Terrorism, Sectarianism and the Military

EDITORIAL: Donga Bonga tragedy: some deeper lessons
http://www.dailytimes.com.pk/default.asp?page=story_16-11-2003_pg3_1

But there are even deeper causes. It is striking that an entire town should rise up in this manner and essentially cast a vote of no-confidence against the system of governance. Obviously, this can only happen when frustration with the system has been mounting over a period of time, which increasingly seems to be the case all over the country. Pakistan, which has done much to secure itself from external aggression, remains weak internally. The modern security paradigm emphasises human and individual security as much as the collective and external security for a state. But nothing has been done by the Pakistani state for its people and large numbers of citizens in this country live without even the most basic needs. And despite the feel-good indicators of the economy flogged by the spin-doctors of this government, the economy is perceived to be dysfunctional for many common people for whom social services are non-existent, public-sector departments and organisations are corrupt and inefficient; and jobs are scarce.

On top of this the state has abjured its responsibility by either ignoring these needs or applying double standards for treating its subjects. Not knowing the right person in this country has become a sin and people have to find contacts even to get their basic chores done. None of this has to do with learning rocket science; it just needs some empathy and a degree of work ethic. Both are non-existent. Indeed, public-sector organisations operate on the basis of the principle of making people as miserable as possible. This forces people to cut corners to get their jobs done. Overtime Pakistanis have honed the ability to circumvent the rule of law to a fine art. Now we are in a vicious cycle.

The worst part of this situation is the increasingly low tolerance threshold of people and the rising social acceptance of the metaphor of force. Anyone who is more powerful can, and does, have right of way even if it means jumping the queue and breaking all the laws. This metaphor comes down to us right from the top. The military is the most powerful of all and therefore it can violate the constitution and get away with it. This unspoken rule now governs an increasingly fractured society. The army can beat up the police, the police can beat up the citizens, the kabza groups can beat up the individual and among the individuals the more powerful can beat up the feeble. Such is the percolation of the metaphor of power that laws have become a mockery. Take this example. If people in the town of Donga Bonga had been armed like the Baloch tribesmen, the situation would have been explosive and it is even conceivable that instead of the police gunning down citizens it could have been the other way round. Even so, the people decided on collective protest and action in order not only to vent their frustration with the system but also to effect a change. All because the system has broken down and cannot even function at the very basic level. None of this will come out in the inquiry reports. Some people might be punished. But the deeper causes will not be addressed and Donga Bonga will repeat itself somewhere else and perhaps more violently.

General Pervez Musharraf promised to reform the system. People are now despaired of that promise. If no one wept over the demise of democracy when General Musharraf took over it was because the political parties had failed the people. General Musharraf is even more precariously balanced. What good is Pakistan’s strong defence against external aggression if the enterprise is rotting internally?

What are the agencies doing?
By Ansar Abbasi

ISLAMABAD: The terrorists are out yet again. Last week they killed several in Karachi and now they have slaughtered Maulana Azam Tariq and four others in Islamabad. What are the country’s intelligence agencies doing?

The fresh wave of terrorist attacks has once again badly exposed the intelligence agencies incompetence to hunt down the terrorist networks in the country. Even for a common man Maulana Azam Tariq of the proscribed Sipah-e-Sahaba Pakistan was an obvious target of sectarian terrorism but still he was killed in such a daredevil manner in brought daylight right in Islamabad.

The last week carnage of eight innocent SUPARCO officials in Karachi was also a trouble-free affair for the terrorists who simply vanished for the security agencies soon after their killing spree.

It is believed that terrorism could not be curbed unless the intelligence agencies are revamped and depoliticised. It has been resolved many times in the past to run the intelligence agencies professionally instead of using them for the making and breaking of the governments. However, seldom practical measures were taken.

It was admitted that the intelligence agencies of the country had so far concentrated on political intelligence and had been used to attain the political objectives of the successive governments. Contrary to their condemned role of harassing/influencing or following politicians, it was said, there was an immediate need that these agencies should infiltrate terrorist groups to find out their contacts, plans of action and modus operandi.

It was resolved that the intelligence agencies would be geared up for provision of tactical and strategic information with complete analysis so that pre-emptive action could be taken against the terrorist organisations/individuals. Even at that stage the government expressed its dissatisfaction about the overall performance of the agencies particularly in their role of checking crime particularly terrorism.

The agencies it was noted were providing information and reports after the event had taken place, which was even otherwise available through the print media. So much of good things were said but ironically hardly anything was done to depoliticise the agencies. Rather what we later saw was the ``tailoring`` of democracy through these agencies.

What to talk of politics and politicians, journalists are also being monitored by the agencies. Recent encounters with officials of two leading intelligence agencies proved to be depressing for this correspondent for the main reason that the agencies have been investing their time and money to collect information about many journalists including this scribe. Phone tapping of politicians, selected journalists, key officials and even ministers and judges was a routine in the past and is believed to be still in fashion.

It is believed that the agencies can be made effective by organising them in a manner that they could provide tactical and strategic information with complete analysis so that pre-emptive action could be taken before the planned event. But the question is if the agencies could be spared for this prime duty of theirs?

Recent developments and encounters with officials of leading intelligence agencies of the country show that the intelligence network of the country continues to tail the politicians, the journalists and others who are suspected by the rulers.

The role of the agencies in the pre and post-government formation stages was so conspicuous that it was discussed by all and sundry. Even the role of the agencies in ``tailoring`` the democracy for the country was discussed in the parliament.

In this situation how could there be a check on the terrorist networks. Realising well the cost of the politicised agencies, General Musharraf had once directed, during his tenure as country’s chief executive, to revamp the country’s agencies to run them on professional lines so as to track down the terrorist networks in the country. At that time President Musharraf while expressing his concern over the continuing incidents of terrorism in the country had directed the intelligence agencies to reorientate their focus to criminal activities, sectarian violence and terrorism instead of political intelligence.

http://www.jang.com.pk/thenews/oct2003-daily/08-10-2003/main/main10.htm

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Ref dost-mittar #226

[Does Pakistan really care about the welfare of Kashmiris?]

They do. About as much as they cared for the welfare of Bengalis in the erstwhile East Pakistan.

romair:
This thread is almost dead. So, we`ll take up your response some other place. In the meantime, if you are still following this thread, here is something from a leader of your favourite JKLF:

Does Pakistan really care about the welfare of Kashmiris?
Dr Shabir Choudhry
London, July 19


Bigger Picture

It has become habit of us Kashmiris to criticise with full force whatever India does wrong in Kashmir and turn a blind eye when Pakistan does something wrong. It is partly due to this wrong policy of Kashmiris that we are still forcibly divided and continue to suffer.

We should learn to call spade a spade, and criticise both governments on their Kashmir policies and human rights abuses in their respective parts of Kashmir. By only criticising India and by ignoring wrong doings of Pakistan we have played into the hands of Pakistani agencies who wanted to give this message to the world that it is only the Indian side of Kashmir which is disputed and Kashmiris on Pakistani side of the divide are happy with Pakistan.

That aside I want to focus my attention on just one aspect of Pakistan’s policy towards people of Azad Kashmir, and that will give some idea of how much love and care Pakistani authorities have for people of Kashmir.

The government of Pakistan built a dam known as the Mangla Dam in a disputed territory of Azad Kashmir. The construction of the dam was fiercely opposed by the local people of Mirpur, but this opposition was ruthlessly put down by the Punjab constabulary and militia, and the project
was completed in 1967.

The dam uprooted more than 20,000 families, and people were forced to leave their homes and graves of their love ones. They were told that in order to meet water and energy needs of Pakistan this dam has to be built; but they were promised that they will be compensated generously for this sacrifice.

Some of the things promised to them were as follows:

• Alternative residential plots
• Compensation for loss of business
• Alternative allotments for loss of irrigational land
• Free electricity
• Free Water supply
• A railway station and a railway line connecting Mirpur with national rail network of Pakistan
• 50 per cent quota for employment
• Royalty for the dam to be paid to Azad Kashmir government

It is unfortunate to note that most of the promises were not honoured by Pakistan. To date not a single penny has been given as a royalty, the electricity people of Mirpur get is ineffective and expensive, there is no railway line or railway station in Mirpur or anywhere in Azad Kashmir, there is inadequate supply of drinking water and still, there are more than 8,000 families who have not got their allotments.

Thousands who got allotments in various parts of Pakistan were unable to get possession of land, and because of intimidation and discriminatory treatment of the local people and local administration, were forced to return to Mirpur.

Double standard of WAPDA
The above scenario should be compared with the construction of the Tarbela Dam in Pakistan which was constructed after the Mangla dam. Of course construction of this dam also uprooted families and villages, but they were properly compensated and resettled. The government of North-West Frontier had a written agreement with the WAPDA (Water And Power Development Authority), and used its power and influence to implement it in letter and spirit.

Evidence of this could be seen by news release of the WAPDA issued on June 27, 2003, which reads, and I quote: ‘WAPDA, in spite of its financial limitations, discharged its full and final liability towards Net Hydel Profit to the North-West Frontier Province, well ahead of the fiscal year closure date June 30, 2003``.

According to the details, Article 161(2) of the Constitution provides for payment of net hydel profit to the provinces. The amount due to be paid to NWFP for the year 2002-03 as fixed by the Government of Pakistan comes to Rs 6 billion. WAPDA has been regularly paying Net Hydel Profit to the Government of NWFP in spite of its financial problems. It may be recalled that for the years 1991-92 to 2001-2002 the North-West Frontier Province received an amount of Rs 65.662 billion against the projected amount of Rs 57.425 billion.

In other words, the Province has received Rs. 8.237 billion in excess during the above mentioned period.’ WAPDA Chairman is boasting that they have paid 8.237 billion Rupees in excess to the provincial government of North West Frontier and that is a share of profit for the Tarbela dam. We have a dam in Mirpur for which not a single penny has been paid to the government of Azad
Kashmir since 1967.

Income from the Mangla Dam is around 7 billion Rupees per annum, and the dam has been operational and making profit for the Pakistani authorities for past 36 years. And if we multiply these two figures then we get a total of around 252 billion, and that is what government of Pakistan owes to Azad Kashmir, but there is no hope of receiving that because Pakistani officials treat Azad Kashmiris differently and less favourably.

This situation is to be compared with the fact that planning for the Mangla dam and Kala Bagh dam started around same time in early 1950s. Both proposed constructions were opposed by the local people. Despite opposition of people of Mirpur a dam was completed in 1967, but for Kala Bagh dam despite millions spent in different studies and feasibility reports, as to date not even a foundation brick is laid down due to fierce opposition from the local people and some powerful
land lords.

Our opposition was put down by force; but their opposition was not put down by force but attempts have been made to offer them generous compensations. This shows how we the people of Azad Kashmir are treated differently and less favourably.

Kashmiris had better deal under the British Raj. It looks that the British government of undivided India had more respect and care for the people of Kashmir. Upper Jhelum Canal was constructed in 1914; this canal before entering, what is now Pakistani territory near Sarai Alamgir, runs through a Kashmiri territory.

The British Government of the time negotiated an agreement with the Maharaja government, and it had a number of benefits for the people of Kashmir, including payment of royalty of 1.7 million Rupees annually. Despite difficult times during the World Wars and recessions of 1930s, this amount was regularly paid by the Punjab government of the time to the Maharaja government every year. After the partition of India these areas which are irrigated by the Upper Jhelum Canal became part of Pakistan, and since then no money is being paid to the government of Azad Kashmir which Pakistan claims to be the legitimate government representing the whole of Kashmir.

Salient points of the agreement between the British Government and the Maharaja government are as follows:

1. For the Upper Jhelum Canal the Maharaja will give his land, but it will be treated as a state territory and any land not used for the canal purposes will be returned to the state.
2. The government of Punjab will pay yearly compensation for the land affected, equal to revenue generated by this land.
3. The people of Kashmir will have right to use water free of any charge to irrigate their land.
4. The people of Kashmir will have right to construct mills or other
grinding factories run by the use of water as a source of energy.
5. Government of Punjab will at their own expenses construct bridges along the rout of the canal that people of Kashmir can easily cross with their livestock and cattle carts.
6. If due to flood or some other means, damage is caused by the canal
to property or crops in Kashmir, the government of Punjab will be responsible to pay compensation to local people.
7. The government of Punjab will pay compensation for all buildings, property or wells affected by the canal construction.
8. Any material brought in to State for the construction of the canal from outside of the State, the government of Punjab will have to pay royalty on each item.
9. The State government allows the Punjab government to build different residential and other commercial buildings to facilitate the construction work, but they will have to pay for any land used for such purpose.
10. Before the start of the work a clear rout of the canal has to be finalised ensuring that place of worship of any religion is not affected.
11. And people working on the canal will respect local laws and customs,and will not bring any item for consumption which is not permitted in the State.

Alternative to upraising
With the passage of time all dams lose their ability to store water, but proper maintenance helps to overcome this problem. The Mangla dam had a life span of over 100 year, but due to poor maintenance the storage capacity has reduced; but at the same time supply of water coming to Mangla Dam has also reduced considerably. The present supply of water is insufficient to even fill the existing water storage capacity, but authorities are bent on upraising the dam height which will further uproot more than 100,00 people of Azad Kashmir.

The Tarbela dam also has silting problem, and its capacity to store water has reduced, but WAPDA is looking at a feasibility report prepared by an American company, Tames, to de-silt the dam in order to increase its storage capacity. A similar report was prepared by Chinese experts, as well.

The same method of de-silting was suggested to WAPDA with regard to the Mangla dam. But WAPDA has decided to upraise the dam at the cost of Rs 64 billion, and it will surely uproot more than 100,000 people and create hatred and tension between Kashmiris and Pakistan.

It is believed that by de-silting the dam, water storing capacity could be increased considerably and it will only cost around Rs 6 billion, and it won’t uproot any of the people living around Mirpur. The mud taken out of the dam could have been used to level waste land areas of Khalqa bad, Kakarra Town, Akalgarh, Jarri Kass etc., to prepare new residential plots to resettle people who still have not got their allotments since 1967.

Also, the Pakistani government owes millions of rupees in rent which is due to the government of Azad Kashmir for the State property situated in different parts of Pakistan. Before the Parturition of India, the Maharaja of Jammu and Kashmir received an annual rent for his properties from the then British Indian governments, and this stopped only after the Pakistani government took over these properties.

(Views expresed are of the author only. Writer is a Chairman of JKLF Diplomatic Committee, and author of many books and booklets on Kashmir.)

re:#219 by ahmadzai
It is my painful duty to inform you Sir that the ``U-turn`` that you talk about is no U-turn at all. It was a tactical ploy by Mushy to save his A$$. Uncle Sam is increasingly being vocal about the ``double game`` played by Mushy. Pak continues to support Taliban in a covert way.

http://www.eurasianet.org/departments/insight/articles/eav072303a.shtml

``Pakistani President Pervez Musharraf renounced support for the Taliban in September 2001, weeks before the start of the anti-terrorism offensive. [For background see the Eurasia Insight archive]. But today, many Afghan, foreign and United Nations experts – including some who had previously been friendly to Pakistan – suspect the Pakistani leadership has resumed providing covert support to the radical Islamic movement. Some diplomats contend that Musharraf, his army, and the powerful security agency known as the Inter-Services Intelligence are directly supporting the Taliban as a matter of state policy``
This article will tell you how Pak has lost ground to India in Afghanistan. Pak`s military ruler, who lacks a strategic and political vision in Afghanistan has been leading Pak into an abyss.

Read what Ahmad Rashid has to say in Washington times:
http://www.washingtontimes.com/world/20030720-103238-3908r.htm

``Hundreds of Taliban fighters have crossed into the country from Pakistan and are claiming large swathes of territory, the American commander of coalition forces in Kabul said yesterday``

``Pakistan denies it is helping the Taliban, but has done little to stop their activities. U.S. officials said they will be taking up the issue of Taliban operating from Pakistan when Gen. John Abizaid, the new commander of the U.S. Central Command, visits Islamabad next week.
Relations between Kabul and Islamabad are already tense. On Friday, Pakistani soldiers and Afghan fighters exchanged artillery and mortar fire across their disputed border at Baba-Doud, near the Khyber Pass. ``
This is what your military ruler has done. You now have adversaries at both borders. India simply hates Mushy and Afghan has no love for him either.
What Pak lost in Afghanistan, India has gained:
http://www.jang.com.pk/thenews/jul2003-daily/13-07-2003/oped/o3.htm

Even though the foundations of economic progress was laid by Nehru govt, it was BJP which went ahead full steam with liberalisation. It has also embarked upon a number of infrstructural activities like nationwide building of freeways, liberalising the Telephonry to name a few. Of course, to Nehru alone goes the credit of laying the foundation of IITs which later saw IT boom in India (many of the Silcon valley Gurus are product of IITs).

I do agree that the economic progress happening in India is contingent on a number of things. You have rightly pointed out HIV as one big problem. India, being a poor country, does not have the resources to deal with a huge HIV epidemic. Hence, this could indeed become a big problem and if not tackled properly, has the potential to slow down India`s progress in future.
sridhar

Arjun_m @ 221:

Couple of excellent posts from your side to prove that you do not know anything about economics and principles like bipartisanism.

Now please do what you are good at - copy and paste long thrash Pakistan articles that I promise I will read. I wish you all the best in the endeavor you know best to undertake. Leave the rest for others.

:-)

Bbabu at # 222:

You joined this discussion very late and the points that you are making since post # 198 have already been discussed in detail earlier.

ahmadzai #220

`` Yet we know that the `civilized world` attacked Iraq on pretexts and evidences that are being proven wrong and are being questioned even in the camps of the leaders who went ahead with the invasion. ``

Are you a water boy for Saddam ?


`` The `civilized world` annhiliated Red Indians and later admitted that was a mistake.``

Not too different from what Islamic Caliphs did to the pre-Islamic cultures in the Middle East ?

`` The `civilized world` killed and maimed millions of vietnamese and later admitted that was a mistake.``

If Americans were so barbaric the Vietnamese have no ill feelings towards the Americans. It has been less than 30 years since the end of the war.

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harish-hyd:

``Mulla Ahmadzai``.

:-D

sridhar and harish-hyd:

Thanks for posting relevant articles and links.

It is because of the past follies that Pakistan under the leadership of Musharraf took a u-turn from Mulla led extremism towards modernization, from self-destruction to progress and development.

However, the point to ponder is that India is taking a u-turn from secularism to fundamentalism, from progress and development that comes from setting oneself free of religious taboos to destruction of its previously peaceful society. Yet you condone the extremist Government because:

1. You continue to hold Pakistan accountable for all the ``misdeeds``, especially subsequent to 9/11 and with your growing frustration in Kashmir, where the ``misdeeds`` were committed in the past and we have resolved to take a u-turn in our approach.

2. You people are currently reaping economic benefits the foundations of which were laid not by the current Government but by the seculars of the yore. If your Government continues on the path of confrontation then I am afraid that you will lose out e.g. to growing menace of HIV.

But it is up to you folks to decide whether the path you people have chosen leads you to the well-being or not. As a Pakistani, I believe that we have made a u-turn for the betterment. We should have taken it in the mid-90s though. We are a trifle late.

arjun-m at 204:

Yet we know that the `civilized world` attacked Iraq on pretexts and evidences that are being proven wrong and are being questioned even in the camps of the leaders who went ahead with the invasion.

Also note that:

1. The `civilized world` annhiliated Red Indians and later admitted that was a mistake.

2. The `civilized world` annhiliated the wildlife on American planes and later claimed that was a mistake.

3. The `civilized world` killed and maimed millions of vietnamese and later admitted that was a mistake.

Already, the `civilized world` is coming under scathing attacks from former Presidents (who generally tend to be bi-partisans) and from humanists on its policies on war against terrorism and w.r.t. discriminatory laws.

Only the most biased of mindsets will condone the discriminatory policies of the USA troika.

Romair#212
I acknowledge your response. Some answeres are less satisfactory than others. My ``chowk time`` right now is mostly taken up by responding to the ``Hey Ram`` article. I`ll respond to you later on this thread if it is alive or another one. Thanks.

Harish, lad, re: 215

Get with the program... that particular gem has already been posted! Glad you gave us the source, though... a magazine thats fascinatingly right wing, inclusing the following petition on its website:

`My friend, there is a Fifth Column in America, an enemy within. It`s the so-called ``peace movement.`` Sign the e-petition to EXPOSE THE ENEMY WITHIN to editors and producers of the nation`s largest newspapers, news magazines, and network newsrooms.`

Wooo!

Cheers, AK

Now, here`s some more news for Captain Clueless, HisDelinquency, and Mullah Ahmadzai, the staunchest supporters of the Paki Army.

http://frontpagemag.com/Articles/ReadArticle.asp?ID=8931

Will History Repeat Itself in Pakistan?
By Arindam Banerji
FrontPageMagazine.com | July 16, 2003

“It was recognized from the first that a campaign of genocide would be necessary to eradicate the threat: ``Kill three million of them,`` said President (general) Yahya Khan at the February conference, ``and the rest will eat out of our hands``. On March 25 (1971) the genocide was launched. The university in Dacca was attacked and students exterminated in their hundreds. Death squads roamed the streets of Dacca, killing some 7,000 people in a single night. It was only the beginning. ``Within a week, half the population of Dacca had fled, and at least 30,000 people had been killed. Chittagong, too, had lost half its population. All over East Pakistan people were taking flight, and it was estimated that in April some thirty million people were wandering helplessly across East Pakistan to escape the grasp of the military.`` – Robert Payne, Massacre [1972]

Paraphrasing Christopher Hitchens, every decade or so, the US writes a blank check to some obscure dictator in Pakistan, and the Pakistani army happily uses this free ride to perpetrate genocide in its neighborhood.
In the 70’s, we turned a blind eye while Gen. Yahya killed millions in Bangladesh, with a kill rate that would put Hitler to shame. Even after the US congress cried foul and the US ambassador to Bangladesh declared “genocide in Bangladesh”, Nixon and Kissinger praised Yahya and sent him arms to aid in the killing. In the nineties, after the Russians had left Afghanistan, the Pakistani army happily armed, fed, financed and trained a band of jihadi hoodlums, now known to us as the Taliban; of course, the Taliban directly caused the death of hundreds of thousands of Afghan civilians in the nineties. While the cleansing continued unabated, oil executives busily negotiated oil-pipelines with the Taliban, with nary a consequence for the Pakistanis.

After 911, writing blank checks to the Pakistanis seems to have come back in vogue. The only question that remains unanswered is – where will the genocide be, this time?

Terrorizing the Neighbors

The answer may be slowly becoming clear. Selig Harrison discussing Pakistani terrorist training camps, in the Boston Globe says “India has recently provided the United States with detailed maps showing 174 locations where Pakistani base camps of varying sizes are now operating. State Department and Defense Intelligence Agency sources say that US reconnaissance satellite findings broadly corroborate the Indian maps”. Not only has Nancy Powell, the US ambassador to Pakistan, called Pakistan a platform for terror, but Mike Evanoff, the US embassy`s (in Islamabad) chief of diplomatic security, the State Department`s version of the Secret Service, had the following to say about Pakistan to Christian Science Monitor: ``This is the epicenter for terrorism. It really is. This is the only country I know in the world that has so many groups that are against the US or Western ideals.``.

Bernard-Henri Levy’s goes even further in his recently published book - “Pakistan is the most delinquent of nations”, he confirms. With the caveat that Pakistan is the real key to all Islamic-led international terrorism, he says “the US had solved only 1% of the problem by deposing Saddam Hussein”. And rightfully so, if you see the impact on Pakistan’s neighbors.
In India, Pakistani terrorists or freedom fighters as Musharraf likes to call them, regularly create headlines like:

• “Suspected Islamic militants axed to death six members of a shepherd`s family overnight …The attackers killed four women and two children, the officer said.”
• “Militants slit the throats of two women, shot dead another person and set off two explosions damaging a bridge …”
• “Terrorists lob grenade into Christian school, kill one teacher…”
• “Terrorists have slit the throats of two of the four policemen abducted after the attack on a police post in Udhampur on Sunday.”
• “Unidentified gunmen barged into a house in a remote village of Mandi. The irked gunmen in an attempt to punish the lady Sharifa Bi wife of Muhammad Husain put her on fire and then extinguished the flames to let her die in pain.”
• “Women Killed over dress-code. The attackers slit the throats of two of the women, both aged 21, and shot the third,…”

Rest assured, this is equal opportunity terrorism. President Karzai seems to be unhappy, as the NYTimes reports “Karzai has blamed the recent wave of violence across the south of the country and in Kabul on Pakistan-based terrorists”. Col Tom Brewer, of the US special Forces, talking about illegal arms seized in Afghanistan says “The arms they’ve recovered are made in China and most of the people are coming back in from neighboring countries, particularly Pakistan”. This negative view of Pakistani interference in Afghanistan, seems to be shared by the Europeans, too:

“European legislators visiting Afghanistan this week were outspoken at a news conference today in their criticism of Pakistan`s support for Taliban elements, which they said were crossing from Pakistan to launch attacks in southern Afghanistan, disappearing later back across the border”. -NYTimes

Cross-border terrorism it seems is continuing on both of Pakistani borders. Surely, Pakistan must be helping us out a lot, for us to tolerate all this?

Pakistan’s Help With Proliferation

Come to think of it, we have very generously given away billions in grants and loan forgiveness with the expectation of Pakistan’s help in the war on terrorism. Pakistan in turn, used the C-130s loaned by us to fight terror, to continue a generous barter trade of nuclear weapons technology with North Korea. A Japanese newspaper quoting US security officials, claimed that this trade continued as late as March of 2003, months after the friendly Pakistani dictator, Musharraf, had given Powell a 400% guarantee that such hanky-panky with North Korea was a thing of the past.

North Korea, however is not the only member of the axis of evil that has benefited from Pakistan’s generosity; talking about the Iran’s Natanz atomic power plant, Jane’s goes even further “the Natanz inspections also showed that the gas centrifuges, believed to be based on a decades-old European design that US officials said was obtained from Pakistan in the early 1990s…”. Nucleonics week reported essentially the same facts in January of this year – the evidence of Pakistani support to Iran’s weapons program seems to be mounting.

Another sign of the expansion of this deadly trade is reported by Geo-strategy Direct; it seems that the Saudi royals want to keep up with the nuclear-minded Iranian mullahs. So, who comes to the rescue – you guessed it, the dependable Pakistanis. Turns out that, not only have the Pakistanis been handing over nuclear technology to the Saudi princes, but they also facilitated the sale of Chinese CSS-2 missiles to the kingdom. The report further states “Saudi Arabia has been secretly obtaining help from Pakistan for its missile and nuclear program, the analysts report. Riyadh helped finance Pakistan`s nuclear program precisely to ensure that the royal family will have a bomb in case of an emergency… Saudi Arabia has neither the time nor the expertise for a nuclear program. The Saudis saw how Israel knocked out the Iraqi reactor at Osirak in 1981 and set back Baghdad`s program by a decade. Instead, the Saudis are expected to merely buy complete warheads and obtain Pakistani experts to maintain and operate the systems”. Maybe, this explains why several Pakistani nuclear scientists have disappeared without a trace in recent months, according to the South Asia Tribune.

As if handing out nuclear weapons technology to dangerous threesome of North Korea, Iran and Saudi Arabia was not enough, Eliza Manningham-Buller, the director general of the MI5, recently warned that “it was only a matter of time before Al-Qaeda terrorists carried out nuclear, chemical or biological attack on a western city”. She further added ``renegade scientists`` - understood to be from Pakistan - had given Islamic extremists information to create weapons of mass destruction, such as ``dirty bombs``, and that they would become ever more sophisticated.

US reaction to this wanton proliferation has been surprisingly muted – limited sanctions on a particular lab (KRL), which in any case, gets no help from the US, whatsoever. Sure, the occasional Al-Qaeda big-wig or two get miraculously located somewhere in Pakistan every 6 months, and more are caught every time Musharraf visits our coasts, but is this reason enough for us to ignore proliferation to North Korea, KSA, Iran and AlQaeda? Who thought up this quid-pro-quo?
Curt put-downs from Foggy-bottom to any such protests, usually go something like this “If Musharraf fails, hardliners could take over, or fundamentalists, or chaos. We can`t let Musharraf fail”.

Where is Musharraf Taking Pakistan?

Using his vast powers, Musharraf held a Saddam like referendum on his rule last year, in which he was the only candidate and received a whopping 98% approval. This aversion to democracy has forced several noted Pakistani journalists to flee to the US, thanks to threats to their lives by the army. Determined to keep democratic forces at bay, Musharraf jerry-rigged elections where the main secular parties were hamstrung. Needless to say, the jihadi parties under the banner of MMA gained control in 2 out of 4 provinces in Pakistan. The elected prime minister now is reduced to calling the dictator his boss and the dictator has not dared to formally open proceedings at the National Assembly for the last 7 months, in fear of protests against his rule.

Not happy, with throttling the press, paralyzing the National assembly and helping the Taliban-like MMA come to power, Musharraf seems to have turned on ordinary Pakistanis now.

Talking about recent army violence in the town of Okara, prominent educationist Dr Pervez Hoodbhoy says, “As I stood by the blood-spattered earth next to a wall pock-marked with bullets, grim-faced villagers indicated to me the field from where they said the Rangers had ceaselessly machine-gunned the village for over an hour. For all practical purposes, the nearly one million people of Okara are under military occupation but Pakistan`s political parties, which vociferously scream at being denied their share of the pie, are yet to take note of this. Why are they doing this, I asked one villager from the crowd that was now swarming around me. ``They (the Pakistani military) want to put us on contract, pay rent to them, take away our rights to the land, and then throw us out``, he replied, but this land is ours because our forefathers have tilled it and we have nowhere else to go”.

So, in order to allow our favorite dictator to hold on to his throne, we’re tolerating brutalization and murder of ordinary Pakistanis and even journalists. Problem is we’ve seen this pattern before – remember how we propped up the Shah of Iran.
Radical Islamization of Pakistan

The rigged elections from last year are beginning to achieve exactly what we’ve been trying to avoid – a radical Islamist nuclear-powered Pakistan. The MMA recently passed Taliban like draconian laws in the province of NWFP. Time magazine detailing newly promulgated laws:

“From now on, Arabic, the language of the Koran, will be obligatory in schools; girls 12 years and older will have to wear the head-to-toe veil known as the burqa, and women will not be allowed to leave home unaccompanied by a husband or male relative”.

Further, there’s now a department called Hisab (accounting) in NWFP which does pretty much what the dreaded Department of promotion of virtue and prevention of vice did for the Taliban. Fresh of the press – Balochistan province just announced, it’s next in line to promulgate the sharia based legal system. Two (provinces) down, two more to go.

This radical Islamisation is not limited anymore to Pakistani politics. In Lahore’s respected Punjab University “last month, professors of English literature were flabbergasted when they learned that a top administrator had ordered their curriculum reviewed for un-Islamic texts. Among the books deemed offensive to public morals: Gulliver`s Travels and Tess of the d`Urbervilles… the university`s academic council (even) engaged in heated debate over whether to drop English as a requirement, as fundamentalist groups have urged``. Islamist vigilantes in Lahore, Peshawar and Multan have begun painting bill-boards showing women’s faces black, and “food streets”, much like food courts in our malls, are being shut down to prevent “mixing of the sexes and prostitution”.

According to the Washington Post, professors who have been ordered not to discuss the book bans, confide that all this is a microcosm of the political environment in the country. Famous Pakistani author Ahmed Rashid feels that this cultural change, spreading throughout the country, has primarily been fostered by the military government.
The ominous part of all this is that theocratic governments and societies are rarely, if ever removed or changed, without massive violence and use of power.

Pakistani Army vs. Pakistan

Strong arm tactics and outright commandeering have left the army in Pakistan in control of all financial establishments of any value, including travel agencies, utilities, cement production, fertilizer factories, dairy production, employment agencies, rice mills, sea-ports, postal service, telecommunication infrastructure, oil/gas plants, pharmaceuticals, mines, wool mills and cereal production, to name a few. And no, this is not limited to just legal economic activities, but also extends to illegal ones – Kamila Hayat reports that a number of illegal gambling dens are coming up all over the country, run and owned by army personnel. You get the idea – everything and everything, legal and sometimes even illegal ones, in Pakistan, seem to belong to the Pakistani army.

Quips Khayyam Durrani, who runs an elite school only meant for army children ``The army considers itself a privileged class. The fact is that the actual rulers in Pakistani society are the army people..”.
These privileges and whims of the ruling army are slowly creating a divide that will never be bridged with American money or Musharraf’s guns. A perfect example of this widening divide was the open threat to ban Musharraf’s entry into NWFP, issued recently by Syed Munawar Hassan, a top leader of the MMA religious alliance. The vitriol in the Balochistan post article against the army is even more palpable, when it says:

“With guns given to them by the nation to counter the enemy, the generals instead, have held the Mother country, its people, its parliament and the judiciary to ransom. …The Army has become above the law, above the constitution and even above the country. It feeds on the country`s prosperity and the well being its people who now, are trudging an existence simply to serve the army and its selected elites.”.

The army is not only immune from the law, but also dispenses its own brand of justice. A report in the Gulf Times, reports:
“The Human Rights Commission of Pakistan recently investigated a case in Multan where army officials had placed a banner outside a textile shop, asking all military men to boycott it. This mysterious message outside a commercial business had been motivated by the fact that the shop owner, Aslam Shahzad, had testified in a case involving an army officer and a policeman in a scuffle”. Other similar incidents, where police officers have lost their jobs for going up against the army, are also related in the report. In fact, as Kamila states, patriotism today is increasingly tied to what is good for the Pakistani army, not what is good for Pakistan:

“Indeed, the perception that civilians are today second class citizens in the state is growing. And with the army top brass apparently seeing any attempts to highlight wrongs committed by men in khaki as unpatriotic behavior…”.
Abid Ullah Jan, yet another journalist who had to flee Pakistan due to his opinions on the army, concludes his pensive article on “Pak army vs. Pakistan” with “In the final analysis we would come to know that Pakistan was not at war with India or someone else, but its own armed forces”.

This is not a country moving towards democracy, but towards anarchy – unfortunately, with American help. Problem is, we’ve seen this pattern before - the current situation is exactly the same as in late 1970 and early 1971 – provinces elected a government that the army did not like and the rift between the army and the citizens of East Pakistan exploded. Result – 3 million civilians killed, 300000 women raped in 9 short months.

M.A. Niazi in his editorial in the Nation seems to predict the oncoming obvious “There is therefore one solution which solves for the foreseeable future Musharraf`s problems, and serves US interests. And that is for him to let loose a reign of terror on Pakistan, to establish a true dictatorship”. Eerily similar to Gen. Yahya Khan’s decision in 1971 to perpetrate genocide, in order to solve his problems.

Where Next?

It may suit our immediate interests to coddle this dictator, but let us not forget that we were doing the same to another dictator in Iraq till a few years ago. The difference is that this dictator actually does have nuclear weapons, has donated nuclear weapons technology to rogue states and does have nuclear scientists with strong linkages to the Osama. Terrorism against friendly governments like Afghanistan and India continue everyday under the very noses of the army that controls all activity in Pakistan. We did not learn from our mistakes with the Shah and naively repeated them with Saddam; now, we see a repetition of this unfortunate habit with Musharraf. Sadly, Shenoy gets it about right:

“The general has trampled on every principle Americans supposedly cherish — separation of church and state, democracy and free elections, an independent judiciary and the rule of law. Yet, as long as the Pakistani army does not openly embrace bin Laden, the United States shall support the dictator of Pakistan.”

Free Trade agreements and weapons of war like F-16s given unfettered to a brutal dictatorship with a penchant for terrorism may not be the best thing for the safety of US or its friends. In our hurry to bestow gifts on the genocidal dictator, let us not leave our national interests and abiding principles behind. Both our strategic interests and our principles, call for the support of the Pakistani people, and not the Pakistani dictator.

Contrary to popular perceptions, Musharraf is not the only solution to key US interests in Pakistan - remedial steps to bring Pakistan back into the comity of respected nations is the only way forward. In stead of papering over problems specific to Pakistan through our injudicious support for Musharraf, we must deal with them directly, as in:
• Strengthen legitimate democratic leadership: Benazir Bhutto must be brought back with appropriate forgiveness of charges and a critical role to play in the administration of Pakistan, even if this means a re-election.
• Strengthen democratic institutions: Drop arbitrary modifications to the Pakistani constitution as well as revoke the supremacy of non-elected bodies such as the National Security council – the elected National assembly and the existing constitution must become supreme again, with some temporary support for maintaining Musharraf’s position through the transition.
• Send army back to the barracks: Armies that own countries tend to cause immense destruction. The army’s stranglehold over the economy and civilian organizations must be loosened – political corruption is a fact of life with almost all other countries in Asia and should not be used as an excuse to let the army loot the nation.
• Reform Pakistani education: Without significant changes to curricula in schools, the radicalization of Pakistani society cannot be reversed. Aid dollars must be tied to metrics reflecting a change in the direction of education. This is the only solution to stopping the endless supply of terrorists.

• Reform in Charitable and financial institutions: Charity money is used to fuel terrorism in Pakistan – without this money and strengthened financial institutions, terrorism will starve. Without terrorism, problems with neighbor India can be resolved peacefully.

Strengthening democracy and reforming education will automatically start improving Pakistan’s economy and its relationship with other democracies like India; thus, reducing the need for WMD proliferation dollars. Pakistan’s problems with nuclear neighbor India and the rest of the world will not disappear until we cure Pakistan’s internal ills. At the cost of repeating myself, almost any cure of Pakistan has to start with limiting the role of the Pakistani army and bringing in democracy, and sadly enough things have become so convoluted in Pakistan, only America can help fix things at this point. In effect, much like the US is undertaking nation-building in Iraq, it has to do the same in Pakistan – Pakistan, probably needs this more than any other country in the world.

If we’re not careful and do not take remedial action in Pakistan soon, there will be another genocide; who knows where it’ll be, but 1971 is here again - maybe in India this time, may be Afghanistan, or quite possibly in Pakistan, itself like ‘71. Or heaven forbid, as Physicist Gordon Prather, predicting a nuclear attack on the US suggests:
“ Who did it? Probably al-Qaida. But where did they get the nuke? Well, nukes leave ``fingerprints.`` Our radio-chemists are going to know right away if the nuke came from Pakistan, the most likely source.”

Arindam Banerji, Ph.D., is an Indian-American entrepreneur in Silicon valley with an expertise in geopolitics and US-India relations.