PAKISTAN’S PRESIDENT MUSHARRAF UNMASKED
by Dr. Subhash Kapila
Pakistan in Crisis: History has a strange manner of not only
repeating itself, but also staring back cynically at nations, who are
oblivious to it. President General Musharraf in his televised address to
the Pakistani nation on September 17, 2000 stated that Pakistan now faced
its most critical situation in history after the 1971 war with India.
He
was alluding to the dismemberment of Pakistan following its military
debacle in 1971. History again sees Pakistan on the verge of a possible
civil war, this time to be brought about by its promotive and permissive
policies towards Islamic Jehadi politics and using state sponsored Islamic
Jehadi terrorism as a tool of Pakistan’s state policies.
Pakistan today is definitely in a crisis, but a crisis not forced by
external circumstances. Pakistan is in a crisis that is of its own making.
For a decade following the exit of USA from the Afghanistan War scene,
Pakistan under Benazir Bhutto’s premiership created the Taliban and
crafted the Afghan Jehad into an Islamic Jehad and as an instrument of
Pakistan’s political and foreign policies. Pakistan’s civilian and
military leaders, thereafter, followed these policies with vigour. Pakistan’s state-sponsored terrorism in India’s Jammu & Kashmir
State and the limited Kargil war in 1999 were a manifestation of these
policies. General Musharraf was the chief architect of the Kargil
War.
Pakistan as The Centre of International Islamic Terrorism: Global
Islamic Jehadi terrorism took birth, thrived and was nurtured, primarily
from the Mujahideen camps run by Pakistan on Pakistani and Afghan soil.
Yossef Bodansky, a noted American authority on Islamic terrorism and
Osama bin laden has significantly noted on Pakistan’s complicity in
international terror that:
"By the late 1980s the World of international terrorism was
changing. The camps of the Afghan resistance in Pakistan actually became
the center of Islamist terrorism."
"In the quest for Islamist violence, the camps of Afghan
resistance in Pakistan became to Sunni Islamist terrorism what Lebanon
had been to radical leftist terrorism. Pakistan became a place of
pilgrimage for aspiring Islamist radicals".
"As the center of Islamist terrorism shifted to "holy
terror" the significance of the Pakistani Afghan infrastructure
increased."
"By late fall 1998, Pakistan was mired in a vicious cycle that
caused Islamabad to be increasingly dependent on the support and
legitimisation by the radical Islamist power base."
"The mere existence of ostensibly independent terrorist leaders
such as Osama bin Laden greatly simplifies Islamabad’s predicament
because bin Laden provides deniable venues for both Pakistani
sponsorship and placement of the local Taliban."
Pakistan’s civil and military leaders from Benazir Bhutto to General
Musharraf are all guilty of promoting Islamic Jehad and terrorism, USA
should know this better.
Regrettably, Islamic Jehadi terrorism came to roost in the most
diabolical manner in New York and Washington with horrendous losses of
lives on September 11, 2001. The United States was finally jerked from its
obliviousness to Islamic Jehadi terrorism in other countries into
responses reminiscent of Pearl Harbour days in 1941. It was the United
States strategic responses to ‘Ground Zero’ which has created the
present crisis in Pakistan, to which General Musharraf referred.
General Musharraf Unmasked: It has been said that: "character
isn’t made in the crisis, but that’s when you see it."
That
is what happened on September 19, 2001 night when General Musharraf
addressed the Pakistani nation on television, broadcast worldwide by CNN.
His character and leadership mettle showed up as that of a man who was
nervous, tense and agitated under the stress of the crisis. He appeared to
be a man on the verge of cracking up under American pressure to aid US war
aims in Afghanistan. Gone was the swagger and flamboyance of the Agra
Summit. The inherent contradictions of his own position and that of
Pakistan were telling heavily on him.
General Musharraf, in his speech, in relation to the United States was
shifty. He was not forthcoming boldly on why Pakistan had to support USA
as an "enduring ally of long standing". This was in marked
contrast to another Islamic allies of the United States who boldly
declared support for USA. What General Musharraf projected and implied in
his presidential address was that Pakistan was under tremendous pressure
from the United States to act as he did. Implied was, that left to his own
volitions, he would not proceed against the Taliban or Osama bin Laden.
During this speech, General Musharraf leaned heavily on Islamic
rhetoric and even invoked lessons from the early stages of Islamic
religious history (an eye-opener) as to how "no-war pacts" with
an enemy could be entered into as a temporising measure by an Islamic
state for the sake of political or strategic expediency and could then be
reneged later on, to surprise and defeat the enemy. This reference could
be implied against the United States, in that Pakistan could back out of
its present commitments to USA.
General Musharraf, for want of more cogent reasons sought to justify
Pakistan’s aiding United States by indulging in a rabid anti-India
tirade, namely: (1) India was against Islam and Pakistan (2) India was
exploiting the present situation to threaten Pakistan’s national
security and strategic assets (nuclear weapons and missiles). Strangely,
the issue for Pakistan at this critical stage was not India or Indo-Pak
relations but the issue of tackling global terrorism. Islamic Jehad was
the issue.
General Musharraf’s rabid anti-Indian attitude and his allegorical
references that going back on no-war pact was sanctioned by religion, were
so unmasked.
Lessons for India: General Musharraf, through his address and his
rabid anti-Indian rendition has rendered a noble service to India. Musharraf apologists in India, from political leaders to the Indian media
elite and peace-niks could not have been convinced otherwise. Those
clamouring for the continuance of Indo-Pak dialogues,with the unmasking
of General Musharraf should now realise the futility of this all.
The invitation to General Musharraf for a dialogue at Agra was analysed
as a policy blunder , quite in advance of the event by this author (see www.saag.org/papers3/paper247.html). General Musharraf’s religious references, going back on
agreements would substantiate the argument, that he cannot be trusted.
It
is amazing that the Indian media failed to highlight this aspect while
reporting soon after.
Rebutting, Musharraf’s charges of India being anti-Islam, Indian
Official spokesman focussed on India being the second largest Muslim
country in the world. It is an insult to India’s secularism.
India is a
secular country with over 80 % Hindus and 12 %Muslims, who by virtue of
their numbers rank second in the world.
It is time India really adopted a "lay-off" attitude to
Pakistan and Indo-Pak dialogue. The Indian media needs to note. India is
not a Muslim country first or second.
Lessons for the United States: President Bush’s generous
commendation of General Musharraf’s address as a "bold
declaration" is rather intriguing. No bold statements of
Pakistani support to USA were made or implied. On the contrary, what
was implied was that Pakistan
under tremendous pressure impacting on Pakistan’s future , was being
coerced into complying with US demands. The Taliban received protective
references and USA’s current attitudes were termed as arising from
"anger and vengeance." Musharraf stood once again unmasked on
his attitudes towards USA, implying that US responses did not emerge from
sane deliberation.
Conclusion: General Musharraf, unlike other military rulers of
Pakistan has not only used Islam as an effective political tool, but is
also a die-hard Islamic fundamentalist. That makes him more dangerous.
If
he as a Mohajjir could rise up to the top in the Punjabi conservative
Islamist Pakistan army, it has been by the force of his Islamic
fundamentalist credentials. The point stands made elsewhere by this
analyst that the Pakistan army did not raise a finger when General Karamat
was displaced by former PM Nawaz Sharif. Yet Islamic fundamentalists
Generals of Pak army , in-abstentia, installed dismissed General Musharraf
into power through a military coup. The conclusion is obvious.
United States attitudes presently towards Pakistan and its involvement
in international Islamic Jehadi terrorism , can best be termed to be as a
US psychological "state of denial." Or one should heed what
Vice President Dick Cheney of USA is reported to have said during the
current crisis, namely: "If you keep relying only on certified good
guys for action, how you would discover what the bad guys are up to."
President Musharraf by his own unmasking on September 19, 2001, provides
the answer.
(Dr. Subhash Kapila is an International Relations and
Strategic Affairs analyst. He can be reached on e-mail for
discussion at esdecom@vsnl.com)
