IT SEEMS that reason has started prevailing over the rhetoric in the US because the deputy secretary of the State, John Negroponte’s response to a query that the US was dictating anti-terrorism policy to Pakistan’s new government sounded so. He said that the US had no plan to interfere in the policy matters of the newly born government in Pakistan. It is more so when it comes to policies on anti-terrorism. But not many in Pakistan are going to buy these words, as they are very much aware of these men.
The presence of another senior state department official, Richard Boucher, has invited some protests among Pakistanis on their belief that these people are hovering around Pakistan to undermine its natural course of democratic destiny, and there are some who claim that these officers have hidden agendas on anti-terrorism moves of the new government.
The apprehensions sound relevant because these men are around at a time when Gilani stands headed to lead a new coalition government. As the nation is slowly coming to terms with a new administrative order, the press is staying really vigilant, and some dailies have come up with editorials commenting on the ‘unsolicited’ nature of these officers. One of them described the US presence in Pak soil as “meddling in Pakistan’s internal affairs”.
However, the two officials ruled out all apprehensions and criticisms and said that the visit was already planned two months ago. The purpose of the visit was to reaffirm the US’s support for the new Pakistani government.
“There is no hidden agenda and certainly no desire to interfere or intervene in any way in the political arrangements that are developing,” Negroponte said. “This suggestion that we expect Pakistan to carry out activities on our behalf and at our behest that are not in Pakistan’s interest is simply wrong,” he added.
Meanwhile, the White House has said that it expects continued cooperation between the US and Pakistan. But the number of people, who believed that Negroponte’s visit was an attempt to shore up the President Pervez Musharraf, was very big. If the words of these two men and the clarification thereof from the White House are anything to go by, Pakistan is bound to have a coalition future and the rest of the world, barring the US, can have a great sigh of relief that these impoverished people are finally seeing a little light at the end of the tunnel.
Negroponte and Boucher had better leave the place and let the Pakistanis decide their destiny the same way they did with the elections. These men have no business there. When are these people going to understand that it is unfair to interfere in the internal affairs of others?
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