| 20 August 2004 | Friday | 03 Rajab 1425 |
TMA cuts a sorry figure
In the course of his exclusive interview with Dawn, (August 5), President General Pervez Musharraf struck a fine balance between his status as head of the state and his designation as army chief. He spoke at length on the role of the army in national affairs and the rationale of "army interventions in the country's politics".
Questioned about the military's right to decide 'what is wrong and what is right for Pakistan', he said: "The issue is the country itself. We (the army) base its (right) to intervene in the country.
The army is as Pakistani as the civilians... If the nation is going down and there is a problem and somebody should (intervene) to rectify it." Gen Musharraf thus appears to hold what he called 'absence of checks and balances' as responsible for the army's intervention.
He used the word 'chhanga' twice almost in one and the same breath to stress the point in his interview. Better left untranslated for want of an appropriate English equivalent, the word applies to one lacking in defiance or being unusually diffident. "I am not a 'chhanga'," he said.
"I am somebody. I will leave the place, if I am no more somebody. If I were to become a 'chhanga' that somebody comes to tell me, do this and do that - I will quit before that..."
Now what are checks and balances all about and how can those be effectively invoked to counter the will of a military commander who refuses to be dictated? Gen Musharraf would view any pressure or dictation, internal or external, as an 'insult and humiliation' if he was dictated by anybody. Where then go the checks and balances in the face of the will of the military commander?
The army indeed has as much right to be 'bothered' about country as the politicians, as Gen Musharraf would put it. For a country like Pakistan dumped in the lap of complex geopolitics - a sprawling flat border to the east, porous mountainous frontiers to the west and a volatile LoC on top of that - the armed forces serve both as guarantor of peace and an effective shield against an imposed war.
But where is the guarantee, that the will of the commander is always right and the action he takes must always serve the best interest of the country? This is regardless of the honest intent and collective wisdom of the military commander and his high command.
However, while civil authority has had little to show by way of the good it has done to the country, the military establishment can hardly be said to have done better.
Ayub Khan used the army essentially as a war-making machine - encounters in Chadbet in the mid 50s, the Rann of Kutch (April/May '65), clashes along the cease fire line, para-military operations in East Pakistan (Operation Sabre Dance of Laxmipur, 1957), and finally the haphazardly-planned 1965 war, his Waterloo.
Yahya Khan launched the Operation Searchlight in East Pakistan - March 1971 - to blow the whistle on united Pakistan. Zia used the army as an effective geopolitical tool. He reaped a rich harvest from the US proxy war in Afghanistan against the Soviet Union.
While skill fully keeping the army out of trouble with India through his preventive cricket diplomacy, Zia's rule like that of his two predecessors' left the nation in a mess even bigger than the one when he took over.
Coming with a bang, the three martial laws ended in whimper. Our wars and low intensity conflicts with India can at best be regarded as a good fight between two asymmetrical forces.
A 1:3 disparity in the infantry head count could hardly neutralize the technical edge of the enemy even in a defensive or offensive-defensive role. In terms of superior equipment of its land, air and naval forces, India's advantage was absolute. At the end of the day, the army can hardly claim to have accomplished the mission - civil and military - it set for itself.
The question for Gen Musharraf and his high command to consider is on how many fronts can they fight and for how long. Might it not overstretch the army's material and moral resource to a point where it might even lose a good deal of its local superiority? The prevailing quiet on the eastern front is welcome, but the peace process is just getting along without gathering sufficient momentum.
The spirit of the Vajpayee-Musharraf landmark declaration of January 6, 2004 must, at all events, be kept alive. It is perhaps the last hope for this unfortunate zone of conflict, and the credit for co-authoring it would go to Gen Musharraf and his high command.
The president in his interview said: "Overall this is the first time that we are confronting problems and not brushing them under the carpet. And when you confront them, you will have aberrations, you will have problems..."
This sounds like an honest man's summation of the challenges up front and the lack of available means and option to resolve them once and for all. What needs to be closely examined and squarely faced is whether we have more problems on hand than we may have had four years ago.
The Al Qaeda and Taliban factor alone, dormant if not completely non-existent before, has emerged as a major threat to the internal harmony and security of the country.
Would the state agencies, mainly the army and the para-militaries, alone be able to sort those out? Or will the president need a wider national consensus and active participation?
The writer is a retired brigadier of the Pakistan Army.
TMA cuts a sorry figure
The Tehsil Municipal Administration has failed to provide basic facilities to the people, especially of drainage and sanitation, in the district. The recent monsoon downpour has particularly exposed the tall claims of the administration, which failed to clear away sewage from roads for many days.
A torrential rain of 40 millimetres inundated not only low-lying localities and slums, but also the dual carriageway - the Circular Road. The road from Milad Chowk to Fowara Chowk and a market opposite the Bahawal Victoria Hospital looked like a stream. The rainwater entered shops and damaged costly articles and electronic appliances.
The Circular Road was dualized at a cost of about Rs40 million during Shahbaz Sharif's rule by the Frontier Works Organization. A rainwater channel was also provided beneath the sidewalks, but it proved a failure as the rainwater continued to flow on the road.
Its high time that the government take action against the FWO for poor work. Besides, the rainwater damaged the houses in Mohajir and katchi abadis. A road constructed at a cost of hundreds of thousands of rupees about three months ago at Tibba Badar Shah also developed cracks.
The district government had announced a mega sewerage project, requiring Rs190 million, but it had been delayed for reasons best known to the authorities concerned.
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Multan Electricity Power Company customer service centre has failed to come up to the expectations of people and redress their grievances. A number of complainants, who approach the customer centre's officials for the removal of their power faults, have claimed that the Mepco officials' performance is disappointing.
They allege that the consumers have to face inconvenience for the extension of dates for the payment of their bills. According to consumers, the customer centre's officials do not promptly attend to complainants, who have to stand in queues for hours in extreme weathers.
They have demanded of the Mepco chief executive to take steps for the improvement of the performance of centre's officials.
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The Bahawalpur Chamber of Commerce and Industry and the Export Promotion Bureau organized a seminar on the promotion of local handicraft and traditional garments the other day.
Exporters, garments stitching women, students of educational and technical institutions, chamber members and industrialists attended the seminar and demanded maximum facilities for the export of local handicraft and garments.