Let’s have a transparent inquiry

The alleged video of army personnel executing 6 men does not bespeak heat-of-battle mindlessness. It appears planned.

General Ashfaq Kayani has ordered an inquiry into the video clip that allegedly shows Pakistan Army personnel wasting six blindfolded men, hands tied behind their backs. This is a positive step. Kayani also said in his remarks on October 8 that such conduct – i.e. executing the adversary or suspects in cold blood – “is not expected of a professional army”.

He has appointed a major-general to head the inquiry, along with at least three other senior officers. At the same time, Kayani has cautioned that the video might well have been faked since the Taliban and other extremist groups are known to doctor videos.

So, yes, one doesn’t need to jump to any conclusions until the inquiry is complete. Having said this, however, let me add one caveat and also revisit the video.

First, the caveat: the inquiry committee, in addition to the military officers, should also have at least three eminent civilians — a judge, a media person, and one representative of the Human Rights Commission of Pakistan. This would make the exercise transparent and add to the weight of Kayani’s words that such conduct, if proved, would not be tolerated.

Now to the video:  I described it last week. Having seen it many times since, I have heard some more. The second time the soldier speaks, he tells Abid to tell Tanvir saab “Toor saab is calling you.” It should not be too difficult to pinpoint a unit that has officers Tanvir and Toor, not to mention the bearded gentleman who is the most easily identifiable.

When the bearded officer goes up to the blindfolded men, he asks, “Do you know the kalma; yes?” He goes up to the first and says “You recite it.” Subsequently, it’s inaudible, but he seems to ask each of them in turn to recite the kalma. If this video is genuine, then army has a bizarre way of administering rites de passage. The last thing one hears before the firing is one soldier asking, “One by one, or all at once?” “All at once,” is the answer.

Prima facie, this video doesn’t seem faked. It is important that the inquiry committee not approach it from the premise that it is ersatz. The soldier and the officer, who can be heard, are not Pashtun. They speak army lingo and betray army mannerism. Also, this execution does not bespeak heat-of-battle mindlessness. It appears planned, though at what level is not clear.

I have heard other such stuff on the grapevine, so chances are, if this is genuine, it’s not a one-off. And if it is not, and given what the Taliban groups avowedly do, how should we react to this?

Some people would say that if these men were Taliban, the army was right to bump them off. Wrong. Anyone who knows the army and has an abiding interest in studying the art of soldiering would be loath to say this. There are pressures in the field. I’d be the first to concede them. I have seen and felt those pressures and written about them, and not from the confines of a drawing room. I am also worried about the current tour of duty in the operational areas, roughly 22 months for a unit, which is at least a year more than it should be.

Equally disturbing are issues of equipment and casualties. We have to debate them and the army has to be more open about them. No army has ever suffered on the basis of openness but most have for being opaque. Neither does the argument that the army has internal mechanisms for correction impress me. Organisation theory is empirically clear on two major and built-in weaknesses of even the most efficient large bureaucratic organisation — bounded rationality and systematic stupidity. So, while, as Herodotus said, during wars fathers bury their sons, we have to ensure the sons are not getting buried because someone is blundering.

And yet, none of this makes, or can, extenuating grounds for a disciplined force possibly acting like rogue elements. Units and sub-units can succumb to such pressures; it is not easy to see videos of one’s comrades being slaughtered on camera. But this is precisely the point where officership comes in, the point where a soldier and his honour stand out in sharp contrast from a sick killer.

In a war where the enemy is tightly coupled with the non-combatant, such incidents can, and will, happen. But the army has to continuously watch out for them to maintain its organisational integrity, cohesiveness, morale and discipline. At the same time, we need to work out the legalities of dealing with such fighters. It is a tough call but offers a challenge that must be met.

Kayani has ordered the inquiry; let us see how quickly and transparently the committee closes this sordid affair.