Pakistani army looting Pakistan

Military and civilian welfare outfits

By Afshan Subohi

Imran 41, a retired Major, supervises a security agency in Karachi from a fairly senior position. He is many times better placed in the society than most civilians, though they might be more qualified and have worked for equal number of years, thanks to the military institution and its welfare arms.Being shunted out early in his career, he may be seen a person of average capabilities. Imran lives in Askari Appartments (valued Rs11 million) in Karachi. In addition he owns a residential plot in Defence (Rs30 million). His children study in a reputable school located on Air Force land. He pays ten times less in fee for education of his two children than his civilian counterparts. He is a member of a social club, where membership and facilities are heavily subsidised for army servicemen.This is in addition to pension and the full medical coverage that he enjoys for himself and his family. Most academics, doctors, engineers, and administrative staff on the civilian side in the same age group are not even half as secured with double the amount of private investment in their education. They are members of professional clubs and societies. Advantages if any from their participation in such schemes are much below their expectations. Even where they benefited the quantifiable gains cannot be matched to support that forces personnel get from their parent institution.The performance (service delivery and level of satisfaction amongst targeted beneficiaries) of military welfare organisations is far superior to ones created to support civilian servicemen.Federal Information Minister Mohammad Ali Durrani attributes better performance of military welfare organisations to superior work ethics and efficiency of military services.While talking to Dawn over telephone from Lahore the minister was all praise for armed forces. "Most obvious factors for efficient and dependable service delivery system of welfare organisations managed by armed forces include the ability of the military to enforce discipline, their orientation to work as a team, lesser opportunities of corruption and above all their nationalism that is inculcated in them by design to deliver even in trying circumstances".A leader of a professional organisation in Karachi living in a rented house in Gulshan, was bitter when approached by Dawn. He presented his views on condition of anonymity. "Army eats up share of more productive sectors. It abuses its power to perpetuate its interests both economic and political. It has created islands of peace and prosperity for itself at the cost of the nation".The gentleman was not able to explain as to what has kept civilian establishment from evolving well serving pension funds. The fact is that there is no simple answer to the riddle.A business leader who also wished not to be identified said that military at business can only be as good as a doctor on an engineering project."With quantum of support and subsidies projects run under military establishments get they are not even half as efficient as they should be. They get subsidised power, gas, raw material, face fewer bureaucratic hitches and enjoy monopolistic position in the market. No one knows the actual cost of their operations to evaluate returns. Let things come in open before praising military business sense".The federal information minister partially endorsed the view. "Yes their business concerns can benefit to an extent from their positioning", he said.Views apart, it is not wise to evaluate working of these organisations in isolation. The success of welfare in these two segments (civilian/military), to a great extent, depends on their comparative positioning in the country’s state structure.The Army, combined with Navy and Air Force, makes Pakistan armed forces the seventh largest military in the world. Besides being involved in its core mission to defend the country's borders, it has also been involved in foreign deployments under bilateral agreement with a number of countries in Middle East and Africa. It has also been committing its troops to UN peace keeping.The institution has created an excellent social welfare set-ups for its personnel belonging to all tiers from top to bottom. These systems are so designed that the interests of members of forces and those of the institution are merged perfectly.Interviews with score of concerned people confirmed that the system of education and training play their part but it is the loyalty to an institution that takes good care of them and their families during service and even after retirement that drive armed forces related people to work more efficiently.Army in Pakistan like elsewhere is so structured that it has many tiers of hierarchy and a filter system in place. Superseded officers retire in ages 42-50. Therefore, along with active force of 520,000 personnel and 500,000 reserve men there is a huge population of retirees that are taken care of by the army.To absorb these soldiers and officers and to sustain welfare activities and above all to deepen its control over the country's economy, the army is engaged in multi-dimensional activities. They have enterprises, such as studs and dairy farms, several industries such as sugar, fertilizer, brass casting etc. They are also have sizeable stakes in services such as transport (NLC, Shaheen Air), construction (Frontier Works Organization), communication (Special communication Organization), insurance, banking (Askari Commercial Bank), etc, etc.Fauji Foundation, the pension fund of Pakistan Army has invested in many projects, some are highly profitable. It manages hundreds of educational institutions, power plants, steel and cement factories. Fauji is a very well known consumer product brand name that produces breakfast cereals, sugar, electronic items etc. The foundation is a trust for the welfare of ex-servicemen and their families.Above all, the army acquires government land to develop colonies for its staff. The officers' colonies such as defence housing in major cities are best located and best equipped with highest valued plots in the country.The cantonment areas are safe, secured and well-managed. Here all services are subsidised. They are provided with health and sports clubs and other facilities that even a middle class civilian locality is totally deprived of. As a matter of fact these cantonment areas are modern model cities within the country’s mismanaged ill-equipped cities.It is, therefore, in the self- interest of a serviceman to serve the army to his best so that it becomes more powerful to be able to promote and protect his economic perks. The powerful positioning of the army in the country also imbibe a sense of pride and superiority amongst the army men.

The armed forces and the corporate sector(Pakistani army looting Pakistan)

The armed forces and the corporate sector
By Farhatullah Babar
If the prime minister’s finance adviser thought that by living in denial he could allay the widespread concerns about the army’s growing involvement in the corporate sector he was gravely mistaken. In saying this, I am referring to a report in your newspaper titled ‘Salman denies army role in corporate sector’, and published on April 28. If he did not know it, here is a partial list of the military’s corporate enterprises as recently placed before the Parliament in reply to a question besides the several dozen similar enterprises run by Shaheen Foundation and Bahria Foundation of the Air Force and the Navy respectively. Fauji Foundation : Fauji Sugar Mills, (more than one), Fauji Cereal, Fauji Corn Complex, FONGAS (Natural gas supply company), Fauji Poly Propylene Products, Fauji Fertilizer Company (FFC), Fauji Jordan Company, Fauji Cement, Fauji Oil Terminal Company Project (FOTCO), Fauji Kabirwala Power Company Limited. Army Welfare Trust: Askari Stud Farms, Askari Farms, Askari Welfare Rice Mill, Askari Welfare Sugar Mill, Askari Fish Farm, Askari Cement (more than one plant), Askari Welfare Pharmaceutical Project, Magnesite Refineries Limited, Army Welfare Shoe Project, Army Welfare Woollen Mill, Army Welfare Hosiery Unit, Travel Agencies, AWT Commercial Plazas, Army Welfare Shops, Army Welfare Commercial Project, Askari Commercial Bank, Askari Leasing Limited, Askari General Insurance Company, Askari Welfare Saving Scheme, Askari Associate Limited, Askari Information Service, Askari Guards Limited, Askari Power Limited, Askari Commercial Enterprises, Askari Aviation, Askari Housing Schemes (at several locations) The adviser claimed that retired military officers were involved in private businesses and that too for welfare purposes but is the Fauji Foundation really a private concern like any other. Under its Scheme of Administration the Fauji Foundation is allowed “to receive from government or other bodies or person any contribution to the Foundation”. Which other private enterprise gets contributions from the government also? The Fauji Foundation is administered by a committee whose chairman is the defense secretary and its members include four principal staff officers of the GHQ and two senior officers of the Pakistan Navy and the Air Force, all paid out of the public funds. A three star serving general was appointed in 2002 as its chief. What a fine example of a private enterprise run by serving military officers and defense secretary. During question hour in the Senate last year it transpired that the finance ministry accepted loan liabilities of 9 billion rupees of the Foundation. Which other private concern had been provided such a preferential treatment? Worse still, after being declared ‘private’ they are declared as unaccountable too. In reply to a question in the National Assembly in 2005 it transpired that the Khoski Sugar Mills belonging to the Foundation had been sold at 300 million to an entity that had not even participated in the bidding process. The highest bid of 387 million was ignored. When the Senate Defence Committee asked the head of the Fauji Foundation, himself a former chairman of NAB, to appear before it he refused and chose to refute the allegations through newspaper ads. We were told to shut up. If the FF and AWT are claimed to be private entities what are other entities like the Frontier Works Organization (FWO) and the NLC doing in the private commercial sector in a playing field that too is tilted in their favour? According to information placed before the Senate on December 30, 2005 the National Highway Authority (NHA) alone awarded twelve contracts costing over 18 billion to the FWO without bids between 2001 and 2005. Further, not only the contract of collecting toll tax on toll plazas have been given to FWO and NLC without bids but contracts already given to private parties were cancelled and given to it according to information placed before the Senate. The military’s growing interests in corporate businesses and land has now begun to attract national and international attention and criticism but we are living in self-denial. That was why the former British High Commissioner in Pakistan Mark Lyall Grant publicly stated about two years ago in Islamabad that the military’s corporate business interests had increased manifold. He also said that it was hampering poverty reduction efforts and effectiveness of the bureaucracy and judiciary in the country. An un-named senior official of the Foreign Office promptly announced that a demarche had been served on the high commissioner for his critical remarks as ‘unwarranted and inaccurate besides being an infringement of diplomatic norms’. But that did not change the reality. Are the defence housing authorities also really private bodies competing with other private entities in a level playing filed? Is there any other private housing society that is headed by a serving corps commander and whose executive functionaries such as the Administrator are serving senior army officers drawing salary from public exchequer? Is there any other private housing authority that can get land at a price as the DHA Karachi got sometime back and against which the provincial government even moved the court? During question hour in Parliament it has transpired that military officers get one after 15 years of service, a second one after 25, a third one after 28 years and a fourth one after 33 years of service each worth more than 15 million rupees in the open market. To call it a welfare activity is stretching the meaning of the word a bit too far. The un-level playing field to the military’s industrial and commercial enterprises, the dispossession of tenants from farmlands in Okara belonging to the Punjab government, the acquisition of additional 870 acres of prime land in sector E-10 at dirt cheap price of Rs 200 per acre for the new GHQ (in addition to the 1470 acres already earmarked), the setting up of strings of defense housing authorities, first in Karachi and Lahore and lately in Islamabad, and converting state lands meant specifically for defense purposes into golf courses and housing colonies as disclosed in the Parliament are clear manifestations of military’s growing corporate and real estate business. The issue will not disappear merely be denying it. Come on Mr Adviser! Instead of living in a state of denial let us address the issue and do something about it. The writer is a former PPP senator and a member of the Senate’s human rights committee. Email: drkhshan@isb.comsats.net.pk

The Pakistani diaspora and potential for terrorist acts(Norway)

The Pakistani diaspora and potential for terrorist acts
LAHORE: Religious terrorism in Norway is nonexistent but needs to be addressed in advance to possibly ward off any future attacks, according to University of Oslo Humanities researcher David Hansen.Most theoretical literature on terrorism mainly deals with theoretical aspects of religion and religious violence and not possible ways of dealing with religious terrorism, said Hansen in a recent lecture.“In dealing with the task of finding solutions to terrorism, I have chosen to focus on Islamic terrorism and, more specifically, on the present Pakistani Diaspora group in Norway with possible Norwegian solutions to the problem,” Hansen stated in his lecture.Pakistanis are the largest non-Western immigrant group in Norway and are mostly notorious for receiving unwelcome attention from society, Hansen said. The Al Qaeda attacks of 9/11 have resulted in terrorism receiving a much wider context than they used to have and can now be referred to as global terrorism, he said. Religious terrorism in our time has come to represent Islamic terrorism allegedly being performed by Muslims under the ideological mindset that the killing of “non-believers” is justified.Thus far, Norway has been safe from any terrorist activities, said Hansen. “The potential for religious terrorism, specifically Islamic terrorism against Norway and its citizens, however, is being widely discussed in the media as well as in political circles and government institutions,” he said. “It has become common perception that it isn’t a matter of if Norway is attacked, but rather a matter of when.” Recent investigations have focused on finding the second or third generation Pakistani man (as the nationality comprises the majority in Norwegian Muslims) who could be the mastermind of such an attack, he added.“The biggest fear is that such discussions are seen as aggressive, stigmatising, and possibly polarising [Pakistani] Diaspora groups in society,” said Hansen. How far a person can be pushed before he considers reprisal against society should be debated, he said. Islam is also notorious for coming in the public spotlight not through good deeds, but rather through such acts as honour killings, he said. The differing schools of thoughts within Islam (Hanafi, Shafi, Maliki, etc) also create problems in helping define the religion to an outsider, said the lecturer. The best solution is for Muslims to follow the guidelines of Bosnian scholar Fikret Karcik, who says that religion should be adapted so that it does not interfere with [secular] law in host societies without compromising one’s beliefs. Karcik has provided several Hadiths in support of his views, said Hansen.There is no simple way to deal with religious terrorism; either at home or on an international scale, said Hansen when concluding his lecture. It is necessary to incorporate Diaspora groups into any discussion that deals with possible resolutions as evidence suggests that leaving them out can serve to radicalise them, he said. Further, there are concerns related to using police in dealing with religious terrorism, as people who believe they have no rights are more likely to commit acts of terror. Treating immigrants like second-class citizens should stop as such alienation can cause them to turn to radical elements for support, he added. daily times monitor

Only 3 percent of Pakistanis think Al Qaeda conducted 9/11 attacks

Muslims believe US seeks to undermine Islam
* Only 3 percent of Pakistanis think Al Qaeda conducted 9/11 attacksStaff ReportLAHORE: An in-depth poll of major Muslim countries has found that in all of them large majorities believe that undermining Islam is a key goal of US foreign policy.The poll, conducted in Egypt, Morocco, Pakistan, and Indonesia from December 2006 to February 2007 by WorldPublicOpinion.org with support from the START Consortium at the University of Maryland, also found that many Muslims approve of attacks on US troops in the Middle East. Large majorities (average 79%) across all four countries believe the United States seeks to “weaken and divide the Islamic world”, ranging from 73 percent in Indonesia and Pakistan to 92 percent in Egypt. Equally large numbers perceive that the US is trying to maintain “control over the oil resources of the Middle East” (average 79%). Strong majorities (average 64%) also believe it is a US goal to “spread Christianity in the region”. “While US leaders may frame the conflict as a war on terrorism, people in the Islamic world clearly perceive the US as being at war with Islam,” said Steven Kull, editor of WorldPublicOpinion.org.Large majorities in all countries (average 74%) support the goal of getting the US to “remove its bases and military forces from all Islamic countries”.Substantial numbers also favour attacks on US troops in Iraq, Afghanistan, and in the Persian Gulf. Approximately half of respondents support such attacks, while three in ten are opposed. But there is substantial variation between countries. Pakistanis are divided about attacks on the American military - many do not answer or express mixed feelings. However, respondents roundly reject attacks on civilians. Most Indonesians (84%), Pakistanis (81%) and Egyptians (77%) say such violence cannot be justified “at all”. Attitudes toward Al Qaeda are complex. On average, only three in ten view Osama Bin Laden positively. There is strong disapproval of attacks by “groups that use violence against civilians, such as Al Qaeda”. Large majorities in Egypt (88%), Indonesia (65%) and Morocco (66%) agree that such groups “are violating the principles of Islam.” Pakistanis are divided, however, with many not answering. But there is also uncertainty about whether Al Qaeda actually conducts such attacks. Only 3 percent of Pakistanis think Al Qaeda conducted the September 11 attacks. There is strong support for enhancing the role of Islam in all of the countries polled, through such measures as the imposition of Sharia. This does not mean that they want to isolate their societies from outside influences: Most view globalisation positively and favour democracy and freedom of religion.

Pakistan's exports: Textiles and clothing, cotton, leather, rice and sports goods account for over three quarters of total

Causes for slow performance in export identified
By Mubarak Zeb Khan
ISLAMABAD, April 2: The lack of export diversification — for products and markets — is the main reason for recent sluggish performance in Pakistan’s merchandise exports, said Asian Development Bank report.Trade policy should therefore focus on developing strategies for diversification and enhancing export competitiveness. There is also a need to devise a comprehensive policy for increasing production of various products, which currently is highly concentrated on textile products.According to the report, Asian Development Outlook 2007, Pakistan’s textile export prospects could further weaken in the wake of abolishing of China specific safeguards in the year 2008 imposed by the US and EU against textile and clothing imports.The main issue is exports’ heavy reliance on textiles as well as limited geographic diversification. Between them, textiles and clothing, cotton, leather, rice and sports goods account for over three quarters of total exports. Thus a downturn in these segments has a significant overall impact.Conversely, immediately after the ending of quotas, textile exports accelerated strongly, to 16.8 per cent in fiscal year 2006 from 6.6 per cent the year before.Increasingly, however, textile exports have come under competitive pressure from Bangladesh, China and India, specifically in the higher value-added categories that have traditionally not been strength of the Pakistani textile sector. This pressure, in turn, has led to a fall in international export prices.Consequently, Pakistani textile exports increased by only 4.3 per cent by value in the first half of fiscal year 2007. The low expected local cotton production in 2007 and removal of restrictions on textile exports from China in 2008 will further hit Pakistan textile exports.Similarly, the export of rice grew by 1.2 per cent during the period under review. However, export of leather and its products dipped by 26.3 per cent and sports goods by 14.4 per cent, respectively.Another issue is that the bulk of Pakistan’s trade is with a handful of countries, particularly in Europe and North America. It is expected that the growth in trading volumes in those regions will decline in 2007, hitting Pakistan’s exports there.Exports too will rise, but the high domestic cost of production in the textile and garment sector as well as stiff competition from the China and India is likely to restrict total export growth to about 8 per cent.Over the past five years, merchandise exports have delivered over 12 per cent average annual growth, as they have benefited from an enabling policy environment, low inflation, the low cost of credit, and general upturn in economic activity.In fiscal year 2005 and 2006, they grew by 16.6 per cent and 15.4 per cent, respectively, but started decelerating in the second half of fiscal year 2006, to just over 6.5 per cent, and to 5 per cent in the first half of fiscal year 2007. Some of the deceleration stems from the high base effect, but the underlying causes appear structural, added the report.