LONDON: Pakistan's High Commissioner to the United Kingdom, Wajid Shamsul Hasan is optimistic about a quick turnaround of Pakistan's economy by the year's end despite the global downward trend. The wide-ranging interview with the APP-among many other issues-covered Pakistan's economy, post-Mumbai developments, advent of new administration in the United States, greater realisation of Pakistan's overly constructive role in the war on terror and growing understanding of the core issue of Kashmir as a nuclear flash-point.
Intensive interaction with important British functionaries, leaders in trade and industry and enthusiastic entrepreneurs has reassured Mr Hasan of immense keenness in the United Kingdom to help his country develop both economically and to strengthen its democratic institutions. Despite backlog of piled up economic problems inherited by the new democratic government and slow growth in the recent past Mr Hasan feels confident that Pakistan's economy will grow more than 4 per cent by the end of 2009.
The High Commissioner referred to the launching of the Friends of Pakistan Club on the initiative of President Asif Ali Zardari and the United Kingdom to provide economic support and offset the huge expenditure being incurred on the war on terror and overcome economic difficulties intensified by the global financial crunch. "We have been aggressively pursuing a policy of trade and investment diplomacy to pursue British business community to invest in Pakistan," he said. He mentioned about the enthusiastic participation of British trade delegation at the Expo 2008 held in October last year in Karachi and termed the visit as 'very fruitful in generating interest among the participants in food items, power generation, alternate power resources, textiles, sport goods and surgical instruments. Responding to a question, the High Commissioner said the British businessmen have been assured about the protection of their investments and have been asked to invest 'fearlessly' in Pakistan. "As a matter of fact, in our exchanges with them, they agreed that the ratio of profit offered by Pakistan and guarantees to their investment are very encouraging to attract investment and they are looking at various fields, carrying on negotiations with Pakistani entrepreneurs as well and Government to invest British money in different businesses in Pakistan."
Mr Hasan disclosed later in March a delegation of Pakistan-Britain Trade Investment (PBTIF) led by its Chairman Sir Thomas Harris will be visiting Pakistan to explore possibilities of newer economic ventures, to consolidate and expand existing business. Besides, PBTIF's delegation's visit to Pakistan, there is going to be equally important participation from Pakistan in the International Spring Fair being held in Birmingham from February 5. So far eight major Pakistani business houses/entrepreneurs have registered for the participation of their companies in the Spring Fair. Since energy is a major problem faced by Pakistan, efforts have been intensified to attract more investment in the power generation sector. Besides tapping conventional energy generation sources Pakistan is seeking in a big way alternate energy sources.
A high-powered delegation from Pakistan including Sindh representatives will soon be in UK to probe alternate energy sources that would include solar, wind and energy from waste. One of the major achievements of the present government has been successfully attracting British investment of US $ 2 billion in the petroleum sector'a project recently approved by the ECC. "This huge investment shows that British business is confident about the early economic recovery of Pakistan and is not shy any more in investing in Pakistan". Explaining Mr Hasan said that business goes where profit is most and where restriction are least in transferring profit outside Pakistan.
The present government, Mr.Hasan said, has been in power for little less than a year and it has waddled through with great determination and resilience the most difficult circumstances including the continuing international economic crunch and regional security situation. "Despite our difficulties the amount of interest shown by British business and investors here is very encouraging. We hope to mobilise huge investments in Pakistan in the next six months to one year." He said the perception that the investors are shying away from Pakistan is no longer there and their confidence is coming back and the concessions provided by a business friendly Government to them are so enormously attractive that investors are willing to take certain amount of risk. Pakistan, he said, feels strongly about growing radicalisation and rise of extremism.
President Zardari, Prime Minister Yusuf Raza Gilani and the coalition government at the centre and the provincial administrations are right earnest in translating dream of Quaid-e-Azam Mohammad Ali Jinnah, Shaheed Zulfikar Bhutto and martyred Mohtarma Benazir Bhutto of making Pakistan an egalitarian and progressive state into a vibrant reality. President Zardari is determined to pursue the great mission of the founding fathers to make Pakistan a formidable democracy where every citizen shall have equal rights, irrespective of caste, creed or colour. "We are no doubt faced with enormous challenges but we will overcome these including extremism and return Pakistan to the destined goal chosen for it by the Quaid." He said despite tougher immigration rules, the number of students coming from Pakistan has increased and the youngsters feel encouraged to study in UK as it offers highest quality of competitive education.
The High Commissioner added that the British authorities are not averse to facilitating Pakistani students to come to UK for higher education. Mr.Hasan said pounds 480 million assistance announced recently by the British Government will be utilised on general education, health care especially among the women to decrease the mortality rate. Most of this assistance would be spent to develop the backward and deprived areas. Answering a question about pilferage in the foreign funding as was being alleged by certain quarters regarding misuse of international aid for the 2005 earthquake, he said not only Pakistan government has introduced a strict regime of accountability of such funds, effective monitoring systems has also been laid by the donors to ensure that the aid was spent productively and not wasted.
Mr.Hasan said the Government was focussed on education as it believes that it is the most effective weapon to eliminate radicalisation and extremism. He said extremism has been gnawing the very vitals of Pakistan society. "Can any government today deny its women job opportunities, its girl-students venues to seek education, most certainly not ! " Obviously this, Pakistani High Commissioner feels, has brought the democratic government into direct conflict with the forces of obscurantism led by the religious extremists out there on the rampage in the northern areas destroying girls schools in hundreds, throwing acid at girls and women leaving their home for jobs to feed their children. Besides, Wajid Shamsul Hasan strongly believes these religious renegades have taken law in their own hands with alarming impunity and are applying what they abusively describe as sharia justice-chopping hands and beheading innocent people who refuse to surrender to their pseudo-religious pagan dictates. While the government is taking measures at its best and rightly so, it is the duty of the Pakistani civil society and especially the media, instead of choreographing long marches as carnivals to crusade against the religious renegades killing innocent people in the name of Islam, which is a religion of peace. "Time has come for all those who believe in Quaid's vision of Pakistan to unite and crusade under the democratic leadership to save Pakistan from the religious scavengers". Wajid Shamsul Hasan emphasised the urgency for all the rational forces to join hands to create conducive conditions that could enable more women to come forward to play their role in politics and business.
"After all the female population in the country is nearly 50 percent. To deny them education, to deny them right to job opportunities, to deny them representation in the elected bodies tantamount to making mockery of Quaid's Pakistan who had time and again underscored that by keeping Muslim women in door sans education would make Pakistan lose half of its work force. Wajid Shamsul Hasan mentioned the successful holding of jewellery and dress designing exhibitions by Pakistani women entrepreneurs in UK which attracted lot of attention and business besides letting the world know how talented and endowed Pakistani women entrepreneurs are. The High Commissioner said the establishment of Friends of Pakistan groups in UK Parliament and among various political parties has been playing a positive role in bringing the two countries further closer. "I have been assured by the British Parliamentarians of all their help in pleading the case of Pakistan at the Government level and as well as before the British public. They feel satisfied with the performance of the present democratic government and appreciate the enormity of challenge its government and people have taken upon themselves risking their own lives to save the world from the scourge of terrorism".
Regarding Kashmir, he said the issue is constantly highlighted in the United Kingdom. The UK Parliamentarians are also voicing their concerns over the human right situation in Indian-occupied Kashmir and the recent article of Foreign Secretary David Miliband in a UK daily is an eloquent reminder of the "Elephant" in the room that India refuses to see. "Truth indeed pricks the conscience most that is why Indian government, its war-hysteria whipping media and those in cahoots with them have been irritated beyond reasonable comprehension when Foreign Secretary David Miliband hit the nail right on the head with his statement that the cause that compels the people to take up arms needs to be addressed.
His reference was to Kashmir, the oldest item of dispute on the UN list. Wajid said Miliband's statement reminds him of yet another ethical Foreign Secretary late Robin Cook, who had moved a resolution adopted by the Labour Party's annual Conference in Brighton in 1995 declaring whenever Labour Party shall come to power, it shall support the right of self-determination for the people of Kashmir as sanctioned to by the United Nations. Not only that, he had, as the then Shadow Foreign Secretary, acknowledged unresolved Kashmir issue as a legacy of the partition and a moral obligation for the Labour Party to play a role for its solution. Miliband's remarks on Mumbai incident also put the record straight.
His acknowledgement of Pakistan's commitment to do its best to get to the bottom of the issue and that it shall leave no stone unturned in its fight against terrorism is heartening to note. Wajid Shamsul Hasan believes that the magnitude and enormity of Mumbai tragedy could only be understood and gauged by a country like Pakistan that itself is the worst victim of terrorism. Instead of launching a high velocity coercive diplomatic offensive through blame-game and its media going berserk in whipping war hysteria against Pakistan, Wajid lamented and said "Delhi should have accepted Pakistan's offer of co-operation in investigations.
"Instead South Block took the tragedy as a golden opportunity and an excuse-to wriggle out of composite dialogue and force Pakistan into a corner" as a response to President Zardari's November 22 wide ranging offer that included an agreement on non-first strike on nuclear sites, creation of an economic union, unrestricted, free to and fro traffic between the two countries, more trade and creation of a climate of peaceful co-existence so that resources of the two countries could be put to better use for the alleviation of the sufferings of the two peoples majority of whom live under poverty line." Wajid Shamsul Hasan feels that the Indians miscalculated about the success of their coercive diplomacy. By raising it to such high pitch propaganda the media gave the impression that they had taken the world for a joy ride and isolated Pakistan. He said the truth started filtering through with an Indian Union Minister casting the first stone saying there was something more in Mumbai tragedy than met the eye. Fingers, he added, started pointing at possibilities other than Pakistani hand.
It could be Indian extremists who did not want composite dialogue to continue and Indo-Pakistan dialogue did become Mumbai's first victim. Initial targeted killing of Indian anti-terrorist expert and his two colleagues related to his investigations into earlier acts of terrorism in which he had reached conclusive evidence not against Pakistan but home-grown Hindu extremists including an Indian army colonel working for them. Besides, he said, independent analysts felt that India needed time to frame its response to new US President Obama's comment on the eve of elections on Kashmir as the core issue and major cause of terrorism. Not only that there is also a consensus among regional experts over the view of Miliband that resolution of the dispute over Kashmir would help deny extremists in the region on of their calls to arms, the High Commissioner said.
Wajid also referred to an editorial by Financial Times which made similar assertions that "Miliband is right in thinking November's deadly terrorist assault on Mumbai to the conflict in Kashmir, at the heart of the post-partition rivalry between India and Pakistan". The High Commissioner believes that as against Indian coercive diplomacy globally, Pakistan's response to it has been more mature, restrained and responsible. Pakistan's quiet diplomacy gradually convinced various important capitals of its sincerity in war against terror since it was not only waging a war to stop its spread to other countries but to save itself first. "I think our friends in Delhi went berserk on their illusory success of coercive diplomacy despite Pakistan offering unconditional co-operation in investigations to them.
They thought they have isolated us and could dictate anything to us. Their war hysteria, their excessive use of jingoistic language, their media setting deadlines for striking selective targets in Pakistan "no doubt looked ominous and scary." Indeed, Wajid said, the situation had become much too serious and it needed to be responded befittingly. It obviously put Pakistan as a nation into action. "President Zardari took a firm stand and as the sole spokesman of the people he told the Indians straight that while Pakistan believes in peace, it would not fire the first shot but if war was to be thrust upon it, every Pakistani will defend the country and its honour with all our might and resources."
He said the same message was echoed loud and clear in the Parliament. Prime Minister Gilani as the leader of the house and representatives of all other political parties including the opposition expressed unequivocally nation's dauntless determination to defend itself if attacked while reiterating its commitment to peace with honour as well its unquestionable resilience to fight and eradicate terrorism from Pakistani soil. "I don't know what did the Indians achieve in whipping war hysteria and raising tension in the region. I am sure when they will look back in retrospect into post-Mumbai scenario they will feel embarrassed because everything they did to isolate Pakistan simply boomeranged on them.
Replying to a related question, Wajid Shamsul Hasan said the British Government can indeed use its good offices to bring India around to resume the composite dialogue. On the issue of forced marriages especially among the Pakistani Diaspora, the High Commissioner said there is a close co-operation in this regard with the British authorities since Pakistan is opposed to such marriages. He referred to the passage of Women's Protection Bill in 2007 and said in the light of that "we believe that young people should have the right to choose their own respective life partners." "We understand local problems emanating from forced marriages. Whatever assistance British authorities need from it shall be forthcoming. At the same time, we are persuading the Pakistani community here to devise their own system to reject forced marriages and honour killings." Responding to another question, the top diplomat said a strong Parliamentary democracy is a way forward and "we are trying to establish democracy at the grassroots level to allow people have more space in power sharing."
He was of the view that had there been no frequent military or extra-constitutional interventions in the past in Pakistan, the democracy in the South Asian Muslim country would have taken roots and blossomed into formidable political and viable dispensation to serve as a role model for other Muslim countries to adopt and follow as was envisioned by the Quaid. Giving the example of the UK, the High Commissioner said the democratic culture takes long time to grow and though Pakistan has been independent for 61 years, more than half of that period has been under military rule which stymied the democracy. He agreed to a question that Pakistan political parties need also to organise themselves better and develop the concept of 'shadow government or cabinet' which exists in UK.
Wajid Shamsul Hasan said Prime Minister Gilani has introduced the Prime Minister's Question Hour in the parliament to answer all questions posed to him on the lines of 'Prime Minister Question Hour' in the British Parliament. He said that a UK organisation 'Foundation for Democracy' has been helping political parties in organising themselves through training seminars for Pakistani Parliamentarians and the civil bureaucracy on the art of good governance and healthy parliamentary practices. The High Commissioner said both countries have close collaboration in improving the social infrastructure in Pakistan including disaster management, traffic management, health and education fields.
Wajid Shamsul Hasan urged the UK-based Pakistani Diaspora to take active part in the British political system. "They have always been supportive of Pakistan, shown deep concern for its future, and contributed immensely for its development, they have always been very generous in helping their country. Their help in 2005 earthquake would always be remembered," he noted. At the same time, the High Commissioner encouraged the Diaspora to participate in local politics and increase its profile. "With a million strong community, they have significant role to play in British politics. There are various constituencies where they can swing the votes this way or that. They must avail the opportunities offered to them and increase their representation in Parliament which would be beneficial for them since they would have a stronger voice in Parliament and other public fora."