Descent into chaos : The State’s failure to tackle terrorism

[VelocuR]

The State’s failure to tackle terrorism has taken a heavy toll.

23 Hours ago

The tragedy at Nanga Parbat could have been averted had the federal government and agencies been more focused on the terrorist threat. They accused the TTP of terrorist attacks but failed to mobilize the state’s machinery against it. The PML-N leaders avoid naming the TTP as if it does not exist. In their parlance, it is ‘hidden hands’ who are conducting the brazen attacks. Even when Ehsanullah Ehsan publicly owns an attack, the government pretends it has not heard him.

Terrorist have conducted some major attacks in the districts adjoining Gilgit-Baltistan while Gilgit city itself has bled profusely on account of serial sectarian killing. The region which borders the Indian controlled Kashmir on the one side and Sinkiang on the other is of strategic importance. Those entrusted to look after the national security, however have failed to realise the consequences of taking the terrorist attacks in the area lightly.

In February 2012, 10 to 12 gunmen disguised in military fatigues flagged down four public transport vehicles on the KKH in Kohistan district. They checked the ID cards of the passengers, then dragged out sixteen who were suspected to be Shia, made them stand in a line and showered them with bullets. An anti Shia orgnisation, Jundullah, owned the attack. No serious attempt was made subsequently to locate and arrest the killers.

The fact that they could get away with their crimes emboldened the sectarian terrorists. Six months later the same gang comprising again of 10 to 12 killers in army uniform stopped three vehicles near Lulusar Lake on the alternate Kaghan route to Chilas through Kaghan valley and then onwards to Gilgit. Once more the travelers’ ID cards were checked. Some were told to bare their backs to find any signs of Muharram flagellation. Over twenty considered to be Shia were gunned down in cold blood. Again instead of making any serious attempt to bust the murdering bunch, the then federal interior minister Rehman Malik announced cash compensation for the families of the victims to hush up the matter. The media duly reported the killings and demanded an end to the tragic happenings. The PML-N which constituted the major opposition party was expected to raise the matter in the Parliament. As usual it maintained a discreet silence.

The ease with which the killers managed to evaporate in thin air after both the incidents indicated that they were from the area as any outsider was liable to be immediately recognised and questioned by the local population. Mansehra district, where Lulusar Lake is situated, is known for camps where terrorists groups have been trained in the past. Terrorist attacks in the Kohistan district are thus by no means unusual.

The terrorists who killed ten foreign tourists were reportedly dressed as Gilgit Scouts. This indicates it is the same group which had conducted two attacks on the Shia travelers. Jundullah was in fact the first group which had owned the Nanga Parbat killings, only to be followed by TTP who claimed the attack was conducted by its newly created affiliate Jundul Hifsa. The IGP G-B Usman Zakaria has told the media that the identity of the attackers has been finally established. They were 16, all locals belonging to Diamer Valley, Mansehra and Kohistan. Besides the ten foreigners, they also shot one of the two Pakistani porters. He was presumably a Shia. “It is a major breakthrough … it happened because of the rigorous day and night efforts of all the agencies working on the case,” claimed Zakaria flanked by G-B chief secretary Munir Badini.

Had these agencies acted with an equal sense of urgency when the earlier incidents took place the hapless foreign trekkers might have been safe today and Pakistan’s reputation abroad would not have sunk without trace.

The G-B chief secretary has reports that the assailants had received training in FATA and had links with some banned outfits. Besides Arab, Uzbek and Chechen terrorist groups who are considered the fiercest of the lot affiliated with the TTP, Uighur separatists also have presence in Waziristan. What is more they have influenced the local insurgents. Baitullah Mehsud’s predecessor Abdullah Mehsud had kidnapped two Chinese engineers, one of whom was killed during a rescue operation.

The killing of the foreign mountaineers has elicited a strong condemnation from other countries. The Chinese too have run short of patience. Beijing has publicly asked Islamabad to “guarantee the safety and legitimate rights of Chinese citizens in Pakistan.”

Foreign tourists had stopped coming to Swat following the Taliban insurgency in the picturesque valley. They are discouraged from entering the Neelum valley. Gilgit-Baltistan meanwhile continued to draw tourists and trekkers on account of its reputation for peace. The Nanga Parbat killings have tarnished the area’s image.

Five of the world's 14 eight-thousanders, including the K2, the second highest peak in the world, are in G-B or in its vicinity. The 8,126-metre Nanga Parbat is the second highest peak in Pakistan after K-2 and the 9th highest mountain in the world. In summer, it attracts hundreds of foreign mountaineers and trekkers because of its breathtaking terrain. What is more trekking expenses here are far less expensive in comparison with China and Nepal.

According to president Pakistan Tour Operators’ Association Amjad Ayub, 250,000 people of the region depend on tourism. There are around 150 tour operators working in Gilgit-Baltistan who provide guides, cooks and logistics to the tourists.

The local tourism industry has gone belly up for years to come. Kari Kobler, a Swiss expedition organizer told Deutsche Welle: "This has changed the entire situation… This was bad for Pakistan." Kobler is now considering cancelling an expedition to the area planned for the year 2014.

The company "Hauser Exkursionen" felt the need to respond to the shootings right away. It had planned a trip for July 8. "But that doesn't make any sense now," says Eberhard Andres. He said there had already been a number of tours planned for the year 2013. Pakistan's fascinating mountain ranges had been considered exclusive among trekkers and a good alternative to established routes in Nepal. "Word got round that people did not feel threatened there."

Terrorism put an end to international sports events in Pakistan. The 2009 attack on the Sri Lankan cricket team ensured that no foreign cricket team would come to play in Pakistan for years. The New Zealand team cancelled its December 2009 tour. The 2011 Cricket World Cup was to be co-hosted by Pakistan, India, Sri Lanka and Bangladesh, but in the wake of the attack on the Sri Lankan team the ICC were forced to strip Pakistan of its hosting rights. The headquarters of the organising committee which were originally situated in Lahore were shifted to Mumbai. Pakistan was supposed to hold 14 matches, including one semi-final. Eight of Pakistan's matches were awarded to India, four to Sri Lanka and two to Bangladesh. Bangladesh also put off a scheduled tour by Pakistan due to security concerns after this attack.

And now the bell tolls for Pakistan’s tourism industry for the same reason: the state’s failure to contain terrorism.

The writer is a political analyst and a former academic.

Descent into chaos | Pakistan Today | Latest news | Breaking news | Pakistan News | World news | Business | Sport and Multimedia

 

[Argus Panoptes]

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And now the bell tolls for Pakistan’s tourism industry for the same reason: the state’s failure to contain terrorism.

The writer is a political analyst and a former academic.

Descent into chaos | Pakistan Today | Latest news | Breaking news | Pakistan News | World news | Business | Sport and Multimedia

There are no bells tolling. Our tourism industry has been DEAD for years. DEAD. And it is not going to be resurrected for a long time yet.

 

[TalibanSwatter]

An Unraveling State?

Babar Sattar

Here’s an old Punjabi joke. A farmer was watching a fellow farmer plough his farm. After a while they had a little conversation. Farmer 1 (the bystander) to Farmer 2, casually: your ploughshare isn’t running straight and you’re messing things up. Farmer 2 to Farmer 1, tauntingly: what are you talking about? Your sister eloped with the Chaudhry’s son. Farmer 1, bewildered: What does that have to do with anything? Farmer 2, logically: (with the apology that no language can do justice to a Punjabi punchline) gallan tau gal nikaldi ai (one conversation leads to another). This exchange nails our logic on terror: it’s all because of the drones!

Last year we saw special efforts made in Lahore under the Shahbaz Sharif government to add to Pakistan’s credit a few records in the Guinness Book of World Records. We probably also qualify for another record: the only country in the world that has witnessed almost 50,000 of its citizens and state functionaries killed and yet it is not angry at those who are doing the killing and proudly claiming to be doing it. The US might be a wicked-imperialist-empire state, but it has waged two unpopular wars over the last decade to ensure that those who are attacking its citizens are denied the ability and the sanctuary to do so.

And how are we reacting to those who are killing innocent Pakistani citizens, targeting state officials, fighting our army and killing our soldiers? We are apologising for their actions. We are confused about these killing machines. That TTP/LeJ/LeT are an evil that must be eradicated is not part of this confusion. What we can’t figure out is whether these terrorists are enemy agents whose strings are pulled from foreign lands or whether they are good Muslims, just angry because the state has lost its way. Either way, we are firm in our belief that if the foreign strings are severed or the state cleans up, these gold-hearted folk will settle back into selling fruits and vegetables.

As part of the Muslim world, there is a huge disconnect between our self-perception or self-worth and our reality. As Muslims we are convinced that we are destined for greatness. And yet we find ourselves lagging behind everyone else in all realms. Our reaction isn’t introspective. We declare that it is all a conspiracy. The entire world has ganged up against us. And so we shouldn’t play by their rules. This sense of rebellion is then supplemented by our sense of disempowerment as citizens. Our colonial overhang, combined with our chequered political history, has nurtured a conspiratorial sense that we are just not in control of our decisions and fate.

We have thus lost our sense of human agency and autonomy. We don’t believe in free will. We don’t believe our choices are our own. If you say or do anything that is against established state narrative, you’ve either been brainwashed by the enemy or you are on his pay. And we’re projecting the same thinking in reflecting on our home born-and-bred terrorists. For the apologists, they’ve either been brainwashed or are being paid by enemies and, consequently, it is not a case of Pakistanis killing Pakistanis. For the justifiers, there’s an evil world out there scheming against Muslims; more power to the religion-inspired terrorists for sticking it to the world.

A new security policy and sacking officials after each new attack won’t treat the cancer that afflicts us. To begin with we need conceptual clarity in our worldview, our sense of purpose as a nation and state and the role of religion within the state. Is the primary purpose of the Pakistani state in the 21st century to build the glory of the Muslim Ummah and take on the imperialists who run the world? Or is the primary object of the state more restricted and focused on the life, security, prosperity and everyday needs of its citizens?

If it is the latter, can we protect and promote the interests of Pakistani citizens by emulating examples of rebel or rogue states – North Korea, Communist Cuba, Taliban-led Afghanistan? Are we better off being a responsible member of the international community that is singularly focused on the well-being of its citizens as opposed to punching above its weight and arrogating to itself the task of taking on global bullies? If we wish to be responsible members of the international community, can such object cohere with a view of national security that still doesn’t consider the existence or use of non-state actors an absolute illegitimacy?

If we accept the contemporary nation-state system and the concepts of state sovereignty and territorial integrity that it is built upon, can we demand our rights under such a system without discharging the obligations that come along? How long can we continue to tell the world that it should respect our sovereignty while throwing our hands up and blaming non-state actors when terror plots being executed in sovereign lands find their strings being pulled from our badlands? Can a functional state coexist while large swathes of our territory are under occupation of non-state terror groups who use it to plan and execute terror attacks across the country?

In terror attacks against Hazaras, Shias, foreign mountaineers, schoolgirls, judges, prosecutors, police officials, army bases and soldiers, and even apologist politicos is evident the unravelling of the state and its authority. We can keep pointing fingers at the Afghan jihad, Ziaul Haq’s Islamisation, the west’s hypocrisy and fight over the primary and tertiary causes of terror. But none of that will stop our home born-and-bred terrorists from eating the flesh of their fellow citizens and chipping off the authority, credibility and functionality of the state. An effective anti-terror policy will need to be founded on bitter admissions.

We’ll have to admit that, despite being under attack itself, our army is still willing to tolerate the presence of terror groups in our midst. We’ll have to admit that the state has done nothing to address the demand or supply side of terror. We’ll have to acknowledge that our national security apparatus still doesn’t see non-state actors as the single largest threat to Pakistani citizens; that our national security mindset has still not rid itself of the illogical belief that religion-inspired hatemongering non-state actors can be harnessed and used in pursuit of national security goals; that what it perceives as an implementation issue is a design fault.

We’ll have to admit that our society has become radicalised overtime. No matter how loudly we yell that we are a peace-loving lot and that no true Muslim can ever wish to kill a fellow Muslim, we have a growing number amongst us who believe that it is all right to kill those who we believe are wrong or evil on the basis of our personal understanding of religion and, further, that such killers should also go scot-free. The PTI MP seeking an honourable release for Mumtaz Qadri only exposed the tip of this iceberg. The problem of reform in a society that has systematically been radicalised by the state is that it needs clear-thinking resolute leaders. Do we have any?

We know our state’s authority and ability stands corroded and needs to be rebuilt. We know our state functionaries are less powerful, resourceful and protected than the terrorist trying to get them. We know our problems range from dysfunctional CCTV cameras in Karachi and a moth-eaten criminal justice system to tribal agencies where well-funded terrorists are fighting pitched battles against the world’s sixth largest army. But to change any of this we need political leaders who are clear-headed about the type of country we wish Pakistan to be, and whether befriending terrorists or eradicating them will move us in that direction.

At this time shaking the resolve of this nation by pointing fingers elsewhere when the problem lies within is not just reckless but outright criminal.