Rehman Malik's India Visit

Rehman Malik saheb has at last come and gone.

Why did he come ? He came ostensibly to operationalize the liberalized visa regime that India and Pakistan have agreed to lately. Could that have been the sole reason ? It is now obvious that it certainly was not.

He came possibly for three reasons. I state them in no particular order.

One, of course, the Americans are pushing both India and Pakistan to engage with each other extensively by meeting more frequently whether there is a need or not. There was absolutely no need for Rehman Malik to come to India to operationalize the new visa regime which was a routine matter at official level and yet he insisted on coming here so that his visit would add one to the count of the number of meetings and convince the Americans of the sincerity of Pakistani intent.

Two, Zardari saheb has not yet given up hopes of a visit by the Indian Prime Minister to Pakistan before the caretaker government takes charge ahead of the elections there. The Indian PM continues to talk tantalizingly of his intention to visit while the MEA officials, without identifying themselves, give a few reasons as to why a visit was not in the offing. It might be a good cop-bad cop technique, but Pakistan is too clever to dissect that and continue plugging away at softening Man Mohan Singh as it did at Sharm-el-Sheikh two years back. That episode must have encouraged Pakistan to entertain a glimmer of hope on the visit of the Indian Prime Minister to Pakistan. They have sorted out the Indian leaders (of all political parties). All that they have to do is to make impossible promises which would allow an Indian leader an excuse to offer concessions to Pakistan. They know that Indian leaders generally do not hold their Pakistani counterpart's feet to the fire on the unkept promises.

Three, Pakistani leaders always want to come to India, abuse our hospitality, sow seeds of dissension among communities, fly some kites to assess Indian reactions and mouth inanities such as how friendship can lead to economic development etc to lull India into complacency and hide their evil actions and designs even while planning for the same are going on in Pakistan. There are too many instances of these. Two of the recent instances would suffice for example. The Pakistani Army planned Kargil even as Vajpayee was visiting Pakistan on a peace mission. Pakistani Foreign Minister Makhdoom Shah Mohammed Qureshi was visiting Ajmer sharif when 26/11 broke out.

In this post, I  will not go into the first two reasons cited above. However, the third one needs some elaboration. Let us jog our memory back to circa 1972 when the then Pakistani Chief Martial Law Administrator (CMLA), Zulfiqar Ali Bhutto, came to Shimla for a summit meet with Mrs. Indira Gandhi to get back lost territory (14500 Sq. Kms.) and retrieve the 93000 Prisoners-of-War (PoWs) held captive by India. Zulfiqar Ali Bhutto was an inveterate India hater as his vow of a thousand-years war with India (which he announced grandly in the United Nations) and a determination to even let his people eat grass if only he could get nuclear weapons, prove. His quest for nuclear weapons, at all costs, which started after the massive defeat of 1971 goes to prove how much he wanted to destroy India because Pakistan never looked up to nukes as deterrent, but as offensive weapons to be used against India at the earliest opportunity, despite pious protestations to the contrary.

 But, even at the time he came to India as head of the Pakistani State in c. 1972 to negotiate with Mrs. Indira Gandhi an honourable exit from a very difficult situation, his deep hatred for Hindu India (Bhutto's characterization of India) must have been known to Indian leaders who were advising Mrs. Gandhi. Just six months before coming to Shimla, this son of a Hindu mother,  had already convened a meeting of Pakistani nuclear scientists at Multan and asked them to build nukes. It was this effort that eventually forced Ms. Indira Gandhi to order the Smiling Buddha test at Pokhran in c. 1974. He, as the Foreign Minister of Pakistan, was the one to precipitate the 1965 war through wrong advice to Ayub Khan. This wily character then accused Ayub Khan after the Tashkent Agreement and turned tables against him to remain unscathed from the massive failure. He was the architect of the border concession with China just so that Pakistan could forge friendship with its arch-enemy's enemy. As a Foreign Minister, he was known for his constant vitriolic attacks on India.  He called Sheikh Mujibur Rehman as an agent of Hindu India and a person devoid of any Islamic character out to wreck Islamism in Pakistan All these were known to India by the time he came on a charm trip to negotiate the fate of lost territory and captured prisoners.

Of course, we came to know much more about him later. For example, he secretly advised Ayub Khan to not only yank the State of Jammu & Kashmir from India (through Op. Gibraltar), but also North Eastern Frontier Agency (NEFA, now Arunachal Pradesh) with assistance from China. His initiation of measures for greater solidarity among Islamic countries was not benign but was directed at India as he used this platform to launch political and diplomatic manoeuvres against India and further polarize communities within India on religious lines. Bhutto agreed with Ms. Indira Gandhi to make the de facto Cease Fire Line (CFL) which was thenceforth to be called Line of Control (LoC) as de jure International Boundary (IB) once the situation stabilized but pleaded with Ms. Gandhi not to include any of this as part of the Agreement as it would lead to complications for himself within Pakistan. He knew that a generous India would agree and so it did. Once he consolidated his position after returning victoriously from Shimla, he resiled from his promise made at Shimla.

So, it was to this man, by the name of Zulfiqar Ali Bhutto, that India surrendered without demurring at Shimla in July, 1972. He mouthed all the inanities and sweet-nothings that we continue to hear to this day from Pakistani leaders, opinion-makers and analysts. He told the Indian delegation as to how the two nations could improve the lot of the millions of the poor people if only they eschewed their enmity and diverted the funds for social development. He said how enmity was not the way forward, how the new LoC would become LoP (Line of Peace), how India needed to support a fledgeling democracy in Pakistan, how there was only the Army rule if he went back empty-handed from Shimla (the-after-me-deluge threat that all successive Pakistani leaders have successfully used) etc. Haven't we heard these arguments repeatedly from Pakistan ever since then and even now during Rehman Malik saheb's latest visit ?  For their part, the Indian interlocutors at Shimla (especially Foreign Secretary T.N. Kaul, and D.P.Dhar) were idealistic and wanted to see the 'larger picture' of 'durable peace' and the 'historic opportunity' and did not wish to 'impose harsh terms'  upon Pakistan. These two gentlemen should bear the cross for meekly surrendering all our cards without gaining anything in return and squandering away the greatest opportunity till date of settling the issues between us and them. Haven't Indian interlocutors (and a vociferous liberal section of voices) been mouthing the same useless arguments ever since ?

India's concessions at Shimla were aimed at 'removing the mistrust', end the cycle of 'enduring hostility' and to 'create conditions for long-term peace and cooperation''. But, those were not Pakistan's intentions. They wanted to recover lost territory and men and prepare to fight India another day.  We miserably failed to read what was clearly written on the wall that even a visually challenged person (no offence to them and with all due respect) would have read. The two contrasting intentions converged only on two points, exchange of territory and PoWs. True to his colours, Z.A. Bhutto simply forgot the Shimla Agreement after he achieved his goals and redoubled his efforts to destroy India. It was naive on our part to have hoped that a man who was furious after the Tashkent Agreement in c. 1965 would now implement the Shimla Agreement.

What have Zulfiqar Ali Bhutto and Shimla got to do with Rehman Malik ? Rehman Malik is the personification of Z.A.Bhutto and his sugar-and-honey promise on 26/11 is the equivalent of the Shimla Agreement. Similarly, we have some lofty objectives for the implementation of the liberalized visa regime, which is to further people-to-people contact, improve trade, remove mistrust, and encourage cultural exchange. But, Pakistan has none of these. They want to make it easy for Pakistanis to visit India only for their own nefarious advantage. The stalled grant of Most Favoured Nation (MFN) status to India belies their tactics. The point is that Rehman Malik will go back and do exactly the opposite of whatever pious words he uttered in New Delhi, like Zulfiqar Ali Bhutto of 1972.

Now, what did Rehman Malik saheb do upon arrival in India ? He decided to follow a three-pronged approach to achive the three objectives that he was entrusted with. First and foremost, protect Pakistan's interests which required going on the offensive from the moment he landed in New Delhi. He equated the demolition of Babri Mosque with 26/11. He knew that this would stir a hornet's nest but that was exactly what he wanted. He wanted to dominate the narrative in India while he was here. He knows that the Indians have an enormous forbearance for insults heaped on them and he tested the extremities. He proceeded to do so without wasting much time.

In fact, he carefully chose Babri Mosque because he wanted the insult to connote three different sub-texts. He wants to kindle communal tension, open raw wounds and draw support for his position from those liberal sections of the Indian society waiting in the wings to pick up on the issue of the so-called oppression of minorities in India. There was another sub-text to this reference to Babri Mosque which was to implicitly equate India with Pakistan on the question of ill-treating minorities. Rehman Malik made it explicit when, while explaining his intention for referring to Babri Mosque, he said that his reference was in the context of killing of Shias in Pakistan. (In fact, he cleverly included the killing of Sunnis also in Karachi in that list. But, Sunnis in Karachi are getting killed not by Shias but in intra-Sunni sectarian violence and ethnic violnce among the Pashtuns, Mohajirs and native Sindhis) He thus made it very clear that his intention was equating the state of wahhabi/salafi/Deobandi anarchy in Pakistan with India. The third sub-text was to assert the very long-standing Pakistani claim that anything Islamic in Hindu India naturally belongs to Pakistan and Pakistan alone is the protector of Muslim rights in Hindu India. This goes back to the days of Jinnah when he said that the minorities in the two nations were guarantors of peace, which later resulted in a foolish (foolish on the part of Nehru, not Liaquat Ali Khan) Nehru-Liaquat Ali Khan Pact after horrendous massacre of Hindus in East Pakistan post Partition and Independence.

The second approach was to simultaneously deflect any critical questioning by his Indian counterpart, Sushil Kumar Shinde, on the progress of the 26/11 case in Pakistan. Of course, he came well prepared. He charmed his Indian interlocutors by promising things that he has no control over such as completing the case within three months after the second Pakistani judicial commission visited India.

The third and the most important approach was to cajole the Indian Prime Minister into visiting Pakistan as soon as possible, before the PPP government bowed out ahead of the upcoming elections. There are two important reasons why Pakistan is desperately trying to get the Indian Prime Minister to go across the border. The ruling PPP (Pakistan People's Party), which is in dire straits in the upcoming elections, would like to take advantage of the Indian Prime Minister's visit politically to bolster its chances. The other is that whenever an Indian Prime Minister met his Pakistani counterpart in a one-on-one session, the Indian leaders tended to concede a lot more than otherwise. The incumbent Indian Prime Minister had demonstrated that conclusively at Sharm-el-Sheikh two years back.  One does not know what transpired in the meeting between the itching-to-visit-Pakistan Indian Prime Minister and the representative of Zardari from Pakistan. Time will tell.

During the three days of his stay here in India, Rehman Malik saheb created furore after furore and insulted Indian hospitality and intelligence to an extent that no other Pakistani leader before him had done so. Let us list them.

• Equating 26/11 with the demolition of the Babri Mosque.
• Claiming that the mutilation of Lt. Saurabh Kalia was either because of some wild animals (also known as Pakistani soldiers, perhaps ?) or inclement weather
• LeT (Lashkar-e-Taiba) could not have been behind 26/11 because it was already banned and its cadres had joined the TTP (Tehrik-Taliban-e-Pakistan)
• India had never given any solid evidence against Professor Hafiz Saeed; all the dossiers were mere information
• India should forget 26/11 and move on
• 26/11 happened because of Indian intelligence failure and Pakistan cannot be faulted (He probably meant that the jihadis should also not be blamed because it is the sacred duty of the jihadis to attack kafir land. Only the kafir should be careful and prevent it.)
• Had India allowed the judicial commission earlier, the case would have been wrapped up by now
• Abu Jundal was an Indian R&AW (Research & Analysis Wing) agent who went 'rogue' just like David Coleman Headley
• There is no infiltration of terrorists from Pakistan across the border into India. It is simply migration as happens between Mexico and the US. It cannot be stopped

Then, of course, were his promises. He promised to give then and there a copy of the 26/11 charge sheet filed in the Adiala Anti-Terrorism Court (ATC) and asked one of the Secretaries of his Interior Ministry who actually filed the charge sheet in ATC, to do so, only to be told by him that he did not carry a copy of the same. Malik saheb also promised, during the meeting with Sushil Kumar Shinde, to give details on call details, IP addresses and bank account details of the terrorists who are now jailed, but the accompanying delegation feigned complete ignorance on these. He promised to allow the National Intelligence Agency (NIA) sleuths to interrogate the jailed terrorists in Adiala and even offered to take them with him in the same plane, knowing fully well that such a flight of fancy (pun intended) was impossible.

Now, Shinde has told the Parliament that perusing the documents handed over by Rehman Malik on the charge sheets filed against Professor Hafiz Saeed saheb, it was clear that they pertained to something else (probably nuisance to public law and order) and not related to the conspiracy angle in the 26/11 case. So, Pakistani perfidy (and, of course, Rehman Malik's own) stands out once again clearly. So, they never used material furnished in the Indian dossiers and never cared to gather, on their own, more evidence based on these, but continue to fraudulently claim that Indian evidence against Professor saheb could not stand in a court of law.

So, Rehman Malik saheb came here for no official reason at all (the new visa regime would have come into force in any case), enjoyed our wonderful hospitality, abused us all and our collective intelligence roundly, floated his conspiracy theories (for which Pakistan is justly famous), disabused us of any hope that Pakistan may indeed pursue its relationship with India more seriously, flew some kites such as his vision of  Pakistanis being able to drive into India in their own cars (perhaps laden with suicide bombers and tonnes of explosives) and freely visit any part of India without having to report to the police etc. It begs the question as to why arch-enemy kafir Hindu India should roll-out red carpet to jihadi terrorists from Pakistan when the rest of the world has tightened their visa rules and entry procedures at border checkpoints as far as Pakistanis are concerned.

But, who knows ? A dhimmi India might just as well accede to these incredible demands from Rehman Malik saheb and dig its own grave even deeper.
 

Is there a thaw developing in India-Pakistan relationship ?

It appears so. The Composite Dialogue (CD) has resumed, deeper normalizing measures such as opening of bank branches in each other's country are on the anvil, multiple-entry longer-duration and multiple-city visas are in the works, more items for trade are being discussed, Track-II meetings are going on at a feverish pace etc.

However, appearances can be deceptive and are always so when it involves Pakistan. I am not a pessimist but I am extremely sceptical when it comes to Pakistan. Things are no doubt happening in the India-Pakistan front lately. India agreed last year to not only resume the Composite Dialogue but also conceded the long-standing Pakistani demand to even make the CD uninterrupted and uninterruptible. The 'uninterrupted & uninterruptible' tag (a common refrain of the 'secular fundamentalist', Mani Shankar Aiyyar) allows Pakistan to mount terrorist attacks on India even on the scale of 26/11 (or even bigger) but expect India to continue talking to it as though nothing really happened. Many Indian analysts have [wrongly] argued the case for such dialogues, terming the 'freeze' as having outlived its utility leading therefore to 'diminishing returns'. I plainly never saw any returns at all in the three years of 'freeze' for one to now talk of 'diminishing returns'. For those who would argue that 'freeze' did not bring us any dividends and therefore a new approach was needed, I have two counter arguments. The 'freeze' was neither strongly enforced nor given sufficient time to bite Pakistan. Besides, we have had talks for several years earlier but we did not realize that Pakistan was only biding its time and preparing for massive terrorist assaults on India in Kabul (twice) and in Mumbai. A cursory look at the extraordinary deception of a trial in the 26/11 case at Adiala anti-terrorism court would prove that Pakistani government, its law-enforcing agencies, its armed forces and its intelligence agencies continue to hoodwink India while continuing to provide support to the same jihadi leaders and organizations. {See The 26/11 Case - How Pakistan and its Judiciary Help the Terrorists - Part V, for example or the earlier parts}

Anyway, more positive things happened. Articles appearing in newspapers speak [incorrectly] of Pakistan having already granted the Most Favoured Nation (MFN) to India {See, for example Pakistan Grants India MFN Trade Status - Reuters, Pakistan Grants India 'MFN' status - CS Monitor, Pakistan Grants India MFN status - The Guardian}. Both the World Trade Organization (WTO) and SAFTA (South Asia Free Trade Agreement) under the aegis of SAARC (South Asian Association for Regional Cooperation) demand that Pakistan designate India as an MFN, something that Pakistan has steadfastly refused to do for over 16 years now. Pakistan has been bleeding severely because of its intransigence in this matter but that was of no consequence because Pakistan could not have any trucks (pun intended) with its mortal 'kafir enemy', except to import goats or onions or cotton whenever their scarcity became an existential threat {rather than India, for a change}. Pakistan is now seriously discussing with India of importing petroleum products from India, the prices of which have skyrocketed in Pakistan even as its traditional desert-friends and ummah-brothers have refused to extend any concession to Pakistan anymore {except for Kuwait which is still offering diesel at discounted prices}. Pakistan has in double-quick time given a green signal for import of petroleum products through trucks and has asked India to lay a pipeline to its borders as well. It is quite obvious that when Pakistan badly needs things from India, it is able to clear such proposals rapidly, which in itself is being cited by misguided Indians as an indication of Pakistani willingness to foster a friendlier relationship with India. Another fancied argument of the so-called Peace Lobby in India (anybody who opposes this lobby must be communal, a war-monger and part of the despicable Hindutva brigade) is that Pakistan released an Indian Army helicopter which recently strayed into Pakistani territory by mistake and landed there. Of course, Pakistan released the helicopter and the pilots but not before laying its hands on the codes and GPS coordinates of the Indian positions in Siachen. India would, no doubt, have done the same thing had the case been the reverse, but then the Indian Peace Lobby should not use the release as a proof of Pakistan's friendliness. For Pakistan, it served no purpose holding on to a small helicopter and its crew when it was a clear case of navigational error and especially after Pakistan had laid its hand on vital information. The incident would have snow-balled into a diplomatic row and the situation that it was in, Pakistan did not want it. The Indian Peace Lobby is thus attributing a virtue to a Pakistani necessity.

It is relevant to remember at this stage a few things. A farcical drama is being enacted in the Adiala court over the 26/11 case for the last three years. Very little progress has been made in the case, the voice samples which Pakistan promised to India at one point of time have not been given citing Pakistani laws {we knew even at that time that such a promise was simply to bait to a reluctant India to send its Home Minister P.Chidambaram to Islamabad to thaw the 'freeze'), Pakistan has made very little independent investigation into the conspiracy angle involving JuD/LeT leaders and the Pakistani Army, Navy & the ISI, Pakistan has displayed no urgency or real intention in prosecuting even those who are currently held in jail there. The explosive information revealed by David Coleman Headley alias Daoud Gilani under oath in an American court is being conveniently ignored by Pakistan as it has the potential to unravel the nexus between the Pakistani army (PA) and the jihadi tanzeems. The Judicial Commission drama went on for a year and finally petred out last week when the Commission that came here rubbished their government-agreed process {the members of the commission were more intent on visiting Haji Ali at Mumbai}, and the Pakistani government itself is taking refuge under the guise of 'slow turning of the judicial wheels in the Subcontinent'. As is their usual practice, the Pakistanis point their finger at the whole subcontinent whenever a negative reference to their specific country is made.

Contrary to popular belief, widely created by Reuters {the news headlines cited earlier}, Pakistan has not granted MFN status to India. It has simply moved away from a small positive-list trading practice to a large negative-list trading practice. Even this came about with a huge drama. First, it was announced by their trade minister that MFN has been granted. Then, there was a huge hue-and-cry and the Government of Pakistan (GoP) clarified that only a committee had been setup to develop a process towards moving to MFN. It was announced that MFN would come about by April, 2012, a deadline that has been shifted now to end-2012. In the meanwhile, the Diffa-e-Pakistan Council (DPC), a conglomerate of jihadi tanzeems, retired Islamist military Generals and various other ranks and closet jihadi Islamists like Imran Khan have taken a strong exception to granting MFN status to India. Various Pakistani ministries objected to various things resulting in a large negative-list for trading. Cowed down by their threat, Pakistan now says that even the move to the negative-list would be phased and gradual. This itself will not be complete until end-2012 and therefore the deadline for the MFN status now becomes a question mark. This treacherous behaviour of Pakistan has been the rule rather than the exception.

Within the last 18 months, Pakistan has achieved several things for itself from a more-than-willing UPA-II government. It has resumed the Composite Dialogue, it has conceded very little in return to India, it has ensured that the India-Pakistan border would be relatively peaceful even as it focusses its attention on the emerging Afganistan denouement (so that it will re-establish its strategic depth in Afghanistan after the US withdrawal, for an eventual attack on India later}, it ensured the Indian withdrawal of objections to the accordance of the GSP+ status to Pakistan by the European Union (EU), got support from India for a comfortable entry into the United Nations Security Council (UNSC) as a rotating member-country, it has effectively blunted the Indian pursuance of the 26/11 case etc. It is also Pakistan's calculation that the US may positively consider a US-Pakistan nuclear deal (similar to the India-US deal) once Pakistan establishes a facade of friendly relationship with its arch-enemy, India. After Abbottabad and the PNS Mehran affairs and a host of other issues (such as the case of Syed Saleem Shehzad or the Congressional enquiry into Balochistan or the Memogate scandal or Adm. Mike Mullen's very scathing parting gift), the PA is on the back foot and it would rather tactically retreat at this stage than do anything foolishly. Let us remember that Gen. Kayani was completely opposed to Pakistan granting MFN status to India before the major incidents listed above overwhelmed him. It was during his Directorship of the ISI that Mumbai 26/11 was planned.

Many analysts incorrectly propagate the idea that there is a vociferous and influential constituency within Pakistan for normalizing relations with India. They are misled by a despondent and desperate group of Pakistanis contributing some articles here and there in the English language media of Pakistan, a media which is simply *not* the opinion-maker in that country. That distinction goes to the Urdu press which is overwhelmingly hostile and inimical to India. There are no signs of easing there and one should not expect that too as the society moves to the hardest-line Deobandi/Wahhabi/Salafi/Takfiri brand of Islam. Not for nothing that GoP has appointed as the new Director General (DG) of the notorious ISI, a person who was intimately associated with the 26/11 and Kabul attacks as the operational head. Gilani could have appointed anybody else, if he really wanted to reform the ISI, but chose to appoint instead Lt. Gen. Zaheerul Islam.

An important issue that is generally overlooked is the interlinking of the Afghanistan situation and India's internal and external security. Since the 80s, and increasingly so since the 90s, certain aspects of India's security have become linked with Afghanistan. Pakistan is playing a hide-and-seek game with the Americans and the Afghans and is hoping to install the pro-Pakistani Taliban regime yet again there. Pakistan's game plan with India is to induce a sense of complacency by appearing to be friendly to it and muting its objections to a Taliban take-over of that nation. The Pakistani society, and consequently its armed forces, are getting increasingly Talibanized and the Taliban-ruled Afghanistan next door to a nuclear and Islamist Pakistan would be like fire and cotton coming together. The emerging thaw has this important aspect to it as well.

Plus ça change, plus c’est la même chose.

Added Later: For those of us who were wondering why the Pakistani Judicial Commission arrived in Mumbai last week, it now transpires that it was a bait to arrange a meeting between Gilani and Man Mohan Singh on the sidelines of the Nuclear Security Conference at Seoul next week. This is a usual Pakistani ruse used not only against India but also against the US, and successfully too. Gen. Musharraf used to regularly catch a number three in Al Qaeda just before every Washington visit. The reason for the bait is that Indian Prime Ministers usually concede a lot to Pakistan in one-on-one meetings with their Pakistani counterparts and Pakistan knows that quite well. We will wait and watch what more Mr. Man Mohan Singh would concede at Seoul. Anyway, there is no change to Plus ça change, plus c’est la même chose, even from the Indian side.

What is cooking between the US and the Pakistani Army ?

The uncovering of the residency of Osama bin Laden close to the Pakistani Military Academy in the garrison town of Abbottabad and his subsequent elimination by the US Navy SEALs in a stealth operation have created many ripples, some within Pakistan and some between Pakistan and the US.

The close bonding between the US and Pakistan had existed at multiple levels, the most important of which had been the ties between the US and Pakistani armed forces. This relationship started in the early 1950s and bloomed quite rapidly. The US made it a consistent policy to support Pakistani military dictators, whether it was FM Ayub Khan or Gen. Yahya Khan or Gen. Zia-ul-Haq or more recently Gen. Pervez Musharraf. The US Presidents and the State Department stood solidly behind these usurpers of power even as the US preached virtues of democracy to the rest of the world. In the 1970s, another important relationship also developed between the US and its client state Pakistan. The turmoil in the region meant that the US sought close partners. The bitterness after the 1962 arms-supply to India and the arms embargo of 1965 had already been overcome by 1971 when Pakistan helped the US normalize relationship with an isolated China and in return, the US condoned Pakistani genocide in East Pakistan and later sent a carrier task force of the US Seventh Fleet to the Bay of Bengal threatening India as an act of solidarity with Pakistan. As the trusted US ally, the Shah of Iran was deposed by Shi'a fundamentalists who also held Americans as hostage in Teheran, as the Communists assumed power in Afghanistan who later invited the armed forces of the USSR into the country and as an insurgency developed in Yemen in the late 1970s, a worried US forged close intelligence tie-up between the CIA of the US and the notorious ISID of Pakistan. The relationship reached its pinnacle during the decade of the 80s when the CIA worked in extremely close proximity with the ISID in avenging the American defeat in Vietnam a decade earlier and pave the way for the unravelling of the Soviet Union in particular and Communism in general.

As the general usefulness of Pakistan waned upon the termination of the Afghan jihad, the US-Pakistan transactional relationship cooled off. That was probably also what the Pakistanis themselves wanted. A US that was so far helping the Pakistani nuclear programme both actively and passively, was suddenly becoming apoplectic with Pakistan's frenzied activities on the nuclear front. Since their clandestine nuclear and missile dealings with China, North Korea, Libya, Saudi Arabia and Iran were on an upswing, the Pakistanis would have been rather uncomfortable with the presence of the born-again Americans. The terrorism and violence against India from ISI and PA-sponsored terrorist groups were also growing exponentially and it was prudent to keep it away from the prying eyes of the USA which probably was not so amenable as it was during the decade of the 80s when it even helped the Khalistani terrorism. Things were going smooth for Pakistan in the 90s, until fate intervened in the form of Osama bin Laden and 9/11 as the US and its Army got entrenched in Af-Pak once again.

The US Army on the ground in Afghanistan as part of NATO forces had never been comfortable with the Pakistani Army (PA). The CIA has been wary of ISI's double cross. The Pentagon voiced its consternation frequently. American Presidents have been forthright at times regarding their mistrust of Pakistan. Secretaries of State of US administration of various dispensations have been frustrated by the games played by the PA. There are very sound reasons why they all felt so. New York Times of June 15, 2011 reports that the CIA Deputy Director rates ISI's co-operation at 3 on a scale of 1 to 10.

For those who watch Pakistan closely, this perfidious behaviour is not surprising at all. Let's go back to the start of operations on the Pakistani side after Operation Enduring Freedom was launched by the US and allied forces. The Pakistani approach can be slotted into two different time periods, one BD or Before Democracy and the other AD, After Democracy. Initially, during BD, the PA refused to commit its forces in the FATA (Federally Administered Tribal Agencies) area of Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa (KP) province. Instead, it entered into a series of 'Peace Treaties' with the Taliban and various warlords in order to avoid fighting them. No Peace Treaty lasted more than a few weeks. From the very beginning, the PA was not interested in COIN (Counter Insurgency) operations in FATA and was leaving that to the local Frontier Corps (FC), Levies and Khasadar forces that are both ill-equipped and ill-trained as well as reluctant to fight their own tribes.

The first time, the PA decided to take on the Al Qaeda and Allied Movements (AQAM) was in c. 2004 when it proudly announced that PA will complete the operation in a few weeks. But, the drubbing the PA received from the AQAM was such that Lt. Gen. Safdar Hussain, Corps Commander, Peshawar, had to personally meet Taliban commander Nek Mohammed to sign the peace deal (at Shakai in South Waziristan in April 2004) and even give him USD 540,000 {a fact he admitted in the press meet}. Thus, PA's casualties were not only its men but also its prestige. Again, in February 2005, another deal was signed and this time with with Baitullah Mehsud after he took over power following Nek Mohammed’s assassination in a US drone attack near Wana. The six-point deal, mediated by Maulana Fazlur Rehman of JUI-F, while specifically forbidding him from sheltering foreign terrorists or attacking Pakistani government installations, did not stop him from attacking the US forces. Even as he signed the deal, he openly declared that under Mullah Omar, Islam will spread all over the world even as he derived satisfaction from the jihad. Similarly, in February 2008, the Pakistani Army struck another peace deal with Baitullah Mehsud after another unsuccessful army operation in late 2007. The operations by the Pakistani military in Waziristan were dubbed as “Operation Enduring Failure’ following a severe mauling of the Pakistani Army. All three Army operations - 2004, 2005 and 2007 – resulted ultimately in the Army suing for peace after suffering heavy casualties.

In the AD period, reports appeared that Gen. Kiyani had told the US that the PA would have the focus only on the Eastern borders with India. After his meeting with Pakistan, in a series of back-to-back trips to that country, Mike Mullen, Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, agreed in June, 2008 with the Pakistani request to train the FC in COIN operations. Three months earlier, in March, 2008, when the contours of the peace deals were not yet clear and when the new government had not yet taken over power, New York Times reported the Pakistan Army’s strategy of concentrating on the India border leaving the Afghanistan border to ill-equipped and ill-trained local forces. It spoke of the kind of equipment in Pakistani shopping list with the US that could possibly not have been used against Al Qaeda and the Taliban. This approach of focussing on India had multiple benefits for Pakistan. For one, the Army’s withdrawal gave a free hand to the Taliban and the NATO-ISAF forces could not hold the Pakistani Army responsible anymore. This also met the Taliban request of non-interference from Pakistan in their activities. Secondly, it took enormous resources and time to train the undisciplined local forces and that gave sufficient lead time for the Taliban to consolidate their hold in these areas. Thirdly, Pakistan demanded and got sophisticated equipment from the US under the guise of providing support and equipping the FC. Moreover, the Pakistani Army which had earned a lot of ill-will from the tribesmen because under “operation Tri-star and Earthquake”, (Op. Zalzala, meaning Earthquake, in the Mehsud area between January and April 2008) it had razed down villages as part of ‘collective punishment’. The Army’s use of artillery and Cobra gunship and even tanks, rather than effective COIN operations, had added to the resentment of the people. In the August, 2008 operations in Bajaur (Op. Sherdil or Lionheart), around Khar, in the area that the Inspector General of Frontier Corps, Maj Gen Tariq Khan called as the ‘centre of the battle’, the gunship helicopters targetted mosques and flattened houses turning people against the Government. The Pakistani masses also saw this as "Muslim Vs. Muslim" in which the PA could not be involved. With fatwas on the non-martyrdom of the Pakistani soldiers in a fight with the Taliban, the Pakistani Army was surrendering rather than fighting. The refusal to engage the PA in the COIN operation was a ploy therefore making a virtue out of necessity and was a fourth reason for the decision to pull out. Fifthly, and most significantly, what appeared to be a decision to increase infiltration across the Indian border in c. 2008 after relative lull for sometime, demanded a concentration of troops in the eastern border especially in view of the ‘Cold Start’ doctrine of India. In hindsight, the Pakistani COAS, Gen. Kayani's insistence on keeping the PA focussed on the Indian border in c. 2008 was because he was aware of the imminent terrorist attacks on Indian interests on the anvil. The July 7, 2008 bombing of the Indian Embassy in Kabul and the urban warfare in Mumbai on November 26, 2008 were jointly organized by the ISI, the PA, the Pakistani Navy and the LeT and so one can safely conclude that Gen. Kayani, under whose watch these terror events had been planned when he was the ISI Chief, wanted to be able to meet any fall-out arising from these events. Gen. Kayani called the Taliban his 'strategic assets', a communication that was intercepted by the Americans in May 2008, a few months before the Indian embassy attack in Kabul, and which confirmed the long-held suspicion that the PA was running with the hares and hunting with the hounds. Later, the newly-elected Pakistani Prime Minister, Yousuf Raza Gilani, used exactly the same idiom to own up Pakistani duplicity.

The above malicious behaviour of Pakistan brings out two Pakistani traits. One, Pakistan's obsession with India and two, its ability to turn that obsession into an advantage vis-a-vis the gullible Americans.

Back to the Af-Pak badlands in c. 2008. The US State Department’s annual “Country Reports on Terrorism” released in May 2008, spoke of Al Qaeda having regrouped effectively within Pakistan and posing the gravest threat to Western interests. The loss of control of its own territory by Pakistan prompted the ex-National Security Advisor of India, Brajesh Mishra, to propose a multinational force to tackle terrorism in Pakistan. NATO expressed concern in mid-May, 2008 that the so called peace pacts “struck by the Pakistan government and extremist groups in the Tribal Areas may be allowing them to have a safe haven”. It also said in April 2008, after the peace talks gained momentum, that the incidents of cross-border attacks had increased by 52% from the same period the previous year. NATO also expressed its annoyance that Pakistan was entering into pacts without taking it into confidence, an oblique reference to the MNNA (Major Non-NATO Ally) status of Pakistan. NATO correctly interpreted the peace deals as ‘transfer of troubles from one side of the border to the other’. On the same day NATO issued this warning, Assistant Secretary of State Richard Boucher, testifying before the House Foreign Affairs Subcommittee on South Asia said that “Insurgents in Pakistan’s frontier region continue to pose a serious threat to the regional stability of the United States and the rest of the world”. In another testimony to the US Congress at the same time, the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Admiral Michael Mullen, said that the next attack on US in near-term would come from Al Qaeda regrouping in the FATA regions of Pakistan. Afghan Foreign Minister Rangeen Dadfar Spanta called “such [Pakistani] appeasement [of the Taliban] dangerous for Afghanistan” and it was "extremely and infinitely concerned" about Islamabad's moves. Then, on June 11, 2008, the US Air Force attacked inside Pakistani border in Mohmand agency in which several Pakistani Frontier Corps (FC) men were killed. What gave the game away was that several Taliban terrorists were also killed in the attack, as accepted by TTP spokesperson Maulvi Umar, thereby suggesting some nexus between Pakistan’s FC and the Taliban. A few days later, the outgoing US Commander in Afghanistan, Gen Dan K McNeill, questioned the loyalty of the Pakistani forces, especially the FC. The Guardian newspaper later reported, citing classified US reports, that the FC had been heavily infiltrated into by the Taliban and was influenced by it. The displeasure with which the US looked at the peace deals with the Taliban was evident when an hour-long ‘candid, frank, realistic and honest’ discussion between Condoleeza Rice and the Pakistani Foreign Minister, Shah Mahmood Qureshi, ended on June 11, 2008 without any positive developments for Pakistan. Admiral Mullen had repeatedly said that the Pakistani Army was not fighting the Taliban in a sustained fashion. For his part, President Obama made it clear on more than one occasion that the Pakistanis were barking a wrong tree by considering the Indians as the most major threat and that there was no need to station so many troops on the eastern borders with India.

For his part, Afghan President Karzai said that most fighters in Helmand province had come from Pakistan, a concern also echoed by NATO forces. He then followed it up with the threat of attacking the Taliban terrorists inside Pakistan. In anger, it announced pulling out of bilateral talks. India also pulled out of scheduled anti terrorism talks between its CBI and the FIA of Pakistan, after the attack on its Kabul embassy. The Pakistani Defence Minister Mukhtar said that the US President George Bush admitted to him that the US was reluctant to share intelligence information with Pakistan because elements within ISI were leaking them to the Taliban and thwarting US actions. He was even reported to have asked Prime Minister Gilani when he visited the White House in late August, 2008 as to who was in charge of the ISI. On Sep. 16, 2008. US Asst. Secretary Richard Boucher said that the reform of the ISI was a must and it was not happening yet. This led to the removal of Lt. Gen. Nadeem Taj as the Head of the ISI on Sep. 29, 2008. Even the Deputy Chief of ISI was replaced. Finally, with mounting losses of US & other NATO forces approaching the levels of Iraq at its peak, about two dozen US Navy SEALs raided inside Pakistan on Sep. 3, 2008, for the first time and killed 20 people in Angoor Adda, South Waziristan. The US Navy Seals were dropped on ground within FATA and they remained there for a couple of hours destroying targets. There has been speculation that Gen. Kiyani, along with his DGMO (Director General of Military Operations), were told of American intentions of more serious ground operations in a meeting they had with Adm. Mullen held on Aug. 27, 2008 unusually on board an an aircraft carrier, USS Abraham Lincoln, in the Persian Gulf. The very next day, Pakistani COAS Gen. Kayani strongly lashed out at the US proposal to mount cross-border attacks inside Pakistan. The New York Times reported the same day that Bush had authorized in July cross-border attacks into Pakistan with ‘boots on the ground’ within Pakistani territory. It followed the American assessment of Pakistani Army ‘lacking will and ability’. American officials concluded, as per the report in New York Times article dated Sep. 24, 2009, that the ISID was helping the Taliban. The US Ambassador to Pakistan, Ms. Anne Patterson, voiced the disappointment that Pakistan was “certainly reluctant to take action” against the leadership of the Afghan insurgency. Simultaneously, there was a talk of extending the drone attacks to Quetta where the Taliban Shura was supposed to be holed up. Western intelligence sources (Times, Sep. 27, 2009) also reported that the Pakistani intelligence agencies, fearing such an attack, had shifted some members of the Quetta Shura to the much safer Karachi. Pakistan strongly denied the existence of anything called a Quetta Shura at all. However, On Dec. 14, 2009, the Pakistani Interior Minister, Rehman Malik, said that the Quetta Shura has been significantly damaged by the armed forces and was no longer a threat, thus conceding that the Quetta Shura after all existed.

(To be continued . . .)

On Why India Should Not Hold Talks with Gen. Kayani

Last week, The Times of London reported startlingly that the Indian Prime Minister Dr. Man Mohan Singh had opened a back channel dialogue with the Chief of Army Staff (COAS) of the Pakistani Army (PA), Gen. Ashfaq Parvez Kayani in June 2010. It also reported that the US and the UK were 'encouraged' by the talks which they hoped will lead to a smoother peace process in Afghanistan and reduce tension between the two countries. The Indian Prime Minister's Office has denied the report. We do know however that the Indian embassy in Islamabad has been in touch with the PA and the ISI for sometime now. It is difficult to authenticate the latest report now but we will explore the implications assuming that the report was true.

At this point, it is not clear what is the structure of the talks between Government of India (GoI) and Gen. Kayani or what are the issues that are being discussed. From the pointed reference to Afghanistan in the report, one may assume that the talks are more focussed on the Afghan theatre as well as the demarcation of the Sir Creek and the demilitarization of the Siachen glacier. But, one never knows what else are being discussed because the current ruling United Progressive Alliance (UPA) dispensation acts more mysteriously and inexplicably in matters pertaining to Pakistan, than even God. The spate of overtures made by the current Indian prime Minister to Pakistan and even more, the many self-goals scored from Havana, to Thimphu, to Yekaterinburg to Sharm-el-Sheikh and latest at Mohali stare us at our face.

In Havana on September 19, 2006, Prime Minister Dr. Man Mohan Singh conceded to Pakistani President Gen. Musharraf, that terrorism was a common threat to India and Pakistan forgetting that terror attacks on India are carried out by Pakistani jihadis with the support of the Government of Pakistan (GoP), the ISI and the PA while terror attacks on Pakistan were by their own citizens on religious sectarian issues of who was a better Muslim over whom. This concession by India at Havana came barely within three months after one of the most devastating and coordinated terror attacks on seven commuter trains in Mumbai on July 11, 2006 which killed 207 people and injured and maimed 700 more. It still remains a mystery as to why an Indian Prime Minister should equate the two and agree to a Joint Anti Terrorism Mecahanism. Explaining this anti-terrorism mechanism to the bewildered Indian people, Dr. Singh said "It is a trial, we have to experiment, since we are not going to war with Pakistan,".

And, pray, what has this anti-terrorism mechanism achieved since then ? Zilch. This "trial" failed when the Samjhota Express was bombed in February 2007, it failed once again when there were coordinated bomb attacks in Bangalore, Ahmedabad, Surat in July 2008 when 55 bombs were planted in a matter of 5 days and later in New Delhi in September 2008 on the eve of Diwali celebrations. The 'trial' also failed overseas when the Taliban, ISI and Lashkar-e-Toiba (LeT) jointly attacked the Indian Embassy in Kabul on July 7, 2008 killing 58 people including the Indian military attaché and a diplomat. On October 8, 2009, there was a second attack on the Indian Embassy in Kabul killing 12 more people. This time too, the 'trial' failed as the joint anti-terrorism mechanism neither forewarned India nor investigated the incident later. The 'trial' failed most miserably on 26/11 when the PA, the ISI and the Islamist jihadists supported by them unleashed urban warfare for three days in Mumbai on November 26, 2008. After 26/11, Pakistan denied vehemently that their nationals were at all involved and finally when such denials no longer could be sustained in the face of mounting evidence especially as one of the terrorists was caught alive, it resorted to time wasting tactics by declaring every dossier of evidence given by India as worthless and ultimately launching a farce of a court process where after two years, the case is still in a pre-trial stage (and that too after chargesheets were framed and one witness was examined) and there is no hope of any progress amidst pious protestations from Yousuf Raza Gilani, Rehman Malik and others. See here for the on-going court drama at Rawalpindi. New evidences later surfaced in the form of a certain David Coleman Headley (also known as Daoud Gilani) and Tahawwur Hussain Rana, both Pakistanis, who have directly linked the PA and the ISI with the 26/11 Mumbai attack. Now, we know that 26/11 was approved by none other than the current Pakistani COAS, Gen. Ashfaq Parvez Kayani who was then the ISI chief. It is with this person that India has opened a back channel dialogue. The 'trial' part therefore continues unabated even as the 'errors' by the Indian prime Minister are accumulating thick and fast. No wonder, Gen. Musharraf described Dr. Man Mohan Singh about a week back as a 'nice man for Pakistan'.

There was a period of low activity after the Havana somersault by India, as Pakistan slipped into serious domestic troubles with the imposition of Martial Law within Martial Law as Pakistan faced general elections and Gen. Musharraf faced Presidetial elections after resigning as the COAS of the PA. The Judges were dismissed, Ms. Benazir Bhutto was assassinated and eventually Gen. Musharraf was exiled to the UK in circa 2008. After some political stability was achieved in Pakistan, India picked up the peace process yet again with Pakistan. The first meeting after the November 26, 2008 Pakistani carnage, came when Prime Minister Dr. Man Mohan Singh met Pakistani President Asif Ali Zardari met on the sidelines of the Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO) meeting on June 16, 2009 at the Russian city of Yekaterinburg. Here, Dr. Singh spoke candidly of his 'limited mandate to tell Mr. Zardari that the territory of Pakistan must not be used for terrorism'. This (false ?) bravado was to change dramatically within a month. This time the Indian Prime Minister and his Pakistani counterpart, Syed Yousuf Raza Gilani, met at the Egyptian coastal resort of Sharm-el-Sheikh on the Red Sea on July 16, 2009. Here, Dr. Singh conceded a lot more to Pakistan through self goals. Two important concessions were that India de-linked terror from peace dialogue and also allowed Pakistan to mention terror in Balochistan in the joint statement. The de-linking of terror came within nine months after the most horrendous terror attack ever faced by India until then from Pakistan and in the face of stubborn refusal by Pakistan to acknowledge that the attacks were planned, manned and executed by Pakistanis, leave alone prosecute the terrorist masterminds roaming freely in Pakistan. The reference to Balochistan in the joint statement elevated Pakistan's frequent accusations without proof of Indian involvement in the insurgency of Balochistan, to the same level as Pakistan's involvement in Indian terror. The fact that Dr. Man Mohan Singh simply dictated the contents of the joint-statement to his Foreign Secretary, holds the Prime Minister alone responsible for this bungling. No wonder, Gen. Musharraf described Dr. Man Mohan Singh about a week back as a 'nice man for Pakistan'.

Then came the April 29, 2010 meeting at Thimphu between Dr. Man Mohan Singh and the Pakistani Prime Minister Syed Yousuf Raza Gilani. It was an hour-long one-on-one meeting held without official note-takers from either side, just as it was at Sharm-el-Sheikh too. It was agreed by our Prime Minister Dr. Singh that it was needed to "build trust and confidence in the relationship and pave the way for substantive dialogue on all issues of mutual interest". It was Dr. Man Mohan Singh's assessment that Prime Minister Gilani had the mandate from all stakeholders within Pakistan (read PA and the ISI) to hold 'peace talks' and that Pakistan would 'deliver' on the 26/11 trial. From the report in The Times of London last week, it is clear that within a few weeks after the Thimphu meeting, Dr. Man Mohan Singh had to talk to Gen. Kayani to reinstate the dialogue. So much for his assessment that Prime Minister Syed Yousuf Raza Gilani had all the mandate. No wonder, Gen. Musharraf described Dr. Man Mohan Singh about a week back as a 'nice man for Pakistan'.

All that bonhomie of Thimphu evaporated into thin air in mid-July 2010, barely two months later when the Indian Foreign Minister, the soft-spoken S.M.Krishna visited Islamabad to meet his Pakistani counterpart Makhdoom Shah Mehmood Quershi. Even before Mr. S.M. Krishna left Islamabad, Qureshi accused India of being 'inflexible' and the Indian Foreign Minister 'being directed during the talks by calls from Delhi'. It has since been revealed that after the first session, Gen. Kayani interfered with Prime Minister Syed Yousuf Raza Gilani and that changed the complexion of the talks in the second session. Qureshi's well-known proximity to Gen. Kayani as well as the inability of any Pakistani Prime Minister to resist the diktats of the COAS, are the only possible explanations for the rude behaviour and discourtesy extended to the Indian Foreign Minister by the hosts, as well as for the failure of the talks. After S.M. Krishna's return to India, we continued to invite Makhdoom Shah Mehmood Qureshi for talks in New Delhi, even as he deferred and demurred. No wonder, Gen. Musharraf described Dr. Man Mohan Singh about a week back as a 'nice man for Pakistan'.

Most recently came the meeting at Mohali, India when the Indian and Pakistani Prime Ministers met at the venue of the Semi Finals of the World Cup Cricket match between India and Pakistan. The invitation to witness the match at Mohali, it was said, was extended directly by Dr. Man Mohan Singh to both Mr. Zardari and Mr. Gilani, without consulting the Indian Foreign Ministry. In this respect, Dr. Man Mohan Singh has been behaving like India's first Prime Minister Pandit Jawaharlal Nehru who ran the Indian foreign policy as his personal fiefdom. At the Mohali meeting, it has been decided that the Composite Dialogue would be re-started forthwith and would be made 'uninterrupted and uninterruptible', thus completely divesting India of the leverage of using 'withdrawal from talks' as a threat against Pakistan's use of terror as a state policy, a demand that Pakistan has been making for a long time. Now, India should await the next terrorist attack with bated breath to know as to what would be GoI's reaction in such an unfortunate event. No wonder, Gen. Musharraf described Dr. Man Mohan Singh about a week back as a 'nice man for Pakistan'.

That the Pakistani Army has been a significant source of all evil emanating from Pakistan against India, is a no-brainer. It has been so since 1947 when it tried to grab J&K. After a series of defeats culminating in the massive and swift defeat of 1971, its hostility against India has assumed gargantuan proportions. The Pakistani Army therefore decided to bleed India to death with a thousand cuts. One of these 'cuts' was to redirect Afghanistan's Islamist jihadis towards India after c. 1989 though internecine war was still continuing there. While the Pashtuns - mainly the Ghilzais, and the Durranis - the Tajiks, the Uzbeks and the Hazaaras were fighting for supremacy, Pakistan let loose in J&K the Pakistani mujahideen initially and later the foreign jihadis like the Arabs as they were now unemployed. Starting with the Indian Punjab in the 80s and later J&K, Pakistan-inspired terrorism has spread today to far nooks and corners of India. The 26/11 urban warfare was directed by the Pakistani Army and approved directly by Gen. Kayani when he was the Chief of the ISI.

Since the days of Z.A. Bhutto as the Chief Martial Law Administrator (CMLA) first and then as Prime Minister, the Pakistani society has been radicalized to a large extent with official support by the State through laws, directives, textbooks and sustained state propaganda. Similar fate has befallen the Pakistani Army too as the Army is nothing but the microcosm of the society as in any other country. Apart from this, the PA has come under Islamist influence due to the deliberate policies of Gen. Zia-ul-Haq. The puritanical wahhabi and salafi strains are overwhelming the largely Berelvi Pakistan today which is wilting under their onslaught. Gen. Kayani described these evil forces as 'strategic assets' in c. 2009. He is of the view that these evil forces do not pose a threat unlike India, which he describes as an 'existential threat' when in fact all wars and skirmishes between the two countries were started by a revisionist Pakistan, not a status-quoist India. By his own admission, he is the most India-centric of all Army Chiefs Pakistan had produced, which to say the least is something worrying because all of them from Ayub Khan downwards have always been hardened India haters. Today, the Pakistani Army has allowed the Chinese People's Liberation Army (PLA) to occupy Line of Control (LoC) with India and also large parts of Gilgit Baltistan (GB). The Pakistani Army is furiously accumulating nuclear bombs and could possess the fourth largest arsenal in the world in the next few years. The reason why the Pakistani Army is not taking any action against Waziristan-based Taliban is because it is still hoping to re-establish its 'strategic depth' after the US & NATO forces leave that country soon. It is also for this reason they are vehemently opposing Indian presence in that country. The strategic depth is directed against India. Gen. Kayani therefore believes that he has all the aces and can negotiate with India from a position of strength. In 1972, with India holding 93,000 Pakistani Prisoners-of-War (PoWs) after the PA signed the surrender document at Dhaka, Pakistani Army's delusional demands, sent through Z.A. Bhutto to the Shimla talks, were nothing short of conditions normally imposed by the victors against the vanquished !

Lately, the Americans, who think world's problems will disappear if only India talks to Pakistan, have been saying that they understood Pakistan's paranoia vis-a-vis India. The US has also respected the Pakistani redlines against India. The US has been suggesting to India for sometime now to have talks with the PA, as it does itself. What it clearly fails to recognize is that the equation between it and Pakistan is vastly different from that between India and Pakistan. Pakistani Army feels emboldened by these American actions. One can therefore easily visualize how the talks with Gen. Kayani will proceed now. It is very clear therefore that Gen. Kayani is not looking to ease tensions with India and encourage peace. He is willing to talk to give an ultimatum to India in the same way Adolf Hitler did in his talks. After the talks, which will certainly end in failure, India would have burnt all the bridges with Pakistan.

No wonder, Gen. Musharraf described Dr. Man Mohan Singh about a week back as a 'nice man for Pakistan'.

The 26/11 Case - How Pakistan and its Judiciary Help the Terrorists - Part IV

This series was interrupted by the unfortunate incident at Islamabad of the assassination of Shahbaz Bhatti. I will now resume our understanding of how the Pakistani Government and the Judiciary help the terrorists. I wrote in the the last part of how eventually Justice Baqir Ali Rana framed the charges on October 10 and how he immediately asked the Lahore High Court (LHC) to relieve him from the case due to 'unavoidable personal reasons' and how the accused also demanded the same, leading to its prompt compliance by the LHC. Thus, a new judge, Justice Malik Muhammad Akram Awan replaced Justice Baqir Ali Rana with no change in the lackadaisical approach to the trial. Thus, the 26/11 trial case moved to ATC-I in Adiala Prison. Two reasons were cited by various Pakistani reports for Baqir Ali Rana's request; threats from Lashkar-e-Tayba (LeT) and 'pressure' from the Government of Pakistan. The Indian Home Minister, P.Chidambaram, interpreted this change of Judge as a further proof of the unwillingness of the Pakistani Government to pursue the 26/11 case in earnest.

The new judge warned the accused that he would 'begin recording the testimony of witnesses at the next hearing regardless of their decision not to accept the chargesheet'. It is worth recalling that 15 months after this brave statement and 24 months after the case was registered on February 15, 2009, just the testimony of one witness has so far been recorded. This prompted the defence lawyers to file a case in the Rawalpindi bench of the Lahore High Court challenging the proces of framing the chargesheet itself in their absence (as we saw in Part III). Thus, this whole thing, of the earlier judge 'framing charges' after asking the lawyers to rush home because of the attack while the judge himself calmly continued with 'framing charges' and then the judge requesting to be relieved of the case, a new judge replacing him, defence lawyers appealing to the High Court on the inadmissibility of charge-sheet etc. etc. are all great games being played to delay the case and leave technical loopholes in the proceedings of the court so that the verdict can be easily struck down later on citing these. In its order, the Rawalpindi-bench of the Lahore High Court directed the ATC-I to 'take into account the views of the accused and to redress their grievances before proceeding with their indictment.' The case was therefore back to Square One as the charges framed by the previous judge were thus rejected and the process had to be gone through afresh ! Based on this advice, the lawyers for the seven accused moved the ATC-I court On November 7, 2009 for copies of the chargesheet and attested copies of Kasab's confession. The judge adjourned further hearing by a week and the next week, the judge was absent and the case was delayed by another week until November 16. Another excuse was found on November 16th to postpone the trial, this time it was the upcoming Punjab Bar elections. So, the trial was postponed to November 23rd. It was most optimistically expected by some that the charges would be framed on that day. The defence lawyers also indicated, for the first time, their intention to bring Kasab to Pakistan to stand trial and examination. This, it was apparent, would not simply delay but derail the whole judicial process and that is what has happened.

Meanwhile, in India, the trial of Kasab, Ansari and Sahabuddin, which started in April came to an end in November. The trial included examining over 250 witnesses, 30 identification parades by eyewitnesses, DNA tests to prove that DNA samples in the articles recovered from the hijacked motor vessel M.V. Kuber matched Kasab's and the other nine slain terrorists, other forensic and ballistic tests, examination of CCTV footages from several places (CST, Times of India, Hotel Taj, Hotel Oberoi-Trident etc.) What was Pakistan doing at the same time ? First it denied for a long time that Pakistanis were at all involved, then when their own Pakistani journalists uncovered the truth about Kasab they were jailed (Rab Nawaz Joya and Javed Kanwal Chandor), and then it has been conducting since then a mockery of court trials as we are chronicling.

Around this time, the Italian Police cracked the money-transfer trail for the Voice over Internet Protocol (VoIP) technology used by the LeT handlers sitting in Pakistan to communicate with and direct the operations of the terrorists in Mumbai minute-by-minute. Once again, Pakistan arrested a low-level operative (Barcelona-resident Javed Iqbal) though Indian investigators believe that money was transferred at the behest of Zarar Shah. Though a Sheikhupura-resident by name Abdul Wajid has been jailed claiming that he was indeed Zarar Shah, we have to doubt the veracity of this because Pakistan has been stonewalling giving voice-samples that would establish if he was indeed the one who spoke on intercepted phone calls (284 calls running into 995 minutes). Pakistan has also denied access to the American FBI agents to interrogate the so-called Zarar Shah. They have even refused to give a photograph of the alleged Zarar Shah in their custody to Indian investigators. Such stonewalling by Pakistani authorities only raise suspicion because Pakistan has forever been surviving on the staple diet of fraudulent behaviour.

On November 23, when charges were expected to be framed, the Judge reserved his judgement and adjourned the case to November 25. By this time, it was clear that the case was being heard every week but absolutely no progress was being made. The Pakistanis wanted to present the appearance of running while standing at the same place. Finally, it was on November 25, 2009, just a day prior to the first anniversary of the 26/11 carnage, that the seven terrorists were indicted and declared 16 others (except Ajmal Kasab because his whereabouts were known) as 'proclaimed offenders'. The accused pleaded 'not guilty' as their lawyers explained later that the charges were not backed up by evidence !! But, just what were the charges ? The lawyers refused to divulge the details citing the gag-order of the court. It can only be surmised that the following are the charges: Zakiur Rehman Lakhvi, LeT operations commander and the “mastermind” of the attacks; Abdul Wajid alias Zarar Shah, a “facilitator and expert of computer networks”; Hamad Amin Sadiq, who is charged with “facilitating funds and hideouts” for the Mumbai attackers; Mazhar Iqbal alias Abu al Qama, described as a “handler”; Shahid Jamil Riaz, who is described both as a facilitator for funds, as well as a crew member of a boat used by the attackers; Jamil Ahmed, described as a “facilitator”; and, Younus, also a “facilitator”. They were also charged with setting up militant training camps in Yousaf Goth, Karachi and Mirpur Sakroo in Sindh to train the Mumbai attackers under the operational command of Mr Lakhvi. The BBC reported on December 4 that the charges also included 'disrupting civil life in both India and Pakistan' and 'trade between the two countries'.

The charges were framed against the seven under the Anti-Terrorism Act, several sections of the Pakistan Penal Code (PPC), including Section 302 for murder and under the Explosives Act. From the dossier that Pakistan had given to India, one understands that Bahawalpur-based Shahidi Jamil Riaz and Rahim Yar Khan resident Hammad Amin Sadiq have been charged, according to an official Pakistani dossier, with “planning, preparing, financing, arranging boats, logistics, training, facilitating and launching LeT terrorist attacks from Karachi.” However, Pakistani investigations (conducted by the Federal Investigation Agency, FIA) have not dared to go beyond these people and unravel the entire terror plot.

The defence lawyers immediately decided to challenge the indictment in the Lahore High Court. They also challenged the admissibilility of separating the trial of Kasab from that of the others. However, the Rawalpindi bench of LHC rejected both counts and said that any such question could be raised in ATC-I itself during the trial.

(To Be Continued . . .)

The 26/11 Case - How Pakistan and its Judiciary Help the Terrorists - Part III

Pakistan's diplomatic ploy against India is quite well known and has been evolving with changing circumstances. However, there is a fundamental and constant foundation on which it operates: perfidy. Pakistan has been denying for long that it has any terrorists at all targetting India though everyone knows that Pakistan-sponsored terrorism has been the story since 1947. It claimed furtively that the terrorist attacks in India were purely indigenous. Indeed, terror was the tactic that the Muslim League used in pre-partition India during the last phase. No wonder that an independent Pakistan, implacably obsessed with India, chose to carry on with terror as a weapon. Once, terror could no longer be plausibly denied, as proof was coming thick and fast, Pakistan blamed inflamed passion generated by the long-running Kashmir question as the root cause, little recognizing that it had a legal, moral and binding responsibility to prevent such terrorist activities, inflammation notwithstanding !

Then it blamed India itself for amassing 700,000 troops along the Jammu & Kashmir (J&K) border and yet being unable to stop infiltration of the terrorists. Yet, there has never been a single instance of Pakistan having caught even one such terrorist infilitrator trying to cross into India. It is as though Pakistan wants to present the face of a disinterested spectator in this whole drama. On the other hand, it is well known that it provides covering fire and diversionary attacks to make it easy for these jihadi infiltrators to sneak into India. Mr. Zardari's flight of fancy has resulted in a new term 'non-state actors' as though it is again not Pakistan's responsibility and international committment to arrest these terrorists, dismantle their outfits and prosecute them, let alone prosecute speedily. When things reach a difficult stage where it becomes indefensible for Pakistan anymore, it invokes the sob-story of itself being a great victim of terrorism. What a travesty and what a pathetic performance !! Its citizens, elite and ordinary alike, partake this shameful and disgusting performance of mendacity. If international pressure mounts further, it promises actions, only to speak with a forked tongue and make just the very minimal efforts to give the appearance of some action being taken with tantalizingly more to follow only to be belied later.

In the case of 26/11 probe and prosecution, it has done all these and in addition blamed India also for not providing it with concrete evidence, forgetting that evidence is what it should establish for the events that took place within its borders and against the terrorists who operate from there !!! It was in this context that the Indian Home Minister, P.Chidambaram stated "If it is half-baked, they (Pakistan) are welcome to bake it fully". So, when the then Indian National Security Adviser, M.K.Narayanan, said towards end of August, 2009, that he did not expect Pakistan to proceed much further as "They’ve done just enough to take the heat off them from the West.", it was not only an accurate assessmnet but also indicated India's conclusion that it would be futile to expect any further movement by Pakistan. The accuracy of the above Indian assessment is proved by the fact that even two years later, by March 2011, only one witness had taken the stand and already three judges have heard the case.

Therefore, when Makhdoom Shah Mehmood Qureshi promised that serious action would take place in the courtrooms from October 3, 2009, nobody in India believed it. Pakistan has not belied such Indian (non-)expectations. On October 3, 2009, the Trial Judge was taken ill and so the hearing was postponed for the sixth time in the previous two months ! Rehman Malik had said that the nine accused would be formally indicted on September 26 and then Qureshi had promised that a full fledged trial would positively start on October 3 and yet none of these milestones was met. Finally, the accused were chargesheeted only on October 10^th. But, framing the chargesheet itself was wrought with high drama. There was an on-going siege of the General Headquarters (GHQ) of the Pakistani Army at Rawalpindi on that very same day and the ATC judge therefore asked the defence lawyers to leave the court to save their lives and not be caught in traffic jam and stranded while he bravely went ahead with framing the accused ! {I have really not made this up} After thus asking the defence lawyers to run for their lives even when they protested that they would stay behind, the Judge asked the prosecution lawyers and the accused to appear before him and he framed the charges. The accused refused to accept the charges citing the absence of their lawyers and the chargesheet being in English. The Judge should have very well known that the defence, which even otherwise was raising objection after objection to delay and kill the case, would surely object to this flouting of law at the next hearing and yet he went ahead with this ! What a convenient ruse to delay the case further ! Pakistan makes every attempt to stifle this case and it gives us great merriment to chronicle their efforts and expose them. If the Judge cannot be accused of being hand in glove with the terrorists and their lawyers in giving them loopholes to challenge the very process of framing charges and thus delay the proceedings, can anyone disagree with that ?

Two days later the spirit of the jihadi camp was mightily lifted when the jihadi-pasand Lahore High Court dismissed the twin charges (of inciting jihad and collecting funds for jihad) against Professor Hafeez Saeed saheb. It said, inter alia, "Anti-terror law does not apply to Saeed," because JuD was not a banned organization in Pakistan ! It is thus very clear that either Pakistani government failed to prove that LeT and JuD were one and the same and were involving themselves in terrorism and jihad or the Lahore High Court did not accept such proof in order to help the terrorists. It is also possible that both were true. Of course, the United Nations' Security Council (UNSC) had already declared, in December 2008 itself, JuD as a terrorist organization which was binding on all member countries but apparently not in Pakistan !! Later, Interior Minister Abdul Rehman would offer weak excuses that since JuD was already declared as a terrorist organization by the UNSC itself, Pakistan did not deem it necessary to issue such a declaration within Pakistan. For its part, the Punjab government confirmed that JuD was only on a 'watch list' as it was a charity organization. What was most striking was the speed with which the Lahore High Court disposed of this case, less than a month, in contrast with the 26/11 trial at ATC-II at Adiala prison.

Back in the ATC-II, there was more drama to come when the court re-convened on October 17 for the hearing. As was expected, the defence lawyers protested serving of chargesheets to their clients in their absence the previous week. The lawyers boycotted the proceedings and the Judge, Baqir Ali Rana, promptly postponed the hearings to October 24th. Meanwhile, India decided to send to ATC-II, court-certified copies of witness depositions as well as the deposition of the Judge to whom Kasab confessed. Two days later, and before the next adjourned hearing, Justice Baqir Ali Rana of ATC-II, Adiala refused to take any further part in the hearings and asked the Lahore High Court to recuse him from the case due to "unavoidable personal reasons". News reports said that the judge felt that his position had been made "vulnerable" because of the move to conduct the proceedings behind closed doors. Thus the 'gag order' he himself issued came back to haunt him ? Or, was he forced to issue the 'gag-order' in the first place ?

In the meanwhile, in the jihadi-pasand Lahore High Court (LHC), another case came up for hearing and that pertained to the one filed by Zaki-ur-Rehman Lakhvi asking the LHC to transfer the case out of Justice Baqir Ali Rana's court as he was acting under directions from the Interior Minister, Rehman Malik. Thus, both the Judge and the accused wanted the case to be out ! So, the LHC appointed a new judge on Octoer 24 to conduct this all important case !

(To Be Continued . . . )

The 26/11 Case - How Pakistan and its Judiciary Help the Terrorists - Part II

After framing the charges against the seven accused (two in absentia), the Anti Terrorism Court-II (ATC-II) at Adiala adjourned the hearing by a week until July 24, 2009, by which time the Sharm-el-Sheikh meeting was scheduled to be over. We know that Hammad Amin facilitated funds and hideouts for the prepetrators of the attacks, while Mazhar Iqbal was handler, Abdul Wajid and Shahid Jamil were facilitators. (Two other associates, Jamil Ahmed & Younus Anjum, were later arrested.) Expectedly, when the next hearing came up on July 24, 2009, the Honourable Court adjourned further hearing by a month but not before a startling revelation was made. Contrary to reports that stated that a week earlier, charges had been framed against all the accused, the government's prosecutor, Malik Rab Nawaz Noon, said formal charges against the accused had not yet been framed. Even by September, 2009, it was not clear if the suspects had been indicted and for what because the FIA had prepared two sets of chargesheets. Since the ATC has ordered strict censoring of proceedings in the media and since the entire proceeding is in-camera with no journalists allowed (contrary to how India conducted the Ajmal Kasab case), the information has been sketchy and not authentic. In his order on the blackout of proceedings, Justice Baqir Ali Rana, the trial court judge said, "the proceedings would be kept totally secret and not published in any manner as the case had implications for national security and national interests". The ATC's order on in-camera trial is obviously to prevent the relationship between the Pakistani Army and the terrorists from being aired in the public. India was outraged and objected strongly to the secret trial but it did not register in Pakistan. This lack of public information also helps the Pakistani government to fudge the issue and present it with whichever spin it wants, hiding under the twin excuses of a pending trial and the gag order by the court. Having got what it wanted in Sharm-el-Sheikh, Pakistan now went back on what it promised to Ms. Hillary Clinton and the Indian Government. Every step forward was immediately followed by several steps backward by Pakistan. Nothing unusual there regarding Pakistani behaviour.

Meanwhile, in India, on July 20, 2009, Kasab (alias abu Mujahid, a name given him by the redoubtable Prof. Hafeez Saeed saheb himself, no less, at the Chekhalabandi Mountain Terror Camp near Muzaffarabad) made a startling confession before a magistrate, Ms. Sawant Waghule who explained to him that this confession could be used against him and also gave him 72 hours to ponder over the implications of his request to confess. In his confession, he explained in detail about the training he had undergone in the hands of various LeT commanders including Prof. Hafeez Saeed and Zaki-ur-Rehman Lakhvi (alias Abu Wahed Irshad Ahmad). He also narrated the entire sequence of what transpired from the time he joined LeT to the time he was captured by that selfless martyr Assistant Sub Inspector Tukaram Omble. Of course, Kasab's confession has been corroborated by several eye witness accounts (including a brave 10-year old girl, Devika, who is crippled by Kasab's firing at the Chhatrapati Shivaji railway terminus), electronic records (such as video footages, data from the five GPS devices and a satellite phone recovered from the terrorists), ballistic evidence, trace of the geographical locations of the IP (Internet Protocol) addresses used, visual evidence by photojournalists from Times of India who captured vividly his terror spree, and various other evidences painstakingly gathered. In the court, Kasab's attorney, Abbas Kazmi, urged the judge to accept the entire confession and not to prolong the trial, a request that was rejected by the Judge saying that complete guilt must be established through a trial even though the criminal had confessed (only partially in Kasab's case). Three weeks later, Kasab would plead guilty to all charges framed against him.

Expectedly, the Pakistani Defence Minister Chaudhry Ahmed Mukhtar rejected the confession as induced under duress, thus proving yet again that Pakistan was continuing to live under denial. A few days later, July 29 to be precise, Pakistan's Attorney General and a close confidante of President Zardari, Latif Khosa (who has recently become Governor of the Punjab province after the assassination of Gov. Salman Taseer), said that JuD Chief could not be prosecuted because there was no evidence against him. The very next day, the Pakistani newspaper DAWN carried a report that Lakhvi and Shah had confessed to their involvement in the 26/11 terrorist attack. On August 1, India sent the certified copy of Kasab's confession to Pakistan along with interrogation reports of Fahim Ansari and Sahabuddin Ahmed.

However, the euphoria raised in India by the dossier that was sent by Pakistan on the eve of the Sharm-el-Sheikh meeting, because Pakistan accepted culpability for the action of the terrorists in that dossier for the first time, soon evaportaed on closer examination of the document. It disproved the DAWN report that Lakhvi and Shah had confessed to their crimes. It was indeed only the two lower level operatives, Hammad Amin Sadiq and Shahid Jamil Riaz who had confessed to "their guilt and their contribution in planning, preparing, financing, arranging boats, logistics, training, facilitating and launching LeT terrorist attacks from Karachi and Thath to Mumbai." The dossier did not link Kasab or the two Pakistani confessors to Lakhvi, Shah and Mazhar Iqbal alias Abu-al-Qama. The dossier did not detail any findings against these three accused as well. There was no voice sample analysis done to establish their role. In short, the dossier gave the impression that Pakistan was simply unwilling to take the investigation beyond those two low-level operatives and go all the way up to its logical end which probably would have implicated Gen. Musharraf, Lt. Gen. Kayani and Prof. Hafeez Saeed.

A further proof of this unwillingness was to come soon when on August 3, the Pakistani Supreme Court indefinitely adjourned a hearing challenging the release of Prof. Hafeez Saeed ostensibly due to the resignation of Punjab's Advocate General Raza Farooq. Another excuse ! On August 6, 2009, the Interpol announced Pakistan's request for lookout and arrest of 13 more Pakistani foot soldiers who were connected with the 26/11 attack. It was becoming clearer that Pakistan was more interested in lower level terrorists and was quite unwilling or unable (or both) to touch more senior leaders and masterminds. Meanwhile, the Interpol also issued red corner notices (RCNs) for Prof. Hafeez Saeed and Zaki-ur-Rehman Lakhvi based on the arrest warrants issued by the Mumbai court of Special Judge M.L. Tahaliyani. The Pakistani Interior Minister Mr. Rehman Malik was quick to react when he said that even if a red corner notice had been issued against Professor saheb, the government was not obliged to immediately arrest him. “The country makes its own investigations against the person, and only then decides,” Mr. Malik said. He also said that the evidence provided by India in three dossiers "is, in our considered view, not sufficient to link Hafiz Saeed to the (Mumbai) attack". Even before the Indian evidence could be presented to the Court or even analyzed by his lawyers, it was shot down by Rehman Malik, an ex-police officer. This has been the pattern. It has been a battle of wits between a top notch lawyer like the Indian Home Minister P. Chidambaram claiming that there was sufficient evidence to prosecute Prof. Hafeez Saeed with the ex-police officer rejecting the same out of hand and immediately.

Finally, on September 19, the Interior Minister Rehman Malik confirmed that no charges had been so far framed against any of the accused (now totalling nine) and that would be done at the next hearing of the ATC, Adiala on September 26. Simultaneously, reports also appeared of Prof. Hafeez Saeed's house arrest on September 21, though Pakistani newspapers also spoke of his 'movement being restricted for his own security'. The 'arrest' came ten days after he had been invited as a guest for an iftaar party hosted by the Lahore-based X Corps of the Pakistani Army ! This in spite of an Interpol RCN pending against him ! As Indian Foreign Ministers were expected to meet on the sidelines of the UN General Assembly meeting at New York on September 27, Pakistan slapped two First Information Reports (FIRs) against Prof. Hafeez Saeed for his speech glorifying jihad against kafir on August 27 & 28 and for collecting funds. Ostensibly, the FIRs were delayed until after the iftaar at the Army Command ! When questioned about this development, Prime Minister Gilani vaguely referred to Prof. Hafeez Saeed being 'in custody' even as Prof. Hafeez Saeed's lawyer claimed that the restriction was only against him leading the Eid prayer at the Gadaffi stadium and there was no restriction otherwise, a fact borne out by a NY Times reporter later. Two days later a petition was filed in the Lahore High Court to quash the investigation. However, Interior Minister Rehman Malik sought more time from India to investigate the role of the detained JuD chief Hafiz Mohd Saeed thus making it appear as though some progress was being made !

Then September 26 came and went quietly by. Unlike what was promised by Rehman Malik, no charge was framed against the accused as the Judge went on leave and the hearing was once again adjourned as it had happened so many times before. The Judges retire, or go on leave or get transferred all the time in Pakistan, especially in the 26/11 case. Contrast this with how the case proceeded in India to understand the various means that Pakistan resorts to blunt the wheels of justice.

In their New York meeting on September 27, Pakistan's Foreign Minister Makhdoom Shah Mahmood Qureshi assured his Indian counterpart, S.M. Krishna that the formal trial would start on October 3, 2009 !! Pakistan had given several such assurances to India from Jinnah downwards, only to be flouted in the very next breath and Makhdoom would turn out to be no exception.

(To Be Continued. . .)