It is now plain to conclude that there will be severe reprisals in Waziristan and in other places in NWFP to avenge Dadullah's death. The Waziristan and Bajaur agreements are now dead; appeasement never works. NWFP has become the innocent victim of the war on terror and its innocent citizens will now pay a very heavy price. In war only the innocent, poor and women suffer.
It is certain that when key institutions are manipulated whimsically, state failure is a natural consequence. Such a result is eminent when a country is also facing a severe legitimacy crisis; Pakistan today is in the grip of both. Unless our leaders see reality and give up their attitude of denial in the face of facts, we may then be moving rapidly towards becoming another Liberia, Uganda or Somalia; a major difference this time will be that Pakistan is a nuclear nation. The consequence of state failure in our case could be of monumental effect, not only on the local elite but globally too.
So, let us withdraw from the precipice and reflect as wise men do, on how to avoid the coming catastrophe? The previous two months have seen some of the worst examples on how not to manage the state properly. These incidents indicate a downward trend in state longevity. Maulana Abdul Aziz the radical cleric of Lal Masjid (Red mosque), in Islamabad occupied a children's library in retaliation for the demolition of six mosques, which according to the government were constructed on state property, (why was not the construction stopped in the first place). Subsequently, emboldened by the government's failure to apply the law, the cleric's supporters kidnapped some women from surrounding houses on pretext of being women of loose moral character.
The police reacted belatedly and arrested some students from the Madrassah attached to the (Red Mosque). To obtain the release of the kidnapped women, the government released the students arrested earlier and promised to reconstruct the demolished mosques. The Lal Masjid plot thickened, when Maulana Abdul Aziz, its head with his supporters kidnapped four police officers including an intelligence agent to secure the release of their supporters who were arrested earlier by the police and were still in custody. On 19 May, the government caved in and released five of the Lal Masjid prisoners in exchange for two police officers.
However, the Lal Masjid issue took a twist and merged into another case being pursued before the Supreme Court of Pakistan. It related to an application by relatives of many missing persons for their release from the illegal custody of security agencies; the government has been denying the charge. This litigation is causing serious embarrassment to Mushraff's government and there are charges of lawlessness by state authorities.
The Supreme Court has also been told that some of the missing persons have been picked up due to personal vendettas and in some cases handed over to the U.S authorities for financial gains obtained through bounties. This issue is suspected to be one of the reasons for the Presidential reference against the Chief Justice of Pakistan. Khalid Khawaja, a former intelligence agent, is one of the noted individual appearing on behalf of the missing persons before the Supreme Court. He has embarrassed the state by becoming a petitioner on behalf of the missing persons. He too was arrested to deter him from pursuing the matter before the court. The Lal Masjid cleric has demanded his release in exchange for the remaining two police officers in his custody.
A couple of weeks ago, an air force C-130 pilot reported that while taking relief goods to Chitral the plane was targeted by ground to air missile/missiles over Chiragali in Upper Dir district of NWFP. The pilot and the aircraft escaped. This matter is still under investigation.
Malakand division, where the missile firing took place is the centre of an Islamist movement, which began in the 1980s under the leadership of Sufi Muhammad who is now under detention in D.I Khan Jail, after his force was mauled in Afghanistan in 2002 while supporting the Taliban; many hundreds died. Now his son-in-law Maulvi Fazlullah has begun to issue edicts against vaccination, female lady health workers and closing of audio and video shops in Swat, Dir, Charsadda, Mardan and Nowshera; the last named district is one of the principal army training centers of the country.
Shops selling video and audio material in Mardan and Charsadda have been dynamited for non-compliance with Fazullah's directions. The Christian community in Charsadda has received letters that if they did not convert to Islam, their lives are in danger; it may be noted that Islam does not permit forcible conversion.
Elsewhere in NWFP, there have been attacks by militants based in Waziristan; the border city of Tank has been frequently attacked, and placed under curfew on more than one occasion. Many of its citizens have also died or were injured in these attacks by Waziristan tribesmen, who are under the leadership of Baitullah Mahsud and his supporters.
The much-trumpeted agreements signed in Waziristan between the Islamists and the government has collapsed. Each day brings news of people being either killed or kidnapped. Recently, a survey team compiling social statistics was kidnapped; it included five women. After this, who in his right sense will volunteer to work in development projects in tribal areas? Reports of similar lawlessness are coming from Bajaur, where only the other day a peace agreement was signed on the model of Waziristan. These agreements are common in their rhetoric rather than as instruments of conflict reduction.
The provincial capital Peshawar has witnessed terrible carnage at the hand of suicide bombers. The latest tragedy to strike this ancient city was on 15th of May 2007, when a suicide bomber detonated himself inside a restaurant frequented by Afghans, tribesmen and intelligence agents of Pakistan, Afghanistan and other countries. Twenty-four persons died and many more were injured. It was the second such explosion in three weeks. In an earlier explosion in Charsadda, only twenty miles away from Peshawar, the Pakistan Interior Minister and his son escaped miraculously, but 28 others died.
The 15th May suicide bombing in the Peshawar restaurant is shrouded in mystery. Suicide attacks are not normally a random affair; they either are in retaliation to government action or are intended to deliver a political message. It is conjectured that this attack was in revenge for the killing of Maulvi Dadullah by Nato forces in Helmand in Afghanistan only a few days ago. It is also said that the intelligence leading to Dadullah's death in Afghanistan was obtained from the interrogation of one of his family members, who was lured to this restaurant by an agent.
Analysts say that Dadullah's death was the result of a commitment of more forceful cooperation given to the Afghan President by President Musharraf, when they met recently in Ankara. Dadullah's death has serious implications for the Taliban. In his death, Mullah Omar has lost his staunchest and most able Shura commander. The Shura or consultative council is composed of 10 persons and is the Taliban equivalent of General Staff. Secondly, Dadullah was the commander in charge of training suicide bombers. In Pakistani tribal areas alone, it is said that he trained more than 4,000 volunteers. In Waziristan, he had a list of 3,000 volunteers and was turning down more recruits.
Dadullah with Maulana Usmani, who was killed in similar circumstances last November in Kandhahar, formed Maulvi Omar's inner core; they also represented the Pukhtuns of Kandhar in the Shura. With the death of these two, Maulvi Jalalludin Haqqani, the former commander of the Taliban military who was over-shadowed, is likely to re-emerge as the new powerful voice within the Taliban Shura. The centre of gravity of the Taliban policymaking will also shift to the eastern Pukhtuns, which will have serious consequences on the direction of the Taliban resistance. Secondly, the Taliban will be extremely worried and anxious for they now know that agents have penetrated their organization. A purge in their ranks is now likely with a possible re-alignment of forces and emergence of new leaders.
Reportedly, on the day of the bombing, a meeting of the intelligence group was taking place in the ill-fated restaurant; the Taliban who sent the suicide bomber was rumoured to be a middle-aged man rather than a youth; he evidently knew about the meeting of the contact group. He had a paper message tied around his leg, which said that similar death will be dealt to all those who spy for the U.S! It is now plain to conclude that there will be severe reprisals in Waziristan and in other places in NWFP to avenge Dadullah's death. The Waziristan and Bajaur agreements are now dead; appeasement never works. NWFP has become the innocent victim of the war on terror and its innocent citizens will now pay a very heavy price. In war only the innocent, poor and women suffer. On another front, President Musharaff's shenanigans in the wake of his dispute with the Supreme Court do not bode well for the continuing territorial integrity of Pakistan.
I am a retired government officer having served more than 30 years, many of those in the tribal areas of Pakistan. I head the Regional Institute of Policy Research & Training in Peshawar. These days we are involved in various projects dealing with conflict reduction through different approaches.
You are right it is the meglomaniac mind set - on both sides which is destroying lives of the people and a great country - Pakistan. U.S has the experience and the intellectual breadth to overcome the Islamist extremists, not through force and the sarifice of lives but through innovative policy adaptations. It will be long term and sustainable. There are many options available but then it will not suit the military-political-business complex. Thanks for the comment.
by
khalid_ (2 articles, 0 quicklinks, 3 comments)
on Sunday, May 27, 2007 at 10:02:22 PM
"The people of Pakistan have lost any remaining faith in their leaders and the man in the street is convinced that their leaders do not want to serve them but to enrich themselves."
Substitute United States for Pakistan.
Who would of thought the most powerful country the world has ever seen would one day be ruled by megalomaniac fools at the worst possible time?
One side crazed war-mongers and the other side appeasing apologists for the crazed war-mongers. We're told that even though 70+% of the people want out of Iraq we have to stay as the areas we should be focused on degenerate into an orgy of mid-evil oppression along with Iraq.
I fear for what's about to happen to this country. There are still many good people in America who would be out-raged at what is happening in their name, but through a controlled media good people don't get good information.
We can't stand another day like this. Not one more day of a forgiegn policy being played on loaded dice. Not one more day of a dry-drunk monkey playing God.
by
Com_n_Sense (0 articles, 0 quicklinks, 144 comments)
on Sunday, May 27, 2007 at 8:10:29 PM
Thanks for your comments. I agree with you; there is no need to invest money in the killing machines, which are the armies! Let us invest in the human beings where misery and pain resides. Out of $ 10 billion paid by the U.S to Pakistan since 2002, only $ 900 has been provided for education, health and other life promoting investments. The rest has been given to the military; instead of selling us useless toys like the F-16s, give us technical universities, clean drinking water and use your country's influence in removing all that disempowers the institutions of Pakistan. My next article will be on this later subject. If you want to learn more about these matters please visit www.khalidaziz.com .
by
khalid_ (2 articles, 0 quicklinks, 3 comments)
on Sunday, May 27, 2007 at 10:11:48 PM
I wish to thank you for your good work and courage. Your work gives one of the best insights I've read into what is really going on and who the players are.
by
Com_n_Sense (0 articles, 0 quicklinks, 144 comments)
on Monday, May 28, 2007 at 7:45:51 AM
his neocon terrorist cabal arguably are in charge of perhaps not the largest but certainly one of the most important cities in the world; i.e., Washington D.C.
by
medicis (0 articles, 1 quicklinks, 130 comments)
on Sunday, May 27, 2007 at 9:17:51 PM
Thanks for your observations. Karachi is Pakistan's smaller version. It contains people from all the regions comprising this great land. Another military dictator, Gen. Zia used the excuse of assisting the U.S in Afghanistan against the Soviet Union in 1979-92, by creating the MQM which sponsored a reign of terror in Karachi on 12th May where more than 40 persons were killed.
Gen Zia, being a dictator needed to have political space for survival. Having hanged Mr. Bhutto the toppled elected Prime Minister, Gen Zia began to build the refugees, who had migrated from India and settled in Karachi into a political party to support him against the party of Bhutto. This new party was the United NAtional Front (MQM). Gen. Musharraf who belongs to the same refugee ethnic minority like his other key army generals, used the MQM in his confrontation with the country's Chief Justice. Because of U.S support for Musharraf it is getting a bad name in all this. Its claims for being a supporter of democracy and of human rights lie tattered in the murderous streets of Karachi.
by
khalid_ (2 articles, 0 quicklinks, 3 comments)
on Sunday, May 27, 2007 at 10:50:57 PM
"Handing of the World's Seventh Larghest City to Terrorists"
Mr.Khalid Aziz's concerns on the future of Pakistan are quite commendable but reading. in between the lines, I suspect he is viewing Pakistan and Karachi arially from the peaks of the remote North West Frontier Province & Baluchistan. That is less than one quarter of Pakistan territorially with less than one eighth of Pakistan's total population, Pashtuns and Balochis together. I admit they have had a bad deal with the Federal Govt in Islamabad, not only now but even when one of their own was Pakistan's Military Dictator, Field Marshall Ayoub Khan. Pakistan belongs to all Pakistanis; Punjabis, Seraikis, Sindhis, Balochis, Pashtuns AND Muhajirs. Yes, Muhajirs too! These Muhajirs still have horrendous memories of the Pashtun killings in Karachi during the fatal elections in which the sister of Pakistan's Founding Father, Mohammed Ali Jinnah was pitted against one of the Pashtun's own candidate. They were transported to Karachi by the opponent in the thousands, armed to the teeth, which they usually are and they went on A BLOODY RAMPAGE! I wonder if Mr. Aziz would agree to classify these Pashtuns as TERRORISTS too. Oops, I forgot this terrorist thing has only been coined in the US after 9/11. I would be much obliged to know from Mr. Abdul Aziz, what percentage of Taleban are Pashtuns? Also, how many of the Red Mosque Jihadists are Pashtuns? Just as the British Raj could not find a "SOLUTION" to their problems in Afghanistan & NWFP, Gen. Musharraf will also fail to do so. Lawlessness is endemic in these tribal regions. Carrots many a times work in the NWFP but the rod never. Ask the Brits and the Russians. Mush is trying both. It's not easy because this time over, the American Bull is in Pakistan's China Shop. Have a heart, give Mush a chance! If he fails, Pakistan may implode just like Iraq did.
by
salamahali (0 articles, 0 quicklinks, 19 comments)
on Monday, May 28, 2007 at 11:25:59 AM
Ancient moral codes of many religions value the ancient Rule of Law.
Legitimate Civil governments value the common Rule of Law.
Founders of the United States of America valued civil Rules of Law of civil governments, our US Constitution, international laws and treaties, nature's laws of an infinite web of life and moral laws of reciprocity.
But Ronald Reagan claimed openly that "government is the problem" and his cash-driven game of Reaganomics deregulated public infrastructure foundations to the bone easy, cheap, quick. George Bush Junior continued to deregulate civil laws of civil nations, to value privatized CEO profiteering as an art of “trickle-down economics” and “supply-side economics” that was really “demand-side economics” ….Reagan’s reaganonomists valuing private profiteering more than the future of the children of the many....even his own.
The answer is obvious but it is not, as obvious as this: My Earth looks flat every morning when I get up, too, but I know that it is not because civil governments of centuries of common scientific literacy have exchanged critical information in a public sphere impossible to count in cash.
Ancient prophets warned US of the dangers of forgetting to value the priceless. Can we still try?
by
HollyBerkwtz (0 articles, 0 quicklinks, 3 comments)
on Monday, May 28, 2007 at 3:03:33 PM
