B.RAMAN
After having won an impressive victory over Gen.Sarath Fonseka, his former Army chief, in the prematurely called Presidential elections on January 26,2010, President Mahinda Rajapaksa has got the Parliament dissolved before it had completed its term so that fresh elections to a new House could be held. The new elections are scheduled to be held on April 8,2010.
2. It seems to be his hope and calculation that his party and others supporting him would win an equally impressive victory in the elections to the Parliament by taking advantage of the confusion prevailing in the ranks of the opposition after the defeat of Fonseka in the Presidential elections.If his hopes are realised, this will enable him to undertake a programme for finding a solution to the grievances of the Tamils and putting Sri Lanka back on the road to economic recovery.
3. Mr.Rajapaksa was within his rights in calling for premature parliamentary elections and nobody could have objected to his action. What is, however, highly objectionable is the manner in which the President and his two brothers----Mr.Gothbaya Rajapaksa and Mr.Basil Rajapaksa---- have been trying to humiliate Gen.Fonseka and intimidate his supporters apparently in order to ensure that the votes, which Fonseka got in the Presidential elections, do not get translated into votes against Mr.Rajapaksa's party and its electoral allies.
4. A campaign of intimidation and vendetta was started against Fonseka and his supporters after the Presidential elections.Over a dozen officers of the Armed Forces----three of them Majors-General---- have been sacked on national security grounds without specifying the reasons in detail. They were apparently suspected of being loyal to Fonseka and not to the President.
5. The purge of Fonseka's supporters in the Armed Forces was followed by the arrest of Fonseka himself in an undignified manner despite the fact that he was the chief of the Army and had displayed commendable leadership qualities in having the LTTE crushed. Fonseka himself once narrowly escaped being killed by the LTTE. This showed how the LTTE considered his elimination important for achieving its objective.
6. While many people-----including the President himself and his two brothers-----played an important role in the elimination of the LTTE, the role of Fonseka and his come-back after almost having been killed by the LTTE fired the imagination of the officers and other ranks in the Armed Forces and made them fight as a team with determination against the LTTE. When the history of the victory over the LTTE is written, Fonseka's generalship would stand out in any account.
7.In its long history. the Sri Lankan army had not produced many heroes to whom the soldiers can look up to for inspiration. Fonseka was an exception as a professional soldier.Apparently blinded by political ambition after the victory over the LTTE, Fonseka conducted himself in an erratic and irresponsible manner and tried to play down the role of the President and his brothers and others in the victory.
8. His over-sized pride in himself and in his role and the bad advice which he received from those around him made him cross the limits of decency and loyalty and make wild allegations against the President and Mr.Gothbaya, who, as the Defence Secretary, co-ordinated the operations against the LTTE.
9. Mr.Rajapaksa had valid reasons to be angry against the General, but he has allowed the anger to get the better of him. His post-election actions against the General---including the circumstances of his arrest in an undignified manner not under the ordinary laws of the land, but under the special laws governing the Armed Forces and his plans to have him court-martialed under charges relating to violations of national security when he was a serving General have given rise to suspicions of a vendetta against the General for having dared to criticise the President and his brothers and for letting himself be used by the opposition in an attempt to have Mr.Rajapaksa defeated in the Presidential elections for a second term.
10. One could also discern an attempt by Mr.Rajapaksa and his brothers to make it difficult for Fonseka to influence the forthcoming Parliamentary elections by keeping him in detention fighting cases started against him by the Government.Mr.Rajapaksa does not seem to realise that his actions could not only create public revulsion for his style of functioning, but could also sow the seeds for the politicisation of the Sri Lankan Army and make it go down the way of the Armies of Pakistan and Bangladesh.
11. The political leaders of Pakistan and Bangladesh cannot escape their share of responsibility for politicising their armed forces and facilitating the military dominance of the political life of their countries by actions which were exploited by the Army to project the political class in a bad light.
12. If democracy has till now survived and flourished in Sri Lanka, an important contributing factor was the wisdom shown by the predecessors of Mr.Rajapaksa in maintaining the professionalism of the Army and keeping it politically neutral.By deviating from the path of wisdom followed by his predecessors and by conducting himself in the manner he has been doing due largely to sheer spite, Mr.Rajapaksa has already broken the healthy traditions which had won Sri Lanka the respect of the international community.
13. If Mr.Rajapaksa does not pull himself back and refrain from such vindictive actions, there is a danger of Sri Lanka meeting the fate of Pakistan and Bangladesh due to the unswise actions of Mr.Rajapaksa and his brothers.
( 11-2-10)
( The writer is Additional Secretary (retd), Cabinet Secretariat, Govt. of India, New Delhi, and, presently, Director, Institute For Topical Studies, Chennai. E-mail: seventyone2@gmail.com )
Thursday, February 11, 2010
Wednesday, February 10, 2010
ATTACKS ON NATO SUPPLIES IN KARACHI AREA
INTERNATIONAL TERRORISM MONITOR--PAPER NO.616
B.RAMAN
As US and UK troops get ready for a new offensive against the Afghan Taliban in the Helmand area of Afghanistan, suspected elements from the Tehrilk-e-Taliban Pakistan (TTP) have attacked supplies meant for the NATO as they were being moved from Karachi after being unloaded from ships which had brought them to Karachi.
2. At least two incidents have been reported by the "Daily Times" of Lahore. In the first incident, which took place on January 29,2010, a convoy of trucks carrying supplies for the NATO forces in Afghanistan from the Karachi port was attacked by unidentified elements as the convoy was leaving the city through the Northern Bypass. In another incident reported on February 10,2010, a group of 18 armed men attacked and hijacked a convoy carrying logistic supplies to the NATO forces in the same area. The same paper has reported that unidentified elements tried unsuccessfully to attack the office of the Karachi Port Trust, but were beaten back by the security guards in the building. It has not given the date of the attack.
3. These attacks have come in the wake of reports that terrorists of the TTP, who were previously active in the Swat Valley and South Waziristan, have moved into Karachi and are trying to step up attacks on port establishments, logistics convoys and ships bringing supplies to Karachi.A 2000 USS Cole type attempt on a US ship visiting Karachi is a growing possibility.
4. In the meanwhile, localised elements associated with the ideology of the TTP, but not forming part of the TTP mainstream, have stepped up their attacks on the Pakistani security forces in the tribal belt. A suicide bomber rammed an explosives-laden car into a khasadar (tribal police)patrol vehicle on February 10 in the Jamrud tehsil of Khyber Agency, killing 17 people, including 11 khasadar personnel. The incident took place on the Pak-Afghan highway.A Brigadier was killed and a Colonel and a Lieutenant were injured after suspected Taliban elements in Khyber Agency’s Tirah Valley attacked a rescue team sent to the scene of a crashed Cobra helicopter on February 10. Two occupants of the helicopter, including its pilot, were killed. No explanation has been forthcoming as to why a Brigadier was sent on the rescue mission.
5.According to an account published by the "News", two gunship helicopters were sent to the Tirah Valley, a remote and forested mountainous area of the Khyber Agency, to bomb hide-outs of militants belonging to the Lashkar-e-Islam led by Mangal Bagh. The militants managed to shoot down one of them. Two more helicopters were sent on a rescue mission. As the helicopters touched down, its occupants were attacked on the ground. (11-2-10)
( The writer is Additional Secretary (retd), Cabinet Secretariat, Govt. of India, New Delhi, and, presently, Director, Institute For Topical Studies, Chennai. E-mail: seventyone2@gmail.com )
B.RAMAN
As US and UK troops get ready for a new offensive against the Afghan Taliban in the Helmand area of Afghanistan, suspected elements from the Tehrilk-e-Taliban Pakistan (TTP) have attacked supplies meant for the NATO as they were being moved from Karachi after being unloaded from ships which had brought them to Karachi.
2. At least two incidents have been reported by the "Daily Times" of Lahore. In the first incident, which took place on January 29,2010, a convoy of trucks carrying supplies for the NATO forces in Afghanistan from the Karachi port was attacked by unidentified elements as the convoy was leaving the city through the Northern Bypass. In another incident reported on February 10,2010, a group of 18 armed men attacked and hijacked a convoy carrying logistic supplies to the NATO forces in the same area. The same paper has reported that unidentified elements tried unsuccessfully to attack the office of the Karachi Port Trust, but were beaten back by the security guards in the building. It has not given the date of the attack.
3. These attacks have come in the wake of reports that terrorists of the TTP, who were previously active in the Swat Valley and South Waziristan, have moved into Karachi and are trying to step up attacks on port establishments, logistics convoys and ships bringing supplies to Karachi.A 2000 USS Cole type attempt on a US ship visiting Karachi is a growing possibility.
4. In the meanwhile, localised elements associated with the ideology of the TTP, but not forming part of the TTP mainstream, have stepped up their attacks on the Pakistani security forces in the tribal belt. A suicide bomber rammed an explosives-laden car into a khasadar (tribal police)patrol vehicle on February 10 in the Jamrud tehsil of Khyber Agency, killing 17 people, including 11 khasadar personnel. The incident took place on the Pak-Afghan highway.A Brigadier was killed and a Colonel and a Lieutenant were injured after suspected Taliban elements in Khyber Agency’s Tirah Valley attacked a rescue team sent to the scene of a crashed Cobra helicopter on February 10. Two occupants of the helicopter, including its pilot, were killed. No explanation has been forthcoming as to why a Brigadier was sent on the rescue mission.
5.According to an account published by the "News", two gunship helicopters were sent to the Tirah Valley, a remote and forested mountainous area of the Khyber Agency, to bomb hide-outs of militants belonging to the Lashkar-e-Islam led by Mangal Bagh. The militants managed to shoot down one of them. Two more helicopters were sent on a rescue mission. As the helicopters touched down, its occupants were attacked on the ground. (11-2-10)
( The writer is Additional Secretary (retd), Cabinet Secretariat, Govt. of India, New Delhi, and, presently, Director, Institute For Topical Studies, Chennai. E-mail: seventyone2@gmail.com )
Monday, February 8, 2010
US BEING SUCKED INTO PAKISTAN'S WORLD OF ILLUSIONS
B.RAMAN
The leaders and large sections of the people of Pakistan tend to live in a self-created world of illusions. They have always lived in such a world ever since the birth of the country in 1947.
2. They teach their children in school that civilization was brought to the sub-continent by Islam. They grow up not knowing the history of the sub-continent before the advent of Islam
3.They have always believed that one Muslim is equal to two Hindus. They teach their soldiers that Hindus cannot fight. They believed that their alliance with the US and the US military equipment supplied to them had made them invincible and that India would never be able to defeat them. They invaded Kashmir in 1965 thinking that Kashmir was theirs for the taking.
4. After a few days of fighting they realized that it was not. They realised too that Hindus can fight-----like hell. They found that all the Patton tanks and other modern equipment given to them by the US could not save them from the counter-attacks by the Indian Army. They fled from battle at Khem Karan after abandoning their Pattons.
5. But, they teach their children and soldiers that they won the 1965 war and that they forced India to sue for peace.
6. They looked down with contempt upon the Muslims of the then East Pakistan because most of them were descendents of converts from Hinduism. They convinced themselves that like the Hindus, the Bengali Muslims cannot fight.
7.They treated them like second class citizens of the country and suppressed them thinking that the Bengalis will not rise against their suppression.
8. They did and threw them out in 1971. The Bengali freedom-fighters and the Indian Army fought hand in hand in putting an end to the colonization of East Pakistan. Bangladesh was born. Over 90000 of the officers and soldiers of the Pakistan Army surrendered without a fight when the Indian Army and the Bengali freedom-fighters entered Dhaka. Zulfiquar Ali Bhutto came crawling to Shimla to get them released.
9. They teach their children and soldiers that through his clever diplomacy Bhutto forced Indira Gandhi to release the prisoners of war.
10. When Gen.Zia-ul-Haq overthrew Bhutto in 1977 and assumed power, many of their political leaders appealed frantically to the leaders of India and Afghanistan to help them escape from the country. If the authorities of India and Afghanistan had not helped them to escape to Europe, they would have landed in the gallows as Bhutto did.
11. When they returned to Pakistan from political exile after the death of Zia in 1988, they projected themselves as national heroes, who had hoodwinked the Army, gone into political exile and kept up the fight against the Army and for the return of democracy. They never spoke a word about the help rendered by India and Afghanistan. If India and Afghanistan had not helped, many of the political leaders of Pakistan may not be alive today.
12. In 1989, the very same political leaders who owed their survival to India colluded with their Army in sending a large number of terrorists trained by the Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI) into J&K. They thought that Kashmir was ripe for picking. Twenty-one years later, they are nowhere near the realization of their illusory dreams.
13.In 1994, they created the Taliban and helped it to capture Kabul in September 1996It occupied large parts of Afghanistan with the help of the ISI and the Pakistan Army. The Pakistanis thought that was the end of the Indian influence in Afghanistan. They realized with a shock that it was not. Secular elements in Afghanistan, helped by India, Iran and Russia, hit back at the Taliban and its ISI patrons and facilitated the liberation of Afghanistan from the Taliban rule post-9/11There was an anti-Pakistan uprising in Kabul and many Pakistanis, who were working for the Taliban in Kabul, were hunted down, caught, killed and their dead bodies thrown into the gutters of Kabul by the local population.
14.In 1999, the Pakistan Army under Gen.Pervez Musharraf occupied Indian territory in the Kargil Heights by taking advantage of the withdrawal of the Indian Army posts during winter. They had wild dreams of “liberating” the Siachen Glacier and the Kargil area of J&K. The Indian Army hit back and inflicted heavy casualties on the Pakistan Army. The US insisted that the Pakistan Army should withdraw from the territory occupied by it. Musharraf and after him, Mr.Nawaz Sharif, the then Prime Minister, flew to Beijing and sought China’s support for their occupation. To their shock, China refused to support them. M.Nawaz Sharif flew to Washington DC to plead with the US for a face-saving formula so that they can withdraw without humiliation. The US declined to provide any. They were forced to withdraw unconditionally. They projected their Kargil humiliation to their people and soldiers as a great military victory by awarding a large number of gallantry medals to each other.
15. After the attack on the Indian Parliament in December,2001, India mobilized its troops and moved them to the border. Unnerved by the threat of war, Musharraf banned the terrorist organizations operating against India, closed their offices and arrested their leaders. When India withdrew the troops from the border, Musharraf claimed it as a great victory for Pakistan. “We forced India to blink,” he said. He removed all the ban orders and allowed the terrorists to operate again against India.
16. After the raid by the Pakistan Army Commandoes in the Lal Masjid of Islamabad in July, 2007, the Tehrik-e-Taliban Pakistan (TTP) went on the offensive against the Pakistani Armed Forces, the ISI and the Police. Suicide acts of terrorism, commando style attacks and other kinds of attacks were reported not only from the tribal areas, but also from non-tribal areas, including Islamabad, the capital, Rawalpindi, where the General Headquarters of the Army are located, Lahore, Sargodha, Peshawar, Kohat and even Pakistan-Occupied Kashmir. The TTP even raided the GHQ and occupied it for some hours----- the only instance in the history of terrorism anywhere in the world where a terrorist group had occupied the headquarters of the Army----even it be for a few hours. The TTP also attacked the offices of the ISI and the Federal Investigation Agency (FIA) in the capital, Rawalpindi, Lahore and Peshawar.
17. Unable to cope with the TTP offensive, they quietly allowed the USA’s Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) to hunt for the TTP leaders through its Drone (unmanned) planes. They allowed US ground forces personnel to operate in different areas under the cover of employees of Blackwater, a US security company, which works in close co-ordination with the CIA.
18. The Pakistani leaders, who are adept in charades, enacted one more and continue to enact it. They pretended to be opposed to the Drone strikes and the operation of Blackwater in Pakistani territory. They called in public for their stoppage, but allowed the US in private to continue with them.
19. The TTP allegedly assassinated Mrs.Benazir Bhutto in Rawalpindi on December 27,2007. They did not have the courage to investigate it lest the TTP target President Asif Ali Zardari and Prime Minister Yousef Raza Gilani. They were also worried that a thorough investigation might expose the involvement of some army officers in the assassination. They ordered the Police not to investigate and asked the UN to take over the responsibility for the investigation. More than two years after her assassination, the Pakistani people do not know who killed her. There has been no prosecution.
20. They found themselves unable to counter the Baloch freedom struggle, which continues to pick up momentum. They were embarrassed by the repeated successes of the Baloch freedom-fighters. Instead of addressing the grievances of the Baloch people, they accused India of helping the freedom-fighters. Before the elections of 2008, they had promised the Baloch people that they would investigate and prosecute the officers of the security forces who were responsible for the murder of Nawab Akbar Khan Bugti, the legendary Baloch leader. They have not carried out their promise after coming to power. The security forces continue to kill more and more Baloch freedom activists. Balochistan today resembles East Pakistan in 1970 before the birth of Bangladesh.
21.They were unable to protect the Shias, who constitute about 20 per cent of the population. Sunni extremists continue to kill Shias in their hundreds all over Pakistan. They imposed an iron curtain in the Kurram Agency of the Federally-Administered Tribal Areas (FATA), which has been the scene of anti-Shia violence for over two years now. The Shias allege that a genocide of the Shias has been going on in Kurram without the world knowing about it. The Army has no time or inclination to protect the Shias.
22. When the George Bush Administration asked its famous question “are you with us or against us” after 9/11, Musharraf lost his nerve and did whatever the US wanted him to do. He placed the bases of the Pakistan Air Force in Balochistan at the disposal of the US for use against the Taliban and Al Qaeda. He rounded up a number of Pakistani citizens, including two retired nuclear scientists, and handed them over to the US agencies for interrogation in return for cash payment. Musharraf had mentioned in the first edition of his book as to how the CIA was paying for every person handed over by the ISI to the US agencies. When his admission caused embarrassment to the CIA he deleted this admission from the subsequent editions. His troubles with Chief Justice Iftikhar Mohammad Chaudhury, which ultimately led to his humiliating exit from power, started when the Chief Justice began looking into the cases of a large number of missing persons, who had been allegedly rounded up by the ISI and “sold” to the CIA for money. A large number of innocent Pakistanis and Arabs were branded by the ISI as Al Qaeda suspects and thus “sold” to the CIA. Musharraf allowed the US intelligence agencies to operate all over Pakistan in search of Al Qaeda leaders.
23. At the same time, he quietly allowed the Afghan Taliban leadership to set up its rear base in the Quetta area of Balochistan and Osama bin Laden, Ayman Al-Zawahiri and other operatives of Al Qaeda to operate from the North Waziristan area of FATA. When the Bush Administration got preoccupied with Iraq from 2003 and diverted its attention from Afghanistan, the Pakistan army took advantage of it for relaxing its supposed hunt for Al Qaeda and for retraining the Afghan Taliban and helping it to re-launch its offensive in Afghanistan.
24. Till 9/11, all major terrorist acts in different parts of the world by Al Qaeda and its associates were planned and orchestrated from Afghan territory under the control of the Afghan Taliban. Since 9/11, all such acts are being planned and orchestrated from Pakistani territory in the FATA. Every terrorist act unearthed in the UK has had a Pakistani hand in it. The planned terrorist strike in Copenhagen by the LET’s Chicago cell and the 313 Brigade of Ilyas Kashmiri was being orchestrated from Pakistan before the FBI got scent of it and quashed it. The brutal murder of seven CIA officers and an officer of the Jordanian intelligence in Afghan territory was carried out by the TTP from Pakistani territory. The planned terrorist strikes in Germany by associates of the Islamic Jihad Union were being orchestrated from the FATA. The terrorist attacks in China’s Xinjiang province before the Beijing Olympics of August 2008, including an abortive attempt to blow up a plane, were orchestrated from the FATA. Acts of terrorism in Uzbekistan and in the Chechnya and Dagestan areas of Russia are planned and guided from the FATA. Even Teheran alleges that the acts of terrorism in its territory by the so-called Jundullah are being carried out from Pakistani territory in Balochistan.
25. Before 9/11, only India was the victim of acts of terrorism mounted from Pakistani territory. After 9/11, the whole world has become the target of Pakistan-based terrorists. The world’s attention is on Pakistan because it has become the GHQ of global jihadi terrorism. But the Pakistani political and military leaders live in such an unbelievable world of illusions that they have convinced themselves and they are trying to convince their people that the world’s attention is on Pakistan because of its geopolitical importance and its successful diplomacy.
26.Peshawar is bleeding. Karachi is bleeding. Balochistan is bleeding. The FATA is out of control. There is a new Great Game on in Pakistani territory with the US intelligence agencies on the one side and Al Qaeda and its associates on the other hunting each other, with the Pakistan Army and the ISI helping both sides in their attempts to kill each other and making money in the process.
27. While playing this treacherous game, the Pakistani leaders have the cheek to project themselves to their own people and to the rest of the world as playing an important role in bringing about peace in Afghanistan. They are unable to bring about peace in their own country. They are patting themselves thinking that they are going to help the NATO forces in bringing about peace in Afghanistan.
28. Pakistan’s penchant to live in a self-created world of illusions is known to us. We are not surprised. But we are surprised by the inability of the US and the rest of the world to see through the games which Pakistani political and military leaders have always played. They are letting themselves be sucked into Pakistan’s world of illusions. ( 9-2-10)
( The writer is Additional Secretary (retd), Cabinet Secretariat, Govt. of India, New Delhi, and, presently, Director, Institute For Topical Studies, Chennai. E-mail: seventyone2@gmail.com )
The leaders and large sections of the people of Pakistan tend to live in a self-created world of illusions. They have always lived in such a world ever since the birth of the country in 1947.
2. They teach their children in school that civilization was brought to the sub-continent by Islam. They grow up not knowing the history of the sub-continent before the advent of Islam
3.They have always believed that one Muslim is equal to two Hindus. They teach their soldiers that Hindus cannot fight. They believed that their alliance with the US and the US military equipment supplied to them had made them invincible and that India would never be able to defeat them. They invaded Kashmir in 1965 thinking that Kashmir was theirs for the taking.
4. After a few days of fighting they realized that it was not. They realised too that Hindus can fight-----like hell. They found that all the Patton tanks and other modern equipment given to them by the US could not save them from the counter-attacks by the Indian Army. They fled from battle at Khem Karan after abandoning their Pattons.
5. But, they teach their children and soldiers that they won the 1965 war and that they forced India to sue for peace.
6. They looked down with contempt upon the Muslims of the then East Pakistan because most of them were descendents of converts from Hinduism. They convinced themselves that like the Hindus, the Bengali Muslims cannot fight.
7.They treated them like second class citizens of the country and suppressed them thinking that the Bengalis will not rise against their suppression.
8. They did and threw them out in 1971. The Bengali freedom-fighters and the Indian Army fought hand in hand in putting an end to the colonization of East Pakistan. Bangladesh was born. Over 90000 of the officers and soldiers of the Pakistan Army surrendered without a fight when the Indian Army and the Bengali freedom-fighters entered Dhaka. Zulfiquar Ali Bhutto came crawling to Shimla to get them released.
9. They teach their children and soldiers that through his clever diplomacy Bhutto forced Indira Gandhi to release the prisoners of war.
10. When Gen.Zia-ul-Haq overthrew Bhutto in 1977 and assumed power, many of their political leaders appealed frantically to the leaders of India and Afghanistan to help them escape from the country. If the authorities of India and Afghanistan had not helped them to escape to Europe, they would have landed in the gallows as Bhutto did.
11. When they returned to Pakistan from political exile after the death of Zia in 1988, they projected themselves as national heroes, who had hoodwinked the Army, gone into political exile and kept up the fight against the Army and for the return of democracy. They never spoke a word about the help rendered by India and Afghanistan. If India and Afghanistan had not helped, many of the political leaders of Pakistan may not be alive today.
12. In 1989, the very same political leaders who owed their survival to India colluded with their Army in sending a large number of terrorists trained by the Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI) into J&K. They thought that Kashmir was ripe for picking. Twenty-one years later, they are nowhere near the realization of their illusory dreams.
13.In 1994, they created the Taliban and helped it to capture Kabul in September 1996It occupied large parts of Afghanistan with the help of the ISI and the Pakistan Army. The Pakistanis thought that was the end of the Indian influence in Afghanistan. They realized with a shock that it was not. Secular elements in Afghanistan, helped by India, Iran and Russia, hit back at the Taliban and its ISI patrons and facilitated the liberation of Afghanistan from the Taliban rule post-9/11There was an anti-Pakistan uprising in Kabul and many Pakistanis, who were working for the Taliban in Kabul, were hunted down, caught, killed and their dead bodies thrown into the gutters of Kabul by the local population.
14.In 1999, the Pakistan Army under Gen.Pervez Musharraf occupied Indian territory in the Kargil Heights by taking advantage of the withdrawal of the Indian Army posts during winter. They had wild dreams of “liberating” the Siachen Glacier and the Kargil area of J&K. The Indian Army hit back and inflicted heavy casualties on the Pakistan Army. The US insisted that the Pakistan Army should withdraw from the territory occupied by it. Musharraf and after him, Mr.Nawaz Sharif, the then Prime Minister, flew to Beijing and sought China’s support for their occupation. To their shock, China refused to support them. M.Nawaz Sharif flew to Washington DC to plead with the US for a face-saving formula so that they can withdraw without humiliation. The US declined to provide any. They were forced to withdraw unconditionally. They projected their Kargil humiliation to their people and soldiers as a great military victory by awarding a large number of gallantry medals to each other.
15. After the attack on the Indian Parliament in December,2001, India mobilized its troops and moved them to the border. Unnerved by the threat of war, Musharraf banned the terrorist organizations operating against India, closed their offices and arrested their leaders. When India withdrew the troops from the border, Musharraf claimed it as a great victory for Pakistan. “We forced India to blink,” he said. He removed all the ban orders and allowed the terrorists to operate again against India.
16. After the raid by the Pakistan Army Commandoes in the Lal Masjid of Islamabad in July, 2007, the Tehrik-e-Taliban Pakistan (TTP) went on the offensive against the Pakistani Armed Forces, the ISI and the Police. Suicide acts of terrorism, commando style attacks and other kinds of attacks were reported not only from the tribal areas, but also from non-tribal areas, including Islamabad, the capital, Rawalpindi, where the General Headquarters of the Army are located, Lahore, Sargodha, Peshawar, Kohat and even Pakistan-Occupied Kashmir. The TTP even raided the GHQ and occupied it for some hours----- the only instance in the history of terrorism anywhere in the world where a terrorist group had occupied the headquarters of the Army----even it be for a few hours. The TTP also attacked the offices of the ISI and the Federal Investigation Agency (FIA) in the capital, Rawalpindi, Lahore and Peshawar.
17. Unable to cope with the TTP offensive, they quietly allowed the USA’s Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) to hunt for the TTP leaders through its Drone (unmanned) planes. They allowed US ground forces personnel to operate in different areas under the cover of employees of Blackwater, a US security company, which works in close co-ordination with the CIA.
18. The Pakistani leaders, who are adept in charades, enacted one more and continue to enact it. They pretended to be opposed to the Drone strikes and the operation of Blackwater in Pakistani territory. They called in public for their stoppage, but allowed the US in private to continue with them.
19. The TTP allegedly assassinated Mrs.Benazir Bhutto in Rawalpindi on December 27,2007. They did not have the courage to investigate it lest the TTP target President Asif Ali Zardari and Prime Minister Yousef Raza Gilani. They were also worried that a thorough investigation might expose the involvement of some army officers in the assassination. They ordered the Police not to investigate and asked the UN to take over the responsibility for the investigation. More than two years after her assassination, the Pakistani people do not know who killed her. There has been no prosecution.
20. They found themselves unable to counter the Baloch freedom struggle, which continues to pick up momentum. They were embarrassed by the repeated successes of the Baloch freedom-fighters. Instead of addressing the grievances of the Baloch people, they accused India of helping the freedom-fighters. Before the elections of 2008, they had promised the Baloch people that they would investigate and prosecute the officers of the security forces who were responsible for the murder of Nawab Akbar Khan Bugti, the legendary Baloch leader. They have not carried out their promise after coming to power. The security forces continue to kill more and more Baloch freedom activists. Balochistan today resembles East Pakistan in 1970 before the birth of Bangladesh.
21.They were unable to protect the Shias, who constitute about 20 per cent of the population. Sunni extremists continue to kill Shias in their hundreds all over Pakistan. They imposed an iron curtain in the Kurram Agency of the Federally-Administered Tribal Areas (FATA), which has been the scene of anti-Shia violence for over two years now. The Shias allege that a genocide of the Shias has been going on in Kurram without the world knowing about it. The Army has no time or inclination to protect the Shias.
22. When the George Bush Administration asked its famous question “are you with us or against us” after 9/11, Musharraf lost his nerve and did whatever the US wanted him to do. He placed the bases of the Pakistan Air Force in Balochistan at the disposal of the US for use against the Taliban and Al Qaeda. He rounded up a number of Pakistani citizens, including two retired nuclear scientists, and handed them over to the US agencies for interrogation in return for cash payment. Musharraf had mentioned in the first edition of his book as to how the CIA was paying for every person handed over by the ISI to the US agencies. When his admission caused embarrassment to the CIA he deleted this admission from the subsequent editions. His troubles with Chief Justice Iftikhar Mohammad Chaudhury, which ultimately led to his humiliating exit from power, started when the Chief Justice began looking into the cases of a large number of missing persons, who had been allegedly rounded up by the ISI and “sold” to the CIA for money. A large number of innocent Pakistanis and Arabs were branded by the ISI as Al Qaeda suspects and thus “sold” to the CIA. Musharraf allowed the US intelligence agencies to operate all over Pakistan in search of Al Qaeda leaders.
23. At the same time, he quietly allowed the Afghan Taliban leadership to set up its rear base in the Quetta area of Balochistan and Osama bin Laden, Ayman Al-Zawahiri and other operatives of Al Qaeda to operate from the North Waziristan area of FATA. When the Bush Administration got preoccupied with Iraq from 2003 and diverted its attention from Afghanistan, the Pakistan army took advantage of it for relaxing its supposed hunt for Al Qaeda and for retraining the Afghan Taliban and helping it to re-launch its offensive in Afghanistan.
24. Till 9/11, all major terrorist acts in different parts of the world by Al Qaeda and its associates were planned and orchestrated from Afghan territory under the control of the Afghan Taliban. Since 9/11, all such acts are being planned and orchestrated from Pakistani territory in the FATA. Every terrorist act unearthed in the UK has had a Pakistani hand in it. The planned terrorist strike in Copenhagen by the LET’s Chicago cell and the 313 Brigade of Ilyas Kashmiri was being orchestrated from Pakistan before the FBI got scent of it and quashed it. The brutal murder of seven CIA officers and an officer of the Jordanian intelligence in Afghan territory was carried out by the TTP from Pakistani territory. The planned terrorist strikes in Germany by associates of the Islamic Jihad Union were being orchestrated from the FATA. The terrorist attacks in China’s Xinjiang province before the Beijing Olympics of August 2008, including an abortive attempt to blow up a plane, were orchestrated from the FATA. Acts of terrorism in Uzbekistan and in the Chechnya and Dagestan areas of Russia are planned and guided from the FATA. Even Teheran alleges that the acts of terrorism in its territory by the so-called Jundullah are being carried out from Pakistani territory in Balochistan.
25. Before 9/11, only India was the victim of acts of terrorism mounted from Pakistani territory. After 9/11, the whole world has become the target of Pakistan-based terrorists. The world’s attention is on Pakistan because it has become the GHQ of global jihadi terrorism. But the Pakistani political and military leaders live in such an unbelievable world of illusions that they have convinced themselves and they are trying to convince their people that the world’s attention is on Pakistan because of its geopolitical importance and its successful diplomacy.
26.Peshawar is bleeding. Karachi is bleeding. Balochistan is bleeding. The FATA is out of control. There is a new Great Game on in Pakistani territory with the US intelligence agencies on the one side and Al Qaeda and its associates on the other hunting each other, with the Pakistan Army and the ISI helping both sides in their attempts to kill each other and making money in the process.
27. While playing this treacherous game, the Pakistani leaders have the cheek to project themselves to their own people and to the rest of the world as playing an important role in bringing about peace in Afghanistan. They are unable to bring about peace in their own country. They are patting themselves thinking that they are going to help the NATO forces in bringing about peace in Afghanistan.
28. Pakistan’s penchant to live in a self-created world of illusions is known to us. We are not surprised. But we are surprised by the inability of the US and the rest of the world to see through the games which Pakistani political and military leaders have always played. They are letting themselves be sucked into Pakistan’s world of illusions. ( 9-2-10)
( The writer is Additional Secretary (retd), Cabinet Secretariat, Govt. of India, New Delhi, and, presently, Director, Institute For Topical Studies, Chennai. E-mail: seventyone2@gmail.com )
Sunday, February 7, 2010
REVAMPING OF THE INTERNAL SECURITY MACHINERY
B.RAMAN
In a detailed interview to Shri Vir Sanghvi, telecast by the CNBC-TV 18 channel, Shri P.Chidambaram, Minister for Home Affairs of the Government of India, has spoken, inter alia, of how in his view the counter-terrorism machinery of the Government of India should work. Relevant extracts from the interview are annexed.
2.Two important points emerge from the interview---- the exclusive responsibility of the Home Minister to exercise political oversight over the internal security machinery and the limited executive role of the National Security Adviser (NSA) in internal security management.
3. The principle of the exclusive responsibility of the Home Minister for internal security management had been observed right from the days of Jawaharlal Nehru as the Prime Minister. The Prime Minister of the day depended on the Home Minister for ensuring that internal security was effectively maintained. For this purpose, the Home Minister had under his administrative and operational control the Intelligence Bureau and the various central police organizations or para-military forces. He also had the responsibility for guiding and co-ordinating the work of the State Police forces.
4. The line of responsibility for political oversight was very clear with no room for doubt till the assassination of Indira Gandhi in October,1984. After her assassination, this clear line of responsibility got increasingly diluted or blurred due to various reasons such as the following:
• The creation of new agencies for security-related duties such as the Special Protection Group (SPG) for the security of the incumbent and past Prime Ministers and their families and the National Security Guards (NSGs) as a special intervention force against terrorism. Rajiv Gandhi, the then Prime Minister, decided that the SPG and the NSG should work under the political oversight of the Prime Minister and the operational oversight of the Cabinet Secretary.
• Terrorism assuming international dimensions necessitating co-operation with the counter-terrorism and homeland security agencies of other countries. Diplomacy assumed an important role in counter-terrorism particularly against State sponsors of terrorism. The US created a counter-terrorism division in the State Department to deal with these international and diplomatic dimensions . It continues to function even after the creation of the Department of Homeland Security in 2004. Some other countries followed the US model. Under Shri Atal Behari Vajpayee, this international and diplomatic dimension was given greater importance than under the predecessor Governments. A number of Joint Counter-Terrorism Working Groups with different countries came into existence and joint counter-terrorism exercises were organized with interested countries, including the US and China. While the responsibility for the co-ordination of the international and diplomatic dimensions was given to the Ministry of External Affairs, the Ministry of Defence exercised the co-ordination responsibilities in respect of joint counter-terrorism exercises.
• With terrorist organizations such as Al Qaeda and its associates acquiring or attempting to acquire specialized capabilities for what came to be known as catastrophic terrorism such as terrorism involving the use of weapons of mass destruction material, terrorism in the cyber space to disrupt or destroy critical infrastructure, aviation terrorism, maritime terrorism etc, the need for the State acquiring specialized counter-capabilities was realized. For meeting these needs, the role of the Ministry of Defence, the Armed Forces and the various science and technology institutions naturally got enhanced.
5. The problems we face in India arise from the fact that whereas terrorism has increasingly assumed new dimensions and new frontiers, no attempt has been made to work out a comprehensive approach to deal with terrorism in its classical form, terrorism in its post-9/11 form and likely forms of terrorism of the future as well as with State-sponsors of terrorism such as Pakistan and other States failing to act against terrorism such as Bangladesh. While the threat posed by terrorism of different hues continues to evolve, our concepts to deal with it has not been keeping pace with the threat.
6. In working out a comprehensive approach to internal security management in general and counter-terrorism in particular, the National Security Adviser (NSA) has to play an important role as an ideas man, who looks beyond the day-to-day nuts and bolts aspect of counter-terrorism. Shri Chidambaram is right when he says that the NSA should have little executive role in internal security management. The executive role has to be that of the Home Minister. However, the NSA has to play an active role in evolving concepts which take into account the international and specialized dimensions of the new terrorism of today. He would also be the right person for co-ordinating and supervising the evolving machinery to facilitate India taking advantage of the growing international co-operation against terrorism.
7. The concept of intelligence co-ordination has also been evolving. The role of intelligence in internal security management has many components:
• Intelligence collection within our frontiers.
• Trans-border intelligence collection.
• Intelligence collection in foreign countries.
• Use of technical gadgets for the collection of intelligence specifically required for internal security management.
• Use of technical gadgets for the collection of intelligence of relevance to internal as well as external security.
8. Presently, there is no single Ministry or Department capable of co-ordinating all these roles. Is it necessary to create a single nodal point in the Prime Minister’s office to co-ordinate these roles in the form of a National Intelligence Adviser? This question has been posed by different analysts from time to time since the Kargil conflict of 1999, but has not been addressed seriously. It is time to address it as part of an exercise to revamp our security machinery----internal as well as external.
9. In India, the concept of an intelligence community has not evolved. Similarly, the concept of leadership roles in security-related matters has not received attention. In the US, under the Intelligence Community Act, all agencies are required to function as an organic whole. There is a consolidated intelligence budget for the community as a whole, which is prepared and got approved by the Congress by the Director, National Intelligence. After the Congressional approval, he makes the individual allocations to different agencies. The leadership role in respect of counter-intelligence is with the FBI, in respect of counter-terrorism with the National Counter-Terrorism Centre, in respect of Homeland Security with the Department of Homeland Security and in respect of covert actions with the CIA. The designated leaders coordinate the follow-up action.
10. In Israel, the leadership role in respect of internal security is that of Shin Bet, the security agency, in respect of external security that of Mossad, the external intelligence Agency, and in respect of trans-border security that of the military intelligence agency. We dot not have such clearly-defined leadership roles.
11.From a perusal of Shri Chidambaram’s address of December 23,2009, in the Intelligence Bureau, and his latest interview to Shri Vir Sanghvi, it is apparent that he has been approaching the exercise for the revamping of our security machinery essentially from the point of view of the Home Ministry. This is a very important aspect, but it is equally important to give the exercise a larger dimension in order to evolve a comprehensive security machinery with clearly laid down concepts, carefully defined leadership roles and a workable co-ordination drill. In such a larger exercise, the NSA has to play an active role not only as an adviser to the Prime Minister, but also to the Cabinet as a whole in matters relating to national security. ( 8-2-10)
( The writer is Additional Secretary (retd), Cabinet Secretariat, Govt. of India, New Delhi, and, presently, Director, Institute For Topical Studies, Chennai. E-mail:seventyone2@gmail.com )
ANNEXURE
EXTRACTS FROM THE INTERVIEW OF SHRI P.CHIDAMBARAM, HOME MINISTER OF THE GOVERNMENT OF INDIA, BY SHRI VIR SANGHVI FOR THE CNBC-TV 18 CHANNEL
Vir Sanghvi: The other thing that is said is that the first thing you did apparently when you took over as Home Minister is you instituted a meeting at apparently noon every day at which the chiefs of intelligence agencies came and you had a look at what the situation on the ground was and that the National Security Advisor also started coming to these meetings. There is a suggestion that you were given as part of your brief the job of bringing the security agencies within the ambit of the home ministry, is this accurate?
P Chidambaram: No that is a job I wrote for myself.
Vir Sanghvi: It was completely your own job description?
P Chidambaram: Yes but then when I took over, the Prime Minister graciously said, you will have a free hand because time is very limited, and if there is any problem, come back to me. When I thought about my job that weekend, I said, the first thing is we must bring everybody together, because I had to learn and act and change and deliver all in five months.
Vir Sanghvi: You know the background which is it is being posited by many people that you took away a lot of jobs that Narayanan use to do – your answer is always been look you people are making too much of this we have been friends for years – but let us leave friendship out of this. On purely functional terms you did take over a lot of the job didn’t you?
P Chidambaram: No. I did not take away any of his responsibilities. I did not take over any of his responsibilities. All I said was that whoever is doing whatever, it must be under political oversight. I happened to be the person providing the political oversight and therefore everybody accepted it.
Vir Sanghvi: Which is a departure from what had happened before? In Mr Advani’s time it did not happen, Mr Shivraj Patil’s time it didn’t happen. So in that sense the home ministry did assert itself over the national security advisor.
P Chidambaram: That is how it should be isn’t it.
Vir Sanghvi: I personally agree that is how it should be but it wasn’t how it was?
P Chidambaram: It wasn’t for whatever reason I do not know. But if I was going to be responsible as I was made responsible on that day then I was going to make sure that I knew it was going on. The only way that I could know what was going on what happen and what did not happen was to exercise political oversight over every agency that was concerned with security.
Vir Sanghvi: My question to you therefore is what is the role of national security advisor should he be an intelligence overload to whom the chief of intelligence’s report should he be an advisor to the Prime Minister?
P Chidambaram: Essentially I think he is an advisor to the Prime Minister, advisor to the National Security Council. He heads a very important body, the NSES, the Secretariat, which combines not only intelligence from internal security matters but a number of other things - Diplomatic intelligence, external intelligence, nuclear command authority etc.
So he brings all the strands together and then advises the Prime Minister. Surely he must be in the loop as far as internal security is concerned, who can he not be in the loop, he has to be in the loop. But whether he should have executive responsibility given the pressures of work and time I think is an open question.
My personal view is that he should have very few executive responsibilities as far as internal security is concerned. That should be given to other professionals.
Vir Sanghvi: That leads me to the question of where Research & Analysis Wing (R&AW) reports because R&AW cannot report to the home ministry by definition because it is an external agency, of course you have said that when it comes to terrorism the R&AW chief must be involved because there has to be a nodal point on terrorism. But what happens to R&AW, it is a bit fatherless, isn’t it in the current system?
P Chidambaram: R&AW reports to the Prime Minister now. But I think there is broad agreement that so far as counter terrorism is concerned, I don't think anybody has a serious objection that R&AW would have to report to the Home Minister.
Vir Sanghvi: Let me now go back to 26/11, do you think one of the reasons we were so ill-prepared for what happened was because mechanisms like these were not in place?
P Chidambaram: Yes, of course. There should have been one point where everything converged, all information converged. Today it converges in a group of about six-seven people who meet everyday. That is how it should be which is what the National Counter Terrorism Centre (NCTC) will be.
It will be an institutional mechanism rather than an individual-headed mechanism. And the response will be an institutional response rather than an individual driven response.
Vir Sanghvi: You have seen the evidence that there was a fair amount of intelligence pointing to 26/11 which was ignored. Do you think it was inevitable that would have been ignored or if there had been a system like this in place we would have acted on it?
P Chidambaram: The system in this place would have surely connected the dots. There were three separate pieces of information, they were not connected.
Vir Sanghvi: So there was a failure?
P Chidambaram: I said so.
Vir Sanghvi: There were two aspect to 26/11, one was that 26/11 happened without us knowing because we didn’t connect the dots as you said. The second was our response which was surely inadequate and took too long to put together, so would that happen again?
P Chidambaram: I don’t think so. If god forbids anything like 26/11 happens, we will respond in a much swifter passion. We have a much better command and control system here and our people will respond very quickly.
Vir Sanghvi: What about state police forces, one of the problems of 26/11 was that they now know were the problems within the Bombay Police, and it’s the same?
P Chidambaram: That’s not correct, they are getting better every day, the capacity is better, response time is quicker. We have set out SOPs now and when we sent the NSG or the Central Paramilitary force what will be the command and control structure. They can command any plane, why their own plane.
Vir Sanghvi: Which they were allowed to under the NSG act any how?
P Chidambaram: Because no body had been authorized to do that.
Vir Sanghvi: It was as simple as that?
P Chidambaram: I think so. I am not going into the past I didn’t decide that I will issue but I issued authority and they can take over any plane now.
In a detailed interview to Shri Vir Sanghvi, telecast by the CNBC-TV 18 channel, Shri P.Chidambaram, Minister for Home Affairs of the Government of India, has spoken, inter alia, of how in his view the counter-terrorism machinery of the Government of India should work. Relevant extracts from the interview are annexed.
2.Two important points emerge from the interview---- the exclusive responsibility of the Home Minister to exercise political oversight over the internal security machinery and the limited executive role of the National Security Adviser (NSA) in internal security management.
3. The principle of the exclusive responsibility of the Home Minister for internal security management had been observed right from the days of Jawaharlal Nehru as the Prime Minister. The Prime Minister of the day depended on the Home Minister for ensuring that internal security was effectively maintained. For this purpose, the Home Minister had under his administrative and operational control the Intelligence Bureau and the various central police organizations or para-military forces. He also had the responsibility for guiding and co-ordinating the work of the State Police forces.
4. The line of responsibility for political oversight was very clear with no room for doubt till the assassination of Indira Gandhi in October,1984. After her assassination, this clear line of responsibility got increasingly diluted or blurred due to various reasons such as the following:
• The creation of new agencies for security-related duties such as the Special Protection Group (SPG) for the security of the incumbent and past Prime Ministers and their families and the National Security Guards (NSGs) as a special intervention force against terrorism. Rajiv Gandhi, the then Prime Minister, decided that the SPG and the NSG should work under the political oversight of the Prime Minister and the operational oversight of the Cabinet Secretary.
• Terrorism assuming international dimensions necessitating co-operation with the counter-terrorism and homeland security agencies of other countries. Diplomacy assumed an important role in counter-terrorism particularly against State sponsors of terrorism. The US created a counter-terrorism division in the State Department to deal with these international and diplomatic dimensions . It continues to function even after the creation of the Department of Homeland Security in 2004. Some other countries followed the US model. Under Shri Atal Behari Vajpayee, this international and diplomatic dimension was given greater importance than under the predecessor Governments. A number of Joint Counter-Terrorism Working Groups with different countries came into existence and joint counter-terrorism exercises were organized with interested countries, including the US and China. While the responsibility for the co-ordination of the international and diplomatic dimensions was given to the Ministry of External Affairs, the Ministry of Defence exercised the co-ordination responsibilities in respect of joint counter-terrorism exercises.
• With terrorist organizations such as Al Qaeda and its associates acquiring or attempting to acquire specialized capabilities for what came to be known as catastrophic terrorism such as terrorism involving the use of weapons of mass destruction material, terrorism in the cyber space to disrupt or destroy critical infrastructure, aviation terrorism, maritime terrorism etc, the need for the State acquiring specialized counter-capabilities was realized. For meeting these needs, the role of the Ministry of Defence, the Armed Forces and the various science and technology institutions naturally got enhanced.
5. The problems we face in India arise from the fact that whereas terrorism has increasingly assumed new dimensions and new frontiers, no attempt has been made to work out a comprehensive approach to deal with terrorism in its classical form, terrorism in its post-9/11 form and likely forms of terrorism of the future as well as with State-sponsors of terrorism such as Pakistan and other States failing to act against terrorism such as Bangladesh. While the threat posed by terrorism of different hues continues to evolve, our concepts to deal with it has not been keeping pace with the threat.
6. In working out a comprehensive approach to internal security management in general and counter-terrorism in particular, the National Security Adviser (NSA) has to play an important role as an ideas man, who looks beyond the day-to-day nuts and bolts aspect of counter-terrorism. Shri Chidambaram is right when he says that the NSA should have little executive role in internal security management. The executive role has to be that of the Home Minister. However, the NSA has to play an active role in evolving concepts which take into account the international and specialized dimensions of the new terrorism of today. He would also be the right person for co-ordinating and supervising the evolving machinery to facilitate India taking advantage of the growing international co-operation against terrorism.
7. The concept of intelligence co-ordination has also been evolving. The role of intelligence in internal security management has many components:
• Intelligence collection within our frontiers.
• Trans-border intelligence collection.
• Intelligence collection in foreign countries.
• Use of technical gadgets for the collection of intelligence specifically required for internal security management.
• Use of technical gadgets for the collection of intelligence of relevance to internal as well as external security.
8. Presently, there is no single Ministry or Department capable of co-ordinating all these roles. Is it necessary to create a single nodal point in the Prime Minister’s office to co-ordinate these roles in the form of a National Intelligence Adviser? This question has been posed by different analysts from time to time since the Kargil conflict of 1999, but has not been addressed seriously. It is time to address it as part of an exercise to revamp our security machinery----internal as well as external.
9. In India, the concept of an intelligence community has not evolved. Similarly, the concept of leadership roles in security-related matters has not received attention. In the US, under the Intelligence Community Act, all agencies are required to function as an organic whole. There is a consolidated intelligence budget for the community as a whole, which is prepared and got approved by the Congress by the Director, National Intelligence. After the Congressional approval, he makes the individual allocations to different agencies. The leadership role in respect of counter-intelligence is with the FBI, in respect of counter-terrorism with the National Counter-Terrorism Centre, in respect of Homeland Security with the Department of Homeland Security and in respect of covert actions with the CIA. The designated leaders coordinate the follow-up action.
10. In Israel, the leadership role in respect of internal security is that of Shin Bet, the security agency, in respect of external security that of Mossad, the external intelligence Agency, and in respect of trans-border security that of the military intelligence agency. We dot not have such clearly-defined leadership roles.
11.From a perusal of Shri Chidambaram’s address of December 23,2009, in the Intelligence Bureau, and his latest interview to Shri Vir Sanghvi, it is apparent that he has been approaching the exercise for the revamping of our security machinery essentially from the point of view of the Home Ministry. This is a very important aspect, but it is equally important to give the exercise a larger dimension in order to evolve a comprehensive security machinery with clearly laid down concepts, carefully defined leadership roles and a workable co-ordination drill. In such a larger exercise, the NSA has to play an active role not only as an adviser to the Prime Minister, but also to the Cabinet as a whole in matters relating to national security. ( 8-2-10)
( The writer is Additional Secretary (retd), Cabinet Secretariat, Govt. of India, New Delhi, and, presently, Director, Institute For Topical Studies, Chennai. E-mail:seventyone2@gmail.com )
ANNEXURE
EXTRACTS FROM THE INTERVIEW OF SHRI P.CHIDAMBARAM, HOME MINISTER OF THE GOVERNMENT OF INDIA, BY SHRI VIR SANGHVI FOR THE CNBC-TV 18 CHANNEL
Vir Sanghvi: The other thing that is said is that the first thing you did apparently when you took over as Home Minister is you instituted a meeting at apparently noon every day at which the chiefs of intelligence agencies came and you had a look at what the situation on the ground was and that the National Security Advisor also started coming to these meetings. There is a suggestion that you were given as part of your brief the job of bringing the security agencies within the ambit of the home ministry, is this accurate?
P Chidambaram: No that is a job I wrote for myself.
Vir Sanghvi: It was completely your own job description?
P Chidambaram: Yes but then when I took over, the Prime Minister graciously said, you will have a free hand because time is very limited, and if there is any problem, come back to me. When I thought about my job that weekend, I said, the first thing is we must bring everybody together, because I had to learn and act and change and deliver all in five months.
Vir Sanghvi: You know the background which is it is being posited by many people that you took away a lot of jobs that Narayanan use to do – your answer is always been look you people are making too much of this we have been friends for years – but let us leave friendship out of this. On purely functional terms you did take over a lot of the job didn’t you?
P Chidambaram: No. I did not take away any of his responsibilities. I did not take over any of his responsibilities. All I said was that whoever is doing whatever, it must be under political oversight. I happened to be the person providing the political oversight and therefore everybody accepted it.
Vir Sanghvi: Which is a departure from what had happened before? In Mr Advani’s time it did not happen, Mr Shivraj Patil’s time it didn’t happen. So in that sense the home ministry did assert itself over the national security advisor.
P Chidambaram: That is how it should be isn’t it.
Vir Sanghvi: I personally agree that is how it should be but it wasn’t how it was?
P Chidambaram: It wasn’t for whatever reason I do not know. But if I was going to be responsible as I was made responsible on that day then I was going to make sure that I knew it was going on. The only way that I could know what was going on what happen and what did not happen was to exercise political oversight over every agency that was concerned with security.
Vir Sanghvi: My question to you therefore is what is the role of national security advisor should he be an intelligence overload to whom the chief of intelligence’s report should he be an advisor to the Prime Minister?
P Chidambaram: Essentially I think he is an advisor to the Prime Minister, advisor to the National Security Council. He heads a very important body, the NSES, the Secretariat, which combines not only intelligence from internal security matters but a number of other things - Diplomatic intelligence, external intelligence, nuclear command authority etc.
So he brings all the strands together and then advises the Prime Minister. Surely he must be in the loop as far as internal security is concerned, who can he not be in the loop, he has to be in the loop. But whether he should have executive responsibility given the pressures of work and time I think is an open question.
My personal view is that he should have very few executive responsibilities as far as internal security is concerned. That should be given to other professionals.
Vir Sanghvi: That leads me to the question of where Research & Analysis Wing (R&AW) reports because R&AW cannot report to the home ministry by definition because it is an external agency, of course you have said that when it comes to terrorism the R&AW chief must be involved because there has to be a nodal point on terrorism. But what happens to R&AW, it is a bit fatherless, isn’t it in the current system?
P Chidambaram: R&AW reports to the Prime Minister now. But I think there is broad agreement that so far as counter terrorism is concerned, I don't think anybody has a serious objection that R&AW would have to report to the Home Minister.
Vir Sanghvi: Let me now go back to 26/11, do you think one of the reasons we were so ill-prepared for what happened was because mechanisms like these were not in place?
P Chidambaram: Yes, of course. There should have been one point where everything converged, all information converged. Today it converges in a group of about six-seven people who meet everyday. That is how it should be which is what the National Counter Terrorism Centre (NCTC) will be.
It will be an institutional mechanism rather than an individual-headed mechanism. And the response will be an institutional response rather than an individual driven response.
Vir Sanghvi: You have seen the evidence that there was a fair amount of intelligence pointing to 26/11 which was ignored. Do you think it was inevitable that would have been ignored or if there had been a system like this in place we would have acted on it?
P Chidambaram: The system in this place would have surely connected the dots. There were three separate pieces of information, they were not connected.
Vir Sanghvi: So there was a failure?
P Chidambaram: I said so.
Vir Sanghvi: There were two aspect to 26/11, one was that 26/11 happened without us knowing because we didn’t connect the dots as you said. The second was our response which was surely inadequate and took too long to put together, so would that happen again?
P Chidambaram: I don’t think so. If god forbids anything like 26/11 happens, we will respond in a much swifter passion. We have a much better command and control system here and our people will respond very quickly.
Vir Sanghvi: What about state police forces, one of the problems of 26/11 was that they now know were the problems within the Bombay Police, and it’s the same?
P Chidambaram: That’s not correct, they are getting better every day, the capacity is better, response time is quicker. We have set out SOPs now and when we sent the NSG or the Central Paramilitary force what will be the command and control structure. They can command any plane, why their own plane.
Vir Sanghvi: Which they were allowed to under the NSG act any how?
P Chidambaram: Because no body had been authorized to do that.
Vir Sanghvi: It was as simple as that?
P Chidambaram: I think so. I am not going into the past I didn’t decide that I will issue but I issued authority and they can take over any plane now.
Saturday, February 6, 2010
KARACHI & AF-PAK POLICY OPTIONS
B.RAMAN
Pakistani leaders often project Jammu & Kashmir as Pakistan’s jugular vein in justification of their supporting jihadi terrorist groups against India in an attempt to change the status quo in J&K. It is not.
2. Karachi is Pakistan’s jugular vein. It is the economic capital of Pakistan contributing a substantial part of Pakistan’s industrial production and tax revenue. It has Pakistan’s only functioning international port. The Gwadar port, on the Mekran coast of Balochistan, constructed with Chinese assistance and commissioned three years ago, has so far failed to come up to expectations as an alternative to Karachi as an international port due to the continuing Baloch freedom struggle and the inability of the Pakistani authorities to develop the subsidiary infrastructure to connect Gwadar with the other economic centres of Pakistan, particularly in Punjab.
3. Karachi is also of strategic significance not only to Pakistan, but also to the NATO troops fighting the Taliban in Afghanistan. It is still Pakistan’s most important naval base. Gwadar is being developed as an alternate naval base to reduce the vulnerability of the Pakistan Navy in Karachi, but it is estimated that it will take another five to eight years before Gwadar as a naval base starts functioning in a satisfactory manner.
4. Karachi’s importance to the NATO forces in Afghanistan arises from the fact that the NATO continues to be dependent in a large measure on Karachi for providing logistic supplies to its forces in Afghanistan. While the Tehrik-e-Taliban Pakistan (TTP) has been able to frequently disrupt the movement by road of these supplies across the Pashtun tribal belt, it has not so far succeeded in disrupting the landing of these supplies from ships in Karachi and their onward movement till they reach the tribal belt. This would show that security continues to be tight and satisfactory in the Karachi port itself as well as on the road axis from Karachi through which these supplies initially move before reaching the Pashtun tribal belt,
5. The TTP’s oft-reported plans to disrupt the unloading of the supplies at the Karachi port and their initial onward movement have not succeeded so far because it has not been able to build up local support in the large Pashtun community in Karachi, which is believed to have more Pashtuns than Peshawar, the capital of the Pashtun majority North-West Frontier Province (NWFP).The road transport economy of Karachi is largely in the hands of the local Pashtun businessmen, who own most of the truck fleets operating in the area and come foreward to help the NATO forces in maintaining their logistic supplies despite frequent attacks by the TTP as the convoys move through the Pashtun tribal areas in the NWFP and the Federally-Administered Tribal Areas (FATA).
6. Despite frequent allegations by the Muttahida Qaumi Movement (MQM), the Mohajir organization headed by Mr.Altaf Hussain, living in political exile in the UK, about the increasing Talibanisation of Karachi, there is no reliable evidence to show that the TTP has been able to develop a foothold in Karachi. The Pashtuns of Karachi still largely support the secular Awami National Party (ANP), which is strongly opposed to the TTP.
7. The renewed wave of violence in Karachi in recent weeks is not due to the ingress of the TTP into the city. It is due to two of the three old animosities, which have always made Karachi the most violent city of Pakistan. These three animosities are--- the Mohajirs vs the Sindhis, the Mohajirs vs the Pashtuns, and the Punjabi Sunnis vs the Mohajir Shias. After Pakistan became independent in 1947, the Mohajirs, who are the migrants from India and their descendents, replaced the Sindhis, the sons of the soil, as the largest ethnic group in Karachi. The resulting tensions between the Mohajirs and the Sindhis were exploited by the Zia-ul-Haq military regime to crush the Sindhi nationalist movement and to counter the influence of the Pakistan People’s Party. The Mohajir-Sindhi animosity, which led to a large number of violent incidents in the 1980s and the early 1990s, has since come down. The PPP and the MQM coming together in a coalition government in the Sindh province has contributed to the dilution of this animosity.
8. The Mohajir-Pashtun animosity was a bye-product of Zia’s policy of encouraging a large number of Pashtuns to migrate to Karachi in order to keep the Mohajirs as well as the Sindhis under control. Zia’s rule was marked by large street clashes between the Mohajirs and the Pashtuns, both of whom are migrants to Karachi----the Mohajirs from India and the Pashtuns from the NWFP and the FATA. Despite the ANP, which commands the political support of large sections of the Karachi Pashtuns, being part of the ruling coalition in Sindh, the animosity between the Mohajirs and the Pashtuns has acquired a new virulence in recent months due to the ill-advised attempts of the MQM to reduce the political influence of the ANP in Karachi.
9. The MQM will never be able to replace the ANP’s influence in the Pashtun community. By seeking to undermine the ANP in Karachi, it will be only facilitating the Talibanisation of the Pashtuns of Karachi. The TTP will be the ultimate beneficiary of the increasing animosity between the Mohajirs and the Pashtuns.
10. The Punjabi Sunni-Mohajir Shia animosity has been an outcome of Zia’s policy of resettling a large number of Punjabi Sunni ex-servicemen in the rural areas of Sindh in order to reduce the rural influence of the Sindhi nationalists. While large sections of the Punjabi Sunni migrants support the Pakistan Muslim League (PML) of Mr.Nawaz Sharif, an increasing number has been supporting anti-Shia extremist organizations such as the Lashkar-e-Jhangvi and the mysterious Jundullah about which not much is known.
11. The increasing virulence of the Mohajir-Pashtun and Punjabi Sunni-Mohajir Shia animosities is once again making Karachi a bleeding city . Since the beginning of this year, over 50 persons are reported to have died in Mohajir-Pashtun clashes and about a hundred Shias have been killed in attacks on Shia religious gatherings by Sunni extremists.
12.If the increasing violence in Karachi is not controlled in time, it will further damage an already weak Pakistani economy, pave the way for the ingress of the Taliban into the city and create additional problems for maintaining the logistic supplies to the NATO troops in Afghanistan. There have been unconfirmed reports that the US has already started examining the feasibility of developing Gwadar as a fall-back option to bring logistic supplies by sea and transporting them by road to Afghanistan in order to reduce its dependence on Karachi. Even if these reports are correct, it will be some years before this idea could be given a concrete shape. Till then, law and order has to be maintained in Karachi and the efforts of the TTP to gain a foothold there thwarted.
13. Despite the deteriorating situation in Karachi, one has the impression that neither the federal Government of President Asif Ali Zardari nor the Pakistan Army nor the US-led NATO forces is paying serious attention to the important task of restoring law and order in Karachi. One sees a disturbing policy of drift which could prove dangerous. The importance of Karachi for the success of the US “war” against the Afghan Taliban and Al Qaeda has hardly been given any prominence in the discussions in Washington DC on Af-Pak policy options. ( 7-2-10)
( The writer is Additional Secretary (retd), Cabinet Secretariat, Govt. of India, New Delhi, and, presently, Director, Institute For Topical Studies, Chennai. E-mail: seventyone2@gmail.com )
Pakistani leaders often project Jammu & Kashmir as Pakistan’s jugular vein in justification of their supporting jihadi terrorist groups against India in an attempt to change the status quo in J&K. It is not.
2. Karachi is Pakistan’s jugular vein. It is the economic capital of Pakistan contributing a substantial part of Pakistan’s industrial production and tax revenue. It has Pakistan’s only functioning international port. The Gwadar port, on the Mekran coast of Balochistan, constructed with Chinese assistance and commissioned three years ago, has so far failed to come up to expectations as an alternative to Karachi as an international port due to the continuing Baloch freedom struggle and the inability of the Pakistani authorities to develop the subsidiary infrastructure to connect Gwadar with the other economic centres of Pakistan, particularly in Punjab.
3. Karachi is also of strategic significance not only to Pakistan, but also to the NATO troops fighting the Taliban in Afghanistan. It is still Pakistan’s most important naval base. Gwadar is being developed as an alternate naval base to reduce the vulnerability of the Pakistan Navy in Karachi, but it is estimated that it will take another five to eight years before Gwadar as a naval base starts functioning in a satisfactory manner.
4. Karachi’s importance to the NATO forces in Afghanistan arises from the fact that the NATO continues to be dependent in a large measure on Karachi for providing logistic supplies to its forces in Afghanistan. While the Tehrik-e-Taliban Pakistan (TTP) has been able to frequently disrupt the movement by road of these supplies across the Pashtun tribal belt, it has not so far succeeded in disrupting the landing of these supplies from ships in Karachi and their onward movement till they reach the tribal belt. This would show that security continues to be tight and satisfactory in the Karachi port itself as well as on the road axis from Karachi through which these supplies initially move before reaching the Pashtun tribal belt,
5. The TTP’s oft-reported plans to disrupt the unloading of the supplies at the Karachi port and their initial onward movement have not succeeded so far because it has not been able to build up local support in the large Pashtun community in Karachi, which is believed to have more Pashtuns than Peshawar, the capital of the Pashtun majority North-West Frontier Province (NWFP).The road transport economy of Karachi is largely in the hands of the local Pashtun businessmen, who own most of the truck fleets operating in the area and come foreward to help the NATO forces in maintaining their logistic supplies despite frequent attacks by the TTP as the convoys move through the Pashtun tribal areas in the NWFP and the Federally-Administered Tribal Areas (FATA).
6. Despite frequent allegations by the Muttahida Qaumi Movement (MQM), the Mohajir organization headed by Mr.Altaf Hussain, living in political exile in the UK, about the increasing Talibanisation of Karachi, there is no reliable evidence to show that the TTP has been able to develop a foothold in Karachi. The Pashtuns of Karachi still largely support the secular Awami National Party (ANP), which is strongly opposed to the TTP.
7. The renewed wave of violence in Karachi in recent weeks is not due to the ingress of the TTP into the city. It is due to two of the three old animosities, which have always made Karachi the most violent city of Pakistan. These three animosities are--- the Mohajirs vs the Sindhis, the Mohajirs vs the Pashtuns, and the Punjabi Sunnis vs the Mohajir Shias. After Pakistan became independent in 1947, the Mohajirs, who are the migrants from India and their descendents, replaced the Sindhis, the sons of the soil, as the largest ethnic group in Karachi. The resulting tensions between the Mohajirs and the Sindhis were exploited by the Zia-ul-Haq military regime to crush the Sindhi nationalist movement and to counter the influence of the Pakistan People’s Party. The Mohajir-Sindhi animosity, which led to a large number of violent incidents in the 1980s and the early 1990s, has since come down. The PPP and the MQM coming together in a coalition government in the Sindh province has contributed to the dilution of this animosity.
8. The Mohajir-Pashtun animosity was a bye-product of Zia’s policy of encouraging a large number of Pashtuns to migrate to Karachi in order to keep the Mohajirs as well as the Sindhis under control. Zia’s rule was marked by large street clashes between the Mohajirs and the Pashtuns, both of whom are migrants to Karachi----the Mohajirs from India and the Pashtuns from the NWFP and the FATA. Despite the ANP, which commands the political support of large sections of the Karachi Pashtuns, being part of the ruling coalition in Sindh, the animosity between the Mohajirs and the Pashtuns has acquired a new virulence in recent months due to the ill-advised attempts of the MQM to reduce the political influence of the ANP in Karachi.
9. The MQM will never be able to replace the ANP’s influence in the Pashtun community. By seeking to undermine the ANP in Karachi, it will be only facilitating the Talibanisation of the Pashtuns of Karachi. The TTP will be the ultimate beneficiary of the increasing animosity between the Mohajirs and the Pashtuns.
10. The Punjabi Sunni-Mohajir Shia animosity has been an outcome of Zia’s policy of resettling a large number of Punjabi Sunni ex-servicemen in the rural areas of Sindh in order to reduce the rural influence of the Sindhi nationalists. While large sections of the Punjabi Sunni migrants support the Pakistan Muslim League (PML) of Mr.Nawaz Sharif, an increasing number has been supporting anti-Shia extremist organizations such as the Lashkar-e-Jhangvi and the mysterious Jundullah about which not much is known.
11. The increasing virulence of the Mohajir-Pashtun and Punjabi Sunni-Mohajir Shia animosities is once again making Karachi a bleeding city . Since the beginning of this year, over 50 persons are reported to have died in Mohajir-Pashtun clashes and about a hundred Shias have been killed in attacks on Shia religious gatherings by Sunni extremists.
12.If the increasing violence in Karachi is not controlled in time, it will further damage an already weak Pakistani economy, pave the way for the ingress of the Taliban into the city and create additional problems for maintaining the logistic supplies to the NATO troops in Afghanistan. There have been unconfirmed reports that the US has already started examining the feasibility of developing Gwadar as a fall-back option to bring logistic supplies by sea and transporting them by road to Afghanistan in order to reduce its dependence on Karachi. Even if these reports are correct, it will be some years before this idea could be given a concrete shape. Till then, law and order has to be maintained in Karachi and the efforts of the TTP to gain a foothold there thwarted.
13. Despite the deteriorating situation in Karachi, one has the impression that neither the federal Government of President Asif Ali Zardari nor the Pakistan Army nor the US-led NATO forces is paying serious attention to the important task of restoring law and order in Karachi. One sees a disturbing policy of drift which could prove dangerous. The importance of Karachi for the success of the US “war” against the Afghan Taliban and Al Qaeda has hardly been given any prominence in the discussions in Washington DC on Af-Pak policy options. ( 7-2-10)
( The writer is Additional Secretary (retd), Cabinet Secretariat, Govt. of India, New Delhi, and, presently, Director, Institute For Topical Studies, Chennai. E-mail: seventyone2@gmail.com )
INDIA & BANGLADESH----SECURITY-RELATED ISSUES
B.RAMAN
( Talk delivered on February 6,2010, at a seminar jointly organized at Bangalore by the Asia Centre, Bangalore, and the Indian Council of World Affairs, New Delhi )
During her recent visit to India from January 10 to 13,2010, we saw in Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina, who has completed one year in office, a greater confidence in herself and a greater feeling of political security. Having weathered without damage to her political strength the bloody revolt of the Bangladesh Rifles against its own senior officers and having brought to a successful culmination the long process of accountability of some former Army officers for the brutal assassination of her father in 1975, she now feels confident enough to move forward on the road to internal peace and prosperity.
2. However, the political challenges to her individually and to her Awami League led Government from a coalition of political and fundamentalist elements led by the Bangladesh Nationalist Party (BNP) of Begum Khalida Zia and the Jamaat-e-Islami (JEI) show no sign of withering away. Their anti-Indian and pro-Pakistan constituency remains intact, but they are not yet in a position to pose a serious street challenge to her.
3.In her attempts to face their challenge, she has to see that her political instinct and enthusiasm for better relations with India and for the economic development of the Bangladesh-India region are tempered by caution so that she does not unwittingly hand over to them a stick to beat her with.
4. In assessing India-Bangladesh relations in security-related matters, one has to constantly keep in view the ground reality that there is a surviving anti-India constituency in that country. It is difficult to quantify the strength of this anti-India constituency. At the same time, it will be unwise to dismiss it as of no consequence. It is an important constituency carefully nurtured by Pakistan over the years and by Islamic fundamentalist organisations and charities operating from Saudi Arabia either directly or through Pakistan.
5.In our happiness over the return of Sheikh Hasina to power with an impressive majority over a year ago, we should not commit the folly of underestimating the lingering strength of the anti-India elements. Their power to attract votes might have received a set-back during the last elections, but their street power to create instability has not been damaged.
6.That Sheikh Hasina is aware of it became evident in her chat with a group of journalists at New Delhi on January 13,2010, before she left for Ajmer. According to the "Times of India", when she was asked about the anti-India mindset in her country, she replied: “ Perhaps that may remain. I cannot change that. But common people want better lives and if results are achieved in India-Bangladesh co-operation, these sentiments will not work.”
7.What she sought to convey was that the anti-India mindset in sections of public and political opinion in Bangladesh is a fact of life. It cannot be eradicated, but it can be prevented from coming in the way of better bilateral relations through the demonstration effect of beneficial results as a result of closer relations. What kind of results will be perceived by large sections of the population as beneficial to Bangladesh? That is a question, which one has to constantly keep asking oneself.
8.Gestures there were in plenty during her visit--- a one billion dollar credit line, an agreement to supply power, water-sharing etc, but the anti-India elements in Bangladesh tend to project such gestures of economic significance by India not as unilateral without India expecting anything in return, but as an alleged quid pro quo for security-related concessions made by the Bangladesh Government. Allegations have been made by the anti-India elements after her visit that these gestures by India were in return for a secret security treaty signed by her with India during her visit.
9. India has vital security-related concerns vis-a-vis Bangladesh---- the sanctuaries enjoyed by indigenous Indian ethnic terrorist organisations such as the United Liberation Front of Assam (ULFA) in Bangladesh territory; the activities of trans-border Islamic terrorist groups such as the Muslim Liberation Tigers of Assam (MULTA), the Independent Liberation Army of Assam (ILAA), and the People United Liberation Front (PULF); the activities from Bangladesh territory of pro-Al Qaeda organisations of Pakistani origin supported by the ISI such as the Lashkar-e-Toiba (LET), the Harkat-ul-Jihad-al-Islami (HUJI) and the Harkat-ul-Mujahideen (HUM); gun running into India’s North-East from and through Bangladesh; the unchecked illegal migration of Muslims from Bangladesh into Assam and West Bengal, which could one day convert Assam into a second Muslim majority State in India after Jammu & Kashmir; the flow of funds from Wahabi charity organisations in Saudi Arabia to fundamentalist elements in the Bangladesh-India region; and the ISI's alleged use of Bangladesh and Nepal for pumping counterfeit currency into India and so on.
10.Any Government in New Delhi would be remiss in exercising its important responsibility for the protection of our national security if it does not take up in lucid terms our concerns over these issues with whichever Government is in power in Dhaka--- whether headed by Sheikh Hasina or Begum Khalida Zia or anybody else. Our security-related concerns have a long history dating from the partition of India and the birth of Pakistan in 1947. The Naga and Mizo insurgencies would not have lasted for as long as they did but for the sanctuaries enjoyed by them till 1971 in the Chittagong Hill Tracts of the then East Pakistan. The ULFA and other insurgencies in Assam would not be surviving today but for the support which they have been receiving in Bangladesh territory. The free run of Bangladesh territory enjoyed by pro-Al Qaeda organizations shows no sign of being countered effectively by any Government in Dhaka. Other collateral problems such as illegal migration, gun running, fund flow and dissemination of counterfeit currency printed in Pakistan pose a serious challenge to our national security managers whoever be in power in Dhaka.
11. There has always been a misperception in India that such security-related problems arising from Bangladesh territory tend to decline in gravity and become manageable when the Awami League comes to power and increase in gravity when Sheikh Hasina’s opponents come to power. This is not correct. The gravity of the security-related problems has remained unchanged whether it was Sheikh Mujib or Sheikh Hasina or Begum Khalida Zia or any other leader, political or military, who was in power. The only difference we have noticed over the years is that when Sheikh Hasina is in power, there is a desire, which seems genuine, to address India’s concerns, but Sheikh Hasina has repeatedly shown an inability to translate this genuine desire into effective concrete action on the ground---- either because of fears of an exploitation of her actions by the opposition to discredit her as an Indian stooge or because of the continuing existence of anti-India and pro-Pakistan elements in Bangladesh’s intelligence and security communities, which drag their feet in implementing the promises or commitments made by her. In the case of Begum Khalida Zia and others, even the desire to address India’s concerns is not there.
12. Is this position showing signs of changing during the present tenure of Sheikh Hasina? Would her greater confidence in herself seen recently enable her to act more vigorously against elements, which pose a threat not only to India, but also to Bangladesh itself? There have been some positive actions by her Government during the last one year. Examples: Suspected pressure on Arabinda Rajkowa of the ULFA, which seems to have played a role in his falling into the hands of the Indian security agencies, investigation and prosecution of elements which were indulging in gun running under the Khalida Zia Government, neutralization of an alleged plot by the LET to attack the Indian and US diplomatic missions in Dhaka, pressure against one or two Indian Mujahideen elements living in BD territory which forced them to cross over into India and fall into the hands of the Indian security forces etc.
13. Despite such positive steps, one could see signs of abundant caution by Sheikh Hasina to ensure that she is not seen as rushing into full-throttled co-operation with India in security-related matters. In her pronouncements and comments while in New Delhi, she made a subtle distinction between co-operation with India against the international terrorism network, which posed a threat to both the countries, and action against indigenous organizations such as the ULFA, which posed a threat to India and not to Bangladesh. To prove my point, I would like to cite some of her remarks as reported by the Times of India of January 14,2010:
• The two countries are in the process of finalizing an extradition treaty.She did not specify how soon the extradition treaty could be finalized. Her Foreign Minister Dipu Moni said it could be concluded shortly given the friendly relations between the two countries.
• On January 11,2010, the two countries signed three agreements on mutual legal assistance in criminal matters, mutual transfer of convicted prisoners and co-operation in the fight against international terrorism, organized crime and illegal drug trafficking.
• Sheikh Hassina said: “ To end terrorism, we want to co-operate. We can go to any extent to co-operate.” She said that the agreements already signed between the two countries were “ enough” to combat terrorism. Side by side, discussions are going on the extradition treaty.
• “ To a specific question on whether Bangladesh would hand over ULFA leader Anup Chetia who is wanted in India, Hasina evaded a direct reply and said that she was not here to “discuss one name”, but broader issues.”
• Asked about ULFA cadres taking shelter in Bangladesh, Hasina said that many “terrorists” from Bangladesh were also living in India and that this was a common thing. She said the two countries should co-operate on this front. “If anybody from Bangladesh is in India, India should look into it and if anybody from India is in Bangladesh, we will look into it.” She also said that if “obstacles or problems” are encountered in the anti-terror co-operation under the three agreements signed, “we can discuss”
• She refused to reply to a query about terrorism finding support in Pakistan and whether that country seemed to be sincere in fighting terrorism for peace in the region, saying such a question should be posed to Pakistan.
14. We have to understand her cautious or even over-cautious attitude in security-related matters. It will be unrealistic to expect a qualitative change in security-related co-operation between the two countries during her current tenure as the Prime Minister. She has to take care of her own political standing. She has to pay attention to the continuing anti-India mindset in her country A durable qualitative change in security-related co-operation can come about only when our policy-makers take cognizance of the anti-India mindset in sections of the population and try to win over the anti-India elements.
15. A bane of our Bangladesh policy has always been that our policy-makers tend to put many, if not all of the eggs, in the basket of Sheikh Hasina and her Awami League. The importance of building bridges of understanding with non-religious political elements such as those in the BNP, even if they are not well disposed towards India, is not realized. Unless we build such bridges, there will always be strong opposition in sections of the political and public opinion in Bangladesh to any meaningful co-operation with India in security-related matters.
16. How to address the surviving anti-India mindset in Bangladesh? How to convince public opinion in Bangladesh that the two countries stand to benefit in equal measure from bilateral co-operation----whether in security or economy related matters? How to create a demonstration effect of the beneficial results of such co-operation? These are questions which a seminar such as this should address.
17.In our relations with our neighbours in the sub-continent, we are always unfortunately seen as a big power with hegemonistic tendencies. We have failed to project ourselves as a huge market, with an increasingly prosperous middle class, which can absorb much of what they produce. How to make them see us as a highly attractive market and not as a repulsive power? Can a policy of unilateral gestures in trade-related matters help in creating a demonstration effect? This is another question which needs to be addressed by this seminar. The recommendations, which go out of this seminar, should be forward moving and not backward-looking over our shoulders all the time.
18.The Inder Gujral Doctrine of unilateral gestures towards our neighbours proved counter-productive because of the over-focus on gestures in security-related matters. What we need is a new doctrine based on a mix of firmness in pursuing our security interests, unilateral gestures in economy-related matters and taking cognizance of the concerns of anti-India elements and seeking to understand them instead of giving the impression of ignoring them. ( 5-2-2010)
( The writer is Additional Secretary (retd), Cabinet Secretariat, Govt. of India, New Delhi, and, presently, Director, Institute For Topical Studies, Chennai. E-mail: seventyone2@gmail.com )
( Talk delivered on February 6,2010, at a seminar jointly organized at Bangalore by the Asia Centre, Bangalore, and the Indian Council of World Affairs, New Delhi )
During her recent visit to India from January 10 to 13,2010, we saw in Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina, who has completed one year in office, a greater confidence in herself and a greater feeling of political security. Having weathered without damage to her political strength the bloody revolt of the Bangladesh Rifles against its own senior officers and having brought to a successful culmination the long process of accountability of some former Army officers for the brutal assassination of her father in 1975, she now feels confident enough to move forward on the road to internal peace and prosperity.
2. However, the political challenges to her individually and to her Awami League led Government from a coalition of political and fundamentalist elements led by the Bangladesh Nationalist Party (BNP) of Begum Khalida Zia and the Jamaat-e-Islami (JEI) show no sign of withering away. Their anti-Indian and pro-Pakistan constituency remains intact, but they are not yet in a position to pose a serious street challenge to her.
3.In her attempts to face their challenge, she has to see that her political instinct and enthusiasm for better relations with India and for the economic development of the Bangladesh-India region are tempered by caution so that she does not unwittingly hand over to them a stick to beat her with.
4. In assessing India-Bangladesh relations in security-related matters, one has to constantly keep in view the ground reality that there is a surviving anti-India constituency in that country. It is difficult to quantify the strength of this anti-India constituency. At the same time, it will be unwise to dismiss it as of no consequence. It is an important constituency carefully nurtured by Pakistan over the years and by Islamic fundamentalist organisations and charities operating from Saudi Arabia either directly or through Pakistan.
5.In our happiness over the return of Sheikh Hasina to power with an impressive majority over a year ago, we should not commit the folly of underestimating the lingering strength of the anti-India elements. Their power to attract votes might have received a set-back during the last elections, but their street power to create instability has not been damaged.
6.That Sheikh Hasina is aware of it became evident in her chat with a group of journalists at New Delhi on January 13,2010, before she left for Ajmer. According to the "Times of India", when she was asked about the anti-India mindset in her country, she replied: “ Perhaps that may remain. I cannot change that. But common people want better lives and if results are achieved in India-Bangladesh co-operation, these sentiments will not work.”
7.What she sought to convey was that the anti-India mindset in sections of public and political opinion in Bangladesh is a fact of life. It cannot be eradicated, but it can be prevented from coming in the way of better bilateral relations through the demonstration effect of beneficial results as a result of closer relations. What kind of results will be perceived by large sections of the population as beneficial to Bangladesh? That is a question, which one has to constantly keep asking oneself.
8.Gestures there were in plenty during her visit--- a one billion dollar credit line, an agreement to supply power, water-sharing etc, but the anti-India elements in Bangladesh tend to project such gestures of economic significance by India not as unilateral without India expecting anything in return, but as an alleged quid pro quo for security-related concessions made by the Bangladesh Government. Allegations have been made by the anti-India elements after her visit that these gestures by India were in return for a secret security treaty signed by her with India during her visit.
9. India has vital security-related concerns vis-a-vis Bangladesh---- the sanctuaries enjoyed by indigenous Indian ethnic terrorist organisations such as the United Liberation Front of Assam (ULFA) in Bangladesh territory; the activities of trans-border Islamic terrorist groups such as the Muslim Liberation Tigers of Assam (MULTA), the Independent Liberation Army of Assam (ILAA), and the People United Liberation Front (PULF); the activities from Bangladesh territory of pro-Al Qaeda organisations of Pakistani origin supported by the ISI such as the Lashkar-e-Toiba (LET), the Harkat-ul-Jihad-al-Islami (HUJI) and the Harkat-ul-Mujahideen (HUM); gun running into India’s North-East from and through Bangladesh; the unchecked illegal migration of Muslims from Bangladesh into Assam and West Bengal, which could one day convert Assam into a second Muslim majority State in India after Jammu & Kashmir; the flow of funds from Wahabi charity organisations in Saudi Arabia to fundamentalist elements in the Bangladesh-India region; and the ISI's alleged use of Bangladesh and Nepal for pumping counterfeit currency into India and so on.
10.Any Government in New Delhi would be remiss in exercising its important responsibility for the protection of our national security if it does not take up in lucid terms our concerns over these issues with whichever Government is in power in Dhaka--- whether headed by Sheikh Hasina or Begum Khalida Zia or anybody else. Our security-related concerns have a long history dating from the partition of India and the birth of Pakistan in 1947. The Naga and Mizo insurgencies would not have lasted for as long as they did but for the sanctuaries enjoyed by them till 1971 in the Chittagong Hill Tracts of the then East Pakistan. The ULFA and other insurgencies in Assam would not be surviving today but for the support which they have been receiving in Bangladesh territory. The free run of Bangladesh territory enjoyed by pro-Al Qaeda organizations shows no sign of being countered effectively by any Government in Dhaka. Other collateral problems such as illegal migration, gun running, fund flow and dissemination of counterfeit currency printed in Pakistan pose a serious challenge to our national security managers whoever be in power in Dhaka.
11. There has always been a misperception in India that such security-related problems arising from Bangladesh territory tend to decline in gravity and become manageable when the Awami League comes to power and increase in gravity when Sheikh Hasina’s opponents come to power. This is not correct. The gravity of the security-related problems has remained unchanged whether it was Sheikh Mujib or Sheikh Hasina or Begum Khalida Zia or any other leader, political or military, who was in power. The only difference we have noticed over the years is that when Sheikh Hasina is in power, there is a desire, which seems genuine, to address India’s concerns, but Sheikh Hasina has repeatedly shown an inability to translate this genuine desire into effective concrete action on the ground---- either because of fears of an exploitation of her actions by the opposition to discredit her as an Indian stooge or because of the continuing existence of anti-India and pro-Pakistan elements in Bangladesh’s intelligence and security communities, which drag their feet in implementing the promises or commitments made by her. In the case of Begum Khalida Zia and others, even the desire to address India’s concerns is not there.
12. Is this position showing signs of changing during the present tenure of Sheikh Hasina? Would her greater confidence in herself seen recently enable her to act more vigorously against elements, which pose a threat not only to India, but also to Bangladesh itself? There have been some positive actions by her Government during the last one year. Examples: Suspected pressure on Arabinda Rajkowa of the ULFA, which seems to have played a role in his falling into the hands of the Indian security agencies, investigation and prosecution of elements which were indulging in gun running under the Khalida Zia Government, neutralization of an alleged plot by the LET to attack the Indian and US diplomatic missions in Dhaka, pressure against one or two Indian Mujahideen elements living in BD territory which forced them to cross over into India and fall into the hands of the Indian security forces etc.
13. Despite such positive steps, one could see signs of abundant caution by Sheikh Hasina to ensure that she is not seen as rushing into full-throttled co-operation with India in security-related matters. In her pronouncements and comments while in New Delhi, she made a subtle distinction between co-operation with India against the international terrorism network, which posed a threat to both the countries, and action against indigenous organizations such as the ULFA, which posed a threat to India and not to Bangladesh. To prove my point, I would like to cite some of her remarks as reported by the Times of India of January 14,2010:
• The two countries are in the process of finalizing an extradition treaty.She did not specify how soon the extradition treaty could be finalized. Her Foreign Minister Dipu Moni said it could be concluded shortly given the friendly relations between the two countries.
• On January 11,2010, the two countries signed three agreements on mutual legal assistance in criminal matters, mutual transfer of convicted prisoners and co-operation in the fight against international terrorism, organized crime and illegal drug trafficking.
• Sheikh Hassina said: “ To end terrorism, we want to co-operate. We can go to any extent to co-operate.” She said that the agreements already signed between the two countries were “ enough” to combat terrorism. Side by side, discussions are going on the extradition treaty.
• “ To a specific question on whether Bangladesh would hand over ULFA leader Anup Chetia who is wanted in India, Hasina evaded a direct reply and said that she was not here to “discuss one name”, but broader issues.”
• Asked about ULFA cadres taking shelter in Bangladesh, Hasina said that many “terrorists” from Bangladesh were also living in India and that this was a common thing. She said the two countries should co-operate on this front. “If anybody from Bangladesh is in India, India should look into it and if anybody from India is in Bangladesh, we will look into it.” She also said that if “obstacles or problems” are encountered in the anti-terror co-operation under the three agreements signed, “we can discuss”
• She refused to reply to a query about terrorism finding support in Pakistan and whether that country seemed to be sincere in fighting terrorism for peace in the region, saying such a question should be posed to Pakistan.
14. We have to understand her cautious or even over-cautious attitude in security-related matters. It will be unrealistic to expect a qualitative change in security-related co-operation between the two countries during her current tenure as the Prime Minister. She has to take care of her own political standing. She has to pay attention to the continuing anti-India mindset in her country A durable qualitative change in security-related co-operation can come about only when our policy-makers take cognizance of the anti-India mindset in sections of the population and try to win over the anti-India elements.
15. A bane of our Bangladesh policy has always been that our policy-makers tend to put many, if not all of the eggs, in the basket of Sheikh Hasina and her Awami League. The importance of building bridges of understanding with non-religious political elements such as those in the BNP, even if they are not well disposed towards India, is not realized. Unless we build such bridges, there will always be strong opposition in sections of the political and public opinion in Bangladesh to any meaningful co-operation with India in security-related matters.
16. How to address the surviving anti-India mindset in Bangladesh? How to convince public opinion in Bangladesh that the two countries stand to benefit in equal measure from bilateral co-operation----whether in security or economy related matters? How to create a demonstration effect of the beneficial results of such co-operation? These are questions which a seminar such as this should address.
17.In our relations with our neighbours in the sub-continent, we are always unfortunately seen as a big power with hegemonistic tendencies. We have failed to project ourselves as a huge market, with an increasingly prosperous middle class, which can absorb much of what they produce. How to make them see us as a highly attractive market and not as a repulsive power? Can a policy of unilateral gestures in trade-related matters help in creating a demonstration effect? This is another question which needs to be addressed by this seminar. The recommendations, which go out of this seminar, should be forward moving and not backward-looking over our shoulders all the time.
18.The Inder Gujral Doctrine of unilateral gestures towards our neighbours proved counter-productive because of the over-focus on gestures in security-related matters. What we need is a new doctrine based on a mix of firmness in pursuing our security interests, unilateral gestures in economy-related matters and taking cognizance of the concerns of anti-India elements and seeking to understand them instead of giving the impression of ignoring them. ( 5-2-2010)
( The writer is Additional Secretary (retd), Cabinet Secretariat, Govt. of India, New Delhi, and, presently, Director, Institute For Topical Studies, Chennai. E-mail: seventyone2@gmail.com )
Friday, February 5, 2010
VIP SECURITY: DOWN MEMORY LANE
B.RAMAN
As I watched on the TV channels visuals of Shri Rahul Gandhi traveling by the suburban train in Mumbai on February 5,2010, my mind went back to the initial days of V.P.Singh as the Prime Minister in 1989.
2. Those were the days of Khalistani terrorism. Terrorists trained by Pakistan’s Inter-Services Intelligence were running amok in Punjab and Delhi killing dozens of innocent civilians and security forces personnel. One of the promises made by V.P.Singh during the election campaign was to bring a healing touch to the Sikh community. Shri Simranjit Singh Mann, a former IPS officer, who had resigned from the service in protest against the way the Congress (I) was handling the problem, had emerged as a valued adviser of V.P.Singh.
3. Shortly after taking over as the Prime Minister, V.P.Singh, on the advice of Shri Mann, decided to visit the Golden Temple at Amritsar without security. Shri Mann assured him that there would be no threats to his security. V.P.Singh ordered that apart from the bodyguards in plain clothes no other security arrangements should be made for him.
4. The security agencies responsible for his security did not want to take chances. They deployed a large number of security personnel in plain clothes in the Temple itself and outside to ensure that nothing went wrong, without telling V.P.Singh anything about it.
5.From V.P.Singh’s perspective, it was a highly emotional and successful visit. After worshiping in the temple he traveled round the town in an open vehicle. There were thousands of Sikhs and others, who mobbed him and greeted him. Highly pleased by the reception that he got, he said that his security was safe in the hands of the people, who loved him so much. Where was the need for official security at the expense of the tax-payer? he asked.
6. He was not aware that hundreds of those, who mobbed him and hailed him, were not members of the public, but security forces personnel who had been asked to mingle with the crowds to protect him.
7.Subsequently, highly gratified by media accounts of his successful visit to Amritsar and mingling with the crowds, V.P.Singh decided to travel by train from Delhi to Jaipur. He rejected the advice of the security agencies not to do so.
8. He went to the Delhi railway station and got into the train. He was mobbed by large cheering crowds on the station platform. He took his place inside the compartment with what he thought were other members of the traveling public. He returned from Jaipur by train.
9. He was highly gratified by the warmth shown by the traveling public to him and decided to undertake more trips by train. He was not aware that many of those who cheered him at the railway station and that all those who were in the compartment with him were actually security forces personnel in mufti.
10. After he returned to Delhi, senior officers in charge of PM’s security told him the truth and explained that since it was their responsibility to protect him, they could not have taken chances. They also pointed out that such forays by him seemingly without security cost the tax-payer more than the usual security and weakened their capability to protect him.
11. Thereafter, he stopped indulging in such gimmicks in order to embarrass Rajiv Gandhi. The Congress (I) was raising a hue and cry about the downgrading of security for Rajiv Gandhi. He wanted to embarrass Rajiv Gandhi and his Party by showing that Rajiv Gandhi needed elaborate security because he, according to V.P.Singh, was not liked by the people, whereas he (V.P.Singh) did not need that kind of security because he was loved by the people. Wiser advice prevailed and he stopped doing this. (6-2-10)
( The writer is Additional Secretary (retd), Cabinet Secretariat, Govt. of India, New Delhi. E-mail: seventyone2@gmail.com )
As I watched on the TV channels visuals of Shri Rahul Gandhi traveling by the suburban train in Mumbai on February 5,2010, my mind went back to the initial days of V.P.Singh as the Prime Minister in 1989.
2. Those were the days of Khalistani terrorism. Terrorists trained by Pakistan’s Inter-Services Intelligence were running amok in Punjab and Delhi killing dozens of innocent civilians and security forces personnel. One of the promises made by V.P.Singh during the election campaign was to bring a healing touch to the Sikh community. Shri Simranjit Singh Mann, a former IPS officer, who had resigned from the service in protest against the way the Congress (I) was handling the problem, had emerged as a valued adviser of V.P.Singh.
3. Shortly after taking over as the Prime Minister, V.P.Singh, on the advice of Shri Mann, decided to visit the Golden Temple at Amritsar without security. Shri Mann assured him that there would be no threats to his security. V.P.Singh ordered that apart from the bodyguards in plain clothes no other security arrangements should be made for him.
4. The security agencies responsible for his security did not want to take chances. They deployed a large number of security personnel in plain clothes in the Temple itself and outside to ensure that nothing went wrong, without telling V.P.Singh anything about it.
5.From V.P.Singh’s perspective, it was a highly emotional and successful visit. After worshiping in the temple he traveled round the town in an open vehicle. There were thousands of Sikhs and others, who mobbed him and greeted him. Highly pleased by the reception that he got, he said that his security was safe in the hands of the people, who loved him so much. Where was the need for official security at the expense of the tax-payer? he asked.
6. He was not aware that hundreds of those, who mobbed him and hailed him, were not members of the public, but security forces personnel who had been asked to mingle with the crowds to protect him.
7.Subsequently, highly gratified by media accounts of his successful visit to Amritsar and mingling with the crowds, V.P.Singh decided to travel by train from Delhi to Jaipur. He rejected the advice of the security agencies not to do so.
8. He went to the Delhi railway station and got into the train. He was mobbed by large cheering crowds on the station platform. He took his place inside the compartment with what he thought were other members of the traveling public. He returned from Jaipur by train.
9. He was highly gratified by the warmth shown by the traveling public to him and decided to undertake more trips by train. He was not aware that many of those who cheered him at the railway station and that all those who were in the compartment with him were actually security forces personnel in mufti.
10. After he returned to Delhi, senior officers in charge of PM’s security told him the truth and explained that since it was their responsibility to protect him, they could not have taken chances. They also pointed out that such forays by him seemingly without security cost the tax-payer more than the usual security and weakened their capability to protect him.
11. Thereafter, he stopped indulging in such gimmicks in order to embarrass Rajiv Gandhi. The Congress (I) was raising a hue and cry about the downgrading of security for Rajiv Gandhi. He wanted to embarrass Rajiv Gandhi and his Party by showing that Rajiv Gandhi needed elaborate security because he, according to V.P.Singh, was not liked by the people, whereas he (V.P.Singh) did not need that kind of security because he was loved by the people. Wiser advice prevailed and he stopped doing this. (6-2-10)
( The writer is Additional Secretary (retd), Cabinet Secretariat, Govt. of India, New Delhi. E-mail: seventyone2@gmail.com )
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