Straight Talk Continues from KK

I don't really know what's happened to Kamran Khan. Since that day, a couple of days after the Abbottabad raid, he has been more outspoken about the failures of our military establishment and the hypocrisy of our "strategic" security policies than he has probably ever been in his broadcasting career. It does make a nice change from the one-sided diatribes against civilian bungling that had allowed his programme to become extremely predictable and monotonous over the past year. (Lest this be misunderstood, I am not at all arguing that the ineffectiveness or corruption of civilian leaderships and bureaucracy should not be exposed. Only that in matters of security and on foreign policies regarding Kashmir, India, Afghanistan and the US there should be an equally fair assessment of the military which sets the tone, if not the entire agenda, of these issues. And also that the electronic media needs to provide some perspective to viewers when discussing the multiple crises of the Pakistani state - let's just say in the most understated manner that it's certainly not all the fault of the civilians who have been in partial control of this blighted country for less than half its existence).

In any case, whatever it is that has happened to Kamran Khan, I hope it continues.

Watch particularly from around 5:55 through to the end of the clip (from today's show Aaj Kamran Khan Ke Saath on Geo)...

Signs Of The Times?

Let's get some things straight. There are still a large number of BIG questions unanswered about the killing in Abbottabad of Osama bin Laden. Many in Pakistan are choosing to obsess over how the American Navy SEALs team managed to come in and go out of Pakistan without being detected by the vaunted and financially over-indulged Pakistani military. Others are also questioning whether one should take the US government's and the ISI's word that OBL was indeed present in the compound that was attacked and whether he was, in fact, killed as stated. These are NOT the questions I am talking about.

The question that really needs to be answered is how it was possible for the most wanted man in the world to be living literally under the nose of Pakistan's men in khaki, whose leader had declared almost at the same spot only a week ago that his men had broken the back of terrorism and that Pakistani "dignity" would not be compromised for the sake of "prosperity." The question that really needs to be answered is why we - the people of Pakistan - should take anything he says with any seriousness if, in fact, he and his boys are really that incompetent. And why the Pakistani people should continue to give up their prosperity to fund such incompetence. The question that really needs to be answered, if the boys in khaki are not to be taken as the most incompetent people on the face of the earth, is what they were hoping to gain from such brazen duplicity. Because that really is the only choice available in their defence: nincompoop-ness vs two-facedness. Thanks to whatever their defence may be, Pakistan has a choice of being considered either a failed or a rogue state.

But if any good can come out of this fiasco, it had to be what I witnessed while watching Aaj Kamran Ke Saath on Geo tonight. The tone was in remarkable contrast to what most of the Pakistani electronic media (with a couple of notable exceptions) had decided to feed the Pakistani public over the last two days. The 'line' seemed to be completely reversed from what the Pakistani public has been force-fed generally over the last decade. And if it means what I think it does, coming from the well-connected Kamran Khan, it might just indicate some sort of silver lining for a future that looked increasingly bleak.

See this clip of the first 12-odd minutes of the programme and decide for yourself (you can watch the whole programme here):




Can one still hope to dream?

A Brief History of Diplomatic Immunity (Updated)

Since we Pakistanis often suffer simultaneously from the twin demons of megalomania and paranoia - verily we are better than everyone else and that is why everyone is out to get us - we often also look at history through a rather selective and distorted lens. Unfortunately, none typify this mindset more than the doyens and doyennes of the Pakistani electronic media, in whom a curious mix of hyper-patriotism, half-baked information, sincere ignorance and arrogant bluster seems generally to hold sway.

Take the issue of the day on Pakistani media: whether the American known by his apparent pseudonym "Raymond Davis" - who shot dead two men in Lahore - can be tried by Pakistani courts or whether the US government has any right to claim diplomatic immunity for him. I am not going to offer my own opinion on this because, for better or worse, this is an issue for the US and Pakistani states to sort out. (I should, however, point out that, personally speaking, I do not think armed Americans or armed anyone should be roaming around the streets of Pakistan.)

But having seen numerous commentaries on television where emotive claims have been made about how Americans have not respected diplomatic immunity in their own cases, how immunity does not extend to serious crimes or how Pakistani diplomats have never been extended this kind of privilege, I just want to direct readers to a few examples.

Here's The Independent reporting in 1997 about a case in which a drunk Georgian diplomat killed a 16-year-old girl in New York with his reckless driving and the US requested a waiver from immunity for him. (The paper reports that Georgia was unlikely to approve the request though it actually was approved at the discretion of the Georgian government and the diplomat was sentenced for 7-21 years. He was transferred back to Georgia after serving three years [link courtesy @qabacha].) The piece also cites other incidences of less egregious crimes by diplomats that go unpunished. Appropriately for us, the story is titled "Can A Diplomat Get Away With Murder?"

You may also recall the shooting dead of British constable Yvonne Fletcher apparently by Libyan embassy staff in London in 1984 as well as the wounding of 11 others. Diplomatic immunity allowed the staff not to be prosecuted at all, though Britain subsequently broke off diplomatic relations with Libya. Fifteen years later, Libya accepted "general responsibility" and paid compensation, though some experts continued to question whether the police officer's death was actually caused by someone shooting from within the embassy.

Coming to Pakistani diplomats invoking diplomatic immunity, let us recall the case of our Ambassador to Spain, Mr. Haroon-ur-Rashid Abbasi, who Pakistan withdrew from his post in 1975 without allowing prosecution when heroin was discovered in his suitcase.

Let us also recall the case of our longtime permanent rep at the UN, Ambassador Munir Akram in 2003 who was accused of assault by his then girlfriend. The US also asked Pakistan to waive immunity in that case, which Pakistan did not oblige. (The case was eventually settled when Mr Akram persuaded his girlfriend to withdraw the charges against him).

So, as they say, au contraire, my friends.

Some final points, and please remember that we are only taking issue with the 'facts' of the case as presented in the media. Television analysts have almost unanimously claimed that "Davis" did not have a 'diplomatic visa'. It might behoove someone to ask our media pundits if they have ever actually seen a Pakistani diplomatic visa. From our own investigations, it seems Pakistani visas have no such specified category of 'Diplomatic Visa' (unlike some other countries). In fact, according our sources, all foreign diplomats receive Pakistani visas with the marking "Purpose of Visit:" "Official" or "Official Business" (not Official / Business, another category that does not exist) on their diplomatic passports. If they carry such a visa on their diplomatic passport and the Foreign Office has been so notified, they receive diplomatic immunity during their stay in Pakistan.

Here are some scans of Davis' passport as presented on DawnNews' Reporter programme...

This is the marking on his passport, which clearly states that he is on "diplomatic assignment" (click picture to enlarge):

This is his current visa, issued incidentally not in Washington (as claimed by Shireen Mazari on Geo and Syed Talat Hussain on DawnNews) but in Islamabad:

In fact, "Davis" only once received a three-month visa in 2009 from Washington. His subsequent 4-month visa in 2010 and his current 2-year visa were both issued within Pakistan.

Kamran Khan on Geo also went to great lengths to 'break the news' that "Davis" is a spy who works for the CIA. He almost certainly is. But not only is that not amazing insight, we have to ask, so? Is his actual work the issue of contention here? As former ambassador Zafar Hilaly pointed out on Dunya, spooks get posted on "cover postings" abroad all the time, including by the Pakistan Foreign Office, and they all receive diplomatic immunity under the Vienna Convention. Let's at least be clear what we are arguing about.


: : : UPDATES : : :

There have been some comments questioning some of my assertions in this post, which have been answered in the comments section. You may want to have a look.

A couple of other cases have been brought to our notice which we are also sharing. The first is the case in January 2001 of a Russian diplomat who killed a woman in Canada while driving drunk. A couple of quotes from this piece are worth pointing out.

"Andrey Knyazev was charged with criminal negligence causing death, impaired driving, failing to provide a breath sample, and criminal negligence causing bodily harm. Knyazev immediately claimed diplomatic immunity and on Monday, Russia denied Canada's request to lift it. [Russian Ambassador Vitaly] Churkin urged Canadians not to judge all Russians on the actions of one man. But he defended his government's right to recall Knyazev, saying it's tradition and common practice in the diplomatic community. “Many people are not happy that we didn't lift the diplomatic immunity," Churkin said. "The Canadian government has expressed its displeasure but recognized that this is our right.""

And this bit of wisdom from Canada's Foreign Minister that Pakistanis may also want to understand:

"[The] tragedy has raised questions about the use of diplomatic immunity to escape prosecution. But Foreign Affairs Minister John Manley says he will not use this case to press for changes. "There's an old saying among lawyers that hard cases make bad law," Manley said following a cabinet meeting Tuesday. "I think that (revising diplomatic rules) is something that we'd want to look at in a broader circumstance, not in the situation which we're in now," he said."

Incidentally, Shahid Saeed has also pointed out two further cases where Pakistani diplomats have invoked diplomatic immunity. The first involved Col Mohammad Hamid, a military attache in Pakistan's High Commission in London, who was caught in 2000 having sex with a prostitute in his car in a public place. When caught, Hamid immediately invoked diplomatic immunity and therefore could not be arrested. Here's an Indian Express report of the incident, which was also reported in the English papers.

The second involved the arrest in April 2001 in Kathmandu of Pakistan's first secretary Mohammad Arshad Cheema. 16kg of high-intensity explosive RDX were recovered from his residence. The Indian government believed him to be also linked to the hijacking of the Indian Airlines flight IC-814 which resulted in the freeing from Indian prisions of (subsequently Daniel Pearl murder accused) Omar Saeed Sheikh and Jaish-e-Mohammad leader 'Maulana' Masood Azhar. This report from the respected Indian magazine Frontline presents a wider and less one-sided perspective on the arrest. It also provides evidence of two things we already asserted in our post: that spies (and even military operatives) are often posted by foreign governments under diplomatic cover and that diplomatic immunity extends even to grave crimes. Cheema was expelled from Nepal rather than be prosecuted even though, by any definition, possessing high intensity explosives for ulterior motives is a very serious charge in any country.

Cutting Through the Emotionalism

Can we just express how refreshing it was to watch Najam Sethi's first appearance on Geo tonight? In the middle of the hyperventilating cacophony surrounding the shooting to death of two men in Lahore by a contractor of the US embassy (and the death of a third in a hit and run accident apparently at the hands of an American consulate vehicle), Sethi began his new programme Aapas Ki Baat with the warning that he wanted to put emotionalism aside and analyse the incident only in terms of the facts. That in itself is an all too rare approach on our television screens these days. But what followed was close to a masterclass for other television anchors on how to impart clear, precise information with a logical, rather than emotional, analysis.

Not only did Sethi cite the actual clauses of the Vienna Convention on diplomatic immunity (which Pakistan has ratified) that have been furiously talked about but never actually specifically referenced, but also put into context the whole issue in light of contemporary history and geopolitical realities. Now, others may question his interpretations of the Vienna Convention or the heretofore unknown 'facts' he presented as definite realities (we have no way of determining their veracity but he did stake his reputation on their authenticity), but I hope such challenges, if they do come, will be based on proof rather than vague emotionalism. His main contentions were:

1) Irrespective of a non-diplomatic visa (which seems to have become the main issue for some channels), a diplomatic passport - as the US claims the killer has - may still grant the man known as Raymond Allen Davis* diplomatic immunity under the Vienna Convention. [*This is assumed to be a fake name.]

2) The Vienna Convention actually grants immunity to diplomats (and their technical staff) from ALL criminal prosecution. No diplomat or foreign mission operative may be arrested by a host country, no matter what their crime (except in cases of property). (You may verify this from Clause 29-31 of the Convention.)

3) Since the American government has claimed diplomatic immunity for Davis, the Pakistan government must either accept their claim or the Pakistan Foreign Office - as the constitutional authority to decide such matters - must dispute this status. The courts are not the arbiters of the Vienna Convention under Pakistan's own constitution.

4) By claiming to leave the matter in the hands of the courts or the Punjab government, the Pakistan Foreign Office - and by extension the Federal government - is in violation of Pakistan's own constitution which details how issues of diplomatic immunity are to be handled. The Punjab police and Punjab government were wrong only to the extent that they should have referred the matter immediately to the US Consulate or the Pakistan Foreign Office before arresting Davis.

5) There are some 50-60 such contractors working for the US Embassy in Pakistan, who are all Blackwater-type operatives and whose job involves spying and ferreting out leads to trace Al Qaeda and Taliban leadership. Under a secret treaty signed by the military government of General Pervez Musharraf, a Joint Special Operations Command (JSOC) allows such operatives to work in Pakistan as well as Afghanistan. The important thing to remember here is that the military and the intelligence agencies are fully on board about this and know full well the mandate of these operatives. (This claim by Sethi, if true, of course flies in the face of those who have recently been painting Pakistan ambassador to the US Husain Haqqani as the principal villain in granting visas to these operatives, as if such visas are not overseen and approved by the ISI. It also means that those who point out that the Vienna Convention applies only to the discharge of official duties by diplomats and that Davis could obviously not be on any official mission at Mozang Chowk in Lahore, could be countered by the simple assertion by the US Embassy that he was.)

6) In case the Pakistan Foreign Office does decide to dispute diplomatic immunity to Davis, it will probably have to bear the brunt of reciprocal action from the US for reneging on a bilateral / international treaty.

7) Even if diplomatic immunity is denied to Davis, he will most probably be acquitted by the courts since his plea of self-defence will be very strong. As evidence for this contention, Sethi cited his own information that the two men killed by Davis were indeed brandishing weapons, that they were actually shot in the chest or on the side (contrary to news reports of their being shot in the back) and the context of previous attacks on foreigners in Pakistan and the atmosphere of fear that they have created.

Incidentally, Sethi does not address the death of the third man who was run over but it bears recalling that Davis is not charged in that case and the US Consulate has refused to acknowledge that its vehicle was involved. Sethi was also at pains to clarify that he neither condoned Davis' actions nor that he supported such infiltration of secret American agents into Pakistan. In fact, he also condemned such commandos roaming freely around Pakistan under the guise of diplomatic cover. But the solidity of his programme rested on the fact that he was able to separate out a dispassionate analysis of a given situation from the patriotic impulse that seems to overtake our other television analysts.

This does not mean, in any sense, that this issue will not become a hot political issue, particularly serving as a lightning-rod for popular disaffection with American policy but also helping political actors from making opportunistic capital off it. Or that the Peoples Party government is not now stuck between a rock and a hard place. Sethi himself acknowledges this. But it is good to have more than just one side of the debate, particularly when that one side is often also misinformed.

For those who missed the programme, I am attaching the clips below. But first it might also be useful to see how another programme on the same channel, Aaj Kamran Khan Ke Saath, dealt with the issue, just in the previous hour, and which trotted out that doyenne of hyperventilation and hyper-patriotic confused thinking, Ms. Shireen Mazari, to make its point (the segment begins around 1:10 and ends around 11:30).

Don't miss how Ms. Mazari fudges the issue of diplomatic immunity by referring to a waiver in other cases (which obviously implies immunity). Remarkably this was not even the worst fudge of an analysis on our screens.

In stark contrast, here's the full Najam Sethi programme:

Part 1:

Part 2:

Part 3:

Part 4:

I suppose kudos to Geo are also in order for finally bringing some rationality to their programming. See? It's not all that bad.

Have Cake, Will Eat Too

Much can be said - and is being said - about the latest Wikileaks saga. Around the world, the two biggest issues being grappled with are the future of diplomacy - would interlocutors be open and frank with each other if they fear that what they say in private is going to find its way to the web - and the repercussions on sensitive regions such as the Middle East of some of the explosive confirmations of what people sort of suspected anyway about their leaders and American designs on the world.

Unfortunately, most of what is being said in Pakistan is terribly uninformed, and swings from one extreme of 'it's all a big CIA conspiracy to undermine the Muslim world' on the one hand to 'how can you argue with this gospel truth?' on the the other. The former position does not understand the phenomenon of Wikileaks in the first place and conveniently ignores the fact that, so far, only some 500 of the more than 250,000 confidential cables have been released in the media. The second also conveniently ignores the valid questions regarding Wikileaks' allegedly super-secret structure, how Wikileaks receives information in the first place and the potential for it to be 'played.'

With respect to the first position, the proponents of the "It's all a conspiracy" theory, fed on the idea of homogeneity in the West, are unwilling to believe that there can be ideologically motivated and principled anarchists within the Western world seeking to undermine what they see as repressive state control of information, and simply do not understand how new technological tools can be used to circumvent control. If you are interested, you can read Wikileaks' front-man Julian Assange's treatise on "destroying the invisible government" from 2006, long before Wikileaks became a household word. The conspiracy-minded also ignore the substantive point that none of the principals writing the cables or quoted in them have denied the content of the cables so far (except for Maulana Fazlur Rehman, who admitted meeting US Ambassador Anne Patterson and hosting a dinner for her but denied asking the US to support him for a prime ministerial slot as she claimed in the cable). And, as I pointed out earlier, the bulk of the cables are still yet to come. The decision to stagger the release of the information this time - unlike in July when the 92,000 plus Afghan War Logs were released in one go - is a decision taken by the mainstream media as well, such as the New York Times, The Guardian, Der Spiegel, Le Monde and El Pais. 'Cablegate' will go on for months and will feature far more than the Muslim world.

With respect to the second position, I will refer you to my post in July about the last Wikileaks information dump and my ambivalence about it. Here is what I wrote at that time about Wikileaks itself:

"The second thing that makes me uneasy is WikiLeaks itself. I know this will probably sound terribly conspiratorial, but I cannot say with 100 percent surety that it is not all part of some grand psy-ops strategy: you know, build up an institution with calculated cred boosters (e.g. the leaked Iraq helicopter footage) and then use it to release info you want to release. It's not like it has never been done before, although of course never on a global level. Okay, I know I'm probably sounding like a nutter now but bear with me. Yes, I've read the wonderful profile of maverick Julian Assange (the driving force behind WikiLeaks) in The New Yorker, but I never quite understood the over-dramatized cloak and dagger stuff. Are we really being asked to believe that a man as publicly recognizable as Assange, who jets from continent to continent, can escape being tracked by international security agencies? Or that WikiLeaks, which claims to run entirely on donations (including credit card donations), does not have a single bank account or money transfer that is trace-able? Really?

Ok, forget my questions about WikiLeaks. Is it really beyond the realm of possibility for WikiLeaks and Assange, no matter how pure of heart they are, to be used by psy-op warriors wanting to put certain things out in the public realm? Are we really being asked to believe that 92,000 plus secret documents can be easily smuggled out of the Pentagon (on a Lady GaGa CD, no less, if some reports are to be believed) without anyone having any inkling? Anything is possible I guess but the probability on the other hand is a different matter.

Forgive me for being a doubting Thomas and slightly cynical. But these are the reasons I would not take the leaks at face value even as I accept the mining of the data for useful information. I hope my doubts about WikiLeaks are misplaced though."

Basically, my point is that either completely dismissing the contents of the leaked information as fake or having blind trust that nobody is feeding them to Wikileaks for their own purposes are both logically untenable positions.

But then we have Mr Kamran Khan on his Geo programme, Aaj Kamran Khan Ke Saath, deciding to embrace both positions. His programme tonight (December 2) was a marvel of double-speak and chutzpah. But before I come to tonight's programme, let me also run you through the recent history of this programme since the current Wikileaks saga broke, which I have been following and been amazed by every day.

Monday, November 29: On the day when 'Cablegate' was the top story in the entire world, the first cables having been released late the night before (according to Pakistan Time), guess how much coverage was given to them in Aaj Kamran Khan Ke Saath. None. Zero. Zilch. Cipher. Instead, Kamran Khan devoted the entire programme to an extended promotional interview of Malik Riaz, the controversial billionaire owner of Bahria Town construction, said also to have recently invested heavily in ARY. The only explanation I could come up with for this remarkable detour was that either Khan now had a home in Bahria Town or that Riaz has now invested in Geo as well.

Tuesday, November 30: Kamran Khan grudgingly does a segment on the Wikileaks expose, mainly focusing on those related to Saudi King Abdullah's perceptions of President Asif Zardari but seems still to be unsure about the news-worthiness of the story. Seems inclined to believe it's not really credible information until Professor Hasan Abbas from Washington tells him nobody's really questioning the authenticity of the cables. Manages to use the New York Times misquote about Abdullah calling Zardari "an obstacle to Pakistan's progress" and adding in "because he is not sincere to the country" of his own accord.

Wednesday, December 1: Finally realizing that 'Cablegate' is worth more than just a segment, leads his programme with the statement that the cables have caused a storm ("bhonchal") in the politics of the country. Continues to use the misquoted story and focuses almost entirely on cables related to Zardari. No mention of cables implicating General Kayani in domestic politics or ISI chief General Pasha in talks with Israel or of the alleged involvement of Arab countries in Pakistan's affairs or their instigations to the US to attack Iran, which would obviously have serious implications for Pakistan. No mention also of cables giving the lie to Nawaz Sharif's claims about his interactions with the Saudis.

Which brings us to Thursday, December 2: In an amazing display of whatever you want to call it, the first part of Kamran Khan's show was devoted to decrying the manipulation behind the leaked cables and casting doubt on their credibility. Why? Well, because they had 'tried to besmirch the good name and reputation of the Pakistan army and its well-respected leader General Kayani.' Incidentally, according to Kamran Khan, the army is "a totally uncontroversial institution." He concluded that there is a sinister game afoot to undermine Pakistan's interests through the 'selective' release of these cables. He then proceeded to 'contextualize' General Kayani's positions through "new information received", that shows how "brave" and upright the general is, which incidentally is the same 'information' presented by Syed Talat Hussain in Dawn today. (Hmmm, I wonder where both could possibly have received the information from...)

The second part of the show, on the other hand, was devoted to praising the credibility of and insight given by the leaked cables which have "documented everything" and "not one single word of which has been denied by anyone or cast into doubt." Why? Well, because they showed what a scumbag and how beholden to US interests President Zardari was. "What are the poor, powerless 170 million people of this nation to do?" cries Kamran Khan.

If that's not called having your cake and eating it too, I don't know what is.

You can watch the relevant portions of the programme below:


Having His Cake:




And Eating It:




What are the poor, powerless 170 million people of this nation to do, indeed.

Burn, Baby, Burn?

First a couple of disclaimers.

1) I don't like Asif Ali Zardari. I think he is a venal, ill-educated and ruthless man who should never have risen to the position of power he is currently in. It is the tragedy of Pakistan that it must contend with the stupidity, arrogance and insensitivity of "leaders" like him.

2) I think the government's crude attempt to muzzle Geo by forcing cable operators to take the channel off air, by burning copies of Jang and threatening newspaper hawkers who carry it is just plain wrong and needs to be resisted by all who believe in a free media.

I have explained where I am coming from for the simple reason that what I am about to say next may fly in the face of conventional wisdom, or at least the overwhelming consensus that seems to have been manufactured in the country. And make no mistake, it is a manufactured consensus.

I may not like Asif Zardari as a person but it does not take away from the fact that he is the elected president of the country. And people can say all sorts of things about the shambolic nature of a democracy that resulted in him being elected president, but those were the rules everyone agreed to play by and those are the rules we have to accept. And the reason I bring it up is that much of the manufactured consensus against him in the media is implicitly or blatantly a refusal to accept those rules.

Zardari with Cameron (Photo: Kirsty Wigglesworth / Reuters)

Let's take the case of his trip to France and England which has been the source of much of the venom spewed against him. Should he have undertaken the trip at this time, with UK PM David Cameron's pointed barbs in India against Pakistan preceding his trip and the floods wreaking such devastation across Pakistan? No. The former demanded a sense of dignity from any self-respecting leader and the latter simply a sensitivity to public perceptions.

But even though we know that it was really the former issue - and Asif Zardari's ignoring of the entreaties of even his own Foreign Minister - that really pissed the establishment (read military) off, what we have been constantly hearing is that Zardari should have been taking care of the floods situation at home.

Nowshera, July 30 (Photo: A Majeed / AFP-Getty)

Really? What exactly would Zardari have done in Pakistan? This is a man who does not even venture outside his presidential palace, unless it's to his bunkered home in Nawabshah, and who has never even once visited the frontline of the battle against the Taliban in two years, and we expect him to be directing flood relief efforts? And more importantly, didn't he just hand over all executive power under the 18th Amendment, making him just a figure-head president? Isn't PM Yousuf Raza Gilani at least correct in his rhetoric that he is the chief executive of the country and it is he who is responsible for directing relief efforts? Him and the provincial chief ministers who seem to have got away pretty unscathed so far. Yes, Zardari failed miserably on the optics and in basic decency, but does anyone seriously believe that the floods' devastation and the ineffectual state response would have been ameliorated by Zardari being in Pakistan? I don't think so. But that is the constant refrain we now hear as if it is the gospel truth, particularly on Geo.

Taunsa near Multan, August 1 (Photo: Khalid Tanveer /AP)

So Zardari was an insensitive ass. But is that such breaking news that the media focus shifts entirely to undermining him? Were he not the president, would the suffering of the affectees of the biggest floods in Pakistan's history be any less? Would the administration become super-efficient? Isn't the issue of the inherent lack of capacity of the Pakistani state to deal with such crises a bigger issue than Zardari and his jaunts? Criticise him by all means but is a man chucking a couple of shoes in his direction really a bigger story than the tens of millions displaced from their homes? Or have we become so blinded by our rage and the cult of personality that we are willing to jettison all sense of proportion?

The question then becomes, to what end is this consensus being created? You only have to watch Aaj Kamran Khan Ke Saath to get a clear sense of the game that is cynically being played.

Here's a clip of last night's programme. Watch from 5.10.




Here's the other myth that is being perpetuated: that the flood relief efforts that the army is undertaking are somehow divorced from the government's response, almost, it would seem, in opposition of government directives. Is the army separate from government? Isn't the military hardware being used in the airlifts and food drops, as well as the soldiers, paid by the government and people of Pakistan? And to take nothing away from the brave work of the jawans who endure hardship and danger to rescue people and provide them food, but why are we being made to feel that the army is doing the people of Pakistan a favour? As if this were not really their job but are doing this only out of the goodness of their hearts?

Does the building up of the army's reputation come always as the cost of undermining civilian reputations? The tragedy for Pakistan is of course that its stupid civilian leaders play exactly according to the script. And only seem to prove their cluelessness with interventions like this:

What will such a demolition, in public perception, of everything other than the armed forces mean for Pakistan? Is that what is intended? Are we destined to go back to Square Zero every time?

But coming back to the issue of Geo's forced blackout: as much as I oppose it, I for one am not buying into the claims of hurt innocence that Geo is now loudly proclaiming. Yes, the government has responded in typical hamhanded fashion and has probably added fuel to burn itself. But was Geo simply reporting news as an unbiased and neutral observer? Does it have no hidden or obvious agenda? I think we all know the answer to that, at least in our hearts.

You could also do worse than read this assessment in The Independent by Chatham House fellow Farzana Shaikh. It is probably not something you will see quoted with relish on Aaj Kamran Khan Ke Saath.

Deluded and Confused

Another day. Another brutal massacre of innocents. Is there anything to say about the horrendous suicide attack on the Data Darbar in Lahore last night that has not already been said a million times before?

Of course one could always point to the apathetic response to the previous major terrorist attack against the Ahmadi mosques in Lahore to show how callous indifference to the persecution of vulnerable communities has a habit of coming back to haunt us. But even that is something that should surely be already on the mind of any right-thinking person. The issue is not one of security lapses at all - as some are mistakenly emphasizing - the issue is a more fundamental one.

I don't wish to go into the grisly details of the attack and its tragic aftermath. Instead, what I would like to share with you are a couple of things. The first of these is a portion of an interview of author and journalist Mohammed Hanif, on Kamran Khan's special series of programmes (which are running as a substitute for his normal programme while he is away on vacations). The portion you need to hear lasts from the beginning till about 5:25.





Now, keeping in mind what Hanif says, read this news item from the Associated Press. In particular:

"But on Friday, few Pakistanis interviewed saw militants at the root of the problem.

"America is killing Muslims in Afghanistan and in our tribal areas (with missile strikes), and militants are attacking Pakistan to express anger against the government for supporting America," said Zahid Umar, 25, who frequently visits the shrine, where 180 people were also wounded.

Pakistanis are suffering because of American policies and aggression in the region, said Mohammed Asif, 34, who runs an auto workshop in Lahore. He and others said the attacks would end if the U.S. would pull out of Afghanistan.

Several other Pakistanis interviewed blamed the Ahmadis, a minority sect that has long faced discrimination in Pakistan. On May 28 in Lahore, gunmen and a suicide squad targeted two Ahmadi mosques, massacring at least 93 people, and some Pakistanis claimed the sect must have been seeking revenge.

Others cast about for additional villains — though America's hand was seen there, too.

Washington "is encouraging Indians and Jews to carry out attacks" in Pakistan, said Arifa Moen, 32, a teacher in the central city of Multan."

Today, on Geo news, I also heard the Barelvi Jamiat-e-Ulema-e-Pakistan (JUP) - holding a rally outside Memon Masjid in Karachi - blame the Data Darbar terrorism on "Blackwater and Qadianis." And I wondered, is there any hope for us at all?

Giving Media Its Due

I have been meaning to do this post for a while now but have simply not got round to it thanks to all the other storms in a tea cup that plague Pakistani media. There is a valid criticism of the media that it focuses for the most part on the negative aspects of matters rather than on the positive side of things, but as any journalist will tell you, it's the man biting a dog that's newsworthy, not the dog biting the man. Usually the media will also present in its defence the role of the media as a watchdog, the lack of space (in a physical sense) to accomodate all stories and also the desire not to become a Dubai-type government promo media.

Nevertheless, since I accept that the criticism has its merits, I have to also admit that we at Cafe Pyala can also be accused of the same vis a vis our stories on the media. My defence in this regard would primarily be two-fold: that the mainstream media has enough space to toot its own horn (and it does), and that we certainly don't have the human resource to cover everything. The point of Cafe Pyala is, for the most part, to provide an alternative to what the mainstream media is already providing.

However, once in a while, one should, I believe, also acknowledge the good work some of the media does. In particular, I have been thinking about this because of the coverage of the Attaabad landslide-lake crisis in Hunza. The media in general, and Geo in particular, has done what can only be termed a stellar job of keeping this issue in the limelight. And despite the odd slip-ups and early sketchy knowledge, generally the stories presented have been both informative and full of human interest.

The Attaabad Lake caused by a landslide (source: Dawn)

The News has also published today a very informative (and sobering) piece by Pakistani geologists that puts things in a historical perspective and provides a much longed for factual explanation about what exactly is going on there and what might happen. I have to say also that, after all the negative stories about the situation at various academic institutes, it's a relief to know that a Department of Excellence in Geology at Peshawar University actually has faculty members who can frame issues and communicate in a lucid manner.

In case you're interestd, they conclude that in all probability, the artificial dam will break.

"Will the dam fail catastrophically and send a sediment-laden flood wave (as high as 60 meters) downstream inundating overbank habitats and seriously damaging infrastructure of roads, bridges and other communication means? Alternatively, the dam may breach slowly over a time span ranging from a few days to a few weeks. This will, obviously be the most favourable situation. It will not only reduce the intensity of the debris-laden flood, avoiding serious inundations of overbank populace and damage to the KKH and bridges.

 

One would expect that experts, including geotechnical engineers and geologists, would have ready answers to these questions. The reality is that under natural environments there are so many variables involved that technical experts cannot make guaranteed predictions about the dam stability or the nature of the breach. At the most, different situation scenarios are developed. In the present case, governmental agencies have modelled flood heights and arrival time at various points in downstream sections of the Hunza, Gilgit and Indus rivers, assuming different durations of breach. In the case of catastrophic failure, their models predict a flood level of 36m that reduces to 7m in case of a breach spread over 24 hours."

I have to say I also appreciate some of the regular contributors to the oped pages of the newspapers who attempt to bring in some level of rational debate to a country seemingly bereft of it. And, since this is something that has never had the occasion to be touched upon in other posts, I think the Express Tribuine's daily map of crime in its city pages is also an excellent invention.

Kamran Khan: taking a rational line

Last night, I thought in warm terms of Geo again - unlikely as it may sound - when I saw the segment on the Facebook ban on Aaj Kamran Khan Ke Saath. After a long while, it seemed Geo was not pandering to the vociferous right-wing of this country and actually questioning their logic in a reasoned manner. Because of the Youtube blockage, I'm not going to put the clip up here but you can view it here (it's the second story which begins after the commercial break, round 7:10).

Unfortunately, it seems to have enraged the cretins and they are vociferously protesting outside the Geo offices about this very segment even as I write this. You can view the segment and decide for yourself why exactly the cretins are protesting it.

Following the Line - Corrected

I had begun writing a post about the strange suppression in the Pakistani media - print and television - of the news about the killing of, apparently, over 70 civilians in Tirah Valley by military bombardment. But I have just noticed that Five Rupees has already done a good post on this very topic. So you should go and read it.

However, a couple of things need to be corrected in the Five Rupees post. The original news, of the killing of villagers in the Kukikhel-dominated tribal area was actually carried by most Pakistani papers. The air force bombardment happened on Saturday, 10 April. The reports appeared in the papers on Sunday, 11 April. Here's Dawn's report, and here is The News' report. The reports also questioned the initial army claims that all those killed were militants. What since happened, however, is that the story disappeared, certainly off the front or back pages of both Dawn and The News and certainly on the electronic media. This was all the more surprising since the big news from yesterday was the announcement by the government of compensation to those killed and wounded, an almost-admission that non-combatants had been killed in the air strikes. (Officially, the government maintained that the compensation had been set aside to be paid, in case investigation of the case revealed innocent civilians had been killed).

Incidentally, The News' website also has a report today of the announcement of the compensation, a story that was not carried in the print edition of at least the Karachi paper (it may have appeared in the Pindi edition). The Nation too carried an AFP report but buried it deep inside. The only paper I came across to have followed up the developing story prominently today was the Express Tribune which had the story on its back page. Given the magnitude of the story, this is indeed shocking and inexplicable by journalistic standards and can only lead to a conclusion that the media has either buckled under external pressure or self-censored itself. As Five Rupees points out, BBC Urdu for its part had given the required prominence to the story and, in fact, led with it on Tuesday's evening Sairbeen bulletin.

What was clear from the BBC Urdu radio bulletin was also that a concerted effort was being made to keep the media from reporting on the story. As it is journalists' access to the remote Tirah Valley (or any conflict zone) is almost non-existent. But BBC's Dilawar Khan Wazir was, in fact, stopped from speaking even to the wounded brought into Peshawar's Hayatabad hospital and even the relatives interviewed seemed too hesitant to talk openly.

But all that seems to have changed this evening. Suddenly, Kamran Khan on Geo's flagship current affairs programme reversed Geo's seeming policy of ignoring the story, pointed out that a very apologetic Governor Owais Ghani had admitted that a tragic mistake had been made, and was even provided access to film and speak to the wounded.




Why this change of heart? For that, you may want to listen to Rahimullah Yusufzai's summation at the end of the clip above and read the Five Rupees post's last para again:

"...there's good ways to fight an insurgency and bad ways to fight an insurgency, and killing 70 innocent civilians who were on your side actually fighting the other side is definitely in the latter category."

Obviously the army / government has come to the conclusion that ham-handed attempts to cover up an obviously major mistake is not going to be fruitful and may, in fact, alienate the very people it needs on its side. It may be recalled that while Tirah has indeed become a haven for militants such as those of Mangal Bagh's Lashkar-e-Islam and Ansar-ul-Islam (a kidnapped Sikh was beheaded in the region in February), the area bombed on Saturday was home to the Kukikhel tribe, which has been supportive of the army against the militants and many of whose men serve in the army or paramilitary forces.

The tragic incident still has the potential to blow up in the government's / military's face. I have never been a fan of media sensationalism such as we saw initially in Swat or in the Lal Masjid episode. But it would be in the Pakistani media's interests not to be seen as standing too close to power.



: : : CORRECTION : : :

A commenter has rightly pointed out that I did not take into consideration Dawn's hard-hitting editorial on the strikes, which is absolutely correct. The editorial appeared on Tuesday, 13 April and I obviously missed it. It may still not explain why the subsequent news about the announcement of compensation was left out of Wednesday's paper but, obviously, Dawn did NOT ignore the story as I had earlier stated, and in fact, wrote pretty much what I and Five Rupees wrote later in our posts about the implications of such a strike. My sincerest apologies to Dawn.

Today's Express Tribune also carries a strong editorial on the issue. However, since Dawn's editorial actually appeared two days earlier, am reproducing it below:

Khyber air strikes

Dawn Editorial, Tuesday 13 April 2010

"SATURDAY’S bombings in Khyber Agency have shocked the nation and an official apology is in order, not just from the civilian administration but also the armed forces. It is clear from eyewitness accounts that the 60 or so people killed in aerial bombardments in Sra Vela were innocent tribesmen with no links to the militancy wracking the tribal belt. Even as the military establishment denied that civilians had been killed, it was reported that the victims would receive significant monetary compensation in addition to food supplies. In effect, it has been acknowledged that a huge blunder was made, one that has scarred the lives of dozens of families. The incident reflects poorly on the security apparatus’s intelligence-gathering capacity and has the potential to erode the support the government currently enjoys in its battle against Taliban-inspired militancy. A bomb dropped on the house of a serving army soldier was followed by another even more devastating attack when area residents rushed to the scene. Such actions defy description and an explanation is in order from those who ordered the assault.

It was realised quite some time ago that avoiding ‘collateral damage’ is a key factor when it comes to winning hearts and minds. This cannot be achieved when people who are most directly affected by the savagery of the Taliban also come under unintentional attack from the state. True, US drone strikes have become more precise in recent months, leading to fewer civilian casualties. Also, the military’s decision to confront the militants head-on by putting more boots on the ground has to some extent reduced the collateral damage caused by long-distance artillery assaults. But Saturday’s incident in Khyber Agency shows that dangerous intelligence gaps persist and that these need to be rectified forthwith. Damage control alone cannot suffice.

As we said at the outset, any repeat of the Sra Vela tragedy can undermine the fight against militancy. The heartbreak caused by such attacks strengthens the hands of the Taliban who want public opinion to turn against the state. Considerable gains have been made in recent months with the military going on the offensive and tribesmen raising their own antiTaliban fighting units. A reversal of fortunes is simply unaffordable. Then there are several ‘conservative’ and outright extremist players in the political arena who have much in common with the Taliban and want to see an end to the military operation. Civilian casualties in the battle arena give them more vitriol with which to embellish claims that this is America’s war, not Pakistan’s. They must be denied the chance to add fuel to the fire."

Scooped

You know what the difference is between a scoop and just another story? Sometimes as little as a few seconds. In my case, it's about one hour.

Finance Minister Shaukat Tarin (Source: Dawn / Reuters)

So the story is, I actually had the scoop about Finance Minister Shaukat Tarin's resignation having been accepted - ostensibly because he's needed back at Silk Bank, which he owns -  at about 9pm tonight. Problem was, I couldn't completely confirm it. Bigger problem was I was away from the net. And by the time, I finally got to a computer, Kamran Khan had led with the story in his 10 o' clock show on Geo. Pretty pathetic I must admit. And no, I don't expect you to believe it. If someone else told me the same story, I would probably say, well, too bad, but who cares you had the story earlier. Point is, Kamran Khan broke the story.

But it did make me think a bit about scoops. In the olden days, scoops operated on a day-basis: which newspaper got the story a day before the others. Wire agencies - those who supply news to newspapers - of course operated on a much more stringent timeframe, since agencies competed with each other to be the first to break the news to other news organizations. But generally, the average person (i.e. those not working in newspaper offices) hardly ever discovered which agency got the scoop first.

Since the advent of 24-hour television and the web, that whole languid manner of working has gone out the window (pardon the pun). And everyone with access to television and the net has access to breaking news, even from wire agencies. Of course, the race to achieve first-status is why all manner of mayhem is unleashed on the unsuspecting public, with half-baked and even sometimes completely untrue stories making it out there. But despite what DawnNews may think, you really cannot have a news channel that ignores the breaking news (as an aside, while Kamran Khan was breaking the news about Shaukat Tarin, DawnNews' new Urdu programme hosted by Wusatullah Khan was running a fascinating discussion about the place of 'regional' languages in the national psyche). It's the nature of the beast. The best you can do is to try and tame the excesses of news organizations, through laying greater audience store in the checking of facts. It's a long-term process, however, where audiences force channels through their viewership / ratings to provide them correct information. If there is any other viable (i.e. non-draconian) alternative, I don't know it.

I also thought about whether scoops really matter to anyone other than media people. I mean, I can think of some stories that might save lives (e.g. you hear about firing going on in an area you are about to go to before you get there) but, generally, most scoops can hold for a few hours or even a day. For example, would it really make a difference to a common viewer / reader if they found out that the Supreme Court struck down the NRO the day before? Would finding out about Shaukat Tarin's resignation tomorrow really negatively affect anyone other than perhaps people who might want to lobby for his post and find themselves out-lobbied? Isn't the act of scooping closely tied in with egos and entertainment?

Just some things I was thinking about...(And I'm not being a sore loser; I have already accepted that I lost the "race.")

In any case, coming back to the Shaukat Tarin story, Kamran Khan named three possible successors to his post: Arif Habib CEO Nasir Baig, former State Bank governor Dr Ishrat Hussain and former PPP finance minister Makhdoom Shahabuddin. From my sources, apparently, the President's camp and the Prime Minister's camp have their own favourites. Baig, who is incidentally the brother-in-law of Anwar Majeed, Zardari's so-called right hand man (who is also related to Shaukat Tarin through the marriage of their offspring), and Shahabuddin are apparently in the President Zardari's list, as is PPP MNA Naveed Qamar. PM Yousuf Raza Gilani's list, on the other hand, has, in addition to Hussain, current state minister Hina Rabbani Khar and economist Dr Hafeez Pasha. Who eventually gets picked may indicate which way the wind is blowing. In fact, having one of Zardari's nominees get the post would be no big deal. One of them not getting it, on the other hand, might be.