Missing persons

Friday, 08 January 2010 11:34

THE Supreme Court continues to give voice to justice for the people. The families of missing persons in Pakistan have been running exhaustively from pillar to post to get justice or at least some information about these loved ones. But till now they had not managed to see any light at the end of the tunnel. This has been a national shame, where the previous regime has either sold its citizens to the US, or just handed them over in its efforts to appease the US in its misguided war on terror ; or, simply incarcerated them without charging them or even presenting them before any judicial authority. As one of the judges on the bench of the Supreme Court hearing the case of missing persons, observed the situation in these cases is akin to the Gestapo tactics prevalent in Nazi Germany, with people being picked up randomly as they leave their homes, never to return and with the poor family suffering endlessly. The tactics of the intelligence agencies in Pakistan have always been highly contentious and civilians have been at the receiving end for many decades - regardless of whether there was a civilian government or military dictatorship in place. However, post-9/11 the Musharraf regime carried this Gestapo-like policy to new heights by participating in the US illegal programme of renditions . So many Pakistanis, with no charges proven, landed up in US prisons in Bagram in Afghanistan and in Guantanamo Bay - and probably other locations not yet discovered. Countless Baloch youth have simply vanished while some have been found dead in mysterious circumstances. Dr Aafia is a living example of what despicable measures were allowed during the previous regime but the tragedy is that the new democratic dispensation has neither stemmed this tide of illegal detentions through disappearances nor provided justice to the families searching for their missing relatives for almost a decade. Even the legal recourse is only now beginning to show some hope. It is no wonder then that the Supreme Court judges have stated that the issue of missing persons is far more serious than the NRO. After all, this involves torture of one s own citizens by the state as well as circumvention of judicial processes. Intelligence agencies and the Frontier Constabulary have become a law unto themselves, and the state has used its institutions ruthlessly against its own people. The issue is very simply one of providing due process of law to all the citizens. Otherwise, democracy can exist only in name not in substance. In Pakistan that is the reality today. Unless the present leadership accepts its responsibility to protect its citizens and give them access to due process of law, the democratic moorings of the state will remain weak. If the political leadership of all hues is truly committed to democracy, then the first issue they must resolve is that of the missing persons. The long-suffering families and the nation need closure on this.

Courtesy : The Nation