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Pakistan: present, past and future

By Ayub Maftoon - posted Thursday, 25 September 2008


Pakistan has had quite bleak relations with Afghanistan since its creation. Afghanistan was the only country to vote in the United Nations against the recognition of Pakistan as an independent country. This was because Afghanistan has a claim over the Pashtoon areas of Pakistan, which includes NWFP, tribal areas and about 40 per cent of the Baluchistan province. Afghanistan lost these areas after an agreement between the British foreign secretary Mortimer Durand and the Afghan Amir Abdul Rahman Khan in 1893. In 1949 the Loya Girga (Grand Assembly) of Afghanistan declared the Durand line invalid since British India ceased to exist after the creation of India and Pakistan.

Abdul Samad Ghaus, a long time civil servant in Afghan governments, talks about the conflict in his book The fall of Afghanistan: an insider’s account. He says Afghanistan could have captured the Pashtoon areas of Pakistan in 1965 and 1971 when Pakistan was at war with India. Ghaus says that on both occasions some members of the King Zahirshah’s cabinet asked the government to attack Pakistan, but it was refused on the basis of it being principally wrong to attack a Muslim country when it was at war with a non-Muslim country. He says in 1971, after the war, the then prime minister of Pakistan Zulfiqar Ali Bhuto especially travelled to Kabul to thank Afghanistan for not attacking Pakistan.

During the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan (1979-1989) Pakistan, seeing its sovereignty threatened, helped the Afghan resistance and opened its borders to Afghan refugees after being instructed to by the USA. During these years Pakistan was showered with Western and Arab money and ammunitions, taking full advantage of the situation to not only supply its army with new weaponry, but to work tirelessly on completing its nuclear bomb project.

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Within the Afghan resistance forces the Pakistan army’s notorious spy agency, Inter Services Intelligence (ISI), created as much conflict as it could and created more than seven resistance parties. These political parties initiated a fierce civil war, after the defeat of the Soviet forces, in which thousands of innocent people lost their lives.

Under Whitehouse directions Pakistan created the Taliban movement, a combination of religious students and elements of former resistance forces. At the same time an alliance of minority ethnic groups was created in the north of Afghanistan, with the help of Russia and Central Asian countries, to resist the advance of the Taliban forces.

After the events of September 11, 2001 in the US, Pakistan opened its air and ground corridors to the Americans to invade Afghanistan. Just as in the Soviet invasion, Pakistanis wanted to obtain some monetary benefit from the new venture in Afghanistan.

Musharaf, in his book In the line of fire, admits that Pakistan obtained a large amount of cash in exchange for providing logistic support to the Americans and the handover of thousands of innocent Afghan and non-Afghans to USA as Taliban and al-Qaida suspects.

The alienation of small provinces coupled with its unconditional support of the American “war on terror” have brought Pakistan to a situation worse than that the country experienced in 1971 when Bangladesh was separated.

The disaffected populace of Baluchistan, NWFP and tribal areas and the revolt against the state in the areas is a direct result of the hasty and erroneous domestic and foreign policies of the governments in Islamabad.

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The presence of Hamid Karzai, the Afghan president at the inauguration ceremony of Asif Ali Zardari as the president of Pakistan is a sign that Pakistan may have learned from its past mistakes.

Afghanistan has always been complaining about intruding militants from the Pakistani side of the Durand line. If the new president in Pakistan were able to curb the problem, then Mr Karzai will have to accept the demands of the forces opposed to his government to end the conflict without disgruntling his “godfathers” in Europe and the USA.

And unlike Musharaf, Zardari seems to be more compatible with Karzai. However, it remains to be seen whether the new president will be able to contain the influence of Pakistan’s powerful generals on the politics of the country or will if maintain the status quo.

The ball is in the court of Mr Zardari and his government in Pakistan. Whether they will choose to change the 60-year-old route of governance in Pakistan and respond logically and sensibly to the deteriorating situation or push it to further divisions or even eventual demise, time will tell.

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About the Author

Ayub Maftoon is a journalist. He got his bachelor degree in journalism from Monash and has recently completed his Masters in Film and Television at RMIT.

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