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The Sindh Cauldron-II Untangling a no-win Situation

Given that Gen (Retd) Aslam Beg, formerly COAS and lately PML (J) recruit, has recently said that the Army and the MQM are not in a state of confrontation in Sindh, one may well ask, where is the beef? After two years of “chasing shadows” (a direct phrase from the ex-COAS circa 1990), the Army hierarchy remains seemingly convinced that the MQM leadership prefers its own narrow ambitions in preference to the greater national interest, this suspicion has been further heightened because of the Human Rights initiative taken internationally by MQM. Conversely, why should not the MQM get that feeling that the Army is out to do them in, given that all urban area operations seem to be focussed on them? In 1990, the then COAS Gen Beg declined to take army action to quell criminal elements in Sindh unless he had sanction under Article 245 of the Constitution, with its refusal Ms Benazir regime punched its own time clock to extinction. Two years after stepping into the Sindh cauldron, other than the fact that Gen Beg and PPP are now uncomfortable but nominal allies because of the Wattoo factor, the Army has achieved spectacular results in the interior but in the urban areas their success has been of mixed blessings for a myriad number of reasons. Cleansing the MQM of its militants, the Army’s continued presence has become a media disaster, not unsurprisingly given that most welcomes tend to wear off in due time. Forced into a role that was not in keeping with their prime mission, the Army has performed a thankless task with increasing apprehension that the situation has taken on the life of a hydra-headed monster, you deal with one urban problem, other problems crop up in its place.

Mohajirs comprise a sizeable segment of the population in Pakistan. Though the MQM is representative of the main population blocs in Karachi and Hyderabad, a greater majority lives in various numbers in all the towns and cities of Pakistan (even upto 20-22% of the populace in some cases) while a sizeable percentage is settled in the rural areas of the Seraiki belt, a geographical reality that cannot be denied. In the 1993 elections Mian Nawaz Sharif would have swept into power with an overwhelming majority except for several political missteps, the most crucial being vacillation in the getting of active support from the MQM.  That would have certainly given him a sizeable swing vote in every urban constituency in Pakistan (not that critical since he was fairly well placed in urban areas) but more importantly in the Seraiki belt that went almost solid in default to the PPP and its PML (J) allies, in many cases by narrow margin. The lack of MQM’s NA seats because of the MQM boycott also meant that the decisive bloc of a potential ally was lost to the PML (N) in the National Assembly. Lesson learnt from this exercise is that the MQM represent a segment of the populace that cannot be denied its place in the sun to whoever wants to retain Federal power. Down the line another fact to emerge is that isolating a vocal minority cannot be ever possible in a major urban city.

It is precisely this identity crisis that has been the net result of Operation Clean Up in the urban areas in Sindh. A majority of the population finds itself nationally disenfranchised, partly due to miscalculation on the part of its political leadership but more due to Murphy’s Law aided and abetted by malafide design. Designed to cleanse the vast silent majority of a small but militant minority that was increasingly resorting to fascist tactics, the Army finds itself in a no-win situation today that is increasingly becoming a media quagmire. Having cleansed the MQM of its unsavoury elements, the Army seems to have become locked into a situation where it is being itself increasingly targeted in the media on human right issues. This vilification is increasingly looking like a RAW campaign to create permanent strife between the Army and the Mohajir communities. From the confessional statements of Naveed, the man who led the search party to Naheed Butt’s house, startling evidence of Indian design to malign both the Army and the MQM has emerged. In diverting from the Selection and Maintenance of the Aim of Operation Clean Up, eradication of criminal elements, the Army finds itself caught up in a self-created trap that is being well-exploited by enemy strategem and propaganda. The first rule of Internal Security is to keep one’s powder dry, to act as a deterrent where the show of force is more important than to use force, that has been accomplished successfully. However, the Army has faltered in the second rule, such operations are to be conducted for a limited period of time only. Failure to extricate itself has compromised its deterrent status. In defence of the Army, this failure to disengage has not been because the Army themselves wanted to stay but rather because successive democratic and caretaker governments did not feel confident about the capability of the civilian LEAs to establish and uphold the rule of law, primarily in the urban areas but also in the rural areas of Sindh. Moreover, it suited the Muzaffar Shah government to use the Army as a cover to stay in power while engaged in comprehensive looting of the till. It now suits the Abdullah Shah PPP regime to use the Army to keep the MQM in line. In a topsy-turvy scenario, the Army’s success in preserving the peace has become a cause of its not being relieved within 90-180 days, that continuation is a cause for the present debilitating process that has engulfed Operation Clean Up. Without any doubt, this has been because the civil administration never really had a coherent plan to either overcome their own deficiencies or implement a socio-economic package.

Remedial measures can be classified under (a) confidence building (b) administrative (3) socio-economic and (4) political. Normally, this should have been in that order of priority in any disturbed area but due to the extended Army Operations, confidence building measures have to include political initiatives, prime among those being re-elections to those NA seats which belonged to the MQM in the 1988 and 1990 elections. The people can only feel that they are masters of their own destiny when they can freely elect their own representatives. Given that MQM made an atrocious decision in boycotting the NA Session, the fact remains that only a minority are represented in the Parliament. That may be a technical home truth but is not morally correct and the situation must be rectified, though one confesses that the Constitutional mechanics to undertake this exercise would be rather intricate. The Chief Election Commissioner (CEC) can correct this anomaly but maybe the Supreme Court of Pakistan can take suo-moto action. The right of adult franchise is the greatest confidence building measure for any population as was witnessed in 1988 when the country went to the polls after the many years of the Zia Martial Law. Having remained in the cold at the sharp end of a bayonet for over a decade, the PPP should be the first to recognise this fact.

Administrative measures must include the complete overhaul of the Police Services in the Province. The present IG, Shigri, is one of a small group of extremely dedicated and competent police officers. It is true that MQM is not enamoured with Shigri because of his report about their militant activities, particularly in the period 1988-1992. However the present MQM hierarchy must recognize that certain militants among their midst had crossed the fail-safe life to criminal activity and Shigri, being a professional, gave a professional report. Since he is an old Karachi hand and has an impeccable reputation along with DIGs like Asad Jahangir, Saleem Vahidy, etc, this can be the command nucleus around which a new Sindh Police force can be built up. Similarly, the lower judiciary is in complete disarray and criminals can be apprehended red-handed one day and be out free the next. Retired civil and military officers of good reputation belonging to Sindh can be appointed as Special Magistrates for a limited period of time (and in substantial numbers). The police can only feel frustrated if the effort to apprehend criminals they make comes to naught. The last measure is to separate the bureaucracy from the day to day local administration, that being the prerogative of the locally elected representatives. Unless complete financial powers are given over to the elected officials, authority in the hands of the people will remain a fantasy.
The most important cog in the whole edifice is the implementation of a well-conceived socio-economic package. It is mind-boggling to find out that two years into Operation Clean Up that no concerted plan was ever made by the political and civil administration to either conceive of or subsequently implement such measures to ameliorate the grievances of the common man. This cannot just be passed off as benign neglect but as designed neglect. This failure is a deliberate conspiracy to malign the Armed Forces, not so much by the politicians as by the local entrenched bureaucracy with vested, corrupt interest. To understand this aspect one must take into account the fact that the return of political rule in 1988 meant that the bureaucracy’s powers diminished. If any socio-economic package showed any signs of success, this power would be further curtailed. As the democratic forces came into their own, the only way to curtail their growing authority was to use the Army to suppress them, knowing that they had nothing to lose but everything to gain by the Army doing their dirty job. The Army well knows they were resented by the local bureaucracy even as they were being used by them but lost sight of the crucial factor in the whole pacification programme, a socio-economic package. The question, therefore, arises, why should the Army bear the responsibility of the omission and mistakes of others? Why should the Army bear the resentment of an entire population for whose peace of mind they took the field in the first place? There is a wider conspiracy here of defaming the Army while estranging them from the masses. For whatever it is worth, the MQM (or for that matter any other political party) should not become a party to any propaganda that defames the Armed Forces of Pakistan.

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