Mushahid Hussain: Rethinking Kashmir fundamentals

Last week's two major developments are illustrative of a major malaise in the Pakistani system, namely, the absence of an institutional mechanism to combat critical areas like terrorism or to formulate well thought through decisions on key issues.

Take the December 14 assassination attempt on General Musharraf in the heart of the military's 'cordon sanitaire', the most serious breach of his personal security since he took over. That his route, timing and location had been apparently carefully figured out by the terrorists should be an eye-opener to the Establishment which generally has had a lackadaisical, reactive, ad hoc approach to security matters.

The focus invariably is on form (highly-visible, gun-toting men strutting about) rather than substance (trained professionals working quietly to pre-empt terrorism with low visibility).

Not surprising

The result, therefore, is not surprising: the usual blame-game (blaming the proverbial 'foreign hand' with Al Qaida now coming in handy!), turf wars (disowning responsibility for bureaucratic reasons) and outlandish orders to 'immediately catch the culprits.'

However, the outcome is predictable: the state with all its myriad of agencies is clueless as to how it happened or who could have been behind it. This is not surprising given the fact that one of General Musharraf's own predecessors was blown up in the sky travelling under military security in a military plane to a military cantonment for a military function along with his key military colleagues. And to this day, how General Zia ul Haq was knocked out remains shrouded in mystery.

Will lessons be learnt from the latest attempt on General Musharraf's life? Why can't Pakistani policy-makers understand thatPakistan still has no institutional machinery which is dedicated to combating, containing or pre-empting homegrown terrorism? Yes, there are almost a dozen intelligence organisationsbut none has the exclusive mandate on terrorism.

The Federal Government passes on the buck to the provincial governments taking the bureaucratic plea that 'law and order is a provincial problem', while the provincial governments say that since it may be RAW or Al Qaida, therefore, it's a foreign policy, or Federal problem!

What is needed is a dedicated, full-time anti-terror task force, with its own independent office and staff, manned by professionals drawn from intelligence, security, media, psychology, law, forensics and politics, having ready profiles of terrorists and extremist groups, analysing intelligence traffic round the clock, and working outside the ambit of any ministry or existing intelligence outfit.

Even a country like the United States had the same problem after 9/11, and they finally sorted it out by creating a new body, the Department of Homeland Security, going outside the traditional ambit of the FBI, the Justice department or the CIA, since these were found to be inadequate, ill-equipped and ill-trained to the task of combating terrorism at home.

Coming to the other major development of last week, the December 17 Reuters interview of General Musharraf regarding Kashmir, which has drawn both brickbats and bouquets. It is important to understand from the interview's transcript what was said in which context.

He was asked "would you accept independence of Kashmir as an option for Kashmiris in a plebiscite?", to which he responded that "I don't want to discuss solutions", adding "We are for a plebiscite. Pakistan is for a plebiscite."

Kashmir option

But when again questioned on the independence for Kashmir option, General Musharraf responded: "No ... we are for the United Nations Security Council resolutions whatever it stands for. However, now we have left that aside. We keep saying if we want to resolve this issue, both sides need to talk to each other with flexibility. Coming beyond stated positions, meeting half way somewhere.

Now there are a number of solutions which have been propounded. I don't want to get involved because if we get involved in solutions without even having started a dialogue process, we are going to slide back."

While, at one level, this formulation is a continuation of General Musharraf's earlier stand of 'moving beyond stated positions' on Kashmir, saying that 'now we have left that (UN resolutions) aside' was a poor choice of words since it's wrong to delink a Kashmir settlement from UN resolutions, which provide the legitimacy both for Pakistan's stand as well as the Kashmir freedom struggle.

In any case, it's a bad diplomatic bargaining position to reveal all your cards and specify the bottom-line even before negotiations with an adversary have begun. Thankfully, this 'flexibility' was conditional to Indian reciprocity.

However, given the absence of an institutionalised decision-making forum in Pakistan, there is a proclivity to make or change policy through pronouncements, which, more often than not, are not well thought through as to their ramifications like earlier statements on building the Kalabagh Dam, recognising Israel or agreeing 'in principle' to send troops to Iraq. All these had to be reversed or clarified, as is the case with the current statement.

Ironically, probably for the first time in Pakistan's history, the Establishment and anti-Establishment positions on Kashmir and India policy are now similar. In the past, whenever civilian politicians negotiated on strategic foreign policy issues they were denounced as a 'security risk for selling-out'. Hopefully, there is now a more relaxed and confident approach and self-assured attitude in dealing with India.

On Kashmir, the hard fact is that as Soviet Foreign Minister Andrei Gromyko told his Pakistani counterpart, Zulfikar Ali Bhutto, at Tashkent Pakistan-India Summit in January 1966 , when questioned as to why Kashmir's self-determination was excluded from the final declaration: "You can't get on the conference table what you failed to achieve on the battlefield."

Mushahid Hussain is a former Minister of Information and is currently a member of Pakistan's Upper House, the Senate. He can be contacted at mhussain@gulfnews.com