IAEA’s partisanship

AS every year, the International Atomic Energy Agency’s conference in Vienna has chosen not to censure Israel. On Friday, the IAEA’s 139 members called for a nuclear weapons-free zone in the Middle East, but an Oman-sponsored resolution that sought to condemn an Israeli nuclear threat to the region remained a non-starter. The Arab resolution was accompanied by a letter from the IAEA’s 15 Arab members plus Palestine. It drew the atomic watchdog agency’s attention to the fact that Israel alone possessed nuclear weapons which were not subject to international inspection and thus constituted “a permanent threat to the peace and security” of the region. The Israeli delegate obviously had the majority with him and got away with the remark that the Arab resolution was politically motivated and that a general peace agreement was more important than arms control.

The IAEA’s failure to censure Israel should be seen against the background of Iran’s nuclear programme. Tehran has signed the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty and insists it has a right to the use of nuclear energy for peaceful purposes. Yet American and European reaction has been hostile. It must be said, though, that the European Three — Britain, France and Germany — have shown much more patience and sophistication than the US. But for them, perhaps Israel — with America’s backing — might have by now struck at Iran’s nuclear installations, just as it destroyed Iraq’s nuclear reactor in 1981. Last week, the IAEA’s board of governors recommended that the Iran case be referred to the Security Council, without specifying a timeframe. Regrettably, the US and the European Union have done nothing of the sort when it comes to Israel.

The Jewish state has maintained what has been described as “strategic ambiguity” about its nuclear arsenal. Way back in the fifties, France gave Israel a nuclear reactor — now operating at Dimona — and that marked the western powers’ covert support for Israel’s nuclear ambitions. Since then, Tel Aviv has pursued its nuclear programme for military purposes in a way that is an open secret. Once a significant quantity of enriched uranium “disappeared” from an American reactor. Decades later it was discovered that it had landed in Israel. Such “disappearance” of sensitive nuclear equipment would not have been possible without the connivance of American officials. But — just like the torpedoing of USS Liberty during the 1967 war — no inquiry was ever held to determine facts and punish the guilty. Today, Israel is known to possess nuclear weapons estimated between 200 and 400. Yet neither the US nor the European Union has bothered to call Israel to account on this score. Instead, both have rewarded Israel with massive military and economic aid and diplomatic support.

At the IAEA meeting in Vienna on Friday, Israel called for regional peace rather than arms control. Nobody should object to that, but it is precisely Israel that stands in the way of peace in the Middle East. It has vacated Gaza after 38 years of occupation but has made it clear that it has no intention of quitting the West Bank. The hardline Likud government continues to expand Jewish settlements and there is no sign that it will implement the two-state solution backed by the US. It has sabotaged all peace plans because it knows it enjoys America’s unqualified backing. The kind of drama seen at the IAEA meeting is an annual exercise that does nothing to throw Israel’s nuclear installations open to inspection and dismantle its nuclear arsenal.

Where’s organ donation law?

ONE wishes that our lawmakers would come out with the real reason behind their hesitation to debate and enact an organ transplant bill that has been lying with the Senate since 1992. While time and again, they have declared their resolve to take action on the issue — just as the federal health secretary did the other day — it is clear from their vacillation that they are reluctant to do so. It is difficult to say whether their hesitation stems from the pressure of the lobby of the middlemen and doctors involved in the country’s booming kidney trade or that applied by religious groups that frown upon cadaver transplant as an act of desecration of the human body. What should be realized is that in the absence of a law on organ transplants, renal patients from the Middle East and Europe are coming in droves to Pakistan where it is easy to find impoverished donors ready to sell one of their kidneys for money. Long waiting lists, accompanied by a set of stringent rules governing organ donation, in hospitals in their home countries are chiefly responsible for this growing trend.

Parliament should not be so easily unnerved by the religious lobby, if indeed this is the reason for its inaction. After all, even orthodox Saudi Arabia permits organ transplants as do Iran and Turkey among other Muslim countries. However, even if the religious groups were to accept organ transplant, it will be a long while before the people are convinced of it as a legitimate way of extending the life of terminally ill patients. While there are some cases where relatives — chiefly women — donate their kidney to the patient, there are very few who have willed this and other organs for others after death. This, and the absence of any regulations on the organ trade, is what is boosting the sale of kidneys. The issue calls for more than legislation. It requires public enlightenment on the health aspects of organ donation by living donors and the removal of misconceptions and fears surrounding cadaver donation.

Getting the priorities right

EVERY now and then, government officials issue a flurry of statements on various development projects being launched for the development of the Northern Areas. Perhaps that is why there is nothing new to what Minister for Kashmir Affairs Faisal Saleh Hayat had to say in Skardu on Thursday. He only repeated what has been said plenty of times before: that the Northern Areas held tremendous tourism potential and how the government was committed to developing it in order to maximize that potential. While he acknowledged that the area sorely lacked in basic amenities — no sewage systems, roads, potable water — and spoke of the government’s initiatives to develop these facilities, he also held forth on the importance of building parks and sports grounds. This is a high-minded plan in theory but given that the people in the Northern Areas are without the needed education and health facilities, it seems somewhat flamboyant of Mr Hayat to talk of recreational facilities when people do not even have access to clean water. There is no denying that proper development work in the Northern Areas could help revive our fledgling tourism industry. A report in this newspaper last year recorded a drop in tourism in Kalam because of delays in the construction of access roads connecting it to the rest of the Swat valley. Such things only highlight the government’s lack of commitment to implementing their plans.

When Mr Hayat accepts the nexus between tourism and a solid infrastructure, one can only hope that he is serious in translating plans into action. The people in the Northern Areas have suffered much and desperately need to have their grievances addressed. The government’s immediate priority should be to spend the 500-million rupee package, announced by President Musharraf, on projects that will alleviate people’s lot. Developments of parks and playgrounds can be taken up at a later date.

Gender bias in a patriarchal society

MUCH has been written and said about President Musharraf’s reported remarks to the Washington Post during his recent visit to the US that there are some in Pakistan who think that women who get raped do so in order to get visas to western countries or to become millionaires.

He initially said that he was only quoting what other people had been saying in this regard. But he should have known that even repeating such views in the course of an interview given to a prominent US newspaper would trigger a controversy.

The president then said that he never made those remarks, that someone else had said them, leading many people to say that perhaps he should name that ‘someone’. Some people also suggested that since government spokesmen were so vehemently denying that the president had said any such thing, perhaps the government should then sue the Washington Post for libel.

However, a few days after the initial interview, the newspaper said that it stood by the interview and that it was recorded on tape. The Post said that three of its reporters had interviewed the president and that the remarks of the president had come at the end of a nine-minute discourse which began when he was speaking on the Mukhtaran Mai episode. Recently, the newspaper also loaded an audio file on its website containing the voice transcript of the interview.

The president’s main contention on the issue of rape seems to be that (a) it happens with equal if not more frequency in many other countries, especially those that happen to be more advanced than Pakistan and (b) that when it happens in countries like China or India, the victims don’t necessarily make the details of their ordeal known to the rest of the world, specifically the international media. He was also very angry with some NGOs in Pakistan who he thought encouraged such victims to take their stories to the world media, something that brings disrepute to the country and taints its image.

The president and those advising him on this issue are wrong on some important counts. First, by no stretch of the imagination could it be said that rape victims in Pakistan make it a point to publicize their problems in the international media. Yes, it happened in the case of Mukhtaran Mai and, to some extent, in Dr Shazia Khalid’s case but these are just two cases out of hundreds of others who remain silent and emotionally shattered because not many rape victims in Pakistan would have the courage, the determination and support from their families and society to come out and demand justice against the rapists.

In fact, the on-going saga of Sonia Naz, a woman who has been crying herself hoarse demanding punishment for those she claims have raped her and tortured and kept her husband (Asim Yousaf, who has since divorced her) in illegal custody, is illustrative of the treatment rape victims receive in this country — and not just from the police and law enforcement agencies in general but also from a large segment of society.

Taking into account what she has gone through — and the ordeal’s end is nowhere in sight — it would be safe to say that those who think that some women in Pakistan get raped to become millionaires or to have visas to live a comfortable life abroad have no idea of the terrible plight rape victims have to endure in a society as patriarchal and conservative as ours.

In response to her allegations against members of the Faisalabad police, the Punjab government launched a judicial inquiry and the Punjab police conducted its own probe. However, the findings of both inquiries seem at variance with each other. The judicial inquiry found some of the allegations to be true and recommended that cases be registered against the accused but said that there was no proof that Ms Naz had either been abducted or raped. On the other hand, the police inquiry came out much more in favour of the woman.

It said that though Ms Naz’s rape claim could not be substantiated (especially since she had not presented herself for a medical examination), whenever she appeared before the inquiry she “spoke with conviction and there was no material contradiction in her statement” regarding the allegations. It further noted that the police inspector accused of the alleged rape, on the other hand, “changed his statements from time to time.”.

It said in its conclusion that the statements and material brought on record led to a “strong presumption in support” of her allegations, noting that she had filed several writ petitions against the accused and that this might have been reason for her brutal treatment.

The police report itself should have been grounds for a rape case to be registered against the accused but so far that has not happened. In fact, the rape victim feels unsafe because the judicial tribunal has recommended that a case be registered against her for deliberately maligning the reputation of the said police officials. The judicial inquiry presumably came to this conclusion because, despite being summoned several times, Ms Naz did not appear before it, alleging that the judge heading it was biased. She had earlier filed a petition with the Supreme Court pleading that a case of rape be registered but that was some time back. Now her lawyer has filed an application with the Supreme Court for her petition to be heard immediately since her personal safety was threatened.

But what Sonia Naz, or Mukhtaran Mai or Dr Shazia Khalid have gone through and are still experiencing is typical of what most such victims go through in this country. In fact, those who do have the courage to fight their oppressors have to take the huge risk of their name and reputation being remorselessly tainted, since in a conservative society like ours a women who is raped is usually assumed to be of loose morals. A case in point is Sonia Naz who is said to have been a model in the past, which led to many stories in the Urdu press questioning her character and which is perhaps why her own family refuses to support her.

The first forum where rape victims have to turn to is the police, which is not exactly known for its pro-women sympathies. There the SHO or the inspector will most likely not register an FIR and instead ‘advise’ the victim to go home unless she wishes her reputation to be sullied. In any case, getting an FIR registered in most cases is an ordeal in itself and one has to be prepared to pay a bribe or should have connections to get it done.

Also, as usually happens, the perpetrators of the crime have the police on their side, which means that the rape victims — thanks to the Hudood laws — risks incriminating herself if she goes to the police station to register an FIR. The problem is that according to the Hudood laws, she will have to provide four eye-witnesses who must have seen the act or else a judge could order a case against her for making false allegations.

It is in this context that the president’s remarks on rape acquire a cutting edge. A lot of women in Pakistan, especially those educated and forward-looking, thought that they at least had the president on their side. They thought that his generally progressive comments on the need to fight religious extremism and sectarianism, and his stand on terrorism and his suggestion that the Hudood laws be at least debated and perhaps modified were all reflective of a liberal and progressive outlook.

But it just goes to show that patriarchal attitudes run deep among Pakistani men and that even the most seemingly liberal of them may have a view of women that borders on being misogynistic. It’s not a good time to be a woman in Pakistan and certainly not if you have been a victim of a sexual assault.

Email: omarq@cyber.net.pk