A Former Pakistani Prime Minister
Weighs In
By Benazir Bhutto
Posted
Friday, Sept. 21, 2001, at 2:27 p.m. PT
Little in life springs from whole cloth.
That is especially true of Sept. 11, 2001, a date stained into the calendar
of civilization. This was a calamity two decades in the making. At the
end of 1979, the Soviets invaded Afghanistan, hoping to strengthen their
position in Central Asia and develop proximity to the resources and warm
ports of the Gulf. Almost immediately an indigenous insurrection developed
to challenge the Soviet occupation. The freedom fighters were called the
"Mujahadeen" and were composed of seven different factions.In its early
days, the Reagan administration made a decision that would shape the course
of history. It backed the one faction most likely to successfully challenge
the Soviets on the battlefield. Working with their counterparts in the
Pakistani Inter Services Intelligence (ISI), the CIA armed, trained, and
empowered the most extreme, anti-modernity, anti-Western zealots within
the Mujahadeen. This propelled the extremists to a leadership position
in the war of resistance and in the politics that followed.The war in Afghanistan
caused one of the great refugee migrations in modern history. Nearly three
million Afghans crossed into Pakistan to escape the fighting. Almost immediately
scores of special Islamic schools, called Madrassas, sprang up. The boys
that were sent there by their parents to be nourished and educated were
taught extremism, intolerance, subjugation of women, and violence. All
of these elements are antithetical to the Holy Book and to the teachings
of the Prophet.When the children were not being brainwashed, they were
trained in hand-to-hand combat, the use of weapons, and terrorist strategy.
These schools became the recruitment centers for the fanatic administration
that ultimately took control of Afghanistan after the Soviet exit. The
new political movement was named after the schools themselves. The word
"Talib" means student!I became prime minister of Pakistan in 1988 during
the waning days of the Soviet occupation of Afghanistan. The last Soviet
troops were airlifted out of Afghanistan on Feb. 15, 1989. The international
community quickly turned its attention to events in Europe and the fall
of the Berlin Wall. I was left concerned at the lack of a post-Soviet plan
for the reconstruction and governing of Afghanistan. I was also concerned
at the go-at-it-alone attitude of the extremist factions that wanted the
government, and ultimately they prevailed. I suspected that having defeated
one superpower, the zealots felt invincible and divinely empowered to take
aim at another.As a moderate, progressive, democratically elected woman
prime minister of Pakistan, I was a threat to the fundamentalist zealots
on multiple levels and targeted by them in both my governments. They had
the support of sympathetic elements within Pakistan's security apparatus
and the financial support of people like Osama Bin Laden. I had closed
their training university in Peshawar and was targeted for that. I had
tracked down and extradited the Ramzi Yousef, the perpetrator of the 1993
attack on the World Trade Center, and was targeted for that. My government
was destabilized. Money was pilfered and laundered from state banks to
fund the campaigns of opposition parties. We learned from Ramzi Yousef
before he was extradited to the United States that I was the object of
two separate assassination attempts in 1993. Osama Bin Laden personally
spent over $10 million in late 1989 in support of a motion of no confidence
to topple my government. And ultimately, with the active support of elements
of the Pakistani military, my two democratically elected governments were
sacked and elections rigged to ensure that my party would not return to
power. Beware the power of zealots who are well-funded, well-armed, and
supported by elements of your own government! That
brings us to the present. A complex and well-funded terrorist network executed
the most inhuman terrorist attack in history. The target was America, but
it was also the values of freedom everywhere. It seemed Osama and his cohorts
read Professor Samuel Huntington'sThe
Clash of Civilizations and wished to provoke
its thesis into reality. Their goal is for the Muslim world to see U.S.
retaliation as an act of aggression against Islam. Sept. 11 was the bait.Sadly,
this is not over. The United States responded quickly in declaring a fight
against international terrorism and cautioned it will be a long process.
Asked to assist the U.S. effort against terrorism, Islamabad responded
positively. It did this despite elements within the military intelligence
complex that have sympathy for the Taliban.Pakistan is saddled with $38
billion in international debt, with $4 billion owed to America. With Egypt
and Jordan, the United States has repaid political support with debt retirement
in the past. Islamabad expects the same treatment. It also expects the
repeal of the discriminatory Pressler amendment denying military and economic
aid to Pakistan because of its nuclear program.There is one price that
Islamabad could demand that is too great and too dangerous to grant. The
United States and the Commonwealth support the holding of free, fair, party-based
elections to restore democracy to my nation in 2002. Islamabad may be tempted
to ask the United States to abandon its support for Pakistani democracy
in exchange for support in the war against international terrorism. The
previous military dictator General Zia did this successfully in the '80s.
But pressure for a return to democracy should continue. In fact, in light
of the horrible lessons of Afghanistan in the 1980s, the United States
should be exquisitely sensitive to the fact that democracies don't start
wars; democracies don't engage in international terrorism. Allowing dictatorship
to strengthen its stranglehold over the democratic institutions of Pakistan
can, in the long run, create an even greater Frankenstein than the U.S.
miscalculation with the Mujahadeen in the 1980s. Osama commandeers jets.
Pakistan has nuclear weapons. The United States must demand a democratic
Pakistan to stave off a true catastrophe in the future.Benazir Bhutto
is the former prime minister of the Islamic Republic of Pakistan. Click
here
to read the Slate "Diary" she filed in 1997 while serving as opposition
leader.