NEW YORK, July 20: The New York-based Human Rights Watch in a report released for publication on Wednesday (today) on the Punjab farmers' movement urges the Pakistan government to order the immediate withdrawal of the Rangers from Okara district and ensure that the Rangers and their personnel play no role relating to the conflict there or in other affected districts.

The 54-page report, entitled Soiled Hands: the Pakistan Army's Repression of the Punjab Farmers' Movement, also asks the government to fully investigate allegations of violations of international human rights committed in the context of the Punjab land dispute and suspend all officials against whom there is prima facie evidence of misconduct.

It says all officials, members of the armed forces, and police personnel implicated in serious abuses, "including extra-judicial execution, kidnappings, torture, extortion, and other ill-treatment, such as 'forced divorces'" should be prosecuted.

The report proposes withdrawal of all criminal cases registered against farmers from the affected districts unless there is a sound factual basis for the charges or claims brought against them.

It recalls that for the past two years, "tens of thousands of tenant farmers in Okara have resisted efforts by the military to weaken their legal rights to some of the most fertile farmland in Pakistan, which many of their families have worked for generations".

"Pakistan's military and paramilitary forces are brutalizing their own people in the Punjab instead of protecting them," said Brad Adams, executive director of Human Rights Watch's Asia Division. "It's a dangerous moment in Pakistan when the military turns on its own core constituency."

Though the Pakistan Army says it owns the land in Okara, the report contends that the claim is disputed by most legal experts, tenant farmers and the Punjab provincial government, which has refused to sign the land over to the military despite repeated requests from the armed forces.

In response, the report alleges, paramilitary forces have subjected the farmers to "a campaign of murder, arbitrary detention, torture, forced divorces, and summary dismissals from employment.

On two occasions, the paramilitaries have literally besieged villages in the area of dispute, thus preventing people, food and public services from entering or leaving for weeks on end".

The report says children of farmers were tortured to coerce them into signing tenancy agreements, according to testimony by 30 children interviewed by Human Rights Watch. Because the Rangers had "targeted children of recalcitrant farmers for kidnapping and torture", schools in the affected areas have periodically closed down.

"In some cases, the paramilitary forces have even forced young couples to divorce by torturing husbands or other male relatives, as a means of publicly shaming their families. On military farms, employees who are related to farmers who have refused to sign the new contracts have been fired or barred from work and threatened with torture."

In an interview with Human Rights Watch, according to the report, Federal Interior Minister Faisal Saleh Hayat "categorically" denied that the Pakistan Rangers have "ever been involved in human rights violations in Okara."

The interior minister added that the farmers were simply "greedy" and that local "NGOs (non-governmental organizations) have acted as trouble-makers in the dispute." When Human Rights Watch noted that there was clear evidence of the Rangers' involvement in serious human rights violations, he responded: "I don't agree that the Rangers can commit abuses. They are an extremely well-trained and professional force.

There are no rogue elements in the Pakistan Rangers." At the end of the discussion, he acknowledged that discipline was not perfect within the Rangers, but claimed that "the occasional case of indiscipline has nothing to do with Okara."

In a separate meeting, Punjab Chief Minister Pervaiz Elahi acknowledged to Human Rights Watch that some serious "human rights violations had taken place during this conflict."

"Ironically", the report says, "the Pakistani military does not actually have legal title to land at the heart of the dispute - the Okara Military Farms. Although the military has had long-term leases to the land in the past and has exerted effective control over it, in some cases for decades, formal title to the land continues to rest with the government of Punjab province.

Repeated attempts by the military to effect a permanent transfer of the land to the federal ministry of defence have been rebuffed by the Punjab provincial body that holds title to the land.

"This point was emphasized to Human Rights Watch by Chief Minister Elahi. In his government's view, the land belongs to Punjab province and not to the army. However, he indicated that this was a 'sensitive issue' given the 'transition' from military to civilian rule currently underway in Pakistan.

When presented with this claim, the federal interior minister disagreed: 'The Punjab chief minister is wrong', he said flatly, neither offering nor suggesting proof. "I know that the army owns this land."