Putsch in Pakistan Fosters Stability

0 Comments | Insight on the News, Nov 8, 1999 | by Jamie Dettmer

It is not often that Pakistani opposition leader Benazir Bhutto, now in self-exile in London, can agree with the elder son of Pakistan's last military dictator, Gen. Zia ul-Haq -- the man who ousted her father from power in 1977 and then hanged him -- but now they are of one mind. Neither Ijaz ul-Haq, the general's son, nor Bhutto are condemning the army for the Oct. 12 putsch in Pakistan -- both believe not only was the coup inevitable but that Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif has only himself to blame.

While arguing for early elections, Bhutto in an interview with CNN showed considerable sympathy for the army and its chief, Gen. Parvaiz Musharraf. "I would like to say to the military that many in Pakistan understand why you did this -- we had a civilian dictator who was ruling the country."

Ijaz ul-Haq argues that Sharif, a protege of his father and a politician who has made much of his links with the late Zia, was ruining the country rather than ruling it. And he did so in an extraordinary telephone interview with me just hours after Sharif was put under house arrest by the Pakistani military. Speaking from the United Arab Emirates, where he was on a private visit as the coup was launched, Ijaz, the second most important official in Sharif's own party, the Muslim League, declined to condemn the army for its intervention and provided few words of comfort for his boss.

For the Clinton administration, though, any justification for anything as undemocratic as a coup is unacceptable. The White House was quick to condemn the putsch and the State Department's James Rubin warned Pakistan's generals that the United States could not conduct "business as usual" with whatever government emerges. The generals won't be alone in breathing a sigh of relief at Rubin's words and are hoping that he really means them -- for business as usual has meant considerable discomfort for Pakistan and contributed mightily to Sharif's downfall.

One of the main factors that led the army to intervene was Sharif's highly unpopular decision in the summer to withdraw Pakistani-backed troops from the Kargil region of Kashmir. "He turned a military win into a political defeat." Ijaz places some of the blame for that decision on U.S. pressure -- the result of the Clinton administration's recent tilt toward India and its downgrading of Pakistan as an ally. Ijaz and other Pakistani politicians argue Sharif was too quick to do what Washington wanted, and they also maintain that the Clinton administration has become unbalanced in how it deals with the volatile relations between Islamabad and New Delhi. Their fear is that as Washington continues to swing toward India the burgeoning fundamentalist forces in Pakistan will have something to scream about and make further inroads into the body politic.

Maybe the administration should consider what Ijaz has to say before it continues with its knee-jerk condemnation of the army. The administration now says it is worried about a further destabilization in the region. But it can be argued that Pakistan will be more stable without Sharif than with him, and with a more stable Pakistan the chances are better for Islamabad and New Delhi to talk.

As Ijaz pointed out in the phone interview, Pakistan under his father's protege was in deep trouble. The economy was in a tailspin, the fundamentalists led by the likes of Maulana Sami ul-Haq (no relation to Ijaz) were growing in strength and there was little law and order.

According to Ijaz, Sharif hardly was the champion of democracy. He maintains that Sharif triggered the coup by riding roughshod over the constitution, government institutions and the military. In support of his argument he cited Sharif's dismissal of one president and his subsequent curtailing of presidential power when he appointed a successor. Ijaz also criticized his boss for forcing the resignation of the country's chief judge and his high-handed sacking last year of Musharraf's predecessor as chief of the armed forces. "Everyone loves a democracy, but you can't go around playing with the institutions of democracy in the arrogant way Sharif has," he says.

Ijaz says Sharif seemed oblivious to the dangers, the resentments that were fast building up and the widespread fears that Pakistan was becoming ungovernable. Instead, to enhance his own personal power, he sought to get rid of Musharraf and replace him with intelligence chief Lt. Gen. Ziauddin. Ijaz urged him not to dismiss Musharraf. "I told him if he did so there would be trouble, that the army would intervene. But he wouldn't heed what I had to say." In some ways it isn't surprising that Sharif wouldn't listen to Zia's son. In the last couple of years, differences of opinion have soured the relationship between the two, and Ijaz chose to stay out of the cabinet during this administration.

According to Ijaz, the army top brass started to plan an intervention in late September in the wake of a visit to Washington by Sharif's brother, Shahbaz, the governor of the Punjab province. Musharraf was convinced that during the visit Shahbaz plotted his forthcoming firing with senior U.S. State Department officials and sought their backing for the move.