IN a more rational world, Pak-US relations would be conducted in a calm and reasonable manner against a backdrop of mutual respect for and understanding of what animates the other country`s interests. Alas, in the world we do inhabit many of those traits are missing when it comes to the business of Pak-US relations. Taking the bait of Republican Congressman Dana Rohrabacher, Pakistani officials have fallen over themselves to express outrage at the congressman`s attempt doomed to failure from the outset to get his fellow American legislators to support a Baloch right to self-determination. On Saturday, Prime Minister Gilani himself denounced Mr Rohrabacher`s resolution. Politicians will be politicians and, given that Mr Rohrabacher was the one who chose to deliberately provoke, perhaps it was too much to hope for that Pakistani officialdom would not react. Amidst all of this, the US administration has tried to put some distance between itself and the troublemaking Congressman Rohrabacher but the assurance that US government policy very much respects the existing boundaries of Pakistan is already drowned out by the conspiracy brigade here that sees grand plans to armtwist or undermine Pakistan behind every move that originates in the US.
But playing politics with international relations comes with its own set of dangers. In a more functional world, the govern-ment here would have understood that while protesting Mr Rohrabacher`s initiative was necessary for the purposes of domestic politics, some rationality also had to be injected into the debate by clearly indicating that Mr Rohrabacher was not the face of the US administration and that his is a minority point of view in US foreign policy circles. The dangers of whipping up anti-Americanism are well known to anyone who has followed the security establishment`s use of such tactics as a buffer against American demands: sooner than later, the state here becomes hostage to the very anti-Americanism it fans to try and gain a tactical advantage.
Consider that one of the reasons the recommendations for revamping PakUS relations have not been laid before a joint session of parliament is believed to be the government`s concern about the reaction of right-wing groupings, most notably the Difaa-i-Pakistan, that have mobilised in the country in recent months. Given that the right-wing wants a complete break in ties with the US, and that`s something good sense and reality would dictate against, the government is content to delay the normalisation of ties with the US. This is what happens when mindless anti-Americanism is rampant. So, condemn Mr Rohrabacher by all means but also take care to not stoke passions to which the state itself becomes hostage.
Monday, February 20, 2012
Sri-Lanka Crimes against humanity
RELATIVE peace may have been established in Sri Lanka, but questions are being raised about the costs involved. A resolution is to be tabled at the forthcoming session of the United Nations Human Rights Council in Geneva following a preliminary investigation by the UN which found that Sri Lanka`s `conduct of the war represented a grave assault on the entire regime of international law`.
Survivors` accounts and video footage that have emerged since the war ended indicate that during the first half of 2009 the Sri Lankan military bombed and shelled indiscriminately. Hundreds of thousands of civilians who were trapped in a small enclave in the north of the island were killed. Up to 40,000 Tamil civilians may have been killed in five months alone. Crimes against humanity were committed by the Tamil Tiger rebels too, who refused to let civilians flee the war zone and used their own people as human shields. After thewar ended, 280,000 survivors were detained in a giant refugee camp, with 11,000 suspected rebels being locked up in the world`s largest mass detention without trial. Tamils claim that summary executions, torture and gang rape continued for months beyond the war.
While Sri Lanka has held its own inquiry, it has been criticised for focusing only on the excesses committed by the rebels and not on the military`s role. But accountability is a requirement under international law, and those guilty of perpetrating rights abuse during times of war must be brought to justice for the sake of setting strong precedents noless thanfor the sake of the survivors.
Many states, including Pakistan, have considered the quelling of armed insurgencies inevitable for the survival of the country.
How peace is achieved, however, is of critical importance. In no case can the abuse of human rights or the committing of war crimes be tolerated.
Survivors` accounts and video footage that have emerged since the war ended indicate that during the first half of 2009 the Sri Lankan military bombed and shelled indiscriminately. Hundreds of thousands of civilians who were trapped in a small enclave in the north of the island were killed. Up to 40,000 Tamil civilians may have been killed in five months alone. Crimes against humanity were committed by the Tamil Tiger rebels too, who refused to let civilians flee the war zone and used their own people as human shields. After thewar ended, 280,000 survivors were detained in a giant refugee camp, with 11,000 suspected rebels being locked up in the world`s largest mass detention without trial. Tamils claim that summary executions, torture and gang rape continued for months beyond the war.
While Sri Lanka has held its own inquiry, it has been criticised for focusing only on the excesses committed by the rebels and not on the military`s role. But accountability is a requirement under international law, and those guilty of perpetrating rights abuse during times of war must be brought to justice for the sake of setting strong precedents noless thanfor the sake of the survivors.
Many states, including Pakistan, have considered the quelling of armed insurgencies inevitable for the survival of the country.
How peace is achieved, however, is of critical importance. In no case can the abuse of human rights or the committing of war crimes be tolerated.
Wednesday, February 1, 2012
Pakistan - Killer Drugs
WHAT had started out as a case of negligence on the part of a few individuals assigned to select and supply drugs to the Punjab Institute of Cardiology in Lahore has turned into a tragic exposé of malaise that implicates more than one administration and government in the country. The situation reads like a dark saga of a system that most knew to be ailing but which parties with vested interests had still wanted to perpetuate.
Now, with the rising death toll of PIC patients, apparently from the use of contaminated drugs, the search for a new system has been given greater impetus by a flurry of news reports. Doctors have voiced a very reasonable demand about replacing bureaucrats with experts as drug monitors.
There are calls for completing devolution from the centre to the province under the 18th Amendment. The Punjab and federal governments have been held guilty of adding to the panic, with a somewhat uncertain media groping in the dark as it comes up with one horrifying story after another. In part, this has been the outcome of a general lack of information among the sources the media taps.
As patients are scared away from public-sector hospitals, pharmacies from all over Pakistan are reporting a huge switch from locally produced medicines to more costlyand reliable foreign substitutes. The people fear that the supply of medicines may not have been limited to the PIC and they can hardly be faulted for thinking so given the absence of a clear and timely explanation based on the frank sharing of facts. For instance, a certain percentage of the revenues earned by pharmaceutical companles is supposed to be spent on research and quality control. There is no discussion on how much is collected under this head and how much of the amount is spent, especially when Pakistan continues tobe dependentonlaboratories abroadfor tests on medicines. This requires more than a simple explanation.
Other aspects too must be given consideration. Of these, the completion of the devolution scheme tops the list, although the argument that the country cannot do without a centralised body to monitor drugs is a valid one. At the moment, no one is sure about the validity of the Drugs Act of 1976 or about the Drug Control Authority as it existed under federal control. BuiIding alternative watchdogs is something the squabbling provincial legislators would be better off spending their energies on. There is plenty to do and plenty to say to make the current debate more meaningful than it has been so far.
Now, with the rising death toll of PIC patients, apparently from the use of contaminated drugs, the search for a new system has been given greater impetus by a flurry of news reports. Doctors have voiced a very reasonable demand about replacing bureaucrats with experts as drug monitors.
There are calls for completing devolution from the centre to the province under the 18th Amendment. The Punjab and federal governments have been held guilty of adding to the panic, with a somewhat uncertain media groping in the dark as it comes up with one horrifying story after another. In part, this has been the outcome of a general lack of information among the sources the media taps.
As patients are scared away from public-sector hospitals, pharmacies from all over Pakistan are reporting a huge switch from locally produced medicines to more costlyand reliable foreign substitutes. The people fear that the supply of medicines may not have been limited to the PIC and they can hardly be faulted for thinking so given the absence of a clear and timely explanation based on the frank sharing of facts. For instance, a certain percentage of the revenues earned by pharmaceutical companles is supposed to be spent on research and quality control. There is no discussion on how much is collected under this head and how much of the amount is spent, especially when Pakistan continues tobe dependentonlaboratories abroadfor tests on medicines. This requires more than a simple explanation.
Other aspects too must be given consideration. Of these, the completion of the devolution scheme tops the list, although the argument that the country cannot do without a centralised body to monitor drugs is a valid one. At the moment, no one is sure about the validity of the Drugs Act of 1976 or about the Drug Control Authority as it existed under federal control. BuiIding alternative watchdogs is something the squabbling provincial legislators would be better off spending their energies on. There is plenty to do and plenty to say to make the current debate more meaningful than it has been so far.
Obama owns up to drone strikes
WASHINGTON, Jan 31: US President Barack Obama has confirmed that unmanned aircraft that regularly strike suspected militant targets in Pakistan`s tribal areas are launched by the United States and that the drones reach the areas the Pakistani army cannot.
Until now, US officials had refused to discuss the issue in public.
`Obviously, a lot of these strikes have been in the Fata and going after Al Qaeda suspects, who are up in very tough terrain along the border between Afghanistan and Pakistan,` he said. `We are able to pinpoint strike on Al Qaeda operative in a place where the capacities of that military in that country may not be able to get them.
President Obama made the comments in a `virtual interview` that was conducted via Google+ and YouTube, with hundreds of thousands of questions submitted online.
Five individuals were selected to participate in the online `hangout with the president`.
This was not the first time that President Obama or other US senior officials were asked about drones. But in the past, they refused to answer questions about the drones, saying that they could not discuss `intelligence matters`. In social conversations, US officials indicated that the United States and Pakistan had an arrangement, which required America to carry out the attacks quietly. The arrangement allowed Pakistan to protest theattacks in the media but in meetings with US officials, Pakistan rarely raised this issue.
Diplomatic observers in Washington see the Obama administration`s decision to publicly own up the drone attacks against the backdrop of the ongoing negotiations between the two countries on drawing a new contract for bilateral ties.
Pakistan launched a parliamentary review of its relationship with the US after the Nov 26 Nato raid on its military posts killed 24 soldiers.
The US, upset by Osama bin Laden`s discovery in a Pakistani garrison town, has welcomed the review, indicating that it too wanted a new arrangement. Earlier this week, US Defence Secretary Leon Panetta urged Pakistan to release a physician who had helped the CIA trace Bin Laden in Abbottabad.
Diplomatic observers say that Washington wants an understanding on issues like the drone strikes in the new arrangement.
`For us to be able to get them in another way would involve probably a lot more intrusive military actions than the one that we`re already engaging in,` said Mr Obama while explaining why the US would continue to use the drones to target militants.
`I think that we have to be judicious in how we use drones,` Mr Obama said, adding that they had been used for `very precise, precision strikes against Al Qaeda and their affiliates`.
He assured those who believed that the drones werebeing used indiscriminately that `this thing is kept on a very tight leash` and the US did not use drones `willy nilly` but in a way that avoided more intrusive military actions.
The drones, he noted, had been very successful in eradicating terrorist hideouts.
`And obviously, Pm looking forward to a time where Al Qaeda is no longer operative network and we can refocus a lot of our assets and attention on other issues,` he said.
`That doesn`t mean that we shouldn`t be careful about how we proceed on this. But this is something that we`re still having to deal with, there`s still active plots that are directed against the United States,` he said.
President Obama also made it clear that the US was not planning to discontinue the drones strike in the near future.
`I think we are on the offensive now. Al Qaeda`s been really weakened, but we`ve still got a little more work to do, and we`ve got to make sure that we`re using all our capacities in order to deal with it,` he said.
The US media noted that President Obama had begun to move away from his cautious avoidance of the subject in the past, since he had begun to shift into campaign mode in 2012, noted the L. A.
Times.
In his statement on Monday, Mr Obama echoed the arguments of Pentagon and CIA officials, who often make the point in private discussions that the drones can perform targeted strikes and thereby substantially reduce the potential for civilian casualties associated with highaltitude bombing.
But Mr Obama went well beyond that as he took issue with a Monday story in the New York Times, which reported that the State Department was operating a small fleet of surveillance drones to protect US embassies, consulates and personnel stationed in Iraq following the withdrawal of American troops.
Some Iraqi officials are angry about the programme and see it as a violation of their sovereignty, according to the Times report. But Mr Obama said the US still respected the sovereignty of other nations even as it used drones within their borders.
`The truth of the matter is, we`re not engaging in a bunch of drone attacks inside of Iraq,` Mr Obama said.`There`s some surveillance to make sure that our embassy compound is protected.
During Monday`s mass interview, one of the participants asked Mr Obama: `Why are we sending money to places like Pakistan that are known to give money to terrorism?` `Pakistan is one where our relations have gotten more strained because there are a lot of extremists inside that country and either for lack of capacity or political will, they haven`t taken them all on. In some cases, they`ve been very cooperative with us. In other cases, not as much as we want,` Mr Obama said.
`So we`re always trying to find the right balance, making sure that if we`re providing them with aid, they`re also providing us with assistance in terms of making our people safer and there are times where they disappoint us in terms of their performance. But we`re going to keep on trying to engage as many countries as possible, mainly because it`s good for our national security.
Until now, US officials had refused to discuss the issue in public.
`Obviously, a lot of these strikes have been in the Fata and going after Al Qaeda suspects, who are up in very tough terrain along the border between Afghanistan and Pakistan,` he said. `We are able to pinpoint strike on Al Qaeda operative in a place where the capacities of that military in that country may not be able to get them.
President Obama made the comments in a `virtual interview` that was conducted via Google+ and YouTube, with hundreds of thousands of questions submitted online.
Five individuals were selected to participate in the online `hangout with the president`.
This was not the first time that President Obama or other US senior officials were asked about drones. But in the past, they refused to answer questions about the drones, saying that they could not discuss `intelligence matters`. In social conversations, US officials indicated that the United States and Pakistan had an arrangement, which required America to carry out the attacks quietly. The arrangement allowed Pakistan to protest theattacks in the media but in meetings with US officials, Pakistan rarely raised this issue.
Diplomatic observers in Washington see the Obama administration`s decision to publicly own up the drone attacks against the backdrop of the ongoing negotiations between the two countries on drawing a new contract for bilateral ties.
Pakistan launched a parliamentary review of its relationship with the US after the Nov 26 Nato raid on its military posts killed 24 soldiers.
The US, upset by Osama bin Laden`s discovery in a Pakistani garrison town, has welcomed the review, indicating that it too wanted a new arrangement. Earlier this week, US Defence Secretary Leon Panetta urged Pakistan to release a physician who had helped the CIA trace Bin Laden in Abbottabad.
Diplomatic observers say that Washington wants an understanding on issues like the drone strikes in the new arrangement.
`For us to be able to get them in another way would involve probably a lot more intrusive military actions than the one that we`re already engaging in,` said Mr Obama while explaining why the US would continue to use the drones to target militants.
`I think that we have to be judicious in how we use drones,` Mr Obama said, adding that they had been used for `very precise, precision strikes against Al Qaeda and their affiliates`.
He assured those who believed that the drones werebeing used indiscriminately that `this thing is kept on a very tight leash` and the US did not use drones `willy nilly` but in a way that avoided more intrusive military actions.
The drones, he noted, had been very successful in eradicating terrorist hideouts.
`And obviously, Pm looking forward to a time where Al Qaeda is no longer operative network and we can refocus a lot of our assets and attention on other issues,` he said.
`That doesn`t mean that we shouldn`t be careful about how we proceed on this. But this is something that we`re still having to deal with, there`s still active plots that are directed against the United States,` he said.
President Obama also made it clear that the US was not planning to discontinue the drones strike in the near future.
`I think we are on the offensive now. Al Qaeda`s been really weakened, but we`ve still got a little more work to do, and we`ve got to make sure that we`re using all our capacities in order to deal with it,` he said.
The US media noted that President Obama had begun to move away from his cautious avoidance of the subject in the past, since he had begun to shift into campaign mode in 2012, noted the L. A.
Times.
In his statement on Monday, Mr Obama echoed the arguments of Pentagon and CIA officials, who often make the point in private discussions that the drones can perform targeted strikes and thereby substantially reduce the potential for civilian casualties associated with highaltitude bombing.
But Mr Obama went well beyond that as he took issue with a Monday story in the New York Times, which reported that the State Department was operating a small fleet of surveillance drones to protect US embassies, consulates and personnel stationed in Iraq following the withdrawal of American troops.
Some Iraqi officials are angry about the programme and see it as a violation of their sovereignty, according to the Times report. But Mr Obama said the US still respected the sovereignty of other nations even as it used drones within their borders.
`The truth of the matter is, we`re not engaging in a bunch of drone attacks inside of Iraq,` Mr Obama said.`There`s some surveillance to make sure that our embassy compound is protected.
During Monday`s mass interview, one of the participants asked Mr Obama: `Why are we sending money to places like Pakistan that are known to give money to terrorism?` `Pakistan is one where our relations have gotten more strained because there are a lot of extremists inside that country and either for lack of capacity or political will, they haven`t taken them all on. In some cases, they`ve been very cooperative with us. In other cases, not as much as we want,` Mr Obama said.
`So we`re always trying to find the right balance, making sure that if we`re providing them with aid, they`re also providing us with assistance in terms of making our people safer and there are times where they disappoint us in terms of their performance. But we`re going to keep on trying to engage as many countries as possible, mainly because it`s good for our national security.
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