Saturday, January 5, 2008
ARACHI, Pakistan — Not so long ago, Muneer A. Malik was often photographed sitting on the roof of a Mitsubishi Pajero, fists raised, showered with rose petals and thronged by supporters as he accompanied the embattled Supreme Court chief justice on protest cavalcades that became the starkest symbol of opposition to President Pervez Musharraf’s rule.
Today, Mr. Malik, a lawyer who helped lead the movement of his colleagues, goes nowhere but the hospital and home. He is frail, his face is drawn, he walks through his house slowly and cautiously. He says he is happy to be alive.
For speaking out against President Musharraf, whom the United States has held up as its bulwark against Islamic militancy in this country, Mr. Malik spent three weeks in jail, where his kidneys failed and he ended up, he says, close to death. He said his doctors told him it was a combination of dehydration, malnutrition and the presence of unknown toxins in his body. Only recently, after more than a month spent in and out of the hospital, medical tests confirmed that he was out of danger.
He is now also free to talk. The government’s detention order against him was lifted Nov. 26, while he lay in a hospital in the capital, Islamabad.
Some of his closest lawyer friends have not been as lucky, as Mr. Musharraf has muzzled his legal critics, at least for now. Since Nov. 3, when the president declared an emergency and dismissed the Supreme Court, Iftikhar Muhammad Chaudhry, who had been the chief justice, has been prohibited from leaving his house in Islamabad; his family is locked up with him, and their street is heavily guarded.
Mr. Malik’s friend and the main leader of the lawyers movement, a veteran lawyer-politician named Aitzaz Ahsan, is under house arrest in Lahore, prohibited from speaking to outsiders, including the American and British ambassadors to Pakistan, both of whom came to meet him at home in recent weeks and were turned back.
Two other leaders of the lawyers movement, Ali Ahmed Kurd, of Quetta, and Tariq Mehmood, of Islamabad, are also under house arrest. None of these leaders can talk to one another, except covertly. A protest strike by lawyers has begun to fizzle out. Mr. Malik said young lawyers in particular had been compelled to return to work and make a living.
On Wednesday night, Mr. Malik sounded unbowed.
“Repression increases as the strength of the movement grows,” he said at his home, dressed in loose white pajamas rather than his customary lawyer’s black coat. “Finally, one or the other has to break, but history teaches us the right always prevails in the end.”
The lawyers movement began last spring with the suspension of the chief justice, Mr. Chaudhry, who had dogged Mr. Musharraf’s government on a range of issues, from human rights to the validity of elections. Mr. Chaudhry became a symbol of judicial independence, and Mr. Musharraf endured months of protests by black-coated men and women across the country. Four months later, the president backed down and reinstated Mr. Chaudhry to his post.
Then, last November, days before Mr. Chaudhry’s court was expected to rule that Mr. Musharraf was ineligible for a third term in office, the president declared a state of emergency. He accused the court of meddling in state affairs, and had Mr. Chaudhry escorted out of his office and the leaders of the lawyers movement rounded up on orders of preventive detention.
Mr. Malik said his arrest warrant described him as “likely to make inflammatory speeches.” He was plucked from a hotel in Islamabad, where he had gone to appear on a television program, and taken to a jail in Rawalpindi, where Mr. Ahsan was already in the next cell. “He was delighted to see me,” Mr. Malik recalled.
The two men had been jailed years ago for bucking the military rule of Gen. Mohammad Zia ul-Haq. Jail itself was not a frightening thing.
But as Mr. Malik says now, he did not anticipate what came after. Three days later, in the middle of the night, he said, he was taken from Rawalpindi to another jail, in Attock, where he was held in a tiny cell. When allowed out, he repeatedly walked 60 steps from one end of the yard to the other, so he could at least stretch his legs. He was allowed no books, no newspapers. A table and two chairs were placed in the middle of his cell, as if to constantly remind him that he would be interrogated. He never was.
“All I could do was lie down in that cell,” he recalled. “From one end to the other you could barely take four steps.”
He was in solitary confinement for the first two days, and on a hunger strike. Slowly, the jail filled up with other lawyers and political workers. And then, one by one, everyone was released, except him.
He could sleep only with sleeping pills, which the doctor at the jail prescribed. He was also given heavy pain killers, after complaining of problems urinating. Within days, his legs and stomach had begun to swell. He became short of breath. He became so disoriented that he was losing chronological memory. “If you asked me to recap what happened, I couldn’t,” he said. “I was all alone. All the people who had been detained were all released.”
On Nov. 23, he was transferred to an Islamabad hospital, then to Karachi, where he underwent repeated dialysis treatments. He plans to go to the United States for toxicology tests.
For now, he concedes, the lawyers movement seems to be on hold. Its leaders are prevented from talking to one another. The assassination of Benazir Bhutto has transformed the political landscape. Restrictions on the Pakistani media, Mr. Malik said, have pinched the lawyers’ efforts to publicize their campaign. Since Nov. 3, Pakistan’s largest television news network, Geo News, has been off the air, and it remains unclear whether it will be allowed to resume operations in time for elections, now scheduled for Feb. 18.
“We have to change tactics,” Mr. Malik said. “It’s now or never. If we don’t succeed by February, we will not have any kind of judiciary.”
Here in Medialand we love to fall for the iconic figure, the convenient allegory, a Western-style protagonist to help explain complex events in distant lands. Hence the lovefest, nay, near deification, surrounding Benazir Bhutto.
The comfortable narrative, repeated endlessly, is worthy of an Andrew Lloyd Webber musical. The woman who saw her destiny as Pakistan's next prime minister was, according to post-assassination analysis, Pakistan's version of Eva Peron: A people's hero, a Muslim feminist, a democrat, pure hope in a corrupt, unstable country riven with medieval Islamic fundamentalism and bristling with a nuclear arsenal.
That's the easy narrative. But its also a dangerously naive and inaccurate one
The reality is that Bhutto was in most ways a throwback to the old Pakistan, and an old Asia, that would best be left behind. She has proved this from the grave by protecting precisely what Pakistan does not need: A family dynasty, and not a particularly good one.
Knowing she might be assassinated by enemies upon her return from exile to return to politics, Bhutto apparently left behind a will crowning her husband, Asif Ali Zardari, co-chairman of her Pakistan Peoples Party. Zardari, known derisively around Islamabad as "Mr. Ten Per Cent" for his alleged cut of government contracts, then declared their 19-year-old son, Bilawal Bhutto, would be the party's co-chairman. In the meantime he will finish his studies at Oxford and get ready to take over the family dynasty, becoming the third Bhutto to be Pakistan's prime minister. He would follow the steps of his murdered mother and his grandfather, Zulfiqar Ali Bhutto, who was hanged for allegedly authorizing the murder of an opponent.
This may seem the way of politics in Asia. India has its Ghandis, North Korea has the cult of the tyrant Kim Jong Il. Thailand worships its king above its democracy. But political dynasties and cults, call them what you may, are ultimately destructive for a nation. Make a dynasty and corruption follows, violence becomes a political tool, the elites enjoy inside access to power and the delights of the treasury.
Bhutto, of course, claimed she was different -- a true democrat. Yet her final political act from the grave, handing over power by fiat to her husband, suggests otherwise. Perhaps we should have expected it. After all, despite her rhetoric about championing universal suffrage, the self-described "daughter of Pakistan" served as "chairman for life" in her own party.
What does the Bhutto dynasty now offer? Very likely the prospect of the younger Bhutto, who has spent most of his life in gold-plated exile, returning to Pakistan when he is 25. Then it will be constitutionally possible for him to run for prime minister and keep the dynasty alive.
Terrific. Just what the world needs. A young, inexperienced leader in charge of a nuclear arsenal. How on Earth could he run a country he hardly knows?
It's not even clear the thoroughly westernized Bhutto can even speak his country's national language, Urdu, though his English is perfectly British. I expect he's now signing up for some intensive language courses to be ready for the destiny that awaits. But he has a lot of studying ahead if he's going to be able to handle Pakistan's mullahs and tribal warlords, the men who have been running the country while he's been attending the Oxford Union learning how to debate.
here will be those who argue that, despite her flaws, her vanity and tremendous ego, Benazir Bhutto is a historic figure by virtue of being the first woman to lead Pakistan. That is an undeniable accomplishment. But the measure of her legacy should be what she did with her two terms as prime minister.
Did she crack down on honour killings of her fellow Pakistani sisters or repeal laws that now make it almost impossible for a Pakistani woman to bring a rapist to justice? No. Did she alleviate poverty? No. This is a woman who, in her first term as prime minister, saw fit to take $6 million from the treasury to buy herself a supply of Evian water while many in her country can't get clean water from their wells.
Did Bhutto cut deals with the Islamic extremists, whose backing she needed, and pave the way for the Taliban rise to tyranny? Yes. Did she really give Pakistan's nuclear technology to North Korea in exchange for missile technology? Yes.
By all means, shed a tear for Benazir Bhutto, who lost to the barbarians when she was murdered in Rawalpindi. At least she professed to be a democrat. Who knows, she may really have taken on the mullahs if she had become the prime minister a third time. But I weep more for Pakistan, a country so desperate that millions of its citizens believed this was the best leader the country could offer.
A multidimensional charade is taking place in Pakistan, and it is not an edifying sight. Pervez Musharraf has discarded his uniform and is trying to cling to power, whatever the cost.
So far it has been high: the dismissal of the Supreme Court judges and their replacement by stooges; police brutality against a strong lawyers' movement protesting the military assault on the judiciary; and the assassination of Benazir Bhutto, who had returned to Pakistan as part of an ill-judged deal brokered by the Bush Administration and its British acolytes.
Add to this the sad spectacle of supposedly reformist, Western-backed politicians assembling like old family retainers at the feudal home of the slain leader and rubber-stamping her political will: Bhutto's husband, Asif Ali Zardari, has become stopgap supremo until her 19-year-old son, Bilawal, can replace his late mother as chairperson-for-life. This farcical succession occurred in a party that was born in 1967 out of the mass struggle of disenfranchised students, workers, professionals and peasants for democracy and, yes, socialism. That is why it was named the Pakistan People's Party. Its trajectory encapsulates the crisis of democratic politics in Pakistan: a party is publicly expropriated and corrupted by a single faction from an old family; its members are treated like serfs; its weak-kneed leaders told to either accept their new overlords or find another vehicle for their ambitions. Where can they go?
The PPP's major rival, the Pakistan Muslim League, is hardly better. It is in the grip of the Sharif brothers. Patronized by the military and the state, they became very rich, which helped them to maintain their party and support. After Nawaz Sharif fell out with Musharraf and was toppled in the 1999 coup, he sought the protection of the Saudi royal family. Sporting Wahhabi headgear, he returned home in November with their support. It's bad enough having semipermanent military rule, but when the alternatives are deeply flawed booty politicians, what hope is there for this benighted land?
The roots of the problem go back to soon after the founding of the state, when the military-bureaucratic leaders decided at an early stage (1950) to become a US satrapy: the Dulles brothers saw to it that the new ally was locked into a network of cold war alliances. Henceforth, US global priorities determined Pakistan's foreign and domestic policies. Whenever there was the threat of a democratic victory by parties pledging to withdraw Pakistan from US security arrangements, Foggy Bottom would appeal directly to the Pakistani army. The coups d'état of 1958 and 1977 were greenlighted by Washington, with disastrous results. Then there was the trial and execution -- privately approved by Washington -- of democratically elected Zulfiqar Ali Bhutto, Benazir's father, by dictator Muhammad Zia ul-Haq; the creation of local state-backed jihadi groups to "liberate" Afghanistan from the Soviets; and the brutalization of the country's political culture with public floggings and hangings of criminals as well as activists.
The ultimate consequences of the anti-Soviet jihad were America's turning a blind eye as General Zia hurriedly nuclearized the country, the attacks of 9/11 and the NATO occupation of Afghanistan, with the ensuing instability on Pakistan's northwest frontier. The post-cold war embargo designed to punish Pakistan for its possession of nuclear weapons proved ineffective, and all family tiffs were happily forgotten as the "war on terror" commenced. The balance sheet is dismal.
The instability in the border provinces is a direct result of the NATO occupation and war in Afghanistan, which has created a crisis of conscience inside the army. There is much unhappiness at being paid to kill fellow Muslims in the tribal areas that border Afghanistan. The arrogant and humiliating behavior of NATO soldiers has hardly helped matters in either country, and sending US troops to train the Pakistani military in counterinsurgency can only further inflame passions. Long-term stability in Afghanistan requires a regional agreement involving India, Russia, Iran and Pakistan and the withdrawal of all NATO troops.
As for Musharraf, he has failed as an effective US point man in Pakistan. The elections, now delayed until February 18, are likely to be fixed and will thus lack legitimacy. The general's failure to protect Benazir Bhutto has not gone down well in Washington. When Hillary Clinton and Joseph Biden cast doubt on the government's explanation for her killing, it's a sure sign that he could be heading for the dustbin.
There is a Pakistani solution to the current impasse: Musharraf's replacement by a less contentious figure, an all-party government to prepare for free elections, removal of all curbs on the media and reinstatement of the sacked Supreme Court judges so they can investigate Benazir Bhutto's murder without fear or favor. With the slow death of the PPP, the country also needs a genuine, radical democratic party that can respond to the social needs of the underprivileged majority and the expanding demands of civil society.
For its part, Washington should accept a self-denying ordinance: it should stop treating the Pakistani army as contract killers on a turbulent Afghan frontier, and it should refrain from encouraging military rule. This was never a panacea for the country's ills, and never can be. And Washington should encourage regional unity to solve political problems without resorting to force. Were it to do so, pigs would fly. Pakistan's dark night is far from over.
In the real world, there are consequences. For every action there's a reaction, and often even inaction triggers a reaction.
The unfolding disaster in Pakistan in the wake of the assassination of former Prime Minister Benazir Bhutto is in part a reaction to a series of inactions and actions by the Bush administration during the past six years.
Bush and Company took their eyes off the ball and became preoccupied with the sideshow of their own creation in Iraq as things went sideways and backward in Afghanistan and Pakistan. Then they outsourced much of the fight against the Taliban and al-Qaida to Pakistani President Pervez Musharraf.
After the attacks on America on 9/11, President Bush quite rightly took aim at al-Qaida and the Taliban government in Afghanistan that was sheltering the terrorist group responsible for those attacks.
A relatively small group of U.S. special operators rented enough tribal leaders and their armies and, backed by American air power, were able to topple the Taliban government and put al-Qaida on the run. A force of only 7,000 U.S. Army and Marine troops went in to chase the bad guys.
So far, so good, or so it seemed. But the administration declared victory prematurely - a bad habit it would repeat elsewhere - and turned many of its resources and most of its attention to invading Iraq while Osama bin Advertisement
Laden and the Taliban leadership Advertisement
escaped into Pakistan.
Benign neglect is a dangerous policy in the badlands along the Afghan-Pakistani border, where the bleached bones of invading armies litter the mountain passes and the inhospitable deserts. Rudyard Kipling, the poet laureate of the British Indian Army, had this to say on the subject:
''When you're wounded and left on Afghanistan's plains,
''And the women come out to cut up your remains,
''Just roll to your rifle and blow out your brains,
''And go to your God like a soldier.''
Job One was Afghanistan, but it was left undone, too unimportant a backwater for the foreign policy amateurs, neoconservative ideologues and military dilettantes advising the president. A pre-emptive invasion of Iraq and the toppling of a hated dictator in the heart of the Middle East - a cheap, easy and quick cakewalk - was what we needed.
Never mind that we'd chased a bunch of fanatical terrorists into a part of Pakistan that no central government has ever conquered or controlled. We'd just throw $10 billion to Pakistan's military dictator and get him to take care of our problem, as if he didn't have enough problems of his own dealing with Islamist fanatics.
Now both Afghanistan and Pakistan are coming unraveled, and are likely to become two more disasters added to the growing list of ''things to do'' in the disaster department that President George W. Bush will hand to his unlucky successor in the White House a year from now.
Afghanistan is a mess. We installed a weak central government whose writ doesn't run much beyond the city limits of Kabul and starved it of the aid needed to repair a nation ravaged by three decades of war and civil war. The Soviet Union sent 100,000 troops to wage unlimited and barbaric war and was defeated. By contrast, we have 20,000 U.S. troops in Afghanistan and we've browbeaten our reluctant NATO allies into sending an additional 50,000, many of whom are under orders from home not to take risks or get anyone killed.
The Taliban guerrillas, operating from safe havens in Pakistan's rugged frontier province, are on the march. They've learned from the war in Iraq, and their IEDs (improvised explosive devices) and suicide bombers are taking a deadly toll. More American troops were killed in Afghanistan in 2007 than in any year since 2002.
In Pakistan, the radical madrassas are churning out recruits for the Taliban and al-Qaida faster than the allies and the Afghan army can kill them, and every time we've pushed Gen. Musharraf to send his soldiers in to clean out the sanctuaries, most of them have been killed or captured.
The administration's solution: Force Musharraf to take off his uniform and enter into an unholy alliance of sorts with the long-exiled former Prime Minister Benazir Bhutto, whose time in power was marked mainly by an explosion of corruption remarkable even in a country where corruption is endemic.
It's no surprise that she was killed. She was buried next to her father, former Prime Minister Zulfikar Ali Bhutto, another smooth-talking, Western-educated darling of the foreigners, who was hanged by a previous military dictator.
All this might be of little interest if only Pakistan didn't have a cellar full of nuclear warheads. Real nuclear weapons, unlike the imaginary nuclear weapons program our leaders brandished as a reason to invade Iraq or the one they trotted out to turn up the heat on Iran - until the intelligence community pulled the rug out from under that crusade.
All of it is so complicated it must make George W. Bush's head hurt.
