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PAKISTAN: Beset By Multiple Crises

Muddassir Rizvi | Islamabad | January 15

IPS - Food shortages, cold homes, political instability and internal security problems are haunting Pakistan’s embattled President Pervez Musharraf who appears helpless as multiple crises erode his legitimacy and his capacity to manage affairs of the state.

The assassination of Pakistan People’s Party chairperson Benazir Bhutto on Dec. 27 opened a new chapter of instability, prompting Musharraf’s opponents to demand his exit as the only way forward. Few believe that free and fair elections are possible with him at the helm, or that political instability will cease after the elections.

And Musharraf’s political woes have been exacerbated by the worst energy and food shortages to hit the country in recent years. While civil society is already agitated over the way he sacked members of the higher judiciary, last November, his government now has to deal with mobs of ordinary people protesting against food scarcity and energy breakdowns.

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"He is multiplying his opponents by staying on in power. He has outlived his charisma," says Amir Waseem, a senior journalist and political commentator who works with the English-language daily ‘Dawn.’

People in the northern Swat valley -- where the military is conducting an operation to cleanse it of right-wing militants -- have already announced that they will boycott the upcoming elections, unless the government provides them with enough energy to light and warm their homes, set in an area where temperatures stay below freezing point for most part of the winter.

"This is just too much. We cannot continue to be treated like sheep and goats. Power outages last more than 10 hours a day," said Iqbal Mulk, who hails from Mingora, a major town in Swat.

Musharraf’s response was typical of a former army chief. In a public appearance on Jan. 14 he warned that agitators on the election day (Feb. 18) will be shot by the army or paramilitary forces manning the polling stations.

On the weekend he ordered deployment of the already over-stretched security forces to guard the wheat supply chain, in a desperate measure to regulate supplies of the commodity to domestic consumers and across the border to food-starved Afghanistan.

"The paramilitary forces, including Pakistan Rangers and Frontier Constabulary, have been deployed at the wheat warehouses and flour mills. They are going to perform the monitoring function of the supply chain -- warehouses to flour mills to consumers and ensure that there is no hoarding or smuggling," commented an official in the country’s home ministry.

Press reports suggest that the paramilitary troops have already started taking over flour mills in the Punjab province: this at a time when there is criticism that engaging the military in all aspects of public life is part of the problem rather than its solution.

"For Musharraf, the military appears to be the panacea for all ills when clearly its extensive engagement in the civilian sphere has created insurmountable issues of security and political instability which are causing a challenge to the integrity of the state," commented Waseem.

The government, however, justifies the extreme measure as the best way to create market stability as, according to it, low wheat prices in Pakistan, a farming country, encourage its smuggling to Afghanistan, Central Asia and India -- an explanation rejected by detractors as hogwash.

IPS gathered from various officials and political sources that the government, last year, allowed export of wheat and flour to appease members of the Pakistan Muslim League (Q) that supports Musharraf and who have huge stakes in the export trade.

With cheaper prices of the commodity at home, the exporters hauled in huge profits in the international market. When scarcities finally began to show up, a couple of months ago, the government imposed a 35 percent regulatory duty, but by that time it was too late as much of the wheat stock had already been exported.

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Tina January 15, 2008 - 12:56pm
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Musharraf: vote disrupters will be shot

Pakistani Leader Warns Troops Will Shoot Anyone Trying to Disrupt Vote

MUNIR AHMED
AP News

Jan 15, 2008 06:29 EST

President Pervez Musharraf warned troops would shoot anyone trying to disrupt parliamentary elections meant to bring stability to the country as it battles a rise in attacks blamed on Muslim extremists.

An anti-terrorism court, meanwhile, sentenced three militants to life imprisonment Tuesday for plotting to kill Musharraf in a failed car bombing in 2002.

The Feb. 18 elections were already delayed by six weeks because of the aftermath of the assassination of opposition leader Benazir Bhutto on Dec. 18. Musharraf said the vote would not be delayed again and expressed confidence it would be peaceful.

"I have said to the rangers and army shoot anyone who tries to do anything of this sort (disrupt the election)," he said in a speech at the opening of a new bridge Monday.

He did not elaborate, but some officials have said the recent surge in terror attacks are meant to derail the elections. On Monday, nine people were killed and 52 wounded in a blast outside a textile factory in Karachi.

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Tina January 15, 2008 - 2:40pm
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Islamic militants seize Pakistan army post

Up to 20 Pakistani troops were missing and feared dead after 200 Islamic militants armed with rockets overran a remote military outpost in south Waziristan, close to the Afghan border.

A spokesman for the Pakistan military said the attack happened at midnight and lasted for about two hours. He said up to 40 of the attackers were killed.

Following the raid, about 40 members of the paramilitary Frontier Corps occupied the fort. Security forces retaliated with shelling in the region.

"Fifteen of the troops in the base escaped and they have reached Jandola," said the army spokesman, Major General Athar Abbas. "[The rest] scattered and there is no news of how many of them were martyred or fled."

Security forces have been battling al-Qaida-linked militants in the region for several years.

The Sara Rogha area, where the fort is located, is a stronghold of Baitullah Mehsud, a militant leader with al-Qaida links, who the government said was behind the assassination of the opposition leader, Benazir Bhutto, in Rawalpindi on December 27.

Separately, a bomb exploded as a military patrol was passing along a road in the Swat valley in the North West Frontier province on Wednesday. Police have been unable to give details of any casualties.

Security forces have been trying to clear hundreds of militants from the Swat valley since November.
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adrena January 16, 2008 - 8:09am
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Pakistan military retreats from Musharraf's influence

Pakistan military retreats from Musharraf's influence
By Tim Johnson | McClatchy Newspapers

ISLAMABAD, Pakistan — As President Pervez Musharraf grows more unpopular in Pakistan, his newly named successor as army chief is seeking to distance the institution from the Musharraf regime and pull back its virtual occupation of the top senior ranks of civilian ministries and state corporations.

Gen. Ashfaq Parvez Kayani, who was named to the top military job in late November, took two steps this week. First, he barred all senior military officers from meeting directly with Musharraf without prior approval and prohibited officers from having any direct involvement in politics. Second, he recalled many army officers from civilian job assignments.

Kayani's new path could help restore the image of a military that's bruised by association with Musharraf's excesses during eight years of rule since a 1999 coup and weakened by the worsening domestic security situation.

It also could be the Pakistan military's best chance to defeat an increasingly aggressive Islamist insurgency and check rising political violence in a nation that's fast becoming the central front in the Bush administration's battle with Islamic radicalism.

Musharraf had placed more than 1,000 active and retired officers in lucrative and powerful jobs in various ministries, such as those for education, transportation, railways, sports and culture, as well as semi-autonomous institutions such as the National Highways Authority and the sprawling Water and Power Development Authority.

While senior officers in Pakistan have for decades expected such posts as a reward for their military service upon retirement, Musharraf's embedding of hundreds of active-duty officers in prominent civilian posts sparked cries that the country's bureaucracy was being militarized.

Kayani's ban on senior army officers meeting directly with Musharraf or politicians appeared designed to undercut interference in the upcoming election.

"Some of the commanders were being used by Musharraf to hobnob with politicians," said retired Lt. Gen. Hamid Gul, a former head of Pakistan's intelligence service.

The top army spokesman, Maj. Gen. Athar Abbas, wouldn't confirm how many active-duty officers would step back from civilian posts or how soon it would occur.

"It's not clear. I cannot say anything more," Abbas said.

But Gul said the army chief's office already has notified some active-duty officers in civilian posts that they must return to their military careers.

"Symbolically, it's very important. They (the active-duty officers in civilian posts) have become a symbol of domination of Pakistani civilian affairs," said Absar Alam, chief of the Geo-TV newsgathering bureau in the capital.

"It has brought down the image of the army," added Gul. "The army has gotten into every nook and cranny of the administration of this country."

Retired army Lt. Gen. Kamal Matinuddin said in an opinion column in The News, a national daily, that the retreat from the civilian posts "will also keep the army officers away from certain corrupt practices, which come their way when heading lucrative appointments in the civil sector."

Retired officers are the first to acknowledge that the army's standing has fallen.

"He knows that the army is not popular now. The reason is that it's been in politics so long. It's come under severe criticism," said retired Lt. Gen. Talat Masood, a political commentator.

"The Pakistan nation used to love the army. Now, I will not use the word 'hate,' but there's a true disaffection toward the army," Gul said.

What has political observers peering most into the tea leaves, though, is the evolving relationship between Musharraf, who was forced to shed his uniform and control of the army late last year, partly due to pressure from Washington, and Kayani, the 55-year-old general who now holds the military reins.

It's unclear whether the new army chief is acting with Musharraf's cooperation in restricting the army's role in politics and non-military government agencies.

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Tina January 19, 2008 - 2:47pm
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