Potpourri
Master Of The Game?
Thirty six years ago almost to the day a good friend, Capt (later Maj Gen) Amin Ahmad Chaudhry (of Bangladesh), told me about Telemachus, a Christian monk who jumped into the ring at the Roman Coliseum to separate two gladiators fighting to the death with swords. The gladiators turned on him and he was run through by their swords. Shocked into silence at the tragedy, the crowd left the Coliseum. Some historians disagree, they say he was set on by the crowd, furious that he should prevent their entertainment they stoned him to death. Whatever the real version, because of his selfless act Emperor Honorius stopped all further gladiatorial events from Jan 1, 404 A.D. The moral of “Telemachus” is don’t try mediation, you will either be set upon by both the warring parties or by the bystanders. Normally one shoots the messenger bringing bad news, in the super-charged political atmosphere presently in Pakistan, the polarization is so defined and acute you shoot the mediator. As much as we decry President Bush for it, his doctrine is alive and well in Pakistan, “you are either for us or against us!”. Being even-handed and objective is not smart in Pakistan!
A Very Good Budget
Every Federal Budget is usually better than the previous year, this year even more so. Presented by the Federal Minister of State for Finance Omar Ayub on June 9, 2007, it had a three-fold purpose viz (1) to try and alleviate the poverty of the common man (2) provide incentives for greater investment, and lastly (3) provide a favourable environment for general elections at the end of this year. Glaring anomalies exist, bigger incentives should have been given for the agriculture sector, the mainstay of Pakistan’s economy.
100 Years – Cuba To Iraq
The Spanish American War of 1898 represented the very first time that the US intervened outside the North American Continent. As a consequence of success in Cuba and the Philippines, and the very first experience at annexation and as an occupying power, the US established a naval presence abroad, with bases in the Philippines, Hawaii, Guam, Cuba etc. In 1903 US leased out Gauntanamo Bay from Cuba. Korea should have taught US the hard lesson that land wars are not winnable in Asia, yet Vietnam followed not more than a decade later. The lessons of the killing fields of South East Asia had been taken to heart, the temptation to return the favour of a proxy war because of the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan could hardly be ignored. No logic was applied before entering Iraq in 2003, even worse there is no exit strategy from the cauldron even in 2007.
Corporate Governance
One of the better initiatives of the State Bank of Pakistan (SBP) is to encourage financial institutions to adhere to the “Code for Corporate Governance“ framed in 2002. While SBP is mostly concerned with monitoring financial institutions, the code is applicable for all corporate entities. The most tangible step has been the establishment of the “Pakistan Institute of Corporate Governance” (PICG). Appointing Zahid Zaheer, a respected senior corporate executive of proven great ability and experience as its Head showed positive intent and seriousness of purpose. Hopefully PICG will train independent directors structured corporate responsibility, and they in turn will translate this into ensuring viz (1) a fair return for the investors and (2) a merit-oriented professional environment for all the employees.
Dusting The Cupboard
When Chief Justice Iftikhar Mohammad Chaudhry (CJP) launched his judicial activism soon after he took over as CJP, he could have never dreamed that this activism, with himself as a symbol of that activism, would one day catch the imagination of the streets of the country. Credit for his growing momentum must be given to the bunch of incompetent Presidential advisers who have outdone each other in creating the problems and then stoking them by repeated blunders. In fact they have managed an impossible feat, combining the lawyers community all over the country with the media in an anti-Musharraf front, and now because of their repeated faux pas, mobilizing the ultimate support, from the man in the street. The CJP has now become the focal point for the aspirations and the frustrations of a vast majority of the populace, diverse individuals and groups with vastly differing reasons have joined the campaign to oust the present government. The human sacrifice of Mohammad Ali Durrani to the mob rampaging will not do, this ultimate in sycophancy is not a good enough political morsel. While for some it is only a personal vendetta against Pervez Musharraf, the intelligentsia and masses have greater ambitions, they want a fulfillment of promises of the freedoms envisaged by our founding fathers on the birth of Pakistan.
At The Crossroads
The welcome for the Chief Justice (CJ) of Pakistan Mr Iftikhar Chaudhry along the GT Road was unprecedented, clearly the common man who had remain quite aloof from the weeks of protests by lawyers all over the country had now started to join the fray, whether he will engage in earnest only the next few weeks will tell. This will also be directly proportional to the ham-handedness of the ruling party’s administrative minions. The protest was emotional and intense, certainly those who waited for over 24 hours in the car park of the Lahore High Court registered vociferous opposition to one-man rule, these constituted for the most part lawyers.
When Tigers Become Maneaters
Karachi became a battleground on Saturday May 12, 2007, for a few frightening hours the citizens got a bloody taste of Baghdad and Beirut becomes when perpetrators of senseless violence take over the streets of the city. Everyone is casting blame on each other, and they are not wrong, all of us are culpable in our own ways. The tragedy that ensued is a severe indictment of the government for abdicating its responsibilities in not deploying the forces of law and order, the political parties used the occasion callously to further their own political objectives even when anarchy was looming in their faces and finally the lawyers persisted with the CJ’s Karachi procession despite ominous signs that it would cost lives, and that too mostly of innocents. There was a moral obligation for all to heed independent warnings of imminent violence. The government lost considerable moral authority in not enforcing their writ for hours, the hands-off policy seemed deliberately designed to aggravate the situation for a single purpose, prevent the CJ’s cavalcade from riding into town.
Accountability And Bangladesh
Within days of his Oct 12, 1999 takeover, Pervez Musharraf established the National Accountability Bureau (NAB) in Pakistan to ferret out the corrupt of the past and fight endemic corruption in the present. The culprits whoever they were would be held accountable, the money they had looted would be recovered. NAB mission statement has since been compromised, viz (1) partly because of political exigencies of the continuity of Musharraf’s rule but (2) mostly by the “plea bargaining” pretext used to let dozens of white-collar criminals walk free. This loophole in the regulations governing anti-corruption became a “highway” for corruption, with the accused and the accusers both comfortable in a corrupt embrace that undermined the whole concept of accountability as envisaged by Musharraf when launching NAB. The simple formula for those failing to reimbursing the govt exchequer with the looted money is to throw away the keys of the jail cell.
The Middle Ground
Requested by my friend John Defterios to participate in a panel to discuss “the shifting story of energy security and pipeline politics”, it was a privilege to accept, more so because the location, Almaty, the former capital of Kazakhstan, was off the normal beaten track. The “Eurasian Media Forum covered a broad range of international issues of consequence, among them viz (1) the question of power and justice in world politics (2) what next for Iraq (3) whether nuclear program is a sovereign right or a dangerous ambition? and (4) what has the invasion of Afghanistan achieved in the Great Game in the 21st century?”. The brainchild of the Chairperson Dr Dariga Nazarbayeva, the daughter of the Kazakhstan President, Nursultan Nazarbayev attracted a good selection of public figures, intellectuals and professionals from all over the world, particularly from the CIS. I am generally skeptical about “talented” children, Dr Dariga did not fit that mold. “Talented” relatives usually have “commercial” interests that border on the criminal, they almost never have intellectual pursuits.
Peace Pipeline or Pipedream?
The proposed US$7 billion Iran-Pakistan-India (IPI) 2720 km gas “peace pipeline” project is expected to take three to five years to complete. While Pakistan’s demand for gas will expand significantly over the next two decades, India’s need is far more. Presently using 100 million cubic metres per day, this will double in the next 7-8 years. With decline in its reserves India estimates using 400 million cubic meters of gas per day by 2025, almost four times more than in 2005. Having the world’s second largest gas reserve, Iran is the most geographically convenient supplier of gas to both Pakistan and India.