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Musharraf awaits his marching
orders
By Syed Saleem Shahzad
KARACHI - A political crisis in which the
opposition and the ruling coalition have joined forces
to coerce Pakistani President General Pervez Musharraf
into shedding his uniform and submitting his
controversial constitutional amendments to parliamentary
scrutiny has emboldened the hand of senior generals
seeking Musharraf's ouster.
The Muttahida
Majlis-e-Amal (MMA), a grouping of six religious
parties, and members of the ruling Pakistan Muslim
League-Quaid-i-Azam group are negotiating to force
Musharraf to table the amendments, known as the Legal
Framework Order (LFO), in the national assembly, and
also to get Musharraf, who is chief of army staff as
well as president, to abandon his uniform.
And
senior sources behind the iron curtains of the army's
general headquarters in Rawalpindi have told Asia Times
Online that a section of the top brass are agitating for
Musharraf to step down immediately.
Discontent
over Musharraf's grip on the top civilian and army posts
has bubbled virtually ever since he took power in a
bloodless coup in October 1999, but concern has reached
boiling point in recent days after his suggestion, for
the first time, that he might consider retiring from the
army in a year's time.
The trouble is, for some
in the army, a year is too long to wait, as seven senior
officers are due to retire over the months up to October
2004. These include General Aziz Khan, chairman of the
Joint Chiefs of Staff Committee; General Yusuf, vice
chief of army staff; Lieutenant-General Tauqir Zia,
inspector general of training and evaluation;
Lieutenant-General Mushtaq Ahmed, chief of staff to the
Joint Chiefs of Staff Committee headquarters;
Lieutenant-General Qayyum, chairman of the Pakistan
Ordnance Factory; Lieutenant-General Ali Aurakzai,
Peshawar corps commander; and Lieutenant-General Imtiaz
Shaheen.
These officials argue that Musharraf
might as well go now so that one of them can serve as
chief of army staff before they retire. According to
sources, the officials are holding discussions with
Musharraf on the issue, which in itself is
unprecedented, as in the past they would never have
dared to raise such a contentious matter.
On the
political front, the MMA has apparently accepted giving
Musharraf a year to step down, at which time they would
back him being elected as a civilian president. In
return, though, they want parliament to have the
opportunity to discuss the LFO, which currently, among
other things, allows the president to break or suspend
the assemblies, establish a powerful National Security
Council that in effect can override parliament and the
prime minister, and endanger the autonomy of provincial
governments.
These latest rumblings in the army
follow a story broken by Asia Times Online on August 30,
and picked up by the media both in Pakistan and abroad,
on the secret arrest of several army officers (Musharraf's army breaking ranks).
After trying to keep the arrests quiet,
Inter-Services Public Relations eventually released a
note confirming the arrests but denying the involvement
of the US Federal Bureau of Investigation, as reported
by Asia Times Online. This denial has not been widely
accepted.
The arrests have heightened concerns
over procedures - or lack of them - for the punishment
of officers, who in this case are suspected of having
links to Islamic militants. The information section of
the Ministry of Defense has promised a report within 10
days.
According to Asia Times Online security
sources, Musharraf contacted top MMA leaders and asked
them not to exploit the issue. They assured him that
they do not want to be blamed for any problems within
the army, and have remained aloof from the controversy.
These difficult days for Musharraf have been
compounded by the recent failure of a military operation
in the Bannu district of North-West Frontier Province
(NWFP) against al-Qaeda. The Interior Ministry issued a
strongly worded statement just before the operation
saying that the net was tightening on al-Qaeda and that
its members would be "smoked out". However, after strong
opposition to the presence of US troops, the operation
was called off within a few hours and a press statement
said that it was to have been "a routine exercise".
Opposition came from all political quarters in the
country, including local tribal people who threatened to
take up arms against the army if it stayed in the
region.
For their part, elements within the army
are not too pleased with talk of a possible compromise
with India over disputed Kashmir, and they do not want
to see Pakistan's role in the region being reduced at
the insistence of the Americans.
In many ways,
therefore, Pakistan is at a crossroads. Musharraf will
have to make decisions on his own role in government,
not to mention the direction that the country should
take, given that the army is not united behind him.
Parliament, meanwhile, is virtually moribund, as
the opposition is sufficiently strong - and the ruling
coalition sufficiently weak - to ensure that very little
legislation is being passed. Further, NWFP, which is
ruled by the MMA, is a problem because of intervention
from the central administration. And the Sindh
government, like parliament, is almost at a standstill
because of a weak coalition government.
There is
a general consensus that these impasses gripping the
country will have to be broken soon, and when they are,
fireworks can be expected.
(Copyright 2003 Asia
Times Online Co, Ltd. All rights reserved. Please
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