2 Comments

MemoGate: Public Interest or Political Interest?

Posted by Marvi Sirmed on December 20, 2011 in BAAGHI Columns

Published in Daily Times on Monday December 19, 2011 as weekly column BAAGHI

When Nawaz Sharif decided to file a petition in the Supreme Court against whosoever had written a supposedly treasonous memo to Admiral Mike Mullen of the US, he was probably in a great hurry. Not only did he forget that the matter was already being dealt with by parliament but he could also not appreciate the fact that similar overtures to the US were made by his own government after the Kargil misadventure. Not only that, in all that rush of urgency he chose to wrongly invoke Public Interest Litigation (PIL) in a case where it was not even remotely applicable. One is, however, stupefied to see the superior court aiding him magnanimously in this falsification of law and indicting the other party without even hearing it.

Article 184(3) of the constitution, which has been made the locus standi of Mr Sharif’s petition, guarantees judicial redress in matters of public importance where a violation of fundamental rights of the citizens has been made. PIL under Article 184(3), thus, gives way to judicial activism on matters where the poor and marginalised sections of the citizenry may be victims of gross violations of their fundamental rights. What distinguishes PIL from the rest of litigation is its distinctive position benefitting the larger public and for the greater good rather than for serving personal purposes. Whereas only the aggrieved party could initiate litigation against the perpetrators, PIL empowers public interest groups and human rights activists to go into litigation on matters affecting the larger public even though they may not be directly affected. It is, however, a matter of great care for the judiciary to admit petitions under PIL so that ‘public interest’ may not become personal or political interest.

In a report in March 2010, the Human Rights Commission of Pakistan (HRCP) came up with broad guidelines and recommendations for the apex court to regulate and govern PIL and judicial activism under suo motu notices so as to avoid the abuse and misuse of this constitutional provision. According to these guidelines, it is incumbent upon the court to see that the petitions filed under PIL must not be for personal gain, private profit or political or other oblique considerations. The HRCP report also warned the apex court about the dangerous consequences of careless judicial activism, which might compromise the dispensation of justice instead of guaranteeing it — the raison d’être of the judicial system per se. Another point of distinction of PIL is its cooperative and consultative nature as opposed to being adversarial in which one party is aggrieved and the other is accused, the way it is in traditional litigation.

Now let’s come back to the petition Mr Sharif has filed and the haste with which the apex court admitted it and issued orders without even hearing the other party. Mr Sharif’s legal advisors got their master in a wrong position by advising to invoke PIL, probably responding to his impatience to pounce on the government in unison with a media group that looks like holding a personal enmity with the ruling party and more so with the democratically elected president of the country. The honourable court could not see the obvious that Mr Sharif is a prime minister-in-waiting and is an obvious possible beneficiary in case the continuity of the current democratic system is disrupted. The basic concept of PIL is to foster the democratic system with public access to justice but it seems to have been compromised in this particular case where the very democratic system that PIL intends to secure is being put into turbulence to the extent that its very existence is endangered.

In a famous PIL case of Ashok Kumar Pandey Vs The State of West Bengal on November 18, 2003, the bench consisting of Justice Doraiswamy Raju and Justice Arijit Pasayat opined: “When there is material to show that a petition styled as a public interest litigation is nothing but a camouflage to foster personal disputes, said petition is to be thrown out. Before we grapple with the issue involved in the present case, we feel it necessary to consider the issue regarding public interest aspect. Public Interest Litigation, which has now come to occupy an important field in the administration of law, should not be ‘publicity interest litigation’ or ‘private interest litigation’ or ‘politics interest litigation’ or the latest trend ‘paise income litigation’. If not properly regulated and abuse averted it becomes also a tool in unscrupulous hands to release vendetta and wreck vengeance, as well. There must be real and genuine public interest involved in the litigation and not merely an adventure of knight errant or poke one’s nose into for a probe. It cannot also be invoked by a person or a body of persons to further his or their personal causes or satisfy his or their personal grudge and enmity.”That should have put Mr Sharif’s petition in perspective and my lordships should have allowed justice to prevail instead of becoming a party against the democratic dispensation in a case that stands on mere suspicion, not proven hitherto in any court of law and which gives undue credence to news items appearing in the media. The very order issued by the honourable court gives rise to many suspicions when one reads the petition only to find that not even the petitioners have made the claim that the news items are based on irrefutable facts or the truth. A suspicious memo, the existence of which is claimed to be unquestionable by certain sections of the media, is made the basis of a purported case of public interest that looks more like a personal interest litigation and which the apex court is not able to see. The said media group, too, has a corporate as well as personal stakes in bringing down a government that has been adamant on collecting income tax, which it sees as an act of ‘victimisation’ by the former.

Although one might like to believe that the lordships were trying to speak through their judgement, it appears someone in the honourable court is surely not in love with democracy and the separation of powers principle Pakistan is bound to observe under Commonwealth’s Principles of Latimer House. Not only international commitments, but also according to Pakistan’s own constitution under Article 69, it is incumbent upon the honourable courts to not indulge in matters under parliament’s consideration. Not only the judiciary but also Mr Nawaz Sharif, who otherwise likes to appear a thorough democrat and proponent of civilian supremacy, should have heeded that parliament had already taken up the matter and that the petitioner and the court should have waited for the parliamentary outcome of the issue.

Freedom and independence of the judiciary rests in strictly adhering to the separation of powers principle. Undermining trias politica will ultimately impair the judiciary’s hard-earned freedom by civil society. Moreover, just because portions of the bench are not pleased by certain people, it should not become the basis of denying justice to those people. Probably that’s what Martin Luther King Jr meant when he said injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere.

Postscript: Let me put it as a litmus test of the lordships and see if my (a bona fide citizen of Pakistan, and only Pakistan) previous columns on these pages are also considered by the honourable court as my petitions, just as has been done for a Canadian citizen, Mr Shafqatullah.

Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , Permalink
Leave a comment

Give Peace a Chance? Thank but No Thanks!

Posted by Marvi Sirmed on December 20, 2011 in BAAGHI Columns

Published in Daily Times on Tuesday December 13, 2011 as my weekly column BAAGHI

Pakistan’s ‘government’, it seems, is well on its way to ‘give peace a chance’ in compliance with the declaration of an unelected All-Parties Conference (APC) convened by the prime minister in September this year. The otherwise ‘hawks’ when it comes to relations with India, were all adamant to invoke John Lennon — the one from the ‘oh-so-bad-west’ — on the Taliban of Waziristan. A non-corrupt Punjabi Khan and a patriotic think-tanker succeeded in getting a lease of life for the militants continually battling with the Pakistan Army and persistently attacking the people of Pakistan and abetting attacks on the people of Afghanistan. The attempts towards ‘peace’ thus started with a new vigour, permanently sedating common as well as a basic sense of history.

And now we are told by the militants that not only are the talks underway, the government has also started taking confidence-building measures. Although denied by the government, Maulvi Faqir Mohammad, the Taliban spokesperson, has informed that 145 of Tehrik-i-Taliban Pakistan’s (TTP’s) prisoners have been released as a goodwill gesture. The TTP’s claim of an underway peace dialogue holds a bit of ground keeping in view a brief lull in terrorist activities by the group for a couple of weeks. The lull could, however, be the terrorist winter, or it could be a strategy by the Taliban as claimed by Omar Khalid, the Taliban commander from Mohmand Agency. As per Omar’s statement that came last Saturday, TTP has been deliberately restraining itself from fresh attacks as part of a new strategy under which they will start guerrilla attacks in Mohmand Agency.

But there are some important questions here. If the talks are indeed underway, as per Maulvi Faqir who represents the Taliban of Bajaur, why is the government refusing to acknowledge the process? If talks are not being held by the government, who is talking to the Taliban on the government’s behalf? If there are absolutely no talks going on, why are the Bajaur Taliban adamant on leaking this ‘false’ information to the media? While denying the existence of any peace talks, the government at no time has denied the release of 145 militants, or at least one did not come across any such denial. If this is true, it is a formidable piece of information, the detail of which the people of Pakistan have a right to know.

The ‘Give Peace a Chance’ group might celebrate it as a victory but it surely is a devastating setback for peace and a blow to the families of innocent victims of terrorism these 145 militants perpetrated and who are now roaming freely as per reports. One wonders why these John Lennon fans keep raving about ‘there is no military solution’ every now and then when around a dozen times formal or informal peace deals have been sealed between the militants and Pakistan Army during the last 10 years. Every time the militants went back on their word and sabotaged the peace deals. Many a time these deals were secured in order to give breathing space to the militants who re-organised and consolidated themselves during the ‘shutdown’ periods only to re-emerge with new force and more lethal activities.

The model adopted here seems to resemble what Haji Zaman may have implied to help Osama bin Laden escape from his Jalalabad compound in 2001. Haji Zaman Ghamsharik, as he was known, was an Afghan warlord who fought against the Red Army in the 1980s with around 4,000 mujahideen under his command. When the Taliban increased their control in the 1990s, he fought against them and continued his operations against the Taliban from Pakistani bases after the conquest of Kabul by the Taliban. But on complaints of the then ruling Taliban, the government of Pakistan forced Zaman to leave the country (see, we know who to oblige and when!). After 9/11 and the NATO attack on Tora Bora, Zaman came back to Afghanistan from his self-imposed exile in France and started helping the US forces in capturing al Qaeda leaders. In one of such sieges in 2001, Zaman gave his famous 24 hours ultimatum to al Qaeda and the Taliban fighters to lay down arms. The rest is history. No one from the militants laid down anything except the farce of border security on the Durand Line.

The same sequence was repeated in 2002 after the inpouring of al Qaeda, the Islamic Movement of Uzbekistan (IMU) and the East Turkestan Islamic Movement (ETIM) militants in South Waziristan. While these militants were organising themselves in South Waziristan Agency, Pakistan’s security establishment kept conducting operations in the rest of the Agencies and Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, killing mostly innocents. At the end of 2002, instead of carrying out decisive strikes against these foreign militants who were being joined by local youngsters, the Pakistani establishment started ‘giving peace a chance’. Under the agreement, the locals pledged to push the foreigners out. History shows the results of this ‘peace drive’: South Waziristan became a permanent hub of foreign militants.

Another deal between the Pakistani authorities and the militants is famous as the Shakai Peace Agreement between the Ahmadzai Wazir tribe of South Waziristan, Nek Mohammad, leader of the Taliban, and Pakistan’s security forces. When the Pakistan Army insisted on signing the agreed verbal agreement, Nek Mohammad went back on his word and refused to sign it. The agreement could not survive for even a couple of months. After Nek Mohammad’s death in a predator drone strike in 2004, the subsequent leadership of the Taliban in South Waziristan pursued the implementation of the Shakai Agreement afresh. The attempt, however, dissolved in thin air in a few months.

Similar was the fate with the Sararogha Peace Agreement of 2005 with the Mehsud tribe’s elders and Mehsud Taliban faction. The agreement fell flat after Abdullah Mehsud abducted two Chinese engineers and the Pakistan Army refused to give him amnesty. The North Waziristan Peace Agreement of September 2006 was yet another attempt to achieve a ceasefire between the Taliban militants and the Pakistan Army. Brokered by the governor of the then NWFP, Lieutenant-General Ali Mohammad Jan Orakzai, the peace agreement was a written document unlike the previous futile attempts at ‘giving peace a chance’ signed by the elders of the Utmanzai Wazir and Daur tribal elders. The agreement could only be achieved with the direct intervention of Mullah Omar through his trusted lieutenant Mullah Abdullah, an aspect that the Pakistan Army continues to deny. This agreement was unilaterally ended by the Taliban who announced the end of the Waziristan Peace Agreement in July 2007 in response to the military action on Lal Masjid (Red Mosque), Islamabad. In just two days after they ended the agreement, more than 60 innocent Pakistanis, including soldiers and security officials, died in four suicide attacks in Swat, Matta, Dera Ismail Khan, etc.

What all these peace agreements achieved was a temporary hiatus in terrorist attacks on Pakistanis (which could resume any time at the whim of the Taliban leaders), and an immense opportunity for the militant organisations to consolidate and organise themselves as well as enjoying impunity and freedom. The present attempt at ‘giving peace a chance’ is just another reward to the terrorists — a sabbatical — to re-energise, at the maximum. What do the ordinary people of Pakistan get? Some fiercer and lethal attacks after the Taliban sabbatical is over. Why give ‘peace’ a chance?

Tags: , , , , , , , , Permalink
3 Comments

Memogate: The Bigger Picture

Posted by Marvi Sirmed on December 10, 2011 in BAAGHI Columns

This appeared in Daily Times on Tuesday December 6, 2011 as my weekly column BAAGHI

In an op-ed in a British paper, a man claims to have communicated a message from a diplomat to the American establishment. After an aggressive media trial, the diplomat in question has to resign while the heat approached the head of the state whose supposed treason is being heard in the Supreme Court on the petition of a key opposition leader. Welcome to Pakistan!

In all this pandemonium, we forget to make even a meagre attempt at knowing who the initiator of all this fuss was, and what his intent could have been. Mansoor Ijaz has been routinely seen by the Pakistani diaspora in the US showing off his close contacts with the American establishment and governments of the world. The man had been hobnobbing with the Israeli government, India’s RAW officials, governments of Sudan and some Middle Eastern countries as well as jihadi networks in Pakistan, etc. His name came in the Pakistani media after the assassination of Wall Street Journal journalist Daniel Pearl. Reportedly, Ijaz had been one of the interlocutors who helped Pearl establish links through former ISI spook Khalid Khawaja with jihadi networks operating in Pakistan.

While going through the record of Ijaz’s bids to play interlocutor in various could-be deals between governments and international stakeholders, the success rate of his dealings appears to be touching zero. Even his present cause célèbre proves his lousiness as an agent. If he was indeed engaged by Mr Husain Haqqani, the former diplomat in question, to convey the message clandestinely and keep it a secret, Ijaz has miserably failed. And if he were to trap President Asif Zardari through Mr Haqqani while working for someone else, his failure cannot be clearer. The zeal Ijaz is pursuing the case which is not only reductio ad absurdum, but also raises the suspicion that his ‘mission’ might not be over yet.

There can be various scenarios if a positivist method of reasoning is implied to decrypt the saga. If Ijaz is right and Mr Haqqani indeed helped write that memo, the latter should immediately be taken to task: one, for the clumsy English writing, secondly, for trusting Ijaz and making him an agent provocateur and finally, for such maladroit and gauche understanding of politics around. If Pakistan’s security establishment hatched the plan, they need to be implicated for insulting Pakistanis’ basic intelligence, which they are so used to doing by now. If the scheme was conceived by some in the US, they surely are wearing invisible clothes. While people might never know who was behind the ignominy, they would surely see how palace intrigues are played by everyone on the international chessboard, making use of crafted ‘public hue and cry’ administered through a hungry corporate media, copiously used by the movers and shakers of the world who otherwise love to appear ‘moralist’ and ‘ethical’.

Within days of the publishing of Ijaz’s op-ed in a British newspaper, the Financial Times, it was reported that the chief of Pakistan’s premier spy agency boarded a London-bound plane and in an approximately £ 780-per-night suite of an expensive hotel, reportedly a favourite of Pakistani Generals, and allegedly met Mansoor Ijaz for four hours. Supposedly an IT expert, our chief of intelligence went on ‘examining’ the ‘forensic evidence’ and after getting ‘satisfied’ with it, he came back and reported it to his boss, the army chief. Err yes, the army chief, the boss.

Ijaz established the authenticity of the said memo (unsigned by the unnamed author) through the transcripts of BBM conversation that Ijaz claimed took place between him and Mr Haqqani. The BBM conversation involves many subjects of discussion and looks like a heap of different chinwags that someone gives out while establishing himself as an informed person of worth. One thing that the Pakistani media has conveniently chosen to ignore is Ijaz’s confirmation to Mr Haqqani in the BBM conversation that some ‘P’ had gotten the nod from some Arab states for toppling the Zardari government in Pakistan. One wonders if the initial investigator paid any heed to this part of the said BBM conversation transcript or tried to know who that Mr/Ms P was.

If anything was treasonous about the said memo, as already written on these pages, it was ‘treasonous’ for some people at the helm of Pakistan’s security establishment, not the country. The contents of that unauthentic memo, however, are not different from what the Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz (PML-N) has been saying about the civil-military imbalance ever since signing the Charter of Democracy (CoD). Now the PML-N chief is currently in the Supreme Court of Pakistan shrieking about purported treason via the alleged memo. All the points contained in the memo make the demand charter of Pakistan’s civil society as well as nationalist parties, including the PML-N, Pakhtunkhwa Milli Awami Party and elements in the ANP and the PPP as well. Requesting a foreign country’s help in fixing the military establishment’s unconstitutional and covert hegemony over civilian domains could hardly be said to be treasonous. Noteworthy is the fact that Pakistan’s dictators have been the biggest seekers of foreign help for fixing our security and economic problems. Moreover, if seeking the help of a foreign country is treason, let’s find the person mentioned in Ijaz’s BBM conversation, to be tried for treason for getting the ‘nod from Arab states’ to topple the civilian government.

Here, some bigger questions also emerge. Considering that Mr Haqqani has been an ardent supporter of civilian supremacy and key opponent of Pakistan’s strategic depth policy in Afghanistan, he might have been a target of the strategic depth (SD) proponents and advocates of peace with the Taliban. While it is quite clear now that the US State Department is keen to secure a deal with the ‘good Taliban’ (from an American perspective), they might prefer a slightly pro-Taliban and pro-SD officials (or even government) in Islamabad that would be better placed in working with the so far ‘bad guys’ turned ‘workable’ Taliban. Getting rid of Mr Haqqani was, thus, in the interest of the ‘peace process’ and ‘strategic depth’ in Afghanistan. Here we see the merger of forces advocating ‘peace process’ and ‘strategic depth’, apparently at odds with each other so far. Is Mr Haqqani the first civilian casualty in Pakistan of the peace process in Afghanistan?

Mansoor Ijaz’s passionate attempts to bring the ‘truth’ to light could be better understood keeping in view his media somersaults. After his anti-Pakistan-military article in the Financial Times, his subsequent appearances on the media are clearly anti-civilian government too. This may mean a rapidly changing US policy towards what it calls ‘AfPak’. People, who stand for an independent and peaceful Afghanistan free of Taliban-like extremism and barbarism, are going to become not workable, if not outright ‘bad guys’. If indeed this is true, the Democrats would be seen as part of toppling democracy in Pakistan. Who says irony is dead?

After the milestone of ‘Get-Zardari’ is achieved, it seems safe to say that the strategic depth policy will be pursued more aggressively while the Afghan Taliban would get a share in the endgame, larger than anticipated. Little do they seem to realise that returning to a 1989-like situation in Pakistan-Afghanistan would be disastrous for regional peace. While the American and Pakistani establishment appears to be in consonance with each other, will ‘My Lordships’ admit for hearing if Zardari is implicated for treason? The theatrics should, thus, end here.

Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , , Permalink
4 Comments

Let us tell NATO, "No More!"

Posted by Marvi Sirmed on December 5, 2011 in BAAGHI Columns

This was originally written as my weekly column BAAGHI and appeared in Daily Times on Tuesday November 29, 2011

The anger in Islamabad is natural and understandable. The early morning attack on Pakistan’s two border security posts by NATO aircraft left nearly two dozen soldiers dead and several injured. Pakistan continues to claim (till Sunday late afternoon) that the attack was unprovoked, although a Kabul-based NATO official was quoted by The Guardian as saying that the Afghan-US joint forces deployed in the Kunar province of Afghanistan were the first to come under attack, thus “forcing them to return fire”, thereby implying that the attack was not unprovoked as claimed by Pakistan.

While the gory episode is still shrouded by an opaque mystery typical of the war on terror ever since it saw Pakistan’s doors, the Pakistani media has managed to build public sentiment over the attack. If people are feeling bad about it and are outraged, they cannot be blamed. Their country’s borders have been violated, their forces have been attacked and their soldiers have been killed. Therefore, protests by the people certainly do not amount to jihadism (Islamic fundamentalism).

The American people must be familiar with the pain caused from losing so many innocent lives, as they have been enduring this loss in Afghanistan and Iraq for so long. The same goes for the Indian people, who have experienced the same agony, as recently as Kargil. However, when an average American or an average Indian feels sorry for his or her troops and protests angrily, no one in Pakistan calls them jihadi. In fact, most of us, apart from a misguided minority that follows state-sponsored history, politics and leaders, stand with their fellow humans who are victims of terrorism irrespective e of where they are. In Mumbai or in NYC, human blood is red and human massacre is horrifying and shameful. But what makes us — the Pakistanis — unique is our dense denial, ignorance of ‘whodunit’ and our stark refusal to listen to reason.

Any foreign attack on Pakistan’s borders must be fiercely opposed and retaliated by all possible means — diplomatic and military. There is nothing stopping us from taking on every violator of our sovereignty in a non-selective manner. The public outrage against all such violations is important as it keeps the troops’ morale high and also pushes them to act. If we allow our sovereignty to be violated once, we will only be inviting more such violations, by everyone. For getting others to respect our sovereignty, we need to be firm about safeguarding it all the time and from all foreign forces.

By giving certain foreign countries and groups a free hand to operate on our soil and use it for terrorism everywhere else in the world, we are surrendering our sovereignty to them. Since we are all very patriotic, we strongly believe that the ceding of the sovereignty of Pakistan by anyone, within the powers of the constitution, is nothing less than treason. We, as a nation, have proven that just a week ago when on mere suspicion of ‘ceding the sovereignty’ via a suspicious memo supposedly dictated by our former ambassador to the US, we got him to resign from office and have since pressed for an investigation into the matter. It is important for the world to know that we care for our country and that our sovereignty is a sensitive issue for us.

Since NATO has violated our sovereignty, it must not only be condemned in the strongest possible terms but an apology must also be sought and border security must be ensured, failure to abide by which shall result in the perpetrator to be taken to the International Court of Justice. For doing so, we will have to establish that we care for our sovereignty and that whosoever violates it will be subjected to the toughest measures. We would also have to take action against all such violations that we normally let go of. That Osama bin Laden was present on our soil and was living in plain public sight with immunity for years is to be regarded as one of the most blatant violations of our sovereignty. That he could not have enjoyed the luxury of complete security for such a long time had someone on our soil not helped him is a reality. Should we, the people, not immediately demand an independent probe on that? Should we not ask for the constitution to be invoked for this treasonous act?

That the northern areas of our country are no more under state writ and are being ruled by militants from various foreign countries is also a sheer violation of our sovereignty. If someone from the machinery of our state, including the holier than holy cow institutions, is protecting or supporting them, let us try them under the treason act of the constitution. If a country patronises and triggers the business of child kidnapping to use them for camel races or the killing of endangered species of our wildlife for pleasure, that too is a violation of our sovereignty and so we must also deal with it in a befitting manner. The fact that foreign criminals have sanctuaries in our country and are training suicide bombers on our soil, killing hundreds and thousands of our innocent civilians, is a brazen violation of our sovereignty. Our free judiciary should feel free enough to take notice of the presence of foreign militants as was admitted by Major General Ghayur Mehmood, the general officer commanding the 7th corps, earlier this year.

It was a violation of our sovereignty when militants put the Pakistan Army’s general headquarters under siege. It was again a flagrant violation of our sovereignty when the Mehran base of the Pakistan Navy in Karachi was attacked and besieged in May this year. It was a violation of our sovereignty when American choppers came, killed Osama bin Laden and disappeared into the thin air of the night without our army even knowing what had happened. It is an act of sheer violation of our sovereignty when security forces are continuously under attack by militants and go uncontrolled by our mighty army. Again, it is very much a violation of our sovereignty when hundreds of our troops are kidnapped and kept hostage by the militants without firing a bullet.

In failing to address all these violations and punishing those responsible, we are only telling the world that whatever happens to our sovereignty we will not be moved an inch. It appears that our media only screams when a couple of individuals sitting at the top of two institutions are questioned and confronted by something as silly as an unsigned memo allegedly dictated by a civilian official. If the killing of troops by militants does not bother us, the maiming of our soldiers by terrorists, bloodshed of our civilians by our own security forces in Balochistan and suicide attacks in the rest of the country do not trouble us, we are giving the message that we do not care.

The US and NATO have to be given a clear message of “no more”, and that can only be done once we start taking our sovereignty seriously as well. Let us stop the violators of our sovereignty getting away with all this so easily and let us stop behaving like a nation with an IQ below 20 — a nation that can be led in any direction by half a dozen nincompoops sitting in the idiot box. The slogan of ‘no more’ needs to be raised for everyone who violates our sovereignty.

Tags: , , , , , , , , , Permalink
2 Comments

What Makes it "Memogate"?

Posted by Marvi Sirmed on November 23, 2011 in BAAGHI Columns

This was written for Daily Times, appeared as my weekly Op-Ed BAAGHI on Monday November 21, 2011

By now we all know what Memogate is, and what memo we are referring to here. Without going into the details of what happened or did not happen between Mr Husain Haqqani and Mansoor Ijaz, one has to admit that the contents of the memo represent a most pressing issue that Pakistan faces today. It is high time that we bring civil-military relations to a meaningful public debate.

The public outrage manufactured within the past couple of weeks through some sections of the media, trained and adept at manipulating public opinion on anything their bosses assign them, moved into action rather briskly. The din approached its crescendo when Imran Khan got the nod to bring it up in his rally two weeks ago. And now the media is in generous supply of information about the saga, bit by bit. In a very typical spooky way, we are fed up with the bits of supposed conversation that they claim had happened between some Mansoor Ijaz and Mr Haqqani, Pakistan’s ambassador in Washington. In all this euphoria of mindless hatred directed at persons, we in this rush of adrenalin are once again forgetting to bother our brains that are tutored to blindly go in the directions normally set against the civilian set-up.

Irrespective of who authored it, I decided to give the memo, now available on the internet, a cursory look without listening to angry anchors and their fit-for-mental-asylum guests (some of them start shouting at random Americans in restaurants). While reading the memo I realised that the contents point to some very important issues every Pakistani should stand for. Mainly the memo seeks the recipient for his “direct intervention in conveying a strong, urgent and direct message to General Kayani that delivers Washington’s demand for him and General Pasha to end their brinkmanship aimed at bringing down the civilian apparatus”. Is it not what many of us would always stand for? I mean, only if we are patriotic enough to believe in democracy and civilian supremacy.

Next, the memo goes on to describe how this ‘intervention’ could be beneficial for the US itself (which we may note here, has always been supportive of Pakistan’s military dictators). These lines appear to be a bid to ‘market’ the main proposition of the memo, i.e. Mullen may convey a strong message to Kayani that civilian supremacy should not be undermined. Then, like a good salesperson, the author of the memo goes on to describe what changes could be brought in the aftermath of such message from the US that could go for the benefit of both the US and Pakistan. The conservatives (in the strict Pakistani sense) at home might comprehend international relations as a zero-sum game, but the sad fact for them is that it is no more like that. Two or more nations could be winners simultaneously in today’s globalised world.

The revamping of the civilian structure ‘favourably viewed’ by Washington may keep the Hizb-ut-Tahrirish elements at bay, one might think, it may include committed and progressive Pakistanis like Salmaan Taseer was or now Mian Nawaz Sharif is (although there is no apparent parallel between the two and I am not accusing Nawaz Sharif of having progressive credentials according to my standards). We, after all, have been letting some other countries poke their noses in our internal affairs quite frequently in the past. We send our democratically elected prime ministers into exile on the guarantees of some foreign rulers. And we do not even blink our eyes. We let our land be used by terrorists from all over the world and do not get bothered much. We allow the world’s most sought-after terrorist enjoy the safety of our garrison town for half a decade and then shelter ourselves comfortably behind the ‘incompetence, not complicity’ argument.

Next, the memo lists a number of steps that could be taken in case the civilian leadership is empowered by General Kayani after getting the message by Mullen, his friend. First of these is an independent enquiry into the Abbottabad incident and how Osama bin Laden could live in Pakistan for such a long time. Second, the enquiry would be impartial and would be of tangible value in the sense that if anyone was found guilty, they would be taken to task whether they come from the civilian, intelligence or military institutions. That sounds like a revolution! If it happens, Pakistan would see a new dawn, would usher in a new era of peace, respect and esteem among the comity of nations. Third, all terrorists operating on Pakistani soil would be either captured or killed by one means or another. What could be more ‘patriotic’ than eliminating terrorists from Pakistan’s soil? Pakistanis deserve a better future without any references to the terrorists being harboured on their land.

Fourth, and the most important proposal as spelled out in the memo is about our nuclear assets, which our forces fear, are, vulnerable — especially keeping in view the stealth capabilities of the US. The memo says that to make the nukes more secure, an acceptable framework of discipline is carried forward as started by the previous military regime. The national security team spearheading this proposed framework would be initially civilian but eventually would entail all three power centres. For a democratic, sensible and peaceful Pakistan, nothing could be more appropriate than this.

The fifth proposal is the most sensitive one, especially for the one who rushed in a hurry (supposedly without the knowledge of the supreme commander of the forces) to a godforsaken European country to collect forensic evidence from this infamous Mansoor Ijaz guy. This killer proposition promises the shunning of the Directorate S of our premier intelligence agency, the ISI. For beginners, Directorate S is the wing that has been responsible for all the mess that the ISI is accused of creating in Afghanistan through proxies and agents. The removal of this wing would ensure lesser ISI control on foreign policy in general and revision of the crazy policy of gaining more strategic depth in Afghanistan in particular. An abandonment of the strategic depth policy would allow the civilians to take corrective measures in our Afghanistan policy, which would ultimately lead to better relations with Afghanistan and real strategic depth.

No, hell’s doors are not closed yet. Another bombshell for our security establishment is yet to come in the memo. It is about enquiry and investigation of alleged Pakistani involvement in the Mumbai attacks of 26/11, 2008. Not only an enquiry but the memo also proposes the handing over of those proven guilty after sufficient evidence to the Indian security forces. This is like an ultimate sniff of red chillies for our security establishment.

If this happens, Pakistan will be another country. We would be a country with our heads proudly held high having a higher moral ground and better prospects of progress and respect in the region. The only loser will be our security establishment, which has been eating up Pakistan’s resources and Pakistanis’ lives, including our precious soldiers, for the wars they keep creating at the expense of the poor of Pakistan. Mr Haqqani has categorically denied any involvement in this but if something happens to him, we precisely know who needs to be incriminated.

Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , Permalink
11 Comments

Pakistan Fights Back in Shikarpur

Posted by Marvi Sirmed on November 14, 2011 in BAAGHI Columns

This post was originally written for the Daily Times, appeared as my weekly column BAAGHI on Monday November 14, 2011

The Islamic Republic of Pakistan saw yet another moment of national shame right on the day of Eid-ul-Azha when four Hindus, including three doctors, were brutally killed in broad daylight. Conflicting media messages and false claims about the motive are but an ugly attempt to justify the crime. According to the story given out to the media, the murders took place after a boy from the Hindu community sexually assaulted a girl from the Muslim Bhayo tribe. Bhayo is the third most influential tribes of Shikarpur after the Jatois and Mahars in Chak town of Shikarpur. Hindus make around 6,000 out of the total 40,000 people in Chak town and are the predominant contributors to Sindh’s economy through trade and other professions. In the local politics of the area, the Hindu community has never been as muted as it is now, after the advent of Sipah-e-Sahaba Pakistan (SSP), working openly through their unmarked offices and representatives since at least a decade.

One was appalled listening to the people of the town about the immunity with which the SSP operates in Shikarpur in cahoots with the Jamiat Ulema-e-Pakistan-Fazl (JUI-F) and with the support of local tribal chiefs and state machinery, especially the police. The accused Bhayo tribe has its members in not only the ruling Pakistan People’s Party (the main accused Babul Khan Bhayo is district head of the PPP), but also in pro-Taliban JUI-F and proscribed militant extremist organisation, the SSP.

According to the details gathered from the local communities, a young girl from Bhayo community went to see her Hindu friend on Diwali night. The girl was seen entering the autaq (sitting area used by males), which was unusual in the local culture. Discovering the boy and the girl together, community elders (Hindus) reportedly beat the boy and sent the girl back to her home. The event triggered the ‘honour’ of the Bhayo tribe. What made things worse was the boy’s religion. The Bhayos felt doubly humiliated.

The Bhayo members of the SSP and the JUI-F started threatening the entire Hindu community since that day. The community requested the police for security after which the police established a small picket near the Hindu neighbourhood. But two hours before the incident, policemen vanished from the scene only to come back half an hour after the ambush. Just when the police pretended to start searching for the culprits, SSP and JUI-F workers gathered around the police station and amid the slogans of Allah-o-Akbar (God is Great) and Jihad Fi Sabilillah (war in the cause of God), they intimidated the police staff and asked to close the case. Resultantly, the FIR could only be registered around 36 hours after the crime. The victims’ family does not agree with the facts described in the state-registered complaint.

Noteworthy is the fact that the victims were not even remotely related to the Hindu boy accused by the Bhayo tribes of being ‘karo’ (accused boy). According to a much-criticised tradition, when an unmarried couple is caught together, they are murdered after the Panchayat is informed. The accused girl (kari) is usually murdered before or with the accused boy (karo). According to the tribal code, karo can only be the one directly involved in the ‘illicit’ relations with the kari. In this case, even the principles of this tradition (unapproved by educated Sindhis), karo-kari (honour killing), were not followed. It is a case of simple and direct targeting of the Hindu community, which remains an endangered one after the religious extremists were installed in the area for running the madrassas.

Madrassa tradition in Shikarpur is almost 40 years old, which is the age of the oldest madrassa here. According to the locals, Pashto speaking Niazis from Khyber Pakhtunkhwa and Punjabis from south Punjab were brought in over a decade ago. Totally alien to the local culture and traditions, they tried to impose strict Islamic code, which initially did not work. But after more than a decade, an entire generation has been out of these madrassas in the social life of Shikarpur. When I spoke to over a dozen people from the local Muslim community, I found them extremely opposed to and fearful of the Islamisation being brought to Sindh, which they saw as a part of the larger design of ruining the Sindhi culture.

The fact that the common people still value local pluralistic culture is evident from the fact that over the last few days, people — mainly Muslims — are coming out in the streets every day in almost 500-600 villages and towns of rural Sindh against this incident. It was heartening to know that not only thousands (6,000 according to a conservative estimate by a member of the local Press Club) of Muslims participated in the funeral of their four fellow citizens; hundreds of them have taken upon themselves to ensure the security of the frightened Hindu community. They stay day and night at the entrance of the Hindu neighbourhood. These common people, one Hindu resident of the area said, are not only from the influential Mahar and Jatoi communities but also some Bhayos are seen among them.

When asked how the SSP and JUI-F guys got such an influence in an otherwise sufi and secular culture of this city, the people proudly said that the fact that these extremists need political backing, support of the tribal influentials and police machinery, is enough evidence of their weakness. Had they had a popular support, they would not have needed any of these tactics. A local rights’ activist (Muslim), who is a key organiser of a protest rally today (Monday) at 12 noon in Hyderabad, wanted me to tell the world that Pakistanis would fight extremism till the last drop of their blood.

This is Pakistan! Those in the charge of things must realise that the people of Pakistan are committed to their pluralistic values ingrained in their sufi culture. Any effort to dismantle plural and secular social base would be met with fierce resistance. The ones who believe that we, the ‘liberal fascists’, are few in number and are irrelevant, should see how this battle is being fought by a common citizen in Sindh, original home to a wonderful Hindu community who made Shikarpur mercantile hub of Sindh before the Talpurs came in. Shikarpur was to the old Sindh what Karachi is today to Pakistan. Having trade links with Central Asia, from Qandahar to Uzbekistan to Moscow, Shikarpur was the gateway of Sindh to the world. And in Shikarpur, it was our Hindu trader community that started the system of payments through cheques. Home to poets like Sheikh Ayaz, this city has produced seers and litterateurs alongside professionals of the highest quality. Today Shikarpur is determined to fight extremism more than ever.

It is encouraging to know that Sherry Rehman moved an Adjournment Motion in the National Assembly on this issue that called for immediate action on the case and reactivation of the Commission on Minorities. However, there is something simpler that can be immediately done. Babul Khan Bhayo, the main accused and PPP district president, should be immediately suspended from the party and arrested. An independent inquiry should be commissioned along with completely removing the presence of proscribed organisations working in the area under whatever name. This is the bare minimum that even the most ardent supporters of the PPP would expect from the party and especially from Sherry Rehman to pursue it.

Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , , , , Permalink
1 Comment

Why its a must to get Zardari?

Posted by Marvi Sirmed on November 14, 2011 in BAAGHI Columns

This article originally appeared in Daily Times as my weekly column BAAGHI on Monday November 7, 2011

It has been a week since the blogerati, TV anchors and the Op-Ed community started nervous ‘wake-up calls’ for two big parties after the ‘successful’ jalsa by Imran Khan’s Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI) on October 30. While one cannot disagree on major changes both the bigger parties need to bring to their structure, approach and ways to connect with the people, one is intrigued by the urgency for ‘change’ being manufactured by key proxies of the ‘establishment’ in the media and political sphere.

The concept of ‘change’ that an average jalsa-participant of the PTI appears to have is not so much in consonance with what the masters of the game might be thinking. At the tactical level, however, a young PTI follower and much of the rest of urban opinion holder has been led to believe that a change in faces would automatically bring ‘change’. For the jalsa-attending crowd, ‘change’ might mean a better life for the citizenry, more opportunities, peace and progress. Too broad, general and wide — that is where the key lies.

Long ago I heard a family elder, who was a comrade of Jinnah and played an important role in Pakistan’s politics in its early years, saying that a politician should always give a slogan that is general, ambiguous and attractive to the common man. The ambiguity and generality of a leader’s slogan would render support from diverse sections that might not agree on specifics. The relevance of the slogan to a common citizen would get a sustainable germaneness to the leader. No corruption, no corrupt leader, no slavery of imperial America and economic opportunities for all are no doubt very noble and much needed causes, but one could not see the specifics in both the PML-N or PTI’s October political congregations in Lahore.

The attractive, general but ambiguous slogans of both the shindigs had this conspicuous similarity. The similitude was not in the parishioner but in the message. The predominantly Punjabi dukaandaar (trader) crowd of Friday was distinctly different from a chic and young throng of music loving kids and Imran-loving middle-aged men and women on Sunday. The parties looked like pitching against each other but were actually complementing each other by bringing two different sets of partakers on the same message: change the faces on Constitution Avenue. Another coherence that one could see in the PML-N and PTI’s ‘we can do without the US’ mantra. It sounded familiar. Oh yes, we heard it in a statement issued by the ISPR after a Corps Commanders meeting a couple of months ago. So, it is no more rocket science who stands with whom while keeping up a defiant face.

The similar thread of ‘Get Zardari’ goes through the entire range of politicians, retired bureaucrats and military officers and analysts (amusingly referred to as ‘annalists’ in one social networking site) available 24/7 to the hypertensive media. Why has it become such a pressing need when the fifth (and last of the current tenure) parliamentary year is starting in the National Assembly and third (the last one) parliamentary year in the Senate is ending in March 2012? Why it is a must to get rid of a government (or parliament) that is already in its last leg of constitutionally granted tenure? Why change of face in the Presidency is pressed upon in the general opinion-leading environment?

The Senate elections expected in March 2012 must be one reason where the PML-N cannot afford a PPP majority for obvious reasons of political rivalry. It would be a disaster for a government-in-waiting to see the incumbents fully in charge of the legislature by having a simple majority in both Houses. But then why are establishment-touted voices also syncing with the PML-N? Imran Khan’s stance against parliament and politicians is understandable for it is this outright rejection of the ‘status quo’ that has won Khan such a wide acceptability not only among the urban young, but also among the general middle class of big urban centres. His definition of ‘status quo’, however, only includes change of incumbents without proposing any solid systemic reform agenda. But his urgency to shake the system is looking like a manufactured one, as one last year of the National Assembly should not be a big deal for the PTI, which is not yet ready with candidates in hand for most of the constituencies in case new elections are announced to give an opening to the ambitious Khan.

Manufacturing this urgency to ‘change’ seems to be the result of an anxiety shared by not only a predominantly Punjabi establishment but also the lions of Punjab and Generation X Khan. Much of this anxiety comes from the fact that the Senate elections under President Zardari are going to be a game changer in which the major loser will be Punjab. After the 18th Amendment, some changes in the existing power balance between the federation and provinces have been affected that are not only going to prove disastrous to Punjab but also might be a death blow to the monopoly of the security establishment over social policy.

By amending Articles 161, 167, 168, 172 and removing the Concurrent List, the 18th Amendment has made the provinces equal shareholders in excise duty and royalty on natural resources (oil and natural gas) if the wellhead is situated in that province. It has also empowered the provinces to make their own educational curricula, the power devolved under the devolution of the Ministry of Education. Smell something? What if ‘smaller’ provinces make their own curricula and leave out the jingoism and glorification of militarised policies? What if the educational curricula project the ‘provincial’ heroes (like for example G M Syed and the Frontier Gandhi, Khan Abdul Ghaffar Khan) or the personalities that put establishment-created religious differences in danger (e.g. Dr Abdus Salam) instead of more acceptable national heroes? What if a secular Balochistan, a sufi Sindh and an inherently tolerant Khyber Pakhtunkhwa starts propagating art, culture and literature instead of hatred of the ‘other’? What if all these provinces do away with an overwhelmingly anti-Hindu and anti-India curriculum?

The list of ‘what-ifs’ does not end here. What if the taxes on services are charged in Karachi of Sindh that mainly emanate from the goods and products produced by the largest and most populated Punjab? What if the resource-rich Balochistan and equal beneficiary of its energy resources charges the industrial hub Punjab for them? What if the jobs in civil and military institutions are equally shared with the provinces? There is a problem, a grave one! And the only way out from this probable mess is a 20th constitutional amendment that nullifies a silent revolution that the ‘thoughtless’ and ‘impractical’ 18th Amendment seems to bring in another few years. While the PPP and the ANP are in office, any nullification of this sort seems implausible. It is therefore a must to run a ‘Get Zardari’ campaign by every possible means.

While the PTI’s Khan is understandably impatient to play his innings, the PML-N joining the bandwagon is the most foolish thing the time-hardened Mians of Lahore should opt for. The establishment would not like them in power, but would love to use them to get the incumbents out of power. One hopes for both the bigger parties, who have fought hard for democracy, to play their shots sensibly.

Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , , Permalink
Leave a comment

Lion of Lahore Growls, but Why?

Posted by Marvi Sirmed on November 14, 2011 in BAAGHI Columns

It originally appeared in Daily Times as my weekly column BAAGHI on Monday October 31, 2011

The upping of the the political temperature recently seems to be promising a new but familiar tug-of-war among the old wrestlers with some new inclusions. This countrywide (read three big urban centres) fever comes just in time for a TRP-hungry media, which could go into psychosis by a mere mention of times of peace and political calm. Amidst all this, people look piqued and annoyed at these pitiless political games going on in their (people’s) name.

While the ruling coalition has wholeheartedly helped its critics in proving them right on almost every instance, the critics themselves could not come up with the model to follow. PML-N continues its politics of petty manoeuvring that mainly comprises preventing its main rival getting enough political strength in both Houses of parliament for a comfortable legislative space. With the upcoming Senate elections, the PML-N has made it a matter of life and death to prevent an upper House with PPP majority. The urgency the lions of Punjab are showing in achieving a ‘change’ is helping an ambitious political kid, the Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI), at least in Punjab. Whosoever is ‘the patron’ of the PTI would be smiling broadly while watching this chessboard.

Quite well versed in double games, the old ‘patron’ of these political games seems to be honing its skills further. Those watching the recent growling of Punjab’s lion would have observed the continuous supply of ammunition through never ending whispers to the chief minister by some stalwarts of his party (coincidentally, quite close to the patron). It was not very difficult to see who was calling the shots while Shahbaz Sharif was trying to emulate Zulfikar Ali Bhutto’s style of handling the rostrum, once again. His loud message in the speech was that President Zardari must be pushed out if people want a qualitative change in their economic conditions. This over-simplification of complex issues normally works very well in societies where people are deliberately kept aloof from the policy literacy and the policy-making processes. Further fuel is provided by inefficient incumbents, too complacent to make amends in public policy and efficient implementation for speedy and transparent delivery.

Mian Nawaz Sharif, the time hardened chief of the PML-N, seemed to have decided to go into slumber while the CM Punjab prepared notes for his Friday speech. Mian Nawaz Sharif had won several points on the popularity scale among the progressive citizenry with his firm stance against the security establishment hijacking political space, alongside his rational and pragmatic position on relations with India. But it seems even the elder Mian sahib has a few dark points, maybe owing to his political ancestry. These dark points include, besides his superficiality of political decision-making, his absurd position on Pak-US relations and Pakistan’s role in the war against terrorism. It goes without saying that he has not offered a clear opposition to the Punjab-based sectarian militant groups as well as clearly condemning the Taliban (good and bad).

In his fiery moments, Shahbaz Sharif probably jumbled up his talking points badly. What was his statement of the problem and the solution did not come out clearly. Whether he advocated a change of government through parliament or ousting a constitutional head of state from office through violent means remained ambiguous. The worst part of his speech was his insistence on hanging President Zardari when he leaves or resists leaving. Was he suggesting another judicial murder or was he inciting the people for a Gaddafi-like situation? More confusing was his (now hackneyed) singing of Habib Jalib’s ‘Aisay dastoor ko, subh-e-be-noor ko, mai nahin maanta mai nahin jaanta’ (I do not agree with and accept such a constitution that is like a dawn devoid of light). Is younger Mian sahib telling the nation that the current constitution should be rejected? If so, why? Does this announcement of rejection on the street rather than in parliament tell us something we have been missing so far? Is an ‘Ameer-ul-Momineen’ in the making? The answers should best be known to the lions of Punjab, but people who follow their party have a right to know in clearer terms what their leadership is thinking.

On the other side of the coin is Imran Khan’s PTI, which is bent upon displaying its ‘show of power’ as a forceful attempt to prove them relevant in the power game. While appealing to the young Pakistan for rejecting the existing political lot and criticising the institution of parliament, Imran Khan is visibly making similar political decisions. His reported negotiations with the disgruntled members of some bigger parties is a case in point, in addition to his succumbing to the callous politics of engaging people in hollow rhetoric rather than a qualitative debate that feeds into improving the system. One is keeping one’s fingers crossed how the PTI rally would do, which is going to determine if this blue-eyed boy of the establishment is going to pose a potential threat to the traditional strongholds of the Mian brothers.

While this ‘right wing’ political zoo is busy with itself, the PPP looks on with amusement. One wonders if the PPP even understands the seriousness of the challenges it is facing. It must understand that they cannot shelter behind the ‘transition democracy’ argument always, and for everything. President Zardari has been too focused on keeping his numbers intact in parliament in order to ensure the longevity of his government, but his elected team in the government seems to be least moved by these threats. One was absolutely bewildered to see regular meetings happening in the Presidency to manage the relief work for the flood affected areas. Something that was expected of the prime minister to do. That the government has miserably failed in delivering to the masses, even where it could have done just by improving governance, seems to have failed to bother the prime minister and the cabinet members. Someone in the corridors situated on Constitution Avenue must move fast and transform governmental efforts from macro-structural issues to micro implementation challenges.

All in all, politicians have a collective challenge right now that they must face collectively. Before the organised propaganda of ‘democracy cannot deliver in Pakistan’ starts infusing deep in people’s minds, they must proceed to political maturity. The PML-N will not gain anything by removing the incumbents, as those using them once again cannot afford Nawaz Sharif to head a government. Khan of PTI needs to go by the rules of the game if he wants to be in the game. Rejecting the structure of the chessboard means no game till the time you design a new board. The parties in the ruling coalition must show greater responsibility in not succumbing to the war of words and should lead the political environment instead of following the path paved by someone else.

Politics of reconciliation should not be confused with temporary ceasefire based on provisional political placating. It must involve a slightly long-term settlement of basic disputes and détente among different ideologies — if one is left in Pakistan. And people must play (as opposed to watch) the test match of democracy with patience and resilience.

Tags: , , , , , Permalink
2 Comments

No Clean Hands in AmAfPak

Posted by Marvi Sirmed on October 24, 2011 in BAAGHI Columns

This was originally published by Daily Times as my weekly column BAAGHI on Monday October 24, 2011

The recent diplomatic overdose to Pakistan by the US has not only heightened the verbal tug-of-war between the two allies but has also exposed the paucity of both sides to defend themselves with rational counter-arguments. A cursory look at the course of events in Afghanistan and Pakistan after 9/11 attests to the fact that there have been no clean hands in the AmAfPak theatre.

The visit by Hillary Clinton upped the pressure last week when she ‘warned’ Pakistan to ‘squeeze’ the Haqqani network in ‘days and weeks’ because Pakistan could not nourish “snakes in its backyard” and expect that they will only bite the neighbours. The warning had a quick follow up by Major-General Athar Abbas, the Pakistan army’s spokesperson, who returned the argument in the same coin and mentioned sanctuaries available to Mullah Fazlullah in Nuristan province on the Afghan side of the Durand Line. Now the challenge is to sift who has moral higher ground and some rational weightage. Not to forget that both have mutual complaints of a similar nature (providing safe havens to the enemies of the other), both have a similar history of patronising Islamist terrorists, both have a similar track record of using proxies in foreign lands to turn geopolitics in their favour, both have a similar tendency to use double talk whenever it suits them.

One could mention a hundred junctures where the US went wrong in Afghanistan over the past 10 years, including turning a blind eye to the Taliban and the elements of Pakistan’s security establishment who had been openly supporting militants. The double game under General Musharraf, then the president of Pakistan and chief of army staff, that went largely unnoticed by the US, either out of an underhanded understanding with him or because of sheer gullibility, was responsible for the Taliban surge two years after the October 2001 military action on Afghanistan. For instance, one still cannot reconcile with the idea of giving an air corridor to the Pakistan Army to airlift a mixed group of Taliban militants and ISI workers from Kunduz in November 2001.

In his book, Descent into Chaos, Ahmad Rashid calls it a ‘major air bridge’, what was initially ‘sold as a minor extraction’. Around a thousand ISI agents and Taliban commanders were airlifted from Kunduz and transported to Pakistan’s northern areas. After this game changer ‘Evil Airlift’ (as it was nicknamed by the US Special Operations Forces on the ground), the saved Taliban commanders proved instrumental in reconsolidating themselves in Waziristan only to come up forcefully in what we call the 2003 Taliban surge. All through the years from 2001 to 2007, the US silently witnessed this ‘secret’ affair going on quite openly despite the fact that Pakistan’s progressive civil society continually screamed about this duplicity. It reminded one of how the US closed its eyes to the Pakistani establishment’s nuclear experimentation as well as drug trafficking. No morality was invoked when in a US Congress Committee a senior member seriously floated the idea of using drugs on the Red Army soldiers.

Let alone the strategic follies in the war zone, some fairly dumb decisions were made politically too. Forgetting that the battle for a peaceful Afghanistan was not about ‘winning hearts and minds’ only and that it should have entailed a lot of political thinking, the US backed former mujahideen who were Taliban allies in the 1990s. Some people with a shady track record were accepted in the new governance structure of Afghanistan — Mohammad Qasim Fahim being one of them, who used to be loathed for human rights excesses and rigidly violent conduct. These decisions on the part of the coalition forces and the new government in Afghanistan made one thing quite clear, that there were no moral or ideological considerations in labelling people as friends or foes. What mattered was how quickly you change your allegiances from the enemy (al Qaeda and the Taliban). One has to trust many of the Afghan warlords for their potential on this. One saw them doing that with the speed of light when the Taliban started consolidating their successes in 1994-5; it was not very difficult to reverse their direction once the Taliban persecution started. Even in the current parliament, many such faces could be seen who have not only been Taliban allies but have also been equally, if not more, puritanical in their religious beliefs — Abdul Rasul Sayyaf to name one.

Having said that, it was still possible to crush the Taliban movement had Pakistan’s security establishment decided to do so. The fact that the Taliban and al Qaeda had sanctuaries and freedom in Pakistan is largely responsible for their present position in the strategic equation. Saying that the US has lost the war because the Taliban are a shrewder enemy is an overstatement. The Taliban had an edge because they got their shelter and supplies intact and unhindered in Pakistan, till the time they got this advantageous position. The argument that Afghanistan too has sanctuaries for the Pakistani Taliban, who are attacking Pakistan, is also strongly linked to Pakistan’s earlier support to militants only to make them formidably strong to challenge the writ of the state this side of the border.

Once the operations Rah-e-Rast and Haq were carried out to push them (as opposed to finish them off), they found sanctuaries in Afghan provinces, especially Nuristan. This could not have been possible without utilising the influence of the Afghan Taliban in these areas, which got stronger after the US’s failure in shifting their counterinsurgency drive in the eastern provinces in the second phase as per the original McChrystal plan. This big failure was coupled with the botched NATO attempt at the Afghan National Security Force and Afghan National Army’s training and subsequent transference of security responsibilities to them from the NATO forces. The drawdown began without heeding these very important milestones that should have been pre-requisitioned. The resultant loss of writ in Nuristan, Paktia, Paktika and recently Badakhshan and Kunar as well, contributed hugely to the success of the Afghan Taliban and thus of Mullah Fazlullah’s group backed by the Pakistani Taliban.

That the US has been trying to talk to the Haqqanis for peace while pressing Pakistan to act against them is also lame in the sense that for any negotiation to succeed, it is important to approach the insurgents and militants from a position of strength, which is not possible if the US and allied forces are under attack from all sides. This is what the US wants Pakistan to offer as a favour to a long-term ally and donor in security and development. What seems to be Pakistan’s dilemma is, at this point when the former bosses of the security establishment had made and executed the criminal decision of harbouring the Afghan militants who have become strong enough to occupy a major portion of Afghanistan once the US forces leave, that it seems suicidal to take on probable conquerors in the near future. Basic common sense says that it still could be made up if we seriously try to nip the evil in its full bloom while NATO forces are still here. If Pakistan is expected to take on the Haqqanis, NATO needs to gain control in the eastern Afghan provinces. Let’s not make Pakistan a scapegoat using morality that never was. And let Pakistan understand that time is running short if we want to make our way out of this cul-de-sac. Just do it, make friends with the Afghans who consider the Taliban their enemy. Be a friend to Afghanistan if you want strategic depth!

 

Tags: , , , , , , , Permalink
3 Comments

Confronting Popular Narrative about the Taliban — II

Posted by Marvi Sirmed on October 18, 2011 in BAAGHI Columns

This appeared as my weekly column BAAGHI in Daily Times on Monday October 17, 2011. The first part of this article can be seen here. This blogpost corrects the two names erroneously misquoted in the printed version; One: it was Jalaluddin Haqqani, not Mulla Omar who took Khost and Two: it was Peter Henning not Peter Jennings who filmed Charlie Wilson while raising Allah-o-Akbar slogans with the Mujahideen after the victory in Kabul over Red Army. The errors are regretted.

Pakistan’s strategic culture follows a bizarrely predictable course: develop a hypothetical security situation, make an internationally unpopular policy decision responding to it but officially say things opposite to it, start mythmaking at public level to generate a popular demand for the decision you have already made, tell the world it is not your fault, it is the stupidity of the people who want that decision. Pakistan’s strategic elite has been following the same course in building popular sympathy, if not support, in order to legitimise the Taliban in the name of our ‘strategic interest’ in Afghanistan.

This mythmaking factory has been working overtime for many years now. The impact can be seen in unquestioned mythical assertions and popular belief that the ‘good Taliban’ and ‘bad Taliban’ are mutually exclusive and Pakistan’s long-term interest rests in helping or at least not offending the former. In this process, little has been realised that this brutal murder of historical facts and simple reason would only result in spilling over chaos into Pakistan itself.

When in the war of narratives, Pakistani right wing media habitually asserts that it was the US that made these jihadis in the first place, and then stopped supporting them once the Soviet forces withdrew from Afghanistan, there is no one to challenge the underlying mendacity. When they say that Islam had better chances to spread under the Taliban and that is why the US disengaged itself for its sheer hatred of Islam, there is no one to confront it. This potpourri of brazen falsehoods keeps growing and influencing public opinion (another fictional term used frequently to legitimise an untruth) in the absence of a counter-narrative that sets the record straight. In order to do that, someone needs to remind them what happened during and after the Afghan ‘jihad’ to bring the windmill of trickeries and fabrications to a halt.

One needs to remind Pakistan’s strategic elite, who keep fuelling public emotion against everybody antagonistic to the Taliban, that just because the US stopped disbursing money using the ISI tarmac does not mean Afghanistan was left alone. If memory serves, Saudi Arabia, the US, Russia, Iran and India kept pouring money into the Afghan civil war and Pakistan continued brokering Saudi and American support alongside providing the mainly Pakhtun warlords with logistic support. If Saudi and American money is put together, the Muj (affectionate name given to the mujahideen by the Americans) got half a billion dollars in the second year of the civil war, which is exclusive of Russian, Indian and Iranian money flowing to the ‘renegade’ non-Pakhtun Muj factions. Historians must record how this kaleidoscope of international interests turned Afghanistan into a permanent theatre of war and bloodshed. Just when the Americans were celebrating the capture of Khost by CIA’s favorite and ISI’s beloved, Jalaluddin Haqqani, as their victory against pro-Soviet Dr Najibullah, no one realised how Pakistan had defeated all the competing states in Afghanistan.

When Charlie Wilson was raising the slogans of Allah-o-Akbar (God is Great) with his Muj boys in Kabul after the withdrawal of the Red Army in the wake of the Geneva Accord only to be filmed by Peter Henning, little did the Americans realise that all they have been trapped in to contribute all through the jihad years was percolating the latent ambition of global political Islam. None at the seventh floor of a Langley building ever realised that 30,000 non-Afghan, non-Pakistani men from around the Muslim world and thousands of Pakistanis that General Hamid Gul proudly boasted to have trained would redirect CIA’s Afghanistan programme towards hitting the World Trade Centre.

Despite Charlie’s Allah-o-Akbar, the ISI’s Afghan wing had never had any love lost with the CIA or the Yankees in general. During the jihad years, the Afghan wing continued to keep the Americans from direct contact with the Muj. The hatred of an ‘exploitative’ and ‘anti-Islam’ Christian America — ironically — permeated silently and smoothly from the trainers to the young students from the Middle East, Afghanistan and Pakistan throughout the network of seminaries and training schools in Pakistan’s northwest. Langley got a shock when tamed kids like Gulbuddin and Sayyaf stood against the US as soon as the Gulf War started. The CIA, in close collaboration with the Saudis, was still running the Afghan programme and had $ 400 million sanctioned in 1992 while hiding a secret appropriation in a $ 298 billion defence bill the same year with $ 200 million earmarked for Afghanistan, records George Crile. And that is just a year before the first attack on the World Trade Centre.

The meshwork of regional and American vested interest went all wrong when the dormant pan-Islamist ambition simmered into a full-blown war against the US. Once the ‘goodness personified’ — Jalaluddin Haqqani in partnership with other ISI-supported Muj kept on capturing one after the other point in Afghanistan, it was, to oversimplify it, an ISI proxy winning the war through American weapons and Saudi money over the boys carrying Soviet, Iranian and Indian money. Victory made the ISI infamous, not the ideology, for none of the providers of that war had any moral ground to play with Afghan blood. The ultimate loser was neither the US nor any other contributor. The sole loser was none other than a Pakistani who had lost any value of her/his life in the eyes of each and every stakeholder as well as its own security establishment. When over a hundred people of Islamabad died in the Ojhri ‘accident’ at the tail end of the jihad, Pakistan’s president called his ambassador in Washington to get the Americans to replace every single weapon wasted during the Ojhri camp incident.

Callousness has run so deep among the Pakistanis that they have heightened their threshold to tolerate loss of life to the level of insensitivity. The figure of 3,000 dead bodies for the Americans is worth fighting a trillion dollars war for over a decade while a figure of 160 dead bodies is enough for the Indians to want to jeopardise ‘peace’ with Pakistan — if there is any. But as high a figure as 35,000 Pakistani lives lost is not big enough to raise a single eyebrow. Not even our own security elite who only use this figure to get more concessions from the world and regional powers to play its games.

Someone needs to tell the mythmakers that their argument that the Afghan jihad was necessary to save Pakistan from a pre-emptive attack by a ‘godless’ Soviet Union is rubbish. During one of my Twitter scuffles in 2010 with Ijazul Haq, son of General Ziaul Haq — infamous dictator and Pakistan’s man behind the Afghan jihad — he told me that had Pakistan not decided to be a part of the Afghan jihad, my name would have been Marvi Sirmedov — implying that the Soviets would have converted Pakistanis to atheism. No one is there to remind them of the real reason behind supporting and training the Taliban even after the fall of the Soviet Union when there was no threat of atheism to spread to the land of the pure.

When the Americans were going to bed with a dream of being the sole superpower, the Saudis were dreaming of heading global Wahabi imperialism, Iran and India were focusing on more of existential concerns of survival among hostile actors, Afghan warlords imagining Kabul — their homeland — to be under their own control, and trainers and students in FATA were fascinated with a global caliphate of Islam, while laying down the lives of thousands of Pakistanis and Afghans. Now go figure, who wins.

(Concluded)

Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , , Permalink
Follow

Get every new post delivered to your Inbox.