Global News Journal

from Pakistan: Now or Never?:

A Pakistani Abroad: Zardari’s ill-fated trip to England

President Asif Ali Zardari's trip to Britain was particularly ill-fated. When he first planned a visit which should have culminated in him bringing his son, Bilawal Bhutto Zardari, out into the political arena, no one could have predicted such a bewildering series of crises. A row with Britain over remarks made in India by  British Prime Minister David Cameron that Pakistan must not "look both ways" in its approach to Islamist militants. Pakistan's worst floods in 80 years.  A  plane crash, and then riots in Karachi.

So it was perhaps par for the course that his final event in Britain, a political rally in the city of Birmingham for British Pakistani supporters of the ruling Pakistan People's Party (PPP), should be dogged by controversy.  Zardari faced a firestorm of criticism for going ahead with the visit while his country faced so many problems, and the combination of protesters outside the rally and a shoe-thrower inside appeared to mark the culmination of a disastrously ill-judged overseas tour.

Having been to the Birmingham event, I have to say it was not quite as chaotic and ill-tempered as some media coverage suggested.  The protesters outside were a microcosm of Pakistan's disunited politics, each separate group of demonstators  operating independently and shouting for their own competing agendas - from the restoration of the Caliphate to independence for Kashmir. They were vastly outnumbered by the PPP supporters who packed Birmingham's International Convention Centre - many of them staid, respectable middle-aged Pakistani men and women who had emigrated to Britain decades ago, worked hard and kept close family links back home. 

And Zardari certainly was not "pelted with shoes". The man who said he tried to throw his shoes in protest over Zardari's response to the floods was standing well back in what was a very large conference hall and had little chance of getting anywhere near the president before he was hustled away by security guards.  Zardari did not interrupt his speech, most of the audience continued to listen to him politely, and it is conceivable that those sitting at the front did not even notice at the time what had  happened.  That in any case is how it looked from where I was sitting - it would be easier to judge the event if the video replay had not been edited out - but my impression was that it was not such a big incident to justify the reaction, or counter-reaction in Pakistan. 

That said, the event did not achieve its purpose. Bilawal Bhutto, son of the late Benazir Bhutto, on Thursday cancelled plans to attend the rally and said he would stay in London instead to collect donations for Pakistan's flood victims.  That he had been expected was clear from the big photo of him given equal prominence to Zardari's own photo on a poster at the back of the stage.  The event relied heavily on imagery of the Bhutto dynasty - videos of Benazir and Zulfikar Ali Bhutto were played before the event; Zardari made frequent references to them in his speech, and wore a rosette with his late wife's photo pinned to his chest.  (For an interesting take on dynastic politics, do read this column in the Daily Times by Shahzad Chaudhry, who argues that Zardari is primarily interested in shoring up the family's control of the PPP.)  For all the appeal to the popularity of the two slain former prime ministers, the mood in the conference hall -- at least from where I was sitting -- seemed subdued, polite rather than enthusiastic; although again it would have looked different at the front where groups of youths had been organised as cheerleaders.

With the visit over, a few are beginning to ask questions about whether quite so much energy and attention should have been focused on attacking Zardari's trip to Britain, when so many flood victims were in need of attention at home.

"Our electronic media's reaction - really obsession - with this trip has itself been embarrassing, as indeed has been the reactions of too many of us," writes Adil Najam on the blog All Things Pakistan.  "But even more than an embarrassment, Mr Zardari's trip and our obsessive reactions to it has proved to be an all-too-costly distraction from the far more real disaster at home." (To be fair, the British media got pretty caught up in the visit as well.)

from Pakistan: Now or Never?:

Pakistan: Through the eye of a needle

For the first time in many months, the future of Pakistan is being determined not in the fight against Islamist militants, but within its institutions -- its judiciary, its political parties, its government and its military.  Last week's decision by the Supreme Court to strike down a 2007 amnesty given to politicians and bureaucrats has provided Pakistan with a rare opportunity to remodel itself as a civilian democracy based on the rule of law.  But the way forward is so fraught with difficulties that assessments of its chances of success are at best sober, at worst ominous.

The court decision to strike down the National Reconciliation Ordinance (NRO) affects some 8,000 politicians and bureaucrats on a list of those who had been covered by the amnesty, including the defence and interior ministers.  President Asif Ali Zardari had also been covered by the amnesty, but remains protected by presidential immunity. Such was the upheaval created by the ruling that foreign exchange markets were briefly shaken last week by unfounded rumours of a military coup. The real impact is likely to be more slow-burning.

THE POWER OF THE MILITARY

The disarray in government ranks will weaken its ability to take on the country's powerful military, which continues to call the shots in Pakistan's security and foreign policy.

"Building faith in the judicial system is vital and calls for accountability of all other state institutions as well to strengthen the perception that the decision on the NRO was in good faith and to strengthen the rule of law," said Ayesha Siddiqa in a column in Dawn newspaper. "But if a question is asked about whether the decision signifies the strengthening of the democratic process and civilian institutions, the answer must be in the negative. Since the perception regarding the decision is that it strengthens the armed forces and their ability to manipulate political stakeholders, it is not possible to see a major shift in the balance of power."

Pakistan Army chief General Ashfaq Kayani has vowed to keep the army out of politics. But the military, which has ruled Pakistan for much of its existence, nonetheless exerts a powerful influence behind the scenes.  Even when out of power it has tended to play the role of an over-protective parent which has never allowed fledgling civilian governments to learn from their mistakes and find their own feet, thereby paving the way for a more mature democracy. The result has been a cycle of military coups -- the most recent of which was when former army chief Pervez Musharraf seized power in 1999 -- interspersed with brief periods of civilian rule.

Shortly after taking power, Zardari had not only tried to clip the wings of the military but also pushed for peace talks with India, carving out a radically different position from the army which has long seen India as a threat. He had even gone as far as to suggest Pakistan adopt a policy of no-first-use of nuclear weapons back in November 2008, breaking two taboos at a stroke -- over the country's stance towards India, and over an understanding that any discussion of  Pakistan's nuclear weapons should remain the exclusive preserve of the military.

from Pakistan: Now or Never?:

Pakistan and India: Signposts in the Sinai

Even before Prime Minister Manmohan Singh and President Asif Ali Zardari broke the ice by meeting on the sidelines of a regional summit in Yekaterinburg, Russia last month, the real question over talks between India and Pakistan has not been about the form but the substance.

After the bitterness of last year's attacks on Mumbai by Pakistan-based militants, can India and Pakistan work their way back to a roadmap for an agreement on Kashmir reached two years ago? Although never finalised, the roadmap opened up the intellectual space for an eventual peace deal. This week's meetings between India and Pakistan on the sidelines of a Non-Aligned Movement summit in Sharm el-Sheikh in Egypt could give some clues on whether it has any chance of being  revived.

India broke off the formal peace process, the so-called composite dialogue, with Pakistan after the three-day assault on Mumbai blamed on the Lashkar-e-Taiba, a militant group once nurtured by Pakistan to fight India in Kashmir.  But even before the attack, informal behind-the-scenes talks on Kashmir held under former president Pervez Musharraf had fallen victim to the political turbulence which led to his ouster last year, and any hope of reviving them under the new civilian government led by Zardari was dashed altogether by the Mumbai assault.

Ahead of the NAM summit in Sharm el-Sheikh -- during which the foreign secretaries of both countries will meet on the sidelines, to be followed by talks between Singh and Pakistan Prime Minister Yusuf Raza Gilani - the two countries have been trying to put together the pieces of their shattered relationship.

In an unprecedented move, Pakistan has said it will put on trial five Pakistanis suspected of involvement in the Mumbai attacks, including senior Lashkar-e-Taiba commander Zaki-ur-Rehman Lakhvi, accused of masterminding the assault. Pakistan has traditionally refused to acknowledge in public the role of anti-India militant groups like the Lashkar-e-Taiba (LeT) and putting on trial a commander like Lakhvi is a major departure. India had insisted it would not resume formal peace talks until Pakistan took action against those behind the Mumbai attacks.

The Indian High Commissioner to Pakistan has also held talks with the head of Pakistan's Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI), according to Prime Minister Singh,  a move that would have been unheard of -- at least in public -- in the past when India accused the ISI of driving a separatist revolt in Kashmir that erupted in Kashmir in 1989. Pakistan Army chief General Pervez Ashfaq Kayani also suggested this month that the internal threat facing Pakistan was greater than the external threat,  a comment seen as easing -- albeit perhaps only marginally -- the military's traditional view of India as its primary enemy.

And acccording to Dawn newspaper, Gilani has been seeking political consensus in the country's approach to India ahead of the meetings in Sharm el-Sheikh, including winning support from powerful opposition leader and former prime minister Nawaz Sharif. Singh on his part has said he is willing to meet Pakistan more than half way, while also insisting Pakistan must take action to dismantle militant groups which target India.

from Pakistan: Now or Never?:

When India and Pakistan shake hands

As encounters go between the leaders of India and Pakistan, the meeting in Russia between Prime Minister Manmohan Singh and President Asif Ali Zardari -- their first since last November's Mumbai attacks -- was a somewhat stolid affair.

It had none of the unscripted drama of the handshake famously offered by Pakistan President Pervez Musharraf to Indian Prime Minister Atal Behari Vajpayee when they met at a South Asian summit in Kathmandu in January 2002, while the two countries mobilised for war following an attack on the Indian parliament in December 2001. Musharraf's gesture made little difference in a military stand-off which continued for another six months.

Nor did it carry the warmth of a summit meeting between Vajpayee and then prime minister Nawaz Sharif in Lahore in 1999, which raised high hopes of a breakthrough peace deal between India and Pakistan. Those hopes were dashed months later when the two countries fought a bitter conflict in the mountains above Kargil, on the Line of Control dividing disputed Kashmir.

But for all its absence of drama, or more precisely because of this, did the meeting between Singh and Zardari lay a more solid foundation for what is likely to be a long and difficult process of repairing relations? 

The two leaders stopped well short of resuming a formal peace process broken off by India following the Mumbai attacks, and Singh delivered a stern warning to Zardari that Pakistan must not allow militants to operate from its territory. "I am happy to meet you, but my mandate is to tell you that the territory of Pakistan must not be used for terrorism," he told Zardari at a meeting on the sidelines of a Shanghai Cooperation Organisation summit in Yekaterinburg, in Russia.

But officials nonetheless held out the prospect of another meeting between Zardari and Singh at a summit of the Non-Aligned Movement in Egypt in July and said that senior officials would hold further talks to exchange information on terrorism. Semantics aside, that means the two countries are talking again after a deep crisis in relations following the Mumbai attacks, although India has insisted it will not reopen the so-called composite dialogue peace process until Pakistan takes action against the Lashkar-e-Taiba militant group it blames for the assault.

So where do they go from here?  Analysts see little hope for now of the two countries being able to pick up where they left off in a peace process which some say had nearly led to a breakthrough on Kashmir. 

from Pakistan: Now or Never?:

How much time does Pakistan have?

Ahmed Rashid's article on Pakistan in the New York Review of Books makes for an alarming read.  Excerpts do not do justice to it,  as you have to read the whole thing to understand why he thinks Pakistan really is on the brink, but here are a few:

"American officials are in a concealed state of panic, as I observed during a recent visit to Washington at the time when 17,000 additional troops were being dispatched to Afghanistan. The Obama administration unveiled its new Afghan strategy on March 27, only to discover that Pakistan is the much larger security challenge, while US options there are far more limited."

"The last two years have bought some hope in the growth of the middle class, an articulate and increasingly influential civil society made up partly of urban professionals and publicly involved women. Most Pakistanis are not Islamic extremists and believe in moderate and spiritual forms of Islam, including Sufism. However, Pakistan is now reaching a tipping point. There is a chronic failure of leadership, whether by civilian politicians or the army. President Zardari's decision to invade Swat in early May came only after pressure was applied by the Obama administration and the army and the government had been left with no other palatable options. But with the Taliban opening new fronts, it will soon become impossible for the army to respond to the multiple threats it faces on so many geographically distant battlefields. The Taliban's campaigns to assassinate politicians and administrators have demoralized the government."

"The Obama administration can provide money and weapons but it cannot recreate the state's will to resist the Taliban and pursue more effective policies. Pakistan desperately needs international aid, but its leaders must first define a strategy that demonstrates to its own people and other nations that it is willing to stand up to the Taliban and show the country a way forward."

There has been much alarmist talk this year about Pakistan, notably with U.S. adviser David Kilcullen saying in March that the Pakistani state could collapse within six months, followed by Secretary of State Hillary Clinton saying in April that Pakistan posed a "mortal threat" to the world. Most of that talk has been dismissed as exaggerated, including by Juan Cole in his blog Informed Comment and other analysts. The country has a strong civil society, which only in March took to the streets to demand an independent judiciary and the reinstatement of the Chief Justice. It has a powerful military, and whatever its critics say about its policies, the Pakistan Army is intensely patriotic and is hardly likely to hand over control of the country to Islamist militants who do not even believe in the existence of the nation state. 

Yet looking at the flood of refugees in Pakistan -- above one million and still rising, according to the UNHCR -- you do have to wonder how much time Pakistan has to right itself.  President Asif Ali Zardari says the current offensive in the Swat valley is just the start of an operation that will take the army  deep into the tribal areas bordering Afghanistan.  How many more internal refugees can the country cope with, especially given that it traces its current instability to the three million refugees who flooded in from Afghanistan after the Soviet invasion in 1979?

Part of the problem is that some of the solutions for Pakistan lie in the long term.  To the west, an end to the fighting in Afghanistan would stop instability washing over into Pakistan. But no one expects a political settlement in Afghanistan any time soon. To the east, peace with India would boost the economy by encouraging trade and give the Pakistan Army an opportunity to readjust its mindset away from seeing India as an existential threat. But India remains wary of Pakistan after last November's attack on Mumbai and any moves made by the newly re-elected government of Prime Minister Manmohan Singh to reduce tension are likely to be slow and tentative.

from Pakistan: Now or Never?:

Pakistan’s general and the warring politicians

Pakistan Army chief General Ashfaq Kayani is much talked about these days as the one national figure who could lean on Pakistan's warring politicians to back down from a confrontation threatening the stability of the country. The question is over how he would intervene while maintaining a commitment to keep the army out of politics.

Most analysts have ruled out a coup for now and in an interview with PBS Admiral Mike Mullen, chairman of the U.S. Joint Chiefs of Staff, said he believed Kayani was committed to a civilian government.

But between a military coup and non-intervention lies a huge grey area in terms of how far Kayani will, or can, go to put pressure on political rivals President Asif Ali Zardari and former prime minister Nawaz Sharif to back down.

In an editorial in The News, defence analyst Ikram Sehgal says that while negotiators shuttle back and forth between the two parties to try to find a compromise, "the ultimate answer for this political confrontation will probably emanate from Rawalpindi", the headquarters of the Pakistan Army. "While the Army has no business running the government, will it be responsible and/or patriotic to stand by and see the government and the opposition run the country out of existence?" he asks.

Indeed a meeting between Kayani and Prime Minister Yousaf Raza Gilani on Wednesday raised speculation that the army chief may have already begun to put pressure on the government to find a compromise.

from Pakistan: Now or Never?:

Pakistan: has it reached the edge of the precipice?

Maybe this always happens at times of national upheaval. But there is a surprising disconnect between the immediacy of the crisis facing Pakistan as expressed by Pakistani bloggers and the more slow-moving debate taking place in the outside world over the right strategy to adopt towards both Pakistan and Afghanistan.

Reading Pakistani blogs since confrontation between the country's two main political parties exploded and comparing them to international commentaries is a bit like watching men shout that their house is on fire, and then panning over to the fire station where the folks in charge are debating which type of water hose works best.

With lawyers and supporters of opposition leader Nawaz Sharif vowing to blockade parliament later this week over the refusal of President Asif Ali Zardari to reinstate fired judges, the country is steeling itself for violent street protests, which in turn could provide easy targets for suicide bombers seeking to add to the mayhem.  Sharif has talked about "a prelude to a revolution", prompting the government to threaten him with charges of sedition.

Writing in Pak Tea House, a blogger who had insisted right up until February that Pakistan would turn out all right said this had been based on the assumption political parties would pull back from outright confrontation in the interests of the country. "I was wrong. And so faced with altered facts, I have changed my opinion. Pakistan is unraveling."

The blog Changing up Pakistan makes the inevitable comparison with watching a car accident in slow motion, while a blogger at Deadpan Thoughts complains about March madness. "When policies are decided on the streets, things never come to a good end," he writes.

Metroblogging Lahore carries a series of photos of protests in Lahore. Scroll down for his photo of a live mouse hanging from a protest board - the kind of tiny detail that stays with you perhaps more than the other images. "The little mouse was trembling and paying with its life for someone else's crimes," the photographer writes.

from Pakistan: Now or Never?:

The Pakistan Army and “the history of the stick”

In his book on the Pakistan Army, South Asia expert Stephen Cohen quotes a senior lieutenant-general as warning the late Zulfikar Ali Bhutto against using the military to control political opposition. "If you use a stick too often, the stick will take over," Cohen quotes the general as saying. "This has always been the history of the stick."

There's no sign yet of the Pakistan Army reverting to its usual role of wielding the big stick. But with the police out in force to quell protests in Punjab over a Supreme Court ruling excluding former prime minister Nawaz Sharif and his brother Shahbaz from office, the obvious question to ask is whether we are about to see a repeat of the old cycle in which security forces are called out to restore order and end up taking over altogether. Indeed, the Pakistan Army's first involvement in politics is generally dated to the 1953 imposition of martial law in Lahore -- where protests erupted on Thursday over the court ruling.  Sharif has blamed President Asif Ali Zardari, widower of the late Benazir Bhutto, for the ruling.

Historical parallels can, of course, be misleading.  Pakistan Army chief, General Ashfaq Kayani, has made it clear he wants to keep the military out of politics. He is currently visiting the United States, where the administration of President Barack Obama has repeatedly stressed its commitment to civilian democracy in Pakistan.

And Zardari, who has imposed governor's rule in Punjab to replace an administration run by Shabaz Sharif, may yet find an accommodation with the powerful Sharif brothers over the issues that divide them -- the restoration of judges sacked by former president Pervez Musharraf along with Zardari's retention of presidential powers he inherited when Musharraf quit last year. Or we might be set for a long period of political manoeuvring between Pakistan's bickering politicians which drags on for weeks or months.

Yet you have to wonder how well, and for how long, Kayani's resolve to keep the army out of politics will survive if unrest in Punjab escalates. Punjab is not only the most populous province in Pakistan and heartland of popular support for the Sharif brothers - it is where the Pakistan Army has its roots.  A Taliban insurgency against the Pakistan government has already spread from the country's tribal areas on the borders with Afghanistan into its North West Frontier Province (NWFP). The Taliban have also been blamed for suicide bombings in Punjab and according to this article in the News could reach further into the province by picking up fresh recruits among the country's poor.

from Pakistan: Now or Never?:

Kashmir’s long road ahead

After India last held state elections in Jammu and Kashmir in 2002, the Kashmir Valley witnessed a period of relative peace only to see it shattered when plans to give land to Hindu pilgrims triggered the biggest protests since the Kashmir separatist revolt erupted in 1989.

The latest elections - which produced a turnout of more than 60 percent despite a boycott call by separatists and ushered in a new state government led by Omar Abdullah - have provided a second chance to change the mood in the volatile Kashmir Valley. But do India and Pakistan, and the Kashmiris themselves, have the ability to turn this second chance into a real opportunity for peace?

Despite the outrage over the Mumbai attacks, blamed by India on Pakistan-based militants, there are some promising signs. The elections were remarkable for the fact that armed separatists based in Pakistani-held Kashmir made no attempt to disrupt the campaign, as they did during the previous polls in 2002. If Indian assertions are correct that the Pakistani security establishment controls the level of armed separatist activity in Kashmir, then the absence of violence would not have been possible without the active cooperation of Pakistan - a factor acknowledged by The Hindu in an editorial. 

Pakistan President Asif Ali Zardari has spoken repeatedly of the need to make peace with India, including over Kashmir (as discussed here, here, here and here) and despite widespread scepticism in India that his views are shared by the powerful Pakistan Army, Pakistan does seem to have delivered in keeping the militants at bay during the elections.

Meanwhile trade between the Indian and Pakistan-held parts of the divided former kingdom of Jammu and Kashmir has continued even through the heights of the post-Mumbai tensions. 

from Pakistan: Now or Never?:

One year on, same questions swirl around Bhutto’s murder

The anniversary of Benazir Bhutto's assassination has reminded everyone just how much we still don't know about her killing in a suicide gun and bomb attack in Rawalpindi on Dec. 27, 2007.   The same questions that transfixed the shocked country in the days after her death, such as why was the crime scene hosed down so quickly, was she killed when the blast smashed her head into the lever on her vehicle's escape hatch or by a bullet, why was no autopsy performed, are again being raised.   Investigations by the previous government and the U.S. CIA accused an al Qaeda-linked militant, Baitullah Mehsud, of killing Bhutto, a staunch supporter of the U.S.-led campaign against Islamist militancy.   That would seem logical enough but, as we've seen with the Mumbai attacks, any militant attack on or linked to Pakistan seems to raise questions about possible links to old allies in the powerful intelligence services.  

The News newspaper published a report citing unidentified people privy to the investigations as saying unravelling the mystery could led to "startling revelations ... with serious political implications".   Irfan Husain, writing in Dawn, said Bhutto was unacceptable to both the military establishment and the militants, though for different reasons.   "For the military establishment, she was simply unacceptable because she was a Bhutto and a Sindhi ... the jihadis and their sponsors did not want to face a popular leader who was against everything they stood for," Husain said.   "Benazir Bhutto understood that this was a war to the end, and no negotiated settlement was possible with a foe that wanted to impose its stone-age views on the rest of us."   Not surprisingly, the anniversary of Bhutto's murder has also raised a lot of "what if" and "what next" questions.   Veteran journalist Rahimullah Yusufzai believes Bhutto's Pakistan People's Party (PPP) would not have won the general election without the sympathy vote her murder generated.   Instead, Yusufzai says in a column in the News the election would have brought a balance of power between the PPP and former prime minister Nawaz Sharif's party, which would have been a better arrangement for the country.   Of course, Bhutto's death also catapulted her husband, Asif Ali Zardari, into power and the presidency after former army chief Pervez Musharraf stepped down in August.   Journalist Shaheen Sehbai wrote a provocative piece in the News newspaper entitled "Asif Zardari given enough rope to hang imself" looking at how the PPP has fared and how long Zardari and his government would remain in power.   He says "the Zardari group" has taken over Bhutto's Pakistan People's Party "outmanoeuvring the others through opportunities created by circumstances followed up cleverly by a web of deceit, chicanery and in some specific cases simple lies and cheating".   He doesn't think the Zaradri-led set up will last long.   "How and on what issue the party cracks up is moot, but pressure from the opposition, a wink from the right quarters and one major blunder by Zardari is all it will take."   A former journalist and Zardari loyalist, Aniq Zafar, published a rebuttal in the same newspaper the next day denouncing what he said was an unwarranted attack on Zardari and adding: "The Zardari is nothing but the Benazir Bhutto group."   Bhutto's old friend, Mark Siegel, told the Daily Times he disregarded the "speculations" over Bhutto's death, which he said was obviously an attempt to create instability.   On her legacy, Siegel said: "She was the voice of modern Islam; she was a symbol of what a Muslim woman can accomplish; she was a modern force, she was committed to technologically moving the country to the 21st century; she was committed to human rights, student unions, labour unions, electrification of villages; these were the steps towards modern Pakistan. Her legacy would be a moderate tolerant Pakistan."