B.RAMAN
Afghanistan has seen a third Mumbai-style commando attack by suicidal terrorists on multiple targets. The previous two had taken place in Kabul and Kandahar. The latest---the third one--- took place in Khost in Eastern Afghanistan on May 12,2009. Three groups of suicidal bombers launched commando-style attacks on the compound of the local Governor, the nearby police headquarters and a municipal building. The multiple attacks, which began at around 10 AM ended only at 5 PM after US and Afghan security forces managed to eliminate the terrorists or some of them blew themselves up. Initially, the raiding Neo Taliban terrorists took 20 hostages, but the US and Afghan troops managed to free them. A Neo Taliban spokesman has claimed that the multiple attacks were launched by 30 of their men.
2.Eleven members of the raiding parties and nine members of the Afghan security forces and civilians are reported to have been killed during the seven-hour confrontation between the security forces and the raiding parties. There are no reports of any US fatalities. Earlier on the morning of May 12, there was an attack by a US unmanned Predator plane on a suspected terrorist hide-out in the Dray Nishtar area of North Waziristan. Ten unidentified persons were killed. This was the second US Predator attack in three days. Many people were killed in a similar attack in South Waziristan on May 9. Both attacks have been described by local sources as retaliatory for attacks on US forces in Afghan territory by elements which had infiltrated into Afghanistan from the two Waziristans. The two drone attacks did not specifically target any individual. They merely targeted the buildings or hide-outs from which these elements were suspected to have infiltrated into Afghanistan.
3. In the meanwhile, Robert Gates, the US Defence Secretary, announced in Washington DC on May 11,2009, the replacement of Gen David McKiernan, the US Commander in Afghanistan, by Gen Stanley McChrystal, who currently serves as the Director of US Joint Chiefs of Staff,and was previously a Director of special operations forces. Gen McChrystal was in charge of Joint Special Operations in Iraq. According to a report disseminated by the British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC), his forces were involved in the capture of Saddam Hussein and the killing of Al Qaeda's leader in Iraq - Abu Musab al-Zarqawi. Gates justified the replacement as necessitated by the need for new thinking on the strategy to be followed by the Army in Afghanistan.
4. Gen.McKiernan, who had also previously served in Iraq, was posted in Afghanistan for less than a year. He took over the responsibility for dealing with an unsatisfactory ground situation marked by a bleeding stalemate between the US-led NATO forces and the Neo Taliban.There was no end to this stalemate during his tenure. This stalemate saw the US-led forces and the Neo Taliban inflicting periodic casualties on each other without either of them being able to establish territorial dominance in any substantial area in Eastern and Southern Afghanistan.
5. Gen.McKiernan's strategy was more reactive than proactive----building effective defences and retaliatory capability to deny success to the Neo Taliban. It was not pro-active in the sense of the US-led forces going after the Neo Taliban and launching pre-emptive strikes before it was able to attack US and Afghan forces. A pro-active policy with emphasis on pre-emptive strikes is expected under Gen.McChrystal.The new strategy is expected to focus on "attack, disrupt and dismantle" instead of being merely content with denying success to the Neo Taliban.
6. The US faces a three-in-one security dilemma in the Af-Pak region--- counter-insurgency against the Neo Taliban and Gulbuddin Heckmatyar's Hizbe Islami in Afghan territory, counter-sanctuary operations against the safehavens enjoyed by Al Qaeda and its allies in the Federally-Administered Tribal Areas (FATA) and by the Neo Taliban in the Quetta area of Balochistan and counter- Pakistani Taliban in the FATA and the Malakand Division of the North-West Frontier Province (NWFP).While the US has to play an activist role against the sanctuaries of Al Qaeda and the Neo Taliban, the operations against the Pakistani Taliban are essentially an internal security task of the Pakistani security forces and Govt. While the new strategy of Gen.McChrystal is expected to add greater thrust to the counter-insurgency operations against the Neo Taliban and the Hizbe Islami, the counter-sanctuary policy against Al Qaeda and its allies and against the Neo Taliban in Pakistani territory is in a state of confusion with the Pakistan Army unable or unwilling to deal with them and with the US not showing any signs of fresh thinking. The present policy is focussed almost exclusively on drone attacks, which are yet to make an impact. Deniable covert actions against the sanctuaries in Pakistani territory is an option which has not been given a serious try lest there be uncontrollable adverse reactions in Pakistan.
7. The Pakistan Army has been giving an impression of being serious now about its determination this time to wipe out the Tehrik-e-Taliban Pakistan (TTP) and its ally the Tehrik-e-Nifaz-a-Shariat-e-Mohammadi (TNSM) from their hide-outs in the Swat Valley and other areas of the Malakand Division of the North-West Frontier Province (NWFP). The TNSM has been adopting the same tactics as it did in 2007-08 when a similar offensive was launched when Pervez Musharraf was the President. This tactics consists of avoiding frontal clashes with the security forces, stepping up suicide attacks of terrorism, splitting into small groups, withdrawing into the mountains and inveigling the security forces to raid and attack them in their mountainous hide-outs so that they could inflict heavy casualties on them. Neither the Pakistani security forces nor their US advisers have been able to think of an alternative strategy of strengthening the control of the security forces in the areas vacated by the TNSM, building up their defences and inveigling the TNSM into attacking the security forces in their strongholds.
8. The large-scale exodus of Pashtun civilians from the areas affected by the counter-Taliban operations----now estimated at 1.3 million---shows that there is not much public support for the TTP and the TNSM. Due to the weak capabilities of the security forces, the TNSM and the TTP have been able to intimidate the civilians into supporting them. Once the civilians had an opportunity to escape, they did so.
9. The protection of the civilians and humanitarian assistance to the internally displaced Pashtuns should be an important task. From the statements emanating from Mrs.Hillary Clinton, the US Secretary of State, and others in Washington, it is evident that US policy-makers realise the importance of humanitarian relief to the internally displaced. The US has already made an initial contribution of about US $ five million. The United Nations High Commission for Refugees (UNHCR) has also initiated action for humanitarian assistance.There are reported promises of assistance from Saudi Arabia and China.
10. The problem is that Pakistan does not have an effective Governmental infrastructure for humanitarian relief. One saw that during the earthquake, which ravaged Pakistan-Occupied Kashmir (POK) and some areas of the NWFP in 2005.The Government's response to the disaster caused by the earthquake was very unsatisfactory. It was the Lashkar-e-Toiba (LET), the terrorist organisation, and its political wing called the Jamaat-ud-Dawa (JUD), which were in the forefront of the disaster relief work. They mobilised volunteers and funds and organised the relief work in a manner which won the gratitude of the people. They were alleged to have pocketed for their own use part of the huge flow of funds from the Pakistani diaspora abroad and Saudi Arabia for quake relief.
11. Similarly, now, in the face of the lethargic response of the Government, it is the LET and the JUD and certain other Islamic fundamentalist parties such as the Jamaat-e-Islami (JEI), which have taken the lead in looking after the internally displaced Pashtuns with the help of money locally collected as well as flowing from the Pakistani diaspora and Muslim countries like Saudi Arabia. If the Government does not effectively take over the leadership role in providing humanitarian relief to the internally displaced Pashtuns and leaves the field free to jihadi and fundamentalist organisations, part of the money flowing from the Pakistani diaspora and Saudi Arabia would be diverted to their coffers and their humanitarian work would enable them to make more recruitment for acts of insurgency and terrorism. (13-5-09)
(The writer is Additional Secretary (retd), Cabinet Secretariat, Govt. of India, New Delhi, and, presently, Directior, Institute For Topical Studies, Chennai. E-mail: seventyone2@gmail.com )
Tuesday, May 12, 2009
Monday, May 11, 2009
US CONGRESS CONTINUES TO BACK THE TIBETAN CAUSE
B.RAMAN
The Barack Obama administration’s policy of playing down the issue of the alleged violation of the human rights of the Tibetans in China has not had any impact on the US Congress. The Tibetan cause continues to receive the same support from both Houses of the Congress, despite their being dominated by the Democratic Party, as it was receiving during the administration of George Bush. This continuing Congressional support for the Tibetan cause on the same scale as during the previous administration is reflected in the budgetary allocations for the fiscal year 2009 and in the access enjoyed by various Tibetan non-governmental organizations to leading members of the two Houses, belonging to both the Democratic and the Republican Parties.
2. The budget for fiscal 2009 has allocated US $ 17 million for various Tibetan causes. The break-ups available are as follows:
(a). Funds for educational and cultural programmes inside Tibet ---US $ 7.3 million.
(b). Funds for Tibetan language broadcasts by Radio Free Asia and the Voice of America---- US $ 3.3 million.
( c ).Funds for Tibetan refugee programmes such as medicare, education of Tibetan children, transit assistance etc ---- US $ 2.5 million.
(d). Funds for running the office of the Special Coordinator for Tibetan Issues in the US State Department---US $ one million.
(e). Funds for a Tibetan Section in the US Embassy in Beijing to monitor developments in Tibet till the US is able to establish a consulate in Lhasa---US $ one million.
(f). Funds for Fulbright scholarships for Tibetan students for their higher education ---US $ 750,000.
(g).Funds to provide academic and cultural exchange opportunities to Tibetans—US $ 650,00.
(h). Funds for the Tibetan programmes of the National Endowment for Democracy (NED)—US $ 250,000.
3. The Congress has presently under consideration a new project meant to protect Tibetan identity, language, culture and religion. Funding for this project has not yet been approved. (12-5-2009)
( The writer is Additional Secretary (retd), Cabinet Secretariat, Govt. of India, New Delhi, and, presently, Director, Institute For Topical Studies, Chennai. He is also associated with the Chennai Centre For China Studies. E-mail: seventyone2@gmail.com )
The Barack Obama administration’s policy of playing down the issue of the alleged violation of the human rights of the Tibetans in China has not had any impact on the US Congress. The Tibetan cause continues to receive the same support from both Houses of the Congress, despite their being dominated by the Democratic Party, as it was receiving during the administration of George Bush. This continuing Congressional support for the Tibetan cause on the same scale as during the previous administration is reflected in the budgetary allocations for the fiscal year 2009 and in the access enjoyed by various Tibetan non-governmental organizations to leading members of the two Houses, belonging to both the Democratic and the Republican Parties.
2. The budget for fiscal 2009 has allocated US $ 17 million for various Tibetan causes. The break-ups available are as follows:
(a). Funds for educational and cultural programmes inside Tibet ---US $ 7.3 million.
(b). Funds for Tibetan language broadcasts by Radio Free Asia and the Voice of America---- US $ 3.3 million.
( c ).Funds for Tibetan refugee programmes such as medicare, education of Tibetan children, transit assistance etc ---- US $ 2.5 million.
(d). Funds for running the office of the Special Coordinator for Tibetan Issues in the US State Department---US $ one million.
(e). Funds for a Tibetan Section in the US Embassy in Beijing to monitor developments in Tibet till the US is able to establish a consulate in Lhasa---US $ one million.
(f). Funds for Fulbright scholarships for Tibetan students for their higher education ---US $ 750,000.
(g).Funds to provide academic and cultural exchange opportunities to Tibetans—US $ 650,00.
(h). Funds for the Tibetan programmes of the National Endowment for Democracy (NED)—US $ 250,000.
3. The Congress has presently under consideration a new project meant to protect Tibetan identity, language, culture and religion. Funding for this project has not yet been approved. (12-5-2009)
( The writer is Additional Secretary (retd), Cabinet Secretariat, Govt. of India, New Delhi, and, presently, Director, Institute For Topical Studies, Chennai. He is also associated with the Chennai Centre For China Studies. E-mail: seventyone2@gmail.com )
Sunday, May 10, 2009
ELECTORAL CROCODILE TEARS FOR SRI LANKAN TAMILS
B.RAMAN
The campaign in Tamil Nadu for the elections to the Lok Sabha, which comes to an end on May 11,2009, saw copious shedding of crocodile tears not only for the plight of the Sri Lankan Tamils, but also for the cause of a separate Tamil homeland as the Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam (DMK) of M. Karunanidhi put it or for the cause of an independent Tamil Eelam as the Anna DMK of J.Jayalalitha and other Tamil parties put it.
2. Of the various parties contesting the elections, only the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), the Congress (I) and the Communist Party of India (CPI), which are national and not regional parties, made a distinction between support for the plight of the Tamils and support for the cause of Tamil Eelam. They desisted from supporting the latter.
3. There has been a certain hypocrisy in the stand of both the DMK and the ADMK. The DMK, which in the past had made no secret of its sympathies for the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE) and its leader Prabakaran, had at the same time refrained from supporting the demand for a Tamil Eelam. It had always given the impression of supporting the stand of the Government of India of canvassing for the political and economic rights of the Tamils in a unified, but not unitary Sri Lanka.
4.The ADMK had in the past strongly opposed the LTTE and Prabakaran as well as their demand for an independent Tamil Eelam. Jayalalitha’s abrupt volte face on this subject during the course of the election campaign and her coming out in support of the totally unwise suggestion for sending the Indian Army to the Tamil areas of Sri Lanka for facilitating the creation of an independent Tamil Eelam came as a total surprise. Taken aback by the change in her stand, Karunanidhi, who has shown a lack of consistency and lucidity on the Tamil issue for over a year now, came out with his own support for a Tamil homeland without explaining what he meant. The Sri Lankan Tamils already have a homeland in the Northern and Eastern Provinces of Sri Lanka. The question is what should be the constitutional status of this homeland. Should it become an independent Tamil Eelam as demanded by the LTTE or should it become a largely autonomous state of a federal Sri Lanka as demanded by other Sri Lankan Tamil parties and as supported by the Government of India since the days of Rajiv Gandhi as the Prime Minister?
5. How can Jayalalitha and Karunanidhi come out in support of an independent Tamil Eelam or a homeland for the Tamils when none of the Tamil political parties in Sri Lanka except the LTTE has supported such a demand? Even the LTTE is now a party in its death rattle. The knee-jerk reactions on the Sri Lankan Tamil issue among the regional parties of Tamil Nadu and their vying with one another in showing whose heart bleeds more for the Sri Lankan Tamils and their cause show a calculation by all these parties that in the absence of any other major political issue of interest to the nation in general and to Tamil Nadu in particular during the just-ending election campaign the exploitation of the Sri Lankan Tamil issue might provide the magic wand to electrify the voters and get their support. Whether their calculation proves right or wrong, only the results will show on May 16,2009. But one has to note that outside the screeching headlines of the Tamil media, one has not seen any major outpouring of public support for any of the Tamil parties on the Tamil Eelam issue.
6.One gets an impression that the Tamils of Tamil Nadu are more concerned about their own plight than over the plight of the Sri Lankan Tamils----caused by the rotten state of the infrastructure, frequent electricity shut-downs under the pretext of maintenance pauses, an administration which activates itself only a few weeks before the elections and then forgets the voters for four years, the political dynasty syndrome and a group of DMK Ministers in the Cabinet of Dr.Manmohan Singh who conducted themselves for four years as if India is Tamil Nadu and Tamil Nadu is India and as if Tamil Nadu is DMK and DMK is Tamil Nadu. The DMK Ministers held very important portfolios in New Delhi, but how many non-Tamil citizens of India had heard of them or seen them?
7. There are three aspects to the Sri Lankan Tamil issue:
(a). The humanitarian plight of the Sri Lankan Tamil civilians in the Northern and Eastern Provinces due to the ruthless use of air strikes by the Sri Lankan Air Force in the Tamil areas for the last three years and the use of multi-barrel rockets and artillery pieces given by Pakistan and due to the recent brutal use of the Tamil civilians by the LTTE as human shields in order to ward off its final collapse and maintain its political relevance after having lost its military capabilities. The Government of Dr.Manmohan Singh and all political parties----national or regional--- failed deplorably all these months to condemn the use of air strikes and heavy artillery of Pakistani- make against the Tamil civilians. The humanitarian problem did not start yesterday. It started three years ago when the Sri Lankan Armed Forces brought their aircraft and Pakistani-origin artillery into action, but not a single political party in India thought it fit to condemn it. They have suddenly become aware of the humanitarian plight of the Tamils a few weeks before the elections. If this is not hypocrisy and political opportunism, what then is it?
(b). The cause of the Sri Lankan Tamils, who have always been the objective allies of India. The Sri Lankan Tamil cause, which has the support of all Tamil parties in Sri Lanka, relates to a modification of the present unitary state of Sri Lanka in order to make it a genuine federal State in which the equal rights and dignity of the Tamils in the federal State are guaranteed. This cause had enjoyed the active support of Rajiv Gandhi when he was the Prime Minister. Many Tamils in Tamil Nadu, including this writer, had a legitimate grievance that as Prime Minister, Manmohan Singh deviated from the traditional policy of Congress (I) and failed to articulate energetically the Government of India’s support for this. His silence and ambivalent comments----if at all when he made some rare comments on the Sri Lankan Tamil issue--- were interpreted by the Government of President Mahinda Rajapaksa and the Sinhalese extremists in the Sri Lankan Armed Forces as indicating that the Government of India no longer supported the Tamil cause as strongly as it did under Rajiv Gandhi and that it could ride rough-shod over the rights of the Tamils without having to worry about any adverse reactions from New Delhi.
(C ). The cause of an independent Tamil Eelam. The LTTE is the only Tamil organization in Sri Lanka which supports it. Other Tamil parties don’t. Under Indira Gandhi as the Prime Minister, the Congress (I) gave the impression of supporting it, but Rajiv Gandhi wisely removed this impression and came out against an independent Tamil Eelam and in favour of a federal Sri Lanka with the Tamils enjoying equal rights with the Sinhalese. After the expected death of the LTTE, this would have been a dead issue in Sri Lanka, but attempts are being made in Tamil Nadu to give a fresh lease of life to this issue purely out of electoral calculations and not out of any genuine interest in the future of the Sri Lankan Tamils.
8. Despite all that has happened till now, India still has many friends in Sri Lanka--- among the Sinhalese as well as the Tamils. There are many on both sides of the political spectrum in Sri Lanka who understand and do not misinterpret India’s interest in the future of the Tamils in view of the likely impact of the Sri Lankan Tamil problem on the Indian Tamils in Tamil Nadu. Based on this, the Manmohan Sigh Government could have worked out a comprehensive strategy for the future which would have convinced the Sri Lankan Tamils that India continued to care for them and would have, at the same time, reassured the Sinhalese that India did not wish ill of them and Sri Lanka.
9. The Manmohan Singh Government failed to work out such a strategy. Nobody knows what exactly is his strategy on Sri Lanka. ( 11-5-2009)
(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 campaign in Tamil Nadu for the elections to the Lok Sabha, which comes to an end on May 11,2009, saw copious shedding of crocodile tears not only for the plight of the Sri Lankan Tamils, but also for the cause of a separate Tamil homeland as the Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam (DMK) of M. Karunanidhi put it or for the cause of an independent Tamil Eelam as the Anna DMK of J.Jayalalitha and other Tamil parties put it.
2. Of the various parties contesting the elections, only the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), the Congress (I) and the Communist Party of India (CPI), which are national and not regional parties, made a distinction between support for the plight of the Tamils and support for the cause of Tamil Eelam. They desisted from supporting the latter.
3. There has been a certain hypocrisy in the stand of both the DMK and the ADMK. The DMK, which in the past had made no secret of its sympathies for the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE) and its leader Prabakaran, had at the same time refrained from supporting the demand for a Tamil Eelam. It had always given the impression of supporting the stand of the Government of India of canvassing for the political and economic rights of the Tamils in a unified, but not unitary Sri Lanka.
4.The ADMK had in the past strongly opposed the LTTE and Prabakaran as well as their demand for an independent Tamil Eelam. Jayalalitha’s abrupt volte face on this subject during the course of the election campaign and her coming out in support of the totally unwise suggestion for sending the Indian Army to the Tamil areas of Sri Lanka for facilitating the creation of an independent Tamil Eelam came as a total surprise. Taken aback by the change in her stand, Karunanidhi, who has shown a lack of consistency and lucidity on the Tamil issue for over a year now, came out with his own support for a Tamil homeland without explaining what he meant. The Sri Lankan Tamils already have a homeland in the Northern and Eastern Provinces of Sri Lanka. The question is what should be the constitutional status of this homeland. Should it become an independent Tamil Eelam as demanded by the LTTE or should it become a largely autonomous state of a federal Sri Lanka as demanded by other Sri Lankan Tamil parties and as supported by the Government of India since the days of Rajiv Gandhi as the Prime Minister?
5. How can Jayalalitha and Karunanidhi come out in support of an independent Tamil Eelam or a homeland for the Tamils when none of the Tamil political parties in Sri Lanka except the LTTE has supported such a demand? Even the LTTE is now a party in its death rattle. The knee-jerk reactions on the Sri Lankan Tamil issue among the regional parties of Tamil Nadu and their vying with one another in showing whose heart bleeds more for the Sri Lankan Tamils and their cause show a calculation by all these parties that in the absence of any other major political issue of interest to the nation in general and to Tamil Nadu in particular during the just-ending election campaign the exploitation of the Sri Lankan Tamil issue might provide the magic wand to electrify the voters and get their support. Whether their calculation proves right or wrong, only the results will show on May 16,2009. But one has to note that outside the screeching headlines of the Tamil media, one has not seen any major outpouring of public support for any of the Tamil parties on the Tamil Eelam issue.
6.One gets an impression that the Tamils of Tamil Nadu are more concerned about their own plight than over the plight of the Sri Lankan Tamils----caused by the rotten state of the infrastructure, frequent electricity shut-downs under the pretext of maintenance pauses, an administration which activates itself only a few weeks before the elections and then forgets the voters for four years, the political dynasty syndrome and a group of DMK Ministers in the Cabinet of Dr.Manmohan Singh who conducted themselves for four years as if India is Tamil Nadu and Tamil Nadu is India and as if Tamil Nadu is DMK and DMK is Tamil Nadu. The DMK Ministers held very important portfolios in New Delhi, but how many non-Tamil citizens of India had heard of them or seen them?
7. There are three aspects to the Sri Lankan Tamil issue:
(a). The humanitarian plight of the Sri Lankan Tamil civilians in the Northern and Eastern Provinces due to the ruthless use of air strikes by the Sri Lankan Air Force in the Tamil areas for the last three years and the use of multi-barrel rockets and artillery pieces given by Pakistan and due to the recent brutal use of the Tamil civilians by the LTTE as human shields in order to ward off its final collapse and maintain its political relevance after having lost its military capabilities. The Government of Dr.Manmohan Singh and all political parties----national or regional--- failed deplorably all these months to condemn the use of air strikes and heavy artillery of Pakistani- make against the Tamil civilians. The humanitarian problem did not start yesterday. It started three years ago when the Sri Lankan Armed Forces brought their aircraft and Pakistani-origin artillery into action, but not a single political party in India thought it fit to condemn it. They have suddenly become aware of the humanitarian plight of the Tamils a few weeks before the elections. If this is not hypocrisy and political opportunism, what then is it?
(b). The cause of the Sri Lankan Tamils, who have always been the objective allies of India. The Sri Lankan Tamil cause, which has the support of all Tamil parties in Sri Lanka, relates to a modification of the present unitary state of Sri Lanka in order to make it a genuine federal State in which the equal rights and dignity of the Tamils in the federal State are guaranteed. This cause had enjoyed the active support of Rajiv Gandhi when he was the Prime Minister. Many Tamils in Tamil Nadu, including this writer, had a legitimate grievance that as Prime Minister, Manmohan Singh deviated from the traditional policy of Congress (I) and failed to articulate energetically the Government of India’s support for this. His silence and ambivalent comments----if at all when he made some rare comments on the Sri Lankan Tamil issue--- were interpreted by the Government of President Mahinda Rajapaksa and the Sinhalese extremists in the Sri Lankan Armed Forces as indicating that the Government of India no longer supported the Tamil cause as strongly as it did under Rajiv Gandhi and that it could ride rough-shod over the rights of the Tamils without having to worry about any adverse reactions from New Delhi.
(C ). The cause of an independent Tamil Eelam. The LTTE is the only Tamil organization in Sri Lanka which supports it. Other Tamil parties don’t. Under Indira Gandhi as the Prime Minister, the Congress (I) gave the impression of supporting it, but Rajiv Gandhi wisely removed this impression and came out against an independent Tamil Eelam and in favour of a federal Sri Lanka with the Tamils enjoying equal rights with the Sinhalese. After the expected death of the LTTE, this would have been a dead issue in Sri Lanka, but attempts are being made in Tamil Nadu to give a fresh lease of life to this issue purely out of electoral calculations and not out of any genuine interest in the future of the Sri Lankan Tamils.
8. Despite all that has happened till now, India still has many friends in Sri Lanka--- among the Sinhalese as well as the Tamils. There are many on both sides of the political spectrum in Sri Lanka who understand and do not misinterpret India’s interest in the future of the Tamils in view of the likely impact of the Sri Lankan Tamil problem on the Indian Tamils in Tamil Nadu. Based on this, the Manmohan Sigh Government could have worked out a comprehensive strategy for the future which would have convinced the Sri Lankan Tamils that India continued to care for them and would have, at the same time, reassured the Sinhalese that India did not wish ill of them and Sri Lanka.
9. The Manmohan Singh Government failed to work out such a strategy. Nobody knows what exactly is his strategy on Sri Lanka. ( 11-5-2009)
(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 )
RE-ARREST OF MAS SELAMAT OF JI: A WAKE-UP CALL FOR SINGAPORE & MALAYSIA
INTERNATIONAL TERRORISM MONITOR: PAPER NO.523
B.RAMAN
Mas Selamat Kastari, said to be a leader of the Singapore branch of Jemaah Islamiyah (JI), who escaped from a high security detention centre of Singapore on February 27,2008, and had remained undetected since then, is reported to have been traced by the Malaysian police after he had remained in hiding for nearly 14 months and re-arrested. According to media reports quoting the authorities of Singapore and Malaysia, he was found and re-arrested on April 1,2009, in Johor Bahru in Malaysia.
2.In a statement issued on May 8,2009, Singapore's Home Affairs Ministry said: "Mas Selamat has been arrested by the Malaysian Special Branch (MSB) in a joint operation between the MSB and the Internal Security Department (ISD)." Wong Kan Seng, Singapore's Deputy Prime Minister, who is also in charge of Home Affairs, told the media that the news of the arrest was not announced earlier in the interest of operational secrecy.
3. The Malaysian authorities apparently took the precaution of not announcing his re-arrest in order not to alert other members of the JI,who are still in hiding and for whom they are searching. Moreover, a premature announcement of the arrest might have enabled the JI to destroy evidence relating to the movements and activities of Mas Selamat Kastari since his escape from detention.
4. According to Wong as quoted in the local media, Mas Selamat had swam across the Straits of Johor using an improvised flotation device to escape from the north shore of Singapore after he escaped from the detention centre last year. According to Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong, information about the re-arrest of Mas Selamat on April 1 was first conveyed by the Malaysian authorities to Wong and then he himself was informed by Malaysian Prime Minister Najib Razak on April 11,2009, when the two met at Pattaya in Thailand prior to the abandoned ASEAN summit. The summit was abandoned due to disturbances caused by the supporters of former Thai Prime MinisterThaksin Shinawatra.Prime Minister Lee said that the Singapore authorities had honoured a Malaysian request to keep the information a secret, but the decision to announce it was made after the "Straits Times" had come to know of the re-arrest and started making enquiries about it on May 7.
5. The Malaysian authorities have not announced how and where they managed to trace him and the circumstances under which he was re-arrested. All that is certain till now is that he is still under the custody of the Malaysian Police who are still interrogating him. It is evident from the available details that his re-arrest was made possible by human intelligence derived from the interrogation of some other suspected JI members arrested recently and not from technical intelligence.He was apparently observing communications security.It is reasonable to presume that the Singapore authorities would also be involved in the interrogation. The involvement could be either by deputing a Singapore officer to personally participate in the interrogation or by sending a list of questions of interest to the Singapore authorities for being used by the Malaysian team interrogating him.
6. However close counter-terrorism co-operation between two countries may be, they do not immediately allow officers of another country to join in the interrogation. They prefer to get a questionnaire from the interested State and elicit answers to those questions. When the Americans arrested Hambali of the JI in Ayuthya in Thailand in August 2003, they did not allow the Indonesian police to join in the interrogation for a long time. Similarly, in the interrogation of arrested Al Qaeda suspects having knowledge of the hijacking of an Indian Airlines aircraft to Kandahar in December,1999, the Americans avoided associating an Indian officer with the interrogation.
7. Such interrogation of a freshly-arrested or re-arrested terrorist suspect is generally done in three phases.The immediate first phase is devoted to finding out whether the arrested person had any knowledge of impending and imminent terrorist strikes and the identities of those involved in the planning for the strikes so that they could be arrested and the planned terrorist strike thwarted. The fact that there have been no subsequet arrests of a significant nature shows that Mas Selamat was apparently not aware of any impending and imminent strike.
8. The second phase will be devoted to re-tracing his movements and activities since the moment he escaped from the Singapore detention centre. This would help in establishing the identities of those who had helped him in escaping and crossing over and in protecting him after he crossed over. Terrorist organisations usually have two types of sleeper cells---- the operational cells which plan and carry out a terrorist strike and logistics cells which provide the back-up in the form of safe sanctuaries, collection of funds and materials required for the operation etc. The escape of Mas Selamat, his crossing over to Johore Baru and his remaining untraced for 14 months show clearly the presence of a trans-ASEAN network of JI logistics cells, which have not been unearthed by the local authorities so far. Was he remaining in Johore Baru all the time or was he travelling in the region? That should be a question of crucial interest.
9. The third phase will be devoted to establishing in detail how he escaped and remained undetected in order to identify security deficiencies in Singapore and Malaysia, which he exploited to escape and remain underground for 14 months. Two security deficiencies are obvious. The first deficiency arises from the fact that despite the security alert ordered by the Singapore Police he managed to swim across to Johore Baru. How did he get hold of his floatation device? Did he swim across immediately after his escape or did he remain in hiding with a sympathiser in Singapore for some days and cross over after the Police had reduced their alert? This is an important question. Answers to this would show whether there are still untraced logistics cells of the JI in Singapore.
10. The second deficiency arises from the fact that after crossing over he remained undetected by the Malaysian Police for 14 months.Malaysian media reports have alleged that he was arrested in a small Chinese majority town called Skudai in the Johore Baru area. How his arrival and presence there did not raise any suspicion for 14 months? In India, we have the system of village chowkidars (guards) started by the British Police before 1947. An important task of the chowkidar is to alert the police about the arrival of any suspicious person not belonging to the village. Does Malaysia have such a system since it was also under the British? If so, why this system failed?
11. The location and re-arrest of Mas Selamat speaks well of the efficiency and professionalism of the Internal Security Department of Singapore and of the Special Branch of the Malaysian Police. It also speaks disconcertingly of deficiencies in their security procedures of which the JI is aware and which Mas Selamat was able to exploit. (10-5-2009)
(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
Mas Selamat Kastari, said to be a leader of the Singapore branch of Jemaah Islamiyah (JI), who escaped from a high security detention centre of Singapore on February 27,2008, and had remained undetected since then, is reported to have been traced by the Malaysian police after he had remained in hiding for nearly 14 months and re-arrested. According to media reports quoting the authorities of Singapore and Malaysia, he was found and re-arrested on April 1,2009, in Johor Bahru in Malaysia.
2.In a statement issued on May 8,2009, Singapore's Home Affairs Ministry said: "Mas Selamat has been arrested by the Malaysian Special Branch (MSB) in a joint operation between the MSB and the Internal Security Department (ISD)." Wong Kan Seng, Singapore's Deputy Prime Minister, who is also in charge of Home Affairs, told the media that the news of the arrest was not announced earlier in the interest of operational secrecy.
3. The Malaysian authorities apparently took the precaution of not announcing his re-arrest in order not to alert other members of the JI,who are still in hiding and for whom they are searching. Moreover, a premature announcement of the arrest might have enabled the JI to destroy evidence relating to the movements and activities of Mas Selamat Kastari since his escape from detention.
4. According to Wong as quoted in the local media, Mas Selamat had swam across the Straits of Johor using an improvised flotation device to escape from the north shore of Singapore after he escaped from the detention centre last year. According to Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong, information about the re-arrest of Mas Selamat on April 1 was first conveyed by the Malaysian authorities to Wong and then he himself was informed by Malaysian Prime Minister Najib Razak on April 11,2009, when the two met at Pattaya in Thailand prior to the abandoned ASEAN summit. The summit was abandoned due to disturbances caused by the supporters of former Thai Prime MinisterThaksin Shinawatra.Prime Minister Lee said that the Singapore authorities had honoured a Malaysian request to keep the information a secret, but the decision to announce it was made after the "Straits Times" had come to know of the re-arrest and started making enquiries about it on May 7.
5. The Malaysian authorities have not announced how and where they managed to trace him and the circumstances under which he was re-arrested. All that is certain till now is that he is still under the custody of the Malaysian Police who are still interrogating him. It is evident from the available details that his re-arrest was made possible by human intelligence derived from the interrogation of some other suspected JI members arrested recently and not from technical intelligence.He was apparently observing communications security.It is reasonable to presume that the Singapore authorities would also be involved in the interrogation. The involvement could be either by deputing a Singapore officer to personally participate in the interrogation or by sending a list of questions of interest to the Singapore authorities for being used by the Malaysian team interrogating him.
6. However close counter-terrorism co-operation between two countries may be, they do not immediately allow officers of another country to join in the interrogation. They prefer to get a questionnaire from the interested State and elicit answers to those questions. When the Americans arrested Hambali of the JI in Ayuthya in Thailand in August 2003, they did not allow the Indonesian police to join in the interrogation for a long time. Similarly, in the interrogation of arrested Al Qaeda suspects having knowledge of the hijacking of an Indian Airlines aircraft to Kandahar in December,1999, the Americans avoided associating an Indian officer with the interrogation.
7. Such interrogation of a freshly-arrested or re-arrested terrorist suspect is generally done in three phases.The immediate first phase is devoted to finding out whether the arrested person had any knowledge of impending and imminent terrorist strikes and the identities of those involved in the planning for the strikes so that they could be arrested and the planned terrorist strike thwarted. The fact that there have been no subsequet arrests of a significant nature shows that Mas Selamat was apparently not aware of any impending and imminent strike.
8. The second phase will be devoted to re-tracing his movements and activities since the moment he escaped from the Singapore detention centre. This would help in establishing the identities of those who had helped him in escaping and crossing over and in protecting him after he crossed over. Terrorist organisations usually have two types of sleeper cells---- the operational cells which plan and carry out a terrorist strike and logistics cells which provide the back-up in the form of safe sanctuaries, collection of funds and materials required for the operation etc. The escape of Mas Selamat, his crossing over to Johore Baru and his remaining untraced for 14 months show clearly the presence of a trans-ASEAN network of JI logistics cells, which have not been unearthed by the local authorities so far. Was he remaining in Johore Baru all the time or was he travelling in the region? That should be a question of crucial interest.
9. The third phase will be devoted to establishing in detail how he escaped and remained undetected in order to identify security deficiencies in Singapore and Malaysia, which he exploited to escape and remain underground for 14 months. Two security deficiencies are obvious. The first deficiency arises from the fact that despite the security alert ordered by the Singapore Police he managed to swim across to Johore Baru. How did he get hold of his floatation device? Did he swim across immediately after his escape or did he remain in hiding with a sympathiser in Singapore for some days and cross over after the Police had reduced their alert? This is an important question. Answers to this would show whether there are still untraced logistics cells of the JI in Singapore.
10. The second deficiency arises from the fact that after crossing over he remained undetected by the Malaysian Police for 14 months.Malaysian media reports have alleged that he was arrested in a small Chinese majority town called Skudai in the Johore Baru area. How his arrival and presence there did not raise any suspicion for 14 months? In India, we have the system of village chowkidars (guards) started by the British Police before 1947. An important task of the chowkidar is to alert the police about the arrival of any suspicious person not belonging to the village. Does Malaysia have such a system since it was also under the British? If so, why this system failed?
11. The location and re-arrest of Mas Selamat speaks well of the efficiency and professionalism of the Internal Security Department of Singapore and of the Special Branch of the Malaysian Police. It also speaks disconcertingly of deficiencies in their security procedures of which the JI is aware and which Mas Selamat was able to exploit. (10-5-2009)
(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 )
PAKISTAN'S INTERNAL SECURITY
B.Raman
Mizoram in India's North-East is a peaceful and prosperous State. It has a total area of about 21087 sq.kms with 21 major hill ranges or peaks. A very difficult terrain for an army to carry out a successful counter-insurgency operation. Its population was estimated at 8,91,058 in 2001.
2.Mizoram was not a peaceful region before 1986. It was one of the most troubled regions of India. In February,1966, an ethnic separatist organisation called the Mizo National Front (MNF) overran the entire State in a series of simultaneous and surprise attacks and captured even Aizawl, its capital. The Indian Government and its security forces lost control of Mizoram almost as completely as the Pakistani security forces have now lost control of Swat, which has an area of only 1772 Sq.Kms with a population estimated at 1.5 million in 1998.
3. It took the Government of India and its security forces 20 years to reestablish the Government's writ over the State by making it clear to the MNF that violence would not pay and by reaching a political solution on the future of the Mizo people, which would enable them to remain a part of India with considerable political and economic rights.
4.The counter-insurgency operations carried out by the Indian security forces in Mizoram are considered a model for others to learn from and emulate. It has today India's leading counter-insurgency school and even the US sends its military officers to the school to learn from India's success in dealing with the insurgency.
5. The Swat District of the North-West Frontier Province of Pakistan came under the virtual total control of the Tehrik-e-Nifaz-e-Shariat-e-Mohammadi (TNSM) in 2007. The hilly terrain in Swat is somewhat similar to that in Mizoram The area affected by the TNSM insurgency is much smaller than the affected area in Mizoram.
6. The MNF movement was an ethnic separatist movement. The TNSM movement is a religious fundamentalist movement. Apart from this, there was another major difference between Mizoram and Swat. The Mizos constituted a small number of people confined to Mizoram. They had to fight against the Indian security forces unaided by other non-Mizo tribal groups in the region. The tribals of Swat are part of the Pashtun tribe, which is spread over a vast area in the Pashtun belt across the Pakistan-Afghanistan border. They are not fighting alone against the Pakistani security forces. They are supported by the Pashtuns in the surrounding areas.
7. It should not, therefore, be a matter of surprise that the Pakistani security forces have been facing considerable difficulties in countering their activities.The dimensions of the Mizo insurgency were much smaller as compared to the dimensions of the problem caused for the Pakistani security forces by the Pakistani Taliban called the Tehrik-e-Taliban Pakistan (TTP), of which the TNSM is a part. Morewover, there was no sympathy for the Mizos in the Indian security forces fighting against them. There is considerable sympathy for the TNSM and the TTP among the Pakistani para-military forces.
8. Despite the much less serious dimensions of the Mizo insurgency, we took 20 years to prevail over it. It would be unreasonable to expect the Pakistani security forces to prevail over the TNSM and the TTP in a matter of months. The counter-insurgency operations---even if they are carried out sincerely by the Pakistani security forces--- are going to take a long time and there is no point for the international community in being impatient with Pakistan. The important point is the sincerity of the Pakistani security forces in wanting to defeat the Taliban and not the time taken by them for doing so. The international community is worried not by the time taken by the Pakistani security forces, but by the evidence of their insincerity. It finds it difficult to avoid the impression that the counter-insurgency operations against the the TNSM and the TTP are more shadow-boxing than real and that the heart of the Pakistani security forces is not in it.
9. At the time we carried out our counter-insurgency operations in Mizoram the international community was hardly interested in it. No nuclear factor was involved. There was no trans-national dimension of the problem except the Pakistani assistance to the MNF. There was no Al Qaeda waiting to exploit the situation to further its own agenda. We had a two-point strategy--- a campaign of attrition against the MNF and removing the MNF sanctuaries in the then East Pakistan by supporting the movement for an independent Bangladesh. The insurgency in Mizoram is a telling example of how an insurgent or terrorist movement withers away when it no longer has external sanctuaries and the covert support of intelligence organisations.
10. The circumstances in Pakistan today are totally different. The nuclear factor due to Pakistan having a nuclear capability of uncertain safety, the trans-national dimension of the Taliban phenomenon and its linkages with Al Qaeda have made the counter-insurgency operations against the TNSM and the TTP a matter of serious concern to the entire international community.
11. The perceived lack of seriousness and sincerity in the political and military leaderships of Pakistan in dealing with this problem have given rise to apocalyptic fears of what could happen in the coming months. These fears are natural, even if they ultimately turn out to be exaggerated as asserted by the Pakistani authorities.
12.It is important for the imternational community---particularly for the US which has a greater presence and influence in Pakistan than any other Western country--- to closely monitor the counter-insurgency and counter-terrorist operations in Pakistan against the TTP, the Neo Taliban of Afghanistan, Al Qaeda, the Lashkar-e-Toiba (LET) and other Punjabi terrorist organisations in order to ensure that Pakistan does what is expected of it by the international community.
13. How to monitor continuously without giving the impression that the US is interfering in Pakistan's internal security management and thereby adding to the anti-US anger in Pakistan? Spectacular shows, rich in photo opprtunities,such as the recent Zardari-Karzai-Obama summit are not the way. Such shows only add to the suspicions of Pakistanis and Afghans not well disposed to the US that the US is imposing on the Pakistani leadership counter-insurgency and counter-terrorism strategies designed to servre US and not Pakistani interests.
14. Officials of the Obama Administration have claimed that they have been able to convince the Pakistani leadership that it is the Taliban and Al Qaeda, which pose the threat to Pakistan and not India. They are hoping that as a result Pakistan will divert some of its forces from the Indian border to the Taliban-infected areas. This is good, if it turns out to be true, though I have my skepticism. Even if this comes about, that alone is not going to lead to more successful counter-insurgency operations.
15.Since the two countries became independent in 1947, the Indian Army has evolved into a multi-terrain, multi-target, multi-role army. The Pakistan Army has remained static in a single-terrain, single-target, single-role model. The Indian Army can fight against the Pakistan Army in the plains of Punjab and in the glaciers of Siachen, against the Chinese Army in the forbidding heights of the Himalayas and against insurgents and terrorists in the hills as well as the plains. The Pakistan Army feels comfortable only in the plains of Punjab. Outside the plains of Punjab, it feels like a fish out of water. It is unable to perceive the threats that could arise from insurgents, terrorists and other non-State actors with the same seriousness as India, the US and other countries do because the insurgents and terrorists have been its live-in companions.
16.To enable the Pakistani security forces acquire a multi-terrain, multi-target, multi-role capability is going to take years.There is going to be no quick end to the internal security problems faced by Pakistan.
(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 )
Mizoram in India's North-East is a peaceful and prosperous State. It has a total area of about 21087 sq.kms with 21 major hill ranges or peaks. A very difficult terrain for an army to carry out a successful counter-insurgency operation. Its population was estimated at 8,91,058 in 2001.
2.Mizoram was not a peaceful region before 1986. It was one of the most troubled regions of India. In February,1966, an ethnic separatist organisation called the Mizo National Front (MNF) overran the entire State in a series of simultaneous and surprise attacks and captured even Aizawl, its capital. The Indian Government and its security forces lost control of Mizoram almost as completely as the Pakistani security forces have now lost control of Swat, which has an area of only 1772 Sq.Kms with a population estimated at 1.5 million in 1998.
3. It took the Government of India and its security forces 20 years to reestablish the Government's writ over the State by making it clear to the MNF that violence would not pay and by reaching a political solution on the future of the Mizo people, which would enable them to remain a part of India with considerable political and economic rights.
4.The counter-insurgency operations carried out by the Indian security forces in Mizoram are considered a model for others to learn from and emulate. It has today India's leading counter-insurgency school and even the US sends its military officers to the school to learn from India's success in dealing with the insurgency.
5. The Swat District of the North-West Frontier Province of Pakistan came under the virtual total control of the Tehrik-e-Nifaz-e-Shariat-e-Mohammadi (TNSM) in 2007. The hilly terrain in Swat is somewhat similar to that in Mizoram The area affected by the TNSM insurgency is much smaller than the affected area in Mizoram.
6. The MNF movement was an ethnic separatist movement. The TNSM movement is a religious fundamentalist movement. Apart from this, there was another major difference between Mizoram and Swat. The Mizos constituted a small number of people confined to Mizoram. They had to fight against the Indian security forces unaided by other non-Mizo tribal groups in the region. The tribals of Swat are part of the Pashtun tribe, which is spread over a vast area in the Pashtun belt across the Pakistan-Afghanistan border. They are not fighting alone against the Pakistani security forces. They are supported by the Pashtuns in the surrounding areas.
7. It should not, therefore, be a matter of surprise that the Pakistani security forces have been facing considerable difficulties in countering their activities.The dimensions of the Mizo insurgency were much smaller as compared to the dimensions of the problem caused for the Pakistani security forces by the Pakistani Taliban called the Tehrik-e-Taliban Pakistan (TTP), of which the TNSM is a part. Morewover, there was no sympathy for the Mizos in the Indian security forces fighting against them. There is considerable sympathy for the TNSM and the TTP among the Pakistani para-military forces.
8. Despite the much less serious dimensions of the Mizo insurgency, we took 20 years to prevail over it. It would be unreasonable to expect the Pakistani security forces to prevail over the TNSM and the TTP in a matter of months. The counter-insurgency operations---even if they are carried out sincerely by the Pakistani security forces--- are going to take a long time and there is no point for the international community in being impatient with Pakistan. The important point is the sincerity of the Pakistani security forces in wanting to defeat the Taliban and not the time taken by them for doing so. The international community is worried not by the time taken by the Pakistani security forces, but by the evidence of their insincerity. It finds it difficult to avoid the impression that the counter-insurgency operations against the the TNSM and the TTP are more shadow-boxing than real and that the heart of the Pakistani security forces is not in it.
9. At the time we carried out our counter-insurgency operations in Mizoram the international community was hardly interested in it. No nuclear factor was involved. There was no trans-national dimension of the problem except the Pakistani assistance to the MNF. There was no Al Qaeda waiting to exploit the situation to further its own agenda. We had a two-point strategy--- a campaign of attrition against the MNF and removing the MNF sanctuaries in the then East Pakistan by supporting the movement for an independent Bangladesh. The insurgency in Mizoram is a telling example of how an insurgent or terrorist movement withers away when it no longer has external sanctuaries and the covert support of intelligence organisations.
10. The circumstances in Pakistan today are totally different. The nuclear factor due to Pakistan having a nuclear capability of uncertain safety, the trans-national dimension of the Taliban phenomenon and its linkages with Al Qaeda have made the counter-insurgency operations against the TNSM and the TTP a matter of serious concern to the entire international community.
11. The perceived lack of seriousness and sincerity in the political and military leaderships of Pakistan in dealing with this problem have given rise to apocalyptic fears of what could happen in the coming months. These fears are natural, even if they ultimately turn out to be exaggerated as asserted by the Pakistani authorities.
12.It is important for the imternational community---particularly for the US which has a greater presence and influence in Pakistan than any other Western country--- to closely monitor the counter-insurgency and counter-terrorist operations in Pakistan against the TTP, the Neo Taliban of Afghanistan, Al Qaeda, the Lashkar-e-Toiba (LET) and other Punjabi terrorist organisations in order to ensure that Pakistan does what is expected of it by the international community.
13. How to monitor continuously without giving the impression that the US is interfering in Pakistan's internal security management and thereby adding to the anti-US anger in Pakistan? Spectacular shows, rich in photo opprtunities,such as the recent Zardari-Karzai-Obama summit are not the way. Such shows only add to the suspicions of Pakistanis and Afghans not well disposed to the US that the US is imposing on the Pakistani leadership counter-insurgency and counter-terrorism strategies designed to servre US and not Pakistani interests.
14. Officials of the Obama Administration have claimed that they have been able to convince the Pakistani leadership that it is the Taliban and Al Qaeda, which pose the threat to Pakistan and not India. They are hoping that as a result Pakistan will divert some of its forces from the Indian border to the Taliban-infected areas. This is good, if it turns out to be true, though I have my skepticism. Even if this comes about, that alone is not going to lead to more successful counter-insurgency operations.
15.Since the two countries became independent in 1947, the Indian Army has evolved into a multi-terrain, multi-target, multi-role army. The Pakistan Army has remained static in a single-terrain, single-target, single-role model. The Indian Army can fight against the Pakistan Army in the plains of Punjab and in the glaciers of Siachen, against the Chinese Army in the forbidding heights of the Himalayas and against insurgents and terrorists in the hills as well as the plains. The Pakistan Army feels comfortable only in the plains of Punjab. Outside the plains of Punjab, it feels like a fish out of water. It is unable to perceive the threats that could arise from insurgents, terrorists and other non-State actors with the same seriousness as India, the US and other countries do because the insurgents and terrorists have been its live-in companions.
16.To enable the Pakistani security forces acquire a multi-terrain, multi-target, multi-role capability is going to take years.There is going to be no quick end to the internal security problems faced by Pakistan.
(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 )
Saturday, May 9, 2009
HUMANITARIAN DIMENSIONS OF COUNTER-TALIBAN OPERATIONS
B.Raman
The on-again and off-again military operations by the Pakistani security forces against the Tehrik-e-Taliban Pakistan ( TTP) and its Pashtun allies such as the Tehrik-e-Nifaz-e-Shariat-e-Mohammadi (TNSM) in the South Waziristan and Bajaur Agencies of the Federally-Administered Tribal Areas (FATA) and in the Swat and other districts of the Malakand Division in the North-West FrontierProvince (NWFP) are causing an immense humanitarian disaster affecting the Pashtuns. This disaster is similar to the disaster faced by the Sri Lankan Tamils due to the Sri Lankan Army's counter-insurgency and counter-terrorism operations against the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE).
2. In an interview to "Der Spiegel" of Germany published by it in its issue of May 6,2009, President Asif Ali Zardari of Pakistan has stated that as a result of the military operations launched in the Bajaur Agency last year, about 500,000 out of the Agency's 800,000 population have been forced to leave their villages and move to areas outside the Agency.
3. A similar exodus of the civilian Pashtun population has been taking place since the end of 2007 when Pervez Musharraf,the then President, ordered the first phase of the military operations against the TNSM in the Swat Valley. After a cease-fire lasting some months, this operation has now been resumed following the collapse of the agreement on the introduction of religious (sharia) courts reached by the NWFP Government with the TNSM in February last.To counter the attempts of the TNSM to extend its territorial control to other Pashtun districts of the Malakand Division, the military operations have been extended to other districts too. The well-trained, well-motivated and well-entrenched jihadis of the TNSM have been giving a tough fight to the Pakistani security forces. The estimated total strength of all the trained pro-Taliban elements in the Bajaur Agency and in the Malakand Division is much less than 10,000. In his interview to "Der Spiegel", Zardari has estimated the total number of the Pakistani security forces (the Army plus the para-militarey forces) fighting against them as about 100,000. While it will be too early to assess the sincerity and likely success of the latest phase of the military operations, it is already evident that the fighting in the area has affected hundreds of thousands of innocent Pashtuns, who have had nothing to do with either the TNSM or the TTP.
4.In a report on the humanitarian situation in the Malakand Division carried by it on May 9,2009, the British Broadcasting Corporatiion (BBC) stated as follows: " The Pakistani offensive against militants has already displaced some 200,000 people, while a further 300,000 are estimated to be on the move or about to flee, the UN says. Sitara Imran, Minister for Social Welfare in North-West Frontier Province, called the exodus "one of the huge displacements, internal displacements in the world". "We are preparing ourselves with the help of the federal government, we asked international donors," she told the BBC's Newshour programme. She said all her department's doctors and social welfare staff had been mobilised and that holidays had been suspended as they worked to prepare for the influx. "The whole Swat is coming out from [the Swat Valley] so, naturally, it is a very difficult and complex situation," she said. Some 550,000 people had already been displaced by fighting since August, before the current crisis, the UN refugee agency said."
5. Thus, at least over a million Pashtuns, who have had nothing to do with the TNSM or the TTP, have been affected by the on-going military operations. Whereas the humanitarian plight of the Sri Lankan Tamils has received world-wide attention, that of the Pashtuns has not received the attention it deserved. The Pakistani Taliban does not allow international humanitarian organisations to operate in the territory under itrs control. It views them as organisations of the Crusaders or infidels. The International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) of Geneva, which has a presence in the Pashtun belt on the Afghan side of the border, does not seem to have a presence in the Pakistani Pashtun belt. The Pakistani Red Crescent Society, which is their Red Cross, has not been active in the areas affected by the operations of Al Qaeda and the Taliban.
6. Pakistani human rights organisations such as the one headed by Asma Jehangir, which have been active in exposing the atrocities committed by the Taliban, have not been equally active in drawing attention to the worrisome humanitarian situation in the Pashtun belt. The result: Hundreds of thousands of poor Pashtun families have been forced to fend for themselves without much assistance either from their own Government and non-governmental organisations or from the international community.
7.The Neo Taliban of Afghanistan headed by Mulla Mohammad Omar and the TTP and the TNSM have been drawing their cadres mainly from three segments of the Pashtun population---- first, the Pashtun refugees of the 1980s from Afghanistan still living in camps in Baloshistan without any rehabilitation. The Pakistani authorities estimate their number at about one million. Second, the one million internally-displaced Pashtuns of the FATA and the Malakand Division. Third, the Pashtun families alienated by the Pakistan Army's commando raid into the Lal Masjid of Islamabad in July,2007.
8.There ought to be four components to any counter-terrorism strategy in the Af-Pak region---- first, the counter-sanctuary component, that is to deny them space in Pakistani and Afghan territories from where they could operate against Pakistan, Afghanistan and the rest of the world. President Obama stressed this point after his meeting with Zardari and President Hamid Karzai of Afghanistan in the White House earlier this week. Second, the counter-capability component, which focusses on nudging the Pakistani and Afghan Armies to mount a campaign of attrition against them. This has also received some attention. The third is the counter-ISI (Inter-Services Intelligence) component to prevent the ISI from exploiting the Taliban and other terrorist groups to serve Pakistan's strategic agenda in Afghanistan and against India. The attention paid to this component by the US is half-hearted. The fourth is the denial of fresh recruits component. This component demands attention to the anger and the humanitarian problems of the Pashtuns. This component has hardly figured so far either in the various policy pronouncements of the Obama Administration or in the statements made during the visit of Zardari and Karzai.
9.The officials of the Obama Administration and some Congressmen have been talking of funding various development projects in the Pashtun belt. These are long-gestation projects, which will take years to fructify if at all they do. What is urgently required are projects which will show quick results and make the Pashtuns feel that the international community cares for them.
(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 on-again and off-again military operations by the Pakistani security forces against the Tehrik-e-Taliban Pakistan ( TTP) and its Pashtun allies such as the Tehrik-e-Nifaz-e-Shariat-e-Mohammadi (TNSM) in the South Waziristan and Bajaur Agencies of the Federally-Administered Tribal Areas (FATA) and in the Swat and other districts of the Malakand Division in the North-West FrontierProvince (NWFP) are causing an immense humanitarian disaster affecting the Pashtuns. This disaster is similar to the disaster faced by the Sri Lankan Tamils due to the Sri Lankan Army's counter-insurgency and counter-terrorism operations against the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE).
2. In an interview to "Der Spiegel" of Germany published by it in its issue of May 6,2009, President Asif Ali Zardari of Pakistan has stated that as a result of the military operations launched in the Bajaur Agency last year, about 500,000 out of the Agency's 800,000 population have been forced to leave their villages and move to areas outside the Agency.
3. A similar exodus of the civilian Pashtun population has been taking place since the end of 2007 when Pervez Musharraf,the then President, ordered the first phase of the military operations against the TNSM in the Swat Valley. After a cease-fire lasting some months, this operation has now been resumed following the collapse of the agreement on the introduction of religious (sharia) courts reached by the NWFP Government with the TNSM in February last.To counter the attempts of the TNSM to extend its territorial control to other Pashtun districts of the Malakand Division, the military operations have been extended to other districts too. The well-trained, well-motivated and well-entrenched jihadis of the TNSM have been giving a tough fight to the Pakistani security forces. The estimated total strength of all the trained pro-Taliban elements in the Bajaur Agency and in the Malakand Division is much less than 10,000. In his interview to "Der Spiegel", Zardari has estimated the total number of the Pakistani security forces (the Army plus the para-militarey forces) fighting against them as about 100,000. While it will be too early to assess the sincerity and likely success of the latest phase of the military operations, it is already evident that the fighting in the area has affected hundreds of thousands of innocent Pashtuns, who have had nothing to do with either the TNSM or the TTP.
4.In a report on the humanitarian situation in the Malakand Division carried by it on May 9,2009, the British Broadcasting Corporatiion (BBC) stated as follows: " The Pakistani offensive against militants has already displaced some 200,000 people, while a further 300,000 are estimated to be on the move or about to flee, the UN says. Sitara Imran, Minister for Social Welfare in North-West Frontier Province, called the exodus "one of the huge displacements, internal displacements in the world". "We are preparing ourselves with the help of the federal government, we asked international donors," she told the BBC's Newshour programme. She said all her department's doctors and social welfare staff had been mobilised and that holidays had been suspended as they worked to prepare for the influx. "The whole Swat is coming out from [the Swat Valley] so, naturally, it is a very difficult and complex situation," she said. Some 550,000 people had already been displaced by fighting since August, before the current crisis, the UN refugee agency said."
5. Thus, at least over a million Pashtuns, who have had nothing to do with the TNSM or the TTP, have been affected by the on-going military operations. Whereas the humanitarian plight of the Sri Lankan Tamils has received world-wide attention, that of the Pashtuns has not received the attention it deserved. The Pakistani Taliban does not allow international humanitarian organisations to operate in the territory under itrs control. It views them as organisations of the Crusaders or infidels. The International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) of Geneva, which has a presence in the Pashtun belt on the Afghan side of the border, does not seem to have a presence in the Pakistani Pashtun belt. The Pakistani Red Crescent Society, which is their Red Cross, has not been active in the areas affected by the operations of Al Qaeda and the Taliban.
6. Pakistani human rights organisations such as the one headed by Asma Jehangir, which have been active in exposing the atrocities committed by the Taliban, have not been equally active in drawing attention to the worrisome humanitarian situation in the Pashtun belt. The result: Hundreds of thousands of poor Pashtun families have been forced to fend for themselves without much assistance either from their own Government and non-governmental organisations or from the international community.
7.The Neo Taliban of Afghanistan headed by Mulla Mohammad Omar and the TTP and the TNSM have been drawing their cadres mainly from three segments of the Pashtun population---- first, the Pashtun refugees of the 1980s from Afghanistan still living in camps in Baloshistan without any rehabilitation. The Pakistani authorities estimate their number at about one million. Second, the one million internally-displaced Pashtuns of the FATA and the Malakand Division. Third, the Pashtun families alienated by the Pakistan Army's commando raid into the Lal Masjid of Islamabad in July,2007.
8.There ought to be four components to any counter-terrorism strategy in the Af-Pak region---- first, the counter-sanctuary component, that is to deny them space in Pakistani and Afghan territories from where they could operate against Pakistan, Afghanistan and the rest of the world. President Obama stressed this point after his meeting with Zardari and President Hamid Karzai of Afghanistan in the White House earlier this week. Second, the counter-capability component, which focusses on nudging the Pakistani and Afghan Armies to mount a campaign of attrition against them. This has also received some attention. The third is the counter-ISI (Inter-Services Intelligence) component to prevent the ISI from exploiting the Taliban and other terrorist groups to serve Pakistan's strategic agenda in Afghanistan and against India. The attention paid to this component by the US is half-hearted. The fourth is the denial of fresh recruits component. This component demands attention to the anger and the humanitarian problems of the Pashtuns. This component has hardly figured so far either in the various policy pronouncements of the Obama Administration or in the statements made during the visit of Zardari and Karzai.
9.The officials of the Obama Administration and some Congressmen have been talking of funding various development projects in the Pashtun belt. These are long-gestation projects, which will take years to fructify if at all they do. What is urgently required are projects which will show quick results and make the Pashtuns feel that the international community cares for them.
(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, May 7, 2009
PAKISTAN ON THE BOIL & ON THE BRINK AGAIN
INTERNATIONAL TERRORISM MONITOR-- PAPER NO.523
B.RAMAN
( I had prepared this paper for presentation at a conference being organised by the Heritage Foundation of Washington DC on May 14,2009,to which I had been invited. I have had to cancel my participation due to unforeseen circumstances )
Shortly after the commando action ordered by the then Pakistan President Pervez Musharraf into the Lal Masjid in Islamabad in the beginning of July,2007, I had received a message from one of my readers asking:"Pakistan on the boil or on the brink?" Both, I replied and wrote an article on the wave of Pashtun anger, which had started sweeping across the Pashtun belt after the commando raid. The article dated July 20,2007, and titled "Pakistan: Iraq In The Making?" is available at http://www.southasiaanalysis.org/papers24/paper2305.html Relevant extracts are annexed.
2. I wrote in that article: " Pakistan is on the brink of a destabilising situation. It brings Iraq to one's mind, but it is not yet Iraq. It can turn into an Iraq-like situation at least in the Pashtun belt if Musharraf and his American backers do not conduct themselves with restraint and wisdom."
3. The post-Lal Masjid raid Pashtun anger, which caused death and destruction right across Pakistan,gave birth to the Tehrik-e-Taliban Pakistan (TTP) and triggered the assassination of Benazir Bhutto at Rawalpindi on December 27,2007, had recently shown some signs of subsiding following some conciliatory steps taken by the Government of Prime Minister Yousef Raza Gilani such as facilitating the release on bail of those arrested during the raid and allotment of land outside the mosque for re-starting the two madrasas attached to the mosque before the raid. These madrasas had catered to the requirements of the children of many poor Pashtun families from the Federally-Administered Tribal Areas (FATA) and the Malakand Division of the North-West Frontier Province (NWFP), including Swat, which ispresently under the effective control of Maulana Fazlullah of the Tehrik-e-Nifaz-e-Shariat-e-Mohammadi (TNSM).
4. If the US were wise, it would have taken the initiative in funding the establishment of well-equipped schools with facilities for boarding and lodging located outside the tribal belt for the children of internally displaced Pashtun families from the FATA and the Malakand Division,who have been forced to leave their villages due to the fighting between the TNSM and the TTP on the one side and the security forces on the other.
5. But wisdom has not been a defining characteristic of the US policy in Pakistan. Billions of US dollars have been earmarked for the security forces and for other projects with a long gestation period meant for the benefit of the civilians. But hardly any money has been earmarked for providing humanitarian relief to the internally-displaced persons from the tribal belt and for looking after their children. A new crop of suicide and non-suicide terrorists has started coming out of these internally-displaced Pashtuns and providing a surge to the forces of the TNSM and the TTP.
6. The Pashtun anger is the root cause of the mushrooming Taliban organisations right across the Pashtun belt. There are Talibans and Talibans. There are as many Talibans as there are tribal chiefs. Instead of trying to understand the Pashtun anger and to mitigate it,President Barack Obama, his advisers and aides have been fueling it further through their insensitive and thoughless statements and comments, which tend to project the Pashtuns as a whole as accomplices of Al Qaeda, paint an apocalyptic characterisation of the developments in the Pashtun belt and unnecessarily over-stress the role of the security forces in dealing with the violence resulting from the Pashtun anger.
7. Unless and until the Pashtun anger is understood, addressed and mitigated, the spread of the Taliban virus cannot be arrested and reversed. The most important role in this regard has to be that of the progressive Pashtun politicians of the North-West Frontier Province(NWFP) and Balochistan. There are many progressive Pashtun leaders. Let us not forget that the leftist movement in Pakistan and Afghanistan had its strongest roots in the Pashtun belt.Neither the Obama Administration nor its predecessor administration of George Bush has had time for the Pashtun leaders of the Pashtun soil.
8. The entire focus of the US administration and the US think tanks has been on the Islamabad-based leaders---political and military---- many of whom enjoy very little credibility in the eyes of the Pakistani people in general and the Pashtuns in particular. Whatever little credibility they might have enjoyed, has been weakened, if not destroyed, by the unthinking statements and comments coming out of Obama and his advisers. The limited credibility, which President Asif Ali Zardari enjoyed, has been irreparably damaged by Obama's negative remarks on Pakistan's civilian leadership during his interactions with the media on his completing 100 days in office. The subsequent damage control exercise by Richard Holbrooke, his special envoy for the Af-Pak region, who praised Pakistan's civilian leadersdhip, could not repair the damage.
9. Of Pakistan's mainstream leaders, Nawaz Sharif enjoyed a high level of credibility among the Punjabis and the Pashtuns. This was because of his independent line on the way American influence, according to him, has distorted Pakistan's handling of the situation in the tribal belt. His call for a re-think on the way Pakistan has been uncritically supporting the US operations added to his popularity. He projected himself as a man who can stand up to US pressure. Pakistan needs more such leaders who are seen by its people as not amenable to US pressure and as capable of taking an independent line suited to Pakistan's national interests.
10. Comments, reports and articles in the US media projecting Nawaz Sharif as a leader with whom the US can do business and as a possible alternative to Zardari, have damaged his credibility as a man capable of independent thinking and new ideas as to how to deal with the cancer of terrorism. Both Zardari and President Hamid Karzai of Afghanistan have created a negative image of themselves in the eyes of their respective people by the manner in which they responded to the American summons to go to Washington DC to discuss their counter-terrorism policy and co-operation.
11. The statements and comments of Obama and his advisers praising the Pakistan Army in general and Gen.Ashfaq Pervez Kayani, the Chief of the Army Staff (COAS), in particular have created suspicions of a new American game to reinforce the role of the Army even at the cost of further weakening the democratic forces in Pakistan. The repeated comments of Admiral Mike Mullen, Chairman, Joint Chiefs of Staff, highlighting his personal equation with Kayani and praising Kayani's positive response to American concerns on the ground situation have had the unintended effect of making him seen by a growing number of people not only in the Pakistani civil society, but also even in the armed forces as America's man in the GHQ.
12. Political and military leaders who are seen by the people of Pakistan as carrying out the American diktates cannot succeed in winning the support of their people for their policies. The plethora of statements and comments on Pakistan's internal situation coming from the Obama Administration without any concerns about their impact on the minds of the Pakistani people are going to add to the difficulties of any Government in Islamabad in adopting a counter-terrorism and counter-Taliban strategy, which would be seen as motivated by the interests of Pakistan and not of the US.
13. Obama and his advisers have been conducting themselves as if they are still in the midst of their election campaign and not as the new rulers of the US already in office, who have to be careful about their public comments. The internal security situation in Pakistan arising from the activities of the Pakistani Taliban is alarming, but this cannot detract from the fact that how the Taliban is handled in the Pashtun belt is an internal affair of Pakistan. Others such as the US can give it discreet advice and whatever help it needs in dealing with the situation, but they should not give the impression that they are back-seat driving Pakistan's internal security management.
14. Dealing with the difficult situation in Pakistan at this critical time in its history requires a lot of intelligence, sensitivity and discretion.These qualities have been in short supply in the Obama Administration. (7-5-2009)
(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 my article of July 20,2007, titled "Pakistan: Iraq In The Making ? ")
Pakistan on the boil or on the brink? So asks a message received by me from one of my readers abroad.
Both.
It is on the boil because of the mounting anger of different Pashtun tribals in the NWFP and the FATA whose daughters bore the brunt of the attack of the commandoes, many of the young girls perishing in the process.
The Lal Masjid was located in Islamabad, the posh capital of Pakistan. It catered to the spiritual requirements of the elite of the capital and the educational requirements of the poorest of the poor tribal children from the Pashtun belt and Pakistan-Occupied Kashmir (POK)---many of them sons and daughters of serving and retired soldiers.
The Masjid, where Zia-ul-Haq used to pray, ran two madrasas for the children of poor tribals. The madrasa for boys was located outside the campus. It was seized without any difficulty and casualties by the commandoes.
The madrasa for girls was located inside the campus. There are no authentic figures of how many were studying there and how many were living in its dormitory. The figures mentioned by wild rumours vary between a few hundred and a few thousand.
The journalists, who were taken to the campus by the Army after the raid, have been unanimous in one observation. Most of the damages and fatalities had taken place in and around the girls' madrasa and its dormitory. There was very little damage to the masjid itself.
This was because jihadi terrorists, including Al Qaeda types acting under the instructions of Ayman Al-Zawahiri, Osama bin Laden's No.2,had taken the girls as hostages and were using them as a shield to prevent the advance of the Commandoes----so says the Army.
There are hardly any takers for this version. The widely-accepted version is that the girls must have put up a ferocious fight and were
ruthlessly mowed down by the commandoes.
Pakistani military officers, trying to justify the raid, compare President Pervez Musharraf's decision to send the commandoes in to Indira Gandhi's decision to send the Army into the Sikhs' Golden Temple in Amritsar in June, 1984, in Operation Bluestar.
But there is one major difference, which they do not highlight. The Golden Temple had been occupied by extremists led by Bhindranwale.There was no school for young girls inside. Nor was there a dormitory for young girls inside. Had there been hundreds of young girl students living and studying inside the Golden Temple complex, Indira Gandhi, the then Prime Minister, would have never sent the Army inside. Or, for that matter, no other Indian leader would have done so.
Musharraf knew about the girls' madrasa and dormitory inside---where hundreds of young girls from poor tribal families were living and studying. He knew there was a real risk of many of them being killed if the commandoes raided the place. And yet, he sent the commandoes in.
This was not the act of a strong man, as projected by some analysts. This was the act of an insensitive and unwise man.
The resulting carnage has outraged the Pashtuns.
There are dozens of Pashtuns----many of them grieving fathers and brothers of girls killed by the commandoes--- on the move in the Pashtun belt and outside wearing suicide belts, waiting to see a patrol or convoy of the security forces so that they could blow themselves up in its vicinity.
They are not from Al Qaeda.
They are not from the Neo Taliban.
They are not from any other jihadi terrorist organisations.
They are poor Jundullahs, soldiers of Allah, wanting to take revenge for the deaths of the young girls.
Everybody, who, in their mind, was associated with the operation is their target----Musharraf himself, the other members of the security forces, the People's Party Parliamentarians of Benazir Bhutto and the Muttahida Qaumi Movement (MQM) of Altaf Hussain, which supported the raid.
So too, the Americans and the Chinese.
It will take time for the anger to subside, for the tempers to cool down.
This is the time to understand the Pashtun anger and maintain a silence till the anger subsides.
This is not the time to rub salt on their wounds and further provoke them by talking of an American raid against Al Qaeda camps in the Pashtun belt or by praising Musharraf's action and promising him more assistance to take on the jihadis in the Pashtun belt.
All this can wait till the anger subsides.
Any unwise US attempt to take advantage of the present situation to step up its operations in the Pashtun belt with Musharraf's co-operation could lead to an Iraq-like situation in the Pashtun belt.
Pakistan is on the brink of a destabilising situation. It brings Iraq to one's mind, but it is not yet Iraq. It can turn into an Iraq-like situation at least in the Pashtun belt if Musharraf and his American backers do not conduct themselves with restraint and wisdom.
B.RAMAN
( I had prepared this paper for presentation at a conference being organised by the Heritage Foundation of Washington DC on May 14,2009,to which I had been invited. I have had to cancel my participation due to unforeseen circumstances )
Shortly after the commando action ordered by the then Pakistan President Pervez Musharraf into the Lal Masjid in Islamabad in the beginning of July,2007, I had received a message from one of my readers asking:"Pakistan on the boil or on the brink?" Both, I replied and wrote an article on the wave of Pashtun anger, which had started sweeping across the Pashtun belt after the commando raid. The article dated July 20,2007, and titled "Pakistan: Iraq In The Making?" is available at http://www.southasiaanalysis.org/papers24/paper2305.html Relevant extracts are annexed.
2. I wrote in that article: " Pakistan is on the brink of a destabilising situation. It brings Iraq to one's mind, but it is not yet Iraq. It can turn into an Iraq-like situation at least in the Pashtun belt if Musharraf and his American backers do not conduct themselves with restraint and wisdom."
3. The post-Lal Masjid raid Pashtun anger, which caused death and destruction right across Pakistan,gave birth to the Tehrik-e-Taliban Pakistan (TTP) and triggered the assassination of Benazir Bhutto at Rawalpindi on December 27,2007, had recently shown some signs of subsiding following some conciliatory steps taken by the Government of Prime Minister Yousef Raza Gilani such as facilitating the release on bail of those arrested during the raid and allotment of land outside the mosque for re-starting the two madrasas attached to the mosque before the raid. These madrasas had catered to the requirements of the children of many poor Pashtun families from the Federally-Administered Tribal Areas (FATA) and the Malakand Division of the North-West Frontier Province (NWFP), including Swat, which ispresently under the effective control of Maulana Fazlullah of the Tehrik-e-Nifaz-e-Shariat-e-Mohammadi (TNSM).
4. If the US were wise, it would have taken the initiative in funding the establishment of well-equipped schools with facilities for boarding and lodging located outside the tribal belt for the children of internally displaced Pashtun families from the FATA and the Malakand Division,who have been forced to leave their villages due to the fighting between the TNSM and the TTP on the one side and the security forces on the other.
5. But wisdom has not been a defining characteristic of the US policy in Pakistan. Billions of US dollars have been earmarked for the security forces and for other projects with a long gestation period meant for the benefit of the civilians. But hardly any money has been earmarked for providing humanitarian relief to the internally-displaced persons from the tribal belt and for looking after their children. A new crop of suicide and non-suicide terrorists has started coming out of these internally-displaced Pashtuns and providing a surge to the forces of the TNSM and the TTP.
6. The Pashtun anger is the root cause of the mushrooming Taliban organisations right across the Pashtun belt. There are Talibans and Talibans. There are as many Talibans as there are tribal chiefs. Instead of trying to understand the Pashtun anger and to mitigate it,President Barack Obama, his advisers and aides have been fueling it further through their insensitive and thoughless statements and comments, which tend to project the Pashtuns as a whole as accomplices of Al Qaeda, paint an apocalyptic characterisation of the developments in the Pashtun belt and unnecessarily over-stress the role of the security forces in dealing with the violence resulting from the Pashtun anger.
7. Unless and until the Pashtun anger is understood, addressed and mitigated, the spread of the Taliban virus cannot be arrested and reversed. The most important role in this regard has to be that of the progressive Pashtun politicians of the North-West Frontier Province(NWFP) and Balochistan. There are many progressive Pashtun leaders. Let us not forget that the leftist movement in Pakistan and Afghanistan had its strongest roots in the Pashtun belt.Neither the Obama Administration nor its predecessor administration of George Bush has had time for the Pashtun leaders of the Pashtun soil.
8. The entire focus of the US administration and the US think tanks has been on the Islamabad-based leaders---political and military---- many of whom enjoy very little credibility in the eyes of the Pakistani people in general and the Pashtuns in particular. Whatever little credibility they might have enjoyed, has been weakened, if not destroyed, by the unthinking statements and comments coming out of Obama and his advisers. The limited credibility, which President Asif Ali Zardari enjoyed, has been irreparably damaged by Obama's negative remarks on Pakistan's civilian leadership during his interactions with the media on his completing 100 days in office. The subsequent damage control exercise by Richard Holbrooke, his special envoy for the Af-Pak region, who praised Pakistan's civilian leadersdhip, could not repair the damage.
9. Of Pakistan's mainstream leaders, Nawaz Sharif enjoyed a high level of credibility among the Punjabis and the Pashtuns. This was because of his independent line on the way American influence, according to him, has distorted Pakistan's handling of the situation in the tribal belt. His call for a re-think on the way Pakistan has been uncritically supporting the US operations added to his popularity. He projected himself as a man who can stand up to US pressure. Pakistan needs more such leaders who are seen by its people as not amenable to US pressure and as capable of taking an independent line suited to Pakistan's national interests.
10. Comments, reports and articles in the US media projecting Nawaz Sharif as a leader with whom the US can do business and as a possible alternative to Zardari, have damaged his credibility as a man capable of independent thinking and new ideas as to how to deal with the cancer of terrorism. Both Zardari and President Hamid Karzai of Afghanistan have created a negative image of themselves in the eyes of their respective people by the manner in which they responded to the American summons to go to Washington DC to discuss their counter-terrorism policy and co-operation.
11. The statements and comments of Obama and his advisers praising the Pakistan Army in general and Gen.Ashfaq Pervez Kayani, the Chief of the Army Staff (COAS), in particular have created suspicions of a new American game to reinforce the role of the Army even at the cost of further weakening the democratic forces in Pakistan. The repeated comments of Admiral Mike Mullen, Chairman, Joint Chiefs of Staff, highlighting his personal equation with Kayani and praising Kayani's positive response to American concerns on the ground situation have had the unintended effect of making him seen by a growing number of people not only in the Pakistani civil society, but also even in the armed forces as America's man in the GHQ.
12. Political and military leaders who are seen by the people of Pakistan as carrying out the American diktates cannot succeed in winning the support of their people for their policies. The plethora of statements and comments on Pakistan's internal situation coming from the Obama Administration without any concerns about their impact on the minds of the Pakistani people are going to add to the difficulties of any Government in Islamabad in adopting a counter-terrorism and counter-Taliban strategy, which would be seen as motivated by the interests of Pakistan and not of the US.
13. Obama and his advisers have been conducting themselves as if they are still in the midst of their election campaign and not as the new rulers of the US already in office, who have to be careful about their public comments. The internal security situation in Pakistan arising from the activities of the Pakistani Taliban is alarming, but this cannot detract from the fact that how the Taliban is handled in the Pashtun belt is an internal affair of Pakistan. Others such as the US can give it discreet advice and whatever help it needs in dealing with the situation, but they should not give the impression that they are back-seat driving Pakistan's internal security management.
14. Dealing with the difficult situation in Pakistan at this critical time in its history requires a lot of intelligence, sensitivity and discretion.These qualities have been in short supply in the Obama Administration. (7-5-2009)
(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 my article of July 20,2007, titled "Pakistan: Iraq In The Making ? ")
Pakistan on the boil or on the brink? So asks a message received by me from one of my readers abroad.
Both.
It is on the boil because of the mounting anger of different Pashtun tribals in the NWFP and the FATA whose daughters bore the brunt of the attack of the commandoes, many of the young girls perishing in the process.
The Lal Masjid was located in Islamabad, the posh capital of Pakistan. It catered to the spiritual requirements of the elite of the capital and the educational requirements of the poorest of the poor tribal children from the Pashtun belt and Pakistan-Occupied Kashmir (POK)---many of them sons and daughters of serving and retired soldiers.
The Masjid, where Zia-ul-Haq used to pray, ran two madrasas for the children of poor tribals. The madrasa for boys was located outside the campus. It was seized without any difficulty and casualties by the commandoes.
The madrasa for girls was located inside the campus. There are no authentic figures of how many were studying there and how many were living in its dormitory. The figures mentioned by wild rumours vary between a few hundred and a few thousand.
The journalists, who were taken to the campus by the Army after the raid, have been unanimous in one observation. Most of the damages and fatalities had taken place in and around the girls' madrasa and its dormitory. There was very little damage to the masjid itself.
This was because jihadi terrorists, including Al Qaeda types acting under the instructions of Ayman Al-Zawahiri, Osama bin Laden's No.2,had taken the girls as hostages and were using them as a shield to prevent the advance of the Commandoes----so says the Army.
There are hardly any takers for this version. The widely-accepted version is that the girls must have put up a ferocious fight and were
ruthlessly mowed down by the commandoes.
Pakistani military officers, trying to justify the raid, compare President Pervez Musharraf's decision to send the commandoes in to Indira Gandhi's decision to send the Army into the Sikhs' Golden Temple in Amritsar in June, 1984, in Operation Bluestar.
But there is one major difference, which they do not highlight. The Golden Temple had been occupied by extremists led by Bhindranwale.There was no school for young girls inside. Nor was there a dormitory for young girls inside. Had there been hundreds of young girl students living and studying inside the Golden Temple complex, Indira Gandhi, the then Prime Minister, would have never sent the Army inside. Or, for that matter, no other Indian leader would have done so.
Musharraf knew about the girls' madrasa and dormitory inside---where hundreds of young girls from poor tribal families were living and studying. He knew there was a real risk of many of them being killed if the commandoes raided the place. And yet, he sent the commandoes in.
This was not the act of a strong man, as projected by some analysts. This was the act of an insensitive and unwise man.
The resulting carnage has outraged the Pashtuns.
There are dozens of Pashtuns----many of them grieving fathers and brothers of girls killed by the commandoes--- on the move in the Pashtun belt and outside wearing suicide belts, waiting to see a patrol or convoy of the security forces so that they could blow themselves up in its vicinity.
They are not from Al Qaeda.
They are not from the Neo Taliban.
They are not from any other jihadi terrorist organisations.
They are poor Jundullahs, soldiers of Allah, wanting to take revenge for the deaths of the young girls.
Everybody, who, in their mind, was associated with the operation is their target----Musharraf himself, the other members of the security forces, the People's Party Parliamentarians of Benazir Bhutto and the Muttahida Qaumi Movement (MQM) of Altaf Hussain, which supported the raid.
So too, the Americans and the Chinese.
It will take time for the anger to subside, for the tempers to cool down.
This is the time to understand the Pashtun anger and maintain a silence till the anger subsides.
This is not the time to rub salt on their wounds and further provoke them by talking of an American raid against Al Qaeda camps in the Pashtun belt or by praising Musharraf's action and promising him more assistance to take on the jihadis in the Pashtun belt.
All this can wait till the anger subsides.
Any unwise US attempt to take advantage of the present situation to step up its operations in the Pashtun belt with Musharraf's co-operation could lead to an Iraq-like situation in the Pashtun belt.
Pakistan is on the brink of a destabilising situation. It brings Iraq to one's mind, but it is not yet Iraq. It can turn into an Iraq-like situation at least in the Pashtun belt if Musharraf and his American backers do not conduct themselves with restraint and wisdom.
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