PAKISTAN & TERRORISM: THROUGH US EYES [As reported by an Indian]
saag.org
by B.Raman
During my stay of 11 days in the US (February 21 to March 3, 2002), I passed
through the airports of Los Angeles (thrice), Chicago, Washington DC, Atlanta and
Houston. I walked alone in the streets, visited pubs to have a drink, checked my
mail in internet cafes and spent some time in book shops.
Not once was anyone unpleasant to me or, for that matter, to any foreigner. Yes, I
was checked carefully during departures, frisked physically and asked to remove my
shoes and put them through X-ray. But so were many white Americans. The extra
physical checks were random, but these were not specifically directed at foreigners,
as is often alleged in the media.
America has remained America despite September 11. The Americans are as
relaxed, as friendly, as open and as polite to foreigners as they have always been.
There is probably and understandably an inner tension, but they don't show it
outwardly.
Things now move faster in airports because there has been a tremendous increase
in the immigration and security personnel deployed. They make extra efforts to be
pleasant to foreigners lest they feel they are unnecessarily suspected. There are
more American citizens of foreign origin deployed on immigration and security duties
at the airports than in the past to make the foreigners feel more comfortable.
But no risks are taken. When they have to be strict, they are strict. There were
many moments of inconvenience. For example at the LA airport on the night of
March 2/3, 2002, during my departure for India via Singapore. When we, the
passengers, had completed all security formalities and were about to board the
aircraft, the security staff noticed that an X-ray machine was not functioning
normally.
They suspended all departures, made all the passengers (nearly 5,000) come out of
the airport and wait in the street outside till the machines were set right and they
could be checked again. For nearly three hours, we were standing in biting cold in a
queue nearly a km long.
Many of those waiting were American citizens. Not one of them complained about
the inconvenience. They accepted with a smile that such inconvenience was the
price they had to pay for effective security against terrorists.
Six months after September 11, President George Bush continues to be the toast of
the US for the cool, but firm determination with which he has been leading the war
against terrorism. There is nothing but praise for his team too, particularly for Mr.
Donald Rumsfeld, his Defence Secretary. Patriotism and unity of action remain as
strong as they were on September 11.
But one could hear uncomfortable, but muted remarks that an over-stress on
patriotism and unity of action was coming in the way of an open debate on the
intelligence and security inadequacies which made September 11 possible and on
the required corrective action.
One also came across muted expressions of concern over what is perceived as a
vigorous perception management by the Administration in order to project a rosy
picture of the results of the war against terrorism.
During my stay, I interacted with a wide cross-section of knowledgeable and thinking
Americans. The question which I posed to them was :"Why are you putting all your
eggs in the Musharraf basket?".
And the counter-question which I faced was :" Does India have a carefully
thought-out exit policy on the border?"
There were no uniform answers to my question on Musharraf. Some cited with
approval Prof.Stephen Cohen's (Brookings) reported characterisation of Musharraf
as Pakistan's Harry Truman---- a person considered mediocre, even below
mediocre before he assumed power, but who showed statesmanlike qualities after
assuming office.
There was an embarrassing silence for a few seconds at a seminar, when an
Indian-American in the audience told a professor who quoted Prof. Cohen: "I hope
Musharraf does not emulate Truman and drop a couple of atom bombs on populated
centres of India."
There were others, mainly Indian-Americans, who compared the USA's using
Musharraf against bin Laden to its using Stalin, perceived to be a lesser evil, against
Hitler, a greater evil. They added with a wink: "You know how we turned against
Stalin and Communism after we had got rid of Hitler !" Wishful thinking?
Many projected it in realpolitik terms. Better a known quantity than an unknown.
There was a question mark over Gen. Mohammad Aziz Khan, Chairman of the Joint
Chiefs of Staff Committee, because of his links with the jihadi organisations.
Lt.Gen.Mohammad Yusuf Khan, the Vice Chief of Army Staff, was an unknown
quantity.
It was repeatedly stated that as a result of the US keeping the Pakistan Army at a
distance after the invoking of the Pressler Amendment in 1990, it had denied itself of
any influence over the present crop of Lt.Gens, many of whom it hardly knew.
They did not share India's distrust of Musharraf's sincerity, but did have questions in
their mind about his ability to deliver. The Americans are an intensely focussed and
result-oriented people and I got the impression that they would judge Musharraf not
by his controversial past, but by his future contribution to the success of the war
against terrorism.
The message everywhere was:" We trust Musharraf today, but whether we continue
to trust him tomorrow will depend on his actions."
The ghastly murder of Daniel Pearl, the journalist of the Wall Street Journal, by the
jihadis has created a definite feeling of unease that there is something more than
meets the eye in Islamabad. Did Musharraf lie about Pearl being still alive when he
came to Washington DC or did somebody in the Pakistani military-intelligence
establishment lie to him? That was the question being widely debated.
Musharraf's visit to Washington DC was not as successful as it was perceived by
many in India to be. I noted with relish that Vir Sanghvi's depiction of Musharraf as
a humbug after his Washington visit had been widely read in the US campuses.
I was asked by many about the reports carried by the US media on the revamping
of the ISI by Musharraf. My reply was: "You go back to 1993. Under pressure
from Clinton, Nawaz Sharif sacked Lt.Gen.Javed Nasir, the then DG of the ISI and
12 other officers identified by the US as mixed up with terrorists. They left the ISI
headquarters with bag and baggage and started operating from Sharif's residential
office under different designations."
Many expressed an unease over what they thought was the lack of an Indian exit
strategy on the border. They did not disapprove of India mobilising its troops and
deploying them on the border after the terrorist attack on the Indian Parliament on
December 13, 2001. They accepted the need for some coercive diplomacy by India
if it was carefully controlled and provided for an exit. At the same time, they were
against any punitive action.
They asked for my personal views as to what could be the ideal conditions for an
exit decision. I replied: "Significant drop in cross-border infiltrations and acts of
terrorism even after the snow has melted and indications of a change in the mindset
of Pakistan towards India, marked by its abandoning its use of terrorism as a
weapon to achieve its strategic objective."
The next question: "Does the Indian intelligence have the ability to assess correctly
that India's expectations are being fulfilled?" I had no hesitation in replying
affirmatively.
During an hour-long interview over a popular radio station of Houston on March 1, I
was questioned about the communal riots in Gujarat after the wanton killings of
Hindu passengers of a train at the Godhra railway station. I pointed out to the
ISI-promoted nexus between the mafia groups and terrorists and India's efforts to
secure the extradition of Dawood Ibrahim and the Memon brothers from Pakistan to
face trial for their involvement in the Mumbai blasts of March,1993.
Whenever the Government of India had tried to act against Dawood Ibrahim in the
past, he had retaliated by provoking communal riots. I am confident that careful
investigation would prove that this is what happened at Godhra.
(The writer is Additional Secretary (retd), Cabinet Secretariat, Govt. of India,
and, presently, Director, Institute For Topical Studies, Chennai. E-Mail:
corde@vsnl.com ). |
