THE favourite joke in the authoritarians’ club in Islamabad last week was that the Supreme Court Bar Association had requested the army to organise the election of its office-bearers. The self-gratifying rings of laughter the joke caused is a measure of the comfort those responsible for messing up the SCBA election have provided to the anti-democratic lobby in the country. The oligarchs have been quick to refurbish several of their arguments fashioned to mock rule by elected representatives.

First, the lawyers’ entitlement to talk democracy to authoritarian rulers has suffered devaluation because their highest organisation, supposedly led by the most brilliant among them, has been found incapable of holding its own election untainted by allegations of manipulation.

Secondly, if the distinguished practitioners of law can try to manipulate what is required to be a democratic election, free and fair, it only confirms what the advocates of authoritarianism have maintained — that, in Field Marshal Ayub Khan’s famous words, democracy does not suit the genius of the Pakistani people.

And, finally, the SCBA affair confirms civil society’s imbecility and underlines the military’s role as the sole messiah in the land.

It is, however, clear and to the credit of the lawyer community that it has been resisting authoritarian rulers’ pressures and blandishments for almost half a century. Leaving their key role in the subcontinent’s freedom struggle aside, they were among the first groups to challenge the disruption of democratic rule in 1958. There were times, for instance during the darkest days of Gen Zia’s dictatorship, when bar associations were alone in giving voice to the democratic aspirations of the people.

After ceaseless coaxing and cajoling by the establishment, today’s bar associations may not be considered eligible to wear the mantle of their forerunners who had faced guns in the streets of Karachi and Lahore and elsewhere, but their denigrators will be well advised to defer their victory celebrations. The lawyers, on the whole, still have a lot of fight left in them.

While generalising the SCBA election debacle in terms of a national characteristic, one is confronted with evidence of disrespect for democratic elections shown by a variety of organisations, especially the political parties. All authoritarian wielders of state power have derived pleasure from lambasting political parties for their failure to structure themselves on democratic lines. A superficial reading of Pakistan’s political history is likely to result in the indictment of most of the party outfits on this count.

The Muslim League, which continues to claim undue credit for achieving Pakistan, did not have faith in the regular enrolment of its members or the election of its office-bearers at various levels beyond nominal record-keeping and ritualistic proceedings described as party elections. Even a formal recognition of the principle of party elections was given up after independence.

Most of the parties launched to challenge the Muslim League during the first decade of independence could not grow out of their formative, pre-party-election phases. The 1958 putsch ended the age of old-style political parties. A new political culture was introduced in the country with the formation of the Muslim League (Convention) when the system of undemocratic functioning of political parties under a facade of intra-party elections was formalised.

The Convention League had nothing to do with democratic functioning and, therefore, made much of intra-party elections, although everyone knew that all party offices were filed by nomination by the supremo on the advice of a small coterie. Around the same time the system of buying a seat in the national or provincial council of the party was started. Anyone who could enroll a certain number of members and deposit Rs100,000 or so in the party coffers as their fee automatically became a member of the council. This led to trivialisation of the member-enrolment process.

A large number of people who had Rs100,000 to spare went on an enrolment spree and many a commentator wondered whether the official League’s membership could exceed the country’s population. The search for names to be put on membership forms often ended in the telephone book or the retailers’ lists of customers. This was manipulation of party elections on a massive scale.

The election manipulation virus quickly spread to many parties. One of the standard tricks was to control the distribution of membership forms. Persons suspected of designs to upset a party’s predetermined choice of office-bearers were simply not given packs of membership forms. Over time the art of fixing party elections was greatly improved.

Over the last three decades or so, political parties have fallen into the legal trap devised by the establishment. They have tended to endorse the official view that political parties need only a party constitution, a register of membership, and a report of recently held intra-party election to justify themselves.

Originally, the 1973 Constitution required political parties only to disclose the source of their funding. Then, the Zia regime election commission decided to allow party symbols only to parties that had a constitution, a membership register, and a list of office-bearers. More recently, the Political Parties Order made intra-party elections a legal obligation. After the 17th amendment, the scheme of regulating political parties has been put into the Constitution.

The current practice is centred on meeting the requirements of the Constitution and the law. On the eve of a general election, political parties take out copies of their constitutions, update lists of their members, draw up lists of office-bearers, deposit these documents with the election commission and thus become legal entities and, as such, entitled to nominate candidates in elections under a common symbol. This small facility provided by the state has made political parties oblivious to the loss of quite a few entitlements.

Everybody knows that these documents can be prepared by a single person after a few hours of light labour. As regards intra-party elections, quite a few political parties have been reporting the matter in a few words: “At a meeting of the party the following office-bearers were elected...” Some parties have started making considerable noise about their membership campaigns and schedules for the elections of office-bearers. A recent example was provided by the party now in power — the Pakistan Muslim League (Q). Several gladiators had announced their resolve to promote democratic norms by seeking election to the offices of party president and general secretary (both national and provincial). In the end, thanks to Gen Musharraf’s intervention, these offices were filled without any contest.

The defenders of the authoritarian dispensation cite the record of political parties, briefly recalled above, to proclaim that political parties’ lack of respect for internal democracy, which is confined to intra-party elections, has given rise to a tradition of electoral manipulation.

Not only they but the public in general ignore the role the state has played in promoting this process. A little reflection will bring out the fact that governments are more responsible than any civil society institution, including political parties, for the formation of a mindset that justifies poll rigging.

We surely have had throughout our electoral history candidates and their promoters who have tried to win elections through foul and unfair means — casting of bogus votes, impersonation, buying or elimination of polling officials, blocking the stamping of ballot papers and booth capturing. Since most candidates indulge in such practices, it is generally believed that the advantage a candidate acquires at a polling station, where he is all-powerful, could be cancelled at another where some other candidate may be all-powerful.

These malpractices are rarely decisive. A decisive manipulation of polls, called rigging, can only be done by the custodians of power; it was the establishment that started the organised rigging of elections and throughout the past five decades, the rigging of polls has been the rule.

The first elections after independence (and on the basis of adult franchise) were held in 1951 when provincial assemblies in the country’s western wing were elected. None of these elections was fair. The instruments of rigging were: expulsion of opposition candidates from their home districts; preventing candidates from filing nomination papers; use of district officers, especially those belonging to the police, to garner votes and organise pro-establishment polling; and finally, manipulating the vote count.

The difficulty in replicating these manoeuvres in the eastern wing forced the establishment to put off the election there till 1954 and even then the “needful” could not be done.

The elections held during 1960-69 were brazen-facedly rigged. They were neither free nor fair, nor even based on democratic premises. The very first general election that was held in 1970 is usually described as free and fair. What is meant is that the government did not interfere with the polling though its pre-poll interference with the electoral process could not be denied. The government had been persuaded to grant the people this unprecedented favour because it was convinced that a fair polling would yield the result—- a National Assembly divided into small factions—- that it desired.

In all elections held after 1970, the degree of rigging of polls has depended on the establishment-favoured party’s need of “extra votes” or “extra seats”, that is, votes and seats in addition to what it can win without direct official manipulation. Thus, it can be asserted with confidence that the state establishment has been responsible for introducing poll-rigging in Pakistan and for nourishing a mindset favourable to this evil practice.

Much can be said against Pakistan’s political parties, and the worst ones always are the parties opposed to the establishment at any given time, but they cannot be assailed as the principal accused in connection with electoral rigging. Indeed, something can be said in mitigation of the charge of avoiding legitimate intra-party election that is levelled against some of them.

The most critical problem in Pakistan politics has been the denial of the people’s right to change a government through constitutional means. All such changes throughout the country’s history have been made through undemocratic means — dismissal of duly elected governments, confrontation in the streets, or extra-constitutional deals with power-brokers. Democratic politics has depended on multi-party coalitions and one-point agendas. This as well as restrictions on political activity have made political parties avoid and often dread intra-party elections.

Today’s political parties have been shaped by the authoritarian regimes’ policy of keeping political leaders alive without allowing the right to political activity. If normal political activity had been allowed questions such as intra-party elections could have been resolved.

It is also necessary to remember that democracy is sustained by culture and not by law alone. In older democracies, the requisite political culture began evolving before the states were democratised. In new and upstart democracies (such as Pakistan) where democratic political structures were foisted upon societies that were unfamiliar with democratic culture, it was the duty of the state to guide the people towards the required cultural values. And the state failed. It has been one of the most critical of Pakistan’s failures.

As for the joke at SCBA’s expense, government agencies are the last bodies to be trusted for fair elections. This theory will be tested again in 2007, and chances of its being proved wrong are, unfortunately, getting dimmer day by day.

IRAQ’S high tribunal has found Saddam Hussein guilty of the massacre of 148 Shia civilians in the city of Dujail, following an attempt on his life in 1982, and has sentenced him to death by hanging. He also faces additional charges in a separate case over the massacre of civilians belonging to the Kurdish minority. A verdict in that case is expected soon.

Throughout the trial, Saddam Hussein portrayed himself as the victim. He felt no remorse for the atrocities he had committed, and that are well documented by human rights groups. The people of Iraq lived through unbelievable horror during his 24-year tyrannical rule. Sometimes, even the slightest discourtesy inadvertently shown to him and his sons could mean death.

Regrettably, however, the United States, then a close ally of Saddam Hussein, did nothing to prevent the human tragedy in Iraq because of political considerations. As a result, Saddam Hussein became emboldened and perpetrated atrocities against his political opponents in the country with impunity. Hundreds of thousands of people were mercilessly killed in Iraq during Saddam Hussein’s barbaric rule.

Beyond a shadow of doubt, Saddam Hussein was a tyrant, and deserved to be held accountable for his heinous crimes against humanity. However, his trial by a tribunal that carried the stigma of being a front for the United States is generally being perceived by the international community as making a mockery of justice. Consequently, a ruthless dictator is likely to emerge as a symbol of anti-US imperialism and a hero of pan-Arabism.

Amnesty International has declared that the trial of Saddam Hussein and the other seven co-accused was deeply flawed and unfair. Amnesty International has particularly taken note of “the political interference that undermined the independence and impartiality of the court, causing the first presiding judge to resign and blocking the appointment of another, and the court failed to take adequate measures to ensure the protection of witnesses and defence lawyers, three of whom were assassinated during the course of the trial. Saddam Hussein was also denied access to legal counsel for the first year after his arrest.”

Amnesty International has observed that, “every accused has a right to a fair trial, whatever the magnitude of the charges against him.”

One of the universally accepted principles governing trials pertaining to human rights violations requires that the trial mechanism is not established by a regime that owes its existence to a foreign power, as has been the case with the Iraqi regime that set up the tribunal for the trial. Moreover, under the Geneva Conventions, prisoners of war should be tried only after the termination of foreign occupation and hostilities.

The US occupation forces are still in Iraq and the resistance by the Iraqi people against their presence continues unabated.

Therefore, the trial of Saddam Hussein by an Iraqi court was highly questionable. In all fairness, he should have been tried by the International Criminal Court that was established in 1998 to prosecute persons responsible for crimes against humanity. If necessary, a special tribunal could have been set up in Baghdad for this purpose.

The charges against Saddam Hussein did not include possession of any weapons of mass destruction by his regime which was the main justification made by President George W. Bush for the invasion of Iraq. Evidently, President Bush had deliberately manipulated intelligence reports to invade Iraq. The resulting occupation in which thousands of innocent Iraqis whom he wanted to “liberate” from the Iraqi leader’s tyrannical rule lost their lives, pushed the country towards instability and chaos.

The American invasion of Iraq, without the approval of the UN Security Council, also falls within the definition of war crimes and comes under the purview of the International Criminal Court. There was a clamour of voices throughout the world demanding that all those who indulged in war crimes should be tried as war criminals to save succeeding generations from the scourge of war.

After the termination of Saddam Hussein’s rule, there was absolutely no justification for the US forces to stay on in Iraq. Irrefutable evidence is available to the effect that in order to prolong the stay of its forces in Iraq to meet its strategic interests there, Washington has been clandestinely fanning religious and ethnic differences that would provide it with an excuse to keep the US forces in Iraq.

It is a preposterous idea. The Shias and Sunnis may have their own interpretations of religious laws, but the basic principles of their beliefs are rooted in the central tenets of Islam.

There is nothing wrong if the two major sects in Iraq seek to protect their long-term political and other interests in the light of past experience and current needs.

Sections of the western media with ulterior motives are also painting a grim picture of the situation in Iraq. They are predicting a civil war between the Shia and Sunni communities and are lobbying, probably at the instance of the United States and Israel, to divide Iraq along sectarian and ethnic lines ostensibly to eliminate the chances of one group dominating others on the basis of numerical superiority.

However, it has conveniently ignored the fact that the people of Iraq, despite their theological differences, are all Arabs and are intertwined by the bonds of tribal affiliations and family.

They share the same language, customs, food, dress, culture and names. As such, the division of Iraq on sectarian lines would make absolutely no sense and any plans to do so are, therefore, totally uncalled for.

As for the Kurds, who are not Arabs, they are already recognised as a separate nation under the Iraqi constitution and have been granted autonomy for their region. The Kurds understand that the world and regional powers will never allow them to have their own country as it would mean taking chunks out of Iraq, Iran and Turkey. They would, therefore, be content with more autonomy that they are pressing for. They know that it is in their best interest to remain a part of Iraq which has enormous natural resources.

It may be recalled that since its creation, Israel’s thinking has been that all the Arab and Muslim states, particularly in the Middle East, should be broken down into small units to enable it to attain its strategic goals in the region.

The post September 11 atmosphere has given a fresh impetus to this idea. A report entitled ‘A Strategy for Israel in the 1980s’ published in the World Zionist Organisation periodical Kivunim in February 1982, disclosed a strategy to divide the region into provinces along ethnic and religious lines. Israel is well aware of the fact that what happens in Iraq would have its repercussions for the entire Middle East region.

Following the Democratic Party’s victory in the mid-term congressional elections, US policymakers, who claim to be both realistic and true to American values, should immediately announce a timetable for the withdrawal of United States forces from Iraq and leave the country in the hands of its elected government.

It would be a grave error if the US forces prolong their stay in that country on any pretext. If necessary, an international “peace-keeping” force, under the auspices of the United Nations, may help the Iraqi government in maintaining peace and public order in that country till such time that Iraq’s own forces are able to undertake this onerous task.

In the meantime, all political factions in Iraq should also conduct a broad national dialogue on reconciliation that is central to peace and stability in the country and to ensure Iraq’s sovereignty and territorial integrity.

The differences, if any, among various segments of Iraqi society must be resolved amicably keeping in view the need for justice and reconciliation by making adjustments to the new realities on the ground.

The writer is a former ambassador.

THE recent explosion of indigenous protest in Latin America, culminating in the election this year of Evo Morales, an Aymara Indian, as president of Bolivia, has highlighted the precarious position of the white-settler elite that has dominated the continent for so many centuries.

Although the term “white settler” is familiar in the history of most European colonies, and comes with a pejorative ring, the whites in Latin America (as in the US) are not usually described in this way, and never use the expression themselves. No Spanish or Portuguese word exists that can adequately translate the English term.

Latin America is traditionally seen as a continent set apart from colonial projects elsewhere, the outcome of its long experience of settlement since the 16th century. Yet it truly belongs in the history of the global expansion of white-settler populations from Europe in the more recent period. Today’s elites are largely the product of the immigrant European culture that has developed during the two centuries since independence.

The characteristics of the European empires’ white-settler states in the 19th and 20th centuries are well known. The settlers expropriated the land and evicted or exterminated the existing population; they exploited the surviving indigenous labour force on the land; they secured for themselves a European standard of living; and they treated the surviving indigenous peoples with extreme prejudice, drafting laws to ensure they remained largely without rights, as second- or third-class citizens.

Latin America shares these characteristics of “settler colonialism”. Together with the Caribbean and the US, it has a further characteristic not shared by Europe’s colonies elsewhere: the legacy of a non-indigenous slave class.

A feature of all “settler colonialist” societies has been the ingrained racist fear and hatred of the settlers, who are permanently alarmed by the presence of an expropriated underclass. Yet the race hatred of Latin America’s settlers has only had a minor part in our customary understanding of the continent’s history and society. Even politicians and historians on the left have preferred to discuss class rather than race.

In Venezuela, elections in December will produce another win for Hugo Chavez, a man of black and Indian origin. Much of the virulent dislike shown towards him by the opposition has been clearly motivated by race hatred, and similar hatred was aroused the 1970s towards Salvador Allende in Chile and Juan Peron in Argentina. Allende’s unforgivable crime, in the eyes of the white-settler elite, was to mobilise the rotos, the Chilean underclass. The indigenous origins of the rotos were obvious at Allende’s political demonstrations. The same could be said of the cabezas negras — “black heads” — who came out to support Peron. This unexplored parallel has become more apparent as indigenous organisations have come to the fore, arousing the whites’ ancient fears.

Latin America’s settler elites after independence were obsessed with all things European. They travelled to Europe in search of political models, ignoring their own countries beyond the capital cities, and excluding the majority from their nation-building project. Along with their imported liberal ideology came the racialist ideas common among settlers elsewhere in Europe’s colonial world. This racist outlook led to the downgrading and non-recognition of the black population, and, in many countries, to the physical extermination of indigenous peoples. In their place came millions of fresh settlers from Europe.

Yet for a brief moment during the anti-colonial revolts of the 19th century, radical voices took up the Indian cause. A revolutionary junta in Buenos Aires in 1810 declared that Indians and Spaniards were equal. The Indian past was celebrated as the common heritage of all Americans, and children dressed as Indians sang at popular festivals. In Cuba, early independence movements recalled the name of Hatuey, the 16th-century cacique, and devised a flag with an Indian woman entwined with a tobacco leaf. Independence supporters in Chile evoked the Araucanian rebels of earlier centuries. Independence in Brazil in 1822 brought similar displays, with the white elite rejoicing in its Indian ancestry.

The radicals’ inclusive agenda sought to incorporate the Indian majority into settler society. Yet almost immediately this strain of progressive thought disappears from the record. Political leaders who sought to be friendly with the indigenous peoples were replaced by those anxious to participate in the global campaign to exterminate indigenous peoples. The British had already embarked on that task in Australia and South Africa, and the French took part after 1830 when they invaded Algeria.

Latin America soon joined in. The purposeful extermination of indigenous peoples in the 19th century may well have been on a larger scale than anything attempted by the Spanish and the Portuguese in the earlier colonial period. Millions of Indians died because of a lack of immunity to European diseases, yet the early colonists needed the Indians to grow food and to provide labourers. They did not have the same economic necessity to make the land free from Indians that would provoke the extermination campaigns on other continents in the same era. The true Latin American holocaust occurred in the 19th century.

The slaughter of Indians made more land available for settlement, and between 1870 and 1914 five million Europeans migrated to Brazil and Argentina. In many countries, the immigration campaigns continued well into the 20th century, sustaining the hegemonic white-settler culture that has lasted to this day.

Yet change is at last on the agenda. Recent election results have been described, with some truth, as a move to the left, since several new governments have revived progressive themes from the 1960s. Yet from a longer perspective these developments look more like a repudiation of Latin America’s white-settler culture, and a revival of that radical tradition of inclusion attempted two centuries ago. The outline of a fresh struggle, with a final settling of accounts, can now be discerned. — Dawn/The Guardian News Service