EVERY time a UN commission or delegation visits our country on the request of our government, we increasingly look like Congo, Rwanda or any African state where the UN has to intervene in questioning, investigations and the solution recommending process. Whether it was the probe by the UN commission on the murder of Benazir Bhutto or the current visit by the UN delegation in case of missing persons, we seem to be voluntarily handing over to the UN and the world our sovereign right to handle our problems and our issues ourselves.

The UN delegation that ended its visit to Pakistan was invited by our own government. However, almost all leading government officials refused to meet the delegation, which indicates two things. One, the invitation extended to the UN delegation did not represent the broad consensus of all the institutions/stakeholders in the issue and, as a result, this unhappiness was demonstrated by them in refusing to meet the delegation.

Two, the UN and the world have been given a message that at the level of the government the will, intent and purpose to resolve the issue of the missing persons is getting a cursory treatment. Moreover, the hue and cry raised by family members of missing persons accusing the government and its institutions of involvement of the missing persons may be right.

We should not have invited the delegation. If we had, we should have ensured that all government officials that the delegation requested to meet should have given it the audience.

The head of the delegation, Olivier de Frouville, on his arrival had stated that ‘the UN delegation was not here to investigate the matter rather it was here to act as a bridge between the families of the missing persons and the government’.

Now that the visit is over, it appears that all that the delegation has done is collect data and empirical evidence to promote a neutral world view on the issue. The ‘bridge’ that the delegation imagined creating ‘seems like a bridge too far’.

There is a wide gulf that separates the stand/views of the government as opposed to the views of the families of the missing persons. The difference is as huge as the difference one can see in the two sets of lists of missing persons that the delegation is carrying back with them.

One handed over to them by the government official in Balochistan highlighting fewer than 100 persons missing as per the government record. The other is the list given by families of missing persons/organisations representing them indicating the number of the missing persons in the thousands.

The issue is not ‘how these persons go missing’. The real issue is ‘why they go missing’. If we can find the real answer to the why, we may be able to do something about ‘how and by whom’.

The only thing that the UN delegation failed to highlight in its post-departure press conference was ‘why were the people going missing’.

Next time it is hoped that the government would give this mandate when it invites a UN delegation on the issue. But will it?

M. A. E. Karachi