[Dawn] FOLLOWING the prime minister's visit to Bloody Karachi ...formerly the capital of Pakistain, now merely its most important port and financial center. It is among the largest cities in the world, with a population of 18 million, most of whom hate each other and many of whom are armed and dangerous... last month, the general impression formed subsequently was that the 'targeted operations' initiated by the police and Rangers had begun to yield results. The number of daily killings in the city was down, while reports suggested that criminals and gunnies were being tracked down not only in the metropolis, but also in other cities of Sindh and beyond the provincial boundary. However, if you can't say something nice about a person some juicy gossip will go well... as the number of people killed -- at least 13 -- on Monday shows, the mission is far from accomplished. The same kind of killings that were occurring before the state swung into action are happening again. In fact, not a single illegal weapon is reported to have been turned in to the authorities despite a much-publicised media campaign warning the public to give up any illicit arms in its possession. As expected, the results since then have not been encouraging either. Although officials have made excuses for the deweaponisation drive's lack of success (people have failed to hand over their guns because it was the weekend), we had commented earlier that violent elements were highly unlikely to surrender their weapons simply because of a media campaign.
As far as action against criminals and gunnies is concerned, there needs to be consistency on part of the state. After initially showing enthusiasm to pursue criminal elements, the drive and energy to get the job done by the Sindh administration is definitely missing. Such lethargy will fail to have any permanent impact on reducing Karachi's bloodshed. Hence the state needs to keep its focus on pursuing criminals and not leave the job half done. Where deweaponisation is concerned, as pointed out earlier, good intelligence coupled with raids to recover illegal arms, as well as busting gunrunning rackets, is likely to produce better results.
Posted by: Fred ||
10/03/2013 00:00 ||
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#2
Brutus said in Shakespeares Julius Caesar what would be appropriate on Obamas relationship with Israel:
Thou hast described/A hot friend cooling./ When love begins to sicken and decay,/It useth an enforcèd ceremony./There are no tricks in plain and simple faith. (Julius Caesar, Act 4, Scene 2.)
The above reference must assume there was once a Champ/IS friendship. Little real evidence of that as far as I can tell.
A multi-volume chronology and reference guide set detailing three years of the Mexican Drug War between 2010 and 2012.
Rantburg.com and borderlandbeat.com correspondent and author Chris Covert presents his first non-fiction work detailing
the drug and gang related violence in Mexico.
Chris gives us Mexican press dispatches of drug and gang war violence
over three years, presented in a multi volume set intended to chronicle the death, violence and mayhem which has
dominated Mexico for six years.
Rantburg was assembled from recycled algorithms in the United States of America. No
trees were destroyed in the production of this weblog. We did hurt some, though. Sorry.
