By: WAJID SHAMSUL HASAN
The dream of a country conceived to be a model of a democratic state in the comity of civilised nations and a leader in Islamic egalitarianism was shattered on December 16, 1971 when Pakistan under yet another military dictator was dismembered. Despite the break up, a new lease of life was given by its first popularly elected leader Zulfikar Ali Bhutto. He rediscovered Pakistan’s lost glory reduced to a myth by the military generals like of whom have now once again - as in 1971 - plunged the country into a much deeper and more traumatic throes than ever before.
Due to the anti-people policies by the Praetorian establishment over the years, the country is fast inching to be formally declared a failed state. It is in a state of implosion within and Pakistan today is in the midst of yet another civil war threatening a further break up of the country.
The yearlong army operations in once bastion of Pakistan’s national security in the northwest - South Waziristan - has achieved nothing but converted that proud tribal belt into a theatre of war. Its ongoing fratricidal operation has resulted in deaths of thousands of civilian men, women and children including a large number of military personnel.
With their patience running out, the time is not far when the proud tribesmen would be forced to fall for the option of an independent state of Pashhtoonistan as demanded by the nationalist Pashtoons since decades. Though Islamabad keeps falsely denying it, the situation in Pakistan’s largest, strategic and mineral resource rich province of Balochistan is now very alarming.
This statement is based on the shocking happenings that took place when General Musharraf was visiting his troops in the province. Though his romping of the safer garrisoned sanctuaries in commando-fatigue was overly bunkered, rockets launched by militants chased him wherever he went and wherever he spoke.
The gravity of the situation in present Balochistan needs to be emphasised here. Such daring rocket attacks (though dismissed as routine by Jam Yusuf) were not even made by Mukti Bahini on General Yahya Khan when he visited Dhaka last (1971) in the midst of a much bigger and organised civil war.
Following the unsuccessful targeting of the presidential venues, the Baloch militants subsequently managed to hit a military helicopter and injuring Major General Shujjaat Zamir Dar and Brigadier Saleem Nawaz - the Inspector General and Deputy Inspector General of Frontier Corps Baluchistan who along with another helicopter had been conducting an aerial inspection on December 15 of the Kohlu Marri area of Balochistan from where rockets were fired on General Musharraf during his visit on December 14.
This incident was confirmed both by Chief Minister Jam Yusuf and FC spokesman Colonel Hasan while Balochistan Liberation Army claimed responsibility. It may be mentioned here that eight rockets were fired from the mountains in Kohlu area at the gathering of notables that General Musharraf addressed on December 14. The official sources claim that General Musharraf escaped the attack narrowly.
In retaliation to these rocket attacks and other acts of subversion, it is almost certain, though officially denied that the military would soon launch a province wide hunt-the-militants operation without declaring it to be such. It is said that while it shall strike hard, the military will use the cover of its puppet civilian regime for massive deployment of what it calls law-enforcers in others words-troops.
Rocket attacks at the Presidential speaking venues, increasing acts of sabotage and terrorism in the province and beyond its borders including the car-bombing in Karachi late September, blowing up of railway lines, gas pipelines and targeting of venues of strategic interest is the gruesome manifestation of the fact that the Balochistan situation is no more a joke.
Islamabad needs to be told that Balochistan is not Sufi Sindh pacifist by nature where General Ziaul Haq tried to get away with his scotch-earth policy during the MRD movement (1983). Although he indulged in total genocide of the local population, he failed to crush its resilience and commitment to democracy. Balochistan has sustained and survived military operations in the past. While its people are born with the gun, what had kept it so far peaceful and as integral part of Pakistan was its genuine commitment to federalism and peaceful co-existence as equal partner in the federal state.
Had the Baloch leaders no hope for their people in the state of Pakistan they had a chance to go separate when Bengalis had wrested their freedom from the West Pakistani generals in 1971. It was an opportune time to go for unilateral declaration of independence (UDI) and get it without any bloodshed.
Besides, India would not have hesitated a wee-bit to accord recognition to their UDI. Not only that, Moscow had already minced no words in telling Islamabad that it would support unequivocally the right of self-determination by other nationalities in Pakistan if they also sought independence. Instead of achievable independence leaders of smaller provinces especially Balochistan and NWFP chose a hope in future of a federal Pakistan as they all joined unanimously to put in words, in form and shape, in 1973 Constitution to translate into a formidable action plan their dream of provincial autonomy.
Pakistan’s founder had made it categorical that in his Pakistan provinces shall enjoy more autonomy and self-governance than what has been provided to the federating states of the United States of America. Perhaps, his commitment had been the guiding light for the framers of 1973 Constitution under President Zulfikar Ali Bhutto (Dec 1971-July 1977) that they resolved with national consensus - the thorny issue of provincial autonomy - an issue whose failure to be resolved earlier had been the main cause of disenchantment of the Bengali population with the idea of a workable, equity based federal Pakistan.
Unfortunately, Pakistan has come to be known over the years as not a country with an army, but an army with a country. As such, as always, the centre or the GHQ has been the main stumbling block in the way of making Pakistan truly federal. After a brief spurt of democracy under Zulfikar Ali Bhutto, a military rendered toothless by India grew its fangs back and in July 1977 General Ziaul Haq turned upside down Pakistan’s attempt at a government of the people, by the people and for the people.
The staggering phenomenon of provincial autonomy too was thrown away to the dogs and Zia’s eleven long years of dictatorship changed the whole complexion of Pakistan’s civil society forcing it to become a near talibanised garrison state. He had realised that Bhutto’s main instrument of power was the 1973 Constitution. He demolished it systematically. He had also singled out Bhutto’s political legacy as the main challenger for the Praetorian establishment and to his bitter end kept trying to destroy his daughter Benazir Bhutto as the sole heir to Bhutto’s populist politics.
Support to the present government by the west is rather simplistic. The establishment has unleashed forces of disintegration in the shape of civil war in Balochistan. By not implementing the recommendations made by the Mushahid Hussain committee report on Balochistan it has shown contempt for the most guarded and minimal concessions to satisfy the province. About Wasim Sajjad’s report on provincial autonomy, the less said the better. It has yet to get off the ground or be heard of.
In the late sixties some Bengali fellow journalists in their arguments against West Pakistan’s exploitation of the East used to warn us, "Beware, may be next time when you come to Dhaka, you will have to travel on Bangladeshi visa". How prophetic. In 1974 I had to land at Dhaka with Bangladeshi visa stamped on my Pakistani passport. Similar warning from a Baloch leader now keeps reverberating in my ears.
Such a tragic eventuality can only be averted if Pakistan is allowed to become a truly federal state with empowerment of the people and total autonomy to its federal units. And this can be possible if the military and the generals are forced to recede to their barracks and made to bury the notion that "Pakistan is not a country with an army, but an army with a country."
http://www.nation.com.pk/daily/dec-2005/23/columns5.php |
