Ending in a whimper with nothing revealed
By Shireen M Mazari Wednesday, August 20, 2008
Musharraf finally called it a day, leaving almost in a whimper, and once again Pakistan's vulnerability to external interventions was highlighted. In the end it was the US and its allies Saudi Arabia and Britain that held sway over not only Musharraf's decision to exit but also on how the PPP-led government would allow this exit. Instead of past deals being revealed more deals were made. Certainly civil society and the internal factors isolated him domestically, so that he was no longer a valuable ally for these external actors, but the links between our present political elite and our external detractors and allies are a dominant feature of the polity today.
Once again Pakistanis came on to the streets dancing and distributing sweets, as we always do regardless of who has been removed from power – I recall similar reactions when the Musharraf coup also happened. Perhaps Pakistan would be better served by the nation expressing quiet relief at the end of a debilitating uncertainty and doing some soul searching as to why we are where we are today.
How will things change with no Musharraf to pillory anymore? To begin with, let no one be under any illusion regarding any dignified distancing from the US. That the US, in its traditional casting off of third world leaders when they become politically costly and expendable, has found even more loyal partners in the Zardari-led PPP and the Haqqani-Durrani-Malik troika is rooted in the linkages all three have had with the US Establishment for many years now. Mr Haqqani already had an information-sharing relationship with the US when he was our High Commissioner in Sri Lanka and Ms Teresita Schaffer was the US ambassador in Colombo. Pakistan paid a heavy cost for this linkage at the time also. General Durrani's links go back to the days when he was working for Shirin Tahir-Kheli of the US Establishment and this linkage continued with the formation of the Balusa Group ostensibly as a track-2 path between Pakistan and India. According to published data on the internet, Mr Malik had a security set up in the UK which worked closely with British Intelligence. So the US moved away from Musharraf only after it had its other surrogates in place as well as the NRO sealed.
Unfortunately, we are already on track of an agenda that undermines our most stable strategic relationship – the one with China. Not only did our Prime Minister ignore China and pay a visit to the US first, we have had no ambassador in Beijing now for months despite the fact that the Agreement for the new ambassador had been accepted by Beijing. Instead, through verbal orders only, the professional and highly articulate diplomat was stopped from going to take up his charge. The new government has also rid itself of Munir Akram who was disliked by India and the US for his successful outwitting of their efforts to undermine Pakistan's interests. This is just the tip of the iceberg with regard to what has been happening in the Ministry of Foreign Affairs in recent months and some more shockers are in store for the nation in terms of diplomatic assignments – not to mention the growing horde of "ambassadors at large" at a time when financial constraints are being cited for cuts in our scientific R&D ventures relating to the nuclear field.
Is it merely a coincidence that immediately after Musharraf's departure a strange statement was shown on the national and international electronic media that the Pentagon was not immediately worried about Pakistan's nuclear weapons! Now what does our nuclear programme, which is under an institutional National Command Authority, have to do with Musharraf's resignation? But, as many of us have been pointing out for years, the US's eventual target in Pakistan is the country's nuclear assets so any situation is exploited in this connection. Linked to this are also US efforts to totally undermine our intelligence capabilities through a defanging of the ISI, rather than simply letting the political leadership fold its Internal wing. After all, the ISI knows too much about the CIA and at some point in time it cannot play ball with CIA goals. Why has the political leadership not closed the Internal wing of the ISI and why has it left the half-baked idea of putting the ISI under Interior ambivalent?
In any case, wrecking institutions is not a solution to ridding such institutions of their black sheep. Instead, what is desperately required is to build and strengthen institutions as well as their accountability processes. For that we have to once again develop a culture of institutionalised decision-making in which individual recorded inputs are there but decisions are not taken verbally with no record. Unless there is an institutional memory, how can any accusation be proven or dismissed with certainty? This disease that is rampant in the bureaucratic corridors of Pakistan is one major reason why we have had to suffer so many statements and confessions years after the event with no proof of their validity one way or another.
In this context it would have been illuminating for the nation to have had some light thrown on all the deals and compromises made by Pakistan with the US post-9/11, both at the military and political levels, including how and why the NRO was put in place – which is why there was a view that sought for Musharraf to respond to the charges of an impeachment and reveal the deal making that goes on amongst the leaders of this much-abused country. Also of course, at the end of the day, all leaders must be held accountable just as they must be allowed to respond to allegations made against them. But then the NRO itself – apart from its other legal absurdities – has gone against a basic principle of the Constitution: That of all citizens being equal before the law and entitled to equal protection "of law" (Article 25). Certainly now some are more equal than others.
Now that the blame game cannot be directed Musharraf's way, a lot of happenings in recent months are bound to surface and a newly invigorated civil society will raise questions, be it about the Sun TV issue or the dark stories of profiteering on the fall of the rupee, to cite just a few examples on which there are already rumblings. But the two immediate issues for the present rulers are the restoration of the judiciary and the election of the President. It is only when the political impasse is over can the nation move in a cohesive way to deal with the growing crisis of domestic terrorism that is spreading its tentacles from FATA into the settled areas across the country.
Yet, it seems even now differences remain between Zardari and the PML-N on the former issue so that yet another committee has been formed to seek ways of resolving this problem. On the new president, it seems the PPP would want its own person there and Bilawal Bhutto has presumably been brought for this purpose, especially in terms of giving an emotive legitimacy to PPP claims to the Presidency.
The PML-N stance is more rational and has a national appeal in that they would like to see a non-party person (not necessarily non-political) with national credibility, preferably from Balochistan. Ataullah Mengal certainly fits the bill. If this line is adopted it would be the most viable means of healing the national scars and winning over the Baloch people. It will also deny space to all external actors and their internal lackeys who are determined to keep Balochistan destabilised and underdeveloped
Equally important, now that an "undemocratic" president has made his exit, as demanded by all democratic and dynastic forces, one more step needs to be taken for there to be unfettered democracy in the country: the political decision makers must be part of the elected set up so that decisions are taken by elected representatives who are accountable to parliament. If uniformed presidents are an anathema to the development of a democratic tradition, so are civilian autocrats ruling from outside the bounds of democratic power and responsibility. Power without responsibility and accountability – regardless of the garb it shows up in – should never be acceptable, especially to a revitalised civil society and nation.
The writer is a defence analyst. Email:
callstr@hotmail.com
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