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2019-10-18 India-Pakistan
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FATF: Can Pakistan avoid global watchdog's terror 'black list?'
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| One most sincerely hopes they can’t, but one feels cynicism flowing in through the cracks. |
[DW] Pakistain has taken some steps to avoid the Financial Action Task Force's "black list," but experts say the country lacks a long-term strategy to deal with the terrorism issue. Shamil Shams reports from Gay Paree.
Earlier this month, Pak Prime Minister Imran Khan
...aka The Great Khan , who who convinced himself that playing cricket qualified him to lead a nuclear-armed nation with severe personality disorders...
urged Kashmiri protesters not to cross the border between Pakistain- and India-administered Kashmir
Continued from Page 2
...a disputed territory lying between India and Pakistain. After partition, the Paks grabbed half of it and call it Azad (Free) Kashmir . The remainder they refer to as "Indian Occupied Kashmir". They have fought four wars with India over it, the score currently 4-0 in New Delhi's favor. After 72 years of this nonsense, India cut the Gordian knot in 2019, removing the area's special status, breaking off Ladakh as a separate state, and allowing people from other areas to settle (or in the case of the Pandits, to resettle) there....
, as it would strengthen New Delhi's narrative that Islamabad supports Kashmiri holy warriors.
He also said that any border violation would be damaging for the Kashmiris, who have been in a state of lockdown since August 5, when Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi scrapped Jammu and Kashmir's special, semiautonomous status.
Khan would not have issued the warning under normal circumstances. His caution, analysts say, is a result of Pakistain's ongoing review by the Gay Paree-based Financial Action Task Force (FATF), an inter-governmental body established in 1989 to combat money laundering and terrorist financing.
FATF put Pakistain on its "gray list" in June 2018,
| ...what took them so long? |
and gave Islamabad an October 2019 deadline to take action against home-grown holy warrior Islamist groups and cut off their funding.
The international body is set to announce on Friday whether Pakistain has done enough to avoid the FATF "black list," which includes only two countries ‐ Iran
...a theocratic Shiite state divided among the Medes, the Persians, and the (Arab) Elamites. Formerly a fairly civilized nation ruled by a Shah, it became a victim of Islamic revolution in 1979. The nation is today noted for spontaneously taking over other countries' embassies, maintaining whorehouses run by clergymen, involvement in international drug trafficking, and financing sock puppet militias to extend the regime's influence. The word Iran is a cognate form of Aryan, the abbreviation IRGC is a cognate form of Stürmabteilung (or SA), the term Supreme Guide is a cognate form of either Shah or Führer or maybe both, and they hate Jews Zionists Jews. Their economy is based on the production of oil and vitriol...
and North Korea
...hereditary Communist monarchy distinguished by its truculence and periodic acts of violence. Distinguishing features include Songun (Army First) policy, which involves feeding the army before anyone but the Dear Leadership, and Juche, which is Kim Jong Il's personal interpretation of Marxism-Leninism, which he told everybody was brilliant. In 1950 the industrialized North invaded agrarian South Korea. Twenty-one countries of the United Nations eventually contributed to the UN force opposing the invasion, with the United States providing around 90% of the military personnel. Seventy years later the economic results are in and it doesn't look good for Juche...
Being "blacklisted" by the 37-nation bloc could have serious implications for Pakistain's already fragile economy, as possible sanctions would not allow the country from seeking the financial loans it needs on a regular basis.
FATF could also decide to keep the South Asian country on its "gray list," which would mean that it believes that Pakistain's financial system continues to pose a risk to the international financial system because of "strategic deficiencies" in its ability to prevent terror financing and money laundering.
The FATF "gray list" list also features Æthiopia, Yemen
...an area of the Arabian Peninsula sometimes mistaken for a country. It is populated by more antagonistic tribes and factions than you can keep track of...
, Iraq, Syria, Serbia, Sri Lanka, Trinidad and Tobago, Vanuatu and Tunisia. Last year, Bosnia and Herzegovina were shifted to the "white list."
HAS PAKISTAIN GONE AFTER TERRORISTS?
In August, Hammad Azhar, Pakistain's minister for economic affairs, said that Pakistain would "do everything to promote peace in the region," adding that it was improbable that Pakistain would be placed on the FATF "black list."
"We have explicitly told all the participants of the APG (FATF's Asia-Pacific Group on Money Laundering) that Pakistain is working exactly per the requirements of FATF and would accomplish them soon," he said.
| But the deadline is today, not “soon”, O economic minister. |
Sources in Gay Paree say Pakistain has completely or partly compiled with most of the 40 FATF demands, albeit some of them need more work.
Prime Minister Khan's government did take some steps to allay the concerns of the international community. The authorities detained Hafiz Saeed
...founder of Lashkar-e-Taiba and its false-mustache offshoot Jamaat-ud-Dawa. The United Nations declared the JuD a terrorist organization in 2008 and Hafiz Saeed a terrorist as its leader. Hafiz, JuD and LeT are wholly-owned subsidiaries of the Pak intel apparatus, so that amounted to squat. He is periodically placed under house arrest so it looks like the govt is doing something. Once the heat is off they let him go....
, the alleged criminal mastermind of the 2008 Mumbai terror attacks, and arrested four brass hats of Saeed's Lashkar-e-Taiba
...the Army of the Pure, an Ahl-e-Hadith terror organization founded by Hafiz Saeed. LeT masquerades behind the Jamaat-ud-Dawa facade within Pakistain and periodically blows things up and kills people in India. Despite the fact that it is banned , always an interesting concept in Pakistain, the organization remains an blatant tool and perhaps an arm of the ISI...
group on charges of terrorism financing.
Alice Wells, head of the US state department's South and Central Asian Bureau, welcomed the measures, saying that "Pakistain, for its own future, must prevent holy warrior groups from operating on its soil."
India, however, is still unsatisfied with Pakistain's counterterrorism measures, alleging they're an eyewash and demanding FATF to blacklist the country.
"Islamabad has no other option but to act against holy warriors. The international community is demanding Pakistain's security establishment to put things in order," Khalid Hameed Farooqi, a Brussels-based senior Pak journalist and diplomatic affairs analyst, told DW.
He added that former PM Nawaz Sharif
...served two three non-consecutive terms as prime minister, heads the Pakistain Moslem League (Nawaz). Noted for his spectacular corruption, the 1998 Pak nuclear test, border war with India, and for being tossed by General Musharraf, then by the courts...
's government had taken several legislative actions to rein in Islamists, but the country's powerful military continued to back some proxy jihadist groups.
| ...exactly what this FATF thingy is intended to prevent... |
"In 2017, the Pak government sent several top diplomats to Washington, Gay Paree and Brussels, to highlight Indian atrocities in Kashmir. But the officials in these Western capitals clearly told them to act against Hafiz Saeed first," said Farooqi, underlining the importance of Saeed's arrest in avoiding the FATF black list.
| Donald Trump is no Barack Obama. |
But Amjad Shoaib, a retired military official and defense analyst, says that FATF is "an instrument in the hands of big powers."
"India and the US have ganged up against Pakistain. We should not be blackmailed. There is no evidence against Hafiz Saeed. Still we arrested him. These are all pressure tactics," Shoaib stressed.
NO LONG-TERM STRATEGY
Security analysts say that Pak authorities are only focused on avoiding FATF's "black list" instead of tackling the issue on a long-term basis. They say the country's longstanding security policies regarding India and Afghanistan have remained intact.
Islamabad's ties with New Delhi and Kabul have only deteriorated in the past few years, with Afghan and Indian authorities accusing Pakistain of aiding holy warrior groups.
Tensions between India and Pakistain have increased manifold this year due to an escalating Kashmir conflict. On the other hand, Pakistain's efforts to broker a peace deal between the US and the Afghan Taliban
 ...Arabic for students ...
have so far not yielded result.
"FATF is pressuring Pakistain so that it can bring the Taliban to a peace settlement. The ’black list' threat is being used to force Pakistain to serve American interests," said Shoaib.
But Usman Kakar, a Pak senator, says shifting blame on others won't help Pakistain. "It is unfortunate that Pakistain is still distinguishing between good and bad holy warriors. We have not taken any concrete action against terrorist organizations," he said.
"But I think Pakistain is still not going to be blacklisted by FATF because Washington needs Islamabad right now.
| Pakistan has been assuming that since 1947. |
I think the FATF will give more time to Pakistain," said Kakar.
"But in the meantime, we must crack down on all Death Eater and terrorist outfits because it is in our own interest," he added. 
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