Perilous times

The US preparations for an attack on Afghanistan have divided Pakistan. Khaled Dawoud reports from Islamabad
Daily demonstrations have been taking place in nearly all of the major Pakistani cities in protest at President Pervez Musharraf's decision to "cooperate" with the United States, in its "campaign against terror." Aware of the strong support Afghanistan's fundamentalist Taliban movement enjoys among influential fundamentalist religious parties in Pakistan, officials have so far not admitted that the "cooperation against terror" simply means taking part in a massive US attack against its impoverished neighbour in order to hunt the prime suspect for the 11 September bombings in New York and Washington: Osama Bin Laden.
"We are not taking part in a war against Afghanistan; we are taking part in an international campaign against terror," is the position Pakistani Foreign Ministry Spokesman Mohamed Riyadh Khan regularly repeats in his daily briefings to the hundreds of foreign journalists who have rushed to Islamabad to see a new war unfold.
But such statements may only be designed for local consumption. All the indications are that Pakistan has taken a clear decision to cooperate fully with the United States in its campaign to overthrow the Taliban government, shut down the camps where thousands of suspected militants from all over the world receive military training and, most important, get hold of Bin Laden and his close associates, "dead or alive."
On Monday, Pakistan withdrew all its diplomats from the Afghan capital, Kabul, citing security reasons. Pro-government newspapers have also been increasingly critical of the Taliban and its practices in Afghanistan, despite the well-known fact that the Pakistani army and the Inter--Service Intelligence (ISI) division have active links with both the Taliban and Bin Laden himself.
"Taliban and Al-Qa'ida (the militant organisation led by Bin Laden) would not have been able to survive without continued support from Islamabad," said a Western diplomat. Since the end of the Soviet occupation of Afghanistan in 1989, Pakistan has been heavily involved in Afghanistan, which it considers to be within its strategic remit. Pakistan supported several of the various Afghan factions which took part in the war against the former Soviet Union, but settled on the Taliban after they proved they could end the bloody internal fighting that has ravaged the country since the Soviets withdrew.
Despite its support of the US, the Pakistani government has still not cut its diplomatic ties with the ruling Taliban. Only three governments ever recognised the Taliban as Afghanistan's legitimate government, and Pakistan is the only one of the three not to have severed links since the attacks in the US. The United Arab Emirates (UAE) ended ties on Saturday, followed by Saudi Arabia on Tuesday. Now, the only foreign embassy the Taliban rulers have is in Islamabad. Pakistan's foreign ministry spokesman said keeping the embassy open was vital for leaving "them [the Taliban] a window to the rest of the world." But Pakistani officials have not ruled out following the example of the UAE and Saudi Arabia, if the United States provides solid evidence that the Taliban was involved in the New York and Washington terror attacks.
Those same officials have, however, totally ruled out letting US troops deploy on Pakistani soil, mainly because of the internal turmoil such a move would lead to and the grave security risk to the lives of American soldiers. But President Musharraf has offered to let US planes fly through Pakistani airspace.
With reports that the Islamic former- Soviet republics Uzbekistan and Kazakhstan are ready to host US troops in the expected campaign, Pakistani officials were no doubt relieved that only a small US military delegation, consisting mainly of junior officers, arrived in Islamabad on Monday to "share information" with their Pakistani counterparts and discuss cooperation. High-level talks are expected to follow "in the coming few days," said a Pakistani official on Monday. Pakistani officials have also repeatedly complained that Washington has not kept them informed of their plans for military action, despite their expected crucial role.
Meanwhile, Pakistan has begun to reap some benefits from its cooperation with the US. Recognising that Musharraf may be risking the future of his military government, US President George Bush decided on Saturday to lift the sanctions imposed against India and Pakistan in 1998 for carrying out nuclear tests. Other sanctions, imposed in 1990 for seeking to develop nuclear weapons, were also lifted. However, Pakistani officials want more; they have asked Washington to remove a further set of sanctions imposed in 1999 after President Musharraf overthrew the elected government of former Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif in a military coup. Washington said that lifting those sanctions was conditional on the restoration of democracy and the setting of a date for elections in Pakistan.
On Monday, the US ambassador to Islamabad signed an agreement with Pakistani officials, rescheduling $379 million of Pakistani debts, providing for a 10-year grace period and repayment over 20 years. Out of Pakistan's total external debt of 32 billion dollars, nearly half is owed to the United States. Pakistani officials said that if the United States is serious in seeking Pakistan's help, these debts should be "immediately written off." They also want Washington to pump in huge amounts of aid to convince the Pakistani people that Musharraf's decision "will open the door to a prosperous future" in an extremely poor country of 140 million people.
Pakistan has reason to worry about its future. In particular, it is alarmed at the prospect of over a million Afghan refugees flowing to its border. United Nations relief officials have been warning of a possible human disaster if the United States goes ahead with its decision to strike Afghanistan. Thousands of Afghan refugees have already amassed along the border, waiting for Pakistan to ease its immigration policy. UN officials said they expected Pakistan to let several thousand Afghan refugees through on Tuesday. An estimated 2.5 million Afghans already live in Pakistan; in areas near the border, the population is purely Afghan with no Pakistani presence or government control. A top-level European delegation, including the foreign ministers of Belgium and Spain, as well as senior European Union officials, met Musharraf on Tuesday to discuss means of providing assistance to Pakistan as "a front-line state in the fight against terrorism." Assisting Pakistan in dealing with the refugee problem will also be discussed in talks between the two sides.
Yet all the US and European promises of assistance have not swayed the followers of Pakistan's militant religious parties. "Death to America, Death to (US President George) Bush... Long live Osama Bin Laden," is one among the slogans thousands of religious zealots have chanted with great passion in anti-US demonstrations over the past week. Pakistan is probably the only country in the world where pictures of the Saudi dissident hiding in Afghanistan can be seen hanging on walls and raised in demonstrations.
Pakistani officials have downplayed the size of opposition to President Musharraf's decision to cooperate with the United States. "They are a minority," Musharraf said in recent statements. Some pro- government newspapers have even gone as far as trying to estimate the influence of militant Islamic groups in Pakistan, saying they represent no more than "0.7 of the population." The officials' sound bite is: "Pakistan comes first," and they have claimed that not taking part in the US-led alliance might have opened the gates of hell against the country, with uncomfortable prospects looming, such as a joint US-Israeli-Indian alliance targeting Pakistan's nuclear installations. But leaders of militant Islamic groups in Pakistan ridicule such arguments and say that Musharraf decided to cooperate with the United States only to strengthen and prolong his rule. Maulana Fadl-El-Rahman, leader of Jamiet Ulema El-Islam (JUI) warned the president on Tuesday that thousands of his followers were ready to "wage a holy war against the United States if Afghanistan was attacked by America."
He added, "If American bombers land at our airports (for logistical support), then thousands of JUI followers will fight them. We will march towards the border and extend full support to the Taliban against the United States." Like all the opponents of the US plans in Pakistan, Fadl-el-Rahman demanded that Washington provide evidence that Bin Laden and the Taliban were behind the 11 September attacks. "The United States is the real terrorist. It never opposed the killing of Palestinian children by Israeli troops, or condemned the atrocities committed against the Kashmiri people who are fighting for their freedom," he said. Other religious leaders in Pakistan who control hundreds of madrasas, Islamic schools of learning, say their students will also head to the border to fight for the Taliban. Friday, 27 September is likely to be a day of confrontation in Pakistan as both the government and the militant Islamic groups have chosen that day to flex their muscles and hold demonstrations showing the amount of support they enjoy. President Musharraf has ordered a "Solidarity Day" with the world against terrorism for the 27th, while religious parties say they will reply by organising two days of demonstrations against the United States.
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