| 12 November 2004 | Friday | 28 Ramazan 1425 |
Vetting security guards
Yasser Arafat has fought his last battle. After a 14-day struggle in a French military hospital, on Thursday, "his big heart stopped", to quote one of his aides who was by his bedside. An era has ended in the epic history of liberation struggles. Arafat's death removes a major actor from the world scene and throws open the big question about the future of the Palestinian movement, especially its leadership.
Palestinian Parliament Speaker Rauhi Fattouh would remain acting president of the Palestinian Authority until elections are held within 60 days. But nobody at this stage can tell who will finally be in the saddle, though Mr Mahmoud Abbas, a former prime minister and a founding member of the Palestine Liberation Organization, is being tipped to be the next president. He has been nominated as the overall leader of PLO, with Mr Farouk Kaddoumi appointed Fatah chief.
Palestinian leaders have so far demonstrated an extraordinary sense of unity in this moment of grief, notwithstanding Soha Arafat's outburst. It remains to be seen whether the future leadership will be able to maintain the movement's unity the way Arafat, despite internal dissensions, did till his last breath.
A new development over the years - thanks to the hubris of Israel's hawkish Prime Minister Ariel Sharon - has been the gradual increase in the power and prestige of Hamas. The targeted murder of Sheikh Ahmad Yassin, its founder, and his successor, Abdel Aziz Rentissi, have added to the militant organization's popularity. It will be a test of the new leadership whether it can carry Hamas and other alienated factions along. Also on test will be Mr Sharon's sincerity to negotiate with the PA.
The standard position adopted by Mr Sharon was that negotiations were not possible so long as Arafat was at the helm, and for almost two years, the US, Israel's mentor, had also broken off all contacts with the leader. With Arafat now out of the picture, both Israel and America are morally bound to pick up the thread left three years ago when Israeli troops went on a rampage in the West Bank, destroying Arafat's headquarters and massacring the people of Jenin.
An equally great responsibility falls on President George Bush, now armed with a new mandate. He had sabotaged the roadmap to peace which he himself unveiled in April last year by saying Israel would retain "some" West Bank land even after withdrawing from it. He also said that 2005 was an unrealistic date for a sovereign Palestinian state to emerge.
The vacuum created by Mr Arafat's death will be difficult to fill. Combining diplomacy with armed resistance, he led the Palestine Liberation Organization through the vicissitudes and trauma that any leader heading a freedom movement has to face - victories, defeats, rifts and retreats. Yet never for a moment did he abandon the goal he had set for himself - ending the Israeli occupation of the West Bank and Gaza and creating a sovereign Palestine with Al Quds as its capital.
His greatest triumph as the sole spokesman and undisputed leader of the Palestinian people came on Sept 13, 1993, when those who had earlier dismissed him as a "terrorist" shook hands with him on the lawns of the White House. There he got from his enemies what he wanted - a pledge that Israel would withdraw from the occupied territories and that a final settlement, including an accord on the status of Al Quds, would be in place by April 13, 1999. This, alas, was not to be, for having signed the accords, the Israelis had second thoughts.
They murdered Yitzhak Rabin, the man who had signed it for them, and finally sabotaged the peace agreement. Having themselves reneged on those solemn pledges, Israel and the US wanted Arafat to write off the right of return of hundreds and thousands of Palestinian refugees and make further concessions on Al Quds. Arafat refused. With indomitable courage he stood his ground, this was followed by a battle of wills. Despite commanding military power and diplomatic and media support from America and Europe, Sharon failed to make Arafat bow.
He had no dearth of critics and enemies - there were 51 attempts on his life. He was reviled for signing the Oslo peace accords, and his Palestinian Authority was accused of corruption and maladministration. But his critics failed to point out that in many of the decisions he took, he had little choice, given the lukewarm support of the Arab-Islamic countries.
He had made his enemies accept the principle of a Palestinian state with Al Quds as its capital, and this was a great achievement for a leader who had to fight for his cause single-handed. With the sole exception of Fidel Castro, he was on the world scene longer than any of today's leaders, with his military uniform and the kaffiyeh becoming a symbol of the Palestinian people's will to fight on. Israel may now deny him his right to be buried in Al Quds, his birthplace, but it cannot deny Mohammad Abdel-Rawf Arafat al-Hussaini his place in history.
Vetting security guards
Crimes committed by security guards against those they are assigned to protect have risen over the past few months. This cannot but cause widespread concern and once again highlights the need to set things right in the private security guards business. Last month, two guards attacked their charge, an employee at a money changer company in Karachi, and escaped with over Rs40 million in cash. Police have so far been unable to trace these guards out since their particulars recorded with their employers were fake and the security agency which made them available for employment never verified these details.
The proliferation of private security agencies in the country, particularly in Karachi, where over 147 such outfits currently operate, indicates that there is a great demand for the services they offer. However, not enough is being done to regulate this sensitive business. For example, in Karachi alone, about 30 agencies are operating on the basis of NOCs issued by the government. These have no legal validity.
Under the Sindh Private Security Agencies Ordinance 2000, security agencies are responsible for the guards they provide. These companies are supposed to go through a prescribed procedure to vet their employees before offering them as guards to some households, institutions, business or industrial establishments. This procedure has to be followed in the interest of public safety. The government needs to act to ensure that the private security agencies, one of the fastest growing sectors of the economy, is carefully monitored to protect the interest of the employers of these services.
In practice, however, because of growing competition amongst some companies, untrained young men with questionable references end up being employed for guard duties. In many cases, agencies recruiting them do not look properly into their credentials and backgrounds before employing them or contracting them out for guard duties. Guards also complain of long hours of work and poor salaries, both of which affect their ability to perform.
These are issues that need to be looked into and corrective action taken as part of a larger plan to streamline the working of the private security agencies in the country. Such a drive is very much needed to restore confidence of the public in the whole system, which acts as a parallel security mechanism covering areas where the government cannot perhaps do much to ensure safety and security.