A COMMANDO, WHO IS NERVOUS OF COMMANDOS
by B.Raman
In a second instalment of a major reshuffle of the
senior officers of the Army carried out on October 10,2001, Gen.Pervez
Musharraf, Pakistan's self-reinstated Chief of the Army Staff (COAS),
self-styled Chief Executive and self-promoted President, removed Lt.Gen.
Jamshaid Gulzar from his post as the Corps Commander of 10 Corps at
Rawalpindi and appointed him as the Adjutant General, Pakistan
Army. Maj.Genl Syed Arif Hasan, Vice Chief of General Staff, was
promoted as Lt.Gen. and appointed Corps Commander, 10 Corps, Rawalpindi,
Maj.Gen.l Khalid Ahmed Kidwai, Director-General,
Strategic Planning and Development, was promoted to the rank of Lt.Gen in
the same post.
Maj.Gen. Shahid Aziz, General Officer Commanding, Murree, was
promoted as Lt.Gen. and appointed as the Chief of the General Staff (CGS)
in the GHQ. In that capacity, he would be supervising the work of
the Directorates-General of Military Intelligence and Military Operations.
The 10 Corps, Rawalpindi, and its crack 111 Brigade are
considered the most important units of the Pakistan Army in the power
equation in Islamabad. The conventional wisdom in Pakistan is that
no Army General can stage a coup and sustain himself in power thereafter
without their support. All Pakistani military dictators, therefore,
ensure that these units are commanded by hand-picked officers enjoying
their total confidence.
The following four officers staged the coup of
October 12,1999, which paved the way for the take-over of power by
Musharraf after the plane bringing him from Colombo landed in Karachi:
* Lt.Gen.Mohammad Aziz, then CGS, GHQ.
* Lt.Gen.Mahmood Ahmed, then Corps Commander, 10 Corps,
Rawalpindi.
* Maj.Gen.Jamshaid Gulzar, then Comanding Officer, 111
Brigade of 10 Corps.
* Lt.Gen.Muzaffar Usmani, then Corps Commander, 5
Corps, Karachi.
After overthrowing Mr.Nawaz Sharif and capturing power on
behalf of Musharraf, they then informed the other Corps Commanders, who
went along with the coup. Lt.Gen.Aziz refused to let Lt.Gen.Ziauddin, the
then DG, ISI, who had been appointed by Mr.Sharif as the COAS after
dismissing Musharraf , to enter the GHQ and take over and had him
arrested. Lt.Gen.Mahmood Ahmed moved his units into Islamabad and
took control of the city.Maj.Gen.Gulzar took control of the TV and radio
stations in Islamabad, arrested Mr.Sharif and Lt.Gen.Ziauddin and removed
them to Murree.Usmani took control of Karachi and facilitated the landing
of Musharraf's plane.
After assuming power as the Chief Executive, Musharraf
appointed Ahmed as the DG, ISI, and Gulzar, on promotion, as the Corps
Commander, 10 Corps, Rawalpindi.
Of the four officers, who overthrew Mr.Sharif and seized
power, Aziz, Ahmed and Gulzar had served with Musharraf as Commandoes in
the Special Services Group (SSG). Musharraf and Aziz had served
together in the Northern Areas (Gilgit and Baltistan ) too.
Many Pakistani observers, therefore, termed the coup the
"commandoes' coup". On October 7,2001, Musharraf had
forced Ahmed to seek premature retirement after superseding him for
promotion as a full-fledged General, kicked Aziz, after promoting him as a
General, upstairs as the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Committee
and now has shifted Gulzar to the post of Adjutant-General Till
then. Aziz was posted as the Corps Commander, 4 Corps, Lahore
Thus, of the three commandoes, who staged the coup and
paved the way for the elevation of the fourth commando (Musharraf), one
has been prematurely retired and two have been transferred to posts, where
they would not have direct command of any field formation, without which
they may not be able to stage a coup against Musharraf.
While briefing his Cabinet on the reshuffle on October
10,2001, Musharraf was reported to have claimed that these changes were of
a routine nature and had been decided upon by him three months ago and had
nothing to do with reports of differences in the Army over his assisting
the US in crushing the Taliban and Osama bin Laden's Al Qaeda.
Despite his claim, these changes are viewed in Islamabad
as a move by a nervous Musharraf to pre-empt a possible coup against him
by these officers by removing them from the active command of field
formations. Since the serious anti-US and anti-Musharraf
disturbances at Quetta on October 8,2001, Islamabad has been rife with
unsubstantiated rumours of plots and counter-plots inside the GHQ.
There have also been rumours of a plot by some fundamentalist officers at
the middle level to assassinate the Corps Commanders and seize
power. Musharraf has appealed to all his colleagues and Cabinet
members not to believe these rumours.
(The writer is Additional Secretary (retd), Cabinet
Secretariat, Govt. of India, and, presently, Director, Institute For
Topical Studies, Chennai. E-Mail: corde@vsnl.com )
