Standstill in the Middle East

GOING by the policies Mr Ehud Olmert is pursuing, it seems Mr Ariel Sharon is still very much at the helm of Israeli affairs. In a newspaper interview the other day, the acting prime minister and Kadima leader said Israel would unilaterally draw up its borders within four years. He even gave details of the border to be drawn up by 2010 and said Israel would then include chunks of West Bank territory, including Al Quds and several Jewish settlements, with the Jordan river as its security border. The statement makes two points clear: one, Mr Olmert will implement the understanding reached between Mr Sharon and President George Bush when the former visited the US in 2004. President Bush then agreed with Mr Sharon that Israel could retain some West Bank land even after withdrawing from it. Two, Tel Aviv will act unilaterally and impose a solution on the Palestinian Authority through brute force and with full American support instead of reaching a fair and final settlement with the Palestinian Authority through negotiations.

There is now little possibility of the peace process being revived. The roadmap — crafted by the US, EU, UN and Russia — had envisaged a sovereign Palestinian state coming into being by 2005. Yasser Arafat had accepted it immediately, while Israel gave its assent after considerable delay and that too after expressing serious reservations. However, Mr Sharon never began negotiations with Arafat and hedged by laying emphasis on reforms within the PA. But even after Arafat’s death, barring some inconsequential meetings between Mr Sharon and Arafat’s successor, Mahmoud Abbas, peace talks never really began. The only hopeful development last year was the Israeli withdrawal from Gaza, but that has not been followed by any indication from the Israel side that it will vacate the West Bank also as part of its obligation under the “land for peace” formula that was the basis of the Oslo accords.

In Hamas’s victory in the January 25 elections, Israel has a readymade pretext for refusing to talk to it. Even though Hamas has not yet formed a government, it and Fatah have agreed in principle to form a coalition government, though details remain to be worked out. In the meantime, Israel has withheld the transfer of revenues to the PA and thus sabotaged the possibility of a talks’ revival. It should have at least let a Hamas-led government settle down before deciding to cut off funding. Hamas, too, has to demonstrate realism. Now that it has won the parliamentary election and is to head a Palestinian government, it has to accept Israel as a reality and deal with it with a view to reviving the peace process.

A refusal to do so only helps the hawks among the Israelis and strengthens the powerful Israeli lobby in America which insists on a boycott of a Hamas-led PA. Nevertheless, Hamas has abided by the truce with Israel for almost a year now. One expects Israel now to follow a less belligerent line and stop threatening to murder Hamas leaders, including prime minister-designate Ismail Haniye, as Israeli Defence Minister Shaul Mofaz has done in a radio interview. Unfortunately, while blaming Hamas for its hard line, the western media fails to rap Israel for such threats, which in the past Israel has often carried out and got away with. Recall, for instance, Israel’s murder of Hamas founder Sheikh Ahmad Yassin and his successor, Mr Abdul Aziz Rantissi.

Attack on Mujaddedi

THE law and order situation in Afghanistan, which was never very satisfactory, is taking a turn for the worse. On Sunday the chairman of the upper house of parliament, also a former president of the country, Mr Sibghatullah Mujaddedi, was attacked by a suicide bomber. He had a narrow escape but the incident underlines the gravity of the crisis in Afghanistan. Mr Mujaddedi was quick to blame Pakistan’s ISI for the attack for which responsibility has been claimed by the Taliban. There is no denying the fact that the Taliban continue to be active in the Afghanistan-Pakistan border regions and they have prevented peace and stability from returning to the country. But to hold Pakistan’s military intelligence responsible for the doings of the Taliban is not only illogical but also points to the wider negative implications of such allegations for Pakistan-Afghanistan relations. Mutual recriminations can obstruct peace and stability from returning to the region.

Although the war on terror being waged by the United States with the help of Pakistan and Afghanistan in this region has made some headway, Al Qaeda and the Taliban still remain active. The terrain in the tribal areas of Pakistan and the porous borders between Afghanistan and Pakistan have made it difficult to capture all the Taliban and suppress terrorism. Pakistan itself is engaged in a war against these forces in Waziristan where they evade arrest by slipping across the Durand Line. In Afghanistan they are seeking to destabilise the country so that it cannot settle down to a phase of reconstruction and rehabilitation. The attack on Mr Mojaddedi is part of this sinister plan.

It is in the common interest of Afghanistan and Pakistan that the Taliban’s activities be checked. This will call for joint planning and coordination by the forces of the two countries since their territories are being used for terrorism and subversion. Rather than accuse one another and view the problem in a narrow ethnic perspective, common sense demands that they consider this as a common problem that is going to affect the future of both countries if they fail to address it jointly.

Where bias rules the roost

THE role of members of the US Congress in successfully blocking a company owned by the UAE government from taking charge of operations at six major American ports shows the level of prejudice that exists in the US against Arabs and Muslims. At least to his credit, US President George W. Bush was a strong backer of the deal, saying that he would veto any move by Congress to stop the company from going ahead with its plans. Mr Bush, who has never used his veto power, had said that preventing the firm would send a wrong signal to the Arab and Muslim world. Last week, a key Congress subcommittee voted overwhelmingly to stop the ports’ operations from being handed over to the UAE firm which then voluntarily withdrew. No substantial reasons have been given other than to point out that the UAE is a Muslim country from where Islamic extremists could find their way into the US and a connection is made implying that UAE management of the ports would somehow facilitate that and make America vulnerable to subversion.

The US lawmakers who scuttled the deal have shown themselves to be as prejudiced and ignorant of the outside world as the average American. The fact is that opposition in Congress picked up after many popular TV and radio talk shows — dominated by rightwingers — created alarm over the possibility of Arabs being placed in charge of US ports of entry. This was never going to be the case — a fact pointed out promptly by the company. It seems to be a case of deliberate slander against a country which happens to be a close ally of the US and a relatively moderate and forward-looking Muslim country. The US lawmakers, instead, seem to have based their opposition on very narrow and flimsy grounds that border on racism.

Slow but sure steps of justice

IF there is justice there will be peace. Nine men from Baroda were sentenced to life imprisonment by a special court in Mumbai for a massacre of innocents (known as the Best Bakery case) during one of the most terrible communal riots in our history, the Gujarat carnage of 2002.

And every Indian can declare with pride that he or she lives in a nation that has not only democracy, but something more: institutions of justice that deliver in matters of honour, truth, life and death.

A democracy is much more than counting votes once in five years. A democracy is about rights and wrongs each living day. The peace that democracy delivers, therefore, is a positive, creative, enhancing peace, not the peace of the graveyard that settles like a pall on nations condemned to dictatorship.

Democracy is about civil society and equality, of high courts as well as a scene I witnessed in a 7 a.m. Indian Airlines flight I took from Mumbai to Delhi on the morning of writing this column: an airhostess taking special care of an elderly Muslim man with a cap and a beard who was unsteadied by age as he walked uncomfortably into the aircraft. He was not at all wealthy; this could have been his first flight, perhaps taken for medical reasons. The airhostess gave him more help and attention than she offered anyone else. This is equality and civil society without prejudice in India. The Gujarat carnage is part of the truth; the airhostess is part of the larger truth. India is not secular because it is democratic. India is democratic because it is secular.

In a democracy, elections may be the court of first as well as last appeal, but there is so much space in between. Governments are unstable in a democracy, which is an excellent thing; but society is stable, which is even better. Governments are stable in a dictatorship, but society is unstable, constantly simmering under the pressure of a forced calm, and threatening to erupt at the slightest crack in the edifice.

Those in power did everything they could to subvert justice in the Best Bakery case, using authority to try and undermine the judiciary and money to change the evidence. The police are a mighty force in India, and never mightier than when they attempt to become the law. Governments bullied and bribed witnesses who were poor and vulnerable: I would not be too harsh on the poor and vulnerable, for we have very little idea of what constant, daily pressure by the police can mean. The important, and vital, point is that justice survived the malfeasance of the system; perhaps that is the only point. The courts were assisted by the dedication and sheer, determined obstinacy of civil society leaders like Teesta Setalvad, who refused to be defeated by the acquittal of the accused by a court in Gujarat, and went to the Supreme Court. One of those sentenced to life imprisonment, Sanjay Thakkar, begged for mercy once the judgment was announced. He once must have thought that his mentor, Gujarat chief minister Narendra Modi, would succeed in saving him from retribution. Thank God for Teesta Setalvad and the Supreme Court. And thank God for a free media too.

There were two judgments on the murder of Jessica Lal, in which the prime accused was a rich thug called Manu Sharma, son of a former minister of the Union government of India, no less, Vinod Sharma. There is little purchase in naming the political party to which he belonged, for all parties are infected with this insolent, brutal Delhi plague. The facts are simple, and their simplicity itself is evidence of how Delhi’s ruling elite believes that it can get away with murder after it has got away with theft.

Jessica Lal, a model, was shot dead in public in a restaurant owned by Bina Ramani. It was a crime of power, wealth, corruption and arrogance: power was the means to wealth, wealth was the source of corruption, and corruption is the reason for this murderer’s arrogance. The murderer took out a gun in full public view, shot Jessica dead and walked off. As simple as that. The case was widely reported. On February 21, additional sessions judge S.L. Bhayana acquitted Sharma. The judge was hapless if not helpless: he explained that the three key eyewitnesses had turned hostile.

The media delivered the second judgment on this case. It refused to accept the judicial verdict. One of the truths of Delhi is the fact that the police believe that they are employed not only to implement the law, but also to twist it according to their will. The media refused to let police get away with their lucrative indolence in this case. Every newspaper gave headlines that accused the authorities of corruption. No editor, of print or audiovisual media, consulted anyone else. Each editor reached his or her own conclusion, and the conclusion was similar. The stench of corruption was too strong for even the most cynical nose.

This anger was not limited to the police. It was also addressed to the new class that has become a running, cancerous sore of Delhi. It consists of rich, political or pseudo-political (by which I mean hangers-on of political progeny) thugs who are brimming with black money, and who are convinced that they are a phone call away from safety if they get into trouble. Their cars are a menace on the streets; their behaviour a menace to social life; their criminal side a menace to life. They are the middlemen of deals, the scum that has become obese thanks to cuts from the billions that are spent by the government each year in purchases. Their behaviour might have been funny were it not so deadly.

Many of them actually behave like villains from the screen, flaunting their power as if there is no accountability in Delhi’s ravenous jungle, and never will be. The media was also saying that Manu Sharma, a perfect example of this class, would not be permitted the luxury of indifference. The Delhi High Court had summoned the files of the Jessica Lal case from the Delhi police. This too was recognition of injustice.

Standards change; yesterday’s scandal becomes today’s morality; we stop asking questions in the name of friendship, or in the hope of a good time; the culture of consumerism becomes the primal law; your dress becomes your address. Sab chalta hai. Anything goes. Delhi is the world’s largest glasshouse: who shall throw the first stone? But there comes a moment when you no longer care whether the glasshouse remains intact or shatters. If that glasshouse is going to protect the killers at Best Bakery or the murderer of Jessica Lal, then it is time it got shattered into smithereens.

Civil society rose in both instances. It threw stone after stone in the Best Bakery matter, rousing the conscience and the best instincts of the highest judiciary. It rose again in the matter of Jessica Lal, and the Delhi High Court has taken the initiative.

But one stone was not sufficient in Best Bakery; and one stone might be insufficient in the case of Jessica Lal as well. The establishment has a very very thick hide, thickened further by the belief that the public has a very very short memory. The establishment has an invaluable weapon in time. The media woke up in the immediate aftermath of injustice. How long will it remain awake when the files wend their slow way through the courts, impeded by procrastination and fudge? Eternal vigilance is the price of liberty, etc., but how eternal is eternal?

The Delhi High Court has asked Delhi’s police commissioner to send a status report in four weeks and said it will hear the matter on April 19. Seven weeks is a pretty long eternity in media terms. We will see if media has the tenacity of a Teesta Setalvad or not.

The dead do not return. But they will haunt us until there is justice.

The writer is editor-in-chief of Asian Age, New Delhi.

Death of a tyrant

WHEN the Bosnian journalist Mirna Jancic went to The Hague to report on the trial of Slobodan Milosevic, she was repelled by the way in which the defendant, not infrequently, managed to turn the proceedings into a soap opera with himself as leading man.

In the blandly modern courtroom, which reminded her of the command deck of Starship Enterprise, Milosevic, conducting his own defence, rudely questioned the veracity of prosecution witnesses who had lost family and friends in the wars that he had instigated. In spite of reproofs from the court, he rambled on in self-important fashion, quoted proverbs, cited supposed historical parallels, told jokes, and made, or at least began to make, political speeches.

He insisted on calling a long list of witnesses who could offer no factual evidence but seemed to be there mainly to demonstrate that he, Milosevic, was a man with many connections. Yet, even so, Jancic wrote, “In my eyes the court represented victory over nihilism. Here was something that would not allow things to be forgotten or crimes to go unpunished.”

Milosevic’s determined filibustering drew out the trial month after month, and some may fancifully see his death, natural or otherwise, as a kind of triumphal last manoeuvre. Yet Milosevic’s behaviour in court was of a piece with his political career as a whole.

Tactically shrewd, strategically inept and morally void, he went down the road to war without ever really considering why he was doing so.

—The Guardian, London