Pakistan: The wild and wooly land!

Ray · 03-12-2006, 13:49 PM

Quote:

This wild and woolly land

By Ardeshir Cowasjee

NOW, we are neither a banana republic nor have we yet been universally recognized as a ‘paan-biri’ republic. We continue, without too much of a roaring success, to desperately tell the rest of the world that we are civilized descendants of Mohammad Bin Qasim and his conquering heroes.

Wild and woolly as we are, our leaders insist that in the majority, we are moderate and strive for enlightenment.

Putting it mildly, we live in a strange environment. Last week’s press told us that a herd of wild boars from the Margalla Hills had invaded parliament and disrupted the ‘peaceful’ and, of course, ‘free and fair’ senate elections. Our prime minister was quick off the mark with one of those familiar statements which no one believes and smilingly announced to all and sundry that no money had changed hands during the election process.

My old and wildly civilized friend Akbar Bugti, the Tumandar of all the Bugtis (or nearly all as there are a few who disagree with him), has taken to living in a cave in the wilds of Balochistan, his ‘Dera’ headquarters having been blown to smithereens by the law enforcement agencies assisted by the gallant Pakistan army. Science having advanced as it has, I managed to speak to him via a satellite. He feels secure and insists he is quite happy being guarded by his fiercely loyal tribesmen.

In Lahore, we are not allowed to fly kites for fear that we may decapitate half the population of that fast burgeoning city. The enemies of fun, the battlers against laughter, have won out once again.

Despite our numerous laws and legislations, despite our adherence to habeas corpus, Dr Safdar Sarki of Jeeay Sindh fame remains untraceable. Shortly after he was picked up, his wife circulated a letter via the internet, e-mail, and otherwise : “Arbitrary arrest, torture and disappearance of a Texan, Dr Safdar Sarki, by Pakistani authorities.

“On Friday, Feb. 24, 2006, my husband, Dr.Safdar Sarki, a Texan, was taken away from his temporary Karachi residence by personnel belonging to Pakistan’s intelligence agencies. Dr. Sarki, a US citizen, had been campaigning for secularism and democracy, and specifically for the protection of the rights of ethnic and religious minorities in Pakistan. Witnesses report that Dr. Sarki was severely beaten for about an hour at his apartment by Pakistani security personnel before being blindfolded and moved to an unknown location.

“We the family and other Texan-friends have been trying to determine his whereabouts but all efforts have thus far proved in vain. Anonymous sources have reported that Dr. Sarki is being tortured in the custody of the Pakistani military. However, the Pakistani authorities deny that Dr. Sarki has been arrested. This has caused serious concern for the life of Dr. Sarki, Pakistani authorities having a history of torturing dissidents to death.

“My two sons Illahi (15) and Geanum (10) and I are very concerned about the life and safety of Dr. Sarki and request your office to use all available means to locate him in order to save his life. The extra-judicial detention of a distinguished American human rights campaigner on the eve of Mr. Bush’s visit to Pakistan is a grave insult not only to our president but to all Americans who value liberty and justice for all.

“We have contacted the State Department and the US consulates in Islamabad and Karachi. They are aware of this case. However, so far, no information is available to us. Please contact the U.S. embassy in Islamabad located at Diplomatic Enclave, Ramna 5, Telephone (92-51) 208-0000; Consular section telephone (92-51) 208-2700, fax (92-51) 282-2632, website http://islamabad.usembassy.gov/; contact the U.S. consulate-general in Karachi, located at 8 Abdullah Haroon Road, Karachi;. telephone (92-21) 568-5170 (after hours: 92-21-568-1606), fax (92-21) 568-0496, website http://karachi.usconsulate.gov/.

Contact the Office of Overseas Citizens Services at 1-888-407-4747 (during business hours) or 202-647-5225 (after hours); contact the office of President Bush, who is shortly to visit Pakistan; contact the office of President Musharraf at http://www.presidentofpakistan.gov.p...esident.aspx.”

Dr Sarki is a citizen of the United States, but does he hold dual nationality? Or is he also a citizen of this country? If he does and is, then there is not much the US State Department or even George W. Bush can do for him as the non-laws of Pakistan will prevail.

If, however, he holds only a passport of the United States which proclaims: “The Secretary of State of the United States of America hereby requests all whom it may concern to permit the citizen/national of the United States named herein to pass without delay or hindrance in case of need to give all lawful aid and protection,” one must wonder just why the secretary of state has not intervened. Is the Sarki operation a joint operation a la Waziristan?

On March 10, the Sindh High Court admitted an appeal filed by the brothers Dr Akmal Waheed and Dr Arshad Waheed against their conviction and sentencing by an anti-terrorism court and set aside both convictions and sentences. The two were freed forthwith — by the court, that is. They were not in fact freed, as the jail authorities refused to accept the court’s jurisdiction and announced that they would hold the two brothers for a further 30 days under the Maintenance of Public Order. They have been in custody since the middle of last year on the charge of, inter alia, having trained, helped and treated terrorists, facilitating their operations and providing them with financial assistance.

In 1976, I was imprisoned under Bhutto’s orders the 1976 MPO also being employed in my case. One fine day in Karachi Central Prison, walking towards me I spotted Chauhdry Zahoor Illahi, the late father of the present kingmaker, Chosaeb Shujaat Husain. ‘Dr Livingstone, I presume,’ I said, hand outstretched. An angry Chaudhry shot back, ‘Kowji, I am not Livingstone, I am Zahur Elahi.’ I confessed that I knew, and solicitously enquired what he was doing in Karachi jail. He told me that he had been picked up in Lahore and charged with having stolen a buffalo. His whereabouts were not known to his family.

One of his law-abiding kinsmen had filed a habeas corpus petition in the Lahore High Court and the judge had summoned the Lahore jailor to appear in court the next day. As soon as the order was passed to the wily jailor, he arranged for the Chaudhry to be whisked away. He was bundled into a small Suzuki and driven to Karachi jail. The judge was thus able to be correctly informed that the Chaudhry was not in the jurisdiction of the Lahore jail.

I suggested that I file a habeas corpus petition in the Sindh High Court which would put the Karachi jailor on the spot. The Chauhdry pleaded with me to do nothing of the sort as he may then be bundled on to the back of a Suzuki motor bike and carted off to Sibi or Mach jail.

Much later, in the mid-1990s, when Benazir was in her second term as prime minister, and Nawaz Sharif was leader of the opposition, she had Nawaz’s father, old Mohammed Sharif, picked up, hauled into a car, and taken away to be held in custody at some unknown location. It took days for Nawaz to locate him.

It is not that Nawaz did not do his bit in the interest of unlawful detention. Amongst those he had picked up and secluded were Najam Sethi of The Friday Times who was assaulted in his bedroom in the middle of the night, and Hussain Haqqani who was abducted from the roads of Islamabad. Both were lost for days.

It seems to be the fate of the citizens of Pakistan to live and exist in a wild-west woolly atmosphere, where anything goes other than the law. Few remember that it was Mohammad Ali Jinnah who exhorted his future law-makers to bear in mind, always and for ever, that the first duty of any government, democratic or otherwise, is to maintain law and order so that the lives and properties and religious beliefs of its citizens are protected. From the very start, the small men who followed him have never heeded his words.

Sarki’s wife must realize that Texan George Walker Bush, even if Sarki is a citizen of the US and of no other nation, is no Henry John Temple Palmerston (1784-1865). He will not be ordering his aircraft carrier Enterprise, to nuke-steam at full speed to our shores to ‘demand’ the release of her husband. With the passage of time, mankind has diminished.

E-mail: arfc@cyber.net.pk
http://www.dawn.com/weekly/cowas/cowas.htm

Cowasjee at his best!

Thread Tools
Show Printable Version Email this Page
Display Modes
Linear Mode Switch to Hybrid Mode Switch to Threaded Mode

Currently Active Users Viewing This Thread: 1 (0 members and 1 guests)