WHAT are Pakistan’s interests in Pakistan? One of the principal concerns of Pakistan’s leadership in the early years of independence was the irredentist claim that the then Afghan regime laid to large swathes of Pakistani territory. This was on the ground that the establishment of the Durand Line as the border between Afghanistan and British India had been imposed by the British in an unequal treaty.

At that time, there was also a movement in Pakistan’s NWFP province and parts of Balochistan for the creation of Pakhtunistan. Does this continue to be a matter of substantive concern?Certainly, the noises made in Afghanistan would suggest that they are anxious to maintain their claim, despite the strain this puts on relations with Pakistan, the country on which they are most dependent for their trade, which continues to host the largest number of Afghan refugees and which is theoretically the lynchpin in the global alliance to fight terrorism emanating from Afghanistan.

But can this go beyond bellicose statements? It is not clear as to whether Pakhtunistan would be part of Afghanistan or an independent state encompassing the NWFP and parts of Pakistani Balochistan and the Pashtun majority areas of Afghanistan.

If it is the former, this would mean not only the disintegration of Pakistan but also that of Afghanistan. Afghanistan’s disintegration would mean that west Afghanistan would probably become part of Iran, realising in part the vision of Khorasan. The northern part would then be divided between Uzbekistan, Tajikistan and perhaps Turkmenistan.

This is manifestly absurd.In Pakistan, the Pashtuns may rail against what they see as the injustice done to their province by the federation and will continue to do so along with the other smaller provinces.

But they have no desire to be part of Afghanistan, realising full well that they have a much brighter economic future within Pakistan than in Afghanistan or in a so-called independent Pakhtunistan.

In Afghanistan itself, the one bright spot in the years of internecine warfare that followed the Soviet withdrawal was the fact that Afghan nationalism was never called into question. This, despite the fact that the Taliban massacred the Hazaras in Bamiyan and around Kabul on sectarian grounds and Uzbeks in Mazar-i-Sharif on ethnic grounds. This, despite the fact that after the collapse of the Taliban regime more than a million Pashtuns were either killed or displaced in the north (where they had been settled for two generations or more) by the Uzbeks and Tajiks. Even today, the Karzai regime has not been able to ensure their return to their homes.

It might be worthwhile to recall that it was not only the misguided Pashtuns from Pakistan sent to Mazar-i-Sharif by the Sufi from Malakand under the banner of the Tehrik-Nifaz-Sharia-i-Malakand who died in the containers in which Dostum packed them. Many Pashtuns from the north suffered the same fate.

The Afghan regimes, whether the Taliban, the Karzai government or even the Northern Alliance, will all raise the issue of the Durand Line and Pakhtunistan from time to time and will, at least outwardly, refuse to take any cooperative measures that suggest a recognition of the Durand Line. For them, it is a symbol that cannot be publicly abandoned.

This does not mean, however, that the Afghans will ever seek to confront us militarily. This is an impossibility in the foreseeable future. The raising of this issue by the Afghans should not, therefore, be seen by us as more than a minor irritant and should not be given a high priority in determining our interests in Afghanistan.

The other interest that was pushed for some time as the driver of the Afghan policy was our quest for “strategic depth”. This absurd notion has now been dropped. Even its most ardent supporters are now prepared to concede that in today’s world the last thing that Afghanistan can provide is the sort of strategic depth that we sought in Iran during the 1965 war.

An added concern, however, is the use of Afghan territory by inimical forces to destabilise Pakistan. We have taken umbrage at the fact that Afghanistan has permitted India to set up consulates in the Afghan provinces close to Pakistan’s border and have pointed out repeatedly that anti-state elements in Pakistan are being offered financial and material support through these consulates.

While there may be more than a grain of truth in these allegations, it does seem that India has other less obvious means of assisting anti-state elements in Pakistan and that if such Indian activity is to be stopped better communication with the Indians may be the best way of resolving this issue.

In any case, there are also other anti-Pakistan elements in Afghanistan, most notably the Taliban who are using Afghan territory to work against us. The answer lies in ensuring that the Pak-Afghan border is made less porous and that the free flow of men and material is placed under greater control.

There is no gainsaying the fact that when we in Pakistan talk of the advantages flowing from our geo-strategic location such advantages as are supposed to flow from this location depend in large measure on the restoration of peace and stability in Afghanistan and the creation in that country of the communications network that would facilitate the flow of trade between Central Asia and South Asia.

In 1991, when the Central Asian states became independent, Pakistani ports via Afghanistan were seen as the most economical routes for Central Asian exports of their energy reserves to South Asia and the rest of the world. They — Uzbekistan, Turkmenistan. Tajikistan, Kyrgyzstan — all made it clear that they wanted to end their dependence on Russia for outlets to the sea and that they would much rather have a route to the sea or to the South Asian market through Afghanistan and Pakistan than through Iran.

Today, it has become obvious that even if Afghanistan is stabilised in the near future (and this seems unlikely), the expected trade boom will not take place. Turkmenistan gas reserves are plentiful but all reports suggest that these have been tied up in long term contracts that Turkmenistan has concluded or is in the process of concluding with Russia and China. The former needs Central Asian gas to fulfil its commitments to the Europeans and the latter to satisfy its own burgeoning domestic demand.

Central Asia’s other products, such as long staple cotton, may flow into Pakistan through Afghanistan but that is not going to be of enormous consequence. Central Asia may become an exploitable market for our exports but again the impact will be relatively limited.

Our principal interest in Afghanistan are not the positive ones of what trade benefits we can derive or the “strategic depth” we can get or the communications routes it can provide to connect Central Asia to our ports. They are largely the negative ones of protecting ourselves from the pernicious ideology that has taken root — with some assistance from us — in south and southeast Afghanistan, the dramatically increased flow of drugs into our cities from the ever-increasing poppy cultivation in Afghanistan and from the smuggling into Pakistan of some five billion dollars worth of goods that undercut our efforts to develop our own industrial production.

Today, many in the country talk about the enormous growth in Pakistan’s trade with Afghanistan. It is true that official figures show that trade, particularly in construction material, has shown a steep upward trend. But our customs officials worry about how much of this is genuine trade and how much of it is merely an effort to avoid the payment of sales tax and excise duty on materials that are exported only on paper.

Today, our customs officials grimly concede that the Afghan Transit Agreement shows imports into Afghanistan of quantities of electronic goods, tyres and industrial raw materials that are clearly well beyond Afghanistan’s capacity to absorb and which eventually become contraband material sold in Pakistan under the table at prices that undercut legitimate importers.

Above all, our interest is in securing the return to Afghanistan of the 2.5 million acknowledged refugees that continue to be in Pakistan. These refugees are a considerable drain on our economy. They make a substantial contribution to weapons proliferation in Pakistan. They exacerbate sectarian differences within the country and are in many ways the shock troops for religious parties in the country.

What we need is peace and stability within an Afghanistan that is united and has overcome fissiparous tendencies. Such peace and stability would mean that the influence of the Taliban or Al Qaeda be curbed. It would mean that with the cooperation of the international community the drug menace be reduced if not eliminated. It would mean we have normal trade relations with Afghanistan and continue to be the principal route for Afghanistan’s trade with the outside world.

It would also mean that we tackle together the problems of endemic poverty and unemployment in the inhospitable terrain of the tribal areas that lie on both sides of our border. This could entail seeking and securing special benefits from the world community for the products of uneconomic industries that we set up to generate economic activity and employment in that region.

We would naturally prefer that the government in Kabul is friendly towards us. Whether the government in Kabul is friendly or hostile is not, however, of cardinal interest. Whatever the complexion of the government, it will be in its interest, given the role Pakistan plays as Afghanistan’s window to the outside world, to maintain correct if not cordial relations with Islamabad.

This is what we need from Afghanistan. How we help to achieve stability and thereby contribute to our own stability is the question that I will try and tackle next.

The writer is a former foreign secretary

EVER since a children’s library in Islamabad was occupied by female students of the Jamia Hafsa seminary in January this year, the crisis created by the two radical clerics (who happen to be brothers) of Lal Masjid and the students of Jamia Hafsa and Jamia Fareedia continued unabated — until July 3.

That day the stalemate was broken not by the government but by the young, frenzied male and female followers of the clerics holed up in the mosque. They fired on the law enforcers who they claimed had come too close to the mosque.

The government’s response was restrained (as it should have been), and while some casualties occurred on both sides, the blame for these must be attached to the clerics and their followers. Murder charges must be instituted against them, in addition to other charges.

Each day that passed since the crisis erupted some six months ago, added weight to the theory that the government had allowed the issue to simmer, hoping that the stand-off would divert public attention from the Chief Justice issue and serve as a preview for Washington and other western capitals of what would happen if President Musharraf left the scene.

There were also mumbled comments about elements supposedly in the civil armed and defence forces who, while not supportive of the Lal Masjid clerics, nonetheless wanted to see them handled with kid gloves.

No sane person would want blood to be spilled in resolving the issue, even in the case of the clerics not being rational as indicated by their irregular demands and eccentric moralising.

In earlier negotiations with Chaudhry Shujaat and Ejazul Haq, the brothers appeared to have been convinced that victory was near, as borne out later by the action of firing first on the law enforcement agencies. They would not have done so if they believed that the government did indeed possess the will to act with force.

Ways and means should also be examined to force such radical elements to give up their charade so that loss of life is minimised. Heavily defended forts in history were subdued and occupied without a frontal and bloody assault and through blockading the forts. No one could leave or enter the fort and no supplies could reach it. In time, those inside sued for peace.

This is such a basic tactic that it must have been considered. There has to be a good reason why it was not employed. Why, for instance, were the mosque’s utilities not cut off when this alone would probably have been enough to make the clerics and their followers give up?

Was this because it was feared that suicide bombers (supposedly in the mosque) would blow themselves up or that radicals, eager to embrace ‘martyrdom’, would come out brandishing guns? In either event, if blood was spilled, the government would be absolved of all blame.

Even if the government has cut a sorry figure in the Lal Masjid farce, the latter has shown the clergy in a worse light. This issue has been entirely of the making of a section of the clergy. It was for the clergy, led by the MMA, not to have allowed the crisis to erupt, and once it did, to have contained and resolved it.

The MMA’s failure on both counts and the government’s dithering and then the deployment of Rangers around Lal Masjid in a show of force has portrayed the government as yielding to the MMA that did not want to see the Lal Masjid clerics humbled.

What the MMA has said and continues to say on the issue of the Lal Masjid is an enigma. The cautious voices of religious parties, dogmatists and apologists, all long on words that signify little, has underscored the point that religion is too serious a matter to be left to so-called clerics.

The preposterous Lal Masjid situation created by one set of clerics and the lumbering and out-of-depth reaction of the rest has made the perspective on the absence of clergy and, therefore, of clerics in Islam very clear.

No one understood the nature of the so-called clerics better than Jinnah. He refused to have anything to do with them when they opposed him and the demand of the Muslims for Pakistan, despite some in the League opining that there should be a compromise with the clerics to win their support.

He refused to deal with them when they were ready to join him unconditionally, when Pakistan was no longer just a vision. He warned the Muslim League leaders to be wary of clerics for they were not a genuine article.

The situation as it prevails today in Pakistan where religious parties and groups representing less than 10 per cent of the popular vote are holding 90 per cent of the people hostage to their demands and whims, was foreseen by Jinnah — if they were given space and patronage.

However, his warning went unheeded, and the clergy was not only given space but led by the hand into the space provided by self-serving rulers. This indulgence has continued.

Jinnah’s August 11, 1947, speech rejecting theocracy as Pakistan’s polity and guaranteeing religious freedom to all its citizens was the quintessence of his dream and vision for Pakistan. The country’s troubles with religious fanaticism began the day bigots in the government attempted to alter the speech and consigned it to the back of beyond. Our problems will end only when the credo of the speech becomes part of our lives. In fact, it is now when the country needs to relive Jinnah’s vision to pull itself out from the state of divisiveness imposed on it by extremism and misguided religiosity.

While there has been much more to the Lal Masjid stand-off than meets the eye, whatever held back the government’s hand and prevented it from taking action, hopefully, it was not compromises with the clerics.

Email: husainsk@cyber.net.pk