Musharraf has a compelling vision: Crocker

By Nusrat Javeed
ISLAMABAD (The Post, December 13): Ambassador Ryan C Crocker of the US has said that Pakistan’s president keeps expressing the intent of transferring Pakistan to a stable, sustainable and institutionalised democracy and notwithstanding reservations expressed by “many sceptics” over his repeatedly saying this, “My belief is, he means it.

”He also believed that General Musharraf had a “compelling vision” and he wanted to leave with a different legacy than the previous military rulers, Ayub and Zia, had accumulated for this country.

Ambassador Crocker was talking to a select group of local editors and senior media persons at the residence of Peter J Kovach, the US counsellor for Public Affairs in Islamabad, Monday. The journalists were invited for a roundtable discussion with the US ambassador, specifically on earthquake relief efforts. But soon the interaction over a working lunch drifted to multiple areas. Most keenly discussed was Washington’s assessment of General Musharraf and the way he was leading Pakistan to democratic governance.

Ambassador Crocker avoided giving categorical answers to questions about how the US judged the recently concluded local bodies’ elections in Pakistan. But he did say that Washington expected general elections, whenever they occur, to be held in a free, fair and transparent manner. He did not endorse the statement attributed to a lady member of the National Assembly sitting on the PML-N benches. She is reported to have claimed that Ms Christina Rocca, the US Assistant Secretary of State, has been telling people that Washington might question the credibility of general elections, if President Musharraf continued wearing the military uniform at the time of their holding.

Although he had not checked with Ms. Rocca, he implicitly dismissed the veracity of remarks attributed to the Assistant Secretary of State by saying that Washington was not in the habit of communicating its thoughts in the manner the lady MNA suggested in her statement.He too remained hesitant in offering comments over the question whether Musharraf’s continuation in military uniform would damage the credibility of the next general elections. To him, most important remained the desire that these elections were held in a free, fair and transparent manner.

Ambassador Crocker was not willing to extend “any assurances” for the holding of general elections in the manner he desired. But he did stress that international community would be observing these elections in Pakistan “very closely”. When told that the same community had been doing the same sort of watching over recently held local bodies’ polls, he just said, “Local body elections are local body elections.

”The US ambassador also believed that the challenge to establish a stable, sustainable and institutionalised democracy in Pakistan also put some burden on its opposition. The opposition parties should get out of the “political culture here”, which appeared stuck in zero-sum tensions and calculations between the government and the opposition. Ambassador Crocker coolly digested remarks that blamed Washington for feeling more comfortable in dealing with Pakistan in a friendly manner, whenever it was led by a military ruler. Sustaining friendly relations with Pakistan, he stressed, served the long-term interests of the US and reviewing the down periods in the bilateral relationship of the past, Washington now believed that stable, sustainable and institutional democracy in Pakistan would greatly help sustaining this upbeat mood. Without this kind of democracy, Islamabad’s relations with Washington would always have “internal fragility”.

In the specific context of preferring democratic governance in Pakistan, Ambassador Crocker did not sound impressed by record of the elected governments of civilians that kept coming and going in this country throughout the 1990s. He rather desired that Pakistan did not return to the kind of civilian governance practiced in that decade. Crocker is close to completing his first year as the US ambassador in Pakistan. Some weeks after landing here, he had made the comment that Pakistan did not appear to be run by a military government and some journalists “have taken me to task for saying this.

” Yet, after spending less than a year in Pakistan, he did not hesitate saying the same for this country. The “pronounced freedom” of the print and the electronic media in Pakistan apparently justifies his comments, for he kept referring to it several times during the 70 minutes of candid talk with journalists.Initiating the talk, Ambassador Crocker expressed satisfaction over the state of Pak-US relations these days and believed that the Pakistan government and people have gradually begun perceiving his country as a reliable friend. The help Washington extended to relief and rehabilitation efforts for the earthquake victims had strengthened the said perception. The US ambassador avoided furnishing any solid promises, when told that perhaps the US could increase its reputation of a “reliable friend” by extending some help to the resolution of Pakistan’s imminent-looking crisis of meeting its energy needs. Although recognizing the importance of long-term fuel supplies to Pakistan, Ryan C Crocker was reluctant in supporting the idea of our buying oil and gas from Iran. Referring to sanctions the US congress had imposed on that country, he tried to justify his ambivalence in this regard.

Similarly, he had nothing to offer when told that Washington could extend the same kind of collaboration it had offered to New Delhi for generating electricity by nuclear means. The US Congress, he rather said, has yet to approve the said offer and no one could predict the conditions it might put for extending US support to India using nuclear energy for civilian use. Broadly appreciating Pakistan’s need for building mega dams, he was also not willing to commit any US funds for construction of dams like the one proposed on Kalabagh.Washington has pledged $510 million for the earthquake relief and rehabilitation efforts and out of the pledged amount, $180 million had already been spent. He clarified that all the money that the US had committed for relief and rehabilitation efforts remained outside the package of $5 billion that his country had committed to provide for Pakistan in five years since 2003. The money for the earthquake victims is “a grant or assistance in kind and it is not repayable.

” The amount of $510 million does not include the money used by the US military for various relief-related efforts that also need frequent flying to quake-hit areas by US helicopters. He denied the impression that Pakistan paid for the fuel of these flights and for buying the spare parts for them.No time limit has yet been set for the US military’s involvement in relief and rehabilitation operations. Ambassador Crocker felt that it might continue until the end of winter, or until the time Government of Pakistan wants it to. During the most difficult times of the relief operations, around 1,200 US military personnel were involved. Currently their number is reduced to around 1,000.Ambassador Crocker believed that “most satisfying thing” for the US services personnel involved in relief and rehabilitation efforts was the feeling that they were helping the quake victims and interacting with them positively. As a very experienced diplomat, he avoided in getting into the discussion whether the US military was involving itself in relief and rehabilitation efforts to improve its image amongst the people of Pakistan. Through a “curious and complicated” process, he believed, people developed perceptions about a particular country and “media moments” could not do much for changing them. The focus of the US services personnel engaged in relief and rehabilitation operations remained on “doing the right things.”Similarly, the ambassador was not willing to offer any comments over questions as to why the opposition remained far more vocal in criticizing NATO’s involvement in relief operations for the quake victims than the US services personnel’s role in the same context. He also was not willing to commit whether a US helicopter was really fired at during on its relief-related flights to AJK. “The question remains ambiguous and unresolved,” was the only comment he offered to repeatedly put questions in this regard.

Ambassador Crocker did not sound that diplomatic, however, when it came to “banned Jehadi outfits’ high-profile involvement in relief and rehabilitation activities in AJK. We see, he stated categorically, “Jamiat-e-Dawa synonymous to Lashkar-e-Tayyaba, an outfit strongly associated with “violence and terror.” He rather believed that the government of Pakistan should also be concerned with high-profile association of outfits like the JD with relief and rehabilitation efforts aimed at earthquake victims. The government should reach out to the quake victims on its own, or through the international community or the recognized NGOs. When pressed as to why he objected to involvement of Jehadi groups in humanitarian efforts, the US ambassador only said that he had not heard any of these groups publicly renouncing or repenting their association with various acts of “violence and terror.” He offered no comments when reminded that even President Musharraf publicly praised these groups’ role in proving some relief and solace to the quake victims, but conceded in an implicit manner that the US had conveyed its concern over the high-profile association of various Jehadi groups with relief activities for the quake victims.In the same vein, he did sound somewhat upset over stories that projected as if the Taliban were surfacing in Waziristan as some kind of moral correcting vigilantes. Stressing that “I do not want to sit in judgment on you”, he strongly desired that the “writ of the state of Pakistan should prevail from (one corner of) border to (another) border.”Despite the subtle conveyance of such reservations, Ambassador Crocker was not willing to question the government of Pakistan’s claim that recently it had killed a top ranking al Qaeda operative, Hamza Rabia, in our tribal areas. Through comments to a section of the global media, unnamed US officials have questioned the news of his killing, but General Musharraf retaliated by aggressively stressing that Rabia was no more. Crocker sounded as if he believed him by saying: “His (Musharraf’s) certainty (regarding the killing of Rabia) becomes my certainty (as well).

”The US ambassador in Pakistan was also very confident in asserting that Osama Bin Ladin was no longer in effective command and control of his outfit. He was perhaps hiding in a hole like Saddam had been for many weeks after the entry of US troops into Iraq during the April of 2003. The same he felt for the so-called number 2 of al Qaeda, Aiman Al-Zawahari. “The ability to produce a video in a gap of 4 to 5 months,” he said, did not prove that either Osama or Zawahari remained in effective control of the command and control structure capable of staging acts of terror on a massive and global scale.