Shaky Musharraf holds only the
military card By Syed Saleem
Shahzad
KARACHI - As Pakistan's judiciary
crisis deepens and a political storm escalates as
daily developments spin the situation into new
dimensions, maintenance of public order is
uppermost in the minds of those in the corridors
of power at military headquarters in Rawalpindi.
Should they leave the maintenance of
public order to the civilian administration and
the police, who have already failed to control
violent protests over the "reference" of Chief
Justice Iftikhar
Chaudhary for alleged abuse of
power to the Judicial Council, given that further
mishandling could easily be exploited by
opposition politicians?
Even bigger
questions are, what options would be left for
President General Pervez Musharraf if military or
paramilitary forces are used to confront the mobs,
and where would this leave the army? Musharraf,
who is also chief of army staff, will seek
re-election in presidential polls this year.
While these questions are being pondered,
the Judicial Council hearing on the Chaudhary
reference has been deferred from March 21 to April
3, giving the authorities some breathing space.
Despite the deferment, the pace of
developments is so rapid that anything could
happen in the interim. Qazi Hussain Ahmed,
president of the six-party opposition religious
alliance Muttahida Majlis-i-Amal, has already
announced that protests will continue. On Monday
seven judges from Sindh and Punjab quit their
posts and on Tuesday two more judges tendered
their resignations.
The deferment also
provides opposition political parties with an
opportunity to mobilize their members to take
advantage of the snowballing anti-Musharraf
campaign.
Such developments leave plenty
of potential for more mob violence, and many
expect that the next hearing on April 3 will bring
out the protesters in numbers not seen during the
previous two hearings.
Nevertheless,
Musharraf has dismissed the idea of declaring an
emergency or deploying the army, despite the fact
that all armed-forces intelligence agencies have
reported the failure of the civilian
administration and the police to handle the
protests. The agencies say that probably the only
way to contain the protests would be the
deployment in sizable numbers of paramilitary
forces such as the Pakistan Rangers.
The
crisis is being compounded by other developments.
According to latest reports, the Pakistani Taliban
have seized control of settled areas such as Tank
in North West Frontier Province, and the leader of
the Awami National Party, Isfandyar Wali, revealed
on television that the Taliban now control
Frontier Region (FR) Kohat, just 15 kilometers
from the provincial capital, Peshawar. "I am
constantly saying that Taliban are very rapidly
getting powerful in the North West Frontier
Province, but nobody is listening to me," said
Wali.
FR Kohat is hardly three hours from
the national capital, Islamabad, and such a
development will undoubtedly bolster the
anti-Musharraf forces. As it is, Islamabad itself
is home to many Taliban who have been preparing
for Musharraf's ouster.
The police are
also coming under increasing fire at a time when
any missteps could touch off a wildfire of
rioting. After failing to contain the protests in
Islamabad and Lahore last Friday, they became
embroiled in fresh controversy when they received
an instruction to "fix" a senior journalist from a
national newspaper. The instruction came at an
individual level from an intelligence agency,
under pressure from the minister for law, Wasi
Zafar, whose elder brother was previously director
general of internal security in the Inter-Services
Intelligence agency.
Zafar had previously
abused a journalist on a Voice of America talk
show, and a local TV channel repeatedly broadcast
a recording of the program. As soon as the police
received the "advice" from the intelligence
agency, they entered the offices of the largest
media group of the country and ransacked them.
Fortunately, the journalist was not present at the
time and escaped being "fixed".
Thereupon,
the government banned many talk shows that
discussed Musharraf's action against the chief
justice. In the ensuing media havoc, some TV
channels announced the ban and at the same time
openly defied it. Musharraf then personally
appeared on TV and apologized to the nation and
the media for the mishandling of the situation.
Countdown to chaos This is the
first judicial crisis of its kind in Pakistan's
history. It began with the chief justice being
referred by Musharraf to the Judicial Council, on
the advice of Pakistan's Military Intelligence
(MI).
MI is responsible for
counterinsurgency operations in Balochistan, where
Chief Justice Chaudhary comes from. Chaudhary had
incurred the military's wrath by ruling in some
cases in favor of those who were defined as
"insurgents" by the military apparatus. He had
also taken up the issue of people who had gone
"missing" in the "war on terror".
The
military establishment had misgivings about the
whole modus operandi of the court. But
getting rid of Chaudhary is doing nothing to help
their cause. Rana Bhagwandas, the new acting chief
justice who will preside over the Judicial
Council, is a Hindu. He is well known for his
integrity and professionalism, and could prove to
be a sharp thorn in Islamabad's flesh.
Weakening the case against Chaudhary, all
those named as "victims" in the reference against
him have denied that they have any complaint
against the chief justice. And retired justice
Fakharuddin G Ibrahim, who was named as government
counsel, refused to appear on behalf of the
government and instead appeared on TV to appeal to
the nation to stand against the high-handedness of
the government.
The crisis has thus
severely eroded the credibility of the Musharraf
government, and when the dust settles, both he and
the military will find themselves on shaky ground.
Compounding the situation are regional
developments. The Taliban are about to launch an
offensive in Afghanistan, and a US attack on Iran
is not out of the question. These events could
propel stronger Iraqi resistance to the US-led
occupation there, and set shock waves in motion
from Pakistan to Israel. As a major US ally in a
region where anti-US forces are calling the shots,
any weakening of the Pakistani leadership would
have far-reaching ramifications.
It would
seem that the military card is the only one
Musharraf has left to play. He is truly between
the proverbial rock and hard place. Syed
Saleem Shahzad is Asia Times Online's Pakistan
Bureau Chief. He can be reached at
saleem_shahzad2002@yahoo.com.
(Copyright
2007 Asia Times Online Ltd. All rights reserved.
Please contact us about sales, syndication and republishing.)
Head
Office: Unit B, 16/F, Li Dong Building, No. 9 Li Yuen Street East,
Central, Hong Kong Thailand Bureau:
11/13 Petchkasem Road, Hua Hin, Prachuab Kirikhan, Thailand 77110
