When an ambassador is ‘Viceroy’

[third eye]

When an ambassador is ‘Viceroy’

Zafar Hilaly

When the Cold War at its peak, states were offering themselves for sale to the highest bidder. Pakistan was one of them. In our case the winning bid was by the United States of America. The Soviet Union somehow did not get a chance to put in a serious bid. Ever since then, the United States has developed a morbid interest in what transpires in Pakistan.

American ambassadors to Pakistan are so intrusive that, if tasked, they could probably discover the state of the digestive track of the president. Although, more often than not, they wouldn’t have to ask: the information would be volunteered to them anyway by the incumbent himself, so often do they meet. Alternatively, they could tap any number of sources, considering our proclivity to blab. Pakistan leaks like a sieve. A secret hardly ever remain one, although, frankly, nothing except the disposition of troops in battle calls for much secrecy.

Some US ambassadors handled their assignments with a modicum of tact. Others preened themselves and strutted about as if they owned the place. One US ambassador relished being called “the Viceroy.” A good word from him could earn one a promotion. This state of affairs has never really ceased. US ambassadors continue to take liberties that no other envoy could dream of, unless it is the Indian ambassador to Bhutan.

They think they have a veto on government decisions and often exercise this right, and get away with it. However, now and then, they became insufferable, and I am witness to an occasion when the worm turned, so to speak, and, threatened to his face with being declared persona non grata, the US ambassador returned to his senses, with fulsome and bumbling apologies. Bullies generally tend to be cowards.

As US ambassadors go, Anne Patterson, who has just departed, was not obtrusive but focused and businesslike. She seemed to make it a point not to tread on toes. Indeed, if there was anything which stood out about her, it was her modesty, which she seemed to have assiduously cultivated. It was interesting, therefore, to read that in an interview with Dr Moid Pirzada on the eve of her departure, Ambassador Patterson claimed that, among her accomplishments during her sojourn in Pakistan, was the restoration of democracy and the return of Benazir Bhutto and Nawaz Sharif to Pakistan.
She said the US goal was not to support the NRO. “Our goal was to return to democratic government and get former PM Benazir Bhutto to return and then get Sharif to return.” Further explaining her stance, she said: “The US did not support, or did not work against, the NRO. I don’t know if it was a mistake at the time. In the context of the negotiations at the time, it was important in removing Musharraf and getting BB back.”

However much Ambassador Patterson may wish to skirt the issue today, the fact is that the NRO was elemental to the deal reached between Musharraf and Benazir Bhutto, brokered by the US, and Patterson knew and supported the concept.

However, what she did say confirms what one had always sadly known, that who governs Pakistan is decided as much as, though many would say more, by the US as by the electorate or the establishment. That we should have received confirmation of this fact from the usually reticent Patterson is ironical. However, just as she has revealed what many suspected, she would be interested to know what many of us believe, which is that, were it not for Patterson’s amazingly insensitive handling of the situation following BB’s return, BB may still have been with us today, and not only in spirit.

I was present when Ambassador Patterson called on BB a few days after the Karsaz bombing of Oct 18, 2007, to congratulate her on her providential escape. Prior to the meeting there had been intense discussions amongst BB’s entourage as to what had happened and who could have been responsible. Each of us had our own theory and looked forward to learning what the US ambassador had to say.
After the usual courtesies, BB, very deliberately, went through the long list of security lapses committed by Musharraf with regard to the protection of her procession. Some were so blatant, BB pointed out, that they could have only been deliberate. BB also recalled that her desire to have foreigners guard her had been turned down by Musharraf. In other words, BB concluded, not only was Musharraf in breach of his agreement to provide her with adequate security on her return but had gone out of his way to ensure that no one else did.
Ambassador Patterson, in response, muttered something about “seeing what could be done,” and then, without batting an eyelid, went on to say that if such were the suspicions that BB harboured of Musharraf “what would happen to your agreement to cooperate?”

It was an insensitive remark, one which suggested that, rather than address BB’s feelings of being been badly letdown – nay, betrayed – by Musharraf, all Patterson was interested in was the fate of the agreement that she had helped to cobble between them. And, furthermore, that she cared little for the 150 dead, the maimed, the injured, and the suffering of their kin. It was typically American. The least setback to American interests seemed to be of greater concern than the destruction of the lives of hundreds. In that one moment all of that was on naked display. And so was BB’s fury, “So you want me to cooperate with a man who tried to kill me?” she thundered.
Even if Patterson did not get it, which she did not – actually she could not, given how consumed Americans are with their own interests – those present knew that, for all practical purposes, the “deal” was over. BB had decided to cut loose. Musharraf and the Americans had failed to live up to their side of the bargain and now she was free to chart her own course. Subsequent conversations with her confirmed this impression.

A different reaction from Patterson – like, for example, a promise to go immediately to Musharraf and tell him in no uncertain terms that the Americans too would hold him responsible for further security lapses – would have elicited a different reaction from BB, if not Musharraf, who obviously, if for no other reason than to save his own hide, may well have boosted security arrangements. And that may have made all the difference.

Clearly, along with the influence that US ambassadors wield in Pakistan comes the responsibility to use it wisely and discerningly, and for them to be sensitive to the moment as much as to their interlocutor’s thinking. On all these counts, Ambassador Patterson failed, to our everlasting regret.

Postscript.
As for the NRO, it was indeed instrumental for BB’s return; however, not in the way that it has been made out. For BB the NRO was initially irrelevant because Musharraf had earlier agreed to drop all charges against her personally and those against her husband. He had done so because the cases were getting nowhere and a conviction was impossible, given the quality of the evidence required. In the circumstances it was no big deal. However, dropping cases against BB would have left the others, like the Farooqis and Rahman Maliks who accompanied her in exile, still very much on the hook, and BB did not want to be seen as abandoning her supporters, although God knows why? She also wanted to be spared the bother of interminable court hearings all over the country. There was never any doubt in her mind that the Pakistani cases were all contrived by her political opponents. She wanted a new beginning and the NRO seemed to promise that.

 

[shaikh waqar]

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