West rushing to judgement against Pakistan: Maleeha

LONDON: Former Pakistan High Commissioner to the UK Dr Maleeha Lodhi told a think tank here that the western media and officials had delivered judgment on Pakistan in haste, following the killing of Osama bin Laden in the Pakistani town of Abbottabad. Dr Lodhi was delivering a lecture at the International Institute of Strategic Studies (IISS) here which was attended by members of various think tanks and London based foreign diplomats and officials.
She said those trying to indict the entire country in the light of recent events are acting out of an animus against Pakistan. As an inquiry has been announced in the intelligence failure people should wait to see the outcome of this, she held.
She spoke at length on how Pakistan’s economic fundamentals were strong but poor management had mired the country in a fiscal crisis that was casting a shadow over the nation’s stability. Chronic mismanagement and ad-hocism was responsible for the country’s dire state, she said.
Dr Lodhi was barraged with questions on Pakistan’s fractured politics, militancy in the country and the aftermath of bin Laden’s killing. She said that recent developments had exposed gaps in intelligence and security but the torrent of criticism unleashed on Pakistan was unjustified especially comments that declared Pakistan guilty of complicity with al-Qaeda and assorted militant groups.
She said the government of Pakistan should have lived up to its responsibility of putting forth a coherent account to counter the western narrative on the circumstances surrounding the killing of bin Laden. “It was a one-sided and biased narrative and it should have been countered at all levels by official representatives but time was wasted and the opportunity squandered” she said, adding that the lack of leadership goes to the heart of many of the problems Pakistan faces today.
In response to another question she referred to how the government disappeared from the scene and ceded ground to extremists following the assassination of the Punjab Governor Salman Taseer and Federal Minister Shahbaz Bhatti, both of whom were killed in the capital. “Lack of leadership allowed the kind of environment that enabled a small minority to become emboldened but this minority does not represent the views of the majority.” She said Pakistan has sacrificed more than any other country in the campaign against terrorism but the inability of the government to articulate a comprehensive case highlighting these gains was particularly unfortunate in the light of last week’s events.
She told Geo News that questions were being asked in the country and it was very important that answers were provided as to how the country’s defences were breached on the one hand and how bin Laden lived undetected in a Pakistan for so many years on the other.
AFP adds: Meanwhile, Dr Lodhi said Pakistan needs to reset relations with the United States after the killing of Osama bin Laden, but claims of complicity go too far.
Maleeha Lodhi, who was Pakistan’s envoy to the United States at the time of the September 11, 2001 attacks, called for an urgent inquiry into how bin Laden came to be living in the hillside garrison town of Abbottabad. She was speaking at the launch in London of “Pakistan: Beyond the ‘Crisis State’”, a book on the country’s future.
The former envoy warned that Pakistan and its military and financial backer the United States had to rebuild their alliance, which is at its lowest ebb for years. “I think the relationship will need to be mended, because clearly, as we’ve heard from both the Pakistani and the American authorities, Pakistan was not taken into confidence and this clandestine raid occurred without telling anybody in Pakistan,” she said. “That obviously raises very serious questions about the trust deficit between the two countries,” added Lodhi.