Friday, May 27, 2005

Outrage at the Bari Imam shrine

Daily Times, May 28, 2005
Saturday, May 28, 2005 E-Mail this article to a friend Printer Friendly Version
EDITORIAL: Outrage at the Bari Imam shrine

A day after the urs (religious festival) of Bari Imam ended in Islamabad on May 26, a bomb blast at the concluding majlis (religious gathering) at the shrine killed at least 18 devotees; scores of others were wounded in the attack. The shrine is dedicated to a 17th century Sufi, Shah Abdul Latif Kazmi, popularly known as Bari Imam. Bari Imam is considered the patron saint of Islamabad.

The Islamabad police chief says that initial findings point to a sectarian suicide attack. This is the strongest possibility given the pattern of past sectarian killings and suicide attacks since 2001. The shrine itself is claimed by both Shia and Barelvi Sunnis but is under the control of the latter since Raja Akram, its caretaker who was killed in February this year, took control during General Zia ul Haq’s time. Now the Barelvis celebrate the urs for a few days and the proceedings are capped after the last day of the festival by the Shia majlis.

At the time of the blast thousands of Shia devotees were attending the majlis while Barelvi devotees who had come for the festival were in the process of leaving. It is important to note that the Sunni-Barelvi denomination, which constitutes the majority of Sunnis in Pakistan, is a moderate, existential creed and has traditionally enjoyed affinity with the Shia community. They are unlike the ahistorical and puritanical salafis of Wahhabi and Deobandi denominations which are rabidly anti-Shia and consider many practices by the Barelvis as bida’ (innovations).

If the police finally determines the blast to be a suicide attack, the modus operandi would neatly fit other such sectarian attacks, mostly on Shia mosques and targets. Some reports suggest that on the final day of the urs some Shia hardliners from the NWFP also made some inflammatory speeches targeted against those Sunni and other denominations that apostatise the Shia. Of course, there are mischievous elements on both sides but two factors cannot be ignored in this regard. The May 27 attack was pre-planned and whoever mounted it could not have done so in the space of 24 hours after listening to the allegedly hard-line speeches by some Shia devotees. Also, the statistics of sectarian attacks clearly show that the Shia community is more sinned against than sinning. Shia retaliation is more focused and normally targets very high-profile Sunni-Deobandi or Wahhabi clerics, the assassination of SSP’s Azim Tariq in October 2003 being a case in point. More recently, in March this year, the Northern Areas IGP, Sakhiullah Tareen, was killed, along with four bodyguards, in an ambush after he led a crackdown in Gilgit in the wake of sectarian riots. Earlier, in January this year, a famous Shia cleric, Agha Ziauddin Rizvi, was killed in Gilgit. His killing was followed by the assassination of an SSP cleric in Karachi. Another attempt on a cleric of Islamabad’s Lal Masjid did not succeed.

In February, Raja Akram, the caretaker of the shrine, was gunned down along with some others when a gunman opened fire on a funeral procession. However, police has not been able to ascertain the motive and it is not clear whether it was a sectarian attack.

The attack on Bari Imam came as US Assistant Secretary of State Christina Rocca was concluding a visit to Pakistan. Just a day ahead of the attack, speaking at the National Defence College, General Prevez Musharraf had pointed to internal threats and claimed that his government had largely taken care of elements bent on doing mischief. But it seems that there are many fanatics still out there waiting for the right opportunity to shed blood. The attack also comes in the wake of a fatwa the government extracted from scholars of various denominations condemning sectarian violence and declaring suicide bombing for such a purpose as repugnant to Islam. The edict has already been rejected by various Deobandi scholars and religious leaders.

It is difficult for any government to entirely eradicate the possibility of such attacks. However, the problem needs to be tackled at two levels: at the level of better policing and intelligence gathering; and by making policies that aim at ridding the society of its growing religious radicalism. On both counts the government does not appear to be doing much. General Musharraf continues to fight shy of co-opting moderate, secular parties and there is evidence that his establishment still puts a premium on a linkage with religious parties. This does not bode well for the overall health of the country.

Wednesday, May 25, 2005

The Army, Religion and America

Dawn, May 22, 2005
Book and Authors
The Army, Religion and America
By Tariq Ali


D Barsamian: In an article in New Left Review entitled “The colour khaki,” you talk about your native land, which you have called “janissary Pakistan”, and the politics of a country that was created out of British India during the partition of 1947. What are some of the salient points of your piece?

Tariq Ali: “Janissary” is a word only known by aficionados of the Ottoman Empire. This was the army the Ottomans created. Not strictly a mercenary army, it was used by the Ottomans to capture territory — to take large parts of the world. The salient feature of the janissary army was that it predominantly comprised non-Turkish people. So when I talk about janissary Pakistan, I’m saying that Pakistan and its army are the janissaries of the world’s only empire today — that this is an army used by the American empire. Sometimes I say in jest to Pakistani friends — many of the people I went to school with later became senior officers in the military — “When the United States needs a secular dictator, we provide one. When they need an Islamist dictator, we provide one. And I’m sure if one day they ask for a hermaphrodite dictator, we will provide one as well... ”

I called the essay “The colour khaki”: this brownish green colour, the colour of the military uniform, now dominates Pakistan in every single way. The army, of course, is one of the legacies of the British Empire; the British didn’t leave much behind, but they did leave us an army, a civil service, and a railway network, all of which still function to some degree. In Pakistan, which was formed in 1947, the national movement was very weak. The Punjab, the largest part of Pakistan, had been run by a combination of landlords during the empire, and while they continued to run it after the British left, their rule and their control were weak; therefore, the army played a very big role. So Pakistan, from its birth, was ruled by a military-bureaucratic complex. The civil servants basically dominated political life, with the army poised to take over if politics ever got out of control.

Pakistan’s first military coup took place in 1958, to preempt an April 1959 election that the United States feared would put into power nationalist parties ready to break Pakistan’s security pacts with the United States which they would have done, incidentally. So they organized a military coup. It has been the same ever since, a recurring cycle: a military dictatorship, a civilian government that promises a great deal and delivers very little, and then another military dictatorship and another civilian government. The bulk of that country’s life has been dominated by military dictatorships — while elected representatives have run the country for 15 years, and unaccountable bureaucrats and their tame front men for 11, the army has ruled for 29.

Our current dictator, General Pervez Musharraf, wears a suit and a tie when he travels abroad, but the only base he has in the country is his position as commander-in-chief of the Pakistani army. That’s why the US does business with him; they’ve always preferred to deal with the army in Pakistan, because they know it well. Many of the officers were trained at Fort Bragg and other American institutions, and the Americans feel they can do business with them, whereas with the politicians it’s always a bit difficult.

There is a historical analogy with Latin America and countries in the Middle East as well: this American alliance with the military.

The dictatorships in Latin America, in particular those imposed during the Cold War, kept those countries on the side of the United States. In Pakistan it’s the army that has done that. There were some doubts at the end of the Cold War, because the United States lost interest in Pakistan and Afghanistan; after the Russians had been defeated, the Americans didn’t much care about the region — until September 11, of course. They had even been talking to the Taliban, but they weren’t interested in Pakistan or its problems, and a section of the army Islamists and fundamentalists who had worked closely with the United States against the Russians in Afghanistan — deeply resented this neglect.

We must never, ever forget the image of Zbigniew Brzezinski, Carter’s national security adviser, standing on the border between Pakistan and Afghanistan, addressing a huge gathering of people with beards, telling them: Go and fight against the Russian infidel. Go and wage the jihad. God is on your side. People in Pakistan remember that, and they said, we worked together with the Americans and we liberated Afghanistan, and then they dumped us. This brutal, unceremonious dumping created a lot of anger, because people were genuinely under the illusion that the Americans were on their side — not realizing that empires always act in their own interest; they have no other motivation. That created a lot of anger.

It was during that phase of the Afghan conflict with the Russians that the Islamist groups in Pakistan armed themselves; they had never been armed before. A lot of money and weapons flowed through the country, and the Islamists became a menace to civil institutions, civilian life — killings took place. Then Sunni fundamentalist groups arose, which started bombing Shia mosques and killing Shias because they regarded them as heretics.

Then the Shias began to organize. The country was awash with factional violence for many years. That was a legacy of General Zia’s rule, which completely disrupted the nation’s political culture and political life. We are still paying a price for it.

Let me just add something that Brzezinski said later in the 1990s. When it became apparent that elements of the mujahideen, which had been so warmly embraced, supported, and trained by the United States and its Pakistani mercenaries, had morphed into the Taliban, he asked rhetorically, well, compared to the collapse of the Soviet Union, what’s “a few stirred-up Muslims?”

It illustrated how out of touch he was with the stirred-up Muslims. The stirred-up Muslims finally came and hit New York and the Pentagon. This is what Chalmers Johnson described presciently as “blowback”. No one has ever challenged Brzezinski on that particular remark; we will never see an editorial in the New York Times denouncing him for it. This is a recurring feature in US foreign policy: their interests require an alliance with X or Y or Z; they go ahead without a thought about the consequences, for themselves or for the rest of the world.

DB: Let’s go back to the origins of Pakistan. It’s one of the largest Muslim countries in the world — its population is around 150 million. Two key figures are Muhammad Iqbal and Muhammad Ali Jinnah. Start with Iqbal. He was born in 1873 and died in 1938. Why was he important and what role did he play in the formation of Muslim consciousness in South Asia?

TA: ...The entry of the British and the collapse of the Mughal Empire ruined the livelihoods of large numbers of people — scribes, calligraphers, artisans — who worked around the court, eviscerating the Muslim elite. Slowly the perception took hold that Muslims were dispossessed, that they had nothing left. The British didn’t treat them well either, and that provoked a mutiny, the first rebellion against the British, in 1857, which came close to success, incidentally. In some parts of India the British were defeated, but it was British technology and the fact that they could win over elements of the native ruling classes — that finally won the day. This left a deep mark on the Muslims of India.

Gradually, currents within the Muslim community began to embrace modernity, to look toward the West in an attempt to learn something there. Syed Ahmed Khan was one of them. Muhammad Iqbal, whom you asked me about, was one of the great poets of the Indian subcontinent. Initially, Iqbal believed in a composite nationalism, which incorporated everyone — Hindu, Sikh, Muslim, Buddhist — to fight for a free India. In fact, he wrote the anthem of India, “Tarana-i-Hindi”: “More beautiful than the rest of the world is our great nation of India.” It is still sung today in parts of India, because it became the anthem of the nationalist movement.

Iqbal and others became very disturbed when Mahatma Gandhi, great man though he was, began to use a great deal of Hindu imagery to awaken the Hindu masses. A group of Muslim politicians, including Iqbal and Muhammad Ali Jinnah, the founder of Pakistan, reacted quite strongly; they said, we never had any of this before. Why is Gandhi referring to Ram Raj and this and that? Suddenly they realized that the empire had created a competition between the two communities.

The Muslim League was set up in 1906 by British initiative. If you look at the founding document of the Muslim League, it says, we, the rulers and Muslim notables of India and talukdars, large landowners, have created this organization to foster a sense of loyalty to the British Empire. That’s the founding document of the Muslim League — it was created to challenge nationalism. The Congress leaders, Gandhi and Nehru, not to mention Patel, made a lot of mistakes, in my opinion, by antagonizing sections of Muslims who could have been held together — but that would have meant concessions, serious concessions. That didn’t happen.

lqbal formulated the idea of a Muslim nation in India; his theory was that we were two nations, but at the same time, he remained very aware of the internal class divisions. To his enormous credit, Iqbal — a poet — never forgot that in spite of the rift between Muslims and Hindus, the real division in India was between peasants and landlords. He was shocked by the treatment the peasants received, and he wrote this wonderful poem — I think the title was “Lenin’s interview with God”. Lenin dies and goes up to heaven in the poem, and God says, hi Lenin. Nice to see you here. Why were you creating so much trouble on earth? Lenin gives God an explanation and says, God, don’t you know what exists in the real world, the suffering? And God then gives this instruction to the Archangel Gabriel, which is one of the classic verses of Indian poetry. The original is in Urdu, and it goes something like this:

Arise, awake even the wretched of the earth
Shake the foundations, tremble the walls
of the mansions in which the wealthy sleep;
And in every field where a peasant starves,
There go and burn every bushel of wheat.

This particular verse became a favourite of the progressive movement — I remember hearing from old peasant leaders that when this verse was recited to the peasants, there would be tears in their eyes. This was the poet who said at the same time that a separate Muslim homeland was necessary. Initially, there was no big fervour for it amongst the Muslim masses. In the parts of the country where there were large Muslim populations the North-West Frontier Province, Balochistan, and the Punjab, which was of course equally divided — there was no big enthusiasm for Pakistan. The fervour came from those parts of India where Muslims were a small minority: Central India, Uttar Pradesh Province, places where Muslim landlords and intellectuals feared that after Indian independence they would be totally overwhelmed by Hindu domination. They did not realize that they might not have been overwhelmed had large Muslim states been part of an Indian federation.

Excerpted with permission from Speaking of Empire and Resistance: Conversations with Tariq Ali By Tariq Ali and David Barsamian The New Press. Available with Liberty Books (Pvt) Ltd, 3 Rafiq Plaza, M.R. Kayani Road, Saddar, Karachi. Tel: 021-5683026. Email: libooks@cyber.net.pk Website: www.libertybooks.com ISBN 1-56584-954-X 234pp. Rs830

Tariq Ali is a novelist, playwright, filmmaker and the author of several books on world history and politics. David Barsamian is the founder and director of Altenative Radio. He has conducted book-length interviews with Noam Chomsky, Eqbal Ahmad and Edward Said

Amnesty International's Report on Pakistan

Amnesty International’s annual human rights report: Pakistan used ‘war on terror’ to arrest political protesters

LONDON: Deaths and disappearances increased in South Asia in 2004 and were fuelled by separatist conflicts and corruption, said London-based Amnesty International in its annual human rights report released on Wednesday.

Amnesty International said that Pakistan’s military-led government used emergency powers aimed at combating terrorism to arrest journalists and political protestors. It also noted continued violence against women including a spate of “honour killings” approved by quasi-judicial tribal councils.

In India, the rights group said authorities had not investigated successfully over 8,000 disappearances since a separatist conflict started in Jammu and Kashmir in 1989. However, the report said peace talks in 2004 between India and Pakistan over Kashmir have led to a series of confidence-building measures aimed at reducing violence.

However, several other separatist conflicts in India, including a Maoist insurgency and militants fighting for new homelands in the country’s northeast, led to increased use of force in 2004.

But, Nepal and Bangladesh witnessed the sharpest increase in rights violations, said Amnesty International, adding that a Maoist rebellion in Kathmandu and a specialised crime-fighting force in Dhaka led to a surge in suspected criminals’ deaths. The report said 416 people disappeared after being arrested by the Royal Nepalese Army and police forces in 2004. And in Bangladesh, Amnesty said at least 147 people died in 2004 in what the government portrayed as crossfire deaths between suspected criminals and the Rapid Action Battalion (RAB). The report also said that some progress on human rights had been recorded but warned that “pockets of repression” remained, with many abuses committed in the name of the “war on terror”. The watchdog singled out “grave human rights violations” committed in the US-led “war on terror” in Afghanistan and Pakistan’s South Waziristan tribal area. “In Afghanistan, hundreds of people suspected of being Taliban or Al Qaeda sympathisers were held in long-term arbitrary detention at Bagram airbase and other detention centres run by the US armed forces,” it said, adding, “Without access to judicial authorities, the detainees were effectively beyond the reach or protection of the law.”

It also voiced concern about the newly emerged conflict that has flared in southern Thailand, where at least 78 demonstrators suffocated inside army lorries and 500 people had been killed by the end of last year. Human rights abuses were also frequent in Asian conflicts where both sides were working on a resolution, in Kashmir, Sri Lanka and the Philippines, and in little-watched trouble spots, such as the 30-year-old conflict in Laos. The group also said there were grave concerns for the human rights of vulnerable groups affected by the tsunami that killed more than 250,000 people in Indonesia, Sri Lanka, India and Thailand. afp

People to People Initiatives in South Asia

Daily Times, May 25, 2005
‘Accessing people-to-people initiatives’: ‘Long-term targets needed for peace process’

Staff Report

LAHORE: Talk of peace between India and Pakistan will remain just that, talk, unless people are involved in the process at the grassroots and targets are set for the next five to ten years.

This was said on the first day of a conference titled ‘Accessing people to people initiatives’ arranged by civil society groups.

Dr Mubashir Hasan, the founder of the Pakistan India Peoples Forum for Peace and Democracy (PIPFPD), said the ‘elite’ played an important role in the peace process. “The elite is divided into two sections. It split in 1980. The elite on both sides of the border realised that peace was in their interest. Judges, journalists and other big fish were part of the elite.”

He said the common man had always wanted peace and now the ‘elite’ wanted it too, but in their own interest. “We are exploited. Peace will come, but not for people. There is no democracy,” he said.

Asma Jehangir, chairperson of the Human Rights Commission of Pakistan, said people knew that the government played politics in the name of peace. She called for the documentation of all peace efforts made up till now.

“A healthy indicator of this peace process is that now the leaders of both countries term it irreversible. If the Wagah border (crossing) is opened for a day, there will be a traffic jam on the road to Wagah. If Lata Mangeshkar comes here, Lahore will stand still. We want a kind of a peace in which the fundamental rights of people flourish. The arms race should be stopped. There should be security of ballot and other democratic institutions should also flourish,” she said.

Ms Jehangir said there was a need to set priorities and deadlines for the peace process.

Admiral (r) Ramdas said the ‘vested interests’ of ‘certain elements’ like the bureaucracy and religious fundamentalists must be curbed. Ego and prejudice should be set aside in the search for peace. And Pakistan and India must avoid heeding ‘external pressure. IA Rehman, director of the HRCP, said peace should not be a single slogan but be linked with democracy. He said ‘myths’ of prejudice and security needed to be punctured.

There was also a discussion on the role of writers which included speeches by Kishwar Naheed and Nirpuma Dutt. Ramesh Yadav, Sohan Singh Saleempura, Madeeha Gauhar, Salima Hashmi and Sehba Chachi took part in a discussion on arts and theatre.

Earlier, Muhammad Tahseen, Smitu Kotahari, Kamla Basin and AH Nayyar briefly spoke about the objectives of the conference.

Wednesday, May 18, 2005

Edict against suicide attacks

Dawn, May 18, 2005
Edict against suicide attacks
By Our Staff Reporter

LAHORE, May 17: A group of 58 religious scholars belonging to all schools of thought issued here on Tuesday an edict (fatwa) against suicide attacks. However, they said that the fatwa was applicable only in Pakistan. The edict was issued by Ruet Hilal Committee Chairman Mufti Muneebur Rahman at a press conference where only some TV channels had been invited.

Mufti Mohammad Khan Qadri, Muttahida Majlis-i-Amal MNA, Maulana Abdul Malik and other prominent clerics were present on the occasion. The edict says that Islam forbids suicide attacks on Muslims and those committing such acts at places of worship and public congregations cease to be Muslims.

The fatwa, Mufti Muneeb said, would apply only in Pakistan, while people waging freedom movements against alien occupation like in Palestine and Kashmir, were exempted of its scope. The decree said that killing innocent people was haram (forbidden) in Islam and carried the death penalty, Qisas and compensation. Killing a fellow Muslim without Islamic and legal reasons was even a bigger crime, it added.

The scholars said that they had issued the decree specifically in the perspective of Pakistan’s situation where over the past few years, suicide attacks had been carried out in places of worship and some elements had been propagating that the bombers had been brainwashed by religious organizations and made to believe that such attacks would take then to heaven.

The propaganda, the scholars said, gave a bad name to Islam and gave an impression that clerics were involved in provoking religious or sectarian killings. Under these circumstances, they said, they felt it their religious and national duty to issue the fatwa to clarify the situation for innocent people to help them avoid becoming a tool in the hands of the enemies of Islam.

Monday, May 16, 2005

Pakistan's economy after 9/11

The News, May 15, 2005
Pakistan's economy after 9/11
External interest
A lot of similarities exist between what is happening now and what took place during the 1960s and 1980s in terms of economic activity. Will the end be different this time around?

By S Akbar Zaidi

There is no denying the fact that Pakistan's core macroeconomic indicators over the last three years, since 2002-03, have shown remarkable improvement compared to the end of the 1990s and the first two years of this decade. Moreover, growth rates for the current financial year 2004-05 are projected to be close to, if not in excess of, 7 per cent, which will be the highest since 1991-92. Foreign exchange reserves have risen to their highest levels in recent years and continue to stay high; export levels set new records every year surpassing targets. Investment which had been a poor performer towards the end of the 1990s, has now also reached levels reminiscent of the 1980s and early 1990s. The stock market breaks a new record almost ever day. Clearly, most sets of key economic data show that the economy is buoyant and with at least three years of continuing and substantial improvement for each of those three years, there is a feeling that there has been a turnaround in the economy and that Pakistan is set, once again, as it was in the 1960s and 1980s, on a path of sustained high growth.

This paper examines the reasons, extent and nature of the turnaround, and identifies some persistent, though not unsolvable, problems that still afflict the economy. While clearly accepting that there has been a turnaround, it also tries to assess the sustainability of the turnaround, identifying possible problems that lie ahead. The paper begins with a very brief recent history of trends and patterns in the economy before it begins to assess and analyse the issues highlighted above.

Past and recent trends

Table 1 below gives a good picture of the performance of key sectors in the economy which shows growth rates over nearly six decades. Pakistan has had, for the most part high growth for much of this period, and particularly in the decade of the 1960s and 1980s, growth rates over a ten year period were particularly impressive. The decade of the 1990s has been Pakistan's worst in many regards, not least because of the economy performing particularly poorly. Explanations for the poor performance in the 1990s range from (i) issues related to poor governance; (ii) the fact that there were eleven governments over the period 1988-99 resulting in frequent political changes and an environment of instability, something which is not conducive to investment and growth; (iii) the debt burden accumulated over the buoyant Zia period of 1977-88 which finally came home to roost, resulting in annual interest payments to be made -- equivalent to 60 per cent of the budget each year, with another 25 per cent allocated to defence -- which did not leave much for development; (iv) sanctions imposed on Pakistan in the early 1990s related to nuclear proliferation; and, (v) the IMF and World Bank managed structural adjustment programme which resulted in all Pakistani governments having to make substantial structural interventions in the economy, many of which had a seriously deleterious impact on growth, distribution, social sector investment and on poverty.

Added to all this, was the severely deteriorating law and order situation in Karachi, Pakistan's main economic and financial centre, which surely made matters far worse. The economic costs and implications of Pakistanis carrying out jihad in different parts of the region and globe, perhaps even supported by state institutions, and the rise of religious fundamentalist forces, gave Pakistan an image which would not have been very favourable to attract foreign (or even local) investors. Moreover, this jihad factor was a core reason why Pakistan, while not at war with India throughout the nineties, was certainly not at peace with its neighbour. Interestingly, once we look at the more recent past, since 1999, and certainly since September 11, 2001, many of these constraints on the economy have been removed.

Source: Government of Pakistan, Pakistan Economic Survey, various issues, Islamabad

Recent macroeconomic developments 1998-2005

The first sentence of the Pakistan Economic Survey 1998-99 of the Government of Pakistan, released in June 1999, states that "the outgoing fiscal year 1998-99 has been the most difficult and challenging year for Pakistan's economy". The Annual Report of the State Bank of Pakistan for 1998-99, released in December 1999 under radically different circumstances, concurs and begins with almost exactly the same statement: "The year 1998-99 was one of the most difficult years in the history of Pakistan". Both 1998 and 1999 were years in which significant domestic and regional events took place. These included India and Pakistan conducting nuclear tests and the peace initiative of February 1999 between them foiled by Kargill a few weeks later and followed by the dismissal of the elected Nawaz Sharif government in October that same year.

Although both the State Bank of Pakistan Annual Report of 1998-99 and the Pakistan Economic Review of the same year believe that this year was one of the most 'difficult' in Pakistan's history, it was certainly not one of the worst, in terms of economic outcomes. In fact, as Table 2 shows, in terms of GDP growth, 1998-99 was far better than the two previous years and the three subsequent years, although no one will deny that after 1998, the situation did deteriorate on account of developments of that momentous year. In fact, the growth rate for 1998-99 was only marginally lower than the average for the preceding eight years 1990-98.

Note: * This data is for 1986/87.

Source: Government of Pakistan, Pakistan Economic Survey, various issues, Islamabad, and State Bank of Pakistan, Annual Reports, various issues, Karachi

While the May 1998 nuclear tests did have major consequences on the economy, as we discuss below, the economy prior to 1998, cannot be claimed to have been doing much better. In fact, the nineties as a whole were the decade of under-developing Pakistan, especially compared to the 1980s.

Soon after the nuclear tests, the developed countries, the G-7, imposed a wide range of economic sanctions against Pakistan. The Japanese, for example, because of having experienced the outcome of nuclear lunacy, do not do business with any country which conducts nuclear tests. As a consequence, the Japanese government stopped all funding of projects and aid, both to India and Pakistan. Other governments also castigated Pakistan (more so than India which was also in the firing line) for undertaking the tests and cut aid and assistance on which the Pakistani economy and government had become most dependent. The IMF also suspended its ESAF and Extended Fund Facility programmes as well as new Official Development Assistance. On all accounts, Pakistan was squeezed by western donors and governments as a consequence of undertaking these nuclear tests. The State Bank of Pakistan Annual Report for 1997/98 summarised the issues as follows:

"Developments in May, 1998 had a major impact on balance of payments, net foreign assets of the banking system, stock market and the exchange rate. The nuclear blast by India immediately affected the investors' confidence and the stock market declined, free market exchange rate depreciated, and foreign currency deposits were withdrawn significantly during May 11-28, 1998. Pakistan's response on May 28, 1998 to the Indian detonation, followed by economic sanctions by the United States, and a restraining stance adopted by the G-7 countries with regard to the lending by the international financial institutions, further contributed towards the erosion of confidence and weakening of the budget and the balance of payments."

Nevertheless, one specific action by the Government of Pakistan, was probably more responsible for starting a domino effect than anything else.

While the nuclear tests were bad enough, the freeze on Foreign Currency Accounts (FCAs) by the Nawaz Sharif government made matters far worse and caused major problems. The Indian nuclear tests were undertaken on May 11, and until May 28 when Pakistan tested its own, some foreign currency was withdrawn. Fearing a run on the rupee and a rush by Pakistanis to withdraw their deposits, the government of Nawaz Sharif, put a freeze on foreign currency deposits not allowing the deposit holders to withdraw their own money. This caused what is, for sure, Pakistan's greatest crisis of confidence: All the trust that had been accumulated over many years, evaporated by this one gesture. The crisis of confidence had a particularly strong impact on investors, both local and foreign, and with sanctions imposed, and credit ratings very low, the general trend was most unfavourable towards the economy.

September 11, 2001: The day the world changed

Pakistan had enough political and economic problems as it was, prior to 9/11. The nuclear test-related sanctions were still in place, democracy had been overthrown by a military coup, Pakistan's debt burden was still huge and as Table 2 shows, the downturn in the economy had already set in prior to 9/11. There were two sets of outcomes with regard to 9/11 which were related to Pakistan's economic fortunes.

The first set included issues which emerged as a response to world economic growth slowing down more generally. This meant that with world growth slowing down, demand for world exports from the developed markets also slowed down. Consumption and incomes fell in developed countries, and so did imports from other countries. Moreover, there was a sense of shock and insecurity, which meant that Americans were less enthusiastic to spend and were holding back. Second, there was a huge fear concerning Muslims, Islam, and people from other countries, particularly Middle Eastern ones. Pakistan was also included in this category, so most US businesses and firms, treated Pakistanis and Pakistan with distrust if not with contempt. This meant that foreign investors would neither be willing to invest in Pakistan nor even visit possible exporters and markets in the country. Travel advisories were issued which persuaded US and other western businessmen not to visit places like Pakistan. By all accounts, Pakistan was a no-go area for foreigners, particularly Americans, whether they were donors or businessmen. In addition, many countries were no longer eager to deal with Pakistani businessmen, and industry suffered. This was the earlier consequence on Pakistan's economy. However, as Pakistan yet again became a front-line state, things changed once again, this time fortuitously.

Nevertheless, in the medium and longer term, things changed dramatically, particularly for the military government of General Musharraf. From being labelled a rogue Islamic military state with nuclear pretensions, General Musharraf was welcomed back into the comity of civilised nations fighting the War Against Terror. Overnight, he became the darling of the West, with dozens of leaders and dignitaries from the developed countries visiting him in Islamabad -- the very same people had denounced his coup two years earlier. While this ensured his political longevity at least for some time, the economic returns of siding with the Americans were unprecedented.

The biggest problem that had plagued Pakistan's government for many years since the profligate 1980s under General Zia, was that of excessive and growing debt (both domestic but particularly international) and annual interest payments. Pakistan's economy was struggling under debt -- half of it being foreign debt -- equivalent to its GDP. As a return for Pakistan's support to the US in particular and the West in general, huge amounts of debt were either written off, or rescheduled under very easy and comfortable terms relieving the pressure on Pakistan's foreign exchange situation. In addition, the quota for Pakistani exports to the US and the European Union was increased to compensate for earlier cancelled orders and costs. Equally important was the signal to the IMF, the World Bank and numerous other donors to re-enter the field and begin supporting Pakistan again. For example, even USAID returned to Pakistan after nearly a decade. The aid agency had exited Pakistan once nuclear-related sanctions were enforced under the Pressler Amendment in the early 1990s. Pakistan was no longer no-go territory, and as a consequence of Pakistan's role in the War Against Terror and War Against Afghanistan (and subsequently, in the US' War Against Iraq later in 2003), it was repaid handsomely. Another consequence was the huge increase in remittances, particularly from the US, which came to Pakistan, particularly in 2002-03 ... see below.

What happened to the debt crisis?

Even a cursory reading of any government document or academic study by economists at any time during the 1990s, reveals that Pakistan was faced with a 'crippling', 'devastating' debt crisis for the entire duration of that decade. Both external and domestic debt had reached astronomical, unsustainable levels, as had the budget deficit and interest payments which continued to give rise to further debt, both domestic and foreign. Add to this, the fact that the economy was doing particularly poorly in terms of investment, growth and revenue generation, and one could understand the nature of a real and growing economic crisis. The external debt and interest payments had reached such astronomical proportions that there was a real fear that Pakistan would default on its international commitments and be declared bankrupt, in addition to being called a rogue or pariah state. However, in December 2001, but more specifically by 2002, the external debt crisis had become, for the moment at least, forgotten and 'resolved', and the Government of Pakistan had in fiscal year 2003-04 even voluntarily retired $1.2 billion before its due date. How did this dramatic turnaround take place?

In order to gauge the extent of the crisis and the gravity of the situation, it is important to know the amount of external debt owed and interest payments being made each year. Table 3 presents key ratios and data which give a clear picture.

Source: State Bank of Pakistan, Annual Report 1999-2000, Karachi, 2000.

Table 3 shows that by 1998-99, external debt was more than half the size of the GDP, and with domestic debt around the same amount as well, Pakistan's total domestic and external debt was greater than the size of the GDP. While Pakistan was paying back around a third in export earnings in the form of debt servicing, it was still adding on to the stock of overall total external debt. Clearly, this trend was not particularly helpful for Pakistan's economy and is one of the reasons for the very poor economic growth and social statistics during the 1990s.

After 9/11, to repay Pakistan for its role in the war against terror, the debtors offered to reschedule Pakistan's debt equivalent to around $12.5 billion, in December 2001. Not only was this amount far larger than any such rescheduling in the past, but more importantly, it was the terms of this agreement which set it apart from earlier endeavours. As the State Bank Annual Report states: "The Paris Club offered very generous terms; in contrast to the previous two rescheduling agreements that provided relief only in terms of debt flows (as per Houston terms), the existing arrangement is applicable to the entire stock of US $12.5 billion of Pakistan's bilateral debt owed to the Paris Club creditors. Consequently, this provided an implied debt reduction without Pakistan having a HIPC (Heavily Indebted Poor Country) status, which is generally associated with Naples terms".

Basically, the entire bilateral debt of Consortium countries has been rescheduled, and this rescheduling has been for a far greater period than in the past; Official Development Assistance (ODA) debt, which is 68 per cent of the total rescheduled, will be repayable after 35 years, with 15 year grace period, and non-ODA debt is to be repaid over a 25 years period, with a five year grace period. Moreover, there has been a 're-profiling of the debt in such a way that it takes into consideration the country's capacity to pay'. This rescheduling allows relief of between $1.2-1.5 billion annually in payments of debt servicing on external debt during the years 2001-05. Add to this the fact that Pakistan has not just had a debt rescheduling, but an actual debt write-off by many friendly countries, and we have an extraordinarily fortuitous situation resulting from Pakistan's support for the US invasion of Afghanistan.

The growing forex reserves

Pakistan's debt situation has improved considerably over the last three years, so has the country's foreign exchange reserves. In 1999-2000, Pakistan's total forex reserves were $2.77 billion, but rose to $7.07 billion at the end of fiscal year 2001-02, and by the next year in June 2003, were $11.48 billion, expecting to rise even further. Moreover, in 2003-04, the Government of Pakistan was able to retire some of its foreign debt to the tune of $1 billion. While the substantial increase in foreign exchange reserves has allowed Pakistan's international credit rating to improve, allowing further private and public inflows, the most important consequence has been the stabilisation and in fact, appreciation, of the Pakistani rupee. In 2001-02 the average US $/Pakistan Rupee rate was $1 equal to Rs 61.43, which had improved to Rs 58.50 by the end of the next fiscal year. Moreover, the difference between the official and market rates, which had always been high, had more or less disappeared bringing both rates in line. Clearly, compared to a near bankrupt Pakistan in 1998-99, much has changed.

There have been two or three factors which have resulted in an unprecedented growth in foreign exchange reserves, showing quite phenomenal increase of 120 per cent within one year: between 2001-02 and 2002-03 State Bank of Pakistan's reserves rose from $4.33 billion to $9.52 billion. One factor has been an increase in Pakistan's exports, which crossed $10 billion for the first time ever in 2002-03. With a rebound of the global economy and with greater access to European and US markets as quotas increase, this was likely to happen and continue. A second important reason has been the State Bank's purchase of foreign currency from the kerb market. The State Bank became one of the most important buyers of foreign exchange. It has bought substantial amounts in the years since 1999-2000. Thirdly, with debt rescheduling, interest payments have also been reduced, allowing the State Bank to hold on to and increase its reserves. It is important to point out that more reliable and traditional forms of inflows, such as foreign direct investment, have had little significance on increasing foreign exchange reserves, as they have in many other countries. Perhaps this is a matter of concern as far as sustaining the increase is concerned.

Remittances have been a reliable source of foreign exchange earnings for Pakistan since the late 1970s. In the 1980s, particularly, remittances rose to very substantial levels equivalent to around 7 or 8 per cent of GDP in single years. Since the early 1990s, however, after the first Gulf War and due to structural shifts in labour demand in the Gulf States, remittances fell substantially -- see Table 2. Traditionally, the Gulf States have been the main sources of remittances into Pakistan. Saudi Arabia sent between 35-45 per cent of remittances in the 1990s, the UAE about 17 per cent in 1999-2000 and Kuwait 15 per cent in 1999-2000; Britain provided about eight per cent of total remittances, and the US a maximum of 13 per cent in 1996-97, which had begun to fall thereafter, and was 8.75 per cent in 1999-2000. However, following 9/11 there was a dramatic change in both volume and composition of remittances.

In 2002-03, the Pakistanis in the US sent in $1.7237 billion, which was fifteen times the amount sent from the US just three years ago, in 1999-2000. This trend of substantially increased remittances from the US had begun in 2001-02, with $778 million sent, which was ten times higher than the paltry $79 million sent in 1999-2000. In 2002-03, the US with this substantially increased amount of remittances provided as much as 29.53 per cent in a total of $4.236 billion, the highest amount ever received by Pakistan on this count. Another significant development was that Saudi Arabia's contribution had fallen markedly in 2002-03: from providing almost half of Pakistan's total remittances in the past, it now provided a mere 13 per cent.

The reasons for this unprecedented amount sent by Pakistanis from the US followed by Pakistanis in the UAE (20 per cent of the total remittances in 2002-03), was a result purely of post-9/11 developments. The US government started scrutinising accounts of Pakistanis and Muslims in the US, investigating funding for al-Qaeda type organisations. In order to avoid such investigations and fearing that their savings might be wiped out, many Pakistanis sent back money to Pakistan which they otherwise would have preferred to keep in the US. The same sort of scrutiny had also begun in the UAE, hence the increase in remittances from there. Moreover, the informal foreign exchange transfer mechanism, hundi, which has been providing the main share of remittances to Pakistan from the Middle East, also came under scrutiny. To appear legal and to avoid complications with the authorities, many Pakistanis sent back money through the formal banking sector. Also, it must be added, the State Bank of Pakistan and other commercial banks also took additional measures to capture the hundi market. Since the differential between official and market exchange rates had been largely eliminated, they were able to divert some funds away from the hundi market. Nevertheless, the main reason for this huge surge in remittances, was 9/11-related developments.

Can we be sure that the turnaround is sustainable?

Most of the factors that resulted in the poverty stricken nineties decade, delineated earlier, have all disappeared. The debt burden has been lifted creating fiscal space; there has been no change in government and leadership since 1999, suggesting perhaps a sense of stability; Karachi is no longer at war with itself; the jihadis have been reigned-in on account of which there is talk of serious peace and economic cooperation with India; sanctions have not only been lifted but debt write-off and large amounts of aid have been made available to the government due to its support for the war on terror. One needs to emphasise that, had the New York attack not taken place, it is quite improbable that Pakistan would have been able to get out of the post-nuclear tests' and post-military coup scenario, both of which had been damaging to the economy.

With growth rates at 6.4 per cent in 2003-04 -- at their highest levels since 1995-96 -- with the fiscal deficit at its lowest in almost two decades, with remittances at their highest levels ever, with exports crossing the $10 billion mark for the first time and showing signs of further growth, the government is claiming that the economy has rebounded, that there has been a 'turnaround' and that good times have returned. Even the stock market has soared to inconceivable levels, setting new records every week. We are finally out of the ruinous decade of the 1990s and set on course for growth and development.

There is no disagreement over the claim that the economy has done far better in the last two or three years, since 2000-01, than it has for many years. In fact, one can add that it is very probable that this trend will continue into the next two or three years as well. The growth rate is likely to be above 5 per cent for the next few years, exports will probably not fall below the $10 billion mark, and with substantial fiscal space created on account of the Paris Club rescheduling, the pressure on the economy, at least for a few years, has been eased. There is also no denying the fact that these change have taken place on account of the developments taking place globally, and particularly regionally, because of 9/11. What is questionable, however, is the claim that Pakistan is out of the woods, headed for sustained development and growth.

The reasons for scepticism stem from an number of factors. One reason is that the recovery that has taken place in Pakistan has been on the back of high remittances, which are likely to subside to far lower levels than those in the fiscal year 2002-03. This means that the additional foreign exchange reserves are likely to have slower rates of increase, since remittances are a key factor causing the increase. A second reason is that once the WTO regime takes fuller effect, with a quota-free textile world, Pakistan will be faced with greater competition and will not be allowed the privileged access it has been granted after 9/11 to the US and to Europe. This may result in the growth rate of exports slowing down resulting in a possible deterioration of the much improved current account balance. Besides, with 67 per cent of Pakistani exports being textiles-based, a more serious crisis may have been overlooked by the increase in exports in 2002-03.

Poverty in Pakistan continues to be a major concern, with almost a third of the population living below the poverty line. High growth rates are necessary to reduce the poverty levels and do work with a lag of a few years. Moreover, unless the GDP growth rate stays above the 5.5 per cent level for a number of years, it is improbable that Pakistan will see much decrease in poverty levels. One of the main problems facing Pakistan is that of job creation and poverty alleviation based on active private sector investment. This is particularly important because the public sector has been withdrawing from productive activities and has been cutting down, as well as privatising, its assets. But the government still insists on further reducing the fiscal deficit to below 4 per cent of GDP, restricting resources for development.

Moreover, Pakistan's human capital profile has deteriorated over the nineties. In a comparison with China, Sri Lanka, Vietnam, India, Bangladesh, Ghana and Nigeria over the 1993-2003 period, Pakistan's economic and social and human profile over the last decade, looks increasingly like that of African countries, rather than that of South or East Asia. Most countries in this sample saw their per capita income rise in this period, except for the two African countries -- Nigeria and Ghana -- and Pakistan. The GDP per capita rank of these three countries has also fallen. Pakistan's literacy rate is abysmally low; with the exception of Bangladesh, all countries in the sample, including Ghana and Nigeria -- both of which have lower per capita incomes than Pakistan -- have better literacy rates. Pakistan's performance is better in terms of health, although with one of the highest population growth rates in the world, problems may occur in the future. Almost all indicators regarding women show Pakistan as the worst performer, revealing excessive and unacceptable levels of gender discrimination. Clearly, despite the high recent economic growth rates, Pakistan is not ready for the high-skill 21st century.

A re-emerging phenomenon in Pakistan is that of inflation, having already reached double digits this year. Much of this inflation has been imported on account of higher oil prices globally and poor agricultural output last year. It has filtered into many of the domestic sectors as well, a factor that may cause growth rates to come down. While poverty still persists at high levels and may fall once the recent (and if it is persistent) growth of GDP kicks-in, the government acknowledges that unemployment and income and regional disparity continue to be on the rise in recent years. Growing unemployment and rising prices may give rise to a heady cocktail reminiscent of the late 1960s. The recent upheaval in Balochistan reminds us of the consequences of the regional and income disparity of another province in that bygone decade.

While structural weaknesses continue to plague Pakistan's economy, and will take time to be sorted out, issues of domestic political uncertainty do not ensure stability either. For example, many of the reforms undertaken and the global bonhomie that Pakistan has felt in recent years, have been centred around the person of one individual, General Pervez Musharraf. Through his own personality and his interaction with world leaders and by making better use of a particular situation -- 9/11 -- he has been able to draw considerable mileage out of world events. The political consequences of siding with the Americans, however, have also had negative consequences, with General Musharraf being the target of a number of assassination attempts. What will happen if he is replaced? Probably the greatest failure of the institutions in Pakistan -- democratic, bureaucratic, civil society -- has been that they have been largely individual-centric and personality driven. What happens when individuals are replaced, is anyone guess.

In some ways there are many patterns in the decade underway since 2000 which are a repetition of the 1960s and 1980s. There were military governments in place then as there are now, albeit, each military regime has been very different from the other. Also the world (and Pakistan) is far more different now than it was in 1960 or 1980. There is a great deal of apparent stability now, as there was for much of the reign of the earlier two generals. All three generals have been generously supported by the US and other western powers. The growth rates seen since 2002 also look very similar to those of the 1960s and 1980s. Yet, the end of both General Ayub's and General Zia's decades saw the unravelling not just of high economic growth rates, but had serious social and political repercussions to contend with, such as the separation of East Pakistan in the first case, and the rise of state-sponsored fundamentalism and ethnic violence in the other. In both cases, what was perceived to be 'stability', after some years, gave rise to a noticeable degree of complacency on the part of the rulers, while the shining growth rates of economic indicators blinded policy makers to what was really going on underneath, politically and socially. While there are clear signs of an economic turnaround at present, perhaps half way through a probable Musharraf decade, one is forced to ask the following question: will the Musharraf era, when it comes to an eventual end, have an ending any different from the Ayub and Zia decades?

Jinnah as a Lawyer

Jinnah and Colonel Blimp
Khalid Hasan
The Friday Times, May 16, 2005

Although everyone says what a superb lawyer Quaid-i-Azam Muhammad Ali Jinnah
was, rarely does one get to read anything about the court appearances that
earned him that reputation.

I remember years ago in Lahore, Safdar Mir, the great Zeno of Pakistan Times ,
telling me about the Quaid's contribution to the "Indianisation" of the
British-led and officered army. Though I never made the effort to look up how
and where the Quaid had made his contribution, what Safdar Mir has said remained
engraved in my memory.

The other day, while reading the autobiography of the late Maj. Gen. Ajit Anil
"Jik" Rudra, who originally came from Lahore, served in three armies, fought in
both World Wars and died in India in 1997 at the age of 93, I came upon an
episode that showed that the Quaid's reputation as a brilliant lawyer was not a
Pakistani myth but a fact.

The Government of India appointed a committee of the legislature - I am not
clear about the year - to study the question of Indianising the army. British
officers were unabashedly racist when it came to Indian officers being posted to
purely British officered units. Curiously, British officers invariably enjoyed
close relationships with the men and ORs (other ranks) who served under them.
The Subedar Major, for instance, used to be known as "Kala Karnail." But when it
came to officers serving with them as their equals, juniors and, especially, as
their seniors, or dining with them in their all British messes, or frequenting
their clubs, they found it unacceptable. Col. Ronny Datta, a retired Indian
officer, told me that he had seen a sign at the front door of the once
all-British Fort William Club in Calcutta that said, 'Indians and Dogs not
allowed.'

The Committee appointed to study the sensitive Indianisation question included
Muhammad Ali Jinnah. Lt Rudra who had been commissioned in England during the
First War and who fought gallantly in the trenches in France during one of the
most brutal military campaigns of all times, was asked to appear before that
Committee. He was presented to the Committee that included Pandit Motilal Nehru
by one Gen. Skeen with the words, "Gentlemen, here you have a young Indian
King's Commissioned officer. He served in the ranks of the British Army during
the Great War and is now serving in an Indian regiment. You have just heard his
commanding officer's opinion of him. Please ask him any questions you may have
of him."

Rudra recalls that Mr Jinnah was the first member of the Committee to address
him. He began by asking a number of questions about his conditions of service,
including what commands and appointments he had held. Then he said in a "more
serious tone," "Mr Rudra, I must warn you that the proceedings from now till I
finish will be in camera. I want you to understand that clearly." Rudra writes
that although he did not have the foggiest idea what "in camera" meant, he
replied, "Yes, sir." Mr Jinnah then asked the Chairman of the Committee if he
could send for one Colonel Pope again, a British senior officer he had obviously
questioned before Rudra had been brought in. The Colonel was the commanding
officer of the 4th Hyderabad Regiment, an Indianised battalion in which Thimayya
(one day to become the commander-in-chief of independent India's army) and some
other Indian officers had been serving for the past two or three years.

Mr Jinnah's opening question to Col. Pope was, "Col. Pope, in your evidence
earlier you said that in your opinion, no Indian is fit to take the place of a
British officer." "Yes," the British officer answered. The colonel then looked
Rudra "full in the face and repeated those very same words." Mr Jinnah's next
question was, "Colonel, could you please give us your reasons for holding such
an adverse opinion of Indians?" Pope hesitated for a while, then said, "Well,
er... for one thing Indians are not impartial in the matter of promotions. They
tend to favour their own kith and kin... and that would be disastrous. Secondly,
they can't be trusted in money matters. That's the general Indian weakness. In
fact, they are totally unfit to hold the King's Commission."

"Thank you, Col. Pope," Mr Jinnah said, "You have of course had instances where
your Indian officers have promoted their own kith and kin overlooking more
suitable personnel?" Col. Pope hesitated before replying, "Er... well, no. But I
know that that's what they would do if given half a chance." Mr Jinnah's
response was immediate, "So, it is just prejudice - you have no concrete fact,
no particular case to back up your statement." The trap that Mr Jinnah was
laying for Col. Blimp was exactly what he walked into. "I know I am right," he
replied.

Mr Jinnah then asked him calmly, "I see. Now, as regards money matters, how many
cases of mishandling money by Indian officers and untrustworthy behaviour in
financial dealings have you had to deal with?" Col. Pope was now fully trapped
but he remained arrogant, "Well, er... there have been no actual cases. They
wouldn't dare while I am their commanding officer. But if left to themselves,
they can't be trusted." Mr Jinnah's response was razor sharp: "But these are
merely opinions and prejudices. Can you not back them up with facts?" The
Colonel remained silent and, as Rudra recalls, "he was beginning to turn a
little red in the face by then." Mr Jinnah now went for the coup de grace .
"Colonel, I must ask you to be more specific. Why have you formed these
opinions? You must have some reason." Col. Pope replied, "Well, my Subedar Major
holds these opinions too, He is quite definite about them."

At this point, Mr Jinnah went for the kill, "I see, so you are merely voicing
your Subedar Major's prejudices. In that case, we might be better off asking him
to appear before us instead of you. Thank you Colonel. I have nothing further to
ask you."

I suppose this was how the Quaid-i-Azam won the case for Pakistan, though had he
known who was going to inherit his great legacy, he might have developed second
thoughts.

A Q Khan Nuclear Trafficking Ring

Los Angeles Times
May 16, 2005

Pakistan's Role in Scientist's Nuclear Trafficking Debated
Islamabad's awareness of a black market led by the father of its atomic bomb is still uncertain.
By Douglas Frantz

In the fall of 2000, Pakistani intelligence agents followed the country's most influential nuclear scientist as he flew to the Persian Gulf port of Dubai.

Abdul Qadeer Khan, acclaimed as the father of Pakistan's atomic bomb, was under surveillance as he met with men described by a former senior Pakistani military officer as "dubious characters."

Rumors had persisted for years that Khan was selling atomic secrets, but Pakistani intelligence was on his trail for another reason. His unauthorized trip violated new rules imposed by President Pervez Musharraf to assert government control over Pakistan's main nuclear weapons laboratory, which Khan ran as his fiefdom.

Upon Khan's return to Pakistan from the United Arab Emirates city, Musharraf warned the scientist to obey the rules. When Khan persisted in his travels, he was forced to retire. But the investigation went no further.

Khan's secret life in Dubai and beyond is the subject of a meticulous international inquiry tracing a black market in nuclear technology that stretched over 15 years and three continents.

Investigators have concluded that Khan masterminded a hugely profitable network that provided uranium enrichment equipment to Iran and North Korea, countries whose nuclear ambitions are now causing global anxieties. Libya paid the ring an estimated $100 million for atomic warhead designs and plans for a complete bomb factory before giving up its program.

After more than a year of investigation, one of the crucial unsolved mysteries is whether Khan could have run his network without the knowledge, and possibly the connivance, of Pakistani military and political leaders. The answer is vital to discovering not only the full scope of Khan's trafficking, but whether Pakistan has adequate safeguards to protect its arsenal of 30 to 50 atomic weapons.

Interviews in the Middle East, Europe and the United States with former Pakistani government and military officials, international investigators and Western diplomats show that warnings about Khan's illicit trafficking were ignored by a succession of Pakistani political leaders and military strongmen.

Neither Musharraf nor his predecessors fully investigated Khan despite years of accusations from U.S. officials and international media, Khan's visible accumulation of enormous wealth and the significance of his dealings in Dubai.

His crucial role in building an atomic bomb to match India's was deemed more important than controlling his activities. And over the years, Khan had orchestrated a publicity campaign that made him so popular that he was virtually untouchable. The decision to turn a blind eye gave Khan extraordinary freedom.

"The military knew that Khan's orders came from the very top and that it was state policy to get the bomb, by hook or by crook," said the former senior Pakistani military officer who was involved in nuclear oversight and spoke on condition of anonymity. "He delivered what we all thought was impossible, and that was what mattered."

International investigators say they might never learn exactly who knew what in Pakistan. Neither the United States nor the International Atomic Energy Agency, the United Nations' nuclear watchdog, has been allowed to interrogate Khan, who was pardoned by Musharraf after a televised confession in February 2004 and remains under house arrest in Islamabad, the capital.

Musharraf has maintained that Khan ran the illegal trade without government knowledge. Former and current aides to Musharraf argue that until late 2003, there was no proof that Khan was selling to other countries the same technology he was acquiring on the black market to build Pakistan's bomb.

An Anti-Extremism Ally

The Bush administration, which regards Musharraf as an ally in the fight against Islamic extremism, has not pressed for access to Khan. U.S. officials have said they are satisfied with the Pakistani president's assurances.

To outside nuclear experts, it defies logic that a scientist as prominent and privy to secrets as Khan could travel freely, operate outside security restrictions and ship sensitive technology overseas for years without attracting official scrutiny.

"What he did was simply impossible without the full cooperation of people outside his laboratory," said Michael May, director emeritus of Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory, a U.S. nuclear weapons facility in California. "It's inconceivable to me that he had this broad global network without people knowing about it, even Musharraf."

Until Washington and the IAEA provided evidence to Pakistan in 2003, Khan parried accusations about his activities by saying he was the victim of a U.S. smear campaign for making Pakistan a nuclear power. The argument resonated among government officials and commanders who viewed the U.S. as a fickle ally that favored India.

Khan's trip to Dubai three years earlier offered a golden opportunity for Pakistan's powerful Inter-Services Intelligence agency and Musharraf, a general who had seized power in 1999, to get to the bottom of his activities.

Investigators and IAEA reports said Khan had shifted his base of operations to the United Arab Emirates city to coordinate the huge order from Libya for an off-the-shelf nuclear weapons plant. He traveled there often to meet with suppliers and Libyan officials, and he even maintained a luxury apartment in a fashionable neighborhood.

Musharraf set the stage for a potential crackdown early in his tenure when he created a military unit to enforce uniform controls on the country's nuclear weapons installations, including Khan's laboratory.

The former senior military officer said that, with Pakistan having achieved its goal of becoming a nuclear power, Musharraf was determined to see the elimination of financially damaging international sanctions that followed the nation's 1998 nuclear tests. That meant regaining control of Khan and his laboratory.

"It was time to stop this dirty business," said the ex-officer, who clashed with Khan several times after Musharraf began trying to limit the scientist's activities.

Khan refused to answer questions about suspicious transactions at his laboratory or report his travels and meetings with foreigners. At meetings of senior officials, including Musharraf, he complained openly about the restrictions, according to two participants in the sessions. His determination to not alter his behavior became clear when Musharraf received the Inter-Services Intelligence agency report on Khan's trip to Dubai in late 2000.

The president summoned the scientist to his office and confronted him with the evidence, according to the ex-military officer. Khan argued that ISI had no business following him, but he assured the president that he had gone to Dubai only to finalize the sale of 50 shoulder-fired antiaircraft rockets manufactured by his laboratory for a Middle Eastern country.

Musharraf, whose grip on power was tenuous, was wary of Khan's popularity and unconcerned about his trade in anti-aircraft rockets. He accepted the explanation, admonishing him to abide by the new restrictions.

Khan was undeterred. Within weeks, intelligence agents reported spotting him back in Dubai with another suspicious group of men.

Musharraf had heard enough. In late March 2001, a month before Khan's 65th birthday, the president forced him to retire as director of the laboratory and barred him from the facility that carried his name: Khan Research Laboratories. Musharraf softened the blow by naming him to a Cabinet-level position as a presidential advisor and permitting him to travel freely. But that's where the investigation ended.

The previously undisclosed confrontation was described by the former senior officer and confirmed by a second retired Pakistani officer, both still aligned with Musharraf, on condition that their names and ranks be withheld. They said they would face government retaliation if they were identified.

The conventional wisdom has been that Musharraf removed Khan in response to U.S. pressure. But the ex-officers said the scientist was demoted because he resisted the new procedures. They said the punishment was sufficient because the president was unaware of Khan's nuclear trafficking.

"It was happening right under our noses and we didn't know," the former senior officer said. "We got what we wanted — a bomb. We knew that he was using these dubious characters, greedy suppliers in Europe and other places, but this was in our military interest. So some dirty acts were allowed to go on."

A 'Nuclear Wal-Mart'

The question remains whether anyone in authority wanted to know what else Khan was doing as he scoured the world for equipment for Pakistan's nuclear weapons program, creating what IAEA Director-General Mohamed ElBaradei has called a "nuclear Wal-Mart."

Never examining Khan's activities very closely gave Pakistani leaders plausible deniability in case he was discovered.

"If Pakistani officials didn't recognize that there was a problem here, it's because they didn't want to recognize it," said Scott D. Sagan, co-director of Stanford University's Center for International Security and Cooperation. "This is a damning indictment of their processes, and that's the best scenario."

Khan's freedom had its origins in Pakistan's race to match India in developing nuclear weapons. Prime Minister Zulfikar Ali Bhutto launched Islamabad's program in 1972, but the military took over in 1977 after Bhutto was deposed by Gen. Zia ul-Haq.

Pakistan was under international sanctions aimed at stopping it from building nuclear weapons, so Khan was given an open account to buy what he needed on the black market. The clandestine nature of the transactions meant that most were done in cash.

Khan, a metallurgist, had a ready blueprint. He had worked in Europe for a consortium that enriched uranium for civilian nuclear reactors. When he abruptly returned to Pakistan in 1975, he brought plans for centrifuge machines and other technology to enrich uranium, along with a list of European suppliers. Military engineers built a laboratory for Khan at Kahuta, about 30 miles southeast of Islamabad.

Khan's style of work would prove essential to his later trafficking. Former government officials said he refused to permit auditing of the laboratory's books, dispatched shipments on his own signature and reported directly to the prime minister. Top scientists were paid double what their peers made at Pakistan's other nuclear installations.

New information from the two former officers shows that laboratory security was firmly under Khan's control too. They said the army officers who monitored the laboratory and its employees were paid by Khan, not the military, and that many of them stayed there after retiring.

Khan ensured his freedom of operation by delivering what he promised. Senior Pakistani military officers said Kahuta was enriching uranium to weapons grade by 1984 and that Pakistan could have detonated a nuclear bomb as early as 1986, a view supported by U.S. intelligence reports. Pakistan's first nuclear tests occurred May 28, 1998, 17 days after India exploded its own bombs.

Though much of the work was done by other scientists at a competing laboratory, Khan emerged as a heroic symbol of defiance of India and the West. He also had grown rich, which he never bothered to hide. Few saw it as a red flag in a country where official corruption is not uncommon.

"People assumed that he was skimming from his purchases of equipment for Pakistan's atomic program, and that was viewed as almost his right because he was a hero who had delivered the bomb," said Husain Haqqani, a former Pakistani government official and the author of an upcoming book, "Pakistan: Between Mosque and Military."

Much of Khan's wealth came from selling nuclear expertise and technology. The IAEA reported last year that Khan received $3 million in cash from Iran for enrichment equipment in 1994. Investigators have since tracked more large payments to accounts in bank-secrecy havens across Europe.

At the time ISI followed Khan to Dubai, its investigators also informed Musharraf that the scientist had accounts containing millions of dollars and owned seven houses in Islamabad, one of the former officers said.

Iran's Early Designs

Iran, which the U.S. accuses of pursuing nuclear weapons, is threatening to create an international diplomatic crisis by resuming uranium enrichment at plants whose initial designs and equipment were procured through Khan's network.

Tehran was Khan's first known customer, and the history of that relationship demonstrates the difficulty of determining who in Pakistan knew of Khan's trafficking. The two countries signed a pact to cooperate on nuclear energy in 1987 and Iranian scientists trained at Pakistani civilian installations, according to a 1992 report by the Los Angeles-based Simon Wiesenthal Center, a human rights advocacy group.

In 1989, Iranian President Hashemi Rafsanjani told Pakistani Prime Minister Benazir Bhutto that Pakistani generals had offered to share nuclear weapons technology with Iran, according to two former high-level Pakistani officials who were privy to the conversation.

The two officials said in separate interviews in 2003 that Rafsanjani was looking for Bhutto's blessing for a deal that he said had been initiated by Gen. Aslam Beg, commander of the Pakistani armed forces from 1988 to 1991.

Bhutto told both Rafsanjani and Beg that she objected, the former officials said.

Beg said in a recent telephone interview that he had initiated several joint defense projects with Tehran and that he had favored closer ties to Iran to counter U.S. influence. But he denied authorizing anyone to transfer Pakistan's nuclear expertise to Iran.

"I have not been part of any illicit activity where we could pass on any nuclear technology to anyone else," Beg said. "Nuclear technology was not in my domain. It was under A. Q. Khan and the political leaders."

Bhutto, who lives in exile in London and Dubai, has said the military retained control of the nuclear program while she was prime minister. Historians and political analysts say the military has been the dominant political influence in Pakistan since the nation's creation in 1947.

Former U.S. Assistant Secretary of Defense Henry S. Rowen said Beg threatened to provide nuclear weapons technology to Iran in January 1990. The incident was first reported by Associated Press last year and confirmed by Rowen in a recent interview.

Rowen said he was in Pakistan trying to calm relations between New Delhi and Islamabad when he told Beg that the U.S. might have to cut off aid to Pakistan because of its nuclear program.

"In the midst of our conversation, he said that Pakistan might be forced to share its nuclear technology with Iran," said Rowen, now a professor at Stanford University. "I didn't take it all that seriously, though I told him if that were to happen, Pakistan would be in terrible trouble with the United States."

Beg said he did not recall such a conversation with Rowen.

There is evidence that Pakistan offered Iran nuclear technology and know-how even before the meeting between Bhutto and Rafsanjani. In March of this year, an IAEA official said that middlemen affiliated with Khan had met with Iranian officials in Dubai in 1987 and had offered to sell enrichment technology and designs for an atomic weapon. Iran said its officials had turned down the offer of weapons designs but had agreed to buy equipment for centrifuges to enrich uranium and a list of potential suppliers.

"Khan might have had meetings in 1987 [with Iranians] we know now, but it was when Beg came to power that A. Q. Khan got his green light to deal with Iran," said a former Pakistani official who had access to records of the internal investigation of Khan's activities.

Iran received undisclosed shipments of centrifuges, components, designs and other help from Pakistan until the mid-1990s, according to IAEA reports. Much of the equipment came directly from Khan's laboratory.

A Deal for Missiles

Khan's transactions with North Korea also appear to have roots in a deal sanctioned initially by his government.

Bhutto has acknowledged buying designs for missiles at Khan's request during a visit to North Korea in late 1993. At the time, Khan's laboratory was developing missiles to carry nuclear warheads. It came to rely heavily on North Korean designs.

U.S. intelligence officials said Khan's relationship with North Korea changed when Pakistan ran short of cash in the late 1990s. They said he traded advanced centrifuge technology to North Korea for more help with missiles. The North Korean assistance led to the development of the Ghauri missiles, which are part of Pakistan's nuclear delivery system.

North Korea is thought to currently have enough weapons-grade plutonium for five to eight bombs, though the technology involved was not provided by Khan. Concern is mounting that it is about to conduct an underground nuclear test.

But U.S. officials also say the North Koreans are developing a second method for producing atomic weapons, based on uranium enrichment technology from Khan.

To many experts, Khan's trade with North Korea stands out as the clearest evidence that the Pakistani military knew at least something about his nuclear trafficking.

"They can't say that this was a guy out on his own and we were shocked when we learned that he was doing this," said George Perkovich of the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace in Washington.

While acknowledging Khan's sales to Iran and Libya, Musharraf and other senior Pakistani officials deny that North Korea received nuclear technology. They say Pakistan paid for the North Korean help.

"The money was on the books," said the former senior military officer. "Unless Khan kept the money for himself and gave North Korea nuclear equipment instead, we paid for it."

Tracking the proceeds from Khan's nuclear commerce has proved difficult, according to international investigators. Some records were intentionally destroyed, and huge sums disappeared into a labyrinth of bank accounts in Dubai, Liechtenstein and Switzerland.

Pakistani officials acknowledged that profits from sales of antiaircraft rockets and other conventional weapons designed by Khan Research Laboratories have helped finance the facility's nuclear research.

Perkovich and others suspect that a portion of the trafficking proceeds went into the laboratory's coffers too. But no one has offered proof, and as with many aspects of Khan's clandestine activities, it remains an open question.

Khan has not appeared in public since his televised confession. He is not allowed to use a telephone, read a newspaper or watch television, although he may swim once a day in his pool.

Two former laboratory security chiefs, an army major and a brigadier general, were among 11 people investigated by Pakistani authorities in addition to Khan. Of these others, only Mohammed Farooq, a senior scientist at KRL, remains in custody.

"Unfortunately, the entire proliferation took place under the orders and patronage of Dr. A. Q. Khan," reads a transcript of the closed briefing Musharraf gave Pakistani journalists hours before Khan's mea culpa. "I can say with certainty that no government official or military personnel were involved."

Pakistani journalists close to Khan have said he claims that Beg and others approved his sales of nuclear technology.

A former Pakistani official and the former senior Pakistani officer both said outside investigators would never be allowed to question Khan because he knows too many secrets and for fear of what he might say, true or not.

"He might name names, he might say that Gen. Beg authorized his activities," the former senior officer said. "It would create a problem that Pakistan does not need."

Sunday, May 15, 2005

CIA Operations in Pakistan

Washington Post
Surveillance Operation in Pakistan Located and Killed Al Qaeda Official

By Dana Priest
Washington Post Staff Writer
Sunday, May 15, 2005; A25

An al Qaeda figure killed last week by a missile from a CIA-operated unmanned aerial drone had been under surveillance for more than a week by U.S. intelligence and military personnel working along the Pakistan-Afghanistan border, a U.S. official and two counterterrorism experts said yesterday.

The U.S. team was hoping Haitham al-Yemeni would lead them to al Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden, said two counterterrorism experts, both former senior U.S. intelligence officials with knowledge of events surrounding the attack.

But after Pakistani authorities early this month captured another al Qaeda leader, Abu Faraj al-Libbi, CIA officials became concerned that al-Yemeni would go into hiding and decided to try to kill him instead, said the counterterrrorism experts. "We had been working hard to see what he would do," said one expert, referring to al-Yemeni.

Al-Yemeni's importance in the al Qaeda organization could not be learned yesterday. He is not listed by that name in either the FBI or Pakistani "Most Wanted" list, but the active surveillance of him suggests his importance.

The CIA declined comment. Pakistan's information minister denied that any such incident, which was first reported by ABC News, even happened. "No such incident took place near the Pakistan-Afghanistan border," Sheikh Rashid Ahmed told the Associated Press yesterday.

The sources said the Predator drone, operated from a secret base hundreds of miles from the target, located and fired on al-Yemeni late Saturday night in Toorikhel, Pakistan, a suburb of Mirali in the province of North Waziristan.

In an article dated Sunday, May 8, the Dawn newspaper in Pakistan, whose correspondents operate in the tribal areas where the hunt for bin Laden has been most intense, reported that two people had been killed Saturday night by a car bomb. The newspaper, quoting Pakistani officials, said the car was destroyed and one of the victims mutilated beyond recognition. It identified the second victim as Samiullah Khan.

The CIA and U.S. military Special Operations forces have been operating inside Pakistan for more than two years with the knowledge of Pakistani authorities. But the U.S. presence is highly controversial with the largely Muslim Pakistani public, which is generally sympathetic to bin Laden and al Qaeda. For that reason, Pakistani officials routinely play down U.S.-Pakistani cooperation.

The Predator and other unmanned aerial vehicles have become some of the most successful new weapons for killing small groups of people or individuals in Afghanistan and Iraq. The Washington Post reported in February that the administration also has been flying surveillance drones over Iran for nearly a year to gather intelligence on the country's nuclear weapons program and air defenses. The drones were based at military facilities in Iraq.

Al-Yemeni's death is one of only a handful of known incidents in which the CIA has fired the remote-controlled, missile-equipped Predator to kill an al Qaeda member. In November 2002, the CIA used a Predator fitted with a five-foot-long Hellfire missile to kill a senior al Qaeda leader, Abu Ali al-Harithi, as he was riding in a car in the Yemeni desert. Also killed with Harithi, who was suspected of masterminding the October 2000 attack on the destroyer USS Cole, was a naturalized U.S. citizen, Kamal Derwish.

Derwish, it was determined later, was part of the Lackawanna, N.Y., group of Yemeni men who admitted to training in al Qaeda camps.

The CIA is permitted to operate the lethal Predator under presidential authority promulgated after the Sept. 11 attacks. Shortly after the attacks, Bush approved a "presidential finding" that allowed the CIA to write a set of highly classified rules describing which individuals could be killed by CIA officers. Such killings were defined as self-defense in a global war against al Qaeda terrorists.

The rules have been vetted by the White House, CIA and State Department lawyers. They allow CIA counterterrorism officials in the field to decide much more quickly when to fire, according to former intelligence officials involved in developing the rules.

The Predator drone's primary mission has been to supply real-time intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance. But it has proved highly successful as a battlefield weapon as well.

According to previously reported Pentagon documents, over the next five years the Air Force plans to purchase 24 Predators and 35 Predator Bs, which will be armed with as many as 3,000 pounds of precision-guided bombs or missiles, and sensors to locate and strike moving targets on the ground.

"Some of our greatest successes against al Qaeda have been through the use of the Predator, both in terms of recognizing targets and actual strikes," said Roger Cressey, a former Clinton administration counterterrorism official. "It's the area where the CIA has done an extremely good job."

© 2005 The Washington Post Company

Political feudalism in Sindh

Dawn, May 15, 2005
Political feudalism in Sindh
By Ameer Bhutto

A FEW months ago, the Baloch tribal sardars stood accused of acting like warlords and toying with the destinies of the poor and suppressed people by depriving them of development and other opportunities. The traditional tribal system of Sindh, maliciously portrayed in the press and media by cliched caricatures of waderas, has long been under siege from vested interests in the establishment who seek to discredit Sindh’s stand against Kalabagh Dam, Thal Canal and the unfair distribution of national wealth under the present NFC Award, among other issues.

Not only this, but Sindhi waderas have become easy targets on a plethora of issues for NGOs and organizations related to human rights, women’s rights, social welfare, etc. But all the evils associated with so-called tribal feudalism, whether real or concocted, pale into insignificance before the looming sceptre of a new brand of state-sponsored political feudalism that is being introduced in Sindh, which is likely to usher in a new era of pain and oppression for the suffering poor of this land.

Political mercenaries have made a living off sycophancy and pandering. Past governments, imposed upon us by the powers that be, through the facade of bogus rigged elections, have tried to sustain their fleeting hold on power with the backing of such bands of floating mercenaries who make it a point to be on the winning side, but inevitably demand their pound of flesh in return for their support.

It is an ideal marriage for them and the government of the day, as both feed off each other while they can. In the process, however, these mercenaries acquire enormous personal and political benefits from the government, not least by way of getting officers of their choice appointed at important government posts at all levels through ‘sifarish’, who then cater to their every whim and need. Unable to draw strength from the masses, with whom they have no nexus, successive governments are constrained to submit to their blackmail in order to survive.

The present government has gone farther than any government in the past in its effort to appease these mercenaries. Not being satisfied with giving them the customary perks and paraphernalia now deemed to be their God-given right by virtue of being ‘in power’, Sindh is now being carved up into private jagirs and fiefdoms for handpicked waderas, pirs, mirs and sardars associated with the ruling party, not to mention dominating alliance partners from the urban areas, to facilitate their return to power in the upcoming local elections as well as the 2007 general elections. Maps of entire districts, tehsils, union councils and even dehs are being redrawn on the sole criteria of personal and political interests of sycophants who survive and operate at the mercy of the government of the day and cannot win elections without manipulation and the backing of the administrative machinery.

Within the last few months, Larkana, Jacobabad and Dadu districts have been broken up into two districts each and Hyderabad district has been mutilated to create four ridiculously small districts. One of the districts carved out of Hyderabad, Matiari, is roughly based on just one tehsil and encompasses only 19 union councils. Furthermore, the creation of Shahdadkot district out of Larkana was highly controversial from the first day of its inception. This new district was initially named Kambar. Upon the insistence of a ruling party MPA from Shahdadkot, it was renamed Shahdadkot district.

This led to violent demonstrations in Kambar in which four people lost their lives. The government then announced that the district would be known as ‘Shahdadkot district at Kambar’. Similarly, Kashmore district, which was carved out of Jacobabad, is known as ‘Kashmore district at Kandh Kot’. Nothing can be more absurd than having district offices in one town while the district is named after another town. This ridiculous farce, apart from exposing the government’s weakness and inability to impose its writ, has also shown that appeasing the ruling party MNAs and MPAs takes precedence over the interests of the people.

There are a number of mercenaries still manoeuvring behind the scenes in an all-out effort to create more personal political jagirs for themselves. In the past, a few elite darbaris, who were privileged enough to be close to the real powers behind the scene, occasionally managed to have electoral constituencies of their own choice demarcated.

But now no one even blinks when whole districts, encompassing several National and Provincial assembly seats, are axed to bits on the basis of nepotism and political convenience. The ruling Muslim League-Q is stronger in Punjab than in Sindh, yet one does not hear about private jagirs being carved out for Punjab ministers, MNAs and MPAs. In Sindh, the urge to prove oneself to be more loyal than the king himself, it appears, is felt with greater urgency.

Even the enemies of Zulfikar Ali Bhutto will admit that he played a pivotal role in freeing the poor and suppressed masses from the stranglehold of waderas and sardars and made them appreciate the value and power of their vote when exercised by free will. The new current trend of making political jagirs in Sindh, however, is bound to set the clock back by at least four decades. The waderas and sardars never felt comfortable with the liberation of the masses from their grasp during Bhutto’s time. They have now finally found a government myopic enough to herd the flock back into their stockades.

Once the mercenaries have carved out political jagirs of their choice, administered by government officers of their choice, the consequences for the common citizen will be painful and disastrous. He can then bid farewell to any vestige of free will as he is bound to become totally dependent upon the master of the jagir and will have to toe his line.

For instance, an MPA from Shikarpur district is lobbying hard to have a bordering area of Larkana district included into his new proposed jagir. The area in question is inhabited by people who have refused to come under his influence and have established a trend of voting according to their conscience.

This is going to be the norm in every newly formed political jagir across Sindh. The people will be denied their right to exercise free will and will be thrown to the wolves. Instead of moving towards an era of enlightenment and progress by encouraging the exercise of free will, the government is stifling the political and social independence of the poor haris and labourers who already find the odds heavily stacked against them.

Given the low calibre of the mercenaries and the government’s helpless dependence upon them, is it any wonder that Sindh is in such a mess? While Punjab succeeds in attracting heavy foreign investment in the form of a hundred million dollars per year aid package from the World Bank for providing free education to 900,000 children, Sindh fails to emulate this achievement because the World Bank can find no one in Sindh capable of formulating and implementing a radical reform of the education department that the World Bank set as a pre-requisite for similar aid. While the project of canal lining, announced by the president, proceeds rapidly in all other provinces, no headway has been made in Sindh and the funds are about to lapse. Virtually all government departments in Sindh are in an advanced stage of atrophy and are, according to the chief minister himself, crippled by corruption and incompetence.

This is hardly surprising. When the government, as a matter of policy, sponsors and promotes the intellectually bankrupt rather than persons of calibre and ability, there can be no other logical outcome. The unfortunate trend in Pakistani politics is for politicians to distance themselves from the masses and rely entirely upon the establishment. The hollowness of the facade of democracy was exposed when the Sindh chief minister boasted proudly, as reported in a Sindhi newspaper, that he was made chief minister by a general and a colonel.

It would better serve the interests of the nation as well as the government if the right of the haris and labourers to exercise their free will is protected rather than sacrificed for narrow selfish interests, enabling truly representative and committed people to rise through the ballot box who are capable of steering us in the right direction. Allotting political jagirs to favourites is hardly going to achieve this end. Those who wield real power would do well to note that it is not the imaginary warlords or feudals who stand as an impediment to tangible positive change, but their own minions in government who value the acquisition and wielding of power more than the national or the public interest.

Book Review From Dawn

Dawn, May 15, 2005
REVIEWS: Hands in glove
REVIEW of: History of Pakistan and the Role of the Army By Syed Sami Ahmad Royal Book Company BG-5, Rex Centre Basement, Zaibunnisa Street, Karachi-74400 Tel: 021-565 3418, 567 0628 Email: royalbook@hotmail.com ISBN 969-407-306-5 440pp. $25 Reviewed by A.R. Siddiqi

To the meagre knowledgeable literature on the role of the army and the judiciary by a Pakistani author, Syed Sami Ahmad’s book makes a valuable and refreshingly lucid addition, chronicling the major landmarks and landslides in Pakistan’s turbulent history. The book should have been entitled as an account of Pakistan’s judicial failure and the military muddle in war and peace.

Except for a rapid survey of the Ayub and the Yahya periods the book says nothing about the catastrophic Zia period, the Musharraf period marked for its sweeping constitutional engineering to secure a permanent power base for the military establishment within a (quasi) democratic set-up. An eminent lawyer and a former president of the Karachi Bar Association, the author uses his vast experience and knowledge of the circumstances forcing the judiciary to cast the first stone at the glasshouse of the budding Pakistani democracy with telling relevance. The naked and repeated military interventions to upset the democratic process drew their legitimacy from the higher judiciary’s resort to the doctrine of necessity: “Legal positivism” (in the words of Justice Munir).

Under chapter 12 captioned “Justice Munir on his role in judicial politics”, Syed Sami calls (actually denounces) him as the ‘chief architect of the Federal Court judgment — in the case of Tamizuddin Khan, speaker of the constituent assembly. An ailing, half-witted governor-general (GG) Ghulam Mohammad by a sort of a Papal Bull or a fiat ex cathedra dismissed the assembly in October 1954 to pave the way to future martial laws. Justice Munir and his colleagues held the well settled view that the constituent assembly was a “sovereign body much like the British Parliament”. However, when the case of Tamizuddin Khan was taken up, the federal court judges (Chief Justice Munir and his colleagues) “deviated completely from the settled view and came out with the altogether novel idea that the constituent assembly was not a sovereign body”.

The chief justice’s final verdict was a reversal and total negation of the judgment of the Sindh chief court supporting Tamizuddin’s plaint against the GG’s order. Mr Justice Constantine, chief justice of the Sindh chief court, and his colleagues had unanimously upheld Maulvi Tamizuddin’s writ petition regarding the sovereignty of the assembly and the GG’s malafide action in dismissing it with a stroke of the pen.

Mr Justice Muhammad Bakhsh who actually drafted the Sindh court judgment for his chief warned against “the consequences” of the governor general’s diktat. Justice A.R. Cornelius (later chief justice of Pakistan) appended his note of dissent to the ruling of the federal court headed by Chief Justice Mohammad Munir. He expressed his “sincere regret” for being “unable” to agree with “My Lord the Chief Justice and my learned brothers”. The chief justice’s invocation of the doctrine of necessity, together with the view of a British member of the Queen’s Council (QC) Mr Diplock upholding the GG’s action on the ground of public welfare, made a mockery of the whole case.

Diplock used the following Latin legalism in support of the dissolution of the assembly by the GG. “Salus populi est suprema lax” — the welfare of the people is the supreme law. This amounted to a reaffirmation of the doctrine of state necessity in popular, almost poetic language.

Another QC, Dean Pritt, appearing on behalf of the petitioner Maulana Tamizuddin along with Mr I.I. Chundrigar, denounced the Munir ex-cathedra judgment as a ‘dark day’ for Pakistan’s democracy. The author speaks of “the personal involvement” of Justice Munir in the case and of the secret visits of the GG to his residence for “influencing not only Munir but also the other justices who voted for Tamizuddin”.

The author goes on to quote Ayesha Jalal who writes, “After consulting with the Punjabi chief justice of Pakistan, Mohammad Munir, the governor-general heaved a sigh of relief.”

In the aftermath of the dissolution of the assembly, the GG found himself in a legal quandary shorn of the power to “legislate” or validate those laws which had already been declared invalid. That led to the famous Yusuf Patel case challenging the detention in prison of a number of persons sentenced for criminal offences.

The fact was that the GG drew all his legislative powers from the constituent assembly, denied to him after its dissolution. A new constituent assembly was convened to validate the GG’s action and frame a new constitution. The 1956 constitution was thus the end result of the “Federal Court’s decision on Yusuf Patel’s case...” Less than two years later, the president of Pakistan, General Iskandar Mirza, would abrogate the 1956 constitution, place the country under martial law and appoint the army chief, General Muhammad Ayub Khan, as the chief martial law administrator.

Within a week of the proclamation of martial law, a criminal appeal in the case of Dosso came up for hearing before the federal court. The appeal challenged the validity of all laws enforced between the proclamation of martial law and the promulgation of the laws (continuance in force) order. Once again a legal vacuum was created to nullify the proclamation of martial law.

“Justice Munir suo motu” accorded “constitutional recognition to the revolution brought about in the shape of the first martial law. A successful coup (revolution) is by itself a law-creating fact.”

After a close study of Syed Sami Ahmad’s work, one is irresistibly drawn to the conclusion that but for the supportive rulings of the judiciary in respect of martial laws the army might have been greatly restricted in its interventionist role in civil affairs. The formulation may well be reduced to a mock syllogism as follows:

The higher judiciary is the supreme source of state-government legitimacy. The military establishment is an integral part of the state and government. Therefore the military must draw legitimacy for its interventions in civil affairs from the higher judiciary.

As for the author’s account of the military’s role, it is overwhelmingly a rehash of its performance through the 1965 and 1971 wars based chiefly on Altaf Gauhar’s Ayub Khan: Pakistan’s First Military Ruler and Colonel Siddiq Salik’s Witness to Surrender. The professional value of their accounts of the course and conduct of the wars, above all, the personalities involved in it at the highest level of command and control, remains open to more than one assessment.