What world media says on Musharraf’s death

ISLAMABAD: Though the world capitals conveniently ignored the death of former dictator Gen Pervez Musharraf (retd), the international media termed him a controversial figure who availed every opportune moment coming his way but completely failed in politics domestically and internationally at the end.

Indian media is conspicuous in discussing him for his role as an enemy, and then flagbearer of peace after assuming power through mutilating constitution.

It recalled the role of Musharraf in Kargil when he successfully subverted a constitutional government’s peace overture with India on bilateral issues and after capturing power offered a solution to New Delhi on Kashmir, which could not produce result despite both the countries reaching closer to an agreement. He was eyeing a Noble Prize on account of it.

India Today writes on death of Musharraf, “He played an active role in the Afghan civil war, encouraging Pakistani support for the Taliban. Musharraf’s attempts during his presidency. He tendered resignation to avoid impeachment in 2008 and emigrated to London in a self-imposed exile.”

India Today reminds: “In the Kargil War with India, Musharraf played the role of a leading strategist. From March to May 1999, he ordered the secret infiltration of forces in the Kargil district. A full-scale war erupted after India discovered the infiltration. However, Nawaz Sharif withdrew support because of heightened international pressure. The decision antagonised the Pakistan Army and rumours of a possible coup began emerging soon afterward.”

Washington Post says Pervez Musharraf maintained a soldier’s fatalism after avoiding a violent death that always seemed to be stalking him as Islamic militants twice targeted him for assassination. “I have confronted death and defied it several times in the past because destiny and fate have always smiled on me,” Musharraf once wrote. “I only pray that I have more than the proverbial nine lives of a cat.”

The paper writes Al-Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden launched the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks from Afghanistan, sheltered by the country’s Taliban rulers. Musharraf knew what would come next. “America was sure to react violently, like a wounded bear,” he wrote in his autobiography. “If the perpetrator turned out to be al-Qaeda, then that wounded bear would come charging straight toward us.”

By Sept. 12, then-US Secretary of State Colin Powell told Musharraf that Pakistan would either be “with us or against us.” Musharraf said another American official threatened to bomb Pakistan “back into the Stone Age” if it chose the latter. “After 9/11, then President Musharraf made a strategic shift to abandon the Taliban and support the US in the war on terror, but neither side believes the other has lived up to expectations flowing from that decision,” a 2009 US cable from then-Ambassador Anne Patterson published by WikiLeaks said, describing what had become the diplomatic equivalent of a loveless marriage.

“The relationship is one of co-dependency we grudgingly admit — Pakistan knows the US cannot afford to walk away; the US knows Pakistan cannot survive without our support.” But it would be Musharraf’s life on the line. Militants tried to assassinate him twice in 2003 by targeting his convoy, first with a bomb planted on a bridge and then with car bombs. That second attack saw Musharraf’s vehicle lifted into the air by the blast before touching the ground again. It raced to safety on just its rims, Musharraf pulling a Glock pistol in case he needed to fight his way out. It wasn’t until his wife, Sehba, saw the car covered in gore that the scale of the attack dawned on him. “She is always calm in the face of danger,” he recounted. But then, “she was screaming uncontrollably, hysterically.”

Though he won another five-year presidential term, Musharraf faced a major crisis following former Prime Minister Benazir Bhutto’s assassination in December 2007 at a campaign rally as she sought to become prime minister for the third time. The public suspected Musharraf’s hand in the killing, which he denied. A later United Nations report acknowledged the Pakistani Taliban was a main suspect in her slaying but warned that elements of Pakistan’s intelligence services may have been involved.

Musharraf resigned as president in August 2008 after ruling coalition officials threatened to have him impeached for imposing emergency rule and firing judges. “I hope the nation and the people will forgive my mistakes,” Musharraf, struggling with his emotions, said in an hour-long televised address.

Afterwards, he lived abroad in Dubai and London, attempting a political comeback in 2012. But Pakistan instead arrested the former general and put him under house arrest. He faced treason allegations over the Supreme Court debacle and other charges stemming from the Red Mosque raid and Bhutto’s assassination. The image of Musharraf being treated as a criminal suspect shocked Pakistan. Pakistan allowed him to leave the country on bail to Dubai in 2016 for medical treatment and he remained there after facing a later-overturned death sentence. But it suggested Pakistan may be ready to turn a corner in its history of military rule.

“Musharraf’s resignation is a sad yet familiar story of hubris, this time in a soldier who never became a good politician,” wrote Patterson, the US ambassador, at the time.

“The good news is that the demonstrated strength of institutions that brought Musharraf down — the media, free elections and civil society — also provide some hope for Pakistan’s future. It was these institutions that ironically became much stronger under his government.”

Indian diplomat turned politician Shahshi Tharoor in his tweet reminds “Once an implacable foe of India, he became a real force for peace 2002-2007. I met him annually in those days at the UN & found him smart, engaging and clear in his strategic thinking. RIP”

Ambassador Dr. Maleeha Lodhi, who served country as ambassador to the US and UK, said, “General Musharraf faced many challenges but of them the three crisis he navigated with much prudence were the aftermath of 9/11, the yearlong Indian military mobilisation on the border with Pakistan and the AQ Khan affair.”

Shuja Nawaz, an analyst at the South Asia Centre at the Atlantic Council in Washington, DC, and brother of the late Army Chief General Asif Nawaz said “Musharraf was a very smart general who leveraged the US need for a regional base to prosecute the war in Afghanistan to his personal advantage. He failed to build on his early popularity to effect sustainable economic and political reforms... He failed to understand that his real power came from his uniform.”