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Right of reply - Pakistan High Commission
With reference to Neville de Silva's column last week, the Pakistan High Commission's Press Attache, Zahood Ahmad Barlas, has sent us the following response:

1. I write with reference to Mr. Neville de Silva's column titled, " Commonwealth wilts under US pressure" (The Sunday Times, May 30, 2004).

2. The restoration of Pakistan's membership of the Council of the Commonwealth was long overdue and should have followed immediately after the general elections held in 2002. Even the residual constitutional issues between the government and the opposition parties were resolved in 2003 with the passage of 17th Amendment to the Constitution; and therefore, there was no justification for the Commonwealth to continue with the suspension.

3. Apart from holding elections and resolving constitutional issues, we have taken other steps empowering women, minorities and other segments of civil society at all levels. These decisions were entirely indigenous based on government's commitment to good governance and not to please the Commonwealth or any other organization. Secondly, the media in Pakistan are absolutely free, a fact that has always been acknowledged even by the worst critics of the government. Any reference in this regard is therefore, based on total ignorance of facts or motivated by other considerations.

4. The writer needs to be reminded of the long list of countries in the Commonwealth and elsewhere in the world, which need to improve their democratic standards. There are countries, which have repeatedly trampled even the basic human values and democratic norms while pursuing their national interests. Some have been openly flouting UN resolutions and principles without having ever been advised by the learned writer to either quit or conform. Why is he then so keen to give this unsolicited advice to Pakistan when there are many more qualified to have it? He must know that selective application of any set of standards and presentation of half-truths has never worked and neither will it serve the useful purpose for which the organizations like the Commonwealth are working.

5. The writer has needlessly made a sarcastic remark saying who cares about helping nuclear proliferation. The author probably meant nuclear non-proliferation, not proliferation. Well, Pakistan cares. We have recently taken steps to neutralize and dismantle an illicit network of proliferators.

6. Once again we would like to make it clear that the Government of Pakistan is conscious of its obligations and will take decisions in accordance with the country's constitution and law as well as the vital interests of the people of Pakistan. We shall neither accept any conditionalities nor shall permit any body to micromanage our political affairs. We look forward to having close interaction with Commonwealth in political and economic spheres but this has to be based on mutual respect.

Neville de Silva replies
I do understand Press Attache Barlas' dilemma and even confusion.
Like other Pakistani Press Attaches before him he has had to defend the military regimes that have ruled (others would say misruled) Pakistan during most of its near 60 years of independence. That, unfortunately, comes with the job.

What surprises me is the confusion. Some of what he says is a comment on the Commonwealth. Such castigation of the organisation that rightly suspended Pakistan in 1999 for violating its basic principles should rightly have been addressed to that organisation, not this newspaper.

So I will deal with those comments that directly concern me and leave the Commonwealth to look after itself.

Before that one needs to differ sharply with Barlas when he says Pakistan's restoration to membership was "long overdue". How long? General Musharraf might be the president of Pakistan, confirmed as such in a highly dubious referendum. But he is still a man in a green uniform heading the country's military. The Commonwealth has been clear about not allowing men in uniform to sit in its councils. That is why it suspended Nigeria from membership and did not allow its return until the country returned to civilian rule with an elected civilian president.

The Press Attache cites the 2002 general elections and the 2003 constitutional changes to justify his argument that the restoration of membership was "long overdue".

But when CMAG (which then included Australia and Bangladesh) met in New York last September, it decided not to readmit Pakistan. This decision was confirmed by the Commonwealth summit in Abuja, Nigeria last December.

Apparently the Commonwealth leaders did not agree with Barlas' assessment. So he should blame the Commonwealth leaders for not having as much faith in Pakistan's efforts at restoring democracy as he does.

Barlas accuses me of stating half-truths but fails to mention any. Consider this statement: "….the media in Pakistan is absolutely free, a fact that has always been acknowledged even by the worst critics of the government." "Absolutely free" and "has always been"? Has Mr Barlas been living in Pakistan or cuckooland?

Only days before the October 2002 elections, General Musharraf promulgated new laws to control the press, laws that have been widely rejected by the media including owners, editors and working journalists.

The All Pakistan Newspaper Society that represents the country's publishers denounced them as "illegitimate, unethical and unconstitutional." The new laws made defamation a criminal offence with a three-month jail term for offenders and a massive fine. While most democratic societies do not consider defamation a criminal offence and those that did have it have removed it from their statute books, Pakistan, which Barlas says enjoys absolute press freedom, goes and makes it law.

This was done by the military regime headed by Musharraf, not by the civilian government that was then elected. Why? Because he could not trust the civilian government to do his bidding and control the media.

That is not all. Publishing without a licence from government was made punishable with imprisonment. The new laws also allowed for a Press Council, chaired by a government nominee with the power to ban publications and impose other punitive sanctions.

At a seminar on World Press Freedom Day held in Pakistan last month, the former chairman of the Human Rights Commission of Pakistan Afrasiab Khattak said that the commission had opposed the defamation act and other similar laws that restricted the disclosure of facts and objective reporting of events. Media watchdog bodies such as Reporters sans Frontieres and the Committee for the Protection of Journalists have often drawn attention to the detention, harassment, physical assaults and other abuses that Pakistani journalists have been subjected to under this military regime.

Despite all this evidence Barlas says my references to press freedom in Pakistan is "based on total ignorance of facts or motivated by other considerations."

In one sense Barlas is correct in saying the Pakistan press is absolutely free- it is absolutely free to do Gen Musharraf's bidding- or else. I really do not need Barlas to remind me that there are many other countries that need to improve their democratic and human rights records. Such gratuitous advice would seem unnecessary to regular readers of this column or he had read intelligently the column to which he has taken umbrage.

Of course there are countries that need to improve on their democratic and human rights record, particularly Pakistan's current patron saint, the US under President Bush who has abandoned the rule of law, human rights and violated the sanctity of the UN all in the name of fighting terrorism.

Barlas finds it difficult to separate advice from options. I did not offer advice. I pointed out that Pakistan had the option of leaving the Commonwealth if it felt it could not adhere to its principles.

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