| September 8, 2005 | Thursday | Sha’aban 3, 1426 |
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Clashes in Saudi Arabia
Rape of small girls
An environmental disaster in the making
DESPITE its rejection by the National Assembly’s standing committee on environment, concern shown by the Capital Development Authority, and disapproval by local elected representatives and its own forest and irrigation departments, the Punjab government seems intent on steamrolling its much-vaunted development project, the New Murree tourist resort.
THE Asian Development Bank president, Haruhiko Kuroda, who paid a two-day visit to Pakistan this week, has expressed his dissatisfaction with governance, power sector reforms and poverty situation in Pakistan. His dissatisfaction on the last count appears to be based on ground realities. The report of the latest Pakistan Social and Living Standards Measurement survey, 2004-05, conducted by the Federal Bureau of Statistics says that more than 51.5 per cent of households have reported no change in their economic situation last year. This negates the government’s claim about improvement in the poverty situation in recent years in response to its policies and also because of the accelerated growth rates in the last couple of years. Governance too has a direct bearing on the poverty situation. The ADB President’s dissatisfaction on this count also appears to be based on facts. Taking just one aspect of governance, that of the size of the government, a voluminous report of over 400 pages was prepared by a high-powered committee headed by the then Deputy Chairman of Planning Commission and constituted by President Musharraf in 2000, had recommended reducing the number of ministries by almost half to 18.
But the last act of President Musharraf as the country’s chief executive was to approve an increase in the number by six. Next, Prime Minister Shaukat Aziz, soon after he took over the reins of the government in November 2004, added eight more. The number of divisions has also increased in the same proportion. Finally putting the icing on the cake, he inducted as many 60 members in his cabinet, the largest ever in Pakistan’s history, and defended it by pointing out that even Malaysia (whose GDP is many times larger than Pakistan’s) had as large a cabinet. The defence budget for the year 2004-05 was allowed to overshoot the target by Rs. 17 billion at a time when there is almost total peace on our border with India and across the LoC while the Waziristan operations are being funded by the US paying over $70,000 a month to the Pakistan army. Meanwhile, the officer corps of our defence forces has adopted a lifestyle that is too ostentatious for a country as poor as Pakistan. As a result, the expenditure last year shot up to over 14 per cent of the GDP at nearly a trillion rupees.
The ADB president’s warning that growing oil prices will affect the growth rate during the current year needs to be considered in the context of his dissatisfaction with the pace of reform in our power sector. Indeed, unless we accelerate these reforms, our oil bill will soon go out of control, making it impossible to sustain the high growth rates achieved in recent years. Indeed a slide in the growth rate would further affect the poverty situation, as the so-called trickle down effect would get diffused correspondingly. So, first we need to protect and sustain the current growth rates by pursuing policies that aim at generating jobs and at the same time, we must improve governance with policies that aim at bringing down to a reasonable level the overall current expenditure with special emphasis on curtailing the defence and administrative expenditure. Finally, we must introduce effective safety nets for the poor so that they are protected as much as possible against the vagaries of circumstances.
CLASHES between Saudi security forces and militants now seem to be occurring with regular frequency. Last month, Saleh al-Awfi, described as Al Qaeda’s leader in Saudi Arabia, was killed in a shootout in Madinah. On Tuesday, six militants and four Saudi officials were killed when troops raided a hideout in Dammam. The militants’ strength is evident from the way they fought back. The siege, which began on Sunday, lasted three days before the troops finally managed to kill the terrorists. Again, one of those killed was identified by the authorities as Zaid Saad Zaid, Al Qaeda’s No 3 man in the kingdom.
Terrorism is one of the many challenges King Abdullah now faces. The population is fast expanding and 75 per cent of it is under 30, but there are no jobs, because unemployment is at nine per cent, though unofficial sources put it at 15. Princes number in the thousands and monopolize all key and lucrative positions. The government must therefore undertake massive infrastructure works to create more jobs. It is in a position to do so because the current oil boom has soared Saudi Arabia’s revenues this year to a fantastic $157 billion, a jump of 48 per cent over the figures for 2004. A failure to ensure an equitable distribution of the oil wealth is one of the major sources of disaffection among the Saudis. The US pressure for reforms continues, but the process seems to have come to a halt. The municipal elections earlier this year aroused no public interest, and women were kept out of it. Unlike his half-brother Fahd, Abdullah is popular with the people. He visits slums to know the people’s grievances. But the system based on Wahhabi puritanism and royal privileges is not easy to reform. The sons of King Abdel Aziz, the founder of the Saudi kingdom, are now in their eighties, and the third generation is waiting in the wings to take over. Abdullah, therefore, has to show wisdom in crafting a policy that will satisfy the impatient younger lot without creating political instability and social unrest.
WEDNESDAY’S report that five young girls — aged three, four, five, eight and 11 — have been treated at Karachi’s Civil Hospital in the past one month after having been raped should have awakened society from its deep slumber over such problems. Yet, despite the feigned shock that will be expressed in Pakistan’s ubiquitous drawing rooms, the outrage will not translate into action. Many see protests as futile or counterproductive while others believe such matters are the sole domain of NGOs. It is tragic that there is virtually no community activism here. Such activism, visible in neighbouring India, may not have succeeded in preventing rape, but it has mobilized communities into pressuring those in power into taking action. In Pakistan, the rape victim is shunned or further victimized by the police and impervious judicial system. Few from her community step forward to offer support. So she must pray that her situation is taken note of by higher-ups if she expects justice.
Who will now come forward to speak on behalf of these five young girls whose innocence was brutalized by sick minds? The three-year-old girl’s mother works as a maid at a senior police’s officer house, where the rape took place. The brother-in-law of the five-year-old girl, who committed the heinous crime, has fled to Balochistan. One can expect no help from the police whose own involvement in rape cases is the centre of many an investigation these days. What hope is left then? It cannot be emphasized enough that until the process of answerability is in place and the judicial process takes its independent course, crimes like these will continue to occur. Along with ensuring that sex offenders are given exemplary punishment, society must be sensitized to this kind of brutal and bestial crimes. Society is equally at fault for its apathy and must step forward to demand justice for these girls.
Planned 24 kilometres south-east of present-day Murree in the Patriata Hills, the project will use 4,111 acres of what is known as a ‘reserve forest’ in the area north of Islamabad, for which hundreds of thousands of coniferous trees will have to be cut. The Patriata forest boasts of the highest average annual rainfall in the country — around 1,770 millimetres annually — and is situated in the catchment area of both Simly and Rawal dams, which provide almost half of the drinking water for Rawalpindi and Islamabad.
The building of New Murree — being billed by the Punjab government as a major tourist resort which will do the provincial as well as national economy much good — will disturb the water collected by the two dams and will lead to their eventual silting. Other than that, the project will lead to soil erosion, increased risk of landslides, and will eventually end up robbing the whole area of its precious forest cover. Proof of that can be seen in the hills in and around Murree which have over the years become completely barren and hardly any trees can be found on them).
Despite strong opposition from the NA standing committee (whose recommendations are unfortunately only in an advisory capacity and not binding) and by local residents and concerned citizens, the Punjab chief minister has managed to get on his side a most powerful supporter, President Pervez Musharraf himself. In fact, those now opposing the project are being portrayed as being anti-development. In remarks on TV channels, Chief Minister Pervez Elahi said that those opposing New Murree “did not know anything”, implying that such opposition was merely for the sake of opposition and might be due to a vested interest.
In the same vein, the president, in remarks to foreign correspondents based in Islamabad, was quoted as saying that cutting of trees could not take precedence over development.
The point is not as simple as that, and perhaps the president is being misled by those who are for this project. Most reasonable people would not argue with the fact that development is quite important for a country like Pakistan. However, what can be argued is the form of such development and in what manner it should take place. The Punjab government’s whole argument seems to rest on promoting New Murree as a project with great tourist potential. According to the master plan, a tourist city will be built, complete with five-star hotels, golf courses, residential apartment complexes, shopping malls and even a monorail.
First, if promoting tourism is indeed such a top priority for the Punjab or even the federal government, it should first try and improve the mess that Murree, the country’s oldest and most well-known tourist resort, has become. Besides, the cultural attractions of Mughal monuments in Lahore are perhaps one of Punjab’s biggest potential tourist attractions, along with the Harappa ruins near Sahiwal, or the ruins in Uch in the province’s south and even these have failed to attract tourists in large numbers.
In the case of the Mughal monuments, the Punjab government has not batted even an eyelid — in fact, it has acquiesced in their neglect and decay — as its own senior officials have seen it fit to organize fashion shows, musical evenings and, more recently, even a wedding on the monument premises. Or take a look at the ancient Harappa ruins, where a ruling party MNA applied for and almost managed to get permission from the government to build a commercial establishment within the premises of the ruins.
Besides, at the national level, the country has natural treasures like the Karakorum, Hindukush and the Western Himalaya ranges, it has the natural wonder that is the Makran coastline (more accessible now thanks to the coastal highway) and there are countless mountain treks in valleys in Chitral, Swat, Kaghan, the Galiyat region, the more pristine and relatively unexplored Neelum and Leepa valleys of Azad Jammu and Kashmir, and then, of course, the more serious treks further north around Gilgit, Hunza, Skardu and the Shimshal region.
The point in listing all these is that if such marvels of nature cannot attract many tourists, then it is doubtful that a new tourist resort — situated 24 kilometres from one that is already in bad shape and polluted to the hilt — will. This means that rather than develop new resorts, the government needs to improve the existing ones and also improve law and order and do something about its negative image abroad.
Second, development for a country like Pakistan is indeed imperative. But at what cost and of what nature? Shouldn’t the Punjab government’s energies and ample finances be spent on other more pressing issues? It is perhaps the richest of all the four provinces but that does not make it a Switzerland, with lots of money left over to develop Alpine-style tourist resorts. Besides, why not work on the existing tourist resorts like Murree and improve their deteriorating infrastructure and non-existent capacity to accommodate tourists.
Also, for the sake of argument, if one were to accept the fact that tourism promotion is a valid priority for Mr Elahi’s government, then why do it at the expense of 4,000-plus acres of pristine forest, and whose consequence could well be a silting up and pollution of Islamabad and Rawalpindi’s primary sources of drinking water. In addition, it has been widely reported that no environmental impact assessment has been carried out for the proposed project, a requirement (mandated by the federal government itself) for all major infrastructure projects. Would it be then fair to presume that such an assessment has not been done because the Punjab government does not want to risk further opposition to an already controversial project?
For the record, the ecological and environmental value of the Patriata forest is such that it has been designated a ‘reserve’ or protected forest since the days of the British — 1886 to be precise. After independence the protected status of the forest was kept intact and remained so till 2004 when the Punjab Assembly passed the New Murree Development Authority (NMDA) Act. The NMDA is chaired by the chief minister of Punjab and includes the chief secretary and several provincial secretaries. The Act, like most other pieces of legislation, has an indemnity clause which exempts the authority, its chairman and members from being sued in a court of law “in respect of anything done or intended to be done in good faith”.
Interestingly, the Act also authorizes the NMDA to “perform any or all powers and functions of local government” as defined under the Punjab Local Government Ordinance, 2001, which perhaps explains why the provincial government is acting in complete disregard of concerns expressed by the former nazim and naib nazim of Murree tehsil who said that the project would be disastrous for their area.
The chairperson of the National Assembly’s standing committee on environment, which in principle rejected the New Murree project, is a ruling party follower. In early July, she told newspapers that the committee would write to the president, prime minister and the Punjab chief minister to review the decision and to look for some alternate site. According to her, the NA committee’s members had pointedly asked Punjab government officials in a meeting questioned the wisdom of cutting down a forest that was over 200 years old to build hotels and golf courses, especially when alternate sites were available.
She said that the members had noted that in the past as well, influential figures like then Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif had toyed with the idea of developing a tourist resort in the Patriata hills but had backed off after told of the environmental consequences and of the impact the project would have on Simly and Rawal dams. The members had also told the provincial government officials that the priority was not building tourist resorts but rather conservation of water and ecology and that New Murree would adversely affect the capacity of the forest area to act as a catchment area for two important local dams.
The chairperson of the NA standing committee also told this newspaper in early August that the NA standing committee had suggested some alternatives and hoped that these would be incorporated. However, given that the NA committees act in an advisory capacity, and given that the New Murree project is a pet project of the Punjab chief minister, it is quite unlikely that the project will either be reviewed or an alternate site considered.
The question remains: if indeed a tourist resort on such a massive scale needs to be built, then why at the cost of a vast forest which is important not only from an ecological/environmental point of view but whose destruction could well lead to a negative impact on the primary sources of drinking water for Islamabad and Rawalpindi. Also, what is the need for building New Murree when Murree is already there, and when local residents, environmental experts, departments within the Punjab government, the CDA and concerned citizens are strongly against it?
No wonder, the insistence by the Punjab government seems to lend credence to the rumours doing the rounds these days that those backing the project have a direct stake in its success — they or their proxies have bought land earmarked for the project and whose price will shoot through the roof once the project gets underway.
Email: omarq@cyber.net.pk