For an assignment editor, the most annoying thing in the world is a reporter taking an off-day. While theres nothing wrong with this simple act, and it is very unreasonable of the assignment editors to think this way, their dilemma is also a thought provoking one. You see, each reporter has a beat which they have to look out for and make sure that they dont miss anything in their assigned beats. Beats are like cabinet portfolios, it can be a single department or a whole bunch of departments, there is no set standard.
Last week, when the PIA strike had taken the country by storm and it was no longer possible to get from Lahore to Karachi in less than 14 hours, I experienced a similar hatred for my aviation reporter swell up in my bowels. You see, the day the strike began, the reporter in question was off cavorting somewhere while all hell broke loose at the airport. This, you can imagine, did not sit well with my bosses, who made it a point to communicate their extreme displeasure to me. Being the yellow-bellied cog-in-a-media-machine that I am, I was forced to call up said reporter and vent my frustrations.
During the course of this conversation I lectured him on vague and half-baked ideals such as responsibility and coordination, telling him that it was important that he communicate any events (in his beat) that happen to fall on his off-day to the assignment editor on duty. Since he failed do so, I stressed the need for him to make amends by either resigning or showing up for work early the next day. He chose the latter option, and given the current uncertainty of the job market in Pakistan, I dont blame him.
The reason I tell this story is because it offers itself as a parable for the fate of the most eloquent man in the previous cabinet, Shah Mahmood Rodham Qureshi. At a time when the Foreign Office is fighting a David VS Goliath battle, i.e., the right to try a US citizen for crimes committed on Pakistani soil, Team Government has lost its quarterback. Whether this turn of events was sheer carelessness on the part of the ruling party or a calculated move given the strained nature of relations between the right honourable member from Multan and Clinton the Superior remains a mystery. What is clear is that the US is clearly displeased that we continue to hold Ray(mond Davis) in a prison where the vast majority of inmates eat little better than cockroaches. No matter that all the hardened criminals have been shifted out of Kot Lakhpat Jail and sent to all corners of the Punjab (further straining an already overburdened and impoverished correctional system). The fact that Ray has access to a TV, DVD player, mineral water and gets Chinese takeout twice a day is also of little consequence. What matters is that the Americans get their way, one way or the other. I suspect that while the right eloquent former minister for foreign affairs was only too willing to extend these small luxuries to Ray due to his close relationship with Rodham Bibi, he was a little more adamant on the question of returning him unharmed.
The Raymond Davis problem is not too complicated. One only has to Google the various Vienna Conventions (there is more than one, I can assure you) to understand that we dont have an airtight case, which is a prerequisite for detaining any allegedly diplomatic foreign personnel. From the facts, it is obvious that Ray will walk free eventually. Since this is Pakistan where witnesses are bought and sold for pennies, the smell of dollars and the threat of having the CIA on your tail forever is bound to change more hearts and minds than a drone strike ever could.
The entire situation, according to people referred to on TV as senior analysts, is very delicate. If Ray so much as contracts venereal disease while in prison, the US will invade Lahore, Karachi, FATA and Mandi Bahauddin. If he contracts AIDS from repeated violation of his personal spaces, they will occupy Sindh and Balochistan and bomb Khyber Pakhtunkhwa back to the Jurassic age. But if he hangs himself in his cell from guilt after spilling all the baked beans hes been fed at Langley, I think the US will think twice before messing with us. Mr Extremist, please dont construe this as a tip, because the agencies got this idea long before I did. Youll have to wait in line, like all the rest of us.
The writer is a broadcast journalist.
