HUMAN RIGHTS
THE Daily OBSERVER SUPPLEMENT tUESDAY, April 4, 2017
Out to Kill Growing incidents of human rights abuse and increasingly rare prosecutions of the guilty have brought AFSPA under the scanner Ilona Dam
I
t has been more than 58 years since the Armed Forces Special Powers Act was enforced. Since then, the Army has taken on a new meaning in the North-Eastern states of Assam, Nagaland, Manipur, Arunachal Pradesh, Mizoram and Meghalaya with 3,579 human rights violation cases registered over the last three years. The 1958 Act not only provides immunity from prosecution to the Army but also gives it sweeping power to shoot and kill in the name of law and order. While the government doesn’t intend to withdraw from north-easter states, it has seen a 93 per cent decline in the number of cases adjudged over the past three years, according to an IndiaSpend report. With no accountability and increasing number of human rights violation cases, a storm has been churning in the Indian states to repeal AFSPA. AFSPA, an act that turned the Army against its own people was termed ‘draconian’ by the 2015 Jeevan Reddy Committee.The Act, which gives blind power to the Army to shoot on sight based on suspicion has become a symbol of oppression and stands in violation of one’s fundamental right to life. Thangjam Manorama was a victim of AFSPA. She was a young Manipuri woman who was picked up by the 17th Assam Rifles on allegations of being associated with the People’s Liberation Army in 2004. The brutality of her death and possible rape sparked off a unique protest, Nupi
Lan, where 12 Imams, mothers, stripped off their clothes demanding justice. However, with several loopholes in enacted law, the results are appalling. While 40 human rights cases were addressed in 2012-2013, only one saw the light of the day last year.
Previously, in 1987, the notorious Operation Blue Star had enraged the people of Manipur. In more than 30 villages, people were tortured, raped and killed in fake encounters. And yet there have been no convictions, according to Vivek Chadha’s Armed Forces Special Powers Act: A Debate, 2013. AFSPA exempts the Army from any sort of legal punishment , which adds to the citizens’ horror. “Impunity for systematic or isolated sexual violence in the process of internal security duties is being legitimised by the AFSPA,”
the Justice J.S. Verma Committee noted. In other words, Army personnel aren’t subject to the normal legal redress mechanism of a democracy. A law which abuses fundamental rights must, hence, be repealed. Nevertheless with such loopholes, despite misuse of power, convictions have become increasingly rare as the Army’s powers don’t come with adequate safeguards. There have been several protests like the Nupi Lan, where the Imams stripped in front of the Kangla Fort, the thenheadquarters of Assam Riffles, shouting, “Indian Army come and rape us all.” Irom Sharmila, the Iron Lady of Manipur went on a 17-year-long hunger strike against the AFSPA. The Army’s defence of AFSPA says that they need an act protecting them in areas which are disturbed. However, some of the army officials have also accepted that often, young officers get “carried away.” A retired senior officer, while speaking to The Telegraph said that it is a patriotic zeal that fuels them. “But there are also chances of getting awards if they kill more terrorists. So it becomes an obsession to kill and that leads to rogue operations,” he added. Thus, the biggest failure of the Act, which is in urgent need of reconsideration, has been its inability to prosecute cases in the public domain with transparency. The continued employment of AFSPA in its present form will only deepen the divide between the Army and the people that it is supposed to protect, with countless human rights violation cases and no accountability.
Unwanted U.S. Export
The American campaign to spread democracy around the world has backfired with unintended consequences Cherry Agarwal
T
he American campaign to spread democracy around the world was aimed at encouraging regional governmental actors to pursue political reforms culminating in t he establishment of democratic governments in those regions. This was the ideal philosophy the
United States (U.S.) had aimed to follow to preserve the “Free World” post World War II. Yet the gap between this policy rhetoric and the reality has resulted in the U.S. failure in promoting democracy across the world. This gap between policy decisions and reality stems from U.S.’ self interest in gaining economic, political or security leverage in the countries it has been trying to “democratize.” This was exemplified in the U.S. invasion of Iraq in 2003. The U.S. did not invade Iraq to stabilise the region but to build its dominance, wrote Paul Krugman of The New York Times. This self-serving U.S. propaganda has in turn undermined U.S. interest in democracy and failed in its attempt to promote modern democracy in the truest sense of its spirit. Another reason for failure of the U.S. initiatives has been its approach. Rather than strengthening regional leaders of various countries on the ground for self-gover-
nance, U.S. has attempted to dislodge and replace regimes like Bashar Al Assad’s in Syria, which has only fuelled conflict in the region. Its attempt to “export” ready-made democracy, using military intervention, without participation of the general populace has backfired as there has been no preparation to help the countries through such massive political transformation. This was well summarised by Foreign Policy’s Stephen Malt who said, “There is no quick, cheap or military-based way to bring peace.” Such initiatives have only cost the U.S. more. It has further resulted in grassroots rebellion such as the formation of the Islamic State. The U.S.’ misinterpretation of people’s desire for self determination as their want for democratic governance has also added to the superpower’s failure as a campaigner of democracy. “No people must be forced under sovereignty under which it does not wish to live,” said Woodrow Wilson, the 28th President of the United States of America. Thus, false universal acceptability of U.S.-promoted democratic governance at the end of the Cold War, in part, as much as U.S.’ blanket self-serving campaign to prop up democratic governances through undemocratic means has failed the United States in re-
cent years. Instead of using military presence to establish regimes and conducting artificial, unsustainable elections, the U.S. should focus on preparing the nations for transitions through aid: diplomatic and financial. Diplomatic aid can help nations develop their own Constitutions, create a robust legal system and build a capacity among its people to sustain and carry forward governance measures for lasting stability. This could be through any means chosen by the general masses i.e. by exercising people’s right to self-determine. Re-addressing U.S.’ approach will not only bridge the gap between its policies and reality but also establish it as a diplomatic super power.