Insurgentjg

Wonder why did I write “in Pakistan” at the end of my article’s title? Obviously, one could satisfy one’s personal dignity and respect by finding a hideout far off from the place where you’ve inflated so much hypocrisy, institutional murders, false promises and so on!

Musharraf came into power as a result of a successful coup in 1999 when Nawaz Sharif’s government was overthrown and he was put behind the bars. Not only was Nawaz Sharif sent out of the country, the other mainstream political leader Benazir Bhutto was also out of the country on a self-exile. Almost claiming nonstop for seven years that these two would never return home, Musharraf finally had to give his stance a second thought.
Making the long story short, the two leaders came back to Pakistan in late 2007 and announced their contestation in General Elections. Clearly in the result, PPPP and PML(N) two stood out as the majority parties proving intelligence reports (PML-Q winning easily) to Musharraf wrong.

Musharraf had enjoyed the dual offices in my opinion. One, the President’s office and two, the implicit Prime Minister’s office since all power vested with him. However, the situation has changed dramatically and demands Musharraf to act as a President in true spirit i.e. let the Prime Minister do his job and manage the Government. Apparently, the retired military general is saying affirmative to all the demands and intentions being put forth before him however there’s one that he is not likely to accept. What is that? Signing his death warrant? Well, something equivalent. Signing the bill that 58-2B should be eliminated from the constitution. This puts Musharraf in the President house without any power to dissolve the assembly.
Moreover, its not just 58-2B. PML(N) is asking him to leave the entire arena and step out of the political scene completely. Understandably the tussle between him and the said party started back in 1999 where he had the power to overthrow PML(N). Contrary to that, now PML(N) has the power to throw him out of the political environment. But there’s a catch in this. The PML(N) needs 2/3rd majority in the Parliament to do so and they don’t even have 50% of that. However, if they manage to convince their allied parties i.e. the Pakistan Democratic Alliance (PDA), they can manage the 2/3rd majority and might be able to accomplish the termination of Musharraf.

PPP on the other hand has had an ambiguous stand in this regard. Since mid 2007, they’ve had these democratic talks (which they say) with the President Musharraf. The result of which was a National Reconciliation Ordinance which benefited the PPPP the most. Now the situation is quite interesting, PPPP might be OK with going along with Musharraf but PML(N) says NO. Hence, the situation isn’t that clear and itself revealing. We’ll simply have to wait to see its outcome.
The thing that makes me actually THINK over this issue in first place is the Pakistani Supreme Court. Before November 3, 2007 when Musharraf imposed Emergency, there was an ongoing case against the candidacy of Musharraf in the Supreme Court of Pakistan. Apparently, the judiciary was about to rule out against Musharraf’s legitimacy for the President’s election. Now, according to the PML(N)’s one point agenda, the PDA has agreed to restore the Pre-November 3 judiciary which means the same bench which was previously going to give a ruling on Musharraf’s case will be given another chance. This is the actual big question mark. Will they decide against his candidacy for President ship? If so, will he be gone? Is it that simple?

 One thing we can say, if PML(N) had taken the majority in general elections, Musharraf’s exit would have been almost inevitable. Now, we only have to see how much pressure can PML(N) assert on the PDA. Primarily, if it can influence its allied parties towards the formation of an exit door for President Musharraf.

“Human rights are rights a person possesses by virtue of being human” is much too narrow and limited for a Buddhist or global perspective. The argument is that these rights are” possessed” by every- one regardless of race, colour, sex, religion, birth, etc. and are not conferred by - or removable by- a political or other authority. On December 10, 1948 the General Assembly of the United Nations adopted and proclaimed the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, the full text of which appears in the following pages. Following this historic act the Assembly called upon all Member countries to publicize the text of the Declaration and “to cause it to be disseminated, displayed, read and expounded principally in schools and other educational institutions, without distinction based on the political status of countries or territories.”
Of all the articles in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, the most important article (to our society) is, article26, which is that:

(1) Everyone has the right to education. Education shall be free, at least in the elementary and fundamental stages. Elementary education shall be compulsory. Technical and professional education shall be made generally available and higher education shall be equally accessible to all on the basis of merit.

(2) Education shall be directed to the full development of the human personality and to the strengthening of respect for human rights and fundamental freedoms. It shall promote understanding, tolerance and friendship among all nations, racial or religious groups, and shall further the activities of the United Nations for the maintenance of peace.

(3) Parents have a prior right to choose the kind of education that shall be given to their children.

Education plays an important role in uplifting every society. A society can not survive without literate people .The Universal Declaration’s article 26 (right to education) is very important for Pakistani society, as majority of people in Pakistan are still illiterate, which is a drawback in our society. The Universal Declaration of this right has forced government to take some steps for the betterment of education system in Pakistan.

At independence, Pakistan had a poorly educated population and few schools or universities. Although the education system has expanded greatly since then, debate continues about the curriculum, and, except in a few elite institutions, quality remained a crucial concern of educators in the early 1990s.

Adult literacy is low, but improving. In 1992 more than 36 percent of adults over fifteen were literate, compared with 21 percent in 1970. The rate of improvement is highlighted by the 50 percent literacy achieved among those aged fifteen to nineteen in 1990. School enrollment also increased, from 19 percent of those aged six to twenty-three in 1980 to 24 percent in 1990. However, by 1992 the population over twenty-five had a mean of only 1.9 years of schooling. This fact explains the minimal criteria for being considered literate: having the ability to both read and write (with understanding) a short, simple statement on everyday life.

Relatively limited resources have been allocated to education, although there has been improvement in recent decades. In 1960 public expenditure on education was only 1.1 percent of the gross national product (GNP); by 1990 the figure had risen to 3.4 percent. This amount compared poorly with the 33.9 percent being spent on defense in 1993. In 1990 Pakistan was tied for fourth place in the world in its ratio of military expenditures to health and education expenditures. Although the government enlisted the assistance of various international donors in the education efforts outlined in its Seventh Five-Year Plan (1988-93), the results did not measure up to expectations.

Structure of the System

Education is organized into five levels: primary (grades one through five); middle (grades six through eight); high (grades nine and ten, culminating in matriculation); intermediate (grades eleven and twelve, leading to an F.A. diploma in arts or F.S. science; and university programs leading to undergraduate and advanced degrees. Preparatory classes (kachi, or nursery) were formally incorporated into the system in 1988 with the Seventh Five-Year Plan.

Academic and technical education institutions are the responsibility of the federal Ministry of Education, which coordinates instruction through the intermediate level. Above that level, a designated university in each province is responsible for coordination of instruction and examinations. In certain cases, a different ministry may oversee specialized programs. Universities enjoy limited autonomy; their finances are overseen by a University Grants Commission, as in Britain.

Teacher-training workshops are overseen by the respective provincial education ministries in order to improve teaching skills. However, incentives are severely lacking, and, perhaps because of the shortage of financial support to education, few teachers participate. Rates of absenteeism among teachers are high in general, inducing support for community-coordinated efforts promoted in the Eighth Five-Year Plan (1993-98).
In 1991 there were 87,545 primary schools, 189,200 primary school teachers, and 7,768,000 students enrolled at the primary level, with a student-to-teacher ratio of forty-one to one. Just over one-third of all children of primary school age were enrolled in a school in 1989. There were 11,978 secondary schools, 154,802 secondary school teachers, and 2,995,000 students enrolled at the secondary level, with a student-to- teacher ratio of nineteen to one.

Primary school dropout rates remained fairly consistent in the 1970s and 1980s, at just over 50 percent for boys and 60 percent for girls. The middle school dropout rates for boys and girls rose from 22 percent in 1976 to about 33 percent in 1983. However, a noticeable shift occurred in the beginning of the 1980s regarding the post primary dropout rate: whereas boys and girls had relatively equal rates (14 percent) in 1975, by 1979– just as Zia initiated his government’s Islamization program–the dropout rate for boys was 25 percent while for girls it was only 16 percent. By 1993 this trend had dramatically reversed, and boys had a dropout rate of only 7 percent compared with the girls’ rate of 15 percent.

The Seventh Five-Year Plan envisioned that every child five years and above would have access to either a primary school or a comparable, but less comprehensive, mosque school. However, because of financial constraints, this goal was not achieved.
In drafting the Eighth Five-Year Plan in 1992, the government therefore reiterated the need to mobilize a large share of national resources to finance education. To improve access to schools, especially at the primary level, the government sought to decentralize and democratize the design and implementation of its education strategy. To give parents a greater voice in running schools, it planned to transfer control of primary and secondary schools to NGOs. The government also intended to gradually make all high schools, colleges, and universities autonomous, although no schedule was specified for achieving this ambitious goal.

Female Education

Comparison of data for men and women reveals significant disparity in educational attainment. By 1992, among people older than fifteen years of age, 22 percent of women were literate, compared with 49 percent of men. The comparatively slow rate of improvement for women is reflected in the fact that between 1980 and 1989, among women aged fifteen to twenty-four, 25 percent were literate. United Nations sources say that in 1990 for every 100 girls of primary school age there were only thirty in school; among girls of secondary school age, only thirteen out of 100 were in school; and among girls of the third level, grades nine and ten, only 1.5 out of 100 were in school. Slightly higher estimates by the National Education Council for 1990 stated that 2.5 percent of students–3 percent of men and 2 percent of women- -between the ages of seventeen and twenty-one were enrolled at the degree level. Among all people over twenty-five in 1992, women averaged a mere 0.7 year of schooling compared with an average of 2.9 years for men.

The discrepancy between rural and urban areas is even more marked. In 1981 only 7 percent of women in rural areas were literate, compared with 35 percent in urban areas. Among men, these rates were 27 and 57 percent, respectively. Pakistan’s low female literacy rates are particularly confounding because these rates are analogous to those of some of the poorest countries in the world.

Pakistan has never had a systematic, nationally coordinated effort to improve female primary education, despite its poor standing. It was once assumed that the reasons behind low female school enrollments were cultural, but research conducted by the Ministry for Women’s Development and a number of international donor agencies in the 1980s revealed that danger to a woman’s honor was parents’ most crucial concern. Indeed, reluctance to accept schooling for women turned to enthusiasm when parents in rural Punjab and rural Balochistan could be guaranteed their daughters’ safety and, hence, their honor.

Reform Efforts
Three initiatives characterized reform efforts in education in the late 1980s and early 1990s: privatization of schools that had been nationalized in the 1970s; a return to English as the medium of instruction in the more elite of these privatized schools, reversing the imposition of Urdu in the 1970s; and continuing emphasis on Pakistan studies and Islamic studies in the curriculum.

Until the late 1970s, a disproportionate amount of educational spending went to the middle and higher levels. Education in the colonial era had been geared to staffing the civil service and producing an educated elite that shared the values of and was loyal to the British. It was unabashedly elitist, and contemporary education–reforms and commissions on reform notwithstanding–has retained the same quality. This fact is evident in the glaring gap in educational attainment between the country’s public schools and the private schools, which were nationalized in the late 1970s in a move intended to facilitate equal access. Whereas students from lower-class backgrounds did gain increased access to these private schools in the 1980s and 1990s, teachers and school principals alike bemoaned the decline in the quality of education. Meanwhile, it appears that a greater proportion of children of the elites are traveling abroad not only for university education but also for their high school diplomas.

The extension of literacy to greater numbers of people has spurred the working class to aspire to middle-class goals such as owning an automobile, taking summer vacations, and providing a daughter with a once-inconceivable dowry at the time of marriage. In the past, Pakistan was a country that the landlords owned, the army ruled, and the bureaucrats governed, and it drew most of its elite from these three groups. In the 1990s, however, the army and the civil service were drawing a greater proportion of educated members from poor backgrounds than ever before.

One of the education reforms of the 1980s was an increase in the number of technical schools throughout the country. Those schools that were designated for females included hostels nearby to provide secure housing for female students. Increasing the number of technical schools was a response to the high rate of underemployment that had been evident since the early 1970s. The Seventh Five-Year Plan aimed to increase the share of students going to technical and vocational institutions to over 33 percent by increasing the number of polytechnics, commercial colleges, and vocational training centers. Although the numbers of such institutions did increase, a compelling need to expand vocational training further persisted in early 1994.

Conclusion
So, this was how the Universal Declaration’s Article, 26 (right to education), has proved to be very important to our society. It has helped a lot in improving the education system of the country, since its independence. Females also got their right to education, but still majority of them our illiterate, because of our social, cultural and religious norms of the society. But government is still trying to provide awareness among the masses, about education and it is also providing many incentives such as, making education free for poor, building schools and colleges for them etc.

References:
www.wikipedia.org

www.hrw.org
www.plato.stanford.edu
www.un.org
www.yespakistan.com

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This article is based on readings and discusions by Mehreen Tariq

“No one shall be subjected to torture or to cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment or punishment.”

Although Pakistan is now an elected member of the new UN Human Rights Council, the practice of torture throughout the country is on the rise.  

The Constitution and the Penal Code prohibit torture and other cruel, inhuman, or degrading treatment; however, police regularly tortured, and otherwise abused persons. Police routinely used force to elicit confessions; however, there were fewer reports of torture by police. Some human rights groups stated that this decrease in reports reflects the influence of army monitoring teams, who discourage the use of torture; other observers suggested that the frequency of torture remained unchanged, but the media devoted less attention to the issue.
        
It is common practice in Pakistan for arrested persons to be subjected to physical and mental torture in order for the police to obtain a confession, other information, and extort money. A newspaper reported that there were 80 cases of torture in 2006 police custody in Lahore.

Methods of torture used by the police include beating with fists, legs, wooden sticks or a piece of reinforced leather and burning the victim with cigarettes butts. In fact, police and law enforcement agencies are conditioned to think that it is their duty to torture suspected criminals. This is in contradiction to the Constitution of Pakistan, which clearly prohibits the torture of any person. Police corruption was widespread. Police and prison officials frequently used the threat of abuse to extort money from prisoners and their families. Police accepted money for registering cases on false charges and tortured innocent citizens. Persons paid the police to humiliate their opponents and to avenge their personal grievances. An 18-year-old girl Safia was raped in the Gaddani jail after being severely tortured, and was then burned alive by the jail authorities. Although a tribunal was set up to look into this case, no investigation ever took place and the perpetrators of this horrendous crime remain free to commit further crimes.

Pakistan’s military government is in fact increasing its use of torture and military confinement of civilians. ‘Torture cells’ are generally found in cantonments and other military controlled areas in the country. In Karachi and Quetta these cells are under the control of the Corp Commanders. Only Inter Services Intelligence and Military Intelligence personnel are allowed to visit these cells. Military methods of torture include forcing detainees to dance naked before an audience for several hours, forcing them to do push-ups the entire night, putting rats in their pants or pajamas, forcing them to listen to audio and video cassettes of other torture victims, as well as stitching their lips together.

Civil and human rights groups as well as the media have highlighted such crimes. Although some inquiries into police brutalities lead to the suspension of the accused officers, the officers are swiftly reinstated in their former jobs. The reluctance of Pakistan’s legal system to effectively try perpetrators of human rights abuse makes it almost impossible for victims to obtain justice. The lack of internal and external checks on the actions of law enforcement officials, as well as the lack of disciplinary and legal action allows certain officers to torture and harass the citizens they are meant to protect.    Pakistan is a country where even Chief Justice of the Supreme Court, the apex court, is not spared physical and mental torture by the country’s law enforcement agencies.  Mr. Iftekhar Choudhary, the Chief Justice of Pakistan, was abused and tortured twice by law enforcement agencies, once in Islamabad (capital of Pakistan) and once in Karachi (capital of Sindh province). After Chief Justice Mr. Iftekhar Choudhary was summoned to Army House to appear before President General Musharraf, he was held in detention for five hours on March 9, 2007, where he went through severe mental torture, while five Generals were threatening and pressurizing him to resign. Subsequently, President General Musharraf referred his case (Reference) to the Supreme Judicial Council (SJC) on March 13, 2007. The Islamabad police took him into custody as he was appearing before court and he was manhandled. He was slapped; he was snatched by his hair and thrown brutally into a police van before several people.  Torture in custody is very widespread in Pakistan, as it is held that by means of torture the writ of the state/government is sought to be maintained. Reported torture cases increased from the number of 1000 in the year 2005 to a number of 1319 in the year 2006. This figure only involves the cases reported, whereas there is several additional cases that remain unrevealed due to the victims’ fear. During the first half of 2007, the practice of torture in custody was getting worse as several lawyers and journalists were also exposed to severe torture by police and army intelligence agencies Women were often the victims at the hands of their husbands or male relatives. Authorities reported 1,261 honor crimes in the 12 months after June 2003, with the majority in Sindh. The practice was also common in Punjab and among tribes in Baluchistan, NWFP, and FATA. On October 26, the National Assembly adopted legislation that provides for additional penalties for all crimes involving honor and that restricts the right of victims or heirs to pardon perpetrators in exchange for restitution. Sexual harassment was a widespread problem. While the Pakistan Penal Code prohibits harassment, prosecution was rare. Family law provides protections for women in cases of divorce, including requirements for maintenance, and lays out clear guidelines for custody of minor children and their maintenance. In practice, many women were unaware of these legal protections or unable to obtain legal counsel to enforce them. Divorced women were often left with no means of support and were fed up by their families. While prohibited by law, the practice of buying and selling brides continued in rural areas. Women are legally free to marry without family consent, but women who did so were often the victims of honor crimes.

Although, the government of Pakistan is trying hard to make an improvement in the above mentioned ill-treatment methods according to the demands of universal declaration of human rights and Islamic fiqa. We may hope that one day, Pakistan will succeed in making improvement in above tortured methods.

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This article is based on class discussions and readings by Sana Javaid.

(1) Men and women of full age, without any limitation due to race, nationality or religion, have the right to marry and to found a family. They are entitled to equal rights as to marriage, during marriage and at its dissolution.(2) Marriage shall be entered into only with the free and full consent of the intending spouses.(3) The family is the natural and fundamental group unit of society and is entitled to protection by society and the State.Why? Because our society has patriarchal structure in which male members of family dominated the decisions and females especially young girls have no right to marry with their own desire. In the wake of this structure honor killing (also called as karo Kari) is common in our society.

The number of honour killings appears to be steadily increasing as the perception of what constitutes honour widens. There are honour killings for rape, for seeking marriage and for seeking divorce. Women are not given a chance to clear up possible misunderstandings. Tradition decrees only one method to restore honour-to kills the offending woman. A woman subjected to rape brings shame to her family just as she would when engaging in a consensual relationship. “A woman raped shames the community and dishonours the man”, according to Nafisa Shah-it does not dishonour the rapist. Expressing a desire to choose a marriage partner and actually contracting a marriage with a partner of one’s choice in a society where majority of marriages are arranged by parents are considered major acts of defiance. Women who marry a man of their choice take recourse to state law, placing themselves outside the traditional shame; by the public nature of their action, they shame their guardians leading them to resort to violence to restore their honour. Frequently fathers bring charges of zina against their daughters who have married partners of their choice. But even when such a complaint is before a court, some men resort to private justice in the name of honour killings. For instance, the most recent form of honour killings for seeking divorce occurred on 6th April 1999, when 29-year-old Samia Sarwar, a mother of two young sons was shot dead in her lawyer’s office in Lahore. Her lawyer Hina Jilani was also threatened but not injured. The apparent reason for the killing was Samia Sarwar’s family, as their honour was defiled by her disobedience to their wishes and her persistence in seeking divorce from her abusive husband. They had allowed her to return home and accepted the incompatibility of spouses, but would not allow her to divorce. Her father is a prominent businessman, her mother a doctor, while Samia studied law. From this example we can easily interpret the extent to which girls are deprived of their right to get married or to have divorce with their own choice.One more reason to support this article of UDHR is the trend of child marriages and forced marriages in our society. A forced marriage is defined as a marriage “conducted without the valid consent of one or both parties and is a marriage in which duress whether physical or emotional - is a factor. FORWARD (Forum on Marriage and the Rights of Women and Girls)believes that any child marriage constitutes a forced marriage, in recognition that even if a child appears to give their consent, anyone under the age of 18 is not able to make a fully informed choice whether or not to marry. Child marriages must be viewed within a context of force and coercion, involving pressure and emotional blackmail and children that lack the choice or capacity to give their full consent. This is really heinous crime, as it makes the large part of our society deprived of their right to marry with their own choice. There are numerous detrimental consequences associated with Child marriage, with physical, developmental, psychological and social implications.Supporting the article 16 of UDHR, is very important for our society. It should be implied amply in Pakistan and also in rest of Asian states, where honour killing, child marriages are very common practice. Main reasons are lack of awareness, poverty, education, religious misconception, weak control of government over these issues and patriarchal structure of these societies. Because in case of honour killing, prestige and life of women, both are harmed badly by their own family members as well as child marriages mainly affects the health of that girl who got married. So, in our society we have dire need of article 16 of UDHR to be implemented. ___________________________This article is based on readings and class discussions by Sehrish FarooqBibliographyhttp://www.karokari.com/types_honour.html
http://www.forwarduk.org.uk/key-issues/fgmhttp
http://www.unhrc.org

Iraq! Winter 2004… There is much to be said, discussed and understood about the U.S. invasion, war and occupation of this ancient, oil-rich country.
The Bush government’s pre-war reasons for the invasion, disputed and disbelieved by millions immediately, have all been proven totally false. The latest U.S. government line about bringing democracy and freedom to the Iraqi people would be simply laughable, but since U.S. troops arrest, brutalize and kill Iraqi people everyday it is no joke.
Late last year, Medact, a British Medical Human Rights group, released credible estimates of up to 55,000 Iraqi civilian casualties. The killing goes on daily. Human Rights Watch, also in December of 03, reported that the U.S. and British invasion armies fired approximately 13,000 cluster bombs at Iraqi towns and villages. Over 2 million smaller bombs were released from these cluster munitions. This kind of hi-tech death, war and occupation can never be seen as democracy or freedom, no matter how slickly the Bush government or the corporate media manipulate the facts and images.
While the dying is disproportionately Iraqi, well over 500 U.S. soldiers have died and about 2500 have been wounded in this invasion and occupation so far. It is a certainty that many more U.S. soldiers will die and be injured and crippled. This killing will only cease once the war and occupation ends and all U.S. troops are brought home.
There are almost no serious analyses of this war and occupation coming from the corporate media or bourgeois politicians, even those publicly opposing the war. From among the people though, especially from progressive political and opposition groups and individuals, explanations and analysis of why Bush really invaded Iraq and what they are trying to gain is being heard.
Identifying some of the main themes, first of all there is oil. The second largest known oil reserve in the world is now under George Bush’s control. The other huge reserves of Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, Iran, etc., are now in easy gun range of a large U.S. occupation army in Iraq. However this develops, there is no doubt that the people and governments of these countries know that the U.S. is now poised to go further. This could be more invasions or political and economic strong-arming.
Control of Iraq and increased hegemony of the Middle East also gives the U.S. government and U.S. corporations a greatly enhanced position in their ongoing competition with the European Union, Japan and Russia. Europe in particular is totally dependent on Mid-East oil. As the advanced capitalist countries coalesce into 3 or 4 blocs, the U.S. wants to control the economic lifeblood—oil—throughout the world.
The only Mid-East country that officially welcomed and praised the U.S. invasion was the Israeli government. Of course the U.S. had troops in and launched some of the war from Kuwait, Qatar and Saudi Arabia. In Israel the right wing Likud government still fully supports the U.S. occupation and compares it to its own decades-long occupation of Palestinian land. Now we are seeing the U.S. occupation army employing Israeli type tactics against the Iraqi public. Doors are kicked in during the middle of the night; men and boys are taken off to secret U.S. prisons. Families and children of fugitive resistance fighters are often imprisoned. Homes are being blown up. But the Israelis, even after years of occupation, have not been successful with these terror tactics against the Palestinian resistance. In Iraq, we are already witnessing even more deadly attacks against U.S. troops in the past few months.
Early in the government’s road to this war, some critics argued that President Bush’s war fever was fueled by his father’s personal hatred of Saddam Hussein and Iraq. We now know that George W. Bush planned to wage war against Iraq from his first days in office, long before 9/11 and any other pretext that was later raised. Former Treasury Secretary Paul O’Neil’s recent book lays bare that Bush wanted and meant to invade Iraq from his first days in office.
However much any of the above views were the real reasons for this war, now that it continues, two further realities drive it on. The war profiteers, those merchants who profit from death and destruction, are circling like hogs in a feeding frenzy. Well-connected corporations, especially Halliburton and its subsidiaries, are raking in billions of U.S. tax dollars off this war. Every American war has seen some corruption and profiteering, but this pillage and what appears to be actual theft is obscene.
Immediately after 9/11/01, conservative, right wing and police forces seized on the sorrow and worry of the public to begin implementing a massive “Big Brother” police state machine. This included federal and state legislation, executive orders and the creation of new intrusive police structures and practices. The war against Iraq strengthened and speeded up this process. We now truly live in a war and police state. U.S. society is now more militarized than it has ever been. Intrusive police presence and snooping is a daily reality. This is not temporary. Bush, in his 2004 State of the Union speech, made this clear when he called for even more police state powers, all at the expense of people’s privacy and rights. There is a direct correlation between the U.S. state of war and the growing police state all across this country.
What we are witnessing is the emerging new face of U.S. imperialism. The United States has been an imperialist power for a long time. What we are seeing now is a new drive and dynamic to imperialism. With no Cold War or major socialist bloc to contend with, U.S. imperialism has embarked on a more aggressive and dangerous course. The U.S. has essentially declared itself to be the undisputed empire of the world. The more it invades and occupies overseas, the more it will build its police state domestically. These may be stark terms for some to easily accept, but the reality of all this is happening around us right now. Shying away from understanding it or dealing with it only makes us less safe and less free.
The driving force of imperialism is economics. Its methods are economic and political and recently more and more military. There already is a sizable segment of the U.S. public that is opposed to this war. The question that all Americans need to be asked, is to they want to live in an empire? In this election year it’s imperative and possible to ask these questions and to make opposition to this war very visible and powerful.
The fact that there are major anti-war candidates, Dean and Kucinich most clearly, reflects the ambivalence and worry of millions of Americans. Beginning with the March 20th worldwide anti-war mobilization, the Peace, Anti-War and Anti-Imperialist movements can tap into this worry of so many people. A building series of major rallies, as big and dramatic as possible, throughout this year is very feasible. Seriously opposing this imperialist U.S.A. war state and internal police state has its risks, but it is certainly possible and necessary right now. We can impact the short-term reality of the occupation and war in Iraq. More importantly perhaps, we can expose and resist the Bush government’s plan to erect this 21st century U.S. war and police state Empire. As a well-worn slogan puts it:  FREEDOM IS A CONSTANT STRUGGLE!

This article is based on readings and class discussions by Nada Gul
Reference:
“War in Iraq—Imperialism in the 21st Century”-Jaan Laaman

“Right to life” is a phrase that describes the belief that a human being has an essential right to live, particularly that a human being has the right not to be killed by another human being. The concept of a right to life is central to debates on the issues of capital punishment, euthanasia, self defense, abortion and war.

By liberty we mean how can he or she feel free of doing whatever he or she likes and practices all their deeds freely and as well freedom of expression.

By security we mean how can a person feel secure in his territory and feel free of any kind of threat. Security of person can also be seen as an expansion of rights based on prohibitions of torture and cruel and unusual punishment.. All these rights play very important and significant role in a person’s life and in a society.

 If we give an overview of these rights in Pakistan we will come to know how these rights are been violated in our society. Present regime in which Pakistan’s military has acted with increasing impunity to enforce its writ over the state and to protect its grip on Pakistan’s economic resources, especially land. For instance, in the Okara district of the military’s traditional stronghold of Punjab, paramilitary forces acting in conjunction with the army killed and tortured farmers who refused to cede their land rights to the army. Other pressing human rights concerns in the country include

• a rise in sectarian violence;
• legal discrimination against and mistreatment of women and religious minorities;
• arbitrary detention of political opponents;
• harassment and intimidation of the media;
• Lack of due process in the conduct of the “war on terror” in collaboration with the United States. A major military offensive against alleged Taliban and Al-Qaeda forces in the South Waziristan area bordering Afghanistan resulted in massive displacement of civilians and scores of deaths.

 Gender-Based Violence and Discrimination  
Violence against women and girls, including domestic violence, rape, “honor killings,” acid attacks, and trafficking, are rampant in Pakistan. The existing legal code discriminates against women and girls and creates major obstacles to seeking redress in cases of violence. Survivors of violence encounter unresponsiveness and hostility at each level of the criminal justice system, from police who fail to register or investigate cases of gender-based violence to judges with little training or commitment to women’s equal rights.  
Under Pakistan’s existing Hudood Ordinance, proof of rape generally requires the confession of the accused or the testimony of four adult Muslim men who witnessed the assault and if she is unable toprove her innocence she is to be charged for adultery, the criminal penalty for which is either a long prison sentence and public whipping, or, though rare, death by stoning. According to Pakistan’s Interior Ministry, there have been more than 4,000 honor killings in the last six years. Nongovernmental groups recorded more than 1,300 honor killings in 2003.
Religious Freedom  
Sectarian violence increased significantly in Pakistan in 2004. While estimates suggest that at least 4,000 people, largely from the minority Shi’a Muslim sect, have died as a result of sectarian violence since 1980, the last five years have witnessed a steep rise in incidents of sectarian violence. For example, in October 2004, at least seventy people were killed in sectarian attacks perpetrated by both Sunni and Shi’a extremist groups in the cities of Multan and Karachi. In recent years, Sunni extremists, often with connections to militant organizations such as Sipah-e Sahaba Pakistan, have targeted the Shi’a. There has been a sharp increase in the number of targeted killings of Shi’a, particularly Shi’a doctors, in recent years. Discrimination and persecution on grounds of religion continued in 2004 and an increasing number of blasphemy cases were registered. Other religious minorities including Christians and Hindus, also continue to face discrimination. 

Military Impunity  
During President Musharraf’s tenure, Pakistan’s military increased its influence over the political and economic life of all Pakistanis. The starkest example of military impunity came from the brutal repression of a farmers’ movement in Okara district of Punjab province, where tens of thousands of tenant farmers have resisted efforts by the military to usurp their legal rights to some of the most fertile farmland in Pakistan. Pakistani paramilitary forces subjected the farmers to a campaign of murder, arbitrary detention, torture, “forced divorces,” and summary dismissals from employment. On two occasions, the paramilitaries literally besieged villages in the area of dispute, thus preventing people, food, and public services from entering or leaving for weeks on end. In Okara, senior military and political officials have either participated in or allowed violations to occur.  
 
“War on Terror”  
The conduct of the “war on terror” in Pakistan led to serious violations of human rights. Suspects arrested and held on terrorism charges frequently were detained without charge and subject to trials without proper judicial process.  
In September 2003, Pakistani authorities detained thirteen young men and boys from Malaysia and Indonesia, the youngest of whom were under sixteen at the time of arrest, legally attending an Islamic school in Karachi. They were not alleged to have engaged in any illegal activity, but were arrested on the claim that they were being trained to engage in future terrorist activities. No charges have been brought against any of them.  
Since March 2004, the Pakistan Army has engaged in an ongoing operation in Pakistan’s Federally Administered Tribal Areas (FATA) along the Afghan border, with particularly heavy fighting in the South Waziristan region. The Pakistan government did not apply international humanitarian law to the conflict, arguing it was an anti-terrorist operation. These events in the South Waziristan, reports of extrajudicial executions, house demolitions, arbitrary detentions, and the harassment of journalists abound.  
 According to government sources, at least sixty-three foreign and local combatants were killed in the operation. In addition, as the “spring offensive” got underway, army and paramilitary troops reportedly evicted between 25,000 and 35,000 civilians from the area

in and around the village of Kalusha on March 16, 2004.
 
Arbitrary Arrest and Detention of Political Opponents  
The government continued to use the National Accountability Bureau (NAB) and a host of anti-corruption and sedition laws to jail political opponents or blackmail them into changing their political stance or loyalties or at the very least to cease criticizing the military authorities.  
 In April 2004, the president of an opposition party, Makhdoom Javed Hashmi of the Alliance for the Restoration of Democracy, was sentenced to twenty-three years in prison on sedition charges for reading an anti-Musharraf letter to assembled journalists. Meanwhile, Asif Zardari, husband of former Prime Minister Benazir Bhutto has begun his ninth consecutive year in prison. Initially the government filed twelve cases against Zardari, most based on charges of corruption and financial impropriety.

More than 5,000 people detained during Pakistan’s state of emergency, including opposition leader Imran Khan, in November 2007.  
 
Freedom of Expression
The right of free expression and dissemination of information were persistently undermined through the arrest of editors and reporters from local and regional newspapers on charges of sedition.  
Rasheed Azam, a journalist and claimed he was abused and tortured, including being beaten while hung upside down and subjected to sleep deprivation. He was released after several months in custody though charges of sedition filed against him are still being processed.

Similarly, Amir Mir, a journalist was reportedly publicly threatened by President Musharraf on November 20, 2003. Two days later, three unidentified persons set Amir Mir’s car ablaze outside his house.  
Two French journalists, Marc Epstein and Jean-Paul Guilloteau, and their Pakistani assistant, Khawar Mehdi Rizvi, were arrested in Karachi on December 16, 2003 who  were preparing a report on alleged links between Pakistani government agents and the Taliban operating in neighboring Afghanistan.   
While the Pakistani government did not formally restrict access to South Waziristan during the “spring offensive,” journalists were repeatedly detained or prevented from reporting through tactics such as the destruction or confiscation of equipment. Journalists were eventually allowed limited access to the affected villages on March 28 upon the conclusion of the first phase of the operation. However, media access to FATA in general and South Waziristan in particular remains limited as military operations continue.  

Conclusion

From the all the above points we can see that how important it is to practice these rights in society like Pakistan. Where people are deprived of there rights have to face a lot of hardships. A meaning-filled life is more than mere existence; it involves purpose, direction, and a sense of belonging. Humanistic family values embrace individual rights to autonomy, dignity, free choice, liberty, fraternity, the pursuit of happiness, and security. Our human family has devised a multitude of different ways to accomplish these goals through law, education, role modeling, as well as through words, acts, and symbols of encouragement and support. Each positive effort must be appreciated and inherent differences tolerated. To establish such values and the ethical standards that protect all human beings for the 21st century we must be prepared to learn from the past, evaluate the present, and project the highest and best that we know into our aspirations for the future. We must examine our values on the basis of international, national, and personal commitments.

What we do now is important. We must, each one of us, pledge ourselves to action in helping to move humankind towards a way of living where the humanistic family ethic overlays the nationalistic, linguistic, religious, and ethnic differences that separate us. For the world of the 21st century, humanistic values must project the vision of a peaceful world in which every man, woman or child, or class of men, women, or children shall be a wanted, welcomed, and esteemed member of the one human family. For the world where each person is given right to live with self respect, dignity and honor.

 References:
www.hrw.org
 

This article is based on class discussions ad readings by Anum Atiq

A child dies every three seconds; 1.3 million people are directly affected; and every year there are 25 million more victims. We are not talking about war or natural disasters here! This terrifying phenomenon is extreme poverty – living on less than a dollar a day – the daily struggle for one in every five people in the world. The world has never been as rich as it is today, yet it is poverty which is growing and not technology. Poverty enables individuals not to develop their full potential and prevents them from realizing their plans.

One fails to understand the fact that when humanity is on the verge of discovering the secrets of life, then how is it that there is complete incapacity to ensure the well-being of people around us. We are living in a ruthless world where everyone is running after the one and only thing which is “money”. We make money but don’t know where to spend it. Hence, the wealth is only being stored in the banks. We lack the awareness about the systems around us. We make ourselves clothes, jewelry, houses, educate ourselves from high level institutions and feed ourselves on food which is fit for a king!!! But to understand the condition of a family living in poverty is beyond our minds. We do not think or maybe we don’t want to think that 1 out of every 3 people living in the sub-Saharan desert remains hungry. That, 8 million children die each year due to poverty related diseases every year. We have shut our minds tightly to the fact that the term “poverty” is part of our society.

Poverty began to be defined as the lack of income, but by the late 90s it was very clear that poverty was not just about lack of resources; it was about increased vulnerability to violence and other kinds of violations of human rights. Poverty is a cause and a product of human rights violations.
Most human right activists feel that poverty creates circumstances which lead to human rights violation. For instance, poor people are usually discriminated against. When an armed conflict breaks out, it is the poor who are affected the most. When it comes to paying bribes, the poor bear the burden disproportionately. These people often live in economies of illegality, spending most of their disposable income on buying protection either from the police or the local gangster, in order to retain their shelter or protect their physical integrity. Generally they find it harder or impossible to participate in the labor market and have little or no access to basic services and resources.
On the other hand, some Human right Activists feel that human rights violations may cause poverty. For instance, in a case where a person is illegally detained, victims of discrimination or persecution, thereby infringing his freedom of movement, and right to a fair trial, his family may be driven into destitution if he is the sole bread-winner for the family. In Kashmir, Pakistan, a father, son and brother who was earning just sustain his family was taken into prison on the suspicion that he was a terrorist by the Indian army. The whole family suffered because of that and till now he has not been freed yet.
It is very depressing to know that poverty is rarely seen or thought through the lens of human rights. Rather, it is often perceived as tragic and sometimes even as the responsibility of those who suffer it. At best those living in poverty — countries and individuals — are portrayed as unfortunate or most of the time as lazy and undeserving.

In Pakistan, the rich are getting richer and the poor are getting poorer. Talking to one of the house maids, it was discovered that the whole family had not had an egg since the last Ramadan. Another one said that due to less income they were not able to afford to send their children to school. Thus the poor in many societies cannot enjoy their rights to education, health and housing simply because they cannot afford them. And poverty affects all human rights.
It is necessary to keep in mind that the poor people also possess the rights to livelihood, food, shelter, health and employment. But they are unlikely to be granted these if their voices are unheard, if they are discriminated against and if the governments and institutions are not accountable for perpetuating violations.

It is seen that poverty is part of the development right which every individual has and which has been confirmed in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights and most recently in the Declaration for the Right to Development. The status of poverty has increased the approach towards it. Such an empowering approach is needed given the disparity between those who possess resources and the 1.3 million who live in absolute poverty.

Human development makes the full realization of human rights possible. And without human rights, human development to its full extent is not possible.
Many organizations like the UNESCO, Millennium Declaration and the Millennium development Goals, United Nations Development Programs etc are working together to make poverty history. These various organizations have been working in Africa, India and other parts of the world to fight poverty. The realization of human rights – including the fight against poverty — is a duty, not a mere aspiration.
Few Facts
§ 3 billion people receive 1.2% of the world’s global revenue while one billion people living in rich countries receive 80%.
§ 150 million children suffer from aggravated malnutrition.
§ 100 million children live in the street.
§ 20% of the world’s population consume 90% of the world’s resources
§ 22% of the world’s population do not have access to safe drinking water

Bibliography:
§ http://www.udhr.org/UDHR/default.htm
§ http://muse.jhu.edu/demo/human_rights_quarterly/
§ http://www.un.org/Overview/rights.html
§ http://www.unhchr.ch/development/right.html
§ http://www.pdhre.org/rights/development.html
§ http://www.hsph.harvard.edu/fxbcenter/FXBC_WP7–Sengupta.pdf
§ http://www.pdhre.org/rights/women_and_poverty.html

Reference:
§ UNESCO, Social and Human Sciences Sector Magazine. Page 8, 9, 10 and 11
§ Poverty and human rights by Peter Townsend (preliminary report)
§ UNESCO, Bureau of public Information. Eradicating Povery, page # 1 and 2
§ UNDP, Poverty Reduction and Human Rights

This article is based on readings and class discussions by Zofia Javaid

The devastating attack on the World Trade Centre in 2001 changed the whole picture of the world’s politics. Nine days after the September eleven attacks the American President George W. Bush launched a ‘War on Terror’. This war was authorized on September 18, 2001, by the United States Congress under the Authorization for Use of Military Force against Terrorists. This war basically begun to erase the very roots of the terrorist groups with global reach, however it extended to include the Iraqi regime as well. The Iraqis have witnessed two wars in the past. One of which was the bloody Gulf War, therefore they know what a war is and its terrible cost. 650,000 Iraqi civilians have been estimated dead in this war.

The war on terror has encouraged torture, rape and other extreme human right abuses that have gone beyond its main objective. Even the most disciplined and restrained soldiers take advantage of their power and the surrounding conditions of war has allowed others to take advantage as well. It is a fact that most forces of war do not have self control. The forces use hunger and deprivation of water as weapons of war against the civilian population. Most of them on purpose use certain tactics to intimidate those they consider their rivals for example the Iraqis are exposed to white phosphorus that can burn the flesh by the U.S soldiers.

 “In Iraq, a fresh outbreak of violence, includes an attack on a family in the native village of former president Saddam Hussein, has left 22 people dead and 14 others injured. Nine people from one family were shot dead in the village of Ouja north of Baghdad, the police said. Gunmen stormed in the early hours of Thursday the home of a building contractor and killed him and his wife and children.” On the other hand in the bewildered situation of war the Iraqis take their revenge from the U.S soldiers to resolve their grievances through revenge killing or other forms of revolt.

 Someone who has lost a loved one in the recent bomb blasts in Pakistan can understand the pain that the Iraqis are going through. The lives of the people who are dependant on that person come to an unexpected end forever. War creates orphans and bereaved family members. War on terror is an unjust operation especially infants who play no role in waging a war invariably suffer. The trauma in so intense that the children can not get out of the shock all their life. Mothers plead the officers to pick the dead bodies lying on the streets so that their children will be spared from the horror of looking at them on their way to school.

 The lives of the Iraqis have been changed forever; they do not have even the basic needs, they depend on the aid to get their food supplies. Even cultivation has become impossible which is terrible for a country which has two major rivers running through it. The water supplies have been damaged. The domestic and health conditions have been extremely deteriorated. The death toll especially in infants is extremely high: 1 in 8 children die by the age 5. Local and international aid flooded into Iraq in 2004, the year following the invasion, but much of the supply was blocked off after the kidnapping of many aid activists in the country. The food the Iraqis did get was often not what they needed, or wanted. The Iraqis do not feel comfortable receiving food aid when they exported food in the past. Iraq has been a field of aid NGOs since the U.S. occupation began and many of those NGOs brought foodstuff that is not what Iraqis were used to but they had to take it due to the need they were facing. Under the occupation, Iraqis are getting much of their food from companies in Australia and other countries who assisted the United States during the invasion and occupation. This food has often been of low quality.

 68 % of the Iraqis are without clean water and 81 percent are without working sewers. The already damaged water and sanitation system can further be damaged if the power stations are hit. This can lead to epidemics such as cholera and hepatitis. According to the United Nations, “the outbreak of diseases in epidemic if not pandemic proportions is very likely”. The greatest risk is to the water and sanitation due to war. There is an increase in the development of weapons of mass destruction, therefore the war itself and its preparation is the largest source of pollution on earth. The chemical toxins that are dropped may effect the population for two decades and may have disastrous effects on the future generations. Millions of Iraqis are suffering from catastrophic situations that are further getting worse. The medical professionals are fleeing from Iraq after witnessing the abduction of their colleagues.

 There have been political, financial and operational problems surrounding the provision of aid and the reconstruction of Iraq. In particular there has been a difficulty in striking a balance between the US and the UK fulfilling their responsibilities to provide aid and assist in rebuilding and their control of the process to the detriment of its effectiveness. In October 2003, the US pledged 20 billion dollars for reconstruction in Iraq. This amount is equal to one and a half times the USA’s annual development aid budget. Pledges by other donors were far smaller, but those like the UK, the European Commission or Spain that have pledged an amount equivalent to 20% of their annual development budget for Iraq will have to dig deep. The politicization of relief complicates the provision of aid, and may yet scupper the effective reconstruction of Iraq. Using humanitarian aid as a political or military tool to woo the ‘hearts and minds’ of the Iraqi population risks prolonging suffering, entrenching unilateralism and reducing the willingness of states to contribute towards the rebuilding of Iraq.

 With the horrible conditions prevailing in Iraq it would not be wrong to say that this is not a war on terror rather this is a war of terror.

_______________________________________ 

References

http://www.casi.org.uk/briefing/030416aid.html
http://www.iraqanalysis.org/
http://www.whereistheoutrage.net/wordpress/category/war-on-terror/
http://www.alternet.org/waroniraq/48

This article is based on class readings and discussions by Anum Khan
 

“Media provides a pre-packaged hysteria that has dominated both U.S rhetoric and mainstream media, who, at times, are joining forces to create cynicism about the global war on terror. In short, it is a business, a product. If people are scared, they are going to want to know what is going on, driving both the medium and the message; even if it is, at times, difficult to tell exactly who is wagging the dog.”[i]

It is in the nature of masses, as well as individuals, to escalate between the extremes and while doing that they miss the part that is the truth. The notion of something ‘extraordinary’ sounds so attractive that we almost become victims of our own instincts. How many of us thought, as our first reaction to Benazir’s murder, that our own ‘existence’ is endangered?”Americans Are Coming”, “Civil war Ensues” and “Pakistan People Party Is Over” are few of the reactions that I noticed.

Role of media is to feed on these instincts that already exist in masses. It builds on those instincts, enhances them but it does not create them altogether. Once the stage is set, its easier to add or subtract the desired ingredients. Everybody wants to hear what their hearts are saying. Something unusual happens in a normal day and you get the feeling that it has larger repercussions. You log on to BBC Website and somewhere some sage is telling you about the exact fears that were latent in your heart. You realize your sense of ‘happenings’ of current affairs is enhanced and that u can brag about it among your peers, and then you move on with your routine life. There is a way to bypass these inherent inclinations by adopting more rational approach. Anybody heard of Aristotle’s “Golden Mean”? But let me not get into that.

Perhaps there is only one question, in question here. Why the phrase “War on Terror’?

At first the U.S. used the word “crusade” but it was quickly pointed out that if they hope to enlist their allies in the Islamic world, it would be a serious mistake, for obvious reasons.  The rhetoric therefore shifted to “war.”The proper term would be “crime”-perhaps “crime against humanity,” as Robert Fisk (British journalist and is currently a Middle East correspondent for British news paper, The Independent) has stressed. But that does not sound so appealing now does it? also it requires solid evidence and it opens doors to dangerous questions: to mention only the most obvious one, who were the perpetrators of the crime of international terrorism condemned by the World Court 21 years ago (in 1986 the U.S. was condemned by the World Court for “unlawful use of force” (international terrorism) and then vetoed a Security Council resolution calling on all states (meaning the U.S.) to adhere to international law)?

For such reasons, it is better to use a vague term, like “war.”  To call it a “war against terrorism,” however, is simply more propaganda, unless the “war” really does target terrorism. Now the ‘War on Terror” is still raw because Western powers can never abide by their own official definitions of the term, as in the U.S. Code* or Army manuals.  To do so would at once reveal that the U.S. is a leading terrorist state, as are its clients.

Perhaps I may quote political scientist Michael Stohl in support of my point: “We must recognize that by convention- and it must be emphasized only by convention-great power use and the threat of the use of force is normally described as coercive diplomacy and not as a form of terrorism…..”

Therefore it was essential for the United States Government to gather support among the masses to continue her acts of terrorism in a legal fashion and thus the need of media-help. The immediate reaction of the public after 9/11 was shock, horror, anger, fear, a desire for revenge. Media loves such short and catchy terms. Stage was set and yes super-hot topics like it sell so fast! I’m surprised that the obvious contradictions in the phrase did not go through the eyes of so many Western Newspapers, journalists, political pundits etc with a few exceptions of scholars like Noam Chomsky.

It is entirely typical for the major media and the intellectual classes generally, to line up in support of power at a time of crisis and try to mobilize the population for the same cause.

Speaking of Chomsky, he is the first modern political philosopher to identify role of the media as an instrument of state control. He believes that the media always supports the current state policies whether they are right or wrong. Only times of clashes are when the Government is in direct conflict with the ‘men of power’ within the official network i.e. Men of power vs. Men of power. He gives the example of WaterGate scandal where Nixon lost the battle only because he made the choice of making wrong enemies and not because he was corrupt. He points out that there were other bigger issues of corruption at the time that the media could have brought to the fore. All this he explains, in detail, in his book “On Language” published in 1977.

Back to the original question, its answer and the conclusion; the phrase “War on Terror” is ‘good business’, it’s got ‘Government support’ and it feeds on the latent weakness of the masses i.e. fear, and hence it’s got a lot of potential for manipulation. Seen in this context the role of media becomes very clear. Bombardments, repeated publication, Omni-presence of ‘War on Terror’ even if it will answer the most fervent prayers of bin Laden and his network. Bin Laden’s network draws from a reservoir of anger, fear, and desperation, which is why they are praying for a violent U.S. reaction, which will mobilize others to their horrendous cause. Not to mention, means justify the ends. And it’s all good business in the end.  No?

* “[An] act of terrorism, means any activity that (A) involves a violent act or an act dangerous to human life that sis a violation of the criminal laws of the United States or any State, or that would be a criminal violation if committed within the jurisdiction of the United States or of any State; and (B) appears to be intended (i) to intimidate or coerce a civilian population; (ii) to influence the policy of a government by intimidation or coercion; or (iii) to affect the conduct of a government by assassination or kidnapping.” (United States Code Congressional and Administrative News, 98th Congress, Second Session, 1984, Oct 19, volume 2; par 3077, 98 STAT. 2707 [West Publishing Co., 1984]).

[i] Excerpt from a thesis on Role of Media, University of the Sindh.  

Bibliography 

This essay is based on the group discussions and readings by Sana Naveed 

Robert Fantina in his article “A colony by any other name” states the New York Times report about the new US demands from Iraq. He says that Bush’s vision of democratic Iraq that “the Bush administration will insist that the government in Baghdad give the United States broad authority to conduct combat operations and guarantee civilian contractors specific legal protections from Iraqi law.”

This statement brings forth two alarming concepts that should alarm the United Nations, Halls of Congress and the Arab World. Gaining broader authority to start combat action in Afghanistan and Iraq was easy with the backing of republican controlled congress. Readers must be wandering about the reaction of United Nations. The body has very little impact when America has veto power in the system. There is little which can be done to stop Mr. Bush from imperial destruction of countries in question. Member nations will not give in easily to United State’s new demands but this is achievable through the congress and the military. Invading nations give themselves all the rights to roughshod over the citizens of the invaded nation. The world has witnessed the horrifying scenes of abuse and violations of human rights in past. “Germany invaded Poland, Austria, France and other nations during World War II, it, like the U.S. today, simply gave itself the authority to do so. When Russia invaded Afghanistan it was simply, like the U.S., giving itself the authority to invade a sovereign nation. Even when Iraq invaded Kuwait in 1990, it had simply granted itself the right to do so, although long-standing disputes over borders and oil were the reason for that invasion. The U.S. was less amenable to the idea of such an invasion at that time than it has been more recently.”[1]   These violations not only creates disturbance in the invaded countries but also the neighbouring nations suffer equally. As the distress and violations increase in the invaded countries people flee to the safety of neighbouring nations. Unlike U.S. citizens many of Iraq’s neighbouring countries have experience the unrest and burdened economies when Iraqi nationals fled their country to find safety.The second point which makes us ponder is the fact that U.S. contractors in liberated Iraq are to be provided with protection from Iraqi law. Any logical mind will wonder that why should a foreigners be allowed to violate the local laws.  Cont…

[1] A colony by another name, Robert Fantina, www.counterpunch.com