Pakistan Under American Pressure
    By Fran oise Chipaux
    Le Monde

    Friday 09 March 2007

    Rehabilitated by the September 11 attacks, will the Pakistani president, General Pervez Musharraf, be a victim of the war against terrorism? Five years after having chosen the United States rather than the Taliban in Afghanistan, the Pakistani head of state appears ever more torn between American demands to do more against al-Qaeda and the Taliban on the one hand, and between the realities of the policy of ambiguity he has followed with respect to Islamist extremists on the other. Far from being weakened by Pakistan's turnaround after September 11, 2001, the latter have continued to prosper in an environment that is very largely favorable to them.

    When he grabbed power in a bloodless coup in October 1999, President Musharraf had allowed it to be understood that he would bring Islamist extremists into line. More than seven years later, nothing definitive in that direction has been done. On the contrary, by joining forces with the religious parties - notably to obtain the legalization of his double role as president and head of the army - he has offered them a dream platform denied to the traditional political parties, now permanently humbled.

    All restrictive measures against the extremists - announced months later and always under the pressure of attacks attributed to Pakistani extremists, in India or Great Britain, for example - have remained dead letter. The control and registration of madrassas (Koranic schools), the expulsion of foreign students from those same madrassas and the revision of a curriculum that preaches hatred against the "infidel" have all remained at the stage of good intentions. Under pressure from the most conservative ulemas or from the religious parties, the government has always backpedaled in the face of the slightest threat of confrontation with the Islamists.

    The occupation - for over a month now - of a children's library in the heart of Islamabad by a group of madrassa students is a case in point. Not only has the government acceded to their demands - the reconstruction of a destroyed illegal mosque - but it continues to pussyfoot as the students - undoubtedly encouraged by their initial success - put forward new demands. Of the 287 mosques counted in Islamabad, only 80 are legal.

    "Not a day passes without fanaticism making its presence felt in Pakistan," noted - not without reason - the Anglophone daily "Dawn's" editorialist, the day after the assassination of Punjab's minister for social welfare by a "religious extremist." The murderer, who - according to his own testimony - had already killed six other women he considered immoral, was released for "lack of evidence," and also because he benefited from powerful religious godfathers. In a speech broadcast over the radio, the head of Jamaat ud-Dawa - which figures on the American list of terrorist organizations - Hafiz Saeed, who, depending on which way pressure is being exerted, leaves and returns to prison, justified the crime, and warned "all Pakistani women that if they tried to follow the path of Zille Huma Usman (the assassinated minister), they (would undergo) the same fate."

    "By bowing to the demands of the fundamentalists, who have taken the entire nation hostage to their whims, the government becomes an accomplice to their acts," wrote "The Post's" editorialist, denouncing the authorities' inertia before the threats received by girls' schools in the North-West border province. In Swat, the authorities recently attempted to arrest a mullah who declared the polio vaccine "anti-Islamic," but they withdrew before a crowd of faithful who protected him. The examples of the extremists' determination to dictate their demands are virtually quotidian and no longer limited to the Tribal areas where the government has relinquished the ground to them.

    Tribal and Ethnic Solidarity

    Nor is the call for anti-American jihad exclusive to Pakistan's border provinces any more. It blasts every Friday from certain mosques in central Islamabad. In these conditions, it will be difficult for General Musharraf to satisfy American requirements that he heighten the struggle against al-Qaeda and the Taliban. The al-Qaeda faithful and the Taliban have found significant support networks in Pakistani religious movements that have allowed them to survive and continue to operate. The Taliban also profits from the tribal and ethnic solidarity of the border areas.

    For his part, General Musharraf has no political base. The leaders of the Muslim League (PML-Q), the party he handcrafted to give a democratic appearance to his regime, share opinions on a number of points with the religious parties. "The PML-Q in power does not actively contradict the Islamists' vision of terrorism," deems political analyst Hasan-Askari Rizvi. "On that theme, a great many people in power in the government or associated with the PML-Q, borrow the Islamists' discourse. Many people in the administration and the lower echelons of the army do the same," he continues.

    By brushing aside the traditional political parties, General Musharraf has deprived himself of indispensable support if he truly wants to fight the religious extremism that is spreading in society. The next presidential and parliamentary elections, normally scheduled for this year - and for which President Musharraf will need support if he wants to stay in power, as he has indicated he does - run the risk of taking this fight to the next stage. No doubt General Musharraf is betting on the fact that the American administration, after having banked everything on him with disregard for any support to democratic parties, will continue to support him, even as it criticizes him.

    But the United States has also entered an electoral period, and President Bush, already confronted with a failure in Iraq, surely does not want to see his policy in Afghanistan and his war against terrorism revisited. The recent arrest of former Taliban Defense Minister Mullah Obaidullah in Quetta on the basis of American intelligence emphasizes in this respect the new American determination to force Pakistan to act against the Taliban, even at the risk of triggering violent local reactions.

    Faced with suicide attacks perpetrated by its own citizens, a deadly rebellion in Baluchistan, a war that speaks not its name at the Afghan border, Pakistan under General Musharraf's leadership seems to be sinking into a new and serious crisis.