The Saudi warning

COMING from one of America’s closest allies in the Middle East, the Saudi warning about an escalation of the Israeli war must be taken seriously. In a statement issued in Riyadh on Tuesday, King Abdullah bin Abdul Aziz al-Saud warned that a full-scale war may engulf the region if the Israeli aggression against Lebanon and the Palestinians did not stop. He specifically referred to “Israeli arrogance” and said no one could predict what would happen if things got out of control. His concern is legitimate, because the Bush administration has made it absolutely clear that it does not want a ceasefire. The slaughter of Lebanese civilians continues because America would not intervene to stop the war. If Washington opts for a ceasefire, the Security Council can meet tomorrow and pass a resolution that will end hostilities with immediate effect. However, since Israel does not want a ceasefire, so doesn’t America. What both want is to delay a ceasefire so as to give Israel time to finish off Hezbollah, even if this means more misery for the Lebanese people.

The current war is not the first, nor possibly the last of modern wars. But as a review of wars since the end of World War II and the founding of the UN would show, diplomats have met to talk peace after a ceasefire had been effected. Here proposals for long-term peace are being floated and given precedence over something that should be every diplomat’s sole concern — the need for ending hostilities and saving lives. During her much-delayed visit to the Middle East, US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice emphasised the need for peace that would endure — “a sustainable ceasefire”, as she put it. Her aim was, she said, “a new Middle East”. But must this new Middle East come into being after Israel has had its full fill of blood? Much more sensible is the French proposal, which seeks an immediate ceasefire, followed by a defined political framework and political agreements among the parties concerned. Once this is achieved, an international force could be deployed on the Israeli-Lebanese border. This plan evidently has no chance of finding favour with the US or Israel. Instead, Tel Aviv has threatened that it will create its own security zone if a multinational force was not deployed.

How can a multinational force be deployed while fighting is going on? Besides, hasn’t Israel learnt from its experience of the security zone it created after its 1982 invasion of Lebanon? After an occupation lasting 18 years, during which it created an army of collaborators in southern Lebanon, it had to leave after suffering hundreds of casualties in the Hezbollah-led resistance. Would Israel want to suffer that humiliation again? There is no harm in having a multinational force on the border. Let the Security Council discuss the matter, which will find ready approval of China, France and Russia. But before that can happen, guns must fall silent. The misery of the Lebanese people continues to mount, with the number of displaced persons having reached 750,000. The US has sent relief goods to Lebanon to mitigate the suffering of the Lebanese people, but a much better way of ending their suffering would be for it to work for an immediate ceasefire, failing which the Saudi fears could come true. “If the brutal Israeli military continues to kill and destroy”, the king said, “no one can foresee what may happen”.

Monsoon deaths

WITH the death of seven persons, including children, in parts of Lahore by Wednesday, the countrywide rain-related death toll has risen to above 30 since last Sunday. The current rainy spell has caused death and destruction in all the four provinces, and in the quake-affected Azad Kashmir. Hundreds have also been injured and left homeless by houses collapsing or being washed away by flash floods and mudslides in the northern hilly areas and along the Makran coast. Deaths have been caused by drowning, electrocution and roof collapses. What is tragic is that most deaths could have been prevented if precautions had been taken by the people and the authorities concerned. Most houses that collapsed were either too old or dangerous to live in. Those having mud walls and roofs in the rain-affected parts of Sindh and Balochistan were not built to withstand heavy downpours. In Lahore, Rawalpindi and Hyderabad if civic authorities had been prepared and adequate arrangements had been made to drain out rainwater, the loss of life suffered there could have been significantly reduced. Affected residents had not only to grieve over their losses of life and property; they also had to endure agonisingly long water closures and power breakdowns.

With more rain forecast for the days ahead, it is perplexing to note, yet again, that no national emergency rescue and relief plan exists that can spring to action as and when a seasonal or a sudden calamity strikes. Regrettably, last year’s devastating earthquake has failed to serve as a wake-up call for a government that has all but pulled out of the social and public welfare sector; for reasons that are not comprehensible at all. Often the first to reach the scene of a tragedy are volunteer organizations, especially the Edhi Foundation, with their trained emergency staff and relief material. We can be thankful for that, but that is no reason to absolve the government of its indifference to its social and humanitarian responsibility towards the distressed in times of heavy rains, floods or other calamities. The current tragic deaths should tell our economic spin doctors that we are poorer today in many respects: robbed even of the many blessings of the monsoon season.

Saving Hingol National Park

HUMAN disdain for nature knows no bounds in an age where even wildlife sanctuaries are seen as fair game. In a shocking development, the Pakistan Air Force (PAF) has reportedly asked the Balochistan revenue department for 23,000 acres in the country’s largest nature reserve, the Hingol National Park in Balochistan. Suparco too is said to have applied for land within the protected national park which stretches across districts Lasbela, Gwadar and Awaran on the Makran Coast. The Hingol National Park, which includes the Hingol river estuary, is home to a number of species that are listed as threatened, vulnerable or rare. Several migratory birds, including the houbara bustard, and at least two varieties of pelicans, are regular seasonal visitors. Earlier, the PAF’s acquisition of land in the Maslakh wildlife sanctuary led to the elimination of the species which the reserve was set up to protect, specifically the chinkara and urial. In Sindh, it remains to be seen what impact oil and gas exploration will ultimately have on the wildlife in the Kirthar National Park.

One of the “wildlife and habitat” policies enshrined in the country’s National Conservation Strategy (NCS) envisages an “increase [in] the number of national parks and game reserves”. Pakistan is also a signatory to the United Nations Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD) 1992. Article eight of the CBD calls on contracting parties to “establish a system of protected areas or areas where special measures need to be taken to conserve biological diversity”, and to “promote the protection of ecosystems, natural habitats and the maintenance of viable populations of species in natural surroundings”. Ironically instead of creating new national parks, moves are afoot to decimate existing ones. This is in violation of the CBD as well as the guiding principles of the NCS. Plans to ‘develop’ any part of the Hingol National Park, for any other purpose, must be scrapped forthwith.

Tourism, not extremism

PRESIDENT Musharraf has appealed to people to shun extremism and promote tourism. He was speaking at the concluding ceremony of the three-day Shandur festival at Chitral high up on the mountains. He is, of course, right. Terrorism and extremism should be eschewed and tourism promoted in those lovely regions.

But it takes more than appeals to people by the rulers to promote and develop tourism. First comes creating the right infrastructure for tourism. But while his appeal has made headlines, what are the other headlines in the newspapers? One of them says that the air and water pollution levels in Karachi, the premier city of Pakistan, have crossed national and international environmental quality standards, posing serious threats to its 10 million residents, according to a report prepared by Suparco and its scientists have urged the government to take immediate remedial measures to check the factors responsible for the deteriorating environment.

Another report says that the per capita availability of water has dropped five times — from 5,300 cubic meter per capita in 1950 to 1,100 cubic meters in 2005. While the state of the premier city of Pakistan is deplorable, another headline says; ‘Punjab barrages are passed their life.’ Yet another headline scaring the tourists says that 32 runways in the country are unsafe for flights and that the Multan Fokker crash could have been avoided with greater caution.

These are only some of the headlines which scared the tourists who have the whole world to choose a country from for their holidays. The water problem for drinking is solved partly by using bottled water. We have over 30 brands of bottled water at present. But many of them are not free of impurities. There is too much adulteration in this sector so one has to be careful of what one consumes in the name of purified. Then there are crimes galore which affect the tourists as well. Among them are thefts in the streets and wide open roads. In Karachi a minimum of 50 cars and mobile phones are snatched everyday but an average these are 75 and a maximum that exceeds one hundred. Last week 117 cars and mobiles were snatched in a single day.

Resisting such thefts or snatchings is risky as one can be fired at and killed by persons who take murder too lightly. Tourists seldom go to the police stations. If they do, they will find getting an FIR filed an uphill task. But an FIR is not enough, far more important is the follow-up action including attending court proceedings and producing the right witnesses. And finally if a verdict is pronounced in the applicants’ favour, getting it executed is another exacting task. The tourists may not come to Pakistan next time and may advise their friends too to stay away from here. He will choose another country, less vexatious. Tourists avoid Pakistan when tension between Pakistan and India increases and that happens from time to time and it may happen now.

It is not every tourist who comes to Pakistan is a mountain climber or an avid trekker on high mountains. Nor are we being fair in accounting every overseas Pakistani who comes on a visit home as a tourist to inflate the tourist figures.

Then there is a frequent failure of power supply, load shedding and electricity breakdowns. It is no use asking for advance intimation for loadshedding as the old and overloaded distribution system can develop faults any moment. So one has to be prepared for his dark hours here anytime, more so in summer. The tourists are not prepared for such nasty surprises unless there are other compensatory rewards, which we hardly have.

The manner in which the top figures in the government explain away the power failures and inadequate supply would create the impression that they have been in office for a short time and the power shortage has come to them as a surprise. But the fact is they have been in office for a total of almost seven years and they have to admit their dismal failure in this crucial area.

What they are doing in a hurry now they could have anticipated and got prepared to meet the challenge. The fact is they did not agree to pay the new power producers an economic price for their power, inclusive of the market rate of profit. They delayed the decisions and prevaricated for too long. They allowed valuable time to slip by, particularly in respect of the use of Lakhra coal and Thar coal for adequate power production. So they have to make up for the lost time quickly.

President Musharraf has spoken of short-term, long-term and medium term plans. He has talked of a medium term strategy to set up 45 power plants which will produce 8,600 mw of power by 2008-2010. Prior to that two power plants of 300 megawatts each will start production by March 2007 and two projects for the KSEC will produce 550 megawatts of power by April 2007.

Let us hope these power plants will produce the promised power and by the scheduled dates. But it will take a great deal of vigilance on the part of the authorities to make these projects a reality in time. But the power will be costly if they depend on imported oil, the price of which has already touched $78 a barrel.

If more tourists were to come, we will have to make life in Pakistan easy and attractive for them. We have already the prohibition in effect at one end and high price for the liquor for those permitted. A tourist does not always want to carry his permit and pay high prices. Violent and continuing conflicts as in Balochistan and Waziristan do not encourage tourists to come to a country where sex segregation too is substantial. The tourists need or love a more relaxed atmosphere.

Tension and outburst caused by an excess of poverty can discourage the tourists. Excessive poverty now affects only 24 per cent of people and not 34 per cent as it used to in the past, says the president. That means one-fourth of the population are very poor and generate the kind of tensions common in such circumstances.

India keeps on adding to the tension in the region. It now says it will not tolerate another attack of the kind that killed around 200 persons in Mumbai last week. It also talks of the right of hot pursuit into Pakistan if an attack takes place.

That is not the right atmosphere for the tourists. Extremism which the president abhors thrives in an atmosphere of lack of reason, tension and intolerance. The country needs an environment with fewer irritations, less provocations and less emotional outburst in public life.

Extremism can be eliminated only when rational thinking and difference of opinion have their proper place and where people have more time to relax and more places to relax and not public parks which demand rupees five to ten for admission. It needs an environment where people do not feel choked and boggled up or assailed by vague fears which are constant. And where there are no frequent shutdowns or hartals or bus strikes. It needs an environment where one does not fear that his car or motorcycle will be stolen any moment and he may not get it back; And where one does not go to umpteen places early in the morning for a bucket of water.

There is talk of reforms all round; judicial, financial, administrative reforms — all with the financial help of the World Bank or the Asian Development Bank. A commission has been set up under the former governor of the State Bank Dr Ishrat Hussain to suggest administrative reforms. It is to be a very comprehensive exercise. But a set of reforms we need and which is not spoken openly is the military reform. That monolith is beyond the reach of the parliament or other power centres or the tax payers who pay the defence bill of 250 billion rupees to reform.

Reforms do take place within the army setup, but the non-military elements have no voice there. Civilians all over the world are having more and more access to the military administration and the armed forces chiefs are answerable to the parliament. The same should happen in Pakistan as the military rule ends.

Reforms as a whole have a disappointing history in Pakistan. Most of the times they are half-hearted reforms because of the resistance of the vested interests. At other times the reforms are good, but are not Implemented in full and within the specified time. The better part of the reforms is not implemented in full.

The best examples are the police reforms and the judicial reforms. In both the sectors, the resistance to serious reform is strong and sustained from within. Hence the judicial system is too disappointing and the police force eventually defies all major reforms.

And now as if we do not have enough problems, the Sindh government has banned the teachers associations, creating another storm centre. It is one thing to ban students unions which are too politicized and quite another to ban teachers associations in the name of preventing politics in their community.

The Lahore High Court had earlier rejected the move to ban the teachers union. Heedless of that the Sindh government has banned teachers unions. The teachers have by and large stood for quality education in the face of official apathy and other official abuses and they should not be stifled in the manner being done in Sindh now.