The only way out of the crisis

THERE is no cut and dry formula for taking the country out of the current crisis, but if there is one that could help lower tensions and perhaps bail the government out it lies in a firm announcement of the date for the next general election. For the last two years, vagueness often bordering on disinformation has characterised the government’s attitude towards the polls. The last election was held in October 2002 and the National Assembly met in November. Which means its five-year term expires in November this year. Since elections must be held within 90 days of the dissolution of the National Assembly, the date for the next electoral exercise could be sometime in February 2008. In other words, a vote could be more than nine months away. This is too much for this nation, which, as experience shows, does not have a tolerance limit of more than three years for any government.

The Musharraf government has had an easy ride for the first four years, for barring a few street protests by the religious right in the aftermath of the American attack on Afghanistan in October 2001, there was no expression of popular resentment against it. In fact, some of its actions were considered laudable, like the accountability process, which, despite lapses here and there, nabbed some big fish. From an economic point of view, the country recorded on average an eight per cent growth rate, thanks to the American aid, the rescheduling of the loans and a greater access to US and EU markets. The people also appreciated the government’s resolve to fight religious extremism and spend more money on the social sector and the less developed regions like Balochistan. However, things have not been well for the government for the last few years. The reversal of the decision to shed his uniform has created a credibility gap which is focussed on the personality of President Pervez Musharraf. The shock over this about face has been aggravated by the now confirmed decision that the existing assemblies will re-elect Gen Musharraf for another five-year term. The army chief being also the head of state not only constitutes an affront to the rudimentary concept of democracy and constitutional government, it makes the whole electoral process virtually meaningless.

The nation is now in the throes of an deep, multi-dimensional crisis stemming from the reference against the Chief Justice and the May 12 killings in Karachi. The proceedings of the Muslim League’s Central Executive Committee in Islamabad on Tuesday make it clear that there is murmur going on even in the ranks of the ruling party against the treatment meted out to the Chief Justice and the 48 deaths in Karachi, for which the opposition parties hold the MQM responsible. There are reports that the MQM could pull out of the federal and provincial governments. Whether or not it does so is immaterial, for the damage to the military-led government has been done. The crisis will not go away easily: it can even worsen if the MQM sticks to its decision to quit — particularly in Sindh. The only way the crisis can be defused is by making an early reference to the people and announcing the date for elections. At present, Pakistan is deeply troubled. Only a government elected through a fair and impartial election — and a president who is not in uniform — will give a sense of direction to the nation and remove the feeling of despondency and pessimism that now stalk the country.

Winning the war on polio

WHILE the MMA government’s deal with the controversial cleric, Maulana Fazalullah, leaves a lot to be desired, there are some positive aspects to it. The cleric from Swat was a fierce opponent of, among other things, the polio vaccination campaign and girls education and used his illegally set up FM radio station to spread his obscurantist prescription. By signing the peace deal on Monday, he has agreed to support the government on many issues, particularly the polio campaign. This is a major gain, even if the deal on the whole is a bitter pill to swallow. The cleric has been allowed to maintain his radio station until Pemra’s rules are extended to the tribal areas. It will be difficult to monitor what Maulana Fazalullah says but it must nonetheless be done as his is a powerful voice that sways many opinions and needs to be checked. The damage caused to the polio campaign in the NWFP is poof of his influence. This is the person who preached that the polio vaccine was a western device meant to render one impotent or that anyone who died of polio was a martyr. These ridiculous but virulent notions set the polio campaign a long way back and in April even caused the death of a doctor who was on his way to promote the vaccination in Bajaur. Many doctors and female health workers refused to go to tribal areas because they feared for their lives, causing more setbacks to the campaign.

According to a report in this newspaper on Monday, over 25,000 children were not vaccinated in the province and Fata during a three-day campaign last month. This is a staggering figure. In Swat 3,778 refusals for the vaccine were reported by the World Health Organisation in March and the number went up to a whopping 7,693 in April. The unvaccinated children must now be immunised. An outbreak of polio can have devastating effects on the community. Special arrangements should be made to have all children in the poverty-stricken tribal belt immunised against polio and various infectious diseases. No effort should be spared in containing this disease.

A positive start

SHOAIB Malik couldn’t have bargained for a better start. While a clean sweep in Abu Dhabi would have been ideal, a 2-1 victory over Sri Lanka is no mean achievement given the tumult of recent months. The bitter memory of the World Cup cannot be erased easily but the new-look Pakistan team has done splendidly to raise the hopes of dejected cricket fans throughout the country. So profound is the relief that no one is devaluing the victory, and rightly so, by focusing on the fact that this was a depleted Sri Lankan team. The strength of the islanders is such that even the absence of three top players still makes them a formidable side. Besides, Pakistan is starting virtually from scratch and every positive move must be applauded at this stage. The team won in Abu Dhabi and may well falter in the next outing. But that is part of the game and matters little if it plays with spirit and continues to focus on the job at hand which, needless to say, happens to be cricket.

At 25, Shoaib Malik is a young man with a tremendous responsibility on his shoulders. The learning curve is bound to be steep and he will, no doubt, make mistakes. But then no person is infallible and occasional failure is a fact of life. His biggest challenge will be to cultivate a single-mindedness that has been missing from the team of late and encourage his young teammates to play the game for the joy of it. Cricket is a profession but it cannot be seen as just another day at the office. Sadly, it is too much to expect that Shoaib will not have to contend with intrigue and politicking. That comes with the territory in Pakistan cricket and he must not get mired in the pettiness.

Outlook for South Asia

ADDRESSING the Islamic Conference of Foreign Ministers in Islamabad recently, President Musharraf painted a rosy picture of Indo-Pakistan relations, which he claimed had never been better. He expressed confidence that all issues involved in the bilateral dialogue process would be resolved expeditiously.

Since the resumption of the dialogue process in January 2004, following the post-Saarc meeting between President Musharraf and the then Indian Prime Minister Atal Behari Vajpayee, the path of confidence-building measures and negotiation on the bilateral agenda has been followed. The formation of the Congress government in the same year was accompanied by a reaffirmation by the Indian government that the pursuit of peace and cooperation with Pakistan would continue to remain a priority objective.

The basic post-9/11 trend has been to place the war against terror at the centre of global concerns, and has highlighted the neo-con goal of power-based US hegemony. However, the thinking in the rest of the world is to address the causes of discontent through a multilateral order focusing on peace and development.

President Bush’s preoccupation with the military’s role in both Afghanistan and Iraq, where the quality of life has been deteriorating under foreign occupation, has only intensified the insurgency. His obsession with the so-called threat from Islamic extremism has made him rely on Israel and India as strategic partners, while India’s importance has been enhanced further as a potential counter to China’s emergence as a rival.

Apart from the economic reforms initiated by Dr Manmohan Singh in 1991, India’s military power has also been built up steadily, with significant inputs from Israel, the US and Russia. When the BJP government decided to go overtly nuclear by conducting tests in May 1998, Pakistan responded by tests of its own two weeks later that not only established nuclear parity, but underlined the importance of resolving the Kashmir issue.

One has to go back to the aftermath of the 1998 nuclear tests, when the Clinton administration entered into a bilateral dialogue with both India and Pakistan in an effort to persuade them to refrain from weaponisation and carrying out further tests, to secure their cooperation in non-proliferation, and to start a dialogue between them to resolve their disputes.

When Vajpayee came to Lahore in February 1999 and held a summit meeting with then Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif, a number of significant gestures were made. He visited Minar-i-Pakistan that marks the site where the Pakistan Resolution was adopted and proclaimed India’s acceptance of partition.

The summit produced three documents: the Lahore Declaration committing the sides to resolve their differences peacefully as laid down in the Shimla agreement, a joint statement by foreign ministers on building cordial relations in all spheres and a memorandum of understanding between the foreign secretaries on arms control and nuclear risk-reduction.

General Pervez Musharraf, then recently appointed chief of army staff, showed his unhappiness with this. While the two prime ministers voiced their resolve to start a new era of peace, it was said that he approved the Kargil military operation that certain elements in the military had been advocating since the Indian occupation of Siachen in 1983.

Following the military’s assumption of power on October 12, 1999, India-Pakistan relations became clouded with memories of Kargil. The mistrust was reflected in the resurgence of confrontation in Kashmir and increase of tensions along the border.General Musharraf announced a seven-point agenda that was to focus on domestic issues, including reforms in governance and improvements in the judicial system. He reiterated Pakistan’s moral and political support for the people of Kashmir though this would be done through peaceful means. He also voiced opposition to religious extremism and sectarianism though relations with the Taliban government were maintained.

General Musharraf’s assumption of power was welcomed by a majority of Pakistan’s population in the beginning. The people were disillusioned by the performance of democratically elected leaders like Benazir Bhutto and Nawaz Sharif whose stay in power were characterised by corruption and mismanagement. There was an expectation that as the most disciplined organisation in the country, the army would address the real problems of the people, and the seven-point programme seemed to confirm their optimism.

As many retired foreign service officers feel, though the foreign ministry is supposed to be responsible for foreign policy, major decisions and even nuances have been determined at another level.

After the demise of the Quaid, Pakistan produced few leaders of calibre, and while Zulfikar Ali Bhutto was undoubtedly brilliant, his feudal and vindictive mindset was responsible for his downfall. Over the years, the military establishment has come to dominate policymaking, notably in the external sphere.

The writer witnessed Ayub Khan’s role in our military alliance with the US in Washington. A majority of our senior military officers got their training in the West, and over years of increased migration, most of them have their offspring settled in the UK, the US and Canada. This cannot but influence their outlook and attitude.

General Pervez Musharraf has had a special interest in foreign affairs as his father was a senior foreign ministry official who served for many years abroad. Despite the fact that he has had a distinguished career in the army, and rose to the top on his own merit, he feels more qualified to handle foreign affairs than either of his military predecessors, namely Ayub Khan and Ziaul Haq.

His handling of foreign policy, especially of ties with India, has seen the impact of all these factors. With the US becoming pro-India since the end of the Cold War, Pakistan’s external role and influence has been reduced, and was badly affected by poor economic management in the 1990s.

However President Musharraf succeeded in allaying Indian hostility and in promoting a dialogue that culminated in the Agra summit of July 2001. This failed mainly due to the influence of militant Hindus in the BJP government. But things changed with the events of 9/11 in the aftermath of which Pakistan became a vital US partner in the war against terror.

General Musharraf has demonstrated an ability to maximise his role and opportunities in foreign policy since then. As many as 700 Al Qaeda and pro-Taliban militants have been handed over to the US, a record unmatched by any other country.

With Al Qaeda headquartered in Afghanistan where it enjoyed the support of the Taliban regime, he gave the fullest support to the US and its coalition partners in its war. Pakistan backed the Bonn process in Afghanistan and when remnants of Al Qaeda sought sanctuary in Pakistan’s tribal area along the border, stationed 80,000 troops to prevent their movement.

However, India has emerged as the major beneficiary of the regime change in Kabul, where the pro-India Northern Alliance dominates the successor regime.

The government has banned militant Islamic groups and pushed forward the concept of “enlightened moderation” among Muslims both domestically and abroad. Thus Pakistan is seen not only as a valuable ally in the war against terror but also as a major exponent of moderation in the OIC.

India had offered all its facilities to the US following 9/11 assuming that the US would also target Pakistan which backed the Taliban regime in Afghanistan. Even after Pakistan reversed its Afghan policy and joined the US-led anti-terrorist alliance, India sought to pressure Pakistan by precipitating a 10-month long confrontation following a terrorist attack on its parliament in December 2001.

This coercive policy was given up mainly because Pakistan not only stood firm but was known to have nuclear weapons. The US also used its influence to promote restraint in India.

The US attack on Iraq has demonstrated the futility of the neo-con policy of imperialist expansion, but President Bush’s response in his second term has been to further develop his strategic partnership with India, and to actively help it in achieving the status of a great power to counter China’s emergence as a rival to US hegemony.

The spread of Taliban influence within the tribal area has rendered it difficult to implement the policy of preventing movement of Taliban militants to and from Afghanistan. Pressure has come both from the US and Nato to do more as a result of Afghan President Hamid Karzai’s complaints. The government has had to even face moves within the US Congress to curtail or suspend US aid.

The readiness of the Bush administration to support Pakistan may have been conditional on Pakistan resolving the Kashmir issue on the basis of the status quo. In any case, given its robust economy and military superiority, India is inclined to assert its hegemony which has US backing.

Having brought Afghanistan into Saarc, India is likely to find it easy to curtail Pakistan’s role of backing smaller Saarc members in standing up to Indian domination of the organisation. As such, the prospects for Saarc have not improved.

Even on Kashmir, whatever understanding has been reached with India, the latter’s attitude remains firm on the subject of any territorial changes. This is already dawning on Kashmiri leaders, who insist that even if a modus vivendi is reached to facilitate economic cooperation, Pakistan must safeguard its principled position as it did in the Shimla agreement.

In the meantime, India is benefiting from US support to its hegemony in the region, so Pakistan’s need to safeguard internal unity, and economic growth is imperative.

It is small wonder that an atmosphere of pessimism has emerged among thinking circles on the basis of the events of March 9 and May 12. Many analysts fear that we may be preparing the ground to fulfil India’s goal of Akhand Bharat. Both the dominant military, and political leaders need to realise the gravity of the situation and ensure that Pakistan survives and prospers.

The writer is a former ambassador.