The Author is Former Director General of Information Systems and A Special Forces Veteran, Indian Army

A day before the ongoing Plenary and Working Group Meeting of the Financial Action Task Force (FATF) in Paris from February 21 to March 4, 2022, Pakistan's foreign office said, “We have faithfully complied with and completed all technical requirements (given by FATF) and hope that the outcome would be in the positive direction.” However, in a remark aimed at India, the foreign office said “there are issues of politicisation by some countries, and that remains a problem”.

The FATF had said in October 2021 that 34-point action plan must be completed. Of these, Pakistan claims 30 have been addressed but the FATF will need to arrive at the truth, given thesubterfuge Pakistan has been using past years. Pakistan’s ISI has recently asked terrorist organisation like the Lashkar-e-Taiba (LeT), Jaish-e-Mohammed (JeM), their affiliates and front organisations in Jammu and Kashmir to be renamed with “communist” names. This is to absolve Pakistani complicity in terrorism and terror financing in J&K, and gain sympathies from Europeans, the US far-left and the like.

The FATF placed Pakistan on the ‘grey list’ for the first time in 2018. Pakistan continues on the grey list because it failed to check money laundering and terror finances. The FATF also asked Pakistan to take steps against UN-designated terror groups, including Hafiz Saeed and Masood Azhar. Being on the grey list makes it difficult for Pakistan to get financial aid from international banks including the International Monetary Fund (IMF), World Bank and Asian Development Bank (ADB). Last year, the FATF also placed Turkey on its ‘Grey List’. Yemen, South Sudan, Syria, Morocco, Albania and Zimbabwe are also on the FATF grey list.

The FATF placed Pakistan on the ‘grey list’ for the first time in 2018. Pakistan continues on the grey list because it failed to check money laundering and terror finances.

On February 20, 2022, there were protests outside the FATF office in Paris with the protesters shouting anti-Pakistan slogans “Terrorist Terrorist Pakistan Pakistan”. The protesters included exiled Afghan nationals and Uighur and Hong Kong communities living in Paris. They urged FATF to ‘Black List’ Pakistan. A number of French citizens also participated in the protests. A video of the protest, with protesters showing anti-Pakistan placards, was posted on Twitter by Pakistani journalist Taha Siddiqui who had organised the protests. Siddiqui wrote on Twitter, “Pakistan’s role in money laundering globally, terror financing in the country and its neighbourhood, and its nexus with China that lobbies for Islamabad to be not held accountable, is well known.”

Pakistan probably never imagined that killing scores of journalists in Pakistan will backfire in a protest by an exiled Pakistani journalist outside the FATF office in Paris. Pakistan needs to be placed on the ‘Black List’ having duped the FATF all these years; terrorism and terror financing continuing though front organisations and changing names of terror outfits. Since Imran Khan became the Prime Minister of Pakistan, he has been unsuccessfully campaigning for Pakistan to be removed from the FATF grey list because experts believe Pakistan has failed to take action against terror organisations and conversely has been capitulating before Islamists and terror organisations it spawned.

According to recent reports, Pakistan has virtually doubled its external debt to over $85 billion in the past three years, while setting new records of external borrowing under Imran Khan. Imran’s recent visit to Beijing was to seek another Chinese loan of $3 billion and yet Pakistan gave Sri Lanka a loan of $200 million just because India recently loaned Sri Lanka $500 million.

According to recent reports, Pakistan has virtually doubled its external debt to over $85 billion in the past three years, while setting new records of external borrowing under Imran Khan

If the FATF places Pakistan on the ‘Black List’, Pakistani economy will no doubt suffer a big blow. This is the pretext China gives to remove Pakistan from the grey list but lack of money is only for the public, not for the military, the Generals and the politicians. Arecent report by the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute (SIPRI) says Pakistan was among the biggest importers of major arms in Asia and Oceania from 2016-2020 though globally it ranked 10th.

Pakistan’s economic woes are more because it allowed itself to be debt-trapped by China and continues to compound the situation because of the greed of the Generals (Imran being their puppet), who have no compunctions to mortgage the sovereignty of Pakistan to Beijing. Pakistan Jamaat-e-Islami Chief Ameer Sirajul Haq has termed the Imran-led government the worst in the country's history; destroying every institution over the last three-and-a-half years, devaluing national currency by over 58 per cent without fighting any war or undergoing any emergency, and the worst damage caused to surrender Pakistan’s economic control to the IMF and world money lenders.

A recent leak of confidential data of Swiss banking at Credit Suiss revealed that General Akhtar Abdur Rehman, Pakistan’s ISI chief under Zia-ul-Haq swindled millions of dollars from the CIA-funded account for Pakistan to raise and arm mujahideen to oust the Soviets from Afghanistan. By 1964, CIA’s budget for Afghanistan stood at $200 million. Rehman maintained two family accounts in the same Swiss bank jointly with his sons Akbar, Ghazi and Haroon. By 2003, one of these accounts opened on July 1,1985, was worth $3.7 million and a second one opened in 1986 in Akhtar’s name was more than $9.2 million worth.

Australian news website Klaxon reported that China's Wuhan Institute of Virology and Pakistan’s Defence, Science and Technology Organisation (DSTO) signed a secret deal to research “emerging infectious diseases”

Bill Gates recently visited Pakistan for the first time. The ISI chief Faiz Ahmed who was present during the Bill Gates-Imran meeting wanted his photo removed from the meeting; the photo-shopping act was caught on camera due to a technical fault and posted on Twitter. Why Faiz Ahmed wanted his photo removed raises suspicions because Bill Gates is into not only anti-Covid vaccine development but also reportedly into funding biological research like Anthony Stephen Fauci, Director of America’s National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases and Chief Medical Advisor to the US President. Gates has recently stated that COVID-19 risks have reduced but it is almost certain that the world will see another pandemic.

In July 2020, Anthony Klan, Editor of Australian news website Klaxon reported that China's Wuhan Institute of Virology and Pakistan’s Defence, Science and Technology Organisation (DSTO) signed a secret deal to research “emerging infectious diseases”. The report said the program is being funded by China. The deal allows China to conduct tests on biological agents outside its borders - in Pakistan. Is Bill Gates going to also fund such research in Pakistan which for sure will be for developing biological weapons? Is this the reason Faiz Ahmed, who is slated to be the next Pakistani Army Chief, wanted photographic evidence of his presence in the meeting removed?