Two remarkable statements from leading PMLN ministers, and some recommendations of a judicial commission on missing persons in Balochistan, cry out for comment.
The finance minister, Ishaq Dar, has said that if parliamentary critics of the 1% budgetary increase in GST from 16% to 17% which is expected to yield about Rs 50 billion in additional revenue, want the government to retract this step, they should call up the Defence Secretary and request him to cut Rs 50 billion from the non-salaried chunk of the military’s budget. The statement is noteworthy for two reasons. First, despite being the finance minister, Mr Dar is helpless to do the needful himself. Second, despite being Defence Minister and Prime Minister, Nawaz Sharif is equally reluctant to ask the military to tighten its belt. This year an amount of Rs 1014 billion is earmarked for the military – Rs 627.2 billion ‘defence budget’, Rs 132.7 billion for pensions, Rs 150 billion as ‘contingent liability’, Rs 70 billion from Coalition Support Fund, Rs 35 billion for services to UN peacekeeping – which is about 28.2% of the country’s total budget.
Two questions arise. Why does Mr Dar think that if a cut has to be applied it can only be done to military spending and not to any other item in the budget? And why is the government reluctant to do this? The answers are straightforward. Mr Dar has already trimmed the sails of non-development civilian expenditures across the board and doesn’t want to hurt the development budget or various income support schemes for the poor. But he is also conscious of the fact that the military is fighting a costly war in the tribal areas that may need to be upgraded in months to come. Therefore he doesn’t want to be held responsible for any act of omission or commission that may de-motivate the military and adversely impact the war against terrorism. On the other hand, Mr Dar is clearly suggesting that the military high command should take cognizance of such issues and offer to make some equitable “sacrifice” in the public interest. Underlying his statement is the desperate hope that the military won’t ask for supplementary grants later in the year, a routine yearly practice.
Now the Interior Minister, Chaudhry Nisar Ali Khan, has taken a pot shot at Lt Gen (retd) Ahmed Shuja Pasha, ex-DG-ISI: “We need to purge the army and its leadership of such people (like Gen Pasha)”, adding “it is also necessary to keep the army leadership aware of its real responsibilities”. Chaudhry Nisar has promised to reveal unacceptable excesses committed by the military, paramilitary and intelligence agencies in Balochistan. What has prompted him to say all this?
Plenty. Gen Pasha, it may be recalled, was the nemesis of the media (some of the worst ISI-excesses against journalists in recent times occurred on Gen Pasha’s watch), of ex-Ambassador to Washington, Hussain Haqqani (who was hounded out via Memogate), of ex-prime minister Yusuf Raza Gilani (who accused the agency under Gen Pasha of being “a state within a state”) and of the PMLN (Chaudhry Nisar challenged Gen Pasha during a briefing in parliament after the May 2, 2011, US raid to kill and extract Osama bin Laden from a safe house in Abbottabad). Gen Pasha was also accused by the PMLN and PMLQ of ordering the ISI to secretly support the PTI’s bid for power. Nor should we be surprised by Chaudhry Nisar’s reference to the unaccountable role of military agencies in “disappearing” people in Balochistan.
In fact, the Chief Justice of Pakistan, Iftikhar Mohammad Chaudhry, and his colleagues in the Supreme Court, have been most active in pursuing this investigation. Now the Commission of Inquiry on Enforced Disappearances under Justice (retd) Javed Iqbal, which is investigating 757 cases, has formally recommended filing of charges against 117 serving officials of “law enforcement agencies” in the Frontier Constabulary, Frontier Corps, IB, ISI, and MI. These include serving Brigadiers and Majors of the Pakistan army.
There is clearly cause for concern on such issues by Ishaq Dar, Chaudhry Nisar, CJP Iftikhar Mohammad Chaudhry and Justice (retd) Javed Iqbal. How should the government go about trying to resolve them?
One way is to try and bring the powerful military and its runaway agencies to civilian heel by executive or legislative action. But past experience of both the PPP and PMLN would advise against any direct assault on the writ of these state actors and institutions. Indeed, a far better and wiser approach would be for the civilians to institute a wide ranging and sensitized dialogue with the military on all contentious issues relating to civil-military relations. A National Security Council with a secretariat for formulation and implementation of joint policy decisions would be a first step in the right direction. Another would be a Commission of Truth, National Understanding and Democracy in which both civil and military protagonists would acknowledge past errors and strive to establish new and democratic rules of the game.