On Kashmir India acts as a police state, not as a democracy
Delhi has been unwilling to solve this tragic and brutal conflict, and has scuttled any attempt at meaningful discourse
Comments (184)
Mirza Waheed
guardian.co.uk, Sunday 29 May 2011 21.00 BST
Article history
Kashmiri women confront Indian soliders during a protest over the killing of a student in Srinagar. Photograph: Farooq Khan/EPA
Many years ago, I met two journalists from India in London and we found ourselves talking about Kashmir. Mostly, they listened patiently to my impassioned tale of what goes on, but the moment I touched upon the brutal counter-insurgency methods employed by the Indian security apparatus in the disputed territory – among them notorious "catch-and-kill" operations to execute suspected militants – they looked incredulous, made a quick excuse and left. Later, I learned that at least one of them believed that Kashmiris liked to exaggerate the excesses of the Indian armed forces.
In the reaction of those two men, I had witnessed the frightening success of India's policy of denial and misrepresentation on Kashmir. India's decision to censor the Economist last week, following the publication of a map that shows the disputed borders of Kashmir, represents two unsurprising but ominous things: that the country's age-old intransigence over Kashmir still runs deep; and its willingness to curb freedom of speech over what it sees as sensitive matters of national interest. On Kashmir India continues to behave as a police state, not as the champion of democracy and freedom that it intends to be.
There is nothing astonishing or new in this. For decades, India has not only been unwilling to solve one of the world's most tragic conflicts but has scuttled any attempt at meaningful discourse on the issue, both internationally and within the country. The ultimately pointless attempt at censorship by asking the magazine to paste stickers on a representation of areas controlled by India, Pakistan and China is, sadly, in line with its inflexible and deeply flawed Kashmir policy. To come good on its insistence that "Kashmir is an integral part of India" – and it does lash out at any attempt to suggest otherwise – it maintains the world's largest military presence in a single region, to suppress the revolt that erupted against its rule in 1989. An uprising that continues in the form of a civilian resistance.
Last year, in what we now remember as Kashmir's bloody summer, its paramilitaries and police killed more than a hundred protesters, most of them young men and schoolchildren. Among those killed was Sameer Rah, a nine-year-old boy from Srinagar, who was bludgeoned to death and his body dumped by a kerb. The image of his bruised, purple body is now permanently etched in the collective consciousness of Kashmiris at home and across the world, and may haunt India's political and intellectual elites for a long time. In response to this brutalisation of a people – the Kashmir valley remained in virtual siege for weeks – a cogent narrative of what I call "new dissent" began to evolve in Kashmir and India, scripted by Kashmiris themselves and by some of India's bravest public intellectuals, writers and journalists.
However, both the central government and its clients in the state tried everything to suppress this new wave of dissent; they introduced draconian measures to silence the voice of Kashmiris and their supporters in Delhi. TV channels were forced off air, newspapers were not allowed to print for weeks, text messaging was banned, and later on, in India's capital, a lower court even charged Arundhati Roy with sedition. But the urge to report to the world what was unfolding in Kashmir was ultimately unstoppable. Kashmiri youth turned to social media to get the word out.
And it did get out, aided by India's fascinatingly diverse intelligentsia and those sections of the Indian media that have of late started to look at Kashmir with new understanding and empathy, and not through the disingenuous prism of national interest.
The Economist's map on Kashmir – which must have received many more page views than had it not been declared contraband – contains nothing that contests historical facts or misrepresents ground reality. Essentially, the magazine has produced a graphical account of geopolitical status in the region – namely, Kashmir is a disputed territory, with India and Pakistan as the main contestants, but Kashmiris as the central party as it is their future that has been a point of dispute. A dispute that the UN recognises as such in its charter of 1948 – and in its maps. I have found maps produced by the UN to be the most accurate and impartial.
When, and why, do states censor maps? Mostly when the operating principle seems to be denial and obfuscation. For years, the Indian state has attempted to delegitimise people's aspirations in Kashmir, either by raising the bogey of Islamism or lumping together the challenge to its authority in Kashmir with the US-led war on terror. For most of the 1990s and the early years of the new millennium it succeeded. Ironically, as a consequence of the emergence of "new India" and the burgeoning of the country's affluent middle classes, the Economist – a magazine previously considered the preserve of business elites – is now selling more copies in India. It is seen as influential, and capable of altering opinion – hence the kneejerk reaction to the map. The Indian government is doing a huge disservice to its democratic credentials by trying to confiscate the truth about one of the world's most tragic, intractable and dangerous conflicts.
Monday, 30 May 2011
Sunday, 29 May 2011
Have we really seen the enemy?Ardeshir Cowasjee Yesterday
Have we really seen the enemy?Ardeshir Cowasjee Yesterday
http://www.dawn.com/2011/05/29/have-we-really-seen-the-enemy.html
WHILST the United States and Great Britain are doing whatever they think best to preserve Pakistan — naturally in their own national interests — Pakistan apparently is doing its best to destroy itself.
At some point Pakistan, its government, its parliament and its citizenry must realise that the US — and in fact the rest of the world — does not awake each morning, scratch its head, and ask ‘Huh, I wonder what Pakistan is up to today?’ No, the US and the world have much with which to more than fully occupy themselves.
It is Pakistan that wrongly assumes it is the centre of the world, that it possesses some extraordinary ability which makes it the universal ‘victim’ and which provokes others to attempt to destroy it or at the best to do it down. It imagines itself beset and surrounded by enemies, with its one sole real and true friend being the mighty Middle Kingdom (which also does have a national interest) — not even the other Kingdom, as that cannot be fully relied upon because of its ties with joint enemy number one, the US, in tandem with the ‘traditional enemy’, India, which has little better to do with itself than plot attacks upon Pakistan with the aim of annihilation.
The obsession of the country’s armed forces with its ‘traditional enemy’ is quite understandable. They need India, and the ‘core’ issue which sadly will not go away, to feed and succour them, their existence depends upon maintaining the status quo of 64 years’ duration. Never mind that they have provoked and lost two wars, and lost a third through the arrogance and poor abilities of early leaderships. The nation has accepted all that and happily and readily allowed them to become the richest, most powerful and leading industrialists of the country. It has forgiven multiple sins and transgressions and with a couple of hiccups here and there never failed to back them.
It has been brainwashed through its meagre educational system and through efficient propaganda into believing that, yes, India is an alien creature and ‘the’ enemy (to give this government its due it has made feeble attempts to right this).No one has told it that as early as 1948 prime minister Jawaharlal Nehru stated: “If today by any chance I were offered the reunion of India and Pakistan, I would decline it for obvious reasons. I do not want to carry the burden of Pakistan’s great problems.
I have enough of my own.”
And such has been the sensible thinking of successive Indian politicians. For a comprehensive understanding of this destructive mindset recommended is a book published last month by Routledge, Explaining Pakistan’s Foreign Policy — Escaping India, written by Aparna Pande, a research fellow at the Hudson Institute in Washington. One focus is on how from its inception Pakistan’s foreign policy has focused on ‘seeking parity’ with India and ‘escaping’ from an Indian South Asian identity.
To locate a loyal Pakistani who will admit to descent from inhabitants of the subcontinent is rare. The now natives of this country will go to great lengths to explain that their ancestors had little to do with the subcontinent other than to invade it or settle here, always originating from either Arabia, Central Asia, even Iran — anywhere but the subcontinent. Such is the complex. All very sad. And this, of course, contributes in no mean manner towards the ‘traditional enemy’ obsession and the status of the armed forces.
What the people should now be worried about — and perhaps they are — is the status of the armed forces following the Abbottabad incident and the latest Mehran naval base fiasco. Worrying in the extreme should be the fact that the Pakistan Navy cannot count. It is clueless as to numbers.
Even more worrying is the national state of denial, on which this newspaper editorialised on May 26, following the nonsense sprouted post-Mehran. Yes it is time to face up to facts and take the TTP at its horrible face value and believe it when it tells us what it has achieved. This is no time to fantasise about Star Wars, Mr Interior Minister. You should descend to Earth and tell it to the nation as it is.
As for the US, which knows and admits that it is now feared and loathed by a good many loyal Pakistanis who have been
convinced that, like India, its sole desire is to see the break up of Pakistan, what might be giving it sleepless nights is the present state of this nation, with the local Taliban crawling all over it, seemingly unchecked by any law-enforcement agency or military might from wreaking havoc wherever it can be wreaked.There may now possibly be some doubts, on the latest showings, about the statements emanating from here and from Washington about confidence that the nuclear assets are fully guarded and in safe hands.
It is all highly depressing, and Pakistan is far from blameless — as are all of us who have been here since its birth. As rather eloquently put by Ralph Peters, a retired American army officer who was posted in Pakistan in the 1990s and has now turned his hand to writing: “Pakistan knows only a wretched past that keeps repeating itself in a deteriorating cycle.” We have created monsters — so be it. Undoing creation is not a simple task, pussyfooting is no way to go about it. It has to be ruthless to work.
As exclaimed Pogo, on the famous 1970 Earth Day poster: “We have seen the enemy and it is us.”
arfc@cyber.com.pk
http://www.dawn.com/2011/05/29/have-we-really-seen-the-enemy.html
WHILST the United States and Great Britain are doing whatever they think best to preserve Pakistan — naturally in their own national interests — Pakistan apparently is doing its best to destroy itself.
At some point Pakistan, its government, its parliament and its citizenry must realise that the US — and in fact the rest of the world — does not awake each morning, scratch its head, and ask ‘Huh, I wonder what Pakistan is up to today?’ No, the US and the world have much with which to more than fully occupy themselves.
It is Pakistan that wrongly assumes it is the centre of the world, that it possesses some extraordinary ability which makes it the universal ‘victim’ and which provokes others to attempt to destroy it or at the best to do it down. It imagines itself beset and surrounded by enemies, with its one sole real and true friend being the mighty Middle Kingdom (which also does have a national interest) — not even the other Kingdom, as that cannot be fully relied upon because of its ties with joint enemy number one, the US, in tandem with the ‘traditional enemy’, India, which has little better to do with itself than plot attacks upon Pakistan with the aim of annihilation.
The obsession of the country’s armed forces with its ‘traditional enemy’ is quite understandable. They need India, and the ‘core’ issue which sadly will not go away, to feed and succour them, their existence depends upon maintaining the status quo of 64 years’ duration. Never mind that they have provoked and lost two wars, and lost a third through the arrogance and poor abilities of early leaderships. The nation has accepted all that and happily and readily allowed them to become the richest, most powerful and leading industrialists of the country. It has forgiven multiple sins and transgressions and with a couple of hiccups here and there never failed to back them.
It has been brainwashed through its meagre educational system and through efficient propaganda into believing that, yes, India is an alien creature and ‘the’ enemy (to give this government its due it has made feeble attempts to right this).No one has told it that as early as 1948 prime minister Jawaharlal Nehru stated: “If today by any chance I were offered the reunion of India and Pakistan, I would decline it for obvious reasons. I do not want to carry the burden of Pakistan’s great problems.
I have enough of my own.”
And such has been the sensible thinking of successive Indian politicians. For a comprehensive understanding of this destructive mindset recommended is a book published last month by Routledge, Explaining Pakistan’s Foreign Policy — Escaping India, written by Aparna Pande, a research fellow at the Hudson Institute in Washington. One focus is on how from its inception Pakistan’s foreign policy has focused on ‘seeking parity’ with India and ‘escaping’ from an Indian South Asian identity.
To locate a loyal Pakistani who will admit to descent from inhabitants of the subcontinent is rare. The now natives of this country will go to great lengths to explain that their ancestors had little to do with the subcontinent other than to invade it or settle here, always originating from either Arabia, Central Asia, even Iran — anywhere but the subcontinent. Such is the complex. All very sad. And this, of course, contributes in no mean manner towards the ‘traditional enemy’ obsession and the status of the armed forces.
What the people should now be worried about — and perhaps they are — is the status of the armed forces following the Abbottabad incident and the latest Mehran naval base fiasco. Worrying in the extreme should be the fact that the Pakistan Navy cannot count. It is clueless as to numbers.
Even more worrying is the national state of denial, on which this newspaper editorialised on May 26, following the nonsense sprouted post-Mehran. Yes it is time to face up to facts and take the TTP at its horrible face value and believe it when it tells us what it has achieved. This is no time to fantasise about Star Wars, Mr Interior Minister. You should descend to Earth and tell it to the nation as it is.
As for the US, which knows and admits that it is now feared and loathed by a good many loyal Pakistanis who have been
convinced that, like India, its sole desire is to see the break up of Pakistan, what might be giving it sleepless nights is the present state of this nation, with the local Taliban crawling all over it, seemingly unchecked by any law-enforcement agency or military might from wreaking havoc wherever it can be wreaked.There may now possibly be some doubts, on the latest showings, about the statements emanating from here and from Washington about confidence that the nuclear assets are fully guarded and in safe hands.
It is all highly depressing, and Pakistan is far from blameless — as are all of us who have been here since its birth. As rather eloquently put by Ralph Peters, a retired American army officer who was posted in Pakistan in the 1990s and has now turned his hand to writing: “Pakistan knows only a wretched past that keeps repeating itself in a deteriorating cycle.” We have created monsters — so be it. Undoing creation is not a simple task, pussyfooting is no way to go about it. It has to be ruthless to work.
As exclaimed Pogo, on the famous 1970 Earth Day poster: “We have seen the enemy and it is us.”
arfc@cyber.com.pk
All rapes in Norway over last 5 years committed by Muslims
All rapes in Norway over last 5 years committed by Muslims
May 29th, 2011 3:38 am PT
Marc Schenker
Vancouver American Politics Examiner
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All rapes in Norway over last 5 years committed by Muslims. A shocking report released by police in Oslo, Norway, has concluded that all cases of rape over the last 5 years in the country have been perpetrated by Muslim men. This report was released just a couple of days ago, and it has been all but ignored in the American media despite its very important implications. The report confirms that there is a Muslim problem not just in the world in general, as Bill O’Reilly is fond of saying, but in Western European countries like Norway where the Muslim immigrant population does not assimilate to the ways of the Western world.
More specifically, the report released by the police reveals that there were 86 cases of sexual assault (rape, essentially) that happened in Oslo between 2005 and 2010. In a staggering 83 cases, all of the men were reported by their female victims as having a “non-Western” appearance. The politically correct Islam-apologists will seize on this and intentionally misinterpret the “non-Western” description as potentially meaning any race. However, Norway, as are many Western European countries, is notorious for having a huge influx of Muslim immigrants, so when the Norwegian media uses the politically correct term “non-Western,” rest assured that this conclusively means Muslim.
News of this stunning-though-not-too-surprising report comes by way of a Norwegian TV station. In their piece, they also interviewed a poor, Caucasian, Norwegian rape victim who understandably wanted to remain anonymous when discussing her massive trauma at the hands of a Muslim. The young woman in the news story asserted that her rapist was a Pakistani man who fearlessly told her that Islam gave him the right to sexually abuse any woman that he wanted! If you are shocked by this, don’t be. Just realize that this is a fact of life in the placid “religion of peace” that we call Islam.
Continue reading on Examiner.com All rapes in Norway over last 5 years committed by Muslims - Vancouver American Politics | Examiner.com http://www.examiner.com/american-politics-in-vancouver/all-rapes-norway-over-last-5-years-committed-by-muslims#ixzz1NllyTusl
May 29th, 2011 3:38 am PT
Marc Schenker
Vancouver American Politics Examiner
Subscribe
View all of Marc's articlesPrintEmailShare on FacebookShare on Twitter
Do you like this article?
All rapes in Norway over last 5 years committed by Muslims. A shocking report released by police in Oslo, Norway, has concluded that all cases of rape over the last 5 years in the country have been perpetrated by Muslim men. This report was released just a couple of days ago, and it has been all but ignored in the American media despite its very important implications. The report confirms that there is a Muslim problem not just in the world in general, as Bill O’Reilly is fond of saying, but in Western European countries like Norway where the Muslim immigrant population does not assimilate to the ways of the Western world.
More specifically, the report released by the police reveals that there were 86 cases of sexual assault (rape, essentially) that happened in Oslo between 2005 and 2010. In a staggering 83 cases, all of the men were reported by their female victims as having a “non-Western” appearance. The politically correct Islam-apologists will seize on this and intentionally misinterpret the “non-Western” description as potentially meaning any race. However, Norway, as are many Western European countries, is notorious for having a huge influx of Muslim immigrants, so when the Norwegian media uses the politically correct term “non-Western,” rest assured that this conclusively means Muslim.
News of this stunning-though-not-too-surprising report comes by way of a Norwegian TV station. In their piece, they also interviewed a poor, Caucasian, Norwegian rape victim who understandably wanted to remain anonymous when discussing her massive trauma at the hands of a Muslim. The young woman in the news story asserted that her rapist was a Pakistani man who fearlessly told her that Islam gave him the right to sexually abuse any woman that he wanted! If you are shocked by this, don’t be. Just realize that this is a fact of life in the placid “religion of peace” that we call Islam.
Continue reading on Examiner.com All rapes in Norway over last 5 years committed by Muslims - Vancouver American Politics | Examiner.com http://www.examiner.com/american-politics-in-vancouver/all-rapes-norway-over-last-5-years-committed-by-muslims#ixzz1NllyTusl
Saturday, 28 May 2011
Anniversary What if Pakistan did not have the bomb?
Anniversary What if Pakistan did not have the bomb?
By Pervez Hoodbhoy
Published: May 28, 2011
Could the Bomb really have saved Pakistan in 1971? Can it do so now? PHOTO: FILE
Dr Abdul Qadeer Khan has spent the last few years confined by the Pakistan Army to one of his palatial Islamabad residences where he whiles away his days writing weekly columns in newspapers. This venerable metallurgist, who claims paternity rights over Pakistan’s bomb, says it alone saves Pakistan. In a recent article, he wistfully wrote: “If we had had nuclear capability before 1971, we would not have lost half of our country – present-day Bangladesh – after disgraceful defeat.”
Given that 30,000 nuclear weapons failed to save the Soviet Union from decay, defeat and collapse, could the Bomb really have saved Pakistan in 1971? Can it do so now?
Let’s revisit 1971. Those of us who grew up in those times know in our hearts that East and West Pakistan were one country but never one nation. Young people today cannot imagine the rampant anti-Bengali racism among West Pakistanis then. With great shame, I must admit that as a thoughtless young boy I too felt embarrassed about small and dark people being among our compatriots. Victims of a delusion, we thought that good Muslims and Pakistanis were tall, fair, and spoke chaste Urdu. Some schoolmates would laugh at the strange sounding Bengali news broadcasts from Radio Pakistan.
The Bengali people suffered under West Pakistani rule. They believed their historical destiny was to be a Bengali-speaking nation, not the Urdu-speaking East Pakistan which Jinnah wanted. The East was rightfully bitter on other grounds too. It had 54% of Pakistan’s population and was the biggest earner of foreign exchange. But West Pakistani generals, bureaucrats, and politicians such as Zulfikar Ali Bhutto, feared a democratic system would transfer power and national resources to the East.
Denied democracy and justice, the people of East Pakistan helplessly watched the cash flow from East to fund government, industry, schools and dams in the West. When the Bhola cyclone killed half a million people in 1970, President Yahya Khan and his fellow generals in Rawalpindi’s GHQ could not have cared less.
The decisive break came with the elections. The Awami League won a majority in Pakistan’s parliament. Bhutto and the generals would not accept the peoples’ verdict. The Bengalis finally rose up for independence. When the West Pakistan army was sent in, massacre followed massacre. Political activists, intellectuals, trade unionists, and students were slaughtered. Blood ran in street gutters, and millions fled across the border. After India intervened to support the East, the army surrendered. Bangladesh was born.
That Pakistan did not have the bomb in 1971 must surely be among the greatest of blessings. It is hard for me to see what Dr AQ Khan has in mind when he suggests that it could have saved Pakistan.
Would the good doctor have dropped the bomb on the raging pro-independence mobs in Dhaka? Or used it to incinerate Calcutta and Delhi, and have the favour duly returned to Lahore and Karachi? Or should we have threatened India with nuclear attack to keep it out of the war so that we could endlessly kill East Pakistanis? Even without the bomb, estimated civilian deaths numbered in the hundreds of thousands if not a million. How many more East Pakistanis would he have liked to see killed for keeping Pakistan together?
Some might argue that regardless of the death and destruction, using the bomb to keep Pakistan together would have been a good thing for the people of East Pakistan in the long term. A look at developmental statistics can help decide.
Bangladesh is ranked 96th out of 110 countries in a 2010 prosperity index compiled by an independent London-based think-tank, the Legatum Institute, using governance, education, health, security, personal freedom, and social capital as criteria. Pakistan is at the 109th position, just one notch above Zimbabwe. By this measure the people of the East have benefited from independence. The UN Human Development Index puts Bangladesh at 146/182 and Pakistan at 141/182, making Pakistan only marginally superior. This implies that Bengalis would have gained little, if anything, by remaining with West Pakistan.
But numerical data does not tell the whole story. Bangladesh is poorer but more hopeful and happier. Culture is thriving, education is improving, and efforts to control population growth are more fruitful than in Pakistan. It is not ravaged by suicide bombings, or by daily attacks upon its state institutions and military forces.
What can the bomb do for Pakistan now? Without it, will India swallow up Pakistan and undo partition? Such thought is pure fantasy. First, India has a rapidly growing economy and is struggling to control its population of 1.2 billion, of which almost half are desperately poor. It has no reason to want an additional 180 million people to feed and educate. Second, even if an aggressive and expansionist India wanted, asymmetrical warfare would make territorial conquest and occupation impossible. The difficulties faced by America in Iraq and Afghanistan, or of India in Kashmir, make this clear.
The bomb did deter India from launching punitive attacks at least thrice since the 1998 tests. There were angry demands within India for attacking the camps of Pakistan-based militant groups after Pakistan’s incursion in Kargil during 1999, the December 13 attack on the Indian parliament the same year (initially claimed by Jaish-e-Muhammad), and the Mumbai attack in 2008 by Lashkar-e-Taiba. However, this problem only exists because the bomb has been used to protect these militant groups. The nuclear umbrella explains why Pakistan is such a powerful magnet for all on this planet who wage war in the name of Islam: Arabs, Chechens, Uzbeks, Uighurs, and various westerners. It was, as we now know, the last lair of Osama bin Laden as well.
Pakistan is learning the same painful lesson as the Soviet Union and white-South Africa learned. The bomb offers no protection to a people. Rather, it has helped bring Pakistan to its current grievously troubled situation and offers no way out.
On this May 28, the day when Pakistan tested its nuclear weapons, let us resolve to eliminate this curse rather than celebrate. Instead of building more bombs, we need to protect ourselves by building a sustainable and active democracy, an economy for peace rather than war, a federation in which provincial grievances can be effectively resolved, elimination of the feudal order and creating a tolerant society that respects the rule of law.
The author is a professor of nuclear physics and teaches in Islamabad and Lahore
Published in The Express Tribune, May 28th, 2011.
By Pervez Hoodbhoy
Published: May 28, 2011
Could the Bomb really have saved Pakistan in 1971? Can it do so now? PHOTO: FILE
Dr Abdul Qadeer Khan has spent the last few years confined by the Pakistan Army to one of his palatial Islamabad residences where he whiles away his days writing weekly columns in newspapers. This venerable metallurgist, who claims paternity rights over Pakistan’s bomb, says it alone saves Pakistan. In a recent article, he wistfully wrote: “If we had had nuclear capability before 1971, we would not have lost half of our country – present-day Bangladesh – after disgraceful defeat.”
Given that 30,000 nuclear weapons failed to save the Soviet Union from decay, defeat and collapse, could the Bomb really have saved Pakistan in 1971? Can it do so now?
Let’s revisit 1971. Those of us who grew up in those times know in our hearts that East and West Pakistan were one country but never one nation. Young people today cannot imagine the rampant anti-Bengali racism among West Pakistanis then. With great shame, I must admit that as a thoughtless young boy I too felt embarrassed about small and dark people being among our compatriots. Victims of a delusion, we thought that good Muslims and Pakistanis were tall, fair, and spoke chaste Urdu. Some schoolmates would laugh at the strange sounding Bengali news broadcasts from Radio Pakistan.
The Bengali people suffered under West Pakistani rule. They believed their historical destiny was to be a Bengali-speaking nation, not the Urdu-speaking East Pakistan which Jinnah wanted. The East was rightfully bitter on other grounds too. It had 54% of Pakistan’s population and was the biggest earner of foreign exchange. But West Pakistani generals, bureaucrats, and politicians such as Zulfikar Ali Bhutto, feared a democratic system would transfer power and national resources to the East.
Denied democracy and justice, the people of East Pakistan helplessly watched the cash flow from East to fund government, industry, schools and dams in the West. When the Bhola cyclone killed half a million people in 1970, President Yahya Khan and his fellow generals in Rawalpindi’s GHQ could not have cared less.
The decisive break came with the elections. The Awami League won a majority in Pakistan’s parliament. Bhutto and the generals would not accept the peoples’ verdict. The Bengalis finally rose up for independence. When the West Pakistan army was sent in, massacre followed massacre. Political activists, intellectuals, trade unionists, and students were slaughtered. Blood ran in street gutters, and millions fled across the border. After India intervened to support the East, the army surrendered. Bangladesh was born.
That Pakistan did not have the bomb in 1971 must surely be among the greatest of blessings. It is hard for me to see what Dr AQ Khan has in mind when he suggests that it could have saved Pakistan.
Would the good doctor have dropped the bomb on the raging pro-independence mobs in Dhaka? Or used it to incinerate Calcutta and Delhi, and have the favour duly returned to Lahore and Karachi? Or should we have threatened India with nuclear attack to keep it out of the war so that we could endlessly kill East Pakistanis? Even without the bomb, estimated civilian deaths numbered in the hundreds of thousands if not a million. How many more East Pakistanis would he have liked to see killed for keeping Pakistan together?
Some might argue that regardless of the death and destruction, using the bomb to keep Pakistan together would have been a good thing for the people of East Pakistan in the long term. A look at developmental statistics can help decide.
Bangladesh is ranked 96th out of 110 countries in a 2010 prosperity index compiled by an independent London-based think-tank, the Legatum Institute, using governance, education, health, security, personal freedom, and social capital as criteria. Pakistan is at the 109th position, just one notch above Zimbabwe. By this measure the people of the East have benefited from independence. The UN Human Development Index puts Bangladesh at 146/182 and Pakistan at 141/182, making Pakistan only marginally superior. This implies that Bengalis would have gained little, if anything, by remaining with West Pakistan.
But numerical data does not tell the whole story. Bangladesh is poorer but more hopeful and happier. Culture is thriving, education is improving, and efforts to control population growth are more fruitful than in Pakistan. It is not ravaged by suicide bombings, or by daily attacks upon its state institutions and military forces.
What can the bomb do for Pakistan now? Without it, will India swallow up Pakistan and undo partition? Such thought is pure fantasy. First, India has a rapidly growing economy and is struggling to control its population of 1.2 billion, of which almost half are desperately poor. It has no reason to want an additional 180 million people to feed and educate. Second, even if an aggressive and expansionist India wanted, asymmetrical warfare would make territorial conquest and occupation impossible. The difficulties faced by America in Iraq and Afghanistan, or of India in Kashmir, make this clear.
The bomb did deter India from launching punitive attacks at least thrice since the 1998 tests. There were angry demands within India for attacking the camps of Pakistan-based militant groups after Pakistan’s incursion in Kargil during 1999, the December 13 attack on the Indian parliament the same year (initially claimed by Jaish-e-Muhammad), and the Mumbai attack in 2008 by Lashkar-e-Taiba. However, this problem only exists because the bomb has been used to protect these militant groups. The nuclear umbrella explains why Pakistan is such a powerful magnet for all on this planet who wage war in the name of Islam: Arabs, Chechens, Uzbeks, Uighurs, and various westerners. It was, as we now know, the last lair of Osama bin Laden as well.
Pakistan is learning the same painful lesson as the Soviet Union and white-South Africa learned. The bomb offers no protection to a people. Rather, it has helped bring Pakistan to its current grievously troubled situation and offers no way out.
On this May 28, the day when Pakistan tested its nuclear weapons, let us resolve to eliminate this curse rather than celebrate. Instead of building more bombs, we need to protect ourselves by building a sustainable and active democracy, an economy for peace rather than war, a federation in which provincial grievances can be effectively resolved, elimination of the feudal order and creating a tolerant society that respects the rule of law.
The author is a professor of nuclear physics and teaches in Islamabad and Lahore
Published in The Express Tribune, May 28th, 2011.
View what Asma Jehngir had to say about blunders of Pakistan army
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZlbSyaCH3C8&feature=youtu.be
Friday, 27 May 2011
China drops the Gwadar hot potato
China drops the Gwadar hot potato
By Peter Lee http://www.atimes.com/atimes/China/ME28Ad02.html
The occasion of Pakistan Prime Minister Yusuf Gilani's official visit to China was an opportunity for both parties to stake a claim to a post-United States future as the closest of allies, with a shared commitment to a stabilized Afghanistan and recovering Pakistan.
Chinese state media gave spectacular coverage to the visit as a sign of its geopolitical significance. The Chinese government contributed to the sense of occasion with the kind of gesture the Pakistani military - smarting from the humiliation of the killing of Osama bin Laden by American Special Forces inside Pakistan - appreciates the most: a promise to expedite delivery of 50
Then Pakistan's Defense Minister Ahmed Mukhtar put his hoof in it:
"The Chinese government has acceded to Pakistan's request to take over operations at Gwadar port [in Balochistan province] as soon as the terms of agreement with the Singapore Port Authority (SPA) expire," Associated Press of Pakistan (APP) quoted Defense Minister Chaudhry Ahmad Mukhtar as saying in a statement.
According to APP, Mukhtar said Pakistan appreciated that the Chinese government agrees to run the port, but would be more grateful "if a naval base is constructed at the site of Gwadar for Pakistan." [1]
His remarks set off alarm bells around the world, as pundits dusted off the "string of pearls" analogy describing China's alleged efforts to create a network of military-ready ports, and raised the specter of the Chinese dragon bathing his vermilion claws in the milk-warm waters of the Indian Ocean.
China promptly issued a denial - about building the naval base, at least - that made the whole episode look like another spasm of incompetence by President Asif Ali Zardari's administration. [2]
It also forced China's quasi-official nationalistic mouthpiece, Global Times - which had uncritically picked up on the Associated Press of Pakistan report - to do some backtracking, backfilling and blustering:
Beijing recently denied a rumor that the Pakistani government has invited it to build a naval base at the port of Gwadar. But this doesn't stop some of the Western countries and India, China's regional competitor, playing with the so-called China threat theory.
[I]f the world really wants China to take more responsibilities in Asia-Pacific region and around the world, it should allow China to participate in international military co-operations and understand the need of China to set up overseas military bases.
Peace is China's only military interest and the international community should keep this in mind. [3]
It looks like Mukhtar badly overreached in his attempt to convince the administration of US President Barack Obama of China's willingness to replace the US as Pakistan's official best friend forever.
It may simply be that he was just trying to be helpful, and get Pakistan out of an embarrassing jam on the operation of Gwadar.
There are three likely reasons and one unlikely reason why China has little interest in helping Pakistan play the Gwadar card, either as a commercial or military property.
The unlikely reason was floated by The Times of India. It linked the port project to the attack by militants on the Mehran naval base in Karachi this week, apparently in an attempt to publicize the fact that Chinese engineers are assisting the by now globally unpopular Pakistani military:
Apparently jolted by the Taliban attack on Pakistan's naval base, China on Tuesday indicated it would not invest funds on creating another naval base in that country. [4]
The linkage between the two events probably does not extend beyond the shared use of the three words "naval base" and "China".
As we shall see, deadly peril is a fact of life for Chinese personnel at Gwadar already. China would be unlikely to reverse a major strategic decision because 11 Chinese helicopter technicians were in transitory peril more than 1,000 kilometers from Gwadar during an attack intended to embarrass the Pakistani military and destroy two US surveillance planes as retaliation for the raid that killed Bin Laden.
As for the likely reasons for Chinese wariness:
First and foremost, Gwadar is a failed commercial port - built with over US$200 million in unenthusiastic Chinese aid - in the middle of a wilderness that nobody visits. [5]
In the most recent court case that has bedeviled the port and its operator - Port of Singapore Authority or PSA - it was alleged that the only way to get business to Gwadar - for what purpose and to whose benefit it can only be imagined - was to divert cargo from Karachi:
Since PSA has failed to attract commercial vessels to Gwadar Port, it is reported and in common knowledge that the government at the expense of the public exchequer is subsidizing and artificially creating business for PSA by diverting different cargoes of urea and wheat (otherwise destined for the ports at Karachi) to Gwadar Port which reportedly resulted in a loss of at least Rs 2,500 [US$40] per ton in extra, unnecessary and unwarranted costs to the public exchequer. PSA has failed to make any investment in additional facilities at Gwadar Port contrary to the tall claims at the time of award of the CA to PSA, it added. [6]
The cash-strapped Pakistani government apparently reneged on a deal to develop a free-trade zone at the port, ditched plans to build transportation infrastructure connecting the port to the interior, and failed to follow through on a no-cost transfer of developable land at the port to the operators. The unhappy operators, PSA, have been subjected to accusations of non-performance it dismissed as unfounded, and harassing lawsuits inspired, it alleges, by interests from the competing port of Karachi.
Pakistan's Supreme Court has instructed the Gwadar Port Authority to cancel PSA's concession. If a new operator could be enticed into taking over the port, it is extremely unlikely that PSA would insist on serving out its contract until 2047.
Pakistan is understandably keen to find a new operator pronto for the troubled commercial port.
China has been floated as a potential replacement for PSA virtually since the inception of the contract, long before Mukhtar's statement; but China is unlikely to be enthusiastic about taking the port off PSA's hands except as an expensive favor to Pakistan.
It would not only take an immense expenditure - perhaps $2 billion - to link Gwadar to inland economic centers in Pakistan, western China and Central Asia; the effort would be largely zero-sum for Pakistan, taking business away from Karachi. The strategic justification for China - that Middle East crude could be landed at Gwadar, thereby avoiding the perils of the Straits of Malacca, and pumped or trained over the Himalayas at a capital cost of $30 million per kilometer in the more difficult stretches - seems more Pakistani wishful thinking than China's planning. [7]
Mukhtar might have been trying to sweeten the bitter commercial pill of taking over the commercial port by dangling the prospect of an advantageous cooperation between Islamabad and Beijing on a naval base.
He also may have been trying to placate the Pakistani navy at the same time by building a base for it at Gwadar, since the navy's reported unwillingness to surrender 582 acres (236 hectares) of prime land have been cited as a key obstacle to happy and harmonious development of the port. [8]
If so, Mukhtar's brainstorm, instead of pleasing everyone, will probably end up pleasing no one - especially the Chinese.
Which brings us to the second explanation for Beijing's lack of enthusiasm.
China is attempting to promote American military retreat from Afghanistan, and a reduced US security footprint in Central and South Asia. Showcasing Sino-Pakistani ties was supposed to serve as a declaration that the region's priorities were shifting from a massively destabilizing war effort led by the United States to an infrastructure and social development effort supported by China to the benefit of Pakistan as well as Afghanistan.
Raising the possibility that China was going to militarize Gwadar provided the US with an incentive to stick around and work out the kinks in its military relationship with Pakistan, instead of pulling up stakes.
The Chinese Ministry of Foreign Affairs categorically knocked down the naval base story, as Dawn reported:
BEIJING: China said on Tuesday that it had not heard of Pakistan's proposal for China to help it build a naval port at the deep water port of Gwadar.
"Regarding that specific cooperative project, I have not heard of it," Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Jiang Yu told a regular news briefing in Beijing.
"It's my understanding that during the visit last week this issue was not touched upon," she said. [9]
Thirdly, Gwadar is in Balochistan ... and Balochistan is a loaded gun at the head of Pakistan and China that will go off if either country tries to make geostrategic hay with the port.
Pakistan's army seized Balochistan in 1948. Through five different bouts of hot insurgency and martial law, Pakistan asserted control over the region - and maintains control today - with its usual combination of brutality, incompetence and smug indifference, allegedly disappearing, torturing and murdering any Balochi leader of stature.
The entire province only has 6 million people - in a nation of 170 million - and their concerns and priorities are largely swept aside by the Pakistani government.
The Balochistan vibe is something along the lines of Afghanistan with an ocean view: mineral wealth, violence and resentment. Independence sentiment, or at least, independence rhetoric, is a staple of Balochi discourse.
In a similar but more subtle replay of the "you say Myanmar, I say Burma" clashing nomenclatures, "Balochistan" is the official name of the Pakistani province; "Baluchistan" is frequently the preferred spelling for independence advocates.
Supporting Balochistan independence is also something of a cottage industry among strategic thinkers in the United States.
Their motives are rather transparent - unless one believes that ardent support of Balochi independence can be reconciled with utter neglect of the aspirations of that other land of the dispossessed, the one that happens to be administered by India: Kashmir.
An independent Balochistan would be another case of substandard American nation-building, along the lines of Kosovo and Southern Sudan. But it would, like them, serve a negative purpose: weakening a disliked regime and denying a significant strategic asset to a competing power.
Independent Balochistan would achieve a trifecta of sorts. In addition to discommoding Pakistan and China, it would encourage agitation for independence across the Pakistani border among the Balochis of eastern Iran.
To support the independence of Balochistan - which would involve a radical dismemberment of Pakistan - a supporting narrative to merge the Baloch and anti-terror themes has been created to delegitimize the Pakistani state and challenge its right to territorial integrity. It goes like this:
The extermination of Islam-tinged terrorism is the world's existential errand in South and Central Asia.
Pakistan is infected with the radical Islamist virus.
By this framing, Pakistan is said to have two - and only two - alternatives.
One is to engage in a civil society revolution to root out extremists and the military-security complex that shelters them. This scenario is predicated upon rapprochement with a benevolent and generous India to knock the ideological, economic and national security props out from under Pakistani hardliners - and their Chinese enablers - and remake Pakistan as a vibrant, multi-ethnic democracy.
As Pakistani scholar Hami Yusuf articulated the position:
Policymakers have long acknowledged that the only way to ensure South Asian peace and prosperity is by normalizing relations between Pakistan and India. The chances for boosting trade, cooperating in Afghanistan, launching water- and energy-sharing projects, and eventually addressing disputed borders and transnational threats such as climate change are extremely low if Pakistan and India remain locked in an arms race spurred by Chinese contrivance. [10]
As the outpouring of official Pakistani satisfaction with Gilani's visit shows, the position described by Yusuf is not yet a "policymaker" consensus - unless vast swaths of the Pakistani and Indian military and security apparatus are excluded from the definition. For that matter, better to exclude the Pakistani people as well.
The most recent Pew poll of Pakistani attitudes - released in July 2010 - reported that India was regarded as the "greatest threat to Pakistan" by 53% of respondents. That's compared to 23% who named the Taliban. [11]
Pakistani civil society may be disgusted with its spooks and generals and their antics - like the accusation by ex-Inter-Services Intelligence chief and alleged de facto Taliban asset Hamid Gul that the United States carried out the Mehran raid - but consigning the country's future to the tender mercies of India - is still a hard sell.
That leaves the second alternative: Pakistan is relieved of its Islamist extremist problem by shedding its border regions - and
its militants - through some internationally imposed disassociation, something that is, with a straight face, referred to as "peaceful Balkanization".
A notorious map published by Lieutenant Colonel Ralph Peters in the Armed Forces Journal in 2006 provided a picture of what a Balkanized Pakistan would look like.
Independent Balochistan would be a sizable rectangle composed of about 50% of current Pakistani territory - and a sizable chunk of Iran. For good measure, Peters envisioned Pakistan losing its Pashtun west to a muscled-up Afghanistan and dwindling to a narrow territory on either side of the Indus River. [12]
For the Obama administration, the attractions of presiding over the dismemberment of Pakistan have taken a back seat to obtaining the help of its security and military apparatus in finding a way out of the Afghan mess.
However, as the United States looks to wind down its involvement in Afghanistan and has less incentive to overlook Pakistan's inadequacies as an ally, the "let Pakistan go down the drain" faction may get a more favorable hearing.
The Balochistan independence movement is ready to assist.
The Baloch Conference of North America held a meeting in Washington at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace on April 30, 2011. It issued a declaration describing the horrors of the Pakistani occupation.
Going beyond the issue of Balochistan, the declaration characterized Pakistan as not being "a truthful and trusted ally in the war on terror" (making the prescient assertion, prior to the notorious raid to kill Bin Laden in Abbottabad, that "Bin laden, [his deputy] Aymen al-Zawahiri and [Taliban leader] Mullah Omar ... are still hiding in Pakistani sanctuaries provided to them by Pakistani military and its ISI").
In article 8, the declaration stops pussyfooting around to declare:
This Conference considers Pakistan a terrorist state and asks the UN and the International Community to declare her as such.
Article 13 ties the various strands together and declares:
This Conference calls for a peaceful balkanization of Pakistan on ethnic and linguistic and cultural lines to eliminate and eradicate Islamic extremism and terrorism once and for all. This Conference rejects the artificially drawn British boundaries of the Durand line and Goldsmith line and demands the redrawing of the map of the region based on ethnic, linguistic and cultural lines. [13]
Linking Baloch independence to the war on Islamist extremists may appear to be an attractive, low-cost way to entice the United States into stirring the pot.
However, in practice "peaceful Balkanization" would probably look a lot more like a perpetuation of the miserable, expensive counter-insurgency the US has been conducting in Afghanistan and Pakistan for the past 10 years.
In February, before a Chinese-built naval base at Gwadar was even a glint in Ahmed Mukhtar's eye, Selig Harrison sounded the twin clarions of Balochi independence and the "war on terror" in an op-ed in the National Interest:
[T]he United States should do more to support anti-Islamist forces along the southern Arabian Sea coast. First, it should support anti-Islamist Sindhi leaders of the Sufi variant of Islam with their network of 124,000 shrines. Most important, it should aid the 6 million Baluch insurgents fighting for independence from Pakistan in the face of growing ISI repression. Pakistan has given China a base at Gwadar in the heart of Baluch territory. So an independent Balochistan would serve US strategic interests in addition to the immediate goal of countering Islamist forces. [14]
Great Game On!
On a demographic note, the entire Baloch population of Balochistan is only around 6 million. It is questionable that every one of them qualifies as an "insurgent" in open rebellion against the Pakistani state. Whether or not every man, woman and child in Balochistan is an insurgent, the sense of grievance against Islamabad is strong and genuine.
And, because they are seen as Islamabad's partners in penetrating and exploiting Balochistan, the Chinese are not popular there either.
The rhetoric of Balochi politics is dominated by resource nationalism of the sort that would receive short shrift from the United States and the international business community if it were invoked by the Democratic Republic of the Congo, and not voiced by a group much inclined to do the West a geostrategic favor in Pakistan.
Balochi politicians are agitating against Chinese investment in a copper and gold mine at Sendak as an Islamabad-coordinated raid on the region's riches.
On the issue of Gwadar, the provincial government has made the rather dubious claim that the key to success of the white elephant port is not massive investment to link it to Central Asian markets, but the exercise of professional Balochi management.
Asserting that former president Pervez Musharraf had slow-walked construction of Gwadar not because it was an immensely expensive boondoggle in the desert but because he wanted to delay Balochi enjoyment of this mercantile gold mine, the provincial government called for cancelation of the 40-year contract by PSA, and takeover of the contract by local interests.
When the first report of the alleged Chinese takeover of Gwadar hit the Pakistani papers, the provincial chief minister, Nawab Muhammad Aslam Raisani, who is also chairman of the board of directors of Gwadar Port, rushed to Islamabad to object to getting blindsided on the announcement and press the case for local, instead of Chinese, management. [15]
Under the rubric of forestalling "Panjabi-Han" infiltration, warnings - or unsubtle threats - to the Chinese to steer clear of the region are familiar themes in Balochi politics.
As an editorial, "Balochistan for Sale", in an online Balochi journal put it:
It is extremely disturbing the way Islamabad unilaterally decides the fate of certain mega projects and lands inside Balochistan without even the consent of the local stakeholders. Foreign investment is one thing but deciding the future a controversial project is another thing.
Such secret deals will only antagonize the local people of the conflict-driven province. In the past, Baloch armed groups had attacked and killed Chinese engineers because of the same reason. If Islamabad does not consult the Baloch and proceed with these high level deals, it is going to irresponsibly compromise the safety of the Chinese. The security of foreign nationals would further be jeopardized if Islamabad annoys the government of Balochistan too. [16]
The idea that China would find itself exposed to the same kind of savage insurgency that bedevils the United States in Iraq and Afghanistan is not, I suspect, unwelcome to American pundits.
Robert Kaplan, the Atlantic security columnist, has adopted Gwadar-as-linchpin framing and frequently returns to the theme of Baloch insurgents turning the province into a sea of sandy fire for unwelcome outsiders. He interviewed a Baluch nationalist, who told him:
"No matter how hard they try to turn Gwadar into Dubai [in the United Arab Emirates], it won't work. There will be resistance. The pipelines going to China will not be safe. They will have to cross through Baluch territory, and if our rights are violated, nothing will be secure." In 2004, in fact, a car bomb killed three Chinese engineers on their way to Gwadar. Other nationalists have said that Baluch insurgents would eventually kill more Chinese workers, bringing further uncertainty to Gwadar. [17]
Several Chinese engineers have died in attacks around Gwadar and security was cited as one of several reasons why the Chinese pulled the plug on plans for a 200,000 barrel/day refinery at Gwadar.
There are nagging rumors that the Balochi separatists are receiving assistance from the US Central Intelligence Agency, India's Research and Intelligence Wing, and even Russian intelligence as part of their ongoing support for the anti-Taliban Northern Alliance in Afghanistan, and to punish Pakistan for its pro-Taliban Afghan policy.
Asia Times Online's Pepe Escobar has made the case for Gwadar as the key objective in the battle of Pipelineistan - US efforts to block the Iran-Pakistan (and maybe India) natural gas pipeline - in favor of the Turkmenistan-Afghanistan-Pakistan-India (TAPI) pipeline bringing in the stuff Pakistan so desperately needs through Afghanistan from Central Asia. [18]
On her blog, Dr Stuart Bramhall retailed some of the accusations of foreign involvement in training Balochi insurgents - which are indignantly denounced by Baloch advocates - while echoing the pipeline them.
[The United States, India and Russia] support Balochistan independence, owing to the province's strategic importance as an energy transit route. Not only is it a conduit for the Turkmenistan-Afghanistan-Pakistan-India oil pipeline (which is mostly non-functional because the Taliban keep blowing up the Afghanistan section) and the planned Iran-Pakistan-India natural gas pipeline, but more importantly it adjoins the Arabian Sea and the Straits of Hormuz, which annually transship 30% of the world's oil resources pass every year. [19]
In any case, to the Chinese, Gwadar spells bad economics, premature geostrategic confrontation with the United States and the prospect of becoming the target of a burgeoning local insurgency that just might be receiving covert support from Washington and New Delhi.
However, if China decides to play the long game on Gwadar, and shoulder the burden and risks of operating the commercial port, a port call by Chinese naval vessels - and, later on, the oft-rumored naval base - may indeed be in the cards.
Notes
1. China agrees to run Pakistan port: report, Global Times, May 23, 2011.
2. China says unaware of Gwadar port proposal, PakTribune, May 25, 2011.
3. China needs overseas bases for global role, Global Times, May 25, 2011.
4. China rejects Pakistan's naval base request, Times of India, May 24, 2011.
5. Thread: Gwadar may lose business to Iranian port of Chabahar, Defence Forum of India, Feb 26, 2009.
6. Gwadar Port Authority: PSA barred from transferring any property, Forex PK, Dec 9, 2010.
7. A Tale of Two Ports - Gawadar and Chabahar, Gilgit Baltistan Bulletin, Jan 12, 2011.
8. China calls halt to Gwadar refinery, Asia Times Online, Aug 14, 2009.
9. China says it is unaware of Gwadar port proposal, Reuters, May 24, 2011.
10. Higher than the Himalayas? Dawn, May 23, 2011.
11. Concern About Extremist Threat Slips in Pakistan, Pew Research Center, Jul 29, 2010.
12. If Pakistan is an Ally, Why Are We Trying to Break Up Their Country?, Stuartbramhall.aegauthorblogs.com, March 9, 2011.
13. Click here for text.
14. Free Balochistan, National Interest, Feb 1, 2011.
15. Raisani dashes to Islamabad to meet, The News, May 23, 2011.
16. Balochistan for Sale, The Baloch Hal, May 22, 2011.
17. Pakistan's Fatal Shore, The Atlantic, May 2009.
18. China calls halt to Gwadar refinery, Asia Times Online, Aug 14, 2009.
19. The CIA's Strange Bedfellows in Pakistan, Stuartbramhall.aegauthorblogs.com, Mar 11, 2011.
Peter Lee writes on East and South Asian affairs and their intersection with US foreign policy.
By Peter Lee http://www.atimes.com/atimes/China/ME28Ad02.html
The occasion of Pakistan Prime Minister Yusuf Gilani's official visit to China was an opportunity for both parties to stake a claim to a post-United States future as the closest of allies, with a shared commitment to a stabilized Afghanistan and recovering Pakistan.
Chinese state media gave spectacular coverage to the visit as a sign of its geopolitical significance. The Chinese government contributed to the sense of occasion with the kind of gesture the Pakistani military - smarting from the humiliation of the killing of Osama bin Laden by American Special Forces inside Pakistan - appreciates the most: a promise to expedite delivery of 50
Then Pakistan's Defense Minister Ahmed Mukhtar put his hoof in it:
"The Chinese government has acceded to Pakistan's request to take over operations at Gwadar port [in Balochistan province] as soon as the terms of agreement with the Singapore Port Authority (SPA) expire," Associated Press of Pakistan (APP) quoted Defense Minister Chaudhry Ahmad Mukhtar as saying in a statement.
According to APP, Mukhtar said Pakistan appreciated that the Chinese government agrees to run the port, but would be more grateful "if a naval base is constructed at the site of Gwadar for Pakistan." [1]
His remarks set off alarm bells around the world, as pundits dusted off the "string of pearls" analogy describing China's alleged efforts to create a network of military-ready ports, and raised the specter of the Chinese dragon bathing his vermilion claws in the milk-warm waters of the Indian Ocean.
China promptly issued a denial - about building the naval base, at least - that made the whole episode look like another spasm of incompetence by President Asif Ali Zardari's administration. [2]
It also forced China's quasi-official nationalistic mouthpiece, Global Times - which had uncritically picked up on the Associated Press of Pakistan report - to do some backtracking, backfilling and blustering:
Beijing recently denied a rumor that the Pakistani government has invited it to build a naval base at the port of Gwadar. But this doesn't stop some of the Western countries and India, China's regional competitor, playing with the so-called China threat theory.
[I]f the world really wants China to take more responsibilities in Asia-Pacific region and around the world, it should allow China to participate in international military co-operations and understand the need of China to set up overseas military bases.
Peace is China's only military interest and the international community should keep this in mind. [3]
It looks like Mukhtar badly overreached in his attempt to convince the administration of US President Barack Obama of China's willingness to replace the US as Pakistan's official best friend forever.
It may simply be that he was just trying to be helpful, and get Pakistan out of an embarrassing jam on the operation of Gwadar.
There are three likely reasons and one unlikely reason why China has little interest in helping Pakistan play the Gwadar card, either as a commercial or military property.
The unlikely reason was floated by The Times of India. It linked the port project to the attack by militants on the Mehran naval base in Karachi this week, apparently in an attempt to publicize the fact that Chinese engineers are assisting the by now globally unpopular Pakistani military:
Apparently jolted by the Taliban attack on Pakistan's naval base, China on Tuesday indicated it would not invest funds on creating another naval base in that country. [4]
The linkage between the two events probably does not extend beyond the shared use of the three words "naval base" and "China".
As we shall see, deadly peril is a fact of life for Chinese personnel at Gwadar already. China would be unlikely to reverse a major strategic decision because 11 Chinese helicopter technicians were in transitory peril more than 1,000 kilometers from Gwadar during an attack intended to embarrass the Pakistani military and destroy two US surveillance planes as retaliation for the raid that killed Bin Laden.
As for the likely reasons for Chinese wariness:
First and foremost, Gwadar is a failed commercial port - built with over US$200 million in unenthusiastic Chinese aid - in the middle of a wilderness that nobody visits. [5]
In the most recent court case that has bedeviled the port and its operator - Port of Singapore Authority or PSA - it was alleged that the only way to get business to Gwadar - for what purpose and to whose benefit it can only be imagined - was to divert cargo from Karachi:
Since PSA has failed to attract commercial vessels to Gwadar Port, it is reported and in common knowledge that the government at the expense of the public exchequer is subsidizing and artificially creating business for PSA by diverting different cargoes of urea and wheat (otherwise destined for the ports at Karachi) to Gwadar Port which reportedly resulted in a loss of at least Rs 2,500 [US$40] per ton in extra, unnecessary and unwarranted costs to the public exchequer. PSA has failed to make any investment in additional facilities at Gwadar Port contrary to the tall claims at the time of award of the CA to PSA, it added. [6]
The cash-strapped Pakistani government apparently reneged on a deal to develop a free-trade zone at the port, ditched plans to build transportation infrastructure connecting the port to the interior, and failed to follow through on a no-cost transfer of developable land at the port to the operators. The unhappy operators, PSA, have been subjected to accusations of non-performance it dismissed as unfounded, and harassing lawsuits inspired, it alleges, by interests from the competing port of Karachi.
Pakistan's Supreme Court has instructed the Gwadar Port Authority to cancel PSA's concession. If a new operator could be enticed into taking over the port, it is extremely unlikely that PSA would insist on serving out its contract until 2047.
Pakistan is understandably keen to find a new operator pronto for the troubled commercial port.
China has been floated as a potential replacement for PSA virtually since the inception of the contract, long before Mukhtar's statement; but China is unlikely to be enthusiastic about taking the port off PSA's hands except as an expensive favor to Pakistan.
It would not only take an immense expenditure - perhaps $2 billion - to link Gwadar to inland economic centers in Pakistan, western China and Central Asia; the effort would be largely zero-sum for Pakistan, taking business away from Karachi. The strategic justification for China - that Middle East crude could be landed at Gwadar, thereby avoiding the perils of the Straits of Malacca, and pumped or trained over the Himalayas at a capital cost of $30 million per kilometer in the more difficult stretches - seems more Pakistani wishful thinking than China's planning. [7]
Mukhtar might have been trying to sweeten the bitter commercial pill of taking over the commercial port by dangling the prospect of an advantageous cooperation between Islamabad and Beijing on a naval base.
He also may have been trying to placate the Pakistani navy at the same time by building a base for it at Gwadar, since the navy's reported unwillingness to surrender 582 acres (236 hectares) of prime land have been cited as a key obstacle to happy and harmonious development of the port. [8]
If so, Mukhtar's brainstorm, instead of pleasing everyone, will probably end up pleasing no one - especially the Chinese.
Which brings us to the second explanation for Beijing's lack of enthusiasm.
China is attempting to promote American military retreat from Afghanistan, and a reduced US security footprint in Central and South Asia. Showcasing Sino-Pakistani ties was supposed to serve as a declaration that the region's priorities were shifting from a massively destabilizing war effort led by the United States to an infrastructure and social development effort supported by China to the benefit of Pakistan as well as Afghanistan.
Raising the possibility that China was going to militarize Gwadar provided the US with an incentive to stick around and work out the kinks in its military relationship with Pakistan, instead of pulling up stakes.
The Chinese Ministry of Foreign Affairs categorically knocked down the naval base story, as Dawn reported:
BEIJING: China said on Tuesday that it had not heard of Pakistan's proposal for China to help it build a naval port at the deep water port of Gwadar.
"Regarding that specific cooperative project, I have not heard of it," Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Jiang Yu told a regular news briefing in Beijing.
"It's my understanding that during the visit last week this issue was not touched upon," she said. [9]
Thirdly, Gwadar is in Balochistan ... and Balochistan is a loaded gun at the head of Pakistan and China that will go off if either country tries to make geostrategic hay with the port.
Pakistan's army seized Balochistan in 1948. Through five different bouts of hot insurgency and martial law, Pakistan asserted control over the region - and maintains control today - with its usual combination of brutality, incompetence and smug indifference, allegedly disappearing, torturing and murdering any Balochi leader of stature.
The entire province only has 6 million people - in a nation of 170 million - and their concerns and priorities are largely swept aside by the Pakistani government.
The Balochistan vibe is something along the lines of Afghanistan with an ocean view: mineral wealth, violence and resentment. Independence sentiment, or at least, independence rhetoric, is a staple of Balochi discourse.
In a similar but more subtle replay of the "you say Myanmar, I say Burma" clashing nomenclatures, "Balochistan" is the official name of the Pakistani province; "Baluchistan" is frequently the preferred spelling for independence advocates.
Supporting Balochistan independence is also something of a cottage industry among strategic thinkers in the United States.
Their motives are rather transparent - unless one believes that ardent support of Balochi independence can be reconciled with utter neglect of the aspirations of that other land of the dispossessed, the one that happens to be administered by India: Kashmir.
An independent Balochistan would be another case of substandard American nation-building, along the lines of Kosovo and Southern Sudan. But it would, like them, serve a negative purpose: weakening a disliked regime and denying a significant strategic asset to a competing power.
Independent Balochistan would achieve a trifecta of sorts. In addition to discommoding Pakistan and China, it would encourage agitation for independence across the Pakistani border among the Balochis of eastern Iran.
To support the independence of Balochistan - which would involve a radical dismemberment of Pakistan - a supporting narrative to merge the Baloch and anti-terror themes has been created to delegitimize the Pakistani state and challenge its right to territorial integrity. It goes like this:
The extermination of Islam-tinged terrorism is the world's existential errand in South and Central Asia.
Pakistan is infected with the radical Islamist virus.
By this framing, Pakistan is said to have two - and only two - alternatives.
One is to engage in a civil society revolution to root out extremists and the military-security complex that shelters them. This scenario is predicated upon rapprochement with a benevolent and generous India to knock the ideological, economic and national security props out from under Pakistani hardliners - and their Chinese enablers - and remake Pakistan as a vibrant, multi-ethnic democracy.
As Pakistani scholar Hami Yusuf articulated the position:
Policymakers have long acknowledged that the only way to ensure South Asian peace and prosperity is by normalizing relations between Pakistan and India. The chances for boosting trade, cooperating in Afghanistan, launching water- and energy-sharing projects, and eventually addressing disputed borders and transnational threats such as climate change are extremely low if Pakistan and India remain locked in an arms race spurred by Chinese contrivance. [10]
As the outpouring of official Pakistani satisfaction with Gilani's visit shows, the position described by Yusuf is not yet a "policymaker" consensus - unless vast swaths of the Pakistani and Indian military and security apparatus are excluded from the definition. For that matter, better to exclude the Pakistani people as well.
The most recent Pew poll of Pakistani attitudes - released in July 2010 - reported that India was regarded as the "greatest threat to Pakistan" by 53% of respondents. That's compared to 23% who named the Taliban. [11]
Pakistani civil society may be disgusted with its spooks and generals and their antics - like the accusation by ex-Inter-Services Intelligence chief and alleged de facto Taliban asset Hamid Gul that the United States carried out the Mehran raid - but consigning the country's future to the tender mercies of India - is still a hard sell.
That leaves the second alternative: Pakistan is relieved of its Islamist extremist problem by shedding its border regions - and
its militants - through some internationally imposed disassociation, something that is, with a straight face, referred to as "peaceful Balkanization".
A notorious map published by Lieutenant Colonel Ralph Peters in the Armed Forces Journal in 2006 provided a picture of what a Balkanized Pakistan would look like.
Independent Balochistan would be a sizable rectangle composed of about 50% of current Pakistani territory - and a sizable chunk of Iran. For good measure, Peters envisioned Pakistan losing its Pashtun west to a muscled-up Afghanistan and dwindling to a narrow territory on either side of the Indus River. [12]
For the Obama administration, the attractions of presiding over the dismemberment of Pakistan have taken a back seat to obtaining the help of its security and military apparatus in finding a way out of the Afghan mess.
However, as the United States looks to wind down its involvement in Afghanistan and has less incentive to overlook Pakistan's inadequacies as an ally, the "let Pakistan go down the drain" faction may get a more favorable hearing.
The Balochistan independence movement is ready to assist.
The Baloch Conference of North America held a meeting in Washington at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace on April 30, 2011. It issued a declaration describing the horrors of the Pakistani occupation.
Going beyond the issue of Balochistan, the declaration characterized Pakistan as not being "a truthful and trusted ally in the war on terror" (making the prescient assertion, prior to the notorious raid to kill Bin Laden in Abbottabad, that "Bin laden, [his deputy] Aymen al-Zawahiri and [Taliban leader] Mullah Omar ... are still hiding in Pakistani sanctuaries provided to them by Pakistani military and its ISI").
In article 8, the declaration stops pussyfooting around to declare:
This Conference considers Pakistan a terrorist state and asks the UN and the International Community to declare her as such.
Article 13 ties the various strands together and declares:
This Conference calls for a peaceful balkanization of Pakistan on ethnic and linguistic and cultural lines to eliminate and eradicate Islamic extremism and terrorism once and for all. This Conference rejects the artificially drawn British boundaries of the Durand line and Goldsmith line and demands the redrawing of the map of the region based on ethnic, linguistic and cultural lines. [13]
Linking Baloch independence to the war on Islamist extremists may appear to be an attractive, low-cost way to entice the United States into stirring the pot.
However, in practice "peaceful Balkanization" would probably look a lot more like a perpetuation of the miserable, expensive counter-insurgency the US has been conducting in Afghanistan and Pakistan for the past 10 years.
In February, before a Chinese-built naval base at Gwadar was even a glint in Ahmed Mukhtar's eye, Selig Harrison sounded the twin clarions of Balochi independence and the "war on terror" in an op-ed in the National Interest:
[T]he United States should do more to support anti-Islamist forces along the southern Arabian Sea coast. First, it should support anti-Islamist Sindhi leaders of the Sufi variant of Islam with their network of 124,000 shrines. Most important, it should aid the 6 million Baluch insurgents fighting for independence from Pakistan in the face of growing ISI repression. Pakistan has given China a base at Gwadar in the heart of Baluch territory. So an independent Balochistan would serve US strategic interests in addition to the immediate goal of countering Islamist forces. [14]
Great Game On!
On a demographic note, the entire Baloch population of Balochistan is only around 6 million. It is questionable that every one of them qualifies as an "insurgent" in open rebellion against the Pakistani state. Whether or not every man, woman and child in Balochistan is an insurgent, the sense of grievance against Islamabad is strong and genuine.
And, because they are seen as Islamabad's partners in penetrating and exploiting Balochistan, the Chinese are not popular there either.
The rhetoric of Balochi politics is dominated by resource nationalism of the sort that would receive short shrift from the United States and the international business community if it were invoked by the Democratic Republic of the Congo, and not voiced by a group much inclined to do the West a geostrategic favor in Pakistan.
Balochi politicians are agitating against Chinese investment in a copper and gold mine at Sendak as an Islamabad-coordinated raid on the region's riches.
On the issue of Gwadar, the provincial government has made the rather dubious claim that the key to success of the white elephant port is not massive investment to link it to Central Asian markets, but the exercise of professional Balochi management.
Asserting that former president Pervez Musharraf had slow-walked construction of Gwadar not because it was an immensely expensive boondoggle in the desert but because he wanted to delay Balochi enjoyment of this mercantile gold mine, the provincial government called for cancelation of the 40-year contract by PSA, and takeover of the contract by local interests.
When the first report of the alleged Chinese takeover of Gwadar hit the Pakistani papers, the provincial chief minister, Nawab Muhammad Aslam Raisani, who is also chairman of the board of directors of Gwadar Port, rushed to Islamabad to object to getting blindsided on the announcement and press the case for local, instead of Chinese, management. [15]
Under the rubric of forestalling "Panjabi-Han" infiltration, warnings - or unsubtle threats - to the Chinese to steer clear of the region are familiar themes in Balochi politics.
As an editorial, "Balochistan for Sale", in an online Balochi journal put it:
It is extremely disturbing the way Islamabad unilaterally decides the fate of certain mega projects and lands inside Balochistan without even the consent of the local stakeholders. Foreign investment is one thing but deciding the future a controversial project is another thing.
Such secret deals will only antagonize the local people of the conflict-driven province. In the past, Baloch armed groups had attacked and killed Chinese engineers because of the same reason. If Islamabad does not consult the Baloch and proceed with these high level deals, it is going to irresponsibly compromise the safety of the Chinese. The security of foreign nationals would further be jeopardized if Islamabad annoys the government of Balochistan too. [16]
The idea that China would find itself exposed to the same kind of savage insurgency that bedevils the United States in Iraq and Afghanistan is not, I suspect, unwelcome to American pundits.
Robert Kaplan, the Atlantic security columnist, has adopted Gwadar-as-linchpin framing and frequently returns to the theme of Baloch insurgents turning the province into a sea of sandy fire for unwelcome outsiders. He interviewed a Baluch nationalist, who told him:
"No matter how hard they try to turn Gwadar into Dubai [in the United Arab Emirates], it won't work. There will be resistance. The pipelines going to China will not be safe. They will have to cross through Baluch territory, and if our rights are violated, nothing will be secure." In 2004, in fact, a car bomb killed three Chinese engineers on their way to Gwadar. Other nationalists have said that Baluch insurgents would eventually kill more Chinese workers, bringing further uncertainty to Gwadar. [17]
Several Chinese engineers have died in attacks around Gwadar and security was cited as one of several reasons why the Chinese pulled the plug on plans for a 200,000 barrel/day refinery at Gwadar.
There are nagging rumors that the Balochi separatists are receiving assistance from the US Central Intelligence Agency, India's Research and Intelligence Wing, and even Russian intelligence as part of their ongoing support for the anti-Taliban Northern Alliance in Afghanistan, and to punish Pakistan for its pro-Taliban Afghan policy.
Asia Times Online's Pepe Escobar has made the case for Gwadar as the key objective in the battle of Pipelineistan - US efforts to block the Iran-Pakistan (and maybe India) natural gas pipeline - in favor of the Turkmenistan-Afghanistan-Pakistan-India (TAPI) pipeline bringing in the stuff Pakistan so desperately needs through Afghanistan from Central Asia. [18]
On her blog, Dr Stuart Bramhall retailed some of the accusations of foreign involvement in training Balochi insurgents - which are indignantly denounced by Baloch advocates - while echoing the pipeline them.
[The United States, India and Russia] support Balochistan independence, owing to the province's strategic importance as an energy transit route. Not only is it a conduit for the Turkmenistan-Afghanistan-Pakistan-India oil pipeline (which is mostly non-functional because the Taliban keep blowing up the Afghanistan section) and the planned Iran-Pakistan-India natural gas pipeline, but more importantly it adjoins the Arabian Sea and the Straits of Hormuz, which annually transship 30% of the world's oil resources pass every year. [19]
In any case, to the Chinese, Gwadar spells bad economics, premature geostrategic confrontation with the United States and the prospect of becoming the target of a burgeoning local insurgency that just might be receiving covert support from Washington and New Delhi.
However, if China decides to play the long game on Gwadar, and shoulder the burden and risks of operating the commercial port, a port call by Chinese naval vessels - and, later on, the oft-rumored naval base - may indeed be in the cards.
Notes
1. China agrees to run Pakistan port: report, Global Times, May 23, 2011.
2. China says unaware of Gwadar port proposal, PakTribune, May 25, 2011.
3. China needs overseas bases for global role, Global Times, May 25, 2011.
4. China rejects Pakistan's naval base request, Times of India, May 24, 2011.
5. Thread: Gwadar may lose business to Iranian port of Chabahar, Defence Forum of India, Feb 26, 2009.
6. Gwadar Port Authority: PSA barred from transferring any property, Forex PK, Dec 9, 2010.
7. A Tale of Two Ports - Gawadar and Chabahar, Gilgit Baltistan Bulletin, Jan 12, 2011.
8. China calls halt to Gwadar refinery, Asia Times Online, Aug 14, 2009.
9. China says it is unaware of Gwadar port proposal, Reuters, May 24, 2011.
10. Higher than the Himalayas? Dawn, May 23, 2011.
11. Concern About Extremist Threat Slips in Pakistan, Pew Research Center, Jul 29, 2010.
12. If Pakistan is an Ally, Why Are We Trying to Break Up Their Country?, Stuartbramhall.aegauthorblogs.com, March 9, 2011.
13. Click here for text.
14. Free Balochistan, National Interest, Feb 1, 2011.
15. Raisani dashes to Islamabad to meet, The News, May 23, 2011.
16. Balochistan for Sale, The Baloch Hal, May 22, 2011.
17. Pakistan's Fatal Shore, The Atlantic, May 2009.
18. China calls halt to Gwadar refinery, Asia Times Online, Aug 14, 2009.
19. The CIA's Strange Bedfellows in Pakistan, Stuartbramhall.aegauthorblogs.com, Mar 11, 2011.
Peter Lee writes on East and South Asian affairs and their intersection with US foreign policy.
Resolution adopted by the Joint Session of Parliament
Resolution
adopted by the Joint Session of Parliament
on 14 May, 2011
The Senate of Pakistan and the National Assembly, in a Joint Session held on 13-14 May 2011, considered the situation arising from the unilateral US forces action in Abbottabad on 2 May 2011.
After an in-depth discussion, including presentations made on the relevant issues by the Director General, Inter-Services Intelligence, Director General Military Operations and Deputy Chief of Air Staff Operations, the Joint Session of Parliament resolved as under:
Condemned the US unilateral action in Abbottabad, which constitutes a violation of Pakistan’s sovereignty;
Strongly asserted that unilateral actions, such as those conducted by the US forces in Abbottabad, as well as the continued drone attacks on the territory of Pakistan, are not only unacceptable but also constitute violation of the principles of the Charter of the United Nations, international law and humanitarian norms and such drone attacks must be stopped forthwith, failing which the Government will be constrained to consider taking necessary steps including withdrawal of transit facility allowed to NATO/ISAF forces;
Determines that unilateral actions cannot advance the global cause of elimination of terrorism, and the people of Pakistan will no longer tolerate such actions and repeat of unilateral measures could have dire consequences for peace and security in the region and the world.
Reaffirmed the resolve of the people and Government of Pakistan to uphold Pakistan’s sovereignty and national security, which is a sacred duty, at all costs;
Affirmed the resolve of the people and state institutions of Pakistan to safeguard Pakistan’s national interests and strategic assets and, in this context, underscored that any action to the contrary will warrant a strong national response;
Expressed its deep distress on the campaign to malign Pakistan, launched by certain quarters in other countries without appreciating Pakistan’s determined efforts and immense sacrifices in combating terror and the fact that more than thirty thousand Pakistani innocent men, women and children and more than five thousand security and armed forces personnel had lost their lives, that is more than any other single country, in the fight against terror and the blowback emanating from actions of the NATO/ISAF forces in Afghanistan;
Called upon the Government to ensure that the principles of an independent foreign policy must be grounded in strict adherence to the principles of policy, as stated in Article 40 of the Constitution, the UN Charter, observance of international law and respect for the free will and aspirations of sovereign states and their peoples;
Further Called upon the Government to re-visit and review its terms of engagement with the United States, with a view to ensuring that Pakistan’s national interests are fully respected and accommodated in pursuit of policies for countering terrorism and achieving reconciliation and peace in Afghanistan;
Affirmed the importance of international cooperation for eliminating international terrorism, which can only be carried forward on the basis of a true partnership approach, based on equality, mutual respect and mutual trust;
Affirmed full confidence in the defence forces of Pakistan in safeguarding Pakistan’s sovereignty, independence and territorial integrity and in overcoming any challenge to security, with the full support of the people and Government of Pakistan.
Reaffirmed the Resolution passed by the Joint Sitting of the Parliament on National Security held on 22 October 2008 and the detailed recommendations made by the Parliamentary Committee on National Security in April 2009.
Called upon the Government to appoint an independent Commission on the Abbottabad operation, fix responsibility and recommend necessary measures to ensure that such an incident does not recur. The composition/modalities of the Commission will be settled after consultations between the Leader of the House and the Leader of the Opposition.
Islamabad, 14 May 2011.
adopted by the Joint Session of Parliament
on 14 May, 2011
The Senate of Pakistan and the National Assembly, in a Joint Session held on 13-14 May 2011, considered the situation arising from the unilateral US forces action in Abbottabad on 2 May 2011.
After an in-depth discussion, including presentations made on the relevant issues by the Director General, Inter-Services Intelligence, Director General Military Operations and Deputy Chief of Air Staff Operations, the Joint Session of Parliament resolved as under:
Condemned the US unilateral action in Abbottabad, which constitutes a violation of Pakistan’s sovereignty;
Strongly asserted that unilateral actions, such as those conducted by the US forces in Abbottabad, as well as the continued drone attacks on the territory of Pakistan, are not only unacceptable but also constitute violation of the principles of the Charter of the United Nations, international law and humanitarian norms and such drone attacks must be stopped forthwith, failing which the Government will be constrained to consider taking necessary steps including withdrawal of transit facility allowed to NATO/ISAF forces;
Determines that unilateral actions cannot advance the global cause of elimination of terrorism, and the people of Pakistan will no longer tolerate such actions and repeat of unilateral measures could have dire consequences for peace and security in the region and the world.
Reaffirmed the resolve of the people and Government of Pakistan to uphold Pakistan’s sovereignty and national security, which is a sacred duty, at all costs;
Affirmed the resolve of the people and state institutions of Pakistan to safeguard Pakistan’s national interests and strategic assets and, in this context, underscored that any action to the contrary will warrant a strong national response;
Expressed its deep distress on the campaign to malign Pakistan, launched by certain quarters in other countries without appreciating Pakistan’s determined efforts and immense sacrifices in combating terror and the fact that more than thirty thousand Pakistani innocent men, women and children and more than five thousand security and armed forces personnel had lost their lives, that is more than any other single country, in the fight against terror and the blowback emanating from actions of the NATO/ISAF forces in Afghanistan;
Called upon the Government to ensure that the principles of an independent foreign policy must be grounded in strict adherence to the principles of policy, as stated in Article 40 of the Constitution, the UN Charter, observance of international law and respect for the free will and aspirations of sovereign states and their peoples;
Further Called upon the Government to re-visit and review its terms of engagement with the United States, with a view to ensuring that Pakistan’s national interests are fully respected and accommodated in pursuit of policies for countering terrorism and achieving reconciliation and peace in Afghanistan;
Affirmed the importance of international cooperation for eliminating international terrorism, which can only be carried forward on the basis of a true partnership approach, based on equality, mutual respect and mutual trust;
Affirmed full confidence in the defence forces of Pakistan in safeguarding Pakistan’s sovereignty, independence and territorial integrity and in overcoming any challenge to security, with the full support of the people and Government of Pakistan.
Reaffirmed the Resolution passed by the Joint Sitting of the Parliament on National Security held on 22 October 2008 and the detailed recommendations made by the Parliamentary Committee on National Security in April 2009.
Called upon the Government to appoint an independent Commission on the Abbottabad operation, fix responsibility and recommend necessary measures to ensure that such an incident does not recur. The composition/modalities of the Commission will be settled after consultations between the Leader of the House and the Leader of the Opposition.
Islamabad, 14 May 2011.
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