PRESS RELEASE
Islamabad: 20 July 2011,
PTI Vice President Policy Planning, National Security and Foreign Affairs, Dr Shireen Mazari, addressing a press conference at the PTI office in Islamabad, condemned in strong words recent actions and statements of the US government targeting Pakistan on multiple fronts.
She pointed to three major developments impacting Pakistan negatively within a few days. First has been the introduction of the bill in the US Congress. The bill seeks to curtail US aid to Pakistan and imposes unacceptable conditionalities from the granting of unquestioning visas to US personnel to all manner of other intrusive measures in Pakistans domestic affairs.
Already the US has, according to Dr Mazari, made unreasonable and unacceptable demands on Pakistan, especially the military with which the US seeks to embed US military personnel.
The second negative development has been the joint US-India statement at the conclusion of the Hillary Clinton visit in which the US has brought India directly into Pakistans internal dynamics by including in the statement a joint demand for the extermination of all terrorist safe havens in Pakistan. An Indo-US joint statement should deal with Indo-US affairs not target third countries.
The third development has perhaps been the most bizarre and in the long run the most damaging that is the arrest of Dr Fai of the Kashmiri American Council. Coming in the wake of the Clinton visit to India this has altered the dynamics of the ISI-CIA spat because it has dragged the Kashmir issue and the Kashmiri Diaspora unfairly into this targeting of Pakistan and its premier intelligence agency. The words used to explain the arrest of Dr Fai by the FBI are interesting because they refer to: foreign governments who try to influence the US by using unregistered covert agents threaten our national security.
Despite the fact that Dr Fai is a Kashmiri from Occupied Kashmir who has been working for the Kashmiri cause in the US for decades and is well respected and his organization well-established, he has suddenly become a means to target not just Pakistan but also the Kashmir cause just before Kashmiri and Indo-Pakistan interactions.
In view of these developments and the continuing US targeting of Pakistani citizens by drone attacks and raids across the Pakistan-Afghan border, Dr Mazari on behalf of PTI called on the government to take the following steps:
One, demand from the US, India and NATO to end all safe havens for terrorists targeting Pakistan in Afghanistan.
Two, move towards cancelling all visas for US non-diplomatic personnel including the recently granting of almost 90 visas to CIA personnel.
Three, for the Pakistan military to end all cooperation with the US in its so-called war on terror and to devise indigenous strategies to deal with domestic terrorism.
Four, come clean on the drones and take action against any new drone strikes commencing with diplomatic and moving on to other means if that fails.
Five, expose all US unregistered covert agents. This requires making public the US funds going to the media, to civil society and especially to the retired civil and military personnel and their NGOs and consultancies. Only last year there was a verified news item about the US security concern DynCorps having recruited 200-400 retired military personnel. There are cases of academics also who have served the US government through US AID and USEF while working in state universities as Pakistan government servants. The infiltration of the media has been especially damaging because a concerted effort is on to silence US-critical voices especially from the print media. It is time such covert agents were exposed and dealt with strictly under the law of the land.
The case of Dr Afridi not only points to the deep inroads made by the US in terms of recruiting covert agents, it also shows the damage this has caused Pakistan in terms of its health and immunization programme. The silence of the political leaders is deafening on this issue alone!
In addition, let us be very clear that NATO incursions into Pakistan as well as other US military actions could not have taken place without at the very least key Pakistani individuals support. These must be exposed.
Six, the question needs to be raised as to what agreements were made once again by General Pasha on his most recent visit to Washington and what was the need for this visit.
On behalf of PTI, Dr Mazari stated that the time has come for the corrupt rulers of Pakistan to stop destroying the country for their personal survival and benefit and to see that the people will not continue to tolerate their rulers subjugation of the nation before the US which is in the process of upping the ante in its negative Pakistan agenda. The PTI calls for a total review of all aspects of the US-Pakistan relationship as well as an expose of all unregistered covert agents of the US amongst Pakistani civil society, civil-military bureaucracy, media and the government itself.
Central Media Cell
Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf
