Twirp: Terrorist Wahabi Islamic Rep Pakistan 4

[Naresh]

<b>Mudy Ji :</b>

A “not so recent” Article from Le Monde.

If this is what the “Paki Terroristani” thinks then there must be some – if not a whole lot - merit in his wailing!

<b>Three Months to Save Pakistan</b>

<i>Najam Sethi

Released : 9 Jun 2009</i>

As the offensive against the Taliban continued in Pakistan’s Northwest Frontier province (NWFP), the people of the Swat valley have been fleeing the war zone. Since the launch of military operations on 26 April, the army and paramilitaries have used tanks, artillery, mortar, helicopter gunships and jet bombers to attack the insurgents. Military spokesmen claim dozens of Taliban killed in action, but play down army losses and civilian deaths; international relief agencies say there is a major humanitarian crisis. More than a million refugees have fled, the largest mass migration since Pakistan came into being.

The Taliban has grown more powerful over the past two years in the NWFP and Federally Administered Tribal Areas (FATA), terrorising the population and defying the Pakistani government. By signing a peace deal on 28 February allowing the Taliban to administer Islamic law (sharia) in Swat, the NWFP government hoped to purchase calm and order. It was a risky undertaking and it backfired, producing the reverse of its intended effects. The deal emboldened the Taliban to spread out into the adjoining districts of Buner and Lower Dir, make new recruits and seize territories. The rapid advance covered areas barely 100 km from the capital Islamabad and the strategic Karakorum Highway, which links with China

The United States, which in its haste to make a new policy for the region had been pressing Pakistan’s government to take strong military action for months, was angry. Other countries feared the Zardari government may be overthrown, leading to civil war and loss of control of strategic and nuclear installations and arms.

Cynics note that the current, long-delayed military action was finally launched while Zardari was on a state trip to Washington, negotiating economic assistance and political support for his beleaguered regime from the Obama administration, which has pledged $1.9bn in counter-terrorism, economic and humanitarian aid and another $600m for military needs in the next two years. <b>When General Pervez Musharraf was in power, from 1999 to 2008, he would obtain generous economic and military assistance from Washington in return for some newly captured al-Qaida operative or a small-scale military action against the Taliban in a remote tribal area.</b> So Washington was especially annoyed when, contrary to promises, the Zardari government signed the peace deal with the Taliban and won parliamentary approval for it in March.

In view of the Taliban advances, President Barack Obama, Secretary of State Hilary Clinton, Joint Chiefs of Staff Committee chairman Admiral Mike Mullen, Centcom chief General David Petreaus, CIA chief Robert Gates and others in the US Senate and Congress have all made it clear to Zardari and Afghan president Hamid Karzai that the rules of business have changed. In exchange for economic and political support, there will be formal accountability “going forward,” in which common objectives will be listed and progress monitored in the war against al-Qaida/Taliban in Afghanistan and Pakistan. They told the leaders, who have a reputation for corruption and maladministration, to take things in hand, deliver governance to their people and join hands with the opposition at home and with their international friends to face the common Taliban/al-Qaida enemy that threatens to plunge the region into anarchy.

<b>Pakistan has taken a dangerously long time to understand this. Its religious-nationalist mindset was shaped by the Islamisation campaigns of the 1980s and 1990s and their “Islamic jihad in Indian-held Kashmir” and “two-nation” theory, based on Muslim-Hindu hatred, which became part of everyday speech.</b> Its anti-Americanism was shaped by unjust US policies towards Muslims in general and Pakistanis in particular after 1989, when the United States achieved its objectives against the USSR in Afghanistan and abandoned Pakistan, making it the most sanctioned state in the world, for pursuing its nuclear programme. Meanwhile the Iraq wars and Palestinian intifadas crashed into every home through CNN and satellite television.

The private sector media created sympathy for the Taliban and support for the Red Mosque terrorists (portrayed as medieval heroes for defying the United States and the army) in the heart of Islamabad in 2007; the army and government were off balance. The media also made this “America’s war” by spreading the idea that if the US were to leave the region, the Taliban and al-Qaida would dissolve. Ultimately, this same media drummed up support for dangerous peace deals between the Taliban and the army or government. It also enabled the Taliban to exploit the political space and public support and thereby seize large areas of the NWFP.

Three recent developments have changed things. The first was the public flogging of a young girl in Swat in March, shown on all TV channels, and the Taliban’s vicious defence of this as an “Islamic act” despite resistance from the public and even the ulema (clergy) in the rest of the country. This caused revulsion against the Taliban and exposed its sharia as a narrow, tribal creed masquerading as Islam.

The Taliban’s spokesmen have condemned everything that is sacred to the media and civil society, claiming Pakistan’s constitution, law, civil society, democracy, elections, and personal and institutional freedoms are all anti-Islamic. The Taliban threat to gag the media and punish it has made journalists angry and fearful; 10 journalists have been killed in the tribal regions in the last year, either by the Taliban or in crossfire.

People fleeing Taliban-held areas in the FATA and NWFP and pouring into refugee camps are full of rage and fear that the media cannot deny; rage against the government and army for abandoning them in the face of the Taliban threat and then for not making adequate provisions for their protection after the military action started.

If this is Pakistan’s moment of reckoning on the home and foreign fronts, what is most critical?

• The opposition, government, army and media must agree -- an objective that could be accomplished if the largest opposition party, the Pakistan Muslim League led by the former prime minister Nawaz Sharif, joins the federal coalition government and agrees to share responsibility in the war against al-Qaida/Taliban. But this hasn’t happened as yet. Sharif is insisting on certain constitutional amendments aimed at weakening the power of Zardari and ensuring a mid-term election. The United States is leaning on Sharif to join a unity government but he is dragging his feet. He has proposed an All Parties Conference to thrash out issues. But this is more likely to lead to disagreement than consensus because some small religious anti-US parties are opposed to any military action against the Taliban.

• The United States needs to lean on Karzai to get him to incorporate moderate pro-Pakistan Pashtuns in his political system so that Pakistan can feel secure on its western border.

• India has to settle outstanding disputes with Pakistan wholeheartedly so that Pakistan’s fear and distrust of India can be dissolved and it can focus on the Taliban enemy within. India has not helped by putting preconditions for peace, including guarantees that there will be no export of terrorism from Pakistan into India. Since Pakistan is also a victim of terrorism, these guarantees cannot be given. The Pakistani army is still disinclined to move troops from the eastern border with India to the war against the Taliban on the western border with Afghanistan. And it will continue to fear a long-term threat from India, even though there is a need for a new mindset in which internal, not external, security is the main issue facing the state. The newly elected Indian Congress-led government might now change its stance and get back to building peace with Pakistan unconditionally.

• The flood of refugees will have to be tackled. Pakistan’s prime minister, Yousef Raza Gilani, says the Swat operation is a fight for the “survival of Pakistan.” But Pakistan could yet be defeated by the developing crisis of the refugee camps in the NWFP.

When the provincial government asked the people of the affected areas to leave their homes to give the Pakistan army a chance to take on the Taliban without too much collateral damage, they readily agreed. But their reception at the hurriedly created refugee camps is traumatic. Around half a million people moved out of the target areas, joining another half million who fled the conflict zone earlier and were absorbed in the province, sometimes using deserted refugee camps once used by Afghan refugees. The number of refugees rose further to well over a million. The federal government has only given $12m to the NWFP government so far. Organisation and expert handling is missing. No lessons have been applied from the experience of the 2005 earthquake in Azad Kashmir and parts of the NWFP -- nor from handling Afghan refugees over the past 30 years.

The plight of the first arrivals in the camps in Swabi and Mardan is pathetic. The camps are pitched in open fields with only canvas against the summer sun and, despite claims by officers, there is no clean drinking water, which is what the refugees most need in heat they are not used to. Children are especially affected, but there are no medical facilities at the camps. Registration is problematic: Because each family has to be issued a special permit, hundreds are lining up in front of one man registering them and issuing permits. So far only 200,000 have been registered. All this could have been avoided. The plan to take military action should have included detailed plans for the displaced population, but none were made

The national consensus against the Taliban is now broad enough to define policy. But the plight of the refugee camps will strengthen the Taliban and is bound to erode the national consensus; and the political parties and civil society organisations are only just gearing up to face the challenge. The international community needs to do much more to help Pakistan get out of this self-created political mess and human tragedy. <b>As Pakistan’s army chief, General Ashfaq Kayani, said to an assembly of politicians, the next three months will be critical.</b>

<i>Najam Sethi is editor-in-chief of the Daily Times of Lahore.

© 2009 Le Monde diplomatique – distributed by Agence Global</i>

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