Fighting terror with one hand

Published November 12, 2015
The writer is a member of staff.
The writer is a member of staff.

The army is right to be concerned about the gaps in Pakistan’s fight against terror because these gaps are real. It is wrong to pin the entire blame only on the civilian leadership, and even more wrong to do so publicly. Here’s why.

First, the wrong way to fight terror is to try and kill every terrorist. The reason is simple: they breed faster than any army can kill them, and if the pursuit of terrorists is going to be only through violent means, then the pursuit itself will breed more militants for each one killed. Violence will, unfortunately, be an important component of this fight, but for it to be effective and for its effects to bring a lasting peace, violence must be supplemented with other elements of state power, such as delegitimising the militants’ narrative and shutting down their sources of funding and access to material they need to wage their campaign.

How far is a civilian government really empowered to undertake these two actions? Take as an example the little episode that happened in the very early days of the implementation of NAP, when the federal government tried to issue an updated list of banned organisations within the country.

For a brief while, the updated list hung on the website of Nacta, the main counterterrorism coordination body, and contained the names of those organisations banned under UN Security Council Resolution 1267. Then, days later, the list was removed. For a short period, contradictory statements emerged from top-level government ministers, like the defence minister, saying a new list would be uploaded shortly. When that new list appeared, some of the organisations on the first list were moved into a separate category instead, defining them as being on a watch list instead of being banned.


It is important for civilian authorities to know who they are allowed to designate as a terrorist and who they are not.


More recently, we had a Pemra directive given to TV channels saying they should not give air time to two organisations mentioned on the list. But they were not encumbered from carrying on relief activities. What is one to make of this? That only airtime should not be given but otherwise the organisations are free to run their affairs in the country?

In the matter of pursuing terror financing, things remains equally confusing. For example, the Rangers in Karachi have been given extraordinary powers to be a part of NAP implementation. Amongst these powers is a law known as Section 11EEEE, which empowers them to detain anyone suspected of involvement in terror activities or organised crime, or suspected of arranging funds and other facilitation for terrorist entities and organised crime.

These powers have been used very aggressively by the Rangers, and the results are there to see. The city is calmer and safer today than it has been in almost a decade. But how long can it last? Just ask three questions: how many people have been apprehended through the exercise of these powers? How many of them have been charged with a crime and prosecuted? How many convictions have been obtained?

It is instructive to note that the single most aggressive and vigorous exercise of these powers has been in the case of Dr Asim Hussain, a former minister better known for his links to politics than for any links to terrorism. Why are powers designed to apprehend terrorists suddenly being used to the hilt to detain and investigate a former political figure?

In the past, when I’ve raised these questions in public, it has been my experience that people get very worked up about politicians and corruption, saying things like ‘corrupt politicians should be pursued and eliminated just like terrorists’ or that ‘corrupt politicians are the reason why there is terrorism’.

As far as emotional hype goes this is fine. But when it comes to fighting the menace of terrorism, it is important for civilian authorities to know who they are allowed to designate as a terrorist and who they are not. Equally important for them is to know the grounds on the basis of which such a distinction is to be made. Only then can laws be framed and law enforcement empowered to track down those who murder our children in schools.

Likewise, it is important for civilian authorities to know when they can rely on and seek international support for their actions, under various UN treaties that allow for the tracking of cross-border movement of funds for instance, and when it isn’t.

We can ratify certain UN treaties, for instance, like the United Nations Convention Against Transnational Organised Crime, but not bilateral agreements that allow our financial monitoring authorities to seek cooperation from their counterparts in other countries to unravel the movement of funds belonging to parties connected with militancy and organised crime.

Just take a look at what is happening with the cybercrime bill. One of the people involved with the stakeholders’ draft of that bill, which was replaced with another version, tells me quite plainly that the new version seems more “designed to open up a safe haven for criminals and terrorists to operate in our country than a cybercrime law”.

The person is Zahid Jamil, a prominent Karachi-based lawyer, who is very clear that one of the effects of the type of drafting behind the new version of the bill that is currently before parliament is to decriminalise certain terrorist actions. The bill is more a means of blocking and filtering speech and public opinion than of providing the modern powers required for investigating and prosecuting cybercrime, while weakening the circumstances in which the online activity of militants and glorification of terrorism is criminalised.

We cannot fight terrorism with a wink and nod. Delegitimising the terrorist narrative means more than just banning the coverage of a few groups who are involved in relief work. Apprehending terrorists must not be confused with other, more political priorities either. Nor should it be an effort driven by emotional hype. Without further clarity on who and what exactly it is we are fighting, we cannot bring this fight to an honourable conclusion.

The writer is a member of staff.

khurram.husain@gmail.com

Twitter: @khurramhusain

Published in Dawn, November 12th, 2015

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