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Pakistan: Today's Imperatives

By M.B. Naqvi

17 Novembe, 2007
Countercurrents.org

General Pervez Musharraf, the Army Chief, moved on Nov 11 to mollify his foreign critics, especially the US Administration, by naming the date of the coming election and of dissolving the National and Provincial Assemblies. He, the pivot of entire governance, is to nominate the caretaker governments that will supervise the polls in uniform. How different will be his new nominees from his old nominees: Mr. Shaukat Aziz and his happy band? They will do what he will want.

The US has already approved the move, though it also wants to see another general to head the Army soon enough and may want an assurance that Musharraf would stick to the deal America brokered for empowering Ms. Benazir Bhutto, the PPP Chairperson. Thus all that he did on Nov 3 last stays: his uniform, Emergency, PCO, laws and orders to muzzle the media and the PCOed Supreme and High Courts. These measures were comprehensively rejected by Pakistan's democratic
forces. Democratic forces cannot also accept the Army
Chief-supervised elections under Emergency and other PCO
restrictions. Polls under these conditions and his overarching powers are sure to be manipulated. Current Crisis will continue to intensify.

Lawyers and democratic forces in the country are sure to go on
resisting Army's domination of politics, though this cannot be said
with certainty about two mainstream parties, viz. PPP and MMA, each of whom seems to be ready to do a deal with the military for a limited share in power. Only PML (N) rejects both a deal with
Musharraf and the military's domination of politics. That will get
PML (N) a lot of votes in Punjab, if gerrymandering is not too
massive.

The imperative anyhow is the ending of Emergency, PCO, new gagging laws and orders for the media and restoration of pre-Nov 3 conditions, including pre-PCOed Supreme and High Courts. These things cannot be achieved easily. Not only the national disgrace of a uniformed President has to be ended, military as such has to be sent out of political arena.

There is no point in begging for democratic freedoms; they have to won through popular struggle. This struggle does not look like being led by mainstream parties. It is the new heroes - lawyers led by Aitezaz Ahsan, Munir Malik, Ali Ahmed Kurd et al and Judges who did not take new PCO oath - who will have to lead while new and smaller parties interested in social justice would also be in the vanguard. And if Musharraf reneges on the deal with Benazir, PPP too may be forced to join the anti-dictatorship movement and military's political role in earnest, beginning with its long march, though ordinarily Benazir would prefer to be in the Bush-Musharraf corner.

As for the regime's foreign friends, Musharraf remains the option on which some of their money is still on, though doubts about his
utility are now growing. Still, no one need discount all American
public pronouncements. Anyway, American government shows both exasperation and desperation in dealing with Musharraf. Despite fine statements, it is hard to imagine that Musharraf could have carried out his second coup against the American wishes; Musharraf's difficulties in retaining the PML (Q) support and the need to suppress growing opposition may have necessitated the Emergency route to execute the deal with Benazir after the elections.

Have all concerned factored in the changed temper of the people after the lawyers' six months long movement? The docility of Pakistanis, on which all dictators have relied on, is no more in Punjab villages and small towns. The old tacit acceptability of the military domination is also a thing of the past. All generals have to make a special note of it.

With the Pakistanis' refusal to accept Musharraf's Nov 3 actions is to be combined the growing amount of western disenchantment with Musharraf regime. No matter what western governments say on the record, there is wide realization that Musharraf experiment is not an answer to western prayers. One expects a rough ride for the proposed Musharraf regime Mark II even in the immediate future.

However, the cost to Pakistan of what impends will be grievous. It
has suffered grievous blows of four or five Martial Laws, each
abrogated the Constitution or put it in abeyance. This has deepened all the faultlines. Battering of the constitution and
constitutionalism promotes lawlessness and corruption, making the state race toward failure. Already, Talibanisation is proceeding apace; state's writ is increasingly disappearing over large areas of NWFP; small statelets are emerging in tribal areas. These are being run by men who are Taliban, warlord and narco-dealers rolled into one. Pakistan state has been retreating and Army has suffered huge casualties.

Despite American and western importance for Pakistan's dictatorial rulers, especially for the economy, reactions of people are far more important. Foreigners are a secondary factor. People have to assess what has the Musharraf's eight years yielded. True, Shaukat Aziz and his happy band go on harping on their great achievements of high growth rates and good governance. For 75 per cent of Pakistanis live below World Bank-defined poverty line, things look differently: they find jobs scarce for a burgeoning population; claims of poverty reduction by 10 per cent in four years is credible to nobody; structural unemployment is just too high. The combination of high inflation rates (for tackling of which the regime has no clue) with the unemployed, irregularly employed or not employed at all is wreaking havoc on 75 per cent of people.

Word has spread of the extreme brutality of the regime on leading
lawyers like Aitzaz Ahsan, Munir Malik, Ali Ahmad Kurd et al. Now
even PPP leaders are being picked up on a mass scale; even second rank leader like Jam Saqi was being sought by the police on Sunday. Repression will be so much oil on fire. Who can forget the savagery with which security personnel beat the lawyers and journalists on Sept 29 and has continued since. Someone will have to pay for it.

Anyhow, who can forget the two full blown insurgencies going on in NWFP and Balochistan. The obviously unrealistic Afghanistan policy has resulted in growing Talibanisation, it has sharpened the complex ethnic-nationalistic aspirations of the Pushtoons mixed with extra-austere Islamic fanaticism. Law and order is rapidly deteriorating. The inter-provincial harmony - one of the original aims of General Musharraf in 1999 - is at its worst now. Look, how Pakistani bureaucracy is deadlocked over big dams, Indus waters distribution, distribution of the funds from the Divisible Pool and even on WAPDA; on all these subjects Musharraf regime has been clueless.

The people of Pakistan have the grit, wit and wisdom to effect a true regime change through sustained peaceful agitation. But change there has to be. To repeat, what is a must is the immediate undoing of Nov 3 Emergency, PCO, media suppression law and other measures to control the media and press have to be withdrawn in toto. Release of all lawyers, political workers and human rights activists brooks no delay. The position as it obtained on Nov 2 needs to be restored without caveats. It includes restoration of the Supreme and High
Courts as they were before PCO. There has also to be an
across-the-board amnesty for all political leaders. The question
before all political parties and lawyers' leaders should be how to
find neutral caretakers? Or can there not be a national government, headed by the pre-PCO Chief Justice for the polls purposes? Organizing free polls involves tight control over all intelligence agencies by the Caretakers to prevent them from playing any role in the election processes.

M.B. Naqvi is one of the senior most journalists of Pakistan

 

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