Pakistan robbed of democracy
Benazir Bhutto returned from self-exile with the intention of ensuring that the military dictatorship in Pakistan was ended and respectable democracy restored. Her ambition and guts were beyond question. Bhutto was a polarizing leader; she was intensely loved by many and was hated by many others. In the past Benazir Bhutto had political opponents, but this time she had deadly enemies. Bhutto was assassinated on December 27, 2007, in Rawalpindi, headquarters of the Pakistani military and ostensibly one of the country's most secure cities. She will be remembered by majority as a symbol of resistance, democracy and a champion of human rights. Her assassination has robbed Pakistan off the opportunity of a respectable democracy. Good democracy had never prevailed in Pakistan. Whenever an elected government came in power, it was toppled by the military dictators with a plea of corruption, hanging or even arcane assassination. The democratically elected leaders, specially sitting prime ministers, have been removed from the national political scene by the military covertly or overtly during the coups or during the tenure of dictatorships. But who authored their assassination, hanging or removal is of esoteric nature. Let alone the military, Pakistan's rich landlords, bourgeois and bureaucrats are equally responsible as they depend on the military institution to secure their own class privileges at the cost of democracy. Besides, US acquisitiveness ultimately bears responsibility for the political and socio-economic malignancy that is contemporary Pakistan - a country where the officer corps dominates the government. The reign of the Generals, US as a player in Pakistan's political system, the ISI, and the fuzzy democracy exemplify why respectable democracy never took off in Pakistan. The reign of Generals
After General Gracy, (first C-in C of Pakistan) there were twelve military chiefs up till Gen. Musharraf. One died mysteriously during his tenure, two were prematurely retired by suspecting prime ministers. Out of the remaining nine, five have been the de-facto presidents of Pakistan (three for a little over than ten years each and two for a few months) primarily as a result of a string of coups against the democratic governments. There have been various common patterns with regards to these military takeovers. Firstly, it is always done in a roughly ten year cyclic period. General Ayub ruled from 1958-1969. General Zia ruled from 1978-1988. General Musarraf ruled from 1999-2007. Ironically they almost coincide with either the beginning or the end of an American (usually Republican) Presidential term. Gen Ayub abolished provinces and states and turned Pakistan into one unit under his direct rule. Ayub's regime collapsed in 1969 in the face of mass protests in East Pakistan (now Bangladesh) against its subordinate position within the Pakistan federation. Nixon and Kissinger encouraged a new military ghoul, Gen. Yahya Khan, in genocidal campaign to prevent the independence of Bangladesh. General Zia "religiosized" the military to an extent that it's motto during his time was converted to Emaan (Faith), Jihad (Holy War) and Taqva (Piousness) Fi Sabilillah (for the sake of Allah). Services Book Club printed thousands of volumes of Jihadi text, the whole fight in Afghanistan was fought in the name of religion. This resulted in elements in the military sympathizing with religious and Jihadi groups, turning Pakistan into a safe haven for them, who later emerged as Al-Qaeda & Taliban. He amended the constitution so that he could dismiss elected assemblies at his will, which he did in 1987. In pursuit of the US elite's predatory economic and geo-political interests, Democratic and Republican administrations alike have supported a succession of brutal military dictatorships. General Muhammad Zia ul-Haq, in close alliance with Washington, "Islamicized" the Pakistani military and Pakistani politics, while making the country the pivot of US campaign to undermine the Soviet Union by fomenting and arming Islamic fundamentalist militias in Afghanistan. The Zia regime has horrific consequences for the subsequent development of Pakistan. For some eleven years, beginning in 1978-79, Washington utilized Islamabad as the nexus for US intervention in the Afghan civil war, fomenting and organizing the anti-Soviet Islamist forces and acting as conduit of US and Saudi arms and money to the Afghan mujahedeen. This complemented Zia's own efforts domestically to build up the Islamic right as a bulwark against the working class and the leftists, and to promote Islamic fundamentalism as the state ideology. Gen Zia died in a C-130 plane crash. No investigation was carried out to find the cause of his mysterious death. In 1999, General Musharraf overthrew the government of Nawaz Sharif in a bloodless coup and came to power. General Musharraf also played havoc with the constitution in place, suspending it twice, abolishing all fundamental, constitutional and human rights of a nation of 160 million. He marginalized the Balouch and Pasthun ethnicities via military operations in minor provinces. He divided the society with his newfound 'moderate' and 'hardliner' Muslim themes. Intelligence agencies carried out illegal abduction operations which resulted in the ill-famous "Missing Persons" case of hundreds of people abducted by agencies and made them "disappear". After eight years of dictatorship and close cooperation with the United States, Musharraf has not been able to contain the virulent Taliban ideology that has spilled over among the kith and kin of Afghan Pashtuns in the very porous frontier areas of Pakistan. With regular indiscriminate bombings of Pashtun villages in Afghanistan by the US-lead forces, and occasional stealth bombings in Pakistan claiming hundreds perhaps thousands of innocent lives, the Pashtuns have become much more anti-American and anti-Pakistan government than ever before, resulting in Iraq style suicide bombings in civilian areas of Pakistan. Unable to defeat the Taliban ideology, and unable to safeguard the civilian population in the heartland of Pakistan, Musharraf has become quite unpopular. He found his power slipping and made the mistake of firing the Chief Justice of the Pakistan Supreme Court in March 2007. Unexpected widespread protest followed and Musharraf was forced to reinstate the Chief Justice. It weakened him further. All military dictators have given concessions to US and its allies in return for strong military assistance. Each one of them had a dismal human rights record. They arrested, killed, abducted or exiled anyone and everyone from civil society raising voice of concern. These include prominent writers, poets, actors, democratic workers, labor unionists, student leaders, journalists and lawyers. Inter-service Intelligence (ISI)
The Directorate of Inter-Service Intelligence, or ISI, remains a major player in domestic politics. Using all the means available to a security police force spying, surveillance, blackmail, interrogation, torture and even assassination it is the 'shadow state' that stands behind Pakistani raison d'état. The ISI manages and sometimes shapes Pakistani governance as a watchdog for the interests of the powerful armed forces. In the country's periodic shifts back to civilian (and sometimes democratic) rule, the ISI keeps tabs on the government, and conspires in its overthrow if it threatens military interests and prerogatives. Unless ISI and tens of other intelligence agencies like it, i.e. the Military Intelligence, I.B. and Paramilitary FIUs etc. are properly "cvilized", recurrence of coups won't stop easily. Pakistan: Washington's "frontline" state
By the middle of 1950s, Pakistan was one of Washington's "frontline" states in confrontation with the USSR, and the Pakistani military was well on the way to becoming a linchpin of US geo-political strategy. Washington has maintained its strategic alliance with Pakistan through the continuous assassinations and military coups that have characterized the country's history. It has acted as a direct accomplice in many of these crimes, most notoriously in the support given by President Richard Nixon and Secretary of State Henry Kissinger to the bloodbath unleashed against Bengali nationalist movement in 1971, in which US-supplied arms were used to butcher hundreds of thousands, if not millions, of civilians, while millions more were turned into refugees. The urgency attached to this exercise is bound up with Washington's plans for expanded military operations in the country. The day before Bhutto's assassination, the Washington Post's national security columnist William Arkin reported, "Beginning early next year, US Special Forces are expected to vastly expand their presence in Pakistan, as part of an effort to train and support indigenous counter-insurgency forces and clandestine counter terrorism units, according to defense officials involved with the planning." Several days earlier, NBC's Pentagon correspondent Jim Miklaszewski reported that US special operation troops are already "engaged in direct attacks against Al Qaeda inside Pakistan" operating in the tribal regions in the west of the country. The report made it clear that the so-called "trainers" sent by the US are directly involved in combat alongside Pakistani forces. Washington admits to having provided $10 billion to Pakistan since September 2001, the vast bulk of it in the form of military aid and payments to the military for support in the "war on terror." In return, the Musharraf regime has provided pivotal logistical support for the invasion and occupation of Afghanistan, allowed US security forces to run torture centers, and is now allowing Pakistan to be used as training ground for a possible US attack on Iran. The Democratic Party-controlled US Congress approved a further $785 million in aid for Islamabad for 2008. According to reports in the Washington Post and New York Times, under a newly concluded US-Pakistani agreement, several hundred US Special Forces will be deployed to Pakistan in the coming weeks to "train and support indigenous counter-insurgency forces and clandestine counter-terrorism units." (December 26, Washington Post) In an amusing quote from the same New York Times piece, Wendy Chamberlain, former US ambassador to Pakistan (and a central figure behind multinational efforts to build a trans-Afghan pipeline, connected to 9/11), proudly states: "We are a player in the Pakistani political system". Pakistanis overwhelmingly oppose U.S.-led efforts to fight terrorism -- six-in-ten (59%) oppose America's anti-terror campaign, while only 13% back it. Pakistanis are also doubtful of American efforts to encourage democracy in their country -- 57% believe the U.S. only promotes democracy when it serves its interests, and 72% say they dislike American ideas about democracy. "The United States, dictatorship and militants have turned this country into hell," lamented Ismat Shahjahan, a Pakistani working for a foreign aid organization Power Sharing
In the power-sharing arrangement that had been brokered by the US and Britain, the elections were means to allow Bhutto, and with her a degree of democracy, to enter Pakistan's political dynamics. The main motive for the West was not promotion of democracy as much as the provision of a political lifeline to the beleaguered Musharraf, a vital ally in the so-called war on terror. Musharraf's choice is simple. The deal apparently envisaged allowing Bhutto to become prime minister and Musharraf to remain president and head of the National Security Council, with his finger over Pakistan's nuclear button. The third member in the power circle was the Army chief Ashfaque Kiyani. Echo of Civil War
It must be noted that many commentators think Pakistan is at the brink of a full-scale civil war, some even say civil war has been going on since March of 2007. And when one views this in the light of what has been going on in various parts of Pakistan, including Tribal areas, Balouchistan, Waziristan, Swat and Frontier Province then they are not wrong. With regular indiscriminate bombings of Pashtun villages in Afghanistan by the US lead forces and occasional stealth bombings in Pakistan, claiming hundreds perhaps thousands of innocent lives, the Pashtuns have become much more anti-American and anti-Pakistan government than ever before, resulting in Iraq style suicide bombings in civilian areas of Pakistan. The bomb attack on Bhutto's homecoming rally on October 18, 2007 and the civil disorder that followed after her assassination, the suicide bomb attack outside Lahore high court on 11 January 2008, beckons civil war. Conclusion
The future of Pakistan is fraught with instability and the death of Bhutto has further undermined the internal security of Pakistan. For the first time in the history of Pakistan, respect for the military as an institution has plummeted. While the US media blabber on about Pakistani democracy, the reality is that Pakistani capitalism has failed to address the most elementary problems of the toiling masses - guaranteeing basic civil liberties. For the moment, Musharraf can still count on the support of the two important 'A's in Pakistan's politics - America and the Army. But some of the support may be ebbing. The author is a columnist and researcher.
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