Business Recorder Column September 28, 2021

 Looming clouds on the horizon

 

Rashed Rahman

 

The old saying about perspective inducing the view whether the glass is half full or half empty applies to the situation in Afghanistan after the Taliban takeover and its implications for Pakistan. On September 26, 2021, Afghanistan’s Acting Deputy Information Minister Zabihullah Mujahid appreciated Pakistan for supporting the Taliban government before the world. In an interview to state-owned Pakistan Television (PTV), he ‘revealed’ that Pakistan had called upon the world to establish better ties with the Taliban regime. PTV could be considered guilty of allowing the broadcast of what has been a self-evident plea to come since the Taliban entered Kabul.

Meanwhile Acting Foreign Minister of Afghanistan Amir Khan Muttaqi, while addressing a ceremony at the Afghan Ministry of Commerce in Kabul on the same day pronounced the profound truth that the Taliban government does not want conflict in the country. Which government in the world, no matter how it got there, would want conflict when it is in the seat of power? However, the ‘peace’ the Taliban now advocate after being at war for 20 years resembles little more than the peace of the graveyard. Unfortunately for them though, they do not seem to understand what it would take to get there.

Muttaqi ‘celebrated’ the fact that not a single shot had been fired in Panjsher since the Taliban took the valley. This is exceedingly strange coming from a guerrilla fighter who should understand the dynamics of guerrilla resistance in the face of a superior foe. The Panjsheri resistance has undoubtedly retreated into the mountains to regroup, strategise and relaunch their guerrilla war against a medieval regime incapable of normal governance, let alone the inclusive, human rights-respecting (including the rights of women) regime the world has made the bedrock conditionality for international acceptance and eventual formal recognition.

The UN General Assembly session just concluded offered the opportunity for Pakistan to make its pitch to the assembled world leaders and delegations for the acceptance and recognition of the Taliban regime. Whereas the world seems united in expecting that regime to be inclusive of the ethnic mosaic that is Afghanistan, the interim government in Kabul is nothing but a hardline, Pashtun Taliban creature without a single woman in its ranks. While the world expects the Taliban regime to be open to human and women’s rights, it is tending the other way. Women’s educational and vocational opportunities are being subjected to various restrictions. The Taliban’s version of ‘human rights’ were on display in Herat on September 25, 2021 when, instead of charging suspected kidnappers and trying them in a court of law, the Taliban killed them and strung up their bodies as a supposed deterrent to such crimes in future. The picture of the body of one such suspect hanging from a crane in the main square of Herat reminded one of the castrated, bleeding bodies of former Afghanistan ruler Najib and his mentally challenged brother strung up for days in Kabul after the Taliban took the capital in 1996.

The Taliban are slowly but surely returning to their old ways even when no serious immediate threat is visible to their grip on power. What will they do when resistance mounts, as it must given the logic of the situation, from excluded-from-power ethnic groups, women and other sections of Afghan society that either do not subscribe to the medieval ideas of the Taliban or are put to hardship through a combination of international reluctance to embrace a cruel and barbarous regime and the latter’s consequent inability to govern in a manner that takes care of at least the minimum needs of the populace. Hunger and malnutrition stalk the land. The innumerable war widows who will be unable to work under the Taliban restrictive directives will undoubtedly struggle to feed their families and keep their heads above the rising waters of a mass looming disaster.

The Taliban are incapable of breaking with their past or their inherent character. That implies the world is unlikely to rush to recognition, thereby contributing to the exacerbation of human misery in the benighted country, UN and other aid agencies’ efforts to provide humanitarian assistance directly to the Afghan people notwithstanding. What Islamabad has to wake up to is that in fighting the Taliban’s case after supporting their struggle against the US-led west for two decades, it risks its own quota of isolation and even more serious problems.

Without being an adherent of conspiracy theories, one wonders whether there is a congruence between the cancellation of New Zealand’s cricket tour just literally minutes away from start of play of the first match of their long awaited series, the subsequent withdrawal of England from its scheduled tour of Pakistan, and rumblings of Australia following suit and the fact that the current head of Pakistan’s government was an outstanding cricketer and captain in his day, none other than Imran Khan. Surely this cricketing debacle when hopes had risen of normality returning to cricket visits to Pakistan since the 2009 attack on the Sri Lankan team in Lahore must have hurt the former cricket hero-turned-prime minister.

The results of Pakistan’s pleading on behalf of the Taliban regime are in plain sight at the UN and in interactions in major world capitals. Pakistan’s credibility has been stretched to disbelief if not breaking point. Its word struggles to be heard, let alone believed. That has implications for the Taliban’s chief, if not only supporter (former allies Saudi Arabia and the UAE seemingly having distanced themselves from these ‘holy warriors’), Pakistan.

 

 

 

 

 

rashed.rahman1@gmail.com

rashed-rahman.blogspot.com

Commemorative Zoom webinar to pay respects to Sardar Ataullah Mengal

 Link to my and other speakers' speeches at commemorate Zoom webinar to pay respects to Sardar Ataullah Mengal on September 25, 2021: https://youtu.be/nkfl4_3HRV0

Rashed Rahman

Editor, Pakistan Monthly Review (PMR) (link: pakistanmonthlyreview.com)

Director, Research and Publication Centre (RPC) (on Facebook)

Business Recorder Column September 21, 2021

A plethora of issues

 

Rashed Rahman

 

Although Afghanistan currently looms large in the plethora of issues facing the Pakistan Tehreek-i-Insaaf (PTI) government, its penchant for creating unnecessary conflicts that do not redound to its benefit is also on display.

First, Afghanistan. Despite the fact that seeming peace reigns in the country after the Taliban takeover, some conflicts have already emerged a mere few weeks after their march into Kabul while other potential issues of conflict are looming. The Taliban’s assurances of having turned over a new leaf ring increasingly hollow. The first to feel the blows of their notorious proclivity for fascist behaviour are women. Their ministry has been dissolved, its building now housing the vice and virtue police setup that in the past brought them much criticism for enforcing their brand of extremist religious fervour on the lines of Saudi Arabia. Girls are not so far being allowed to attend school whereas boys can. Higher education is mooted to restart whenever it does with gender segregation and an ‘all-enveloping’ dress code for women.

Another front is Panjsher. The Taliban claims of having ‘taken’ the formidable valley must be treated with due caution. Certainly the main town/s have been taken, but the fact that no major leader of the resistance has been killed or captured and neither have any large numbers of resistance fighters suggests the Panjsheri guerrillas have simply melted away into their mountain fastnesses in the face of overwhelming force and decided to live to fight another day.

The interim government announced by the Taliban is exclusively old guard leaders of the group, including the Haqqani Network (not, as our well informed Prime Minister Imran Khan had it in an interview on CNN, the Haqqani ‘tribe’; there is no such tribe in existence). They are all Pashtun hardliners, with no other ethnic minorities or women in their ranks. So much for an inclusive government committed to by the Taliban.

The Afghan economy is teetering on the brink of collapse. Almost half a century of war and conflict has rendered the economy dependent on aid for about 80 percent of its needs. After the debacle of the US withdrawal, none of that aid is likely, apart from humanitarian assistance by the UN and other aid agencies, all of whom insist on handling the distribution of that aid themselves, not through the Taliban government. Whether the latter will agree is not yet clear. They may make some concessions in this regard only if widespread hunger and deprivation ensues, threatening their grip on power.

Afghanistan’s mosaic of nationalities, with the Pashtuns constituting about 40 percent, seems unrepresented in the interim Taliban government. This is bound to escalate through heartburn to possible active resistance unless the Taliban change course.

Pakistan is foremost in pleading the case to the world that the Taliban should be engaged with, if not recognised, or else chaos and trouble will ensue for Afghanistan, the region and the world. This is increasingly sounding like a self-fulfilling prophecy, given the demonstrated tendency of the Taliban to impose a harsh religious order more and more on the lines of their previous stint in the 1990s.

As though the PTI government at home did not have its hands full trying to convince the world of its new-found ‘credentials’ as a peacemaker in Afghanistan rather than the almost universally perceived backer of the Taliban, it continues to open new fronts that can hardly be viewed as doing itself any favours. The media, strangulated financially and forced to toe the government’s line, seems still not to have satisfied the authoritarian mindset of the PTI government. Dissenting, critical and progressive opinion has incrementally been weeded out of the mainstream media and relegated to finding whatever solace it can in the social media and the internet. The Pakistan Media Development Authority (PMDA) stunt attempted by Federal Information Minister Fawad Chaudhry, despite his aggressive advocacy, appears to have foundered on the rock of a united media bodies, opposition parties and civil society opposition. The Pakistan Federal Union of Journalists (PFUJ) hopes to deliver this stillborn baby the coup de grace through its announced long march on Islamabad.

The PTI government has also managed to rile up the Chief Election Commissioner (CEC) and the Election Commission (EC) as a whole. Not having succeeded in browbeating the EC through inflammatory accusations of corruption and singing the opposition’s tune, PTI ministers are now reportedly attempting to stir up members of the EC against the CEC appointed by itself. The main issue of discord appears to be the use of Electronic Voting Machines (EVMs) for the 2023 general elections. There are innumerable reservations about the introduction of EVMs on the part of the EC (37 objections in their report on the issue are being quoted), opposition and general public opinion. The elephant in the room is the 2018 general elections and the controversies that have swirled around that electoral exercise. The PTI government installed in power as a result of the 2018 general elections has a credibility issue regarding being a fairly elected dispensation. That is bad enough, but the PTI, full of rage and indignation against anyone or any institution that dares to disagree with it, is traversing the same path of confrontation it embarked on three years ago (if not longer). Whether this attitude stems from a sense of entitlement or simply reflects an authoritarian mindset (or both) can be debated. But the fact is that the track record of the PTI government over the last three years does not inspire confidence.

Parliament is dysfunctional, the political debate has been reduced to the gutter, and the PTI, given its fundamental narrative about corruption by its political opponents being the main, if not only, problem for Pakistan, is not open to running things with even the minimum of tolerance of dissent, without which democracy cannot function.

The delicate situation stemming from the Taliban takeover in Afghanistan, which is being squarely blamed on Pakistan’s support, poses grave potential problems for us. If the US’s pique at being ‘betrayed’ by its ostensible ally Pakistan in the Afghan theatre continues to inform Washington’s attitude to our bilateral relations, we are in for tough times.

 

 

 

 

 

 

rashed.rahman1@gmail.com

rashed-rahman.blogspot.com

Business Recorder Column September 7, 2021

Chickens coming home to roost

 

Rashed Rahman

 

The anticipated uptick in Tehreek-i-Taliban Pakistan (TTP) terrorist actions after the Taliban takeover of power in Afghanistan seems to have announced its arrival. Previously, we were just beginning to acknowledge an increase in cross-border firing and the assassination of maliks(tribal chiefs) and security forces personnel in the erstwhile FATA and Peshawar. Now the suicide bombing of a Frontier Corps (FC) convoy on the Quetta-Mastung road in Balochistan on September 5, 2021, in which four FC men were killed and 21 (including two civilians) were wounded, may well herald the start of a new terrorist campaign by the TTP.

It should be recalled that the Pakistani military’s offensive in the erstwhile tribal areas after the Army Public School, Peshawar, massacre of schoolchildren and teachers in 2014 forced the TTP to move across the Pakistan-Afghanistan border. There they have safely waited for the tide to turn, helped in the meantime to survive on Afghan soil through the good offices of the Haqqani Network and the Afghan Taliban. When retreating across the border, they had left sleeper cells behind to await the start of a fresh campaign. Now it appears they see the time has come for another chance to subvert Pakistan through terror.

Inside Afghanistan, the hopes of the world (especially the US-led west) for the Afghan Taliban to deliver on their promises of forming an inclusive government, ensuring acceptable governance (unlike in their previous stint in power), handling the economy, tackling the burgeoning humanitarian crisis and ensuring terrorist groups do not use Afghan soil to attack other countries seem to hang by a precarious fine thread. The Taliban so far have after at least two weeks of the capture of Kabul, only been able to announce a new head of state from within their ranks, with the formation of that elusive ‘inclusive’ government still pending. International recognition, critical to the Taliban being able to halt or reverse the increasing brain drain and manage an economy battered by decades of war, still seems far.

The maximum that has been squeezed out of the world at large is China and Russia remaining open to cooperation with the Taliban in return for ensuring Xinjiang and Central Asia are not revisited by terrorism emanating from movements based on Afghan soil, the US-led west attempting to overcome the fallout of its shameful ‘cut and run’ that left their own citizens and Afghan collaborators at risk by talking to the Taliban about evacuations, and major powers jockeying to put together new (or reviving old) groupings to deal with the aftermath of the US-led west’s debacle after 20 years of occupation and war.

Our own government, from Prime Minister (PM) Imran Khan downwards, are reaching out to the world to fulfil their agenda of consolidating Taliban rule. The PM reached out to Saudi Arabia and the UAE on September 5, 2021, but both countries’ policy is in marked contrast to when they, along with Pakistan, were the only countries to recognize the first Taliban regime in 1996. Since 9/11, Saudi Arabia (with the UAE in tow) has adopted a meaningful and enigmatic silence on Afghanistan. First and foremost, Osama ben Laden and 9/11 persuaded Riyadh to distance itself from the Taliban. Today, they too, like Pakistan, are hiding behind the argument that they will only recognize the new Taliban regime in conformity with the world at large. How things have changed.

Qatar, on the other hand, also contacted by the PM, has raised its stature in the world through its role in facilitating the Taliban office in Doha and the negotiations with the US (and unproductively with the Afghan government). The Gulf rivalry between Saudi Arabia and the UAE on the one hand and Qatar on the other seems to have played out in the latter’s favour. Despite a flurry of such contacts, visits and meetings in recent days, there are still few if any buyers for the Pakistani narrative of being non-partisan and a facilitator of peace in Afghanistan when everybody and his aunt knows of our support to the Taliban.

Inside Afghanistan, the holdout resistance in the Panjsher Valley is under enormous military pressure from Taliban forces attacking from all four directions. Premature Taliban claims of ‘victory’ notwithstanding, the Panjsheris and their newfound former Afghan soldiery that refused to surrender will no doubt continue to pursue the guerrilla tactics that helped them hold off the Soviets for 10 years and the Taliban for five. Their main concern must be keeping their lines of supply from outside the country (likely candidate Tajikistan) intact. Afghanistan is of course awash with weapons after almost five decades of conflict, not counting the US weapons and equipment left behind for the Taliban. This could provide the wherewithal for other resistance groups, sooner or later, to take up arms against the Taliban.

The glimmerings of such an eventuality can already be seen. A women’s rights protest in Kabul has been brutally quashed. A policewoman has been assassinated in her home in front of her family. House-to-house searches are based on hit lists of former Afghan officials, members of the military and security forces, and collaborators of the occupation. This witch-hunt alone is enough to render the Taliban credibility on the announced general amnesty and no reprisals questionable, if not a downright lie.

A leopard does not change its spots. Neither can this be reasonably expected of a movement whose antediluvian views are shocking, reprehensible, and unacceptable in today’s world. The Taliban’s true character will soon be on display, plunging their regime and its foremost backer Pakistan into new crises.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

rashed.rahman1@gmail.com

rashed-rahman.blogspot.com

 The September 2021 issue of Pakistan Monthly Review (PMR) is out. Link: pakistanmonthlyreview.com

Contents:

1. Rashed Rahman: The National Question in Marsim – II.

2. Dr Najam Abbas: Book Review of Boni, Filippo: Sino-Pakistan Relations: Politics, Military and Regional Dynamics (Rutledge, 2020).

Rashed Rahman

Editor, Pakistan Monthly Review (PMR) (link: pakistanmonthlyreview.com)

Director, Research and Publication Centre (RPC)

The September 2021 issue of Pakistan Monthly Review (PMR) is out

The September 2021 issue of Pakistan Monthly Review (PMR) is out. Link: pakistanmonthlyreview.com

Contents:

1. Rashed Rahman: The National Question in Marsim – II.

2. Dr Najam Abbas: Book Review of Boni, Filippo: Sino-Pakistan Relations: Politics, Military and Regional Dynamics (Rutledge, 2020).

Rashed Rahman

Editor, Pakistan Monthly Review (PMR) (link: pakistanmonthlyreview.com)