New Delhi, Apr.15 (ANI):
There are not many in Pakistan or outside who can confidently describe
the situation there. Far too many contradictions have surfaced. Maybe
no-one is really in charge. There are peace talks, but no real peace
talks. There are anti -terror operations, but no real anti-terror
operations.
The former Army Chief and self-appointed President Pervez Musharraf is
to be tried, but the issue drags on as the army is increasingly
uncomfortable with the prospect that a former head of their all-powerful
institution will be tried - and horror of horrors - actually sentenced
by a civilian administration.
Meanwhile, Pakistan is caught in a pincer, not the kind that they feared
all these years of a military kind, but by two democracies electing
their representatives in Afghanistan and India, while Pakistan itself
remains in the grip of home grown violence of the worst kind.
Violence manifests itself in various forms in that country today - sectarian, ethnic, nationalist, religious and criminal.
Just consider what happened in the last two weeks. There have been
killings in Sibbi and Kalat (Balochistan), Islamabad, Hyderabad (Sindh)
and in FATA where recent reports indicate that various groups are
fighting each other when not engaged in fighting the Pakistan security
forces.
The fate of the talks between the government and the Taliban remains
uncertain as the Taliban continue kidnapping more and more civilians and
seek exchange of Taliban prisoners. Violence by Baloch nationals and
counter-violence of various kinds including enforced disappearances
organised by the Army and para-militaries in Balochistan continues even
as it remains largely unreported in a world more concerned with Syria
and Ukraine or as in India, with domestic issues.
The killings in the wholesale vegetable and fruit market in Islamabad by
an unknown group has broken the peace the Sharif Brothers had worked
out with various militant groups before the elections last year to keep
Punjab incident-free and the PML (N) had used the ultra-radical Sunni
Ahle Sunnat Wal Jamat (the other name of Sipah e Sahaba) for their
election campaigns. Maybe it is payback time now. One of these possibly
is that the Wal Jamat chief Maulana Ahmed Ludhianvi has been declared
elected to Parliament by a court order even though the organisation he
heads was banned in 2012.
Yet the FATA and KPK suddenly had suddenly become eerily quiet just
short of elections in Afghanistan. The famed and dreaded Taliban who had
threatened to disrupt the elections and had indulged in violence in the
run up to the elections did not carry out their threat.
It is difficult to believe that the Taliban had a sudden change of heart
but it is more plausible that, as it invariably happens in the region,
there have been some deals worked out or are in the making. And whatever
happened to the omnipotent Haqqani Networks, described by the Americans
as the veritable arm of the ISI. A system which has followed a policy
of creating chaos in Afghanistan, treating it alternately as its own
backwater or burden, has suddenly held back its lethal weapons.
There must be some other reason other than love for democracy in
Afghanistan that explains this. These deals could perhaps be between the
Taliban and the Americans or between the Taliban and the Pakistan deep
state or all three. It could be like this - the US wants to leave with
elections having been held peacefully and a new government installed in
Afghanistan, thereby declaring victory and mission accomplished. The
Taliban hold back till the Americans leave and hope to reach Kabul in
good time after that. This suits Pakistan as well so long as they can
hope to have Kabul eventually under their control.
No wonder the Haqqani Network, Pakistan's favourite and best armed and
financed group has been held in a tight leash. The Haqqanis began their
operations against Afghanistan in 1973 during Zulfiqar Ali Bhutto's time
post-1971 when Pakistan felt an urgency to control Afghanistan as a
counter to India. That effort has continued unabated since then becoming
more sinister and violent every passing year. It was this mindset that
made Pakistan double cross its main ally the US over the last ten years
and it was this mindset that gave shelter to the likes of Osama bin
Laden.
Meanwhile, there is another spoke in the wheel. Mullah Omar's
son-in-law, Agha Jan Mutasim has been recently put under house-arrest in
the United Arab Emirates and may be deported to Kabul. Mustasim had
launched his own peace initiative in opposition to Taliban policy and
was in touch with the High Peace Council. This means that Kabul had
separate links with a section of the Taliban. Then there are the TTP
elements, powerful bureaucrats and politicians who may want their share
the crumbs of the deal.
All one can deduce from this is that nothing in the Af-Pak region is
what it appears to be and all arrangements can worked out through deals.
Meanwhile, it is equally inexplicable why the Nawaz Sharif government is
pursuing the Musharraf trial so diligently risking the annoyance of the
Army at a time when the government would need the Army's co-operation
in tackling situations in FATA, Balochistan and Karachi.
The Army, on the other hand, has increased the protection provided to
the former army chief fearing assassination attempts and General Shareef
has gone on record to publicly state that the Army would not tolerate
apparent disrespect to itself.
Enter Saudi Arabia into this confusion with a friendly cash grant of US $
1.5 billion to the cash starved Pakistan government headed by old
friend Nawaz Sharif. Hounded out by the kingdom's other friend, General
Musharraf, Nawaz and his family had taken shelter in Saudi Arabia. It
was the Saudis who had arranged Nawaz's return to Pakistan in November
2007 after seven years of exile and Musharraf could not say no. Nothing
in international relations is available for free. There would be a price
that Nawaz will have to pay for this free gift.
The Musharraf trial could be an unnecessary distraction for a man
determined to wreak revenge at a time when FATA threatens to spin out of
control. Nawaz's problem is that politically he is unable to decide
whether to subdue the TTP first and then negotiate or negotiate first in
the hope of winning over the TTP. Islamabad cannot really declare a
ceasefire with terrorists without first attaining a position of strength
and it cannot attain a position of strength without first using enough
force on the ground to subdue the terrorists. Otherwise it is
appeasement.
Irresolution also occurs when the state is unable to decide whether an
adversary is an adversary out to destroy existing systems including the
regime itself or they are simply misguided youth that need to be coddled
or simply that the state feels so hopelessly out of control and fears
massive retaliation that threatens its own existence unless it makes its
peace with the adversary. Negotiations also imply that there is some
common meeting ground on at least some of the issues. This means that
when Islamabad pushes for negotiations it feels that there are common
goals and purposes between it and Miram Shah and Wana.
Or maybe the Nawaz Sharif government, fearing reprisals, is too keen to oblige the Taliban on the Musharraf issue. This, as Pakistan's
political and defence analyst Hassan Askar Rizvi points out, could mean
that Nawaz is running the risk of overestimating his electoral strength
while dealing with the Army and the longer this problem lasts the
greater the damage to civil-military relations.
Source : ANI News , 15th April 2014
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