Pakistan: Adding to confrontation?

THE FRONTIER POST

When terrorists had taken Balochistan their hostage, when members of all ethnic minorities were being butchered without fear of law and authorities, when senior police officers were themselves involved in the deadly crimes to worsen law and order conditions and when missing persons case was becoming more or more complex, all the provincial lawmakers without exception kept a criminal silence, abetting in the commission of broad daylight crime against humanity. Now that the federation placed the province under the governor’s rule for two months on Jan 14 following a three-day protest by Shia Hazara community against the killing of about 100 people in two terrorist attacks on Jan 10, all have joined hands to requisition a session of the Balochistan legislature pleading that the new constitutional arrangement is in conflict with the political rights of the people. What actually has happened is that the MPAs, all of whom except one, were enjoying all perks and privileges as ministers at the expense of public money, have come out wailing after losing their pomp and show Where have they been when the dismissed Aslam Raisani’s government was showing gross indifference to the volatile situation of the province confronting insurgency with active involvement of foreign powers? Regrettably the Pakistan People’s Party MPAs who are now supporting Raisani and who demanded his resignation in November, are also among MPAs signing the requisition. They had another view of the former chief minister when first Kalat division president of the PPP Rafiq Sajjad suspended the basic party membership of Mr Raisani on charges of corruption and failing to deliver as the chief executive of the restive province and then the PPP Balochistan chapter, headed by Sadiq Umrani, not only endorsed the suspension but also requested Islamabad that Aslam Raisani should be removed as chief minister. Can this conduct be called fair by any yardstick? Ironically an assembly session has been convened on Monday by the speaker, “elected” in a fraudulent electoral exercise where members were pressured to show their ballot papers to the officials of the provincial information department before casting them. It may be mentioned here that President Asif Ali Zardari has dismissed only the provincial cabinet by invoking Article 234 of the Constitution and the assembly was allowed to remain functional. Simultaneously, coalition partners of the ousted government have threatened launching a movement against the imposition of governor’s rule from the day the requisitioned assembly is scheduled to meet. No doubt the requisitioning of an assembly session at this stage would add to confrontation with the federation and the governor and aggravate the woes of dejected communities. Seen in the light of a Supreme Court interim order of October 12 last at Quetta in a constitutional petition filed by the Balochistan High Court Bar Association that the Balochistan government had failed to fulfill its constitutional duty and protect basic human rights in the province, a clear indictment of the former chief minister, the belligerence of Balochistan MPAs becomes unlawful. The fact of the matter is that the federal government had given the Raisani government a great time period of four years and a half before taking it on. Islamabad tolerated him although he hardly lived in Quetta to attend to important administrative, development and political work. Even when the Hazara community members were being slaughtered, their relatives refused to bury their dead and staged a three-day sit-in at Quetta’s Alamdar Road with shrouded coffins, Mr Raisani was abroad. That is why no political organization across the country has opposed governor’s rule in Balochistan. It was rather upon the pressure of political parties, the civil society and other conscientious people of Balochistan and elsewhere in the country that the federation took the constitutional step of removing the chief minister and his cabinet and giving the province’s administration in the hands of the governor. With only a few weeks remaining for the dissolution of the national and provincial legislatures, the governor’s rule in Balochistan seems a fate accompli particularly when almost all segments of society seem content with the federation’s decision. The province’s lawmakers must also reconcile themselves with what has come out because of their own recklessness to the extent of compromising with, rather abetting in, crimes against the people. They must know that governor’s rule was imposed after a consensus that involved all the political parties and nobody throughout the country would support their agitation. They have demonstrated a gross political misconduct and can, therefore, only blame themselves for the outcome.