30 July 2004
Who said we were the Philippines?
By Ayaz Amir
The two Pakistanis, Raja Azad and Sajid Naeem, reportedly executed in Iraq never had a chance. For they belonged to a country whose government just could not bring itself to say the one thing that could have saved their lives: that no Pakistani troops would be sent to Iraq.
Far from making this unequivocal declaration, which is what the Iraqi hostage-takers wanted, Pakistani spokesmen, from the prime minister downwards, kept peddling the absurd line that on sending troops to Iraq no decision had been taken. Which of course left open the possibility that a decision to send troops could be taken.
Why has it been so difficult for military-ruled Pakistan to say that it will not send potential human targets to Iraq? Why can't it afford to tell the US that such a move will harm not serve Pakistani interests?
The answer is pretty obvious: our military-led government just can't say no to the US. Two hostages beheaded? There could have been a dozen under threat and Pak policy would still be the same.
The US wants the Pakistan army in Iraq and because we are so obliging, we are desperately looking for ways to go there. In fact, after Trojan Horse Qazi's appointment as US puppet masquerading as United Nations envoy in Baghdad, there seems to be no stopping the eagerness of General Headquarters (the nerve-centre of army decision-making) on this score. The more Pakistani spokesmen say that no decision has been taken, the more they seem to protest too much.
And you know what? Trojan Qazi himself has said that if and when Pakistani troops are sent to Iraq, they won't come under any mythical UN command but under the overall command of US forces. We should have known this all along but it is nice of Qazi to lay it out so straight.
Is there something wrong with Pakistan? There is certainly something terribly wrong with the great brotherhood of Muslim countries, the ummah, the large majority of them desperate despotisms at home and first-rate American puppets abroad. God's chosen people. Indeed. With our collective lack of spine and character, we should be ashamed even to touch upon this claim.
How far removed all this is from the Philippines. The Philippines, mind you, was/is the quintessential American satellite, its elites, across the political spectrum, pro-American to a fault.
Yet when the crunch came and the life of just one Filipino hostage - a poor truck driver, Angelo de la Cruz - was on the line, the dainty, petite, charming, attractive president of the Philippines, Gloria Arroyo, not much more than five feet tall, showed she was taller and tougher than many strongmen who act and sound tough but who, feeling the slightest heat or pressure, turn out to be men of straw.
To save the life of that one truck driver, President Arroyo didn't waste any time in announcing a quick pullback of the tiny Filipino contingent - 53 military personnel - serving in Iraq. She angered the United States, no doubt about it, but at the same time sent a wave of pride and jubilation across her country.
The whole of the Philippines rallied to Angelo de la Cruz's cause, prayed for him and wept with joy when he was released. Gloria Arroyo showed that her finger was on the nation's pulse. The Philippines looked a whole foot, or several feet, taller as a result.
In contrast, Pakistan stands diminished by the killing of Azad and Sajid Naeem. They could have been saved, easily, but were not. More than the brutality of the Iraqi situation - a situation created, let us remember, by the United States - it was Pakistani indecision that did them in.
How do we explain this to the two families, especially with the Filipino example so fresh in their minds? Are we to suppose that they would be so dumb as not to understand the ramifications of our Iraq policy?
After all, the choice before Pakistan was far simpler than the one facing the Philippines. The Philippines had troops in Iraq. It was required to pull them out. We have no troops in Iraq.
All our government was required to do was to declare that no troops would be sent. Yet even this verbal declaration was beyond the capacity of the government of Pakistan. Looking at this pretty picture of national resolve, isn't it time we mothballed our mighty nuclear programme? It doesn't seem to be doing us any good.
But there's a key point we forget. Gloria Arroyo is an elected leader who can't afford to be too far out of step with public sentiment. Pakistani leaders, stronger and certainly taller than Gloria Arroyo, are under no such obligation.
Beheading or killing innocent people is a crime against humanity. No question about it. The Iraqis should observe the rules of war. But when the Americans observe none and their invasion flouts all rules of international behaviour, let alone the tenets of international law, it is too much to expect the victims of this war to observe all the niceties that they should, especially when they have their backs to the wall and are all alone, the great brotherhood of Muslim nations, the ummah, lifting not a finger to help them.
The Philippines made a clear choice: that protecting Filipino interests was more important than pleasing the United States. Faced with the same test we flunked it, choosing American pleasure over the lives of Raja Azad and Sajid Naeem.
When Angelo de la Cruz was taken hostage, a sense of urgency gripped the Philippines, a high-level delegation flying to Baghdad to secure his release. No remotely similar sense of urgency gripped Pakistan.
A day before the execution of the two Pakistanis, the National Assembly asked the Iraqi captors to free them unconditionally. It forgot to ask the government of Pakistan to make a firm commitment not to send troops to Iraq.
The same day Pakistan's apology of a prime minister, Shujaat Hussain, was telling a group of parliamentarians that any decision on sending troops to Iraq would be made only after taking people and parliament into confidence. Ye gods, as if this statement by itself was not enough to drive the Iraqi hostage-takers up the wall.
And it's not as if there wasn't a warning shot from the heavens. Just a month ago another Pakistani driver was taken hostage in Iraq and released as a gesture of goodwill on the part of his Iraqi captors. Far from taking any heed from this warning, and desisting from playing the American game, Trojan Horse Qazi's appointment as UN puppet for Iraq came soon thereafter.
This was accompanied by more talk of sending Pakistani troops to Iraq. What must the Iraqis have thought? One conclusion they could have drawn is that there was no point in being lenient to anyone carrying a Pakistani passport.
Guilty of inaction when it could have done something, the government should not insult the memory of the two Pakistanis killed by shedding crocodile tears now and making a show of its grief.
But learning something from this fiasco, and it is one, it can still do the right thing by rescinding Ashraf Jahangir Qazi's appointment as United Nations puppet for Iraq and telling the Americans once and for all that we are doing enough duty for them in Afghanistan but will send no cannon fodder to Iraq.
Is it too far-fetched to suppose that in their dying moments - I still hope the news of their beheading is not true - the two Pakistanis wished that they were Filipinos rather than Pakistanis?
© The DAWN Group of Newspapers, 2004