MUSHARRAF: beginning
of the end?
by B.Raman
" In the face of such
attacks on his legitimacy, there has been speculation in Islamabad that
before going to New Delhi, the General might ease out President Mohammed
Rafique Tarar and have himself sworn in as the President under the
Provisional Constitutional Order (PCO), and issue an ordnance of indemnity
pardoning all those who had participated in the coup. " --- Extract
from the writer's article dated June 15 titled "Count-Down To
Indo-Pak Summit--II" www.saag.org/papers3/paper258.html
------------
Throughout his career, Gen. Pervez Musharraf, the
self-styled Chief Executive and President of Pakistan, has shown himself
to be adept in the use of the tactics of surprise, deception and ability
to sow confusion in the mind of the adversary through actions
unanticipated by the adversary. He showed these qualities in full
measure when taking India by surprise in Kargil in 1999 and he has now
used those qualities again in a swift move to get rid of Mr.Mohammed
Rafique Tarar, the duly-elected President, through an executive decree
under the Provisional Constitutional Order and anoint himself the
President.
His predecessors as military dictators had also
proclaimed themselves as the President, but by doing so, they had not
violated the Constitution because, on seizing power, they had abrogated or
suspended the Constitution, proclaimed Martial Law and obtained the
endorsement of a compliant judiciary for their action under the so-called
doctrine of necessity.
In his anxiety to show himself as different from
Gen.Zia-ul-Haq, Gen.Musharraf, on seizing power on October 12,1999, did
not replace the Constitution with Martial Law and kept in force the
fundamental features of the 1973 Constitution such as those relating to
the election and removal of the President, the National Assembly, the
Senate, the judiciary etc.
The Supreme Court, while endorsing his seizure of power
under the doctrine of necessity, had at the same time ruled that he cannot
change the basic features of the Constitution. He has now violated
both the Constitution and the Supreme Court judgement by removing Mr.Tarar
in a manner and for reasons not provided for in the Constitution, by
proclaiming himself the President and by dissolving the Senate, which,
under the Constitution, is a permanent body not subject to dissolution.
While his actions in removing Mr.Tarar and in dissolving
the Senate by decrees have already been challenged by some lawyers in the
Lahore High Court, the success of their petitions is doubtful because by
persuading the Chief Justice of the Supreme Court to swear him in as the
President, Gen.Musharraf has already secured in advance the tacit
endorsement of his arbitrary actions by the head of the judiciary.
It is to be seen whether the other judges would go against the action of
their head and rule the decisions of the General, with the complicity of
the Chief Justice, unconstitutional.
It was widely known in Pakistan since March that the
General was planning to take over as the President too. The general
anticipation was that he would do so in a manner not violative of the
Constitution, by persuading Mr.Tarar to resign on health grounds, by
reconvening the suspended National Assembly and the Senate and by
pressurising them to elect him as the President so that he could assume
the office on August 14, Pakistan's Independence Day. Or, in the
alternative, it was thought, he could make the newly-elected local bodies
elect him as the President.
As the mainstream political parties increasingly
questioned his legitimacy and his right to negotiate with India on matters
affecting the sovereignty and territorial limits of Pakistan, he started
discussing with his kitchen Cabinet, including Mr.Abdul Sattar, his
Foreign Minister, Lt.Gen.Moinudeen Haider, the Interior Minister, Lt.Gen.
Muzaffar Hussain Usmani, the Deputy Chief of the Army Staff, Lt.Gen.
Mohammed Yousef Khan, the Chief of the General Staff, Lt.Gen.Mahmood
Ahmed, the Director-General of the Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI),
Maj-Gen.Rasheed Quereshi, his press spokesman, and Mr.Sharifuddin Pirzada,
legal adviser to all military dictators on ways of circumventing the
Constitution and softening the judiciary, the advisability of his taking
over as the President even before going to India. This writer had
drawn attention on June 15 to this change in the General's thinking in his
paper cited above. Neither all the Corps Commanders nor the Cabinet
were aware of this which had been kept a closely-guarded secret.
Thus, this writer was not surprised by his taking over
as the President even before coming to India. The assessment of
those in the kitchen Cabinet was that the General would do so in the
beginning of July after the return of Mr.Abdul Sattar, the Foreign
Minister, from Washington. The military regime was hoping that
Mr.Sattar's talks in Washington would make a dent in the USA's sanctions
policy vis-à-vis Pakistan and bring about a positive change in the
attitude of the US towards Pakistan.
It is said by well-informed circles in Islamabad that
when Mr.Sattar left on his visits to London and Washington, he was aware
of the General's plans to take over as the President in the beginning of
July. He was also under the impression that Mr.Tarar would
co-operate by resigning.
What took everyone by surprise was the determined
refusal of Mr.Tarar to oblige the General by resigning, the abrupt
decision of the General to have Mr.Tarar removed in a manner violative of
the Constitution and to take over as the President even while Mr.Sattar
was in the midst of his talks with the senior members of the Bush
Administration even at the risk of a negative reaction from Washington and
its impact on Pakistan's hopes of getting another credit package from the
International Monetary Fund (IMF), when the present one expires on
September 30, and the success of the General in persuading the Chief
Justice of the Supreme Court to co-operate with him.
It is said that the General had kept in readiness
another decree to dismiss the Chief Justice and appoint a compliant
successor in case the Chief Justice refused to swear him in. But,
the Chief Justice was more than willing and the General did not have to
use it.
These abrupt actions of the General are attributed by
well-informed persons to reports received by the General from the
Political Division of the ISI warning that:
* Lt.Gen.Mohammed Aziz, the pro-Jamaat-e-Islami (JEI)
Corps Commander at Lahore, who belongs to the Sudan tribe of
Pakistan-Occupied Kashmir (POK) and who commands the loyalty of the
jehadi organisations, has been advising the Hurriyat and the jehadi
organisations not to tone down their anti-India rhetoric and actions in
India, instigating Qazi Hussain Ahmed, the Amir of the JEI, to oppose
the General's visit to India and encouraging Mr.Tarar not to resign.
* Mr.Tarar, who was an active and influential member
of the Tablighi Jamaat and the Markaz Dawa Al Irshad, the political wing
of the Lashkar-e-Toiba before he was chosen by Mr.Nawaz Sharif to be the
President on the advice of his father, Mr.Mohammed Sharif, was also
giving similar advice to the JEI and the jehadi organisations.
It is believed in Islamabad that the conflicting signals
emanating from the Hurriyat in Jammu & Kashmir ever since the Indian
Prime Minister, Mr.A.B.Vajpayee, invited the General are due to
conflicting instructions going to the Hurriyat from Pakistan--- the
General, through the ISI, advising moderation, and Lt.Gen.Aziz, through
the JEI, advising against any moderation or slow-down.
All these would indicate that the General has not yet
been able to remove the reservations in the minds of the religious parties
and the jehadis about the wisdom of his speeches and actions vis-à-vis
India and to dilute the influence of Lt.Gen Aziz and his small group of
hardline and religiously-motivated supporters in the Army. This
could act as a drag on his manoeuvrability on the Kashmir issue while
coming to India.
The General has always shown great sensitivity to the
views, reservations and concerns of the religious parties and jehadis in
matters relating to Indo-Pakistan relations. While the name of
Mr.Shaukat Aziz, the Finance Minister, is now being mentioned as a
possible Prime Minister or as Senior Minister with Gen Musharraf
continuing to retain the post of the Chief Executive, another possibility
being speculated upon in Islamabad is his appointing a known hard-liner
such as Mr.Sattar himself as the PM or Senior Minister in order to allay
the apprehensions of the religious elements that under US pressure, he is
planning to tone down Pakistan's position on Kashmir
In an attempt to dispel the impression in many circles
in Pakistan that the forthcoming summit has been choreographed by the US,
with Mr.George Tenet, Director of the CIA, playing the role of the
conductor, the General has reportedly been insisting during his
discussions with his political interlocutors that Track II or back channel
diplomacy had no role to play in facilitating the summit, though he would
welcome an activist US role to make India change its position on Kashmir.
The widely-held assessment in New Delhi that
Gen.Musharraf's self-elevation showed that he is in total control of the
situation in Pakistan and is there to stay for a long time is not borne
out by reports from well-informed observers in Islamabad. The
General's actions are seen not as those of a man totally confident of his
continuance in power, but as of one nervous about the opposition of the
religious elements and their supporters in the Army to him. These
elements, who supported the ouster of Mr.Sharif, have been shocked by his
unceremonious removal of Mr.Tarar, a pious and devout Muslim close to the
fundamentalists.
If this opposition persists and grows, the General's
position could become shaky and untenable. The Indian Prime Minister
would have the unenviable task of negotiating with a man, increasingly
distrusted in his own country and in the rest of the world.
(The writer is Additional Secretary (retd), Cabinet
Secretariat, Govt. of India, and, presently, Director, Institute For
Topical Studies, Chennai. E-Mail: corde@vsnl.com)
