Originally published in Himal Southasian, August '09
The shadowy profile kept by the ISI is a mixed blessing for the Pakistani intelligence network. Manoeuvring and plotting behind closed doors and maximum security gates, they have long acted with total impunity. But, as a consequence, the ISI are casually suspected of lurking behind any foul play within (and outside) Pakistan, from terrorist training to election rigging to the abduction and murder of political opponents. To put it mildly, they have a public image problem.
In response, they are undergoing a PR-savvy makeover, and throwing upon their unsignposted doors to Western journalists and other habitual critics. In weekly receptions within their wood-panelled offices, liveried servants treat the guests to refreshments, while suited officials introduce themselves fully before showing a series of power-point presentations, where ‘confidential’ details of the Taliban insurgency and the hunt for al-Qaeda are revealed in neat bullet points. All to show the world that they are an honest, tea-drinking bunch who wouldn’t dream of nurturing a Kashmiri suicide bomber.
An ISI official – one of a few now authorised to speak to the press – summed up their new policy of ‘opening up’ to the world: ‘In the past, irrespective of whether we did something, we were getting blamed for it. Now we want to reach out and get our point of view across’. Influencing the local press, through bribery or intimidation, is par for the course; but this is the first time they have courted the international media. Whether these congenial tea receptions will convince is another matter entirely. For the last thirty years their imprint has been unmistakable on the dirtier fringes of government policy: most dubiously, funding and training separatist militants in India-controlled Kashmir, and backing the Taliban’s rise to power in Afghanistan – both strategies that have come back to bite the Pakistani state.
Within Pakistan they are viewed with a mixture of awe and fear; they are ambiguously referred to as the ‘white angels’, on account of the white shalwar kameez they wear while ‘visible’. The omnipresent ears of the military, their tentacles spread through a huge phone and email monitoring capability and an entrenched network of informers. Under Musharraf’s presidency, they abducted hundreds of political opponents, allegedly torturing many of them. Acting under no laws but their own, they are commonly said to be a ‘state within a state’.
But their new strategy has won some small yet notable victories. In late July, the New York Times ran a front page highlighting the difficulties the US surge in Afghanistan has presented Pakistan – sourced entirely from one of those ISI briefings. An ISI official was jubilant about this propaganda coup: ‘That was the first time [a Western journalist] carried both sides of the argument. I think we are getting there.’ But this is merely a PR campaign; genuine transparency is, of course, not the stock in trade of a spy agency. And a ‘friendlier’ ISI suggests a weaker ISI; the loss of the arrogant swagger of the past points to the increasing impotency of the Pakistani state – not something to be welcomed by even the most ardent ISI critic.
The shadowy profile kept by the ISI is a mixed blessing for the Pakistani intelligence network. Manoeuvring and plotting behind closed doors and maximum security gates, they have long acted with total impunity. But, as a consequence, the ISI are casually suspected of lurking behind any foul play within (and outside) Pakistan, from terrorist training to election rigging to the abduction and murder of political opponents. To put it mildly, they have a public image problem.
In response, they are undergoing a PR-savvy makeover, and throwing upon their unsignposted doors to Western journalists and other habitual critics. In weekly receptions within their wood-panelled offices, liveried servants treat the guests to refreshments, while suited officials introduce themselves fully before showing a series of power-point presentations, where ‘confidential’ details of the Taliban insurgency and the hunt for al-Qaeda are revealed in neat bullet points. All to show the world that they are an honest, tea-drinking bunch who wouldn’t dream of nurturing a Kashmiri suicide bomber.
An ISI official – one of a few now authorised to speak to the press – summed up their new policy of ‘opening up’ to the world: ‘In the past, irrespective of whether we did something, we were getting blamed for it. Now we want to reach out and get our point of view across’. Influencing the local press, through bribery or intimidation, is par for the course; but this is the first time they have courted the international media. Whether these congenial tea receptions will convince is another matter entirely. For the last thirty years their imprint has been unmistakable on the dirtier fringes of government policy: most dubiously, funding and training separatist militants in India-controlled Kashmir, and backing the Taliban’s rise to power in Afghanistan – both strategies that have come back to bite the Pakistani state.
Within Pakistan they are viewed with a mixture of awe and fear; they are ambiguously referred to as the ‘white angels’, on account of the white shalwar kameez they wear while ‘visible’. The omnipresent ears of the military, their tentacles spread through a huge phone and email monitoring capability and an entrenched network of informers. Under Musharraf’s presidency, they abducted hundreds of political opponents, allegedly torturing many of them. Acting under no laws but their own, they are commonly said to be a ‘state within a state’.
But their new strategy has won some small yet notable victories. In late July, the New York Times ran a front page highlighting the difficulties the US surge in Afghanistan has presented Pakistan – sourced entirely from one of those ISI briefings. An ISI official was jubilant about this propaganda coup: ‘That was the first time [a Western journalist] carried both sides of the argument. I think we are getting there.’ But this is merely a PR campaign; genuine transparency is, of course, not the stock in trade of a spy agency. And a ‘friendlier’ ISI suggests a weaker ISI; the loss of the arrogant swagger of the past points to the increasing impotency of the Pakistani state – not something to be welcomed by even the most ardent ISI critic.
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