Deteriorating ties

IS America a friend or foe? If that is ambiguous today, there is no doubt the coming days will settle the issue one way or the other. Distrust has been building up between the leader of the war on terror and the “frontline state” for years. It centres on America’s belief that Pakistan is not doing enough and that elements in the ISI are helping the Taliban. Consequently, American leaders, including President Bush, threatened to act unilaterally in Fata if “actionable intelligence” were available. The threat was translated into action in full force in South Waziristan last week. The strong reaction in Pakistan and the condemnatory resolution passed by parliament seem not to have mattered with Washington, for it has launched more attacks since then. The future is even murkier, since the US and its allies are likely to react angrily to Pakistan’s decision to suspend fuel supply to the coalition forces in Afghanistan. These developments need to be studied against the barrage of anti-Pakistan statements in Washington, especially the venom exhibited by a man who could be America’s next president.

In a TV interview Barack Obama complained that the Bush administration had “wasted” the $10bn it gave in aid to Pakistan. He said that aid should not have been given without strings attached, and that Islamabad was receiving American military aid to prepare for war with India. Irrespective of the absurdity of the last charge, Pakistan has to wake up to the danger to its security if Obama makes it to the White House. His statement coincides with US press reports which quote Pentagon officials as saying that cross-border raids are not only necessary, more such raids could follow. Talking to German Defence Minister Franz Josef Jung, Gen Tariq Majid, the Chairman of Joint Chiefs of Staff Committee, said Pakistan reserved the right to “appropriately retaliate” against such raids. While one can understand his anger, it is very obvious that Pakistan can do very little by way of retaliation.

The truth is we are in a foreign policy mess. Worse still, there is hardly a government which could adequately articulate Pakistan’s position on the issue and steer the ship of the state out of stormy waters. The protracted constitutional/political crisis is taking its toll, and there is no doubt governments hostile to this country have taken into account Pakistan’s political instability while drawing up their schemes. It is time Islamabad sorted out its relationship with Washington. Unfortunately, America too will be unable to take major foreign policy decisions until the next administration takes over. The least the Pakistani leadership can do in the meantime is to set its house in order.

In need of energy policy

CIRCULAR debt is the latest stranglehold that has gripped the national energy sector. At first glance Islamabad’s plan to deduct unpaid electricity bills at source in its dealings with the defaulting provincial governments as well as federal and provincial agencies may look like a practical resolution of the crisis. A deeper look into the mechanics of the proposed arrangement, however, makes it look otherwise. With most of the defaulting agencies already facing a cash crunch, the deduction will have the potential to cause serious aggravation on several counts while resolving a single issue. Expecting public-sector organisations to be astute in their monetary conduct to manage the deductions will only be unwise. The federal government itself has too poor a record in terms of fiscal responsibility and debt limitation to ensure responsible behaviour at the provincial and local tiers. To manage automatic deductions at source, the affected entities will most likely do what they are best known for doing: approach the banks. Years of this vicious cycle has taken us nowhere except where we are. Continuing with that will only take us further in that direction, with the common man suffering the most on account of the inflationary trends that government malpractices trigger.

Ever since the new government took over, it has been trying one fancy way after another of passing the burden to the consumers. From extended load-shedding and inflated bills to ambiguous GST adjustments, the dice is loaded against the masses. Adding to their misery are streetlights that no one bothers to switch off even during daytime. Such blatant displays of official slackness only cause loss of hope in those running the system. The impending raise in power tariff will expedite that process.

On a broader scale, the government has also disappointed many by not coming out strongly about the need to redesign the country’s energy mix. The only alternative energy plan has so far related to coal and that too has more political connotations than actual intent. In any case, talking of coal-based energy from Thar, while refusing to optimise the already functional Lakhra mine is hardly the stuff of visionaries. According to targets set by the Alternative Energy Development Board, the country will have around 300-350MW on the national grid by 2011, which is less than 10 per cent of the current shortfall. What the country needs immediately is a well-defined energy policy that sets priorities in line with global trends. As things stand today, the government pledge to eliminate load-shedding by the next year is nothing more than a self-deluding fantasy.

Class consciousness

PUBLIC welfare is far from the militants’ agenda and their brand of faith. From denying polio vaccination to young children to depriving girls of their right to education, they do soldier on but certainly not in the name of humanity. Reports say that school-going children have been jammed between the militants and security forces for a year as scores of schools have either been razed to the ground or occupied by radicals or security forces to take positions against each other. Shockingly, students and school owners claim that the past 10 months have seen the destruction of over 125 girls’ schools, robbing more than 14,000 girls of education, and perhaps a self-reliant future. On the other end, Swat’s district education department officials maintain that 99 schools have turned to rubble, affecting 25,000 students. Meanwhile, schools that are operative have poor attendance as unannounced curfews threaten the lives of children and tutors. Reports also point to the still dormant dangers of out-of-school adolescents for whom the emptiness of their days, created by the absence of extracurricular activities and an academic routine, is causing them to be propelled towards militancy.

Unicef has pledged to rebuild 95 schools after Ramazan. But the question, however, is an old one: can the government not make alternative arrangements for these children so that their academic years are not squandered? NGOs and government departments would do well to depute personnel who are able to conduct classes in makeshift set-ups that are provided with ample security — a crucial prerequisite for Unicef endeavours as well. So far, very little has addressed the issue of subsidised materials for reconstruction and compensation for school administrations which will enable them to distribute textbooks, stationery, uniforms as well as equip their own premises. Undeniably, the turmoil is setting countless students back by years therefore continuation of syllabi must become a priority for officials and human rights groups. It has to be remembered that this is a scarred generation fraught with the collapse of social security and mental agony. Hence, new educational environments have to focus on their mental rehabilitation with in-house counsellors.

OTHER VOICES - North American Press

The real John McCain

The New York Times

BY the time John McCain took the stage on Thursday night, we wondered if there would be any sign of the senator we long respected — the conservative who fought fair and sometimes bucked party orthodoxy.

Certainly, the convention that nominated him bore no resemblance to that John McCain. Rather than remaking George W. Bush’s Republican Party in his own image, Mr McCain allowed the practitioners of the politics of fear and division to run the show.Thursday night, Americans mainly saw the old John McCain. He spoke in a moving way about the horrors he endured in Vietnam. He talked with quiet civility about fighting corruption. He said the Republicans “had lost the trust” of the American people and promised to regain it. He decried “the constant partisan rancour that stops us from solving” problems.

But there were also chilling glimpses of the new John McCain, who questioned the patriotism of his opponents as the “me first, country second” crowd and threw out a list of false claims about Barack Obama’s record, saying, for example, that Mr Obama opposed nuclear power. There was no mention of immigration reform or global warming, Mr McCain’s signature issues before he decided to veer right to win the nomination.

In the end, we couldn’t explain the huge difference between the John McCain of Thursday night and the one who ran such an angry and derisive campaign and convention — other than to conclude that he has decided he can have it both ways. He can talk loftily of bipartisanship and allow his team to savage his opponent.

What makes that so vexing — and so cynical — is that this is precisely how Mr Bush destroyed Mr McCain’s candidacy in the 2000 primaries, with the help of the Karl Rovian team that now runs Mr McCain’s campaign….

On Wednesday, the nastiest night of the week, Mr McCain’s running mate, Sarah Palin, and other speakers offered punch lines, rather than solutions for this country’s many problems — ridiculing the Washington elite (of which most were solid members) and Barack Obama.

“Al Qaeda terrorists still plot to inflict catastrophic harm on America, and he’s worried that someone won’t read them their rights,” Ms Palin said.

Mr Obama, in reality, wants to give basic human rights to prisoners in Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, only a handful of whom are Qaeda members, and shield them from torture. So, once upon a time, did Mr McCain, but there was no mention of that in St Paul, or of the bill he wrote protecting those prisoners….

At the same time, the Republicans tried to co-opt Mr Obama’s talk of change and paint themselves as the real Americans. It is an ill-fitting suit for the least diverse, most conservative and richest Republican delegates since the Times started tracking such data in 1996….

Americans have a right to ask which John McCain would be president. We hope Mr McCain starts to answer that by halting the attacks on Mr Obama’s patriotism and beginning a serious, civil debate. — (Sept 5)

Is anyone listening?

WAS anyone listening to the horrified cries of the three women buried alive — although the police denies this — in Balochistan?

Can anyone imagine what those women must have felt when they were dragged by brute force to the place where they would see the light of day for the last time of their sojourn on this planet? Can anyone imagine the horror of feeling the earth being piled upon them as they lay bleeding and in pain? They endured this and their voices were muffled by the earth. Will they remain muffled forever?

Nor was this the only time that such a callous deed took place. It is the experience of many other women whose voices from the grave cannot reach us. The Human Rights Commission of Pakistan publishes lists of women killed in the name of honour; sold in the name of honour; enslaved in the name of honour; maimed in the name of honour; and locked up in houses in the name of honour. And each time the voices are raised to abolish these customs — abolition cannot occur without widespread condemnation first — someone stands up to defend it.

It has happened in the NWFP, in Sindh and now in Balochistan. The defence comes in the name of custom, tradition and indigenous culture. Those calling for the abolition of these barbaric practices are condemned as stooges of the West.

The same thing happened when the Mughal emperors tried to ban satti. They did not succeed but the British did. And who was the beneficiary? Not the British but the people of South Asia — especially Hindu women. So, no matter who does it, weeding out customs which make the lives of women a living hell is to be welcomed. And if the upholders of human rights are inspired by western concepts of human rights they are to be welcomed because they are trying to prevent murder and torture.

One can think of other people, inspired by narrow and selfish western interests, who sell their own people to secret western prisons without a fair trial. So, it is not a question of western or eastern inspiration, it is a question of people’s lives. Human rights are for all and if we preach them and practise them our people will benefit from them, not westerners.

Civilisation may be defined as the rise of compassion. And the indicators of this are that a society has a fair and easily accessible judicial system; the poor and the weak are protected by legal and administrative institutions and there is equality amongst creeds, classes and genders. As we can see, since the Enlightenment Europe moved away from its medieval cruelty to a concept of equality under law, fair trials and the abolition of cruel and degrading punishments.

Even war became humanised as the Geneva Conventions made rules for prisoners of war which gave them both security and dignity. Since 9/11 this is being reversed as Aafia Siddiqui’s case demonstrates. She has been in prison without trial and even her children are not traceable. This is against the norms of justice in both war and peace in terms of civilisation. We should condemn this rolling back of compassionate institutions and the inevitable erosion of the humanitarian values upon which they are based.

We should oppose them and condemn them whether they are perpetrated by a western country or by our own rulers in the name of national interest or by our tribal and feudal chiefs in the name of their honour or tradition. We should not join the anti-humanist forces of the world in perpetuating inhumanity in the name of our indigenous culture.

Sadly enough, our religious leaders never condemn violence against women. This is probably because they too feel it is a western agenda to promote women’s rights, whereas this is a human agenda not a western one. What happens in Pakistan in the name of Islam and tradition is not Islamic by any means. In the case of the Baloch women it was apparently a case of women having chosen their husbands which is permitted both by religion and the laws of Pakistan.

But let us take the case of fornication by way of example. Even in genuine cases of pre- or extra-marital sex there is no provision in Islam for cutting down a woman as if she were an animal by a male relative acting as prosecutor and judge. What one would have expected religious leaders to emphasise is that individuals cannot take these matters into their own hands.

If there is reasonable doubt that such a thing has occurred even then no law allows husbands and brothers to chase the victim with a hatchet. At the most a trial may be held at the end of which the judge cannot give the extreme (hadd) punishment to the woman and her partner unless the actual act of penetration has been witnessed by four pious adult Muslims. As this is an almost impossible condition to meet, the death penalty is actually ruled out.

This is not what our ulema preach. Instead, they remain silent even over the most brutal murders of women. The police treat such matters as if they were not murders at all and the sessions judges are apt to release prisoners even if there is evidence against them. Moreover, if the woman had been falsely accused there is no punishment for the accusers which is in direct contradiction to Islamic law. So, what is essentially a matter of humanity and compassion has been lost sight of in this spurious western-indigenous debate.

The values which have made women live under a perpetual reign of terror in our rural areas belong to a worldview much older than Islam. It is the ideology of male domination. Honour is the cover-up word for this domination. In this worldview women are the property of men. If they exercise their right of choice — even if it is allowed by religion and the law of the land — they are punished because by doing so they do not act as ‘property’.

If we want to present a better image of Pakistan abroad or make the claims of democracy credible at home, we should condemn such acts and call for the punishment of those responsible for them. It is up to civil society to make rulers listen to the voices of those women who reach out from their graves asking for justice. We cannot fill our voices with the pain of the sufferers but can we not aspire to their anger? Is anyone listening?

Capital flight

FOR Russia’s leadership, it seemed everything had gone right. In three weeks, the country had invaded Georgia, crushed its military and defied international opinion by recognising the breakaway republics of South Ossetia and Abkhazia. Western threats came to nothing. Russia’s attack on Georgia went unpunished.

But victory has been undermined by an alarming flight of capital. Analysts estimate that, since the war began on August 8, $19bn has been withdrawn from the country.

The Kremlin is also facing other economic problems. They include a rapid drop in the oil price, which has fallen almost 30 per cent from peaks close to $150 a barrel, and a 9.7 per cent increase in inflation since the start of the year.

Analysts believe the war could become the catalyst for a more profound slowdown following at least seven years of unprecedented economic growth.

So far the Kremlin has managed to unite Russians in support for the invasion of Georgia. But as the economy cools, the euphoria is wearing off.

“The war in Georgia has been the major driver of the whole thing. Officially capital flight has been $19bn. We estimate it could be $20bn-$25bn,” said Vladimir Osakovsky, a Moscow-based analyst at UniCredit. “For most of this year we were viewed as a safe haven. Capital was flowing into Russian markets and into Russian funds. We have lost this safe-haven sense.”

According to Osakovsky, the decline began not with the war in Georgia but in late July, when the prime minister, Vladimir Putin, launched an extraordinary attack on the mining and metals company Mechel. Mechel’s share value plunged 38 per cent on the New York stock exchange after Putin threatened to “send doctors” to examine its owner. Mechel shares lost $6bn in one day.

Meanwhile, there is lively debate behind closed doors in the Kremlin. According to Andrei Piontkovsky, a researcher at the Russian Academy of Sciences, writing in the Moscow Times, Russia’s political elite is split between the national and global kleptocrats.

The global kleptocrats have invested most of their assets in the West, and are fearful that Russia’s confrontation with Nato could escalate into a full-blown conflict. The national kleptocrats, by contrast, have stashed their billions inside Russia. They have less to lose should Russia try to repeat its military success in Georgia in other post-Soviet states such as Estonia or Ukraine.

It is no secret that Russia’s elite send their children to English private schools, have houses in London’s Mayfair and South Kensington, and enjoy skiing holidays in the French Alps. The EU has failed to find effective ways to persuade Russia to end its occupation of Georgia, but few doubt that the most devastating tactic would be to refuse Kremlin officials Schengen visas.

— The Guardian, London