‘The amazing fact is that parts of Pakistan’s upper
class also support the Islamists’
BY CRISTINA OTTEN
D r Pervez Hoodbhoy is
chairman of the physics department at the Quaid-e-Azam University in Islamabad,
a frequent commentator on nuclear and security matters and a member of the
Permanent Monitoring Panel on Terrorism of the World Federation of Scientists.
He was interviewed by Cristina Otten for Focus (Germany).
Q: Tensions between Pakistan and India have been growing after
the Mumbai attacks. Are we close to a military escalation?
A: In spite of vociferous demands by the Indian public, Manmohan Singh’s
government has withstood the pressure to conduct cross-border strikes into
Pakistan. Correspondingly, in spite of the bitter criticism by Islamic parties,
Pakistan’s government has taken some action against the Lashkar-e-Tayyaba (LeT),
the jihadist organisation that is quite probably behind the attacks. For now the
tension has eased somewhat but another attack could push India over the fence.
Q: What makes the LeT so different from other militant groups?
Is Pakistan really moving against it?
A: LeT, one of the largest militant groups in Pakistan, was established over
15 years ago. It had the full support of the Pakistani military and ISI for over
a decade because it focused on fighting Indian rule in Muslim Kashmir. Today it
is one of the very few extremist groups left that do not attack the Pakistani
army and state; in contrast, almost all others have turned into fierce enemies.
We now hear that a few members of LeT, who were named by India, have been
arrested. Time will tell whether this was a serious move or if this is a ruse to
ease the enormous pressure against Pakistan. If serious, then the army and ISI
will have earned the bitter enmity of yet another former ally. They are afraid
of a repeat of their experience with Jaish-e-Mohammad, a formerly supported
Islamic militant group that now is responsible for extreme brutalities,
including torture and decapitations of Pakistani soldiers captured in FATA. It’s
a nightmarish situation for the Pakistan army.
Q: How have Pakistanis reacted to the Mumbai massacre?
A: The initial reaction was of sympathy. I did not see any celebrations,
contrary to those I saw after 9/11. But then, as the Indian TV channels started
accusing Pakistan and demanding that it be bombed in retaliation, the reaction
turned to that of anger and then flat denial – Pakistanis did not want to accept
that this attack was done by Pakistanis or had been launched from Pakistani
soil. Subsequently, one saw amazing mental callisthenics. Popular TV anchors,
and their guests, invoked far out conspiracy theories. Years ago some of the
same anchors had confidently (but wrongly) claimed that Kathmandu-Delhi Indian
Airlines Flight 814 had been hijacked by RAW [India’s Research and Analysis
Wing] to malign Pakistan. They had also ridiculed the notion that Pakistan was
involved in the Kargil invasion. Now, pointing to the RSS hand in the Samjhauta
Express bombing, they are alternately ascribing the Mumbai attacks to radical
Hindus and to Jews and Americans. It is sad to see intelligent persons losing
their marbles.
Q: Pakistan has always stressed that it will deliver the first
nuclear strike if it feels threatened by India. Do you see any signs on the
Pakistani side to carry out its threat?
A: About a week before the Mumbai massacre President Asif Ali Zardari had
given the assurance that Pakistan would not use nuclear weapons first. India had
announced a no first use (NFU) policy almost 10 years ago. But Zardari is not
taken seriously by the Pakistani generals who actually control the bomb and the
Indian NFU declaration is frankly of no consequence. Cross-border raids by India
could well ignite a conventional war. If that happens, all bets are off and it
could escalate without warning into a nuclear conflict.
For many years US defence strategists belonging to various think tanks and
war colleges have been simulating conflicts between Pakistan and India. They say
that a conventional war will almost certainly lead to a nuclear conclusion. Fear
of nuclear weapons has made deterrence work. More accurately, deterrence has
worked only thus far. No guarantees can be given for the future.
Q: Why did the assassins choose India instead of committing
attacks against western allies in Afghanistan?
A: LeT is based around Lahore, which is on the Pakistan-India border, in a
town called Muridke. This has a huge militant training and charity complex.
LeT’s membership is mostly Punjabi, which makes it linguistically and culturally
quite unsuited for fighting in Afghanistan. You could say that LeT is an
India-specific, Kashmir-specific group. Indeed over the years it has had many
military successes in Kashmir against Indian forces. But LeT, like other
militant groups in Pakistan, sees a nexus between Indians, Americans and
Israelis. Hence they are all seen as enemies and fair game.
Q: What did the Mumbai terrorists want?
A: No demands were made and all hostages were killed. So the purpose of the
attack was never formally declared. On the other hand, the stated goals of LeT
and similar organisations based in Pakistan leave little doubt. The attack
clearly sought to hurt India and its newly acquired reputation as an economic
powerhouse and to create a climate of war between India and Pakistan. If
Pakistan moves its troops towards the eastern border, the pressure on the
Taliban in FATA, which is close to the western border, would be lessened. Still
another reason would be to encourage pogroms against Muslims in India. This
would swell the ranks of the extremists and also have the added benefit of
destabilising both the Pakistani and Indian states. Finally, the attack was a
means of releasing hatred against non-Muslims.
Q: What
differences and parallels do you see between the Mumbai attacks and the attack
on the Marriott Hotel in Islamabad?
A: They were quite dissimilar in how they were executed. The Mumbai attacks
were extremely intricate, used GPS and voice over Internet protocols for
communication purposes, involved extensive military training and probably
required planning over a period of a year. The goal was to kill foreigners,
particularly Jews and Americans, although Muslims were also collateral
casualties. On the other hand, the Marriott bombing in Islamabad was a
relatively simple affair involving a single dump truck with a suicide bomber and
its victims were principally Muslims. The basic purpose however was similar – to
destabilise the Pakistani state, take revenge on the US (two of the 58 killed
were US marines) and raise the cost of war in Afghanistan and FATA.
Q: In the West, experts talk about a new dimension of terror in
India. Do you also see tight connections between LeT and al-Qaeda?
A: One is naturally tempted to guess a nexus between LeT and al-Qaeda. Of
course, they do share similar goals. But in the world that extremists inhabit,
mere similarity is insufficient – it has to be much closer than that and small
ideological differences are amplified out of proportion. As yet there is no
proof of joint operations or cooperation. So presently this is no more than a
plausible hypothesis.
Q: What role does
Kashmir play in the current conflict?
A: Since 1987 Kashmir has been in a state of upheaval. Fraudulent
elections conducted by India led to widespread resentment followed by a
horrifically bloody crackdown by Indian security forces. Pakistan’s army saw
opportunity in this and waged a covert war in Kashmir using jihadists to "bleed
India with a thousand cuts". The United Jihad Council, which oversees the
activities of an estimated 22 Pakistan-based organisations, acts outside of the
domain of the Pakistani state but it has had active support from the country’s
army and intelligence agencies. The Kargil conflict in 1999 brought matters to a
head when General Musharraf initiated a war with the assistance of jihadist
forces. This inflicted severe damage on Indian forces but Pakistan was
ultimately forced to withdraw. Jihadists subsequently celebrated General
Musharraf as a hero and vilified Nawaz Sharif for a cowardly surrender.
Q: In January 2002 General Musharraf had declared that no
groups on Pakistani territory would be permitted to launch cross-border attacks.
Was this promise fulfilled?
A: Subsequently, there indeed was a decline in cross-border infiltrations
and some lessening of the covert support given by Pakistani agencies. But this
was far from zero and they maintained a strong presence. On a personal note:
soon after the terrible October 8, 2005 earthquake I had gone to various areas
of Azad Kashmir for relief work. There I found the Lashkar-e-Tayyaba, Jaish-e-Mohammad,
Sipah-e-Sahaba and other banned jihadist organisations operating openly and
freely using military-style six-wheeled vehicles as well as displaying their
weapons. Their relief efforts were far better organised than that of the
Pakistan army and in fact they were pulling injured soldiers out of the rubble.
When I mentioned this fact to General Musharraf a few months later at a Kashmir
peace conference, he was very angry at me for discussing a tabooed subject.
Q: On the one hand, we have radical extremists in Pakistan who
want to bring strict Islamic law into force and demonise the West. On the other
hand however, the government presents itself as a friend and ally of the United
States. Could you please describe this antagonism and explain where it
originates from? What does this tell us about the growth of extremism in
Pakistan?
A: Radical extremism is the illegitimate offspring of a union between the
United States under Ronald Reagan and Pakistan under General Zia ul-Haq.
Twenty-five years ago the two countries had joined up to harness Islamic
fighters for expelling the Soviets from Afghanistan. The US was quite happy to
see radical Islam spreading because it served its goal at the time.
Simultaneously, Pakistan saw a major social transformation under General Zia.
Prayers in government departments were deemed compulsory, floggings were carried
out publicly, punishments were meted out to those who did not fast in Ramadan,
selection for university academic posts required that the candidate demonstrate
knowledge of Islamic teachings and jihad was declared essential for every
Muslim.
But today the government is in open conflict with the radicals. It has to
deal with a spontaneous groundswell of Islamic zeal. The notion of an Islamic
state – as yet in some amorphous and diffuse form – is more popular today than
ever before as people look desperately for miracles to rescue a failing state.
Even though the government and military in Pakistan are allied formally to the
US, the people are strongly against the US.
Q: What parts of the Pakistani society support al-Qaeda and
Osama bin Laden?
A: Balochistan and Sindh are far less supportive than Punjab or the NWFP.
The amazing fact is that parts of Pakistan’s upper class – which is very
westernised but also very anti-western – also support the Islamists. I find it
tragic that there is no uproar in the country when Taliban suicide bombers
target mosques, funerals, hospitals, girls’ schools, and slaughter policemen and
soldiers. People have become so anti-American that it has blinded them to these
atrocities. Even the Pakistani Left is thoroughly confused and mistakes the
Taliban as anti-imperialist fighters.
Q: And where do you stand on this matter? Do you see anything
that the Islamists have to offer?
A: The people of Pakistan need and deserve everything that people
everywhere else want. This means food, jobs, houses to live in, a system of
justice and governance and protection of life and property. Equally, people need
freedom of worship and thought, education for both males and females and
protection of their freedom as summarised in the Universal Declaration of Human
Rights. These are everybody’s primary needs. After this – a distinct second –
come matters that deal with national sovereignty, foreign policy, various global
issues, etc.
Frankly, I cannot see Pakistan’s Islamists offering anything positive. They
are against population planning, educating females, tolerating other sects or
religions, etc. They neither know the outside world nor want to know it. All
they know – and know well – is how to make war. Fortunately, as their rout in
the recent elections showed, most Pakistanis do not want to live under their
narrow doctrines and belief system.
Q: President Asif Ali Zardari promised to hunt terrorists and
to destroy terror camps in Pakistan. But his affirmations seem to be
half-hearted. Can’t he do more or doesn’t he want do more?
A: It is not up to him to do more. The real power lies with the
Pakistan army which is still undecided as to who the real enemy is. The army has
lost nearly 2,000 soldiers in battles with extremists. But it still cannot
convince itself that they constitute an existentialist threat to Pakistan. One
can understand this reluctance. Over the years, officers and soldiers were
recruited into the army on the basis that they were defenders of Islam and would
always fight India. Instead, they now have to fight forces that claim to be even
better defenders of Islam. Worse, they are no longer being called upon to fight
India, which is what they were trained for. So there is confusion and
demoralisation and practically zero public understanding or support. Therefore
Pakistani soldiers are not fighting well at all in FATA. Many have surrendered
without a fight.
Q: How do you feel
about Pakistan’s war against the extremists? Will it succeed?
A: This is the first time in my life that I feel the army should be
supported but only to the extent that it fights the extremists without killing
innocents. Unfortunately, the army’s current tactic is to flatten villages
suspected of harbouring terrorists. The collateral damage is huge and completely
unacceptable. To succeed, the government will have to create a national
consensus against terrorism. As yet this does not exist.
Q: Pakistan has armed and financed the Taliban after the US
invasion of Afghanistan. The CIA pays Pakistan to arrest al-Qaeda operatives but
Pakistan uses the money to fund the Taliban resurgence in North-west Pakistan.
Any changes under the new president?
A: It will take time – and perhaps still more suffering – to kick an
old habit. Even though the army is being literally slaughtered by the Taliban,
it continues to make a distinction between the "good" and "bad" Taliban. The
good ones are by definition those who attack only US/NATO or Indian interests in
Afghanistan but do not attack the Pakistan army. The good ones are seen as
essential for having a friendly Afghanistan when, as will surely happen some
day, the Americans withdraw. Among the good Taliban are jihadist leaders such as
Jalaluddin Haqqani. On the other hand, Baitullah Mehsud or Maulana Fazlullah are
considered bad Taliban because they attack the army and the state.
Interestingly, army-inspired propaganda paints the bad Taliban as Indian agents
– which is quite ridiculous. This false differentiation is the real reason for
the army’s ambivalence and inability to deal effectively with the Taliban
menace.
Q: Pakistan is a nuclear state. Should we fear that one day the
Taliban or al-Qaeda could get access to the nuclear arsenal?
A: I am more worried about extremists having access to nuclear
materials, particularly highly enriched uranium, rather than a completed weapon.
Because of secrecy requirements it is very difficult for outsiders to monitor
the output of uranium enrichment or plutonium reprocessing plants.
Interestingly, we are seeing a shift away from nuclear weapons in the West.
The un-usability of nuclear weapons by national states is being recognised even
by mainstream politicians in the US and Europe because they no longer guarantee
the monopoly of power. This makes possible the ultimate delegitimisation of
nuclear weapons and hence winding down of fissile material production globally.
This may be our best long-term hope of countering the nuclear terrorist threat
whether by al-Qaeda or other terrorist groups. Meanwhile, in the short term,
great care must be given to watching over suspicious nuclear activities.
Q: What should India do and what is your forecast for the
region?
A: India should not attack Pakistan. This would be counterproductive
in every possible way. Even if it wins a war, it will be a pyrrhic victory. On
the other hand, a small attack can be no more than a pinprick. This would do
more harm than good because it will unite the army and the jihadists who, at
this juncture in history, are in serious confrontation with each other. Worse,
even a small attack could lead to large response and then escalate out of
control. Nuclear-armed countries simply cannot afford skirmishes. I think
India’s demand for action against jihadist groups is entirely legitimate but
this must be done by Pakistan which is susceptible to international pressure. To
get rid of militants and extremists – whether Muslim or Hindu – is in the best
interests of both Pakistan and India.
Q: Will Pakistani extremists win or can the West still bring
about a rebound?
A: It’s a grim situation but not irreversible. The invasion of Iraq,
and US imperial policies over the last decades, created a hatred for Americans
that ultimately translated into support for all who fight them. Most Pakistanis
do not approve of the Taliban’s fundamental and primitivist social agenda. But
by virtue of fighting the Americans popular sentiment is still with them. So
reducing anti-Americanism is the key. One hopes that Barack Obama will be able
to undo some of the harm his country did to Pakistan. Let’s see.
But basically it is for Pakistanis – not Indians or anybody else – to fight
it out. We Pakistanis have to realise that this is a war for our very existence
as a civilised nation. Western support for Pakistan must be very judicious and
not too overt. Similarly, isolating Pakistan or inflicting harsh punitive
measures could easily backfire. The Taliban and allied extremists have a real
chance of winning in Pakistan. The state is already crumbling in places such as
the NWFP. It could disintegrate elsewhere quite rapidly and leave the fanatics
in charge. One cannot think of a bigger disaster for Pakistan.
(Cristina Otten is with Focus, a German magazine and news portal. This
interview was originally published in German on focus.de on
December 12, 2008.)
Courtesy: www.chowk.com |
|