Binoo Joshi
News Analysis
Jammu, October 7
It must have disturbed the world community when Pakistan’s army chief Gen. Raheel Sharif invoked it to condemn the “ distortion of facts by India” regarding Indian part of Kashmir , while an elected civilian government is in place in that country .
Making such an appeal to the international community by Pakistan’s army chief has many reasons for the global community to get worried. It was fine as long as the elected Prime Minister of Pakistan Nawaz Sharif , howsoever illogical in the backdrop of his country’s dubious role in promoting trouble and terrorism, in Kashmir , made it .
“We have recently witnessed an unfortunate display of utter desperation playing out inside occupied Kashmir and along the Line of Control through a litany of falsehood and distortion of facts by India,” he said while addressing a passing out parade of PAF cadets as reported in Dawn newspaper .
“We expect the international community to condemn Indian insinuations and fabrications about a nation that has made unparalleled contributions to the global fight against terrorism.”
When the army chief resorts to half truths, invoking the international community , the dynamics assume a dangerous shape .
After his Prime Minister had made such an appeal , there was no need, not it suits the protocol , for Gen. Sharif to talk directly to the world community.
Gen. Sharif has deliberately spoken all this with the clear objective of undermining the position of Prime Minister. This amounts to a straight challenge to the civilian and elected leadership by the army chief, who represents 600,000 soldiers of his country at a time when a joint session of the Parliament was in progress.
This sounds a humiliating rebuff to Prime Minister who advised the army to go after the terror minds who orchestrated the 26/11 and Pathankot attacks from Pakistani soil .
Nawaz Sharif’s advice or warning to the army and ISI could have vindicated his civilian authority as also the high moral ground to blunt the international criticism that Pakistan was an acknowledged exporter of terrorism . This was something indigestible for the army, because in Pakistan the state actor doubles up as non-state actor too.
More surprising is not the fact that Pakistan is not under martial law, officially, nor the civilian leadership under impeachment. This makes all these invocations as ominous signs for the international community , particularly India. Above all for Prime Minister Sharif himself.
