11 - 17 October 2001
Issue No.555
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Al-Ahram Weekly Online 11 - 17 October 2001 Issue No.555 |
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Under control, for now
Pakistan's army is on high alert after President Pervez Musharraf threw his full weight behind the US-British attack against Afghanistan. Khaled Dawoud writes from Islamabad on an uncertain climate
Army soldiers were stationed behind sandbags near key buildings in the Pakistani capital Islamabad on Tuesday, and thousands of policemen in full riot gear were dispatched to major cities after violent demonstrations by supporters of extremist Islamic groups protesting against the US and British attack against neighbouring Afghanistan.
From East to West: Protesters in the Pakistan respond angrily to the US-led strikes in Afghanistan (left), while the US braces for possible terrorist response by warning citizens at home and abroad to be vigilant (photos: AP)
Government officials here claim the situation is under control and that supporters of the Taliban and prime suspect in the New York and Washington attacks, Osama Bin Laden, represent only a minority of Pakistan's 140 million people.
Observers noted that the most violent demonstrations, in which at least five people, including a 13-year-old child, were killed, were concentrated in cities bordering Afghanistan -- Quetta in Baluchistan province and Peshawer in the North Western Frontier Province (NWFP).
Most of Quetta's population belongs to the same Pashtun ethnic origin as that of half of Afghanistan's population. The tribal area along the border between the two countries is not under the government's control. Leaders of the ruling Taliban movement are also Pashtun. Peshawer, meanwhile, is host to more than one million Afghan refugees, and it is difficult in that city to differentiate between a Pakistani and an Afghan. The Interior Ministry has warned Afghan refugees against taking part in anti- American and anti-Musharraf demonstrations, and threatened to deport them back home.
On Monday, between 10,000 and 15,000 angry demonstrators clashed with anti-riot police, setting on fire three cinemas, a UNICEF office and several private and public vehicles. One person was killed and scores injured. Clashes continued the following day, but on a smaller scale. Hundreds of protesters tried to storm a police station on Quetta's outskirts. Police opened fire, killing four people. The city remained under an unofficial curfew with armoured police vehicles and heavily armed policemen posted on main roads.
Like all demonstrations taking place over the past four weeks, the protesters chanted slogans calling for a holy war against America and burned US flags and effigies of US President George W Bush.
Similar clashes which erupted in Peshawer, Karachi and Lahore on Monday, appeared to corroborate what Pakistani analysts had predicted before the attack on Afghanistan began: that the country will face serious disturbances which could end up toppling President Musharraf's regime. Some analysts even warned of a possible split within the army, the de facto ruler in Pakistan. They said that a few high-ranking generals were opposed to Musharraf's policy, pointing out that they were the same generals who provided support for the past eight years to the ruling Taliban to enable it to take control of more than 90 per cent of Afghanistan's territory.
Musharraf appeared unwilling to bend. Three key leaders of extremist Islamic groups responsible for most anti-US protests since 11 September were placed under house arrest on Monday. The three leaders -- Mullana Fadhl-ul-Rahman, head of Jamiat Ulema-il-Islam (JUI-F), Mullana Samie-ul-Haq, leader of the Pakistan- Afghan Defence Council and his own faction of Jamiat Ulema-il-Islam (JUI-S) and Mullana Azam Tariq, leader of Sipah Sahaba, or the Sahaba (Prophet Mohamed's early associates) Army -- were told to remain home for an indefinite period. All of them headed scores of demonstrations throughout nearly all of Pakistan in the past month and openly called on their followers to join a jihad, along with the Taliban, against the "US aggression."
The government was clearly dismayed by a so-called fatwa issued by the same clerics, threatening attacks against Americans in Pakistan if they did not leave the country within two weeks. The attack against a UNICEF building in Quetta on Monday alarmed Pakistani officials as well as ambassadors of Western governments and United Nations officials in Islamabad. They all asked their nationals to stay home, fearing possible reprisals by angry mobs against American and European nationals.
Demonstrators who took part in protests after the attack on Afghanistan also shouted, for the first time, slogans against Musharraf, calling for his removal and dubbing him a traitor. After chanting for weeks, "death to America," the young demonstrators also shouted, "death to Musharraf," in protests that have been taking place since Sunday.
Effat Malek, a Pakistani political analyst, was among those who supported the government's position that the protesters were mainly followers of extremists groups and graduates of hundreds of madrasas, or religious schools, which they run in Pakistan. "These protests could never be strong enough to threaten the government and its stability," Malek told Al-Ahram Weekly.
However, other analysts point out that despite being a minority, followers of extremist groups could still cause trouble. "They are a minority that could scare the majority," said Mobarik Virk, a senior Pakistani journalist. "The problem is their tendency to use violence, creating instability and giving the impression that Pakistan is on the verge of anarchy."
Having little trust in the United States, many Pakistanis are skeptical that Washington will carry out its promise of generous economic aid after achieving its goals in Afghanistan. Officials and opposition alike bitterly remind journalists of how America abandoned Islamabad after the end of the Soviet occupation of Afghanistan in 1989. Then, Pakistan was left with the burden of how to host more than 2.5 million Afghan refugees in a poor country that could hardly feed its own people. But during his brief visit to Islamabad on Friday, British Prime Minister Tony Blair promised Pakistanis that America and Britain "will not walk away" after the war in Afghanistan ends.
To solidify his position in the army, Musharraf carried out a major reshuffle, amounting to what observers described as an "internal coup" against old friends. On Sunday, he announced the appointment of Lt Gen Muhammad Yousaf Khan and Lt Gen Muhammad Aziz Khan as vice chief of the army staff and chairman of the joint chiefs of staff committee respectively. By ordering the promotion of these generals to these key posts, Musharraf passed up two of his closest and extremely influential associates: the head of the Pakistani military intelligence, the Inter- Services Intelligence (ISI), Gen Ahmed Mahmoud, and former Deputy Chief of Army Staff, Gen Muzzafar Usmani. According to military tradition, the promotions were a hint to Mahmoud and Usmani to resign, which they did.
Mahmoud personally led a group of army officers when they arrested former Pakistani Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif after the coup led by President Musharraf two years ago. Usmani, meanwhile, controlled a military base which ensured the safe landing for an airplane carrying Musharraf back home where he would later become president. Both generals were known for their pro-Taliban views and sympathised with influential political Islamic groups. After 11 September, Mahmoud visited Kandahar, in Afghanistan, twice to try to persuade Taliban leader Mullah Mohamed Omar to force Bin Laden out of Afghanistan.
Mohamed Niazi, an expert on Pakistani army affairs, agrees with many analysts that Musharraf's major army reshuffle, which included several other key commanders, was similar to what former Pakistani President Zia-ul-Haq did in the late 1970s -- only in reverse. Seeking to legitimise and strengthen his military rule, Zia promoted and surrounded himself with generals sympathetic to political Islamic groups, on the rise at that time in Pakistan. As a military ruler, Musharraf now wants to be surrounded by generals whom he trusts and who unequivocally support his decision to side with the United States.
At a lengthy news conference hours before the US-British strike began, Musharraf sought to justify his position by saying it was taken after the Taliban rejected his requests to close down terrorist training camps in Afghanistan and hand over Bin Laden. He also reaffirmed earlier statements that the evidence provided to him by the Americans was good enough to link Bin Laden to the New York and Washington attacks. Musharraf was the only leader of a Muslim country who flatly stated he was convinced by the evidence he was provided with.
Musharraf disagreed with US statements that the "battle against terrorism might take months, if not years." He said he had assurances that the (US-British) operation will be "short, sharp and targeted." The killing of four Afghans working for a UN-related non-governmental organisation (NGO) by a stray US missile in Kabul on Tuesday also put into question assurances Musharraf received on the precision of US missiles.
Saying that the only consistent policy he had was "preserving Pakistan's national interests," Musharraf also welcomed the return of the former Afghan king, 86-year- old Zaher Shah, to head a broad-based government in which all ethnic groups would be represented. The king had been critical of Pakistan during his four-decade reign of the country, from 1933 to 1977. Being a Pashtun, Zaher Shah is now topping the US list as the one man capable of establishing a new government in Afghanistan that would end the civil war and close down alleged terrorist camps.
The Pakistani president also renewed his opposition to the anti-Taliban Northern Alliance which seeks to form a government on its own in Afghanistan. The Northern Alliance, which has been fighting the Taliban for over five years, is expected to play a major role in any US ground attack aimed at smoking out Taliban fighters and Bin Laden followers. Made up of mainly Tajiks, Uzbeks and Hazars, the Northern Alliance, Musharraf said, did not represent the majority of Afghans and warned that allowing it to form a government would only renew civil war in Afghanistan.
Despite the air of self-confidence Musharraf presented at the news conference, only developments in the war will determine how stable Pakistan really is. Most analysts believe that if the US strikes lead to the death of many innocent civilians, the downfall of the Taliban or the capture of Bin Laden, demonstrations by extremists are likely to increase and turn more violent, threatening Musharraf's already beleaguered position.
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