Karzai to Pak: Indians building schools, you want me to stop them?

Karzai is clearly bolstered by the fact that every Western and Asian Ambassador in Kabul, the UN, non-governmental organisations and Afghan leaders—including those once extremely friendly to Pakistan such as Vice-President Hedayat Arsala and the Afghan Pashtuns—believe that President Pervez Musharraf, the Army, the ISI and the MMA are directly supporting the Taliban as a matter of Pakistani state policy and not through rogue elements.

Pakistan’s denials, Musharraf’s highly successful visit to Washington and tour of European nations and his personal denials of Pakistani involvement carry little weight with Kabul’s diplomatic corps.

US military and civilian officials are now also swiftly moving from a position of ambiguity on this issue to one of direct and public criticism. ‘‘Every effort has to be made by Pakistan not to allow its territory to be used by Taliban elements — this should not be allowed,’’ said US Special Envoy to Afghanistan Zalmay Khalilzad at a Press conference on July 15.

‘‘We need 100 per cent assurances on this, not 50 per cent assurances and we know the Taliban are planning in Quetta,’’ he added.

Karzai considers himself a friend of Pakistan, having lived there for many years and speaks Urdu fluently. In the past 18 months there has been no stronger advocate of improving relations with Pakistan than Karzai even at the expense of several factions in his cabinet.

The growing common sense of purpose between the former Northern Alliance leaders and the Pashtuns should be deeply disturbing for ISI. Moreover, Karzai believed that he had established a lasting and close personal relationship with Musharraf where both leaders could talk candidly to each other. He now believes that ‘‘brotherly feeling’’ is evaporating.

‘‘I saw Musharraf’s earlier remarks against us as pre-September 11 thinking (when Pakistan was backing the Taliban). There was a feeling amongst some Afghans that an understanding had been reached between the United States and Pakistan (when President Musharraf was in Washington) that Afghanistan could be sub-contracted to the Pakistanis. I want nobody to be under any illusions that Afghanistan will not allow any other country to control it. We are in control of our own destiny,’’ he said.

Clearly nothing could be further from the truth but the chronic mishandling of the relationship between the two countries by the military and the ISI, clandestine support for the Taliban and the failure to create a more normal relationship through other departments of the Pakistan Government has led to wild assumptions in Kabul.

‘‘We cannot live without each other. We have done everything to promote friendship with Pakistan but our silence should not be miscalculated for weakness. We have lost a decade because of extremism, lets not loose any more time. We cannot live without each other. We are like conjoined twins and like such twins sometimes we cannot stop kicking each other,’’ Karzai said.

‘‘I want to remember the good things about Pakistan and how it has helped us in the Jihad, how Pakistan took in millions of our people as refugees and looked after them. If Pakistan is worried about the role of India, let me assure you I have been very specific in telling the Indians that they cannot use Afghan soil for acts of aggression against another country. The Indians are only building roads and hospitals and schools, what do you want me to do—to tell them to stop doing that? I would like to see Pakistan stop living in the dreams of attaining strategic depth. Let us all be friends and attain strategic depth that way,’’ he said.

There is a firm belief among Afghan leaders that President Musharraf has ‘‘Indianised’’ the relationship with Afghanistan, allowing the army to whip up sentiment amongst jehadi groups that India in collusion with the former Northern Alliance has taken over Afghanistan.

There is a great deal of truth to this. Commerce Minister Sayed Mustafa Kazemi, who recently visited Pakistan bewailed the fact that Pakistan’s own Trade and Finance Ministers are now also speaking the language of ‘‘Indianisation of Afghanistan’’, strategic depth and military language rather than the language of improving trade and commerce.

‘‘The whole Pakistani civilian cabinet seems to be have been brainwashed into thinking along the lines of the army rather than along the lines of what could be done to improve relations and trade between the two countries,’’ says an Afghan Minister.

With its much trumpeted US $100 million aid to Afghanistan, Pakistan has so far given a US $10 million grant to the Afghan government’s budget but has failed to build any high profile projects. Pakistan has not built a single school for Afghan children, it has not established a single hospital nor fulfilled its promise to rebuild the Torkhum-Kabul road.

India has built schools, hospitals, provided jetliners, buses and is starting to build roads in western Afghanistan with Iran — all high profile projects in a careful strategy that has the aim of winning hearts and minds amongst the Afghan people.

Karzai feels this lack of support from Pakistan sharply. ‘‘When I finally leave office I want to be a citizen of this region. I want Afghans to go to Islamabad for their vacation and Pakistanis come here to Kabul for their weekends like they used to do before all the troubles,’’ said Karzai.

‘‘I want to start student and media exchanges so young people can get an idea of what the new Afghanistan is like. There are already 6,000 Pakistani skilled and semi-skilled labour working in Kandahar on reconstruction projects and other Pakistanis are working in Kunar, let’s expand on this,’’ he added.

Pakistan’s present policy is unsustainable for the country cannot afford to have a permanent enemy on its Western border and an unstable relationship with its Eastern neighbour at a time when international pressure on Pakistan is mounting to sort out both relationships. (Courtesy: The Nation)