Surviving expensive oil

THE new World Bank president Paul Wolfowitz came on his first visit to Pakistan and has gone back after promising 1.5 billion dollars as development aid for each of the next three years.

He has also indicated that two billion dollars would be available for developing the logistic network and make it very modern and efficient. That includes the railways, roads and ports. Whether the two billion is a part of the 1.5 billion annual lending or separate from it is not known yet.

He has also assured Pakistan of enough funding for large dams for producing hydel power in a period of soaring world oil prices and for irrigation. He wants the Pakistan leaders to make up their mind about the dams they prefer and then ask the bank for the funding.

He is obviously impressed by Pakistan’s economic performance and last year’s growth rate of 8.4 per cent, which he wants to be sustained to the maximum possible extent. But his praise for Pakistan’s economic performance is not unmixed. He sounded several cautionary notes, beginning with how challenging it is to maintain a high growth rate. He wants Pakistan to raise far more resources of its own instead of depending on heavy borrowing for development projects. He wants the higher economic growth to be reflected in tax revenues instead of the prospering agriculture being spared from income tax as are also the large incomes made from real estate and the vast profits through the stock exchange. He does not want the government with a tax rate of nine to 10 per cent of the GDP despite the steady economic growth reaching 8.4 per cent.

He also wants Pakistan to fight corruption which he says is a global phenomenon and has afflicted the rich countries as well. He has offered to help the recovery of a part of the money taken out of the country by the corrupt and criminal elements from places of power.

The World Bank has helped Nigeria to recover a good deal of the money stolen by the ruling generals earlier and deposited in Switzerland and elsewhere in Europe. He offered to do the same for Pakistan.

But in Pakistan the situation is far different. Here we have military supremacy and the generals are trying to recover the stolen money, which is proving to be too tough. We have a long history of corruption and our corrupt elements are far more clever or ingenious than the Nigerian generals. We have multi-faceted history of corruption done by senior bureaucrats as well. Quite often the corrupt money is not received in Pakistan but abroad and deposited or invested elsewhere. For some years now it has been said that there is no corruption at the top, but the people do not believe that. It is often said about Pakistan that it has rich people and a poor government. The rich have plenty of money to squander but the government does not have money for essential duties, for nation-building, for example.

If we want more of our money to go into development and less of borrowing that results in a large national debt and heavy interest payments, the official policy has to change from spending to saving, as it has been in India until recently. Savings have not only to be encouraged but also rewarded adequately, which is not the current official policy. Those at the higher levels of income do not pay taxes but spend and live it up. They don’t have to pay the 15 per cent sales tax either as they bring more expensive goods from abroad tax-free.

Savings begin with the savings accounts in banks; if instead banks demand Rs10,000 to Rs50,000 to open a savings account and then pay a nominal return on that — minus Zakat and withholding tax on profits of 10 per cent — we will have very little of savings. It is not enough if the National Savings Organization pays higher return on savings than the banks. How many NSO offices are there in the country and how bound down by red tape they are?

If consumer banking was largely promoting the domestic industry it would be a healthy development. But it promotes imported luxuries. At best, they are locally assembled cars. But soon we will have imported cars, which will come in the name of the dependents or relations of overseas Pakistanis after some use by them abroad. The consumer banking policy needs a revision. It should be redesigned to promote local industry. If the nation has an obligation to the consumer, the latter, too, has an obligation to the country and its economy.

A move is now being made to tax the large profits made through stock exchange transactions. That is to come in the form of capital gains tax which the stock brokers have hitherto abhorred. Prior to that, a holding period for the shares will be prescribed. If within the holding period the share holder sells his share he has to pay capital gains tax. Whether there will be capital gains tax will be less after the expiry of the holding period remains to be seen.

As a compensation for that the stock brokers will have the continuous flow (of funds) system introduced now, which will provide the brokers with all the money they need to indulge in the stock market. The holding period will reduce the speculation on the stock exchanges and make the exchange a place for investment and not wild speculation when millions of shares are alleged to have been bought and sold, while the actual investment is small.

It has been reported the Central Board of Revenue is also coming up with taxation on the capital gains of the real state which are now very large.

Mr Wolfowitz wants positive steps for good governance in Pakistan. The bank had offered 125 fellowships for training in capacity building abroad but Pakistan accepted only 75 of them. Why? Now the Bank wants these officers to be placed at positions it approves of to get the best out of them. Otherwise the training will be useless and the money borrowed on that score wasted.

The World Bank president attaches a great deal of importance to good governance. Every major donor has stressed that. Pakistani leaders too pay lip service to that concept. But we are not getting that except as headlines in newspaper.

Look at the conduct of the police and the kind of crimes in which they figure. Look at the flaws in the exceedingly slow-moving judicial system. Because of that or in spite of that the World Bank has now offered 55 million dollars more for training officials.

The bank could as well conduct a study now to determine how well the training received by the officials during the last three or four decades has been used or just wasted. And how quickly the officials resumed their old ways after their return home.

Now the World Bank wants good corporate governance in Pakistan. A memorandum of understanding has been signed between IFC, the commercial arm of the bank, and the Securities and Exchange Commission for developing good corporate governance and make full use of the newly established Pakistan Institute of Corporate Governance, and promote the internationally recognised best practices.

The funding is there. The training institutions are there and the training time is also provided for. The issue is the officers getting the best of that and enabling the people benefit by that continuously.

Meanwhile, a threat to our high economic growth rate has come in the form of ever-rising world oil prices which fluctuate at a very high levels. Earlier, we were told to get accustomed to oil prices fluctuating in the $60 range. Now, that the price has touched 67 dollars per barrel we are being asked to get ready to tolerate a price in tourching the $70 mark. US experts had earlier predicted a peak of 100 dollars a barrel. The world is afflicted not only by a shortage of oil output, but paucity of refining capacity, in the US as well.

The result can be a drop in the economic growth of various countries from one half to one per cent. To that extent they may reduce their imports. Exporting countries, like Pakistan, will suffer. Still higher oil prices in the world would mean a further rise in oil and gas prices at home, higher cost of production and transport, higher inflation and rise in export prices.

Luckily for Pakistan only 25 per cent of the energy consumption is oil. The rest is covered by hydel power, gas, coal and nuclear power. Prime Minister Shaukat Aziz has now directed OGDC to ensure continuous flow of gas and explore more oil and gas wells. A number of foreign and domestic companies have also asked for sanction to set up power production units using varied fuel. Suitable companies should be authorised to do that early. He has also been asking foreign and domestic oil companies to undertake off-shore drilling operations on a large scale. So far no oil company had success in this area, while India, and the Gulf states have achieved considerable success in such operations.

OGDC says it will drill 67 wells this year and 167 next year. What happened to OGDC’s earlier announcement it will drill a 100 wells this year? Why the shrinkage in the number?

The prime minister has promised safe water and electricity by the year 2007 in every village and he appears to be keen on that. If he has to achieve success in that he has to use the state-machinery in full and gear up the private sector, too, for full scale operations.

He is coming up with a new gas policy soon. We need far more gas irrespective of what we may be getting from Iran and Turkemenistan. It is good that the negotiations among Pakistan, India and Iran on the tri-nation gas pipeline, which will cost 7.2 billion dollars, has been totally delinked from the political disputes between India and Pakistan, and is being approached as an economic proposition, useful to all the three countries.

The prime minister wants Pakistan to become a business hub of the region taking full advantage of its central geographical location. In that case the infrastructure should be fully developed, the cost of production should be low as also the cost of doing business. That may not be easy in a heavily populated country, unlike Dubai.

Even otherwise the South Asia Free Trade Area agreement (Safta) is scheduled to come into effect from January, and the country has to be prepared for that instead of postponing that happy day for a few more years. The businessmen have a large role to play in SAFTA. And that role has to be far different from the one played by the Pakistan exporters who sought export subsidy for new products and new markets and them claimed freight subsidy on the usual products sent to the usual markets. That was outright cheating.

Need for interfaith harmony

NO one who is true to the principles of any of the world’s major faiths, which are based on values of truth, justice, piety and decency, can ever be a religious intolerant and bigot. As a matter of fact, tolerance is one of the most fundamental elements of all the religions and is, therefore, considered to be a very important virtue in a believer.

Any manifestation of hatred and intolerance towards the adherents of other faiths, in whatever form it may be, runs counter to the very essence of one’s faith.

There is a growing concern in the Islamic world over the increasing incidence of terrorist acts perpetrated by some misguided elements in the name of Islam which is essentially a peace-loving religion and lays great emphasis on its core values of compassion, justice and benevolence. It is, however, regrettable that only a handful radicals that exist on the fringes of Muslim societies have distorted the Islamic teachings to justify their acts of terrorism and put Islam and the Muslims in a bad light by their irrational behaviour.

There are radical elements in all the religions that also commit acts of terrorism, which are also deplorable. However, the western media has deliberately chosen to demonize Islam by equating it with terrorism and intolerance and by portraying the Muslims as being narrow-minded and bigoted notwithstanding the fact that, as compared to other religions, they are considered as moderates whom, the recorded history testifies, have demonstrated a greater sense of tolerance and accommodation to other beliefs.

However, the negative propaganda against Islam has created an erroneous impression about it in the West. As a result, the phenomenon of Islamphobia is on the rise in the western world, which calls for prompt action to remove misconceptions about Islam and to project its true image there.

It may also be pertinent to mention that in the last 50 years or so, there has been an emerging worldwide awareness that the growing misunderstanding and conflict between the major religions could lead to serious consequences and hence there is need to evolve a mechanism to help remove the religious prejudices that are essentially based on ignorance. There is a general consensus among the intellectuals and academia that an interfaith dialogue may be an effective tool for promoting a better understanding of other religions and foster cordial relations and cooperation between different faiths. Consequently, a number of meetings took place, over the years, between the followers of diverse faiths, at regional and international levels with a view to creating harmony and a sense of mutual peaceful co- existence. Regrettably, however, these efforts have not yielded any tangible results and have proved to be inadequate to meeting the contemporary needs and addressing the alarming level of anxiety and stresses on this account. Religious intolerance, which continues to manifest itself in many parts of the world, has actually assumed frightening proportions in recent years.

It is generally believed that the interfaith dialogue could not achieve its objective as the religious communities took the dogmatic stance about the supremacy of their own beliefs, on which they are not prepared to compromise for the sake of harmony with other religions.

For obvious reasons, no true unity among different faiths can be possible unless their adherents give up the dogma of self-righteousness and show respect for other religions which have much in common and believe in the wider concept of unity of mankind.

There can be no peace in the world unless there is peace among the religions. A closer relationship and cooperation between different religious beliefs is therefore, a sine qua non for the establishment of a lasting peace in the world. It is reassuring that the significance of interfaith dialogue has also been recognized by the United Nations which organized a conference on interfaith cooperation for peace in New York on June 22 this year. This conference was an integral part of the efforts being made by the UN secretary-general in pursuance of the United Nations Millennium Declaration to promote a culture of peace and dialogue between different civilizations and cultures.

A statement issued on the conclusion of the conference stated that more deliberate and strategic efforts are needed to promote understanding between diverse peoples, cultures and religions, respecting one another in all their diversity of beliefs to achieve sustainable peace in the Twenty-First century. It may, however, be mentioned that all these efforts shall remain an elusive objective unless the root causes which breed disunity between diverse cultures and civilizations are also adequately addressed.

The question of interfaith dialogue also needs to be looked at from another perspective, particularly in the context of Islamic world’s growing uneasy relationship with the West. A closer look reveals that the fundamental source of friction between the Islamic world and the West is not ideological, as portrayed by the latter for some inexplicable reasons. Most of the Muslim countries are West’s important strategic partners, which also belie this impression.

The stark reality is that the growing polarization between the Islamic world and the West is the inevitable outcome of the latter’s partisan involvement on the side of Israel against the Palestinians and its ambition for political and military hegemony over the Muslim lands that has given rise to a deep sense of despair and despondency in Muslim countries. The US invasion of Iraq is a case in point.

The events of recent years have heightened the sense of a widening gap and lack of mutual understanding between the Islamic and western societies. The UN Secretary-General, Kofi Annan, therefore, announced on July 14 this year the launch of an “Alliance of Civilizations” to bridge these divides and overcome prejudice, misconceptions and polarization arising out of these.

The secretary-general has also declared that he would constitute a high-level group of eminent persons, which is to present a report with its recommendations and a practical plan for action by late 2006. One only hopes that these efforts would yield positive results.

Cancelling out O’Reilly

WHEN the Vietnam war was going on, a man stood in front of then secretary of defence Robert McNamara’s window at the Pentagon and set himself on fire to protest against the war.

McNamara said it was one of the darkest moments of his life.

Last week in Crawford, Texas, a “Gold Star mother” who lost her son in Iraq, held a vigil outside George Bush’s ranch to protest against the Iraq war.

The press covered it and the pro-war supporters attacked Cindy Sheehan for spoiling the president’s vacation.

Leading the attacks was Bill O’Reilly, the Fox TV spinmeister, who said that the mother was being supported by the far left who are against the war.

When I watched on TV, Bill was mad. When he gets mad his face gets red and he demands that somebody do something about it. He wants to fire judges and impeach prosecutors and he lets you know in no uncertain terms how he feels about the “far left media.”

The night I watched him (before Sheehan left Crawford because her mother had a stroke), he told us that Sheehan was to be on his show, but cancelled. O’Reilly hates people who won’t go on his programme, and he lets us know about it. He feels he is giving them an opportunity to debate with him — even though he doesn’t let his guests talk. He behaves like the kid in school you always hated.

The more O’Reilly railed against Sheehan, the more supporters he made for her. Many who came to Crawford planted white crosses on the highway.

O’Reilly said she was a puppet of ideologues, who were using her to embarrass President Bush.

He went on to say that Sheehan flip-flopped on President Bush’s role in the war. Bill hates someone who flip flops, especially when he thinks they should flip and not flop.

It isn’t easy to trash a mother who lost her son in Iraq, but O’Reilly has managed to do it. He has tied Sheehan up with Michael Moore, MoveOn and Maureen Dowd.

O’Reilly said he only deals in facts and told us Cindy’s husband was getting a divorce from her, which says more about what kind of woman she really is.

What started out as a vigil in Crawford became an antiwar protest. Reporters from all over the world showed up. Sheehan appeared on every television show. (Why didn’t she appear on Bill O’Reilly’s?)

President Bush was shown trying to have a vacation, while the protesters stood outside the ranch holding up signs against the war.

It was Vietnam deja vu all over again.

The president, Donald Rumsfeld and Condoleezza Rice were assuring us things are getting better In Iraq if we “just stay the course,” and that people who refuse to stay the course are not loyal Americans. Holding vigils in Crawford could be compared to immolation in front of the Pentagon.

The questions flew all over the lot. “Why doesn’t Cindy go home and leave the president alone? He is the commander-in-chief, and like Lyndon Johnson, he knows how to fight a war.”

“The O’Reilly Factor” went by so fast I hated for the hour to be over.

I didn’t know at the end whether Bill was mad at Cindy for being used by the left or because she never went on his show. —Dawn/Tribune Media Services

The road after Gaza

ISRAEL’S disengagement from Gaza is a historic event, but for Palestinians and Israelis it will soon be history. Even before the last settler was evacuated, attention had shifted to what will come next.

With 2006 an election year in Palestine, Israel and the United States, bold moves are unlikely. Yet prolonged diplomatic slow-motion would be the surest path to renewed confrontation.

Two huge challenges limit what is feasible in the months ahead. First is a large expectations gap.

Uncertainty as to Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon’s intentions has been fuelled by his hawkish past and contradictory statements.

He has sought to convince the international community that evacuating Gaza was the first in a series of moves, while indicating to members of his right-wing constituency that it was the last of them.

Whatever his intentions, there is little doubt that for now he wants to do little, and do it slowly. As he sees it, withdrawal from Gaza is not meant to set the stage for a conflict-ending agreement — in which he does not believe — or to take Israel back to borders approximating the 1967 lines — which he rejects.

Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas is operating according to a very different political clock. Palestinians, convinced that Sharon is giving up Gaza to hold on to the West Bank, will clamour for a return to final-status talks, and Israelis will balk. Should negotiations begin, Palestinians will call for an outcome along the lines discussed in 2000 and 2001, while Israelis will insist on a long-term interim arrangement — and, possibly, implement it unilaterally. The bottom line: After disengagement it will be impossible to ignore the fundamental gap separating Israeli and Palestinian strategies, extremely difficult to address it and foolhardy not to try to.

The second challenge is the electoral contests in Israel and Palestine, which are far more likely to produce political posturing and catering to extremes than daring and courageous diplomacy.

Sharon is facing a tough battle within his own party — even before national elections, which must be held by November 2006 and will probably occur much sooner.

The resignation of Israel’s finance minister, Binyamin Netanyahu, gives Sharon’s opponents a skilled leader. In the months ahead Sharon will consolidate his political base, not weaken it, move to the right, not to the centre, and focus on what he can do to placate his constituency, not the Palestinians. The flip side of settlement evacuation in Gaza may well be settlement expansion in the West Bank and Jerusalem.

Abbas faces his own political challenges. Critical legislative council elections are scheduled for January. With the dominant Fatah movement in disarray, growing public discontent with lawlessness and corruption and sharpening power struggles with the militant Islamic organization Hamas, Abbas is not in a position to launch a major initiative in coming months. He will ask his people to give diplomacy a chance, but he cannot seriously argue that diplomacy liberated Gaza; disengagement was decided before he came to power and would have occurred even had he not.

And while Abbas has no obvious strategy for dealing with the frustrations of West Bank residents, Hamas may. The pause that Sharon needs to protect his political future is precisely what might threaten Abbas’s. The most likely scenario is one in which the Islamist movement and other militias maintain calm in Gaza while challenging the Palestinian Authority for lack of progress on prisoner releases, continued settlement activity and the absence of an overall solution. They would then invoke this paralysis to escalate attacks in the West Bank. The bottom line: Moving fast will hurt Sharon’s standing; moving slowly will undercut Abbas’s. Neither man is prone to political suicide.

For the Bush administration, the implications are clear. There is much Sharon and Abbas should do but won’t: turn quickly toward final-status talks, disarm Hamas and Islamic Jihad, freeze construction in Jewish settlements. Meanwhile, back in the real world, efforts must be made to manage the impending strategic clash between Israeli and Palestinian expectations, minimize the risk of armed confrontation and preserve the option of a viable two-state solution.

Israel wants time to digest a traumatic disengagement. Palestinians need convincing that it is only a first step. A feasible middle course would entail focusing on rapid, practical improvements in the West Bank, such as Israeli withdrawal from reoccupied cities, a lifting of checkpoints and release of prisoners, in tandem with improved Palestinian security performance.

It would also entail preventing steps that prejudge final-status issues and might in fact preclude their resolution. Israel’s path-breaking evacuation should be given full material and political support. But endorsing it should not include endorsing what has come with it and may come after, in particular efforts by Israel to consolidate its hold over a wide area in and around Jerusalem, which would rule out the establishment of a viable Palestinian state. —Dawn/Washington Post Service

Robert Malley was President Bill Clinton’s special assistant for Arab-Israeli affairs. Aaron D. Miller worked at the State Department for 25 years as a Middle East negotiator.

For an effective human rights commission

IN May 2005, the federal government introduced in the National Assembly a bill to provide for the establishment of a ‘National Commission on Human Rights’.

The NA referred the bill to its standing committee for law, justice and human rights for debate, discussion and any recommendations it would like to make. The bill is still before the standing committee and might be presented before the lower house of parliament when it meets on August 29.

There is already a human rights watchdog in the non-governmental sector, the Human Rights Commission of Pakistan (HRCP), which so far has done a good job of raising its voice against human rights abuses, taking a stand and lobbying public opinion when government excesses have resulted in rights’ violations and demanding that perpetrators of human rights violations be held accountable.

The key element for a rights watchdog body to be effective is to have the ability to act independently, to investigate allegations of human rights abuses or instances of discrimination, free from any interference by any authority, especially any agency or ministry of the government. This should be followed up by the ability, on the part of the rights monitor, to be able to publicize the results of such an investigation promptly and in a manner that the information is disseminated as widely as possible.

The other important ingredient for an effective monitor is credibility, especially with regard to the positions that it takes on various rights issues and the recommendations it makes to the government to improve the human rights situation in the country. On all these counts, the HRCP comes out with flying colours especially since its resources are very limited and because it has often to work with an official apparatus that is quite hostile to such bodies. And that is perhaps why the commission has often been at the receiving end of public criticism. However, over the years it has managed to build up a reputation for itself, and seems to be the one organization whose voice is increasingly heard, listened to and respected.

In that context, the proposed quasi-government national human rights commission (NHRC) is a good move and would seem to suggest that the government is keen on improving the human rights situation in the country. A similar semi-government body is in place in India, headed by a retired judge of the high court, well-known for his honesty and integrity. The government provides its funding but the members of India’s NHRC are individuals who have distinguished themselves for their integrity and uprightness. Hence, in the past, India’s NHRC has not hesitated to take on the government and criticize it for its lack of action on various human rights violations or for its tacit involvement in such abuses (as happened with Narendra Modi’s Gujarat government during the 2002 riots).

In that sense it has done its job, which is to monitor the humans rights performance of the government and to act as a promoter and protector of human rights. However, it remains to be seen what kind of NHRC Pakistan will have once the bill, currently pending before the NA standing committee is taken up again by the house and passed.

An effective human rights monitor, especially one that is placed inside the government structure, as the proposed NHRC will be, can also act as an effective complement to the judiciary and other law enforcement and justice-dispensing arm of the state.

In its present form, the bill introduced by the government in the National Assembly lays down rules for the composition of the NHRC, defines its functions, powers, procedures for its working and funding and provides for the setting up of human rights courts.

Under the proposed legislation, the commission will be able to “investigate complaints of human rights violations, act as an intervener in court proceedings, visit prisons, review relevant national legal and constitutional provisions, make recommendations relating to ratification of international human rights treaties, conduct human rights education, support national human rights NGOs, contribute to government reports to international bodies and respond to representations from national and international bodies on human rights issues in Pakistan”.

A closer look at the text of the bill reveals that it would need some further fine-tuning, so that the proposed NHRC can be independent and is able to do justice to the cause that is proposed to be its mandate.

Section 2 (d) of the bill defines “human rights” as “the rights relating to life, liberty, equality and dignity of individuals guaranteed by the Constitution of Pakistan or embodied in the International Instruments on Human Rights which the Government of Pakistan has ratified and are enforceable by the courts in Pakistan”. However, this definition of human rights could be interpreted to exclude economic, social and cultural rights, including the rights to health, education, food and so on.

The other problem here is that the rights which the NHRC can promote and lobby the government to safeguard are only those that relate to the treaties that Pakistan has ratified. The fact is that Pakistan has ratified only a handful of many human rights treaties and hence such a link needlessly restricts the set of human rights that the NHRC can help promote and defend.

Some of the treaties that Pakistan has not ratified include the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights, the International Covenant on Social, Economic and Cultural Rights and the UN Convention against Torture and Cruel, Inhuman or Degrading Treatment or Punishment.

Also, the reference to the rights being “enforceable by courts in Pakistan” means that the NHRC, for all practical purposes, will not be able to do anything if human rights violations occur in areas of Pakistan where the courts do not function, such as the Federally Administered Tribal Areas — a place where the armed forces have been fighting a protracted battle with foreign and local militants and where the government has been accused of severe human rights violations.

Hence, the main definition of the rights that the proposed NHRC will promote and protect seems to be unduly narrow, which goes against the United Nations Human Rights Commission’s own guidelines (also known as the Paris Principles) which say that “a national institution shall be given as broad a mandate as possible, which shall be clearly set forth in a constitutional or legislative text, specifying its composition and its sphere of competence”.

The composition of the proposed NHRC and matters relating to the appointment of its chairperson and members, funding and administrative support staff all need modification if the commission is to be truly independent. For instance, the clause which relates to the appointment of the chairperson and members should include a reference that qualified candidates should have a proven commitment to human rights protection because that will ensure those with a good track record on this count will be eligible to be members. Section 10 of the bill says that the NHRC’s administrative staff will be “drawn from among officers of the federal government”. This should be changed to allow the NHRC to have staff not necessarily drawn from the federal government, since that would leave open a window to influence the working of the commission.

Section 4 authorizes the president to select, appoint and dismiss the chairperson and members of the NHRC. It also makes it optional for the president to seek nominations and recommendations and that such nominations and recommendations are to be sought from the federal government alone. Considering the crucial nature of the task to be performed by the proposed NHRC, a better option would have been for the president to consult a wider spectrum of opinion, including the prime minister and the provincial governments, before finalizing the appointment of the chairperson and members of the proposed commissions.

As far as funding is concerned, the bill makes the NHRC too dependent on the government for money and that could serve to compromise its independence. The UN principle of funding an NHRC so that it is able to have its own staff and premises, in order to be independent of the government, should be followed. The answer probably lies in making its funding a budgeted provision rather than a federal grant.

Section 17 allows the proposed NHRC to request a government official or department for appropriate information but has no provision if such information (as one may imagine might be often the case) is denied. The bill should be amended accordingly to include this provision or else the government official or department will be tempted to refuse to send the NHRC the required information (especially if the information incriminates the government or a government official with respect to a human rights violation).

As for jail visits, the bill says that jail authorities are to be informed in advance of the NHRC’s intention to visit and that all interviews with prisoners or detainees should take place in front of a witness. First, the prior notice means that given how jails are run in Pakistan, officials will have ample time to hide anything that could incriminate them. Second, interviewing a detainee in front of a witness could make the detainee afraid of speaking out, especially if the witness — as is bound to happen — is a jail official. The bill should be amended so that the NHRC has the power to make unannounced visits and speak to detainees without jail staff or any other government official being present.

Finally, section 11 which also requires the proposed NHRC to “pursue or defend matters relating to human rights in Pakistan in national and international fora” needs to be suitably amended.

It should not be the business of the NHRC to defend or pursue “matters relating to human rights” either in forums in Pakistan or abroad. Having such a clause means that the government could well use the NHRC for its own purpose — to defend its human rights record within the country and abroad. The point here is that the NHRC should attend various international forums by all means, but in an independent capacity and not as an advocate on behalf of the government of Pakistan.

Email: omarq@cyber.net.pk