State of the union

Legal eye

The writer is a lawyer based in
Islamabad.

General Raheel Sharif is the most popular army chief we have had. The trucks on GT Road are evidence. Back in the 80s you could see Bedford trucks plying along with Ayub Khan’s photos on the back. Generals Zia and Musharraf didn’t make the cut, even as all-powerful dictators. But General Raheel has, as army chief. He has won the respect of ordinary Pakistanis, for being the commander who acts as a straight up soldier, who is a doer and who has stood up to fight the good fight. His mannerism fits the morality we approve of.

General Raheel comes across as the commander working around the clock and leading from the front, spending time with troops on the frontlines, talking tough to enemies and being kind and attentive to those in need (whether by personally attending to the complaints of martyr’s families late in the night after Defence Day celebrations or attending funerals of the fallen). And he has not been accused of showing interest in what our public office-holders love most: housing schemes and corner plots.

Notwithstanding how we got here, who will contest the fact that we might not have survived the onslaught of terror networks that converged on us in the last decade had it not been for a strong, organised and disciplined military? Who can deny that within the realm of public service there is something very special about those who put their lives on the line? All countries have a special love affair with uniformed forces and so do we. But moralism or patriotism alone can’t fix structural issues within the ‘system’.

General Raheel’s Defence Day speech sounded more like a state of the union address by a head of state. For those committed to the idea of civilian control of the military mandated by our constitution or those willing to take a critical look at our own history to learn lessons from it and avoid past mistakes, it raised a host of questions.

Did the army chief speak on matters of foreign policy, and the need to improve governance and fix the criminal justice system because he believes that these matters fall within the military’s domain? As the head of an institution that relies on discipline, protocol and the need to abide by rules, did he feel that rules and protocol can be ignored if an army chief determines that it is in the ‘national interest’ to do so? Or was he simply responding to a public that sees him as a saviour and expects him to say what he said?

When he spoke about how Pakistan knows how to be loyal towards friends and vengeful towards enemies, did he consider if it was his or the federal government’s prerogative to determine the time, place and manner of responding to India? Did he bear in mind that by intruding into space that rightfully belongs to the Foreign Office he might inadvertently weaken the institution that exists to manage and run our diplomacy, or send an impression to other states that it is the military that runs Pakistan’s foreign policy?

While rightfully eulogising soldiers whose courage and sacrifice prevented a defeat in the 1965 war against a much bigger India, could the army chief have introduced introspection within our narrative of victimhood? Could he have celebrated the soldiers and martyrs while acknowledging that our policymakers ought to have done better? Was Operation Gibraltar our finest idea? Could we have followed a different set of policies to prevent Pakistan from breaking up in 1971? Did Kargil augment our national security?

Is anyone other than an army chief better placed to inject agency and accountability in our national security thinking? If we were caught unaware in 1965 when evil India attacked us in the middle of the night (as our textbooks tell us) and then broke us up in 1971, and took out ads in Western newspapers post-Kargil defaming our military – and is now using TTP and other terror outfits against us, especially in Balochistan – are we simply at the mercy of designs of a devious enemy or can we do things differently to manage and contain the threat?

Why did the army chief need to chide those critical of the work ethic and effectiveness of our agencies? Are forced disappearances and missing persons a figment of traitors’ imagination? Did the judicial commission set up to investigate Saleem Shahzad murder not conclude that our agencies couldn’t be given a clean chit of health in the matter? Was OBL’s recovery from Abbottabad not a national security disaster? Has the state taken any initiatives to introduce checks and ensure that our agencies function within the bounds of the law?

Are rational voices in our Senate the enemies of Pakistan for asking whether any relationship exists between agencies and seminaries producing terrorists? It is reassuring to hear the army chief say that we are doing everything possible to eradicate terror. But shouldn’t a logical mind wonder why sprawling seminaries preaching extremist ideologies with declared sympathy for and links with terror outfits continue functioning undisturbed even in the heart of Pakistan (Karachi, Lahore, Bahawalpur and Islamabad) let alone far-flung areas.

Who can fault the army chief for stating the obvious: that our criminal justice system needs to be fixed? But is a floundering justice system the prime reason for the existence of terror, as was made out immediately post-APS? By locking away terrorists or sending the most heinous to the gallows, the criminal justice system acts as a deterrent. But how effective can it be when you don’t disrupt the assembly line but merely threaten the trained and ideologically motivated human weapon let loose amongst us with dire consequences?

Almost a decade back the military wanted extensive detention and investigation powers to arrest and investigate terrorists and prevent the need to make folks go missing. The Fair Trial Act, PPA and amended Anti-Terror Act, granted all powers asked for. Post-APS, military courts became the demand. With the 21st Amendment, military courts were established. The Supreme Court legitimised them as well as the death sentences awarded by them. Has ‘efficient’ military justice now become our prime weapon in the fight against terror?

And then there is the CPEC. Every rational Pakistani will agree that it could open new vistas for us and is a good thing. But should it be conceived as a national security asset? No matter how close our relationship with China, we surely know that interests drive actions of nation-states, and in a changing world interests change too. Why should we consider or rely on something as a security asset the control of which doesn’t lie with us? What were the lessons from our alliances of the 50s and their utility during crunch time?

Granted that the CPEC is a vital communications and economic corridor that is a must-have, how does running power companies and other commercial projects fall within the military’s domain and expertise? Why should the military be interested in establishing a CPEC authority managed and run by serving generals?

Is the idea backed by the thought that even if the civilian government renders the economy bankrupt, the military will have an independent resource base to meet security needs? If so, is that the right way to think about Pakistan’s economy and security? Or is the CPEC too important to be subjected to the risk of civilian incompetence? If that is the logic, what about the police or the judiciary or issues like education and water management etc, all vital for Pakistan’s future? Can the military take over everything important to save Pakistan?

A state quick to label critical voices from within as unpatriotic only exposes the insecurity surrounding its notion of statehood. Let us build bridges and not deepen divides. Let us listen to one another without calling each other names.

Email: sattar@post.harvard.edu