FROM A RINGSIDE SEAT

The Senate on Tuesday concluded the debate on Balochistan, with both the government and the opposition sticking to their guns. What we have today in Balochistan is not a military operation, but mopping up of the miscreants, insisted Interior Minister Aftab Sherpao in his winding up speech.
But Leader of the Opposition, Raza Rabbani, in his sum-up of the three-day debate warned that what we have today in that province is the "crisis of federation" that he said won't be resolved with the use of "naked force and state oppression".
Hardly was there any meeting ground between the two sides - not even Mushahid Hussain, who enjoys the trust of the House for having brokered an accord on Dera Bugti imbroglio and could possibly show some light at the end of this long dark tunnel.
When the final summations were taking place he had left the House after putting up a brief appearance during the sitting.
The song has ended by the melody lingers on, in that for half of the senators, who would lose their membership during this week thanks to an enigmatic constitutional provision kept alive by the October 12, 1999 putsch, the debate on Balochistan provided the opportunity for a swan song.
Tomorrow the House would take up the Kalabagh Dam issue, for some more members to come on record for the posterity. That is, however, another matter that except for a few anecdotes very little does exist today in the form of literature on our parliamentary history.
The books that come handy to the presiding officers of the National Assembly and Senate for guidance have been authored not here but in the neighbouring country.
The very fact that the House could be called to order, even then without quorum, a full hour behind schedule speaks volumes of the emptiness of the raison d'être of having the second chamber in the system.
Had the House met on time the question hour would have been over before the Maghreb prayers, but it consumed more than two hours. The first three questions were about the Pakistan Steel Mills for which concerned minister Jahangir Tareen had come prepared, and well in time.
But what generated an insightful discussion during the follow-up supplementary questions was a remark by Akbar Khwaja who had the feeling that the Privatisation Commission was not yet ready for the sale of Pakistan Steel Mills scheduled for the middle of next month.
That's not the case, piped in Muhammad Akram as chairman of the senate's committee on industry. "We had a useful discussion this morning. All members of the committee felt very comfortable about PSM privatisation." But the committee did not endorse the PSM privatisation, said Akbar Khwaja, to be seconded by Professor Ghafoor Ahmad who insisted the majority did not support the PSM privatisation.
The minister still felt that "it is need of the hour...Nothing is being done in a hurry. The process for privatisation of the Pakistan Steel Mills was started in March." Professor Khurshid and Ishaq Dar wanted a fuller debate on it, with the latter telling the House that the "hush hush" privatisation of Habib Bank had deprived the national exchequer of something like $200 million.
As soon as the two-hour long question hour was over Raza Rabbani was given the mike to speak on the Balochistan situation. The federation of Pakistan is beset with what he called crisis of federation, destabilisation situation obtained in Waziristan and Sindh and Punjab faces perennial blight of vanishing writ of the government.
It would be simplistic to describe the Balochistan situation merely a law and order problem, because it has a historical perspective. Not only that the people of that province have been denied the fruits that grow in their own gardens but extra-constitutional dictates are imposed on its people.
"Locals are not being involved in the mega projects and demographic character of Gwadar is being tempered." Rabbani claimed that the Balochistan Assembly was summoned to meet on December 23, but it was prorogued because of the fear in the federal capital that the House would pass a resolution condemning the military operation.
The opposition leader contested the official stance that there is no military operation in Balochistan, asking if there is no such thing then why to cordoned off the affected areas; why to put that areas beyond the access of media? That is a political issue and must be resolved by political means, he said.
"We condemn military action. We demand that the operation be stopped immediately as it is endangering the federation, and dialogue with genuine leaders of Balochistan be opened."
Sherpao made quite a convincing defence of the government position. He rejected the impression that Mushahid's sub-committee recommendations were ignored, pointing out some of the measures like shutting down the check-posts. "Miscreants were active and we knew it.
During the last one year they had carried out 187 bomb blasts, fired 275 rockets, hit gas pipeline eight times, disrupted power supply 36 times and blew up the railway track at 19 places... But, of late, there is increase in the momentum of militancy.... The settlers are also being deliberately targeted." He rejected the opposition's claim that the action lacked transparency, inviting the media to visit there.
He concluded on the note that action would continue till all the camps of 'Frari' (outlaws), who are funded by drug mafia in connivance with certain influential people" are flushed out.