Jaibans Singh
With notoriety comes a
celebrity status; A good example of this adage is the international celebrity
status that Hafiz Mohammad Saeed, the head of the Pakistan based international
terrorist organisation Lashker-e-Toiba (LeT), has attained after the US put a
$10 Million bounty on his head. The bounty has greatly elevated his stature and
placed him in the exalted league of Al Qaeda’s Ayman al Zawahiri and Taliban’s
Mullah Omar. Suddenly, the professor turned Jihadi has attained centre stage
with the media, drawing room gossips, bureaucrats and top leaders of the world.
He was the prime topic of discussion during the recently concluded meeting
between Prime Minister Manmohan Singh and Pakistan’s President Asif Ali
Zardari. As expected, Manmohan Singh was absolutely forthright in demanding
strong action against the maverick terrorist while President Zardari was
evasive. It seems that not much has changed so far as Pakistan is concerned
despite announcement of the bounty.
The US has taken great
pains to explain to India that recognition of Saeed as one amongst the top
international terrorists has a lot to do with the LeT sponsored terrorist
attack in Mumbai in the year 2008 (26/11). India needs to remind the US that
for many decades the Nation cried hoarse over Pakistan’s proclivity to export
terror; the US, in turn, chose to ignore this reality as a localised problem
between two petulant neighbours. In fact, it continued to support Pakistan and
gave the rogue Nation considerable confidence to carry on with its
reprehensible activities. The result was that India has fought and continues to
fight a lonely battle against Pakistan sponsored terror. Secondly, post 26/11,
Indian handed over to enough evidence to Pakistan to implicate Saeed as the
mastermind of the attack. Evidence was provided way back in August 2009 with a
demand for Saeed’s arrest and questioning. This was followed by submission of
another document “Dossiers on Pak Nationals involved in Mumbai Terror Attacks”
to Pakistan in February 2010 in which Saeed was prominently mentioned. All
through these proceedings India kept the US in the loop, but the latter did not
react.
The keen interest that the
US is now taking in Saeed has less to do with India and more with some
irrefutable evidence of LeT’s links with al Qaeda and Afghanistan Taliban. This
evidence has come about from documents seized during the Osama raid at Abbotabad
in Pakistan and revelations of David Headley, the Pakistan American who is in
US custody for having facilitated 26/11 for the LeT. The evidence has clearly
established LeT’s global ambitions and its tie ups with the ISI, al Qaeda,
Taliban, Haqqani network and other such organisations which are detrimental to
the US engagement in Afghanistan. Add to this the fast deteriorating
US-Pakistan relationship and we have in place a large number of reasons for the
US to have declared this bounty on Saeed; as a corollary its concern for India
slides very much into the background. It is quite evident that despite a
supposedly world class intelligence gathering capability and a host of think
tanks dedicated to the study of international developments, the US has never
really been able to get things right.
So far as India is
concerned Saeed can, at best, be viewed as just one link in a long Pakistan
based chain which carries out terrorist activity on its soil. Maulana Masood
Azhar, the chief of Jaish-e-Mohammed, Syed Sallah-ud-Din, chairman of the
United Jihad Council and many others are engaged in India centric terrorist
activities. All of them, like the LeT, are based in Pakistan; derive support
from the ISI; have links with organisations like al Qaeda/Taliban; receive
financial support and protection from the Pakistan government and function with
a fair degree of freedom. Most of these leaders have the gumption to move
around freely; live in highly fortified lavish mansions and spout venom against
India and the western civilisation with impunity. Cumulatively, they have a
huge organisation comprising of forty plus terrorist training camps deep in
Pakistani soil and along the line of control where training is imparted and
infiltration carried out. The whole operation is run with massive manpower,
well established infrastructure and enormous funding of a scale which simply
cannot go unnoticed by the government of Pakistan, yet, the government feigns
ignorance.
Even as the sagacity shown
by the US in branding Saeed as a terrorist deserving of $ 10 Million on his
head is being enthusiastically discussed, the Indian Army has killed five
terrorists in a fierce encounter the Kupwara district of Kashmir on April, 05.
Earlier, five LeT terrorists were killed in the same area on March, 28. On
March, 22, a car bomb explosion in Kashmir left one person killed and 22
injured. Such recurring terrorist incidents bear testimony to the status quo so
far as Pakistan’s policy of exporting terror to India is concerned. This policy
is not likely to change or suffer a setback by the arrest, prosecution or
killing of one Hafiz Mohammed Saeed. The problem is far more deep rooted and
Saeed is just one, albeit important, clog the wheel.
India, therefore, may
appreciate the US decision as a part of its polite diplomatic engagement with
the country but let it be known that this means little unless Saeed is actually
put on the dock by Pakistan as part of an overall change in its policy with
regard to proliferation of terror on Indian soil. To this extent, the strong
message that Prime Minister Manmohan Singh has given to President Zardari that
containment of terror by Pakistan remains central to normalisation of relations
between the two countries is a step in the right direction.
Christof Heyns should not have been invited to India
Jaibans
Singh
The media
environment is abuzz with the visit of Mr. Christof Heyns, the UN’s Special
Rapporteur on extrajudicial, summary or arbitrary executions to India. Heyns’
visit is the first mission to India by an expert mandated by the UN Human
Rights Council (UNHRC) to monitor and report on extrajudicial, summary or
arbitrary executions. He visited Gujarat, Kerala, Jammu and Kashmir, Assam and
West Bengal and met secretaries of various ministries, police officers, human
rights activists and other officials in these states, over only 12 days.
A special rapporteur
is a title given to individuals working on behalf of various regional and
international organizations on mandates to investigate, monitor and recommend
solutions for specified issues. There are rapporteurs of the United Nations,
the African Union, the Organisations of American States and such bodies. This
particular body has been mandated by the United Nations to examine situations
of extrajudicial, summary or arbitrary executions in all circumstances and for
whatever reason and submit findings on an annual basis, together with conclusions
and recommendations, to the UNHRC and the General Assembly. Mr. Christof Heyns,
who belongs to South Africa, has held this post since August, 01, 2010. He is
likely to submit this report to the UNHRC only in 2013.
Notwithstanding the
fact that there is still a year to go before the report would be tabled, the
special rapporteur did not hesitate from meeting the media and giving a brief
on his observations. He told reporters in New Delhi that he considered the
Armed Forces (Special Powers) Act to be a “symbol of excessive state power”
that “has no role to play in a democracy”. “During my visit to Kashmir, AFSPA
was described to me as ‘hated’ and ‘draconian’. It clearly violates
International Law. A number of UN treaty bodies have pronounced it to be in
violation of International Law as well,” said Heyns. It is also significant
that He has condemned violence perpetrated by what he terms as “rebels” in
India thus exhibiting his complete ignorance about the fact that India is
facing a challenge of foreign sponsored terrorism and not a rebellion.
What is quite
incredulous in such fact finding missions is that some person quite divorced
from the history and culture of a particular land and equally ignorant about
its state of affairs has the gumption to embark on a whirlwind tour, meet a few
people and then wax eloquent on extremely complex issues with resounding
authority. Would people like Heyns be allowed to speak on the draconian nature
of the US PATRIOT Act which gives sweeping powers to the security establishment,
be it the Armed Forces of the country, the Homeland security or the Police;
powers like confiscation of property, authority to intercept communication and
delay execution of a warrant amongst others? Today in the US, if the State gets
an inkling of a person being involved in terrorism, it can act against the
person without recourse to the normal process of law as applied in a developed
free society. Security laws passed by other European countries like the
Britain’s “Anti-terrorism, Crime and Security Act 2001”, have equally stringent
provision much more inhibiting and draconian than the AFSPA, yet, not a word is
being said about the same.
Heyns heard the
versions of some people who professed to being victims of excess committed by
security forces, but he did not meet even one of the thousands of families who
have lost their near and dear ones to terrorist atrocity or innocent young
girls who have been blatantly victimised by terrorist lust. He seems to have
completely ignored the vitiated atmosphere prevalent in India’s neighbourhood
where rule of the gun, mostly perpetrated by the State itself, is rampant.
Pakistan is literally teeming with mercenaries and militants from across the
world poised to enter our sacred soil and blemish it in the name of Jihad.
Amidst all this he expects India to stand aside so as to establish its
“commitment to human rights”. Heyns is right when he talks of unacceptable
levels of deadly violence but he is totally ignorant about the source of this
violence and the herculean efforts being me made by a committed security
establishment to counter the same.
The Union Home
Minister, P Chidambaram, has responded rather meekly to the uncalled for and
unseemly comments made by the special rapporteur. He said that the rapporteur had
made “some positive statements.’’ On the views of the rapporteur on AFSPA,
Chidambaram took a circuitous route to state “Yes, we take note of the view but
that’s not a novel view as there are a number of people who have expressed the
same view and there are others who have a contrary view which is why the issue
remains unresolved”. One wonders whether he was referring to his own cabinet
colleague, the Union Defence Minister, when he spoke of the contrary view, a
classic case of using a situation to play Intra-party politics.
It is time for India
to realise that it no longer requires a mandate from organisations like the
United Nations in the conduct of its internal affairs. If a small country like
Sri Lanka can ignore this organisation, one wonders as to why India needs to
engage with it, especially so, with respect to sensitive security issues. What
need do we have, as a strong emerging world power, to exhibit willingness to
host such missions. No outsider can ever understand the problems of a country of
the size and complexity of India let alone give possible solutions. There was
no reason to invite Christof Heyns in the first place; now that a mistake has
been committed, the best way out is to learn from it and move on.
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