Friday, March 7, 2014
Judge Rafqat Awan’s death: Guard rejects Ch Nisar’s allegations, says terrorists’ firing caused Awan’s death
Judge Rafqat Awan’s death: Guard rejects Ch Nisar’s allegations, says terrorists’ firing caused Awan’s death
Pakistan: : Army balks at joining govt peace committee
The Express TribuneThe army will not become part of the new government peace committee, which is set to be formed by Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif to hold direct talks with the Tehreek-e-Taliban Pakistan (TTP), according to officials. “In a democratic dispensation, civilian authorities should take the lead,” said a top security official following the crucial corps commanders’ meeting at the General Headquarters in Rawalpindi on Friday. The meeting chaired by Chief of Army Staff General Raheel Sharif was held against the backdrop of reports that the government is in the process of forming a new committee for talks with TTP and its affiliates. The inclusion of the army in the fragile peace process was proposed by both the government and Taliban peace committees during their meeting with Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif on Thursday. According to the military’s media wing, the corps commanders’ conference held at the General Headquarters was part of ‘routine monthly’ meetings. The Inter-Services Public Relations (ISPR) in its statement said the forum dwelt at length on several professional matters. The participants also undertook a comprehensive review of prevalent internal and external security situation of the country, it added. The security official, who asked to remain anonymous because he was not authorised to speak to the media, told The Express Tribune that the army chief consulted his top commanders on whether to become a direct part of the government’s ongoing peace process with TTP. The official said top commanders arrived at a conclusion that there was no need for the army to hold face-to-face talks with TTP or their representatives. He maintained that the army leadership would be “available for assistance and consultations with the government” but civilian authorities should take charge as far as the talks are concerned. The official said the prime minister had not asked the army to nominate its representative for the proposed committee. The army’s reluctance to join the proposed committee is attributed to the likely fallout from such an exercise. Already, Opposition Leader Khursheed Shah had cautioned against the move, insisting that the army would be blamed if talks failed. However, the government and Taliban peace committees were of the view that the army’s participation would be crucial for ‘tangible’ progress. This notion has its roots in Pakistan’s history as matters of security have always been dealt with by the military, with practically no say of the civilian government. Many experts believe that the country’s security establishment still holds the key for any future course of action. “There is a general impression that the army is not onboard with the talks,” said a government committee member, who asked to remain anonymous because of the sensitivity of the issue. “In order to dispel that impression, we have suggested that the prime minister include the army in the process,” the member added.However, he said the army probably was still assessing the situation. Another military official said the top commanders voiced concern over the recent terrorist attacks at Islamabad’s district courts and Khyber Agency. The official disclosed that the corps commanders were briefed about the ‘successes’ achieved in the surgical strikes against the militant strongholds in the tribal areas. He said the army was ready to hit back if any terrorist attacks take place in future.
Bilawal Bhutto : 'Cavemen' should not decide India, Pak foreign policy
economictimes.indiatimes.com
Pakistan People's Party leader Bilawal Bhutto Zardari has said "cavemen living in hills" should not be allowed to decide the fate of Pakistan and India's foreign policy. "We should not allow non-state actors, these cavemen living in hills, to decide Pakistan and India's foreign policy. Otherwise ceding to them at that level how do you expect us to go back to the people and expect them to fight them at all the other levels," the 25-year-old Bhutto family scion said.
Asked about whether there was a commitment from PPP's side to address India's concern on terrorism after the Mumbai attacks, Bilawal said, "Not only myself, the PPP is committed to peace with India and working out all disputes. "We are not addressing terrorism because its India's concern, we are addressing terrorism because its our concern. And the PPP has and the government of the country has been addressing the issue of terrorism. The issue of terrorism, on either side must be addressed, law and order must be addressed," he said in an interview to a TV news channel. Pakistan blames non-state actors for terror strikes in India, including the 2008 Mumbai attacks that claimed 166 lives. Bilawal has been increasingly voicing his views on various issues in recent weeks and has announced that he and his sisters, Aseefa and Bakhtawar, would become part of mainstream politics before the next general election in 2018. Asked why another member of the Bhutto family is needed in politics, Bilawal said, "It's the incomplete missions and visions of the assassinated leaders that must be completed and I think upon that emotional moment you take it upon yourself and you continue to take it upon yourself and try to achieve what they were not allowed to. "So to that extent...there is nothing more motivating in a son's life in particular than making his mother's dream come true," he said. Bilawal said he had learnt most things including politics from his mother ( Benazir Bhutto) as she "raised her three innocent children with one hand and with the other she challenged dictatorships". Bilawal completed his graduation with honours in contemporary history and international politics from Oxford University last year. He is now busy learning Urdu and Sindhi. He did not led the PPP's campaign in the May 11 general election last year despite calls from candidates, particularly from Punjab, to address rallies, sparking reports of differences with his father former President Asif Ali Zardari and his aunt Faryal Talpur over running the party's affairs.
Islamabad's City slums: Homes of have-nots, not havens for terrorist
The Express TribuneThe All-Pakistan Alliance of Katchi Abadis and the Awami Workers Party (AWP) have protested the ongoing propaganda against slum dwellers of the federal capital.
PTI's Naya Pakistan: CM Khattak enjoys luxury life with three official residences for personal use
Pakistan Today
Khyber Pakhtunkhwa Chief Minister Parvez Khattak has undermined all claims of the Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI), about the simplicity and eliminating the VIP culture, by taking allotments of three official residents for personal use, a private news channel reported on Friday.
Parvez Khattak had announced, at time of taking over post of the Chief Minister of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa that he would quit luxury life style and not stay in the CM House.
Despite tall claims of the PTI and his own announcement of adopting simple life style, KP’s CM Khattak is enjoying occupation of three official residences, revealed the official record of KP Assembly.
CM Khattak is not only residing in the annexe of CM House, he has also taken allotment of two more official bungalows for personal use, revealed Nighat Orakzaiin KP Assembly.
Opposition’s female member Nighat Orakzai revealed during session of the KP Assembly that PTI’s simplicity claiming ministers are living in four, four Kanals’ official residences.
The opposition members started loud agitation, over Nighat Orakzai’s revelation about the official residences, and made it difficult for the Speaker to continue the session.
Information Minister Shah Farman tried to clear position of the CM Khattak before the house but the opposition members refused to hear any explanation.
Pakistan: Advocates Of Christian Couple Accused Of Blasphemy Gets Threats.
The couple’s legal representatives, have been receiving repeatedly threaten, fright that the husband will be given the death penalty and that his wife will be sentenced to 35 years in prison. Over the last few months their advocates have been making t best of their efforts to acquire aid from the Session Court and High Court of Lahore. A month after Emmanuel, who is partially paralyzed, lost his cell phone, local Muslims reportedly began receiving offensive text messages from the phone. When the police filled a complaint against them and came to arrest them, Shagufta told the police that they have lost the Cell phone a month ago. She denied the charges, but police started 3rd degree torture on Shafaqat Masih who is Crippled and physically challenged. They tortured him in front of his wife and Four Children. Shafaqat Emmanuel and his wife Shagufta Kausar were arrested in Gojra District for allegedly sending the Blasphemous text messages to the Local Muslims. Police registered the FIR 407/13 under section 295-B and 295-C. - See more at: http://www.christiansinpakistan.com/advocates-of-christian-couple-accused-of-blasphemy-gets-threats/#sthash.pdJn5zpX.dpufAlmost 8 months ago, Shafaqat Emmanuel, who is partially paralyzed and his wife, Shagufta Kausar were accused blasphemy charges are facing obscurity.
Pakistan People’s Party Urges Government To Complete IP Gas Project
shiapost.comThe main opposition party in Pakistani National Assembly has called on the country’s government to take immediate measures for completing a multi-billion-dollar pipeline project that would take natural gas from Iran to Pakistan. In a statement which was released on Wednesday, Pakistan People’s Party (PPP) Punjab President Mian Manzoor Ahmed Wattoo urged the federal government of Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz (PML-N) to honor its commitments with regard to the gas pipeline and not submit to foreign pressure. Wattoo stressed that the pipeline project between the two neighboring countries is the fastest solution to the energy problem in Pakistan, urging the government to take a proactive approach with regard to the construction of the pipeline. The Iran-Pakistan pipeline aims to help Pakistan overcome its growing energy needs at a time when the country of over 180 million people is grappling with serious energy shortages. He also described the project as critical for Pakistan’s economy and went on to say that the PPP leadership would be fully behind the government if it takes measures to build the pipeline and confront internal and external pressures against the project. Wattoo’s comments come one day after Sartaj Aziz, a senior adviser to Pakistani Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif on national security and foreign affairs, said issues like US sanctions against Iran and the 18-month deadline given to Pakistan to build its side of the pipeline as the main obstacles in the way for completing the project. The US has long been threatening Islamabad with economic sanctions if it goes ahead with the plan. Under the original agreement sealed between Iran and Pakistan, the first Iranian gas delivery to Pakistan was to start by December 31, 2014. On February 27, Iranian Deputy Oil Minister for International and Trade Affairs Ali Majedi cautioned Islamabad over falling behind schedule in fulfilling its obligations with regard to the project, saying, it would be imprudent for Pakistan to link the failure to abide by its commitments to the sanctions imposed on Iran. Iran has already built 900 kilometers of the pipeline on its own soil and is waiting for the 700-kilometer Pakistani side of the pipeline to be constructed. Iran and Pakistan clinched the deal in 1995. Later, Iran made a proposal to extend the pipeline from Pakistan into India. In February 1999, an accord between Iran and India was signed. Nevertheless, India withdrew from the project in 2009 under US pressure.
Pakistan: Interior minister shielding terrorists: Shah
Opposition leader, Khursheed Shah on Friday, expressed his concerns over the statement of Chaudhry Nisar Ali Khan relating to the Islamabad court attack. Shah questioned if the interior minister was trying to shield terrorists. Highly perturbed Khursheed Shah addressing the National Assembly lamented that those responsible for mass massacre were being called patriots. He said he was not opposed to talks, however, he wanted that the Pakistan Army not be dragged into it and added if the talks fail, then the blame would be shifted to the army.
Pakistan: Punjab’s apathy
AS Mama Qadeer and his companions concluded their record-breaking, 2,500-kilometre long journey from Quetta to Islamabad, a gentleman in Lahore did some record breaking of his own by smashing 163 walnuts with his head. As the Voice of Baloch Missing Persons (VBMP) activists walked through the Paris of Pakistan — a city of nearly nine million — 50-odd progressive activists greeted them, while close to 50,000 students gathered to form a human flag in a nearby stadium. The apathy of Punjab’s intelligentsia and its urban dwellers to concerns beyond their immediate surroundings has remained a thorny issue for activists and political parties from the smaller provinces. The conflict in Balochistan, for example, has been actively digested as a ‘spontaneous’ fight between the military and a host of foreign-funded tribal chiefs — a relatively simple binary in the average Punjabi mind. In rare instances when this caricatured view is so overtly called into question, as in the case of this long march, most choose to exercise passive indifference, perhaps wary of the cognitive dissonance a deeper engagement might induce. In any case, Balochistan, or for that matter any of the other provinces, have remained sufficiently unpacked in the Punjabi imagination. Beyond Attock and Multan lie barbaric mountain-dwellers, oppressive feudals, or anti-Pakistan tribal overlords. At a stage when Pakistan’s fragile democracy and federal character is still being shaped, the question of pervasive indifference, insularity, and lazy caricaturing on part of the most powerful and politically dominant ethnic group becomes even more important. Why does Punjab — or to be precise, north and central Punjab — view itself so uncritically, and its surroundings with a distant, and mostly unflattering lens? The answer, for the most part, lies with the region’s understanding of its own privilege, and its largely homogenous population. With regards to the first, there are a few facts that need to be laid out quite clearly. Punjab remains prosperous, its economy is dynamic, local state service delivery is less prone to failure, and its population enjoys a considerably better standard of living compared to other regions of the country. That much is widely acknowledged and celebrated within the province. What is almost never acknowledged though is that through no endeavour or enterprise of its own, Punjab remains the beneficiary of a river system that ensures this comparative prosperity compared to other parts of the country. Secondly, and again through no major achievement of the native population, the British — a foreign ruling entity — decided to gift the province with abundant state employment through the military, and one of the most advanced irrigation and communication networks in the region. On the back of this inheritance, generations can grow and have grown up, without having to move mountains for the sake of upward mobility and a better life. There is little doubt that the prosperity cherished today has its roots in Punjab’s colonial experience; that the trends of elite-patronage established then have continued unabated under successive post-independence regimes; and that while many Punjabis are enterprising and successful, their fortune stands on the shoulders of a favourable history. This realisation, however, eludes most, and Punjab’s comparative wealth is eventually seen as an outcome of its population’s inherent superiority. The second factor shaping this apathy is the province’s homogenous makeup. Even partition, for all the violence and upheaval it caused, left few long-term scars primarily because the resettled population was from the same ethnic stock, and was given plenty to rebuild their lives with. Subsequently, the idea of mobility in the province has progressed from urban migration to foreign migration, without ever pausing on inter-provincial movement — as it has in other parts of the country. Extended families remain accessible within a few hours, and marriage choices rarely cross ethnic boundaries. In short, one can spend an entire lifetime in the province, in the best schools, colleges, and workplaces, without having to encounter an unfamiliar setting, language, or individual. In the absence of prolonged, non-transactional interactions with other groups, a large section of Punjabis inform themselves of events elsewhere using base level tropes and caricatures. So violence in Fata or KP is somehow ‘essential’ to the Pakhtun. Karachi is a mess because that’s just how the MQM is. The Baloch and Sindhis are impoverished because the sardars/waderas perpetuate underdevelopment, and the people are too lazy to rebel. This suffocating marriage between an uncritical appraisal of historical privilege, and a largely homogenous existence, has cultivated a decidedly non-federal societal culture. Tragic as that is, it wouldn’t have been half as damaging had Punjab’s political imprint not been as overwhelming as it is. The government — currently manned by the province’s political elite — has exhibited some of the same apathy through its attempts to sidestep the issue of Islamic militancy and radicalisation within Punjab — a fact that can only be seen as being indicative of a deep-seated, and largely expedient, desire to keep their home turf conflict-free. More often than not, when other ethnic groups and progressive activists raise accusations of apathy and insularity, the intelligentsia and the politically active middle class chalk them down to ‘an unhealthy fashion of Punjab-bashing’ or mere envy at Punjab’s success and comparative peacefulness. What they fail to see is that whether these accusations are empirically just or not is irrelevant. What ultimately matters is that inter-provincial mistrust and resentment of Punjab’s insularity is pervasive, is extremely tangible, and continues to pose the biggest obstacle in constructing progressive politics and a functioning federal arrangement in the country.UMAIR JAVED
Bad food joke from Punjab
Reports originating from Lahore say that during a 'grand operation' comprising 9244 raids against sellers of unwholesome and unstamped meat. As many as 394 shopkeepers were booked, 81 FIRs were registered, a total of Rs195,100 fines were imposed and 2935 KG unhygienic meat was recovered.
Were the news and the nonchalant attitude of officials regarding the health of masses and its consequences not so dire, the report would have been shunned without a second look just for the sheer insolence of the staff that prepared such an impossible-to-believe report! Nevertheless, the unhesitant way the provincial Additional Chief Secretary of Punjab read the report before the Price Control Cabinet Committee, made one to believe that he must have thought everyone was in the loop that the report was a grand fictional piece or huge joke rather than a tale of an actual 'grand operation'.
For if the report were based on facts, it would have meant that the raiding food inspectors could have taken action against at least fifty thousand meat shop owners in the 9244 raids carried out during the grand operation. The inspectors could have taken at least a hundred thousand samples of meat to the laboratories and received reports regarding these.
Even by the municipal committee or town and cantonment board laws of the British Era, all food shops, especially meat shops, were required to have at least a screen on the front, including the door. Did the additional chief secretary, or his food inspectors, never see during the raids the thousands of screen-less and glassless shops on open roads and streets with skinned carcasses of goats and cows hanging from hooks with flies buzzing on them and collecting dust from passing traffic. Isn't such meat unhealthy and unwholesome! Shouldn't the thousands of owners of all such shops have been fined or arrested! There are laws against such shops.
Since the inception of Pakistan, all governments have been playing with the health of the nation. Health is not serious issue with either the politicians or bureaucrats. There are virtually hundreds of thousands of shops selling raw and packed food items; thousands of hotels, restaurants, cafes and fast food joints selling cooked food in the country and for all these there are hardly thousand or so food inspectors, most of them ill-trained; and a few dozen laboratories to test samples but most of these are ill-equipped.
Had the governments been serious, there would have been many more food inspectors, very many harsh laws and large fines and long jail times for selling unwholesome food. In the current situation, most of the shop owners booked will pay paltry fines and keep on selling unhealthy meat.
Pakistan's ‘surrender talks’: Spinelessness is self-defeating
Pakistan: Dancing to TTP’s tunes
The Tehreek-i-Taliban Pakistan (TTP) holds the centre stage, changing directions of the game every now and then. In short, it is TTP’s sweet will that is holding the sway. When it decides to hit and kill us, we bow our heads and get killed. When it decides to talk and kill us as well, we oblige: we fly our helicopter to North Waziristan to facilitate its emissaries to meet their bosses and at the same time we keep collecting corpses from Peshawar to Karachi. And now when the state’s fighter jets and helicopters have conducted surgical air strikes targeting TTP’s sanctuaries, the terrorists announced ceasefire and we feel happy to oblige and live peacefully with them for the next one month. Think the one month period in terms of the possibility: no bomb blasts and IED attacks. This has not happened for the past so many years. So we should be happy! What is more interesting is the fact that the day TTP was about to make the ceasefire public in the evening, its operatives attacked polio vaccinators in Khyber Agency in the morning. Question remains what will happen to families of thousands of civilians and soldiers killed at the hands of Taliban? If the TTP bosses were giving serious thoughts to the idea of giving peace a chance, they should have postponed the Saturday morning attack in Khyber Agency. But who cares? Ceasefire is the buzzword. The other catchphrase these days is ‘on the same page’. Earlier, doubts were being spewed whether the civil administration and the military leaders were on the same page or not. Now, at least, the TTP bosses are on the same page with the government. We should feel happy. We are moving to the next page! How many pages of this untitled book written with the blood of thousands of civilians and soldiers are left? No one knows. What is more interesting is the fact that we are hurling praises on TTP for its commanders’ kindness to bestow us with a month long ceasefire. Khyber Pakhtunkhwa Minister for Information Shah Farman was all in praise for the outlawed TTP for the generosity it showed. He wants the federal government to reciprocate the terrorists’ seriousness by holding serious and sincere talks. It seems he does not know that, on its part, the federal government is not likely to disappoint him. But what would happen to the families of the 55,000 civilians and thousands of soldiers killed at the hands of TTP? This argument seems to be a spoiler. It would surely be portrayed by the PTI leadership and its cyber brigade as ‘negativity’ and an attempt to sabotage the prospects of peace. But, this forms a legitimate concern for the families, who suffered human losses and have every right to see TTP acted against by the military and the judiciary. Do we think we have paid them ample amount of money in compensation sufficient to shut their mouths and do not look down on us for playing ceasefire and peace with TTP’s murderers? Our memory is deficient and objectives suffer from short sightedness. We have forgotten that TTP killed 55,000 innocent Pakistanis and thousands of our soldiers. We have also forgotten that TTP caused us $80 billion losses. It made us hostages in our own cities and towns by unleashing a campaign of fear and mayhem. It destroyed our children’s schools to keep us living with ignorance and illiteracy. It bombed our mosques to deny us our right to pray and preach. It deepened the sectarian divide in the country by targeting and killing people belonging to the religious school of thoughts not of their liking. They denied us our playing fields and made us to host cricket teams from other countries at London, Sharjah, and Dubai. They sent us chilling videos of their hooligans playing footballs with the heads of our slain soldiers. They targeted our military assets and caused us billions of losses in dollars, destroying our expensive military hardware. After TTP made public the killing of FC men kidnapped in 2010, prime minister and his cabinet colleagues gave impression that the peace talks and terrorist attacks could not go hand in hand. And now, we are being bombarded with TV reports that contacts between the negotiators of the two sides continued during the period when there was a general perception that talks had been stalled to take the fight to TTP’s bastion. Well, those drumbeating and hurling praises on TTP for announcing the ceasefire should not forget that there is an important but voiceless segment of the society that is unrepresented in the peace process. These voiceless people happen to be the families, who lost their near and dear ones to TTP’s brutalities. We have no right to make deals with TTP at the cost of the victims’ families, denying them their right to seek justice and get their victims honoured by bringing those, who killed their sisters, mothers, fathers and children to the book.
TTP are anti-Islam and anti-Pakistan
The Express Tribune NewsThe Tehreek-e-Taliban Pakistan (TTP) were “anti-Islam” and against the country, former interior minister Rehman Malik told media in Islamabad. “If there are 2000 TTP members and if even 15 of them or 100 of them are anti-Pakistan, then I think they are all against Pakistan,” Malik stated. He said that while he does not doubt the intentions of Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif or Interior Minister Chaudhry Nisar Ali Khan, he feels that the TTP will continue to support dialogue but not fully commit to ceasefire. “I’m saying openly that I do not see terror in Pakistan coming to an end,” Malik stated, advising the government to keep strict security measures in place during dialogue with the Taliban. He also appealed to the government and the media to “stop the glorification of terrorists.” Bring Fazlullah back Malik said that the first thing Nawaz should do is meet Afghan President Hamid Karzai and negotiate the return of TTP leader Mullah Fazlullah back into Pakistan. If Fazlullah is brought back terrorism in the country will be halved, he stated. Islamabad attack The interior minister asked what Fizza Malik - one of the victims of the katcheri attack that left 12 dead and 29 injured - had done to deserve death. Two of the men who attacked the court fled after the incident, he stated, adding that they would launch an attack elsewhere. “I think Islamabad is not safe until they are caught,” Malik said, appealing to security forces to use all their resources to bring them into custody.
Pakistan's ‘surrender talks’ : The end?
GUL BUKHARI
The government has once again resumed peace talks, more commonly known as ‘surrender talks’ on social media, with the Taliban after the attack carried out by militants in the heart of Islamabad. It appears the district court judge who threw out a case filed by Abdul Rasheed Ghazi’s son was targeted in the attack that took twelve lives at least. The connection of this attack with Laal Masjid cleric Abdul Aziz and his nephew is all too apparent. This attack that killed the judge who threw out their murder case against Gen (retd) Pervez Musharraf for ordering the Lal Masjid operation crystallizes the very reason these terrorists successfully got acquitted in over twenty cases of terrorism against them. Yet there is no action or news of apprehending or investigating these gentlemen. Instead, the federal interior minister has asked the TTP to condemn the attack and identify the group that perpetrated the attack. Even if TTP, with which the Lal Masjid clerics are closely aligned, does ‘condemn’ the attack while at the same time keep executing attacks in names of groups it publicly disowns, would that bring peace? Does the minister think this is a game? Does he, and indeed the Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif, have any inkling of their responsibilities to the citizens of this country?
Indeed, asking TTP to tell them who carried out the Islamabad attack appears to be a facile attempt at divide and rule, supposedly their strategy for dealing with militancy. They more than anyone else know that various militant groups in fact came together after the Lal Masjid operation under the TTP umbrella; that for years this very strategy of making ‘peace deals’ by the military over the years has failed miserably. If previously various groups had different aims, they now have a very clear, unified agenda. They have coalesced more than ever before. The only side which is being divided and ruled at this point is the state and people of Pakistan.
If there were indeed any ‘reconcilables’ (which is hard to believe without any evidence), they would have at least once tried a political struggle, put forward political demands. Yet, the ‘demands’, whether from the TTP or any splinter groups actually translate to the state compromising its sovereignty: they ask for terrorists to be released, they ask for the army to withdraw from areas, they ask for the constitution and law of the land to subverted and or replaced. Every peace deal of the past has benefitted the terrorists, allowing them to regroup and re-strengthen in more ways than one. Over time, these ‘peace agreements’ have allowed the TTP to not only spread its physical tentacles into all the major cities of Pakistan, but to also construct the narrative based on which this death-wish is being executed by the government.
Political parties that front the TTP and its narrative first completely misled people about drones and deaths of innocents being responsible for terrorism in Pakistan – a patent lie. Islamist insurgency in Pakistan predates the drones by about a decade. The TTP and Al Qaeda successfully mainstreamed the narrative of drones killing innocents through political parties such as the PTI and Jamat-e-Islami, with the latest party to join that being the current ruling party, PML-N – as if the TTP cared about innocent lives! But the most damaging false narrative was of ten years of operations against terrorism having failed. Brig (retd) Asad Munir has written in detail of the success of operations. However, the real issue is that no sustained offensive against extremism, militancy and terrorism has in actuality ever been carried out. ‘Peace deals’ and active collusion with ‘good terrorists’ throughout these years have meant that the state of Pakistan has never really tried to rout this problem with any sincerity.
Thus, the bone-headed pursuit of ‘peace talks’ is nothing but a repeat of utterly failed policies of the past. The absurdity of calling military offensives a failure, and trying to sell the actual failed strategies in a new packaging, is beyond criminal. If single minded, comprehensive and sustained efforts at crushing extremism and terrorism are not made now, it may spell the end not only of the ruling government, but of the country as we know it as well.
http://www.nation.com.pk/columns/07-Mar-2014/the-end
Spine deficit: Pakistan’s leadership crisis
It’s like in those old fairy tales: you don’t know whether to laugh or cry. The government now wants the army involved in the comedy of talks with the Taliban, almost as if fearing ridicule and isolation it wants the army to drink from the same cup of humiliation it has stirred for itself. The glory of a triumph no one likes to share but the responsibility for confusion and failure one gladly spreads. The four so-called negotiators from the government side and the three representing the Taliban, let no one say they are the seven stooges…perish the thought. But they are trying to do something clownish: their idea of a peace with the Taliban can only be accomplished by the total surrender of the Pakistani state. There is no other way to satisfy this hard-to-please lot. Even as our forces are attacked and soldiers killed, the government is finding excuses for the Taliban. Nawaz Sharif’s latest takes the prize. Talking to a group of parliamentarians from Gujrat he said there were reports of the involvement of many groups including RAW in the attack on the Islamabad courts…everyone except the Taliban. With the government unable to take a decision that could be counted as a decision, and doing little beyond trying to appease a force which makes no secret of its antipathy to the Pakistani state, what we are facing is a leadership crisis. There is a government in charge but for all the resolution and decisiveness it is showing it might as well not be in charge. The government’s indecision is rubbing off on the military which too seems to be swinging this way and that, at the mercy of things not in its control. The Taliban are net gainers in all this. With their announcement of a ceasefire – an announcement so far honoured more in the breach than the observance, but never mind the government will find excuses for them – they have bought time and forestalled the threat of a full-fledged military operation, without conceding anything. To look at the other side of the argument, if one-sided appeasement could buy results there would be no quarrel with it. The people of Pakistan could be told that they must be patient, that these things take time and that all will turn out well in the end. But the burden of history instructs us in the falsity of this approach. It tells us that entities like the Taliban do not voluntarily lay down their arms, that sooner or later the challenge they represent has to be met head-on and the longer this is postponed the graver the eventual danger. So what the government may be hoping to achieve by irresolution and appeasement is hard to decipher. Now the other danger: faced with civilian incompetence there are always people in societies like ours who play with Bonapartism, maintaining that if civilians are no good the army must step forward and take matters into its hands. From bitter experience we know there is no thinking more dangerous than this. Ours is not a Kemalist army. It has fought no war of independence. Whenever military strongmen have taken over power – and it has happened four times – it has been an unmitigated disaster. We can’t go down the same path again unless – and this is a serious thought – we want to see a repeat of 1971. But, and there is no denying this either, a vacuum such as is being created by the lack of will and spine of the present governing dispensation cannot last forever without grave consequences of its own. The Taliban threat is already very serious. Not only do the Taliban control vital slices of territory in Fata. Their influence through sleeper cells, friendly religious havens and supportive religious militias is now spread across the country. A Taliban sympathiser today can move throughout the country, his board and lodging looked after, without having to check in at a hotel. These are the fruits of jihad we have assiduously gathered. Army chiefs past and present, ISI chiefs in all their glory, what debt of remembrance does the nation not owe them? But the past is the past and the present is threatening our survival and where we should have leadership we have appeasement and utter confusion. And if there are no Kemalists in the army there are no men of spine in the echelons of the civilian government. If the truth be told this is not even a government in the accepted sense of the word – by which I mean the cabinet discussing things and arriving at a collective decision, and the cabinet exercising collective responsibility – but a cabal of four, at the most five, very frightened individuals, clearly out of their depth and hoping for some miracle to come their way whereby the flames of insurgency are confined to the wilds of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa while the land of the five rivers basks in peace and prosperity. If there is a surer way of splitting the country we should be informed. Now the army does not always have to mount a coup to make its viewpoint heard. There are other ways how this can be done. Gen Petraeus and then US secretary of defence Robert Gates did not have to lay siege to the White House to get their ‘surge’ in Afghanistan. But they got it by putting pressure on President Obama. Doesn’t the Pakistani general staff know what the Taliban threat is about? Don’t the generals know that there can be no peace settlement with the Taliban without the capitulation of the Pakistani state? Don’t they know that this is a war that will have to be fought? So why are they seeing no evil and speaking no evil and generally behaving like so many excavated mummies? How many more FC soldiers must be beheaded and made footballs of before a sense of crisis gets to them and they transmit the same to the frightened cabal supposed to be running the government? Our fate, our kismet, has never been that outstanding but has it really come to the point where it must be hostage in the hands of such seven pillars of wisdom whose antics, and portentous countenances, we must perforce watch? We should have some sense of what we are actually achieving. By according virtual recognition to the Taliban and finding excuses for their behaviour, we are pulling back the Durand Line from the Hindukush Mountains and redrawing it along the River Indus – mayhem and terrorism on the loose in the Frontier, but anything to maintain peace this side of the river. Anyone thinking that Punjab can be insulated from this contagion should look more carefully at the recent past. Jihad could not be confined to Afghanistan. It re-crossed the mountains to come back to haunt us. The Taliban now, in one shape or another, are now spread across Pakistan. Punjab is home to a vast madrasseh population. In Lahore itself there is a foreign population (I am being deliberately vague) unaccounted for in any government register. The Lal Masjid was not in Waziristan but in the heart of Islamabad. Wali Khan warned long ago, “Yeh jo aag tum Afghanistan mein laga rahe ho, aik din yeh Attock ke uss paar aa kar tumhe jala degi”…this fire that you are lighting in Afghanistan will one day cross the Attock and burn you. Such warnings seemed fanciful at the time. They are all too real now. None of this means that the cause is lost or the fight is hopeless. It is not. Other countries have triumphed over far worse dangers, but not if they lost the will to fight. Defeat and victory are first in the mind, then in some other arena of real life. To look at the government’s defeatism – alas, no other word for it – and the strange lassitude which seems to have settled over General Headquarters it is hard to shake off the impression that that vital spark without which no hazardous enterprise was ever undertaken we seem to have lost somewhere along the way.Ayaz Amir