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Pakistan
Index
Figure 1. Administrative Divisions of Pakistan, 1994
PAKISTAN BECAME AN INDEPENDENT STATE in 1947, the
realization
of a yearning by India's Muslims, who feared domination by
the
Hindu majority in a postcolonial India. As the British
made their
final plans to surrender the "Jewel in the Crown" of their
empire, the earlier, elite "Two Nations Theory," premised
on the
notion of a separate homeland for the subcontinent's
Muslim
minority, had broadened its popular appeal and evolved
into a
collective vision championed by Muslims of all
backgrounds. After
independence, a debate commenced among contending groups
over
further refinement of that vision. Agreement on what
system of
government the new nation should adopt--a critical aspect
of the
debate--was never fully reached. Indeed, few nations have
in so
short a period undergone as many successive political and
constitutional experiments as has Pakistan. This
irresolution
contributed, in the decades following independence, to a
recurrent pattern of crisis: repeated coups and extended
periods
in which martial law replaced civilian government, violent
deaths
of several national leaders, periodic strife among ethnic
groups,
and, most traumatically, a civil war that divided the
country in
two.
The struggle over the character and soul of Pakistan
continues. Although democracy returned to Pakistan in 1988
after
a long lapse, it is on trial daily, its continuation by no
means
certain. Definition of the vision of what Pakistan
represents is
still being contested from many opposing quarters.
Pakistan's status in the world has changed dramatically
in
the nearly one-half century of its existence as an
independent
state. In the twilight years of the Cold War, it achieved
international stature as a "frontline" state during the
Soviet
occupation of neighboring Afghanistan. With the Soviet
departure
from Afghanistan in the late 1980s and the end of the Cold
War,
Pakistan's role in the world arena has become less
visible, and
its voice has diminished to the level of many other
developing
states competing in the new world order. Yet, during the
years it
spent in support of the Afghan struggle against Soviet
domination, Pakistan impressed upon the world community a
new
appreciation of its standing among Islamic nations and of
its
ideological commitment to causes it champions.
In terms of its military and economic development,
Pakistan
is a "threshold" state. The world's first Islamic "de
facto"
nuclear-weapon state, it has long been at loggerheads with
its
larger and more powerful neighbor, India, which, like
Pakistan,
denies having built nuclear weapons but not its ability to
do so
at the "turn of a screw." A nation well positioned to
serve as an
economic model for other developing countries in the
post-Cold-
War era--especially the Islamic states of the former
Soviet
Union--Pakistan has shown steady and impressive long-term
economic growth and is successfully making the transition
from an
overwhelmingly agricultural to an industrial economy. Yet,
despite its considerable achievements in technology and
commerce,
Pakistan confronts many of the same problems it faced at
its
birth. The nation has one of the world's highest
population
growth rates, making it difficult for the government to
address
the problems of poverty and attendant ills that affect so
many in
its society. Indeed, social development has lagged behind
economic gains. Quality of life indicators--literacy
rates,
especially among women, human rights, and universal access
to
heath care--have shown Pakistan to be a country with
serious
deficiencies.
Throughout history, Pakistan has been strongly affected
by
its geostrategic placement as a South Asian frontier
located at
the juncture of South Asia, West Asia, and Central Asia.
Scholars
have called Pakistan the "fulcrum of Asia" because since
antiquity invaders have traversed this frontier carrying
with
them the seeds of great civilizations. The armies of Islam
came
to South Asia through the same mountain passes in the
north-west
of Pakistan that the Indo-Aryans, Alexander the Great, the
Kushans, and others had earlier entered.
Present-day Pakistan has been shaped by its rich
history,
pre-Islamic as well as Islamic, but colored in particular
by the
exigencies of its troubled and bloody birth as a nation in
1947.
The partitioning of British India into India and Pakistan
was
preceded and accompanied by communal riots of
unprecedented
violence and scope that forced millions of Hindu, Muslim,
and
Sikh refugees to flee across the new international
borders.
The partition plan that led to the separate states of
India
and Pakistan was drawn up in an atmosphere of urgency as a
swell
of religious and ethnic unrest shook India. Under
guidelines
established with the help of Britain's last viceroy in
India,
Lord Louis Mountbatten, the perplexing task of
establishing the
new boundaries of Pakistan was accomplished. Most Indian
Muslims
lived either on the dusty plains of Punjab or in the humid
delta
of Bengal. Contiguous Muslim-majority districts in Punjab
and
Bengal were awarded to Pakistan under the plan's
guidelines. The
additional task of deciding the status of the more than
500
semiautonomous princely states of India still remained.
All but
three of these quickly acceded to either Pakistan or
India. But
the two largest princely states, Jammu and Kashmir
(ususally just
called Kashmir) and Hyderabad, and one small state,
Junagadh,
posed special problems. Hyderabad and Junagadh were
located
within territory awarded to India but were both Hindu
majority
states ruled by a Muslim leader. These states hesitated
but were
quickly incorporated by force into India. The status of
the third
state, Kashmir, which had borders with both India and
Pakistan,
proved especially problematic. Unlike Hyderabad and
Junagadh,
Kashmir had a Muslim majority and was ruled by a Hindu.
Kashmir's
maharaja was reluctant to accede to either Pakistan or
India, but
when threatened by a Muslim uprising (with outside support
from
Pakistani tribesmen) against his unpopular rule, he
hurriedly
signed the documents of accession, in October 1947,
required by
India before it would provide aid. Pakistan then launched
an
active military and diplomatic campaign to undo the
accession,
which it maintained was secured by fraud. Kashmir was
subsequently divided by the occupying armies of both
nations, the
Indians holding two-thirds of the state, including the
Muslim-
dominated Vale of Kashmir and the Hindu-majority region of
Jammu
to the south, while the Pakistanis controlled the western
third,
which they call Azad (Free) Kashmir. India and Pakistan
would
fight two major wars to maintain or seize control over
this
state: in 1947-48 and in 1965. Kashmir's contested and
indeterminate status continues dangerously to complicate
relations between South Asia's two most powerful states.
The bifurcated Pakistan that existed from August 1947
to
December 1971 was composed of two parts, or wings, known
as East
Pakistan and West Pakistan, separated by 1,600 kilometers
of
Indian territory. Observers pointed out, however, that the
people
of the two wings were estranged from each other in
language and
cultural traditions: that the Bengali "monsoon Islam" of
the East
Wing was alien to the "desert Islam" of the West Wing. The
East
Wing, notable for its Bengali ethnic homogeneity and its
collective Bangla cultural and linguistic heritage,
contained
over half of the population of Pakistan and sharply
contrasted
with the ethnic and linguistic diversity of the West Wing.
The
West Wing consisted of four major ethnic groups--Punjabis,
Pakhtuns, Sindhis, and Baloch. The
muhajirs (see Glossary)
constituted a fifth important group. The political leaders
of
Pakistan, however--particularly those of West
Pakistan--asserted
that the Islamic faith and a shared fear of "Hindu India"
provided an indestructible bond joining the two societies
into
one nation. This assertion proved flawed, however. A
culture of
distrust grew between the two wings, fueled by imbalances
of
representation in the government and military.
Furthermore,
Bengali politicians argued that the economic
"underdevelopment"
of East Pakistan was a result of the "internal
colonialism" of
the rapacious capitalist class of West Pakistan. In the
final
analysis, real and perceived iniquities would fray this
"indestructible" bond holding the country together. Less
than a
quarter century after the country's founding, Pakistan
would
fission, the eastern wing becoming the independent nation
of
Bangladesh.
It was not Pakistan's precarious security nor even its
cultural and ethnic diversity, but rather characteristics
deeply
rooted in the nation's polity that most impeded its early
democratic development. The essentials for such a
process--
disciplined political parties and a participatory mass
electorate--were missing in Pakistan's first years as an
independent state. The All-India Muslim League, the party
that
led the struggle for Pakistan, failed to mature into a
stable
democratic party with a national following capable of
holding
together the nation's diverse ethnic and cultural groups.
Instead, it disintegrated into rival factions soon after
independence. Lack of a consensus over prospective Islamic
provisions for the nation's governance, Bengali resentment
over
the West Pakistanis' initial imposition of Urdu as the
national
language, and the reluctance of West Pakistani politicians
to
share power with politicians of the East Wing--all were
factors
that delayed the acceptance of Pakistan's first
constitution
until nine years after independence. The nation was also
dealt a
severe psychological blow when in September 1948, only
thirteen
months after independence, Mohammad Ali Jinnah--known
reverentially as the Quaid-i-Azam (Great Leader)--died.
Jinnah's
role in the creation of Pakistan had been so dominant that
it has
been observed that he had neither peers nor associates,
only
lieutenants and aides. Jinnah's primary lieutenant,
Liaquat Ali
Khan, the nation's first prime minister, was assassinated
in
October 1951.
Jinnah's and Liaquat's leadership, so critical to the
nation
in its infancy, was replaced in the early and mid-1950s by
the
generally lackluster, often inept performances of the
nation's
politicians. Those few politicians who were effective were
all
too willing to play upon the emotions of an electorate as
yet
unaccustomed to open democratic debate. The ethnic and
provincial
causes championed by these politicians too often took
precedence
over national concerns. The government was weak and unable
to
quell the violence and ethnic unrest that distracted it
from
building strong parliamentary institutions.
Believing that Pakistan's first attempt at establishing
a
parliamentary system of government failed, in the late
1950s the
military ousted the "inefficient and rascally"
politicians.
During this period, however, the belief that democracy was
the
"natural state" of Pakistan and an important political
goal was
not entirely abandoned. Mohammad Ayub Khan, Pakistan's
first
"soldier-statesman," regarded himself as more of a
reformer than
an autocrat and, as chief martial law administrator, early
on
acknowledged the need to relinquish some military control.
In his
unique governmental system called the "Basic Democracies,"
Ayub
Khan became the "civilian" head of a military regime. Ayub
Khan's
"democracy from above" allowed for controlled
participation of
the electorate and was supposed to capture the peculiar
"genius"
of Pakistan. To his critics, however, Ayub Khan's
political
system was better characterized as a form of
"representational
dictatorship." In 1969 an ailing Ayub Khan was forced to
resign
following nationwide rioting against his regime's
perceived
corruption, spent economic policies, and responsibility
for
Pakistan's defeat in the 1965 Indo-Pakistani War over
Kashmir.
Ayub Khan was briefly succeeded by his army commander in
chief,
General Mohammad Yahya Khan, who would best be remembered
for
presiding over the two most traumatic and psychologically
devastating events in the country's history: the
humiliating
defeat of Pakistan's armed forces by India and the
secession of
East Pakistan.
The East Wing of Pakistan had not benefitted greatly
from
Ayub Khan's "Decade of Progress," with its gains in
agricultural
production and trade. Bengali politicians wanted to
improve what
they considered to be the second-class political and
economic
status of their province vis-à-vis West Pakistan, just as
they
had earlier agitated for greater cultural and linguistic
recognition. The country's first nationwide direct
elections were
held in December 1970. The East Pakistan-based Awami
League,
campaigning on a platform calling for almost total
provincial
autonomy, won virtually all the seats allotted to the East
Wing
and was thereby assured a majority in the national
legislature.
The results of Pakistan's first nationwide experiment
in
democracy were not honored. Fearing Bengali dominance in
the
nation's political affairs, West Pakistani politicians,
led by
Pakistan People's Party (PPP) leader Zulfiqar Ali Bhutto
and
supported by senior army officers, most of whom were
Punjabis,
pressured Yahya Khan to postpone the convening of the
National
Assembly. When the Bengalis of East Pakistan revolted
openly at
this turn of events, the Pakistani military banned the
Awami
League, arrested its leader, Sheikh Mujibur Rahman, and
began a
massive military crackdown. In the savage civil war that
followed, tens of thousands of Bengalis were killed, and
an
estimated 10 million people took refuge in India. In early
December 1971, India entered the war and within weeks
decisively
defeated the Pakistan military. From the aftermath of the
war and
the dismemberment of Pakistan came the birth of a new
nation:
Bangladesh.
To most Pakistanis, the news of Pakistan's defeat came
as a
numbing shock--their military was disgraced and condemned
for its
brutal crackdown in East Pakistan. Literally overnight,
the
country had lost its status as the largest Muslim nation
in the
world. Gone, too, were any illusions of military parity
with
India.
Pakistan soon recovered under the charismatic
leadership of
Zulfiqar Ali Bhutto, who launched a forceful campaign to
restore
the people's self-confidence and to repair Pakistan's
tarnished
image abroad. Initially, Bhutto was sworn in as president
and
chief martial law administrator, the two positions he took
over
from Yahya Khan. Although he soon revoked formal martial
law, he
governed autocratically until he was overthrown in 1977.
A man of contradictions, a product of a privileged
feudal
background, the Western-educated Bhutto nonetheless
expounded
populist themes of shared wealth, national unity, and the
need to
restore political democracy under the slogan "Islam our
Faith,
Democracy our Polity, Socialism our Economy." Bhutto
nationalized
a large number of the most important manufacturing,
insurance,
and domestically owned banking industries--actions that
substantially slowed economic growth.
By the mid-1970s, Bhutto's autocratic tendencies were
interfering with his ability to govern. His determination
to
crush any and all potential opposition had become
obsessive.
Bhutto purged his party of real or imagined opponents,
created a
praetorian security force answerable only to himself,
brought the
prestigious civil service under his personal control, and
sacked
military officers who possessed what he described as
"Bonapartist
tendencies." Fatefully, Bhutto then named General Mohammad
Zia
ul-Haq--a relatively junior and obscure general--to hold
the top
army post. Most observers had predicted that Bhutto's PPP
would
retain control of the National Assembly in the elections
of March
1977, but the margin of the PPP's victory was so
overwhelming
that charges of fraud were immediately made, and riots
erupted
throughout the country. General Zia was well positioned to
act
against Bhutto. He abruptly informed the nation that he
had taken
over as the chief martial law administrator but assured
the
people that the military desired only to supervise fair
elections, which he said would be held in ninety days.
This was
the first of many promises Zia did not keep. As election
time
approached, Zia announced that criminal charges were being
brought against Bhutto and postponed the elections until
after
Bhutto had been tried in court. Bhutto was found guilty of
complicity in murder of a political opponent, and later
hanged.
The memory of Bhutto and the circumstances surrounding his
fall
became a rallying cry for his daughter, Benazir, who,
during the
1980s, embraced the politics of revenge as she began her
political ascent in steadfast opposition to Zia and
martial law.
Zia ul-Haq's eleven years of rule left a profound--and
controversial--legacy on Pakistani society. Zia's military
junta
differed in important aspects from the earlier military
regime of
Ayub Khan. Like Zia, Ayub Khan had been contemptuous of
politicians; his style of governing was autocratic in the
tradition of the British Raj and its Mughal predecessors.
Nevertheless, Ayub Khan welcomed Western influences in his
quest
for economic development, and he introduced various reform
measures, such as the Muslim Family Laws Ordinance, which
provided protection for women within their families.
Moreover,
early in his rule, Ayub Khan isolated the army from the
governmental decision-making process and instead relied
heavily
on senior civil servants and a few conservative
politicians.
Zia's rule, by contrast, was notable for the high
visibility
of a small number of army officers and for his fervent
advocacy
of a more stringent version of Islamic orthodoxy. Zia made
clear
his desire to supplant the prevailing legal system with
Islamic law, the
sharia (see Glossary),
and championed a role for Islam
that was more state directed and less a matter of personal
choice. He proclaimed that all laws had to conform with
Islamic
tenets and values and charged the military with protecting
the
nation's ideology as well as its territorial integrity.
His
establishment of the Federal Shariat Court to examine laws
in
light of the injunctions of Islam further involved the
state in
religious affairs.
The crucial and perplexing question of the role Islam
should
play in Pakistan existed before the creation of the nation
and
remains unresolved today. Jinnah, himself, supplied a
historical
reference to the dilemma, stating in his inaugural
address, "You
will find that in course of time Hindus would cease to be
Hindus
and Muslims would cease to be Muslims, not in the
religious
sense, because that is the personal faith of each
individual, but
in the political sense as citizens of the State." Although
each
of Pakistan's indigenous constitutions has defined
Pakistan as an
Islamic state, determining what this means in practice has
usually been left open to individual preference. Zia
elevated the
tempo of the debate over the role of Islam in Pakistani
society
by directly involving the state with religion.
The Soviet invasion of Afghanistan in December 1979 and
its
nine-year occupation of that country not only had a direct
impact
on Pakistani society in general but also held vital
importance
for Zia's leadership, influencing his domestic and
international
image as well as the survivability of his regime. From the
beginning of his rule, Zia was regarded by much of the
world
community as a usurper of power and as something of an
international pariah. He furthered his isolation by
deciding,
early in his regime, to pursue the development of nuclear
weapons, a program begun earlier by Bhutto. Building on
the long
and close relationship between the United States and
Pakistan
dating from the early years of the Cold War, United States
president Jimmy Carter and his administration worked
energetically but unsuccessfully to discourage Pakistan's
nuclear
program, and finally suspending all economic and military
aid on
April 6, 1979. The execution of Bhutto two days earlier
that
month had added to United States displeasure with the Zia
regime
and Pakistan. Relations with the United States soured
further
when a Pakistani mob burned down the United States Embassy
in
November 1979.
The Soviet invasion of Afghanistan abruptly ended
Pakistan's
estrangement from the United States. Within days, Pakistan
once
again became Washington's indispensable frontline ally
against
Soviet expansionism. Massive military and economic
assistance
flowed into Pakistan despite Zia's continued pursuit of
nuclear
weapons technology. Pakistan's nuclear program made major
advances in the 1980s. Moreover, the change in
geostrategic
circumstances following the occupation of neighboring
Afghanistan
allowed Zia to postpone the promised elections repeatedly
while
he consolidated his position. Foreign assistance provided
a
stimulus to the economy and became an important means by
which
Zia neutralized his opponents. The war, depicted by Zia
and the
Afghan resistance as a holy war of believers versus
nonbelievers,
facilitated Zia's efforts to transform Pakistan into a
state
governed by Islamic law.
The war in Afghanistan had many profound and disturbing
residual effects on Pakistani society. Pakistan absorbed
more
than 3.2 million Afghan refugees into its North-West
Frontier
Province and Balochistan. The influx of so many displaced
people
threatened to overwhelm the local economies as refugees
competed
with Pakistanis for resources. With the refugees came an
arsenal
of weapons. Domestic violence increased dramatically
during the
war years, and observers spoke dismally of a "Kalashnikov
culture" asserting itself in Pakistani society.
By the time of Zia's death in an airplane explosion in
August
1988, an agreement had been signed signaling the end of
Soviet
military intervention in Afghanistan, and the Soviet
pullout had
already begun. Domestic politics in Pakistan were
surprisingly
tranquil as Pakistan prepared for a transition of power
and
elections for the National Assembly, which Zia had earlier
dissolved. An era seemed to have ended and a new, more
promising
one to have begun. The prospect for genuine democracy in
Pakistan
appeared to have dramatically improved, and Pakistan
appeared to
have reached a watershed in its political development.
After her party won a plurality of seats in the
parliamentary
elections of November 1988, Benazir Bhutto formed a
fragile
coalition government and assumed the position of prime
minister.
She became the first freely elected leader in Pakistan
since her
father was deposed and the first woman to hold such a high
position in a Muslim country. Confronted by severe
disadvantages
from the start, Benazir soon discovered that the art of
governance was considerably more difficult than
orchestrating
opposition politics. An experienced politician but an
inexperienced head of government, she was outmaneuvered by
her
political opposition, intimidated by the military, and
diverted
from her reform program. Benazir was also frustrated by
her
inability to control the spreading social disorder, the
widespread banditry, and the mounting ethnic violence
between
Sindhis and muhajirs in her home province of Sindh.
A
prolonged struggle between Bhutto and the provincial
government
of Mian Nawaz Sharif in Punjab culminated in
bureaucrat-turned-
president Ghulam Ishaq Khan's siding with Nawaz Sharif
against
Benazir. Empowered by the Eighth Amendment provisions of
the
constitution--a direct legacy of the Zia ul-Haq regime,
which
strengthened the powers of the president at the expense of
the
prime minister--Ishaq Khan dismissed Benazir in August
1990 for
alleged corruption and her inability to maintain law and
order.
He also dismissed her cabinet and dissolved the National
Assembly
as well as the Sindh North-West Frontier Province
provincial
assemblies and ordered new elections for October.
The elections brought Nawaz Sharif's Islamic Democratic
Alliance (Islami Jamhoori Ittehad--IJI) coalition to
power, and
for a brief period there appeared to be a workable
relationship
between the new prime minister and the president. Yet this
alliance soon unraveled over policy differences,
specifically
over the question of who had the power to appoint the top
army
commander. In charges similar to those Ishaq Khan had
before
brought against Benazir, Nawaz Sharif was accused in early
1993
of "corruption and mismanagement." Nawaz Sharif, like
Benazir
before him, was dismissed and the Parliament
dissolved--without a
vote of confidence ever having been taken in the
legislature.
This time, however, the Supreme Court overturned the
president's
action, declaring it unconstitutional. The court restored
both
the prime minister and the parliament. The Supreme Court's
ruling, which served as a stunning rebuke to Ishaq Khan,
succeeded in defusing his presidentially engineered crisis
and,
more important, allowed Ishaq Khan's opponents to boldly
challenge the legitimacy of the civil-military bureaucracy
that
had so often interrupted the process of democratic nation
building.
The crisis in government continued as Ishaq Khan, still
resolved to undermine the prime minister, brazenly
manipulated
provincial politics, dissolving the provincial assemblies
in
Punjab and the North-West Frontier Province. Fears of
military
intervention and the reimposition of martial law loomed as
the
ongoing feud between the president and prime minister
threatened
to bring effective government to a standstill. Although
the army
ultimately intervened in mid-1993 to break the stalemate
and
convinced both men to step down, fears of a military
takeover
were unfounded. The army proved sensitive to the spirit of
the
times and exercised admirable restraint as it assumed a
new and
benign role as arbiter rather than manipulator of the
nation's
politics.
A caretaker government led by World Bank official Moeen
Qureshi was installed in July 1993, with the mandate to
preside
over new elections for the national and provincial
assemblies.
The caretaker government surprised everyone by its vigor
and
impressed Pakistanis and international observers alike.
During
his three-month tenure, Qureshi earned the accolade "Mr.
Clean"
by initiating an impressive number of reform measures.
Qureshi
published lists of unpaid debts and prevented
debtor-politicians
from running for office. He also devalued the currency and
cut
farm subsidies and public-service expenditures. Because
the
Qureshi caretaker government was temporary and not much
constrained by the realpolitik of Pakistani society,
observers
doubted that any succeeding government would be able to
match its
record and boldness of action.
In October 1993, Qureshi fulfilled his primary mandate
of
holding new elections for the national and provincial
assemblies.
The contest was now between two staunch adversaries--Nawaz
Sharif
and Benazir Bhutto--and their respective parties. Although
Benazir's PPP received less of the popular vote than Nawaz
Sharif's Pakistan Muslim League (PML-N), it won a narrow
plurality of seats in the National Assembly, enabling
Benazir to
form a government. Presidential elections were held in
November
and Farooq Leghari, a member of Benazir's party, won,
thereby
strengthening her position.
In a political culture that traditionally placed great
emphasis on the personal characteristics of its leaders
and
considerably less on the development of its democratic
institutions, the personality of these leaders has always
been of
paramount, and many would argue exaggerated, importance.
The case
of Benazir Bhutto, Pakistan's prime minister in mid-1995,
is no
exception. Benazir's return to the pinnacle of Pakistani
politics
in October 1993 was portrayed with great theater as a
redemptive
second coming for the country's self-proclaimed "Daughter
of
Destiny." Benazir pledged this time to fulfill some of the
promises she had failed to keep during her first tenure as
prime
minister. These included calming the potentially explosive
ethnic
problems in the country, strengthening a treasury
overburdened
with debt, reconstructing a financial system weakened by
corruption, managing a burgeoning population with
inadequate
access to social services and one making heavy demands on
the
country's fragile ecology, enforcing women's rights in a
decidedly male-dominated society, and forging a consensus
on the
role of Islam in contemporary Pakistani society. Above
all,
Benazir promised to steer Pakistan further along the road
to
democracy--a difficult and sensitive task in a country
whose
power structure has traditionally been authoritarian and
whose
politics has been socially divisive and confrontational.
As before, Benazir faces a continual challenge from
Nawaz
Sharif's Punjab-based PML-N, which appears to be pursuing
the
same strategy of zero-sum politics that succeeded in
paralyzing
her first government. For a short while, following
Benazir's
return to power, her public rhetoric and that of her
opponent
seemed less confrontational than before and tended to
stress
themes of political stability, cooperation, and
accommodation.
This period of détente was short-lived, however, as a
familiar
pattern in Pakistani politics soon reasserted itself, with
vigorous opposition attempts to bring down the Benazir
government. Unrestrained and sometimes chimerical
criticism
fueled opposition-orchestrated general strikes, which
continued
unabated throughout 1994 and into 1995. In response,
Benazir
branded her opposition as traitorous and "antistate." By
the end
of the first half of 1995, relations had become so
vitriolic
between Benazir and Nawaz Sharif that in June, Nawaz
Sharif
accused Benazir of being "part of the problem" of the
escalating
violence in Karachi, and Benazir, for her part, leveled an
accusation of treason against the former prime minister
and chief
rival, only months after her government had arrested Nawaz
Sharif's father for alleged financial crimes.
Promising to be true to her reform agenda, Benazir
unveiled a
government budget in June 1994 that called for lowering
import
duties, making the rupee convertible on the current
account,
broadening the tax base, and holding down defense
spending. These
measures will be strengthened by Pakistan's receipt of
most of
the US$2.5 billion in aid that it requested at a meeting
of
international donors in 1994. In order to receive US$1.4
billion
in preferential International Monetary Fund
(IMF--see Glossary)
credits, Pakistan agreed to a three-year structural
adjustment
program of fiscal austerity and deficit cutting. Under
guidelines
set by the IMF, Pakistan hopes to raise its gross domestic
product
(GDP--see Glossary)
growth to an average of 6.5
percent
per year while eventually bringing down inflation to 5
percent.
Whether this goal can be reached depends largely on
raising
Pakistan's export earnings, which suffered in the past few
years
primarily as a result of a drought, a major flood, and a
plant
virus "leaf curl" that has devastated cotton production.
Most observers believe that Pakistan's greatest
economic
advantage is its people: the country possesses the
reservoir of
entrepreneurial and technical skills necessary for rapid
economic
growth and development. The textile industry is especially
critical to Pakistan's development. This dynamic sector in
the
economy--a major producer of cotton cloth and yarn--should
benefit from the phaseout of textile import quotas under
the
General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade (GATT). By late
1994,
Pakistan's official foreign-exchange reserves had risen
from
below US$300 million the previous year to more than US$3
billion.
The government's continuing strategy of privatizing
state-owned
enterprises appears to be invigorating the economy and
attracting
substantial foreign investment in the country's stock
exchanges.
An optimistic Benazir stated that "Pakistan is poised for
an
economic takeoff" and noted that in the "new world of
today,
trade had replaced aid."
Although Pakistan's recent economic gains are
encouraging,
the country faces a number of long-term impediments to
growth.
The most serious of these are rapid population growth,
governmental neglect of social development, continued high
inflation and unemployment, a bloated and inefficient
bureaucracy, widespread tax evasion and corruption, a weak
infrastructure, and defense expenditures that consume more
than
25 percent (some estimates are as high as 40 percent) of
government spending.
Benazir will also need to address Pakistan's most
pressing
social problems if her reform program is to have a lasting
effect. Many of these problems are caused by the skewed
distribution of resources in Pakistan. Although the middle
class
is growing, wealth has remained largely in the control of
the
nation's elite. Agitation caused by the unfulfilled
promise of
rising expectations is fueled by sophisticated media,
which
extend a glimpse of a better life to every village and
basti (barrio).
Pakistan must also work to protect its international
image.
In mid-1995 human rights violations continued to be widely
reported, including arbitrary arrest and detention,
torture of
prisoners, and incidents of extrajudicial killings by
overzealous
police, most often in connection with government efforts
to
restore law and order to troubled Sindh. The government,
faced
with unprecedented levels of societal violence, has been
forced
to take strong action. Prime Minister Benazir Bhutto
pledged to
use "ruthlessness" where necessary to confront and to root
out
ethnic and religious militants. Pakistan is also
challenged by
pervasive narcotics syndicates, which wield great
influence in
Karachi, as well as in Peshawar in the North-West Frontier
Province. Pakistan has, along with Afghanistan, become one
of the
world's leading producers of heroin, supplying a reported
20 to
40 percent of the heroin consumed in the United States and
70
percent of that consumed in Europe. Pakistan also has an
expanding domestic market for illicit drugs--a scourge
that is
having a devastating effect on Pakistani society. The
Pakistan
government estimates that there are 2.5 million drug
addicts in
the country--1.7 million of them addicted to heroin.
A particularly worrisome problem is Pakistan's unwanted
role
as a base for Islamic militants. These militants come from
a wide
range of Arab countries, including Algeria, Tunisia,
Egypt, Iraq,
Jordan, Saudi Arabia, and Sudan, as well as nations in
Central
Asia and the Far East, and are mostly based in the
North-West
Frontier Province. Many of these militants participated in
the
war in Afghanistan but now serve other, often extremist,
causes.
An attack that killed two American employees of the United
States
consulate in Karachi in March 1995 has drawn international
attention to the growing terrorist activity in Pakistan.
Pakistan's most pressing foreign relations problem is
still
Kashmir. India routinely accuses Pakistan of supporting a
Kashmiri "intifadah"--a Muslim uprising in
Indian-controlled
areas of Kashmir. The rebellion, which is centered in the
Vale of
Kashmir, a scenic intermontane valley with a Muslim
majority, has
claimed 20,000 lives since 1990. Pakistan claims only to
have
lent moral and political support to Muslim and Sikh
separatist
sentiments in Kashmir and the Indian state of Punjab,
respectively, while it accuses India of creating
dissension in
Pakistan's province of Sindh. The Kashmir issue has now
broadened
in scope and has taken on a new and ominous dimension. In
February 1993, then Central Intelligence Agency Director
James
Woolsey testified before Congress that the arms race
between
India and Pakistan represented the "most probable
prospect" for
the future use of nuclear weapons. These sentiments were
echoed
the following year by United Nations Secretary General
Boutros-Ghali, who cautioned that an escalation of
hostilities
between Pakistan and India could lead to an accident, with
"disastrous repercussions." Tensions on the military Line
of
Control between Pakistani-controlled Azad Kashmir and
Indian-held
Kashmir remained high in mid-1995.
In August 1994, former Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif made
an
announcement calculated to showcase his hardline stance on
Kashmir, embarrass Benazir's government, and further
complicate
its relations with the United States over the two
countries' most
sensitive bilateral issue--Pakistan's clandestine nuclear
weapons
program. He stated, "If India dares to attack Azad
Kashmir, it
will have to face the Pakistani atom bomb. I declare that
Pakistan is in possession of an atom bomb."
Nawaz Sharif's statement fortified the position of
United
States supporters of the Pressler Amendment of the Foreign
Assistance Act, which has suspended United States aid and
most
military arms sales to Pakistan since October 1990. Under
the
amendment, the president must make the required annual
certification to Congress that Pakistan does not possess a
nuclear weapon. The last certification had been given,
guardedly
by President George Bush in November 1989.
The timing of Nawaz Sharif's statement also threatened
to
undermine President William J. Clinton's earlier South
Asian
nonproliferation initiative: a proposal to Congress to
authorize
the release to Pakistan of twenty-eight F-16 fighter
airplanes
(purchased before the aid cutoff) in return for a
verifiable cap
on Pakistan's production of fissile nuclear material. In
mid-
1995, following a visit to the United States by Benazir
Bhutto,
the Clinton administration and Congress appeared to be
moving
toward agreement to significantly relax the Pressler
Amendment
and other "country specific" sanctions that Pakistanis
believe
unfairly penalize their country for its nuclear program
while
overlooking India's program. Relaxation of the sanctions
could
yet be derailed as new accusations by United States
intelligence
officials surfaced in the United States press in early
July 1995
alleging that Pakistan had surreptitiously received fully
operable medium-range M-11 ballistic missiles from China.
The
Clinton administration, however, maintains that there is
no
conclusive proof that the missiles have been delivered,
and until
there is, there will be no change regarding sanctions.
Events in Pakistan point to a nation undergoing
profound and
accelerated change but one very much indebted to its past.
Change
in Pakistan is perhaps most turbulent in the metropolis of
Karachi--Pakistan's economic hub and a city whose
well-being may
offer a glimpse of the future prospects of the nation. In
mid-
1995 Karachi continued to be plagued by a volatile
combination of
sectarian, ethnic, political, and economic unrest. The
city of
more than 12 million seems, in the words of one Pakistan
watcher,
to have fallen almost into a Hobbesian state of "all
against
all," as religious, political, and criminal gangs--many
well
armed--wage a battle for control. In a city that is
growing by
more than 400,000 people a year and has an unemployment
rate as
high as 14 percent, recruits for feuding religious and
political
factions are easily available. The violence left as many
as 1,000
dead in 1994 and showed little sign of abating in 1995.
The army,
ordered to provide a measure of security for the city,
pulled out
in December 1994 after a two- and one-half-year presence,
tiring
of its policeman role and mindful that Karachi's streets
were
becoming too dangerous for its troops.
There are many explanations for the lawlessness and
disorder
in Karachi. Economists cite rampant economic growth.
Sociologists
cite problems arising from
Sunni (see Glossary)
and
Shia (see Glossary)
divisions in Islam and from linguistic and
ethnic
competition, primarily between Urdu-speaking
muhajirs and
native Sindhis. The government complains of unruly
political
parties that are sometimes too willing to include criminal
and
drug-trafficking elements in their ranks, and it even
raises the
specter of the "hidden hand" of Indian agents provocateurs
intent
on destabilizing Pakistan.
In the final analysis, Karachi may present the greatest
risk
as well as the greatest potential for the nation's future.
Some
observers are predicting that the success or failure of
Benazir's
leadership will ultimately rest on how she manages or
fails to
manage the crisis in Karachi. On the one hand, if the city
continues to be mired in anarchy and violence, its
reputation as
a cosmopolitan symbol of the new Pakistan will be
tarnished. If
security does not improve, foreign investors are likely to
stay
away, delaying Pakistan's much-anticipated economic
takeoff. On
the other hand, if the situation in Pakistan's largest
"urban
laboratory" improves, the lessons learned can be applied
elsewhere in the nation.
Benazir's father, former Prime Minister Zulfiqar Ali
Bhutto,
in 1977 wrote, "Politics is not the conversion of a
flowering
society into a wasteland. Politics is the soul of life. It
is my
eternal romance with the people. Only the people can break
this
eternal bond." These words high lighted his philosophy of
bringing politics to the street and deriving strength from
the
masses. This philosophy served his daughter well during
her years
as an opposition figure but considerably less so during
her first
term as prime minister. Whether or not Benazir can keep
the
allegiance of the people while presiding over the
maturation of
Pakistan's democratic institutions will largely depend on
her
understanding of her nation's complex political legacy.
July 10, 1995
Peter R. Blood
Data as of April 1994
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