ETHNIC ANIMOSITIES:
ETHNIC ANIMOSITIES:Putting Pakistan together again By Selig S. Harrison> > > Published in International Herald tribune on January 31, 2008> WASHINGTON:> Whatever the outcome of the Pakistan elections, now scheduled for Feb. 18, the existing multiethnic Pakistani state is not likely to survive for long unless it is radically restructured.> Given enough American pressure, a loosely united, confederated Pakistan could still be preserved by reinstating and liberalizing the defunct 1973 Constitution, which has been shelved by successive military rulers. But as matters stand, the Punjabi-dominated regime of President Pervez Musharraf is headed for a bloody confrontation with the country's Pashtun, Baluch and Sindhi minorities that could well lead to the breakup of Pakistan into three sovereign national entities.> In that event, the Pashtuns, concentrated in the northwestern tribal areas, would join with their ethnic brethren across the Afghan border (some 40 million of them combined) to form an independent "Pashtunistan." The Sindhis in the southeast, numbering 23 million, would unite with the six million Baluch tribesmen in the southwest to establish a federation stretching from India to Iran. "Pakistan" would then be a nuclear-armed Punjabi rump state.> In historical context, such a breakup would not be surprising. For the Pashtun, Sindhi and Baluch people, independence from colonial rule created a bitter paradox. After resisting Punjabi domination for centuries, they found themselves subjected to Punjabi-dominated military regimes that have appropriated many of the natural resources in the minority provinces and siphoned off much of the Indus River's waters as they flow through the Punjab.> The resulting animosity helps explain why the U.S. is failing to get effective Pakistani cooperation in fighting terrorists. The Pashtuns living along the Afghan border are happy to give sanctuary to the Taliban, which is composed primarily of Pashtuns, and to its Qaeda friends.> Pashtun civilian casualties resulting from Pakistani and U.S. air strikes on both sides of the border are breeding a potent Pashtun nationalist movement. Its initial objective is to unite all Pashtuns in Pakistan into a unified province. In time, however, its leaders envisage full nationhood. After all, before the British came, the Pashtuns had been politically united in an Afghan empire that stretched into the Punjabi heartland.> The Baluch people, for their part, have been waging intermittent insurgencies since their forced incorporation into Pakistan in 1947. They are now forging military links with Sindhi nationalist groups that have been galvanized into action by the death of Benazir Bhutto, a Sindhi hero.> The breakup of Pakistan would be a costly and destabilizing development that can still be avoided, but only if the United States and other foreign aid donors convince Islamabad that it should not only put the 1973 Constitution back into effect, but amend it to go beyond the limited degree of autonomy it envisaged.> Eventually, the minorities want a central government that would retain control only over defense, foreign affairs, international trade, communications and currency. It would no longer have the power to oust an elected provincial government, and would have to renegotiate royalties on gas and other resources with the provinces.> In the shorter term, the Bush administration should scrap plans to send Special Forces into border areas in pursuit of Al Qaeda, which would only strengthen Islamist links with Pashtun nationalists, and it should help secular Pashtun forces to compete with the Islamists by giving fair representation to Pashtun areas now barred from political participation.> It is often argued that the United States must stand by Musharraf and a unitary Pakistani state to safeguard Pakistan's nuclear arsenal. But the nuclear safeguards depend on the Pakistani Army, not on the president. The nuclear weapons would not be affected if the country broke up, since they would remain under the control of the Punjabi rump state and its army.> The army has built up a far-flung empire of economic enterprises in all parts of Pakistan, and can best protect its interests by defusing the escalating conflict with the minorities. Similarly, the minority ethnic groups would profit from cooperative economic relations with the Punjab, and for this reason prefer confederal autonomy to secession. All concerned, including the United States, have a profound stake in stopping the present slide to Balkanization.> Selig S. Harrison is the director of the Asia program at the Center for International Policy and the author of "In Afghanistan's Shadow," a study of Baluch nationalism.