KARACHI: American action termed crime against humanity
By Our Staff Reporter
KARACHI, March 20: Wars have never had much to do with reason, justice or morality, but the war unleashed on Thursday was utterly unreasonable, illegal and immoral, said I. A. Rehman, the director of the Human Rights Commission of Pakistan, here on Thursday.
He was delivering a lecture on human rights, organized under the auspices of the SZABIST Forum, at Zulfikar Ali Bhutto Institute of Science and Technology.
The invasion of Iraq should be described as one of the worst crimes against humanity ever because it came at a time when the values of peace and human rights were enjoying unprecedented recognition around the globe.
He said the target of the offensive was not Saddam Hussein or the people of Iraq, but the principal target was the civilization-friendly order that was created after the second world war.
He said the process began after the indefensible events of September 2001 when human rights began to be sacrificed at the altar of national security and their violation was held necessary in the war against terrorism.
He said the first casualty was the right of self-determination and the blood thirsty goons like Ariel Sharon received a licence for murder and pillage. He said the superpower was not observing any conventions on human rights and prisoners held at Guantanamo Bay and at Bagram airbase were being severely tortured.
Mr Rehman was of the view that the vulgarization of the war against terrorism had created a crisis in the relations between India and Pakistan, as India thought that the war against terror could be exploited to settle the long-standing dispute on Kashmir with Pakistan by demonstration, or if necessary, by use of force.
He said steps taken by Western countries to increase national security had given South Asian states reasons to justify their raising defence spending, laws threatening fundamental freedoms, etc. Nepal and Sri Lanka were already under emergencies; India promulgated POTA; and Pakistan enacted laws curtailing civil liberties.
The human rights activist said now a person could be detained for up to a year on mere suspicion, a new police law gave them more powers instead of obliging them to defend human rights, new industrial relations laws undermined workers’ rights to form unions and deprived them of relief in the event of illegal termination, peasants resisting eviction, etc.
He said when the Qila Jangi massacre was being defended as collateral damage and if the president of the United States could sanction liquidation of suspected terrorists by special forces, South Asian governments were unlikely to have any qualms about extrajudicial killings.
Answering a question from the audience, he said he was not defending Saddam Hussein or his oppressive measures against his own people, but the aggression against any country in this manner could not be allowed.
