| November 17, 2001 | Saturday | Ramazan 1, 1422 |
Please Visit our Sponsor (Ads open in separate window)
Travesty of justice
THE 600-million dollar US grant will certainly go some way in lessening the immediate rigours of Pakistan’s beleaguered economy. The total package of assistance announced by the US ambassador, Ms Wendy Chamberlin, on Thursday at a signing ceremony for the grant, amounts to a little over one billion dollars. The package also includes a 300 million dollar line of credit for investment promotion from Overseas Private Investment Corporation (OPIC) and 73 million dollars in border security funds to assist in securing Pakistan’s long border. The ambassador said that an unspecified amount would also be made available to Pakistan from the US Export-Import Bank and that the US administration was working with Congress for suitable legislation to provide increased access to Pakistani goods in the US market. She also reiterated her country’s commitment to support Pakistan’s request for a medium-term loan from the IMF’s Poverty Reduction and Growth Facility (PRGF) and for rescheduling of bilateral debt at the up-coming Paris Club meeting.
The 600-million dollar grant is for direct budget and balance of payments support which is what the immediate need is. Pakistan has estimated a loss of about 3 billion dollars to its economy during the current year as a consequence of the on-going anti-terrorism war. In the immediate context, however, the 600-million dollar grant would perhaps cover the budgetary upsets and steep declines in trade-related revenue earnings and export proceeds suffered during the last eight weeks or so as a result of war. These have largely resulted from a steep increase in shipping and insurance rates, imposition of an additional fee by importers for checking of our goods for anthrax and cancellation of export orders for fear of disruption in supplies from and through the war zone. The situation will remain unchanged if the US-led operation in Afghanistan continues indefinitely and even foreign investors would stay away from Pakistan no matter how tempting the credit lines from the OPIC and the Exim Bank. Even an increased access for Pakistani goods to the US market may not go very far in offsetting the overall negative impact.
Ambassador Chamberlin perhaps had this in mind when she said at the signing ceremony that the terrorist attacks on the United States on September 11 had put an additional strain on the world economy and that nowhere was that more evident than in the case of Pakistan. So, for Pakistan to benefit in the short run from what is being offered by the US and other countries by way of economic assistance, it is necessary that the war be brought to an early end. For longer-term improvement in its economy, however, the country would need to get out of its debt trap. One hopes that at its next meeting the Paris Club would consider at least a re-profiling of the bilateral debt of over 12 billion dollars if not its complete write-off. This would help Pakistan put its economic house in order with some degree of success even if the war does not end immediately.
Both Ms Wendy Chamberlin and Finance Minister Shaukat Aziz have acknowledged Pakistan’s commitment to use the US funds to support social sector programmes, education, health and small-scale community infrastructure that would directly improve the lives of the common people. One only hopes that those handling the funds would use these efficiently and honestly in the sectors identified by the two governments. In the past much of the foreign aid used to be diverted to non-economic uses, specially to meet defence-related needs and part of allocations earmarked for the social sectors would be pocketed by the unscrupulous programme implementors. This is the reason why Pakistan today finds itself burdened with huge foreign debts without much to show for these in terms of assets either physical or social.
THE Bush administration’s decision to set up military courts to try people who commit war crimes marks a radical departure from the fundamental norms and values of a society wedded to the concept of rule of law. On Tuesday the US president signed an order that would allow terrorist suspects to be tried before a military panel instead of a normal court. Two days later, the US attorney-general, John Ashcroft, went a step further when he told a news conference that “foreign terrorists who commit war crimes in the United States are not entitled to, [and] do not deserve, the protection of the American constitution”. As Mr Ashcroft would know only too well, the fundamental principle of justice is that it should be blind, that it should not differentiate on the basis of creed, caste or colour or between a national and non-national. However, that is precisely what is bound to happen if America goes ahead with the proposed plan. It has long been known that America’s stand on human rights, especially with respect to foreign governments, changes from case to case. A case in point is China which it never misses an opportunity to lambast on grounds of human rights violations and summary justice while looking away from similar aberrations on the part of allies and proteges. In this particular case, Washington is adopting a course of action which it would be the first to condemn in the case of others.
To say that those suspected of committing terrorist acts or war crimes against America do not “deserve” the same constitutional guarantees available to US citizens essentially means that even the basic rights of such people — the right to equal protection before law and the right to a fair trial — will not be respected. In its pursuit of Osama bin Laden and Al Qaeda, Washington seems all too willing to waive aside even those values and principles that it proudly claims as forming the bedrock of American society. White House spokesman Ari Fleischer’s remarks justifying the creation of military courts outside US soil opens up the possibility of suspected Al Qaeda terrorists, if arrested, being tried and sentenced inside Afghanistan. Mr Fleischer’s defence of such trials is both flawed and self-serving in that it presumes that a person suspected of commiting an act of terrorism is indeed guilty. In any case, one wonders what sort of precedent America is trying to set for other countries to follow. And what will prevent legal residents living in the US, but who do not happen to be citizens, from being tried by such courts simply because the FBI or the CIA suspects them of being involved in acts of terror? Washington would be well advised to do without such notions of justice. Instead, as a UN spokesman said on Thursday, any person arrested inside Afghanistan and suspected of being a terrorist should be handed over, if at all, to the UN and the Security Council would then decide on how to proceed in such cases. Now is also the time for America to seriously consider accepting the idea of the International Criminal Court. Though that might seem a difficult proposition given the current climate and pressure from hardliners in the Congress, it is not an insurmountable one.