| March 16, 2003 | Sunday | Muharram 12, 1424 |
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This judicial ‘black hole’
ONE must welcome America’s decision to waive the democracy-related sanctions against Pakistan. While the sanctions relating to the 1998 nuclear tests and missile proliferation were lifted earlier or made to lapse, the ones suspended on Friday by President George Bush concern those imposed in the wake of the military takeover in October 1999. The decision will make $250 million available to Pakistan immediately, though its greater impact will be in terms of military sales to Islamabad, which has been desperately in need of spares. The decision forms part of a series of steps which Washington has taken in acknowledgement of Pakistan’s active role as a front-line state in the US-led war against terror. These steps have to some extent mitigated Pakistan’s economic difficulties and, more important, ended its diplomatic isolation which resulted from the overthrow of an elected government by the military.
While acknowledging these positive developments, one cannot but note the hazards of a myopic policy which has traditionally meant over-dependence on the US. It is true that America is at the moment deeply involved in the south-western Asian region because of the on-going fight against Al Qaeda and the difficult task of rebuilding a post-Taliban Afghanistan, and for that reason needs Pakistan’s active cooperation. However, this situation is not going to last long. As the current Iraqi crisis shows, America’s focus has already shifted away from Afghanistan. In fact, in a few years’ time, Afghanistan may be all but forgotten. It would be a pity if Pakistan too were to find itself left out in the cold and isolated when that happened.
In a review of Pakistan’s relations with the outside world, one often becomes acutely aware of the need for adopting a more flexible and active diplomacy for reaching out to those centres of power with which the country’s relations have been sub-normal. With Russia, the ties are still bedevilled by decades of mistrust, even hostility. Pakistan’s membership of the US-crafted military pacts in the fifties caused bad blood between Islamabad and Moscow: and the Russians have not forgotten that the U-2 plane shot down while on a spying mission over its territory had taken off from an American base in Pakistan. Subsequent developments, especially Moscow’s invasion of Afghanistan, Pakistan’s role in the US-led jihad against Soviet occupation, and later its blind support to the Taliban — all combined to leave behind a legacy of bitterness and mistrust between the two countries. Russia has yet to recover fully from the cataclysmic developments that followed the Soviet Union’s collapse. Its current economic difficulties have tended to diminish its international position to some extent. But as its history shows, Russia has demonstrated extraordinary resilience in the past. The present crisis may be acute, but Russia’s technological and manpower assets are intact. It is also keen to restore its national pride and does not want to be treated as a second-rate power. There is, thus, reason to believe that Russia will sooner or later achieve that status to which it is entitled as a mighty Eurasian power. Pakistan must, therefore, do all it can to improve its relations with Russia. In this connection, President Musharraf’s visit to Russia last month was an important step, and one hopes Islamabad will continue to pursue a policy of developing closer economic and political relations with Moscow.
Pakistan’s ties with China, its “all-weather friend”, continue to be deep and abiding. Islamabad also has excellent relations with the Arab countries, though there is need for getting closer to the Arab world lying beyond the Gulf region. It is also essential for Pakistan to strengthen its relations with the European Union. As the current split between Paris and Berlin on one side and Washington on the other over Iraq shows, “old Europe” is no more prepared to play second fiddle to anyone. Rather, France and Germany have demonstrated in the present diplomatic stand-off with Washington their determination to assert their role in world affairs, aware as they seem to be of the danger to the world community from America’s unilateralism.
A vital consideration in Pakistan’s calculations is its relationship with India. The rise of communal politics in that country and the continued deadlock over Kashmir have served to make South Asia a dangerous place. Nevertheless, Pakistan has to have a more open mind with regard to its India policy. Not all Indians are supporters of Hindutva, and it is doubtful if sane minds in that country consider rabid communalism and the persecution of the Muslim minority as something that is in India’s long-term interests. Pakistan must do more to reach out to the moderate sections of Indian opinion and do all it can, without compromising its dignity and vital interests, to help reduce tension in South Asia.
The future increasingly points to a multipolar world which would refuse to accept America’s economic, political and military overlordship, which the shibboleth called globalization is intended to promote. Pakistan would do well to pursue a policy of sturdy independence so as to be able to develop meaningful economic and political relations with all centres of power without jeopardizing its ties with its old friend, the United States.
THE US federal appeals court’s decision on Thursday rejecting a bid by Kuwaiti, Australian and British citizens, captured in Afghanistan and being held at the US military base in Cuba, to contest the legality of their detention and seek the protection of the US law is perplexing. In delivering the unanimous verdict and in overturning the decision of a lower court, the appeals court seems to have turned all canons of justice and legality on their head. The court’s ruling that the men were not Americans and hence not entitled to the safeguards and protection of the US laws and makes a strange and invidious distinction between US citizens and non-citizens in the matter of protection of their rights and interests and their right to justice. The ruling also says that since the prisoners are being kept at a facility in the Guantanamo Bay, which was outside the territorial limits of the United States, they cannot invoke the US law for protection and justice. The UN High Commissioner for Human Rights has taken strong exception to the appeals court’s verdict, saying that it means throwing the Guantanamo detainees into a judicial ‘black hole.’
Clearly, the verdict implies different criteria to be applied in deciding the legality of action impinging on the rights and interests of Americans and foreigners and that the application of these laws is quite selective. The contention that the American constitution is only for Americans sounds strange in this context because those detained at Guantanamo Bay did not choose to be there of their own free will. American forces captured them in Afghanistan on suspicion of being involved with Al Qaeda or the Taliban and transported them to the US military base in Cuba. How can the appeals court then say that they cannot plead their case before American courts since the implication of that would be that there is no law at all at Guantanamo Bay. Some of the prisoners might well be innocent. But how can they prove that if the country that captured them will not even let them file an appeal for judicial review of the legality of their detention?