Raymond, the terror suspect

Here is Raymond Davis being interviewed right after his arrest by the police.  


http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/asia/pakistan/8316093/American-Raymond-Davis-police-interview-after-shooting-two-Pakistanis-dead.html


This is a man who has just been involved in the homicide of three people; yet he shows little remorse, just irritation at the inconvenience of being caught.  He says he is a "consultant" at the consulate, and then asks for bottled water.  He is anxious and annoyed, enunciates his words to be understood, and clearly thinks it is his right and privilege to get out of the situation as quickly as possible.  No doubt, his racism towards Pakistanis is psychopathic, and whatever consultancy mission he is carrying out for the consulate is not good news for the people of Pakistan.  The police officers themselves are a little confused and almost wanting to give him white protocol, and then one of them reminds everyone - "he's killed people" -- I shudder at the very thought that dangerous men like him, men who act as guilt free as he does after putting away three people -- are working in diplomacy.  It must be diplomacy of a very fatal kind.


If Raymond Davis were a Pakistani man consulting with the consulate in New York and was caught with cellphones, and multiple business cards in Brooklyn right after such an incident, he'd be awaiting a very chilling future of blanks walls and heavy grey doors.  Pakistan would have waived immunity from prosecution in one quick phone call.  He would be in a high security prison.  He would be subjected to several serial, and very serious interrogations.  The media would be awash with news of terror.  He would within days have lost all signs of vitality.  Pretty soon he'd be disoriented, he'd be asking for kiblah and halal food and the people fighting for him back home would be the fundamentalists.


But Raymond Davis just might get away because our government is weak and spineless, caught up in America's war, and anxious for military aid, while the people of Pakistan suffer blast after blast. Just two this morning in Karachi and Hyderabad.


The case has brought lawyers out of the woodwork doing somersaults and handstands reading the Vienna Convention.  Gist of the matter is, in light of his own initial revelations about his status as consultant to the Consulate, and business cards found on him revealing his association with a non existent Florida company Hyperion LLC, and as a defence department contractor -- it is seriously doubtful that he was a diplomatic agent.  This status is defined in the convention as including heads of the mission or a person of diplomatic rank.  If he had diplomatic rank, he would have asserted his immunity right away.  Regardless, he is not free from a civil lawsuit as he was acting outside his official functions. (Art, 31(c) of the Vienna Convention, 1961) -- unless official functions now include sinister operations and the use of military grade knives and high capacity magazines.  It is also doubtful that he is technical and administrative staff (I mean, we're speaking of paper pushers and IT people here, no?)-- and even if he were, he is not immune from civil prosecution (Art. 37) for his negligence causing a wrongful death.  Whatever his status, it can not be altered secretly after the fact of the killings to avoid criminal prosecution.  Also, consular officers are not protected from detention and prosecution for grave crimes under Article 41 of the Vienna Convention 1963, and murder certainly is the gravest crime of all.  Other crimes include the carrying of illegal military grade weapons -- also serious and grave crimes.


More importantly, he sure as hell looks like a bastard; he killed people, and he did not do it in self defence. The first two were murder, and in the third case, he was aidor and abettor to gross negligence manslaughter.  Jane Perlez reported that the forensic evidence that first two of Davis’s victims were shot in the back.


The opening to the Vienna Convention reminds us of the "sovereign equality of States, the maintenance of international peace and security, and the promotion of friendly relations among nations."  It is set in the belief that these privileges and immunities from criminal and civil suits would contribute to the development of friendly relations among nations, irrespective of their differing constitutional and social systems.


None of this preamble is applicable here.   In a country where private mercenary companies from the U.S. are gathering intelligence and facilitating drone attacks - where the state allows the U.S. to carry out drone attacks in violation of the law and principles of human rights,  the Vienna Conventions aims and purposes, otherwise noble, forthright, and logical seem bookishly ludicrous.  There is no semblance of sovereign equality between the two countries - and specially not in light of the fact that the U.S. is threatening to withhold aid until Davis is released.


The article below by Dave Lindorrf says that there "is speculation in Pakistan’s media that Davis may have been involved in some kind of covert U.S. program to actually finance or orchestrate some of the bombings that have been rocking, and destabilizing Pakistan."


http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article27441.htm


Not surprising.  This is what was on him at the time of arrest: (from the same article)
a Glock handgun
a flashlight that attaches to a headband
a pocket telescope
a large number of cellphones
one satellite phone
a collection of batteries
bucketloads of bullets for the Glock and  Beretta 
a load of M-16 shells
military-grade knives
wires
an array of high-capacity magazines for the handguns


In the 1830s, the Talpurs had failed to take note of the significance of the surveying instruments carried by the traveler Alexander Burns who made it down the Indus - and later paved the course for the invasion of Sindh.  In contrast, Davis's instruments are overtly violent.  We should demand an explanation for each one of his instruments.


The biggest mistake we will make is let his issue be relegated to the jamatis.  If the jammat picks it up and carries forward a protest, rest assured all the legitimate arguments will be mixed up with rightist psycho-religious babble, and acquire a sense of lunacy, and be dismissed as wild eyed-speculation and conspiratorial.  The secular minded activists, journalists and lawyers will shy away - just like they shied away from disappearances, detentions, and got amnesia about constitutional rights violations the moment the issue became connected with fundamentalists.


There are few opportunities like this - this case has given us a chance, yet again, to demand answers - and demand that terrorism,of the Ray Davis type, and otherwise, be stopped.  Enough madness!