The state that wouldn't fail

[muse]

Rabzon

Just wanted you to know that we appreciate the excellent threads you run - really good work - many thanks.

 

[RabzonKhan]

The venomous B-teams

Thursday, July 09, 2009
Samad Khurram

In The Art of War, Sun Tzu wrote that "If you know both yourself and your enemy, you can win a thousand battles without a single loss." Two thousand and five hundred years later, the words continue to ring true. Pakistan's current predicament is a product of not being able to identify ourselves and our enemies. And so we continue to lose many campaigns.

The bona fide nuisance is rarely the visible enemy. The external foe subsists across the gulf and tends to make its intention clear and in conflict with yours. On the other hand, the chameleons within obsolete principles, obscure discussion, promote their own agenda, extract political mileage and engage in a constant war of attrition. Lovingly, my friends and I refer to them as the "B-teams."

The anatomy of these B-teams is rather complex. These B-teams tend to exist more pronouncedly as politicians, analysts and journalists. Some of these individuals receive patronage for their performance, while others seek recognition. The last are those who become B-teams by virtue of their own biases. Whichever one of these categories they may fall in, the B-teams have always been more dangerous for Pakistan, as they form public opinion and direct discourse. They appease the public by remaining dead right most of the time but when it comes to the contentious issue, they skirt around the issue, focus on non-issues and misguide the people.

It only took one serious long march this year to restore the judges. This could have been done in 2007, saving us all time, money and effort. But Musharraf had found his B-team in the form of the PPP. This party tried every ruse to avoid the issue. Like any B-team the PPP issued obscure statements and tried to appear as if they were with the people, not against them, and did not oppose the popular demands openly.

Contrast the PPP's active role in the first part of the lawyers' movement after March 9, 2007, with their actions after the elections of Feb 18, 2008. In 2007, the leaders of the PPP were at the forefront of the movement. They would organise rallies, protests, walks, camps and lionise the chief justice as an honest, upright judge. Farooq Naek and others would quote the Constitution on how the sacking of sitting judges by the president was unconstitutional. Many PPP leaders are on record with statements claiming it was Iftikhar Chaudhry's honesty which landed him in trouble. However, once they had extracted the NRO, the PPP shunned its principles, the Constitution and everything else they promised to uphold. This B-team of the establishment tried to buy judges, offered lucrative jobs to lawyers for opposing Kurd's elections, crafted unconstitutional "fresh oaths" and tried to drain the energy of the lawyers.

The B-teams of the PPP followed course too. Their first major tactic of the B-team to help the PPP was to vociferously oppose any criticism of the PPP by accusing commentators of being responsible for sowing seeds of martial law or being "right-wing." Secondly, they remained visibly muted in their condemnation of the PPP government. Remember how human rights activists would highlight the Mukhtaran Mai case during the Musharraf regime? Today the human rights record is much worse. We have several ministers in the present cabinet with questionable human rights records. While human rights groups will show you their occasional press releases condemning these appointments, one does not need to know their background working to realiSe that many of these activists really have no interest in building pressure on the PPP. A simple comparison of their agitated response during Musharraf's regime and silence on the PPP government speaks volumes of their insincerity. Thirdly, the B-teams started to distract the people in non-issues and created confusion. The very same people who braved bullets on May 12, 2007, to simply greet the chief justice later started accusing him of being a PCO judge, of being corrupt and inept. On top of it, the B-teams of the PPP supported a double PCO judge over those who had refused to take oath under the last PCO!

The B-teams and their tactics must be kept in mind when dealing with the Taliban for an effective solution. Just as our failure to recognise the B-teams of Musharraf led to a delay of a year and a half in the restoration of the judiciary, our failure to identify and expose the sympathisers of Taliban will result in irreparable loss. We need to classify the politicians, journalists and others are soft on their criticism of the Taliban, those who have different principles for the Taliban, and those who create confusion on this issue.

At a seminar organised by the PTI last month, Qazi Hussain Ahmad said that even though the Taliban had slaughtered Jamaat-e-Islami members, criticising them would only strengthen enemy (American/Israeli/Indian) designs. (Compare this with statements by the PPP B-teams who accused critics of the PPP as being supporters of military rule.) It beats me on how a Taliban-free Pakistan not afflicted by daily terrorist attacks would be beneficial for our enemies. The PTI speaks in a similar tone, which has been adequately discussed by many of us. A similar approach is adopted by other former MMA parties.

Then, there are the media sympathisers who create confusion. The Taliban's criminal flogging of a girl was defended by certain journalists on the grounds that it was ' Islamic'. The real issue was thus swept under the carpet. (Compare this with the PPP's flaunting of the pictures of Benazir Bhutto and renaming everything to Bhutto as way of hiding important issues.

Playing with emotions is the worst form of deception that the B-teams do. In the flogging case the real issue was not one of Islam but of the state of Pakistan. Only the state has the authority to conduct trials and award punishments. Anyone else who does it becomes a state within a state and must be prosecuted. Even the murder of a known murderer by non-state actors is criminal. The minor issue was on the type of punishment for adultery which could be addressed by deliberation of lawmakers.

In the same book Sun Tzu wrote: "To fight and conquer in all your battles is not supreme excellence; supreme excellence consists in breaking the enemy's resistance without fighting." In Pakistan's case the supreme excellence would be to oppose the soft corner existing in society for the Taliban and expose these B-teams. The civil society must direct its attention to these B-teams and make them listen to the demands of a terror-free Pakistan. If a 14-year-old in a madrasa would hear open condemnation of the Taliban daily, the possibility of him becoming a suicide bomber would fall to zero. To remain the Taliban's sidekicks is only harming our country. I often ask: when will we muster the strength of character to stop being the B-teams of others, and become the A-team of Pakistan?


The writer is a student at Harvard University, US.

 

[RabzonKhan]

My thoughts exactly!


Why this selective war on terror?

Sunday, July 12, 2009
Farhat Taj

The government of Pakistan and the Army are engaged in the “Rah-e-Nijat” operation against Baitullah Mahsud and his network in South Waziristan Agency. The military spokesman and director general of the ISPR, Major General Athar Abbas, announced that the preparatory phase of the decisive operation against the militants was already underway and the operation would be taken to its logical end.

This operation should have been launched much before, at the time when Baitullah launched his campaign of terrorism in the name of Islam on the Pakhtun in Waziristan. Baitullah should have been killed or arrested long ago and his network destroyed. He and his terrorists have wreaked havoc on Pakhtuns’ lives and properties and have insulted the Pakhtun culture and way of life. He and his gang of militants have disrupted life through acts of terrorism all over Pakistan. An operation against him is good news.

But the Pakhtun, especially the people of Waziristan, are deeply concerned how selectively the Pakistani Army is dealing with the terrorists. It seems there are “good” Taliban and “bad” Taliban in the sights of the generals in the military establishment. The Pakhtun wonder whether their slaughter, sufferings and even the genocide-like situation that they face is a source of any concern for the elites of Pakistan. They ask why the army is after Baitullah Mahsud now, and, most importantly, why the army is silent on other terrorist leaders who have exposed the Pakhtun to the utmost savagery. Yes, the Pakhtun want to know what the army’s policy is on the three terrorist chiefs and their networks based in Waziristan—i.e., Maulvi Nazir, Hafiz Gul Bahadur and, the deadliest of them all, Jalaluddin Haqani, a national of Afghanistan. The army high command’s silence on the three terrorists is sending a very upsetting message to the Pakhtun and a wrong signal to the world at large.

The message to the Pakhtun is this: the terrorists are Pakistan’s strategic assets to deal with India in regional power politics. That the generals of the Pakistani Army will not offend them by interfering in what they are doing to Pakhtun lives and properties as long as they restrict their acts of terrorism to Pakhtun territories, but the military will use the full might of the state against them the moment they cross the other side of the Indus to launch acts of terrorism in Punjab and Sindh. That the blood of people on the other side of the Indus is more precious than Pakhtun blood, and Punjabi and Sindhi cultures are much more valuable than Pakhtun culture. That the military will not tolerate anyone disrupting educational activities in Punjab and Sindh, but will not make a fuss over the destruction of schools by the terrorists in Pakhtun area. The terrorists have made jihadi madrasas all over occupied Pakhtun territory so as to leave Pakhtun children with no option to go to the madrasas to become suicide bombers and foot soldiers of the violent jihad, so Pakhtun children better go to those madrasas. It is as if the international gangs of terrorists can do whatever they wish to Pakhtun culture and lives. It is as if all this is tolerable in the name of national security interests. On the other hand, it is as if the state security paradigm will be mortally threatened when a terrorists chief expands his outreach beyond Pakhtun territories.

This is a very dangerous message. It may threaten the foundations of the federation of Pakistan.

There are already a minority of hardline nationalist Pakhtun who believe that the army and the Taliban terrorists are two sides of the same coin. They insist that those Pakhtun, like myself, who believe that the two can be separated live in fool’s paradise. They argue that the Pakhtun must strike a deal with the US across the border in Afghanistan to get rid of the Taliban, and also so that they backing they get can be removed. Silence over the activities of Maulvi Nazir, Hafiz Gul Bahadur and Jalaluddin Haqqani is adding to the grievances of the Pakhtun against the establishment. Unlike Baitullah the three have not attacked the state and society in the wider Pakistan – but they have trapped the people of Waziristan in an anti-civilisation. Isn’t it the responsibility of the Pakistani Army to break the trap of the anti-civilisation?

The message to the international community is equally dangerous—i.e., Pakistan is not controlling the terrorists who have openly declared a war on the world in the name of Islam. All the three Waziristan-based terrorists — Maulvi Nazir, Hafiz Gul Bahadur and Jalaluddin Haqqani – are part of the Shura-e-Ittihad-e-Mujahideen, a grand international alliance of Pakistan- and Afghanistan-based terrorist organisations. Osama bin Laden is their patron-in-chief and Mullah Omar their central commander. The alliance has made public vows to attack “enemies of Islam” all over the world. Clearly, the “enemies of Islam” means the US/NATO forces and the governments of all Muslim states which are opposed to violent jihad.

Maulvi Nazir, Hafiz Gul Bahadur and Jalaluddin Haqqani are in fact more dangerous than Baitullah Mehsud, for the simple reason that the danger they present is to the whole world while Baitullah is concentrating on Pakistan alone. By their actions, the likes of Nazir, Gul Bahadur and Haqqani invite the anger of the whole world to Pakistan. And in fact such a state of affairs on serves to strengthen the argument of those anti-Pakistan elements in the international community who wish to see Pakistan declared a terrorist state or a failing state.

The state must clearly declare its policy on the three Waziristan-based terrorists. Are they seen as enemies of Pakistan or strategic assets? They are enemies of the Pakhtun. Enemies of the Pakhtun must be declared enemies of Pakistan, because the Pakhtun are an integral part of the federation. The Pakistani Army must kill or arrest the three terrorists and destroy their networks mainly in North Waziristan. Jalaluddin Haqqani, if not killed, must be deported to Afghanistan along with his entire family in North Waziristan. And this includes his son, Sirajuddin Haqqani, who is wanted by Interpol.



The writer is a research fellow at the Centre for Interdisciplinary Gender Research, University of Oslo, and a member of Aryana Institute for Regional Research and Advocacy.

 

[RabzonKhan]

COMMENT: Talibanisation of Punjab

Shaukat Qadir
July 18, 2009

A few weeks ago, an individual called Zubair, alias Nek Muhammed, was arrested in Lahore and accused of being one of those involved in the attack on the Sri Lankan team. In the immediate aftermath of the incident, eyewitnesses had stated that some of the attackers spoke Pashto, apparently they also had local assistance. Since this boy belongs to the Punjab Taliban, affiliated with the banned Lashkar-e Jhangvi which is known to have links with Al Qaeda. This incident is of no particular significance, except to again highlight the fact that Southern Punjab has a significant portion of people under the influence of the Taliban.

On June 13, following an explosion at the residence of Riaz Kamboh, in Mian Channun, police recovered massive quantities of weapons, suicide jackets and rocket launchers. The individual was running a local school. Following the explosion, all residents were prepared to testify that he was a member of Lashkar-e Jhangvi and a terrorist; but they had allowed their children to remain under his tutelage, even when they knew this fact! Was this merely the result of fear instilled by Kamboh and the party he represents, was it the absence of the writ of the state, was it resentment against the state; or some combination of these factors?

Southern Punjab, from Jhang to Bahawalpur, is riddled with madrassas and both the banned outfits — Lashkar- Tayba and Lashkar-e Jhangvi — enjoy considerable influence in the area. In fact, by one estimate, Bahawalpur is reputed to have the largest number of madrassas in the country. It is a well known fact that there are a few thousand Punjabi Taliban in Waziristan; some trained, some under training. Punjabi clerics have been apprehended en route to Waziristan taking a bevy of young Punjabi boys from this region, ranging in age from twelve to eighteen, for training in Waziristan.

We are also aware that the only person apprehended by Indian security forces for the Mumbai attack hailed from this region and can conclude therefrom that, at least, some others also did. We are also aware that during the period of Maulana Aziz’s incarceration — the one of Lal Masjid fame — his wife made numerous visits to various cities of Southern Punjab, was given a resounding welcome at each, stayed a few days on each visit and addressed a number of gatherings. And I gather from some in the audience that her addresses bordered on the seditious, though always religion-based. I am sure that intelligence agencies would have more accurate information.

The vast majority of students at Lal Masjid, both male and female, were also from Southern Punjab. I can still recall a TV channel interviewing a burqa-clad lady while security forces were attacking the terrorists in Lal Masjid. Her fifteen-year-old daughter was among those inside the mosque and the mother responded very calmly to the questions asked of her. The one response that still rings in my ears: “I am not worried. If she survives, she is a Ghazi; if she dies, she is a Shaheed.”

Southern Punjab, also known as the Seraiki belt, since the local language is Seraiki, a distinct variation from the Punjabi spoken elsewhere, has always considered itself exploited by Northern Punjab; and with some justification. From time to time a voice has been raised for the division of Punjab and the formation of a separate Seraiki Province. Even recently, a prominent politician from this region asked for a separate province for the Seraiki speaking people. The government’s response was an immediate refusal to even consider the idea.

I think we should have provinces of more governable size in terms of land mass and population. Instead of four, we could have maybe ten provinces. The only plausible reason for opposing a Seraiki province could be that it might become a hotbed of extremists. On the other hand, if it becomes a self-governing region, it could no longer have complaints against Northern Punjab and extremism could die its own death.

Let us be clear about one thing; there is not going to be an armed insurrection in any part of Punjab. First, the number of religious extremists is still an infinitesimal portion of the huge population of Punjab; even for the Seraiki belt, they are a very small percentage. Second, for any insurrection to have a chance of success, the local terrain has to be of the kind that will support guerrilla warfare. There is no such region in Punjab that could support guerrilla warfare. Nor is it possible to have schools for militant training for the subverted youth in this area.

Historically, the belt of Sargodha, Sheikhupura and the surrounding area has seen insurrections against the British, most notably the one led by Sultana Daku. Since they enjoyed popular support, they succeeded for a limited period. However, since the terrain was not sufficiently supportive of guerrilla warfare, none of them lasted very long. This is one explanation for why subverted children are sneaked into Waziristan for militant training before being assigned missions in the rest of the country as well as India.

However, if the genuine complaints of the Seraiki belt are not addressed, and swiftly, it will keep churning out cannon fodder for the Taliban. Moreover, the central and provincial governments must act swiftly to bring the madrassas under control. The aborted effort at registering madrassas must recommence immediately. Concurrently, a uniform syllabus should be laid down for them and they should be monitored regularly; to ensure that they produce useful citizens instead of corrupted young minds, and individuals like Maulana Aziz should be banned from teaching.

The fact that there can be no armed insurrection in Punjab does not diminish the threat that a few corrupted minds can pose to the vast majority of the innocent; as has been proven time and again.

This article is a modified version of one originally written for the daily National. He is also former vice president and founder of the Islamabad Policy Research Institute (IPRI)

 

[RabzonKhan]

ANALYSIS: New trends in counter-terrorism

Dr Hasan-Askari Rizvi

The completion of the Malakand security operation and initiation of a new security operation in South Waziristan represents a turning point in Pakistan’s efforts to deal with extremism and terrorism. There is a widespread view in official and non-official circles that the security forces will also succeed in South Waziristan, which would be a major achievement in Pakistan’s drive against terrorism.

The new counter-terrorism policy stands out on four major counts.

First, the army and the paramilitary have demonstrated that they have the commitment and capability to deal effectively with the Taliban and their allies. In the past, the army was periodically criticised for lacking the determination to fight the Taliban because, it was alleged, the army viewed them as a ‘strategic asset’ and thus took action against them half-heartedly and gave them enough space to survive. The other criticism raised doubts about the army’s counter-insurgency capacity. These criticisms have now been set aside by the security operations in Malakand and South Waziristan.

Second, the civilian leadership and the top brass of the military are now unanimous in their view that the Taliban and their allies are the major threat to Pakistan’s internal harmony and stability. In addition to the federal government, the ANP-led provincial government in the NWFP is also on board for the on-going security operations.

Third, the civilian leadership made a conscious effort to mobilise popular support for the security operation against the Taliban. This effort has been quite successful, and has boosted the morale of the army and paramilitary personnel fighting the Taliban. Major political parties support the security operation; the exceptions are Islamist parties and Imran Khan’s PTI. A large number of societal groups also extend support to counter-insurgency. The media’s tone has also showed significant change — from varying degrees of sympathy for the Taliban to support for the security operation.

Fourth, the security operation has helped to rehabilitate the army’s image at the popular level. Around 140 army personnel, including officers, have been killed in the Malakand operation, which has won popular sympathy and appreciation of the efforts of the army. The role of the Pakistan Air Force, which has been actively involved in the security operations, has been equally appreciated.

The shift in the orientation of the key institutions and leaders of the Pakistani state towards Islamic militancy and how to cope with it is a remarkable development. In the past, the Musharraf government lacked unity of mind on countering terrorism The same could be said about the military/intelligence agencies that were not fully convinced about the total elimination of militancy, especially the Taliban.

The Islamist MMA government in the NWFP, 2002-2007, was supportive of the Taliban and allowed them to expand their influence to settled districts of the province. The Musharraf government ignored such activities because it needed the MMA’s support to sustain his rule. When the army went into Swat to control Taliban activity, the MMA government refused to grant permission for a full-fledged security operation. The Army got greater freedom of action in Swat after the exit of the MMA government in 2007.

The real shift came in March-April 2009 when the Taliban got fully entrenched in Swat and the efforts of the NWFP government to defuse the situation by agreeing to implement a sharia-based judicial system failed. The Taliban viewed this as a weakness of the government and expanded their domain to Buner, thereby mounting more pressure on the civilian and military authorities in the area and elsewhere.

Further, violent incidents in Lahore, like the attack on Sri Lankan cricket team and the attack at a police training school, perturbed both military and civilian authorities. Several violent incidents including suicide attacks took place in other parts of the country, especially Punjab. In the first 100 days of 2009, twenty suicide attacks caused 332 deaths.

These developments threatened the writ of the state in unambiguous terms. The civilian leadership was left with no choice but to stop the Taliban onslaught or let them take control of more and more territory, which would have opened their way to overwhelming the Pakistani state.

The top military commanders came to the conclusion that the militant groups were threatening the primacy of the army as the key security institution. They felt that the Taliban and their allies would have to be checked in their bid to grab more Pakistani territory.

These developments also improved the Pakistani state’s credibility at the international level. The United States was already asking Pakistan to adopt a tough policy towards the Taliban and other militant groups.

By mid-April, tough action against the Taliban had become Pakistan’s own imperative. Had the Taliban and their allies not over-played their hand in Malakand and not stepped up their activities in Punjab, civilian leaders and the army top brass would have continued with their ambiguous disposition towards militancy.

Discussions between the president, prime minister and army chief produced a consensus among them to take a firm action against the Taliban and their allies. The NWFP government was also on board for this decision.

The security operation in Swat was initiated on April 26, although its formal announcement was made by Prime Minister Yousaf Raza Gilani on May 6. Since then there has been no going back on the part of the federal government and the army top brass on counter terrorism.

The key decision makers in Pakistan — the president, the prime minister and the army chief — regularly consult each other on counter-terrorism. They held three meetings on July 1, 4, and 7 for winding up the Malakand operation and initiating a new operation in South Waziristan. The Chairman Joint Chiefs of Staff Committee also met the president on July 7. They issued public statements from time to time in support of the security operation for popular mobilisation and to boost the morale of the troops.

It is however difficult to suggest if the top civilian and military leadership has come to a similar decision regarding the militant groups based in Punjab, who are known for violent activities in Indian-administered Kashmir and mainland India. Some of these groups have Islamic-sectarian orientations and function exclusively within Pakistan. The recent incident in Mian Channun shows that militancy is deep rooted in the province.

It seems that these groups are no longer favoured by Pakistan’s security and intelligence authorities. These have been put on hold because the army is busy in the tribal areas and does not want to open a new front in mainland Pakistan. Further, it does not want to seen as taking action against these groups under Indian pressure.

The Punjab security and intelligence apparatus is now targeting activists of these organisations and monitoring the madrassas that have a reputation for militancy and maintain links with the Taliban. This effort is aimed at destroying their networks, isolating them and discouraging recruitment.

The next two months will show if Pakistan’s civilian and military authorities will exert more pressure on Punjab-based militant groups and ensure that they do not force a foreign policy situation on Pakistan in its interaction with India. If the role of these groups is neutralised, it will be possible to argue that Pakistan’s counter-terrorism policy has made a historical shift.

Dr Hasan-Askari Rizvi is a political and defence analyst.

 

[RabzonKhan]

Checks on madressahs

Dawn Editorial
Tuesday, 21 Jul, 2009

THE demand by a group of ulema that the government should conduct raids on “all madressahs” serves to highlight the rising awareness in the nation of the threat to Pakistan from religious extremism. At a meeting held in Lahore on Sunday to observe the chehlum of Maulana Sarfraz Naeemi, the ulema suggested raids on madressahs to make sure that they did not have a terrorist agenda. Last week, we know how a blast flattened many homes in a village near Mian Channu, killing 12 people. It later transpired that the explosion occurred in the stockpile of arms and ammunition which a man running a seminary attached to his home had allegedly managed to store. The seminary taught the Holy Quran to the village’s boys and girls, and under its cover the man — who had gone to Afghanistan to acquire training and was known to the police — was said to be training suicide bombers. Reportedly he also wanted to assassinate the prime minister

While the scholars’ demand for raids can be understood in view of the gravity of the situation, what is actually needed is a system of perpetual monitoring of madressahs. A raid that yields no information about covert activities will be counterproductive and will expose the government to the charge of harassing madressahs believed to be imparting normal religious instruction. Whether it is sources of funding from abroad, propaganda or hate literature, the intelligence agencies need to closely monitor the working of all madressahs. Action must be taken where positive proof exists of anti-state activities. That the demand for raids has come from a section of the ulema is indicative of the fact that the Taliban and their supporters are becoming increasingly isolated because of their barbaric ways and the threat they pose to Pakistan.

 

[RabzonKhan]

A letter of non-appreciation

Saturday, July 25, 2009
Farhat Taj

Relationship between state and citizens is a social contract. A basic ingredient of the contract is that the state shall protect the life and property of its citizens. It is in this context that violence is the monopoly of the state which it shall use according to the law. In theory this is so in Pakistan as well. In practice it is not so, in many parts of Pakistan. But the most disgraceful and atrocious violation of the social contact can be seen in FATA and the NWFP in face of Taliban and Al-Qaeda terrorism in the area.

The state has failed again and again to protect citizens from the atrocities of the Taliban and Al-Qaeda. The absence of state protection made many people in the NWFP and FATA create local lashkars (volunteer armies) to push Taliban and Al-Qaida terrorists out of their areas. Most members of the lashkar had never been fond of violence. They would prefer a peaceful and quite life. The state's abrogation of its responsibility to protect them had forced them to take up weapons in self-defence.

Even then the state never came forward to help the lashkars, most of whose leaders and members were slaughtered by the Taliban and Al-Qaeda, with the state just watching as an unconcerned bystander. But still the resistance of the people continues on self-help bases in several parts of the NWFP and FATA.

There is a lashkar in Badaber, an area of rural Peshawar on the border with Darra Adamkhel, the area taken over by the Taliban, to the south, and with Khyber Agency, ruled by Mangal Bagh and Hakimullah, to the west. The Badaber lashkar is playing an impressive role in preventing Darra Adamkhel Taliban from taking over Peshawar. The lashkar has had several clashes with the Taliban, which led to death and injuries on both sides. A striking feature of the lashkar is that it is not only protecting the people of Badaber but also extending protection to law-enforcement agencies in the area. It is not uncommon to see police and FC vehicles and personnel being escorted by the lashkar's vehicles and volunteers. Thus, in Badaber the social contract between the state and citizens is turned on its head: the citizens are protecting the state!

In another country such citizens would have become heroes. Not so in Pakistan. For a long time the state ignored the efforts of the citizens. But at last the one and only "recognition" came from the state: a letter of appreciation. It was issued on Nov 17, 2008, by the chief secretary of the NWFP and addressed to two of the lashkar's leaders, Khushdil Khan, deputy speaker of the NWFP Assembly, and Gulzar Hussain, former chairman of thye Union Council of Badaber. The letter is copied to the governor of the NWFP, the speaker of the NWFP Assembly, the Corps Headquarters in Peshawar, the home secretary of the NWFP and the inspector general of the province.

The letter states: "The provincial administration would like to place on record its commendation/appreciation for the good work that your honour has undertaken regarding formation of Aman (peace) Committees for maintenance of law and order in Badaber and Sheikh Mohammadi areas of District Peshawar. This step would go a long way in ensuring maintenance of peace and tranquillity in the concerned areas in collaboration with law-enforcement agencies. Formation of Aman Committees is a commendable and enviable community measure emulable in other troubled areas all over NWFP."

This letter has been a source of torture for many, if not all, members of the Badaber lashkar. Is this the recognition that they deserve from the state for the acute dangers they have taken upon themselves and their families by challenging the Taliban? Some lashkar members might have thought that it would have been better they never had that letter which is more a source of torture than appreciation for them.

In my view, the letter should have come from the highest political authority of the state: the president or the prime minister of Pakistan. If not that, then at least it should have come from the chief minister or governor of the NWFP. The letter should have clearly acknowledged the role of the lashkar in protection of the law- enforcement agencies. The letter should have been shared with the media so that everyone in Pakistan had seen that the state recognised the efforts of the lashkar.

But what is the most important is that the state must fulfil its responsibility to protect the people of the NWFP and FATA from the Taliban and Al-Qaeda. For that to happen, the state must abandon the idea of strategic depth for good. The state must stop using FATA as a strategic space. The state must respect the fact that the people of FATA are its citizens who are fully entitled to its protection. The lashkar people, both in FATA and the NWFP, have not taken up arms for fun or out of habit.

They have done so because the state has abandoned them to the wolves, the Taliban and Al-Qaeda. The same would be the response of most human beings abandoned by their state anywhere in the world. A letter of appreciation on behalf of the state, although good in symbolic terms, means nothing in real terms. The state must robustly come forward to protect people in the Taliban-occupied areas and, wherever appropriate, should cooperate with the local people so as to inflict maximum damage on the Taliban and Al-Qaeda with the least collateral damage to the civilian population.


The writer is a research fellow at the Centre for Interdisciplinary Gender Research, University of Oslo and a member of Aryana Institute for Regional Research and Advocacy.

 

[RabzonKhan]

Editorial: National ‘mind damage’ by Taliban

July 29, 2009

The NWFP Senior Minister, Mr Bashir Ahmed Bilour, has revealed that 200 “completely brainwashed” children of ages 6 to 13 years have been recovered from Malakand, ready to act as suicide-bombers for the Taliban. Further details are quite unsettling: the children are so completely transformed by their trainers that they refuse to reintegrate into normal society and even threaten their parents with death because they are “non-believers”.

We know that children were increasingly being used by the Taliban for their terrorist attacks in recent times. The pattern even contained the message that the Taliban and Al Qaeda were finding it increasingly difficult to train grown-up individuals to do the job. We also know that a child from Karachi is being prosecuted for being a part of the plot that took the life of Ms Benazir Bhutto in Rawalpindi in 2007. But new details about the use of suicide-bombing coming to light establish a pattern of employing children rather than men.

Our troops discovered suicide-factories in South Waziristan where children brought in from all over Pakistan were kept and “trained” by men who had become famous for their expertise at “converting” the boys in “half an hour”. A cleric from South Punjab was actually caught as he returned from South Waziristan after delivering the latest batch of child bombs to Baitullah Mehsud. This is the worst mind damage that the Taliban movement has done to Pakistan. It has nothing to do with Islam directly but Islam is certainly being misused as an instrument of brainwash.

The 200 child suicide-bombers now in army custody should be handled with great care. They have to be put through a debriefing with a psychologist who should grade them in accordance with the intensity of their alienation from society. They should not be let out into society after a “corrective” sermon from a cleric. That will not work, as shown again and again by men who suffered punishment in prisons, including Guantanamo Bay, and then went right back to practising terrorism once they were released.

Generally speaking, Pakistani children are ripe for the plucking. Poor and deprived, they are primed with religious instruction, as embodied in our syllabi, and succumb to Taliban trainers willingly because of the orthodox views inculcated in them by our school system. While the instruction in state-owned schools is completely benign, some of its elements are selectively employed by the trainers to fashion a suicide-bomber out of the boy. The idea of “shahadat” and the attainment of paradise are misapplied, and the Muslims that he is supposed to kill through his suicide are first apostatised into kafirs.

Unfortunately, a concordance between the orthodox clergy and the Taliban trainers helps the evil process. For instance, the condemnation of suicide-bombing through a collective fatwa issued by the ulema of Pakistan recognises the phenomenon of suicide-bombers as “fedayeen” and outlaws suicide-bombing only when it targets “innocent Muslims”. From this legal base, the boys are easily convinced that they are dying in the cause of Islam by killing those who have rendered themselves non-believers by their acts.

The national consensus against the Taliban, and effective military operations against them, have turned the tide of grown-up suicide bombers. The conduct of the state too has helped in this. For instance, Jamil and Khalique who tried to kill President Pervez Musharraf in Rawalpindi in 2003 by ramming their explosive-laden car into his cavalcade, were Jaish-e-Muhammad operatives who once fought the covert war against India and were caught fighting against the Americans in 2001 in Afghanistan. Thinking they would change their ways, the agencies let them off, which was a mistake.

Now, of course, the illusions of covert war have been more or less eliminated and the army is fighting against the jihadis that once were its extended front rank. This has changed the trend. The jihadis offer themselves less and less as suicide-bombers; and if they do, they have proved less and less reliable. The new trend is to get caught and start spilling the beans on their patrons, which is actually a measure of success of the army in its war against the Taliban. Ajmal Kasab had the option of suicide; he did not take it. And he has spilled a lot of beans.

The “mind damage” at the national level is being gradually healed as “intimidation” under the control of Taliban is less and less possible. But those who have been roped into becoming suicide-bombers are a special case. And if they are children they should be kept in quarantine and reintegrated into a society that they should view as benign.

 

[RabzonKhan]

Another dud deal?

Thursday, July 30, 2009

Reports and comment in the foreign media are increasingly talking of the possibility of a deal being explored – or even done -- between the army and Baitullah Mehsud. The BBC, the Daily Telegraph, the Washington Post and the New York Times have in the last week carried reports alluding to the failure to capture Baitullah Mehsud, and it is not possible to dismiss these reports out-of-hand as mere idle gossip. The Telegraph is going so far as to claim that the delay in launching the all-out operation against Mehsud is to allow a deal to be made. The report says that the government wants him to promise that he will not attack government personnel and assets in the future – a promise that would rank alongside a solemn undertaking by all crocodiles never to eat another wildebeest. Military claims to have 'corralled his stronghold in South Waziristan' by blocking the four principal points of entry are unverifiable, and we have no idea if, or to what extent, Mehsud and his allies are being 'softened up' by the air force and artillery as is claimed by military spokespersons. What is clear is that a month after the go-ahead for an operation in the Waziristans there is very little sign of movement, and every single one of the men on the government's 'most wanted' list remains at large despite considerable prices on their heads.

We would have thought that by now, with Sufi Mohammad once again behind bars after having been detained in Peshawar, that the self-evident madness of doing deals with extremists would have become a powerful influence over governmental decision-making. Every deal made with them in the past has collapsed, including those with Mehsud, as their true motives become evident once the deal is implemented. These men want nothing more or less than the whole of Pakistan to be under the cloak of darkness that they spread around them. They will unashamedly bomb and butcher and terrorise their way to power if they possibly can and have the ability to bring fear into the lives of people far from their primary area of operation. They are willing to brainwash children into becoming suicide bombers. They will intimidate local police forces, close down markets for women and barber shops for men, decide what style of clothing is appropriate for men and women alike and consign women to a place beyond the pale.

The operation to defeat Mehsud in the Waziristans is called Rah-e-Nijat or Path to Deliverance. The military accepts that it is going to be a tougher fight than the one they have yet to finish in Swat, and 'deliverance' may be a long time coming. It is perhaps worth remembering that all the previous operations against the Taliban in Pakistan have ended in a peace deal which they have negotiated from a position of strength, and they still have powerful supporters in the establishment and the military. Either we beat Mehsud or he beats us. There is no middle ground – and no deal, either.

 

[RabzonKhan]

It's cancer, stupid!

Saturday, August 01, 2009
Aziz Akhmad

The other day, I watched a TV clip of a politician whose party is not represented in the current Parliament, addressing a seminar in Islamabad. He posed a question to his audience, stressing every word with hand gestures, like a professor: "If you do not know the disease, how can you treat it?" Obviously, he was referring to the ongoing military operation in Malakand and the Frontier Regions, and went on to repeat his often-stated position that we were fighting America's war, that one does not bomb or kill his own people (even if they are murderers?), and that we should first find out the root cause of the problem, etc. etc.

If I were in the audience, I would have answered without hesitation that the disease had already been diagnosed. It is a deadly cancer! It would not be just a rhetorical answer. There are deep similarities between cancer and this plague that has afflicted Pakistan in the form of violent extremism for the past several years.

I had an opportunity recently to listen to an experienced oncologist (cancer specialist) explain, in very simple, layman's terms, what is cancer, how does it spread in the body, and how it can be treated. Listening to him, I could not help noticing the remarkable parallels between the course cancer takes in the human body and the course that the religious extremism has taken in Pakistan.

As the doctor, a consultant with the famous Sloan-Kettering Cancer Centre in New York, described it, human the body is composed of millions of different types of cells, which are born, multiply, mature, and then die a natural death at different times. The lifespan of different types of human cells varies from days to months. New cells are born to replace the dead cells, and the process continues throughout a person's life.

Unfortunately, it so happens that some of these cells don't follow the normal cycle of their life. Sometimes, they "go astray" and turn into what may be described as "rogue cells." Why? We don't quite know the answer. It is somewhat like students at a school who, instead of progressing from year to year and ultimately graduating, drop out of the school system for some reasons and start forming street gangs and indulging in antisocial and criminal activities.

The "rogue cells," too, multiply and form into "gangs," which in medical terminology are called tumours. (We can feel these tumours as hard lumps or swellings in our body or, when located deep inside, they can be detected by X-rays and CT scans.) Left untreated, cells from these tumours may enter the bloodstream and other body systems, spread out (metastasise, in medical terms) to form more tumours. The tumours grow in size, sometime producing toxic chemicals, often impinging on the functioning of vital organs, and ultimately leading to the death of the patient. It's like street gangs going on a rampage, mugging people, robbing banks and even killing people in the process.

There are three ways to treat a cancer: Removing the tumour(s) by a surgical operation, destroying them through radiation, or killing the "rogue cells" by chemical treatment, called chemotherapy, or simply "chemo." A doctor may use any or a combination of these treatments, depending on the nature and spread of the disease.

Usually, if the cancer is operable and detected early, surgical removal is the quickest treatment. Chemo comes later, which is like "poisoning" the body with certain chemicals to kill the "rogue cells." The problem is, the chemicals used in chemo do not discriminate between the bad cells and the good cells so essential to our health. They kill both. This action is somewhat similar to a situation where the police, in an attempt to shoot the gangsters, end up killing innocent bystanders with them.

The death of good cells in the body makes the patient feel miserable and also leaves him/her defenceless against infections of all kinds. Chemo treatment can be long, lasting for over several months, and is also very expensive. There may be times when the patient feels so miserable that he/she would rather want to forgo the treatment. But the alternative is certain death.

Causes of cancer are complex and are not quite understood yet. But they are generally believed to include, among others, factors such as genetics, environment, and those related to lifestyle (smoking, diet, exercise, etc.).

Similarly, causes of violent extremism are complex, but some can be easily traced back to the history of mixing religion with politics and of appeasing the fanatics (this could be classified as genetic), and environmental factors such as poverty, absence of justice and the rule of law, lack of good education, etc.

While the search to identify the causes of cancer continues, as it must for the larger good of society, the immediate treatment of an already afflicted patient cannot be put off until the exact causes are identified. That is, if you do not want the patient to die immediately.

In the same way, the ongoing military operation (the chemo) to eliminate the militants in Malakand and FATA must continue, and, simultaneously, the causes of the violent extremism must be determined and addressed, so that this cancer is eliminated permanently.



The writer is a human resources consultant.

 

[RabzonKhan]

Editorial: State and intolerance

August 06, 2009

Taking a cue from Gojra, some people on Tuesday killed the owner of a factory in Muridke just outside Lahore. Before killing him they accused him of having “desecrated the Holy Quran”. Ridiculously, they announced an old calendar on the owner’s office wall as the Holy Quran before committing the heinous crime. In Gojra, the announcement from the mosques had alleged that the Christians had defiled the Holy Quran. No evidence was in place.

Many people ask the question: why has intolerance increased after the enactment of the laws against blasphemy and desecration of the Quran? A law is brought in to stop a criminal trend, but why has the opposite happened in the case of Pakistan? No satisfactory answers are given, but that doesn’t mean that there are no answers. One straightforward observation is the weakening of the state in the face of elements that propagate a severe interpretation of the faith.

The next question is: why has the state become weak? The answer should be sought in what the state has done in the last quarter of a century. The state has relied on the military strategy of using non-state actors in covert wars in Afghanistan and Kashmir. The Mujahideen were selected from the seminaries and religious parties who were made to develop their jihadi wings. This empowerment — nursing fully armed warriors within civil society — dictated the negative transformation of Pakistan as a society.

The state that promotes jihad with non-state actors will have to brace itself against change that might come from the jihadi mind. In Pakistan’s case, the state reacted “homoeopathically”; it changed itself through laws that appeased the new tough approach to matters of religion. The blasphemy law was enforced in violation of all norms of law-making. Section 295-C says: “Use of derogatory remarks, etc; in respect of the Holy Prophet. Whoever by words, either spoken or written or by visible representation, or by any imputation, innuendo, or insinuation, directly or indirectly, defiles the sacred name of the Holy Prophet Mohammed (PBUH)...” About the Holy Quran, Section 295-B says: “Defiling, etc, of copy of Holy Quran. Whoever wilfully defiles, damages or desecrates a copy of the Holy Quran or of an extract therefrom or uses it in any derogatory manner or for any unlawful purpose shall be punishable for imprisonment for life”.

The laws are phrased in anger, not in moderation, which is the meaning of justice (adl) in Islam. Some years ago, an angry sitting judge of the Lahore High court spoke out at a public function and said that Muslims should kill a blasphemer on sight and not go to the court of law. Pushed by the ulema empowered in varying degrees by jihad, the laws were kept on the statute book despite clear defects. In most cases any page with Arabic printed on it lying on the ground arouses people to violence which vents itself on public property. The individual victims are mostly poor communities who cannot defend themselves.

In 2006, the Council for Islamic Ideology (CII) thought that the laws had no deterrent value against false accusations and suggested procedural amendments, but the proposal was shot down by the clerical faction inside the CII. The sessions courts that award the death sentence to blasphemers are hardly free agents, intimidated by armed non-state actors besieging the court. Even a high court judge has been killed by a fanatic.

Christians, the most frequent victims, are also the poorest section of the population. It normally takes five to six years for a convicted blasphemer on death row to get relief from the Supreme Court. The state has yet to punish a blasphemer; but hundreds languish in jails falsely accused of blasphemy, including a group of under-age school children from Layyah ******* in a DG Khan jail.

The blasphemy law doesn’t care for evidence, has no concern for “will” behind the act of blasphemy, has set aside the concept of “tauba” (contrition), and is subject to a widespread misuse by criminal elements of society who conflate blasphemy with desecration of the Quran. The state, impotent after its “jihad” phase, extends lame excuses, blaming incidents on the ubiquitous “foreign hand”. Its executive knows that the state is weak-kneed and therefore sides with the empowered jihadi non-state actors as they enter the town with murder on their minds.

 

[RabzonKhan]

Editorial: Threat from Jhang

August 13, 2009

While the champions of Seraikistan and politicians of North Punjab jointly disavow any decline of South Punjab into a stronghold of religious terrorists, our National Assembly has echoed with warnings about the persistence in Jhang of the dominance of Sipah Sahaba Pakistan (SSP). In answer to an alarming report by an MNA, the interior minister, Mr Rehman Malik, told the house that the government had asked the provinces to “keep a watch over it”.

The PMLQ MNA Sheikh Waqqas Akram was in fact saying something else. He was worried about a conspiracy to allow some elements that had been subdued after a struggle of 15 years to stage a comeback in Jhang. Mr Rehman should have taken note of that and not dumped the entire thing on the provinces. Policy about what to do with militants is made at the centre, perhaps away from the scrutiny of the politicians.

Mr Akram was sketching in some detail the features of this comeback by the terrorist organisation. He said Jhang was once again the stamping ground of armed clerics who have armies of young men at their command. Like everyone serving Al Qaeda, there is no dearth of funds for these militants in Jhang, and the government is intimidated by their growing power. But who is allowing the SSP to stage a comeback?

Clearly, lack of action on the part of the government and its law-enforcement institutions is a major factor. The lower courts are scared of convicting SSP men and it is now the foreign press that is reporting news about the imminent release of the most dreaded killer of SSP, Akram Lahori, because “there is no evidence against him”. There is little real reporting from the districts where the terrorists exploit a weak writ of the state to intimidate local journalists.

As for “permission” from the “centre”, the SSP made its comeback in 2006 after years of being hunted as a sectarian killer. According to the Human Rights Commission of Pakistan (HRCP) handout of April 10, 2006, the SSP held its rally in Islamabad presumably with the approval of the administration. The Friday rally preached jihad and sectarianism. The police stood aside and watched, despite the fact that the literature being distributed was against the law. The SSP speakers were heard “thanking” the Islamabad administration for letting them stage the rally.

MNA Akram was pointing to a very specific case. He said that all the 200 Sipah Sahaba activists arrested in Jhang — after a judge took a suo moto notice of an incident of violence — had been released “one by one”; and that he had learned during a visit to Gojra that members of the same group had attacked the Christians in Gojra, burning seven of them alive.

He said more, for the attention of the interior minister: Why was a leader of SSP allowed to address his arrested group activists in jail and to go around the country despite the fact that SSP was a banned organisation? His words were: “Don’t leave us at the mercy of these maulvis”. Mr Rehman kept saying it was a provincial subject, but down in Punjab the feudal politicians had decided not to crib openly about the armed maulvis, from the point of view of their own security.

Why are the South Punjabis sceptical about standing up to the old jihadis-turned-terrorists? The answer is quite near the surface if you talk to them. It is the centre and the agencies at the centre — who have handled these elements as “assets” of the state in the past — that send down signals that no one dare ignore. How can Mr Rehman Malik control these agencies? The last time he tried to bring one under his wings he nearly lost his job.

Talking of South Punjab, recent reports from Rahimyar Khan say a killer group from Dera Ghazi Khan has arrived in the district and is projecting its power on the basis of its links with the clergy of Lal Masjid of Islamabad. Worse, last week the lobby of retired army officers has issued another call in defence of Lal Masjid, asking the government to try General Musharraf for attacking it in 2007. Similarly, retired ISI officers are running human rights NGOs defending the very killers the people dread and are choosing as their masters because the state is shy to take on the killers. Significantly, the new spokesman of the Taliban Tehreek is Azam Tariq, named after the most feared SSP commander killed in 2003.

 

[TalibanSwatter]

Suroosh Irfani

Reclamation of Pakistan’s South Asian Muslim identity, so poignantly reflected in Jinnah’s speech, is as crucial for the survival of a democratic Pakistan as the battle for defeating the Taliban

Rooted in a democratic struggle that ended British rule in the subcontinent, there was something remarkable about Pakistan’s emergence on August 14, 1947 as a sovereign Muslim state. This was as much reflected in the founding father Muhammad Ali Jinnah’s address to Pakistan’s first Constituent Assembly as in its national anthem and flag celebrating Pakistan’s founding moment.

Jinnah’s speech on August 11, 1947 set the direction for Pakistan as a modern democratic state, where religion was a personal matter that had “nothing to do with the business of the state”, and people could creatively rework a divisive past for a promising future. At the same time, the inclusive spirit of a South Asian Muslim identity was reflected, on the one hand, in the first national anthem composed by Jagan Nath Azad, a scholar of Indo-Persian culture, and on the other hand, in a flag that celebrated Pakistan’s three percent religious minorities by giving them twenty five percent of the flag’s space — its white section.

Such eclecticism rooted in an Indo-Persian culture also prevailed in the new national anthem — first played at Karachi airport on March 30, 1950 when the Shah of Iran visited Pakistan, but formally adopted seven years later. As with the Urdu word for ‘national anthem’ (qaumi terana in Urdu, terana e qaumi in Persian), the anthem is as much in Urdu as Persian, the composition is by a Zoroastrian — Ghulam Ahmed Chagla, and the chorus giving it an ‘Indian’ musical aura comprises of almost equal numbers of female and male singers, respectively five and six. (See Ashfaque Naqvi. “A word on Jagannath Azad”, Dawn, June 27, 2004)

Indeed, Zulfikar Ali Bhutto’s populist slogan of “Islam, Democracy and Socialism” that gave him a landslide win in Pakistan’s first general elections held in 1970 also reflected the eclectic spirit of Pakistan’s South Asian Muslim identity. However, General Zia-ul Haq, who toppled Bhutto’s government in a military coup in 1977 and had him hanged two years later, set Pakistan on a different track that eroded the South Asian spirit of its identity. Lacking a political or social base of his own other than the army, Zia carved out a constituency for himself through a Saudi-backed politics of ‘Islamisation’ that infused Islamic conservatism in the state and society and co-opted religio-political parties, including the Jama’at-e Islami that had historically stood in opposition to Jinnah and Pakistan. Moreover, Soviet military intervention in Afghanistan in support of Kabul’s Marxist regime in 1979 helped in entrenching General Zia’s regime and turning Pakistan into “America’s most allied ally” as a Cold War frontline state.

Indeed, if the Cold War had given General Zia a shortcut to legitimacy on the international front, the Afghan jihad enabled Zia to stake Pakistan’s future on the jihadi politics in Afghanistan , giving rise to a plethora of home-grown militant outfits. Clearly, the upshot of the US-Saudi backed Afghan jihad in a regional context shaken by Shia revivalist Ayatollahs of the Iranian revolution had fateful consequences for Pakistan.

At the same time, with the virtual collapse of state education, religious schools linked with jihadi outfits rapidly expanded as breeders of a violent jihadi culture that eclipsed Pakistan’s South Asian identity while promoting an ‘Arabist shift’ — a tendency to view the Arab as the only ‘real’/pure Muslim, and then using this trope of purity as a self-righteous weapon for recasting the present in a glorified imaginary of a triumphal Arab past.

Such reasoning is reflected in a detained Pakistani suicide bomber’s interview on Geo Television on July 2, 2009. The would-be bomber justified the killing of innocent children and citizens in the ongoing spate of suicide bombings by invoking the fatwa of “a great Arab cleric”, to the effect that those who died in the bombings were not innocent victims as they did not support Taliban’s jihad.

Indeed, back in the 1990s when Pakistan helped Taliban’s rise to power in Afghanistan, Talibanic Islam became virtually synonymous with Osama bin Laden and Al Qaeda through fusion with Wahhabi-Salafi radicalism, even as Peshawar became “the capital of the Islamic world”, as noted by Al Qaeda strategist Abu Mus’ab al-Suri in Brynjar Lia’s Architect of Global Jihad: The Life of Al Qaeda Strategist Abu Mus’ab al- Suri. (Hurst. London. 2007) According to al Suri, “every ongoing discussion and debate (in Peshawar) quickly spread out to the rest of the world, through audio communiqués, books, leaflets, audiocassettes, and through couriers and visitors”.

Moreover, if the founding moment of Indo-Persian culture was rooted in the 11th century publication of Kashf ul Mahjub, (The Unveiling of the Veiled), a treatise on Sufism by Lahore’s patron saint Ali Osman Hujwiri or Data Ganj Baksh as he is popularly known across the country, the publication in Peshawar of al Suri’s The Experience and Lessons of the Islamic Jihadi Revolution in 1991 might well have signalled the internationalisation of the Arabist shift in Pakistan.

At the same time, Arab and Pakistani jihadis continued to flourish in the training camps of Afghanistan and Pakistani-administered Kashmir after Zia’s death and Soviet withdrawal from Afghanistan, even as Pakistan briefly realised its dream of gaining ‘strategic depth’ in Afghanistan under Taliban rule.

However, all this changed following the September 11, 2001 suicide attacks on the United States, masterminded by Osama bin Laden’s Al Qaeda that Taliban had hosted in their Islamic Emirate. And although the invasion by US and NATO forces in October 2001 led to the rout of the Taliban and Al Qaeda in Afghanistan, this further radicalised Pakistan’s Islamist groups, even as the Taliban and Al Qaeda sought refuge in Pakistan. Indeed, most Pakistanis regarded the Taliban as ‘true Muslims’ and bin Laden a ‘hero of Islam’, thereby enabling the terrorists to exploit local hospitality in Pakistan. The existential threat that Pakistan faces is not only because of the Taliban per se, but also a complicit culture largely blurring the boundaries between ‘extremist’ and ‘mainstream’ in the Islamist spectrum.

However, a sea change has occurred in Pakistan’s public perceptions of Al Qaeda and the Taliban since May 2009, after the Pakistan Army was finally compelled to crush the Taliban insurgency. Even so, military action against the Taliban would remain inconclusive without socio-economic and educational measures for winning “hearts and minds”, especially of the people displaced by recent fighting.

At the same time, such measures should aim at promoting a new political culture in sync with Pakistan’s founding moment, summed up by Jinnah’s speech to the Constituent Assembly. Indeed, reclamation of Pakistan’s South Asian Muslim identity, so poignantly reflected in Jinnah’s speech, is as crucial for the survival of a democratic Pakistan as the battle for defeating the Taliban.

 

[RabzonKhan]

Surprise, surprise

By Kamran Shafi
Tuesday, 21 Sep, 2010

To the matter, however: the motorway authorities say that they do not have CCTV cameras mounted at the entry and exit points of the motorway so they have no way of knowing which type of vehicle might have been used in the kidnap. But what about the toll booth records? writes Kamran Shafi. - APP Photo

Surprise, surprise, that the case of journalist Umar Cheema’s late night kidnapping from Islamabad the Beautiful, his violent beating; crudely shaving his head and eyebrows; hanging him upside down, and dropping him off after a several-hour ride, most of it on the motorway, 120 kms away from Islamabad by thugs of an intelligence agency has reached the usual dead-end.

Well, what’s new? Yet another dastardly and cruel act by the Deep State shoved under the humongous ****** carpet, maintained with loving care for more years than I care to remember, by our venal and heartless establishment.

To the matter, however: the motorway authorities say that they do not have CCTV cameras mounted at the entry and exit points of the motorway so they have no way of knowing which type of vehicle might have been used in the kidnap. But what about the toll booth records?

Since in all likelihood the vehicle in which Cheema was transported entered the motorway at Islamabad (or Fatehjang) and exited at the Chakwal/Talagang exit, the records of these three points should suffice to at least get the registration numbers of all the vehicles that used that section during the approximate hours of his kidnapping.

So why in heavens name can’t the motorway authorities be made to hand over the record to the much-vaunted Islamabad traffic police who can then try to find the offending vehicle? Surely even the traffic police should know the registration numbers of the vehicles in the use of the brutes that go by the name of ‘intelligence agents’ in the capital of the Citadel of Islam?

Surely they would, for they must notice these yahoos race about dangerously, following and harassing peaceful and law-abiding citizens who might have chanced to, say, go to a diplomatic mission or to a diplomat’s house.

As a matter of fact, even the lay police should know these vehicles by sight because they do not even slow down at the various check-posts erected all across the city, check-posts where an ordinary mortal can get shot dead if one does not stop, as happened to a poor lad some time ago.

But no, of course not. We will never find out what happened to poor Umar Cheema because the Deep State does not want us to find out. It is a law, a country, a nation, and a state unto itself all rolled up in one, independently sprung as it is due to the billions of rupees it forcibly purloins from the hapless government of Pakistan on pain of imminent death and worse.

No police force in the country dare stand up to it, let alone nominate it on well-investigated and well-founded suspicions of grave wrongdoing.

The above we already knew, those of us who have dared to even murmur opposition to its stupidities in the mistaken belief that Pakistan does not only belong to the Deep State, it belongs to all us Pakistanis. And that all of us must put our shoulder to the wheel to move our country forward. No! roars the Deep State ... do what I say otherwise I shall teach you a lesson you will never forget. (Witness Umar Cheema’s tribulations, dear reader).

But by far the more frightening part of the Deep State’s recent exertions is that it is now targeting innocent citizens who have nothing whatsoever to do with the press, or writing, or admonishing it in any way.

Recent letters to the editor of this newspaper of record state that at least two readers have in the most recent past experienced harassment at the hands of unnamed people speaking from ‘Private Number Calling’.

In one case, a letter writer complained that his SIM was being used by someone else, probably someone from the Deep State, who else?

A reader of mine has been complaining by emails to me for some time now of calls from ‘Private Number Calling’ during which the person on the other side asked this gentleman if his SIM was being used by someone else. When this gentleman said it wasn’t and could he know who was calling, the caller traced his ancestry and told him he had better watch out lest he get hurt.

What in the world is going on? Is this an attempt to ripen and prepare unsuspecting people for a shakedown after threatening them of dire consequences?

Are these rogue elements who are out to make money through blackmail to finance their dark doings? What in the world is going on?

This is a situation that simply cannot be allowed to go on, Deep State or no Deep State. There should be no ‘private numbers’ whatsoever. All users of the mobile/landline networks should be treated equally when it comes to the identification of the number calling a certain telephone. We know we live in the dark shadow of the establishment, growing darker all the time, but it is time we the people stood up and said, “Enough!”

The shadows are growing ever darker because the two main political players, the PPP and the PML-N, are slowly but surely being hijacked by hard-hearted hawks on both sides, who little realise that united they stand, divided they (both) fall.

An aside here: how silly Babar Awan looked when asked if the federal government would charge Musharraf under Article 6. “The Punjab government should charge him since it was the PML-N government that he dismissed and the same party now rules Punjab which is 60 per cent of the country”, or words to that effect said Babar. I ask you. And I thought that whatever else he was, the man was clever. How wrong one can be!

In the end, a call to the hardworking and good Shahbaz Sharif: have the seemingly stupid and cooked-up story to harm the Hon’ble CJ of the Lahore High Court looked at most closely. If it is indeed so, isolate the person(s) who have misled you and punish him/them most severely. It is giving Punjab a very bad name indeed.

 

[RabzonKhan]

EDITORIAL: No more carrots?

September 29, 2010


In yet another strike by NATO helicopters inside Pakistani territory, at least five people were killed and nine others injured in the Matta Sangar area of Kurram Agency. After Pakistan protested at the previous NATO strike in North Waziristan, which killed 50 insurgents, we saw a diplomatic reversal of the International Security Assistance Force’s (ISAF’s) earlier strongly worded statement. Despite this diplomatic ‘victory’, Pakistan should reconsider its policy on terrorism. With the passage of time, the US-led NATO forces are fast losing patience with Pakistan’s dual policy vis-à-vis the Taliban and its ‘strategic depth’ doctrine. The Afghan war is getting unpopular with every passing day in the US and other western countries. They have spent billions of dollars on a war that has not borne much fruit, and they see the main reason for this ‘failure’ as Pakistan’s covert support to the Afghan Taliban. That Pakistan considers the Afghan Taliban a strategic asset is no secret.

Bob Woodward’s book, Obama’s Wars, has created quite a stir worldwide. President Obama has minced no words in giving a strong message to Pakistan that the US will not be able to stop the consequences if an attack originating from Pakistan takes place on American soil. “One man, one bomb, in Times Square, on a subway...which could still have, obviously, an extraordinarily traumatising effect on the homeland. And that makes our job tougher,” is what Mr Obama told Mr Woodward. More drone strikes took place this month since the Americans started these strikes inside Pakistan and with these NATO air strikes inside our territory, the message is all but clear. Pakistan must stop providing safe havens to the Afghan Taliban. This policy has run its course and sooner or later the ‘carrot and stick’ policy will give way to a big stick only. We cannot afford to alienate the US and its western allies at a time when our economy is in tatters, the floods have proved to be one of the biggest natural disasters in our living memory, and we are fighting a war against the terrorists on our soil.

If stability is not allowed in Afghanistan, we will be destabilised. It is time to let go of our regional aims and just stick to protecting the interests of our country.