A tour of talkathons

A FEW months ago, I wrote about General Pervez Musharraf’s visits to Indonesia, the Philippines, Argentina, Brazil, and Mexico. Available information showed that none of them accomplished anything that could not have been achieved through our ambassadors in the countries visited and their ambassadors in Islamabad.

The general’s extended sojourn in the United States cannot be rated any higher. Some of his pronouncements have embarrassed the country and its government. Many Pakistanis believe that his book, In the Line of Fire, which he had gone to promote, has done the country no good. A visiting businessman from Lahore, whom I met recently, thought it had been written under the CIA’s sponsorship and guidance!

Let us take a quick look at the general’s main activities during this foreign tour. He addressed the triennial conference of the Non-Aligned Movement (NAM) in Havana on September 15, and while there he met Manmohan Singh, the Indian prime minister. NAM was set up way back in 1961 on the initiative of Presidents Tito of Yugoslavia, Nasser of Egypt, and Sukarno of Indonesia, and Prime Minister Jawaharlal Nehru of India, to proclaim their freedom of choice and action in world affairs regardless of the two superpowers’ preferences. Its rationale withered away following the Soviet Union’s demise and the end of the Cold War. Speeches made and resolutions passed at its meetings make little impact on the conduct of international politics.

General Musharraf supported the resolutions that NAM passed. It denounced Israel’s recent invasion of Lebanon, recognised Jerusalem as occupied territory, supported Iran’s right to develop nuclear energy, condemned terrorism with the qualification that it was not to be confused with a people’s struggle for self-determination or its fight against foreign occupation, endorsed democracy as a universal value but added that no state was entitled to tell others what its form and procedures must be.

Most Third World nations would endorse these propositions, and General Musharraf’s support for them did not place Pakistan in a particularly noteworthy position.

It is being said that his conversations with Manmohan Singh may have made a difference for the better. They were more pleased with each other than they had been at their last meeting in New York a year ago. That is good, but what else? They agreed to restart the peace process, discuss all issues including Kashmir, and instruct their foreign secretaries to schedule meetings. They also agreed to establish a joint institutional mechanism to investigate, forestall and subdue terrorists. This is a modus operandi that Pakistan had suggested on several previous occasions and which India had consistently rejected.

Resumption of the peace process does not carry the assurance that it will go any place this time. It settled none of the substantive issues between the two countries during the two or more years that it had been going on. Progress will now depend on whether a way is found to overcome India’s suspicion that the government of Pakistan is sponsoring and supporting terrorist activities in India and its part of Kashmir. Next, progress will depend on whether India really does want to go beyond CBMs and normal economic relations and settle the substantive issues. There is no way of answering these concerns; we will just have to wait and see.

Likewise, it is hard to say how any joint institutional arrangement to fight terrorism will work. Given the requisite will on both sides, it may work well if it is limited to sharing relevant intelligence. But it may not work if it means that Indian intelligence agents and police officers will come into Pakistan and, even if accompanied by their Pakistani counterparts, will look for actual or potential terrorists, interrogate and apprehend them; or that Pakistani intelligence and police officers will do the same on the Indian side of Kashmir and elsewhere in that country.

General Musharraf next addressed the General Assembly of the United Nations on September 19. Consisting of 192 members, it opens its grand annual session at the beginning of September each year. It has become customary for heads of government, or the highest available officials in the member states, to address the Assembly during the first two or three weeks of its session.

It is an occasion for the great powers to explain and justify their policies and initiatives in world politics. Representatives of smaller powers come to have a break from their mundane chores at home, introduce their respective countries to others, express their grievances against the existing “world order” and annoyances with their regional neighbours. Much of the Assembly’s work is done through its numerous committees, which look into a variety of world problems and submit useful reports for the larger body’s consideration and adoption. Deplorable though it may be, the fact is that the Assembly’s resolutions have no binding effect on the member states.

General Musharraf gave the General Assembly the good news that the “peace process” between Pakistan and India had brought a mutually acceptable resolution of the Kashmir dispute within reach, and that it was now time for the parties concerned to grasp it. He added that his meeting with Prime Minister Manmohan Singh would help the peace process move forward. He touched several other issues: more importantly he argued that western military interventions in various Muslim countries had given their people the feeling that they had been victims of oppression and injustice; that Israel’s ongoing onslaught against the Palestinians must be stopped, for it had been generating extremism and terrorism in Iraq, Afghanistan, and elsewhere.

His statements at the General Assembly, like those at the NAM conference, were all good even if they called for developments that are not likely to materialise. The positions taken at both places were such as he and other Pakistani spokesmen had announced many times before. It is not clear why he, and a huge entourage of ministers and other dignitaries, had to go out to restate them, and why Mr Khurshid Kasuri, the foreign minister, or even Pakistan’s ambassador to the United Nations, could not have done the same.

I am unable to believe that General Musharraf’s personal appearance lent any special weight or significance to the observations he made on behalf of his country. It goes without saying that, leaving aside flatterers and cronies, discerning observers, both within the country and abroad, do not see him standing any taller than the nation he goes out to represent.

In his meeting with President Bush, the general explained that his government’s pact with the tribal elders in North Waziristan did not amount to capitulation or withdrawal from the campaign against the Al Qaeda and Taliban militants. It was instead a political deal designed to get the tribal elders to restrain and control the militants. Mr Bush would appear to have accepted this explanation. Two days later he went back to the White House for a dinner at which President Bush mediated between him and President Karzai of Afghanistan. Mr Karzai, who had been accusing Pakistan of instigating the Taliban’s terrorist attacks in his country, would seem to have been mollified to a degree.

He and General Musharraf agreed to work together in the fight against terrorism, and he was said to have accepted the idea of a political approach to the tribal elders on his side of the border. The two agreed to hold grand jirgas of the tribal notables, one on each side, which both of them would address for the purpose of persuading them not to extend aid and comfort to the Al Qaeda and Taliban elements.

I am not sure that the general’s audiences in America got a clear understanding of the situation in Pakistan’s tribal areas. Some of the Taliban who fought the Soviet army in Afghanistan were Pakistanis to begin with and, following the Soviet withdrawal, they returned home. But many of them (Afghans, Arabs, and others) chose to live on the Pakistan side of the border, made homes and raised families there, and in time merged with, and became indistinguishable from, the natives. Thus, it got to be extremely difficult for any outsider to separate the Taliban activists from those who might simply be curious, or even unconcerned, bystanders.

Also to be considered is the fact that many people in this tribal region, and other places in the country, are disenchanted with America’s military action in Iraq and Afghanistan, its threats to Iran, and its condoning of Israeli atrocities in Palestine. These people are not as disapproving as some others might be of the Taliban’s anti-American violence. It would be wrong for the government of Pakistan to go around hounding its own people simply because they endorse the Taliban’s opposition to certain American policies.

Lastly, there was a bunch of activities the general undertook to promote his book. Critics in Pakistan are appalled that he has made startling revelations, liable to damage the national interest, to arouse curiosity about the book and enhance its sale, and that he has spent an enormous amount of public money for this purpose. I shall not comment on the merits of his book, for I have not read it. But I do want to say a word about his mode of advertising it.

He appeared on several television news and talk shows, including a comedy. American conservatives saw him as their most favoured dictator and as a faithful ally. Other admirers thought he had come out as an affable, clever and witty guy.

I watched these shows, and in each case I felt bad about the questions that were put to him, his answers, and the interviewer’s demeanour. It looked and sounded like a prosecutor interrogating an accused who was unsure of his innocence. In my reckoning these interviews did his country no credit. I wish he hadn’t agreed to these appearances.

Mohammad Ali Durrani, Pakistan’s information minister, tells us that the general’s visit has “laid the foundation” of a pro-Pakistan movement in the United States. This is a figment of his imagination, such as it may be.

The writer is professor emeritus of political science at the University of Massachusetts at Amherst, US. Email: anwarsyed@cox.net

A formula for fair elections

PRESIDENT Musharraf and the parties supporting him are apparently taking it for granted that they will win the next elections hands down. The opposition parties, on the other hand, seem convinced that the government’s victory can come only through rigging. Hence their attempts, so far abortive, to join forces to bring Musharraf with his whole caboodle down before the next elections.

The opposition is threatening to take to the streets, the government alleges, knowing that it cannot win at the polls. In this sordid scenario of suspicions and allegations, the balance of victory lies in favour of Musharraf’s men. The opposition is unlikely to succeed in toppling the government by force but by its ingenuity can make it difficult for the government to rig the elections.

Recourse to agitation with its unpredictable outcome is bound to further divide an already fractured opposition. Some in its ranks are said to be already in cahoots with the wielders of power and others in touch with the power brokers. The opposition, therefore, would do well to mobilise public opinion for elections under an impartial authority in an atmosphere free of coercion rather than march on the streets or besiege Islamabad.

As the election date nears, the government and the opposition both must recognise the universal maxim that a stable and effective government cannot emerge from rigged polls, howsoever large the majority, nor from street protests, howsoever violent. The governments that came into being in Pakistan disregarding this maxim remained shaky and the oppositions irresponsible.

The forthcoming elections present an opportunity to break this 30-year-old cycle of strife and vengeance. That the outcome of rigged polls and mass agitation cannot be sustained is best illustrated by the elections of 1977: Zulfikar Ali Bhutto, Pakistan’s first popularly elected leader, went to the gallows and the country was condemned to suffer the tyranny and hypocrisy of a dictator for 11 years.

General Musharraf says his personal popularity among the masses is unassailable. If he really believes in what he says, the people contesting from his platform should get a majority, elect him as president and form a government that confirms the amendments he has made to the Constitution and supports his international policy on two crucial issues — the war on terror and normalising relations with India without waiting for a final settlement of the Kashmir dispute. The thought of getting elected by the present parliament should not cross Musharraf’s mind. Even if it is legally possible it would be patently absurd. Enlightened moderation, meanwhile, may remain on his agenda subject to political exigencies as it has been up to now.

The uphill task before the government and the opposition (though not insurmountable if both have the courage of their convictions) is to agree on an arrangement which assures fair elections. Any movement in this direction, if it is to succeed, must start from the premise that the opposition is convinced that the elections cannot be fair and free so long as Gen Musharraf is at the helm and Chaudhry Shujaat Hussain is his chief campaign strategist.

If there was ever a doubt it has now been removed by Musharraf himself in his book that soon after assuming power he rechristened Nawaz Sharif’s Muslim League and appointed Chaudhry Shujaat its head on the advice of his old-time friend and bureaucrat secretary. The opposition thus cannot be blamed if it doesn’t expect fair play while this triad sits at the head of the government, the parliament and indeed the entire state structure.

Already, the accuracy of the new lists of voters is being called into question. Serious doubts about the integrity of the survey and registration exercise arise when an area known to be the opposition stronghold is left out. But in the household survey just concluded even the residents of a street in Karachi’s Defence Housing Authority have not been registered. It could not be deliberate for this street is no party’s stronghold. In fact, its residents hardly ever care to vote. It does, however, highlight a flaw in the rolls. Such omissions in the slums and villages can be more numerous and politically motivated.

The accuracy and completeness of the voter’s lists will also suffer by the rule which enables election officials to transfer the voters belonging to the minority groups to special lists through a whimsical and dubious process. The omissions in registration combined with the arbitrary splitting of the lists will have the effect of disenfranchising a large number of voters of whom the exact number can only be guessed.

In our general elections, only one-third of the registered voters turn up to vote. This count also includes the bogus votes cast. The percentage of voters actually casting their ballot thus may not be even one-fourth of the number of citizens entitled to vote. Candidates and parties, who take care to register their voters, then transport them to polling stations and further arrange to get the ballots of absentees voters cast, have been gaining ascendancy in our legislatures.

The ultimate and decisive rigging device, however, lies with the government in using its power and resources to favour or oppose an individual or a party. The apprehension is that the present government will use this device more than ever before, only because the stakes are so much higher — party leaders in prison or in exile are seething with anger and want to take revenge.

Let it be conceded that the country this time round needs elections that are above board not just for the propriety of it but to save itself from chaos — some would say from falling apart. The government, therefore, should make way for an independent board of management, well ahead of the election date, to take over all its functions. Neither the government nor the opposition should object to this because both are confident of a majority and want fair polls.

Seeing the four former speakers of the National Assembly (Illahi Buksh Soomro, Syed Fakhr Imam, Hamid Nasir Chattha and Gohar Ayub) in a private TV channel discussion the other day a thought occurred that the lot of them would make a credible board to supervise the elections. All of them have political affiliations but time and age have blunted the partisan edge of their politics.

They represent the central and south regions of Punjab, Sindh and the NWFP. Wazir Jogezai from Balochistan, a former deputy speaker, could join them to complete the quorum.

In a more conventional proposal, such a board should comprise of retired judges or civil servants. The politicians, however, can manage the elections better because the game is so familiar to them. All five, now heading into the twilight of their political careers, would surely like to be remembered not for their shifting loyalties or presiding over sterile parliaments but for giving the country its first fair elections.

Enlargement fatigue

ROMANIA and Bulgaria will be masking any irritation they feel at the finding by the European commission that they still have some ground to cover before joining the EU on January 1 2007.

Brussels’ predictable warning that Bucharest and Sofia must reach agreed benchmarks on judicial reform, corruption, food safety and their ability to administer billions of euros in EU aid — or face the withholding of subsidies and other payments — was harsh but correct. It is a matter of both EU and national self-interest — the necessary balance of rights and obligations — that such deficiencies be repaired early on.

The condition was also far less painful than the alternative: a humiliating delay by a year of their accession date.

But the significance of the report lies not so much in the detail of what it says about the latest ex-Communist candidates but how it reflects feelings about the state of the union — and not just among rabble-rousing europhobes.

After all, it was Josi Manuel Barroso, the commission president, who signalled on Monday that the fifth enlargement since 1957 might have to be the last for a long time: that spells anxiety for Croatia, which had hoped to follow its fellow former-Yugoslav republic Slovenia, to join in 2009. Turkey, which finally began years of membership negotiations last October but labours under the impediments of size, poverty and strong anti-Muslim prejudice, has even more reason to be concerned.

— The Guardian, London