The writer is former executive editor of The News and a senior journalist with Geo TV. They are not two peas in a pod; in fact they are poles apart. One ranks very high in the human development category: 21 out of 187 countries; the other very low: 146 out of 187. One is bulging at the seams with almost 200 million people – and counting, the other is just 11.2 million people and worried about declining demography. One is ageing; the other is youthful. One is located in Western Europe’s highly prosperous zone; the other is in South Asia’s chronically underperforming sphere. Yet in post-Paris assessments, parts of the tales from these two strikingly dissimilar lands are so similar that one can easily be mistaken for the other. There is much that Pakistan can learn from the role of Belgium in the wave of terror sweeping across Europe, even though the two countries confront different levels and complexity of terror threats. Andrew Higgins’ ruthless and detailed account (‘Terrorism response puts Belgium in a harsh light’) in last week’s New York Times makes several central points that fit Pakistan’s situation. One point relates to ownership and responsibility. Let’s look at Pakistan first. While the office of the prime minister represents the whole country, critical areas of responsibility – and with it ownership of the multi-dimensional counterterror strategy – are undecided. Provinces – for instance Khyber Pakhtunkhwa – always talk about the central authority’s jurisdiction over regions like the Federally Administered Tribal Areas as the crux of the problem to put a permanent lid on organised groups’ criminal and terrorist activities. The federal government, however, speaks of provinces not performing their duty to dismantle local terror networks, and alleges that this dereliction of duty ends up prolonging terrorism’s destructive life. The debate between the federal government and the Sindh government is most instructive in this regard. Even repeated rounds of bilateral and personal meetings between the prime minister and the chief minister have not drawn detectable lines of their core jobs. The army’s deployment under various legal covers for combat missions creates an illusion of unity of policy. And because all legal authority to carry out counterterror and counter-insurgency operations flows out of the overarching Article 245 of the constitution – POPA, ATA, FCR – or generic concepts such as ‘threat of war’; therefore, a sense of policy cohesion exists. But absence of institutionalised and clear-cut division of labour among the federating units in this fight against a unified enemy undercuts consistency and productivity of effort. The endless squabbling between and among the provinces and the federal authorities often resembles police station heads arguing over a crime scene in the grey area demarcating their territorial limits. With local bodies being elected all over the country this issue of ‘who is to do what’ is likely to get even more complicated. That’s what happened in Belgium. Higgins writes: “A month before the Paris terrorist attacks, Mayor Françoise Schepmans of Molenbeek, a Brussels district long notorious as a haven for jihadists, received a list with the names and addresses of more than 80 people suspected as Islamic militants living in her area. “The list, based on information from Belgium’s security apparatus, included two brothers who would take part in the bloodshed in France on Nov 13, as well as the man suspected of being the architect of the terrorist plot, Abdelhamid Abaaoud, a Molenbeek resident who had left for Syria to fight for the Islamic State in early 2014. “ ‘What was I supposed to do about them? It is not my job to track possible terrorists,” Ms. Schepmans said. That, she added, ‘is the responsibility of the federal police.’” Another similarity of challenges facing Belgium and Pakistan relates to the devolved nature of the federation. Belgium is the ultimate ‘devolved state’. Pakistan’s centralism has been diluted by the 18th Amendment. Generally, this is accepted as a good thing. However, it is not always that a politically correct system automatically becomes a fully functioning system. I-don’t-care-because-I-don’t-share is exactly the kind of a system that terrorists look for. Says Higgins about Belgium: “The federal police service, for its part, reports to the interior minister, Jan Jambon, a Flemish nationalist who has doubts about whether Belgium – divided among French, Dutch and German speakers – should even exist as a single state. “As Brussels remained locked down for a fourth day, facing what the authorities say is its own imminent terrorist threat, the failure to stop two brothers clearly flagged as extremists before the Paris carnage highlighted tribal squabbles...” “...with its capital paralysed and its political elite pointing fingers over who is to blame for letting jihadists go unchecked, the country is again being ridiculed as the world’s most prosperous failed state. “An Italian newspaper called it ‘Belgistan,’ and a German one declared Belgium ‘kaput.’ A French writer, Éric Zemmour, suggested in a recent radio interview that instead of bombing Raqqa, Syria, the self-proclaimed capital of the Islamic State, “France should bomb Molenbeek.”” Now consider Pakistan’s situation. All national coordination bodies are dormant. The much-famed National Security Committee (NSC) had its last meeting a year ago. (Among the many comical reasons cited for its deliberate paralysis one is brittle civil-military ties; another is sour relations among federal ministers who don’t speak to each other, with at least one of them occasionally choosing not to engage with the prime minister either!) The Defence Committee of the Cabinet, while still existing, has been replaced by the NSC and therefore is dysfunctional. The Ministry for Inter-Provincial Coordination with its elaborate 43-subject mandate barely breathes. The Council of Common Interests under this ministry is even more dead. Its requirement of a must-meeting in a 90-day span has not been fulfilled for three quarters now. The National Counter-terrorism Authority’s acronym, NACTA, reads more like Not-Active-Again. This is supposed to be a premier body overseeing all policy and coordination related to counterterrorism matters but instead has been reduced to a joke. (Born in 2013, Nacta’s website is still under construction and has no full-time boss) The apex committees are just a showpiece and amazingly have no legal ground or even notification to justify their existence. These were announced by the formidable ISPR, reflecting more institutional power play than a desire to bring different elements of policy in sync with each other. There is no intelligence grid where civilian and military intelligence could be pooled. Police departments in provinces and at the federal level have no mechanism or platform to streamline their activities and learn from each other’s experiences. Pakistan practically exists as a five-in-one state. Now consider Belgium. Reports Higgins: “With three uneasily joined populations, Belgium has a dizzying plethora of institutions and political parties divided along linguistic, ideological or simply opportunistic lines, which are being blamed for the country’s seeming inability to get a handle on its terrorist threat…to the system’s rising chorus of critics, the scale of the lockdown itself – the security alert has closed schools, many shops and the subway system in Brussels – is a reflection less of focused authority and actionable intelligence than of diffuse incoordination….responsibilities tend to overlap with only fuzzy rules for who is supposed to do what.” Yet another problem in Belgium that we in Pakistan are totally familiar with is politicisation of decision-making to a point where small personal agendas stump larger goals. Higgins’ piece has a few remarkably instructive quotes. One says: “Everything in Belgium is politicized; you cannot have an administrative function, particularly a senior one, if you don’t have a political affiliation.” Another says: “It had been obvious for years, particularly under a Socialist mayor who governed until 2012, that militants were making inroads there, but nobody wanted to know because this did not fit their political agenda…Intelligence services, too, have struggled with the same political calculations and constraints….it works more or less normally, but when something so unpredictable like terrorism happens, all the institutions collide.” And then the final lines: “This is the Belgium disease…everyone always says it is not their fault....” Sadly, this is a Pakistani disease too. We need to find a cure – and quickly. Email: syedtalathussain@gmail.com Twitter: @TalatHussain12
