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BY PAULA R. NEWBERG
5 March 2006
IT’S hard to know whether US President George W. Bush’s visit to Pakistan
is a desperate act to shore up an ailing ally, a cheerleading trip to spur
on the American anti-terror campaign, or a simple photo opportunity. When
President George Bush arrived in Islamabad he found a deeply troubled
government and a country suffused with discontent. Pakistan’s governance
problems are significantly affected by its relationship with the US just
now — and it’s President Bush’s job to help craft a long-term solution to
southwest Asia’s security problems and Pakistan’s own stability.
The American-led ‘anti-terror’ campaign lies close to the heart of
Pakistan’s many woes. Despite almost 70,000 Pakistani troops deployed near
the Afghan border, the Pakistan government’s seeming impotence in fighting
militancy — which the US uses to justify its own clandestine border
operations — appears politically ham-handed, tactically incompetent,
diplomatically awkward, remarkably inconsiderate of public opinion and
thus, oddly complicit with Al Qaeda supporters. US bombing campaigns along
the border with Afghanistan leave civilian fatalities and public
disapproval in their wakes. To Pakistani villagers, it looks as if a
foreign army is waging war on their territory.
Gathering and analysing intelligence are not public sports. Pakistan and
the US claim that their most successful collaboration is in sharing
information — and say no more. The current global climate of distrust and
fear, and a long, troubled diplomatic history with the US, call for both
governments to handle their alliance carefully and sensitively. Instead,
both traffic in secrecy, duplicity and dishonesty in dealing with their
own citizens, and in so doing, foment further distrust among their own
citizens. The wages of this shadowy war tax Pakistan’s political system
more than it can bear.
A renewed insurgency in Baluchistan is stoking the fires of national
discontent. Bush’s advisors have no doubt told him the province is a
unruly place whose guerrillas score points against the central government
while they skirmish among themselves — and hence — today’s battles will
fade away with little cost to Islamabad. Such optimism would be
unwarranted. It’s true that tribal politics can be nasty — but it’s also
true that Islamabad has never treated Balochistan as a full partner in its
unwieldy federal system, whether in the distribution of natural gas
revenues or encouraging political participation. What Balochistan has been
good for is its astonishingly permeable border with Iran and Afghanistan —
good for war, smuggling, corruption and rebellion.
Indeed, the porous border areas between Pakistan and Afghanistan have
always helped define security policy for both states. But all roads run in
two directions: Baloch insurgents found refuge in Afghanistan in the
1970s, Pakistan supplied the Afghan mujahideen in the 1980s through
Balochistan, refugees have ranged freely across the mountains and plateaus
in all directions, and today, weapons travel toward Pakistan to fuel
insurgency anew. Although Pakistan and its allies express support for the
idea of closing the Pakistan-Afghan border, success has been limited:
Weapons and militants continue to move, even when revenues from black
market activities shrink. This is why Afghan President Hamid Karzai is
keen to keep the borders closed and step up the hunt for Al Qaeda. But
with army installations now insurgent targets, it’s easy to see how
Islamabad and US might wrap these Baloch nationalists under a broader
terrorist flag.
As the anti-terror campaign holds larger meaning for Pakistan’s domestic
politics, it’s equally about the fundamental role of citizens in making
policy. So Balochistan continues to remind Pakistan’s government, and
should remind the US, that tribal and ethnic identities provide a
political vocabulary when national identity and enfranchisement are
absent. That fragile national identity, framed by almost six decades of
unresolved debate about the country’s political structure, has left
society open to many competing visions of its future.
Little wonder, then, that Islamic parties can so easily provoke
disturbances by bringing crowds to protest policies or events. It is also
easy to turn all the people’s anger — whether about Danish cartoons or a
missile attack on suspected Al Qaeda — against Musharraf’s principal
backer, the US.
Pakistan keeps edging toward the moment when it won’t be able to govern
itself, but recovers almost miraculously from each moment of crisis.
Musharraf’s military government is weak, even as the military enriches
itself on the backs of civil society, takes over civic institutions and
cumulatively unravels the country’s frayed social compact. As a result,
more than 35 per cent of Pakistanis are poor, borders are inadequately
defended and citizens cannot redress grievances against the government,
militant groups, foreign interlopers or allied armies.
Musharraf has had many opportunities to correct these ills — but hasn’t.
He has pilloried opposition politicians when they criticise military rule,
given the army free rein in civic life, and diminished vital civic
institutions, including courts and legislatures. Musharraf has failed to
reconcile the army’s shallow modernism and the recondite sectarianism of
militant political parties. It’s an uneven match: Pakistan’s Islamist
parties are more often loud than correct and generally fare poorly in
elections unless they cooperate with the military.
Bush has stepped onto this disputed landscape. If past experience is a
guide, he will see Pakistan solely through the focused lenses of the
anti-terror campaign, view the military as the only effective national
institution and thus limit his vision of a future, constructive
US-Pakistan relationship. If he does so, he will misread this complex
country, and the US and Pakistan will miss an opportunity to correct
course for their relationship and for the Pakistani state.
Although Pakistan’s present predicaments are neither solely the result of
this complicated alliance nor only the outgrowth of tired and misguided
military rule, it has become the joint responsibility of the President and
the General to turn their alliance to domestic political good. To
Pakistan’s profound detriment, this never happened when Ayub Khan, Yahya
Khan and Zia ul Haq ruled from the 1960s through the 1980s. Following his
illegitimate seizure of power and subsequent misrule, Musharraf’s broken
promises to cede power to civilian rule have indelibly marked his tenure,
too. This time, the first step is a fundamental shift in Pakistan’s
governance.
Little in Pakistan, and in its region, will improve until the military
understands that the time for its rule has passed. Under no circumstances
should the US force, or appear to force, a change of regime. But if Bush
seeks a stable, well-grounded, respected alliance between the US and
Pakistan, he will have to push for an elected, representative government
that can negotiate such an alliance, fulfill its mission, and salvage
security for the entire region.
Paula R. Newberg is dean of Special Programs
at Skidmore College in US. She wrote this commentary for Yale Center for
the Study of Globalisation
Source:
Khaleej Times |