les carnets de clarisse

Exposer le double jeu du Pakistan vis-à-vis des États-Unis serait une des motivations de Julian Assange, le fondateur de WikiLeaks.
Double jeu? Vus de la région, ces PakiLeaks n’apportent aucun éclairage nouveau sur le sujet, comme l’illustre cet ancien dessin de presse:

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Sur le double jeu du Pakistan

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Extrait de l’article de Rue89 :

« Le New York Times l’affirme : les documents montrent clairement que le Pakistan, officiellement allié des États-Unis qui lui versent plus d’un milliard de dollars par an, collabore avec les rebelles talibans :

« Ces documents […] laissent penser que le Pakistan, allié ostensible des États-Unis, autorise des représentants de ses services secrets à rencontrer en personne des talibans lors de réunions stratégiques secrètes destinées à organiser les réseaux rebelles en lutte contre les soldats américains en Afghanistan et même à fomenter des complots visant à assassiner des dirigeants afghans. »

Pour le géopolitologue Gérard Chaliand, ce double jeu du Pakistan «est une des clés majeures du conflit»:

« Tant que vous avez une logistique et un sanctuaire garantis, avec des réserves inépuisables sur le plan démographique, vous pouvez tenir des années. Le temps travaille pour vous.
Le Pakistan n’a jamais cessé de jouer un double jeu, dans la mesure où ses intérêts et ceux des États-Unis sont divergents. L’Afghanistan est son arrière-cour stratégique.»

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Qui définit les intérêts stratégiques du Pakistan? Qui les fait appliquer?

Une question intéressante, en regard des versions officielles occidentales. Car pour qui lit régulièrement la presse/les blogs pakistanais/les voix officieuses de l’ISI –comme Ahmed Quraishi, par exemple– ou leur miroirs indiens, la réponse est transparente.

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Ajit Ninan, The Times of India:

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Le gouvernement civil ne dirige pas l’Armée qui ne dirige pas la politique du Pakistan. Le gouvernement ne décide pas de la politique du Pakistan. L’Armée ne dirige pas l’ISI. Car tout est inversé : c’est l’ISI qui dirige la politique du Pakistan, via son bras armé, et détermine les intérêts vitaux du pays. Le gouvernement-chrysanthème gère uniquement les affaires courantes restantes et fait appliquer les décisions qui lui sont transmises.

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Quelques exemples :

1 • Les dessous de la rencontre SM Krishna / Shah Mehmood Qureshi :

« SM Krishna and Shah Mehmood Qureshi appeared quite relaxed and happy when they broke for lunch around 1300 hrs (Pakistan Standard Time) after the first round of talks. After having painstakingly worked out numerous CBM agreements and cosmetic gestures during Foreign Secretary Nirupama Rao’s visit to Islamabad last month, both Foreign Ministers were set to announce these agreements. A draft joint-statement was also ready in which the Pakistani side had appeared to give more concessions than they got in return –namely more promises to reign in JuD and Hafiz Saeed yet no word of protest on the Indian attempts to implicate the ISI in terrorism or to include Kashmir in talks.

This is when Kayani was forced to step into the picture and hold separate meetings with President Asif Ali Zardari and Prime Minister Yusuf Raza Gilani, making it absolutely clear on the two that Pakistan will not let itself be bullied
[…]

Krishna’s schedule was to leave at 3.20 pm and reach Pakistan Prime Minister Yousuf Raza Gilani’s office to meet him at 3.30 pm. The call on President Asif Ali Zardari was to follow at 5.30 pm at the Presidential palace.
Just 15 minutes prior to his departure, Krishna was informed that the order has been reversed and the call on Zardari will precede.

In the time slot Krishna was to meet Gilani, Kayani met the Prime Minister after having met with Zardari earlier.
According to the official release issued after Kayani’s meetings with Pakistan’s political leadership, the army chief discussed the security situation in the country and operational matters of the army.

However, when the talks resumed after Krishna’s two call-ons, the atmosphere totally changed.» 

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2 • la tentative de réforme du contrôle de l’ISI par Benazir Bhutto :

« The ISI, in essence is not an agency dealing with security threats ‘inside’ Pakistan. It is and it has always been Pakistan’s first line of defense, and we, as Pakistani nationalists, owe a lot to it. The ISI also deals with external threats to Pakistan, so putting it under the direct control of the interior ministry was absolutely unjustified.

The ISI has often been dubbed as a ’state within a state’ or a ‘parallel government’ in Pakistan, but believe me, had it not been for the ISI our corrupt politicians would have sold out every inch of our land and every remaining bit of our sovereignty and dignity as a nation. The ISI has maintained a strong check on these feudal politicians who have plundered national wealth over the past several decades.
[…]

Former DG ISI, Lt. Gen. (Retd.) Hameed Gul said that putting the ISI under the interior division should never even be thought of.
I would agree with Mr. Hameed Gul that indeed a conspiracy to weaken Pakistan’s defense system has been thwarted by taking back the decision.

In an interesting twist, the advisor to the Prime Minister on Interior Affairs, Rehman Malik said that he was absolutely unaware of any such decision or notification.» 

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3 • Weakening the ISI

« The last thing that the country and its citizens needs is a debate over who should supervise the ISI. People need to understand the role of the spy agency for the solidarity and security of the country. The ISI is the first line of defence of Pakistan.

The basic principle of handling sensitive information is that it should be known to as few people as possible – which is called a ‘need-to-know’ basis. Presently, outside the agency, sensitive information is known only to the prime minister.

Those playing with the ISI do not understand the stakes. Weakening the agency means weakening the government of the day, then weakening the army and thus weakening the country. Normally, it is our enemies who would wish for this to happen.» 

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4 • ISI, le bouclier du pays

« The Pakistani army shields Pakistan from its enemies, the ISI provides the outer shield for Pakistan and the army.» 

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5 • ISI’s Political Wing Dissolved: America’s plan to weaken the ISI

« Taken at face value, this is a commendable step in the right direction,»  the English-language daily newspaper Dawn said in an editorial today. But it added: « Officially dismantling the ISI’s political wing will be meaningless if meddling continues through unofficial channels. An entire mind-set has to change.» 

The civilian government, in power less than a year, had some bruising early encounters with the ISI. In July, Prime Minister Yousaf Raza Gillani tried to bring the agency under formal civilian administration. He was forced to rescind the order within 24 hours.

But the army chief of staff, Gen. Ashfaq Kayani — himself a former head of the ISI — has made it clear he wants the security establishment to renounce influence in policy matters. In September, Kayani appointed a new ISI chief, Lt. Gen. Ahmad Shujaa Pasha, replacing a Musharraf loyalist.

Pasha visited Washington last month. Since then, there have been some signs of closer cooperation between the ISI and U.S. intelligence, including the targeting last week of Rashid Rauf, an Al Qaeda operative who was believed killed in an American missile strike in the tribal area of North Waziristan.

« Maybe this is a symbolic first step toward establishing the supremacy of civilian authority, but the larger issue of civilian-military relations in Pakistan, including the ISI, will need to be watched for some years,»  said Rasul Baksh Rais, a Lahore-based political scientist and commentator.

He also noted that the decision to disband the political wing was easily reversible.
« If it were deemed necessary, it could be reactivated in a matter of hours,»  Rais said. « So it’s a welcome step, but it’s not certain how far it goes.» 

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Le Pakistan est une curiosité: un État dirigé par un de ses services de renseignements. Quant à la question de savoir si l’ISI est monolithique, rationnel et décryptable… WikiLeaks n’a pas la réponse. Dommage.

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WikiLeaks : quelques lectures instructives

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• l’histoire de l’avant-publication – The Story Behind the Publication of WikiLeaks’s Afghanistan Logs (Columbia Journalism Review)

Davies thought it unwise from a security standpoint to share Assange’s offer via the phone. Early Wednesday morning, Davies says he trained back to England to notify Alan Rusbridger, The Guardian’s editor in chief, who, in turn, called Bill Keller and, later, Mathias Müller Von Blumencron, top editors at The New York Times and Der Spiegel.

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• l’ « assurance-vie»  de WikiLeaks – Mysterious ‘insurance file’ posted on WikiLeaks (The Times of India)

Cryptome, another whistleblower site, said it may have been « pre-positioned for public release»  in the event of a « takedown»  of WikiLeaks by US authorities or if something happens to its founder, Julian Assange, an Australian national.
« In either scenario, WikiLeaks volunteers, under a prearranged agreement with Assange, could send out a password or passphrase to allow anyone who has downloaded the file to open it,»  Wired said.

Wired said the « insurance file»  may contain more material from Manning, including war logs from Iraq, video from Afghanistan and 260,000 US State Department cables.

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• l’opacité de WikiLeaks – Wikileaks, une machine à scoops efficace mais opaque (Le Figaro)

L’objectif à long terme, un brin grandiloquent, est de devenir «l’organe de renseignements le plus puissant au monde.»

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• un résumé des contenus et réactions – Afghanistan : ce que disent les documents de WikiLeaks (Rue89)

Ces rapports sont riches d’enseignements sur les opérations militaires, mais aussi sur le rôle du Pakistan, principal allié américain dans la région, les relations des troupes de l’Otan avec les différentes composantes de la société afghanes, et l’action de l’armée française sur place.

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