Author: Justin Podur

Musharraf’s self-coup regime has put Benazir Bhutto under house arrest. 5000 of her supporters were rounded up too. The judiciary protests continue as well. Before her house was surrounded by military, Bhutto had announced her intention to reinstate the ousted judiciary that was the main target of the coup. The general announced that he intends to allow elections by February 15, but there is no reason to take that seriously.

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Let no one say that the people of Pakistan took this coup lightly. Let no one say that the courts and the human rights activists in the cities, who were the coup’s principal targets, went gently. They are taking incredible risks in the streets and their courage has already forced Musharraf’s regime to back off somewhat and the international community to say a few obvious things. Lawyers have been rounded up en masse, beaten and gassed, not for the first time. They are boycotting court proceedings, which will make it difficult for this government to run.

There is a chance the US might exert some genuine pressure on Pakistan if this can keep up. The Americans have suspended defense talks with Pakistan and are threatening more. Some European countries have suspended aid. Pakistan’s government is still fighting, and not very effectively, against militants on the border with Afghanistan, using artillery. Meanwhile the Taliban in Afghanistan itself is succeeding militarily, capturing parts of western Afghanistan and taking on defectors from the Afghan military. NATO is relying increasingly on a combination of Afghan forces and airstrikes to hold territory because they don’t want to take casualties on the unpopular mission. The result is Afghan civilian casualties from the airstrikes and Afghan military casualties from battles with the insurgents, which of course feeds the insurgency.

As I mentioned before, part of the reason Musharraf may succeed (though if the Pakistani people can hold on and the international pressure increases, he could still fail) is because of a lack of alternative to the series of unsolvable problems that he and the Americans have entered into in his country and Afghanistan.

Even those who seek an Islamic revolution in Pakistan can’t believe that that would be a way out – such a regime would kick off first the total isolation and then the possible disintegration of the country.

Any military officer who overthrew Musharraf would then find himself in the same impossible situation Musharraf is in. He can line his pockets, he can control some of the army, but there are still the Americans, there are still the Indians, there are still the Islamists, there are still the insurgents, and there are still the constitutional, political, and economic problems. On the other hand, the military is plenty strong enough to prevent a civilian politician like Benazir Bhutto from holding power without their sufferance.

There is an unlikely path to genuine democratic reform and transition, which is what the people are on the streets of Lahore getting beaten and gassed and rounded up and probably tortured to fight for. They will need help from the outside in the form of political pressure, pressures that are making noise of possibly starting, and they need much more of that and fast.

Interesting isn’t it, given that Musharraf took power claiming that he needs the power to deal with “threats” and alluding to Islamic extremism, how the post-coup roundups are of human rights activists and supreme court justices. These regimes just aren’t that scared of what they say they’re scared of, are they?

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