Prime Minister’s news bulletin

The claim of the government and the military being on the same page is a sham

The rather belated appearance of the prime minister on the national television screens and radio waves represented a predominantly spineless and directionless discourse confined to recounting the myriad problems that Pakistan is faced with. Wearing a made-to-occasion sheerwani and, understandably, the gross Rs450 million-worth wrist-watch, Nawaz Sharif failed to give an outline of the strategy that he may have in mind to push the country out of the quagmire that, according to his own admission, it is immersed in.

He shared many ‘revelations’ with his audience who are ever so hungry for a ray of hope: “Pakistan is faced with serious challenges including terrorism endangering its very survival, the worst kind of load shedding that has paralysed the economy, the very foundations of the country have been shaken due to maladministration and rampant corruption in every sphere and inefficiency of the last fourteen years that has brought the national institutions like PIA, Pakistan Steel, Railways and WAPDA to the verge of virtual collapse”. News, indeed, of a high calibre that only the prime minister could have broadcast!

He also spoke of Kashmir as being the jugular vein of Pakistan, the desirability of a solution to the Balochistan crisis and the need for peace in Afghanistan. He held out a promise that his government “will not do politics on the issues of economy, elimination of terrorism and resolution of the energy crisis”. He did not have anything to say on how he is going to do it. He also conveniently forgot that the very same ills, and some more, had plagued all his previous incumbencies at the provincial and the federal level and there is little to believe that the same or worse would not be the case this time around.

There are two things that need a special mention here. In the prime minister’s bulletin, he held out an olive branch to the terrorist outfits and offered to all of them a carte blanche invitation to dialogue to end the vicious cycle of violence. Just a day later, in the meeting of the Defence Committee of the Cabinet (DCC), since reconstituted as the Cabinet Committee on National Security (CCNS), which was also attended by the Chairman, Joint Chiefs of Staff Committee and the chiefs of the army, navy and the air force, the offer of dialogue was summarily restricted to only those who renounced violence and laid down their arms.

The other notable shift that needs a mention here is the prime minister’s agreement to reconstitute the National Security Council, though renamed as the Cabinet Committee on National Security (CCNS). According to reports, the CCNS will be entrusted with the task of framing the national security agenda and policy from which will flow the defence, foreign and internal security policies. In other words, the national security policy will be the predominant undertaking of the CCNS and all other policies will be subservient to its diktat. Lest we forget, when a former chief of the army staff Gen Jehangir Karamat had come up with a similar recommendation, he was forced out by Nawaz Sharif heralding a cycle of events that ultimately led to his own ouster from power. Should this be construed as an acknowledgement of his past mistakes, or is it the proverbial case of the leopard wearing different spots?

This also nullifies the prime minister’s claim that the government and the military are on the same page so far as the war against terror is concerned. A major shift in policy within a matter of twenty-four hours – from an unconditional offer of dialogue to the militants to restricting it to only those who laid down their arms – is indicative of a vast gulf in the standpoints of the two mindsets. In fact, the claim has been repudiated by a stalwart from within the government’s own ranks. In a television talk, the Punjab Law Minister Rana Sanaullah has claimed that the military was not sharing terrorism-related information with the government.

The prime minister’s softness on militants is not a secret. The contacts that the PML-N governments in Punjab have traditionally nurtured with the jihadi outfits is an open secret and there is no repudiating the prospect that the party’s government at the centre would like to pursue a similar agenda and go soft on the militants and their destructive extenuations. This is what the prime minister indicated in his maiden bulletin. What, then, were the reasons that made him shift his position and agree to the military’s harder stance?

Driven by a desire to make claims which generally prove to be hollow, we forget the basic issue that we need to understand and address: the mindset that controls and orders the perpetration of violence. If the government is still stuck in the prospect of dialogue with the militants delivering peace to the country, then it is a grossly fallacious approach. The exercise of conducting dialogue with mindsets that are sick to the core has always been a futile exercise and would continue to be so in any future venture. The conflict is between two diametrically opposite mindsets: one believes in governance through the constitution and the rule of law that flows from it while the other believes in ruling through a violent and obscurantist diktat that is the outcome of their refusal to grant to others their rights in accordance with the internationally recognised charter of principles. In other words, the militant mindset is driven by the frenzy to inflict upon others their understanding of a divine order which is subject to only their exclusive interpretation and not open to debate.

The state also has to be sensitive to its position in the event of entering into dialogue with the militant outfits: is it doing so from a position of strength or weakness? This can be partly determined by the actions and statements emanating from the two sides preceding the advent of the process of dialogue. While the government and its major functionaries have repeatedly highlighted the need for peace through dialogue, the militants have only stressed on the implementation of their agenda which is not in sync with that of the state of Pakistan. In the current situation, if the process of dialogue is actually initiated, it would be construed as an act of abject capitulation. This is so because it has been under virtual assault now for almost a decade resulting in the death of close to 50,000 people including personnel of the armed forces and security agencies. There has also been no indication that the militant outfits are even willing to offer a moratorium in this ceaseless carnage. So, understandably, the process of dialogue, if initiated, would be indicative of the exhaustion of the state and an expression of its inability to safeguard the security of its people. The position of the state has been further weakened as a consequence of it surrendering before the militants’ threat of eliminating its leaders in the event it went ahead with carrying out certain executions. Not being one for capital punishment, this scribe believes that the timing of this meaningful change of heart on the part of the government has inflicted a telling blow to its credibility and capacity to tackle the scourge of terrorism.

Then is also the question of the relevance of the militant outfits. Who are they, who do they represent and what do they stand for? The presumption that the initiation of dialogue with any one militant outfit or an array of outfits would lead automatically to an all-encompassing implementation of peace is a preposterous fallacy. The militant outfits consist of a motley crowd representing divergent mafias and interest groups which are out to enforce their personalised writ flowing from their own peculiar sickness. There is no meeting point between these inimical groupings that are defending their myopic fiefdoms geared at the enforcement of an agenda of violence and obscurantism.

The sudden shift in the prime minister’s offer of a dialogue with the militants is indicative of considerable divergence of opinion between the government and the military. There appears to be relatively more clarity of thought (and possible subsequent action) on the part of the military leadership while the political government is doing exactly the opposite of what the prime minister said he would not be doing: playing politics. Closing in on three major events – the change of command at the presidency, the GHQ and the judiciary – the prime minister may be playing for time aimed at taking complete charge. It is then that the leopard will finally show its spots and get on with its real agenda – an agenda that could be far removed from the prospect of the government taking on the militants in a bid to oust the spectre of violence from the country. This inevitably carries the germs of another confrontation with the military establishment that, having lost considerable manpower and credibility at the hands of these criminal militant outfits, is wary of the prospect of another self-defeating dialogue process. The rational mindset demands taking the war to the safe bastions of the terrorists – and win it!

The writer is a political strategist. He can be reached at [email protected]