[The furor stems from a nonbinding resolution introduced Friday by
Representative Dana Rohrabacher,
Republican of California, which stated that the people of Baluchistan, a
sprawling western province racked by a seven-year-old separatist insurgency,
should “have the right to self-determination and to their own sovereign
country.”]
By Declan Walsh
The furor stems from a nonbinding resolution introduced Friday by
Representative Dana Rohrabacher,
Republican of California, which stated that the people of Baluchistan, a
sprawling western province racked by a seven-year-old separatist insurgency,
should “have the right to self-determination and to their own sovereign
country.”
Although the bill has little chance of success in Congress, it drew a
furious reaction from Pakistani politicians and media, with Prime Minister Yousaf Raza
Gilani calling it an attack on Pakistani sovereignty, while the new
ambassador to Washington, Sherry Rehman, warned it would “seriously impact
Pakistan-U.S. relations.”
Media reports here accused Mr. Rohrabacher of seeking to “balkanize”
Pakistan, or of acting at the behest of American intelligence agents who, the
reports said, are seeking to pressure Pakistan into establishing covert
listening posts on the border with Iran. Mr. Rohrabacher and Obama
administration officials rejected those accusations.
The furor stems partly from Pakistani sensitivities about the
simmering Baluchistan conflict, which human rights groups have said has been
marked by widespread rights violations, perpetrated largely by the military,
yet has received sparse international attention. But it is also a measure of
the tinderbox of anti-Americanism inside Pakistan, where relations with the
Obama administration have been virtually frozen since American warplanes
accidentally killed 24 Pakistan soldiers in a disputed border clash last
November, and where Pakistani delays in “resetting” that relationship have left
it vulnerable to an array of antagonistic forces from both countries.
“There is a dangerous sense of drift on every front,” said Maleeha
Lodhi, a former Pakistani ambassador to Washington. “A policy vacuum has been
created. And if you leave a vacuum, someone will fill it.”
The Obama administration has distanced itself from Mr. Rohrabacher,
whose views also often put him at odds with members of his own party. In a
statement issued Sunday, the American Embassy in Islamabad said that the United
States “respects the territorial integrity of Pakistan,” and that “it is not
the policy of the administration to support independence” for Baluchistan.
Mr. Rohrabacher, who leads the House Foreign Affairs Subcommittee on
Oversight and Investigations, has a recent history of aggressive Congressional
action against Pakistan. “They’ve constantly been a two-faced enemy of the
United States,” he said in a telephone interview Tuesday.
Previously, Mr. Rohrabacher has tried to limit American aid to
Pakistan. Last week, he proposed that Dr. Shakil Afridi, a Pakistani who helped
lead the Central Intelligence Agency to Osama bin Laden last May, should be
awarded a Congressional Gold Medal and an American passport.
In recent weeks, Mr. Rohrabacher has seized on the Baluchistan issue
to criticize Pakistan. He held a Congressional hearing on Baluchistan on Feb. 8
that included testimony from human rights groups and Pakistan experts. It also
heard from Ralph Peters, a former United States military officer, who in 2005
wrote a strategy paper that included a hypothetical map of an independent
Baluch nation, drawn from parts of Iran, Afghanistan and Pakistan. That map has
since become a leitmotif of Pakistani conspiracy theorists who view it as a
harbinger of covert American plans for the dismemberment of their country.
American and Pakistani officials have been working quietly toward
resuming normal relations. The foreign minister, Hina Rabbani Khar, is due to
meet Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton on the sidelines of a conference
in London on Thursday — the most senior meeting between the two countries since
the disputed border clash in November. Military officers on both sides are
putting in place new procedures to avert any new clashes.
But Pakistan asserts that its new policy on how to work with the
United States must be vetted by Parliament, and a special parliamentary session
to discuss the new direction, originally slated for late January, is now
unlikely to occur until mid-March, after Senate elections, senior government
officials said.
Senior American officials voiced frustration on Tuesday at the latest
postponement of a new policy to help resolve several issues, including the
closing of NATO supply routes into Afghanistan, and Pakistan’s role in peace
talks with the Taliban.
“We’re not happy about this delay,” said a senior administration
official, who spoke on condition of anonymity to avoid inflaming tensions
further. “We’re anxious to move on with business.”
Critics of what is seen as Pakistani government foot-dragging say it
has fanned the flames of anti-Americanism, allowing minor controversies like
the Rohrabacher resolution to acquire an outsize importance. It has also given
impetus to conservative forces in Pakistan.
In recent weeks, a new right-wing campaign group calling itself the
Defense of Pakistan Council has toured the major cities, calling for a
permanent end to American drone strikes and campaigning against the reopening
of the NATO supply lines.
The alliance comprises right-wing religious parties, a former head of
the Inter-Services Intelligence Directorate and several militant organizations,
some of which have been accused of atrocities against civilians and are
officially banned. Yet it has toured the country unopposed, holding rallies in
Karachi and Islamabad over the past 10 days, fostering suspicions that it
enjoys tacit support from the powerful military establishment.
Mr. Rohrabacher’s resolution has won broad support, however, from
Baluch nationalists who, until now, have struggled to gain attention in the
United States. “This is a very big achievement,” said the Khan of Kalat,
Suleman Daud, an exiled Baluch tribal leader who helped Mr. Rohrabacher draft
his resolution, speaking from his home in Cardiff, Wales.
Eric
Schmitt contributed reporting from Washington.
@ The New York Times
@ The New York Times
