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  The West's Favorite Dictator: General Musharraf Searches for a Way Out

The West's Favorite Dictator General Musharraf Searches for a Way Out

By Susanne Koelbl

Part 2: 'Money or a Good Name?'

The military pervades Pakistani government and society well beyond the confines of barracks and the reach of the intelligence services. It is Pakistan's largest business enterprise. It owns banks, sugar refineries and cement factories, it runs an airline, it produces corn flakes and it is the country's leading real estate broker. There is hardly a university or think tank that is not run by an active-duty or retired general. Musharraf is the head of this omnipresent colossus.

As a young officer, he joined the Special Forces Group, in which soldiers are trained to parachute behind enemy lines and accomplish their mission no matter the odds. The skills he learned during his early years of military service eventually became an attitude, a fundamental part of his character. When he believes it is necessary, Musharraf is prepared to defy the majority in his country and in the international community. But the consequences of such reckless maneuvers are difficult to predict, which only increases the risk. From Musharraf's perspective, the riskiest step he could take would be to give up his control over the military and transform himself into a civilian president.

In a marginally democratic vote on Oct. 6, Musharraf had himself re-elected as president. He said at the time that he would shed his "second skin" if the country's supreme court confirmed his election. But that never happened. An informant from the supreme court apparently gave Musharraf advance notice that Chief Justice Iftikhar Chaudhry was expected to declare his presidency unconstitutional, because he is also the country's military leader.

The judge was right, under the law. The Pakistani constitution specifically bars military officers from taking part in political activities of any kind. What applies to officers should also apply to the general, at least if one takes the constitution as seriously as Chaudhry, who has been Musharraf's popular rival for the past six months or so.

Only Alternative?

The president's term would normally have ended on Nov. 15. He could not remain head of the military indefinitely, because he had already promised the position to Pervez Kiani, the former head of Pakistan's internal security agency ISI. This would have spelled the end of Musharraf's political and military career.

Would that have plunged the country into chaos or delivered it into the hands of Islamists? The departure of Pakistan's president-general would certainly have triggered a bitter and possibly bloody power struggle among the parties and their leaders.

In Musharraf's view, declaring emergency rule was the only alternative to chaos and anarchy. At the moment, his most dangerous rivals are not the Taliban or al-Qaida, but a host of educated, secular lawyers and judges who insist on the observation of civil rights. Musharraf accuses them of undermining his campaign against the Islamists, and points to human rights activists having filed lawsuits against government investigators for their rough handling of terror suspects. The courts have likewise routinely ordered suspected extremists released because the judges felt that the evidence against them was insufficient. TV journalists, Musharraf complains, have been too critical in their reporting on events in the country, thus weakening the authority of the security agencies.

No one better embodies the growing wave of anti-Musharraf resistance than Iftikhar Chaudhry, 58, the dismissed chief justice who is now under house arrest. "The constitution was ripped to shreds," Chaudhry said last week. The man with the bushy moustache and wrinkled brow also said that this is only the beginning of the struggle against oppression. "The time for sacrifice has come, to rise up for the supremacy of the constitution," he said by telephone. His words were then broadcast over loudspeakers at demonstrations, and were met with huge applause.

Pakistan has a long tradition of its rulers doing away with disagreeable lawyers and judges by bribing them or filing trumped-up charges against them. Chaudhry was a flexible Musharraf loyalist at first, only gradually transforming himself into a regime critic.

'Money or a Good Name'

When the chief justice prevented the government's planned privatization of state-owned steel mills, he sent a message condemning rampant corruption within the military, which routinely exploits the country for its own financial gain. He addressed the plights of torture victims and the family members of people who had disappeared in Baluchistan, his native province, where parts of the population are embroiled in civil war-like conflicts with security forces over the exploitation of natural resources. Finally, Chaudhry demanded publicly that Musharraf remove his uniform if he wants to remain president. Finally, in March, Musharraf had had enough, and dismissed the judge for alleged abuse of power.

Chaudhry told a diplomat friend that, leading up to his dismissal, he had received several visits from high-ranking generals, who had urged him to settle the conflict amicably. "I thought about what I should leave my children," he says, "money or a good name." Apparently he chose the good name.

After massive protests and a spectacular decision by a special court, Chaudhry returned to his desk in July – until security forces surrounded the supreme court building on Nov. 3. Chaudhry was dismissed again, and a successor acceptable to the president has already been sworn in.

Until last Friday, Musharraf's coup was a moderate success from his point of view. But he proved unable to withstand the mounting international pressure for long, and on Sunday, he announced that he would hold elections on January 9, but will not be lifting the state of emergency before then. "Certainly, the emergency is required to ensure peace in Pakistan, to ensure an environment conducive for elections," Musharraf said.

It is not difficult, it would seem, to foresee the results. Bhutto will likely be elected prime minister. And Musharraf will be allowed to stay on as president, but not as commander-in-chief of the military. Which is how things were supposed to have happened in the first place. So why the state of emergency?

Despite the crisis, foreign aid has not been interrupted. The US wires Pakistan $100 million a month in aid, most of which goes into military spending. More than any other country in the world, Pakistan is the face of the international community's worst nightmare: the possibility of nuclear weapons falling into the hands of fanatic Islamists, the sworn enemies of the West.

Village by Village

Since the war in Afghanistan drove the Taliban into Pakistan's border regions, local and foreign terrorists have begun gathering in these largely lawless tribal areas. Several thousand Afghan and Pakistani fighters have set up camp in the region, as well as hundreds of Uzbeks, Arabs and even a few Europeans and Americans who have committed themselves to the global jihad. The goal of these globally networked terrorists is to bring down the governments in Kabul and Islamabad and inflict more defeats on the West.

Groups of violent extremists are taking control of the tribal regions in northwestern Pakistan, village by village, district by district. Tribal elders from the two districts of South and North Waziristan report that those who defy the extremists are killed. A new generation of the Taliban and al-Qaida is gradually gaining control over the region.

Last week a supporter of Taliban leader Mullah Omar declared the scenic Swat Valley in the north as part of his "emirate." The region, a popular tourist destination, is home to one and a half million people. "No one knows how far Talibanization has progressed," says Gregor Enste of the Heinrich Böll Foundation in Lahore. "The tribal regions and border regions like Baluchistan are no longer accessible for reporters."

The Taliban uses the region as its base for organizing its resistance against US and NATO troops in Afghanistan. It trains its fighters on Pakistani territory and, after staging attacks in Afghanistan, pulls them back across the unsecured mountainous border into Pakistan. There can be no stability in Afghanistan until the resistance coming from these extremists is quashed.

The West needs Musharraf in its war against Islamist groups. Even after the coup, President Bush called him "indispensable." New faces in Pakistan would mean new, unpredictable factors for the Western allies. The West, mindful of this potentially precarious situation, has taken steps to preserve the status quo by negotiating a deal that allows Musharraf to stay and Bhutto to return.

Even Weaker than Before

Even after eight years in exile, Bhutto remains a darling of the masses. Apparently she is still in a position to lead her Pakistan People's Party (PPP), the country's largest political party, as she sees fit, and she has enough clout to bring her supporters into the streets. If the West has its way, the PPP will form a coalition with the Pakistan Muslim League, a party of Musharraf loyalists. The hope is that this would reduce the influence of religious groups.

Bhutto's house arrest was lifted on Friday evening. Since then she has given fiery speeches against the state of emergency and threatened to stage a mass march against the president, and yet she has also taken pains to limit the conflict. Bhutto may emerge from the crisis even stronger than before.

The president, for his part, could very well be weakened even further if he is forced to make the very concessions he had hoped to avoid by imposing emergency rule.

Translated from the German by Christopher Sultan.