Source: The Hindu | Thursday, October 21, 1999 | Op-Ed.

THE RETURN OF THE GENERALS

By Radha Kumar

THE MILITARY coup in Pakistan has caused surprisingly little debate in
South Asia. While most Pakistanis view the coup with relief, its
sub-continental neighbours have responded chiefly with resignation,
almost as if to say that what happens in Pakistan is none of their
business. The impulse underlying this response is laudable insofar as it
refrains from crowing or exploiting Pakistan's crisis in more
substantive ways. However, it also comes close to the false premise that
one country's crisis does not impinge on its neighbours. There is the
danger that an essentially generous impulse can lead to a failure to
look at facts honestly. In the case of Pakistan, the failure to analyse
the implications of the coup and its consequences for the region could
spell an indefinite continuation of the stalemated hostilities,
especially for India.

We now know that the coup was primarily a reaction to the Prime
Minister, Mr. Nawaz Sharif's attempts to subjugate every one of
Pakistan's institutions - both fledgling and entrenched - to his
extraordinarily flip- flop dictate. Having looted the state and packed
the executive with cronies and relatives, he tampered with the
judiciary, altered the Constitution to consolidate his power, used the
peace process with India as an opportunity for both political gain
through Kargil and personal gain through sugar contracts, and finally
turned to playing divide and rule with the army. Up against the most,
and sadly perhaps only, powerful institution in Pakistan, he came a
cropper. Understanding this context should not, however, detract from
the fact that the coup was precipitated by the Kargil debacle, and that
many in Pakistan welcomed it on the grounds that at present democracy is
too costly for the country. Indeed, some Pakistani analysts went so far
as to argue that as eleven years of civilian rule have brought the P
akistani state to the brink of collapse, it is time to give the military
another chance. Others argued more modestly for an interim government of
technocrats - defined as lacking political ambition - who will reform
the economy. A rare few continue to call for early elections.

After vacillating for five days, General Musharraf has ruled out an
early return to civilian authority. Instead, there will be an interim
government of military chiefs and technocrats, with the balance tilted
in favour of the military. The country will be ruled by a National
Security Council, to which all administrative units will be
subordinated, from a Cabinet of Ministers to provincial Governors and
local authorities, all of whom will be appointed either by the Council
or directly by the General. Gen. Musharraf will be ``Chief Executive
Officer,'' a misnomer if ever there was one as he has no board to report
to but has instead assumed the mantle of a supreme authority. His first
tasks, he says, are to strengthen the federation, restore the economy,
establish law and order and impose accountability. In pursuit of his
effort to instill accountability, the army has already begun arresting
corrupt politicians, and has threatened to try the deposed Prime
Minister, Mr. Nawaz Sharif, for high treason.

This can only send shudders up every democratic spine. Why should an
alleged attempt to murder an army chief be considered high treason
rather than a common criminal act? Moreover, is it appropriate for the
army to prosecute corruption? It is only in exceptional circumstances
that justice can be delivered at the barrel of a gun, and Pakistan's
army, with its record of dictatorial intervention and rule, not to
mention chicanery, hardly qualifies as exceptional. What can and should
be said, however, is that despite its prolonged and best endeavours,
Pakistan's army has not been able to entirely subjugate its civil
institutions as in the military regimes of Spain and Chile - not to
mention Argentina. For twenty- five out of its fifty years of existence
Pakistan has been under military rule. The military has been responsible
to a great extent for Pakistan's present impasse. If there is any hope,
it lies in the fact that despite its domination the military has somehow
been restrained from turning security into a means of terrorising its
own citizens. Though individuals and movements have been repeatedly
penalised under military rule, Pakistan has not seen a regime under
which ``mass disappearances'' - a euphemism for political genocide - are
routine. This distinction does not redound to the credit of the
Pakistani army. Rather it testifies to the lingering principles of an
elite which is comprador but hankers for honourable compromise.

In other words, Pakistan's influential upper and middle classes have
rarely challenged the authorities, whether military or civilian, in any
serious way. But a substantial section of them have used their
complicity - in particular with the Bhutto ethos - to soften the
domestic impact of authoritarianism. Unintentionally, therefore, they
have helped allow a space for civil society, which the past eleven years
have in an equally willy-nilly way helped consolidate. The effects of
this have been that Gen. Musharraf is today stressing his commitment to
human rights, religious tolerance and a free press. All his initial
steps have been to concentrate power in his own hands, and while he
talks largely of accountability he has allowed no space for holding the
army accountable.

The Indian Government is right in being cautious to avoid any
insinuation of meddling in Pakistan's affairs. But those within and
outside the Government who say that India can as well make peace with a
military as a civilian government in Pakistan should take pause at Gen.
Musharraf's words. There are indeed significant steps which can be taken
towards de-escalating conflict between India and Pakistan, but as long
as there is a military regime in Pakistan there is no hope of a
political settlement. The Indian government could, therefore, encourage
army-to-army confidence- building, through the withdrawal of artillery
and joint mechanisms for border control to extend a buffer zone along
the line of control. The two countries could restart negotiations on
Siachen, and get their navies to agree on dispute resolution in the Rann
of Kutch. What India cannot and should not do is flirt with the idea of
reaching a political settlement with the Pakistani military. First,
because an army whose identity as Pakistan's saviour is intermeshed with
its identity as Kashmir's saviour is both less capable of and less
interested in delivering a political settlement than a civilian
authority. The most that can be sought of them, therefore, is military
confidence-building. Secondly, and as a consequence of this, to allow
what will essentially remain relatively minor military
confidence-building to substitute for a political agreement will serve
neither India's interests nor Pakistan's.

In this context, India should rule out Track Two negotiations until a
civilian administration is in place. Gen. Musharraf can choose whether
he will be an army chief or a dictator, but Track Two negotiations will
be meaningless in either case and will serve merely to muddy the waters.
Military issues are best addressed directly, and dictators are grist
only to an imperial mill. What India can and should encourage are
opportunities for civil society exchange, whether through peace fora,
women's groups, human rights groups, or the media. At this point in
time, such exchanges might most effectively take place at a South Asian
rather than Indo-Pakistani level.

For South Asia, whose development has long been held hostage to
Indo-Pakistani contention, the saddest fallout of recent events is that
they indefinitely set back hopes for a peace process between the two
countries which might allow the region to develop trade and encourage
freedom of movement. Those South Asian leaders who have an army ear will
help by quietly urging Gen. Musharraf to appoint a purely civilian
caretaker administration even if there are no early elections. They
could also quietly urge the Indian Government that there is no time like
the present to put its Kashmir house in order. At the moment India can
expect a respite from pressure to settle Kashmir with Pakistan. This
provides the Central and State Governments with an opportunity to
redress some of Kashmir's most pressing grievances, such as excessive
troops' presence, the violation of human rights and rampant corruption.
Without measures to curb these three, the Indian Government's attempted
crackdown on militants will only increase Kashmiri alienation.A
government of vision would, in fact, go much further. If would use the
respite which Pakistan's coup has granted it to open wide-ranging talks
on autonomy with Kashmiri, Jammu and Ladakhi leaders, and combine these
with a country-wide package for devolution. But who expects vision these
days?

(The writer is Fellow, Council on Foreign Relations, New York.)

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