‘People’s tribunal’: Asma for civilian oversight of military budget

Speakers warn of a further deterioration in political, economic, cultural spheres.

ISLAMABAD:

Supreme Court Bar Association (SCBA) President Asma Jehangir on Tuesday called for parliament’s supremacy and its oversight on  military budget.

She emphasised on restructuring of the state institutions especially the security apparatus.

“It is a welcome development that the taboo of demanding accountability of the military has been broken,” she remarked while addressing a seminar organised by Awami Shehri Mahaz, a conglomerate of left wing political parties, trade unions and student organisations at the National Press Club here.

The participants of the seminar, called “people’s tribunal on accountability of military”, warned of further deterioration in political, economic and cultural spheres if change was not initiated.

A large number of people offered their testimonies during the tribunal. Even those who defended the amount of money being given to the military in the budget acknowledged that there is a need for transparency in accounting for how this money is used.

The keynote speaker on the occasion, “For too long progressive elements have been decried as traitors because they have demanded that the military be answerable to its own people, and event after event in recent days has proven that it is no longer acceptable that the military be treated as a ‘sacred cow’.”

She said that the parliament must take the lead in the effort to bring the military under civilian oversight. Jehangir said that in the long-run Pakistan’s people cannot afford to keep subsidising a bloated and repressive security apparatus and urged that a movement to create a genuine welfare state must be started.

Aasim Sajjad of Worker’s Party Pakistan (WPP) said that there is now a plethora of evidence that public resources devoted to the military have not been contributed to the welfare and safety of Pakistan’s long-suffering people. He said that it has also become clear that the many internal conflicts that exist in Pakistani society are a product of years of undemocratic rule and the cynical use of religion by the establishment to secure its own interests.

Sajjad asserted that a perception had been cultivated within Pakistani society that India and other neighbouring countries pose a threat to the country, and now more and more people are coming to realise that the threat has been exaggerated to reinforce the military’s power and bolster their claim on public resources. He added the real threat to working people comes from political and economic injustice and the state’s turning a blind eye to militancy.

The people are now demanding justice on their own terms given that the justice system continually fails them and does not hold the self-proclaimed “defenders of the nation” to account, a speaker said.



Published in The Express Tribune, June 8th, 2011.