By Ayaz Amir
So this much is clear even to the congenitally unaware that but for the killing of schoolchildren in Peshawar what we call the national leadership would have remained unmoved. Hitherto, their eyes were firmly shut to the terror stalking the land. Nothing could shake them out of their torpor or complacency, not attacks on military installations, not a church bombing in Peshawar, not the slitting of throats of military personnel.
No, these paladins could sing only one raag, the mantra of talks and peace, and take refuge behind that chief of all excuses: all-parties conference. Who would not remember the police captain (Renault) in Casablanca? Whenever anything happened, out would come his standard response: “Round up the usual suspects”.
The Pakistani leadership’s response to a crisis in one of the most crisis-prone countries on earth – is a variant of this: “Sall an all parties conference”… and the usual suspects gather whose faces you have been sick and tired of seeing for the last 30 years.
Make up your minds whether this is more a circus or a herd for instead of moving on its own, volition provided by its own batteries, it is being driven by the whip of the army. The army chief asked for an end to the moratorium on hangings after which the prime minister, a picture of haplessness, turned decisive and went along. It’s the army which has called for a speedy trial process headed by military officers and the attendees after long speeches and ‘democratic’ objections overcame their scruples and endorsed the proposal.
Given the sense of outrage triggered by the Peshawar carnage the assembled luminaries, looking ever more like spectral figures in a dream sequence, had no choice but to go along, including the erstwhile lead singer of the peace chorus, Imran Khan. Call this the Education of the Khan. Other incidents moved him not, or moved him not sufficiently. But Peshawar was just too big, and just too horrendous. Indeed, all the Taliban apologists in the political circus had to go quiet, keeping a tight lid on their real emotions.
The prize for unconscious hilarity, however, goes to the prime minister whose every word and gesture gives the impression that he has discovered terrorism and religious extremism only now. Forget the year and a half he has been in office. Take only the last six months when a military operation, more serious than anything before it, was started in North Waziristan. The PM just twiddled his thumbs…no action, not even the appropriate words.
What to talk of the same page, they read from different textbooks, army losing men and officers in Waziristan, PM toying with his ‘mega-projects’, that rich territory where deals and commissions occur.
Ah, well, better late than never and now we all must be united and rally round the flag and lay our differences aside, and perhaps put a cap on our cynicism. Fine, even if we have to admire General Raheel’s stamina, spending an entire day with these knights of the spoken word. Whenever as an MNA I had to attend a meeting of the PML-N parliamentary party – where the refrain used to be ‘Mian Sahib iss mulk ke 18 crore awam aap ke muntazir hain’ – I would need an extra helping of Scotland’s finest in the evenings to wash the taste of the experience out of my mouth.
I can wager anything that half a dozen visits to the frontline in Waziristan would not be half as strenuous as spending a day in the conference room of the PM’s house. What recourse would the generals have to wash the taste of it out of their mouths? And the conference room doesn’t even look like a working room, more a cross between a shaadi hall and a seminar room…certainly without the look of a place where anything serious can be discussed.
Why are we still not getting a sense of urgency? We say we are in a state of war, the political circus finally coming round to this idea. But why doesn’t it feel that way? Not that the sirens should be sounding and guns blazing away but there should be a tangible feeling that we’ve turned a corner and things are different. This is the task of the political leadership, to rally the nation and fire up its spirits. But one look at this assembled crowd and you can feel your confidence slipping away.
By now instead of talking endlessly we should have had the legal cover in place for the setting up of military courts. Any argument against such courts is hard to sustain. If the normal judicial process is not up to the mark, if investigative work is poor, witnesses afraid to depose, judges afraid to sentence, political governments afraid to carry out what sentences are passed, what alternative is there except to turn to military courts?
If our democracy had been slightly more efficient, and prime minister and cabinet more alive to their responsibilities, we wouldn’t have needed this extended discussion about military courts now.
It is not a question of baying for blood or thinking of hangings as a panacea for everything. We can do without such hysteria. But it must be asked why our criminal justice system is so lackadaisical and so full of loopholes, allowing the likes of Malik Ishaq, Ziaur Rehman Lakhvi, the Lal Masjid pantomime Maulana Aziz, not to forget that ghazi of the faith, Mumtaz Qadri, to escape their just deserts.
It is not enough to say that henceforth there will be no distinction between ‘good’ and ‘bad’ Taliban. More important is to do away with the distinction between acceptable and unacceptable ‘jihadis’ at home (the likes of Malik Ishaq, etc). The military can go after the tribal-based Taliban. But it is the task of the civilian administration to go after home-based terrorism, including its deadly offshoot, sectarianism.
But look at it this way: a civilian administration that can’t come clean about the Model Town killings, how do you expect it to suddenly become honest about the larger threat? The man seen on TV screens shooting at PTI supporters in Faisalabad, Ilyas alias Toti, was someone well known to the Faisalabad police. (And I find it hard to believe that he was not known to Rana Sanaullah.) But the Faisalabad police hid his identity for several days.
This is the rot that has to be addressed. We don’t need more rapid response forces…this is just more whitewash. Wasn’t the Elite Force in Punjab supposed to be such a force? What has become of it? The British were a colonial power. They made do with the ordinary police and the Special Branch, and the CID. The task before all the provincial governments is to improve the performance of the police. The Punjab police force is twice the size of the present British army. Run this force on modern lines. Stop treating it as your personal force. Don’t have a detail of a thousand men (no joking) guarding your extended residences. Route-lining for prime minister and chief ministers to pass is a joke. Where else do we have such a spectacle on such a vast scale?
The Punjab chief minister has no business interviewing and selecting district police officers. If he has to do this, what remains of the purpose of the inspector general? Choose the best man, and not the most silver-tongued sycophant, as IG and let him do his job. How much more dysfunctional should Pakistan become before chief ministers imbibe such basic lessons?
Religious extremists are convinced they are cutting a path to heaven, and setting out to embrace the holy virgins, when they commit a terrorist attack. According to this logic, they should welcome the formation of military courts because nothing else will so fast-track their journey to the celestial spaces. No need therefore for the (distraught) holy fathers to pull such long faces.
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