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| A General intent on staying on, come what may | | | PAKISTAN PRESI
DENT General
Pervez Musharraf's remarks about threats by the United States to "bomb Pakistan into the stone age" if it failed to cooperate on the war on terrorism are a direct quote from his own memoirs In the Line of Fire to be released on Monday in New York by The Free Press, an imprint of Simon & Schuster.
Leaked copies of the book are said to be in circulation and the Indian Prime Minister's Office has reportedly received extracts related to Kargil and the failed Agra talks. There are conflicting reports about exactly how much the General was paid for his travails undertaken with the help of a seasoned Pakistani journalist. The rumoured figure coughed up by the publisher is anywhere between a hundred thousand and a million dollars. The book will be published simultaneously in Urdu but in Europe, where the General's image is particularly poor and where most governments regard Pakistan as the epicentre of international jihadi terrorism, it has received lukewarm responses from would be publishers.
Referring to the unpleasant post-9/11 meeting between U.S. Deputy Secretary of State Richard Armitage and his intelligence chief, General Musharraf says: "In what has to be the most undiplomatic statement ever made, Armitage added to what Colin Powell had said to me [`You are either with us or against us'] and told the Director General that not only had we to decide whether we were with America or with the terrorists, but if we chose the terrorists then we should be prepared to be bombed back to the Stone Age. It was a shockingly barefaced threat, but it was obvious that the U.S. had made up its mind to hit back and to hit back hard."
His decision to side with the Americans was taken after he "war-gamed the U.S. as an adversary." India and the Kashmir question were never far away from his calculations. Could Pakistan withstand a U.S. onslaught? "The answer was no, on three counts." Militarily Pakistan would be destroyed, thus wiping out the "military parity it had achieved with India." India would walk into the breach and gain "a golden opportunity vis-à-vis Kashmir. They might be tempted to undertake a limited offensive there; or more likely, they would work with the U.S. and the United Nations to turn the present situation into a permanent status quo. The U.S. would certainly have obliged ... and India needless to say would have loved to assist the U.S. to the hilt [in destroying Pakistan's nuclear installations]," the General says. The third reason for cooperating with the U.S. was that failure to do so would end up in the destruction of Pakistan's economic infrastructure.
The book, although written in a direct, often dramatic style, is nothing short of a self-congratulatory election manifesto. The General has every intention of being re-elected and keeping his uniform, and his memoirs, divided into six sections with a Prologue and an Epilogue, are a clear attempt to show him as an international leader of stature able to transform a deeply conservative, often extremist, society into what he calls a modern and moderate Islamic state.
The Prologue sets the tone, with the General, Rambo-style, emerging unscathed from the several assassination attacks against him. "I have confronted death and defied it several times in the past because destiny and fate always smiled on me," he explains. Recounting the December 2003 attack against him, Gen. Musharraf says he heard a loud muffled thud. "As my car became airborne I immediately realised what was happening — I was staring terrorism in the face... While leaders of other countries only visit scenes of carnage later or see it on their television screens, I was personally in the midst of it. Not only that, I was the target. But unlike most leaders, I am also a soldier, Chief of Army Staff and Supreme Commander of my country's Armed Forces. I am cut out to be in the midst of battle — trained, prepared and equipped. Fate and the confluence of events have seen to it that Pakistan and I are in the thick of the fight against terrorism, caught right in the middle. My training has made me constantly ready for the assignment."
Through the rest of the book the General justifies his every action, heaping plaudits on himself for Pakistan's economic recovery and attempting to portray himself as the only viable option before Pakistan. He also very thoroughly assassinates the characters of rivals Benazir Bhutto and Nawaz Sharif whom he paints as selfish, greedy, inept, paranoid, and manipulative. He believes that Nawaz Sharif's personality was thoroughly crushed by his autocratic father Abbaji.
Describing a dinner in the Sharif household, he remarks: "So domineering was Abbaji's personality that both Nawaz and Shahbaz [Chief Minister of Punjab] sat demurely like little children trying to remain in their father's good book ... they were more like courtiers than sons." A good bit of venom is reserved for the late Zulfikar Ali Bhutto who he says "masqueraded as a democrat but ruled like an autocrat." He blames Bhutto for breaking the back of a "nascent industrial base" and for encouraging corruption.
The first section of the book deals with his early childhood, the family's move from Delhi to Karachi and the future General's antics as a naughty and irrepressible schoolboy. In Section Two, General Musharraf talks about his life in the Pakistan army, which he calls "the best in the world," while Section Three goes into excruciating detail about the hijacking drama and the subsequent coup that brought him to power. While on the aircraft as it makes its way from Colombo to Pakistan, the General's one worry is that he will be forced to land in "enemy" India.
Kargil conflict
The Kargil conflict is dealt with in the second half of the book, but gets just a handful of pages and is portrayed as a victory for President Musharraf. The conflict, according to him, began with India trying to find a casus belli by reporting "make belief attacks" from the Pakistani side. He therefore decided to reinforce Pakistan's forward positions along the Line of Control since Indian forces has been "creeping forward" since and despite the Shimla Agreement.
Pakistani manoeuvres were conducted "flawlessly" with the Indians being "completely oblivious" of Pakistan's new strength. India's response, claims General Musharraf, was a steady build-up throughout the month of May 1998. In international fora, India exploited the situation, which had a demoralising effect on Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif.
General Musharraf calls the operation "a landmark in the history of the Pakistan Army" since just five units "in support of freedom fighters" compelled the Indians to employ more than four divisions. He describes the withdrawal "as no negotiation at all" but a capitulation by Mr. Sharif to demands made by President Bill Clinton.
He asserts that Prime Minister Sharif had been involved throughout the planning and execution of the plan. General Musharraf concludes that because of his personal foresight the "Indian plan of an offensive was pre-empted." Incredibly, the chapter concludes on a high: "I would like to state emphatically that whatever movement has taken place so far in the direction of finding a solution to Kashmir is owed considerably to the Kargil conflict."
Commenting on the India-Pakistan peace process, Gen. Musharraf blames the failure of the Agra talks squarely on Prime Minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee's advisers. "I met Prime Minister Vajpayee at 11 o'clock that night in an extremely sombre mood. I told him very bluntly that there seemed to be someone above the two of us who had the power to overrule us. I also said that today both of us had been humiliated. He just sat there speechless ... "
Although he has cordial words for Prime Minister Manmohan Singh whom he found to be "positive and genuine," General Musharraf feels the initial flexibility displayed by the Indian leader has diminished. "I think the Indian "establishment" — the bureaucrats, diplomats and the intelligence agencies and perhaps even the military — has had the better of him."
In the Line of Fire ends with an Epilogue entitled `Reflections', in which the General trots out a homily on leadership with a tremendous pat on the back for himself: "I started with the biggest domestic challenge of having to steer the ship of state out of troubles waters before it sank ... Things were moving well domestically despite the negative external constraints on me being exerted by the west in its demand for "democracy" ... Then came 9/11 and its aftermath. The whole world changed ... Counterterrorism, nuclear proliferation, democracy, human rights and narcotics. Pakistan sits in the centre of each, the external pressures are diametrically opposed to domestic feelings ... I believe my positions on all these issues are in our interest and morally strong. But there are times when the behaviour of our western allies undercuts our alliances."
In defence of his oft-repeated definition of terrorists in Kashmir as freedom fighters, General Musharraf declares: "The west rejects militant freedom struggles too broadly. The U.S. and Europe too often equate all militancy with terrorism, in particular equating Kashmir's struggle for freedom in Indian Held Kashmir with terrorism. Pakistan has always rejected this broad brush treatment."
However, the General does concede that Pakistan's position becomes difficult to sustain when the Mujahideen in "Indian Held Kashmir are guilty of terrorist activities in other parts of India and around the world ... My efforts towards rapprochement with India and the significant thaw in our relations have saved Pakistan to a large extent from the blame of abetting what the world calls terrorism and what we call freedom struggle in Indian Held Kashmir."
This self-congratulatory book does the service of taking us inside the mind and character of an unelected leader with a king-size ego who is loath to give up power and who has every intention of staying on, come what may. |
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