Turning A Blind Eye
The Indian Capital witnessed two blood-curdling bomb blasts over the weekend. Everybody knows who maybe responsible. Nations still turn a blind eye.
Read on..
WASHINGTON: A Pakistani detainee in Guantanamo Bay has exposed Islamabad's official sponsorship of terrorism in depositions before a US tribunal. The unnamed prisoner, accused of being a member of the Lashkar-e-Tayyiba, has referred to the fighting in Kashmir and said it was backed by Pakistan, the US' frontline ally in the war on terrorism. "If you consider this organization a terrorist organization, then you should consider the Pakistan government a terrorist country," he says in a deposition obtained by the Associated Press wire service under a Freedom of Information lawsuit. The excerpt comes from nearly 2,000 pages of documents representing some 558 tribunals held in Guantanamo Bay, according to AP.
The detainee's testimony implicating Islamabad is important because Lashkar is one of several Pakistani organisations designated by the US State Department as Foreign Terrorist Organisations (FTOs) and its sponsors are subject to action under the UN Security Council Resolution No.1373 against terrorism. Although the intelligence community in India and the US believe organisations such as Lashkar and Jaish-e-Mohammed were officially sponsored by Pakistan, Islamabad has maintained a degree of deniability. Islamabad's policy in the regard is common knowledge in Pakistan and has frequently been reported in the Pakistani media.
AP's effort has also brought to light other confusions and contradictions in the US war on terror, revealed through the Gitmo depositions. Among the detainees in Guantanamo Bay identified in the AP report are an Afghan chicken farmer accused of being a Taliban, a goatherd who was captured near a mined area when he was looking for his goats, and a Saudi fruit merchant visiting Pakistan.
One 25-year-old prisoner testifies that not only wasn't he an enemy combatant, but he was a bodyguard for Afghanistan's US-backed President Hamid Karzai, currently on a visit to Washington. He says his military training came by "order of American officers." It is not clear why he was detained. One of the most arresting testimonies reported by AP revolves around Feroz Abbasi, a Briton accused of training at an al-Qaeeda camp and meeting bin Laden, who has subsequently been released without charges. Abbasi began his testimony by quoting Malcolm X, the slain black Muslim leader: "I did not come here to condemn America. I came here to tell the truth and if the truth condemns American then she stands condemned."
Later Abbasi was kicked out of the proceedings for engaging in a heated debate about international law with the tribunal president, who snaps, "I don't care about international law. I don't want to hear the words international law again."
(source:TimesOfIndia.com, ExpressIndia.com)
Read on..
WASHINGTON: A Pakistani detainee in Guantanamo Bay has exposed Islamabad's official sponsorship of terrorism in depositions before a US tribunal. The unnamed prisoner, accused of being a member of the Lashkar-e-Tayyiba, has referred to the fighting in Kashmir and said it was backed by Pakistan, the US' frontline ally in the war on terrorism. "If you consider this organization a terrorist organization, then you should consider the Pakistan government a terrorist country," he says in a deposition obtained by the Associated Press wire service under a Freedom of Information lawsuit. The excerpt comes from nearly 2,000 pages of documents representing some 558 tribunals held in Guantanamo Bay, according to AP.
The detainee's testimony implicating Islamabad is important because Lashkar is one of several Pakistani organisations designated by the US State Department as Foreign Terrorist Organisations (FTOs) and its sponsors are subject to action under the UN Security Council Resolution No.1373 against terrorism. Although the intelligence community in India and the US believe organisations such as Lashkar and Jaish-e-Mohammed were officially sponsored by Pakistan, Islamabad has maintained a degree of deniability. Islamabad's policy in the regard is common knowledge in Pakistan and has frequently been reported in the Pakistani media.
AP's effort has also brought to light other confusions and contradictions in the US war on terror, revealed through the Gitmo depositions. Among the detainees in Guantanamo Bay identified in the AP report are an Afghan chicken farmer accused of being a Taliban, a goatherd who was captured near a mined area when he was looking for his goats, and a Saudi fruit merchant visiting Pakistan.
One 25-year-old prisoner testifies that not only wasn't he an enemy combatant, but he was a bodyguard for Afghanistan's US-backed President Hamid Karzai, currently on a visit to Washington. He says his military training came by "order of American officers." It is not clear why he was detained. One of the most arresting testimonies reported by AP revolves around Feroz Abbasi, a Briton accused of training at an al-Qaeeda camp and meeting bin Laden, who has subsequently been released without charges. Abbasi began his testimony by quoting Malcolm X, the slain black Muslim leader: "I did not come here to condemn America. I came here to tell the truth and if the truth condemns American then she stands condemned."
Later Abbasi was kicked out of the proceedings for engaging in a heated debate about international law with the tribunal president, who snaps, "I don't care about international law. I don't want to hear the words international law again."
(source:TimesOfIndia.com, ExpressIndia.com)
posted by Shaking Shenoy at 5/23/2005 04:17:00 PM
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