| May 17, 2003 | Saturday | Rabi-ul-Awwal 14, 1424 |
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Petrol pump blasts
‘Mysterious’ disappearances
A SENSE of outrage and horror must overwhelm every sane mind over reports that Israeli occupation forces used women and children as a human shield to arrest some Palestinians in Jenin. Clearly, those who thought that such monstrous practices had ceased with the end of the Nazi era probably reckoned without the Zionist mindset. On Wednesday, dressed as Palestinians, Israeli soldiers unloaded some passengers from a vehicle, made some of them, including women and children, sit against a wall, and then opened fire on the house behind the wall. Among those used as a human shield was a British woman. She, too, was made to sit against the wall while the Israeli troops hurled grenades at the house to flush out ‘wanted’ Palestinians. Another eyewitness said the human shield was kept that way for an hour. Jenin, incidentally, is also the city where a massacre took place last summer. Tel Aviv denied it, and even some of the most prestigious sections of the western media, barring some notable exceptions, suppressed the massacre story. However, the truth revealed itself when Israel refused to allow a UN probe mission to visit Jenin.
The human shield affair is one of the many Israeli crimes that serve to emphasize the contempt which the government of Ariel Sharon has for the roadmap to peace announced by President George Bush last month. These actions have included the continued murder of Palestinian non-combatants, including women and children, the blowing up of Palestinian homes with inmates huddled inside, and the continued settlements activity. Last week, in a brazen-faced defiance of all relevant UN resolutions and the latest peace initiative, Israel officially laid the corner-stone of a new settlement near Ramallah. More significantly, US Secretary of State Colin Powell returned frustrated from his visit to Israel, because Sharon told him point-blank that his government had no intention of freezing the settlements activity. According to the roadmap, Israel must not only halt all settlements activity, it must also dismantle the ones built since March 2001. Israel has no intention of doing so. This also means that it has no interest whatsoever in the roadmap and has already begun sabotaging it.
Whether the Bush administration really has the will to work seriously for the implementation of the roadmap and pursue it vigorously till a Palestinian state “with provisional borders” comes into being is a big question. All indications are that, with the American presidential election activity having already begun, the neocons who run America’s foreign policy are unlikely to put sufficient pressure on Israel to adhere to the provisions of the roadmap. However, what the world does expect of Washington is to at least make Sharon behave a little less Nazi-like. A resolution of the Arab-Israeli conflict is one thing; Israel’s barbaric behaviour in the occupied territories quite another. The least the Bush administration could do is to make Israel see the futility of resorting to atrocities like using women and children as human shields. Such methods simply cannot browbeat the Palestinians into giving up their struggle. On the contrary, they will only steel the Palestinian people’s resolve to continue to fight for their freedom till the emergence of an independent Palestinian state with Al Quds as its capital.
THE series of bomb blasts at 21 petrol pumps across Karachi on Thursday is a frightening reminder of the city’s vulnerability to terror and violence. Mercifully, the blasts were of a low intensity and caused no loss of life. The blasts occurred within a period of less than an hour in the early hours of the morning and were clearly intended as a warning of some kind. Interestingly, the blasts occurred at pumps owned by foreign companies and could well be linked to the insidious campaign against foreigners and foreign interests that has repeatedly rocked Karachi in the aftermath of September 11. The city has witnessed a spate of such attacks following Pakistan’s decision to join the US-led war against terror. In May last year, 11 French naval engineers were killed in a suicide bombing at a five-star hotel. The following month, 12 people were killed in a similar attack on the US consulate. The American journalist, Daniel Pearl, was also kidnapped and subsequently killed in January 2002 in the city.
Thursday’s incidents have spread terror across the city and put the police on high alert. What is surprising is the ease with which the bombs were placed, allegedly by motorcyclists, in waste bins at petrol pumps in every corner of the city. Clearly, the intelligence and law enforcement agencies have not been doing their job properly or else many of the incidents that have taken place in Karachi and elsewhere could have been prevented and the elements behind such attacks hauled up. Knowing the ever present threat in the current global context, the government and law enforcement agencies must keep a vigilant eye on those who seek to spread panic and fear through acts of terror. Security at consulates, foreign-owned restaurants, banks and other establishments must be beefed up to avoid a repeat of such incidents. The petrol pump bombings were clearly not meant to kill or maim people but rather to spread panic and warn foreign-owned outlets. Whatever the motive, there is no room for any complacency on this score. The authorities must be placed on high alert to ensure that these warnings do not escalate into something far more horrifying.
INDIA’S autonomous National Human Rights Commission has given the held-Kashmir government six weeks to report on the fate of at least 8,000 civilian Kashmiris, who have mysteriously disappeared after being held by the security forces since the popular uprising began in the held state in 1989. This is not the first time that such a call has been given by a human rights watchdog; Amnesty International has repeatedly called on New Delhi urging it to investigate the matter. In its last year’s special report on the subject, AI noted that “the victims belong(ed) to all ages, professions and backgrounds, many of whom (had) no connection with any of the armed opposition groups. They disappear(ed) in the custody of the Indian forces engaged in counter-insurgency operations.” Rights groups have time and again rejected New Delhi’s claim that the ‘disappeared’ persons have “crossed the LoC for arms training”. Some 400 habeas corpus cases pending before the state high court relate to “mysterious disappearances.”
The state chief minister, Mufti Mohammed Sayeed, admitted in a recent interview that an additional 3,744 people have ‘disappeared’ after being apprehended by the Indian security forces since the year 2000. The number of those who disappeared last year alone was 605. Mufti Sayeed had made the issue a central plank in his election campaign last year, but his government, since assuming office in November, has failed to stop such cases. This is ostensibly because the state government has little say when it comes to internal security. Human rights abuses by the security personnel armed with draconian laws continue to be rampant in held Kashmir, and there is no mechanism to seek redress for these. The sad part is that even the newly elected government has been forced to renege on its electoral pledge to ease repression in the valley. This confronts the hapless Kashmiris with cruel repression which has been their lot over the past 13 years.