ISLAMABAD – The recent US pressure via Financial Action Task Force’smeeting was just the beginning of the new round of American nastiness.
The FATF, is an intergovernmental body based in Paris that sets globalstandards for fighting illicit finance, it had previously warned Pakistanthat it could, once again, be put on the watch list it if does not makefurther efforts to meaningfully crack down on money flow to militants.Earlier also Pakistan had remained on the global terror financing watchlist from 2012 to 2015.
Pakistan has called the US move “politically motivated” with an aim toundermine the country’s economic growth. It is part of over all Americanstrategy to contain China, and Pakistan is being pressured for joining theCPEC initiative.
America thinks that the CPEC would undermine its Asia-Pacific rebalanceeffort whose sole objective is to keep China entangled in its localconflicts pertaining to South China Sea and East China Sea. America isencouraging the countries of Asia Pacific to be more assertive in theirterritorial claims against China.
“The US has consistently expressed our longstanding concern about ongoingdeficiencies in Pakistan’s implementation of its anti-money laundering andcounterterrorism finance regime,” said a spokesperson from the US Embassyin Islamabad.
The United States was “absolutely not” acting on behalf of India inpressing Pakistan on the issue, the spokesperson said. A lot more is tocome. Pakistan has a wide-ranging experience of such “Americonics”.
Soon America dominated multilateral entities like the World Bank, IMF etc.would start applying economic pressures, and simultaneously dubiousAmerican entities would start screaming on Human Rights, religiouspersecution, minority rights etc.
Time has come for Pakistan to draw its redlines starting with specifyingtransit fee on every American truck and aeroplane that uses Pakistaniterritory and air space for connecting to Afghanistan, alongside anescalation factor chart corresponding to each American action.
And let brother Modi arrange logistics for Trump’s war machine inAfghanistan via Chabahar port. Sending the Afghan refugees back is anothernecessity. Americans should be asked to create conditions for that; andalso institute effective border management on their side of Pak-Afghanborder.
The US should also share the cost of border management that so far is beingsingly borne by Pakistan. Pakistan managed a last-minute exculpation at theParis conference as participants did not reach consensus on American wishlist of placing it on global list of countries that finance terrorism.However, nuisance would continue, it’s just a pause.
As of now, Asia Pacific Group has been asked to report on the matter inJune—which is not far away. For now, Pakistan has been able to avoid amajor international embarrassment.
Foreign office has attributed the success to Pakistan’s frantic diplomaticefforts. China, Turkey, and Russia, opposed the motion which wasjointly-moved by the US and the UK against Pakistan. And after failing toarrive at a consensus, the FATF dropped its plan to table the motion forvoting in its plenary session starting.
Had the US move succeeded this time, Pakistan’s economic woes would havemultiplied. Not only the cost of doing business would have increased, butthe foreign investment could have dried up as well, worsening the country’smacroeconomic position which is already under pressure due to a wideningtrade deficit and falling foreign exchange reserves.
While delisting Pakistan from terror financing watch list in February 2015,the FATF had noted that Pakistan had made significant progress in improvingits anti-money laundering and counter-terrorism financing regime and alsoestablished the legal and regulatory framework to meet its commitments inits action plan regarding the previously indicated shortfalls. Pakistan hasbeen working with the Asia Pacific Group to address the full range ofissues identified in its mutual evaluation report, particularly, like fullimplementation of UNSC Resolution 1267.
Pakistan has taken very meaningful steps to check such flow of moneythrough a whole range of banking reforms to remain compliant with globalanti-money laundering and counter-terrorism financing regimes. Pakistan hadsent Adviser to Prime Minister on Finance Dr Miftah Ismail as head of avery potent team to plead its case to FATF members in Paris. He alsovisited Europe to convince FATF member countries about the actions thatPakistan had taken. The FATF held meetings spread over six days to discussissues ‘to protect the integrity of the global financial system andcontribute to safety and security’.
The meetings involved more than 700 delegates from the 203 jurisdictions ofthe FATF Global Network, as well as the UN, IMF, World Bank and otherpartners.Presently 11countries are on the high risk and monitoring list of the FATF,which include North Korea, Iran, Iraq, Syria, Yemen, Ethiopia, and SriLanka.
US has shown concern over Pakistan’s ‘deficiencies in implementinganti-money laundering and counterterrorism laws’. Earlier US StateDepartment Spokesperson Heather Nauert had expressed concern about‘Pakistan’s deficiencies in the implementation of anti-money laundering andcounterterrorism laws’.
The spokesperson had told reporters that the US had been concerned for along time about the actions of Pakistani authorities. “We have thereforedecided that we want to place Pakistan on an international watch list.Further details about the matter are confidential, and cannot be revealedat the moment,” Nauert added.Pakistan says it has been taking steps to curb terror financing, moneylaundering. It is time for the blame game to stop.
The United States has been threatening to get tough with Islamabad over itsalleged ties with militants, and last month President Donald Trump’sadministration suspended aid worth about $2 Moves to put Islamabad on theFATF watch-list were counter-productive when Pakistan was alreadyundergoing “mutual evaluation” by experts from other countries, who aremeasuring progress in curbing illicit fund flows. “It’s a very intrusiveprocess and…we are happy to work with them, but while we are being givenmutual evaluation, it makes no sense for us to be now put on thewatch-list,” Ismail said.
American are not going to stop. It is time for finance ministry to get holdof FATF’s evaluation checklist as well as action points of UNSCR1267,implement pending points and ask FATF for a comprehensive evaluation beforeJune. Although Pakistan has done a lot in this field, yet it is notadequate.
There is a need to document whole range of national economy, including flowof charity, for only then one would be able to trace the origin anddestination of money, until then every Tom Dick and Harry would have spaceto point figures.