Awash with guns

EVEN while knowing that the country is awash with guns of all sorts, the official disclosure that there are about 20 million illegally held arms in the country should shock us all. A small arms survey carried out recently reveals that only two million guns are licensed; the rest are owned illegally. The press report on the survey does not say how many of these are of foreign origin and how many locally manufactured. However, factories in the tribal areas have been making guns now for nearly 200 years. There the artisans can replicate any foreign-made gun with such sophistication that one can hardly make out the difference. This way the manufacturers have made a killing out of the popular demand for such deadly weapons as the Kalashnikov. Originally Russian, this automatic sub-machine gun is now available throughout the country and can be bought as easily one buys a pack of cigarette. In addition, rifles, revolvers and pistols of all sorts and even rockets and missiles are manufactured in the Darra and made conveniently available for sale and purchase by gunrunners anywhere in the country. This brings us to the question of the state’s failure to check the spread of guns.

It would be wrong to hold the law enforcement agencies alone responsible for weapons’ proliferation; the political leadership has been no less guilty. During the British rule, the tribesmen could manufacture, sell, possess and carry guns only within the tribal areas. The situation changed following the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan. Pakistan and America both armed the Mujahideen and helped them set up training and recruitment camps all over the country. This paved the way for spread and proliferation. After the Soviet withdrawal, rival Afghan factions also used Pakistan territory for training and recruitment purposes and were actively supported by some Pakistani political parties. More important, this created a culture in which gunrunners and the corrupt among the law enforcement agencies turned the country into one big arms bazaar.

When the governments woke up to the danger, it was too late. Off and on, half-hearted attempts have been made to recover illegal arms, but the results have been invariably poor. In 2001, for instance, the government launched a campaign to flush out illegal arms, but in an 18-month period it could recover only 210,000, which is a fraction of the number held in the country.

Frankly, there is no short-cut to the problem. Guns are available in such quantities and their availability is so easy that only a long-term and sustained recovery campaign can possibly succeed. One way to begin would be for all political parties to shun the politics of violence. With a few honourable exceptions, they all keep well-armed militias — to guard party leaders, to man party processions and public meetings and, more alarmingly, to attack rival parties’ processions and rallies. If the political parties could reach agreement among themselves on this issue, at least one source of gun proliferation would be plugged. The next task would then be to go after criminals and gunrunners. As for arms manufacturers, the government should find foreign markets for their products. Last year alone, the US imported 24,000 guns made in the tribal areas. What the situation requires is a determined drive rather than one carried out in fits and starts. An attempt should also be made to devalue the macho image we have managed to acquire for ourselves, which seems to need weapons to gain substance.

NAB and politicians

A SPOKESMAN for the National Accountability Bureau has confirmed that corruption cases against two federal ministers continue to be pursued. The two are Mr Faisal Saleh Hayat, the PPP dissident who holds the interior portfolio, and Water and Power Minister Aftab Khan Sherpao, another PPP dissident. The spokesman also disclosed that the names of all elected legislators had been removed from the exit control list. This was done across the board without regard to party affiliations. Mr Hayat and Mr Sherpao were also on the list, but as the spokesman piquantly remarked, they were unlikely to flee the country now that they had become ministers.

The spokesman has not said why NAB has not bothered to look into allegations against many other politicians with tainted reputations, including some who hold senior positions in the ruling party at the centre and some others in the provincial governments. Even before the elections, politicians had charged the military-led bureau with being selective in its approach, and its declaration that it remains steadfast in pursuing cases against the two federal ministers will do little to bolster its credibility. Once an accountability process is perceived to operate on the basis of picking and choosing, it becomes flawed. Where the exit control list is concerned, it has been used by both civilian and military governments to harass opposition politicians while smugglers and other undesirable characters have remained free to travel in and out of the country. This particular procedure in any case needs to be reviewed.

That said, it remains a bit of a problem to reconcile oneself to the idea of people who have not yet been cleared of criminal charges against them being appointed to cabinet posts. In Sindh, even the governor had cases against him that had led him to live abroad. These have since been reportedly withdrawn. Many cases, including those framed by NAB, may have been motivated and may eventually be shot down in court. But ordinary decency required that the legal tangle should have been allowed to sort itself out before the appointments were made. The suspicion now will be that the cases, true or trumped up, were used to draw mileage in the numbers game and keep the wanted people in and the unwanted out.

Civic facilities

IT IS deplorable that cities in Pakistan have practically no civic facilities by way of places for tired people to rest, proper pavements to walk on, and public toilets. Where they exist, such facilities are poorly kept — broken benches, pavements with gaping manholes, and stinking toilets. The absence of public lavatories is specially worrisome for families with children. Also, it disproportionately affects women. Men, for better or for worse, can often fend for themselves. Since women are now coming out of their homes in increasing numbers, to work and to commute, it surely would be a great help if public toilets were around.

The government’s utter lack of interest is shown by the fact that most government buildings, including the one that houses the Sindh Assembly, do not have any toilets set aside for women. Now that we have a system of local governments that is supposed to be more decentralized than previous arrangements and more in tune with the demands of the average citizen, it would be a welcome change if a concerted effort was made to provide better amenities for the public, including clean washrooms, at least in some of the more crowded parts of our cities.