Gen (retd) Mirza Aslam Beg is an intriguing, brash, ambitious fellow. By his own admissions, he was a defiant army chief with definite political views. But his bluff opinions were often at odds with those of the government in power. If he had kept his counsel and obeyed orders, there wouldn’t have been any controversies. But he didn’t Indeed, he may have left a distinct imprint on the course of political developments since 1988. And by the look of it, he thinks his job isn’t done just yet, even though he no longer wields the fearful clout of the post he once held.
Gen Beg’s entry into the establishment in 1986-7 was known to have ruffled a few important feathers. He was in obscure officer when prime minister Muhammad Khan Junejo overruled President Zia and appointed him as VCOAS. Gen Zia was understandably furious and never forgave Mr Junejo for slighting him. it must have weighed with when he finally decided to get rid of Mr Junejo in 1988.
When Gen Zia perished in an aircrash, Gen Beg was an immediate beneficiary. But from Day One, a controversy has dogged his role in the whole affair. A full report has yet to be made public. Indeed, Gen Beg’s evidence before Justice Shafi ur Rehman’s enquiry commission was taken in camera.
In early 1989, when Benazir Bhutto launched her “Get Nawaz” campaign to oust the IJI government in the Punjab, Gen Beg is thought to have effectively scuttled all her plans. On the eve of the PPP’s no-confidence move against Mr Sharif, Gen Beg’s forceful assertion to the press in Lahore that “nothing would happen” was a signal to the wayward Muslim Leaguers that the army was opposed to Islamabad’s devious stratagem and that they should hurry back into Mr Sharif’s lap.
In 1990 Bhutto wanted Gen Beg to clean-up Singh. No, he said, unless you give me Section 245, “I won’t chase shadows”, a point of view disproved so effectively by Gen Asif Nawaz in recent times. Later, as Gen Alam Jan Massoud has revealed, Gen Beg teamed up with President Ishaq in manoeuvering the exit of Bhutto from power.
Gen Beg has also recently implied that the 1990 election results were contrived by some invisible “angels”. Maybe he will tell us more about these “angels” in due course. Even so, there is no doubt that he played a crucial role in selecting the new prime minister in 1990. Gen Hameed Gul, his lieutenant at the time, was known to have lobbied furiously for the view that it was time Pakistan had a Punjabi PM (Nawaz Sharif) rather than a Sindhi (Ghulam Mustafa Jatoi). That Gen Beg’s Military Intelligence Agency had a hand both in toppling Ms Bhutto and in installing Mr Sharif cannot be doubted.
By the time the Gulf War erupted, however, Gen Beg was ready to destabilise the Nawaz Sharif government. His “strategic defiance” of the US severely strained US-Pak relations, alienated Saudi Arabia and isolated Pakistan in the post-War scramble to pick up lucrative contracts to rebuild the Gulf states.
Mr Ijaz ul Haq says that Gen Beg thought of imposing martial law on three occasions but shied away at the last moment. Maybe he is sensationalising Gen Beg’s histrionics. But one thing, at least, is clear. Gen Beg was in no hurry to retire. In fact, by all accounts, he wanted to go “up-stairs”, into the office of CJCSC after it had been suitable empowered to conform to his requirements. No wonder then that Mr Sharif was so nervous a couple of months before Gen Beg was finally nudged out in August 1991.
But id didn’t take long for Gen Beg to bounce back into the limelight. Ensconced in his new, though conspicuous, abode in Rawalpindi beside the Army House and chauffeured about in a spanking new Mercedes (MAB 1), Gen Beg launched FRIENDS shortly after retirement. No one knows where the considerable sums of money to finance the ostentatious house, the expensive car, the offspring’s extravagant marriage and much else besides FRIENDS has come from the Gen Beg is in mood to enlighten us. It is, however, inconceivable that the accumulated pension and savings of a General of the Pakistan Army could have provided for all this.
Now Gen Beg has told us that he was opposed to the restoration of the Junejo government and assemblies in 1988 and indirectly conveyed as much to the Supreme Court. Whether his views had a bearing on political developments of the time or not or whether his recent statement amounts to “contempt of court”, is for people to perceive and for the SC to judge. Certainly, much disagreeable speculation has been sparked by his recent utterances. Yet he is threatening to open a “a Pandora’s box” of more murky happenings within the establishment if he is pushed around by the SC.
On the face of it, Gen Beg’s behaviour is not easily explicable. He didn’t want the Junejo government restored in 1988 despite the fact that Mr Junejo had been his benefactor. The new elections which he seemed to have insisted upon in 1988 brought Benazir Bhutto to power as expected. Yet he connived in her overthrow two years later. The new prime minister he strongly favoured in 1990 (Nawaz Sharif) was the very man he sought to destabilize in 1991 during the Gulf War. During this time, he worked in tandem with President Ishaq. Yet now he is on record as arguing that the President should be directly elected, which is another way of saying that Mr Ishaq Khan should go home. In fact, opening a “Pandora’s box”, one serious casualty will be President Ishaq. Finally, Gen Beg acknowledges that he was an active member of the “troika”, which suggests he had no qualms playing his given role in power-sharing. Why then is he now saying that the troika system should be scrapped because it doesn’t work properly?
Despite the apparent inconsistency of his words and deeds, however, we can discern one salient thread running through all his actions. Whenever he has spoken out or doing anything significant, he has done so with a keen eye to the mood of the public. The public has had its fill of martial laws. So Gen Beg ended up ruling out that option for himself. The public definitely wanted the 1988 elections to go ahead and wash away Ziaul Haq’s legacies. So Gen Beg sent signals to the SC and President Ishaq to allow them to take place. The public was indeed disenchanted with Bhutto’s Sindh policy and so Gen Beg thought nothing of disobeying her commands. (In fact, when he thought he could dispense with her without a public murmur, he did so promptly.) The public was most certainly opposed to Mr Sharif’s pro-US Gulf policy. So Gen Beg became a populist overnight. The public now believes it is time for Mr Ishaq to call it quits. So Gen Beg is now arguing that the President should be directly elected. Doubtless he also knows that by opening a Pandora’s box and revealing all the establishment’s dirty tricks he will gladden the hearts of the public.
Many of Gen Beg’s talents may not find much favour with faithful democrats who believe that Generals in khaki shouldn’t interfere in politics and when they switch to civvies they should fade away quietly. That is as it should be. But it is not at all necessary to subscribe to conspiracy theories to try and understand Gen Beg’s intentions and ambitions.
The fellow is a political player who would ideally like to be the President of Pakistan. He wants to be directly elected by the public of Pakistan. He obviously thinks he has the experience and wherewithal — financial and intellectual — to do a good job. When he was COAS, he must have come to suspect that the era of martial laws was finally over. That’s why he didn’t jump the gun. Instead, he set out to cultivate the image of a populist, regardless of its consequences for state and society.
If Gen Beg goes ahead and springs open the Pandora’s box he keeps harping about, he might reasonably expect the establishment not to take his effrontery lying down. But so what? He may think that such a course of action might well enhance his chances in the longer term. No dubbing populist ever made a good omelette without breaking a couple of eggs. Whether he will retreat now to bide his time or spring into action straightaway, we cannot say. But while some of us may despair about his antics or badger him for being reckless, it is certain that we haven’t heard the last of, or from, Gen (retd) Mirza Aslam Beg.