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Food security
   The finance and planning adviser AB Mirza Azizul Islam on Monday ruled out the possibility of crop-damage caused by the cyclone having any severe impact on the national economy. He mentioned that ‘Aman is not now the major crop in Bangladesh. Since agriculture contributes only 22 per cent to the gross domestic product, damage to the Aman crop will not have a significant effect on our economy’ (New Age, 22 November).
   This is a problem with old-fashioned bureaucrat-economists who never think down to earth and refuse to learn from ground realities. Here I like to emphasize two points.
   First, Aman (monsoon rice) may not be the number one crop in the country anymore. But any sensible person who has minimum knowledge of the coastal zone of Bangladesh will agree that it is the most critical and important crop along the coast. Here soil salinity of land is high and Aman grows in abundance. Aman is mostly rain-fed and the salinity level goes down in the monsoon season. In most of the offshore islands and chars, farmers hardly grow boro (winter rice) or aush (summer rice). We are not talking about Dinajpur or Mymensingh districts. We are talking about the coastal districts. That’s why coastal dikes are so important, as they protect agriculture land and mature rice crops in the field from post-monsoon saline intrusion. I suggest Mr Azizul Islam to keep aside the national data of the Bangladesh Bureau of Statistics and look at the disaggregate data at the bottom.
   The second point is that even if a country has enough foodgrains at the macro level, many people starve at the household level, as they don’t have money to buy from the market (the miracle of free market economy doesn’t work here), or don’t have enough connections to obtain a Vulnerable Group Feeding card. To have effective food security, one need not have to grow enough foodgrains. If one has enough money to by it from the local or the global market, food security is ensured. The UK or South Korea can do it. We cannot.
   We are not blaming the finance adviser or the government he serves for causing the cyclone. But why does he have to make excuses if some dislocations occur and a crisis situation takes place after a disaster of such a massive scale? Let’s face the reality that we are indeed in a crisis and we need to overcome it through our collective efforts and wisdom.
   
   Vulnerability
   According to the 2001 population census, about 12 million people live in the exposed coast of Bangladesh comprising 49 sea-facing upazilas/thanas. Most of them live in chars (newly accreted land) and islands in vulnerable conditions.
   Because of severe river erosion, landlessness and the natural process of pauperization, many people resort to autonomous settlement in vulnerable areas. Besides, many people use remote and isolated areas as transit points for their livelihood activities, such as, fishing, fish drying, etc. Dublar Char, Char Feshon, Char Osman are few such areas. These people are virtually outside the network of any support system that can be of some help at times of disaster. It is logistically impossible to evacuate people from vulnerable chars and islands before the disaster, even if there are warnings. The people have to cope with the imminent disaster with whatever means they have. The issue is not to have a full-proof evacuation system, which is too ambitious, but to take measures that contribute to enhancing coping capacity of the people to deal with disasters, so that deaths can be avoided, damages can be minimized and the recovery after the disaster becomes faster. Food must reach the affected areas immediately after the disaster.
   Disaster management
   We live with cyclones. We blamed the apathy of the Pakistani authorities for not taking care of the issue with importance. Unlike General Yahya Khan, our leaders now visit the affected areas in helicopters and bagful of relief goods are thrown to the crowd from the sky. People desperately compete with each other to grab one bag. Obviously women, children and the disabled cannot do that. Is it a civilized way of giving succour?
   Why do we have to rush from Dhaka with relief goods? Why have we not developed storage and distribution infrastructure at the district level? Why do we have so many cars for the patrician public servants (including the advisers) in the capital and not enough speedboats available to the district administration, which can be used during emergencies? Why do we need to maintain a highly centralized Chief Adviser’s Relief Fund, instead of localizing it at the district and upazila level?
   For poor people, vulnerability is both a condition and a determinant of poverty, and refers to the ability of people to avoid, withstand or recover from the harmful impacts of factors that disrupt their lives and that are beyond their immediate control. This includes shocks (sudden changes such as natural disasters, conflict or collapsing market prices), seasonality (low demand for farm labor between plantation and harvesting periods) and trends (gradual environmental degradation, oppressive political systems or deteriorating terms of trade). In the coastal zone of Bangladesh, a wide range of vulnerabilities is identified (Ref. ICZMP, 2003). These are:
   l the threat of cyclones and storm surges that causes deaths and destruction;
   l the threat of land erosion that causes untold sufferings and dislocation;
   l deterioration and the declining viability of many distinctive and threatened coastal ecosystems;
   l widespread poverty, limited livelihoods opportunities (especially outside agriculture) and poorly developed economic linkages;
   l poor levels of service provision that make the isolation of many coastal areas worse;
   l highly unequal social structures, with a small powerful elite dominating the mass of people, allied to high levels of conflict and poor law and order;
   l changing patterns of land use (including the growth of shrimp and salt production) that are affecting the coast’s morphology and water resources characteristic;
   l resource degradation; and
   l poor access to many forms of infrastructure and technologies;
   These vulnerabilities affect the livelihoods of coastal communities. Their significance, however, vary greatly between localities, occupational groups and sexes. Also important is the ways in which vulnerabilities interact with each other, with most coastal households, and especially the poor, facing multiple vulnerabilities that compound each other in terms of both the impact of specific events and the capability to recover from these events when they do strike. For example, the poor infrastructure and remoteness of many coastal localities means that the immediate impact of a major cyclone is likely to be more severe and relief efforts are hampered. Subsequently, when the survivors are rebuilding their livelihoods after the disaster, poor access to market, credit and other services, institutional weaknesses and the deterioration of the coastal resource base delay and hamper the recovery process.
   Why do we have to wait for a disaster to happen? Why don’t we prepare ourselves before, knowing well that we have been living in a cyclone-prone region for centuries? Mr Azizul Islam and others who are now the ‘guardians’ of the state must answer.
   The writer is the chairperson of CDL presently teaching at Sungkonghoe University, Seoul. mohi2005@gmail.com

OUR tin-clad Generalissimo may not be blessed in his own talent or powers (if he were he wouldn’t be in the mess he is in) but he sure is blessed in the humbugs masquerading as the people’s champion.
   With a stellar cast that includes Benazir Bhutto, one thing in the morning and another in the evening, and Maulana Fazlur Rehman, the deadliest secret weapon in Musharraf’s arsenal, it is no wonder the opposition parties are in such a state of confusion.
   But if they are not to miss the bus altogether they better make up their minds quickly. The Generalissimo, political genius that he is, has put himself in a desperate hole and the only way he can get out is if the opposition parties are foolish enough to fall into the trap of his Jan 8 election.
   If they participate, Musharraf is home and dry, the crisis he faces abating. But if they have sense not to, the election will lose all credibility and the hole the general is in will become deeper.
   Repression can’t be kept up indefinitely. People can’t be locked up all the time. Even the police get tired in the end and the army seems not in a mood to behave like the Myanmar army.
   If the political class and the intelligentsia are in a state of shock it should be of some consolation for them to know that Musharraf and coterie are also not having much fun. What is the fun of being absolute ruler when assailed from all sides, enduring lectures from the likes of John Negroponte and having to plead with the Saudis to keep Nawaz Sharif in the Holy Land?
   There are real ‘strongmen’ and there is then the tinpot variety, helpless and distraught when the weather turns wet, as it has for the paladins of this setup. Amazing, isn’t it, that Nawaz Sharif should prey so much on their nerves? Amazing too that they should be afraid of so many shadows.
   Afraid of My Lord Chief Justice Iftikhar Chaudhry, afraid of Justice Ramday, Rana Bhagwandas, retired Justice Wajihuddin Ahmed, Muneer Malik, fiery Ali Ahmed Kurd, Aitzaz Ahsan.
   Power becomes a poisoned chalice when there are so many ghosts at the feast to be terrified of. Even the great Hakim Luqman, it is said, had no cure for wehm (suspicion or the fear of the unknown). For the paranoia gripping Islamabad there is also no cure.
   The president has issued an ordinance amending the Constitution whereby no action of his post-Nov 3 can be challenged in any court of law. He can issue a hundred ordinances and amend the Constitution a hundred times but the fears preying on him, and of which he is already a victim, will not go away.
   A hundred Sharifuddin Pirzadas can be set to work day and night to amend the Constitution in the president’s favour, the entire commando strength of the Pakistan army can be deployed around Army House, still those fears will not depart.
   According to Chinese tradition, a ruler losing the mandate of heaven is doomed. Something similar seems to have happened to the present order of things after March 9. No move, not a single step, has been in the right direction, everything having the opposite effect to that intended.
   We now approach the end-run of this crisis. General Musharraf has run out of options, his bag of tricks empty. He can either follow the path of repression which, as already said, can’t be sustained for long. Or he can be saved not by his own efforts but the treachery of the opposition parties. Only if they throw him a lifeline — by agreeing to fall into the trap of the Jan 8 election — can he make it to the other shore.
   Imran Khan and Nawaz Sharif have it right. Asfandyar Wali has it right. The Baloch nationalists — Abdul Hayee, Hasil Bizenjo, Mahmood Achakzai, Akhtar and Sardar Ataullah Mengal — are on the right track. These people have their hearts in the right place. They are not keen to fall into the general’s trap.
   But others are playing a double game, none more so than that undisputed master of double-talk, Maulana Fazlur Rehman. Perhaps the time has come for the rest of the opposition parties to bid him farewell and say ‘good riddance’. A Trojan horse like him in their midst can only be a danger, spreading confusion and undermining unity from within. Better to be without such allies.
   Benazir Bhutto’s is a slightly more complicated case. She is too intelligent not to realise that any election under Musharraf will be a farce. But there are skeletons in her cupboard — let’s not go into details — limiting her freedom of action. She also cannot ignore American wishes entirely because it is the United States which is her principal backer, desperate to push Musharraf and her into some kind of understanding.
   She faces a tough choice. Does she go along with America’s reading of the situation or can she bring herself to do the right thing by her own party and the people of Pakistan? In any case, she should be under no illusion. If she decides to participate in the coming election she will have thrown a lifeline to Musharraf, in effect siding with his neo-martial law.
   What a picture this will present: Q League, MQM and assorted allies the king’s party and Benazir Bhutto and Maulana Fazlur Rehman standard-bearers of his generalship’s loyal opposition. Holy fathers are used to such transmutations but from his eyrie up in the clouds hard to imagine the great Zulfikar Ali Bhutto being amused.
   As for the Jamaat-i-Islami, time perhaps to call a spade a spade. It has to decide whether it will remain a satellite orbiting around Maulana Fazlur Rehman or it has a mind of its own. Qazi Hussein Ahmed’s rhetoric is loud but the Jamaat so far has not proved very effective in the ongoing struggle. Where does its true heart lie and can it ever be a sincere partner in the struggle for democracy?
   The Jamaat and its student wing, the Jamiat, both now realise the extent of the blunder committed when Jamiat goons misbehaved with Imran Khan on Nov 14. This has brought a searching light to focus on the Jamiat’s politics, exposing it and the Jamaat to perhaps the severest criticism in their blood-charged history.
   The Jamiat, desperate to make amends, is now saying it will arrange a reception in Imran’s honour. Imran will have to be a fool to go along with such a charade. Such double-faced companions are best kept at a distance.
   But you’ll have to hand it to Imran for being so plucky. The kind of setbacks he has suffered would have made a lesser man say goodbye to politics long ago. But he persevered and is now reaping the fruits of his perseverance.
   If there is one politician who has emerged tall during the stormy events of this year it is Imran. To judge by the courage and keen judgment of events he has shown, he may well be coming into his stride.
   Courage not fine speeches is what we need and if November 3’s neo-martial law has thrown up chicanery and brutality in ample measure, this most glorious of years in our history, 2007, has thrown up a new leadership consisting of judges, lawyers, civil society activists, and a new breed of students (from the most ‘liberal’ campuses, by the way). In this lies our hope for the future.
   But first a clear decision regarding the forthcoming election.

Chaos spawns rumours. Word travelled like wildfire across Pakistan in the early days of emergency that General Ashfaq Kiyani had taken General Pervez Musharraf into custody and assumed power. And that the loyalist General, who was chosen as his successor, replaced Musharraf who had lost his way in political intrigue. The rumour was not so misplaced. Similar stories travelled around Washington, DC, from the State Department to journalists to embassies.
   Washington’s gambit, to allow Musharraf to remain in power with the civilian fig leaf of Benazir Bhutto, has unravelled. With few other choices, both the White House and the State Department have turned, it is said, not to the civil society protesting in favour of democracy, but to the barracks, where the most measured man is Kiyani. He appeals to Washington: a chain smoker who is also the president of the Pakistan Golf Association, Kiyani is the type of ‘chap like us’ favoured by the brass in Washington and on its embassy row.
   President George W Bush hastened to send one of his trusted people off to Islamabad to confer with his loyal ally, Musharraf. The man chosen for this mission is an old Washington hand, Deputy Secretary of State John Negroponte. For this task of being Washington’s liaison with the Pakistani military brass, Negroponte is very credible. As the US Ambassador to Honduras in the early 1980s, Negroponte not only ensured the full support of the Reagan administration for the Honduran military dictatorship but also shepherded the ruthless strategy pursued by the anti-Communist Contras from their Honduran bases into neighbouring Nicaragua.
   Negroponte’s man in Tegucigalpa was General Gustavo Alvarez Martinez, who famously said that ‘extralegal’ means were needed to take care of any dissidents in his country and that he needed to pursue the ‘Argentine method’ of torture to maintain control of the country.
   Negroponte went from that assignment to Mexico City, where, as ambassador, he pushed the Mexican government to take a more forceful approach against the Zapatistas. Negroponte’s current task is to mollify the brass, to show them that it remains key to US strategy.
   The Pakistani military is crucial to the ‘war on terror’ if not in actual fact (Al Qaeda operatives remain at large) then certainly in a symbolic way. This is particularly so for the US elections of 2008, when the viability of a Republican candidacy will rise and fall on the merits of this ‘war’, in which Pakistan’s performance will be up for national review. Negroponte’s mission is, therefore, weighty.
   But this is not Negroponte’s first trip to Islamabad during this crisis. He was there in June to counsel Musharraf about the standoff between the General and the Supreme Court. At the close of that visit, one of the leading opposition figures (currently in jail), Aitzaz Ahsan, told the press, ‘The Americans have got their eggs in one basket and know only one phone number in Pakistan, and that is now a dead number because it does not communicate with any Pakistani citizens.’
   Ahsan, who was an Interior Minister in Benazir Bhutto’s Cabinet in the 1990s, pointed to the White House’s reliance upon the military headquarters in Rawalpindi for its information and its allegiance. But by then Washington was also on the phone with Benazir Bhutto, who was eager to return from exile in exchange for amnesty from corruption charges.
   The situation put the US rhetoric into a spin. Its main ally Musharraf had come to power in 1999 to replace ‘sham democracy’ with ‘true democracy’, and now the US wanted to broker a deal by which he would remain in power (preferably in a suit rather than in fatigues) and Benazir Bhutto would become his prime minister and give the entire sham a democratic facade (hence the importance to Washington of the elections in January).
   On a popular television talk show, Negroponte’s boss, Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice, said that what was important was that ‘elections are going to be held and held very soon, and also that the President said he was going to take off his uniform. These have both been essential to getting Pakistan back on a democratic path. Obviously, we are also encouraging that the state of emergency has got to be lifted and lifted as soon as possible.’
   When pushed on this point about the general now morphing into the president, Rice demurred, ‘This is not a perfect situation. Pakistan is a country that has come a long way from 1999 and the military coup. It has come a long way from 2001, when it pledged to try and root out extremism. But it is not a perfect situation, and nobody would suggest that it is.’
   One of the intellectual scouts who is tasked with finding a way out of this imperfect situation is Daniel Markey, currently a Senior Fellow for South Asia at the Council on Foreign Relations and a former senior planner at the US State Department in the Bush administration. Markey’s essay on Pakistan in the summer issue of the Council’s flagship journal Foreign Affairs (‘A False Choice for Pakistan’, July/August 2007) suggested that the US must closely engage the Pakistani military.
   The brass is Washington’s closest ally, particularly if the Generals make their strategic shift from affiliating with political Islam towards a closer interconnection with the Pentagon. Washington, Markey wrote, ‘must win the trust and confidence of Pakistan’s army’. A month later, as events illegitimised army rule, Markey returned to the journal for an update (‘The Summer of Pakistan’s Discontent’, September 2007), to urge Washington to applaud the Pakistani military’s moves against the Lal Masjid and in the border regions.
   The Benazir Bhutto-Musharraf alliance provided Washington a glimmer of hope out of the darkness, which in this case mainly referred to the confrontation with the judiciary (both Musharraf and Benazir Bhutto were happy to see the courts tethered, the former to remain in power, the latter to see that the corruption charges remain squashed).
   ‘Given the paucity of other viable options,’ Markey wrote, ‘Washington should support such a power-sharing agreement in order to facilitate freer and fairer elections this fall. The United States should also continue to deliver robust military and diplomatic support to the Pakistani army.’
   
   Washington’s concern
   Washington’s concern is mainly on the Pakistani-Afghan frontier, on the rise of political Islam within the country and on the concomitant problem of nuclear weapons in the hands of anti-US Islamic groups. The White House is mute when it comes to the democracy being demanded by lawyers, journalists, human rights activists and students.
   Their struggles provoke a consideration about chaos rather than hope for the creation of a new political dispensation. They evoke fears of Iran, even as this is misplaced (there are no religious leaders in Pakistan with the stature of Ayatollah Khomeini, according to Pakistani journalist Beena Sarwar).
   In an interview, Markey warned the liberals against moving too swiftly away from Musharraf and Benazir Bhutto. ‘It was this kind of coalition [between the liberals and the radical Islamists] in Iran that led to the overthrow of the Shah, and the subsequent purging of the liberals, leaving the radical Islamists in power.’
   Washington, Markey said, is not wedded to either the military or Benazir Bhutto on idealist grounds but simply because ‘there are not a lot of great options’. ‘If there were an opposition leader in Pakistan, or a set of institutions in Pakistan that provided a ready, easy alternative to Musharraf, then I think Washington would have moved in that direction some time ago.’ But short of that, Washington has to stay with the military and provide it with civilian cover.
   Vijay Prashad is the George and Martha Kellner Chair of South Asian History and Director of International Studies at Trinity College, Hartford, CT

Imperialism outdated?

Imperialism could be little outdated but not neo-colonialism; all developing countries except a few are oppressively neo-colonised.
   MT Hussain

We are thankful to Commonwealth for suspending Pakistan. This will give moral support to those who are facing extreme mental and physical torture by the military regime for raising their voices against the unlawful acts of Musharraf rule. At this moment, Musharraf is not a name of a single force that is responsible for creating havoc in all institutions of Pakistan, but it has been converted into strong ruling mafia group that includes, corrupt politicians, feudal lords, greedy generals, etc.
   Nazia
   On e-mail
   

The sad thing is that we will continue to sit idle and our children and their children will suffer the consequences.
   Sarah Chowdhury
   Los Angeles, USA
   

Next on Quick Comments

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