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BRIDGING THE
SOUTH ASIAN DIVIDE
Grins and grimaces
By Syed Saleem Shahzad
KARACHI - Ever since Pakistan made an about-turn
in its support of the Taliban in Afghanistan two years
ago and threw in its lot with the United States, far
from gaining strategic ground in the region as a result,
Islamabad appears to be increasingly on the back foot.
The breakthrough announcement at the end of the
South Asian Association for Regional Cooperation (SAARC)
summit in Islamabad on Tuesday that India and Pakistan
would hold talks next month on Kashmir - over which the
countries have fought two wars - has been met in some
Pakistani policy-making circles not with pleasure, but
with extreme concern.
These elements believe
that Pakistan is being steadily forced into a corner by
the United States, with India directly benefiting as a
result, and they warn that far from being euphoric over
the latest developments, the world should not expect any
settlement over Kashmir in the near or even distant
future.
Amid all the confidence-building
measures that have been announced between Pakistan and
India over the past few months, including a ceasefire in
Kashmir and resumption of travel and sporting links, the
chief mover behind the scenes, the US, has assured
Islamabad that it will gain from the initiatives. But
many among the brains trust of President General Pervez
Musharraf are convinced that Pakistan's honeymoon period
as a partner in the "war on terror" is over, and it is
now being dealt with as the "naughty boy" of the region.
The disgruntled point to US pressure to
close military training camps in Pakistan-administered
Kashmir - important springboards for cross-border militancy
into India, disclosure of Pakistan's support of guerrillas
in Afghanistan, and the recent evidence that firmly
links Pakistan to Iran's nuclear development program.
All of these developments served to keep
Pakistan on the defensive, severely rattling the
administration in the process. It was in this
environment, with Pakistan vulnerable, that India
applied the screws.
Last week, shortly before
the start of the SAARC summit, the Indian prime
minister's national security advisor, Brajesh Mishra,
visited Islamabad for meetings with Musharraf, Vice
Chief of Army Staff General Mohammad Yusuf, and the
director-general of the Inter-Services Intelligence,
Lieutenant-General Ehsan ul-Haq. Mishra successfully
pressed on the Pakistanis that during the summit and
during the sideline meetings between the top leadership
of the two countries, the Kashmir issue "would not go
beyond the Line of Control". Meaning, Pakistan would not
talk about the right of self-determination of Kashmiris,
and the Line of Control, which divides the two disputed
sections of Kashmir, would, until a lasting formula is
agreed on, serve as the international border. It was
also agreed that the two sides would only talk about
confidence-building measures. Pakistan agreed, and this
is how events panned out.
Agreements
made under pressure, however, have a habit of being broken
as the element of goodwill is absent, compounded, in this
case, by Pakistan's perception that it is being pushed
harder up against the wall.
Tale of two
assassination attempts
Some months ago, a few
weeks after the US issued a clear warning to Pakistan to
back out of its support of the guerrillas in
Afghanistan, the US presented Pakistani authorities with
a list of 23 Pakistani scientists said to have assisted
Iran in its nuclear program. The details were
comprehensive, including names and travel records. The
International Atomic Energy Agency revealed recently
that Iran's sensitive uranium enrichment program had
been facilitated with Pakistani connivance about 16
years ago.
As a result, several of Pakistan's
retired and serving atomic scientists were investigated
by the US Federal Bureau of Investigation, including the
father of Pakistan's atomic program, Dr Abd al-Qadir
Khan.
This development once again
rattled Pakistan's decision-makers, and it was at this
time that they developed a plan to stage-manage an
attempt on Musharraf's life (December 14) to disseminate
the message that "extremist elements" were out of
control because of the US presence and influence in the
country and Musharraf's support for Washington. (See Assassination 'windfall' for Musharraf
of December 19)
In an ironic
twist, though, another, and apparently real, attempt was
made on Musharraf's life on December 26. A federal
minister very close to the president told this
correspondent on the condition of anonymity that the
second attempt was totally unexpected, and highly
sophisticated.
Investigations into this attack
were conducted jointly by Pakistani civil and military
agencies, and they concluded that a few Afghan and
Pakistanis were involved. Further, they maintain that
the conspiracy was planned by Afghan and Indian
intelligence agencies using a renegade faction of the
banned militant group Jaish-i-Mohammed as a front.
According to the minister, the leader of the faction,
Maulana Abdul Jabbar, was already under detention when
the attempt on the life of Musharraf was made.
The minister adds that Pakistan avoided pointing
a finger at India as the SAARC summit was imminent, but
now that the event is over, reaction, and even
retaliation, has not been ruled out.
(Copyright
2004 Asia Times Online Ltd. All rights reserved. Please
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