Investigating disappearances

A DISTURBING phenomenon that has late surfaced in Pakistan is that of ‘disappearances’. A Dawn report lists by name 11 people, including three women, who have ‘disappeared’ in the last three years never to be heard of again. Our report also lists the cases of five young men in Karachi who were picked up by the agencies and have not returned home — two of the five were taken away in 2002. What makes the situation so alarming is that it is believed that 800 people have been arrested in this manner — including a journalist in Waziristan — since 2001 from all over the country. The rising number of affected people makes ‘disappearances’ a new entry in Pakistan’s dismal record of human rights violations.

Taken in the sense it is generally understood, the term has sinister political connotations. Unlike the evil of kidnapping which is the abduction of people by criminal gangs for economic/social reasons, disappearances generally involve the arrest of a person for political reasons by law enforcement agencies without recourse to due legal procedures and processes. Invariably, in the case of a disappearance, a person is taken into custody by the police or an intelligence agency without formally framing charges against him. The HRCP has taken note of this trend in its 2005 report, while the Sindh High Court has expressed deep concern over the failure of the government to recover the missing people which reflects on the government’s inability to “discharge its obligation to provide safety and security to the life and liberty of the people”.

The anguish of the families of the missing people can well be imagined. That the courts cannot offer any relief in such cases has been widely noticed and understood. The HRCP points out that in such cases the habeas corpus process has proved to be inadequate because the agency/force named as the respondent denies that it has detained the missing person. On several occasions the superior courts have failed to get even the home secretary to locate the person suspected of having been picked up by a law-enforcement agency. Although the phenomenon of disappearances was very common in some Latin American countries when they were ruled by military dictators of the worst kind — Pinochet of Chile comes at once to mind — this is the first time that people are being picked up in Pakistan without an arrest warrant. This has two implications, both grim. First, the government’s respect for the courts, the rule of law and the human rights of the citizens is diminishing rapidly, assuming that it did exist at one time, and it will become increasingly difficult for people to obtain relief when the military rulers crack down on them. This detracts from the government’s loudly proclaimed commitment to democracy and the rule of law. Secondly, the intelligence agencies are fast emerging as a state within a state as they operate in disregard of the powers of the bureaucracy and the judiciary. Such a situation can undermine the authority and the sovereignty of the civil government. Since all cases of disappearance seem to be linked with the government’s war on terror, which is being fought at the behest of the United States, it is dangerous that the agencies should pick up people on mere suspicion. If they have legal grounds to detain a person, there is no reason for them to brush aside the relevant legal rules and procedures in doing so. One hopes the government will look into the matter and provide relief to the families of missing persons and also remove the factors behind the increasing cases of disappearances.

Cement price-fixing

AGREEMENT has been reached between the federal government and cement manufacturers on a number of measures to bring down the price of cement, which in the last month had increased by Rs 50 per bag. Cement exports will be halted for the rest of April, manufacturers will increase their output and a certain quantity of cement will be imported as a stop-gap measure to stabilize prices. The manufacturers have told the government that the increase in price has happened primarily because of a recent spurt in demand, caused by a post-winter rise in construction activity in the earthquake-affected areas. They also argue that with all these measures in place, the price of cement will begin to fall, although not to the level that was prevailing in January of this year when a 50-kg cement bag was selling for between Rs 270-280.

While the demand for cement may have increased for the reason claimed by the manufacturers, it is unlikely that it is the only factor for the price increase. The truth is that cement producers operate as a cartel which fixes prices by manipulating supply so as to maximize their profits at the expense of the consumers. The fact that cement plants have been operating at over 85 per cent capacity this year does not weaken the ability of manufacturers to fix prices. Since last year, despite the withdrawal of the central excise duty levied previously on the cement industry, the price has increased by Rs 100 per bag. The contention that this is happening only because of increased demand and not because of any manipulation of supply by manufacturers is difficult to accept.The measures that follow the agreement are all fine but unless the power of the cement cartel to fix prices is broken, the cement market will continue to experience bouts of high prices, which can play havoc with the housing and construction industry, a key generator of employment.

Hunger strikes in jails

THE hunger strikes by hundreds of inmates at Adiala jail in Rawalpindi and Faisalabad jail are the latest indications of growing prisoner discontent in lockups across the country. The situation at Adiala jail was particularly grim when riots broke out recently after jail authorities tried to force-feed the prisoners who, like the inmates of Faisalabad jail, were demonstrating against a ban on sentence remissions, besides complaining about subhuman living conditions. There have also been allegations of torture and drug peddling. While jail officials say that the demands of the prisoners will be looked into and that they will be given free legal assistance to expedite the otherwise lengthy trial procedures, it is uncertain whether they will keep that promise. Jail authorities have made similar promises in the past, but, judging by the deteriorating jail conditions, they have not kept their word.

Considering that we have seen several parliamentary and other committees take note of the appalling conditions in prisons, including overcrowding and the overbearing attitude of the jail officials, it is disheartening to know that very little notice has been taken of proposals to correct the system. Practical ideas such as shortening the lengthy wait of prisoners by holding trials on jail premises fizzle out almost as soon as they are presented. It is not surprising that an impression is thus created that the authorities are apathetic to the idea of prison reform. Under these circumstances, prisoners, instead of recognizing the seriousness of their offence and resolving to stay away from crime in the future, become more hardened as they undergo the rigours of prison life made, worse by frequent torture at the hands of a corrupt jail staff. As prison conditions go from bad to worse, the government can expect the growing frustrations of prisoners to find an outlet through violence.

Peace won’t come this way

THE vast majority of western commentators are convinced that last week’s Israeli election signifies a crucial break from the past: for the first time most voters rejected Eretz Israel, the long-nurtured notion that one day the territory of Israel proper would stretch across the lands occupied in the 1967 war.

Hardly anyone has dared to claim that this development will somehow magically lead to a resolution of the conflict with Palestinians. Nonetheless, the implication is that by crossing a crucial psychological barrier — by at least tacitly admitting that the occupation cannot indefinitely be sustained — Israeli voters have cleared the way for the disengagement process proposed by the Kadima party. And that, in turn, is considered likely to lead to a settlement of some sort in the foreseeable future.

Unfortunately, much of this optimism appears to be grounded in little more than wishful thinking. The election result, on the face of it, presents a picture of a thoroughly divided Israel. Kadima, the supposedly centrist party founded last year by Ariel Sharon just months before he lapsed into a coma, will have 29 seats in the new Knesset — less than one-fourth of the parliament’s total strength of 120. Labour, the second-largest party, can add only 19 to that tally. Thus, the two largest parties, deemed to be the likeliest components of the next coalition government, cannot govern on their own.

They will, by the looks of it, require at least three further partners, quite possibly including a couple of ultra-Orthodox organizations such as Shas or Torah Judaism. They cannot afford to embrace the Arab parties, which together hold 10 seats. Nor are they likely to willingly seek a partnership with Israel Beitenu (which won 11 seats on the basis of fascist platform supported chiefly by Russian imigris) or Binyamin Netanyahu’s once dominant Likud, whose relegation to minor-party status was arguably the best news on election night.

Once the contours of a coalition emerge, it will become easier to judge whether anything will come of Kadima leader Ehud Olmert’s plan for a unilateral withdrawal from much — but not all — of the West Bank. Olmert has been somewhat more forthcoming about his intentions than Sharon, who played his cards incredibly close to his chest after last year’s Israeli’s withdrawal from the Gaza Strip.

The problem, however, is that Kadima’s strategy is geared exclusively towards a somewhat expanded Israel: it appears to have given little consideration to the matter of whether the chunks of the West Bank that it plans to abandon, along with Gaza, can be constituted into a coherent Palestinian state. On the basis of Olmert’s revealed intentions, that would appear to be an extraordinarily unlikely outcome. He plans to dismantle a few far-flung Jewish settlements, displacing about 60,000 settlers. Another 350,000, however, will stay put, the settlement blocks they inhabit being incorporated into Israel.

Some of these blocks have spread alongside Israel’s international boundary. Others extend much further into the West Bank. The plan, as it stands, could lead to the West Bank being divided into three or four zones, separated from each other by land that will remain under Israeli control. Olmert also intends the border between the West Bank and Jordan to be patrolled by his troops. Under such circumstances, a viable independent state is out of the question.

Were such conditions to be achieved, they would be tantamount to continued occupation under a different guise. In the event, it could almost be guaranteed that the conflict, too, would go on. Endlessly.

A negotiated settlement would obviously make far greater sense. Notwithstanding their illegality, it would not necessarily entail the dismantling of all settlements, provided Israel was willing to cede equivalent territory of its own to the Palestinians — along with geographical coherence and political sovereignty. However, prospects for talks appear to be no brighter than they were under Sharon, who enjoyed pretending there was no one to talk to on the other side. That undermined Fatah and Mahmoud Abbas, enabling Hamas to surface as the popular choice of Palestinians.

Has that democratically achieved outcome led to the resumption of a dialogue? Anything but. Predictably, the new mantra is that contacts with an organization sworn to the destruction of Israel are out of the question — despite indications that Hamas effectively accepts the 1967 borders. Israeli contempt is generously reciprocated by Hamas, but the mutual antipathy needn’t necessarily be a barrier to negotiations and even a deal, provided both sides could be prodded in the right direction.

That appears extremely unlikely for the time being. The US has never come close to being an honest broker in the Middle East, but over the past couple of decades it has wedded itself so firmly to the Israeli position that even the fiction of even-handedness has become impossible to maintain. In the circumstances, it is hardly surprising that Condoleezza Rice has given her blessing in advance to the idea of a unilateral partial withdrawal.

Based on a mixture of known facts and conjecture, it has long been accepted in much of the Arab world that the American stance on the Middle East is determined to a considerable extent by the ruthless efficacy of the Israel lobby in the US. That assumption hasn’t prevented a variety of Arab dictatorships from aligning themselves as closely as possible with Washington, knowing only too well the futility of aspiring to the uniquely special relationship the US maintains with Israel.

Perhaps more remarkable than that sordid tale is the fact that exploring the nature of that special relationship is more or less taboo in the mainstream American media. When a pair of conservative US academics were invited by The Atlantic Monthly to examine the power of the Israel lobby, they took the task seriously. The Monthly treated the product of their labour as if it were a hot potato: it refused to touch it. The paper by John Mearsheimer, a professor of political science at Chicago University, and Stephen Walt, professor of international affairs at Harvard’s Kennedy School of Government, finally appeared last month in The London Review of Books (an unedited version can be found on the Harvard website http://ksgnotes1.harvard.edu/Research/wpaper.nsf/rwp/RWP06-011).

Although it might be something of an exaggeration to describe the Mearsheimer-Walt thesis as an exposi, given that much of what it points is based on publicly available sources of information (the web version includes a vast amount of footnotes), it certainly serves as a useful collation of facts, building a far-from-pretty picture. As a consequence of the lobby’s stranglehold over Congress, say the writers, “US policy towards Israel is not debated there, even though that policy has important consequences for the entire world.”

“The lobby,” the say, “doesn’t want an open debate, because that might lead Americans to question the level of support they provide.” They suggest that even the majority of American Jews would tend to disagree with the lobby’s views, which played a significant role in persuading the Bush administration to invade Iraq, and have been equally instrumental in ratcheting up the pressure against Syria and Iran.

The academics say the ability of the tail to wag the dog is not only inimical to the US national interest, it has also been “bad for Israel. Its ability to persuade Washington to support an expansionist agenda has discouraged Israel from seizing opportunities ... that would have saved Israeli lives and shrunk the ranks of Palestinian extremists.”

Mearsheimer and Walt also noted that “the lobby first boasts of its influence and then attacks anyone who calls attention to it. It’s a very effective tactic: anti-Semitism is something no one wants to be accused of.” Inevitably, they themselves have attracted that charge from a variety of lobbyists and neo-conservatives, who generally chose to employ invective rather than arguments.

A more pertinent critique of Mearsheimer and Walt has been advanced by the likes of Noam Chomsky and Columbia University academic Joseph Massad, who suggest that by overstating their case, the writers implicitly exonerate successive US administrations of responsibility for their own actions. Chomsky and Massad both point out that US policies, initiatives and interventions in the Middle East are consistent with the American approach in other parts of the world, where its role is unaffected by the Israel lobby’s machinations.

Insofar as it prevents a debate, it could even be said that the lobby’s inordinate influence also serves what Washington perceives to be its own interests. If it didn’t, the lobby would soon find itself unwelcome in the corridors of power. By the same token, should the US even today take it upon itself to play a constructive role in the Middle East, it wouldn’t find it impossible to override the lobby’s objections — and achieve results.

In the meantime, it could do worse than heed the perceptions behind a quotation from Israel’s first president, David Ben-Gurion, cited by Mearsheimer and Walt: “If I were an Arab leader, I would never make terms with Israel. That is natural: we have taken their country ... We come from Israel, but 2,000 years ago, and what is that to them? There has been anti-Semitism, the Nazis, Hitler, Auschwitz, but was that their fault? They only see one thing: we have come here and stolen their country. Why should they accept that?”

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