The Brink of Economic Apocalypse
The deteriorating law and order situation throughout the country is having a commensurate degenerating effect on the economy of Pakistan. As civil unrest escalates, industries will grind to a halt and commerce come to a standstill, it will set in motion a chain of events which will rapidly go out of control of any political government. Anarchy invites the imposition of martial law and in the face of civil war conditions even the general public will be resigned to such an eventuality. Martial laws cannot be used as a perennial standby solution to the country’s problems as it tends to degenerate and debilitate society while also seriously demilitarizing the military psyche.
The sorry example of Karachi is a symbol of “apocalypse now” in the economic sense. As Karachi becomes a bad clone of Beirut in a nightmarish rush, we tend to be spectators watching our own destruction in graphic detail. Almost daily there is some trouble inspired by armed groups of various ethnic and other backgrounds. The alarming scenario is further aggravated with a gradual solidifying of the armed groups into virtual militias. The polarisation of society has reached such an untenable stage that the slightest provocation blows up into an unmanageable riot. With the quantum increase in various types of firearms the local administration lacks adequate police forces to confront any situation with ability and the organized mobs know this, their intrinsic knowledge adding to the gradual escalation of the level of violence. The net result is that the Standard Operating Procedure for the civil administration is that the situation is normally allowed to deteriorate rapidly to the stage that the Army is called in as the panacea of all ills. The Corps Commander at Karachi is increasingly using his troops on almost a daily basis in Aid to Civil Power. The use of army troops for purposes of internal security on a long-term basis, albeit even for short periods, is counter-productive as it detracts from the army’s primary role in defending the sovereignty of the country from external aggression as well as having a profound debilitating effect on their efficiency and training. Adding an insult to injury, it breeds hatred and contempt for the Army among the public in the urban areas that the army is deployed, particularly over long periods. This creeping loss of honour is totally unacceptable as it tends to degrade the finest fighting machine in the world and bring it into disrepute, a sorry pass for an institution not only much beloved by its countrymen but which once upon a time could do no wrong.
The economic effects of a riot-torn Karachi are being acutely felt all over Pakistan. All the goods and commodities that fuel the body-economic flow through the port city of Karachi. As a cumulative result of its seaport location, haphazard planning and other failures of vision, an inordinate quantity of industrial production is located at Karachi. As Pakistan’s capital of industry and commerce, Karachi is the virtual life-line to Pakistan’s well-being, the choking of it periodically having a devastatingly destructive effect on Pakistan’s economy. If all this was confined only to the import traffic only it would have been bad enough but the adverse effect on our exports has already been horrifying, because for the short term it causes immediate shortage of badly needed foreign exchange disrupting our cash flow while in the long term it makes us into unreliable suppliers, thereby causing irreparable damage to the further development of our exports’ trade. The economic disruption then turns inwards because in turn the industries slow down correspondingly on their way to a complete shutdown, affecting particularly the blue collar workers, the daily wage earners, causing a vicious circle of acute shortage of cash flow into the daily markets. A Catch-22 situation then develops feeding on itself for sustenance, all the time devouring our economy like Piranha fish.
Political means are basically passive and long term, but any political government worth its salt will certainly try to go in for such political solutions. The immediate need of the hour is to enforce law and order, preferably using the non-military resources of the Republic. This is better said than done because our police services have been woefully neglected through the broad spectrum of the whole concept of a law and order force and as such are totally inadequate to deal with crime, what to talk of dealing effectively with urban terrorism which is now rapidly becoming a fact of life in Karachi and the border cities of Pakistan, helped along by our unswerving enemies. It is extremely easy to blame the police for every shortcoming but no one seems to accept that their primary role is to combat crime, which they are doing in the 20th century in the time available to them in between civil disturbances, using for the most part nineteenth century methods because of the paucity of funds allocated. In a metropolitan port city like Karachi, one needs a well-integrated police force to combat lawlessness through a wide range of diversified crimes. Not providing funds to bring the police forces upto optimum manpower (and to equip and train it) is the worst kind of short-sightedness that one can imagine besides being penny-wise pound-foolish. The police services in Pakistan in general and Karachi’s police in particular need to be upgraded on a priority basis immediately. The whole gamut must be studied thoroughly and recommendations implemented without any further delay. This should also include improving drastically the pay and living conditions of the rank and file of the police, a clear annunciation of their role and then adherence to it.
The present urban and rural situation as regards law and order with respect to the extraneous new elements that have emerged on the scene over the past few years because of (1) political unrest (2) Afghan situation (3) Iran situation (4) Drug smugglers and (5) unemployment cannot be given just to any local police force to combat, mainly because they not only transcend provincial borders but also international ones. In every such recent situation it has been necessary to raise a cross between the police and military means. Local variations with limited roles have been attempted by Provinces like the SHAHEEN FORCE and the EAGLE SQUAD in Lahore and Karachi respectively but their effect has been confined by their hamstrung roles and capabilities, not that money has not been spent with the best of intentions.
One of the brightest ideas of the PPP regime was the creation of the Federal Security Force (FSF). This fine idea was then prostituted for political purposes and the tremendous rationale for its formation was lost in the organisation of it and the recruitment policy followed which was further debased by its utility. This is the perfect example of a fine idea gone to waste and within the parameters of the distance between the two extremes of its concept and utility lies the dilemma for the present Government for creating a “MIDDLE FORCE” between the Armed Forces and the Police on the Federal level to maintain law and order. The FSF created a groundswell of hatred in the public generated mainly by the sinister overtones of its political employment and its disbandment brought not a single reaction of protest, very much like the dissolution of the hated RAKHI BAHINI in Bangladesh (which was raised to offset and neutralise the Regular Army). The epitaph of both these forces, raised at the behest of political governments was “a colossus one day, gone without trace the next”, unloved and unsung.
The political dividends were totally negative of both these outfits and did much to undo all the other good in the name of democracy, particularly in the case of PPP and Pakistan. In short order, their activities sunk the political leadership. The legacy is that any fresh proposal to have a similar “MIDDLE FORCE” is greeted with opposition by a wide spectrum of people within the administration and without, no thought being given to the fact that given sincere intentions we have an undeniable and desperate need for such a security force in Pakistan, now more than ever as things deteriorate to the point of oblivion.
In the backdrop of the situation availing in Karachi at the present moment, a time to make decisions has arrived. It is not five miles to midnight anymore, it is high noon and the time for waffling is past. The Afghan Accord will make the situation in Afghanistan much worse before it becomes any better, if at all in the near future. Compounded by the civil war spilling into the refugee camps and the cities of Peshawar and Quetta, the cloudy weather is made more murky by the elements of various drug rings dealing in death with heroin and its talented cousin, the Kalashnikov. Only last year various Iranian factions fought a full scale set-piece battle in posh urban localities with each other in Karachi and Quetta. Along with ethnic militias coming into existence, decision making is not blessed with the luxury of delay anymore. Needless to say drastic administrative structural changes are necessary for the major urban cities which must become METROPOLITAN Governments, with the elected mayors carrying the rank of Lieutenant Governors. With 9 million people of many nationalities, Karachi should have more than nine districts in three administrative divisions, with each district having not less than nine sub-divisions each having a police station. Even a 100,000 people envisaged is about 5 times too many for a single police station. While gearing up the police stations into complete administrative units headed by an elected councillor, it must be recognized that democratically elected representatives as the heads of administration are much more acceptable than synthetically produced bureaucrats in this modern age. The people who have been elected to power must be made responsible for keeping peace and harmony in the areas they represent and that is only possible if they are given the responsibilities of administration. The situation in interior Sindh also requires immediate attention as the dacoits gradually take psychological control of the rural administration.
Each country has its own specific solution to such problems. In Italy, the Red Brigade and Mafia were twin menaces which could only be dealt with by a creation of a separate Carabinieri Force. At one time these two extreme and diverse groups, one built on misconceived ideology, the other an all pervasive criminal gang dealing with death, drugs and profit, were threatening to take over the functions of the state. Only an organised task force has brought the two death-dealing factions under some control. In the States, task forces to combat organised crime have been formed at various times over the last few decades beginning with the Chicago Mobs and the Mafia, and are still rooting out drug gangs from Los Angeles to New York, Washington to Miami. Indian Punjab (Khalistan) is the subject of an undeclared Martial Law as Sikh terrorism increases, being under direct central rule with the Inspector General of Police, Mr. Rebeiro, given extraordinary powers and a force exceeding 100,000 men to combat Sikh extremism. The elements of the force have been drawn from the Central Armed Constabulary, Border Security Force, the Police etc.
In order to combat growing urban terrorism and organised crime, particularly drug smuggling, we have to raise a permanent special force which can also look after internal security whenever the provincial police forces are hard pressed. This force, the organisational aspects of which will be discussed in the next article, must be of a strength of at least 50,000-60,000 men spread in 100 battalions of 500 men each. They should be called FEDERAL GUARDS and be self-sufficient in the most modern arms, equipment and have their own independent intelligence network besides other resources of the State. By law, their use of political purposes must be forbidden. Their PRIMARY roles would be to (1) combat urban terrorism which is proliferating at this time (2) combat the menace of drug manufacture and transportation (3) eradicate the dacoit hazard from Sindh and (4) control the influx of illegal immigrants, while the SECONDARY roles would be to (1) assist the law enforcing agencies in local security problems whenever required thereby freeing the Army from any Internal Security duties (2) in time of emergency/war conditions to guard all pre-designated vital installations and (3) provide back-up to the Provincial Police Force in guarding the Federal highways and railroads. This force should be administratively under the control of the Ministry of Interior with a full time Minister of State in day-to-day charge. This must be a person who should be totally clean in reputation, a man of great stature and dynamism, willing to take risks, capable of extracting the best from his subordinates and of motivating them without fear or favour. We have such a person in the present Minister of State for Interior with all the qualities and capabilities. A dyed-in-the-wool genuine war hero of both the wars Pakistan has fought, 1965 and 1971, his credentials need no elucidation. Above all he is not only a democratically elected representative but is a man of means with a clear bill of incorruptibility. Exceedingly popular, he could be asked to take on the thankless task for the good of the people of Pakistan. If not Raja Nadir Pervaiz, then he serves as a role model and someone very much like him has to be chosen.
Complacency and inaction on the part of any administration are the greatest allies that the forces of anarchy can have. The cost of economic apocalypses may be too horrendous to contemplate but indecision will take us there sooner rather than later. Sincerity in purpose is the perfect anti-dote for the doubts created by a sorry history. In financial terms one can compare the annual budget of the proposed force to be much less than the cost of economic stoppage in Karachi for even one day or even the material damage during that period. The human cost is something else again and when you add the mass psychology of fear compounding the general public it leads us logically to one conclusion, the early formation of a MIDDLE FORCE called the FEDERAL GUARDS.
Or any other name, whatever you may call it, just do it!
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