So today “stateless” Ajmal Kasab, the surviving member of the 26/11 terrorist attack team beind held by Indian authorities, has written a letter to the Pakistani High Commissioner, claiming his Pakistani nationality and even asking the Pakistani government to assist him in legal proceedings. Meanwhile Ajmal Kasab’s father has come on television from Pakistan claiming Ajmal to be his son. And furthermore, the Pakistani media has even searched out and found the village where Ajmal Kasab hails from in Punjab in Pakistan. Even Pakistan’s opposition leader, Nawaz Sharif, a far more belligerent fellow than the present government, has asked the Pakistani government to just accept that this “stateless’ Ajmal Kasab is from Pakistan. So we can hardly blame the Pakistani government for still claiming they have seen no adequate evidence to show that “stateless” Ajmal Kasab is from Pakistan. This is what they do best: finding novel and increasingly bewildering methods for denying the obvious. For the Pakistani government, reality is just a challenge best ignored.
As Pakistan’s government continues to lose credibility in the eyes of the entire international community, the country is losing allies across the globe, or at least losing the respect of allies, whatever semblance of respect the government had to begin with. In the recent UN Security Council ruling regarding the Jama’at-ud Dawa, all eleven member countries, including such Muslim members as Libya and Indonesia supported the bill, and even Pakistan’s perennial ally China voted in favour of the resolution. From Pakistan’s biggest critics to its most stalwart allies, the whole world is saying to the Pakistani government: for God’s sakes, do something.
Pakistan’s isolation and international humiliation is apparent. Yet, at the end of the day, Pakistan is still, for all diplomatic purposes, a sovereign state, and needs to be treated as such. No doubt the Pakistani government has proven ineffective at best in proving that they are sincere in breaking down the terrorist networks and bringing the terrorists to justice. And no doubt, India has every reason to be dissatisfied with Pakistan. Yet, at the end of the day, the Indian government needs to give the Pakistani government a little more to work with. Evidence and intelligence does need to be shared and shared in a way clearly visible to the public. A simple letter from a terrorist under intense interrogation cannot, in any scenario, be considered adequate evidence to justify military action, even if it contains the absolute truth. Why is this evidence sharing so necessary, when the responsibility of this Pakistan-based organization seems so obvious, and the danger it poses to the world seems so clear? Because, to a Pakistani population deeply suspicious of the words and intentions of other states, especially their historic enemy, India; all this is not so obvious. This is a delicate situation. These rogue terrorist elements may be operating from Pakistan because of the complicity and duplicity of Pakistan’s government, armed forces and intelligence services. Yet, if Pakistan’s government were to go after them, with no real explanation or attempt at selling the war to the Pakistani people, such a war would suffer the same fate of unpopularity and ineffectiveness the war in Waziristan has suffered. Once more, popular perception would characterize such a crackdown as another questionable war on Pakistan’s own people, for another foreign non-Muslim country. There needs to be a very visible display of cooperation and evidence and intelligence sharing on India’s behalf so that, to some extent at least, the Pakistani people’s suspicions can be assuaged. Perhaps India feels that it should not have to be this understanding of Pakistan’s situation, given this scenario. Perhaps they are right, but it definitely is in their best interest to be. And as for the Pakistani government; Ajmal Khasab:Stateless? Get Real! And Take Action.
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What annoys me most about this situation is that regardless of what nationality this fellow is the government of Pakistan (and humanity at large) should be CONDEMNING is actions to the fullest extent instead of fighting stupid battles trying to prove his nationality.
ReplyDeleteEven if he is Pakistani, so WHAT? At the end of the day he is a terrorist and he must be dealt with as such.
And if the Pakistani government was filled with anything other than idiots they would use this opportunity to crack DOWN on terrorism instead of as you so aptly put it ignoring the challenge of reality.
- Xeb
Xeb, as a fellow Pakistani, I beg to differ.
ReplyDelete(Cutting and pasting the comment I left on your Facebook here ... )
Until Pakistan faces up to its chequered past, the questionable ideology that forms its foundation, and the rogue elements in its military, government and intelligence agency, it will continue to be a liability on the South Asian region and a source of chaos and disorder. Pakistan *desperately* needs to reinvent itself on some basis other than Islam, and as something concrete and not just anti-India. Otherwise, I think civil war or internal disintegration of some sort is probably inevitable.
We in Pakistan need to stop whitewashing history and pretending that the ghosts of the past are not still there. Historical forces and trends are not merely abstract things. When a state establishes a certain momentum in a particular direction -- in Pakistan's case, its anti-India foreign policy and its rogue intelligence agency -- that momentum will keep exerting a force long after you no longer want it to.
However much Pakistanis may wish to cry "Wolf!" when accused of terrorism, the fact is that rogue Islamist elements in Pakistan's military and intelligence agency have and still do support terrorist groups. Until the citizenry wakes up and starts demanding accountability, expect things to get worse. Pakistanis need to take responsibility for a situation that has been building up for decades now.
And I want to add that I totally agree with this quote from another article on this blog:
"The country of Pakistan is in an especially problematic position. A country built on the very ideal of national security, that the Indian Muslim population required security from a Hindu-dominated Indian state, Pakistan’s existence was premised on national security, and hence, so was the direction the country took. The state apparatus right from the beginning was taken over by the army, and since then the military has continually used external enemies as a rationale to perpetuate its power. Pakistan is a state devoid of an internal identity, and merely exists, on the premise that the people within its borders need to be protected. Hence, all policy is built around manufacturing ‘us vs them’ scenarios, and adopting strategies accordingly. From confronting Indian aggression, to preventing Indian and Afghani encirclement, to holding up against American hegemony, Pakistan’s establishment depends on constant external conflicts, and uses it to keep the nation in line."