| June 22, 2005 | Wednesday | Jumadi-ul-Awwal 14, 1426 |
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Image and reality
As Aung San Suu Kyi holds on
PRESIDENT Hamid Karzai has once again accused Pakistan of interference in his country’s affairs. Speaking to an assembly of ulema, he even came out with the purported tactics Pakistan was using to make the Taliban fight the Afghan government. According to him, Islamabad was blackmailing the Taliban and threatening to hand their families over to the US unless they did as told. The news coincides with the allegations by Kabul authorities that some Pakistanis had entered Afghanistan to murder Mr Zalmay Khalilzad on the eve of his departure from Kabul for his new posting in Baghdad. The information given by the Afghan authorities about the alleged plot is bizarre. Jackets full of explosive material were to come from Pakistan, and the suspects were to blow themselves up and kill Mr Khalilzad, an American of Afghan origin. But the jackets did not arrive, so they were told to go ahead and assassinate the man on their own. The men were allegedly trained in a “terrorist camp in Pakistan.” Mercifully, the American government has given no credence to the story. Both the US embassy in Kabul and the State Department in Washington said they had heard of the Afghan version but were unable to confirm the contents of the story.
A few days earlier Mr Khalilzad had alleged that Mullah Umar, the former Afghan head of state under the Taliban, was hiding in Pakistan. Islamabad’s position on both Osama bin Laden and Mullah Umar is clear: it is not sure where the two are. Similarly, Pakistan denies that there are any terrorist training camps on its soil. Since 9/11, it has been critically involved in the war on terror and has achieved some spectacular results. The Al Qaeda and Taliban command structure, as repeatedly emphasized by President Musharraf, has been crippled and all terrorist camps eliminated. Yet, the Taliban do exist on both sides of the border. They may have been considerably weakened but they are still in a position to mount attacks in the countries. Wana is now quiet, but the formidable mountainous terrain along the Durand Line provides a safe hideout for the Taliban, smugglers and freebooters. This calls for cooperation, rather than recrimination, between Pakistan and Afghan security forces. Pakistan by and large has refrained from blaming the Karzai government for terrorist activities this side of the border. But that is not true of the Kabul government, for every now and again one hears Afghan officials blaming Pakistan for some event occurring in their country. This is hardly going to help in the war on terror, which is the common concern of both countries.
It is time Islamabad took note of the continued misperception of Pakistan on this score. Kabul is not alone in maligning Pakistan; there are also frequent stories and comments in the American press casting doubts about Pakistan’s commitment to the war on terror. Apparently, the U-turn in Pakistan’s Afghan policy after 9/11 is considered by large sections of the American media as based on expediency rather than on principles. The ISI, once the Taliban’s mentor and backer, may now be wiser, or forced to be so, but the western press thinks the Pakistani military establishment still has fundamentalist elements within it that secretly sympathize with the Taliban. This misperception deserves to be removed in the light of hard facts that testify to the role Pakistan has been playing in the war on terror.
NO one would disagree with President Musharraf’s desire to improve Pakistan’s image, but the fact of the matter is that professing enlightened moderation and reaching agreements with some countries to attract foreign investment is one thing and making Pakistan widely recognized as a moderate, liberal society is quite another. That is because a wide gap exists between the image the government wants to present of Pakistan to foreigners and the reality on the ground. Image-building is not a public-relations exercise, and believing so will only end up projecting an unpalatable image, which is what seems to be happening now. The only way that any country’s perception can be improved is by the actions and deeds of those who govern it and also those who make up the nation. Things like regard for the rule of law, tolerance of dissent, plurality of opinion, protection of religious minorities’ rights and interests, respect by the government for democratic rights and institutions and the political opposition are important. Equally vital is the need for laws and policies to prevent discrimination against minorities, women and children. These are among the essential components of the image of a country.
Even if the recent mishandling of Mukhtaran Mai’s intended visit to the US is factored out, on most of the above counts, Pakistan’s image would come out rather poorly. There is one exception to this, of course, and this is the government’s role in the ‘war on terror’. However, even there the policies and actions vis-à-vis the extremists have not been consistent because on various occasions the government has failed to act on its own promises to repeal or amend obscurantist laws in the face of opposition from bigoted elements. Similarly, contrary to its professed commitment to progressive and tolerant values, the government has so far been quite intolerant of the opposition in the assemblies or even from civil society, as evidenced by the recent suspension of several opposition Punjab Assembly MPAs or the attacks on mixed marathons. Such glaring contradictions between the government’s policy and practice do not inspire much confidence within and outside the country. The government should focus on putting its own house in order, to improve the reality of life in Pakistan. If it does that sincerely the image problem will take care of itself.
CELEBRATING her 60th birthday in confinement last Sunday, the world’s most famous political prisoner, Aung San Suu Kyi, has remained a beacon of hope for millions of Burmese who have suffered under repressive military rule for more than 40 years now. Ever since 1988, when she arrived in Burma to look after her ailing mother, Aung San Suu Kyi has been a thorn in the side of the military junta who refused to recognize her party’s landslide victory in the 1990 national elections. But her decision to wage a peaceful struggle for the restoration of democracy in her land has come at a heavy political and personal price. She has been subjected to a total of nine years in detention and her commitment to her cause has meant the loss of a normal family life. Aung San Suu Kyi is the winner of a number of international awards, including the 1991 Nobel Peace Prize.
While cracks are beginning to appear in the military’s ranks, especially with last year’s ouster of former prime minister Khin Nyunt, it does not appear that Burma’s generals are about to restore democracy. Burma continues to hold and torture more than 1,300 political prisoners while socio-economic conditions in the country are deteriorating. Despite being a resource-rich country, Burma ranks a poor 132 out of 177 in the UN’s human development index — a situation that has largely been attributed to the hard-fisted policies of the military that reserves 40 per cent of the budget for its own expenditures. There is need for greater world pressure on Burma’s rulers to restart the process of democratic restoration. Other Southeast Asian countries have a particular role to play in forcing this erring member state of Asean to review and amend its anti-people policies.