|
Speech by Shaukat Baloch, Advocate, President Punjab Democratic Front, on April 6, 2004, in a demonstration held by United Kashmir Peoples National Party, in front of United Nations, in Geneva, Switzerland. Ladies and Gentlemen,
I thank Sardar Shaukat Ali Kashmiri, Chairman, United Kashmir Peoples National Party to give me an opportunity to express my views. It is my privilege and honour to participate in this demonstration for the third consecutive year. Punjab Democratic Front fully supports the right of independence of the people of Kashmir. By Kashmir I mean Gilgit, Baltistan, AzadKashmir, Laddakh, Jammu and Kashmir Valley. Punjab Democratic Front also supports the right of independence of the people of Punjab, Sindh, Balochistan and NWFP. Those political parties who demand the independence of Kashmir, Punjab, Sindh, Balochistan and NWFP should be allowed to participate in elections.If PakistanGovernment thinks that people do not support the demand of independence, then it should have no fear in allowing the pro-independence parties to participate in the elections.
Ladies and Gentlemen,
Please allow me to repeat what I had said last year because it is still important. In Canada, the party who demands independence for the province of Quebec, is allowed to participate in elections and its leaders are not arrested. In Spain the party who demands the independence of Basque region is allowed to participate in elections and its leaders are not arrested. In France, the party who demands independence for the region of Corsica is allowed to participate in elections and its leaders are not arrested. It is only in Kashmir and Pakistan that the pro-independence parties are not allowed to participate in elections and their leaders and activists are arrested, persecuted and prosecuted. Punjab Democratic Front demands that cases against leaders of UKPNP like Sardar Shaukat Ali Kashmiri should be withdrawn and they should be allowed to return to Kashmir and participate in elections.
Ladies and Gentlemen,
Thousands of false cases are pending against women under Hudood Laws in courts of Pakistan. Punjab Democratic Front demands that the Pakistan Government should repeal the draconian Hudood Laws. Thousands of false cases under blasphemy laws are pending against the people belonging to non-Muslim minorities in Pakistan. Hundreds of innocent men and women, belonging to minorities, have been murdered by the religious terrorists and thousands of them have been compelled to leave the country to save their lives and take asylum in the West. Punjab Democratic Front demands that Pakistan Government should repeal the blasphemy laws which are a source of the worst kind of violation of human rights.
Ladies and Gentlemen,
What is the biggest hurdle in the way of independence of Kashmir? It is the Military-Mullah Alliance in Pakistan. What is the cause of violations of rights of women in Pakistan? It is the Military-Mullah Alliance. What is the cause of persecution of minorities in Pakistan? It is the Military-Mullah Alliance.
Ladies and Gentlemen,
Although the struggle for the independence of Kashmir and other provinces of Pakistan is difficult, I am confident that under the able leadership of leaders like Sardar Shaukat Ali Kashmiri the people will achieve their goal in the near future.
|
|
Internally, a succession of military coups and takeovers and continuous interference by the Pakistani military in the political dispensation has seriously impaired the functioning of vital civilian institutions such as parliament, the judiciary, the civilian bureaucracy and the media. The military, which functions like an occupying power, has increasingly encroached upon the legitimate space of civil society, commandeered the bulk of the government resources and selfishly pursued its narrow corporate interests at the expense of the welfare of the people. The result has been a collapse of the rule of law, erosion of the faith of the common man in the efficacy of government, a dysfunctional economy characterized by all-round corruption and glaring regional imbalances in the allocation of development resources and institutionalized discrimination on grounds of ethnicity and religion. These conditions have alienated vast sections of the populace, from the provinces of Punjab, Sindh, Balochistan and the North West Frontier Province to Pakistan Occupied Kashmir and Gilgit-Baltistan.
Equally unfortunate is the unofficial alliance which the Pakistani military maintains with radical Islamic religious parties and with sectarian militant groups that it continues to pamper in order to keep mainstream, secular, and ethnic political parties in check and ensure its continued dominance in politics. Thus, for example, during the 2002 elections, the military manipulated electoral laws, coerced candidates, and tipped the playing field in a manner that ensured its power, even at the cost of allowing the Muttahida Majlis-i-Amal (MMA), the pro-Taliban, six-party religious alliance, to emerge as the largest opposition grouping in parliament and seize control of the strategically important provinces of North West Frontier Province (NWFP) and Balochistan bordering Afghanistan. The result has been a marked increase in sectarian violence and attacks on minorities throughout the country.
Domestic factors aside, the Pakistani military is also reluctant to stamp out the power of the radical Islamist parties and sectarian groups for compelling external reasons. In the past, the army has subcontracted Pakistan's national security policies in Afghanistan and Kashmir to some of these groups, and views them as long-term allies. During the 1980s and 1990s, these Islamic religious parties controlled seminaries that served as recruiting and training grounds for the Afghan Mujahideen and later the Taliban. The army and the Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI) supported both successively in the elusive hope that a friendly regime in Kabul would ensure "strategic depth" for Pakistan against India. Similarly, during much of the 1990s, and, to an extent, even today, the Pakistani state relies on Islamic extremists to wage a low-intensity war to tie down the Indian security forces in Indian Occupied Kashmir. In the process, however, it has unleashed mindless violence against innocent civilians, thereby gravely jeopardizing the effective realization of the right to self-determination for Kashmiris on both sides of the Line of Control that separates India and Pakistan.
|
|
United Nations Sub-Commission of the 55th Session on the Promotion and Protection of Human Rights (28 July -15 August 2003) Agenda ltem3:Administration of Justice. Rule of Law and Democracy. World Peace Council NGO consultative status with the Economic and Social Council (ECOSOC) of the United Nations Speech by Shaukat Hussain Baloch, President, Punjab Democratic Front Madam Chairperson, It may be recalled that, at its fifty-fifth session, the Commission on Human Rights adopted Resolution 1999/57 entitled "Promotion of the Right to Democracy".The landmark resolution was the first text adopted by a United Nations body that recognized the existence of a right to democracy. Madam Chairperson, Core elements of democratic governance recognized by Resolution 1999/57 include: (a) the rights to freedom of opinion and expression, thought, conscience and religion, peaceful association and assembly; (b) the rule of law, including legal protection of citizens' rights, interests and personal security, and fairness in the administration of justice and independence of the judiciary; (c) transparent and accountable government institutions and, above all, (d) the right of citizens to choose their governmental system through constitutional and democratic means, i.e. through universal and equal suffrage, free voting procedures and periodic and free elections. Madam Chairperson, Across the world, from Latin America to Africa and from Europe to Asia, the "continuum of democracy" is spreading, with the rule of law and a sound system of administration of justice as its central pillars. The spread of democracy brings with it new hopes of a tangible improvement in the quality of life for millions of people across the globe. Unfortunately, however, there are still countries which stubbornly try to buck the trend. Their rulers continue to stifle political freedoms, undermine the rule of law, browbeat the judiciary into submission and perpetuate the twin tragedies of poverty and social inequality. The case of Pakistan, the country that I come from, is one such.
Madam Chairperson,
The following facts bear testimony to the complete undermining of democratic governance, the rule of law and human rights in Pakistan:
The rigged presidential referendum of April 30, 2002 used to lever General Pervez Musharraf into office for a five-year term, was widely seen by the press and by election watchdog bodies as near farcical in the manner of its conduct. Voters cast multiple ballots at will. Government servants, factory workers, prisoners and others were forced to vote while genuine ballotting remained extremely low. The polling staff was compelled in many cases by police, administrative officials or nazims to inflate the number of ballots cast, in an exercise that sometimes produced ludicrous results. The unabashed rigging seen during the referendum was repeated in the run-up to the October 2002 general elections which resulted in the installation of a weak and unstable civilian government totally subservient to the military-dominated National Security Council presided over by General Musharraf. International and local observers noted that unrestrained pre-poll interference by the administration meant that candidates of the 'King's party' received open support, while those belonging to opposition groups faced harassment, intimidation and pressure to switch loyalties, both before and after the poll. Official manipulation was also seen during balloting, the compilation of results and in the efforts to install a predetermined government. A series of extraordinary and patently illegal Constitutional amendments, orders and ordinances, introduced both before and after the October 2002 general elections, have effectively shifted the locus of power from elected representatives to the unelected President of the country and the military-dominated National Security Council, established as a body with a sweeping mandate over and above the government and parliament. Such measures, obviously designed to alter the
parliamentary, federal system of the country beyond recognition have, unfortunately, been upheld by a pliant judiciary invoking the thoroughly discredited "doctrine of necessity."
An inevitable fallout of the erosion of democratic governance has been the unleashing of unprecedented violence against minorities and other vulnerable groups within the country. Amnesty International, in its 2003 Report, has noted that, during 2002, at least 40 members of the minority Shia community, mainly doctors and other professionals, and some 65 Westerners and Christians died in targeted killings, with the State continuing to "ignore abuses by private individuals or groups against minority communities." The brutal gunning down of 11 members of the Shia community from Gilgit, who were watching a cricket match near an Imambargah, in Karachi in February 2003 and of 12 Shia police cadets, all belonging to the Hazara tribe, in Quetta in June 2003 and the bomb blast in an Imambargah in Quetta in July 2003 that resulted in the deaths of more than 55 peaceful Shia worshippers, and the complete failure of the state to bring the perpetrators of these crimes to justice are telling examples of the breakdown of the system of administration of justice in Pakistan.
Another inevitable result of the breakdown of the rule of law is that Pakistani citizens continue to suffer unprecedented brutality at the hands of police and paramilitary forces. Farmers protecting their rights on military farms; teachers seeking to make their opinions known; lawyers protesting the tampering with the country's legal system; journalists urging an end to official harassment; political activists linked to opposition parties; doctors demanding a discussion on new health policies; women activists seeking a repeal of discriminatory laws and other groups in civil society repeatedly face batons, bullets and tear-gas canisters. Some, including subsistence farmers, seeking to resist eviction from their lands at the Okara. military farms in Punjab, have been killed while attempting to exert their right to draw attention to their concerns through peaceful assembly. Others, including women and the elderly,
have been beaten to the ground and dragged into waiting police trucks in scenes of unparalleled violence against unarmed people across the country. As despairingly noted by the Human Rights Commission of Pakistan, violence against peaceful protesters has not been the only act of brutality by the police. Extra-judicial killings have increased dramatically in number, while those in police custody frequently face torture and illegal detention. Prisoners in jails have been suffering due to overcrowding, lack of facilities and new restraints on visits to jails which have resulted in a worsening in the plight of detainees. The tragic death of 8 persons, including jail staff, in a so-called commando raid on a maximum security prison in Sialkot in eastern Pakistan on July 25, 2003 is a grim reminder of appalling conditions in Pakistani prisons and the breakdown of the criminal justice system. For other vulnerable groups within society, especially women, the quality of life continues to worsen. International reports reveal that the majority of women in the country face violence in some form, while crimes committed against them have increased in both intensity and number. The unrestrained gathering of tribal 'jirgas', which often deliver verdicts that violate the rights of women or give sanction to crimes committed against them, have further aggravated the situation. Increased intolerance in the country, most notably in the North West Frontier Province (NWFP) and Balochistan, has brought an expanded threat for women and minorities. The Muttahida Majlis-e-Amal (MMA) government of religious parties that took oath in the NWFP in November 2002 has imposed new dress codes for women at educational institutions while also threatening other freedoms for all citizens by measures such as launching a campaign against cable television and music at public places. Not surprisingly, the steady erosion of democracy, rule of law and administration of justice has led to the criminal abdication of the State's basic responsibilities in areas such as ensuring primary education for all children and providing basic health cover to its citizens, with statistics suggesting that Pakistan's performance in these spheres is the worst in its region and amongst the worst in the world.
Madam Chairperson,
This Sub-Commission should find innovative ways to study the
problems faced by the citizens of countries such as Pakistan where
lack of democracy has led to the undermining of the rule of law and
the system of administration of justice and suggest effective remedial
measures.
Thank you, Madam Chairperson.
Address: Shaukat Baloch,
President, Punjab Democratic Front,
Kagenhofweg 2,
4153 Reinach BL,
Switzerland
E-mail: blochch@yahoo.com
Tel: +41 79 273 47 53
|
|
|
|
