BY IRFAN HUSAIN
Even in my remote bit of paradise, news of distant disasters
filters through: above the steady sound of
waves breaking on the sandy beach in Sri Lanka, I was informed by several news
channels about the sickening attacks on Mumbai. My Internet connection is
erratic and slow but nevertheless I have been bombarded with emails asking me
for my take on this latest atrocity.
Over the last few years I have travelled to several countries
across four continents. Everywhere I go, I am asked why Pakistan is now the
focal point of Islamic extremism and terrorism and why successive governments
have allowed this cancer to fester and grow. As a Pakistani, it is obviously
embarrassing to be put on the spot but I can see why people everywhere are
concerned. In virtually every Islamic terrorist plot, whether it is successful
or not, there is a Pakistani angle. Often foreign terrorists have trained at
camps in the tribal areas; others have been brainwashed in madrassas; and many
more have been radicalised by the poisonous teachings of so-called religious
leaders.
Madeleine Albright, the ex-US secretary of state, has called
Pakistan ‘an international migraine’, saying it was a cause for global concern,
as it had nuclear weapons, terrorism, religious extremists, corruption, extreme
poverty and was located in a very important part of the world. While none of
this makes pleasant reading for a Pakistani, Ms Albright’s summation is hard to
refute. Often the truth is painful but most Pakistanis refuse to see it. Instead
of confronting reality, we are in a permanent state of denial. This ostrich-like
posture has made things even worse.
Most Pakistanis, when presented with the fact that our country
is now the breeding ground for the most violent ideologies and the most vicious
gangs of thugs who kill in the name of religion, go back in history to explain
and justify their presence in our country. They refer to the Afghan war and the
creation of an army of holy warriors to fight the Soviets in Afghanistan. Then
they go on to complain that the Americans quit the region soon after the Soviets
did, leaving us saddled with the problem of jihadi fighters from all over the
Muslim world camped on our soil.
What we conveniently forget is that for most of the last two
decades the army and the Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI) used these very
jihadis to further their agenda in Kashmir and Afghanistan. This long official
link has given various terror groups legitimacy and a domestic base that has now
come to haunt us. Another aspect to this problem is the support these extremists
enjoy among conservative Pakistani and Arab donors. Claiming they are fighting
for Islamic causes, they attract significant amounts from Muslim businessmen
here and abroad. And almost certainly they also benefited from official Saudi
largesse until 9/11.
Now that government policy is to distance itself from these
jihadis we find that many retired army officers have continued to train them in
camps being run in many parts of Pakistan. A few weeks ago Shaikh Rashid Ahmad,
a prominent (and very loud) minister under both Nawaz Sharif and Musharraf,
openly boasted on TV of running a camp for Kashmiri fighters on his own land
just outside Rawalpindi a few years ago. If such camps can be set up a few miles
from army headquarters, what’s to stop them from operating in remote areas?
Many foreign and local journalists have exposed aspects of the
terror network that has long flourished in Pakistan. Names, dates and addresses
have been published and broadcast. But each allegation has been met with a
brazen denial from every level of officialdom. Just as we denied the existence
of our nuclear weapons programme for years, so too do we refuse to accept the
presence of extremist terrorists.
For years it suited the army and the ISI to secretly harbour and
support these groups in Pakistan, Kashmir and Afghanistan. While officially
denying that they had anything to do with these jihadis, money and arms from
secret sources would reach them regularly. Despite our spooks maintaining
plausible deniability, enough information about this covert support for jihadis
has emerged for the fig leaf to slip. And even if the intelligence community has
now cut its links with these terrorists, the genie is out of the bottle.
Each time an atrocity like Mumbai occurs, and Pakistan is
accused of being involved, the defensive mantra chanted by the chorus of
official spokesmen is: "Show us the proof". The reality is that in terrorist
operations planned in secret there is not much of a paper trail left behind.
Nine times out of ten the perpetrators do not survive to give evidence before a
court. But in this case one terrorist did survive and Ajmal Amir Kasab’s story
points to Lashkar-e-Tayyaba. The sophistication of the attack is testimony to
careful planning and rigorous training.
This was no hit-and-run operation but was intended to cause the
maximum loss of life.
Pakistan’s foreign minister said that Pakistan too is a victim
of terrorism. While this is certainly true, the rest of the world wants to know
whey we aren’t doing more to root out the training camps and lock up those
involved. Given the vast unaudited amounts from the exchequer that sundry
intelligence agencies lay claim to, their failure to be more effective against
internal terrorism is either a sign of incompetence or of criminal collusion.
Benazir Bhutto’s murder, after an earlier attempt and many warnings, is a
reminder of how poorly we are served by our intelligence agencies.
And while the diplomatic fallout from the Mumbai attack spreads
and threatens to escalate into an armed confrontation, the biggest winners are
those who carried out the butchery of so many innocent people. It is to their
advantage to prevent India and Pakistan from coordinating their fight against
terrorism. Tension between the two neighbours suits them while peace and
cooperation threatens their very existence.
The world is naturally concerned about the danger posed by these
terror groups to other countries. However, the biggest threat they pose is to
Pakistan itself. Until Pakistanis grasp this brutal reality and muster up the
resolve necessary to crush them, these killers will tear the country apart. n
(Irfan Husain, a former Pakistani civil servant, is a well-known
commentator in the Pakistani press. This article was published on the Dawn’s
Internet edition on December 3, 2008.)
Courtesy: Dawn – the Internet Edition; www.dawn.com
