Af-Pak Region – murky waters

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By Lt Gen Prakash Katoch Published on June 6, 2015 11:42 am
Afghan Taliban Terrorist
Af-Pak Region – murky waters - © Indian Defence Review

The dynamics of the Af-Pak region are changing rapidly. And this is not just because of the farcical election in Gilgit and Baltistan slated for June 8, while a Federal Minister of Pakistan dons the twin hat of Governor of Gilgit-Baltistan and enforces the ISI writ, what with military courts enlarging the genocide; denying people of this region of not only their political, but also fundamental right. If it was not for Nehru who declared unilateral ceasefire in 1948 and approached the UN even as the Indian Army was in hot pursuit of fleeing Pakistani forces, Pakistan would not have any border with China.

Pakistan not only reinforced her security forces in J&K but also changed the demography of area through large number of settlers from the plains.

The Gilgit Agency and Baltistan comprising the Northern Areas were part of J&K that was formally acceded to India. That Pakistan invaded both Gilgit-Baltistan and Balochistan are known facts. The Unrepresented Nations and Peoples Organization (UNPO) headquartered at Hague (Netherlands) has 42 group members including Gilgit-Baltistan, Baluchistan, Tibet, East Turkestan and Taiwan, besides others. The 1949 UN Resolution on Kashmir calling for plebiscite, categorically ruled that first Pakistan must withdraw all its security forces from territory of J&K. Pakistan not only reinforced her security forces in J&K but also changed the demography of area through large number of settlers from the plains.

The simmering discontent in Gilgit-Baltistan over past six decades plus has led to a widespread demand for the state of Balawaristan, number of political leaders of Northern Areas having united and formed the Balawaristan National Front (BNF). The BNF had petitioned to the UN years back that they are part of India and their fundamental rights have been suppressed under illegal occupation of Pakistan. On March 16, 2012 natives of Gilgit-Baltistan residing in the United States held a demonstration outside the United Nations building in New York City demanding end to atrocities against the Shias of Gilgit-Baltistan.

The refusal of Musharraf to accept dead bodies of NLI soldiers during the Kargil Conflict increased resentment in the region. He did try making amends later including the NLI into his army, but under his orders bodies of some 500 NLI soldiers from the region dumped unceremoniously in the dead of the night at their homes, as reported by Dawn, is something that can hardly be forgotten by the populace. Not only have Shia massacres been organized by Pakistan’s ISI periodically, but in 2004 pursuant to the Indo-Pak ceasefire agreement, the ISI moved four major Sunni terrorist training camps into Gilgit-Baltistan in an attempt to mix blood, which has really not worked. The urge to forcibly control this region also mattered in Pakistan opening its backdoor to China, giving the latter strategic lodgment in Gilgit-Baltistan.

People in Shia-dominated Gilgit-Baltistan are staring at an impending ethnic cleansing by the joint efforts of Pakistan and China.”

If in 1988, Wahabi Pakhtoon tribesmen from NWFP attacked Gilgit-Baltistan under Musharraf (then a brigadier) indulging in rampage, killings, loot, rape, arson, destruction of houses, property and crops, the scene today is not much different. Skardu-born rights activist Senge Hasnan Sering stated last month, in May 2015, that the native people of Gilgit-Baltistan are suffering rape, torture and economic exploitation at the hands of non-state actors from Pakistan, as well as China, which has been given free access to the region by Pakistan for mineral exploration. He adds, People in Shia-dominated Gilgit-Baltistan are staring at an impending ethnic cleansing by the joint efforts of Pakistan and China.”

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Kamal Yousaf wrote in the Express Tribune on May 25 that Pakistan has delivered a ‘stern warning’ to the Afghan Taliban to immediately call off their ongoing spring offensive in Afghanistan or else face consequences. This is being trumpeted as a major policy shift by Pakistan. But then who are we fooling through such announcements when hundreds of so called “foreign fighters” have sallied forth from Pakistani territories to attack Afghanistan. Yes Pakistan’s ISI has been in attendance in Beijing when China is holding talks with Afghan Taliban, and representatives of the Taliban and Afghan government officials have reportedly met in Doha, Qatar, to explore the possibility of peace talks, but what are actual intentions of China and Pakistan?

Interestingly, the said stern warning by Pakistan was issued to Afghan Taliban through ‘intermediaries’. But who are these so called intermediaries; the ‘foreign fighters’ based in Pakistan attacking Afghanistan, the over 30,000 Pakistani refugees that have crossed into Afghanistan, Pakistani Mujahid Battalions trained for operating as Taliban, the Pakistan Taliban or the ISI liaison officers to the Afghan Taliban? Pakistan has reportedly made it clear to Afghan Taliban that they would have to face ‘serious consequences’ if the ongoing spring offensive was not called off, otherwise Pakistan and Afghanistan could jointly deal with the Afghan Taliban. Is this an excuse for the Pakistani army to formally enter Afghanistan? Isn’t it this foreboding because of which Afghanistan’s Unity Government members were opposed the signing of MoU between Afghan Intelligence and Pakistan’s ISI?

The US knows full well that given the ideological difference, Taliban will never join a democratic government and Pakistan cannot disarm the Taliban.

The Guardian reported on May 19, that many Afghan intelligence officials are unhappy over President Ashraf Ghani’s overtures to Pakistan who they blame for encouraging the Taliban insurgency. The Guardian report reads, “It is an astonishing step for Afghanistan’s National Directorate of Security (NDS), which has long accused its opposite numbers at the Pakistani military’s ISI of practically directing the Taliban insurgency”. According to Afghan media, Rahmatullah Nabil,the NDS Chief, was against such an MoU with Pakistan’s ISI. Doesn’t the increase in terrorist attacks in Afghanistan justify these apprehensions?

Ironically, Pakistani scholar Ahmed Rashid, says the agreement (MoU) has no way of ensuring that Pakistan will wield its influence over the Taliban and other Islamic militants in Afghanistan, however, Pakistan being the more powerful country “likely will be able to use the deal to interfere in Afghanistan’s affairs for its own strategic purposes.” The general belief is that the US brokered intelligence sharing deal between Pakistan and Afghanistan, engineered by US through protégé Britain, serves only one purpose - help Pakistan use the Taliban better against Afghanistan, as long as it suits US interests. The US knows full well that given the ideological difference, Taliban will never join a democratic government and Pakistan cannot disarm the Taliban.

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From the International Institute of Strategic Studies sponsored Shangri-La Dialogue held at Singapore last month, it is apparent that China wants her centrality in anything to do with Asia, Asia-Pacific, with which she can alter the regional order, and which she can subsequently use to stake similar claim in the global order. With this backdrop, China has been showing all round aggressiveness, be it Asia-Pacific, racing to the India Ocean overland via Myanmar and Pakistan, and even claiming territories of India and Bhutan, more importantly to grab India’s northeast region by staking claim to entire Arunachal Pradesh. Her strategic lodgment in Gilgit-Baltistan is intended as a springboard to the south and west, while keeping India hedged in.

Peter Koenig says, The Washington / NATO strategy is not to ‘win’ a war or conflict, but to create ongoing – endless chaos.

HJ Mackinder in his article “The Geographical Pivot of History” published in The Geographical Journal, London of 1904 wrote, “Chinese might constitute the yellow peril to the world’s freedom, just because they would add an oceanic frontage to the resources of the great continent, an advantage as yet denied to the Russian tenant of the pivot region”. Well China, in addition to claims in ECS and SCS, is hell bent on acquiring a second oceanic front in the Indian Ocean across the Himalayas. How much of a peril she would be to the world’s freedom remains to be seen but the portends are certainly not good, and the China-Pakistan nexus, both nuclear and proactive in sub-conventional applications, is certainly amongst if not the most dangerous. By justifying “livelihood” issues for Chinese projects in POK while threatening action against Indian companies should they help Vietnam in oil exploration at sea indicates the increasingly bullish behavior of China.

Not that the US will remain silent spectator to the above dynamics. Writing for Global Research, Peter Koenig says, The Washington / NATO strategy is not to ‘win’ a war or conflict, but to create ongoing – endless chaos. That’s the way to control people, nations and their resources, to assures the west a continuous need for military (troops and equipment) with more than 50 percent of the US GDP dependent on its military industrial complex, related industries and services, plus ‘austerity’ money from the notorious IMF, World Bank once the target country is brought to the desired state. He adds, “That’s the name of the game in Yemen, in Ukraine, in Syria, in Iraq, in Sudan, in Central Africa, in Libya…. you name it. Who fights against who is unimportant.

ISIS / ISIL / IS / DAISH / DAESH / Al-Qaeda and whatever other names for the mercenary killer organizations you want to add to the list – are just tags to confuse. You might as well add Blackwater, Xe, Academi and all its other successive names chosen to escape easy recognition”. Peter Koenig may be overreacting but besides being a geopolitical analyst he has also served with World Bank. So he is no novice to the Great Game. It was not without reason that Jean Rostand said, “Kill one man and you’re a murderer, kill a million and you are a conqueror.”

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Afghanistan is recruiting tribal militias to augment its security forces, even as the Taliban are on the offensive and the Islamic Movement of Uzbekistan (IMU) radicals are becoming more and more active.

Reports in Foreign Policy admit conflicting assessments about Taliban’s Spring Offensive in Afghanistan, especially about Taliban successes in southern and eastern Afghanistan, especially in Uruzgan and Helmand Provinces. But what the report do admit is that Afghan forces took a beating in the first months of 2015, with the number killed or wounded increasing 70 percent compared to the same time period last year, casualties averaging about 330 a week. More significantly, witness the successes that ISIS in Iraq and Syria. It is not a quirk of fate that a country like Turkey, whose military was not many years back also tasked to ensure secular fabric of the country, has thrown its lot with the ISIS, ostensibly on behest of the west and Saudi Arabia.

Burak Bekdil, Turkish columnist wrote in the Middle East Forum on May 25 that Turkey's Islamist government is supporting the ISIS and supplying them with missiles, rockets, mortar rounds, anti-aircraft ammunition and the like. One consignment of three trucks carrying such cargo was intercepted by local police but was let off through intervention of the Governor of the province. One of the drivers had testified to the police that the cargo had been loaded onto the trucks from a foreign airplane at Ankara's Esenboga Airport and that "we carried similar loads several times before."

Much that may be portrayed and perceived otherwise, the ISIS is quietly but firmly getting its lodgment in the Af-Pak region, with tentacles reaching out to Gilgit-Baltistan through the TTP. This, plus its successes in the Middle East will reverberate into the CAR region as well. Afghanistan is recruiting tribal militias to augment its security forces, even as the Taliban are on the offensive and the Islamic Movement of Uzbekistan (IMU) radicals are becoming more and more active.

Geopolitics in the Af-Pak region does have an interface between constraints, compulsions and circumstances but it is too ambiguous and difficult to clearly define. It is not the strategy of ruling through chaos alone, necessitated by excessive costs of conventional war in terms of lives and money, but the relationship between the constraints and the compulsions is in a constant state of flux and influenced by circumstances. China has been aping US conflict strategies and Pakistan China’s. The inbuilt inertia of the Great Game itself is recipe for more chaos. The situation is certainly getting murkier.

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