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Journalism of Courage
The face-savers are in place, the fig-leaves strategically deployed. Now that the Defence Committee of the Cabinet DCC in Islamabad has jointly decided to appeal8217; to the mujahideen to disengage in Kargil, the crosshairs are no longer on Nawaz Sharif. The mujahideen, too, should have no problem, given the fact that their role in internationalising the Kashmir issue has been publicly lauded. And especially given the fact that most of the mujahideen8217; are regular Pakistani armymen who have simply stopped shaving, under orders from Islamabad. Despite that, two of the major groups have flatly refused to recall their men. And the Pakistani newspapers conveys the impression that the public is not too eager to see a few hundred irregular fighters return from the Line of Control. There does indeed appear to some truth in Nawaz Sharif8217;s claim that he has no control over the mujahideen.
But it is certainly not the whole truth. The Pakistani establishment has a stranglehold over the jihadis. On the front, Pakistaniarmy transport and mules make up their supply train. The majority were armed by Pakistan and all of them are dependent on the army for ammunition. Many of them have been recruited and trained in camps within Pakistan, and are no strangers to its army. Only a few groups are independent of Pakistani control in the limited sense that they are funded directly by the Arab world. All told, there is little reason for the Pakistani Defence Committee of the Cabinet to approach them as plaintiffs, on bended knee. It is the Committee that controls the mujahideen, not the other way round. This is a charade, played out to support the thesis that the army is at ease in its barracks while the mujahideen raise Cain on the LoC. Pakistan had to play out yet another charade and refuse to take back the bodies of its own soldiers, who were dressed like irregular fighters when they fell but had enough evidence on their persons to prove that they were enlisted men. A fall in recruitment levels in the Pakistani army after Kargilshould occasion no surprise. A commander who leaves his dead behind on the field is repugnant to his troops; one who disowns them, doubly so.
