Bu-lat-lat (boo-lat-lat) verb: to search, probe, investigate, inquire; to unearth facts Issue No. 37 October 28 - November 3, 2001 Quezon City, Philippines |
Farewell to Democracy in Pakistan BY
ROBERT FISK
Back to Bulatlat.com Alternative Reader Index Armoured
warfare schools, signals headquarters, artillery ranges, military museums,
cavalry lines, infantry battalion compounds... every few hundred yards in every
city, you come across them. Driving around Pakistan is like touring a barracks. Cross
the Indus river at Attock and the thump of shellfire changes the air pressure as
General Pervez Musharraf's tanks move down the range. Along the roadsides are
artillery pieces dating back to the Raj, 45-pounders and French armour and old
Sherman tanks on concrete plinths to remind Pakistanis of their heroic martial
past. Their
national defence journal carries stirring tales by former chiefs of staff and
extracts from the 1962 war diaries of the East Pakistan Rifles. And this is
supposed to be a nation threatened with Islamic revolution? It's
an odd phenomenon, but there are times when the West seems to be more worried
about the "Islamisation'' of Pakistan than Pakistanis are themselves. For
has a military dictatorship ever been more blessed than that of General
Musharraf? General Zia-ul-Haq was held in contempt by the West when he hanged
prime minister Bhutto – but he was elevated to ally and friend the moment that
we needed his help in the anti-Soviet war in Afghanistan. However, by 1993
Pakistan was almost declared a "state sponsor of terrorism'' by the United
States because of its support for Kashmiri Muslim guerrillas. When
President Clinton arrived in the subcontinent last year, he paid a state visit
to India but gave General Musharraf – who had still to declare himself
president – only a few hours, favouring Pakistan with a one-day return trip, a
lecture on the evils of Osama bin Laden and an appeal to General Musharraf not
to hang the prime minister, Nawaz Sharif. Nor
can General Musharraf have been too pleased with Colin Powell's ode to liberty
last January. "There should be no question in any world leader's mind that
the most essential ingredient for success in this 21st century is a free people
and a government that derives its right to govern from the consent of such
people,'' the US Secretary of State announced: "...America stands ready to
help any country that wishes to join the democratic world.'' Then
came 11 September and General Powell produced a new song sheet. "President
Bush,'' he told us on 16 October, "asked me... to demonstrate our enduring
commitment to our relationship with Pakistan... we are also looking forward to
strengthening our co-operation on a full range of bilateral and regional
issues... we're truly at the beginning of a strengthened relationship, a
relationship that will grow and thrive in the months and years ahead.'' All of
which just goes to show what the loan of a few air bases and the arrest of a few
government-sponsored Islamists can do. General Musharraf had taken "bold
and courageous action" against "international terrorism". And
in the blinking of an eye, there was General Powell promising to take up the
Kashmir dispute with India – the very nation that almost persuaded America's
State Department to put Pakistan on its "terrorism" list in 1992. Newsweek
outlined the US government's view with alarming, if unconscious, frankness.
"It may be a good thing that Pakistan is ruled by a friendly military
dictator,'' the magazine concluded, "rather than what could well be a
hostile democracy.'' This,
of course, is the very policy that dictates Washington's relations with the Arab
world. Far better to have a Mubarak or a King Abdullah or a King Fahd running
the show than to let the Arabs vote for a real government that might oppose US
policies in the region. Corrupt,
lawless, drug-ridden, and inherently unstable Pakistan may be, but General
Musharraf allows a kind of freedom of speech to continue. Anyone used to the
arid wastes of Arab journalism can only be surprised by the debate in the
Pakistani press, the often violent anti-Musharraf views expressed in the letters
pages and the columnists who argue forcefully for a return to democracy. If
General Musharraf has to allow Islamists their freedom to "let off steam''
– as Pakistanis like to say – then he has to give equal space to the
democrats. Aqil
Shah put it very well when he wrote in Lahore's Friday Times last week
that, by allying himself with America's "War on Terror'', General Musharraf
had secured de facto international acceptance for his 1999 coup. Suddenly, all
he had wished for – the lifting of sanctions, massive funding for Pakistan's
crumbling industry, IMF loans, a $375m (£263m) debt rescheduling and
humanitarian aid – has been given him. While
General Powell mutters a few words about political freedom – and none at all
about Pakistan's nuclear tests – we hear no more of General Musharraf's widely
publicised "roadmap'' to democracy. The
problem, as Mr Shah points out, is that future peace and stability requires
sustained investment in solid secular democracies – not in stable
dictatorships. Yet the United States is now laying the foundations of a
long-term autocracy in Pakistan, a dictatorship not unlike those that lie like a
cancer across the Middle East. The
United States likes to call this a "strategic engagement'' and is already,
in its embassy's private press briefings, reminding journalists of the
corruption that smeared the democratically elected Sharif government. Far
better, surely, to have an honest, down-to-earth, clean military man in charge. Of
course, we must forget that it was Pakistan's Interservices Intelligence (ISI)
outfits – the highest ranks of the country's security agencies – that set up
the Taliban, funnelled weapons into Afghanistan and grew rich on the narcotics
trade. Ever since the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan in 1979, the ISI has worked
alongside the CIA, funding the mullahs and maulawis now condemned as the
architects of "world terror''. Most
Pakistanis now realise that the ISI – sanctioned by Washington rather than
Pakistan's own rulers – turned into a well-armed and dangerous mafia, and
while money was poured into its smuggling activities, Pakistan's people lacked
education, security and a health service. No wonder they turned to Islam and the
madrassa schools for food and teaching. But
will anything really change? Pakistan's military is now more important than
ever, an iron hand to maintain order within the state while its superpower ally
bombs the ruins of Afghanistan. Driving past all those compounds and cavalry
lines and barrack squares in Pakistan, one can only be shocked by the profound
social division they represent. Outside
in the street, Afghan refugees and Pakistan's urban poor root through garbage
tips and crowd on to soot-pumping buses to work in sweatshops and brick
factories. Inside, behind the ancient, newly painted cannons and battalion
flags, rose bushes surround well-tended lawns and officers' messes decorated
with polished brass fittings. No rubbish litters this perfect world of discipline. Why should anyone living here want a return to corrupt democracy? Especially when America is their friend. Back to Bulatlat.com Alternative Reader Index We want to know what you think of this article.
|