Criminal Complicity

It is truly astonishing that a man who has lied so often and so obviously onthe subject, should still be constantly sought out for his opinion andassessment on the course of terrorism in the South Asian region and, in fact,the world. It is, moreover, incomprehensible that world leaders still tolerate,acquiesce in, and even encourage this man's continuous mendacity, his baselessboasting, and his incessant and false posturing. Gen Pervez Musharraf must beone of the few dictators in the world who has made such an utter mess of hiscountry, and of regions well beyond, during his tenure, and still gets suchexcellent Press globally, and constant support and praise from the leaders ofthe 'free world'.

In return, Gen Musharraf harangues and threatens the very leaders and nationsthat support him and his perverse regime and its monstrous intelligence wing,the Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI), claiming that the West would be 'broughtto its knees' by terrorism, if Pakistan and the ISI did not support the 'GlobalWar on Terror'.

Gen Musharraf is, in fact, the most effective agency of Pakistan's propagandamachine, and has relentlessly propagated fabrications and half-truths, largelyor entirely unrelated to the situation on the ground, and that prey on public,Western—and particularly American—ignorance. The sheer brazenness of thesefabrications, and the Pakistani propagandist's strategy of offence as the bestform of defence, is illustrated by Gen Musharraf's recent counter to Indianallegations of Pakistan's role in terrorism, to which he responded, "Thereare 21 such places in India where violence continues. The situation in Assam isalso visible. So New Delhi should first correct its own matters and then talk toPakistan."

The reference to Assam is significant: First, it seeks to divert attentionfrom the core problem of Pakistan-backed terrorism in widening areas of thecountry. Second, it brushes under the carpet the fact that the United LiberationFront of Asom (ULFA), the principal insurgent group in Assam, and the lessersurviving groups in the State, all secure operational bases and safe haven inBangladesh and also receive significant assistance, weaponry, training andtactical advice from the ISI-DGFI (Directorate General of Forces Intelligence,the ISI's Bangladeshi counterpart) combine that has kept these movements alivelong after their complete loss of public support and their abandonment of theoriginal ideology and mandate for which they were purportedly created. In this,consequently, Gen Musharraf is essentially pointing to problems that his countryhas at least some role in keeping alive.

The mischief and mendacity in Gen Musharraf's reference to Assam becomeclearer when they are taken in the context of an earlier statement (on August28) by Pakistani Foreign Ministry spokesperson Tasneem Aslam who declaredauthoritatively, "India remains afflicted with several insurgencies,including in Arunachal Pradesh, Assam, Manipur, Meghalaya, Mizoram, Nagaland,Tripura, Bundelkhand, Gorkhaland, Bodoland and Khaplang, which are beingsuppressed by force."

The audacity of the statement is startling—not even the smallest effort hasbeen made to check out facts before such a statement is issued at the level ofthe government. For instance, Bundelkhand (in central India) has never been thelocation of an insurgency; 'Gorkhaland' is not a location, but was the demand ofa brief movement by people of Nepali extraction living in a small area aroundDarjeeling in West Bengal, which was resolved as far back as 1988. Theinsurgents in Nagaland have been in a continuous cease-fire and process ofnegotiations with the government for the last nine years.

The major parties to the Bodoland movement have settled for peace with the government.And finally and most barefaced of all, Khaplang is the name of a factionalleader of the National Socialist Council of Nagalim, one of the militant groupsin Nagaland currently negotiating with the government, and not of a place oreven an insurgent movement. And yet, nearly two months after this statement wasmade, none of this has been publicly challenged, no call for explanations hasbeen made by India or demanded by an alert and informed media. The statement,however, will have worked its damage, projecting the idea of an India that mustanswer for the multiplicity of insurgencies on its soil, rather than a Pakistanthat needs to explain its role in a specific set of terrorist movements andactions.

The sudden emphasis on insurgencies in India's North-East, rather than anyother regions afflicted by comparable problems, is not accidental, and issignificant in both Ms Aslam's statement and Gen Musharraf's specific referenceto Assam. This is evidently part of a strategy to shift focus towards anethnically and geographically distinct region in India, and may well be aprelude for greater covert activity by Pakistani and Bangladeshi intelligence,through local militant groups including the ULFA, in the foreseeable future.

This brazenness is directly related to India's failure to expose Pakistanipropaganda, and to adequately demonstrate to the world, Pakistan's continuingrole as the source of Islamist terrorism in India and internationally, and ofsupport to terrorist groups across India's North-East. This is despite theimmense volumes of hard evidence that is available in terms of arrested cadresfrom Pakistan and their narratives of Pakistani military and intelligenceinvolvement in their recruitment, training, arming and deployment; the thousandsof clearly identifiable weapons and tonnes of RDX, detonators, communicationsequipment and other materials, overwhelming proportions of which could be tracedback to Pakistan with sufficient forensic attention and internationalcooperation.

In effect, India is part of the conspiracy of silence and appeasement thathas allowed Pakistani deniability and falsification to flourish. Through thecurrent 'peace process' and the charade of the 'joint mechanism' forcounter-terrorism India continues to provide international legitimacy to aterrorist state and Gen Musharraf's criminal regime.

These are the circumstances—our ignorance, our indifference, ourpusillanimity, our inability to understand and neutralise the strategic intentof Pakistan's propaganda and terrorist machinery—that create the envelopingcircumstances which allow Pakistan to remain the principal breeding ground ofIslamist terrorism in south Asia. India's security forces are constantly calledupon to make sacrifices for the defence of the country against Pakistan-backedterrorism; thousands of security personnel and even larger numbers of innocentcivilians have lost their lives in Pakistan's covert war on India. To continueto give Pakistan and its leadership the latitude it currently enjoys is nothingless than criminal complicity in this enterprise of terrorism. India's politicalleadership and the higher echelons of its policy establishment are squarelyguilty of this complicity.

K.P.S.Gill is a former Punjab DGP and is currently advisor to theChhattisgarh government on Naxalite affairs.This piece first appeared in the Pioneer