ASSASSIN of five Pakistanis Raymond Allen Davis has walked free after being in the hot house at Kot Lakhpat Jail, Lahore for fifty days. President Obama’s stern warnings, Hillary Clinton’s admonitions and caveat did not bring the desired outcome since both the President and Prime Minister had made it clear that it was the court that would decide RAD’s fate. All kinds of pressure were mounted from threats of dire consequences to stoppage of economic aid, cancellation of Pak-US Strategic Dialogue, to tit for tat legal action against Pakistani diplomats in the US and even the declaration of the Pakistani Ambassador to the US as persona non grata. Senator Kerry visited Pakistan and made impassioned appeals to the Pakistani leadership.
Admiral Mike Mullen and General Petraeus worked on General Kayani but to no avail. Ultimately, it was not insistence on RAD’s diplomatic immunity or juggling with his numerous passports or converting his business visa to a diplomatic one or replacing old correspondence with fresh ones that did the trick but setting aside feeble pleas for his diplomatic immunity, the US government had to resort to the Islamic law of “Diyat” to secure RAD’s release. The family members of the victims of RAD’s rash behaviour and trigger happy attitude ultimately forgave the assassin and accepted compensation. The wife of one of the victims died along with her unborn child as she could not sustain the pressure that was applied upon her. Her uncle was poisoned while the widow of the second victim had also threatened suicide.
In old western Hollywood movies, like “Gunfight at OK Corral” or “The good, the bad and the ugly” or “Fistful of dollars” all had gun-toting cowboys chewing tobacco, drinking whiskey and getting into gun fights. At the end of these movies, the surviving cowboy would ride off into the sunset. The RAD episode at Mozang Chungi has had a similar end, with RAD departing quietly on a USAF aircraft to Kabul and onwards to safer climes. However, the RAD episode has exposed vulnerabilities of Pakistan’s so called sovereignty. The high flying pronouncements by Prime Minister Gilani and President Zardari have come to naught when the crunch came.
If ultimately they had to buckle under US pressure post haste, they should not have made tall claims. RAD must be having a big bag of dirty secrets, which the US government was keen to keep under the wraps and has paid off more than 200 million dollars in blood money to avoid further embarrassment. The problem is that these dirty secrets were to the detriment of Pakistan and pertained to CIA’s clandestine operations in Pakistan, which involved RAD’s network comprising Al-Qaeda, Taliban, Tehrik-e-Taliban Pakistan and other rotten eggs. By letting RAD walk free, Pakistan has lost the opportunity to unearth the whole range of machination and conspiracy to hurt Pakistan. RAD should have been tried under the Official Secrets Act because besides the victims of the RAD episode, the state of Pakistan was being compromised.The Daily Mail considers it ironic that Islam, which has been under criticism of the west for being barbaric and inciting its followers towards extremism, ultimately provided the opportunity to seek reprieve for a criminal indicted by a Pakistani court for murder and illegal possession of arms – Dailymailnews
