The Duel (42 page)

The campaign to defend the judiciary was the first serious nationwide mass movement against the arbitrariness of military rule since 1969. The Supreme Court decisions that challenged the Musharraf regime had restored the country’s self-respect. Its secular character had disproved the myth that jihadi terrorists were on the verge of taking over the country. But the judges were much less popular in the ruling circles of the United States and Europe, where elite opinion was neoimperialist in outlook and obsessed with occupation and war. Pakistan’s judges were not regarded as helpful by these groups. Musharraf’s use of emergency powers to dismiss the “turbulent” chief justice had accelerated the decomposition of the regime. For defending the civil rights of the poor, the chief justice was referred to by some Western liberal newspapers as a “judicial activist” or a “firebrand.”

Washington and its allies regarded the war in Afghanistan and Pakistan’s role in relation to it as the central priority. Everything else was seen as a diversion. What would be the attitude of the newly elected Pakistani politicians to the tempest in Afghanistan? Would they refrain from moves that might embarrass the United States and give Washington a free hand? In March 2008, Admiral Eric T. Olson, the head of the United States Special Operations Command, arrived in Islamabad for consultations with the Pakistan military and surprised locals by demanding a roundtable meeting with the country’s elected leaders, another first in the country’s history. Olson asked the politicians how they viewed the urgent U.S. need for cross-border incursions. None of
the Pakistanis who responded regarded this as a good idea and they made their opposition very clear. The seniormost civil servant in the Frontier, Khalid Aziz, told Olson that “it would be extremely dangerous. It would increase the number of militants, it would become a war of liberation for the Pashtuns. They would say: ‘We are being slaughtered. Our enemy is the United States.’”

For Nawaz Sharif the possibility of the killing of Pakistani citizens in the Frontier Province by U.S. troops ruled out this arrangement as a serious option. He believed that negotiations with the militants in Waziristan and a gradual military withdrawal from the area were essential to deter terrorist attacks in the large cities. The PPP was more equivocal on, but it too was firmly against, NATO raids inside Pakistan. The ANP leaders in the Frontier, who had hitherto been supportive of the U.S. presence in neighboring Afghanistan, were not prepared to give Washington a blank check and supported negotiations with Baitullah Masood, a pro-Taliban militia leader in South Waziristan, accused by the CIA of masterminding Benazir Bhutto’s assassination, a claim denied by some of Bhutto’s closest colleagues. Two senior ANP leaders, Asfandyar Wali Khan (the grandson of the late Ghaffar Khan) and Afrasiab Khattak, were summoned to Washington for meetings with National Security Adviser Stephen Hadley and John Negroponte. There was only one point on the agenda: cross-border raids. Washington was determined to find Pakistani politicians who would defend them. Both ANP leaders refused. Later, Khattak informed the
New York Times,
“We told them physical intervention into the tribal areas by the United States would be a blunder. It would create an atmosphere in which the terrorists would rally popular support.” That this needed saying is worrying.

Owais Ghani the governor of the Frontier Province and, interestingly, a Musharraf appointee, also reiterated this view, “Pakistan will take care of its own problems, you take care of Afghanistan on your side. Pakistan is a sovereign state. NATO is in Afghanistan. It’s time they did some soldiering.”

On May 18, as if to underscore that the United States was not overly worried about the views of elected politicians, a Predator drone bombed Damadola in the Bajaur Agency in Pakistan and killed over a dozen people. The United States claimed that they had targeted and killed a “significant
leader.” Akhundzada Chattan, the member of parliament from the Bajaur Agency and a PPP veteran, called a press conference and denounced the United States in strong language for “killing innocents.” Local PPP leaders backed him up strongly, especially when he repeatedly insisted that “the protest lodged by the Pakistan government against the missile raid is not enough. The government should also sever diplomatic ties with the U.S. and expel its ambassador immediately.”

Chattan said that a clear pattern had now been established. As soon as the Pakistan government and the local insurgents began to talk to one another and discuss a durable peace, NATO targeted the tribal areas inside Pakistan and killed innocent people. He warned Washington to cease these activities and issued an appeal to the tribal elders, the insurgents, the Pakistan army, and the new government to cast aside all other differences and unite against “foreign aggression.” This dissent in the PPP suggests that Zardari’s ascendancy is perhaps not as secure as he might imagine. It is also another reminder that the decision of successive Pakistan governments to keep the tribal areas formally separate from the rest of the country is counterproductive. Such an anomaly prevents political parties and other organizations from functioning in the region, leaving political control in the hands of tribal leaders, usually with dire results.

As if these developments on the Afghanistan border were not big enough problems by themselves, the country as a whole is in the grip of a food and power crisis that is creating severe difficulties in every city. Inflation is out of control and was approaching 15 percent in May 2008. Gas, which is used for cooking in many homes, has risen by 30 percent in the past year. Wheat, the staple diet of most people, has seen a 20 percent price hike since November 2007 and, while the UN’s Food and Agriculture Organization admits that the world’s food stocks are at record lows, there is an additional problem in Pakistan. Large quantities of wheat are being smuggled into Afghanistan to serve the needs of the NATO armies. It is no secret in Pakistan that some of the smugglers include the newly elected parliamentarians. Their triumphant, smiling faces conceal odious calculations. Politics is a way to make money. The few hopes aroused by the election have faded. The poor are the worst hit, but middle-class families are also beginning to be affected.

•   •   •

P
OLITICS IN A
land of perpetual dictatorships and corrupt politicians is undoubtedly depressing, but with some positive aspects. For one, politics has revived an interest in stories from the popular literature of an earlier period of Muslim rule in the region. The following tale, first told by a sixteenth-century storyteller, repeated to me in Lahore in 2007, sums up, with a few modifications, life in Pakistan today: A man is seriously dissatisfied with a junior magistrate’s decision. The latter, irritated, taunts him to appeal to the
qadi
(a senior judge). The man replies, “But he’s your brother, he won’t listen to me.” The magistrate says, “Go to the mufti [expert in Muslim law].” The man replies, “But he’s your uncle.” The magistrate says, “Go to the minister.” The man replies, “He’s your grandfather.” The magistrate says, “Go to the king.” The man replies, “Your niece is engaged to him.” The magistrate, livid with anger, says, “Go to hell then.” The man replies, “That’s where your esteemed father reigns. He’ll see to it I get no satisfaction there.”

Official history is mainly composed of half-truths and outright lies, in which everything is attributed to well-meaning rulers and noble, pious sentiments. Those who write this are worshippers of accomplished facts, rallying to the side of victors. Sometimes a general, sometimes a politician. Success justifies everything. There is another history that refuses to be repressed.

Pakistan’s satirists, writers, and poets generally refuse to silence their voices. They serve as the collective conscience of the country, and life without them would indeed be bleak. They often sight victory in times of defeat. The Punjabi poet and novelist Fakhar Zaman, who as a PPP activist served his time in prison during the Zia dictatorship, is one who refuses to relinquish hope:

How can he who lost his eyesight paint?
How can he who lost his hands sculpt?
How can he who lost his hearing compose music?
How can he whose tongue was cut out sing?
How can he whose hands are tied write poetry?
And how can he whose feet are fettered dance?
With muffled nose and mouth how can one inhale the scent of flowers?
But all this has really happened:
Without eyes, we painted
Without hands, we sculpted statues
Without hearing, we composed music
Deprived of a tongue, we sang
Handcuffed, we wrote poetry
With fettered legs, we danced
And the fragrance of flowers pierced our muffled mouths and nostrils.

1

A
S
I D
ESCRIBED EARLIER
, G
ENERAL
P
ERVEZ
M
USHARRAF ACTED
swiftly and ruthlessly when he seized power to become Pakistan’s fourth military dictator in October 1999 and proclaimed himself chief executive of Pakistan. Now, as I write the final words of this book, he has lost the confidence of two key board members—the United States and the Pakistan army, majority shareholders of Pakistan plc—and he accepted that his time had come. On August 18, 2008, after a rambling, incoherent address to the nation, replete with the most puerile self-justifications, he resigned. Had he done so when his term expired he would have spared the country some pain and me the task of writing an epilogue. But he was too seriously afflicted with the power disease and his mind remained impenetrable to the tormented cries from below.

As the country celebrated its sixty-first birthday on August 14, 2008, it became obvious that its official president had become completely isolated. To his chagrin, Pervez Musharraf was not allowed to take the salute at the official parade marking the event, while state television discussed plans to impeach him. Pakistan’s venal politicians decided to move against him after the army chief, Ashfaq Kayani, let it be known that there would be no military action to defend his former boss.

Washington followed suit. In Kayani they have a professional and loyal military leader who they imagine will do their bidding. Earlier John Negroponte had wanted to retain Musharraf as long as Bush was in office, but they decided to let him go. Anne Patterson, the U.S. ambassador, and a few British diplomats working under her tried to negotiate a deal on behalf of Musharraf, but the politicians were no longer prepared to play ball. They insisted that he must leave the country. Sanctuaries in Manhattan, Texas, and the Turkish island of Büyükada are being actively considered. Ideally, the general would like a large estate in Pakistan, preferably near a golf course, but security considerations alone would make that unfeasible. There were three attempts on his life when he was in power and protecting him after he goes would require an expensive security presence. Now he is going in disgrace, abandoned by most of his cronies who accumulated land and money during his term and are now moving toward the new powerbrokers. Amid the hullabaloo there was one hugely diverting moment involving pots and kettles: Asif Zardari, the caretaker-leader of the Peoples Party who runs the government and is the second richest man in the country (from funds he accrued when his late wife was prime minister), accused Musharraf of corruption and siphoning U.S. funds to private bank accounts. It is difficult for citizens to forbear inquiring by what black arts did Zardari (from a family bereft of wealth) acquire such an ample fortune. Their suspicions are severe and reasonable.

A
SMALL
mystery remained. Why did the United States suddenly withdraw support from Musharraf? An answer was provided by Helene Cooper and Mark Mazzetti in
The New York Times
on August 26, 2008. The State Department, according to this report, was not in favor of an undignified and hasty departure, but unknown to them a hardcore neo-con faction led by Zalmay Khalilzad, the U.S. ambassador to the Security Council, was busy advising Asif Zardari in secret and helping him plan the campaign to oust the quondam general:

Mr. Khalilzad had spoken by telephone with Mr. Zardari, the leader of the Pakistan Peoples Party, several times a week for the past
month until he was confronted about the unauthorized contacts, a senior United States official said. Other officials said Mr. Khalilzad had planned to meet with Mr. Zardari privately next Tuesday while on vacation in Dubai, in a session that was canceled only after Richard A. Boucher, the assistant secretary of state for South Asia, learned from Mr. Zardari himself that the ambassador was providing “advice and help.”

“Can I ask what sort of ‘advice and help’ you are providing?” Mr. Boucher wrote in an angry e-mail message to Mr. Khalilzad. “What sort of channel is this? Governmental, private, personnel?” Copies of the message were sent to others at the highest levels of the State Department; the message was provided to
The New York Times
by an administration official who had received a copy.

Khalilzad, an inveterate factionalist and a master of intrigue, had implanted Hamid Karzai in Kabul (with dire results as many in Washington now admit) and was livid with Musharraf for refusing to give 100 percent support to his Afghan protégé. He now saw an opportunity to punish Musharraf and simultaneously try to create a Pakistani equivalent of Karzai. Zardari fit the bill perfectly. He is well suited to being a total creature of Washington. The Swiss government helpfully decided to release millions of dollars from Zardari’s bank accounts that had, till now, been frozen. Like his late wife, Zardari, too, is now being laundered, just like the money he made when last in office as Minister for Investment. This weakness will make him a pliant president of Pakistan. Khalilzad, no doubt, argued that a puppet civilian is easier to manipulate than a retired general. But were Zardari to permit U.S. ground troops to enter the Frontier Province on search-and-destroy missions, his career would be short-lived and leave the Pakistan army close to a breaking point.