As Iraq burns & bleeds

A TELLTALE sign of the way things in Iraq are moving has come from the ban imposed by the administration of autonomous Kurdistan on the hoisting of the Iraqi flag in the region. The order has come from no less a person than Mr Massoud Barzani, president of the autonomous Kurdistan region. In fact, the way the order was issued seems to suggest that the Iraqi government has ceased to exist in Kurdistan and it is Mr Barzani’s writ that runs in the autonomous region. Called Order No 60, it says “we decide to hoist the flag of Iraqi Kurdistan officially on all offices and government institutions in the Kurdistan region.” Those who have been flying the “Baathist flag”, the order says, should lower it and hoist only the Kurdistan flag. This order lends credence to the fears expressed by the Pentagon on Friday that Iraq could descend into civil war. Mr Barzani’s decision and the Pentagon’s prognostication only confirm what observers of the Iraqi scene have been saying for long — that a civil war could grip Iraq, leading ultimately to its dismemberment.

The Baghdad government, headed by Mr Nuri al-Maliki, now seems a mute spectator to the anarchy in the country, for the level of violence — which is increasingly getting sectarian in nature — has gone frightfully high. The daily toll now averages 40 or more. Moreover, unlike bomb blasts and suicide bombings on roads, at mosques and public places, militants are now targeting homes. On Thursday, rocket attacks in a Shia district in Baghdad devastated homes, killed 46 persons and injured 112. A day earlier, an attack in the city of Hilla killed 77. The death toll in five days ending on Aug 31 came to 200. Few now believe Mr Maliki when he says that by the year’s end the new Iraqi army and police will take over security responsibilities throughout the country. Already doubts are being cast on the loyalty of the security apparatus being raised by the US-led alliance. In fact, there is evidence that militants have become more dangerous because they have infiltrated the new security forces and are working for their underground networks. In any case, it appears impossible that the new security forces will succeed where the American-led forces have failed.

The truth is that violence in Iraq will continue so long as American forces are there. Already, over 2,600 Americans have been killed in Iraq, yet there is no indication from Washington that it has decided to fix a withdrawal date. The unpopularity of its Iraq policy is no more confined to American mothers who do not want their sons getting killed or maimed in Iraq; even the Republicans in Congress have confined their support for President George Bush to domestic issues and avoid a reference to Iraq. Yet President George Bush said recently that a pull-out would be “a major defeat” for America. If that be the case, then what is the alternative to a withdrawal? Sooner or later, America has to withdraw; delaying that day will only bring more misery to the Iraqi people, send more body bags to the US and precipitate Iraq’s dismemberment. There is still a possibility that if the Americans announce a withdrawal date, the various Iraqi factions now spilling blood with such ferocity might call a halt to fighting and agree to develop a modus vivendi independent of the Maliki government which they see as collaborators.

Preventive detention

IT IS not strange that the Lahore High Court has ruled that the Punjab home department has detained the chief of Jamatud Dawa without producing convincing grounds for its action. Not that everyone arrested by the police is innocent and is wrongly detained. But the police are known not to do their homework well. Judges as well as the public have frequently complained that the police do a shoddy job when it comes to investigating crime, gathering intelligence and using forensic science for crime detection. This is partly because they lack training and skills in these fields and partly because they enjoy immense power which enables them to exercise arbitrary authority without any regard for the Constitution and the law of the land. Many judges have complained that they have had to acquit people simply because the prosecution’s case was weak. On other occasions, cases have dragged on for years because of the prosecution’s failings and delays.

This is bad enough. But when people are wrongly detained on suspicion alone and the police fail to substantiate the charges against them, it makes the situation very grave and leads to the miscarriage of justice. The LHC has been very categorical on this count, insisting that the police must produce material evidence showing that the person’s detention was justifiable and necessary. It is shocking that in Pakistan people are picked up by the police and intelligence agencies on mere suspicion, mistaken identity and personal vendetta. At times, if the person wanted cannot be found, his family members are taken into custody.

It is encouraging that the courts have begun to take notice of such cases. The right to liberty of a citizen is guaranteed by the Constitution. As the custodians of human rights, the courts should ensure that these are not violated. It would also help if the training of the police is revamped to improve their crime investigation skills. They also need to be sensitised about the fundamental rights of citizens and the rights of women. It is time they were told that might is not used to suppress rights. But then the political patrons of the police will also have to unlearn many things before the police can be expected to behave correctly.

GST on computers

THE imposition of a 15 per cent general sales tax on computer hardware and accessories is bad news for the information technology sector. It goes against the government’s stated policy of expanding the IT industry, which has not taken off yet as it should have, especially when viewed in the context of exports. At a time when the export component of the industry employs no more than 6,000-8,000 professionals, the government should have given incentives to encourage growth and expansion in the sector instead of imposing more taxes. The GST levied on computer-related items will stunt the sale of legally produced hardware and accessories and encourage smuggled counterparts which will have a bigger price advantage over legally manufactured goods. Since the imposition of the GST this fiscal year, the market has already been flooded with smuggled hardware and other computer components. It is common sense that the average consumer will go for more affordable options while shopping for IT items instead of buying legally produced local products and dutifully paying the high taxes.

Just whom the lopsided measure is going to benefit is clear for all to see: it will be basically the Bara market traders who make no bones about selling even contraband, let aside consider paying sales tax. Instead of broadening the tax net, the GST imposed on computers will thus create bigger chinks in the net. As with publications and entertainment software, it is only a matter of time when IT copyrights will also come into force worldwide, and Pakistan made to abide by them. Until that happens, unscrupulous traders will make hay at the expense of the local computer manufacturing industry which has yet to stand on firm ground. Sanity demands that the GST so arbitrarily imposed on IT products be withdrawn forthwith in the interest of the budding industry.

Redressing Balochistan’s grievances

“I have spilt blood? I had to; I shall perhaps shed more, but without anger, and quite simply, because blood-letting is a component of (my) political medicine...I am not a man like other men and the laws of morality or custom cannot be applied to me.” —Napoleon Bonaparte

WILL there be ever an end to tragedies in our country? Shall we ever have a civilized way of dealing with our problems? Why don’t we learn lessons from our traumatic past? Did Pakistan come into being to perennially remain afflicted with a culture of blood and bullet? Are we doomed for ever to our Spartan fate? Don’t the people of Pakistan have any urge to change their destiny?

There could not have been a gloomier scenario for any state in today’s world. Pakistan has been “dismembered” yet again, if not physically, at least emotionally. The murder of Nawab Mohammad Akbar Khan Bugti by Pakistan’s security forces has torn the nation apart. Sardar Akbar Bugti was not a tribal chieftain alone, he was a political leader, a former governor and chief minister of Pakistan’s largest province, a former federal minister, and, above all, the grand old man of Baloch nationalism and a senior citizen of Pakistan.

Bugti’s killing has hit us all very badly. Pakistan is bleeding today. Another tragedy has been enacted on its soil and soul. The nation cannot even mourn its grief and loss. It stands aghast, and agonises in its total helplessness and hopelessness. It fails to understand why the guardians of our independence and territorial integrity are killing the citizens of Pakistan and fighting a war against their own people.

The real test of a leadership always lies in how it handles domestic unrest and violence rooted in despair and disillusionment among its own people, no matter how small their number or who they are. The state is the guardian, not an enemy of its people. The armed forces of a country have no justification, professionally or morally, to kill their own people.

We still remember when ordered to use force against rioters in an anti-government protest in Lahore in 1977, there were senior army officers who refused to do so. Thirty years later, not one “conscience” among our security forces pricked. Indeed, the “culture of violence” has affected all segments and every level of our society including the guardians and the subjects.

We no longer adhere to civilized ways of handling our difficulties and problems. Within ourselves as a nation, in fact, we are all gripped by despair and disillusionment, and are driven in our “demented” behaviour, visible daily on our streets and public places, by fear and frustration, and a combination of what the renowned Muslim thinker, Al-Ghazali had described as four “human flaws”: namely the feral (predatory), the beastly (animal), the diabolic (satanic), and the divine (lordly).

In the ultimate analysis, our chaotic life style today is the product of a broader mix of problems caused by “bad government, opportunistic, illiterate and corrupt politicians, and “militant military leaders” who exploit the grievances of their people for their own survival. Niccolo Machiavelli (1469-1527), the architect of “Pakistan’s governance system” must be jumping in his grave, if there is one anywhere, with elation and delight. Our military rulers have followed his infamous “doctrine of necessity” in letter and spirit.

To gain political power, according to Machiavelli, “it is necessary either to be the child of fortune and be born into power, or to acquire power through deceit and conquest.” Machiavelli was of the view that in “destroying enemies within the state, the ruler must get rid of them decisively without mercy, lest some individual suffering from minor injuries returns to seek revenge.”

Machiavelli’s philosophy of government is premised on the assumption that in the absence of virtuous citizens, there are only “corrupt masses,” and since the end justifies the means, they can be controlled only by a “prince” through his “deceitful and vicious behaviour.” The “prince” has to be “strong and ruthless enough” to rule his subjects. He must have a “hypocritical and vacillating” personality wearing the face of “mercy, faith, integrity, humanity, and religion” to create a public image, but always acting contrary to those very ideals.

This recipe is familiar to our country. Our post-independence history is replete with Machiavellian antics and adventures. In fact, we allowed Machiavelli’s “doctrine of necessity” to circumscribe the supremacy of our Constitution, and opted for systemic aberrations with no parallel in political philosophy or contemporary history.

The sole beneficiary of this system in our country has been the “wilful ruler” who was either “the child of fortune” or was “born into power” or who “acquired power through deceit and force.” We have also been steadfast in following, since our independence, the Machiavellian concept of “elimination” of political opponents through force and violence, and sans mercy.

The list of Pakistan’s eliminated political victims is long and perhaps open-ended. Until now, it includes prime ministers, elected leaders, exiled political rivals, fathers or sons of political leaders, tribal chiefs and maliks and even patriotic citizens.

Questions nevertheless abound about the future of Pakistan. The tragedy enacted in the context of Bugti saga is not something new for our country. We have experienced similar crises earlier also in Balochistan, and woefully, a tragedy of even greater magnitude elsewhere.

In East Pakistan, the problem started with a deep-rooted sense of deprivation and became a politico-constitutional problem with a demand for larger autonomy, leading eventually to the break-up of the country. In 1971, Pakistan lost not only half the country but also the “majority of its Muslim population with the breakaway of its eastern wing in what became the only successful secessionist movement of contemporary history in a newly independent state.”

The people of Pakistan have been following the Balochistan crisis with anxiety and concern and expected the government to show a sense of maturity and circumspection in dealing with the issues involved. In addressing the question of the basic rights of the people of Balochistan, it was always clear that ad hoc approaches and military operations will not do.

The age of colonialism under military occupations is long gone. We thought Kashmir was the only remaining vestige but now we have provided an opportunity to the regional and global stakeholders to exploit the situation in Balochistan to make it a new chapter of this phenomenon. India might start paying us back in the same coins. Didn’t we already have too many problems at hand?

In the post-9/11 scenario, terrorism-related problems afflicting our country have placed us on the global radar screen, giving Pakistan the unenviable distinction of being one of the epochal “frontlines of the war on terror.” The world watches us with anxiety and concern as we seek to correct our image. Our crucial role in this campaign complicates our tasks, both at home and at regional and global levels.

Our problems are further complicated by the complex regional configuration with Americans sitting in Afghanistan, new Indo-US nexus, India’s strategic ascendancy in the region and its unprecedented influence in Afghanistan with serious nuisance potential against Pakistan. Our borders on all sides are no longer peaceful. Domestically, sectarian violence has made Pakistan the worst killing ground of Muslims at the hands of their Muslim “brethren.”

Pakistan is going through one of the most serious crises of its independent statehood. It is being weakened methodically through its ubiquitous engagement on multiple external as well as domestic fronts. Use of military power within a state and against its own people has never been an acceptable norm. Pakistan is the only Muslim country with an on-going military operation against its own people.

Given today’s volatile regional and global environment with Pakistan finding itself in the eye of the storm, one could understand the government’s anxiety to enforce the writ of its constitutional authority in all parts of the country. But instead of resorting to an indiscriminate military action, it should have opted for a political approach through parliamentary dialogue and debate.

Balochistan has long had grievances of injustice which even the governments in Islamabad have acknowledged and promised to address. No one denies that despite its abundance of natural resources, Balochistan remains the most backward province of the country. There has been a strong underlying resentment in this as well as other provinces against what is seen as continued “Punjabi dominance” and inequitable distribution of power and resources.

In East Pakistan also, the problems started with similar deep-rooted sense of deprivation and a feeling of political and economic alienation which over time became a politico-constitutional crisis involving a demand for greater autonomy, and leading eventually to the break-up of the country.

For a country, skip to next pardomestically as unstable and unpredictable as ours, there can be not many choices. In todays world, our options are limited. Our domestic failures have seriously constricted our foreign policy options. In the ultimate analysis, our problems are not external.

Our problems are domestic which need to be addressed politically and by constitutional means. Given our painful experiences, we cannot afford any more tragedies and national debacles. The parliament should have been allowed to play its role and to work out a “consensus package” of political, economic and constitutional measures for redressing the legitimate grievances of the people of Balochistan. Is it too late to do it now?

The writer is a former foreign secretary.