ISLAMABAD, September 12, 2009: The American plans to build a super embassy in Islamabad on the pattern of Iraq have apparently hit snags as a petition has been submitted to the Supreme Court of Pakistan, seeking to restrain the Americans from getting further 18 acres of land over and above the 38 acres already acquired by them in Islamabad, for expansion of the US Embassy in the Pakistani federal capital.
Under an ambitious program to strengthen its presence in Pakistan, Washington had decided to bring 1000 personnel, including a large number of US Marines, to Pakistan. For that matter, the US has already undertaken a project to rebuild and refurbish the embassy building and construct accommodation for the additional staff and a massive complex for the Marines to be stationed in the capital. What’s on the drawing boards in Washington and Islamabad are the blue prints for vastly increasing the number of American personnel manning one of the most important diplomatic presence in the 21st century for the Americans in Pakistan. Apparently, Washington feels that its battery of 750 men and women stocking the American Embassy in Islamabad is far too inadequate to cope with the job on their hands.
However, a petition challenging the American plans, filed Barrister Zafarullah Khan on behalf of the Watan Party, has urged the Pakistani Supreme Court to prevent the Americans from hiring as many as 250 offices in Islamabad and that no diplomatic mission may be allowed to get on lease or through sale land more than the requirement of the diplomatic mission. It has also been sought that the Pakistan government be asked to fulfill their responsibility towards providing security to the diplomatic missions as per international law. The petitioner has further urged the court for directing the government that surveillance of all communications and monitoring of all kind of telecommunication services may be stopped forthwith.
The petitioner argues that contrary to the trend, set by the age of communication, of cutting down the staff, America is extraordinarily enhancing the presence of its staff in Islamabad, which may also include 1000 marines with latest equipment, which may be a means to ‘bring us down on our knees’ and to ‘capture our nuclear facility’ so that Pakistan could get the same treatment the US meted out to South Korea, Taiwan, Iraq, and Afghanistan. The petitioners say America claims Pakistan was given $12 billion in the war on terror while Pakistan lost about $40 billion in the same war, besides the lives of thousands of its citizens. “As a nation we do not need their (American) money and presence of Marines and Blackwater and other unidentified US personnel in Islamabad or anywhere else in the country and they are not only a security risk for the whole of Pakistan and their immediate target could (also) be Dr Qadeer Khan,” the petitioner fears, claiming that America wishes to establish a base in this part of the world.
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