Carnage in Ossetia

It could not have been more mindlessly conceived and carried out, for the final toll after the end of the three days of stand-off at Beslan in North Ossetia stood at 250 dead and over 500 wounded. Scenes of horror, with women and naked children running, screaming and falling exhausted on stretchers or being shoved into ambulances, were heart-rending. What led to the carnage on Friday remains unclear. Originally, Russia had promised not to use force.

After the carnage, however, Moscow says its commandos stormed the school when the militants inside set off bombs; other accounts say the storming followed an exchange of fire between the militants and the security forces. Whatever the reason, the nerve-racking hostage drama ended in a way that has shaken the world.

That the militants should have taken school children and women hostage and treated them so cruelly deserves to be condemned. Nothing justifies this kind of savage behaviour, nor does it advance whatever cause the militants are fighting for. Like the senseless killings in Iraq, where innocent people - Muslim and non-Muslim - are being murdered for no reason, the crime at Beslan, too, will be viewed with horror by the rest of the world.

The identity of the terrorists remains unclear. Chechen leader Akhmed Zakayev has denied that the terrorists were Chechen and said that the hostage-takers were Ingush, Ossetians and Russians. Among the dead militants were nearly a dozen Arabs. No matter what nationality the terrorists belonged to, the slaughter at the school will only enable the Putin government to be more ruthless in dealing with the Chechens, struggling for their just rights of self-determination. More regretably, the US and the EU, which until 9/11 criticized Moscow for human rights violations in Chechnya, will continue to condone Russia's strong-arm methods in the North Caucasus.

The Russians are not very apt at handling such situations. While there is no denying the criminality of the terrorists' act, Moscow failed to adopt a correct strategy. Instead of engaging the terrorists, the Russians seemed to be in a hurry to act, regardless of the consequences. One is reminded here of the operation intended to rescue hostages inside a Moscow theatre two years ago. The nerve gas intended to paralyze the terrorists was used in a way that left 129 hostages dead.

After the carnage what? One likely consequence is going to be that President Putin's repressive Chechnya policies will now enjoy greater popular support in Russia. Which means that one should expect more human rights violations by Russian security forces in Chechnya. This will not help matters, nor rid Russia and North Caucasus of terrorism. The lessons that Moscow should learn from the Beslan carnage is that it should put greater emphasis on a political settlement of the problem in Chechnya. So far it has relied solely on brute force.

Repression, disappearances and forcible occupation are not going to solve the Chechen problem. In fact, such policies will only fuel savage violence of the kind that the world saw in Beslan. The Chechens need to be assured that Moscow would listen to their viewpoint and earnestly try to solve their grievances, instead of rigging elections and installing a police officer as Chechnya's president.

Reviewing transit trade

The decision to comprehensively review transit trade arrangements between Afghanistan and Pakistan is a sound one. The Afghan transit trade agreement, which was signed in 1965, needs to be thoroughly revised keeping in mind the requirements of the two countries. Papers need to be updated, the specifications of the cargo have to be rewritten, and other broader issues need to be sorted out. While the transit trade agreement has been instrumental in facilitating Afghan imports through Pakistan, it is about time the specifics of the agreement were updated to take into account a number of changes that have taken place during the intervening 40 years or so.

This will help increase the volume of trade bound for Afghanistan through Pakistan. Such an enhancement in the volume of trade will benefit Pakistan through higher collection of levies as well as more business for clearing and forwarding of the cargo. It is important that Pakistan makes an extra effort to ensure that the bulk of Afghanistan's sea imports are routed through Pakistani ports. At present, Pakistan is facing competition from the Iranian port of Chah Bahar for routing of Afghan imports.

Such an arrangement should not, however, be at the expense of the domestic industry. In the past, the Afghan transit agreement has been abused by unscrupulous businessmen, in connivance with corrupt government officials, to smuggle a number of goods into Pakistan. Such smuggled items damage our local industry. In the new agreement, provisions should be made to check smuggling and abuse of the facility by both sides. In addition, more attention needs to be paid by Pakistan to investing in the infrastructure that is used in trade with Afghanistan.

The whole process of transporting the goods and clearing them for entry into Afghanistan must be done in an efficient manner. At present, official trade between the two countries (in addition to those that transit through Pakistan) stands at about $600 million. It is estimated that the unofficial trade is much higher. It is expected that if the ATT agreement allows a quicker flow of goods between the two countries, bilateral trade will also grow as a result, which will benefit both countries considerably.

Rioting in Sargodha jail

A judicial inquiry to ascertain the cause of death of an under-trial prisoner in Sargodha's district jail seems to have come to the conclusion that the man died of a heart attack. However, the fact of the matter is that a riot erupted in the jail after the man's death. The clashes lasted over five hours during which the inmates held several jail officials hostage.

The severe reaction happened because the inmates believed that the under-trial prisoner had been tortured to death by the jail staff. Going by the reputation of jail staff in general in the country and their treatment of prisoners, the inmates had strong grounds to believe what they did. The jail authorities' version is that the man was searched and cash was found on him, which is against jail rules. After that, he died suddenly, creating doubts about the cause of it.

The protest and rioting by the inmates have now been discounted on the grounds that the rioting prisoners were led by a "notorious gang of robbers" in the jail, while the rioters' version is that the prisoner was found with money on his person after which he was led away to a room and tortured.

The Punjab minister for prisons who visited the jail the next day agreed with the version of the jail officials regarding the death of the under-trial prisoner although he did promise that action would be taken against any "guilty" officials. However, the unfortunate thing is that it seems quite unlikely that any 'guilt' will be established during the course of the inquiry, given that prisoners might not want to testify against jail officials for fear of retribution.

This is in fact the norm in such cases of police torture and brutality. Instead of being headed by a judicial magistrate, the government should have ordered a judicial inquiry preferably by a high court judge to ascertain the truth about the Sargodha jail rioting and what led to it.