If Pakistani politicians and bureaucrats are perceived to be corrupt, allegations of US$ 1 billion in kickbacks and commissions in defence deals involving the army, air and navy chiefs have tarnished the armed forces. Worse, this theft was committed during a decade when the nation was exhorted to make “sacrifices” for the Kashmir jehad and piety was thrust down our throats through powerful religious militias supposedly fighting in the name of Allah.
During this time political governments fell like nine pins, accused of corruption, drug-trafficking and loan-gouging. But the more cruel fact is that the corruption in the khakis cut directly into the US$ 11 billion in foreign exchange deposits that disappeared from the State Bank of Pakistan and brought the national economy crashing down.
The corruption in the top echelons of the military suggests that its leadership had lost confidence in the functioning of the state and wanted to imitate the politicians. Since the defence budget cannot be scrutinised, the kick-backs were obtained without fear of being caught. Thus the naval and air chiefs were in cahoots with the politicians — one was allowed to sneak out of the country while the other retired gracefully and the officer who had ‘supported’ one of them in the GHQ was allowed to leave Pakistan and settle in Europe. The story is too long to encapsulate here.
Of course, corruption is incidental to all organisations in democracy and takes place in all states. After all, it was General Sundarji who ‘allowed’ Rajiv Gandhi to buy the price-inflated BOFORS guns. But it is only when the army gets deeply involved in it together with the civilians, while standing exempt from prosecution under the Constitution, that the matter becomes serious. That is why in the present circumstances the disclosure has not so much damaged the army leadership and embarrassed the Musharraf government as it has undermined the process of army-initiated accountability. The parallel is unavoidable with the PML ‘Ehtesab’ done by Nawaz Sharif under the personal charge of Saifur Rehman. Needless to say, NAB will lose its moral justification for conducting accountability unless it can freely go after the tainted officers and their agents.
But that may not be possible. The Musharraf regime seems to have become familiar with the realistic limits of its accountability drive. The judges and the army were unofficially left out of the NAB net because, it was argued, the state had to remain “functional” while accountability moved apace. But when the government tried to drag the madrassas into the accountability net, it discovered that that too was not possible for reasons of “state security” (the state of corruption in the jehad so passionately championed by the government is not hidden from anyone although the ‘qabza’ and other activities of extortion will not be printed out of fear of the warriors and the weakness of the writ of the state). Then the government decided to go after the smugglers, only to discover that its Afghanistan policy would come apart if the smuggling routes were forcibly plugged. Therefore the only thing left to do without endangering “military security” was to proceed against politicians and businessmen. Alas. Here too it has now come to realise that turning the screws on the trader and industrialist can endanger the state’s “economic security”.
The exit of General Syed Mohammad Amjad from the NAB HQ is a final confirmation of all these “considerations” and “compromises”. In the end, his sincerity, energy and integrity was his undoing. He made the fatal mistake of pursuing accountability as total war rather than as select deterrence.
Who isn’t corrupt in Pakistan? If we can’t answer that question to our satisfaction then what should we do to save the state from collapse? The panacea discovered in Pakistan last year was “ruthless accountability”. But before the year is out we have realised that accountability doesn’t fill the stomach or provide employment or deliver a bonanza of stolen dollars or is simply too dangerous to carry out for reasons of “national security”.
What should we do? Should we let the state die in its pursuit of accountability or look to the other factors endangering the state?
The real truth is that our foreign exchange reserves are down to 15 days of import payments and we can’t get the IMF to give us the clean bill of health required for foreign investment. The rupee has all but crashed. Domestic investment too has disappeared. According to one estimate, 120,000 people have fled Pakistan in the last one year, many of them talented citizens, thinking Pakistan is a sinking ship run by obstinate rulers who can’t take the life-line when it is thrown to them. The life-line is stamping down on the terrorism at home and curtailing the jehad abroad. The life-line is generally climbing down from the stance of confrontation with our neighbours and the international community.
The government must end its international isolation in order to give itself the economic breather it needs to set the internal scene in order. It will be time after that to sic all the corrupt people wherever they may be ensconced because then the state would be in a better condition to withstand the shock of it all.