Getting to
Know the General
By Ahmad Faruqui, PhD
Dansville, CA
While
Musharraf was promoting his life story in the
US, Pakistan was hit by a power blackout. Coming
within days of an unscheduled medical check-up
in Texas, this triggered rumors of a coup. An
incensed general retorted that Pakistan was not
a banana republic.
The quip played to the perception that banana
republics were prone to coups. After all, the
machinations of Latin American generalismos had
contributed the word “junta” to the
English lexicon. But Musharraf forgot that the
banana republic that he had visited just a few
weeks ago, Cuba, had not seen a coup since 1959.
He also forgot that in Panama, General Omar Torrijos
had ruled from 1968 to 1981, much longer than
any of Pakistan’s uniformed rulers.
Torrijos never bothered to become president, nor
did he feel any urge to declare martial law. This
would have annoyed the Americans. In fact, to
assuage their sensitivities, he continued to hold
elections. Some of this sounds familiar to Pakistani
ears.
Like most rulers, he wanted to preserve his legacy.
But his way of doing that was indirect, unlike
Musharraf’s. He enlisted the legendary British
novelist and critic, Graham Greene, in his cause.
Greene got an invitation to visit Panama in 1976,
all expenses paid. Always fascinated with Spain
and Latin America, he took up the offer and made
the first of several visits to the country.
The strategy worked since he ended up befriending
Torrijos and writing a best seller, “Getting
to know the general.” In the end, Torrijos
not only granted Greene a Panamanian diplomatic
passport but also offered him a Captain’s
position in the army that Greene wisely declined.
In Greene’s portrayal, Torrijos is a man
devoid of Latin machismo. He represents the lesser
evil, a necessary if not ideal ruler; a pragmatist
nationalist, one who knows his country of two
million can be no match for the United States.
He consults with other heads of state in Latin
America to develop his foreign policy toward the
US. Even the fire-breathing Fidel Castro counsels
patience. So Torrijos continues to negotiate endlessly
with Washington in an attempt to get Panamanian
sovereignty over the Canal.
But he has also war gamed Plan B. If the Treaty
falls through, he will blow up the dam that contains
much of the water through which ships traverse
the canal. He would then lead his men into the
hills from where they would wage guerilla war.
While the dam would be rebuilt quickly by the
US Army Corps of Engineers, it would take months
for the rains to fill up the Canal. Shipping would
be blocked and the US would have to send a hundred
thousand troops to secure the surrounding areas.
Plan B was never needed, since the treaty was
signed and ratified by the US Senate. Yet, soon
afterwards, Torrijos was killed in a plane crash
while flying to his home in the mountains of Panama
in clear weather. Theories that the plane was
bombed persist to this day, seemingly validating
an assertion by his personal friend and bodyguard,
Sergeant Chuchu. A former professor of mathematics
and a poet, Chuchu was wont to say: “A revolver
is no defense.”
Does Greene’s narrative about this bona
fide banana republic general provide analogies
of interest to Pakistan? Yes, it does. Panama
is located in a vital part of the globe. It connects
North and South America by land and the Pacific
and Atlantic Oceans by the Canal that runs through
the middle. And it is home to a sizeable American
military force.
Pakistan is located in another vital part of the
globe and while there is no visible American military
presence on its soil, it is the recipient of billions
of American aid. Its frontiers touch five nations
and the American military is fighting a war next
door in Afghanistan.
So, just like the US wants no interruption to
world commerce that passes daily through the Panama
Canal, it wants no interruption to the smooth
flow of oil through the Hormuz Strait, located
just off the southwestern tip of the restive province
of Balochistan.
There are, of course, a few differences. Pakistan
is 50 times larger than Panama. And Musharraf,
unlike Torrijos, is not lacking in machismo. Unable
to find his Graham Greene, he has penned his own
story.
How would Musharraf have fared had Greene lived
long enough to befriend him and written of “The
Man of Destiny”? Perhaps Greene would have
talked about Musharraf’s liberal upbringing
at the hands of parents who were ballroom dancers,
his childhood in secular Turkey and his high schooling
at Karachi’s leading Catholic school for
boys. Subsequently, he would fall in love with
a Bengali girl and join the army. Her family would
later move to the eastern province, which would
ultimately secede from Pakistan, forcing him into
penance.
Musharraf would be a modern day Odysseus, a reluctant
general, sworn to keeping the army out of politics.
He would say often that an army chief should never
be the head of state. But as in all great epics,
he would find himself violating these noble principles
in order to protect a national interest that providence
had only revealed to him.
He would come across as the man who was destined
to bring to fruition Jinnah’s dream of an
independent homeland for the Muslims of British
India, a man who felt that if Jinnah could have
governed Pakistan as a general, albeit a governor
general, so could he.
His biggest achievement would not be the stabilization
of the Pakistani economy. That had brought with
it foreign bondage that would last for long after
he was gone. Nor would it be his faltering military
accomplishments, either against archenemy India,
erstwhile friend Taliban or novo enemy Al Qaeda.
Instead, it would be his ability to convince the
West that if he were swept from power, it would
lose its freedom. By insinuating that elected
civilians would never be able to govern Pakistan,
the General would guarantee indefinite American
support for himself.
During his book tour, more than one American reporter
fell under his spell. Many called him a former
general, since he was careful not to show off
his “second skin” anywhere on American
soil. In American eyes, he was an icon of moderation
in a tempestuous, unruly and almost savage part
of the globe. In the same breath, they would call
him a pillar of Western democracy and a terror
warrior. If nothing else, such encomiums must
ensure that the general sleeps with a smile on
his face.
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