The Commando in Civvies
Men, Matters and Memories

By M L Kotru

Someone is trying to pull the wool over our eyes. And in doing so it appears that the prepetrator is being clever by half. Gen Musharraf tells the world that the terrorist movement in Kashmir, fathered by his peers both of the civilian and military varieties, is an indigenous Kashmiri movement. And after five Pakistanis are killed in the attack on Parliament House and when India accuses Islamabad of failure to call its terrorists to order, he goes one better: let's have joint investigations into the incident. Mind you, when the Americans launched their war on terrorism in Afghanistan Musharraf made it a point to ask India to ''lay off'' Afghanistan which, as you and I know, had been a virtual fief of the Pakistani Inter-Service Intelligence and assorted fundamentalist Pakistani organisations. Musharraf was the hoping to retain a foothold in the country under the new dispensation for Afghanistan worked out in Bonn. In desperation, he wanted the Americans to retain ''moderate'' Taliban, as if such a beast exists, in the post-Taliban administration. He failed on both counts and he was told by the Americans and the British to cool it down. But Musharraf, the macho man, is not used to playing it cool.

When India tightened the diplomatic offensive against the Pakistani manouevrings and recalled its High Commissioner from that country Musharraf called the action ''arrogant''. One year and two months into office as the country's military dictator, Musharraf obviously does not know civility. To describe the Indian action as ''arrogant'' is the typical commando's language and has very little to do with diplomatese.

Musharraf and his Foreign Minister are clearly rattled by the belated Indian diplomatic offensive and hence the impoliteness, if you will. Musharraf may not be a terrorist himself but his language exposes him as someone who has no intention to be civil. Never mind the civilian suits he wears on occasions but at heart he remains a commando who believes in that as long as he sounds patriotic his job is done. He doesn't understand the sense of revulsion which the terrorist attack on Parliament House has generated in this country. His failure on this count is understandable, if only for the reason that democracy is alien to his system. He relies on the effect his sound bites, picked up by various TV networks, have on the coterie surrounding him and their resounding 'wah wahs' are just what the doctor ordered for his ears.

To, however, disguise Musharraf as just another commando would be a grievous mistake. The man is cunning. Again, a trait you would associate with a commando but there is much more to him than just that. Take his reaction to the American demands for reining in Lashkar-e-Toiba and Jaish-e -Mohammad. He rushed to his favourite media game and announced that he will act against the two. In the same breath he says the Lashkar and jaish are both Kashmir-based organisations. He even offers to freeze their assets. But by the time he acts both organisations have assumed new names and Lashkar chief Hafiz Mohammad Saeed, sitting over a multi-million rupee empire at Muridke, says that the Markaz Dawarul Irshad of which the Lashkar is the militant wing, has nothing to do with the latter. Hafiz blithely announces that the Lashkar will henceforth shift formally to the valley and that he has now appointed a Kashmiri chief of the Lashkar. If Lashkar has had nothing to do with the Markaz how does Hafiz Mohammad Saeed, presiding over his sprawling Pakistani empire in Muridke and elsewhere, come to appoint a new chief for the outfit and what gives him the power to ask the Lashkar to shift to the valley? And from where does it shift? Jaish-e- Mohammad's Maulana Azhar Masood, the man from Bahawalpur, who spent some years in Indian prisons, before Pakistani hijackers got him released in the hostage exchange at Kandahar, has been given a free run of Pakistan and he has used the madrassa network well enough to amass a fortune to support his depredations. Masood now says that the Jaish has no money, no assets. And he too has changed his outfit's name. Immediately after the Kandahar hijack drama Masood was lionised on return home to Pakistan, escorted all the while by armed guards. Reports were floated at the time that Gen. Musharraf has put curbs on his activities or as of now, that he was been arrested. But the Jaish chief continues to have access to tools of terrorism which includes a regular supply of arms and ammunition and large sums of money collected or extorted from Pakistanis over the past few years.

Even if it sounds repetitive, the point needs to be made that Gen. Musharraf is being less than sincere in responding to the advice that he act more stringently against the Pakistani terrorist outfits. He hopes to keep the Kashmir fire burning believing that his ''whole-hearted'' support to the Americans in Afghanistan will keep Washington happy and encourage more cash flow into his country.

The General forgets that the international community is closely watching as he feigns to be grappling with the terrorist outfits operating in Pakistan. By allowing Hafiz Mohammad Saeed, the founder of the Lashkar and the Muridke Markaz, to disclaim any link between the two, General Musharraf is exposing himself to the charge of abetting Hafiz's double-speak. The Americans aswell as the British, much as they would not like to disturb Musharraf at this juncture, must be sceptical about Pakistani designs. The demarches delivered to Foreign Minister Abdul Sattar by Washington and London confirm such doubts. Musharraf should view the Anglo-American concern over developments in this region as an opportunity to cleanse his nation of the sources of terrorism. This would, as the West also sees, contribute to Indo-Pak relations taking a positive turn.

Should the Pakistani military leader, however, continue to fudge the issue he would only be adding to the uncertainty in the region; there could be further downgrading of diplomatic relations between New Delhi and Islamabad, cancellation of the most favoured nation status, stopping Pakistani overflights over Indian-territory- and all this while the military build-up along the line of control and the international border continues, aggravating an already tense situation. With diplomacy sliding back, it is qute likely that the military build-up, already very substantial on both sides, may lead to an avoidable flare-up. New Delhi has every reason to believe that Musharraf as of now is not very keen to do anything that looks like breaking the back of fundamentalist outfits. They see him continuing with cosmetic measures of the kind he has already taken. For New Delhi the results of Gen Musharraf's moves against terrorists must be transparent enough to suggest a basic change of attitude in Islamabad. In this context New Delhi would like to know if the Anglo-American demands on Pakistan are linked seriously to the objective of destroying terrorist groups operating in Pakistan and about whose activities Washington has gathered incontrovertible evidence on its own over the past decade. Against this background it is surprising when someone in Washington rather naively suggests that Musharraf is as much a victim of Lashkar-e-Toiba and Jaish-e-Mohammad as India. It's time for the purveyor of this view to take his blinkers off and see the truth for what it is.

MEN AND MATTERS
Snapping of rail,bus links will affect ISI

From B L Kak

India’s stance vis-a-vis Pakistan had to change after the terrorist attack on Parliament House. The stance is visibly tough. It has been characterised as a "necessary signal" not just to the neighbouring country but to the world that India is quite capable of fighting its own battle against terrorism.

Nonetheless, it is a matter of concern that in the past, the only two times that New Delhi has recalled its envoy from Islamabad was prior to war—one in 1965 and the other in 1971. And it is also a matter of regret that New Delhi has been forced into a situation where it has had to snap all rail and bus links with Pakistan.

Come January 1, 2002, you will have no buses, no trains plying between India and Pakistan. This phenomenon will, naturally, put the people of both the countries to immense hardship.

Both the Samjhauta Express and the Delhi-Lahore bus service were started with a lot of hope and optimism. But while the Delhi-Lahore service ran into rough weather soon after its launch as a result of the Kargil conflict, the train service, namely, Samjhauta Express has, over the years,deteriorated into a link that, according to intelligence agencies in India, facilitates entry of militants and counterfeit currency into the country from Pakistan.

Indian officials have numerous instances in support of the charge that the Samjhauta Express served as a viable and reliable entry and exit source for Pakistan-sponsored militants, spies and smugglers. And the latest instance became a hard reality with the arrest of Samayuddin, an ISI operative, in Delhi’s Daryaganj area on December 25. Samayuddin possessed extremely damaging documents pertaining to the movement of the Indian Army.

Samayuddin told his interrogators that he was asked by Pakistan to create a base in Delhi’s Walled City area for espionage. He was reported to have divulged that his contact, who was to receive the documents, was scheduled to board the Samjhauta Express to Lahore along with the documents. And Samayuddin admitted that he had been to Pakistan eleven times since 1989.

During his visit to Pakistan in 1999, he was contacted by an ISI operative, Iqbal Malik, who motivated him to work for the ISI as a "carrier". And Samayuddin also confessed to his involvement in smuggling of counterfeit Indian currency. According to the Delhi Police, Iqbal Malik, originally a native from Muzaffarpur sector in Uttar Pradesh, had fled to Pakistan in 1991 and later started sorking for the ISI.

The documents, recovered from Samayuddin, contained crucial details on the movements of the Western Command of Indian Army, apart from information on the Army’s communication network and training centres. These documents could not have been procured without the help of ‘moles’ in the Army.

Will the high-profile Defence Minister, Mr George Fernandes, who has earned the sobriquet of ‘Minister for Siachen’ because of his frequent trips to the 18,000-foot-high glacier in Ladakh, order a high-level independent probe into the matter? How did the ISI’s another "carrier", Shaukat Ali, procure the documents before passing them on to Samayuddin?

Both the Defence Minister and the Chief of Army Staff, Gen. S Padmanabhan, cannot deny that the major cause for concern is the information about the movements sof Western Command, which, when passed on to the ISI, could have had damaging effects on India’s defence system, especially in the prevailing conditions along the Line of Control (LoC) and the International Border (IB) in Jammu and Kashmir.

Pakistan Army has always been worried by the movements of the Western Command, a crucial part of Indian Army’s offensive plans. The Western Command Headquarters are located near Chandigarh, but its elements are scattered over north India including Delhi. The movement of some of these elements has always been a closely guarded secret. How did the documents containing details on the movements of the Western Command reach the ISI operative, Samayuddin?

Before New Delhi’s announcement of its decision to stop operation of the Samjhauta Express from January 1, 2002, Indian intelligence community had clearly indicated that the train, which was started in 1976, was being used by the Pakistani ISI not only for smuggling of counterfeit currency through its "carriers" but also for infiltration of militants with fake identities.

In any case, after the December 13 attack on Parliament House, which was found to be directly connected to the Pak ISI, it had become impossible for India to maintain such relations with its neighbour, considering its total lack of concern, and response, to India’s demarche to it to take action against the Lashkar-e-Toiba and Jaish-e-Mohammed. It says a lot for India’s maturity that it gave Islamabad a full one week, since the issuance of the demarche, to respond to it.

Islamabad stepped up rhetoric against New Delhi. And it also started building troops along the border to dangerous levels. What, however, was the last straw was US President, Mr George W Bush’s statement on December 20, in which he, while announcing a freeze on the assets of the Lashkar, gave a virtual clean chit to Pakistan, apparently rejecting the evidence not only of India but America’s own agencies against Islamabad’s overt and covert backing to the various terrorist organisations fighting in Jammu and Kashmir.

As for Islamabad’s reaction to New Delhi’s action, while the international community, notably the US, may choose to laud it as one of restraint, the fact is that it too is symbolic of the double talk that has become Pakistan’s hallmark, at least in its relations with India. They did that during Kargil conflict, and they are doing it again now—indulging in all kinds of negative rhetoric while claiming to be desirous of resolving all tension through dialogue, ignoring the fact that there can be no dialogue or negotiation on terrorism.