Pakistan Milbus

I just finished Ayesha Siddiqa’s important book, “Military Inc.” I’ll say a few words about it – I hope to write something more extensive for ZNet in the coming days or weeks as well. But more from Dawn, first.

The situation in Pakistan hasn’t stabilized and there is still some pressure on the regime to lift the emergency and, hopefully, back off even further. The regime has released some of its opponents from house arrest – though, as in other dictatorships (Haiti’s comes to mind) the high-profile detainees always do far better than the no-profile ones.

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Gaza

It might be better to wait until I know more, but I wanted to say something about what occurred in Gaza on Monday, when a demonstration organized by Fatah to commemorate Arafat was fired upon by the Hamas-controlled police, with seven people killed including one child.

The police claim the shooting was started by someone in the crowd. But this is what police everywhere say when they fire on demonstrators and kill people, so there is no reason to automatically believe it. The stories I read or have seen do not have any explanation of what happened by Hamas.

Knowing a bit of the context might help understand what is going on. Remember that until earlier this year, there was an armed conflict between Hamas, which had won parliamentary elections in 2006, and Fatah, which had traditionally led the Palestinians under Arafat and which was now getting support by the US/Israel to try to oust Hamas. Hamas won the confrontation in Gaza but Fatah won in the West Bank, which caused many remarks about a “two-state solution”, “Gazastan/Hamastan” and “Fatahland”, that would have been clever if they weren’t talking about an unfolding tragedy. The confrontation at the time took the form of an contest between two armed bands.

What might be happening now is that Fatah may have changed its tactics and is trying to topple the Hamas government using political mobilizations and demonstrations, invoking Arafat’s memory and, now, provoking repression which will reveal Hamas to be callous to people’s suffering and to be acting like a repressive government rather than the leaders of a liberation movement. Such tactics could be much more successful, especially if Hamas responds as it has been doing, with not only firing on the demonstrations, but also arresting Fatah members, etc.

What makes this so much more painful to witness is that it is all going on at the same time as Israel’s tortures, destruction of villages, arrests, kidnappings, all continue without any interruption, as a glimpse at IMEMC will show.

Bhutto back under house arrest… and the Toronto Star’s bizarre take on it all

So Benazir Bhutto is back under house arrest – the regime is trying to prevent her from leading a major protest, a cross-country caravan. The regime has also tried to placate international opinion by promising elections in January. But the Americans have said they want the emergency lifted as well – that was their reply.

The counterinsurgency continues in the border areas with Afghanistan. This story, not all of which I understood because I don’t know all the actors involved, describes what seems to be a situation in which different groups of militants from the region where there is active fighting with the Pakistani military are also fighting each other – a kidnap between supporters of Maulana Fazlullah captured Maulana Mohammad Ali alias Maulana Nider.

Another really odd development, that I don’t think is just at “normal” levels but I could be wrong, seems to be that there is more frequent fighting in Kashmir, with the Indian army claiming to be killing “militants”, several in recent days.

I’m on Tarek Fatah’s mailing list and he’s been sending around interesting material on Pakistan. This article from the UK describes some of the Pakistan spy agency’s tactics and how they tried to use sex blackmail to bring the Supreme Court to heel. When that failed, there was always the coup and simply firing them.

Tarek Fatah also takes issue with Haroon Siddiqui, who I have to admit I don’t often read. Tarek Fatah wrote this about Siddiqui: ‘While Haroon Siddiqui of the Toronto Star describes Pakistan’s Military dictators as having “been personally financially honest and, for the most part, have provided stable government”‘, which struck me as an appallingly ignorant thing to say, if Siddiqui had in fact said it.

So I went and looked at Siddiqui’s last three columns (here, here and here) and they are, indeed, very badly informed and quite confused.

Confused because on the one hand, the analysis is at an elite level, about how clever Musharraf is and the moves he’s taking to stay in power, and takes the parochial, “Canadian interests in the region” view of matters, which is among the least interesting ways for Canadians or anybody to look at this situation. And on the other hand, his criticisms of Benazir Bhutto and the judges are based on Bhutto having foreign support and the judges not having street credibility (I won’t speculate on the status of Siddiqui’s street cred since my point is that is an uninteresting game to be playing). Bhutto does have a past that includes elite maneouvering and massive corruption. But her current role and potential role are such that she could be very important in getting rid of a dictator – and one that is as “foreign” supported and imperial as any out there. The same goes for the judges – again, leaving aside that I’m again unsure from where Siddiqui can criticize Pakistani judges for being elite figures – they were overthrown by Musharraf because they exposed the corruption and tortures of the military and because they were trying to uphold some basic legal framework.

As for Siddiqui’s argument that the Americans won’t dump Musharraf because they’ve given him $10 billion, there are plenty of comfortable villas in the first world that house former dictators, heavily invested in by the Americans, that left their countries when the Americans told them the game was up. It’s not worth picking up after someone like Siddiqui on this matter at much more length – but it’s an inconsistent analysis, out of touch with history and out of touch with important elements of what is going on, and presumptuous beyond his knowledge or understanding. It thus combines some of the worst elements of Canadian mainstream punditry, which I probably pay more attention to than it’s worth.

It still seems to me that the good scenario is one in which popular mobilization and pressure from the outside topple Musharraf and have an election that gets a civilian government in power. That won’t get rid of the military’s power, it won’t get rid of the Americans next door in Afghanistan, it won’t get rid of the other structural and regional problems in the country and in South Asia, but it will give people in Pakistan who have been fighting so valiantly all these years a bit more breathing room and space to maneuver. The bad scenarios are multiple.

The King tells Chavez to shut up… and more

Adventures at the Ibero-American summit of leaders. Chavez was talking about how the Spanish right-wing including the prime minister at the time, Jose Maria Aznar, supported the coup against his government in 2002. He called Aznar a “fascist”, and the King of Spain said to him: “Why don’t you shut up?” Then Bachelet of Chile tried to moderate while Zapatero, Spain’s current prime minister, told Chavez that Aznar had been elected and deserves respect, even though he (Zapatero) doesn’t agree with him. Ortega of Nicaragua spoke in Chavez’s defense. Reflections about the symbolism of that little moment are left to the reader.

On to more serious business – the humanitarian accord between the Colombian government and the FARC guerrillas, which was the subject of a long meeting between Chavez and Colombia’s president Uribe at the Ibero-American summit.

Recap: The FARC are asking for the government to withdraw from two zones and leave them to FARC control and release 500 prisoners in exchange for 45 prisoners who had been kidnapped by FARC, mostly civilians. Last night I had the chance to hang out with Colombian journalist Hollman Morris, a pretty-well informed fellow who is in North America to receive an award from Human Rights Watch, and he thinks the deal is likely to go through, because Venezuela, France, and the US are all supportive. I suggested that US support could be fickle and withdrawn at any point on the old “don’t negotiate with terrorists” argument. But Hollman didn’t think that’s the way the wind is blowing.

One important Colombian in the humanitarian accord is senator Piedad Cordoba, who was important back in 2003 in defeating Uribe’s referendum. She revealed the other day that shortly after she met with FARC leader Raul Reyes, the Colombian Army attacked and almost killed the guerrilla leader. Uribe told the press at the Ibero-American summit that “actions against the guerrillas will continue irrespective of their meetings with senator Cordoba”.

The governments and FARC are being sketchy about the details of the humanitarian accord and the ongoing negotiations in order to give themselves room to negotiate, obviously. But it could happen…

Bhutto arrested

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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Pakistan reacts!

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.

More on the FARC-Venezuela-Colombia humanitarian negotiation

The ‘senior FARC official’ in Venezuela, Rodrigo Granda, said that the FARC would be providing ‘proof of life’ on its kidnapped prisoners, including Ingrid Betancourt, the green presidential candidate who was kidnapped many years ago, to the Venezuelan (and therefore Colombian) governments. He also said that FARC’s supreme commander, Manuel Marulanda, is interested in meeting Chavez to discuss the possibility that Venezuela could mediate more profound negotiations between the Colombian government and FARC, but awaits guarantees from the Colombian regime.

Chavez’s public statement is that FARC’s minimum conditions for a humanitarian accord, which would trade 45 FARC kidnapped prisoners for 500 government guerrilla prisoners, are the withdrawal of government troops from two provinces, Pradera and Florida. Without this withdrawal, no humanitarian accord.

By way of evaluation, I repeat that it seems very unlikely that this will succeed, and even if it does, it won’t really change the political or military balance at all. It could potentially benefit FARC politically and Chavez regionally, two reasons the Uribe/Bush/paramilitary regime are likely to reject it. Still, it is a genuinely humanitarian issue and deserves support, and those participating in it deserve respect for doing so.