PRESIDENT Mamnoon Hussain has been a mostly silent, often underwhelming, president so far. Yet, when it comes to the Pak-China relationship, the ceremonial Pakistani president had an unusually public and political message for his more powerful Chinese counterpart, Xi Jinping.

President Hussain is reported to have said that most East Turkestan Independence Movement militants — ethnic Uighur Muslims fighting the Chinese state — have been evicted from Pakistan following Operation Zarb-i-Azb.

Take a look: Pakistan says "almost all" Uighur militants eliminated

He added that Pakistan is committed to ensuring the safety and security of Chinese nationals working on various projects here.

The public comments are a measure of how eager the Pakistani state is to assure the Chinese that everything possible is being done to address their security concerns — China does not even officially acknowledge the existence of the separatist movement and the state media made no reference to Mr Hussain’s comments.

While the claims are quite possibly true, they do not necessarily reflect a longer-term reality. Since 9/11, the Pakistani state has periodically attempted to evict foreign militants from its soil. Be it through the much-lamented peace deals with so-called pro-state militants, counterterrorism operations in urban areas or direct military operations, the space for Arabs, Uzbeks, Chechens, Uighurs and militants of sundry other nationalities has progressively shrunk. Since Zarb-i-Azb in particular, the physical space available to foreign, non-Afghan elements has been virtually eliminated. But it is also the case that many are believed to have escaped to Afghanistan — and the correlation between an increased outside militant presence in Afghanistan and violence in, say, the northern parts of the country has not gone unnoticed. What that means then is that while it is possible to dislodge militants from one area or region, it is far more difficult to eliminate them or put an end to their activities altogether. So long as the Pak-Afghan border remains porous, a return to Pakistan of foreign militants cannot be discounted. Particularly in the case of Uighur militants, the lure to return to Pakistan, just as the state tries to ramp up economic linkages with the Xinjiang region, will be strong. Success today should not translate into complacency tomorrow.

There is another aspect to what President Hussain said in Beijing: while he may have conveyed good news, will there ever be a reckoning inside Pakistan of how the problem of foreign militants was allowed to grow to such an extent to begin with? Who were the architects of a security policy that allowed Fata to become an international hub of militancy? Who were the individuals responsible for letting foreign militants wage war against Pakistan and its neighbouring countries? Without accountability, without honestly facing the past, there is rarely irreversible policy change. What the country needs to collectively pledge is that never again will it allow the mistakes of the past to be repeated. But first, those mistakes must be publicly acknowledged.

Published in Dawn, September 4th, 2015

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