Is the PM willing to surrender his own weapons

Intelligence, psy-ops and the war in FATA
March 29, 2019
Islamic Republic of Private Armies
March 30, 2019

Is the PM willing to surrender his own weapons?

While political statements are often digested with a pinch of salt, the PM’s deweaponisation statement of 24th August calls for a tablespoon full.  If one is not mistaken, it is his seventh declaration on the subject.  The first came within days of his taking over as the new PM in 2013.  But then he soon forgot about it.  Pakistan had to lose 141 school children in December 2014 for the PM to repeat his deweaponisation resolve.  It was also included as the star feature of the infamous National Action Placebo (NAP). The program never saw the light of the day and was practically given up as a case of infant mortality.  To make it easy for the neuron-compromised staff, an SOP was developed to announce deweaponisation after every major act of militancy.  The attacks on Shia mosques, the bus attack on Ismaili community and finally the suicide attack on Shuja Khanzada  were some of the events that triggered this knee-jerk response.

 

It is therefore only natural and rational for the people of Pakistan not to plunge into a state of euphoric ecstasy on hearing the PM’s latest pronouncement, ‘directing the interior ministry to prepare a plan to deweaponise society’.   Years of fake promises, sleeping pills, clichés and slogans have created an aura of suspicion and cynicism.  Good news are considered either ‘motivated’ or accepted with great reluctance, even when some of them happen to be true.

 

What must we think of the latest statement of the Prime Minister?   How many offerings, sacrifices, donations or lives are needed to make our rulers understand that it is their duty to protect the life and property of every citizen.  This task cannot be sublet to private militias.  ‘ Citizens Against Weapons’, a group dedicated to a weapon-free and peaceful Pakistan demands complete withdrawal of all weapons from every citizen, regardless of an individual’s rank, status or affiliation.  The right way for the Prime Minister to demonstrate his sincerity is to surrender his own weapons and ask his ministers and party to do the same?

Citizens Against Weapons

 

26 August 2015