Karachi violence beyond comparison

IT WOULD be a euphemism to describe what happened in Karachi on Wednesday as the diabolical political routine of the metropolis. Undoubtedly, the events relating to former federal minister, Dr Sher Afgan and former Sindh chief minister, Dr Arbab Rahim, over the last four days pale in comparison with Wednesday’s Karachi violence: eight people were killed - including five lawyers who were burnt alive in a building adjacent to downtown City Courts - during clashes between anti-and pro-Musharraf supporters who include two rival groups of lawyers. The violence swept Karachi, the city of teeming millions which has an unfortunate history of bomb blasts and ethnic and sectarian killings, when alleged activists of MQM and those supporting lawyers’ anti-Musharraf movement clashed at Malir Bar offices over the attack on Dr Sher Afgan, while mobs setting dozens of vehicles and some buildings and banks on fire, gutting at least two buildings, including the offices of Malir District Bar Association in Malir. As many as five charred bodies were recovered from Tahir Plaza, one of the buildings which houses offices and chambers of lawyers. The hospital also confirmed 15 injured. According to reports, those involved in acts of violence were showing no sympathy, kindness or fear as they appeared to be as hard as nails. They appeared to be an unrepentant lot of people who show no shame about their actions. As soon as the news of violence spread in the nook and corner of the city, all business activities came to a grinding halt as what usually happens under such situations the very thought of any disturbance gives Karachiites palpitations.
The tension in the city was palpable by the evening. It was inevitable that there would be violence in Sher Afgan’s hometown Mianwali where enraged mobs led by his son, who is Mianwali Tehsil Nazim, set on fire lawyers offices. However, little did anyone apprehend the perpetration of such dastardly acts of terrorism in Karachi, a city far away from Mianwali or even Punjab’s capital Lahore where the former parliamentary affairs minister was badly pummelled by an angry mob of lawyers. The two rival groups of lawyers have accused each other of Wednesday’s violence. The PPP-led government, which has, unfortunately, been facing unremitting hostility of lawyers fraternity since much before its prime minister Gilani could exert his full authority as he seems to be in a situation where he is required to understand the fact that these events are leading inexorably towards a crisis of a far bigger magnitude than what one could safely contemplate at this point in time. All leaders of the lawyers’ movement and political parties, Prime Minister Yousuf Raza Gillani and, of course, President Musharraf have strongly condemned the incident. Frustrated over his failure to protect the former minister from the anger of his professional colleagues, Aitezaz announced his resignation right after the ambulance carrying Sher Afgan left the scene. He later termed the incident as a conspiracy against the lawyers’ movement, saying he saw policemen in plainclothes among those who beat up Afgan. Nonetheless, he acknowledged that the attackers included some lawyers as well, which is why he had announced his resignation. The incident is a fresh example of increasing intolerance that has started to manifest itself with an alarming regularity at places where it should be least expected. Only last week threats of violence prevented the former chief minister of Sindh, Dr Arbab Ghulam Rahim, from participating in the new provincial assembly’s swearing-in ceremony.



Global response needed

ANYONE who has any doubt about just how interdependent the world has become should look at the food riots in Haiti and Egypt. They may be half a world apart but they are the same riots, triggered for the same reason — record world prices for staple foods. The same riots have also occurred in Cameroon, in Mauritania, in Ivory Coast and elsewhere in West Africa. Closer to home, in southern Yemen, tanks were deployed in several towns after protesters took to the streets to vent their anger at soaring prices — wheat up 100 percent, rice and vegetable oil up 20 percent. There have been riots too in West Bengal, India and in Mexico. There have been strikes in Argentina; there is a strike in Burkina Faso; there are shortages in Venezuela and there has even been a pasta boycott in Italy to draw attention to rocketing prices. Here too in the Kingdom, people have experienced the problem of soaring prices. A primary cause of those sky-high prices for bread, maize, rice, meat, dairy products and the like is a lot closer to home than many of us either realize or would like to think. It is the soaring price of oil. The high price of oil has forced up transport and other production costs. The price is being paid by the world’s poorest people — people such as the Haitians and the Egyptians. It has also encouraged farmers, particularly in the US that provides 70 percent of the world’s maize exports, to divert from food production into biofuel crops. With at least a 20 percent drop in maize supplies (maize being a major animal feed), this diversion has further pushed up meat and dairy prices.
The situation is extremely serious. Six months ago, the head of the UN’s Food and Agriculture Agency, Jacques Diouf, said that he would not be surprised if rising prices triggered food riots. Even he, though, must be surprised at their extent — and unless something is done they are going to spread, particularly in Africa where, according to the FAO, 21 countries face a food crisis. Worldwide the figure is 36. There is a real risk that governments will fall and political unrest may mutate into intercommunal violence as protesters seek scapegoats for their fury. The easy answer in the face of what is expected to be a continuation of soaring prices is price controls, as Russia has done. But Russia, with its oil income and massive food production can afford to do that. Poor countries, dependent on ever more expensive food imports cannot. They cannot afford to subsidize such imports. The result is that the number of the world’s starving is going to increase substantially. We live in a global village. We are grateful for the high oil prices, which, it is clear, the industrialized world can afford. But the world’s poor are suffering as a result. So we need to face this issue of food prices. It is not something that any one country can deal with alone. A global response to a global problem, causing global pain, is required — not in a year or so — but immediately. If there have to be subsidies for the world’s poorest, it may be that a special international fund needs to be set up.


—Arab News