There is a fuse burning!
October has not been a very good month for the IJI Government so far. The one-time strongman of NWFP and IJI stalwart, Lt Gen (Retd) Fazle Haq, was gunned down in Peshawar on October 3, two days later a series of four near-simultaneous bomb blasts rocked Karachi, killing five and injuring quite a few others. Within the week on October 10, a complete strike in Quetta complicated by a few strike-related deaths, force-multiplied in the October 12 shootout where five PKMAP men were killed when their offices were attacked, resulting in Quetta city being put under total curfew. Mr. Wyne’s Provincial Government remains on the defensive on the Coop scam issue despite a few well-attended public rallies by the Prime Minister into the hinterland of the Punjab. Jam Sadiq Ali has been stricken down with a Pancreas complication and has had to be evacuated to London. Both political and medically expedient, it has set off a spate of rumours about impending Governor’s rule in Sindh.
In the life of a nation, such things will happen, some orchestrated by external hands, some influenced by domestic compulsions. Our governments have an amazing propensity to attract problems. Very much like the PPP Government before them, the IJI has a self-destructing mechanism that seems to operate on its own time-table, most events are self-created, most wounds are self-inflicted.
In the case of Gen Fazle Haq’s assassination, the Federal Government can be said to have escaped reproach. It had suitably advised the NWFP Government about a possible threat on his life and recommended precautionary measures. The NWFP Government fell flat on its face by not taking this warning at face value, the lapse is now being construed as a deliberate omission because of a long-standing feud between the stubborn former Governor and the present IG Police. Rumours that the General and a dissident political grouping within the IJI were about to launch a no-confidence move against the Chief Minister with the help and support of members of the delighted Opposition, has further compromised the position of the NWFP Government. A feeling of benign neglect towards the personal protection of the deceased is pervasive.
The Balochistan crisis is an example of political blundering of the highest order. The Agriculture College in Mastung was long planned, moving it out of the predominantly Baloch area to the Pushtun majority region was guaranteed to ignite ethnic tensions. During Bugti’s rule a compromise area had been selected. Chief Minister Taj Mohammad Jamali has been walking a tight-rope to keep the coalition going but there are some issues that need extremely delicate handling to prevent exacerbation of issues. At this time, Balochistan has sparred off into two warring ethnic factions, another rank stupidity will act as a detonator for the whole powder keg.
The focal point of attention remains the Province of Sindh where enough has happened in the past few weeks to evoke rumours of Federal Government intervention. When Jam Sadiq Ali was appointed Caretaker Chief Minister, it was clearly understood that (1) he could only govern the Province by putting together a pot-pourri mixture of PPP dissidents, MQM, Independents and IJI survivors (2) he was the best political choice in holding the coalition together and (3) restoration of urban and rural peace in that order was the priority. By a mix of cajoling and coercion, Jam put together a workable coalition, the MQM connection thriving because of the ensuing relative peace in the major urban areas. But even silver clouds have rough linings, in the process the rural area has been virtually taken over by the dacoits, aided and abetted by the politically disaffected, force-multiplied by external adventurers in the form of RAW, the external subversion organisation of our friendly neighbour, India.
The series of bomb blasts that shook Karachi were directed towards prime government installations including the New Sindh Secretariat, the old KDA Building, the Police Head Office and the CIA. The timing, the intensity of the blasts, the choice of venues, the old cars used, etc suggests comprehensive organisational power within Karachi. The obvious suspects were the mad fringe of the PPP extremists, Al-Zulfiqar terrorists, and/or the Jeay Sindh militants. Just before the bomb explosions, the IG Police Sindh and the local CIA, headed by DIG Samiullah Marwat, a cousin of the Advisor Home Affairs to the Chief Minister, Irfanullah Marwat, were under considerable pressure because of the exposing of various excesses by the media, particularly by Kamran Khan, culminating in a knife attack on Kamran, resulting in serious injuries to him. TAKBEER and its owner/Editor, Salahuddin, then came under attack by the MQM, retaliation followed by the attack on QAUMI AKHBAR, obviously by the JI militants. The latest victim is the Editor of LEADER, Mr Manzurul Hasan, attacked by a man impersonating as a CIA officer. No doubt urban crime has decreased considerably because of the busting of a number of kidnapping and dacoit gangs, credit for the most part must go to the Army Investigation Teams (officered and manned by Military Intelligence Units), the Citizen and Police Liaison Committee (CPLC) and Ranger units in the city. The CIA may have played a significant part but at the same time an unenviable reputation has been built up that certain elements within the CIA having turned rogue, have gone into business for themselves, taking advantage of the wide ranging powers they wield for political purposes. This perception of a State within a State detracts from the considerable work done by them in controlling crime and undercuts their credibility. The urban peace has thus been bought at a public-image price and Irfanullah Marwat, being the President’s son-in-law, will not (or should not) be too happy at his subordinates running wild. He cannot turn a benevolent eye away from the facts. The good work that has been done to restore normalcy in Karachi is being overshadowed by the psychological fear being instilled in the mind of the intelligentsia and the masses about the activities of underhand CIA operations, camouflaged as legitimate because of departmental cover.
The public antipathy to the CIA has become so pronounced that rumour mills are even laying the blame for the bomb explosions on the CIA, the theory being that the CIA staged the incidents to (1) divert attention of those who matter in the Federal Government (2) escape public cynosure and mass displeasure and (3) to get a free hand in cracking down further on Opposition elements and those opposed to the CIA. The other theory is that the MQM wanted to give a warning to the Federal Government that it is they who run the city, one is thus reminded of the staged Reichstag fire and the Polish Border incidents. While the conspiracy theory sounds far fetched, it is founded on believable conjecture. The people of the nation must have profound faith in their law enforcing officials and departments, that their credibility is so shot that there is speculation and suspicion of their involvement in criminal activity themselves is a matter of great concern. The whole democratic process is open to question when there is a feeling that criminals are functioning in the name of justice, for the intelligentsia and masses the perception becomes that justice has become a crime. It is very important that Irfanullah Marwat takes positive steps to undo this bad public image and the only way to do so is to catch the real culprits and bring them forward on concrete rather than clearly fabricated evidence. It is no wonder that there is great public disbelief of even genuine evidence available against hard-core terrorists.
In this context, the absence of Jam Sadiq from the political scene of Sindh at this time is badly timed from the point of view of the Federal Government and will be sorely felt by them. Politically, Jam Sadiq is all that the Federal Government has. If there is a simultaneous crackdown on rural and urban criminal elements, some of Jam’s political allies are also likely to face the heat. Without the political maestro available to wave the carrot around, short shrift will be given to the present disparate coalition. A time clock in this respect has started ticking. It is very unlikely that the Federal Government’s law enforcement agencies, including Army and Ranger units, will be applying the same selective justice that we have seen in Sindh so far, some for reasons of political nuances, mostly for partisan, individual benefit of corrupt and unscrupulous persons.
The COAS has gone on record as saying that Martial Law will not be imposed, that may be comforting for democracy but it can be also taken as an open licence for criminally motivated persons to go berserk. We have a Catch-22 problem here, conscience versus the concept of duty. Justice has been so subverted that genuine evidence of malfeasance by perpetrators is disbelieved by the general public, on the other hand is the fact that some of the perpetrators of crime are themselves in government, thereby testing the credibility of the actions of the law enforcement agencies. One may see no evil, hear no evil and do no evil, but the edifice of the nation crumbling around us even while we hold the paper of the Constitution aloft and our heads in the ground, Ostrich-like, is testing dame Fortune too far. No one asks anyone to subvert the Constitution but certainly one must take into account that the same Constitution that we are pledged to uphold to the peril of our lives is being subverted at will for benefit of few individuals. When common justice is denied to the individuals of the nation, then what duty is really binding on those who are pledged to uphold the law, to the nation or to the individual? Martial Law has been much maligned in this country because it has been used for individual benefit and to sustain individual rule, if it had really been used for the public good, we would have reaped the benefits of institutionalized democracy in the long run. Those who matter in the hierarchy should kindly take cognisance of the reports submitted by their own agencies about what is happening in this country, they may like to give quiet advice in the right quarters that will have the effect of restraining malfeasance as well as take away the impression that they have themselves become collaborators to the perpetrating of crime. In a land where the media has virtually become hunted at the hands of the lawless, to whom does one turn to for justice? Justice is supposed to be blind, but not blinded.
The smell of cordite is not exactly all pervasive as yet, the way things are going it is not too far away. Things are rapidly sliding out of control, yet the attitude of those who matter fluctuates between giving an aura of normalcy to that of people in a hurry with little time left, the truth is probably lost in the grey area in between. The PDA does not have a monopoly on conscience, there are men and women of conscience in the IJI also who are proud of their principles. Will they kindly stand up and be counted?
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