Wafadari Ya Ghadari? By Abbas Ather

More of the same by Arif Nizami

Pakistan has been at the epicentre of hectic diplomatic activity in the past few weeks. However, as they say, no matter how much things change they remain the same. Parleys between Foreign Minister Shah Mehmood Qureshi and his Indian counterpart, S M Krishna, failed to break any fresh ground.

Talks with Ms Hillary Clinton resulted in the US secretary of state arm-twisting Islamabad into signing an unequal transit trade agreement with Kabul and the sop of $500 million’s project assistance. The fine print that this money was part of the assistance already pledged under the Kerry Lugar Bill was conveniently swept under the carpet.

Shorn of diplomatic verbosity, the wide gap between Islamabad’s wish list and the demands of the West, with India Pakistan’s perennially estranged neighbour, has not narrowed a bit. The only silver lining is Islamabad’s markedly improved relations with Kabul.

Shah Mehmood Qureshi, visibly disappointed and sombre at the joint press conference with his Indian counterpart, looked more like a jilted lover than the foreign minister of Pakistan. Had he taken too seriously the bombastic claims of his predecessor, Khursheed Mehmood Kasuri, that a Kashmir solution had virtually been clinched under Musharraf?

It is naive on our part to expect New Delhi to start meaningful talks on Kashmir on Washington’s prodding. Striking a sympathetic chord with the West, India’s priority remains engagement of Pakistan on terrorism and trade. S M Krishna or any member of his team need not have been on the cell phone with New Delhi during the talks, as claimed by Mr Qureshi, for instructions on this count.

On the contrary, in the talks it was Islamabad that was ill prepared and was caught on the wrong foot. New Delhi has exploited to the hilt the testimony of David Haedley, a maverick of half-Pakistani, half-American descent who has been working as a mole for the Americans and later ostensibly for the Taliban. In sharp contrast, Islamabad failed to walk the talk by providing any concrete evidence on RAW’s alleged involvement in Balochistan.

The much-hyped second round of strategic dialogue with the US also proved to be a damp squib. It ended with a litany of oft-repeated demands and statements from the US secretary of state. As on her previous visit, she repeated her claim that Osama bin Laden is in Pakistan and elements in the Pakistani government are aware of his whereabouts, a charge predictably denied by the prime minister. Ms Clinton also wanted tougher action from Pakistan to combat militants and expressed her apprehension that another terrorist attack on US soil will be devastating for Pakistan-US relations. Who doesn’t know this?

Predictably, the US secretary of state reiterated Washington’s stance that Islamabad is not entitled to civilian nuclear technology a la New Delhi, on the pretext that it was not a responsible nuclear state, thanks to the so-called A Q Khan network. Similarly, market access that is available to some other South Asian countries and is a long-standing demand of our textile industry remains unavailable to Islamabad.

It is obvious that the “trust deficit” between the US and Pakistan acknowledged by both sides remains high. On one side, Washington wants Islamabad to “do more” while on the other it implicitly blames elements within the Pakistan military of being complicit with the terrorists.

It wants Pakistan to forgo its present strategic paradigm and launch an attack against Taliban sanctuaries in North Waziristan. However, it is unable to play any mediatory role between India and Pakistan, apart from facilitating a fruitless dialogue between the two adversaries. The collateral damage inflicted in the tribal areas, owing to the constant drone attacks has made the onerous task of winning hearts and minds even more difficult with US approval ratings in Pakistan stubbornly remaining at an all-time low.

The country’s economy is in dire straits, and our policymakers have little option but to follow US diktats. The only stumbling block, or, rather, a balancing element, is the military that adheres to its own version of India-centric policies.

Pakistan Afghanistan transit trade deal signed under the matronly gaze of the US secretary of state is an unequal treaty. While advantageous for Kabul, it has few benefits for Islamabad. Getting access to Central Asia is easier said than done, thanks to the large swaths of Afghan territory controlled by the Taliban.

Access to Central Asia through war-torn routes in Afghanistan is also expensive, if one has to pay all the warlords on the way. Afghan trucks plying to Wagah and Karachi would not only be financially detrimental to the local trucking industry but could also serve as a fresh source for drugs and arms smuggling.

Ominously, on the eve of the strategic dialogue, speculative stories appeared in the media about COAS Gen Kayani, whose term was to end in November this year, being granted an extension by the prime minister. One newspaper came up with the fantastic claim that the US secretary of state has pleaded for the army chief’s tenure be extended for the sake of continuity in the war on terror.

Such a demand coming from Washington would be construed as a blatant interference in the internal affairs of Pakistan. Despite the closeness of relations between Islamabad and Washington the decision to grant an extension hopefully has been taken because of the pivotal role Pakistan is playing in the war on terror, rather than on the basis of US demands.

Now that Gen Kayani’s term as COAS has been extended for another three years for the sake of “wider national interest,” more speculation in the media will be counterproductive. Although military strongmen giving themselves extensions has been he norm, it is the first time that such a step has been taken by a civilian government.

President Mohammad Ayub Khan promoted himself from general to field marshal, whereas Gen Zia and Gen Musharraf as presidents gave themselves extensions as army chiefs.

Islamabad’s regional security environment has markedly improved as a result of better relations with Kabul. The process started after Musharraf’s exit from power, has now culminated in Gen Kayani and his ISI chief facilitating a dialogue with the Taliban. Pakistan’s neutrality in the controversial presidential elections held last year in Afghanistan and Karzai losing faith in the Nato forces’ ability to defeat the Taliban has helped tip the balance in Islamabad’s favour.

Relations with Afghanistan have improved to the extent that Kabul has agreed to send Afghan military officers for training to Pakistan–a proposal which Karzai had been vehemently resisting till recently. India, which has invested heavily in Afghanistan and has a vast intelligence network along the border with Pakistan, is visibly upset over these developments. The virulent anti-Pakistan propaganda in the Indian media on this count is clear indication of New Delhi’s withdrawal symptoms.

A key conference on Afghanistan led by Hillary Clinton and chaired by UN secretary general Ban Ki Moon and attended by 80 countries and organisations, including India and Pakistan, has endorsed Karzai’s plan for talking with those Taliban who are willing to renounce violence. Obviously, this is a window of opportunity for Pakistan. But it has to tread cautiously, lest it is accused of treating Afghanistan as its backyard.

The writer is a former newspaper editor.

Email: arifn51@hotmail.com

Nawaz’s crowning glory by Fasi Zaka

Fasi Zaka

Nawaz Sharif has finally achieved what no one has been able to do in politics for the past two years, which is to make Asif Ali Zardari’s PPP look good by comparison. He inadvertently whitewashed them when he decided to skinny-dip in mud and rake it simultaneously over constitutional reforms.

Nawaz’s backtracking on the constitutional reforms’ issue seemed bizarre when it played itself out and especially insincere by way of his explanations on the reasons for doing so.

Mr Sharif’s main objection is rooted in a misunderstanding, probably willful, populist and deceptive, on the nature of government. When he talks about certain permanent institutions and offices, he is speaking of the individuals and not the posts.

First, he has befuddled himself by thinking Dr Babar Awan will be the law minister forever. That “Dr” Babar Awan has made it this far is a miracle considering he has a one-year distance PhD from an institution dissolved and fined for fraud. But, if Nawaz has an objection, he needs to articulate it in terms of the law ministry being involved in the recruitment of judges and not Babar Awan.

Second, in the desire to appease the chief justice on the same issue he makes the same mistake. It rings hollow when he says he wants the office of the chief justice involved, primarily because he doesn’t want the chief justice’s office, but in a rather sycophant fashion, wants the chief justice himself involved. Had the chief justice been Sajjad Ali Shah or Dogar, Nawaz would be singing a different tune.

For those of us who have been extremely disappointed with the PPP’s mismanagement, corruption and cronyism, in addition to their willful delaying tactics to all things related to judges, for the longest time Nawaz seemed like an elder statesman who could eventually take the reigns.

The press in general has fallen into the trap. As long as Nawaz was quiet, the press projected rather flattering presumptions on what motivates the PML-N. But as of late, when the PML-N does speak, most realise they don’t like what they hear.

Be it Shahbaz’s veiled support for the Taliban, or more currently, Nawaz’s obvious shortsightedness and Punjab-centric behaviour. Nawaz does not become a champion of rule of law simply because the current phase of judicial activism has worked in his favour. While Nawaz has been on the right side of history in supporting the lawyer’s movement, in reality it is fast becoming evident that it was just an opportunistic coincidence of interests.

Add to it the Pakhtunkhwa issue. The demand for changing the name of the province is not as Nawaz makes it out to be. Any party with an electoral interest in NWFP, but which fails to capture the Pakhtun votes, has sided against this. By simple force of majority, the name ought to be changed, and the reasons for not doing so are easily challenged since they rest on demographics. The Pakhtuns are in the majority, much like the other provinces which are named after the majority ethnic groups. To deny them this is blatantly unfair.

That being said, the macho chest-beating of the ANP’s Ghulam Ahmed Bilour’s over the issue of Pakhtunkhwa that they may choose the Bengali model evokes some of the unarticulated and historical fears about why the rest of the county may not want the name change. But it’s rich posturing from a man whose party’s leader fled his hometown to avoid dealing with the Taliban, leaving the residents defenceless, or from a party happy to let the Taliban have Swat so they could keep their heads in the sand. Talk is cheap, but sadly it can be incendiary.

My own preference would have been, on an ideological basis, that the Pakhtuns give up their demands to accommodate a minority in a show of inner federal behaviour, demonstrating that they would not do what the center has historically done to the smaller provinces, and in this case not do to a smaller ethnic group inside the province what has historically been done to them. Sadly that won’t happen in Pakistan, at least now.

Anyhow, Nawaz shouldn’t worry too much. The microscope is about to be lifted back to Zardari thanks to the delay he requested in announcing the findings of the UN report on the murder of Benazir Bhutto. In an arena of shortsightedness, Nawaz and Zardari are the kings.

The writer is a Rhodes scholar and former academic.

Email: fasizaka@yahoo.com

The NAB letter: another own goal by Ameer Bhutto

Here we go again! This government’s latest own goal comes in the form of a letter to be sent to the Supreme Court by NAB authorities challenging not just the apex court’s competence to probe the Bank of Punjab scandal but also the validity of the prime minister’s executive order of March 15, 2009, that reinstated the judges. It represents the most direct challenge yet to the authority of the judiciary.

Who gave the NAB prosecutor general carte blanche to prepare a charge sheet against the Supreme Court? How can a petty functionary from a government agency muster up such audacity and impudence of his own volition without the backing of higher authorities? This government has been at pains to bring NAB under the control of the Law Ministry because of which we have seen a steady parade of officials passing through the turnstile as the search continued for compliant officers. A number of former NAB officials have either resigned or gone on extended leave because they found it impossible to work under the stifling influence of the law minister. One such official even admitted before the Supreme Court that the law minister’s interference has made implementation of the NRO verdict impossible. But this letter would appear to indicate that the government’s search for cooperative officials has finally borne fruit. Having succeeded in bringing NAB under its thumb, the government cannot distance itself from the views expressed in the NAB letter. Lack of action against the concerned NAB officials, along the lines of the firing of Advocate Abdul Basit from representing the government in the NRO implementation case, further proves the government’s complicity in the matter.

The fact is that all the issues and questions raised in the NAB letter have already been comprehensively settled in the PCO case verdict, which was unanimously hailed as a watershed by all and sundry. So then why rehash old issues now when the Supreme Court is in the process of deciding the fate of the 18th Amendment and is pushing for the implementation of the NRO verdict? Is the objective to create instability and uncertainty? Or is it to discredit and undermine the judiciary and cloak it in a fog of controversy in the hope that some of the smears might stick?

The nation mobilised in the historic long march of March 15, 2009, for the restoration of the suspended judges and a panic-stricken prime minister had no choice but to submit to the public will or risk the consequences of facing the wrath of the enraged millions if they reached Islamabad. His executive order, therefore, conformed to the will of the political sovereign, i.e. the public, who are the highest legitimising authority in democracy. The whole nation rejoiced at and celebrated the restoration of the judges. If this order was deemed to be invalid, then why did NAB wait sixteen months to raise objections? And if it is illegal then, before anything else, why has the attorney general not taken action against the prime minister for overstepping his authority?

In any case, the prime minister’s order to restore the judges has since been superseded by the Supreme Court’s PCO verdict, which declared the PCO to be invalid and illegal ab initio. As such, the validity of the prime minister’s executive order is no longer of any consequence. Similarly, if Justice Ramday’s appointment as ad hoc judge of the Supreme Court by the prime minister was illegal, why did NAB remain silent for so many months?

The prime minister stood on the floor of the National Assembly one morning and issued a thinly veiled threat to the judiciary saying that his executive order restoring the judges had yet to be approved by parliament, but then gate-crashed the chief justice’s dinner the same evening and invited him to a meeting at the Prime Minister’s House the next day in which the issue of the appointment of judges was amicably worked out to everyone’s relief. At that time the prime minister was hailed as a hero for saving the government by diffusing tensions between the executive and the judiciary. Why pick on the scabs now when the wound has begun to heal?

Since the NAB letter is not part of court record yet, it remains to be seen whether the Supreme Court will view it as constituting a contempt of court or not. But it is hard to escape the conclusion that its contents manifest not just a contempt of court but a criminal disregard for constitutional and democratic propriety. Court rulings are not implemented and direct court orders to officials are ignored, but the judiciary seems to be treading lightly these days. The vitality and vigour it displayed in expressing its independence and setting right the obvious wrongs was taken to be judicial activism for which it was severely criticised, not just by the proponents and beneficiaries of the status quo but even by some of those who fought and agitated for judicial independence but have since been marching to the tune of a different drummer. Nevertheless, it needs to be said that at a time when politicians and surprisingly even portions of civil society have accepted the prevailing stench as a fait accompli and have busied themselves in the procurement of personal benefits, the judiciary alone stands as our last line of defence against all that is wrong. If it is silenced or subdued, all will be lost.

Corruption is out of control, national sovereignty has been severely compromised and incompetence in high positions of authority has become intolerable, but we are told to be patient and not do anything to jeopardise the ‘system’, as if the ‘system’ is ordained by divine authority. Is it really so difficult to see that there is no system? All that is there is an unimpeded rampage over laws, institutions and established codes of ethics. What is referred to as the ‘system’ is in fact an open declaration of war against the judiciary, undermining of vital state institutions, fiddling with the Constitution, ostensibly to restore it to its original splendour but with the real objective of hamstring the judiciary and making the elected parliament subservient to unelected party heads, imposition of governor’s rule in Punjab (which is being threatened once again) and a plethora of massive corruption scandals that are far too numerous to be fully chronicled in this limited space. And let us not forget the new NAB laws that are reportedly on the drawing boards that will legalise and institutionalise loot and plunder. This is the ‘system’ some are so desperate to preserve. Patience is a virtue but even virtues have their limits. At this rate, pretty soon there will be neither a ‘system’ nor a country left to save.

The legacy this government is likely to yield is the dismantling of the edifice of Pakistani state by systematically undermining and corroding the institutions that support it. If what remains of the state implodes, the reverberations will resonate around the world with far greater force than the collapse of the World Trade Centre in New York. Unholy hell will, no doubt, be unleashed on us if that happens, but it is hard to see how this will advance the interests of those foreign powers that have vested security interests in this region.

The writer is vice-chairman of Sindh National Front and a former MPA from Ratodero. He has degrees from the University of Buckingham and Cambridge University.

How insurgencies end by Arif Ayub

Arif Ayub

RAND Corporation has just published a report on How Insurgencies End by Ben Connabe and Martin Cebicci, based on the analysis of 89 insurgencies using various parameters and the prognosis for Afghanistan is not good.

Out of the cases studied 28 ended in a success for the government, 26 were won by the insurgents, 19 had a mixed result and 16 were ongoing.

The general conclusions were that medium length of an insurgency was 10 years; withdrawal of state sponsorship cripples an insurgency and typically leads to its defeat (e.g. Greece, Sri Lanka and Angola); untimely termination of support for governments embroiled in a counter insurgency can be equally crippling (e.g. Vietnam, Afghanistan and Cuba); broad terror campaigns by insurgents correlated with insurgents defeat and most importantly sanctuary was vital for insurgencies.

Mao Tse-Tung and Ho Chi Minh both estimated that once an insurgency gained the support of 15 to 25 percent of the population it essentially became invincible. On the other hand, limited US strategic patience in an endemic problem for counter insurgency operations.

Sanctuaries, being one of the most important parameter, are studied first and the analysis shows that insurgents who have enjoyed sanctuaries (including internal sanctuaries) have won almost half the conflicts. Without sanctuaries insurgents only have a 14 percent chance of winning.

No sanctuaries Involuntary sanctuaries Voluntary sanctuaries

Govt wins 13 3 12

Mixed 5 4 10

Govt losses 3 3 20

Ongoing 8 4 4

Afghanistan is presented as a case in which the Taliban rely on strong grassroots support from a Pashtun community that feels alienation from both the Afghan and Pakistan government. A case, therefore, of the internal sanctuary being more important than the external ones .The Afghan Taliban has learnt to be more discriminate in its use of terror (unlike the Pakistan Taliban). The Taliban is fighting autocracy/democracy represented by the Afghan government giving them a historical advantage of 6:1. The Taliban is operating in one of the most impoverished rural areas in the world giving them a 2:1 advantage.

Outside intervention in favour of governments has had mixed results with the governments losing in Vietnam and Yemen, while winning in Columbia. On the other hand, outside intervention is crucial for insurgents if they are to succeed. This includes provision of money, safe havens, diplomatic backing, arms, training and direct military support (Soviet Union and China in Vietnam and the international community in Afghanistan opposing the Soviets).

State Support Non-state support No support

Government wins 11 5 12

Mixed Outcome 12 3 4

Government loses 21 4 1

Ongoing 8 3 5

Urbanisation was found to be an important parameter and in countries with less than 40 percent urbanisation the government lost 75 percent of the time. Countries heavily populated by an impoverished rural peasantry have provided a ripe ground for insurgents. Insurgents’ use of terrorism against civilians was discovered to be counter productive (e.g. Malaya and Peru).

The longer the insurgents employed indiscriminate terror the more likely it seemed the population would turn against the insurgency and the insurgency would end quickly.

The system of government also played an important role and pseudo democracies had a particularly poor record at countering insurgencies, averaging a 15 percent success ratio. This finding verifies the idea that insurgencies do not entirely end unless the government has addressed the root causes of the conflict (e.g. Afghanistan).

The authors have identified four ways in which pseudo democracies end:

? No effort to change behaviour and typically loses e.g. South Africa. This was the worst way to proceed since it does not address the central complaints that inspired the insurgency and focuses on the use of ruthless repressive tactics that have proven temporarily effective in stifling some insurgencies.? Fails to decolonise and is defeated e.g. South Vietnam.?

Successfully democratises or recognises minority rights and is able to realise a favourable ending e.g. Northern Ireland. This was the best a pseudo democracy could hope for through a negotiated settlement that resulted in power sharing.?

Slips into an autocracy e.g. Algeria.

Defeating an insurgent military cadre requires either total elimination of its leadership and infrastructure or co-option. Co-option has proved to be the better of the two options and co-opted insurgents lend legitimacy to the political process.

Victory is achieved when the populace consents to the government’s legitimacy and stops actively or passively supporting the insurgents. This is achieved by the government addressing the causes of insurgencies through stability operations.

This involves serving and controlling the local population and providing for essential services and reconstruction projects.

Force ratios are introduced with a great deal of caution but the winning ratios were 10 security forces to one insurgent (France in Algeria) and 20:1 (UK in Malaya). The Algerian experience, however, clearly shows that force alone cannot win a counter insurgency in the absence of social and political rapprochement.

More important was the ratio of security forces personnel to 1000 civilians and the minimum winning ratio was 20:1000. In Afghanistan both under the Soviets and the US it was at 0.5 per 1000 population.
Governments defeated themselves more often than they were defeated by a dominant insurgency.

The main reasons for this were:
? Ignoring the insurgency until it developed into a credible threat.
? Failure to address root causes.
? Failure to extend credible control into rural areas.
? Become dependent on a fickle sponsor.

Military superiority and battlefield advantage became fruitless if not counter productive in protracted counter insurgency campaigns. Governments gave way to insurgencies under the weight of their own corruption, weakness and incompetence over the general failure to address the simple tenets of security and good governance.

There were no counter insurgency shortcuts and lasting winning endings are shaped not by military action but by social, economic and political change. At their core insurgencies are battles for public support.

The writer is a former ambassador.

The Afghan National Army by Arif Ayub

Afghans are renowned for being the best fighters in the world and they have proved this throughout centuries, as they battled and worsted empires which have tried to dominate them; in recent times the Moghuls, Persians, British, Russians and now the Americans.

It is, therefore, always surprising to find the Afghan army displaying a lack of professionalism and effectiveness.

The fault has always been with the leaders who have tried to turn the army into an instrument for personal aggrandisement.

From the late 1920s, national security agendas were decided by internal struggles for power among Afghan elites, who leveraged external military aid to gain or retain power and to assist in conflicts with neighbouring states over disputed borders.

The main rot began with Daud (known in the Afghan bazaar as the ‘Mad Sardar’) who used the Pashtunistan issue in the fifties as an excuse to expand the army, with Russian assistance, and then as a means to take over the government . With such a policy, personal loyalty was the only criteria for advancement and merit took a backseat. To make matters worse, the army was 80 percent Pashtun which made it a symbol of elite domination rather than a national army.

The Russians were, however, playing a double game and infiltrated the defence forces with communist cadres, who took over the government in 1978. Ethnicity, however, trumped ideology and the communists (PDPA) divided into Khalq and Parcham depending on whether they were Pashtun or non-Pashtun, with each side trying to eliminate the other.

By the time 3000 Parchamis were killed, the Soviets intervened directly, not realising the extent of Afghan hatred for the outsider. As a result, the army disintegrated through mass desertions and defections (the 17th division in Herat in March 1979 and the 15th division in Kandahar in January 1980). Whatever little was left was stacked with 80 percent non-Pashtuns, making it more unrepresentative than ever.

With the Russian withdrawal, the army was divided among the warlords with the Khalqis surprisingly joining the Taliban; an example once more of ethnicity triumphing over ideology.

The US intervention in 2001 has led to another attempt to rebuild the Afghan security forces on which $25 billion have so far been spent, half of which has been for the Afghan National Army (ANA).

However, the result has been almost as bad as during the Soviet period. The International Crisis Group (ICG) has tried to analyse the reasons for this failure in its report of May 2010 entitled A Force in Fragments: Restructuring the ANA.

The main reason identified by the ICG was the early domination of the Ministry of Defence by commanders loyal to the Tajik-based Shura-i-Nazar (founded by Ahmad Shah Masood), combined with bureaucratic stagnation inherited from the Soviet era . As a result, reforms were impeded and resources monopolised by a handful of power brokers further reinforcing ethnic factionalism.

In addition, there have been chronic shortfalls in training personnel, faulty equipment, slow infrastructure development, poor logistics and crippling attrition rates (currently at 25 percent). Commanders have also been fudging the recruitment rolls in order to attach the pay.

The Northern Alliance entered Kabul on the coat tails of the US forces with 50,000 troops under Defence Minster Qasim Fahim (currently Vice President) and quickly ensured a predominance in the security agencies. The Disarmament, Demobilisation and Reintegration (DDR) programme targeted non-Pansheri units.

In April 2002, where the Northern Alliance was dissolved and turned into an eight corps structure comprising 60,000 troops which formed the backbone of the Afghan military forces, while the command and control fell under the Shura-i-Nazar. Under Fahim the units became organs of patronage with allies and supporters being rewarded with officer commissions.

The result was a weak chain of command over a mix of militias, plagued by high desertions rates and low operational capacity. Ninety out of the first 100 generals appointed were from the Pansher valley, reigniting ethnic, regional and political factionalism within the armed forces.

General Bismillah Khan Mohammed was appointed Chief of Army Staff from his post in the Shura-i-Nazar Supervisory Council while the US tried to provide the balance by supporting Abdul Rahim Wardak (Pir Gailani’s party) as Defence Minister.

The army has divided into four main factions; Pashtuns allied with Wardak or affiliated with the Mahaz-i-Milli-i-Islami Afghanistan, Tajiks allied with Bismillah Khan and the Shura-i-Nazar, Uzbeks allied with Lt Gen Hamuyun Fauzi and Hazaras allied with Lt Gen Baz Mohammed Tawahari.

Bismillah Khan’s following is by far the largest and his apparatus includes at least six out of 11 brigade commanders and 12 out of 46 battalion commanders.

The US has tried to maintain the ANA’s ethnic breakdown to 44 percent Pashtun, 25 percent Tajik, 10 percent Hazara, eight percent Uzbek and 13 percent others. Crisis Group analysis, however, shows the reality to be 43 percent Pashtun, 41 percent Tajik, eight percent Hazara, four percent Uzbek and five percent others.

Tajiks continue to dominate the officer and NCOs ranks where the other ethnic groups are underrepresented.

These discrepancies fuel factionalism and deepen patronage networks

Antonio Giustozzi writing in the RUSI (Royal United Services Institute) Journal of December 2009 agrees with this analysis maintaining that, “the re-building of the Afghan National Army is at the heart of NATO’s long-term strategy to stabilise Afghanistan.

Billions of dollars have been spent in training, mentoring and equipping a new volunteer army which is representative of Afghanistan’s diverse ethnic groups and operates in the nation’s interests. Yet, at the end of 2009, the Afghan army is beset by a host of problems including widespread illiteracy, ethnic rivalries, drugs use and poor combat effectiveness.”

The writer is former ambassador.

The terrible twins by Amina Jilani

akistan’s two major so-called political parties that have sporadically played yo-yo with the country are not political parties in the strict sense of the word. They are private organisations, bereft of internal democracy, conducted as fiefdoms under a self-appointed liege-lord to whom total obeisance is owed by all subjects. Thus, it has always been and the individual vice-like grip has not loosened over the years. And both have successfully conned a numbed electorate into voting them in turn by turn.

The alternative to the present – some would label it disastrous – government in the shape of an individual, Asif Ali Zardari, who has assumed unto himself dictatorial powers within and without the party he chairs is another individual, Mian Nawaz Sharif, to whom, in the mid-1980s (a quarter of a century ago) the Muslim League was handed over by military dictator Ziaul Haq whose archaic policies continue to haunt this country.

The president also is the product of a ‘deal’ done between a military dictator, Pervez Musharraf, whose policies were so detrimental that – for the time being – his rule seems to have dispelled the national myth that army rule is less damaging than the civilian type, and the capo di capi, the USA.
The party of the people has been a flaky organisation since it was founded in 1969 by Zulfikar Ali Bhutto under a strong socialist manifesto promising the people of Pakistan the basic amenities of life. But the people got nothing, other than a voice.

Bhutto, rather than dwelling on the basic needs of the people shed his socialism and donned his party uniform. At one point, his idea was to turn Pakistan into Lebanon and Karachi in particular into a Beirut. Had he continued on that particular path, Pakistan may have joined the progressive world and even given Dubai a run for its money. Anyhow, Bhutto at the end of his quasi-democratic rule went in the worst possible way, to the gallows, having set the scene for Ziaul Haq to propagate his wicked religiosity, dragging back the country into the middle ages.

After a hibernation of 11 years, the PPP resurfaced in 1988 with Benazir Bhutto, who was never able to get to grips with the country as she was subdued by the army, the bureaucracy and the alleged corrupt practices of her husband. She was never able to get going, never able to make her own individual thumbprint, burdened as she was with heavy baggage.

Now, after a further hibernation period of nine years, the PPP is back, headed by the widower of the assassinated Benazir, using the Bhutto name without which the PPP would have had difficulty in surviving – he used Benazir’s son, endowing upon him the Bhutto label and thus achieved his coup. Where is an alternative leadership of the party? We can see none. Political parties of course evolve, as do their policies. What policies does the president propagate other than clinging to power and a continuance of his old worn ways too well known to us and to the world?

Admittedly his hamstrung government has come up with a couple of good deeds, but these have been vastly overshadowed by its blunders, by the promises made and broken by Zardari – he successfully outwitted and betrayed both the man whose partnership with the USA allowed him to wangle his way into the presidency, and the more experienced Nawaz Sharif.
The ruling parties two year record is more than dismal. What will it leave behind if it is allowed by the USA to complete its full term in return for full amenability? If the trend persists, perhaps a political and economical wasteland, ready to be ‘rescued’ by the sole superpower. Many feel it should somehow manage to hang on for five years, as they optimistically hope that by then maybe the electorate will awaken and realise that they cannot continue to vote under pressure and let the national feudal mindset take matters into their own hands to bring about a change.

If by then, the quaid of the Muslim League remains the sole alternative and manages an ouster of the sitting government – of course with the blessings of the USA – then the country is in for a really rough ride. Nawaz Sharif’s past record on all counts is as forbidding as is that of Zardari – though slightly different in manner and manipulation. But he is certainly no answer to Pakistan’s woes – and possibly not to the needs of the sole superpower.

The writer is a freelance columnist.

Email: jilani.amina@gmail.com