| February 11, 2002 | Monday | Ziqa’ad 27, 1422 |
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Hard on the immigrants
Environmental degradation
WASHINGTON’S decision to allow Taliban prisoners protection under the Geneva Convention is clearly an attempt to blunt growing international criticism of the US treatment of fighters captured in Afghanistan. The decision, however, has been met with further criticism and raised a number of disturbing questions. Over the weeks, there has been a crescendo of voices calling for more humane treatment of the prisoners, especially those held by the US at the Guantanamo Bay camp in Cuba. Thursday’s announcement has disappointed human rights groups because it explicitly excludes the Al Qaeda fighters from the protection of the Geneva Convention and also refuses to categorize either the Taliban or Al Qaeda captives as prisoners of war. In practice, the change in status amounts to very little as the US continues to insist that the prisoners were always treated fairly, despite shocking evidence to the contrary and widespread international outrage. A White House spokesmen clarified the distinction by arguing that the Taliban were fighting for a government that was a signatory to the Geneva Convention, even though the US did not recognize the Taliban regime. The Al Qaeda prisoners, on the contrary, were part of an international terrorist group that did not owe allegiance to any government.
The motive in denying the Al Qaeda prisoners their rights is clear: the US wants to interrogate these prisoners and deprive them of the legal rights stipulated under the Convention for prisoners of war. Instead, Washington wants to have the prisoners hauled up before military tribunals for trial. Moral and legal considerations aside, the move may also run into practical difficulties. It is not clear how the US authorities are going to determine which of the prisoners in captivity belongs to Al Qaeda. Ethnicity could provide one basis for distinguishing between the two, with Afghan nationals being treated in a more humane manner than the pro-Taliban foreign nationals. This is indeed a strange way to determine a prisoner’s status. Surely, a painstaking scrutiny of individual prisoners must first be made to determine his links to Al Qaeda.
In any case, those prisoners who are not directly linked to the September 11 attacks on the US should normally be sent back to their country of origin once hostilities have ended — to be dealt with for whatever else they be guilty of. Meanwhile, the International Committee of the Red Cross, Amnesty International and other groups have argued that all prisoners captured during the Afghan campaign must be treated under the rules of the Geneva Convention. According to the Convention, if there is a dispute over the status of a prisoner, a ‘competent tribunal’ must determine the status on a case-by-case basis. The president of the United States, they believe, is clearly not the competent authority to decide the status unilaterally. Rights groups also believe that the decision can set a dangerous precedent. If US soldiers are captured abroad it should not be left to the ruler of a hostile country to decide how they should be treated. It is this total disregard for international opinion and law that is exasperating even allies of the US coalition against terror. It reflects the growing unilateralism evident in a number of recent US actions, a line that could well place great strains on the coalition in the days ahead. The US must be reminded that taking steps that wantonly violate all international norms and conventions not only betray an unacceptable level of arrogance but could also undermine the very principles on which the war against terror is being waged.
BRITISH Home Secretary David Blunkett’s white paper on immigration, calling for Asians to marry partners already living in Britain rather than from the subcontinent, has understandably created quite a stir. Several Asian groups in Britain have strongly criticized the proposal, calling it racist in motivation and spirit and an attack on their cultural traditions. Mr Blunkett’s fundamental review of Britain’s immigration policy proposes — besides suggestions on arranged marriages by Asians — new restrictions on immigration including a test of English. The language aspect has always been a debatable issue, and not just in Britain but in other multi-racial Western countries such as America and France. However, the thrust of the paper, Secure Borders, Safe Haven, whose introduction after Sept 11 cannot be termed a mere coincidence, would seem to make sense in that it seeks greater integration between ethnic communities. However, critics might well ask why the immigrant minority should be asked to integrate into the ways of the hosts to an extent where they are in danger of losing their cultural identity over a period of time.
Individuals in such communities often find themselves torn between their loyalty to the adopted land and their sense of belonging to the land of their ancestors or of birth. Clearly, in emphasizing marriage within the community in the adopted country, Britain feels its policy of granting spouses citizenship rights is being misused or that some of these marriages are forced. Most people of South Asian origin, Asian community groups point out, already marry within Britain. Mr Blunkett’s proposals, in his own words, also aim at making it easier for people who “feel trapped between two different cultures and backgrounds” in making a choice. However, that is purely a personal matter and should not be the concern of the state. After all, it is unlikely that he would have made a similar suggestion if the ethnic groups comprised people not from South Asia but Eastern Europe, Canada, Australia and New Zealand. Britain would be well advised to review these proposals and tread carefully, lest they alienate the Asian community even further.
SPEAKERS at a seminar held in Karachi the other day were unanimous in expressing a sense of horror over the unchecked rise in population and its ravaging effects on the ecology and the environment in the country. Some of the facts revealed at the seminar clearly portend disaster over the longer term if the authorities concerned do not take swift and effective measures to address the issues at hand. Studies have linked unchecked growth in population with a rise in poverty level in a given country, which is also the major problem facing Pakistan today. As one speaker revealed, less than 20 per cent Pakistanis lived below the poverty line — earning less than US $ 1 a day — back in 1990, while this figure was as high as 35 per cent in 2001.
Is it any wonder then that some of the poorest Pakistanis are resorting to questionable means of livelihood, such as selling their young boys off to the Gulf sheikhs as camel jockeys. A demographic explosion is also linked to the high levels of land, air and water pollution that has already caused significant damage to our environment. This has taken the form of mushrooming of squatter colonies in the vicinity of major urban centres with their squalid living conditions, acute pressure on already tottering civic sanitation and health services, felling of trees, denudation of green patches and so on, exerting a pulverizing effect on the environment. It is time that these two sectors became a priority that they deserve to be with the government’s planning experts and policy-makers before all is lost.