Author:
Publication: Rediff on Net
Date: May 15, 2001
Several major Islamic fundamentalist
and militant outfits, which were openly carrying out recruitment and fund-raising
drives in different parts of Pakistan, have now "agreed" to the Musharraf
regime's appeals to be discreet about their activities with the government
promising not to actively pursue them.
Pakistani media reports say that
jehadi outfits had "prolonged negotiations" during the past few weeks with
Pakistani security agencies and decided to carry out their activities without
getting into media focus.
"After prolonged negotiations with
the government agencies, the mainstream religious organisations (sic) involved
in armed struggle against Indian armed forces in Kashmir, have agreed to
be discreet in their drive to collect donations and recruit volunteers,"
Pakistani daily The News said in a recent article.
"In return, the government has decided
not to pursue - too aggressively - its pledge to force the closure of all
such activities," it added.
Even former premier Benazir Bhutto
said in a recent article that the main agenda of these groups was "to gain
time and create a parallel armed force. One that can take on the regular
armed forces should a slowdown be called for."
In her article in The News, Bhutto
said, "The militants already field an irregular force of 150,000. In ten
years, they hope to have half a million armed men."
A foreign journalist Yvette Claire
Rosser wrote in The Friday Times that the possibility of an armed uprising
by "half-million strong, gun-toting, madrassa (Islamic school) trained,
conservative militant jehadis... is more frightening and imminent than
an American or European can fathom."
According to Bhutto, "Pakistani
madrassas have a doctrinaire curriculum. Their graduates are singularly
focussed on the sectarian nature of their studies. Independent thinking
is prohibited."
In the same vein, senior leader
of the Awami National Party Asfandyar Wali writes in The News that there
was "complete Talebanisation" of several areas of the Federal Areas, Quetta,
Bannu, Hangu and Laki Marwat.
"Where is the state authority when
private homes are broken into and their television sets taken away? If
the state continues to keep its eyes closed, there will be complete anarchy.
If state authority collapses, the only armed forces would be of the fundamentalists
and no force in the country will be able to take them on," Wali wrote.
An article in The Nation has estimated
that number of armed militants could range even up to 300,000.
It says that while the army can
at present "certainly take them on, but there is also the justified fear
that the militants have sympathisers in the army at every level. Some 20
per cent of the army are fundamentalists, even though we are constantly
informed that the army is a highly disciplined force."
