The Great Divide

By Amir Zia
Monday, January 6, 2014
The News

Calls for the division of Sindh or attempts to decide matters – from local bodies to the controversial quota system – purely on the basis of brute numbers have all the potential of pushing the province towards a cycle of conflict and disorder.

The Pakistan People’s Party’s political wizards must be congratulated for outsmarting their former ally, the Muttahida Qaumi Movement (MQM), on every front and forcing it to take an extreme position where this urban-based party now appears to be standing all alone.
MQM leader Altaf Hussain’s call for the division of Sindh province and his rhetoric of turning this demand into a slogan for a separate country if the Urdu-speaking people remain denied of “their rights” underlines the growing desperation within his party ranks and its dearth of viable options to political goals. After remaining a PPP ally for almost five years and then trying to act as a formidable opposition in recent months, the MQM finds itself at a dead end on all issues close to its heart.
To begin with, the PPP is in no mood to give a strong, powerful and autonomous local bodies system in Sindh where it runs the provincial government with a comfortable majority. The PPP’s intentions to get a desired mandate in Karachi are reflected in its efforts to change the constituencies ahead of the local elections and continued tinkering of the local bodies laws.
The controversial rural-urban quota system in Sindh, the oppressive provincial taxation system, which targets mainly the urban centres and exempts large land owners and feudals from paying taxes on their agricultural income, and dispute over the allocation of development funds remain the other key issues polarising politics of this multi-ethnic province, though the MQM has not been able to put it effectively in the context and take the urban dwellers belonging to other ethnic groups into confidence on issue-based urban politics.
The ethnic fault lines and divisions sharpen further as major political parties are at loggerheads with one another to safeguard or expand their control in the country’s financial and industrial hub of Karachi.
Unfortunately, most major political parties, overtly or covertly, are playing the ethnic card, which possesses the inherent danger of igniting widespread armed conflict among various communities, nationalities and ethnic groups living in this province. Karachi and Hyderabad have seen trailers of bloody mayhem and chaos on ethnic lines scores of times since the mid-1980s.
The province has all the ingredients that can explode anytime as the main political players and stakeholders have failed to develop a consensus on any of the major issues in a democratic spirit which thrives on pluralism and acknowledging and celebrating the political and economic rights of all groups and segments in society.
Efforts to bring harmony in Sindh’s politics through a working arrangement between the rural and urban political forces failed to give the desired results as the PPP-MQM ruling coalition (2008-13) ended on a bitter note after almost five years of partnership. The PPP-MQM relationship was marred with distrust and back-stabbing.
Even while being partners, the workers of the two sides never hesitated from resorting to tit-for-tat killings in the urban jungle of Karachi. The PPP took the MQM for a ride through sweet talk and endless rounds of meetings, but ensured that its partner never got what it was vying for – an effective local government system seen as a must to run big cities like Karachi. In that sense, the PPP politicians appear more astute and savvy compared to their MQM counterparts.
The former PPP-MQM ruling coalition passed the Sindh People’s Local Government (SPLG) Act, 2012 in the provincial assembly with a thumping two-thirds majority toward the end of the five-year term on October 1, 2012. For the MQM, the victory proved to be just on paper as there was hardly any time left for the holding of the local elections.
All through its term, the PPP kept its urban partner uneasy and on a tight leash in Karachi by supporting the Peoples’ Amn Committee of Lyari, which was allowed to operate its vast extortion racket with impunity and confront the MQM’s muscle power blow by blow in various strategic commercial, industrial and financial neighbourhoods.
The PPP’s duplicity and former interior minister Rehman Malik’s diplomacy ensured that the ruling party got what it wanted from the MQM to complete its term at the centre without conceding any ground and major hiccup. The MQM was forced to play on the PPP’s terms for what seemed to be its short-term vested interests of clinging to whatever crumbs of power offered to the party.
The PPP took no time to repeal the SPLG Act once the MQM walked out of the coalition a few months before the 2013 general elections, raising questions about the timing of its decision.
Since then, the PPP has made a string of changes and amendments in the local bodies system, making it literary ineffective and hostage to the whims and dictates of the provincial government. The urban representatives found themselves having no say in matters because of their small number in the provincial assembly.
The situation becomes more complicated given the fact that the PPP’s Sindh Assembly lawmakers mostly belong to the rural constituencies. On the basis of their majority, these rural area representatives are taking decisions on managing large cities without taking into account the aspirations of the urban population.
At one level, the PPP’s stance can be justified since in democracy it is the majority that decides. Hypothetically speaking, if the MQM wins all the provincial assembly seats in Karachi and Hyderabad, even then it will not be able to change the equation.
Therefore, the MQM supreme leader has suddenly upped the ante of his demand, which is all set to further polarise an already complex and highly emotionally charged situation. In doing this, the MQM has opted for a solo flight as all the other stakeholders – from the Jamaat-e-Islami to Sindhi nationalists, the Pakhtun-representative Awami National Party and the PPP – have joined ranks in opposing the demand of a separate province carved on ethnic lines.
This brings ominous tidings for the province and undermines efforts to bring peace, normality and rule of the law to Karachi where an operation is underway against militants and criminal mafias, which have held the city hostage in recent years.
The kind of political vision and statesmanship needed to resolve the festering issues of the urban and rural Sindh remain amiss as all major stakeholders are opting for brinkmanship and emotional posturing. But the situation calls for moderate and level-headed thinking.
Sindh and its urban centres will be better served if the rural and urban representatives, instead of taking the road of confrontation, make an effort to resolve the issues on the basis of give and take and build consensus in a democratic spirit that is inclusive and takes into account the diversity of the province. Calls for the division of Sindh or attempts to decide matters – from local bodies to the controversial quota system – purely on the basis of brute numbers have all the potential of pushing the province towards a cycle of conflict and disorder.
Given the current level of political heat and discord, the holding of the much-delayed census too has the potential to become another hot potato. But that would be a step in the right direction and help taking into account the changed provincial demography and deciding the representation in parliament and the provincial assembly.
Evading or brushing the problems under the carpet won’t serve the cause of Sindh. It is time for the political parties to take stock of the situation and move towards resolving the contradictions.
Ideally, the PPP, the MQM and the ANP – being secular and liberal forces – should be natural allies and work to promote ethnic and political harmony in the province for the economic uplift and betterment of the people. To do this, they have to raise themselves above their narrow vested interests and resolve the set of challenges thrown at them in a democratic manner. The people of Sindh deserve better and our politicians have to prove that they are worthy of their leadership.

The Shape of Things to Come

By Amir Zia
Newsline
September 2011

The criminalisation of politics and the politicisation of crime have been a bane for Karachiites for decades. Almost all major political parties operating in Karachi have armed wings, and many of them remain directly or indirectly involved in crime.

In an era of sound bites, fast food, and 20-20 cricket matches, the route to stardom is often short and swift. And so it was for PPP’s former home minister Dr Zulfiqar Mirza. Like a shooting star, Mirza blazed across television screens on August 28, holding audiences spellbound. Loud tone, inflammatory language, and startling revelations and accusations – it was a performance guaranteed to catch maximum viewership and win fantastic TRPs. Overnight the controversial doctor became an unlikely hero and was feted by all those who have issues with the Muttahida Qaumi Movement (MQM) and Rehman Malik.
Zulfiqar Mirza’s outburst at the Karachi Press Club on August 28, televised live on all TV channels, has fired up several popular political commentators and reputed analysts, who are spilling over with analysis. For some, Mirza’s “thunderbolt has shaken the Zardari status quo,” while for others it has exposed the MQM and its anti-state designs. There are a few who believe that Mirza’s tirade had President Asif Ali Zardari’s blessings and is part of his carrot-and-stick policy with which he deals with the MQM. And then there are those analysts who believe that Pakistani politics has changed forever after Mirza’s “disclosures.” His assault on Interior Minister Rehman Malik is being viewed as a watershed in the country’s traumatic history.
Mirza’s disclosures – made sometimes with one hand placed over the Quran or with the Quran held over his head – seem to have struck a chord with many frustrated Pakistanis, who are worried by the state of the country’s politics and violence and killings in Karachi.
But in an atmosphere thick with a barrage of allegations and counter-allegations emanating from all sides, people need to take a step back to weigh and review the implications of Mirza’s statements, which have intensified ethnic and political bitterness in Sindh. Putting aside multi-hued conspiracy theories, the focus should be on Zardari’s stated policy of reconciliation, which does not gel with Mirza’s hardline against the MQM.
The allegations Mirza levelled against the MQM in his address to the media include the involvement of militants belonging to this urban-based party in the assassinations of political rivals, as well as the alleged letter written by its leader Altaf Hussain to former British Premier Tony Blair in September 2001, in which he assured him of MQM’s support in the fight against terrorism, and asked western powers to help in disbanding the ISI. Mirza’s charge-sheet against the MQM, which contains several oft-repeated allegations, is aimed to put Sindh’s second largest party on the back foot by opening a Pandora’s Box of past and present controversies surrounding it.
Mirza’s press conference, in which he announced his resignation from the Sindh cabinet and party office, came after more than 1,400 killings had taken place in the first eight months of 2011, and when finally after a long delay the PPP government half-heartedly ordered a crackdown on the criminal networks operating from Lyari – one of its own strongholds in Karachi – as part of a surgical strike in nine major trouble spots in the city.
In this polarised atmosphere, one can argue why Lyari was earmarked for the operation first and not any other part of the city. According to Rehman Malik, the PPP decided to target its own constituency first, in order not to appear partisan to its own coalition partners. Additionally, the suo moto hearing, currently underway, by a five-member bench of the Supreme Court on Karachi’s turmoil, which claimed more than 500 lives in July and August alone, must certainly have intensified pressure on the government and forced it to act amidst calls by many quarters to summon the army for restoring peace and the rule of law in Pakistan’s commercial and financial hub. The government’s move to launch an operation in Lyari may have angered Mirza, who is known to have developed close ties with the Peoples' Amn Committee. But the bottom line remains that while there are other powerful criminal-cum-political players in the city, the recent wave of mayhem, extortion and crime has been largely and directly linked to the controversial Peoples’ Amn Committee, established by the notorious gangster Rehman Dakait, who was killed in a police encounter in Aug 2009.
The Amn Committee remains a unique phenomenon – a crime mafia, a platform for disgruntled PPP supporters, as well as workers fighting what they call their “corrupt elected representatives,” and a pro-peoples welfare group akin to Robin Hood and his band of Merry Men, who once ruled Sherwood Forest in 13th century England, robbing the rich to give to the poor. The Committee did exactly that and introduced several social welfare programmes in Lyari – Karachi’s oldest, but one of the most backward neighbourhoods – and enjoys considerable support among many of its residents. But unlike Robin Hood and his archers, the criminal activities carried out by supporters of the Amn Committee offset its pro-people image.
The Committee, now led by Uzair Baloch, a relative of Rehman Dakait, operates more as a crime mafia, extending its reign of terror across most of the major retail and wholesale markets located in the vicinity of Lyari. In 21st century Karachi, a 13th century mindset means only trouble. However, the problem is not of criminal activities alone.
Ever since some local PPP leaders – including Mirza – began to prop up the Amn Committee as a counter-balancing force against the MQM’s muscle power to expand their influence and turf using the Committee’s militants, violence in the city has risen to another level. Efforts by the Amn Committee to branch out to other areas of the city in the past three years have led to a wave of killings, an intra-gang war, and political and ethnic violence.
It can be said that after the relative calm and peace during the rule of former military leader Pervez Musharraf, who was accused of favouring the MQM in a big way, Karachi drifted back to the brutality and lawlessness witnessed in the 1980s and 1990s when widespread ethnic violence, target killings, and tortured bodies stuffed in gunny bags were a norm. The decade of the 1980s saw the rise of violent ethnic politics, and witnessed Altaf Hussain and his party emerge as the dominant force in urban Sindh. Most of the bloodletting during the 1990s was the result of the conflict between the mainstream MQM and its dissident, splinter group, now known as the MQM-Haqiqi, in the creation of which state institutions played a key role as they tried to prop up their own hand-picked leadership.
It was during these traumatic times that the city first witnessed the rise of organised political extortion or bhatta – the ‘credit’ for which is mostly given to the MQM for putting the system in place. The MQM was known for getting a lion’s share of the booty by hook or by crook, but in recent years it has curbed its practice of using brute force to raise funds or bhatta, in an attempt to carve a niche for itself in mainstream national politics and expand its network to the other parts of the country. However, most other political and religious parties and ethnic groups in Karachi jumped into the fray of raising funds in the name of donations, often at gunpoint, and continue to fight one another over the collection of animal hides during Eid-ul Azha, and over zakat, fitra and charity during Ramazan.
The Amn Committee is among the groups that have jumped into the fray of fund collection. Recently, not only did it lock horns with the MQM, but its blatant use of force to extort money even forced traders and shopkeepers to stage an unprecedented shutter down in April earlier this year, with frequent warnings of repeating the same last month. Mirza’s support of the Amn Committee – to the extent that he even called its members “his children” – has been the bone of contention between the PPP and the MQM for some time now and even cost him his job at the home ministry. Much to Mirza’s dismay, the PPP’s central leadership outlawed the Amn Committee in March 2011, though its operations continued despite the official ban. Interior Minister Rehman Malik played a key role in addressing the MQM’s concerns regarding the Amn Committee and its activities.
As home minister, Mirza could have remained neutral. Instead he chose to patronise them to counter the MQM. Mirza’s disclosures, too, would have carried more weight and underlined his sincerity, if along with the MQM he had mentioned the involvement of the Amn Committee in crime, violence and extortion in Karachi. But he chose to reveal only half the truth in an apparent attempt to deflect the focus from the Amn Committee and the notorious Lyari warlord, Baba Ladla.
The criminalisation of politics and the politicisation of crime have been a bane for Karachiites for decades. Almost all major political parties operating in Karachi have armed wings, and many of them remain directly or indirectly involved in crime. The ranks of political parties are infested with criminals from different ethnic backgrounds, who run crime and encroachment networks in the guise of political party workers.
One can differ with the PPP on countless issues, but harbouring criminals and extortionists was never part of its history and goes against its grain and political ethos. PPP workers, especially while fighting the oppressive martial law regime of General Zia-ul Haq, became more radical after the controversial hanging of their founding chairman and elected Prime Minister, Zulfikar Ali Bhutto. Some even opted for an armed struggle, but it was a political struggle. Mirza and his associates, by design or by default, tried to change the PPP ethos for narrow, short-term gains.
Today, the MQM stands in a sharp contrast to its past of conducting politics on ethnic lines. Now it woos other ethnic groups, putting aside its 1980s and 1990s style of politics which does not suit its future ambitions of transforming itself into a national party. In its own self-interest, the MQM is trying hard to grow out of the politics of extortion and militancy. However, the party still holds the muscle power that can bring the city to a grinding halt at a few hours notice, and match fire with fire with political rivals and dissidents. And every once in a while it returns to its violent past when it feels its interests are being threatened. The MQM will have to shun the politics of violence and start playing by the book to whitewash its tainted past which catches up with it time and again.
It is the responsibility of all major political parties to build a consensus on the dos and don’ts of conducting politics. They should undertake to expel criminals from within their ranks, take a pledge of non-violence, and refrain from activities that disturb public life and inconvenience citizens, such as holding protests and rallies and announcing shutterdown strikes that bring all economic activity to a halt causing immeasurable suffering to the common man.
While public and media pressure is vital to push political parties in this direction, this move cannot achieve any measure of success unless state institutions, especially the intelligence agencies, stop playing one group against the other and allow their favourites to indulge in crime and violence. Our establishment, which has a sordid history of meddling in politics, should resist the temptation of propping one group against the other. Instead, they should focus on establishing the rule of the law, and ensure the independence of the police force and the effectiveness of the judiciary so that criminals and terrorists can be punished irrespective of their political, ethnic, or religious affiliations.
In other parts of the world, consensus has built the rules of co-existence as political rivals and diverse ethnic and religious groups learn to live, tolerate and accommodate each other. Pakistan needs to do the same to break political dogmas, start consensus-building and redefine the rules of the game. While all political forces have several skeletons in their cupboards and have made grave mistakes, there is a need to try and make democracy work and function out of this very mess and chaos.
While going after criminals operating in Lyari is a step in the right direction, the government must also take the MQM, as well as the Awami National Party (ANP) into confidence, and then continue to expand its dragnet to other areas.
Another important factor to keep in mind while evaluating Mirza’s charges is his turn-around from the publicly stated PPP policy of reconciliation and consensus-building. One can criticise and differ with President Zardari on a hundred and one counts, but his move to break ice with the MQM following the 2008 elections was a step in the right direction.
The PPP and the MQM remain natural allies not just because they represent rural and urban constituencies in the same province, but also because both parties endorse secular politics, which in its essence serves as a bulwark against the forces of religious extremism and terrorism. Ideologically, these two political forces have a lot more in common with each other, and with the ANP.
An alliance between the MQM, PPP and the ANP would make perfect political sense and would be vital for peace and progress in Sindh. The central leaders of these parties have an awareness of the necessity of this alliance. And it goes to their credit, that in times of crisis and despite internal strains and clashes of interest at the lower cadres of their respective parties, they have managed to keep their wobbly alliance working for this long. Case in point: when the MQM walked away from the coalition, the lines of communication between the two remained open. This is an absolute must for building peace, and is vital for the survival of democracy.
There should be zero-tolerance among all the major political parties for those political workers who promote ethnicity or sectarianism. Second and third tier hardliners within in the PPP and MQM ranks who seem to thrive on conflict and tussle between the two need to be kept on a tight leash for the greater public good and in the national interest. Rural and urban Sindh, and the inhabitants of this province, must join hands for peace and the rule of law. Ethnic groups living in Sindh are bound by unbreakable cultural, economic and political ties, which need to be strengthened by not forcing uniformity, but by accepting and celebrating their diversity.
Mirza tried to play on the wicket of the nationalists when he made absurd allegations of a conspiracy to transform Sindhis into Red Indians, and by passing some bitter remarks against Urdu-speaking immigrants and their descendants. But he he must remember that even the nationalists failed to gain mileage in rural Sindh, where the federalist PPP continues to dominate election results.
It is ironic that while holding the Holy Quran, Mirza conveniently forgot the role of certain state institutions in creating the present mess in Sindh through their unconstitutional and unlawful activities of playing one political force against the other and stifling democratic forces, especially all through the 1980s and 1990s.
The PPP suffered the most during that period. Instead, Mirza was full of praise for the ISI and the army as he tried to prove his patriotic credentials. Praising state institutions surely is no crime, but Mirza’s context should be a cause of concern for his party leadership.
Zulfikar Mirza, who claims to be such a PPP diehard and a true friend of Asif Ali Zardari, should have used the party platform to argue and air his dissent. By coming out in public with his differences and attacking his own party, he has only embarrassed his party leadership.
He would have served the PPP better if instead of patronising the Amn Committee, he had channelled his aggression in trying to create economic opportunities and jobs for the people of Lyari and improving their lives through social development and education.
But the fire-spitting Mirza‘s style of politics could prove damaging to Sindh and its people, and the PPP’s stated vision of national reconciliation. How much more leverage will President Asif Ali Zardari give his friend, and how will he handle Mirza’s, should we call it calculated or emotional, outburst, only time will tell.

Fighting Crime Vital To Save Karachi’s Businesses

By Amir Zia
Sunday, April 17, 2011
The News

One does not have to be an economist or a financial guru to know that the foremost requirement for any business to flourish and grow is security and rule of the law

Big promises, tall claims and a barrage of allegations and counter allegations -- that's what appears to be the outcome of the April 5 shutter down by traders and shopkeepers against the politically-connected crime mafias operating in the countryís financial hub of Karachi.

Interior Minister Rehman Malik, who at least has mastered the art of domestic diplomacy if not the ability to maintain law and order in the country, again dashed to Karachi this week with a bag full of promises to calm the nerves of the weary business community that remains the prime target of extortionists, kidnappers and all types of thugs.

In his meeting with leaders of the Karachi Chamber of Commerce and Industry (KCCI) at Governor House on April 14, he again made a string of bombastic promises that range from the controversial statement of shooting extortionists and bandits at sight to that of providing cellular telephone monitoring equipment to the police for tracing criminals. More security pickets, patrolling and snap checking in the volatile areas have also been ordered.

Keeping scepticism aside, have we not heard such empty announcements many times before and yet seen the city plunging deeper into the cycle of lawlessness, violence and crime? For instance, on March 17, Malik vowed a crackdown on criminals, including the Peoples’ Amn Committee of Lyari — blamed for the recent surge in crime and extortion in the main business and trade centres of Karachi. However, no action followed this announcement as criminals continue to strike at will. This forced small traders and shopkeepers to go for a shutter down on April 5, defying the KCCI leaders, who wanted to postpone this protest to give time to the government for a crackdown on the crime mafias.

Although the shutter down led to bitter divisions within the business community over the protest strategy, it remains a fact that extortion has become the number one problem for small and big traders, shop keepers, businesspeople and industrialists alike.

“If the government wants to prevent an economic collapse, it has to restore law and order in Karachi which is Pakistan’s industrial and commercial hub,” said Siraj Kassim Teli, chairman of KCCI’s Businessmen group. “The situation is grave. Operating even a small shop has now become a risky business because of the rampant crime.”

Atiq Mir, leader of the All Karachi Traders’ Alliance, which led the April 5 shutter down, said that the business of extortion blooms as usual. “Everyone is afraid of these invisible bandits, who demand money on the phone and threaten dire consequences if one refuses to meet their demand.”

It has been months now since the KCCI has been urging both the federal and provincial governments to tackle the crime mafias, but thanks to political expediency, they have got nothing but hollow promises and false assurances. Background interviews with business leaders show that people remain reluctant to put money and open new businesses in Karachi. The problem is not restricted to one or two neighbourhoods. The entire city of more than 17 million people appears hostage to criminals and an uncaring government.

For all practical purposes, the police and paramilitary Rangers are powerless, while the all-knowing Intelligence Bureau and the much-dreaded Federal Investigation Agency clueless when it comes to dealing with the vast empire of extortionists, kidnappers and bandits. One has to live in Karachi to feel the dread of criminals and politically-connected mafias. The irony is that most criminals operate under the banner of this or that political party. While all the political forces, even the partners in the ruling coalition, discreetly point fingers at one another, there remains a callous apathy toward the plight of the people.

Indeed, Karachi has a history of violence and crime, but there has been an explosion in cases of extortion, kidnappings for ransom, robberies and murders since Pakistan Peoples’ Party (PPP)-led government assumed power in March 2008. The breakdown in law and order has hit hard all sections of the society, but small shopkeepers, traders and businesses are among the worst affected.

The fear of receipt or “parchi” as called in the local lingo, or a threatening text message on one’s mobile telephone demanding money, brings a shudder in the spines of those who receive them. The demand could start from a few thousand rupees to that of tens of millions.

One does not have to be an economist or a financial guru to know that the foremost requirement for any business to flourish and grow is security and rule of the law. Insecurity and lawlessness force capital to fly to safer destinations as has been happening in Pakistan from where many business concerns have shifted abroad for expansion including places like Bangladesh, Malaysia, Dubai and South Africa. When even locals are afraid to make investments because of insecurity, crime and terrorism, one can't expect foreign investors to enter the land of the pure. KCCI President Muhammad Saeed Shafiq appears right when he says that tackling crime in Karachi is no longer just an administrative issue.

It requires immense political will and commitment to beat the crime mafias, starting from reforms not just in the state institutions — from the police to judiciary — but also a process of cleansing within the political parties, which have armed goons in their ranks.

The blame game will not end Karachi’s law and order woes, which are having a crippling affect on the business climate. The need of the hour is establishing the rule of the law. Karachi needs actions not words. Are the political parties ready to rise to the challenge to ensure that the economic pulse of Pakistan keeps beating?

La Cosa Nostra

By Amir Zia
Newsline
April 2011

Officially banned, the Amn Committee still remains active in criminal enterprises across the city.

Although President Asif Ali Zardari ordered a ban on the Peoples’ Amn Committee last month in a bid to pacify the Muttahida Qaumi Movement (MQM) and ensure it remains part of the ruling coalition, many leaders and supporters of his Pakistan Peoples’ Party (PPP) remain divided about whether to condemn or condone this shadowy group. Contrary to its name, since its formation, the Amn Committee has engendered anything but peace in the city. In fact, it is widely deemed largely responsible for the soaring crime rate in the commercial and financial hub of Karachi.
It is also recognised that the committee has sidelined the organisational structure of the ruling party in Lyari – long considered the main stronghold of Bhutto loyalists in Karachi – and even occupied its offices.
All that aside, some PPP Sindh stalwarts see the committee as a bulwark against, and a counter-balance to the muscle-power of the MQM. Others question whether supporting and patronising criminals and gun-toting militants makes any sense for the largest political party in the country. “When you bring criminals and guns into the fray, it hurts political forces in the long run,” said a senior PPP Karachi leader, requesting anonymity. “But some of our friends within the party who lack political vision and experience, fail to understand this.”
Until recently, the pro and anti-Amn Committee groups in the party were fairly equally balanced. But when Sindh Home Minister Zulfikar Mirza openly announced his support for the committee and unabashedly participated in its programmes, and several other key PPP leaders also displayed their proclivity for this controversial group, the pro votes tipped the scales.
Senior PPP leaders, including Senator Faisal Raza Abidi, MNA Abdul Qadir Petal and several others, along with Zulfikar Mirza kept politically supporting the committee, despite the reservations of many of their colleagues – especially the PPP’s three elected representatives from Lyari, who faced a tough time because of the committee in their respective constituencies.
While the Amn Committee aggressively articulated the grievances and problems of the people of Lyari, the target of their wrath remained mostly the elected PPP representatives from the area. For months at a stretch, PPP MNA Nabeel Gabol, for example, was not even allowed to visit his constituency. The two PPP Sindh Assembly members – Muhammad Saleem Hingoro and Muhammad Rafiq Engineer – also remained targets of criticism for their alleged “failure to carry out development work and resolve the problems of the people.”
The Amn Committee was formed by one of Lyari’s most notorious criminals, Rehman Dakait in June 2008, purportedly to carry out social and welfare work. Sardar Abdul Rehman Baloch as his admirers like to call him, aspired for a political career. This ambition was, however, cut short when he was killed in a police encounter in August 2009. Following his demise, the stewardship of the committee fell to young Uzair Baloch, Dakait’s relative who is wanted by the police in several cases. Meanwhile, the Peoples’ Amn Committee grew from strength to strength, making a solid base for itself first in Lyari – one of the most backward areas of the city – and then expanding its range of “lawful” and unlawful activities in other parts of the city. By opening small schools, running medical centres, and restoring parks and playgrounds, it earned itself the support of the locals. It also helped lower the crime rate in this locality – at least on the surface. But gradually, as gangsters, disgruntled workers and supporters of the PPP and unemployed youngsters from Lyari all started to assemble under its banner, it began to be seen in many circles as more a criminal enterprise than a welfare body.
Sensing the effectiveness of this group – which kept expressing its loyalty to the PPP even while virtually disallowing the party’s local leadership from operating in the area – some key ruling party leaders encouraged the Amn Committee to expand its network in other neighbourhoods. That brought the committee into direct conflict with the MQM and triggered an extensive bouts of killings, starting from early 2010.
Apart from its turf war with the MQM, Amn Committee members also went all out to expand their economic interests in the city – especially in the main commercial areas and bazaars in the close vicinity of Lyari.
On account of its activities, senior police officials, business leaders and the MQM started accusing them of being the main perpetrators of crime in the city – a charge strongly denied by committee spokesman Zafar Baloch. “The MQM accuses us because they see us as a direct challenge to their monopoly in Karachi,” said Baloch, while claiming that the group remains loyal to the PPP and Bhutto’s political legacy.
That some PPP members subscribe to this contention can be gauged by the fact that even a few hours before Interior Minister Rehman Malik announced President Zardari’s decision of banning the Amn Committee at a joint press conference with MQM leaders in the wee hours of March 17, PPP Sindh leaders were calling the group a “sister organisation.”
On March 16, Taj Haider, a senior PPP leader, explained the difference between an affiliate and a sister organisation, saying that while the Amn Commitee was not formally recognised by the party as an official wing, “all those affiliated with the committee are not criminals. Many of them are PPP supporters and so it is our sister organisation.”
Sister organisation or not, and opposition from within the PPP aside, it was the MQM that compelled Zardari to ban the party, failing which it threatened to quit the ruling coalition. The President concurred and went a step further: when Rehman Malik announced the ban, he also expressed the government’s intention to crack down on criminals without any discrimination, in conjunction with the MQM.
Within hours of the announcement of the ban, the Amn Committee ostensibly decided to voluntarily disband its structure and hand over its offices to the PPP. Following this, most members of the committee were assimilated in the party, but PPP leaders were quick to assert that criminals would be kept at a distance.
The question is, will this promise really materialise? And has the committee really disbanded at all? So far, there isn’t a great deal of room for optimism.
The Amn Committee may have been banned on paper, but its key figures and followers, many wanted in dozens of cases, continue to roam freely. But it is not just the Amn Committee which remains the mother of all troubles in Karachi. There are also a number of other ethnic, political, religious and purely criminal mafias that operate in the city and have their fair share in whipping up trouble. Thus, the racket of extortion, kidnappings, robberies, land grabbing and killings continue unabated in the city.
While the fact that the PPP and the MQM – Sindh’s two main forces – have announced their resolve to fight crime and restore supremacy of the law is very welcome, the real test will be seeing this translated into action on the ground. Both these parties – in fact all political parties – must end the politics of expediency and get rid of criminals in their ranks. For this, they will need the will to make a conscious policy decision, because it is bound to be resisted by vested political and economic interests.lisation of politics and politicisation of crime have become Karachi’s biggest challenges. Political parties have to empower institutions – from the police to the judiciary – to help eradicate these trends, and they need to get the ball rolling now. Time could prove to be the city’s worst enemy.

Issue: Making Peace

By Amir Zia
The News On Sunday
March 20, 2011

The real challenge for the government will be implementing the Interior Minister's promise of a crackdown on criminals regardless of their political affiliations.

President Asif Ali Zardari’s decision to ban the controversial Peoples' Amn Committee (PAC) operating from Lyari — one of the ruling party’s strongholds in Karachi — has again saved his alliance with the Muttahida Qaumi Movement (MQM), but the thorny issue of ties between political parties and criminals remains far from over in the country’s industrial and commercial hub.

With militants mainly belonging to the ruling coalition — the Pakistan Peoples’ Party (PPP), the Awami National Party (ANP) and the MQM — locked in a bloody conflict on Karachi streets, there has been a renewed surge in cases of extortion, kidnappings for ransom, robberies and vehicle snatching, which has made this teeming city of more than 16 million people one of the most dangerous mega cities in the world.

In the second week of March alone, at least 30 people were shot and killed, which the police describe as intra-party rivalry. So far in the first two-and-a-half month of 2011, more than 125 people have died in tit-for-tat killings in the city. While majority of those killed were workers of various political parties, many ordinary citizens also became victims in this bloody conflict that claimed 748 lives in 2010 and 242 in 2009, according to the Human Rights Commission of Pakistan.

But the unabated bloodletting remains only one part of Karachi’s grave law and order challenge. The bigger issue that emerged during the last couple of years is the growing influence of politically-connected criminals, who operate with impunity, affecting each and every stratum of the society.

“Criminals have been holding Karachi hostage,” said Saeed Shafiq, President of Karachi Chamber of Commerce and Industry. “From ordinary shopkeepers to big businessman and industrialists — all remain at the mercy of extortionists, kidnappers and bandits.”

A senior police officer, who requested not to be identified, said criminals operate under the cover of major political, religious and ethnic parties. “The Amn Committee members remain the newest entrant and are aggressively trying to expand influence beyond Lyari. The recent crime surge is the result of its activities.”

A number of victims are reluctant to report crime because they have little confidence in police and believe that criminals have political connections.

In recent months, cases of extortion and general crime soared especially in the old parts of Karachi including Joria Bazaar, Timber Market, Sarafa Bazaar, Boultan Market, Saddar — where not just retail, but wholesale markets and businesses are located, background interviews conducted with businessmen and shopkeepers revealed.

“They (criminals) send a receipt (parchi in Karachi’s lingo) — that could be a demand for a few thousand rupees or millions, according to the perceived size of the business,” said a shopkeeper in Timber Market requesting not to be identified. “If you fail to fulfill the demand, you get threats to your life and family. If you pay them once, the next demand will be bigger.”

Most of these markets are located in the close proximity of Lyari, from where most of the crimes emanate allegedly under the umbrella of PAC, founded by notorious gangster Rehman Dakait who was killed in a police encounter in 2009. But Dakait’s death did not deter his followers from expanding their network, which they claim remain focused on welfare work in line with its founder’s wish.

Zafar Baloch, a spokesman for the group, rejected allegations that the PAC was involved in crime. “We concentrate just on welfare work,” he claimed. “The Committee has Bhutto loyalists and party activists in its ranks. We remain loyal to PPP and its leadership.”

However, on the ground, “the PAC has effectively sidelined the local PPP Lyari leadership, encroached upon its offices and curtailed activities of PPP elected representatives in the area,” PPP sources alleged. PPP’s Member National Assembly from Lyari, Nabeel Gabol, was even threatened and stopped from visiting his constituency.

However, some of the PPP leaders, including Sindh Home Minister Zulfikar Mirza, viewed the group as an extension of the party.

“Amn Committee remains a strange mix of populism and crime,” admits a PPP local leader in Lyari, who also asked not to be named. “Sindh home minister even attended its rallies and called the committee members his boys. Probably, he saw them as a counterbalance to the MQM muscle power, which in itself was a wrong policy. The PPP never had a record of patronising criminals.”

The Amn Committee expanded its network rapidly in other parts of the city, pitting itself directly in confrontation with the MQM.

Haider Rizvi, an MQM MNA, said that it remains a flawed line of reasoning that the PAC, comprising “ruthless criminals, kidnappers and extortionists” posed a challenge to his party. “The MQM has an elected mandate and is a law-abiding party,” he said. “Amn Committee was no threat to us. This group, in fact, undermined the PPP mandate in Lyari and hijacked its structure over there.”

The MQM stiffened its stance against the PAC, threatening to quit the ruling coalition after Zulfikar Mirza made a public speech supporting the controversial group.

A PPP insider said that action against criminals regardless of their political affiliation was the key demand of the MQM in its recent negotiations with President Zardari. “In one of the meetings, the president expressed his shock that the Amn Committee had become such a big problem,” he said. “Some of the key PAC members, including Baba Ladla and Uzair Baloch, are wanted by police in criminal cases, but they roamed freely because of their political connections.”

However, PPP Sindh leaders remain divided about PAC’s status and its relations with their party — even barely a few hours before Interior Minister Rehman Malik announced a ban on this group in a joint press conference with MQM leaders in the wee hours of March 16.

While the PPP’s elected representatives from Lyari wanted action against the group, some other key members called it a “sister organization”.

“Amn Committee is a sister organisation, but is not formally affiliated with the party,” said PPP Sindh General Secretary Taj Haider, a few hours before Malik announced the ban. “All those affiliated with the committee are not criminals. Many of them are old PPP supporters.”

PPP sources say that many PAC members will be back to the PPP fold as it will formally cease to exist.

The real challenge for the government and the state institutions, however, will be implementing the Interior Minister Malik’s promise of a crackdown on criminals regardless of their political affiliations. This has never happened in Karachi, where even state institutions played one group against the other. Will they be able to turn a new leaf and work for the supremacy of the law? The experience offers little hope, but Malik’s high-sounding assurance, on behalf of Zardari, has certainly averted a political storm — at least for the time being — and probably provides a short relief to this troubled city.

The Fall Of Lyari

By Amir Zia
The News on Sunday
January 30, 2011

With the votebank and demography in its favour, but with no party organisation, is the PPP trapped in this backward neighbourhood?

It is considered the strongest lair of the Pakistan People’s Party (PPP) and Bhutto loyalists in Karachi,but the elected representatives of the ruling party remain among the most unpopular individuals here. Graffiti on the walls ridicule and insult PPP lawmakers elected in the 2008 general elections from Lyari -- one of the earliest and most backward neighbourhoods of Karachi -- where old and new tricolour PPP flags dot the electricity poles, rickety old houses and buildings.

At many places, along with posters and huge pictures of slain family members of the Bhutto dynasty and President Asif Ali Zardari, photographs of a notorious gangster of his time, Sardar Abdul Rehman, alias Dakait also adorn the neighbourhood -- underlining the emergence of a new political phenomenon in this PPP stronghold.

Yes, the name and legend of Rehman Dakait, killed in a controversial police encounter in August 2009, continue to live in Lyari. Dakait’s ambitions to join politics from the PPP platform ended with his death, but his People’s Amn Committee (PAC) emerged as a force to reckon with in Lyari -- a PPP stronghold since 1970s. Disgruntled supporters and workers of the PPP, gangsters and criminals comprise the core of the Amn Committee, which takes pride in doing social and welfare work. For the Muttahida Qaumi Movement (MQM) and even some PPP stalwarts, the Amn Committee symbolises criminalisation of politics, while its supporters say that it represents the voice of ordinary people and party workers ignored and forgotten by the leadership.

But between these two extreme points of view, the hard fact is that the Amn Committee has effectively managed to establish its grip over Lyari at the cost of PPP’s organisational structure. The PPP member National Assembly from the area Nabeel Gabol avoids his constituency because of what he believes a threat to his life. Gabol has been staying away from Lyari for months now -- even before he provoked the recent wrath of President Zardari by what the party insiders say his “ill-timed” and “thoughtless” statement about the two PPP allies the Awami National Party (ANP) and the MQM -- which nearly cost him his ministry.

The two PPP MPAs from the area -- Muhammad Saleem Hingoro and Muhammad Rafiq Engineer -- are taunted and badmouthed by a vast number of people in Lyari and have restricted movements in their respective constituencies, where the Amn Committee now wields power.

“It is not that there is no PPP structure in Lyari,” says a senior PPP leader and lawmaker from Karachi requesting anonymity. “From the ward to the district level, there are office-bearers and the party structure, but it is dormant. After coming to power, the leadership failed to come up to the expectation of people. They have been hiding from the people and their demands. The vacuum has been filled by the People’s Amn Committee. Those PPP workers have joined the committee, who were not allowed to rise within the party. They are third and fourth tier of local PPP leaders.”

Uzair Baloch, a cousin of Rehman Dakait, who now heads the committee, first went to jail while protesting on a call made by PPP and so was his father, he added.

Zafar Baloch, a spokesman for the Amn Committee, said that the elected representatives disappointed the people. All uplift projects in Lyari are being carried under a more than three billion rupees special presidential fund, he said. “These elected representatives have nothing to their credit,” he claimed, adding that Gabol has not been barred from Lyari. “Gabol himself does not come to Lyari despite being elected from here. We are ready to provide him protection in Lyari. But if his voters are angry with him, what can we do. Even an MQM minister and a supporter live in Lyari and none of them have ever been attacked or victimised.”

But matters are not as simple as they appear as the Amn Committee now spearheads not just the drive against crime in the area, but also works on social welfare projects -- from restoring public parks to running clinics and supporting education institutions. Police sources say that street crime, rampant all over Karachi, is nonexistent in Lyari. Drugs, which once used to sell openly, are now being sold under wraps. The appearances can, however, be deceptive.

The committee is trying to expand its influence. And in doing this, it is clashing with established forces -- especially the MQM. The tussle is one big cause of the continued violence in the city where more than 70 people have been killed in the first 25 days of January in political assassinations and crime related incidents. These rival groups also accuse one another of running extortion racket, which police officers admit have direct connections with political parties.

Indeed, politics has transformed into a sordid and bloody business in which there are no rules of the game. And the irony is that the central leadership of the political parties and the state institutions not just tolerate it, but in some ways patronise it.

Another disgruntled PPP lawmaker claimed that even the Station House Officers (SHOs) at the Lyari police stations are being appointed on Amn Committee’s recommendations. It is not the local leadership, but Sindh Home Minister Zulfikar Mirza, who has been supporting it, he claimed. “The PPP as a party has vanished from Lyari. Even there have been instances of kidnapping of PPP local leaders -- which was unthinkable in the past.”

The whole problem emerges out of the mindset of a coterie within the PPP that Amn Committee and ANP can be used as an effective force to counter MQM’s muscle power. But this hedging of position by individuals is being done at the cost of the party, PPP insiders say.

“Supporting criminal element is not an answer to a problem. In the long run, it will hurt not just the PPP, but the overall politics of this city,” the PPP lawmaker said. “When we go to Lyari, there appears no security. We feel threatened. Criminals will be calling the shots here in the next elections.”

Some old PPP supporters say that their party has been trapped in Lyari. “The Amn Committee is pro-PPP, but not in the party discipline,” said a veteran PPP worker, who in mid-1980s was an active leader of the People’s Student Federation -- the PPP’s student front. “The PPP has a votebank and demography in its favour in Lyari, but has no organisation. The Amn Committee has not just the organisational structure, but it is also backed by the gun-power.”

Old dwellers of Lyari say that their area, having a strong tradition of democratic struggle against every military rule especially that of General Ziaul Haq, has now transformed. “All the leftwing and nationalists groups which along with PPP workers were the conscience of the area have been wiped out from here. Ideological and honest political workers have taken a backseat or left politics. It is the area of toughies and goons who are now in the forefront,” the former student leader said.

Baloch of the Amn Committee says that his group has no political agenda. “We want to merge with the PPP. But those with vested interests do not want us.”

With the PPP government surviving from one crisis to another and Karachi remains on the boil with ethnic, religious and politically motivated violence, there hardly appears a chance of the change of fortunes for the people of Lyari.