COUNTER PROXY WAR
by B.Raman
Afghanistan marked an important landmark in the
evolution of covert action techniques. It was a proxy war, partly overt,
partly covert, to make the Soviet troops bleed through the use of
surrogates, without the direct involvement of US troops.
Conscious encouragement of religious fanaticism was for
the first time used as a covert action tool. Whereas the past covert
actions of the Western intelligence agencies were projected in ideological
terms (democracy vs Communism), those in Afghanistan were projected in
religious terms (Islam vs Communism). Jehad was brought out of the closet
of medieval times and sought to be used against the evil empire of
Communism, without a careful examination of its long-term implications for
peace and stability in the world.
In their eagerness to take full advantage of the
entrapment of the Soviet troops in Afghanistan, the Western intelligence
agencies reverted to the pre-1970s concepts, which viewed any means as
good means for achieving a national security objective. Even the
production and smuggling of heroin were encouraged to make the proxy-war
at least partly self-financing and to promote addiction amongst Soviet
troops.
As a result of these ill-advised actions, Islamic jehad
has become a multi-headed hydra, striking here, striking there and
striking everywhere and no country, which has a sizeable Muslim
population, has been able to escape its ravages. The Islam vs Communism
clash has been replaced by an Islam vs Christianity, Judaism and Hinduism
clash.
Let there be no mistake about it. The long-term
objective of Pakistan's Army of Islam vis-à-vis India is no longer the
acquisition of territory in J & K. It is to make the sub-continent
safe for the spread of Islam by weakening Hinduism, by debilitating the
Indian State and thereby paving the way for the restoration of the Mughal
State. This is an illusion, but illusions can cost lives and suffering.
India has been the target of a religious war, which is not going to end
with the resolution of the Kashmir issue. What is in danger is not just
the future of J & K as an integral part of India, but the future of
India itself as a secular, politically pluralistic and economically
prosperous State.
Pakistan's objective of debilitating the Indian State,
which is the driving force behind its proxy war, is not of recent origin
dating from its experience of its successful (as perceived by it) role in
the Afghan war of the 1980s. This has nothing to do with the two-nation
theory; this has nothing to do with the so-called unfinished agenda of the
Partition of 1947, as Pakistan describes its quest for J & K, by hook
or by crook.
It has everything to do with a mindset, riddled with
complexes, which is marked by a permanent hostility to India, by a
compulsive urge to take advantage of every difficulty faced by India and
to keep the Indian Security Forces bleeding and by a burning desire to
prevent, by every manner possible, the emergence of India as a major
regional power.
It was this mindset, which was at work in the North-East
before 1971, in the Punjab thereafter and in J & K since 1989. Pakistan's proxy war against India dates back to the 1950s, when it
started training and arming the Naga hostiles. It suspended it after the
humiliating defeat of its Army in 1971 and started it again --this time in
Punjab-- after Gen.Zia-ul-Haq seized power in 1977.
What is new about the latest phase of its proxy war in J
& K and other parts of India is the use against the Indian Security
Forces of the expertise, the experience and the arms and ammunition and
other tools acquired by it under the supervision of the CIA in
Afghanistan. What is equally new is the use of the clandestine Army of
Islam of the Afghan War vintage, without the direct involvement of its
Army of the State.
The diversion of this Army of Islam from the
battlefields of Afghanistan to J & K serves three purposes, in
Pakistan's perception:
* It keeps the Indian Security Forces and civilians
bleeding without the Pakistani Security Forces suffering any casualties.
* It keeps the fanatical jehadis dying at the hands of
the Indian Security Forces, thereby preventing their return to Pakistan
and clamouring for the imposition of a Taliban-type rule there. In the
Pakistan Army's perception, the longer the jehadis are kept fighting and
dying in Indian territory, the longer it would be able to prevent a
possible Talibanisation of Pakistan.
* It provides a training and motivating force and a
training ground for Muslim extremist elements from other parts of India
such as the cadres of the Students' Islamic Movement of India (SIMI)
just as it had functioned in the 1980s as a training and motivating
force in Afghanistan for Muslims from Muslim and non-Muslim States
wanting to take up arms against the State.
The post-1989 phase of Pakistan's proxy war has an overt
as well as a covert component. The overt component relates to its
political, moral and diplomatic support to the indigenous Kashmiri
organisations, its orchestration of the All-Parties Hurriyat Conference,
its Psywar against India on the human rights and other issues and its
attempts to internationalise the issue. The covert component is about its
letting loose its Army of Islam against the Indian Security Forces and
civilians.
The Pakistan Army thinks that its demonstrated nuclear
and missile capability has insured it against a retaliatory response from
the Indian Security Forces due to the fears of the Indian leadership that
retaliation could degenerate into a regular warfare. Its feeling of having
acquired a psychological asymmetric advantage over India due to the
nuclear factor has given it a confidence that it can persist with its
proxy war at no cost to itself.
In the absence of a meaningful and effective response
from our side, it is India, which has been bleeding at the hands of this
Army of Islam, with the Pakistan Army remaining untouched. Unless and
until the Pakistan Army is made to realise that a proxy war is a game
which two can play and that India can play it more effectively and
conclusively than Pakistan, there is going to be no respite from the
ravages of this war.
Till now, we have been restricting ourselves to the
conventional counter-terrorism strategy based on the principle of passive
defence in our own territory in response to Pakistan's proxy war. This
strategy has not brought this war to an end and is unlikely to do so.
We
have to adopt a counter proxy war strategy based on the principle of
active defence through a mix of overt and covert actions. UN declarations
and international laws and practice justify the adoption of an active
defence strategy by a State against another State which seeks to use
terrorism as a weapon to achieve its strategic objective.
State-sponsors of terrorism generally tend to project
the terrorist groups backed by them as "freedom-fighters", just
as Gen. Musharraf has been doing since he captured power on October
12,1999. How to differentiate between terrorists and freedom-fighters is
one of the questions considered by President Reagan's Special Task Force
on Terrorism headed by Mr. George Bush (Sr), his Vice-President and the
father of the present President. It said that while freedom-fighters
confined their attacks only to Security Forces, who were in a position to
defend themselves, terrorists were those who killed innocent civilians.
It
defined a State-sponsor of terrorism as a State "supplying money,
weapons, training, identification documents, travel documents, or
safehaven for terrorists."
The USA's Department of Defence Directive 2000.12 issued
in 1996, finetuned the definition of terrorism in order to bring under its
ambit acts directed against civilians as well as security forces. Its
definition of terrorism is as follows:" Unlawful use or threatened
use of force or violence against individuals or property, with the
intention of coercing or intimidating governments or societies, often for
political or ideological purposes."
It laid down the following other definitions:
* International (or Transnational) Terrorism
Terrorism in which planning and execution of the terrorist act
transcends national boundaries. In defining international terrorism, the
purpose of the act, the nationalities of the victims, or the resolution
of the incident are considered. Those acts are usually planned to
attract widespread publicity and are designed to focus attention on the
existence, cause, or demands of the terrorists.
* Non-State Supported Terrorism Terrorist
groups that operate autonomously, receiving no significant support from
any Government.
* State-Directed Terrorism Terrorist groups that
operate as agents of a Government, receiving substantial intelligence,
logistical, and operational support from the sponsoring Government.
* State-Supported Terrorism Terrorist groups
that generally operate independently, but receive support from one or
more Governments.
The State Department's report on the Patterns of Global
Terrorism during 2000 has further expanded the definition of terrorism to
bring under its ambit even attacks on military installations. It said:
"We also consider as acts of terrorism attacks on military
installations or on armed military personnel when a state of military
hostilities does not exist at the site."
A Declaration on Principles of International Law
concerning Friendly Relations and Co-operation among States in Accordance
with the Charter of the UN approved by the UN General Assembly on October
24,1970, has laid down that "every State has the duty to refrain from
organising, instigating, assisting or participating in acts of civil
strife or terrorist acts in another State or acquiescing in organised
activities within its territory directed towards the commission of such
acts."
Subsequently, while speaking during a debate on another
Declaration on the strengthening of International Security, which was
passed as Resolution No. 2734 on December 16,1970, delegates from the USA,
the UK, Canada, Italy, Australia, Japan and the then USSR described the
sponsoring by a State of acts of terrorism against another State as
indirect aggression.
The right of a victim-State to defend itself against
such indirect aggression by the use of appropriate conventional as well as
non-conventional means was underlined in an address delivered by Mr.
George
Shultz, the then US Secretary of State, after the signing on April 3,1984,
by President Reagan of a National Security Directive on this subject and
again later in a foreword contributed by Mr.Bush Sr to a study on
Terrorist Group Profiles in November, 1988.
Mr.Schultz described State-sponsored terrorism as a new
form of warfare and said that the success of diplomatic options in dealing
with State-sponsors of terrorism would depend on the readiness of the
victim-State to hit back, through conventional military and
non-conventional clandestine means if the diplomatic options failed.
He,
therefore, expressed the determination of the US to follow a strategy of
active defence, that is, taking the counter-terrorism operations into the
territory or against the interests of the State-sponsor of terrorism, if
left with no other alternative.
In his Foreword, Mr.Bush Sr reiterated the determination
of the US to demonstrate to State-sponsors of terrorism that their actions
would not be cost-free.
Even though international law and practice thus give us
the right of active defence against Pakistan, we have not exercised it
even once. We do not have even after so many years a credible counter
proxy war strategy to demonstrate to Pakistan that its proxy war will not
be cost-free.
Is it any wonder that Gen.Musharraf behaves towards us
with such impudence? There is not even a sense of outrage in us as was
seen by the way we fell over each other in welcoming and lionising him
when he came to India for the Agra summit in July,2001. Nations, which
become incapable of feeling a sense of indignation and anger when attacked
and let their will and readiness to retaliate, when warranted by
circumstances, be weakened by misplaced forbearance invite greater
aggression. Perceived over-anxiety for peace with a State-sponsor of
terrorism does not lead to peace. It leads to only more violence and more
suffering for innocent people.
A credible counter proxy war strategy against Pakistan
has to have an overt and a covert component. The overt component relates
to extending political, moral and diplomatic support to the alienated
sections of Pakistan-Occupied Kashmir (POK) and the Northern Areas (NA) in
their agitations/ struggle against the Government of Pakistan. Islamabad
goes to the world promptly with exaggerated accounts of every incident
taking place in J & K in order to keep the issue constantly in the
media and before international public opinion. At the same time, it has
imposed a virtual iron curtain on developments in POK and the NA in order
to keep world media and public opinion in the dark about the real
situation there.
For nearly two years the world was not aware of the
massacre of the Shias in Gilgit in 1988 by the tribal hordes of bin Laden
instigated by Musharraf. The world was ignorant of the demonstrations all
over POK in 2000 against the proposal of the military junta to raise the
height of the Mangla dam to benefit the farmers of Punjab. The Amnesty
International's report on the Pakistani ban on pro-independence
groups/individuals contesting elections in POK has hardly received any
publicity.
The policies followed by the Zia and the Musharraf
regimes of settling Punjabi and Pathan ex-servicemen in the NA in order to
weaken the nationalist forces there are hardly known even in the rest of
Pakistan. The outbreak of sectarian riots in Gilgit in the second
fortnight of June before Musharraf's visit to India and the way, after
Agra, Musharraf forced the POK Assembly to elect Maj. Gen. Mohammad Anwar
Khan, the Vice Chief of the General Staff in the GHQ, as the President of
the POK after he had prematurely retired from the Army to contest the
election have not been brought to the attention of the world.
The world does not know that the POK Assembly does not
have any financial powers, that the budgets are prepared in Islamabad,
that the Chief Secretary and other senior officials of the NA are either
Punjabis or Pathans, that the people of the NA have never participated in
the elections to Pakistan's National Assembly and that they are governed
even today as the frontier tribals of British India were before
independence by the Frontier Crime Regulations promulgated by the British
colonial masters, under which no native of the NA can move from one
village or city to another without the permission of the police and has to
register himself or herself with the police during such movements.
After 1988, a number of new organisations came up in the
POK and the NA demanding greater democracy, autonomy and even
independence, but the ISI has ruthlessly suppressed them keeping their
leaders under detention without trial. Those, who escaped arrest, are
living in exile abroad.
India claims that the entire J & K as it existed
before August 15,1947, is an integral part of India and, yet, our
political leadership, bureaucracy and public opinion have taken no
interest in the plight of the peoples there and in bringing to the
attention of the world what has been happening behind the iron curtain
erected by Islamabad.
One has the impression that New Delhi is as ignorant
about the state of affairs on the other side of the Line of Control (LOC)
as the rest of the world. It has taken little notice of the emerging new
leadership in the POK and the NA and has avoided interactions with the
political exiles from these areas living abroad. No attempt has been made
to better organise them in their struggle against Islamabad. We have every
moral right to do so if we consider the POK and the NA as rightfully
belonging to us.
This tragic neglect has to be put an end to as part of
the overt component of the proposed counter proxy war policy. What should
be the contours of the covert component cannot be discussed in a study
like this, but certain points can be flagged. It has to be based on a
recognition of certain ground realities such as the following:
* Ideas such as the right of hot pursuit, raids on
training camps across the LOC etc will not work. Hot pursuit can work
against terrorists/insurgents indulging in hit and run raids from rear
bases across the border. There cannot be any hot pursuit of terrorists
operating from shelters inside our territory and against suicide
bombers. The question of raids on training camps across the LOC does not
arise because the camps are located on either side of the
Pakistan-Afghanistan border and not in the POK or the NA.
* Covert actions against the Pakistani interests in
the POK and the NA would be difficult because of the strong presence of
a Punjabi-Pathan component (mostly ex-servicemen) in the local
population. Even before 1947, the present POK had a strong Punjabi
presence and this has increased since then due to the systematic
resettling of Punjabi and Pathan ex-servicemen. The NA had very little
Punjabi-Pathan component before 1947 except in the areas in the
proximity of the North-West Frontier Province (NWFP). Today, Punjabis
and Pathans are economically dominant, though not yet numerically.
* Pakistan has the advantages of terrain and local
support in this region and, therefore, will be able to frustrate any
covert actions without serious difficulties.
* Hence, the epicentre of the covert component of any
counter proxy war policy has to be largely outside the POK and the NA,
in areas where we will have the advantages of ground conditions and
local support. We have to carefully choose the terrain, which will hurt
Pakistan and hurt it badly.
Before drafting and implementing an effective counter
proxy war policy, we have to pose to ourselves certain questions, which
have rarely been posed till now, or if posed, rarely been answered keeping
in view the imperatives of national security. The more important of these
questions are:
* Is it in India's interest to ensure that the law and
order situation in Pakistan continues to be as bad as ever thereby
deterring foreign investment?
* Is it in India's interest to do any thing, such as
the normalisation of the bilateral trade, which might help Pakistan come
out of its economic difficulties?
* Is it in India's interest that the unbridgeable
sectarian divide in Pakistan strengthens demands for an independent Shia
State?
* Is it in India's interest that the movements of the
non-Punjabi nationalities of Pakistan for a genuine confederation, if
not independence, succeeds?
* Is it in India's interest that the movement for the
restoration of democracy with the Army returning to the barracks with no
political role gathers momentum and succeeds?
* Is it in India's interest that Pakistan remains
inextricably trapped in the black hole of Afghanistan?
* Is it in India's interest that the swarming Mullas
and their organisations continue to drag Pakistan back into the past,
thereby making it an unwelcome proposition either as an ally or as a
friend or as an investment destination?
You find the right answers to these questions and you
will have the right mix of the covert component of our counter proxy war
strategy. The careful drafting of the strategy has to be entrusted to a
special task force on a time-bound basis. Once the strategy is adopted,
its implementation has to be the responsibility of a counter proxy war
centre in the external intelligence establishment.
We have till now treated our intelligence agencies
essentially as intelligence collection, analysis and assessment agencies
and not given them an adequate covert action/counter proxy war capability.
This capability is an urgent need.
(The writer is Additional Secretary (retd), Cabinet
Secretariat, Govt. of India, and, presently, Director, Institute For
Topical Studies, Chennai. E-Mail: corde@vsnl.com
)
