Musharraf awaits his marching orders

Asia Times ^ | Sep 9, 2003 | Syed Saleem Shahzad

[zacyak]

KARACHI - A political crisis in which the opposition and the ruling coalition have joined forces to coerce Pakistani President General Pervez Musharraf into shedding his uniform and submitting his controversial constitutional amendments to parliamentary scrutiny has emboldened the hand of senior generals seeking Musharraf's ouster.

The Muttahida Majlis-e-Amal (MMA), a grouping of six religious parties, and members of the ruling Pakistan Muslim League-Quaid-i-Azam group are negotiating to force Musharraf to table the amendments, known as the Legal Framework Order (LFO), in the national assembly, and also to get Musharraf, who is chief of army staff as well as president, to abandon his uniform.

And senior sources behind the iron curtains of the army's general headquarters in Rawalpindi have told Asia Times Online that a section of the top brass are agitating for Musharraf to step down immediately.

Discontent over Musharraf's grip on the top civilian and army posts has bubbled virtually ever since he took power in a bloodless coup in October 1999, but concern has reached boiling point in recent days after his suggestion, for the first time, that he might consider retiring from the army in a year's time.

The trouble is, for some in the army, a year is too long to wait, as seven senior officers are due to retire over the months up to October 2004. These include General Aziz Khan, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Committee; General Yusuf, vice chief of army staff; Lieutenant-General Tauqir Zia, inspector general of training and evaluation; Lieutenant-General Mushtaq Ahmed, chief of staff to the Joint Chiefs of Staff Committee headquarters; Lieutenant-General Qayyum, chairman of the Pakistan Ordnance Factory; Lieutenant-General Ali Aurakzai, Peshawar corps commander; and Lieutenant-General Imtiaz Shaheen.

These officials argue that Musharraf might as well go now so that one of them can serve as chief of army staff before they retire. According to sources, the officials are holding discussions with Musharraf on the issue, which in itself is unprecedented, as in the past they would never have dared to raise such a contentious matter.

On the political front, the MMA has apparently accepted giving Musharraf a year to step down, at which time they would back him being elected as a civilian president. In return, though, they want parliament to have the opportunity to discuss the LFO, which currently, among other things, allows the president to break or suspend the assemblies, establish a powerful National Security Council that in effect can override parliament and the prime minister, and endanger the autonomy of provincial governments.

These latest rumblings in the army follow a story broken by Asia Times Online on August 30, and picked up by the media both in Pakistan and abroad, on the secret arrest of several army officers (Musharraf's army breaking ranks).

After trying to keep the arrests quiet, Inter-Services Public Relations eventually released a note confirming the arrests but denying the involvement of the US Federal Bureau of Investigation, as reported by Asia Times Online. This denial has not been widely accepted.

The arrests have heightened concerns over procedures - or lack of them - for the punishment of officers, who in this case are suspected of having links to Islamic militants. The information section of the Ministry of Defense has promised a report within 10 days.

According to Asia Times Online security sources, Musharraf contacted top MMA leaders and asked them not to exploit the issue. They assured him that they do not want to be blamed for any problems within the army, and have remained aloof from the controversy.

These difficult days for Musharraf have been compounded by the recent failure of a military operation in the Bannu district of North-West Frontier Province (NWFP) against al-Qaeda. The Interior Ministry issued a strongly worded statement just before the operation saying that the net was tightening on al-Qaeda and that its members would be "smoked out". However, after strong opposition to the presence of US troops, the operation was called off within a few hours and a press statement said that it was to have been "a routine exercise". Opposition came from all political quarters in the country, including local tribal people who threatened to take up arms against the army if it stayed in the region.

For their part, elements within the army are not too pleased with talk of a possible compromise with India over disputed Kashmir, and they do not want to see Pakistan's role in the region being reduced at the insistence of the Americans.

In many ways, therefore, Pakistan is at a crossroads. Musharraf will have to make decisions on his own role in government, not to mention the direction that the country should take, given that the army is not united behind him.

Parliament, meanwhile, is virtually moribund, as the opposition is sufficiently strong - and the ruling coalition sufficiently weak - to ensure that very little legislation is being passed. Further, NWFP, which is ruled by the MMA, is a problem because of intervention from the central administration. And the Sindh government, like parliament, is almost at a standstill because of a weak coalition government.

There is a general consensus that these impasses gripping the country will have to be broken soon, and when they are, fireworks can be expected.

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