Unbecoming rhetoric

[fatman17]

Unbecoming rhetoric



Wednesday, December 02, 2009
Raoof Hasan

Speaking from the dungeon called the Presidency, Mr Zardari addressed a few thousand supporters who had gathered to celebrate the 43rd foundation day of the PPP, using scathing language that would be more appropriately attributable to a worker assigned the responsibility to stir up confrontation. His no-holds-barred attack on the media in general, and one group in particular, spoke volumes of the state of a person who is feeling besieged at the prospect of the Supreme Court adjudicating on the fate of some members of his clique who had assumed the mantle of power through the NRO. The 120-day deadline set by the judiciary for the parliament to convert the ordinance into an act has already expired as the government was forced to backtrack and the Supreme Court will now have to address the consequences of this failure. Not to be overlooked in the ill-fated address was the challenge hurled at the unnamed adversary: "The person who had Pakistani territory vacated and prisoners-of-war repatriated, what did you do to him, what did you do to his daughter?"

The allegations of corruption and misuse of authority have been rampant ever since the present PPP government assumed charge as a result of the elections held after the assassination of Benazir Bhutto. As a matter of fact, the group that has come to represent the current PPP rule is infested with indelible marks of incompetence and subservience to outside forces that is generally perceived to have jeopardised strategic national interests. The succession of blunders in handling critical policy matters including reneging on verbal and written commitments made with political allies, the judicial crisis, the Kerry-Lugar Bill, the NRO, the so-called war on terror, the foot-dragging on the annulment of the 17th Amendment, the non-implementation of the Charter of Democracy (CoD), the mishandling of relations with the United States, Iran and some Middle Eastern countries, the rental power plants, the concerted effort to belittle the armed forces and a general sense of unease through an absence of governance and writ of the state. Now, this frontal assault on the media from the president himself goes far in highlighting the precarious edge the PPP government is teetering.

The tragedy is that while the ruling coalition is showing unmistakable signs of mounting tension, it does not appear to be ready to address the challenges intelligently and pragmatically. On the contrary, it appears unnerved and abrasive as is so gravely demonstrated by the untimely outburst of Sindh PPP leader and provincial home ninister Zulfiqar Mirza, who accused a close allied party of having 3,500 cases against its members written off in a fraudulent manner. What the PPP stalwarts fail to comprehend is that such unnecessary assaults impair the trust between allies which is difficult to repair. They did it with the PML-N in the past and are now doing it with the MQM. Such inadvisable activity would only sensitise the allies about the lack of faith reposed in them and, consequently, they would respond appropriately as and when there is an occasion – an eventuality that the PPP leadership would find utterly undesirable, particularly when it does not have a majority to rule by itself.

One does not need any soothsayers to tell us that there are hardly any options left for the aberration in power. The little legitimacy that it carried into the annals of authority has been grossly eroded through a spate of allegations relating to lack of governance, corruption and adoption of policies that are perceived as detrimental to the national interests. The fact that the PPP government is unwilling to take the remedial course stems from a perception that more damage may have been done than can be possibly repaired. It could also emanate from a deep fear of the inevitable while making the most of it all as long as it lasts. On both counts, it is the country and its people which are being forced to bear the brunt, with life becoming more unbearable with every passing day.

One understands that there is genuine concern across the board for saving the system. One also understands that wrapping it up may not lead to any quick-fix solutions. But it is also obvious that the current style of governance that lacks in substance, form, style and mechanics cannot continue as it is bound to bring further disasters. The least that should have been done after the government's failure to push the NRO through the parliament was to respect the judgement of the house and ask those who stood tarnished with the stains of the infamous legislation to quit. That not having been done, it appears the PPP leadership, or those whom fate has brought to the fore, is bent upon pushing with a concoction that has lost the trust of the people as well as the institutions that are going to matter in the events as they unfold at a rapid pace over the coming days. This is a gung-ho approach symptomatic of a mindset of individuals who are fully aware of their shortcomings as well as their inability to remedy them in an orderly manner. While the rightful place for repairing the damage would have been the parliament, it is left to the judiciary to address it now. That being a tragedy of immense proportions in itself, one cannot but hope that the apex court will move quickly to sort out the mess and rid the country of a plethora of contradictions and conflicts.



The writer is an independent political analyst based in Islamabad. Email: raoofhasan *************

 

[fatman17]

VIEW: President Zardari’s loss of control —Ahmed Rashid

As Obama announces an aggressive counterterror campaign in Afghanistan, the region’s most dangerous nation — Pakistan — gets more grim by the day

Under unrelenting pressure from the army and political opposition parties, President Asif Zardari has ceded authority over Pakistan’s nuclear-weapons command infrastructure to the prime minister. But that may be just the beginning. The move comes as Zardari prepares to hand over further powers to Prime Minister Yousaf Raza Gilani in order to avoid impeachment on possible corruption charges, as well as to satisfy the army — which appears determined to weaken him, if not oust him from power altogether.

There has been an unrelenting campaign by the military and political parties who are allied to the army to weaken Zardari so irreversibly that he is forced from office and a new, more pliant president could be appointed who would do the bidding of the army — viewed by many as the largest and most effective political party in the country. Zardari is seen by the army as too pro-American and unwilling to support the military’s hard line against US policy in Afghanistan, the Afghan government, and India.

The turmoil comes at a critical moment.

The US, Britain and other NATO countries are now strongly demanding that the Pakistan army do more to hunt down Osama bin Laden and confront the Afghan Taliban leadership — all of whom are based in Pakistan, according to US intelligence.

Britain’s Prime Minister Gordon Brown gave a virtual ultimatum to the army and the intelligence services in Islamabad on November 29 to “take out” Osama bin Laden, after castigating Pakistan for doing little on the issue. “Three-quarters of terrorist plots that threaten Britain arise from that area of Pakistan,” Brown said.

The same tough words are expected to be repeated by President Barack Obama in his speech Tuesday when he outlines further US policy in Afghanistan. Two weeks ago, Obama had sent a private letter to President Zardari urging him to do more to root out the extremists on Pakistan’s side of the border. Gordon Brown will be meeting Prime Minister Gilani in London this week. “If we are putting our strategy into place, Pakistan has to show that it can take on al Qaeda,” said Gordon Brown.

The army’s relationship with the US administration is becoming increasingly strained as the military accuses the Americans of failing to put pressure on India to reopen stalled talks between the two countries and also to address Islamabad’s accusations that India is undermining Pakistan through its large presence in Afghanistan.

The tensions may be coming to a head, but they have been building for some time toward the crescendo on Saturday, November 28, the day of Eid, the most important religious festival on the Muslim calendar. That day, an amnesty expired that had protected Zardari — along with more than 8,000 other politicians, bureaucrats and officials — from thousands of charges of corruption, murder, and the like.

That immunity deal, known as the National Reconciliation Ordinance (NRO), was introduced in December 2007 to facilitate a deal between the then president, General Pervez Musharraf, and Benazir Bhutto, so that she could return home from exile and contest the elections freely. After her assassination in December 2007, Bhutto’s Pakistan People’s Party, or PPP, went on to win the elections, and Zardari, her husband, was elected president in August 2008.

The government was unable to renew the NRO, either through parliament or the courts, because of a ruling against it by Pakistan’s Supreme Court. Hundreds of leading PPP politicians could now be prosecuted for corruption. Although Zardari has immunity from prosecution because he is president, he could still be impeached by parliament. He has previously spent a total of 11 years facing corruption and murder charges that were never proven by earlier regimes.

By giving up control of the official body — the National Command Authority — that controls the deployment and use of Pakistan’s estimated 60 to 100 nuclear weapons, Zardari further conceded another key demand of the army. Key cabinet ministers and the heads of the army, navy, and air force are members of the nuclear authority. But the army manages and controls the nuclear weapons and its budget and personnel are a deeply held secret.

Civilians have never controlled Pakistan’s nuclear program — and neither Zardari nor Prime Minister Gilani, who is also from the PPP, have ever been taken into confidence by the army on the subject. Zardari’s move is symbolic, but it does show his continuing weakness and his inability to take on the powerful army.

At the same time, there is a more genuine democratic need for Zardari to hand over his powers to the prime minister and parliament. Ostensibly, Pakistan is a parliamentary democracy, but Musharraf — who was both army chief and president — had accumulated extraordinary powers for the office.

The political parties are insisting that these powers, now written into Pakistan’s constitution as its 17th Amendment, are given back to the prime minister and parliament.

In the weeks ahead, Zardari is likely to comply with this demand and surrender his powers, which will leave him as a figurehead. There is enormous political speculation as to whether that will satisfy the army or only embolden it to press further for Zardari’s resignation.

The president has support from the Obama administration, which has tried to strengthen Pakistan’s civilian government. A bill passed by Congress commits $1.5 billion a year for five years to help rebuild civilian institutions, as well as up to $2 billion a year in military aid and military support funds.

The Bush administration provided more than $12 billion to Pakistan between 2001 and 2007. But over 70 percent of that money went directly to the army. That helped fuel rising anti-Americanism in Pakistan. The dilemma for the US is that even as it tries to prop up the civilian government with aid, the army continues to increase its dominance of the political sphere.

The army is now virtually controlling all aspects of foreign policy toward India and Afghanistan. Balancing the relationship between the army and the civilians has become the most difficult task not only for Pakistani politicians but also for the US and NATO.

Ahmed Rashid is the author of Descent Into Chaos: The United States and the Failure of Nation Building in Pakistan, Afghanistan, and Central Asia, and a correspondent for the Daily Telegraph.