The prospects of the PPP and the MQM concluding a quick agreement are not terribly bright. Both sides are sticking to their guns. The MQM says its 18-point agenda is sacrosanct and the city will remain on strike two days a week. The PPP insists that its crackdown on MQM terrorists will continue unabated and no one will get any amnesty.
Both sides are going through the formality of negotiations because they don’t want to appear unreasonable or rigid. The government doesn’t want the army to think that it has abandoned the two track approach advocated by GHQ. The MQM, in turn, is keen to appease the Americans who are discreetly trying to mediate the conflict.
Everyone is, of course, agreed on the necessity of a “political” solution to Karachi. What this entails is, however, not clear. Some people say that the government should immediately offer an amnesty to the MQM and follow it up with local-body elections in Karachi and power-sharing in the Sindh government. Give the MQM a stake in the system, the argument goes, and everything will be fine.
Nothing doing, says the government. Those who have attacked the organs of the state and murdered its personnel cannot be forgiven. They must at least lay down their arms before partaking of a representative system. If this is not done, there is no knowing when the MQM will resort to armed struggle again to achieve a new set of objectives. After all, the argument goes, when the MQM had a free hand in Karachi from 1990-92, Mr Altaf Hussain used the opportunity to equip his party with weapons and criminalise the administrative organs of the city.
If, as feared, the talks don’t take off, both sides are likely to respond in a renewed orgy of blood in Karachi. The onus of responsibility, unfortunately, will be on the government once again. What will the prime minister do then?
Ms Bhutto could, of course, spur on General Naseerullah Babar in the hope that his military crackdown will knock some sense into the MQM and force it to the negotiating table again. But this policy may not succeed for two reasons: first, the capacity of hundreds, possibly thousands, of urban guerillas to paralyze the city is unlimited and indefinite; second, the army is getting restive because it doesn’t like the idea of continuing turmoil in the heart of Pakistan.
Sooner or later, therefore, Ms Bhutto may have to contend with a last-ditch solution. This would involve suspending the Sindh assembly for a period of at least three months (possibly more) by imposing President’s Rule in Karachi — in effect, put in under a “neutral” civilian administration backed by the full weight of the army.
This modus operandi could remove three stumbling blocks. First, it would enable a proper Clean-Up of the city’s corrupt administration and provide civic relief to the harassed citizens of Karachi. Second, it would help eliminate the multiple centres of political power and vested interests that have eroded the legitimacy and efficacy of many crackdowns on the terrorists. Third, it would give the MQM an opportunity for an honourable compromise with the state by removing the hated PPP Sindh government from the scene temporarily — local body elections, for instance, could be held under such a “neutral” administration as part of the “peace formula”.
The army’s induction into Karachi as a “peace-keeping force” would be welcomed by all sections of society. By “engaging” it in Karachi, Ms Bhutto should be able to remove the army’s restiveness by giving it a definite and direct stake in a political solution to the crisis. If the “neutral” administration is successful, well and good — the incipient demand of an army “intervention” on a larger scale will then no longer be justified. If it isn’t, it will prove that “martial law” may not solve the country’s problems and that politicians have to try harder to accommodate one another.
A change in the command of the Sindh Rangers suggests that the army is not averse to finding solutions to “problem-areas” within the ambit of the Karachi administration. The former GOC Karachi has now taken over as DG-Rangers. The outgoing DG-Rangers was DG-MI at the time Operation Clean-Up was launched with the help of the Haqiqis in July 1992. He was serving as commander of the 11 Div in Lahore last year when he was rushed to Karachi to take charge of the Rangers. His abrupt transfer a year later suggests that GHQ has been unhappy with the Rangers’ excessive reliance on the Haqiqis as sources of intelligence in exchange for which the Rangers have been obliged to condone their continuing criminality. In view of widespread criticism that the organs of the state are unduly linked to the Haqiqis, the new DG may be expected to distance himself from them, a demand the MQM has long agitated.
President Farooq Leghari’s role is clear. He has to persuade the prime minister and the army chief to act jointly in the larger interests of the country. And he must do so without losing any further time.