The powers that be can breath a sigh of relief at the fortuitous three-month reprieve granted by FATF where it was anticipated that the US motion — backed by Britain, France and Germany — to have Pakistan added to the ‘grey list’ of countries would pass through. Although no details were available, sources suggested that China, Turkey, and Russia, opposed the motion which was jointly-moved by the US and the UK against Pakistan.
While this US move is largely marketed as “politically motivated” with an aim to undermine the country’s economic growth, the fact of the matter remains that Pakistan’s frantic scrambling to ban Jamaat-ud-Dawa and related charities run by Hafiz Saeed played a crucial role in helping Islamabad’s case where our President promulgated the ordinance that allowed the government to outlaw all organizations that are declared to be terrorists under UN Security Council resolutions.
What should be called to attention is the question of why did the state not implement this crackdown earlier if it had substantial evidence against the charities and if an amendment was possible. Paradoxically, it also spit-shines the very manacles that Pakistan keeps trying to hide behind incessant muscle-flexing against US pressure and terrorist outfits. Its concurrent sympathies and ties with groups affiliated with terrorism fetters it to fundamentalism at one end and the benediction of the International community shackles its political-economic welfare at the other.
Pakistan remained on the global terror financing watch list from 2012 to 2015. Had the US move succeeded this time, Pakistan’s economic woes would have multiplied. The cost of doing business would have increased, foreign investment could have dried up worsening the country’s macroeconomic position amidst a widening trade deficit and falling foreign exchange reserves. Since delisting the country in February 2015, Pakistan made significant changes in improving its anti-money laundering and counter-terrorism financing regime. The message that the state keeps putting out in the International community amidst the filibustering is its amenity to ‘the carrot and stick approach’; where aid suspension won’t work, the raised stick of imposing global ostracization will.
While last minute scrambling to undertake postscript measures and appealing to strategic ‘friends’ has worked to allay the impended bearing down of an antagonistic US, what is needed is a mulling over of Pakistan’s current position. These three months should be used to take effective measures to weed out terror networks and counter terror funding across the board.
There is also a need to create an effectual lobbying network that acts to sustain such efforts and a reconfiguration of Pakistan’s ties with antagonists at home and abroad.