16th May 2006
Government of Pakistan
'Pakistan First' by Imran Khan -- Source: Dawn 21st April 2006 Michael Schueur the former head of CIA's AI Qaeeda Unit warned in an opinion piece in the Washington Times that if the US keeps pushing Gen. Musharaff to "do US's dirty work against his country's national interest", he could be toppled and US would lose an important ally in the region. The two areas according to him where Musharaff has gone against Pakistan's national interest to please the US are:
Helping the US to destroy the pro-Pakistan Taleban regime and replacing it with the Pro-India Karzai one which immediately allowed an enormous Indian presence in Afghanistan.
By sending the Pakistan army into the tribal area bordering Afghanistan. Musharaff has created a "heaven sent environment for Pakistan's enemies to fuel the Pashtun fire against the Pakistan army. In time the country could become ungovernable which would be "a boon for India".
According to him "the US officials believed that they could add untold pressures to Musharaff's burden and still find him willing to do America's most important dirty work of killing Osama Bin Laden".
When Pakistan sent its forces into Waziristan two years ago on American orders, the most shocking aspect was that a political solution was about to be struck between the tribal jirga and the government one, whereby the tribes would have taken the responsibility of not allowing any attacks into Afghanistan from Pakistani territory. The second shocking aspect was that the Pakistan army went in Waziristan with a total disregard of the history of the tribal area left behind by the British. Had they paid any attention to the British experience with the Pushtun tribes they would never have made this monumental blunder. In their 200 year raj in India the British suffered the highest number of casualties in Waziristan. In 1935 half of British Indian army was camped outside Waziristan and British officials and soldiers kept dying there right until 1947.
The British had very early on in their interaction with the tribals come to the conclusion that the fiercely independent character of the people coupled with the hostile terrain made military action unfeasible both in terms of men and material. Thus the superpower of the time preferred political negotiations and offered financial incentives to maintain peace and achieve their objectives. Military action was always the last resort. Yet here is a country that after serving its debts and paying for its defense, has to beg borrow and :crape and yet is unable to provide the basic necessities of life to its people. The big question is what happens if the US achieves its objectives in the region and walks away as it did after the Soviets were defeated in Afghanistan and stops paying the Pak army 570 million a month to do "Its dirtv_ work"'I Who will we borrow from to cope with the mess that is being created?
But much more shocking is the moral dimension of sending the army against our own people in Waziristan to do George Bush's dirty work. While researching on a travel book on the tribal area, I came across British Intelligence weekly accounts of the anger and unrest in the tribal areas in reaction to the massacres of Muslims in Kashmir and East Punjab in November 1947. On their own the tribes gathered volunteers and pooled their -resources to send lashkars into Kashmir. Today Azad Kashmir is part of Pakistan because of the sacrifices of, especially, the people of Waziristan. In both 1965 and 1971 volunteers from the tribal areas came to assist the Pakistan army. The country has never had to spend anything to protect its 1500 kilometer border with Afghanistan because of the tribes fierce lovalty to Pakistan. One of the reasons why the Pakhtoonistan movement failed was because the tribal area acted as a buffer and remained totally loyal to Pakistan. It was because of this loyalty that the soviets failed in the 80s to brew up Pushtun nationalism in the tribal areas.
Today Pakistan army is treating them no different to how the Americans are treating the Iraqis and the Israelis the Palestinians. Shamelessly even the terminology used by our government is the same - `miscreants', `terrorists', `foreign militants', `Islamic extremists' `collateral damage' etc. For two years we have been hearing that there were a handful of foreign terrorists whose back was broken and everything was under control. Yet despite the strict press censorships and complete ban on any independent enquiries it has emerged that now the Pakistan army is pitted against its own citizens and the foreign element is insignificant. The awful fact is that the tribesmen have risen up against our own army. The more "extra-judicial killing" our army does the more the ranks of the tribesmen fighting our army grows - revenge being an integral part of the tribal culture. Even those not involved in fighting have complete sympathies with those who have taken up arms against the army - as was abundantly clear from the demands of 8000 strong tribal jirga at Miranshah a few days back. Today no one in Waziristan dares to talk to the Pakistan army for fear of being killed.
So far according to all Independent observers at least 5 times more Pakistani troops have died in Waziristan than US troops in Afghanistan. Like in Iraq no one has any idea about the number of civilians killed. There are tens of thousands of refugees in Bannu, Tank and D.I. Khan. And yet the war is being lost. Not only is the hatred and resistance against the Pakistan army growing but also the once intensely loyal part of the country is now a fertile ground for Pakistan's enemies to operate from.
Meanwhile the senseless and amoral army action in Baluchistan is producing a similar situation in the province. Another swamp created for foreign mosquitos to breed. No lessons learnt from the East Pakistan debacle. Rather than settling the province's sense of deprivation politically and economically, opting for military action has futher exacerbated the problem.
By pitting our army against our own citizens on behest of George Bush's neo-cons imperialistic agenda (war on terror is perceived by the vast majority of our population to be a war against Islam) by a general to secure US support for his dictatorship, has raised many questions about the role of Pakistan army. The people of this country have taken a lot of pride in their army and have sustained it at a great cost. One of the main reasons why we have not achieved our potential as a nation is because our resources have been diverted from developing our human capital to defense. We have watched countries in S.E. Asia overtake us in the 70s and 80s. Now all South Asian countries are higher up the ladder in the human development index than us.
Even a bigger question being asked is who owns Pakistan, the tiny ruling elite or the people of this country. While the rulers have been bowing and boot licking foreign powers (the shameless servility of our rulers on show during the Bush visit was extremely humiliating for all self-respecting Pushtuns), they have shown utter contempt and disdain for their own people.
When those Pakistani youth who were fighting with the Taleban against the Northern Alliance were captured and butchered, our government never spoke out against this blatant violation of the Geneva convention. This job was left to the Western human rights organizations. Similarly it has remained silent about those Pakistanis lying in Guantanamo or other detention centers who have not been given their basic human right to prove their innocence in a court of law. When Gen Musharaff triumphantly declared on CNN that he had handed over 700 A1 Qaeda suspects to the US he had violated article 4A of the constitution and in trying to please his foreign masters had shown contempt for the law of the land. When our own government has shown such lack of respect for its citizens why would any other country respect them. Hence the problems faced by the Pakistanis in US, the murder of 6 innocent Pakistanis in Macedonia under the false pretext terrorism and most recently the imprisonment and torture of Pakistanis in Greece. The amazing thing about the last incident is that rather than help them getting compensation for being put through such pain and humiliation, the Pak embassy actually tried to buv their silence.
Even within the country the contempt of the rulers for their people is so blatant. The way during the VIP movement the people are herded behind barriers for hours when our rulers travel within the country sometimes attending frivolous social functions. There have been reports of patients on their way to hospitals stuck in traffic jams and dying. Equally jarring is the ostentatious lifestyle of the rulers at the taxpayers expense - the luxurious PM, presidential and governor palaces; the purposeless and extravagant foreign tours, the private jets and crores of rupees worth bullet proof cars, the army of ministers etc. All this while the majority of the population hovers below or around the poverty line.
The time has come for all patriotic forces to join hands and put Pakistan first. The interests of Gen. Musharaff and Pakistan are diagonally opposite. The longer Gen. Musharaff stays in power the worse will get the internal and external situation of the country. The only way out is for us to demand genuine democracy which can only happen by holding free and fair elections under a caretaker government, with an independent election commission and judiciary.
Only a genuine democratic government with a sovereign parliament which derives its power from its own people (rather than from Washington) will stand up and promote our national interests. Only a strong and independent judiciary will be able to protect the rights of our citizens, of the federating provinces and the state institutions. And only an empowered public can ensure that the fruits of economic growth are equally distributed. Such a public will throw out a government (like the current dispensation) that enriches the rich and impoverishes the poor. The BJP government which boasted of an over 8% growth rate and shining India, was rejected by their empowered voters who felt they had been excluded from the benefits of economic growth.
