Continued Struggles in Pakistan

With around 200 million citizens, Pakistan remains an unstable nation that has yet to figure out how to accomplish some of its basic governmental functions.

Islamabad continues to see long lines of angry and frustrated motorists, parked along the edge of Islamabad’s tree-lined avenues, waiting for hours to refuel their vehicles.

About 10 years ago, Pakistan’s government started encouraging people to use CNG,or compressed natural gas. It wanted to cut the country’s hefty bill for imported oil and use Pakistan’s domestic gas reserves instead. CNG has the added benefit of being cleaner and cheaper than regular gasoline. At first, the plan was a huge success.

As industry and the public competed for energy amid massive and unrelenting power outages, demand for natural gas soared. A court ruled CNG retailers were making excessive profits and ordered a cap on prices, causing hundreds of CNG suppliers to close down. Separatist insurgents in Pakistan’s Baluchistan province — where a lot of the gas comes from — regularly bomb the pipelines. CNG has become a nightmare for the Pakistan government.

To compound the matter, as Pakistan has become more integrated, its provinces outside Islamabad have assumed a greater share of federal resources. In order for Pakistan to grow its economy, these provinces must now improve their own fiscal performances in relation to Pakistan’s national fiscal outcome.

Pakistan has experienced high fiscal deficits and very limited inflows of foreign currency during the past two years. This has resulted in short-term domestic borrowing and soaring debt servicing costs.

The latest International Monetary Fund figures show Pakistan is unlikely to be able to make a dent in paying off its debts, and Islamabad last week borrowed $2 billion only by accepting excessive interest rates.

Fiscal discipline has eroded in the Pakistani government in recent years. The government has particularly struggled with its continued financing needs for expanding energy sector subsidies, power theft, rising losses incurred by state-owned enterprises, and high expenditures for security.

Islamabad long ago adapted to attacks by Islamist militants by setting up roadblocks, and by turning its government buildings, five-star hotels, villas, and diplomatic enclaves into modern-day fortresses—wrapped in razor wire and blast barriers and monitored by a multitude of security cameras and armed guards.

Yet outside of Islamabad, Pakistan’s provinces remain dangerous ground. The Pakistani Taliban said earlier this month that they will not renew a ceasefire they called for at the beginning of March to facilitate peace negotiations.

Pakistani Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif came to power last year vowing to end the violence through negotiations instead of military operations. The militant group announced a one-month ceasefire on March 1, and then extended it for another 10 days. According to a report from the Pak Institute for Peace Studies, the number of terrorist attacks fell in Khyber Paktunkhwa province and in the tribal regions during March — both areas that have been sites of numerous militant attacks.

The two sides held one round of direct talks on March 26, and on the following Sunday, Minister of Interior Chaudhry Nisar Ali Khan struck an upbeat note, saying that comprehensive talks with the Pakistani Taliban were expected to start in days. He said the government was releasing about 30 prisoners requested by the Pakistani Taliban to facilitate the process.

But the announcement of the ceasefire’s end undercut the government’s position, and it left Taliban supporters scrambling to understand what it meant.

The first casualties from the end of the ceasefire occurred last night when at least nine people, including five police officers, were killed and more than 30 were wounded in two attacks in northeast Pakistan.

Officials said militants ambushed a police patrol in Bhadbare, on the outskirts of the provincial capital of Peshawar, late Monday night. Two members of the police were originally wounded, and when other officers arrived at the site to retrieve them, the attackers struck again. In the other incident, three people were killed and 30 wounded when a bomb exploded in a congested bazaar in the town of Charsadda, east of Peshawar.

Reports indicate that the militants have become frustrated because the government has had little to offer them. Muhammad Ibrahim, who has been representing the Pakistani Taliban in the talks, blamed the government for not listening to their demands.

Achieving fiscal sustainability and national security has been a major recurring challenge for Pakistan’s policymakers; however, Pakistan’s safety challenges are in no way limited to terrorism.

Pakistan has one of the world’s worst records for fatal traffic accidents. Tahir Khan, superintendent of the National Highway and Motorway Police, said that every year, 12,000 to 15,000 people die in crashes in Pakistan, mainly because of poor roads, badly maintained vehicles, and reckless driving.

Last month, at least 33 people were killed in a multivehicle collision along a coastal highway in southwestern Baluchistan Province.

Pakistani Taliban Targets Health Workers

Five female teachers and two health workers were gunned down by militants in Pakistan yesterday in what appears to be the latest in a series of attacks targeting anti-polio efforts in that country.

Four militants on motorcycles were responsible for the deaths of the workers. Only the young son of one of the women who was riding in the van and the van’s driver were spared. The militants reportedly pulled the boy from the van before spraying it with bullets. Both survivors were being treated at a Peshawar hospital.

All seven victims worked at a community center in the Pakistani town of Swabi which included a primary school and a medical clinic that vaccinated children against polio. The Pakistani Taliban opposes vaccination campaigns, often accusing health workers of acting as spies for the U.S.; furthermore, the Pakistani Taliban alleges such vaccines are intended to make Muslim children sterile.

The history of the Pakistani Taliban targeting vaccination campaigns goes back to the killing of Osama bin Laden. A Pakistani doctor was enlisted to help the CIA locate bin Laden, and he used a fake polio vaccination campaign as a cover for his intelligence work. This doctor was later arrested by Pakistani authorities for spying, and, out of this narrative, militants began claiming that all of the medical community in Pakistan was suspect of working with the United States.

Many popular conspiracy theories among Pakistanis have been augmented to include medical professionals. Some militants even assert that Pakistan’s whole medical community is a cover for an elaborate spy network.

U.S. Drone in Pakistan

Fears of spying currently run rampant in Pakistan. The government is attempting to quell some of these fears by reportedly building its own fleet of aerial drones. Any Pakistani drones produced would be crude by U.S. standards, and the American government is refusing to share its drone technology with Pakistan; however, there has been chatter that China could provide Pakistan with any needed technology, or that the drones may be built in China and shipped to Pakistan.

What could be some of the consequences of Pakistan, or any other nation, using drone technology as the United States has? The U.S. has used drones all over the world to kill terrorists. U.S. drones have killed citizens of other countries, over borders, without sanction from the United Nations. What if Pakistan or another country started doing the same, and then pointed at the U.S. use of drones as setting a precedent? If Pakistani drones operated within Afghanistan, on what grounds could the United States object? Iran and China are both reportedly producing their own drone fleets. What happens when Hamas starts using drones against Israel? Israel already employs the use of drones to assassinate Palestinian targets. Could Pakistan’s drones antagonize India into creating a fleet of its own drones? Are we at the beginning of a new, lower stakes, arms race?

Pakistan is one of only three countries in the world where polio is still an epidemic. There has been a nation-wide campaign to fight this disease; however, this campaign is seriously threatened by the continued attacks on health workers.

Pakistan Announces No New Offensives

United States Defense Secretary Robert Gates is in Pakistan for talks on combating the Taliban. Upon his arrival, the Pakistani army said that it wont launch any new offensives against militants for six months to a year so that the army can have time to stabilize existing gains.

The political, cultural, and economic problems in Pakistan are overshadowed by the security situation. While the neighboring Afghani Taliban’s struggle against the West remains highly popular among average Pakistan citizens, the Pakistani Taliban has lost much of it’s former credence. However, the Pakistani Taliban still benefits from emulating the fighters in the Afghan campaign. While the average Pakistani worries that the Pakistani Taliban may be too violent, many within Pakistan welcome the idea of Taliban-style cultural practices such as their enforced dress codes, and swift justice. Such attractions reflect Pakistan’s Deobandi sensibilities.

Swat Valley, A Recent History

In April 2009, the Pakistani government launched its largest offensive yet against Islamist militants in the region known as Swat Valley.

A few hours drive north of the Pakistani capital, Islamabad, Swat was once Pakistan’s most appealing tourist destination. Residents lived under a mix of tribal and sharia law augmented with rudimentary military control that was first established by the British. The leading member of the valley’s most powerful family was effectively a regional tribal king that enjoyed the title of Wali. Wali rule ended at the time of Pakistani independence in 1947, when Swat acquiesced to Pakistan. However, Swat didn’t become completely integrated into Pakistan until 1969 when the last Wali officially retired his authority.

The Destabilization Of Pakistan

A strengthening alliance of militant groups working out of Pakistan continue to perpetrate attacks against governmental and security forces both inside and surrounding the country’s borders. Punjabi extremist groups are perpetrating bold attacks in concert with the Pakistani Taliban and al Qaeda.

It is a goal of these insurgents operating within Pakistan to divert NATO attention away from the insurgent’s camps and power centers. The insurgents are doing this to allow themselves time to regroup. The militants have capitalized on American attention being distracted by the Afghanistan elections. The insurgents have also begun to look for ways to encourage future distractions. Using groups like Jundullah to cause renewed tension with Iran over the weekend is but one example.