IHT : Anti-military sentiment begins to be heard in Pakistan

Anti-military sentiment begins to be heard in Pakistan

By Carlotta Gall and Somini Sengupta | August 9, 2007

ISLAMABAD: "Before, our children would salute our soldiers when they passed. Now they spit on them."

That is how Zahoor Ahmed described the feelings of his village, Kohu, a three-hour drive from the capital, Islamabad. It is a sentiment expressed openly in Pakistan these days, rare for a country where the military has long dominated everything, including the fear of speaking out. Ahmed's immediate anger was set off by the government's decision to storm the Red Mosque, a pro-Taliban bastion in the capital where several girls from his village attended a religious school.

But seven and a half years into the rule of General Pervez Musharraf as president of Pakistan, that is hardly the only cause for grievance. Conversations with ordinary Pakistanis reveal uncommonly outspoken anger and antipathy toward Musharraf specifically and the military's involvement in politics generally. Analysts and opinion polls support the impression.

"The consensus that is emerging in Pakistan is that the military has no role in politics," said Rasul Baksh Rais, a professor of political science at Lahore University of Management Sciences. "The military has lost its supporters in the media, in intelligentsia and also among politicians. As an institution it's really isolated. Its capability to dominate and control Pakistan is not possible anymore."

With anger, violence and political instability on the rise, many have speculated that Musharraf would impose a state of emergency. But the Pakistani leader said Thursday that he would take no such action.

The U.S. secretary of state, Condoleezza Rice, telephoned Musharraf at 2 a.m. Pakistani time Thursday after hearing reports that he was on the verge of seizing emergency powers. Bush administration officials refused to publicly discuss the discussion between the two, but one Pakistani official said that Rice exhorted Musharraf in the 15-minute conversation not to declare emergency powers. According to The Associated Press, Information Minister Mohammed Ali Durrani later said the president was committed to holding free and fair elections.

American officials are taking pains not to appear as if they are dictating terms to Musharraf but said that the administration was concerned about the situation in Pakistan. It is a fine line that the administration must walk, however, because American officials are have also been pushing Musharraf to crack down on terrorists operating along the Afghan-Pakistan border.

Bush pointedly noted Thursday that "I have seen no such evidence" that Musharraf had made a decision to seize emergency powers.

"My focus in terms of the domestic scene there is that he have a free and fair election," Bush said, "and that's what we have been talking to him about, and I'm hopeful they will."

The broad dissatisfaction with Musharraf and the army is rooted in many things, including a sense of everyday insecurity and rising prices, dislike of Musharraf's alliance with the Bush administration and anger that the military has reaped rewards for itself but not fulfilled its promises to the people.

During Musharraf's tenure, two of Pakistan's four provinces have turned to armed revolt against the military.

But the discontent also reaches into the corridors of government. Civil servants, university administrators and professors complain that military personnel have taken top jobs, while civilians have been passed over for promotion.

An opinion poll, part of which was released last week by the International Republican Institute, an American organization financed partly by the government and containing several prominent Republicans on its board, found that Musharraf's approval ratings had plummeted to 34 percent from 60 percent in June 2006. Nearly two out of three Pakistanis polled said they believed he should not run for re-election.

The poll was based on interviews with 4,000 adults in rural and urban Pakistan between mid-June and early July, before the Red Mosque assault; it carried a margin of error of plus or minus 1.58 percentage points.

On whether the government had done a good job "on issues important to you," 58 percent gave the government poor or very poor marks; 56 percent said they felt less safe than a year ago.

More detailed questions on the military showed that it remained one of the most highly regarded institutions in Pakistan, with a steady 80 percent approval rating.

But the poll also found that a growing number of people disapproved of the military's intrusion into civilian government. Sixty-two percent of respondents said Musharraf should resign as army chief if he were to remain as president.

The president's spokesman, General Rashid Qureshi, declined to comment on the poll results until he had seen them. But he said that Musharraf declared in Karachi this week that he would run for re-election by the national and provincial assemblies from Sept. 15 to Oct. 15.

"Knowing him and gauging the public mood, we are very confident that he will win," said Qureshi, who has retired from the military.

Asked whether the military's image had been damaged by its operations at the Red Mosque and in the tribal areas, where the government deployed additional Pakistani troops last month, the army spokesman, Major General Waheed Arshad, maintained that they were carried out on the orders of the government and enjoyed broad public support.

"It is up to the public from what perspective they look at it," he said. Referring to the Red Mosque siege, he added, "It has had a positive effect because the operation was carried out against people who were using a place of worship for their own interests."

When he took power in a coup in 1999, Musharraf was welcomed by Pakistanis disillusioned with years of unstable civilian governments dogged by corruption. He was at first credited with reining in some of the worst excesses of avaricious politicians and with overseeing a growing economy and a more open society.

But since Musharraf's pledge to cooperate with the U.S.-led effort against terrorism after Sept. 11, 2001, it is the military that has been by far the biggest beneficiary of about $10 billion in official American aid for Pakistan.

While the economy has expanded, so has the reach of the military's many enterprises, which extend into virtually every corner of the economy, including bottled water plants, cement factories and lucrative real estate developments.

"Pakistan's military today runs a huge commercial enterprise," says Ayesha Siddiqa, author of a recent book, "Military Inc.: Inside Pakistan's Military Economy," in which she estimates that the military's internal economy is worth billions of dollars.

The military's dominance of the political, economic and social life of Pakistan has matured to such an extent under Musharraf, Siddiqa contends, that the military has ensured a long-term, if not permanent, role for itself in politics.

"Even members of the opposition and civil society have openly or discreetly admitted that the organization cannot be got rid of," she said.

Somini Sengupta reported from Islamabad and New Delhi. Salman Masood contributed reporting from Islamabad and Helene Cooper from Washington.