Games that generals play
By Manohar Malgonkar

WHEN, on October 12, 1999, Pakistan’s dismissed Army Chief managed to turn the tables on his Prime Minister and seized power in a brilliantly executed military coup, the leaders of the world’s major nations gasped in disbelief. Their knee-jerk reaction was a unanimous condemnation of the coup and a loud and clear demand for the restoration of democratic rule.

In particular, the USA which considers itself to be the cradle and bastion of democracy and also seeks to cultivate an image of itself as a protagonist of democracies in the rest of the world, was strongly critical of the latest coup in Pakistan. The USA, made the proper sounds: We deplore the coup! We expect the coup leader to announce a time-table for the restoration of democratic rule, without delay.

General Pervez Musharraf took his own time about saying anything at all. He knew that good old Uncle Sam was only performing a war dance which was more ritualistic than seriously meant — a sop to the cranks and liberal intellectuals in the USA itself. That, on its track record, the USA had shown itself to be supportive of military dictatorships — why, they had even engineered military coups to defeat popular regimes which were hostile to US policies. In Iran, they had displaced a man called Mossadek by the Shah who was their puppet. The list of military dictators they had sponsored and nourished was as long as your arm: Anastacio Samoza, Hissen Habre, Ferdinand Marcos, Pinochet Papa Doc Duvalier — why, in his own country they had treated his — Musharraf’s, —predecessor in Pakistani coups and indeed his role model, Mohammad Zia-ul-Haque, as a favourite son.

Zia had taken control of Pakistan at a time when Pakistan’s relations with the USA were close to breaking point; indeed they had been on a par with America’s relationship with Libya. The people of Pakistan had made known their feelings for the American by burning down their embassy building in the capital, Islamabad, even as the Pakistani police stood guard, watching benevolently.

That was in 1979. Barely a year later, the US President, Ronald Reagan, began to pour money into Pakistan: $ 10 billion in the first three years in ‘open’ aid, but there was ‘covert’ aid too, through undercover agencies, and on the well known ‘iceberg’ principle of such clandestine activities: Seven times of what is visible above the water.

Much of that money was siphoned off by Pakistan’s military elite, but even what was left over was enough to revive a wheelchair economy, and the prodigality with which the USA poured military hardware into Pakistan, transformed its raggedy army into a formidable war machine and then went on to make Pakistan an armament merchant’s dreamland. The spillover of arms that Pakistan’s military system just could not absorb (or of arms clandestinely sold by the generals for private profits), was so abundant as to flood the bazaars: Pistols, rifles, sub-machineguns, hand-grenades, rocket-launchers, were piled up in street-shops like so many pots and pans. A Colt 9 mm pistol for the price of a bicycle; a bullet cheaper than an egg. Mary Ann Weaver, an American reporter saw a ‘Stinger’ missile displayed in an arms shop in Quetta’s bazaar. At the time, the ‘Stinger’ was still on the secret list in the country of its origin, America.

The parallels between the conditions in Pakistan at the times of its last two military coups are amazingly close: An economy in tatters; law and order in headlong retreat; appalling corruption in the administration at every level and with political fat cats and their cronies actually robbing the kitty as it were, by taking vast sums on loan from the country’s banks which they had no intention of returning. Add to this the country’s historic, tribal feuds; its religious killings and revenge-killings between the Sunnis and Shias with the Ahmadies caught in the crossfire.

At that there was a crucial new factor. At the time of Zia’s takeover, Pakistan had not become a major drug-supplier to Europe; now the profits from the drug trade constitute a major part of Pakistan’s foreign exchange earnings. In the battle against drugs, Pakistan has to play both hound and hare. It must support the clandestine refineries for drugs along the Afghan border and at the same time make out that it is vigilant against drug traders. The drug trade is Pakistan’s gold-eggs laying goose. To stamp it out is to cut off a vital source of dollars and marks and deprive thousands of people from gainful employment, to say nothing of displeasing drug barons who are powerful and influential members of society.

So far, Musharraf has shown himself as being shrewd, cool under fire, and a positive genius in the precision of his planning. He is also piratically bold, as demonstrated not only in the way he pulled off his takeover but, even more, by his cavalier visit to Turkey which is so out of character with military dictators for the excellent reason that every time they leave the country which they rule, they’re challenging the fates: What is to prevent some madly ambitious rival from doing precisely what they themselves had done? — staging a coup.

The armed services of any country are snake-pits of intense rivalries. By the time a colonel makes it to the top position of Army Chief, he has made a thousand enemies — many of them equally ambitious, talented, dedicated — whom he has superceded. In Pakistan itself we have the example of half a dozen senior army officers being tried for their crime of ‘obeying the orders of the democratically elected Prime Minister’. All of them have good reason to hate Musharraf. In their eyes, it is Musharraf who should be tried for treason.

For their part, the people of Pakistan accepted their new dictator without so much as a murmur of protest. The country’s political leaders, public servants, its spokesmen in world bodies who, only days earlier, had so loyally supported every action of Nawaz Sharif, showed themselves to be equally loyal to the new ruler; people in public life, rich business executives and intellectuals, mullas, diplomats, civil servants, fell into line as though nothing out of the way had happened.

It was against this background of being in total command of the situation within the country itself that Musharraf came out with his agenda for the future. Sure he would restore people’s rule in Pakistan, but ... but only after he had managed to root out corruption in public life, punished all those who had made private fortunes by cheating the state and the public, and given Pakistan a booming economy.

In plain words, some time in the future — inshallah:

When Zia-ul-Haque brought off his coup, it was the Russian invasion of Afghanistan that had proved a boon to him. It looks as though this time, too, it is something that is happening in Afghanistan that will play a make-or-break role in Pakistan’s affairs.

Osama bin Laden using Afghan territory as a base for his war against the enemies of Islam in general and the USA in particular, is the key factor. In their counter-offensive against Bin Laden, the USA needs Pakistan as an ally.

A situation that would seem contrived even in fiction confronts Musharraf. To pump new life into Pakistan’s bedridden economy, he needs vast amounts of money not in loans but as a gift. Only the USA has that kind of money — only the USA can give it, but as a reward for helping out with its plan to flush out Bin Laden from Afghanistan. But Afghanistan is ruled by the Taliban which owes its very existence to Pakistan: It was raised, armed, trained and guided by Pakistan, even today, many of its key officers are Pakistani regulars, posing as ‘volunteers’.

On one side, barrels full of dollars plus all the military weapons he needs for the peaceful purposes he has in mind. On the other, Bin Laden’s highly trained and fanatically motivated death-squads and suicide bombers. Not an easy choice even for someone as cool-headed as General Pervez Musharraf.