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| May 04, 2008 | Sunday | Rabi-us-Sani 27, 1429 |
The impact on children
Sole voice of concern
OTHER VOICES - Indian Press
Light at the end of a tunnel
Demilitarising the bureaucracy
IF true, the recent announcement by the Pakistani government to give reprieve to condemned prisoners is a welcome step. There now appears to be light at the end of the tunnel for Pakistan’s 7,400 death row inmates. Some of them have spent half their adult lives under conditions best described as ‘hell on earth’.
THE conventional wisdom of the day is that the army is beating a retreat to the barracks. The prime minister keeps thanking the generals for withdrawing army officers from civilian institutions, a process he reportedly considers conducive to creating a ‘balanced’ civil-military relationship.
THE blame game is in full swing even as the public endures unspeakable privation. Friday’s Senate session was marred by the histrionics that are all too common in parliament, with one opposition member going to absurd lengths in lambasting the new government for the rampant inflation that is crippling the country. Members of the ruling coalition too have repeatedly pointed out in recent weeks that their administration has ‘inherited’ problems such as inflation and the wheat and energy crises. Granted the previous regime deserves no gold stars for policymaking — its lack of foresight on the energy front was truly epic and its ‘strategy’ on wheat shambolic — but that is not the point here. Those now calling the shots were voted into office not to dwell on the misdeeds of the past but to chart a new course of action that can improve lives and general well-being. As such the focus now must be on problem-solving. Members of the opposition should also decide where their primary responsibility lies. Is it with the party or an individual or their poverty-plagued constituencies?
Some things are clearly beyond Islamabad’s control. With global oil prices hitting new highs and the country’s current account deficit at alarming levels, the government has little option but to raise the prices of petroleum products. No doubt this will fuel inflation across the board but it is difficult to envisage a fiscally viable alternative. Similarly, it has to be kept in mind that food prices are rising worldwide as supplies shrink, for a variety of reasons. Again, Pakistan cannot be expected to remain immune from a crisis that has the entire developing world in its grip. This is a storm that has to be ridden out and, tragically, there is no knowing what the final toll will be. The focus then must be on tackling what can be controlled through effective policies and their methodical implementation.
Given that actors across the political spectrum have a finger in the commodities pie, food inflation cannot be reduced without honesty of purpose. The planners too will have to work overtime. Farmers ought to be offered the financial support and expertise needed to switch to more efficient modes of cultivation that can increase yield per acre. Serious thought must be given to building reserve stocks of essential food items, as opposed to an ad hoc approach that involves exporting or importing grain as the situation and vested interests demand. A scheme that can deliver subsidised essential food items to the most disadvantaged has to be identified, fine-tuned and implemented. At the same time, smugglers, market manipulators and creators of artificial shortages must be taken to task once and for all. But then this is the one area where the interest of the public and that of their representatives is likely to clash.
IT has been evident for quite some time that climate change is affecting our lives in ways that can hardly be termed as positive. Given the vulnerability of children, it is not surprising that they feel its effects the most, an observation that Unicef has stressed in a recent report. The report has especially dwelt on the state of children living in developing countries. The findings should serve as an eye-opener for government authorities in Pakistan where freak weather over the past few years is an indication that climate change knows no boundaries. True, we need more research to establish the link between changing weather patterns and humanitarian suffering. But the floods, storms and other climatic aberrations that we have witnessed across the country in recent times can at least in part be attributed to climate change.
The tragedy for children in Pakistan lies in the fact that not only are they more exposed to the elements because of their young age and still-developing bodies, they are also at the mercy of a callous state that has never prioritised their welfare. One need go no further than the story told by the abysmal human development indicators. The infant mortality rate of 79 per 1,000 live births is one example. Another is the fact that 38 per cent of children under five are under-weight. Meanwhile, entirely preventable water-borne diseases like diarrhoea claim thousands of young lives each year while there seems to be no end in sight to vector-borne illnesses like malaria and dengue fever, on which climate change has a direct bearing. Agricultural productivity too has been adversely affected by land and water use triggered by the changing environment. This will only aggravate the food crisis, leaving a much larger number of children malnourished.
How will we cope when the picture worsens, with whole communities seeking to relocate themselves away from scenes of natural disasters? With adults scarcely able to adjust themselves, how will children do so? Traumatised and sick, and deprived of an education because of poverty and constant movement to safer areas, they will grow up into a generation of dysfunctional adults. On no account should the state allow this to happen. If it cannot escape climate change — because this would require a global effort — the government should at least start preparing itself and the people to adapt to new lifestyles brought about by shifting weather patterns. It should start focusing on healthcare and food and water security for its people, especially its most vulnerable segment, so that there is a collective ability to withstand future environmental shocks. Without such an effort, there will be a hellish price to pay.
MR Mumtaz Ali Bhutto has added his voice to those opposing the PPP-MQM agreement and called the accord “dangerous”. The chief of the Sindh National Front also says the PPP had a tradition of forgetting and forgiving for the sake of power and that it had betrayed the mandate given to it by the people of Sindh. Other fringe groups and leaders in Sindh have also voiced their unease at the agreement. Scepticism at the kind of politics the MQM has often chosen to pursue in the past is not uncommon. But the right of the PPP — that received an overwhelming verdict in its favour in the last elections — to formulate policies it sees in the best interest of the province needs to be respected. Elsewhere in the world, such a move would be seen as a part of a reconciliation process but here it will often be described as betrayal.
If the PPP feels that taking the MQM along will ensure peace and prosperity in Sindh then it should be lauded rather than hammered. One understands that the MQM has often struggled with democratic conduct but it is also an undeniable political reality. Engaging it appears a prudent policy. If the SNF were to have a landslide win in a future election and exhibited the same flexibility which all other parties in Pakistan are showing, it too would deserve a pat on the back. This is not to say the “danger” Mr Bhutto spoke of is not real. For the MQM does not have a very enviable record as a coalition ally. It fell out with both the PPP and the PML-N in the past and if it had a successful working relationship with the PML-Q more recently it was because of the GHQ’s guiding hand. Let us hope the two parties, the MQM especially, realise their responsibility and prove Sardar Mumtaz Bhutto wrong.
Deal in the pipeline
Deccan Herald
A DEAL on the $7.4bn Iran-Pakistan-India pipeline project appears to be moving towards the finishing line. … Following his interaction with Prime Minister Manmohan Singh … [Iranian President Mahmoud] Ahmadinejad said that a deal would be finalised “within 45 days”. This is welcome news. Negotiations on the IPI pipeline have been dragging on for several years…. India has had concerns over … Iran’s pricing of gas, Pakistan’s levy of transit fees, the route of the pipeline and the security of the region through which it would run….
Questions have been raised over the reliability of supplies given Pakistan’s tense relations with India. Besides, given the growing international isolation of Iran, was a pipeline project with that country a wise decision? … India is under considerable pressure from the US to pull out of the IPI deal as the pipeline will enhance Iran’s revenues. India has tended to buckle under this pressure … India needs oil and gas and if what Iran has to offer suits India … Delhi must work on accessing it.
Given its enormous energy requirements, India needs to work on all available options to improve its energy security. The IPI deal is therefore as important as a nuclear deal that will enable India to engage in nuclear trade with the international community. Sections in India, Iran and the US, unfortunately, see these issues as a zero sum game. They cannot be allowed to determine India’s decisions or direct its foreign policy. — (May 1)
The life beyond
Navhind Times
WITHIN a month of the Minister for Women and Child Development, Ms Renuka Chowdhury’s denial that the government of India could consider legalising commercial sex or give licences to brothels, the Life Insurance Corporation, shedding its inhibitions, has decided to provide a life jacket to the sex workers of Kolkata. In legal parlance, it may not be construed as legalising the profession. But there is little doubt that the LIC move to insure sex workers under its micro policy ‘Jeevan Madhur’ would put a security ring around them and make them less vulnerable. The LIC is also ready to bear the cost of medical examination to sell the concept among the workers. The experiment launched in Kolkata would be extended to other cities and states soon.
No doubt, this is a good beginning. There is an imminent need to salvage the wretched economic condition of the sex workers. What is positive of this scheme is that this will act as a deterrent for them to allow their daughters to enter the trade. Like any other citizen, they can access the benefits of the reformed economy. According to a survey conducted during 1990-96, there were more than 7.5 million call girls, 2.38 million sex workers, 1,100 red light areas and 3,00,000 brothels across the country. The government should ensure that the scheme reaches the micro level. The government should also think of adopting the United Nations suggestion on the micro-finance scheme. — (May 2)
Kashmir Singh languished for 35 years on death row; he was set free recently and reunited with his family. Our nightmare ended when my brother, Mirza Tahir Hussain, was released in November 2006 after spending 18 years on death row. It gives me immense pleasure to see that this facility is now being extended to all condemned prisoners in Pakistan. This is a notable achievement for human dignity and respect for life. “All mankind is worthy of respect and honour” (Al-Quran.) “Allah holds in high esteem those who forgive.”
Fairness, accuracy and the due process of law form the foundations of justice in Pakistan. Punishment can still be handed out, justice and legality can still be achieved without vengeance and retaliation. It also gives the offender a chance to repent, to reform his character and seek forgiveness. An initial moratorium would spare those convicted under Pakistan’s controversial blasphemy laws. Minority religious groups have long argued that these laws are used to persecute them unjustly.
I applaud this initiative. It is a befitting tribute to the memory of late Mohtarma Benazir Bhutto. During her last tenure she too observed a moratorium on capital punishment. This has been achieved at considerable cost and several individuals had to pay a terrible price with their lives. Nawaz Sharif himself had a lucky escape.
Others were not so lucky. One former prime minister was hanged in 1979 on the basis of flimsy and false testimony. It is conceded that his trial was politically motivated. Ironically, he was working for the abolition of the death penalty.
Owing to recent public executions in Fata and elsewhere, the mob lynching of a Hindu worker in Karachi and some documented cases of profound miscarriage of justice that led to people being condemned to death, this issue needs to be looked into.
Given the wide margin of error in cases where the death penalty has been handed down and the likelihood of the subversion of the judicial process, a moratorium on capital punishment is essential. It will allow the legislators to review the current judicial system in Pakistan that permits the hanging of a man. The fact is that so far the death penalty has not deterred crime. If anything, it has helped to brutalise society and created contempt for life.
Another welcome development has been the recent signing and ratification by Pakistan of several human rights international covenants — including the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights, the International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights and the Convention Against Torture.
It is of paramount importance that domestic legislation is now harmonised to reflect Pakistan’s commitment to international law. For instance, torture is routinely used to extract confessions. Last year, Pakistan and Iran were the only countries to execute minors (under 18 years) in clear breach of international law and declared commitments.
Understandably, the question of the death penalty poses a dilemma. The problem has profound ethical, religious, political and criminological implications. It is still an emotional issue in Pakistan where society should be helped to overcome the fear of violent crime.
Countries that eventually abolished the death penalty did agonise over the ethical dimension and their reasons ‘for’ and ‘against’ have varied. However, they all share a common view — that of the inhumane, unnecessary and irreversible character of capital punishment, no matter how cruel the crime committed by the offender.
This justification now seems to be shared by the international community as a whole. Where the Rome Statute of the International Criminal Court and the United Nations Security Council resolutions establishing the International Criminal Tribunals for Rwanda and the former Yugoslavia are concerned, neither have the death penalty in the range of sanctions listed.
Out of 197 countries, 145 have abolished the death penalty either in law or in practice or are observing a moratorium. This means that 73 per cent of the world does not have the death penalty. On Dec 18, 2007, the UN General Assembly voted with an overwhelming majority for a resolution calling for a moratorium on the use of the death penalty worldwide. This represents the moral stance of all mankind. Regrettably, Pakistan failed to support the initiative. It was probably showing solidarity with the US, China and the Gulf states.
With much of the Muslim world — representing 30 countries — having abolished or considering the abolition of capital punishment, Pakistan needs to follow suit. Unfortunately Muslim governments have terrible human rights records and are known to play the worst possible role in international forums on such matters. Their arguments are often outdated, flawed and based on the narrow notions of culture, religion and nationality. This gives out misleading signals that we do not care about human rights.
If we do not stand up for our rights nobody else will. Fragile as Pakistan’s situation is at the moment, it must be realised that terrorism and lawlessness only increase if we overstep the rule of law.
Several alarming reports state that the death penalty in Pakistan is being applied without the due process of law. There are serious dangers that innocent people are executed as clever litigants often manipulate oral evidence due to the lack of reliable forensic analyses, thus subverting the course of justice. The situation is further exacerbated by overworked judges, an under-resourced and corrupt criminal justice system as well as a dual system of law that carries a high probability of miscarriage of justice.
One hopes that worldwide trends will persuade Pakistan to change its stance. The sanctity, dignity and value of life will help contain the culture of vengeance and the cycle of violence that has plagued Pakistan. It can also make a difference in dealing with the causes of extremism and radicalisation.
The writer is a human rights activist and research fellow at The Muslim Institute, London.
amjad.mirzahussain@ntlworld.com
But recalibrating civil-military relations would take more than recalling military officers seconded to the civil bureaucracy. It would require that the two spheres be made impervious to undue interference from each other.
That is easier said than achieved in the context of Pakistan where the military has routinely trespassed on civilian territory without any regard for constitutional and democratic norms. Even when it has formally left civilian politics, the military has managed to retain authoritarian prerogatives in the state apparatus which continue to violate the precepts of democratic civil-military relations. These prerogatives continually entrench and reproduce what the political scientist Alfred Stepan calls the ‘latent structural power’ of the military.
One such prerogative is the employment of retired military officers in strategic locations in the civil service. In this context, the military’s colonisation of professional institutions of bureaucratic recruitment, training and professional development is particularly troubling.
I explain why that is the case below. But first let’s consider the evidence: the chairman and three members of the Federal Public Service Commission (FPSC) are former military officers. The Civil Services Academy (CSA), the National Institutes of Public Administration (NIPAs), and the Pakistan Administrative Staff College (PASC) are all militarised at the top. And military penetration of these institutions does not stop there. Ex-military men have also been appointed as ‘master trainers’ in the NIPAs and PASC. Even the Central Selection Board (CSB) and the Civil Service Reforms Unit are headed by retired military officials.
This practice is unacceptable and defies logic. For one, militarisation distorts performance incentives for career bureaucrats as they are often denied posts to which they are entitled after years of service.
Second, and related to the first, it undermines organisational morale by subjecting civil servants to the ridiculously irrelevant military notions of order and discipline.
Third, military officers are what Harold Lasswell calls professional ‘managers of violence’. In other words, they are trained in the art and science of the use of coercive force. Their main professional duty is the planning and the conduct of interstate warfare. Neither their staff nor their field appointments provide them with the education, skills and experience required to manage civilian institutions let alone to train civil servants. Simply put, civilian jobs are best performed by civilians and vice versa. Some might argue that these officers are no longer in the army. For all practical purposes, they are civilians now. Hence, any debate over the impact of militarisation on the civil service is misdirected and pointless. They would be wrong.
If Organisation Theory and Practice 101 is any guide, every bureaucratic organisation infuses its members with a set of collectively held assumptions, beliefs and perspectives that govern their behaviour. These organisational biases exert a powerful influence especially in hierarchical military organisations where tightly controlled processes of indoctrination and socialisation create a hegemonic worldview.
In the case of Pakistan, military organisational biases translate into a deep-rooted suspicion of and contempt for civilians in general and democratic politics in particular. Thus, military officers, in or out of uniform, are by training and disposition unsuited to performing civilian jobs which require voluntary subordination to civilian authority. Simply put, you can take the man out of the army but you cannot take the army out of the man.
Of course, there might be exceptions to the rule. Some military officers might be suited to some civil jobs. But just as civilians are not entitled to purely military jobs, membership in the military should not endow soldiers with the right to hold any civilian job regardless of what their own sense of entitlement might be. After all, the military would not even consider appointing civilians to head the Pakistan Military Academy, Kakul, or the Command and Staff College, Quetta. And rightly so. But then, it should also learn to respect civilian institutional boundaries.
To be fair, the induction of military men in the civil service is not unique to Pakistan. But its scope and scale have been alarming. Historically, the practice can be traced to the British colonial period when military officers were seconded to the Indian Political Service designated for the administration of ‘sensitive’ frontier areas. But it was after independence that different military dictators formalised the practice for their own political ends, such as rewarding favoured officers with plum civil service posts.
The real damage started with the institutionalised militarisation of the bureaucracy under General Ziaul Haq. The military then created for itself a statutory quota in the civil service both at the entry and upper levels. That policy has served as a short cut for well-connected officers who are otherwise not competent enough to qualify for the competitive, even if flawed, process of selection. Come General Pervez Musharraf, and military penetration of civil departments and agencies has only deepened.
What is to be done? Successful transitions require that the deleterious legacies of military rule are eroded and eliminated through conscious policy reform. If the prime minister is serious about ‘balancing’ civil-military relations, he must act decisively and immediately during this post-transition window of opportunity to demilitarise civilian institutions.
More specifically, he ought to reclaim civil service selection and training institutions by appointing civilians familiar with the organisational logic, structure and operations of the civil service. As chief executive, the prime minister obviously has the authority to appoint lateral entrants ‘responsive’ to government policies. But there should be no reserved seats for military officers in the civil services. All existing quotas must be abolished as soon as possible. If military officers are really interested in working in the civil service, they should be subjected to the same criteria of selection as civilians. It is as simple as that.
The writer, a PhD candidate in Political Science at Columbia University, is currently doing research in Pakistan.
ashah@isb.comsats.net.pk
