Uncle Sam would love this nephew

An elusive contact becomes a key interlocutor for Americans!

Contrary to media reports and popular perception, the ‘secret’ cable despatched from the US Embassy in New Delhi on August 3, 2009 was not only about Mr Rahul Gandhi’s views on Hindu terror. A close reading of the cable, marked for the State Department and signed by US Ambassador to India Timothy J Roemer, would show that it was a report on efforts by the American mission aimed at “reaching out to Rahul Gandhi and other young parliamentarians”. The cable’s summary says: “In a review of the career and potential of Rahul Gandhi, 40-year-old heir apparent to the leadership of India’s ruling Congress party, the US Ambassador reports conversations with the young politician, speaking appreciatively of recent statements and potential for the future.” The key words, lest you miss them, are “reaching out”, “career and potential”, “heir apparent”, “appreciatively” and “future”. The man who represents American interests in India was keen on establishing ‘contact’ with the second most important person in the current, US-friendly dispensation in New Delhi; and it’s a hurrah! note to headquarters from him after having established that contact. As Mr Roemer highlights in his cable, “(Rahul) Gandhi… could become a key interlocutor… as we pursue a strategic dialogue with India.” Diplomats know who matters how much in which regime and which ‘key interlocutor’ can help push their country’s agenda. In this case, the agenda of the US, as it would like to see implemented in its newly discovered outpost in South Asia.

The cable mentions that Mr Roemer met Mr Gandhi at a lunch hosted by the Prime Minister “in honour of the Secretary” — his reference is to US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton. “Among the invitees was Indian Congress Party General Secretary Rahul Gandhi, as well as other prominent figures from politics, business and civil society.” But notwithstanding their ‘prominence’, these worthies do not merit mention by name in the cable. Mr Gandhi does — he “was seated next to the Ambassador” and “shared his views on a range of political topics, social challenges and electoral issues for the Congress in the next five years”. Since the discussion took place three months after the UPA won a second term in office, we can assume that Mr Gandhi had by then worked out everything for the Congress till 2014; he had charted the course for the party, so to say, to a third, and spectacular, victory in a row, thus enabling his transition from heir apparent to ruler.


[Massacre at CST: Mumbai's -- and India's -- night of terror, November 26, 2008, when Pakistani LeT terrorists launched multiple attacks on the city.]

In between pointing out that the Congress, or the UPA if you wish, had a rather short honeymoon in its second term and detailing his plans to “find younger party members who would not carry some of the baggage of older Congress candidates” to contest and win elections, he commented on “the tensions created by some of the more polarising figures in the BJP such as Gujarat Chief Minister Narendra Modi” (these words have been used by Mr Roemer, we can’t be sure whether Mr Gandhi used them in his conversation). It is in this context that Mr Roemer asked Mr Gandhi about the “Lashkar-e-Tayyeba’s activities in the region and immediate threat to India”. It would be in order to mention here that another US Embassy cable mentions that the LeT’s threat to India is real, has not diminished since 26/11 and the Pakistan-based group is planning high profile strikes, including a plot to assassinate Mr Narendra Modi.

We can only speculate on whether Mr Roemer’s query was in the context of that cable or he was subtly provoking a political response to a security issue to gauge any shift in the Government’s policy. It would be absurd to believe that the American Ambassador was unaware of hostilities between the Congress Dynasty and the Congress Destroyer in Gujarat. Be that as it may, Mr Gandhi’s response provides a glimpse into the intellectual abilities of the Prince who would be King one day. “(Rahul) Gandhi said there was evidence of some support for the group among certain elements in India’s indigenous Muslim community. However, Gandhi warned, the bigger threat may be the growth of radicalised Hindu groups, which create religious tensions and political confrontations with the Muslim community… The risk of a ‘home-grown’ extremist front, reacting to terror attacks coming from Pakistan or from Islamist groups in India, was a growing concern and one that demanded constant attention.” (The emphasis is that of Mr Roemer’s and not this writer’s.)


[The two-year-old girl who was injured in the Varanasi ghat bombing by Indian Mujahideen on December 7, 2010. She lost the battle to stay alive.]

The US Ambassador’s conclusion, based on the lunch table conversation, tells its own story: “Over the last four years, he was an elusive contact, but he could be interested in reaching out to the United States, given a thoughtful, politically sensitive and strategic approach on our part. We will seek other opportunities to engage with him…” It’s natural that there should be some amount of concern in Washington, DC about policy after the Regent vacates the masnad of Delhi for the Prince. If there’s one thing the American establishment is mindful of, it is that continuity is of the essence to promote and push national interest in foreign lands; regime change can have disastrous consequences. As for what the US mission really (emphasis added by this writer) thinks of Mr Gandhi, readers should look up the ‘secret’ cable tagged ‘Delhi Diary, January 30-February 19, 2010’, in which “A US diplomat romps through three weeks of Indian politics, from the chauvinism of the Shiv Sena to a new law allowing gay couples to celebrate Valentine’s Day.”

In keeping with the style of the cables that have been ‘leaked’ into the public domain, here’s a summary: Outrage over Mr Gandhi’s frivolous analysis of the internal security scenario of India and his ill-informed commentary on terrorism is fine, but only up to a point. What is of greater import is the ease with which the proverbial ‘Quiet American’ can co-opt those who desire to rule India through “a thoughtful, politically sensitive and strategic approach”. Somewhere out there, Mrs Indira Gandhi’s soul would be most distressed following the disclosure of this particular cable, but then, when alive she carried the “baggage of older Congress candidates” as her grandson disparagingly describes those who have served the party (and presumably the country) for decades.

[This appears as my Sunday column Coffee Break in The Pioneer on December 19, 2010.]

The spies who came in from the cold

Back to the Cold War era!

As spies were swapped in Vienna between the US and Russia on Friday in a replay of the Cold War years when men who came in from the cold would be exchanged after secret negotiations, officials in both White House and the Kremlin would have heaved a sigh of relief.

Curtains were drawn on the fortnight-long drama which began with the FBI busting a Russian spy ring in America in end-June and arresting 10 Russians, some of them couples, who had been living staid suburban lives since the 1990s, when they were exchanged for four Russians spending time in Russian prisons on espionage charges. The fate of an 11th Russian spy, said to be on the run, who was arrested in Cyprus and brought to the US, remains unclear.

Soon after the Russians were arrested, the FBI claimed that they had been “serving for years” as secret agents of the SVR, the intelligence organisation which has replaced the KGB. Their main aim was to infiltrate official American policy-making circles. In its submission to the court after the arrests, the FBI said that it had intercepted a message from SVR headquarters, Moscow Centre — popularly known as the ‘Centre’ — to two of the Russians, describing their main mission as “to search and develop ties in policy-making circles in the US”.

[The London Conspiracy]

Other messages intercepted by the FBI showed, or so the American agency claimed, that the Russian spies had been “asked to learn about a broad swath of topics, including nuclear weapons, US arms control positions, Iran, White House rumours, CIA leadership turnover, the last presidential election, the Congress and political parties”. Which pretty much covers everything that a spy could be tasked with. American media went into a tizzy, as did the Western Press.

Given the scale of the alleged operation, and the involvement of a high profile woman ‘entrepreneur’ with an extraordinary lifestyle — Anna Chapman was virtually into everything that can titillate the imagination — spy watchers on either side of the Atlantic came to the conclusion that this was the biggest bust since the arrest of Soviet Colonel Rudolf Abel in 1957 in New York.

The only difference: Abel was picked up as the Cold War was beginning to slide into sub-zero zone and the world was beginning to feel the chill a decade after the Iron Curtain descended, dividing the world into what then seemed frozen forever Eastern and Western Blocs. Twenty years after the fall of the Berlin Wall and the subsequent collapse of the Soviet Empire, which also marked the end of the Cold War, nobody could have imagined spies surfacing as spikes in US-Russia relations which have been on the ‘reset’ mode for a while now, with both Washington DC and Moscow trying their best to put the past behind them and work as friends if not allies.

[Spies not bound by law]

But Friday showed how the past can never be erased entirely. Journalists crowding Vienna airport reported how a maroon-and-white Boeing 767-200 charter flight, carrying the 10 deported Russian agents, flew in overnight from New York’s La Guardia Airport. Within minutes of its arrival, the plane came to a halt behind a Russian Emergencies Ministry plane carrying the four Russian double agents to be exchanged for the Russian spies picked up in America. For a while, it seemed the world had gone back in time.

We will never really get to know what the Russian spies, and we must presume they were spies as they pleaded guilty in court before being ‘deported’, were actually up to behind their carefully cultivated cover as part of America’s laidback suburbia. What we do know, however, is that the four Russians who were exchanged to secure their freedom were spying for America.

Anna Chapman may or may not have been a modern day Mata Hari, seducing American men into parting with professional secrets, but the four Russian double agents operating in Moscow both for their country and for America bring to mind the Cambridge Five.

Interestingly, the memoirs of Anthony Blunt, the fourth man in the Cambridge Five spy ring, were made public during the latest tran-continental espionage drama. The Cambridge 5 were behind what has been described as the “biggest security scandal of the 20th century”.

What is obvious is that the US has more to gain by securing access to the four Russian double agents than by prosecuting and jailing the Russian Ten. Nothing else explains why the US Administration should have moved so swiftly and agreed to a swap. Similarly, it could be argued that Moscow, while officially (and strenuously) denying that the Russians arrested in the US were on the payroll of the SVR, was desperate to get them out of America without being subjected to further interrogation. What secrets could they have spilled? Would they have squealed on other Russian spies operating in the US and in certain European countries, for instance in Britain? While this cannot be entirely ruled out, it's unlikely. For, undercover agents are never ever informed about others working in the same country; rarely, if ever, do spies know of their colleagues in the field. That’s basic standard operating procedure: If a spy gets caught, he or she should be in no position to squeal.

[Who killed General Zia?]

Are we then to assume that standards have drastically fallen ever since the KGB was wound up and replaced by the SVR? Is the migration of the best brains in the KGB (among them Vladimir Putin) from Intelligence-gathering to politics beginning to tell on the espionage skills of new age Russian spies?

If the FBI is telling the truth, and we need not entirely believe the Americans, the Russian spies were not only technologically-challenged (even schoolchildren would do a better job of erasing their browsing history and safeguarding their computer passwords) but wrote secret notes with ‘invisible’ ink.

If the 10 Russians, including Anna Chapman with her taste for the outrageous behind closed doors and between silken sheets, arrested in the US were dumb, the four Russians arrested in Russia were amazingly skilled in their job, excellent double agents and belonged to the old school of espionage which flourished during the Cold War. Two of them are former Russian Intelligence colonels who were found to have cheated on their bosses and ‘compromised’ — that is, helped expose — “dozens of valuable Soviet-era and Russian agents operating in the West”.

Alexander Zaporozhsky, one of the former Russian colonels, is believed to have provided crucial information to the Americans that led to the capture of Robert Hanssen and Aldrich Ames, “two of the most damaging spies ever caught in the US”. He was sentenced to 18 years of hard labour in 2003. The other former Colonel, Alexander Sypachev, was found guilty of “passing Russian State secrets to the CIA and planning to betray Russian colleagues working abroad for money” and sentenced to eight years of hard labour in 2002.

Of the other two Russian spies doing time in Russia, Igor Sutyagin, a nuclear scientist, was found guilty of passing on secret information to a British firm, believed to be a CIA front. He was sentenced to 15 years’ labour in northern Russia near the Arctic Circle in 2004. The fourth man freed by the Russians on Friday is Sergei Skripal, a retired GRU colonel, who was sentenced to 13 years in jail in 2006 for working for Britain’s MI6 in the ’90s.

If the charges levelled by the FBI against the Russian spies appear incredible — even a rooky spy would think twice before taking his or her laptop to an unknown person to solve a technical glitch, leave alone someone allegedly as accomplished as Anna Chapman — then it is equally arguable that the charges ‘proved’ against the Russian double agents held in Russia are untenable; after all, none of the four men admitted to their guilt, which the Russians held in America did, if only to escape prison and secure freedom. What, then, makes the whole affair so significant?

There are two theories doing the rounds. Both emanate from Moscow. According to the first theory, there are powerful sections in the FBI and the CIA which are appalled by the pace at which relations between the US and Russia have been stabilising, if not improving, in recent times. The ‘reset’ button was supposed to be just there, to be seen and not to be pressed. But US President Barack Obama has been itching to press the button (his predecessor, George W Bush, kept his finger firmly away). That would have meant fast-tracking improvement in bilateral relations and an equally fast cutback in the role played by American Intelligence agencies in determining the course of the US policy vis-a-vis Russia. It is significant that the Russian spies were arrested a day after President Dmitry Medvedev concluded his visit to the US, which was described as “successful” by both the White House and Kremlin.

The second theory has it that the Americans were desperate to secure the release of the four Russian double agents — the humanitarian reasons cited by Washington have been brushed aside by Moscow. Why does the US want these men out of Russia and in its safe custody? Is it because given their long and difficult prison terms, sooner or later they would have sung like the proverbial canary and told all to the SVR?

A former KGP spymaster says the end of the Cold War has no doubt de-escalated tension between Moscow and Washington and removed all chances of direct or proxy military conflict. But espionage and counter-espionage has, instead of decreasing, actually increased. According to his estimate, there are at least 400 Russian spies operating in the US. If there is any truth in that claim, there would be at least that many, if not more, American spies lurking in the shadows across Russia. While it is easy for Russian 'immigrants' to mingle with Americans, the opposite is not that easy. So the US continues to seek out and secure the services of Russian agents in Russia, lures them into double-crossing their bosses, and gets hold of information of strategic value.

In the end, as the Cold War showed us, espionage is a zero sum game. And, that game still continues.

[This appeared as the cover story of The Pioneer's Sunday magazine section 'Foray' on July 11, 2010.]

How CPM lost the game

An enraged Prakash Karat declares war on Congress...

... But he has only himself to blame
Ardhendu Bhushan Bardhan, I am sure, can’t stop telling himself that he had it right a year ago but his comrades, especially those in the CPI(M), would not listen to him. A quick recall of the events that followed the Prime Minister’s threat to call the Left’s bluff — “if they want to withdraw support, so be it” — conveyed to AK Gopalan Bhavan and Ajoy Bhavan through The Telegraph, would show this is no exaggeration, although people tend to scoff at the CPI of which Mr AB Bardhan is the general secretary. Rumours were rife — as they usually are in Lutyens’ Delhi even when there’s nothing much happening and the silly season has set in — that the Prime Minister was in high dudgeon (not for the first time) and had threatened to resign (also not for the first time) if he was not allowed to have his way with the India-US civilian nuclear cooperation agreement. The coordination committee that had been set up to win over the Communists had failed to break the logjam; Mr Prakash Karat was unbending in his opposition to the nuclear deal. And then came the Prime Minister’s interview to The Telegraph, asking the Left to go take a walk — they could either take it or lump it.
The Left got into a huddle, Mr Bardhan told mediapersons that the Congress-Left marriage of convenience had reached a dead end and “divorce is imminent”. The Congress as well as its allies in the UPA went into a tizzy. Many of those who are now vociferously proclaiming their support for the nuclear deal — and in the process talking a whole lot of gibberish while trying to regurgitate the mumbo-jumbo fed to them by babus eager to stack up American IOUs — had on that occasion turned on the Prime Minister, rudely snubbing him and his obsession with the nuclear deal. Finding himself isolated, the Prime Minister had rapidly retreated from his position and meekly declared his intention to learn to “live with disappointments”.
Mr Bardhan was not impressed. He was unrestrained in his assessment that any further discussion on the nuclear deal would be nothing more than a dialogue of the deaf. Given the CPI’s past association with the Congress — it had stood by Mrs Indira Gandhi and was no stranger to the party’s guiles — Mr Bardhan could sense that the parting of ways was inevitable; that it was only a matter of time before the ‘strategic’ alliance collapsed under the weight of inner contradictions. But he was ignored by Mr Karat while Mr Sitaram Yechury, who is trying to fashion his politics after that of Mr Harkishen Singh Surjeet (which, just in case his friends don’t get it, is no compliment) convinced his comrades that he would succeed in brokering a deal over the nuclear deal and everybody would live happily ever after. With Mr Pranab Mukherjee as the interlocutor, he couldn’t go wrong.
Last week’s events prove three points. First, Mr Karat may be a brilliant strategist in the classical Marxist mould but he is a poor tactician. The Congress, which is not burdened by ideology and hence not hostage to linear thinking, has checkmated the Left and finessed Mr Karat. Second, Mr Yechury may have begun to look like a political fixer (in Lutyens’ Delhi this is not a pejorative term), he has a long way to go before he can play the role of Mr Surjeet. He has been shown up for what he is: A callow politician who over-reached his abilities. Sanctimonious and smug, he is tireless in pouring scorn and spitting bile at others, especially the BJP, while disingenuously justifying every deed and each move of his party. Mr Yechury’s self-righteousness now lies in tatters; hopefully he will take a break from his preachy politics of denunciation. Third, the CPI(M) must start listening to its leftists allies, including the RSP, rather than ignoring them. If only Mr Karat had paid heed to Mr Bardhan’s views and taken his assessment seriously, then it would not have found itself dumped so unceremoniously by the Congress 11 months later. Adding insult to injury, the Samajwadi Party, which the CPI(M) thought was a fraternal party, has come forward to bail out the Congress. Bourgeois politics has won the day, but the battle has not yet been lost.
It is not often that one sees the unflappable and usually smiling Mr Karat in a rage. But the day after the Government authorised the circulation of the draft of the India-IAEA safeguards agreement among the members of the nuclear watchdog body’s Board of Governors, he was incandescent with rage. “We will make it politically impossible for the Government to implement the deal,” he thundered. Whether or not the Left is able to achieve this objective remains to be seen, but it can surely make the situation tricky for the Congress if it were to decide, and stick to its decision, not to prop up another Congress-led Government at the Centre in the name of ‘protecting democracy’ and ‘defeating communalism’. No, I am not suggesting that the Left should join hands with the BJP or the NDA; even the slightest hint of such a development, absurd and impossible as it may be, would hurt both of them politically. These are two poles that can never meet, not even in the ‘national interest’. Past efforts to uneasily cohabit have proved to be disastrous, notwithstanding elaborate breakfast meetings at Mr VP Singh’s residence. This is not about ‘political untouchability’ but political incompatibility.
Not many years ago, the CPI(M) believed that “the Congress party has degenerated both politically and organisationally. It is a party in decline, as it has pursued when in power, economic policies which militate against the people; it is a party riddled with corruption... The Congress is no more a party which can govern at the Centre or provide the country with a new agenda”. In the past decade, the Congress has not transformed itself into something which is different from what it was described as in the Left’s Election Manifesto of 1998, drafted and published by the CPI(M). Mr Karat’s recent experience only serves to reaffirm this point.
So, let him — and the CPI(M) as well as its allies — swear that never again shall the Left join hands with the Congress for the sheer pleasure of exercising power without responsibility. Then only can Mr Karat seek to make it politically difficult, if not impossible, for the Congress to cut corners with India’s interest. If there is no such resolve, then we can only assume that once his anger has dissipated, Mr Karat will allow a rerun of events as Mr Bardhan watches from the margins. The deja vu won’t be his alone.

Coffee Break / Sunday Pioneer / July 14, 2008

(c) CMYK Printech Ltd

America helps fund jihad

How US helps fund jihad
American Government and military officials have told The New York Times that much of the aid provided by the Bush Administration to Pakistan to fight Al Qaeda and the Taliban has been diverted for Islamabad's jihad against New Delhi. According to The New York Times report, funds have been "diverted to help finance weapons systems designed to counter India" and pay "tens of millions of dollars in inflated Pakistani reimbursement claims for fuel, ammunition and other costs". An European diplomat, aware of this diversion, has told the newspaper, "I wonder if the Americans have been taken for a ride."
The revelation has been greeted with sullen silence by the Bush Administration, which continues to invest faith in Gen Pervez Musharraf and still treats him as a "staunch ally" in the war on terror even as Pakistan falls, bit by bit, to the advancing hordes of barbarians who think nothing of slaughtering both believers and non-believers to further the cause of fanatical Islam. Pakistani officials, however, are "incensed at what they see as American ingratitude for Pakistani counter-terrorism" efforts.
In India, there is a sense of outrage and those who are not particularly fond of America (all of them aren't card-carrying Communists) have bitterly pointed out how the US will never learn from its past mistakes. They have a point. Gen Zia-ul Haq, and later 'elected' Governments and the ISI, used military hardware and funds supplied by the US during the Washington-sanctioned Afghan jihad against Soviet troops to wage a covert war against the Indian state and extract a terrible toll of innocent lives.
Just as that diversion was no secret for American officials, this diversion, too, is known to them. If despite such knowledge they have chosen to keep quiet and ply Gen Musharraf with more funds -- the Bush Administration has sought a billion dollars in non-food aid to Pakistan during fiscal 2008 -- the Americans have only themselves to blame for floundering so miserably in the war on terror. Worse, thanks to America's stupendous folly, the lives of millions of people in the region have been imperilled as never before. The fidayeen attack on Kabul's Serena Hotel is the harbinger of further dreadful news, as is the suicide bombing in Lahore.
This is not to suggest that all Americans are equally blind to the Bush Administration's shocking inability to see through Pakistan's charade. Voices are being increasingly heard on Capitol Hill, demanding that the Pakistani establishment be held accountable for its failure to deliver on promises. There are also demands that further American aid to Pakistan should be linked to actual performance on the ground in the war on terror. But every time this is mentioned, officials in Islamabad slyly let it be known that "any attempt to link American aid to certain conditions could impede Pakistan's role in the war on terror and hurt bilateral ties". And a hush descends on Washington, DC.
The stakes for Pakistan are obviously very high, given the quantum of American non-humanitarian aid it has been receiving since 9/11. A recent report on 'Direct Overt US Assistance and Military Reimbursements to Pakistan, FY 2001-FY 2008', prepared by the Congressional Research Service, provides interesting details of American funds that have reached Islamabad and a clue to how much has been diverted to acquire weapons targeted at India and to pay inflated, bogus bills. For instance, between fiscal 2002 and 2007, the US has given Pakistan $1.3 billion towards foreign military financing and an additional $418 million towards 'other security related aid'. The US has provided a whopping $5.7 billion to Pakistan during this period as 'Coalition Support Funds', which is "Pentagon funding to reimburse Pakistan for its support of US military operations". The total 'Non-food Aid Plus Coalition Support Funds' that were transferred from American to Pakistani accounts added up to $9.8 billion.
In sharp contrast, American food aid was a piffling $177 million. It would appear that the Bush Administration believes all Pakistanis shop at Harrod's. Ironically, a poll conducted by International Republican Institute, founded by the Congress and run by prominent Republicans, to gauge the issues that are likely to dominate the general election scheduled for February 18, shows 53 per cent Pakistanis view inflation as the biggest issue, followed by unemployment (15 per cent), poverty (nine per cent) and terrorism (six per cent). Acquisition of military hardware targeted at India and accumulation of riches in numbered Swiss bank accounts, facilitated by unrestricted flow of dollars from the US, may thrill Pakistanis in khaki, but the people of that benighted country are not impressed, least of all by the war on terror which has resulted in greater collateral damage than tangible, verifiable results simply because the Americans are happy to trust -- some would say stupidly so -- a wily General.
Astonishingly, in spite of the huge body of evidence that amply demonstrates America's post-9/11 policy on Pakistan has been an unmitigated disaster, opinion-makers who influence those who write out cheques in Washington, DC -- their influence would considerably increase if the Democrats were to capture the White House later this year -- continue to peddle the old line, counselling engagement with those very elements who are singularly to blame for the mess that prevails in Pakistan today.
In a policy brief, 'Pakistan -- Conflicted Ally in the War on Terror', Ashley J Tellis, senior associate at Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, argues, "Although Pakistani counter-terrorism effectiveness has fallen short of what Americans expect, Islamabad's failures in this regard are not simply due to a lack of motivation. Instead, the convulsive political deterioration in the North-West Frontier Province in Pakistan, Islamabad's military ineptitude in counter-terrorism operations, and the political failures of the Karzai Government in Afghanistan have exacerbated the problem."
If being accorded the status of 'staunch ally' in the war on terror (notwithstanding the fact that Gen Musharraf has done nothing to put down even those whom he could, for example, Jaish-e-Mohammed's chief Maulana Masood Azhar and Lashkar-e-Tayyeba's leading jihadi Hafeez Saeed) and being provided with billions of dollars are not motivation enough, then we need to redefine this word. Mr Tellis also conveniently ignores the fact that the situation in the North-West Frontier Province and in Afghanistan is entirely the creation of Pakistan -- no doubt helped in great measure by American aid. But who is to tell the Americans that they are utterly, horribly wrong? Most of us would rather tell the naked king that he's wearing a splendid robe in the hope he will be pleased and throw some crumbs our way, too.

Coffee Break

Blame America, not Musharraf

Kanchan Gupta

Ever since last Saturday, when Gen Pervez Musharraf declared a state of Emergency in Pakistan, the world appears to have woken up to the absence of democracy in that benighted country. The European Union, which ardently believes that its primary responsibility is to promote the European way of life, such as it is, has been in the forefront of expressing distress and demanding that democracy be restored in the ‘Land of the Pure’. Reluctant to be seen as not pushing its totally discredited — and thoroughly impractical — democracy agenda, the Bush Administration has also been growling at Gen Musharraf. US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice took time off from hectic negotiations with the Palestinian Authority in Ramallah to issue a stern message: The General must discard his uniform and get back to the task of holding elections to the National Assembly and the Provincial Assemblies. President George W Bush, not given to eloquence, has issued a similar statement. Other lesser Presidents, Prime Ministers and self-appointed guardians of freedom have added their tuppence worth views on how to save Pakistan from dictatorship and ensure constitutional rule.
But the flood of reactions has apparently had little effect on the man in the eye of the storm. Gen Musharraf remains undeterred, or at least appears to be unruffled. Pakistan’s image has never ever been worse than what it is today; Newsweek may have suddenly discovered that it is the “most dangerous country” in the world, but we need not be influenced by such realisation, not least because American media is as fickle as those who manage American affairs. If it suits Washington, American media will see nothing but virtue in the devil and mock at those who dare question its ‘wisdom’. When an individual is no longer seen as serving American interest, he or she is denounced in an inquisitorial manner. Hence, The Washington Post and The New York Times, which would routinely trash India’s evidence of Pakistani perfidy in promoting cross-border terrorism much after 9/11 had happened simply because Gen Musharraf was America’s blue-eyed boy, have now begun to berate him for not keeping the many promises he had made to his masters in the White House, the State Department and to the Pentagon. In its usual sly manner, American media has chosen to gloss over the fact that the situation which prevails in Pakistan today is really a reflection of the abysmal failure of US policy which has favoured the Army over the political class in that country ever since its wretched birth 60 years ago.
If elected representatives of the people have ruled Pakistan for less than two decades of its existence, it is primarily because the US, looking for a strategic perch in South Asia, has actively promoted military rulers who would be loyal and not question American intentions. Gen Ayub Khan would not have come to power in October 1958 if the US had not decided to deny Pakistan an elected Government simply because it believed — perhaps with good reason — politicians would not meekly agree to do Washington’s bidding. Gen Ayub Khan, trained at Sandhurst and with a pronounced preference for the good things of life that are frowned upon by Islam, was a perfect ally for Governments on both sides of the Atlantic. The American media feted him, even when he pompously declared, “Democracy cannot work in a hot climate. To have democracy, we must have a cold climate like Britain.” The New York Times thought he was talking about placing Pakistan on the road to democracy! Strangely, American media, like the American Government, did not bother about Gen Ayub Khan’s dictatorial regime — the Pakistani Press was muzzled, dissidents were thrown into jail and tortured (Abu Ghraib came much later) and bogus elections were held to create the illusion of civilian rule.
When Gen Yahya Khan seized power, he had the full backing of the US which by then had decided that Gen Ayub Khan was a charlatan who could not deliver on his promises. Eager to please his masters, Gen Yahya Khan held elections in January 1970 and then decided not to hand over power to the Awami League which had won a clear majority. Sheikh Mujibur Rahman called for a liberation struggle and Bangladesh was born, but not before Gen Yahya Khan’s troops had indulged in every possible atrocity, including massacre and mass rape. Legend has it that during those terrible days when the world wept over the plight of East Pakistanis, Gen Yahya Khan was closeted with his favourite harlot, known in Pakistani garrisons as ‘General Rani’; one evening, he was seen dancing on the streets of Peshawar, minus his uniform and innerwear, with that woman in his arms.
And what was Washington’s response to Gen Yahya Khan’s outrageous campaign to bludgeon East Pakistan into submission? The US refused to acknowledge the atrocities, snubbed India for seeking to influence world opinion and, in a grand show of solidarity with their favourite Pakistani dictator, sent the Seventh Fleet to the Bay of Bengal. Funnily enough, the man who was then crafting American policy, Secretary of State Henry Kissinger, would now want us to believe that his heart beats for India!
Zulfiqar Ali Bhutto provided an interlude but his corrupt Government was so hated by the masses that there were celebrations when Gen Zia-ul Haq hanged him in 1979, with the Supreme Court acting as an accomplice, after seizing power in 1977. Gen Zia, like the other two Generals who had ruled Pakistan before him, was also blessed by the US which looked on admiringly as he went about demolishing the little that was left of democratic institutions and politics in Pakistan with the zeal of a bigot. He handed over the Ministries of Information and Education to the Jamat-e-Islami, introduced Islamic rule and made public flogging into popular entertainment. The Americans, including the American media, loved him because he was a “valuable ally” in the US-financed and armed jihad against the Soviet troops in Afghanistan. Gen Zia was to later die when the plane in which he was flying blew up. The death of US Ambassador Arnold Raphael in that ‘accident’ was collateral damage.
Gen Musharraf too is America’s protege. He is in power because the US wants him to rule Pakistan. He has the added task of cleaning up the mess which is largely America’s doing. If the US is hated in Pakistan today, the reasons are not unknown to those who are now chanting the democracy mantra in Washington.

http://www.dailypioneer.com/

November 11, 2007.

To get an idea of the current state of affairs in Pakistan, read Tariq Ali's scintillating article, 'Pakistan at Sixty' in the London Review of Books.

http://www.lrb.co.uk/v29/n19/ali_01_.html