British Foreign Secretary David Miliband has just spent two days in Pakistan. His visit followed what he called “the democratic transition that Pakistan and its people have undergone over the last few months.”
He declared he wanted Britain to be “a leading voice calling for Pakistan’s re-entry into the Commonwealth, and re-entry into the Commonwealth family where it belongs.”
I appreciate David Miliband is not particularly well known either abroad or even at home. This is not surprising. After obtaining a 1st Class degree at Oxford, he went on to the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (Kennedy School). In 1998 he was appointed head of the Prime Minister’s Policy Unit, and in 2001 he was “parachuted in” to South Shields, a safe Labour seat in the North East, for the general election. He arrived at the Foreign Office last June with his personal views on foreign policy virtually unknown. He is Britain’s third senior Cabinet minister and is tipped to lead the Labour Party one day.
It is worth noting that this was the second visit by the foreign secretary to Pakistan within a year. He seems genuinely interested in this troubled country, which has huge strategic importance and nuclear weapons. That said, the United Kingdom does have special ties with Pakistan and support for it is an important plank of foreign policy. There are some 800,000 British nationals of Pakistani origin. The United Kingdom is giving Pakistan 480 million pounds in aid over the next three years directed at poverty reduction.
Of course, the security relationship is very strong, and David Miliband will have been keeping a close eye on it. The United Kingdom has 7,800 troops in Helmand province in South Afghanistan. The Taleban use Pakistan as a safe haven in the winter and when put under pressure by British and other NATO troops. Some say Pakistan’s religious schools are excellent recruiting centers for Al-Qaeda and the Taleban.
In terms of domestic security in Britain many of the imams arrive from Pakistan and tend to take a very conservative view of Islam. The Security Service has suggested that of the 2000 terror suspects most are under a measure of control from Al-Qaeda leaders based in Pakistan (Somalia, Iraq and Algeria are also mentioned in this context).
Pakistan was suspended from the Commonwealth in October 1999, and it is entirely appropriate that the United Kingdom should be pushing to have it back in the fold in 2008. The Commonwealth is a voluntary association of 53 independent states which has its headquarters in Marlborough House, London. Perhaps to its own surprise it is in remarkably good order, and a network for stability and democracy in our turbulent world. Pakistan was suspended “pending a return to democracy”. Under the principles of good government established in Harare in 1991, all member states have to be democracies. (Zimbabwe left the Commonwealth in 2003). Assistance to other Commonwealth countries normally has priority in the bilateral aid programs of the economically strongest countries.
At the official dinner for him in Islamabad — the foreign secretary went on to Peshawar and the North West Frontier Province — he sat with Asif Ali Zardari, the co-chairman of the Pakistan People’s Party, on his right and Nawaz Sharif, the leader of the Pakistan Muslim League (N), on his left. According to the foreign secretary, Zardari and Sharif were “talking of their commitment to each other, and of their commitment to provide strong and stable and democratic leadership for their country.”
At a joint press conference with Shah Mehmood Qureshi, Pakistan’s foreign minister, David Miliband said, “A country where a political leader can be assassinated through terrorism, but none the less the country comes through stronger and more determined in its democratic spirit and its democratic commitments I think is a country that commands admiration ... And a country that can produce three or four political parties that are willing to put aside their differences and come together for the national interest is a country which I think signals to the world a deep desire to address the long-term issues in a serious way.”
In his talks on violent extremism “which is a struggle which confronts Pakistan — tragically — and confronts our country as well, and binds us together in important ways” there was a discussion of a multipronged approach. This is supposed to consist of a political approach, an economic approach and a security/military approach, and, we are told, Britain will be backing it in Afghanistan as well as in Pakistan. Critics might well say this is obvious and rather bland. Who has ever suggested ignoring the economic approach?
The assassination of Benazir Bhutto on Dec. 27 was an horrendous crime and a shattering blow to the country. Pakistan has done well in the intervening months.
