The Threat of Civil Unrest in Pakistan

and the Davis Case

February 16, 2011 | 1750 GMT
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By Scott Stewart
On Feb. 13, the Tehrik-i-Taliban Pakistan (TTP) issued a statement
demanding that the government of Pakistan execute U.S. government
contractor Raymond Davis or turn him over to the TTP for judgment. Davis,
a contract security officer for the CIA, has been in Pakistani custody since
a Jan. 27 incident in which he shot two men who reportedly pointed a pistol
at him in an apparent robbery attempt.
Pakistani officials have corroborated Davis version of events and,
according to their preliminary report, Davis appears to have acted in selfdefense. From a tactical perspective, the incident appears to have been (in
tactical security parlance) a good shoot, but the matter has been taken
out of the tactical realm and has become mired in transnational politics and
Pakistani public sentiment. Whether the shooting was justified or not,
Davis has now become a pawn in a larger game being played out between
the United States and Pakistan.
When one considers the way similar periods of tension between the
Pakistanis and Americans have unfolded in the past, it is not unreasonable
to conclude that as this current period plays out, it could have larger
consequences for Davis and for American diplomatic facilities and
commercial interests in Pakistan. Unless the Pakistani government is
willing and able to defuse the situation, the case could indeed provoke
violent protests against the United States, and U.S. citizens and
businesses in Pakistan should be prepared for this backlash.

Details of the Case

One of the reasons that the Pakistanis have been able to retain Davis in
custody is that while he may have been traveling on a black diplomatic
U.S. passport, not everyone who holds a diplomatic passport is afforded
full diplomatic immunity. The only people afforded full diplomatic immunity
are those who are on a list of diplomats officially accredited as diplomatic
agents by the receiving country. The rest of the foreign employees at an
embassy or a consulate in the receiving country who are not on the
diplomatic list and who are not accredited as diplomatic agents under the
Vienna Convention are only protected by functional immunity. This means
they are only protected from prosecution related to their official duties.
As a contract employee assigned to the U.S. Consulate in Lahore, Davis
was likely not on the diplomatic list and probably did not enjoy full
diplomatic immunity. He was probably considered a member of the
administrative or technical staff. Protecting himself during a robbery
attempt would not be considered part of his official function in the country,
and therefore his actions that day would not be covered under functional
immunity. So determining exactly what level of immunity Davis was
provided will be critical in this case, and the information provided by the
Pakistani Foreign Ministry will have a big impact on the Pakistani judge
hearing the arguments.
In all likelihood, Davis was briefed regarding his legal status by his
company and by the CIA prior to being assigned to post. He also would
have been told that, while he had limited immunity, the U.S. government
would do its best to take care of him if some incident occurred. However, it
would have been made clear to him that in working as a protective
contractor he was running a risk and that if there was an incident on or off
duty, he could wind up in trouble. All security contractors working overseas
know this and accept the risk as part of the job.
At the time of the shooting, of course, Davis would not have had time to
leisurely ponder this potential legal quagmire. He saw a threat and reacted
to it. Undoubtedly, the U.S. government will do all it can to help Davis out
especially since the case appears to be a good-shoot scenario and not

a case of negligence or bad judgment. Indeed, on Feb. 15, U.S. Sen. John
Kerry flew to Islamabad in a bid to seek Davis release. However, in spite
of American efforts and international convention, Davis case is
complicated greatly by the fact that he was working in Pakistan and by the
current state of U.S.-Pakistani relations.
Tensions
Over the past few years, relations between the United States and Pakistan
have been very strained. This tension has been evidenced not only by
public opinion but also by concrete examples. For example, in midDecember, the CIA station chief in Islamabad was forced to leave the
country after his name was disclosed in a class-action lawsuit brought by
relatives of civilians killed by unmanned aerial vehicle strikes in the
Pakistani tribal badlands.
It was no coincidence that the Pakistani lawsuit against the CIA station
chief occurred shortly after the head of Pakistans Inter-Services
Intelligence directorate, Lt. Gen. Ahmed Shuja Pasha, was accused in a
civil lawsuit of being involved in the 2008 attacks in Mumbai. The suit was
brought in U.S. District Court in Brooklyn by family members of the
American rabbi killed alongside his wife in Mumbai by Pakistan-based
Islamist militants.
Like Iraq, Pakistan is a country that has seen considerable controversy
over American security contractors over the past several years. The
government of Pakistan has gone after security contractor companies like
DynCorp and its Pakistani affiliate InterRisk and Xe (formerly known as
Blackwater), which has become the Pakistani version of the bogeyman. In
addition to the clandestine security and intelligence work the company was
conducting in Pakistan, in 2009 the Taliban even began to blame Xe for
suicide bombing attacks that killed civilians. The end result is that
American security contractors have become extremely unpopular in
Pakistan. They are viewed not only as an affront to Pakistani sovereignty
but also as trigger-happy killers.

And this is the environment in which the Davis shooting occurred. Even
though some Pakistani civilians apparently came forward and reported that
they had been robbed at gunpoint by the men Davis shot, other Pakistani
groups like the Jamaat-ud-Dawah (JuD) the successor to the Lashkare-Taiba, which was presumably banned by the Pakistani government
have demanded that Davis be hanged. The Jamaat-e-Islami (JeI), an
Islamist political party, has also demanded that Davis be hanged and has
called for large protests if he is released without a court order. As noted
above, TTP spokesman Azam Tarik made a statement demanding that the
Pakistani government either hang Davis or hand him over to them. Interest
in this issue is not just confined to Islamist groups. There are some rightwing conservative nationalists and even some secular liberals who are
asking: If the United States can give CIA shooter Mir Amal Kansi the
death penalty, why cant Pakistan do the same thing to Davis?
The result is that the Davis case has aroused much controversy and
passion in Pakistan. This not only complicates the position of the Pakistani
government but also raises the distinct possibility that there will be civil
unrest if Davis is released.
Civil Unrest in Pakistan
Like many parts of the developing world, civil unrest in Pakistan can
quickly turn to extreme violence. One example that must certainly be on
the minds of the security personnel at the U.S. Embassy and the U.S.
consulates in Pakistan is the November 1979 incident in which an enraged
mob seized and destroyed the U.S. Embassy in Islamabad. While there
were only two Americans killed in that incident a Marine security guard
shot as he stood on the roof of the embassy and an Army warrant officer
who died when an apartment building on the embassy compound was
torched the fire that the mob set inside the building very nearly killed all
the employees who had sought shelter in the embassys inner safe-haven
area. Two local Pakistani staff members were also killed in the fire.
The 1979 attack was said to have been sparked by reports that the U.S.
government was behind an assault on the Grand Mosque in Mecca by
Saudi militants the day before. In reality, the mob that stormed and torched

the U.S. Embassy was at least tolerated, if not orchestrated, by the

Pakistani government, which was angry that the United States cut off
financial aid to the country in April 1979. Not only did the Pakistani
government facilitate the busing of large numbers of protesters to the U.S.
Embassy, its security forces also stood aside and refused to protect the
embassy from the onslaught of the angry mob. The embassy assault was
Pakistans not-so-subtle way of sending a message to the U.S.
government.
But U.S. diplomatic facilities have not been the only targets of civil unrest
in Pakistan. Following the assassination of former Pakistani Prime Minister
Benazir Bhutto, angry mobs attacked not only security forces but also
foreign businesses, banks, shops and gasoline stations in the cities of
Karachi, Rawalpindi, Islamabad and Quetta and throughout the province of
Sindh, Bhuttos home province.
Similarly, in February 2006 during the unrest generated by the Mohammed
cartoon fiasco, mobs in Islamabad, Peshawar, Karachi and Lahore
attacked a wide range of Western business targets. The worst of this
violence occurred in Lahore, where a rampaging mob burned down four
buildings housing the four-star Ambassador Hotel, two banks, a KFC
restaurant franchise and the regional office of Telenor, a Norwegian cell
phone company. The protesters also damaged about 200 cars and several
storefronts and threw stones through the windows of a McDonalds
restaurant, a Pizza Hut and a Holiday Inn. Lahore, incidentally, is where
the Davis shooting occurred.
Forecast
Based on this history, the current tension between the United States and
Pakistan, public sentiment in Pakistan regarding U.S. security contractors
and the possibility of groups like JuD and JeI attempting to take advantage
of the situation, there is a very real possibility that Davis release could
spark mob violence in Pakistan (and specifically Lahore). Even if the
Pakistani government does try to defuse the situation, there are other
parties who will attempt to stir up violence.

Due to the widespread discontent over the issue of U.S. security

contractors in Pakistan, if protests do follow the release of Davis, they can
be expected to be similar to the protests that followed the Mohammed
cartoon case, i.e., they will cut across ethnic and sectarian lines and
present a widespread threat.
Physical security measures such as concrete barriers, standoff distances
and security cameras can add to a facilitys defenses against a terrorist
attack, but they really do not pose much of an obstacle to an angry mob
intent on overrunning a property especially if local and indigenous
security forces are unwilling or unable to intervene in a timely fashion and
the mob has the time and latitude to assault the facility for a prolonged
period. The protesters can scale barriers and their overwhelming numbers
can render most security measures useless. Barriers such as hard-line
doors can provide some delay, but they can be breached by assailants
who possess tools and time.
Additionally, if protesters are able to set fire to the building, as happened at
the U.S. Embassy in Islamabad in 1979, a safe-haven can become a death
trap, especially if the mob can take control of the secondary escape hatch
as it did in that incident, trapping the Americans inside the safe-haven.
Commercial facilities are, by their very nature, far more accessible and
far more vulnerable to mob violence than diplomatic facilities. A
commercial facility can present a tempting soft target to those who wish to
attack a symbol of America without tackling a hard target like a U.S.
diplomatic facility, which is designed and built to comply with stringent
security standards. If a mob storms a hotel, the local staff will be unable to
protect the guests, and conceivably could leave the guests to fend for
themselves in the confusion and chaos of a riot. Even worse, they could
even facilitate attacks against Americans by pointing them out or providing
their room numbers.
Any person identified as an American by such an angry mob could quickly
find himself or herself in dire danger. While Americans working for the U.S.
government can expect to have some security assistance in getting back

to the embassy or to another secure location, non-officials may be left to

fend for themselves, especially if they are not registered with the embassy.
Non-officials are also not required to abide by the same security rules as
officials. While many non-officials consider the U.S. State Departments
security rules to be onerous at times, during troubled periods these
conservative security rules often serve to keep diplomats out of harms
way.
Once a mob attacks, there often is little that can be done especially if
the host government either cannot or will not take action to protect the
facility being attacked. At that point, the focus should be on preventing
injuries and saving lives without regard to the physical property. In most
cases, when a mob attacks a multinational corporation, it is attacking a
symbolic target. KFC restaurants, for example, have been frequent targets
of attacks in Pakistan because of the companys association with the
United States. In many cases, multinational franchises such as KFC and
even some hotels are owned by locals and not Americans, but that does
not matter to the mobs, which see nothing but a U.S. symbol.
When an issue such as the Mohammed cartoons, the Bhutto assassination
or the release of Raymond Davis spirals into violent protests, the only real
precaution that many companies can take is to escape the area and avoid
loss of life. The best defense is to use good intelligence in order to learn
about the protests in advance, to track them when they occur and then to
evacuate personnel before they can be affected by the violence.
U.S. diplomatic facilities and business interests in Pakistan are almost
certainly reviewing their contingency plans right now and planning for the
worst-case scenario. During such times, vigilance and preparation are
vital, as is a constant flow of updated intelligence pertaining to potential
demonstrations. Such intelligence can provide time for an evacuation or
allow other proactive security measures to be taken. With the current
tension between Pakistan and the United States, there might not be much
help coming when the next wave of unrest erupts, so keeping ahead of
potential protests is critically important.

Read more: The Threat of Civil Unrest in Pakistan and the Davis Case |
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