Daily brief: Pakistani Taliban commander declares truce - Report
By Andrew Lebovich
Tuesday, November 22, 2011 - 10:02 AM
Share
Mixed messages?
An
anonymous Tehrik-i-Taliban Pakistan (TTP) commander told the AP Monday
that the group had declared a nation-wide ceasefire in support of
ongoing peace talks with the country's government, while Pakistan's
military denied reports Tuesday that talks were taking place (AP, ET).
Additionally, the AP reports that Taliban commander Hafiz Gul Bahadur,
who has a separate peace deal with Pakistan's government, has said
that he will allow the army to build a road through territory he
controls in North Waziristan, but will kill any locals who work on the
construction (Dawn, AP).
Pakistan's
ambassador to the United States Husain Haqqani will meet with his
country's top civilian and military leadership Tuesday to determine if
he will be allowed to keep his post, following accusations that he crafted a memo to former Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Adm.
Mike Mullen asking for U.S. support for the removal of Pakistan's
military and intelligence chiefs (Reuters, ET).
Mansoor Ijaz, the Pakistani-American businessman who claims he sent the
memo containing the request to Mullen on Haqqani's orders, continues to
dispute Haqqani's claims of innocence, while Haqqani's wife and
parliamentarian Farahnaz Ispahani said her husband would go to court to
defend himself if necessary (ET, DT, Bloomberg, Dawn, Tel, Dawn).
And a former spokesman for Mullen, Capt. John Kirby, said in a briefing
Monday that Mullen knew the person who delivered the memo, reported by
Foreign Policy's The Cable to be former National Security
Advisor James L. Jones, but that Mullen did not believe the letter came
from Pakistani President Asif Ali Zardari (FP, Dawn).
Also
Tuesday, former Foreign Minister Shah Mehmood Qureshi is scheduled to
meet with Pakistan Muslim League - Nawaz (PML-N) chief Nawaz Sharif,
while the Tribune reports that the two may be planning a campaign to
oust Prime Minister Yousaf Raza Gilani from his parliamentary seat in
southern Punjab (Dawn, ET).
And U.S. ambassador to Pakistan Cameron Munter said Tuesday that he met
intelligence chief Lt. Gen. Ahmad Shuja Pasha separately from
opposition politician Imran Khan, denying suggestions that Pasha
introduced Khan to Munter (ET).
Six stories round out this section:
A roadside bomb in Balochistan killed five people, including three law
enforcement officials, Tuesday, while in the Mardan district of
Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa province a policeman was killed Monday when a bomb
exploded outside of the girls' school he was protecting (Dawn, ET, AFP). The Tribune profiles one of the men involved in a suicide bombing last week in Karachi (ET). Pakistan
will delay a ban on using certain "obscene" words in text messages,
after the proposed censorship encountered unexpected opposition (BBC, AFP, ET).
Pakistan's government announced Monday that a number of government
agencies, including the Inter Services Intelligence Directorate (ISI)
had failed to pay nearly Rs70 billion ($80 million) in electrical bills (ET).
And the Tribune looks at how Pakistan has ignored its only Nobel Prize
winner, Dr. Abdus Salam, a physicist and member of the minority Ahmedi
community who died 15 years ago Monday (ET).
Permission to proceed
A
spokesman for Afghan President Hamid Karzai announced Monday that an
Afghan commission investigating the assassination of former President
and High Peace Council chairman Burhanuddin Rabbani could leave for
Pakistan as early as Tuesday, after Pakistan agreed to allow the
delegation to enter the country (AFP, BBC).
And Afghan authorities announced Tuesday that they had broken up
several rocket and bomb plots against the Loya Jirga, or grand assembly,
that ended Saturday in Kabul, and detained at least 15 suspects --
including Pakistanis (BBC).
Reuters
reports Tuesday on the failings of the Afghan Allies visa program,
designed to help Afghans who worked with U.S. troops but now face
serious threats leave the country, as only one applicant out of 2,630
has received an interview, and 48 have been rejected (Reuters).
Reuters also looks at the problems facing Afghanistan's nascent mining
industry, which many hope will help fund the government after U.S.
forces leave the country (Reuters).
And the European Commission said Tuesday that it would send an
additional $2 million in drought aid to Afghanistan, bringing its total
drought aid in the country to $6.1 million (AP).
Map wars
The
U.S. State Department has removed certain maps of India and Pakistan
from its website after receiving a complaint from the Indian government (BBC, WSJ).
The map showed Pakistani-administered Kashmir as part of Pakistan,
while supposedly "ignoring" Indian claims to part of the region.
Sign up here to receive the Daily Brief in your inbox. Follow the AfPak Channel on Twitter and Facebook.
Pakistani Taliban commander declares truce
I don't see the Pakistani government negotiating with the Pakistani Taliban. The U.S. simply won't allow it. After the last Pakistani elections that no party emerged with simple majority to form a government, the U.S. dispatched Richard Boucher and John Negreponte to Pakistan to fashion a coalition government acceptable to Washington. After talks with all parties, Boucher and Negreponte decided that former prime minister Nawaz Sharif's party should be excluded from the government because it wanted to negotiate with the Taliban. A heated discussion between Nawaz Sharif and Negreponted that was leaked to the press that time went like this. Negreponte to Sharif: "You can't talk to these people [the Taliban]." Sharif response to Negreponte: "If you don't want us to talk to these people, you should stop bombing our villages!"
Negreponte and Boucher then pushed other parliamentarians with threats of cut off of the U.S. aid to exclude Nawaz Sharif's party, and elect Asif Zardari as president because he was ready to serve the U.S. dutifully. And the U.S. rewarded Zardari by pushing the Swiss government to drop pending charges of corruption and an arrest warrant against him. The rest is history. The U.S. just wanted the Pakistani Taliban exterminated, and forced the Pakistani government into various military campaigns that killed thousands, leveled off many villages, and created a flood of refugees.
As of now, the situation is Pakistan is worse - not better. But negotiations is the only way to go. But since the U.S. wants both the Pakistani Taliban and the Afghan Haqqani Taliban dead, negotiations won't go anywhere. Simply stated, when a foreign power bombs with impunity the territory of another state - as the U.S. does in Pakistan, that state is not sovereign anymore to determine its own internal affairs. I expect the Pakistani government and the Taliban to negotiate a peace deal when the U.S. is eventually kicked out of Afghanistan. Until then, the Pakistani government and the Taliban shall "wink, wink" at each other until the Central Asia invaders cut and run! Then the Pakistanis can sit down like a family and sort all their differences out! Nikos Retsos, retired professor
Pakistan Military have a history of these deals
Pakistan Army’s deals with the Pakistan’s Taliban and is nothing new. Pakistan Army has made these deals with the Pakistan Taliban for years. Undisputed evidence has proven that he Pakistan Army has fully supported Afghan Taliban all these 10 years of war against the terrorism by the US and coalition forces and has made many deals with the Pakistani Taliban. The following are some of the Pakistan army’s deals with the Pakistan’s Taliban:
• Shakai agreement of 2004 between the Pakistan Army and Pakistani Taliban Commander Nek Mohammad in South Waziristan.
• Srarogha peace deal of 2005 between Pakistan Army and The Pakistani Taliban the Mehsud brothers.
• Miranshah Peace accord of 2006 between warring Pakistani Taliban Hafiz Gul Bahadar, Maulana Sadiq Noor, and Maulana Abdul Khaliq. Supported by the Pakistan Army.
The above deals of the Pakistan governments with Pakistani Talibans had included items such as the following: “The government will allow foreign mujahidin (foreign fighters) to live peacefully in Waziristan… All militants and civilians of the area arrested during the recent military operation will be released and will not be arrested again on the previous charges…The government will pay compensation for all collateral damages to the affected families.” (Abbas, 2011)
Reference:
• Abbas, Hassan. 2011. Militancy in Pakistan’s Borderlands: Implications for the Nation and for Afghan Policy. The Century Foundation (March, 23): http://tcf.org/publications/2010/10/militancy-in-pakistan2019s-borderlands-implications-for-the-nation-and-for-afghan-policy/pdf
Can Pakistan change its colors?
The real question for U. S. and its troops is whether Afghan Taliban, Al Qaeda and Haqqani Network supported and sheltered by Pakistani governments since 2001, are willing to declare a ceasefire and stop planning and conducting cross-border terror attacks in Afghanistan.
(3)
HIDE COMMENTS LOGIN OR REGISTER REPORT ABUSE