Pakistan: Now or Never?

Dreams from my father: South Asia’s political dynasties

“Whatever the result, this meeting will be a turning point in Pakistan’s history,” Pakistan President Zulfikar Ali Bhutto told his daughter Benazir as he prepared for a summit meeting with Prime Minister Indira Gandhi in 1972 in the Indian hill resort of Simla after his country’s defeat by India in the 1971 war. “I want you to witness it first hand.”

If there is a slightly surreal quality to President Asif Ali Zardari’s controversial state visit to Britain - where he is expected to launch the political career of Oxford graduate Bilawal Bhutto at a rally for British Pakistanis in Birmingham on Saturday - it is perhaps no more surreal than taking your daughter, herself then a student at Harvard, to witness negotiations with India after a crushing military defeat.

Family dynasties are a tradition in South Asia. Indira Gandhi, the victor of the 1971 war which led to the creation of Bangladesh, then East Pakistan, had learned about international relations from her father, India’s first prime minister Jawaharlal Nehru. Now her grandson, Rahul Gandhi, is being groomed as a future prime minister while his mother Sonia Gandhi keeps a tight grip from behind-the-scenes on the Congress Party government led by her appointed prime minister Manmohan Singh.

In both countries, the argument has been that the family name is strong enough to win votes, particularly among the millions of rural poor, strong enough to offer a promise of stability, and strong enough to be worth fighting to preserve across generations even in the face of domestic criticism.

Zardari has run into a great deal of criticism for pressing ahead with his visit to Britain while Pakistan struggled to cope with its worst floods in 80 years. He also faced calls to cancel the trip after British Prime Minister David Cameron said during a visit to India that “we cannot tolerate in any sense the idea that this country (Pakistan) is allowed to look both ways and is able in any way to promote the export of terror”. 

With a war going badly in neighbouring Afghanistan, a spate of allegations against the role played there by its Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI) agency, and a wave of bombings at home which Islamabad/Rawalpindi see as blowback from the Afghan war, Pakistan is having to navigate through very choppy diplomatic waters.  On top of that, it has had the floods, a plane crash, and then riots in Karachi.

Assuming Zardari goes ahead with Saturday’s rally, he will be bringing the 21-year-old Bilawal – who is co-chairman of the Pakistan People’s Party (PPP) but has not yet taken an active part in politics – out into the political arena at a time when his country faces its biggest challenge since its defeat in 1971.  But then again, as Benazir’s own recollections of the Simla summit testify, there is a history to that.  And so far, in the decades since Pakistan and India won independence from Britain in 1947, it has been the family dynasties which have endured.

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.   (more…)

Nudging India and Pakistan towards peace

One of the more recurrent themes in U.S. political punditry these days is the need to nudge India and Pakistan towards peace. The theory is that this would bolster the new civilian government in Islamabad by encouraging trade and economic development, reduce a rivalry that threatens regional stability, including in Afghanistan, and limit the role of the Pakistan Army, whose traditional dominance has been fuelled by a perceived threat from India.

So what are the chances of progress? (assuming the latest bombings just being reported in Delhi do not trigger a new downwards spiral)

President Asif Ali Zardari has got everyone talking by promising that there will soon be “good news” on Kashmir. An expected meeting  between Indian Prime Minister Manmohan Singh and Zardari on the sidelines of the United Nations General Assembly in New York later this month would also give the two leaders the chance to repair relations soured by the bombing of the Indian embassy in Kabul in July.  

It seems unlikely however, that India and Pakistan can make any real concessions on Kashmir, at a time when the people of the Kashmir Valley at the heart of the dispute have renewed their protests against Indian rule. In Pakistan this would be seen as a betrayal of the people of Kashmir, while in India the government would be accused of caving in to the protests.

One alternative would be to try to resolve the dispute over Siachen, an idea revived this week by Zardari , as a way of building trust and creating an atmosphere to make progress on Kashmir.

India and Pakistan have fought for control of the mountains overlooking the Siachen glacier since 1984, although there has been a ceasefire since 2003. Apart from the troops stationed on the world’s highest battlefield, there is nothing there but snow, ice and rocks (believe me, I’ve been there), and many commanders on both sides have long accepted the region has no strategic value.  Siachen, in the Karakoram mountains, is quite geographically distinct from the Kashmir Valley — it would take you three days to drive from the Kashmiri capital Srinagar to the Indian base camp in Siachen, and then only if you were lucky — and it is a far less explosive issue to tackle.  What has been lacking is the trust and political will to agree a mutual withdrawal.

Benazir Bhutto and Rajiv Gandhi came tantalisingly close to reaching a deal on Siachen in 1989 when they were young prime ministers seeking a fresh start for the region. With both now assassinated, it will be interesting to see whether their widowed spouses now in positions of power — Zardari in Pakistan and Sonia Gandhi in India as head of the ruling Congress party — try to complete what they started. 

Guest contribution: Presidential elections in Pakistan

The following is a guest contribution. Reuters is not responsible for the content and the views expressed are the author’s alone.  The writer is Pakistan’s High Commissioner to London and a former advisor to the late Benazir Bhutto.

                                                By Wajid Shamsul Hasan

Ever since the late Benazir Bhutto’s Pakistan People’s Party announced its decision to field the widower of the former Prime Minister, Senator Asif Ali Zardari, as its Presidential candidate, he has become the target of a well-calculated media blitzkrieg especially when he is emerging as a sure winner. Besides an attempt to resurrect the dead horse of alleged corruption, he is also being accused of being unhealthy, of having unsound mind.

Skies had fallen on me when Ms Benazir Bhutto was martyred. It seemed the end of the world. My profound apprehensions were regarding the future of Pakistan – destined to be a failing or a failed state – long before her cold-blooded murder.

I had always looked at her as the only national leader who had the commitment, rare courage, unprecedented popularity, determination and dauntless perseverance that could save the country from a widely predicted dénouement. Her assassination had pushed the country to the edge of a precipice. A sheer nudge – from the deeply grieved angry nation – especially in Sindh where the reaction to her assassination was most pronounced as reflected in the people’s spontaneous outburst that they would not have anything more to do with Pakistan – could have plunged the country into the valley of death and doom but for the timely intervention of Senator Asif Ali Zardari. He grasped the gravity of the situation and stood up to save Pakistan from break-up. His words to angry and violent masses: “Your dear leader Benazir Bhutto had laid down her life to save Pakistan and not to destroy it.” And both he and his resolute 18-year old son Bilawal Bhutto Zardari re-enforced Benazir Bhutto’s life-long philosophy that democracy is the best revenge.

Thus the populist wrath was transformed into an electoral victory to defeat both the dictator and his collaborators. Indeed the worst adversity for him and the nation had made Zardari a man of destiny and he converted the nation’s profound grief into unparalleled strength. In deference to her wishes he set himself on the task of translating her dying commitment to the nation that her death should serve as a catalyst for change. Not a politician in his wife’s mould and having spent more than half of his married life in incarceration, the manner Zardari has handled the post-Bhutto situation has made him past master at the game. SAZ has definitely out-manoeuvred those who wanted to play games with him including the former President. He has achieved the much desired change peacefully and without risking the lives of his people what many other senior politicians had been seeking through confrontation.

During my last visit to Pakistan (June), I found it in the midst of a propaganda vertigo and a campaign that SAZ was allegedly in cahoots with the former President. I had left Pakistan reassured by SAZ when he told me “he” will be out by August. His critics even accused him of giving the former President unnecessary time to regain what they called his hold on power. They failed to understand that the time-delay was well-spent in evolving a fool-proof strategy to outmanoeuvre the President.

Showdown or climbdown in Pakistan?

This is definitely a case of “the more you know, the less you understand”. 

There has been much talk in the media about whether PPP leader Asif Ali Zardari is heading for a showdown with President Pervez Musharraf to force him out of office.

But it is not clear whether Zardari is really looking for a showdown, or instead a climbdown that would allow Musharraf to stay on with reduced powers, while also accommodating former prime minister Nawaz Sharif, whose antipathy to the former army general dates back to the 1999 coup.

For an outsiders’ view, The Australian boiled it down into a story headlined “Leaders duel in battle for Pakistan. 

“Pakistani President Pervez Musharraf, enraged over a tirade against him by Asif Ali Zardari, last night cut off longstanding secret contacts with the dominant Pakistan People’s Party as speculation mounted he would launch a counter-strike to shore up his hold on power,” it wrote.

But there is also an interesting insiders’ view from Ikram Sehgal, a defence analyst close to the Pakistan army, who says that Musharraf might replace army head General Ashfaq Kayani with another man to counter any attack by his political opponents. 

“Offence being the best defence, there are signs that the Empire is now preparing to strike back. The perception of continuing absolute authority in the public mind is quite a virtuoso performance by Musharraf, given that this avid bridge player’s only remaining power base is the ISI controlled by talented cousin Lt Gen Nadim Taj,” he writes. 

Pakistan coalition split, not yet estranged

The split in Pakistan’s ruling coalition could provide a lifeline for President Pervez Musharraf that the Pakistani people believed they’d yanked away in an election three months ago. 

After the Feb.18 poll demolished Musharraf’s parliamentary support, predictions abounded that the politically isolated U.S. ally would be forced from power within weeks or months. Politicians had even talked about impeaching him.   

 But first, they decided, the priority was to reinstate the judges Musharraf dismissed during a brief period of emergency rule late last year in order to stop the Supreme Court ruling unlawful his re-election by the outgoing parliament. 

Critics poured scorn on Musharraf for not taking the honourable way out by resigning, having delivered an election that was fairer and less violent than feared.  

Instead, Musharraf sat tight, and the calculation made by the president’s camp could well be working out. Musharraf’s aides always reckoned an alliance between the Pakistan People’s Party of assassinated former prime minister Benazir Bhutto and the party led by her old rival Nawaz Sharif would be a short-lived affair.   

They felt the PPP, now under the leadership of Bhutto’s widower Asif Ali Zardari, had more to fear from Sharif’s resurgent Pakistan Muslim League (Nawaz), than it did from Musharraf. 

Sharif went some way to fulfilling these predictions by pulling the PML-N’s nine ministers out of Prime Minister Yousaf Raza Gilani’s 24-member cabinet, because the PPP failed to meet a deadline on Monday to restore the judges.  

Pakistan’s coalition government founders

When former prime minister Nawaz Sharif and Asif Ali Zardari, the widower of the late Benazir Bhutto, agreed in March to form a coalition government in Pakistan, the words of the 19th century British prime minister Benjamin Disraeli seemed apt:

“Coalitions, though successful, have always found this, that their triumph has been brief,” I quoted him as saying, in a posting which asked whether the coalition between Sharif’s PML (N) and Zardari’s PPP would survive.

It turns out the triumph has been even briefer than many expected.  Sharif pulled his party out of the government on Monday,  though he said his PML (N) party would continue to support the PPP-led government in parliament,  rather than sit in outright opposition.  At issue were differences over the restoration of judges sacked by President Pervez Musharraf when he declared a state of emergency in November, and over the future of the former army general who ousted Sharif in a 1999 coup. 

(The judiciary issue is fiendishly complex, but to simplify, Sharif wanted a complete restoration of the judges, who then in turn might have posed legal challenges to Musharraf.  Zardari wanted the judges restored, but with their wings clipped.  Zardari is also seen as less hostile to Musharraf than Sharif.)

Interestingly, the collapse of the coalition government came when many were calling on Sharif and Zardari to reach a consensus in order to concentrate on tackling Pakistan’s economic problems, and the challenges of reining in Islamist militants.

“The return to democracy in 2008 may be about to push the country to the brink of disaster simply because our politicians and media are not capable of taking the long view,” the Daily Times said in an editorial on Monday before Sharif announced he was pulling his party out of the government. ”The two parties must accommodate each other’s positions and move on from the present deadlock and deal with the bigger problems whose solution is overdue,” it said.

According to a poll by the blog All Things Pakistan, only 22 percent of respondents believed the row over the judges would kill off the coalition by the end of May.

Anti-Americanism in Pakistan

U.S. ambassador Anne W. Patterson, in a speech reported by the Pakistan press, said last week that the depth of anti-Americanism in Pakistan, especially among the middle-class, had surprised her. Pakistan’s long-term interests were aligned with those of the United States, and those opposing U.S. engagement in the country had a limited understanding of  how the partnership based on economic assistance had changed the lives of Pakistanis, she told a meeting in Karachi. For added measure, she said that the “ïncreasingly prosperous middle class” would be the first to suffer if  hardliners gained ground.

She needn’t have looked further than to events last  week to see why America sits rather uneasily on the Pakistani mind, a heavy hand of friendship that Pakistanis are increasingly chafing against.

The New York Times reported that the Pentagon had cancelled the appointment of Maj. Gen. Jay W. Hood as the senior American officer based in Pakistan following weeks of criticism in the Pakistani news media over one of his previous jobs : commander of the U.S.  prison at Guantanamo Bay.

“During General Hood’s command from 2004 to 2006, military authorities force-fed with tubes detainees who were engaging in hunger strikes at the Guantánamo prison, a step they justified as necessary to prevent the prisoners from committing suicide to protest their indefinite confinement,” the newspaper said. “Also during General Hood’s tenure, reports that an American guard may have desecrated a Koran stirred wide protests in the Islamic world.”

The surprise was more that he was named to Pakistan in the first place, where resentment about Guantanamo runs deep. It was seen as all the more insensitive  given that a new government had taken over in Islamabad promising  a different approach to tackling Islamist militancy. For while the Pentagon might have been trying to send a crisis-tested 33-year army veteran to Islamabad at a pivotal time in the war against the Taliban and al Qaeda, it was his Guantanamo command that stuck in the Pakistan mind.

Madrasas catch the cricket bug

A crack has opened in the cast-iron rules surrounding Pakistan’s madrasas, and cricket, South Asia’s favourite sport, has rushed in.

Students from 24 religious schools in Islamabad, including the hardline Lal Masjid (Red Mosque), have been taking part in the past week in a cricket tournament organised by the city authorities as part of measures to regulate and revamp the schools. The students swapped their shalwar kameez for track pants and T-shirts, and sticks for cricket bats.

By all accounts, the games have been successful as enthusiastic crowds of skull-capped and turbaned students thronged the grounds to watch their schoolmates play with teams drawn from other schools, some of them from different sects who have often clashed in the past.

One blogger wrote that the games were a ray of light during a week clouded by a resurgence in political violence. Women students also took a break from their rigid, dawn-to-dusk schedules to take part in a badminton tournament held alongside the cricket contest.

Change was coming to the madrasas, but it would take a lot of doing before the schools shed their image as breeding grounds of extremism, Pakistani blogs and newspapers said. Indeed, some students from the Red Mosque said they had come to the tournament against the wishes of their teachers who said it was “unIslamic” because it was being covered by television channels.

Others said it was not cricket but a conspiracy against the seminaries.

The Lal Masjid, in the heart of Islamabad, was the scene of a bloody battle last year when troops stormed the mosque to put down a Taliban-style student movement, triggering in turn a wave of suicide bombings and blasts throughout the country culminating in the assassination of former Prime Minister Benazir Bhutto.

Pakistan: Breaking down the stereotypes

An economy growing at an average of 7 percent for six years now with a construction  and consumer boom, a rising middle-class that has just voted out a government, a free  press, a thriving fashion scene. Another emerging market star?

Yes, but this is the Islamic Republic of Pakistan, better known these days for its  suicide bombings, a nuclear arsenal and labelled as  the epicentre of Islamist extremism including perhaps the last  redoubt of Osama bin Laden in the lands straddling the Afghan border. “Jihadistan” as one reader wrote on this blog.  

What is the reality ? Are there two Pakistans?  Is it really Pakistan: Now or Never ? Or is the image of Pakistan clouded by TV pictures of blood and gore in its  streets, feeding insecurities while shutting out  the important political, economic and social transformations that are underway in a nation of 150 million people.

Author William Dalrymple travels through the harsh scrublands of Sindh, home to  Kalashnikov-wielding landlords and honour killings, and then back up the Punjab and he  doesn’t find a country flirting with state failure or anything even approaching the  “most dangerous country in the world” as it has been so commonly branded in recent  months, right down to a group by that name on Facebook.

Instead, as he writes in the New York Review of Books, he found a countryside that “was  no less peaceful and prosperous than that on the other side of the Indian border”, and a far cry from the violent instability of post-occupation Iraq or Afghanistan. Pakistan’s cities are changing beyond recognition with shopping malls, expensive cars,  and a burgeoning fashion scene with gay designers and amazingly beautiful women, he says.

  And  capping all this is a middle class that grew almost out of nowhere in a country once  famously known as the land of 22 big feudal families, one of them the Bhuttos, for the  absolute political and economic power they wielded.  And it is this enriched and empowered urban middle class that has finally moved from their “living rooms onto the steets, from dinner parties to political parties,” Dalrymple writes, leading a lawyers’ movement that swelled into a full-scale pro-democracy campaign  that has arguably seen off a military dictatorship