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Musharraf: A Good Man Taken for a Ride?

Murtaza Razvi’s book on the former military dictator offers praise and censure in equal measure, from the perspective of the people who knew him

by Khaled Ahmed

Writing in Musharraf: The Years in Power (Harper/Collins 2009), author Murtaza Razvi tries to solve the riddle of the Army chief-turned-president. Since his resignation in August 2008 under pressure from the selfsame political forces that had stood publicly discredited a decade earlier, Musharraf remains an enigma to friends and foes alike. To friends, speaking with the benefit of hindsight, his reign was another opportunity lost for Pakistan to rise from the depths of political, social and cultural obscurantism. They say it was not he who failed, but the powers-that-be that failed him. To them, this is the story of a highly rated soldier who, by circumstances beyond his control, was confronted by a barrage of criticism over his balancing his professional responsibilities as the head of a nuclear-armed Pakistan Army and politically steering the country out of troubled waters.

Positives for supporters

According to Musharraf’s supporters, he donned the mantle of a savior on Oct. 12 1999 when he overcame a ‘coup’ instigated against him by an elected prime minister who—despite a two-thirds majority in Parliament—was tarnished by corruption charges and a lack of spine at home and abroad. After coming to power, many believed that Musharraf had taken the high road by pardoning Nawaz Sharif, who had possibly tried to kill him by refusing the plane in which he was travelling permission to land in Pakistan. They say he set about rearranging politics to address the challenges left behind by the so-called democratic rulers and promised to lead Pakistan out of its predicaments and chart a path toward sustainable democracy. In fact, making peace with India became the cornerstone of Musharraf’s vision for a prosperous and economically vibrant and politically stable Pakistan—until 9/11.

After the events of September 11, 2001, Musharraf’s rule also became the story of Pakistan’s survival as a sovereign nation; a state poised on the brink of failure that was reliant on a single individual for actions taken in the context of a rapidly changing international situation and diplomacy. What Pakistan should like today, but will not, was Islamabad’s decision to distance itself from the Taliban regime as U.S.-led forces swarmed Afghanistan. This era saw growing extremism at home, even as India’s posturing to extract advantage out of the emerging scenario by “erring to help the U.S. in fighting the war against global terrorism” before Pakistan committed to it was staring Musharraf in the face. He was the man of the hour; Pakistan could not have been the same without him.

PMLN-PPP join hands

Thus, settling in his new role as the chief executive of the country, Musharraf was beset with multiple problems, including a looming economic disaster which had to be contained. He not only did that but during his subsequent eight years in power transformed it into an apparent economic boom. Just then politics began to catch up with him; the Pakistan Peoples Party of Benazir Bhutto and the Pakistan Muslim League of Nawaz Sharif joined lands to plot his overthrow. The U.S. and the U.K. backed Bhutto, and the Saudis backed Sharif, eventually persuading Musharraf to let the two exiled leaders return to Pakistan in a spirit of accommodation and reconciliation.

Musharraf’s supporters contend that by this time the West had realized that it could not extract any further concessions from the Army chief to further its ‘war on terror’ agenda and began banking on Pakistan’s tried and tested political leadership to do its bidding. A section of Pakistani civil society, not quite knowing its role, says that Musharraf’s supporters got sucked into the agenda of deposing him and derailing the political system he had put in place. The anti-Musharraf players were pumped up by Nawaz Sharif, and they rallied behind the chief justice who was harming rather than safeguarding the interests of Pakistan by entertaining, for instance, petitions of missing persons many of whom were involved in and wanted for terrorist activities by the U.S.

His supporters go on to say that Musharraf must be credited with holding the fairest election since 1970—a questionable assertion. In the face of this, the PPP turned on him with the help of its Western backers, while Sharif kept the heat on the general to settle his own vendetta. In August 2008, Musharraf stepped down to avoid further political polarization and violence within Pakistan, though his conscience told him that doing so might not best serve the interests of his country.

Musharraf’s followers describe him as a “clean” man, though not made of the same stuff politicians are. All his actions, right or wrong, were undertaken in good faith and in the cause of Pakistan, they say, maintaining he will be remembered as someone who gave unprecedented freedoms to the same media that contributed to his downfall. More than that, they say, Americans got their way in Musharraf’s ouster. The rest is history.

This, by and large, is the opinion of Musharraf’s supporters on his tumultuous years in power. Razvi’s book notes that people who have been personally close to the general almost unanimously opted to remain anonymous for fear of hurting their friend’s feelings by going public. Musharraf’s opponents, he writes, can be divided into two categories: those directly affected by his rule and those who disagreed with his policies. Amongst the former are the Sharifs, who since their return from exile rallied for his accountability, even as their opponents said they must answer for how they were exiled, what actually happened on Oct. 12, l999, and the terms under which they were allowed to return to Pakistan.

Negatives for detractors

Most of Musharraf’s opponents, meanwhile, negate any association of goodness and lofty ideals with the man. They say the general was a reckless soldier who undertook the Kargil misadventure, which resulted in a military, political and diplomatic debacle for Pakistan. He was ambitious, had put a plan in place to mount a coup d’etat against the elected government given the slightest provocation, and he did. He held a bogus referendum in 2002 and got it indemnified by the Supreme Court, which, fearing his displeasure, had also given him the mandate to amend the Constitution. He humiliated the nation by going to the Agra Summit in July 2001, offering India more than Pakistan had ever bargained for; the Indians called his bluff by sending him back empty-handed.

They argued that he then set about furthering the U.S. agenda in the wake of 9/11 just so that he could stay on in power, and the U.S. from then on became his sole objective. He presided over bogus elections in 2002, handpicking his deputies to pack a Parliament that never debate policy, and acted only as a rubber-stamp for an all-powerful president who had usurped most of the powers of Parliament and prime minister. Pakistan was placed at the mercy of the U.S. and military action initiated against its own people, and America’s ‘war on terror’ objectives took precedence over the country’s own good.

In 2007, the detractors argue, the people had had enough. The firing of some 60 higher court judges, the president’s illegal re-election by an outgoing Parliament, and the November 2007 declaration of emergency rule became inevitable acts of commission for the dictator on his way out. Benazir Bhutto’s murder the following December and the Feb. 18, 2008 election results made it clear that the nation had had enough and Musharraf had to go. He would not have resigned on Aug. 18 had the new coalition government not initiated impeachment proceedings against him, and had it not become patently clear to him that his days in power were numbered. His rule will be remembered, at best, as an aberration in the democratic process.

A man in isolation

The truth, perhaps, lies somewhere in-between the two extremes. Musharraf, say his friends and foes alike, was a very isolated man in his last months in power. His friends would venture to say that he would not listen to anyone, save perhaps to a narrowing circle of advisers and ‘friends’ with whom he had surrounded himself. Most of the general’s diehard friends remain tight-lipped on what brought about his downfall, except to speak in wider terms, pointing their fingers at the Americans and the PPP.

The beginning of Musharraf’s decline in power, some say, began on March 9, 2007, when he made the chief justice of Pakistan, Iftikhar Mohammed Chaudhry, non-functional. Others say it was the imposition of emergency rule on Nov. 3, 2007. Yet others believe that it was Nov. 15, 2007, when he doffed his military uniform. The conspiracy theorists pre-date the beginning of the general’s fall to his U.S. visit during September 2006; his gung-ho interviews with the American media, his faux pas on the rise of rape incidents in Pakistan, the killing of the Baloch nationalist leader Nawab Akbar Bugti, and the like.

What happened in Dallas?

Last but not least is a fantastic story of the general’s visit to a Dallas suburb—Paris—while on his trip to the U.S. in 2006, which came up during an interview with someone who calls himself Musharraf’s friend. The general had been advised by the Pakistani embassy in Washington to go to Dallas for a medical check-up during the U.S. visit. It started a rumor back home that he had had a heart attack while on the tour and that the military high command was being readied to take charge. The story was promptly trashed by both the Foreign Office and the Pakistani embassy in Washington. It is, however, said that after the check-up the president began complaining of choking to such a degree that on one occasion he nearly fainted. The check-up could have been an attempt at inducing a heart attack, or leaving him with traces of something that might cause an attack sometime in the immediate future. However, those behind the sinister plan waited and waited … and nothing happened. Then they decided to remove him from office by putting into motion a political plan, in which the new pawns were the failed leaders waiting in the wings, like Bhutto and Sharif.

Musharraf’s opponents, however, insist it was the general’s speculations about himself and about the people he so ironically wanted to lead but for whom he had done little to command any respect or loyalty that finally saw him out of office. They say his alienation from the people and real-life events brought about his downfall, in the classical, clichéd sense.

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