Political reconciliation between various political parties, given the precarious conditions prevailing in the country, will go a long way to strengthen the democratic process. However, this reconciliation should be based on principles without any violation of the constitution, law and basic rules of morality. Any reconciliation based on giving exemption to those allegedly involved in corruption, willful loan defaults, serious criminal charges like murder, kidnapping for ransom, torture, wrongful occupation of lands etc. is in violation of the law and can only encourage criminals to join politics. This mindset in which the elected or un-elected ruling elite considers it their privilege to flout the law, plunder national assets or state-owned real estate, brutalise the population by using criminal thugs as an instrument and use religion as a tool to further their personal agendas that has driven us to our present state of affairs. Name one other country in Asia whose all the major political party heads and former generals have stashed up their major assets in foreign countries and their children are living abroad. Can Asif Zardari, Nawaz Sharif, Chaudhry Shujaat, Altaf Hussain and Musharraf justify all the assets they have abroad? Yet, they continue to decide the destiny and fate of Pakistan. No wonder they so easily succumb to foreign pressure from governments of the countries where all their assets have been relocated. We have rarely heard any news of civil and military leaders of China or India making money on the lecture circuit of the West and earning hundreds of thousands of dollars from it. Isn't this lecture circuit just a ploy to whiten the black money our former rulers have siphoned through kickbacks from Pakistan and are already deposited in foreign bank accounts? Even key figures of our civil bureaucracy of recent past own luxurious apartments and houses in London, Canada, USA, Spain etc. -RAHAT SIDDIQI, Karachi, October 28.