Kerry-Lugar Bill: The cat out of the bag

President Zardari's been called a whole lot of things. Manipulative. Conniving. Corrupt. Devious. Shrewd.

Perhaps no one has felt the blows of these alleged traits more than the Pakistan Armed Forces after the passage of the Kerry-Lugar Bill. KLB will provide $1.5 Billion in annual assistance for five years to Pakistan. The problem however, for 'beggars who want to be choosers', is that KLB writes stipulations and conditions that need to be met for Congress to approve this aid every year. While there has been a lot of bru-ha-ha over these conditions in the Pakistan media calling the bill, drafted, signed and approved in a foreign land, as an act of 'selling the nation's sovereignty', the entity that has come out all guns blazing is the Pakistan Army.

The bill asks for various assurances that are more or less already in place. However, what disturbs the khakis is that the bill presses for an assurance that the Pakistan Army is under 'civilian control'. While this stipulation is a blatant act of reaching well into the sovereign realm of Pakistan the objective is something the 'civilian' governments of Pakistan have always had an impossible time in achieving.

The Army has called the shots in areas like the nuclear program, Kashmir policy as well as the policy for Afghanistan. It does not want to see an end to its jurisdiction in these areas.

Thus no surprise to see the armed establishment display horror at the passage of the Kerry-Lugar Bill that in no uncertain terms, delves into the sacred realm of the armed forces.

The opposition parties in Paksitan may cry foul, but the opposition that currently matters, PML-N is offering criticism that intentionally have no sting. It's leader Nawaz Sharif is safely away in London, away from the centers of storm. He thinks he is in a win-win situation. He failed to subdue the Army despite the 75% majority in parliament during his last stint in power. He now sees Zardari attempting it by bringing in the American 'carrot-and-stick' approach.

The Zardari-Army standoff cannot persist for too long. One of them will have to bow out or bow down. Nawaz would be happy with either, though I would assume he may be hoping that the Army, even if victorious, ends up significantly weakened in this stand-off.

The Pakistan parliament has asked that the 'disputed conditions' be scraped out. The American Congress has no real need to listen. The cat is out of the bag. The Army will unlikely stand for this and will make a move.

The contemptuous figure of Zardari has put his hand in the lion's den. While realizing that the center of power should be in the hands of the parliament, it would be a cruel twist if the current situation eventually results in a ubiquitous thief posthumously turning into a hero (after achieving 'martyrdom').

Waltz with Bashir

Waltz with Bashir. Just saw the film. The gut of the film is gut-wrenching. Perhaps because of the association so many more Palestineans than Israelis (my roomate and neighbors were Palestinian) I immediately took this film in the political context. But that personal bias only enhances my appreciation of this film and the people who made it.

Tim O'Brian un-peeling his journeys in Vietnam leads to this sense of alienation and loss. Perhaps I've forgotten many aspects from "The things they carried", but "Waltz..." leads you, rather hallucinates you and draws you to face a horrific tragedy that has been suppressed.

The Shatila and Sabra massacres being identified with pictures of Jewish Warsaw ghettos being cleaned by Nazis is meant to make a statement. "Waltz...", (as Ariel Sharon is no more) is a late but necessary movie - not for the world but for the Israelis. The narrator having 'forgotten' and failing to recollect the sequence of events, either willfully or through mental obstructions, reveals a nation trying to survive yet not lose its sense of self-conscious and more importantly humanity. The hidden/suppressed guilt of the documentary film maker is really a cry of a people of a nation who feel they cannot be seen to be weak and crying over a tragedy it was complicit in. Yet, it is a trauma that needs an outlet.

Then the sequences reminiscent of "Apocalypse Now" with cowboy-rock star soldiers was spectacular. How does one explain a war? Do you think that Vietnam's greatest cinematic gift is how it denied the celebration of war, of war heroes and rendered victory parades an exercise in the bizarre? It unburdened world's history and its consciousness from the tales of chivalry, of valiant warriors and their bravery in the battlefields.

Sure, we will still get lots of the old stuff, but post-Vietnam cinema has changed everything. Waltz with Bashir is another brilliant why.

[Response to an email to a friend.]

The Entrepreneur

They may not be geniuses. They may not win the Nobel prize. They may not score the most number of runs, nor top the rich and famous. They may not drip with poetics or create the next scientific breakthroughs. They are not philosophers or historians who wish to piece together the external with the internal and make sense of it all in the mind.

But entrepreneurs are the pulse, the heartbeat and spirit of a people. Never resting, always attempting new visions, embarking on new un-ventured journeys, struggling and grappling, connecting ideas with reality and generating new social patterns and forcing better, refined systems, these are just some traits of entrepreneurs that deserve our salutations.

Minorities attacked

Minorities don't seem to have it any better under the new government dispensation despite the commonly held view that the current government lead by the PPP courts most of their votes.

The attacks on Christian communities in the outlying areas of the Punjab reveals the breakdown in the government's ability to grapple with criminals using religious motivations to secure land and/or money. The police show their incompetence in the face of religious bigotry espoused by some Muslims and no one really seems to want to take these cases through the courts of law.

I hope at some point the PPP or other parties who have sincere concerns about the minority groups in Pakistan gain the courage to eradicate the source of the problem - that being the laws that favor the majority at the expense of the minority.

The blessings of Taliban

A group that once was admired by so many Pakistanis, heaped praise, given justification, and even looked up to as a model, finds itself on a slippery slope whose descent is bound to make the appeal muddier and muddier.

But the cancer of Taliban and their ideology has unleashed several positive movements that were both expected and surprisingly unexpected. Two of being:

1) The emergence of the Taliban cancer forced Pakistanis to think long and hard about what was in store for them if they didn't work to reform their judicial system. While the judicial movement had other catalysts and the movement turned into a tide for other reasons, the cancer of the Taliban ideology has cemented the awareness that without reforming the judicial system, the people will be left having to contend with fascist and archaic systems.

and surprisingly,

2) At a sitting with a friend from Quetta who has several businesses in the city, we began to discuss the anti-Punjabi feelings of Baluchistan. Apparently, he claimed, although the "anti-Punjabi" slogans had begun by the Pushtuuns, after emergence of the Taliban in FATA, the slogan no longer holds much value among the Pushtuuns. The slogan has plenty of resonance among the Baloch tribes of course, but due to the Pakistan Army aggressively taking an anti-Taliban stance, the Pushtuuns in Quetta and Balochistan have become pro-Pakistan. The feeling and thinking is, that only the Pakistan Army can deal the necessary blow to the Taliban.

It's surprising in that it took a cancer like the Taliban to bridge at least one ethnic divide.

Kashmir and Gilgit-Baltistan (Northern Areas)

The acquisition and retention of power has for time immemorial cut all those claiming to uphold majestic principles and morality down to size. It is a natural reaction to fight for justice when standing among the victims and wronged. It become a difficult choice when giving justice means losing privileges, prestige and power.

Pakistanis in general were unanimous in supporting the movement to restore the judiciary so that the fundamental rights of the people can be protected and the state held accountable. But those same supporters would refuse to see justice given to the minorities or Ahmedies of the country.

It is thus not surprising that the Kashimiri leaders, whose 'principled' stance for a right to self-determination was carried around like a torch, turn around and refuse the people of the Northern Areas to be governed separately under the Pakistan government's initiative of giving the area a new name - Gilgit-Baltistan - and unique powers separate from the rest of Kashmir.

The people of Gilgit-Baltistan are non-Kashmiris speaking a variety of languages. They claim they rose and fought the Dogra rule in 1948. Historically, the region was separate from Kashmir but 'gifted' to the princely Kashmiri state by the British in the mid-19th century. The people are predominantly Shia and have for a long time desired to become the fifth province of Pakistan and do not like to be linked to the Kashmiris.

Pakistan could have given them that recognition but for the UN Resolution of 1949 under which the status of Kashmir is disputed and treated as a whole. Thus any alteration that would push the region into the sphere of Pakistani legal codes, would mean a negation of the resolution on Kashmir - a resolution that is the basis for Pakistan's stance on Kashmir.

Thus Pakistan has only gone half-way in tweaking the status of Gilgit-Baltistan - much to the displeasure of the locals. However, the Kashmiri leaders are angry for even this tweak and refuse to accept the region being declared something outside the Kashmiri property.

While Kashimiri leaders are happy to call for the right of self-determination for Kashmiris, they are unwilling to give the same right of self-determination to the people of Gilgit-Baltistan.

Military killing militants

Growing reports suggest that the Pakistan Army is committing extra-judicial killings of suspected militants in Swat after having secured its positions in the region.

A report in the BBC.

Another in Dawn.

Others claim that the relatives of those who were brutally murdered by the Taliban are now taking revenge on the fascist Islamist group.

Whatever the case may be, this compounds the Taliban dilemmas. Taliban have clearly lost popular support and anything and everything they adds to their negative perception. It is a remarkable turn around when only a few months ago, despite the atrocities by the group, many still saw the Taliban as 'generally good folks'. Others would go out of their way to explain how there are the 'good Taliban' and 'the bad Taliban'. Many pointed to how even the NATO forces were willing to talk to the Taliban in Afghanistan and thus so should Pakistan in Swat.

Some who did not like the Taliban but opposed the military operation against them without offering any credible counter plan, are silenced. They cannot go to Swat and tell the people 'Taliban just want a fairer judicial system'. The group seems to have lost all justification for existence at least in Swat.

But it works both ways. If we have witnessed a 180 degree turn-around withing a few months, unless there is a concerted effort to bring change in the governance and judicial structures, there is nothing preventing another turn around.

The episodes of extra-judicial killings can back-fire.

Apparently, the government forces seem to have adopted a tactic of retaliating by killing more of the suspected militants than the number the Taliban kill. So whenever someone from Waziristan claims the suicide attack in Lahore, there is a ferocious response by the military in which several times the numbers of suspected militants are killed - and quite likely, many innocent Pakistanis die in the process as well. The message to the Taliban seems to be: 'Pakistani forces will be far more brutal than anything you can do.'

Unfortunately many innocent individuals will die. Even if one died, it should be unforgivable. But in these tit-for-tat killings, the worst thing would be if the civilian structures of the government forget or failed to improve themselves - a failure that would easily give lease of life to other fascists like the Taliban.

Recipients of ISI monies

...Rs10 million were given to Mir Afzal in NWFP province, Rs3.5 million to Mian Muhammad Nawaz Sharif in Punjab, Rs5.6 million to Lieutenant General (rtd) Rafaqat for advertisement on media, Rs5 million to Jamat-e-Islami, Rs1 million to Begum Abida Hussain, Rs0.5 million to Altaf Hussain Qureshi and Mustafa Sadiq, Rs3.3 million to small groups, Rs5 million to Ghulam Mustafa Jatoi in Sindh, Rs5 million to Jam Sadiq, Rs2.5 million to Muhammad Khan Junejo, Rs2 million to Pir Pagara, Rs0.3 million to Molana Salahuddin, Rs5.4 million to small parties, Rs1.5 million to Humayun Muree, the son-in-law of Bugti, Rs4 million to Jamali, Rs1 million to Kakar, Rs0.7 million to Jam Yousuf, Rs0.5 million Bazinjo and Rs1 million were given to Nadir Mengal.

Source: The News (August 27, 2009)