quote:Hopelijk blijft dat zo. Het ligt er denk ik aan hoe en wat de VS gaat bombarderen.
ISLAMABAD, Pakistan, Sept. 20 -- Religious minority groups in Pakistan are loudly protesting the country's support for a possible U.S. attack on Afghanistan, but a quieter majority of Pakistanis have accepted the government's decision as the lesser of two evils, according to a variety of observers here.Siding against the United States could have made Pakistan an international pariah, a number of influential Pakistanis say, and possibly endangered its nuclear weapons facilities. Helping the Americans, they argue, provides a welcome excuse to jettison Afghanistan's Taliban regime, which has only brought trouble to its Pakistani ally. It means swallowing national pride but could bring desperately needed economic aid.
The question in the minds of those who support the course decided by President Pervez Musharraf is whether it will unleash uncontrollable religious violence in Pakistan by the Taliban's friends here and bring a new wave of Afghan refugees into Pakistan.
Over the past several days, Musharraf, an army general, has met with a cross section of prominent Pakistanis, including retired generals and civilian politicians, to explain his decision and solicit advice. On Wednesday he went on national television to ask his people for support, saying that in order to protect Pakistan's security and future, he had no choice but to side with the United States.
The Taliban, a rigid Islamic militia that until now counted Pakistan as one of its few friends in the world, harbors Osama bin Laden, the Saudi fugitive U.S. officials have called the top suspect in planning the Sept. 11 suicide attacks on New York and Washington. The Bush administration and the U.N. Security Council have demanded bin Laden's extradition; the United States is now threatening military action against targets in Afghanistan.
One public opinion poll by a religious institute said up to 60 percent of Pakistanis disapproved of the president's decision to support the Americans, but other independent analysts contend the figure is closer to 25 percent, still a large number.
"Musharraf's new policy is not acceptable to much of public opinion, but it is in the nation's best interest, so we must try to help," said Hamid Mir, editor of Ausaf, an influential daily newspaper that often criticizes the Pakistani president.
Some opinion makers said the president's quick decision had prevented India, Pakistan's traditional rival, from taking advantage of the crisis. In this view, it preserved Pakistan's nuclear facilities from potential U.S. attack and salvaged its ability to continue supporting the Muslim guerrilla conflict in Indian Kashmir, a popular mainstay of Pakistan's foreign policy.
India and Pakistan have both tested nuclear weapons, and both claim Kashmir, a mountainous border region, as their territory.
Other political and academic figures said they hoped the new U.S.-Pakistan alliance could result in a new economic lease on life for the beleaguered country. An impoverished country of 140 million, Pakistan is mired in foreign debt and desperately seeking new Western loans and investment.
"We had an overwhelming consensus that before trying to save Afghanistan, Musharraf had to save Pakistan," said Aitzaz Ahsan, a lawyer and former Senate majority leader who took part in one of the meetings with the president. "Musharraf has chosen the lesser evil, and it will lead to some domestic unrest, but he has avoided the greater damage that would come from continuing to support the Taliban."
Some observers said Musharraf did the right thing but went about it the wrong way. They criticized him for pledging support for U.S. military action before he consulted public opinion, and said they were not convinced he had exacted enough payment from Washington. Pakistan is currently under U.S. economic sanctions because of its nuclear tests in 1998 and military coup in 1999.
But several sources said Musharraf had deliberated for 18 straight hours with his top military advisers before agreeing to support Washington.
"I'm sure they calculated that a lot of goodies will come if they ride the storm together" with the world community, said Rifaat Hussain, a professor of strategic and defense studies at Quaid-I-Azam University here, who met with Musharraf Wednesday.
Several other people who met with Musharraf -- including retired generals whose army was once allied with the United States, and radical Islamic mujaheddin fighters against Soviet occupation in Afghanistan -- said they wished the government had long ago distanced itself from the ruling Taliban regime.
Still, Musharraf's haste to comply with U.S. demands for cooperation in a military attack grated on many Pakistanis' sense of national pride.
A number of observers described the United States as an unreliable partner, pointing out that it quickly abandoned the Afghan cause once the Soviets withdrew in 1989, leaving a void in which violence and religious extremism soon spilled into Pakistan.
Indeed, it is the threat of radical Islam and the potential for full-scale extremist violence inside Pakistan that has left many Pakistanis confused and alarmed about the current crisis and their government's ability to defuse it.
"Musharraf has the latent support of Pakistan's silent majority, but it may not be enough," said Hussain. "Those who oppose him may not be large in numbers, but they are willing to shed blood."
© 2001 The Washington Post
Ik denk dat de nieuwsgeving van groot belang is. als de nadruk wordt gelegd op mogelijk onschuldige omgekomen moslim-slachtoffers is het hek van de dam.
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