| June 25, 2005 | Saturday | Jumadi-ul-Awwal 17, 1426 |
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Religious scholar’s murder
Tanneries and pollution
THE long overdue Rs10-billion Balochistan uplift package announced on Thursday by a parliamentary sub-committee has taken into account a number of ground realities prevailing in the impoverished and hitherto neglected province. These include the implementation of the 5.4 per cent quota for Balochistan in federal jobs, priority for local people in new jobs expected to be thrown up by the Gwadar seaport, compensation to fishermen affected by the port’s construction, representation of Balochistan leaders on boards of directors of the Oil and Gas Development Corporation and the Sui Southern Gas Company. The package also include a one-time waiver on gas charges for local residents, payment of oil and gas royalties directly to areas from where these are extracted, removal of the Frontier Constabulary and Coast Guard check posts from cities and towns and the provision of night-landing facilities at Quetta airport. Of the Rs10 billion for the province, one billion is recommended to be spent on improving the health-care system, two billion on uplift schemes in the Sui area, three billion in Gwadar and four billion in Quetta. The period within which the pledged amount will be made available to Balochistan and spent on development projects there is not clear. Also missing from the package is a mechanism to ensure a further injection of special uplift funds for the province in case what is being offered now does not prove enough. One says this in view of the sheer magnitude of underdevelopment obtaining in the vast, arid province and the long neglect of Balochistan’s needs by the centre.
The initial reaction from the major opposition parties to the development package is far from enthusiastic. We have, in these columns, time and again opposed the government’s unilateral approach to tackling national problems, including those related to inter-provincial and centre-province relations, but the opposition’s outright rejection of the Balochistan package seems to be a case of politicking for politics’ sake. The opposition has everything to gain by being part of the national agenda at such critical junctures. The government on its part appears to have alienated the opposition by its long delay in finalizing the package, and some of the agreed points that should have already been implemented, remain uncertain.
The Balochistan package cannot be passed and implemented in its existing form unless the opposition in the National Assembly and the Senate is brought round to cooperating with the government. Similarly, constitutional changes proposed on Thursday by the National Reconstruction Bureau, which envisage decentralization of fiscal and administrative powers of the federal government, activation under a reviewed mandate of the Council of Common Interest and the shortening of the federal concurrent list cannot go through parliament if the opposition is not allowed to play a constructive role in the debate over these vital national issues. The NRB has proposed wide-ranging changes that need greater consideration. Most of them augur well for strengthening provincial autonomy, but without radically revamping the federal structure of the Constitution. A genuine devolution of power to the provinces is the only way to improve inter-provincial and centre-province relations. It is for the government to ensure the active participation of the opposition in all debates over the plan if it is sincere about removing misunderstandings and mitigating the sense of grievances of smaller provinces. The Council of Common Interest at least must be immediately revived.
YET another religious scholar has been shot dead in Karachi. On Thursday, gunmen on a motorcycle killed Mufti Atiqur Rahman, Raees of Jamia Binnoria, SITE, as he was returning after a lecture at a Burns Road mosque. His son and a companion riding with him in his car were wounded. Mufti Rahman was deputy to the late Maulana Shamzai, who, too, was assassinated last year. Maulana Rahman’s murder brings to at least five the number of ulema belonging to the Binnoria group who have fallen victim to assassins’ bullets. They include Maulana Yusuf Ludhianvi, who was gunned down in May 2000. It is difficult to attribute sectarian motives to these murders, because the Binnoria school, while fundamentalist, does not have a parochial agenda; it is anti-American and anti- Saudi, and Maulana Shamzai was known to be a Taliban sympathizer, though later he had distanced himself from Afghan reactionaries.
The latest assassination serves to focus attention on the acute law and order situation in Karachi. The events last month — the bomb blast in a mosque and acts of rioting and arson that followed — were of a sectarian nature. But this month has witnessed at least three people killed in shootouts between the Sunni Tehrik and the MQM. Seen against the background of similar acts of terrorism in other parts of the country, Mufti Rahman’s assassination highlights the widespread chaos that has long been our national bane. This testifies to the nation’s failure to develop democratic institutions for resolving political differences. Yet, astonishing as it appears, both the government and the opposition seem to be utterly indifferent to this cancerous growth in our body politic. All that one hears on such occasions are routine condolence messages. Besides that, there is no sign that the ruling party and those in the opposition would like to develop a code of ethics with a view to checking what appears to be a headlong descent into anarchy and violence. Speeches and statements by our leaders are so flimsy and rhetorical that they only have to blame themselves if they find their cadres and activists resorting to violence to resolve political issues.
A REPORT from Sialkot indicating the high levels of pollution caused by the tanneries in the area should be cause for concern, especially since this is contrary to an earlier assertion by the chairman of the Pakistan Gloves Manufacturers and Exporters Association that pollution was down by 40 per cent. The truth is that as developed countries register a fall in the number of locally manufactured leather goods because of environmental concerns, Pakistan’s leather exports have been on the rise and new tanning units are coming up in the country. This has resulted in worsening the degradation of soil, water and air as most of the units, located in populated areas, are not equipped to treat the effluents or prevent these from entering the food chain. It is no surprise that those living near tanneries continue to be afflicted by a variety of potentially disabling diseases. Protests have fallen on deaf ears and there are few signs that the government is taking steps to implement pollution-control measures, despite the existence of an elaborate set of rules contained in the Pakistan Environment Protection Act, 1997.
The government may be right in encouraging leather manufacturers, especially as there is a demand for their goods in the international market. But surely this should not be at the cost of the degradation of the environment and the health of its people. There has to be greater accountability for tannery owners and the principle of polluter-pays must apply to them so that they realize that discharging untreated effluents into the soil and waterways of the country will simply not be tolerated. If this is not done, not only will people continue to suffer, Pakistan might even find itself blacklisted in certain markets for exporting products under conditions that are far from environmentally friendly.