Pak army chief exploits Baloch bungle

NEW DELHI: Encouraged by its success in getting Balochistan inserted in the India-Pakistan joint statement in Sharm el-Sheikh, Islamabad is cranking up its propaganda machinery to raise the bogey of India's meddling in its volatile province.

Reports in the US media quoting official sources said Pakistan army chief Ashfaque Kayani recently sought to link Pakistan's actions against Lashkar-e-Taiba with India putting a stop to its alleged covert operations in Balochistan.

The reports in US media said that while Kayani had promised to "control" LeT, claiming "we are being more vigilant", he stressed that India should halt its operations in Balochistan. "By the way, India has to stop messing around in Balochistan," US media quoted Pakistani officials as saying.

The attempt to establish linkages should reinforce those who felt that the mention of Balochistan was a big blunder which may be exploited by Pakistan to put RAW on the same footing as the ISI, and to claim that India was also guilty of using terror as an instrument to further its strategic objectives.

The charge is absurd, if only for the reason that India does not have the capacity to engage in covert operations to harass Pakistan even if it wished so. But the fear is that it may find fertile ground among a constituency in the US desperately looking for ways to inveigle India into the Af-Pak cauldron.

In fact, Richard Holbrooke, the US special envoy for Af-Pak, is learnt to have already asked his Indian interlocutors whether India would stop its ���activities��� in Balochistan.

This ���messing around in Balochistan��� phrase is likely to pop up more and more in Pak-US conversations. There is no evidence that they can point to but that is not going to deter the Pakistanis.
Pakistani PM Yusuf Gilani, after his return from the eventful encounter with Prime Minister Manmohan Singh in Sharm el-Sheikh, has also kept the Balochistan issue alive.

While saying Pakistan would start a new chapter in ties with India, Gilani said the joint statement ���underlines (Pakistan���s) concerns over Indian interference in Balochistan and other areas of Pakistan��� and ���calls for working to create an atmosphere of mutual trust and confidence���.

In Swat valley, Pakistani army commanders think nothing of saying that it is actually India that is funding and sponsoring the Taliban, which is an extremist Islamist grouping, including Baitullah Mehsud, who is now described as being financed by India.

Singh is expected to make a statement in Parliament on Wednesday to explain his extraordinary decision to include the Pakistani propaganda on Balochistan in the joint statement. He is sure to argue that there was no room to treat the reference to Balochistan as an acknowledgement of Pakistan���s charge or even a concession to it. But Pakistanis are already celebrating the victory in Sharm el-Sheikh. ���We���ve externalised an internal problem,��� the Wall Street Journal quoted a senior Pakistani official as saying.