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Pakistan the odd one
out
By Syed Saleem Shahzad
KARACHI - With Israeli Prime Minister Ariel
Sharon and his Indian counterpart Atal Bihari Vajpayee
agreeing in their condemnation of terrorism, elements
within the Pakistani intelligence and security apparatus
see the two as part of an unholy alliance, and a threat
to Pakistani interests, especially in Indian-held
Kashmir.
This comes at a time when Pakistani
President General Pervez Musharraf is under US pressure
to improve relations with India, as well as to establish
diplomatic ties with Israel.
Sources in
Pakistan's strategic quarters told Asia Times Online
that initially the foreign office was encouraged to
react cautiously to the new Indian-Israeli warmth
following Sharon's visit to India last week, even though
it could be detrimental to Pakistan's interests.
However, the Strategic and Planning Department,
which comprises army officers and which was established
to safeguard national interests and keep a vigilant eye
on departments like the foreign office, then stepped
forward and instructed foreign affairs on how to
respond. Consequently, the foreign office issued a
strongly-worded protest, terming the India-Israel
alliance as Yahood-o-Honoud (Judia-Hindu) and
against Pakistan's interests.
The India-Israel
nexus, however, is not a new development. Israeli
intelligence has consulted with India ever since Hamas
and Islamic Jihad recruits trained in Afghanistan during
the Taliban days, when Pakistan's Inter-Services
Intelligence (ISI) had complete influence in that
country, as well as orchestrating the Kashmiri struggle.
However, the situation has changed completely in
Afghanistan following Musharraf's reversal of support,
under US pressure, of the Taliban, and even in Kashmir,
overtly at least, the ISI has had to back away from
supporting militants in the Kashmir struggle.
Nowadays, after US and French intelligence
agencies, Israeli and Indian intelligence have the
biggest presence in Afghanistan. Israel, reportedly
through Mossad, has established indirect contact with
Kabul, and both countries are secretly making trade
deals and cooperating in various fields.
According to Pakistani security sources, Israel
and India aim to further their aims on Pakistan's
western border with Afghanistan. Under the guise of
non-governmental organizations, they are coordinating
with Pakistani Pashtun nationalists and providing them
with resources to promote the idea of a "Pashtun land"
and revive the contentious issue of the Durand Line.
This revolves around the so-called Durand Line,
named after a British colonial official, that marks the
present day border between Pakistan and Afghanistan. The
present-day Afghan government says that the agreement
reached between their King Abdur Rahman Khan and British
colonial official Sir Henry Mortimer Durand in 1893 was
for 100 years only, and expired in 1993. The Afghans are
now asking the US to renegotiate the border, and some
Afghan officials have already issued a new map that
shows such major Pakistani cities as Peshawar and Quetta
in Afghanistan.
The issue has already caused
several skirmishes between Pakistan and Afghanistan and
has forced the US to form a tripartite commission to
resolve border disputes between its two allies. The
commission, which also includes the US, has already held
three meetings and officials in Washington say that they
expect the Durand Line issue also to dominate the fourth
meeting, scheduled this month in Rawalpindi.
In
the previous meetings the US administration made it
clear to both sides that it has no desire to get
involved in re-negotiating a deal made more than a 100
years ago between Afghanistan and Britain. In its last
meeting, the tripartite commission asked its
sub-committee to continue with deliberations on
proposals to sort out disputes over some border posts.
The commission also established a hotline between
Pakistan and Afghanistan to prevent further armed
clashes between the two countries. The hotline also
allows the two US allies to stay in touch with US
military officials based in the region.
But
apparently Afghanistan wants more. The sources say that
Kabul has officially asked the US to use its influence
on Pakistan to force it to re-demarcate the Durand Line.
Islamabad, however, has already rejected this demand,
saying that the Durand Line is a settled issue and it
has no desire to reopen it. Informally, Pakistani
officials are believed to have complained to the US that
they believe India is using its influence on the
Northern Alliance, which dominates the present
government in Kabul and has close ties to New Delhi, to
revive an old and settled issue.
The heart of
the problem is that the Durand Line runs through the
middle of the lands of the most important eastern Afghan
Pashtun tribes, and since the line was drawn, these
eastern Pashtun have resolutely refused to recognize it.
The Pashtun are divided into more than 60 clans, all
speaking the common Pashto language. They number some
12.5 million in Afghanistan, where the major clans are
the Durrani and Ghilzai, and 14 million in Pakistan. In
Pakistan, Pashto speakers are only 8 percent of the
population of 145 million, which is otherwise dominated
by Punjabis and four lesser ethnic groups. In
Afghanistan, however, with a population of barely 26
million, the Pashtun constitute nearly half and
naturally dominate Afghan affairs.
No Afghan
regime after 1893, even the Taliban, has accepted the
validity of the Durand Line. But Pakistan - formed out
of old British India in 1947 - has always sought to make
it permanent while trying to keep the problem at arm's
length. The fact that 14 million Pashtun inhabit western
Pakistan is why Pakistan has tolerated the "Free" Tribal
area west of Peshawar. This fact also explains why
Islamabad always enjoyed better relations with the
southeastern Kandahari Pashtuns, who are fewer and had
not suffered at all from the 1893 map-making.
Pakistan continued its "arm's length" policy by
putting the Federally Administered Tribal Agency (FATA),
as the Pashtun-inhabited border area with Afghanistan is
identified in Pakistan, under the direct control of the
central government. Frontier regulations stipulated that
the clans could retain their own legal order, with
elders' councils and local jirgas (courts), as
well as the practice of going to war to resolve tribal
feuds over land and livestock. There remain to this day
places in FATA where general tribal law is in force.
Now Asia Times Online has learned that in the
past few months the Indian-Israel nexus has been
operating in Kandahar and Jalalabad in Afghanistan, from
where it has activated nationalist elements on the
Pakistani side of the Durand Line to question the
validity of this border.
On the Kashmiri front,
meanwhile, under US pressure, Pakistan's cooling in
support of militants has affected their morale, while
the split in the Hurriyat Conference, an umbrella
grouping of 25 secessionist Kashmiri groups, is also a
political setback and will weaken Pakistan's grip on
events in the disputed area. In this environment, if
Israel provides India with technical and intelligence
assistance to combat Kashmiri militancy, it would be a
further setback for Pakistan.
Thus the wheel has
turned against the ISI. Afghanistan is now an open
playing field for Indian and Israeli intelligence, but a
prohibited area for the ISI. As is Kashmir. The
situation is reaching a stage where Pakistan will have
to take a decisive step - complete surrender or an open
fight.
(Copyright 2003 Asia Times Online Co,
Ltd. All rights reserved. Please contact content@atimes.com for
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