| November 06, 2006 | Monday | Shawwal 13, 1427 |
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Political crisis in Bangladesh
The veil row
Islamabad railway station
Death penalty
Eye opener for CDGK
Hudood laws
Bajaur killings
Microcredit for peace
Australian Imam’s remarks
Chopping down trees
Street crimes
PCB ban
Readers are requested to restrict their comments to a maximum of 400 words. We reserve the right to edit letters for reasons of clarity and space. Letters, including those by e-mail, should carry the complete postal address of the sender. The views expressed in these columns do not necessarily reflect the views of the newspaper.—Editor
WORLDWIDE perception about Pakistan as a country among the world’s most corrupt developing nations is partly due to the negative projection by the international media. In the domestic news, every disastrous scandal even further erodes Pakistan’s credibility and transparency ratings. Few months ago it was the privatisation of the Steel Mills where high level of regime corruption was cited by the Supreme Court of Pakistan. This discourages and sends negative messages to international investors and overseas Pakistanis interested in investing in Pakistan.
Recently the overnight sale of Bundal and Budoo Islands by the Pakistani government to Emmar the UAE based construction firm, which plans to develop a new city on the Islands at an overly optimistic estimated cost of US$43 billion is questionable and controversial and maybe another disaster in the making.
Once again the government did not find it necessary to be transparent and accountable to the people or fully inform the public of the terms of the transaction. This is a continuity of irresponsible behaviour by incompetent and corrupt high level officials who feel above the law and immune to any accountability.
First of all, the government must coordinate among all the concerned departments and take the public into confidence before selling any public assets. Investigation by an independent body may be conducted to stop such haphazard and shady transactions in the future involving the sale of state assets.
Secondly, the government should make the deal totally transparent and must disclose the price and financial details at which the Islands were sold and detailed plans of development must be made public. Unless we make financial transparency a fundamental issue in this country we will never join the ranks of a respectable nation and earn the confidence of international investors.
Our “visionary” and “progressive” president recently made a statement in New York that “Pakistan is not a banana republic” but what more negative characteristics do we need as a nation to qualify as a banana republic? We have all the ingredients present here.
The irresponsible sale of the two Islands of Sindh, is an economic and environmental disaster. Not only it will whack the local fishermen who harvested large quantities of fish around these Islands, it will also destroy the presence of bird species, marine life and their eggs permanently. The fishermen will be displaced and impacted by the construction on these Islands.
A development environmental and social impact assessment must be conducted on the Islands. How many permanent jobs will be created and how many temporary jobs will be created during the construction period? How does this development add value to the bottom line of the people of Pakistan and residents of Karachi? In particular the fishermen who will be wiped out caused by the “development” and how will the impacted fishermen get compensated?
The people of Pakistan are not against development and foreign investment, but only if strict corruption controls are implemented and transactions are made with transparency and in the best interest of the Pakistani people through growth-oriented economic policies.
ASIF I QURESHI
Karachi
YOUR editorial on Bangladesh (Oct 31) voices concern over the state of democracy in that country and the rise to prominence of religious extremists. I have spent some time in Bangladesh and am not particularly worried.
Bangladeshis, no doubt, are an emotional and a volatile people, but at the same time they are intelligent and inherently sincere. The political system that they have evolved is vibrant and indeed resilient enough to weather such crises as the present one.
It is this very system that has enabled the country to significantly reduce poverty, enhance literacy and empower women. The conferment of the Nobel Peace Prize on Dr Mohammad Younus of the Grameen Bank is a clear recognition of the impressive progress that the country has made in these areas so critical to the strengthening and sustenance of democracy.
The fact that Bangladesh does not have a parasitical feudal class and for the past 16 years the army has confined itself to the barracks have considerably helped the process. The voter turnout in Bangladesh’s last election was nearly 70 per cent (practically twice as high as ours) which is a popular endorsement of the prevalent political system.
Let us also not forget that the territory of Bangladesh is approximately the size of the province of Sindh, with a population equal to that of Pakistan and with rather limited natural resources.
Dr Henry Kissinger described it as a ‘basket case’. It is, by no means, an easy country to manage. Yet, it has fared remarkably well. There is a lot that we can learn from the Bangladeshi experience.
As for the present restlessness, this is how a people continue to discover themselves in a democracy.
It is the only way to keep extremism at bay and anytime preferable to the silence of the graveyard.
IQBAL AHMED KHAN
Lahore
“VEIL is a visible demonstration of separateness in a country. Muslim women to remove their veils when they visit my office”: Jack Straw, Britain’s former foreign secretary. Not to be left behind, Tony Blair patted his back by saying: “Perfectly sensible.”
Mr Straw may be within his rights to say so except that “remove the veil” resembles a timely blowing of the whistle, which was to be avoided for the sake of confidence-building purposes in future.
But what astonished me more was his pick of veils as the only cause of Muslims’ separateness in the UK. Is a veiled woman on a spot the only criterion? This requires a reminder that, in fact, the reflections of injustice in Blair’s Britain is the disturbing cause for it. These columns allow a few examples to quote.
“British terror suspects are being held in conditions condemned as barbaric by the government’s own medical experts and described by lawyers who visited them as concrete coffins, complaints lodged with the UK home secretary have received no response”, writes Martin Bright (Dawn, Jan 23, 02).
In another case, columnist Phil Shiner writes: “Ahmad Jabbar Kareem Ali, 17-year-old boy from Basra, who, it is claimed, was abused, hand-cuffed and thrown into a river where he drowned.” (Dawn, May 7, 05).
“Late Sulayman Zainul Abedin, while being tried in the UK, his reading material was used by Blair government as evidence against him” (Dawn, April 2, 04).
This completes Blair’s “perfectly sensible” ideology.
Z.A. KAZMI
Karachi
TRANSPORT and communications are one of the major requirements of today’s modern life. All over the world, it is the government’s first priority to provide the appropriate transport facilities to its citizens, especially in the capital. It is a deplorable fact that this is not so in our country.
Islamabad is probably the only capital in the world where there is a railway line but no railway station.
During the British era, a railway station was established in the Golra village area, which now lies within the Islamabad Capital Territory, but no improvement was made after the birth of Pakistan. At present there is a Margala Railway Station in I-9 sector which is actually a dry port. No train for passengers function here.
From what I know, I-8 Sector was initially reserved for the establishment of a railway station in the CDA Master Plan, but this area is now a residential sector.
Citizens in Islamabad have to travel all the way down the busy and crowded Murree Road to Rawalpindi Rail-way Station to take a train journey. A railway station should be established in Islamabad for the convenience of passengers.
MUHAMMAD ISHTIAQ ALI
Rawalpindi
THIS is with reference to Zubeida Mustafa’s article ‘We can do without the death rows’ (Oct 25). While the writer makes a good point about how the death penalty does little to deter crime, she fails to understand that laws of the land have to take precedence in all matters of justice and nobody is above the law in a country where crime is committed.
Unless a country’s parliament decides about the abolishment of death penalty, it will be awarded on murders and at least on heinous crimes.
I agree with Dr Alfred Charles of Karachi that if, according to judicial procedure, the courts have made a decision on death penalty after learned judges found Afzal Guru in Delhi and the British nationalist here in Pakistan, Mirza Tahir Hussain guilty, then they should receive the pronounced punishment.
I will like to add that privilege and right of the president of Pakistan to exonerate or repeal death sentence should be withdrawn by an act of parliament.
Only the learned judges, who should also be honest, impartial and fearless and must be protected by state, can decide fairly about the case and whose highest court’s decision should be final and unquestionable.
S. T. HASAN
Ontario, Canada
BEING an avid net user, I was surfing through various Sindh government sites after a cumbersome time commuting through half broken and half constructed roads and bypasses of the city.
To my great surprise, when I saw the opinion poll column of official website of City District Government Karachi, there were 2,019 satisfactory votes on the performance of CDGK and 4,135 votes against their performance.
It implies that a highly aware segment of the city who are dissatisfied with the performance of CDGK are twice in number to those who are in favour of it.
I think this opinion poll should be an eye opener for both the city Nazim and the Naib Nazim who should be made to realise that their popularity, as well as the popularity of their political party, is declining day by day.
FARAH AHMED
Karachi
THIS is in reference to Zakir Ahmad’s letter (Oct. 23) in which he contends that the Hudood Laws were not entirely Ziaul Haq’s doing and that “a whole team of respected jurists, lawyers and ulema from all schools of thought formulated these in response to a demand raised by the Council of Islamic Ideology. It was vetted three times and took 14 months to complete.” If these laws were really in conformity with the tenets of Islam then these would have neither required repeated vetting nor 14 months to formulate. It would have been a matter of implementing what was already stipulated in the Holy Quran or the Sunnah.
The fact is that Ziaul Haq, being over anxious to win the support of mullahs, was all out to implement Islam as it was contrived by them and as it existed in his own mind. As he conceived it, the implementation of canons of Islam could be fulfilled by imposing punishments of flogging, cutting off hands, death by stoning of women and public hangings against various sins. TV programmes were subject to the prescribed regulations. Women appearing on screen were bound down with taboos and prohibitions. The banking system was altered to an extent just short of its functional failure, an utterly mismanaged system of zakat and usher was introduced, the syllabi at primary level education were changed to incorporate religious training.
Then General Musharraf came on the scene. He has his own notions of Islam for which he has a new name, an enlightened Islam. It rejects fundamentalism which we had supposedly been practicing. Now all departments of the government, all its committees and all its functionaries must change their attitudes and play to the tune of the new ruler.
The same CII which had helped to write the Hudood laws has now been asked to suggest amendments to it and the same respected jurists and lawyers see the evil segments in the laws. Women on the electronic screen have happily parted company with the dupatta. Some missionary educational institutions which had been taken over by the government have been submissively passed on to the original administrations. Various religious scholars are now calling the Hudood laws as repugnant to the Holy Quran and Sunnah. The insufferable Hudood Laws should have been repealed but it seems there are political considerations and interests involved.
This nation has a history of despotic dictators and with every ruler comes a different precept of bidding. There has been, and there is at this moment, no fixed direction for the nation. The demands on the conduct of the people, the rules and regulations, the legislation, the auspices, the statecraft —almost everything which concerned the people and the government has been dependent on the whims and the sweet will of the ruler. We do not know how long the present state of uncertainty will continue.
S. ABRAR HUSSAIN
Lahore
THE killing of over 80 people in a missile attack on a religious seminary shows that Pakistani citizens are expendable; their lives mean nothing in the eyes of the military government. Target killings are the new judicial system of Pakistan. It appears that the Pakistani military leadership has embraced the policies currently being followed by Israel in Palestine, India in Kashmir and Russia in Chechnya.
Since there appears to be no real opposition to these policies of the military government by the people of Pakistan, we as a nation have lost our moral high ground and have forfeited any right to criticise other regimes for state terrorism and human rights violations. One feels a deep and profound sadness at how apathetic we are towards human suffering and death, at how low we have fallen. This policy of playing judge, jury and executioner is anomalistic.
Gen Musharraf told the nation on Oct 17, 1999, when he came to power, that we ‘stand in darkness’. It did not seem so then, but after seven years of Musharraf and his house of turncoats, it does indeed seem pitch black.
KHWAJA KHUSRO TARIQ
Karachi
MOHAMMAD Yunus and the Grameen bank of Bangladesh have been honored with the Nobel peace prize for their pioneering work in microcredit. This enables the poor, particularly women, to engage in self-employment projects that allow them to generate income and, in many cases, they overcome poverty.
Today 1.2 billion people in the world are living on less than a dollar a day. Peace cannot be harvested through wars imposed on the poor people. The poor should be rather helped to break out of poverty. The Norwegian Nobel Committee for 2006 demonstrated that microcredit is one such mean.
FOUZIA RAHMAN
Karachi
AUSTRALIA’S senior Imam Sheikh Taj el-Din al-Hilali stated in his sermon that some women attract sexual assault by the way they dress. Sickeningly, he described inappropriately dressed women as uncovered meat. Suggestions that the Imam be deported are off the mark. He should suffer all the punishment that Islam describes for false accusation of immorality.
The Imam’s national origin, ethnic identity, or sect is irrelevant. Let’s see whether the leaders of moderate Islamic states respond with adequate condemnation and apology.
A. ERCELAN
Karachi
THE Kachho belt is situated in the western part of district Dadu in taluka Johi. The area is rich in mineral resources, historical events, tourist spots, archaeological sites and environmental perspectives. But unfortunately the environmental conditions of this area have become pathetic.
For the past decade, brokers of timber have been chopping down trees and have plunged this belt into desertification. The major trees that have been cut off are Throan tree-Pros opus spicigera, pros opus glandolosa, Salvadora okoides and Bubal tree acatia. All this transaction is made under the supervision of the government officials and politically influential figures of the area. Although the government has imposed Section 144 on tree cutting here, these people seem to pay no heed to any government verdict.
Hundreds of tonnes of timber are transported from here (fodder and non fodder) on a daily basis and no one seems to resist. Due to this chopping down of trees in large numbers, this area has been facing a prolong drought for the last seven years. As the Kachho is a flood-irrigated belt, this deforestation has affected the weather negatively and the rainfall average has also minimised at a frightening level.
I would like to request the officials of the concerned department to take some immediate action to stop this cutting down of lives!
SOOMRO BAKHT JAMAL
Dadu
THIS is with reference to Sajjad H Zaidi’s letter in which he urges the government to allow all citizens to keep weapons free from any license so as to control street crime. This may reduce street crime but I don’t think he realises how other crimes like murder will increase as a result of this.
While there may be some truth to street crimes being low in the NWFP on account of people keeping weapons, the murder rate is high in this province. Keeping a weapon on us may protect our material things but it cannot guarantee personal safety. There must be some check on keeping weapons.
HASSAN NAWAZ
Chichawatni
THE Pakistan Cricket Board’s decision to ban Shoaib and Asif is quite appalling. It is now clear that the so called prescribed substances were taken more as diet nutrients rather than as a planned methodology to become supermen through mysterious drug intake. In fact, most sportsmen all over the world resort to diet supplements. How naive can you get?
SHAHID A SIDDIQI
Karachi
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