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| August 05, 2006 | Saturday | Rajab 9, 1427 |
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These mysterious ‘disappearances’
Harassment in New Delhi
Primacy of democracy in Pakistan
“MAN is born free; and everywhere he is in chains. One thinks himself the master of others, and still remains a greater slave than they. How did this change come about? I do not know. What makes it legitimate? That question I think I can answer.
AMERICAN generals have admitted that Iraq is close to civil war. Testifying before the Senate Armed Services Committee on Thursday, Gen John Abizaid, chief of the US Central Command, said that Iraq was closer to civil war than ever before. Echoing the same view, Marine General Peter Pace said that there was a possibility that civil war could grip Iraq and, when asked, admitted that this was something he could not foresee a year ago. This is the position three years after the Baathist regime was overthrown by an Anglo-American invasion whose avowed aim was to liberate Iraq from Saddam Hussein’s tyranny and to give peace and democracy to the country. There is no doubt that Saddam Hussein’s 24-year rule was a nightmare for the Iraqi people. Abu Ghraib does not owe its infamy to Americans alone; much before US-led forces turned it into a torture chamber, Baath party officials and secret police subjected the regime’s political opponents, including women, to torture and executions without a trial. There were no free polls, elections to the parliament were stage-managed, and Saddam Hussein was the sole candidate in presidential elections which he won each time by securing a 99 per cent vote. His neighbours too were not safe from him. He attacked Iran — with America’s full blessings —and then invaded Kuwait. That was his undoing. He survived the Kuwait war, but his days were numbered.
Now three years after the end of the Baathist regime, Iraq has neither peace nor democracy. The Iraqi government commands no respect among the people because it came to power as a result of elections held under American protection. But the most potent threat to Iraq’s existence comes from sectarian strife, for not a day passes without Shia and Sunni death squads attacking each other and committing acts of murder and kidnapping. Baghdad now stands divided between Shia and Sunni zones, and the death toll in the entire country for May and June alone was 6,000. The utility of the new security force as an element of stability is doubtful, for a large number of its personnel owe loyalty to their sects and ethnic groups. That also is true of elected representatives and ministers. The result is that Iraq’s polarisation on sectarian lines is virtually complete, with hardly any leader working to protect the larger national interests.
Unfortunately, the Americans base their no-withdrawal argument on the anarchy in Iraq. Defence Secretary Donald Rumsfeld’s reasoning before the senate committee justifying the continued stay of American forces in Iraq was self-serving because of the way he referred to “occupied Muslim lands from Spain to the Philippines”. The issue that the Bush administration has failed to grasp is that the continued stay of US-led forces in Iraq only adds to anarchy and bloodshed. Seen against the background of what is happening in Afghanistan and Lebanon, coupled with frequent Israeli and American threats to Iran and Syria, one wonders whether Washington realises how it has placed itself in an antagonistic position vis-a-vis the Muslim countries. Its policies have tended to unleash not just anti-American but anti-western feelings throughout the Muslim world, giving extremist elements an opportunity to exploit the situation to their best advantage. While Iraq may cease to exist as a united entity and split up into three states, the greater danger is that the neocons running America may succeed in turning the entire Muslim world into a breeding ground for radicals and terrorists.
CITIZENS of the republic continue to vanish without a trace. This national disgrace was highlighted in the Senate on Thursday when the government came in for sharp criticism over the mysterious ‘disappearance’ of Baloch politicians and activists. The opposition’s concern on this score is understandable given the number of people who have gone missing in Balochistan in the course of the ongoing military operation. The malaise, however, is neither confined to one province nor recent in its origins. It is estimated that due legal process was not followed in the ‘arrests’ of some 800 people allegedly picked up by intelligence or law enforcement agencies between 2001 and 2005. Many such ‘ghost’ prisoners remain untraceable to this day. Dr Aafia Siddiqui, an MIT graduate who was apparently wanted for questioning by the US, has been missing for three years. Attiqur Rehman, a nuclear scientist associated with the Pakistan Atomic Energy Commission, has not been seen since he disappeared on his wedding day two years ago. His father claims that he was picked up from his home in Abbottabad by operatives of “secret agencies”. The case of missing journalist Hayatullah Khan came to a tragic end when his body was found six months after his abduction in North Waziristan. Recent months have seen the disappearance of Dr Safdar Sarki of Jeay Sindh and Sindh Nationalist Forum president Asif Baladi. When pressed for answers, the police and intelligence agencies consistently deny any knowledge of these disappearances. It is clear, however, that officials have been hiding the truth in all such cases. For instance, journalist Mukesh Rupeta and cameraman Sanjay Kumar were produced in court three months after their disappearance in Jacobabad. Throughout their detention, the official line was that their whereabouts were unknown.
This brazen trampling of the fundamental rights of citizens flies in the face of the government’s claims that it is committed to human rights and due process of law. Irrespective of the crime — real or perceived, serious or minor — innocence or guilt can be established only through a legal process involving formal arrest, framing of charges, production in a court of law, access to defence lawyers and, finally, adjudication. In many cases, these norms and principles are respected more in breach than in observance.
IT is rather unfortunate that close on the heels of the meeting of the two foreign ministers in Dhaka in which both reiterated their desire for peace between India and Pakistan, prominent human rights activist Asma Jehangir was subjected to an unnecessary police search in Delhi. Ms Jehangir was in the Indian capital along with two other equally respected Pakistanis, I.A. Rehman and retired justice Fakhruddin Ebrahim, to attend a conference on human rights. That all this was lost on the police party that conducted the search is hard to believe. The police claimed that the search was part of a routine exercise warranted by a heightened security alert ahead of the country’s Independence Day celebrations on August 15. Ms Jehangir says that the policemen barged into her hotel room for a security check before proceeding to do the same to her colleagues. Despite Ms Jehangir pointing out to the police that there was no female officer to do the search — a requirement when checking a woman’s room — or that there was no search warrant, the police went ahead anyway. One appreciates Prime Minister Dr Manmohan Singh’s gesture of personally apologising to Ms Jehangir for the incident as indeed it was an embarrassment for his government that claims to be the largest democracy in the world with a good human rights record. One hopes that Dr Singh will look into the inquiry that has been ordered by the Delhi police and ensure that those found guilty of improper conduct are duly punished.
While one understands security concerns, it is difficult to accept that Delhi police really believed that the Pakistani delegates, known for their consistent peace activism, posed a security threat. The fact that other foreign delegates were not subjected to a search proves that the Pakistani delegates were specifically targeted which makes it as surprising as it was senseless.
“If I took into account only force, and the effects derived from it, I should say: “As long as a people is compelled to obey, and obeys, it does well; as soon as it can shake off the yoke, and shakes it off, it does still better; for, regaining its liberty by the same right as took it away, either it is justified in resuming it, or there was no justification for those who took it away...
“The strongest is never strong enough to be always the master, unless he transforms strength into right, and obedience into duty. Hence the right of the strongest, which, though to all seeming meant ironically, is really laid down as a fundamental principle... Force is a physical power, and I fail to see what moral effect it can have. To yield to force is an act of necessity, not of will — at the most, an act of prudence. In what sense can it be a duty?....”
“Let us then admit that force does not create right, and that we are obliged to obey only legitimate powers..” (Selection from “The Social Contract” by Jean Jacques Rousseau)
There is ample food for political thought for us in Pakistan in the above lines from one of the great proponents of democracy rooted in the will of the people. For centuries, political philosophers have sought to determine the nature and meaning of a good society, a good state and just laws. Their interpretations have been used in western political thought as diverse concepts of an ideal state.
Four of them, namely, Aristotle, Hobbes, Locke and Rousseau, in particular, have made a great contribution to the development of the concept of an ideal state, giving their theories about “methods of government.” Each one of them established a set of premises and, based on them, suggested idealistic or pragmatic approaches to the structure of society, role of leadership, rights of individuals and the nature and basis of justice.
Aristotle provides the conceptual framework of the state, citizenship and the nature of government. Hobbes believed that the state must have sufficient civil power to enforce covenants and to curb the basically anti-social instincts of individuals. Locke and Rousseau placed more emphasis on natural liberty and rights than on natural self-interestedness. Both shared the assumption that society must reflect the needs and desires of its citizens as the foundation for the “social contract.”
There may be no ideal state but Rousseau’s ‘Social Contract’ presents his ideal of a state, simple and small enough for the individual to take an active part in its government, thus ensuring that a citizen’s needs are answered by the state. Rousseau accepted Hobbes’s concept of absolute sovereignty, but equated sovereignty with the legislative power of the people as a whole. His democratic philosophy upholds the principle that sovereignty resides in the people alone and that all other power is dependent upon this fundamental sovereign power.
As to the form of an ideal state, Rousseau favoured a republic ruled by laws, in which the government, run by popularly elected officials, would implement the “general will”. According to him, there is no substitute to a democratic system in which sovereign power rests with the people, for they alone are in possession of an “inalienable will.”
Among those philosophers who dealt with the issues of leadership and power, Machiavelli stands out for his universally known “doctrine of necessity” and for his radical views on what a ruler whom he describes as “prince” needs to do to maintain his full personal power.
The sum-total of these historical contributions leads us to the conclusion that states and methods of their governance are always based on a “social contract,” which provides for the security and protection of its citizens and their property by utilising the whole force of the community. In joining this arrangement, each person is, in fact, preserving his freedom, and obeying no one but himself.
For any state in the contemporary world, its constitution is its solemn and inviolable “social contract” which guarantees fundamental freedoms and basic rights of its citizens, including their inalienable right to choose or change their government through independently cast ballot, and which establishes the power and duties of the government and provides the legal basis for its institutional structure.
In his historic address to Pakistan’s first Constituent Assembly on August 11, 1947, Quaid-i-Azam Mohammad Ali Jinnah had urged the federal legislature to function as a fully representative and completely sovereign body. Unfortunately neither the then Constituent Assembly nor the subsequent parliaments in our history have been able to function as a “full sovereign body” as was envisioned by the Quaid. It took our politicians nine years and several governments to frame Pakistan’s first constitution in 1956 which was abrogated in less than three years.
Since then, we have had two constitutions, one promulgated by a military president in 1962 and later abrogated by the next military president in March, 1969, and the other adopted by an “elected” legislature of a truncated Pakistan in 1973, which has since been amended 17 times leaving very little of the original text in its substance. It is a different constitution altogether.
Throughout this process, Machiavelli’s political philosophy based on his infamous “doctrine of necessity” became an integral part of our body politic. In fact, we allowed this doctrine to circumscribe the supremacy of our Constitution, and opted for systemic aberrations with no parallel in political philosophy or contemporary history. The sole beneficiary of this system in our country has been the “wilful ruler” who was either “the child of fortune” or was “born into power” or who “acquired power through deceit and force.”
No wonder, we have been among the very few followers of the Machiavellian school of thought. We deviated from our own ideals and have yet to discover any theory of state and methods of government which will suit the genius of our nation. For decades, we have had a parliamentary system without our parliament ever functioning as a “full sovereign body” or playing any role in the country’s decision-making. The only laws they make are those that preserve their privilege and perquisites.
Another lesson of history that we have not yet learnt is that the basic nature of man requires peace, not war, and a state, in order to survive and prosper, must be organised for peace. In our case, throughout our independent existence, we have been living under a perennial state of “military primacy” in our national priorities and policies. This has been one of the alibis for the frequent and protracted spells of military rule in the country.
The Quaid had the ability to see far ahead of his times. Addressing the officers of the Army Staff College, Quetta on June, 14, 1948, he reminded the armed forces of their constitutional responsibilities, urging them “to understand the true constitutional and legal implications of their oath of allegiance” to the country’s Constitution. Indeed, he had foreseen the ominous writing on the wall. The tale of our country’s subsequent political history is a sad reflection on our successive failures to uphold and preserve the sanctity of our Constitution.
Fifty-nine years after independence, where do we stand as a nation and as a member of the comity of nations today? What has happened to the vision that our Quaid had for our country as a democratic and progressive state which he thought would be “one of the greatest nations of the world?” Why are we known as the “ground zero” of the war on terror? Why is every act of violence anywhere in the world linked to our country?
These are painful questions and need an equally painful self-reappraisal to be able to find their answers. With an uncertain future ahead, our people need to look back on their own failures and shortcomings. It is time for them to wake up from their slumber and take control of their own destiny.
We have had a Charter of Democracy drawn up by Pakistan’s two mainstream political parties as a blueprint of their plan of action for the “civilianisation” and “democratisation” of the country. A cross section of society including retired public officials, jurists and intellectuals, no matter what their past affiliations or leanings, have also started expressing their concern and anxiety over the current state of the nation, and are speaking of remedial measures.
No doubt, a momentum is building up for a long overdue systemic political change in our country. The next 12 months are crucial in this respect. We will be failing ourselves if we, as a nation, do not spell out our own “vision” of what we consider to be a genuinely “democratic and progressive” Pakistan. The educated echelons of our society must start a national debate on how to respond to the challenges threatening Pakistan’s stability and survival as an independent and a “self-governing” state. Many would agree that we do need durable “self-governance” and a permanent “demilitarisation” of the political set-up in our country.
To be able to play a role in national decision-making and to be masters of our own destiny, our people will have to make a choice now; either remain under the feudal stranglehold for ever or gain direct access to political and economic rights by freeing our political culture from the exploitative elitist and feudal political structures.
Our nation needs a fresh democratic impulse to promote a culture of real peace, people-centred development, and undiluted democracy. We need our country to regain its lost respect and dignity with a new image as a “civilised” and “civilianised” member of the comity of nations.
The writer is a former foreign secretary.