The nonsense about “non-state actors”

In a widely reported statement, Pakistan’s PM President* Asif Ali Zardari said recently that India should not let rogue “non-state actors” push the two countries into a confrontation, thereby implying that non-state actors were solely responsible for the carnage in Mumbai.

Let me ask these questions to President Zardari:

1. If – as you claim – Pakistan itself is fighting these non-state actors, why is your government dragging its feet on handing over leaders of organisations supposedly banned by your predecessors? Why have past governments stonewalled long-standing Indian requests for handing over criminals and drug smugglers with known terrorist links who are hiding in Pakistan?

2. What steps has your government taken to counter the increasing risk of Talibanisation of Pakistan due – in large part – to the acts of these “non-state actors“?

3. What steps have you and your government taken to ensure that the Pakistani Army does not consider itself as Jihadi Army – whose main objective is to try and defeat the infidels? What steps have you taken – or are considering - to contain “Islamists” who experts believe, are on the ascendant and might eventually replace the nationalist jihadist elements?

4. What steps have you and/or your predecessors taken to stop the radicalization of education in Pakistan that manifests itself in the dominant themes of hatred against Hindus and India and leads students down the path of Jehad and Shahadat?  What steps have you taken to ensure that inflammatory remarks and outright falsehoods against Hindus and Indians do not find their way in official (state-approved) History text books in Pakistan? These remarks include: “Hindu has always been an enemy of Islam; Hindus worship in temples which are very narrow and dark places, where they worship idols. Only one person can enter the temple at a time…” etc. This report (conducted by Sustainable Development Policy Institute (SDPI) in 2002 on the state of curricula and textbooks in Pakistan) is also referred to here.

President Zardari, Sir, will you or your government respond to these questions?

Will you please care to explain what is your strategy for dealing with such “non-state actors”?

From a concerned Indian citizen.

Related Posts:

Pakistan: A State-sponsor of Terrorism?

All roads lead to Pakistan (once again)

and The “Raja-Mandala” approach to containing Pakistan

* Thanks to Abhinav for pointing out that I had mistakenly referred to Zardari as PM.

B Shantanu

Political Activist, Blogger, Advisor to start-ups, Seed investor. One time VC and ex-Diplomat. Failed mushroom farmer; ex Radio Jockey. Currently involved in Reclaiming India - One Step at a Time.

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8 Responses

  1. Dirt Digger says:

    These are all great questions.
    I would hope that you would add a statement asking all the readers of this blog to send it to their favorite media outlets to question Hon. Zardari (Mr.10%).
    Sad state that there is not a larger dialogue about political responsibility, lack of governance and the obvious case of negligence in this matter.

  2. Indian says:

    Till yesterday Zardadri was begging India, for not punishing Pakistan and was ready to co-operate. Matter of fact in bold, they dont co-operate and they wont. It was only their after reactions when they found pakistani is involved.

    Rice too said that these non-state actors have operation within the boundry of Pakistan so they must take action. But Rice too got smitten by their words and hospitalities as soon as she reached Pakistan. Politicians in Pakistan are very smart. They are master in “patav kamgiri” and champion in flirting around the issue. Did any one saw the snap of Zardari, and C. Rice. So cute smile by Zardari as if nothing serious!

    I have no great dreams and hopes from India, but great hopes- what is the next move by Israel?

    Jai Bharat!

  3. Dirt Digger says:

    These are all great questions.
    I would hope that you would add a statement asking all the readers of this blog to send it to their favorite media outlets to question Hon. Zardari (Mr.10%).
    Sad state that there is not a larger dialogue about political responsibility, lack of governance and the obvious case of negligence in this matter.

  4. Abhinav says:

    I think, in reply to India’s 20-wanted terrorists list, Pakistan is considering asking India to hand over 35-wanted terrorists to them. The list includes Bal Thackrey too.

  5. Indian says:

    http://www.rediff.com/news/2008/dec/06-hyderabad-comes-to-a-standstill.htm

    Are they non-state actors of India? To mark demolition day they kept HYD closed?

    Jai Hind!

  6. VK says:

    Not precisely related to this post, but a perspective on the hindu nationalists:

    Hindu nationalists: Indigenous resilience
    http://mwcnews.net/content/view/26990&Itemid=1

  7. Indian says:

    Hindus are missing in Pakistan.

    The same story I heard where somalina muslims in N. America are getting disappeared and they are suspecting foul play like taking them to training camp.

    Jai Hind!

  8. Sridhar says:

    Excerpts from Why the CIA does not want Dawood in Indian hands
    by Jeremy R Hammond

    The role Dawood Ibrahim, the underworld kingpin who heads the D-Company and has known ties to Pakistan’s Inter-Services Intelligence and even the Central Intelligence Agency, is apparently being whitewashed. His capture and handover to India might prove inconvenient for either the ISI or the CIA, or both.

    It was Ibrahim who was initially characterised by press reports as being the mastermind behind the attacks. Now, that title is being given to Zaki-ur Rehman Lakhvi

    …At the same time Ibrahim’s role is being downplayed, Lakhvi’s known role is being exaggerated. Initial reports described him as the training specialist for LeT, but the major media outlets like the New York Times and the London Times, citing government sources, have since promoted his status to that of commander of operations for the group.

    The only terrorist from the Mumbai attacks to be captured alive, Ajmal Amir Kasab, characterised Ibrahim, not Lakhvi, as the mastermind of those attacks, according to earlier press accounts.

    …Kasab told his interrogators that his team had set out from Karachi, Pakistan, on a ship belonging to Dawood Ibrahim, the MV Alpha. They then hijacked an Indian fishing trawler, the Kuber, to pass through Indian territorial waters to elude the Navy and Coast Guard that were boarding and searching suspect ships.

    …Upon arriving off the coast near the city, they were received by inflatable rubber dinghies that had been arranged by an associate of Ibrahim’s in Mumbai.

    The planning and execution of the attacks are indicative of the mastermind role not of either Lakhvi or Muzammil, but of Ibrahim, an Indian who is intimately familiar with the city. It was in Mumbai that Ibrahim rose through the ranks of the underworld to become a major organised crime boss.

    …A known drug trafficker, Dawood Ibrahim is naturally also involved in money laundering, which is perhaps where the role of gambling operations in Nepal comes into the picture.

    Yoichi Shimatsu, former editor of the Japan Times, wrote last month after the Mumbai attacks that Ibrahim had worked with the US to help finance the mujahedeen during the 1980s and that because he knows too much about the US’s ‘darker secrets’ in the region, he could never be allowed to be turned over to India.

    The recent promotion of Lakhvi to ‘mastermind’ of the attacks while Ibrahim’s name disappears from media reports would seem to lend credence to Shimatsu’s assertion.

    Investigative journalist Wayne Madsen similarly reported that according to intelligence sources, Ibrahim is a CIA asset, both as a veteran of the mujahedeen war and in a continuing connection with his casino and drug trade operations in Kathmandu, Nepal. A deal had been made earlier this year to have Pakistan hand Ibrahim over to India, but the CIA was fearful that this would lead to too many of its dirty secrets coming to light, including the criminal activities of high level personnel within the agency.

    One theory on the Mumbai attacks is that it was backlash for this double-cross that was among other things intended to serve as a warning that any such arrangement could have further serious consequences.

    …The Pakistan government has also publicly denied that Ibrahim is even in the country; a denial that was repeated following the recent Mumbai attacks.

    While the purported US document names Gul and others as terrorist supporters, another report, from Indian intelligence, indicates that the terrorists who carried out the attacks in Mumbai were among 500 trained by instructors from the Pakistan military, according to The Times. This training of the 10 known Mumbai terrorists would have taken place prior to their recent preparation for these specific attacks by the LeT training specialist Zaki-ur Rehman Lakhvi.

    But while Lakhvi, Muzammil, and Hafiz Saeed have continued to be named in connection with last month’s attacks in Mumbai, the name of Dawood Ibrahim seems to be either disappearing altogether or his originally designated role as the accused mastermind of the attacks being credited now instead to Lakhvi in media accounts.

    Whether this is a deliberate effort to downplay Ibrahim’s role in the attacks so as not to have to force Pakistan to turn him over because of embarrassing revelations pertaining to the CIA’s involvement with known terrorists and drug traffickers that development could possibly produce isn’t certain.

    But what is certain is that the CIA has had a long history of involvement with such characters and that the US has a track record of attempting to keep information about the nature of such involvement in the dark or to cover it up once it reaches the light of public scrutiny.

    Jeremy R Hammond is the editor of Foreign Policy Journal. Reproduced with kind courtesy of Foreign Policy Journal.