Two Views on Shahbaz Sharif

Here are two views on Shahbaz Sharif. What they both highlight is his dynamic, personal style of government. But while this article finds this generally a laudable quality, this editorial highlights at least one problem to arise from his style of leadership.

Sheikh Rashid

That perennial joker Sheikh Rashid makes for some of the most entertaining television available in Pakistan today. It was back when he was Railways Minister that he developed the habit of calling up four or five TV stations in succession, one immediately after the other, to air his views on every political matter in the country EXCEPT the railways. One would have thought that after losing the elections back in February, he might have faded from the limelight, but of course politicians in Pakistan never fade, but linger on like revenants hoping for a change in political fortunes to resurrect their careers.

So, quiet apart from the fact that Sheikh Rashid still spends his evenings with every major TV station on speed dial, last week he went and gave a sorry excuse for a news conference. After bemoaning the sad fate of the poor, hungry and naked masses who are the victims of rampant inflation, he theatrically demanded to know why the new government has not formulated any new policies to deal with their plight. The implication of his words was that the new government was continuing with the failed policies of his own former government. I wonder if he thinks this is a viable campaign strategy?

Feudalism?

Blaming 'Feudalism' has become the lazy way of expressing 'concern' about Pakistan. It has become a catch-all phrase to describe and explain any kind of troubling social phenomena in the country. But what is this creature called feudalism anyway? Akbar Zaidi has an excellent article in Dawn arguing that the term is out of date and obscures far more than it helps to understand the social, economic and political realities of Pakistan.

Storm in a Teacup (Again!)

The ability of the U.S. media to create storms in teacups is something truly to be admired. When its not Obama dressing up in a turban and traditional Kenyan dress, its the "revelation" that McCain went to topless bars when he was a younger...

Latest storm? Obama never mentioned in his biographies that he spent several weeks in Pakistan back in 1981. Add this to his Pakistani roomate at college and illegal immigrant Pakistani friend, and *gasp!* this all begins to smell of conspiracy!

In other news, Obama has launched a blog in hebrew in an attempt to reach out to the Israeli public, which, according to polls, feels his pro-Israeli crededentials are not as sound as the other two presidential candidates.

Someone asked me the other day if Benazir Bhutto could truly be considered a politician [I believe his point was that she was more a feudal princess than a modern politician]. I replied that I thought that she had been a very talented politician, and that the more pertinent question was, what was her political constituency? Its widely felt in Pakistani politics, that to be succesful, one has to be acceptable not only to the Pakistani people, but also to the American government. The American government, in other words, is an extra-national constituency of any leading Pakistani politician. In the same way, there seems to be the feeling in Washington, that the Israeli public is a key extra-national constituency for any American Presidential candidate.

Edit: So apparently I'm late with the 'breaking news' about Obama's Pakistan connection. Ali Khan blogs about it on the Dawn blog here.

On Zardari

I was all fired up to write a long post on Zardari and his ascension to power, and what this means for Pakistan, but I have found that the 'old China hand' has done a pretty good job of doing this at China Matters.

Here's a taster: "Zardari, in his own way, epitomizes the rot at the heart of the PPP just as Musharraf symbolizes the rot at the heart of the Pakistani government."

I couldn't have put it better myself.

Update

Unfortunately my internet connection has been misbehaving over the last couple of weeks. It was down for about 10 days or so and even though it has undergone a series of repairs, is still somewhat temperamental.

So of course this means that a few peices I had planned to write in the run up to the election are now redundant.

And as for the election itself? Well, I did vote of course, despite the lack of any candidates that i felt like voting for. Some have argued that it was not worth voting in this election, but I strongly disagree. Even if you are going to register a protest vote (for someone who has no chance of winning), its still important to vote.

More on all that later.

State Failures

Much ink has been spilt over whether or not Pakistan is a failed state. The question, I think, is somewhat misleading, because few who argue one side or the other of the question care to think about what the functions of the state in Pakistan are. Given that the state apparatus was created to promote and protect the wealth and power of a small segment of society, can its inability or unwillingness to promote the welfare of the rest of society be accounted a failure?

Leaving such questions aside, there is no doubt that for a great number of people in Pakistan, the state continuously fails to provide them with the bare basics of what is expected from any modern state. This was vividly illustrated in the sad case of Mudassar Alam.

Mudassar Alam was a 14 year old resident of Hyderabad who on 21st November was punished by his 4th grade teacher in the government school he attended reportedly for not doing his homework. He was beaten, then forced to do 100 sit-ups. When he complained of severe abdominal pains, the teacher believed he was making excuses and forced him to continue with the corporal punishment. Afterwards, in severe pain, he skipped out from school and went home, where his parents became worried and rushed him to the nearby government hospital. According to a media report, "He was catheterized for not being able to pass stool or urine", was "suffering from acute low blood pressure and very high pulse rate" and his "Intestine were jumbled and perforated, and turned blackish due to blocked blood circulation."

The doctors at the government hospital operated on the boy, but pus developed in the wound in his perforated intestine and he had to be operated on a second time. After almost two months in hospital, the boy passed away. As for the quality of the medical care received by Mudassar, it is worth mentioning this quote from the boy's father on his death:

""On Thursday when my wife complained to on duty doctor that her son is oozing some whitish liquid from his mouth doctor didn’t pay attention and said it normally happens. But when his condition deteriorated and nurse examined him he had lost his life by then,” the weeping father said."

The father, by the way, was an agricultural worker, who worked in a nearby banana orchard. He lost his job the day he took his son to hospital and was replaced, because of course, there are no labour protection laws that apply to the vast majority of the poor in this country.

Initially no action was taken against the teacher who resorted to corporal punishment. In fact, he tried to pay off the family with a bribe of 15,000 rupees in return for a statement from them saying that the boy had been seriously ill before he had come to school that day. To force the parents of the child into compliance, he threatened them with his "contacts" in "intelligence agencies". It was only after the case was reported in the media [about two weeks after the incident] that the government's Education Department finally stirred itself into suspending the teacher and launching an inquiry. A month and a half later, the inquiry still has not reached any kind of conclusion. The Education Department however, did say, that they could not offer any kind of financial help to the student or his family.

Taking this as a test case, it is clearly apparent that the state failed in the provision of education, failed in the provision of healthcare, failed in the provision of justice, failed in the provision of labour rights and finally failed to exercise self-accountability in order to guard against future failures. Interestingly enough, the specter of the "intelligence agencies" were also used as an instrument of coercion in an attempt to hush up the incident, though ultimately this failed to silence the affair - perhaps because the teacher's connection to these "intelligence agencies" was fictional. Had a more well-connected personage been behind the incident, we may have seen the state succeeding in doing what it does best - serving the interests of the elite.

Cracking Up?

After the assasination of Bhutto, I argued that while the country was heading for [even more] political instability, it was not in danger of breaking up. I did add the following comment though:

"This is not to say that our political leaders might not still manage to drag the entire nation into chaos - its possible I suppose, given the state of affairs and the seemingly miraculous ability of our political leaders to really make a mess of things. However, that will require some effort and a whole series of mis-steps."

Well it certainly seems as if the first of those mis-steps have now been duly taken by our erstwhile leaders. How? By playing the ethnicity card.

The prime culprits are the PML-Q. Perhaps realizing that their opponents in the PPP are pretty much going to sweep rural Sindh, they seem to have decided to jettison any hope of winning there and have resorted to whipping up hatred against Sindhis in order to bolster their hopes in other parts of the country. The Chaudhries and their party have, among other things, accused Sindhis of being responsible for all the violence following Benazir's death, have alleged that all the victims of the violence were Punjabis, Mohajirs and other ethnic groups, have alleged that ethnic cleansing was carried out by Sindhis during the violence and have called for government financial assistance for those who lost property in the violence to only be paid to non-Sindhis.
With great hoopla, the PML-Q set up a 'refugee camp' in Lahore to house Punjabi refugees supposedly ethnically-cleansed from Sindh.

During the violence several trains were stopped on the tracks and burnt after rioters forced their passengers to disembark. Railway signals were also destroyed. This brought the country's railroads to a halt, with thousands of passengers stranded at small stations in the interior of Sindh without food or shelter for several days. Since the violence occurred only a few days after Eid, the trains had been packed with people returning from holidays with their families to their places of work - a large number were people from homes in the Punjab and NWFP returning to Karachi. The PML-Q has also given this disruption an ethnic flavour, presenting it as violence against Punjabis. The image of trains under attack particularly resonates because it was one of the features of the violence of Partition - violence that was especially severe in the Punjab and memories of which still linger in the national consciousness.

Unsurprisingly, there were sensationalized reports of the rape of Punjabi women by Sindhis - as always the spectacle of the 'others' threatening 'our' womenfolk is always a guaranteed crowd-puller in a society dominated by notions of machismo and honour. Given the problems the PML-Q is having pulling in crowds for their election rallies, its not surprising they have turned to these kinds of tactics to counter the so-called 'sympathy wave' that is expected to benefit the PPP following Bhutto's death.

The ethnicity card has been heavily criticized by human rights activists, members of the PPP and the PML-Q's coalition partner, the MQM. Even the Punjabi Students Association of Sindh has condemned the irresponsibility of the PML-Q.

Needless to say, the government is silent on the issue.

Having said all this, one should keep in mind that the rhetoric of ethno-nationalism is not new, and certainly not the sole purview of the PML-Q. The Baluch insurgency has long been fueled by talk of Punjabi domination. It was once a mainstay of shrill MQM rhetoric, [though these days it tends to be muttered under breath rather than announced in election speeches] and many Sindhi politicians complain about a Mohajir-Punjabi nexus that dominates the government and economy. Benazir Bhutto herself stirred the pot a couple of days before she returned to Pakistan in October by making a very inflamatory statement at a press conference in Dubai about how after a coup the military hanged her father, a Prime Minister from Sindh, but allowed Nawaz Sharif, a Prime Minister from Punjab, to live in luxurious exile. [Which of course begs the question, did she think Nawaz Sharif should have been killed as well, just to make things fair?]

It has been a long time since one has heard the level of hate-speech and calumny that one is now hearing in the country. One can only hope that better sense prevails and that the various political figures stop digging their fingernails into the cracks that are appearing in the Federation. But its not just the rhetoric that has to change. To a large extent, these trends are the reflection of a national political process that is severely damaged and a strong sense of alienation from the state which is felt by large sections of the populace. People who can sense that the state does not operate in their interests are more open to the suggestion that it operates in the interests of people of another ethnicity.

Who Killed Bhutto? [Part II]

And the rumour mill has, as usual, gone wild, with all sorts of conspiracy theories making the rounds regarding who killed Benazir Bhutto. Some claim it was Musharraf. Some claim it was her husband, Zardari. Some allege it was the Chaudhries. Some claim it was part of a larger American plot. No, others claim, its actually an Indian conspiracy....

As addicted as we are to conspiracy theories, I suppose it was inevitable that these kinds of conspiracy theories would proliferate. But the circumstances of the medical report and outlandish claims by the government immediately following the assassination have added grist to the mill. Its sad really.

Here is a STRATFOR article, reprinted at Teeth Maestro's blog, summarizing the political situation in Pakistan and examining the theory that Musharraf had something to do with the murder. It very rightly points out that Musharraf had everything to lose and little to gain from Bhutto's death.

Anatomy of A Dynastic Succession Struggle

A week ago Asif Zardari was in the political wilderness. Right now he is riding high as the premier political figure in the country. How did he get there and perhaps more importantly, will this state of affairs last?

That there were many in the PPP hierarchy close to Benazir Bhutto who detested Zardari is no secret. That they blamed Zardari and his corrupt and thuggish ways for staining Bhutto's reputation and alienating both popular and political support is also well known. During Bhutto's second tenure as Prime Minister, Zardari was appointed to the cabinet with the environment ministry portfolio - a post which shuffled him out of a say in important decision-making while allowing him to collect bribes in return for the no-objection certificates every building, mining and industrial project requires from the Environment Ministry before getting underway.

But convicted of corruption, Zardari was jailed and only recently released by Musharraf as part of the political deal Musharraf was making with Benazir Bhutto. Zardari high-tailed it to Dubai where it was widely expected that he would remain, with no role to play in the coming elections or any kind of future Bhutto-Musharraf government. The PPP inner circle was reputedly happy with the arrangement.

Then came the assassination.

The revival of Zardari's political fortunes is the result of several factors, which include the pressures of a modern TV news media, the nearness of elections, Benazir Bhutto's style of absolutist politics within the party which eliminated any source of power within the party outside of that of her own Bhutto name, and the personality-cult brand of leadership so deeply rooted in South Asian cultures.

In the days immediately following Bhutto's death, Zardari was thrust into the media spotlight in a manner which none of the senior PPP leaders could match. As Bhutto's husband, all the political leaders of Pakistan, from Musharraf to Nawaz Sharif contacted him to commiserate. The live media coverage of the emotional scenes of the funeral procession, burial and ceremonial prayers all depicted Zardari at the forefront - the rest of the PPP leadership was lost in the crush of the crowd. Media reporters constantly wanted to speak with and interview Zardari - he became the focal point of attention and spokesperson for the grief and loss felt at Benazir's death.

Using this media focus on him, Zardari pushed to the forefront his son Bilawal. The Bhutto name was one that the inner sanctum of the PPP found hard to deny. Efforts to bring in other Bhuttos, such as Benazir's sister, Sanam Bhutto failed. Efforts by other branches of the Bhutto family, such as Benazir's uncle, Mumtaz and sister-in-law, Ghinwa, who Benazir had already sidelined and isolated in her own earlier succession power struggles were also unable to press their own claims.

If the PPP operated as a rationalised bureaucratic institution, power should have fallen to Makhdoom Amin Fahim - who held the second highest post in the party after Benazir. However this was a post Benazir had continually undermined when she led the party, and Makhdoom Amin Fahim had been appointed to it exactly because he had low standing in the party and was known for his loyalty and not for his capabilities. A too capable man would have been too much of a threat. Makhdoom Amin Fahim would have opposed Zardari's power grab but was unable to rally the rest of the party around him. Though he did come away from the meeting as the PPP candidate for Prime Minister, even this was made clear to be a temporary state of affairs.

Its interesting to note that one name that so many people were hopefully bandying about, Aitazaz Ahsan, the former PPP minister who championed the cause of the Chief Justice, was a non-starter for the post. As the PPP high command met in Naudero, he remained under house arrest in Karachi - confined, as he has been since September, for the crime of having represented the Chief Justice in Court. Aitazaz Ahsan had been effectively exiled from the inner circle of the Party by Benazir for having become too popular a figure in his own right, rather than as an adjutant to the Bhutto name.

The news conference held after the meeting of the PPP leadership at Naudero was informative almost as much for the body language of the PPP leaders and how it proceeded, as it was for what was said.

Bilal was placed in the middle and made a short, uncomfortable and stiff speech. Makhdoom Amin Fahim, in his slow plodding way tried to answer a question and was swiftly crowded out by a swift-talking, confident and assertive Zardari. He spent most of the news conference silent, sulking as Zardari took control of the proceedings. Zardari shut down any further questions to Bilawal by saying he was still at a 'tender age' and emphasizing his inexperience and unpreparedness to lead.

So what will the future hold?

The Insider Brief asks if the PPP will survive and opines that it will in a rather superficial analysis. The Pakistan Policy Blog asks more pertinent questions about the PPP's future, but offers few answers, and one blogger feels that a challenge to Zardari may be mounted not now, but down the line, by a formation coalescing around Zulfiqar Ali Bhutto Jr. Another possibility is that there will be a renewed attempt to rally around Makhdoom Amin Fahim within the party to keep Zardari at bay. The hope in that case would be that if the PPP can win elections and Amin Fahim can position himself as Prime Minister, the post of Party chairman would become diminished. The problem with this hope is that there are a great many 'if's in the equation. It is quiet possible that, with the elections having to be delayed, Zardari will become the PPP candidate from Bhutto's constituency - and once he is elected, he may well angle for the Prime Ministership himself, or even another candidate in order to sideline Amin Fahim.

One thing is clear; the succession struggle is not yet over. So far only the first round has been won by Zardari - an emphatic win to be sure - but one in which he was helped by circumstances. It remains to be seen if his position is secure.

Edit: I should really make it a point to look into the International Herald Tribune more often. This article is a very interesting dissection of Zardari's ascension.

Riots and Riot Control

Dawn TV yesterday had an interview with a security expert, a gentleman whose name I unfortunately cannot now recall, who was asked why the rioting and looting lasted for so long and why the government was so slow to act in bringing things under control.

The gentleman, who runs a private security company said that as soon as word of banks and offices being looted reached him he started making calls to members of the civilian and military administrations asking for help. There were heated exchanges when he heard that security forces were unwilling to roll swiftly into action. In most cases the rioters and looters were given a free rein on the first night and security forces were only deployed the following day. The idea was that PPP supporters should be allowed to vent their anger in order to prevent inflaming the situation.

In hindsight, the gentleman felt, the decision to hold back was probably a wise one, because in the immediate aftermath of the news of Benazir's death, if the army and paramilitary forces had been called out, violence may well have ensued between PPP supporters and security forces. The deaths may have mounted, inflaming the situation and Sindh may have irrupted into all-out insurrection.

I was ruminating on this while an acquaintance was claiming that the rioting "proved" that Pakistan needed the army to run the government to maintain law and order, because without the army, the nation would descend into complete chaos.

I think my acquaintance was drawing the wrong conclusions. Rather, it was the army's very involvement in politics, its involvement in the government administration as a partial rather than impartial party, that tied its hands when the violence broke out. If the army had come out into the streets that first day, enraged PPP supporters would have seen them as representatives of an institution politically opposed to their party and complicit in BB's death and would have attacked them as such. An army uninvolved in politics, still maintaining its integrity as an unbiased and non-partisan institution would have had no such baggage. There may still have been violence, but the situation would not have been charged with allegations of a vested interest or attempting to suppress political opponents.

I've said it before and I will say it again, having such an overt political role in Pakistani politics compromises what should be the army's primary role of defending the country. This is something the army brass simply fails to recognise.

Essentialising Culture

There is a very good post at the 'Kings of War' blog run by the King's College War Studies Dept. called 'The Trojan horse of culture'. The author is writing in relation to Counter-Insurgency Operations, but what he highlights is part of a broader trend of 'essentialising' culture - in other words thinking of some kind of idealized view of a society's culture as essential to its nature and the all-directing force behind the behaviour of its individuals. The author rightly describes the risks of this kind of view. In its most simplistic forms, it is little more than a form of racism and is about as useful in understanding the people it attempts to describe.

Its interesting that here in Pakistan, the military [and indeed many people in the society] tend to essentialize culture as well. In many ways this is a hold over of colonial thinking, soundly internalized by the army brass and bureaucratic elite in colonial educational and training institutions. This kind of thinking has had numberless harmful effects in Pakistani military [and therefore foreign policy] thinking.

One example can be found in the 1965 war. Raised on the colonial British myth of Punjabis and Pathans being a 'martial race', very different in essence to the 'effiminate' peoples of eastern and southern India, the military rushed into its foolhardy 'Operation Gibraltar' in 1965 with confident assertions that 'Hindu' India would be too cowardly to risk an all out war, and that, even if all our war came, in the words of Zulfiqar Bhutto, one Muslim soldier would be worth ten Hindu soldiers. History bears witness to the fact that the Indians not only did not flee in abject terror of the Pakistani army, but inflicted serious reversals on it. By the time the ceasefire was signed, the Pakistani position was desperate. The 1971 war was an even bigger military disaster.

But still the essentializing myths persist. Citing the repeated conquests and plundering raids of India by a variety of Muslim adventurers from Mohammad Bin Qasim in the 8th century to Ahmed Shah Abdali in the 18th, all part and parcel of a national narrative of martial prowess, Pakistanis still insist on the inherent inferiority of Indians when it comes to war. The myth is also deployed in other ways. Most political commentators who insist that Islamist militants should be given free reign in the tribal areas, and that the army should not oppose them, tend to reverse this myth of martial prowess and insist on the inherent superiority of the Pathan and Afghan as a fighter, as well as their inherently 'Islamic' nature. Thus the Taliban are presented as fighting to preserve their culture and Islamic identity against foreigners and the desultory efforts and rubbish performance of the Pakistani army in battling militants explained as the natural outcome of trying to oppose militants who have inherent fighting prowess ingrained by their culture.

Needless to say, once you have excuses like these, few feel the need to try to understand what is happening in a more detailed and intelligent manner. That the socio-economic and political environment of the tribal areas in 2007 is very different from 2000 is not understood. Nor that in 2000 it was very different from 1975, before the area was flooded with weapons, cash and drugs. The fact that culture is neither monolithic nor immutable does not occur to these people and therefore the response to militancy and extremism becomes circumscribed, banal and ultimately ineffective.

What Next?

I had been gearing up to write a post on the coming elections, the possible outcomes and what they might mean for the country, but the assassination of Benazir Bhutto seems to have thrown all the old equations out of the window.

So what will happen now?

The immediate reaction from the western press seems to be one of doom and gloom. 'Pakistan stares into the Abyss' says one experienced and usually level-headed blogger; 'Tentative steps towards democracy may become headlong rush into political chaos' warns the Guardian; the USA Today feels that Pakistan's best hope of 'becoming a stable democracy anytime soon may have died with Benazir Bhutto'. BBC is a little more circumspect, calling the assassination a 'severe blow to hope for stability' and asking 'what next for Pakistan'? CNN was constantly abuzz with discussion over what this means for the 'War on Terror' with repeated references to nuclear weapons and Islamist militants.

My own view of the situation is firstly, no, Pakistan is not going to immediately fall apart and leave nukes in the hands of Islamist militants. Secondly, yes, this is a severe blow to hopes for stability and Pakistan is headed for a political crisis. As for reversals for democracy, well, one is hard pressed to describe the previous political process in which Benazir was involved, as a movement towards 'stable democracy'.

This is not to say that our political leaders might not still manage to drag the entire nation into chaos - its possible I suppose, given the state of affairs and the seemingly miraculous ability of our political leaders to really make a mess of things. However, that will require some effort and a whole series of mis-steps.

For the immediate future, I think this leaves Musharraf's political future in deep trouble. Make no mistake, the man himself may survive, but I think hopes for taking serious measures to tackle extremism in the country could only have happened with political support from the PPP. There are certainly close advisers of Musharraf and people in the military who don't feel that the PPP is needed, but these people seem to spout such delusional fantasies of their own accomplishments, that they either have a very loose grip on reality or they are more interested in self-serving hypocrisy than tackling militancy.

All this is quiet apart from the fact that most people are holding Musharraf personally responsible and in the current climate of outrage and anger, various politicians may sense blood and try to bring him down. Nawaz Sharif seems to have already unsheathed his knives by announcing the PML-N will not take part in elections. Having lost the prop of being the army chief, and with his own political party, the PML-Q consisting of a band of mercenaries, Musharraf is at his most vulnerable. So far both these pillars of his authority seem to be standing by him, but it remains to be seen if they will do so if push comes to shove. Furthermore its not immediately clear who will take over the reins of power in the PPP now that Bhutto is gone, and if Musharraf will be able to make a deal with them. The three names being mentioned so far are Makhdoom Amin Fahim, Asif Zardari and Aitizaz Ahsan.

Makhdoom Amin Fahim is the titular head of the PPP, but he was in this position precisely because he was a 'yes-man' - someone who Benazir could trust to follow orders while she was in exile, and without a very strong base within the party apparatus. Asif Zardari seems to be maneuvering to take his late wife's position, and he can rely on his marital connection for mass support, but if he were to lead the PPP, one simply cannot see Musharraf coming to a political accommodation with him. It would be the height of hypocrisy for a president who took power with the promise to deliver accountability and honesty to form a political alliance with the man reputed to be the most corrupt in the country. As for the third candidate, Aitizaz Ahsan, who is still languishing under house arrest; he has been the most outspoken voice against the military and Musharraf in the country over the last year, and he is unlikely to enter into any kind of political arrangement with Musharraf.

One possibility is that Makhdoom Amin Fahim may become a compromise candidate to lead the party between different factions within the party. If this were to happen, some kind of political accommodation between the PPP and Musharraf would still be on the cards.

But of course all this conjecture is based on 2 assumptions, neither of which can be taken for granted:

The assumption is that Musharraf is serious about tackling militancy and is clear-eyed enough to understand what this will entail. Its possible that he doesn't feel militancy is a serious problem, or that a few missile strikes and the doling out of massive quantities of bribe money will "end militancy". Needless to say these tactics have been failing miserably for the last 5 years and will fail miserably again.

The second assumption is that Musharraf still has full control over decision-making within the military-PML-Q setup. Some observers speculate that he has already become something of a lame duck, dependent on the COAS and senior PML-Q leaders. If the PML-Q bigwigs are exerting more influence these days, the idea of an alliance with the PPP may be stillborn.

But that is mere speculation. Right now its still difficult to see where the chips may fall.

Edit: I came across this article in the IHT which echoes a few of the points I've made.

On the Uses and Abuses of the Law Enforcement Apparatus By the Ruling Elite

Exhibit A - How 'law enforcement' officials are put to work suppressing dissenting voices:

The police attacked a rally taken out by students and activists to show solidarity with the deposed Judges in Islamabad on 17th December. More photos here.

Exhibit B - How 'law enforcement' officials are put to work promoting the ruling elites:

Policemen putting up hoardings bearing the bicycle on a green field symbol of the pro-Musharraf political party the PML-Q. Note the stacks of hoardings in the police pick-up.

On Musharraf's Resignation

Musharraf, as expected, and about 5 years too late, resigned from his post of Chief of Army Staff. W.H. Auden expressed it so much better than I:

Epitaph on a Tyrant

Perfection, of a kind, was what he was after,
And the poetry he invented was easy to understand;
He knew human folly like the back of his hand,
And was greatly interested in armies and fleets;
When he laughed, respectable senators burst with laughter,
And when he cried the little children died in the streets.


January 1939

Journalists' Arrests: An Inside Account

There is an account of the demonstration and arrests of a group of journalists in Karachi on 20th December here at Red Diary. Here is an excerpt:

There were 27 of us in this van — seven women and 20 men. And boy did we raise hell!!! The van took us on a tour of the entire city, and we kept naarafying all the way. Passersby stopped to gape at us and then joined in the naareybaazi. In short, we conducted a State-sponsored anti-Musharraf rally. AHAHAHAHHAHAHAHAHAHAH!!! Yes, I can’t get over this — this IS funny!!! They took us to the Boat Basin police station, only to realise that it was full. Ditto for Gizri and Darakhshan. They were then told to take us to the Docks police station, but the driver did not know the way (YUP!!! :-D). He took us to the Jackson police station instead, where his bum was kicked, and the correct raasta explained to him by officials concerned. LOL! All this while, we weren’t making life easier for him by continuously naarafying, jeering and heckling. Yes we’re mean.

It is in turns an outrageous, funny and even uplifting account. Have a read.

On Nawaz's Return

I was gearing up for a lengthy post on the much-touted return of Nawaz Sharrif, only to find that the 'Old China Hand' at China Matters has already done a great job in sizing up the situation. I recommend you go read his blog post. In the meantime, I'll go have a cup of tea.

(Source: Teeth Maestro)

The Pot Calls the Kettle White...

"US President George W Bush said on Tuesday that President General Pervez Musharraf was a man of his word and truly believed in democracy." Thanks for that endorsement. Now I can sit back and relax. Its okay - Bush has reassured me about Musharraf's intentions and we know that Bush never lies.

"President General Pervez Musharraf on Wednesday introduced a set of seven constitutional amendments to give legal cover to his act of holding the constitution in abeyance, imposing emergency rule and issuing the Provisional Constitutional Order (PCO) on November 3." By now the constitution has been given so many face lifts in the space of a few years that, much like Michael Jackson's nose, it is now little but the fragile, crumbling structure perched atop an emaciated edifice no one believes in anymore. Why not dump it altogether?

In an article that claims that the opposition is falling into Musharraf's trap by taking part in upcoming elections, the News also gives "Full marks to our independent chief election commissioner, who in order to facilitate the government agenda [extended the deadline for Presidential candidates] to withdraw candidature but only few days to file the nomination papers" for parliamentary elections. Its great having an independent chief election commissioner.

Meanwhile speculation is rife that Musharraf's recent trip to Saudi Arabia was to discuss the rehabilitation of that other dinosaur of the previous decade's corrupt politics, Nawaz Sharif. Opinions seem to differ over whether or not Musharraf has consented to Nawaz's return, or whether negotiations are ongoing. However, Nawaz Sharif has announced he will soon be returning to Pakistan... again.

Its hardly worth mentioning that the newly assembled Supreme Court has now dismissed the final petition against Musharraf's candidature as President. I wonder if the CJ felt even a little sheepish at parroting the words dismissing the case before a world that knew they had been scripted in the Presidential house? Disgusting.

And as this article notes that while some media channels were shut down, "some private Pakistani news channels, including a channel owned by one of Musharraf's new ministers and another owned by his son's father-in-law, have been allowed back on the air during the emergency". Coincidence? No.

An article in the Daily Times, citing analysts at the London-based think tank, Chatam House observes that "Fragmented, outflanked by young militants and politically compromised, Pakistan’s mainstream Islamist leaders have only a side role to play in the crisis engulfing the country, analysts say." It goes on to predict a poor showing for the Islamists in upcoming elections. Now, my first observation on this article is that it is belaboring the obvious. The second is that it fails to draw the proper conclusion. The mullah establishment is deeply connected to the military establishment and depends upon it for its sustenance. Musharraf's government was promoting the mullahs to gain control of the provincial legislatures in Baluchistan and NWFP and for several years continued, foolishly, to believe that the mullahs would allow them to keep a handle on the militants - something they spectacularly failed to do. Once the sponsorship of the military is gone, they will subside to their rightful place on the fringes of Pakistani politics.

Perhaps I should say 'If the sponsorship of the military is gone'...

There has been much talk of a proposal floating around in America to arm the tribes of the NWFP against the Taliban. As this blogger notes, while discussing the plan, the idea is rubbish.
But the news also seems to be floating around that the U.S. will put in $350 million in training and rearm the Frontier Constubulary (FC) for a renewed campaign in Waziristan. It would seem as if this money is necessary because the previous $10 billion the U.S. government has provided Pakistan has gone against more immediate priorities in the war on terror, such as the threat of Al-Qaeda submarines attacking our ships, Al-Qaeda bombers bombing our cities, Al-Qaeda jamming our radar, Al-Qaeda stealing our nukes, and the lack of Barbecue restaurants in Islamabad. On a more serious note, training and arming the FC is a much better idea than training and arming the tribes. The FC is more likely to listen to the government about who to use their new weapons upon, and as the current heavy fighting between tribes from different sectarian groups in Parachinar the last few days shows, more weapons is not what they need at the moment. The country is still plagued by the effects of the last time the Tribes were armed and trained against the communists. I think we have learned our lesson on that issue by now.

The Moral High Ground

Talk about having the moral high ground...

Bibi, Kayani, Sharif, Mush and Bush: Round and Round They Go...

Over the weekend the recently engineered deal between Musharraf and Bhutto seemed to fall apart - apparently because Bhutto had taken to gleeful grandstanding while the anti-Emergency agitation was at its peak. Musharraf, a man with a legendary stubborn streak that does not respond well to pressure tactics, shoved right back. The deal brokered by the United States in an attempt to engineer a political solution to Musharraf's domestic woes and counter internal criticism that the Bush government was pandering to dictators while touting its "freedom agenda" elsewhere in the Muslim world was apparently under threat of collapsing altogether.

But it was essential to cobble some kind of deal together. Hence, the following sequence of events...

13th Nov: General Kayani's name starts being dropped in the American press as "a man widely admired within the Pakistani military and by members of Pakistani civil society." I'm not certain which members of Pakistani civil society they are talking about.

14th Nov: An article in the NYT, citing unnamed administration officials, says that the United States is looking at other options in Pakistan. The article not so casually name drops General Kayani.

14th Nov (Night-time) : Musharraf immediately amends the PCO to remove the power to lift the Emergency from the post of Military chief to that of President. It looks like transferring power from himself to himself. But it highlights and suggests a fear of the next Military Chief (Kayani) when he himself retires and becomes a civilian President.

15th Nov: State Department says that Negroponte will be going to Pakistan to "get Pakistan back on the road to constitutional democratic rule."

15th Nov (Night-time): The detention order for house-arrest of Benazir Bhutto is lifted hours before Negroponte arrives.

15th Nov: Analysts debate whether the United States is actually switching to support Kayani, or whether these leaks are orchestrated by the anti-Musharaf group in the Republican administration that has formed around Zalmay Khalizdad, trying to build pressure on the Bush administration to stop supporting Musharraf and switch to another power configuration in Pakistan.

16th Nov: Negroponte arrives in Pakistan for talks. He shuttles between various officials, meeting Musharraf and Kayani (twice) and talks to Benazir Bhutto as well.

16th Nov (Night-time): Nawaz Sharif calls on BB to "clarify her position" with regards to talks with Musharraf.

17th Nov: After a meeting with Negroponte, Musharraf agrees that all parties will be able to take part in elections, but that the Emergency will have to stay for the time being. Afterwards he flies to Karachi. Rumours of a prospective meeting between BB and Negroponte are dashed when BB also leaves for Karachi. Negroponte ignores a request for a meeting with lawyers.

17th or 18th Nov: Musharraf meets Benazir on Saturday night or Sunday.

18th Nov: Negroponte issues a statement from Pakistan calling for: elections, removal of uniform, release of political detainees and lifting of curbs on the media. No mention of the judiciary. In a pointed remark to BB, he calls for an end to political 'brinkmanship'.

18th Nov: Benazir gives an interview to CNN where she softens her stance and states that Musharraf is an honest man, and that she is 'waiting for' Musharraf to respond to Negroponte's message from Washington. She also says she was 'satisfied' by the U.S.'s message to Musharraf.

18th Nov: After the announcement that Musharraf intends to visit Saudi Arabia, speculation is rife that Nawaz Sharif may finally be willing to meet with Musharraf, something he apparently has refused to do previously.

19th Nov: In an article in the LA Times that boldly states that Musharraf resisted U.S. calls to end the Emergency is buried this little statement: "U.S. officials in Washington, speaking on condition of anonymity out of deference to Negroponte's diplomatic efforts, said that although Musharraf didn't make any commitments Saturday, they believed he might in time yield."

19th Nov: Supreme Court kicks out 5 of 6 challenges to Musharraf's election as President. The case filed by the PPP leader Makhdoom Amin Fahim is withdrawn voluntarily, underlining the de-escalation in the war of words between Bhutto and Musharraf.

And so the road to Musharraf's assuming the Presidency, removing his uniform, and reforming some kind of modus operandi with the PPP has been cleared, thanks to the efforts of the United States. What's interesting is that in an interview with a reporter for the Sunday Times, Musharraf's Attorney General had also threatened to revoke the NRO that granted Bhutto immunity from corruption charges. This was, obviously, reported on Sunday (18th Nov) but the article doesn't specify when in the previous week he made this threat. I'm guessing around the 15th, when BB was still in captivity.

Whats interesting is that in the same article, Chaudhry Shujaat Hussain claims that the immunity for Bhutto is a ploy to divide the opposition. I reckon the PML(Q) will continue to campaign on an anti-Bhutto agenda, presenting her as a depraved, corrupt agent of America (not far wrong), out to destroy Islam and Pakistan, with the only hope being the PML(Q). Having said that, if Nawaz were to return, that would be a serious blow to the PML(Q). Much of Punjab is united in its dislike of Bhutto, but in a fair fight, the PML(N) may still give Q a run for its money.