Pakistan vindicated, says Foreign Office

ISLAMABAD: Pakistan felt vindicated as hours before Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif was to meet with President Obama, Amnesty International reported that the US-led drone strikes “may amount to war crimes or extrajudicial executions”. The Foreign Office spokesman told The News, “These findings by Amnesty International are indeed very timely. The report should be seen in the context of growing international public challenging the legality and usefulness of drone strikes.” He pointed out that Pakistan regards the drone strikes as violation of its sovereignty as well as international law. “We also regard them as counterproductive. Pakistan’s leadership has conveyed our principled position to the US leadership at every level. We have also raised it in the UN. It is our expectation that these drone strikes will end,” he added.Earlier, different international organisations and secretary general of UN had spoken against these deadly strikes. “As I have often said, the use of armed drones, like any other weapon, should be subject to long-standing rules of international law, including international humanitarian law,” he said during a visit to Islamabad. “Every effort should be made to avoid mistakes and civilian casualties,” he said. On Saturday, Jemima Khan and the Brave New Foundation will be screening a film “Unmanned: America’s Drone War” in Islamabad.However, Amnesty has also asked Pakistani authorities to investigate whether Pakistani officials were involved in providing information for them. It is well known that past governments, together with GHQ, had allowed these strikes though publicly they condemned them.Amnesty notes that there has been “failure of the Pakistani authorities to protect and enforce the rights of victims of drone strikes. None of the authorities answered questions regarding specific drone strikes or the possible role of some Pakistani officials or private citizens in the US drone programme”. Pakistan is also accused of possible complicity of some of its organs or officials in unlawful killings by the US drones and the state’s failure to protect people in Fata.The FO spokesman added that civilians have been victims of these drone strikes and it was now being seen that world opinion was also now fast emerging against drone attacks. The Amnesty report was titled: “Will I be next? US drone strikes in Pakistan”. It documented strikes that occurred in 2012 and 2013.The US should end the secrecy surrounding its drone campaign in Pakistan and bring those responsible for illegal strikes to justice, Amnesty International added. It said that without more transparency, it was impossible to test US claims that the attacks are based on reliable intelligence and are in conformity to international law.Mustafa Qadri, the group’s Pakistan researcher was quoted as saying that “secrecy surrounding the drones programme gives the US administration a licence to kill beyond the reach of the courts or basic standards of international law.” Two specific incidents are being highlighted in the media which prove how callous Washington has been all these years while taking out civilians.One is related to the death of 68-year-old Mamana Bibi in a double strike as she picked vegetables in the family’s fields in October 2012.In the second, Amnesty said, 18 labourers were killed in a village on the Afghan border as they ate meal at the end of the day.