The intelligence imbroglio
Over the past few weeks the domestic media has been putting pressure on our intelligence agencies for transgressions that are perceived to militate against the laws of the land and are labelled extra-constitutional in this democratic age. The role of certain intelligence personnel has become controversial and their personalities have been brought into focus as well as the fact that their inspiration did not emanate from national objectives but from private agendas. Going into details or specifics would be counter-productive to the national interest but some of those acts seem to border on criminal behaviour. Such transgressions as interference in domestic politics is in keeping with the fashion in all third world countries, Pakistan is no exception.
Utopia would be a wonderful place to live in but that is many dream worlds away, the facts of real-politik dictate that we must be pragmatic about accepting that intelligence agencies have a major role to play in national survival, in the pursuit of their mission they may exceed the letter but not the spirit of the law. By the very nature of their operations, intelligence agencies operate in the shadowy embrace of a nether world that is anathema to the concept of various freedoms that the masses expect in a democratic process. Over the decades, the intelligence agencies have been acquiring additional power under every leader, democratic or dictatorial, it is therefore not surprising that even those in high military or civilian appointments who are not part of the intelligence system are wary of them to the extent of paying them a homage of sorts. It is also not surprising that the personnel of these agencies consider themselves superior to all beings outside their immediate group and thus the ultimate bastion of patriotism, it is then only a short step to imagining oneself to be the final arbiter of the nation’s destiny and thus above the common law of the land. This is true not only in Pakistan but also in those countries who hold democracy as an article of faith, how can we have forgotten the super-patriot Col Oliver North?
Power is an all-pervasive aphrodysiac, when exercised without restraint it tends to corrupt absolutely. When absolute power is vested without any accountability whatsoever in the hands of self-seeking, greedy and narrow-minded individuals it is a one-way street to disaster. Regretfully, the necessary veil of secrecy covers those individuals within the intelligence system who keep climbing the ladder as long as they serve not the national objective but the particular purpose of whoever is the ruler at that time. Over the years their capacity and penchant for misdemeanour increases. Post the Zia-Martial Law, the swing of the pendulum to the other extreme brought PPP’s Ms Bhutto to the PM’s post and exposed for the first time the silent sentinels of the dark to the bright light. Unfortunately for the nation this crack in the system was to the nation’s detriment because in exposing individuals it exposed their agencies to media cynosure and thus manipulation by enemy agencies.
In the 80s decade, the Soviet Union’s KGB, Afghanistan’s KHAD and India’s RAW coordinated their actions with the common aim to destabilize Pakistan. These intelligence agencies combined to unleash a campaign of terror bombings particularly in the vulnerable Provinces of Sindh and NWFP. They were fought to a virtual standstill by our intelligence entities, given the opposition and our meagre resources this was a magnificent performance. According to authoritative sources, including former US President Richard Nixon, the actual green signal to unleash the terror was given by the then General Secretary of the Communist Party, former Soviet President and Nobel Peace Prize winner, Mikhail Gorbachev. That “noble” decision caused over 5,000 dead and multiples more injured. With the unfolding of events and the unravelling of the Soviet Union, the files in KGB HQs in Moscow and KHAD in Kabul should theoretically now be available for us to see. We should be able to find out about the mystery surrounding the sabotage of late President Zia’s C-130 and about all the other clandestine operations directed against us as well as the resources (of moles and material) used by the enemy entities within Pakistan throughout these years. Frankly speaking, this will never happen, the Politburo minutes of the Stalin order pertaining to the Katyn Forest massacre of over 20,000 Polish POWs was a concern of the western media and was released by Yeltsin for a specific political expediency, to discredit Gorbachev. No such political incentive exists vis-a-vis Pakistan, why should Yeltsin undercut the Russian national interest? Given the same analogy, it serves no useful purpose to belabour our intelligence agencies in public and thus emasculate their effectiveness. Why are we using a hatchet on ourselves, trying to blind our eyes and deafen our own ears? For the selfish purpose of cheap publicity we must not destroy the morale and potential of our intelligence agencies. In the present volatile geo-political situation, it amounts to virtual sabotage. India’s RAW must be laughing themselves sick at this public flagellation of our secret services. The whole exercise is most counter-productive and demeaning to our national honour and integrity, it must cease forthwith. Whatever may be the provocation and/or the persecution that some of us are obliged to bear, the way to fight transgressions by our intelligence agencies is to do so quietly, without fanfare or irrelevant publicity, that is the national interest.
Intelligence agencies are extremely important to national security inasfar as they are crucial to decision-makers in any government. The Collection, Collation, Dissemination and Distribution of information (C, C, D and D) are the four pillars of the system and lead to a deliberate analysis before a decision is articulated. Since these agencies serve as the barometer for mass perception and national aspiration, the importance of correct information and analysis thereof cannot be over-emphasized. Unfortunately in many countries of the world, including the first world, information becomes slanted by vested interest and it virtually influences policy into a desired direction. While the intelligence agencies must not spare candour, having analysed the raw data available in providing that information to the government, they must ensure that there is no doctoring of that information for a specific purpose. Intelligence agencies are also crucially important in maintaining confidentiality for the State, no nation can afford that its secrets are easily accessible to either friend or foe. To that end, among other tasks our undercover services provide (1) a screen against penetration (2) actively ferret out the sources of leakage of information and (3) neutralize enemy propaganda.
Those chosen as the leaders of intelligence entities can play a decisive role in shaping its performance. Special care must be taken to ensure that self-effacing professionals of the highest moral fibre and character, with known integrity and a penchant for holding the national interest above individual likes and dislikes, are appointed to such positions. While we may have been lucky to an extent in this respect, we must be careful that controversial people should never be appointed either to head any intelligence agency or even be given one of the senior appointments. The appointment of Lt Gen (Retd) S.R. Kallue as DG ISI may have become controversial because the prevailing norm did not accept anybody but a serving person but no one cannot doubt his great integrity, even though he was a political appointee he was certainly non-political. The heads of intelligence agencies and their immediate subordinates must be men of vision, capable of holding the national interest supreme. When required to tell home truths to the rulers themselves, they should not do so publicly or leak vested stories to the media, they must have the moral courage to do their blunt speaking in private conversations with the leaders. Having the responsibility to protect the nation’s integrity, they need to become the quiet arm of the process of accountability, guarding the nation’s frontiers from subversion from within and without, from enemies and friends alike in the national interest. Above all, they must be able to differentiate between what is anti-government and what constitutes anti-State activity. Unfortunately in our country (as in many others) any anti-government activity is taken as anti-State, namely because the democratic process has not been institutionalized. As such any criticism levelled against the people in power is crassly labelled as unpatriotic, patriotism being the last refuge of the scoundrel. At times, our insecure leaders turn to the intelligence agencies to actively label their critics unpatriotic, more often than not the intelligence agencies fall over themselves to ferret out (or invent) information about vocal opponents and/or critics of the regime so that they can endear themselves to those in power. What is essentially an anti-government stance is transformed into an anti-State activity. This normal modus operandi tars and feathers genuinely patriotic individuals having the moral courage to stand up and protest. Since merit is suspect in Pakistan and jealousy imbibed in the national character, persecution is thus force-multiplied. This is downright unfair and dangerous as it couples genuine critics with rabidly anti-State individuals who then find refuge in numbers and get the necessary camouflage to escape accountability. Ultimately it destroys the credibility of the intelligence agencies themselves. For the nation this would be the ultimate disaster, preceding the destruction of the nation. All intelligence agencies must carry out self-accountability as a constant process, being careful about subversives and those in their own hierarchy who would use the resources of their agencies for their own selfish and personal purposes. These entities must have an in-built system, a Standard Operating Procedure (SOP), to carry out a constant self-cleansing process and thereafter look to an Ombudsman-type watchdog monitoring agency to act as a FAIL-SAFE mechanism if self-accountability fails.
No nation can afford that its intelligence agencies are subject to the continuing drumbeat of criticism. Facing an implacable foe, we cannot allow the operations of these agencies to become the subject of public debate, this would play into the hands of enemy agencies. The very nature of cloak and dagger operations requires that in the supreme national interest they remain in the shadows. Rajiv Gandhi was most certainly assassinated by an LTTE operative who was once trained by RAW, has the RAW been taken to public task? Given those parameters, whatever may be the provocation (or even justification), the news media must exercise restraint and adhere to an unwritten code of conduct for the sake of Pakistan.
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