We have been promised that a report on the Nowshera blast will be presented before the National Assembly within the week and that it will be available for public discussion. It will probably be so, despite the obscure fate of the report on the Ojhri disaster and the elusive findings of the Hamoodur Rahman Commission. We ar now, after all, supposed to be living in a democracy which respects the public’s right to know.
If this report is comprehensive in its scope and incisive in its recommendations, then those killed in Nowshera and its surrounding villages will not have died in vain. An informed public is unlikely to allow a third name to be added to those of Nowshera and Ohjri on the list of preventable tragedies.
For both these incidents were avoidable. The hundreds killed in Rawalpindi after munitions stored at the Ohjri camp ignited died because an ammunition depot — “not equipped with the usual level of anti-fire precautions” according to an army spokesman — had been cited in the centre of a major city. At Nowshera, the devastating explosions need not have happened; according to Aslam Khattak who headed the Ojhri probe, had the measures outlined in the final report on Ojhri been implemented by the army.
But as the report remained unpublished, the army could treat it as an internal memo, to be filed away and forgotten. When Nawaz Sharif asked to the Chief of Army Staff last week why the lessons of Ojhri had not been learnt, many shared his anger and exasperation. If we are not to have to ask this question a second time, the Prime Minister must ensure that an exhaustive report on the Nowshera blast gets a full public hearing.
However, the portends are not good. The army’s immediate reaction to the explosions at the ammunition dump in Nowshera was swift and predictable; cordons were thrown around the affected areas and journalists prevented from inspecting the damage. While the government media tried to hush up news of the disaster, the free press found its attempts to discover the true extent of the destruction impeded by the civil and military authorities.
The army’s damage limitation measures in the hours following the blast seemed more concerned with hindering journalists than with helping those rendered homeless by the blast.
So much for the army’s much vaunted glasnost. Even the committee appointed to prepare the report on the Nowshera blast is to be headed by a brigadier. An enquiry under a judge of the Supreme Court would seem more apposite. And frankly, more credible. The choice of an army officer perpetuates the dangerous assumption that only those of the army are qualified to judge the army.
For although we have been a democracy for over two years, the army remains a sacred cow. Few feel free to hold the army to account. Nowshera has been one cost of this deeply ingrained habit. But the full price is far higher.
Despite its unending appetite for funds, the military’s huge budget allocation is rarely questioned. Even the simple argument that defense spending at its present economy crippling level is itself a violation of national security is never heard within Parliament and rarely seem on the pages of newspapers.
Let us state it here, just for the record — The present defense allocation, at 41% of the federal budget, ensures that spending on development is woefully inadequate, with education presently getting an appalling 23%. These skewed spending priorities ensure that an uneducated and ill-maintained Pakistan will never follow in the footsteps of the Asian Dragons. Yet without their rates of economic growth and technological innovation, Pakistan’s defenses will be unable to match India’s growing offensive capabilities.
Even though this argument is based on the popular, if questionable assumption that our national security must be defined in opposition to India, it is rarely aired. For it cuts at the very roots of the military’s claims on the exchequer.
The reluctance to debate our national security interests is seen most sharply in the National Assembly’s abdication of its responsibility in this regard in favour of the army. While there are obvious reasons for hesitancy on the part of our politicians in dealing with issues that directly effect the military, the destruction in Nowshera is a reminder of the high price we pay for their reticence.
Yet it is also offers an opportunity for a new beginning. A comprehensive report on the disaster, exhaustively debated in the National Assembly and in the media might encourage an atmosphere of openness, and strip the army of its aura of inviolability. It would help the nation, and it would help the army. Nawaz Sharif must use all his influence to ensure open and informed debate on the Nowshera blast.