Author: Judith
Miller
Publication: The New
York Times
Date: June 10, 2000
ISLAMABAD, Pakistan,
June 8 -- After months of criticism from Washington of its handling of
terrorism, Pakistan today outlined an ambitious campaign aimed at slowly
curbing networks of militants that have taken root here and in Afghanistan.
Senior officials said
the military government has decided to act not because of the American
pressure, but because the networks threaten Pakistan by "fanning sectarian
violence and poisoning people's minds," said Moinuddin Haider, the interior
minister.
There has been a growing
criticism of Pakistan by Washington and independent groups. A Congressionally
appointed advisory panel has recommended that Pakistan be designated as
a government that is "not cooperating fully" against terrorism.
In an interview, Mr.
Haider said his government had made a "clear-cut policy decision" to begin
controlling the thousands of religious schools, some of which preach hatred
of the West and provide young recruits to the "jihads," or holy wars, in
Kashmir, Afghanistan, Bosnia and Chechnya, and to other conflicts involving
Muslims.
Some also channel militants
to terrorist groups such as those linked to the Saudi financier Osama bin
Laden, who is being sheltered by Afghanistan and whose network has been
accused of repeatedly killing Americans. At Pakistan's urging, Mr. Haider
said, the Taliban in Afghanistan have expelled several Pakistanis and several
Arabs wanted by their home governments for alleged terrorist attacks. He
said the Taliban have also occupied Rishkavour, which Western diplomats
say is a leading training camp for militants near Kabul.
In addition to providing
mujahedeen, or holy warriors, for conflicts throughout the world, such
camps have also produced the terrorists who bombed the World Trade Center
and two American Embassies in Africa, intelligence officials have concluded.
Most recently, veterans of such camps plotted to attack tourist sites in
Jordan and America around the time of the new year's celebrations, they
say.
The United States has
become alarmed about those networks, particularly those affiliated with
or supported by Mr. bin Laden.
Mr. Haider, a retired
general who was governor of Sindh Province until his current appointment,
insisted that Pakistan made the decision based on its own security interests.
"I feel this is good for Pakistan," he said. "I'm not following anyone
else's agenda. "Pakistan ought to become a progressive, modern and tolerant
secular state."
He said the campaign
would mark a radical departure from some of Pakistan's political and religious
traditions. "It will not happen overnight, and it will upset many people,"
Mr. Haider said. But he added that his government was determined to enforce
a "gradual rollback" of the networks.
Asked for comment on
the steps outlined this week, Karl F. Inderfurth, assistant secretary of
state for South Asia, said the United States welcomed them. Though Washington
had not been officially informed about some of the measures, he said: "These
are precisely the kinds of things we've been hoping to hear from the government
of Pakistan. We hope they'll be successful in carrying them out."
Whether they will be,
he added, is "the $64,000 question."
Another American official
who monitors terrorism expressed skepticism about whether the Taliban were
being truly responsive and whether Pakistan, which is facing strikes and
growing criticism of its economic measures, would maintain pressure on
the Taliban.
He noted, for example,
that Washington had not confirmed that the Taliban have taken over Rishkavour.
But he said Islamabad's actions reflect a "higher level of effort than
we've recently seen."
Among other things, the
steps Pakistan is talking about include demanding that Afghanistan shut
down 18 training camps identified by Pakistan; arresting and extraditing
20 to 25 Pakistanis and an unspecified number of Arabs wanted for terrorism
by their respective governments; and improving border controls.
A second part of the
effort involves the potentially explosive topic of identifying thousands
of religious schools, which typically have not been regulated, and imposing
standards on them.
To date, Mr. Haider said,
about 4,000 religious schools, or madrassas, have been registered. He has
been meeting with madrassa leaders, he said, to encourage them to modernize
their curriculum to include mathematics and computer skills. Such schools,
he said, which often take the place of public schools, should not produce
zealots, but "balanced persons."
Jessica Stern, a terrorism
expert at Harvard University and a former official in the Clinton administration,
said the Pakistani program could greatly reduce terrorism in the region.
But she said only 4,345 schools have been registered so far, of an estimated
40,000. And, she said, most of the rural, most extremist madrassas strongly
oppose government intervention in their activities. Pakistan has come a
long way, she said, but it has a long way to go in preventing sectarian
violence.
Zahid Hussain, a senior
editor of Newsline, an independent monthly, said the military government
is caught between competing pressures. On one hand, he said, it needs the
West economically and does not want to be isolated politically. But on
the other, he said he doubted that it could afford to antagonize the religious
groups that are a core political constituency.
