Authors: S. Hussain Zaidi
The executive order entails that his properties should be seized and bank accounts frozen, but Dawood continues to live in Pakistan, unhurt, untouched, and unaffected by the declaration.
I always felt US and their agencies were aware of Dawood Ibrahim’s whereabouts and his contribution to terror activities across India, but they do not want to bring him back or hand him over to India deliberately. Notwithstanding the US belief that Dawood is actually a collaborator of Osama Bin Laden, he can still live a luxurious life in Pakistan.
In a bid to defend their South Asian ally
Pakistan,
who has provided safe sanctuary to several of
India’s absconding terrorists, the US State Department officials prefer to simply beat about the bush.
It took a personal experience with the US authorities to realise that this declaration is just eyewash. The US prefers to play the part it is traditionally known to play in matters that are actually of some consequence—being fence-sitters. They want to keep the Indians happy with petty official documentation but support Pakistan in whatever way they can.
It was May 2007. East West Center of Honolulu, Hawaii as per their annual routine, had invited Asian journalists for a cultural exchange programme. There were eight participants from various Asian countries including Pakistan, Afghanistan, Indonesia, Bangladesh, Philippines, Malaysia, and India. India was the only country to have two participants: Shahid Khan, Bureau Chief of Press Trust of India, Kolkata, and me, working as Senior Editor in the Mumbai bureau of the
Indian Express
.
The East West Centre wanted to invite Asian journalists to give them an insight into the US policies towards Asian Muslims. They had also invited some senior journalists from American newspapers for discussions and debates.
The gamut of public relations exercise also included a tour of various US cities and government offices in those cities like a visit to Pentagon, Capitol Hill, and the state department office in Washington.
In the round table conference with the journalists, the East West Center representative Ms Susan Kreiffels introduced us to Assistant Secretary for South and Central Asian Affairs, Richard Boucher, a senior US diplomat.
Boucher was assigned the task of being a troubleshooter for the long standing dispute between Pakistan and India but suffers from the Henry Kissinger syndrome of being anti-India and pro-Pakistan. It may be noted that Kissinger is the only US diplomat to call the late Indira Gandhi ‘a witch’ and that ‘Indians are bastards’.
Similarly, Richard Boucher is known to be sympathetic to
Pakistan
in keeping in line with his country’s policy of turning a blind eye to
Pakistan’s follies.
Reproduced below is an excerpt from the verbatim transcript of the discussion with Boucher.
Roundtable with East-West Center Journalists Tour
May 14, 2007
Washington, D.C.
Assistant Secretary Boucher: Good to see you all. Welcome. When did you all arrive? This weekend?
Shahid Khan: Friday.
Assistant Secretary Boucher: Friday. So you probably feel the way I do. I came in Friday, not too late in the morning, from Sri Lanka and Maldives. All I can tell you is it’s a long way. You guys know that. I handle—I work on a region from India—actually, Maldives is the farthest south, to Kazakhstan. You might call it a backbone of stability—from India to Kazakhstan.
Shahid Khan:
Are you comfortable with what the Pakistani Government is doing with you?
Assistant Secretary Boucher: I’m comfortable [that] the Pakistani Government has done a lot to keep the pressure up and to actually impose more pressure on the foreign fighters and the Taliban and the others who are out there.
Bangladeshi reporter:
Sir, it’s known, well known that the Bangladeshi...Bangladesh is now, you know, is run by a quasi-military government, kind of, and there is a popular perception that they’re enjoying American blessings out there, because America is interested to...you know, in our coal mine and gas line and, you know, the sea port and—
Assistant Secretary Boucher: That’s silly, actually. I mean, if that’s what people think, I’m afraid they’re just wrong.
Bangladeshi journalist:
A statement of people—
Assistant Secretary Boucher: We’re interested in stability in Bangladesh. We’re interested in having a good partner in Bangladesh. We’re interested in the two things we’ve always worked on in Bangladesh: One is promoting democracy, and the second is helping them fight terrorism. I’d say the third one is developing the nation. Bangladesh has done pretty well economically in the past few years, but they’ve had a lot of political trouble and political turmoil. This government is a caretaker government. It’s important to remember that because the role of the caretaker government is to have an election, is to get to an election, a fair, free, open election that gives the people of Bangladesh a choice.
[I raised my hand
.
]
Hussain Zaidi: Sir.
Hussain Zaidi:
Are you aware that Pakistani soil has been used to create terrorism not only in India and Kashmir, but also in cities like Bombay? Karachi in Pakistan has been a safe haven for at least 30 terrorists wanted by Indian Government in Mumbai blasts of ’93 and subsequently other bombings?
Assistant Secretary Boucher: Well, if you’re going to accuse every country—I mean, there are terrorists in India. Look at the Mumbai bombings. Look at the train bombings.
Hussain Zaidi:
Yeah, but—
Assistant Secretary Boucher: They were local people and there were people with connections to other places, including Pakistan.
Question:
Yeah, but the kingpin is always Pakistan.
Assistant Secretary Boucher: No, I..I don’t think that’s completely true, frankly.
Hussain Zaidi:
India has always been a victim of terrorists who were remotely controlled by Pakistan and they have always produced evidence to the US, you still maintain that—
[Boucher once again switches to a
defensive mode.]
Assistant Secretary Boucher: I’m not here to have an argument. If you want to ask me a question, I’ll give you the answer, okay? There are terrorist groups that originated in Pakistan that are operating throughout the region. Some of those groups are now banned in Pakistan. Some of those groups have tried to assassinate President Musharraf as well as other people throughout the region. The fact is, you know, this is not a gang from one country to another. This is not an accusation from one country to another. These terrorists are operating and attacking governments throughout the region and particularly India and Pakistan. India and Pakistan have recognised that they have a common problem. They need to find common solutions. That’s why they have a mechanism to work together against terrorism. We think that’s good development. We’re against terrorists. We’re with India against terrorists. We’re with Pakistan against terrorists, and we all have to work together if we’re going to stop it. That’s our view of the situation.
[I was absolutely shocked by Boucher’s partisan attitude but now I have to directly ask about Dawood Ibrahim and the hypocrisy of the US in turning a blind eye towards him.]
Question:
Just one last thing. Dawood Ibrahim is declared global terrorist by the US. I think the US has also declared that Dawood is an ally of Al Qaida. So I think even the US appears to have in their possession, evidence of his being in Pakistan.
Assistant Secretary Boucher: I don’t know if that’s true. I mean, I do know that Dawood Ibrahim is a bad guy, and we deserve to get him, but we all have to work together. Yes?
[By now Boucher was thoroughly miffed with my persistent line of questioning and wanted to address other journalists
.
]
Shahid Khan:
How far are you confident that that India will be able to complete the nuclear deal, the US nuclear deal?
Assistant Secretary Boucher: I’m pretty confident. We had some good talks a couple of weeks ago when Foreign Secretary Menon was here. I think we went through things quite thoroughly and made some real significant progress. We’re trying to get back together as soon as we know we have a good basis for the next round to take it the next step forward. And so we’re waiting to hear back from the Indian side right now, but I’m pretty confident that we’re making the progress now that we had hoped to make, and that we’ll be able to conclude this deal the way both sides want to.
Question:
Does the position of India Government, the Manmohan Singh government and [inaudible] minority is there view [inaudible] the parliament deliberate?
Assistant Secretary Boucher: I think, you know, we’ve done this from the beginning with the Prime Minister. The President and the Prime Minister reached an agreement a long time ago. What we’re trying to do is carry out what they’ve already agreed. Their political situation hasn’t changed. The Prime Minister has been leading this process throughout. So I think the record so far shows that he can do this, and that he has been doing this successfully, and we’re going to continue to work with him to achieve it.
[The discussion continued for another 40 minutes where Boucher patiently answered questions about Afghanistan, Bangladesh, and, of course, Pakistan and how they have convinced President Musharraf to hold elections in Pakistan.]
The transcripts of the round table conference was made available to me by a State Department Official Ms Jennifer L. Viau on 9 June 2007.
28
The Big D Makes the
Forbes
Cut
O
n his 55
th
birthday on 26 December 2010, Dawood Ibrahim could not have asked for a better gift. In his chequered career as a mafia head, he added another bullet to his belt when the
Forbes
magazine listed him as the 50
th
most powerful man on the planet in its first annual ‘World’s Most Powerful People’ list of 2009. The list was topped by US President Barack Obama. The most recent list, when this book was in production, ranks him at 57, with Obama still at the top, and Joaquin Guzman Loera, the Mexican druglord still ahead of Dawood at 55. Interestingly, ISI chief Ahmed Shuja Pasha is the one separating the two of the most wanted criminals in the world.
Incidentally, India’s most wanted fugitive ganglord is thirty-eight ranks behind Prime Minister Manmohan Singh, who is currently at no. 19. Incidentally, in 2009, Al Qaeda leader, Osama bin Laden was just one step behind Manmohan Singh, who was then at 36, on the
Forbes
list of sixty-seven politicians, businessmen, religious figures, media heads, and one drug trafficker. Now though, with his death, Osama for obvious reasons does not feature on the list anymore.
Forbes
editors say they went by four broad parameters to make their list: Does the person have influence over lots of other people, financial resources controlled by these individuals, if they are powerful in multiple spheres, and do they actively use their power.
To quote from the article ‘The World’s Most Powerful People’
by Michael Noer and Nicole Perlroth in
Forbes
(11 November 2009, www.Forbes.com), ‘Power has been called many things. The ultimate aphrodisiac. An absolute corrupter. A mistress. A violin. But its true nature remains elusive. After all, a head of state wields a very different sort of power than a religious figure. Can one really compare the influence of a journalist to that of a terrorist? And is power unexercised, power at all?’
Forbes
asked.
Based on these parameters, Obama is followed by Russian Prime Minister Vladimir Putin with Chinese President Hu Jintao coming next.
Former President George W. Bush did not come close to making the final cut, while his predecessor in the Oval Office, Bill Clinton, currently ranks 50
th
, ahead of a number of sitting heads of government. Pope Benedict XVI, ranked 7
th
on our list, is the spiritual leader of more than a billion souls, or about one-sixth of the world’s population.
The only other notorious top criminal to figure on the list is billionaire Mexican drug lord Joaquin Guzmán. His family’s profile and rise in crime is strikingly similar to Dawood’s. Guzmán had over half a dozen siblings and had a hand-to-mouth existence in his childhood, though his father, unlike Dawood’s, was well-connected. Dawood’s father was a constable with a limited sphere of influence in the Muslim pockets of south Mumbai.
Again like Dawood, Guzmán made his mark at the age of 20 and then kept rising. He is the most notorious and feared drug trafficker of Mexico and his assets are valued at US $1 billion. There is no account of Dawood’s tangible or intangible wealth.
Dawood, the US business magazine says, runs an international drug trafficking, counterfeiting and weapons smuggling empire and is suspected to have links with the Al Qaeda, which seems to have more shades of powerplay than Guzmán, but the latter still remains higher on the list. Incidentally, Guzmán also celebrated his 55
th
birthday recently.