Identifier
Created
Classification
Origin
06ISLAMABAD22499
2006-12-18 10:56:00
CONFIDENTIAL
Embassy Islamabad
Cable title:  

LEADING PAKISTANI PASHTUN BROADCASTER TROUBLED

Tags:  AF PK PREL PTER NATO 
pdf how-to read a cable
VZCZCXRO7654
PP RUEHDBU RUEHLH RUEHPW
DE RUEHIL #2499/01 3521056
ZNY CCCCC ZZH
P 181056Z DEC 06
FM AMEMBASSY ISLAMABAD
TO RUEHC/SECSTATE WASHDC PRIORITY 5602
INFO RUEHTA/AMEMBASSY ALMATY PRIORITY 9734
RUEHAH/AMEMBASSY ASHGABAT PRIORITY 1568
RUEHEK/AMEMBASSY BISHKEK PRIORITY 3912
RUEHBY/AMEMBASSY CANBERRA PRIORITY 0893
RUEHLM/AMEMBASSY COLOMBO PRIORITY 1048
RUEHKA/AMEMBASSY DHAKA PRIORITY 1812
RUEHDBU/AMEMBASSY DUSHANBE PRIORITY
RUEHBUL/AMEMBASSY KABUL PRIORITY 6585
RUEHKT/AMEMBASSY KATHMANDU PRIORITY 7482
RUEHLO/AMEMBASSY LONDON PRIORITY 4787
RUEHNE/AMEMBASSY NEW DELHI PRIORITY 9880
RUEHOT/AMEMBASSY OTTAWA PRIORITY 1036
RUEHNT/AMEMBASSY TASHKENT PRIORITY 2287
RUEHTC/AMEMBASSY THE HAGUE PRIORITY 0973
RUEHKP/AMCONSUL KARACHI PRIORITY 3817
RUEHLH/AMCONSUL LAHORE PRIORITY 0849
RUEHPW/AMCONSUL PESHAWAR PRIORITY 9090
RUEAIIA/CIA WASHDC PRIORITY
RHWSMRC/USCINCCENT MACDILL AFB FL PRIORITY
RUEKJCS/JOINT STAFF WASHINGTON DC PRIORITY
RUEKJCS/SECDEF WASHINGTON DC PRIORITY
RHEHNSC/NSC WASHDC PRIORITY
C O N F I D E N T I A L SECTION 01 OF 02 ISLAMABAD 022499 

SIPDIS

SIPDIS

E.O. 12958: DECL: 11/16/2016
TAGS: AF PK PREL PTER NATO
SUBJECT: LEADING PAKISTANI PASHTUN BROADCASTER TROUBLED
AFTER DISCUSSION WITH KARZAI

Classified By: Ambassador Ryan C. Crocker, Reasons 1.4 (b) and (d)

C O N F I D E N T I A L SECTION 01 OF 02 ISLAMABAD 022499

SIPDIS

SIPDIS

E.O. 12958: DECL: 11/16/2016
TAGS: AF PK PREL PTER NATO
SUBJECT: LEADING PAKISTANI PASHTUN BROADCASTER TROUBLED
AFTER DISCUSSION WITH KARZAI

Classified By: Ambassador Ryan C. Crocker, Reasons 1.4 (b) and (d)


1. (C) Summary and introduction: According to Hassan Khan,
editor of Pakistan's leading Pashtun language foreign affairs
television program on Khyber TV, Afghan President Karzai
seemed "confused about many things" during their lengthy
meeting in early December meeting. Khan, who described his
December 1-7 visit to Kabul during a meeting with poloff on
December 15, said the high point of the visit had been a
several-hour-long off-air meeting with President Karzai,
followed by an interview for Khyber TV. Khan came away with
the impression that Karzai is paralyzed with fear and worry,
so much so that Khan was tempted to tell the President "Even
if you think people may kill you tomorrow, that gives you 24
hours to accomplish something. You should use those hours."
Khan was disturbed by the widespread acceptance amongst
Afghans of conspiracy theories placing Pakistan at the center
of its neighbor's security woes, an attitude that offended
his own sense of patriotism. He was equally troubled that
many Afghans outside Kabul have not seen an improvement in
their quality of life, despite five years of promised
assistance by the international community. End summary and
introduction.


2. (C) From Khan's perspective, President Karzai did not
seem to understand how a true jirga operates. Karzai opened
the meeting with a stinging criticism of the way Khan had
reported on the recent Pashtun Peace Jirga in Peshawar
organized by the Awami National Party in mid-November. Khan
had stated on air that the event had been more a "seminar"
than a jirga. Karzai thought Khan had spoken offensively of
ANP leaders. The journalist replied that he simply believed
that an event where various leaders arrived, spoke to the
assembled masses, and then left was not a jirga at all and
should not be called one. Khan reminded Karzai that a jirga
was where elders came together as equals, decided on an
agenda, and developed decisions or suggestions for dealing
with the problem(s) at hand. By that measure, according to

Khan, the Peshawar event did not meet the definition of a
jirga.


3. (C) Khan observed that the proposed Pak-Afghan parallel
jirgas were also going to be seminars rather than jirgas,
wondering whether Karzai would be willing to enter a jirga
as an equal to everyone in the room and listen to what anyone
and everyone had to say. Karzai said he certainly would.
Khan asked what would happen if participants brought up the
Durand Line or said that the Afghan government should
disband. Karzai replied that he would answer all questions
and concerns. Khan noted again that, in his answers, he had
found Karzai "confused" on the potential pitfalls of the
jirgas.


4. (C) Khan was impressed that everyone he met in Kabul
shared President Karzai's fixation on Pakistan as the root of
Afghanistan's security problems. He heard so many conspiracy
theories during his week-long visit that he briefly started
believing them himself, before realizing that many of the
stories were simply too outrageous to be true. Was it really
possible, he asked, that 350 militants had crossed the border
into Afghanistan together, then traveled hundreds of miles to
interior Afghanistan to fight the Afghan National Army (ANA),
without anyone along the way in Afghanistan noticing them?
And if that turned out to be true, Afghan and ISAF forces
were also be to blame for not stopping them. Khan does not
doubt that Taliban shelter in Pakistan, nor does he doubt
that some Pakistanis might be helping them. Nonetheless, as
a Pakistani Pashtun, he was deeply offended that Afghanistan

ISLAMABAD 00022499 002 OF 002


seemed to be blaming Pakistan for all of its problems. He
speculated at length whether Iran is more involved in the
insurgency than Karzai wanted to admit.


5. (C) Khan deeply appreciated the resiliency and strength
of the Afghan people, and regaled poloff at length with some
of the black humor he had heard during his visit. His
favorite joke: If you want a free taxi ride in Afghanistan,
just take out your prayer beads and start praying loudly as
you reach your destination; your driver will run away.
Indeed, Khan noted the greatest tragedy he found in Kabul was
that so little aid had reached people outside of the capital.
Without any noticeable improvement in their lives, he said,
people's anger would soon boil over. Can you, he wondered,
watch you wife or child starve, or need medical care but have
access to none, and not start to hate the people who promised
so much five years ago? Five years, he said, was a long time
to wait for help.


6. (C) Comment: Khan is neither a Pashtun nationalist nor
particularly religious. He notes that, in any Pakistan-wide
jirga, he will be a participant, not just a commentator. We
cannot say whether his skepticism of the cross-border jirgas
is broadly felt in the Pashtun populace, but it is clear that
the Pakistani Pashtuns' most visible and influential media
personality has his doubts.

CROCKER