TERRORISM: US CREATION

by Harkishan Singh Surjeet

The first thing to remember in this context is that the Taliban did not come as a bolt from the blue. Like several other terrorist groups active in various parts of the world, they are in fact the creation of the same US imperialists who are today fulminating against them. This is something like an old tale retold --- that you open the bottle and free the genie, and the genie becomes a menace for you.

As is known to the whole world, it was the US imperialism that propped up a number of Mujahideen groups to fight against the PDPA government of Afghanistan that came into existence after the Saur Revolution in 1979. All the sophisticated weapons the Taliban have today, ranging from AK series rifles to rocket launchers to tanks and aircraft, were supplied to them by the US imperialists through Pakistan. These groups were provided arms training as well as generous amounts of money by the US in a bid to overthrow the PDPA regime in Afghanistan. Just like the USA helped, armed and trained the Contra terrorists of Nicaragua, the fundamentalist groups in Sudan, Algeria and several other countries, the killer mercenaries in almost every country of Latin America, and the Florida based anti-Cuba terrorist groups. Many of the terrorist groups operating in Kashmir and north-east India, and in Punjab earlier, are/were getting funding and arms from the same source.

This reliance of US imperialism on terrorism as an extra-legal arm of its over-aggressive foreign policy has been known to the world during the last 56 years since the end of the second world war. It is no secret that the CIA had been instrumental in planning and executing the assassination of Patrice Lumumba (Congo), Bandarnaike (Sri Lanka), Mosaddiq (Iran), Salvador Allende (Chile), Mujibur-Rahman (Bangladesh) and a host of other political leaders across the globe. Even today, before our own eyes, the Americans are backing the mass murder of Palestinians by the same Zionists who perpetrated the Shabra and Shatila massacres in 1982, killing more than 17,500 Palestinians.

By a strange irony of fate, Allende was murdered on September 11 in 1973, the same date on which the US itself faced terrorist attacks this year.

USA'S GLOBAL STRATEGY

As for Afghanistan, US imperialists have been eyeing it ever since the end of the second world war when they emerged as a superpower. The very position of the country in the centre of the Old World gives it a unique importance in the US geo-political strategy that is aimed at establishing its unchallenged dominance over the world. Afghanistan had been at the core of British diplomacy when India was a British colony, and the British rulers fought two Afghan wars in order to have their hegemony in Kabul. The US policy towards Afghanistan is a continuation of the same British colonial drive in a different situation. Be it the Zaheer Shah regime, the Dawood government or later, the US always tried to have a foothold in the country, as the existence of a puppet government in Kabul will tremendously help it establish its hegemony over the region.

It is in this context that the US claim to fight international terrorism has to be viewed.
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Countries like Pakistan have also to draw a lesson from these attacks. For years, the rulers of Pakistan have been funding, training and arming the terrorist groups as part of their proxy war against India. Earlier, they served as agents of the US in the region, in the latter s bid to overthrow the PDPA government of Afghanistan. But what happened ultimately was that these very Afghan Mujahideen and refugees became a grave threat to the internal peace and security in Pakistan. Karachi became the centre of drug and arms trade involving these Mujahideen and refugees, and a city where exchange of gunfire in broad daylight became a routine affair. The life of peace-loving citizens of Karachi and some other cities became extremely insecure.

Moreover, while the Pakistani rulers seek to glorify terrorism in Kashmir as a holy war, though in vain, Pakistan-based terrorist groups have become a "state within a state" and no mainstream party is in a position to challenge their hold on the country s politics. Both Ms Bhutto and Nawaz Sharif had had to play the same tune, which was in fact the tune set by the top brass of the army and the ISI, and each of the latter has a vested interest in the continuation of terrorism in the region. General Musharraf was therefore in a truly unenviable plight when the US put its demand for air passage facility in a rigid yes/no format. Only three weeks ago he had vowed to fight against terrorism, the Sind government had imposed a ban on fund collection for terrorist purposes, and had coyly withdrawn it after only two days.
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September 19, 2001