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Army on collision course with Musharraf
By Syed Saleem Shahzad
KARACHI - At a time when the United States and
other Western countries are placing heavy pressure on
Pakistan to resolve the Kashmir dispute in a manner
acceptable to them - such as rejecting the militant
struggle - the Pakistani army remains obsessed with
supporting Kashmiri militants at all costs.
This
is in defiance of Pakistani President General Pervez
Musharraf, who has publicly committed to Washington that
he will curb cross-border terrorism from Pakistan
territory into Indian-administered Kashmir.
Now
it appears that the army leadership in Pakistan will
continue with its long-standing policy of supporting
training camps for Kashmiri separatists, both in
Pakistan and Pakistan-controlled Kashmir.
While
Musharraf has banned some of the smaller Pakistani
militant groups, such as the Jaish-i-Mohammed and the
Lashkar-i-Taiba, to much praise from the US, the
mainstream and larger Kashmiri groups operate freely
from Pakistan. These include the largest group, Hezbul
Mujahadeen, whose chief Syed Salauddin orchestrates his
militants in Indian Kashmir from Pakistan.
With assembly
elections due in October for the state assembly of
Indian-administered Kashmir - Jammu and Kashmir (J&K)
- the US (as does New Delhi) wants as many Kashmiri
groups as possible to participate to lend the polls
credence. This includes the All Parties Hurriyat
Conference, an umbrella organization of separatist
groups that has traditionally boycotted any polls in
J&K.
But before Musharraf could put any
pressure on these groups, the army made it perfectly
clear to him that it would not change its position
(support for militants) and that any attempt to force
the groups into the electoral process would amount to
Islamabad accepting J&K as an undisputed territory.
Now it emerges that the army will
continue its policy of complete solidarity with the
Kashmiri military struggle and its commitment to
boycotting the elections. This already appears to have
manifested itself with the weekend attack in Kashmir in
which 28 civilians died in gunfire on a shantytown near
Jammu in J&K, considerably raising tension in the
Valley.
This is exactly counter to what the
global powers want in the region, especially with regard
to oil and gas, such as a proposed major pipeline that
would run from Turkmenistan through Afghanistan and
Pakistan and on to India and in which US companies such
as Unocal are particularly interested. Obviously, such a
pipeline could only be built in times of peace.
Russian President Vladimir Putin recently urged
Musharraf to restrain cross-border incursions and
encouraged a continued crackdown on all militant
organizations to once and for all break their networks
in Pakistan. US Secretary of State Colin Powell's visit
to Pakistan at the end of the month is expected to
reinforce this message.
Pakistan, to be sure,
did help in arresting many Arab fighters who slipped
into Pakistan after the US strikes on the Tora Bora in
eastern Afghanistan earlier in the year. However, none
of the US's most wanted terrorists have been arrested -
starting with Osama bin Laden and other operatives of
his al-Qaeda. In particular, US authorities point to the
presence in Pakistan of people such as Khalid Shiekh
Mohammed, whom law enforcement agencies have not been
able to apprehend. The Kuwaiti is on the FBI's most
wanted list in connection with an aborted plan to bomb
Los Angeles airport in 1996.
Even Pakistan's
operations in the volatile tribal belt have fallen
apart. Islamabad deployed troops in this region (in
conjunction with US operatives) on the advice of the
Minister of the Interior, Moinuddin Haider, to track
down militants, especially those believed to have
escaped from Afghanistan. But after a showdown with
suspected al-Qaeda fighters in the Wazirstan Agency,
Pakistan lost 10 soldiers. This was a major propaganda
reversal for the government and resentment to the army
in this region has become so strong that its operations
there have virtually come to a stop.
Following
this incident there was another clash between
law-enforcement agents and al-Qaeda in Kohat in North
West Frontier Province (NWFP) in which five al-Qaeda men
died. As a result a strike was called, and interestingly
it was led not by Islamic parties but by ordinary
citizens rallied by a former parliamentarian of the
Pakistan Muslim League (Nawaz), Javed Ibrahim Paracha.
The city was shut for several days.
NWFP is the
main constituency of the Pakistan army from where many
top and middle ranking officials hail. Even Musharraf's
intelligence apparatus has warned him that his actions
in trying to curb cross-border activities across the
Line of Control in Kashmir and in acting against the
Taliban and al-Qaeda within Pakistan have caused deep
ripples in the Pakistan army.
And further,
Musharraf has been advised that such is the resentment
among some generals that the chances of a conspiracy
against him cannot be ruled out.
(©2002 Asia
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