Afghanistan Inviting More Troubles

by Ali Sukhanver

( August 26, 2016, Islamabad, Sri Lanka Guardian) After Narendra Modi’s speech on August 15 this year, the severe reaction of brave people of Balochistan was neither unexpected nor strange. They were already in a state of rage and fury against the activities of R&AW in Balochistan and they no doubt hold Modi responsible for all such activities; Modi’s speech simply added fuel to fire. Unfortunately some Indian supported elements, very much active in Afghanistan, tried to exploit the situation in their favour. In response to public response in Balochistan against Modi’s speech a group of Afghan demonstrator not only burnt Pakistan’s flag but also attacked the friendship gate at Chaman. After this incident the border security forces of Pakistan closed the Pak-Afghan border to avert any untoward incident. The situation resulted in suspending the movement of trade shipments between two countries along with supplies for NATO forces in Afghanistan. According to different media reports there are long queues of vehicles on both sides of the border; with people on both sides facing problems as a result of the border closure but more in trouble are the people of Afghanistan. This situation could have been avoided if the Honourable president of Afghanistan Mr. Ashraf Ghani had played his role positively and sensibly.

Before his selection as President of Afghanistan, Mr. Ashraf Ghani was being considered and ranked as a wise man among the people of Pakistan but he did not come up to their expectations since after joining the office of the President of Afghanistan. On 25^th of April 2016, talking to his nation at joint session of the Afghan parliament, apparently he outlined his vision for the future of the nation’s security but actually he invited more troubles for the already distressed Afghan nation. In his speech he drew a very clear line of demarcation between the friends and foes of Afghanistan. He said, ‘The enemies of Afghanistan are those who work for foreigners including Daesh, al-Qaeda, the human killers of Haqqani network and some Afghan Taliban who take pleasure in killing their countrymen and continue the war and terrorism. There is no place for conducting talks with groups like these.’ He added, ‘I categorically announce that we do not want Pakistan to bring Taliban to the talks but we urge Pakistan to comply with the QCG agreement and take action against those whose presence has been confirmed by our intelligence services and intelligence services of our international partners. If Pakistan feels reluctant to take military action against these criminal, then it should hand them over to our Sharia courts to punish them. Dividing the terrorists into good and bad ones could have negative repercussions.’ Throughout his speech Mr. Ghani kept on blaming Pakistan and Taliban directly or indirectly for the destabilization of Afghanistan. Commenting upon the QCG agreement, he referred to Pakistan, ‘Those who failed to deliver on their promises within the framework of these efforts are now pushed in further isolation on an international level.’

 How pathetic is Ashraf Ghani’s approach towards a country which has been facing a lot of troubles because of Afghanistan’s internal state of civil war. If the politicians of Afghanistan, the ‘bold’ soldiers of Afghanistan and the ‘real friends’ of Afghanistan were so sincere and devoted to the peace and prosperity of Afghanistan, the situation could have never been so painfully agonizing for the people of Afghanistan. 

The actual problem is that most of the rulers of Afghanistan have never been ‘indigenously’ and ‘genuinely’ from Afghanistan; unfortunately they have ever been ‘imported’ ones. Be it Hamid Karzai or Ashraf Ghani; most of the democratically elected presidents had their strings in the hands of their foreign masters. If they had really belonged to Afghanistan, they would have never blamed Pakistan for the internal warlike situation. They won’t have forgotten that Pakistan is a country taking care of more than 1.7 million Afghan refugees for the last thirty years. It is simply the climax and extreme of Ashraf Ghani’s hatred against Pakistan that he didn’t even like to include Pakistan’s name in the list of Afghanistan’s well-wishers. During his historical address to the joint session of the Afghan parliament he said talking about the terrorist attack in Kabul in April, “As you all know, the world including the Muslim nations, particularly Saudi and Islamic republic of Iran, the United Nations, the majority of Asian countries, Europe, US, China, Japan, Australia and Canada denounced the act by the terrorists. But the attack in Kabul further isolated the terrorists and their foreign backers in the world arena.”

In short he mentioned the name of every Tom Dick and Harry but there was no appreciation or acknowledgement for Pakistan. It seems that this speech was written by someone from the RA&W who simply had just one target; Blaming and Defaming Pakistan. What Pakistan must do in such a hostile atmosphere; the question arises. Does Pakistan really cannot survive without having relations with Afghanistan? Why are we always eager to arrange and facilitate negotiations and table-talks between Afghan government and the Taliban? Why are we bearing such a huge burden of Afghan refugees when we have a lot of our own problems? Furthermore in guise of the Afghan refugees so many agents of the RA&W and NDS are simply causing a very serious loss to our society by promoting terrorist activities. Better we let our Afghan brothers live their own life and let them deal with the Taliban themselves.