Has Zardari sanctioned another coup?

History hopefully will not repeat itself in Pakistan. Pakistan’s President Asif Ali Zardari, an elected head of state, has just given a three-year extension to his Army Chief, Gen. Ashfaq Parvez Kayani. This is just the second time in the history of Pakistan when such an extension has been granted by a civilian head of state. The last time it

happened was in 1958 when the then President, Iskander Mirza, extended Gen. Ayub Khan’s tenure for the second time. The general rewarded his mentor by deposing him in a coup a few months later and thereafter banishing him forever from Pakistan. Mirza died in relative penury and obscurity in London in 1969. His family’s request that Mirza, one of the most vociferous champions of the Pakistan idea, be buried in Pakistan was turned down and he was ultimately laid to rest at a graveyard in neighbouring Iran.
Giving Pakistan’s generals extensions is clearly not a very good idea. But perhaps the country’s civilian leaders have little choice. It is after all the military that wags the civilian dog. It is usually the generals in Pakistan who give themselves extensions, promotions and titles. Gen. Ayub Khan, for instance, soon tired of being just a general and had himself elevated to the rank of Field Marshal. At the same time, of course, he kept extending his term as military chief. Gen. Zia-ul-Haq did the same but was modest enough to remain a mere general. Pervez Musharraf, after executing a bloodless coup in 1999, first took upon the title of Chief Executive Officer of Pakistan and thereafter dispensed with this somewhat corporate sounding position to the better regarded one of President. Mr Musharraf, of course, remained Army Chief as long as he could. Once he was forced to appoint someone else as the chief, his days were numbered. In came Gen. Kayani and now Mr Zardari’s rubber stamp on his extension suggests that he too is here to stay.
The urge in many officials to cling on to their positions long after the expiry of their terms is somewhat natural. However, in the case of Pakistan’s military chiefs, this desire usually exceeds all levels of normality. Being top honcho of a powerful military state that receives billions of dollars in foreign aid and commands respect, howsoever grudging, in world capitals is tremendously euphoric. Then there is the heady sensation of leading one of the world’s largest military machines and an equally formidable jihadi horde. It is conceivable that the late Chenghiz Khan experienced similar elation as he occasionally sat back to survey his Mongol swarm. Not surprisingly, once a general clambers onto the top slot of the Pakistan Army, he tries his best to stay there.
Again, this in itself should not be any concern of others. Problem is that history demonstrates that Pakistan’s top generals tend to develop a pathological antipathy towards their civilians predecessors and mentors. Gen. Ayub Khan was the most merciful — he merely deposed the man who made him king and exiled him. Gen. Zia-ul-Haq, on the other hand, made sure his mentor Zulfiqar Ali Bhutto swung by the neck till he was dead. Following this hoary Pakistan Army tradition, Gen. Musharraf too brought down the man who had appointed him and would have emulated Zia had it not been for the House of Saud. Nawaz Sharif survived but not the country’s most charismatic politician, Benazir Bhutto, who was gunned down by assassins after a rally in December 2007.
Benazir’s sin was that she had been prime minister before and would certainly have occupied the seat again. Currently, the country’s military establishment is desperately trying to expunge sections of the United Nations’ report on Benazir Bhutto’s assassination which point fingers at the Army and its dirty tricks department. Foreign minister Shah Mehmood Qureshi had written to the UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon, protesting parts of the report and saying that it had gone beyond its brief. Ban Ki-moon responded in mid-July by dismissing Pakistan’s objections and saying the report spoke for itself. The report in no uncertain terms stated that the government despite being alerted of the threat to her life had not provided adequate protection; the ISI had subsequently obstructed investigations; and that the investigations were prejudiced and involved a whitewash.
The last section of the UN report said it all: “The Commission believes that the failures of the police and other officials to react effectively to Bhutto’s assassination were, in most cases, deliberate. In other cases, the failures were driven by uncertainty in the minds of many officials as to the extent of the involvement of intelligence agencies. These officials, in part fearing involvement by the intelligence agencies, were unsure of how vigorously they ought to pursue actions that they knew, as professionals, they should have taken”.
The frightening part of the political dynamic in Pakistan is the mortality of its civilian leaders. The generals endure, often in extremely opulent style. The military machine gets stronger and eventually, as some perceptive Pakistani analysts have noted, becomes the state. Democracy and civil governance become redundant and cannot deliver. The forces that supported Gen. Kayani’s extension on the ground that continuity is required at this critical juncture in history should know that the only continuity really is of the pernicious kinetics that keeps Pakistan’s people in thrall. President Zardari by endorsing Gen. Kayani’s extension might actually have signed off his own future.