Global IssuesPakistan PM Ducks the Osama Question
Prime Minister Yousaf Raza Gilani's much-awaited policy statement in the National Assembly didn’t satisfy the people as he failed to say anything new.
Monday’s speech was just an amalgamation of past statements issued by the government, the military and the Inter Service Intelligence (ISI) agency. 'The ISI is an asset of the nation', he told parliament.
Gilani announced that the Chief of Army Staff Gen Ashfaq Pervez Kayani would give a briefing to a joint session of parliament on May 13.
But he merely reiterated his earlier stance that the U.S. special forces had reached the compound of Osama bin Laden in in Abbottabad with the help of the ISI, and that the entire nation had confidence in the ISI and the political leadership.
'The prime minister’s argument that national policy is consistent with the wishes of the people holds no logic as the nation has been badly hurt by the unauthorised attack by the U.S and wants the government to issue a hard statement,' said Rohul Amin, a political science professor at the Government College in Peshawar.
The foreign policy of Pakistan has never been in line with the wishes of the people, but has served U.S. interests to the point of unacceptability, he said.
On one hand, the prime minister admitted the failure of the intelligence agencies in tracking down the world's most-wanted terrorist in the garrison city of Abbottabad, while on the other he said that it was the ISI that facilitated U.S. access to the compound.
The people expected Gilani to make a harsh statement because of the sacrifices made by the Pakistani nation in the war against terrorism, said Amin.
The prime minister's speech was meant to defend the ISI, which had come under scathing criticism from the global community after the May 1 killing of Al-Qaeda founder bin Laden in an operation by U.S. forces outside of Islamabad.
The Barack Obama administration is now demanding that Pakistan explain how bin Laden managed to hide out near the capital for so many years.
Pakistan has been a frontline state in the war on terrorism, and has lost more than 3,500 soldiers as well as 10,000 civilians, who have been killed by suicide bombers and other bomb attacks since 2003, according to one estimate.
The leader of the opposition in the National Assembly, Chaudhry Nisar Ali Khan, said in his speech that the opposition had confidence in the professionalism of the army and the ISI, but that they wanted an explanation as to how the events in Abbottabad came about.
'We want the prime minister to emulate the statement of the GHQ, wherein it had warned the U.S. against such unprovoked attacks in future,' Khan said. The prime minister delivered his speech in English 'to appease his (foreign) masters,' the opposition leader said.
The general public took Gilani's speech lightly. 'We know that our government is weak because it receives huge financial assistance from the U.S. and its allies and therefore can’t be expected to warn them,' Javid Ali, a local teacher, told IPS. Ali said he had listened to the entire speech, hoping for a harsh statement to counter the 'derogatory remarks' issued by U.S. officials.
The prime minister ordered an enquiry into the Abbottabad incident and assured that those responsible would be held accountable.
'The prime minister just wanted to play to the gallery and tell the U.S. that he was willing to scapegoat the ISI and army officials to please the U.S.,' student Muhammad Farooq said.
Farooq, a student of international relations at the University of Peshawar, told IPS that the prime minister should have given a tit-for-tat response to the U.S. accusations but 'failed to do so.'
'We are a dignified nation, but our rulers are the slaves of the U.S,' said Asad Qaisar, a leader of the Pakistan Tehreek Insaf party led by cricket-hero turned politician Imran Khan.
Qaisar said that it is high time that the Pakistani government cut off its ties with the United States and deny safe passage for NATO supplies to Afghanistan, to protest the illegal operation by the U.S.
On Monday, Chief of Army Staff Gen Kayani and President Asif Ali Zardari met for the third time since May 2, to hold consultations in the wake of Osama’s assassination on Pakistani soil.
'Pakistan must stop its cooperation with the U.S. over the Abbottabad case. But the prime minister said that Osama was responsible for the killings of thousands of Pakistanis and deserved to be killed,' implying the U.S. had the authority to kill people it deemed terrorists, even in Pakistan, said Qaisar.
'The prime minister’s speech hasn’t resolved the doubts in the minds of the people about the operation, and it was evident from the speech that the U.S. would not face any challenge, even if it did something like that in the future,' Nawaz Khan, a student from the North Waziristan Agency, told IPS.
© Inter Press Service (2011) — All Rights ReservedOriginal source: Inter Press Service