May 12: One Year Passed, No Lessons Learned

On May 12, the entire nation would be mourning the death of forty-four innocent civilians on what turned out to be one of the darkest days in the history of Karachi.

Exactly last year on this day, the Chief Justice of the Supreme Court, Iftikhar Mohammed Chaudhry, remained suspended for two months and three days, owing to a Presidential reference against him. He was to land in Karachi to address a session of the Sindh High Court Bar Association, SHCBA.

In the build up towards what many refer to as Karachi’s 9/11, a lot of hot words were exchanged between the MQM, the then political opposition and leaders of the lawyers movement. What happened since then, is however history.

What needs to be understood and retained over here is that despite the passage of one year after the entire saga, no serious lessons have been learnt and this is well demonstrated by the fact that the killers, looters and murderers who planned and orchestrated the entire bloody campaign of heinous terror.

It must also be pointed out here that there was a lot more to the saga than what meets the eye. It is imperative to anchor the right questions across to those who were holding public office at that time. One lingering question is that why has there not been an independent parliamentary or judicial investigation into the entire incident? Why have the families of the victims not been compensated?

Ever since the botched judicial trial and murder of former Prime Minister Zulfiqar Ali Bhutto, the need for an independent judicial investigation has never been any greater than on the mystery of May 12, or on the assassination of former PM Benazir Bhutto.

It is only through an open judicial investigation, aided by the works investigative journalists and free flow of information, that the real culprits can be identified. We must understand that if the law is not allowed to take its due course, under the honourable aegis of the pre-November 3 judiciary and the first foot prints of history, i.e. independent journalists, then the mysteries of May 12 would always remain covered and eventually discarded, in an envelope of conspiracy theories and misconceptions.

It is ironic that the outgoing administration, which so talked about establishing and maintaining certain levels of accountability, desisted and washed its hands off the entire incident in the most careless manner—by holding its own “show of strength” rally, in Islamabad.

The fact that the then ruling party and their allies in Sindh were having their own respective party rallies when Karachi was burning in blood, shows about the establishment’s real contempt for the civilians who lost their lives on May 12.

If memory serves us well, then it must be recalled that while addressing the PML rally in Islamabad, our General-President, did not even call for a one minute silence in the honour of the slain civilians, what to talk about establishing accountability…

Yes, there were hearings and petitions in the Sindh High Court on the May 12 violence, but we all know that how judicial freedom was so eloquently violated by the provincial and federal government, that the court bench that was hearing the petitions, especially the PCO bench that was handpicked after the emergency was imposed, and the petitions itself became increasingly insignificant.

One lesson that the establishment should have learnt from what happened on May 12 is that in a city as ethnically and linguistically diverse as Karachi, conspiracies can easily split the masses on the basis of language and ethnicity. The establishment, and essentially the political parties, not only failed to learn this lesson, but ended up repeating this mistake during the last election campaigning period. All the political parties were seen exploiting the cards of race and ethnicity for political leverage against their rivals.

Where on the one hand, the Chaudries of Gujarat were seen using the “Punjabi” card against Mian Nawaz Sharif and the regrouped PML-N, there on the other hand, Chaudry Pervaiz elahi, made an unsubstantiated hoax claim that in the riots that followed the assassination of former Prime minister, Benazir Bhutto, Punjabi women and girls were sexually assaulted and raped in Sindh.

In response to all this, Asif Ali Zaradari, the new ‘co’ chairman of the Pakistan People’s Party, had started to address crowds in Punjab, in their local language to put forward the idea that it was only the Pakistan People’s Party that represented the sentiments of the entire nation. This is not constructive politics.

Another lesson that we ought to have learnt is that in order to move ahead as a united and peaceful country, everyone should respect and obey the rule of law, not go on making a mockery of the law every time it may go against interests of certain influential groups. But sadly, we always fail to learn from history.

We have seen that the judiciary has not been restored and the tall claims made by the nearly collapsing APDM and the PML-N, seem to be just that, tall claims, without any serious action.

Karachi, has yet to fully recover from the trauma and tragedy of May 12. The recent spate of violence, at the time when the new Sindh Assembly was supposed to be taking oath, just proves the point.

There are still certain groups and elements in the society which are bent upon creating more violence and causing the newly built but fragile political alliance to collapse. These are the elements who may not like to see Karachi rising as progressive, peaceful and cosmopolitan city again. Such elements, can only be stopped and brought down to justice when the law and its interpretation by independent courts and an unfettering and critical media, is allowed to take its own course.

It is ironic that the criminals and culprits who might have been involved in the incidences of May 12, today enjoy constitutional protection under the National Reconciliation Ordinance.

In order to clarify the misconceptions and conspiracy theories about May 12, there are certain measures that the new federal and provincial government should take at the earliest possible time. The first thing that needs to be done, is to establish an independent commission comprising of senior journalists, analysts and those judges of the higher judiciary who refused to take oath to the two Provisional Constitutional Orders of General Musharraf. The commission should be given immense access to classified information. Within a given time frame, the commission must be asked to submit its recommendations and reports to the parliament and the Prime Minister. All judicial investigations, under the auspices of the pre-emergency judiciary, must follow suit thereafter. The media must be allowed free access to the commission and all the relevant data to which the commission has had access. This is how we can get the root causes and factors that led us to the sadistic incidences of terror that took place on May 12.

The criminals, culprits and the hidden hands behind Karachi’s real-life counter-strike must be brought down to justice and be held accountable for their crimes and sins.

Citizens of Karachi surely have rights to live life peacefully and the see their city developing, progressing and blossoming around them.