Bitter pills to swallow

FINALLY, President George Bush has conceded that Saddam Hussein had nothing to do with 9/11. The reversal of his position comes in the wake of similar statements by two important members of the Bush cabinet. On Tuesday, Defence Secretary Donald Rumsfeld and National Security Adviser Condoleezza Rice surprised the world by saying there was no evidence linking the former Iraqi president to 9/11. The three statements not only constitute a reversal of the American position on the link between the Baathist regime and 9/11; they eliminate whatever was left of America’s legal and moral position on the war on Iraq.

For attacking Iraq, the Bush administration had given two reasons to the world and to its own people: that Saddam possessed weapons of mass destruction and that he was involved in the attacks on the Twin Towers and the Pentagon. Voluminous intelligence data were made available to the world — data which turned out to be either fake or whose authenticity was questioned — to prove that Iraq possessed WMDs. Yet no WMDs were found either before or after the war. Hans Blix, who as chief of the UN inspection team had reported to the Security Council that no “smoking gun” was found, stood by his position after the war and has just said he believed the Iraqi weapons were dismantled 10 year ago. The abandonment of the Bush administration’s stance on the links between Iraq and 9/11 and the fraud surrounding the WMDs have exposed the hollowness of America’s justification of the war on Iraq.

The US is now hopelessly bogged down. Iraq’s people, especially the Shias, were supposed to warmly welcome the Anglo-American troops and hail them as liberators. Nothing of the sort happened, and the American troops are taking casualties almost daily. The Bush administration seems to be groping in the dark. It has no exit strategy. Its occupation of Iraq has alienated the whole world, including some of America’s European allies. Now Washington must continue to suffer casualties because no other country is prepared to send troops to Iraq under US tutelage and be seen as the occupying power’s partner. The country is in utter chaos and is nominally run by an Iraqi council answerable to Paul Bremer, America’s top man in Iraq.

The only way out for the US is to let the UN run the country — a point which has been emphasized by Kofi Annan, who has called for a gradual restoration of Iraqi sovereignty. Ultimately, the Iraqis must govern themselves and that would be possible only through a general election. However, an election held under American bayonets would lack credibility with the world and with the Iraqi people. To be considered genuine, the election must be held under the aegis of the UN. Other countries could be invited to police Iraq only after the UN’s takeover of the country is complete, and the world body moves towards holding elections and handing over power to the chosen representatives of the Iraqi people.

Keeping track

PAKISTAN’s proposal to the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) to conduct a census of Afghan refugees in the country is a sound one. As Pakistan is home to the single largest number of refugees in the world hosted by one country, it is appropriate that the Pakistan government should know not only the number of Afghans within its territory but also have some idea of their anticedents and their activities. The approximate number given of Afghan refugees in Pakistan is three million, of whom, according to the UNHCR, about 1.58 million have returned to their homeland during the last one and half years, some 300,000 of them under its voluntary repatriation programme in 2003 alone. However, a spokesman of the UNHCR has said the agency does not have information about new arrivals in Pakistan or about those who were repatriated but have since come back to Pakistan. These figures, along with a larger picture of the total number of Afghans in Pakistan, have to be obtained for a number of reasons.

The number of refugees in Pakistan and their locations will help the government and the UNCHR in allocating funds and organizing a more active assistance regime. A census will also make it possible for the government to focus its repatriation efforts in areas with large concenrations of refugees. As things stand, under a tripartite agreement, 2.2 million refugees will be sent back to Afghanistan and the UNHCR will wind up its activities by 2005. It is important that these refugees do not take payments from the UNHCR for relocating to Afghanistan and then return to Pakistan. Such a trend has been witnessed in Islamabad and other parts of the country despite the efforts of the UNHCR to employ the latest identification technology to check this. The role of the Afghan government in helping resettle these refugees cannot be underestimated. If refugees are given the safety and relief that they are promised on their return, it is possible that the number of those coming back to Pakistan will diminish. Conditions in Afghanistan at present militate against attracting nationals to come back and resume productive lives.

Finally, it is in Pakistan’s interest to establish the identity of Afghan nationals living in Pakistan because many of them have acquired Pakistani credentials. Some have established business interests in Pakistan which they operate at the expense of local traders and businessmen. Peshawar-based businessmen have protested at this practice and have asked the government to take notice. There are other Afghans whose activities have to be monitored for security purposes. For all these reasons, a comprehensive census of Afghan refugees would help Pakistan in its efforts to arrange for the safe and voluntary repatriation of the refugees.

Unending exploitation

The harrowing account of two boys, aged six and eight, who managed to return to Pakistan this week after serving as camel jockeys in the UAE is proof that the ignoble practice has been far from eliminated. Acting on pressure brought to bear on it by child rights organizations worldwide and foreign governments, the UAE has outlawed the practice of employing young children to ride camels in races. However, given that 32 such so-called ‘camel kids’ have returned to Pakistan in the last six months alone and that in all probability many more are still being forced into this inhuman sport, it should be clear that the prohibition needs to be enforced more rigorously.

The two boys who returned this week have said that they do not remember when they were taken to the UAE or who took them there. Part of the reason why children at such a young age are forced to go is that many come from destitute families in mostly rural areas and their parents are too poor to resist the temptation of the money offered. Poverty is a fact of life, but the government can at least prevent exploitation of poor families by keeping a stronger vigil on the smuggling of children. The UAE government must redouble its efforts to ensure that anyone employing children as camel jockeys and organizing such races is given exemplary punishment.