The Empire Strikes Again in Pakistan

The soul of Abraham Lincoln must be very queasy and perturbed in the other world since General Musharraf invoked his analogy to justify his own crass action grossly violating the constitution and laws of Pakistan in what is, indubitably, his second coup d’etat in 8 years, on the black day of November 3.

There couldn’t be a more perverse distortion of Lincoln’s messianic mission that broke the shackles of slavery of millions of slaves in America. By the same token, there couldn’t be a more blatant and shameless attempt by a tin pot military dictator, throttling democracy and shackling the fundamental human rights of 160 million Pakistanis, still having the gall to liken his ignoble daylight robbery to Lincoln’s historic nobility.

In comparing himself with Lincoln, Musharraf must have thought he could sway the American sense of outrage over what he was doing by way of crippling democracy in Pakistan, snuffing out its judicial independence and, worst of all in this day and age of cyber sovereignty, muzzling and silencing Pakistan’s budding private news media, especially its electronic component.

The military in Pakistan would simply not give up its favourite sport of striking at the roots of any democratic political process in the country, on any pretext or excuse no matter how flimsy or untenable. This has been the template of military- in- politics since October 1958, when Ayub Khan first strode into the ramparts of power on the strength of the barrels of his military guns. So it isn’t surprising to jaded soothsayers and crystal ball gazers that the empire has struck back with vengeance, once again, and pounced mercilessly on the cowering lamb of democracy in Pakistan.

General Musharraf’s action in imposing an emergency on Pakistan is an act of desperation by a beleaguered dictator with his back to the wall. The problem with Pakistani autocrats-in-uniform is that they can never see the writing on the wall; they’re simply too power-drunk and too-inebriated to read. General Musharraf is no exception to the stereotype.

In a cynical way, the use of the term, ‘emergency,’ is quite misleading. Under the Pakistani Constitution, invoked by Musharraf, an emergency could only be declared by the country’s president, whereas Musharraf has proclaimed this extraordinary rule in his capacity of chief of the army staff. In actual fact, what he has resorted to is Martial Law under which the country’s constitution stands in abeyance—suspended, for all intents and purposes.

In 60 years of tortuous meandering as a state, Pakistan has had more than its fair share of military dictators subverting the political and democratic process at will and holding the country ransom to their personal whims. Musharraf is the fourth in the gallery of rogues that have had the temerity to usurp the people of Pakistan’s civic and fundamental rights and lord over them like a God-sent avatar. The alibi, in every instance, was that the military intervention in politics was a ‘reluctant act’ necessitated by the duty to ‘save’ the nation.

Musharraf’s alibi for this latest assault against democracy is no different than what has been the norm of his precursors. He has made a pathetically feeble attempt to paint a picture of anarchy in the country and faulted the apex court for throwing spanners in his work of combating a rising wave of and terrorism in Pakistan. But that’s a white lie.

Militancy in Pakistan is a result of Musharraf’s ‘contract’ to fight America’s ‘war on terror’ in the northern parts of Pakistan. In the process he has morphed the army into mercenary colours and invited a backlash from those hardy Pakhtoons who have, historically, resisted every foreign, or foreign-inspired, incursion into their mountainous domain. Musharraf should have known that fact, as history is believed to be still a subject taught at Pakistan’s military academies.

What’s happening in Swat today is a boomerang effect of the bloody confrontation in Waziristan between the Pakistan army and the local militants up in arms against the military onslaught. The army hasn’t only been put on the defensive but, thus far, shown an incredible lack of gumption to fight those described in the half-baked GHQ jargon as ‘miscreants.’

The country’s top judiciary never threw any spanners in Musharraf’s works as far as the military operation against terrorists in Pakistan was concerned. What irked Musharraf and his comrades-in-uniform was the court’s activism to question Pakistan’s arcane and notorious intelligence agencies about the ‘disappearance’ of at least 4,000 people at their hands. Some of these people have been missing for years, and the agencies, answerable only to Musharraf, have stubbornly refused to spill the beans on their whereabouts.

Musharraf, himself, has boasted, in his memoirs published last year from U.S. that hundreds of those suspected of involvement in terrorism, were ‘sold’ to U.S. for money. But the glee of his claim of large-scale sale falls conspicuously silent about where did the millions of dollars thus raised go, or disappear.

It’s obvious that Musharraf didn’t have the stomach to tolerate the judiciary to act independently as a guardian of people’s civil liberties and fundamental human rights. He made an attempt to silence the Chief Justice Iftikhar Mohammad Chaudhry, earlier in March this year by firing him, in defiance of the constitution. That move backfired on him, and energized the country’s legal community—jurists, lawyers et al. to rise against his autocratic rule, en masse.

Musharraf’s latest swoop on the apex court and its distinguished justices is not only a huge blow to aspirations of democracy but also smacks of a vendetta against the judges who had started questioning his autocratic style of governance. To the abiding shame of everyone in the Pakistani establishment—an oligarchy sheltering under its umbrella feudal landlords, military Bonapartes and power-crazy bureaucrats—soldiers acting as Musharraf’s tribunes have dislodged the distinguished judges of the Supreme Court from their chambers and sent them packing. Many have virtually been placed under house arrest because they wouldn’t demean themselves by taking fresh oaths under his dubious PCO (Provisional Constitutional Order).

The refusal of 12 of the Supreme Court’s 17 judges, including Chief Justice Iftikhar Chaudhry, to sell their souls to the petty whims of a frustrated and failing military dictator is a stunning denunciation of Musharraf’s illegal act. The legal community refuses to be daunted by his ire directed against its gutsy lawyers. It’s sheer cussedness that the newly minted president dent of the Supreme Court Bar Association, the fearless and indefatigable Aitezaz Ahsan, and several of his colleagues have been arrested and thrown in jail. Political leaders critical of Musharraf’s autocratic rule have, likewise, been arrested. Even the human rights activists, like Asma Jehangir, haven’t been spared. A dragnet is on to nab all those suspected of not being with him, or his dictatorship in Pakistan. All the symptoms of a banana republic serving outside interests at the expense of its own people are in place in a beleaguered Pakistan.

But the most striking evidence of Musharraf wilting under the people’s backlash against his unbridled authoritarianism is his knee-jerk decision to gag the increasingly vocal independent electronic media of Pakistan. In his post-crime sermon to the nation, the megalomaniac in him boasted, pharaoh-like, that he was taking back the freedom he had given (emphasis added) to the media. This is a sure sign of an autocrat losing his marbles and believing himself to be a demigod. The press and electronic media in Pakistan won their independence at great cost and sacrifice, and they aren’t going to allow a dictator-on-the-run to divest them of this hard-won freedom.

Musharraf has, so far, been able to hoodwink the outside world, especially his mentors in the west, in general, and U.S., in particular, because of the general concern in world capitals about issues of terrorism. In other words, he has, to his gratification and perpetuation of an authoritarian rule, been able to convince the western democracies that security concerns are a legitimate tool to trump democracy. He must be smugly confident of getting away with this ruse, once again, or else he may have thought twice before administering a kick in the teeth of democracy in Pakistan.

The initial reaction from Washington against Musharraf’s ultra-constitutional measures isn’t of a kind to bother Musharraf much. Condoleezza Rice has sufficed only to call his move ‘highly regrettable.’ Yet the Pentagon has been quick to remind the world that it wouldn’t be reviewing the military assistance that Musharraf has been receiving for his ‘front-line’ role in the ‘war against terror.’ That, in a convoluted sense, is a pat on Musharraf’s back to go on usurping the democratic rights of 160 million Pakistanis, and imposing on them a draconian military rule, with impunity, because he has a blank cheque from Bush.

The Americans are entitled to go on practicing a failed and repudiated art of pampering ruthless autocrats, at the expense of their people, just because they are available, for a price, to pull the American irons from the fire. They tried it in Iran and failed miserably, as they surely would also fail in Pakistan.

For the people of Pakistan, Musharraf’s night raid on Pakistan’s building citadel of democracy raises the stakes and decrees a stiff price in blood, sweat and toil. But they are capable of riding out the tide against them, if only they could hold on to the umbrella held over their heads by the Supreme Court’s fearless judges and their bold lawyers comrades standing up to state tyranny.

It’s Musharraf who must worry about his back, which isn’t secure. His febriled response to judicial activism and media independence betrays the deeply flawed personality of a commando losing his way in a thicket. In sheer panic and fear of an unhelpful verdict from the Supreme Court on the legality of his recent stage-managed re-election he has taken a dangerously perilous pre-emptive action. He has mounted a tiger that would surely devour him, sooner than later.

The scenario, today, looks like a replay of March 1969 when Field Marshal Ayub’s craft was buffeted by the winds of a popular agitation against him. That movement was spearheaded by Zulfiqar Ali Bhutto but was hijacked by Ayub’s chosen chief of staff, Yahya Khan Rangeela, who toppled Ayub in a palace coup. In Musharraf’s case, Zulfi Bhutto’s daughter, Benazir, could well be leading the charge against a tottering dictator on his last legs but could easily be robbed of victory, a la 1969, by Musharraf’s own anointed successor, General Ashfaq Kiyani who, as well-known, is as much a Washington-kosher guy as Musharraf once was. Bush may finally decide to dump Musharraf once it sinks in with him that his front-line soldier has become a liability.

That, if it came to pass, would be like out of the frying pan and into the fire, as far as the people of Pakistan are concerned. But, unfortunately, that’s what seems to be ordained by the stars for the moment. For the hapless Pakistanis regularly cheated and mugged by politicians and bumbling generals alike, there would be no meaningful change until the present, feudal and deeply flawed, oligarchic culture of governance is changed for good. Only a grass-roots revolution, like the one in China in the first-half of the 20th century, would empower the people of Pakistan in the true sense of the term, and end the long night of tyranny for them.