It has been a week since the US cables released by WikiLeaks revealed the extent of extrajudicial measures being resorted to by the State in Kashmir. For the people of Kashmir, the revelation has been a vindication. Everyone knew about it. The leaked cables, however, reveal the irony of it as well: others knew too. And they turned a blind eye to the state of inhuman affairs.
Both the Indian and state governments are complicit of torturing political prisoners. There cannot be a second argument about this. But what is disconcerting is that this cannot absolve others of being partners in crime, albeit indirectly. An acquiescent international community cannot wash off its hands of complicity. It's an indelible blot that will not go away.
The International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) was said to have become frustrated with the Indian government which, they said, had not acted to halt the "continued ill-treatment of detainees". It is understandable why ICRC did not publish a report on the findings. It is not a public advocacy organisation, after all. But by not taking up the issue with the Indian government, all that the US in turn willy-nilly did was to let the people of Kashmir down.
ICRC claimed that out of 1,296 detainees it had interviewed between 2002 and 2004, 681 said they had been tortured. Of those, 498 said they had been electrocuted, 381 suspended from the ceiling, and 302 sexually abused. It would be interesting to know what these 680-odd people have to say about the fact that a country sat on these findings for five good years. Do we expect them to forgive, forget, and move on? ICRC's policy of not engaging directly with governments may suddenly become a matter of debate, but what is not is that this policy was used by the US to remain a mute spectator to the atrocities being perpetrated by Indian security forces in Kashmir.
According to US embassy in New Delhi, ICRC concluded that India "condones torture" and that the torture victims were civilians as militants were routinely killed. ICRC has since confirmed that the meeting referred to in the cable had indeed taken place. "It must also be stressed that the ICRC cannot take responsibility for the content of the cables, which emanate from representatives of the US authorities," the organisation told CNN. There was no need for the humanitarian agency to clarify this for it would give the unnecessary impression that ICRC wants to wash its hands off the matter.
One understands ICRC's predicament. The organisation, if at all, can be held guilty of only one charge -- not blowing the whistle; but then it is not in the business of blowing whistles. The WikiLeaks disclosure now puts it in a bind. ICRC may well find it increasingly difficult to deal with the Indian government, at least as far as Kashmir is concerned. The organisation is neither very mileage-hungry, nor very media-friendly. The organisation even told CNN that it "engages in a sustained dialogue with the concerned authorities of the countries where the ICRC works with the aim of addressing concrete humanitarian issues. In very specific instances this dialogue may be extended to third parties who may play a role in addressing humanitarian situations."
That would bring us to the third party in question -- the United States. The fact that this country, which does not let an opportunity go abegging to criticise China, Myanmar and Cuba for the human rights violations they inflict on their own people, chose to remain silent speaks volumes for its infernal duplicity. When Secretary of State Hilary Clinton asserted that the Wikileaks releases had hurt US interests, she was only uttering a half-truth. It has hurt America's "vested" interests. And it is for this reason that the US turned a deaf ear to the ICRC concerns. The "democratic values" that the US espouses come across as empty, hypocritical rhetoric.
There has been too much hype about the new-construed US-India friendship. It extends beyond nuclear cooperation. that is why India has not a word to say about the humanitarian tragedies in Iraq and Afghanistan. It has as informed an opinion about Guantanamo as the US has about Kashmir. Friendship these days is only about screaming hoarse about human rights abuses in third countries. But as far as the mutual admiration societ is concerned, the US and India are as guilty as, say, China, Iran and Myanmar.
