Subversion
and Civil Unrest
Internal threats to Pakistan
come from several sources. One danger is the problem
of ethnic unrest. Punjab,
with almost 60 percent of the population, dominates
almost all aspects of national life. This fact is
resented by smaller ethnic groups, all of whom have
at one time been actively dissident.
For
the most part, with the exception of Sindh,
the situation was quiet in the early 1990s. Sparsely
settled Balochistan required an extensive pacification
campaign by the army from 1973 to 1977, and both Afghan
and Soviet
involvement was alleged. After the war in Afghanistan,
however, there was no source of outside support and
no significant violence. The potential for unrest
remains, however, because Baloch
feel threatened by the growing numbers of non-Baloch
moving into the province. The North-West
Frontier Province has long been restive and subject
to Kabul's blandishments on the basis of shared Pakhtun
identity, but Afghanistan no longer offers a feasible
alternative, and the Afghan Pakhtun tribal groups
have participated rather well in Pakistan's
modest prosperity. Some Kashmiris in Pakistan administered
Kashmir probably envision a future independent of
Pakistan, but their attentions have been absorbed
by the problems of Indian administered Kashmir.
In
the early 1990s, the principal challenge in civil
unrest came from Sindh, Pakistan's second most populous
province, where the indigenous population was under
increasing pressure from non-Sindhis who had migrated
there. Based on their ethnic identity, Sindhis have
formed several political movements, notably the Jaye
Sindh,
which the government perceived as threatening to Pakistan's
unity. Islamabad
also claimed that these groups were receiving help
from India in their quest to establish a "Sindhudesh,"
or independent homeland for Sindhis. The muhajir (immigrants
from India and their descendants) minority in Sindh,
which dominated Karachi
and the other cities, have been in sharp conflict
with the Sindhis and other ethnic groups. Further,
large numbers of kidnapping and bombings in Sindh--the
virtual breakdown of law and order--necessitated the
imposition of army rule in 1992.
An
additional source of unrest has been the rampant gun
culture and spread of narcotics-based corruption,
particularly since the war in Afghanistan.
Pakistanis have always been well armed, but the availability
of cheap, modern weapons has meant that criminals
and private citizens have significant firepower at
their disposal. Because most violence is criminal
or anomic, it does not pose a direct threat to the
state, but should the crisis of governability in Sindh
spread more broadly, it could place unbearable stress
on the nation.
In
the early 1990s, foreign-sponsored subversion in Pakistan
appeared to be insignificant. The Afghans were too
preoccupied with their own concerns to agitate along
the frontier, and the Soviet Union, which had long
had adversarial relations with Pakistan, had fragmented
into a number of self-absorbed states occupied by
the struggle for survival in a new postcommunist world.
India had ties to dissident groups in Sindh
and perhaps elsewhere; these, however, were probably
maintained in order to remind Pakistan that its involvement
with Punjabi Sikh and Kashmiri Muslim insurgents in
India was not cost-free. In its more youthfully exuberant
days, the Islamic regime in Iran was involved in subversive
support of Shia elements in Pakistan,
but such activity was no longer a significant factor.
During
the Zia
period, a group called Al-Zulfiqar, operating from
Damascus and Kabul and seeking to destabilize the
government through terrorist actions hijacked, an
aircraft in 1981. Murtaza Bhutto, a son of Zulfiqar
Ali Bhutto, was involved, and AlZulfiqar claimed to
have some relationship to the Pakistan People's Party
(PPP), which was totally denied by the PPP.
Although authorities have reported continued activity
by AlZulfiqar , its existence is shadowy at best,
and with the return of democratic rule, its activities
have been insignificant. There are no other known,
organized subversive groups that threaten the government
in any serious way.
Pakistan's
attitude toward terrorism is somewhat more ambivalent
than that of most other countries. On the one hand,
Al-Zulfiqar demonstrated to Pakistan
the importance of international cooperation in combatting
international terrorism as manifested in airplane
hijackings and bombings. On the other hand, however,
Pakistan has had no qualms about supporting insurgents
in India, some of whom were engaged in activities
that can only be described as terrorist.
In
January 1993, the United States warned Pakistan
that it was under "active continuing review"
for possible inclusion on the Department of State
list of terrorist countries for its alleged support
of terrorist activities in the Indian states of Punjab
and Kashmir. By July, however, the United States had
withdrawn its threat, having determined that Pakistan
had implemented "a policy for ending official
support for terrorism in India."
As
Pakistan
approached the end of its first half-century of existence,
its security problems had changed yet were in many
ways the same. The global setting had altered radically,
but the enmity with India remained a constant, although
it had gained in predictability and, probably, stability.
Subversion was still a potential rather than an active
threat. Problems of law and order were more acute,
but the means of dealing with them had not changed
greatly. Rather, Pakistan's security problems were
rooted in its own polity and society. Repeated political
collapse, corruption, inability to define its ethnic
and religious identities, and failure to meet the
needs of the people--these are challenges that could
eviscerate a state even with the most capable military
machine and efficient security apparatus. Pakistan,
as it considers its continuing security dilemma and
the international image it wishes to project, must
energetically confront and deal with these harsh realities.
Pakistan
caught in false debate between secularism and sectarianism
Fifty
years after its creation, Pakistan is still unsure
of its identity. Notwithstanding the zionist settler
entity in Palestine,
Pakistan is the only country in the world to have
come into existence on the basis of religion - Islam
- but it has yet to find its moorings.
Ruled
by a triumvirate of feudal lords, the military and
a westernised bureaucracy which believes it is still
living in the days of the raj, the west-doting secular
mafia has successfully concealed its true colours
under a thin veneer of 'Islamicity.' Islam would have
been banished, a la Turkey
and Indonesia,
but for the fact that the Pakistani masses would not
allow it. There is, however, no Islam in Pakistan,
only slogans. read
more .......
