“It seems like both the JUI-F and JI want to stay away from the situation and have allowed the army to clean up the foreign mujahideen,”
So says an MMA leader.
As I have said previously, it is the MMA parties (with their overwhelming support in the Pashtun heartlands) that have really betrayed those foreigners in Wana. They have chosen political expediency over their former friends, and has left the army to clean them up the mess.
http://www.thefridaytimes.com/_news2.shtml
MMA’s strange silence on Wana
Despite statements by some of its top leaders threatening to take the issue to the streets, the six-party religious alliance, the Mutahidda Majlis-e-Amal (MMA) has only announced low-profile protest demonstrations against the army-led operation in Wana in South Waziristan. The army and paramilitary troops are currently engaged in a major operation in the area in a bid to catch some of the most wanted Al Qaeda militants suspected of hiding in the area. The operation has so far resulted in dozens of casualties, including the deaths of nearly thirty soldiers. By all indications, this is the biggest military engagement within the country since the army was called out in 1974 to quell the Balochistan insurgency. **Many people are asking the question of why the MMA is soft-peddling the issue. Indeed, one of the component parties, the Jamiat Ulema-e-Pakistan, has already accused the Jamiat Ulema-e-Islam of Fazlur Rehman and the Jama’at-e Islami (the two biggest component parties) of not doing enough to protest the issue. **
However, many political observers believe the religious parties’ low-profile campaign is a “fixed” affair. “There has been no street agitation or a call for a million-march to Islamabad. They never shied from doing that,” says one analyst, who thinks the JUI-F is downplaying the issue to save its government in the NWFP. If this is correct, and many observers think it is, this could also lead to some friction between the JI and JUI-F. Both have stuck together recently because the other component parties have accused them of hijacking the alliance. The past campaigns by the religious parties have been violent. The high watermark of sustained street protest orchestrated by them was the PNA movement of 1977. The movement forced then-premier zulfikar Ali Bhutto to agree to new elections but before the agreement could be formalized, the army struck and took over. The religious parties have also engineered violent demonstrations against the governments of Benazir Bhutto and Nawaz Sharif. This time the response has been weak. The current phase of the Wana operation was launched some two weeks ago but so far the MMA has failed to orchestrate any big demonstration in any city of Pakistan. And while there is criticism galore, there have been no calls.
Indeed, the MMA has not even called a meeting of its supreme council to specifically discuss the issue. The JUI-F leader Maulana Fazlur Rehman did not cut short his visit abroad and no MMA leader has tried to visit South Waziristan. “It seems like both the JUI-F and JI want to stay away from the situation and have allowed the army to clean up the foreign mujahideen,” says a leader of the rival faction of JUI-F led by Maulana Sami-ul Haq. “This is what we called a sell-out,” a leader of Jamiat Ulema-e-Islam (Sami), told TFT. JUI-S blames JI and JUI-F of compromising the MMA’s stand on the LFO and Musharraf’s pro-American policies. “They are equally responsible for what is happening in Wana. They have accepted General Musharraf as president until 2007,” he added. The demonstrations in Karachi have seen not more than 300 to 500 people. Only two years ago, the MMA had organised a rally of 50,000 people in the city protest the situation in Afghanistan. TFT has learnt that now the MMA leadership has decided to launch a contact campaign to apprise people of what’s happening in Wana. This strategy indicates the alliance is in no mood to confront the government. But the most important factor seems to be the MMA’s consideration that it must not create a situation which might force General Pervez Musharraf to change his mind about doffing his uniform. Interestingly, some pro-Musharraf elements have already started asking Musharraf to reconsider his decision. In fact, the PML-Q legislators said in the assembly recently that they would ask the president to not quit f the MMA persists in its opposition to the national security council bill. The leaders of PML-Q and also the MQM are interested that Musharraf continue as the army chief. “This makes sense because the first thing the MMA would want is to get rid of Musharraf as the army chief,” says an observer. Technically, Musharraf would require a two-thirds majority if he wants to get out of his commitment to the MMA, which is part of the agreement on the Legal Framework Order passed by the parliament as the 17th amendment. But, say sources, if the situation deteriorates, Musharraf always retains the option of declaring emergency and prolonging himself as the army chief. As things stand, Musharraf is committed to quit the post by December 2004 in which case he must announce the name of the new army chief by coming October.
Insiders say many in the MMA, but especially Qazi Hussain Ahmed want to wait for the new army chief before deciding their next move. “It’s true that any agitation against Musharraf could lead to confrontation between the people and the army and we want to avoid that situation despite pressure on us,” an MMA leader told TFT. So far the military has not issued the list of foreign militants that it claims to have killed and captured during the ongoing operation. However, reports suggest the ‘high-value target’ Musharraf talked about when the operation started has managed to escape the cordon. Even so, the casualties sustained by the troops have now removed any lingering doubts about the presence in the area of foreign elements and their local supporters. Sources said during the Taliban government in Afghanistan hundreds of Pakistani Islamic extremists were given shelter in Afghanistan, which included several wanted sectarian terrorists, including Riaz Basra who was killed in an encounter in 2002. “Al Qaeda people now expect their Pakistani counterparts to give them shelter,” said a political observer. No one really knows the toll on both sides since the military has not allowed any journalists to go into the area since the operation began. However, intelligence sources say they believe that most of those who gave shelter to al-Qaeda, were the supporters of the outlawed movement, Tehreek-e-Nifaz-e Shariat-e-Mohammadi (TNSM) whose chief Sufi Mohammad is still in jail. Officials also say the Al Qaeda could have been using Pakistani militants groups like Jaish-e Mohammad, whom the authorities suspect of having a role in the two assassination attempts on Musharraf. In fact, a former DG-ISI, now a senator, has actually accused Jaish of mounting the attacks on Musharraf. Police officers fear Al Qaeda could attack targets inside Pakistan during or after the Wana operation is over. “They will definitely try to strike,” says an officer in Karachi. Ironically, the presence of such a large number of Al Qaeda members whether they are Arabs or are from Central Asia, contradicts Islamabad’s earlier claims that there was no Al Qaeda network in Pakistan.