Is Musharraf Fighting
Terrorism or Is He a Terrorist?
By
Tarique Niazi
GENERAL
PERVEZ Musharraf threw an Iftar bash, an institutionalized bribe,
to fete Pakistani journalists on November 20. Next day’s
newspapers read like his couriers.
The
Dawn bannerlined his ramblings, which any patriotic Pakistani
will find insultingly offensive: “they (Americans) may even
start bombing our tribal areas,” he told journalists. There
was no one in the audience who could ask him why his tongue did
not twist before launching himself into this speculation? Or what
did Pakistan do to merit the bombing? Or what would he do if “our”
tribal areas were bombed? I know what he would do, however. He
would join his forces with the bombers to wash clean his own image
of a “terrorist.”
His
“partnership” in the war on terror has become universally
suspect, and deep down he knows it. He even told journalists at
Iftar: “a perception that the ‘president’ himself
was supporting extremists and terrorists was gaining widespread
acceptance in the world.”
So
much so that even Chinese slapped him, during his most recent
visit to Beijing, with in-your-face charges of harboring terrorists:
“He (Gen. Musharraf) said he was shocked when ….Chinese
leaders informed him that Pakistan had provided sanctuary to Chinese
extremists operating against Beijing’s interests.”
Pakistanis
are baffled to hear him spew doom and gloom about their country
that he has militarily occupied since October 12, 1999. They are
further baffled to see him fan the flames of terrorism (of which
he is the sole beneficiary) and then tell the nation that Americans
are coming to punish the terrorism (with such canards he is further
deepening the gulf between Pakistan and the US, which, however,
serves his ends of power well).
Continued
terrorism keeps his path to power paved. The day war on terror
comes to a successful conclusion, he will have outlived his utility
to his patrons. He is more cognizant of this fact than his predecessor,
Gen. Zia-ul-Haq.
As
soon as Gen. Haq, who pushed hard to oust the Soviets from Afghanistan,
saw the last Soviet soldier leave Kabul, his own time was up.
That is why Gen. Musharraf is not in hurry to see the wave of
terror gone any time soon. He is rather basking in the “internal
and external specter of terrorism.”
He
will never keep such specter off the boil. It is no accident that
Pakistan on his watch stands pockmarked with religious terrorism
(Punjab), tribal terrorism (Balochistan and Pakhtunkhaw), and
urban terrorism (Sind). Religious terrorism puts him on the world
map. It terrifies the world, Imagining a nuclear Pakistan falling
into the hands of religious extremists.
The
terrified world spots in him the last line of defense against
faith-fueled terrorism. Daunted, it even overlooks his crimes
against his own people, who have been made slaves to his autocratic
will. Such is exactly the policy of world powers that is breeding
terrorism in oppressed nations like Pakistan.
To
keep Pakistan internally divided, he has set off tribal wars the
fires of which are now grazing Balochistan, Pakhtunkhaw, and Sind.
The fallout of such wars is sanding up the gears of the industrial
machine in the Punjab. When a gas pipeline is blown up in Balochistan,
industrial activity comes to a halt in the industrial Punjab.
This has Punjabis baying for the blood of the Baloch. As a result,
political alliances between the Baloch and Punjabis, forged to
overthrow the military dictatorship of Gen. Musharraf, begin to
crack up.
Gen.
Musharraf thus keeps inter-provincial animosities aflame to neutralize
his opposition. He unabashedly paints Balochistan as the “Wild
West” of Pakistan: “The writ of the government,”
he told journalists, “extended only to 10 per cent of the
area in the province (of Balochistan)” Such violent depictions
of Balochistan allow him to unleash his military power against
those Baloch leaders who resist him robbing their natural resources.
Dera Bugti and Kohlu agency are such sites of resistance, where
Nawab Akbar Bugti and Nawab Khair Bux Marri are making the last
stand against the Robinhood-in-reverse that Gen. Musharraf has
become.
His
Machiavellian approach to politics has brought warfare out of
the backwoods of Balochistan to Pakistan’s prime urban centers.
Karachi that has long been calm is again splattering with blood-dripping
violence. Its streets are turning up trussed up corpses packed
in gunny sacks on a daily basis.
This
urban warfare is the outcome of his partisan distribution of goodies
between the Muttahida Qaumi Movement (MQM) and Sindhi nationalists.
He has co-opted the urban-based MQM against Sindhi nationalists,
who have majority in the provincial assembly. Yet Sindhi nationalists
have been denied their right to form government. Instead, Gen.
Musharraf doled out governorship of the province to MQM. It is
the MQM that is virtually and actually running the province. Gen.
Musharraf is all for MQM, because he is desperate to repair his
relations with its leader, Altaf Hussain. His blatant partisanship
is further pushing Sindhi nationalists on to the fringes of irrelevance.
Urban violence is thus no more than echoing the internal rifts
that Gen. Musharraf has so assiduously sown between urban and
rural Sindhis.
Yet
he gets away with his diabolical scheming. He does so by turning
the state into an instrument of terror against his oppositional
forces. On October 29, he had the President of the Alliance for
Restoration of Democracy (ARD) kidnapped because he vowed in public
to try him for treason under Article 6 of the Constitution. Shortly
after, the ARD’s mail boxes were overflowing with letters
from the members of armed forces who too wanted to see their “Chief-of-Staff”
tried for treason!
At
Iftar, Gen. Musharraf pooh-poohed “the letter” (as
if there was only one letter) as having been written by “some
disgruntled Major.” Deep down he wished he could believe
what he was telling journalists. If the letter was the handiwork
of a lone ranger, it would not have wiped the smirk off his face
(No one has seen him smiling since the letter was made public).
Gen.
Musharraf also took the time to pretend to laugh off another set
of swirling speculations about his Chairman Joint Chiefs of Staff
(CJCS) and the Vice Chief of Army Staff (VCOAS) that they were
conspiring to unseat him. He knows that upper, middle, and lower
ranks of the armed forces are all filled with hatred against his
crimes --- crimes against Pakistan, its people, and the Constitution.
This
common denominator among the members of the armed forces mirrors
their “unity,” not division. Every member of the armed
forces knows full well that Gen. Musharraf seized power through
violent means; he is keeping power through violent means –
by keeping oppositional forces in exile; he uses violent means
to silence his opposition – as having Javed Hashmi kidnapped.
He does all that by flashing the raw force of the armed forces.
He treacherously parades his corps commanders to support his unconstitutional
and criminal actions, such as overstaying his army post, jabbing
29 self-serving amendments in the Constitution, and refusing to
transfer power to a civilian government.
Despite
this treasonous abuse of the armed forces, military personnel,
as their letters show, will not side with the dictator. Gen. Musharraf
is desperate to keep power. I have no doubt in my mind that he
won’t hesitate to take down Pakistan with him, let alone
the armed forces, if he is forced from power.
This
is why he has slammed shut the door to a peaceful transfer of
power. Having blocked all legitimate avenues of a peaceful transfer
of power, he has opened the possibilities of his violent ouster.
Regardless of what tomorrow holds in store for him, Late Nawabzada
Nasrullah Khan’s prophetic forecast is fast jelling into
reality: “Gen. Musharraf will be the first military dictator
of Pakistan to go to trial for treason.”
In the meanwhile, the world would keep guessing: Is he a partner
in the war on terror or a terrorist himself?
