December 27, 2014 marks the seventh death anniversary of Benazir Bhutto, who sacrificed her life courageously resisting the agenda of fanatics who are bent upon pushing Pakistan to a theocratic state incapable of progressing towards an egalitarian and democratic polity. Since her assailants and conspiracy behind the murder conspirators remained unpunished, a ghastly tragedy hit the country on 16th December 2014 at Army Public School, Peshawar. The ones guilty of extending policy of appeasement towards terrorists are answerable to all those innocents who became victims at the hands of these barbarians. The perpetrators and their protectors deserve equal and exemplary punishment if we have to get rid of this menace.
Since the tragic assassination of Benazir Bhutto on 27th December 2007, Pakistan has been continuously moving towards dreadful conflicts and grave crises, confirming that the country lacks competent leadership that can pull it out of politico-socioeconomic mess. The five-year (mis)rule of Pakistan People's Party (PPP) under Asif Ali Zardari substantially damaged both the country and Bhutto's party-corruption reached new heights, maladministration spread like wild fire, law and order deteriorated to unthinkable levels, institutional confrontations accelerated and economic woes of people multiplied many times, just to mention a few. The trend set by PPP is continuing unabated-Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz (PML-N) and Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI) have also proved that they have neither any pragmatic programmes nor are competent enough to solve the fundamental problems faced by Pakistan and its people. In today's Pakistan there is not a single leader that matches the vision and determination of Benazir Bhutto to regain what we have lost domestically and internationally.
It is shameful that the state machinery has utterly failed to unveil the real hands behind Benazir's assassination even after a lapse of seven years. The valiant struggle waged by her to counter forces of terrorism may have culminated in her death but earned her immortality, now even her worst critics call her shaheed (martyr). Her removal from the political scene was aimed at installing certain "desirable elements" for converting Pakistan into a hub of militancy to undermine nuclear state and threaten the neighbours, especially democratic India and socialist China.
Such wages of appeasement towards militants, inaction of the rulers against them and their protection by certain quarters culminated in the most lamentable barbaric incident in Peshawar on 16 December 2014 when seven terrorists of Tehreek-e-Taliban Pakistan (TTP) launched an attack on the Army Public School. They were clad in the uniform of the Frontier Corps and entered the school from the rear. They stormed the premises and held it in a nine-hour siege. They moved from classroom to classroom, killing innocent students and staff-nearly 150 lost their lives and many hundreds received serious injuries.
Maulana Wahiduddin Khan, an eminent scholar of Islam, commenting on the tragic event of Peshawar, in, Tribal barbarianism in the name of Islam, aptly commented: "This bloody incident has given a chance to Muslims, especially of this area, to reconsider the whole matter. Only one more event of this kind has been reported in the past. It was also carried out by Islamist terrorists in the town of Beslan, North Ossetia in 2004. Muslims must think why such events take place in the Muslim world, while these have never occurred in the non-Muslim world."
Peshawar tragedy of 16th December 2014, sad killings of General Sanaullah Niazi, Lieutenant-Colonel Touseef and others on 15th September 2013, Bashir Ahmad Bilour, senior and respected leader of Awami National Party (ANP) and nine others on 22 December 2012, bomb blasts at many places, attacks on armed forces and civilians by the militants since 2001, are links of a single chain. These have been openly claimed by TTP and/or other banned militants/religious outfits.
PTI that has been advocating "truce" with terrorists, but also received their wrath, losing Law Minister Israrullah Gandapur and many others, after sharing power in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa with Jamaat-i-Islami (JI)-an ardent and open defender of militant Islam. It is obvious that there exists a 'Grand Design' aimed at keeping Pakistan, in fact, the entire South Asia in turmoil by certain powers that needs to be analysed and understood in its entirety if we want to overcome the cancer of militancy.
The ghastly attacks on GHQ Rawalpindi, PNS Mehran Base in Karachi, PAF Base at Kamra, intrusion in Abbottabad, invasion of Afghanistan and Iraq, campaigns against Libya, Iran, Syria and other Muslim States should be seen in the perspective of keeping the threat of Talibanisation alive by US and its allies. Now they have created another monster, Islamic State of Iraq and Syria (ISIS). It is a well-designed ploy, observes Indian scholar, Dr Sachithanandam Sathananthan, in his paper, The Great Game Continues. He says that its purpose is not to eliminate the 'Islamic threat' but to contain it within manageable limits and to spawn the next generation of 'terrorists.' Inventing new enemies and eliminating the older ones is part of the New Great Game.
"Islamic threat" through al Qaeda, the Taliban and ISIS etc is "Washington's leverage to intervene in countries for self-aggrandisement. In the case of Pakistan it has prime goal of distancing Islamabad from Beijing and exploit energy resources abundantly found in Balochistan and, in the long run, perhaps derail US administration's well-laid plans to bring Afghanistan to heel and to dominate Central Asia and its oil-rich Caspian Sea Basin," concludes Dr Sachithanandam Sathananthan in The Great Game Continues.
We all know that the Taliban have their origin in Pakistan. Interior Minister of Benazir Bhutto, Major General (retired) Naseerullah Baber (late) publicly confessed that "Taliban are "my brainchild." He minced no words claiming, "I consider them as strategic and political allies of Pakistan." It is well established that Pakistan's political and military leadership, including CIA and others, in their attempt to resist the onslaught of Soviet Union, created a monster that soon went out of their hands. Without understanding the contours of their ideology and ambitions, advocates of the Free World supported and trained them-it paved the way for al Qaeda to find a sanctuary and launch world-wide terrorist attacks. Till today, the entire world is suffering because of that decision-though right wing keeps on justifying the action as "need of the hour" and under "compulsion of holy war" to contain Soviet hegemony.
Pakistan's military establishment that has ruled the country directly or indirectly since the mid-fifties is now facing the bitter results of its policy of appeasement towards militants, supporting and supported by the Taliban and al Qaeda. They are now openly attacking military posts and convoys showing no respect for close relations of the past. It is true that creating and supporting the Taliban and other militants was a political decision that was never debated in the parliament-rather, imposed by those who really matter in the Land of Pure. Unfortunately all governments in Pakistan-military and civilian alike-were interfering in Afghanistan, the consequences of which are before us. Noted writers like Steve Coll in Ghost Wars and Ahmed Rashid in Descent into Chaos, mentioned that Naseerullah Babar and others worked closely with Afghan leaders such as Gulbadin Hekmatyar and Ahmed Shah Massoud providing them training camps for guerrilla warfare with money coming from CIA and elsewhere. The training, money and arms, provided by intelligence agencies of the Free World and their allies, made the Afghans victorious against Soviet Union, but the country was pushed to disorderliness and thereafter deadly tentacles of terrorism seeped into Pakistan and other neighbouring states.
The Afghan resistance forces were abandoned by the West after the Soviet troops' withdrawal -they started fighting each other culminating into a horrific civil war. For the West, the dismemberment of USSR as a superpower was the goal that they successfully achieved using students of madrassas (religious schools) from Pakistan. It is thus not surprising that Maulana Samiul Haq of Darul Uloom Haqqania, Akora Khattak, and Maulana Fazlur Rehman, head Jamiat Ulema Islam(JUI-F) keep on claiming to be fathers (spiritual teachers) of the Taliban. Over the period of time, the Taliban have emerged as a formidable power nobody can ignore-it is commonly believed that once the US and allied forces are out of Afghanistan they will recapture power in Kabul or create a lot of trouble for the elected government.
Though the Taliban is one identifiable homogeneous political entity, it also represents a coalition of various groups that want to capture state power and impose a particular orthodox brand of Islam through the barrel of gun in the entire world-therefore they have joined hands with ISIS and their like-minded groups. It is also a myth that Pakistani Taliban are different from Afghan Taliban-they represent the same ideology despite having different tactics to achieve it and controlled by uncommon leaders. The militant groups playing havoc with Pakistan's security are not under one control-they operate in Afghanistan and Pakistan having sanctuaries in the tribal belt of both the countries where state writ is virtually non-existent.
TTP/ISIS and many others are foreign planted/funded organisation. TTP is one of the many terrorist outfits and criminal organisations that have been created by CIA for furtherance of USA and its allies' interests in South Asia and elsewhere-the main aim is to contain socialist China, democratic India and undermine nuclear Pakistan. These organisations use the name of Islam to advance their own agendas-they work closely with each other to raise funds for purchasing arms through drug trade and other organised criminal activities like smuggling and kidnapping for ransom. It is a situation where many militant groups are engaged for more power and money. Therefore, we also witness inter and intra fighting amongst them for money and control-religion is used as a smoke screen to hide criminal acts.
The Taliban phenomenon is complex and riddled with many puzzles. It cannot be understood without studying the US foreign policy in which terrorism, drugs, arms and war, play a pivotal role. This is not a recent phenomenon. From the early part of the twentieth century, US leaders have been using arms, drugs and war hysteria as tools to advance their foreign policy objectives. The military interventions by US and its allies against a number of countries in recent years should be viewed in this perspective as well. Largely shrouded in mystery is the fact as to why CIA, even today, continues to work closely with the forces that US State Department employed to dismember USSR. It is not that long ago that CIA Chief spoke glowingly of American victories in the war on terror claiming "the ability to kill and capture key members of al Qaeda continues, and keeps them off balance-even in their best safe haven along the Afghanistan-Pakistan border" and ironically, they are called for negotiation from time to time but without any result!
All the banned religious outfits and militant groups like the Taliban, thrive on huge money received as "donations" from friends, drug-arms smuggling, extortions and ransoms and many other unlawful acts. Though they pose a greater threat to all States in this region and even the world community now, there is little or no effort collectively by all countries to severe their finances and supply of arms. This confirms the doubts that in fact "terrorism" is a tool in the hands of certain forces that want to impose the New World Order in the wake of 9/11.
Analyst and scholars have yet not examined assassination of Benazir Bhutto from the perspective of 'New Great Game' unleashed by powers of the day in this region. In her last book, Reconciliation: Islam, Democracy & the West, Benazir Bhutto tried to trace "the roots, causes, and potential solutions to the crisis within the Muslim world and the crisis between the Muslim World and the West". Benazir, in this work unveiled the agenda of neo-colonialists and their proxy-the so-called Islamic militants. Quoting extensively from Al Qur'an that Islam is a religion of peace, she laments "it has been brutally abused by a handful of extremists throughout the Muslim history to create chaos and disorder." She traces the factors behind militant Islam and exposes the colonial and neo-colonial forces promoting and encouraging it. These views must have annoyed the forces that want to keep the Muslim World in dark ages for their nefarious designs. These forces using their proxy-religious fanatics-thus got rid of her. It was not just a loss for Pakistan but a loss for the entire Muslim World.
In the wake of Benazir's ruthless assassination-still shrouded in mystery-Pakistan returned to 'democracy' (sic) but internal security threats assumed multiple dimensions. Sachithanandam Sathananthan in The Great Game Continues notes with concern that "Pakistani liberals are yet to discover onslaught of Late Neo-colonialism". His argument is that removal of Benazir and thereafter, easily maneuvered victory for Asif Ali Zardari in the presidential election "brought to a high point the tortuous process of regime change in Pakistan. Anyone who has followed the 'colour revolutions' that installed pro-American rulers in Georgia (Rose Revolution, 2003), Ukraine (Orange Revolution, 2004) and Kyrgyzstan (Tulip Revolution, 2005) could surely not have missed the tell-tale signs."
The theory propounded by Dr Sachithanandam got credence as proved by later events-Benazir's assassination paved the way for CIA's direct operations in the country for which Zardari and Rehman Malik allegedly acted as accomplice. Dr Sachithanandam highlighted that "the earliest foreboding surfaced in the backroom manoeuvres by United States and British intelligence services to engineer panic about the security of Pakistan's nuclear assets." It was a repetition of the hysteria they generated over non-existent weapons of mass destruction that Iraq allegedly possessed. A carefully-worded article, co-authored by former State Department officials Richard L. Armitage and Kara L. Bue, signalled the shift in US policy. After formally acknowledging the then President Pervez Musharraf's many achievements, the authors continued: "much remains to be accomplished, particularly in terms of democratisation. Pakistan must...eliminate the home-grown jihadists...And...it must prove itself a reliable partner on technology transfer and nuclear non-proliferation." And the denouement: "We believe General Musharraf...deserves our attention and support, no matter how frustrated we become at the pace of political change and the failure to eliminate Taliban fighters on the Afghan border". Translation: Musharraf has to go.
(To be continued)
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