Peace and Pakistan

The besieged country looks for a breather

Pakistan army chief Qamar Javed Bajwa’s recent call for “extending the hand of peace” to India needs to be viewed with circumspection. Coming less than a month after both countries’ directors general of military operations agreed to honour the 2003 ceasefire along the Line of Control (LoC) and after he and Prime Minister Imran Khan had made similar qualified statements at functions three days apart in February, it is clear that Islamabad’s moves stem from urgent internal compulsions. For one, its economy had slowed sharply before the pandemic with gross domestic product growth sliding from a decade-high of 5.8 per cent in 2017-18 to (-) 0.4 per cent in 2019-20. The pandemic year is unlikely to improve this trajectory. Pakistan is surviving on a $1.4-billion loan from the International Monetary Fund under a Rapid Financing Instrument scheme plus $2 billion from the US and other G20 multilateral institutions (the relaxation of conditions under the Extended Fund Facility Programme — Pakistan’s 13th such programme — in March last year also helped).

The flow of all this dollar funding could be in jeopardy if the country is blacklisted by the Financial Action Task Force (FATF). On March 2, the 39-member Paris-based FATF decided to keep Pakistan on the “grey list” and gave it three more months to meet its commitments. The country has been on the list since June 2018 and has to fulfil a 27-point action plan to avoid blacklisting. These commitments include imposing sanctions on powerful leaders of terrorist outfits. According to one report, Pakistan lost $38 billion during its time on the grey list (which includes a stint between 2008 and 2015) but a blacklisting could put it on a par with North Korea or Iran. An olive branch to its greatest nuclear-armed enemy, therefore, could send out multiple messages to western donors and financers of Pakistan’s commitment to tackling terror. It is also worth noting that General Bajwa had made similar noises in 2018, when the Trump administration was preparing a strategy of exit from Afghanistan, which Pakistan views as its bulwark for strategic depth. That effort was given short shrift, but a new administration in Washington offers fresh signalling opportunities as the US moves forward with its exit plans.

This latest olive branch also needs to be seen in the context of the deteriorating relations between Pakistan and China. Tensions over the $60-billion China-Pakistan Economic Corridor have been building since Mr Khan came to power. China has been backing away from its financing commitments owing to delays and militant attacks on Chinese engineers at Gwadar Port and elsewhere. The fact that India could transfer divisions from the LoC to the Line of Actual Control to fight Chinese incursions without Pakistan taking advantage could be considered one potent sign of Islamabad’s version of realpolitik.

Any Indian response so far has come via a riposte from Punjab Chief Minister Amarinder Singh suggesting that Pakistan should control the ISI and stem cross-border infiltration. But wary from the negative outcomes of earlier peace feelers, New Delhi has refrained from an official response. Certainly, the ceasefire offers a much-needed respite for populations along the border, where villages and livelihoods have been all but destroyed from military operations. Equally, India is spared a two-front crisis as long as the stand-off with China in Ladakh continues. High alert, however, should remain the watchwords.