A Pakistan

A 'Moderation' of Freedom, Pakistan's Pervez Musharraf Isn't Practicing What He Preaches" Samina Ahmed and John Norris in The Washington Post 15 June 2004 The Washington Post Pakistan's president, Pervez Musharraf, recently made a broad and seemingly heartfelt call for Muslims to raise themselves up through what he terms "enlightened moderation" [op-ed, June 1]. Decrying the influence of militants, extremists and terrorists, Musharraf insisted that political injustice lay at the heart of the vast suffering of Muslims around the globe. His path forward is for Muslims to disavow extremism in favor of socioeconomic progress and for the United States to take on a much bolder role in resolving political disputes in the Muslim world, particularly in places such as Palestine and Kashmir. The words sound good, and such language from the leader of a nuclear nation on the front lines of the war against terrorism should be reassuring. But sadly, to most people who follow Pakistan closely, Musharraf's comments come across as dangerously close to farce. While advocating enlightened moderation abroad, Pakistan's leader is content to practice enlightenment in extreme moderation at home. First and foremost, he continues to avoid handing real power back to democratically elected officials. While the Bush administration repeatedly holds up Iraq as a nation that could serve as a shining example of Islamic democracy in action, it continues to offer a blank check to a Pakistani government in which all power resides in the military. Curbs on democratic freedoms in Pakistan remain draconian. To discourage domestic dissent, the government has sentenced Javed Hashmi, leader of Musharraf's main political opposition, to 23 years in prison for daring to offer criticism. And it deported an exiled opposition leader, Shahbaz Sharif, when he had the temerity to attempt to return home after the Supreme Court confirmed the right of all citizens to actually reside in Pakistan. In the same vein, Musharraf's domestic reforms are primarily aimed at strengthening military rule. For example, he promoted a recent plan for a devolution of power to local officials as a means to "empower the impoverished" and strengthen local government. Instead, it has undercut mainstream moderate political parties, left widespread corruption unchecked and shifted power away from the provinces as a means to bolster military rule. U.S. officials are rightly beginning to grumble that they are not getting what they are paying for with billions of dollars of economic and military aid. In high-profile pledges

two years ago, Musharraf vowed to crack down on madrassas, the religious schools where many Pakistani children receive their education and which have often been a wellspring of extremism. Pakistan has failed to deliver on those pledges; most madrassas remain unregistered, their finances unregulated, and the government has yet to remove the jihadist and sectarian content in their curricula. The Pakistani government has taken a similar approach to jihadist organizations. The growth of jihadist networks continues to threaten both domestic and international security. After declaring that no group would be allowed to engage in terrorist activities in Indian-controlled Kashmir, the government ordered a number of extremist groups to do little more than change their name. One extremist leader was allowed to run for parliament, and won, even though he had been charged with more than 20 violent crimes. The leaders of other banned groups, designated as terrorist organizations by the United States, continue to preach freely their sectarian and anti-Western jihad. Pakistan has also notably failed to adequately address important issues such as terrorist financing, including money laundering, making the country a favorite base of operation for all too many extremist organizations. Indeed, escalating sectarian violence in Karachi, deplored by the U.N. secretary general, painfully underscores the government's failure to tackle extremists within its own borders. This failure was also shown in the government's halting and contradictory statements after cordon and search operations in northwest Pakistan designed to apprehend al Qaeda operatives and Taliban militants. After initially trumpeting that the arrest of "high value" suspects was imminent, the government sheepishly had to admit that any such suspects had escaped as it engaged in negotiations with local tribesmen to free a number of captured Pakistani soldiers. Pakistan could serve as the force of moderation and enlightenment espoused by Musharraf, but it will require enlightened leadership on his part. Pakistan's military needs to return to the sidelines of political life and give its moderate political parties -- which have always done reasonably well in keeping a lid on extremism -- a chance to function. While the military has done a good job in using the aftermath of the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks to strengthen its position, military governments across the globe have demonstrated that they usually do not stand the test of time or enlightenment. Samina Ahmed is South Asia project director and John Norris is special adviser to the president of the International Crisis Group, a nonprofit organization that specializes in conflict resolution.

Pakistan: Still Schooling Extremists", Samina Ahmed and Andrew Stroehlein in The Washington Post

17 July 2005 The Washington Post Although investigations into the terrorist attacks in London are still at an early stage, it is already clear that at least one of the bombers attended a radical Islamic school, or madrasa, in Pakistan. For those in the West who believed President Pervez Musharraf's promises to clean up the militant religious schools, it is time to think again. Shehzad Tanweer, who police say killed six people and himself on the Circle Line train near Aldgate station on July 7, recently spent as long as four months in a madrasa reportedly run by the avowedly militant group Lashkar-i-Taiba in Lahore, Pakistan. The madrasa and the organization operate freely despite an official ban on their activity since 2002. Immediately after Sept. 11, 2001, the link between Pakistan's religious education system and international terrorist organizations came under intense scrutiny. Musharraf clearly felt the pressure to be seen as doing something, and in January 2002 he gave a televised speech promising a series of measures to combat extremism by, among other things, bringing all madrasas into the mainstream. Musharraf pledged increased oversight of the religious schools through formal registration, control of their funding and standardization of their curricula. The world welcomed those promises, but few then checked back to see if they were ever fulfilled. A conventional wisdom developed, especially in the United States, that Musharraf was doing all he could to help fight terrorism -- Musharraf even became something of a media hero, our brave ally in the war on terrorism. The view that all is well with Pakistan has been bolstered most recently by a World Bank-funded report claiming, against other available evidence, that the country's madrasa sector is smaller than previously estimated and suggesting that the religious schools pose no serious threat. London on 7/7 shows that analysis was deadly wrong. Jihadi extremism is still propagated at radical madrasas in Pakistan. These religious schools still preach an insidious doctrine that foments the sectarian violence that is increasingly a threat to the stability of Pakistan. And now, it seems, the hatred these madrasas breed is spilling blood in Western cities as well. Musharraf's promises came to nothing. His military government never implemented any program to register the madrasas, follow their financing or control their curricula. Although there are a few "model madrasas" for Western media consumption, the extremist ones account for perhaps as many as 15 percent of the religious schools in Pakistan and are free to churn out their radicalized graduates. Whether or not it turns out to have been part of the London bombing story, Lashkar-iTaiba is an excellent example of how Musharraf's government has failed to curb extremist religious militants. Formed by Arab-influenced veterans of the Afghan jihad in 1988, the group enjoyed the military's patronage in its jihad against India in Kashmir.

Though formally banned in 2002, Lashkar-i-Taiba simply renamed itself Jamaat ul-Dawa and continued its activities, including the promotion of jihad in Kashmir, where it has openly claimed responsibility for terrorist attacks. The organization's leader, Hafiz Sayeed, was temporarily detained, but only under Pakistan's Maintenance of Public Order legislation, not its much more stringent AntiTerrorism Act, and he was soon released. Prominent figures from this and other formally banned groups such as Sipah-i-Sahaba and Jaish-e-Mohammed appear to enjoy virtual immunity from the law. That Musharraf has not acted against religious extremists and their madrasas is hardly surprising. He needs the religious parties to bolster his military dictatorship against the democratic forces seeking to reverse his 1999 coup. The radicals maintain their avenues for propagating their militant ideas, because the chief patrons of jihad, the Jamiat-eUlema-i-Islami and the Jamiat-i-Islami political parties, have acquired prominent and powerful roles in Musharraf's political structure. Those who would still attempt to defend Musharraf's record on fighting Islamist militancy in recent years would point out that Pakistan has captured or killed some 600 al Qaeda members since 2001. True enough, but with an extensive madrasa system left untouched, the key question posed by Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld's leaked memo from October 2003 comes naturally to mind: "Are we capturing, killing or deterring and dissuading more terrorists every day than the madrasas and the radical clerics are recruiting, training and deploying against us?" Until Pakistan's madrasas are truly reformed, the answer to Rumsfeld's question will be "no." Samina Ahmed is South Asia project director for the International Crisis Group (http://www.crisisgroup.org). Andrew Stroehlein is Crisis Group's media director.