Adil Najam
Pakistan Prime Minister Syed Yousuf Raza Gillani finally spoke to the parliament of Pakistan (and really to the world) to respond to last week’s US military operation to get Osama Bin Laden. As I have argued elsewhere, it was too late and maybe is too little. But I am glad that he has spoken.
Just as this week has been a moment on jubilation for the United States, it has been a moment of introspection for Pakistan. Introspection is never comfortable, but when done honestly it is nearly always beneficial. I do hope that this will lead to honest introspection.
Whether it will or nor, we will not know for a little while still. We will know it from the actions the government takes, and not just from words. But words are often a good place to start. I do not wish to rush into judgment just yet and want to first digest exactly what the Prime Minister said, and what it will mean in practice. At an immediate glance it should lead to at least a few conversations in and beyond the parliament that are very unusual for Pakistan. Conversations that will raise questions about the government’s as well as the military’s performance. It is not a bad thing that these conversations will happen. I just hope they will happen honestly.
I will await details, and hopefully a full text, of the Prime Minister’s speech. Until that comes, here are two preliminary news reports. According to Dawn:
Pakistani Prime Minister Yousuf Raza Gilani said Monday that his country was not the birthplace of al Qaeda and could not be held accountable alone for the creation of the terror network. While addressing the Parliament, the prime minister said that Pakistan has full confidence in its military and intelligence and widespread allegations of official complicity or incompetence over Osama bin Laden’s Abbottabad hideout were “absurd”.
Gilani told Parliament that the country was “united in our resolve to eliminate terrorism” and determined not to allow its soil to be used for militancy. Gilani said unilateral actions such as the US Navy SEALs swoop on Obama’s hideout run the risk of serious consequences, but added Pakistan attached high importance to its relations with Washington.
And here is the initial report in The Express Tribune:
Prime Minister Yousaf Raza Gilani on Monday said the leadership of the armed forces will give an in-camera briefing to a joint session of parliament regarding the Osama bin Laden operation on May 13. An investigation has been ordered into how Osama bin Laden was able to live in the garrison city of Abbottabad undetected, Gilani told parliament.
The prime minister said that the media “spin masters” were reporting a false divide with the state institutions and that there was no military and civil divide in Pakistan. He rejected allegations that the killing of Bin Laden by US troops showed Pakistani incompetence or complicity in the al Qaeda leader’s presence in the country.
“Allegations of complicity or incompetence are absurd,” Gilani told parliament, adding that it was disingenuous for anyone to accuse Pakistan, including its spy agency, of “being in cahoots” with the al Qaeda network. “ISI is a national asset and has full support of the government,” Gilani said. “It was the ISI that passed key leads to CIA which enabled US intelligence to use superior technological assets to carry out the operation.”
“Yes, there has been an intelligence failure. It’s not only ours, but all the agencies of the world,” he said. Gilani said unilateral action such as the US Navy SEALs raiding Osama’s hideout run the risk of serious consequences. Gilani added that Pakistan attached high importance to its relations with Washington.
The Prime Minister also said that Pakistan’s relationships with other countries, including its neighbours, were in a good state. Pakistan has confidence in its military and intelligence services Gilani said, despite the discovery that Osama Bin Laden had been living in the country undetected.
Pakistan Muslim League (PML-Nawaz), had earlier demanded a full investigation into the breakdown in intelligence and for the government to accept any responsibilities that may be unearthed, a spokesman said.“Our party will react very strongly if we come to a conclusion that the speech was nothing but an eyewash,” Siddiqul Farooq told AFP. “We want a serious probe to fix responsibility for an intelligence failure and objective steps that such negligence is not repeated in future,” he said.
Osama Bin Laden was not the only major terrorist sheltered in Pakistan. Even now, the following major terrorists are being sheltered and supported in Pakistan.
* Hafiz Muhammad Saeed, Head Of Lashkar-e-Taiba who was responsible for the terrorist attacks in Bombay on 11/26/2008 lives openly and recently gave public speech praising Osama Bin Laden.
* Dawood Ibrahim, the under-ground terrorist leader who was responsible for multiple terrorist bomb attacks in Bombay on 3/12/1993 lives openly in Karachi and is even planning a lavish wedding for his son this month.
* Jalaluddin Haqqani and his son Sirajuddin Haqqani, fundamentalist Taliban commanders of Haqqani network fighting Afghan and American forces.
* Mullah Mohammed Omar, the head of Afghanistan’s ousted Taliban regime.
The fact that Osama Bin Laden was living close to Pakistan’s capital Islamabad adjacent to major military establishments shows that he had high level political and intelligence support in Pakistan. Those intelligence, military and political leaders of Pakistan responsible for sheltering and supporting terrorists should be questioned and held responsible for their criminal actions.
Fair speech, but like many said, a bit too late.
The choice of English for this particular speech was appropriate – he was answering many questions that the world had been asking for several days now, without anyone addressing them, so his audience was broader than Pakistan.
But this must have been, like, his third or fourth speech since the incident. Also, thruout the speech, he kept saying the same wrong things that led us into this mess — that we have been the most loyal servants of the US. Time to tell the US to take a hike – the only language the US understands – notice that their senators (e.g. Lugar) have already come out and started talking about the need for good terms with Pak.
The points I liked include the reference to our “all weather friend”, and the good relations with immediate neighbors. And also the reference to G.W.Bush’s blunder speech “mission accomplished” – all mild slaps in US/Bush’s face. These are the points that seem to show some independence. I believe that this is a turn from his usual self, under pressure from opposition party leaders. But more pressure is needed to keep the leaders awake. He finally seemed a bit more awake, a departure from his usual self, when he often talks like a zombie on sedatives. Need to work on shaking the govt. some more to put them on a higher level of alert. Good job Imran Khan, Ch. Nisar and Qureshi! Keep it up.
All that said, we must all be shaking in our boots upon being woken up to the realization of how weak our national military defenses are. That will probably come out in the hearings promised. I worry that the Israelis, maybe even Indians, are salivating at the thought of running some aerial errands over Pak territory …….. a la Osirak!
@Khan Sahib
“Just out of curiosity, why did he speak in English?”
You obviously don’t know Pakistan well. See, unless you want to be perceived as a “jaahil,” you HAVE to speak in English.
I like the speech, well written, whoever wrote it, but he read it.
Personally I don’t like him, his twitch nerve under the left eye, the decadent lifestyle, I think he is dumb as a door nail and shameless too if he is cashing in the name of poor people.
With all the extremely talented people, you cannot scream for too long that , Oh I am so poor!
Quaid-e-Azam spoke in English many times, it is the winning language of the mass medium. If this was an insult many parliamentarians who could not understand it, too bad, your life would be tougher.
Any how I doubt that this speech would be sufficient to satisfy MANY angry
people around the world. Pakistan would have to come up up with some serious actions.
Pardon my masonic pun, but in life you can still live with dignity if you work hard and smart, but we all have to depend (or slave to if you call that).
Isolation and hate is a fools haven, pick your masters wisely.
It is time for military and civilan leaders of Pakistan to come clean. The contents of their rethoric in speeches such as Mr. Gilani read today has o be consistent with what they tell USA in private. Double talk policy must end. Officially, pakistan condemns the drone attacks while Mr. Gilani’s ambassador, Islamophobe Haqqani, recently stated in a local meeting in Washington DC that he has personally participated and observed the control room of the drone attacks and how accurate it was.
As a minimum, ISI must be brought under civilian control like in any other country. This will help reduce the control of military over the nation. I just watched the former US ambassador to Pakistan state on television to make contact the civilan educated middle class of Pakistan and withdraw its contact with the corrupt generals, politicians, and feudal lords. She stated that it is no use to rely on persons who pack their suit cases with money and take it to Dubai and send their kids to study in US private universities because they are not bright enough to compete with brilliant middle class Pakistani students and get admitted to elite universities in Pakistan.