Anna Hazare: Pakistan to follow India with anti-corruption campaign

One of Pakistan's leading human rights champions is to launch an anti-corruption campaign inspired by India's Gandhian crusader Anna Hazare.

By Dean Nelson, New Delhi

Ansar Burney, Pakistan's first human rights minister, and a member of the United Nation's Human Rights Council Advisory Committee, has been widely praised for his work to free innocent prisoners and rescue child trafficking victims. He is widely admired for his campaign to end the use of child slaves as camel jockeys in the Middle East.

He has now announced his most ambitious campaign – to rid Pakistan of corruption.

Pakistan's recent political history has been defined as much by corruption as terrorism. Many of its most powerful government figures returned to office after military ruler General Musharraf introduced the National Reconciliation Ordinance – an amnesty for those previously charged with or convicted of corruption.

Its beneficiaries included President Asif Zardari, once known as 'Mr Ten Per Cent' for commissions he was alleged to have received on government contracts when his late wife Benazir Bhutto was prime minister in the late 1980s and mid-1990s. Mr Zardari has always denied the charges and insisted they were politically motivated.

But while senior politicians and military figures have been accused of making hundreds of millions of pounds in kickbacks on government contracts and land deals, most Pakistanis are more concerned with the small bribes they are forced to pay in daily life.

Mr Burney said he would launch his campaign following the Eid-ul-Fitr celebrations at the end of Ramadan, the month-long Muslim fast.

Pakistan is suffering from "rampant and continuously growing corruption and terrorism destroying every fabric of our nation and any prospects of a decent future for our children and grandchildren," he said in a statement.

"It is now up to civil society to take steps to rid the country of this evil before it is too late and the Ansar Burney Trust will kick-start a massive anti-corruption campaign … as a first step to saving our country," he added.

The campaign will target corrupt figures in the country's government, judiciary, education system, police and business community, he said.

His announcement came as India's anti-corruption leaders intensified their campaign to force the Congress-led government to create a lokpal watchdog with powers to monitor all levels of government, including the prime minister's office.

On Tuesday night the government nominated its finance minister Pranab Mukherjee to lead new talks with the anti-corruption campaign while its leader Anna Hazare continues his hunger strike in the heart of the capital Delhi.


(2011-8-24/telegraph.co.uk)