Social sector development
There is an increasing consensus in the country on need for the government to spend far more on development, particularly on the social sector infrastructure's expansion and job-creation. The official economists, who normally do not step ahead of the official policy line, have also supported the idea.
They see such measures imperative after they have noticed the reluctance of the private sector to come up with the requisite investment for job-creation even when adequate and cheap bank credit is available. The small and medium enterprises, which are regarded the right remedy of the problem, are slow in coming up, nor has the micro-credit been available in plenty. Meanwhile the economists are disturbed by the rise in suicides because of unemployment.
The task force on poverty reduction set up by Prime Minister Zafarullah Jamali with a one-month deadline to submit its report is more specific in this regard than others concerned with the problem. While others have spoken in broad terms in regard to the enhanced volume of investment needed in the public sector, the task force has suggested the volume of public sector development outlay for 2004-05 be raised to Rs 200 billion from the current year's allocation of Rs. 160 billion.
That would enhance the public sector outlay by Rs. 40 billion, which is not a large sum compared to the magnitude of the problem and the urgency for its effective solution. Next year we expect the economic growth to rise to 6 per cent from the current year's over 5.3 per cent of the GDP and hence a larger financial input is essential.
The task force headed by Dr. Abdul Hafeez Shaikh wants more funds for the development of the social sector, particularly education, so as to improve the quality of the work force and the productivity of the economy as a whole. Since nothing much moves in Pakistan in the economic sector without the blessing or permission of the IMF and the World Bank Mr Mohsin Khan, a former director of the IMF, is reported to have conducted a study in this regard and suggested far higher public sector spending to reduce poverty and development of the social sector.
A conference of the economists convened by the Pakistan Institute of Development Economics last month urged the government to spend far more on poverty reduction and the social sector development. The government has been talking of public-private cooperation, particularly in the crucial social sector which is more backward than many South Asian countries.
It has been argued by the official economists that the budget deficit this year at four per cent of the GDP is lower than the economic growth of 5.3 per cent and hence the government can afford to spend far more on poverty reduction. Spending five per cent of the GDP on development as a whole, as urged by the task force, is not excessive when the target from next year is six per cent. The average development spending in the 1980s when 6 per cent economic growth was achieved was 7.3 per cent of the GDP, with 9.3 per cent spent in the year 1980-81.
The rate of development spending went down later in the 1990s when it ranged between three and four per cent of the GDP, touching the bottom of 2.1 per cent in 2000-01. Since then there has been a modest rise which has encouraged the task force to urge the government to raise that to five per cent of the GDP next year.
In fact, the government should be able to spend far more than Rs 200 billion on development next year in view of several key factors. We have been told until recently that Rs. 100 billion has been squandered year after year on public sector subsidies, which has come down steeply in the wake of the privatization of several white elephants, including major banks. Savings too have been made in such enterprises through efficient management and real economy measures.
If all that is true, large savings should have been made or will be made now through the privatization of large banks like the Habib Bank and United Bank and improved profitability of several other major enterprises, like Pakistan Steel. Once the KESC and many of the WAPDA units are privatised, the government must feel greatly relaxed as they have been consuming the bulk of the fat subsidies.
The domestic debt servicing cost has been greatly reduced by cutting down the interest rates and paying lower rates for the new loans through the Pakistan Investment Bonds and treasury bills. There is plenty of fiscal space in this area compared to the period when the government had to pay up to 17-18 per cent interest on domestic borrowing.
The government has also to think of the alternative it faces if it does not want to spend much on poverty reduction. It has to spend far more on law and order, on recruiting more policemen, building more jails and far more courts. Shortage of space in jails, particularly death cells for those sentenced to death, is a major problem the government faces in this area.
And inadequacy of infrastructure would mean less investment and less development. Foreign investment, too, would continue to be less as the investors find the cost of doing business or managing factories too high in this age of increasing competitiveness. National integration too would suffer. The State Bank of Pakistan says the monetary policy would continue to be liberal or easy so as to stimulate economic growth.
The National Bank of Pakistan says it gave loans of over Rs. 100 billion to the private sector last year. Other banks, too, are coming forward such as the Habib Bank's deal with Instaphone for a loan of Rs. 1.3 billion, and the United Bank's loans for the industrial sector.
While the world is happy to see the economic recovery after two and a half years of recession, it is equally disappointed to note that it is a "jobless recovery". The recovery of the US economy is marked by its increase in productivity by two per cent. The Japanese economic recovery is not also marked for its notable increase in employment. Evidently those who are inside the factories are working harder to protect their employment and producing far more for the same wages.
In Pakistan, too, automation reduces the demand for jobs, while computerization adds to the problem. Balancing, Modernization and Replacement (BMR) is reported to have accommodated 300,000 workers more in the textile sector after the new investment of two to four billion dollars. But simultaneously hundreds of thousands of workers in the power loom and other cottage textile factories have been thrown out of employment following closure of factories or reduced production because of the very high prices of cotton. The SMEs in the textile sector have really suffered due to the high prices of cotton and its scarcity.
And now it seems after the army which is the second largest employer in the country, the police may become the one as well. The prime minister has been talking of recruiting more and more policemen, including special forces, for beefing up the security. Nevertheless, the ordinary man may find it hard to get an FIR registered when he is a victim of a major crime. Numbers don't evidently improve their quality or efficacy, except when they attend to VIP duties.
The International Labour Organization (ILO) has come up with a report saying that 185.9 million people were unemployed in the world which means 6.2 per cent of the total work force, the highest record of unemployed in the world. The situation in 2002 was slightly better when 185.4 million people were unemployed. But the worst hit were the young job-seekers aged between 15 and 24 years who totalled 88.2 million, which raised the unemployment rate among them to 14.4 per cent, or far more than double the unemployment rate in the world.
As a result, the informal sector in developing countries expanded further and many were employed at lower wages, around a dollar a day, whose number totalled 550 million.
The same has been happening in Pakistan where over 1.5 million people enter the job marked every year. The kind of work they do and wages they earn are far from the "decent work" of which the ILO talks. If this is how work and wages move the United Nations Millennium goal of reducing poverty in the world by a half by the year 2015 will remain an elusive goal, cautions the ILO.
While the wages have gone down and prices have been going up, inflation this year will not be more than four per cent says finance minister Shaukat Aziz and other officials. How can inflation be so low when POL prices are going up by around five per cent every fortnight? Look at the increase in bus fares which have been announced in Karachi which begins with an increase of 25 per cent for a Rs. 4 fare. Other fare increases come down to 16 per cent. The impact of the rise in POL prices on freight rates of trucks to carry goods is far more.
The support price for wheat has risen by 25 per cent from Rs 240 for 40 kilogramme to Rs 300. Meat and chicken prices have risen high, vegetable and fruit prices too are up despite the cold weather. The impact of all that at the end of the year can't be only 4 per cent.
It is time the government makes a critical study of its inflation formula and corrects its mistakes. The explanation often given is that many of the price rises are the outcome of seasonal factors or only in cities like Karachi and not in small towns. In which case there ought to be an indeed of inflation for the urban areas.
In the past Pakistanis unemployed can migrate to other countries in search of employment. But now foreign countries have become far more strict because of unemployment there as well as the problem of terrorism. In countries like the Gulf states they give employment to the locals or other Arabs. The ILO says "unemployment cannot be reversed and poverty reduced unless policy makers stop treating employment as an after thought and place decent work at the heart of macro-economic and social policies." Will such a change come here now?
A roadmap for Kashmir
North Carolina's former Senator, Frank P. Graham, in his capacity as the United Nations representative for Kashmir, proposed a roadmap or plan of action for Kashmir, specifying that India must reduce its troops in Kashmir to a range beween 12,000-18,000; and Pakistan to a range between 3000-6,000.
Then the wishes of the Kashmiri public would be ascertained in an impartial UN-supervised plebiscite, in which each and every individual Kashmiri - as opposed to political parties, groups, or countries - would participate.
This was the essence of Dr. Graham's 12-point roadmap/plan of action adopted by the United Nations Security Council in Resolution 98 of December 23, 1952. The resolution mandated that India and Pakistan agree within 30 days on the demilitarization of Kashmir regarding the "specific number" within the parameters of the troops range specified in the resolution.
The actual withdrawal of troops from Kashmir was to be started simultaneously by India and Pakistan, and to be completed within 90 days. The United Nations Plebiscite Administrator for Kashmir was to take charge to conduct a plebiscite "not later than the final day of the demilitarization period," pursuant to Dr. Graham's roadmap (UN document S/2783, September 1952).
Admiral Chester W. Nimitz, had already been appointed as the UN plebiscite administrator for Kashmir, and he was to have been formally inducted into office at the end of the demilitarization period, to conduct an impartial plebiscite to ascertain the wishes of the Kashmiri people.
A new plebiscite administrator, of the calibre of Admiral Nimitz, must now be appointed to ascertain the wishes of the Kashmiri people. A new Representative for Kashmir must be appointed to replace Graham.
The UN Security Council resolution of December 1952(UN document S/ 2883) states that the "Governments of India and Pakistan have accepted all but two of the paragraphs of his (Graham's) 12- point proposals." One of these related to the exact timing of the induction of the plebiscite administrator. The other related to paragraph 7 of the roadmap: India wanted 23,000 troops, for internal security during a UN plebiscite, instead of the maximum of 18,000 specified by Dr. Graham, and United Nations Security Council.
The Graham UN roadmap - which had been internationally acclaimed as the solution of Kashmir - initially stalled at this point, essentially over a nominal difference of a mere 5,000 Indian soldiers. (Then the cold war followed, with Pakistan siding with the US, and India with the Soviet camp).
Graham felt that the presence of 23,000 troops friendly to India, would intimidate the voting public in a plebiscite, and as such would compromise the fairness of the plebiscite. Troops on Kashmiri soil was the main issue then, as now.
Negotiations on this roadmap, backed by the United States, must be picked up from the point where such negotiations broke down. The valuable lessons of history should be relied on, and built upon - instead of re-inventing the wheel.
Graham, who was also former president of the University of North Carolina, was described as having a zeal "nothing less than missionary" for his Kashmir role, by Josef Korbel, in his book Danger in Kashmir. Korbel was father of Madeleine Korbel Albright, and had been a member of the United Nations commission for India and Pakistan (UNCIP). It was during Korbel's UNCIP chairmanship that UN Security Council adopted the UNCIP resolutions calling for Indian and Pakistani troops to withdraw, and for the Kashmir people to decide their future in a UN-supervised plebiscite.
If the UN resolutions were invoked for Iraq, the same must apply for Kashmir. What is being projected as a January 2004 success story in South Asia, may well turn out to be well- orchestrated Machiavellian strategy - if the wishes of the Kashmiri public are not taken into account. The issue of the wishes of the Kashmiri public is of such overwhelming importance, that the "plebeians", or common public must vote in a plebiscite. No group or political party or country can usurp this right away from the Kashmiri people.
After all, thirteen million Kashmiri human beings cannot be considered a commodity, or spoils of war - to be negotiated upon by India and Pakistan. No human being should be considered as chattel, or bargaining chip. This factor is especially relevant during the tenures of the first African-American US Secretary of State and the first UN Secretary-General from sub-Saharan Africa. The writer is a Kashmir-born journalist and covers the United Nations.
e-mail: fgb5@columbia.edu
Why be a 'suicide bomber ?'
"This particular brand of terrorism, the suicide bomber, is truly born out of desperation. Many many people criticize, many many people say it is just another form of terrorism, but I can understand and I am a fairly emotional person and I am a mother and a grandmother. I think if I had to live in that situation, and I say this advisedly, I might just consider becoming one myself. And that is a terrible thing to say."
Read through the above lines and it is clear that the speaker does not condone suicide bombing. Jenny Tonge, Liberal Democrat MP and - until her dismissal last week - the party's spokesperson on children's issues, put suicide bombers firmly in the category of 'terrorism'. Her opening words 'this particular brand of terrorism, the suicide bomber' allow no other interpretation but condemnation.
It is not difficult to see why. Suicide bombing is the ultimate act of destruction: killing oneself in order to kill others, in order supposedly to further one's cause. Suicide bombers - striking often on buses, in restaurants, in shopping malls, in the middle of ordinary, everyday routines - take a massive, indiscriminate, split-second toll of human life. As an act of destruction - of self-murder and murder of others - it can never be condoned.
Islam, in whose name such acts are often carried out, emphatically does not legitimize suicide bombing. [Those who interpret Islamic injunctions otherwise should study their Scripture again.] Suicide bombing is evil: full stop.
Or rather, suicide bombing is evil: question mark. After all, taking one's own life is no trifling matter. Suicide means the end of everything that life has to offer: relationships, family, hopes, dreams, the future. Suicide bombing is the ultimate self-sacrifice. In view of this, the criticism and condemnation voiced after any suicide bombing should be followed by the question: "Why? - Why give up everything to become a suicide bomber?'
That was the question Jenny Tonge sought to answer: "What drives people like Reem Rayishi, the female bomber who killed herself despite having two young children?' Dr Tonge discovered the answers in the Occupied Territories. They could be summed up in just two words: 'Israeli occupation'.
But those two words are not enough to convey the full extent of suffering, desperation and hopelessness that defines the lives of so many Palestinians in the West Bank and Gaza. Only when you unravel precisely what 'Israeli occupation' means, do you get an idea of where Palestinian suicide bombing comes from.
Occupation is loss of one's ancestral homes and land; occupation is their permanent replacement by Jewish neighbourhoods; occupation is living as a refugee in over-crowded camps; occupation is the loss of more land to ever expanding Jewish settlements; occupation is the denial of rights and sovereignty; occupation is having to live under curfews and restrictions, having to endure searches and carry passes.
Occupation is not being able to travel - and hence often not being able to earn a wage; occupation is unemployment and economic hardship; occupation is the denial of water; occupation is malnutrition and disease; occupation is injustice and the bulldozing of homes; occupation is the murder of innocents, many children; occupation is funerals, grief and still more deaths; occupation is despair and hopelessness, a bleak present and a bleaker future; most of all, occupation is anger.
Jenny Tonge saw what occupation means first-hand. She saw the frustrations that make hundreds of Palestinians so ready to lay down their lives. And in the process of understanding Palestinian suicide bombers, Jenny Tonge found herself sympathizing with them and, ultimately, admitting that in the same circumstances she might do the same thing.
Jenny Tonge should be praised. Not only did she manage to move beyond conventional criticism of suicide bombing to the deeper issue of motive; she also made the important distinction between symptoms and disease. Tonge condemned the symptoms (suicide bombings) but grasped that they are the result of underlying disease (Israeli occupation). That disease, not the symptoms, is where the real focus should be. For only when you understand and tackle the disease, can you hope to relieve its symptoms.
Thus Tonge's remarks should have prompted debate about 'that situation': what Israel is doing in the Palestinian territories. But that subject was not touched. [The Israeli ambassador even joined the fray in calling for Tonge's dismissal.] And instead of being praised, Jenny Tonge was sacked. Charles Kennedy, leader of the opposition Liberal Democratic party, declared: "There can be no justification under any circumstances for taking innocent lives through terrorism. Her recent remarks about suicide bombers are completely unacceptable."
Kennedy clearly failed to hear what she said. His decision to sack Dr Tonge was endorsed by other leading politicians as well as the usual pro-Israel lobby. They, too, failed to hear what she was really saying.
Or rather, they are not prepared to hear. Both the dismissal and its endorsement point to a worrying absence of debate - indeed, of freedom of expression - in post-9/11 Britain. Terrorism is a particularly taboo topic: you can condemn terrorism, you can pursue and detain those who engage in it, but you cannot discuss what lies behind terrorism - what causes it? Such is the hysteria that surrounds suicide bombing and other terrorist acts, that to even raise questions about why those acts take place is forbidden - beyond the pale.
The same absence of debate marked the initial response to 9/11 (the attack on Afghanistan) and even (though to a lesser extent) to the war on Iraq. Debate on the latter is now in full flow - so much so that, with the Hutton Inquiry report due this week, the prime minister could find himself in an indefensible position. But no such debate has started about the causes of terrorism.
The point made above has to be reiterated: only when the causes of suicide bombings are addressed, can you hope to halt such attacks. Until Israeli occupation (and all that it entails) is openly discussed and remedied, suicide bombing in the Palestinian territories will never abate.
The same lesson applies to the wider 'war on terror' being waged by the US: by all means ignore the causes of 9/11, of Al Qaeda and of the current Iraqi resistance, but then be prepared for the consequences. Trying to understand what motivates Palestinian suicide bombers is not immoral. Real immorality lies in ignoring the actions of Israel.