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‘Operation Silence’ – Musharraf’s crackdown on Lal Masjid Jehadis |
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Harjit Singh
“Operation Silence” launched to get rid of radical clerics and militants hold up in the Lal Masjid in the heart of Islamabad after talks with the slain cleric, Abdul Rashid Ghazi to surrender failed, may be a courageous act. But, the blood-letting has exposed the hollowness of Musharraf’s rhetoric to end the standoff peacefully. The world might find it somewhat intriguing that what was touted by the Government as the night long “last ditch talks” gave way to a commando assault at the crack of dawn. It was a desperate act of a beleaguered General who had run out of ideas on how to deal with the terminal crisis of his career. It is being alleged that he put his foot down on a draft agreement reached with the embattled cleric Ghazi under which he would have been placed under house arrest along with his ailing mother. The agreement had been hammered out by a 13-member team led by the PML[Q] chief Chowdhury Shujaat Hussain. It is quite possible he may have been lured out of the basement where he was hiding on the promise of sparing his life and killed by the commandos just as he surfaced. Pressure on Musharraf to eliminate him was very strong – more from the Chinese than even from President Bush. The Chinese were frothing with anger first over the abduction of six Chinese women from a massage parlour in Islamabad by the Lal Masjid students and then the killing of three Chinese in the tribal areas. Gen. Musharraf who had earlier promised that he would do nothing which could jeopardize the innocent lives of women and children being used as human shields by Abdul Rashid, suddenly decided to launch the operation even as negotiations were being given a chance and even the Supreme Court had told the Government not to do anything which would endanger the lives of civilians. There are allegations of many more deaths than the official figure and many bodies having been buried in a makeshift grave. The Government has denied the charge and said no women or children died in the military action though this claim is being taken with a pinch of salt.
Musharraf was of late coming under a great deal of pressure from the United States that his support in the war on terror was not commensurate to the promises he had made. The Bush Administration was coming round to the view that Musharraf was using the Al-Qaeda and Taliban terrorists hiding in the tribal areas as a trump card because the longer they remained there, the greater would be the American dependence on him as a strong leader. But, with the elections nearing and the Taliban and Al-Qaeda resurgence reported from the Pak-Afghan border, demands grew in Washington to find a replacement of Gen. Musharraf. The coming elections, the standoff with the suspended Supreme Court Chief Justice and the Opposition doubts about the fairness of elections under his command, could be used by the US as excuses to withdraw support to him.
In these conditions, an uncompromising stand on Lal Masjid clerics had become necessary. Clerics and students at the complex were thumbing their noses at the writ of the State all this year, announcing their parallel courts and regularly abducting persons in their anti-vice campaign. This should now compel the Pakistani leader to seriously rethink his Government’s unstated policy of patronizing radical Islam, particularly its terrorist strain.
In the political situation that unfolds in Pakistan now post Lal Masjid, two alternate scenarios are equally plausible. One, Musharraf’s action against the radical Islamists once again endears him to liberal-democratic sections whose support for the regime has been waning ever since the President sought to unceremoniously unseat Pakistan’s Chief justice. That would bolster Musharraf’s position. Two, Islamists and the so-called democratic political Opposition forge a tactical alliance forcing the General’s hand. Given the cynical fashion in which both the Army and political parties have used the Islamists against each other, this possibility cannot be ruled out.
What will be most significant to watch is the General’s next move. He has the capability to turn adversity into opportunity. He should go the whole hog to stamp out terrorism from Pakistan and stop supporting terrorists in Kashmir.
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