The General must now use his authority for the betterment of his country
ISLAMABAD: Much has been written on the massacre in Peshawar. While Nawaz Sharif was cracking jokes in the Governor’s House, Peshawar, and forming committees to take on the terrorists, General Raheel Sharif was in Kabul to plan the destruction of the TTP bases in Afghanistan. The General must now use his authority for the betterment of his country. Some of the measures he should push through immediately are the following: 1) Constitution of a National Security Council (NSC). This was a wise suggestion by former army chief, General (retd) Jehangir Karamat, for which he was cashiered. This should provide a forum to discuss all points of civil-military friction, and thus obviate the all-too-frequent resort by the army to conspire and pull down civilian governments. 2) Mega corruption should be cited as a national security imperative because this is the mother of all evils. It also distorts policymaking and is the ultimate guarantee of poor governance, which in turn gives birth to the resentment that is tapped by groups such as the TTP.
3) Amend laws to make the police service autonomous, thereby shielding it from the politicisation that has left the civilian law-enforcement agencies ineffective and unable to cope with the militancy and terror threats. 4) Crack down hard on those who use speech or the written word to instigate people to violence. 5) Ensure that the blasphemy laws are not misused and that the proof required under them to convict anyone of the charge of blasphemy adheres to the highest possible standard. It is also important that all provisions of this law are implemented, including those that state that anyone who wrongfully accuses someone else of blasphemy (as in the charge is proven to be false) be charged and prosecuted. 6) Hold the present government accountable for its electoral alliance with some well-known terror groups, and also ask why in the past the state had offered concessions and protection to some of their leaders.
Zohare Haider
Published in The Express Tribune, December 29th, 2014.
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