Going the Way All Dictators Go
By Dr. Syed Ehtisham
Bath, NY
Musharraf is going the way all dictators do, they stumble and fall.
Ayub was the most powerful one. He sent the person who had installed him as CMLA into exile, put politicians in jail indiscriminately, killed political prisoners, removed government servants without due process, inducted Basic Democracy, introduced "trickle down" before Ronald Reagan had heard of it, and initiated mass scale corruption in the country. His son and the son's father-in-law became the owners of the Gandhara industry over night. The level of thievery by government functionaries before him was at the nascent KG level. He got away with it all.
Confident of a sweeping victory he ordered an election. The opposition made an inspired decision. They went down on their knees and persuaded Miss Jinnah to contest against him. He survived by resorting to massive rigging, another first. The 80,000 basic democrats should not have been too difficult to control, but nearly all of them had pledged support to Miss Jinnah before the elections.
In order to redeem himself he launched the 1965 misadventure. He could not recover from the disastrous decision and, to add insult to injury, his cohorts decided to celebrate the Decade of Reforms in 1968. He was swept away in a flood of protests led by students.
He may have wanted to honor his tailor-made constitution and hand over power to the Speaker of the Assembly, but the army chief Yahya had other ideas.
Confident of a divided house, Yahya ordered an election based on adult franchise. Mujib won a clear majority and supported by the NAP in West Pakistan commanded a two-thirds majority. Aided and abetted by Bhutto and the feudal landowners of West Pakistan and the mullahs, he unleashed a war of terror in East Pakistan. Half a million Muslim Bengalis were killed, an equal number of Muslim women raped, and several million more rendered homeless.
India intervened, inflicting a humiliating defeat on Pakistan, taking 90,000 prisoners of war. She had inherited visceral hatred for Pakistan, so denied Mujib the right to try Yahya, his generals and other officers as war criminals.
Bhutto inherited West Pakistan, made pious claims to regain East Pakistan by offering Mujib the PM's office, abruptly released the latter when Wali Khan offered to negotiate with Mujib, ruled the country as a feudal lord, sent hundreds of opponents into concentration camps, did not even spare mentors like the secretary general and author of PPP Constitution and friends like Mairaj Muhammad Khan. He developed delusions of greatness and grandeur, took on the USA, and was duly hanged.
The arch hypocrite Zia took over, jailed thousands, used Islam much more shamelessly than Abbassids did, had people lashed in public, incarcerated women for the "crime" of being raped. He became an international pariah till the USSR blundered into Afghanistan. He gifted Pakistan with heroin and Kalashnikov culture. He too grew too big for his britches and defied the USA when the latter made a deal with the USSR in Afghanistan. He went down in flames as a foretaste of the fire waiting for him for all eternity. He took the US ambassador, military attaché, and a dozen senior Pakistani generals with him.
Bhutto's daughter BB went with a begging bowl to the collaborators in her father's murder and made deals with the MQM to get blessings for becoming the PM.
A veritable musical chairs followed with the army playing the band and BB/NS dancing to their tune. When NS tangled with the President COAS Kakar forced both of them out.
NS got an "overwhelming" mandate, took away 58b from the president, presided and gloated over the explosion of an atomic bomb test, chased a CJ out of office, removed a naval chief, asked for the resignation of the army chief, and installed a non-son of the soil Musharraf as army chief. He forgot that the Pakistan army has its own brand of ethnicity. After a few years as an officer, they are no longer Punjabis, Sindhis, Baluchis Pathans or Mohajirs.
Musharraf launched the Kargil ofensive without so much as by your leave to the PM (NS wants an independent inquiry into that). India threatened an all out war. NS, with tail between his legs, had to run to Clinton to get out of the quagmire. The army cried foul, jawans had given their life for the Jihad in vain.
When it came to removing Musharraf, the army-Punjabi, Pathan and Mohajir - all joined hands behind him and NS was put into jail, after being slapped around, another first.
Musharraf was also shunned by the international community till 9/11 rescued him. He had things all his way, hiring and firing judges, politicians and civil administrators, getting himself "elected" till Shaukat Aziz, a neo-liberal implant, incensed at CJ Iftikhar for blocking the sale of the steel mills, advised Musharraf to fire the CJ. Uncharacteristically, the CJ declined the invitation to resign.
Musharraf has been struggling ever since. His patron in chief George Bush dispatched BB to the rescue. Mujahideen took care of him. That gave PPP a leg up in elections. It emerged as the majority party and the "jan nasheen" Zardari has been doing his best to honor the deal he and BB made with Musharraf to keep him in office in return for withdrawal of cases of corruption against the couple.
But the tide seems to have turned. The Army is once again getting into the act. Kayani will most likely remove Musharraf, allow politicians a semblance of power and wait for an opportune time to take over.
The solution is not the removal of Musharraf and his trial for treason. The solution lies in re-structuring the system, reducing the size of the army to about one-tenth of its current size, and dismantling the neo-liberal policies the country is groaning under.
Musharraf's trial is only the first step. But it is highly unlikely that Kayani will allow it. After all Ayub and Yahya were not brought to a court of law
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