Spread of fierce police action must stop

Jehan Perera

Opposition UNP MP, Lakshman Seneviratne is one of the latest public figures to claim to be under death threat. A few weeks ago he alleged in Parliament that some of those behind the wave of abductions and assassinations in the country were in high places within the government. When the opposition parliamentarian publicly accused a triad consisting of former Air Force officer Nishantha Gajanayake, Colombo DIG Rohan Abeyawardena and Defence Secretary Gotabhaya Rajapaksa of being involved in those activities, the government initially scoffed at the accusation. But today the former Air Force officer is under arrest and a police investigation is underway.
   Throughout the prevailing reign of terror, the government’s consistent position has been that it is innocent of any wrongdoing, is being unfairly accused, and that the LTTE and criminal gangs cannot be totally restrained by the government’s security forces in the present climate of war and terrorism. From President Mahinda Rajapaksa downwards to the UNP crossovers who promised with every appearance of sincerity to bring good governance into the government, the refrain from the ranks of government is much the same. Undoubtedly a large number of abductions and killings taking place in the country can be attributed to the LTTE and to criminal gangs.
   The LTTE’s track record, particularly with regard to child abductions and enforced recruitment, and other human rights violations, eventually got it banned and ostracised in various parts of the civilised world. In the present climate of war, LTTE operatives have recently been caught with 1000 kilogram truckload of bombs for explosion outside the northern and eastern theatres of war. It can be seen that turning over a new leaf in favour of the sanctity of life is still far from the mind of the LTTE. In addition to the LTTE, there would also be other groups, including paramilitaries and criminals, who would seek to exploit the grave security situation in the country to further their own financial and other interests.
   In a country that has become accustomed to no action being taken to halt abuses when high government officials stand accused, the arrest of even one of the three persons named by opposition parliamentarian Lakshman Seneviratne has come as a major surprise. On the other hand, there have to be many persons involved in a sophisticated network that has abducted people in Colombo, despite all the security checkpoints, and take them far out of Colombo to be either killed or be kept as hostage until the ransom is paid. The media has reported that several other officers in the military are being investigated.
   
   Shocking
   Indeed it is shocking that the Defence Secretary of the country, who is also the President’s brother, and the most senior police officer in charge of Colombo city could even be named as being part of a scheme that has terrorized the Tamil people who have been its primary victims. Such accusations, when made by responsible spokesmen of the largest opposition party, highlight the crisis of governance, and breakdown of confidence in governance in the country. More recently the malevolent forces have spread their tentacles to also claim Muslim and Tamil businessmen from whom vast sums of money have been extracted. Some estimates have put the figure at Rs 6 billion or USD 50 million.
   The Chairman of the Presidential Commission to Probe Abductions, Disappearances and Killings, Mahanama Tillakaratne has recently stated that 1713 disappearances were reported in the country during the period from January 1, 2006 to February 25, 2007, with 1002 persons subsequently reappearing. Majority of the killings and abductions were reported from the Eastern Province.
   The international ceasefire monitors of the Sri Lanka Monitoring Mission recently reported that in June 2007, in one week alone, there were 34 abductions in the eastern part of the country. It is shocking that despite the appointment of this commission and others, still the human rights abuses continue unceasingly. Their failure to end the spree of human rights violations and abuses shows that ad hoc and temporary bodies, however well intentioned, cannot deal with the major crises of governance in our country.
   On the other hand, it is even more shocking that well over a thousand people could be abducted and have disappeared in areas under government control, and the government could claim that it does not know what has happened to them. It is unbelievable that the intelligence agencies of the government, as formidable as the Central Intelligence Department (CID), Terrorism Investigation Department (TID) and other security agencies could not have traced the perpetrators of the crimes of abductions and disappearances until Mr Seneviratne mentioned names. This is especially shocking because there are media reports of many businessmen who have been abducted and released. With a little cajoling and confidence building it is certain that they will be able to cast light on who took them, and to whom their families negotiated with to secure their release, and to whom the ransom money was paid.
   One line of speculative thought as to the reason for the government machinery to start moving in regard to the abductions and killings that have been taking place even in Colombo, is that the recent activism of the Supreme Court has served as a wakeup call to the government. Not only has the Supreme Court made several decisions in the last few months that brought a halt to controversial actions by the government, most notably the forced eviction of Tamil lodgers in Colombo. The Chief Justice has also made some unflattering pronouncements about the executive arm of the government headed by the President, including its lack of consistency and truthfulness, which may have jolted the government into action fearing further judicial activism. The present role of the Supreme Court in Sri Lanka clearly demonstrates the value of autonomous arms of government in a democracy.
   
   Straightforward
   There is, however, a more straightforward explanation about the action that the Police has finally taken to apprehend the master minds behind the wave of abductions and assassinations, in Colombo at least. This would be the integrity of the Sri Lanka police force as a national institution. There are many weaknesses in the Sri Lanka Police, not least of all the dearth of Tamil speaking officers, which has eroded confidence in that section of the population. But it can be said with confidence that most of the persons who joined the police would have done so, not merely to get a job, but because they were motivated from within themselves to be guardians of people’s lives, their security and their property. Almost all of such persons serving in the police force would be extremely unhappy at the breakdown of law and order that they are witnessing. This is not mere surmise.
   A seminar on the issue of arrest and detention, and the protection of human rights was recently organised by PAFFREL, the People’s Action for Free and Fair Elections, with support from the Canadian government, at which I was present. The seminar saw the head of the national police force, IGP Victor Perera and other senior police officers from the Colombo district participating and speaking with every appearance of sincerity about the dilemmas and challenges they were faced with in the course of their duties. I saw goodwill and a longing to perform their duties honourably in what they said. The thrust of the police chief’s speech was that police officers had to counter those who broke the law and violated human rights without behaving in the same manner.
   Recently the police chief was nearly made the scapegoat in the fiasco where the government sought to evict Tamil lodgers from Colombo. The President even said that there would be an inquiry into the actions of the Police chief, making it seem that the decision to evict the Tamil lodgers was one taken by the police acting on their own. However, the media published leaked internal documents of the government that showed that the decision had actually been taken at a meeting attended by Defence Ministry officials at the highest levels.
   In the past year, the international image of Sri Lanka and its government have plunged to dangerously low levels that could impact on the country’s sovereignty, due to human rights abuses associated with political assassinations, abductions, disappearances and ransom-taking. In every international forum, and on every occasion possible, the issue of an independent international human rights mechanism for Sri Lanka is being canvassed by members of the international community with vigour.
   The challenge for civil society is to ensure that national institutions are protected from over-politicisation and being made subservient to political pressures that are illegal and harmful to the national interest. Educating personnel in these national institutions by conducting seminars is alone not sufficient. The best hope of a strengthened set of national institutions that could stand up for principles of good governance would for civil society to seek to revive the now defunct 17th Amendment to the Constitution. This law was unanimously approved by Parliament a decade ago, but has lately been disregarded in cavalier fashion by a government leadership that seems to have no intention of following those principles of good governance. If the politicians are not able or willing to honour the 17th Amendment, perhaps the Supreme Court will utilize its legal and moral power to ensure that they do.

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Sending children to death
in heaven’s name

Jahed Ahmed and Mehul Kamdar

And this is what the Maolanas tried to achieve with their preaching. They were happy to see ignorant people fall for lies of heaven and even offer their own children for martyrdom.
   The terrible tragedy over the standoff outside the Lal Masjid in Islamabad continues with one Maolana, Rashid Ghazi, and his followers holding perhaps as many as 850 children as a human shield to prevent what they claim is an imminent attack by the Pakistani paramilitary forces. Though the Pakistan Tribune newspaper is reporting that as many as 27 girls may have been killed inside the mosque as this piece is written, the exemplary restraint shown by the Pakistani forces needs to be lauded. They did not succumb to the temptation of going in with guns blazing; they actually offered amnesty to all of the Maolana’s followers who did not have criminal cases against them.
   The government also offered Rs 5000 to every surrendering student inside so that they could leave to join their families. And, how did the two leaders, who are responsible for this crisis, respond? They got their students to swear to accept martyrdom at first and then the elder Maolana, Abdul Aziz, tried to sneak out by hiding in a batch of girl students wearing a burqa. He even gave an interview to several TV channels while wearing the same burqa without any shame for his act. And his brother holds hundreds of children hostage.
   
   Igniting minds
   Until this crisis reached boiling point, these men were busy igniting the minds of Muslim youths (boys and girls) with hatred, espousing violence through the temptation of heaven in the afterlife, and yet, it is now clear, they didn’t believe a trace of it themselves. Or, if they did, why did the elder Maolana try to escape? Going by his own logic, one could argue, with his attempted escape, (he was caught at the end) Maolana Aziz lost a golden opportunity to reach heaven.
   Sadly, while he peddled this fraudulent vision through violence, murder and mayhem, some believed the Maolana and killed and perished when the Pakistani paramilitary forces returned fire when they were first attacked.
   “They only want martyrdom, they don’t want to go home,” said a girl student named Maryam Qayeum while leaving mosque before the fighting began. This tells how the temptation of heaven was dangled as a bait to instigate impressionable young minds towards violence and killing. And the stupidity extended to some adults as well.
   A father of two girl students described his daughters attending a madrassa attached to the mosque saying, “They are 14 and 10 years old. I have talked to them and they are willing to die for Islam.” A sane and normal father would have wanted to see his daughters grow up to be normals people and become doctors, engineers, teachers, bank officers or other professions where they could contribute to society and make everyone proud. What kind of father would want to see his own 10 and 14-year-old girls dead?
   And this is what the Maolanas tried to achieve with their preaching. They were happy to see ignorant people fall for lies of heaven and even offer their own children for martyrdom.
   Through all of this, a pattern is clear. Whether it is a Maolana Abdul Aziz or an Osama Bin Laden, no preacher of hatred wants to see his own family suffer or to find martyrdom himself. The Maolana extracted a promise of martyrdom from hundreds of young people and then conveniently tried escaping with a woman’s burqa by hiding among young girls. Bin Laden sent dozens of young men to their doom on 9/11 and promptly went into hiding when the US sent a powerful army to Afghanistan to get him.
   Humanists, both religious and secular, have agonized and tried to understand this vulnerability in some people who happily cede common sense in return for promises of a fictitious salvation. While there may be no single reason that is common to every case of religious brainwashing by people like the Maolana, the fortunate fact is that those who would be swayed by this kind of thought are a minority. About a month ago, almost a million people marched in the streets of Pakistan to protest against the Maolana’s edicts and demanded that the government take action against these lunatics.
   
   Maolana’s joke
   These were ordinary, religious people, who could not stomach the nonsense that the Maloanas were bandying about. In the end, Maolana Abdul Aziz, as the senior cleric, did a far better job of discrediting himself than any protestors against him or government forces could have done. By turning himself into a national joke, hopefully, he has opened the eyes of those who wanted to die listening to his lies. Hopefully, the mind of the man who wanted to see his two little girls martyred is also open to the reality of what this hate monger represented.
   — SAN-Feature Service
   Jahed Ahmed and Mehul Kamdar are the co-moderators of mukto-mona.com, a network of humanists and freethinkers from South Asian countries.

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Emad Mekay in Washington

The U.S. Justice Department is investigating allegations of bribery by the British defence contractor BAE Systems to Prince Bandar Bin Sultan, a high-ranking member of the Saudi royal family with wide contacts and relations in the United States.
   The news brings a high-profile investigation initially launched in Britain to the United States, where the political influence of the Saudi royal family is well-known.
   Although the British government dropped its own probe last December, citing national security considerations, U.S. prosecutors determined that BAE could be investigated under the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act because it used U.S. banks to allegedly transfer payments to accounts controlled by Prince Bandar.
   The Justice Department involvement has had immediate ramifications, with the company’s shares losing eight percent of their value.
   “BAE Systems has been notified by the U.S. Department of Justice that it has commenced a formal investigation relating to the company’s compliance with anti-corruption laws, including the company’s business concerning the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia,” BAE Systems said in a statement sent to IPS.
   
   Blair closed enquiry
   It is not clear yet what prompted Washington to get involved the case, given its close relationship with both Britain and the Saudis, but the decision comes after weeks of lobbying by some European officials, and development and anti-corruption groups around the world who denounced the decision by the Tony Blair government to close its own investigation.
   In a letter campaign, they urged Blair to reopen the Serious Fraud Office (SFO) inquiry into allegations of slush funds surrounding the 80-billion-dollar Al Yamamah arms deal between BAE Systems and Saudi Arabia, a transaction that dates back to 1985.
   They argued that future efforts by Britain to prescribe governance and transparency standards for developing countries receiving aid and debt relief are likely to be viewed with scepticism.
   The anti-bribery committee of the Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development had also demanded an explanation from the British government and decided to conduct a further examination of Britain’s efforts to combat bribery.
   The SFO is still examining corruption charges involving BAE contracts in Romania, the Czech Republic, Tanzania and South Africa.
   Meanwhile, an investigation by the British BBC earlier this month found that BAE paid nearly two billion dollars in bribes to the Saudi prince, a charge that both Prince Bandar and BAE vehemently deny.
   Many activists say that the British government succumbed to political pressure both from BAE, Europe’s’ leading defence company, and from Saudi officials who threatened to cancel future lucrative arms deals.
   Last year, Saudi Arabia signed an expanded military agreement with Britain, including a commitment to acquire at least 24 Eurofighter Typhoons to replace its air force fleet of Panavia Tornado Air Defence Variant (ADV) fighters.
   They were part of the multi-billion-dollar Typhoon order that would provide the cornerstone of a third phase to the bilateral Al Yamamah arms agreement.
   This agreement has already covered the delivery and support of 120 Tornado ADV and Interdictor Strike (IDS) aircraft, BAE Systems Hawk and Pilatus PC-9 trainers and other equipment.
   The 2006 agreement also seeks to further develop Saudi Arabia’s national aerospace industry through the transfer of technology from BAE, the main contractor, and the establishment of additional in-country support facilities.
   BAE says it is in the process of promoting an extensive upgrade of Saudi Arabia’s Tornado IDS aircraft in an effort to further boost the value of its Al Yamamah business activities.
   But the expanded deals are just one factor in the investigation. Prince Bandar wields enormous political clout—even more so in the United States, where he spent much of his career and developed close relations with many U.S. politicians, including the Bush family.
   He also recently endeared himself to U.S. foreign policy circles, including the powerful pro-Israel hawks in the U.S. Congress, with a rapprochement between his conservative kingdom and Israel, a key U.S. ally in the Middle East.
   After he came to serve as Saudi Arabian King Abdullah’s national security advisor, he made unprecedented advances towards Israel.
   In the past, U.S. citizens have reported they were refused a Saudi visa because their passports reflected travel to Israel or indicated they were born in Israel. This has not happened recently.
   Bandar bin Sultan is also widely credited for forging an unprecedented front made up of his country, Jordan and Egypt, which rallied against Hezbollah in Lebanon during its war with Israel last summer.
   The position won him praise in Washington and was heralded as a new era in Arab-Israeli relations.
   Saudi Arabia is also likely to be a major player if the U.S. decides to take military action against Iran over Tehran’s nuclear programme.
   U.S. lawmakers have yet to make a statement on the case.
   — Inter Press Service

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ISLAMABAD DIARY

Jonaid Iqbal

‘Operation silence’ has reached its bitter and gory end with nine valiant soldiers dead and a collateral damage of about 50 (Official figure; some sources, including the editorial of Dawn, speak of around 150 casualties)
   The arch militant Rasheed Ghazi is dead. His body is being dispatched by a helicopter to his native village for burial.
   Many more were injured but in the process the operation was able to save about 50 women and children. In fact the operation is still in the mopping up stage, now as we write on Wednesday morning. Gunshots are still being heard from the basement of the fortified sanctuary.
   Last evening Prime Minister Shaukat Aziz said in a meeting of the cabinet that the government had showed maximum restraint but after the Lal Masjid brigands had torched the Environment Ministry it could no longer countenance lawlessness, and a state within a state. Even then it (the government) tried to find a peaceful solution and went through the negotiation process. The government was willing to send Rasheed Ghazi and his ailing mother to his village.
   However, the turning point came after unreasonable demand for securing safe passage for some of the well-trained and foreign guerillas believed to be hiding in the fortified basement and bunker. It was thrown to a position to negotiate with militants and rebels. No government could possibly do this. The Operation Silence began soon thereafter.
   The government has received huge endorsement from two main political leaders, including Benazir Bhutto and Altaf Hussain. Benazir in a statement said that after Rasheed Ghazi’s threat to use suicide bombers the government was left with no other choice than to begin the operation.
   The leader of the Opposition Maulana Fazlur Rahman, who initially castigated the Lal Masjid for intransigence, but today he is sitting out in London from the Multiple Parties Conference convened at London by Nawaz Sharif.
   Foreign leaders including President George Bush has given thumbs up to President Musharraf, and the European Union was ‘gravely concerned’ about fighting between government forces and Islamic militants.
   China said it supported the operation but also sought more protection for about 5000 Chinese citizens living in Pakistan. On Friday three Chinese automobile engineers were murdered in an auto-rickshaw repairing centre in a village near Peshawar. Quite mysteriously, the murderers also made a film of the dead corpses.
   Indian journalist Inder Malhotra speaking to a television network said the operation was viewed in India as an attempt by Pakistan to take on militants elements. From here the two countries could proceed to begin a process of creating good atmosphere in bilateral relations with each other.
   The editor of a Lahore newspaper, Najam Sethi, said it might be good fallout for the mainstream parties although in the long run the matter would be exploited and could negatively affect President Musharraf’s bid to seek election from the present Assemblies.
   Likely, many people see Operation Silence as a battle for Islamabad, a battle between the religious elements and the liberals.
   One analyst suggested that after the incident the government should support the liberal elements of the society more. It questions what went wrong when weapons were being amassed in the seminary within only stone’s throw distances of intelligence headquarter at Islamabad.
   But the equation is still not so simple. We see some trouble brewing in North Waziristan. A report said the religious party which is in the government in the NWFP, has started holding Jirgas to avoid a military operation in Swat valley.
   Here, let us end with acknowledging our error in reporting in this Diary last week that the Lal Masjid affair was over after the arrest of chief cleric Maulana Abdul Aziz, who came out of the mosque and was arrested. In fact the standoff between the government and the Lal Masjid militants continued all through this week, until last night.

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