A rchive Date
[ 24-10-2002 ]
Category
[ International Relations ]
sub-Categoy
[ Pakistan ]
|
[http://www.canoe.ca/Columnists/mansur_toronto.html
Pakistan: Rogue nation?
By SALIM MANSUR - For the Toronto Sun
October 24, 2002
LONDON, Ont. - The recently concluded election in Pakistan illustrates the dilemma of U.S. foreign policy as it pursues the global war on terrorism.
The election arranged by the military ruler, Gen. Pervez Musharraf, was for the national assembly and the legislatures of the four provinces. The result, according to most independent observers, including those of the European Union, was predictable as the army rigged the outcome in its own favour.
Pakistan's history with popularly elected representative governments has been one long, unbroken narrative of political disasters. Between an army with a genocidal past that precipitated the break-up of the country in 1971, and fundamentalist parties that have desecrated Islam for their sectarian purposes, Pakistanis routinely have been squeezed and bullied by men in uniforms holding guns and men in beards preaching holy war against all things modern.
The military, even during brief interludes of popularly elected civilian governments, has controlled political power with the connivance of fundamentalist parties in the street. The previous army general in power, Zia ul-Haq, deposed and hanged the elected leader, Zulfikar Ali Bhutto, in 1979, and then met a flaming death himself in an air crash in 1988.
Bhutto's daughter, Benazir, was elected twice and twice deposed on charges of corruption. Similarly, Nawaz Sharif was deposed by Musharraf in October, 1999.
Musharraf's coup was roundly denounced by member states of the Commonwealth and by the United States. When then-U.S. president Bill Clinton visited India in March, 2000, he pointedly stayed away from Pakistan except for a brief stop to deliver a message to the people.
OBSTACLES TO PROGRESS
Clinton warned the Pakistanis that "there are obstacles to your progress including violence and extremism." America's alliance with Pakistan against Soviet communism had come to a near end, and the country was put on notice to mend its ways or suffer diplomatic isolation.
Pakistani politics, driven by the military, has been deeply mired in violence and extremism at home and abroad with its support for the Taliban in Afghanistan and the warriors against India in Kashmir, and with its clandestine acquisition of nuclear weapons and ballistic missiles.
Given this record, Pakistan fits the current American definition of a rogue state, and President George Bush could have labelled it as a member of the "axis of evil."
But 9/11 gave Musharraf the moment to leap back into American favour by joining the war on terrorism, abandoning the Taliban playing host to Osama bin Laden and the al-Qaida network of terrorists, and throwing his allies in the fundamentalist parties into confusion.
America needs allies in its war on terrorism, and Pakistan's military is considered an indispensable ally due to the country's strategic location in this war.
Musharraf, on the other hand, needed to legitimize his dictatorship through a referendum. He arranged this for himself last April, and promised to bring back an elected assembly under revised rules of an amended constitution.
The recent election was designed to provide a facade of legitimacy to military rule. Moreover, to prevent any electoral surprise, Musharraf denied Benazir Bhutto and Nawaz Sharif, both in exile, participatation in this multi-party election charade.
The Pakistanis awoke the morning after the election farce to the predictable outcome of seeing fundamentalist supporters of the Taliban and bin Laden not only out in the streets, but also holding the balance of power inside their national assembly.
For the United States, the dilemma in Pakistan - as in Saudi Arabia and Egypt - is that the alternatives to the existing political reality are much worse, however absurd the present situation.
In Pakistan, this means the American search for Taliban and al-Qaida supporters, including Osama bin Laden, continues in the company of Musharraf, even as many of them are likely being protected by the general's fundamentalist allies.
There is no Muslim version of Thomas Jefferson to be found in Pakistan, or anywhere else in the Muslim world, helping build responsible representative government. For America, the dilemma remains of working with lesser evils to contain greater ones in much of the world beyond its shores.
Salim Mansur is a professor of political science at the University of Western Ontario. His column appears alternate Thursdays Letters to the editor should be sent to editor@sunpub.com
 World Fact Book (CIA)]
|