By: Malik Arsalan Awan
The Financial Action Task Force (FATF) has decided to place Pakistan within the gray list. If we observe under the lens of progression and success, this could be interpreted as a success for Pakistan as Pakistan successfully avoided being placed into the blacklist. It isn’t unreasonable to think that way as the head of FATF acknowledged, that out of the 27 recommendations that Pakistan was asked to implement, 21 have been well-received. In the future, It is hoped that the rest of the process will be completed in a smooth manner. In this regard, it is worth mentioning that the FATF has kept Iran and North Korea on the black list, but Mongolia and Iceland have been removed from the gray list. The decision was taken at a meeting held in Paris.
Who does not know that from the very first day of its establishment, the government and people of Pakistan have always wanted and strived to reach a consensus and a cordial relationship with all the countries of the world? Pakistan has been somewhat blessed as many countries have maintained bilateral relations with Pakistan on the basis of equality and Pakistan has been very successful in this endeavor. This is the reason why Pakistan’s relations with most of the countries in the world are ideal. For this very reason, fate has been very unfortunate for this region in a number of ways. It can only be said that in the case of India, it got a neighbor which never sincerely recognized Pakistan. And in line with its negative attitude, India did not miss any opportunity to harm Pakistan. In this regard, the Delhi government tried its best to blacklist Pakistan, but by the grace of God and the efforts of the government of Pakistan, the situation hasn’t gotten out of hands from Pakistan. Pakistan has again avoided being placed on the global dirty money watchdog’s blacklist, although it could not fully implement its 27-point action plan till June 2020 deadline. But the country made significant progress on 21 points of the plan. The FATF takes note of the significant progress made on a number of action plan items and to date, Pakistan has made progress across all action plan items and has now largely addressed 21 of the 27 action items,” according to a statement issued by the FATF Plenary on Friday.
But it said that “as all action plan deadlines have expired, the FATF strongly urges Pakistan to swiftly complete its full action plan by February 2021”. In June 2018, Pakistan had been listed among the 16 jurisdictions under increased monitoring due to strategic deficiencies in their anti-money laundering (AML) and combating financing of terrorism (CFT) framework but now after two years, Pakistan is now set on the right track.
According to observers, the decisions of the recent FATF meeting should also be seen in this context of Indian hatred fueled by its intentions of having Pakistan stay in this grey list. Because only by doing so, can we see the true form of Indian intentions become clear. Secondly, whether it is the political history of Pakistan or any political movement, it cannot be called memorable or glorious in any respect because it is always that old story of broken promises sugarcoated in a slightly different manner by yet another different face – The stage is changed, the characters change but the story does not change. Those who make statements change but statements do not change. Dissent is the beauty of democracy, but in our case, democracy is only beautiful that is acceptable by everyone, or a democracy in which we actually have a say in the actual running of the country. This is the reason why the PTI has been protesting in the streets for four months in four constituencies and even today the opposition is on the streets with the same mission of having democracy of choice.
It is a fact that there are protests and movements in the past or protests and movements in the present. All this is done in the name of democracy but not for democracy. Their aim has been to gain power in the past and the power struggle is still being fought today. Who does not know that the opposition has mobilized to prove its existence after the half term of the PTI government has come to an end. In such a situation, the people seem to be in a dilemma. They do not understand to whom they should give their vote now; the opposition or the government.
The writer is an entrepreneur, social activist and motivational speaker based in UK. He can be reached at [email protected]