The tone of the Pakistani press today is ambivalent, while the Indian press focuses on Delhi's relations with Washington
Derek Brown
Monday September 17, 2001
The tone of the Pakistani press today is curiously ambivalent. Most papers scrupulously avoid mentioning the unpopularity of Islamabad's policy of cooperation with the US, but they cannot conceal the mood of high tension.
The best-known English-language daily in Pakistan, the Karachi-based Dawn, reports that some 50 US agents are already operating in the country: "The majority of the agents arrived overnight Thursday and early Friday when Islamabad airport was closed mysteriously for five hours, the sources said. The Americans are involved in advance liaison work and the selection of Pakistani officers to work with them in preparation for possible military operations in or against neighbouring Afghanistan. They are also carrying out research, notably on the feasibility of getting troops into Afghanistan."
The venerable daily, Jang, says Pakistani forces have been placed on alert and that president Pervez Musharraf is due to address the nation. The paper says the foreign minister, Abdul Sattar, will urge the Taliban to act positively: "Abdul Sattar said that Pakistan would offer the United States full cooperation but that any decision on specific help for its coalition against global terrorism would be taken once Washington makes known precisely what action it has in mind. He said that there was unanimity in Pakistan that it 'must act in conformity with the principles of international law and justice' and rejected suggestions of divisions within the government."
In Peshawar, the Pakistani city closest to the Afghanistan border, the Frontier Post reports that Saudi Arabian crown prince Abdullah is due to arrive in Pakistan "within the next couple of days to add his influence to efforts to persuade the Taliban to accept US demands for the extradition of Osama bin Laden". The paper also reports tension on the Pakistan-Afghanistan border, with Taliban forces installing heavy artillery near the Torkham frontier crossing at the western end of the Khyber Pass: "Informed sources confided to the Frontier Post that after the assurance of Pakistan government, to provide all possible help to United States to combat terrorism, the Taliban government has installed heavy artillery and deployed more than 300 armed personnel at Torkham Border, some 45km from here. The seriousness of the situation may be deemed from the development that a scheduled meeting between Khyber rifles and Taliban border forces has been canceled as the Taliban refused to attend the meeting, which was scheduled to be held on Sunday at 3 p.m."
Coverage of the unfolding crisis in the Indian press centres on the new warmth in Delhi's relations with Washington.
In its leader column, the Madras-based daily Hindu welcomes India's potentially central role: "India's long quest for a meaningful role in world affairs seems to have acquired a sharper and more relevant focus in the context of the current international turbulence over the terrorist attacks in the US. The prime minister, Mr. Atal Behari Vajpayee, has committed India to 'waging peace' by acting in concert with the US in a planned fight against international terrorism. This is probably inevitable, given India's own painful experience with externally sponsored terrorism [in Kashmir]. It is also a welcome sign of political maturity that India's major parties rallied behind the prime minister at a meeting convened in New Delhi on Saturday to discuss the country's options in the incrementally volatile international situation."
Columnist A.J. Philip, writing in the Indian Express, chides those Indians who sense an opportunity in siding with the US: "Yet, even before the investigations reach a conclusive stage, there are people in India who see a huge window of opportunity in the body blow the US has suffered. They are the ones who volunteer 'exceptionally strong' support to the US to mount an offensive against those 'harbouring' terrorism (read Afghanistan). Whatever be the duplicity and diabolism of the Taliban rulers, they cannot be faulted when they say there is no installation in their country costlier than a Cruise missile. In fact, reports from Kabul suggest that 22 years of internecine war and four successive years of drought have drained Afghanistan of all its resources, reducing people there to a primitive existence. While women are forced to remain inside their homes, even men are afraid to walk on the streets if they do not sport the right kind of beard. Unlike the rest of the world, they have not even seen the World Trade Centre collapsing in a heap of rubble and melted steel as the Taliban had decreed that television was anti-Islamic and was banned."
The Times of India says in its leader column that the country should beware of "jumping headlong" into any military alliance: "Regrettably, the prime minister's televised address to the nation hints at precisely that kind of over-enthusiasm on the Indian government's part. Not content with demanding that the world join hands militarily to 'overwhelm the terrorists and neutralise their poison', Mr Vajpayee exhorted every Indian 'to be part of this global war on terrorism.... Terrorism respects no logic, as India which has had to pay a horrific price for it knows only too well'. In this case, the consequences are graver still because it is the subcontinent that is to act as the theatre for the global war that America and its allies have planned against terrorism. Unfortunately, rather than adopting a measured and sober response, official India has chosen to echo the hysteria and war-mongering resounding across major world capitals."
No such doubt troubles the leader writer of the Pioneer, who wholeheartedly approves the idea of India participating in an international campaign against Islamist fundamentalism: "Since Islamic terrorists have supporters and training camps in many countries, and the governments of some of these - Pakistan and Afghanistan, for example - have been providing them with covert or other assistance, there is need for a a coalition of nations to strike at them. The prime minister was right in calling for the formation of such a coalition and in stating: 'The world must join hands to overwhelm them militarily, to neutralise their poison.' The task should not be left half-finished."
http://www.guardian.co.uk/wtccrash/story/0,1300,553520,00.html
THE END
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