Legitimising Dishonesty
Most coups are popular with the public at the time of their launching, very few survive the test of time. The coup-makers arrive full of sincere intentions, a burning will to correct the anomalies that endanger the State and a stated resolve not to allow temptations of the good life to get to them. Unfortunately they almost always fall prey to the system they are sworn to rectify. The Oct 12 event seemed to be different but is showing ominous signs of being headed the same way. Man for man the principal actors of Oct 12 are professionally far more competent than their predecessor coup-makers (1958, 1977 and 1989), very surprising, therefore, that the lessons learnt at very hard cost to the reputation of the uniform have been lost, or so it would seem. Cynics claimed that Oct 12 came about because Musharraf’s close aides wanted to save their jobs rather than motivation by any high-minded vision for Pakistan, they were swept aside by the groundswell of mass public opinion favouring the take-over. As we all know perceptions change with time, eventually they count more than facts, public impatience at the continuing status quo may not be justified but it is a key factor.
The chapter on “Aid to Civil Power” in the Manual of Pakistan Military Law (MPML), highlights the threat of the use of force being more potent than the use of force itself. Conversely when force is applied it must be effective. Internal Security (IS) Duties require that even the threat of force must be used sparingly, the body that represents that force must necessarily be kept aloof from the populace to maintain mystique, familiarity breeding contempt. This military regime, albeit in good faith, has seen fit to break this dictum, a broad spectrum of the rank and file getting involved with nearly every administrative process in day-to-day governance. From maintaining macro-accountability as the principal aim, the Army has come down symbolically to meter-reading. Given that the whole political and administrative machinery was rotten to the core, the Army needed to be kept sacrosanct from the taint of pervasive corruption. The revenues have indeed increased, not only because of the khaki meter readers but because of the “monitors” spreading out in various spheres, but at what cost to the Army? And what happens when they go back to the barracks? The worst decision was to include serving uniformed personnel in the tax survey teams for documenting the economy. If the facts are reported by the ISI, MI and Field Intelligence units as they are and not as the seniors would like to hear them, the military hierarchy could evaluate the damage to the uniform because of the traders confrontation with the survey teams. The CBR suckered the Army into this morass to shield their own inefficiency and corruption, the numbers being announced are a farce with which the Ministry of Finance is fooling GHQ. Remember who are the past masters of fudging figures? Most of those returning the forms are already registered tax-payers. Documentation does not need survey teams, it could have been done within the four walls with the available telephone, gas, electricity and water bills, collating these with property records with the Registrars. Random surveys should have followed documentation. Far worse than a simple protest against tax surveys, the authority of civilised society to conduct the legal business of a State has been challenged, that invisible mandate being the foundation of any civilisation. The State has to impose taxes to meet its expenditures, that revenue is the fuel that generates governance. Refusing to pay taxes to the British, the Americans tossed tea chests into Boston Harbour as a protest, it is now known in American History as the “The Boston Tea Party”. What does Umar Sailya”s burning of tax survey forms on the front pages of all newspapers amount to, “The Karachi Mango Party”? And could Umar Sailya be a modern day Daniel Boone? More important the power of the military has been questioned, this public defiance of authority cannot go unchallenged, lack of counter-action will weaken the ability of the institution that holds Pakistan together. Others with far deadlier intentions lurk in the shadows. Will the senior military hierarchy kindly wake up to this very present threat? Or have they succumbed to business as usual, getting contracts for cronies, savouring the trappings of power? Was the Oct 12 coup then really a matter of saving jobs? Whatever happened to Clauswitz and the first principle of war, “the selection and maintenance of aim”?
Budgeting Pakistan, Mission Impossible
Finance Minister Shaukat Aziz proposed the Federal Budget for the year 2000-2001 on TV and radio on Saturday June 17, 2000. As any former Finance Minister of Pakistan will tell you, Tom Cruise has it much easier in the two “Mission Impossible” movies he has starred in, moreover Tom Cruise has distractions of the third kind. PML(N) Senator Sartaj Aziz had a perennial smile when presenting the Federal Budget, the smile of a magician about to pull a rabbit out of a hat. In keeping with the present environment, Shaukat was far more grim, and looking uncomfortable in the trademark Pakistani bureaucrat white shalwar-kameez with black waistcoat outfit. Nevertheless the military regime’s civilian Finance Minister was optimistic in outlining his plans despite the fact that with the institutions of governance in the state of disrepair they are in, it is virtually a “mission impossible”. Shaukat in fact pulled a number of rabbits out of his hat, only time will tell whether the hat was deep enough to hold the rabbits and whether the rabbits were real and not illusions.