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Testing times for the army
Monday, January 04, 2010
Brig (r) A R Siddiqi
Yet again the army finds itself caught between the devil of a mushrooming tribal insurgency and the deep blue sea of palace conspiracies. The president, in his fiery oration on Dec 27 from Garhi Khuda Baksh all but confirmed the existence of some serious tensions between the army (rather, the army chief?) and the Presidency.
In a recent statement Punjab senior minister Raja Riaz of the PPP declared that no military general can blackmail us and no general can uproot the government. What kind of talk is that? What are they driving at? Doesnt it carry a whiff of mischief, even if it is unintended? Are they pushing the civil and military establishments to a collision course?
The president in his heady address spoke of the total institutional collapse in Iraq and Afghanistan, including the unravelling of the military and police forces. Does he see a similar fate overtaking Pakistan?
Almost in tandem with the Cassandra-like reference to blackmailing and uprooting of the government, the counsel for the federation in the notorious NRO case, Mr Kamal Azfar, stunned the apex court as much as the rest of the country by calling army chief Gen Pervez Ashfaq Kayani a gentleman but referring to his high command a bad boy in collaboration with the CIA. Allah Almighty help Pakistan if its main base of military power has been penetrated so deeply by the CIA.
Mr Azfar sought to soften the impact of his shocking disclosure by calling it his personal view, rather than the view of his client the Federation of Pakistan. Shortly afterwards, however, in an interview with a private TV channel, he bravely stood by his statement on a GHQ-CIA tie-up. If such be the state of the civil-military relations and of the military command, itself split between a good commander and his rogue command, little is left for the nation to hope for.
What lends a touch of the bizarre to the evolving civil-military matrix is that the president and the prime minister each seem looking at the situation from his own favourite end of the telescope, to make it appear either too big or too small but hardly ever in its true perspective. The prime minister argues that the PPP and army are in sync. The army is a disciplined force working within the constitutional ambit and toeing the official policies.
The chief of the army staff has been supportive of the democratic government. We are together. He said, and praised the army for its pro-democracy role. Must a professional army be either pro- or anti-democracy? Isnt that tantamount to an indirect acceptance of the armys role for or against what is essentially a political issue?
On his governments role in carrying the army along on the restoration of the judiciary, it must be that the president and he decided to inform Gen Kayani after some argument, for or against, before the two would agree to associate the army chief with their decision-making, more as part of discretion and courtesy than for his expert advice in a matter of little concern to him.
In view of the discomfiture felt in the highest civilian echelons after the armys collective reservations on the Kerry-Lugar Bill, the army chief might not have been quite a persona grata. In fact, there had been some sort of loud talk about a love letter addressed to the army by the president already drafted.
President Asif Ali Zardari also said something about tenure jobs, subtly underlining the element of uncertainty attaching to government jobs (premature retirement, etc.). The army picked up a smell of conspiracy pervading the Presidency concerning certain sudden changes in the top brass to put the GHQ (the bad boy) on the alert.
While the absolute truth about it may never be known, there was a hint of alarm in the Garhi Khuda Baksh address of the president. He did point fingers at conspiracies and enemies, without identifying either.
The overall tone of the address was one of a man under stress, contrary to his usual strain of self-(over)confidence. That he should have used the conspiracy theme at all as some sort of pre-emptive device against some impending future threat, real or imagined, is significant, nonetheless.
And that too on the second death anniversary of his wife to give a cutting edge to his innate sense of insecurity, on an occasion to remember and honour someone dead. In political terms sounded more like a beleaguered party leader than a head of state.
For the army (the military establishment) under the PPP, it had almost invariably been a testing time. Except for Gen Tikka Khans tenure as army chief (1972-1976), civil-military ties had been exposed to the rough-and-tumble of volatile PPP politics.
Under Gen Zia-ul-Haq (1977-1988) these had been the worst, stained with the blood of the party supremo and prime minister Zulfikar Ali Bhutto. Army chief Gen Mirza Aslam Beg (1988-1991) short of being opposed to Prime Minister Benazir Bhutto outright, hardly ever wished her well. Gen Pervez Musharraf kept her out of his way for as long as he could wield the big stick, before luring her into his spiders web.
Gen Kayani keeps himself and his command at a safe distance from political involvement despite the displeasure of the president that he incurred for expressing his views on national sovereignty and honour in the debate on the Kerry-Lugar Bill.
The writer is a former director general of the ISPR
Testing times for the army
Monday, January 04, 2010
Brig (r) A R Siddiqi
Yet again the army finds itself caught between the devil of a mushrooming tribal insurgency and the deep blue sea of palace conspiracies. The president, in his fiery oration on Dec 27 from Garhi Khuda Baksh all but confirmed the existence of some serious tensions between the army (rather, the army chief?) and the Presidency.
In a recent statement Punjab senior minister Raja Riaz of the PPP declared that no military general can blackmail us and no general can uproot the government. What kind of talk is that? What are they driving at? Doesnt it carry a whiff of mischief, even if it is unintended? Are they pushing the civil and military establishments to a collision course?
The president in his heady address spoke of the total institutional collapse in Iraq and Afghanistan, including the unravelling of the military and police forces. Does he see a similar fate overtaking Pakistan?
Almost in tandem with the Cassandra-like reference to blackmailing and uprooting of the government, the counsel for the federation in the notorious NRO case, Mr Kamal Azfar, stunned the apex court as much as the rest of the country by calling army chief Gen Pervez Ashfaq Kayani a gentleman but referring to his high command a bad boy in collaboration with the CIA. Allah Almighty help Pakistan if its main base of military power has been penetrated so deeply by the CIA.
Mr Azfar sought to soften the impact of his shocking disclosure by calling it his personal view, rather than the view of his client the Federation of Pakistan. Shortly afterwards, however, in an interview with a private TV channel, he bravely stood by his statement on a GHQ-CIA tie-up. If such be the state of the civil-military relations and of the military command, itself split between a good commander and his rogue command, little is left for the nation to hope for.
What lends a touch of the bizarre to the evolving civil-military matrix is that the president and the prime minister each seem looking at the situation from his own favourite end of the telescope, to make it appear either too big or too small but hardly ever in its true perspective. The prime minister argues that the PPP and army are in sync. The army is a disciplined force working within the constitutional ambit and toeing the official policies.
The chief of the army staff has been supportive of the democratic government. We are together. He said, and praised the army for its pro-democracy role. Must a professional army be either pro- or anti-democracy? Isnt that tantamount to an indirect acceptance of the armys role for or against what is essentially a political issue?
On his governments role in carrying the army along on the restoration of the judiciary, it must be that the president and he decided to inform Gen Kayani after some argument, for or against, before the two would agree to associate the army chief with their decision-making, more as part of discretion and courtesy than for his expert advice in a matter of little concern to him.
In view of the discomfiture felt in the highest civilian echelons after the armys collective reservations on the Kerry-Lugar Bill, the army chief might not have been quite a persona grata. In fact, there had been some sort of loud talk about a love letter addressed to the army by the president already drafted.
President Asif Ali Zardari also said something about tenure jobs, subtly underlining the element of uncertainty attaching to government jobs (premature retirement, etc.). The army picked up a smell of conspiracy pervading the Presidency concerning certain sudden changes in the top brass to put the GHQ (the bad boy) on the alert.
While the absolute truth about it may never be known, there was a hint of alarm in the Garhi Khuda Baksh address of the president. He did point fingers at conspiracies and enemies, without identifying either.
The overall tone of the address was one of a man under stress, contrary to his usual strain of self-(over)confidence. That he should have used the conspiracy theme at all as some sort of pre-emptive device against some impending future threat, real or imagined, is significant, nonetheless.
And that too on the second death anniversary of his wife to give a cutting edge to his innate sense of insecurity, on an occasion to remember and honour someone dead. In political terms sounded more like a beleaguered party leader than a head of state.
For the army (the military establishment) under the PPP, it had almost invariably been a testing time. Except for Gen Tikka Khans tenure as army chief (1972-1976), civil-military ties had been exposed to the rough-and-tumble of volatile PPP politics.
Under Gen Zia-ul-Haq (1977-1988) these had been the worst, stained with the blood of the party supremo and prime minister Zulfikar Ali Bhutto. Army chief Gen Mirza Aslam Beg (1988-1991) short of being opposed to Prime Minister Benazir Bhutto outright, hardly ever wished her well. Gen Pervez Musharraf kept her out of his way for as long as he could wield the big stick, before luring her into his spiders web.
Gen Kayani keeps himself and his command at a safe distance from political involvement despite the displeasure of the president that he incurred for expressing his views on national sovereignty and honour in the debate on the Kerry-Lugar Bill.
The writer is a former director general of the ISPR
Testing times for the army
