The Last Nail in the Coffin of Democracy
The only explanation for forcing Mr Jamali's exit at this point seems to lie in the military's obsession with its command and control of the minutiae of domestic politics. This is hardly conducive to the nurturing of Pakistan's stunted democratic process. Instead of imparting a freshness to the process, General Musharraf has turned the domestic political scene into a putrid cesspool of discredited politicians who are being recycled in an unending game of musical chairs.
The Jamali episode is the last nail in the coffin of democracy in Pakistan. It is high time that the civil society in Pakistan forcefully challenges the militarys prescription for democracy. It has wilfully raised the scarecrow of Islamic fundamentalism and terrorism to save its own skin.
Running with the MMA hare and hunting with the FBI hound, the military's sole purpose has been to indefinitely prolong the lease of its privileged and unfettered rule by converting Pakistan into a permanent garrison state.
Fauji (MILITARY) Fascism Has No Limits: Next Target is Pakistan Embassy in Washington
WASHINGTON, August 27: Currently Ambassador-at-Large, Khurshid Mahmud Kasuri, the almost ousted ex-Foreign Minister, confirmed last week that as widely speculated the Army will re-conquer Pakistan's Embassy in the United States within a few weeks.
After the approbation of the US government, General (retd) Jahangir Karamat will become the new Head of Mission in Washington. There is no way new PM Shaukat Aziz will oppose this decision.
Surprisingly, however, the people of Pakistan have been supported, to some extent, in keeping a civilian face abroad by a less assertive but in this regard highly effective European Union. One after the other, the governments of the EU have refused to grant agreements to the Fauji (Army) Ambassadors to the member states.
There was not a single Fauji Ambassador in EU two years ago and most probably there is none at the moment. The EU expands, including Turkey, the green pastures for the Faujis will shrink further.
As the EU members refused to grant agreements to Fauji Ambassadors, they had to be redirected to destinations of least Fauji preference like Middle East, Latin America and South East Asia. One of them even condescended to replace me in Beirut.
The US has followed a consistent policy of massive induction of non-Senior Foreign Service Ambassadors and as the request for a Fauji's agreement comes from the Major Non-NATO Ally, there is every likelihood of another victory for the Army on the external front and to make a dent into the EU resistance to the reinforcement of army rule in Pakistan.
The EU is not in a position to seek US support for its ban on the Fauji Ambassadors but if Washington decides to join its transatlantic partners, it would be a generous tribute to the EU symbolism of non-violent support to the democratic forces in Pakistan.
Senior appointments like this and the Fauji Ambassadors foreclose all possibilities of sending objective analyses to a regime, which is least interested in whatever little pro-democracy elements abroad want to transmit.
There is also a bigger disadvantage of Fauji postings: institutionalizing inefficiency in Pakistan's official presence abroad. By the time, the Fauji Ambassadors are inducted - and the Faujis incorporated at lower levels in the Foreign Service will readily testify to it - they have totally exhausted their capacity to learn and hence are absolutely unsuitable for a job that requires constant education and perpetual adaptability, traits that Foreign Service Academy seeks to inculcate into the Third Secretaries right from the inception of their careers.
Most inductees at the top, unfortunately, begin as Third Secretaries as they have no idea of what they are required to do. The ex-Army Chief, will be no exception. He will be a Third Secretary sitting in a wrong office. I had to accompany him on one of his diplomatic forays into Europe and realized how ineffective our top brass tends to be outside the circle of darbaris (courtiers) and sycophants.
Pakistan Army is deeply entrenched in our internal administrative structure. The coup makers of July 1977 reserved a quota of 10 percent for army induction into the CSP over and above all other channels of infiltration into the power centers.
A specimen of this draconian phenomenon can be seen in the most recent list of Fauji inductees submitted by the Government to the National Assembly on August 20, 2004. The government list shows how General Musharraf has monopolized and personalized the entire productive apparatus of the country.
The offices held by the army, according to this list, include: Chairman, Pakistan Steel Mills Karachi; National Reconstruction Bureau; Chairman, National Fertilizer Corporation; Managing-Director Utility Stores Corporation; Secretary, Defense Division; Chairman, National Electric Power Regulatory Authority; Chairman, State Engineering Corporation; Chairman, Alternate Energy Board; Director-General, Civil Defense; Chairman, Gwadar(new seaport) Development Cell; Executive Director, Frequency Allocation Board; Chairman, Karachi Port Trust; DG, Pakistan Post Offices; DG, Health; Additional Secretary, Defense Ministry; MD, Federal Employees Benevolent and Group Insurance Funds; DG, National Institute of Public Administration; Executive Director, Pakistan National Shipping Corporation; General Manager, National Highway Authority; Secretary, Evacuee Trust Property Board; Executive Director, Planning and Projects, PNSC; DG License Enforcement, Pakistan Telecom Authority; DG, Federal Directorate of Education; DG, Pakistan Baitul Maal (Collector of the Booty); DG, Marine Fisheries Department; Joint Secretary, Cabinet Division; Chief Engineer and Ship Surveyor, Ports and Shipping Wing, Karachi; Deputy DG, Intelligence Bureau; DG, National Security Council Secretariat; Joint Director, Vigilance, Pakistan Railways; Executive Director, National Institute of Health.
Regrettably even Baitul Maal or the Employees Benevolent Fund have to be run by army officers, primarily because they handle other peoples money and Faujis are not accountable for it. In a nation reeling under unemployment and growing incidence of poverty, Fauji Fascism knows no limits.
Postings of Fauji Ambassadors, like in Washington, is yet another method of spreading oppressive tentacles of army Raj through Pakistan's body politic and render a nation of 150 million people totally vulnerable to the machinations of Generals and their minions.
For the time being, however, there is no hope of Washington lending a helping hand to the EU in its limited effort to reverse this tide.
Ex-ISI Chief Accuses Musharraf's Team of Major Slips in Kargil
ISLAMABAD, August 30: A former ISI Chief Lt Gen (Retd) Javed Nasir has held General Musharraf's team responsible for major slips in the disastrous Kargil misadventure and has demanded that an inquiry commission of senior retired army officers be formed to determine what mistakes were made.
'Major slips in the application of methodology and the evolution, implementation and execution of the operational instructions were made, Gen. Nasir said in a newspaper article but he regretted that unlike the Indian side, instead of sacking, some of those responsible had even been promoted.
The former ISI Chief stated that it was correct that Gen. Musharraf had given five or six detailed briefings to Nawaz Sharif but he cast doubt on the timings of these briefings. 'In which month Kargil was occupied and when was the first briefing given by Gen Musharraf to Nawaz Sharif has perhaps been deliberately omitted. This is the most cardinal issue of Kargil which has not been cleared by anyone so far,'he wrote.
Following is the complete text of the article published in The Nation of Lahore, Pakistan:
'Statements by leaders and a large numbers of articles which have appeared about Kargil in the Pakistani newspapers during the last few months make it necessary to correct the resultant distorted version conveyed to the Pakistani nation.
Kargil was very much part of the Azad Kashmir and under the control of Pakistani troops up to 1972. Because of permafrost high altitude features mostly exceeding 17,000 and some even 20,000 feet ASL, logistic dumping in the area used to be carried out for scouts from May ' August who used to be moved in in May and withdrawn in December each year because the position was never threatened by the Indians. Because of the humiliating surrender in East Pakistan on 17 Dec 1971, the troops even on the western front and Kashmir were highly demoralized. The Indians have always been deceitful and cunning while dealing with Pakistan.
When Gen. Musharraf was appointed the Chief, his dynamically decision making personality was instantly reflected when within the first hour of his having taken over he issued orders for the postings of six Lieutenant Generals of his choice which included both the CGS and Chaklala Corps Commander. His choice CGS, as a brigadier, had served in FCNA as a Brigade Commander and Chief of Staff in the Chaklala Corps.
He proposed to the Chief a number of times to go ahead with the plan of occupation of Kargil. The Chief had himself while serving as DGMO minutely gone through the 1989 script of the plan which had not been approved by Benazir. From his excellent experience as instructor in the War Wing at the National Defence College he knew how to carry out the most critical analysis.
He correctly evaluated that in the event of Pakistan Army occupying Kargil as a playback on Indians what they did to Pakistan in Siachen in 1984, the Indian Army would neither be in a position to undertake hot pursuit operations nor in a position to fight even a defensive battle should the conflict be enlarged and carried over to the international borders.
After a brilliant analysis, Gen Musharraf as the Chief perhaps gave the green signal. The responsibility beyond this point was that of his team comprising the CGS, Corps Commander, DGMO, Commander FCNA. Whether correct methodology was followed to get the government approval, and the operational instruction evolved, highlighted the most salient point that the occupation of the vacant Kargil feature would not involve even the firing of a single bullet but the measures to be taken for denial thereafter of the vital tactical features would be of utmost importance.
On the contrary, on the Pakistan side from the information and details available so far many major slips appear to have been made not by Gen Musharraf but by his team in the application of methodology and the evolution, implementation and execution of the operational instructions but, unlike the Indian side, instead of sacking, some have already been promoted.
What actually happened and who committed the blunder in his team? Gen Musharraf must constitute an inquiry commission comprising all retired officers to be headed by either Gen Aslam Beg or Gen Shamim Alam including Gen Bukhari (FF), Gen Anwar (AK), Gen Usmani (FF) and the author so that the entire nation comes to know the true facts and Pakistan does not miss a similar historical and golden opportunity in the manner we did at Kargil.'
Full of Revenge, Musharraf Attacks Struggling Islamabad Journalist, Shuts Paper
ISLAMABAD, Sept 2: General Pervez Musharraf hardly forgets and never forgives a journalist who asks him a tough question and embarrasses him publicly. An Islamabad-based journalist who had asked him such a question three years ago has just been reminded of this black side of the General's personality.
In the latest case, journalist Masood Malik is the target of Musharra's unending vengeance. Malik had put Musharraf an honest question when he had returned empty handed from the failed the failed Agra Summit with Vajpayee in 2001.
Why is it General, asked Malik who then worked with the Nation-Nawai Waqt Newspaper Group, owned by the Nizamis, that whenever civilian leaders of India and Pakistan meet they reach an agreement and whenever a military ruler is in power, there is no headway in Indo-Pak talks.
Musharraf was visibly irritated and annoyed by the question and immediately after the press conference the Nizamis were pressurized so much that they first demoted Malik from his position of Chief Reporter and then sacked him from the newspaper.
Masood Malik would not be hired by any other newspaper because all newspaper owners knew that Musharraf did not like the journalist and would retaliate if he was hired. So after two years in wilderness Malik decided to start his own newspaper and completed the paperwork in May 2003 to launch 'Islamabad Times' in Urdu language. But he could not do so for financial or other reasons.
When one year elapsed and Malik's newspaper did not start publication, the local administration recently sent him a letter asking him to start publishing it or the permission would expire. Malik decided to take the plunge and mobilized all his resources to launch the paper on September 6, 2004 the national Defence Day, when Pakistan celebrates or remembers the start of the 1965 war with India, although there was nothing achieved in the war to celebrate.
Musharraf's intelligence agencies informed the General that Malik was now going to become an Editor and his newspaper will start appearing on news stands within a week. Dummy runs of the paper have started in Rawalpindi's T.S. Printing Press, he was told.
Unable to forget his embarrassment and displaying the vindictiveness which is the hallmark of small minds, Musharraf ordered that the newspaper should be stopped, no matter what the excuse.
Intelligence goons raided the Printing Press in Rawalpindi on Tuesday, August 31, and asked the press to stop printing. When the printer demanded an explanation, the intelligence men, who brought some police officials with them as well, took away all the newspaper pages and related material leaving the printer no choice.
Masood Malik went to the police but he was told that they had 'orders from the top'. Malik held a news conference in Islamabad to condemn the action and waits for an explanation by the administration.
The Information Secretary, Anwar Mahmood, told the BBC Urdu Service that he had no knowledge of the raid on the printer and he was also trying to find out who had ordered the press to stop printing the dummy of 'Islamabad Times'.
There have been many such cases when courageous journalists asked direct, though embarrassing questions and paid the price, both career wise and physically.
One such young journalist was Faraz Hashmi of Dawn who had also asked a similar question at a televised Press conference. Just a couple of days later, Hashmi's car was hit by an Army officer near his office and the Major came out and started throwing punches. He was badly hurt.
When Hashmi went to the police to lodge a report, the police refused to do that. Hashmi persisted and went to the High Court which did order the police to register an FIR. But he continued to receive threats and nothing happened on his report until the BBC offered him a job in London and he moved with his family to UK.
Two similar episodes were encountered by Shaheen Sehbai, the Editor of the South Asia Tribune, when he was senior correspondent of Dawn in September 2000 and as Editor of The News in December of the same year.
Sehbai had asked Musharraf in New York what was he doing about the fugitives, ex-Navy Chief Admiral Mansurul Haq and Amer Lodhi, the businessman brother of the then Pakistan Ambassador to US, Maleeha Lodhi. Musharraf was annoyed and directly attacked Sehbai by asking him to check his facts before writing.
Sehbai retaliated by asking him to state whatever facts he was talking about and do it now. Musharraf was embarrassed as he could not give one single example of misreporting.
The second incident took place in December when at a briefing of editors of major newspapers, Sehbai asked Musharraf why should he be trusted by the nation when previous generals had lied about their political ambitions. Again Musharraf was so irritated he never invited Sehbai to any Editors briefings. In 2002 Sehbai had to leave Pakistan amid a huge controversy.
But when he started his web newspaper from Washington in August 2002, Musharraf's vindictiveness emerged with full force and distant relatives of Sehbai were harassed, arrested and persecuted by his regime.
That is why, when Musharraf appears before the journalists and writers these days, in closely monitored and secured briefings, no one dares to put him an embarrassing question or no one follows up if he refuses to answer any question. Many journalists are scared of their lives but most of them fear that they will not receive an invitation again.
Now the axe has fallen on the still-born 'Islamabad Times' of Masood Malik, even though three years have gone by.
In this latest act of vengeance, new Prime Minister Shaukat Aziz will be the man who will face public embarrassment as he would be helpless in providing justice to the aggrieved journalist and his administration will look like a dummy, trying to silence a newspaper which was still in its embryonic dummy stage.
