External red herrings and state abdication

The Interior Adviser, Mr Rehman Malik, repeated himself at the Senate Wednesday when he claimed that India was involved in fomenting trouble in Balochistan with the help of the Kabul government, but his addition of “some hostile agencies” along with India might mean others like Uzbekistan, Iran and the CIA. Far away in Washington, speaking at the House Foreign Affairs Committee, the US Secretary of State, Ms Hilary Clinton, bemoaned the abdication of Pakistan in the face of a dangerously expanding hold of the Taliban over Pakistani territory.

As expected, many TV channel hosts were greatly offended Thursday morning at Ms Clinton’s use of the word “abdication” and stressed that this was “blatant interference” in the internal affairs of Pakistan. But this sounded a little incongruous when some other channels reported the presence of “foreigners” in Buner, the district that the Taliban have taken over and have no intention of giving up. But in the National Assembly, the JUIF chief, Maulana Fazlur Rehman, said something even more incongruous: “You talk about Swat and Buner, but according to my information, the Taliban have reached Kala Dhaka and Tarbela. And if they continue advancing, there will be only the Margalla Hills between them and the federal capital”.

Right next to Islamabad, in Rawalpindi, our army chief General Ashfaq Kayani was (reportedly) telling the visiting US Joint Chiefs of Staff chairman, Admiral Mike Mullen, that the CIA drones must be stopped and that the two sides must develop trust to be on the same page about the Taliban. Unfortunately, the truth is that trust is lost not only with the US but with the entire world including the crucial regional neighbours who are now gearing up to secure themselves if Pakistan goes to pieces. In the middle of all this arrives the scandalous report that a retired major — who began activity when he was still in service — was kidnapping for ransom to finance a warlord in South Waziristan.

Everybody knows what is happening, but everyone has a different solution to the problem. Regrettably, however, the bigger consensus is for a solution that will probably harm Pakistan even more. Maulana Fazlur Rehman apparently made an anti-Taliban statement when he said they were about to enter Islamabad, but his solution was: “get out of the war on terror and the Taliban will automatically go away”. Imran Khan wrote a special article on Thursday asking Pakistan to leave the war on terror to solve the problem. The two say the same thing but cannot convince us of the halcyon days they think will descend on Pakistan after their solution is applied.

Ajmal Kasab has deposed — hopefully, falsely — before a Mumbai court that his gang of terrorists was trained by Lashkar-e Tayba at Sarai Alamgir in Punjab under the supervision of an army brigadier. India will not talk because it is certain that Pakistan will not punish its “non-state actors” now under trial. Again, rather unfortunately, the world goes with India because it doesn’t equate India’s unprovable “funded” interference in Balochistan with Pakistan’s proven practice of sending in non-state actors who get caught. Accusations of external interference therefore sound like a colossal red herring. In fact, this is not the time for isolating Pakistan in the world but for being “introverted” on our domestic terrorism with whatever help we can get from the international community. *

SECOND EDITORIAL: Minorities under threat

Sarjani Town in Karachi was a scene of violence Wednesday. This is worrisome because the target there was the Christian community, Pakistan’s largest minority population. Confrontation between the Christians and the Pashtuns took place after the town walls were splashed with graffiti asking the Christians to embrace Islam or give jiziya. A church wall carried pro-Taliban slogans such as “Taliban zindabad”, “Islam zindabad”, “Christians Islam qabool karo”, etc.

Understandably, many scared Christians came out of their homes and protested, chanting counter-slogans like “Taliban murdabad”, “ANP murdabad” and “Pashtun murdabad”. They also set ablaze some shops belonging to the Pashtuns after which there was an exchange of fire, wounding one Pashtun and four Christians.

All this was expected to happen. It is a miracle that politicians never accept that they are wrong when they falsify the situation on the ground. Karachi is the most glaring example. What has happened in Sarjani Town was anticipated by Lawrence John Saldanha, Archbishop of Lahore and President Pakistan Catholic Bishops Conference, who sent a number of letters to the leaders of the country on April 16, 2009. He also wrote to the Prime Minister and the President of Pakistan:

“As the killing machine of terror in the name of religion continues with impunity, the small communities of Hindus, Sikhs and Christians in the NWFP are forced into unemployment, intimidation and migration. Statues of Buddha were mutilated, whereas St Mary’s School, Convent, and Chapel at Sangota (Swat) were bombed to the ground. The Don Bosco School at Bannu has also been the target of bombing. Christian, Hindu and Sikh families in Dara Adam Khel in 2008 and recently Non-Muslims in Orakzai Agency have been forced to evacuate as jiziya was imposed on them by the Taliban”.

Father Saldanha also wrote to the MQM chief Mr Altaf Hussain, thanking him for opposing the Nizam-e Adl Regulation in Swat, the valley where all the Christian charities have been gutted by the local warlord. Kalyan Singh Kalyan, secretary general of the Guru Nanak Ji mission, who looks after Gurdwara Dera Sahib in Lahore, has gone repeatedly to the tribal areas to get his Sikh co-religionists released for money, but now he is helpless in the face of crores of rupees demanded as jiziya in Orakzai.

When nations fall to internecine bloodletting, the minorities get annihilated in the crossfire. They also become a target for the narrow-minded who look for opportunities of violence. What has begun in Karachi may spread throughout Pakistan. There are two million Christians in Pakistan and they haven’t run away over the past half-century because they are too poor to do that. After being cruelly targeted by the Blasphemy Law, they now face perhaps the most dangerous moment of their lives. Can the government save them? Can the government and the army save the state of Pakistan? *