Pakistan
Must Change as Jihadi Option is a Lose-Lose Policy
By
Husain Haqqani
PAKISTAN
authorities have launched another crackdown against militant Islamist
groups in the country. Three militant groups were banned in mid-November,
and another three were banned the next week. Their offices have
been sealed and over 100 pro-Taliban activists have been detained.
Another extremist group that advocates holy war against India
and has made anti-US statements has been put on watch. But these
steps, taken under American diplomatic pressure, are unlikely
to end the troublesome relationship between Pakistani officials
and Islamist militants.
Pakistan has announced similar measures
before, only to backtrack and allow banned groups to reorganize
under new names. The groups banned in mid-November were reconstituted
and renamed versions of groups banned in January 2002 amid much
publicity. Then, as now, offices of banned militant organizations
were sealed without making a difference to their activities. After
adopting new names, they simply rented new office space.
This
time around, the number of detained activists is far less than
the 1,400 detained last year. But like last time, the detained
militants are being released after signing bonds that they will
no longer engage in terrorism -- hardly a deterrent for trained
terrorists. The bank accounts of the banned organizations have
also been seized, though, as in the past, none of them is likely
to have more than a few hundred rupees in them.
Most
of the resources for these terrorist organizations are kept in
the accounts of individuals or in assets that can be easily hidden
in Pakistan's undocumented economy. There is no guarantee that
the adherents of jihadi ideology will not create new organizations,
which will be available to the government for banning again in
another few years.
Islamic
militancy came to Pakistan in the wake of the US-backed jihad
against the Soviet Union in Afghanistan. Pakistan subsequently
manipulated jihadi ideology to influence Afghanistan and to pursue
Pakistan's traditional rivalry with its much larger and more powerful
neighbor, India. Although Gen. Pervez Musharraf declared his intention
to change that policy after Sept. 11, in return for a renewal
of Pakistan's alliance with the United States, he and his colleagues
in the military still do not seem to see the Islamist militants
as a force inimical to Pakistan's interest.
They are instead seen as "freedom fighters" seeking
to wrest Kashmir from Indian control. Gen. Musharraf considers
Pakistan's cooperation with the United States in arresting leading
al Qaeda members as sufficient payback for close ties with the
US Almost every action taken by Pakistan against its own militants
has been initiated reluctantly and only in response to international,
especially American, pressure.
That Gen. Musharraf's government
is not committed to rooting out militancy can be judged by the
difference in its treatment of the jihadis, on the one hand, and
the regime's political opponents on the other. Gen. Musharraf
has sought to keep former Prime Ministers Nawaz Sharif and Benazir
Bhutto, both of whom he considers incompetent and corrupt, out
of the country's political process. Both are in exile and cannot
return without risk of arrest. In the case of Mr. Sharif, a guarantee
has been obtained from the Saudi Arabian government to ensure
that he will not return to Pakistan.
The
Pakistani government has spent vast sums of money over the last
several years to fruitlessly prosecute Ms. Bhutto on corruption
charges. No conviction has been sustained. Gen Musharraf's secret
service has engineered a split in both Mr. Sharif's Pakistan Muslim
League and Ms. Bhutto's Pakistan People's Party. No judge has
been able to provide relief to those politicians disqualified
from politics by the military.
Recently, Javed Hashmi, leader of the secular Alliance for Restoration
of Democracy, was whisked away from parliament and held incommunicado
for several days before being charged with sedition. His crime
was to tell a press conference that junior officers of the Pakistani
army were unhappy with Gen. Musharraf and had been writing letters
to the opposition disassociating themselves from their commander's
policies. The politicians are clearly treated as the enemy by
Pakistan's generals while the Islamist militants are not.
The US must make it clear to Gen.
Musharraf that it is not willing to accept any duality in Pakistan's
policies in the war against terrorism. Pakistani policy makers
may have got away with support and tolerance for Islamist militants
before Sept. 11, but the new situation requires a complete abandonment
of this tolerance. The international diplomatic, media and intelligence
focus on Pakistan is simply too great for Pakistan to be able
to pursue contradictory policies in the hope of slipping under
the world's radar.
Moreover, Pakistan's "betrayal"
of the Taliban in Afghanistan has made the jihadis aware of their
need for caution when depending on governments they do not control.
Though Pakistan's rulers might want to hold the jihadis in reserve
for another thrust in Kashmir or for influence in Afghanistan,
the jihadis themselves would not refrain from attacks inside Pakistan
or against Pakistan's allies such as the United States. Pakistan
could lose the friendship of the US and risk further deterioration
in its relations with India. It would still have no control over
the agenda or policies of the Islamist militants and terrorists.
The Musharraf government must openly
acknowledge that the jihadi option is a lose-lose policy. The
entire paraphernalia that goes with jihadist doctrine in Pakistan
-- an educational system based on hatred, the promotion of xenophobic
nationalism, the demonization of democratic politics and the insistence
on the ascendancy of the military -- must be brought to an end.
Gen. Musharraf has yet to demonstrate that his revulsion for militancy
and terrorism is at least as strong as his dislike for patronage
politics under Pakistan's admittedly flawed democracy.
The
writer is a visiting scholar at the Carnegie Endowment for International
Peace in Washington. This piece appeared in the Wall Street Journal
recently.
