SPEAKING
FREELY Can
civilians win the war in
Pakistan? By Zulfiqar Shah
Speaking Freely is an Asia Times
Online feature that allows guest writers to have
their say. Please
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contributing.
A war is on between
the executive and judiciary in Pakistan. The
exhibition of muscle within the inner core of the
state, which earlier toed Prime Minister Yousaf
Reza Gilani out of office, has now knocked at the
office of new Prime Minister Raja Pervaiz Ashraf.
It is usually termed a proxy conflict
between the hawks and doves within the security
establishment in Pakistan that, no doubt, has once
again pushed country to the verge of a virtual
coup d'etat. The followers of the conspiracy
theory are seeing Khakis as
faultiness at the
epicenter of judicial activism. In fact, the
standoff between the two pillars of the republic
is a sign and omen of undergoing a transformation
simultaneously with a severe state crisis causing
frictions outer layers of the governance.
Pakistan has a history of conflicts
between civilians and the security establishment.
The slain leader Benazir Bhutto and ex-prime
minister Nawaz Sharif both complained various
times in past about such a struggle within the
highly powerful security establishment of the
country and especially their complaints of
election rigging several times were verified by
the international monitoring missions.
Although the conflict between civil and
military actors in Pakistan is as old as the
country itself is, the resent phase of the
conflict is only two decades old. On April 20,
1994 the then Interior Minister Nasrullah Babar
raised an issue in the parliament of illegal
disbursement of $6.5 million in 1990 to the
fundamentalist and hawkish elements by Yunus
Habib, the then head of the state owned Mehran
Bank. Habib was detained for the scam on March 24,
1994. In 1997, Asghar Khan, former chief of the
Pakistan Air Force, filed a Supreme Court petition
challenging the legality of the drawn money and
its distribution.
The case is reopened now
and is under trial in the apex court. All
concerned characters of the case have been
recorded in which Yunus Habib along with others
has become approver of the mischief. Now, the
people of Pakistan are eager to have a 'bold'
decision by the honorable court in this regard,
however many believes it is unlikely to come out.
According to analysts of Pakistan's
security profile, it was in 1950 when the first
Prime Minister of the country Liaqat Ali Khan
instructed the formation of the first ever
security dogwatch immediately after the
Pakistan-India war in October 1948 over Kashmir.
The intrusion of security regime in the civilian
domain of Pakistan began in 1955 when Major
General (retired) Iskander Mirza became Governor
General of the country, which was followed by Army
Chief General Ayub Khan's take over on October 27,
1958. It was under Ayub Khan when country's
security institutions started manipulating
elections during the presidential election of
1964, in which Fatima Jinnah, leader of the Muslim
League and sister of Jinnah, lost against the
General.
Pakistan after 1965 war faced
serious security crisis; according to security
historians, therefore country's security network
was expanded to the district level under General
Yahya Khan. Political analysts believe that Yahya
Khan got rid of Ayub Khan by launching a popular
campaign against him through that network.
After 1970 elections, the dishonoring of
the electoral sovereignty of Bengali people
resulted into the dismemberment of the country
1971. Similar coins are being tossed again to net
the emerging influence of civil actors in the
statecraft so as the legacy of the conservative
security establishment could be carried forward.
The world has given full stop to military
dictatorships. Pakistan and all previously
military ruled countries are facing the issues of
militarization, reckless shadowing of targeted
individuals, and interference in civil and
political governance. Pakistan needs to induce
civil authority and command over the security
establishment through major reforms of state
ideology, security doctrine and development
paradigm. This will definitely tailor the
non-civil actor's autonomy and will open a wider
corridor for democratic sustenance.
Apart
from its much touted misgivings, the current civil
government's contribution for strengthening
democratic rule has no precedence in the political
history of Pakistan however practical disbanding
of political cells within the security outfits is
a distant goal, which ultimately determine the
nature of civilian-military relationships in
Pakistan.
The problem lies in the
chemistry of state building in Pakistan. Its
ethno-social composition is highly exclusive,
limited to fewer powerful ethnic groups. Until
comprehensive reforms are not undertaken in the
federal structure of the country providing equal
level of playing field to the ethnic Sindhi,
Baloch and Seraiki people in the all forms of
statecraft, the vision of a moderate, progressive
and autonomy giving Pakistan will be an illusion.
Besides, this is the high time for civil
forces in Pakistan to foil any attempt derailing
growing civilian edge over the conservative
cronies.
The author is an analyst,
researcher, and activist. He is an Executive
Director at The Institute for Social Movements,
Pakistan. Email: shahzulf@live.com
Speaking Freely is an Asia Times Online
feature that allows guest writers to have their
say.Please
click hereif you are interested in
contributing. Articles submitted for this section
allow our readers to express their opinions and do
not necessarily meet the same editorial standards
of Asia Times Online's regular
contributors.
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