WHY WE SHOULDN'T TAKE THE STATE DEPARTMENT'S TERRORISM REPORT ON PAKISTAN
AT FACE VALUE
Michael Kugelman June 11, 2014
We know that Washington is very worried about Pakistan’s terrorism
problem. This is clear from public statements,intelligence estimates, and travel warnings.
And yet the State Department’s latest annual
global terrorism report is remarkably muted in its expressions
of concern about Pakistan. Generalists—and non-Pakistan specialists—may
conclude that all is not so bad in the militancy-ravaged country after all.
Alas, that would be the wrong conclusion. Pakistan’s terrorism problem
remains very serious indeed, and the report understates this seriousness. In
particular, it minimizes the threat of Pakistan’s sectarian violence, and it
minimizes Pakistan’s troubled record on law enforcement responses to terrorism
more generally.
Minimizing the threat of sectarian violence
References in the report to this form of terrorism—violence directed
against Pakistani Shias, Christians, Hindus, and other religious minorities—are
relatively limited in number and subdued in tone. The focus is largely on other
forms of terrorism—mainly violence directed against the state. In the report’s
main Pakistan section, we are told only that terrorist groups have “engaged in
sectarian violence” (with a few passing references to terrorist attacks on
religious minorities). The only time Pakistan’s sectarian terrorism is
discussed with any great urgency anywhere in the report is in a “Key Terrorism
Trends in 2013” box. Global terrorism, it says, “was increasingly fueled by sectarian
motives, marking a worrisome trend, particularly in Syria, but also in Lebanon
and Pakistan.”
Pakistan’s sectarian terrorism is more than “worrisome;” it is downright
terrifying. Religious minorities are routinely targeted at home and at work, at
their centers of worship, in marketplaces and recreation centers, and on public
transport. The nearly 700 sectarian killings in 2013—the year covered by
the report—marked a 22 percent increase from 2012. Last year, prominent
Pakistani commentators even described the
anti-Shia Muslim dimensions of sectarian terrorism as “genocide.”
Sectarian militancy enjoys broad reach in Pakistan. Its most vicious
practitioner, the al-Qaeda-affiliated Lashkar-e-Jhangvi, has staged attacks in
all four Pakistani provinces. Unlike the Pakistani Taliban, Lashkar-e-Jhangvi
is neither degraded by counter-militancy offensives nor undermined by internal
fractures. Additionally, Pakistani public opinion demonstrates considerable
support for the underlying views of sectarian extremists. In a recent poll, more than 40 percent said Shias are not Muslims.
Meanwhile, the Pakistani state has institutionalized sect-based
discrimination. The country’s second constitutional amendment explicitly states that
Ahmadis, another minority sect of Islam, are non-Muslims. Not surprisingly, few
laws protect religious minorities; instead, blasphemy laws are used to
persecute and prosecute them (last summer, when a Pakistani Christian was
sentenced to life in prison for denigrating the Prophet Mohammed, he became one of nearly 40 Pakistanis sentenced to death or life in
prison for alleged blasphemy). For all these reasons, to simply say that terrorists
“engaged in sectarian violence” misses the bigger story.
Minimizing Pakistan’s troubling record on law enforcement responses
There is another bigger story that the report misses: Pakistan’s
ineffective state response—on a law enforcement level—to terrorism more broadly
(and not just of a sectarian nature). Consider this curious comment: “Pakistan
continued to arrest terrorists and initiate prosecutions throughout 2013.”
This is not inaccurate; Pakistan was indeed arresting and prosecuting
terrorists last year—including Malik Ishaq, the leader of Lashkar-e-Jhangvi.
Yet the statement is misleading, because it fails to note that so many
terrorists who get arrested and/or imprisoned are eventually set free. Last
year, Pakistan’s government admitted that it has freed nearly 2,000 terrorists since
2007, and that more than 700 of them rejoined terrorist groups (Ishaq, in fact,
was released from prison last month). Of course, other
terrorists in Pakistan—including Lashkar-e-Taiba leader Hafeez Saeed—have spent
little, if any, time behind bars. In 2013, Saeedspoke at public rallies and
even gave an interview to the New York Times.
Why is Pakistan’s justice system so lenient toward militants? The report
correctly cites intimidation against witnesses, police, lawyers, and judges.
Yet it neglects to mention another key factor: ideological sympathy from those
inside the system. To be sure, many brave Pakistani lawyers and judges defend
the most vulnerable and pursue the most dangerous. Nonetheless, this is a
nation where radicalization is spreading through society like wildfire.
Predictably, some legal professionals sympathize with the very militants they
are meant to go after. Pakistani lawyers havegarlanded Mumtaz Qadri, the man who assassinated the
governor of Punjab province in 2011, during court appearances. A photographrecently circulated on Twitter purportedly shows
Qadri being warmly embraced by a lawyer who is now an Islamabad High Court
judge (in recent days, however, some have insisted that this lawyer in the
photo is actually someone else, and not the current Islamabad judge).
Another disturbing law enforcement trend not mentioned in the report is
the tendency of Pakistani police officers to literally stand by as vulnerable
citizens are attacked, often fatally. This happened most recently last month
while a woman was bludgeoned to death by her family outside—of
all places—the Lahore High Court building. And it happened last year as a marauding mob rampaged through a Christian neighborhood in
Lahore, burning down homes and seizing valuables.
To be fair, the report is no whitewash. It mentions uncomfortable facts,
including the wide range of Pakistani terrorist organizations and their
targets. It also highlights the militants from around the globe who continue to
converge on Pakistan—even as media reports last year focused on Syria as the newest destination of choice for
the world’s jihadists. The report levels criticism on the government in
Islamabad as well—from its slow progress in implementing national security
reforms and in countering terrorist financing, to its lack of action taken against
the Afghan Taliban and Haqqani network. Additionally, “portions of” the tribal
areas and of Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa and Baluchistan provinces are described as
terrorist safe havens. Still, these amount to relatively modest critiques.
A Desire for Tactfulness
It’s easy to explain the kid-gloves approach. The report was produced by
the U.S. government’s chief diplomatic agency, which understandably prefers to
speak of Pakistan as a partner and ally. Contrast this with elected officials
on Capitol Hill, who in recent years have likened Pakistan to a “rat hole,” or with Defense Department leaders, who have
openly described the Haqqani network as “a veritable arm of the ISI,” Pakistan’s main spy agency.
The State Department has no desire to ruffle feathers in
Islamabad—particularly this year, with Washington in great need of Pakistan’s
cooperation as it attempts an orderly military withdrawal from Afghanistan. Not
surprisingly, cooperation with Pakistan is a common theme throughout the
report. The Pakistan section lists various joint counterterrorism initiatives,
from efforts to safeguard the U.S. embassy and consulates in Pakistan to
meetings on regional security. There’s also a separate section called “Support
for Pakistan”—a feature that has made consecutive appearances in the report
over the last few years. It details Washington’s military and economic
collaborations with Islamabad, including a five-year civilian assistance
package—authorized by Congress in 2009 and known as the Kerry-Lugar-Berman
bill—that expires at the end of this year.
This all makes good strategic sense. Washington would be silly not to
pursue cooperation with a populous, volatile, nuclear-armed nation that
straddles the Middle East and Asia, and that counts Beijing and Riyadh as chief
backers. Likewise, provoking Pakistan about its terrorism problem wouldn’t make
for good politics.
Still, given the threat that Pakistani and Pakistan-based terrorists
pose to Americans and their interests abroad, a fuller and more accurate
picture of Pakistan’s terrorism environment would have been useful—and
particularly for generalists. In the interest of the truth, it sometimes pays
to be a bit undiplomatic.
Michael Kugelman is the senior program associate for South Asia at the
Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars in Washington, DC. He can be
reached at michael.kugelman@wilsoncenter.org or on Twitter@michaelkugelman.
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