No smoke without fire

TO recognize or not to recognize Israel, that is indeed the question. Official spin-doctors and the country’s chatterati alike are splitting hairs over this long dormant controversy, recently dug up by General Musharraf in an interview with Geo TV.

To add fuel to the fire, Musharraf’s closest civilian aide and secretary of the National Security Council Tariq Aziz admitted before newsmen in Lahore that if the rest of the Muslim world recognized Isreal, Pakistan too could follow suit. Not to be left behind, the prime minister and the information minister also chimed in, only to lend further credence to the growing public impression that something fishy was brewing in the corridors of power.

Is the government seriously considering the issue? It is quite obvious that General Musharraf was testing the waters. At a time when Islamabad is keen on forging a ‘long-term’ relationship with the United States, it makes sense to signal its resolve to mend fences with America’s closest ally in the Middle East.

Some observers believe that the enormous, though often exaggerated, policy influence of the Israeli lobby in Washington also seems to have triggered this new reassessment. One can easily cast doubts on our establishment’s demonstrated inability to adjust to changed external realities of its own volition. But it is worth exploring the main motivation for this sudden willingness to rethink.

While the army is believed to have toyed with the idea for quite some time, the gradual consolidation of the “Indo-Israel nexus” appears to have provided the most immediate impetus. Islamabad is understandably worried about New Delhi’s recent attempts to create an anti-terror troika comprising India, Israel and the United States. Addressing the Annual Jewish Committee dinner in Washington DC on May 8, Indian National Security Adviser Brajesh Mishra had minced no words in reminding his audience that “stronger India-US relations and India-Israel relations have a natural logic.

Our democratic countries should form a viable alliance against terrorism and develop the multilateral mechanisms to counter it.” He even spelled out the broader parameters of such an alliance which would have the “political will and moral authority” to take timely and bold decisions against terrorist provocation, namely, “blocking financial supplies, disrupting networks, sharing intelligence, simplifying extradition procedures — these are preventive measures which can only be effective through international cooperation based on trust and shared values.”

Since the early 1990s, New Delhi has translated this natural logic into full diplomatic relations with Tel Aviv. Both sides have expanded ties in a broad range of economic and defence activities. Trade between the two countries has received a tremendous boost in the last few years and now totals about $700 million a year. After Russia, Isreal is India’s second largest arms supplier. Tel Aviv has reportedly helped India design fast-attack patrol boats and automated combat simulation gear. Real time cooperation in counter-insurgency is also in the offing.

It is now clear that the recent endorsement by Washington of the sale of one billion dollar Israeli Phalcon airborne early warning radar system to India raised the alarm bells in Islamabad. The United States had earlier postponed the deal citing growing tensions between India and Pakistan. No less troubling from Islamabad’s point of view are reports from Tel Aviv that Washington is also considering a proposal to allow Isreal to export the Arrow anti-ballistic defence systems, currently proscribed under US law.

This growing closeness between Delhi and Tel Aviv should have made abundantly clear to Islamabad (and long ago) the counter-productivity of its anti-Isreal hostility which may have pushed the two sides even closer, leaving Pakistan strategically vulnerable. In the absence of diplomatic relations with Pakistan, Isreal obviously felt less restrained in arming India. Our antagonistic posturing has been futile on many other counts. For one, it hasn’t made the slightest bit of difference to the fate of the Arab-Israeli conflict.

There is no doubt that the question of recognizing Isreal is inextricably linked to the issue of Palestinian statehood. Besides, recognizing ‘Isreal’ would mean practically accepting its illegal occupation of Palestinian territories and losing the very raison detre of Islamabad’s “principled” stand on Kashmir. Our incessant moralizing about Indian occupation would seem even hollower than it does now.

Why have we been prevaricating? If the strategy was to offset a bigger India through gaining access to the diplomatic and political resources of the Arab world, we have miserably failed. Our Arab brothers do not even bother to mention Kashmir in international forums for fear of upsetting India, let alone take any meaningful action. Most trade with India on a large scale. Moreover, Arab-Isreali relations are also undergoing slow but sure shifts.

In a major departure from its earlier position, the Arab League has resolved in its Beirut declaration to sign a peace agreement with Isreal within the framework of a comprehensive peace settlement. The new quartet (US, EU, UN and Russia)-backed Middle East ‘roadmap’ mandates the eventual recognition of Israel by Arab states. Jordan, Egypt and others have already moved in that direction. Barring any major derailments in the peace process, the recognition of Isreal is thus only a matter of time.

Somewhere in between the genuine and not so genuine reasons behind Islamabad’s anti-Israel policy lies the state’s need for amplifying real or perceived external threats to national security. Pakistan’s military and religious establishments have traditionally thrived on creating a religiously charged facade of the Islamic republic in danger.

Misinterpreted Quranic injunctions are often thrown in for good measure to amplify the inherent animosity between Muslims and Jews. Even the threat from across the eastern border becomes more credible for us when imbued with the clear and present danger of a joint Jewish-Hindu conspiracy to cut us to size. What else could explain the resilience of the fiction that Israel is waiting in the wings to take out our nuclear installations?

An even more tragicomic manifestation of our national paranoia was the mindless decision to ban a Pakistani tennis player for teaming up with an Israeli “Jew.” It was only after the International Tennis Federation issued a warning that sanctions against the player could trigger penalties against Pakistan, including suspension from the Davis Cup, did our patriotic officials back down.

How long will we remain frozen in time? It is time to change tacks. Whether we decide to recognize Isreal or not, the need for national consensus building on this and other issues cannot be overstated. With his authority internally contested, the self-appointed president has no real mandate to make a sovereign commitment on any issue of national importance. Too many decisions in this country have been imposed on the public at gunpoint. But lacking any legitimacy, they have often backfired with disastrous results. Can we really afford to go down the well trodden

path of unaccountable, non-transparent decision-making once again?

Shackling children

SOME are detained, chained, shackled and put in secure confinement. Although guilty of no crime, others are held with juvenile criminals, for months or even years.

Still others are deprived temporarily of exercise or education — and all of them are living within the United States. They are the “unaccompanied minors,” children from ages 2 to 17 who have been detained after entering this country alone, without parents or family, after boarding an aeroplane or walking across the border. Their numbers are not large — about 5,000 arrive every year — and certainly not all are mistreated. But if even a handful of them are, that constitutes a scandal.

Anecdotal stories of these children have been circulating for some time. Now Amnesty International has compiled a report that shows the wider scale of the problem. Amnesty investigators met children who were strip-searched or kept in solitary confinement. Although some were victims of child abuse or refugees from war zones, they had not received weekly visits from officials specializing in juvenile care, as the law requires.

Nearly half of juvenile jails hold unaccompanied minors in the same cells as young offenders — and 83 percent of these facilities routinely restrain children with handcuffs or leg irons when they are transported. One attorney told Amnesty of a 7-year-old boy who had been forced to appear before a judge in handcuffs. Fewer than half received any assistance from attorneys. Although many do not speak English, they are left to navigate immigration hearings alone.

Until recently the Immigration and Naturalization Service had responsibility for these children. But when jurisdiction over immigration was transferred to the Department of Homeland Security in March, responsibility was transferred to the Office of Refugee Resettlement, which is part of Health and Human Services.

This change made sense: All agreed it was inappropriate for a law-enforcement agency to deal with the psychological and practical problems of children. Unfortunately, while the responsibility changed, little else did.

—The Washington Post

Speaking without thinking

THERE was a time when, during the question hour in a legislative assembly, a minister would occasionally decline to answer a question on the ground that answering it would be detrimental to the public interest and, generally speaking, his taciturnity was accepted without shouts of protest. Newsmen got the same kind of response from officials every so often. But this tradition, along with several others that we had inherited from the British, would seem to have fallen by the wayside.

Its loss may be attributed at least partly to the propensity of many of us to talk excessively. Well-trained professionals learn to listen to the other side as much as possible and, on their own part, say only that which must be said. This disposition has to be cultivated and it requires a great deal of self-discipline. Much can be lost when high public officials speak out of turn, unnecessarily, or thoughtlessly. Here are a few cases in point.

First a case of speaking out of turn. Sheikh Rashid Ahmed, known until recently more for his command of the more colourful Punjabi vocabulary than for contributions to statecraft, is currently minister for information. But he wants to take within his sweep matters that are none of his business. In a statement on June 13, he “ruled out” any capping or rollback of Pakistan’s nuclear capability. These options, he said, were out of the question now that we had already declared ourselves a nuclear power. Moving on to another subject, he threatened “extreme” federal measures against the MMA government in the NWFP if it did not mend its ways.

It was not right for Sheikh Rashid to address the issue of our nuclear capability. It is one of the most sensitive subjects in the areas of our defence and foreign relations. The less said about it the better, but if and when something must be said, it should be General Musharraf’s or Prime Minister Jamali’s prerogative to say it. Equally imprudent was the threat to the MMA government in Peshawar. Relations between that government and the centre are, once again, a sensitive matter that should be handled by Musharraf or Jamali-and with much care.

On June 14 Chaudhry Amir Hussain, Speaker of the National Assembly, ruled that the LFO was a part of the Constitution. His ruling has angered the opposition parties and given them, needlessly, another cause to agitate. His expertise, if he has it, lies in the field of parliamentary procedure. His word on the substantive content of the Constitution-what it does or does not include-carries no weight and binds no one. The higher courts, not the Speaker and his secretariat, are the proper agencies for making that determination. It was wrong of him to have wandered beyond his own area of authority and competence.

Prime Minister Jamali has recently made numerous statements whose veracity or propriety one might question. But for reasons of space I shall limit myself to a consideration of only one of them. In an interview with “Doordarshan” (Dawn, May 21), he said to his Indian audiences: “If you open your hearts, we will open up everything-trade, culture, aviation, everything.” This appeal to Indian “hearts” may be set aside as an attempt on Mr Jamali’s part to match Prime Minister Vajpayee’s reported disposition to be poetic.

But then our distinguished prime minister went on to exhort the Indians to join us in an utterly unexpected expedition: “We have to be seen as a compact bloc. . . . We must ensure that we stand together as far as the region is concerned. . . . It was Afghanistan yesterday, it is Iraq today, what of tomorrow?” The only “safety valve” against foreign incursions in the region was for the two countries to “stand as one.”

There can be little doubt as to how Mr Jamali’s listeners and viewers interpreted his exhortation. Who invaded Afghanistan, and then Iraq, and who has been threatening to invade Syria and Iran? None other than the United States. If Mr Jamali’s words are taken to mean what they normally would, he was plainly proposing an Indo-Pakistan entente to thwart possible American thrusts into the subcontinent.

This was just about the most outlandish proposal to have come from a Pakistani prime minister, and it is difficult to understand how Mr Jamali could have made it. Both he and his president never tire of proclaiming Pakistan as a staunch ally of the United States and as a “frontline state” in its war against terrorism. He made the proposal, knowing that General Musharraf would soon be travelling to Camp David, hat in hand, to plead not only for more aid and trade concessions but also for greater American understanding and support for Pakistan’s stance in its disputes with India.

Yet, Mr Jamali went ahead to call for an entente with a long-time foe against a long-time friend. What can we say of his performance other than that at the time of this interview he was just carried away, or that he had lost his mind? (Temporarily, one must hope.)

Having left the best for last, let us now turn to some of General Musharraf’s recent observations. For more than a year his government has been asking India (and requesting every passerby to urge India) to have a “dialogue” with us with a view to resolving the disputes, and building a durable peace, between the two countries. Common sense requires that we say or do nothing that may call into question the genuineness of our professions of peace. Keeping this in mind, let us consider two of the general’s statements.

Speaking to an Indian TV channel interviewer (Dawn, June 14), General Musharraf observed that Pakistan’s military move in Kargil should not be regarded as a mistake, for it enlivened the Kashmir issue which had been dead until then. Disputes between Pakistan and India must be resolved if more “Kargils” were to be avoided. One may say that the general, like everybody else, was entitled to his opinion. But he is not like everybody else. His voice is liable to be received as the voice of Pakistan.

His reference to more “Kargils” could easily be seen as a threat. Why make threats at the same time that his government is calling (at the rate of about once a week) for a “dialogue” to make peace. Even if more “Kargils” are a part of its contingency planning, the normal and sensible practice is to keep that fact under wraps and, if questioned, to deny that such is the case. It is all right for General Musharraf, the army chief, to speak bluntly to his corps commanders. But it is not all right for him to speak in that fashion when he goes around as president, for then his words may hurt the vital interests of 145 million Pakistanis. In these situations caution and prudence are to be preferred to valour.

Blameworthy for similar reasons is the general’s plea to western powers (Dawn, June 20) to keep India from developing a level of military superiority that would leave Pakistan’s nuclear arsenal as its only deterrent to possible Indian aggression. There is no reason to think that western governments have ever had any interest in the maintenance of a balance of power between Pakistan and India. They have always assumed that, in the nature of things, India’s military capability would be considerably greater than that of Pakistan.

They did not welcome India’s acquisition of nuclear weapons, but they were bitterly resentful when Pakistan also came to have them. There has been talk here and there that a foreign power-America, Israel, India-might move to take out Pakistan’s nuclear arsenal. One must then ask whether it is wise for Pakistani spokesmen to flaunt their nuclear capability (especially when it is so modest). All concerned know we have it. We don’t have to arouse concerns about our intentions, and suspicions regarding our sanity, by continuing to stress the role our nuclear arsenal has in our defence. The sensible course of action would be to stay quiet on the subject and, when pressed, to say only that we hope never to have to use our nuclear weapons.

Having restated his well-known position on the subject of his uniform to a group of Pakistanis in London (Dawn, June 19), the general went on to make the startling claim that God had placed him in the positions he occupied. This is alarming because it may be more than pretence; flatterers may have persuaded him that he is indeed the chosen one of the Lord. It puts us in a difficult spot.

We could, and did, challenge him when he said he owed his position to his own will, or to that of the people expressed in the referendum of last year. But how do we deal with the proposition that he is God’s appointee? We could say that he is having delusions. But others will tell us that nothing in this world happens unless God has willed it. A corollary of the general’s assertion may be (as it was of the medieval belief in the divine right of kings) that, guided by God, his actions are above reproach.

The other side of the coin here is that only God, not citizens and their agencies, can send him away. Were this reasoning to prevail, General Pervez Musharraf could remain at the helm, and do as the spirit moved him, as long as he wanted, justifying his continuance in office on the ground that the call to quit had not yet come from above. What a royal mess!

May Allah, in his infinite wisdom and mercy, save us-bungled and botched though we already are-from further degradation likely to be wrought by such beliefs and the reasoning flowing from them.

The writer is professor emeritus of political science at the University of Massachusetts at Amherst, USA.

E-mail: syed.anwar@attbi.com

The mouse that roars

A FRIGHTENED mouse running from a cat came across a miracle man and begged him to make him into a cat to save him from being hunted all the time. The miracle man took pity and obliged. The mouse-turned-cat reappeared one day to complain that now the dogs bothered him and that he too should be made a dog.

The miracle man again obliged. The original mouse kept returning with the same plea for a mightier station in the animal kingdom till the compassionate miracle man made him a lion so that no one was ever able to harass him and, in turn, he was spared his pestering visits.

The mouse-elevated-to-lion yet turned up once again to tell his harried benefactor that not finding enough prey in the wilderness he had to eat him up to stay alive. The miracle man thus ended in the belly of the lion he himself had created.

The story was narrated by Ajmal Khattak (who, it seems, never came across a miracle man in his half a century in politics for he was hunted all the time) to the miracle maker General Musharraf. In turn, it was narrated to this writer by Ajmal Khattak’s friend of the youth, Arbab Hedayatullah who walked out of Sindh IG’s job two years ahead of time before he could be eaten up by the mouse that, over the same half a century, had been nurtured into a lion.

Now Khattak and Arbab meet to exchange anecdotes in the latter’s orchard on the outskirts of Peshawar where the beauty-aid billboards no longer carry female faces. As both of them, like other senior citizens, reflect on the havoc politics, priests and police have wrought, the hungry lion roars across the Frontier for a prey in Islamabad.

The mouse-to-lion fable aside, it cannot be denied that what, to begin with, was just devout faith, or commitment to a doctrine, was advanced to religiosity and on to militancy. This transformation has been gathering momentum all along but faster in the vacuum created by the sidelining of the moderate, secular forces during the military or authoritarian regimes. Whether it was under Iskander Mirza’s guided democracy, Ayub’s basic democracy or Bhutto’s Islamic-democratic socialism, only the extremists gained ground while the common people lost their civil rights and freedom of conscience. The outcome of Gen. Musharraf’s tailored and sustained democracy has not been much different.

Every ruler, whether he came through election or coup, has relied on religious elements in politics to bolster his administration — only to discover that they had their own agenda and ambitions. Musharraf too had to discover it at the cost of his liberal image and creed.

Now the door to power seems to have been shut on the religious parties by Bush’s tribute to Musharraf as a courageous leader and a friend who is also an essential and dependable ally in the war on terror. Since the opposing forces in this war are religious, the parting of the ways between Musharraf and religious parties for the present appears complete.

The possibility of the MMA joining the Q League-led coalition at the centre thus stands ruled out. In fact, the power base of JUI-JI in the NWFP itself is now threatened by defections and numerous by-elections which must take place if the court petition against the madrassah-graduate members of the assemblies succeeds which is more than likely because the attorney-general too has supported the contention of the petitioners that they were ab initio not eligible to be elected.

Now that the MMA is out of the race, Musharraf has an opportunity to enlist the support of the sidelined political forces who would press for greater provincial autonomy and civil rights but help him fight religious extremism. It would not be a bad bargain. The support of Mumtaz Bhutto and other nationalists in Sindh, that of the triumvirate of Marri-Bugti-Mengal chiefs in Balochistan, of old and new NAP in the NWFP and of the known old guard (Sherbaz Mazari, Ilahi Bukhsh Soomro, Mustafa Jatoi, Gohar Ayub, Fakhr Imam, Mustafa Khar, Hanif Ramay, Shahbaz Sharif and some others) who were either defeated or disqualified or just stayed away on their own in the peculiar circumstances of the last election could give the Musharraf regime new credibility and vigour.

In any case, most observers agree that the present set-up with Ch. Shujaat and Sh. Rashid as its main political pillars, Mohammadmian Soomro and Ch. Amir Hussain as its parliamentary props (both buttressed by the acumen of Tariq Aziz) cannot contend with many problems the country faces; these will now be exacerbated by an alienated and despondent religious rights. Terror (targeting foreigners or of a sectarian nature), Kashmir, provincial autonomy, Indus water are but a few more serious among a myriad of problems.

While the old issues fester, new ones continue to arise. These need a detached consideration for their impact on the capacity and competence of the government to grapple with them. While an agreement on the constitutional system with the political forces now chosen to be prospective partners will take its own course and time, it remains Musharraf’s sole responsibility to attend to the conflict and chaos in the administration created by his innovative laws on local government and the police. He may brush aside the sceptics and critics and also (what he considers) vested interests but should act on the complaints emanating from the officials, elected and nominated, involved in the new system and the people at large who suffer because of it.

The stark reality which should not be ignored is that the system is not working. The power and responsibility at all levels are divided and accountability is non-existent. It is epitomized no better than by a high court trying to determine whether the chief executive of the province is the governor or the chief minister. If it is an enigma even for a superior court, one can well imagine how baffled the officials and the common man must be.

At a lower level some people think the nazim has all the powers, to others it is the DCO, and to most it is the district police officer. The actual fact, perhaps, is that between the three the one who is trusted by the people who matter exercises the power; the other two are just figureheads. The home secretary of one province says he has no connection left with the police though under the rules of government business he remains responsible for law and order. The home secretary of another province says the reforms have made no difference to his power or responsibility. Both are working in the same system under the same laws. It is personal and not institutional.

The flaws are basic and confusion is widespread because the system was designed and laws were written by the people who may have been experts in warfare or international relations but knew little about the administration and nothing at all about the conditions far afield.

If some people had vested interests in the old system, Musharraf seems to have acquired a bigger interest in the new system he has devised. Putting the vested interests and ego aside, the whole system should be reviewed by an independent commission on the basis of the experience gained and after hearing the people in the slums and in societies across the national spectrum. The people for whom the administration exists should not be made hostage to partisan and untested contentions.

Now that some parties have already declared their intention to carry their protest to the streets and more are expected to follow, the government should make an effort to win over the people rather than seduce the parliamentarians which has been its main occupation so far.

The essence of all this argument is that General Musharraf, acting contrary to his own instincts, must no more give way to the reactionary forces in return for political support. Now that his friend Bush has conveyed this message to him which the lesser mortals at home could not, he should take up the cudgels for his own short battle against all kinds of dogma alongside Bush’s long war on terror.