The PPP-MQM truce will help the PPP-led coalition retain its majority at the centre while it will also ensure that the MQM retains its share both in the federal and provincial cabinets. The questions that are being asked are will the agreement bring peace to Karachi and how long will the truce last?
With the PPP, MQM and ANP joining hands in a coalition, hopes had been raised that this would bring peace to the strife torn Karachi. Targeted killings of political workers and social activists that had started under Musharrafs military rule have however continued as before. On Monday, seven persons including activists of the ANP and Peoples Action Committee(APC) were killed. As the PPP-MQM talks were in progress, these seven people were brutally gunned down, the incident taking place while both the President and Interior Minister were in Karachi. A committee comprising two ministers each from PPP and MQM, to be chaired by Sindh CM has been formed. Would the exclusion of ANP which is an important stakeholder in the metropolis not bring down the credibility of the committee and reduce its efficacy? What one fails to understand is why Rehman Malik who is already burdened with so many assignments has been nominated the meetings coordinator. Malik has so many unfulfilled promises to restore peace in Karachi that few have confidence in his performance. The banning of the PAC might discomfit Home Minister Mirza who had declared it the PPPs sister organisation. There are however already reports of another organisation of the type with another name replacing the PAC.
Over the last year and a half, the MQM has announced severance of ties with the PPP so many times that it is not unnatural to ask how long the present truce is going to last. The PPP and MQM are traditional rivals in Sindh. Despite a rough and ready division of one belonging to the rural and the other to the urban Sindh, their constituencies converge at several places. Thus despite a marriage of convenience, the war of turf between the two parties has continued to rage all the time, the rumpus over the PAC being just one expression. The PPP supporters are unhappy with the division of some of the Sindh districts under Musharraf. The MQM resents the settlement of rural Sindhis in Karachi. It has also reacted strongly to the settlement of Pashtuns from the tribal belt. What is needed is a realisation, presently lacking, that no single ethnic groups has a right to claim monopoly over opportunities in large cities like Karachi, Lahore, Peshawar or Quetta.
