MMA - Maulvi Military Alliance

[Lahori paa jee]

The circus of the holy fathers​

IF you think that the Q League — the answer to all our problems — is the best game in town, think again. Nothing beats the performance of the holy fathers gathered in the bosom of the Muttahida Majlis-i-Amal (MMA), the six-party (or is it five now?) religious alliance.

Maulana Sami-ul-Haq was also with the holy fathers not so long ago. But he quit and now openly is on the government’s side. The holy fathers, especially that doyen of Pakistani political specialists Maulana Fazlur Rahman — who could teach a course in Machiavellian studies new lessons in politics — are also with the government, but from the inside. Outwardly they are all fire and thunder.

Say what you will about Maulana Sami-ul-Haq, he is at least not a hypocrite. With him you know where you are. With Maulana Fazl and some others of his tribe, you could be the best trackers around and yet not know where they are, or where they are likely to be in the next ten minutes. Not for nothing has the maulana earned the title of being Gen Musharraf’s most effective secret weapon.

A naval torpedo can miss its target. The maulana’s guidance system is so accurate, he never misses his. The opposition parties can draw up what grand strategy they like, the maulana can be depended upon to torpedo it.

What are the holy fathers now up to? They had led the naive people of this country to believe that they were getting ready for a serious struggle against the government, and that, as a first step, were contemplating resigning from parliament and quitting the Balochistan government where they are coalition partners of the Q League, the military’s civilian facade.

It turns out they are linking their resignations to the Hudood amendment bill now going through the motions of acceptance in the National Assembly. For ordinary minds all this is very complicated. As it is, the proposed amendments are hard to understand, the MMA’s reservations even more so. The net result of all this shadow boxing is that the holy fathers have pushed their ‘decisive move’ into the distant future. The general and his intelligence chiefs must be laughing up their sleeves.

And ‘political analysts’ — a breed deserving to be lined up against a wall — say that the general’s position is threatened and that he is under unprecedented pressure. The most serious threat to the general comes from the incompetence and ineptitude of the system he has created. It doesn’t come from the opposition. In fact, anyone would pray to have such an opposition.

Of the holy fathers we know enough. One good thing that has happened during the Musharraf incumbency is their total exposure. No one takes them seriously any more, certainly not the intelligence agencies, who know their price better than anyone else, and certainly not the great Pakistani public which is now programmed to laugh when the holy fathers are mentioned. Take Maulana Fazlur Rahman’s name before anyone and chances are you will be greeted with a knowing smile.

There is then the Daughter of the East and her once vaunted People’s Party, now no better than an instrument of her countless exigencies. Hard evidence may be elusive but the belief in the political community is widespread that Benazir Bhutto is still trying to cut some sort of deal with the government.

At least give her full marks for clarity. Her strategy is disarmingly simple: power or a share in power with the help of Washington. The American empire may be facing problems in Afghanistan and Iraq but her faith in Washington’s power to work miracles remains boundless.

As for that Magna Carta called the Charter of Democracy, take it to the mountains. A student of Pakistani politics must always be able to distinguish between appearances and reality. The Charter of Democracy was about appearances. The reality is different. Ask the holy fathers (not that they signed the Charter; you won’t catch them doing anything so obvious) and ask Benazir Bhutto. They may have their different agendas — obscurantism vs. a form of liberalism — but they are one when it comes to running with the hare and hunting with the hounds.

As for my friends, on whose party ticket I have contested not one but two elections, the Brothers Sharifov, look at their fresh mops of hair (fine transplants, you’ll have to admit) and their tables groaning under the best snacks London has to offer — alas, with not much by way of appropriate liquid refreshments — and you can’t help wondering whether these are the Pakistani Khomeinis who will bring about the revolution we all so breathlessly await.

Gen Musharraf will soon be marking his seventh anniversary in power — in private of course but, I trust, with the proper libations. If one were to judge his government on performance, punters would lay few bets on its survival. But one look at the opposition and you would definitely think that the October Revolution still has a few more anniversaries under its belt.

Friend Ahmed Faraz has returned his award, Sitara-i-Imtiaz or whatever, although I can’t figure out why he had to accept it in the first place. Friend Nasim Zehra has also announced renunciation of her award in protest against the killing of Nawab Akbar Khan Bugti. This is akin to seeing two shows on one ticket: first the gratification of receiving an award, then the rush of martyrdom attendant upon refusing it.

If I had been given an award, not that anyone is thinking on those lines, I wouldn’t have been in such a hurry to return it. After I left the army in 1973 I received by post a medal from GHQ which, when I made enquiries, I was told was for participation in the 1971 war. (Some war to receive a medal for.) It must still be lying around somewhere. A Sitara-i-Imtiaz can’t be much worse than that.

No, and I say this in all seriousness, military rule must continue for some more time and Gen Musharraf must get another five years as president from these assemblies rather courting the risk of entrusting his fate to any future assemblies. The discrediting in the public eye of all things military, while fairly well advanced, hasn’t gone far enough. Disorder must truly be great for the situation to be truly excellent. We are still far from reaching that blissful condition.

So let the good times roll. This has been an era good for the media. Whatever obligatory criticism might suggest, the media has never had it so good. It has been good for political turncoats, always a thriving industry in Pakistan. And it has been good for different kinds of scams and for the real estate industry where big bucks have been made.

The Baloch areas of Balochistan are disaffected (the Pakhtoon areas are not) but Balochistan is a distant place, several time zones away from the rest of Pakistan. Sindhis ritually complain about ‘alienation’ but the Sindhi politicians one encounters in the watering holes of Islamabad don’t suggest much privation. The Pakhtoons, whatever Asfandyar Wali might say, are born businessmen, better even than the traditional trading communities of Karachi at making money.

Waziristan was racked by armed rebellion but Gen Musharraf, living up to his reputation for the dramatic u-turn, has concluded peace with the militants, to no one’s surprise on the militants’ terms. The Americans may be fuming but they will put the best face on the situation, realising that with hostilities in Afghanistan on the rise this is no time to get angry with Musharraf.

So, unless I am to eat my words and cover my head in ashes, this dispensation is going to be around for some time, coming events likely to be staged much as the present team wants them to be staged. I say this not by looking at the general but at the blessed lights making up the opposition. As for the holy fathers, they remain the smartest operators in town.

Source

 

[Lahori paa jee]

Sparten

Ayaz Amir was not Court Martialled

If I had been given an award, not that anyone is thinking on those lines, I wouldn’t have been in such a hurry to return it. After I left the army in 1973 I received by post a medal from GHQ which, when I made enquiries, I was told was for participation in the 1971 war. (Some war to receive a medal for.) It must still be lying around somewhere. A Sitara-i-Imtiaz can’t be much worse than that.

 

[Lahori paa jee]

Qazi is no more in charge of his MMA



The country’s most unpredictable alliance stands apart if discussions in its successive supreme council meetings are any guide. The most recent one lasted for five long hours, a reminder to the LFO days when the alliance was sharply divided vertically as well as horizontally.

It all began with the talk of resignations from the Balochistan government in protest against Bugti’s killing in a military operation and the subsequent violent protests in the province and elsewhere.

Again it was Qazi Hussain Ahmad, who heads the MMA, who vowed to quit the Balochistan government. Ironically though, his party - the Jama’at-i-Islami - is neither represented in the provincial assembly nor claims other political stakes within the alliance as far as Balochistan is concerned.

Sceptics termed the statements a hoax call until the supreme council was convened in Islamabad. Meanwhile, the government had set the ball rolling on the Protection of Women Bill in the National Assembly, which the clergy saw as absolute reversal of the Zia-era Hudood laws.

Qazi Hussain Ahmad and Prof. Khurshid Ahmad from JI, Maulana Ghafoor Haideri and Hafiz Hussain Ahmad from JUI (F) and Qari Gul Rahman of JUI (Sami) and Allama Sajid Naqvi advocated resigning from the Balochistan government in protest against Bugti’s killing.

Sources in the MMA said Qazi Hussain Ahmad mainly led the move to quit the government for the reasons of national integrity to avoid the repeat of sense of deprivation witnessed before the fall of Dhaka.

Hafiz Hussain Ahmad pressed hard the cause of quitting the provincial government for rather short-term political reasons. He advocated quitting the provincial government to create a conducive situation for the forthcoming elections. Hafiz wanted to cover up the poor performance by his MMA colleagues during the past four years or so.

“If you don’t listen to the popular demand for short term gains, you are going to lose heavily,” a source privy to the supreme council meeting told The News quoting Hafiz Hussain Ahmad as saying.

The scene inside the MMA elite council meeting was noisy, marred with cross talk and taunts. The JUI leader of his own faction was not ready to listen to a word on quitting in solidarity with Baloch nationalists after the death of their godfather. Instead, Fazlur Rahman joined by Allama Sajid Mir believed the religious base of the country’s Islamic ideology was being put in question with PPP-backed amendments to the Hudood Law.

“It seemed that Fazl and Sajid Mir had already come with a plan to scuttle the move to quit the Balochistan government and create a political crisis,” a source said. Fazl and Mir vehemently opposed the idea of even relating the resignation threat with the Balochistan issue. The duo made a rare but strong showing at the meeting initially leaving the entire council membership startled.

Qazi and his other coalition partners did not give in as easily as was perceived by Fazl and his supporters. The meeting was far from being cordial and polite. A source compared the scene with that of uproar in the National Assembly. The lengthy proceedings not only prove the point made by this insider but also shed light on the commitment of the two sides to make their point.

As usual, Qazi played the big brother and gave in to keep the coalition intact which provoked some of his own party stalwarts to disagree with their Ameer in the presence of others (an act condemned within Jamaat keeping in view its disciplinary norms).

The source said, “Since Maulana Sherani-led group fully backed Maulana Fazl, the MMA heavyweight proved a mere small fry, given the situation on the ground.” As a matter of fact, Maulana Sherani-led group may well have ignored the supreme council decision even if Fazlur Rehman had not taken an exception to it. It is no secret that Sherani is his own boss as far as the MMA is concerned and it is an entirely different story when it comes to some other more organized and discreet institutions.

At the end of over five-hour infighting and heated debate, the vow to resign from the Balochistan government had become irrelevant. Rather, only the threat to reign survived and that too linked with the amendments to the Hudood laws.

The disgruntled majority within the MMA accuses Fazlur Rehman and company of yet again coming to the rescue of Musharraf-led forces. The JUI (F)-led campaign has clearly averted an explosive political crisis for the Musharraf regime in Balochistan by brushing the resignation issue under the carpet and alienating the enraged Baloch politicians. A senior MMA leader told a private gathering, “The Hudood row has overshadowed the situation in Balochistan in the electronic as well as print media.”

The MMA-minus Fazl-Mir duo was rather suggesting resigning from the Balochistan government while linking the same at the centre and elsewhere with legislation on Hudood. The smart move to kill two birds with one stone was shot down by Fazlur Rehman’s Machiavellian advisers and un-named aides.

Interestingly, those who vociferously spoke of resigning from the Balochistan government stand firmly united on Hudood legislation. For some the MMA remains the most unpredictable political pressure group while for others it is the most predictable one. The question, however, remains: would JI treat Baloch people the same way as they had done with the Bengalis.

Source

 

[blain2]

Sparten

Ayaz Amir was not Court Martialled

You know the funny thing about Ayaz Amir is that he never ever says anything about how things in his opinion should be...its always disagreement with the status-quo which even you and I can register....others like Cowasji at least make a point of relating how things should be....this is my one gripe with Ayaz Amir.

As an example if you pick up his earlier articles where he has made inferences to the FATA situation, it was always...militar action will destroy the country, its tearing us apart, its polarizing the country while the Army is milking it etc. etc....now when some compromise is made...there is dissatisfaction with that as well....in Pakistan, there was a slang which used to go something like "every other person is a chaudhry" said in vernacular it sounds better, but the point is that everyone in Pakistan thinks that only they know better and can do a better job...

Ayaz Amir was an average guy in the PMA and in the army, and unfortunately the average streak continues as a columnist.

 

[Lahori paa jee]

You know the funny thing about Ayaz Amir is that he never ever says anything about how things in his opinion should be...its always disagreement with the status-quo which even you and I can register....others like Cowasji at least make a point of relating how things should be....this is my one gripe with Ayaz Amir.

As an example if you pick up his earlier articles where he has made inferences to the FATA situation, it was always...militar action will destroy the country, its tearing us apart, its polarizing the country while the Army is milking it etc. etc....now when some compromise is made...there is dissatisfaction with that as well....in Pakistan, there was a slang which used to go something like "every other person is a chaudhry" said in vernacular it sounds better, but the point is that everyone in Pakistan thinks that only they know better and can do a better job...

Ayaz Amir was an average guy in the PMA and in the army, and unfortunately the average streak continues as a columnist.

I would agree with you. Ayaz Amir has this habit of criticising the governments. I remember his articles during the time when Nawaz Sharif was Prime Minister. He was critical of Nawaz Sharif although he was a member of assembly on a PML-N ticket.

But if you ask me that is how it should be in democracy. Why not raise your voice when u are ruling rather than when one is in opposition. The whole thing looses its meaning when one criticises a government of which one was a part of

Examples

Chaudhry Shujaat Hussain
Chaudhry Pervaiz Elahi
Syed Mushahid Hussain
Sheikh Rashid
Khursheed Kasuri
Kamil Ali Agha

 

[blain2]

I would agree with you. Ayaz Amir has this habit of criticising the governments. I remember his articles during the time when Nawaz Sharif was Prime Minister. He was critical of Nawaz Sharif although he was a member of assembly on a PML-N ticket.

But if you ask me that is how it should be in democracy. Why not raise your voice when u are ruling rather than when one is in opposition. The whole thing looses its meaning when one criticises a government of which one was a part of

Examples

Chaudhry Shujaat Hussain
Chaudhry Pervaiz Elahi
Syed Mushahid Hussain
Sheikh Rashid
Khursheed Kasuri
Kamil Ali Agha

Critique is a healthy thing no doubt, however in the place that I work, we have a little rule. If you see a problem with something or critique it, also present a potential solution to it...the problem is that anyone can disagree and/or critique, however to fix the problem, you gotta have some skin in the game too.

 

[Lahori paa jee]

Critique is a healthy thing no doubt, however in the place that I work, we have a little rule. If you see a problem with something or critique it, also present a potential solution to it...the problem is that anyone can disagree and/or critique, however to fix the problem, you gotta have some skin in the game too.

Uptill 12 october 1999 the same people were giving all good reports to Nawaz.

 

[Lahori paa jee]

Maulana Fazl-ur-Rehman = Governments secret weapon

Look at the smile on his face.

Here is another picture of this Maulvi Diesel on the same day when oppositions no confidence move failed. Out of the 138 votes that opposition had (apart from three absentees) they only got 136. So its obvious who did not vote

It was the same Maulvi who was against resigning from the Baluchistan and NWFP

Son of a Notorious smuggler

 

[blain2]

Critique is a healthy thing no doubt, however in the place that I work, we have a little rule. If you see a problem with something or critique it, also present a potential solution to it...the problem is that anyone can disagree and/or critique, however to fix the problem, you gotta have some skin in the game too.

Here is another one, albeit a bit more reflective.

http://www.dawn.com/weekly/ayaz/ayaz.htm

War and peace, army style



By Ayaz Amir


ONLY the Pakistan army could have created the Waziristan mess. No other force had the ability to put together the extraordinary combination of arrogance and lack of judgment which went into its making.

Only the Pakistan army could have executed the extraordinary somersault which is the essence of the North Waziristan agreement: a virtual instrument of surrender effectively ceding Waziristan to the neo-Taliban. A civilian government would have had its ears cropped had it even suggested, far less attempted, anything of the kind.

Call this the higher gymnastics: first starting a needless fire, then rushing in with the fire engines when the flames prove more destructive than anyone had thought. Fire-lighting and firefighting rolled into one, versatility of which any army would be proud.

This agreement commits the army to a set of concrete measures: abandoning check-posts, releasing prisoners, returning seized weaponry and, something dear to the heart of every Pakhtoon, paying compensation.

A Pakhtoon is decent and honourable and a man of his word. But he also has a keen sense of money. Indeed, a Pakhtoon moneylender’s idea of interest would make Shylock blush.

How much ‘compensation’ the army ends up paying for this agreement we won’t know, or it won’t be disclosed — no doubt out of embarrassment — but we can rest assured it will be ‘adequate’. Having taken on the army and worsted it in combat, the Waziri and Mahsud Taliban are on a roll. They would settle for nothing less.

In return for these concrete measures, the Taliban have committed themselves to a set of promises: end to cross-border militant activity in Afghanistan, “...no parallel administration in the agency” and the pious hope that “the writ of the state will prevail in the area.” This at a time when militants are in full command of both North and South Waziristan and the army has withdrawn to its defensive positions.

A more complete reversal of positions is hard to imagine. But this is a volte face dictated by ground realities. Although deployed in heavy numbers, the army found itself in a quagmire, Taliban resistance proving more than General Headquarters had bargained for. Casualties were high, perhaps unsustainable, although we’ll never know the exact figures, the Pakistan army not given to embarrassing disclosures.

If we still don’t have precise casualty figures for Kargil — Gen Musharraf’s maiden and only venture into actual, as opposed to armchair, war-making.... against an external combatant, I hasten to add, internal combatants being an entirely different matter — it will be some time before we know how many fighting men actually died or were wounded in Waziristan.

Not the least of the ironies surrounding this conflict, however, lies in the fact that the man who led the army into Waziristan, Lt Gen Aurakzai when he was corps commander Peshawar, is the same man who as governor of the Frontier province is behind the present agreement. (The actual operation and the bungling accompanying it were the handiwork of Aurakzai’s successor as corps commander, Lt Gen Safdar Hussein, famous for making tall claims.)

Aurakzai has proved to be a better diplomat than he was a general. This is the story of the Pakistan army these days, generals unsure at their own game but veritable experts in other fields.

Even so, better late than never although if the blinkers on at the time had been fewer, we might have been spared much slaughter and discomfiture — unless GHQ, hardened by experience and inured to disasters and u-turns, is in the happy position of being beyond embarrassment and discomfiture.

But, weighing pros and cons, is this agreement good or bad? Overall good, because the army was fighting an unwinnable war and there was no point, as war colleges never tire of emphasising, in reinforcing failure.

When mired in something stupid, as the Americans are in Iraq and as they once were in Vietnam, it is best to declare victory and get out. This in effect is what Gen Musharraf has done and this is what the Americans, if they had any sense, should do in Iraq, always remembering, however, that given a choice, it is preferable to avoid the march of folly right from the beginning than don the mantle of statesmanship later on.

It pays to remember that the situation in Waziristan was a holdover from the past when this area was one of the staging posts for the anti-Soviet resistance in Afghanistan during the 1980s. When that war — sweet revenge for Vietnam, as the Americans considered it — was over, many of the Arab and other ‘mujahideen’ had nowhere to go, their own countries — Egypt, Saudi Arabia, etc — being wary of ‘Islamic radicalism’. So they remained behind in Waziristan, some of them even marrying into the local tribes.

It wasn’t the fault of these Arabs or Chechens or Uzbeks if the Americans were being less than successful in bringing peace to Afghanistan once the Taliban were toppled and Hamid Karzai installed as a puppet ruler. The Taliban were supposed to have been licked. But they weren’t and they have since made a comeback, threatening to turn Afghanistan once more into the kind of country which proved a graveyard for the Soviet army.

Don’t blame these retired ‘jihadis’ for being drawn to another ‘jihad’. Who or what has created the setting for this ‘jihad’? After all, where the sea is voyagers will go.

The Pakistanis, with their better local knowledge, should have been left to handle the Waziristan problem... in line with history and tradition. Instead, the Americans — living up to de Gaulle’s taunt, “You may be sure that the Americans will commit all the stupidities they can think of, plus some that are beyond imagination” — prevailed upon the Pakistan army to adopt sledgehammer tactics which, far from doing any good, inflamed tribal sentiments and brought wider support to the Taliban cause.

This was Iraq in microcosm, the “war on terror” not quelling violence but giving birth to more of it. Mercifully, better sense has ultimately prevailed but after paying a heavy price. Old tribal structures which had withstood the test of time stand demolished. Pro-government tribal figures have been killed. The army is licking its wounds. Moderate sentiment has been crushed while the Taliban are stronger than ever.

Ever the inventive spirit, Gen Musharraf has woken up to a new refrain, warning western audiences that the Taliban were now a more serious threat than Al Qaeda, conveniently forgetting his own role in making the Taliban powerful in the two Waziristans.

Amidst this confusion Karzai apologists and western sympathisers make matters worse by suggesting that the Taliban are being supported by Pakistani intelligence. If that were so, there would have been no need for the army to lose hundreds of its men fighting them in Waziristan.

There is a militant problem in Pakistan, no denying this. But it has been made worse by the wrong tactics. The sledgehammer hasn’t worked in Iraq. It isn’t working in Afghanistan. And it has just suffered a serious reverse in our own backyard.

The Waziristani tribes have stood guard on the Frontier for over fifty years. They went to Kashmir in 1947 and what we have of Kashmir we owe largely to their enterprise and valour. We need a period of reflection in which inflamed passions can be cooled and lost trust restored.

Hopefully, the old mistakes will not be repeated. Although as I was writing these lines there was a news item quoting a general as saying that the army can still carry out ‘surgical strikes’ if there is ‘militant activity’ in North Waziristan. That’s the mantra the army chanted when it first moved into the area: surgical strikes. We know how surgical such strikes are and what effect they leave behind.

On Waziristan we should now learn to do our own thinking and be able to tell the Americans where to get off.