In My View

Political defeat for Pakistan’s elite

Fourteen months after BenazirBhutto fell to the bullets of Islamist fundamentalists; and a year after the people of Pakistan rejected the Islamist agenda with a thumping victory for the forces ranged against it, Shariat law was imposed in a part of Pakistan. A bigger political defeat for Pakistan’s elite could not have been writ larger than this.

The geographic proximity of Swat valley to the latter’s seat of power, Islamabad – just 130 kms northwest – make Pakistan government’s decision to promulgate Shariat law there even more ironic. It almost seems that Pakistan’s Taliban is knocking on the doors of the elite of that country, asking them to stand up and be counted.

The fact that Monday’s (16 February) decision was taken in a meeting of all the powerful stakeholders of the country; President Asif Ali Zardari, Prime Minister Yusuf Raza Gillani, army chief Gen Ashfaq Parvaiz Kayani, ISI chief Lt Gen Ahmad Shuja Pasha, NWFP Governor Owais Ahmed Ghani and its Chief Minister Ameer Haidar Khan, shows the breadth of the Islamist political victory.

Some of Pakistan’s newspapers in their anger have called it a military defeat of Pakistan’s army. But cool headed analysis would show that the army did not taste the defeat in any battlefield. Any army would be wary of turning its guns, with its full explosive potential on its own population. Plus, if the government were to be believed the Pakistan Taliban, whose agenda have been fulfilled, enjoyed a level of popular support. In that scenario, the army could have done little but to hunker down for a protracted battle against its own people.

Pakistan’s army did not have the time to do that. They were needed to help the US and allied forces in tackling the far more dangerous enemy, the Afghan Taliban and their supporters, the al Qaeda. They were also needed to keep the country functioning with a modicum of normality. This was an army overstretched and tiring. It needed a breather in one front.

But the political elite of Pakistan deserve all the opprobrium. These were the people who enjoyed the highest levels of popular support just a year back because they vowed to eradicate the menace of Islamist forces. They fumed, fretted, fulminated, and bickered and wasted precious time. They failed to launch the political processes that could turn the people away from considering the Pakistan Taliban as a viable political option out of the morass they are in.

This is the population that had chosen the Awami National Party (ANP) to govern the North West Frontier Province because it had promised to end the war. A war that the Islamabad government now concedes to have brought untold misery to the people of the province. The political parties of Pakistan needed to take on the Taliban not just militarily, but ideologically. A task that they were so incapable of doing that they in turn had to embrace the garb of ‘peacemaker’ by succumbing to the regressive agenda of the Islamist forces. In short, they failed to provide not just governance but a political direction to the country.

In the process they frittered away the biggest mandate in favour of moderation that Pakistan has ever given to its rulers. The fact that this 16 February decision was taken around the time US President, Barack Obama’s special envoy on Pakistan and Afghanistan, Richard Holbrooke, was visiting the region indicated that Washington was in the loop. The US needs Pakistan to focus its energies into ridding Afghanistan of the Islamist forces, thus did not mind if Islamabad chose to buy time by striking a temporary truce with its own dangerous delinquents.

The victory rally Pakistan Taliban cadres held in Swat on 17 February bore the signs of the times. These are the people who have beheaded people for failing to follow the tenets of so called Islam and driven out hundreds of girls from schools because it is apparently ‘un-Islamic’ for women to have an education. In the rally on Tuesday they flaunted their weapons openly in their distinctive headgear. The cleric who had led the demand for imposition of Shariat at the public level, Sufi Mohammad, now claims that he would lead talks with his son-in-law, Maulana Fazlullah who is the local Taliban leader for restoring peace to the region.

Pakistan government’s own linkage of actually issuing the order for promulgation of Shariat with restoration of peace gives a sense that in the reward-punishment paradigm it considers, imposition of the retrograde laws is considered a reward. Islamabad has justified this by a logic that if most people wanted it, who are they to stop it.

This hides the fact that most people chose imposition of the oppressive laws to have peace in a war-torn region. They were not given the option of leading their lives in a normal, dignified way. This was a failure of policies and practices of those who were at the helm in the country.

Holbrooke has rightly said this is biggest common challenge to Pakistan, India and the US. India is right to be worried. It would not certainly want the Taliban breathing down the neck of Indian Muslims. What their emergence in Pakistan does to the security situation of the sub continent is an issue nightmares are made of. Let’s hope that the people of Pakistan who are not much different than those who live across their eastern borders get a chance to seize the moment of history.

In My View

End state for Sri Lanka

The big guns are blazing for the final time. Termination of the 25-year-long conflict is near. Clearly, the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE) is getting ready for its final stand in an area that is shrinking every day around Mullaithvu. Sri Lankan army is notching up significant successes, after decades of being at the receiving end.

The end is coming at a dramatic pace. Even the LTTE could not have expected that environment around them could degrade so fast. That clearly was a strategic misjudgment for which the Sri Lankan Tamil ‘army’ is paying a heavy price. In retrospect, it now seems Velupillai Prabhakaran’s inability to read the political milieu has brought the downfall of the force he built as a ruthless fighting machine.

Primarily, three elements constituted that political situation. First, in the post-9/11 world, the public opinion had sharply turned against forcible changes of governance regimes. In the Indian sub continent, Nepal witnessed a similar change. But qualitatively, the Maoists of Nepal showed more flexibility in dealing with the politics of the times much better than the LTTE. The former came overground and joined the democratic discourse with the same aplomb which they showed fighting the Royal Nepalese Army.

The LTTE had its last chance at a similar transformation in 2005-6 when it made peace with the Sri Lankan government. It could have then turned itself into an overt political force seeking broadbased autonomy and devolution of powers from the Colombo government. Instead, it sought accretion to its military power, negotiating multi million dollar arms deals.

This emphasis on a military solution to the problem had possibly led the LTTE to assassinate Rajiv Gandhi. After the dust settles down in the battlefields of Sri Lankan north, Sri Lanka experts would measure how that single act had cost the organisation crucial support of the Indian Tamils, and how it had proved decisive when the end-game was near.

In the penultimate days of the LTTE’s existence as a quasi-legitimate representative of the Sri Lankan Tamils, the Indian Tamils show little sympathy towards their cause. This is especially evident in the way the two main Tamil political parties, DMK and the AIADMK had conducted themselves in the recent past. If the DMK supreme and Tamil Nadu Chief Minister, M Karunanidhi has publicly disavowed the LTTE, Jayalalitha, the AIADMK leader has maintained a deafening silence after initial stirrings of expression of concern.

Finally, the LTTE was done in by the vertical split in its ranks, led by ‘Colonel’ Karuna in the eastern province. This tactically degraded the security situation for the organisation as the Sri Lankan army was relieved off the pressure of having to fight the civil war on two fronts. Plus, Karuna challenged the LTTE’s claim of being the sole homogenous arbiter of the Sri Lankan Tamil fate. His desertion from the organisation’s ranks also released the Sri Lankan army assets that were all deployed in the north, targeting the remaining leg of the LTTE.

It is a different point that this military victory will not bring the desired end state for the Sri Lankan government in this battle of attrition. While the victory on the battle fields would remove the conventional security threat posed by the LTTE, but it would not mean a sudden change in the allegiances of the Sri Lankan Tamil population. The Colombo government would then have the harder task of establishing trust with the Tamil population of the country that would still begrudge the demolition of their legitimate platform of protest.

So it is imperative for the Sri Lankan government to conduct the rest of the operations with a high degree of care that no excesses are committed against the civilian population. This is especially important in light of the 250,000 Tamils who have been moved to Mullaithvu alongwith the LTTE forces, and who the Sri Lankan government claim to have been held hostage by the latter as ‘human shields.’

The Sri Lankan army has created a ‘safe zone’ within this embattled area on which, they have said; they would not do any shelling. They expect that the civilians with the LTTE would be moved to this area for the sake of security of these people. But they also say that the LTTE has apparently asked its soldiers to fight in civilian clothing, so that their death in combat can be projected to the world as the killing of civilian population.

The US, UK, Norway and Japan has urged the Sri Lankan government to desist from attacking the ‘safe zone.’ They have also exhorted the combatant sides to show utmost caution.

So has India. Minister for External Affairs, Pranab Mukherjee, had reiterated a policy of caution with the Sri Lankan President, Mahinda Rajapaksa, who had come to New delhi a few days ago. The presidential delegation gave a full scale briefing on the war situation to the Indian counterparts. And possibly, advocated patience with the Indians on the face of the LTTE propaganda. The future thus is now.

In My View

Crumbling Promises

The USA would withdraw all its soldiers from Iraq - barring a few support troops – in 16 months time from the inauguration of the new administration.

The new US government would close the Guantanamo Bay prisons in a year from its inception.

These were the two key promises Barack Obama, the 44^th president of the United States made during his long campaign for office. And these pledges are the crucible on which he would be tested by the international audience in his first days in office.

By the look of it he would have to renege on the Iraq promise right at the outset. Washington’s elite is not in any mood to relent on their strategy of global domination so easily. Presumably, they still think that the US has the economic capability to sustain globe girdling military operations by US forces to uphold their ambitions.

France’s highly acclaimed Le Monde Diplomatique (LMD) has written in its current January issue how the US armed forces top echelons are trying to subvert an agreement that George W Bush’s administration had signed with the Iraqi government for a hundred percent US combat troops withdrawal from the country by 2011. Called the Status of Forces Agreement (SOFA), it had stipulated that that US troops withdraw from the Iraqi cities and towns and regroup in bases to be located according to another agreement with the Baghdad government.

The SOFA forbade the US forces from operating in the country without full Iraqi “approval” and “coordination.” It also bars the American forces from detaining Iraqis without an Iraqi court order. The agreement also bans the US from using Iraqi territory or airspace to “launch attacks against other countries.” Finally, SOFA, which was concluded on 18 November, last year, held that Washington needed to develop a detailed schedule for “complete withdrawal” of all combat forces and create “mechanisms and arrangements” to reduce US force levels in a stipulated time period.

Obama’s pronouncements were not far different from this agreement. Only his plan was for an accelerated withdrawal, drawing back two brigade level forces every month. But the Washington warriors would like to have nothing of it. So they are already bent on sabotaging the plan and the SOFA to the best of their abilities.

On Thursday (22 January) the new White House Press Secretary Robert Gibbs referred to Iraq almost 25 minutes into his hour-long first media briefing of the new administration said, “The president would be provided all access to information about Iraq that would help him take decisions.” This rather laconic reply was about a war that had witnessed the loss of more than 3000 American lives; tied down more than half-a-million US troops; and costed a few billion dollars every day.

As the LMD records, the days of the signing of the SOF agreement the Pentagon officials told the media that the “withdrawal should take place only if conditions (on the ground) warrant it.” This is the precise premise that was rejected by the government of Nuri al-Maliki in Iraq in the negotiations of the SOFA. Obama had said that the sole determinant of his decision to withdraw would be the ‘cost’ of the continuing US presence.

Even before the ink was dry on the new agreement, the Bush administration had decided to circumvent the key provisions like the ban on military operations against any foreign country using Iraqi soil by arguing the “right of self defence.” It even had plans to relabel some of the combat troops in Iraq into training and support troops to go around the provision for withdrawal of forces.

Soon after Obama was elected on November 4, some of our mailboxes were flooded with material from the so-called US experts who argued that the new president-elect’s withdrawal plan was not justifiable for various reasons including the impending Iraqi elections in 2010. For example, Roger Hertog in the Council on Foreign Relations (CFR) wrote, “They (the Democrats like Obama) want to cut force levels too early and transfer responsibility to Iraqis before they are ready, and they offer no plan to deal with the chaos that would result six months down the road. In essential outline, they have chosen to duplicate the early mistakes of an (Bush) administration they hold in contempt.”

Colin H Kahl and William E Odom wrote in the venerable Foreign Affairs journal, “Rather than unilaterally and unconditionally withdrawing from Iraq and hoping that the international community will fill the void and push the Iraqis toward accommodation -- a very unlikely scenario -- the United States must embrace a policy of "conditional engagement." This approach would couple a phased redeployment of combat forces with a commitment to providing residual support for the Iraqi government if and only if it moves toward genuine reconciliation. Conditional engagement …..would incorporate the real lesson from the Sunni Awakening.”

Now that Obama has taken office, he seems to have taken to heart all these protestations. So no longer does one hear any clarion calls for withdrawal of troops from Iraq. Instead, the new US president the lesser of the two ‘evils’ – closure of the Guantanamo Bay prison – as the ground on which he can renew the call for freedom and liberty under the American leadership. Thus, expect more falsehoods in the near future.

Pinaki Bhattacharya, currently located in Kolkata, is a Special Correspondent with the Mathrubhumi, Kerala. He writes on Strategic Security issues. He can be contacted at pinaki63@dataone.in

In My View

Recovering Palestinian legacy

At one level the Western strategy in post-Yasser Arafat Palestine made a certain diabolical sense.

Islamic Resistance Movement (Hamas) represented, in their mind, the radical Islamist fringe of the Palestinian movement. So it needed to be isolated. Its apparent unity with the post-Arafat Palestinian Liberation Organisation (PLO) signalled a trend towards increasing radicalisation of the ‘mother of all disputes’ that could challenge the West’s monopoly as the power broker of the problem; hence, even that unity needed to be destroyed by pushing Fatah-led PLO towards greater distance with Hamas. Democratic franchise be damned!

In the last elections held in the Israeli-occupied territory of Palestine, Hamas had won more than 30 per cent of the votes. It had gained unstinted political control of the Gaza strip and had given Fatah a run for its money in the West Bank. The election was held under the auspices of the great ‘democracy’ drive of the George W Bush administration in Washington, only to be repudiated by the latter when the results became inconvenient.

Now they are being bombed. Of course, Palestinian civilian population is also becoming equal victims of this current Israeli aggression. But that could be pointedly ignored as ‘collateral damage.’ After all, hasn’t the South Korean champion of democracy, Ban ki Moon issued a statement condemning violence ‘from all sides’ as the secretary general of the United Nations! He has even given Nicholas Sarkozy a free run to waltz his way into the problem, much in the character of a French farce.

Barack Obama, on the other hand, needs a cleaner slate to work on once he takes office. He would seek a long term solution to the Palestinian problem with a two-state solution where Fatah can rule supreme. And Obama can be hailed as the great ‘peacemaker’ from the West who is desperate to reestablish Western hegemony in India’s West Asia. Israel can manage a bit of opprobrium as the force that ‘shaped the battlefield’ especially since it is also being given the badge of victimhood, what with Hamas’ Katyusha rockets taking the Palestinian struggle a bit to the Israeli doors.

This is also a great diversion for the world’s television channel’s, which were so full of the economic crises that it was causing bilious outrages in various capitals of Europe and the USA. Now atleast the world is looking familiar with blood, gore and death of those who could very easily be labelled ‘fundamentalists.’

Of course, Hamas is fundamentalist. They are raising ‘fundamental issues’ about the continued occupation by Israel of their homeland. If the Israeli forces are no longer ubiquitous in the West Bank and Gaza after the elections, they wait just outside the doors screening everyone and everything that crosses the security wall they have built a few years ago. Hamas wants the control of the Palestinian destiny back in their own hands.

But then Hamas is also a product of a Syrio-Iranian enterprise: the diplomatic red rags of the region. Hamas was born when a large section of the Palestinian youth had lost all hope on the Fatah’s ability to deliver an honourable Palestinian solution. They had the militancy of youth and eagerness of desire to reclaim their identity. At a tender age, they got sucked into high politics; they made mistakes, they still do.

Now their intransigence is being used in a manner that suits Israel and the West either way. On the one level they are being told that there cannot be any lasting solution to the Palestinian problem unless they unite with the Fatah. On another level, history tells us how the same international forces militate against such a unity when it occurs.

Having said that, we have been promised by the Brussels-based International Crisis group (ICG) that, “…a clear signal from the U.S.and European Union (EU) (might emanate) that, this time around, they would judge a Palestinian unity arrangement on its conduct rather than automatically torpedo it.” The whole matrix is based in Washington’s desire to engage with Syria and Iran seriously once Obama takes over the reins of power.

Sarkozy would bring in a ceasefire before 20 January once Isreali Defence Forces fulfill their tactical objectives. Though one cannot say whether the Hamas would be tamed.

But what would remain on record is India’s ludicrous reaction to the whole chain of events that began in late-December. Its exhortation about Israel using “disproportionate” force in Gaza is a slap on the face of those who have witnessed India’s past political record in the region since Jawaharlal Nehru’s time.

What would India, under the UPA government, have lost if it had threatened to discontinue the multi-billion dollar arms trade with Israel? What would India have failed to accomplish in terms of its security if the training programmes by the Israeli security agencies were stopped? What are they achieving anyway? Are they stopping a Mumbai from happening?

And what would India have gained had it done the two things that had immense value as international currencies of exchange? It would have gained a voice and respect of about 180 nations out of the 190 odd in the United Nations. It would have again become to be considered a beacon of Asian righteousness. Each of these attributes, of course, don’t have a dollar value attached to them. But they have immense importance in terms of global power.

Pinaki Bhattacharya, currently located in Kolkata, is a Special Correspondent with the Mathrubhumi, Kerala. He writes on Strategic Security issues. He can be contacted at pinaki63@dataone.in

In My View

Catch me if you can!

Pakistan is playing the familiar game. But what else could it do under the circumstances. After 9/11, it had made a 180-degree turn and had disavowed its long standing association with the Taliban regime of Afghanistan. It had then let the US and allies use military bases in Pakistan for launching their ‘regime changing’ expeditions across the country’s western frontiers.

But as later experiences have revealed the Pakistan state avoided an existential crisis of it’s own by a diabolical ploy. Knowing well that important and significant sections of its own people were in close dalliance with the Taliban, Islamabad and Rawalpindi had winked and nodded when Mullah Omar and his close lieutenants had crossed over with their tails between their legs from Afghanistan. The latter had found refuge in the Pushtoon dominated north western parts of Pakistan where they now continue to reside and dream of returning to Kabul. Even key al Qaeda leaders had melded in that crowd and had sought sanctuary there.

Even now when the Pakistan army and air force lead military actions in those parts of the country, they do it with great ‘sensitivity’ about the level of harm they should cause to these ‘guests.’ A perennial complaint of Islamabad’s US allies is about this undue reticence in hitting targets by Pakistan’s marksmen. The new US president-elect, Barack Obama hopes to correct the situation when he is in the saddle post-January 20.

But Pakistan is not similarly beholden to India in the way it is to the West. Islamabad does not have to kow-tow with angry Indian fulminations about taking action against all those who use its territory to wage war against New Delhi. The only real pressure that India can exert is moral. And morality is a highly discounted commodity these days in the bazaars of Lahore or Karachi.

However, amidst this rather bleak prognosis another element has got added recently. That is reflected in the commentaries of Pakistan’s intellectuals in the pages of its newspapers. They say that India does not pose an existential threat to Pakistan any longer. Presumably, any such threat, in their minds has been effectively countered by the nuclear weapons the country now possesses. But the real and present danger to the country now resides with the glassy-eyed jihadis, high on Wahabi Islam.

These groups have increased their state-less autonomy to such a high degree that Pakistan’s ruling elite now see them as threats to its own survival. No longer are they viewed like ‘guns on hire’ who could be directed against India – like in Kashmir – if only to cause death to the Indian nation by a thousand cuts.

There is also a growing appreciation in Pakistan that India is no longer in its league. India’s emergence as a power to reckon with has made these people recognise that whatever happens to India now causes a global impact. They are now thus seeking a modus vivendi to engage with India in a context, which does not seem too supine.

One model that is being talked about, now, in their country is the ‘regional’ approach. Apparently, this is the current favourite in the US among its fast dwindling corridors of power. In that light, the statement of the newly elected victor, Awami League’s Sheikh Hasina Wajed, in Bangladesh’s polls becomes important. That she has spoken about a South Asian regional task force on terrorism does not seem to be the product of her own imagination alone.

For India, that idea should sound promising especially considering that it emerged from Bangladesh, the other problem child of the sub-continent. There is always greater accountability if a mechanism is developed outside of the bilateral matrix, with multiple actors being involved in the exercise.

If that Hasina Wajed proposal reaches fruition, it would remove much of the cover under which Pakistan plays the game mentioned above. For, then evidence or proof of a situation would not lie in the realm of one or two, but would be examined by all the others of the region. And that would underline the acceptability of that ‘evidence.’

India should not nitpick too much when the proposal comes to the SAARC table about whether China should become a party to the ‘joint task force.’ Whatever New Delhi might imagine, the reality is that both Islamabad and Dhaka sees China as a hedge against a perceived Indian hegemony.

On the contrary, New Delhi might actually discover an ally in Beijing on issues of terrorism, especially since the latter seems so weary of challenging the global status quo at least for the next two decades. In fact, if Beijing were to become a party to the mechanism it would raise the level of the discourse from being strictly regional to global. That would guarantee a kind of attention, which would preclude any obfuscation by any other individual country or even, group.

In other words, what Mumbai mayhem had kicked off might prove to be seminal in the history of the troubled South Asian region, far outflanking any diversionary ploy that Pakistan could dream about under the circumstances. At the end, the memories of the people who lost their lives in the city during those last days of November, 2008 would be better served if something systemic changes in the sub-continent in the longer run.

Pinaki Bhattacharya, currently located in Kolkata, is a Special Correspondent with the Mathrubhumi, Kerala. He writes on Strategic Security issues. He can be contacted at pinaki63@dataone.in