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| November 13, 2007 | Tuesday | Ziqa’ad 02, 1428 |
Implications of amended act
Dengue fever continues
The emergent need
OTHER VOICES – European Press
ALTHOUGH Pakistanis had been speculating about the declaration of an emergency for months, no sense of déjà vu attended the proclamation when it came.
WILL the elections scheduled for January be credible? This is the one paramount question that overshadows all other questions, linked as they are — the continuation of the emergency, the truly impartial character of the caretaker governments at Islamabad and in the four provincial capitals, and the curtailment of media freedom. At his Sunday’s press talk, President Pervez Musharraf’s answers to questions implied that emergency was unlikely to be lifted before polling day. This is a great disappointment, for if the lifting of the state of emergency is linked to an improvement in the law and order situation, then frankly there is no possibility that it will be done away with in the near future. Law and order does not merely concern rioting or mob violence typical of our elections. In today’s Pakistan it means terrorism of two kinds: one consists of wayside explosions and suicide bombings targeting civilians and security personnel, two, it consists of organised rebellions not just in the tribal areas but in a ‘settled’ district like Swat. It is now obvious to the world that the chances of the insurgency by Maulana Fazlullah’s well-armed army being crushed aren’t any brighter than those of the US-led coalition forces destroying the Taliban in Afghanistan. If therefore the president predicates the lifting of the emergency on an improvement in the law and order situation, frankly there is no possibility that the nation will go to the polls in an atmosphere free from awe and governmental pressures.
The other major question concerns the five caretaker governments. The prime minister and the chief ministers must not only be non-controversial public figures of integrity acceptable to all political parties and shades of opinion, they must have administrative experience and be capable of mobilising the administrative machinery to the task of conducting a truly fair and free general election. For this sacred task, the executive is bound constitutionally to help the Chief Election Commissioner, for article 220 of the Constitution says it is “the duty of all executive authorities in the federation and in the provinces to assist the Commissioner and the Election Commission in the discharge of his or their duties”. Still, a vital element of a free vote will be missing if the media were to remain gagged. Gone are the days when processions and public rallies were the principal mode of campaigning and political education for the masses; today, the print and electronic media are a major source of news and views for millions of Pakistanis, and they are quite capable of sifting sense from nonsense to reach their own conclusions about a party or politician. To hold elections without a free media is to play Hamlet without the Prince of Denmark.
CONSIDERING how often Gen Musharraf has failed to keep his word, one can only take with a pinch of salt his verbal assurance at Sunday’s press conference that the recent amendment to the Army Act of 1952 will not target ordinary citizens. Indeed, the repercussions of such a move can mean a serious blow for fundamental rights already undermined by the emergency. The fact that civilians can be court-martialled for a wide range of crimes and offences — from alleged acts of terrorism and treason to giving statements ‘conducive to public mischief’ (whatever that means) — is yet another indication that Pakistan is fast turning into a garrison state reminiscent of the Zia era. The amendment also casts a shadow over attempts to project Pakistan’s ‘soft image’— especially with international concerns heightening at the enervated state of democracy in the country.
Having reached this point in Pakistan’s politics, it is futile to debate whether an institution that by training is not qualified to act as the judge and the juror should be entrusted with such sweeping powers. It is an unfortunate fact of Pakistan’s history that the army has for years been part and parcel of politics in the country and the present discussion must focus on the growing dangers to the country’s polity as it seeks to extend its mandate. Several questions are being asked about a move that has bolstered, perhaps permanently, the army’s interference in civilian matters. What will happen to the case of the missing persons? Will the intelligence services, no longer restrained by an independent judiciary, be once again at liberty to pick up people at whim, torture them and hold them incommunicado? Will more public figures — including opposition politicians, activists, journalists, former judges and lawyers — who have consistently denounced the government’s extra-constitutional actions, be accused of and tried for sedition or other charges in a military court? Who will constitute their defence? And what is the government’s motive in deeming the changes to have taken effect from 2003? The most obvious one seems to be a wholesale purge of all elements that it considers undesirable. Moreover, this will damage the institution of the judiciary and the civilian law-enforcement apparatus. Although there are many doubts about the current composition of the superior courts, the latest amendment will sap whatever little is left of judicial authority as military benches take over from civilian ones. There is strength in numbers and a collective voice must be raised against the destruction of individual liberties and institutions of democracy.
EVERY year for the past few years, authorities hope for a miracle which will make dengue fever disappear. This perhaps explains why despite knowing that preventive steps can be taken to ensure safety of citizens, various city administrations do very little to combat the fatal viral fever that kills scores of people each year. Because that miracle has yet to occur, it is high time health authorities, along with city administrations, took their jobs seriously and addressed the issue on a war-footing. It is shameful that other developing countries in Southeast Asia for instance, which have similar problems in bureaucracies, manage the dengue crisis better. They develop effective strategies to combat the virus by ensuring mass fumigations drives take place. Areas where the virus is reported are marked as red-zones, where extra measures of sanitation are taken. They also ensure that hospitals are well equipped to deal with the inflow of patients.
In Pakistan, there are half-hearted fumigation drives, few treatment camps set up and hospitals are rarely equipped to deal with the problem. This is despite knowing that the problem will occur every year right after the monsoons. So far this year, nearly 35 people have died of dengue fever and many of these deaths could have been prevented if authorities had handled the issue better. It requires a complete overhaul of strategies. Much of the problem has to do with the administration’s complete failure to maintain public hygiene. Leaking sewerage systems, stagnant pools of water everywhere, open garbage dumps, storm water drains that aren’t ever cleaned are all too familiar sights all across the country. These problems need to be addressed so as to prevent epidemics. It is now widely admitted that the government does not have resources to provide health care to the citizens. But surely it can ensure that they do not fall ill because of its negligence in the areas of sanitation. This cannot be overstressed as there is no known cure for the dengue, the government’s strategy should focus on prevention as well as early detection and treatment.
There was just a horrified numbness that an unbelievably rash measure — it can only heighten political alienation —had been taken in full deliberation. There is also a valid reason for not being haunted by déjà vu: In a country with an unprecedented experience in precedents, this emergency is like no other.
Other emergencies indicted aberrant political incumbents and targeted self-perpetuating legislatures. This emergency reinforces the intended goals of those in office and protects their methods. It bids farewell to the existing parliament reluctantly. Its guns are turned on an independent judiciary and free media. The obvious and immediate impacts are alarming enough but muzzled watchdogs feel a need also to caution against what may unfold insidiously.
Professional bodies, human rights activists and social organisations are showing great courage under threat. But regime sympathisers are freer than ever to feed the ‘silent majority’ propaganda that if the president is no longer the COAS, Musharraf’s candidature never violated the democratic principle and spirit and, therefore, concern that it may have been unconstitutional is not valid.
It becomes rather easy for surrogates to make it seem that a future allocation of two separate persons to the separate offices of president and COAS signifies the retrieval of the civil political process from military usurpation: For despite the COAS’ declaring an emergency he had to retire and announce elections.
Actually, the general would have found it difficult not to retire by Dec 2007 as the commitment was not just to disposables like the people of the country, its constitution and its courts. It included the army and its enviable institutional consensus personified in the corps command. No ‘Provisional Uniform Order’ has ever violated their protocol. Could post-emergency tumult help the incumbent make a persuasive case that it is wise not to change horses in a very turbulent midstream? One thing is crystal clear: This emergency is aimed at maintaining the status quo and it uses the algebra of varying factors for equal equations.
Ms Bhutto’s pre-emergency politicking transited her into (rather than General Musharraf out of) a militarily determined civil political playing field. Rather like her erstwhile partner in democratic dialogue, she too is transiting through two offices. One is that of a leader of a mainstream national political party. The other is that of chief executive of the limited company interest of the PPP. But post-emergency her options are narrowing and unless she discards her casuistry it may be hard to distinguish between her sort of reasoning and a PCO-returned judge’s. Flexibility is of the essence in a working democracy but in a dysfunctional democracy principle is foundational. There is a point when compromise becomes surrender. It is important that politicians be able to make the distinction in a country in crisis.
One of the ostensible reasons for the emergency was that General Musharraf was restricted by conventional civil law in the anti-terrorism effort. Amendments to the Army Act make any legal demur about missing persons a thing of the past: Dissenters beware! The establishment is yet to go on to reiterate that the only way of keeping the lid on a Pandora’s Box of terror is by not taking it off for elections.
‘Virtual’ campaigning was already being advocated after the Oct 18 fatalities. Ms Bhutto’s people-power having been demonstrated locally and relayed by the media for scrutiny by international public opinion, it suited many scripts including those of PPP and establishment forces to keep other political contenders from demonstrating their electoral realities. Given administrative expertise in rigging and spin, any such scripts could have been played out had General Musharraf not panicked in anticipation of supreme if not celestial judgement.
His shift into emergency mode has enhanced feelings of clear and present danger in Pakistan. The popular fixation about American involvement in Pakistan’s political narrative used to occasion amusement. But we now receive unabashed instructions from America’s president and Great Britain’s prime minister as well as media and think tank pundits in their countries as to what is required from Pakistan and its leadership. Their governments exert a tangible pressure on ours to obtain their formulations of positive outcomes and to circumvent what they deem negative developments in Pakistan’s political landscape.
For Neocons and their ilk, the violence and terrorism that Pakistan’s street politics are recording in a dramatically rising graph, intensify reasons for gaining pre-emptive controls of this nuclear-armed state where democratic politics have no nucleus and the army’s role is controversial. The Pakistan theses for guided transition and Musharraf-continuity also build on a fear base.
Even so, any putative nexus inevitably contradicts itself for there are no coinciding interests: no representative politician in Pakistan and certainly not the military institution that is so much under assault can share the western wish to neutralise Pakistan’s nuclear defences. Voluntary nuclear disarmament demands mutual assurance. Applying force would be catastrophically foolish. But that attribute disturbingly characterises President Bush’s management of the war on terror. Nobody denies the critical situation in Pakistan. Terrorism is a grave threat to the state. But terrorism has a varying range of causes, manifestations and repercussions — in the American context, the Pakistan context and then in their joint waging of the war on terror. Any normative measures that do not take into account the gamut in the Pakistan perspective will be conceptually distorted. Having almost solely engaged with a military regime here, the well-meaning West is now making the further blunder of seeking to ensure its preferred menu for regime change.
Engagement with Pakistan’s military probably acquainted America with the scope of the ISI interventions in the domestic political process as well. America should know how justified scepticism, cynicism and even downright disbelief of political appearance and avowal is in Pakistan. Post-emergency gagging of the media and the asphyxiation of dissent will not help clarify political actualities. The only constructive first step is a credible national election that also gives that other former prime minister and mainstream party leader, Mian Nawaz Sharif, of devout disposition and nuclear-test deed, due access to place an unequivocally levelled playing field. Pakistanis are not politically callow. They emerged doubly: from the British Raj and from prospective domination by the Indian Hindu majority. That they are impelled by the quest for political justice not the colour of their creed is endorsed with tragic irony by the secession of their eastern wing. And now it may be time to be haunted by déjà vu, for that secession too was preceded by emergency declarations.
The tactics thrust on Pakistan as America’s frontline in its misconceived war on terror are bringing the conduct of Afghanistan’s chronic civil war past the Durand Line. This looming crisis disturbs every Pakistani. And they have as many misgivings to place before America’s people and government in the context of Islamist extremism and inept nuclear regional policy as America has become accustomed to placing before Pakistanis. Substantial communication is an urgent need for those who love peace and hate war. And interlocutors need reference to a representative government in Pakistan that its people not just its allies trust.
You can’t get an iPod without a stealth bomber
ALL paths lead to Washington because the US is willing to use force to make a world ‘that plays by the rules.’ In a one-week period, George W. Bush will play host to Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan, Nicolas Sarkozy and German Chancellor Angela Merkel. One of the main reasons they are coming is because they know that Bush is willing to use force.
Since 1989, however, Europe has been working on the premise that tyrants eventually fall in a peaceful manner if you just give them enough time to do so. And it also believes that compromise is the way to get to that point. But that’s not the way Americans see things. They’ll point to Hitler in 1938, to former Serbian President Slobodan Milosevic in 1995 or to Osama bin Laden. The Democratic Party’s criticism of US policy in Iraq is deceptive. They criticize Bush because it’s not ‘their’ war.
But if they get into power, they’ll stand firmly behind ‘God’s own country,’ too. It’s a mistake to believe that Americans take any pleasure in seeing their children die overseas. But you can’t get an iPod without a stealth bomber. The carefree nature of the one goes together with the necessity of the other. They are both the result of the freedom that Americans believe must be defended. (Nov 5)
Die Welt
Roses and reality in Georgia
THESE are critical days in the former Soviet republic of Georgia. The survival of the country’s hard-won democracy, its aspirations to join NATO and the European Union and the once-glowing international reputation of its president, Mikheil Saakashvili, are all suddenly on the line.
Saakashvili is largely to blame for this abrupt crisis. On Wednesday, he betrayed the spirit of the pro-democracy “Rose Revolution” that swept him to power four years ago — declaring a state of emergency, suspending civil liberties, silencing critical news media and ordering a police crackdown on opposition demonstrators.
It should not be surprising that Georgia’s democratic road is proving rougher than some Western enthusiasts imagined in the days when that country was hailed as the pioneer in a series of colorful revolutions — from Orange in Ukraine to Tulip in Kyrgyzstan — that swept away homegrown authoritarian regimes in several post-Soviet republics.
Until now, Saakashvili has been something of a hero in Washington, for his championship of free markets and his forthright resistance to Russian meddling. That gives the Bush administration a clear opportunity for insisting on a free and fair presidential election in January. (Nov 11)
International Herald Tribune