An agreed code of conduct

QUITE understandably, the opposition has not responded very enthusiastically to Mr Shaukat Aziz’s offer of talks on a “code of conduct” for electioneering. Not sure about when the general election will be held, the opposition has reacted coolly to the prime minister’s offer in the National Assembly on Monday. But whenever it is held — later this year, or perhaps early next year — a code of conduct is needed in a country where an election tends to be a highly emotional affair and often leads to violence. The code for the 2002 election allowed the use of microphones — reversing the decision for the 1997 campaign — and, while permitting rallies and processions, placed certain restrictions. Under the conditions obtaining today — when acts of terrorism have reached a new height and the availability of arms was never easier — this part of the code deserves to be taken seriously. Never since 1977 is another general election going to be so full of hatred and venom as the next one, and processions could provide easy targets for terrorists, no matter how alert the security agencies may be. Besides, even peaceful processions can be upsetting because of the way they are organised and disrupt normal life. Of even greater importance is the need for a ban on the display of arms by political activists, even if the arms are licenced.

A more important question, however, is one of the quality of political debate. As a rule, all candidates should project their policies and give the voters their ideas about how they plan to improve the quality of life of the people and what policies they intend to adopt if they come to power to cope with the plethora of political, economic and social problems Pakistan is faced with. While doing so they have every right to criticise the government of the day or their political opponents by focussing on their rivals’ mistakes and the flaws in their policies. However, the political scene today is vitiated by virulent attacks on some politicians’ private lives. Unless this is stopped it is very likely that the campaigning for the next polls could degenerate into an abysmally low level of politicking. There is a need thus for the Election Commission to devise a code of conduct that should penalise a candidate if he resorts to character assassination by delving into another candidate’s personal life. Similarly, all posters and graffiti of this nature should be prohibited and the party or candidate resorting to this form of slander should be penalised.

It should be noted, however, that a code of conduct is only of secondary importance; what is more important is the transparency of the entire electoral process in which all candidates and political parties should be allowed to take part, with an even playing field for all. This requires a truly independent Election Commission which should receive unqualified support from the government machinery as laid down in Article 220 of the Constitution. President Pervez Musharraf’s proposed re-election by the existing assemblies has already cast a shadow on the general election and disappointed those who had expected that the 2007 election would usher in a new era for Pakistan. The least that the nation expects now is a fair and free election so that the next national and provincial assemblies truly reflect the political loyalties of the people of Pakistan.

A criminal waste

THERE is no solution in sight for the growing water shortage in Karachi. What is already a distressing situation is expected to worsen over time and could reach critical proportions a few years from now. Inadequate supply in a naturally arid region is the primary cause for concern, but is by no means the only worry. Poor management is also to blame for the severe water constraints facing the city. According to a study by the Japan International Cooperation Agency, ‘technical losses’ account for as much as 35 per cent of the water supplied to Karachi from the Indus River and Hub Dam. This colossal waste includes unauthorised consumption (a euphemism for theft), leakage from pipes, evaporation and losses at purification plants. Another 10 per cent goes towards ‘unbilled authorised consumption’, raising the overall ratio of non-revenue water to 45 per cent of total supply. These technical and non-technical losses mean that only 351 million gallons of water per day are accounted for out of a bulk supply capacity of 720 mgd. If 40 per cent of revenue water is consumed by industry, domestic users are left with just 211 mgd, which is clearly inadequate for a city of nearly 15 million.

Water theft is the key issue, one that is difficult to resolve because many of the smaller pipelines in Karachi can be accessed without much difficulty. Matters are made worse by the fact that pilferage often occurs with the help of the employees of the Karachi Water and Sewerage Board. Besides the hefty amount lost to theft, illegal connections also tend to leak and waste even more water. Clamping down on water theft needs to be a priority for the KWSB, as should the repair of both main and subsidiary lines. Consumers too must check their wasteful ways. Many people are guilty of keeping the tap running while washing dishes, brushing their teeth or shaving. The more privileged even hose down their cars and driveways on a regular basis — a criminal practice that cannot be justified even if the water being used has been purchased from tankers. Common sense must prevail.

Attack on Christians

TO get an idea of just how unsafe it is for minorities, consider what a Christian community near Faisalabad experienced on Monday. As they were setting up a stage outside their church for an event they were organising, a group of about 30 people approached them and asked them to cancel their ceremony. When they refused, things took a violent turn, and 10 Christians, including women, were injured. When the victims tried to lodge a complaint against the culprits, who, they allege, were provoked by a Union Council nazim, the police refused. This is just another sad reminder of how dangerous it is for minorities in Pakistan who are often falsely accused of blasphemy, attacked and generally discriminated against by zealots. In this case, many Christians living in the area have left their homes, fearing further acts of violence, which is often the case when fanatics whip up hatred against minorities and threaten their safety. There have been many ugly incidents against the Christian community in the last few years in which churches have been attacked or worshippers targeted. Suffice it to say that despite public condemnation from all quarters, including religious parties, culprits have rarely been brought to justice. Who are these people who commit such crimes? Why have they not been unmasked by the law enforcement agencies?

In Monday’s incident, it is clear that the Christian community is being denied its right to lodge a complaint against the culprits. The government must direct the police to lodge an FIR and conduct a thorough and impartial investigation and apprehend the culprits. The majority of Pakistanis do not subscribe to such vitriolic thinking and want to live in peace and harmony with the minority communities. The government must create a congenial environment and offer protection to all citizens.

Another Palestinian watershed

THERE are few instances of neat symmetry in the unfortunate history of Palestine, so it was hard not to notice that the 40th anniversary of the Six-Day War coincided with the internecine warfare in Gaza that led to last week’s turn of events whereby the West Bank and the Gaza Strip ended up in the control of rival forces.

At a slight stretch, a third date can be added to the foregoing pair: the midway point between the beginning of Israeli occupation and the Gaza debacle is marked by the first Intifada of 1987.

All three events are of crucial relevance to Palestinians. Although June 1967 was by no means a starting point for their woes, it signified a critical exacerbation. Amid belligerent noises and troop movements in the neighbourhood, particularly in Nasser’s Egypt, Israel launched pre-emptive strikes and inflicted a stinging defeat on the armies of three Arab nations.

In the process, it secured itself quite a bit of territory: East Jerusalem and the West Bank were seized from Jordan, the Gaza Strip and the Sinai Peninsula from Egypt and the Golan Heights from Syria.

Golan and Sinai were sparsely populated, but the remaining areas were unmistakably Palestinian, and even as Israel revelled in its military triumph and the extension of its jurisdiction over what it described as Judea and Samaria, the more farsighted among its politicians and intellectuals appeared to recognise the birth of a dilemma. They fretted that long-term occupation could cost Israel what they considered to be its moral superiority.

Their premise may have been dubious, but their conclusion wasn’t far off the mark — although they underestimated the extent to which Israeli actions would begin to resemble those of European Jewry’s Nazi tormentors.

As the United States of America has been reminded in recent years, there is no such thing as a congenial military occupation: George W. Bush may lately have been greeted as a conquering hero in Albania and Bulgaria, but he would get a rather different reception if he ventured into the real Iraq, outside the emerald cocoon of the Green Zone in Baghdad.

Israel, however, had some grounds for complacency. For two decades, resistance against the occupation was largely concentrated outside the territories. It combined desperate acts of terrorism with attempts at diplomacy. Israel frequently resorted to its own brand of terror, be it in Tunis or Beirut: it spared Yasser Arafat, but some of his most effective lieutenants were eliminated.

At the same time it steadily built illegal settlements in the West Bank and Gaza, creating “facts on the ground”, oblivious to occasional international condemnation.

The Intifada helped to change all that. By 1987, an entire generation of Palestinians had known nothing but subjugation. Something had to give. It took the shape of confrontations between youths armed with stones on the one hand and, on the other, the best military armour that money could buy.

The symbolism was a PR disaster for Israel: it could no longer cast itself in the role of David facing the Arab Goliath. Pressure began to mount for movement towards some sort of a settlement.

Among the beneficiaries of Palestinian frustrations was a nearly decade-old organisation known as Harakat al-Muqawama al-Islamiya, an offshoot of the Muslim Brotherhood that was encouraged and, according to some sources, financially supported by Israel as a means of countering the influence of the Palestine Liberation Organisation. It was, however, not until the second Intifada in 2000 that Hamas acquired a mass political base.

Its steady rise thereafter was propelled in large part by the fact that Israel refused to deal with the Palestinian Authority set up in 1994, in the wake of the Oslo accords. The authority was controlled by Fatah, the dominant component of the PLO.

Reports of corruption began flowing in almost immediately: there was little to show for substantial amounts of aid even as Fatah — under pressure from the Israelis, but also as a means of exercising power — began establishing the infrastructure for a typical Arab security state.

Israel’s refusal to negotiate with Arafat after he turned down the terms offered by Ehud Barak and Bill Clinton at Camp David had little to do with the corruption he presided over, and it was only peripherally related to the inability of Palestinian police to prevent attacks against Israeli soldiers and civilians.

The fact is that many Israelis, including Ariel Sharon, found it conceptually difficult to distinguish between Abu Ammar, the mortal enemy, and Arafat, the negotiating partner. This accentuated Arafat’s ineffectiveness — and increased the appeal of Hamas, whose reputation for providing social services was complemented by a relatively uncompromising approach towards resisting the occupation.

The US effectively seconded Israel’s ostracisation of Arafat: it repeatedly called for him to be replaced by an elected “moderate”, characteristically turning a blind eye to the fact that Arafat’s popular mandate was not in question.Eventually, Arafat’s demise paved the way for Mahmoud Abbas, the Fatah factotum most favoured by the US and Israel. For some time Israel showed little interest in talking to him, but that changed in January last year, when elections yielded a Hamas majority.

Tensions between Fatah and Hamas have simmered ever since, occasionally erupting into violence, particularly in the Gaza Strip, where Hamas has steadily enjoyed the most support.

Israel unilaterally pulled out of the strip nearly two years ago, pretending that the option of a negotiated withdrawal did not exist and prompting a degree of anarchy that provided an excuse for the territory to repeatedly be besieged - not least in the summer of 2006, when international attention was focused on the simultaneous invasion of southern Lebanon.

That does not excuse the mess that the rival Palestinian factions have got themselves into. Hamas and Fatah bear a considerable degree of responsibility for the latest crisis, and for the damage that the Palestinian cause has incurred in the process.It wouldn’t do, however, to lose sight of the context in which these developments are taking place: the continued occupation of the West Bank and the relegation of the Gaza Strip to an indeterminate status somewhere between occupation and independence, with more than 70 per cent unemployment among its beleaguered populace.

Reports suggest that Hamas’s military action in Gaza was directed not so much against Abbas or Fatah as a whole as against the Preventive Security Force led by Mohammed Dahlan, who is held responsible for a bloody campaign against Hamas.

Significantly, Dahlan was with Abbas when the latter met senior US diplomats before swearing in a Hamas-free emergency government, which is led by Salam Fayyad, a veteran of the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund who enjoys the approbation of the US and Israel.

The regime change means that funds have started flowing into the West Bank: Israel will hand over the half a billion dollars in tax and custom duties that were withheld because of its antipathy towards Hamas, and the European Union has indicated that it will resume the supply of aid. A similar display of generosity can be expected from the US, which has been striving for the past 18 months to bolster Abbas.

In the short term, this should lead to an improvement in the economic health of the West Bank — and it must be hoped that petty feuds will not get in the way of supplies trickling through to Gazans, whose need is more urgent.

But what about the longer run? The unconvincing facade of Palestinian unity sponsored by Saudi Arabia last February has been shattered. Hamas has been sending out mixed signals, refusing to accept Abbas’s dismissal of the government led by Ismail Haniyeh while continuing to acknowledge his presidential authority.

There is some pressure from Arab states for a compromise and a new government of national unity, but that doesn’t seem particularly likely. It remains to be seen how long the Gaza Strip and the West Bank can operate as separate entities, with the former now pejoratively tagged as Hamastan.

With Palestinians at each other’s throats — a position in which Israel and its supporters have long wished to see them — the vital question now is whether the chances of a two-state solution in that part of the world been rendered even more nebulous.

In a confidential report to the UN last month, its retiring coordinator for the Middle East, Alvaro de Soto, decried the international boycott of Hamas, not least because it could suggest to many Muslims “that peaceful and democratic methods are not the way to go.”

While he is also scathing about the Islamist organisation’s methods and agenda, the Peruvian diplomat particularly stresses the unsavoury consequences of ignoring Israel’s violations of its Oslo obligations while constantly berating the Palestinian side for failing to meet western expectations.

From its fundamentalist origins to its violent proclivities, Hamas provides plenty of cause for concern. But it did not arise out of thin air, nor can it simply be wished away. It has been propped up by the absence of hope.

A realistic prospect of viable independent statehood could serve as an antidote. But any outcome designed and implemented by the US and Israel, with input from the World Bank and the IMF, is unlikely to constitute a step in that direction. Their embrace of the undemocratically de-Hamased Palestinian Authority deserves to be viewed with a degree of scepticism.

There’s no harm in hoping for the best, but it’s far from inconceivable that the depredations of Gaza and the settlements on the West Bank could still be with us 20 or even 40 years hence.

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