Musharraf: Coming to Terms with Reality is an article by B. Raman, Additional Secretary (Retd), Cabinet Secretariat, Govt. of India, and at present Director, Institute for Topical Studies, Chennai (former Madras). He can be reachedby e-mail at: corde@vsnl.com. The article was dated 3/11/1999 and published at the website of South Asia Analysis Group (SAAG) at: www.saag.org

MUSHARRAF: COMING TO TERMS WITH REALITY
B. Raman

The seemingly hawkish statements of Gen. Pervez Musharraf, the Mohajir Chief Executive of Pakistan, at his press conference of November 1 are not those of a strong and confident man, but of a confused and worried man.

India is not the principal cause of his confusion and worries, though many of his hawkish statements were directed at New Delhi.

His concerns arise from his realisation of the severity of the problems confronting him and his confusion is the result of his lack of adequate intellectual depth and administrative acumen to be able to deal with them.

His first task of putting in place a ruling infrastrcture, which would command the confidence of the people, has not made much headway due to the continued reluctance of leading lights in Punjab to form part of his set-up.

Civilian personalities from different parts of the country, who have agreed to help him, are largely the dregs of either the Zia-ul-Haq regime (Mr.Sharifuddin Pirzada, who has been named to the National Security Council (NSC) and appointed as Senior Adviser) or the Benazir Bhutto regimes (Mr.Abdul Sattar, former Foreign Secretary, who has been named the Foreign Minister, and Mrs.Maleeha Lodhi, a close personal friend of Mrs.Bhutto and her husband, Mr.Asif Zirdari, who is to be the new Ambassador to the US).

Pirzada was the legal expert used by Ayub Khan and Zia to introduce into the statute book safeguards to provide immunity against arrest and prosecution to the participants in the coup and the subsequent military rule, if civilian rule were to be restored one day. It has been reported that Mr.Pirzada was the first civilian that Gen. Musharraf called for advice after overthrowing Mr.Nawaz Sharif.

Some Pakistani analysts such as Mr.Kamran Khan have claimed that the contingency plans for the coup, should Mr.Sharif dismiss the General as the Chief of the Army Staff (COAS), had been drawn up and approved by the Corps Commanders before he left for Colombo.

However, this is not borne out by other reports, which indicate that the coup was spontaneously organised by Lt.Gen. Mohammed Aziz, former Deputy Director-General of the Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI) who had subsequently become the Chief of the General Staff (CGS) and emerged as the most trusted aide of the COAS. Lt. Gen. Aziz had the enthusiastic support of Lt.Gen.Mahmood Ahmed, Commander of the 10 Corps, Rawalpindi, whose 111 Brigade captured the key installations in Islamabad and arrested Mr.Sharif and Lt.Gen. Khwaja Ziauddin, named by Mr.Sharif as the new COAS. Another active supporter of the coup was Lt.Gen. Muzaffar Usmani, the Corps Commander at Karachi.

The other Corps Commanders, who were outraged by Mr.Sharif's action in arbitrarily dismissing the COAS when he was not in the country, went along with the coup, but have subsequently not been too keen to help Gen. Musharraf consolidate his position. Many of the senior army officers come from traditional Pakistan Muslim League (PML) families.

Past Pakistani coups, particularly that of Zia, had enjoyed the support of the PML, which was a beneficiary of the coups, but this is the first time that the PML, which is traditionally viewed as a pro-military party, has reservations, not because the present regime is military, but because it is headed by a Mohajir.

Lt.Gen.Mahmood Ahmed is since reported to have been appointed by Gen.Musharraf as the DG, ISI, and Lt.Gen.Mohammed Aziz as the Commander of the 10 Corps. Lt.Gen. (retd) Naseem Rana, who was the DG of the ISI during Mrs.Bhutto's second tenure and who was shifted by Mr.Sharif last October, has been appointed as the Defence Secretary in place of Lt.Gen (retd).Ifthekar Ali Khan, who had strongly protested in May against his not being kept in the picture by Gen.Musharraf on the Kargil invasion.

The second difficulty of Gen. Musharraf is due to his lack of adequate exposure to the civilian bureaucracy in the past. Military regimes have to rely on the civilian bureaucracy for running the country. The civilian role is particularly important in the economic ministries.

Gen. Musharraf and the small group of officers, who have emerged as his key advisers, had spent many years of their army careers either as Commandos in the Special Services Group (SSG) or as intelligence officers in the ISI and the Directorate-General of Military Intelligence or in the Directorate-General of Military Operations. These were posts in which opportunities for interaction with the civilian bureaucracy were minimal. It is said that the only two civilian bureaucrats, whom Gen. Musharraf knew quite well, are Mr. Shamshad Ahmad, the Foreign Secretary, and Mr.Tariq Aziz, who is now reportedly running the office of the Chief Executive.

Consequently, Gen. Musharraf and his army advisers have been facing difficulty in assessing the competence and reliability of the civilian bureaucrats. The fact that as in the army, many of the senior Punjabi civilian bureaucrats come from traditional PML families has added to their difficulties in choosing dependable persons who would co-operate with the military.

The third major difficulty is in grappling with the economic crisis. At the first post-coup meeting of the Corps Commanders, Gen. Musharraf was reported to have described the tranche of US $ 280 million, which the IMF has blocked due to disagreement with the Sharif Government on the imposition of General Sales Tax (GST) on retailers and revision of the agreements with the independent power producers (IPPs), as peanuts, a phrase which Zia once used to describe US assistance. The COAS reportedly expressed his confidence that even if half of the outstanding bank loans and tax and utility charges dues was collected, Pakistan could dispense with IMF assistance.

Mr.Sharif could not give satisfaction to the IMF mainly because of the obstructionist attitude of Gen. Musharraf as the supervisory officer of the Water and Power Development Authority (WAPDA). The WAPDA and the power supply undertakings, on the General's orders, had delayed the negotiations with the IPPs and avoided imposing the 15 per cent GST on electricity consumers.

As a result, the COAS' popularity as the man who can say no to the IMF shot up, to the detriment of that of Mr.Sharif, who was viewed as weak and compliant to the IMF.

It is reported that two weeks after the deadline set by the General for the voluntary payment of the outstanding loans and other dues, the reponse from the defaulters has been poor. The civilian bureaucrats have reportedly informed Gen. Musharraf and his army advisers that out of the total outstanding loans of Rs.225 billion, Rs. 155 billion had been issued by banks to either fictitious persons or to Pakistanis who have settled abroad and transferred all their assets out of Pakistan. In respect of the remaining Rs.70 billion, 41,000 petitions filed by the defaulters against the recovery process are sub-judice. Unless the General, through a proclamation with retrospective effect, deprives the courts of their powers to entertain petitions from loan defaulters and tax and dues dodgers, there is very little possibility of any significant collection.

Moreover, there has been a decline in remittances from non-resident Pakistanis after the military took over. Large sections of Pakistanis might have cheered the General as saviour before the media cameras, but they are not yet prepared to come to the rescue of the military regime by repaying their loans and clearing their dues.

If the collections and remittances do not improve during the next two weeks, Gen. Musharraf may not be able to deal with the economic situation without the IMF tranche and assistance from other countries. It is to at least partly meet the external demand for a time-table for the restoration of democracy that he is now talking of a possible referendum to demonstrate his popularity to the IMF and Western Governments.

But, a referendum alone may not be sufficient; he also has to impose the 15 per cent GST on electricity and telephone bills and POL products as demanded by the IMF and concede the points of the IPPs for enhancement of power tariffs. Not easy decisions for a General who had exploited these issues against Mr.Sharif.

The fourth difficulty of the General has arisen from the initial signs of disenchantment of the Islamic parties. These parties are worried that in his anxiety to secure US support for his regime, he might help Washington in capturing Osama bin Laden and resume the Lahore process. They have made it clear that if he did so, that might mark the parting of ways with him.

His anti-India rhetoric of November 1 was meant to allay their fears regarding his attitude to India, but he remained silent on the bin Laden issue.

B.RAMAN   (3-11-99)

(The writer is Additional Secretary (retd), Cabinet Secretariat, Govt. of India, and, presently, Director, Institute For Topical Studies, Chennai. E-Mail:corde@vsnl.com )