KARACHI: IS PEACE HERE TO STAY?

Prime Minister Benazir Bhutto´s government may have bludgeoned Karachi into submission, but independent observers are asking whether the apparent peace is here to stay.

It is true that the terror that long held the city in its grip has subsided. Several pockets of the city are still considered unsafe to venture into after dark, but they no longer resound with the gunfire of rival factions battling it out. Kidnappings for ransom and the all-too-familiar daily headlines of 'Eight gunned down' or 'Twelve killed in sniper fire' seem now to be a nightmare of the past. Tortured, bullet-riddled, blood-stained bodies tied in gunny sacks no longer turn up on roadsides.

Once again, Karachi´s roads are buzzing with activity, restaurants are crowded at meal-times, and business has picked up in the shops and bazaars. Employees at multinational companies, banks and businesses no longer quail at working late nights, and taxi drivers now accept fares to volatile areas like Korangi.

Over the last couple of months, the government has been thumping its chest in victory, citing the relative peace that now reigns over the city as a measure of its success. The loudest self-congratulatory statements have come from the powerful Interior Minister Major-General (retd) Naseerullah Babar, whose ruthless crackdown on Karachi has been heavily criticised by human rights groups. Gen Babar says that there is little chance of the city being overrun by militants again, and his confidence is echoed by the Prime Minister herself.

Many Karachiites believe that measures taken by Gen Babar (including the suspension of all cellular phone operations to sever the militants´ channels of communication) will yield only temporary success unless efforts are made towards a long-term political solution that necessarily involves the renegade Mohajir Qaumi Movement (mqm). This belief is shared by political observers, journalists, and human rights activists all over the country.

As Pakistan´s economic nerve centre and largest city, Karachi needs special attention, which it has not received. With a population of over 12 million, and a literacy rate as high as 80 per cent, this megapolis suffers from extreme neglect of sectors such as transport, housing, unemployment, sanitation, water and health, and law and order. It was the presence of ineffective administration and a corrupt police force which together made possible the rise of armed factions of educated, unemployed youth who made a living out of daylight extortion.

When Pakistan emerged from military rule in 1988, rather like a lid being lifted off a boiling pot, Karachi exploded in violence, largely fomented by the MQM. The government came down hard on MQM activists, whose leader Altaf Hussain has been in self-exile in London since the crackdown began a couple of years ago.

Last year alone, over 2000 citizens were killed in the city, more than half of them at the hands of law enforcement agencies. Those not killed in 'police encounters' could expect to be tortured. Alienation grew because most of the police rank and file hail from upcountry areas, and have little understanding or sympathy for the locals.

Over time, therefore, the MQM has taken on the look of a persecuted underdog, and there is visible resurgence of sympathy for the party, even among independent observers. Supporters who had distanced themselves from the party due to its violent politics are to be found again in the MQM fold.

Since the government suspended local bodies throughout the country, the MQM, which once ruled the roost in Karachi, has been effectively sidelined from mainstream politics. Karachi has had virtually no political representation in the National Assembly. The MQM, the party that Karachi returned every time, boycotted the 1993 Assembly.

Instead of realising that Karachi´s problems arise from a lack of representative governance, the government recently decided to divide the city´s many districts, formerly governed by elected local body officials, into zones that would be controlled by bureaucrats — ;Deputy Commissioners from the Pakistan Civil Services. Jamat-e-Islami and the MQM, bitter rivals, have both roundly criticised this move.

Despite the relative calm that now prevails, Karachi is not the city it once was. The psychological, physical and financial battering it has taken has left scars that will take time to heal. And no long-term peace and urban revival is possible without bringing the MQM back into the mainstream.