In keeping POK from prying eyes, Pakistan has neglected relief work
The American talk show host, Jay Leno was joking when he said that Pakistan appeared closer to the US than New Orleans judging from the speed with which American assistance reached Pakistan. In a way he was right. More American forces and equipment are available outside the US than inside. It is also a commentary on our neighbourhood that Pakistan, even in its hour of dire need, churlishly refused assistance from enemy India but turned to geographically distant friends. This attitude exists even in matters of normal trade and commerce, so the Pak response was not surprising. Instead Pakistan moved troops to the LOC fearing that India might take advantage and attack. A clear measure of the trust deficit that exists and the distance that needs to be traveled to remove this.
It was 35 years ago, in November 1970, during the time of another dictator that the Pak Army failed to respond to a massive human tragedy. Maybe that time there was apathy because it was East Pakistan that was devastated and it was the wretched Bengali who was suffering. Estimates vary but between half to one million died in that cyclone. The Bengalis were convinced that the Western Pakistani apathy was deliberate. This time the Pakistani reaction to the devastation on October 8 reflects apathy for everything non-Punjabi and General incompetence, with the much-vaunted Pak Army showing a greater desire to preserve itself. The Rawalpindi Brigade had wasted no time in October 1999 to take over vital positions with lightning speed; this time they could not organise more than a few shovels and spades for Margalla Towers.
The regime had other problems, chiefly to assess the damage to all those training camps and safe houses in remote areas that are not supposed to exist and the safety of their occupants. The real worry was that these assets, some of them of international notoriety, might disappear and give the Pakistani game away. There must have been concern about their strategic assets in Kahuta, Chashma, Khushab and wherever. The fate of Muzaffarabad, Bagh or Rawalakot was of little importance. For all the tears that they have shed for the people of Kashmir, help was sluggish at best, even in their hour of need.
Unable or unwilling to send in the Army, it seems that Musharraf’s Muridke Mobsters (a.k.a. Markaz wal-Dawat wal-Irshad renamed Jamat-ul-Dawat and the ideologues of Lashkar-e-Taiba), have been deployed in far-flung areas. They have been allowed to take control of the relief effort in parts of the Frontier Province and Pak Occupied Kashmir. They have moved in with their state of the art equipment. Obviously funds, manpower and logistics were not a problem for the JUD which only confirms that Islamic forces in Pakistan are well endowed, active and increasingly popular; therefore, more difficult to dislodge or control. Besides doctors and other volunteers, they also have armed volunteers who admit to favouring jehad in Kashmir.
The destruction in the upper reaches of POK and in the highly sensitive and predominantly Shia Gilgit and Baltistan, has been so massive that the UN feels that without extensive Western aid thousands more will die. A massive airlift on the pattern of the famous Berlin Airlift has begun because Pakistan just does not have the capacity to provide relief to the people before the winter sets in. After years of neglect by successive regimes that fed their people a diet of jehad against India, the danger now is that their wrath will turn on the Army. Suddenly the regime looks very fragile and vulnerable as it did in 1970. This would leave the field open to radical Islamists and the jehadis because the Army has ensured that Pakistan’s mainstream political parties are marginalised.
The growing criticism of Musharraf and the Army has the US and the EU worried. Their anxieties are about the nuclear technology falling into wrong hands, about the heroin from Afghanistan and Pakistan routed through Central Asia and the Balkans into Europe where most of drugs end up and about the jehadis from this epicentre of jehad using the same routes. We could even have NATO forces operating across our border for an extended period playing the Great Game for added reasons, that may worry the Chinese and the Iranians, obstructing one and encircling the other.
One hears of an EU suggestion and in the Western media that this could be an opportunity for India and Pakistan to come closer as had happened in similar situations elsewhere. In an apparent change of heart or prompted by this suggestion, Musharraf suddenly declared that Kashmiris, please note the word is Kashmiris not Indians, could come across the borders to help their “brethren” and other Pakistanis spoke of the LOC melting away. The same day a group of terrorists belonging to the banned Lashkar-e-Taiba and re-christened Al Mansooriyan killed a J&K Minister in the heart of Srinagar. But has any one asked that once the LOC melts and the terrorist camps continue to exist, what do we get apart from more jehadis from the other side of the fence?
Each time Pakistan planned an incursion into J&K, the vanguard were the irregulars, whether it was in 1947, 1965 or 1999. This time they have moved the LET into POK and the Hizbul Mujahedeen is active once again. It is unlikely that the Pakistanis would leave POK “unprotected” especially when they have had to move troops to Waziristan. The LET cadres would be handy in POK. Our history also shows that each time we have surrendered on the negotiating table what we won on the battleground. In 1948 we halted our advance westward and northward called for a ceasefire. We all know what has happened since then. In 1966 we returned Haji Pir. In 1972, we let Bhutto walk away with the goodies. We pushed back Musharraf’s men in 1999 but legitimised his rule by inviting him in 2001. The irony is that Musharraf came to Agra behaving as the victor and we were suing for peace. Are we then about to repeat our mistakes of being magnanimous and charitable? Magnanimity towards a set of rulers who have made ‘Fateh Hindustan’ their slogan, would be a fatal error of judgment and policy.
Given the uncertainty and the rejuvenated jehadis in POK, we ought to be tightening our systems instead of relaxing them. Open borders and relaxed regimes are the result of enduring peace and trust and not the cause. Our relations with Pakistan have not reached the Canada-US or the EU stage and we have miles to go. In our enthusiasm let us not mix sympathy for tragedy with guarding state interests or confuse hope for reality. And the reality is the mindset of Pakistani rulers, who have built their huge corporate interests on the Indian bogey and for thirty years have taught hatred, bigotry and jehad to their young. These young now walk the corridors of power in Pakistan. It will take decades to change this, starting now. Until that happens, we smile and talk but wait for incontrovertible evidence that the jehadi infrastructure has been terminated and we keep our powder dry.
Source : The Hindustan Times, October 26, 2005
The American talk show host, Jay Leno was joking when he said that Pakistan appeared closer to the US than New Orleans judging from the speed with which American assistance reached Pakistan. In a way he was right. More American forces and equipment are available outside the US than inside. It is also a commentary on our neighbourhood that Pakistan, even in its hour of dire need, churlishly refused assistance from enemy India but turned to geographically distant friends. This attitude exists even in matters of normal trade and commerce, so the Pak response was not surprising. Instead Pakistan moved troops to the LOC fearing that India might take advantage and attack. A clear measure of the trust deficit that exists and the distance that needs to be traveled to remove this.
It was 35 years ago, in November 1970, during the time of another dictator that the Pak Army failed to respond to a massive human tragedy. Maybe that time there was apathy because it was East Pakistan that was devastated and it was the wretched Bengali who was suffering. Estimates vary but between half to one million died in that cyclone. The Bengalis were convinced that the Western Pakistani apathy was deliberate. This time the Pakistani reaction to the devastation on October 8 reflects apathy for everything non-Punjabi and General incompetence, with the much-vaunted Pak Army showing a greater desire to preserve itself. The Rawalpindi Brigade had wasted no time in October 1999 to take over vital positions with lightning speed; this time they could not organise more than a few shovels and spades for Margalla Towers.
The regime had other problems, chiefly to assess the damage to all those training camps and safe houses in remote areas that are not supposed to exist and the safety of their occupants. The real worry was that these assets, some of them of international notoriety, might disappear and give the Pakistani game away. There must have been concern about their strategic assets in Kahuta, Chashma, Khushab and wherever. The fate of Muzaffarabad, Bagh or Rawalakot was of little importance. For all the tears that they have shed for the people of Kashmir, help was sluggish at best, even in their hour of need.
Unable or unwilling to send in the Army, it seems that Musharraf’s Muridke Mobsters (a.k.a. Markaz wal-Dawat wal-Irshad renamed Jamat-ul-Dawat and the ideologues of Lashkar-e-Taiba), have been deployed in far-flung areas. They have been allowed to take control of the relief effort in parts of the Frontier Province and Pak Occupied Kashmir. They have moved in with their state of the art equipment. Obviously funds, manpower and logistics were not a problem for the JUD which only confirms that Islamic forces in Pakistan are well endowed, active and increasingly popular; therefore, more difficult to dislodge or control. Besides doctors and other volunteers, they also have armed volunteers who admit to favouring jehad in Kashmir.
The destruction in the upper reaches of POK and in the highly sensitive and predominantly Shia Gilgit and Baltistan, has been so massive that the UN feels that without extensive Western aid thousands more will die. A massive airlift on the pattern of the famous Berlin Airlift has begun because Pakistan just does not have the capacity to provide relief to the people before the winter sets in. After years of neglect by successive regimes that fed their people a diet of jehad against India, the danger now is that their wrath will turn on the Army. Suddenly the regime looks very fragile and vulnerable as it did in 1970. This would leave the field open to radical Islamists and the jehadis because the Army has ensured that Pakistan’s mainstream political parties are marginalised.
The growing criticism of Musharraf and the Army has the US and the EU worried. Their anxieties are about the nuclear technology falling into wrong hands, about the heroin from Afghanistan and Pakistan routed through Central Asia and the Balkans into Europe where most of drugs end up and about the jehadis from this epicentre of jehad using the same routes. We could even have NATO forces operating across our border for an extended period playing the Great Game for added reasons, that may worry the Chinese and the Iranians, obstructing one and encircling the other.
One hears of an EU suggestion and in the Western media that this could be an opportunity for India and Pakistan to come closer as had happened in similar situations elsewhere. In an apparent change of heart or prompted by this suggestion, Musharraf suddenly declared that Kashmiris, please note the word is Kashmiris not Indians, could come across the borders to help their “brethren” and other Pakistanis spoke of the LOC melting away. The same day a group of terrorists belonging to the banned Lashkar-e-Taiba and re-christened Al Mansooriyan killed a J&K Minister in the heart of Srinagar. But has any one asked that once the LOC melts and the terrorist camps continue to exist, what do we get apart from more jehadis from the other side of the fence?
Each time Pakistan planned an incursion into J&K, the vanguard were the irregulars, whether it was in 1947, 1965 or 1999. This time they have moved the LET into POK and the Hizbul Mujahedeen is active once again. It is unlikely that the Pakistanis would leave POK “unprotected” especially when they have had to move troops to Waziristan. The LET cadres would be handy in POK. Our history also shows that each time we have surrendered on the negotiating table what we won on the battleground. In 1948 we halted our advance westward and northward called for a ceasefire. We all know what has happened since then. In 1966 we returned Haji Pir. In 1972, we let Bhutto walk away with the goodies. We pushed back Musharraf’s men in 1999 but legitimised his rule by inviting him in 2001. The irony is that Musharraf came to Agra behaving as the victor and we were suing for peace. Are we then about to repeat our mistakes of being magnanimous and charitable? Magnanimity towards a set of rulers who have made ‘Fateh Hindustan’ their slogan, would be a fatal error of judgment and policy.
Given the uncertainty and the rejuvenated jehadis in POK, we ought to be tightening our systems instead of relaxing them. Open borders and relaxed regimes are the result of enduring peace and trust and not the cause. Our relations with Pakistan have not reached the Canada-US or the EU stage and we have miles to go. In our enthusiasm let us not mix sympathy for tragedy with guarding state interests or confuse hope for reality. And the reality is the mindset of Pakistani rulers, who have built their huge corporate interests on the Indian bogey and for thirty years have taught hatred, bigotry and jehad to their young. These young now walk the corridors of power in Pakistan. It will take decades to change this, starting now. Until that happens, we smile and talk but wait for incontrovertible evidence that the jehadi infrastructure has been terminated and we keep our powder dry.
Source : The Hindustan Times, October 26, 2005
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