It is our war

THE war in Pakistan’s tribal areas is being fought by Pakistan’s army under America’s gun and on its orders. Many innocents have tragically died from bombardment from the skies. Therefore, not surprisingly, Pakistanis are angry and most feel it is not their war.

But Pakistan, for its own sake, urgently needs to battle the flames of religious fanaticism lest they consume the rest of the country. This must, however, be done in a manner that is intelligent and principled.

Few Pakistanis have spoken out against the rising tide of fanatical militancy. Even the horrific mass murder of joyous citizens by two suicide bombers during Benazir Bhutto’s triumphal return has not led to a full-throated condemnation of extremism.

Normally vocal, urban, educated Pakistanis — whose values and lifestyles make them eligible for slaughter by Taliban standards — are remarkably silent. Do we believe it cannot really happen to us? Are we unwilling to speak because the threat has cloaked itself in the name of religion? Or, are we blinded to the danger by the conviction that the war against the jihadis is America’s war?

No one can doubt that there is a creeping Talibanisation of Pakistan’s society and economy. The signs are everywhere. The Taliban have taken control in many tribal areas, forcing local government officials to flee. As happened in Afghanistan, the Taliban are now the law. A widely available Taliban-made video shows the bodies of common criminals and bandits dangling from electricity poles in the town of Miramshah, the administrative headquarters of North Waziristan. Girls’ schools have been closed. Barbers have been told: shave and die. Traditional folk musicians have fled. Polio vaccinations have been declared haram. Unvaccinated children are under threat from polio and other diseases because doctors and health workers are being killed.

Taliban vice-and-virtue squads enforce the Sharia, checking, among other things, the length of beards, whether shalwars are worn at an appropriate height above the ankles, and the attendance of individuals in the mosques. Even our history is being attacked, as fanatics trying to emulate their Afghan Taliban brothers attempted to destroy the 2,000-year-old statue of the Buddha in Swat, surely one of the greatest historical monuments in our country. Not surprisingly, tourism in Swat and the Northern Areas has come to a dead halt.

Much of the responsibility lies with the government, which is seen as insincere. Everyone knows that military generals, politicians and incendiary mullahs have been symbiotically linked to Pakistan’s politics for decades. Jihadist groups, aimed against India, have long operated with the state’s knowledge and support. These alliances have helped various power groups attain their respective goals.

Nations win wars only when there is a clear rallying cause. While the army high command has committed men to battle, and lost well over a thousand of them, they have not told the nation what these men are fighting for. Nor has the enemy yet been given a name — they are merely termed ‘miscreants’. There is also well-founded suspicion of government motives. Since the Taliban were Pakistan’s creation, and firmly supported by its intelligence agencies, Pakistanis know that the U-turn would not have happened but for America.

The state is also seen as inept. As in the Lal Masjid episode, the government initially refused to identify the enemy. It finally had to do so when the militants went on the rampage. But, instead of acting decisively, the government sought appeasement — a move that made it look weak. When appeasement failed — as it certainly had to — there was a massive use of force leaving large numbers of innocents dead. A situation that could have been dealt with by using minimal force was allowed to fester until it eventually exploded.

The Taliban have won victory after victory because the army leadership has not reacted as it should have. In another country, the beheadings and mutilation of soldiers’ bodies would have led to an uproar which that government could have used to drum up support for its subsequent actions. Recall that in 2006, the capture of just two Israeli soldiers by the Hezbollah had been the casus belli for the invasion of Lebanon.

But the capture of nearly 300 Pakistani soldiers led only to public scorn, not sympathy. Initially, an attempt was made to deny that any soldiers had been kidnapped or had surrendered. This soon had to be abandoned. Then, several weeks later, after the BBC interviewed the military officers in the Taliban’s captivity, General Musharraf criticised the officers for having surrendered and said that they had behaved unprofessionally.The Taliban have executed three of the soldiers, released a few, and kept most of the rest. The captors say that the army is not interested in having the remaining men back because they are poor people, not from the officer class. This propaganda resonates powerfully with the ordinary soldier.

The demoralisation in the ranks can only be imagined. A once-proud army stands isolated in the war. It is rightly blamed for the collateral deaths of non-combatants, but it is receiving none of the support it deserves from the public for stemming the tide of primitive religious extremism.

The government is not to be blamed alone. The private media, including the so-called ‘free’ private television channels known for their so-called openness, studiously avoid meaningful discussions on religious extremism. Although there are endless discussions on the wheeling and dealing of succession politics, the enormous damage to the country’s social and economic fabric receives scant attention.

This does not mean that the Pakistani public has succumbed to extremism. An overwhelming majority of Pakistan’s citizens do not want harsh strictures imposed on their personal liberties. They do not want enslavement of their women, their forced confinement in the burqa, or for them to be denied the right to education. Instead, they want a decent life for themselves and their children. They disapprove of Islam being used as a cover for tribal primitivism. But there is little protest.

We must understand this. Why is there no mass movement to confront the extremist Taliban of Miramhah and Waziristan, or the violence-preaching extremist mullah in Mingora, Lahore or Islamabad? This is because ordinary people lack the means and institutions to understand, organise, and express their values and aspirations. We do not yet have the democratic institutions that can give politics meaning for ordinary people. Depoliticising the country over the decades has led to paying this heavy price.

To fight and win the war against the Taliban, Pakistan will need to mobilise both its people and the state. The notion of a power-sharing agreement is a non-starter; the spectacular failures of earlier agreements should be a lesson. Instead, the government should help create public consensus through open forum discussions, proceed faster on infrastructure development in the tribal areas, and make judicious use of military force. This is every Pakistani’s war, not just the army’s, and it will have to be fought even if America packs up and goes away.

It may yet be possible to roll back the Islamist laws and institutions that have corroded our society for over 30 years and to defeat our self-proclaimed holy warriors. But this can only happen if our leaders win the trust of the citizens. To do this, political parties, government officials, and yes, even the generals, will have to embrace democracy, in word and deed. This will ultimately determine whether we become a respectable member of the comity of states, or a pariah extremist state that breeds export-quality terrorism.

The writer teaches at Quaid-i-Azam University, Islamabad.

Making coalition work in Sindh

POLITICS in Pakistan is currently being held hostage to the Supreme Court on more than one count. Electoral alliances will not take shape nor will electioneering begin until the court has determined whether Gen Pervez Musharraf was eligible to be elected as president.

If it is held that he was, then it will rule on whether the electoral college (comprising both Houses of parliament and the four provincial assemblies depleted by protest resignations) having elected him once in 2002 could elect him again at the tail end of its term.

The other contentious issues on which the court must rule before the political parties are able to make their electoral decisions are: whether the National Reconciliation Ordinance is a valid piece of legislation; and, secondly, whether the deportation of Nawaz Sharif was legal or in violation of the court’s earlier order affirming his right to return and live in his own country. The intention of the government and the propriety of its action in these cases will have a bearing not only on the rights of the contending parties, it will also affect public opinion.

Each government in Pakistan that followed a military coup was compelled to seek validity from the Supreme Court. It is for the first time that the rulings of the court on the petitions before it, besides determining validity, would influence the outcome of the elections as well.

However, it would be a different matter if the president, retracting from his commitment to respect all court decisions, were to proclaim emergency, suspend fundamental rights and postpone the elections if the findings of the court were not to his liking.

The warfare in the tribal areas, sabotage in Balochistan and the impetus to militancy imparted by the Supreme Court’s directions in the Lal Masjid and Hafsa madressah affairs could be invoked in support of emergency.

In any case, even if lawlessness does not aggravate any further it may not be possible to hold polls peaceably with free and adequate participation by the people in the tribal belt, the adjoining settled areas and parts of Balochistan.

The representative character of the ballot thus could be questioned on this count. The elections, instead of involving the turbulent tribes in the democratic process, might further alienate them.

The government and the political parties, their leaders and lawyers and, respectfully, the adjudicating judges, therefore, have to bear in mind that national unity, already fragile, may break down altogether under the weight of their contentions and orders. One is not harking back to the doctrine of necessity but the remedy applied under the Constitution must keep both dictatorship and anarchy at bay.

Not holding elections on time or rigging the ballot would be bad enough, but more dangerous would be not to implement the result of fair elections. That is the unforgettable lesson of 1971 and recalling it in the circumstances of today is not raising a bogey.

While only a series of Supreme Court orders over the next few weeks would set the final scene for political activity, events in the making point towards the PPP and MQM emerging as the dominant political forces in rural and urban Sindh respectively. The political landscape may change dramatically elsewhere in the country if Nawaz Sharif were to return and Musharraf were also to stay (one can’t imagine him leaving), but not in Sindh.

The PPP and MQM would thus have to either join hands to administer Sindh or confront each other to convert the province into a battlefield as they did many years ago. On the theoretical plane, the two parties have a lot in common. Both view politics and governance as secular activities and are opposed to sectarianism and religious extremism. But they act in a parochial manner when it comes to sharing political power and the economic gains and jobs that flow from it.

In 1988, Benazir Bhutto was persuaded to take the MQM as a partner in government in Sindh to avoid a confrontation, although she had a majority in the legislature. Outwardly a coalition, inside it was divided into two warring camps. The caucuses of the parties met before they came to the cabinet meetings.

Altaf Hussain growled from Nine Zero (seat of the MQM) and Asif Zardari from Bilawal House (Benazir Bhutto’s house notified as the prime minister’s camp office) impairing the image and authority of the chief minister and the civil servants.

The tussle was always over job quotas, recruitment, postings of officials, distribution of funds or land. It was to the mortification of this writer, then chief secretary of the province, to have to see merit losing out to expediency and law to bullying.

Just two examples: a Hyderabad begum wouldn’t give up until her son-in-law was made chief engineer in recognition of the sacrifices she had made for the party. A young civil servant posted in the Karachi municipal office was beaten black and blue in his office by the goons of the party that controlled the municipality for not doing their bidding.

Governor Fakhruddin Ebrahim, who could have made the coalition work by reconciling divergent party interests, was not allowed to play that role. In fact, whenever he intervened for a constructive purpose (such as the formation of a citizen-police liaison committee to check mounting cases of kidnapping for ransom) or when Chief Justice Ajmal Mian called a meeting for coordination between the prosecutors and courts for the expeditious disposal of cases it was resented by the party bosses.

The fractious coalition finally broke down amidst chaos of its own making a few months before Benazir’s government at the centre was dismissed in August 1990. Those two years of governance in Sindh will be remembered for body bags turning up at desolate places (who was the victim and who the killer never became known) and deaths in police encounters, an alias for cold-blooded murders. Lawlessness made army commanders the arbiters of politics in the province. The blame for that lay not with the army but with the politicians.

Now, 20 years later, the results of the polls may once again make the PPP and MQM share power in Sindh. The cordial atmosphere on the arrival of Benazir Bhutto from exile shows that both parties are reconciled to it which they were not in 1988. This time round they can make the coalition work by following the rules of business and fair play instead of going down two opposing paths.

The lesson from their squabbling partnership of almost 20 years ago is clear. In the celebrated words of Edmund Burke, the 19th century British statesman: ‘Those who fail to learn from history are destined to repeat it.’

Both the PPP and the MQM, when in power, are known to show more than normal propensity towards helping their cronies and courtiers at the cost of deserving people. More relevant for the two parties to heed is Hazrat Ali’s warning to his governor in Egypt that an un-Islamic government can last but not an unjust one. Their last joint government in Sindh failed because it was unjust both in its outlook and dealings.

Why Zardari is right, for once

ASIF Ali Zardari very promptly issued his statement on the bomb blasts in Benazir’s procession attributing them to intelligence agencies. Benazir, in her press conference, too, didn’t name anyone but clearly hinted that it was the work of someone from within the establishment. Significantly, she has not said it was the work of Islamic fundamentalist ‘terrorists’. She seems to be spot-on.

Statements about a serious security threat to Benazir from ‘terrorists’ were appearing in the press on an almost daily basis since quite a few days before her arrival. We were being prepared — or convinced — that if there was an attempt on her life, it would be by terrorists. The task of convincing us was made easier by Baitullah Mehsud declaring his intention to eliminate Benazir on her return to Pakistan.

Several things are quite puzzling about not just this assassination attempt on Benazir, but about the overwhelming majority of what are quickly declared ‘terrorist attacks’. One, no one claims responsibility. Surely, a terrorist outfit wants its targets to be ‘terrorised’ by itself and not by anyone else. Two, where we are told that responsibility has been claimed, it is by a ‘new’ outfit of which we have never heard before and never do again. Three, the targets in these attacks — the common people, middle and lower class — make little sense unless the sole purpose of the terrorists is to be hated more and more by the populace.

This is unlikely since these ‘terrorists’ are assumed to be Islamic fundamentalists fighting for what they think is a ‘cause’. They should wish for public sympathy, not hatred. Four, there are easier targets available — easier and likely to create a bigger impact. By all accounts, these terrorist organisations have state of the art armament and they comprise highly skilled, organised and clever people. It should not be difficult for such an outfit, for example, to walk into the houses of, or intercept while commuting, let’s say, six government secretaries or six majors or colonels in the course of a day and execute them.

Officers of such ranks live and move about freely with no security worth mentioning, and executing six or seven of them in a day is likely to have a far bigger impact than a bomb going off at FC College bus stop in Lahore killing two labourers, an old woman and a child. Surely, the terrorists would know this. Why then are their targets so lame, considering also that bombs go off so frequently in this country that the impact of this particular mode of terror is gradually diminishing?

While Baitullah Mehsud may still try to kill Benazir and may even decide to do it with a bomb, he is likely to come forth and own the deed. So who has been going about exploding anonymous bombs in Pakistan in the name of terrorists, and in the latest instance, who is behind the Karachi attempt?

Let’s venture a guess. It is quite clear that Benazir’s return makes none of the power players in Pakistani politics happy except the United States and perhaps also General Musharraf, who, though unhappily, might have had the sense to think that his own survival now depends on this unholy alliance with Benazir. He would have had this sense because he would know, one hopes, that there is quite clearly a part of the establishment — a powerful part — which has consistently tried to destabilise him for some time now.

The Chief Justice episode and its subsequent handling was not the result of incompetence on the part of the government, because no government, not even this one, can be so horribly incompetent. The police attacks on lawyers in Lahore two days in a row, the attack on TV channels, the manhandling of the Chief Justice, the bomb blast in Islamabad before the Chief Justice’s address to the bar and the May 12 incidents in Karachi were not just instances of ‘mishandling’.

Someone was surely up to something and this someone is obviously part of a setup, if not the setup itself, that has the wherewithal to make all this happen. Earlier on, while the “deal” between Musharraf and Benazir was being discussed and had not yet been finalised, these people would have had to eliminate only Musharraf from the scene. Now, however, there is another party: Benazir.

These people, with end goals that are perhaps not very different from those of the ‘fundamentalist terrorists’, are obviously hard at work. But while they may or may not be able to succeed, for all their campaign in the press about security threats from ‘terrorists’, it seems that Asif Ali Zardari, Benazir Bhutto and this writer will remain unconvinced.

The writer is a lawyer based in Lahore.

In pursuit of reconciliation

ON October 5, General Musharraf promulgated the National Reconciliation Ordinance, professedly to remove the vestiges of victimisation of the past. It authorises the government to terminate the prosecution of ‘holders of public office’ between Jan 1, 1986, and Oct 12, 1999, who were unjustly involved in criminal cases.

Critics see it as a device for buying the support of certain, previously hostile, political forces, notably Ms Benazir Bhutto and her PPP. They say also that it violates the Constitution in that it would accord preferential treatment to a specific group of persons, denying the same to others and thus their right to equal protection of the law.

The ordinance, which has already been challenged in the Supreme Court, amends a 109-year old law (Section 494 of the Criminal Procedure Code, Act V of 1898). A close reading of its text will reveal that it does not require any withdrawal of cases. It only authorises the government to do so. Second, this authorisation (contained in sub-sections 2 and 3 which have been added to Section 494 of the CPC) is to be exercised only if a review board has examined the case in question in its entirety, concluded that the charges were bogus, and recommended its withdrawal.

This would seem to involve a long and tedious process. It is not going to be easy for any review board to conclude that the charges in the case under consideration were bogus to begin with. One might then have suspected that the government did not seriously intend to withdraw the cases against its current or former opponents.

Recall in this connection Chaudhry Shujaat Hussain’s statement to the effect that the ordinance was nothing more than a ‘trick’ the government played on the PPP, which in her gullibility Ms Bhutto had failed to detect. He made it clear also that if the courts struck down the ordinance, the government would not feel obligated to do anything about it and bring in a more viable piece of legislation. The ordinance may indeed have been promulgated with the expectation that the courts would invalidate it, releasing Musharraf from an obligation about which he may have been ambivalent all along.

General Musharraf nevertheless claimed that he did not share Chaudhry Shujaat Hussain’s cynical interpretation. A couple of days later there were reports that the cases against Ms Bhutto and some others were being withdrawn. Then there were reports that Ms Bhutto had filed petitions in four accountability courts, seeking acquittal in the corruption cases pending against her. It is hard to say what exactly is happening. In any case, no review of cases by the board required by the ordinance is known to have taken place.

The cases could possibly be withdrawn under some other law too. It is my understanding that in the Anglo-Saxon tradition the prosecution has always had the option of dropping a case which at any stage of the proceedings it finds to be untenable. This has also been the case in Pakistan. It is then not clear why the National Reconciliation Ordinance was made at all.

The government’s professed objective of bringing about reconciliation, mutual trust and civility in national politics is just as dubious as the ordinance itself. One will want to know what reconciliation means and what the parties might be between whom it is sought to be made.

General Musharraf is promising, and we are all hoping, that the government following the next elections will be more genuinely democratic than the kind we have had to date. Reconciliation in the context of democratic governance cannot possibly mean removal of all differences of opinion between various individuals or groups in society. Democracy involves reasoning together, debate, voting and majority rule.

There is no debate if there are no differences of opinion. These differences are then not only inescapable, their existence is essential to the functioning of democracy. Complete uniformity in the public domain cannot be had even under the harshest possible tyranny.

Reconciliation must then mean something else. I think it means abandonment of abuse, intimidation, unlawful use of power and resort to violence in dealing with opponents even as contests in the pursuit of power remain. In Pakistani experience, ruling parties have, first and foremost, been the ones to harass and oppress their opponents.

The PPP and PML did that to each other’s leading men and women and workers during their terms of office in the 1980s and 1990s. Both of them have declared that they will not resort to these vicious practices if and when they come to power again. They insist that they have already got reconciled. Whether that will hold in the months and years to come remains to be seen, but concern with their reconciliation need not detain us here.

It is the Musharraf regime which has been tormenting the PPP, PML-N, Jamaat-i-Islami and the Baloch nationalist parties, among others, during the last several years. It is up to this regime to do what it will take to bring about reconciliation between itself and those it has been persecuting. There isn’t a whole lot it has to do; its part will be done if it leaves them alone, unmolested, and does not rig elections. But it should not expect them to quit their oppositional roles and become its supporters.

They continuance of their role as the government’s opponents is an indispensable part of the democratic process. The most one can ask is that they too must refrain from making false accusations against their adversaries, and accept the election results and the government that emerges from them. Further, they too should forsake resort to violence in their street demonstrations and rallies. It would be an added virtue if they were to be more civil in their speech and conduct inside and outside the assemblies.

There are opponents of the present government who have mounted insurrections in Balochistan and Waziristan. We do not know whether it wants reconciliation with them. If it does, strategies other than the ones traditionally employed in this region will have to be pursued.This government finds it expedient to talk of negotiations and dialogues even when it does not seriously intend them; Chaudhry Shujaat Hussain being the principal exponent and conductor of this wild goose chase. Not such but real and earnest negotiations will have to be held with them, their grievances given serious consideration and addressed. The powers that be, past and present, have preferred to use military force to suppress dissidents in these regions. They have sought the latter’s submission, not reconciliation.

Then there are the extremists and militants who are at war with not only the present government but also with all those who do not abide by their version of Islamic morality. What can Musharraf, Ms Benazir Bhutto or any other ‘enlightened moderate’ say to them? They do not speak, or even know, the extremists’ language. The latter have no interest in a dialogue with people whom they see as standing outside the pale. Theirs is a war to the finish, to victory or death. One of their top leaders has recently promised Ms Bhutto an encounter with a suicide bomber. (Such an encounter was actually attempted last Thursday.)

She, on her part, is not willing to sit at the same table even with Maulana Fazlur Rahman and Qazi Hussain Ahmad. Her participation in a future government may serve other purposes, but it can have no relevance to the enterprise of combating extremism or reaching national reconciliation.

The National Reconciliation Ordinance would seem to be window dressing and possibly a farce. It was nevertheless impolitic of Chaudhry Sahib to say so publicly. In politics some truths are best kept under wraps.

The writer is professor emeritus of political science at the University of Massachusetts at Amherst, US.

Email: anwarsyed@cox.net