Bargained away

By Editorial Board
April 20, 2018

NAB chairman and head of the National Commission for Enforced Disappearances Justice (r) Javed Iqbal served up a reminder of one of the darker episodes in our history while appearing before the National Assembly’s Standing Committee on Human Rights. Speaking in context of complaints about enforced disappearances, Justice (r) Iqbal blamed parliament for not taking action, specifically when an alleged 4,000 people – though, according to some estimates, the figure could be even higher – were handed over to foreign countries in return for head money during the rule of Pervez Musharraf. That this did happen is not in doubt. In fact, in his autobiography Musharraf boasted of the millions of dollars that were earned in bounties for giving alleged Al-Qaeda members to the US. The then interior minister Aftab Khan Sherpao too had claimed that 4000 people were handed over to other countries. Pakistan has never come to terms with its actions in supporting the US-led ‘war on terror.’ We all know that American threats to “bomb us back into the Stone Age” led to our forced cooperation but there has been no accountability for the abuses that were perpetrated on the Pakistani people as part of this cooperation. At its peak, five dozen Pakistanis were among those being held and tortured at the infamous Guantanamo Bay but there were also countless others reportedly detained at CIA black sites around the world.

Advertisement

A 2006 report by Amnesty International said that hundreds of people were being essentially sold to the US by Pakistani authorities. All those handed over were accused of being terrorists but since the US was paying bounties for each person, Amnesty concluded that many may have been innocents who were declared to be terrorists based only on the word of their unreliable captors. It is now long past time that we account for our actions during that period. Parliament should take the lead in demanding the names of all those handed over to foreign powers. Officials serving in the government at the time, particularly central figures, should be called on to testify. After that, the US needs to be approached to ensure that any Pakistanis still languishing in its dark sites be repatriated. Many of the Pakistani Guantanamo inmates have now been returned but among those still remaining is Saifullah Paracha – declared an enemy combatant by the US and accused of being an Al-Qaeda financier. If these individuals are guilty of aiding and abetting terrorism, the solution is to try them in a court of law, not let them be tortured by the US in illegal prisons. Our commitment to the safe return of Pakistanis who have gone missing should begin with those still languishing in foreign lands.

Advertisement