Asia Times: Pakistan's under-fire Islamist groups bide their time


	December 5, 2001	atimes.com

India/Pakistan

Pakistan's under-fire Islamist groups bide their time
By Muddassir Rizvi

ISLAMABAD - A three-year jail sentence recently handed down to the chief pro-Taliban jihad campaigner in the north-western tribal district of Pakistan was a clear message by the military government to hardline Islamist groups that it is bent on tackling religious extremism.

Pakistani border forces were quick to arrest Sufi Mohammad in November when he entered Pakistan after the Taliban retreat earlier in the month. Sufi, head of the Tehrik Nifaz Shariat Mohammadi party (Movement for the Enforcement of Islamic Laws), led a caravan of more than 8,000 jihadi fighters from the Malakand Division of the tribal areas of Pakistan to fight alongside the Taliban in Afghanistan.

He was charged with smuggling heavy weapons into Pakistan. He and 30 of his supporters were sentenced to jail in a trial that lasted only a few hours under the draconian 1861 Frontier Crimes regulations. Sufi's swift sentencing was consistent with the new posture of the government of President General Pervez Musharraf, which adopted this after it joined the US-led coalition against terrorism.

After the high-level shakeup to weed out those in its ranks sympathetic to the Taliban on the eve of the US attacks against Afghanistan in October, the military made it clear that anybody harboring "radical Islamic agendas" has no room in the country.

Although it was known to have been the chief patron of Islamic parties and jihadi groups in the aftermath of Afghan war against the Soviets in the 1980s, Pakistan's military this time says that it is firm in its anti-extremism resolve. "The extremist elements have exposed themselves, and now I will move against them in a concrete manner so that the writ of a moderate majority should prevail," Musharraf said late last month.

His remarks were a clear warning to religious parties that opposed his government's decision to side with Washington and which staged violent protests throughout the country through October and November.

A day after Musharraf's hard-hitting statement, his press secretary and the chief of the military's mouthpiece Inter Services Public Relations, General Rashid Qureshi, said that the government is formulating a policy to weed out extremism in the ranks of religious parties and from the country.

Already, top leaders of the right-wing Jamaat-i-Islami party and the two factions of the Jamiat Ulema Islam have been arrested or put under house arrest. "We will proceed against the arrested religious leaders in accordance with the law. We'll institute court cases against them," said Musharraf's Interior Minister Moeenuddin Haider, who is also a retired general.

At the same time, law enforcement agencies are conducting countrywide swoops to nab workers of religious parties, primarily for their alleged contacts with Osama bin Laden and his Al-Qaeda network.

As many as 50 such workers were arrested in Karachi on November 26 and 27 as government agencies cracked down against Tehrik-i-Islam Taliban and other jihadi groups in that southern port city.

"We don't know the exact number of workers so far arrested in connection with the international crackdown against terrorism, but the number runs into hundreds. We expect more arrests," said an interior ministry official, requesting anonymity.

Thus far, the religious parties have been cautious in their criticism of the government in the aftermath of the Taliban's retreat. Instead of taking to the streets, they have instead been issuing political statements that half-heartedly condemn the government for the situation in Afghanistan.

"We'll launch an anti-government movement after Eid [the Muslim festival marking the end of the fasting month of Ramadan]," Maulana Fazlur Rehman, leader of the Jamiat Ulema Islam, said in a statement issued from his home in Dera Ismail Khan town of the North West Frontier province, where he is under house arrest.

The Jamaat-i-Islami is trying hard to get back into the political mainstream, abstaining from commenting on the Musharraf government's new moderate posture. "The current crisis could only be resolved through the establishment of an interim government empowered to hold fresh elections," said Jamaat chief Qazi Hussain Ahmed, who is facing sedition charges for issuing anti-military statements at the peak of religious parties' protests against Pakistan's cooperation with Washington in the attacks against Afghanistan.

The progressive lobby in Pakistan welcomes the government's policy of nailing hard-line Islamists. "Our campaigning for peace and opposition to extremism has borne fruit. We have brought more people to the streets than any other religious party," said Kaneez Zehra of the Alliance for Peace and Justice, which held a well-attended peace rally in Rawalpindi a few weeks ago. "It was a victory of progressive forces over the retrogressive ones. It sent a clear message to the government and to the world that Pakistani people oppose extremism of all sorts - the myopic rule by the Taliban, the mad bombing on innocent Afghan civilians by the United States and bullying by the religious parties in the name of Islam," she said.

But the conditions that breed extremism go beyond just the people identified as hardline Islamists, and touch on the lack of democratic decision-making, poverty and the absence of basic services in the country.

"If proper investments are made in good quality education, health, rural development and other basic necessities of life like water and shelter, any form of extremism, whether religious or ethnic, cannot take root," said Moonis Ahmed, who teaches international relations at the University of Karachi.

"An uninterrupted democratic process is essential to keep extremist elements at bay," he argues, adding that addressing rights abuses against women is also a prerequisite for the continuance of the "de-Talibanization" process.

But the religious parties appear to be taking advantage of the lack of democracy and social cover to get back into the political mainstream. They are rediscovering their anti-India jargon after the Taliban's fall and issuing statements showing "concern" at the takeover of Afghanistan by what they call the "pro-India" Northern Alliance.

These parties' use of anti-India rhetoric reflects their bid to get back into the good graces of the military, which still has scores to settle with India in Kashmir. The military itself justified its support to the US action after September 11 as a strategy to diplomatically counter India.

"We do not have any differences with the government on the issue of Kashmir. There should be no doubts about it," said a leader of the Jamaat-i-Islami party.

(Inter Press Service)