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The fact of the burials is no longer in dispute. The matter was debated in the Senate, the National Assembly of Pakistan and the Provincial Assembly of Sindh. The country’s reputed organizations, including a human rights organization, have confirmed the incident.
In fact, one senator tried to defend these burials. Senator Israrullah Zehri stated that the killings were part of the tribal traditions and that no one should say anything in the Upper House about the incident. This statement was severely criticized by several other senators and also by many organizations and the media.
A problem, however, is that despite this heinous crime being revealed no action has been taken to conduct a credible criminal investigation into the matter by competent authorities. There is a widely held belief that after reports are requested from various persons, who are unlikely to investigate or report on the matter truthfully, these burials will be forgotten.
There is a culture of impunity and an enormous culture of intimidation in these tribal areas, where people are ruled through a ruthless system of suppression. Under these circumstances only a very determined attempt on the part of the United Nations and the international community would achieve a result in the efforts made by many persons and organizations to publicize these gruesome killings and to bring this type of practice to an end.
This incident is an indication of how far violence can spread – and be treated as normal – when there are no credible and competent mechanisms for filing complaints or conducting investigations and prosecutions. In the absence of these, the persons who rule these areas can act as ruthlessly as they please.
This poses big questions for the newly elected democratic government of Pakistan. Mere statements of condemnation in the Senate and national and provincial assemblies will not generate hope for people who are liable to become victims of such tribal practices.
The very fact that such an incident as the burial of five persons while still alive became possible demonstrates the level of the fear psychosis that has spread throughout these areas. The duty of a democratically elected government is to send a clear message of the condemnation of this kind of violence. Such condemnation must be expressed through the law and the implementation of the law.
The lawyer’s movement in Pakistan is raising all the right questions about the type of society that Pakistan has become under military rule and these live burials are an indication of the extent of the lawlessness in the country. The government must resolve the basic issues that are being raised by the lawyer’s movement, including the reinstatement of all the judges that were removed under the military government, so that the process of improving the rule-of-law system will be expedited. It will be a sad reflection on the democratic process itself if similar deaths take place in the future.
International agencies such as the U.N. Special Rapporteur on Violence against Women and others, and also the governments representing the international community, should demand decisive action on the part of the provincial government of Balochistan and the government of Pakistan demonstrating the political will to bring the perpetrators of this heinous crime to justice.
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(Basil Fernando is director of the Asian Human Rights Commission based in Hong Kong. He is a Sri Lankan lawyer who has also been a senior U.N. human rights officer in Cambodia. He has published several books and written extensively on human rights issues in Asia.)
