Faizabad surrender: With rampant extremism, how can govt convince the world of its anti-terrorism efforts?

THE Nov 26, 2017, six-point agreement between the Faizabad protesters and the government/military was a major setback for the reputation and image of Pakistan. There are still unanswered questions. Was it the disqualified boss of the ruling party who engineered this episode to target the military boss? Or was it the other way around? Whatever the answer, the government finally surrendered its constitutional authority to the military.

The military in turn transgressed its constitutional limits and ‘saved the country’ by conceding the unconstitutional demands of foul-mouthed religious politicians who threatened chaos throughout the country. The twin messages sent by these twin surrenders are clear: at home Pakistan is for the taking by extremists; abroad it has made a laughing stock of itself. What more could India ask for?

Pakistan’s national and foreign policy are now without a coherent governmental base. Accordingly, they have no credibility. Every ideal and value the Quaid’s Pakistan embodied has been betrayed. Those who think the country has been saved need only consider: Saved from what? For whom? For how long? At what cost? Firm and just governance has been rendered impossible by corruption, fear and treachery.

The ousted prime minister; his brother in Lahore; the irrelevant current prime minister who cannot even address the nation; the bewildered remnants of the elected government; the opposition parties and their bickering and quarrelling leaders; the pathetic parliament which only produces rupee billionaires and dollar millionaires; the military and its intelligence establishment who wield unauthorised political power without knowledge or wisdom; the police who have been used, abused, discredited and finally betrayed; the bureaucrats — with honourable exceptions; some would also include the judiciary; and those violent opportunists who politically exploit the people’s passionate love for the Prophet (PBUH,) have all brought about this anti-Pakistan farce.

Why should India try to destroy Pakistan when the country’s rulers are doing it themselves?

Why should India try to destroy Pakistan when the country’s rulers are doing it themselves? Last June, the Crown Prince of Saudi Arabia referred to Pakistan as ‘a slave country’. He can summon the prime minister and the army chief at a moment’s notice — even in the midst of a major domestic crisis. This same crown prince is supposedly embarking on the path of ‘moderate Islam’ and clean government for his country to enter the 21st century while Pakistan chooses to sink ever deeper into the morass of religious extremism and criminally corrupt governance to stay far away from the 21st century!

Leave India and the US aside. They are unfriendly countries. What about China? What must it think as it beholds the endlessly silly and scary spectacle in Pakistan? What future can it envisage for CPEC and its strategic partnership with Pakistan? At the very least, it will feel compelled to have alternative plans. With religious extremism rampant in Pakistan, what assurances can Pakistan credibly extend to China or any other country with regard to stopping extremists from using its territory against them?

What are the implications of these surrenders for Pakistan’s constitutional, democratic and counterterrorism credentials? How will an imploding Pakistan elicit support for its promotion of a just and stabilising settlement process in India-held Kashmir, or effectively call out India for its many documented atrocities?

Learned analyses of Pakistan’s political, security, economic, social and external challenges, and discussions about road maps and timelines for their possible resolution, are all rendered irrelevant by the tragic state it has been reduced to by its rulers and guardians. Moreover, the country’s elites, who rule without conscience or pity, readily plead their inability to address this situation while doing everything to ensure that it remains unaddressed. They deliberately rob the people of faith in themselves.

The world sees the situation in Pakistan as not merely ridiculous, but dangerous, since it has a nuclear arsenal, which India and the US will argue has an even higher risk now of falling into the hands of extremists. They will refer to the latest victory of the extremists over the government and security establishment. What will Pakistan’s diplomacy — even at its best — avail in the face of such perceptions? Simple dismissals of obvious realities cut no ice at home or abroad.

Given the triumph of religious obscurantism, the politically motivated security establishment, and utterly corrupt and therefore cowardly governance, what can another election achieve even if it is held fairly and leads to a change of faces? The parameters will still confine any elected government to tinkering on a ship that is sinking. No amount of charisma, flamboyant rhetoric and heroic posturing will change anything. What needs to be done is very well known. It is nonsense to suggest it cannot be done because the powers that be are too powerful and the people are imprisoned in low self-esteem and low expectations.

A mobilised, organised, informed and empowered people can get any task done. They can defeat their indifferent and callous rulers. All they need is the assistance, advice and participation of concerned Pakistanis. They do not need anybody’s ‘leadership’ which sooner or later turns out to be just another betrayal. They need devoted servants.

Pakistan is a poor country with horrible inequality and social indices. Yet there are no significant pro-poor or progressive parties. There are only religious, nationalist and populist leaders who are all right-wing, conservative and pro-establishment. They all talk in the name of the poor and the weak but they walk with the mighty. Only one national leader, within his limitations and despite his mistakes, has sincerely tried to serve the people. Most of the rest are corrupt and all of them pander to religious and power centres. They do not develop sustainable grass-roots movements and mobilisation programmes relevant to emancipating and empowering the people.

Accordingly, most “leaders” are not worth addressing. Only ordinary Pakistanis who still believe in the country that the Pakistan Movement envisaged are worth consulting. Their varied talents and collective power need to be harnessed for a historic struggle to rid Pakistan of rulers without a cause, other than to escape accountability.

List of demands put forward by TLY and accepted by govt for ending the Faizabad protest

The government on Monday gave in to the demands of Tehreek-i-Labaik Ya Rasool Allah (TLY) in order to end the Faizabad sit-in.

The agreement document — bearing signatures of Interior Minister Ahsan Iqbal, TLY chief Khadim Hussain Rizvi, and Maj Gen Faiz Hameed, among others — lists the following demands put forward by TLY: 

1. Remove Federal Law Minister Zahid Hamid from his position immediately. "Tehreek-i-Labaik will issue no fatwa [religious decree] of any kind against him." 

2. The report prepared by Raja Zafarul Haq-led committee will be made public within 30 days and whoever is named in the report for being responsible for the change in the election oath will be acted against under the law.

3. All protesters arrested between November 6 until the end of the sit-in from across the country will be released within one to three days according to legal requirements. The cases registered against them and the house arrests imposed on them will be ended.
4. An inquiry board will be established to probe and decide what action to take against the government and administration officials over the operation conducted by security forces against protesters on Saturday, November 25. The inquiry should be completed within 30 days and action will be taken against those found responsible.
5. The federal and provincial governments will determine and compensate for the loss of government and private assets incurred from November 6 until the end of the sit-in.
6. The points already agreed to concerning the Government of Punjab will be fully implemented.

The document ends by crediting Army Chief Gen Qamar Javed Bajwa and his representative team for their "special efforts" that led to the agreement being signed.

"We are thankful to him [Gen Bajwa] for saving the nation from a big catastrophe," the document concludes.

The agreement was also produced before the Islamabad High Court on Monday. Justice Shaukat Aziz Siddiqui, raising a number of "alarming objections", asked the government to satisfy the court on the "role of armed forces as an arbitrator" in the agreement with the protesters.

'More demands have been accepted'

According to Rizvi, in addition to the demands mentioned on the document, the following conditions of TLY have also been accepted by the government:

1. A board of clerics led by Pir Muhammad Afzal Qadri will be set up to probe remarks made by Punjab Law Minister Rana Sanaullah against the persecution of Ahmedis. Sanaullah will have to accept the decision made by the board.
2. No difficulty will be faced in registering cases under clause 295-C of the Pakistan Penal Code (blasphemy law).
3. No leniency will be given to those convicted by courts for blasphemy.
4. No ban will be imposed on the use of loudspeakers.
5. The foreign and interior ministries will take steps for the release of Dr Aafia Siddiqui after taking her mother and sister in confidence.
6. The holiday of Iqbal Day on November 9 will be revived.
7. Two representatives of Tehreek-i-Labaik will be included in the panel assigned to decide changes in the textbook board. The officials will push for inclusion of translation of the Holy Quran and chapters about Seerat-un-Nabi (PBUH) and Muslim leaders.
8. The chehlum of martyrs will be held on January 4 at Rawalpindi's Liaquat Bagh.
9. Every year, November 25 will be observed as "Martyrs of Prophet's honour day".

There has been no official confirmation or denial of agreeing to these demands from the government's side as yet. 

Terms of agreement with Faizabad protesters 'cannot be legally justified', says IHC

Justice Shaukat Aziz Siddiqui of the Islamabad High Court (IHC) on Monday questioned the legal standing of the agreement reached between the government and Faizabad protest leaders, saying that none of the terms could be legally justified.

"How can cases filed under the Terrorism Act be dismissed?" he asked during a hearing at the IHC regarding the recent sit-in at the Faizabad Interchange in the capital.

After the weeks-long protest that had virtually paralysed the capital, the government and leaders of Tehreek-i-Labaik Ya Rasool Allah (TLY) reached an agreement on November 26 in which the former conceded to the latter's demands — including dropping all the cases against the protesters.

The IHC, however, had noted a "number of serious objections on the terms of agreement" and expressed its displeasure over the army’s role in the settlement made with the protesters.

"Who is the army to adopt a mediator's role?" Justice Siddiqui had inquired in the previous hearing. "Where does the law assign this role to a major general?"

The IHC recommended that the legal standing of the agreement should be discussed in a joint session of the parliament, DawnNews reported.

Attorney General of Pakistan (AGP) Ashtar Ausaf, however, disagreed with the recommendation, saying that since the high court had taken suo motu notice of the matter, the judiciary should oversee it. He had appeared in court on Justice Siddiqui's orders.

The AGP requested the court to grant him some time to determine the legal position of the army's role as an arbitrator in the negotiations, saying that he was not in the country and needed time to prepare the report.

In a written order on November 27, the IHC bench had directed the attorney general to help the court determine how the armed forces could act as an arbitrator.

The Intelligence Bureau also presented a report on the botched operation against the protesters by the police in court today while the chief commissioner of Islamabad submitted a detailed report on the protest.

Meanwhile, special assistant to the prime minister, Barrister Zafarullah Khan, excused himself from IHC's order to prepare a report on the sit-in.

On November 27, the high court had tasked Zafarullah with filing a report on "what happened [during the sit-in] where and when" within 10 days.

The judge remarked that the protesters were guilty of blasphemy, pointing to the language used by the protest leaders and participants during the sit-in.