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India
is the beneficiary of the Lahore attack
By Shahid Scheik
JULY 2008
— India’s Embassy in Kabul is struck by a suicide bomber, India
blames Pakistan. September 2008 — the Marriott Hotel in Islamabad is
struck by a suicide bomber, Pakistan does not blame India. November
2008 — the Taj Mahal Hotel in Mumbai is attacked by a dozen gunmen
armed with grenades and rocket launchers — India blames Pakistan.
March 2009 — the Sri Lank cricket team is attacked in Lahore by a
dozen gunmen armed with grenades and rocket launchers — Pakistan
does not blame India.
Is this a deadly turf war between independently-acting rival
intelligence agencies or are the two countries at each other’s
throats, fighting a proxy war through mercenary militants that are
abundantly available in the region, or part of a wider geo-political
plan unfolding for the region?
Whatever the truth, it is high time Pakistan calls a spade a spade
and conducts its inquiry by not losing sight of the fact that India
is the principal beneficiary of the Lahore attack.
India has viewed with mistrust Sri Lanka’s capability to exercise an
independent foreign policy ever since the latter’s selfless gesture
of allowing over-flight and transit rights to Pakistan to balance
India’s banning of its airspace to Pakistani aircraft in the wake of
the “Ganga” hijacking way back in February 1971.
Gaining encouragement from the absence of global censure of its 1974
nuclear explosion, India embarked on a mission for attainment of
regional pre-eminence, by assisting in 1976 the formation of the
Tamil Tigers, opening for this organisation an office in Madras (now
Chennai), and encouraging their political manifesto of
ethno-religiosity that was designed to destabilise Sri Lanka by
creating a rift between the majority Buddhist Sinhalese and the
minority Hindu Tamils.
By 1985 the Tamil Tigers, still based in India, had mobilised enough
trained persons and gathered enough materiel to launch an armed
separatist movement in Sri Lanka. Among their first acts were to
“ethnically cleanse” Jaffna by expropriating 35,000 acres of
farmland cultivated by Muslim Sri Lankans; this was followed shortly
by the killing and expulsion of Sinhalese from districts with
Tamil-majority populations.
In 1987 the Tamil Tigers were the first terrorist force in modern
times to use suicide bombers as a weapon, pioneering the use of
concealed suicide bomb vests; they are reported to have carried out
more suicide bombings than any other group in the world — more than
Hamas, Islamic Jihad and Al Qaeda combined. The international
intelligence community has a reason to believe that the Tamil
Tigers, at various times have had close training and supply
cooperation with Al Qaeda, Moro Islamic Front, the Aby Sayyaf Group,
confirming that the terrorists are intoxicated by power, not
religion. The Tigers’ clashes with the Indian Peace Keeping Force
sent to Sri Lanka in 1988 and assassination in 1990 of Rajiv Gandhi
by a suicide bomber attest further to the fact the terrorist groups
have no loyalty to the states that create them, a fact that should
not be lost on all states involved in the South Asian situation.
India’s reason for wanting to influence the course of events in Sri
Lanka, is of course the latter’s geography. Traditionally a peaceful
island, “Serendip” to ancient Arab sailors, Sri Lanka’s strategic
location (in World War II it was a major Royal Navy base and HQ of
the Allied Eastern Supreme Command) enables forces based on it to
split the sub-continent’s sea communications in two, a matter of
serious military and economic logistical concern for India.
Air or naval force emanating from Sri Lanka would result in the
Indian Navy having to use a much wider sailing radius, requiring
greater time and cost, to sustain its east-west axis in the Indian
Ocean, up to the Andaman Islands and Indian coastal shipping would
suffer similar negative effects. Presently, India moves about 90
million tons of coastal cargo, which is roughly seven per cent of
its total annual internal cargo movement. This volume is projected
to increase to 200 million tons in the next few years and
exponentially thereafter, as India strives to achieve the
cost-benefits (seaborne cargo is 15-40 per cent cheaper per ton than
road or rail) and level of coastal shipping in the advanced
economies (40 per cent of total cargo in Japan, 30 per cent in
Europe and the USA.)
It is little wonder therefore that one of the principal weapons
employed by the Tamil Tigers was their naval force, the “Sea Tigers”
who by 2006 were estimated to have destroyed 35-50 per cent of the
Sri Lankan Navy's coastal craft. Little wonder also that the Tamil
Tigers are the only terrorist force known to have used aircraft for
their operations, both factors intended to send strong signals to
Sri Lanka that their force potential should be confined to land
operations.
Where does Pakistan fit in all this? The Lahore attack, timed when
Sri Lankan forces, which enjoy close technical and supply
cooperation with the Pakistan army, are poised to annihilate the
Tamil Tigers, was an attempt to drive a wedge in the excellent
relations and defence cooperation between Pakistan and Sri Lanka.
It falls on Pakistan’s lot, unfortunately, to be the first country
since the 1972 Munich incident, where sportsmen have come under
armed attack, but it is not a coincidence that the Sri Lankan team
was the target or a surprise in view of the impunity with which
militants continue to use Pakistan territory. The recent Swat
agreement, under which terrorists in one part of the country have
been handed over administrative powers, adds to the difficulties
Pakistan faces in satisfying international concerns about its
commitment and policies in respect of destroying the terrorists
operating on and from its soil.
If acts of terrorism on Pakistani soil have greatly devalued the
security status of the Pakistani state, the Lahore incident points
to new dangers. There is a shift from the suicide attacker to
trained terrorist teams. The new range and sweep of the terrorist
activity, from Kabul to Islamabad to Mumbai to Lahore indicate
expansion of this activity to a regional level. This suits the US,
which needs chaos to spread over a wider area (as it did by
extending the Vietnam War to Laos and Cambodia) to cover its
retreat.
It also suits India, which is desperate to fill the military vacuum
that will be left by the Americans. Already, the Sunni ethos of the
Afghan/Pakistan extremists has helped India to forge closer
political, military and economic ties with Iran (evidenced by the
Indian-built highway from the Iranian port of Charbahar to Kandahar
in Afghanistan.) The engagement with Muslim Iran, backed by
historical closeness to Russia, will help India gather the Central
Asian republics in its embrace, indicating that Pakistan’s regional
isolation is likely to continue.
If the recent mutiny in Bangladesh was timed to a fault, reining in
its generally pro-Pakistan military, a reaction in Sri Lanka to the
Lahore incident should not be discounted. Even though relations
between Pakistan and Sri Lanka, both victims of Indian-supported
terrorism, are exemplary, two decades of civil war and ethnic
maltreatment ensure there is little love lost between the Muslims of
Sri Lanka and its Tamil community or indeed the Sinhalese majority.
One cannot rule out the possibility of revenge attacks on Sri Lankan
Muslims or that their younger generation, already marginalised in
Sri Lankan society, will take to the path of militancy.
This will be to India’s advantage, providing it a new rationale for
engagement in Sri Lanka’s internal affairs now that the Tamil Tigers
are on the verge of extinction. “Islamist” terrorist activity in Sri
Lanka would have a two-fold effect — it would result in the
international community extending support for India to play a
leading role in combating the same and it would put serious pressure
on Sri Lanka-Pakistan relations. Both outcomes would suit India’s
naval concerns.
In any analysis made for solving Pakistan’s interlinked diplomatic,
political and financial problems, the common thread that emerges is
the state’s failure to curb the rise of militancy. Time is running
out and the Pakistani state must act soon to avoid being bypassed in
this area. The Polish government has already sought US assistance to
apprehend the killers of its citizen; Our Chinese friends will not
work here unless
they can arrange their own security for their citizens. The UN has
asked the abductors of its employee to deal with it directly,
bypassing the Pakistan government. The Iranians summon Pakistan’s
interior adviser to Tehran to enquire about the fate of their
kidnapped diplomat. The US has already conveyed it “will act” if
Pakistan does not take appropriate action against the alleged
perpetrators of the Mumbai incident.
At every international forum, nuclear-powered Pakistan is equated
with (failed state) Afghanistan. Following the US initiative, the
UK, France and Germany have appointed “special representatives” for
Pakistan and Afghanistan to drive home a perception that the Afghan
problem is a Pakistan problem.
By inviting the UN to investigate the assassination of Ms Bhutto, we
have robbed our security agencies of their credibility in uncovering
and bringing terrorists to justice. Having left the door ajar for
others to do this, the reality of international relations indicates
that soon they will force open the door, using the available
pretexts to pursue their agenda against our strategic capability.
DAWN:Saturday,14 May , 2009
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