PAKISTAN WITHOUT TEARS
As the French would say,”Un quel bordel”
Like all infants, Pakistan was swaddled in blood at birth, when the British finally divided India into three parts, the former Northwest Frontier Province (and Baluchistan, East Bengal, Punjab and Sindh) essentially becoming Pakistan. As millions of Hindus and Muslims criss-crossed paths to take residence in their respective religion-dominated countries, following the 1947 partition of India, there was incredible violence on both sides, the dead numbering in the hundreds of thousands. The history of the region over hundreds of years was written in blood by numerous invaders – a tradition of the sword and gun which found expression in the efforts of Hindus and Muslims to drive out the British Raj. Indeed, one of the triggers which finally forced the British hand was the slaughter at Srinigar by British-led troops (that, and a rumored affair involving Nehru and the wife of Lord Mountbatten). Still, the British gave up more than some in London wanted; as Larry Collins pointed out in his superb book Freedom at Midnight, if Mountbatten and Ghandi had know how seriously ill Al Jinnah, the Pakistani leader, was, they might have been less accommodating. Ironically, Mohandas Ghandi was murdered by a countryman who thought the peace maker had given away too much of India.
The syndrome of politics by gunfire has never ceased. The first prime minister of Pakistan was assassinated; the park where Benazir Bhutto died was named for him. Bhutto’s father was hanged in a military coup which the media of the day called a judicial murder. Across the border, Indira Ghandi was murdered by her body guards, mostly Sikhs. Note that 60 years after the demarcation, the countries have not been able to agree on control of Sikh-dominated Kashmir. And, within Pakistan, there are not only tribal divisions but lightning-rod divisions between Shiites and Sunnis.
I was on the India-Pakistan frontier when Indira Ghandi was assassinated. The Embassy warned of several scenarios, including the possibility that Indian troops could swarm across the border if New Delhi decided to blame Islamabad. My little band and I stood in harm’s way, but nothing happened on the border that day.
He may never be more than a guest at the White House, but Senator Joe Biden, who is the most knowledgable foreign policy expert in the 2008 presidential race, has warned for years that Pakistan could well become the crucible. Biden seems to understand what many have overlooked – that Pakistan is not only a hotbed of Islamic radicalism – it has the second-largest Muslim population in the world – but there are historic internal divisions. When originally created, East Bengal was incomprehensibly made part of Pakistan, even though they were on opposite sides of India. The ensuing civil war led to the creation of Bangladesh, at a cost of an estimated two million lives.
More ominously, the Pakistan Accord attempted to meld the western part of the Northwest Frontier Province, where the Pushtans are more closely allied with their fellow tribesmen in Afghanistan, while the Eastern portion is less focused on tribe but more on the principles of the Muslim League. More, there is substantial wealth in cities like Karachi, the economic center, and Lahore, while some villages and towns in the Northwest lack potable water, sewers, even electricity. Like India, the wealthy are often fabulously rich; the brothers who own the major shipping fleet were silent backers of the notorious Bank of Credit and Commerce International, BCCI. The Bhutto family is considered political royalty.
The divisions of interest between Karachi, Islamabad and the Northwest Frontier are deeply rooted, historic and beyond mere agreements on paper. The military rules the country, but the Northwest Frontier remains essentially lawless.
After one of several trips to Pakistan, Larry Collins and I shared experiences, the author concluding how little had changed. Long before bin Laden, there were two issues which brought confrontation with Washington. First, of course, was Pakistan’s creating an atomic bomb, which imperiled relations with India, then and now. Second, and still virulent, was the opium poppy and its conversion to heroin for US markets.
We continue to this day to regard Pakistan as a vital friend in the Muslim world (they sent 5,000 troops to support Desert Storm in 1991) but Congress imposed sanctions when Pakistan refused to heed warnings about the bomb. This proved counterproductive; when the Soviets invaded Afghanistan in 1979, the Pushtans who dominated opium production simply moved their plots over the ungovernable border. Congress was persuaded to adopt an amendment which permitted the Department of State narcotics bureau and the Drug Enforcement Administration to enter Pakistan in 1981 and attempt to persuade the government to bring opium production under control.
I remember well a venture into some of the opium producing villages. We met with some tribal leader in Peshawar. The night before, six Russian soldiers had been killed. As I walked toward the building for the meeting, I passed an open air market which was displaying six Russian Kalashnikov rifles for sale. Peshawar is a few clicks away from the legendary Khyber Pass where I met with a young Afghan who was paid to show me the smuggling routes through the spiderweb of trails. Along the way, I passed the guard tower where a young Winston Churchill had served. The tribal leaders made clear that if the US could convince the farmers to grow something other than opium poppy, they would approve (we financed a lot of collateral goods).
I learned a lesson in Mardan. Feeling confident of my persuasive powers, I met with all the men in the village, in what was a soccer field. I asked through an interpreter that every man who was a poppy farmer to cross to one side of the field. Every man in the village moved over. A spokesman explained that opium poppy was their only cash crop. We urged them to plant maize (corn) not just for sustenance (which they already planted) but for market. But, they had few roads to Peshawar and other possible markets and no means of transporting the corn and other crops we were pushing. Once the poppy has matured, and lanced to let the opium seep out, a man could carry an entire year’s income in opium gum on his back for the journey to where opium traders bought his gum – and other Pakistanis cooked the resin to extract the base (virtually pure morphine but not yet in its final crystallized form).
In Agra, which had no electricity save for a few generators (stolen), the Pakistani spokesman somehow conveyed a threat – the government’s subsistence packages of food and medicine would be cut off if they continued to harvest the poppy. The crowd grew unruly, surrounded our car, then began to stone the car – the Embassy driver had very foolishly put American flags on the bumpers.
Today, there is intense debate in Pakistan about the US insistence that the government spray the poppy fields with a herbicide, a tactic that has worked with differing success in Mexico, Bolivia and Peru. And today, just as in 1981-83, the fundamental reality was that opium poppy equated with what little money they had for buying anything. In effect, we want to change their way of life, without offering an economic alternative.
To be sure, there are some areas like Helmand province where the US-led effort to generate alternative agricultural livelihoods has had some success. But, much of the heroin reaching the US drug market still originates in Pakistan.
My later dealings with the Pakistanis were more focused on intelligence. The military wanted satellite reconnaissance of certain areas; we wanted means of measuring progress in the opium war (and for other reasons). I was never amazed by the shopping lists which Pakistani generals brought to the bargaining table – usually trucks but also sophisticated computers, cameras etc., some of which had nothing to do with controlling opium production. Usually, I would disagree on items which would have to come from the budget of my bureau, and, just as usual, some general would appeal to the Embassy and the Ambassador would over-ride me.
The rationale was always the same – whether it was narcotics, reducing tension on the border with India, or offering democratic reforms to the people – Washington would conclude that we needed Pakistan.
This time, our suasion had tragic consequences. Secretary Rice persuaded Benazir Bhutto to return to Pakistan, and we brokered what was thought to be an agreement under which she would be prime minister and share power with Musharaff. Now, she’s dead – another in the long list of victims of the unrelenting hatreds which drive so many in that part of the world. Like many outside observers who have spent time in Pakistan, I thought Benazir Bhutto offered the best possibility for democratic reform.
As I watched replays of the assassination, I noted the large crowds which had gathered – and remembered on so many other days the teeming cities of Pakistan – where seemingly without incident humongous crowds would swarm the streets. The slightest traffic accident could result in murder. In many neighborhoods, every house was surrounded by walls, and, in the more affluent neighborhoods, armed guards patrolled.
Perhaps we should abandon our pervasive quests to make the rest of the world look and behave like us (our own records on murder and assassination are nothing to brag about). First, they need to find a rationale, a common agreement to stop killing each other. That has to come from within – without a made-in-Washington label.
Many years ago at university, I read the works of noted historian Henry Steele Commager, who declared that there were three solutions to every world problem – the American solution; the Russian solution; and the solution that independent peoples would choose for themselves if given the chance.
We keep espousing democratic values in a country which has never known democracy or even peace since its creation in 1947, and is still largely ruled by tribal loyalties.
The long-term solution, if indeed there is one, must involve the great powers of the Muslim world, yet they have been at odds for almost a thousand years over the split between Sunnis and Shiites.
The United States did not create Pakistan’s problems – and no single American politician can unilaterally impose a solution. The answer must come from within.
RFH