Uprising In Nepal And Politics Of Compromise In Pakistan

The News

May 15, 2006

Baseer Naveed

Pakistan’s military regime has good cause to be alarmed by the success of Nepal’s popular uprising for democracy. There is strong resistance to army operations in Balochistan and the tribal areas, as well as its political designs in the southeastern province of Sindh. In other pars of the country, peasants are vigorously resisting government policies, women are struggling for their basic rights and people are striving for unity.

To prevent a repetition of Nepal, the government of Pakistan has conscripted a couple of old phoney democrats to help it thwart popular aspirations. At the end of April former prime ministers Benazir Bhutto and Nawaz Sharif cooked up a deal that they have euphemistically called a ‘Charter of Democracy’ for a return to parliamentary rule in Pakistan.

This so-called charter is as much a fraud as its authors. Bhutto and Sharif have always been tools for the Pakistani establishment, which consists of the army, bureaucracy and social elite. Although political opponents, since 1990 they have both been equally willing to serve its purposes. Both have proved that they are good at running a government undemocratically. Now, their role will be to blunt popular anger with the military dictatorship and confuse the people by asserting that if they again have a part in government then there will be democracy. Of course, there will be no such thing.

Bhutto has a history of making compromises with the army. When she arrived in Lahore during 1986 the people of Pakistan, who were struggling against the dictatorship of General Muhammad Ziaul Haq, gave her a welcome the likes of which had never been seen. The reason for their tumultuous outpouring was that they expected Bhutto to lead the democratic movement against Zia, who had hanged her father, another former prime minister. In Quetta she suddenly announced that the then prime minister, Muhammad Khan Junejo should serve as a bridge between her and Zia. Yet when Zia sacked Junejo, Bhutto hailed the action and demanded a general election within 90 days.

Bhutto won the November 1988 election but was not invited to assume power until and unless she made a deal to leave three key ministries, namely finance, defence and foreign affairs, in the hands of the army. She went even further. She guaranteed that she would not reverse constitutional changes made by Zia, and would not initiate a trial of persons responsible for her father’s death. Thus she served as prime minister under the same military that had removed her father for refusing to do what she had done: reach a compromise. She even went so far as to award the Medal of Democracy to a serving general, something never done in the history of Pakistan, even under military governments.

Bhutto learned that the way to come to power in Pakistan is to betray people’s trust. As they saw her compromises they withdrew support; however, Bhutto ignored them. In 1993 she again bargained, this time with General Abdul Waheed Kakar, in order to get Sharif dismissed as prime minister. She was helped by the then-president, Ghulam Ishaq Khan, who in 1990 had thrown out her government on charges of corruption. Likewise, when General Pervez Musharraf ousted Sharif, Bhutto welcomed his action and offered her support.

Sharif also has a long record of compromising with Pakistan’s undemocratic forces in the name of democracy. He was at one time General Zia’s ‘favourite son’. During the 1988 elections, he made every effort to stop Bhutto’s party from winning seats. When she came to power he remained chief minister of Punjab. He refused to recognise her as prime minister and became a narrow-minded nationalist, waging war against the government with the help of the army. He succeeded in getting her ousted, and in 1996 he again succeeded in cutting deals and winning support at Bhutto’s expense.

These political leaders have always betrayed the people’s will for democracy. Now, seeing the changes in Nepal through the heroic struggle of the people there, the Pakistani establishment recognises the need for some kind of electoral exercise through which it can keep a strong hand over the country’s politics. The army also feels threatened by the prospect of similar political development to those in Nepal. Therefore, they have again selected their old friends Bhutto and Sharif to help them avoid a direct confrontation with the people. If this means giving up Musharraf’s presidency, it will be no great loss for the military in the long run.

Bhutto and Sharif are very hungry for power, and looking at their shared history, they will do anything to achieve it. If they do, then Pakistan will again be held hostage by both the army and a pseudo-democracy. Whether or not the Pakistani people realise in time and follow in the footsteps of their Nepalese counterparts remains to be seen.

The other two significant political groups in Pakistan, the Muttahida Quami Movement (MQM) and Muttahida Majlis-e-Amal (MMA), are not taken into consideration regarding the new changes in Pakistani politics in reaction to Nepal’s developments. The simple answer is that, although they are no doubt good friends of Pakistan’s army and the Establishment, they are not political parties in the eyes of the Establishment. Rather, they are treated as agent provocateurs to dislodge the real issues from politics and mislead Pakistanis away from the country’s genuine democratic problems. In the end, however, it is the people of Pakistan who continue to suffer from its pseudo-democracy.

The writer is a journalist and senior advisor to the Asian Human Rights Commission, Hong Kong