Pleasing Mr Obama

Published 19 February 2009

Seven Pakistani nationals are being held at Guantanamo Bay, but if it keeps the Americans happy, the government in Islamabad doesn't care

Saifullah Paracha: the US alleges he helped al-Qaeda. He did not

Free speechPleasing Mr Obama

Zachary represents scores of America's most secretly guarded prisoners. When he meets his clients, they are often chained to the ground in shackles. He told me how some of the guards at the prison are 18-year-olds, suckered into the job with the lure of extra pay and the promise that they are a buttress against the aspirations of global terrorism. Visits from the Dallas Cowboys football cheerleaders and Victoria's Secret lingerie models, who have dropped by to rally the troops, make the difficult job and the long hours away from home occasionally worthwhile.

But last June, when I met Zachary, a lawyer with Reprieve - the British organisation set up by Clive Stafford Smith to defend the rights of prisoners across the world - we weren't there to talk about him. Reprieve, which has a tiny office in Islamabad, was trying to drum up interest in Pakistan for the seven of its nationals being held in Guantanamo. Reprieve staff made the rounds; they called up the foreign minister and other notables in the PPP-led government hoping to convince them to lobby for their prisoners. No one bit; government officials did not seem to be terribly concerned.

Pakistan is a premier ally in the war on terror and it is with a certain amount of pride that the government proclaims that the road to Guantanamo started here in Pakistan. According to Reprieve, several Pakistani prisoners at Guantanamo were handed over for huge rewards, resulting in dubious profiteering by the state.

While other allies in the war on terror, including Britain under the divinely inspired Tony Blair and (surprisingly) Saudi Arabia, demanded the return of their citizens, calling their detainment at Gitmo unacceptable by their country's legal standards, Pakistan seems not to have put up much of a fight. There are no Pakistani lawyers working directly on the cases of Pakistani nationals held at the prison, no local NGOs involved in the case of defending Pakistanis incarcerated abroad.

Katznelson was in Pakistan to speak about one citizen in particular - Saifullah Paracha, a businessman from Karachi who disappeared during a 2003 business trip to Bangkok. Paracha, who exported textiles to the United States, never left Bangkok airport or cleared immigration, and it was weeks before his family learned that he was being held at a US airbase in Bagram, Afghanistan. Paracha, whose eldest son was also taken into custody, was eventually moved to Guantanamo where, for the first two years, he had no legal representation.

He suffers heart problems, and has yet to see the complete evidence used to keep him as a guest of the US prison system.

The charges against Paracha are tenuous and vague. It is alleged that he helped al-Qaeda and that he ran a terror network. He did not. He had met, through his business dealings, several dubious sorts, including Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, the "principal architect" of the 11 September 2001 attacks, and even Osama Bin Laden, but these meetings occurred before the men became infamous, no money has changed hands, and no contact or links were maintained.

Paracha's 16-year-old daughter, Zahra, has not seen her father for six years. "It's mind-boggling to me to even think about my father and brother because they are, in essence, political prisoners of a cold war between America and imaginary terrorists," she wrote in an email to me. Now, she despairs at getting justice under the new US administration because already, in 2009, the issue of Guantanamo is beginning to seem stale: a talking point a new president discusses at press conferences, a faraway jail we've never been bothered enough about to deal with.

Barack Obama's administration has pledged to close down Guantanamo; the closure of the prison is a priority, it has been said. But the president's conservative opponents won't give up Gitmo without a battle, warning that an exodus of prisoners is unlikely to make America a safer place.

In an article in the Washington Post on 5 February, Jim Riches, a retired firefighter who lost his son Jimmy in the 11 September 2001 attacks, is reported as saying this of President Obama's decision on Guantanamo: "I want to let them [the government] know that these men are dangerous."

Zahra, who created a website to publicise her father's case when she was 13 years old, thinks the "average American doesn't give a damn" about the illegality of her father's and brother's arrest and detention. She might be right. Unfortunately, it seems that the average Pakistani doesn't care much, either.

In Pakistan, the government is hard at work ensuring that Afghanistan doesn't turn out to be Obama's Vietnam, as ominously declared by Newsweek this month. Since the new administration took office, Pakistan's northern areas have been subject to three unmanned drone attacks. President Asif Ali Zardari made the bizarre choice, in the run-up to these attacks, of presenting the US assistant secretary of state Richard Boucher (they call him Richard Butcher here in Karachi) and Joe Biden with the national Hilal-e-Imtiaz award for their "services to Pakistan".

So, nothing has changed since Obama's election, for Pakistan at least. Nor, with talks of an Afghan surge and troop increase, are they likely to change for the imprisoned Pakistanis any time soon.

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6 comments from readers

Raja Naveed Sarwar
19 February 2009 at 21:03

I think it is necessary to awaken the local community in USA, especially the lawyers.

Closing down the Guantanamo is not the solution………main issue is to ensure that any innocent should not be captured in the cages of Guantanamo or any other jail………Mr. Obama led Government should constitute a tribunal to enquire the facts and figures of these prisoners, as soon as possible. At least, these prisoners should be brought before the courts, the media, the public…… they should be given access to contact their families around the world by telephone.………. We have heard that Americans believe in principles, but where are principles when we speak about the prisoners of Guantanamo…..why this is the double standards policy………either they are terrorists or innocents, but at least they should be brought before the law and they should be given the same privileges as they deserve according to the true prisoners law. Why we humans always build cages to impound “animals”, who are also humans like us……why there is a difference? Difference of rich and poor? Difference of black and white? Why we are so hypocrite, as we capture our own humans into cages and prisons, to show our strength………I think I should place three demands before the new US Government. Either,

1. Shift all Guantanamo prisoners into other US jails and bring them before the law transparently. Or,

2. Release them all. Or,

3. Kill them all.

Riaz Ahmad
23 February 2009 at 19:44

In pursuit of war against terror, the west and its Zionist brethren (ordinary and decent Jews are not part of this monstrosity, just like ordinary and decent Muslims are not part of Bin Ladin’s terrorist movement) are inflicting far more terror than the terrorists. Who is killing more innocent people? Slaughter of scores of innocent people every week is window dressed and explained away as simple and harmless collateral damage. Reality speaks much louder than all the media spin, and political lies coming out of ruthless men in grey suits. Hypocrisy duplicity and double standards have become an integral part of western political mindset.

SRL
26 February 2009 at 14:25

Dear Zahra, many Americans really do care about

your father and the others kept in prison in

Guantanamo. We vote,write letters, sign petitions. We

hope Obama will bulldoze down the complete site so

that there will be less temptation to ever use iftagain

for such evil purposes.

George Laird
28 February 2009 at 16:39

Dear Raja Naveed Sarwar

I looked at your three options and the only one which is credible is;

"Shift all Guantanamo prisoners into other US jails and bring them before the law transparently".

The problem for the US is that they haven't followed the rule of law and let the innocent get mixed in with the guilty.

It is the burden of knowing that innocent people are locked up that has paralysed the entire process along with the weak leadership of the Bush era.

Yours sincerely

George Laird

The Campaign for Human Rights at Glasgow University

Sadia Qazi
02 March 2009 at 19:23

I totally agree with Mr. Raja Naveed Sarwar.

I think this is a time to decide what is right, what is wrong. We have seen the power politics of notorious Pakistani political leaders. Why we don’t use some new faces, the youngsters like Fatima Bhutto, Raja Naveed Sarwar, Imran Khan, especially Mr. Raja Naveed, who is said to be the future leader of Pakistan.

Tahir
07 March 2009 at 08:03

Fatima Bhutto has highlighted a very important issue of utter disregard of rulers for the rights of the individuals. It is very shameful to capoitulate on matters of constitutional and universal human rights of citizens. In all segments of society different sorts of people are found. Rligion effects people in different ways. Some people get inspiration to do good deeds selflessly and the other use religious beliefs to instigate hatred and violence. The religious people should not be regarded as terrorists just because they had contacted those who did some acts of violence, just as any one who voted for Bush who killed so many innocent people from the point of view of Alqaida should not be regarded as a murderer and liable to be killed. We should give the benefit of doubt to protect life and liberty. Terrorism was indoctrinated by Americans in religious madrassahs as holy war against communism. Now west and American governments should exercise restraint in treating these people so harshly who are the victims of their policies to radicalise masses to fight communism. Like prostitues who are generaly persecuted/hated in our Pakistanisociety though most of them are very kind hearted, sympathetic, honest and mostly victims of society's unjust economic policies, legal system and morality. If they do not treat prisoners justly they are themselves losing the war on terrorism. The example of unjust treatment with paracha has created so much hate against those responsible for such injustice. Therefore by persecuting one innocent man unjustly they have created so many enemies. This policy will not bear fruit. Holy Prophet treated the prisoners of fights with mushrikeen of Mecca kindly and set them free instead of enslaving/persecuting them. These persons brought the great successes to Islam in future. It was this kind treatment which made all tribes of Arabia to accept moral superiority of his message. American Govt. should respect the universal declaration of human rights.