Bizarre ‘bounty’ business

Highhandedness, US-style

So the US administration is at it again, doing what it often resorts to – bullying and blatantly ignoring international law. No less making its behaviour more unpopular. Washington has offered $10 million bounty for the arrest of Jamaat-ud-Dawa chief Hafiz Saeed. Hafiz Saeed is a Pakistani national, not a proclaimed offender or in hiding and in fact cleared by Pakistan’s courts. Within Pakistan, while we debate his role and his approach, and many criticise him too, but this US move is illegal and illogical.

And what excellent timing, just when the parliamentary review is underway to reset Pakistan-US relations to make them “transparent and predictable based on mutual respect”. Also, this announcement has been sprung as a total surprise on Islamabad. Washington chose the media to inform the government and that too from Delhi. So the Indian government and not the US government knew beforehand!

This move has no legal basis and appears to be a knee-jerk, tit-for-tat response to either Hafiz Saeed’s position in the Defence of Pakistan Council or an attempt to pressurise Pakistan to relent on NATO supply lines. Hafiz Saeed who has the mobilising street power has been vociferous in his criticism of both the US and India and has strongly opposed the resumption of Nato supplies to Afghanistan with emphatic calls for an end to the drone attacks.

So typical of the US to be operating with equal gusto on contradictory premises. Washington is demanding that Pakistan release a Pakistani citizen Dr Shakil Afridi who faces legally proven charges of treason for collaborating with a foreign intelligence agency, but wants a Pakistani national, who Pakistan’s courts had to release because of lack of evidence, to be arrested without even sharing a shred of evidence.

So what prompted this move by the US and why at this particular time? The timing and venue of this announcement is as intriguing as the act itself. It raises many questions. The announcement was made by the US undersecretary of state during her visit to India on Monday, less than a week before President Asif Ali Zardari’s private trip to the country where he is also scheduled to have a luncheon meeting with the Indian premier. The announcement which has been hailed by the Indian government is going to cast a dark shadow on Zardari-Manmohan meeting with terror talk in the media eclipsing the earlier expected focus on boosting trade and a liberalisation of the visa regime.

While the move may be perceived as a success of Indian diplomacy, it signals the increasing convergence of India-US strategic interests in the region and both jointly exerting pressure on Pakistan to extract concessions.

It’s Washington’s displeasure and impatience at Pakistan dragging its feet on the re-opening of land routes for the NATO supplies which is proving very expensive for the US and its allies. Pakistan’s leading political parties have been advocating linking the reopening of Nato supplies to a halt to drone attacks which the US has point blank refused. Now the Hafiz Saeed card will produce more opposition than support for the US here.

The bounty announcement, in Washington’s ivory tower approach serves the agenda of pushing Pakistan to ‘do more’ on the terrorism. In its election year, perhaps the Obama Administration may believe it will earn some more votes at home.

When President Obama met Prime Minister Gilani in Seoul last week, he had advocated a balanced approach in the relationship that respects Pakistan’s sovereignty and interests but also US concerns about its national security. However, the American move shows that the US remains and will remain selective in its respect for Pakistan’s sovereignty and will indeed overlook it when it does not suit it. So where is the mutual respect that US incessantly talks about? It wants Pakistan to also address the US security concerns but flagrantly disregards Pakistan’s territorial integrity and looks the other way when Pakistan talks about stopping drone strikes, which undermine Pakistan’s security with an inevitable backlash manifesting in suicide attacks and nationwide protests.

From a purely legal standpoint, there seems to be no justification for this move given that Hafiz Saeed is not on the run and there are no criminal sentences against him in Pakistan or in any US court of law. He was freed from detention on orders of both the High Court and the Supreme Court of Pakistan in absence of substantive evidence to prove the charges against him. Yet he figures on a US Department of Treasury’s list of special designated individuals with links to terrorism. In 2008, his name had been added to the UN List of persons suspected of sponsoring terrorism. Subsequently, the government sealed all outfits under his control. He was detained but released as there was no evidence to substantiate any criminal charges. Yet, in the books of the US government, he remains guilty and is among the Most Wanted Terrorists.

This move will not endear Americans to Pakistanis and will only further inflame the anti-US sentiment that prevails in the country. It will be counterproductive to the much needed spirit of confidence-building between the two countries. Instead of helping improve relations such acts of highhandedness will further sour them.

If there was any wisdom in Washington on this matter, they would have decided to retract this bizarre bounty announcement. Perhaps a more eligible candidate for head money, for a mass murderer’s trial is the former president of the United States, George W Bush, who waged war against Iraq on the false and doctored premises that killed thousands of innocent Iraqi citizens.

What unbearable hubris of power that would make potentially logical minds opt for such illogical, ignorant and counter-productive moves.

The writer is a senior journalist and has been a diplomatic correspondent for leading dailies. She can be reached via email at [email protected]