It is difficult not to be provoked by a pernicious piece in a Lahore English daily which many people believe to be an attempt to ‘disinform’ leaders about the present “situation” of the Inter Services Intelligence agency (ISI) of Pakistan.
The article says that the ISI’s “external operations have been cancelled”, its “other functions cut to the bone”, it has “suffered in stature”. It bemoans the fact that “operations in India” have abruptly halted, the Intelligence Bureau (IB) has taken over the ISI’s “counterintelligence function within the country”, “the ISI has been forbidden any monitoring of internal politics”, and “20 persons, mostly from Sindh, … are being accepted … in civilian posts … without any security clearance”. The author’s “sources” have told him that there are “serious leaks … ascribed to Indian penetration” of the ISI, that Gen Kallu, the new DG, is “expected to be replaced by a party stalwart in due course”. In short, an insidious attempt has been made to demonstrate how the PM’s recent initiatives regarding the ISI are “disastrous for Pakistan and welcomed by our arch enemy India”. Finally, a picture has been painted of Gen Hameed Gul, the former DG ISI, which shows him to be “an intensely patriotic, professionally unscrupulous … a dangerous man”. The rest of the para is worth reproducing because it sheds light on the extremely perilous ground the author is treading and the contradictions inherent in his statement: “It is a mark of his [Gen Gul’s] character that he chose to fight his own government to the last in what he believed to be the national interest, rather than either obey or resign, a soldier’s only real choice” [my italics].
If the democratically elected prime minister of Pakistan has chosen to curtail some of the functions of the ISI, in conformity with new and long overdue foreign policy initiatives to reduce tension in the region, that is her natural political prerogative and it should be applauded. The ISI, like all intelligence agencies, is supposed to implement, not formulate, foreign and domestic politics. If the PM wants it to stop domestic surveillance of politicians, a most culpable practice initiated by Gen Zia and his henchmen, and concentrate instead on its military charter, what could be more welcome than that? If the IB has received jurisdiction over civilian matters from the ISI after a decade, that is as it should be. The IB is as much a national institution as the ISI, and it is a most outrageous transgression to attempt to downgrade, malign to ridicule it.
If a dozen Sindhi officers have been installed in civilian posts at the ISI, it is preposterous to infer from this that the Indian secret service (RAW) has infiltrated the ISI. And one more thing. Lest we forget, Sindhis too are Pakistanis, as is our prime minister, or should one believe that only Mohajirs and Punjabis qualify for citizenship?
It is stupid to suggest that the ISI has been infiltrated by Indian agents in the one month since Gen Hameed Gul’s departure, while it has retained its virginal purity for forty years since independence. And it is vicious to give currency to the totally unfounded rumour that the new DG ISI is to be replaced in due course by a PPP stalwart.
No one has ever doubted the professional competence of Gen Hameed Gul. By the same criterion, the author should desist from implicitly questioning the professional competence of Gen Kallu for the job. There is another obvious flaw and it lies in the author’s plaudits of Gen Gul: “it is a mark of his character when he chose to fight his own government to the last, rather than obey or resign, a soldier’s only real choices”. What is at issue is not the man’s character, which is doubtless beyond reproach, but his conduct in fighting his own government to the last! A true soldier does not fight his own government, under any circumstances, in a democratic country. For once, however, the author is right when he says, “that adds up a dangerous man!” Indeed.
If truth be told, the press is being used to propagate a perfidious campaign to destabilise the democratic government in Islamabad. Several instances spring to mind — the ‘Jalalabad has fallen’ stories, the ‘mass migrations in Sindh’ reports, and now this. And that is not all. There is another aspect to this whole ISI drama. Certain powerful politicians and their supporters and sympathisers in the state apparatuses are alarmed that the PPP government will soon get its hands on a veritable gold mine of information in the ISI files which relates to the past ten years and which is expected to shed much light on their ‘shady deals’, corruption, misuse of power and resources. In short, there is every likelihood that all the ugly skeletons in their closets will be exposed. This is something they cannot tolerate. Hence, their combined efforts are directed at discrediting the PPP, accusing it of ‘treason’, destabilising its government, and trying to overthrow it by hook or by crook. What is nauseating about this whole affair is that certain sections of the media are being blatantly involved in this campaign to undermine the democratic experiment in Pakistan.
We can only conclude that the stakes must be very, very high.