14
INTERVIEWS VIEWS
Chilling strike leaves
a nation out in the cold
by Andrew Buncombe
THEY HAVE assassinated a
former prime minister, destroyed
an iconic symbol of the country’s
establishment and hit out lethally
at a soft but “spectacular” target
in neighbouring India. Now Pa-
kistan’s militants, if, indeed, this
proves to have been their deadly
work, have ripped at another of
the threads of the country’s fabric
and in doing so shaken the entire
nation and beyond.
That international cricket
will not be played in Pakistan for
some time to come is the least
important consequence of Mon-
day’s attack on the Sri Lankan
team. The nature of the strike,
the increasingly sophisticated
tactics of the militants and the
inability of the authorities to
halt them pushes the country
ever closer to the brink. The
problems confronting this nation
are many and immediate. The
beleaguered economy is kept
afloat only because of a loan
from the IMF, Taliban fighters
are in control of large swathes
of the border region, there are
shortages of food and electric-
ity and the nation remains in a
diplomatic stand-off with India,
since the Mumbai attacks.
The response to these prob-
lems from the fragile civilian
authorities headed by President
Asif Ali Zardari and the Pakistan
People’s Party (PPP) he inherited
from his murdered wife, Benazir
Bhutto, has been inadequate and
misguided. Perhaps it has felt
hemmed in by the military, for
now standing aside from politics
but still a constant presence. But
rather than seizing on the good-
will that existed in the aftermath
of last year’s elections which saw
Zardari’s party form the govern-
ment, the PPP has indulged in
political warfare with old rivals.
Only last week, Shehbaz Sharif,
the brother of former premier
Nawaz Sharif and the chief
minister of the country’s largest
province, Punjab, was forced to
stand down after the Supreme
Court ruled his election last year
was invalid. Few believe the
ruling was not a politically moti-
vated attack on Sharif’s Pakistan
Muslim League-N (PML-N).
Why Zardari should be acting
in this manner, so clumsily, so
ineptly, is unclear, as he must
realise there are so many more
pressing priorities. His own wife
narrowly escaped an assassina-
tion attempt on her return to
Pakistan in October 2007, only to
be killed two months later. Since
then the security situation has
worsened. Monday’s attack (in
Lahore) was just the latest entry
in a bulging logbook of extrem-
ist violence that has included
countless suicide bombings, the
destruction of the Marriott Hotel
in Mumbai, the kidnapping and
murder of foreign officials and
an assassination attempt on the
prime minister, Yousaf Gilani.
Just last month, the government
was forced to locally introduce
Syariah law to secure a ceasefire
with extremists who had swept
across the former tourist haven
of the Swat Valley, setting fire
to girls’ schools and beheading
dissenters.
Yet it is a telling insight into
the mindset and culture in Paki-
stan that many remain in denial
about the genesis of its problems.
The country’s minister of state
for shipping, Sardar Nabil
Ahmed Gabol, was only the
highest ranking person to accuse
India of orchestrating the attacks
in Lahore. Indeed, as a friend in
Karachi told me: “People are
very shocked by this incident.
But everyone is blaming India,
they say it was carried out by
RAW (India’s external security
organisation). They are saying it
was revenge for Mumbai.”
Despite this, many in
Pakistan, a nation where, like
India, dusty scraps of land in
cities and villages are usually
filled with gleeful children play-
ing cricket, will feel this attack
as acutely as anything that has
gone before. “Pakistan will again
be in the dog-house,” said politi-
cal analyst, Rasul Bakhsh Rais.
“It will be said that Pakistan
cannot even handle the situation
when friendly cricketers come
to play. And Sri Lanka was the
only country prepared to send
its team. (Australia and India
had recently cancelled trips). It
was a political decision by Sri
Lanka to make Pakistan feel less
isolated.”
From a geopolitical perspec-
tive, it is a twisted blessing that
it was Sri Lanka’s cricketers
and not those of India that were
attacked. It is terrifying to think
how Delhi may have responded
and the subsequent reaction that
it may have triggered.
Even as it is, this brazen attack
can only make Pakistan more
isolated, politically, economically
and culturally. The country’s
stock market fell on the news,
and no wonder. Who now would
invest in Pakistan? Who now
would visit the Swat Valley, who
would not think twice before
visiting even Lahore? And who
would believe the politicians in
Islamabad when they say they
are doing everything in their
power to confront this menace,
experienced on a daily basis by
the people of Pakistan? It is they,
and not visiting cricketers, who
are suffering the most. – The
Independent
theSun
letters
letters@thesundaily.com
End Perak crisis
with unity govt
I THINK the crisis in Perak and
Malaysian politics can be solved
with one word: MAGNANIMITY.
Of late, there have been talk
about a national unity government
where both the Barisan Nasional
and the Pakatan Rakyat could
form the national government and
this simple act would solve all the
conflicts that are engulfing our
country.
While holding a state assembly
sitting under a tree was historic,
why can’t everybody be mag-
nanimous and take this bold step
of forming a unity government in
Perak, followed by other states and
eventually at the national level.
Let’s face it, unlike the Repub-
licans and the Democrats in the
MIER: United States where the former
believes in lower taxes and small
Malaysia government as opposed to the
on the Democrats’ philosophy of high
brink of taxes and bigger government, we
are yet to fathom the basic beliefs
recession of the various local political parties
pg 16 especially in the administration of
the country’s economy.
Is it true that such a unity
government would undermine
the concept of parliamentary
system whereby there must be an
Opposition. Not necessarily. Those
outside the government must
be freed from their stupid whips,
allowed to vote on their conscience
and reflect the local interests of
their constituents.
This spirit of magnanimity would
be better achieved by appointing
Consultants can help
in dismissals
I REFER to “Why the need for
consultants in dismissals” (Jan
28). I had expected the Human
Resources Ministry to write to
the paper or issue a statement to
clarify some of the issues implicitly
raised in “Aggrieved Father’s” letter.
However, the ministry has chosen
to remain silent.
My letter aims to help put the
matter in the right perspective with
the hope that the human resources
minister will initiate appropriate ac-
tions to rectify any shortcomings
that may exist in the mechanism of
dealing with dismissal cases.
The procedure by which dis-
missal cases are dealt with in the
Industrial Relations Department
and the Industrial Court is spelt out
in the Industrial Relations Act.
In any conciliation proceed-
ings, the dismissed workman may
be represented by himself, by an
officer of a trade union (if he is a
member of the trade union), or
by an official of a registered or-
ganisation of workmen such as the
Malaysian Trades Union Congress
(MTUC). However, no consultant is
permitted to represent the work-
man in the conciliation proceedings
as well as in the Industrial Court.
In this connection, a registered
organisation, viz the Malaysian
Association of Human Resources
Consultants, of which I am a mem-
ber, had made representations to
the Human Resources Ministry to
amend the Industrial Relations Act
to allow parties involved in trade
disputes (including dismissal cases)
to be represented by consultants
subject to the requirement that
such consultants are registered
with the ministry so that their
activities and conduct can be
regulated. However, the ministry
| THURSDAY MARCH 5 2009
an apolitical person as the finance
minister who together with the
apolitical governor of Bank Negara,
would have full power to run the
country’s economy, protect our
currency, etc.
Even in the United States, the
most powerful person in the world,
the president, has no control over
many matters like the Federal
Reserve (central bank).
Over the years especially
during the period of Tun Dr
Mahathir Mohamad we had allowed
the prime minister, who should be
a mere chairman of the council
of ministers, to slowly spend vast
sums of the taxpayers’ money to
achieve his personal economic
mission without much checks and
balances.
Thus the taxpayers had to fork
out vast sums of money because
Mahathir strongly believed in the
car industry and the government
got involved in it instead of giv-
ing incentives to the the private
sector.
As it is, there are enough
powers to be shared by the prime
minister with his ministers and other
government institutions. We must
stop this culture of a too powerful
prime minister. In the past, we all
smiled and laughed when Mahathir
told the press: “I will recommend
this to my cabinet and I hope the
cabinet will approve it.”
Saad Hashim
Kuala Lumpur
has so far not responded to the
representations.
What happened in this case is
that the conciliating officer in Putra-
jaya had persuaded the dismissed
employee to enlist the services of
the consultant, not to represent
him in the conciliation proceedings,
but to prepare a written submis-
sion for him to argue why the case
should be referred to the Indus-
trial Court. The officer’s motive for
doing what be did may be dubious,
but it underscores the fact that the
dismissed employee was unable to
espouse his case satisfactorily, and
had he engaged the services of an
efficient consultant, his case would
have been referred to the Industrial
Court where he would have the op-
portunity to secure reinstatement
or compensation for the loss of
employment. To give due recogni-
tion to the need for parties involved
in trade disputes to be given the
option to engage consultants of
their own choice to assist them in
conciliation proceedings, and also
to avoid or minimise opportunities
for conciliating officers to have
unholy deals with consultants who
are close to them, it is perhaps
time for the ministry to positively
consider the representations.
The result of the above case is
that the minister did not refer it
to the Industrial Court. The ques-
tion as to whether the minister’s
decision which was based on the
recommendation of the director
general for industrial relations is a
miscarriage of justice can only be
ascertained if the facts and circum-
stances surrounding the dismissal
are disclosed.
V.S. Chen
Petaling Jaya