The Armed Forces selecting the chiefs
Lt Gen Shamim Alam Khan has been appointed Chairman Joint Chiefs of Staff Committee (CJCSC) and Lt Gen Asif Nawaz Janjua Chief of the Army Staff (COAS), ending months of damaging speculation about these two crucial appointments. Both are fine upright military officers who are well respected and have impeccable backgrounds. There is still some time to go before they assume their appointments, Shamim, the nominally superior, later than Asif Nawaz, because Gen Beg, the COAS, retires a few months earlier than Admiral Sirohey, the incumbent CJCSC. The Government has done well to make early announcements for these posts.
The CJCSC-designate comes from a line of brothers who have served (and are serving) the three Services of the Armed Forces, one of his younger brothers, Mushtaq, having died in service of the PAF during a low-level combat exercise while the younger to him, Ijaz, was killed in action on his tank near Sialkot during the 1971 war. One of his brothers is a senior serving officer in the Pakistan Navy, another is a Lieutenant Colonel in the Pakistan Army. One brother is serving in PIA having retired from the PAF while the eldest (and the most well known), Brig (Retd) Z.A Khan, commanded the SSG battalion that kept secure the ports and airfields in then East Pakistan in the first crucial days after the Army crackdown in March 1971. Professionally able and meticulously correct, Lt Gen Shamim Alam is uniquely qualified to be Chairman CJCSC.
Asif Nawaz comes from a military background, from the heart of the region in the Punjab that supplies the finest infantry material in the world. His stint as Corps Commander in Sindh was performed with grace, given the political pressures on the person and the post that is no mean achievement. Respected as a straight speaking soldier, he is the second executive head of the Pakistan Army from 5 Punjab, the famous Sherdils Battalion, original unit of the first Pakistani C-in-C (and later President) FM Ayub Khan. Perceived to be apolitical, his demeanour and general appearance is strikingly similar to the late President, even more so than Ayub’s own son (and former colleague in Sandhurst and 5 Punjab), Gohar Ayub Khan, the most visible Speaker of the National Assembly in recent history. Like Shamim Alam, Janjua has a fair amount of relations within the Armed Forces, one cousin is a serving Major General in the Armoured Corps. A younger brother, Shuja Nawaz capped a brilliant scholastic career with a coveted job with the IMF and is currently researching a book on the Pakistan Army. Brig HUK Niazi, Administrator, Defence Housing Authority (DHA), Karachi is rightly given credit for the outstanding improvements to DHA, it was Lt Gen Asif Nawaz Janjua, as Corps Commander and thus President DHA, who gave the support and free hand that allowed Brig Niazi to turn DHA into one of Asia’s model housing conglomerates.
There is no controversy attached to either of the appointees, selection having been based on their inherent professionalism rather than on various political nuances or lobbying effort by either of them. The Government had a number of permutations and combinations to go by, electing to be safe rather than sorry in the event by going strictly according to seniority. The promotions have been well received within the Army and the discerning public, another scalp in the over-feathered cap of Nawaz Sharif. The Leader of the Opposition, Ms Benazir Bhutto, has congratulated the two generals on their promotion, that is as it should be and is in turn a credit to her also. The Armed Forces cannot become the subject of controversy, the military hierarchy cannot become political footballs. Ms Benazir’s tribute to Gen Aslam Beg for the restoration of democracy in Pakistan is well deserved.
An idiotic comment has been going around that Gen Beg could not declare Martial Law because as a Mohajir he was not a “son of the soil” and as such lacked a constituency in the Army. Anyone who knows the Army as a race-less system would immediately discard this suggestion as extremely frivolous, what came to a tragic head in 1971 in East Pakistan was an aberration based on years of accumulating suspicion. Gen Beg is the strongest Chief of the Army since Ayub, his forceful personality ensured that democracy became (and remained) possible. His style of seeking consensus is not peculiar to the Army, while suggestions are invited at all levels to register various premises, the executive orders are that of the single individual, to be executed once given without protest or reservation. To those who think that the Army is run by a collegial Committee of Corps Commanders with the COAS as Chairman of the Board have no knowledge of the internal working of the Army. What to talk of Generals, even Jawans express their candid feelings during Unit Durbars while varying views are aired in the Units’ Monthly Security Intelligence Report (MSIR). The views of the senior officers having been ascertained, it was Gen Beg who articulated that firmly in favour of democracy. The COAS of the Pakistan Army (and the C-in-C till the post was abolished) has always had a dominant position in Pakistan barring for the Tikka Khan period when the COAS was totally subservient to civilian authority. The post of COAS has carried a larger than life political clout. Take the recent appointments. Technically, Asif Nawaz is junior to Shamim Alam, yet it is he who has got more attention in the domestic and international media, as the executive head of the Army once he assumes the post he will be the man who will have a very potent weapon on his shoulder, the undying and unflinching support of the Pakistan Army, right or wrong, till the moment of his own retirement. While personality also matters, any lesser man than Asif Nawaz would grow in stature on assuming the position of COAS in the country.
This may not be a happy occasion for unsuccessful aspirants. A whole set of really deserving officers usually fail to reach the pinnacle. One of the very fine senior officers produced by the Pakistan Army, Lt Gen Imtiazullah Warraich, the incumbent Deputy COAS, retires because of this bad timing in mid-July. He must have been a very strong candidate for the post of CJCSC or even COAS if Gen Beg had been elevated to CJCSC. Aslam Beg has instituted a rigid retirement principle, putting it also into practice to his own personal detriment (and lasting credit). A precedent has been set that bodes good for the future so that others may not tamper with the system out of vested interest. For any soldier the ultimate ambition is always the top slot in the Army, as such Gen Warraich must be disappointed, being the soldier he is (and that others are proud of), he will take this disappointment in stride.
Lt Gen Hameed Gul, junior to Shamim Alam and Asif Nawaz in the packing order, must have also come extremely close to being selected. Despite controversy surrounding him during his ISI tenure, first in the political role in the formation of IJI and then in the military role in the ISI-supported Mujahideen failure at Jalalabad, Hameed Gul remains one of the finest professionals that this Army has produced. He has Pan-Islamic geo-political strategic views on which he has been quite articulate. Since his origins are from Central Asia, his world-view spans from that dimension and tends to be an anathema to detractors, his spirited motivation taken for burning ambition. While none of our generals can be considered to be doves, Hameed Gul is considered to be more hawkish than the rest, when he was shifted from the ISI during Ms Benazir tenure, the Indians reportedly celebrated. One hopes that his services to the nation will not be lost and in the new structure of the Army under a unified Command he will become a four star Vice COAS, an appointment of which this outstanding soldier is really deserving. There are other Lieutenant Generals in the Army lower down the line, some have been outstanding from their cadet days and maintain their brilliance as well as moral uprightness, some are of pedestrian quality having sneaked through on a Client-Patron relationship in the system despite fouling up at all conceivable opportunities. By and large our military hierarchy are composed of professionals. Military rulers with a commitment towards the Service always have a Hobson’s choice to put professionals in the crucial posts, late Gen Zia did a balancing act quite successfully for some time but nature ultimately played its own lone hand. Gen Beg was not late Gen Zia’s first choice for VCOAS and Gen Shamim Alam was not a Zia favourite to become a Lieutenant General, both were handicapped being professionals and thus suspect, both came through because politicians preferred professionals rather than pocket Bonapartes, destiny played the rest. In a more vivid example the Former President of Bangladesh, Gen Ershad, appointed Lt Gen Nooruddin as COAS Bangladesh Army, opting for a professional instead of being safe with a loyalist. Add another professional in the shape of Maj Gen Abdul Salam as Chief of General Staff, when the crunch came both reacted as professionals in the higher interests of the Bangladesh and the Bangladesh Army, easing Gen Ershad out by going the Constitutional route.
One cannot detract from Gen Aslam Beg’s services to the nation. The restoration of democracy has been one of his singular achievements, the “Glasnost” he brought about in the Army may have been controversial, in sum total it has been good for the Army, perceived now as a national army of whom everyone is proud of. Except for the brief hiccup during the Gulf crisis where Gen Beg probably got led away by some glib talking colleagues and followed the emotions of the streets rather than the international mainstream (clearly annoying the Americans who wanted their friends to stand up and be counted and rightly had every reason to be acutely sensitive to such issues at that time), Gen Beg has been a tower of strength to the nation on the road back to full democracy. One expects him not to totally hang up his spurs, but to still serve the nation, perhaps even as a member of the democratic government. The attention being showered on the COAS appointment in contrast to that of the superior-in-rank CJCSC exposes the contradictions in the present system and calls out for the immediate constitution of an Unified Command where the Commander of all the Armed Forces as Chairman JCS calls the shots rather than the Chief of one of the three Services, albeit the most dominant one. To ensure that this anomaly is corrected for the good of the nation, Gen Beg could conceivably continue after retirement in some capacity to straighten out the present aberrations in our Defence Field.
Admiral Sirohey has had his share of luck propelling him to the post of CNS and then that of acting CJCSC on 17 Aug 88. He assumed the post on 09 Nov 88. Mainly because of the steadfastness of his Service Chief colleagues, he survived Ms Benazir’s attempt to dump him in Aug 89, a year later he saw her off into the sunset. Admiral Sirohey must do the right thing by this country and elect to be released from his duties on 17 Aug 91 so that the technical complications of Shamim Alam being senior to Asif Nawaz but wearing the rank of full General three months later can be smoothly resolved. If nothing else Admiral Sirohey will remain in posterity for this gesture of a smooth transition in the Defence Forces. Wishful thinking, but one can hope!
The ultimate credit must go to the Nawaz Sharif Government for negotiating another minefield with care (and even elan). Political control over military affairs is manifest in a democratic system, that is as it should be.
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