Forty years later

OF the hundreds of thousands of war humanity has fought, very few have proved decisive in terms of long-lasting results. The 1967 war was termed by Israel and its supporters as decisive, and decisive it indeed appeared to be in the beginning. Israel proved that it was strong enough to take on all its Arab enemies put together. Besides capturing territory that was three times its size, Israel developed a new sense of security. The Arabs seemed down and out. However, six years later, the 1973 Ramazan war had changed the picture completely. Anwar Saadat shattered the myth of Israeli invincibility and forced it, after a peace brokered by Jimmy Carter, to withdraw from the Sinai. Israel “unified” Al Quds and occupied and annexed Syria’s Golan Height, and in violation of the pledge given at Camp David began settling Jewish immigrants in the West Bank and Gaza so as to change the occupied territories’ demographic character. For a while, it looked all good. However, the first intifada that began in December 1987 surprised both Israel and the Palestinian Authority led by Yasser Arafat. Abandoned by the Arab states and without their leaders being in their midst, the Palestinians in occupied territory were on their own. Even though Yitzhak Rabin asked his troops to “break the bones” of Palestinian demonstrators, Israel was impelled to negotiate, accept the existence of the Palestinian people and forced to the table at Madrid and Oslo, leading ultimately to the signing of the declaration of principles (DoP) in Washington in September 1993. The Declaration visualised a two-state solution, and suddenly the results of the 1967 war appeared transient.

What followed the DoP is a story of cunning, broken promises and a brazen violation of solemn international treaties and key UN resolutions, including those on the treatment of the people in occupied territories. Rabin, the man who signed the DoP, was murdered by a Jewish militant, and the prime ministers who followed him – Benjamin Netanyahu, Ehud Barak and Ariel Sharon -- did all they could to tear up the DoP. In this, Israel received full support of Bill Clinton by having the DoP virtually renegotiated. All traces of Israel’s and America’s commitment to a two-state solution disappeared when Sharon reoccupied the areas Israel had vacated, presided over yet another massacre – this time at Jenin -- and sabotaged George Bush’s 2003 roadmap, which had visualised a two-state solution by 2005. After a meeting at the White House Bush agreed with Sharon that even after withdrawing from the West Bank, Israel would retain “some” land there. The roadmap passed into history. The acts of violence in the West Bank and Gaza and wars like last year’s Israeli misadventure against Hezbollah will continue until and unless the effects of the war of June 1967 are undone. Left to itself, Tel Aviv would like to annex the Gaza and West Bank to create a greater Israel, but demography is against it. Israel and the occupied territories taken together have a thin Jewish majority. Given the higher Palestinian birth rate, the Jews will soon become a minority in greater Israel. Its secret agenda is the expulsion of all Palestinians from Palestine. The world and history will never allow Israel to commit this crime. If, therefore, the only sensible option for Israel is to work sincerely towards a two-state solution to ensure the emergence of a sovereign Palestinian state with Al Quds as its capital.

KESC’s abject failure

TUESDAY’s power riots in Karachi were made inevitable by frequent and long power outages. Some of the excuses offered by the KESC were untenable even a year ago, but many were willing to wait and see because the utility had been in private hands for only a few months then. Now, in the scorching summer of 2007, its failure to deliver is simply indefensible. True, the new owners bought a company teetering on collapse and power consumption has only increased since the KESC was handed over to the private sector in November 2005. Still, the management must have been aware of the scale of the task ahead and should have planned accordingly. However, all the signs are that the KESC’s affairs remain as shambolic as ever. In most areas of the city, outages lasting several hours occur three or four times a day, inflicting untold misery on residential consumers and dealing a body blow to commercial and industrial activity. No wonder then that tempers are running high and that people are resorting to arson and violence to give vent to their rage.

The fault lies primarily in the KESC’s failure to increase its generation capacity, an area that should have been of foremost concern to the new owners. Existing plants break down every other day because of the increased load and the pressure on the system is mounting. A new power plant capable of producing 480MW in the initial phase of operation — 80MW more than the shortfall on Tuesday — was to be up and running by April this year. But the project fell through, ostensibly on account of the dubious role played in the plant’s purchase by Siemens, the utility’s operations and management contractor. Then it was said that a 220MW plant was being acquired and would be fully operational by the summer of 2008. Fifty megawatts, however, could be online by June this year, the KESC insiders maintained at the time. This deadline too is unlikely to be met. The KESC’s performance is nothing short of a disgrace. Worse, there is no light at the end of the tunnel and chances are that there will be no respite for consumers until 2009 or possibly even 2010.

Lack of burn units

THERE is an urgent need to build burn units at hospitals in Karachi especially since the city has only two (one at the Civil Hospital and the other for children at NICH). This was stressed at an on-going conference on the subject on Tuesday where participants said that because of an increase in industrial units and chemical warehouses, as well as an increase in buildings without adequate security systems for fire control, chances of people getting burned had also increased. There is also a rise in number of cases of domestic violence against women, particularly the horrific crime of throwing acid on them which heavily disfigures their faces and requires extensive care. In view of all this, it is depressing that there are only two places to go in the city to get treatment for burns. What makes it worse is that there have been demands from the medical community for building burns units across the country. Five years ago we noted that despite making funds available for burn units across the country, there was no progress and it seems nothing has changed since then. Where have those funds gone, especially those donated by foreign countries specifically for setting up burn units? The health ministry must look into this and expedite matters, if it has not done it already, or do whatever is needed to set up the required units and make them functional.

Too many people succumb to burn-related injuries many which are avoidable if adequate burn care was available. The government’s negligence in this regard is deplorable and must be rectified. At the same time, it is imperative that doctors in all hospitals are trained to deal with burn cases as not everyone can go to specific burn treatment facilities, especially when only two exist in Karachi.

The May 12 carnage and afterwards

KARACHI is not new to civil strife and violence. Decades ago, scores died in consecutive hours of shooting at Sohrab Goth while the law enforcement agencies were bystanders. Since then political activists have shed inter-party and intra-party blood in chronic conflict.

No-go areas have been forcibly established and forcibly demolished. Rangers became part of the city landscape. APCs trundled down streets unremarked. Sectarianism turned into mass murder. And yet the May 12 carnage in which less than 50 people died has Karachi and the rest of the country – which hardly blanched at Karachi’s previous wounds – benumbed. Why?

Perhaps because for the first time the dynamics of Karachi’s violence and political conflict have emerged overtly in linkage with power clashes at the centre of the federation.

Up to now the occasioning has been ethnic and sectarian in political conflict manifested in terms of local bodies and provincial grievances.

The present conflict has two protagonists: A COAS-president; and a politically negated civil society seeking a vehicle. For although the parliamentary opposition served to keep the exiled mainstream party leadership relevant, it remained popularly inert.

The military regime has only now encountered its first real threat in the spontaneous clumping of the public around the figure of the Chief Justice.

The Chief Justice scheduled to address the members of the Karachi bar is no rally. But of course his May 5 drive from Islamabad to Lahore was something of a triumph. The route was lined, and not because recruits had been bussed there. It became a procession whose spontaneity evidently unnerved the regime.

If common people waited along the route of his motorcade to the Quaid’s mazar or coalesced with the legal fraternity and political parties planning to greet him a few days later at the Karachi airport it would be another serious public embarrassment.

The PML-Q parallel rally to be addressed by President Musharraf in Islamabad was not deemed enough of a counter-measure.

The Chief Justice’s supporters could be directly challenged in Karachi where the newly announced MQM rally would engage the crowds and be incontrovertibly seen as the preferred mouthpiece for public outcry for an independent judiciary.

Karachi is an MQM stronghold. With a huge population there is no need to inflate local numbers with borrowed guests; but there are also many segments outside the MQM.

The burnt children of Karachi dreaded a fire for they would be in the line of it but the administration rubbished their fears and preparations for the MQM rally proceeded apace. But by the May 12 containers had blocked access to and along selected parts of Sharea Faisal.

On the day itself lawyers around the bar association and court premises lost their freedom of movement. The pilgrims’ path for the MQM rally if not facilitated was at least not barred.

There is no need to dignify mutual allegations of who fired first on whom and whether in self-defence or self-assertion with rebuttals. For Karachi’s inhabitants on the day of May 12 and the day before and the day after things were self-evident. Sindh’s chief minister initially pooh-poohed an inquiry.

There are many reasons to agree with him, not the least of these being that the findings of commissions originated by an administration that has lost public confidence are practically irrelevant. But the more important thing is that absorption in a blame game would serve to distract from the real issue: the president’s political convictions are pushing the country into a crisis.

The regime embodies a mockery of constitutionality. This has meant the intrinsic weakening of an ordered civil society and system at the common routine level. The toxicity of such banal lawlessness exceeds more dramatic violent conflict, which is but a symptom. Karachi is a microcosm where, after the shambles of May 12, administrative functionality itself stands disproved.

Awareness of how little the state guarantees has long been experienced in terms of everyday life. There is contempt for an administration that appears no more than a spectator to its own irresponsibility. Where to take a KESC complaint, a traffic complaint, a plea for water? Can citizens hope for anything from official authorities unless they have a patron? Rising prices and utility services that lack utility have made survival a battle and existence an ordeal. Struggling people face the daily irritant of effortlessly conspicuous consumption, cultural gala and make-believe from a revoltingly over-supplied ruling class and its cronies.

A parliamentarian from the treasury benches might murmur true, but what has this to do with politics and weren’t Nawaz Sharif and Benazir corrupt and power hungry? There may be no rebuttal to that but nor is there a rebuttal to the emergent fact that the regime in its determination to prolong itself is making things ineffably worse.

Like his admirers, his detractors equate the regime and its characteristic status quo with one man: Pervez Musharraf. His power derives from his controlling position in Pakistan’s army. Internationally this means assured continuity to the military conveniences provided to America’s needs in Afghanistan since 2001.

Nationally it means he can be sure no one will refuse to box with shadows (as General Aslam Beg nobly refused Ms Bhutto when she complained of civil insurgency in urban Sindh).

If the general pleases, minions can micromanage airport landings and departures be they of the Shahbaz Sharif or Chief Justice variety. Likewise for things like now you see Section 144 violated now you don’t, inventive use of container transport, etcetera.

But as every military dictator of Pakistan discovers one of the demands of extended political incursion is a civilian face – even if it leers. General Musharraf’s most durable all-purpose extensors are the PML-Q and the MQM.

Through these party organs he has circumvented truer mainstream party politics and gone through the motions of parliamentary government. But sooner or later, as dictators also discover, there is a catalyst. Ignored and left unstructured the overflow of popular political discontent is now running through carefully devised parliamentary army housing schemes.

The Chief Justice is the emblem, but the cause is far beyond the reference. The public acclaim reflects a sentiment that says we do not want to be governed by army interests, we would like to live democratically as a civil polity.

People are doing more than asking for a change of government: they are asking for fidelity to founding principles, whatever the government. Such awareness and its articulation is a qualitative advance.

When Nawaz Sharif dismissed him, General Musharraf held on to his post with the institutional backing of the army. Mr Sharif was sitting so heavy with his heavy mandate that his forced exit was not mourned.

It is a tribute to the institutionalism that characterises Pakistan’s army that every military coup has been made in good faith and in concert with public sentiment. The body of the army has yet not consciously acquiesced in serving to oppress and deny the people.

Thus they believed they were fighting secession in former East Pakistan, and army actions in Balochistan are interpreted in the context of territorial protection.

Action in Fata is understood as necessary containment of Talibanistic Al Qaeda strains. In the context of the sweeping PNA movement though General Zia did not come down against the people. It is belittling the spirit of the national army and totally unjustifiable to suggest this may have been because the chief executive in distress was a civilian prime minister. The Pakistan army does not function as an armed militia in political factoring.

Given this tradition of civil and military interaction, first in his capacity as COAS and then as a fully autonomous executive president, General Musharraf is at once the answer to the problem and the problem itself. A dilemma indeed! The hardy commando has grasped both its horns and is tackling it from both the civil and the military angle.

He obtained a ringing endorsement by the corps commanders and the PML(Q). The latter lacks the grassroots reality that would give it weight but who doubts the reality of khaki? Not Pemra for one.

Though cable operators share the regime’s outrage, what to do about Dr Ayesha Siddiqa’s Military Inc. that sells out in two days despite a scrambled book launch?

Of course, literacy limits the audience, but this time the literate professional middle-classes are being problematic. General Musharraf may have to be increasingly dependent on his military wicket. The prospect is too ugly. Let us use our heads to reason it away.