Authoritarian rule
Alarmed by the rapid deterioration of the law and order situation in the former USSR, US FBI Director Louis J. Freeh recently visited Russia to coordinate wide-ranging measures and initiatives with his Russian counterparts to curb the gathering strength of the Russian origin criminals. Of particular concern is their overwhelming infiltration into commerce and industry of the former USSR, thereby providing them legitimate fronts to take over society. In the Russian capital alone, almost 200 banks have been taken over by criminal gangs, now universally called the Russian mafia. One incredulous bank chief was informed by unwelcome visitors who barged into his office that the bank’s equity would be doubled the following day and that he would have to make way for someone else. When he asked what he would get out of it, he was told “your life” and was given a bullet in a small case as a moment to remind him of his “good fortune”.
At least 70-80 banking and other senior commercial executives have been killed, murdered or kidnapped for ransom in Moscow alone. European trucking companies operating in the former socialist republic know that their goods and commodities are always at stake; they almost always have to pay ‘octroi’ as protection money to gangs specialising in highway robberies. Even then, ‘independents’ still manage to waylay many trucks and loot them. Moscow may have taken the lead in the extortion racket but in almost every city and town of the former USSR criminals are similarly extracting ‘protection’ money from the affluent and/or from commerce or industry. Richard Boudreaux writes in The Los Angeles Times that the Mayor of Vladivostok (population 6,00,000) has been sprayed with mace, locked in a car trunk and beaten unconscious as part of a power struggle with the Regional Governor who had him carried out bodily from the City Hall by police. The West has been alarmed by reports that nuclear material may have been stolen and smuggled from the former USSR. Recently, a person was held at Munich Airport with a vial containing 10 grams of weapons grade plutonium. Interestingly enough, an attempt was made to drag Pakistan into the controversy.
For 70 years, the former Soviet Socialist Republic had been ruled with an iron hand. While crime did exist, it was so scarce that its knowledge was almost non-existent. Aleksei Isyumov, an economist and political scientist, writes that as late as 1985 he had to pose as a police cadet and visit the morgues in Moscow to find out that occasional murders did take place in the Stalinist state. The removal of the stifling (but effective) police-state apparatus coupled with the economic slide created enormous opportunities for criminals, mainly former bureaucrats and the Communist Party apparatchiks. With the police force thus depleted — almost 90 per cent have less than 3 years service — Russia and its former vassal states have become a criminal haven. Mayors like Cherepkov of Vladivostok who have tried to confront criminal activity are hounded out of office. A mid-19th century American version of the free-for-all wild west atmosphere has permeated into this previously authoritarian environment, a sort of a reaction to the years of ruthless Stalinist rule. Those adventurous enough to do business in the former USSR have found out to their detriment that what constitutes the law nowadays tends to favour the lawless, yet because the rewards of the new frontiers are so great the people in their desire to make millions are taking calculated risks in persisting. In a reversal of roles, the Russian “mafia” has even become a source of concern in the West as the criminals spread their underworld net into the Western capitals. However, it is in mother Russia itself where the situation is the worst. In the words of Boudreaux, “Despite a new Constitution promising Western style legal order, Russia resembles a federation of freedoms where regional political bosses, bureaucrats, army officers, police chiefs, prison wardens and mafia dons can bend the law or ignore it the way they like”.
Organised crime in Russia is now Public Enemy No. 1. As human rights groups have found out, Western public opinion which was gung-ho about violations thereof by law enforcement agencies during the years of the Cold War is now doing a complete about turn and is slowly shifting to the pragmatic stance that extraordinary measures are needed to curb crime in the former USSR. As a first step, Yeltsin has signed an extraordinary decree ordering the police to “cleanse Russia of criminal filth” and giving them powers to hold suspected gangsters for up to 30 days without formal charges — the constitutional limit is 48 hours — and to search offices, vehicles and bank records without a court order. These powers are technically way beyond the police — state powers enjoyed by the LEAs in the former USSR in the 70 years of totalitarian rule. Far from condemning this slide back to authoritarian rule, Western powers, alarmed at the possibility of leaks of nuclear information and material, have goaded Yeltsin into such a requirement and are now applauding it. In a recent article in Newsweek, Aleksei Isyumov went to the extent of openly recommending a return to Stalinist rule as the only prescription to arrest the deteriorating situation. A major part of Russia’s population, equally alarmed at the rapid decline into anarchy, supports this contention. This has been an amazing turnaround in perception and the West is busy mobilising public opinion to support their 180 degree somersault, necessity being the mother of convenience. Western powers may be morally committed to upholding democratic principles, when events threaten their way of life, they are pragmatic enough to change course and adapt themselves to accommodate the new realities. Independent observers as well as the local populace now increasingly seem to agree with the heretical Zhirinovsky stance that with the removal of Stalinist restrictions, the former Soviet Republics especially Russia, are rapidly sliding into anarchy and need to be firmly handled. With the added threat of nuclear proliferation, as criminal gangs sell fissionable nuclear material to all comers, the West has shown a willing readiness to swallow their principles without any qualms and allow authoritarian rule.
This Western stand on moral issues is, therefore, largely one of convenience. While for countries like Pakistan, the West’s prescription is unadulterated democracy, for the monarchist Arab countries, for Egypt, Algeria, Tunisia, etc., where they have reason to fear “Islamic fundamentalism”, their acceptability of the farce which passes as democracy (if at all the farce is even enacted in some countries) is shocking. As much as the West is ready to go back to accepting a version of the Stalinist rule in the former USSR, they always turn a blind eye to Police-State excesses where it suits their objectives. In one breath they decry the People’s Republic of China for its totalitarian rule, while favouring a return of such a rule in Russia. One cannot really blame the West for such double standards, given the consequences of anarchy. In Pakistan, we should well learn this lesson before we cross the invisible fail-safe line and slide deep into an abyss beyond the capacity of the LEAs to redeem.
In a recent block raid in Karachi where a gun battle was ensuing between PPI militants and MQM supporters, the Army cordoned off 650 houses and in one search recovered over 100 weapons, the maximum round-up in one single security sweep since Operation Clean-Up started. This success was mainly due to the fact that the Army had a clear mission and was not targeting the MQM alone. True, there were a smattering of licenced arms among them but who is there to testify that licenced arms are not being used for illegal purposes? Among the people who were arrested in this operation were militants from PPI, MQM, PP, JI, etc., almost evenly spread. On this scale, Karachi would be having well over 1,00,000 weapons. As much as public display of weapons is forbidden, one has only to go to any 5 star luxury hotel in the evening and find body guards in mufti who display prohibited bore weapons openly while waiting for their masters to appear from the hotels lobbies and car porches representing more of an armed guerilla camp. If the law is to be enforced, no one in civilian clothes should be allowed to bear weapons of any kind anywhere in the major urban cities.
In the meantime, given the drugs-smuggling problem, the proliferation of weapons, the ethnic and religious tensions, the political militancies, etc., we in Pakistan must also seriously think about a period of authoritarian rule. The political confrontation is dividing the country into segments of ethnic and sectarian groups, a stage may well come when the lawless will have infiltrated and taken over the premier institutions to the extent that their authority will be forever impaired. If the present polarisation persists, it will permit the lawless to seize control of the state. As it is, many drug barons are now buying themselves into legitimate business and industry with their vast financial resources. Before a stage comes where their future is thus legalised, those who have the power to do so (the present democratically elected government) must face up to the realities and accept the responsibilities that the great silent majority of the population wants them to assume. The best thing would be for the democratic government to impose such an authoritarian rule out of the doctrine of necessity. If a democratic regime can forswear playing politics and/or going after their opponents as a consequence of such a rule, the force of public opinion will always back the government in its efforts to restore peace (and the writ of law) in the land. But if the democratic regime is partial in the application of the law of the land, fails to fulfill its obligation and uses repressive measures for political purposes, then the whole exercise is doomed. The alternative then would not be palatable: authoritarian rule by an authoritarian regime. We want democracy but no one wants anarchy. A cooling-off period may then become necessary where the systems are set in order (in the manner that the MQM was attempting) as a national requirement but one feels we must give a chance to democratic institutions to play their part. We may not like it, but sometimes in the life of a nation authoritarian rule does become a necessity. Or we can sit down and watch the nation as well as our way of life slowly die.
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