Investigate, please

WHATEVER one’s political persuasion, it is impossible to deny that Benazir Bhutto’s assassination was a cataclysmic event for Pakistan. Ms Bhutto was no ordinary person: internationally, she was one of the few Pakistanis who had instant name recognition; nationally, she was the leader of the only party that can genuinely claim countrywide support. When she returned to Pakistan in October 2007, she did so with every likelihood of returning to power through the ballot box. Could there be another death that deserved to be investigated as fully and as thoroughly as hers? And yet, a government led by her own party — with a PPP president, prime minister, interior adviser, attorney general and law minister — has shown an astonishing lack of commitment to any investigation. The official PPP line is that only the UN can fully investigate Ms Bhutto’s death, and that Pakistan is pressing for a commission to be set up at the earliest. But a year since the assassination, and eight months since the PPP-led government has been in power, this explanation is looking increasingly worn.

Leave aside the complications of assembling a UN investigation commission and its potential for future international interference in Pakistan; can this government not launch a parallel enquiry of its own? It is hardly unusual for multiple commissions and committees to probe an event of such magnitude. In the case of Ms Bhutto’s assassination, there are enough questions to occupy several investigations. Yet, from questions about the actual events at Liaquat Bagh to those about the links of the attackers to questions about the wider nexus between politics and terrorism, nothing about Ms Bhutto’s death has been probed by the government. Strangely, the government has even distanced itself from the trial of five men by an anti-terrorism court on charges of involvement in Ms Bhutto’s assassination, creating the peculiar situation of ATC-I Judge Chaudhry Habibur Rehman conducting the only trial related to the death, while the government is “waiting for the UN”, in the words of Law Minister Farooq Naek.

The public deserves better. Less than two months after Ms Bhutto’s assassination, 35 million Pakistanis voted in the February election and 30 per cent cast their vote for the PPP. The People’s Party leadership owes a debt to all those voters, whether they supported the party or otherwise, because they endorsed the democratic process — the only way the PPP can come to power. To sustain that process, the government must rebuild the public’s faith in a broken system of governance. But if a PPP government appears impotent to investigate its leader’s assassination, why should anyone have faith in democracy? By standing on the sidelines, the government is empowering the very forces that seek to destroy it.

Voices of sanity

MERCIFULLY, despite the war hysteria being created by a few politicians in India and Pakistan and the media giving such elements excessive coverage, the voices of reason and restraint have not been drowned. There is a flurry of global diplomatic efforts, urging the two rivals to let sanity prevail amidst the talk of troop deployment along Pakistans eastern border. For Islamabad, the threat posed by terrorists operating out of Fata and from along the western border to this country’s internal security and stability is no less tangible; it just cannot afford to redeploy any large number of its troops on the eastern border, leaving the ‘wild’ west in a free fall. Isn’t that the area where the world’s best intelligence says the extremist militants are holed up in significant numbers and planning to strike targets everywhere? They cannot be allowed a breather at a time when military operations are ongoing to clear the area of their roguish presence. This will serve no one’s cause — India or the West’s.

The region’s well-wishers, China, Saudi Arabia and Iran as well as the US, UK, France and the EU, have stressed the need for India and Pakistan to put their thinking caps on and start talking to each other. The credibility of the Mumbai tragedy probe will be at stake if the atmosphere of finger-pointing and threats continue to be the mainstay of the India-Pakistan equation. The masterminds of the Mumbai mayhem must be brought to justice wherever they are, but for doing so India also needs to share the evidence it says it has with the world.

The western intelligence agencies which offered to help out with the probe have not been made privy to any evidence so far. While admitting that the probe is at best inconclusive at this point, it would not help to cast aspersions on Pakistans commitment to taking action against those involved if they are indeed found to be on this side of the border. As far as the gravity of the threat posed by extremism goes, India and Pakistan are equally the wronged parties; millions of their people are even more so given the risk to their very lives if tensions escalate between the nuclear-armed neighbours. What happened in Mumbai defies all logic, unless derailing the composite dialogue between Islamabad and New Delhi is accepted as an overriding objective of the madness that was unleashed. This is one victory the terrorists must be denied.

Power shortage

THE country has been in the grip of massive energy shortages for several months now. The Pakistan Electric Power Company (Pepco) says it is facing a shortfall of 3,000 MW at nights and 1,500 MW during daytime even after supplementing the supply from independent power producers and generating electricity through other means. On top of this, motorists are not getting petrol in parts of the country as pump owners are refusing to receive fresh supplies for fear of losses if domestic retail oil prices are reduced further. Consumers across the country are forced to suffer power blackouts of eight to 10 hours a day. The situation has worsened in recent days because of the drop in hydel power generation, which has plunged to 350 MW against the system capacity of 6,600 MW due to the closure of canals for de-silting. Life, it seems, is coming to a grinding halt.

As consumers continue to suffer, the government has done little to improve the situation. Pepco says it is preparing a plan to add 6,000 MW to the system by 2010. An additional 3,253 MW will be generated in 2009, 3,199 MW in 2010, 2,951 MW in 2011 and 100 MW in 2012. But can it follow through? The current situation is blamed on lack of investment in the power sector over the last 10 years or more. In spite of lucrative incentives offered by the government to attract investment in the power sector, no private investor is prepared to invest because of prevailing pessimism in the country. The IPI pipeline remains a pipedream as India continues to dither.

In the short run, the government could subsidise captive power generation. The long-term solution to the problem demands that the government force the owners of KESC to invest in their own generation and stop depending upon Pepco to meet requirements. The government, moreover, should make up for the lack of private investment in the power sector by diverting maximum resources to electricity generation. That would also help woo private investment at a later stage. If the government fails to step up its efforts, all its economic recovery plans will fail.

Doctrine of jihad and terrorism

INDIA’S foreign minister Pranab Mukherjee is keeping all “options open” to deal with the Mumbai terrorists if Pakistan doesn’t. His prime minister, Manmohan Singh, has ruled out war as an option. This should leave Pakistan guessing as to what lies ahead.

The best from Pakistan’s standpoint would be for the two countries to jointly examine the evidence gathered by India with the help of international experts in terrorism. The worst could be that India from its own territory launches missiles directed at what it perceives to be the base, or bases, from which the Mumbai attackers came. Short of missile strikes India may choose to bring its troops to the border compelling Pakistan to withdraw its own from the northwest fighting insurgents allegedly backed by India. Further, India could also go to the United Nations seeking economic or other sanctions against Pakistan.

It is for Pakistan to act now before India exercises an option of its own choosing. Surely the current war of words in which India wants Pakistan to come down hard on the sponsors of the Mumbai terror attack while Pakistan asks for proof before it does is not going to last long. The ruling Congress coalition is bound to lose ground in the forthcoming elections if it doesn’t act fast and tough to pacify an outraged public.

It is also in Pakistan’s interest that the existing tense stalemate is not prolonged. In such a situation of organised crime evidence is hardly ever of a quality that can stand the test of judicial scrutiny. Pakistan itself found no credible evidence in any of the two attacks on Benazir Bhutto though thousands of witnesses and security and intelligence men were around on both occasions.

Thus it is safe to assume that India too has found none (barring the confession of the sole surviving attacker obviously made under duress) which it could profitably share with the authorities here or with the Interpol. Hence all the emphasis on bellicose rhetoric.

If the Mumbai terrorists indeed came from Pakistan the joint investigation may well provide a lead to numerous terrorist attacks that Pakistan itself has suffered.

Dr Manmohan Singh was heard saying the other day that Pakistan must destroy the infrastructure of terror of which it is aware and should need no evidence. His reference was obviously to the Lashkar-i-Taiba which, as The Economist put it, “was founded with support from the army’s Inter Services Intelligence Agency. For two decades as the army’s proxy, it has waged an insurgency in India-held Kashmir…. Though the ISI appears to have cut back its ties to [the Lashkar] since it was banned its armouries and military training camps in Pakistan-held Kashmir have remained in place”.

This indeed is the central issue. India, perhaps, has no proof except its suspicion that the Mumbai attack was masterminded by the people known to the ISI if not backed by it. And that was the reason it felt so sore when Pakistan’s prime minister having agreed, at the spur of the moment, to send the ISI chief to India retracted because of higher counsels. The critical question now is how to satisfy India that the Mumbai attack was not organised by the ISI.

Commonsense suggests that even if armouries and training camps do exist somewhere, the attack on the Mumbai hotels in no manner could help the insurgents, or freedom fighters, of Kashmir. To the contrary, a large and peaceful turnout at the recent polls to an extent may have been the result of revulsion caused by the massacre in Mumbai.

The infrastructure of terror that Dr Manmohan Singh has in mind was perhaps the alleged camps in Azad Kashmir and not Jamaatud Dawa’s establishment at Muridke near Lahore which the government has closed down. That could be described as an academic citadel of jihad but not a centre for training in warfare.

If guerilla fighters are indeed training anywhere in Kashmir with or without the support of the ISI, Pakistan would do well to close down their camps. The 60 per cent turnout at the polls (except in Srinagar where it was much less) is as obvious an indication as could be that after long years of defiance and oppression the people of Kashmir have determined that the ballot, and not the bullet, is the right and safer course to secure their rights and freedom.

It has not been possible to liberate Kashmir by waging wars because India is a bigger military power, nor by covert support to the freedom fighters for they could not contend with an occupation army of half a million. The public opinion in Pakistan now stands reconciled to the sad fact that Kashmir cannot be made a part of Pakistan either through a plebiscite or military victory. Above all, and conclusively, the people of Kashmir too have made it clear that they want azadi, or independence, and not accession to Pakistan. So if there is still some kind of establishment in Azad Kashmir that assists the diminishing number of armed fighters in the Valley it should be disbanded.

Pakistan has come to be known as the world centre of terrorism. Efforts are afoot to declare it a pariah state because the doctrine of jihad forms the crux of the lessons imparted in its 16,000 or so madressahs and is also ceaselessly preached from the platforms of scores of religious parties and pulpits of countless mosques.

The emphasis in all this incessant teaching and preaching is on the armed version of jihad. Neglected, or not highlighted, is the true spirit of the doctrine that lies in striving for nearness to God and to conquer adversity through reason — by winning hearts and not by breaking heads. Sword, now gun, is to be raised against the enemy only in the event of excessive oppression. In the time of the Holy Prophet (PBUH) Muslims did not retaliate when stoned or even killed, all wars then fought were in self-defence.

The world, not India alone, will keep accusing Pakistan of spreading terror, while Pakistan itself will remain a prime victim of terrorism so long as the ideologues keep projecting the secondary but violent concept of jihad and, at the same time, the constitution and laws of the land discriminate against citizens on grounds of faith. Dr Manmohan Singh is right but the infrastructure that Pakistan has to dismantle is ideological.

kunwaridris@hotmail.com

OTHER VOICES - Indian Press

Child marriages must not be allowed

The Tribune

IN Jaipur, a 12-year-old girl was married off to a 35-year-old man for a few kilos of ration. Although the village panchayat chose to undo the marriage, the implementation of the law needs to be stepped up.

The abominable practice of child marriage is widespread in Rajasthan and many parts of the country. According to Unicef, nearly one-third of girls in India are married between 15 and 18 and 15 per cent of girls in the countryside by the age of 13. While a large majority of the girls are married off to older men, some even old enough to be their grandfathers, the practice of marrying prepubescent children is common as well.

Child marriage not only means loss of education but also makes the girl child more susceptible to domestic violence. The 2001 census points out that approximately three lakh girls become mothers by 15 years of age every year. This puts them at a far greater risk during pregnancy.

Plus the babies born to girls below 17 are more likely to die in the first year of their life. Also child marriage infringes upon their rights to education and full childhood, making a mockery of all the laws meant to protect the children.

While the earlier laws could only prevent the marriage, the new legislation, the Prohibition of Child Marriage Act, 2006, has provision for making child marriage null and void too. Sadly, the law has not proved effective. Still, child marriage is a grim social reality not only rooted in poverty and illiteracy but also firmly entrenched in gender inequities. The law-enforcing machinery in the states needs to take its responsibility more seriously.

The village panchayats, as in the Jaipur case, can play a constructive role in preventing and nullifying child marriages. Advocacy campaigns can also dent outdated social perceptions that sanction child marriage. — (Dec 27)