Sharif versus Sharif
The prime
minister’s hopes of confining his generals to barracks take a knock
Jun 14th
2014
WHEN he romped to victory in Pakistan’s general election last summer,
Nawaz Sharif looked to be the man who might finally bring to heel the
over-mighty army that, 14 years earlier, had deposed him during his second
stint as prime minister and sent him into exile. Taming the army was always
going to be a tall order in a country that generals have ruled for almost half
its history and whose (often self-defeating) foreign and defence policies they
have always controlled. But Mr Sharif had advantages which no previous civilian
leader had enjoyed: an outright parliamentary majority; an independent-minded
media; and an opposition that was unlikely to be beguiled by military plots,
having suffered from them itself.
Yet a year on, his attempt to make Pakistan into a country where
civilians are supreme is foundering. The government has just lost a battle with
the army over Geo, the country’s most popular private news broadcaster. The
army took offence at the station and got its licence suspended. The army has
won a legal victory in the case against Pervez Musharraf, the general who
toppled Mr Sharif in 1999 and is on trial for treason. And it is pushing back
against the prime minister’s attempt to hold peace talks with the Pakistani
Taliban and his year-long refusal to endorse military demands for a campaign
against the group in north Waziristan, on the border with Afghanistan. This
week, the Pakistani Taliban attacked the international airport in Karachi, the
country’s largest city, in a mercifully unsuccessful attempt to hijack or
destroy aeroplanes. It was a vivid and uncomfortable reminder of how little
accommodation with the group is achieving.
Relations between Mr Sharif and the army chief (also called Sharif,
General Raheel Sharif) were always going to be fraught. The worry is that the
prime minister is causing bad blood without achieving much as a result.
Last June he took the momentous decision to charge a former army chief
with treason. If the general is found guilty it would be a huge step towards
ending the army’s culture of impunity. Partly because of that, many people
thought Mr Musharraf would be allowed to skip the country on one pretext or
another after he had been indicted by the special court on March 31st. At
first, this did not happen. The government banned the general from foreign
travel and his trial ground slowly on. But on June 6th, a high court in Karachi
ordered Mr Musharraf’s name to be struck off the so-called exit-control list,
paving the way for him to leave. The government can appeal. But the verdict
clearly helps the army in its struggle with the government over Mr Musharraf’s
fate. Mr Sharif must now decide whether to keep on fighting this battle—or
capitulate.
His dilemma is that if falls in with the generals he would end up little
better than Asif Ali Zardari, his rival whose Pakistan Peoples Party government
survived a full term in power largely by doing very little. On the other hand,
as the recent row over Geo television shows, confrontation carries big risks,
too.
On April 19th the private news channel’s leading anchorman, Hamid Mir,
was shot by gunmen in Karachi (he survived). Geo promptly aired unproven
allegations by Mr Mir’s brother that the attack had been ordered by
Zaheer-ul-Islam, the general in charge of the Inter-Services Intelligence
directorate (ISI), the powerful military-espionage agency (which denied
involvement).
The station’s claim precipitated a split between military and civilian
leaders. General Sharif visited ISI headquarters and lauded “the contributions
and sacrifices of its officers”. Mr Sharif rushed to Mr Mir’s bedside,
supposedly telling confidants that he would rather be ousted in a coup than
allow Geo to be closed down.
In the event, the army got its way after an ugly period in which Geo’s
journalists were harassed, the station sued the ISI for defamation and its
commercial rivals accused it of everything from blasphemy to being
“anti-state”. On June 6th Geo’s broadcasting licence was suspended for 15 days
and it was ordered to pay a fine. That it took seven weeks to shut the station
down showed how much military power has diminished. But the fight inflicted
considerable damage on the civilian authorities.
That damage has been made worse by the behaviour of some politicians.
Coups had been thought to be things of the past because Pakistan’s veteran
political leaders had at last learned to stand together against the army,
whatever the differences between them. Mr Sharif resisted the temptation to
bring down Mr Zardari during his unsteady five years in power and today Mr
Zardari is returning the favour. But Imran Khan, whose Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf
party won the second-largest number of votes at last year’s election, is not
playing the same game. At huge rallies, the former cricketer claims Mr Sharif
stole last year’s election and says he will bring the government down.
Mr Sharif’s political problems have been compounded by the generals’
efforts to undermine his policy of dealing softly-softly with the Pakistani
Taliban. General Sharif has been gradually escalating what the army describes
as “retaliatory strikes” in North Waziristan. The political risk for Mr Sharif
in going along with such a crackdown are anyway fading as it becomes clearer
that peace talks (agreed to by Mr Sharif in March and relentlessly promoted by
Mr Khan) are not working. The military build-up is thus likely to continue
whether or not Mr Sharif gives the army the full-throated support its generals
want.
The upshot of all this has been to weaken the prime minister and poison
relations between the government and the army just when Pakistan faces some big
strategic decisions. In India there is a new nationalist government and talk of
progress on energy, trade and visas. Afghanistan will soon have a new president
as it prepares for life without NATO combat troops. Potentially, this could
give Pakistan a chance to break out of its often defensive prickliness. Mr
Sharif says he wants good relations with his two neighbours and an end to the
arms race with India on which both countries have frittered away their
resources. But so long as he is embroiled in disputes with the
army—institutionally suspicious of India and addicted to controlling
Afghanistan through Islamist proxies—his government seems unlikely to rise to
the occasion.
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