Politics of revenge

NOT too infrequently our national politics gives the appearance of blood sports. Every new ruler sets about sorting out his opponents through a range of measures that commonly include false police cases, unwarranted detentions and charge sheets alleging white-collar crimes. Sometimes, so-called white papers are issued against the previous government leaders, mostly based on unsubstantiated media reports. And, to make it difficult for the victims of revenge politics to get justice the cases are handed over to special courts and the so-called accountability outfits, where the government of the day has the leverage to bend the law in its favour. These machinations are expected to secure the new ruler a firm control over the situation as his detractors lie low, but past experience has shown that in the ultimate analysis he becomes a victim of his own scheming and loses his next electoral bout. Something like this has just been witnessed in Pakistan. But is there is a lesson that the new rulers - the PDA ruling coalition - has learnt from this? On Thursday, the opposition in the National Assembly staged a token boycott protesting against political victimisation at the hands of the new government. Charges and counter-charges flew across the aisle, forcing Prime Minister Gilani to take the floor to assure the House that his government would not allow political victimisation. As to some specific cases raised by the opposition members his advisor on Interior, Rehman Malik, offered additional assurances to curb the tendency of revenge politics. The boycott of the National Assembly proceedings came fast on the heels of two other similar protests: the former chief ministers of Sindh and Punjab both have accused the government leaders, by name, of plotting to get them killed. Then, there are numerous media reports suggesting that a number of senior bureaucrats have been ‘rewarded’ or ‘penalised’ respectively in line with the degree of their loyalty or disloyalty to the new rulers.
In fact, some of the appointments made by the Gilani government have earned it the accusation of employing feudalist mindset in running a country of 160 million people in circa 2008. Although who should comprehend the uselessness of such measures better than the Prime Minister and the supremos of the ruling coalition, Asif Zardari and Nawaz Sharif, who had to undergo the entire range of victimisation. The statement by Prime Minister Gilani, who himself was subjected to a rather prolonged spell of unjustified incarceration with all its attending negative effects at the hands of Musharraf regime, that his government will not allow political victimisation is welcome. He has rightly claimed that his party is for national reconciliation, and he is right in saying “if this parliament fails there may not be another chance”. Indeed, it was the National Reconciliation Ordinance that brought his party’s leadership back unto the stage. But things must now move on from these august expressions. The people of Balochistan are waiting for the follow-up action on Asif Zardari’s public apology for the wrongs done to the people of that province. Where is the truth and reconciliation commission the prime minister promised in his inaugural address in the National Assembly? It is good that Law Minister Farook Naek still remembers that his government has made a commitment to the relatives of the missing persons to recover these victims of state oppression. At the same time, the government must undo all special mechanisms like terrorist courts and accountability outfits which have been used more often to exact revenge than to deliver justice. Such outfits invariably turn out to be Frankensteins devouring their own creators.



Continuing land grab

IN CASE a comprehensive Palestinian-Israeli accord is reached by the end of this year, as espoused by US President George Bush, Israel is taking no chances. It is seeking whatever it can get its hands on should a peace deal that includes a Palestinian state be reached. Hence, the announcement that 100 new houses will be built in a West Bank settlement. The Israeli government argues that it is building new houses in existing settlements, not establishing new settlements. But all Jewish settlements in the West Bank are illegal under international law. Even the United States has pressed Israel to dismantle about two dozen outposts to comply with the road map peace plan that calls for the establishment of a Palestinian state in the West Bank and other areas. Instead, Israel will now go the other way, building 100 houses in the settlement of Ariel as a reward for the recent voluntary evacuation of two unauthorized outposts that held fewer than 10 mobile homes.
Israel’s largesse in granting settlement licenses is boundless. Since the Annapolis conference in November, Israel has announced several new building projects in areas of Jerusalem the Palestinians will need for their future state. However, the latest announcement has an additional asterisk, for it marks the first time the Israeli government has approved construction deep in the West Bank. Which is why the optimism shown by US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice earlier this month seemed unwarranted. The new settlement expansion drive, which has been described as phenomenal, includes more than 600 settler units to be built on confiscated Arab land in East Jerusalem. The Israeli government also approved the building of 800 additional settler units in the Beitar Illit colony, an ultraorthodox settlement in the West Bank while agreeing to the construction of an undisclosed number of prefabs in small settlements in the southern Hebron region to be allocated to new immigrants. Israeli government-supported, Jewish-only settlements cut a swathe across the West Bank and Gaza Strip. They are built on expropriated Palestinian-owned land, in direct contravention of the UN Security Council decisions and the Fourth Geneva Convention, which forbid the transfer of civilians from the occupying state to the occupied territory. Although the immediate physical ground occupied by these settlements represents only 1.6 percent of the West Bank, the total land area which has to be controlled to allow them to function amounts to an incredible 41.9 percent. What this indicates is that while efforts to address the violence in the region are being pursued, the expansion of one of the fundamental reasons for that violence continues uncontested. All peace efforts are doomed to failure as long as the true nature of Israeli operations remains unchallenged. Palestinians called off the peace negotiations briefly earlier this year in response to settlement construction. They should think seriously of doing the same again.

—Arab News