| October 24, 2003 | Friday | Sha’aban 27, 1424 |
Please Visit our Sponsor (Ads open in separate window)
UN censures Israel
An absurd restriction
INDIA has announced several new proposals meant to normalize relations with Pakistan. The initiative follows the April demarche by Prime Minister Atal Behari Vajpayee offering talks and later outlining some steps that could be immediately taken to establish a working relationship between the two countries. These included restoration of full diplomatic relations and of the Lahore-Delhi bus service. Both measures are now in place, with obvious advantages to people on both sides of the border. Prime Minister Zafarullah Jamali in May had built on the Vajpayee suggestions, urging renewal of sporting links and re-starting air services, some discussion on the latter having since been held, although inconclusively. The fresh Indian statement reiterates some of the points already mooted, but offers a couple of new ideas, including those of a ferry service between Karachi and Bombay and a Srinagar-Muzaffarabad bus service.
The proposed package will have to be fleshed out by officials from the two countries. But even if it is seen as consisting of tentative proposals, it needs to be warmly welcomed. Since the thaw in bilateral ties following Mr Vajpayee’s Srinagar speech, people-to-people contacts have gone up significantly, and there has been vital interaction between legislators and politicians. However, hidebound attitudes persist in the chancelleries of the two countries and there are frequent exchanges of acrimonious statements. But on the whole the realization has gained greater ground on both sides in the past few months that there is no alternative to living in peace and harmony. Pakistan’s reaction has not been overly enthusiastic, and it is understandable that it should continue to feel miffed at India’s refusal to hold substantive negotiations on all issues affecting bilateral relations. But it has said that its response to any proposal that is genuinelymeant to improve relations will be positive. Basically, anything that chips away at the wall of distrust created during half a century of animosity should be greeted without too much cavil. Small steps can lead to major breakthroughs, and India is right, both as the bigger country and as one that had unilaterally frozen whatever few contacts existed, to take the initiative in moving forward.
In this context, the offer to start a bus service between Srinagar and Muzaffarabad is interesting. Islamabad’s reaction to this particular suggestion is not known, but various formulations about a softer Kashmir border have been discussed off and on for years. It has been argued that permitting Kashmiris, divided by the Line of Control, to meet might help put some pieces of the Kashmir jigsaw in place and enable them to assert their importance as a party to any lasting settlement. The centrality of the will of the Kashmiri people in any negotiations with regard to their future has never been in doubt: how it is to be expressed is the basic question. An intra-Kashmir dialogue could provide useful indicators. India’s hard-line Deputy Prime Minister, Mr L.K. Advani, has for the first time since the upsurge in Kashmiri resistance in 1989 signified a readiness to talk to leaders of the All Parties Hurriyat Conference, and this too is an acknowledgement of the right of the Kashmiri people to be consulted about their future. In short, while the litany of charges and counter-charges will probably persist, there is much in this week’s developments to provide some hope.
THE world community has once again censured Israel. With an overwhelming majority of 144 votes (four against and 12 abstentions), the UN General Assembly has asked Tel Aviv to stop building the wall that is intended to rob the Palestinians of more land. Apparently being built for security reasons, the wall intrudes into the West Bank. It has been so designed that, when finished, it will attach a Jewish settlement and parts of eastern Al Quds to Israel. More important, it violates the 1949 armistice line as well as international law. Correctly described by Yasser Arafat as the Middle East’s “Berlin wall”, it is an affront to the roadmap unveiled by President George Bush on April 30. As always, the US was the only country along with Israel that voted against the resolution (the other two Pacific island-countries being of no consequence). Israel immediately denounced the vote and made it plain that it would go ahead with the wall. Admitting that “the whole world is against us,” Ehud Olmert, the number two man in Sharon’s cabinet, said that he was proud that Israel was on the side of the US. Actually, it is the other way around.
Like all General Assembly resolutions, this one too is non-binding. But even if it were not so, has Israel ever cared about Security Council resolutions, which are binding? Tuesday’s resolution is an expression of the world community’s abhorrence of the Zionist state’s policy in the occupied territory and its long-term strategy to steal as much of Arab land as possible. Israel’s hubris could be seen in Olmert’s remarks: “we do not take into account the automatic UN majority...” That makes one wonder whether Malaysian Prime Minister Mahathir Mohammad was not right when he said: “They defy the whole world. Even if the UN says no, they go ahead. Why? Because they have the backing of all these people.” No one falls in this “they” category more than those who run US policies and play second fiddle to Israel.
ACCORDING to a report, 10 women have died during childbirth and 53 infants have suffered a similar fate in the NWFP as a result of emergency medical care being unavailable for mothers following the provincial government’s directive barring male doctors from attending to female patients. The most recent tragedy of this kind happened earlier this month when an Afghan woman died while giving birth to a child at a refugee camp outside Peshawar. A doctor working with a well-known non-governmental organization has been quoted as saying that the woman’s life could have been saved had she been provided emergency medical care. The doctor said that the male medical staff and technicians at Peshawar’s largest hospital, Lady Reading, even refused to attend to the woman and her ultrasound tests could not be carried out.
The NWFP health minister denies the ban but the MMA’s provincial general secretary, a member of the Senate, defends it, saying that it prevents men and women from acting out their “perversions”. Unfortunately, the problem is not so much with the prohibition as with the principle behind it. Admittedly, many Pakistani women, and not just in the NWFP or those from conservative backgrounds, are reluctant to go to a male doctor in connection with pregnancy related problems. However, it is not the job of the government to set limits on this, especially when there is a shortage of qualified medical staff all over the country. Besides, in emergencies, even the most conservative of women will not hesitate for a moment to be treated by a male doctor. Saving human life should be the paramount consideration in such situations and not the gender of the doctor who is to provide the needed care and attention. The choice in such matters is best left to the patients or their families.