Role of Pakistan Army Under Musharraf Just Stinks
Shaheen Sehbai
June 13, 2004
General Pervez Musharraf is getting a taste of his own medicine.
After the Thursday (June 10, 2004) morning Karachi Clifton ambush on one of his Corp Commanders, it is now clear that senior Army officers cannot come out in the public, unless protected by the State. Musharraf himself is a prisoner of his own past, and future. After criminalizing, fractionalizing and brutalizing the society for his own personal power for five years, Musharraf and his top collaborators have ensured that half of his senior Army leadership, Major Generals and above, will now be public targets. Fair game. And unknown, unnamed and always elusive terrorists will be there to blame.
With the attacks on the Army now becoming menacing by the day, Musharraf himself included, it is just a matter of time that any one, just about any one, wearing a military uniform will be attacked, if for nothing, just for the heck of it. This situation is becoming perilously similar to the weeks and months shortly after the fall of Dacca in 1971 when no Army officer was comfortable coming out of his home in his khaki. The uniform had become an embarrassment and officers would not disclose their rank when asked to introduce themselves. A quick look at the last five years will tell us to what degrading level General Musharraf has brought his institution. Just recall from where he started in October 1999 when many of us genuinely expressed happiness, publicly, and the silent majority concurred, silently, giving Musharraf a free hand to set things right, for the nation and the country. What he set out to do was soon lost under the sheer weight of the uphill task and his sheer incompetence, nay incapacity and failure, to deliver even part of that agenda. Officers and colleagues of Musharraf had grossly over-rated the man. He was no visionary and no Kamal Ataturk, as he very proudly wanted to be. He was an insecure officer, thrown up by his faithful friends. Basically he was a tin pot dictator who was soon to fall into the trappings of palace intrigues to keep him in power at any cost: political, moral, social, religious, national, disintegration. Whatever stories of how Musharraf moved from a popular leader among his Army colleagues, who gave him the top job in a plate when he was not even in the country, to a vengeful commander who would eliminate any one showing a modicum of dissent, are now making the rounds. He himself has admitted that lower ranks were involved in assassination attempts on his life. Many officers are still missing and their families are scared and living in horror.
Latest reports reveal the next round of promotions to crucial Corps Commander slots that are planned are all close relatives of Musharraf, and his wife. Stark nepotism is being practiced in the Army and because he is wearing the all important caps of the Army Chief and President of Pakistan, no aggrieved colleague or commander can dare raise a voice. The failure of the Army in its own professional operations has been phenomenal. U-Turns on strategic policies left officers and ranks confused. If India was not an enemy, who was? If Dr AQ Khan was a national hero, why had he been arrested and humiliated before the world? If Kashmir was not to be resolved by UN, who was surrendering? If fellow mujahideen of decades were terrorists, what about their trainers and tutors? If Taliban were Satanic, why were we parenting them? Wana, in particular, has left indelible black spots on the competence and ability of Musharraf to meet the challenge of some crudely trained tribal warriors. The strategy and execution of military operations in the Tribal Areas have proved disastrous. One day they are hunting a terrorist, next day the top Army commander is garlanding the same terrorist as a hero on TV screens worldwide and the third day he is again declared a terrorist. What kind of egg has that left on the face of the Army? Stories of land grabbing, job grabbing, high handedness, insulting the bloody civilians`, beating up conscientious police cops, political manipulations, arms twisting, black mailing, election frauds, government scams have repeatedly made the top Army brass and middle ranks uneasy, very uneasy. The feeling of helplessness is deep rooted. Most of the top commanders lack courage and are voiceless. Ultimately, if left with no graceful outlet, the only option preferable to these officers would be to plot against Musharraf or help those plotting against him for other reasons, any reason. Asia Times Online, a credible source of insider stories about the Army, has already reported that even a Brigadier was killed a few months back as part of the failed bid to kill Musharraf. Many officers have been kidnapped and pamphlets in military cantonments have become the popular mode of communication, Asia Times has reported. The SA Tribune website has also produced a copy of the confidential GHQ Memo that practically bars officers from growing beards. It speaks of special detention centers where dozens of officers and soldiers are being held without rights in extremely inhuman conditions. A copy of a hand-written letter written by one Major Atta to the Government of Pakistan has been reproduced by the web site as proof of the despicable situation of these dozens of detainees in special cells. The Pakistan Army as an institution is being subjected to gross abuse by Musharraf and his cronies, creating mass despair, just because he would not agree to share power with the nation or establish any decent mechanism of taking Pakistan back into the civilized world where transfer of power can be achieved without bloodshed and brute force.
The only straw Musharraf has been able to grab is the continued support of President Bush and the Americans but they are caught in the middle of their own grave follies and are drowning in their own juices. They would certainly have less to worry if Pakistan were to become a politically stable place where fall of one man would not threaten the collapse of an entire system and would not cause a severe set back to their own war against terror. Musharraf is already isolated, a prisoners of his own inner contradictions in policy and physically trapped in his own security net. He gets advice from the same few, failed and discredited, though immensely loyal, bureaucrats and family members now in top positions because of him. All these men have lost the larger sense of national direction and balance because they are deeply immersed in day to day operations of self-preservation. The palace intrigues reflected by the political circus around top civilian posts, the changing loyalties by the day, making and unmaking of provincial set ups, divisions and differences between provinces, all show the major players are losing confidence in the Pakistan Army headed by General Musharraf to deliver anything. Repeated attempts by the General aimed at trouble-shooting have produced no positive results or a sense of optimism. The system Musharraf created is collapsing. The question is whether all the other stakeholders will allow a total collapse or will they retrieve something to build upon, afresh. This set up now stinks.
