Will Powell deliver?

THE world waits with trepidation and dismay for the outcome of the US Secretary of State’s so-called peace mission to Israel and Palestine. His visit has not led to any de-escalation in the on-going conflict in the Middle East. If anything, Israel has stepped up its savage onslaught on the Palestinian towns and cities on the West Bank, while extending the battlefront to the Lebanese border against the Hezbollah. The crisis in the Middle East is fast spiralling beyond the framework of international law and diplomacy as we have known in the post-second world war period. Israel’s defiance of the United Nations’ resolutions and its refusal to heed the call of the international community to withdraw from the West Bank has created an impasse that does not augur well for world peace.

Since its creation in 1948, Israel has heavily depended for its survival on the United States, and for that reason America is regarded as the only power with the leverage to restrain Israel’s excesses. This it has done when it was deemed necessary. Hence Washington’s key role in all peacemaking endeavours in the Middle East — from the Suez canal crisis in 1956 to Camp David in 1979 to the Oslo process in 1993. Against the backdrop of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, the cold war shaped the course of diplomacy in the Middle East. The awareness constantly existed that any miscalculation could trigger off a major war. American policy was, therefore, a fine act of balancing.

It is a pity that the Bush administration with its limited vision in international politics feels that the need to restraint Israel no longer exists. The first intifada had led to Oslo. The second intifada, which began as a reaction to Israel’s intransigence in the peace process, has prompted the US instinct to hit back at the Palestinians — perceived as terrorists by the American establishment. That would explain the licence Israel has been given this time to unleash its war machine on the Palestinians to crush them for ever, as Ariel Sharon has unashamedly declared his aim to be.

In this context, the Powell mission has assumed vital importance. The Middle East is sliding towards a wider conflagration, which would engulf the world. There are two key factors that will determine the course of war and peace in the region. One is the intensity of the fighting on the ground and the widening battlefront. What began as brutal Israeli retaliation to a spate of suicide bombings has now escalated into Israeli air strikes against the Hezbollah in Lebanon. The situation could aggravate as some Arab states are now speaking of sending in their armies to fight the Zionist entity in their midst. Is Tel Aviv trying to provoke an all-out war?

This brings into focus the second factor. Will the powers who have the might to restrain Israel actually do so? The Europeans, Japan and others have issued appeals, but have not taken any measure, such as imposing sanctions, to force Israel to halt its repression. President George Bush has even given a tacit nod of approval to Ariel Sharon. How else would one interpret his anti-Arafat statements, his tardiness in sending an emissary to the region and now his warnings to Syria and Iran to restrain the Hezbollah? It is time Mr Bush understood the gravity of the crisis in the Middle East and Sharon’s bellicosity. It is the Israeli jingoist who needs to be reined in.

Seeking FBI help

REPORTS that the government is seeking a closer relationship between Pakistani law enforcement agencies and the US Federal Bureau of Investigation should be welcomed — but with certain important caveats. In recent months, the FBI has been helping the Pakistani police and intelligence agencies in anti-terrorist operations following the war against the Taliban and Al Qaeda in Afghanistan. The Pakistani authorities are now eager to build this collaboration into something more meaningful and enduring. Under a proposal floated by the ministry of the interior and certain intelligence agencies, the FBI and other US agencies would be asked to provide technical assistance to Pakistani law enforcement agencies in modern crime detection techniques.

The lack of success in halting sectarian killings in the country is just one example of how woefully inadequate our investigative machinery is in tackling terrorism. A highly publicized example that comes to mind is the murder of Daniel Pearl, a US journalist. Despite numerous leads and arrests, the agencies were unable to rescue Pearl from his captors or identify them, and have still not been able to recover his body even about two months after his killing. Law enforcement agencies in Pakistan rely almost solely on crude methods without recourse to modern forensic and surveillance techniques. They could benefit greatly from training and cooperation from a modern and highly efficient investigative agency such as the FBI.

However, certain fears must be allayed. For one, the cooperation sought from the FBI should in no way impinge on Pakistan’s sovereignty and should remain limited to providing training to Pakistani police and investigation agencies. It will also be important to ensure that the training in hi-tech methods of investigation is used to strengthen civil society and combat terrorism and serious crime rather than being misused to hound political opponents. Unfortunately, our intelligence agencies have hitherto shown far more efficiency in keeping tabs on opponents of the government than in the far more vital task of cracking down on terrorism.

Whither law and order?

IS Karachi’s law and order situation again under threat of descending into anarchy? One would hope not, but the events of recent days would have many think otherwise. An activist of an ethnic party was shot dead earlier this week, followed by the killing, during a botched robbery in the city’s electronics market, of a vendor. Now it is the murder of a restaurant manager and a customer in broad daylight, again in one of the city’s main commercial districts. Police suspect that the murder might have a sectarian motive, because the manager was of Iranian origin, but they also say that the restaurant owner was involved in a proprietary dispute. Whatever the case, these murders make a mockery of the government’s oft-repeated commitment to keep under control the law and order situation in the country’s business and commercial capital.

The inefficiency of the law enforcement agencies in general and of the police in particular can be gauged from the testimony of eye-witnesses and others who said that a police picket set up a small distance from the restaurant was without any personnel at the time of the shooting. It would be logical to assume that the assailants timed their attack to coincide with the absence of the police at the picket. The government, especially senior police officers, have often said in the past that, given Karachi’s size, it simply is not possible for the police to be everywhere and prevent all crimes. This is true to some extent, because no one would expect the police to be everywhere all at once. However, what the police can and must do is to at least catch some of those who go around killing innocent citizens. That is how crime is solved all over the world, and that is how it should be tackled in our case.