Pakistan: An army that owns the country, now has the courts too

As many as 247 out of 342 members of the national assembly led by Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif last Tuesday voted for setting up of army courts in Pakistan to counter terrorism. Later, 78 out of the 104 Pakistani Senators also approved the 21st constitutional amendment to allow the non-civilian courts, badly stabbing the already profusely bleeding Pakistan body politick one more time. First president of Pakistan Iskandar Mirza, who died in exile in his hotel room in London, used a good term for his country’s politicians, “Mostly crooks and scallywags.”

"This bill is about military courts trying hardcore terrorists who kill Pakistanis," Sharif, who was mentored for national politics by former Inter-Services Intelligence chief and Punjab governor general Ghulam Jilani Khan, said. According to Pakistani Geo TV report, the statement of the objects and reasons says “an extraordinary situation and circumstances exist” which demands speedy trial of terror offenses. As many as nine courts are being set up in the first phase, the army announced.

An extraordinary situation seems to have existed in Pakistan – land of the pure – from the get-go. The name itself is quite extraordinary because all other “istans” are named after real people who lived on those lands for centuries, for example Afghanistan, Balochistan and Kurdistan. Pakistan is unique in the sense that lord Louis Mountbatten, favourite cousin of King George VI, loved the name, so the state is there, even though it is bifurcated with further signs of fragmentation. Sages have said there are three main problems of the country – Allah, America and Army - in alphabetical order. The army courts is the common thread in all three. So in the setting up of the courts Allah has played a role as it came in the wake of the horrific Peshawar killings in December, the army has played a role – perhaps bigger than Allah and America - as it created the Taliban to control Afghanistan — and of course, nothing moves in Pakistan without the tacit blessings of all those wise guys in America, or the USA.

Arif Jamal, author of Call for Transnational Jihad: Lashkar-e-Taiba, - jihad is the common thread in the army and Allah - said the setting up of the courts shows the soft coup in Pakistan is hardening further as the army had already ousted the civilian government from three main foreign policy areas – Afghanistan, India and the United States. “Initially the Sharif government had asserted itself and had kept the soldiers at bay on issues related to India, Afghanistan and the US. But the military put heat on the Sharif administration through street protests. Sharif also favoured a most favoured nation status for India, but they created hysteria against it in the mass media,” Jamal said.

When the autumn protests led by cricketer-turned-politician Imran Khan and Canadian cleric Tahir-ul-Qadri were at their peak, The Wall Street Journal reported, “Government aides said the military has seized on Mr Sharif's weakened status during the political crisis to strike a deal in which he would leave strategic policy areas — including relations with the US, Afghanistan and India — to be controlled by the armed forces.” The WSJ report cited analyst Ayesha Siddiqa as predicting that Nawaz Sharif would most likely become a ceremonial prime minister. Jamal says Sharif was left with the option to confront the generals and face a coup, or to submit before them. “He seems to have taken the later course.”

According to Jamal the main reason the army wants all powers is it wants to have total sway over Afghanistan in partnership with China, after the US exit, and keep India out of the game. “They want to keep Afghanistan a safe haven for their proxies that they will use against India in the future, like was the case when the Taliban ruled Afghanistan,” Jamal said.

It seems as the script for the military domination in Pakistan, like many past political dramas, was at least partially prepared in Washington, capital of the world’s most powerful democracy that has mostly worked with all Pakistan dictators in the past. In November, the main beneficiary of the new setup, arbiter of Pakistan’s destiny, who is also the de facto ruler, general Raheel Sharif came to visit with a begging bowl for dollars, telling the US, the Taliban were using skulls of his soldiers to play football. In dramatic speeches before the US Congressmen, general Sharif posed like a second general Abdel-Fattah El-Sissi of Egypt to assure the US he would take the Islamists head-on.

General Sharif is no ordinary soldier because the institution he heads, the Pakistan army is the largest Muslim army in the world, with its intelligence arm Inter-Services Intelligence working in at least 66 different countries. Indoctrinated to become highly anti-Hindu and anti-India, Pakistan army chiefs have the dubious distinction of killing a number of their country’s prime ministers and other opposition politicians and ruling directly over their nation for half of the existence since independence, and the other half, indirectly. US scholar - “good academic turned rogue,” in Pakistan army GHQ eyes - professor C Christina Fair, in her book Fighting to the End: The Pakistan Army’s Way of War writes, “Pakistanis and analysts of Pakistan have long remarked, with more truth than hyperbole, that while generally countries have armies in Pakistan the army has a country.” It was clear general Sharif has political ambitions: he held meetings with members of the US senate committee on foreign relations, senator Robert Menendez and senator Robert Corker. Wearing a Saville Row suit, rather than his military fatigue, general Sharif spoke like a politician before the US Congress. “In Washington, he received very broad support for Pakistan’s counterterrorism campaign.” US special representative on Afghanistan and Pakistan Dan Feldman told Dawn. The timeline of the amendment that will make the Pakistan army judge, jury and executioner in the nearly failing state reads like a political soap opera. On December 1, the generalissimo met with secretary of state John F Kerry, the present day incarnation of John F Dulles. Dulles and his younger brother Allen W Dulles, the CIA chief, were the among first Americans to embrace Pakistan’s first military dictator general Ayub Khan and adopt Pakistan, which many in the Indian subcontinent say was an illegitimate child of the British raj. In contrast, John F Dulles' obituary in The New York Times said he called India’s neutrality “immoral and shortsighted.” Indians were also offended when Dulles permitted the phrase "Portuguese provinces in the far east," meaning Goa. So it is clear whatever Ayub Khan did either inside Pakistan or in Kashmir, he enjoyed the US' blessings.

In Pakistan itself, on December 6, less than five days after the generalissimo returned home, international headlines read Adnan Shukrijumah and two other al Qaeda members were killed by the army in South Waziristan - the nursery for recruiting jihadists since the days of the launch of Operation Gulmarg in Kashmir in October 1947. Happy over the general Sharif’s fast delivery, the following day the “chocolate boys” – the term used for the US troops based in Afghanistan by Pakistan generals - handed over to Pakistan “a bad Taliban” named Latif Mehsud, a successor of Taliban leader Hakimullah Mehsud, who had changed from “good to bad” Taliban some years ago. This was the tipping point: on December 16, six TTP terrorists raided the Army Public School in Peshawar, killing 145 people, including 132 students, and defending the mass slaughter as the carbon copy of massacre of Medina Jews by none other than Muhammad himself.

Few doubt that the Pakistan army and the US have a hate-love relationship with the US shifting between “most allied ally” to “ally from hell”. The soldiers love the US for the greenbacks, the same colour as Pakistan’s flag, but Americans hate it since Pakistan hosted their worst killer in history, Osama bin Laden. The late Christopher Hitchens, one of the West’s best known intellectuals wrote a Vanity Fair article on bin Laden’s death, “There’s absolutely no mystery to the “Why do they hate us?” question, at least as it arises in Pakistan. They hate us because they owe us, and are dependent upon us. The two main symbols of Pakistan’s pride — its army and its nuclear programme — are wholly parasitic on American indulgence and patronage.”

The Pakistan army once again seeks the US' blessings to strengthening its hold on the country’s politics. These generals have for long used the “extraordinary situation” excuse to usurp civilian powers through army coups that are part of the tragicomedy named Pakistan. As he holds the biggest stick, general Sharif believes he will be a better ruler than Premier Sharif. If he succeeds in getting US full support, that has bankrolled Pakistan to the tune of $60 billion, he will became the next coup leader.

Peep into the history of martial law in Pakistan and you will find interesting details. On October 7, 1958, general Ayub Khan, the first native army chief of Pakistan, imposed martial law. The general from a humble background came into office with the support of the Dulles brothers John F and Allen W. Dawn newspaper reports general Ayub Khan said in his address to the nation, “This is a drastic and extreme step taken with great reluctance” to save the country from chaos. General Ayub Khan is widely suspected of having on his hands the blood of the first prime minister Nawabzada Liaquat Ali Khan, Pakistan founder Muhammad Ali Jinnah’s sister Fatima Jinnah, and fifth prime minister Huseyn Shaheed Suhrawardy. “Indulgence and patronage,” of the US allowed him to have absolute powers starting from October 7, 1958 to March 26, 1969; becoming field marshal with a stroke of his own pen. While Ayub Khan’s domestic record was dismal, he was close to the US president Lyndon B Johnson.

The rotten mindset of the generals with regards to India can be discerned by the fact Ayub Khan firmly believed “Hindus had no stomach to fight”. Defense analyst Tughral Yamin writes that to build up the momentum for the attack on Kashmir in August, 1965 Ayub Khan sent a memo to his officers that reads, “As a general rule the Hindu morale would not stand more than a couple of hard blows delivered at the right time and place.” Ayub Khan took a personal interest to activate the Kashmir cell, comprising military and intelligence officials, a cell that never seems to sleep even to this day. He also launched Operation Gibraltar in Kashmir, but was defeated by India.

Alcoholic and philanderer, general Yahya Khan – the second army chief - announced imposition of martial law on March 26, 1969. In a speech to the nation on Radio Pakistan, he announced, “My sole is aim to save life, liberty and property of the people.” Yahya Khan dispatched his six-foot tall Punjabi and Pakhtun soldiers to crush the popular revolt of Bengalis in the former East Pakistan, now Bangladesh. Yahya Khan too found love and understanding in Washington DC. President Richard Nixon and national security adviser Henry Kissinger became Yahya Khan’s enablers by maintaining a criminal silence on Bangladesh genocide. They even sent the Seventh Fleet in the Bay of Bengal to help the Pakistan army, the butchers of Bengal. According to a report in The Guardian newspaper, declassified tapes shows both Nixon and Kissinger used highly vulgar language for Indians. “Indians are a slippery, treacherous people," Nixon is heard telling Kissinger on tape. "The Indians are bast… anyway," Kissinger replies. "They are the most aggressive goddamn people around." Gray J Bass, who is a professor of politics and international affairs at Princeton University and author, most recently, of The Blood Telegram: Nixon, Kissinger, and a Forgotten Genocide, in an article in The New York Times said Nixon and Kissinger were unmoved by the suffering of Bengalis, despite detailed reporting about the killing from Archer K Blood, the brave United States consul general in East Pakistan and Kenneth B Keating, ambassador to India. Professor Bass says, "Blood was fired from his post in East Pakistan. Kissinger privately scorned Blood as 'this maniac'; Nixon called Keating 'a traitor'. The US wanted tokeep Yahya Khan happy in every possible way, as he was their go-between Nixon and Chinese leader Zhou Enlai."

One of the ugliest generals came into power on July 5, 1977 through “Operation Fair Play.” The coup leader this time was “soldier of Islam” Zia-ul-Haq. He was “dumb like a fox” according to former Pakistan ambassador to the US Husain Haqqani in his book Magnificent Delusions. “Zia was personally religious and was closely connected to several lslamists by virtue of his social and family origins. (ISI chief),” writes Haqqani. Zia-ul-Haq’s martial law enjoyed the full support of Punjabi judges of the superior courts, enabling his regime to hang Premier ZA Bhutto. The general was once asked why he hanged Bhutto instead of sending him into exile, he replied with his ugly grin, “There were two people, me and Bhutto, and one grave. I sent Bhutto to the grave.” His regime facilitated the growth of Islamic fundamentalism and proliferation of illegal arms, among many other ailments. At the same time, this military regime worked relentlessly to develop Pakistan’s nuclear weapons programme - his friend President Reagan turned a blind eye as he was helping the US against the Soviets.

After seizing power in a bloodless coup on October 12, 1999, America’s favourite dictator-general Pervez Musharraf addressed the nation and said, “This is not martial law, only another path towards democracy.” The scotch whiskey-loving coup leader launched the Kargil misadventure to sabotage the peace process between Pakistan and India. Gen Musharraf also ordered the assassination of one of the most popular Baloch tribal leaders, former governor and chief minister Nawab Akbar Khan Bugti, 79. When Pakistan soldiers targeted Bugti’s home in Dera Bugti, the first victims were Hindus as what happened in Bangladesh during 1971. In spite of his dream to take occupy whole of Kashmir and killing civilian leaders, Musharraf became best buddies with President George Bush and his military regime received upwards of $12 billion in aid from the US to fight the “war on terror.” Ironically, Lieutenant general Nadeem Taj, a former ISI chief, his closest colleague, reportedly helped bin Laden live with this three wives in a mansion next door to the Pakistan Military Academy in Kakul. After Musharraf left public office, he was regularly invited by premier US think-tanks.

In the proverbial manner of why own a cow when you can get milk free, the present Pakistani army chief General Raheel Sharif, a known protégé of former coup leader General Pervez Musharraf, has made his army the judge, jury and executioner, at gunpoint, without proclaiming martial law as yet. It maybe this reason that the first to hang among Pakistan’s death row inmates after the Peshawar attacks were people who had staged an assassination attempt on his former boss. At least one senator Raza Rabbani even though he cast his vote in favour of army courts on the orders of former president Asif Ali Zardari, world famous by his nickname Mr Ten Percent. But author Arif Jamal had no sympathy for Rabbani, saying he should have resigned if he was so principled. “Politicians have been turned into the animals, bears and monkeys, that you see dance on the streets of Pakistan by the army janta,” Jamal said. Dawn newspaper in an editorial entitled “A sad day,” lamented, “The 21st constitutional amendment will stand as a monument to the betrayal of the civilian, democratic cause.”