A revised building code

THE decision to revise the building code was long overdue. On Tuesday, Prime Minister Shaukat Aziz asked the ministry of housing and works to draft a revised code within a month. The sense of urgency in the prime minister’s directive can be understood, because the colossal task of reconstruction in the devastated areas of Azad Kashmir and the Frontier is ahead of us. The main task before the relief agencies is to keep the survivors alive during the northern area’s harsh winter. The job is no doubt colossal, but, as UN Emergency Coordinator Jan Vandemoortele said, this is not an impossibility but “a doable job”. By spring the construction of new public and private buildings must start in earnest, but this is a task that needs both money and a revised building code.

It should be noted that the revised building code is required not just for the quake-hit areas but for the whole country. Balakot and Muzaffarabad turned into rubble because all public and private buildings were not quake-resistant. These cities were in any case located in backward areas. But, as things stand today, even in “modern” cities like Islamabad, Lahore and Karachi, the building code exists either on paper or is flouted with impunity by construction companies and builders in connivance with corrupt officials. In Islamabad, the Margalla Towers collapsed and nearly 80 people were killed because the builders had ignored safety rules. Similarly, in cities like Lahore and Karachi thousands of high-rise apartment blocks and commercial plazas have been constructed in utter violation of the existing code. In Karachi, multi-storey structures built this way are beyond count. The form this unabashed lust for money takes includes adding more floors to the approved plan, committing the unforgivable crime of leaving the foundations weak so as to economize on cement and steel, violating zoning laws, using substandard material for sanitation piping, doors and windows, dodging the provision for car parking, and — finally — the phenomenon which has made a mess of the people’s lives: shops and snack bars on the ground floor of apartment buildings. This is in addition to the “regularization” of buildings considered illegal and unsafe. Their exact numbers is not known, but an in-depth inquiry will reveal not only the number of such buildings but also the corruption that has facilitated their construction. In brief, big business and a corrupt bureaucracy have made a mockery of even the most rudimentary concepts of safety and environment in modern, urban construction.

Karachi is situated close to a fault line. If a quake even close to the intensity that rocked the NWFP and Azad Kashmir were to hit the nation’s biggest city, the tragedy in the north will pale into significance. Much of what has happened cannot possibly be undone. Buildings constructed by flouting the code cannot be pulled down, because most of them are occupied. But it is the future construction that matters. The unholy alliance between the builders and corrupt officials must come to an end, and all those involved in this criminality must be brought to justice. As for the revised code, the ministry of housing and works should be able to take some ideas from advanced countries so as to make our construction laws truly modern and in keeping with Pakistan’s varied geological structures and climate. But it would be a pity if such a code were to exist only on paper; it should be enforced strictly and the violators punished. Our schools, hospitals and homes should not be allowed to fall prey to the real estate sharks’ insatiable appetite for money.

World Bank to the rescue

THE World Bank has agreed to provide a loan of Rs 10 billion spread over three years to the education sector in Sindh. In view of its negative experience in the 1990s in Pakistan, the Bank has added the condition that the government must ensure fool-proof utilization of the funds provided. Since it was not disclosed what that experience was, one cannot be specific about what the government will be expected to do. However, it has been said that the agreed terms will have to be observed strictly. Given the fact that on many occasions, the money that comes in for education is pilfered or used for projects that were not agreed upon, it is understandable that the donors have become wary.

Ten billion rupees is a large amount and can make a difference to the state of education in Sindh — provided it is utilized honestly and efficiently. The Sindh education minister has spoken about the inadequate infrastructure, especially the paucity of schools for girls. Hence, the move to finance the construction and renovation of school buildings with the World Bank’s assistance is not a bad idea. In many villages, which don’t even have a school, the boys walk down to a neighbouring settlement to attend school and the girls stay home and grow up illiterate. A school in every village should do much to boost the enrolment at the primary level.

What is worrying is the potential for corruption in this sector. As it is, construction projects are believed to be the most lucrative because of the opportunity they provide for the misappropriation of funds. Small wonder then most of the buildings that collapsed in Azad Kashmir in the earthquake last month were government structures since their construction was not properly supervised. The Sindh education department will have to ensure that the money earmarked for school buildings is actually spent for that purpose. There is also the need to ensure after they have been completed, the schools are actually used as educational institutions and not as autaqs by the feudals of that area.

Peace plan for Gilgit

ONE hopes that the recent jirga-approved peace proposals for restoring normality to Gilgit will lead to at least a temporary solution for the area that has been wracked by several months of sectarian violence. According to these proposals, mosques will not be used for political purposes and action will be taken against those raising sectarian slogans during local elections. It is believed that these proposals will be given legal status to make them binding on the people and the community leaders. Sectarian tensions since last year have led to the death of over 100 people, besides skirmishes between law enforcement personnel and students, curfew, and the frequent closure of schools and colleges. Despite the heavy security presence in the area, the violence has affected the economy badly and trade and tourism have been hit hard by random attacks on buses on the Karakoram Highway.

No doubt, the recent proposals will help calm the situation, especially when they acquire legal status. However, while the jirga leaders may exert some influence over the locals, a more lasting mechanism needs to be worked out whereby law and order can be maintained by state-sanctioned political authorities. As of now, there is very little political representation for the Northern Areas that continue to be in a state of constitutional limbo. The Northern Areas Legislative Council that comes closest to a democratic dispensation in the area, remains an incomplete body with elections to some seats still pending. According to reports, the real power rests not in the hands of elected officials but in the military and the bureaucracy. The people are thus deprived of any meaningful democratic forum that could allow them to voice and resolve their grievances. The government would do well to address these concerns before violence erupts once again in this troubled spot.

Iraq’s occupiers under pressure at home

IS THERE any country on the globe where the world’s most powerful man can travel without attracting protests? I certainly can’t think of one, other than the United States of America — although even there George W. Bush’s immunity from public anger has steadily been eroded, and his approval rating has dwindled to less than 40 per cent.

In fact, last week’s trip to Argentina for the Summit of the Americas was supposed to be a welcome distraction from a litany of domestic woes.

Arguably the most interesting aspect of Bush’s reversal of fortune has been a steady loss of support in conservative circles. The failed nomination of Harriet Miers to the Supreme Court bench may appear to be one of the biggest blows in this respect — and it was, in the sense that it signified that the president can no longer take for granted his vital support base on the far Right.

However, this was an “error” that Bush was readily able to remedy. Although no one suspected Miers of harbouring liberal sympathies, the absence of a judicial record and the nominee’s reluctance unequivocally to address concerns raised by some senators created the impression that she had something to hide. Republican extremists feared she may secretly be pro-abortion. Bush was willing to vouch for her, but — and this is the crucial point — they were not willing to take his word for it.

Bush caved in and the White House scrambled to find an alternative with sufficiently reactionary credentials. Which didn’t prove too hard. However, the problems that perturb a wider range of conservatives are harder to tackle. House of Representatives majority leader Tom DeLay faces a criminal investigation on charges of campaign finance fraud. Senate majority leader Bill Frist has been accused on insider trading.

Lewis “Scooter” Libby has resigned as vice-president Dick Cheney’s chief of staff after being indicted for blowing the cover of a CIA operative, as a form of revenge for her husband’s refusal to toe the official line on Saddam Hussein’s weapons of mass destruction. And it is just possible that Bush’s Machiavellian chief adviser, Karl Rove, could fall foul of the law in the same case.

It has even been suggested that the bet could extend to Cheney himself, which would effectively destroy the Bush presidency, but that may be no more than wishful thinking. What is not in doubt, meanwhile, is that Cheney, as an editorial in The Washington Post put it, “has become an open advocate of torture” after trying to browbeat Congress into exempting the CIA from curbs on “cruel, inhuman and degrading” treatment of prisoners. This was followed within days by a comprehensive Post report, quoting “US and foreign officials familiar with the arrangement”, which claimed that “the CIA has been hiding and interrogating some of its most important Al Qaeda suspects at a Soviet-era compound in Eastern Europe”.

The existence of the “black sites”, the newspaper said in its scoop, is known to very few people in the US and the host countries. The paper decided against revealing the names of the countries involved “at the request of senior US officials [who] argued that the disclosure might disrupt counter-terrorism efforts in those countries and elsewhere and could make them targets of possible terrorist retaliation”. Other media outlets proved less reticent however, naming Poland and Romania. Predictably, both countries have denied the charge.

The upshot of this aspect of the “war on terror” is that even the Guantanamo Bay and Bagram prisons are considered insufficiently far removed from the jurisdiction of the US legal system. Cheney’s attempt to bully Congress into sanctioning torture may have been part of a long-term plan to indemnify the torturers against possible prosecution in their homeland. And it is not inconceivable that the leak to The Washington Post came from sources chastened by the no-holds-barred approach of the administration they work for.

Amid all this comes the report that Bush has ordered all senior White House staff to take a refresher course in ethics. Let’s hope the president doesn’t intend to leave himself out of the loop, although one is also compelled to wonder what good a refresher course will do to those for whom ethics is altogether an alien concept.

Chances are that Bush is only vaguely aware, if at all, of the parallel woes besetting his close friends in the so-called Anglosphere. Tony Blair’s position seemed particularly precarious as he signalled his intention to retreat in the face of a revolt within the Labour Party that brought the government to the brink of a parliamentary defeat last week on anti-terror legislation. The British prime minister’s insistence on a 90-day period of detention without charge was considered more than likely to lead to humiliation in the House of Commons.

Another clause that has been causing consternation relates to the criminalizing of support for, or glorification of, terrorism or terrorists. As one Labour rebel pointed out, under such a law it would be possible to bring charges against the prime minister’s wife, Cherie Blair, for saying that she could understand why young Palestinians become suicide bombers. Although the proposed legislation is ostensibly intended to provide legal recourse against Muslim clerics who “preach hatred”, it is not difficult to see how it could be used to silence virtually all critics of the “war against terror” and the Iraqi occupation.

A very similar situation has arisen in Australia, where ambiguously worded sedition laws are part of an anti-terrorism package that the government of John Howard is trying to push through parliament with a minimum of debate. Howard has cynically sought to manipulate public opinion by raising the prospect of an imminent terrorist attack in Melbourne or Sydney, successfully manoeuvring to win the support of a poorly-led opposition for his drastic new laws.

The initial impression conveyed by a handful of arrests in those two cities is that they may well be just another scaremongering tactic. Although the threat of terrorism is not exactly a figment of someone’s imagination, it is far from clear how effectively it can be reduced through laws that sharply increase the powers of intelligence agencies and the police force while reducing the rights of individuals.

To cite but one example, anyone picked up for questioning cannot, if subsequently released, tell anyone, including their closest family members, how or why they went missing, let alone reveal details of any interrogation. And journalists who publish or broadcast anything about the ordeals of such detainees could themselves end up behind bars. The sedition laws, meanwhile, prescribe a prison term of seven years on vague charges ranging from giving succour to an enemy, regardless of whether Australia is formally at war, to advocating the overthrow of, or promoting disaffection against, the government of the day.

This goes beyond a recipe for a police state. There is a hint of creeping fascism about it, compounded by the fact that the Howard government is simultaneously bulldozing through parliament an industrial relations package that strips trade unions of most of their remaining powers and tips the marketplace balance sharply in favour of employers. The opposition Labour Party has been somewhat more vocal in challenging the government’s intentions on this score, but stands little chance of throwing up any serious hurdles — not least because its objections are mainly for public consumption rather than matters of principle.

Although the involvement in Iraq was never popular in Australia, Howard has been less adversely affected by the war than Bush or Blair, partly because the Australian contingent is minuscule, and perhaps also because the irrationally pro-war Rupert Murdoch owns much of the press. But there are indications that with the blatantly regressive industrial relations “reforms”, Howard may have bitten off more than he can chew.

For the time being, though, his authority — for whatever it’s worth — is intact, unlike that of Bush and Blair. The latter lost one of his senior-most ministers last week for the second time in a year. And this week, apart from being forced to compromise on his anti-terror plans, faces criticism in a memoir penned by a former British ambassador to Washington. Sir Christopher Meyer claims Blair enjoyed sufficient influence in the White House to have successfully bargained for at least a delay in the war against Iraq, but chose not to exercise it.

Of course, neither Blair nor Howard can aspire to the level of animosity that Bush manages to stir up on his infrequent foreign jaunts. They must have looked upon his performance in Mar del Plata with a degree of envy, mingled perhaps with a hint of schadenfreude. The US president failed to convince a sizeable bunch of Latin American heads of state (including his Argentinean host) that rapid moves towards a Free Trade Area of the Americas would be in the best interests of their nations.

Not surprisingly, the most vociferous — and coherent — critique of the corporate capitalist plot came from Venezuela’s Hugo Chavez, who not only attended the summit but also fraternized with the protesters. The best known among the latter was the former football star Maradona, who wore a “Stop Bush” T-shirt (with the letter “s” styled as a swastika) and declared: “I’m proud as an Argentine to repudiate the presence of this human trash.”

Blair and Howard cannot expect to attract a vehement reaction of that sort almost anywhere in the world because their nations are not directly associated with the neoliberal economics that has exacerbated suffering in so many countries. But in the unlikely event of Bush ever ending up in the dock, they should be right beside him, charged with crimes against the people of Iraq. And with cynically whipping up fears to consolidate their power. And with lying to their people. Systematically, relentlessly, remorselessly.

E-mail: mahirali1@gmail.com