Anti-terror policy: SM Zafar advises against APC
Says the govt must take the bull by the horns.
Lawyer and former senator S M Zafar. PHOTO: FILE
ISLAMABAD:
All Parties Conference may be a good forum to express condemnation of terrorist activities, but will be a counterproductive exercise if the government thinks it will develop consensus on key issues faced by the country, says former senator and prominent lawyer S M Zafar.
Zafar, who is also the chairman of the Human Rights Society of Pakistan, in a statement said that national security is a complex, divergent and multi-dimensional problem and particularly so in Pakistan.
“Pakistan is facing various forms of devastating and debilitating terrorism that is adversely affecting the security of the country,” he said, adding that the spectrum of menace runs from anti-Pakistan propaganda and activity to ethnic, sectarian and mafia’s target-killing.
He said that the situation in which Pakistan finds itself today, it is the government’s responsibility to take a courageous decision to deal with the problems facing the country.
“Formulating separate and self-contained course of action for problems confronting the writ of the state in Balochistan, Karachi and Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa, is the government’s responsibility,” he said.
“The laudable object of having everyone on the same page can be later achieved through strategic communication by the government,” he said, adding that the government has to ‘take the bull by the horns’.
“Government should not let the APC be a cause of delay as the decision must be taken now and not in distant tomorrow,” Zafar said.
“Even a resolution of such desirable objects in an All Parties Conference achieves less than desired, on account of its inner dynamics to reach a consensus, thus accommodating the minority view though less relevant and least effective,” he added.
Published in The Express Tribune, August 21st, 2013.
All Parties Conference may be a good forum to express condemnation of terrorist activities, but will be a counterproductive exercise if the government thinks it will develop consensus on key issues faced by the country, says former senator and prominent lawyer S M Zafar.
Zafar, who is also the chairman of the Human Rights Society of Pakistan, in a statement said that national security is a complex, divergent and multi-dimensional problem and particularly so in Pakistan.
“Pakistan is facing various forms of devastating and debilitating terrorism that is adversely affecting the security of the country,” he said, adding that the spectrum of menace runs from anti-Pakistan propaganda and activity to ethnic, sectarian and mafia’s target-killing.
He said that the situation in which Pakistan finds itself today, it is the government’s responsibility to take a courageous decision to deal with the problems facing the country.
“Formulating separate and self-contained course of action for problems confronting the writ of the state in Balochistan, Karachi and Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa, is the government’s responsibility,” he said.
“The laudable object of having everyone on the same page can be later achieved through strategic communication by the government,” he said, adding that the government has to ‘take the bull by the horns’.
“Government should not let the APC be a cause of delay as the decision must be taken now and not in distant tomorrow,” Zafar said.
“Even a resolution of such desirable objects in an All Parties Conference achieves less than desired, on account of its inner dynamics to reach a consensus, thus accommodating the minority view though less relevant and least effective,” he added.
Published in The Express Tribune, August 21st, 2013.