15 - 21 November 2001
Issue No.560
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Al-Ahram Weekly Online 15 - 21 November 2001 Issue No.560 |
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Nervous about the Northern Alliance
Islamabad may soon sever all ties with the Taliban. But it is far from keen on the mooted alternative. Absar Alam reports from Islamabad
Last week, when Pakistan closed the Afghan consulate in Pakistan's biggest city and commercial hub Karachi, analysts believed Islamabad was fast moving towards severing diplomatic relations with the regime dominated by religious extremists. Pakistan is the last country still to recognise the Taliban. Three days on, Islamabad placed strict restrictions on the movements of the Taliban ambassador. Mullah Abdul-Salam Zaeef was barred from going to his office or meeting any "non-Afghans" without permission.
Within two months of 11 September, Islamabad's policy towards the regime it supported and sheltered for six years has come full circle. Only the timing of the ending of diplomatic ties remains to be announced.
Yet Islamabad may be unsure of its next move. Kabul is out of the Taliban's control, and the opposition Northern Alliance (NA), to Pakistan's chagrin, is back in a commanding position as it was in 1996 before its ouster from Kabul by the Taliban.
With the fall of the capital Kabul, And key cities Mazhar-i-Sharif, and Herat to NA forces, events in Afghanistan seem to be slipping from Islamabad's control. Perhaps in a bid to regain some of that control, Pakistan's foreign office issued a statement on Tuesday asking for the establishment of a "political dispensation chosen by the Afghans themselves" and saying that "Kabul should remain a demilitarised city under the control of a UN peace-keeping force or a multinational force, authorised by the UN Security Council."
Pakistan's aims are likely to be confounded. At a time when the United Nations Special Representative for Afghanistan, Lakhdar Brahimi, and the Six-Plus Two group (the six countries bordering Afghanistan, along with the United States and Russia) were in New York discussing a broad-based, multi-ethnic government for Afghanistan, the reality on the ground was that the NA, under the cover of heavy US bombing, had swept through most of northern Afghanistan and is now hammering at the doors of the Taliban stronghold, Kandahar.
Whether Pakistan likes it or not, the capture of most of Afghanistan by NA troops, has inevitably strengthened the NA's hand when it comes to bargaining for a post-Taliban settlement in Afghanistan. Although US President George Bush, and Secretary of State Colin Powell had publicly warned the NA to stay out of Kabul, NA troops entered the capital soon after US B-52 bombers pounded the Taliban front lines defending the city. "There will be another major shift in Pakistan's Afghanistan policy," a Pakistani diplomat said, asking not to be named.
As Islamabad joined the international collation against terrorism, it insisted that the NA not be given control of Kabul or the right to set up a government in Afghanistan. Over the last few weeks, the US-led coalition apparently supported Pakistan's stance against the NA, whose rule in the early and mid-1990s was characterised by terror and bloodshed. During that period, the civil war among NA warlords completely destroyed Kabul. Now Islamabad seems to have accepted a bigger role for the NA in the formation of Afghanistan's next government, although that has not yet been officially confirmed.
But privately, officials concede that Pakistan would not make an issue of the NA's past atrocities in Afghanistan. "This is the time for healing, not accusations," a senior Foreign Office official said. He added that Pakistan would accept NA involvement in a future Afghanistan set-up.
That won't please many in Pakistan itself; and it is in this context that Pakistan's diplomatic moves must take place. The Pakistan-Afghanistan Defence Council, an umbrella organisation of 36 religious and political parties, called a general strike for 9 November, to protest the US bombing of Afghanistan, which was partially successful.
The day chosen for the strike was a national holiday, celebrating the birth of Pakistani poet Allama Muhammad Iqbal. Coinciding with a Friday, when businesses in many commercial cities are closed for prayer anyway, most shutters stayed down across the country. Public transport also remained mostly off the roads, though private drivers were as active as always.
The government took strict precautionary measures. Security across the country was tight. Para-military troops were in evidence and the army was deployed in several cities. A clash between police and demonstrators left four people dead and a dozen injured in Dera Ghazi Khan, the southern most district of the biggest Punjab province. Several others were injured in Quetta, which is situated near the southern Afghanistan border in Baluchistan province, and Peshawar, another city near the border in the North West Frontier Province.
The pre-strike arrest of religious-political leaders Qazi Hussain Ahmed, Maulana Fazal-ur Rehman, and Maulana Sami-ul Haq, helped the government keep rallies and protest demonstrations mostly under control in big cities. But the simmering public anger against the government's decision to support the US may boil over in days to come, especially if Pakistan gains little from the establishment of a "friendly" government in Afghanistan.
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