Former US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice in her new book “No Higher Honor” has revealed the details of a deal between former Prime Minister of Pakistan Motarma Benazir Bhutto and former President of Pakistan General (retd) Pervez Musharraf. It isn’t a breaking news for most of us in Pakistan. Majority here knows who played the middleman role in bringing BB-Mush into a deal. The whispers of an agreement between the two moderates, as the mediator (US) called them, were already there in the political and media circles of the country during 2007. The deal under the umbrella of controversial and notorious NRO was an open secret. So was the US’ role in the whole negotiations. But at least the Condi’s book has confirmed the deal and given authenticity to an already known fact which was no secret. Her book provides full details as to how she and other senior US officials were involved in the process of negotiations. The basic details of discussions between the late BB and Musharraf could be traced in the Condi’s book.
The important aspect of the book is the US involvement in our internal matters. Please rest assured that the US does not have any passionate love for Pakistan or for its people to have democracy in the country. It has and continues to back any form of government, either dictatorial or democratic, in Islamabad as long as its interests are served. After all, General Zia was US’ blue eyed boy and so was General Musharraf till the time they became irrelevant to Washington. Yes, they do interfere in our domestic as well as foreign policy issues, but only when we invite them to do so. The main reason for sending invitation to the US for interference, unfortunately, was our fragile political system, disrespect for rule of law and constitution, and struggle between politicians and establishment for capturing power.
People in the khakis believed civilians are incompetent, corrupt and totally insensitive towards national security. While the civilians distrust the military, accusing it for launching conspiracies against the democratically-elected governments. Both have reasons to support their respective arguments. If we analyse the four military coups, the pattern of a charge sheet against every civilian government, one way or the other, remained the same. Civilians were accused of bad governance, gross economic and financial mismanagement and possible clash among the three pillars of the state (executive, legislator and judiciary), and most of the time the argument proved true.
The political and civilian governments had lot of ills and drawbacks, which discredited them within and outside the country. It was believed that the civilians could not provide competent leadership from top to bottom. Political interference, favouritism and nepotism devastated the very foundations of the national institutions. Heads of various political parties tried to run their parties in a dictatorial manner. They established family hold not only on the political parties but on the respective governments as well. Majority of the political leaders considered political party as a private limited company. They distributed important political and government positions among their family members, close relatives and friends. The attitude created a sense of disappointment and deprivation among the party members including workers, resulting in disintegration and weakening of the party.
The tug of war between the government and opposition led to political chaos in the country. The political leadership instead of focusing on national issues launched criticism on each others’ personal lives and families, polluting the whole democratic system.
But do these flaws in the political parties and their leadership provide a justification for military marching into power corridors?
No sir, not at all. Military interventions are not the solution to any of our issues; rather whenever it came to power it further complicated the situation. The military has a role in the constitution and it should restrict itself to that. We have a very bad experience of military role in the past. A decade back General Musharraf launched coup against an elected government promising genuine democracy, just and fair accountability, economic reforms and protecting national integrity, sovereignty and security. However, he could not achieve anything except internal unrest, political deals, disintegration and drones from the US. He agreed to every US demand, documented or otherwise, putting the country’s sovereignty at stake. The present American aggression against Pakistan is due to Musharraf’s bad policies. This makes it clear that the military should not violate the constitution and should have zero role in country’s politics. This is the only way it can guard the country’s borders as well as win the love and respect of the nation.
Now, the traditional struggle between the civilians and the military has forced them to seek help and legitimacy from Washington. The civilians fear of being removed from government without completing constitutional tenure, while the military for getting endorsement to legitimising its unconstitutional take over. This once again makes clear that the basic problem of US’ interference in our country lies with us. As a mature nation, we should stop blaming Americans for every ill that we have. We should learn from our past mistakes and set our own house in order. Otherwise, we may have many Condis and countless deals in future too.
The writer hosts a primetime TV talk show. He can be contacted via email: waheed.h35@gmail.com