Musharraf's 'crisis on all fronts'

BBC
July 20, 2006

Musharraf's 'crisis on all fronts'
Guest journalist Ahmed Rashid examines why problems are mounting for Pakistan's President Pervez Musharraf at home and abroad.

President Musharraf is facing a tough stand-off with neighbours India and Afghanistan and the international community, who are all urging him to do more to curb Islamic extremists operating in his country.

This comes at a time when he is facing the worst domestic political and economic crises since he came to power in 1999.

The train bombings in Mumbai on 11 July which left 182 people dead have led to a dramatic sea change in Indo-Pakistan relations, after Prime Minister Manmohan Singh accused Pakistan of supporting "terrorist modules" bent on harming Indian democracy.

Such accusations from India have been rare since both countries set out on a path to peace.



The fundamentalists may question Musharraf's personal secular credentials, but they are not opposed to military rule





Afghanistan accuses Pakistan of allowing the Taleban sanctuary and support in their bid to drive out Western forces from Afghanistan and overthrow the government of President Hamid Karzai.

On both counts Pakistan has rejected the accusations.

But there is little doubt that Gen Musharraf and the military are facing unprecedented global criticism for their apparent reluctance to wrap up extremist groups who still operate with impunity and brazen openness in Pakistan.

However, at the same time, al-Qaeda and their Pakistani and Afghan allies have long expressed a desire to see the end of India-Pakistan rapprochement and an end to Gen Musharraf, whom Ayman al Zawahri, the number two al-Qaeda leader, credits as being the organisation's worst enemy in the region.

Moreover, Pakistan has lost more than 800 soldiers battling militants in the tribal belt bordering Afghanistan.

So where does the truth lie?

Tragic consequences

After suffering heavy losses in southern Afghanistan in recent weeks, US and Nato military commanders in Kabul say they have complained harshly and bitterly to their respective governments about the Taleban's ability to maintain bases for command and control, logistics and recruitment in Pakistan's Balochistan province.


The normally reticent UN has also publicly notched up pressure on Pakistan.
These complaints have resulted in a visit by US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice to Islamabad while senior ministers from European Nato countries are due to make their own complaints.

India has accused Lashkar-e-Toiba (LeT) of having a hand in the Mumbai train bombings.

Even though the LeT has been declared a terrorist organisation by the UN, the US, Britain and Pakistan, a reformed LeT with a new name was rehabilitated by the military after the earthquake in Kashmir last year, as it acted as a relief organisation.

There is certainly anger amongst many Pakistanis at the way the military has allowed some extremist groups a continued platform for their views.

Despite strong protests by civic groups and Shia leaders, the militant Sunni extremist group Sipah-e-Sahaba was rehabilitated by the regime earlier this year and allowed to hold a huge rally in Islamabad just a mile away from the diplomatic quarter.

The results have been tragic.

On 14 July the country's leading Shia politician and scholar Allama Hasan Turabi was killed by a suicide bomber at his home in Karachi.

The fear of sectarian violence has gripped the country.

In Balochistan the army has depended on the Pashtun-based Jamiat-e-Ulema Islam (JUI) for political support.

The JUI has supported the Taleban since its inception in 1994. Gen Musharraf is hoping to cause a split in the alliance of Islamic parties by weaning away the JUI and enlisting it for his second bid for the presidency. Going against the Taleban now would mean alienating the JUI.


And that is where the contradiction between the international community and the Pakistan military and Gen Musharraf emerges.
Much of what they do is connected with domestic politics - ensuring Gen Musharraf's political survival, retaining the military as the unquestioned power in the country at the expense of political parties and civil society and making sure that the military's national agenda is the only agenda.

Gen Musharraf and the military hierarchy are neither extremist nor remotely fundamentalist.

But they have every intention of using the fundamentalists as political allies against national political parties who question the need for military rule. (The fundamentalists may question Musharraf's personal secular credentials, but they are not opposed to military rule.)

Anomaly

Where the military is not threatened politically, such as the presence of al-Qaeda and other groups in Waziristan and where US pressure is inescapable, the military acts and sends in the troops.

It is an anomaly to many that the army has lost 800 troops battling al-Qaeda in Waziristan, but not a single soldier battling the Taleban in Balochistan.

The present crisis comes at a time when Gen Musharraf's popularity has hit an all-time low as major scandals related to the stock market, privatisation and sugar shortages rock the country and people suffer from high inflation.


Moreover, after seven years people are just tired of military rule, which according to some critics has resulted in a pretence parliament and a puppet government, with the generals calling the shots behind the scene.
In the midst of his waning popularity and growing international criticism, Gen Musharraf is trying to marshal all the political forces to support his re-election bid as president next year - while holding on to the post of army chief.

He then wants to hold an election in which the army will once again forge an alliance between the pro-army faction of the Pakistan Muslim League and some Islamic parties such as the JUI.

It is Gen Musharraf's pressing political agenda for which time and credibility is in short supply that pushes his continued love affair with the fundamentalists, even though the same fundamentalists have shown little real love for the people or the military's national agenda.