A state that appears weak emboldens chaos. There are signs that both United States and India have shown interest in creating ethnic bloodshed inside Pakistan in case of a war over Mumbai. A political failure at the top is putting Pakistan and the lives of Pakistanis at risk. The possibility of an Indo-American war of aggression against Pakistan is still there. But a weak Pakistan from the inside is a bigger threat. Time for the Pakistani military to join upright civilians from outside the political elite to rescue the state through major internal changes. The homeland before all else.
By Ahmed Quraishi
Monday, 5 January 2008.
A map released by the so-called 'Govt. of Balochistan In Exile', which shows itself to be based at the ‘Jewish Baloch Alliance Building, Jerusalem, Israel’ but is founded by a Pakistani who names himself Mir Azaad Khan Baloch, based in the United States and supported and financed by intelligence officers posted at the Indian embassy in Washington, D.C. There is no direct evidence of American involvement in terrorism inside Pakistani Balochistan, but there is plenty of evidence showing Indian and Karzai governments’ involvement. Both of them are American allies and are using Afghanistan, an American-occupied territory, for the purpose.
ISLAMABAD, Pakistan—It was a coincidence. But a telling one for Pakistan.
As India ratcheted up threats of war, three major internal flare-ups ominously coincided with a looming foreign military aggression: a mysterious attempt to spark ethnic riots in Karachi, unexpected statements from some Balochistan politicians hinting at rebellion against the state if their demands were not met, and renaming of NWFP without changing the constitution. Curiously, the last move came on the day the nation unofficially mourned the secession of East Pakistan in 1971. Ethnic frictions – largely the result of political failures than anything else – are common to all of them.
Each one of these incidents had the potential of creating domestic rift when Pakistan faced external threat. The timing, however, was no coincidence. A state that appears weak emboldens chaos. The government and the military managed to control the situation. But it is evident that Pakistan is delaying decision on a difficult task: a major reformation of a weak state structure incapable of handling challenges in the twenty-first century.
The urgency of this task stems from signs that foreign powers are using our weaknesses to blackmail the country and extract concessions. In case of war, these weaknesses will be exploited to the fullest.
India’s invasion of East Pakistan in 1971 was the first successful attempt at using ethnicity to divide Pakistan. Some non-state actors in India continue to use this useful idea, relying on the continuing inability of Pakistani politicians to foster a strong sense of Pakistani nationalism. The 1980s and ‘90s saw concerted effort by Indian intelligence agencies to separately engage Pakistani Punjabis and Sindhis and others through cultural organizations based in third countries. The purpose was to encourage separate identities. This effort has moved now to include Pakistani Pashtuns and Balochis. The Americans in 2007 and early 2008 massively promoted ideas for a future division of Pakistan into weak, ethnocentric states. And it is no coincidence that Washington during this period privately courted Pakistani politicians from ethno-separatist leaning parties, some of whom were invited to U.S. for consultations away from media glare.
There is a link between the U.S. presence in Afghanistan and the sudden rise – since 2005 and onwards – of ethno-separatist chatter in Pakistan. The U.S. intervention in Afghanistan and its larger plans for the region do no bode well for Pakistan. Faced by a divided NATO and rising Russia and China, Washington needs Indian military help if it wants to keep Afghanistan under occupation. Pakistan is a little more than a nuisance in this scheme of things. If India is to be brought into Afghanistan, a weaker and localized Pakistan better suits U.S. interests. Denuclearizing Pakistan and ending its alliance with China are also not possible without weakening the Pakistani military.
The U.S. used drone attacks to soften Iraq throughout 1990s. The same strategy is being used against Pakistan. Regular U.S. military violations of Pakistani territory have become the norm. In Iraq, while the drone attacks continued, U.S. courted Iraqi ethnic and religious minority groups and spent time cultivating loyalties. The process of preparing the Iraqi state for an eventual collapse took exactly a decade. The Iraqi leadership bears responsibility for not reading the signs.
A similar leadership failure in Pakistan must be stopped at all costs. A reorganization of the Pakistani state has become imperative. And such a huge task cannot be put to vote because an ailing system will rather perpetuate itself than change. The Pakistani state needs to be transformed from an amalgamation of ethnicities to an amalgamation of administrative units where Pakistani identity reins supreme and ethno-religious loopholes firmly sealed.
To strengthen democracy, the political monopoly of feudal politicians will have to give way to a more representative system. Ethnocentric politics will have to be curbed; parties will have to become democratic. Reform will mean a strong federal government with streamlined bureaucracy, and powers transferred to a series of administrative provinces with local parliaments and directly elected governors. In short, the state will have to help Pakistanis gradually de-politicize and refocus energy toward building better living standards and lifestyles.
These ambitious reforms can only come through a joint intervention by Pakistani civilians and military and might require a temporary period of controlled government. The current political class does not have the will or incentive to bring change.
To borrow from history, Pakistani tribes are strong but divided. They’re in need of a strong leader. The road ahead is one of consolidation. The alternative is death and destruction of the type that some of our so-called allies have brought to Iraq, Afghanistan, our tribal belt, and now Gaza.
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“A Second 9/11″: An Integral Part of US Military Doctrine
11 Comments
January 6, 2009 at 7:27 am
[...] January 6, 2009 at 7:27 am · Filed under Army’s Involvement, Pakistan Under PM Gillani ·Tagged Military coup in Pakistan, Pakistani Politics A Military-Civil Intervention To Save Pakistan [...]
January 6, 2009 at 8:10 am
hah! Now its back to let us run to mama military!
there was a time when military were the heroes, then they were the enemies. Nawaz sharif was the savior, then the traitor, then the savior again. Benazir was the savior, traitor, and saviour again. Uncle Mush was the saviour, traitor, and saviour again.
It would be good fun to watch you guys in Pakistan running in circles, if only it weren’t so sad.
Any country or people who have to run to their military as a saviour is ruined already. Stop that, and learn making your political masters listen to you. If you don’t know how to do that, perhaps you should invite the Bangladeshis to run your country. They seem to do it better than you!
January 6, 2009 at 12:32 pm
Why does the world think that there is no world beyond democracy? Democracy is not a perfect system. It has its flaws and each country has implemented it differently. Some countries don’t have democracies but have done equally well like China, Malaysia. Mohateer Mohammed ruled for 25 years or so on Malaysia and really developed it well. The stability of government provided consistent policies and a dedicated team.
If you have a corrupt ruler the best of the best system will fail as we have witnessed it in the case of Pakistan how the “democratic” leaders are worse than dictators. Even some of our “dictators” have done more for the nation than anyone else.
Then why do we see things as black and white?
Wasn’t Tipu Sultan a ruler and a soldier at the same time? Wasn’t he benevolent? How about Salahuddin Ayubi and our Khulfa-e-Rashideen? Weren’t they soldiers, great administrators and benevolent rulers?
Let’s not get stuck in the theoretical merits of democracy and have some type of body ( an institution or an interim care-taker government) which will pick few candidates (after thorough background checks) and the public should select one out of those. Plain and simple. No need to spend millions of rupees on expensive campaign. Just introduce those candidates on Televison sort of like “US presidential debate” so that the public know which candidate is the strongest.
The success of this system will depend on how good the standards of evaluation are and the support of public.
January 6, 2009 at 3:06 pm
Your sense of history is pretty bad, I think. The idea of a benevolent dictator is an oxymoron – almost. Your own attempts to have benevolent dictators are the perfect example of this. China and Malaysia? Ask the people who are persecuted for their beliefs in those countries, or raising their voice. Well, if Pakistan was a benevolent dictatorship like China, maybe you would be jailed for a casual remark you make in a blog like this.
Democracy is not the best solution – but till something better comes along, it is all we have.
Make a list of all the dictators in the world, and see how many are benevolent. You will find the few who are too have their dark sides. Militaries can usually never be trusted; their culture of obedience is against the very nature of freedom.
Why not bring back Mush? His only fault was that instead of allowing his country to be bombed back to stone age, he wisely surrendered to the wishes of US. Perhaps the patriots in Pakistan would be happier as roasted flesh flying in the wind.
Military has come to power several times in Pakistan – perhaps its time to bring them back only a few months after you got rid of them!
January 6, 2009 at 4:29 pm
May be my friend “thetummyreturns” forgot that the current Independent Media , fast and cheap communications means (Internet, cellular etc) were made possible under a foresighted dictator Musharraf who changed the complete scenario of the country with these gifts otherwise India, Israel and USA would have sallowed Pakistan by now… educate yourself people…
January 6, 2009 at 6:25 pm
No. This is not the stage of any intervention. The dossier given by
India on 5-01-2009 is trap/net around army. Forget about intervention.
Counter the allegations and save yourself. This is time to act as
purely a professional army to defend the country and army itself. The
issues of NWFP-Baluchistan-and ethenic Karachi- are leverages to trap
the army by way of another intervention on civil government.It is an
admitted position that Local indian LTOs were invlolved in Mumbai
carnage but the India constantly standby that Pakistan was behind it
with state and non-state characters which mean that there are designs
to follow.
From the deeper appreciation of policies around us it is clear that
the country itself is not a target nor there would be any
dis-integration but the goal is to defuse physical power of pakistani
forces for future supermacy of India. Any detraction shall act as
doube edge sword. Now forget the policy of hate-like and dislike- save
ISI and the army.
January 7, 2009 at 5:08 pm
If you want to know why and how Musharraf was removed.. read this great piece:
By Dr. Sachithanandam Sathananthan,
Dr Sachithanandam Sathananthan earned his Ph.D. from the University of Cambridge. He serves as a Visiting Research Scholar at the Jawaharlal Nehru University School of International Studies.
Sep 12, 2008
Counterpoint
The Great Game Continues
There is great euphoria among Pakistani liberals over the presumed ‘return to democracy’. They are yet to discover Late Neo-colonialism. The manoeuvres against Musharraf bear uncanny resemblances to organised ‘people’s power’ the CIA unleashed during ‘colour revolutions’ and upheavals against Hugo Chavez.
The widely expected victory for Pakistan People’s Party (PPP) leader Asif Ali Zardari in the presidential election brought to a high point the tortuous process of regime change in Pakistan. Anyone who has followed the ‘colour revolutions’ that installed pro-American rulers in Georgia (Rose Revolution, 2003), Ukraine (Orange Revolution, 2004) and Kyrgyzstan (Tulip Revolution, 2005) could surely not have missed the tell tale signs.
The earliest foreboding surfaced in the backroom manoeuvres by United States (US) and British intelligence services to engineer panic about the security of Pakistan’s nuclear assets. It was a repeat of the duplicitous hysteria they generated over non-existent weapons of mass destruction that Iraq allegedly possessed. A carefully worded article, co-authored by former State Department officials Richard L. Armitage and Kara L. Bue, signalled the shift in US policy. After formally acknowledging then President Pervez Musharraf’s many achievements, the authors continued: ‘much remains to be accomplished, particularly in terms of democratization. Pakistan must…eliminate the home-grown jihadists…And…it must prove itself a reliable partner on technology transfer and nuclear non-proliferation.’ And the denouement: ‘We believe General Musharraf…deserves our attention and support, no matter how frustrated we become at the pace of political change and the failure to eliminate Taliban fighters on the Afghan border.’ Translation: Musharraf has to go.
Almost simultaneously a 2006 country survey in The Economist, titled ‘Too much for one man to do’, began on a jingoistic overkill: ‘Think about Pakistan, and you might get terrified. Few countries have so much potential to cause trouble, regionally and worldwide’. The following year a Carnegie Endowment report faulted western governments that ‘contribute to regional instability by allowing Pakistan to trade democratisation for its cooperation on terrorism’. Senior US State Department officials repeatedly accused Musharraf of ‘not doing enough’ to combat Islamists within Pakistan and prevent their infiltration across the Durand Line into southern Afghanistan.
Sensing the way wind was blowing, then PPP Chairperson Benazir Bhutto redoubled efforts to convince Washington and London that, if she were to become Prime Minister, she would gladly do their bidding. She underscored her enthusiasm to serve and ensured her party was fully responsive to America’s Late Neo-colonialism. She summoned senior party members to Dubai on 9 June 2007 for a ‘briefing’ by a team from the US Democratic Party’s National Democratic Institute (NDI), ostensibly on the subject of elections in Pakistan. The ruling Republican Party’s International Republican Institute (IRI) had conducted the previous four ‘briefings’ in June and September 2006 and March and April 2007. Benazir leaned towards the Democratic Party in the last one no doubt as a hedge against the party’s possible victory at the forthcoming US Presidential Election.
Even a cursory knowledge of US Imperialism’s standard operating procedure is sufficient to surmise at least some among the IRI and NDI officers were covert intelligence operatives; and that their ‘briefings’ went beyond ‘tutelage of natives’. Rather they have been grooming the PPP as America’s satrap.
Benazir’s predilection to collaborate with the West has its roots in the Bhutto family’s micro political culture. Her grandfather, Shah Nawaz Bhutto was a minor comprador official in the British colonial regime. The British rewarded his ‘loyal’ services with the title Khan Bahadur and later appointed him President of a District Board and still later elevated him to knighthood.
Her father Zulfikar Ali Bhutto’s populist programmes did not dilute that legacy, which left a lasting impression on Benazir; she firmly believed the path to political power in Pakistan meanders through the Embassy of the United States, the current neo-colonialist.
She promised to offer the International Atomic Energy Agency access to Dr Abdul Qadeer Khan to ’satisfy the international community’, an euphemism for the major powers; and to allow the US-led International Security Assistance Force in Afghanistan to operate inside north-western Pakistan. By the time Benazir visited the Senate in September 2007, she had convinced the Bush Administration of her unswerving loyalty; for ’she received a standing ovation from a select gathering of US lawmakers, diplomats, academics and media representatives. This contrasted sharply with her previous visits to the US capital when she received little attention.’ To deepen ‘Washington’s renewed interest in her, Benazir cautioned that supporting Musharraf was ‘a strategic miscalculation’ and pleaded ‘the US should support the forces of democracy’, which, of course, refers to her PPP.
So, President George W Bush enabled Benazir’s return from exile by arm-twisting Musharraf to promulgate the National Reconciliation Ordinance (NRO). The NRO of 5 October granted amnesty to politicians active in Pakistan between 1988 and 1999 and effectively wiped the slate clean of corruption charges for Benazir and her husband Asif Zardari. Three weeks later Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice made it appear the Bush Administration wished to bring together ‘moderate’ forces, implying a scenario in which Musharraf and Benazir would join forces as President and Prime Minister respectively; and Deputy Secretary of State John Negroponte corroborated Rice: ‘Our message’, he intoned, ‘is that we want to work with the government and people of Pakistan’.
However, Musharraf saw through the US Administration’s transparent ploy to lull him into believing it would not remove him and install Benazir in his place. So, he swiftly invited Nawaz Sharif, leader of the Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz (PML-N), back from exile in Saudi Arabia to counter Benazir. But he could not consolidate his position, especially because he mishandled the judiciary, and was compelled to resign on 18 August 2008.
In a nutshell, the reason for ‘Washington’s renewed interest’ in Benazir is Musharraf’s firm opposition to US Late Neo-colonialism, to its manoeuvres to occupy, pacify and ravage Pakistan. In the 19th century British colonialism waged the ‘war on piracy’ on the high seas ostensibly to bring ‘the light of Christian civilization’. But the British were the most successful pirates, as Spanish and Portuguese historians would gladly confirm. The ‘war on piracy’ was the duplicitous justification trotted out to dominate lucrative maritime trade routes that were in the hands of Chinese, Arab and Tamil maritime empires and to invade kingdoms and/or countries essential to control trade and plunder resources. During most of the 20th century heroic anti-colonial movements and anti-imperialist wars rolled back much of colonial rule, which in some instances however morphed into neo-colonialism. Indonesia after Sukarno, Iran after Mosaddeq and Chile after Allende are well known examples.
The ‘war on terror’ and ‘promoting democracy’ are the 21st century equivalents of the 19th century British gobbledygook. American Late Neo-colonialism purveys them as moral justification and uses as political cover for intervening and, where necessary, invading resource-rich and strategic countries to overthrow nationalist leaders, install puppet regimes and savage the countries’ wealth. And of course the US is by far the most powerful terrorist force.
It succeeded in Iraq (for now); but the CIA-organised regime change could not dislodge Venezuela’s Hugo Chavez, who rejected the neo-colonialist 1989 Washington Consensus and supported alternative nationalist economic models.
Politically challenged Pakistani liberals — a motley crowd that includes members of human rights and civil liberties organisations, journalists, analysts, lawyers and assorted professionals — are utterly incapable of comprehending the geo-strategic context in which Musharraf manoeuvred to defend Pakistan’s interest. So they slandered him an ‘American puppet’, alleging he caved in to US pressure and withdrew support to the Afghan Taliban regime in the wake of 9/11 although in fact he removed one excuse for the Bush Administration to ‘bomb Pakistan into stone age’, as a senior State Department official had threatened.
Nevertheless American discomfort with Musharraf’s government was palpable by late 2003, after he dodged committing Pakistani troops to prop up the Anglo-American invasion of Iraq. When he offered to cooperate under the auspices of the Organisation of the Islamic Conference (OIC), naïve Pakistani media and analysts lunged for his jugular, condemning him once again for succumbing to US demands. But in fact he nimbly sidestepped American demands: he calculated that diverse ideological stances of the 57 Muslim member-counties would not allow the OIC to jointly initiate such controversial action and therefore Pakistan’s participation cannot arise, which proved correct.
Washington of course was not amused and the Bush Administration grew increasingly hostile to Musharraf’s determination to prioritise Pakistan’s interests when steering the ship of the state through the choppy waters of the unfolding New Great Game, in which the West — led by the US — is manoeuvring to contain growing Russian and Chinese influences in Central and West Asia. His foreign policy decisions over time convinced Washington that under his leadership, Pakistan would side with enemies of US and Britain in the New Great Game. First, he refused to isolate Iran; instead he vigorously pursued energy cooperation to build the Iran-Pakistan-India gas pipeline in the face of stiff American opposition. Second, Washington was alarmed by Musharraf’s preference for deepening Pakistan-China bilateral relations and forging nuclear cooperation; and more so when he offered Beijing naval facilities at the Gwadar port on Balochistan’s Arabian Sea coast overlooking the entrance to the Strait of Hormuz, a strategic chokepoint through which passes approximately 30 per cent of world’s energy supplies.
Perhaps the last straw was his success in gaining Observer Status for Pakistan in the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation (SCO). Russia and China are spearheading the SCO, which includes four other countries: Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan and Uzbekistan; Iran and India are also Observers. The SCO is widely perceived as a rising eastern counterweight to western security and economic groupings and Islamabad drifting towards the SCO was simply unacceptable in Washington.
To rub salt into its wounds, Musharraf refused permission to interrogate Dr. AQ Khan and firmly rejected Washington’s demands that NATO troops be allowed into the North West Frontier Province (NWFP) to hunt down Osama bin Laden and his associates.
By early 2006 it was clear Washington was looking for nothing less than a pliable leader in Islamabad, a firm political foothold in Pakistan and a Pakistani foreign policy that complemented US strategic aims in Central Asia.
What perhaps angered Washington the most were actions Musharraf took to wind down the ‘war on terror’ within Pakistan.
Immediately after taking power, he outlawed three Islamic extremist groups and, after 9/11, intensified military operations in the Federally Administered Tribal Areas (FATA) bordering Afghanistan.
Washington would have gone along with Musharraf had he focussed on military operations to curb Islamists. Military action alone cannot defeat guerrillas; but it can kill many of them and in turn induce new recruits — well known points reiterated by William R Polk in Violent Politics (2007) – so that the so-called ‘war on terror’ would not end any time soon.
That could supplement US Administrations’ assiduous manufacture of the ‘Islamic threat’ through the 1990s to launch an endless ‘war on terror’ — the New Cold War — to rescue America’s permanent war economy. For after the collapse of the Soviet Union, the US economy (and by extension west European economies) faced perhaps its biggest crisis: the ‘Communist threat’ ceased to be credible; it could not be exploited to terrify the American people into acquiescing to rising military expenditure that keeps wheels of the permanent war economy rolling and to expanding the repressive security apparatuses.
So the Bush Administration deftly replaced the ‘Communist threat’ with the ‘Islamic threat’, no doubt following Machiavelli’s famous advice in The Prince, that a wise ruler invents enemies and then slays them in order to control his own subjects. The apparently counterproductive bombings, arrests, torture, kidnappings and disappearances (sanitised as Extraordinary Rendition) carried out by US forces while the CIA covertly funded, armed and supported Islamists are intended not to eliminate the ‘Islamic threat’ but to contain it within manageable limits and to spawn the next generation of ‘terrorists’.
Sometimes, plans go awry; ‘culling’ may not contain the resistance, as seen in Afghanistan from time to time. Nevertheless, the strategy is to ‘feed terrorism’ and simultaneously ‘cull terrorists’ so that the perpetual New Cold War oils America’s moribund permanent war economy.
Musharraf, however, did not play ball. He complemented military force to defeat Islamists with political initiatives.
He signed a peace treaty with tribal elders in North Waziristan (within FATA) to marginalise the Islamists. To combat the Islamists’ religious ideology, he promoted ‘enlightened moderation’, a veiled reference to secularism and tolerance. Musharraf’s vision of a secular Pakistan has its roots in exposure to Mustafa Kemal Ataturk’s legacy when he attended school in Ankara during his father’s diplomatic posting to Turkey. In fact, after taking power in Pakistan he often held up Ataturk as his role model. He planned to ‘wean away’ the people from the ‘extremists’ through education is how he described his approach to this writer. Towards this end, he introduced educational reforms and re-wrote school history text books; enacted laws protecting women’s rights and diluted Islamic laws against women; and he liberalised the media. To deny Islamists their traditional rallying cry — Kashmir — he opened path breaking negotiations with India to remove that arrow from the Islamists’ quiver.
When Musharraf skilfully combined military operations against Islamists with a political front promoting secularism to ideologically disarm them, the US administration saw red. By secularising Pakistani society over time Musharraf would de-fang the ‘Islamic threat’ within Pakistan and extricate the country out of the contrived orbit of ‘war on terror’.
That would greatly diminish Washington’s leverage to intervene in the country to distance Islamabad from Beijing and exploit energy resources abundantly found in Balochistan and, in the long run, perhaps derail US administration’s well laid plans to bring Afghanistan to heel and to dominate Central Asia and its oil-rich Caspian Sea basin.
But Musharraf was in no mood to back down. So the Bush Administration slipped regime change into gear. Taking advantage of his missteps, the anti-Musharraf media blitz, NGO and student mobilisations, lawyers agitations, protests by political parties and civil society organisations seemingly coming from all directions in fact displayed a fantastic degree of organisation, coordination and financing clearly beyond the ken of the fratricidal activists and often ad hoc institutions and never witnessed before in the country. Very likely they will not be seen again either; indeed later the activists were singularly incapable of organising any significant agitation when three women were buried alive for defying their parents’ choice of husbands. The manoeuvres against Musharraf bear uncanny resemblances to organised ‘people’s power’ the CIA unleashed during ‘colour revolutions’ and upheavals against Hugo Chavez.
The Bush Administration began reaping the rewards of unseating Musharraf within 24 hours of his resignation. Chief of Army Gen Ashfaq Parvez Kayani travelled to Kabul to meet NATO and Afghan commanders on 19 August. About 10 days later Chairman of the US Joint Chiefs of Staff Admiral Mike Mullen informed a Pentagon news conference on 28 August that Kayani and his lieutenants held a ’secret meeting’ with their US counterparts on a US aircraft carrier, reminiscent of American gun boat diplomacy in Latin America and unthinkable in Pakistan under Musharraf’s watch..
Mullen touchingly chronicled how he ‘learned to trust’ Kayani and bent over backwards to emphasise that Kayani is no American puppet, that Kayani’s ‘principles and goals are to do what’s best for Pakistan.’ But a few sections of the US media, weaned on decades of Pentagon-speak from the debacle in Vietnam to the illegal invasion of Iraq, saw through the verbal obfuscation. And when a reporter pointedly queried Mullen whether Kayani’s ‘goal for Pakistan also aligned a hundred per cent with the US goal’, the Admiral waffled: ‘[Kayani] knows his country a whole lot better than we do. And again, I just think that’s where he is, that’s where he’ll stay.’ Translation: US administration has got Kayani on tight leash.
And to maintain there is no substantial change from Musharraf’s policies, Kayani’s spokesman Maj-Gen Athar Abbas and Mullen alleged the meetings had been arranged several weeks earlier, when Musharraf was President, to facetiously imply he had approved the contacts.
The import of ‘coordination’ between American, NATO, Afghan and Pakistan militaries will become clearer over the next weeks and months. For now the suspicion is unavoidable that the US Administration has at long last begun frog-marching Pakistan into the US-created Afghan quagmire to further destabilise the country and justify intervention.
Musharraf had resolutely opposed precisely this eventuality. He rejected US demands that the Pakistani army assist NATO forces in Afghanistan. He underlined the country will not repeat the catastrophic mistakes of the 1980s when it got embroiled in America’s war in Afghanistan against the then Soviet Union, for which the Pakistani people continues to pay a heavy price. Rather, he insisted his army will fight only Pakistan’s war within Pakistan’s borders.
The consequences of the PPP leadership following the US into the Afghan quagmire will soon be evident. Already, within 16 days of Musharraf’s resignation, US forces carried out the first ground assault in Angoor Adda area within Pakistan’s borders — which Musharraf had disallowed — with the connivance of the new leadership. Obviously there is more to come since the Bush Administration has eagerly caricatured the Pakistan-Afghanistan border as ‘The New Frontier’ in the New Cold War.
For the moment, there is great euphoria among Pakistani liberals over the presumed ‘return to democracy’. The comments by Ayesha Tanmy Haq are typical: ‘We have removed a dictator by the citizenry showing that real power lies with them.’ The hapless liberals have yet to discover Late Neo-colonialism and its devious manoeuvres for regime change; they have in fact effectively legitimised them by opposing Musharraf. They are agonisingly unaware of the labyrinthine geo-politics and economic imperatives underlying the New Cold War. They are blissfully going along with the collaborationist leaders who are bartering away the country’s future for the proverbial pieces of silver.
January 7, 2009 at 5:17 pm
This is also a great read to understand the conspiracy in Pakistan and how it evolved against Musharraf – A leader who cared and loved Pakistan!:
On Nov. 19, 2007, this column predicted either Pervez Musharraf or Benazir Bhutto would be assassinated [she was killed five weeks later] and warned in clear words: “This is not about Musharraf anymore. This is about clipping the wings of a strong Pakistani military, denying space for China in Pakistan, squashing the ISI, stirring ethnic unrest, and neutralizing Pakistan’s nuclear program. The first shot in this plan was fired in Pakistan’s Balochistan province in 2004. The last bullet will be toppling Musharraf, sidelining the military and installing a pliant government in Islamabad. Musharraf shares the blame for letting things come this far. But he is also trying to punch holes in Washington’s game plan. He needs to be supported.” Less than a year later, it is stunning how we never saw the signs. Patriot Pakistanis are worried about their homeland. I have no faith in Islamabad. Is anyone listening in Rawalpindi? [Ahmed Quraishi, Aug. 31, 2008.]
By AHMED QURAISHI
Monday, 19 November 2007.
http://WWW.AHMEDQURAISHI.COM
ISLAMABAD, Pakistan—On the evening of Tuesday, 26 September, 2006, Pakistani strongman Pervez Musharraf walked into the studio of Comedy Central’s ‘Daily Show’ with Jon Stewart, the first sitting president anywhere to dare do this political satire show.
Stewart offered his guest some tea and cookies and played the perfect host by asking, “Is it good?” before springing a surprise: “Where’s Osama bin Laden?”
“I don’t know,” Musharraf replied, as the audience enjoyed the rare sight of a strong leader apparently cornered. “You know where he is?” Musharraf snapped back, “You lead on, we’ll follow you.”
What Gen. Musharraf didn’t know then is that he really was being cornered. Some of the smiles that greeted him in Washington and back home gave no hint of the betrayal that awaited him.
As he completed the remaining part of his U.S. visit, his allies in Washington and elsewhere, as all evidence suggests now, were plotting his downfall. They had decided to take a page from the book of successful ‘color revolutions’ where western governments covertly used money, private media, student unions, NGOs and international pressure to stage coups, basically overthrowing individuals not fitting well with Washington’s agenda.
This recipe proved its success in former Yugoslavia, and more recently in Georgia, Ukraine and Kazakhstan.
In Pakistan, the target is a Pakistani president who refuses to play ball with the United States on Afghanistan, China, and Dr. A.Q. Khan.
To get rid of him, an impressive operation is underway:
* A carefully crafted media blitzkrieg launched early this year assailing the Pakistani president from all sides, questioning his power, his role in Washington’s war on terror and predicting his downfall.
* Money pumped into the country to pay for organized dissent.
* Willing activists assigned to mobilize and organize accessible social groups.
* A campaign waged on Internet where tens of mailing lists and ‘news agencies’ have sprung up from nowhere, all demonizing Musharraf and the Pakistani military.
* European- and American-funded Pakistani NGOs taking a temporary leave from their real jobs to work as a makeshift anti-government mobilization machine.
* U.S. government agencies directly funding some private Pakistani television networks; the channels go into an open anti-government mode, cashing in on some manufactured and other real public grievances regarding inflation and corruption.
* Some of Musharraf’s shady and corrupt political allies feed this campaign, hoping to stay in power under a weakened president.
* All this groundwork completed and chips in place when the judicial crisis breaks out in March 2007. Even Pakistani politicians surprised at a well-greased and well-organized lawyers campaign, complete with flyers, rented cars and buses, excellent event-management and media outreach.
* Currently, students are being recruited and organized into a street movement. The work is ongoing and urban Pakistani students are being cultivated, especially using popular Internet Web sites and ‘online hangouts’. The people behind this effort are mostly unknown and faceless, limiting themselves to organizing sporadic, small student gatherings in Lahore and Islamabad, complete with banners, placards and little babies with arm bands for maximum media effect. No major student association has announced yet that it is behind these student protests, which is a very interesting fact glossed over by most journalists covering this story. Only a few students from affluent schools have responded so far and it’s not because the Pakistani government’s countermeasures are effective. They’re not. The reason is that social activism attracts people from affluent backgrounds, closely reflecting a uniquely Pakistani phenomenon where local NGOs are mostly founded and run by rich, westernized Pakistanis.
All of this may appear to be spur-of-the-moment and Musharraf-specific. But it all really began almost three years ago, when, out of the blue and recycling old political arguments, Mr. Akbar Bugti launched an armed rebellion against the Pakistani state, surprising security analysts by using rockets and other military equipment that shouldn’t normally be available to a smalltime village thug. Since then, Islamabad sits on a pile of evidence that links Mr. Bugti’s campaign to money and ammunition and logistical support from Afghanistan, directly aided by the Indians and the Karzai administration, with the Americans turning a blind eye.
For reasons not clear to our analysts yet, Islamabad has kept quiet on Washington’s involvement with anti-Pakistan elements in Afghanistan. But Pakistan did send an indirect public message to the Americans recently.
“We have indications of Indian involvement with anti-state elements in Pakistan,” declared the spokesman of the Pakistan Foreign Office in a regular briefing in October. The statement was terse and direct and the spokesman, Ms. Tasnim Aslam, quickly moved on to other issues.
This is how a Pakistani official explained Ms. Aslam’s statement: “What she was really saying is this: We know what the Indians are doing. They’ve sold the Americans on the idea that [the Indians] are an authority on Pakistan and can be helpful in Afghanistan. The Americans have bought the idea and are in on the plan, giving the Indians a free hand in Afghanistan. What the Americans don’t know is that we, too, know the Indians very well. Better still, we know Afghanistan very well. You can’t beat us at our own game.”
Mr. Bugti’s armed rebellion coincided with the Gwadar project entering its final stages. No coincidence here. Mr. Bugti’s real job was to scare the Chinese away and scuttle Chinese President Hu Jintao’s planned visit to Gwadar a few months later to formally launch the port city.
Gwadar is the pinnacle of Sino-Pakistani strategic cooperation. It’s a modern port city that is supposed to link Central Asia, western China, and Pakistan with markets in Mideast and Africa. It’s supposed to have roads stretching all the way to China. It’s no coincidence either that China has also earmarked millions of dollars to renovate the Karakoram Highway linking northern Pakistan to western China.
Some reports in the American media, however, have accused Pakistan and China of building a naval base in the guise of a commercial seaport directly overlooking international oil shipping lanes. The Indians and some other regional actors are also not comfortable with this project because they see it as commercial competition.
What Mr. Bugti’s regional and international supporters never expected is Pakistan moving firmly and strongly to nip his rebellion in the bud. Even Mr. Bugti himself probably never expected the Pakistani state to react in the way it did to his betrayal of the homeland. He was killed in a military operation where scores of his mercenaries surrendered to Pakistan army soldiers.
U.S. intelligence and their Indian advisors could not cultivate an immediate replacement for Mr. Bugti. So they moved to Plan B. They supported Abdullah Mehsud, a Pakistani Taliban fighter held for five years in Guantanamo Bay, and then handed over back to the Afghan government, only to return to his homeland, Pakistan, to kidnap two Chinese engineers working in Balochistan, one of whom was eventually killed during a rescue operation by the Pakistani government.
Islamabad could not tolerate this shadowy figure that was creating a following among ordinary Pakistanis masquerading as a Taliban while in reality toeing a vague agenda. He was rightly eliminated earlier this year by Pakistani security forces while secretly returning from Afghanistan after meeting his handlers there. Again, no surprises here.
SMELLING A RAT
This is where Pakistani political and military officials finally started smelling a rat. All of this was an indication of a bigger problem. There were growing indications that, ever since Islamabad joined Washington’s regional plans, Pakistan was gradually turning into a ‘besieged-nation’, heavily targeted by the American media while being subjected to strategic sabotage and espionage from Afghanistan.
Afghanistan, under America’s watch, has turned into a vast staging ground for sophisticated psychological and military operations to destabilize neighboring Pakistan.
During the past three years, the heat has gradually been turned up against Pakistan and its military along Pakistan’s western regions:
* A shadowy group called the BLA, a Cold War relic, rose from the dead to restart a separatist war in southwestern Pakistan.
* Bugti’s death was a blow to neo-BLA, but the shadowy group’s backers didn’t repent. His grandson, Brahmdagh Bugti, is currently enjoying a safe shelter in the Afghan capital, Kabul, where he continues to operate and remote-control his assets in Pakistan.
* Saboteurs trained in Afghanistan have been inserted into Pakistan to aggravate extremist passions here, especially after the Red Mosque operation.
* Chinese citizens continue to be targeted by individuals pretending to be Islamists, when no known Islamic group has claimed responsibility.
* A succession of ‘religious rebels’ with suspicious foreign links have suddenly emerged in Pakistan over the past months claiming to be ‘Pakistani Taliban’. Some of the names include Abdul Rashid Ghazi, Baitullah Mehsud, and now the Maulana of Swat. Some of them have used and are using encrypted communication equipment far superior to what Pakistani military owns.
* Money and weapons have been fed into the religious movements and al Qaeda remnants in the tribal areas.
Exploiting the situation, assets within the Pakistani media started promoting the idea that the Pakistani military was killing its own people. The rest of the unsuspecting media quickly picked up this message. Some botched American and Pakistani military operations against Al Qaeda that caused civilian deaths accidentally fed this media campaign.
This was the perfect timing for the launch of Military, Inc.: Inside Pakistan’s Military Economy, a book authored by Dr. Ayesha Siddiqa Agha, a columnist for a Pakistani English-language paper and a correspondent for ‘Jane’s Defence Weekly’, a private intelligence service founded by experts close to the British intelligence.
TARGET: PAK MILITARY
The book was launched in Pakistan in early 2007 by Oxford Press. And, contrary to most reports, it is openly available in Islamabad’s biggest bookshops. The book portrays the Pakistani military as an institution that is eating up whatever little resources Pakistan has.
Pakistani military’s successful financial management, creating alternate financial sources to spend on a vast military machine and build a conventional and nuclear near-match with a neighboring adversary five times larger – an impressive record for any nation by any standard – was distorted in the book and reduced to a mere attempt by the military to control the nation’s economy in the same way it was controlling its politics.
The timing was interesting. After all, it was hard to defend a military in the eyes of its own proud people when the chief of the military is ruling the country, the army is fighting insurgents and extremists who claim to be defending Islam, grumpy politicians are out of business, and the military’s side businesses, meant to feed the nation’s military machine, are doing well compared to the shabby state of the nation’s civilian departments.
Dr. Siddiqa and her book are not important. Worse things have been said about Pakistanis before. All of these details are insignificant if detached from the real issue at hand. And the issue is the demonization of the Pakistani military as an integral part of the media siege around Pakistan, with the American media leading the way in this campaign.
Some of the juicy details of this siege around Pakistan include:
* The attempt by several American and British writers – and one Pakistani, Dr. Siddiqa – to pitch junior officers against senior officers in Pakistan Armed Forces by alleging discrimination in the distribution of benefits. Apart from being malicious and unfounded, her argument was carefully designed to generate frustration and demoralize Pakistani soldiers.
* The American media insisting on handing Dr. A. Q. Khan to the United States so that a final conviction against the Pakistani military can be secured.
* Mrs. Benazir Bhutto demanding after returning to Pakistan that the ISI be restructured; and in a press conference during her house arrest in Lahore in November she went as far as asking Pakistan army officers to revolt against the army chief, a damning attempt at destroying a professional army from within.
Some of this appears to be eerily similar to the campaign waged against the Pakistani military in 1999, when, in July that year, an unsigned full page advertisement appeared in major American newspapers with the following headline: “A Modern Rogue Army With Its Finger On The Nuclear Button.”
Until this day, it is not clear who exactly paid for such an expensive newspaper full-page advertisement. But one thing is clear: the agenda behind that advertisement is back in action.
Strangely, just a few days before Mrs. Bhutto’s statements about restructuring ISI and the need for army officers to stage a mutiny against their leadership, the American conservative magazine The Weekly Standard interviewed an American security expert with similar ideas:
“A large number of ISI agents who are responsible for helping the Taliban and al Qaeda should be thrown in jail or killed. What I think we should do in Pakistan is a parallel version of what Iran has run against us in Iraq: giving money [and] empowering actors. Some of this will involve working with some shady characters, but the alternative—sending U.S. forces into Pakistan for a sustained bombing campaign—is worse.” Steve Schippert, Weekly Standard, Nov. 2007.
In addition to these media attacks, which security experts call ‘psychological operations’, the American media and politicians have intensified over the past year their campaign to prepare the international public opinion to accept a western intervention in Pakistan along the lines of Iraq and Afghanistan:
* Newsweek came up with an entire cover story with a single storyline: Pakistan is a more dangerous place than Iraq.
* Senior American politicians, Republican and Democrat, have argued that Pakistan is more dangerous than Iran and merits similar treatment. On 20 October, Joe Biden told ABC News that Washington needs to put soldiers on ground in Pakistan and invite the international community to join in. “We should be in there,” he said. “We should be supplying tens of millions of dollars to build new schools to compete with the madrassas. We should be in there building democratic institutions. We should be in there, and get the rest of the world in there, giving some structure to the emergence of, hopefully, the reemergence of a democratic process.”
* The International Crisis Group (ICG) has recommended gradual sanctions for Pakistan similar to those imposed on Iran, e.g. slapping travel bans on Pakistani military officers and seizing Pakistani military assets abroad.
* The process of painting Pakistan’s nuclear assets as pure evil lying around waiting for some do-gooder to come in and ‘secure’ them has reached unprecedented levels, with the U.S. media again depicting Pakistan as a nation incapable of protecting its nuclear installations. On 22 October, Jane Harman from the U.S. House Intelligence panel gave the following statement: “I think the U.S. would be wise – and I trust we are doing this – to have contingency plans [to seize Pakistan’s nuclear assets], especially because should [Musharraf] fall, there are nuclear weapons there.”
* The American media has now begun discussing the possibility of Pakistan breaking up and the possibility of new states of ‘Balochistan’ and ‘Pashtunistan’ being carved out of it. Interestingly, one of the first acts of the shady Maulana of Swat after capturing a few towns was to take down the Pakistani flag from the top of state buildings and replacing them with his own party flag.
* The ‘chatter’ about President Musharraf’s eminent fall has also increased dramatically in the mainly American media, which has been very generous in marketing theories about how Musharraf might “disappear” or be “removed” from the scene. According to some Pakistani analysts, this could be an attempt to prepare the public opinion for a possible assassination of the Pakistani president.
* Another worrying thing is how American officials are publicly signaling to the Pakistanis that Mrs. Benazir Bhutto has their backing as the next leader of the country. Such signals from Washington are not only a kiss of death for any public leader in Pakistan, but the Americans also know that their actions are inviting potential assassins to target Mrs. Bhutto. If she is killed in this way, there won’t be enough time to find the real culprit, but what’s certain is that unprecedented international pressure will be placed on Islamabad while everyone will use their local assets to create maximum internal chaos in the country. A dress rehearsal of this scenario has already taken place in October when no less than the U.N. Security Council itself intervened to ask the international community to “assist” in the investigations into the assassination attempt on Mrs. Bhutto on 18 October. This generous move was sponsored by the U.S. and, interestingly, had no input from Pakistan which did not ask for help in investigations in the first place.
Some Pakistani security analysts privately say that American ‘chatter’ about Musharraf or Bhutto getting killed is a serious matter that can’t be easily dismissed. Getting Bhutto killed can generate the kind of pressure that could result in permanently putting the Pakistani military on a back foot, giving Washington enough room to push for installing a new pliant leadership in Islamabad fully backed by the West.
Having Musharraf killed isn’t a bad option either. The unknown Islamists can always be blamed and the military will not be able to put another soldier at the top, and circumstances will be created to ensure that either Mrs. Bhutto or someone like her is eased into power.
The Americans are very serious this time. They cannot let Pakistan get out of their hands. They have been kicked out of Uzbekistan last year, where they were maintaining bases. They are in trouble in Afghanistan and Iraq. Iran continues to be a mess for them and Russia and China are not making it any easier. Pakistan must be ‘secured’ at all costs.
This is why most Pakistanis have never seen American diplomats in Pakistan active like this before. And it’s not just the current U.S. ambassador, who has added one more address to her other most-frequently-visited address in Karachi, Mrs. Bhutto’s house. The new address is the office of GEO, one of two news channels shut down by Islamabad for not signing the mandatory code-of-conduct. Thirty-eight other channels are operating and no one has censored the newspapers. But never mind this. The Americans have developed a ‘thing’ for GEO. No solace of course for ARY, the other banned channel.
Now there’s also one Bryan Hunt, the U.S. consul general in Lahore, who wears the national Pakistani dress, the long shirt and baggy trousers, and is moving around these days issuing tough warnings to Islamabad and to the Pakistani government and to President Musharraf to end emergency rule, resign as army chief and give Mrs. Bhutto access to power.
PAKISTAN’S OPTIONS
So what should Pakistan do in the face of such a structured campaign to bring Pakistan down on its knees and forcibly install a pro-Washington administration in Islamabad?
There is increasing talk in Islamabad these days about Pakistan’s new tough stand in the face of this malicious campaign.
As a starter, Islamabad blew the wind out of the visit of Mr. John Negroponte, the no. 2 man in the U.S. State Department, who came to Pakistan last week “to deliver a tough message” to the Pakistani president. Musharraf, to his credit, told him he won’t end emergency rule until all objectives are achieved.
These objectives include:
* Cleaning up our northern and western parts of the country of all foreign operatives and their domestic pawns.
* Ensuring that Washington’s plan for regime-change doesn’t succeed.
* Purging the Pakistani media from all those elements that were willing or indirect accomplices in the plan to destabilize the country.
Musharraf has also told Washington publicly that “Pakistan is more important than democracy or the constitution.” This is a bold position. This kind of boldness would have served Musharraf a lot had it come a little earlier. And even now, his media management team is unable to make the most of it.
Washington will not stand by watching as its plan for regime change in Islamabad goes down the drain. In case the Americans insist on interfering in Pakistani affairs, Islamabad, according to my sources, is looking at some tough measures:
* Cut off oil supplies to U.S. military in Afghanistan. Pakistani officials are already enraged at how Afghanistan has turned into a staging ground for sabotage in Pakistan. If Islamabad continues to see Washington acting as a bully, Pakistani officials are seriously considering an announcement where Pakistan, for the first time since October 2001, will deny the United States use of Pakistani soil and air space to transport fuel to Afghanistan.
* Review Pakistan’s role in the war on terror. Islamabad needs to fight terrorists on its border with Afghanistan. But our methods need to be different to Washington’s when it comes to our domestic extremists. This is where Islamabad parts ways with and Washington.
* Talk with the Afghan Taliban. Pakistan has no quarrel with Afghanistan’s Taliban. They are Kabul’s internal problem. But if reaching out to Afghan Taliban’s Mullah Omar can have a positive impact on rebellious Pakistani Taliban, then this step should be taken. The South Koreans can talk to the Taliban. Karzai has also called for talks with them. It is time that Islamabad does the same.
The Americans have been telling everyone in the world that they have paid Pakistan $10 billion dollars over the past five years. They might think this gives them the right to decide Pakistan’s destiny. What they don’t tell the world is how Pakistan’s help secured for them their biggest footprint ever in energy-rich Central Asia.
If they forget, Islamabad can always remind them by giving them the same treatment that Uzbekistan did last year.
Mr. Quraishi heads Project Pakistan, a research effort based in Islamabad. He is also a foreign policy commentator for PTV Network. He can be reached at aq@ahmedquraishi.com
January 7, 2009 at 5:35 pm
Musharraf Era Performance
1. Pakistan economy was among the fastest growing economies in the world as her economy had reached the size of $160 billion from a mere $70 billion in 1999. Pakistan attracted a record FDI of $6 billion last year.
2. 2007: National revenues had swelled from Rs 308 billion during 1988-99 to around Rs 800bn in 2007; and FBR estimates now 2.8 million Income Tax payers.
Year Total CBR Direct Indirect Custom Sales Central excise
1998-99 308.5bn 110.4bn 198.1bn 65.3bn 72bn 60.8bn
2005-06 712.5bn 224.6bn 487.9bn 138.2bn 294.6bn 55bn
3. Public sector development program (PSDP) has also grown from Rs 80 billion in 1999; to Rs 520 billion in 2007.
4. FACT: The rate of growth in Pakistan Large Scale Manufacturing (LSM) is at a 30-year high. Construction activity is at a 17-year high.
5. FACT: The Infrastructure Industries Index, which measures the performance of Seven industries, i.e. Electricity generation, Natural gas, Crude oil, Petroleum products, Basic metal, Cement and coal, has recorded a 26.2 percent growth in Industrial sector of Pakistan.
6. FACT: Jan 14: Pakistan now has a total of 245,682 Educational institutions in all categories, including 164,579 (i.e. 67 per cent) in the public sector and 81,103 (i.e. 100 per cent) in the private sector, reports the National Education Census (NEC-2005).
The census — jointly conducted by the Ministry of Education, the Academy of Educational Planning and Management (AEPAM) and the Federal Bureau of Statistics (FBS) — reveals that the number of private-sector institutions has increased from 36,096 in 1999-2000 to 81,103 in 2005, i.e. by 100 per cent. 45,007 Educational Institutions have increased in Musharraf Era.
7. FACT: Pakistan is 3rd in world in Banking profitability, a report of IMF said. On the IMF chart, Pakistan’s banking profitability is on third position after Colombia and Venezuela. On the IMF chart India is on 36th position and China is on 40th position.
8. FACT: Pakistan globally ranks 10th among the countries which were among the most active in perusing pro-business policies. A report “Doing Business in 2006″ co-sponsored by World Bank and International Finance Corporation (IFC).
9. In 1999 what we earned as GDP: we used to give away 64.1 % as foreign debt and liabilities. Now in 2006, what we earn as GDP: we give ONLY 28.3 % as foreign debt and liabilities. Now we are SAVING 35 % of Our GDP for economic growth.
10. According to Economic Survey 2005. Poverty in Pakistan in 2001 was 34.46%. And, now after 7 years of Musharraf; Poverty in 2005 was 23.9%. Poverty DECREASED by 10.56%. Overall, 12 million people have been pushed out of Poverty in 2001 -2005!
11. Literacy rate in Pakistan has increased from 45% (in 2002) to 53% (in 2005). And, Education now receives 4% of GDP and English has been introduced as compulsory subject from grade 1.
12. 12-4-07: The IT industry, which was virtually non-existent seven years ago, has grown to be worth $2 billion of which $1 billion is export related. It rregistered a 50% growth. 55 foreign IT companies have already entered the market. Now the sector employed 90,000 professionals.
13. 30-1-08: The government has decided to set up a modern hospital cum Medical University in collaboration with the Harvard Medical International, USA, at a cost of Rs 18 billion. The university will be built at the Defence Housing Authority (DHA), Islamabad. A total of 2,500 students will be taught at the graduate level, while additional 600 seats will be available for postgraduate research courses.
14. Nov 2006: President Musharraf says that Pakistan will set up Nine Engineering World Class Science and Technology Federal Universities by 2008 with foreign assistance. He said the institutions of higher learning would be established in collaboration with Italy, South Korea, Japan, France, Sweden, Netherlands, Germany, Austria and China. The Cost of building these Foreign Universities will be above Rs 96.5 billion.
The Vice Chancellors, Heads of department, Professors and Faculty of the planned university will be from these Foreign Universities; while the Examination system, Quality assurance followed and the Degree awarded will also be from these Foreign Universities.
15. Government has approved to give at least 4% of GDP to Education in 2007 budget.
16. In 1999-2000 there were 31 Public Universities. Now 2005-2006 there are 49 Public Universities.
a) Air University (established 2002)
b) Institute of Space technology, ISB (established 2002)
c) Sardar Bahadur Khan Women University, Quetta (established 2004)
d) University of Science & Technology, Bannu (established 2005)
e) University of Hazara (founded 2002)
f) Malakand university, Chakdara (established 2002)
g) Karakurum International university, Gilgit (established 2002)
h) University of Gujrat (established 2004)
i) Virtual University of Pak, Lahore (established 2002)
j) Sarhad University of IT, Peshawar (established 2001)
k) National Law University, ISB (2007)
l) Media University, ISB (2007)
m) University of Education, Lahore (2002)
n) Lasbella University of Marine Sciences, Baluchistan (2005)
o) Baluchistan University of IT & Management, Quetta (2002), etc.
17. 6-member delegation of Australian Department of Education, Science & Technology and AusAID, is visited Pakistan on the request of PM Shaukat Aziz to help Pakistan in its efforts to realign its TVET (Technical and Vocational Education and Training) according to the market needs. Chairman NAVTEC Altaf Saleem informed the delegation about NAVTEC plans to increase the capacity to train one million people annually by 2010 from the present annual capacity of 320,000.
18. Defense Exports of Pakistan have crossed the $200 million mark as the country’s robust Defense manufacturing industry continues to expand. This was disclosed by Major General Syed Absar Hussain, Director General, Defense Export Promotion Organization; after IDEAS 2006 Karachi .
19. President Musharraf inaugurated an over Rs. 1.36 billion 18 Mega Watt Naltar hydro power project. The project, completed in four years at Naltar near Gilgit.
20. Pakistan is now in Large-scale Nuclear expansion. The reactor under construction… could produce over 200kg of weapons-grade plutonium per year, assuming it operates at full power for a modest 220 days per year. At 4 to 5 kilograms of plutonium per weapon, this stock would allow the production of 40-50 Nuclear weapons a year,” the report said.
21. The Karachi Port Trust (KPT) and Hutchison Port Holdings (HPH) of Hong Kong will sign a concession agreement tomorrow for setting up a US$1 billion Deep-water container port, the first in Pakistan. KPT will invest $450 million for infrastructure development for the project. HPH will invest $557 million. In the first phase, a 1,500m quay wall will be built with a designed dept of 18m.
22. GILGIT: President Musharraf inaugurated the dry port in the border town of Sust, 200km north of Gilgit. The Dry port, a Pakistan-China joint venture, was built in 2004 at a cost of Rs90 million. It is 10,000-foot high Sust Dry Port.
23. Dec 2006: President Musharraf said many canals, including the Thal and Raini canals, were being constructed for better utilization of the water available. He said Rs66 billion was being spent on brick-lining of 87,000 canals in the country, adding that 6,000 new canals would be brick-lined next year.
24. The Private Power Infrastructure Board (PPIB) has approved expansion of Tarbela dam power project that would generate 960 MW costing $500 million.
25. President Musharraf Thursday inaugurated the Mirani Dam. Mirani Dam in Kech area of Mekran district with a catchment area of 12,000 square kilometre has been built in four years at a cost of Rs6 billion that includes Rs1.5 billion in compensation to the affected people. It will have a storage capacity of over 300,000 million acre feet of water.
26. Gomal Zam Dam: This project started Aug 2002 and is expected to be completed early 2008. It is located in the Damaan in NWFP. It is 437 feet high and will irrigate about 163,000 acres of land. The total costs amounts to Rs. 12 billion. Having a gross storage of 1.14 MAF. It will produce 17.4 MW of electricity.
27. Mushrraf says the government is constructing the Rs40 billion Katchi Canal and Punjab had been gracious to provide land for its 350 kilometre stretch that will pass through the province.
28. The Economic Coordination Committee decided to set up a $2-billion mega Oil refinery at Khalifa Point in district Hub, Balochistan. The refinery, commissioned by 2010, would have a maximum refining capacity of 13 million tons of petroleum products – higher than the country’s total existing capacity of 12.8 million tons.
29. Pakistan Steel Mills Corporation (PSMC) during the quarter July-Sept 2007 recorded the highest ever-sales figure of Rs 9.3012 billion.
30. The Compressed Natural Gas (CNG) sector of Pakistan has attracted over Rs 70 billion investments during the last five years as a result of liberal and encouraging policies of the government. Presently, some 1,765 CNG stations are operating in the country, in 85 cities and towns, and 1000 more would be setup in the next three years. It has provided employment to 30,000 people in the country.
31. The Securities and Exchange Commission of Pakistan (SECP) has registered 1,135 companies during the first quarter (July-September 2007). With the new registrations the total number of registered companies with SECP as on September 30 has reached 50,125.
32. Telecom sector has attracted an investment of $ 9 billion in last three years. It created of 80,000 jobs directly and 500,000 jobs indirectly.
33. Corrupt & Incompetent Nawaz Sharif made one motorway M2 (Lahore – Islamabad). Under Musharraf 6 Motorways completed or under construction:
M1 (Islamabad to Peshawar) – (Rs.13 bn) – [155 km] – (started 2003 – Completed Oct 2007)
M3 (Pindi to Faisalabad) – (Rs.5.6 bn) – [53 km] – (started 2002 – Completed 2004)
M8 (Gwadar to Ratodero) – [1072 km] – (started 2004 – will complete 2009)
M9 (Karachi to Hyderabad) – (Rs.6.3 bn) – [136 km] – (
M10 (Karachi Northern bypass) – (Rs 3.5 bn) – [56 km] – (completed 2007)
M11 (Lahore to Sialkot) – (Rs.23 bn) -[101 km] – (started 2006 – under construction)
34. Under Musharraf various Highways under construction throughout the country. Including N5, N-25, N-35, N-45, N-50, N-55, N-65, N-70, N-75, N-80, S-1, etc.
35. General Pervez Musharraf inaugurated the Makran Coastal Highway (N-10) project in August 2001, consisting of Karachi-Gwadar, Pasni-Gwadar, and Ormara-Liari (Balochistan) Highways. The Liari-Ormara Highway costed Rs3.9 billion and Pasni-Gwadar Highway Rs2.8 billion respectively. The total length of Makran Coastal Highway is 533 kilometers.”
36. 2-12-07: Sialkot International Airport Limited (SIAL) completed. The 1,002-acre airport is 13 km west of Sialkot and is linked by a road to Gujranwala, Wazirabad, Gujrat, Narowal, the Export Processing Zone (EPZ) and the Sialkot Dry Port Trust.
37. Ghandara International Airport (Islamabad) the first-ever green-field airport being built at a cost of $400 million; with a renowned international consultant, Louis Berger Group of USA. President Musharraf laid the foundation stone of the project on April 7, 2007 and will be completed by Dec 2010. Its total area is 3700 acres (15 km²).
38. Major Industrial estates are being developed under Musharraf’s vision: M3 Industrial estate, Sundar Industrial estate, Chakri Industrial, Port Qasim Industrial estate, etc.
39. Oct 2007: In the current fiscal year the Mining and Quarrying sector has registered a growth rate of 5.6 percent. Increased growth was propelled by strong growths recorded in magnetite (30 percent), dolomite (26.1 percent), Limestone (25.2 percent) and chromites.
40. The government has already started various initiatives, to discover and develop world-class copper-gold deposits in Chagai Baluchistan; by Australian Firms that would fetch $500 million to $600 million per year.
41. Major reserves of COPPER & GOLD in Baluchistan’s Rekodiq area have been discovered in early 2006. It has ranked Rekodiq among the world’s top seven copper reserves. The Rekodiq mining area has proven estimated reserves of 2 billion tons of copper and 20 million ounces of gold. According to the current market price, the value of the deposits has been estimated at about $65 billion, which would generate thousands of jobs.
42. Executive Committee of National Economic Council (ECNEC) on Wednesday approved 45 developmental projects in its meeting, including six revised projects with a total cost of Rs 154.1 billion with a foreign exchange component (FEC) of Rs 36.8 billion.
43. Rs 9.8 billion have been allocated for 91 different mega projects at Public Sector Universities across the province, said Sindh Governor Dr Ishrat-ul-Ebad Khan.
44. Oct 2007: A fully functional TMS (Tax Management System), including profiling, withholding, return/payment filing, rectification, refunds, audit, and legal tracking is scheduled to be operational by 2007 in Pakistan, to process the tax year 2007 returns, according to World Bank.
45. The government is providing Sui Gas facility to areas of South Punjab at a cost of Rs 1.311 billion. A total of 1,138 kilometre gas pipeline is being laid. The districts benefiting from these schemes mainly include Multan, Khanewal, Bahawalnagar, Rajanpur, DG Khan, Vehari and Muzaffargarh.
46. The KHI city government’s rehabilitation of Industrial zones and improvement plan for all those four industrial zones, of the city needs to be completed in 7-8 months. Projects worth Rs 2.5 billion and beautification Rs 4.5 billion.
47. 27-11-07: Pakistan Navy Ship Zarrar, the first of Multi-Role Tactical Platform (MRTP-33), was commissioned into Pakistan Navy at a ceremony at PN Dockyard.
48. 29-12-07: City Nazim Mustafa Kamal said the construction work of 47-storey IT Tower in the vicinity of Civic Center at a cost of $200m would start soon. Around 40,000 youth would get employment in the IT Tower. It will have 10,000 call centers of which 6,000 have been booked so far.
49. The President approved the project of laying of 940-kilometre-long “standard gauge” Railway track between Gwadar and Quetta that would cost Rs 75 billion. A German firm won the contract.
50. To increase the income of Farmers, the Government is investing Rs7.80 billion under which a Food Security Program will be launched. Initially it will be launched in 1,000 villages. He said Rs 3.60 billion would be invested in live-stocks and dairy sectors. About 1,200 model dairy farms and 2,950 cattle breeding farms will be established under this investment.
51. Pakistan will launch a Self-controlled Remote Sensing Satellite System (RSSS) at a cost of Rs19.3 billion to ensure strategic and unconditional supply of satellite remote sensing data for any part of the globe over the year. SUPARCO will implement it over a period of six years. President Musharraf has approved the project in principle.
52. Governor inaugurated the DUHS Medical Research City with Dow Diagnostic Reference and Research Laboratories and Jinnah Genome Centre as its important components. He also laid the foundation stone for a library and sports complex which houses different constituent institutions of the university.
53. President Musharraf also inaugurated a 50-bed state-of-the-art Workers Welfare Fund Kidney Center. The first-ever kidney center in Baluchistan, constructed on 7.5 acres at a cost of Rs385 million and having the diagnostic, dialysis, surgical and lab facilities will help the people of this area.
54. Karachi: The building of the 50-bed Kidney Centre in Landhi has been completed. Minister Muhammad Adil Siddiqui . He said that the building of this centre had been built at a cost of Rs70 million.
55. CM Pervaiz Elahi inaugurated Pakistan’s first Software technology park (STP) on Ferozpur Road to be implemented by Punjab IT Board (PITB). The Rs 1.5 billion project is set over area of 32 kanals; will be completed in 12 months and is expected to create direct 10,000 jobs and generate economic activity of Rs 9 billion per year.
56. In what is considered a major leap for Pakistan, a Polytechnic Institute is being established to produce skilled workforce that will rescue the manufacturing industry from the clutches of foreign dependence. Being built in Korangi at a cost of Rs450 million, this government-funded institute will start operating in January 2007 and prepare 500 workers by the end of first year, besides producing 22 different types of dies and moulds for aviation, telecom, pharmaceutical and other industries. Experts from Germany, Japan and Thailand assisted in developing curriculum.
57. Police Act 1861 replaced by Police Order 2002 after 141 years. Police force divided into three separate wings: Watch and ward, Investigation and Prosecution.
58. Federal Minister for Commerce in order to modernize tobacco farming in the country; is setting up a state-of-the-art Tobacco Research Center in Bunner. Annually 8 million kilograms of Virginia tobacco (fine quality), worth Rs 9.2 billion is cultivated in Bunner. Under construction.
59. The government has formed “Pakistan Gems and Jewellery Development Company (PGJDC)” with a cost of Rs 1.4 billion, to increase the export of gem and Jewellery from $25 million to $1.5 billion by 2017.
60. In 1999, Pakistanis could only afford to buy a total of 32,461 locally assembled Cars. The latest annual figure stands at 115,000. Currently, there are 1.3 million cars on Pakistani roads as opposed to 815,000 cars some five years ago; a 60 percent jump in car ownership.
61. In 1999, a total of 94,881 new Motorcycles were sold in Pakistan. In 2005, Pakistanis bought or leased some 500,000 new motorcycles.
62. ISB: To convert the Karachi Fisheries Harbour Authority (KFHA) in a style of Sydney Fish Market, the government proposes an action plan worth $10 million so as to make the KFHA a profitable authority. Estimated, Pakistan has a fish and seafood industry worth $1.2 billion. Exports alone are worth nearly $200 million per annum. More than 0.8 million people rely directly or indirectly on the industry for their livelihood.
To see footnotes and refrences :
http://pakalert.wordpress.com/2008/11/08/musharraf-era-performance/
January 8, 2009 at 1:08 am
Our beloved country Pakistan has been devoid of loving fathers (loyal leaders). Ever since the shahadat of Liaqat Ali Khan, we have had no one who would build the nation lovingly just the way parents raise their kids. Pakistan, like an orphan, has been moved into the hands of one step-parent to another who have done a lot of harm to her. All the problems that we are facing right now is because of that.
To fix this problem, we have to remove the mother of problems which is corrupt leadership and stagnant political system. The best of the systems will fail if we have corrupt leadership on top. This goes for Khilafat as well. Why did Osmanian empire got weak and lost her territories to Hungary and Russia? The answer is corrupt leadership. We have tried democracy and seen quite clearly how corrupt leaders have rendered it ineffective resulting in military takeover. You may disagree, but Pakistan Amy has ONLY intervened when the democratic leaders get fixated on keeping their rule instead of focusing on resolving people’s issues. Knowing this full well, I can assure you that the bad status quo of our country will NOT change until and unless we start with a clean slate. I propose that:
1) we get rid of the CIA-planted puppet government of Zardari and his cronies.
2) by pass the current weak and stagnant political system (which only serves to bring back corrupt leaders in power).
3) reject the constitution which is OBSOLETE anyways and serves to bring back corrupt leaders in power. I think, it is a form of “Shirk” since we already have a constitution i.e. The Holy Quran.
4) through some form of temporary caretaker govenment, we come up with a selection process and select new leadership. This new leadership should comprise of all the talented and loyal leaders on the basis of merit, regardless of their race.
This caretaker government should accomplish the following goals:
1) Create a new political system studying the examples of different countries and our Islamic past and seeing where things went wrong and making sure those mistakes are not repeated.
2) All leaders should declare their assets to the public.
3) Create a process to recheck their assets on a periodic basis (may be every year). So that corruption can be weeded out immediately.If found guilty, they should be immediately removed and given severe punishments.
4) Create a process of performance evaluations of these leaders on an yearly basis. If performance is poor, then they should be immediately removed and replaced with more competent leaders.
5) Corruption should entail death penalty. The local and foreign assets of corrupt leaders should be frozen and brought back to government control.
6) There should be one policy which every leader has to follow. This policy can be improved with mutual discussions of the assembly.
7) Our military, media and education should be an extension of this policy. Our political goals should be completed without regard to international pressure (we should learn from the lessons of 1971 and Kargal conflict).
8 ) In case our enemies assassinate these leaders or topple their governments, there should be a very strong system in place which will immediately remove these corrupt rulers. And this strong system should NOT be a one man thing.
9) Make power and nation serving jobs unattractive. They should have benefits that every citizen has, but nothing in excess of it. The salary should ONLY be average. This way only those people will come forward who really want to serve the country.
10) As Ahmed Quraishi suggested that we should divide different provinces into many administrative units. Our Holy Prophet (SAWW) also recommended forming small and easily manageable cities. This does not have to be done immediately. This is very important job to do but should be done with a lot of pondering, debates and studies. This task is more suitable to be taken care of by the new leadership.
11) Anything else that is necessary (since I am just a layman and my knowledge is very limited).
This is what I believe the caretaker government should establish and the rest of the issues should be left for the new leadership. The transfer of power from the care-taker govenment to the new leadership must happen quickly on an emergency basis considering the internal and external dangers we are facing.
I want you guys to debate on this topic so that we can all be on the same platform. Without the consensus of public, this system can meet its failure. Remember the enemy is out there who DOES NOT want you to progress and be strong against them. They will oppose your struggle tooth and nail (see what has happened in Venezuela, Cuba, Zaire, Indonesia, Iran, Vietnam etc.).
Thanks for reading,
Asher Fawad
February 26, 2009 at 8:18 pm
To tummyreturns,
You think benevolent dictatorship is an oxymoron. Your statement is indicative of the mindset that we, Muslims, have adopted since the inception of ’separation of church and state’ philosophy.
As subscriber to such an ideology, we can only think in terms of black and white: Dictator versus Democracy, Constitutional (such as president’s right to dissolve national assembly) vs Unconstitutional (disappearance of Trouble makers).
Can it every cross to you Tipu Sultan, Saladin, Any Khulfa-e-Rashideen were both military officers and rulers at the same time?
The word “Dictator” is a misnomer. It only represents one shade ignoring the other shades of grey between a true Dictator and true Democratic leader.
Our concept of dictator is military leader who comes in power via coupe and remains in power until death who silences the voice of dissent.
In all practicality, this “voice of dissent” had normally came from the political classes who didn’t get a chance to rule.
For an ordinary citizen, he/she only cares for stability, control of inflation, maintaining law and order, food on the table, basic healthcare, employment, security, a house paid for, a car paid for etc. He doesn’t care who provides this: a “dictator” or a “democratic leader”.
What he/she doesn’t want (rather detest) is a ruler (Dictator or Democratically elected) who loots public money to build huge palaces inside the country, or buys them at Surrey or UAE, always travels in First class and stays in High end hotels with whole entourage of “ministers” (read Chailay), Don’t spend money on building infrastructure rather persue a policy benefiting his/her cronies whe reduces the foreign exchange reserves year by year.