The Mean Streets Of Karachi

By Amir Zia
The News
May 30, 2012

We – the people of Karachi – will continue to live on the knife’s edge. Yes, there will be no end to the “targeted killings” and political, ethnic and sectarian turf wars in the near or distant future


The government appears clueless and entangled in a self-defeating exercise of political give-and-take and the resultant half-hearted measures against criminal-cum-political mafias responsible for the rampant lawlessness and bloodshed in Karachi. The police and the security establishment remain politicised and partisan. They continue with the dangerous game of supporting one group against the other in line with some mysterious “master security plan” of containing the political forces and maintaining their clout on Karachi’s chessboard.
Our major political parties refuse to see and act beyond their narrow interest. They lack both the ability and capacity needed to resolve the multi-faceted contradictions of this traumatised metropolis. Bringing about reconciliation and harmony among various ethnic, sectarian and interest groups and establishing rule of law seems beyond the scope of their agenda.
Therefore, we – the people of Karachi – will continue to live on the knife’s edge.
Yes, there will be no end to the “targeted killings” and political, ethnic and sectarian turf wars in the near or distant future. The politically-connected criminal gangs and mafias will continue to hold entire neighbourhoods under their shadow as they do today. The multi-billion rupee businesses of extortion and encroachment will keep thriving. Drugs and weapons will continue to flow into the city where citizens are but easy preys for robbers and bandits. The horror of political, sectarian and ethnic killings has come to define the city of Karachi so much so that while these killings hit the headline, robberies and street crime are not even seen as “news” these days. No wonder, the police refuse to lodge the first investigation reports in the majority of such cases. Or victims themselves don’t bother.
The present is depressing and the future undoubtedly bleak. There is no alternative future scenario possible as nothing concrete is being done to pull the city out of the vortex of lawlessness. With the general elections now looming on the horizon, political and interest groups all are all set to dig their heels deeper. This will intensify ethnic and sectarian polarisation in an already troubled city.
The figures underline the gravity of the situation. In May, more than 75 people have been killed so far in what the police describe as “targeted killings” or gun battles between rival political, ethnic, sectarian or criminal groups. The death toll of 2012 stands now at more than 500 – and we are still counting.
In 2011 and 2010, nearly 1600 and 1135 people were killed in similar violence and incidents of terrorism respectively. The preceding years of 2009 and 2008 were also marked with bloodshed in which 639 and 681 people lost their lives respectively. The death toll since this elected government took charge in early 2008 has crossed the 4,500 mark.
The pattern of lawlessness and the government response are eerily similar. The winds of change don’t blow here and the nexus between crime and politics remains unbreakable.
After every major spate of violence the government issues high-sounding statements about dealing with militants and criminals with an iron-hand, the hand which is always found missing when needed the most. President Asif Ali Zardari orders investigations. Interior Minister Rehman Malik rushes to the city promising a crackdown and vowing to restore peace. What follows is what is always there – business of crime as usual. The city limps back to an apparent normality on its own, but all its abnormalities are allowed to fester. The killers, the extortionists, the mafia chiefs and their henchmen remain free – so that they may strike another day.
If one notorious gangster is put out of action on completing his ‘life-cycle’, there are ready replacements available. The names and faces of the city’s “Dukaits, Commandoes, Chambers, Ladlas and Babus” do change, but the game remains the same. The carefully orchestrated events, incidents and provocative statements that trigger violence may seem different, but their essence remains the same. They keep the pot boiling.
The partners in the ruling coalition – the Pakistan People’s Party (PPP), the Muttahida Qaumi Movement (MQM) and the Awami National Party (ANP) – are tied together in a relationship of deep mistrust and seething antagonism. Their narrow political and financial stakes and their desire to retain and expand electoral turfs dictate the terms of engagement. The broader goals and a vision for a different Karachi, and a different Pakistan, find little space in their narrative.
These uneasy bed-fellows have mastered the art of Orwellian “double-speak.” Being “allies”, they hold endless rounds of talks, come up with announcements of addressing the differences, and yet they keep their daggers drawn at each other. While the leaders lock horns amidst barrages of allegations and counter-allegations, their rank and file settle scores on the streets.
Despite their lip service to the cause of bringing peace and rule of law to this battered city, none of the major parties are in the mood to disband their militant wings. Criminals continue to operate under their flags and succeed in politicising crime and criminalising politics. From the issue of encroachment to that of enforcing traffic rules and regulations on the public transporters, to the question of action against gangsters involved in extortion, any matter can become a political one in this unfortunate city and has the potential to ignite ethnic strife.
As politicians and government and security officials belonging to the overt and covert establishment point fingers at one another, none of them bother to come out with solutions, which are obvious and doable. They only require political will and a desire to play by the book.
The prime responsibility is of political parties – especially the ones which are part of the coalition government. They have to really mean “reconciliation” when they say it. They need to build a grand consensus and develop a code of conduct – at least on a few key points including closing their doors on criminals and agreeing on an operation against mafias involved in extortion, street crime and encroachments. This means ensuring that these criminals are unable to play the ethnic card when pushed against the wall. Zero tolerance for criminals will greatly help in changing Karachi for the better.
The collapse of law and order should be seen as a collective failure of these parties; they need to jointly work for establishing the rule of law here. Even if only one of them takes the lead and sincerely tries to bring people of all ethnicities and sects on board against killings and other crimes, the rest of the political forces will be compelled to follow. For every Urdu-speaking person, Sindhi, Baloch, Punjabi and Pakhtun feels unsafe in this city.
Fighting crime and lawlessness also requires an independent police force and an active judiciary. These two institutions should be free from political pressures and need sweeping reforms so that they are able to rise to the challenge of restoring peace in Karachi. The mighty security establishment also needs to play by the book and stop propping up puppets and cronies in an attempt to undermine other forces. Such attempts failed in the past and in fact made the Karachi situation more complex.
In the last year of their term, will the partners in the ruling coalition be able to make the right choices? Will the institutions learn from the past and unlearn practices which repeatedly failed? The record is dismal, but do we have any other choice?

The US Move On Hafiz Saeed

By Amir Zia
The News
Sunday, May 20, 2012

The all-out confrontationist approach, which our American “friends” want Pakistan to adopt against radical groups, is seen as leading to more trouble instead of solutions in a country where more than 35,000 people, including several thousand personnel of the security forces, have been killed in more than a decade-long war on terrorism. In terms of human losses, this is a far higher price compared to the combined casualties suffered by the Nato and Afghan forces in this period in Afghanistan.


Hafiz Saeed and his followers are the latest addition to the growing list of major irritants that plague Pakistan-US relations these days. The United States’ decision to put Saeed – the founder of the outlawed militant Lashkar-e-Taiba and the reformist Islamic organisation Jamaat-ud Dawa – on its most-wanted list of terrorists has deepened the mistrust between Washington and Islamabad that do not see eye to eye on their strategies to combat terrorism in the region.
While India has hailed the US announcement of a $10-million reward for any information leading to Saeed’s arrest and conviction for his alleged role in the 2008 Mumbai attacks, Pakistan has become more sceptical about the intentions of its uneasy ally in this exceedingly controversial war on terror.
If, on the one hand, the move reflects US insensitivities and an apparent lack of understanding towards Pakistan’s problem of extremism, on the other it underlines Islamabad’s diplomatic failure in presenting its case. The Pakistan People’s Party-led government and the military establishment proved unsuccessful in explaining their limitations in the fight against terrorism and to convince Washington about the rationale of their strategy of categorising militant groups and their selective handling in line with their security concerns.
The US move has put an already embattled government and the military in a tight spot in a highly polarised political atmosphere where they face the wrath of an organised and deeply entrenched religious rightwing which remains opposed to Pakistan’s cooperation in the US-led war. It seems ironic that following the US announcement of reward on Saeed, even some Pakistani liberal and secular forces, which remain opposed to Saeed’s political philosophy and radical interpretation of Islam, have been left with no option but to defend him. Saeed, a disciple of Palestinian scholar Abdullah Azzam, apparently dissociated himself from Lashkar-e-Taiba in 2002 when the former military-led government banned the organisation along with several others in the aftermath of the Sept. 11, 2001 terror attacks on the United States. However, he continues to lead the Jamaat-ud-Dawa-an Islamic reformist and social work organisation – that proved its mettle in the aftermath of some of the worst natural disasters that hit Pakistan in recent years, including the 2005 earthquake, and the 2010 and 2011 floods.
Saeed and his followers vehemently deny any role in the Mumbai attack – which killed 166 people, including six Americans. The Pakistani government has been asking New Delhi to give concrete evidence, without which it refuses to act against him. The Supreme Court of Pakistan already acquitted Saeed in 2010 for lack of evidence that might implicate him in the Mumbai terror plot. Now this soft-spoken but hard-line cleric continues to be active on the political scene not just from the platform of Jamaat-ud-Dawa but also the Pakistan Defence Council (PDC), an umbrella of about 40 religious groups that is in the forefront of opposition to the resumption of Nato supplies to Afghanistan through Pakistan and to enhanced trade and friendly relations with India.
The Pakistani establishment and many independent analysts feel that Saeed and his likeminded rightwing leaders should be allowed to present their case openly, as long as they use peaceful channels to do so. The PDC rallies have so far failed to create any big waves and attracted only activists of these groups, which in no way can be seen as a game-changer. The strategy seems correct as it helps release the pent-up rage of the radical forces and allows them a role in the mainstream politics where they have to play according to the rules of the game.
The all-out confrontationist approach, which our American “friends” want Pakistan to adopt against radical groups, is seen as leading to more trouble instead of solutions in a country where more than 35,000 people, including several thousand personnel of the security forces, have been killed in more than a decade-long war on terrorism. In terms of human losses, this is a far higher price compared to the combined casualties suffered by the Nato and Afghan forces in this period in Afghanistan.
From Pakistan’s point of view, Saeed and his followers stand in contrast to those hard-line groups, including Harkat-ul-Mujahedeen, Jaish-e-Mohammed or Harkat-ul-Jihad-e-Islami, which have ties with the Afghan Taliban and their rank and file inspired by Al-Qaeda ideology. These groups got divided and subdivided into small faceless cells, which became the backbone of the terror network that unleashed high-profile suicide attacks and bombings across Pakistan, on their own or at the behest of the Taliban and Al-Qaeda, to punish the country for its support to the US-led war. Faced with an ideological dilemma, they also turned their guns on Pakistan’s military, which once nurtured and patronised them. But Saeed and his Jamaat-ud-Dawa openly criticised the trend of suicide bombings and violence in Pakistan.
“In Pakistan, resorting to violence and suicide bombings is haraam (against Islam),” Saeed told select journalists during a recent visit to Karachi. “It is not jihad, but a conspiracy against jihad...we have been speaking against it all this time despite the threat to our lives.”
Saeed, who increased his activities following the US reward announcement, has been touring cities and towns. “I am not hiding...I am working openly. If they need my address, I can provide it to them,” he said in a lighter mood.
Jamaat-ud-Dawa says that it remains open to engaging with Washington and is ready to defend its leader even in US courts. While the Pakistani state did little to rehabilitate and de-radicalise militants following its policy shift in 2002, when it banned several militant groups, the Jamaat-ud-Dawa focused on humanitarian work, keeping its supporters busy.
The group now operates nearly 160 schools, 45 seminaries, three universities, four hospitals and 150 dispensaries across Pakistan. It does social work not just in Punjab, Kashmir and Khyber-Pakhtunkhawa but also in some remote parts of Sindh and Balochistan.
The critics of Jamaat-ud-Dawa say that the social work is a facade for its broader fundamentalist agenda, but this provides the establishment an opportunity to engage and help de-radicalise this major group and try to push it in mainstream politics. Removing its leadership from the scene may compound the internal threats, which the country can ill-afford at present.
The American approach whether driven by its frustration over the closure of Nato supplies – which are likely to resume any day now – or by its desire to appease India, remains flawed and makes the task of fighting extremism more difficult. The overt pressure and threats squeezes options for Pakistan. However, continued silent engagements, understanding one another’s concerns and limitations works best in these tough times. Pakistan-US relations are too important a matter, not just in the context of fighting extremism but also for regional peace and stability. Brinkmanship and aggressive public posturing is not the way forward.

Will They Grasp The Moment?

By Amir Zia
The News
Saturday, May 12, 2012

While there is much to celebrate on the recent gains made at the official level for enhancing trade ties, the peace process between Pakistan and India still remains fragile and vulnerable to the knotty historical disputes and unforeseen incidents of terrorism

They love to disagree and fight on anything and everything under the sun; but when it comes to India, even bitter political rivals in Pakistan now manage to find a common ground – for peace. Yes! The country’s key mainstream political parties – the ruling and the opposition – want an end to hostilities with India. They desire peace, friendship and close economic and trade ties with our neighbour to the East that not too long ago was officially considered the enemy number one and the biggest threat to Pakistan’s security.

This rare consensus on a complex and, to an extent, emotional issue for many Pakistanis has again been manifested in a compelling manner during the 2nd Pakistan-India Economic Conference held in Lahore on May 7-8. The conference, organised under the banner of Aman ki Asha – a media-led peace initiative of the Jang Group and The Times of India – attracted not just the frontline businesspersons and corporate leaders from both sides of the border, but also some frontline political leaders and government officials. Prime Minister Yousuf Raza Gilani, whose Pakistan Peoples’ Party-led government has made some big strides in easing trade relations between the two countries over the last one year, set the ball rolling at the inaugural session of the conference, saying that improvement in ties with India remained a cherished goal of his government.

The sentiment was echoed by Tehreek-e-Insaf leader Imran Khan, who is trying to position his party as the third force in the murky waters of Pakistani politics. The crux of Khan’s message was that the new generation wants a new Pak-India relationship based on mutual trust. Chief Minister Punjab Mian Shahbaz Sharif, a businessman-turned-politician, perhaps articulated what the business communities of both Pakistani and Indian Punjab desire the most – to trade directly among themselves rather than through the far-flung Karachi and Mumbai ports, to reduce freight cost and save time.

The three mainstream parties reflected the sentiment of other important political players including the Muttahida Qaumi Movement, the Awami National Party, the Jamiat Ulema-e-Islam and the Baloch nationalists, who all want a paradigm shift in Islamabad-New Delhi relations by breaking away from the bitterness of the past.

In a highly polarised and ideologically divided country, this consensus among rivals on a major foreign policy issue bodes well for internal politics as well as regional peace, given the fact that not long ago this kind of warmth and unequivocal support for friendly relations appeared impossible.

The newfound impetus in the peace process also draws strength from the business community, industrialists, corporate giants and traders, who see vast opportunities for growth and wealth if the two countries fully open their borders for trade and allow economic collaboration. In fact, much before the politicians came out openly in support of this process, it was these interest groups that lobbied and raised their voice for the normalisation of Pakistan-India relations.

But the credit for staying ahead of the curve that leads towards the normalisation of Pakistan-India relations goes to the Jang Group and The Times of India, which launched the Aman ki Asha initiative in January 2010. Initially, the effort was seen with scepticism, even hostility, by forces caught up in hidebound and warlike state narratives ever since Partition. The concept of peace and friendly relations between Pakistan-India was not in vogue at that time, but the Aman ki Asha managed to create waves and served as a catalyst for improvement of ties between the two countries, by providing an organised and neutral platform.

While there is much to celebrate on the recent gains made at the official level for enhancing trade ties, the peace process between the two countries still remains fragile and vulnerable to the knotty historical disputes and unforeseen incidents of terrorism. Islamabad and New Delhi require vision and strong political will to keep the peace process on course in the minefield of historical disputes that include the unresolved Kashmir issue which bedevils relations between them. The two governments must take advantage of the newfound warmth and goodwill at the people-to-people level to tackle fundamental issues, ensuring durable and sustainable peace in South Asia. The sense of current euphoria and optimism may prove short-lived if the governments fail to capitalise on this and continue to drag their feet on big decisions.

From Pakistan’s point-of-view, the Kashmir issue cannot be left on the backburner. A just solution of this protracted dispute over the divided Himalayan region according to the aspirations of the Kashmiri people remains the basic prerequisite for sustainable friendly relations and any meaningful economic collaboration. Governments come and go and people can make or lose money in trade, but state interests remain permanent, which cannot be abandoned for short-term gains.

While it is encouraging that Islamabad and New Delhi have made meaningful decisions to boost trade ties during the last few months, they have made little headway on the political front, even on issues whose resolution would be as difficult as plucking low-hanging fruit – such as the disputes over Sir Creek, Siachen Glacier, and the distribution of water resources.

At the same time, Pakistan needs to address the international concerns regarding terrorism and ensure that its territory is not used by militant non-state actors to hatch terror plots against any other country. This is easier said than done, given the porous border with Afghanistan, the weakened writ of the state in many parts of the country and the presence of a strong terror network which continues to target and kill innocent people; but Islamabad must move to fight the menace and must be seen to be moving to do so.

The people-to-people contacts, the enthusiasm of interest groups for boosting economic relations, media-led peace movements, all play an important role in setting the stage, but in the end it will be for the governments to take bold and meaningful decisions to lock the gains and ensure peace in South Asia where the armies of two nuclear powers stand eyeball to eyeball.

The leadership on both sides has an opportunity to make history anew by giving their relations a determined direction towards peace, progress and prosperity in South Asia. The question is: Will they grasp the moment?