|
| December 15, 2007 | Saturday | Zilhaj 4, 1428 |
Bhutto’s strange logic
As the gulf widens
Combating militancy
OTHER VOICES – Bangladesh Press
PAKISTAN has remained the front-line state and a close ally of the US in the ‘war on terror’ for the last six years. President Musharraf in his dual capacity as COAS and president earned accolades from the international community, especially the US, for his role in supporting this ‘war’.
EVEN though the National Command Authority has been in existence for the last seven years — created on Feb 2, 2000 by the National Security Council — it has been given legal cover only now by the ordinance issued by President Pervez Musharraf on Thursday. More significantly, it makes the president the Authority’s chief. The old NCA had two panels — the Employment Control Committee and the Development Control Committee — both of which were to be headed by the head of government, which in 2000 meant President Musharraf who was both chief executive and head of state. However, the prospects of an election in 2002, which would have led to the installation of a prime minister as the head of government, forced a change. The head of state was now deputed to head the NCA and thus Musharraf remained in charge. Thursday’s ordinance formalises the position of the president as the NCA chairman, the prime minister being the vice chairman.
The ordinance comes in the wake of the rather unfounded fears in the US about Pakistan’s nuclear assets falling into the wrong hands. It also deserves to be seen against the backdrop of the A.Q. Khan affair. However, in the fitness of things, the law creating the NCA with the president as chief could have waited for the new National Assembly to come into being in a few weeks from now. Its promulgation at this stage shows the army’s characteristic distrust of the people’s representatives. It also shows that Mr Musharraf, the retired general, is determined to remain in control of strategic policies and will not delegate any power to his prime minister whoever it may be. Not for nothing did Clemenceau say that war was too important a business to be left to the generals. When to start a war and when to call it off is basically the job of the people’s representatives, and not of the military, whose perception of war is technical and misses the larger picture that a statesman can grasp. It is not a coincidence that both the wars that Pakistan fought — in 1965 and 1971 — took place when a military ruler was at the helm. Even Kargil, notwithstanding President Musharraf’s claim that “everyone was on board”, was basically the generals’ brainchild.
Thursday’s ordinance will further enhance the president’s powers. With the LFO becoming part of the 1973 Constitution, the president has already amassed powers to a degree that has eroded the basic law’s parliamentary character. He is also head of the NSC. This leaves little room for civilian control of such a sensitive matter as Pakistan’s nuclear arsenal and installations. Is it not strange that the western media should talk about the possibility of America preparing a contingency plan to secure Pakistan’s nuclear assets? Does this betray Washington’s lack of confidence in a political and constitutional system in which the military calls the shots? Won’t a government that draws legitimacy from the law and the Constitution be viewed as a better trustee of Pakistan’s nuclear assets than a government that does not have a popular mandate to rule?
IT ill becomes Ms Bhutto to accuse the ousted judges of doing politics before the promulgation of the Nov 3 Provisional Constitution Order which sent them packing. Was it really necessary for her to offer her verdict on the judiciary now? What could be the objective of this apparent feeler that the PPP leader has sent to the ruling establishment? Ms Bhutto is contesting the Jan 8 election which is also being held under the PCO — one that is arguably more damning than that issued in the aftermath of the 1999 coup, and under which she just cannot seem to shake off the memory that some of the ousted judges had taken oath. The time to say that the judges who took oath under the 1999 PCO were not independent was eight years ago. What was witnessed subsequently was a judicial activism of sorts which came in small doses, though perhaps in response to the government’s continued pressuring. It was far from being a case of the judiciary indulging in politics, as the ruling establishment has said repeatedly. Ms Bhutto’s kowtowing of the official line leaves one puzzled about the extent of the ‘understanding’ she might have reached with the generals before landing in Karachi on Oct 18. A sense of wonderment must also be felt by many over her caveat that the Jan 8 election will be rigged. Is she the only one to be trusted in the whole game plan devised by the devil himself, as it were? This acute sense of paranoia is indeed unsettling.
Ms Bhutto surely has a good memory but it tends to fade rather selectively. There has been a historical pattern whereby assertion of independence by civilian players never went unpunished; and the list is long. Of late, it is worth recalling that Mr Zulfikar Ali Bhutto made his debut in politics under a martial law regime and assumed power after an election held under army rule. Mr Mohammed Khan Junejo was handpicked by Gen Ziaul Haq. Both asserted their independence in due course; Bhutto paid for it with his life, Junejo with his job only. Do not the ousted judges merit credit for their stand in 2007?
THE killing of 16-year-old Pakistani-Canadian Aqsa Parvez by her father over her refusal to wear the hijab speaks volumes for the kind of tensions that exist between Pakistanis who migrate to the West and their offspring who find themselves trapped in a cultural limbo. Similar cases have occurred in Italy and Britain, where Pakistani migrants murdered their daughters in cold blood for refusing to agree to arranged marriages. These cases may have been extreme demonstrations of the anger and frustration felt by parents living in a foreign milieu and unable to make their children conform to their religious and cultural beliefs. Nevertheless, violence and emotional abuse, especially against girls who dare to overstep the stringent limits set by their conservative parents, is not uncommon in the West. As in the case of Aqsa Parvez, the urge to rebel against cultural restrictions becomes stronger. Of course, matters can also go in the reverse direction. Prolonged exposure to intense family and community religiosity and cultural beliefs, that almost invariably denounce western ethics, leaves its mark on the impressionable. The result might not always be ‘home-grown terrorism’ and suicide attacks by young Muslim males who have been raised in the West. But it may have equally disastrous, long-term effects by deepening the rift between the practitioners of two sets of values and leading to greater misunderstandings between East and West.
It is unfortunate that immigrant Muslim families in the West, especially those from our part of the world, have not tried to find a middle path that would enable their children to retain the best of their own values and assimilate the positive traits of western civilisation. This would not necessarily entail a denial of identity. In fact, it could go a long way in plugging the gap that now exists between Muslim immigrant communities and the local inhabitants of their adopted land to which the expatriates have turned for the economic and social justice denied to them in their home country. It would also enable them to discard rigid notions of right and wrong, and see the world from a more universal perspective.
But his policy has remained highly controversial in the country and has failed to achieve its objectives as militancy and Talibanisation is on the rise.
Now that we have a new army chief and hopefully a representative civilian government in the near future, our leaders need to take a fresh look at this great challenge that faces the nation. Firstly, we have to be clear whether this is our war or if we are fighting as mercenaries for the US, which regrettably is a prevailing perception among many. Moreover, is it not misleading to categorise it as war?
Terrorism and extremism are not a tangible enemy but a threatening concept, which groups and individuals resort to from time to time to achieve their goals. It is not a conventional war that we are fighting in the tribal belt or Swat. It is a war for hearts and minds best fought with the cooperation of the people where all elements of national power should be employed and military power exercised only selectively. As the army is engaged in re-establishing the writ of the state in its own country, the military manoeuvre has to be executed with minimum loss of life and with a majority of people favouring the operation.
Only a united people, in a democratic polity, behind a capable and honest civilian and military leadership can win this ‘war’. Building cantonments for placing troops on a permanent basis as an overall strategy to fight insurgency is a colonial concept that is destined to fail. On the contrary, what the government ought to be doing is building schools, hospitals and roads and providing justice and good governance in these conflict-ridden areas.
Democratisation will help reshape the present social and political climate in which extremism and terrorism is growing in Pakistan. President Musharraf’s justification for the imposition of emergency as a tool for combating extremism and terrorism has proved highly counterproductive. It has alienated a wide cross-section of people and diverted the government’s scarce resources to suppressing innocent members of civil society.
This confirms that there exists a symbiotic relationship between authoritarian rulers and jihadists. Radicals use the growing discontent and the mosque to develop their strength. And military rulers use the fear of the jihadists both domestically and internationally to consolidate and expand their power base.
Apart from religious fanaticism, poor governance and wide class disparities are major factors in the spread of militancy in Pakistan. During the last six years, the ‘war on terror’ has been conducted in Pakistan both at the conceptual and operational levels in such a way that it has failed to gain the support of the masses. In fact, people remain totally indifferent and many oppose it. Not even the main political party supporting President Musharraf, the PML-Q, shares his vision.
Pakistan’s political parties have taken diverse positions on the ‘war on terror’, but none have really looked at this greatest threat in its entirety. Benazir Bhutto sees extremism and terrorism as a clear danger to the integrity and stability of Pakistan and has vowed to fight this scourge with the help of democratic forces. Somewhat unfairly, detractors accuse her of taking this position to garner the political support of the Bush administration and the West.
The MMA and even Imran Khan along with several other small parties and groups believe that President Musharraf has been fighting this war at the behest of the US. The PML-N’s policy is ambiguous although lately Nawaz Sharif made a statement that his party is opposed to terrorism and extremism and, with a potentially larger vote bank in the NWFP and the tribal belt, is better placed to combat it.
Nonetheless his international reputation as a conservative leader who is sympathetic to the religious right led President Bush to make the undiplomatic remark that Nawaz Sharif is not sufficiently committed to fighting terror.
President Bush probably overlooked the reality that Nawaz Sharif was languishing in exile and involved more in fighting his own battles. The ANP and other nationalist parties, though anti-Taliban, give it an ethnic colour. But as we get closer to elections and the formation of a civilian government, political parties will have to take a clear policy position on the issue.
On the one hand the political government will have to mobilise public opinion that this fight against militancy and extremism is not being waged against the people but in their interest. No war either external or internal can ever be won without public support and no military has ever come out victorious against its own people. Moreover, dealing with highly independent and aggressive ethnic communities needs a more nuanced approach.
Gen Ashfaq Kayani assumes the leadership of the army at a crucial juncture. It is expected that with his varied experience and high professionalism he will soon apply himself to enhancing the capabilities of the army, especially in the context of fighting insurgency and asymmetrical warfare. Our armed forces for the last 60 years have been organised, trained and equipped to fight conventional wars and now it is facing a very different threat that requires a radically fresh approach and a changed mindset. Gen Kayani will also have to build a new and dependable relationship with the emerging civilian power structure.
Since 9/11, President Musharraf has brilliantly played on American fears of the extremist threat and mustered the unflinching support of President Bush. But now the deep resentment across the country that the ‘emergency’ and other measures have evoked has further discredited the ‘war on terror’ and created a policy dilemma for the Bush administration.
The criticality of this war is so high for the US that it cannot afford to abandon its strong links with the Pakistan military and the government. Having backed Musharraf to the hilt it is unable to digest another major foreign policy failure in Pakistan, especially after the debacles in Iraq and Afghanistan. While it finds the recently appointed COAS a suitable replacement, it would not like to push Musharraf too hard. The US has nuanced its policy to appear more people- than Musharraf-centric but is prepared to laud him for his smallest concessions.
A classic example of this was repeated when President Musharraf announced the date for elections, with Condoleezza Rice welcoming the move and President Bush saying that he believed “President Musharraf was a democrat”. This reminded us of President Bush praising General Sharon as a “man of peace”. US efforts at facilitating a Bhutto-Musharraf deal are also about to fall apart, which places Washington in an awkward position. Sooner or later Washington will have to choose between the two or maybe look for other alternatives to fight the ‘global war on terror’.
The writer is a retired lieutenant-general of the Pakistan Army.
Return of a war hero
A SON of the land returned home Monday to his dreamland — Bangladesh — 36 years after his martyrdom. The nation is proud to have a war hero back. Hamidur Rehman was laid to rest with state honours in Dhaka beside another war hero, Matiur Rehman, who was a pilot.
Matiur’s body was returned to Bangladesh on June 24, 2006 by Pakistan after his grave was found. Bangladesh took back the remains of Hamidur, a teenager who was killed fighting Pakistani forces and buried in India almost four decades ago. The body was exhumed from a village grave in Tripura and taken home for a ceremonial burial on Tuesday, a few days before Victory Day.
Hamidur died in 1971 while raiding a Pakistani military post in what was then known as East Pakistan. Fellow fighters carried away the body of 17-year-old Hamidur and buried it in a village in neighbouring India. The raid was the first bid to win back control of Sylhet in a battle against Pakistani forces. Hamidur is the youngest of seven war heroes posthumously conferred Bangladesh’s highest gallantry award for their roles in the war of independence.
We all bask in the glory of victory over Pakistan, but it is more difficult to establish true freedom than winning a war in the battleground. It is our responsibility to give the country a sense of true freedom. We should close ranks and unite.
Freedom fighters are still neglected. We should make a complete list of freedom fighters who remain unaccounted for. We hope Hamidur’s return rekindles the hope that all freedom fighters will be honoured. — (Dec 13)
Jai Jai Din
Landmark verdict for elections
THERE is no denying that transparency is important for politics and good governance. A recent verdict by the Appellate Division of the Supreme Court once again showed the importance of this principle … On May 24, 2006, the High Court Division of the Supreme Court had made it mandatory for contestants to submit information on eight counts to the Election Commission.
The landmark order came after three lawyers filed an appeal. The verdict ran into hitches. A man named Abu Safa challenged the verdict in the Appellate Division. The court froze the efficacy of the verdict — just five days before the forestalled Jan 22 election.
The legal hurdle disappeared on Dec 11. The Appellate Division upheld the High Court’s directive and said that candidates must submit the required information to the Election Commission…. The Appellate Division observed that “there has been no appeal in the eye of the law” and the petition could not be considered an appeal since it “had been filed by fabricating papers”.
Safa did not appear in court. Safa’s lawyers had earlier said their client, who was seeking to contest elections, had studied up to class eight.
The latest verdict was necessary to bring transparency to elections in the first step towards good governance. In Bangladesh, the election process — from nominations to voting day — was murky and controlled by money. The verdict has made the Election Commission more powerful than ever before. People will have the right to know more about the MPs they choose to elect. — (Dec 13)
Ittefaq
— Selected and translated by Arun Devnath.