Aboard the Democracy Train

by Nafisa Hoodbhoy

  As the PPP government dug its heels in, President Asif Zardari was left with the unenviable task of carrying a sword against the Islamic militants as he walked the tightrope between America and the Army.

  The Swat Operation

  By the time Zardari took over as president, the Tehrik-i-Nifaz-i-Shariati-Mohammedi (TNSM) had established a parallel Taliban state in parts of Malakand division, where it ostensibly practiced “Nizam-i-Adl” (Order of Justice; essentially Sharia law). Awami National Party’s Senator Afrasiab Khattak told me that his new government was taken aback to find it had inherited an ill-trained, ill-equipped police force that was no match for an increasingly ferocious Taliban militancy, which, in Swat, was headed by Maulana Fazlullah.

  In Khattak’s words, the situation had deteriorated so rapidly because “Musharraf’s duplicity had suited the Bush administration.”

  Toward the end of 2008, a massive suicide bomb attack at the Marriot Hotel in Islamabad had destroyed the myth that parliamentarians, diplomats or even armed personnel were safe. Islamabad grew even more strongly fortified. A wide cordon was thrown around the parliament buildings and cars were investigated at checkpoints set up at every few yards. The besieged political leadership traveled in groups and only to fortified locations.

  Figure 14 Paramilitary personnel patrol a road in Bajaur tribal agency on February 28, 2009 (Dawn photo).

  In Swat, residents were too terrified to speak up against the Taliban militants after the group had burnt down hundreds of girls’ schools and beheaded the law enforcement personnel they had kidnapped. While TNSM chief Sufi Mohammed was imprisoned for fighting against the US forces that invaded Afghanistan in 2001, his son-in-law Fazlullah had joined hands with TTP chief Baitullah Mehsud to eliminate hundreds of tribesmen and political opponents in FATA .

  Fazlullah’s spokesman, Muslim Khan told me with aplomb that it had become necessary to behead political opponents and that the practice fell well within the dictates of Islam.

  Under these circumstances, the Zardari government was relieved when TNSM chief, SufiMohammed pledged to follow the pacifist road and confine the enforcement of Sharia law to Malakand division in return for a ceasefire and the release of Taliban prisoners. It was ostensibly a throwback to 1994 when Sufi Mohammed and his tribesmen had blocked the Swat Mingora road for one week to demand the enforcement of Sharia. Then, Benazir’s government had buckled into supporting the TSNM chief’s demands for a superficial enforcement of Islamic law.

  In February 2009, the ANP government signed the controversial Swat peace deal with Sufi Mohammed, pledging to release 300 Taliban prisoners in return for Fazlullah’s promise to disengage from the Tehrik-i-Taliban militancy.

  But the TTP promise turned out to be an exercise in duplicity. Fazlullah’s militants, already engaged in shady trade activities in Malakand took advantage of the cease fire to deploy Taliban militants to take over government owned emerald mines in Mingora and spread out in FATA to demand jaziya (tax for non-Muslims).

  As Washington watched with alarm, Pakistan’s civil society was the first to speak out against the Swat peace deal. Talk show hosts in television and radio, print journalists and bloggers expressed alarm as a video surfaced of a girl who was flogged on suspicion of marital infidelity. Fazlullah’s spokesman, Muslim Khan defended the flogging as he told incredulous television anchors, “It is the girl’s good fortune that Qazi courts had not been set up, otherwise she would have been stoned to death.”

  In April 2009, the Taliban advanced to nearby Bunair, where they sealed the civil courts and announced that they would be converted to Islamic courts. Sufi Mohammed issued a fatwa against Pakistan’s courts, embarrassing even for the Jamaat-i-Islami, who admitted that the Taliban had gone too far. As the Taliban forces rampaged through the Margalla hills, the ousted leader of the opposition and JUI (F) chief Maulana Fazlur Rehman told the National Assembly with the confidence of an insider that the Taliban would soon be knocking on Islamabad’s door.

  For the incoming Obama administration, the situation in Pakistan was a rude awakening to Bush’s failed foreign policy. As Secretary of State Hillary Clinton testified before the House Foreign Affairs Committee on Capitol Hill that Pakistan posed a “mortal threat” to the rest of the world, Congress authorized a flurry of diplomatic activities to Pakistan to convince the new army chief, Gen. Ashfaque Pervaiz Kiyani, that the Taliban could take over the government in Pakistan.

  In May 2009, the Pakistan army sent thousands of forces to battle Taliban fighters in Swat. It triggered the largest and swiftest exodus in recent history. As the army imposed curfew and flushed out the Swat militants, the UN set up tented communities in Mardan and Swabi to support over 1.5 million Internally Displaced Persons (IDPs). Still, as the numbers of the displaced grew dramatically, over half the IDPs stayed with their relatives – with the generous hospitality provided by locals in Khyber Pakhtunkwa proving to be the saving grace for the government.

  The Army Takes On the Pakistani Taliban

  The ferocity with which the Taliban had emerged in the Swat and Malakand division jolted the US into realizing that eight years after the 9/11 attacks – and despite the deaths of thousands of people and billions of US dollars spent – the Afghan-Pakistani border region was more unsafe than before.

  Only months after taking office, US President Barak Obama demonstrated the sense of urgency when he began to work with Pakistan’s new army chief, Gen. Kiyani. His administration would use a carrot-and-stick policy to pressure Pakistan’s military into turning away from its traditional anti-India attitude and instead focus on battling against the insurgents.

  In March 2009, Obama declared his strategy was to crush Al Qaeda and Taliban militants in Afghanistan and Pakistan. He went on to announce plans to deploy 30,000 additional US troops in Afghanistan in 2010, before drawing them down to allow Afghan forces to run their own security.

  It was a policy that would put the secular PPP government and its like-minded ANP allies in Khyber Pakhtunkwa in the front lines of blowback from rampaging “Talibanization” in the region.

  As the Obama administration prodded Pakistan’s military to fight the very militants that the US and Pakistan had coddled for decades for jihad, there were scores of major attacks against security forces. The most brazen attack was against the army’s General Head Quarters in Rawalpindi, where the militants killed six soldiers before they were overpowered. Afterwards, a state-sponsored militant group active in Kashmir, Jaish Mohammed (Amjad Farooqi group) claimed credit for the attack.

  With Pakistan’s existence at stake, on June 19, 2009, the army began its six-month “Operation Rah-i-Nijat” (Operation Good Riddance) in South Waziristan. It would force thousands of tribesmen to relocate to the settled areas of Tank and Dera Ismail Khan.

  As the US and Pakistan combed the hills of Waziristan, Baitullah fled like a trapped animal turned loose to escape drone missile attacks. In the last two years, the Pakistan-based militant had become dispensable. The Musharraf administration had, in 2007, repeatedly named him in assassination attempts on Benazir Bhutto. For the US, which had also unsuccessfully tried to use Baitullah to break the Taliban, his refusal to serve their interests and mobilization instead against NATO forces in Afghanistan had led to a PKR 430 million (USD 5 million) bounty being placed on his head.

  Having made enemies on all fronts, Baitullah was finally killed in a drone missile attack on August 2009 on the rooftop of his remote home in South Waziristan. For a while, the TTP refused to acknowledge his death. He was succeeded by Hakeemullah Mehsud, who resorted to subterfuge to survive. Media reports that Hakeemullah had been killed in a US drone attack were not refuted by the militant group, allowing the new TTP leader to lay low and escape to a safer location.

  Despite the TTP’s new leadership, there was no let up in their attacks in 2009. Like bees out of a nest, militants attacked congregations of religious minorities, crowded market places, aid organizations, mosques, refugee camps, funerals a
nd mourning processions. The combined tally in violent incidents during 2009 left a gruesome 12,632 people dead, according to figures compiled by the Islamabad-based Institute for Peace Studies.

  As Pakistan grew into the new epicenter of terrorism, people were furious not only at Taliban militants but also at the US for “bringing the war home.” National surveys found that by 2011, the terrorist related violence had claimed some 40,000 lives and caused billions of dollars’ worth of damage to the economy. Even before the floods hit, the Swiss Agency for Development and Cooperation discovered that almost half the people did not have enough food to eat.

  The Obama administration accompanied its war policy with a PKR 640 billion (USD 7.5 billion) aid package authorized by the Kerry Lugar Berman Act of 2009 to “win the hearts and minds,” of the people of Pakistan. Desperate to show that the partnership with the US could benefit the people of Pakistan, in March 2010 Foreign Minister Shah Mahmood Qureishi arrived in the US with a 54-page shopping list that included requests for power generation, rebuilding of roads and to boost industry and employment.

  But whilst the US promised to devote PKR 10.7 billion (USD 125 million) to refurbish thermal power plants, boost Pakistan’s educational system and build its destroyed infrastructure, US media reports indicated that even by 2011, most of the promised civilian aid had not moved out of Washington. Even before the floods devastated Pakistan, US aid packages seemed to be designed to further the superpower’s goals. It entailed the construction of roads in the FATA belt – where the army conducts its operations – and the reform of government educational schools in southern Punjab that breed a jihadist mindset.

  With the US stuck in an increasingly unwinnable war in Afghanistan, Pakistan’s military emerged as its largest beneficiary. By early 2011, the US had given nearly PKR 1.11 trillion (USD 13 billion) for security related items. Gen. Pervaiz Ashfaq Kiyani was the real guest of honor in the “Strategic Dialogue” between the two nations. It led to the US training Pakistan’s fighter pilots, equipping them with state of the art F-16s, providing it with naval boats, unarmed, unmanned aerial vehicles and promising the transfer of drone technology in exchange for logistical support and enhanced cooperation against the militants in the region.

  In April 2010, the Pakistani army held its biggest war-games in two decades – “Azm-i-Nau” – at Bahawalpur. It was an event watched by parliamentarians and foreign military observers. The arms display was a message from Pakistan’s army that notwithstanding its troop involvement in Afghanistan, it had the capacity to give a fitting response to India and its war games – among them “Hind Shakti” – held a year earlier.

  No Stops on the Democracy Train

  For people who knew Benazir Bhutto and her spouse Asif Zardari in the 1980s, the suggestion that Benazir would be killed and Asif would carry on Bhutto’s populist legacy of “food, shelter and clothing” would have been dismissed as surrealistic. Benazir’s cheerful husband was a businessman with a penchant for kickbacks, which put him in and out of prison and occasionally provoked his wife to undertake damage control by keeping him out of the public domain.

  But in the outpouring of grief that followed Benazir’s assassination, Asif appeared a palliative for a wounded nation. The PPP’s home base of Sindh held on to him as an heir to Bhutto’s legacy, who would represent them in the federation. Expectations ran high that after the ousting of military ruler, Gen. Pervaiz Musharraf, the default President would turn around a nation hurt by terrorism, deteriorated law and order, inflation and unemployment.

  From day one, Asif stamped the PPP with his new style of governance. It reversed Benazir’s style of 1988 – when she allotted tickets to party loyalists who suffered under Gen. Zia ul Haq and made sacrifices for democracy. Some 20 years later, PPP feudals faced off against feudals from other parties. Middle-class people told me that parliamentary and senate tickets were “sold” at exorbitant rates to ensure a mindset that catered to the wealthy and “wannabes.”

  It was an approach that Asif Zardari had taken in 1993 when his wife made her second bid for relection. That year, I attended a luncheon for prospective PPP candidates – amongst them, feudals with twirling long moustaches and parliamentarians, known for strong-arm tactics. Seated next to Asif, I asked him point blank why he had allotted party tickets to known patharidars (sponsors of dacoits) and corrupt businessmen. The question took him by surprise and he scrambled to answer,

  “Look at her, she looks so sweet. But look at the questions she asks.”

  Asif accepted allegations of corruption with as much aplomb as a compliment about his warm personality. After Benazir’s brother, Murtaza, was killed, I visited Asif in Karachi Central Jail, where he was charged for abetting in his brother-in-law’s murder. As we walked from the barracks, where he seemed to do well as a VIP prisoner, the man who is today Pakistan’s president flashed his irrepressible grin and told me with disarming frankness:

  “I may be corrupt but I can never be involved in murder.”

  For both Benazir and Asif, Chief Justice of the Supreme Court Iftikhar Chaudhry embodied the person they feared would open a Pandora’s Box for the future PPP government. While Benazir worked furtively to cover up her NRO deal with Musharraf, her widower reacted in a manner that would expose the deep insecurity of his fledgling government.

  Having replaced Musharraf as Pakistan’s president in August 2008, President Zardari spent months delaying the reinstatement of the chief justice. In early 2009, as the opposition and civil rights activists threatened a long march to pressure for the reinstatement of Iftikhar Chaudhry, President Asif Zardari sent police to round up and harass them. Among those targeted was Islamabad-based human rights activist, Tahira Abdullah, who had stood with Benazir as she rallied outside Chaudhry’s home to declare, “He is our chief justice.”

  The PPP government was pressured to restore the chief justice through a notification issued on March 22, 2009, which has not been ratified by parliament to date. Nine months later, Iftikhar Chaudhry reopened corruption and crime cases against 8,000 people, including President Asif Zardari. The National Accountability Bureau was ordered to investigate secret bank accounts of corrupt politicians including Zardari’s PKR 5 billion (USD 60 million) fortune – which Musharraf’s attorney general, Malik Qayuum had helped to unfreeze from Swiss banks in 2008.

  The PPP government cried foul, alleging that these were “politically motivated” cases, including several that were dismissed by the courts for lack of evidence. President Zardari claimed immunity by virtue of his position. His law minister, Babar Awan offered large sums of money to bar associations in lieu of support for the government. The government appointed their former loyalist in the Sindh Assembly, retired judge Deedar Hussain Shah, to chair the National Accountability Bureau.

  In this cat-and-mouse game between the Supreme Court and the PPP government, the nation has grown polarized. Opposition parties have arrayed themselves against the government. The media has often sided with the Supreme Court. They claim to represent people caught in the grip of terrorism, daily violence, inflation and unemployment. Indeed, the chief justice’s declaration that “even if the heavens fall,” he plans to bring President Asif Zardari and his coterie to answer for the billions of dollars in kickbacks they have stashed abroad, has resonated with the people.

  And yet, like any suspenseful screenplay, Pakistan’s politics are far more nuanced. Zardari owes his rule to his wife, Benazir Bhutto, who lost her life in the pursuit of democracy. In this backdrop, political circles and even independent political commentators argue that the chief justice is “wired” to political circles. They argue that in Pakistan, the establishment reins in politicians by using legal cases against them.

  Zardari’s failure to prosecute members of his inner circle, named by the UN for their involvement in Benazir’s murder, has done little to win confidence. PPP insiders, who have been critical of Asif Zardari’s failure to prosecute Benazir’s killers, have been shunned aside. When as
ked who may have killed Benazir, government leaders have gestured to indicate the “angels of death,” or “hidden hands” – code words for military intelligence.

  Today, a fragile PPP government survives as a mediator between the US and the Pakistan army. Despite the events of 9/11 and Pakistan’s prima facie alliance with the US, the army has retained its policies of “strategic depth” in the region. Under this policy, the army maintains its hostile stance with India over the Kashmir issue, even as it prepares for a hegemonic role in Afghanistan. As the army grows in strength, so does its ability to spawn militant groups that may be used for its regional interests.

  Whilst the US government mulls over an exit strategy from Afghanistan, the Pakistani army too contemplates regional strategy. Although it has permitted the US to operate drone missiles in the tribal areas – targeting Al Qaeda’s foreign fighters – and has provided logistical support so that NATO troops can cross in through the Khyber Pass, it has held off going after the Afghan Taliban in North Waziristan. Its contacts with Taliban leaders – while an open secret – have also contributed to a thorny relationship with the US, causing the CIA to intensify its covert operations in the region.

  As the face of the democratic government, Prime Minister Yusuf Raza Gilani has made some populist gestures to tackle burning problems. But the PPP government remains far too involved with bare survival issues to overhaul the system – by reducing population, improving literacy and education, empowering women and searching for new sources of energy and clean drinking water.

  Political analysts say that the establishment wanted to deliver a government minus a Bhutto, because the specter that Benazir threatened – of unleashing populist forces – did not suit the status quo. Today, the Zardari government is shorn of that type of leadership. Without the public interfacing skills that Benazir possessed, its leadership faces the serious challenges of terrorism and a crippled economy. While it is threatened externally by global powers – who see its inability to deliver – internally it is challenged by those who resent Zardari’s inability to brook criticism.