Introduction: Memories of ISI's
skewed Afghan policy are still fresh for the Alliance
Author: Shri Khaled Ahmed, The
Friday Times
Publications: The Indian Express
Dated: December 4, 2001
The entry of the Northern Alliance
into Kabul has unleashed fears in Pakistan. Jamiat Islamabad its allies
ruled in Kabul from 1992 to 1996, during which period it killed 50,000
Kabulis and raped and pillaged the hapless population of the city. Commander
Ahmad Shah Massoud ordered the bombing of Pakistan embassy in 1996, climaxing
his bad relations with Pakistan. Within the year, he had to flee into Panjsher
Valley as Pakistan evened the score by seating the Taliban in Kabul.
Why does the Northern Alliance (Tajiks,
Hazaras, Uzbeks, Ismailis) hate Pakistan so much? The answer lies buried
in the past, much of it in the way the ISI was allowed to handle the Afghan
jehad from l979 to l989.
A report in The News quoted an ISI
officer as saying: "The previous ISI bosses thought that it was a sin to
have contact with the anti-Taliban Afghans. In the business of secret intelligence
operations you can never close any windows, but in the past the ISI rebuffed
every attempt by the anti-Taliban elements to open a dialogue with it".
It suited the ISI and CIA to ignore the Jamiat Islami of Rabbani and Massoud
and support Hizb-e-Islami of Hekmatyar. Massoud, locked in a personal vendetta
with Gulbuddin Hekmatyar, followed a policy of negotiating with the Soviet
occupying army.
The ISI and CIA preferred outfits
that did their bidding more readily. Saudi Arabia, attracted to wahhabi
elements in the Kunar province, followed in their wake, backing ISI's preferential
funding of Hizb-Hekmatyar and his Kharuti colleague, Ittehade Islami's
Abdur Rasool Sayyaf. Jamiat and Hizb leaders arrived in Peshawar in 1975
after being driven out by the communist allies of President Daud. Prime
minister Zulfikar Ali Bhutto used Hekmatyar to needle Daud through random
bombings in Kabul to dissuade him from reviving the Pakhtunistan issue.
When the Afghan war started in 1979
the jehad leaders residing in Peshawar multiplied. Seven jehadi parties
were recognised by General Zia and his ally, Jamaat Islami. According to
Barnett R. Rubin in The Search for Peace in Afghanistan: From Buffer State
to Failed State, Pakistan and Saudi Arabia subcontracted their dealings
with the mujahideen groups to Jamaat Islami which supported Zia's Islamisation
programme.
Massoud began to complain about
the pro-Hekmatyar policy of Pakistan. He parleyed with the Soviets and
obtained for himself a strong position in Panjsher. He told a Norwegian
reporter in 1986 that one-third of his income came from booty, another
third from the sale of lapis lazuli and emerald which he mined in Panjsher,
and only 4.5 percent from Jamiat in Pakistan, while five per cent accrued
from the Panjsheris in the Kabul government and businessmen. Because he
received very little from ISI, he was less 'controlled' than the other
mujahideen Leaders.
Later, the ISI formed a similar
one-sided relationship and told Islamabad there was no alterantive to the
Taliban policy after the Taliban became defiant. The ISI's tilt towards
Hekmatyar foreclosed Pakistan's options with Massoud. The present animus
against Pakistan among the Northern Alliance also owes to the ISI's tilt
in favour of Osama bin Laden and the latter's assasination of Massoud.
In 1989, the Soviets declared that
they would leave Afghanistan. The ISI and General Zia had rejected the
Geneva Accords which prime minister Junejo had signed. Thus began the 'tradition'
of 'going it alone' within the ISI, a trend that has haunted every ruler
in Pakistan down to General Musharraf.
In 1989, ISI thought it should send
an interim government of its Peshawar-based mujahideen to 'fill the vacuum'
after defeating President Najibullah's government. The ISI blundered by
excluding the Shia mujahideen based in Iran - which Tehran was to unite
under Hizb-e-Wehdat in 1994. This isolated Pakistan in Afghanistan further
after the Taliban's collapse.
Rubin tells the story: "The seven
parties appointed all 519 representatives to the shura, excluding all participation
by the Kabul regime and the Shia parties. The shura was composed almost
entirely of Peshawar-based party officials, mostly Pakhtuns from eastern
Afghanistan. The Saudi intelligence service spent 26 million dollars per
week during the shura: The ISI chief promised the presidency to Mujaddidi.
Sayyaf became prime minister in deference to the Saudis who promised to
fund a conventional Islamic Army if their wahhabi sect was adequately represented".
The same year General Hamid Gul's
plan to capture Jalalabad as a base for the Islamic Interim Government
of Afghanistan failed because the mujahideen, including ISI's favourite
Hekmatyar, never seriously took to the field against the PDPA forces. Then,
Mujaddidi thought he could take Kunduz but that plan too failed after Hekmatyar's
men murdered ten commanders of Massoud's army. Mujaddidi called Hekmatyar
a criminal and a terrorist who then stopped attending meetings.
When Najibuilah fell in 1992, the
mujahideen hurriedly announced a government under a Peshawar Accord, but
without Hekmatyar. The ISI could not support any setup without him, therefore,
Nawaz Sharif in 1993 put together another government. He discovered to
his dismay that no one among the mujahideen was willing to support Hekmatyar
despite the bullying of Jamaat Islami's Qazi Hussain Ahmad. Mujaddidi was
left as president but Hekmatyar was included as prime minister, who immediately
said he would dismiss Massoud as defence minister. The result: Hekmatyar
could not enter Kabul, which was already in the hands of Rabbani and Massoud.
