A plethora of lies, which Pakistan has been steadily piling up about its complicity in terrorist extension and promotion, are getting exposed with the passage of time through sources of much international credibility. From the vast experience that we have about Pakistan’s art and philosophy of denial, it is not surprising if one or the other international organization stumbles on Pakistan misusing or not observing certain international norms in regard to financial matters. As we know international community is at least agreed informally if not formally that it is important to choke the funding channels of terrorism on international level. After all it is the money that moves the wheels of terror.
The Financial Action Task Force (FATF) is a Paris-based organization which sets standards for banks globally. The FATF was established in 1989 to set standards and effective implementation of legal, regulatory and operational measures for combating money laundering, terrorist financing and combat other related threats to the international financial system. In its recent meeting held in Valencia in Spain, Pakistan’s record was scrutinized for channeling payments to entities that had been designated under the UN Security Resolution No. 267. This leading intergovernmental financial watchdog has slammed Pakistan for continued complicity in financing terrorist entities, saying certain UN-designated terror groups in the country receive money due to lack of control by the authorities. A report on Pakistan’s complicity in terror financing was discussed at the FATF Plenary, the group’s highest decision- making body. As a consequence, the International Cooperation Review Group (ICRG) of FATF has requested its regional arm Asia Pacific Group (APG) to provide the revised follow-up report on Pakistan. The ICRG asked APG to provide the report following the discussion over it at the APG annual meeting in July 2017.
ICRG’s suspicions that Pakistan is channeling funds to such entities as have been designated are not totally unfounded. This is an interesting debate and has a number of dimensions. In the first pace, no big logic is needed in making others understand that huge terrorist outfits like LeT or JeM of HuM and others cannot be sustained and so long a time with so elaborate terrorist agenda without big money. Big money does not come from individual sources even if the chief of LeT Hafiz Saeed tells his followers to contribute just one rupee each for the head of one Indian soldier. Big money comes from the public exchequer and through such channels that are not asked to account for their expenditures. Funds provided to terrorist organization are not entered in registers and account books but are included in other heads of expenditure which may not be suspected that easy. This is precisely what Pakistan has been doing. While the FATF has asked the Asia Pacific Group to go through the scrutiny of papers pertaining to Pakistan, it would also be in fitness of things if the printing and publishing and pushing into India of fake 500 and 1000 rupee bank notes by Pakistan is also brought under the umbrella of inquiry. After all this is a very serious matter and one that has international implications.
Secondly, Pakistan has been denying that she has anything to do with these terrorist outfits and calls them non-state actors. When after scrutiny it is found that Pakistan is providing funding to the designated entities, it naturally follows that international funding agencies like the World Bank, Asian Development Bank and other big providers should be asked to blacklist Pakistan for any financial facilities like loans and funding for projects. How can international lending agencies accept the contradiction that on one hand they lend money to Pakistan for developmental projects and on the other Pakistan diverts these funds to terrorist outfits that are tacitly working against international political and economic order?
Thirdly, after the disclosure made by the FATF and more disclosure in detail underway, should not the Security Council slam China for opposing the Anglo-American proposal of designating Jaish chief Azhar as a terrorist and the main culprit of Mumbai carnage? The Security Council members should ask China who she is trying to protect. Evidently, by opposing the designation resolution, China is lending its full support to a person who receives funding from Pakistan Government as per the finding of FATF for utilization in terrorist activities against a member country of the United Nations. If fair deal means anything, the SC should designate China as a terror supporting country and unworthy to be a member of an organization that has been raised for defense of international peace and peaceful coexistence among the nations. What we see at present is that there is camaraderie between two countries of the world that are also the signatories to the UN Charter on international peace scouting to support and promote terrorism to the disadvantage of other member countries.
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