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| September 23, 2006 | Saturday | Sha'aban 29, 1427 |
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Back to the blame game
Averting a crisis in quake areas
September 11: before and after
IF a catastrophe of the magnitude of September 11 were to occur in the horrific manner in which it did in New York, any nation would go mad, and if the victims of this brutal act were to see the hidden hand of militants of whatever persuasion or faith, they would become the target of vendetta, more so in a democracy. One shouldn’t blame them if their administration does not see the grey shade between the black and white.
THE Pakistan government took a decision after 9/11 to side with Washington and abandon its support for the Taliban regime in Afghanistan which was accused of harbouring Osama bin Laden. Whether the decision was right or wrong can be endlessly debated: there will be many who will think that our backing for the Taliban regime was wrong in any case as was our involvement with the entire Afghan jihad episode. We also had no choice: ‘you are with us or against us’, we were told by Mr George Bush and his satraps. But to learn now of the arrogant way in which the US demands were put is to squirm with embarrassment and wonder at our own capacity to suffer humiliation. Gen Musharraf has disclosed in an interview during his current visit to the US that deputy secretary of state Richard Armitage had called in the ISI chief, then in Washington, immediately after the 9/11 attacks and told him, “Be prepared to be bombed. Be prepared to go back to the Stone Age” if Islamabad didn’t do America’s bidding. Gen Musharraf said it was a very rude remark, but claimed he had acted responsibly. Mr Armitage had also spelt out several conditions that Pakistan had to meet, some of which Gen Musharraf has described as ludicrous. Mr Armitage is said to have wondered, according to the CNN on Friday, how his remarks could have been relayed so differently to Gen Musharraf, but stressed that the message the US wanted to convey to Islamabad went through.
A garbled message is always possible, but given the arrogance of US administrations, it is equally possible that the ISI chief was being fairly faithful in his reporting. After all, it is also in this day and age that Mr Henry Kissinger had told Mr Z.A. Bhutto that America would make ‘a horrible example’ of him if he did not relent on his nuclear programme and his pro-Third World politics. Mr Bush’s own remarks about Islamic terrorism and countries he does not like are also before us. The US president also showed his disregard for Pakistani sensitivities when he said the other day that he could send in US troops into Pakistan to capture or kill bin Laden if the Al Qaeda leader was thought to be in the country. President Musharraf has responded by asserting that he wouldn’t like to allow American troops into Pakistan and the task of hunting bin Laden would be done by Pakistan itself.
Despite these exchanges, US officials have praised Pakistan’s cooperation in the war on terror, and the existing acrimony may be settled after General Musharraf’s meeting with Mr Bush. But it hasn’t been a good week for Pakistan-US relations, and a certain iciness in ties cannot be ignored. It’s interesting to note how both Pakistan and India have recently shown signs of feeling a trifle burdened by the US connection. Both countries signed the communique issued at the end of the Non-Aligned Summit in Havana that rejected “the use or threat of use of force ... against any non-aligned country under the pretext of combating terrorism” and “the use of the term ‘axis of evil’ by a certain state to target other states...” It may not be too long before American power and pride, dented anyway by its adventure in Iraq, begin to be challenged by states considered to be its underlings.
DESPITE Mr Hamid Karzai’s repeated and desperate attempts to convey the impression that he is in charge of his country, the reality on the ground in Afghanistan is clear for all to see. The writ of the Afghan government does not run beyond Kabul, and for that small mercy too President Karzai is dependent entirely on his western backers. The rest of the country remains lawless, run for the most part by warlords and their private militias. Opium remains Afghanistan’s primary ‘export’, followed by illicit arms and ammunition, and the country’s economy still hinges on smuggling. Despite the presence of Nato troops, backed by Mr Karzai’s own meagre forces, Afghanistan produced a bumper poppy crop this year. Much of the extracted opium, along with other narcotics, will pass through Pakistan en route to foreign markets. As in previous years, the Afghan government will doubtless fail to check this activity at source. Any movement of men and material in the reverse direction is a serious concern
for Mr Karzai — as well it should be — but he is strangely oblivious to all manner of traffic originating in his own country.
Despite this dismal track record, Mr Karzai continues to talk big, holding Pakistan responsible for almost every ill afflicting his country. Following Mr Musharraf’s confidence-building trip to Kabul earlier this month, it was hoped that the two countries would bury their troubled past and embark on the road to peace and stability. It was said at the time that the traditional lack of trust between Pakistan and Afghanistan could be overcome through maturity and honesty of purpose. Implicit in this was the understanding that both sides would refrain from blaming each other for problems of cross-border movement and violence. But Mr Karzai was back to his old ways at the UN the other day, blaming “outsiders” for the increased violence in his country. The reference to Pakistan was clear, as was Mr Karzai’s insecure and powerless position. The Afghan president feels the need for a scapegoat to cover his own failings and Pakistan comes handy as a convenient target for his blame game. Instead of remaining trapped in this old practice, Mr Karzai ought to focus on putting his own house in order.
AS the one-year anniversary for the October earthquake approaches, it is important to pay heed to a UNDP bureau’s warnings of a major health crisis in the quake-affected areas during the coming winter. It is important not to forget the thousands of people who still remain homeless, destitute and vulnerable to a host of health problems. It is their well-being that must be given top priority, especially because an estimated 20,000 to 30,000 people are expected to leave the mountains during the winter. On Thursday, a UNDP director pointed out that the Early Recover Plan has received 64 per cent of the promised $270 million but the health sector has been the most neglected one, having received only 35 per cent of the fund committed. With a majority of foreign doctors and healthcare centres they’d set up gone, the authorities will have to step up efforts to address victims’ health concerns. They must put into place a comprehensive strategy to deal with any outbreak of winter-related diseases. Failing to do so could have disastrous consequences.
Undoubtedly, the government could not have come this far had it not been for the assistance of the international community. However, much of the six billion dollars pledged has not been received. While pressing for payment by donors, the government must do all it can to help. The chairman of Erra has been discredited for alleged financial fraud in his private sector job, but he still retains his position. The organisation is also being accused of not fairly distributing compensations to victims. These allegations do not go down well with an international community already suffering from donor fatigue. The government must ensure that all earthquake-related work is done in a transparent manner and that the victims’ rehabilitation is given the priority it deserves.
Never before have the Americans felt so insecure — not even during the sabre-rattling with Moscow in the days of the Cold War. It was a throwback to the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbour in Honolulu in 1941 but then it was war and though the US proclaimed neutrality, it really was not the case since it was supplying warplanes and strategic material, not to speak of credits to the allies at war with Japan. No wonder the treacherous Japanese invasion of the American military base unleashed anti-Japanese frenzy with racist overtones impelling Washington to enforce draconian laws such as the infamous Executive Order 9006 that interned 1,20,000 American-Japanese in 1942 notwithstanding their valorous performance in the war against Japan.
The 442nd Regimental Combat Team that comprised American-Japanese was the most decorated unit of the US armed forces. The law remained in force for 40 years until it was annulled by the supreme court in 1983. In fact, anti-Japanese feelings had been running high in the US since Japan embarked on its colonialist adventure in the Far East beginning with the annexation of the Korean Peninsula in 1910 and Manchuria in 1931. Expansionist Japan’s colonial ambitions knew no bounds as it went on conquering the coastal region of China, thus closing the doors to American export trade.
The American ruling classes raised the bogey of yellow peril, meaning the looming Japanese threat. The Second World War witnessed Japan’s invasion and occupation of the US, British, Dutch and French colonies including the Philippines, Malaya, Singapore, the Dutch East Indies now called Indonesia and Indochina. Interestingly, the western allies dreaded — and despised — Japan more than they did Nazi Germany and Fascist Italy though they had hit Britain and Europe directly in their home territories. The reason was purely racial.
The allies considered the Germans and Italians as the lesser evil because they belonged to the same racial stock while Japanese with their Mongoloid features were the considered barbarians.
In the post-World War II period, another spectre was haunting Western Europe and the US — that of godless communism emanating from the Soviet Union. Once again panic seized the Americans, who feared that their freedom and democracy were threatened by subversion and their two-party plutocracy was endangered by the totalitarian ideology. To prevent the spread of communism, the Congress passed the Smith Act in 1950 that made the advocacy of violent overthrow of government, or dissemination of this idea or the joining of a group or party promoting the forcible toppling of the government a criminal offence.
With the intensification of the Cold War and the ensuing anti-communist hysteria, American society put pressure on the US administration and the Congress to deny civil liberties to those preaching revolution. In 1951 the Smith Act was challenged in the supreme court which ruled that advocating the violent overthrow of an established government was a criminal offence even if the offender hadn’t committed any overt act in furtherance of his design. The chief justice Fred Vinson observed: “It is the existence of the conspiracy which constitutes the danger not the presence or absence of overt action.”
This appears to be a narrow view of the Act since it in effect prohibits even an academic discussion of a revolutionary doctrine. But it has to be viewed against the background of prevailing public opinion in America created by the crusading media controlled by the vested interests. The treason trial of Ethel and Julius Rosenberg, who had passed on the design of the atomic bomb to the Soviet Union and their execution following the supreme court judgment, had created a war psychosis. In the supreme court Justice William Douglas was the lone dissenting voice and even he could not escape the slanderous attacks by war- mongering politicians.
In this grim scenario rose the maverick Senator Joseph McCarthy of Wisconsin who started a systematic campaign of slander and witch-hunt with the zeal of Jesuits. Acting on the Old Testament commandment that those who are not with us are against us, he would prove even the liberals as communists or dupes in televised investigations.
In his eyes any utterance of peaceful coexistence with the Soviet Union was tantamount to high treason. The Smith Act was used by the administration against communists who were jailed just because they professed the Marxist ideology. They lost their jobs once they were branded as communists.
It then seemed that the US would cease to be an open society and the widespread paranoia would plunge the whole nation into a disastrous war with the Soviet Union. But saner elements asserted themselves in favour of freedom of expression as enshrined in the First Amendment to the Bill of Rights. In 1957 Chief Justice Earl Warren held in Yates v the United States case that the conviction of the American Communist Party leaders under the Smith Act was illegal because they did not indulge in any overt action but merely advocated abstract rebellion which was no offence.
The judgment marks a significant shift in the judicial philosophy of the apex court. This view was further endorsed in the Scales v the United States case which ruled that the Smith Act did not prohibit membership of the Communist Party per se but it regarded its active membership involving the overthrow of government by violent means as illegal. Again, another black law, a by-product of McCarthyism, McCarran Act or Internal Security Act was passed in 1950 barring communists from federal government service and requiring them to get registered with the attorney-general. A so-called Subversive Activities Board was established for the purpose.
Though the Act violated the Fifth Amendment of the US constitution protecting citizens against self-incrimination, it was never struck down by any court but the registration clause was declared ultra vires of the basic law of the land. Owing to public opposition, the McCarran Act was finally scrapped in 1973.
In Britain the violence in the wake of IRA’s struggle for the liberation of Ulster from British rule and the counter-insurgency operation of the United Kingdom raised concern about civil liberties since the 1971 law authorising the detention of the Irish suspects without trial and denial of access to legal counsel constituted a clear violation of the Habeas Corpus Act. . The Gilford Four and Birmingham Six cases are glaring examples of the miscarriage of justice as the accused, after spending 15 years in prison, were found not guilty. This prompted the Lord Chief Justice Denning to resign from office 18 months before his superannuation was due.
The catastrophe of September 11 has had the most negative impact of all. The Patriot Act deprives US citizens of individual liberty and human rights such as the right to access to counsel, right to open trial, freedom of assembly and association once a person is declared a suspect by the FBI or CIA. In such cases suspicion is considered to be proof. In the case of aliens or immigrants of Muslim faith, racial profiling, stereotyping, fingerprinting and humiliating body searches have become their fate. The Guantanamo and Abu Ghraib prisons are like Nazi concentration camps.
George Bush kept denying the internees of Guantanamo Bay the status of prisoners of war under the Third Geneva Convention until the US supreme court ruled that they were POWs under that law. The Bush administration may not treat them as prisoners of war but the judiciary has declared, loud and clear, that the US administration was wrong on this count. The hysteria generated by the terrorist attack on the World Trade Centre in New York had repercussions in the West and in the Third World, especially the Islamic countries in terms of human rights violations. The US-based Human Rights Watch, the London-based Amnesty International, Human Rights Commission and the Bar Associations of Pakistan, have vehemently criticised the so-called unending war on terror under which cover their governments have resorted to mass arrests of suspects, detention without trial and extradition without regard to the international law, and in doing so even bypassing the courts of law.
Worse still, the anti-terrorist law has been applied to legitimate wars of national liberation by people living in occupied territories against foreign occupation. It has also given the despotic regimes a pretext to crush democratic opposition at home. This is neo-McCarthyism that transcends the US borders and infringes on the sovereignty of independent states.
The writer is Dean, Faculty of Management and Social Sciences, Balochistan University of Information Technology and Management Sciences (BUITMS), Quetta.
E-mail: prshameem@yahoo.com