[NYTr] Disaster Looms in Pakistan

[All the News That Doesn't Fit]

The Guardian - Aug 2, 2007
http://www.guardian.co.uk/pakistan/Story/0,,2139715,00.html

Disaster looms in land built for peace and harmony

Politicians fear civil war as Musharraf's regime is battered by 
suicide attacks, civilian revolt and American threats

by Declan Walsh in Islamabad

Decorum was abandoned as accusations ricocheted between the
wood-panelled walls of Pakistan's national assembly on Monday night.
"Murderers! Murderers of innocent people!" screamed an MP from a
religious party, his yellow turban shaking as he wagged a finger
towards the government benches.

Five female parliamentarians, their faces concealed behind black and
white burkas, slapped the benches with open palms. Another mullah stood
up and started shouting. The speaker strained to maintain order.

Others were less captivated by the debate on last month's siege of the
Red Mosque, in which more than 100 people died. One man snoozed at his
desk. Across the vast hall others started whispered conversations. And
high above them Muhammad Ali Jinnah, a dapper man with a pinched,
clean-shaven face, looked on impassively from his giant portrait on the
wall.

In August 1947 Jinnah founded Pakistan in the hope of forging a homeland
where the subcontinent's Muslims could live in peace and harmony. Sixty
years later, it is going badly wrong. The military runs the country,
headed by a dictatorial and unpopular general. Huge protests have filled
the streets, the courts are defiant and the Taliban control the tribal
belt. So, in part, does al-Qaida, and the United States is threatening
to use force. Suicide blasts have rocked the big cities - and there may
be worse to come.

President Pervez Musharraf's rule has been "catastrophic" but his regime
could yet "turn really nasty" said Stephen Cohen of the Brookings
Institution in Washington and author of The Idea of Pakistan. "The
country hasn't had a crisis of this magnitude since the 1970s when East
Pakistan split off and became Bangladesh. But in this case it's an
Islamist movement that wants to transform the country from within."

Nerves are on edge. "We are very scared," said Enver Baig, a senator
with the opposition Pakistan People's party, who says his wife calls him
several times a day to check he is still alive. "If we don't mend our
ways, it could spell the end of the country. The Islamists have sleeper
cells in every city. We could have a civil war."

Others do not believe the situation to be so grave. The army has ruled
for 19 out of the past 30 years and some say the crisis could be a
necessary spasm to flush it from power. A secretive meeting between Gen
Musharraf and the exiled opposition leader Benazir Bhutto in Abu Dhabi
last Friday has triggered speculation of a power-sharing deal. Neither
side has confirmed the details but supporters say it could offer a
peaceful transition to "full democracy"; critics call it military rule
under another name.

What is certain is the blistering pace of change. Last Friday afternoon
Talat Hussain, a popular TV host, recorded a show about clashes outside
the Red Mosque earlier that day. As he finished, word came through that
a government spokesman had been assassinated in western Baluchistan
province. Moments later a suicide bomber struck in central Islamabad.
Then came the news of a meeting between Gen Musharraf and Ms Bhutto.
Hussain scrapped his programme and started again.

"News doesn't have a very long shelf-life here any more," he said.

March of the militants

The gravest threat comes from the tribal belt, where pro-Taliban
militants have already declared war on the state. Since July 3 - the
first day of the Red Mosque siege - suicide bombers have killed more
than 200 people, mostly tribal policemen and soldiers. Al-Qaida is also
involved. Yesterday a Libyan commander who escaped a US military prison
in 2005 urged Pakistanis to overthrow Gen Musharraf. "Destroy the
fortification of his weak army and the nest of his filthy intelligence
agency and the core of his infidel rule," Abu Yahia al-Libi said in a
video statement.

The fighting is most intense in Waziristan, a mountainous area along the
Afghan border where US intelligence says al-Qaida is regrouping. There,
Islamabad has lost control. Pakistani soldiers are largely confined to
base and travel by helicopter - much like Nato soldiers fighting the
Taliban on the far side of the border. When they venture out, they are
attacked. A firefight near Miran Shah on Tuesday left 15 militants dead,
according to unconfirmed army figures.

The defiance is spreading. In the tribal belt pro-government leaders are
beheaded, barbers are threatened for cutting men's beards and music
shops are torched. Last weekend armed men seized control of a religious
shrine in Mohmand tribal agency, near Peshawar, and renamed it the New
Red Mosque. Worryingly, it is reaching major cities - a Harry Potter
book launch in Karachi was cancelled after police found a large car bomb
outside a shopping centre.

Civilian revolt

The civilians have also shattered Gen Musharraf's aura of authority, led
by an unlikely hero. Last March the chief justice, Iftikhar Muhammad
Chaudhry - a cranky man with a liking for rambling speeches - refused an
order from the general to resign. After days of pressure from Gen
Musharraf's intelligence bullies, Mr Chaudhry's defiance triggered
protests that swelled into a powerful movement. Black-suited lawyers
took to streets across the country, hurling insults at the general. The
kindest called him a "dog".

The lawyers were bolstered by the rickshaw class - ordinary people tired
of soaring food prices and of watching the rich elite zip past in their
new Mercedes - and other societal changes.

An explosion of private television channels has revolutionised Pakistani
politics. Previously coverage was censored; today channels zing with
lively debate. Live coverage of riots in Karachi in early May, when
armed government supporters killed dozens of rivals, was a turning
point for Gen Musharraf.

The civilian revolt reached its climax 10 days ago when, against all
expectations, the supreme court threw out Gen Musharraf's case against
the chief justice. Never before had a civilian taken on a military
leader and won. Gen Musharraf was silent, and US and British policies
excusing the military dictatorship went up in smoke. "It shows that
while Pakistanis may be at times incapable of operating a democracy,
they want one," said Dr Cohen.

White House war

Gen Musharraf is also under fierce pressure from the White House, where
some officials seem to think they invaded the wrong country after 9/11.
The US has given Gen Musharraf's government $10bn (#4.9bn) in aid. But
now, frustrated with Pakistan's slippery approach, policymakers feel
they have been short-changed. Last week the US Congress passed a law
aggressively linking aid to progress in the "war on terror".

Hawkish officials suggested that unilateral strikes on al-Qaida bases in
Waziristan might be the only way to prevent a fresh attack on the US.
"We must be clear with Gen Musharraf that if Pakistan won't take out
al-Qaida, the United States will," Lee Hamilton, a member of President
George Bush's homeland security advisory council, wrote on Monday.

The Pakistani government is angered and alarmed. "Irresponsible ...
counterproductive," thundered the foreign minister, Khurshid Kasuri,
last week. "This may be election season in the United States but it
should not be at our expense," he said.

Analysts say strikes are unlikely in the short term. But what is certain
is that anti-American hostility is becoming deeper and more bitter. "Red
Mosque, Waziristan - this is all being manipulated by America," said
accountancy student Mazhar Qayyum in Islamabad. "They've just been
playing us since 9/11 - paying dollars and turning the Pakistani army
into killers of Muslims."

After years of casually disdaining his rubber-stamp parliament, Gen
Musharraf now needs it to shore up his rule. He wants the chaotic
national assembly - the product of a rigged vote in 2002 - to return
him as president for another five years later this year. For this he
needs a deal with Ms Bhutto, and has reportedly promised to lift
long-standing corruption charges against her. The US and Britain are
behind him, apparently convinced Gen Musharraf is still their best bet.

But the plot could easily come unstuck. The supreme court could shoot it
down. And it is an especially high-stakes game for Ms Bhutto, whose
father was hanged by a general and who sneered at Gen Musharraf as a
vile dictator during her nine-year exile. Now she risks a revolt from
supporters who consider Gen Musharraf to be political poison.

"This is very demoralising and could undermine the whole process," said
Talat Masood, a retired army general and liberal commentator. "Benazir
has bracketed herself among the opportunists. Her support will dip, and
it will be taken up by the religious right."

The cricketer-turned-politician Imran Khan called it a "fatal mistake"
that could drive Pakistan into the hands of extremists. "She's
completely out of touch. I fear that Pakistan could become another
Algeria. We need someone who believes in talking, not guns," he said.

The general

It appears that the bluff, barrel-chested former commando is running out
of options. A poll by the Washington-based International Republican
Institute yesterday put Gen Musharraf's popularity at 34% - down 20
points since February. If politics fails, he could impose a state of
emergency. But that, according to the International Crisis Group, would
accelerate the slide towards a "military-led, failing state status
prone to domestic unrest and export of Islamic radicalism domestically,
regionally and beyond".

Most of all Gen Musharraf wants to avoid the fate of the last military
ruler, Zia ul-Haq, who died in a mysterious plane crash in August 1988.
Friend and foe fear that without a soft landing this time, the general
could take the country down with him.

Pakistan in numbers

Population: 165m

Land area: 308,000sq miles

Average life expectancy: 64 years

Aid from US since 2001: #5bn

Size of military: 600,000

Estimated nuclear warheads: 50

(c) Guardian News and Media Limited 2007