Ill Winds From Pakistan

The spectacular performance of the Muttahida Majlis-e-Amal (MMA), a coalition of seven ofthe Islamic fundamentalist parties of Pakistan, in the provincial and federal elections held on October10, 2002, bodes ill for the US-led war against international terrorism and for India, Russia, Myanmar,Philippines and for Pakistan itself

The MMA secured 43 of the 99 seats in the provincial Assembly of the North-West Frontier Province (NWFP)and 14 of the 51 seats in the Balochistan Assembly. It also made its presence felt inKarachi from where the Deobandi-Wahabi fundamentalist parties were driven out in the 1980s by the MohajirQaumi Movement (MQM--now known as the Muttahida Qaumi Movement), a political party of migrants from India

In the National Assembly, it has emerged as the third largest force with 44 seats after the Army-backed Pakistan Muslim League (Qaid-e-Azam--PML-QA) with 76 seats and the Army-opposed Pakistan People's PartyParliamentarians (PPPP) of Mrs. Benazir Bhutto with 63 seats.

In the past, the Islamic fundamentalist parties had never secured more than four per cent of the popularvotes and had never won more than half a dozen seats. They had never won even those seats on their own. They had difficulty even in winning a single seat unless they had the support of either the PPP or the PML. This time, they had been able to emerge as an important political force without any alliance with themainstream parties. However, the Jamaat-e-Islami (JEM) did have some understanding in respect of someseats in Punjab with various factions of the PML.

The spectacular performance of the fundamentalist parties could be attributed to the following reasons:

The wave of Muslim and Pashtun anger against the USA, which has been sweeping across the Pashtun belt inAfghanistan and Pakistan since the beginning of this year. I had drawn attention to this anger in an articletitled How Long Will He Hold On? Relevant extracts are appended to this article for easy reference.
The fact that for the first time the important fundamentalist parties contested the elections as acoalition whereas in the past they had contested either individually or in an alliance with either the PML orthe PPP.
Since seizing power on October 12,1999, Gen. Pervez Musharraf, Pakistan's military dictator, hadbeen vigorously enforcing against the PPP, the PML of Nawaz Sharif and other non-Islamic parties theregulations promulgated by him against open political activities such as public meetings, rallies, processionsetc whereas these were not strictly enforced against the Islamic parties.
Musharraf's action in creating splits in the PPP, the PML (N) and other non-religious parties in order toweaken them and prevent any challenge from them to continued military rule under a democratic facade resultedin weakening the mainstream political forces and enabling the fundamentalist parties to move into theresulting vacuum. In Sindh, which had largely remained free of fundamentalist influence, here-introduced the fundamentalist forces in order to weaken the PPP and the MQM. In Punjab, the NWFP andBalochistan, he not only created splits in the PML (Punjab and NWFP) and the PPP (NWFP), but also sought todestroy parties such as the Awami National Party (ANP), the Pakhtoonkwa Milli Awami Party (PMAP) and thevarious Balochi nationalist parties, which were secular and modern, and well disposed towards India. TheIslamic fundamentalist parties moved into the resulting political space and not only made deep inroads into the strongholds of the mainstream politrical parties, but also neutralised the pro-India elements.
The newly-introduced regulation that a candidate for election should be a graduate worked to the detrimentof the mainstream political parties in the NWFP and Balochistan where educational development has been poor.They had difficulty in finding good graduates to contest on their behalf. This did not affect theIslamic parties to the same extent since under a regulation promulgated by the late Zia-ul-Haq in the 1980s,the certificates awarded by the madrasas are treated as the equivalent of the degrees of the universities forrecruitment to Govt. service.

The JEI has always been considered the Generals'party. It was very close to Zia and used to be very closeto Musharraf till October 7, 2001, when the US started its air strikes in Afghanistan. Since then, ithas been critical of Musharraf's pro-US policies. Despite this, there have been reports that its leaderQazi Hussain Ahmed continues to maintain secret contacts with Musharraf and Lt. Gen. Ehsanul-Haq, the DG ofthe Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI). An open meeting of the Qazi before the elections with Musharraf created friction inside the MMA, but did not lead to a split.

The military-intelligence establishment has been using, even now, the JEI for providing financial, trainingand arms assistance to the Hizbul Mujahideen (HM) and the Al Badr, two of the terrorist organisations activein Jammu & Kashmir (J&K), and the Hizbe Islami of Gulbuddin Heckmatyar in Afghanistan, which is nowbeing used by the ISI for retrieving the ground lost by Pakistan in that country. Before October 7,2001, Qazi Hussain Ahmed supported the Hizbe Islami in its fight against the Taliban, but has now beensupporting both and working for a coalition between the two.

The JUI (F) and the JUI (S) have been strong supporters of Osama bin Laden's Al Qaeda and hisInternational Islamic Front for Jehad Against the US and Israel and play an active role in the running of theBinori madrasa in Karachi and the Akora Khattak madrasa near Peshawar, which played an active role in the pastin supporting Al Qaeda and the Taliban and continue to play an active role in helping the leaders and cadresof the two organisations to escape capture.

The JUI (F) is the orchestrator of the activities of the Harkat-ul-Mujahideen (HUM), the Harkat-ul-Jehad AlIslami (HUJI) and the Jaish-e-Mohammad (JEM). Of these, the HUM and the HUJI are active in Chechnya inRussia, J&K in India, in Bangladesh, the Arakan area of Myanmar and the southern Phillipines. Theyhave been training in the madrasas under their control in Pakistan recruits from not only Myanmar andthe Philippines, but also from Southern Thailand. The JEM is presently active only in J&K.

The manifesto of the MMA had said that if elected to power it would "provide active support toindependence movements in Kashmir, Palestine, Chechnya, the Philippines and the Arakan." There wasno reference to any support to the extremists in Indonesia because the Lashkar-e-Toiba (LET), whichco-ordinates support to the extremists in Indonesia, is not a member of the MMA. The LET opposes Westernstyle democracy.

The coming to power of the MMA in the NWFP and possibly in Balochistan also could have the followingconsequences:

Revival of the Taliban's and Al Qaeda's training infrastructure, which were previously located inAfghanistan before being destroyed by the US air strikes.
Shifting of the training camps of the terrorist organisations operating in J&K from Pakistan-OccupiedKashmir (POK) to the NWFP, thereby protecting them from any counter-strikes by India.
Increase in the activities of the Hizbe Islami inside Afghanistan from sanctuaries in these provinces.
Lack of co-operation from the provincial police and intelligence services to the US hunt for the dregs ofAl Qaeda and the Taliban. Shelter for these dregs in their territory.
Stepped up assistance to the extremist elements in Myanmar, the Philippines and Chechnya in Russia.
Stepped-up opposition to the US use of Pakistani territory for its operations in Afghanistan.
Opposition to any US action against Saddam Hussein.