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No Proof Of Indian Involvement In Balochistan And FATA – Maj Gen Athar Abbas

Author : Wilson John | .

Posted on : Thursday, December 31, 2009

The official spokesman of the Pakistan Army Major General Athar Abbas has admitted to an Indian journalist that he is not very confident of claims made by Pakistanis of alleged Indian involvement in the Federally Administered Tribal Areas (FATA) and Balochistan.

In an interview in Islamabad to Mr Kaustav Dhar Chakrabarti, Research Assistan at the Observer Research Foundation recently Director General, Inter Services Public Relations (ISPR) gave this bit of deductive logic to explain the rationale for the allegations: “I am not very confident about such claims as I don’t have any inside knowledge of this. But the fact remains that when the State gets locked up in this kind of conflict, they see each other’s vulnerabilities. You’re not a good intelligence agency if you do not exploit these vulnerabilities. We see a vulnerability of ours in FATA and Balochistan. And so we fear that India could be exploiting these vulnerabilities.”

The question asked was: The Pakistani officials allege Indian involvement in FATA. Can you justify such claims?

On turning a blind eye on the Haqqani faction in North Waziristan to the point that it gave the impression of collusion this is how Maj. Gen Abbas explained it: “Currently there are limits to what Pakistan can do for Afghanistan. As the Afghan government and NATO has admitted, they don’t exercise control over 70 percent of their terrain, then what do you think will happen if the Haqqani group goes back to Afghanistan. If we take on all the tribal militias, including the Haqqani and the Waziri groups, and the US leaves Afghanistan tomorrow, then we will be left alone to face a tribal uprising. We do not want their short term gain to become our long term pain.”

The following are some excerpts from the interview:

Observer Research Foundation: What is the Pakistan army’s position on the Indo-Pak relations post 26/11?

Gen Athar Abbas : Can Pakistan, which is in such a mess, afford to open another front and jeopardize the very foundation of it’s security? How can the State deliberately undermine its security by doing or allowing the Mumbai terror attack? We have our cup full of problems– internal security, effects of the turmoil in Afghanistan, NATO surge etc. Both the states do not exercise the kind of a control that could stop a group of 10 men from taking initiative on their own. There is no guarantee against terrorists groups attempting another Mumbai. We can keep blaming each other, it is a never ending game. Second, the Indian intransigence about resuming the dialogue process is not helping to defuse tensions either. It is making South Asia hostage to one incident. Should we remain hostage to a non-state group?

ORF: How do you read the situation in Afghanistan?

Gen Abbas : We don’t want to control Afghanistan by sitting in Kabul. Afghanistan has historically never been controlled by one power sitting in Kabul. It is a very fragmented society and is controlled by warlords. The warlords remain passive when they get something from the center. Can [Gulbuddin] Hekmatyar and the Taliban, allegedly supported by the state of Pakistan through the security establishment, control Afghanistan by sitting in Kabul? If anyone is subscribing to this theory then he is ignorant about the history, geography and culture of Afghanistan.

The campaign in Afghanistan relies excessively on force, while the political process is beset with shortcomings. There has been a continuous denial of the due share of the largest ethnic group [Pashtuns] in the economy, polity and security of Afghanistan. How can one expect things to normalise when Pashtuns, who comprise 40 percent of the population, have only a five percent representation in the Afghan army. They have no control over the ministries that are basically occupied by the Northern Alliance members. Tajiks comprise 25 percent of the population and yet they have a 56 percent representation in the armed forces. All those who currently control Kabul –be it the foreign forces, Northern Alliance or the Panjshiris – have nothing to offer to the Pashtuns. Is this the right political approach on the part of the US to over-rely on the use of force? If the surge indeed takes place, more troops will again create an impression that disproportionate force is being used against the main ethnic group [Pashtuns].

ORF: What are your interests in Afghanistan?

Gen Abbas : You see, we have a problem on our eastern border, and we have valid reasons for our concerns – the history of unresolved political disputes, water being the latest; the growing Pakistan-specific offensive capability of the Indian military in the form of a very offensive doctrine, the validation of which is the continuous exercising of the Indian military formations and advance weapons procurements. What we don’t want is a threat on our western border. We want a stable, friendly and peaceful Afghanistan. If this happens, not withstanding who ever controls Afghanistan, then our concerns are addressed.

We are concerned by an Indian over-involvement in Afghanistan. We see it as an encirclement move. What happens tomorrow if the American trainers are replaced by the Indian trainers? The leadership in Afghanistan is completely dominated by an India-friendly Northern Alliance. Northern Alliance’s affiliation with India makes us very uncomfortable because we see in it a future two-front war scenario.

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