Pak Charade on Terrorism Stands Exposed

Sushant Sareen, 

Senior Fellow, VIF

After weeks of delays and dithering, hemming and hawing, and some political bargaining, point scoring and grand-standing, the newly elected PMLN government in Pakistan finally managed to hold the much touted All Parties Conference to evolve a consensus on the counter-terrorism policy of the Pakistani state. The APC was never going to be the magic bullet that would find a lasting solution to Pakistan’s tryst with terrorism. But at the very least, it was expected to make a show of national resolve against terrorism even as it endorsed the government’s efforts and attempts to restore peace in the country through negotiations and dialogue. The resolution passed by the APC, however, is a document dripping with and reeking of irresoluteness. For all practical purposes, the only consensus that emerged after the confabulations of the civil and military leadership of Pakistan was to capitulate before the Taliban, and all that now remains to be decided are the modalities of going about this.¹

Not surprisingly, there has been trenchant criticism of the APC resolution by many Pakistani analysts and observers. For one, the very idea of holding an APC when there is a parliament in place to debate issues of vital national importance has been called into question, more so because ostensibly only parties with representation in parliament were invited for the APC.² Apart from procedural and protocol issues, there are other more substantial points on which the APC has been pilloried. For instance, despite all the verbiage in the resolution that was passed, there is no clear roadmap on how negotiations will be conducted, with whom, on what basis and under what framework, what will be the plan ‘B’ if the dialogue fails etc. In other words, none of the nuts and bolts of an anti-terror policy that are critical for determining the pace, direction, and terms and conditions of the negotiation process have been clearly specified. It is almost as though the authorities will decide things as they go along, or if you will, muddle along.

While the Pakistani politicians have been rather unrestrained in hitting out against the US, not just on the issue of drone attacks but also in making clear that in fighting the war Pakistan “will not be guided by the USA or any other country...”, when it comes to even mentioning the Taliban or the T-word (terrorism) all the determination displayed in standing up to the US (arguably Pakistan’s largest benefactor) seems to suddenly disappear. This of course is something that has been in the making for quite some months and, if anything, the pusillanimity of the Pakistani political class has only increased. Earlier this year, the the Jamiat Ulema-e-Islam - Fazl-ur-Rehman Group (JUI-F) held an APC where the luminaries referred to the depredations of the Taliban as ‘lawlessness’ because use of the word ‘terrorism’ would offend the Taliban. The JUI-F APC also called for ‘engaging all concerned parties’, thereby conceding legitimacy to the Taliban by making them a concerned party instead of a combatant. The PMLN has gone a step further by using the term ‘stakeholders’ which is tantamount to placing the Taliban on an even higher pedestal.

The APC resolution quotes a two year old resolution by another APC to reiterate that ‘dialogue had to be initiated to negotiate peace with our own people (emphasis mine) in the Tribal Areas’. Quite asides the fact that this formulation is reflective of the twisted and confused mindset that pervades Pakistani thinking on the Taliban who are responsible for nearly 40000 murders, the talk about talking to ‘our own people’ is just so much hot air and not very different from the nonsense that used to be peddled during the Musharraf and Zardari period that negotiations or deals were not being made with the Taliban terrorists but with tribesmen and tribal elders. The spin that is now being given to this formulation is that it makes a distinction between foreign terrorists – Arabs, Uzbeks, Chechens, Uighurs etc. and Pakistani jihadists and Taliban who are targeting the Pakistani people and state – and other groups which are involved in the insurgency because of some grievance or some ideological reasons and are not intrinsically opposed to the Pakistani state. If indeed such a distinction can be made, then the question arises as to what purpose will be served (in terms of restoring peace) by talking only to those combatants who are perhaps peripheral to the whole situation? In other words, the bulk of the people who are waging a war against the Pakistani state will not be part of the dialogue process and to tackle this lot force in any case will have to be used. If so, then this entire APC and the entire dialogue tack is an exercise in futility.

Worse, in what appears to be the Pakistani version of ‘one country, two systems’, the APC has virtually prepared the ground for conceding the formation of ‘Islamic Emirates’ in the areas where the Taliban hold sway. This has been done by the laying out the ‘guiding principles’ which talk of ‘respect for local customs and traditions, values and religious beliefs’. Clearly, such an ambiguously worded formulation allows the Taliban to impose their own version of Shariah and their medieval social norms in the areas they control under the pretext of respecting local customs and religious beliefs. What is more, if reports about Imran Khan’s boasts that the Pakistani authorities have accepted all that he has been demanding are true, then the Pakistan army is all set to effect a ‘phased withdrawal’ of troops from the troubled Tribal Areas, which means handing over complete control of these areas to the marauding Taliban, who will pretty much be free to run or ruin the place as they deem fit.³ Even now, the Pakistani state has effectively ceased to exist in many of the areas – notably North Waziristan and parts of South Waziristan – where it has entered into peace deals with Taliban warlords like Gul Bahadur and the now slain commander Mullah Nazir.

Perhaps the most problematic part of the APC deliberations and resolution is the extent that the civilian and military leadership has gone to appease the Taliban. The political class is apparently so terrified of riling and upsetting the Taliban that apart from use of obsequious phrases, they have also desisted from setting any ground rules that the Taliban would need to observe in order to prove their sincerity and seriousness about the dialogue. Forget about any clarity regarding what the dialogue is to achieve – according to one luminary of the PMLN who is rumoured to become the next governor of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, the government will try to convince the Taliban to adhere to the constitution and accept the Shariah as currently exists in the country! – there are no pre-conditions of any sort that the Taliban will have to meet to come on the negotiation table.

But even though the Pakistani authorities seem reconciled to not insisting on any pre-conditions, there is at the same time an expectation (or at least a hope) that some sort of a ceasefire will be in place during the negotiations. The problem is that while from the side of the Pakistani state, there will be a single entity negotiating (which means that no operations from the side of the state against the insurgents), on the side of the insurgents there are dozens of groups which are operating, some reconcilable, others not so. This means that even though groups ready to negotiate with the government might adhere to a ceasefire, the groups that oppose any dialogue will be free to carry out attacks. Chances are that the Taliban (who are despite the multiplicity of groups constitute a confederation of sorts) follow the same twin track approach of talks and terror going hand in hand that Pakistan adopts with India. In other words, while the Taliban attacks will continue, there will be (and can be) no response from the side of the Pakistani state (because of the over-lapping of many Taliban groups in terms of both space and cadre), something that will only worsen the security situation and put the Taliban in a commanding position.

The TTP has already made it clear that any ceasefire would follow a dialogue and not precede it, as was being demanded by the earlier PPP-led government. To further rub the nose of the Pakistani authorities into the ground, the TTP had earlier this year nominated Adnan Rashid – the former Pakistan Air Force employee who had been given death sentence for his role in the assassination attempt on the former military dictator Gen Pervez Musharraf and who had been freed during the Bannu Jail break last year – as one of their negotiators. The other negotiators were Taliban leaders who were in custody of the Pakistani authorities. In addition, responding to earlier overtures for talks, the Taliban made it clear that they would neither lay down their arms nor sever their links with the Al Qaeda and other banned terror groups like the anti-Shia Lashkar-e-Jhangvi and other such groups. As far as this latest dialogue offer is concerned, even though the Taliban have welcomed it, there are reports that they will be insisting on some pre-conditions and confidence building measures before they accept the talks offer. Some of these conditions and CBMs appear to have been accepted, what with reports of half a dozen Taliban fighters and commanders being released as a goodwill gesture.

Quite clearly, the entire peace tack appears to be something of a non-starter and if it does start will in all likelihood backfire badly by reversing whatever little gains had been made by the Pakistani security forces in their half-hearted and unconvincing fight against the Islamist insurgents. Why then has the political class continued to insist on going through with this tack? One reason for this is that both Nawaz Sharif and Imran Khan (the latter remains an unreconstructed Taliban advocate) had consistently called for a dialogue with the Taliban when they were not in power and for them to now turn turtle on this issue would not go down well with their conservative, Taliban-leaning constituency. Another reason is that Nawaz Sharif might actually be acting out of fear of the Taliban. In recent weeks there have been a number of plots that have been uncovered that were aimed at the First Family, including a plan to attack the Raiwind family estate, kidnapping Shahbaz Sharif and targeting members of the family. As far as other parties like the PPP, ANP and MQM are concerned, they have become willing partners to the APC resolution partly out of fear of the Taliban and partly because they didn’t want to stand out as spoilers and obstructionists in a peace process on which many people had laid their hopes.

Finally, there is the proverbial elephant in the room – the Pakistan Army – which reportedly was not in favour of an accommodation with the TTP and other affiliated groups but has now kowtowed to the desire of the civilian government to enter into a peace negotiation.⁴ There are two possible reasons for the army’s new position. The first is that the Army is perhaps giving a long rope to civilian government and the Taliban, fully convinced that the TTP will renege on any deal it enters into, which in turn will end the ambivalence of the political class and create the national mood for launching a comprehensive operation against the Islamist insurgents. Alternatively, the Army could be using this opportunity as part of its long term plan for the post 2014 situation in which it hopes to partner the Taliban in the pursuit of its grand strategic design for domination of the region. In either case, peace will continue to remain a casualty.

Endnotes

1. For text of resolution passed by the APC on September 9, 2013 see http://www.thenews.com.pk/Todays-News-2-201085-Text-of-the-APC-resolution
2. Apart from the Prime Minister, Interior Minister, the army and ISI chiefs, the participants of the APC included governor Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa‚ chief ministers of four provinces‚ PPP leaders Makhdoom Amin Fahim and Syed Khurshid Shah‚ PTI Chairman Imran Khan‚ JUI-F Chief Maulana Fazlur Rahman‚ PML-Q Chief Chaudhry Shujaat Hussain‚ PML-F leaders Pir Sibghatullah Rashdi and Imtiaz Sheikh‚ Jamaat-e-Islami leader Liaquat Baloch‚ Muttahida Qaumi Movement leaders Farooq Sattar and Haider Abbasi Rizvi‚ Awami National Party leader Haji Adeel‚ Pakhtunkhwa Milli Awami Party Chief Mehmood Khan Achakzai‚ Balochistan National Party-M Chief Akhtar Mengal‚ National Party leader Mir Hasil Bizenjo‚ Jamiat Ahl-e-Hadith Chief Allama Sajid Mir‚ Qaumi Watan Party Chief Aftab Ahmed Khan Sherpao‚ and Ghazi Gulab Jamal and Abbas Afridi from Fata.
   http://www.thenews.com.pk/Todays-News-13-25325-All-parties-agree-on-talk...
3. http://tribune.com.pk/story/602219/imran-khan-convinced-kayani-on-phased...
4. For a report on the army’s position on the dialogue proposal please see the following:
   http://dawn.com/news/1041787/govt-wins-support-for-talks-with-taliban
   http://www.thenews.com.pk/Todays-News-13-25329-Army-to-enforce-govt-poli...

India, Afghanistan and Developments in Pakistan

Dr M N Buch, Dean, 

Centre for Governance and Political Studies

A wise man does not venture into unknown territory, at least not till he has reconnoitered it thoroughly. Perhaps I am not wise because I am trying, through this paper, to venture into an area about which my knowledge is sketchy at best. I do this not to pontificate on what India can do about Pakistan and Afghanistan, but to raise questions which, if answered by experts who know, may educate me and make me more knowledgeable. Many of the questions arise from how I perceive Pakistan, because ultimately what happens there affects both us and the Afghans.

I recently had a Pakistani gentleman as a guest. I would describe him as well off but not filthy rich, well educated and clued up about his county, an environmental activist, not a part of the ruling class but not far from it either, quite candid and optimistic about his country. The question came up about the future of democracy and the role of the army in Pakistan. I told him quite bluntly that we feel that the army, like the Prussian, succeeded by the German Army, has projected itself as larger than life, poses as the guardian of Pakistan against the enemy, obviously India in this case and needs this image to protect its place of pre-eminence in Pakistan. It may tolerate a sort of civilian government but will not accept subordination to it and, therefore, will never allow real peace with India because minus India as an enemy the army would lose its claim to predominance as the shield and buckler.

To this must be added Afghanistan, a country in whose internal affairs Pakistan has meddled, or been forced to meddle, in a big way. To oust all Indian influence from Afghanistan would obviously be one of the objectives of Pakistan so that when the Americans withdraw Pakistan would be the only country to influence developments in Afghanistan. The Pakistan Army is bound to be the driving force in this behalf, which means that it must continue to play a pivotal role in the government of Pakistan. How would that reconcile with a strong, democratically elected government in that country? The future of democracy, the building of institutions of civil government, the role of the army in Pakistan, therefore, are all issues of the utmost importance to India.

At about the same time a very senior and respected journalist from Bhopal visited Pakistan. He reported that he sensed a strange reluctance on the part of the army to seize power in Pakistan. General Kayani, the Pakistan Army Chief, has publicly stated that he is in favour of an elected civilian government ruling Pakistan. Is this a diversionary tactic to hide the real intentions of the army? Is it a ploy, a show of reluctance which ultimately accedes to a public demand for army intervention as the situation worsens? Is it a genuinely held belief, brought on by ground realities, which makes the army want to take a back seat?

My Pakistani friend candidly said that an army takeover was so remote a possibility that one could rule it out. According to him Kayani is ambitious, but not politically so. Abbotabad, the worsening situation in the North-West of Pakistan, the deteriorating law and order situation, the state of the Pakistani economy have all affected the credibility of the army, which does not want to gain more public anger or loss of credibility. The political parties in Pakistan will not support or participate in a coup which means that even with the support of Imran Khan’s party the army cannot muster enough political backing to be able to form and run the government. Incidentally, this coincides with the assessment of the Pakistani situation by one section of thinkers in India. I would welcome comments on this because depending on this would emerge the policy options available to us.

Suppose there is a civilian government in Pakistan. Would the army accept civilian control as is to be found in other democracies, including post war Germany? Recently General Kayani is reported to have met the Pakistani President and to have told him that the senior Pakistan Army Commanders were worried about law and order, especially sectarian violence against the Shias and wanted government to quickly deal with the situation. Such advice from the Indian Chief of Army Staff is unthinkable, but then the Indian Army is not engaged in a fratricidal war of the type that Pakistan faces in Baluchistan and the North West, especially North and South Waziristan. Does this mean that the Pakistan Army could assume and intervene in a police role in that country? In India the army can only act in aid of civil power on the specific summons of the executive magistracy. Can the Pakistan Army act independently and if so, under what law? My guest who is also a lawyer (non-practicing) told me that the Supreme Court of Pakistan, following the frequent attacks on Shias, especially the Hazaras, has directly ordered the para-military Rangers to intervene. Can it order the army to do so also? Will this provide legal cover to limited army operations or would it once again embroil the army in civil affairs and encourage it to seize power? My guest opined that in Pakistan they are moving towards constitutional government and neither the political parties nor the Supreme Court would accept an army takeover but, nevertheless and considering ground realities, the Pakistan Army would continue to be a key player in government. I would certainly like the expert opinion of our thinkers and policy makers on this proposition.

Suppose internal peace is restored in Pakistan. What next? Will this cover the Afghan border, the badlands of the North West, the internal situation in Afghanistan, the Afghan-Taliban and the Tehrik-e-Taliban Pakistan (TTP)? Where does that leave the L-e-T, the Sipaha-e-Saheba, the Lashkar-e-Jhangvi and other militant groups, all of whom target India in general and Kashmir in particular? Will the government of Pakistan bring ISI firmly under civil control, close down terrorist training camps and stop cross border terrorism? Will the Pakistan Army, whilst eschewing open war, curb low intensity conflict for which India is not extracting a heavy price? If the situation vis-à-vis India does not change, can the Pakistan Army afford to stop projecting India as an enemy? If that is so, can the army really be said to have accepted civilian rule in Pakistan?

One major problem in Pakistan seems to be that the institutional structures are either weak or non-existent. For example, in India the district administration, including panchayat raj institutions, is very much alive and kicking. There is Naxalite violence, but it is the district administration and State and Central Government who are tackling it. No one says, “Let the Army sort it out”. I told my guest the story of the siege of Hazratbal when militants seized one of the holiest shrines of Islam. The Army and Police were trying to starve out and smoke out the terrorists and had cut off all services and supplies. Someone filed a writ petition in the J& K High Court alleging that denial of food was a violation of the Fundamental Right to Life under Article 21 of the Constitution. The High Court accepted the plea and directed that the siege notwithstanding, the security forces will feed the terrorists. So strong is the judiciary that morning and evening huge degs, or cauldrons of food were carried in to the very terrorists we are trying to starve into submission. Fortunately they ultimately surrendered. This farce, under judicial orders, proved that even under extreme conditions our legal and constitutional institutions function and this is our real strength.

By contrast even liberal minded Pakistanis speak of the army’s pivotal role. If there is lawlessness the Supreme Court does not order action by the local or provincial administration. It gives direct orders to the Pakistan Rangers and, if need be, to the Army. This is unthinkable in India. But weak institutions of government create a whole series of problems. Law and order suffers because the police is poorly commanded and accountability is diffused. The delivery systems for development are not well organised. Politics may be noisy but, paradoxically, it is not vibrant. Can India, in framing immediate responses and simultaneously preparing a longitudinal policy towards Pakistan, ignore these factors? Do we see a gradual strengthening of institutions in that country, or will things deteriorate? Will the Army not become more assertive if things worsen and can it then resist adopting a bellicose posture towards us?

Before returning to the Indo-Pak scene let us see what is unfolding before us in Afghanistan. The Karzai Government is weak, the Afghan Police and Army are neither well trained, nor armed, nor disciplined, nor motivated to be able to ensure Afghan security after 2014. The country has the Pakhtuns, straddling North Western Pakistan and large parts of Afghanistan. It also has Uzbeks, Hazaras, Tajiks, Kazaks and other tribal groups who have their own territories and do not kindly accept Pakhtun hegemony. The Taliban, with their Pakistan sponsors, already occupy de facto large swathes of territory and, given a chance, would take over Kabul. Would darkness once again descend on Afghanistan? Would there be civil war? Certainly Pakistan would try and close down all Indian development activities in that country and we would have a major setback, notwithstanding that our doctors, engineers and teachers enjoy a good reputation there and are liked by the people. In the long run our support for the Pakhtun aspirations since 1947 and the close links of Mahatma Gandhi and Jawaharlal Nehru with Khan Abdul Ghaffar Khan and the Khudai Khidmatgar will pay dividends, but what do we do in 2014 and the immediate thereafter?

I ask this question because an extreme, bigoted regime in Afghanistan, especially if the government, be it the Taliban, is unable to establish a complete hold over that country, will be troublesome for Pakistan also. That country can hardly countenance a TTP resurgence because it would not only endanger peace and order but also threaten democracy and its institutions. I believe there is a strong section of the more liberal civil society which would be supremely unhappy at the forces of fundamentalism becoming strong enough to take over Pakistan and would expect the army to ensure that this does not happen. If civilian government gains strength, if the police and judiciary become effective instruments for ensuring law and order, as also justice, then the army could operate in aid of civil power. But if the civil power is non-existent or weak, as many Pakistani thinkers feel it to be, then the army becomes the surrogate of civil power, which is highly dangerous.

An interventionist army is, at best, unpredictable. It can play a legitimate role, put down disorder and restore effective government. It can equally adopt a disruptive role in which it tries to divert extremist forces to target a common enemy, India and use Jihad as an instrument of state policy. It has happened in the past and could happen again. In other words, encourage low intensity conflict with India, use the extremists for this purpose and keep chipping away at our safety and security till either the Indian State collapses, or else decides to enlarge the conflict into war. Bearing in mind that state sponsored low intensity conflict can both inject foreign terrorists into India as also encourage home grown terrorism, how do we respond? Do we batten down and try and ride out the storm? Or do we become proactive, aggressively repulse the enemy and take home the war to him?

My intention is not to lecture to the experts, but I want to be educated by them. As I see it the whole situation emanating from our immediate, unfriendly neighbours is composed of several layers. The first, of course, is what shape Pakistan will take politically in the years to come, what will be the role of the army and the impact on India of how Pakistan develops. The rules of engagement under different circumstances must be worked out by our policy makers so that instead of ad hoc track-II discussions, do-gooder contacts at different cultural and intellectual levels and mere wishful thinking on our part, we have a blue print, or series of blue prints, which help us formulate responses at all levels, but particularly the diplomatic and administrative. The purpose of the exercise would be to signal the people, government and army of Pakistan what to expect from India under varying scenarios. We can and must build flexibility into the system, but always within a framework in which our opponents know that any misadventure on their part will invite quick and effective response from us. As Theodore Roosevelt had said, “When faced by a large and angry dog smile at him, while reaching behind for a big stick”. That stick must never be far from our arsenal.

What is our internal security doctrine? India is no stranger to purely home grown conflict, be it separatism in the North East, militant Khalistani violence in the Punjab, endemic dacoity in the Chambal region (now fortunately much quieter) or Naxalite violence in the heartland of India. Kashmir I put in a separate category because that is a purely Pakistan sponsored militancy and has to be dealt with accordingly. The sub-continent has always had sectarian strife, mainly Hindu-Muslim, but there is also a fair amount of conflict on account of caste, region and issues of momentary local antagonism. In some ways terrorism exported by States such as Pakistan, aimed at destabilising India, is directly linked to sectarian violence which is religion based because one feeds the other. In Kashmir anti-national interests feed imported terrorism. The Indian State, its intelligence and counter espionage agencies, its strike forces, especially the police, have to be equally multi-layered, but highly coordinated so that whether the enemies of law and order operate in overlapping layers or they have a cellular structure, we have a response waiting for them. The question really is whether we have such an internal security apparatus in place and whether it has an extra-territorial outreach to deal with externally sponsored terrorism. Because our lives and the nation’s safety depend on a positive answer to this question we must come up with it without delay.

Diplomacy, an internal security doctrine, is all very well, but there are three other factors which are equally important. The first is the capacity to gather information on a global or regional basis, correlate, collate and analyse it and then, perhaps by gaming, perhaps by intelligent guess work, perhaps by commonsense, prepare possible scenarios of threat perception and suggest the options of action available to us. The second is the building up of military capabilities to deal with such situations, either by way of demonstrable ability to deter, or by credibly proving our strength to deal with limited conflict, or by showing that we can both contain and counter any enlarged or extended campaign. This would be particularly true of our relationship with Pakistan and China. The third factor is the strength of our economy. An economically progressive and strong India would be the biggest deterrent to any irrational action by Pakistan.

The United States has a number of what they call “think tanks”, in government, in academia and in the corporate sector. A great deal of foreign policy emerges from such intellectual exercises, as also covert and overt intelligence operations. Does this happen in India? I am sure that neither R and AW, nor IB would or should share any information in this behalf because deniability is a strong and legitimate weapon of the State. However, if the body of Daud Ibrahim were to be found in the rubble of his house or Hafiz Mohammed Saeed were to come in the way of a speeding bullet I would sleep much easier in the knowledge that some unknown someone is looking after my safety. I do not only want to read some newspaper report, ex post facto, that information about a possible attack on Bombay from seaward had been passed on to the Maharashtra Police. I would much rather read that an inexplicable explosion had occurred on a small motorised craft sailing toward Bombay and that there were no survivors.

I have raised a number of questions about what is happening and is likely to happen in future in Pakistan and would love to be enlightened. But regardless of whether the Pakistan Army directly rules or stands behind the curtain and manipulates the system, it is extremely doubtful whether, in the foreseeable future, it will change its attitude towards India. If India is no longer projected as the enemy the Pakistan Army would be reduced to an internal security force to deal with local disorder. The Afghan situation and the temptations it offers would probably prevent this from happening and, therefore, one way or the other India would still have to deal with cross border terrorism and its local ramifications. I hope we are realistic enough to recognise this and have the good sense to come up with the means to neutralise the enemy, secure the country and let us all sleep safely on bed.