If you want Hoodbhoy's opinion about Mush so you have it ! Just few months before Red Mosque!
Musharraf's Coup � Seven Years Later
By Pervez Hoodbhoy
Some
had feared - while others had hoped - that General Pervez Musharraf's
coup of October 12, 1999, would bring the revolution of Kemal Ataturk
to a Pakistan and wrest the country from the iron grip of mullahs. But
years later a definitive truth has emerged. Like the other insecure
governments before it, both military and civilian, the present regime
also has a single point agenda - to stay in power at all costs. It
therefore does whatever it must and Pakistan falls further from any
prospect of acquiring modern values, and of building and strengthening
democratic institutions.
The requirements for survival of the present regime are clear: on the
one hand the Army leadership knows that its critical dependence upon
the West requires that it be perceived abroad as a liberal regime
pitted against radical Islamists. But, on the other hand, in actual
fact, to preserve and extend its grip on power, it must preserve the
status quo.
The staged conflicts between General Musharraf and the mullahs are
therefore a regular part of Pakistani politics. This September, nearly
seven years later, the religious parties needed no demonstration of
muscle power for winning two major victories in less than a fortnight;
just a few noisy threats sufficed. From experience they knew that the
Pakistan Army and its sagacious leader - of "enlightened moderation"
fame - would stick to their predictable pattern of dealing with
Islamists. In a nutshell: provoke a fight, get the excitement going,
let diplomatic missions in Islamabad prepare their briefs and CNN and
BBC get their clips - and then beat a retreat. At the end of it all the
mullahs would get what they want, but so would the General.
Examples abound. On 21st April 2000, General Musharraf announced a new
administrative procedure for registration of cases under the Blasphemy
Law. This law, under which the minimum penalty is death, has frequently
been used to harass personal and political opponents. To reduce such
occurrences, Musharraf's modified procedure would have required the
local district magistrate's approval for registration of a blasphemy
case. It would have been an improvement, albeit a modest one. But 25
days later - on the 16th of May 2000 - under the watchful glare of the
mullahs, Musharraf hastily climbed down: "As it was the unanimous
demand of the ulema, mashaikh and the people, therefore, I have decided
to do away with the procedural change in the registration of FIR under
the Blasphemy Law".
Another example. In October 2004, as a new system for issuing machine
readable passports was being installed, Musharraf's government declared
that henceforth it would not be necessary for passport holders to
specify their religion. Expectedly this was denounced by the Islamic
parties as a grand conspiracy aimed at secularizing Pakistan and
destroying its Islamic character. But even before the mullahs actually
took to the streets, the government lost nerve and the volte-face was
announced on 24 March, 2005. Information Minister Sheikh Rashid said
the decision to revive the religion column was made else, "Qadianis and
apostates would be able to pose as Muslims and perform pilgrimage in
Saudi Arabia".
But even these climb downs - significant as they are - are less
dramatic than the astonishing recent retreat over reforming the Hudood
Ordinance, a grotesque imposition of General Zia-ul-Haq's government
unparalleled both for its cruelty and irrationality. Enacted into the
law in 1979, it was conceived as part of a more comprehensive process
for converting Pakistan into a theocracy governed by Sharia laws. These
laws prescribe death by stoning for married Muslims who are found
guilty of extra-marital sex (for unmarried couples or non-Muslims, the
penalty is 100 lashes). The law is exact in stating how the death
penalty is to be administered: "Such of the witnesses who deposed
against the convict as may be available shall start stoning him and,
while stoning is being carried on, he may be shot dead, whereupon
stoning and shooting shall be stopped".
Rape is still more problematic. A woman who fails to prove that she has
been raped is automatically charged with fornication and adultery.
Under the Hudood Law, she is considered guilty unless she can prove her
innocence. Proof of innocence requires that the rape victim must
produce "at least four Muslim adult male witnesses, about whom the
Court is satisfied" who saw the actual act of penetration. Inability to
do so may result in her being jailed, or perhaps even sentenced to
death for adultery.
President and Chief of Army Staff General Musharraf, and his Citibank
Prime Minister, Shaukat Aziz, proposed amending the Hudood Ordinance.
They sent a draft for parliamentary discussion in early September,
2006. As expected, it outraged the fundamentalists of the MMA, the main
Islamic parliamentary opposition. MMA members tore up copies of the
proposed amendments on the floor of the National Assembly and
threatened to resign en masse. The government cowered abjectly and
withdrew.
Musharraf's government has proved no more enlightened, or more moderate
or more resolute and behaved no differently from the more than half a
dozen civilian administrations, including two terms of Benazir Bhutto
as Prime Minister and several "technocrat" regimes. None made a serious
effort to confront or reform these laws.
But the pattern is broader then deference to the mullahs. General
Musharraf has been willing to use the iron fist in other circumstances.
Two examples stand out: Waziristan and Balochistan. Each offers
instruction.
In 2002, presumably on Washington's instructions, the Pakistan Army
established military bases in South Waziristan which had become a
refuge for Taliban and Al Qaeda fleeing Afghanistan. It unleashed
artillery and US-supplied Cobra gunships. By 2005 heavy fighting had
spread to North Waziristan and the army was bogged down.
The generals, safely removed from combat areas, and busy in building
their personal financial empires, ascribed the resistance to "a few
hundred foreign militants and terrorists". But the Army was taking
losses (how serious is suggested by the fact that casualty figures were
not revealed), soldiers rarely ventured out from their forts, morale
collapsed as junior officers wondered why they were being asked to
attack their ideological comrades - the Taliban - at American
instructions. Reportedly, local clerics refused to conduct funeral
prayers for soldiers killed in action.
In 2004, the army made peace with the militants in South Waziristan. It
conceded the territory to them, which had made the militants immensely
stronger. A similar "peace treaty" had been signed on 1 September 2006
in the town of Miramshah, in North Waziristan, now firmly in the grip
of the Pakistani Taliban.
The Miramshah treaty met all demands made by the militants: the release
of all jailed militants; dismantling of army checkpoints; return of
seized weapons and vehicles; the right of the Taliban to display
weapons (except heavy weapons); and residence rights for fellow
fighters from other Islamic countries. As for "foreign militants" who
Musharraf had blamed exclusively for the resistance, the militants were
nonchalant: we will let you know if we find any! The financial
compensation demanded by the Taliban for loss of property and life has
not been revealed, but some officials have remarked that it is
"astronomical". In turn they promised to cease their attacks on civil
and military installations, and give the army a safe passage out.
While the army has extricated itself, the locals have been left to pay
the price. The militants have closed girl's schools and are enforcing
harsh Sharia laws in all of Waziristan, both North and South. Barbers
have been told "you shave, you die". Taliban vigilante groups patrol
the streets of Miramshah. They check such things as the length of
beards, whether the "shalwars" are worn at an appropriate height above
the ankles, and attendance of individuals in the mosques.
And then there is Balochistan. Eight years ago when the army seized
power, there was no visible separatist movement in Balochistan, which
makes nearly 44% of Pakistan's land mass and is the repository of its
gas and oil. Now there is a full blown insurgency built upon Baloch
grievances, most of which arise from a perception of being ruled from
Islamabad and of being denied a fair share of the benefits of the
natural resources extracted from their land.
The army has spurned negotiations. Force is the only answer: "They
won't know what hit them", boasted Musharraf, after threatening to
crush the insurgency. The Army has used everything it can, including
its American supplied F-16 jet fighters. The crisis worsened when the
charismatic 80-year old Baloch chieftain and former governor of
Balochistan, Nawab Akbar Khan Bugti, was killed by army bombs.
Musharraf outraged the Baloch by calling it "a great victory".
Reconciliation in Balochistan now seems, at best, a distant dream.
Musharraf and his generals are determined to stay in power. They will
protect the source of their power - the army. They will accommodate
those they must - the Americans. They will pander to the mullahs. They
will crush those who threaten their power and privilege, and ignore the
rest. No price is too high for them. They are the reason Pakistan
fails.
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