Asia Times Online :: Pakistan's 'sacred cow' military under fire
By Karamatullah K Ghori
Pakistan opposition leader Mian Nawaz Sharif seems to have taken it upon himself to wage a campaign to cut Pakistan's bloated military establishment down to size.
Without naming the Pakistan armed forces - but leaving no one in doubt where his guns were trained - Nawaz went straight at the military's jugular by publicly asking it to "change its mind-set".
The two-term former Pakistan prime minister's demand was made in a key-note address at a June 10 seminar, organized to mourn the death of Syed Saleem Shahzad, the Asia Times Online Pakistan bureau chief whose brutal murder two weeks ago has Pakistan's intelligentsia firmly in its grip. Shahzad went missing
two days after publication of an article stating that al-Qaeda was engaged in negotiations with the Pakistan Navy for the release of personnel incarcerated for alleged links to the terror outfit (see Al-Qaeda had warned of Pakistan strike, May 27).
''There is no sacred cow in the country and none should try to become a sacred cow as [we] won't allow such an attempt [to succeed], " Nawaz said at the meeting in Lahore.
The Pakistan Muslim League (N) leader was categorically intoning what many have been whispering for a long time, but more pointedly since the twin disasters for the Pakistan military last month; the humiliating American raid to kill Osama bin Laden in his Abbottabad hideout and the storming of the Mehran naval base in Karachi.
Nawaz's ire had been raised by a military bulletin issued a day earlier by the Directorate of ISPR (Inter-Services Public Relations), the mouthpiece of the military establishment, at the conclusion of a meeting of the corps commanders at the general headquarters in Rawalpindi, presided over by army chief General Ashfaq Parvez Kiani.
Admonishing the intelligentsia and political parties that have doubted the military's commitment to security - with Pakistan Muslim League (N) leading the pack - the bulletin said: "Some quarters, because of their perceptual biases, were trying to deliberately run down the armed forces, and the army in particular. All of us should take cognizance of this unfortunate trend and put an end to it."
While the generals were reading the riot act in a desperate attempt to silence their critics, a 25-year-old man was being killed like a rabid dog by trigger-happy jawans of the Rangers, a para-military force under the army, in cold blood and the broad daylight of a public park in Karachi.
The extra-judicial murder of Sarfraz Shah - allegedly for trying to rob people in the park - was caught on camera by Awaz (Voice) TV, a private channel, and splashed around the world in minutes. The killing was gruesome as the picture from war-torn Vietnam in 1968 of a Vietcong officer being shot by a general of the South Vietnamese Army, which - like the Pakistan military today - was allied with the Americans.
Much as the military establishment may try to distance itself from the dastardly crime committed against an unarmed man, while also reminding the people of the Rangers being quasi-military, the grisly episode in a park named after slain opposition leader Benazir Bhutto has singed the conscience of a populace that was still mourning the death of Shahzad and licking its wounds after Abbottabad and the PNS Mehran naval base raid.
Nawaz articulated the sentiment of ordinary Pakistanis in his address, saying: "When all hands rise to grab someone by the collar that's time for introspection. Had those at the helm of affairs done introspection there would have been no incidents like Abbottabad and PNS Mehran."
The Rangers are supposed to keep Karachi safe from the terrorists for whom the throbbing megalopolis of Karachi offers a place to dig their heels and stay beyond the reach of the law. But the man killed by the Rangers wasn't a terrorist. And to rub salt into the wounds of the people of Pakistan, this grisly episode, unlike Shahzad's murder, was caught live on camera.
With a canny sense of timing, Nawaz picked the right moment to challenge the army. The iron is hot and Nawaz, perhaps rightly, has surmised that the time is ripe to settle old scores with an establishment that, under Kiani's predecessor General Pervez Musharraf, forced him into exile after a 1999 coup.
Nawaz is not alone in deciding to hold the military's feet to the fire. Earlier in the debate kicked off by Shahzad's murder, the president of the Supreme Court Bar Association of Pakistan, Asma Jehangir (who is well-known internationally for her crusading role in the forefront of human rights in Pakistan) described the military as a qabza - a group taking illegal possession of land) in a television talk-show, and demanded that the generals go back to barracks for good.
The ISPR communique is the military's terse response to calls now coming to a head for it to be held accountable. Many in Pakistan all too aware, but perhaps few outside the country may know that the popularly elected parliament - despite its claim to be sovereign and represent the will of the people - doesn't have the mandate to even discuss the military's budget, much less take stock of it.
That privileged immunity of the armed forces from the microscope of public scrutiny is now being challenged by the likes of Nawaz Sharif. He has unfurled his banner and set the tone of his shibboleth. It's too early to say what kind of popular following his battle-cry will spawn and energize. But the generals of Pakistan have now been challenged by their own people like never before.
Karamatullah K Ghori is a former Pakistani ambassador and may be reached at K_K_ghori@yahoo.com
By Karamatullah K Ghori
Pakistan opposition leader Mian Nawaz Sharif seems to have taken it upon himself to wage a campaign to cut Pakistan's bloated military establishment down to size.
Without naming the Pakistan armed forces - but leaving no one in doubt where his guns were trained - Nawaz went straight at the military's jugular by publicly asking it to "change its mind-set".
The two-term former Pakistan prime minister's demand was made in a key-note address at a June 10 seminar, organized to mourn the death of Syed Saleem Shahzad, the Asia Times Online Pakistan bureau chief whose brutal murder two weeks ago has Pakistan's intelligentsia firmly in its grip. Shahzad went missing
two days after publication of an article stating that al-Qaeda was engaged in negotiations with the Pakistan Navy for the release of personnel incarcerated for alleged links to the terror outfit (see Al-Qaeda had warned of Pakistan strike, May 27).
''There is no sacred cow in the country and none should try to become a sacred cow as [we] won't allow such an attempt [to succeed], " Nawaz said at the meeting in Lahore.
The Pakistan Muslim League (N) leader was categorically intoning what many have been whispering for a long time, but more pointedly since the twin disasters for the Pakistan military last month; the humiliating American raid to kill Osama bin Laden in his Abbottabad hideout and the storming of the Mehran naval base in Karachi.
Nawaz's ire had been raised by a military bulletin issued a day earlier by the Directorate of ISPR (Inter-Services Public Relations), the mouthpiece of the military establishment, at the conclusion of a meeting of the corps commanders at the general headquarters in Rawalpindi, presided over by army chief General Ashfaq Parvez Kiani.
Admonishing the intelligentsia and political parties that have doubted the military's commitment to security - with Pakistan Muslim League (N) leading the pack - the bulletin said: "Some quarters, because of their perceptual biases, were trying to deliberately run down the armed forces, and the army in particular. All of us should take cognizance of this unfortunate trend and put an end to it."
While the generals were reading the riot act in a desperate attempt to silence their critics, a 25-year-old man was being killed like a rabid dog by trigger-happy jawans of the Rangers, a para-military force under the army, in cold blood and the broad daylight of a public park in Karachi.
The extra-judicial murder of Sarfraz Shah - allegedly for trying to rob people in the park - was caught on camera by Awaz (Voice) TV, a private channel, and splashed around the world in minutes. The killing was gruesome as the picture from war-torn Vietnam in 1968 of a Vietcong officer being shot by a general of the South Vietnamese Army, which - like the Pakistan military today - was allied with the Americans.
Much as the military establishment may try to distance itself from the dastardly crime committed against an unarmed man, while also reminding the people of the Rangers being quasi-military, the grisly episode in a park named after slain opposition leader Benazir Bhutto has singed the conscience of a populace that was still mourning the death of Shahzad and licking its wounds after Abbottabad and the PNS Mehran naval base raid.
Nawaz articulated the sentiment of ordinary Pakistanis in his address, saying: "When all hands rise to grab someone by the collar that's time for introspection. Had those at the helm of affairs done introspection there would have been no incidents like Abbottabad and PNS Mehran."
The Rangers are supposed to keep Karachi safe from the terrorists for whom the throbbing megalopolis of Karachi offers a place to dig their heels and stay beyond the reach of the law. But the man killed by the Rangers wasn't a terrorist. And to rub salt into the wounds of the people of Pakistan, this grisly episode, unlike Shahzad's murder, was caught live on camera.
With a canny sense of timing, Nawaz picked the right moment to challenge the army. The iron is hot and Nawaz, perhaps rightly, has surmised that the time is ripe to settle old scores with an establishment that, under Kiani's predecessor General Pervez Musharraf, forced him into exile after a 1999 coup.
Nawaz is not alone in deciding to hold the military's feet to the fire. Earlier in the debate kicked off by Shahzad's murder, the president of the Supreme Court Bar Association of Pakistan, Asma Jehangir (who is well-known internationally for her crusading role in the forefront of human rights in Pakistan) described the military as a qabza - a group taking illegal possession of land) in a television talk-show, and demanded that the generals go back to barracks for good.
The ISPR communique is the military's terse response to calls now coming to a head for it to be held accountable. Many in Pakistan all too aware, but perhaps few outside the country may know that the popularly elected parliament - despite its claim to be sovereign and represent the will of the people - doesn't have the mandate to even discuss the military's budget, much less take stock of it.
That privileged immunity of the armed forces from the microscope of public scrutiny is now being challenged by the likes of Nawaz Sharif. He has unfurled his banner and set the tone of his shibboleth. It's too early to say what kind of popular following his battle-cry will spawn and energize. But the generals of Pakistan have now been challenged by their own people like never before.
Karamatullah K Ghori is a former Pakistani ambassador and may be reached at K_K_ghori@yahoo.com
