ArticleGrowing terrorism in South Asia
——General Musharraf, former President of Pakistan
Terrorism is a top issue in South Asia. [M: Terrorism and extremism is like a tree. There are leaves. These terrorists, you eliminated them of them, they will grow again.] Why does the violence continue to escalate? [M: The root is the alienation of the Muslim community.] And US criticism of Pakistani intelligence for secretly supporting the Taliban isn’t improving relations. [M: If somebody has killed my soldiers, around 1,500 of them, I will be supporting them? What kind of logic is this?]
South Asia has seen an escalating pace and scale in terrorism over the past few years. With terrorism transferring from West to East, nearly 70% of terrorist attacks took place in Asia, mostly in South Asia. There is growing realization that South Asia has become the crucible of terrorism. The security and stability of South Asia affects the continent as a whole, and even the rest of the world. So what are the challenges facing South Asia? As a major country in South Asia and a centrifuge for terrorism, what is Pakistan’s role in stopping violence in the region?
Guest profile
Pervez Musharraf is the former president of Pakistan. He was born in India in 1943, and moved to Pakistan in his childhood with his family. In 1961 he entered the Pakistan Military Academy. Musharraf took power in October 1999 when he dismissed the national and provincial legislative assemblies. In June 2001, he took the position of President, and was successfully re-elected in 2007. One year later Musharraf resigned from the post.
PART I Security in South Asia
Q: Hello and welcome to the Main Talk, I’m your host Qin Yi. This week we are very honored to be joined by General Musharraf, former President of Pakistan. General Musharraf, welcome to the Main Talk.
M: Thank you very much.
Q: First about the South Asian region as a whole, we understand the EU and US view as a troubled region with competing powers that demands a comprehensive and interlocked strategy. How do you comment on the overall situation in this region?
M: Yes. I think that the situation is quite serious from many points of view. One is that it is considered nuclear flashpoint in India-Pakistan relations. The other is the latest development of the terrorism and extremism in the region. And the third of course, if your economy is not performing, another challenge is the well-being of the people, unemployment and poverty, etc. Those are three areas of challenges in the region.
Q: What is the most serious problem, you mentioned three of them?
M: At the moment, I think terrorism and extremism is the most serious problem.
Q: How will you describe the landscape of terrorism in South Asia?
M: Well, it is a serious issue. It has multi-dimensional aspects. There is Al Qaida to be eliminated from the region; there is militant Taliban in Afghanistan and they have supporters in Pakistan, especially our travel agencies; then there is“talibanization”in a certain district of Pakistan; and then there is extremism in the society.
The word Taliban is from the Pashto language meaning“students”, the plural of Taliban. After the Taliban regime collapsed in 2001, its remnants evacuated into Pakistan’s North-West Frontier Province and other areas along the Afghanistan-Pakistan border. Recent years have seen the re-emergence of the Taliban’s movements.
Q: You mentioned that there is support from travel agency within Pakistan. The US have actually criticized that the Pakistani Government has been supporting and providing official assistance to the Taliban for a long time, how true is that?
M: It is absolute nonsense. They are creating all the problems in Pakistan. It is a danger for Pakistan. We are not dealing with them for the United States or for anyone else. We are doing that for ourselves. So why the government support them? Actually, this talk goes on because we have seen in the decade of the 1990s when everyone, after the Soviet Defeat in 1989 and the end of the Cold War, left this region. And then, the Al Qaida came up. Al Qaida is composed of the same“Mujahidin”who were brought here. And then Taliban came in. Now when Taliban came in, there were two parties warring against each other: Taliban versus“Northern Alliance”. The Taliban were all Pashtos, the Northern Alliance was Tajikistan, Uzbekistan, Hazaras, and they were being supported by India and Russia. The Taliban with the Pushto background had linkages with Pakistan in FATA because it is the same ethnic group. So obviously, we had recognized the Taliban Government, we were the only country which recognized that they had a mission in Kabul. From that time onwards, people think that we support Taliban, but we certainly did not agree with their lines of thinking on religion. I mean, if you are in diplomatic relations and you are dealing with somebody, that doesn’t mean that you support them in every aspects of their activities. So now, coming to the present times, what anyone says that the Government or the Army or ISI is supporting the Taliban is absolute nonsense.
Q: You said terrorism is still the top issue in South Asia but we have been talking about this entire terrorism war for many years. Have you made any achievements so far, in your opinion?
M: Well, we have. Certainly we have been reasonably successful in many ways. When did it start? Let’s think of that, it started with the 911 bomb blast, the attack on the World Trade Center. What happened after that? After that the United States attacked Afghanistan and all the Al Qaida and his Mujahedeens who already hold up in Afghanistan, they ran into Pakistan, in cities and the mountains. We have eliminated all of them from the cities; we have caught hundreds of them from the cities, from every city of Pakistan. We don’t see any Al Qaida now in the cities of Pakistan. That’s a great success. And then we pushed them into the mountains and we attacked them in the mountains with our army. Then, the other success is to control the borders that our population, the Pathans population on our side, doesn’t go across in Afghanistan to fight with the Taliban. So these are all successes.
Q: What are the challenges remaining ahead?
M: The challenges remaining ahead is, first of all, Afghanistan, Taliban are ruling the rural area of Afghanistan. Some people say about 50-60% of rural area in Afghanistan is under control of Taliban. That is the first challenge. So you said, unfortunately people keep thinking that Pakistan is the place. Pakistan keeps supporting this. Pakistan is the place where they come and they have same beliefs because people have sympathy on them. But where are they mainly from? They are Afghanistan. This is a misperception created by some people, designing to my Pakistan. So first we have to win in Afghanistan and secondly, we also have to control these elements of militant Taliban and Al Qaida in Pakistan in mountains.
PART II Pakistan, Afghanistan and US relations
Under the Obama administration, the US has recently rethought its strategy in South Asia. The US planned to provide Pakistan massive aid, 1.5 billion US dollars a year for five years for its social development. In return, the US put more pressure on the Pakistan to attack the Taliban on its border with Afghanistan.
Q: Is Pakistan, as a country, more likely to be aggressive in seeking those terrorists, especially given the pressure of the United States?
M: No. You see, why would we not want to be more aggressive? There are certain limitations. We have to be supported fully. But at the moment I want to say, people blame Pakistan which is the absolute contrary to the reality. You start blaming Pakistan, and the Pakistan army, and ISI, which is the main instrument of fighting against them. They are fighting them, they have killed hundreds of them and they have suffered casualties. Our forces have suffered about 1,500 deaths, so what kind of thinking is this? If somebody has killed my soldiers, around 1,500 of them, I will be supporting them? What kind of logic is this? There are certain limitations of course. First, the limitation of force, we have responsibilities on the Eastern borders, and we can not remove the whole army and bring them here. Secondly, the equipment, the gunshots, the helicopters and the fighter aircraft, the supply in munitions take a lot of money! So, we need to be supported, I mean, to be supported fully and reinforced. The Taliban leaders who have been caught, a lot of them have been caught, 50 to 60 of them, not one, I repeat not one, has been caught by the coalition forces in Afghanistan. We have done that, ISI has caught them, ISI has eliminated them. What kind of accusations are these? It disappoints the people of Pakistan. First, we are facing a problem, and secondly we are being blamed, and no encouragement. It’s demoralization. This is very counterproductive activity.
Q: You keep mentioning that Afghanistan, you said, that’s a hot spot in the region in the terms of anti-terrorism, but under the Obama’s administration, Pakistan is actually predicted as a bigger threat to the US than Afghanistan. What does that threat refer to? Where does it come from?
M: As far as Taliban and Al Qaida are concerned, the Taliban are mainly in Afghanistan, entirely in Afghanistan, and supported by Pakistan in FATA. FATA are seven travel agencies. The population of the travel agencies is 3% of Pakistan, and the main concentration is in South and North Waziristan, population 0.2% of Pakistan. Is this Pakistan? No. It is not Pakistan. There is extremism in the society, which we have to control. That is Pakistan’s specificity and the people of Pakistan. For some reasons, because of their historical experiences in the past two decades, Pakistan does not like Americans. So when they carried out attacks in Pakistan, there were demonstrations and there were terrible slogans against the United States. There is a dichotomy, why we are together with the coalition to fight terrorism and extremism. But the people are not with them, they don’t like them. This balancing has to be done and I would say the best balancing to be done is to reinforce Pakistan itself to meet this challenge of extremism in the society and the spread of Taliban. The second is the spread of Talibanization into certain districts. Now from the travel agencies, they are spreading to one of our settle districts Swat. It is called Swat. They have spread there. Well, that is negative.
Under pressure by the United States, Pakistan announced the operation in the North West Frontier Province in late April. Taliban rebels were driven out of Mingora, a major Taliban base in the Swat Valley, by Pakistan government troops at the end of May. So far over 12 hundred Taliban rebels were killed and three million civilians left homeless.
Q: What should you take on Obama’s new strategy in South Asia? I mean he is talking about withdrawing troops from Iraq and put more troops into Afghanistan.
M: I think I would agree with that because I think they need to have more forces there. I keep saying that there has to be a three-round strategy: military, political and social economic; but the political and social economic must not be done or must only be done from a position of strength. So the military aspect is very important. They need forces there. They certainly did need more forces there. So to that extent, I agree with President Obama to send more troops there. But let me say that those troops are insufficient, I mean 7,000 or 8,000 or 10,000 troops are insufficient. In that area there are mountains. It’s sucking troops. Therefore, it means much more than that. Nowadays, they bring forces themselves, or European Union or anybody else, or our national army; they need more forces.
PART III
India and Pakistan are the two largest countries in South Asia. However, conflicts in the Kashmir region dominated India-Pakistan relations over the past 50 years. In the mid-2000 there was an improvement in relations but they soured again after the 2008 Mumbai Terrorist Attacks, as mutual suspicion emerged between the two countries.
M: I would like to say one area we are working is missing, and when you are talking on terrorism and extremism and its holistic view. India, there is the problem in India. There is extremism in India because of the alienation of the Muslim minority. Those Muslims are used to be alienated and are being pushed into extremism that needs to be resolved. Kashmir dispute which is the cause of many independent“Mujahedeen”groups in Pakistan. Independent Muslim groups are ready to go in and they have been going on to fight. So, any sidelining or ignoring the realities of India and dealing only with Pakistan, Afghanistan, is not realistic. You are dealing with half of the problem, and you will not succeed. India has to be included in the package of fighting terrorism and extremism and getting to the root causes. The root cause is the alienation of the Muslim community, why? Fight on the root cause. If this Kashmir dispute is leading to terrorism and extremism in Pakistan, we need to resolve the Kashmir issue. So I don’t agree with him on the special representative Michel“Holbrook”, only to deal with Pakistan, Afghanistan. I don’t think they got the hard tools really fighting terrorism and extremism in a holistic manner. And his latest view that Kashmir, they are not going to deal with Kashmir is absolutely wrong, you are not then addressing the root causes, you are just addressing the peripheral. I keep saying that terrorism and extremism is like a tree, there are leaves, these terrorists, you are eliminating ten of them, you have done something, OK, fine. They are leaves, and they will grow again. You have to address the root, and the root is Kashmir dispute in this region and the root is the alienation of the Muslim community. The root is also to find out, what is the root of extremism in Pakistan? So I am not saying that Pakistan is all clean. The problem is the whole. We have to take a holistic approach and solve the problem.
Q: There is a worry that the nuclear powers of these two countries and tensions between the two countries contribute to the instability of the region?
M: In the past, before three wars, and a number of mini wars. I have been part of many of them. But then, other than that, what is dangerous is now, I am very sure that the leaderships on both sides are sensible enough not to get to war because the weapons of destruction, even at the national level, the accuracy have increased so much that both of us will suffer a lot. But so in this case, what is happening now is that in India especially not in Pakistan, there is an attack on the Parliament, they rip out its studio in their public and convene the Pakistan Government. Now why should the Pakistan Government attack your Parliament with terrorists? Mumbai again, they start saying irresponsible statements, as we will attack Pakistan, we will go for strike, and you think that Pakistan is not going to strike back? We are going to strike back. You attack Pakistan, we will attack you. You shouldn’t compare Pakistan with any small country, which doesn’t have force. So if you go for strikes in Pakistan, we will do so in India, so this kind of rhetoric is very dangerous.
Q: Where do you see this bilateral relations going?
M: Bilateral relations are going very well. In my time they were going very well. We never have India-Pakistan relations being so good till 2007 never. We got very close to signing, resolving our dispute. We were very close, even the Kashmir dispute, we were close to getting an agreement. I think it needs courage more than intelligence, more than flexibility, more than accommodation and more than understanding. If you don’t have courage, everything is useless because ultimately it is your courage to sign an agreement because in many aspects in that agreement, which your public will not like, or part of the public not the entire public, part of the public will not like. But that applies to Pakistan and India, because when you reach a deal, this is give-and-take. It cannot be a give, you can’t take, and you will never treat a deal like that give-and-take. This is the easy part and the difficult part is you have to justify to your population, so in your population there will be always some people who will strike and go out and shout around. But it doesn’t matter if it is for the good of the two countries.
Q: Do you think that this agreement will be signed or reached in the future there?
M: Well, the leaders are sensible enough, they must agree.
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