The Friday Times:Raymond Davis: fact & fiction by Najam Sethis
Raymond Davis: fact & fiction
The case of Raymond Davis has outraged the imagination and sentiment of Pakistanis mainly because of a distortion of key facts by powerful sections of the Pakistani media. It has also become a vicious ping pong game between the PPP and PMLN governments, with both trying to score nationalist points regardless of the consequences for political stability and national security. Ominously, though, it has soured a troubled relationship between Pakistan and the US who claim to be strategic partners in the region. Lets sift fact from fiction.
Fiction: Mr Davis murdered two Pakistanis. He shot them in the back, suggesting he was not threatened by them. They were not robbers. Their handguns were licensed. Fact: Two men on a motorbike, armed with unlicensed pistols, held up Mr Davis car. He expertly shot them through the windscreen, stepped out and took pictures of the gunmen with weapons as evidence of self-defense. Later, an autopsy report showed that four out of seven bullets had hit the gunmen in the front, confirming the threat to him. The criminals had earlier robbed two passersby of their cell phones and money.
Fiction: Mr Davis is not a diplomat because he doesnt have a diplomatic visa or status registered with the Foreign Office. Hence he cannot claim diplomatic immunity under the Vienna Conventions.
Fact: Mr Davis has a Diplomatic Passport. His visa application by the US State Department to the Pakistan Embassy in Washington DC of 11 September 2009 lists him as a Diplomat who is on Official Business. The US government has claimed diplomatic immunity for him. This is the norm. For example, Pakistans Ambassador to Spain in 1975, Haroon ur Rashid Abbasi, was granted immunity following discovery of heroin from his suitcase.
Col Mohammad Hamid Pakistans military attaché in London in 2000, was caught having sex with a prostitute in his car in a public place. He invoked diplomatic immunity and avoided arrest. Mohammad Arshad Cheema, Pakistans First Secretary in Nepal, also invoked diplomatic immunity after 16kg of high inte4nsity RDX explosives were recovered from his house and he was suspected of being involved in the hijacking of Indian Airlines Flight IC-814. And so on.
Fiction: Mr Davis was not in any imminent danger of grievous injury, let alone kidnapping or death, from the two young men. So he committed a murder and cannot plead self-defense.
Fact: A murder necessitates a motive. What motive could Mr Davis have in killing two unknown people in broad daylight if they didnt threaten him in any way? More to the point, Westerners, especially Americans, risk all manner of threats while in Pakistan because of extreme anti-Americanism in the country for various reasons. At least 10 Americans have been killed by terrorists in Pakistan in the last thirty years, and US consulates in Karachi and Peshawar and the embassy in Islamabad have been attacked twice each. The US Principal Officer in Peshawar was attacked in 2008 and the Marriot Hotel was bombed. In addition, Iranian diplomats, Chinese engineers and UN workers have been killed or kidnapped by terrorists since 1990; the Sri Lankan cricket team was attacked in 2009, and 17 French Naval technicians were killed in Karachi in 2003. And so on. Under the circumstances, Mr Davis had every right to fear he might be kidnapped or killed by the two gunmen. The law relating to self defense is also clear, notwithstanding calibrations and qualifications in case law. If there is even a perceived threat of grievous bodily harm, let alone death, a person may be justified in countering it in any manner in self-defense.
So where do we go from here?
The Punjab government has played a particularly dubious, nay devious, role from the outset. It pressurized the local police to arrest Mr Davis instead of verifying his diplomatic immunity and letting him go. It exploited anti-Americanism to embarrass the PPP government in Islamabad by putting the onus of responsibility for claiming diplomatic immunity on it. It nominated a public prosecutor who deliberately falsified information to enrage popular passions. The federal government, meanwhile, has been craven, inefficient and defensive to the point of opportunism. The end result is that US-Pak relations have soured significantly at a time when neither side can afford to be distracted from the main issues at hand.
In the end, however, the matter will have to be settled according to the facts of the situation in light of international and domestic law rather than passion and outrage. If the Federal Government should officially tell the court that Mr Davis has diplomatic immunity or the public prosecutor argue self-defense in his behalf, he should be a free man.
The sooner this is done, the better. A states national interest is not served by passion or prejudice in the face of strategic interests. This must not be sacrificed at the altar of party politics. Equally, the US must stop pressurizing Pakistan to accept trigger happy cowboys on intelligence operations as unaccountable diplomats. If this Ugly American syndrome persists, and if CIA or Blackwater killers and Special Ops men run amuck in Pakistan, as they did in Iraq, there will be more rage and violence on the street, and both Pakistan and the US will be net losers.
