DNA Edit: Pak’s shade of grey - The FATF and the US turn the heat on Islamabad

The news of Financial Action Task Force (FATF) tightening the screws on Pakistan couldn’t have come at a more opportune time. It was immediately preceded by video clips of India’s surgical strike in September 2016 on Pakistani terror camps in PoK going public.

The FATF has put Pakistan on the ‘grey list’ because of its alleged failure to crack down on terror funding. It also means that the country is just a shade away from finding itself blacklisted by an international policymaking body that is assigned to “set standards and promote effective implementation of legal, regulatory and operational measures for combating money laundering, terrorist financing and other related threats to the integrity of the international financial system”.

Security experts say that Pakistan has been on and off the grey list since at least 2008, and most recently came off the grey list in February 2015. But this time, the grey list will hurt its floundering economy even harder because simultaneously the US, too, has turned the heat on Pakistan.

Though US President Donald Trump has many shortcomings, he must be credited for relentlessly targeting Pakistan for its covert and overt aid to terrorists. Nikki Haley, the US ambassador to the United Nations was echoing Trump’s views when she said that Washington wanted Pakistan to show tangible results and hoped to see changes – an unambiguous sign of Trump losing patience with Islamabad.

In February this year, it had narrowly escaped being on the list by promising to take concrete steps. Its 26-point action plan to curb terror financing has long been in the works, but only now Islamabad is attempting to show some spine. Pakistan’s key areas of weakness include deficiency in the supervision of Anti-Money Laundering (AML) and Counter-Terrorism Financing regimes, cross-border illicit movement of currency by terrorist groups, progress on terrorism financing investigation and prosecution and implementation of the United Nations Security Council resolutions for curbing terror financing.

Now every transaction a Pakistani bank has with foreign banks will be scrutinised, which will affect the country’s exports and import. Its international credit-rating will suffer and international conglomerates will be hesitant to do business with the country.

More importantly, it’s going to affect lakhs of families in the country who survive on remittances sent from abroad by family members. In other words, the global community will be wary of conducting financial deals with Pakistan. This isolation Islamabad can little afford even if it has China’s backing. India’s neighbour is highly dependent on US aid for its survival. What will be the final straw on the camel’s back is if China finally gets more assertive about including Pakistan’s alleged jihadi proxies among the list of terrorists.

Pakistan has failed to notice the rising tide of anger among nations who have suffered from terror attacks. The European Union, the US along with India want to wipe out terrorism from the face of the earth. If Pakistani Army, ISI and its political establishment continue to peddle the hackneyed narrative of good terrorists and bad terrorists, it will only be digging its own grave.