Last January, Attorney General John Ashcroft invited Pakistan’s then Interior Minister Moinuddin Haider to Washington for consultations on his controversial USA Patriot Act. Had the meeting materialized, a cozy casement could have popped open for the two ‘allies’ to bond with each other...and things might have been different from what they are today. Who can say, but perhaps the INS could have yanked out Pakistanis as it did the Armenians from its dragnet? Or, better still, like the Indians, who have the second-largest Muslim population in the world, Pakistan, too, could have escaped Ashcroft’s notice!
Haider now claims that he could have streaked across to DC but for Maleeha Lodhi, our ambassador in Washington at that time. She “torpedoed” his plan, citing the visit to be an “unnecessary” budgetary burden on Pakistan’s exchequer.
Sallying forth, Foreign Minister Mahmud Kasuri has dropped his anchor on the land of the ‘free’. With gust, verve and passion, Kasuri has loudly laid bare his brief and authoritatively announced from the studios of major TV networks that he “deeply resents” the wave of hysteria that the Bush administration is whipping up against Pakistan. “What kind of a message is the US sending to our people back home? If thousands of Pakistanis are deported from here, then all you are doing is aiding more people to become radicalized there.”
Bravo. Encore!
It’s about time we had a straight-shooter like Kasuri, who with his swiftly-delivered sound bytes has ratcheted up the rapid fire that was needed to tell off the Americans, specially after the strong rebuke mouthed by Ambassador Nancy Powell in Islamabad.
Let’s put on hold the self-congratulatory celebration and peep into the Pakistan Embassy in DC’s tawdry diplomatic minutiae and the men whose actions scream for accountability.
The dumb clucks recently tried a shmoozefest on the American media, but ended up with pancakes on their face. There’s a fellow called Jim Hoagland who writes for the Washington Post and rarely lets an opportunity slip by to heap abuse on Pakistan. Attempting to soften the curmudgeon by calling him over for lunch or dinner (as if a culinary baksheesh would buy Hoagland’s silence!), some factotum in the Embassy told Hoagland — who suffers from an elephantine ego — that he must first check his factoids with him before filing his Pakistan stories for the Post.
Want to hazard a guess what the haughty reporter said in his response? Better we leave it at that. Except, don’t be a whit surprised if Hoagland’s Washington Post attacks in the future on Pakistan hit double digits!
“The Embassy’s successive failure in highlighting Pakistan’s contribution in the ‘war against terror’ and counteracting Indian propaganda against Pakistan that is proliferating so fast and firmly taking root, is making no impression back home,” a Pakistani-American bristles. “When Riz Khan of BBC asked Musharraf about Pakistan’s image in the US, all the President had to say was: ‘The articles that I read portray a good image’. Obviously, the man has no clue.”
And for that matter, nor does his bearded Prime Minister, who has raised false hopes about INS waiving special registration requirement for Pakistanis. His boast that Foreign Minister Kasuri, on arrival in the US, would wave his magic wand and geez, the waiver would occur, is not only misleading but highly disingenuous.
Does Mr Jamali know that the president of the most prestigious overseas Pakistani organization called the APPNA (Association of Pakistani Physicians of North America), that every Pakistani government never tires of touting (read the latest on $2 billion being invested by APPNA in Pakistan), was jailed by the INS in Chicago last week?
Dr Raana Akbar had a pending 245-I in 2001 and his wife, an American citizen, had filed a green card application for him. Yet, he was arrested. Here’s his own account of what happened: “The INS officers were in a very bad mood. Some lawyer had managed to stoke their anger. With the result that they got mad and started arresting anyone currently out of status, regardless of what was pending. I was arrested (cuffed) and taken to a detention centre. I waited five hours there while an officer ran a detailed criminal and immigration background check. I was fingerprinted and my pictures were taken like a criminal. But I wasn’t harassed. After the investigation, a bond officer decides how much bond should be set, that is anywhere from $1,500-$50,000. I was lucky and only received a $1,500 bond. The bond needed to be posted by 4pm, but my arresting officer didn’t finish my file until almost 5pm. This meant that my bond couldn’t be posted until 8am the next day and that I would be spending the night in jail. I was asked to take all my clothes off and I was given a new white T-shirt, new underwear, new socks and a green jumpsuit with INS written in the back. And some white shoes.
“I was taken to County Jail. They have a separate wing for INS detainees and we didn’t have to stay with the “general population.” But we were still in jail. We had individual cells. The time spent starting from the time I was detained until the next day when I was released was unbearable. Only I know how I passed my time, just praying to Allah to get me out of there. “Does this mean that you shouldn’t register? No,...cause if you don’t they will find you. What I have been hearing is that you will be considered a felon if you fail to register by February 21, and then most likely be deported and won’t have any chance whatsoever to fight back.
“Also, don’t go on a Friday. There is a chance that you will end up spending the whole weekend if you get detained. I pray to Allah that none of us have to go through what I have been through.”
Dr Akbar’s valiant attempt at boldly sharing his story with fellow Pakistanis and advising them on how to proceed makes one respect him a lot more than Prime Minister Jamali, whose political INS posturing is nothing but poppycock! Not to mention nobodies such as Chaudhry Shujaat blathering from far to Bush to exempt Pakistanis from registration. Hello! Who is Shujaat and what is his standing? Shaikh Rasheed is bad enough as our spokesman, why must we be further humiliated and embarrassed having the gecko from Gujrat pose as our saviour?
Also, shouldn’t Dr Nasim Ashraf, the erstwhile APPNA heavyweight and now the head of the Human Development Commission back in Pakistan, be feeling a twinge of remorse and sadness at what happened to his fellow doctor and present president of APPNA? Where is his major domo, Dan Pero, the lobbyist from Michigan that Ashraf helped select for a whopping fees of $50,000 a month?
Pero’s contract with Pakistan is his company’s first foreign venture. He says, “We will be taking our guidance and leadership from the Embassy and Islamabad,” (God help us!).
More of Pero next week, in the meantime, who is Steve Paine and Lincoln Jones? And how are these Texas lobbyists relevant to Pakistan? But more importantly, how much money is being spent on a media spin that, but for spiralling Pakistan’s image into the ground, has nothing to speak for.
Last January, Attorney General John Ashcroft invited Pakistan’s then Interior Minister Moinuddin Haider to Washington for consultations on his controversial USA Patriot Act. Had the meeting materialized, a cozy casement could have popped open for the two ‘allies’ to bond with each other...and things might have been different from what they are today. Who can say, but perhaps the INS could have yanked out Pakistanis as it did the Armenians from its dragnet? Or, better still, like the Indians, who have the second-largest Muslim population in the world, Pakistan, too, could have escaped Ashcroft’s notice!
