Mass anti-government demonstrations have rocked Pakistan in recent weeks and months. Tariq Ali argues that the days of President Zia are numbered.
What can one write about a dictatorship that no longer differentiate human beings from animals? Over the last eight weeks the army in Pakistan has machine-gunned a few hundred dogs to death in the province of Sind. Some unkind souls (unkind, that is, to dogs) had painted Zia on them, thus provoking their extermination. A few weeks prior to this event, some vigilant policemen in the town of Umarkot had espied an unaccompanied and burden-free herd of donkeys walking calmly down the main street. The donkeys were arrested and charged under the Vagrancy Act. No lawyers could be found to free these asses. It was only when their braying, defecating and urinating harmonised itself into a simultaneous burst of noise and motion that an enterprising Umarkot magistrate made a unilateral intervention. He ordered their immediate release. The triumphant quadrupeds became the envy of the entire country. I assure the doubting reader that this episode is a fact and was reported in the Pakistani press, though without intended irony. You see even a donkey can not breach Section 144.
I am more convinced than ever that we are now approaching endgame in Pakistan. The thirty-five year old war waged relentlessly by the Pakistani state and its uniformed guardians against many an embattled nationality is slowly and painfully drawing to a close. The only thing in dispute is the time-scale. Some of the generals are succumbing to astrology, but we prefer to base our judgement on a scientific analysis of the country's politics and institutions. The rebellion in Sind, which has claimed almost 200 lives and thousands of wounded, marks the beginning of the end of Zia's dictatorship. Even indiscriminate terror has its limit as a political weapon.
Military dictators fall when the pressure of mass discontent, expressed in street demonstrations and/or armed clashes, reaches such a stage that it threatens the very foundations of the state. Then fissures appear on every level of the ruling oligarchy and split the officer corps of the army. The officers prefer to ascribe their misfortune to the blindness, corruption, errors, bungles, lunacy of one man: The Dictator. How can they do otherwise? To give an alternative explanation means to accept that they too are doomed. So they try and come up with all sorts of unsystematic and inconsistent arguments, which end up by delivering a scapegoat to their tormentors in the streets.
There are, of course, recent instances in history where the old rulers have not acted in time and the insurgent masses have overthrown the ancien regime together with the dictator in question. Cuba and Nicaragua are the prime exemplars of this type of social upheaval. Pakistan has, till now, followed a different pattern. Both previous military dictators were removed from office by a decision of the military High Command. Field-Marshal Ayub Khan was driven from power after an unprecedented popular upsurge that lasted for five months and embraced virtually every town in the country. Ayub did not leave the country, nor was he arrested. He handed over power to General Yahya Khan. This corpulent incompetent was best-known for his addiction to a particular brand of whisky, but he did organise the country's first ever general election in 1970. His [illegible] accept the popular verdict unleashed a war against a majority of the population. After the debacle in Bangladesh he was confronted by a revolt of senior officers. An armoured division was seething with discontent. Its officers threatened to surround Yahya's headquarters in Rawalpindi unless he was dismissed. A stormy meeting of the High Command almost came to blows. Yahya was soon after placed under a comfortable house arrest, where he received a [illegible] of whisky every week. [illegible] comfortable.
It is now a commonplace for commentators to suggest that if the current revolt against the military dictatorship remains confined to Sind, then Zia will survive the test. It should be added that the same commentators were, only a few months previously, refusing to accept that the calm in Pakistan was only a surface phenomenon and that a festering set of grievances were gradually building up a head of steam in certain areas. The [illegible] (I [illegible] in my book Can Pakistan Survive?). The reasons are obvious. Ataullah Mengal, the former Chief Minister of Baluchistan, [illegible] when he reminded a demonstration outside the Pakistan Embassy in London some weeks ago that: 'They [illegible] in their choice of victims. Why [illegible] do you think that they only hang Baluch and Sindhi activists?'
Since the execution of Bhutto, Sind has been an occupied province. Six of the army's 20 divisions were stationed there, including the Sind Regiment, which is composed almost exclusively of non-Sindhis.
It is in these circumstances hardly surprising that Zia's martial law was perceived in the Sind province as more than a denial of democratic rights. It was viewed as a blatant violation of Sindhi national rights. When young Punjabi captains acquired the habit of slapping a Sindhi if he didn't tug his forelock on seeing them; when these same officers treated Sindhi women as objects of pleasure and the rape statistics registered a dramatic increase; when young students were shot at and, on occasion, killed; when Sindhi poets and peasant leaders were flogged in public; when three Sindhi nationalists were executed in a market square in the interior of the province, then why are they surprised that Sind has exploded? The leaders of the Jamaat-i-Islami (the wing that still supports the regime) are reviving the bitter and dormant memories of Bangladesh by accusing the Sindhis of 'secessionism'. The government of Pakistan is distributing press handouts which claim that the entire revolt has been masterminded by infiltrators from India. Ironically enough no one is frightened by either of these code-words any longer. Furthermore it is now a well-established fact that General Zia is a consummate liar and the government-controlled media is regarded with near-universal hostility and contempt.
The events in Sind are not yet sufficiently generalised to bring down the regime. Their importance lies in the fact that they have punctured the mythologies of the regime's apologists at home and abroad. Only a few months ago, General Zia told the people (after a brief visit to Sind) that: 'The people of Sind want martial law for another six years'. The uprising that has shaken the interior of the province is the most effective reply to this calumny. There can be little doubt that the military High Command and the fabric of intelligence networks that run the country were taken by surprise at the intensity of the response. In Dadu and Badin, Sindhi policemen joined the demonstrators and opened fire on the security forces. The army had to be moved in to deal with the situation. This then is a three way struggle against military dictatorship, clerical tyranny and national oppression. Sind has exposed the fruit to be rotten, but it needs a few more storms before it will fall to the ground.
These are yet early days, but they are crucial ones. In the first place they have shaken the regime. Sind has fired a powerful shot across Zia's bows and even though the struggle has been contained its effects will slowly begin to percolate to the frontier, Baluchistan and even the Punjab. There is another important outcome. Many of the politicians who were beginning to move towards a reconciliation with the regime have been stopped dead in their tracks. Their very opportunism has now caused them to pause, look around and stop their clandestine talks with the army. Is it possible, they whisper to each other that the end of martial law is in sight? And if it is then there is no point in risking their reputations by appearing to be men of moderation. Yes, there can be little doubt, that whenever the masses come out in the streets the effect is almost magical. The Sind upheaval shook the army, amazed the Movement for Restoration of Democracy and sent alarm bells ringing in the State Department in Washington and the Foreign Office in London.
Why has the situation undergone a rapid transformation now? Why was there surface passivity for six years? Why no movement when Bhutto was hanged? Why is the Punjab so still? What is the mood in the frontier? In our opinion there were three basic reasons for the placidity of the last six years. Bhutto's death was not a single event. It was accompanied by a brutalisation of Pakistan's political culture: public floggings, public hangings, public humiliation of women and the judicial assassination of the first and last elected Prime Minister. Add to this the fact that the People's Party had no organised base and it is not difficult to understand why people were not prepared to give up their lives. They were anguished, though passive, spectators at a series of events which they did not believe they could influence. It is not easily understood that a mass can get just as exhausted as an individual. This collective tiredness was due to the fact that they had struggled semi-continuously since 1968. They had witnessed the break-up of Pakistan. Their hopes in Bhutto had been cruelly disappointed. Some of them had temporarily deserted the populist fox and joined the right-wing opposition dreaming of democracy and social justice. Their efforts had seemed to result in Zia's coup of July 1977. How can we blame them for staying at home for a few years? In analagous circumstances individuals have suffered nervous breakdowns, been confined to asylums and even committed suicide. What is truly amazing is not that they stayed quiet for so long, but that they recovered relatively soon.
Zia was naturally aided by this silence on the part of the people. He mistook it for acquiescence. A fatal mistake to which most dictators are prone. There were two additional factors which increased his complacency. The old politicians participated in local elections and accepted nominations to local councils. The regime utilised lavish handouts of patronage to win their support for the last few years. The money was, of course, made available for local development plans, but large chunks of it went into the bank accounts of village notables. On the international level the Zia regime had the unstinting support of President Reagan and Mrs Thatcher. The British Prime Minister was the first Western leader to visit Pakistan after the execution of Bhutto and give the dictator a kiss of approval. This support was stepped up after the Soviet intervention in Afghanistan. The Western media sought to transform a sordid military hangman into a plucky defender of the 'frontiers of the free world'.
At a recent 'unattributable' briefing for British and foreign journalists, the Foreign Office in London stuck to its support for the Zia regime. The unnamed spokesman told Fleet Street's South Asia writers that: (a) Sind was serious and that the FO had been taken by surprise; (b) the revolt could not bring down Zia, but the West was worried; (c) the main reason for supporting Zia was that he had sided with the West on Afghanistan. Free elections would lead to a PPP victory and the Bhutto women were far too soft on the Russians; (d) the US Representative on the Security Council had made the key distinction between 'authoritarian' regimes and 'totalitarian despotisms'. Zia fell in the former category. In the words of the spokesman: '[he] may be a son of a bitch, but he's our son of a bitch'; (e) the British press was giving too much prominence to the business in Sind. They should remember that Pakistan was a crucial ally; and (f) even if Zia falls the only possible replacement can be another general.
Readers will recall that General Zia is a regular delegate to the conferences of the Non-Aligned Movement. His smile enraptured many an Indian journalist during the recent moot in Delhi. The same general is now butchering men, women and children in the Sindhi province. It is a constant wonder that dictators, after a while, begin to radiate a certain fascination for liberal journalists. I don't think that the latter are taken in by clever public relations. There is something deeper, but one must resist the temptation to digress on this occasion. Too much is at stake. The most interesting, albeit shameless, assertion by the British Foreign Office spokesman is the reference to Zia's replacement by another general. The West is definitely not interested in any immediate prospect of democratic rule in Pakistan. The reason is obvious. They could not guarantee a puppet regime and even the smallest element of regional autonomy would entail that the naval bases being constructed in Baluchistan by the United States would be unceremoniously dismantled. Ataullah Mengal and Khair Baksh Marri, the Baluch leaders exiled in London and Kabul respectively, are in no doubt that what is taking place in their unhappy province is a gross violation of national sovereignty. Mengal told me that the Gwadur coast has become a centre of espionage and military activity. The Mehdi-Ye-Koh area is now surrounded by an iron wall of security, which was penetrated on one occasion by a Baluch nationalist. He reported that American personnel were in command of the operation and a mini-harbour had been constructed. The Baluch leaders have demanded that an independent commission of enquiry should be established by the Non-Aligned Movement to ascertain what is going on in Baluchistan. If its findings confirm the allegations made by Mengal and Marri, then Pakistan should be immediately expelled from the Non-Aligned Movement and its nakedness exposed to the world.
Some American commentators have noted that the Pentagon['s] [illegible] Rapid Deployment Force, which [is] beginning to replace the post-Vietnam concept of building local relays of power. The fall of the Shah has helped to revive the most revanchist elements in the US military establishment. The [illegible]. Zia's personal predilections make him a fairly crucial figure for h[istory]. The [illegible]. They have indicated that they would [be prepared] to accept a National Government, which included the People's Democratic Party of Afghanistan (PDPA) [illegible] the chain. In return they would guarantee Afghanistan's [illegible]. [illegible] majority of the corps commanders were in favour [of a] settlement and the Geneva talks almost resulted in signatures on a Treaty. Then the Reagan administration stepped in and sabotaged the negotiations.
Contrary to its demagogy, Washington does not desire a Soviet withdrawal from Afghanistan. They are quite happy for Russian soldiers to be killed and, more importantly, appreciate the ideological importance of the Soviet presence in Kabul. It gives them the green light for intervening in their 'own backyard' in Central America. Some of the Pakistani generals were prepared to defy their paymasters on this issue, but Zia's decisive intervention clinched the matter in favour of the Americans. The consequences of this decision have yet to be felt inside Pakistan. No one should be surprised if Baluchistan begins to warm up again.
If, despite all this, the Sindhi people continue to fight back and the revolt spreads to even a few cities of the Punjab, then Zia and his immediate coterie of supporters (General Fazle Haq, General Arif and General Mujib) would be forced out of power. The problem for the West is that their replacement model, General Iqbal, currently Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, is known neither for his intelligence nor for a Macchiavellian cunning. Few believe that he could provide a stable transition to anything. Much will depend, as we have already argued, on the character of the revolt and the scale of the mass mobilisations over the next 12-18 months. If the Sindhi pattern is repeated with local variations, then no replacement dictator will be acceptable and any attempt to impose one could lead to a renewed civil war. The angry chants that are emanating from the ravaged heart of Sind are very revealing in this regard. They are sounding the tocsin for the last time. The message to their own leaders in the province and, by implication, to those who support their struggles elsewhere in the country, could be summarised in the following fashion.
Any compromise with these uniformed murderers is impermissible, they keep telling us. The enemy is not this or that general. It is the Pakistan Army as an institution. How can one disagree with them? Their consciousness has been formed in the field of life and practical experiences. They could not have had better teachers and now they are teaching their politicians. They have nothing but contempt for this army and they are correct. This is a mercenary force per excellence. It has won its only victories in battles against its own population; it sells its officers and men for a few petro-dollars to police imperialism's boundaries in the Arab world; its generals grow rich on heroin; a hierarchy of corruption extends throughout the officer corps from top to bottom.
This is the cancer that has to be rooted out if Pakistan is to survive as a voluntary federation of four nationalities. Of these four, Sind alone constitutes a unity. The Baluch, Punjabis and Pathans are all divided by lines drawn by the civil servants of the departing British Empire. The choice is stark, but simple. If the army survives, then Pakistan will die a slow and painful death. If the army can be defeated and dismantled, then Pakistan could survive as a genuinely non-aligned and non-militaristic state, at peace with its own people and their neighbours. How could this come about? The Pakistan Army sees itself, and not without justification, as the only reliable custodian of the confessional state. It is, in fact, the only pillar on which Pakistan rests and that is where the problem lies. The army will not voluntarily surrender its position in Pakistani society. It would rather rule over the Islamic Republic of Punjab [illegible] beginning to pack their bags. The Sindhi national movement is advising its followers not to buy these lands cheap since they belong to Sind in the first place. This small episode is very symbolic of the dilemmas that confront Pakistan.
I have a horrible suspicion that the army will fight back, no doubt flying the flag of Islam, rather than surrender any of its privileges. The army of today is not the same as Ayub's army of 1958. The officers are not scions of the rural gentry, bonded to each other by ties of kinship and class solidarity. A sizeable proportion of officers is now recruited from the urban petty-bourgeoisie. A layer of these have always regarded Zia as 'too soft'. These fundamentalists want a bloodbath to wipe out all internal enemies. Their chosen models are the Saudi Royals (which many officers have observed at close quarters during periods when they were leased to that country) or the medieval obscenities of Khomeini's wild theocracy. Many of them spice their rhetoric by invoking the early history of the Muslim Khalifas and attempting to utilise those norms in the contemporary world.
The sad fact is that it is not a total bluff. Many of these men [illegible] closely for military insights. Thus Brigadier K S Malik has written a book called 'The Quranic Concept of War', which was published in Lahore in 1979. This was not a case of an eccentric uniformed theocrat sounding off on his own. The book contains a foreword by Zia-ul-Haq and a preface by one-time constitutional lawyer, now turned megalomaniacal fundamentalist maverick, K A Brohi. The key notion for Malik is terror. The sentence, 'I shall cast terror into the hearts of the infidels', which undoubtedly occurs in the holy book of Islam [is] elevated into a modern principle of strategic warfare. Bearing in mind that the main enemies of the army have been the Bengalis, Baluch and now the Sindhis, the following passage from Malik's banal volume makes chilling reading: 'Terror struck into the hearts of the enemies is not only a means, it is an end in itself. Once a condition of terror into the opponent's heart is obtained, hardly anything is left to be achieved. It is the point where the means and the end meet and merge. Terror is not a means of imposing decision upon the enemy; it is the decision we wish to impose upon him.'
The savagery and barbarism entailed in an application of Brigadier Malik's blend of Islam and warfare offers us [illegible] is how many officers [are] being taught to [illegible] academies. The Koran, of course, speaks of 'infidels'. This does not pose any real problems for Pakistan's generals. The Bengalis were described as 'infidels' prior to the rape of that province. The Baluchis were described as 'wild infidels' as a prelude to the five year civil war that brought death and destruction to so many homes in Baluchistan. I'm sure that [illegible] Sufis. It will be heavily ironic as Sind is one of the first areas of Muslim settlement in the sub-continent, but historical facts [illegible] those intent on barbarism. The point I am stressing is that the transition from Zia to a yet unpredictable future looks like being a painful business. Baluch [illegible] federation, prepared to tolerate the existence [illegible] broadly-based and does not eat up a bulk of the wealth that the people produce. The final confrontation can only be delayed, not avoided.
The most stable feature of Pakistan since 1947 has been its inherent instability. What is left of the old state resembles a diseased guava, pock-marked all over, with a few craters where birds of prey (in this case the people of Pakistan) have detached a few chunks. The fact that it is diseased prevents the fruit from becoming rotten-ripe and falling of its own accord. It will, if anything, continue to dry and wither till a last stone finally brings it down. It is what will be put in its place that is now agitating the minds of the more insightful civil servants and politicians of that benighted republic.
TARIQ ALI is author of the Penguin book Can Pakistan Survive? and was recently expelled for his ideas from the Labour Party.