Selective indictment

The annual report on the global state of human rights submitted to Congress by the US State Department on Thursday has indicted many countries for their HR abuses.

The report serves as a guide each year for discussions on American foreign aid to countries that are seen as having an indifferent record on human rights.

This year's report notes widespread HR abuses committed by many countries, including Pakistan, that are key US allies in its global "war on terror", and which have been promised military and economic aid in the next fiscal year.

Besides Pakistan and India, the report also offers scathing criticism of other key allies such as Russia, Saudi Arabia and Egypt, accusing them of gross violations of citizens' rights, placing curbs on the freedom of the press, free movement, and the right of association.

Conspicuous by their absence from the report are Israel and Iraq - the former obviously because of the backing it has always enjoyed from US administrations for its institutionalized policy of persecuting Palestinians and the latter for being under a US-led interim set-up since its occupation in April last year.

Furthermore, the high moral tone of the report contrasts sharply with America's own dismal record of rights abuses against detainees at Camp X-Ray, the US base at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba.

Some 600 prisoners kept incommunicado there are denied due process of law, with the US having rejected demands by rights groups that they be allowed to witness the military trials planned to begin in the weeks ahead.

The report goes all out to condemn North Korea, Cuba and Iran, countries that have a history of bad relations with the US. Libya, on the other hand, has been spared the American wrath this time round following its "good behaviour" since it settled the Lockerbie issue last year and swung open the door to its programme of weapons of mass destruction for international inspections.

The report offers guarded praise for Qatar, Turkey, Oman and Jordan, also key US allies, for a number of democratic reforms that these countries have undertaken during the outgoing year.

America's own HR record and its political biases notwithstanding, many of the rights violations mentioned in the State Department review did take place in most countries. For instance, excesses committed by law enforcement agencies in Pakistan and India, widespread abuses in Indian-held Kashmir, and violence based in communalism in India and sectarianism in Pakistan are facts of life that cannot be denied.

Similarly, anti-democratic measures routinely resorted to by state establishments in Egypt, Iran, Cuba, Russia and North Korea are indeed deplorable. But at the same time it would be unfair to deny that certain anti-terrorism laws put in place in the aftermath of 9/11 in many developing and developed countries have allowed state functionaries to commit rights violations under their cover.

In an ideal world, American aid, if it indeed hinged on a given country's human rights record, should be denied to Israel first and foremost. It is such examples of blind partiality in some cases and outright hypocrisy in others, coupled with America's own indictment by independent rights groups on similar counts in Iraq, Afghanistan and Guantanamo Bay, which make its stated concerns for human rights sound gratuitous and, therefore, to that extent without much effect.

War's morality

It appears that, in the run-up to the Iraq war, while the Americans concentrated on twisting arms, the British went on a bugging binge. They bugged UN Security Council members, who at that time included Pakistan as one of the non-permanent members, to find out how they would vote on moves seeking United Nations authorization for the war.

This was revealed by an intelligence translator, who was charged by the British government but then had the case against her withdrawn, obviously because the government feared further exposure.

Now, former cabinet minister Clare Short, who had resigned over Prime Minister Tony Blair's war policy, has said the UK also bugged Secretary-General Kofi Annan. Earlier, but during the same pre-war period, the Pakistani high commission in London was rigged with eavesdropping gadgets.

Since governments do not, conveniently, comment on intelligence matters, it is pointless to expect an official explanation from the British authorities on the latest charges. The unofficial excuse or justification probably would be that intelligence gathering is a legitimate part of diplomacy.

But then the British are perhaps getting a little rusty at it, or at least are being told on a bit too often. The UN has reacted with understandable huff, saying such bugging seriously compromises the secretary-general's freedom to talk to world leaders in confidence.

But the more important aspect of the disclosures by, first, a government servant and then by a former minister is that it again exposes the manipulation of facts, figures and public opinion that has marked the conduct of the Bush/Blair administrations ever since the campaign against Iraq began.

The allegations of intelligence dossiers on Saddam Hussein's WMD threat being "sexed up" may have been dismissed by the Hutton inquiry, but it is undeniable that we have all been fed with half-truths and lies.

The mere fact that no trace of any weapons of mass destruction has so far been found underscores the duplicity that has characterized the Iraq operation. International law and laws governing relations between states have been bypassed and ignored, and in the process a country has been invaded and destroyed and the international order destabilized. Clare Short has helped to highlight the immorality of the war on Iraq.

Luring the birds back

Environment authorities would do well to heed the advice of conservation experts who have called for a strategy for the proper care and upkeep of Lake Haleji, one of Pakistan's 19 wetlands protected by the Ramsar Convention.

Created as a freshwater reservoir in the 1930s, the lake is home to a large number of migratory waterfowl of different species that nest here in the winter. However, owing to serious ecological disturbances in southern Sindh over the years, the number of birds visiting the lake has dropped drastically - from approximately 168,000 in the early nineties to just a little over 15,000.

Experts say this situation has followed the construction of a link canal in 1998 that led to a substantial reduction in the amount of water being supplied to Karachi by the freshwater lake.

A subsequent drop in water levels has led to the process of eutrophication, whereby the excessive growth of vegetation on the surface of the lake has seriously disturbed the ecology of Haleji and its environs.

Besides, silting, illegal fishing and the cutting down of trees are also taking their toll. The quality of the water itself has deteriorated, and this too has had an adverse impact on aquatic life in the depths of the lake. All these factors have affected the habitat of the migratory waterfowl that are no longer inclined to spend their winter months here.

It has been observed that greater efforts at coordination and cooperation are required between the local wildlife authorities and the Karachi Water and Sewerage Board that is responsible for the supply of water to the city.

So far, a conflict of interest has prevented this from happening, but if the two parties try and sort out their differences and work out a plan that would be satisfactory to both, it is possible that the damage done could be reversed to some extent.

At the same time, scientific studies should be carried out to see how the lake could be restored to its former status as a nesting ground for migratory birds, some of them coming from as far away as Siberia.