Pakistan's entry into ARF

The acceptance of Pakistan as the 24th member of the Asean Regional Forum (ARF) has benefits that go beyond the mere symbolism of being part of yet another international grouping.

Asean - Association of South East Asian Nations - was born in 1976 in Indonesia, with the host country and Singapore, Malaysia, Thailand and the Philippines being its original members.

The forum has since matured to attract five other regional countries as well as 13 non-Asia-Pacific nations and the European Union - states and entities that have high stakes in the security and political and economic stability of the region.

Pakistan's entry into the forum was thwarted last year when India joined the grouping and used its veto to bar Islamabad from becoming an ARF member. The process of mending fences between India and Pakistan that began with the Musharraf-Vajpayee meeting in Islamabad on the sidelines of the Saarc summit last January, and diplomatic shuttling by high-ranking officials from other friendly states in the region have resulted in Pakistan now gaining the ARF membership.

The visits to Pakistan by Ms Megawati Sukarnoputri last December and those by the Thai and the Singaporean prime ministers in the weeks preceding the Jakarta moot also played their part.

The ARF comprises a motley group of nations, with adversaries such as the two Koreas as well as Myanmar - considered by many a pariah entity - and major western countries already its members. The India-Pakistan bilateral equation thus needs to be seen in a more realistic light and not as an anomaly within the ARF.

Essentially a forum to promote peace and stability in the region, and given the critical importance of the global fight against terrorism, the ARF too will benefit considerably by Pakistan joining the grouping.

The Asean charter, to which Pakistan became a signatory on Thursday, bars member countries from harbouring or supporting subversive elements or using force against a member country.

It stresses that all disputes, bilateral or multilateral, should be resolved by peaceful means only, besides emphasizing the need to increase cooperation among member countries.

When seen in the context of improving relations between India and Pakistan, this can give further impetus to the prospects of peace and to the negotiations that the two countries plan to hold at the foreign ministerial level next month.

The amity witnessed between Foreign Minister Khurshid Kasuri and his Indian counterpart, Mr Natwar Singh, during the Jakarta moot are encouraging pointers to peace and harmony in the subcontinent.

All in all, Pakistan's entry into the grouping is good news, especially when seen in the perspective of the political and, more importantly, economic, clout the member countries have. With the WTO's globalization process round the corner, Pakistan's membership of this forum could not have come at a more opportune time.

Its benefits will become more and more tangible over the medium and long term. Pakistan's top trading partners such as the US, EU and Japan are now bound by the same provisions of the Asean charter that govern their lucrative trade relations with the emerging South-East Asian economic powers.

On the political front, the Asean Treaty of Amity and Cooperation is based on a more equitable formula, whereby no member nation enjoys any privileged status in relation to others and is barred from using coercive means to achieve political ends. This, together with Pakistan's nomination as a non-Nato US ally, can also help provide some stability to its historically ambivalent relations with Washington.

Doctors' detention

The manner in which the government has handled the detention of Dr Akmal Waheed and Dr Arshad Waheed is questionable beyond doubt. Their appearance before an anti-terrorism court on Saturday came more than two weeks after they had disappeared.

The complete silence of the authorities until Friday, when a senior Karachi police official finally confirmed that the two were in their custody, is inexplicable.

While the need to detain and interrogate people suspected of having links with terrorist organizations may be there, the manner in which those detained are held incommunicado by security agencies cannot be condoned. One can imagine the trauma that families go through in such cases, waiting to hear about the whereabouts of their loved ones.

While the two doctors deny any wrongdoing, as a rule, medical practitioners who treat gun-shot wounds and similar injuries should notify the police. But failure to do so should not mean a licence for the authorities to pick them up and keep them in secret custody for long periods.

The doctors' family spoke of the cloak-and-dagger methods used by the security agencies - like trying to lure them to the US, and after their disappearance, making phone calls demanding ransom to make it look like a kidnapping case. These are reprehensible methods.

Since 2001, over 450 persons have been arrested in the country and handed over to the US authorities for further questioning. In most such cases, the next of kin were kept in the dark.

This gives ammunition to those who are opposed to the government's drive against Islamic militants. Take the case of the arrest of a Lahore-based surgeon, Dr Amer Aziz, in 2002, of scientist Aafiya Siddiqui, businessman Saifullah Paracha and journalist Khawar Mehdi in 2003.

While Dr Siddiqui remains untraced, the rest of them were kept in prolonged detention before their whereabouts were finally made known. This practice must stop. Instead, the due process of law needs to be observed under which those arrested are charged and brought before a magistrate or court within a reasonable period of time. This should be the rule not the exception.

Sri Lanka: peace in danger

The already fragile Sri Lankan truce hit yet another snag as the rebel Tamils informed Norwegian peace broker Erik Solheim that negotiations with the government could not progress so long as the latter continued to support a breakaway rebel faction.

The Tamil Tigers have accused the government of abetting Colonel Karuna, who earlier this year defected from the LTTE, the main rebel organization, and who had wanted to set up a separate regime in the east of the island.

This is seen as jeopardizing LTTE hopes of domination in the north and east. The Sri Lankan government has denied that it was harbouring the renegade leader, who has been accused of masterminding attacks on LTTE positions from army safe-houses, although it has admitted that some elements in the army might have been involved in the affair.

It is a pity that the peace process, delicately assembled by the Norwegians, the Tamils and the government, should once again be threatened by a possible renewal of violence.

Indeed, the fruits of cooperation, after two decades of bloody civil war that left at least 60,000 people dead and another million displaced, are there for all to see. The Tamils withdrew their demand for a separate state in return for regional autonomy, and the government, too, lifted a ban on the Tamil rebels.

A permanent ceasefire was signed in 2002, and a series of internationally hosted talks paved the way for crucial decisions on power-sharing and other issues. But last year, the Tamils suspended peace talks, and recent elections in Sri Lanka, which brought in a minority government - many elements of which are not in favour of concessions to the Tamils - have complicated matters and impaired trust between the two sides.

It remains to be seen whether the government and the Tamils, prodded by the Norwegians, can rise above their differences, and make compromises for peace. Or else, the island will find itself caught in a cycle of bloodshed once again.