Musharraf scores an own-goal
Medieval rulers used to exile anyone they didn't like -- emerging military rivals, potential claimants to the throne, even petty criminals. Banishment was a rough-and-ready way of keeping out "troublemakers." These societies had no concept of citizens' rights.
Pakistan witnessed a version of this obnoxious practice when President Musharraf's government deported Mr. Nawaz Sharif to Saudi Arabia. On arrival at Islamabad, he was served a warrant charging him with money laundering. Logically, he should have been arrested and tried. Instead, he was manhandled, humiliated, and deported.
Only the naïve will buy the propaganda that Mr. Sharif was offered "the choice" of being jailed or deported, and preferred the second.
Even assuming that he was reluctant to face incarceration -- and some of my Pakistani friends believe he almost broke down when jailed in 1999 -- he wouldn't have easily spurned the chance of becoming a powerful symbol of the anti-Musharraf resistance. Besides, he would probably have been granted bail.
If Mr. Sharif were an astute politician, he would have staged a dramatic sit-in at the airport and made a fiery anti-regime speech.
However, that doesn't let the Musharraf government off the culpability hook. It stooped low by privileging an extra-constitutional "secret" agreement over Mr. Sharif's fundamental right, pronounced "inalienable" by the Supreme Court, to return home.
Gen. Musharraf has, thus, only brought discredit upon himself. This will inflame the popular sentiment against him, and more broadly, against the military. Already, anti-military slogans have acquired great currency in Pakistan.
Mr. Sharif has recently gained popularity, in contrast to Ms. Benazir Bhutto, precisely because he has related to the popular mood and taken a strong position against another term for President Musharraf, whether in or out of uniform. Yet, Gen. Musharraf seems bent on committing blunder after blunder. This is typical of the way authoritarian regimes react when gripped by a legitimacy crisis.
After Mr. Sharif's return, Gen. Musharraf's best bet would have been to put him on trial, and when granted bail, allow him, like others, to engage in political activity leading to free and fair assembly elections.
Gen. Musharraf has set the stage for another showdown with the Supreme Court, which ruled in favour of Mr. Sharif's right to come home. Its spirit was clearly to affirm his right to live in Pakistan. Deporting him to Saudi Arabia makes nonsense of that rationale. It'd be a surprise if the court doesn't reaffirm it. That would bring the government more ignominy.
It would convince the public that the government isn't willing to meet a political challenge politically. This is likely to foment mass protests. Under repression, some of them could turn violent. The government will probably cynically try to exploit this by engineering inter-ethnic conflict, or prepare the ground for imposing martial law or emergency. That would be disastrously reckless.
That's where the "foreign hand" comes in! The United States has been interfering aggressively in Pakistani affairs. Although it says Mr. Sharif's deportation is Pakistan's "internal matter," Assistant Secretary of State (and "Virtual Viceroy") Richard Boucher was in Islamabad when the drama was taking place. Deputy Secretary of State John Negroponte later joined him.
Clearly, the US wants to directly supervise a power-sharing arrangement between Gen. Musharraf and Ms. Bhutto. Last month, Gen. Musharraf was contemplating the imposition of emergency. But Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice famously dissuaded him in a 2 a.m. telephone call.
How will the US behave today? If it acts in the myopic fashion typical of it, driven by its "counter-terrorism-at-any-cost" preoccupation, it may go along with Gen. Musharraf's adventurist temptations.
The US desperately wants to bring Ms. Bhutto into a power-sharing deal -- not least because she has promised to do its bidding, but also because it fears that Mr. Sharif might again ally himself with the "moderately Islamist" Muttahida Majlis-e-Amal (MMA).
However, none other than Gen. Musharraf struck a deal with the MMA, and brought it into the rag-tag alliance which rules in Islamabad. Washington also underestimates the strength of the pervasive anti-American sentiment in Pakistan.
Fuelled by resentment against the US for "leaving Pakistan in the lurch" after the Soviet withdrawal from Afghanistan, this sentiment has grown in recent years thanks to Pakistan's recruitment into the US-led Global War on Terror along the Afghanistan border, in which thousands of Pakistani soldiers have lost their lives.
In Pakistan, favourable opinion of the US is as low as 15 per cent, according to a Pew Global Research survey -- the third lowest in the world. Overbearing US intervention will prove unpopular and destabilising.
Not to be discounted is Saudi Arabia's collaboration in deporting Mr. Sharif, who is in all probability now a captive in Jeddah. It's unclear that he'll be allowed to leave that country even if the Pakistan Supreme Court orders his return.
Saudi Arabia, a state deeply compromised with the US, is messing in Pakistani affairs -- a fact that's deeply resented and reflected in the growing popularity of anti-Saudi slogans among anti-Musharraf protesters.
The Indian government's position that the turmoil in Pakistan is its "internal matter," and that "we want a peaceful, prosperous and stable neighbour," might appear even-handed. In reality, India has tended to put all its eggs in the Musharraf basket.
National Security Adviser MK Narayanan declared (July 29) that "the worst is over" for Gen. Musharraf and there's "no major dent" in his influence because he accepted Chief Justice Chowdhry's reinstatement "with grace."
Some Indian officials have misread the meaning of Mr. Sharif's deportation. They reportedly feel "a grudging admiration" for Gen. Musharraf's handling of it. For the past year, India has been in contact with Ms. Bhutto, but not Mr. Sharif.
This needs correction -- with a clarification that India would like a "smooth democratic transition" in Pakistan. There's far too much at stake in Pakistan for its neighbours, or the larger world, to be indifferent to its people's struggle for full democratisation, which demands solidarity.
Praful Bidwai is an eminent Indian columnist.
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