| 'General Shanti' exit cloud on talks revival | ||
| SUJAN DUTTA | ||
New Delhi, Jan. 8: The sacking of Major General (retired) Mahmud Ali Durrani as Pakistan's national security adviser not only shows rifts within the establishment in Islamabad but could also mean a setback for peace talks with India. The peace process is on "pause" but the presence of Durrani in Islamabad had held out hope that it would be revived with the eventual resolution of the India-Pakistan war of words in the wake of the Mumbai attacks. "He is not your stereotypical Pakistani military officer," says C. Uday Bhaskar, security affairs analyst and former official of the Institute of Defence Studies and Analysis. "He has come to our institute and I have interacted with him. I would not call him a peacenik, but he takes a hard-headed pragmatic approach to talks with India and believes that Pakistan's problems largely lie within." Durrani has sometimes been referred to sarcastically as "General Shanti". Bhaskar says the sacking of Durrani reveals that the rift in the Islamabad establishment is not only between the civilian administration and the military but also among the civilian rulers and a large body of influential serving and retired military officials. "It is wrong of us to assume that all the civilian (rulers) think alike just as all the military officials think alike," he says. Durrani was dismissed by Prime Minister Yousaf Raza Gilani who thought he spoke out of turn in comments to the media about arrested terrorist Ajmal Kasab's Pakistani nationality. The comments, it is said, forced Islamabad to officially confirm the statement. Along with notable Indian security analysts, including former Indian army officers such as Lt General Satish Nambiar and commentators, Durrani is a member of the low-profile Balusa Group, an informal body set up with the help of former Reagan and Bush administration adviser Shirin Taher Khali who is a political scientist with Johns Hopkins University. Pakistan foreign minister Shah Mehmood Qureshi was also a member of the group but resigned after becoming a member of the cabinet last year. In his book India and Pakistan: the cost of conflict and the benefits of peace, Durrani has argued that the India-Pakistan peace process must be underpinned by strong economic ties. He writes that without such exchanges it will be difficult to appreciate "the futility and grave risks of militarisation, the heavy cost of the adversarial relationship and the benefits of co-operation". Durrani, an armoured corps officer, was close to both General Zia-ul Haq, who was killed in an air crash while flying back from a military exercise being conducted by Durrani, and General Pervez Musharraf, who appointed him Pakistan's ambassador to the US. He was a quiet broker of an arrangement that led to Benazir Bhutto returning to Pakistan and, during his time in Washington DC, had struck a rapport with her, falling back on his experience of being a military secretary in her regime. That probably explains his perceived closeness to Asif Ali Zardari. A veteran of the 1965 and 1971 wars with India, Durrani was, according to security analyst B. Raman, also the ISI's station chief in Washington in a previous tenure. One analyst suggests that Durrani was not favoured by the military under General Asfaq Pervez Kayani who was uncomfortable working with a protege of Musharraf. In a sense, former ISI chief Hamid Gul and Durrani represent two different strands in the Pakistani politico-strategic community. Gul is a known hardliner who actively abetted militants and is even wanted by India. Durrani, on the other hand, has believed in being a backroom mover of the peace process. |
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N A D E E M M A L I K
Director Programme
AAJ TV
ISLAMABAD
00-92-321-5117511
nadeem.malik@hotmail.com
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