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Pervez Musharraf, Pakistan's president, troubles are
coming not as single spies but in battalions. An American
rocket attack on January 13th on a remote mountain
village in Bajaur, a tribal agency near the border
with Afghanistan, provoked angry nation-wide protests.
Army action in Baluchistan province against rebellious
tribesmen continues to take a toll of soldiers and
civilians, and this week anonymous threats prompted
foreign aid organisations to suspend operations there.
Pakistan-controlled Kashmir, devastated by an earthquake
in October, is suffering the misery of a Himalayan
winter. Many Pakistanis fear the peace process with
India is going nowhere (see article). To cap it all,
the president has faced a political rebellion in Sindh
province. The strike in Bajaur was aimed at Ayman al-Zawahiri,
the deputy leader of al-Qaeda, mistakenly thought
to be there. It is reported to have killed three or
four al-Qaeda terrorists—including an explosives
expert on the most-wanted list—but also 18 civilians,
including women and children. Pakistan has complained,
but not over-loudly, given the presumed existence
of secret agreements allowing America to wage war
on Pakistani soil in certain extreme circumstances.
For the past three years, Pakistan's army has faced
an uphill task in this mountainous area. It is infested
with heavily armed Taliban and al-Qaeda remnants,
bent on making trouble in Afghanistan. Hardly a day
goes by without killings by both sides. On January
10th, for instance, seven soldiers and 14 terrorists
died in clashes in the tribal areas. Locals sympathise
with the militants and see the army as an intruder,
there at the behest of the Americans. The army commanders
say they have killed hundreds of foreign fighters,
and frequently claim that the job is almost done.
But that is not the case.
As if his troubles in the tribal areas and Baluchistan
were not enough, General Musharraf has antagonised
Sindh province by promoting the construction of a
dam on the Indus river at a place called Kalabagh
in Punjab. Sindh, further downstream, is bitterly
opposed to the project. Such is the lack of trust
that Sindhis suspect Punjabis will steal the waters
of their Indus. They fear that new canals from the
dam's reservoir will reduce the flow of water and
leave the fertile Indus delta in Sindh vulnerable
to the encroachments of the Arabian Sea.
In Sindh, even members of General Musharraf's own
ruling coalition are afraid of openly supporting him.
In early January the Muttahida Qaumi Movement (MQM),
which controls Karachi and the urban areas of Sindh,
threatened to quit the Sindh government unless the
Kalabagh project was ditched, and military action
in Baluchistan halted. It took Pakistan's prime minister,
Shaukat Aziz, and General Musharraf an hour each on
the phone to placate Altaf Hussain, the MQM's leader,
who lives in self-imposed exile in London.
This
week, General Musharraf was forced into an embarrassing
retreat. Instead of Kalabagh, he said on national
television, two other dams would be built first.
MQM workers celebrated by dancing on the streets
of Karachi. Yet delay in building a string of big
dams, including Kalabagh (the most feasible one),
could seriously impair agricultural productivity
and energy supplies. According to a World Bank study,
Pakistan is already one of the most water-stressed
countries in the world, a situation which is going
to degrade into outright water scarcity. Pakistan
has only 150 cubic metres (33,000 gallons) of water
storage per person compared with over 5,000 cubic
metres in America and Australia and 2,200 in China.
Many
Pakistanis criticise General Musharraf for making
his own life difficult by picking fights on so many
controversial fronts. He seems rattled by the opposition
he has provoked, and has resorted to bluster. In
December he thundered against the rebellious Baluch
tribesmen: I will sort them out they won't know
what hit them. In the event, the insurgents almost
downed an army helicopter carrying the top military
commander in Baluchistan. The rebels also had the
audacity to lob rockets at General Musharraf himself
when he visited the area last month.
If
unchecked, the Baluch insurgency could destabilise
the region and jeopardise oil and gas exploration,
which are critical to Pakistan's economy. Similarly,
any laxity in prosecuting the war against militants
in the tribal areas bordering Afghanistan would
hurt relations with America, Pakistan's most important
benefactor. As it is, the Americans are still pressing
for a chance to interrogate the disgraced scientist,
Abdul Qadeer Khan, outside Pakistan about help he
is alleged to have provided for Iran's nuclear programme.
Handing the father of Pakistan's nuclear deterrent
over would infuriate nationalists at home.
Besieged
as he seems to be, General Musharraf still shows
no inclination to broaden his political base by
making friends with the parties of Benazir Bhutto
and Nawaz Sharif, two exiled former prime ministers.
Rather, he seems to see the presidential elections
due next year as a chance to weaken them further,
and consolidate his own power. Ruling Pakistan is
not at all easy, even for an all-powerful dictator
who, most observers reckon, sincerely wants to do
well by the country. |
