Thursday, March 28, 2024
 
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Pakistan’s Denial Mode over terror intact




By Farooq Ganderbali



Mr Sartaz Aziz is a responsible man in Islamabad. He is Adviser to Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif on National Security and Foreign Affairs and his words carry the weight of the Pakistani government. So when he speaks, he is affirming and reaffirming what the Prime Minister thinks.




The other day, weeks before the Peshawar attack, he held that there were terrorists who were `friendly` and terrorists who were not and that Pakistan would target only the latter variety and leave the former intact. Then the attack in Peshawar killed over 135 young school students. The attack left at least some of the Paksitanis shocked and they said so in the social media and on television channels. Prime Minister Sharif said the days of making distinction between `good` and `bad` Taliban were over. His adviser, Mr Aziz, must have heard it too.



But he seems to have a short memory. Or must be reflecting what his `boss` is thinking? It is difficult to know in Pakistan. Not even a month after the Peshawar tragedy, Aziz now comes out with this theory India is behind all that is happening to Pakistan. He goes even to say that the Taliban is an Indian creature and all the terrorist attacks inside Pakistan has been an Indian conspiracy. The facts that Mr Aziz spoke this in a public interview to Dawn TV in January 2015 tell us that this is the official position of the Nawaz Sharif government. Unless of course, the Prime Minister himself issues a denial.
Mr Aziz should be aware that the first thing his army chief did on hearing about the Peshawar attack was to fly to Kabul and not to New Delhi. He wanted help in Kabul to find Mullah Fazlulah, head of a faction of Tehrik-e-Taliban Pakistan (TTP) which claimed responsibility for the attack. Blaming India for such attacks, is Mr Aziz telling us that TTP is an Indian creation and Fazlulah an Indian agent? Some one should perhaps let him know that Fazlulah was once, not long ago, an agent of Pakistan Army in the tribal areas and his father-in-law, Sufi Mohammad, a key supporter of Pakistan Army’s Taliban project.



Mr Aziz should have seen the videograb of five TTP attackers who carried out the Peshawar carnage. Did they look like Indians? They were all Pakistani citizens of Pashtun ethnicity. Does Mr Aziz think otherwise and in that case he should enlighten the world about Indian connection to the tribal areas. He also said that the Taliban was an Indian creation. If it were so, why would, one of his senior Generals, a few years ago, hailed TTP leader Baitullah Mehsud, a Pakistani tribal leader, as a `patriot`.





The question is why is Mr Aziz, a responsible bureaucrat, saying this when others, in Pakistan, equally responsible citizens, are pointing fingers at the state’s abject failure to tackle terrorism. By no stretch of imagination is Mr Aziz a senile person. He could be a clever man but is loyal to his political masters. Therefore there must be a `method` in his `madness`. What could be the rationale behind these statements?




One reason, perhaps the most obvious, would be that the Sharif government is totally clueless and inept in dealing with the formidable challenge the Peshawar attack had posed to the government? Rhetoric alone would not wish away the problem which has led to the death of over 30000 persons in the last seven years in the country. So Sharif and his advisers need an excuse they can sell to the people. They can’t take the responsibility for their colossal failure in protecting their people. They also dare not put the blame on the military, not after the Generals put the fear of coup by staging a `siege` of Islamabad with the help of their protégés—Imran Khan and Tahir Qadri a few weeks ago.





Then of course there is this abject surrender of the Sharif government to the military by allowing the setting up of military courts to try terrorism cases. No democratically elected government worth its salt would have allowed this to happen. By accepting the army’s demand, the Sharif government handed over the rule of law to the Generals in Rawalpindi. Now they have the power to decide who is a terrorist and what punishment he or she deserved. Their decision cannot be challenged in any civilian court of law. It also gives the army the power to dismiss all cases registered against military officers including the former chief, Pervez Musharraf. Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif and his advisers did not even think for a moment the army has the propensity to label political leaders as terrorists. Sharif for one was set to be tried for treason before he could wrangle freedom, and expulsion, with the help of his patrons in Riyadh.




And of course, as everyone else, Mr Aziz, an experienced bureaucrat, knows well that military courts can at best punish those caught and not those who live in the `protective custody` of the army itself. So how will these courts stem the tide of terrorist violence sweeping across Pakistan if the army continues to make the suicidal distinction between good and bad terrorists. Mr Aziz is acutely aware of this existential dilemma his country faces today. He has therefore chosen to redefine the good and bad terrorists. Those targeting India are the good ones and those targeting Pakistan are doing so with the help of India and are the bad guys.


Will this lie, Mr Aziz, save Pakistan?


(Opinions expressed in write-ups/articles/Letters are the sole responsibility of the authors and they may not represent the scoopnews.in)


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