The United States of America has a policy of constant self improvement. They have established that all Government information should be available to the public and to ensure safety of certain secret information, those can be kept confidential for a certain number of years, but no more than 25 years.
They even have a special department that overlooks the declassification of all Government information, even secret information that is declassified by law. This fact was realized when the investigative report of the President John F. Kennedy was destroyed. The conspiracy theories generated after that incident, damaged the working of the Government so much that now all information, no matter how secretive, is declassified and delivered in the public domain.
For example, a few months back information about a project from 1947 came into the public’s attention when it was declassified. It was about the failed development of a UFO flying saucer shaped flying aircraft by the USA. The aircraft was designed and tested in secret at a Canadian airbase because there was worry of Russian spies stealing information.
The Government of US places such importance to “closure” on all public issues that they have gone to the extent of spending Billions of dollars, raiding another foreign country, endangering the Polio program and killing anyone who got in their way, so that they can provide a closure to the Osama Bin Ladin issue. And without showing any image of Osama, the US Government has convinced their public that their enemy no. 1 is dead. And by dumping the body in the Ocean, they have permanently ended any conspiracy theories that may arise from Osama Bin Laden still alive issues. In 25 years time we will know if they had actually killed Osama Bin Laden or not in Abbottabad, but they have delivered on the burning issue of their public.
In Pakistan our Government has always had a different policy. We have never found any closure to any of the hot issues. And because it is the Government of Pakistan’s policy to control the information released to the public, because they feel that harsh information can cause rioting, military coup or even foreign intervention.
This is due to the reason that Pakistan has always had an aggressive and invading country on its borders, and the country could not afford any incident which could weaken the state and make it easy for a neighbor to invade, while the US did not have to deal with such aggression for almost all of its history.
That is the reason why most of the politically sensitive issues are kept hidden from the public. Every mishap, from Jinnah’s death till Country Power System failure; Every political assassination from Fatima Jinnah’s murder till Benazir Bhutto’s bullet to head assassination; Every financial scandal, human atrocities, embezzlement or kickbacks are kept hidden from the public.
The Abbottabad Commission report was shown by Al Jazera news channel. The atrocities committed on women in Swat by Taliban were highlighted by BBC. The kickbacks received by Military leaders and their terrorist styled attack on innocent French workers were highlighted by the French media. It seems that not only the media is kept hidden in the dark following the Government’s initiative in many high profile cases the Court System of Pakistan also seems to drag their feet and never conclude the issues.
High profile cases are the ones that form the basis of the public judgment, because the conclusions drawn in highly watched cases are what the public uses to gauge their own judgments. But the history of Pakistan shows that people who commit high profile crimes always remain free and Justice is never served because none of the cases are concluded.
Anyone found stealing, destroying or manipulating government data should be punished to the harshest degree possible. It should be every Government officers and workers responsibility to ensure the safety, proper input and credibility of Government data and they should stop and report anyone who is found to be involved in such practices.
Every public citizen should be able to see Government data online or order through a dedicated Government department that has a customer service oriented office located in all Provincial capital cities.
The Government should not be afraid of giving the public access to government information. The people of Pakistan only want to help improve their country. And by many people looking at the data, the Government will help reduce corruption in the government departments and put Pakistan on the road to becoming a Developed Nation.
Access to Information is not only the right of the people of Pakistan but it will also help reduce the Conspiracy Theories and improve the working of the Government.
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