Mustafa Qadri,
guardian.co.uk, Tuesday 15 March 2011 12.52 GMT

The admission by Pervez Musharraf, the former Pakistan president, of British complicity in torture on BBC2′s The Secret War on Terror should not surprise anyone. What is more disheartening is the prospect that authorities remain complicit in torture despite the denials and all that has happened over the past 10 years.

But perhaps that should not be surprising. Over the weekend, senior US state department spokesperson Phillip Crowley was forced to resign for saying the treatment of alleged whistleblower Bradley Manning was“ridiculous… counterproductive and stupid”. His comments came afterManning claimed to be stripped naked and forced to parade in front of his guards and placed on ‘punitive’ suicide watch.

President Obama has backtracked on one of the first promises of his tenure. When he approved the continuation of the Guantánamo Bay detention camp this month, despite an earlier promise to close the controversial facility within a year of coming to office, Obama effectively endorsed the inhumane and degrading treatment of 172 terrorism suspects that must surely be tantamount to torture. In Afghanistan, an even larger detention centre at Bagram airbase, known as the “New Guantánamo”, was touted as an alternative to the Cuban naval base. Now it appears both will be in continuous operation into the foreseeable future.

Bagram and Guantánamo are only two parts of an international network of detention facilities across the globe where western governments can escape the prying checks and balances that ought to be the measure of any civilised society.

Like the earlier claims within elite circles to have been fooled by Tony Blair’s dossier and the invasion of Iraq, assertions by British intelligence authorities that they did not know terrorism suspects would be tortured in Pakistan must be met with extreme scepticism.

Successive prime ministers have been happy to describe Pakistan as the centre of global terrorism, but it has also been a centre for western outsourcing of torture. For years, Amnesty International and several other rights groups have reported on the widespread use of torture at all levels of Pakistan’s law enforcement and security authorities, in neighbouring Afghanistan, and in every one of the countries used as rendition sites by Britain and the US. Officials in Whitehall cannot plead ignorance of this reality.

When British torture victim Binyam Mohammad revealed he was strung upside down and beaten with a strap after being sent to Pakistan by British intelligence, it should have immediately resonated with reports of the treatment of thousands of Pakistanis held in secret detention by their intelligence agencies.

“Never once,” said Pervez Musharraf, Pakistan’s leader for the first seven years after the September 11 attacks, did British authorities tell him not to torture terrorism suspects. He argues that the silence was tantamount to “tacit approval” of what Pakistan security authorities were doing.

In last night’s programme, former CIA chief Michael Hayden justified the use of waterboarding on terrorism suspects, as one of the “heroic choices” that unearthed a “treasure trove” of information.

One of the oldest devices used to conceal abuse is to clothe them in the language of necessary precaution. The eternal argument in favour of torture in secret detention facilities is that our world is a dangerous place and that extraordinary measures must be taken to maintain our safety.

But torture is an unreliable method for obtaining information on suspected terrorists. Study after study has shown that victims of torture will tell their tormentors whatever they want to hear to end their ordeal. Moreover, victims of torture are often so mentally and physically injuredby the experience that their value as witnesses is irreparably damaged, a key reason for the difficulty in convicting alleged terrorists the world over. Most important of all, torture and other abuse in detention is a moral aberration. Our support or involvement in these practices effectively signals that there is no distinction between us and the enemies we rightly describe as extremists.

Last year MI6′s Sir John Sawers arrogantly proclaimed that torture was not an abstract question “for philosophy courses or searching editorials”, but “real, constant, operational dilemmas”. Ironically, it is proponents of torture who are most liable to drift to abstractions and hypothetical scenarios to justify abuses such as waterboarding that destroy real lives and condemn democratic, plural societies like Britain to the scorn usually reserved for the most repressive regimes. Officials like Sawers use equally esoteric bureaucratic hurdles to maintain plausible deniability over their complicity in torture.

The detainee inquiry set up by David Cameron’s government is a welcome development. But it has regrettably stated that it is not obliged to comply with international and European standards of human rights. Last month Amnesty International and eight other organisations called on the British government to, among other things, ensure that the inquiry has a mechanism to independently decide what evidence should be made public, and powers to compel evidence.

“And this also has been one of the dark places of the Earth,” says Conrad’s protagonist in Heart of Darkness as he travels down the river Thames. And just as we learn in that cautionary tale, a sordid dark trail still links distant torture chambers to the heart of our governments. Unless and until that link is broken, and all individuals guilty of or complicit in torture are brought to justice, we cannot hope to keep our societies truly safe.

[This article first appeared in The Guardian on March 15, 2011: http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/libertycentral/2011/mar/15/torture-pervez-musharraf-tacit-approval]

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]

But recent developments in this war suggest that military planners have finally realised the risks of this most dangerous of relationships. Army chief Ashfaq Kayani recently noted that a Taliban society at home and in Afghanistan was not in Pakistan’s interests. In the past, Pakistan supported the Taliban in Afghanistan and its own tribal areas in a quest to achieve “strategic depth” against rival India. Now, Kayani concedes, a stable and friendly Afghanistan is sufficient strategic depth for Pakistan.

This is one of several signs that the military establishment has changed under his stewardship. His promise not to involve the armed forces in public politics as Pervez Musharraf had in the past was borne out by the army’s refusal to support President Asif Ali Zardari’s failed bid to oust Iftikhar Chaudhry, the independent-minded Chief Justice.

Their counter-insurgency capacity has increased from virtual non-existence in 2004 when a new `Pakistan Taliban’ compelled the state to sign a string of ceasefires in the tribal areas to an effective force that has resulted in the capture of important Taliban strongholds along the tribal frontier with Afghanistan.

The difference to years past when military planners heavily patronised the Taliban, says Shuja Nawaz of the Atlantic Council, “is that Pakistan is now facing the spectre of (terrorism by) Taliban groups at home. The immediate enemy is internal now, not India.” In the past two years, about 5000 civilians and 1700 soldiers have been killed.

After Pakistan was compelled to make enemies of the Taliban in 2001, military operations in the lawless frontier with Afghanistan were initially unpopular. Most viewed them as a war pitting fellow Pakistanis and Muslims against each other at the behest of the US. That all began to change as army-led forces showed the resolve to achieve military victory in the Swat valley and adjacent tribal areas. As ordinary Pakistanis were increasingly targeted in the terrorism and security forces took significant casualties, authorities and the media were successful in branding this as Pakistan’s war.

Continued US pressure, tied more than ever to the delivery of billions in civil and military aid, has also played a role. Since last month, Pakistan’s intelligence agencies have facilitated the capture of about half of the senior Afghan Taliban leadership.

These captures have been praised by Washington. But questions remain. How were these senior leaders captured and why now? And will it attempt to eliminate Islamist militants targeting India and Iran, such as Lashkar-e-Toiba and Jundullah, with the same vigour and intent?

These unanswered questions point to the difficult road ahead. Even now, Pakistan’s security establishment feels it must tread a careful line between a belligerent US and the reality that it can’t exert its influence over the entire tribal areas through force alone.

There is a dark side to the military operations, too. In Swat, government rehabilitation efforts have been admirable but in other areas, such as Bajaur and the Waziristans, they have been poor. Security forces have also been implicated in atrocities including the kidnapping and murder of perceived Taliban sympathisers and indiscriminate bombardments that have killed thousands and displaced millions.

Obsessions over India also remain a problem. Although troop levels in the Kashmir region have slightly decreased and both countries have formally recommenced dialogue, observers in Islamabad remain alarmed by India’s growing influence in Afghanistan. India spent close to $US40bn on its armed forces last year, eight times as much Pakistan.

That imbalance means Pakistan cannot totally divorce itself from the Taliban if it is perceived as the only viable ally against Indian influence in Afghanistan once US-led forces leave. It is unclear how these contradictions will resolve themselves. Military success can only provide immediate stability. Maintaining it will require political leadership.

Mustafa Qadri is a journalist based in Pakistan

[This article appeared in The Australian newspaper on Monday March 8, 2010. Url: http://www.theaustralian.com.au/news/world/my-enemys-enemy-no-longer-a-friend/story-e6frg6ux-1225837937177]

Mustafa Qadri
guardian.co.uk, Thursday 4 March 2010 17.30 GMT

Pakistan’s army, the bedrock of an otherwise fragile state, may not be the most progressive institution. But recent developments suggest that military leaders realise it needs to change, even if key concerns remain.

No issue puts Pakistan under the international spotlight more than its relationship with Islamist militancy. Questions over its continued links with the Taliban and other jihadist groups such as Lashkar-e-Taiba – widely believed to be responsible for the murderous attacks on Mumbai – have fuelled doubts over its capacity to bring stability to the region. At the heart of the debate is Pakistan’s army, an at once nebulous yet strangely cohesive collective that has been blamed for playing a double game that has irked foreign allies and domestic hardliners alike.

Those fears have led the army to some significant conclusions. At a press conference with foreign journalists last month, the usually media-shy army chief Pervez Kayani noted that a “Talibanised” society at home or in Afghanistan was not in Pakistan’s interests.

Those remarks have been backed with action. In the last two years, Pakistan’s security forces have at last met a homegrown Taliban insurgency with significant force and skill. Their counterinsurgency capacity has increased from virtual non-existence in 2004, when a new insurgency later to be called the Pakistan Taliban started to force the state to reach humiliating ceasefire agreements in the tribal areas. Now there is a major military presence in each of the country’s seven tribal areas, while Taliban strongholds in South Waziristan and Bajaur have been captured.

Most significant of all, Pakistan has finally cracked down on the senior Afghan Taliban leadership sheltering in its territory. It is too early to measure the nature and significance of these captures – there are doubts as to Pakistan’s true intentions in detaining erstwhile militant allies at a time when US-led forces are engaged in a massive operation in Afghanistan. It is widely believed here that Pakistan was effectively forced into future negotiations by the US over integrating insurgents into the Afghan state by, quite literally, capturing their leaders.

Even if that most cynical of explanations is accurate, however, the military establishment’s decision to target the Afghan Taliban is a brave move. What has caused the shift in policy?

“The difference is that Pakistan is now facing the spectre of [terrorism by] Taliban groups at home,” says long-time army observer Shuja Nawaz. In the years following Pakistan’s decision to cut formal ties with the Taliban in 2001, military operations in the lawless frontier with Afghanistan were angrily derided in the media and mosques as part of a foreign agenda to divide the country. One reason the insurgents have targeted civilians in Pakistan is to stoke this anger.

But an escalation of deadly suicide attacks in most major cities since 2008 has created tremendous anger towards the insurgents. Just as important, however, has been a successful propaganda campaign to convince the population that this is their war.

It has helped that current army chief General Ashfaq Kayani has earned widespread respect as a modest man focused on military matters – even if in reality the army still looms large over domestic politics. Unlike his predecessor, former army chief and president Pervez Musharraf, Kayani has generally avoided rhetorical flourishes or getting involved in public politics.

All the more reason, then, that Kayani’s few public statements are worth noting. After promising not to get the army involved in politics as Musharraf had before, for example, Kayani refused to support the Zardari government when it tried to suppress peaceful mass protests in support of an independent judiciary last year.

Still, serious questions remain. This has been a dirty war, and security forces stand accused of atrocities like reprisal killings against perceived Taliban sympathisers and indiscriminate bombardments that have also killed thousands and displaced millions. And despite operations against the Taliban within its borders, the recent fidayeen attack on Kabul targeting Indian nationals bore sobering similarities to previous violence in the Afghan capital likely sponsored by Pakistan.

India remains the great foreign policy challenge in Pakistani eyes. Although troop levels in the disputed Kashmir region have slightly decreased and formal dialogue has recommenced, army observers remain concerned by India’s continued influence in Afghanistan. That is why, along with conciliatory speeches, Kayani has reiterated that India remains Pakistan’s “primary concern”.

But international pressure to abandon the anti-India narrative is likely to leave the army “floundering to craft a fresh narrative based on ‘Islam’,” argues Chatham House analyst Farzana Shaikh. During last year’s independence day celebrations, Kayani said that Pakistan was achieved in the name of Islam. With no consensus on what that precisely means, however, the military’s search for an Islamic narrative, Shaikh adds, “is almost certainly doomed to failure”.

These contradictions do not make for easy categorisation. They also suggest that the army is still grappling with a new geopolitical dynamic. At the very least, it deserves credit for trying to adapt to the changed landscape.

______________

Source url: http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2010/mar/04/pakistan-army-terrorism

Mustafa Qadri
guardian.co.uk, Thursday 18 February 2010 18.30 GMT

At no point do world leaders look more diminished than after leaving office, and Pakistan’s former president and military dictator Pervez Musharraf is no exception. So when he addressed a London audience this week, it was perhaps ironic that much of what he said was a reminder that little has changed in the way the west relates to the “AfPak” region.

It was all very George Bush. The world must “stay the course” in Afghanistan and Pakistan because it is the centre of the greatest threat to international security in the post-cold war world, namely Islamist terrorism. US-led forces in Afghanistan must “saturate” insurgency-hit regions “with strength”. He added that the region must not be abandoned as had occurred after the Soviets were defeated in Afghanistan 21 years ago because it would remain a breeding ground for terrorism. The clear message was that Pakistan is a garrison state whose forces must be subsidised well into the future.

Almost no one would disagree with this thesis, or at least the idea that regions devastated by wars and foreign interference ought not to be left to their own devices once the dust settles. But the deafening silence over Musharraf’s personal responsibility for the devastation remains. What is especially troubling is the way that his still-fresh tenure – after all, he resigned as president of Pakistan less than two years ago – has already been swept into the history books.

That history refuses to lay dormant.

Gordon Brown’s government has been rocked by the Binyam Mohamed torture scandal. We now know that Mohamed was tortured in Pakistan. In fact, Musharraf’s Pakistan was a key conduit through which thousands were kidnapped and tortured, often under intense pressure from Britain and the US. Did the general collude in this? Did he facilitate the disappearance of thousands of his own citizens too? These important questions remain unanswered, thanks in part to Whitehall’s equivocal stance over Mohamed’s torture.

Much like Tony Blair at the Chilcot inquiry, Musharraf defended his record as commander-in-chief. Perhaps the most controversial aspect of his rule was his perceived double game of appeasing the Taliban by, among other things, signing ceasefires with them in the tribal areas while talking tough on the White House lawn. Now, he countered, the reconciliation approach is exactly what is being attempted in Afghanistan. In contrast, he rationalised inaction against non-Taliban militancy in the Punjab on the basis that it was a delicate matter that would take time to solve.

Neither response was particularly convincing, but the fact that he fought for his reputation nevertheless spoke volumes.

Musharraf has frequently if indirectly hinted at making a comeback to Pakistani politics, but only if the “people of Pakistan” want him – a familiar euphemism for drumming up support through back channels. Musharraf remains popular in many quarters of Pakistan society, as demonstrated by an online fan page replete with hagiographic comments and over 130,000 members. Musharraf proponents point to his international standing. No living Pakistani is as internationally recognisable as the former army chief, just as no serving head of state has brought with them as much pre-existing controversy as the incumbent, president Asif Ali Zardari.

With Pakistan facing fresh crises almost every week – the latest being anongoing dispute between an empowered judiciary and the government of president Zardari – now is as good a time as ever for Musharraf to stake his credentials with Pakistani and international audiences.

Like former prime minister Benazir Bhutto before him, Musharraf is an eloquent and confident speaker. That might explain why he remains a frequent guest in the lecture circuit. But, also like Bhutto, there is a profound gap between rhetoric and reality. All of our politicians decry the appalling poverty in Pakistan, yet none have taken significant steps to end the corruption and inequality that fuels it. Musharraf’s Pakistan was showered with billions of pounds that were almost totally unaccounted for. Many wonder why so little – even less than a trickle – was spent on the schools, infrastructure and hospitals he now claims are vital to vicariously defeating extremism in Pakistan.

There is renewed hope that will change with the Obama administration’s package of non-military funding – $7.5bn over five years – which has significant strings attached to it. In Pakistan too there are subtle signs that things may be changing.

Musharraf’s successor as army chief, General Ashfaq Pervez Kayani, has gone to great lengths to avoid the media. Although impossible to predict, army insiders say he has no interest in formal politics and is looking forward to retirement later this year. The contrast with Musharraf could not be clearer. Perhaps the army has learned from his mistakes.

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 5 December 2009 18.00 GMT

It may be more a matter of wits than weapons, but the battle for control of Pakistan‘s executive branch of government is as significant for the country as the war against the Taliban. Resolving this latest crisis, the fiercest tussle over the stewardship of the country since Pervez Musharraf was ousted from the presidency in August 2008, will determine the future of Pakistan’s parliamentary democracy for many years to come.

Although ostensibly centred on current President Asif Ali Zardari’s immunity from a raft of court cases, the dispute has engulfed many of the most senior members of government.

It all boils down to a national reconciliation ordinance drawn up by Musharraf in November 2007 when he was still president. As his popularity and legitimacy plummeted, the Bush administration pushed for a power sharing arrangement between the general and one of his great rivals, the slain former prime minister Benazir Bhutto who was living in exile between Dubai and London at the time. But a raft of court cases against Bhutto, her husband Asif Zardari, and many of their cohorts precluded an easy return to Pakistan to contest national elections. The NRO effectively gave them the immunity they desperately need to return to politics.

Following victory in national elections last year, the Pakistan People’s party, under Asif Zardari’s stewardship following Bhutto’s assassination in December 2007, formed a coalition government with a number of other parties and pressed for the NRO to be passed as law. But parliament and the supreme court conspired to scupper those plans, leaving the controversial amnesty to expire last Saturday, 28 November.

As far as we know, 8,041 individuals were given immunity under the NRO. They include Hussain Haqqani, Pakistan’s influential ambassador to the United States, and Rehman Malik, a key Zardari lieutenant and spearhead of the civilian administration’s push against extremists. Pakistan’s high commissioner to Britain, Wajid Shamsul Hassan, is also on the NRO list. So is the Britain-based head of the Muttahida Quami Movement, Altaf Hussain who, along with two of his deputies, faces more charges than any other individual on the list.

The charges against the thousands on the list, alleging everything from corruption, abuse of authority and even murder, make for harrowing reading. And although the government claims it will not protect anyone from the court’s findings, there can be no doubt that many of the charges are politically motivated. Virtually every prominent politician in Pakistan has faced or is facing a court case lodged by their foes.

But in among the mudslinging and the uncertainty it has created, the move to refer the NRO to the courts is a powerful, if indirect endorsement for the rule of law and parliamentary democracy. The government, faced with a hostile mix of political opponents and opportunists, says it will abide by any court rulings against those on the NRO.

A revitalised supreme court headed by Iftikhar Chaudhry, the fiercely independent chief justice who survived first Musharraf and then Zardari’s attempt to remove him, is expected to rule on the legality of the NRO in the not too distant future. He has already set a supreme court bench to commence hearings against those named in the NRO from Monday 7 December.

What the court eventually determines will also likely determine the fate of the present government.

So long as he remains head of state, President Zardari will retain immunity from any prosecution. Desperate to remain in office, however, he has already ceded control of the country’s nuclear arsenal to the prime minister. It is expected that he will also concede the powers to dismiss the national assembly and appoint military chiefs. That would be a welcome move as the prime minister is more answerable to the parliament than the president.

Current prime minister Yusuf Raza Gilani has undoubtedly been the biggest winner in this saga. Although installed by Zardari to be a pliant prime minister, he has increasingly drifted away from his orbit. It is well known that he has courted the Sharif brothers, former prime minister Nawaz and Punjab chief minister Shahbaz, who control the largest opposition party and dominate politics in the most populous province of Punjab. If key members of the PPP-led government falls due to the NRO , Gilani, who was a member of Sharif’s party until falling out of favour in the 1990s, could form government with them. To his distinct advantage, Gilani was not on the NRO list because the courts have already cleared him of corruption charges.

The political wrangling certainly reduces Pakistan’s capacity to deal effectively with the three largest crises plaguing the nation: the ongoing war with the Pakistan Taliban, the inability to match energy supplies with demand, and a weak, highly inflationary economy.

With so many Pakistanis sceptical of a democratic process that historically has failed to deliver, however, now is the best opportunity to showcase the merits of Pakistan’s fragile secular institutions.

]]> http://mustafaqadri.net/wp/articles/the-other-battle-for-pakistan/feed/ 0 http://mustafaqadri.net/wp/articles/from-dictators-to-fugitives/ http://mustafaqadri.net/wp/articles/from-dictators-to-fugitives/#comments Sun, 30 Aug 2009 14:35:03 +0000 mustafa http://mustafaqadri.net/wp/?p=566

The knives are out when dictators fall from power, but the politics of retribution is rarely clean or cathartic

Mustafa Qadri
guardian.co.uk, Sunday 30 August 2009 17,00 BST

The tables turn quickly in politics, but for dictators the shift from all-powerful to powerless can be rather sudden. Over a period of 12 months, the last Shah of Iran went from feared dictator to refugee who struggled to find asylum in three different continents (including the US, his one-time staunchest supporter).

Most out-of-power autocrats look to self-imposed exile to shield themselves from vengeful countrymen desperate to settle scores. Perhaps that is why Pakistan’s Musharraf, former president and army chief, recently bought a central London apartment.

There was a brief period of quiet after Musharraf was pressured to resign as president in August last year. That silence was soon broken, however, as he engaged in a worldwide speaking tour. More recently, the retired army chief made overtures to the main faction of a political party, the Muslim League Qaid branch, favoured under his rule, only to be rejected.

Perhaps even more damning, the army’s top spokesperson, General Athar Abbas, wrote a revealing article on an official website, arguing that Musharraf and other previous military rulers had harmed the army’s image.

Even political foes are now lining up to bring Musharraf down, and, in scenes reminiscent of the backlash against Indira Gandhi following her 1977 electoral defeat in neighbouring India, Pakistan’s courts have become a central front in the drama.

Several different actions have been filed at the courts, ranging from those involving people kidnapped by security agencies under Musharraf’s rule to those challenging his alleged role in the murder of the celebrated Balochi statesmen Akbar Khan Bughti.

Politically motivated court cases are not new in Pakistan. The country’s first democratically elected leader, Zulfiqar Ali Bhutto, was hanged after a court – under pressure from then Army Chief Zia ul Haq – found him guilty of a trumped-up charge of conspiracy to murder a political rival. Practically every prominent politician has had charges against them brought to the bench.

The Musharraf trials are nevertheless unprecedented in this country’s young history of democratic rule – military rulers are rarely brought to trial here. Indeed, no military ruler has ever been brought before the due process of the law.

But the current battle is broader than Musharraf or the legacy of military rule he represents. Among the petitions filed with the courts are several that seek to annul the National Reconciliation Ordinance under which the former president allowed exiled political leaders like Benazir Bhutto to return to Pakistan to contest elections eventually held in February 2008. Bhutto was killed two months before those elections, but the NRO enabled her husband, Asif Ali Zardari, to eventually become the country’s president.

In seeking to dismantle his legacy current political players are also looking to undermine incumbent politicians, particularly President Asif Ali Zardari.

The NRO washed away the stain of previous corruption charges that had disqualified Zardari and several of his stalwarts from high office. Zardari alone was cleared of five outstanding corruption charges a mere month after his party won the February 2008 elections. Removal of NRO protection would almost certainly reopen these dirty cans of worms bringing government business to a total halt.

Although the supreme court – Pakistan’s highest judiciary – has avoided ruling on the NRO cases, late last month it ruled a state of emergency imposed by Musharraf in November 2007 illegal. According to Athar Minallah, a senior member of the lawyers’ movement that challenged the former president’s clamp-down, the ruling demonstrates that “Pakistan is on its path towards rule of law”.

Detractors say the case unduly politicises the judiciary which – given it includes no fewer than 14 judges, including the chief justice, dismissed by Musharraf under the state of emergency – cannot promise neutrality.

To its credit, however, the supreme court has avoided the issue of charging Musharraf with treason, saying it is a matter for parliament to decide. For its part, the government says it won’t endorse cases against Musharraf, although Attorney-General Sardar Latif Khosa spiced things up by saying it would support his prosecution if unanimously sought by parliament.

Such tribulations are common to many countries going through the transition from dictatorship to democracy. Chilean dictator Augusto Pinochet infamously received lifetime amnesty from charges of torture and other crimes until eventually being brought to trial shortly before his death. In contrast, many Argentinean generals guilty of atrocities during their country’s “Dirty War” during the 1970s and 80s were eventually prosecuted.

The Obama administration is currently wrestling with the decision whether to investigate US interrogators for alleged torture of suspected terrorists, although the prospect of high level officials such as former vice president, Dick Cheney, secretary of defence, Donald Rumsfeld, or Bush himself being charged remains unlikely.

The chances of Pervez Musharraf being indicted are probably more likely, but remain slim. Regardless, the current court dramas demonstrate the increasing influence of the judiciary, and especially the supreme court, in Pakistan’s political landscape.

Interesting to see how his views are now getting greater international attention. The revolving door of Pakistani politics, and Western support for those who dominate it, continues…