Author: J N Dixit
Publication: The Indian Express
Date: December 13, 2001
Two visual clippings on CNN broadcast
over the last week brought out the confusing and critical predicament in
which Pakistan finds itself in, two months after the US-led military campaign
commenced against the Taliban and the Al-Qaeda. One clipping showed an
Afghan Pushtun lamenting the destruction caused by the US bombing. He said
it is the common people who are the greater sufferers. He then proceeded
to comment, ''The real Talibs are our people, they are Afghans who brought
stability in recent years. It is the foreigners who joined them who have
brought this tragedy and violence upon us. The Arabs, the Pakistanis, the
Chechans and Egyptians. These foreigners should not have come to my country.''
The second visual was an interview
with a Pakistani demonstrator in Islamabad. He said Pakistan has not gained
what Musharraf told the people that he was going to gain by supporting
the US. The Taliban government Pakistan had established in Afghanistan
now stands destroyed. Acknowledging his Pathan identity, the demonstrator
said that the Pushtuns who always had an important role in Afghan governments
may no longer have it. The non-Muslim soldiers who started being permanently
located in Muslim countries from the time of the Gulf War are now located
in Pakistan and in Afghanistan. Pakistan is becoming a slave country because
of Musharraf.
These perceptions by the common
people may not be nuanced or informed but they reflect a general assessment
close to the disappointing realities which Musharraf is facing and is likely
to face in the coming weeks. Musharraf himself is on record stating that
he supported the US-led coalition not on the basis of principles and opposition
to international terrorism. He said that if he had not supported the US,
Pakistan would also have been labelled a terrorism-sponsoring state and
Pakistan's strategic assets ''would have been destroyed.'' He added that
the economic consequences of not supporting the US would have had a critical
impact on Pakistan's economic situation.
One of the gains for Musharraf is
that he and his government gained legitimacy. The US has lifted a number
of sanctions imposed on Pakistan since the late 80s, including those which
were imposed after Pakistan's nuclear weapon tests in 1998. The US and
Western democracies have announced economic assistance for Pakistan to
the tune of 1.25 billion dollars. Certain categories of military cooperation
and defence supplies have been restored by the US. Trading concessions
have also been extended to Pakistan. General Musharraf managed to obtain
a public commitment from President Bush to agree to a reference to the
Kashmir issue in the joint statement issued at the end of the General's
visit to the US which mentioned that ''Kashmir issue should be solved through
diplomacy and dialogue in mutually acceptable ways that take into account
the wishes of the people of Kashmir''. The absence of any reference to
bilateralism has been interpreted by Musharraf as US accepting an important
element in the Pakistani stance on the Kashmir issue. While these gains
are of general political nature, many of the substantive beneficial anticipations
of Musharraf have not been fulfilled and some of them remain doubtful.
The flow of economic assistance
is spread over a period of time. The specific demand for the supply of
F-16 fighter planes has not been accepted by the US so far. The US has
not accepted Musharraf's distinction between the terrorism generated by
Al-Qaeda and Osama bin Laden and the terrorist violence sponsored by Pakistan
in Jammu and Kashmir. Musharraf insisting that the latter is a freedom
struggle and should not be labelled terrorism stands rejected given Bush's
statements, particularly at the UN where he categorically said that the
campaign is going to be against terrorism of all categories and that terrorist
violence cannot be justified in terms of political and other reasons. Musharraf
wanted India to be excluded from the international coalition against terrorism
and from discussion on future political dispensation in Afghanistan. This
has not happened.
India has been included in the Consultative
Group of 21, created by the UN for this purpose, an initiative which has
the support of the US. The revival of defence and military cooperation
between India and the US, parallel to the revival of such relations with
Pakistan, has negated his expectation that Pakistan will acquire military
advantages over India. A greater disappointment to Musharraf is that the
initial political and military assurances given to him by the US could
not be fulfilled because of unpredictable developments in Afghanistan,
specially since the end of October. Musharraf had demanded that ''moderate''
Taliban elements should have a place in the new interim government of Afghanistan.
He had also suggested that the Northern Alliance should be prevented from
capturing Kabul till his representatives could conclude negotiations on
this point with those segments of the Taliban who might have been willing
to participate in the proposed dispensation.
The obduracy of the Taliban leadership
and the operational impatience and assertiveness of the Northern Alliance
resulted in the US pulling back from the initial assurances given to Musharraf.
Not only did Kabul fall to the Northern Alliance but all the major urban
centres of Afghanistan are now succumbing to their onslaught with the support
of the US armed forces.
Musharraf's pretensions that Pakistan
was not an active participant in the Taliban government stands completely
exposed. Northern Alliance forces have captured a large number of Pakistani
cadres of the Taliban, many of them identified as members of the Pakistani
army. Under pressure from his own High command, Musharraf has had to send
Pakistani military aircraft to Kunduz and other parts of Afghanistan to
evacuate Pakistani citizens from Afghanistan. The fact of Pakistan-based
terrorist groups operating in Kashmir and Uzbekistan, being trained in
Taliban camps in Afghanistan is now internationally acknowledged. The US-led
coalition forces using Pakistani military bases and coastal areas, and
the induction of US ground troops into Afghanistan against Taliban, have
added fuel to the fire of dissension in segments of Pakistani public opinion.
Compounding this negative situation
is the influx of a large number of Taliban cadres and Pathan refugees into
the North-West Frontier Province and into Baluchistan. This will generate
tensions in these two important provinces in Pakistan. The plan to have
Afghanistan as an area under Pakistan's influence stands destroyed. The
objective of having Afghanistan as a country providing defence in depth
against India and as an instrumentality to contain Iranian and Uzbek influence,
have also been eroded. The US continuing military operations during the
month of Ramzan against the advice of Musharraf and the prospects of unstable
government in Afghanistan afflicted by a simmering civil war situation
in that country will create problems for Pakistan.
