Humanitarian laws? Not for Pakistan

LIC is a term coined by the US military for terrorist activity. At the other end of the spectrum of conflict is nuclear war which is absolutely high intensity. Such terrorist activity is low intensity only for the militant. He has theinitiative and the choice of time, place, target and weapons, and is therefore unlikely to suffer much loss in the process of surprise attacks on defenceless civilians. Whereas, for the attacked it is hardly low intensity as these people lose life, limb, homes, possessions and their security. It is estimated that because of terrorist activity about 50,000 Kashmiri Pandits have been displaced and become refugees in their own country.

The terrorism in India is being made out to be a purely internal law and order problem. Whereas in actuality, it is not. In fact, as accepted by the international community, it is trans-border terrorism, aided and abetted by an adversary under whose aegis the terrorist is trained, kitted, tasked and armed. Hence, it is war. And, in an interstate war, there are principles of International Humanitarian Laws of War that have to be followed.

The Four Geneva Conventions on the Laws of War were drawn up in 1949. The Fourth Convention and Additional Protocol I, Part IV were drawn upfor the protection of civilian persons and population in time of war. To ensure respect and protection for the civilian population and property, this Protocol obliges the parties to a conflict to distinguish between the civilian population and combatants, as well as between civilian property and military objectives. The Protocol also prohibits threats or violence intended to terrorise the civilian population.

However, massacres by terrorists in Jammu and in adjoining Himachal Pradesh targeted civilians. And recently, the Pakistani Army, in order to add to the terrorising of the civilian population, carried out unprovoked firing on innocent civilians. Whether these attacks were by Pakistani terrorists or mercenaries or by army personnel, they contravene Geneva Convention IV and Additional Protocol I.

The Hague Convention of May 14, 1954 is for the protection of cultural property. Yet, from the commencement of the Pakistani terrorist activity, the renowned Charar-e-Sharif and over a hundred small Hindutemples have been destroyed.

The gross transgressions of the Geneva and the Hague Conventions and the serious violation of human rights indicate the lack of respect Pakistan has for international law. This lack of respect is probably because that country was pampered for selfish geopolitical reasons by a superpower. International terrorism was accepted, maybe as just a happening in only the Third World.

But, it has not spared the West either. There was the bombing by a Pakistani of the World Trade Centre in New York, and recently also the explosions at the US missions in Dar-es-salam and Nairobi.

With state-sponsored terrorism on the rise, the major powers are now becoming alive to the problem. However, to stay current with the existing international circumstances, the Geneva Conventions and the Hague Convention need to be updated and revised so as to include the jurisdiction of the International Committee of the Red Cross under conditions of state-sponsored trans-border terrorism, in addition to thatin conventional war.

The writer is a retired air vice marshal.