Mustafa Qadri,
guardian.co.uk, Friday 10 September 2010 13.00 BST

Given all the tensions of recent weeks, it is perhaps no surprise that Pakistan’s rumour mill is filled with talk of yet another military coup. This time, however, the multiple crises may be too much for even the army to chew.

What began in the same way as so many rumours in Pakistan do – with numerous curt, anonymous emails, text messages and iftar dinner conversations – snowballed into something of a storm. It may have been just a bit of extra masala for the evening news, but it appeared that Pakistan was heading for yet another military takeover.

With floods having uprooted around a tenth of the population and devastated Pakistan’s vital agricultural sector, which accounts for around 70% of the country’s exports, it seemed a logical conclusion. So much so that Altaf Hussain, the none-too-shy leader of the Urdu community’s Muttahida Quami Movement (MQM) political party, even went so far as to invite the army to declare martial law.

The army didn’t take the bait, although London-based Hussain may have caused a state of emergency of his own with political opponents, eager to capitalise on the gaffe, calling for him to be charged with treason. Consider then the dilemma for the ruling Pakistan Peoples party, the dominant party in a federal coalition government that includes the MQM.

There is no doubt that civilian leaders are struggling with events in the country. Along with the floods there has been an upsurge in bombings targeting Pakistan’s Shia Muslim minority in Lahore, Karachi and Quetta. According to the ruling Awami National party in Khyber Pakhtunkwha province, every one of its sitting MPs has received death threats, while a string of fresh bombings has claimed 30 lives in the tribal areas. The attacks appear to have targeted influential local tribal leaders considered rivals of the Pakistan Taliban insurgency.

In the neighbouring, restive province of Balochistan, itself engulfed byanother insurgency, the government of President Zardari has faced further humiliation. A day after announcing a “Swat-style” military operation in the province outside the Balochistan chief minister’s office on Wednesday, federal interior minister Rehman Malik was forced to back down and promised instead a limited military offensive that would respect “the legitimate demands” of the ethnic Baloch community. Part of the proposal included the devolution of authority for the paramilitary Frontier Corp, widely despised by ethnic Baloch, to the provincial government. But even that was not enough for the Balochistan government, which moved quickly to quash any talk of military operations.

And with good reason. On Thursday, a bombing at the provincial finance minister’s residence claimed three lives, although the minister himself was unharmed. That followed a brazen bombing of a Shia demonstrationin Quetta on Monday that left up to 70 dead.

With such insecurity it seems logical for the army to step in. But with memories of the last military dictator, former President Pervez Musharraf, still fresh in the mind, public sentiment might not look too kindly on a coup.

That is especially so now, given the extreme deprivations faced by those made homeless by the floods. On Wednesday, a group of people camped in Karachi turned into an angry mob decrying the lack of food, water and other humanitarian necessities. Their cries come at a time when it is becoming increasingly apparent that sections of the political and feudal class, who often come from the same families, have been busy helping themselves while not-so-influential citizens continue to wait for assistance.

The most damning allegation is that some rich landowners even diverted the water in parts of interior Sindh and Punjab, exacerbating the floods in other regions, especially Balochistan. Be that as it may, the floods have been a monumental obstacle that has crudely and starkly divided Pakistan’s society between the few haves and many have-nots.

“In tough times, the Pakistan army is with you,” is emblazoned on supplies delivered by the army to flood victims. As dedicated humanitarian workers from Pakistan’s military, civil society and international NGOs sift through this human tragedy, the army top brass appears happy to sit back and accrue enormous goodwill for its visible and important role in the humanitarian effort.

Now is perhaps the worst time for any politician to be in government. If the army were to mount a takeover at this juncture it would quickly see the public’s goodwill evaporate. That makes a return to military rule unlikely. But with future events in this country always hard to predict, rumours of a coup are certain to continue.

[This article first appeared in The Guardian on Friday September 10, 2010: http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2010/sep/10/pakistan-military-coup-rumours]

Mustafa Qadri
guardian.co.uk, Wednesday 27 January 2010 15.10 GMT

With his chequered past and unlikely rise to the top, it is understandable that Asif Ali Zardari has faced constant calls to resign ever since becoming president of Pakistan two years ago. The central focus of the grievances has been Pakistan’s supreme court where a raft of charges have been submitted against Zardari and most of the senior leaders of the ruling Pakistan Peoples party by a motley mix of political parties, private citizens, and the court itself.

But in the glasshouse that is Pakistani politics the risk is that perceptions of judicial independence will be shattered by all the stone throwing. To understand the fracas it is necessary to consider recent history. After public pressure forced the Zardari government to reinstate Chief Justice Iftikhar Muhammad Chaudhry, there was widespread celebration that at last Pakistan had found one institution that was above the cronyism that has plagued political life here.

Tables turn quickly in Pakistan. So it is perhaps no surprise that almost immediately the reconstituted supreme court began hearing challenges against members of the Zardari government. That included a petition by the chief justice himself against the National Reconciliation Ordinance, an amnesty granted by former President Pervez Musharraf after the United States pushed him to welcome Zardari and his wife, the former prime minister Benazir Bhutto, who was assassinated in 2007, back into Pakistani politics.

Last December the Chaudhry supreme court ruled the NRO was unconstitutional, opening the floodgates for the current cases. Although attention has focused on charges against Zardari, the irony is that many of those bringing them have a history of intimidating the courts, disavowing them for being un-Islamic or have themselves faced charges ranging from corruption to murder at some point in their career.

What makes the current drama intriguing is the way that age-old double standard has become enmeshed with new political twists. Historically incapable of reining in the powerful, the courts have always been a favoured forum for otherwise disparate opposition groups to occasionally forget their mutual disdain in order to channel their common enmity towards whoever happens to be in government. The difference now is that, for the first time, the powerful are fearful of Pakistan’s highest court. That exposes it to the risk of being swept along with the political zeitgeist.

As the country continues to struggle with terrorism and a flagging economy, Asif Zardari, long considered uncritically obedient to diktats from Washington, has become emblematic of a government that most Pakistanis find easy to hate and impossible to love. Known derisively as “Mr 10%” for his alleged embezzlement of government revenues while his wife was prime minister in the 1990s, the president has faced several lawsuits in Pakistan, Britain, France and Switzerland over the last 15 years. Although most of them were dropped after the NRO, the supreme court’s ruling that it was unconstitutional has breathed new life into Pakistan’s courts and at least two cases in Switzerland and France.

Like any politician, Zardari will do everything in his power to cling to the presidency. In a departure from what has hitherto been an aloof tenure, he has begun a countrywide speaking tour aimed at rousing public confidence. But, ironically, there is a good chance he will agree to curtail his legal and de facto powers as president. Already he has transferred the authority to launch Pakistan’s nuclear arsenal to the prime minister, a largely symbolic gesture given the army’s control of military affairs.

Yet Zardari still retains the power to appoint the chief of army staff, the most powerful post in the country, and dismiss the National Assembly. With General Ashfaq Kayani‘s term as army chief set to expire this year and parliament the only institution with the lawful power to revoke his presidential immunities, Zardari retains key bargaining chips should his situation deteriorate.

As president, Zardari enjoys constitutional immunity from criminal prosecution. But some legal experts argue that it does not preclude civil suits. Some, invoking nebulous provisions of the constitution inserted by the Islamist dictator Zia ul-Haq in 1985, have called for his removal on the grounds of poor character. Whatever the result of these arguments, it is clear that Zardari will be exposed to a toxic cocktail of civil and criminal charges the moment he leaves office.

Do not be surprised, then, if Zardari flees the country once his presidency ends, or if the Obama administration demands that he be left unmolested as a private citizen – much as the Bush administration protected former president Pervez Musharraf from prosecution when he resigned in August 2008. How does the supreme court fit into this? No one really knows. With the ball firmly in the court, however, it remains to be seen if the judges will pursue the military, mullahs and other politicians with the same vigour as they are pursuing Asif Zardari.

· Mustafa Qadri

· guardian.co.uk, Saturday 25 July 2009 16.00 BST

There has been much soul-searching in Pakistan of late, and with good reason. Although the Army claims to have largely pushed the Taliban out of the Swat Valley, the most developed part of the country yet infiltrated by the insurgents, the war continues in all of its brutality and uncertainty.

Even in Swat it is unclear whether the Taliban are really vanquished. The government may have told the millions made homeless by this conflict that it is safe to return, but the army’s inability to eliminate key Swat Taliban leaders and the existence of huge pockets of remote mountainous terrain incapable of ever being properly secured make the possibility of a Taliban return a real threat.

According to residents in the region – from Buner some 60 miles from the national capital Islamabad to Dir on the cusp of the Afghan border – the Taliban have recommenced their now infamous radio broadcasts, after a two month hiatus, and distribute audio and video recordings demonstrating their grisly prowess.

As the violence persists, many are wondering what precisely the ultimate measure of success is. Is the aim to reconquer territory ostensibly controlled by the Taliban? Even at the worst of times the insurgents ruled discreetly, as guerrilla armies generally do, often with strong support from village communities resentful over decades of state marginalisation. And what about the Taliban’s roots: are the mainstream religious political parties that nurtured them ideologically and the army that developed Islamic militancy in the first place going to be called to account?

Those are some of the questions being posed by the Swat Valley’s Aman Tehreek, or the Peace Movement, established by Aryana Institute of Regional Research and Advocacy, teachers, community organisations and concerned citizens with the express objective of seeking a peaceful and sustainable resolution to the current conflict.

“There is a social, moral and political breakdown in Pakistani society,” said Raza Rabbani, a Pakistan Peoples party senator in the federal parliament, at a recent Aman Tehreek gathering in Islamabad.

Aman Tehreek is but one of several grassroots attempts to foster peace in Pakistan and especially the troubled North West Frontier province (NWFP). Peace committees have sprung up in several towns, typically to broker ceasefire agreements between the army and local Taliban insurgents.

In contrast, Aman Tehreek takes a broader view of the conflict. Its immediate concern is trying to facilitate humanitarian assistance and rehabilitation for the war-torn communities of NWFP. A longer-term objective is to promote traditional Pakhtun culture – like music, dance and poetry suppressed after years of militant Islamism often under state sponsorship, education and development to reduce the chances of future radicalisation.

This war has certainly seen its fair share of violence – the Taliban often mutilate the corpses of soldiers and those, like dancers and music shop owners, it considers apostates. The army, for its part, has been guilty of killing many hundreds if not thousands of civilian deaths (precise figures will never be known) owing to its use of overwhelming, sometimes indiscriminate force.

“In all of our Pashtun history, we never saw such barbarism,” says Abdur Raheem Mundokhel from the Pakhtoonkhwa Milli Awami party. “We have a history [of] people being killed in blood feuds, but still they would give honour even to their enemies.”

The army has been in the sights of Aman Tehreek for its role in the radicalisation and militarisation of Pakistan’s Pashtuns communities, and its recent decision to open garrisons in newly liberated parts of Swat and Buner, a move it sees as a stop-gap attempt to consolidate the military’s clout at the expense of more sustainable strategies for long-term peace.

Aman Tehreek also criticises the security authorities for arresting tribal Pashtuns not linked to the militancy simply because they belong to clans associated with the Taliban.

Education, according to Aman Tehreek member and teacher Ziauddin Yusufzai, is the key to preventing future extremism. He should know. A teacher at one of the last schools to defy Taliban edicts and teach girls in Swat, he notes low levels of literacy, poor employment prospects and marginalisation of women have been wellsprings of opportunity for extremists.

There are fears of internecine tribal feuds turning bloody in the aftermath of Taliban rule: civilians favoured by the insurgents or whose relatives joined the Taliban are fearful of reprisals from those who suffered during the conflict.

Underlying this is the social and economic divide between the mass of poor and the wealthy. In every conflict region, wealthy and influential feudal families and parliamentarians quickly fled leaving ordinary townsfolk exposed to the Taliban’s worst excesses. Yet even now after the army seems to have vanquished the Taliban, the elite remain fearful of returning to their communities. As a result, resentments fester and this, along with a lingering power vacuum, makes a Taliban return an ever-present threat. Recognising this, Aman Tehreek has called on parliamentarians from the newly liberated regions to accompany their communities back to their homes.

Most of them now lie in ruins. Hundreds of schools and hospitals have been destroyed by Taliban or army bombardment. Government authorities have scrambled to repair roads, electricity grids and other civil infrastructure, but it is a massive task that will take years of planning and funding. The UN estimates that the cost of totally rehabilitating these former war zones will be in the billions. The Pakistan government says it has already paid Rs25,000 (£180) each to 125,000 displaced families while the US has pledged a further $US165m in humanitarian aid for the displaced on top of $249m provided between May and June. The British government has given £22m.

The financial assistance is vital to redevelop this devastated land. Just as important, however, are efforts like those of Aman Tehreek in rebuilding the shattered cultural life of Pakistan’s displaced.

[Originally published at: http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2009/jul/25/pakistan-taliban-frontier]

Lone Chief still waiting for justice

It was cold and windy in New York two Mondays ago when Iftikhar Muhammad Chaudhry, the deposed Chief Justice of Pakistan’s Supreme Court, accepted his honorary membership of the New York City Bar Association. It was certainly a departure from the hot, humid pro-democracy rallies where Chaudhry has been demanding an independent judiciary in Pakistan ever since being removed from the bench in November last year.

“No democracy can survive without an independent judiciary,” Chaudhry said during his acceptance speech in New York. “There can be no democracy without law. Lack of justice produces inequalities.”
Two days after New York, Chaudhry received the Harvard Law School Medal of Freedom, an honour he shares with Nelson Mandela and Charles Hamilton Houston, one of the great Afro-American advocates of the mid 20th century. Hamilton was part of the team that successfully argued before the US Supreme Court that racially segregated schools were unconstitutional.

Judges of the superior courts do not generally enter the popular canon. Few, in any society, can name the bench of their country’s highest court. Yet Chaudhry has captured the popular imagination in Pakistan precisely because of his independence and regard for the rule of law. “He has zero tolerance… [for] corruption, environmental degradation, and human rights abuses,” explains the barrister Aitzaz Ahsan, one of the leaders of the lawyers movement that coalesced around Chaudhry after he was placed under house arrest by former President Pervez Musharraf in March 2007.

Chaudhry built that reputation on the back of judgments which essentially challenged the generally unaccountable nature of government business. That included deciding against a Musharraf Government decision to sell the national steel mills to a consortium linked to then Prime Minister Shaukat Aziz for markedly under the market value. Most significantly, Chief Justice Chaudhry challenged the generals when he ordered the Government to explain the whereabouts of hundreds of missing persons believed kidnapped under the aegis of the United States’ so-called War on Terror.

When, in August 2007, Chaudhry threatened to jail the head of Pakistan’s Federal Investigation Agency if he did not produce one of these missing persons, Chaudhry likely sealed his own fate. On 3 November 2007, President Musharraf announced a state of emergency. A hastily convened bench of the Chaudhry Supreme Court held that the announcement was unconstitutional the very same day. Soldiers stormed the Court and duly arrested him. In total 60 judges from Pakistan’s federal and state courts were arrested.

It is difficult to overestimate Chaudhry’s role in these events. In a country where, from its very founding, the powerful do as they wish and no Supreme Court has ever challenged the writ of the generals and presidents, Iftikhar Chaudhry has been a trailblazer. Rabble rousers and political adversaries routinely die in mysterious circumstances in Pakistan. Every major politician buffers him or herself with their own personal security outfit. The roads are off limits to ordinary citizens whenever the President or Prime Minister decides to travel.

Chaudhry’s visit to the United States has received little coverage in the United Kingdom or, indeed, the West generally. Our governments may claim to have invaded neighbouring Afghanistan with the aim of eliminating extremism and establishing democracy, but there is little interest in this most black letter revolt. That is nothing new. The same governments expressed an equal measure of apathy when Musharraf started clamping down on dissent last year. “The oldest democracies in the world did nothing,” recalled Aitzaz Ahsan during a lecture in London last month.

As ever, there are simple and complex reasons for this. We don’t very much like the fine print in places like Pakistan. It’s much easier to be caught in the twin headlights of Islamic extremism and nuclear weapons. Our instinct is to trust the generals and the despots because we don’t expect ordinary Pakistanis are capable of very much.

Yet in truth Chaudhry himself is only an emblem. He represents the aspirations of ordinary Pakistanis, people who languish in poverty and illiteracy, whose children are born dangerously underweight with increasing frequency, and for whom wheat is now a luxury item. Literal millions have thronged the streets of Pakistan’s cities this and last year patiently waiting to glimpse their former Chief Justice.

The majority partner in Pakistan’s coalition government, the Pakistan Peoples Party, and its co-chairman, President Asif Ali Zardari, has hitherto refused to reinstate Chaudhry. Now, under public pressure, it promises to put a decision on his future as Chief Justice to Pakistan’s parliament. Most of the judges dismissed by Musharraf have made deals with the Zardari administration and have returned to the Bench. Only Chaudhry and a handful of other judges refuse such arrangements. They demand reinstatement without any strings.

Whether Zardari or the PPP likes it or not, Chaudhry is now an international symbol of democratic governance. He is the only individual from within the country’s power structure whose reputation has improved over the past two years.

“I could have been very comfortable by appeasing many as there were several occasions,” Chaudhry told a rally on 3 November 2008 marking the anniversary of his removal. “But I chose to follow the dictates of my conscience, the rule of law and the Constitution, thus inviting the wrath of the rulers.”