In the eye of the storm after BRICs summit
However, Pakistan’s euphoria over Chinese and Russian praise and support soon received a jolt
The writer is a senior ex-serviceman with a wide experience of operations, intelligence, counter terrorism, counter insurgency and military diplomacy at national and international levels. He can be reached at nsc142@gmail.com
Western leaders have largely supported the US contention that Pakistan is not doing ‘enough’ against terrorism and is granting safe haven to extremist entities on its soil, as articulated by US President Donald Trump in his new Afghanistan policy. And when China and Russia rushed to debunk the US allegations and instead praised Pakistan’s stand, Islamabad saw this as a vindication of its viewpoint on ending the decades-long turmoil in southwest Asia.
However, Pakistan’s euphoria over Chinese and Russian praise and support soon received a jolt. This came in the form of a joint declaration during the 9th BRICS summit in Xiamen, China. The joint declaration addressed the matter of terrorism in Afghanistan and the region by stating: “We, in this regard, express concern on the security situation in the region and violence caused by the Taliban, ISIL/Da’ish, al Qaeda and its affiliates including Eastern Turkistan Islamic Movement (ETIM), Islamic Movement of Uzbekistan (IMU), the Haqqani Network, Lashkar-e-Taiba (LeT), Jaish-e-Mohammad (JeM), TTP and Hizbut Tahrir.” It also affirmed the need to hold accountable all those responsible for acts of terrorism.
Such a joint declaration at the international level is in fact an indictment of Pakistan’s stance on terrorism. The fact that China, its pivotal ally, has signed this declaration only adds insult to injury. The naming of the Haqqani Network, LeT and JeM is a clear denunciation of Pakistan. This is a far cry from Beijing’s recent move to block on technical grounds Indian attempts to have JeM chief Masood Azhar included in the UN terror black list.
It is also important to compare last year’s BRICS summit in Goa, where no listing of terrorist organisations was done and discussion on terrorism was kept broad, and this year’s summit in Xiamen. In this comparison, Pakistan should perhaps note the timing of the withdrawal of Indian troops from Doklam prior to the arrival of Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi for the summit. The 9th BRICS summit has now sent a message to Pakistan, whether we accept it or not.
The Foreign Office (FO) said in response that Pakistan too is seriously concerned about the threat posed by terrorism and extremism in the South Asian region. It also stated that the ‘ungoverned spaces’ in Afghanistan are the reason for terrorist entities operating from there. Defence Minister Khurram Dastgir told the National Assembly’s Standing Committee on Defence that there are no terrorist safe havens on Pakistani territory.
The Pakistani response is moribund and hackneyed. This has been the stance since the 1979 Soviet intervention and has been stressed even more after the Geneva Accord of 1988 and the US invasion of Afghanistan in 2001. Nobody in the East and West seems to have subscribed to the Pakistani stance and narrative. Why? Our policymakers, civil and military, need to realistically reassess where Pakistan stands today.
Against this backdrop, a surprisingly perplexing jurisdiction issue has stymied the recent discussion on the Anti-Extremism Bill in the National Assembly. The lower house has been unable to decide whether defence or interior ministries have to undertake it. After so much ‘blood’ has flown under the bridge, the discussion remains stuck over on who has to handle terrorism! It is no wonder then that the world looks at Pakistan in amazement and disbelief. And then to continuously remind the nation of the over 60,000 deaths in the war against terror, while still not deciding who has to deal with why they were killed, is a sorry state of affairs.
The National Action Plan (NAP) was drawn up after the Peshawar school massacre of December 2014. It had 20 points unanimously approved by all political parties. Only points like fighting militants, military courts, finishing moratorium on execution, some work on registering Afghan refugees and return of IDPs have been achieved. Basically all the points on which it was the responsibility of the Pakistan Armed Forces to act. The rest of the 16 points which the government and parliament had to undertake through legislation, governance, financial oversight, justice, Federally Administered Tribal Area (Fata) reforms, madrassa regulation, peace in Karachi, operations in Punjab and many more, may take another 16 years because of the rate selective seriousness is being shown at the political level.
The National Counter-Terrorism Authority (Nacta) is the lynchpin of our anti-terrorism policy. It is also point number four in the NAP. What Nacta has done or wants to do remains a mystery. A 94-page National Internal Security Plan (NISP) 2014 -2018 has been put on the Nacta website. The year 2017 is ending and what happened to NISP on the ground is anybody’s guess.
The FO has blamed Afghanistan’s ungoverned spaces as harbouring terrorist entities. That is a fact and should never be overlooked while analysing the US’s lost war there. However, Fata, Pakistan’s notorious ungoverned space with its porous border, is still not amalgamated with the rest of the country — because a political decision has yet to be taken by the central government. And in Balochistan, most of its districts have been converted back into ‘B’ areas from ‘A’ areas. A regressive step taken by the provincial government as it did not suit the feudal sardars to have regular police deployed in their areas. Punjab also has a vast tribal area in D G Khan. All these areas of Pakistan constitute ‘ungoverned spaces’ and are secure areas for criminals, narco traffickers, weapon smugglers, militants and terrorists of all hues. But we cannot decide under whose jurisdiction their governance falls.
For a country beset with terrorism, Pakistan has yet to define it. The anti-terrorism courts are besieged by cases, which are basically of criminal nature and should be heard in normal courts. Even traffic accidents land up in anti-terrorist courts. The Anti-terrorism Act is used to coerce political opponents, while terrorists are not tried or land up in regular courts. This process has resulted in the armed forces wasting efforts on policing duties to catch criminals dubbed terrorists or militants. The police and civil administration conveniently palm off murder, dacoity and civil disorder as terrorist acts to avoid responsibility. The military courts, which were initially established for two years, are still functioning because normal judicial reach has not been strengthened.
Pakistan should now consider itself on a ‘terrorism watch’ from both the US and China (through Brics). The regional geopolitical environment of the late 1970s to 1990s has now changed significantly. The prevalent environment will not allow space for vague attempts to curb terrorist entities. One Belt, One Road and the China-Pakistan Economic Corridor have raised the anti-terrorism stakes for China and it has sent a message. How Pakistan fixes the anti-terrorism narrative is now up to itself; and the clock is ticking.
Published in The Express Tribune, September 12th, 2017.
However, Pakistan’s euphoria over Chinese and Russian praise and support soon received a jolt. This came in the form of a joint declaration during the 9th BRICS summit in Xiamen, China. The joint declaration addressed the matter of terrorism in Afghanistan and the region by stating: “We, in this regard, express concern on the security situation in the region and violence caused by the Taliban, ISIL/Da’ish, al Qaeda and its affiliates including Eastern Turkistan Islamic Movement (ETIM), Islamic Movement of Uzbekistan (IMU), the Haqqani Network, Lashkar-e-Taiba (LeT), Jaish-e-Mohammad (JeM), TTP and Hizbut Tahrir.” It also affirmed the need to hold accountable all those responsible for acts of terrorism.
Such a joint declaration at the international level is in fact an indictment of Pakistan’s stance on terrorism. The fact that China, its pivotal ally, has signed this declaration only adds insult to injury. The naming of the Haqqani Network, LeT and JeM is a clear denunciation of Pakistan. This is a far cry from Beijing’s recent move to block on technical grounds Indian attempts to have JeM chief Masood Azhar included in the UN terror black list.
It is also important to compare last year’s BRICS summit in Goa, where no listing of terrorist organisations was done and discussion on terrorism was kept broad, and this year’s summit in Xiamen. In this comparison, Pakistan should perhaps note the timing of the withdrawal of Indian troops from Doklam prior to the arrival of Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi for the summit. The 9th BRICS summit has now sent a message to Pakistan, whether we accept it or not.
The Foreign Office (FO) said in response that Pakistan too is seriously concerned about the threat posed by terrorism and extremism in the South Asian region. It also stated that the ‘ungoverned spaces’ in Afghanistan are the reason for terrorist entities operating from there. Defence Minister Khurram Dastgir told the National Assembly’s Standing Committee on Defence that there are no terrorist safe havens on Pakistani territory.
The Pakistani response is moribund and hackneyed. This has been the stance since the 1979 Soviet intervention and has been stressed even more after the Geneva Accord of 1988 and the US invasion of Afghanistan in 2001. Nobody in the East and West seems to have subscribed to the Pakistani stance and narrative. Why? Our policymakers, civil and military, need to realistically reassess where Pakistan stands today.
Against this backdrop, a surprisingly perplexing jurisdiction issue has stymied the recent discussion on the Anti-Extremism Bill in the National Assembly. The lower house has been unable to decide whether defence or interior ministries have to undertake it. After so much ‘blood’ has flown under the bridge, the discussion remains stuck over on who has to handle terrorism! It is no wonder then that the world looks at Pakistan in amazement and disbelief. And then to continuously remind the nation of the over 60,000 deaths in the war against terror, while still not deciding who has to deal with why they were killed, is a sorry state of affairs.
The National Action Plan (NAP) was drawn up after the Peshawar school massacre of December 2014. It had 20 points unanimously approved by all political parties. Only points like fighting militants, military courts, finishing moratorium on execution, some work on registering Afghan refugees and return of IDPs have been achieved. Basically all the points on which it was the responsibility of the Pakistan Armed Forces to act. The rest of the 16 points which the government and parliament had to undertake through legislation, governance, financial oversight, justice, Federally Administered Tribal Area (Fata) reforms, madrassa regulation, peace in Karachi, operations in Punjab and many more, may take another 16 years because of the rate selective seriousness is being shown at the political level.
The National Counter-Terrorism Authority (Nacta) is the lynchpin of our anti-terrorism policy. It is also point number four in the NAP. What Nacta has done or wants to do remains a mystery. A 94-page National Internal Security Plan (NISP) 2014 -2018 has been put on the Nacta website. The year 2017 is ending and what happened to NISP on the ground is anybody’s guess.
The FO has blamed Afghanistan’s ungoverned spaces as harbouring terrorist entities. That is a fact and should never be overlooked while analysing the US’s lost war there. However, Fata, Pakistan’s notorious ungoverned space with its porous border, is still not amalgamated with the rest of the country — because a political decision has yet to be taken by the central government. And in Balochistan, most of its districts have been converted back into ‘B’ areas from ‘A’ areas. A regressive step taken by the provincial government as it did not suit the feudal sardars to have regular police deployed in their areas. Punjab also has a vast tribal area in D G Khan. All these areas of Pakistan constitute ‘ungoverned spaces’ and are secure areas for criminals, narco traffickers, weapon smugglers, militants and terrorists of all hues. But we cannot decide under whose jurisdiction their governance falls.
For a country beset with terrorism, Pakistan has yet to define it. The anti-terrorism courts are besieged by cases, which are basically of criminal nature and should be heard in normal courts. Even traffic accidents land up in anti-terrorist courts. The Anti-terrorism Act is used to coerce political opponents, while terrorists are not tried or land up in regular courts. This process has resulted in the armed forces wasting efforts on policing duties to catch criminals dubbed terrorists or militants. The police and civil administration conveniently palm off murder, dacoity and civil disorder as terrorist acts to avoid responsibility. The military courts, which were initially established for two years, are still functioning because normal judicial reach has not been strengthened.
Pakistan should now consider itself on a ‘terrorism watch’ from both the US and China (through Brics). The regional geopolitical environment of the late 1970s to 1990s has now changed significantly. The prevalent environment will not allow space for vague attempts to curb terrorist entities. One Belt, One Road and the China-Pakistan Economic Corridor have raised the anti-terrorism stakes for China and it has sent a message. How Pakistan fixes the anti-terrorism narrative is now up to itself; and the clock is ticking.
Published in The Express Tribune, September 12th, 2017.