Pakistan adrift without leader

[muse]

From Todays IHT


Pakistan adrift without leader
By Carlotta Gall

Monday, June 23, 2008
ISLAMABAD: Pakistan remains in a leaderless drift four months after elections, Western diplomats and military officials have said, and Pakistani politicians and Afghan officials are increasingly worried that no one is really in charge.

The leadership vacuum is most stark in dealing with militants, Pakistani politicians and foreign diplomats have said, adding that the Pakistani government and military officials were sending mixed signals about policy in the tribal areas that have become home to the Taliban and to Al Qaeda.

That confusion, military officials and diplomats warn, is allowing the militants to consolidate their sanctuaries while spreading their tentacles all along the border area. It has also complicated policy for the administration of George W. Bush, which leaned heavily on one man, President Pervez Musharraf, to streamline its anti-terrorism efforts in Paksitan.

If anyone is in charge, Pakistani politicians and Western diplomats say, it remains the military and the country's premier intelligence agency, the Inter-Services Intelligence, or ISI, which operate with little real oversight.

While the recently elected civilian government has been criticized for dealing with militants, the military is brokering cease-fires and prisoner exchanges with minimum consultation with the government, politicians from the government coalition, diplomats and analysts said. Meanwhile, politicians in both the provincial and central government complain that they are excluded from the negotiations and did not even know of a secret deal struck in February, before the elections, let alone the details of the accord.

"You see a lack of a coordinated strategy between the federal level and provincial level, and that includes the ISI and the military who are clear players," said one Western diplomat with knowledge of the tribal regions, who spoke on condition of anonymity.

"You see it even on principles of negotiation and combined strategy."

Although political parties and the military all seek a break from the violence that has roiled Pakistan, there are fundamental disagreements over the problem of militancy that are not being addressed, Pakistani politicians and Western diplomats say.

Since coming to power in February, the fragile coalition government has been engrossed in internal wrangling over removing President Musharraf.

The coalition government is barely functioning, with half its ministers having left the cabinet in May in a dispute over whether to reinstate 60 high court judges dismissed by Musharraf last year.

For now it is just accepting the military's decisions regarding the militants, said Talat Masood, a retired Pakistani general who is now a political analyst. He characterized the country as suffering from "institutional paralysis and a dysfunctional government, signs of which are showing already."

Separately, a Pakistani court ruled Monday that former Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif was not eligible to run in upcoming parliamentary by-elections because he had been convicted of a crime, the Associated Press reported.

The decision was a major political setback for Sharif, making it impossible for the bitter opponent of U.S.-backed Musharraf to become prime minister unless the ban on his candidacy is overturned. Sharif, a deeply populist politician, leads the junior party in the governing coalition.

Sharif had been barred from running in February elections because of convictions related to his ouster in a 1999 coup. Earlier this month the nation's election commission effectively cleared him to run in by-elections scheduled for Thursday after a tribunal set up to decide the matter failed to reach a consensus.

Along with diplomats, the lack of clear leadership has U.S. military commanders worried. General Dan McNeill, until recently U.S. commander of NATO forces in Afghanistan, described the coalition government as "dysfunctional."

Masood, the political analyst, added, "It is a very dangerous situation because what is happening is the Afghan government is getting desperate."

The frustration is such that President Hamid Karzai of Afghanistan threatened this month to send Afghan troops into Pakistan to pursue Pakistani militant leaders.

That Pakistan's government appears broken is not surprising, analysts say. Civilian institutions in the country were atrophied by eight years of military rule, and its political parties were left rudderless by the absence of their leaders, who lived in exile much of that time.

The assassination of Benazir Bhutto in December left her party in even deeper disarray. "We have not even had time to mourn her," said Farah Ispahani, a Pakistan Peoples Party legislator who was a close friend of Bhutto.

The military remains the country's strongest institution. But it is proving to be an increasingly fickle and prickly partner. United States and NATO officials are still struggling to decipher the intentions of the new chief of army staff, General Ashfaq Kayani.

Last autumn, at the time of Kayani's appointment, U.S. officials spoke approvingly of him. He seemed well aware of the threat that militants posed to Pakistan and of the dangers of peace deals that have allowed the militants to tighten their grip in the tribal areas.

But despite at least $12 billion in aid to Pakistan from Washington for the fight against the militants, Kayani has recently shown a reluctance to use Pakistan's military for counterinsurgency operations, suggesting that the task be left to the much weaker tribal force, the Frontier Corps. He has encouraged the civilian government to take the lead.

Part of the confusion stems from the shift in power from Musharraf's military rule to the new civilian government, a Western military official said. "Kayani is being careful not to get too far out in front and is trying to determine who is in charge," he said. "We all are."

The uneasy balance between civilian and military authority was demonstrated this month when the finance minister, Naveed Qamar, revealed details of the defense budget to parliament for the first time in 40 years. While Qamar called it "historic moment," the document was a mere two pages.

Meanwhile, the military under Kayani has quietly pursued its own policies, politicians from the government coalition, diplomats and analysts say. The military and ISI negotiated a little-known truce with the tribes and militants of North Waziristan just days before the Feb. 18 elections, a senior government official in Peshawar confirmed.

The deal was so secretive that few in the government know its details.

The military also began negotiations with the most powerful of the Taliban commanders, Baitullah Mehsud, in January, just weeks after the government accused him of masterminding Bhutto's assassination.

Western officials are suspicious of the deal. Mehsud is accused of dispatching scores of suicide bombers in Pakistan and Afghanistan, but the agreement initially included no prohibition on cross-border attacks.

Only after strong pressure from the United States and other allies did the military insert a clause this month, according to a senior official close to the negotiations. In the meantime, cross-border attacks increased by 50 percent in May, NATO officials in Afghanistan say.

The provincial government in the North West Frontier Province has also expressed its reservations with the deal. Officials from the Awami National Party, a Pashtun nationalist party that leads the government in the province and which is also part of the national coalition, complained that they have not been included in the military's decisions.

"Our main demand is that we should be included in negotiations," said Wajid Ali Khan, an ANP official. "We don't know with whom they are talking." Even the central government's point man for counterterrorism, the acting interior minister, Rehman Malik, has appeared to have an uneven grasp of developments.

This month he announced in Parliament that the peace deal with militants in the Swat valley, just outside the tribal areas, was scrapped. But he retracted the statement the next day after the provincial government insisted the deal was still on.

Officials of the Awami National Party have complained that his comments undermine their own negotiating position. This week the firebrand militant leader in Swat, Mullah Fazlullah, declared the peace agreement suspended over the slowness of prisoner releases.

The provincial government had agreed to prisoner releases on a case by case basis, and they are part of ongoing negotiations, said Afrasiab Khattak, a senior official of the Awami National Party.He and other ANP officials are confident that they can make the peace deals in their province work. But few believe that the deals brokered by the military in the tribal regions will last more than a few months, including the military officials themselves, senior government officials in Peshawar say.

 

[muse]

Rattled Pakistan looks to Musharraf
By Syed Saleem Shahzad

KARACHI - Whether through astuteness or luck, or a combination of both, Pervez Musharraf survived tumultuous times after seizing power in a military coup in 1999.

But after stepping down as army chief of staff last November and following parliamentary elections in February, Musharraf was on the ropes, his power diminished and people calling for his resignation as president in connection with his actions in pursuing the United States-led "war on terror".

Thousands of lawyers - demanding that more than 40 of them be reinstated after being sacked by Musharraf last year for opposing Musharraf continuing as president - were due in the capital Islamabad on Friday to force the issue of his stepping down.

Then came Tuesday's incident in which US warplanes killed 11 Pakistani paramilitary forces inside Pakistani territory while going after Taliban militants.

There is now every indication that once the lawyers' issue is over, a new era will begin for Musharraf as supreme commander of the armed forces, but without a uniform, by virtue of his designation as president and head of state. It is now thought he is the only person capable of confronting the challenges raised by the US air strikes, and a badly faltering economy.

The "long march" of the lawyers, which began in various parts of the country on Monday, also includes workers of various political parties. They have agreed that once in Islamabad they will not cross into the "red zone", which includes the offices of the Inter-Services Intelligence and other high-profile government offices, the diplomatic enclave and parliament.

The government will provide facilities for the protesters, including drinking water and temporary toilets, so they can register their protest in peace. A lower turnout than expected is likely because of the extremely hot summer and traditional differences between secular and religious elements. The leadership of the lawyer's movement is secular and former Marxist, while the premier Islamic party, the Jamaat-i-Islami, has tried to take over control of the march.

The march, though, is a matter of relative minor importance, having been overshadowed by the US attack.

Asia Times Online contacts are adamant that the military wants Musharraf to be the one to deal with the fallout, which could include negotiating new peace accords with militants in the tribal areas and thrashing out rules of engagement for coalition forces in Afghanistan with regard to action on Pakistani territory.

The top brass have also been stung by criticism of them and of Musharraf by Nawaz Sharif, a former premier and leader of the Pakistan Muslim League (Nawaz), which is a key partner in the coalition government.

The man for the job? Musharraf remains an enigma ever since being appointed - by then premier Sharif - as army chief of staff and chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff in 1998.

At that time there was some doubt over the promotion, given Musharraf's urban and liberal background in a traditionally highly conservative military drawn mostly from rural and tribal areas.

Musharraf somehow bridged the gap. There are tales of his popularity in the messes with the rank-and-file, where he allegedly danced with a wine glass on his head. Yet when Sharif tried to remove him in October 1999, three ultra-conservative generals stood up for him and backed the coup that took him to power.

This began the general's time as a military dictator. After September 11, 2001, he was forced to make a difficult decision, finally opting to side with the US as it prepared to invade Afghanistan, even though this meant turning against the Taliban, which Pakistan had nurtured.

Despite this, al-Qaeda remained undecided over what to do about Musharraf. This correspondent has spoken to one of Musharraf's former personal security officers, Captain Mohammad Farooq, who was in direct contact with al-Qaeda and spent nine months waiting for orders to assassinate Musharraf. They never came, and military intelligence then rumbled Farooq and he was dismissed.

The several attempts that were made on Musharraf's life were carried out by local networks, some prompted by Egyptian Takfiris (those who decide who is a true Muslim). But the al-Qaeda of Osama bin Laden and Ayman al-Zawahiri opposed attacking him as they did not believe he nor the Pakistani military were directly involved in the crackdown on al-Qaeda. All al-Qaeda arrests stemmed from local US intelligence contractors and the Inter-Services Intelligence, which was under duress from the US.

Musharraf managed to keep both the political parties and the militants from raising any serious threat to his administration until 2007, when he was confronted with two tough issues: the Lal Masjid (Red Mosque) operation and the challenge from the judiciary over the legitimacy of Musharraf's presidency and the matter of people going missing in the "war on terror".

Musharraf chose to take the judges head-on by sacking them, and implicitly backing his generals who had been criticized by the judges.

The Lal Masjid saga was more difficult. In 2004, it issued a religious decree prohibiting people from attending the funerals of Pakistan soldiers killed during operations against militants in the South Waziristan tribal area. The mosque in Islamabad increasingly became a sanctuary for militants and a center for pro-Taliban and militant propaganda.

In 2007, the Lal Masjid's followers became involved in activities such as abducting policemen, harassing alleged prostitutes and setting up their own courts on the mosque's premises. Then they abducted a Chinese national, causing a national crisis.

Musharraf reluctantly ordered in the military, but even during the subsequent week-long standoff he tried to call off the forces, offering the militants and clerics inside the option of arrest. They refused and the troops stormed in, killing a number of people.

Apart from the "war on terror" and the strings attached to it, Pakistan's new government in February inherited the country's highest-ever foreign exchange reserves, the best-ever revenue collection, high exports, strong gross domestic product and a bullish stock exchange. These indices have since nose-dived.

But it's the security situation that really counts, and the US air strike has severely unsettled the country. Musharraf, with his excellent rapport with Washington, is the man many see as the only person capable of preventing it from happening again.

Syed Saleem Shahzad is Asia Times Online's Pakistan Bureau Chief. He can be reached at saleem_shahzad2002@yahoo.com

 

[fatman17]

International Herald Tribune - World News, Analysis, and Global Opinions

Pakistan adrift without leader

By Carlotta Gall Published: June 23, 2008

ISLAMABAD: Pakistan remains in a leaderless drift four months after elections, Western diplomats and military officials have said, and Pakistani politicians and Afghan officials are increasingly worried that no one is really in charge.

The leadership vacuum is most stark in dealing with militants, Pakistani politicians and foreign diplomats have said, adding that the Pakistani government and military officials were sending mixed signals about policy in the tribal areas that have become home to the Taliban and to Al Qaeda.

That confusion, military officials and diplomats warn, is allowing the militants to consolidate their sanctuaries while spreading their tentacles all along the border area. It has also complicated policy for the administration of George W. Bush, which leaned heavily on one man, President Pervez Musharraf, to streamline its anti-terrorism efforts in Paksitan.

If anyone is in charge, Pakistani politicians and Western diplomats say, it remains the military and the country's premier intelligence agency, the Inter-Services Intelligence, or ISI, which operate with little real oversight.

While the recently elected civilian government has been criticized for dealing with militants, the military is brokering cease-fires and prisoner exchanges with minimum consultation with the government, politicians from the government coalition, diplomats and analysts said. Meanwhile, politicians in both the provincial and central government complain that they are excluded from the negotiations and did not even know of a secret deal struck in February, before the elections, let alone the details of the accord.

"You see a lack of a coordinated strategy between the federal level and provincial level, and that includes the ISI and the military who are clear players," said one Western diplomat with knowledge of the tribal regions, who spoke on condition of anonymity.

"You see it even on principles of negotiation and combined strategy."

Although political parties and the military all seek a break from the violence that has roiled Pakistan, there are fundamental disagreements over the problem of militancy that are not being addressed, Pakistani politicians and Western diplomats say.

Since coming to power in February, the fragile coalition government has been engrossed in internal wrangling over removing President Musharraf.

The coalition government is barely functioning, with half its ministers having left the cabinet in May in a dispute over whether to reinstate 60 high court judges dismissed by Musharraf last year.

For now it is just accepting the military's decisions regarding the militants, said Talat Masood, a retired Pakistani general who is now a political analyst. He characterized the country as suffering from "institutional paralysis and a dysfunctional government, signs of which are showing already."

Separately, a Pakistani court ruled Monday that former Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif was not eligible to run in upcoming parliamentary by-elections because he had been convicted of a crime, the Associated Press reported.

The decision was a major political setback for Sharif, making it impossible for the bitter opponent of U.S.-backed Musharraf to become prime minister unless the ban on his candidacy is overturned. Sharif, a deeply populist politician, leads the junior party in the governing coalition.

Sharif had been barred from running in February elections because of convictions related to his ouster in a 1999 coup. Earlier this month the nation's election commission effectively cleared him to run in by-elections scheduled for Thursday after a tribunal set up to decide the matter failed to reach a consensus.

Along with diplomats, the lack of clear leadership has U.S. military commanders worried. General Dan McNeill, until recently U.S. commander of NATO forces in Afghanistan, described the coalition government as "dysfunctional."

Masood, the political analyst, added, "It is a very dangerous situation because what is happening is the Afghan government is getting desperate."

The frustration is such that President Hamid Karzai of Afghanistan threatened this month to send Afghan troops into Pakistan to pursue Pakistani militant leaders.

That Pakistan's government appears broken is not surprising, analysts say. Civilian institutions in the country were atrophied by eight years of military rule, and its political parties were left rudderless by the absence of their leaders, who lived in exile much of that time.

The assassination of Benazir Bhutto in December left her party in even deeper disarray. "We have not even had time to mourn her," said Farah Ispahani, a Pakistan Peoples Party legislator who was a close friend of Bhutto.

The military remains the country's strongest institution. But it is proving to be an increasingly fickle and prickly partner. United States and NATO officials are still struggling to decipher the intentions of the new chief of army staff, General Ashfaq Kayani.

Last autumn, at the time of Kayani's appointment, U.S. officials spoke approvingly of him. He seemed well aware of the threat that militants posed to Pakistan and of the dangers of peace deals that have allowed the militants to tighten their grip in the tribal areas.

But despite at least $12 billion in aid to Pakistan from Washington for the fight against the militants, Kayani has recently shown a reluctance to use Pakistan's military for counterinsurgency operations, suggesting that the task be left to the much weaker tribal force, the Frontier Corps. He has encouraged the civilian government to take the lead.

Part of the confusion stems from the shift in power from Musharraf's military rule to the new civilian government, a Western military official said. "Kayani is being careful not to get too far out in front and is trying to determine who is in charge," he said. "We all are."

The uneasy balance between civilian and military authority was demonstrated this month when the finance minister, Naveed Qamar, revealed details of the defense budget to parliament for the first time in 40 years. While Qamar called it "historic moment," the document was a mere two pages.

Meanwhile, the military under Kayani has quietly pursued its own policies, politicians from the government coalition, diplomats and analysts say. The military and ISI negotiated a little-known truce with the tribes and militants of North Waziristan just days before the Feb. 18 elections, a senior government official in Peshawar confirmed.

The deal was so secretive that few in the government know its details.

The military also began negotiations with the most powerful of the Taliban commanders, Baitullah Mehsud, in January, just weeks after the government accused him of masterminding Bhutto's assassination.

Western officials are suspicious of the deal. Mehsud is accused of dispatching scores of suicide bombers in Pakistan and Afghanistan, but the agreement initially included no prohibition on cross-border attacks.

Only after strong pressure from the United States and other allies did the military insert a clause this month, according to a senior official close to the negotiations. In the meantime, cross-border attacks increased by 50 percent in May, NATO officials in Afghanistan say.

The provincial government in the North West Frontier Province has also expressed its reservations with the deal. Officials from the Awami National Party, a Pashtun nationalist party that leads the government in the province and which is also part of the national coalition, complained that they have not been included in the military's decisions.

"Our main demand is that we should be included in negotiations," said Wajid Ali Khan, an ANP official. "We don't know with whom they are talking." Even the central government's point man for counterterrorism, the acting interior minister, Rehman Malik, has appeared to have an uneven grasp of developments.

This month he announced in Parliament that the peace deal with militants in the Swat valley, just outside the tribal areas, was scrapped. But he retracted the statement the next day after the provincial government insisted the deal was still on.

Officials of the Awami National Party have complained that his comments undermine their own negotiating position. This week the firebrand militant leader in Swat, Mullah Fazlullah, declared the peace agreement suspended over the slowness of prisoner releases.

The provincial government had agreed to prisoner releases on a case by case basis, and they are part of ongoing negotiations, said Afrasiab Khattak, a senior official of the Awami National Party.He and other ANP officials are confident that they can make the peace deals in their province work. But few believe that the deals brokered by the military in the tribal regions will last more than a few months, including the military officials themselves, senior government officials in Peshawar say.

 

[cactuslily58]

Just for the record, can we have views on who amongst the men & lady who have led Pakistan since Aug '47 do the Pakistanis consider a "Leader" whom they would have gladly followed & who were merely "rulers".

 

[niaz]

Quaide Azam Mohammad Ali Jinnah, Liaqat ALi Khan, Hussein Shaheed Suharwardy, FM Ayub Khan, ZA Bhutto and Pervez Musharraf during his first 3 years.

 

[AgNoStiC MuSliM]

I second Niaz sahib's list.

I still maintain the system needs to be allowed to mature and evolve.

One has to remember that were it not for the WoT and the trouble in FATA, we would not be talking so much about "dysfunctional governments".

This coalition government is no different from many other coalition governments around the world. Being wracked with indecision and being pulled in different directions by multiple coalition partners is perfectly normal.

 

[AgNoStiC MuSliM]

Threads merged

 

[kidwaibhai]

I second Niaz sahib's list.

I still maintain the system needs to be allowed to mature and evolve.

One has to remember that were it not for the WoT and the trouble in FATA, we would not be talking so much about "dysfunctional governments".

This coalition government is no different from many other coalition governments around the world. Being wracked with indecision and being pulled in different directions by multiple coalition partners is perfectly normal.

i agree what am said look at all the European coalition governments. look how Spain, Italy and Australia ( not European) but still. this happens it will take time for us to come with grips with the situation plus the people of pakistan are also not sure about what to do. i saw a poll from terror free tomorrow which should that half of pakistani support the peace deals and half of them are against it. the nation as whole will need to come together for this to work and i think unfortunately this will only happen when the terrorist commit another horrific attack

 

[fatman17]

I second Niaz sahib's list.

I still maintain the system needs to be allowed to mature and evolve.

One has to remember that were it not for the WoT and the trouble in FATA, we would not be talking so much about "dysfunctional governments".

This coalition government is no different from many other coalition governments around the world. Being wracked with indecision and being pulled in different directions by multiple coalition partners is perfectly normal.

there has to be a limit to this however. how long will the people remain patient as these politicians take us from one crisis to another while the brunt of their actions is felt by the people with the rising cost of living, electricity blackouts, taliban sitting on the outskirts of peshawar, and the US has now officially placed us in the top ten dysfunctional states of the world.

 

[araz]

Ithink there should be no limits placed on this last venture. The nation needs to decide once and for all, what sort of people it wants to rule them. For better or worse, this experiment needs to reach its culmination without any interference. In many ways it has been these interruptions that has caused more damage than all the politicians combined. If after 60 yrs of independance we do not know whether we want to have democracy or be ruled by the army, then we deserve to drown and disintegrate as a nation.
WaSalam
Araz

 

[fatman17]

Ithink there should be no limits placed on this last venture. The nation needs to decide once and for all, what sort of people it wants to rule them. For better or worse, this experiment needs to reach its culmination without any interference. In many ways it has been these interruptions that has caused more damage than all the politicians combined. If after 60 yrs of independance we do not know whether we want to have democracy or be ruled by the army, then we deserve to drown and disintegrate as a nation.
WaSalam
Araz

if u are presuming that i am asking the military to take over, then it is in-correct. i am totally against military involvement in the running of the country's affairs.

King of Jordan said in a CNN interview that the meaning of Democracy can be different for different countries and i tend to agree with him.

 

[cactuslily58]

if u are presuming that i am asking the military to take over, then it is in-correct. i am totally against military involvement in the running of the country's affairs.

King of Jordan said in a CNN interview that the meaning of Democracy can be different for different countries and i tend to agree with him.

Kings & Dictators will always prefer to have a variant of "Democracy" that perpetuates themselves.

Presidents & Prime Ministers will have a different view.

 

[fatman17]

Kings & Dictators will always prefer to have a variant of "Democracy" that perpetuates themselves.

Presidents & Prime Ministers will have a different view.

is your indian democracy exactly the same as american democracy?

 

[cactuslily58]

is your indian democracy exactly the same as american democracy?

If you bother to look at the constitution of both the countries you will get an ans to your Q.

The underlying theme is the same.Power is with the people & NOT with a tinpot who can abrogate / twist/ bend/ the constitution any time he feels thru the barrel of the gun.

Continuity is another issue which kings may provide but dictators cannot. This list is endless...

 

[fatman17]

If you bother to look at the constitution of both the countries you will get an ans to your Q.

The underlying theme is the same.Power is with the people & NOT with a tinpot who can abrogate / twist/ bend/ the constitution any time he feels thru the barrel of the gun.

Continuity is another issue which kings may provide but dictators cannot. This list is endless...

if u say so! however if you r implying that Musharraf is a tinpot, i disagree with you. he is admired around the world as a world Leader (even in India if i may say so). he has made one mistake (dismissing the CJ) which has un-ravelled all the good work he and his administration did in the last 8 years.