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As Pak blackmails US...

As Pak blackmails US...

Author: Balbir K. Punj
Publication: The Asian Age
Date: October 1, 2002

Terrorism, terrorism, terrorism. In the last few days we have heard this nine-letter word several times over. One year after, September 11 was a day of fear over half the world and not merely in the United States.

This validates the description of it as evil personified, which we have not been able to exorcise despite a worldwide coalition against it. True, Afghanistan has been liberated from a regime that regularly sent people to the gallows in the football field of Kabul and elsewhere for the slightest deviation from the fatwas laid down by the one-eyed Mullah Omar, a semi-literate cleric who rode to power on the ruins of the Afghan state in the early Nineties.

The Americans counting the gains of the precision attacks they launched against the Mullah regime, have only the liberation of the Afghan state to write home about. The two prominent figures who President Bush wants "dead or alive," are still at large and it looks as if they will not be easily nabbed either. Rather, they have powerful protectors among America's frontline allies themselves.

Why will they not be caught though they are known to be in the unruly tribal areas of Pakistan - and Pakistan is the "frontline" state of the America-led international coalition against terrorism? The Economist bared Western thinking on this issue - which is of significance for us in India in understanding what is happening in our neighbourhood.

Talking about a possible Indo-Pak war, the newsmagazine wrote in its June 1, 2002 issue: "If Pakistan lost (in the war with India) and if the losing toppled General Musharraf, America could lose a vital link in the war against terrorism."

With such thinking dominating the Western approach to the subcontinent, what is it that can be expected from Musharraf? Any intelligent ruler in Pakistan would think the best way to ensure his own continuance is to keep Osama and the Mullah beyond the reach of the American special forces operating in his territory even as he makes timely noises about fighting terrorism. And that is what General Musharraf is doing even as he seeks to give a democratic face to his military based regime in a structure where effective power now stands transferred to the military establishment for all times to come.

What the Economist says about a post-Musharraf Pakistan further strengthens this conclusion: "A post-Musharraf Pakistan, humiliated by India, might well swing the other way. Osama bin Laden would only be too happy to have exchanged a ramshackle haven in Afghanistan for a new one in a friendly, nuclear-armed Pakistan..."

In effect, if President Bush is following the logic of the Economist, he should be imagining how he is being taken for a ride by his own group of advisers who are suggesting such a surrender to the blackmail that the Pakistani dictator is proposing. Now we know why he rattles his nuclear sword often: it is not really meant against India but against America that must keep him fed permanently while he promises action to nab the terrorists with no real intention to act. Put simply, America is under nuclear blackmail by its supposedly closest ally.

The real answer to a situation like what the newspaper describes, is for America to team up with democratic forces in Pakistan, issue an ultimatum to the Pakistan President to get the two kingpins of terrorists and march them to the Cuban base for trial.

Intervening in Pakistan as it did in Afghanistan, a restructuring of the jihadi state is necessary to protect this worldview. So long as America dithers from doing that, the situation will not improve and Americans, pursuing the two Al Qaeda leaders relentlessly, will be chasing a chimera.

There is the greater danger that the Pakistan Army with its significant sections sympathetic to Al Qaeda, which they themselves spawned and nurtured, will conspire with Bin Laden on the one hand and the jihadis within to strengthen the military-cleric complex that will one day throw the Americans out once the current situation changes and a pan-Islamic fervour captures West Asia.

American newspapers themselves are pouring out stories from captured documents of Al Qaeda about the "sleeper" activists of that organisation in several Muslim-majority states like Malaysia, Indonesia, parts of Philippines, Central Asia and southern parts of Russia and West Asian and African nations.

The Pakistani Army spawned the Taliban and through it captured Afghanistan to give "depth" to Islamabad's strategy. The dream of a Muslim world with Pakistan as the centre has been a long time objective. American scholars like Stephen Cohen have revealed as much.

Another American scholar, Jessica Stern, had warned her country a year before the decisive attack on the World Trade Center: "These schools (the madrasas) encourage their graduates, who often cannot find work because of the lack of practical education, to fulfil their 'spiritual obligation' by fighting against Hindus in Kashmir or against Muslims of other sects in Pakistan" (Foreign Affairs, Nov-Dec. 2000).

She quoted the jihadi leader as claiming that "we won't stop - even if India gives us Kashmir - we'll (also) bring jihad here. We want to see a Taliban-style regime here." She had cautioned American policy makers that "America must do more than scold" Pakistan. Even after the jihadis proved their capacity to penetrate the American electronic perimeter, US policy still remains confined to scolding.

For India as much as for the world there are other danger signs written on the Islamic walls. Bangladesh is perceptibly sliding into the danger zone. The Far Eastern Economic Review has said this in its summer (April 4) issue: "This nation of 130 million people is slowly moving away from its tradition of moderate Islam. And the government seems powerless and unwilling to stem the tide, which includes growing attacks on moderate Muslims and the dwindling Hindu population."

This is no guesswork. Since the report appeared the situation in Bangladesh has deteriorated and with the fundamentalist parties now in coalition in the BNP-led government, attacks on Hindus have multiplied. Intolerance has grown to such an extent that the Dhaka University has become a virtual battleground between moderates and fundamentalists.

Even the anniversary function of the founder of Bangladesh, Sheikh Mujibur Rehman, was disturbed. The Far Eastern Economic Review report had pinpointed the 64,000 madrasas as a "potential political time-bomb" and "exporters of Islamic revolution." The Review had warned: "Neighbouring India and Burma are also at risk, while the Western world cannot afford to be complacent either." This was after the 9/11 events.

And what about the situation in Pakistan itself and the attitude of even the elitist Pakistani after 9/11? A survey published as recently as May 2002 in the prestigious Fortune magazine reminded its readers in the corporate and political world of America that "a Gallup poll found that 82 per cent of urban Pakistanis hailed Osama bin Laden as a freedom fighter."

The magazine quoted Mazahar Husain, a counter-terrorism investigator as saying: "Several of the more than 50 radical groups currently operating in Pakistan have links to Al Qaeda. Osama is not alone. He is a big organisation, in every city, in every district here."

The American administration may be betting on General Musharraf but the ground realities are quite different. The Fortune report says that Al Badr "is still operating in Pakistan even though a year has passed since the group's leader announced that 'jihad has become the foremost duty of the Muslim community against US, Israel and India.' " The Americans have again been fooled by the Pakistan President's steps to cut off funds to the terrorist organisations by freezing their bank accounts.

The Fortune investigations showed that eight billion US dollars coming to Pakistan through the hundi route, the non-banking, concealed pipeline that is run by a smuggler-fundamentalist complex. Why, even Pakistan's own central bank borrowed 4.4 billion dollars from "certain sources in Dubai" - euphemism for the underworld connection. Now we know why people like Dawood are important for the Pakistan establishment.

The Fortune magazine's verdict on Pakistan's pretension is highly instructive: "A country that professes to be an ally of the US in its war on terrorism but probably harbours more terrorists than any place on earth."

The magazine's investigations have led it to conclude that Pakistan is "unable to control thousands of jobless jihadis whose anger is fuelled by religious fundamentalists." Its economy is on the brink of collapse, as 100 billion dollars have already been taken out of that country by its military- fundamentalist complex."

Were these American newspapers spreading a one-sided version? The answer is "no." In its special issue on the anniversary of the 9/11 event, the Time magazine studied the elitist Pakistani teenagers from wealthy families, studying in best schools.

It projects one such, Sana Shah, aged 16, studying in a prestigious girl's school in Lahore, with an English background, and a peace activist who has visited New York after the 9/11 event. The report in the magazine says after describing her, how she and her friends have moved towards fundamentalism and admired Osama. "As Islamic militancy spreads in Pakistan, she feels she is being forced to take a side. And she doesn't think she has chosen America's."

Time magazine quotes an American instructor Mary Neilsen who studied Islam and went to mosques to generate within her sympathetic response to Islam's perceived feeling of wrongdoing against it by the West. After all her one-year-long effort, which included lot of ecumenism, Neilsen says: "Muslim fundamentalism scares the hell out of me." After all this experience of Americans and others, it is legitimate to ask: Why are our secularists ignoring these warnings?

(Balbir K. Punj is a Rajya Sabha MP and convenor of the BJP Think Tank and can be contacted at bpunj@email.com)
 


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