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| 'In The Line of Fire' | | Musharraf's spin on some events can be challenged | | B L KAK
NEW DELHI: Gen. Parvez Musharraf has created waves since this September 25, when his book 'In The Line of Fire' was launched in New York. He and his book will definitely come in the line of fire. In terms of barrack-room achievement, he has said some remarkable things. But his spin on some events of the recent past can be challenged easily. In a country like Pakistan where politicians often bring state security to the brink with their vendettas of polarisation, having swashbuckling generals like Pervez Musharraf as army chiefs can be risky.
By his own account, he was not afraid of dying and felt that providence had saved him for something great. But no army officer should think like that outside the battlefield — certainly no Indian officer, for instance, would say as much in a book unless he was ready to be criticised as an adventurist. The problem is that in Pakistan, far too many officers have thought of themselves as ruler-warriors: General Zia had his Islamic vision and ruled the usual decade before going down; his successor Aslam Beg could have become ‘soldier of misfortune’ had he not been compelled by a lucky combination of corps commanders to bow out. The same can be said of the charismatic Hamid Gul, even in menacing retirement, because some politicians have fallen to his charms too.
It matters little to Pakistan whether the Americans would be greatly put off by Gen. Musharraf’s revelation that Pakistan has been given millions of dollars by the American CIA for handing over around 367 terrorists without trial. He has got even with the Washington journalists for repeatedly treating him roughly in their analyses and reports, and has put the Bush administration on notice about its periodically ambivalent attitude towards him. Unfortunately this is the part of the book that will appeal most to the common Pakistani keen on ‘getting even with the Americans’. By revealing some of the secrets he shared with British intelligence he may have equally jeopardised Pakistan’s future connections in the United Kingdom; but for his readers in Pakistan that will still not cause any disappointment.
It is on Kargil that author Musharraf will be challenged. He says the Kargil war started after the ‘freedom-fighting mujahideen’ had occupied certain high altitude positions. He ‘wanted to dominate the areas held by freedom fighters’ and ‘established outposts to act as eyes and ears and made raids and ambushes’ but ‘the Indian reaction was unexpectedly heavy and brigade-size attacks were launched at positions held by eight or less men’. After that, ‘international pressure had a demoralising effect on Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif’ who then called it off without consulting Musharraf.
Was Kargil ‘a landmark in the history of the Pakistan Army’ in which the Indians achieved only ‘insignificant’ success despite the deployment of the air force and the mobilisation of their ‘entire national resources’? Gen. Musharraf cannot persuade his countrymen to look at his Kargil adventure as a victory even if it was discussed with Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif who is supposed to have lost his nerve midway and let down the army chief and his equally fantasy-stricken cohorts — Generals Aziz, Mehmood and Hassan — by capitulating to India in Washington.
The so-called ‘mujahideen’, who Gen. Musharraf says got up into forward positions on their own, are still around in Pakistan menacing the populace with their hard Islam.And Gen. Musharraf will not move against them. Seven years after Kargil, the Northern Areas (administered by Pakistan) are still in the throes of a religious conflict these ‘mujahideen’ introduced there during Kargil.
In the eyes of the world, Kargil confirmed for India the perception of Pakistan as ‘a reckless, adventuristic, risk-accepting and untrustworthy state’, spearheaded by a military that controls the state. It blunted India’s inclination to resolve the Kashmir issue with Pakistan as a party to the dispute. It also persuaded India to diversify its old strategy of not allowing any extra-regional inputs into the resolution of its disputes with Pakistan. It woke up to favourable international attention on the Indo-Pak disputes. Thus with his Kargil adventure Gen Musharraf may have put paid to the 'Kashmir Cause'. He is also wrong when he says Nawaz Sharif did not back him.
People do remember Pakistani Information Minister Mushahid Hussain arranging ‘victory’ events on TV, and ‘pro-Abbaji’ journalists in Lahore heaping kudos on the army in their columns. What Gen. Musharraf rolled back with Kargil was a peace process that he was forced to revive when he was himself at the helm of affairs. Kargil is a part of author Musharraf’s past that deserves a mea culpa from him, not swagger.
The book attacks ZA Bhutto for the breakdown of talks between East and West Pakistan in 1970, and of collusion with General Yahya Khan against Sheikh Mujibur Rehman. It is sceptical of what Bhutto called ‘new Pakistan’ and criticises him for using the lack of a constitution to assume ‘total power’ as president without a constitution. By so doing, the author has joined the frog-chorus of rightwing commentators in simplifying and distorting what happened in East Pakistan. Bhutto was the man who gave Pakistan the only consensual constitution Pakistan has ever had and whose restoration even Bhutto’s enemies want in order to restore democratic rule in Pakistan.
There is much more in the book that is disturbingly erroneous. But books by rulers are omens of decline in the history of Pakistan. General Ayub’s era began to end with his 'Friends not Masters' and General Zia’s biography by a friendly journalist had to be trashed in 1988.
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