Opinion Visa power

On Friday,Canada apologised for the language used in some of their rejection letters,but did not address the larger question: can countries judge crimes that don’t involve their citizens and are committed outside their soil? In international law parlance,this is code for “universal jurisdiction”,meaning that some crimes,such as genocide,are so grave that every country has a right to punish the guilty. “Universal jurisdiction” has been used to justify the ad-hoc Nuremburg Tribunal that convicted Nazi war criminals in 1946,the hanging of Adolf Eichmann by an Israeli court in 1962,and the recent international warrants issued against former US Vice President Dick Cheney by a Belgian magistrate. Some visa denials are governed by similar logic. Apart from Canada’s visa rejections,the 2005 decision of the US State Department to deny Gujarat Chief Minister Narendra Modi a visa for his role in the 2002 Gujarat riots is based on the same logic behind “universal jurisdiction” — since your internal legal mechanisms are faulty,we have the right to make our own judgment about you.

Is this valid? Can Canada question Indian state actions in Jammu & Kashmir and Punjab? Its own double-standards and India’s legitimate — if faulty — democracy,make that doubtful. The other way to judge Canada’s actions is if it will improve state accountability in J&K and Punjab. Even if legitimate,do arrest warrants and visa-rejections bring any change on the ground? Three examples provide mixed answers.

General Augusto Pinochet ruled Chile from 1974 to 1990; He stepped down in 1990 in favour of a democratically-elected government,but only after he was given presidential immunity from future prosecutions. In 1998,a Spanish magistrate invoked “universal jurisdiction” to issue an arrest warrant against Pinochet for “crimes against humanity” — the widespread killings that took place during his regime. Pinochet was at the time in Britain,where he was promptly arrested to be extradited to Spain. The Chilean government,still in transition from Pinochet’s brutal legacy,whole heartedly supported him. In the end Pinochet was released by the British government on health grounds,and returned to tumultuous support in Chile. Soon after,the Chilean legislature confirmed his immunity. But the many legal cases finally admitted by the Chilean judiciary caught up with him and he was placed under house arrest,until he was judged by a different master. If Augusto Pinochet’s experience is anything to go by,the use of “universal jurisdiction” and threat of prosecution by a foreign country spurred Chile to confront her own demons.

The 2009 arrest warrant issued by a London judge against Israeli leader Tzipi Livni sends the opposite message. Livni was charged with complicity,as Israel’s foreign minister,in war crimes committed by Israeli troops during its 2008-09 invasion of Gaza. The warrant forced Livni to cancel her UK visit,in effect a visa-denial. But the judge could not have gotten it more wrong. Apart from the unverified war crimes claims,Livni is an Israeli moderate. She publicly supports a two-state solution and buys the US-sponsored roadmap for peace,unlike the current Israeli Prime Minister,Benjamin Netanyahu,who is waffly on both. Peace in the Middle East hinges on Livni’s view becoming official policy in Israel. To arrest the likely peacemaker in a conflict zone betrayed imperial arrogance rather than a healthy heart.

The closest analogy to Canada’s visa refusal is the US government’s 2005 decision to deny Narendra Modi a visa for his role in the 2002 Gujarat riots. The rejection served no immediate end: Modi addressed the World Gujarati Conference by videolink. It didn’t serve a larger end either: the domestic processes against Modi,largely directed by the Supreme Court,have little space for what the US thinks. The visa-slap also forced India’s political class and public discourse — sharply polarised around Modi — to rally behind him. Prime Minister Manmohan Singh — a Modi critic,whose law minister thinks that in any other country Modi would have been hanged — was forced to defend Narendra Modi’s honour in the Rajya Sabha. By intervening in a robust and continuing internal debate,the United States played spoiler.

Visa rejections and international warrants are interventions-on-the-cheap. They betray global ambitions,but without the stamina for serious diplomacy or muscle for armed interventions (think tiny,irrelevant Belgium passing warrants against Cheney). It is unfortunate that Canada,without a colonial past or sanctimonious present,must resort to such pieties,especially those that tarnish institutions rather than individuals. Pinochet’s trial played a positive role in his home country,but as Tipni’s and Modi’s cases show,such pieties could equally impede domestic accountability in conflict-ridden states. Canada’s visa rejection also coincides with a prickly new Indian nationalism,most recently exibited in the over-the-top Australia-baiting that followed attacks on Indian students living there. The issue is not a “closed chapter” as Foreign Minister S.M. Krishna now insists. The real tragedy would be if Canada’s cussedness unites Indians in a way that impedes accountability for state violence in Punjab and Jammu & Kashmir.

vinay.sitapati@expressindia.com