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On October 12 the
military seized power in a bloodless coup in Pakistan. In a swift move, the
armed forces took control of key establishments and put under house arrest the
Prime Minister, his cabinet and the few top military personnel loyal to him.
This is the 4th military coup in Pakistan since 1947.
The 32-month-old
Nawaz Sharif government came to an end, soon after he announced the dismissal of
army chief, General Pervez Musharraf, and his replacement by ISI chief, Lt.
General Khwaja Ziauddin. In fact Musharraf, who was returning from Colombo, was
denied permission to land at Karachi, and was informed of his dismissal during
the flight. However, the airport was seized by local military commanders loyal
to Musharraf, allowing the plane to land, facilitating the coup.
The two alternatives
before the people of Pakistan : a highly autocratic business tycoon-turned-Prime
Minister, Nawaz Sharif; or the military dictators led by General Musharraf makes
little difference. It is not a question of democracy versus dictatorship as made
out by the Western media, but that of autocratic rule versus dictatorship. A
fight between sections of the ruling classes for their gain.
Nawaz Sharif, in his
2 1/2 years rule, had been systematically concentrating all powers in his hands.
With the 13th Amendment he stripped the President of his powers to dismiss the
National Assembly and appoint the Service Chiefs; in late 1997 when he came in
conflict with the courts he sacked Farooq Leghari and Chief Justice Sajjad Ali
Shah, appointing his own stooges; and in October last year he removed the army
chief General Karamat when the latter sought to put controls on him. He launched
brutal attacks on any sort of opposition to his rule and had arrested large
numbers of journalists who wrote against him. He had amassed vast wealth, and on
the eve of his detention he was moving into a new 450 acre palatial house. On
the other hand the Army chiefs, make no pretense at democracy, and are open
dictators.
The troubles for
Sharif began with the Kargil episode. Cornered by an aggressive Indian military
on the one hand, and with lack of support from the imperialists on the other,
Sharif was forced to broker a humiliating retreat at the behest of Washington.
This retreat, done at the instructions of Clinton, earned Sharif criticisms from
various quarters. The people of Pakistan came out into the streets; guerilla
groups vowed to avenge the betrayal; a 19-party political alliance of virtually
the entire spectrum of the opposition (including PPP) came into being; and
discontent was brewing within the armed forces.
Nawaz Sharif panicked
and sent a high-level team of his supporters, including his brother, who is
Chief Minister of Punjab, and ISI chief Lt.Gen. Ziauddin, to New York, with an
SOS message. Shahbaz Sharif pleaded for help from the Americans saying that the
Army was after his brother’s blood. He also reminded the American bosses that
his brother, the PM, had acted on US directives to withdraw from Kargil
resulting in an extremely hostile environment in Pakistan; and hence it was
their duty to intervene and save the Sharif government. He further assured them
that Pakistan was willing to sign the CTBT. Ziauddin also prostrated before the
Americans offering help on the Bin Laden affair and warned that if Americans did
not act, Pakistan could fall into the hands of the mullahs in the Army.
The American
administration then acted promptly to openly back Sharif against the Generals.
The US State Department issued a statement saying that America would not
"support any extra-constitutional means" — thereby openly intervening in the
internal affairs of a supposedly `sovereign’ country. But its plans backfired.
Thinking that
American backing was like a magic wand that would guarantee his continuation as
PM, Sharif recklessly sacked General Musharraf and replaced him with none other
than the same Ziauddin who had earlier fallen at the feet of the Americans. But
Sharif and the Americans miscalculated. Musharraf was not like a Karamat. With
the bulk of the Army backing him, he displaced the Sharif government, without a
shot being fired in resistance. No doubt though, with the economy bankrupt and
Pakistan dependent on IMF doles, this new government will also have no option
but to kow-tow to the imperialists. What helped the generals was the people’s
lack of faith in the politicians of all hues, who were not only highly corrupt,
but had most slavishly cringed before the Americans. Not only Sharif, but
Benazir Bhutto too, is safely living abroad, and has been begging the US for
help. Even that cricketer-turned-politician, Imran Khan, went scurrying to meet
Assistant Secretary of State, Karl Inderfurth, during the peak of the crisis.
Now, the imperialists
are using the carrot and the stick to beat the generals into line. The American
administration, with its plot back-firing, talk of not "cornering the Generals,
but engaging them." Britain, which ruled the Indian sub-continent with brutal
savagery for almost two centuries, has been waxing eloquent about the need for
Pakistan to return to "democracy", and suspended it from that colonial relic —
the commonwealth. The IMF suspended financial aid to Pakistan. France, which
first said it would not deliver the submarines due to be shipped on October
28th, changed its mind after a ‘fact-finding’ visit of EU representatives
returned from Pakistan.
On the other hand,
the Generals themselves are trying to appease the West by putting on a mask of
"reasonableness". Technically their rule is not through martial law, but by
technocrats. To please the Western bankers and the IMF they promised to extract
$5 billion, looted by the rich and powerful, from the nationalised banks.
Musharraf, in his address, spoke not of fundamentalism, but of Kemal Pasha.
Towards India, they announced a unilateral withdrawal from the international
border. Yet, two of the six appointed to Musharraf’s National Security Council,
were once close associates of the earlier ruthless dictator, Zia Ul Huq. In
fact, Zia’s advocate-general during the martial law days, is now senior advisor
to the military rulers.
The Pakistani ruling
classes are in a severe crisis. Habituated to Western imperialist pampering
during the cold war years, when they were useful as a counter-weight to Soviet
imperialist domination in India and Afghanistan, now they find themselves
orphaned in the new geo-political climate. With no Soviet super power to contend
with in the region, the West is now more favourably inclined towards the servile
Indian rulers. Pakistan is now seen as just one other client state in the Third
World with no necessity to bestow any special favours on it. Yet, America is
moving cautiously. They do not want to push it into the camp of the
anti-American Islamic countries, like Iran, Iraq, etc. Besides, it has a nuclear
bomb, which, if combined with the Islamic bomb, can become a lethal mix for
Israel and the West. On the other hand, the Indian rulers, by attempting to
force the ‘rogue state’ label onto Pakistan, is seeking to push it into the
Islamic camp, in order to strengthen the Washington-Delhi axis.
Meanwhile, amidst all
these pulls and pressures at the political plane, Pakistan also faces a defacto
bankrupt economy, enormous poverty and has hardly any civil liberties worth the
name. The various oppressed nationalities are suppressed under the iron boots of
the dominant Punjabi nationality. Consistently diverted by an anti-Indian
hysteria, they, like the people of India, are yet to shake off the yoke of
imperialism, feudalism and comprador bureaucrat capitalism from their backs. But
with the country’s deepening crisis and increasing dog-fights amongst the
Pakistani rulers, great opportunities open up before the Pakistani people. If
not directed towards revolution, there is every danger for people’s frustration
to find outlet in Islamic fundamentalism.
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