Side-effect

The Raymond Allen Davis affair is not a simple legal or diplomatic concern. It would have been resolved by now if it were. Even after the US State Department made President Obama issue a categorical statement on Davis being a diplomat and after meeting the president’s emissary, Senator John Kerry, here in Pakistan, we saw our not-so-former foreign minister Shah Mehmood Qureshi making a compelling statement that the concerted opinion of the foreign office, interior ministry and security institutions confirms that Davis is not a diplomat.
But there were two caveats to his press statement. Firstly, he said Davis does not enjoy ‘blanket’ immunity, which to a careful listener would mean that he may qualify for ‘limited’ immunity. Secondly, Qureshi emphasised that this was the opinion of all senior state officials he conferred with and since he is a politician and neither a lawyer nor a technical person, he had to rely on the opinion of experts. We are eager to see how the same foreign office responds to the queries of Lahore High Court in this matter, particularly after Obama’s statement.
Diplomatic immunity doesn’t mean that a person can go scot free after committing a crime but perhaps tried in her/his own country. Shooting down two young men when there is no evidence seen as yet that they were attempting to hit Davis, and then running over an innocent biker in trying to flee from the scene in a vehicle driven by a consulate employee, is a horrid criminal act.
However, the expression of regret and sympathy by both Senator Kerry and J B Crowley and then Kerry’s stating clearly that Davis will be tried, needs to be registered. The most appropriate and practical way to deal with this situation now is to hand the culprit over to the US with the condition that he is charged and tried under their law with Pakistani government and media kept abreast of the trial. This should happen regardless of any compensation offered to the affected families.
But this course can only be taken if Pakistan deals with the issue diplomatically, which is made difficult by the reaction we see in our newspapers and on television screens. Besides, some of the public servants who are deputed to work on fat salaries in USAID-funded projects are equally sentimental. They want Davis to be tried here and actually sent to the gallows. Let alone the government, the charged opinion of these people does not even allow lawyers to defend and judges to rule in favour of individuals who are damned by them before being legally charged. Examples are many.
This particular incident has brought to the surface an entrenched anti-Americanism in a segment of Pakistani opinion dominating our media which does not fully represent large swathes of Sindh, Balochistan and Seraiki Wasaib, nor of the rational Punjabi and Pakhtun populations.
Intellectually led by parties like JI and JUI and wannabe Ahmedinejads like Munawwar Hasan and Fazl-ur-Rehman, they forget two things. One, Iranian clergy was never funded by or served as stooges of Americans in their war against the Soviet Union. Two, Ahmedinejad would never beg the US ambassador that his candidature for prime minister-ship may be supported by her.
On the other hand, American establishment refuses to rein in their cowboys let loose in the name of national security. Mutually, they make it impossible for a trustworthy relationship to be established between the two countries and continue to marginalise the saner elements in both American and Pakistani societies.

The writer is an Islamabad-based poet and public policy advisor who works with progressive social movements. Email: harris.khalique@gmail.com