Around 95 people died in just four days after violence once again erupted in the streets of Karachi. The death toll is rising and, as always, the political parties are accusing each other's activists/workers and clamouring for appropriate action against their rivals.
Rehman Malik, the Minister for Interior, on the directives of President Asif Ali Zardari arrived in Karachi last week and held high level talks. He referred, as has become customary, to a third force, and in his definition the third force does not consist of political parties active in Karachi but instead refers to Taliban/terrorists and/or foreign (Indian) involvement.
The reason for this is evident: MQM, the PPP's erstwhile coalition partner is still being actively wooed back into the coalition fold which, in the three year parlance of reconciliation, implies no accusations will be hurled against the party. Zulfiqar Mirza, the former Sindh Interior Minister, reportedly lost his job due to his frequent publicly aired accusations against the MQM. In marked contrast the ANP's central leadership has been more or less satisfied with concessions meted out to its leaders in Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa (KP); and apart from periodically accusing the MQM of targeting its workers in Karachi the party's central leadership has not made too many conditional demands with respect to Karachi - conditional to the ANP support for the PPP in the Centre.
Some news reports indicate that the killings began after an ANP activist was attacked. Others suggest that the recent spate of killings was triggered by an ANP attack on an MQM activist. Whoever began the blood bath there is no dispute over the fact that by Tuesday Orangi Town, a multiethnic and poor neighbourhood, became the venue of a rising death toll with both the MQM and the ANP counting the number of their political workers killed, and laying the blame squarely on the other party. Figures of course, vary but to date several sources revealed that the MQM has lost the largest number of political workers followed by ANP with some losses suffered by the Jamiat-e-Ulema Islam (JUI). At the same time what is extremely disturbing is the fact that violence also appears to be random with many an innocent bystander brutally killed, including a 5-year-old girl.
Be that as it may, Rehman Malik did state that 89 suspects had been arrested till Saturday: 12 Urdu-speaking, 19 Pushto-speaking and three Baloch. Typically, the Minister was not concerned that the figures of political activists arrested did not add up to the total. He added that the government would follow a two pronged strategy: (i) the emphasis would be on credible intelligence gathering to track down terrorists, and (ii) entrust police and rangers with new powers and deploy rangers in the sensitive areas. Malik as always ruled out military operation in Karachi even though he implied that the Taliban were engaged in destabilising Karachi. Many challenge this strategy on the grounds that if the government is ready to launch an army operation in the restive North of the country to eliminate the Taliban why not in settled Karachi where the impact of the killings on the economy of the city in particular and, given Karachi is the financial hub of the country, on Pakistan in general is massive.
Rehman Malik called on Altaf Hussain and Asfandyar Wali to ask their followers to remain calm and help restore normality, a poignant albeit indirect admission of who he considers responsible for the violence in the city. For good measure he also added that all the political parties in Karachi namely MQM, ANP and JI were patriotic. He also, as in the past, promised 'targeted action' against miscreants and terrorists without discrimination. The people of Karachi remained skeptical: this has been said before and this has been done before. However, this time around the powers in Islamabad have made some decisions that were not taken before.
The high-level meeting in Islamabad, with the President and the Prime Minister in the chair on Friday led to some decisions targeted to end the conflict in Karachi. These decisions were unprecedented in the three-year-old PPP government. The commissionerate system was to be revived in Karachi, which would imply the five districts in Karachi created by Musharraf under the local government system would stand merged. The MQM has repeatedly argued against the restoration of the system in place of Musharraf's local government system; not surprisingly soon after the announcement by Farhatullah Babar that the commissionerate system would be restored the MQM denounced the decision and said it would oppose the move when it was presented in the provincial assembly.
Those who may argue that this decision reflects the PPP's go-without-MQM policy were checkmated by the party's decision not to reappoint the fiery Zulfiqar Mirza as the Sindh Interior Minister. The fact that the MQM withdrew its protest march also reflects that the party remains engaged in dialogue with the ruling PPP. However, by Saturday the Acting Governor had issued three ordinances: (i) restoring the commissionerate system; (ii) Musharraf's Police 2002 Order was replaced with the old Police Act 1861; and (iii) replacing the Local Government Ordinance 2001 with the Sindh Local Government Ordinance 1979. The gulf between the MQM and the PPP would certainly widen as a consequence of these measures.
The question is whether the commissionerate system is more effective than the local government system? The success or lack of success of either system is predicated on how it is implemented. The Punjab government certainly does not think the local government system was effective as is indicated by its decision to restore the eight divisions in 2008. The PPP also does not support Musharraf's local government system that abolished the "Division" as an administrative tier and introduced a system of local government councils, with the first elections held in 2001. To put it simplistically, Musharraf's intent was to strengthen his own hold on power at the local government level by bypassing the provincial government. By that same token, the commissionerate system bypasses the local government in favour of the provincial government.
Political pundits, however, marvel at the President's political acumen wherein he gave in to a long standing demand of PPP as well as ANP workers to restore the commissionerate system while at the same time not re-appointing Mirza, considered a very close long time friend, as the Sindh Interior Minister. Between the Islamabad decision and the on the ground statements by Malik and the Sindh Chief Minister Qaim Ali Shah the obvious conclusion that one can draw is that politics would remain paramount in any decision taken with respect to restive Karachi. This maybe partly justified given that it is widely acknowledged that Karachi's problems are political, sourced as they are to the development of activism in all major political parties. However, the recurrent nature of violence in the city requires some far-reaching decisions as the negative impact of violence is being felt by the people of Karachi with, reportedly, several areas in the city where people went hungry as food and supplies could not reach them due to violence. At the same time the economy of the city has suffered a massive loss, estimated at millions of rupees per day, with its consequent impact on tax collections if Karachi comes to a standstill. The entire country bleeds when violence in Karachi brings all economic activity to a standstill.
Many proposals are on the table. One of course is to ensure that the police is depoliticized and allowed to go after the guilty. Another is to launch an army operation. A third is to continue to support a policy of reconciliation in Sindh with the two main regional parties even though the PPP has a clear majority in Sindh but this policy has not yielded long term positive results. That all stakeholders have to be on the same page if Karachi is to become calm stands to reason. However, the government needs to also engage in an impartial policing operation if peace is to be restored to the city in medium to long-term.