| July 14, 2008 | Monday | Rajab 10, 1429 |
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Outlook for the people
Polio cases in Sindh
Defaming Barack Obama
Shifting the capital
Holocaust at the stock exchange
A state within state
Readers are requested to restrict their comments to a maximum of 400 words. We reserve the right to edit letters for reasons of clarity and space. Letters, including those by e-mail, should carry the complete postal address of the sender. The views expressed in these columns do not necessarily reflect the views of the newspaper.—Editor
THE recent statement by President Musharraf that incompetent leadership weakens the country has unleashed a new debate that who is responsible for grave problems besetting the country, with a fluid political system and fragile institutions. AS we analyse the situation, we find that the problems the country is facing today are the direct consequence of Mr Musharraf’s policies, far removed from the ground realities. His decision to join the US-led war on terror and kick off fighting against the Taliban in the tribal areas or to start a military operation in Balochistan or the adoption of the devolution plan or the neoliberal economic policies, all these actions have greatly jeopardised the national security and harmed the unity and integrity of the country.
The rot started when Mr Musharraf joined the ‘war on terror’ without consulting the countrymen. Like Ayub and Zia, who exploited the American obsession with the growing threat and expansion of communism, Mr Musharraf exploited the Al Qaeda factor with much dexterity to his fuller advantage.
He offered the US support in its fight against Al Qaeda in tribal areas and in return received massive economic and military aid. But unfortunately his cronies lined up their pocket rather than spend on the welfare of the people who are still living a life of misery and mayhem.
Wars cannot be fought and won without the support of the masses. So, to create the facade of that support, Mr Musharraf patronised the Q-League, composed of the diverse political elements. So, in theory and in practice, Mr Musharraf handed over the political and economic affairs of the country to the Q-League clique and combo of civil and military bureaucracy. He militarised major civilian institutions and gave them huge benefits, including appointments on lucrative positions and awarded them lands and plots in Gwadar.
This action of the president invoked reaction and resistance from Baloch nationalists. To crush their opposition, the restive province was handed over to agencies and the operation was initiated, which finally resulted in the killing of Nawab Akbar Khan Bugti and scores of others.
If a political system is corrupt, it can’t run without further oiling the gears of power. And for that Mr Musharraf hired the services of Shaukat Aziz. According to reports, his name was suggested by the World Bank in order to pursue the neoliberal agenda of privatisation, liberalisation and deregulation.
Moreover, while fulfilling the neoliberal agenda, the administration of Shaukat Aziz indulged in the binge of privatisation under which vital state assets such as banks, PTCL, etc., were sold at throwaway prices to the parties close to the regime. It was really a reminiscent of the era of Boris Yeltsin when in Russia the strategic state assets were sold to the members of the mafia capitalism for peanuts under the same neoliberal mantra of privatisation and liberalisation, pushing the country to the verge of economic disaster.
In summimg up, it can be safely said that the Musharraf regime created instability, economic chaos and energy crisis which have weakened the country a great deal in every domain of life. It produced sugar, cement, wheat and flour cartels whose blackmailing power was enormous to the extent that even NAB could not touch them.
Moreover, his reforms, whether educational or administrative, have failed to have any desired impact on society. Whatever the crisis country is facing today is the fallout of the eight years of misrule of Mr Musharraf and his comrades. He should accept it gracefully.
MANZOOR ALI ISRAN
Karachi
THE February election was a ray of hope for millions of Pakistanis who were disillusioned by the Musharraf regime. It was expected that the democratic government would bring relief to the poor, control the rising prices, reduce loadshedding, contain hoarding, increase our social and economic stability and, hence, bring progress and development to Pakistan, but everything proved otherwise.
On the very day that Prime Minister Gilani received a vote of confidence he announced an increase in the wheat price and this was followed by a significant rise in the prices of all commodities. The rupee has fallen drastically in comparison to the dollar and the country’ exports have become less competitive. The stock market has a bearish trend and stocks are falling every day and people are withdrawing their investments from Pakistan but there is no regulation to control this fall in the stock market.
The two leading figures of the new government — Nawaz Sharif and Asif Zardari — who had repeatedly condemned the military operations in the Frontier and vowed to stop them have surrendered their national sovereignty in the face of American pressure and have begun a large-scale operation.
They have given a free hand to American agencies to operate in Pakistan. Such serious backtracking by the government has placed a question mark in the people’s mind over the credibility of future promises.
The government is increasing the oil prices repeatedly even though 70 per cent of the demand is met through local production and of the 30 per cent imported, most of the oil is brought from Saudi Arabia at subsidised rates. The prices of natural gas and electricity have been increased for no obvious reason.
The budget which was being termed by the political elite as ‘awam dost budget’ presented an entirely regressive tax system with the poor people paying more tax. Subsidies were withdrawn not only on food and petroleum products but also on the textile products so that our products become less competitive in the international market and exports fall even further.
A hundred days have passed since the new government took control and yet nothing has been achieved. With steadily deteriorating social, political and economic conditions of Pakistan and its unstable coalition, the future of Pakistan seems bleak. It is time the government understood the gravity of the situation and took quick and proper steps for controlling the current crisis, otherwise a mass revolution will be inevitable.
FAKHAR AHMAD
Via email
THIS is with reference to the two reports about polio cases in Sindh (July 2 and July 5).
Polio does not spread like a wild fire as seen in cases of cholera and plague. While there is no reason to be complacent, there seems to be no reason to panic and call the existing state as alarming. All cases in Sindh have occurred in different districts.
As reported by Mukhtar Alam (July 5) it is hoped that recommendations of the Technical Advisory Group when implemented will bring this situation under control and help in achieving the objective of polio eradication.
However, what interests me most at this stage is the possibility of vaccine associated paralysis called VAPP. It is generally believed that oral polio vaccine (OPV) can cause paralysis. Some say that one case may occur in a million, others say it may be even rarer. The fact remains that oral polio vaccine contains a live attenuated virus and vaccine-associated cases have occurred in the world, especially in the US.
During 1995 a gentleman from Switzerland objected in these columns warning about the number of disabilities this vaccine might cause and our inability to rehabilitate the disabled individuals. A well-known paediatrician from Karachi and myself pleaded that OPV is unlikely to cause that large number of disabilities and we should not be too apprehensive about the adverse effects. OPV is more effective and it is administratively convenient to give as compared to the injectable form and has brought down a number of cases in the country from hundreds to very few.
At that time I did not know that in addition to national immunisation days and supplementary immunisation days we will be overshooting the number of prescribed doses, ordinarily given in the EPI schedule. For instance, I do not see any justification to give 20 doses to a 5½ years old child from Jacobabad when he should not have been given more than six doses during this period.
There is no scientific evidence available that excessive doses of vaccine are going to increase the levels of antibodies beyond certain levels. In addition, the antigencomplexes may be formed which can adversely affect organs other than the muscles.
In the absence of scientific data in the reports, I would like to request people tasked with managing the polio eradication programme to admit or deny the possibility of VAPP among some of the reported cases. Asking explanation of the EDOS is a crude way of management and has no place in the present times.
PROF (DR) KHALID HASSAN MAHMOOD
Sir Syed College of Medicine
Karachi
THAT the ethnic and religious prejudices are very much alive and well in the US is probably most apparent from how their election campaigns are conducted. The way Senator Barack Obama, the Democratic candidate for the presidency, is being pilloried and slandered in some circles is perhaps the leading example of many Americans’ bias.
A recent report by Dawn’s Washington Correspondent (July 6) notes how some opponents of Mr Obama are trying to prove that he is even now a Muslim, or, at least, his past association with the religion is too intimate and questionable, for him to be made the president of the United States.
One website invites readers to ‘think carefully’ why a young Obama visited troubled areas in Pakistan and India in 1981. It says: “Lot of young Muslim students trying to define their identity often visited Karachi (Pakistan) and Hyderabad (India), cities that were a hotbed of religious strife and extremism”.
As someone who was born and raised in Karachi and can claim to know this city better than any American, I would like to point out that it was the hotbed neither of religious strife nor extremism in 1981 and even now the prevalence of these vices isn’t high enough to classify it as a ‘hotbed’.
As far as Hyderabad in India is concerned, I once had a friend from the area who told me that the Muslims over there were so non-observant that even he, until the age of 25, did not know how to say the ritual prayers, which is among the five pillars of Islam. In 1981, he would have been around 20. This exposes the hollowness of the charge of its being a place where Muslims could find their identity.
Another conclusion the person running that website could have drawn merely by exercising his or her common sense is that if a visit to these places could have fortified the strength of a Muslim’s faith, then Senator Obama would never have converted to Christianity and be attending a Church regularly for the last two decades. If anything, his trips to Pakistan and India appear to have had the opposite effect.
Another argument against him, given by the neo-conservative American historian Daniel Pipes, who is also known for his pro-Israeli stand, is that Barack Obama would not be able to make peace with the Islamic world, country to what is being claimed by his supporters, because of the following reason.
The senator’s conversion to Christianity may annoy the Muslims, giving them yet another reason to hate America. He further asks: “How would the more mainstream Muslims respond to him; would they be angry at what they would consider his apostasy?.... That could undermine his initiatives toward the Muslim world”.
In think, as a mainstream Muslim I could answer this much better than Mr Pipes’s scaremongering. First, even a spokesman for Hamas, who are considered to be religious extremists, had praised Mr Obama just a few weeks back, causing the Republican aspirant for the White House, John McCain, to retort that Obama was the Hamas candidate! This should have made it absolutely clear to anyone with an open mind that the Democratic nominee could do business with even the Islamic fundamentalists.
Apart from that, I can say that most of my co-religionists in the world think a principled and fair-minded politician like Mr Obama, his pre-election rhetoric of unilateral action in our Fata notwithstanding, would be the best hope for the Americans and the Muslims who could be expected to end the differences between them. It is for this reason – which Mr Pipes again seems to have wittingly or unwittingly ignored – that a meeting of hundreds of Muslim scholars and officials at a conference in Qatar had supported Mr Obama’s candidature, a couple of months back.
The trouble is, if some Muslims support him, he is dubbed as their agent but if they remain silent, he is said to be unacceptable to them. It is in the Americans’ interest to be fair.
KHALID CHAUDHRY
Karachi
I AM writing this to clear my doubts about the capital of Pakistan. Until recently I always thought it was Islamabad but lately news reports suggest that many important and high-level meetings are now held in Dubai. Who pays for all these trips? Has the capital moved to Dubai?
As a Pakistani living in Canada, I wonder why all these meetings are taking place there when Pakistan is currently in such a critical state.
Moreover, I wonder how these trips are being financed. Are they privately financed or is it the taxpayers’ money that is being utilised?
I remember that the present coalition partners criticised and blamed the previous government for its wrong policies in bringing the country to a financial crisis. Wasn’t such criticism made just for the sake of it?
NAGEEN SIDDIQUI
Canada
THESE days investors in shares/stocks have despondency writ large on their faces. They have witnessed gruesome tragedy being repeated daily on TV screens depicting stock exchange movements. This market was once described as amongst the best performing markets in the world, rightly so as the index did touch more than 15,000 points, showing full-blooded strength.
Keeping the present state in view, I may add that had it been some other country with neat/clean ethics and principles, then even the prime minister would have come forth for redress of genuine grievances. Here, more than 10 days have passed but none from the authority offered even a few words healing the wounds of investors.
Nobody bothers to explain as to how $15 billion in foreign exchange reserves has fallen to $10 billion. However, I concede the effect of this turbulent political condition as there are big heavyweights like the mutual fund industry, both open-ended and close-ended, and other mega houses but nobody dared enter the heavy storm.
Large-scale whipping by the big players to undermine the market has literally eliminated small investors who imagine their fate right in the middle of the sinking ship caught up in tsunami. Gloom has miserably settled on the entire spread of stock market due to inept polices of stock exchanges and pathetic attitude of men in authority. Even blue chips in the oil, fertiliser and the cement sector have failed to attract buyers on dips.
I appeal to the minister of finance and big players to shed their pride for a while and help develop a bailout package duly supporting the good work done by the regulators. The government should also stand behind the pragmatic system put under way.
After all, the big players should also listen for the common good of small investors, making a sizable entry. As a tangible option, an equity market opportunity fund with a minimum capital of Rs50 billion should be established under the management of NIT to prop up the sagging market
AMJAD HUSSAIN MALIK
Rawalpindi
APROPOS of Farhatullah Babar’s letter (June 30), I am inclined to reiterate Mahir Ali’s contention that our own network of intelligence agencies, alleged by Mr Babar to be ‘state within a state’, might probably be able to identify the culprits guilty of Benazir Bhutto’s assassination.
However, when the precincts of the dastardly event were promptly wiped clean, leaving no trace of evidence, purposely to impede approach to the unapproachable assassin and his accomplices, it is futile helter-skelter pursuing the offender all roads to him having been demolished.
Why can’t those concerned come out with the answer as to who ordered cleaning of the environs of the place of assassination and who carried out the work so promptly.
The fact remains that Benazir Bhutto returned to Pakistan after a long duration under a deal she later found to her consternation unconducive to facts on the ground. Just after she reneged on the deal that her assassination swiftly followed.
Such a circumstantial evidence speaks volumes to derive conclusions from. The law requires conclusive evidence as to who exactly was the prime mover and who the agent provocateur in Pakistan, the actual perpetrators besides.
The state has never been able to unearth any of the antecedent assassinations of this gravity beginning with Nawabzada Liaquat Ali Khan’s.
In the circumstances, there is no point in repeating the same exercise over again only to lose huge amount of foreign exchange this country can hardly afford.
AKBAR KHAN
Karachi
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