| January 29, 2002 | Tuesday | Ziqa’ad 14, 1422 |
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Quibbling over semantics
Death of a lion
FOR some mysterious reasons, New Delhi seems determined to perpetuate tension along the border with Pakistan. While Gen. Tommy Franks hopes in Islamabad that diplomacy will be able to defuse the crisis, there is, unfortunately, no indication from India that it is keen on a de-escalation. In fact, both Prime Minister Vajpayee and Home Minister L.K. Advani sounded highly negative in their speeches on Sunday: neither gave the slightest hint of reasonableness, and both ruled out a dialogue with Pakistan. Rather, there were veiled hints that war was still a possibility.
In a speech to the cadet corps, Mr Vajpayee said that there was no change in the ground situation in Kashmir despite Pakistan’s crackdown on the militants. He alleged that India continued to be “a target of terrorism” and that India would give “an appropriate response.” On his part, Mr Advani was even more bellicose and said “war may become inevitable.” The reason for the war threat was his belief that the situation in occupied Kashmir had not changed despite President Musharraf’s speech fifteen days ago. Obviously, both Mr Vajpayee and his home minister feel that Islamabad’s decision to rein in militants within Pakistan should mean relief for India’s occupation forces in Kashmir. Actually, the two issues are completely different.
Pakistan’s crackdown on the extremists is its internal matter. The extremist parties, thanks to successive governments’ ambiguous attitude and policies, had armed themselves to the teeth and had become a state within a state. Their activities were a source of widespread lawlessness in Pakistan, because they were spreading their motto of uniformity and intolerance not through persuasion but by resort to force. Often, they were involved in fighting against themselves as seen in the attacks on mosques and imambargahs. They were also organizing country-wide strikes every now and then, thus hurting the economy and disturbing the peace. No wonder, the people of Pakistan felt relieved when the government announced the ban on five leading militant organizations.
That all these measures were guided by internal considerations is evident from the earlier ban on two extremist parties. Both Lashkar-i-Jhangvi and Sipah-i-Muhammad were banned on Aug 14 last — some four months before the attack on the Indian parliament building on Dec 13 which India used as an excuse for massing forces on the borders. The president’s speech of Jan 12, in which he banned five more parties, was meant to rid Pakistan of the menace of terrorism. In that speech, the president also made it clear that no one would be allowed to use Pakistan for acts of terrorism anywhere in the world. He also backed up the speech with concrete actions, including the round-up of 1,900 extremists and the freezing of the assets of the banned organizations. That the Indian leaders should try to link this crackdown with the struggle for freedom in Kashmir is absurd.
Kashmir is a disputed territory, where the people are struggling for their right of self-determination. India has denied them this right and is holding them down by force. No wonder, they should wage a struggle for freedom, which they have been doing over the last twelve years. This struggle will continue as long as India does not follow the obvious course — talks for resolving the dispute. Neither Mr Vajpayee nor Mr Advani gave an indication on Sunday that they were prepared for a dialogue with Pakistan to solve the core issue in their relationship.
FOLLOWING the storm of international outrage over the treatment of US-held Al Qaeda prisoners, there are signs of high-level dissent within the Bush administration on this issue. According to reports, Secretary of State Colin Powell has asked President Bush to ensure that the Taliban and Al Qaeda fighters captured in Afghanistan are treated according to international rules governing prisoners of war. The international community had long been protesting against the conditions under which the prisoners, particularly those at the US base at Guantanamo Bay, are being held. What added a sharp edge to the criticism was the publication of pictures showing the prisoners in shackles with their heads and eyes covered. Washington has consistently refused to accept that the incarcerated men are prisoners of war, terming them ‘unlawful combatants’ instead. This puts the men outside the purview of the Geneva Conventions and means that they can be interrogated in a manner that the Conventions deem unlawful.
Human rights groups, the Red Cross and even America’s European allies, have been increasingly vocal in demanding that the prisoners are treated in a humane manner. Colin Powell’s intervention seems to be an attempt to calm the allies’ concerns. However, more hawkish elements in the administration are unconvinced by such arguments. Vice President Cheney, for example, recently described the prisoners as “really bad people” and stated that “no one should feel bad or defensive about the quality of treatment they’ve received.” He added that “it’s probably better than they deserve”. The truth is that the Al Qaeda men were captured during a war against terrorism. This simple fact means that the US must treat the prisoners according to the terms of the Geneva Conventions and not arbitrarily decide their status and fate. It is exactly this arrogant tendency to ignore international law when it suits its interests that fuels anti-US sentiment across the globe.
HE outlived arguably the heaviest bombing campaign in human history, the Soviet occupation of Afghanistan and the Taliban regime despite being confined to a non-functioning zoo. Eventually, though, old age caught up with Marjan, the lion at Kabul Zoo, and he passed away at the ripe age of 39 this past weekend. Crippled, mostly toothless and half-blinded in a freak incident some years ago, Marjan’s plight could easily be seen as symbolic of Afghanistan itself. He lost an eye and use of a leg after a member of the Taliban lobbed a grenade inside his enclosure. The barbaric act took place after Marjan mauled to death the man’s brother who, in an act of sheer bravado, had tried to get close to the animal. A recent photograph of the lion, splashed across newspapers all over the world, told a sad and unfortunate story. The animal seemed a caricature of his former glorious self, a fair assumption since all lions have luxuriant manes and can be quite spectacular in their prime because of their impressive size and strength.
Yes, one can see all of this as highly symbolic and perhaps even ironic. The Taliban did to Afghanistan what they did to the lion of Kabul Zoo. Both were maimed, and both managed to survive what they were made to go through. While alive, Marjan would be subject to a never-ending barrage of taunts from visitors to the zoo but he managed to live through that also. However, there is one crucial difference between countries and living beings. Countries at least have a chance of living again, rising from the ashes of their destruction and this, one hopes, will happen in the case of the country Marjan left behind. As for him, in the words of his keeper for the last eight years: “He was very old, so he had to go some time.”