peace process has lain shattered since Mr Sharon, as a minister in Ehud Barak's cabinet, led a group of hardliners on a controversial tour of the Al Aqsa compound in September 2000.
His unilateral, anti-Palestinian actions since coming to power the following year have spelled disaster for the occupied territories. The Israeli army has made repeated incursions into Palestinian territories, killing thousands, destroying acres of agricultural land, barricading cities and towns with the aim of depriving the Palestinians the right to work in Israel, and carrying out targeted killings of Arab leaders.
The building of an illegal barrier in the West Bank in defiance of the International Court of Justice's ruling and virtually negating the agreed principles of the roadmap for peace have been some of the highly provocative actions of the Sharon government. If all of this was not done to win over the ultra-orthodox sections of Israeli right, one wonders what else could have been the motivating factor.
The problem with extremist policies being pursued by Mr Sharon is that there appears no end to such political appeasement. The thousands of ultra-orthodox Jews who gathered in Al Quds at the weekend to protest against Mr Sharon's plan to disband settlements in the Gaza Strip in exchange for annexation showed that their appetite for further land grabs has not diminished.
That Mr Sharon's move now enjoys the full backing of Washington is no secret and a sore point with the Palestinians. Unless the Quartet (the US, UN, EU and Russia), as the author and guarantor of the roadmap, can press Israel to implement the agreed plan, ending violence in the Middle East and reviving the stalled peace process will remain a forlorn hope.
A dangerous practice
The recovery of expired blood bags from a hospital in Karachi's Defence society during a surprise raid on Saturday by the Sindh Blood Transfusion Authority is cause for concern.
Reports say that these blood bags had been stored for sale to patients suffering from heart problems. The SBTA has reported that this is not an unusual case and that in the past, two other clinics in Clifton were served notice after they were found to be dealing in expired blood bags.
Blood banks in many other areas of the city have also been caught storing sub-standard blood supplies for sale to unsuspecting patients, and no doubt the practice is prevalent everywhere.
This can have fatal consequences besides causing the spread of many blood-borne diseases like Aids and Hepatitis. Despite the gravity of the problem, a number of blood banks, many of them unregistered, continue to indulge in such unethical and dangerous practices.
At present, there are 600 blood banks in Sindh alone. Official estimates quote a monthly demand for 5,000 donors in the province. Against this, on an average, there are only 500 donors available monthly.
This huge gap is met by some unscrupulous blood banks by supplying substandard or expired blood. While the government has finally started to conduct surprise raids to catch unscrupulous operators, more needs to be done to check their activities.
Up to now, unauthorized blood banks are usually let off after being warned of action. Stronger action needs to be taken as these are playing with the lives of thousands of patients in need of transfusions. Not only should the unregistered banks be sealed, action should also be taken against their operators.