Pakistan’s unstoppable ‘rule of law’ journey
Nasim Zehra

PAKISTAN’S journey towards rule of law through an independent judiciary that began on March 9 has acquired vital significance after the November 3rd crisis. In response to the imposition of martial law, increasing numbers of Pakistanis within and outside the country are closing ranks to call for restoration of the judiciary and the constitution.
Perhaps for the first time in Pakistan’s history in a crisis situation, the nation is collectively defining the threat that undermines its security. From all corners of Pakistan, all sections of society, belonging to various political divides, appreciate that the problem lies within. No patriotic or nationalist argument will detract people’s attention away from the problem within and force them to look at ‘external foes.’
The November 3 move may not have brought thousands on the streets, giving misplaced confidence to General Musharraf about the correctness of his move. That confidence is illusionary. The damage trail caused by his November 3 move is long and real. Within the country, polarisation between the state and the society is deepening. The state apparatus that functions on taxpayers’ money, that exists to serve the citizens and is constitutionally mandated to enforce rule of law in Pakistan’s public spaces is being used to crush all serious resistance that the Musharraf regime believes poses to imposition of the emergency.
The regime, as a result, has thousands of lawyers and politicians behind bars. The resistance is not dramatically but definitively spreading. With a divided and angry society, the battle of counterinsurgency to be fought in some areas of the NWFP will be greatly undermined. Without political consensus and support, counter-insurgency efforts never succeed. The emergency imposition has undermined our ability to confront the problem of violence and terrorism. General Musharraf’s assertion that “emergency reinforces the war on terror” is untrue. With one stroke of his pen, General Musharraf’s destruction of the independent judiciary, which he referred to as ‘judicial correction’ in his last press conference, has been the most damaging move ever made by his regime.
On the international front, it has contributed to making Pakistan the discussion point in all the notable global forums. Unwise and illogical decisions by those who run the affairs of the Pakistani state have yet again sparked off an international debate on the country. Our country’s honor and dignity is tarnished as the international community begins to view us as one of its ‘errant’ members. Many foreign leaders have decided to yet again lecture. The UN, the EU and the Commonwealth, and honorable individuals like Nelson Mandela, are all condemning the imposition of martial law and the administrative destruction of Pakistan’s independent judiciary. Also energised by the opportunity that the government’s blunder has provided, this lobby is juxtaposing the problems of extremism, proliferation and an unstable government. It is warning the international community that from an unstable and extremist Pakistan the “terrorists” get nuclear weapons. Few assertions can be more ridiculous given the strong and stable controls that manage Pakistan’s nuclear programme.
General Musharraf has only his own party and the MQM as a political ally. His major democratic cover he had sought the PPP is no longer with him. By force of circumstances, Benazir has moved away from the Musharraf regime. The view she took of Pakistan’s politics from Washington has been forced to undergo change because of two watershed events since her return to Pakistan: one the October 18 suicide bombing targeting her rally and two the November 3 imposition of martial law, authored by General Parvez Musharraf himself.
Meanwhile, there is always an opportunity presented in every crisis. And the November 3 crisis is no different. After all, the Pakistani soul for too long has been a tormented soul with too much that has been illegal and illogical, and dare we say immoral, unloaded on it by the rulers from within and by the powers from the outside. No matter if their intentions were noble and sincere. If martial laws and corrupt and blundering civilian rulers were not bad enough, we also had international ‘jihads’ to ‘play for’ and indeed ‘pay for.’ Nothing in our country’s history was as grossly damaging as our full-blown participation in the American war to roll back the ‘evil Soviet Empire’ in the eighties. Our own internal political, intellectual and economic growth got hijacked and derailed by both internal and external factors. Now is the time for redemption. People have decided to stand up and say no. Peoples’ battle is for the rule of law, for upholding the constitution of Pakistan.
Pakistanis have embarked on their own journey. Pushed along by the excesses of civilian and military rulers, they have undertaken this journey with great conviction and determination. Their own journey is a journey towards rule of law and towards constitutional democracy. They began this journey on March 9, ironically triggered by the Musharraf regime’s attempted dismissal of the chief justice. They covered unprecedented ground during that journey. It was not against an individual or an institution. Nor was it for an individual. Instead it was for an independent supreme court that showed promise to uphold constitutional democracy, promote rule of law and above all push ahead for accountable exercise of political and state power.
What is new then is that we have ourselves stood up to define what our destination must be and what the all-encompassing threat really is. While terrorism and violence within our polity are real threats and we had all advocated, even before 9/11, that we needed to confront this problem head-on, combining politics and force, we are all coming to the conclusion that the dominant threat is the threat from law-breakers. The threat from law breakers, throughout Pakistan’s history, has been the one that has led to our many national tragedies. Men and women in power who have exercised power outside of the discipline of constitution have made mockery of statecraft in Pakistan. Individual and clique wisdom has replaced sober and responsible policy-making.
The world is now forced to frame the post November 3 crisis in Pakistan within the framework of rule of law; not of war-on-terrorism alone. If Pakistan must successfully respond to challenges from within and from the outside, the only way forward is to roll back the disastrous and illegal imposition of emergency. The starting point for the roll back must be the restoration of the constitution and the restoration of the judiciary. This is the only exit route out of the present crisis. No other band aid approach will work. All politicians must be on board as Pakistan steers itself towards genuine democracy and away from the terrorism and violence that has begun to take root in society.

—Khaleej Times

Anti-corruption campaign
Lan Xinzhen

SINCE the 16th National Party Congress in 2002, discipline watchdogs at all levels have brought down a handful of high-ranking officials who had severely violated Party discipline during the anti-graft campaigns, including abuse of power, corruption, commercial bribery, and dereliction of duty. Some cases involved abuse of power for personal gain, such as power of appointing and promoting civil servants, of examining and approving investments or projects and of administration and executing the law. Others involved false bids for government investment projects, illegal approval of expropriations and occupation of land for personal gain, and illegal granting of mineral exploration and mining rights. A number of high-ranking officials have been punished in the past five years, including former minister of land and resources Tian Fengshan, Shanghai’s former Party chief Chen Liangyu, former head of State Food and Drug Administration Zheng Xiaoyu, and former deputy governor of Anhui Province Wang Huaizhong. Of these, Wang Huaizhong and Zheng Xiaoyu were sentenced to death.
“The Party has strengthened its efforts to combat corruption and promote clean and honest administration in the past five years, and effectively checked cases of corruption,” said Li Dongsheng, spokesman for the 17th National Party Congress.
The CPC has curbed the spread of corruption among Party officials, and the number of violations of Party discipline and the state law has decreased steadily. According to the Central Commission for Discipline Inspection of the CPC (CCDI), discipline watchdogs imposed punishment on more than 170,000 Party members in 2003, more than 110,000 in 2005 and 90,000 in 2006, who violated Party discipline or regulations. Combating and preventing corruption is one major goal of the CPC, and a swath of important laws and regulations have been introduced and improved in the past five years. According to available statistics, the CCDI and the Ministry of Supervision have worked out or made amendments to more than 160 laws, rules, regulations and provisional measures. These intra-Party regulations, stipulations and laws have filled vacancies, laid down concrete foundations and opened much more room for providing legal support to the anti-corruption endeavors and to advancing clean and honest administration. The CPC has made two major achievements in the anti-corruption campaign in the past five years: the establishment of an inspection tour system and the improvement of system for receiving public complaints and reporting.
Initiated in 1996, the inspection tour system was officially established in August 2003 to further strengthen and improve intra-Party supervisory mechanisms and bring into full force the supervisory function exercised by the CCDI over leading bodies and their members at provincial (ministerial) level. In 2000, the CPC Central Committee decided to establish an office in charge of the inspection tour work jointly run by the CCDI and the Organization Department of the CPC Central Committee so as to send inspection tour groups to supervise and examine the work done by provincial and central Party and government leading bodies and especially done by their main responsible members. Inspectors for the tours were picked from former ministers or vice ministers.
During the tours, inspection groups at various levels have learned and grasped what they want to find out mainly by attending meetings as non-voting delegates, convening symposiums, conducting conversations with individuals, looking up documents and materials, accepting letters and visits from the citizens and conducting questionnaire-surveys. The CCDI’s general office is responsible for making comprehensive coordination, ensuring personnel management, logistics-guarantees, and keeping in touch with and giving guidance to provincial, regional and municipal inspection tour working organs. These inspectors have dug out important clues to cases that involve cadres above the county level violating laws or discipline, including the cases of Chen Liangyu, Hou Wujie, Xu Guojian, Ji Baojin, Du Shicheng and He Minxu, said Gan Yisheng, spokesman for the CCDI, the central disciplinary watchdog.
So far, inspection teams sent out by CCDI and the Organization Department of the CPC Central Committee have completed their first round of inspection tours to 31 provinces, autonomous regions and municipalities and are now in the middle of their second round of tours to 15 provinces, autonomous regions and municipalities, as well as the Xinjiang Production and Construction Corps, Gan said. They have also completed inspections of nine commercial banks, four state-owned assets management companies, four state-owned insurance companies, two state-owned securities companies and five major state-owned enterprises, he said.

(The Daily Mail-Beijing Review Articles Exchange Item)



Who killed 2007?
M J Akbar

IT is with some regret that I note that the year 2007 passed away under mysterious circumstances. Time dies every moment, and we are so inured to its passage that we welcome the arrival of the new, rather than mourn the death of the old, year. So why should 2007 merit regret? The reason is sentimental. It died prematurely on the Indian Subcontinent, and one must shed a tear for anything that ends before its time is up. The remaining weeks between mid-November and early January have been put on hold in both India and Pakistan. (Bangladesh is in an exceptional situation; the whole nation has been put on hold till further notice.)
Was this premature death murder or suicide? The coroner is undecided, but the evidence points to homicide. President Pervez Musharraf has completed his agenda for the year: Sacked his Supreme Court, then packed his Supreme Court; switched prime ministers from the submissive World Banker Shaukat Aziz to the pliable Mohammadmian Soomro; put on his uniform and signed a decree giving special powers to the President of the nation to lift the Emergency “whenever he sees fit.” It is holiday time in India as well. Prime Minister Manmohan Singh has taken his nuclear deal with America to as satisfactory a pause button as he could have hoped for. He and his troubled and troublesome allies on the left have found a very delicate, if somewhat tenuous, line on which to declare a cease-fire in their war over relations with the United States. The cease-fire line is this; the left has given permission to the government to go to the IAEA, but not to go on to its board of directors for approval. This may seem a simple enough compromise, but there are nuances that can be exploited. India only has to conclude a safeguards agreement, not sign one, in order to begin consultations with the Nuclear Suppliers Group of nations. Technically, the reference to the IAEA board can be made even after the NSG round. So Delhi can argue that it has operationalized nothing after having squeezed out this concession from the left. The left has made this concession because it is in desperate need for time: The longer it can delay the inevitable general elections, the better it will feel. When Indian politicians talk about saving face, you can be certain that what they really mean is saving their necks.
Both sides know that this cease-fire line can hold only up to a point; since the Bush boys will work overtime to rush through the next stages so that it goes on the agenda of the US Congress by late January. The chief American negotiator, Nicholas Burns, has already explained why America wants India to sign on the dotted line.
Let me quote from his article in Foreign Affairs. “The benefits of these historic agreements are very real for the United States. For the first time in three decades, India will submit its entire civil nuclear program to international inspection by permanently placing 14 of its 22 nuclear power plants and all of its future civil reactors under the safeguards of the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA). Within a generation, nearly 90 percent of India’s reactors will likely be covered by the agreement. Without the arrangement, India’s nuclear power program would have remained a black box. With it, India will be brought into the international nuclear nonproliferation mainstream”. The deal takes India into the nonproliferation regime, in America’s assessment, through a side door, while America of course continues to proliferate in the name of one war or the other.

—Arab News