کراچی کی صورت حال اور ذمہ داران

Only the Air-Condition Pakistani class could think of such a wheeze and get away with it. Who says our leaders are brain dead? May Allah continue to shower His blessings upon the Zardari/Bhuttos, the Sharifs and all their hanger ons! Amen.

“Islamabad has established an extraordinarily welcoming investment environment that financiers will find hard to resist. The government’s Corporate Agriculture Farming (CAF) policy — spelled out on the Board of Investment’s website — effectively legalises foreign land acquisitions. It permits state land to be purchased outright or leased for 50 years, and allows investors to determine the size of their acquisitions (with no upper ceiling). These features apply to a broad range of agriculture from crops, fruits and vegetables to forestry and livestock farming.”

What a brilliant idea! Sell the most fertile parcels of state land to the oil saturated Arabs [the Saudis, the Emiratis and the assorted dung heads of Arabia] pocket your commission and live happily ever after in the Disney world of Dubai and the fleshpots of London’s Edgeware Road/Park Lane. As to the landless, sweating masses – turn them into Talibans, a la Swat style and get the Americans to keep them in their place by ‘droning’ them.

Only the Air-Condition Pakistani class could think of such a wheeze and get away with it. Who says our leaders are brain dead?  May Allah continue to shower His blessings upon the Zardari/Bhuttos, the Sharifs and all their hanger ons! Amen.

Putting the country on sale

The Nation, Jan. 31, 2010.

For those of us who had thought that the scheme of leasing out a million acres of agricultural land to foreign investors had been shelved by the government, the statement of Foreign Minister Shah Mahmood Qureshi last week served as a rude awakening. Shamelessly reaffirming his government’s commitment to go ahead with the sinister plan, he gave odd justifications for going ahead with it. He was in Dubai for a meeting of Frie-nds of Pakistan who are supposed to help us in this time of need. The Arab countries that have expressed interest in this unethical land grab, obviously have a poor sense of friendship. The message they, as well as the other so-called friends, are sending out is that when a friend is in need, exploit the friend and get a good price for his family silver.

One has yet to see anything worthwhile coming out of this motley group of countries that have created yet another club for the avowed purpose of helping out Pakistan in consideration of the price it has paid for fighting terrorism and to strengthen the now not-so-new democracy. Going by the Foreign Minister’s recent statement, it seems that the club serves the interests of the generous prosperous friends more than those of the one going around the globe with a begging bowl. Knowing the desperation of the beggar friend whose functionaries do not miss an occasion to register their economic helplessness and to plead with servile eyes and tones for some charity, these so-called affluent friends seem to be finding good bargains for whatever is to be grabbed in the state of Pakistan. All in the name of friendship of course.

It is surprising that after the treatment meted out to us by our best friend and ally, we still have a stomach for these so-called friendships, and as if one were not enough, we are willing to follow the tunes of this assortment of pied
pipers.

The government, instead of relying on such fickle friends, should be focusing on the wealth of resources at its disposal waiting to be managed properly.
After all, that is what it is there for. Or does the democratic government
believe that its sole purpose is to stay afloat in the short term, even if it means auctioning the country’s vital resources in a grand loot sale? Certainly, something better is expected of a democratic government.

In a ridiculous attempt at justifying the scheme, the Foreign Minister has now informed us that the land that the government intends to lease out is not owned by anyone. By that he means that the land is not owned by any private
individual. But does that mean that these precious acres are lawaris? Does he not know that land not owned by any private individual is owned by the state of Pakistan and is therefore collectively owned by the people of Pakistan?
Does he not know that the government is entrusted with looking after this land and not to sell it off to greedy friends mouthing sincerity? Does the government have no obligation to find ways of util-ising the invaluable resource for the betterment of the people it claims to represent?

To further expose his poverty of vision, the Foreign Minister said that the land to be leased out is not under cultivation and therefore we should not object to handing it over to the foreign investors who will pump in the
resources to cultivate it. Is it the best our democratic government has to offer us? If investors from distant lands with no tradition of agriculture can come and cultivate it, it should not be difficult for Pakistanis to do it, what with an agricultural heritage and knowledge going back to pre-historic times. Instead of wasting government funds on retrogressive schemes like the Benazir Income Support Programme that make beggars of able-bodied citizens rather than helping them stand on their feet, couldn’t the government spend them on helping landless farmers cultivate the land that it wants to throw away to foreign investors?

It is very unfortunate indeed that the government would insist on pushing such a hare-brained and patently nefarious scheme down our throats at the insistence of its dubious friends. But then, it is not just one nut in the
machine that the government is mowing down Pakistan and its citizens with. Whether it is for loans taken from the foul international financial institutions or for aid that it hopes to get from its best friend under the Kerry-Lugar Act,
or for crumbs it hopes to collect from the so-called Friends of Pakistan, the government is willing to compromise the well-being of the people in whose name it governs the country.

To be fair, the present government is only partially responsible for this state of affairs. In recent times, all successive governments have followed the same path. Whether it was the ‘Islamic’ dictatorship of Ziaul Haq or the quasi-democratic governments of Benazir Bhutto and Nawaz Sharif that followed, or the moderate-dictatorship of Musharraf or the Q-government that he gave birth to, those at the helm of affairs have shown a similar poverty of
vision when it comes to managing the country’s economy and the abundant resources at their disposal. They come with new mantras and programmes, but beneath the shallow surface, nothing changes on this count. Those in charge of the future of the Paki-stani people have shown a propensity to become willing partners in their exploitation at the hands of investors, states and multilateral financial institutions. Together, this evil partnership has made a rich land poor, turning its gold to dust.

Granted that the present government has inherited much of this legacy from its predecessors, there is still no excuse for continuing with it, especially when the cost has become too high for the people of Pakistan to bear. More
than millions and billions of dollars that the government is breathlessly running after, what is actually required is a political vision that appreciates the true worth of this land and its people.

Going gaga over grain

By Michael Kugelman
Dawn News, Sep. 17, 2009.

Last May, while Pakistan’s military was waging its offensive in Swat, Islamabad officials were simultaneously launching another offensive in the Gulf: a charm offensive to secure investment in Pakistani farmland.

Appearing at ‘farmland road shows’ across the region, the investment ministry representatives depicted Pakistan’s soil as the perfect solution to the Gulf nations’ food insecurity.

Such efforts have paid off for Islamabad (and according to media reports, more shows have been staged in recent days). Pakistan’s farmland is an increasingly popular target for wealthy, food-importing nations who, because of the volatility of world food markets, are taking food security matters into their own hands. These states (and also private investors) aim to buy or lease farmland overseas, grow their own crops and export them back home.

Given their lack of transparency, the details surrounding these investments are sketchy and the facts elusive. In Pakistan, uncertainty reigns over the exact amount of land made available to investors, the quantum of land sold or leased so far, and who is in fact doing the investing.

Still, even without these details, there is strong evidence to suggest that the race for Pakistan’s farmland — if not halted prematurely by farmers’ opposition or investor change-of-hearts — could trigger droves of land deals, acute resource shortages and even political strife.

Islamabad has established an extraordinarily welcoming investment environment that financiers will find hard to resist. The government’s Corporate Agriculture Farming (CAF) policy — spelled out on the Board of Investment’s website — effectively legalises foreign land acquisitions. It permits state land to be purchased outright or leased for 50 years, and allows investors to determine the size of their acquisitions (with no upper ceiling). These features apply to a broad range of agriculture from crops, fruits and vegetables to forestry and livestock farming.

Land investors flock to countries with strong legal protections. Cambodia’s government has reportedly established a national land concession authorising public land to be allocated to foreigners — and the country is now experiencing what the BBC describes as an ‘epidemic of land-grabbing’. Conversely, in India, foreign companies are banned from owning farmland — and considerably fewer investors have come calling.

Pakistan, like Cambodia, provides the legal cover farmland investors look for. However, the CAF goes beyond legal protections. It also offers generous financial incentives such as 100 per cent foreign equity; exemptions on land transfer duties; and customs-duty-free, sales-tax-free agricultural machinery imports.

Legal protection and financial incentives — what more could a foreign land investor in Pakistan want? Security, of course, and Islamabad purports to have this covered as well, through the formation of a 100,000-strong security unit. Pakistan’s government is so serious about concluding land deals that it has offered to deploy a force almost a fifth the size of the army to protect investors’ new holdings.

A rash of foreign land acquisitions in Pakistan would deepen the country’s resource crisis. Pakistan already suffers widespread water shortages, and could be water-scarce by 2020. However, supplies could dry up much sooner if enormous quantities of water are siphoned off to support large-scale, water-intensive agricultural production schemes.

To understand the scale of Pakistan’s water shortages, take a look at Aquastat, the FAO’s water statistics database. Of all the nations most often associated with relinquishing farmland, only one — Kenya — has less water availability per capita than Pakistan’s 1400 cubic metres. In fact, of the nearly 200 countries listed in the database, only 35 have less water than Pakistan — many of them the parched countries of the Gulf that are seeking the water-laden farmland they lack at home.

Indeed, quests for overseas farmland are water hunts as much as they are land hunts. Yet investors are seemingly so seduced by Islamabad’s legal and financial inducements that they disregard the fact that Pakistan’s water supply can barely sustain its own farming, much less that of immense foreign agribusiness projects.

Pakistan’s water and energy shortages could also limit the possible benefits accruing from the deals, including better technology, more employment and higher crop yields. With limited energy to operate upgraded farm machinery, and limited water to irrigate cropland, farming job prospects could suffer and talk of increased yields could become irrelevant.

Land deals could mean not just compromised small-holder livelihoods but also widespread displacement. Not surprisingly, critics argue that big land acquisitions could spark violent responses and mass political unrest. Such predictions may be premature — other than in Madagascar, opposition has been relatively localised — but they are not far-fetched in Pakistan.

Here’s why. According to the World Food Programme, 77 million Pakistanis are already food-insecure, and many of them live in the country’s most volatile areas. Foreign land holdings could cause a flare-up of this food vulnerability powder keg at the worst possible time. During the height of last year’s global food crisis, Pakistan imposed export bans to keep domestic food prices down.

According to a report by the International Institute for Sustainable Development, the UAE — which hopes to grow rice and wheat in Pakistan — then requested blanket exemptions from these bans.

Islamabad eventually relaxed export restrictions on Basmati rice. So a politically explosive scenario — such as the UAE trucking rice out of a drought-stricken or war-ravaged Pakistan and exporting it back to the Gulf while hungry locals look on — is not at all unrealistic. Throw that investment-protecting security force into the mix, and things could get really ugly.

Furthermore, there are long-standing rifts between Pakistan’s rural poor and its wealthy, landholding elite. Scores of huge land acquisitions — particularly if they displace poor labourers — would exacerbate these class-based cleavages.

Ominously, the Taliban’s actions in Swat reveal a new ability to exploit class divisions by pitting landless farmers against their landlords. Militants may well use farmland acquisitions as a pretext for fomenting a fresh class revolt in Punjab, the fertile, populous province coveted by the Taliban and reportedly ground zero for the farms race in Pakistan. Such a thought is enough to make one wonder if those farmland road shows are really worth the effort.

Source : http://www.dawn.com/wps/wcm/connect/dawn-content-library/dawn/the-newspaper/national/12-aafia-turns-out-to-be-a-credible-witness-010–bi-10

By Masood Haider

NEW YORK: Pakistani neuroscientist Aafia Siddiqui took the stand on Thursday afternoon to testify in a court where she is facing the charge of trying to kill American servicemen while in custody at Ghazni (Afghanistan).

While denying the attempted murder charge, Dr Aafia told the court that she was concerned she was going to be transferred to a ‘secret’ prison by the Americans and was trying to slip out of the room when she was shot.

“I’m telling you what I know,” she said in response to a question by Assistant US Attorney Jenna M. Dabbs.

“I walked towards the curtain. I was shot and I was shot again. I fainted.” Much to the surprise of her defence team, Dr Aafia turned to be a ‘credible witness’.

She was allowed to take the stand after Judge Richard Berman issued her caveats making her aware of the pitfalls and the dangers of such a move. Her defence team was literally scared that she could turn out to be her own worst enemy given her past record of outbursts.

She had been thrown out of the court several times after being admonished by the judge not to speak out of turn.

But on Thursday she surprised them all and remained calm and composed.Dr Aafia again denied picking up an M4 rifle and taking a shot at American soldiers and instead maintained that she was scared and wanted to run away as she heard conversations from behind the curtain during her incarceration at Ghazni.

She said as she peeked out of the curtain she was shot and injured. She also accused the FBI agents who questioned her time and again of threatening to hurt her children in order to scare her.

At one point she became so chatty that she was asked by the judge to just answer the question instead of elaborating them.

She also denied prosectuion’s claim that she was trained in rifle shooting, saying: “I took physical training but not to shoot a rifle.”

She said she was shot two or three times by one person in the room and then shot by someone else. She also said she did not believe any US soldier in the room would be irresponsible enough to leave his weapon lying around.

A group of FBI agents and US soldiers had travelled to Ghazni to interview Dr Aafia after she was allegedly found with materials that included hand-written notes referring to a “mass casualty attack” in the US and listed several landmark locations, including the Empire State Building and the Brooklyn Bridge, prosecutors have said.

Source : http://www.thenews.com.pk/top_story_detail.asp?Id=26955

Musharraf was denied immunity in CJP restoration case

By Ansar Abbasi

ISLAMABAD: The critical issue whether the president enjoys immunity under Article 248 of the Constitution was categorically and specifically decided by the Supreme Court and it was denied to former president Pervez Musharraf in the case of restoration of the then-deposed chief justice Iftikhar Mohammad Chaudhry.

While the short order in the case given on July 20, 2007, by a 13-member bench, headed by Justice Khalilur Rehman Ramday, restored the chief justice, in its detailed judgment of the same case, given just 35 days ago, no room for any ambiguity has been left.

The detailed judgment, which did not receive much legal or media attention, addressed the issue, which Prime Minister Yousuf Raza Gilani has now referred back to the Supreme Court in his speeches in the National Assembly, and gave reasons and past references to deny immunity to a sitting president, even in criminal cases as provided for in Article 248 of the Constitution.

The detailed judgment issued on Dec 24 clearly states: “…allegations of mala fide had been levelled against the person of the president by no less a person than the chief justice, no exception could be taken to implead the president as a respondent…”

Responding to objections raised in 2007 by the then-government (of Gen Musharraf), over impleading the then-president, the detailed judgment also refers to several previous judgments on this specific issue of Article 248 and cites examples where such immunities were not accepted.

The Ramday judgment refers to mala fide actions of Gen Musharraf and ruled in Para 107: “As would appear from the averments made in this petition, some of which have even been noticed in the earlier part of this judgment, the mainstay of the case of the petitioner, the chief justice of Pakistan, is that the entire exercise in question had been commenced for collateral purposes and suffered from mala fides which was sought to be established, inter alia, through the chief justice of Pakistan being summoned by the president to the Army House/President’s Camp Office; detention of the chief justice at the said office for about five hours; attempts made to secure the resignation of the chief justice under duress and through coercion; the alleged illegal detention of the wife and the children of the chief justice in their house and the alleged unconstitutional removal of the chief justice from his office and appointment of acting chief justice of Pakistan. Since such serious allegations of mala fide had been levelled against the person of the president by no less a person than the chief justice of Pakistan, no exception could be taken to implead the president as a respondent in this petition, which was in fact imperative in view of the above-mentioned precedent cases.”

Interestingly, this judgment says the president can be impleaded for his actions of illegal detention of the chief justice, his wife and children, etc. All these actions are of criminal nature, which a sitting president ordered, but the Supreme Court did not give him immunity under Article 248(2), which says no criminal proceedings can be initiated or continued against a sitting president. The Constitution does not give immunity to president or any other public office holder in civil matters.

Referring to the objection raised that Gen Pervez Musharraf, the president of Pakistan, had been impleaded in the said petition as one of the respondents, which was seen by the then government as against the provisions of Article 248(1) of the Constitution, the judgment reproduced the said Article, which reads as: “The president, a governor, the prime minister, a federal minister, a minister of state, the chief minister and a provincial minister shall not be answerable to any court for the exercise of powers and performance of functions of their respective offices or for any act done or purported to be done in the exercise of those powers and performance of those functions: Provided that nothing in this clause shall be construed as restricting the right of any person to bring appropriate proceedings against the Federation or a province.”

Many past judgments were also quoted by the Ramday judgment of Dec 24, 2009. It said that such an immunity clause had been examined by the Privy Council in HB Gills case (AIR 1948 Privy Council 148) and the reaction of the Privy Council to such-like protective provisions was as under: “Their Lordships, while admitting the cogency of the argument that in the circumstances prevailing in India a large measure of protection from harassing proceedings may be necessary for public officials cannot accede to the view that the relevant words have the scope that has in some cases been given to them. A public servant can only be said to act or to purport to act in the discharge of his official duty, if his act is such as to lie within the scope of his official duty. Thus, a judge neither acts nor purports to act as a judge in receiving a bribe, though the judgment which he delivers may be such an act: nor does a government medical officer acts or purport to act as a public servant in picking the pocket of a patient whom he is examining, though the examination itself may be such an act. The test may well be whether the public servant, if challenged, can reasonably claim that, what he does, he does in virtue of his office.”

The judgment added: “In our jurisdiction the pleaded Article 248 came up for interpretation in Chaudhry Zahur Elahi’s case (PLD 1975 SC 383). The scope and the operational area of the said provision was so stated by this court: “…the immunity provisions must, in accordance with the accepted principles of interpretation, be construed strictly and unless persons claiming the immunity come strictly within the terms of the provisions granting the immunity, the immunity cannot be extended. The immunity is in the nature of an exception to the general rule that no one is above the law.”

The matter was further explained in these words: “Hence, since neither the Constitution nor any law can possibly authorise him to commit a criminal act or do anything which is contrary to law, the immunity cannot extend to illegal or un-constitutional acts.”

This court, the judgment said, when confronted again with the protection provisions of Article 248 in Amanullah Khan’s Case (PLD 1990 SC 1092) reiterated that the said provisions were required to be strictly construed and added in para 56 that: “If mala fide of fact was pleaded by a party then it had to decide for itself whether on the material with it, the minister has to be impleaded in spite of the protecting provisions of the Constitution; because if his act does not fall within the purview of the provision so interpreted, then he can be impleaded as a party and all objections to such impleadment dealt with in the proceedings. In the absence of the party, no finding with regard to mala fide of fact (as distinguished from mala fide of law) can be recorded, should be recorded and should have been recorded. Recourse to the principles of natural justice to overcome the prohibition contained in Article 248 of the Constitution is not permissible.”

“It was further declared: “Protection under Article 248 of the Constitution is not available to the designated functionaries if their actions suffer from mala fide of fact where the allegation against the protected functionaries is one of mala fide of fact, they have to be personally impleaded as a party to the proceedings;”

“The views of Nasim Hassan Shah J in the same case are also enlightening for the resolution of the issue in question. His views were: “Now the immunity to a minister extends only to the exercise of powers and performance of functions of his office or for any act done or purported to be done in the exercise of those powers and performance of those functions. A minister can be said to be acting in exercise of the powers and functions of his office, if his acts are such which not only lie within the scope of the powers and functions conferred on him by law but are performed bona fide and for carrying into effect the intention and purposes of the statute under which, he is acting. If on the other hand his acts are performed with mala fide intent or for a colourable purpose, such acts will not be deemed to have been performed in the lawful exercise of the powers and functions vested in him and will not, therefore, be covered by the immunity. Accordingly, where it transpires that a minister has acted illegally and abused his discretion and the illegality committed was not in the bona fide exercise of his powers and functions but on account of mala fides the immunity contained in Article 248(1) would not extend to protect such an act.”

Similar views were expressed by this court in Nawabzada Muhammad Umar Khan’s Case (1992 SCMR 2450) which were as under: “Secondly, where allegations of mala fide of fact are involved or alleged, it is necessary that the parties against whom such mala fide of fact is alleged must be impleaded as a party so that it has occasion to meet the allegation. This is notwithstanding the constitutional protection enjoyed by such functionaries under Article 248 of the Constitution vide Amanullah Khan and others Vs the Federal Government of Pakistan through secretary, Ministry of Finance, Islamabad, and others (PLD 1990 SC 1092).”

While there are such specific rulings and judgments given by the Supreme Court itself, the latest being on December 24, 2009, a new case filed by Khalid Khwaja is again before the Supreme Court to give another judgment on the subject.

The prime minister has promised in Parliament that he would act if the SC clarified the ambiguity, although after reading the Dec 24, 2009, judgment of Justice Ramday, there is no ambiguity left, an expert said, lamenting that perhaps no one in the government had bothered to go through this detailed judgment that has squarely discussed the issue of President’s immunity.