Sunday, February 12, 2012
Saturday, February 11, 2012
فعالان مدنی بامیان خواستار محاکمه عاملان کشتار حادثه افشار شدند
فعالان مدنی و شماری از ساکنان ولایت بامیان در مرکز افغانستان در یک راهپیمایی خواستار محاکمه عاملان قتل عام افشار کابل شده اند.
حادثه افشار ۱۹ سال قبل و در زمان جنگهای داخلی میان گروه های مجاهدین در کابل اتفاق افتاد.
برگزارکنندگان این راهپیمایی کشتار در جریان جنگهای گروهی در محله افشار در غرب کابل را "قتل عام" خوانده و از نهادهای عدلی و سازمان های حقوق بشری خواسته اند که آن را به عنوان اقدامی ضد بشری محکوم کنند......Continue Reading.....
حادثه افشار ۱۹ سال قبل و در زمان جنگهای داخلی میان گروه های مجاهدین در کابل اتفاق افتاد.
برگزارکنندگان این راهپیمایی کشتار در جریان جنگهای گروهی در محله افشار در غرب کابل را "قتل عام" خوانده و از نهادهای عدلی و سازمان های حقوق بشری خواسته اند که آن را به عنوان اقدامی ضد بشری محکوم کنند......Continue Reading.....
Friday, February 10, 2012
Dripping with blood; Too many disagreements in Pakistan are fatal
Nor is secessionism the only cause of violence. Last October a bus outside Quetta was held up by gunmen on motorcycles and 13 of the passengers shot dead. The previous month 26 people had been killed when travelling on a bus to Shia holy sites in Iran. They were ethnic-Hazara Shias, of whom, according to Human Rights Watch, a research and lobby group, over 300 have been killed by Sunni extremist groups since 2008....Continue Reading...
Thursday, February 9, 2012
HRW urges US to pressure Pak govt on Balochistan situation
* Report holds government agencies, like ISI, IB, FC, police responsible for violence in province
By Manzoor Qadir
ISLAMABAD: Human Rights Watch, an NGO keeping a watch on gross human rights violations in Balochistan, has asked the United States to take action against the crimes taking place in the province.
The crimes include extra-judicial killings, torture, illegal detention, disappearances and forced displacement.
In a detailed report complied by HRW Pakistan Director Ali Dayan Hasan, it has been recommended that the US government press Pakistan to take all necessary measures to end the violations and fully investigate and prosecute all those responsible for the crimes.
The report states that many government agencies such as the ISI, IB, Frontier Corps, police and other such groups are responsible for many of the violations and demands the government take action and warn the culpable agencies.
The report further suggests that US should urge the government to suspend police and military assistance and cooperation programmes with the Frontier Corps, police, and Pakistan Army units based in Balochistan until military and civilian authorities fully investigate and take appropriate action against those committing the crimes.
The report wants Pakistan to implement effective mechanisms in place to ensure that no security unit funded or trained by the US is responsible for human rights violations and that adequate vetting and oversight mechanisms are in place to help deter abuses in the future.
The HRW further recommends that the US urge the Pakistan government to investigate alleged human rights abuses committed by the Lashkar-e-Jhangvi and other banned groups and hold those responsible to account, particularly those who have committed serious crimes in Balochistan such as the killings of several Shias.
It also demands that the Pakistan government take urgent measures to protect members of the Shia community and other vulnerable groups in Balochistan and across Pakistan and that the US government should also urge Baloch nationalist groups to cease attacks and threats against all civilians, particularly non-Baloch residents of the province.
Widespread fear of harassment, discrimination and killings has prompted some Shia community members living in Balochistan to consider leaving the country, even by illegal means.
Human rights groups say over 600 Hazaras have been killed since 2000. Media reports speak of dozens recently killed in attacks on the community in Quetta and in other parts of the province.
HRW states that their research indicates that at least 275 Shias have been killed in sectarian attacks in Balochistan alone since 2008.
The group has also urged the government to act against those illegally ferrying people out of the country in exchange for large sums of money.
The report further states that the government should take appropriate disciplinary action against group members who order or participate in attacks on civilians.
The HRW, in the report, discusses the political, economic, geographical and demographical aspects of the province in details. It reveales that the province has historically had a tense relationship with the federal government, due to issues of provincial autonomy, control of mineral resources and exploration, and a strong sense of deprivation and exploitation.
The Human Rights Watch also interviewed teachers, government officials, journalists, non-governmental organisations, and school children, who described attacks on Balochistan’s educational facilities, teaching personnel, and students as part of broader political, religious, and cultural division.
Daily Times
By Manzoor Qadir
ISLAMABAD: Human Rights Watch, an NGO keeping a watch on gross human rights violations in Balochistan, has asked the United States to take action against the crimes taking place in the province.
The crimes include extra-judicial killings, torture, illegal detention, disappearances and forced displacement.
In a detailed report complied by HRW Pakistan Director Ali Dayan Hasan, it has been recommended that the US government press Pakistan to take all necessary measures to end the violations and fully investigate and prosecute all those responsible for the crimes.
The report states that many government agencies such as the ISI, IB, Frontier Corps, police and other such groups are responsible for many of the violations and demands the government take action and warn the culpable agencies.
The report further suggests that US should urge the government to suspend police and military assistance and cooperation programmes with the Frontier Corps, police, and Pakistan Army units based in Balochistan until military and civilian authorities fully investigate and take appropriate action against those committing the crimes.
The report wants Pakistan to implement effective mechanisms in place to ensure that no security unit funded or trained by the US is responsible for human rights violations and that adequate vetting and oversight mechanisms are in place to help deter abuses in the future.
The HRW further recommends that the US urge the Pakistan government to investigate alleged human rights abuses committed by the Lashkar-e-Jhangvi and other banned groups and hold those responsible to account, particularly those who have committed serious crimes in Balochistan such as the killings of several Shias.
It also demands that the Pakistan government take urgent measures to protect members of the Shia community and other vulnerable groups in Balochistan and across Pakistan and that the US government should also urge Baloch nationalist groups to cease attacks and threats against all civilians, particularly non-Baloch residents of the province.
Widespread fear of harassment, discrimination and killings has prompted some Shia community members living in Balochistan to consider leaving the country, even by illegal means.
Human rights groups say over 600 Hazaras have been killed since 2000. Media reports speak of dozens recently killed in attacks on the community in Quetta and in other parts of the province.
HRW states that their research indicates that at least 275 Shias have been killed in sectarian attacks in Balochistan alone since 2008.
The group has also urged the government to act against those illegally ferrying people out of the country in exchange for large sums of money.
The report further states that the government should take appropriate disciplinary action against group members who order or participate in attacks on civilians.
The HRW, in the report, discusses the political, economic, geographical and demographical aspects of the province in details. It reveales that the province has historically had a tense relationship with the federal government, due to issues of provincial autonomy, control of mineral resources and exploration, and a strong sense of deprivation and exploitation.
The Human Rights Watch also interviewed teachers, government officials, journalists, non-governmental organisations, and school children, who described attacks on Balochistan’s educational facilities, teaching personnel, and students as part of broader political, religious, and cultural division.
Daily Times
Genocides without a distinct label
Kamila Hyat
Thursday, February 09, 2012
The writer is a freelance columnist and former newspaper editor
When genocides take place in countries, or regions within them, we usually have one group of people murdering another – either as some form of ‘ethnic cleansing’, or on the basis of religious belief. A combination of these factors has of course also taken place, and there is absolutely no evidence at this point that our world is becoming a more civilised place with such events continuing unabated around the world.
In the 1994 Rwandan civil war, as the Hutu and Tootsi tribes clashed, some 800,000 people died; some estimates put the toll higher. The death of over six million European Jews in the purges of World War II remains a reminder of man’s irrationality and brutality. The after-effects of those killings continue in some ways at least to shape the modern world and events within it.
But at least, through the years, these awful massacres have been discussed, debated and condemned at length. Trials have been held and the culprits, in some cases, brought to justice. The same also holds true for other acts of similar mass murders in the world – whether they took place in Uganda, Cambodia or a long time ago in Australia and North America.
In our country we have a situation that might be leading to genocide. The complication is that it does not involve a specific group or community. So many different kinds of murders go on that it is becoming harder and harder to keep track of the question of whom is killing who.
Since the mid 1990s thousands of Shia Muslims have died in targeted killings and bombings of various kinds. The process continues today. As a result, many have already fled the country including some of our top professionals. This attempt to wipe out an entire community on the basis of their specific beliefs has drawn too little official attention or a serious attempt to bring it to an end.
There are of course other kinds of killings on everywhere. The shootings based on ethnicity in Karachi have become a reality which erupts from time to time, leaving the city belching bouts of smoke like an unstable volcano. The threat of violence never lives far away from that city.
The same is becoming truer for Quetta, a city where, for many years, groups of all kinds co-existed with little tension and trouble.
The Hazara community is yet another target of frenzied violence. According to leaders representing the group, whose origins are mysterious but seem to lie in Central Asia, at least 600 people of Hazara have been murdered since 2000. The process appears to be gaining speed and ferocity. Given that the Hazara population of Pakistan is near "600,000" to "700,000" (Corrected) this is a very large death toll.
The danger of acceleration lies ahead, and is tied in to the possibility of a return to power of the Taliban in Afghanistan. The people of Hazara have in the past been a victim of these extremists on both ethnic and sectarian grounds.
While everyone appears to know which groups in our country are responsible for targeting this particular the community, nothing has been done to stop them or to put an end to the victimisation of the Hazaras. Their voice has not been heard; few seem even to have noticed what is happening.
Nor has the other killing of other ethnic and religious minorities in the country, who face persecution and death in different forms, drawn the concern that would have been expected.
In other words we have multiple acts of genocide happening in our country. Our cities have become killing fields where fewer and fewer feel safe. Aside from the traditional kind of genocide involving communities pitched against each other, we also have the mass killing of women with hundreds, perhaps thousands, killed each year as a result of ‘honour’ killings or for other reasons. This too counts as genocide of some kind.
We need to do more to at least lift the lid on the degree of violence which exists in the country. The silence has been too long and too deep. The government has time and time again failed to act and as a result the problem has worsened. Successive regimes have done nothing to end the flow of hatred which has continued to claim more and more lives and branched into many different forms with various groups targeting others.
Even the state has not remained uninvolved. International human rights watchdog bodies have blamed the killing and torture of nationalists in Balochistan on our own agencies. In such a situation it becomes even harder to find justice and discover precisely where the truth lies. To complicate matters nationalists too have even responsible for ethnic murders in their province, going ruthlessly after teachers and others from different provinces – even though they may have lived in Balochistan for generations.
The problem seems to be growing worse and worse. Certainly, no end is in sight. The generation growing up lives with this intolerance in all its different waves. From time to time a huge tidal wave sweeps up and claims scores of lives. At other times, smaller ripples kill in ones or twos.
As this goes on our media, many of our people and commentators who analyse events everywhere remain fixated on political happenings of various kinds. These include the court cases which grow more and more muddled and the murky political scene which lies all around us.
It is true of course that this reality makes it possible for the reign of death to continue with any restrictions. But somehow, we need to find a way to end these killings and to ensure that deliberate acts intended to wipe out certain portions of people from our country are no longer allowed to continue.
This can happen only if stern action is taken against the perpetrators and a climate is created through a variety of different means to build harmony and mutual understanding among the ranks that we seem to have lost over the past few decades.
This has been possible in some countries, it can probably be enforced her as well. We must make it possible in our own without a further loss of time. We have already waited too long, adding to the suffering of so many people everywhere. Our indifference to genocide is unforgivable.
Email: kamilahyat@hotmail.com
THE NEWS
Thursday, February 09, 2012
The writer is a freelance columnist and former newspaper editor
When genocides take place in countries, or regions within them, we usually have one group of people murdering another – either as some form of ‘ethnic cleansing’, or on the basis of religious belief. A combination of these factors has of course also taken place, and there is absolutely no evidence at this point that our world is becoming a more civilised place with such events continuing unabated around the world.
In the 1994 Rwandan civil war, as the Hutu and Tootsi tribes clashed, some 800,000 people died; some estimates put the toll higher. The death of over six million European Jews in the purges of World War II remains a reminder of man’s irrationality and brutality. The after-effects of those killings continue in some ways at least to shape the modern world and events within it.
But at least, through the years, these awful massacres have been discussed, debated and condemned at length. Trials have been held and the culprits, in some cases, brought to justice. The same also holds true for other acts of similar mass murders in the world – whether they took place in Uganda, Cambodia or a long time ago in Australia and North America.
In our country we have a situation that might be leading to genocide. The complication is that it does not involve a specific group or community. So many different kinds of murders go on that it is becoming harder and harder to keep track of the question of whom is killing who.
Since the mid 1990s thousands of Shia Muslims have died in targeted killings and bombings of various kinds. The process continues today. As a result, many have already fled the country including some of our top professionals. This attempt to wipe out an entire community on the basis of their specific beliefs has drawn too little official attention or a serious attempt to bring it to an end.
There are of course other kinds of killings on everywhere. The shootings based on ethnicity in Karachi have become a reality which erupts from time to time, leaving the city belching bouts of smoke like an unstable volcano. The threat of violence never lives far away from that city.
The same is becoming truer for Quetta, a city where, for many years, groups of all kinds co-existed with little tension and trouble.
The Hazara community is yet another target of frenzied violence. According to leaders representing the group, whose origins are mysterious but seem to lie in Central Asia, at least 600 people of Hazara have been murdered since 2000. The process appears to be gaining speed and ferocity. Given that the Hazara population of Pakistan is near "600,000" to "700,000" (Corrected) this is a very large death toll.
The danger of acceleration lies ahead, and is tied in to the possibility of a return to power of the Taliban in Afghanistan. The people of Hazara have in the past been a victim of these extremists on both ethnic and sectarian grounds.
While everyone appears to know which groups in our country are responsible for targeting this particular the community, nothing has been done to stop them or to put an end to the victimisation of the Hazaras. Their voice has not been heard; few seem even to have noticed what is happening.
Nor has the other killing of other ethnic and religious minorities in the country, who face persecution and death in different forms, drawn the concern that would have been expected.
In other words we have multiple acts of genocide happening in our country. Our cities have become killing fields where fewer and fewer feel safe. Aside from the traditional kind of genocide involving communities pitched against each other, we also have the mass killing of women with hundreds, perhaps thousands, killed each year as a result of ‘honour’ killings or for other reasons. This too counts as genocide of some kind.
We need to do more to at least lift the lid on the degree of violence which exists in the country. The silence has been too long and too deep. The government has time and time again failed to act and as a result the problem has worsened. Successive regimes have done nothing to end the flow of hatred which has continued to claim more and more lives and branched into many different forms with various groups targeting others.
Even the state has not remained uninvolved. International human rights watchdog bodies have blamed the killing and torture of nationalists in Balochistan on our own agencies. In such a situation it becomes even harder to find justice and discover precisely where the truth lies. To complicate matters nationalists too have even responsible for ethnic murders in their province, going ruthlessly after teachers and others from different provinces – even though they may have lived in Balochistan for generations.
The problem seems to be growing worse and worse. Certainly, no end is in sight. The generation growing up lives with this intolerance in all its different waves. From time to time a huge tidal wave sweeps up and claims scores of lives. At other times, smaller ripples kill in ones or twos.
As this goes on our media, many of our people and commentators who analyse events everywhere remain fixated on political happenings of various kinds. These include the court cases which grow more and more muddled and the murky political scene which lies all around us.
It is true of course that this reality makes it possible for the reign of death to continue with any restrictions. But somehow, we need to find a way to end these killings and to ensure that deliberate acts intended to wipe out certain portions of people from our country are no longer allowed to continue.
This can happen only if stern action is taken against the perpetrators and a climate is created through a variety of different means to build harmony and mutual understanding among the ranks that we seem to have lost over the past few decades.
This has been possible in some countries, it can probably be enforced her as well. We must make it possible in our own without a further loss of time. We have already waited too long, adding to the suffering of so many people everywhere. Our indifference to genocide is unforgivable.
Email: kamilahyat@hotmail.com
THE NEWS
Wednesday, February 8, 2012
Heavy snowfall worsens traffic mess in Kabul
2012-01-25 21:21:04
by Abdul Haleem, Yangtze Yan
KABUL, Jan. 25 (Xinhua) -- The continued snowfall over the past days has worsened the traffic chaos, especially in the Afghan capital of Kabul.
"You can see the long queue of people who have been waiting for one hour for a bus to go home but no bus is available," Mohammad Arif, a Kabul resident, told Xinhua on Tuesday evening, pointing to the flocks of people waiting at a bus stop in downtown Kabul.
Standing and shaking in the freezing weather, the 40-year-old Arif shouted in anger and despair that "no bus is ever coming to take people."
But when a minibus did arrive, Arif still didn't succeed in grabbing a seat in the fight with a group of equally desperate home goers.
Over the past two weeks, the major parts of Afghanistan including the capital city have experienced heavy snowfall. More than 40 people have lost their lives in avalanches and cold spell in the northeastern Badakhshan province, according to officials, while some roads leading to central Daikundi's provincial capital Nili have been blocked due to snow.
"I have been waiting for more than one hour but no bus, taxi or private car is available," said another Kabul resident Haroon, 35.
The temperature had dived to minus 13 degrees centigrade, forcing many drivers to stay at home to avoid accidents on the icy and congested roads.
Normally, few public buses are roaming in Kabul with over 4 million residents. There is no subway in the capital city to transport commuters.
However, some 400,000 vehicles, mostly private cars, are driven on the bumpy roads in Kabul, with a considerable number of private cars working as taxi.
The private car owners prefer to stay at home though they are more needed in heavy snowfall and freezing weather.
"I do not want to make accident and plunge myself into trouble, " Mohammed Sediq, a driver of a private corolla, told Xinhua, adding that driving in slippery streets is risky.
English.news.cn
by Abdul Haleem, Yangtze Yan
KABUL, Jan. 25 (Xinhua) -- The continued snowfall over the past days has worsened the traffic chaos, especially in the Afghan capital of Kabul.
"You can see the long queue of people who have been waiting for one hour for a bus to go home but no bus is available," Mohammad Arif, a Kabul resident, told Xinhua on Tuesday evening, pointing to the flocks of people waiting at a bus stop in downtown Kabul.
Standing and shaking in the freezing weather, the 40-year-old Arif shouted in anger and despair that "no bus is ever coming to take people."
But when a minibus did arrive, Arif still didn't succeed in grabbing a seat in the fight with a group of equally desperate home goers.
Over the past two weeks, the major parts of Afghanistan including the capital city have experienced heavy snowfall. More than 40 people have lost their lives in avalanches and cold spell in the northeastern Badakhshan province, according to officials, while some roads leading to central Daikundi's provincial capital Nili have been blocked due to snow.
"I have been waiting for more than one hour but no bus, taxi or private car is available," said another Kabul resident Haroon, 35.
The temperature had dived to minus 13 degrees centigrade, forcing many drivers to stay at home to avoid accidents on the icy and congested roads.
Normally, few public buses are roaming in Kabul with over 4 million residents. There is no subway in the capital city to transport commuters.
However, some 400,000 vehicles, mostly private cars, are driven on the bumpy roads in Kabul, with a considerable number of private cars working as taxi.
The private car owners prefer to stay at home though they are more needed in heavy snowfall and freezing weather.
"I do not want to make accident and plunge myself into trouble, " Mohammed Sediq, a driver of a private corolla, told Xinhua, adding that driving in slippery streets is risky.
English.news.cn
The banned outfit
Rafia Zakaria | Opinion | From the Newspaper
IT has been a decade of bans and lists. As the world of terror revealed itself to be more and more amorphous, nation states have fought back collecting the names, identifying the leaders and eliminating the followers of terror groups.
There are lists of banned organisations in Pakistan and lists of people not permitted in America. Along with lists there are typologies and profiles; the richer the nation, the more detailed the conjured portraits of terror.
In one of the latest episodes revolving around terror and terrorists, Malik Ishaq, leader of the banned Lashkar-i-Jhangvi, was recently released from detention from Kot Lakhpat jail.
A few days later, he attended a rally in Multan organised by the Difa-i-Pakistan Council, seen as a new motley coalition of groups such as the Jamaat-i-Islami, Ahle Sunnat Wal Jamaat (formerly known as Sipah-i-Sahaba), Maulana Samiul Haq’s faction of Jamiat Ulema-i-Islam and others.
Malik Ishaq was not the only freed terrorist present at the rally. Also in attendance was Hafiz Muhammad Saeed, head of the Jamaatud Dawa. Under the new rhetorical flourish of ‘defending Pakistan’ each emerged in public, untouched by previous sins committed under old names.
The massacre of Shia Hazaras in Mastung and the horrific attack on the Sri Lankan cricket team that left this country humiliated all seemed to be forgotten in view of the latest indignities imposed by the United States, the desecration of Muslim corpses by ‘infidel’ soldiers and the absolving magic of a new patriotic name.
The name game — the coining of new names as one agenda for hatred morphs into another — and the painstaking tracing of genealogies of terror by American experts has become such a well-oiled cycle that both ends follow practised sequences enacted with well-rehearsed outrage.
As per this worn script, two days after the rally the US ambassador to Pakistan reportedly warned that aid disbursements to Pakistan would be ceased unless action was taken against the two individuals.
Also as per the stage instructions, Pakistani heads nodded and made responsive motions, yet the curtain fell on January with no conclusions and no catharsis.
Adequate room was left by all involved for sequels that capitalise on the same plotlines with mildly altered angles and slight variations of dialogue. There are many critiques of course: everything written on either side of this issue; the inadequate denunciation and pursuit of terror on one end, the imperialist overreach and illegality of secret wars and surreptitious killings on the other.
Neither is able or willing to see the new pathology spawned by the entrenchment of these roles. Pakistanis and Americans as well as their respective governments are unable to see terror except in the limited shades of this scripted tragedy.
The challenges of labelling terror as endemic and the terrorist as a criminal, his pursuit and apprehension as an act of law enforcement rather than war-mongering at the American end rest on two issues.
First is the fact that the American criminal justice system rests on the precept of innocence until guilt has been established in a court of law and robust scepticism towards pre-emptive punishment even in situations where individuals pose a significant risk of future criminal activity.
Because the core of the ongoing war on terror is largely pre-emptive, there is resistance to the prosecution of alleged terrorists in American criminal courts or as the passage of the National Defence Authorisation Act reveals, the creation of a parallel system that permits acts such as indefinite detention that would otherwise be deemed unconstitutional.
The second factor has been the United States’ long-standing reticence to join the International Criminal Court, established in 2002 through the Rome Statute to prosecute war crimes, genocide and crimes against humanity. The first creates a perception of terror as something finite, existing in particular times and contexts and with a distinct end. The second leaves a vast gap in the transnational legal tools available to prosecute crimes beyond national jurisdictions.
Cumulatively, both leave the issue of terror to foreign policy experts and military strategists, both of whom conceptualise the elimination of terror and the terrorist as a linear task with finite parameters accomplished via bombs and targeted killings.
On the Pakistani end, there is the inability to conceptualise terrorism as a moral issue with dimensions beyond imperialism, nationalism and sovereignty.
As a result, people appear at rallies where known terrorist leaders are present; mobs collect and enact fatwas that punish religious minorities, and any failing to echo the populist rhetoric of denouncing America and railing against the West.
On the basis of this dynamic, the end of the war on terror and the withdrawal of the US and Nato forces is equivocated with the end of terror itself, possibly even the end of all scourges leaving a pristine Pakistan untrammelled by want or famine or disaster.
The beneficiaries of these delusions — American and Pakistani — are Hafiz Saeed and Malik Ishaq, who can discard their banned outfits for new fashions of populism, managing to dupe both those in Pakistan and those in America.
The former invest these chameleons with the bravado of facing down a bossy superpower; the latter believe that the terrorist is a product of ideology, demography, faith and a smattering of other variables.
Neither seems to understand that terror, like crime, is an ugly fact of life, the result of the failure of conscience and a detriment to all human beings. It will never go away, not with the exit of a superpower or the elimination of a terrorist leader.
Its denunciations must rest not on strategic calculations, the disbursement of aid, the passage of shipments, the counting of corpses and ruined lives and destroyed futures, its biggest casualty is our universal loss of faith in the possibility of justice.
The writer is an attorney teaching political philosophy and constitutional law.
rafia.zakaria@gmail.com
DAWN
IT has been a decade of bans and lists. As the world of terror revealed itself to be more and more amorphous, nation states have fought back collecting the names, identifying the leaders and eliminating the followers of terror groups.
There are lists of banned organisations in Pakistan and lists of people not permitted in America. Along with lists there are typologies and profiles; the richer the nation, the more detailed the conjured portraits of terror.
In one of the latest episodes revolving around terror and terrorists, Malik Ishaq, leader of the banned Lashkar-i-Jhangvi, was recently released from detention from Kot Lakhpat jail.
A few days later, he attended a rally in Multan organised by the Difa-i-Pakistan Council, seen as a new motley coalition of groups such as the Jamaat-i-Islami, Ahle Sunnat Wal Jamaat (formerly known as Sipah-i-Sahaba), Maulana Samiul Haq’s faction of Jamiat Ulema-i-Islam and others.
Malik Ishaq was not the only freed terrorist present at the rally. Also in attendance was Hafiz Muhammad Saeed, head of the Jamaatud Dawa. Under the new rhetorical flourish of ‘defending Pakistan’ each emerged in public, untouched by previous sins committed under old names.
The massacre of Shia Hazaras in Mastung and the horrific attack on the Sri Lankan cricket team that left this country humiliated all seemed to be forgotten in view of the latest indignities imposed by the United States, the desecration of Muslim corpses by ‘infidel’ soldiers and the absolving magic of a new patriotic name.
The name game — the coining of new names as one agenda for hatred morphs into another — and the painstaking tracing of genealogies of terror by American experts has become such a well-oiled cycle that both ends follow practised sequences enacted with well-rehearsed outrage.
As per this worn script, two days after the rally the US ambassador to Pakistan reportedly warned that aid disbursements to Pakistan would be ceased unless action was taken against the two individuals.
Also as per the stage instructions, Pakistani heads nodded and made responsive motions, yet the curtain fell on January with no conclusions and no catharsis.
Adequate room was left by all involved for sequels that capitalise on the same plotlines with mildly altered angles and slight variations of dialogue. There are many critiques of course: everything written on either side of this issue; the inadequate denunciation and pursuit of terror on one end, the imperialist overreach and illegality of secret wars and surreptitious killings on the other.
Neither is able or willing to see the new pathology spawned by the entrenchment of these roles. Pakistanis and Americans as well as their respective governments are unable to see terror except in the limited shades of this scripted tragedy.
The challenges of labelling terror as endemic and the terrorist as a criminal, his pursuit and apprehension as an act of law enforcement rather than war-mongering at the American end rest on two issues.
First is the fact that the American criminal justice system rests on the precept of innocence until guilt has been established in a court of law and robust scepticism towards pre-emptive punishment even in situations where individuals pose a significant risk of future criminal activity.
Because the core of the ongoing war on terror is largely pre-emptive, there is resistance to the prosecution of alleged terrorists in American criminal courts or as the passage of the National Defence Authorisation Act reveals, the creation of a parallel system that permits acts such as indefinite detention that would otherwise be deemed unconstitutional.
The second factor has been the United States’ long-standing reticence to join the International Criminal Court, established in 2002 through the Rome Statute to prosecute war crimes, genocide and crimes against humanity. The first creates a perception of terror as something finite, existing in particular times and contexts and with a distinct end. The second leaves a vast gap in the transnational legal tools available to prosecute crimes beyond national jurisdictions.
Cumulatively, both leave the issue of terror to foreign policy experts and military strategists, both of whom conceptualise the elimination of terror and the terrorist as a linear task with finite parameters accomplished via bombs and targeted killings.
On the Pakistani end, there is the inability to conceptualise terrorism as a moral issue with dimensions beyond imperialism, nationalism and sovereignty.
As a result, people appear at rallies where known terrorist leaders are present; mobs collect and enact fatwas that punish religious minorities, and any failing to echo the populist rhetoric of denouncing America and railing against the West.
On the basis of this dynamic, the end of the war on terror and the withdrawal of the US and Nato forces is equivocated with the end of terror itself, possibly even the end of all scourges leaving a pristine Pakistan untrammelled by want or famine or disaster.
The beneficiaries of these delusions — American and Pakistani — are Hafiz Saeed and Malik Ishaq, who can discard their banned outfits for new fashions of populism, managing to dupe both those in Pakistan and those in America.
The former invest these chameleons with the bravado of facing down a bossy superpower; the latter believe that the terrorist is a product of ideology, demography, faith and a smattering of other variables.
Neither seems to understand that terror, like crime, is an ugly fact of life, the result of the failure of conscience and a detriment to all human beings. It will never go away, not with the exit of a superpower or the elimination of a terrorist leader.
Its denunciations must rest not on strategic calculations, the disbursement of aid, the passage of shipments, the counting of corpses and ruined lives and destroyed futures, its biggest casualty is our universal loss of faith in the possibility of justice.
The writer is an attorney teaching political philosophy and constitutional law.
rafia.zakaria@gmail.com
DAWN
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