Mariane Pearl has been courageous and gracious in her hour of tragedy. She has borne the terrible death of her husband with fortitude despite the many false starts and desperate hopes attached to his plight since he was kidnapped on January 23. And she has been kind enough to praise the Pakistani investigating authorities for “doing an amazing job with limited resources”. Her statement is worth reproducing for its eloquence and clarity.
“Revenge would be easy, but it is far more valuable in my opinion to address this problem of terrorism with enough honesty to question our own responsibility as nations and as individuals for the rise of terrorism. My own courage arises from two facts. One is that throughout this ordeal I have been surrounded by people of amazing value. This helps me trust that humanism ultimately will prevail. My other hope now—in my seventh month of pregnancy—is that I will be able to tell our son that his father carried the flag to end terrorism, raising an unprecedented demand among people from all countries not for revenge but for the values we all share: love, compassion, friendship and citizenship far transcending the so-called clash of civilizations.”
None of this, however, excuses us from a political post mortem of the case of Daniel Pearl. His dastardly murder was an act of desperation and defiance by religious extremists on the run. Their desperation flowed from increasing isolation and alienation from the civil society into which they were “ideologised” by vested interests. Their defiance was aimed both at the Americans who thrashed them in Afghanistan and the Pakistani state that abandoned them at home. Brainwashed into believing that they were invincible “soldiers of Islam”, they were frustrated by their own impotence and turned their rage into revenge by decapitating Danny Pearl before the eyes of the world. Many disquieting questions arise.
Why was the Pakistan government optimistic until the grisly end that it would herald the “good news” of Pearl’s freedom “soon”? Did it always “know” the perpetrators of the crime and felt it could “handle” them safely? Why was news of the arrest of the alleged master-kidnapper Ahmad Omar Saeed Sheikh kept under wraps for a week? Why did bigwigs like General Pervez Musharraf and General Moinuddin Haider become overly optimistic about the outcome of the case after Omar Sheikh’s arrest? Why did Sheikh Omar refuse to “deliver” the goods? We can try and stitch a reasonable story.
Since Omar Sheikh and Maulana Masood Azhar were sprung to freedom from an Indian prison cell via the hijacking of an Indian plane in 1999 by unknown “freedom fighters” or “terrorists” linked to Al-Qaeda and the Taliban, they were free to rent or recruit “Kashmir jihadis” throughout Pakistan with a wink and a nod from our national security establishment. Then came 9/11 with its “you-are-either-with-us-or-against-us” ultimatum, followed by an American demand for the arrest and extradition of Omar Sheikh who was thought to have links with Mohammad Atta, the key suicide bomber in the World Trade Centre attack. Consequently, Omar went, or was pushed, underground in order to avoid an extradition that might have unraveled other national security links, acts and operatives.
Soon thereafter, Masood Azhar became an “embarrassment” when he claimed responsibility for a terrorist attack that left 40 people dead outside the parliament building in Srinagar. Pakistan condemned the outrage but balked at arresting him. But when the pressure became unbearable, General Musharraf banned the Jaish-i-Mohammad outfit in January and arrested Azhar and his supporters. It was easier to detain Azhar than Omar because Indian demands for the former’s extradition could be stoutly resisted while American demands for the latter’s extradition could only be deftly sidestepped.
However, the arrest of Azhar and his Jaish-i-Mohammad companions on American prompting probably convinced Omar that his erstwhile Pakistani “handlers” couldn’t be trusted in the circumstances and he should distance himself from them. The dye was cast when Pearl stumbled upon hard-core elements of the Jaish in Karachi and Bahawalpur despite news of the “mass arrests” of its cadres by the government earlier.
When Omar Sheikh was arrested on or about February 5, the government’s silence was probably based on the reasoning that if he could be persuaded to help free Pearl quickly it would be a feather in General Musharraf’s cap when he met President Bush in Washington some days later. But if he did not cooperate, it was reasoned, it might be better to keep him under warps lest his confession or defiance mar the president’s trip to America. In the event, the government claimed that “good news” was on the way after it admitted Omar’s arrest while General Musharraf was still in DC. But Omar’s statement before a magistrate soon thereafter that Pearl was probably already dead put paid to the government’s efforts to redeem the situation. Why did Omar become “hostile” towards his former “friends” and “handlers”?
It is reasonable to think that he may have been pushed over the edge following statements by senior government functionaries denouncing the kidnapping and kidnappers as “Indian agents”, when not so long ago the same people had verily taken pride in them as legitimate “freedom fighters”. How did they think Omar and his fellow jihadis would react to this outrageous charge? By meekly turning themselves in and confessing their crimes so that they could either be sentenced and silenced by their own “handlers” or, worse still, be deported to Cuba as “Al-Qaeda” suspects or supporters? Indeed, this accusation probably persuaded Omar Sheikh and Pearl’s captors that it was the end of the line for them. Their best friends had become their worst enemies, there was nowhere to hide, it was time to go with a bang. Poor Danny Pearl. In the eyes of his frustrated and enraged kidnappers, he had unwittingly become a symbol of everything they had come to distrust, despise and loathe – America and Americans, General Musharraf and his intelligence agencies.
All this can be reasonably inferred from reports of Omar Sheikh’s behaviour while in captivity. He was furious that he had to turn himself in because his family was being harassed by the police. He lectured his “handlers” about betraying the cause of “jihad” and becoming American stooges. When all else failed, he decided to put an end to the ordeal by claiming before a judge that Pearl had already been killed. If that was supposed to be an indirect message to his colleagues to put an end to Pearl, he needn’t have worried about getting it through. Government sources were now quick to claim publicly that his statement amounted to a death sentence on Pearl. If Pearl’s captors had had any doubts about the import of Omar’s statement, there were none following such a “clarification” from the police.
Is this an isolated act of wanton terrorism by fading jihadi outputs? Are all Americans in Pakistan in some sort of danger? On the face of it, the threat of terrorism is palpable enough. The fury of Omar Sheikh and his fellow jihadis has been more than matched by a spurt of bloody sectarian killings in Karachi and Rawalpindi recently. That would suggest only one sort of desperate link between the perpetrators of both acts of violence: they all hate General Musharraf and his idea of a new Pakistan that has downgraded militant jihad and religious supremacy, and is keen to woo, and be wooed by, the “infidel” international community. Their institutional loathing for General Musharraf’s new found liberalism is buttressed by their sense of personal betrayal at his hands. Those who spawned them and led them up the garden path have now blithely turned against them.
If it is pay-off time for the “great betrayal”, are the “Islamic” terrorists a formidable threat to the Musharraf regime? It is tempting to play up this theme as if there are hundreds of thousands of such desperate and angry jihadis ready and willing to take on the government in a series of terrorist acts, including suicide missions against key officials. In fact, government sources say they are on red alert for sectarian attacks during Moharram. General Musharraf’s personal security has also been enhanced manifold. All these precautionary measures are welcome because the threat is real enough and no militant organization is going to dissolve itself or give itself up without a fight to the bitter end. But let us be realistic. The fundamentalists are no match for the state in the long run. Nor do they have much support or sympathy in the public. They may create headaches for everyone, including and especially General Musharraf, but eventually they can and must be crushed. Of course, the nation and the state will have to pay a price for condoning and nurturing them in the first place. But the threat will pass if the state is sufficiently clear about its new goals and objectives and determined to sweep all obstacles from its path. Already, the mainstream religious parties and groups have distanced themselves from the gruesome tragedy of Danny Pearl.
One last point. If General Musharraf is misled into thinking that the fanatics should be muzzled but not de-clawed, or that their energies can be redirected into some reformulated national security cause by means of a calibrated dialogue with them, he should spurn such advice. He must confront the past and cleanly break from it. The masks must come off or be scratched off. The country needs a new national security team for a new national security policy. Trussing up the old misguided team in the cloaks of a new one will not work. The sooner he comprehends the nature of the basic and bloody challenge to state and society, and to his own person, and acts decisively, the better for General Pervez Musharraf and Pakistan.