Washington, DC: US policies in Pakistan are motivated
by its need to fight terrorism and not by its
professed goal of promoting democracy in the Islamic
world, speakers at a seminar in Washington observed.
The three-session seminar at Johns Hopkins University’s
School for Advanced International Studies aimed
at predicting Pakistan’s future by looking
at current political and economic trends. The
school’s Department for South Asia Studies
had invited prominent scholars, politicians, diplomats
and officials from Pakistan, India and the United
States to speak on various national and international
issues affecting Pakistan.
The most interesting observations were those of
Umar Ahmad Ghumman, minister of state for investment
and privatization. Although he claimed to be a
politician, he argued that Pakistanis are better
off under a military government than in a democracy.
“Who is to be blamed for economic disparity
in Pakistan,” he asked. And then replied:
“It is the political leadership, I stand
guilty as charged.”
During
the democratic dispensations, he said, everything
was going badly and declared: “We will rather
have a dictator.”
Pakistan, he said, could not have the kind of
democracy that the West does. “Democracy
has not worked in Pakistan; it has failed over
and over again,” said the minister.
Praising President Musharraf, Mr Ghumman said
in the last 250 years, nobody dared going into
the tribal territory but “now we have a
leader who wants to establish the rule of law
in that area.”
In his opening remarks, Pakistan’s acting
ambassador in Washington, Mohammed Sadiq, remarked
that Pakistan was “the most misunderstood
country in the world.” “It is not
a perfect society but we are not ready to believe
that everything we did is wrong,” he added.
Parliamentarian Sherry Rahman said the United
States had “traded democracy for security”
in Pakistan. This, she said, was a strategic bargain
and as a senior partner the US invariably sets
the agenda for this alliance.
The strategic bargain will be bad for the war
on terror as well, she argued. While the arrangement
has led to the arrest of some key Al Qaeda figures,
it has failed to go deeper and see what’s
going on in the society at large, she said.
Ms Rahman said the Islamization of Pakhtun nationalists
was a major threat to the country’s security.
The US-led alliance, she said, will now use the
new Taliban to shore up the Karzai government
in Afghanistan.
“The biggest policy failure of the US is
that it underestimates the power of political
Islam and ignores the people who are converting
to the ideology of anti-Americanism. There’s
a growing Islamization at many levels. Osama bin
Laden is a symptom of something much larger,”
Ms Rahman said.
She wished that the United States would push President
Musharraf for more democracy and more reforms
for women.
Teresita Schaffer, a former US diplomat and senior
scholar, argued that the US “signs up with
Pakistan for limited purposes and gets off the
board when Pakistan wants more.”
She rejected the argument that the United States
was responsible for Pakistan’s ills. “People
are responsible for what happens inside their
country. You cannot blame America for everything,”
she said. But she acknowledged that the US was
“too involved” with one leader.
Ambassador Schaffer said it was also wrong to
say that the United States allowed Pakistan to
make a nuclear bomb. The US, she said, did try
to stop Pakistan by imposing sanctions but could
not.
She said the deal between Pakistan and the US
over Dr A.Q. Khan was simple: “Let bygones
be bygones but it should not happen again.”
Ms Schaffer said setting a strict timetable
for return to democracy was not possible because
the timeline can always be manipulated. She instead
urged Pakistanis to focus on institution building
and introduce judicial, administrative and educational
reforms.
Charles Amjad Ali, a Pakistani scholar who now
teaches in the United States, said the military,
bureaucracy, feudal lords, industrialists and
technocrats are all responsible for harming Pakistan.
The ruling elite, he said, also collaborates with
religious extremists to continue its domination
over the country.
Pakistan’s Hudood laws, he said, were
not enforced by religious parties but by a military
regime. Pakistan, he said, was a heterogeneous
country looking for a homogenous philosophy.
Prominent columnist and a Carnegie scholar Husain
Huqqani said that Pakistan had become a rent-seeking
state “for its geo-strategic position -
it always wants rent.”
The military and the ruling elite, he said, believe
that they are Pakistan. “There is an inability
to respect the masses. They always want some kind
of ideology to justify that.”
He said there’s corruption in other countries
too but they did not use it to wrap up democracy.
Sushant Sareen, a fellow at New Delhi’s
Observer Research Foundation, said the blow back
of Kashmir has been the rise of jihad culture
which has stopped investment in Pakistan. The
idea of strategic depth in Afghanistan, he said,
has turned into “a strategic black hole.”
Mr Sareen said that Pakistan’s defense expenditure
was unlikely to come down, even if India and Pakistan
were to make peace because insecurities that propel
defense expenditure will remain. Pakistan’s
religious parties are using religion to strengthen
their position, which will further marginalize
mainstream politicians. Population explosion,
he said, was also a big problem but does not get
enough attention.
Zia Mian, a Princeton professor, said that trade
between India and Pakistan will not lead to peace.
Studies have shown that bilateral trade between
the two South Asian neighbors will not go beyond
one billion dollars even if it opens up. (Courtesy
Dawn)
