Kidnappings by Israel

FOR the western media it is arrest; by objective standards it is kidnapping. On Thursday, the Israeli army kidnapped 33 Hamas leaders, including the Palestinian education minister, three MPs and at least seven mayors, because those abducted had “supported the firing of rockets” into Israel. The kidnappings came in the wake of several weeks of Israeli air strikes on the Gaza strip, killing 37 people, including 12 civilians. Last June, Israel kidnapped 60 Palestinian leaders, including eight cabinet ministers and 21 lawmakers, many of whom are still in Israeli prisons. The Israeli action was in response to a shoot-out in which Palestinian militants took an Israeli soldier prisoner. The exchange of fire between the two followed the Israeli murder of seven Palestinian picnickers at a Gaza beach. In the following July there was a clash between Lebanon-based Hezbollah resistance fighters and the Israeli army, in which two Israeli soldiers were taken prisoner. Tel Aviv overreacted, attacked Lebanon and unleashed its fury on civilian targets, leaving over 900 dead and rendering nearly a million homeless. The retaliatory Hezbollah firing killed 157 Israelis, including 39 civilians.

Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert seems not to have learnt any lessons from the disaster that the 39-day war turned out to be for his country and for himself. He succeeded in none of his aims. He thought Hezbollah would be a walkover, but the resistance group, led by Hassan Nasrallah, astounded the world by its tenacity of spirit. Until the last day, there was no let-up in its rocket attacks, and Israel finally agreed to a ceasefire after suffering its second defeat at Hezbollah’s hands, the first being its retreat from the ‘security zone’ it had created for itself in southern Lebanon after its 1982 invasion.

Since the end of the 39-day war, there has been no dearth of peace formulas from the Israeli, Arab and American sides, but there has been no progress because Tel Aviv and its patrons in Washington are determined not to tackle the root cause of violence in the Middle East — the continued occupation of the West Bank and (for all practical purpose) Gaza. For record’s sake, Israel withdrew from Gaza in August 2005, but it continues to control all land, sea and air exits. More important, Ariel Sharon decided to withdraw from Gaza not as a first step towards a complete pull-out from all occupied territories but to strengthen its stranglehold over the West Bank by expanding the existing settlements there and settling Jewish people removed from Gaza. Even though Sharon has been in a coma since January last year, the Olmert government has continued to follow his policy, building more housing units and expanding the existing settlements, including those in the occupied part of Al Quds. This is in addition to the land grabbed by Israel by building what Yasser Arafat called “the Middle East’s Berlin Wall”. The wall — declared illegal by the International Court of Justice at The Hague — has been so built that more Palestinian territory has been swallowed by Israel.

The rocket firing by Palestinian fighters and Israeli raids into Gaza will continue so long as there is no final settlement of the Palestinian issue. Kidnappings and rocket firings are a symptom of the disease the Middle East is suffering from. Only Israel’s withdrawal from the occupied territories and the emergence of a sovereign Palestinian state will rid the region of this chronic affliction.

The Sonmiani controversy

THE Balochistan Assembly’s rejection of the Sonmiani port scheme is understandable, as is the suspicion with which almost any federal project is viewed in the province. Support for major federal initiatives will be forthcoming only if the Baloch feel that they stand to benefit from such development plans, and this is clearly not the case now. Matters are not helped when the centre fails to bring all stakeholders on board, which is what appears to have happened vis-à-vis the proposed Sonmiani port in district Lasbela. According to Deputy Speaker Mohammad Aslam Bhootani of the ruling PML-Q, whose family has dominated Lasbela politics since 1970, neither he nor Chief Minister Jam Mohammad Yousuf (also elected from the same district) were consulted before the project was announced. If so, this is hardly the way to go about winning the hearts and minds of the Baloch people and their representatives. Sonmiani’s proximity to Karachi is also causing concern in Balochistan. Senior provincial minister Maulana Wasay claimed in the Assembly on Thursday that the Sonmiani port was a conspiracy hatched by the Karachi leadership which wants ultimately to merge the coastal district with Sindh. References were also made to a statement attributed to the federal minister for inter-provincial coordination, who had reportedly said that a district can be carved out of one province and merged with another federating unit through a simple majority vote in the National Assembly.

Conspiracy theories aside, it is worth asking if there is any need for another port situated so close to Karachi. It would be best to wait until Gwadar is fully operational and then assess Sonmiani’s feasibility in a few years’ time. This would help dispel the impression that the project is being pushed through with unseemly haste. If the Sonmiani port is at all needed, it must be guaranteed that locals will receive a fair share of the employment opportunities that arise. If lack of skills is a problem, training centres should be set up well before the project gets off the ground. The spectre of being overrun by ‘outsiders’ is a genuine concern and it should be kept in mind.

Mukhtaran’s complaints

IT would be a pity if the crisis centre named after Mukhtaran Mai in Muzaffargarh were to fall apart because of power tussles or bureaucratic issues. On Thursday Mukhtaran Mai resigned from her position as chairperson and held the district administration responsible for purposely delaying the functioning of the centre. The administration however says that Mukhtaran did not cooperate with the government and was absent from a meeting that was held to resolve many issues (she was away in the US at the time). Accusations are likely to fly back and forth between the two parties but there will be no winners in the end. In fact, the losers will be those women in need of shelter, for whom the centre was built in the first place. To prevent that from happening, the government must step in and investigate any allegations of wrongdoing. The centre’s management must be reprimanded if it is found to be responsible for not releasing funds or any other delays and it must be told to expedite all matters so that the facility can be opened soon. Since Mukhtaran’s resignation has been accepted, and a PML-Q woman made chairperson of the centre, the administration must find ways to include Ms Mai in its panel so that she can play a valuable role in the affairs of the centre that has been made possible because of her.

In fact, it is because of Mukhtaran Mai’s struggle and determination that she has received financial support from the government and the international community to fight for women’s rights. She now says that she will secure funding from international organisations to set up centres by herself. The government must try to make amends for wrongs done to her as she can be a powerful ally in the effort to empower women.

Law, politics and governance

THE rule of law has been lying low for so long that we have forgotten that in civilised societies, both politics and governance have to be conducted according to the law and not above and beyond it. The carnage in Karachi on May 12 has further exposed the dangers of conducting politics and governance without respecting the bounds of law.

Close to 50 people were killed and many times more injured. Besides, severe damage was inflicted on private and public property in Karachi. The lawlessness displayed in open defiance affected people across the country. But it has not yet moved the government to order a full and impartial judicial enquiry to know how and why the largest financial, industrial and port city was subjected to daylong mayhem and what needs to done to stop this from recurring.

This is supposed to be an election year also. If politics and governance are to be conducted like this, what hope can realistically be entertained for open and honest elections to ascertain the free will of the people and for democratic governance to emerge?

Law is a human practice and has to be defined, understood, interpreted and applied not just by lawyers and judges within the courtrooms. Human practices according to the law have also to be visible in the conduct of all actors, especially in that of ruling members of political and official establishments, including the makers of the law. It is only then that respect for the law can spread out to citizens at large.

Gone are the mediaeval days of rulers claiming the obedience of citizens by pretending that the law to be followed was the commands of the sovereign. For law to claim legitimacy and obedience from citizens in the contemporary world, it must incorporate and exhibit five features which are defined as following:

(1) Moral content: by reflecting values cherished by a broad section of society.

(2) Welfare content: being the instrument for the greatest good of the greatest number.

(3) Neutrality and impartiality: being blind to colour, creed, origin, sect and ethnicity.

(4) Consistency: being the same for all people at all times.

(5) Transparency: being open to all in its making, interpretation and application.

It is these values that count as justification for the authority of law and obedience to it. These characteristics also provide the distinction between a legal system and the commands of a gunman: both the legal system and the gunman ask for compliance, but only the former represents its claims as legitimate and justified.

Repeated aberrations in the implementation of the law have been extracting a heavy price from society in the public policy domain. Economically, the failure of the rule of law leads to sub-optimal decision-making and misallocation of national resources. In the political arena, as the law is forced on the back-foot, violence fills the void and influences human practices. Socially, as the law loses its moral authority, sectarian, ethnic, parochial and other considerations take larger than life roles in the nation’s body politic.

Economic development may or may nor have been trickling down to the lower strata of society but our long tradition of aberrations certainly has and is taking root in the culture of politics and governance spreading across Pakistan.

The constitution is the supreme law of the land and defines the guiding principles of the governance of a sovereign state. But even before independence, when this part of the subcontinent was a colony without a constitution, it was a much more law-abiding society. From traffic laws to municipal laws, from criminal laws to laws on food adulteration, people obeyed them all, especially because they saw their superiors in authority and status abiding by these.

But it is difficult to develop a culture of obedience to less superior laws in societies where superior laws are themselves not respected. Seeing repeated deviations from superior laws by the more powerful, the smaller fries of the state and society also feel free to flout the less superior laws of the land.

That is also the argument being advanced by the masters of the Hafsa brigade in Islamabad. By all accounts, their strategy seems far more successful than, for instance, that of the peaceful ladies of the Women’s Action Forum who got thrashed in Lahore recently for doing for much less.

Have we then been nurturing a culture where obedience to laws is synonymous with weakness — where only the weak and the meek are left to be law-abiding citizens who can neither bully nor buy their way out of law?

We should also disabuse ourselves from another habit which has crept into our polity. For so long have national affairs been conducted by governments bypassing the law that we have forgotten it is always the writ of law that is sought to be enforced by governments and not their own writ. Governments have no mandate other than to enforce the writ of law in their jurisdiction and not the wishes of individual players in their ranks. Without the rule of law guiding them, politics and governance often get reduced to exercises in self-perpetuation as was witnessed in Karachi.

By the way, since when has anybody, including MNAs and MPAs, acquired the right to deny freedom of speech and movement to other citizens — much less to the Chief Justice of Pakistan? It was this attitude and the measures to enforce it with ‘non-functional’ law-enforcement machinery that ushered in the mayhem of May 12.

Sick with manipulations and shenanigans, people have been standing in rallies for hours during hot summer days and nights to record their anger and protests, not only in favour of the CJP but to also urge that this government should conduct politics and governance, according to the law and respect judicial independence.

The fact that they did not come out in similar numbers when elected governments and parliaments were overthrown also tells of their disillusionment with unfulfilled promises of the rule of law, with equal opportunities for all and managing national resources as a trust for their wellbeing, free from cronyism and corruption.

In the upcoming months, it is incumbent on everyone — more so the people in authority — to let the rule of law and judicial independence guide the politics and governance of the country so that the ship of state can safely navigate through the stormy seas ahead. Both internal and external forces would be keeping a vigil to see if the rules of the game are being observed.

Pakistanis must rid themselves of models of medieval governance. Neither men on horseback who want “unity of command”’ over everything in the domain nor civilian leaders pretending to be ‘ameerul momineen’ and lording over all things temporal can deliver them from crises.

They must realise that governance is conducted by ordinary mortals who are agents of the people and accountable to them through periodic elections and answerable to the laws of land, not by anyone pretending to be guided by a divine mission or possessing supernatural attributes.

That is where the significance of the lawyers’ movement lies and the need for a strong and independent judiciary to hold politics and governance accountable to the law.

Will they deliver, be hijacked, undermined or overwhelmed? The next few months will tell. But the movement has captured the imagination of the masses because in their heart of hearts they feel that it is trying to finish the incomplete agenda of the struggle for the independence of Pakistan, which must become a republic of the law if it wants to become a peaceful and prosperous republic of the people.

The writer is a former head of Board of Investment and federal secretary.
smshah@alum.mit.edu

Cleaning up Congress

IT wasn’t easy, it wasn't pretty and the battle isn't over, but the US House of Representatives managed on Thursday to pass a credible ethics bill that would require lobbyists to disclose the bundles of campaign checks they round up for lawmakers.

The lopsided 382 to 37 vote belied the ferocious behind-the-scenes opposition to the bundling provision. Few lawmakers were willing to cast a public vote to oppose letting their constituents know what the lawmakers themselves are already keenly aware of: just how much they are indebted to which lobbyists. In private, however, many Democrats fought to prevent the vote. It was only the steadfastness of Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.), Caucus Chairman Rahm Emanuel (D-Ill.) and Reps. Chris Van Hollen (D-Md.) and Martin T. Meehan (D-Mass.) that brought the measure to the floor. House Judiciary Committee Chairman John Conyers Jr. (D-Mich.) served a key role in offsetting the opposition of some members of the Congressional Black Caucus.It's critical now that the bundling provision not be killed in the quiet of a conference committee. The Senate version of lobbying reform contains a slightly different bundling provision, which can easily be reconciled with the House measure.

Other provisions of the bill approved by the House yesterday would provide for more frequent and detailed disclosure, including lobbyists' contributions to lawmakers' charities.

To win support for the bundling amendment, reformers had to abandon their effort to double, from one year to two, the cooling-off period for lawmakers and staff who leave the Hill for lobbying jobs.

––The Washington Post