Avoiding a Fifth Coup
By Ahmad Faruqui, PhD
Dansville, CA
Can a nation that has been hit with four coups avoid a fifth? The threat is real. The last coup took place when coup making had fallen out of fashion globally.
According to the GHQ’s discourse, Pakistani coups are carried out of necessity. The four horsemen of the apocalypse – Ayub, Yahya, Zia and Musharraf — all invoke the same rationale: restore law and order, remove corrupt politicians and prevent bankruptcy.
Their coup-making behavior has provided fertile ground for scholarly examination. The most widely respected theory, put forward by Hasan Askari-Rizvi, asserts that coups occur when the army’s corporate interests are threatened. This theory is cited most recently in a new treatise penned by a former civil servant, Mazhar Aziz (“Military Control in Pakistan,” Routledge, 2008).
The “corporate interest” theory is at odds with GHQ’s “national interest” theory. Between the two, it provides the superior explanation of history. Aziz marshals new evidence that contradicts the army’s version of history.
Citing a World Bank study, he says the economy under Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif was doing quite well until the nuclear tests of May 1998 triggered a series of economic sanctions. And, citing data from a senior police officer, he shows that lawlessness has continued to grow under both civilian and military regimes.
Can the “corporate interest” theory yield predictions that can be used to shape policy and prevent coups? Quite possibly, but first it has to be extended in several ways.
It needs to objectively define the army’s corporate interest and clarify who within the army would evaluate it. And it has to specify the triggers that would signal to the army that its corporate interest is under threat.
The theory is “under identified” because it can lead to multiple predictions depending on exogenous factors. It needs to factor in the personality of the army chief and the extent to which he is able to rally the corps commanders around himself.
Under the same circumstances, one army chief may choose to mount a coup while another may not. Had Gen. Musa been the army chief in 1958, the “October Revolution” may have not occurred.
Another factor that needs to be worked into the theory is whether or not the chief has been able to win over external support for his actions, notably from America, China and Saudi Arabia. Ayub’s coup could not have been carried out without the connivance of the US, the main supplier of the army then (and now). China did not object to Zia’s coup despite Bhutto’s close ties with Mao and Zhou. Musharraf took a calculated risk in overthrowing Nawaz Sharif, fully aware that the latter had engaged in summit diplomacy with President Bill Clinton just three months prior.
The corporate interest theory seems to suggest that coup making is deeply rooted in the strategic culture of the nation and little can be done to break the vicious cycle in which civilian and military regimes oscillate indefinitely. Clearly, there is no reason to be so pessimistic.
The theory overlooks the importance of the time difference between the coups. The first coup came after eleven years of civilian rule, the second coup took place nine years after the first military regime had civilianized itself, the third one took place after five years of civilian rule and the fourth one took place after eleven years of civilian rule.
This average gap of nine years between coups suggests that coup makers are realists who realize that they can only carry out their extra-constitutional act once the public buys into the “national interest” argument. It is difficult to carry out a coup soon after the previous one. That factor may have prevented Gen. Baig from seizing power on Zia’s death.
But the most important enhancement needed in the corporate interest theory is a definition of the army’s corporate interest. In one interpretation, it could simply be the army’s role in defining the nation’s defense policy, including the defense budget and arms procurement policies. In a broader definition, it may also extend to its foreign policy. Husain Haqqani has shed light on these connections in his incisive work on the military’s use of religion and its links with the US to advance its corporate interests.
Finally, in the broadest and most sinister definition, it could extend to what Ayesha Siddiqa has termed “military business.” This would encompass not only the army’s civilian businesses but also its intrusions into all aspects of domestic policy.
Each of these boundary conditions defines a different redline, from least aggressive to most aggressive. All of them negate Jinnah’s concept of Pakistan.
Seeking to legitimize its political role, GHQ often cites the example of Turkey to rationalize its coups. However, there are important differences. Firstly, modern Turkey’s founder, Ataturk, specifically gave the army a constitutional role in the governance of the state. It was to be the protector of the secular character of the state. All civilian governments know that if they bring religion into politics they risk ouster at the hands of the military. This redline is much more difficult for Turkey’s coup makers to invoke than the much softer redlines set by Pakistan’s coup makers.
Secondly, the Turkish military simply replaces one civilian government with another. Thirdly, the incidence of coups is expected to diminish as Turkey moves closer to the EU.
In Gohar Ayub’s memoirs, Ayub Khan is quoted as saying that nothing can stop an aggressive army chief from overthrowing the government. Thus, a fifth coup cannot be ruled out unless the strategic culture of the nation is changed (“Rethinking defense,” April 7th). But it is also necessary to create a strong punitive deterrent.
Two examples come to mind. When a democratic government was restored in Greece in the mid-seventies, it arrested the coup makers. They were tried under Greek law and sentenced to death. The sentences were later commuted to life in prison with no possibility of parole. Athens has been coup-free since.
In a similar vein, a court in Manila has just handed sentences up to 40 years to some military officers who were convicted of seeking to carry out a coup. There are lessons in this for Pakistan’s legislators and jurists and generals.
Faruqui@pacbell.net.
