| June 19, 2005 | Sunday | Jumadi-ul-Awwal 11, 1426 |
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In the prison of Guantanamo
Why this kind of secrecy?
SPEAKING to reporters in Auckland, New Zealand, on Friday, President Pervez Musharraf said that he had proposed nuclear disarmament and force reduction to India. This is not for the first time that Pakistan has suggested nuclear disarmament to India. Islamabad has repeatedly pleaded for a nuclear-free South Asia but received no response from New Delhi. It is not clear when the president made this proposal, but going by experience, it is highly improbable that New Delhi will respond positively to it. That Pakistan and India, both afflicted with massive poverty, should become nuclear powers is indeed unfair to their people. But, the truth is that Pakistan was left with no choice when India tested its nuclear weapons in 1998.
South Asia’s first nuclear test was conducted by India in the summer of 1974 at Pokhran near Pakistan’s border. That forced this country to launch a nuclear programme of its own. Pakistan pursued this programme despite sanctions by the US and the strict ban on the export of sensitive material to Pakistan imposed by many western countries. Then in May 1998, Pakistan crossed the Rubicon when, in response to the Indian tests, Islamabad decided to conduct its own nuclear tests. Twice since then — during the Kargil conflict in 1999 and the eyeball-to-eyeball confrontation in 2002 — the spectre of a nuclear war has haunted the people of Pakistan and India. There is also this ever-present danger — a nuclear war by accident. The superpowers were alive to this danger during the Cold War and took steps, like the setting up of a hot line, to pre-empt such a possibility. Both the US and the USSR had highly sophisticated command and control systems to avert a nuclear catastrophe by default or mistake. Pakistan and India have a long way to go before reaching that level of sophistication. For that reason the possibility of a nuclear war by accident must be taken seriously. Both have refused to sign the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty and the Comprehensive Nuclear Test Ban Treaty. This gives an insight into their thinking on the nuclear issue.
Pakistan’s proposal for a nuclear-free zone has evoked a standard response from India which says that it has wider concerns to worry about and that its nuclear build-up is not Pakistan-specific. In fact, when it conducted its tests in 1998, it spoke of a Chinese threat. New Delhi also insists that a nuclear-free South Asia will be possible only when there is universal nuclear disarmament. This is a convenient cover for its nuclear ambition. Instead of asking for the moon, why not strive for the possible? If there can be no universal nuclear disarmament, why cannot there be a regional accord for doing away with nuclear weapons? By doing so, Pakistan and India may well be setting an example for other regions to follow. Maybe, this could lead to a similar arrangement in the Middle East, where Israel’s nuclear arsenal tempts Arab countries to go nuclear. More important, an end to Indo-Pakistan nuclear rivalry and the proposed cut in forces will be welcomed by the people of South Asia. This will make available for the people’s welfare the huge amount of money which now goes into military spending. The time for doing some fresh thinking on the nuclear issue is ripe because of the congenial atmosphere created by the process of normalization now in progress.
AT a session of the US Senate Judiciary Committee formed to look into the legal status of Guantanamo detainees, it was evident that there was concern among both Democrats and Republicans that the treatment of prisoners in the Cuba-based prison camp was sullying America’s image abroad. Much damage has already been done to America’s international image on this score, and this could prove to be beyond repair if hardened neocons like Vice-President Dick Cheney and Defence Secretary Donald Rumsfeld continue to oppose the prison’s closure. Indeed, despite President Bush’s less strident views on the subject, it is feared that the American administration has no plans for dismantling the camp anytime soon, especially since a US company, formerly headed by Mr Cheney, has been awarded a $30-million contract to extend the prison premises.
The Guantanamo camp has been operating since the first batch of prisoners arrived there more than three years ago — in the aftermath of 9/11. The US military has not been forthcoming with statistics, but human rights activists believe that around 800 detainees have been subjected to the rigours of prison life here. More than 500 are currently being held at Guantanamo, and only four have been charged. Those who have been released without charge have described in detail the physical and mental torture they were put through. Of late the desecration of the Holy Quran by prison guards led to violent protests in many Muslim countries. Guantanamo has also been described by Amnesty International as the ‘gulag of our times’. All this seems to have made little impression on Washington that does not seem at all concerned about the worldwide criticism that its actions have drawn. Perhaps that is why it is not pushed to giving prisoners their legal rights, in disregard of a US Supreme Court verdict last year that Guantanamo inmates could challenge their detention. This has raised questions about America’s commitment to justice as enshrined in its constitution and has led to justifiable fears that if Washington does not change its stance on the issue, America’s position as a beacon of democracy will be lost for ever.
THE disclosure in the Senate that 53 persons, and not eight as initially claimed by the government, had died in March when a Pakistan Navy ship anchored in Karachi caught fire is an indication of the excessive secrecy that seems to surround many defence-related matters. Responding to an adjournment motion moved by an opposition senator, the minister of state for defence further told the upper house on Friday that 59 people had been injured of whom seven were still under treatment. Two days after the incident happened on March 10, the official death toll, according to the ISPR, was eight dead and 95 injured. The minister further said that the ship had not suffered any major damage and had made two naval trips since then. However, the fact remains that the difference between an official death toll of eight then and 53 now admitted is too large to be ignored and one would like to know why this wide discrepancy between the two figures. Half a dozen or so men dying in a fire is bad enough but over 50 dead makes it among the worst incidents involving the armed forces in peacetime. Was it to downplay the seriousness of this fact that the death toll was never disclosed until now? Such secrecy is usually associated with closed and repressive societies. Clearly, when it comes to issues related to the armed forces, the handling of information is solely at the discretion of the government as this case amply demonstrates. And if the military successfully managed to keep such a high death toll figure from the public for so long, who’s to say what else it has kept secret from the media and the public — as, for example, in the case of South Waziristan where the media was never allowed free access. This practice of being economical with facts should be dispensed with for reasons of truth and credibility.