Human Rights Commission South Asia

Human Rights Commission South Asia

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September 29 has been marked as another dark day in Pakistan’s history. It was a day when the state’s coercion was used against innocent journalists and lawyers. The authorities felt the need to use brutal methods to control the people. Interestingly, it was also the first time in history that the police resorted to the ways of street urchins and pelted the protestors with stones.

It seems that it is not only the general public that has learnt something from the Palestinian Intifada. Such tactics were used to physically assault people like lawyers Aitzaz Ahsan and Ali Ahmed Kurd.

Apparently, the khakis are extremely unhappy with the Chief Justice’s team of lawyers and are determined to sort these people out for challenging the army chief and making comments denigrating his uniform. The regime has shown its ugly face which had been feared eight years ago when Pervez Musharraf seized power. This may not be because he is a born tyrant but due to the nature of his personal and organisational power.

Since the military lacks political legitimacy, it is bound to end up in conflict with society within a few years of taking control. The dictator starts out with good intentions but soon runs into problems created due to his utter lack of understanding of politics.

The military dictator is accustomed to another culture which is more organised and disciplined. Such a culture looks good in a bureaucracy but not in politics where different stakeholders vie for a greater share of political, financial and other resources. So, the dictator soon gets out of breath and embarks on the path of coercion. The more time he spends at the helm, the more frustrated he becomes. The more frustrated he gets the more coercive his regime is. This cycle is unchangeable when the military comes into power.

To those who believe that General Musharraf is an extraordinary man who can rise above this cyclic behaviour, one would like to pose this question: who gave orders for the brutality that was on display on May 12 and Sept 29?

Logically, (if we forget for a minute that this is not another military regime) the government should not have shown aggression soon after the Supreme Court judgment even if it wanted to send a message to the general public that any difference of opinion and act of disobedience would not be tolerated. Although pressure from several sides was mounting, Musharraf had won a round of the political battle when the Supreme Court rejected the petitions challenging his eligibility for the presidential race.

Was it Musharraf himself who ordered the police to use the tactics of street urchins? Perhaps not. He is certainly not choreographing the entire show of his regime. In fact, possibly the problem exists that he is not in total control of all parts of his government including the armed forces.

Some might consider this an extreme conclusion and would argue that he is very much in control. In this case, it is nothing more than poor intelligence which the agencies are quite capable of. Historically, the intelligence agencies have never been up to the mark in informing a regime intelligently.

In 1965, these agencies had advised the government that Kashmiris in Indian-occupied Kashmir were ready for a revolt against the Indian forces, which they were not. During the end of the 1960s and the early 1970s, these very agencies had given poor advice to the government about the reaction of the Bengali population in East Pakistan. Very recently, the agencies were found to have no information (or pretended not to have any) on the Lal Masjid crisis in the heart of the capital.

It was also a dire miscalculation on their part that the lawyers’ movement would die down within a couple of months, which it didn’t. One could go on and on about the failure of the intelligence in this blessed country.

But then, why is no one checking such failures — or is it really a question of how much General Musharraf is in control of the situation? A political crisis is a good way for the organisation to get rid of an individual when he refuses to give up. Surely, people around the top general know how greater coercion is counterproductive. More aggression will create the opposite result of what the regime would like to see.

Domestic politics, however, is not the only area where policy contradictions are obvious. One equally draws a blank in understanding the policy on militancy. Are we trying our best to eliminate the militants? Have all connections in the name of a higher strategic mission been ruptured? Or is there still a tactical linkage with some militant organisations?

It is not just that foreign agencies and think-tanks point an accusing finger at the country’s policy on the militants but available evidence also indicates covert linkages.

The obvious question is: why is nothing being done about the Lashkar-i-Taiba and Jaish-i-Mohammad leadership when they are in the country and the agencies know about their hideouts? Then there are stories about linkages with some Taliban elements in Waziristan while there is a battle going on with others. Surely, this brings lots of questions to mind to which there are some possible explanations.

First, as part of the war tactic it is not possible to completely end relations with the enemy. There is always the possibility of co-opting some and thus breaking the power of the enemy.Second, there is a conscious plan to resurrect a Wahabi state which would then lead to creating the historical Islamic empire that a number of people dream about. Some such people have also been referred to by the general-president in his speeches in which he talked about former senior military officers with links to the extremists.

The Taliban style of governance is a good method of centralised control of a vital region. This is certainly what many in government and among analysts learned from the Taliban rule in Afghanistan. The defenders of the Taliban in Islamabad used to eulogise them for having brought discipline and peace to a warring society.

These unidentified elements (be they serving or retired) have a vision of an Islamic empire which would be led by the only Muslim nuclear power that is Pakistan. One saw some glimpses of this thought in a paper written almost a decade ago by a group of intellectuals in the GHQ titled ‘Gulf Crisis 1990’ in which the basic thesis was that a power vacuum created by US military losses in the Gulf would be filled by Pakistan.A painfully slow defeat in Iraq or Afghanistan remains a possibility. The departure of Nato and US troops in five years would create a huge power vacuum which will be extremely lethal. The idea is not that the US or Nato should not pull out but that their stay, the use of military force and the lack of clear identification of forces which would like to control the area in the future do not present thrilling conclusions for the country or the region’s future.

It is vital for the people to understand where power resides in Pakistan today. Is the general-president, who claims to be fighting extremism, completely in charge or are there forces and ideas that we do not know anything about? Transparency is essential for restoring the common man’s confidence in his country.