COAS Gen Abdul Waheed seems to have got his priorities right. Less than ten days after taking over, he hopped across to the troubled province of Sindh on Friday January 22nd for a first-hand appraisal of the complex situation. As if on cue, several bombs went off in Hyderabad on Saturday leaving 25 dead and scores seriously injured.
Gen Waheed is an old Sindh hand. He should know what’s what and who’s who. He should know that the Sindh state apparatus, in particular the police and civil administration, is corrupt to its very roots. He should know that many Sindhi politicians, especially those in power, stink to high heaven; that some parties and student groups are breeding grounds for ethnicity and bloody terrorism; that among the million illegal “immigrants” in the province who have incensed the locals, there must be many RAW agents out to exploit the tensions.
In short, apart from the army’s military operations to nab dacoits, terrorists and foreign saboteurs, the COAS must be acutely aware of the ingredients of a clean-up package: political fairplay, economic justice and a ruthless weeding of the civil bureaucracy and police.
These latter prerequisites, however, are outside the pale of the army’s jurisdiction. They can only be implemented by the government of Sindh. And there’s the rub. Mr Muzzafar Shah’s government is predicated on patent unfairness — repression, horsetrading and immorality. If Mr Shah’s civil administration wasn’t so malevolent, he would be on his backside in a jiffy. Even if Islamabad gave him the financial wherewithal to alleviate socio-economic deprivation, which it hasn’t and probably can’t, he would have no choice but to squander it away on the criminals who fortify his regime.
Gen Waheed must seriously ponder the implications of this dilemma. His predecessor, Gen Asif Nawaz, was so frustrated by having to fight with one hand tied behind his back that he determined to pull out the army from the province rather than risk tarnishing its image of neutrality and professionalism at the behest of mischievous politicians. What will the new Chief do?
According to newsreports, Gen Waheed has extended the army’s engagement in Sindh. Whether this is for an indefinite time or pending a thorough review in Islamabad shortly is not yet clear. What is clear is that the COAS has got to do some straight talking with both President Ghulam Ishaq and PM Nawaz Sharif in the coming weeks. If he does that, he can expect to reap solid kudos not only from the people of Sindh but from all Pakistanis.
Gen Waheed may, however, prefer not to tread on too many toes in Islamabad just yet. In that case, he should know that with each passing week he becomes more vulnerable to the sort of mishap which occurred in Tando Bahawal last June. In fact, reports of innocent villagers being rounded up, harassed or even being knocked off by the army have begun to filter in. No one can anticipate or plan to preclude such incidents altogether. Nor can the Chief hold his boys always accountable without fretting about the chances of an internal backlash against the manifest lack of accountability all around them. The longer Gen Waheed keeps the army in Sindh under its present incongruous dispensations, the more he risks dirtying its hands.
Such disquiet is reinforced by recent reports about secret manoeuverings in Islamabad. For example, we hear that political grounds are being prepared for the return of Mr Altaf Hussain. If the gentleman is coming back to face trial as a terrorist, which is what Gen Asif Nawaz told us he was, that’s fine. But if Islamabad is hoping to dupe us into rehabilitating him, Gen Waheed owes it at least to his late “brother” and to the institution he leads to publicly stamp out such callow conspiracies.
Then there is talk of trying some Sindhi nationalists, who are alleged to be separatists, in army-led courts. Why these people should be singled out for special trials while the alleged MQM terrorists get the benefit of the doubt remains inexplicable and indefensible. If Gen Waheed unwittingly becomes a party to such tactics, a Sindhi backlash is going to put paid to the “heroic” image of the army so painstakingly constructed over the last six months.
Doubtless, Gen Waheed is not unaware of all these pitfalls. In fact, what little we know of him suggests that when the crunch comes, as it inevitably must sooner or later, he will acquit himself more than honourably. We do not expect him to overtly push for a fair political settlement in Sindh. That may be a pre-requisite for restoring the supremacy of law and order but it is, after all, the duty of our politicians to do that. But what we do expect from Gen Abdul Waheed is that he will not lend his shoulder to propping up an illegitimate political order in the province. We also hope that the COAS will not be led into discriminating between one brand of terrorists or extremists and another.
Gen Waheed’s best ally at the moment is the Pakistani press. We applauded the last Chief for his untiring efforts in Sindh. It would be tragic if we were to lose faith in the new Chief in the future.