What can be a bigger tragedy for a nation, than the shocking realization, that their lives and properties are the least of priorities of their elected government. For five days, Karachi and its citizens were being butchered as if they were living in Rwanda facing brutality of the Hutu tribe, while their federal and provincial government was debating what to do.
No action was taken, not a single criminal was arrested, or killed by police or rangers, who stood by and watched, while the vampires thirst for human blood was quenched. The only shocking realization was that this was not a tribal feud, but a battle for economic domination of the nations port city, where ethnicity is exploited to justify killings and torture. While men, women and children were dying, the rulers were occupied only in the struggle to ward off any attempt to curtail their corruption, or open any cases either in Pakistan and abroad that may pose a threat, leading to confiscation of their ill-gotten wealth, kickbacks and commissions.
Over the years Pakistan has been systematically plundered of its scarce resources and driven into a state of perpetual economic collapse, while the ruling elite, both civil and uniformed, became billionaires overnight. Our transport industry, air, road and rail, has been destroyed by this nexus of the corrupt.
Agriculture which was the backbone of our economy has been destroyed because of engineered and politicized disputes on water, while lack of water reservoirs and effective functional canal system has added to the miseries of the population by recent floods. We are an energy starved nation, with scarce resources, yet we have chosen the most expensive short term mode for producing electricity by resorting to Rental Power. Our debts keep on mounting, inflation has become unbearable, yet the fact that over Rs700 Billion vanish annually, because of corruption in FBR, does not bother those who matter, because they stand to gain personally by the status quo. As if all this was not enough, the elected government chose to write off Rs 50 Billion in loans, while their ministers are going around the world with a begging bowl.
MALIK TARIQ ALI
Lahore
