(Pakistan) A CIVIL-MILITARY Rebalancing by Neelam Deo in MINT 19/3/13
Every
first is important—especially when the first concerns an elected
civilian government completing a full term in office in a Pakistan that
is more troubled than it has ever been in its 65-year history.
Is
this happenstance or has the civil-military equation begun to tilt in
favour of civilians? If it is the latter, then is this a strategic shift
by a military thus far obsessed with a search for parity with India?
Is
it sign of a recognition by the armed forces that the people of
Pakistan would reject a direct military coup? Or is it simply the
uncertainty over how an international community, led by the US—on which Pakistan is so dependent for financial handouts—would respond to a coup?
It
is likely a combination of all three that has made the Pakistani
military more circumspect about overt interference. Internally, the
social fabric of Pakistan is torn by increasingly violent Islamist
terrorist groups indiscriminately lashing out against minorities: be
they Shias,
Christians, Hindus, Balouch, schoolgirls, journalists or just
“liberals”.
Regionally
too, the situation is roiling. Afghanistan is bracing itself for the
departure of ISAF (International Security Assistance Force) troops next
year in the midst of violence generated by the Pakistani surrogate
Taliban which is positioning itself for a bargained or forceful return
to power—if not in Kabul, then at least in its old Pashtun strongholds
along Pakistan’s restive western border.
The outcome is unpredictable.
Unable
to change old habits, the Pakistan assembly, two days before demitting
office, damaged the only thing working for Pakistan: an improving
relationship with India. It did this by passing a resolution condemning
the hanging of Afzal Guru, the terrorist convicted in the December 2001
attack on our Parliament and demanding that his remains be handed over
to his family. However much criticism the government of India may
deserve for its insensitive handling of the Afzal Guru case, the only
thing the resolution achieved was to bring all parties in India’s
Parliament together to return the favour
through a resolution condemning Pakistani interference in India’s
internal affairs.
Pakistan’s relations with the US, and by extension the West, are so troubled that its former ambassador in Washington, Hussain Haqqani,
is recommending “a break-up” with its benefactor, a parting of ways so
that “Pakistan can find out whether its regional policy objectives of
competing with and containing India are attainable without US support”.
The
reality is that Pakistan can hardly survive without combined annual
injections of approximately $5 billion in US civilian and military funds
and World Bank loans. Memories of the termination in US aid that
followed the June 2001 Pervez Musharraf-led coup are a clear disincentive for a repeat in Islamabad.
It is not that the military is caving in without a fight: 2012 was the year of former cricketing hero Imran Khan emerged as a popular leader with a following large enough to tell the world that he had the army behind him.
There was the even more bizarre caper by Pakistani-Canadian preacherMuhammad Tahir-ul-Qadri, the size of whose January 2013 rally forced the elected government (a la ours with Anna Hazare)
to negotiate the date of its own dissolution and agree to hold early
elections while abolishing the Election Commission. The hand of the army
in this is obvious; the Zardari government was anyway completing its
term in mid-March and such a demand was made only to expose its
weakness.
Eventually,
when it did become clear that the Zardari government would be allowed
to complete its term, speculation picked up on whether this signified a
genuine change in thinking in the Pakistani armed forces and
intelligence agencies.
The
Pakistani foreign minister began speaking of Pakistan’s change of heart
vis-à-vis Afghanistan: “Allow me to say that we seek no strategic depth
in Afghanistan…The only strategic depth that we seek with Afghanistan
is friendly…on the principle of stable, peaceful Afghanistan, a
sovereign Afghanistan, an independent Afghanistan.” If only anyone could
believe that.
On
12 March, the former director of Afghanistan’s National Directorate of
Security said on the Pakistan Express News television channel that “when
it comes to Afghanistan, they (Pakistan) want to create limitations for
us, treating us not as a nation but as a sub-nation, as to whom we
should talk to or who should be our allies”.
Even Pakistan’s famed writer Hamid Mohsin, mourning the killing of Shias, in a piece evocatively titled To fight India, we fought ourselves,
argues that for the “first time the new official doctrine of the
Pakistan Army identifies internal militants rather than India as the
country’s number one threat”. That may be, but in an increasingly
impoverished Pakistan reeling under daily power cuts, the armed forces
were still able to appropriate almost $6.5 billion, or 3% of the gross
domestic product.
Whether or not the civil-military equation is
really changing will be revealed as the campaign for elections scheduled for May proceeds.
Former
president Musharraf has said that he is returning next week to
participate in the forthcoming elections. He has little support since he
contributed greatly to the revulsion the Pakistani public feels for
military rule.
In Islamabad, the conspiracy capital of South Asia, there are
stories that current army chief, Ashfaq Parvez Kayani, may be elevated to the rank of field marshal, probably in the hope that he will allow elections to go ahead.
But
the fear of a King’s Party continues to cast a shadow over Pakistani
hopes of becoming a normal country and eventually a functioning
democracy.
Neelam
Deo is director of Gateway House: Indian Council on Global Relations,
former ambassador to Denmark and former joint secretary for Myanmar, Sri
Lanka, Nepal and Bangladesh.
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