Beyond the blacklisting

At last, after much prolonged resistance, Jaish-e-Mohammed Chief Masood Azhar is included in the international terrorist list after the Chinese withdrew their technical hold on it in exchange for not linking this designation to the Pulwama attack, as India had wished.

Azhar’s blacklisting accuses him of terrorist activities in in the 1990s, links to Al-Qaeda, association with Osama bin Laden, involvement in the hijacking of India Airline IC-814, support to the Taliban, recruitment and financing of terrorist outfits and leading the JeM, declared terrorist by the UNSC long ago. On China's objection, though, reference to Pulwama and Kashmir was dropped. The initiators of the move - the US, the UK and France – had been insisting on these on behalf of India, and this had attracted repeated technical holds from China.

It is quite mind-boggling why we should be sticking so stubbornly on this matter, which perpetuates our own embarrassment and isolation. Similarly, it is no less strange that India put so much diplomatic capital into getting Hafiz Saeed and Masood Azhar included in the international terrorist list by the UN Sanctions Committee-1267. Former National Security Adviser Shiv Shankar Menon has observed that India had pointlessly made it a point of its national honour to get Azhar enlisted as an international terrorist. According to Menon, it won’t make any difference as was observed after the inclusion of Hafiz Saeed’s name on the terrorist list. Similar views have been expressed by Indian Defence Analyst Rahul Bedi who feels that it won’t make any difference, except improving Modi’s image. But this will help take out the wind from the sticking points in the area of bilateral dialogue.

Thanks to Chinese wisdom and mediation, the logjam was broken and Prime Minister Modi got his trophy during the last phases of his fading anti-Pakistan electoral rhetoric. With Azhar’s blacklisting as an international terrorist, one of India’s Pak-bashing points has been approved by the UN; at the same time, this has exhausted India’s obsession with Azhar. But Azhar’s presence on Pakistani soil and his alleged activities in the name of the JeM or anything else will keep Islamabad under the UN radar. Like the demand for the trial of Hafiz Saeed, India is expected to demand Azhar's trial in various cases. This will also provide an opportunity to Islamabad to wash its hands off the JeM chief. Not unexpectedly, the Foreign Office had the sagacity to declare this its diplomatic victory, instead of driving the point that Pakistan has shown new determination not to have anything do with any terrorist.

Let us not forget that a lethal attack on the then COAS Gen Pervez Musharraf is alleged to have been orchestrated by Masood Azhar. In a recent interview, Gen Musharraf expressed his embarrassing helplessness in nabbing him then. The attack on Musharraf took place at a time when he was engaged with India in a result-oriented dialogue and was seen as having broken with the beaten track of jihad to salvage Kashmir. After the exit of General Musharraf, the policy of sparing good, and targeting bad, Taliban continued till Operation Zarb-e-Azb started and the terrorist attack on the Army Public School in Peshawar forced all parties in Pakistan to agree on a National Action Plan which still remains partially implemented. The duality of the Taliban policy was not perceived to have ended completely, though – because of which Pakistani diplomatic corps failed to sell the country's case of denial.

Both the elected governments of the PPP and the PML-N in the last decade had to face setbacks in their peace initiatives at the hands of adventurist terrorists. The Mumbai attack the LeT was accused of undertaking; it preempted the then president Zardari’s peace overtures. The JeM was also implicated in the Pathankot and Uri attacks, when former prime minister Nawaz Sharif was trying to build fences with the Modi government. However, after the induction of the Imran Khan government, we witnessed some tilt towards taking a peace track as Pakistan too came under greater scrutiny of the Financial Action Task Force and at the moment faces a very grim financial meltdown.

While in May, Islamabad will have to further explain its position to the FATF on serious issues related to banned outfits and terror-financing, the IMF is negotiating a tough structural adjustment programme to salvage imminent default. Both US Principal Deputy Assistant Secretary of State Alice Wells and US Special Representative for Afghanistan Reconciliation Zalmay Khalilzad are locked in intensive negotiations with whoever matters in Islamabad-Rawalpindi on a wide range of issues, including adding pressure on the Taliban to agree to a ceasefire and reconciliation with various elements of the Afghan government. Given Pakistan’s international isolation, worsening balance of payments crisis and maturing of debt repayments up to $27 billion in the next two years, Islamabad is left with little room to maneuver.

Indeed, if everything is justified in war, we will have the bitter taste of that when Pakistan is under pressure from all sides and on almost all counts. Whereas the neocolonial power-structure can be ruthlessly clear in enforcing policies at home, it seems rudderless when faced with external powers. Again, one wonders why anyone would defend Masood Azhar from being declared an international terrorist, even while insisting we have nothing to do with the JeM or LeT? This is the time for radical course correction; instead of those who remain peaceful and swear by the constitution of Pakistan being pushed to the wall. Pakistan has great troubles at hand that need to be handled. Unnecessary confrontation with those who could easily be mainstreamed from Fata or Balochistan will only add to the problem.

The writer is a senior journalist.

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