Pakistani Police Officer Puts End To Violations By US Diplomats

Ahmed Quraishi

A young Pakistani Assistant Superintendent of Police [ASP] chased a fleeing US embassy car for two kilometers after it sped through a police checkpoint on the outskirts of the Pakistani capital on Tuesday, Dec. 8, 2009.

When the diplomats refused to stop, the ASP drove past them and then sharply turned his car to force the US embassy vehicle to screech to a halt. He and his senior police officers insisted the US diplomats return to the police picket, apologize to the Pakistani police officers and submit to a security inspection of the inside of the car like all cars passing through the checkpoint, according to the exclusive report published by Lahore’s The Nation newspaper.

The incident is significant because of the meteoric rise in incidents of public bullying by US diplomats and privately armed security contractors in Pakistani cities. At least three incidents have been registered by Islamabad police this year where armed Americans in plainclothes assaulted Pakistani citizens.

There is growing evidence that Pakistan’s pro-US government has let tens of Blackwater-type private US security contractors into the country without taking the Pakistani public opinion into confidence. The Pakistani ambassador in Washington, who is strongly backed by US government and military, is suspected of having leaked confidential documents to the Indian media in September 2009 in order to embarrass Pakistan’s military intelligence community.

Hours after a terrorist blast at a busy market in Lahore killed over 50 women and children on Dec. 8, two US Consulate Land Cruisers caused a traffic jam because US diplomats locked themselves inside to prevent Pakistani Military Police officials from inspecting the cars. The military did not release the cars without first taking them to an unidentified location for questioning.

In October, Pakistani media reports said ISI Chief Gen. Ahmed Shuja Pasha told CIA chief Leon Panetta during his secret visit to Islamabad that Pakistanis have evidence that implicates CIA operatives in Afghanistan in supporting terrorism inside Pakistan.

Pakistan is facing a deadly and sophisticated wave of terrorism targeting civilians in public places. The wave coincides with US attempt to shift its wars in Iraq and Afghanistan to Pakistan on the unsubstantiated ground that Islamabad is responsible for the looming US failure in Afghanistan.