| April 20, 2002 | Saturday | Safar 6, 1423 |
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Missing — 20,000 passports
Custodial killing
WITH the return of former king Zahir Shah to his native country on Thursday after 29 years in exile, Afghans seem caught in a welter of loyalties and emotions. The big question is whether his return will result in what his country needs most — political stability and reconstruction. On his part, the 87-year former monarch has made it clear that he has no political ambitions and that he is returning to his country basically, as he put it, to die. Nevertheless, despite this low-key approach to the explosive situation in Afghanistan, Zahir Shah — Zahir Khan, as the Iranians would insist — will arouse emotions both negative and positive in all sections of Afghanistan’s multiethnic population.
A Pakhtoon of the Durrani tribe, Zahir Shah has returned at a time when Afghanistan is still far from peace and stability. The interim government, headed by Chairman Hamid Karzai, has no doubt survived since its induction into office in December last under the Bonn accord, but there are undercurrents of suspicion and hostility. Many Pakhtoons resent the preponderant role which the Panjsheri Tajiks play in the interim set-up — they have the key defence, foreign and interior portfolios with them. Ahmed Shah Masood, who enjoyed the most powerful position in the anti-Taliban alliance, was well disposed towards Zahir Shah. However, other Tajiks, including former president Burhanuddin Rabbani, are not that friendly towards the former king. For that reason, many other nationalities — Uzbeks, Hazaras and Turkomans — share the Pakhtoons’ distrust of the Panjsheris and would accept Zahir Shah as head of state symbolizing Afghanistan’s unity. The problem is exacerbated by the fact that the Karzai administration is not acceptable to all Pakhtoons. Segments of Pakhtoons — especially in the Kandahar region — still support the Taliban and Al Qaeda. Many Pakhtoons have also not forgotten Zahir Shah’s excessive reliance on the Soviet Union, leading ultimately to his ouster by Dawood Shah. Many warlords, among them pro-Iran Ismail Khan, are distrustful of him.
Pakistan has unhappy memories of Zahir Shah’s rule during the formative years of its existence. In 1947, Afghanistan was the only country in the world that voted against Pakistan’s membership of the United Nations. Not only that: his government actively pursued an irredentist line and laid claim to vast tracts of Pakistan’s territory. In this he was fully backed by the USSR and India, both of which helped him promote the Pakhtoonistan stunt. Often, agents provocateurs and tribesmen in his pay created trouble in Pakistan’s tribal belts, while Radio Kabul harped on Pakistan’s “persecution” of the Pakhtoons.
Mercifully, all that is behind us. The events of Sept 11 and the collapse of the Taliban government have completely altered the picture both for the Afghan people and for Afghanistan’s neighbours. Bled white by 22 years of constant bloodshed, Afghanistan needs national reconciliation and a long spell of peace and economic reconstruction. It is in this direction, one hopes, that Zahir Shah will exert his energies. Officially, his only duty is to inaugurate the Loya Jirga in June.But he will earn the eternal gratitude of his people, and of Afghanistan’s neighbours, if he uses his father-figure personality to effect reconciliation among all sections of Afghanistan’s polyglot population. Nobody wants a monarchy, but there are feelers that he could become the head of state while Chairman Karzai remains head of the executive when the Loya Jirga elects a new government for two years. It is doubtful, however, if the other nationalities, especially the Panjsheris, will agree to the two top slots going to the Pakhtoons.
THE theft of some 20,000 blank Pakistani passports over the last five years comes as quite a shock. Many foreign governments, acting through their missions in Pakistan, have understandably shown concern and asked Islamabad to give details of the stolen passports so that anyone travelling on them could be intercepted at their ports of entry. In particular, the theft of some 2,000 fresh passports in Peshawer in December, three months after the attacks on New York and Washington, has the diplomats especially worried. Since the war on Afghanistan, numerous reports have emerged of fleeing Al Qaeda members entering Pakistan and using forged documents to travel to other countries. It would be quite logical to assume that a blank passport would be easy to fill in with desired entries and a most useful means of getting out of the country for Al Qaeda members or characters of all sorts.
By any account, twenty thousand is a large number, and regardless of what foreign governments might think, one is constrained to ask why our own federal and provincial governments have not done anything to prevent the thefts, which have occurred in at least six cities over a period of five years. The manner in which 2,000 passports were stolen in Peshawer in December — for some reason they were stored in a railway warehouse — just goes to show the inefficiency and the degree of official indifference to the need for properly storing documents of such sensitive nature. Clearly, some black sheep in the departments concerned must be involved, given the scale and frequency of the thefts. The ministry of the interior that issues the passports must surely know that each time an alleged terrorist is intercepted with a Pakistani passport, irreparable harm is caused to the country’s image. Islamabad should not have to wait for distressed foreign governments to goad them into taking concrete action to stop these thefts and improve the working of the passport offices.
THE death of a carjacking suspect during investigation by the police the other day is yet another indication of how little, if anything, has changed in the way the Karachi police operate. However, this time round, the police high-ups showed some sense of responsibility by promptly arresting three of the four investigating officers, while one managed to escape. The very escape of the fourth officer betrays the truth about the case. It is not clear whether the suspect was ever presented in court and a remand taken before the interrogation began. Probably not. It is customary for the police to apply torture tactics to extract a confession out of an arrested suspect even before arraigning him in a court. It was this kind of gruesome torture that killed the suspect, even before he could be rushed to hospital.
The press report suggests that the suspect was likely a wrong person, who was being forced to admit to a crime he might never have committed. What lends credence to this allegation is that the wrong — homicide — branch of the police investigation cell interrogated the suspect. A car theft, especially when the one in question did not involve any shooting or killing, hardly makes it a case for homicide. This death in the lock-up comes on the heels of another scandal earlier this month when a group of five men, including three policemen, was accused of gang-raping two sisters. It was only after public protest that a case against the accused policemen was registered. When seen together, these two recent cases prove yet again that the police force itself has criminals in its ranks. It will be a tragedy for the citizens to give such a force more power, as has been proposed by the National Reconstruction Bureau in its controversial draft Police Ordinance, 2002.