Opinion

An End to Military Rule?
By Ahmad Faruqui, PhD
Dansville, CA

Is General Pervez Musharraf finally going to morph into a civilian president? If you believe his most recent pronouncements, this time it is for real. Pakistan, he says, is ready for transition to “full” democracy and he has given his assurance in writing.
But did he not promise to doff his uniform back in December 2004? That, he now says, was a promise meant to be broken because how else could the nation have dealt with natural calamities except with a president in uniform?
So we don’t know whether this is really the end or just the beginning of the end. As the Americans say, “It ain’t over till it’s over.”
In many ways, the general’s dictatorship has been the wiliest in history. When he seized power, he figured it was best to dispense with the overt martial recipe that Generals Ayub, Yahya and Zia had dispensed. In the Internet Age, he preferred virtual martial law.
While continuing as army chief, he styled himself the Chief Executive (as in CEO) of Pakistan and committed himself to “real” democracy. After 9/11, he added two words to his manifesto: “enlightened moderation.”
During his eight years, he gave Pakistan a democratic façade but kept it within the tight grip of the military. Just a few weeks ago, he brazenly told the Supreme Court that he would continue as army chief if he were not re-elected. This came on the heels of Nawaz Sharif’s deportation, which ran contrary to an earlier Supreme Court ruling. Protestors were arrested by the thousands.
The wave of political arrests continued unchecked because his handpicked prime minister considered them to be “preventive” measures that were necessary to “maintain a peaceful atmosphere.”
Has Musharraf really changed his mind? To have any chance of answering this question we need to find a window into his mind. Since no biographies have been published, we turn to his autobiography, “In the Line of Fire.” In it, Musharraf tells us, “History judges leaders by results. Let my results do the talking.”
Musharraf proudly admits to having been a prankster in college who pioneered the use of time bombs hidden in garbage canisters. Ultimately, he confessed to save the warden’s job. To his surprise, the principal let him off the hook after a verbal reprimand. He says this episode taught him the value of honesty.
As the following examples suggest, it is not clear what he learned:
• He says that the armed forces have never let the nation down. So who was at the bridge when East Pakistan was lost? Was it not the army that failed to acquire Kashmir?
• He says Zia injected religious extremism into the body politic. But could Zia have done this without the full cooperation of the army?
• He champions women’s rights. But after the Mukhtaran Mai episode, he told the Washington Post that women in Pakistan invite rape so they can be paid a million dollars and emigrate to Canada. Afterwards, he denied the comments. But whose voice do we hear on the paper’s website?
• He says that Pakistan is winning the war against the terrorists. Yet the Lal Masjid episode occurred just a few months ago, bringing in its wake several suicide bombings. The Frontier continues to lurch toward extremism, the draconian Blasphemy Law is still on the books, the Taliban are surging in Afghanistan and Osama bin Laden, a man whom Musharraf had said was dead a while back, is very much alive. Otherwise, who is spreading terror by video?
• Musharraf maintains that the nuclear proliferation scandal associated with A. Q. Khan was “a one-man act and that neither the government of Pakistan nor the army was involved.” Can an army that cannot guard the nation’s nuclear assets be expected to guard the nation’s borders?
• He continues to talk of how, while wearing the uniform, he has brought real democracy. He asks for time to “consolidate our democracy and ensure the supremacy of the constitution.” But then why does he say, “The issue of democracy is a recent, post–Cold War obsession of the West; and unfortunately this obsession clouds its vision”?
• He has essentially forced the assemblies whose terms are expiring to re-elect him so that his efforts will “not go to waste.” Does this not mean that he will rule for life?
• He blames prior military rulers for wanting to perpetuate their rule. By indicting them, does he not censure himself?
• Right after 9/11, Musharraf says that the US threatened to bomb Pakistan back to the Stone Age. He war-gamed a conflict with the US and concluded that Pakistan would lose. Duh! And then he goes on to say that “Richard Armitage’s undiplomatic language, regrettable as it was, had nothing to do with my decision [to side with the US]. The benefits of supporting the United States were many. First, we would be able to eliminate extremism from our society and flush out the foreign terrorists in our midst.” Six years later, why has this not occurred?
• He states that the “Supreme Court found that my dismissal [by Nawaz Sharif] was indeed illegal and unconstitutional.” Then why did he not let Sharif into the country and honor the Court’s injunction?
• He believes he is a democratically elected leader and not one who rules through martial law because: “First, whenever the army gets involved with martial law, it gets distracted from its vital military duties. Military training and operational readiness suffer. Second, when we superimpose martial law and place the military over the civilian government, the latter ceases functioning.” Then why was it necessary to wear the uniform for eight years?
Musharraf cites the famous quatrain of Omar Khayyam:

The Moving Finger writes; and, having writ,
Moves on: nor all your Piety nor Wit
Shall lure it back to cancel half a Line,
Nor all your Tears wash out a Word of it.

In it, he sees his destiny to govern. But he forgets that Khayyam’s wisdom applies to rulers who are past their zenith. Henry Longfellow’s poem about Harun al-Rashid is more direct:

Where are the kings, and where the rest
Of those who once the world possessed?
They’re gone with all their pomp and show,
They’re gone the way that thou shalt go.

Describing Indian Prime Minister Vajpayee’s travails at the failed Agra Summit in July 2001, Musharraf writes, “There is the man and there is the moment. When man and moment meet history is made.” With great eloquence and much prescience, the general seems to have anticipated his predicament in October 2007.

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