| July 26, 2005 | Tuesday | Jumadi-us-Sani 18, 1426 |
Please Visit our Sponsor (Ads open in separate window)
Massacre of innocents
Arbitrary & unwarranted
THE bonhomie witnessed during Prime Minister Shaukat Aziz’s visit to Kabul cannot hide the tension in Pakistan’s relations with Afghanistan. Sweet words were exchanged, the two countries being referred to as twins, and President Hamid Karzai saying that a blow against one would hurt the other. However, the Afghan president seemed to have forgotten his anti-Pakistan tirade last month. Speaking at an assembly of ulema he accused Islamabad of harbouring Taliban and encouraging them to attack Afghanistan. He alleged that Pakistan was blackmailing Taliban activists, threatening to hand their families over to the US unless they obliged. Similar allegations were made against Pakistan by other Afghan officials, including Foreign Minister Abdullah Abdullah while in New Delhi and Transport Minister Inayatullah Qasmi when he was in Pakistan taking delivery of buses gifted by this country. There was also this bizarre allegation that Pakistan had hatched a plot to assassinate Mr Zalmay Khalilzad, then US ambassador in Kabul. While Islamabad denied the charge, Washington, too, did not attach any importance to it.
The meeting in Kabul took place against a background of the death of 24 people in a raid on militants within Pakistan territory by Afghanistan-based US-led forces earlier this month. Apparently, the militants were moving into Pakistan when the US air strike came. This clearly shows the inability of the coalition forces and of the Afghan administration to stop cross-border movement by anti-Karzai activists who may not necessarily be Taliban. It is true that the rugged 2,400-km mountainous border cannot be sealed off effectively, but Pakistan has deployed 80,000 troops to check infiltration by terrorists from either side. This is not the case on the other side of the Durand Line, because the Kabul government is hopelessly hamstrung by Afghanistan’s internal chaos. This issue figured prominently during talks between President Pervez Musharraf and Gen John Abizaid, US Centcom chief, during the latter’s visit to Islamabad last week. As the international media and Afghan watchers have pointed out, the country could dissolve into total anarchy. The Taliban seem to have regained their strength, while the drug trade has acquired new dimensions. This forced President Karzai to warn the other day that the drug trade was a greater threat to Afghanistan than terrorism. Many of the warlords are involved in drug production and smuggling and are being referred to as narco-lords, and there are war criminals in the cabinet, as claimed by the Human Rights Watch.
Given their stakes in fighting terrorism, Pakistan and Afghanistan have no choice but to cooperate with each other and remove the sources of misunderstanding. Parliamentary elections in Afghanistan are due on Sept 18, and the Taliban are likely to attempt to disrupt them. The prime minister has assured President Karzai that Islamabad will do all it can to help in the successful holding of the polls. Also, Pakistan has announced a $100 million grant to Kabul in addition to the like amount it has already given to Afghanistan. Even though modest, this amount is indicative of Pakistan’s keen desire to help in that country’s reconstruction. The noble sentiments expressed by the two sides will have meaning only if Islamabad and Kabul try to sort out misunderstandings through quiet diplomacy instead of going public. Both lose credibility when, after periodic vows of friendship and cooperation, the two governments publicly quarrel. The complex problems involved in the war on terror can best be handled by sincere cooperation and not by mudslinging.
IT IS the innocent that are dying while the so-called terrorists and militants remain alive and kicking except for those who choose to blow themselves up. Thousands of civilians have been killed in Iraq in action by the US-led forces and by the resistance. A Brazilian national, totally unconnected with the London bombings, was shot five times by British police in cold blood in full view of horrified passengers in an underground train station. Three teenagers were killed in Kupwara by Indian security forces, mistaken for “rebels”. In Waziristan, the sweep against foreign militants continues to singe ordinary tribal people. Overtaken by unexpected outbreaks of violence, security forces all over have become trigger-happy and have been given extraordinary powers to interdict and kill. They fire first and ask questions later. Iraq is slipping into total anarchy, the vales and hills of Indian Kashmir have been turned into killing fields, Palestinians and Israelis remain locked in mortal combat, with the latter’s mighty military machine crushing hopes of any agreement, and in Afghanistan attacks have increased over the past few months.
As innocent people — men, women and children — are sucked ever more viciously into the vortex of violence, the present turmoil in the world may not remain confined to a few groups or countries. Already fired by a sense of injustice or a perception of denial of rights and liberties, whether by the developed countries or localized political oligarchies, it may turn into a seminal struggle between the oppressors and the oppressed, the haves and the have-nots. In a limited sense, religion has been a catalyst for many battles fought for territory or restitution of independence or the establishment of a more inclusive democratic and equitable system. This may be happening again. This is a phenomenon that cannot be confronted by using the sledgehammer, as the Americans and their satraps are doing. A more careful and studied approach is needed. The international community must ponder over where we are going. Instead of creating a global village of peace and progress, the developed countries may be turning the rest of the world against them.
THE arrest and detention of Rasheed Channa, a reporter of Star, the eveninger belonging to the Dawn Group of Newspapers, speaks of an ominous, recent trend in government-press relations. Mr Channa was picked up on Sunday afternoon by the police and detained incommunicado for over 12 hours. The reporter, who is known to have written articles critical of certain policies and actions of the Sindh government, was not served with an arrest warrant nor was he told about the grounds for his arrest and detention. In fact, like previous cases of state intimidation and harassment of journalists, efforts to trace him ran into a stone wall with no official willing to even confirm his arrest. Given that this incident comes six weeks after the provincial government stopped its advertisements from all publications of the Dawn Group speaks of a calculated policy of vendetta, whatever the sense or logic of it.
Regrettably, by its actions, the Sindh government has shown itself to be both intolerant and arbitrary. It should realize the simple fact that it is the job of the press to act as a watchdog and monitor of government performance and bring its faults and failures to the attention of the people. In doing so, it must criticize where necessary and point out deficiencies in the government’s working. Where the government feels it has been unfairly attacked, it has the right to issue a rejoinder which the publication will be duty-bound to publish or print a retraction. In extreme cases of incorrect or slanderous reporting or comment, the writer and his paper can even be held legally answerable. But on no account should the arrest and detention of the kind that happened in Mr Channa’s case be regarded as a minor aberration. It goes against the very grain of a civilized pattern of the government-press relationship.