Pakistan – Lessons Still Unlearned

I don’t really know what to make of the attack on the Sri Lankan cricket team in Pakistan, but it certainly doesn’t inspire me with hope. The NYT has an interesting article on the attack, but it seems like Pakistan is essentially in a state of denial.

Criticism of Pakistan’s security arrangements intensified Wednesday when Chris Broad, a British umpire who had been traveling with the Sri Lankan team, launched a harsh public tirade against the Pakistani authorities, saying police melted away as the attackers opened fire. “We were promised that we would get presidential-style security,” Mr. Broad said.

But “in that hour of need, our security vanished,” he told a news conference when he arrived back in England at Manchester airport. “We are all extremely lucky to be here today.”

“There was not a sign of a policeman anywhere. They had gone, and left us to be sitting ducks.”

Mr. Broad did not explain how his criticism of the police squared with the fact that six officers died.

My question is why he should have to explain that? Sure six officers are dead, but they were likely killed before they had a chance to react. Were there only six officers present? That doesn’t sound like “presidential style security” to me. Since none of the attackers were killed or captured immediately, that would also seem to corroborate Mr. Broad’s story. Cowards and the unprepared die just as easily as heroes.

But the Pakistani government response makes me even more uncertain:

A senior official at the Interior Ministry, Rehman Malik, who is close to President Zardari, said: “We suspect a foreign hand behind this incident. The democracy of the country has been undermined, and foreigners are repeatedly attacked to harm the country’s image.”

Is this seriously the assumption that the Interior Ministry is operating under? That an attack similar in style, execution, and equipment to the one carried out in India last year came from outside Pakistan? All the evidence in the India attack points to it originating from Pakistan. That would seem to indicate to me that this attack was likely the work of a domestic hand, but for all of the goals stated by the Interior Ministry official.

All in all, the fact that the attackers all got away, and the Interior Ministry is already looking to blame foreign agitators makes me nervous. No doubt the Pakistani authorities will be looking to arrest suspects as quickly as possible, and convict as quickly as possible. I’m just worried that some poor kid might be caught in the wrong place at the wrong time, and pay the price for a crime whose real perpetrators are long gone, or worse yet, sheltered by the very ministries which should be rooting them out.

But as I’ve said before, the sooner the Pakistani people realize that terrorism is their problem, and not just America’s the sooner the situation in Pakistan and the rest of the region will improve.