[sacw] sacw dispatch #1 (Pakistan Special) 10 Dec.99

[Harsh Kapoor]

South Asia Citizens Web - Dispatch #1 (Pakistan Special)
10 December 1999
http://www.mnet.fr/aiindex
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Current History
December 1999
Asia

PAKISTAN'S COUP: PLANTING THE SEEDS OF DEMOCRACY?
by Ahmed Rashid

(Ahmed Rashid is a Lahore-based correspondent for the Far Eastern Economic
Review and the London Daily Telegraph. His most recent book, Taliban:
Militant Islam, Oil, and Fundamentalism in Central Asia, is forthcoming
from Yale University Press.)

On the evening of October 12, Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif dismissed
Pakistani army chief General Pervez Musharraf and appointed as his
successor the head of the Interservices Intelligence and a close family
friend, Lieutenant General Khawaja Ziauddin. Exactly one year earlier
Sharif had forced Musharraf's predecessor, General Jehangir Karamat, to
resign as army chief after he, like Musharraf, had criticized the poor
performance of Sharif's government.

This time, however, the army moved quickly to defend its chief and preserve
the unity of the most powerful institution in the country. Within a few
hours the military had taken control of the entire country and placed
Sharif, Ziauddin, and over 200 cabinet members, politicians, and senior
bureaucrats under house arrest. In the early hours of the morning General
Musharraf told the nation in a televised address that Sharif "had played
around with state institutions and destroyed the economy" and had tried to
"destabilize, politicize, and divide the armed forces."

Two days after the coup, Musharraf declared an "emergency." He suspended
the constitution and legislature, removed the heads of all political
institutions, and restricted the courts from considering the
constitutionality of the new military government. He said the military
would rule Pakistan through a National Security Council and a cabinet of
technocrats until the army could return the country from the present "sham"
democracy to a "true" democracy. It was martial law save for the name.

This, the fourth imposition of military rule in Pakistan, appeared to many
foreign observers as, at worst, a battle lost between democracy and
dictatorship, and at best as an overreaction to the failure of democracy,
one that did not warrant army intervention. Pakistanis saw it quite
differently. The bloodless coup met with overwhelming public support.
Leaders across the political spectrum hailed the army for "saving"
Pakistan. Not a single member of Sharif's Pakistan Muslim League (pml)
condemned the coup or supported Sharif, demonstrating how isolated the
prime minister had become from public opinion and from his own party.

Internationally, the coup's ramifications were potentially immense; the
army's grip on foreign policy has contributed enormously to Pakistan's
recent problems.This was the first military takeover in a nuclear-weapon
state, which only five months earlier had nearly provoked a war with its
nuclear-armed neighbor, India, by sending troops and Kashmiri militants
into the Kargil region in the Indian-held sector of Kashmir. On its western
border the army has long supported the Taliban, which controls 90 percent
of Afghanistan, a collapsed state that has become a base for international
terrorists, massive opium production, light weapons, and the harshest brand
of Islamic fundamentalism ever experienced in the Muslim world-a
fundamentalism increasingly popular in Pakistan.

At home the implications of the coup for the army are no less serious.
Pakistan is a fragile state, teetering on the edge of bankruptcy and beset
by Islamic fundamentalism, ethnic and sectarian warfare, and rapacious
politicians unable to provide good governance in the 51 years of the
country's troubled history. For an army that has suppressed civil society
in three earlier martial laws, General Musharraf has set himself the most
unusual of tasks. The army's success will depend not merely on a return to
democracy as demanded by the United States and other Western countries, but
on the crafting of a genuine civil society in Pakistan so that democracy
becomes meaningful and development oriented and not just a means for
politicians to plunder the state. The army is well aware that this is
Pakistan's last chance for survival as a modern nation-state; it also
understands the risk it has taken on. By seizing power, the army, the
country's last viable institution, has taken responsibility for the
nation's survival and its people's future.

The coup's seeds

Pakistan has been ruled by the army for nearly half its lifetime, but none
of the military's interventions have been successful in the long term; they
have only helped deepen the fissures in Pakistani society. Superficially,
today's martial law follows the same pattern as two earlier periods of
martial law in 1958 and 1977, when long periods of chaotic, corrupt, and
authoritarian civilian government led to military interventions.

But those martial laws were premeditated and led by ambitious generals,
Ayub Khan and Zia ul-Haq, who implemented highly ideological agendas in
which a return to democracy did not figure. Both regimes ended
disastrously: Ayub Khan was overthrown by his own army after a bloody mass
movement in 1968 and Zia ul-Haq was killed in a plane crash in 1988. The
third martial law, which was imposed after Ayub's fall in 1968, led to war
with India and the loss of East Pakistan, which was reborn as Bangladesh.
Historically, military rule has not provided solutions but has added to
Pakistan's problems.

The October coup was different from previous military interventions.
Although the army certainly had contingency plans, the coup was an act of
self-defense to maintain the institutional integrity of the military and to
prevent civil war among the generals. Moreover, because Sharif had
concentrated all power in himself-in the process disposing of all
democratic checks and balances, undermining state institutions, abusing and
amending the constitution repeatedly, and destabilizing the economy-the
public had widely demanded that the army act.

The October coup bought to an end 11 years of civilian rule that had begun
with Zia's death. During those 11 years, Pakistan has seen 11 governments,
4 of which were elected and none of which completed a full term in office.
Sharif and his bitter rival, Benazir Bhutto, had each been twice elected to
office and twice booted out for widespread corruption and incompetence.
Bhutto's two governments were marked by rampant corruption that undermined
state institutions and the economy. Sharif's were marked by the same, with
the addition of attempts to concentrate power.

Because of the president's authority to dismiss a government, each removal
was imperfect but constitutionally acceptable; each time the army took a
back seat as interim governments were formed to hold fresh elections within
the constitutionally mandated 90 days. But each dismissal also prompted
widespread public calls for a longer period of rule by the interim
government so that it could carry out an across-the-board accounting of
corrupt politicians. The desire of many people and the army was to end the
vicious cycle of Bhutto-Sharif, who headed the two largest parties in the
country but had been at each other's political throats for 15 years, and
enable a new generation of more forward-looking politicians to come to the
fore.

The army thus reflected public opinion by wanting good civilian government.
But the army also contributed to undermining civilian governments with its
control over foreign policy toward India and Afghanistan, its huge
budgetary demands, its innate conservatism, its lack of economic
understanding, and the role of the military intelligence agencies.

The seeds of the latest coup can be traced to November 5, 1996, when
President Farooq Leghari, with the backing of army chief General Karamat,
dismissed Prime Minister Benazir Bhutto. The army and the public demanded
accountability and a longer period of interim government to achieve that
accountability. Leghari declined, struck a dubious deal with Sharif, and
ordered elections within 90 days. Sharif swept back to power with 134 of
the 204 seats contested in the National Assembly. Public frustration at the
politicians and the lack of choice was reflected in the lowest turnout in
Pakistan's history; only 32 percent of the voting population took part in
the polls (in contrast, 60 percent turned out in India's recent polls).

Sharif's Pakistan Muslim League party took only 17 percent of the general
vote, but the first past the post electoral system gave his league
two-thirds of the seats in parliament, making him the most powerful prime
minister in Pakistan's history, with sufficient parliamentary votes to
amend the constitution at will.

The Sharif government's slide into gross political mismanagement,
corruption, and authoritarianism does not bear full repetition here, but it
was because of that slide that the prime minister's relations with the army
deteriorated. During his tenure as army chief between 1996 and 1998,
General Karamat prepared contingency plans for military rule three times
when the regime teetered on the brink of dissolving during several
constitutional deadlocks that paralyzed the country. But each time Karamat
refused to intervene, unwilling to interfere with the democratic process.
Sharif went on to cower the bureaucracy, the judiciary,the police,
parliament, the opposition, banks, and business.

Then, at the very moment Sharif needed international support to avert a
default on the country's foreign debt-after the West had imposed economic
sanctions on Pakistan because of its nuclear tests-Sharif picked a fight
with the imf, the World Bank, and international investors over
foreign-funded electricity power projects. This move destroyed local and
foreign business confidence in his government.

Karamat publicly spoke out about the deteriorating situation on October 5,
1998. Addressing the Naval War College in Lahore, he said: "Unlike
countries with economic potential, we cannot afford the destabilizing
effects of polarization vendettas and insecurity-driven expedient policies."

Unable to accept any criticism, Sharif forced Karamat's resignation just
two days after the speech. Karamat chose to go quietly rather than invoke
any contingency plans, hoping his example would inspire Sharif to change
his ways and prevent a division in the army. Instead, his departure
galvanized Sharif to make what one Western ambassador described as "a
megalomaniac and paranoid bid for power." The prime minister misread
Karamat's departure as the army's surrender and absolute weakness in the
face of his power. Karamat's Lahore speech, which was simply a plea for
good governance, ultimately formed the basis of Musharraf's actions a year
later.

Musharraf: from aiding to ousting the government

General Musharraf was third in line to become army chief and owed his
elevation to that post after Karamat's dismissal to Sharif. With little
hesitation and despite criticism from within the military, Musharraf
plunged the army into helping the government deal with the problems caused
by the many state institutions and services that were on the verge of
collapse. In his most dramatic move he inducted 70,000 troops into the
state-owned electricity generation company to collect unpaid bills. He
declined to repeat Karamat's criticism and hoped-again-that by a different
example the army would encourage Sharif to move away from his
confrontational politics and pursue nation building.

Encouraged by Musharraf's obedience and aid, Sharif redoubled his
repressive campaign against all sectors of civil society that dared
criticize him. This time the press, human rights advocates, lawyers'
groups, and other developmental nongovernmental organizations were
targeted. To keep the growing power of the Islamic fundamentalist parties
in check, he promised them a bill to allow the imposition of sharia
(Islamic law), which, if passed, would have overturned the country's legal
system and constitution. He then encouraged the mullahs to launch a witch
hunt against liberals who opposed the bill.

During this time, Sharif retreated behind a close coterie of family friends
and former employees, ignoring the cabinet and parliament-and the army. The
most powerful men around Sharif were his father, Mohammed Sharif; his
brother Shahbaz Sharif, the chief minister of Punjab province; his former
family lawyer and the minister of justice, Khalid Anwar; his former
business partner Saif ur Rehman, head of the powerful Accountability Cell
(charged with investigating political corruption); Ishaq Dar, the former
accountant of his industrial conglomerate Ittefaq Industries who served as
minister of finance and commerce; and a sycophantic mediaperson, Mushahid
Hussain, the minister of information.

As president, Sharif had chosen retired Justice Rafiq Tarrar, a rigid
Islamic fundamentalist, fellow Punjabi, and friend of his father's with no
political experience or public exposure. With the help of another family
friend, Lieutenant General Ziauddin, he emasculated the Interservices
Intelligence, the army's most powerful foreign and domestic intelligence
agency, and tried to divide the generals by enticing some to be totally
loyal to him rather than the army chief.

Sharif's ad hoc style of decision making was leading to the country's
international isolation and seriously undermining the economy, while the
prime minister's vendettas-including attempts to crush the press and
silence journalists critical of him-were alienating every sector of
society. The army's frustration intensified as national security and the
army's image abroad began to be affected. When the army and Sharif decided
to carry out five nuclear tests on May 28, 1998 in response to India's
tests earlier that month, Sharif ignored the army's requests to prepare
economic and foreign policy measures that would counter the expected
international outcry. The result was an economic debacle that bought
Pakistan to the verge of default on its foreign debt of $32 billion as the
United States and other nations imposed sanctions on Pakistan in response
to the testing.

It was the Kargil campaign that created the greatest friction. The army had
deemed a military operation in Kargil necessary to revive the 10-year-long
Kashmir insurgency that was being beaten back by huge Indian troop
deployments and military action, a position with which Sharif agreed. When
Sharif was first briefed by the army in January 1999 about executing the
Kargil operation, he gave the go-ahead but then told nobody in the
government, made no economic or foreign policy preparations for the
resulting international fallout, and decided on his own to invite Indian
Prime Minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee to Lahore in February 1999. By inviting
Vajpayee and talking peace with India while Kargil was in the offing,
Sharif and the army ensured that Pakistan's credibility abroad was badly
damaged. Ultimately, the manner in which Pakistan was forced to withdraw
from Kargil after President Bill Clinton intervened at Sharif's request
infuriated both the public and the military, which had seen the
intervention escalate into a large Indian military response that included
the possibility of Indian intervention in Pakistan.

While Sharif tried to lay the blame for Kargil on the army, Musharraf
insisted that Sharif was on board and made all the key decisions.
Meanwhile, the country's long political and economic crisis had worsened.
In September, 19 diverse opposition parties united to form a "Grand
Democratic Alliance" and began a series of rallies across the country
demanding Sharif's ouster. The Jamaat-e-Islami, the country's most powerful
Islamic party, launched its own effort to topple Sharif, while the Jamiat
ul-Ulema-i Islam and several e xtremist groups belonging to the Deobandi
sect of Sunni Islam began a third movement.1

For the army the last straw was two separate visits to Washington by
Shahbaz Sharif and Ziauddin, where they criticized Musharraf and the army.
The United States State Department appeared to side with Sharif when it
issued a terse statement on September 20, warning the army not to carry out
any unconstitutional act. The army felt humiliated by Sharif's attempt to
create

external support for his faltering regime and denigrating the army in the
process.

Musharraf now went public. He criticized the government for failing to
maintain law and order after 40 people died in sectarian killings around
the country. Then, on October 8, he removed Lieutenant General Tariq
Pervaiz, the commander of the Quetta Corps (one of the country's nine
corps), for holding a private meeting with Sharif, which was against army
regulations. The removal infuriated Sharif, who was trying to make inroads
among senior generals in preparation to sack Musharraf.

As tensions escalated, Musharraf warned several of the nine corps
commanders who were loyal to him that he would not be removed from office
by force because Sharif was trying to divide the army. The 111 Brigade of
the 10th Corps based in Rawalpindi outside Islamabad-the traditional
coup-making unit-was put on 15-minute-readiness notice. Ultimately, it was
Sharif who moved first and not the army.

When Musharraf addressed the nation on the night of the coup, his words
reflected the acute slide the country had taken since Karamat's speech a
year earlier. "We have lost our honor, our dignity, our respect in the
comity of nations. Is this the way to enter the new millennium? We have hit
rock bottom. We have no choice but to rise and rise we will." Musharraf had
come full circle in just 12 months: from going out of his way to help the
Sharif government to ousting it from power.

The seven reform objectives and six guidelines to revive the economy that
Musharraf announced covered most aspects of what Pakistanis desire and
expect.But Musharraf gave no timetable on how long the army would stay in
power. The question uppermost in people's minds is whether the army can
deliver on its promises. Continued public support for the coup will depend
on whether the army can fulfill its own agenda.

The external dimensions of internal change

An army coup at the end of the twentieth century is an anachronistic and,
to the international community, unacceptable means by which to rebuild a
country. While the domestic crisis in itself is dire, two paramount issues
will determine the army's international acceptability and its success or
failure at home: foreign policy and the economy.

Musharraf, who is 56, also faces an image problem that he must overcome.
Born in New Delhi to a family of Urdu-speaking migrants who settled in
Karachi, Musharraf does not belong to the powerful Punjabi power brokers
who have dominated Pakistani politics and the army. His ethnic origins are
an advantage in the troubled province of Sind, but a disadvantage in
Punjab. Abroad, Musharraf is held responsible for the Kargil debacle, which
branded him as an adventurous hard-liner, mesmerized by military tactics
but seemingly unaware of strategy or diplomacy.

Yet Kargil was only possible because of Pakistan's nuclear status. The army
believed that India would not retaliate against a Pakistani intrusion into
Indian Kashmir by widening the conflict and crossing the international
border because of the risk of nuclear war. Some Western but especially
Indian commentators pointed out that Kargil was virtual nuclear blackmail
by a newly nuclear-weaponized state to achieve tactical foreign policy
aims. The ensuing deadlock in India-Pakistan relations and the dangers
inherent in a nuclear and missile race between the two countries are now
major destabilizing factors in the region.

Meanwhile, the army and Sharif's support for the ruling Taliban in
Afghanistan has also alienated Pakistan from the rest of the region. Iran,
Russia, India, and four Central Asian states (Tajikistan, Kyrgyzstan,
Kazakhstan, and Uzbekistan) support the anti-Taliban movement known as the
Northern Alliance and accuse Pakistan of abetting Taliban-style terrorism
and fundamentalism in their countries. Pakistan's closest allies, China and
Turkey, have also recently taken strong exception to the Taliban. (In
China's case, Uighur Muslim militants from Xinjiang province have been
given sanctuary by the Taliban.) Russia has recently accused the Taliban
and Pakistani militants of involvement in the Islamist movements in
Dagestan and Chechnya.

For the United States and Europe, the sanctuary given by the Taliban to the
Saudi terrorist Osama bin Laden and some 400 Arab extremists, along with
the Taliban's refusal to extradite them, has become the principal threat
from Afghanistan and a major factor in the West's pressure on Pakistan to
change its policy toward that country. Pakistan is one of only three
nations that have recognized the Taliban government and is now the only
country in the world that continues to support it after Saudi Arabia and
the United Arab Emirates cut off aid this year because of the bin Laden
issue.

Changing policy on Afghanistan will be difficult for an army that, since
the capture of Kabul in 1992 by the Afghan mujahideen, has been wedded to
trying to return to power in Afghanistan the majority Pashtun population at
the expense of Afghan minority ethnic groups. This policy itself has been
complicated as the Taliban has developed extensive links inside Pakistan
with Deobandi extremist parties and their religious schools; the truck and
transport mafia that is the linchpin of drugs and consumer goods smuggling
between Pakistan, Afghanistan,and Central Asia (and the main source of
revenue for the Taliban); as well as business groups, police, and bureau
crats in the two Pakistani border provinces of Baluchistan and the North
West Frontier Province.

Some 80,000 Pakistani militants have trained and fought with the Taliban
since their emergence in 1994, providing a huge militant fundamentalist
base for a Taliban-style Islamic revolution in Pakistan. The Taliban have
thus established close ties not only with the military but with many
sectors of Pakistani society, which now pose a threat to Pakistan's
stability.

The army's domestic agenda cannot be carried out fully until it changes its
Afghan policy. If the army wants to crack down on sectarianism, it will
have to force the Taliban to hand over Pakistani and foreign extremists to
whom the Taliban have given sanctuary. To control the fundamentalists at
home, the army has to end the supply of weapons and training the Taliban
provide. To revive the economy, it will have to end the smuggling trade
that in 1998 was worth $2.5 billion and has crippled Pakistani industry and
created huge losses in customs revenue.

Afghanistan also affects foreign policy with India. Many Pakistani and
Kashmiri militants fighting in Indian Kashmir train on Taliban-controlled
territory rather than inside Pakistan. Successive governments and the army
have been unable to change Afghan policy partly because an Afghan
settlement is now held hostage by the Kashmir dispute with India and the
Kashmiri struggle for self-determination, which is the cornerstone of
Pakistan's foreign policy. If it were to squeeze the Taliban, the army
would also face the much more difficult issue dealing with Kashmir and
Pakistan's future relations with India.

In short, nearly every aspect of Musharraf's domestic agenda touches on
Afghanistan. But to reduce Pakistan's support to the Taliban will almost
certainly create a backlash from the well-armed Deobandi extremists at
home, which only the army is strong enough to keep under control.

Arresting the economic meltdown

Any economic revival in Pakistan also depends on exporting more to
Pakistan's neighbors than to the West, where Pakistani goods are
increasingly uncompetitive. In 1998 exports fell by 13 percent, the largest
drop in 30 years. Pakistan's exports-unfinished textiles, leather, rice,
carpets, and some consumer goods-have barely changed in composition or
value added since the 1960s. The only markets for these poor-quality goods
are countries on an equal or lesser economic footing than Pakistan: India,
Afghanistan, Iran, and the countries of Central Asia. But to access Central
Asia and Iran, Pakistan needs to promote an Afghan settlement, while
accessing India requires normalizing relations.

Any economic revival will also depend on first restoring local investor
confidence and then encouraging foreign investment by reengaging the imf
and the World Bank, which during Sharif's tenure suspended loan programs
worth $1.56 billion and $500 million, respectively. Investor confidence
will not return unless there is peace on Pakistan's borders, law and order
inside the country, and the army is seen as a responsible agent of change
and modernization.

Pakistan is in dire economic straits. With a foreign debt of $32 billion
and foreign exchange reserves that have not been more than $1.6 billion for
the past five years, Pakistan spends 67 percent of its budget servicing
interest repayments on its debt. Annual gdp growth has fallen from 6
percent to well under 4 percent over the last two years. But with
population growth at 2.8 percent a year, real growth is just 1 percent.
Aside from exports, Pakistan's two other sources of foreign exchange,
foreign investment and remittances from overseas Pakistani workers, have
also shown a sharp decline in the past two years. With Pakistan in its
fourth year of a severe recession, one-third of the country's industry is
shut down, state-owned banks are bankrupt, agriculture is stagnant, and
prices are rising while rampant unemployment helps fuel Islamic militancy.

According to the State Bank of Pakistan, the country's ruling elite owes a
staggering $4 billion in nonperforming and defaulted loans to state-owned
banks.Nine of the biggest defaulters were members of the last cabinet and
include members of the Sharif family. Musharraf's first task is to force
defaulters to pay this money back. Any economic recovery will eventually
raise public and international questions about the military's own enormous
budget (45 percent of the total 1999-2000 budget), which now includes a
full-fledged nuclear weapons program. But the military cannot afford to cut
its budget unless there is movement toward peace with India. Economic
revival is thus closely intertwined with foreign policy.

Pakistan's last hope?

As the army develops its policies on governing Pakistan, there will be
intense internal debate within the military. The army stands fully united
behind Musharraf, who is considered a liberal, but his key military
advisers-his kitchen cabinet of generals-are almost equally divided between
what can be only inadequately described as secular liberals, diehard
conservatives, and even Islamic hard-liners. The more conservative generals
will likely favor the status quo and may not support a major reevaluation
of policy toward Afghanistan and India or even toward the Islamic parties.
Thus Musharraf will have to maintain the momentum of change, while keeping
his generals with him.

At the heart of the problem for the army remains the fact that the near
collapse of the Pakistan state has become intertwined with the need to
engage in a domestic cleanup that includes revived foreign and economic
policies. Little can be done on one front without impinging on the other
two fronts; in short, no single issue on Musharraf's agenda can be tackled
in isolation.

The army must also rebuild public faith in civil society if a return to
democracy is to be truly effective. Unlike in the past, the army will have
to work with and strengthen the judiciary, chambers of business and
commerce, the press, developmental nongovernmental organizations, and human
rights groups. It will have to introduce ordinances to change some of the
worst aspects of human rights abuses, which have led the international
community to criticize Pakistan.Only then will civil society be prepared to
allow the army a permanent stake in a future democratic setup-which it will
demand and may well be necessary-through the National Security Council. The
army, contrary to anything it has ever done in the past, will have to
institutionalize checks and balances to allow a vibrant democracy and civil
society to flourish. In short, the army has to sow the seeds for true
democracy.

Notes: 1 The Deobandis arose in British-ruled India during the nineteenth
century as a revivalist Islamic movement within the Sunni sect that aimed
to regenerate Muslim society as it struggled to live within the confines of
a colonial state. The Deobandis hoped to revive Islamic values based on
learning, spiritual experience, and sharia. The Deobandis hold a
restrictive view of the role of women and reject Shiaism.

(Copyright: Current History, Inc.)

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