Foreign Correspondence

[Amaunet]

On February 18, Musharraf while addressing a convention of ulama in Islamabad, again warned that "extremist elements" must be weeded out, otherwise the Americans are likely to attack Pakistan.

Under pressure from the Americans, the Pakistan army has adopted harsh colonial-era tactics of collective punishment against Waziri tribesmen, who are told that they must hand over Taliban and al-Qa’ida suspects, or their houses will be blown up. Tribal elders of the Ahmedzai and Utmanzai tribes in South Waziristan have been handed lists of suspects whom the army wants. Failure to comply invites harsh collective punishments against the entire tribe, in the manner of Israel’s tactics in Occupied Palestine. The army has also threatened to take hostages if suspects are not surrendered.
http://usa.mediamonitors.net/content/view/full/5410/

Adhering to this ruthless strategy Pakistan authorities have arrested 16 tribal chiefs in South Waziristan who they say were not cooperating in rounding up al-Qaeda and Taliban elements hiding in the region.
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In addition there are unconfirmed reports that US soldiers had been involved in the killing of 11 tribals and were being given a free run in the tribal areas.
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The harsh colonial-era tactics employed against the tribesmen could be the catalyst for a tribal war and probably are one reason for the US repetitively and vehemently denying that US troops are operating in Pakistan. Another reason could be that we are going into China and the only Afghanistan route by way of the Wakhan corridor is too narrow a strip of land and that leaves Pakistan.
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Gen John Abizaid, commander-in-chief US Central Command, said that so far the US troops were only operating on the Afghan side of the border.

The operations on the Pakistani side of the border, he said, "certainly (do) not involve direct US forces' activity there are no US troops in Pakistan."
http://www.hipakistan.com/en/detail.php?newsId=en56488&F_catID=&f_type=source

-Am

Musharraf struggles to satisfy volatile mix of constituencies
Pakistani president wins praise from Washington, severe criticism at home


Los Angeles Times
Originally published March 7, 2004
ISLAMABAD, Pakistan - President Pervez Musharraf, a decorated paratrooper who has survived fierce battles in war and politics, is waging the fight of his life. In the past two years, he has forsaken Pakistan's former Taliban allies, promised to end Islamic militancy, restarted delicate peace talks with India and admitted that a national hero ran a global black market in nuclear arms technology.
Each risky step has won praise from Washington but drawn criticism from a volatile mix of constituencies at home, including members of the military that is crucial to his hold on power.

Nationalists accuse him of selling out Pakistan's prestige and territorial claims. Mainstream politicians say that despite his promise to crack down on Islamic militants, he has protected those he finds useful.

Yet many of the militants accuse him of betrayal, and some have even tried to kill him. In December, he survived two assassination attempts within 11 days.

Musharraf once enjoyed wide support at home for leading a coup against thieving politicians. He says he is winning the fight to transform Pakistan into a stable democracy that rejects any form of extremism, and he might yet bring many disparate strands together to save the country from itself.

But he might also turn out to be another failed military ruler who digs his country into a bigger hole. Critics say the president is turning into an angry strongman who will do anything to stay in power. His actions often contradict his words, and his policies sometimes push him into deeper trouble. At the heart of his strategy, critics maintain, is a Faustian bargain that aids the extremists he publicly opposes.

Samina Ahmed, South Asia project director for the International Crisis Group, a Brussels, Belgium-based think tank, said Musharraf has turned his back on millions of worldly, middle-class Pakistanis who practice a moderate Islam and is destroying the democracy he claims to be defending.

"His attention is focused on ensuring that he retains the support of the West, particularly the U.S., and the support of the religious right to neutralize his secular political opposition," Ahmed said. "It is this fault line that characterizes his rule."

Washington regards the 60-year-old Musharraf, who seized power in 1999, as the best hope for stability in Pakistan and in the broader region. Two recent decisions illustrate Musharraf's importance to the United States and the dangers he faces.

Under U.S. pressure, Musharraf exposed Abdul Qadeer Khan, the widely popular father of Pakistan's atomic bomb, as a nuclear arms peddler last month. That angered many Pakistanis, and fed suspicions there and abroad that senior military officers approved the nuclear proliferation. So Musharraf also praised Khan as a national hero and quickly pardoned him.

Musharraf faces similar pressures over Kashmir. India claims the rights to all of Jammu and Kashmir, but Pakistan says Kashmiris ought to be able to vote on independence or union with either country. Peace talks between the rival nuclear powers are scheduled to start as early as May and aim to show progress by August.

If Musharraf compromises too much, Pakistanis will conclude that he is a failed pawn of the United States, which might break him, said Hamid Gul, a former head of the Pakistani military's powerful Inter-Services Intelligence agency who thinks Washington isn't pressing India hard enough.

"There should be no impression that America is trying to put Pakistan in a corner and bash it with a big stick," Gul said. "I think that impression is getting more firm in Pakistanis' collective mind, that Americans are no friends of ours, and if they are trying to support Pervez Musharraf, it is because they have a vested interest in him at this particular time."

A senior State Department official described Pakistan's behavior under Musharraf as "more cooperation than not" with U.S. objectives.

"You have to look at this in all its complexity," the official said. "There are good things going on. There are other things that should be happening that maybe aren't ... but it's an ongoing effort."

Musharraf faces difficult choices. "He's riding several tigers at the same time, occasionally hopping from one to the other," said Stephen Cohen, a Pakistan specialist at the Brookings Institution in Washington.

Despite his claims, human rights campaigners in Pakistan regard Musharraf as an enemy of democracy rather than its savior. They complain that police and military intelligence agents harass or arrest them. Judges allow the government to detain people for long periods without charging them. One of the country's leading pro-democracy campaigners, former Cabinet minister Javed Hashmi, is fighting charges in a closed trial.

"Stability comes from institution-building, and if anything, Musharraf and his people have eroded every institution that was there," Asma Jehangir, a top human rights lawyer who is also the United Nations special rapporteur on extrajudicial killings, said from Geneva. Political analysts say Musharraf undercut his popular support with a referendum in April 2002 aimed at legitimizing his rule. His name was the only one on the ballot, and the vote was widely dismissed as a fraud.

Later that year, he held parliamentary elections. Musharraf had forced the two most popular civilian politicians, former Prime Ministers Nawaz Sharif and Benazir Bhutto, into exile. There was little public opposition because of rampant corruption in their administrations.

Musharraf disqualified many of their parties' candidates in 2002 because of alleged corruption or on other grounds, such as the lack of a university degree. But Islamic clerics were allowed to run even though their education was based mainly on the Quran. As a result, the elections strengthened the religious right, giving it its strongest electoral showing.

"Never before has Pakistan had such a strong presence in the parliament of religious extremist groups," Jehangir said. "And more than that, there is a political vacuum. Who is going to fill that vacuum?"

The mullahs hope they will.

If Musharraf is overthrown or killed, a pro-Western military officer probably will succeed him. But Muslim hard-liners appear to be in a stronger position to challenge the succession than they were before he seized power.

The military has had close ties with Islamic militants since Gen. Zia ul-Haq seized power in 1977. Two decades later, the ISI was a prime backer of the Taliban in neighboring Afghanistan.

After the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks, Musharraf had to choose between Washington and continued patronage of the Taliban, and made his strategic shift toward the United States.

The religious right denounced Musharraf and claims that its popular support started to grow after he made that decision. But when the general tried to consolidate his power, he ended up in a marriage of political convenience with those same Islamic parties.

In December, after a year of negotiations that paralyzed parliament, the religious parties provided the votes Musharraf needed to rewrite parts of the constitution and legally cement his hold on power until at least the end of 2007.

In exchange, they want Musharraf to make concessions that advance their agenda, such as dropping a reform plan for madrasas, religious schools, that foster Islamic extremism.

Critics of his cooperation with the religious parties say it is not too late for Musharraf to salvage Pakistan's democracy by restoring the old constitution and lifting the bans on Bhutto and Sharif.

"If the democratic transition is resumed, then the mullahs stand to lose," said Ahmed of the Brussels think tank. "In any free and fair election, absent state patronage, the religious right is politically marginalized - just as Pakistani moderates are marginalized by military governments."

The general seems determined to hold his ground. In interviews and speeches over the last two years, he has insisted that he has a vision of Pakistan, and the entire Islamic world, following a course of "enlightened moderation."

"I am firmly convinced that extremist forces do not - will not - rise in Pakistan and do not have a future in Pakistan," Musharraf told an international call-in show in September.



http://www.baltimoresun.com/news/nationworld/bal-te.pakistan07mar07,0,7374859.story?coll=bal-nationw....