Friday, January 16, 2015
Obama promises to help France
Civil society rallies to ‘reclaim’ Pakistan
ISLAMABAD: One month on from a Taliban school massacre in Peshawar that left 150 dead, a new movement is growing among marginalised urban liberals rallying to “Reclaim Pakistan” from violent extremism.
Carrying placards and candles, their stand against religious fanaticism is an unusual sight in a country more used to mass demonstrations by extremist groups filled with chants against the West or India.
Muhammad Jibran Nasir, a 27-year-old lawyer who has played a key role in organising demonstrations, said he and others felt they could no longer stand by following the brutal killings of schoolchildren in the country’s northwest on December 16.
“I never felt so overwhelmed. I felt pathetic as a human being, as a Muslim, as a Pakistani. I felt very, very small,” he said.
While Pakistan’s military has been engaged in heavy offensives in the country’s tribal areas, progressive critics believe the state — including both the army and political parties — must do more to tackle those Islamist groups that have traditionally received official backing.
In an effort to highlight the discrepancy, Nasir, who happened to be visiting Islamabad at the time of the Peshawar assault, led like-minded activists to protest outside the radical Red Mosque, whose imam is known for his pro-Taliban views and who has refused to condemn the attack on the school.
Maulana Abdul Aziz led an armed insurrection against the military in 2007, but was acquitted of all charges against him by 2013 in a case which analysts say highlights weaknesses in Pakistan’s judicial system and sympathies for militants among parts of the security establishment.
The “Reclaim” movement’s first small victory was the re-opening of an investigation against Aziz, said Nasir.
“There’s an arrest warrant out, police say they are doing their own investigation,” he told AFP, adding he was hopeful that more pressure could result in firm action.
He now says he has been threatened not just by Aziz but by the Jamaat-ul-Ahrar faction of the Pakistani Taliban over the phone. But, as someone who considers himself an observant Muslim, he felt he could no longer see his faith hijacked.
AUDIO: Lal Masjid protesters receive threats from Taliban
“I’ve got some views on my religion, I read on it, I research on it to an extent. I can’t seem to reconcile the preachings of my Imam and the teachings of the Holy Quran,” he says.
The movement has spread over social media, particularly Facebook, with like-minded groups in the major cities of Lahore and Karachi coordinating their protests and condemning local militant groups that operate in those areas.
Analysts believe some militant groups receive backing from the state because they can be used as assets by Pakistan to exert influence in India and Afghanistan — a strategy which progressives are keen to see ended.
“We are basically people who are concerned for our own humanity. If we do not take some kind of stance we may very well stay alive but we lose our own humanity by being lazy. It makes us complicit,” said 36-year-old Taimur Khan, an entrepreneur who is part of the Reclaim movement in Islamabad.
Progressives remain a relatively small minority, confined to the educated upper and middle-classes — a fact bemoaned by Nasir.
He contrasted the crowds of hundreds at Reclaim rallies with the estimated 1.6 million Parisians who took to the streets to condemn the deadly attack on the offices of satirical magazine Charlie Hebdo.
“Pakistan is desensitised. But in Paris, millions came out. That has made those 12 lives the centre of attention for the entire world,” he said.
“We have lost 55,000 people to terrorism but we struggle to justify our case to the world that we are doing enough to curb terrorism.”
But he also sees hope for a broader coalition involving the working class. On January 16, exactly one month after the attack, the Reclaim movement held its biggest events to date across Pakistan’s major cities.
The few thousand people who turned out included female polio workers who have come under attack by the Taliban, relatives of fallen soldiers, and the father and child of a female Christian bonded labourer who was burnt to death for allegedly committing blasphemy along with her mother.
In Islamabad, protesters laid out symbolic coffins carrying the names of each of the children who died in Peshawar.
Sundas Hoorain, a 29-year-old lawyer from Lahore, said the event could prove a turning point.
“More and more people are joining in because they agree with us. The narrative now resonates beyond the elites… People are saying ‘When you attack children, that’s it’,” she said.
Where kids are scared to go to school
PM discretionary fund: Meeting to ponder ways to sidestep SC ruling
Cabinet division has called a meeting of four chief secretaries on January 21 to devise a mechanism of issuing Rs20 million to all members of the National Assembly (MNAs) as prime minister’s discretionary fund for undertaking development schemes in their constituency, The Express Tribune has learnt on Friday.
PM Nawaz on January 14 not only approved the idea of awarding Rs20 million to each MNA from the allocated funds of Rs12.5 billion in the federal Public Sector Development Programme (PSDP) for financial year 2014-2015 but also formed a steering committee to monitor and execute this process on a priority basis.
According to sources in the Cabinet division, secretary Cabinet Babar Yaqoob Fateh has called a meeting of chief secretaries of the four provinces, chief executive officers (CEOs) of all DISCOs (distribution companies), heads of oil and gas companies, members of steering committee and others to work out a procedure for distributing the discretionary fund.
After the December 21 meeting, the sources stated, the steering committee – comprising MNA Muhammad Safder, Chaudhry Saud Majeed and Sheikh Aftab – would ask each MNA to submit lists of development schemes about their constituencies worth Rs20 million to district administrations.
Chief executive officers of all DISCOs would be asked to update the committee on their available resources and how they could help meet the immediate requirements in lawmakers’ constituencies such as electric polls, grid stations and upgrades on existing infrastructure. Sources said oil and gas companies would similarly be asked to facilitate MNAs by, for instance, providing new connections and expanding pipelines.
The sources went on to say that the participants will devise mechanism for use of funds in such a way as to not run afoul with the Supreme Court (SC) ruling. The SC on December 5, 2013 had put a ban on the discretionary funds and stopped Peoples Works Programme (PWPII).
PTI and K-P
Out of 33 MNAs of Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI) in the National Assembly, it has 26 lawmakers on general seats. Of these 26 MNAs, seven are from Punjab and one from Karachi.
The sources said that the federal government has decided to start development schemes in those 26 constituencies but authorities concerned would not entertain PTI MNAs demands.
They said that the federal government would instead ask allies, other political parties, candidates and influentials in those 26 constituencies to submit lists of required schemes in DCO office.
The sources maintained that at the Cabinet secretary meeting, K-P chief secretary will be persuaded to support the government’s plan of execution of the funds for MNAs in his province.
The federal government does not have any issue in execution of the PM’s funds for MNAs in the rest of three provinces Sindh, Balochistan and Punjab, the sources added.
Published in The Express Tribune, January 17th, 2015.
Annual inspection 2014: NAB Karachi handles record number of complaints
KARACHI: The National Accountability Bureau (NAB) Chairman Qamar Zaman Chaudhry said that NAB Karachi is one of the important Regional Bureaus of NAB.
During a briefing at the Karachi office, the chairman was informed that NAB Karachi disposed of 3,589 complaints during the year 2014. The number of complaints disposed of in 2014 was higher than the number of complaints disposed of in 2013 or any of the previous years.
He was in Karachi for the annual inspection conducted by the NAB Chairman’s Inspection & Monitoring Team (CI&MT) for the year 2014.
The CI&MT informed the chairman that in 2014, NAB Karachi disposed of 327 complaints verifications, completed 71 of the total 347 authorised inquiries and finished 33 of the 101 authorised investigations.
NAB Karachi has recovered a total Rs1.432 billion through voluntary return, plea bargain and indirect recoveries and arrested 70 accused persons during 2014. NAB Karachi has recovered Rs12.5 billion since its inception.
The Chairman NAB appreciated the performance of NAB Regional Bureau, Karachi and directed all ranks of officers of NAB Karachi to work more vigilantly and diligently in order to curb corruption and corrupt practices from the country.
The CI&MT was deputed to conduct annual inspection of NAB Karachi Bureau from January 14 to January 16, 2015 in order to review and evaluate the performance on the basis of a quantified grading system.
Senior member CI&MT in his briefing had informed the chairman about the inspection done and highlighted the strengths and weaknesses of NAB Karachi Bureau.
Published in The Express Tribune, January 17th, 2015.
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4 dead, 45 injured in Niger as protests over Charlie Hebdo rage from Asia to Africa
NIAMEY / AMMAN: Four people were killed and 45 injured in Niger’s second city of Zinder as protests against French satirical magazine Charlie Hebdo’s publication of sacrilegious cartoons spread through Asia, Middle East and Africa.
Interior Minister Massaoudou Hassoumi said a policeman and three civilians died in the demonstrations, in which the French cultural centre and three churches were burned down. Twenty-two members of the security forces and 23 protesters were also hurt, national radio reported.
Protesters smashed through the entrance door of the French cultural centre and set fire to its cafeteria, library and offices, while three churches were also torched.
“We’ve never seen that in living memory in Zinder,” an administration official said. “It’s a black Friday.”
Protests in Asia, Middle East, Africa against Charlie Hebdo
Thousands demonstrated in the Middle East Friday and clashes broke out in Pakistan after Charlie Hebdo published another sacrilegious cartoon.
In Karachi, Pakistan, at least three people were injured when protesters clashed with police outside the French consulate, officials said.
Among them was an AFP photographer, who was shot in the back.
Protests also broke out in Dakar and Mauritania where French flags were torched. Qatar and Bahrain warned that the cartoon published Wednesday by the French satirical weekly could fuel further hatred.
In Amman, around 2,500 protesters set off from Al-Husseini mosque under tight security, holding banners that read “insulting the Prophet (pbuh) is global terrorism.”
In Algiers, 2,000-3,000 people marched with some shouting their support for the Kouachi brothers who had carried out the Charlie Hebdo massacre.
Around 100 protesters also rallied in Istanbul in response to a call by a group calling itself the Fraternal Platform of the Prophet’s (pbuh) Companions, with some holding pictures of the Kouachis.
The latest issue of Charlie Hebdo features a cartoon of Prophet Muhammed (pbuh) on its cover holding a “Je Suis Charlie” (I am Charlie) sign under the headline “All is forgiven.”
It was the first edition since Cherif and Said Kouachi gunned down 12 people in an attack on the magazine’s Paris offices on January 7 over such cartoons.
The image has angered many Muslims as depictions of Prophet (pbuh) are widely considered forbidden in Islam.
Algerian protesters chanted: “Kouachi martyrs” or “I am Kouachi” as the demonstration wound its way to the National Assembly, and some clashed with riot police deployed around the building.
AFP photographer Asif Hassan, a policeman and a local TV cameraman were injured in Karachi when clashes also broke out between police and protesters.
A police official said the violence began when police prevented some 350 protesters from approaching the French consulate, in the sprawling metropolis.
Elsewhere in Pakistan, protesters in Peshawar and Multan burnt French flags on the streets, while rallies were held Islamabad and Lahore.
A French flag was also set on fire outside the embassy in the Senegalese capital, Dakar, where 1,000 protesters rallied, denouncing Charlie Hebdo.
“To hell with you Charlie,” said one message scrawled on a banner.
In Nouakchott, thousands marched chanting “I am Muslim” with some setting on fire a French flag after security forces prevented them from reaching the French embassy, witnesses said.
Mauritanian President Mohamed Ould Abdel Aziz addressed the marchers, condemning the controversial cartoon as “an attack on our religion and on all religions”.
In Jerusalem’s flashpoint Al-Aqsa mosque compound, hundreds of Palestinians demonstrated quietly, some with banners reading “Islam is a religion of peace!”
In Khartoum, hundreds poured out of the Grand Mosque and marched across the adjacent square, chanting “Expel the French ambassador.”
One banner said: “The French government should apologise and the French government must stop insults to religious figures.”
In Lebanon’s flashpoint city of Tripoli, 70 people marched with banners bearing the name of the Prophet Muhammad (pbuh) and chanting “Allahu Akbar” (God is greatest).
In Baddawi, on the outskirts of the city, prayer leader Sheikh Mohammed Ibrahimi addressed hundreds of worshippers saying: “May God punish this newspaper and those who back it”.
In Tunis, worshippers at El-Fath mosque walked out as prayer leader Noureddine Khadmi said: “We are all against insults made against our prophet but it is not a reason to kill.”
Some of them shouted out that Charlie Hebdo journalists “deserved to be killed.”
A protest in Tehran was cancelled, with no official reason given, as senior Iranian cleric Ayatollah Ali Movahedi Kermani told worshippers the cartoon’s publication amounted to “savagery.”
Muslim governments also joined the chorus of condemnation of the cartoon.
Qatar branded as “offensive” the drawing, which was reprinted by several European papers in a show of solidarity with the victims of last week’s attack.
“These disgraceful actions are in the interest of nobody and will only fuel hatred and anger,” the foreign ministry warned.
Bahrain’s foreign ministry echoed that, saying publication of such cartoons “will create fertile ground for the spread of hatred and terrorism.”
Charlie Hebdo’s latest cartoon is “disgraceful” and no more than attempt to provoke Muslims and mock their beliefs, it said.
Both Qatar and Bahrain had sent representatives to a massive march in Paris last Sunday in support of free speech, alongside French President Francois Hollande and many other world leaders, including Muslims.
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PPFL: NBP defeat KRL 1-0
NBP defeated last year’s champions KRL 1-0 in the Pakistan Premier Football league (PFFL) at Korangi Baloch Stadium yesterday.
KRL carried on with their lack-lustre performance in the tournament while Misbahul Hassan scored the winner for NBP in the 36th minute of the match.
Teenager Munir Ahmed was declared the player of the match for his performance in the midfield for NBP.
With the win, NBP replaced KRL on the sixth place. They have 30 points after playing 21 matches.
Meanwhile, KRL slumped on the seventh place after the match.
KRL will wrap up the season with a match against K-Electric on January 21, while NBP also have one more match to play.
In today’s fixture, Army, who are fighting for the second place in the league, will play KPT at Korangi Baloch Stadium.
Published in The Express Tribune, January 17th, 2015.
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AFCON 2015 kicks off today
BATA: The 2015 Africa Cup of Nations (Afcon) hosts Equatorial Guinea will be pressed to get off to a winning start when they face Congo Brazzaville in the tournament’s opening game in Group A today.
The curtain-raiser to the competition in the country’s largest city, Bata, will be followed later on in the day by a meeting of the group’s other two sides, Burkina Faso and Gabon, who clash again after battling it out in qualifying.
Equatorial Guinea rescued this year’s tournament by agreeing to act as hosts after the late withdrawal of Morocco due to Ebola fears, and their fans will now expect Nzalang Nacional to match the exploits of three years ago, when they beat all the odds to reach the last eight of the same competition on home soil.
“We want to surprise a few people. We will take things one game at a time and try to do well for the people of the country who are all behind us,” said Guinea coach Esteban Becker.
Published in The Express Tribune, January 17th, 2015.
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Lahore Zoo’s lion cub
We all know about the lions of Punjab and some of us must have read the most amazing book by George Schaller, The Serengeti Lion. However, I recently had the privilege of meeting a real one, thanks to the Lahore Zoo Director, Mr Naeem Bhatti. The zoo currently houses six lionesses and two lions. The star though is a beautiful, playful, lightly-spotted three-month-old female cub, who was born to Tony and Kajal, her parents. I had the honour of going inside her enclosure, when her mother was in a different enclosure. This cub was so playful, I sat on the log inside the enclosure and she jumped on me and started peeping at the visitors by hiding behind my back, just like a baby playing peek-a-boo. As I walked away, she grabbed my foot with her heavy paws.
She treated me as one of her kind. I felt like a member of her pride, where the playful cubs pounce on adult lions and gently bite them with their tiny canines. She was naughty and her eyes beamed with a mischievous glint. The zoo’s veterinarians, Dr Babar Saleem and Dr Samuel Shahzad, told me that she also had a twin brother and both these cubs once had rickets — a bone disease. She recovered from the treatment while the brother could not make it through alive. It is both impressive and encouraging that one of the cubs regained health and shows that we do have good, dedicated veterinarians in Pakistan.
Working with animals is not possible without passion. Rickets has been a recurring problem at the zoo and it is critical to address the underlying problems to avoid suffering of animals and losses to the progeny. This is critical to the sustainability of captive animal stocks. Rickets develops because of lack of vitamin D, which is harnessed through freely available sunlight. A lack of vitamin D impairs the absorption of calcium and phosphorus and thus causes deformity of bones and weakening of muscles. Rickets is also seen in human babies. Believe me, human and animal needs are physiologically and psychologically the same! I checked with Dr Arshad Toosy, who is currently Manager Veterinary Operations at Al Ain Zoo in the UAE and also a former director at the Lahore Zoo for his expert opinion and he said, “Rickets should be considered to be a disease caused by dietary and husbandry mismanagement. Lack of full-spectrum lighting, especially unfiltered sunlight, aggravates the problem in young animals. Correcting the diet and husbandry practices are essential to prevent this disease from occurring in future.”
As a practice, pregnant female animals are separated from others at the last stages of pregnancy at zoos. This is generally done to ensure safety and any agonistic behaviour from cage mates. In the wild, cubs are hidden in dense bushes and occasionally join the pride. Lionesses are also known to nurse one another’s cubs. The only danger is from a male who could be planning to take over a pride. We tend to be so cautious at our zoos that we separate the female and the cubs completely.
Separation dens at the zoos get absolutely no sunlight and when the cubs are born they remain in the den under close observation. This could be the foremost reason for rickets in zoo-bred cats. The solution is simple: expose the pregnant female and cubs to the sun. I was thinking of the African savanna, the vast landscape with sun and scattered trees to get some cool shade and tall grass to hide. This is also true for us humans, we don’t get enough sun, we are confined to indoor lifestyles, which is unhealthy. The Lahore Zoo, despite its own set of problems, is undoubtedly the best zoo in Pakistan and anyone who visits it would always have a memorable experience.
Published in The Express Tribune, January 17th, 2015.
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Are military courts the best way to fight terror?
Pakistan’s Prime Minister, Nawaz Sharif, claims to have a silver bullet to rid the country of terrorism: military courts. On January 7, a constitutional amendment permitting military courts to prosecute terrorism suspects was signed into law. The amendment justifies the use of military courts as a means “to permanently wipe out and eradicate terrorists from Pakistan”. Nawaz Sharif’s hyperbole has been no less extravagant, describing military courts as the antidote to “overcome 60 years of unrest”. Although the constitutional amendment stipulates a two-year time limit on their use, it poses a long-term threat to legal due process and rule of law.
Military courts are just one part of a wider National Action Plan against terrorism that the government has rolled out in response to the December 16 attack by the Tehreek-e-Taliban Pakistan on the Army Public School in Peshawar. Other measures include prohibitions on funding of alleged terrorist organisations and legal penalties for hate speech. The military courts, which will begin operations on January 21, will likely be kept busy. The government says it will use them to prosecute as many as 3,400 “jet black” terror suspects; it is yet to give a precise definition for ‘jet black’. Many of these suspects could join the approximately 500 death row prisoners that the government has announced it will execute in the coming weeks since Nawaz Sharif rescinded a four-year moratorium on capital punishment.
The authorities have sought to justify military courts as necessary for the “speedy trial” of terrorist suspects and to circumvent perceived “loopholes” of the civilian justice system. Such criticism is not without basis. Pakistan’s civilian courts have a well-earned reputation for prosecutions undermined by both corruption and a glacially paced judicial process. The Nation lamented in October 2013 that “bribery and blackmail are normal routine matters for lawyers as well as clients, and very little is done to counter such decay”. Nawaz Sharif has pledged that military courts will ensure quick results: on January 8, he told reporters that terrorism suspects convicted by military courts will be hanged within “10-15 days” of sentencing.
But the prime minister’s pursuit of high-speed ‘justice’ for alleged terrorists comes at an unacceptable price. The Human Rights Commission of Pakistan (HRCP) has cautioned that military courts will have a long-term corrosive impact on Pakistan’s struggle to create an “independent and strong judicial system”. The HRCP said that the government’s approval of military courts “undermines” the civilian judiciary and will embody the same pathologies that hobble civilian courts. Former Supreme Court chief justice Iftikhar Mohammad Chaudhry has also criticised the prospect of military courts for civilians as the basic structure of the constitution guarantees that “military courts cannot be established in the presence of an independent judiciary”.
This move will also run counter to some of Pakistan’s international human rights obligations. As a party to the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights, Pakistan is obligated to uphold and take measures to ensure basic fair trial rights. Governments may not use military courts to try civilians when the regular courts are functioning. The United Nations Human Rights Committee has stated that “the trial of civilians in military or special courts may raise serious problems as far as the equitable, impartial and independent administration of justice is concerned”.
Nawaz Sharif’s enthusiasm for military courts to prosecute civilians also flies in the face of successful legal challenges to past efforts by the government to carry out such trials. The prime minister himself should know this. The Supreme Court in February 1999 declared unconstitutional the military courts Nawaz Sharif created during his 1997-99 government to address a surge of ethnic, sectarian and political conflicts in Karachi. The Supreme Court based its ruling on its assessment that military courts for civilians violate the guaranteed rights to a fair trial and that they are “[a] parallel system for all intents and purposes which is wholly contrary to the known existing judicial system having been set up under the Constitution”.
Nawaz Sharif has scoffed at concerns about military courts. On January 8, he said during a visit to Bahrain that “I don’t think people who slaughter others deserve any sympathy”. But ensuring that everyone’s rights are protected is not about sympathy, but about the rule of law. The HRCP has expressed concerns that military courts could enable the government to pursue political witch hunts.
Pakistanis have a right to be sceptical of the willingness and capacity of the authorities to pursue insurgents linked to atrocities such as the Peshawar school attack. After all, the government has for years failed to apprehend or prosecute members of the Laskhar-e-Jhangvi, which has claimed responsibility for attacks on Hazaras. Those attacks have killed more than 500 Hazaras since 2008 in Balochistan alone. While authorities claim to have arrested dozens of suspects linked to such attacks, only a handful have been charged with any crimes. The authorities in Balochistan have done little to investigate attacks on Hazaras or take steps to prevent the next such attack.
Instead of undermining the judiciary through the illusory quick fix of military trials for terrorism suspects, the government should instead seek to boost the capacity of both the police and the judiciary against such threats. It needs to realise now that any misuse of military courts can lead to human rights violations. What we need is a rights-respecting response to militant atrocities. A commitment to uphold the rule of law and to strengthen the civilian judiciary would be a far more powerful weapon against militant atrocities.
Published in The Express Tribune, January 17th, 2015.
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Beyond ‘defining moments’
Announcing the 20-point ‘plan of action’ approved at a marathon APC session in the aftermath of the Peshawar tragedy, Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif described it as a “defining moment” in the fight against terrorism. One could see on his face the same “sense of relief” that one saw on the late Zulfikar Ali Bhutto’s face on March 26, 1971 when on his return from East Pakistan where military action had started a day earlier, he told the media, “By the grace of God, Pakistan has at last been saved.” Those of us who were witness to that moment cannot but hear the sounds of awry alarm bells with every new ‘defining moment’ in our wretched history.
Nations do have defining moments. We have had too many of them. The first in our history was the one that perhaps, most people wouldn’t even know or remember. It was on that fateful day of September 11, 1948 when the Father of the Nation, Quaid-e-Azam Mohammad Ali Jinnah, spent the last hours of his life lying helplessly in an ill-fated ambulance, which broke down due to ‘engine trouble’ at a lonely stretch of the road while bringing him from the Mauripur Air Force Base to Karachi. In her book, My Brother, Fatima Jinnah recalled those agonising moments: “We stood there immobilised … We waited for over one hour, and no hour, in my life has been so long and full of anguish.”
Pakistan’s founder breathed his last in those pathetically agonising moments. Does this painful recollection give us any food for thought or lead us to a feeling of any regret or remorse? The answer lies in the contempt we have been showing to the ideals of democracy, pluralism, social justice and rule of law that our Quaid had envisioned for a dynamic, progressive, moderate and democratic Islamic Pakistan. The passage by the Constituent Assembly of the Objectives Resolution on March 12, 1949 was itself no less than a ‘defining moment’ in our history. But we chose to follow a different path. Intolerance and fanaticism led us to violence with no parallel anywhere in the world.
Within the first year of our independence that happened to be the last of his life, the Quaid had presciently foreseen the coming events. He was disillusioned with the scarcity of calibre and character in the country’s elitist feudal and tribal political hierarchy, which was to manage the newly-independent Pakistan. The Quaid’s worries were not unwarranted. After Liaquat Ali Khan’s assassination in 1951, political ineptitude loomed large on the country’s horizon. A governmental decision in 1952 of making Urdu the sole national language was also a ‘defining moment’. It became the nation’s first bete noire.
In 1954, we had our history’s first, albeit civilian coup d’etat. In his viceregal tradition, former governor general Ghulam Muhammad dissolved Pakistan’s first Constituent Assembly, a step later upheld by the then Supreme Court as valid. This, too, was a ‘defining moment’ and the beginning of our ‘democratic’ disorder. It took our politicians nine years to frame our first constitution in 1956, which was abrogated in less than three years. Since then, we have had two constitutions, one promulgated by a field marshal president in 1962, and the other adopted in 1973 by an ‘elected’ group of people, who had no mandate to do so. They were, in fact, responsible for the country’s break-up.
The reasons that precipitated the 1971 tragedy remain unaddressed in the 1973 Constitution, which was adopted under pressures emanating in the aftermath of the break-up tragedy rather than on the merits of the document itself. No government has ever attempted to correct the systemic anachronisms in our federal structure or to redress provincial grievances. Meanwhile, defining moments kept happening one after another in our chequered history. Bhutto’s rule itself was a defining moment. He had the opportunity to recreate the Quaid’s Pakistan. But he chose to become a ‘Quaid’ himself. Besides, seeking to make Pakistan a one-party state, Bhutto pursued a populist agenda, nationalising the country’s banks, schools, colleges and major industries. The nation is still paying the cost of his socialist perversity. Bhutto held early elections to become more powerful but with its controversial results, he soon found himself out of power. General Ziaul Haq’s military takeover in July 1977 was another painful ‘defining moment’ in our history, with its ghosts still haunting our benighted land. In October 1999, General Pervez Musharraf’s military takeover represented our next critical ‘defining moment’.
In the blink of an eye, we dragged into our tribal areas a war that did not belong to us.
The US has wrapped up its war in Afghanistan but we are still fighting a war without realising that terrorism is a disease that will not end with military operations alone. It has to be treated through socioeconomic policies and good governance. No wonder the Peshawar tragedy came as a thunderbolt for the government. This was a wake-up call. An exceptional challenge warranted an exceptional response. Instead of proclaiming a selective emergency as provided in the Constitution’s Article 232, the government opted for a cosmetic, extra-constitutional remedy. It convened an APC to approve a 20-point plan of action. Parliament stood bypassed. It was used only for rubberstamping the plan, which is nothing but an annotated list of normal governmental functions that successive governments had failed to perform. The 21st Amendment is recognition of cumulative governance failures. Even if military courts become functional, what about the remaining 19 points? Who will implement them? If angels do not descend to do that, will the armed forces be requested to undertake that responsibility as well? Will the government even remain relevant anymore?
Ostensibly, there seems to be total strategic bankruptcy in our political cadres. But what if their ‘plan of action’ is itself part of a plan to overstretch the armed forces through excessive use of Article 245 in order to exhaust and weaken them as their sole nemesis, which over the decades has emerged as the only cohesive force in the country? Politicians have already reduced the judiciary and legislature into non-consequential entities and made the police and bureaucracy subservient to their own vested interests rather than the public good. How they led the armed forces into the 1971 debacle is known history. Instead of repeating it, let the armed forces remain the armed forces so that they can defend the country against external and internal threats. Perhaps, it’s time we looked beyond ‘defining moments’.
Published in The Express Tribune, January 17th, 2015.
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Record-breaking 2014 was hottest in modern history
MIAMI: Record-breaking temperatures scorched the planet last year, making 2014 the hottest in more than a century and raising new concerns about global warming, US government scientists said Friday.
The much-anticipated report by scientists at the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) was confirmed by an independent analysis from the US space agency NASA that reached the same conclusion.
“Record warmth was spread around the world,” said the NOAA report.
“The globally averaged temperature over land and ocean surfaces for 2014 was the highest among all years since record keeping began in 1880.”
For the year, the average temperature was 0.69 Celsius above the 20th century average, beating the previous record-holding years of 2005 and 2010 by 0.04 C.
Parts of the world that saw record heat included Russia, western Alaska, the western United States, parts of interior South America, parts of eastern and western coastal Australia, north Africa and most of Europe.
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Record cold for the year was apparent only in some parts of the eastern and central United States.
When land and sea surfaces were analysed separately, they each broke records.
Globally averaged sea surface temperature was the highest ever, at 0.57 C above the 20th century average.
Land surface temperature was 1.00°C above the 20th century average, marking the fourth highest in history.
When it came to snowfall, NOAA found that average annual snow in the northern hemisphere was 24.95 million square miles, “near the middle of the historical record.”
The first half of 2014 saw less snow than normal, but the second half saw more than average.
Polar sea ice continued to decline in the Arctic, depriving polar bears of habitat and driving global warming changes that are felt in distant corners of the world.
The average annual sea ice extent in the Arctic was 10.99 million square miles, the sixth smallest in the 36 years that experts have on record.
Meanwhile, sea ice in the Antarctic reached record highs for the second year in a row, at 13.08 million square miles, NOAA said.
December also broke records, with the highest combined land and ocean average surface temperature for any December in modern history.
The month’s average temperature was 0.77 C above the 20th century average.
“This was the highest for December in the 1880-2014 record, surpassing the previous record of 2006 by 0.02 C,” NOAA said.