EDITORIAL : THE DAWN, PAKISTAN

 

 

Senator Kerry’s visit

 

IN what appears to be the first breakthrough in US-Pakistan relations since the US operation against Osama bin Laden in Abbottabad, Senator John Kerry has met Pakistan’s top civilian, military and intelligence chiefs in Islamabad. America sent the right man for the job; Senator Kerry has long been committed to a strong relationship between the two countries. As the head of the

Senate Foreign Relations Committee, he is also well positioned to take back a positive message about our relationship with the US to Capitol Hill, where some are calling for a suspension of aid to Pakistan. And while his public remarks included messages about America’s “grave concerns” regarding Bin Laden’s presence in Pakistan, and militant sanctuaries here, his emphasis was on a shared security goal and the importance of cooperation. At the same time, the senator made a welcome effort to lay out for the Pakistani people the need for going after Bin Laden on their territory and the reasoning behind the manner and timing of the raid, including the need for secrecy. Whether or not his argument is considered reasonable, the time spent addressing concerns vis-à-vis the operation is at least an acknowledgment of Pakistan’s unease about the way in which it was carried out.

What further marked the visit as an important move towards re-establishing relations was a joint communiqué issued by the two sides, which, in addition to emphasising the need for cooperation, stated that the two countries “will work together in any future actions against high-value targets in Pakistan”. It also appears that behind closed doors Senator Kerry has managed to extract some promises. Although few details have emerged about what exactly the leadership signed up for, Pakistan reportedly made commitments in terms of counterterrorism cooperation, intelligence-sharing and targeting terrorist safe havens. Lack of clarity about the parameters of engagement seems to have contributed to the breakdown of the intelligence relationship, so it would be a positive step forward if specific goals and avenues of collaboration were discussed.

The need now is for words to be followed up with concrete progress in terms of strengthening the relationship. According to Senator Kerry, a “road map” has been put in place that will be developed further in meetings with senior officials, including the deputy director of the CIA, who will visit Pakistan in the run-up to a trip by Secretary of State Hillary Clinton. If this latest visit has in fact launched a discussion about the specific future contours of the relationship, it will have been a useful one.

Nawaz Sharif’s overtures

 

ON a visit to Sindh, PML-N chief Nawaz Sharif has been saying quite a few right things. Although showing disappointment with the presidential camp and complaining of attacks suffered at the hands of the PPP government, his remarks have been rounded off with reassuring lines about the perils of ending democratic governments midway through their term. He has pressed for a probe into the May 12, 2007 Karachi killings, and his call for investigating the Akbar Bugti case is a continuation of the position his party has maintained for years. Mr Sharif has asked for a review of ties with India and sought the accountability of generals and judges responsible for derailing democracy in Pakistan. Above all, the demand for sovereignty of parliament was a clarification much needed from the seasoned politician who had proposed a judicial commission for an inquiry into the Bin Laden raid. He has said an independent commission, in line with parliament’s recent resolution, would be the first step towards achieving that sovereignty. Actually, the number of probes that the PML-N leader has on his mind would justify the creation of a permanent parliamentary body tasked with looking into all controversial cases of national importance in the past — from Benazir Bhutto to Liaquat Ali Khan and from Abbottabad to Kargil and beyond.

Mr Nawaz Sharif’s pragmatism is, however, somewhat tempered by populism when he emulates younger brother Shahbaz Sharif’s magical trick titled Breaking the Begging Bowl. Not the idea of self-reliance, it is the futility of the follow-up austerity measures that Mr Sharif proposes that tends to expose his statement as a political stunt. By right, the PML-N chief has left the window open for an intensified campaign against the government. Then again, his warning of a direct confrontation with the president and prime minister in case he is ‘not satisfied’ with the commission’s findings of the US raid on May 2 is out of sync with his other remarks. What he deems satisfactory has not been divulged; but he has raised suspicions about the competence of the would-be commission and a parliament he wishes to see as sovereign.

Unnecessary suffering

 

CONDITIONS in the country’s public-sector hospitals are already less than ideal; when doctors serving in these institutions go on strike, the suffering of patients — many of whom have no choice but to seek treatment at a government hospital — is amplified manifold. Such has been the situation at Karachi’s Jinnah Postgraduate Medical Centre and the National Institute of Child Health since Monday, when OPD and test facilities had to be shut down because of a doctors’ protest. Operations were also postponed. The situation on Tuesday was no different. The medics had already been observing a two-hour token strike daily for the past several days over reports that the federally run institutions are to be transferred to the provincial government under the 18th Amendment. Thousands of patients visit the hospitals daily, the majority of them being the poorest of the poor and often coming from far-flung areas for treatment. There were reports that doctors in parts of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa also observed a strike on Monday, while only last month doctors in Punjab ended a lengthy strike over demands for higher pay. However, that issue remains unresolved.

Considering the immense hardship caused to patients, doctors should rethink their methods. Their demands may be genuine but a different mode of protest should be employed, one that does not involve shutting down facilities and denying treatment. The Pakistan Medical Association has said it is not in favour of strikes, yet some senior doctors feel there are no options left but to protest in this manner when an unresponsive bureaucracy refuses to listen to them. There is an urgent need to rethink the strategy: doctors should press for their legitimate demands in ways that don’t hurt the patient while the government must lend a sympathetic ear to doctors’ concerns regarding issues such as job security and working conditions.