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Reinforcing Success
Hardly 40 days or so after the Oct 8 earthquake that devastated parts of NWFP and most of AK, pledges of US$ 5.8 billion have been made for the rehabilitation of the affectees, about US$ 600 million more than the estimated amount of US$ 5.198 billion. Nearly US$ 1 billion more is certainly in the pipeline. Nobody should discount the generosity of the world. The International Donor’s Conference on Nov 19 was an outstanding success, the government deserves kudos for having professionally organized the campaign to obtain the necessary funds. Fully US$ 1.8 billion was pledged in outright grants by generous friends led by the US, Saudi Arabia, China etc, the rest was mostly concessional credit on easy terms. Some outstanding debts were also written off. Some muslim countries came to our help despite their own liquidity problems, Turkey stands out. Some extremely affluent muslim countries were a disappointment, par for the course. The richer they are, the more unfeeling they can get.
One Small Step For Kashmir
And possibly one giant step for South Asia?
Disaster Time
Last Saturday catastrophe came to Pakistan, the country was not prepared for it! Calamities always come as an unpleasant surprise. At 8.55 am on Saturday Oct 8, 2005 the region from Kabul in the west to New Delhi in the east was severely rocked. Cities as far away as Dhaka felt some tremors, the shocks went on uptil 9:05 am. Epicentered 95 kms northeast of Islamabad, the most powerful earthquake to hit this region in a 100 years was recorded at 7.6 on the Richter Scale, the main focus of death and destruction targetting northern Pakistan in a wide swath from Peshawar to Azad Kashmir. Media attention riveted the first morning on rescue efforts directed at the two collapsed blocks of “Margalla Towers” in Islamabad’s posh F-10 sector, diverting attention from the massive human and material devastation in Azad Kashmir, Kaghan and Kohistan valleys till hours later. With electricity and telephones lines down reports about a greater disaster in the mountains came in patches, e.g. 30% houses collapsed in Mansehra, 60% in Muzaffarabad, 80% in Rawalakot and Balakot etc, entire villages perched on the hillsides disappearing in mudslides. In the next 24 hours 40 aftershocks (of which only 17-18 were perceptible) added to the panic.
The Bitter Economic Pill
For those who are starving, are without adequate shelter or potable water, living in absolute poverty and in unhygienic filthy conditions without necessary medical care, etc “trickle-down” economics has as much meaning as gibberish. Regretfully unpalatable measures taken to resuscitate the economy adds to the miseries of the poor and downtrodden. Sacrifices being necessary to make things economically better, the underprivileged are the only ones who have to do all the sacrificing they are the only one swallowing a bitter economic pill. “Efficiency” means reducing overheads, during “downsizing” jobs are lost. There is a time lag before a revitalized economy creates job opportunities again. The middle class gets on the gravy train gradually, in direct proportion many more are beggared in the process. This is the time-tested route to economic emancipation, unless off course we have a major strike of oil and/or gas, etc. Even then endemic corruption can take the stash away to Zurich or some other money-haven, look at the state of many of the former East European countries, Russia included. The government’s responsibility is to maximize the number of people benefiting from the new economic opportunities, while minimizing the number suffering from rising prices attempt to keep the gap between the rich and the poor close. The poor have to be cushioned against the hard times they have to endure to make the economy dynamic.
Contradiction and Confrontation
When the Muttahida Majlis-i-Amal (MMA) came together as an electoral entity, the ideological differences separating the six parties forming the alliance made it a practical incongruity. Skeptical as one was at seeing Islam’s warring sects rent apart by years of mistrust uniting under one banner, this could only be possible because of genuine compromise. That fact alone was enough to lull us into believing that MMA’s conduct, whether in governance or in parliamentary opposition, would mean consensus and tolerance would be prime motivating factors in keeping them in line with democratic norms. From time to time MMA did show some signs of intractability, but for most of the six months or so theirs was stable governance. The Mullahs have now discarded their cloak of tolerance, dashing any hopes that they would remain democratic and liberal in the tried and true spirit of Islam at its birth, and not act arbitrarily and convoluted according to their own narrow interpretation of religion. Having seen the Talibaan regime across the border come to grief because of their excesses in enforcing their brand of Islam in Afghanistan, one had hoped (vainly it seems) that the MMA would have learnt some lessons and been more discreet and circumspect.
Roadmap to Peace?
Agra 2001 was one of the periodic highpoints of the India-Pakistan relationship, a similar climax of expectations was Vajpayee’s Lahore bus trip in 1999. The Indians had reason to feel aggrieved because of Kargil, when they received President Pervez Musharraf with open arms in New Delhi two years later that became a moot point. Or was their welcome feigned? There was expectation and excitement in the air in Agra that morning when the agreed draft was initialled, the gloom came later when it did not see the light of day, signalling a massive relationship slide. After 9/11 the world’s catchword was “terrorism”, the Indians soon realized that Pakistan’s stupidity in supporting the Taliban regime beyond a fail-safe point was being glossed over because of Pakistan’s primarily role as a US ally in the war against terrorism. The Indians hurriedly re-drew their gameplan to emasculate Pakistan, the raison d’etre the still unexplained attack on India’s Parliament. At the end of Dec 2001 the entire Indian Armed Forces (including the formations withdrawn from facing China and Bangladesh) was stationed en bloc in an offensive posture along Pakistan’s eastern border and along the LOC in Kashmir, subsequently the Indian High Commissioner was recalled permanently and in reciprocation his Pakistani counterpart was asked to leave. There was a further low-point, the Pakistan Deputy High Commissioner was expelled because of concocted and childish allegations, subsequently proven patently false by Indian courts.
Keep Your Powder Dry
At a special ceremony held at Khan Research Laboratories (KRL) on Wednesday January 8, 2002 the indigenously developed 1300 km range Intermediate Range Ballistic Missile (IRBM) GHAURI was formally handed over to the President, Gen Pervez Musharraf accepting the induction into the “Strategic Forces Command” on behalf of the Pakistan Army. With this the teeth-to-tail structure of Pakistan as a nuclear power is now complete, i.e. from development of nuclear weapons and delivery systems to the operational commissioning thereof as an integral part of our defence mechanism under the umbrella of the Nuclear Command Authority (NCA). That our scientists, engineers and workers achieved both uranium enrichment and missile development indigenously should be a matter of great pride and satisfaction to all Pakistanis. This force upgradation in non-conventional weapons will take the pressure off our outnumbered (in comparison numerically to our arch-enemy India) Armed Forces.
Without Bloodying Swords
Using the pretext of the Dec 13, 2001 attack on the Indian Parliament, India started moving the bulk of its Armed Forces within a fortnight thereafter to forward locations bordering Pakistan. Whatever part of its vast navy was in sea-worthy condition, our neighbour put out to sea in a posture menacing Pakistan’s coastline and sea-lanes. The Indian primary aim was far more camouflaged and far-reaching i.e. destroy Pakistan as a responsible, sovereign entity in the comity of nations, the rhetoric emanating from both Indian political and military leadership were in unison about the stated public objective, Pakistan would have to stop “cross-border terrorism” or India would take military action to force Pakistan to do so. To back up its threat, India arraigned its land and air forces in an attack mode all along Pakistan’s eastern borders. The moot point was whether India would confine adventure only across the Line of Control (LOC) in Kashmir only or whether it would launch an all-out war across the international border.
The Perils of Democracy
After three years of life in the cold, the heat generated by politicians in the National Assembly was to be expected, this surpassed our apprehensions. Even with the compulsion of a graduation degree, unadulterated democracy does not seem suited to most countries of the third world. Every individual is entitled to express one’s views without inhibition, that being the essence of democracy, the loudest advocates thereof tend to drown out others from using the same prerogative. The term “parliamentary language” is certainly not synonymous with what is mostly used in the August House. While unbridled rhetoric remains the hallmark of our freedom of expression, one can only hope that time will bring discretion into the tone and tenor of the elected representatives, who by their present conduct and demeanor seem to represent anything but the aspirations of anybody but the people of their electorate.
Mixed Trend
According to a pre-polls survey conducted by Research & Collection Services (RCS) on behalf of THE NATION, despite winning 18-20% of the nationwide vote, the alliance of religious parties Muttahida Majlis-e-Amal (MMA), was not translating this vote bank into seats. This wrong surmise was the only real casualty of the survey with respect to NWFP, MMA confounded skeptics in the Province by sweeping the polls, and doing far better in Balochistan than expected. The alliance was far more potent electorally in these two Provinces than in Punjab and Sindh. Not to say that they did not cause a couple of upsets in Sindh, particularly in Karachi where, despite controlling the Local Bodies in an election boycotted by the MQM, they were not expected to create any dents in the MQM vote bank. Other than their traditional strongholds in the mountains the MMA swept aside the liberal ANP and the PPP-P in their Peshawar valley fiefdom. The local alliance between ANP and PPP-P proved fatal for the two political parties. Only Aftab Sherpao’s faction of PPP survived this onslaught, and that only because of seat adjustment with MMA.
The MMA emergence is a great blessing in disguise for Pakistan. For the first time since 1947, the Shia-Sunni divide has been bridged, they voted for the same cause. And Iran’s model gives us hope, to stay the pace of the modern world, the Mullahs had to come into line, including the treating of women as equal to men. Things went more or less as predicted in the rest of the country, except that in Lahore, PML (Q) was routed because of the clean seat adjustments between PPP-P, PML (N) and MMA. Electorally the results in Balochistan remained as mixed as usual. The MQM lost ground very slightly in Karachi and Hyderabad but was compensated by the almost 30% increase in urban seats. By the time this goes into print, the final results will be in but these are hardly likely to be so dramatic as to change the political kaleidoscope predicted by the THE NATION’s pre-polls.