The inevitable has happened. Gen Asif Nawaz says that the army’s mandate has been fulfilled and it is ready to withdraw from Sindh. Sindhis, from Ms Bhutto to Messrs Jatoi and Junejo, do not agree. meanwhile, the high and mighty in Islamabad confront reality with mere assertions. They affirm with the zeal of recent converts what citizens have believed for decades: that civilians have primacy in politics and that it is the army’s duty to obey them. Priceless, coming from them. Perhaps in their new-found wisdom they can address the questions that remain.
How can the army’s mandate have been fulfilled if, in the first place, it wasn’t all defined? If it was to restore Sindh’s peace, who was disturbing that peace? What made its environment so hospitable to lawlessness? What powers and what policies will it take to bring to heel those who hold as hostage Pakistan’s second largest province and its economic and strategic jugular? These questions were not asked when the army was ordered into Sindh. As a consequence, its ‘mandate’ was so tenuous that it was as easy to fulfill as to leave unfulfilled. so Gen Asif Nawaz, Miss Bhutto, and Messrs Junejo and Jatoi are all correct: The army has completed/not completed its job. What was the job?
Had the government — which, in this case, is the President more than the Prime Minister — asked these questions, created a framework for deploying the army, and formulated policy without regard to personal or political convenience, Sindh could have begun to heal. And civil authority would have earned the army’s respect which is a prerequisite of stable democracy.
This episode reveals the weakness of our highest officials’ grasp of and commitment to the democratic process. The army should be called to civilian duty only in cases of emergency so great as to be beyond the police or para-military forces. These latter exist in order to prevent the necessity of deploying the army for internal security. There is a reason for this: armies which are thus used eventually become politicised, corrupt, and disdainful of civilian authority.
Pakistan, where the civilians’ recourse to the army has in the past prepared the stage for putsch, presents a classic case of the costs of ignoring this rule. In a country which has only recently achieved deliverance from a long and arduous military dictatorship, the civilian government bears a special responsibility to exercise care in asking the army to police a province. It is that spirit of caring which was thrown to the wind.
The rule of law has undoubtedly collapsed in Sindh. The process began under Zia; it was completed under Jam Sadiq who was chosen less to govern Sindh than to torment the PPP. The consolidation of the MQM’s terrorist network, and criminalisation of government and politics were aspects of this development. A nearly complete alienation of Sindhis from the State was its byproduct. The resulting power vacuum was filled by ‘dacoits’ who are linked to the rich and famous.
Public outcry that something must be done about Sindh has been sustained and nationwide. The issue in this case was of wisdom and integrity more than principles. Only purists would argue that the army must never be called to aid civil authority in domestic matters. But responsible governance requires that the army should not be invited to enforce the law until the government has first created the political framework for its intervention. And second, it must be politically committed to letting the axe fall where it must. It is that framework and that commitment which the President and Prime Minister failed to deliver.
What we have seen over the last four months is not policy but a charade into which the army has been drawn. The dacoits vanished as the army and the rains came. They shall return when the khakis and the floods recede. The MQM was ‘exposed’ as a terrorist organisation. Yet its leaders remain comfortably underground. They too shall return at a time of their choosing. The ‘official mafia’ which had so enthusiastically embraced the Jam’s mandate of criminalising Sindh’s government was also left largely untouched. Despite detailed, and authoritatively supplied reports, the President’s notorious son-in-law evaded the law. The army clung in vain to its reported list of 71 politically precious culprits; to no avail. As if by magic, the malleable Muzaffar Shah stayed in his chair while its legs broke and the bottom fell out. The provincial assembly lost a good third of its members who resigned on orders from their ‘exiled leader’ in London. As if this were not damage enough to the democratic process, Mr Shah proceeded to dismiss the elected local governments across the province.
The opposition remains the dominant force in Sindh. All means continue to be used to harass its leaders and cadres, without regard to its effects on Sindh’s isolation from the Federation; without a thought that when law is used politically to harass opponents, it is devalued and the foundations of the state are undermined; and despite the fact that the courts, in their wisdom, have been throwing the “references” out, one by one.
There has been no applause for a long, long time. But the charade goes on. For how long, though, for how long?