"A president running out of room to manoeuvre"

A president running out of room to manoeuvre
Pakistan: trying to please everybody

The United States has condemned the assistance the Taliban receive from across the Pakistan border. President Pervez Musharraf has announced the destruction of three training camps close to the frontier but, as elections approach, he is also trying to reach an accommodation with Islamist groups in Pakistan.

By Jean-Luc Racine
Le Monde Diplomatique February 2007

PAKISTAN’S voters will choose a new president, national parliament and provincial assemblies this year. There are doubts about how the three ballots will be conducted, and the process also raises longstanding and fundamental questions about the relationship between the military regime and the parliamentary opposition. If General Pervez Musharraf is re-elected as president, perhaps it is time for him to shed his uniform and rehabilitate the democratic opposition and its exiled leaders.

Some opposition MPs are Islamists who provide a constitutional front for radical armed Islamists, in league with the military, but targeted by Musharraf, who has persistently called for “enlightened moderation” in the service of a “progressive, dynamic Islamic state”. Could this relationship between the mullahs and the army develop? Its complexity is increased by the involvement of radical Pakistani Islamists in Kashmir and in the tribal areas on the Afghanistan border where the Taliban are regaining ground.

The deteriorating situation in the western coastal province of Baluchistan demonstrates the central government’s difficulties in dealing with inequalities between provinces; and in reconciling internal affairs with wider regional issues such as the international gas pipeline projects, involving Iran and Afghanistan; or the new port at Gwadar, intended to be China’s gateway to the Indian Ocean.

The shadow of the United States falls over all this. It constantly praises Musharraf’s key role in the war on terror; it also presses him to do more against al-Qaida and the Taliban.

Musharraf, and many of those around him, argue the necessity of not separating civil and military power precisely because Pakistan faces all these internal and external challenges. They insist that the president is the man to deal with the situation and the army is the only body capable of effective action. This view also finds favour among foreign political leaders. But some Pakistani liberals, anti-Islamist supporters of real parliamentary democracy, view the military regime as part of the problem, not as a potential solution. These are major challenges.

Jihad in Afghanistan
During the 1980s the Afghan war against Soviet occupation and the Kashmiri rising against India allowed Pakistan to develop an active regional policy intended to prevent it from being squeezed between India and Afghanistan. As a frontline state against the Soviet Union, Pakistan allowed the US to give effective support to the mujahideen. After the Soviet defeat in 1989 the mujahideen tore themselves apart and Pakistan’s influence was not decisive; Pakistan supported the Pashtun Gulbaddin Hekmatyar against Ahmed Shah Massud’s pro-Indian Tajiks. The rise of the Taliban after 1994 offered fresh opportunities. At the same time, Pakistani jihadists were fighting in Indian Kashmir, boosting the insurrection and bogging down much of the Indian army in a dirty war.

After 9/11 Musharraf soon understood the stakes in Afghanistan and saw the risks of refusing the deal offered by the Bush administration. He abandoned the Taliban (which refused to expel or hand over Osama bin Laden) and signed up to the war on terror. He shuffled his top brass, denounced extremism and arrested hundreds of al-Qaida militants including, in 2003, such senior figures as Khalid Sheikh Muhammad, who had planned 9/11.

George Bush promoted Pakistan to the rank of “major non-Nato ally” in 2004. But the US administration wanted more than just Pakistan tracking down Bin Laden and Muhammad Omar. Both the US and the Afghan president, Hamid Karzai, blamed the setbacks of Operation Enduring Freedom on the porosity of the long, mountainous border between Afghanistan and Pakistan.

Musharraf decided in 2004 to send troops to South Waziristan, an agency in the federally administered tribal areas (Fata) along the Afghan border. Guerrilla fighting ensued between the army, which lost 800 out of 80,000 men, and militias — Afghan Taliban, neo-Taliban from Pakistani tribes and international al-Qaida combatants. The government reached agreements with the local tribal chiefs in South Waziristan in 2004 and 2005, and in North Waziristan in 2006, but these did not stop the fighting. The dispute with Kabul intensified because of infiltration from Pakistan’s tribal zones and Baluchistan into Agfhanistan. The US army noted this deterioration and the advance of the Taliban in southeast Afghanistan at the expense of Nato forces (1).

On the Pakistan side of the border, the rebelliousness and radicalisation of the Fata became a major preoccupation. Caught between US pressure and anti-US public opinion, the government had to pay for its repressive policies in the tribal areas. Its largely ineffectual and occasionally controversial operations included an air raid that killed 80 people in a madrasa in the Bajaur agency on 30 October 2006, the day that a deal was due. Nine days later a revenge suicide bombing on a barracks in the Northwest Frontier Province, outside the Fata, killed 35 recruits.

Negotiations with the tribal chiefs often required the mediation of the Islamist parties, and especially Jamaat-e-Ulema-e Islam (JUI, Assembly of Islamic Clergy), led by Fazlur Rehman, the opposition leader in parliament and an open supporter of the Taliban. The use of force against Pakistan’s citizens has tarnished the government’s image, without successfully ending the ongoing Talibanisation of the Fata. There are fears that this process could extend to the Northwest Frontier Province, which is at present governed by the Islamists of the Muttahida Majlis-e-Amal (MMA, United Action Forum).

Another tribal problem
Despite differences, the problem here is also essentially tribal. Baluchistan provides a large proportion of Pakistan’s gas supply and believes that it is being exploited by the central government and the wealthy province of Punjab. Baluchistan is the largest and least populated of Pakistan’s provinces, and has gone through a series of crises since independence, including the suppression of several insurgencies (1958-60, 1973-77) (2).

The first phase of the construction of the deep-sea port at Gwadar and the stationing of more numbers of troops in the province have worsened the frustration of the Baluch autonomist movements, which now enjoy the support of important tribal leaders who previously upheld the political status quo.

In August 2006 government forces killed Akbar Khan Bugti, a rebellious former governor of Baluchistan. This pyrrhic victory radicalised both insurgents (including the Baluch Liberation Army) and local political parties that support greater autonomy. The Baluch problem is undermining major projects — the port at Gwadar (where Chinese engineers have been kidnapped) and the gas pipeline linking Iran to India via Pakistan — that could boost Pakistan’s economy.

‘Proxy war’ in Kashmir
At first Musharraf mishandled relations with India. By precipitating the Kargil conflict in 1999, on the line of control that separates Indian-and Pakistani-controlled Kashmir, he ended talks between the two governments. Although limited, this was the first war between two states that had recently acquired nuclear weapons. Later, for 10 long months following the failure of the Agra summit in July 2001 and the terrorist attack on the Indian parliament in New Delhi in December 2002, the threat of war loomed again.

In a historic speech in January 2002, Musharraf condemned jihad. But he had no intention of undoing the painstaking preparations made by Pakistan’s Inter Services Intelligence (ISI) to intervene in Indian Kashmir. These involved Lashkar-e-Taiba, the armed wing of the powerful Markaz-ud-Dawa-wal-Irshad (renamed Jamaat ud Dawa after it was banned) and Jaish-e-Muhammad. Although Indian forces were mobilised in response, the threat of nuclear confrontation deterred them from open conflict.

Pakistan was running out of room to manoeuvre. The 9/11 attacks gave the Indian government an excuse to denounce the proxy war waged by Pakistan in Kashmir using cross-border terrorism. It was clear that India could find no military solution after almost 15 years of insurrection in Kashmir. Musharraf began making concessions in 2003, by announcing that Pakistan had left aside United Nations resolutions calling for the Kashmir issue to be settled by referendum, and by agreeing to composite talks that would put all issues dividing India and Pakistan on the table beside the central issue of Kashmir.

This, on top of the government’s enlistment on the side of the US, was the final straw for some jihadists linked to al-Qaida and supported by some junior officers. In December 2003 Musharraf barely escaped two assassination attempts. Rigidly structured talks began with India in February 2004 and were declared irreversible in 2005.

But no quick legally agreed solution can be expected on the Kashmir issue. India might agree to ratify the status quo by allowing Pakistan to hold the areas that it occupies; but it rejects any settlement that would place all or part of the Srinagar valley under Pakistan’s control or double mandate. Pakistan has called for flexibility on both sides, but still refuses to recognise the line of control inherited from the wars of 1948, 1965 and 1971.

Possible avenues include greater autonomy for Indian Kashmir; withdrawal of the jihadists, then of troops; opening the line of control to road traffic; and even joint consultative bodies. Discreet negotiations have taken place with the Kashmiri separatists from the Hurriyat (freedom) Conference, and even with some Kashmiri combatants from Hizbul Mujaheddin. The bomb attacks on Mumbai trains in which 180 people died in July 2006 showed that although terrorist pressures can influence the dialogue between India and Pakistan, they can no longer halt it.

Extremism isn’t just for export
While India continues to drag its heels, Musharraf has made a series of proposals on Kashmir. His enthusiasm is not enough to dispel persistent suspicions in India, the US and Afghanistan about the deep-rooted relationship between the military leadership, the ISI and extremist groups. Musharraf made his personal convictions clear when he denounced “bigots and obscurantists” who give Islam and Pakistan a “bad image”. But it is less certain that he has the political will or capacity to root out extremism.

The desire to preserve some margin for manoeuvre over Kashmir and Afghanistan may explain why jihadist forces are kept in check without being eradicated. It may also explain why the Pakistani government, suspicious of the increasing Indian presence in Afghanistan, may welcome Taliban pressure. Extremism is not just for export: radical Islam has long spun its web at the heart of Pakistan.

Specific manifestations include the extremist Sunni militias’ campaigns against the Shia minority, which has included attacks on places of worship; effectively autonomous preaching networks calling for jihad in Kashmir; armed groups whose leaders used to be able to connect with al-Qaida through Afghanistan; and, since the U-turn of 2001, domestic terrorist attacks on targets both foreign (the Karachi attack on French naval engineers in 2003; the execution of journalist Daniel Pearl) and military (Musharraf has long been designated as a target by al-Qaida’s number two, Ayman al-Zawahiri).

The relationship between the army, political Islamists and extremists is complicated. During the 2002 elections the government suppressed and divided the parliamentary opposition parties (Nawaz Sharif’s Muslim League and Benazir Bhutto’s Pakistan People’s party). But in the process the government opened the way for the Islamists of the MMA, which it had favoured but which now sits with the opposition.

A key component of the MMA, Qazi Hussain Ahmed’s Jamaat-e-Islami (JI), remains firm on Kashmir; another, the JUI, although more flexible on this issue, has maintained its links with the Taliban. The MMA governs the Northwest Frontier Province and is a member, beside the pro-Musharraf faction of the Muslim League, of the ruling coalition in Baluchistan.

The JI and JUI both preach an austere, backward-looking Islam that rejects any liberalisation of the law. Musharraf has backed off several times on this issue; finally, in November 2006, he secured the passage of a Women’s Protection Bill, which transfers trials for rape from the jurisdiction of the Islamic courts, where the offence must be confirmed by four male witnesses, to regular criminal courts. This half-measure failed to end the repressive system established by the Hudood Ordinance (3), introduced by the former military dictator Zia-ul-Haq in 1979.

‘The poor man’s Ataturk’
Opinions vary on armed Islamism and the relationship between the army and the mullahs. Some accuse Musharraf of compromise and double-dealing: he bans extremist groups then allows them to re-form; he preaches enlightened moderation but does nothing to reform the madrasas; and he has reached an accommodation with the MMA. Others claim that to overestimate the influence of radical Islam allows the military to present itself as the only possible defence against extremists in the continuing war on terror.

Another school of thought argues that extremism will continue and even increase until the army and its leader, “a master of half-measures and the poor man’s Ataturk” (4), take a firm stand. Others believe that only Musharraf, with the support of the military leadership, can extricate Pakistan gradually from the structural contradictions that have beset it for the past 25 years.

In July 2006 a group of key figures, including generals from the army reserve, called upon Musharraf to give up his uniform if he sought re-election, and to separate military and civilian power. He is unlikely to take this advice, since as long as he remains head of the military hierarchy he controls a pillar of power: the Corps Commanders’ Conference.

Musharraf has managed to split the major political forces that governed Pakistan between 1988 and 1999. He achieved this by seducing a significant proportion of the Muslim League; a few Pakistan People’s party MPs; and the Muttahida Quami Movement that represents the Mohajirs (Pakistan citizens who migrated from India at the time of partition in 1947) and is powerful in the southeastern Sindh province. This is a coalition of convenience and has not significantly eroded the parliamentary opposition.

A ‘charter of democracy’
A pluralist press can make its voice heard. In exile, former sworn enemies Bhutto and Sharif signed a “charter of democracy” (5) in May 2006. Even if it defeated Musharraf, the opposition would still have to come to terms with the army. There have been repeated rumours and denials that Musharraf might strike a deal with Bhutto or even Rehman, dividing Islamist opposition in parliament.

In December Musharraf announced that the presidential race would be held before legislative elections. This sent a clear signal that he hopes to be re-elected by the current parliament and provincial representatives; and that he is unwilling to place his political future in the hands of new assemblies. The regime has raised the major questions posed by the regional situation and by the need for a paradigm shift, and this has been debated in the press. There is a danger that during the electoral campaign they will be overshadowed by a pragmatism that would confirm the army’s powers and privileges.

There is a worsening disparity between an economy that grew by an annual average of 7% between 2004 and 2006 and an uncertain political status quo. The population recently passed 160 million; pressing social issues are being ignored. As public education collapses, and health and development are starved of funds, economic growth finances (for the time being at least) defence expenditure, which has risen to 20% of the total budget.

Pakistan’s military, technocratic and social elite live in a different world from the ordinary citizen. Social indicators have risen slowly since 2000 in literacy, education and vaccination rates. Yet the World Bank, in its 2006 report on Pakistan, pointed out that in many respects “social indicators still lag behind countries with comparable per capita incomes”, particularly in rural areas (6).

Even if the opposition did achieve power, it would not radically change a policy of active liberalisation which, according to the report, “has failed to achieve social progress commensurate with its economic growth”.

Translated by Donald Hounam

* Jean-Luc Racine is director of research at the Centre national de la recherche scientifique and teaches at the École des Hautes Études en Sciences Sociales; he is co-editor of ‘Pakistan:Contours of State and Society’ (Oxford University Press, Karachi, 2002) and author of ‘Cachemire: Au péril de la guerre’ (Autrement, Paris, 2002)

Notes

(1) See Syed Saleem Shahzad, “Taliban resurgence in Afghanistan”, Le Monde diplomatique, English language edition, September 2006.

(2) See Selig Harrison, “Pakistan’s Baluch insurgency”, Le Monde diplomatique, English language edition, October 2006.

(3) This law established Islamic courts, over and above the existing legal system and responsible for applying sharia law for such offences as adultery, the consumption of alcohol and theft, which are punishable by sanctions such as whipping, amputation and stoning. Under the ordinance, a woman who is unable to prove that she was raped can be prosecuted for adultery.

(4) Hassan Abbas, Pakistan’s Drift into Extremism, ME Sharpe, Armonk, New York, 2004.

(5) The two parties agreed not to compromise with the military government and, if returned to power, to annul the constitutional changes whereby Musharraf increased the powers of the president. They would also dissolve the National Security Council, where the military top brass sit alongside the country’s civilian leaders.

(6) World Bank, “Pakistan Country Overview 2006”.