Over the edge again?
Civil-military relations in Pakistan have a long history of discord, delusion, disagreement and intrigue. However, Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif was lucky to overcome all these challenges in the year 2015.
Unity among civil and military leadership this year was unmatched and unprecedented despite the fact that divergence and incongruity between Rawalpindi and Islamabad had seen an unprecedented surge in the previous year- – 2014.
The civil-military unison not only brought peace and tranquility back to the terrorism-hit Pakistan in 2015 but also local and foreign investors started bringing in their capital and encouraging economic activity started following the historic visit of Chinese President Xi Jinping, who visited Pakistan in May.
During this visit, the Chinese leader pledged to launch the China-Pakistan Economic Corridor (CPEC), which includes ambitious projects worth US$46 billion. CPEC would include energy, infrastructure, communications projects and development of the Gwadar Port.
This visit not only left international and regional players in utter shock but also instigated Indian leaders, who publicly opposed CPEC but also claimed to thwart this move, offering the Chinese leadership its all-out cooperation if China reviewed its investment in Pakistan.
However, the Chinese leadership refused to budge from its stance, with President Xi Jinping declaring CPEC as a pilot project of his vision of One Belt One Road initiative which aims at Chinese outreach to the rest of the world by linking Euro-Asia, Africa, Latin America and Central Asia through land and sea routes.
CPEC is not limited to the development of Pakistan. It rather aims at bringing new opportunities of economic jumpstart to the entire region. Asia is already developing at a fast pace. While China leads the race, India, Sri Lanka and Bangladesh are also developing at over six percent.
It is only Pakistan that lags far behind and its development stands at 2.5 percent. But Pakistan has got an opportunity to match its neighbours. Now it is a test of its leadership which needs to rise to the challenge.
Looking back at the year 2015, the terrorist attack on the Army Public School, Peshawar, had greatly galvanised the entire nation. And the civilian and military leadership was no stranger to this new environment of conformity.
The civil-military harmony bore fruits for the country as the military action in North Waziristan, Zarb-e-Azb, met unprecedented success despite the fact that former army leaders avoided moving against the hardcore terrorists, perhaps fearing a bloody backlash in urban areas of the country. However, the brave but well thought-out action by the military brought welcome results.
As per ISPR data, since the start of operation Zarb-e-Azb, most of the second and third tier terrorists have either been killed or injured. Top terrorists have been on the run, majority of them crossing over the border into Afghanistan.
During this visit, the Chinese leader pledged to launch the China-Pakistan Economic Corridor (CPEC), which includes ambitious projects worth US$46 billion
The backbone of terrorists has been broken and main infrastructure dismantled. Nexus with sleeper cells has largely been disrupted. As many as 3,400 terrorists have been killed during the operation, and 837 hideouts from where they were carrying out their terrorists activities have been destroyed. Moreover, over 13,200 Intelligence-Based Operations (IBOs) were carried out across the country in which 183 hardcore terrorists were killed while 21,193 were arrested.
The armed forces are now clearing the last pockets close to the Pak-Afghan border.
However, hats off to the military which dared to go after the brutal savages in the mountains and valleys. More credit needs to be given to the civil and army intelligence wings who not only helped preempt thousands of blowback bids made by on the run terrorists, but also provided specific and precise information to dig out thousands of sleeper cells and sympathisers of terrorists in across country.
On the execution front, the army also made progress. A total of 11 military courts were established while 142 cases were referred to military courts. Out of the total, 55 cases have been decided while 87 cases are in process. 31 hardcore terrorists have been convicted so far.
On January 2, 2015, exactly after 17 days of the APS school mayhem, the entire political leadership met at an unprecedented All Parties Conference (APC) and decided to conduct major reforms and evolve stringent laws to fight out the menace of terrorism.
Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif in his address to the nation said that the days of terrorists were numbered. He appraised nation about the National Action Plan (NAP) to fight terrorism, adding that Peshawar attack changed Pakistan.
The 20-point NAP included the following agreed points.
- Implementation of death sentence of those convicted in cases of terrorism. The implementation was good.
- Special trial courts under the supervision of the army. The duration of these courts would be two years. This point has seen a good response.
- Militant outfits and armed gangs will not be allowed to operate in the country. The response has been lackluster till date.
- NACTA, the anti-terrorism institution will be strengthened. Response is slow but picking up as new Nacta chief Mr Ihsan Ghani has been appointed who is a dedicated and committed officer with an unblemished record.
- Strict action against the literature, newspapers and magazines promoting hatred, decapitation, extremism, sectarianism and intolerance. The governments made slow progress over it and a lot needs to be done.
- All funding sources of terrorists and terrorist outfits will be frozen. Adequate measures needed to be taken as provincial governments are reluctant to move forward on this point.
- The defunct outfits will not be allowed to operate under any other name. The response by federal and provincial authorities is lackluster.
- Establishing and deploying a dedicated counter-terrorism force. The response is good and provinces have raised the forces, bit late though.
- End to religious extremism and protection of minorities will be ensured. The response here is also lackluster and a lot needs to be done.
- Registration and regulation of religious seminaries. The registration has started recently but unwillingly.
- Ban on glorification of terrorists and terrorist organisations through print and electronic media. The response is quite good.
- Administrative and development reforms in FATA with immediate focus on repatriation of IDPs. This is point needs to be pondered upon as sluggish implementation suggests the government is unwilling and non committal in this regard.
- Communication networks of terrorists will be dismantled completely. Effective actions have been taken in this regard. Over 98 million unregistered SIMs have been blocked and all new SIMs have to be activated through Nadra’s SIM verification system.
- Concrete measures against promotion of terrorism through internet and social media. This also has sought a good response but effective legislation needs to be made.
- No room will be left for the extremism in any part of the country. Slow progress till date.
- Ongoing operation in Karachi will be taken to its logical end. This point met a very good response initially after the Rangers operation in Karachi. However, the federal and provincial governments are dragging their feet as most of corrupt politicians were rounded up in Karachi operation.
- Balochistan government to be fully empowered for political reconciliation with complete ownership by all stakeholders. The Balochistan operation and reconciliation process was slow in the beginning but it met with unprecedented success of late — thanks to harmony between civilian and military leadership who worked on one table and under one roof. Home secretary Balochistan Mr Akbar Hussain Durrani was given lead role in the operation while the civilians enjoyed full support from the then corps commander of the Southern Command and Inspector-General of the FC. Talks with rebels are also moving forward. However, the change of chief minister Balochistan has again raised a huge question mark over the fate of the operation.
- Action against elements spreading sectarianism. Again the response is satisfactory but a lot needs to be done.
- Formulation of a comprehensive policy to deal with the issue of Afghan refugees, beginning with registration of all refugees. The government’s reaction is very slow.
- Reforms in criminal courts system to strengthen the anti-terrorism institutions including provincial CIDs. The government’s response has been very sluggish in this regard. The federal and provincial governments have almost failed to bring in new laws to effectively address this issue.
While a year has passed since the 20-point NAP was announced, true implementation on the agreed package still remains a dream.
Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif, during his widely broadcasted speech on September 10, read out a charge sheet against his own government, telling a high-level meeting that the provincial administrations had yet to implement a “major portion” of the National Action Plan (NAP) to counter terrorism and extremism in the country.
He admitted before the top political and military leadership that there had been no progress (over NAP implementation) at all in some provinces.
“Some part of the National Action Plan has been implemented, but there has been no progress on a large part of it. Implementation is necessary on each and every aspect of the anti-terrorism plan,” said the prime minister.
But this was not the first time the prime minister blamed the provinces for slackness on NAP. In April, he criticised the provinces for poor implementation on NAP while in May Nawaz Sharif held the Sindh government responsible for poor implementation.
Aamir Rana, one of the authors of the 20-point NAP, says that the implementation process has been sluggish recently and the prime minister should share the blame for this failure.
“Initially the NAP implementation was swift and the army evolved implementation mechanisms and conducted thousands of intelligence based operations and nabbed hundreds of terrorists. But later the process saw a major drop down and I believe the problem was that the prime minister did not summon the apex committee — a commitment he had made in the first meeting,” Rana said.
Aamir said now the real challenge in NAP implementation is for Punjab, which has to take action against banned and proscribed sectarian organisations. He said it is important to stop hate speech and ban hate literature.
It seems as if the fault lies with the civilian leadership, which apparently lacks the commitment to implement all the 20 points agreed upon under NAP. If we look at the situation objectively, after having its job done, the military leadership looks to be pushing the civilian government to get the urban areas cleaned of the sleeper cells of the terrorists and their financiers, sympathisres and facilitators.
Apparently, the buck stops with the prime minister himself. His family is ruling the country one way or the other. He is the prime minister of the country while his younger brother is the unquestionable authority in Punjab — the province which makes up 60 percent of the country.
While Punjab needs attention for NAP implementation, the Sindh government is leading the chart where NAP made massive success but this is the same province whose elected leadership now wants no one to touch its officials who are wanted by forces under corruption charges.
Initially the civilian government responded well to this call. However, the politicians started dragging their feet once the military leadership took action against militant wings of political parties, corrupt ministers and extortionist mafias.
With the Operation now coming to Punjab, it would be a huge challenge for the prime minister to not only speed up NAP but also to let the state institutions take action against all involved in corruption or illicit money
The situation worsened when the Rangers netted some low-level operators of the Sindh government for their alleged involvement in money-laundering through smuggling and terrorist channels to Dubai and other European destinations.
The Sindh government was happy when Mutahidda Qaumi Movement (MQM) leaders were being rounded up. However, as soon as the law enforcers took action against some low ranked front-men of top leaders of ruling Pakistan Peoples’ Party (PPP), the Sindh government moved to scuttle the entire operation, fearing that its top leadership might come under scrutiny.
Hence, the fruits of the Karachi Operation are facing a reversing effect.
Recently, the operatives of banned terrorists have again started their operations of fund raising while criminal gangs again have emerged. Only two days back, Karachi markets were again closed after some extortionists emerged and started operations again.
The Rangers has time and again explained that action needs to be taken against terrorists and corrupt elements equally, as both use same channels for transporting currency in and out the country. The forces believe that corruption and terrorism are intertwined and needed to be tackled with an iron hand.
The Sindh government however has been urging the Rangers to remain within limits, claiming that the provincial government had only allowed Rangers to take action against terrorists and it has no legal right to nab corrupt elements.
If this logic of ‘selective justice’ is accepted in Sindh, the criminals would keep thriving. If the most influential group would be allowed to keep minting money and exporting looted money out of Pakistan, how could the law enforces be able to block channels being used by the terrorists?
The army’s top brass looks upset over the slack response from federal and provincial governments. A press release issued following a corps commanders meeting urged the civilian leadership to come up with ‘matching response’ to the steps taken by the military to bust terrorist networks.
This statement triggered a storm as all politicians, from the prime minister to low rankers, started accusing military of overstepping its mandate. They forgot to notice that before the statement, army chief, General Raheel Sharif, made 65 public appearances along with the prime minister to send a message that the civilian and military leadership were on the same page.
With the Operation now coming to Punjab, it would be a huge challenge for the prime minister to not only speed up NAP but also to let the state institutions take action against all involved in corruption or illicit money, which ultimately lands in the pockets of the terrorists in one way or the other.
Since illicit money provides oxygen to terrorist networks and other mafias working against the interest of the state, it would be a challenge for the prime minister to allow the state institutions to bring all corrupt elements to book whether they belong to the ruling party or to the opposition benches.
Else, the history of civil-military friction might repeat itself as the doubts and fears on both sides may lead towards further strain in relations which might harm Pakistan’s march towards development. It might compel friends like China to review their committed support and future investments of CPEC may also be jeopardised, pushing Pakistan into the darkness of poverty, illiteracy and terrorism.
