Where do we go from here?

I WISH I had an answer to the question which I call the Sarabjit Singh problem. He is awaiting execution in Pakistan. The media has once again taken the matter to such a pitch that it has become linked with the country’s izzat (honour).

Even otherwise, India and Pakistan are always sitting on a sack of chilli and get jumpy on the slightest irritation. Instead of talking to each other, they are talking at each other. Even 60 years of estrangement — enmity may be a better word — the two are as inconsiderate, as irresponsible and as distant as they were when they became independent in August 1947.

The Sarabjit Singh problem is a symptom, not the disease. The disease is distrust, bias and something verging on hatred. You solve the Sarabjit Singh problem today and you will have another one like it tomorrow. Both countries are neighbours and both cannot help the geography and history they share. But they seem to have developed a vested interest in spiting each other.

Even after three wars, apart from hostilities like the one at Kargil, they have not learnt how to solve their problems between themselves and how to live in peace.

It is good that Islamabad took a larger view on the release of Kashmir Singh. However, I do not understand why he had to serialise his ‘achievements’ in the press. It is difficult to separate the chaff from the grain and I have taken his account with a spoonful of salt. He has created ill will among the Pakistanis who have come to link him with Sarabjit Singh. Kashmir Singh has let down many people who worked hard for his release. To gloat over his deeds is demeaning.

To be a spy is not a matter of pride. Spies do not add to the knowledge of governments. They may, at best, confirm certain reports. When the chanceries of both countries, like the rest of the world, have men from the intelligence agencies in the garb of counsellors or attachés, why should spies be considered important?

They are, in fact, irrelevant in an age where satellites and other sophisticated contraptions can identify even the regimental badge on a soldier’s uniform.

I think where India can be faulted is in the death of Khalid Mahmood, a visitor to a cricket match in Mohali, Punjab. His dead body was sent to the Pakistani side in a sack. One, it is the height of indignity. The remains of the dead demand respect and should be handed over with respect.

Two, there is no explanation on this side how Khalid Mahmood died. He is reported to have “loitered” in Punjab and elsewhere and overstayed. Apparently, the police picked him up and he died in their custody.

It is surmised that his death was due to torture by the police. If this is so, why has no human rights organisation in India made a noise about it? The National Human Rights Commission could have taken suo motu notice — it can still do that — considering the death aroused a furore in Pakistan and that it took place in suspicious circumstances. There has to be an inquiry by the government in the case of Khalid Mahmood. Any unnatural death has to be probed under the law.

Yet to link Khalid Mahmood’s death with Sarabjit Singh is not fair. I can understand the feeling of outrage in Pakistan. I can also understand the prevailing opinion that Sarabjit Singh’s execution will be the rightful reply to the treatment meted out to Khalid Mahmood. But this seems like tit for tat. I do not know the Sarabjit Singh case in detail. But should he be hanged? I am in principle against the death sentence.

As many as 135 countries in the world have abolished capital punishment in law or practice. Unfortunately, both India and Pakistan retain the draconian death penalty in their statute books. They should have fallen in line with the civilised countries long ago. I hope they will do so before long.

I was not surprised by the element of hypocrisy in the speech given by BJP chief Rajnath Singh. He gave a lengthy argument why Sarabjit Singh should not be hanged. But, at the same time, he said that Afzal Guru, sentenced to death for the attack on India’s parliament, should be hanged immediately. In fact, he took the Manmohan Singh government to task for the delay. Must the BJP politicise as serious a matter as that of Sarabjit Singh?

It is important to take Sarabjit Singh’s case out of the arena of politics, more so from the arena of sour India-Pakistan relations, and it should instead be viewed from the humanitarian angle. Legally what Pakistan says is correct.

He has been punished by the highest court and the matter ends there. Does it really end if the mercy angle is brought in?

After the interview in which Salahuddin, chief of the Hizbul Mujahideen, said that Pakistan has been helping him and other militants diplomatically, morally and militarily, it ill behoves Islamabad to be occupying the high moral ground. Indian opinion is infuriated after this disclosure.

The pressure on relations between the two countries may increase. On the other hand, a generous gesture can help.

I know one thing: such cases tell upon relations between India and Pakistan. In Sarabjit Singh’s case, the Government of India has sought clemency from the Government of Pakistan. This has not happened since the creation of the two countries. That Indian parliament has given unanimous support to his case should carry more weight than otherwise.

External Affairs Minister of State Anand Sharma has said: “In the Sarabjit Singh case, we have conveyed to Pakistan the strong sentiments of our people and requested for some clemency and reprieve to him. We hope that considering the humanitarian aspects some leniency will be shown”. I am glad that Sharma has said that prisoners who have completed their sentences in both countries should be released without delay. This is something overdue.

It is hard on those who have been building up relations between India and Pakistan through people-to-people contact. One case like that of Sarabjit Singh washes away what has been collected bit by bit, day after day. It helps the process if the governments on both sides vow not to make prisoners an instrument of their machinations.

The new government to be formed in the wake of elections in Pakistan will be representative enough to make a departure from the past, an era of hatred and revenge. The list of people killed by both sides, unknowingly or purposely, is a long one. Somewhere, some time, it must stop. Let it be with the commutation of Sarabjit Singh’s death sentence.

The writer is a leading journalist based in Delhi.

Woman in a man’s world

DEMOCRATIC voters in the US are now being asked to choose their presidential nominee on the basis of his or her manliness. The credit for shifting the debate from real issues to the one mentioned above goes to Hillary Clinton and her team.

Desperate to win the primaries in the two critical states, Ohio and Texas, Senator Clinton pushed all the right buttons in questioning the manliness of her opponent Barak Obama and presenting him as a wimp who might not be capable of taking on the role of the commander-in-chief of the US armed forces and making decisions on matters of national security.

Such a perception was created through playing an old advertisement which dates back to Lyndon B. Johnson’s presidency. The ad shows a young girl sleeping and a red phone ringing in the back ground. The voice talks about the threat to American security and asks the question, “Who do you think should pick up the phone?” The insinuation is that Hillary Clinton has better experience of the government to respond to any threat to US security and its interests abroad.

The advertisement has started a new debate in the US about who is less capable of protecting the country, meaning that the candidate who cannot should be considered a wimp. The advertisement ploy was followed by talk from the Clinton camp suggesting that Obama was too soft and hence incapable of taking the hard decisions expected of a commander-in-chief. Such an argument from the Clintons might change the direction of people’s opinion regarding who they would want to see as their president.

Despite the support given to Obama in several states, the security factor is key in the minds of American people. In fact, the legacy of the Bush administration is that it has altered and somewhat damaged the average American’s overall perception of the world. The Bush-bin Laden team has created such fear in people’s minds that they do not expect any compromise on security issues or the war on terror. Therefore Obama had to come down hard on Pakistan with statements about targeting the country in search of bin Laden.

However, such statements are seen as insufficient to counter his earlier argument that he would negotiate rather than have war. American society has still not conclusively decided whether it wants to wage a war or pose belligerently while talking to Iran or other nations.

In another debate between Obama and Clinton, she cornered him on the issue of receiving campaign funds from Louis Farrakhan who is the acting head of the Nation of Islam and reputed in the US to be xenophobic and anti-Semitic. Furthermore, Obama was questioned hard about his middle name, Hussain. It is interesting to see how the current American discourse has put Obama on the defensive about his connection with Muslims. There is no one in his campaign or otherwise who has the gumption to question why Obama cannot defend the US despite his links with Muslims. The reaction underscores the American perception of Muslims as the source of threat to the US.

This is what many would call political realism according to which greater military outlays and larger missiles and a greater number of fighter aircraft and aircraft carriers are the main test of a nation’s strength. Talk of weapons and military strength is to a nation what genitals are to a man. On the other hand, talking to others is a sign of weakness and so is the lack of hard-core experience of establishment.

In today’s America there is very little space for a feminist discourse. Though Hillary Clinton poses as a woman who should be given a chance to become the first female American president, her emphasis is on projecting herself as the only capable man amongst the Democrats. She is deliberately superimposing the norms of conservative America according to which there is, as mentioned earlier, no room for feminism.

The feminist discourse is not about protecting the rights of female over male but about a perspective which looks at the world from the deeper lens of a woman’s sensitivity towards her family. A woman prefers to talk to others not because she is physically or emotionally weak but due to her belief that war and conflict does not serve anyone’s interest. A feminist’s world as opposed to a man’s or even a woman’s world suggests dialogue rather than simple confrontation.

Hillary Clinton would have ordinary Americans believe that Barak Obama would compromise national security by suggesting that he would talk to nations considered to be part of the axis of evil. The current emphasis on national security and appearing robust like a man has also forced Obama to revise some of what he had said earlier. American politics does not allow for softening of attitudes towards the world or reconsidering policy on torturing people in the name of fighting terrorism.

The dispossessed and the underprivileged in the US were tired of this artificial show of manliness represented by the country’s establishment. And, therefore, many a person was keen to see Obama become the next American president. His relative youth and talk of hope were, of course, the key points. But more importantly, a lot of people seem to support him as a counterweight to Hillary Clinton who represents the typical male chauvinism of American society and the establishment.

The experience that she touts as her winning point reflects her partnership with the establishment which many in the US, especially the black and the poor, want to get rid of. This is an establishment which is comprised by big corporate interests that control the government and the war machinery of the American state. The contracts worth billions of dollars which were given to private security companies like MPRI, Dynacorp, Blackwater, Halliburton and others to participate in war and conflict in Iraq, Bosnia or many poor states in Africa have consolidated the establishment and brought these interests together. While Iraq, Afghanistan and Bosnia are obvious examples, there is far greater mayhem, loot and plunder that this corporate interest has created in the weak African states.

The benefits of what these companies make in terms of money does not reach the general public which suffers from pressures of lack of health care and other facilities. The ordinary American helplessly watches as roads or large development projects are delayed or badly executed due to the corruption of those in power. The underprivileged American is too involved with finding the money to pay for health care without which one wouldn’t even want to die in the US.

Unfortunately, there is a whole wide America out there which is systematically forced to believe that it has to be protected against an unkind world that wants to destroy the American way of life. In reality, what they mean by the American way of life is protection of corporate interests. Sadly, Hillary Clinton is part of this conspiracy against the American people. It is always tragic when people change their gender politically.

The writer is an independent strategic and political analyst.

ayesha.ibd@gmail.com

Fighting terrorism

THE shenanigans of the political process have just begun. The PML-N, after agreeing to join the PPP-led coalition, floated the idea of not joining the government at the centre but supporting it.

When the PPP expressed reservations on this count, the Nawaz League dropped the condition in return for support for its stand on the restoration of the judiciary.

Who will be the next prime minister is a question engaging everyone’s attention and the media is working overtime to deliver a blow-by-blow account of the tussle. For people in every nook and corner of the country, from rickshaw wallahs to political analysts, the hot topic of discussion is the nomination woes of Makhdoom Amin Fahim. The coalition partners are joining in with their comments. This gives the media all the material it needs and often the leaders talk to each other through the media itself.

With all these ups and downs and lingering confusion, people who support or are accustomed to the dictatorial style are sniggering. Under that system, a list of names for the PM’s slot would have been produced by the agencies and the boss would have ticked one, and there would not be a squeak from anyone. Clearly, things are different now.

But the fact is that this is how the political process evolves everywhere. On political issues, be they inter-party or intra-party concerns, every politician tries to extract the maximum and matters settle down only when the optimal balance of power is achieved. Politics is the art of the possible, or so goes the dictum.

The media, whose presence is bordering on the overbearing with each channel and newspaper understandably trying to outdo the other, still has a responsibility to present the apparently messy ways of politics in a positive manner, to make the democratic process sustainable in this country.

Whoever becomes the PM, and obviously it will be someone from the PPP, will have to forget his party’s ‘five Es’ manifesto for the present and instead devote his energies to the two burning issues facing this nation. They are, one, the security situation and, two, the economy. It is a pity that the second of the two problems has to be mentioned, because the previous government proudly touted economic progress as its foremost achievement. Unfortunately here we are with everything going wrong with the economy at the end of an eight-year propaganda blitz.

In view of space constraints, let us talk about the security situation which is rapidly demoralising the nation. First there were suicide blasts targeting army personnel and we said that this was in reprisal for what the military was doing in the tribal areas. It appeared straight and simple. Then came the targeting of political personalities who had been vocal in their views on extremism and were close to the Musharraf regime, like Aftab Sherpao and Amir Muqam. Even that was explainable.

But then came the bombing of a funeral in Swat followed by an attack on a tribal jirga in Darra Adamkhel. Such solemn events are a revered part of Pakhtun culture and normally treated with utmost respect. Then the action moved to Lahore, normally a peaceful city (could it be that the extremists wish to deal even-handedly with the whole country?). Reasons can be surmised for the blast at the FIA headquarters in Lahore but the simultaneous attack on an advertising agency in a residential area is baffling to say the least. One cannot recall an advertising campaign that could be construed as being detrimental to the extremists and their ‘cause’.

As if this was not intrusive and disturbing enough, a restaurant in a quiet part of Islamabad, and known to be frequented by foreigners, was hit by a bomb.

So what is safe? Nothing: not a house, not an office, not a restaurant, not a funeral, not a jirga. This is the perfect terrorist plan, executed perfectly, to terrorise the whole nation. It appears that the government with all its wherewithal is helpless and the adversaries can strike at will, at a time and location of their choosing. This is precisely what is demoralising the country.

The government appears overwhelmed because one has neither heard nor read of any substantive announcement regarding the tracing of the culprits, especially the masterminds. This is a one-way war in which the government is lashing out like a blind man.

So what is the solution? How can the new government handle the situation better? It has the advantage of not being saddled with the baggage weighing down the present set-up, an advantage that can be lost if it continues to follow the existing strategy.

The future counter-terrorism strategy could be based on three pillars. Firstly, an emphasis on effective and timely intelligence. On paper at least, intelligence is available with the Special Branch of the police and the CID, as well as the IB, ISI and MI. In actual fact, after a case is registered the police bears the brunt and tension of the unsolved crime and the other agencies are under no obligation to participate actively. If resource allocation for intelligence gathering is analysed, the lion’s share is earmarked for the other agencies and only a minuscule amount is available to the police.

In order to make optimal use of the public money being spent by the security agencies, it is important that there should be an effective mechanism for coordination. A senior, motivated and a respected civil or army officer could be appointed chief of counter-terrorism, with complete access to all intelligence available with both civil and military agencies. All possible resources should be placed at his disposal in the pursuit of a single-item agenda: identifying terrorists and bringing them to book.

Secondly, the extremists should concurrently be engaged in a dialogue by the new government, to see whether a meaningful middle path can be found to calm them down until a sustainable solution is found.

Thirdly, the most difficult but most important part of this strategy should be a review of foreign policy, to change the perception that Pakistan is fighting a proxy war for the US rather than for itself. With the backing of the new parliament, the US administration needs to be convinced that Pakistan will implode if the present course is not altered. If there is no strong and sustainable Pakistan, who will assist the Americans in their war on terror? So it is in Washington’s own long-term interest that Islamabad follows a foreign policy that fosters internal unity and a sustainable economy.

If the present policy is not discontinued, the Mush-Bush alliance, which could last until Jan 2009 when Bush retires, counter-terrorism will be as much of a success story as the state of the economy under the Musharraf regime.

tasneem.noorani@tnassociates.net

Why Sarabjit Singh should not be hanged

THE late Justice Dorab Patel used to say that if he had to be a judge again, he would never award the death penalty. His reasons: human fallibility and faulty legal systems that discriminate against the poor. As he emphasised, a human life, once taken, could never be brought back.

His stand reinforces the principled position against the death penalty taken by credible international organisations like Amnesty International and Human Rights Watch as well as the Human Rights Commission of Pakistan, of which Justice Patel was a founding member. The HRCP, in its first convention in 1986, passed three resolutions: hold elections, abolish the separate electorate system, and abolish the death penalty.

Unfortunately, Pakistan remains among the 62 countries that continue to retain and use the death penalty, compared to the 135 that have abolished this punishment in law or practice. The HRCP in its report Slow march to gallows (2007) records a staggering number of prisoners awaiting execution in Pakistan: over 7,400 men and 36 women. Most are poor. Some were under-aged at the time of the alleged crime. Pakistan was among the six countries (along with China, Iran, Iraq, Sudan and the US) that accounted for 91 per cent of the 1,591 executions reported in 25 states in 2006, according to Amnesty.

The death penalty does not deter crime more than other punishments, notes Amnesty. The homicide rate has fallen by 40 per cent since 1975 in Canada, where the death penalty for murder was abolished in 1976. On Dec 18, 2007, the UN General Assembly passed a resolution — by a wide margin — on a worldwide moratorium on executions. The resolution has since been opposed and the debate will continue in the session this September.

Since 1973, 126 death row prisoners in America have been released after being found innocent, thanks to advances in DNA evidence. In countries like Pakistan and India, with flawed investigative and legal systems, the odds against each other’s prisoners are even greater — especially when they are accused of terrorism.

Sarabjit Singh was convicted of espionage and terrorism (bomb blasts at Lahore, Kasur and Faisalabad that killed 14 people in 1990). Fifteen years later, in 2006, the Supreme Court upheld the death sentence awarded in 1991. A life sentence is 14 years. Sarabjit has already served 18 years in prison, mostly on death row.

The high-profile release on March 3 of another Indian, Kashmir Singh, convicted of espionage, had raised hopes for other prisoners. Pakistan’s unconditional and unilateral release of Singh was a magnanimous gesture that raised expectations of India’s reciprocation. Caretaker minister for human rights Ansar Burney said as much, talking to journalists at the Wagah border after bidding Kashmir Singh an emotional farewell.

Although no one conveyed these expectations through ‘proper’ channels, New Delhi could have moved beyond the existing system under which prisoners are occasionally released and exchanged, like fishermen who stray across the maritime border. After all, Kashmir Singh’s release was not part of that inadequate mechanism either.

Unfortunately, soon after arriving in India, Kashmir Singh admitted having spied for his country. He was apparently upset at finding his family living in poverty, uncared for by the sarkar for which he had sacrificed so much, even getting circumcised in order to escape detection in Pakistan. He soon retracted his admission but the damage was done. Still, even if he was guilty, his 35-year captivity should be considered punishment enough.

To make matters worse, a week after Kashmir walked free across the Wagah border, garlanded and feted, New Delhi sent across the body of under-trial Pakistani prisoner Khalid Mehmood who had died on February 12, 2008. India denied torture, and listed the hospitals where the prisoner was treated but without mentioning the nature of his ailment (cirrhosis of the liver, according to an Indian High Commission official responding to a query later).

Indian authorities say that they informed Pakistan of Mehmood’s death the same day but received the family’s request for the body to be transported to Pakistan for burial only three weeks later. India’s denials of torture are met sceptically by human rights activists, given the country’s track record — no better than Pakistan’s. In any case, the timing couldn’t have been worse for Sarabjit Singh.

Shortly afterwards, he received a ‘black warrant’ about his execution date. This warrant was issued “in routine” and not in retaliation for Mehmood’s death, maintains Singh’s lawyer, additional advocate general Punjab Rana Abdul Hameed. However, he adds that now it is a “matter between two governments that they need to sort out as a humanitarian issue”.

The governments are clearly aware of this aspect. On March 19, Pakistan’s granting of a month’s reprieve to Sarabjit Singh coincided with India’s release of a Pakistani prisoner, Jamal Qureshi of Sukkur, acquitted just two days previously in a 2005 counterfeit currency case in Uttar Pradesh. Institutional mechanisms to facilitate prisoners are already underway, like a much-needed Agreement on Consular Access (both governments are currently slow to grant consular access to prisoners). A newly formed Joint Judicial Committee on Prisoners met recently in New Delhi and will meet again in Pakistan in early April.

Executing Sarabjit Singh will derail this process and kill hope for other prisoners, guilty or innocent. Pakistan spontaneously released Kashmir Singh outside the existing formal mechanisms. Any reciprocal gestures by India will go a long way towards improving relations and clearing the bad blood created by Khalid Mehmood’s death.

Meanwhile, Sarabjit Singh’s sister and two young daughters have appealed to President Musharraf and the new government to allow them to meet him. Even better, spare his life.

The writer is a freelance journalist and documentary film-maker currently based in Karachi.

beena.sarwar@gmail.com