Tolerating
External Abuse Ad Nauseum
By Shireen M. Mazari
The week began
tragically for Pakistan with the beheading of one
of its soldiers by a youthful terrorist. The brutality
of the act should have evoked a strong reaction
from all Pakistanis regardless of their political
affiliations or proclivities. Yet, one barely heard
a murmur of condemnation and that reflects our present
national malady where political divisiveness dominates
everything across the national landscape while the
declared struggle for civilian supremacy and democracy
is fast generating into multiple layers of deal-making
and amnesty-seeking against past corruption.
As usual, the US is busy trying to engineer the
democracy script for Pakistan -- lest the Pakistani
public pull a Hamas-like electoral result! Already,
we have learned of US NGOs not only sitting in on
Parliamentary Committee meetings but also taking
minutes of the proceedings!
It is absolutely unacceptable for anyone believing
in national sovereignty to accept that three foreign
funded NGOs are at work in the Parliament and that
one of them has even been provided an office within
the Parliament. Why do our legislators need NGOs
to train them in democracy, democratic institutions
and legislation procedures -- especially US NGOs,
given that in the US a candidate acquiring a minority
of the public votes can still be elected President
of the country -– through the indirect electoral
format of the Electoral College. In any case, given
the level of money that comes into play in the US
democratic system, the last thing the Pakistani
public would want is to have our legislators exposed
to this form of learning! What is surprising is
that our legislators are putting up with what is
a clear affront to their own political abilities
by tolerating these foreign-funded NGOs in their
midst. While Pakistanis may not have access to Parliamentary
Committee proceedings, it seems US citizens have
that access. Is this what our democracy is going
to be all about?
More seriously, our domestic problems are now casting
a debilitating shadow over our ability to respond
forcefully to external challenges and threats --
including the one coming across from Afghanistan
in the form of increasing violations of our sovereignty.
The Pakistan government has officially stated that
it has given no understanding to the US to violate
its territory or conduct military actions within
Pakistani territory. Yet the US once again conducted
military attacks against targets in Pakistan, killing
19 -– for which, according to the Foreign
Office and the Military spokesman, no Pakistani
authorization was given, despite US claims to the
contrary. Of course, given the US record …
in the lead up to the invasion of Iraq, and the
strong statements coming out from Islamabad, the
GoP position seems closer to the truth.
However, the issue then arises as to what the Pakistanis
now intend to do against this clear violation of
Pakistani sovereignty by the US-led coalition forces
in Afghanistan. Worse still, even Afghan forces,
belonging to a state still occupied by foreign forces,
felt emboldened enough to fire across the international
border into Pakistani territory. Clearly, Pakistan's
continuing tolerance for such attacks on its sovereignty
are sending the wrong signals to the Americans and
Afghans -- unless we have decided to throw in the
towel as far as assertion of national sovereignty
and defense of border territory are concerned. If
that be the case then what has been the purpose
of decades of sacrifice for acquiring a strong conventional
military capability alongside a nuclear capability?
Hence, there is a need to show a strong, even if
symbolic, response to the latest attack against
Pakistan's sovereignty if there is to be any credibility
to the State's capability to defend its sovereignty
and territorial integrity.
As it is, sensing a certain give in Islamabad on
external matters, even states that are normally
cautious in their conduct of external diplomacy
are being fairly reckless in their statements on
Pakistan. A case in point is the Japanese Foreign
Minister's demand, on Pakistani soil, that we sign
the NPT. This demand came at a time when the Japanese
Prime Minister was in India requesting India to
become part of the Asian "arc of freedom".
Prime Minister Abe uttered not a word on the NPT
nor was he interested in commenting on the Indo-US
nuclear deal -- so much for Japan's commitments
to nuclear disarmament! Instead, Pakistan was singled
out for the NPT demand and soon after conveying
this to the Pakistani leadership, the Japanese Defense
Minister joined her leader in India.
As for this so-called Asian "arc of freedom",
it seems to be more of a military alliance initially
involving the US, India, Japan and Australia and
now also including Singapore -- all of whom will
begin joint military exercises. Ostensibly, this
is a club of "democratic" states, but
Singaporean democracy is a uniquely engineered model!
These joint exercises to be held in the Bay of Bengal
seem more for the purpose of targeting China and
Muslim states of the region -- otherwise why would
the largest Muslim democracy, Indonesia, have been
ignored.
The point is that Japan is moving away from its
military restraints which is why its preaching to
Pakistan on the NPT should have aroused a strong
and unequivocal response from Pakistan. But once
again, we absorbed the criticism with an unnecessary
level of tolerance. No one publicized the fact that
in an air exercise with the US in June 2007, Japan
practiced dropping 500-pound live bombs on a small
island in the western Pacific. Japan has also been
acquiring weapons that cannot be classified as purely
defensive and has developed a joint fighter plane,
the F-2, with the US. Japan is also, along with
India, a US partner in the development of the missile
defense shield and their planes have been transporting
US troops and "cargo" to Iraq -- no one
knows whether the "cargo" was of a military
nature but obviously troops are transported with
their weapons. It is within this growing Japanese
militarisation that one must examine Japan's extensive
and so far peaceful nuclear capability. And it is
within this new Japanese mindset that Pakistan should
have found the Japanese demand of signing the NPT
at least a trifle offensive.
Unfortunately, as I had bemoaned last week also,
we are so caught up in our internal problems that
we have allowed ourselves to become vulnerable to
external pressures and threats -- or at least we
seem unable to assert our national interest as forcefully
as we should against outright provocations.
Some analysts of Pakistani origin living in distant
parts of the world bemoan the fact that we are not
relevant to the strategic concerns of states like
Australia, but how relevant strategically is Australia
to us in terms of our strategic goals? More relevant
is our more immediate regional environment and it
is here that we do need to reassert our national
priorities and sovereignty. It is here that the
political elites need to evolve a national consensus
regardless of their factional political interests
and while the civil-military divide and confrontation
may be a central political theme presently, does
that allow us to ignore the violence and abuse being
perpetrated on our soldiers by terrorists? And does
it absolve the political elites of their commitment
to our national territorial integrity and national
sovereignty? Of course, if external brokers are
being sought to write our political script, then
the centrality of national interest is moot.
(The writer is director general of the Institute
of Strategic Studies, Islamabad. Courtesy The News)
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