- Some things never change
Trust is the basic ingredient which makes relationship solid and strong, particularly when it is among the nations and countries. Lack of trust increases distances and generates confusion; and this is the gist and crux of the story of Pak-US relationship. From health facilities to the supply of clean water and from educational programs to financial assistance projects, the US has ever been a great source of help and support to Pakistan in all matters. And same has been the role of Pakistan regarding the US, though not in the fields of education, clean water and financial assistance; Pakistan has been helping US in many other ways, particularly with reference to the war against terror. Pushing Russia beyond the Afghan lands and then maintaining law and order and starting economic activities in war-stricken Afghanistan could have never been possible if Pakistan were not there to help and support the US. If Pakistan had not provided shelter and support to millions of Afghan refugees, the situation for US in Afghanistan could have gone upside down. In short this co-operation between Pakistan and US has always run on the basis of equality rather on the basis of ‘give-n-take’.
But one thing the two countries have been missing is trust or confidence in each other. A secret rather hidden current of doubts and suspicions has ever been distorting the serene face of the relationship between these two countries. In other words these two countries are like two lovers who are always peeping deep into each other’s eyes but with a grain of mistrust. Since the situation in Afghanistan is getting out of America’s control as a result of increasing Indian involvement there, this air of disbelief and distrust is getting heavier. On the other hand India is trying all her best to take full advantage of the situation by adding more fuel to the fire of doubts and suspicions with the help of various propaganda tools. There are different web-pages, dummy newspapers, twitter accounts and watsapp groups where anonymous members are busy spreading false and baseless information rather disinformation regarding ‘Pakistan’s support to the terrorists’ active there in Afghanistan. As far as the terrorists active in Afghanistan are concerned, they are those who once had been doing all this in Pakistan. Even then they had their headquarters in Afghanistan from where they used to sneak into Pakistani territory in guise of Afghan refugees. After Pakistan had shown strictness on the Pak-Afghan borders, the terrorists from Afghanistan lost all opportunities of doing interference and insurgency in Pakistan.
The reality is that the peaceful civilian population on Pakistan’s side along the LoC has been facing the wrath of Indian guns for so many years
Recently an article of Abhinav Pandya was published in the Fair Observer. Abhinav Pandya is a regular contributor to India’s premier think tank on security affairs and diplomacy Vivekananda Foundation. The only job of this so-called ‘think tank’ is to defame Pakistan and to frame it in every terrorist activity in India, Afghanistan and even in Bangladesh. The article said, “Pakistan’s lack of cooperation during the 2008 Mumbai attacks investigation, the discovery of Osama bin Laden’s hiding place near a military academy in Abbottabad, and the protection given to the recognised terrorists such as Hafiz Saeed (the mastermind of the Mumbai attacks) have exposed Pakistan’s complicity with terror groups beyond any reasonable doubt.” The writer further says, “On several earlier occasions, China supported Pakistan and blocked the inclusion of Masood Azhar, the man behind the 1999 hijacking of Indian Airlines flight 814 in Kandahar, in the UN’s list of terrorists.” Similarly there are other web-pages like LiveMint, Uniindia, MillenniumPost and the NorthLines which are also doing the same job.
In the beginning week of this March, all these online-papers reported with reference to the General Officer Commanding of Srinagar-based 15 Corps, Lt Gen Subrata Saha that around 200 heavily armed militants were waiting across the Line of Control (LoC) to infiltrate into the Indian side even as the security forces foiled several attempts by the ultras to sneak into Kashmir Valley following the recent floods. Actually nothing like that ever happened; this reporting was just a part of the Indian propaganda move against Pakistan. Another very interesting report was published in NewsPoint; the title given to this report was, “As Pak stops ceasefire violation, border villagers return home in Uri.” The report said, “As Pakistani mortar guns remained silent since February 24 along the Line of Control (LoC) in north Kashmir, the border villagers, who were shifted to safer places to escape shelling, have returned to their native places.” The fact of the matter is that Pakistan has never been involved in any kind of violation or violence along the LoC and it has never ‘misused’ its guns on the peaceful civilian population across the LoC.
The reality is that the peaceful civilian population on Pakistan’s side along the LoC has been facing the wrath of Indian guns for so many years. Hundreds have been sent to the realm of death and countless are facing painful type of physical-disabilities as a result of Indian brutalities. The only objective of India’s blame game is to convince the world and particularly the US that Pakistan is patronising terrorists and terrorism. Sometimes the target of this blame game is Hafiz Saeed, sometimes the religious and political leaders of Pakistan and most of the times the Pakistan army and the ISI. Our ‘friends’ in India must think a little of Masti Khan, a self-claimed Baloch activist, who has recently admitted in a video message that the RAW operatives working from the Indian embassy in Washington had lured him to insult ex-prime minister of Pakistan Mian Nawaz Sharif during his 2015 visit to Washington.
