Getting carried away

NOTWITHSTANDING the highly provocative statements coming from America, some of the speeches made in the National Assembly on Tuesday were shocking and rivalled in absurdity Congressman Tom Tancredo’s outbursts. Members from both sides criticised Washington for what obviously are irritants to Pakistan — the recently enacted law that makes aid to this country conditional, the constant advice to Islamabad to “do more”, and the nuclear deal with India. The greatest provocation, however, comes in the form of threats to invade the tribal belt in pursuit of terrorists. While some presidential candidates have been openly threatening to take military action against Al Qaeda hideouts in Waziristan, the Bush administration has maintained ambiguity, mixing the talk of American military action in Fata with expressions of confidence in Islamabad and renewed pledges to work with the Musharraf government in the war on terror. Even though the Tancredo statement calling for attacking Makkah and Madina has been condemned by the Bush administration, his threat has caused anger in the Muslim world. If, therefore, opposition and treasury members expressed anger over the current state of relationship with America one could understand it. However, at least one member seemed to have crossed the limit of reasonable disapproval.

Taking part in the debate, Parliamentary Secretary for Defence Tanvir Hussain forgot that he was speaking in parliament, that he represented the government and not the opposition and that he must make comments that would express the nation’s disapproval but not in a way that would amount to venting his spleen. His call for launching a jihad in Kashmir and the six-month victory time he gave for it hardly makes sense in the given context. Even the opposition members, including the MMA’s Liaquat Baloch, perhaps did not display the kind of recklessness the parliamentary defence secretary did. Some members, however, spoke with maturity and combined their criticism of Washington’s policies with pragmatic suggestions. Mr M. P. Bhandara, a minority member of the ruling Muslim League, called for opening a dialogue with Mullah Omar and pleaded for bringing America, Afghanistan and the Taliban to the negotiating table to end the on-going slaughter in Afghanistan. While this is easier said than done, one has to recognise that Pakistan’s security forces on this side of the Durand Line and the US-led coalition forces across the border have failed to subdue the militants, the majority of the victims of the military operations being innocent civilians.

As President Pervez Musharraf said in talks with a visiting US Congressman in Islamabad on Tuesday, the war on terror requires a relationship based on trust and confidence. This is conspicuous by its absence. Kabul misses no opportunity to slander Pakistan for whatever happens in Afghanistan, while the Bush administration continues to apply unrelenting pressure on Islamabad. The reincarnation of the Pressler Amendment is not going to help matters. America has to realise that what it considers “doing more” could prove counterproductive. There is a threshold which Islamabad cannot cross in the use of force in Waziristan, unless Washington wants even the neutrals and the right-minded among the tribal leaders to side with the extremists. The deployment of nearly 100,000 troops in the area is a mistake. In view of the uncertainty surrounding America’s aid package, Pakistan should begin a gradual disengagement of its troops and seek a negotiated settlement. The militants are Pakistan’s problem, and Pakistan must approach the issue in a way that ensures an early return of peace.

Intelligence doctored — again

THE report in the US press that an intelligence document about Pakistan was altered to suit the Bush administration’s policy towards Pakistan should surprise no one. As reported in the Washington Post, the intelligence report submitted last month to President George Bush was altered to prove that Islamabad’s deal with the militants had enabled the Al Qaeda to establish a ‘safe haven’ in the tribal area. According to the Post, the deliberate change completely altered the complexion of the intelligence estimate. This had the desired effect and forced President Pervez Musharraf to launch a military operation against the militants. As the paper put it, the report “sparked outrage in Islamabad but helped yield the result that US officials sought”. Islamabad was also double-crossed, for Pakistan had asked US officials not to speak of any safe haven for Al Qaeda in the report. Washington assured Pakistan that the report would be carefully worded, but in its final form it contained the words “safe haven”.

The fake entry in the intelligence document should shock no one, for this is not the first time that an intelligence dossier has been doctored to advance policy aims. The very basis of the war launched on Iraq in 2003 — that Baghdad had weapons of mass destruction — was false. But to dupe their own peoples and the world at large, American and British governments mutilated the data on Iraq, including the ‘45-minute warning time’ inserted in the British dossier. While the American intelligence community acted in the perceived interests of their country, it is a pity that our own government should have launched a military operation on the basis of a falsified report from a foreign country. The truth reported by the Post gives some signals to Pakistan, the foremost being that it must not launch or call off military operations against the terrorists at foreigners’ bidding, and that in all actions in the war on terror Pakistan must see and evaluate things from its own perspective. No disrespect is meant for satellite imagery and electronic gadgetry, but human intelligence counts for more than technical intelligence. It is important for Pakistan to rely on its own human intelligence.

Attack on polio team

AS we had feared, the nationwide polio vaccination campaign hit its first snag on Tuesday in the tribal areas when a health team was beaten up by armed men in Bajaur. As a result of this incident, the polio campaign has been suspended in the agency until further notice. This is exactly what those opposed to the polio vaccine want but authorities must not cave in. Campaigns against the polio vaccine in the past few years have caused a lot of damage in the NWFP and tribal areas where a rise in polio cases has been reported and tens of thousands of parents have refused to have their children inoculated. Opponents have used illegally set up radio stations and mosque loudspeakers to convince people that the vaccine is a western conspiracy aimed at reducing the Muslim population. Unfortunately the government’s awareness campaign has not turned people against the vitriol being spewed by illiterate clerics. It needs to reach out to the people and make them aware of the fatwas, signed by prominent religious scholars including Maulana Fazlur Rahman, who say that the vaccine is not un-Islamic. The government also needs to arrest irresponsible elements who threaten people’s lives with their blind prejudice.

It is understandable that the campaign had to be suspended for security reasons but they did this last month and cannot keep suspending campaigns, especially if cases of polio are being reported. Security threats are real — a doctor was killed in February while on his way to Bajaur to raise awareness on the polio vaccine — but need to be countered. It is important that those involved in this campaign are given protection but on no account should the campaign be called off. Doing so will be seen as a sign of weakness on the part of the government.

Grand jirga — view from Kabul

WITH the much-awaited grand peace jirga between the estranged neighbours Afghanistan and Pakistan due to begin today, organisers of the event are optimistic but the overall mood in Kabul is largely downbeat.

A spike in violence on both sides of the frontier has cast a shadow on the jirga’s maiden session, officially touted as a giant stride towards realising the shared aspirations of peace and security, cordial bilateral relations and enhanced people-to-people contact.

Apologists for the dispute-resolution mechanism hail it as the best hope for building bridges between the two South Asian countries. Profound distrust at the political level notwithstanding, they insist the two sides can still make common cause in jointly battling the forces of obscurantism and militancy.

“Jaw-jaw is better than war-war” is the thrust of their argument for a negotiated settlement of problems such as cross-border incursions into Afghanistan by Taliban insurgents and their collaborators in Pakistan's troubled tribal region — lying cheek by jowl with the Durand Line border which has also constituted a long-simmering row between the neighbours. However, this and other divisive subjects like the Pakhtunistan question have been excised from the agenda.

Proponents are in no mood to buy the suggestion that the social and political landscape has shifted against this “half-hearted fence-mending initiative” — taken under duress from a superpower — in the wake of an on-going wave of lawlessness in Pakistan’s tribal areas and the abduction of South Koreans by Taliban militants in Ghazni province.

They say that the representatives from the two countries will have to sit across the negotiating table to fashion a workable strategy to achieve measurable progress in their combined drive against extremists.

Safe in the knowledge that Washington continues with the stick policy towards Islamabad and the carrot approach with Kabul, top-ranking government functionaries in Kabul view the gathering as a godsend opportunity to impress upon the Pakistani delegates that cross-border abetment is keeping the insurgency pot boiling in Afghanistan.

On the face of it, this feeling of dominance in the Afghan camp essentially stems from a two-day Camp David summit between Karzai and Bush. The impression in Kabul is that the reaffirmation of stout support from Bush has given his Afghan counterpart, beset by a whole host of security woes on the domestic front, a boost at a time when the US administration is threatening direct strikes on Taliban and Al Qaeda safe havens in Fata.

“Turning the heat on the other side is our overarching game plan for the assembly, which may help reinforce our position that homegrown terrorists don’t have the strength and resources to prop up their uprising in a country with a sizeable foreign military presence,” said one government official familiar with Kabul’s meticulous homework for the meet.

Chary of what is widely characterised as the “consistently negative role of Pakistan’s premier intelligence service in Afghanistan,” Afghan officialdom has repeatedly hinted during orientation sessions for prospective participants at the possible inclusion of ISI agents in the visiting team.

At the same time, the authorities in Kabul suspect that well-heeled movers and shakers in Islamabad may have lined the pockets of some Afghan negotiators and hence the need for keeping a watchful eye on “those sticking with the old culture of venality.”

Insiders reveal the hosts are apprehensive for a variety of reasons, but still hugely interested in making the regional peace jirga a success to silence their critics. Interpreters hired for the occasion acknowledge they have been instructed either to expunge or moderate provocative remarks to keep the atmosphere from being vitiated.

According to one interpreter, there are instructions to edit out anti-Afghanistan comments to foreclose the possibility of harsh exchanges. She thinks that the plan is geared towards maintaining a show of cordiality during the deliberations involving more than 700 people.

On both sides of the divide, pessimism about the outcome of the so-called peace offensive runs deep. As in Afghanistan, rightwing politicians and independent-minded tribal elders in Pakistan don’t take kindly to the move mainly for what they call a lack of consensus. Analysts say divisions, substantive or otherwise, will chip away at the legitimacy of the parleys.

Afghan parliamentarian Ramazan Bashar Dost, known for his blistering attacks on the president, has argued that since delegations from both sides have been stacked with “loyal mediocrities”, the forum will be devoid of all logic and rationale. “Men whose hands are stained with blood have no justification whatsoever either to be exalted as public representatives or tasked with handling knotty problems that could not be tackled by the state itself.”

He pointed out that just like Pakistan, Iran and Russia are also allegedly contributing in no small measure to growing anarchy in the South Asian country. He said this with reference to accusations from US and Afghan officials that Tehran was shipping weapons to the Taliban and Moscow trading on insecurity to jockey for influence in the conflict-torn country. If the overriding security concern is to be adequately addressed, he asked, why were Iran and Russia being left out of the loop. For him, the tribal council stands no chance of getting a grip on the long-persisting poser that security is.But parliamentary affairs ministry spokesman Muhammad Asif Nang poured scorn on Dost’s bleak prediction, and said that the success or failure of the project could be accurately determined at the end of the proceedings. According to him, Kabul was aiming at “cent per cent success, but even 20 per cent of it would be more than satisfactory.”

Another official at the ministry said that although the jirga may not fare as well as anticipated, “the mere coming together of so many people of goodwill in an effort to overcome a lingering trust deficit is in itself a towering achievement.” According to him, the cynics “never tire of talking down government-sponsored peace plans but dawdle when asked to suggest better alternatives or lend their weight to endeavours backed by the masses.”

Meanwhile, the Taliban leadership council rejects the jirga as a step imposed by Bush on his “willing poodles” in the region — they are themselves part of the problem and thus unlikely to provide a remedy. In their view, people from Afghanistan and Pakistan should stay away from the jirga, as they will be denied the right to vent their views openly.

Parliamentary Affairs Minister Dr Farooq Wardak, also head of the Regional Peace Jirga Secretariat, parried the query if the Taliban could attend the meeting. The man behind the show replied in ambiguous terms: the Taliban being an Afghan group had the right to endorse or oppose government policies. He was certain that the meeting would be instrumental in bringing the two nations closer and defusing tensions between them. Improved bilateral relations, factors fuelling terrorism and militancy, evolving a bilateral mechanism to jointly fight the scourge, denying sanctuary to militants, cooperation in curbing poppy cultivation and promoting confidence-building measures (CBMs) are the main topics for discussion.

Conversely, the main opposition alliance, the Afghanistan National Front (ANF), spokesman Mustafa Kazmi took a dim view of the exercise. Citing serious differences between the neighbours, he said that he was not optimistic that the jirga would measure up to national expectations and that Afghanistan was unlikely to gain tangible benefits from it.

In Pakistan, Interior Minister Aftab Ahmad Khan Sherpao accused a firebrand pro-Taliban leader of opposing the upcoming council of elders. Opposition leader in parliament and MMA secretary-general Maulana Fazlur Rehman and other members of the amalgam had been invited to attend the forum, he said, but they declined to play ball.

Sherpao excoriated Fazlur Rehman for issuing high-sounding but empty statements with regard to support for Afghans and their prosperity. The maulana and his associates may play a role in bringing peace to the neighbouring country by taking part in the important gathering, he said, but deplored the negative response from MMA leaders. Concerned over deadly clashes in Waziristan, 10 tribal legislators also boycotted the jirga.

Approached for comments, Maulana Fazlur Rehman reacted angrily to the allegation levelled against him, observing that it was an open secret as to who desired peace in Afghanistan and who instigated miscreants in that country. “We have always backed, and will continue to back, efforts for peace in Afghanistan,” said the maulana, who opined that Afghans alone should have been invited to the jirga to resolve their problems. He added that the Taliban’s involvement in any peace bid was necessary but that they had been excluded from the process.

The MMA leader assailed Gen Musharraf for the Afghan conflict spilling over into the tribal region of Pakistan asking how an incompetent Pakistani government that had failed to calm increasing unrest in Waziristan and other tribal areas restore peace to Afghanistan.

Scheduled to get under way today at the Russian-built Polytechnic University near the picturesque Inter-Continental Hotel perched atop a green hillock, the Regional Peace Jirga will commence with speeches from Presidents Hamid Karzai and Pervez Musharraf. Intended to set the tone for the meeting, the presidential addresses will be followed by speeches from seven participants on day one when the General Assembly (GA) convenes for the first time ahead of meetings on the following days.

In accordance with a tentative schedule released by the Joint Peace Jirga Secretariat, seven working committees (WCs), each one headed by two elected chairpersons and comprising 100 delegates from both sides, will convene for one day.