We are notoriously wise after the event
Twenty innocents lost their lives in Turbat last week due to cold blooded and senseless terrorist violence. The state woefully failed in its duty to protect them in a region that has immense strategic importance and economic implications for the country. They were neither from the security services nor belonged to the much maligned agencies, the favoured targets (apart from gas pipelines, high-tension power transmission lines and the Ziarat Residency) of the ‘heroic fighters’ of the so-called Balochistan Liberation Front and the other foreign — funded groups combating the Pakistani state. They were the poorest of the poor, ordinary labourers who unable to make ends meet in their own home towns of Sadiqabad and Hyderabad, made the perilous journey to the Makran coastal belt for employment, far from their own hearths and loved ones. And they were working on a dam construction project, a welfare scheme for the general good, to tackle the ruinous water shortage plaguing that backward province. They paid for the sin of poverty or economic betterment with their lives, yet another warning to others similarly inclined, especially from the Punjab.
In case a certain stubborn segment of the Baloch harbours a sense of grievance against the state, it is high time for it to come to the negotiating table instead of committing these shocking slayings or hiding behind United States congressman Dana Rohrabacher and others who are skilled in fishing in troubled waters. Two wrongs do not make a right and neither do they offer an excuse for committing mass murder. Pakistan has already undergone a traumatic experience in 1971 and that will never be allowed to be repeated, come hell or high water. As the Chinese proverb goes, ‘a man who has been bitten by a serpent is afraid of a rope’. This also probably means seditious snakes in the grass, of whom we seem to have a goodly number in many guises and garbs. But, the patience of the state too has a time limit and a time fuse attached to it. These elements should beware of the wrath and astronomical power of the state when the red lines are crossed. And this applies equally to the MQM sector commanders and the sectarian target killers. When the time comes they will be considered birds of a feather and stand together in the same dock. In fact, that time has arrived.
So, in the recent Turbat incident, retribution followed quickly for the murderous group, and thirteen including reportedly the mastermind of the massacre, met their well deserved end at the hands of the security forces, which used helicopters to hunt them down. There are also reports now of a full-fledged operation involving 3000 personnel being launched against these ‘false flag’ terrorists and wreckers with a view to ending their nuisance once for all, and to enable the long-delayed development projects in the backward province to take off, benefiting the common people.
In case a certain stubborn segment of the Baloch harbours a sense of grievance against the state, it is high time for it to come to the negotiating table instead of committing these shocking slayings or hiding behind United States congressman Dana Rohrabacher and others who are skilled in fishing in troubled waters
But the fact remains that we are notoriously wise after the event. Witness how many thousand of lives were lost over the years in soft targets and the damage sustained at sensitive sites in audacious attacks by the Pakistan Taliban before the authorities, and one does not mean only the civilians (even today they remain engrossed in their petty feuds and personal financial wheeling-dealing), but also the security custodians of the state, before some preventive measures were finally taken in earnest. The initial suicide bomber attack on the premier intelligence agency office in Lahore and the loss of those vital surveillance aircraft in their hangars at the Mehran Base, are among the countless incidents evidencing either naiveté or sheer negligence on the part of the concerned officials and institutions. Still, no heads rolled here even metaphorically, though they were rolling aplenty physically in the Taliban camp.
In the latest tragedy, one discovered that there actually was a chief minister of Balochistan (as compared to his permanently Islamabad–based predecessor!) who cut short his visit to Gwadar to rush to the scene of the heinous crime, ordered the immediate arrest of the perpetrators, appeared in numerous television interviews and announced a Rupee one million compensation for each victim’s family. An aircraft was also made available to convey the corpses to their respective towns and villages. But the question still remains as to why the minimum security precautions were not taken for the protection of the labourers who were apparently slumbering in open ground or in tents, hapless ‘sleeping’ ducks for a vicious enemy blinded by hatred. Reportedly, the eight Levies’ guards who were properly armed with Kalashnikovs made no resistance but fled at the first sound of gunfire. Is it not time for the state to set up a professional special force for the troubled province instead of this Sardar-specific tribal irregular troop, especially when the insurgents are provided military training in the immediate neighbourhood and use sophisticated weaponry and tactics. The new surveillance and attack drones can be effectively employed against them in real time, especially against their commanders.
The Chinese president Mr Xi Jinping will hopefully be visiting Pakistan on April 20 and 21, and many strategic agreements are expected to be signed during his stay. The bulk of the talks will no doubt focus on the economic corridor from Kashgar to Gwadar and the growth of the latter port into a thriving beehive of activity, the trademark of the now fully awakened China. Thousands of Chinese managers and workers will be pouring into Pakistan, and the Turbat tragedy raises many questions as to how the government proposes to ensure the safety of these guest workers when the game-changing projects commence in top gear? Perhaps these latest killings were also related to this vital visit which is of the most supreme importance for Pakistan, as many neighbours (and not only the traditional one, in this instance) eye the economic corridor with envy and fear. Our security forces will need to adopt a proactive and pre-emptive policy to defeat the obvious designs of the foes of these Herculean projects.
It is right that the electronic media highlighted the plight of the families of the murdered labourers in a high-profile manner. These ordinary folk are true heroes, they knowingly risked their lives in a desolate and dangerous place to provide for their families, something the state was apparently unable to accomplish in their home environment. The victims were given maximum coverage along with their grieving families and the monstrous crime was made known to the whole world. Now, those of their heirs who are adults should be provided jobs and some agricultural land also transferred to the families in partial recompense for their dead ones’ sacrifice and the state’s failure to safeguard their lives.
It seems a bit controversial that the political faces of these inhuman terrorists were recently invited to a prestigious Lahore university to spew poison against the state, an event that was forcibly cancelled at the last moment. Even now some students are being made to protest this decision in the social media on the worn out record of (very, very selective) right of free speech, while the confused liberals and drummers of human rights are maintaining a deafening silence on these murders, as is their usual practice.
One cannot expect a Cultural Revolution here, but still fondly hopes for a total purge of these utterly useless and opportunistic leaders perhaps on the lines of the Elected Bodies Disqualification Ordinance (the EBDO of 1959) but on a much massive scale
‘Everything has a cause and the cause of anything is everything’. In our case this maxim is especially apt. Let democracy flourish, the pundits said, tolerate its present shortcomings (rampant corruption, indecisiveness, political patronage, opportunism and self-serving leadership) for five years and things will start getting better from one election to the next. But in fact the system gave us a jester chief minister of Balochistan whose ridiculous words and deeds (or lack of them) made the situation immeasurably worse over this period and no doubt strengthened the miscreants and bandits. Short term gains trump the national interest for our politicians at any given time. That is our tragedy.
Only recently, the Senate elections provided fresh confirmation of this fixed selfish mindset. The last-will-and-testament co-chairman of the PPP was initially bent upon bringing the MQM (another nemesis that needs to be stopped in its tracks now) into the Sindh cabinet, but was compelled to backtrack only because of the startling Saulat Mirza revelations and the inebriated abuse against the military emanating from the ageing London ‘clown prince’. Why, even the Khadim-e-Aala, as angelic and pure white as the driven snow, made a call to the ersatz Quaid after a lapse of seventeen years for his support, before he too was forced off this course by overriding events involving the Karachi party top guns (literally). While being the man on the flying trapeze and making somersaults, Mr Zardari again suffered temporary amnesia not only over the MQM deceptions and tendency towards blackmail during their earlier liaisons, but also ignored the ethnic party’s criminal activities in Karachi as also the substantial progress being achieved against its terror wing in the ongoing Ranger’s operation. And behold the PPP’s choice of the Sindh chief minister who is supposed to bring this anarchic city back to heel! So much for progressive betterment in our hugely flawed form of democracy and the vision of its mercenary politicians!
One cannot expect a Cultural Revolution here, but still fondly hopes for a total purge of these utterly useless and opportunistic leaders perhaps on the lines of the Elected Bodies Disqualification Ordinance (the EBDO of 1959) but on a much massive scale.
‘Great deeds cry out to be done, and always urgently…seize the day, seize the hour…’ is one poetic statement that was clearly not meant for our rulers.
