Crisis of diplomacy or politics?

As if we did not have enough problems at hand, here we are sunk in yet another self-made crisis over a former US special forces soldier ‘on contract’ with Department of Defence sent on a ‘special mission’ to Pakistan who according to the US Embassy in Islamabad had a diplomatic status and ‘enjoyed diplomatic immunity from criminal jurisdiction’ for the crime he committed in ‘self-defence’ on January 27 by killing two Pakistanis that he thought were trying to ambush or rob him in the congested Mozang area. Davis was arrested by the Punjab Police immediately after the incident.

This is not how issues of grave importance between states are addressed. A very relevant question has been asked in the media. If Raymond Davis did not enjoy this status, why didn’t the Foreign Office say so on day one? It is also being questioned why wasn’t the list of people who have been extended diplomatic immunity kept updated. It was no less intriguing that at every step, the constant governmental refrain was on the case being ‘sub judice. It very much sounded a legalistic approach but in effect it only amounted to passing the buck. The result is a diplomatic mess that goes beyond mere embarrassment. It is now casting shadows on much larger issues.

No doubt, many misconceptions prevail about diplomacy. To some, it is mysterious activity conducted by ‘clever and suspicious’ persons about whom little is known or understood. To others, it is a useless and irrelevant activity that has no role in today’s world. To many others, it is an expensive luxury and waste of time. The reality comes out if we look at the options available to sovereign states in dealing with each other.To put it simply, states can either retreat into isolation or refuse to have anything to do with the rest of the world, or impose their will by force and coercion on others, or pursue their national interests through dialogue, mutual engagement and cooperation. Surely the third option is the only realistic and desirable alternative. There is no substitute for dialogue and cooperation. This is not only common sense but also a norm that has been validated over time as a universally accepted principle of inter-state relations. Wars and hegemony do not serve humanity; they make their life miserable. That is why civilized world today uses diplomacy as an instrument of statecraft for the conduct of inter-state relations.

The time of sending warriors as couriers on behalf of sovereign princes is long gone, and after the Peace of Westphalia in 1648, states opted out of ‘the province of military contractors and theologians’ leaving their disputes to be resolved through professional diplomats. Before Westphalia, there was no recognizable diplomatic profession. Soldiers used to be led by private entrepreneurs as contractors who garnered pay from their own estates or from the lands they plundered. Armed warrior messengers and heralds citing scripture or handing out declamations were the usual route that princes chose to alert one another to each other’s demands or to sound the start of a war.

After Westphalia, diplomats and warriors began to share a kind of regulatory synergy. They sought less “victory,” and more of a ‘favourable’ peace. War, after Westphalia, as the great observer Carl von Clausewitz put it, became a “stronger form of diplomacy” making the battlefield an extension of the ‘conference chamber.’With passage of time, as inter-state relations became more and more expansive and complex, modern diplomacy also acquired multitudinous dimension both in its nature and scope. Expansion of trade and industry, development of worldwide communication, technological revolution and more recently the challenges of global terrorism are some of the essential elements in today’s new diplomacy. In a system of sovereign entities, a state may enhance its power at the expense of its rivals through duress or violent coercion or through negotiation and diplomatic engagement which may well involve bargaining, trickery and misrepresentation. The end is the same. The means differ depending upon circumstances.

In an informal or social sense, diplomacy is the employment of tact to gain strategic advantage over one’s rival or interlocutor through phrasing of statements in a non-confrontational, polite or social manner. In essence, however, diplomacy is a well-resourced and skilful political activity between and among states in pursuit of their respective foreign policy goals without resort to force, propaganda or law. But at the end of the day, modern diplomacy, like military force, is an instrument for the enhancement of state power. That is what we are witnessing now. .

We are witnessing the revival of the pre-17th century diplomacy in which trained ‘on-contract’ Glock carrying warriors are sent on diplomatic missions to kill. They might soon render the commodity of ‘polite, soft-spoken and sociable’ professional diplomats like Foreign Secretary Salman Bashir and Ambassador Cameron Munter redundant. The first and the last lines of defence are now getting blurred. History might soon begin recording the names of today’s warrior-killer diplomats like Raymond Allen Davis in the galaxy of America’s most distinguished and renowned diplomats of its history, some of whom also became president of their great country.

The list is exhaustive but it includes eminently exalted people like Thomas Jefferson, John Adams, Franklin Benjamin, Averell Harriman, Adlai Stevenson, George F. Kennan, John Kenneth Galbraith, Joseph P. Kennedy, Sir Sidney Poitier, Shirley Jane Temple, George H. W. Bush, Madeline Albright, Bill Richardson, and Richard Holbrooke. Welcome to the exclusive gallery of American diplomats, Raymond Davis, or whoever you actually are by name. Only history will judge if you really deserved to be in the company of your country’s great men of honour, and whether you have done justice to their legacy.

No doubt, the question of your status has surely been mishandled by both your government and ours. It was a simple legal issue involving interpretation of the Vienna Convention that could have been easily resolved at the level of our Foreign Office which unfortunately was kept sitting at the outer fences of the government, and did not play the central role that it should have. If anything, this was a challenge for Salman Bashir as Foreign Secretary of the ‘receiving’ state and Mr. Cameron Munter as Ambassador of the ‘sending’ state to have addressed by using their diplomatic skills in which both are well trained. Both understand the letter and spirit of the Vienna Conventions that codified most modern diplomatic and consular practices, including diplomatic immunity.

For example, diplomatic agents and members of their immediate families are immune from all criminal prosecution and most civil law suits. Administrative and technical staff members of embassies have a lower level of immunity. Like diplomats, they are immune from all criminal jurisdictions but can enjoy immunity from civil and administrative jurisdiction of the host country only for acts performed while on official duty.Diplomatic immunity is not a personal right but a principle of international law by which certain foreign government officials are not subject to the jurisdiction of local courts and other authorities. Diplomatic immunity is not meant to benefit individuals personally; it is meant to ensure that foreign officials can do their jobs. Under the concept of reciprocity, diplomats assigned to any country in the world benefit equally from diplomatic immunity. It is true that diplomats are exempt from the criminal, civil and administrative jurisdiction of the host country. However, this exemption may be waived by their home country.

This may be done at any time and there is no obligation to explain such a decision. In these situations, the home country, as a rule, would recall the person or terminate his/her function with the mission.The Vienna Convention provides for specific measures that can be taken by both the home and host countries in cases of misuse or abuse of diplomatic privileges and immunities. On the whole, diplomatic privileges and immunities have served as efficient tools facilitating relations between States. No signatory, including Pakistan and the US has so far proposed rescinding the Convention or re-writing of any of its provisions.

Unfortunately like the Kerry-Lugar Bill fiasco, both sides have again messed up the whole issue by abnegating their responsibility and leaving the media to do everything on their behalf. The resultant situation now seems to be causing new strains in the already troubled US-Pakistan relationship. The matter certainly did not belong to the court but it has now been forced on it, and again, it is the Foreign Office that holds the key.

The Americans have their own soul-searching to do on whether they can continue to abuse the Vienna Convention for sending ‘warrior’ diplomats on missions to kill but we in Pakistan already know our problem. These Glock carrier Rambos are not here without our formal consent. Only because we can’t provide them credible security, foreign diplomats are allowed in our country to have their own security arrangements and armed guards. We also permit them to use non-diplomatic number plates on their diplomatic vehicles. We never had this lawlessness until 10 years ago.

It is a shameful legacy of servitude that Musharraf left behind for this benighted nation. If officials of foreign missions are now violating any established norms or exceeding their declared mandate, it is only because we are no longer a rule-based, law-abiding, independent and sovereign country. We do not take our own decisions. In the process, the poor, emotionally abused people see not what is and see what is not.

The problem in Pakistan is the corrupt, deceptive politics that reigns supreme. As WikiLeaks made it clear, everybody is playing politics with each other. Ironically, the same politicians who have shown scant regard for Judiciary’s decisions on NRO and other high-profile corruption cases are now looking at the court as a shield for their own weaknesses and failures in handling the Raymond Davis case in conformity with the Vienna Convention. No wonder, the country once again is a laughingstock the world over.