DAWN Editorials - 3rd July 2025

[zarnishhayat]

Letter from jail

IT seems that there still may be some voices within the PTI urging reason and compromise instead of fanning agitation and discontent.

According to news reports, several senior PTI leaders, who have now been in jail for close to two years, have written to their incarcerated chief to consider a dialogue with other political parties instead of insisting on one only with the military establishment.

Their letter, sent from Kot Lakhpat Jail in Lahore, proposes that the PTI resolve matters with the political leadership first and then approach the powers that be. Though there are some questions regarding the letter, such as who wrote it and whether it was really signed by the jailed leaders, who are being held in separate barracks, its contents do not seem unreasonable or outside the realm of political possibility.

The signatories reportedly include PTI vice-chairman Shah Mahmood Qureshi, Senator Ejaz Ahmad Chaudhry, Dr Yasmin Rashid, Omar Sarfraz Cheema and Mian Mahmoodur Rasheed, all of whom have made a significant personal sacrifice for the party.

The PTI cadres may have good cause to resent the current regime, but the party should remember that its experience is not unique. Every national political entity has faced similar humiliation, oppression and/or forced capitulation at some stage of its career. During the height of the last overt dictatorship, some parties realised they could not continue to allow themselves to be used against each other for the establishment’s long vendetta against civilian rule.

The Charter of Democracy was born of that realisation. But when the PTI emerged as a major political force, rather than embracing the Charter’s spirit, it aligned itself with those historically opposed to civilian supremacy. Since its ouster, there has merely been a turning of the tables. Therefore, for its own sake and for the sake of Pakistan’s besieged democracy, it needs to first re-establish the rules of engagement with other political parties.

The jailed PTI leaders’ perspective should matter, especially to those who are out among the people and struggling to keep the party together due to their inability to establish clear lines of communication with the top leadership.

But, as always, much depends on what party chief Imran Khan thinks of the proposal. The jailed leaders have requested to be included in the dialogue process and to have regular access to the former prime minister at Adiala Jail. Given the interest this letter has generated, it appears that the space for dialogue may not have closed yet.

The initiative, tentative as it may be, deserves encouragement, including from the government. If space for reconciliation remains, both the government and PTI must seize it before the country’s democratic prospects are buried even deeper under the weight of their endless confrontation.

Published in Dawn, July 3rd, 2025


Forced to fly solo

ALREADY left reeling by the abrupt, sweeping rollback of American development aid under President Donald Trump, the world now has to come to terms with the possibility that millions may die as a result. A Lancet study estimates that up to 14m preventable deaths may occur by 2030, including 4.5m children, if the cuts are not reversed. This is no speculative warning. It is a projection based on an analysis of past USAID-supported interventions which helped avert nearly 91m deaths worldwide between 2001 and 2021. Before USAID was axed, the country was handling 40pc of global humanitarian aid efforts. It is not hard to imagine how its dismantling will have lethal consequences. Already, clinics are shutting down, medicine supplies are drying up, vaccine programmes have stalled, and thousands of front-line workers have been laid off in LMICs. The US administration defends its stance as a realignment of priorities towards “self-reliance” and “efficiency”. But critics, including former US presidents, warn this is not reform — it is abandonment. In countries like South Sudan, Bangladesh and the DRC, the withdrawal of aid has left large numbers without access to basic healthcare. In Ukraine, the freezing of humanitarian assistance has disrupted shelter, food and medical relief operations, leaving local NGOs unable to meet growing needs.

To make matters worse, other Western donors are slashing aid budgets: the UK (40pc), France (37pc), the Netherlands (30pc), and Belgium (25pc). The OECD estimates that overall development assistance could fall by 9pc to 17pc in 2025, placing entire humanitarian and development systems at risk of collapse. Combined, these cuts could undo decades of gains in global child survival, maternal health, disease prevention and food security. The study has laid it down simply: now is the time to scale up, not scale back. Leaders across the globe must view this as a preventable disaster. High-income countries must step up and bridge the shortfall by providing stopgap funding, the WHO’s essential health services must be scaled up and the global community must consider creating a Global Health Fund that is insulated from political shocks. Pakistan, for its part, has no option but to reduce its reliance on aid and invest in more resilient health systems if it wants to insulate itself from the ensuing shocks of the announced cuts. It is every man for himself now.

Published in Dawn, July 3rd, 2025


UN paralysis

ALTHOUGH tens of thousands of people in Gaza have been slaughtered and starved by Israel, the UN has been unable to take any practical steps to stop this butchery. In this regard, Pakistan’s permanent representative to the UN, Asim Iftikhar Ahmad, has urged the Security Council not to remain a “bystander”. Mr Ahmad was briefing the UNSC after Pakistan assumed the Council’s rotating presidency. He noted that the UNSC’s failure to enforce its own decisions “undermines the Council’s own authority and credibility”. Even beyond the Palestinian occupied territories, in major recent global conflicts, the UN has been unable to play any worthwhile role. For example, the war in Ukraine rages on, while the UN was unable to do much to end hostilities after India attacked Pakistan in May, or after Israel attacked Iran last month. This shows that the post-World War II ‘rules-based’ international order is practically dead, and the big powers, particularly the US and its European allies, are to blame for its collapse. The US has been instrumental in vetoing resolutions that have censured Israel at the UNSC. When powerful states protect allies guilty of egregious excesses, there is little the UN can do.

For the international order to be salvaged, the rules must apply to all. Aggressors must be punished, and vulnerable populations protected from genocide and violence. To treat the Russian invasion of Ukraine as an attack on the ‘free world’, while ignoring the Israeli occupation of Palestine points to the hypocrisy that has helped paralyse the global order. Perhaps a new order — based on justice and respect for humanitarian values — is required, where militarily and financially powerful states are not allowed to bully weaker countries, and where the Global South has a seat at the table. For now, the primary goal of the international community must be to immediately end the Gaza slaughter.

Published in Dawn, July 3rd, 2025