GENERALS IN POLITICS 

Professor Ziring says: "Military systems may or may not promote political development, and modernization, nevertheless, their monopolization of coercive power generated their dominance in Pakistan as in Bangladesh and so many other Third World countries." [1]  The political power of the armed forces of Pakistan is greater than the power of the elected representatives of the people as well as of the judiciary. Time and again the former have proved their supremacy. Since the days of the speakership of Maulvi Tamizuddin Khan, the legislature of Pakistan has been humbled on several occasions. The Constituent Assembly could not be dissolved in 1954 without the backing and blessings of the Army Chief General Ayub Khan. With the backing of General Ayub,  Governor General, Ghulam Mohammad, dismissed Prime Minister, Khawaja Naziuddin, in April 1953 although his government had won the confidence of the House only a fortnight earlier. General Ayub himself admitted at a news conference at the Governor's House in Karachi in October 1964, that "when there was a conflict between him (Khawaja Nazimuddin) and Governor-General, I decided to side with the Governor-General." [2] Ghulam Mohammad forced  Prime Minister Mohammad Ali Bogra to form another cabinet in which General Ayub Khan  was taken as a full-fledged minister in full uniform. The Defense Secretary Major General Iskandar Mirza and General Ayub were the two dominant leaders of the civil-military oligarchy that had decided that Pakistan could be governed best by tightening the grip of these two institutions on its government and people.

The army had increased in strength and was growing in importance behind the political scene. The ever-present opinion that India was a threat to Pakistan's existence, and the Kashmir dispute with India, made it ill-advised for any Pakistan government to deny the Army a sizeable portion of the nation's resources, as Nazimuddin had discovered when he attempted to reduce military appropriations in his budget. Beginning in 1952, the domestic resources were augmented by a significant amount by the United States military aid now that Pakistan was well-established as a Cold War ally. This aid came as a result of an alliance with the United States arranged by the Pakistan Army independent of any involvement with, and perhaps against the wishes of, the civil government. In 1953, Ayub Khan paid an informal visit to the United State, which resulted in President Eisenhower's announcement of February 1954 granting further military aid to Pakistan. Three months later, the two countries signed a mutual defense agreement. This buildup, of course, increased the power of the military leadership, as had their role in the suppression of the Ahmadi riots (1952) where their efficiency had received public notice. [3]

At the height of the Cold War between the so-called free and democratic world and the communists, when naked martial law was imposed by Generals Ayub Khan in October 1958, Yahya Khan in March 1969 and Zia in July 1977, the constitutions in force at the time were abrogated (in two cases), elected assemblies dissolved, and courts suspended, the US and Britain not only promptly recognized the emerging military governments without any qualms but also doled out funds to them. [4]

The first military take-over of the country in 1958 had brought with it a lot of goodwill of the world, especially of the countries of the free world. They had come running with their millions. The USA which was Pakistan's colleague in the anti-communist pacts like (Central Treaty Organization) CENTO and (South East Asia Treaty Organization) SEATO was most generous. The US, the then leader of the so-called free world and also the self styled champion of world wide democratic movements had provided its tacit approval  to the 1958 military take-over. And it was between 1958 and 1965 that the country experienced what in the words of USAID were its ' take-off years'.

But for the large scale US assistance which gathered momentum in the second  half of the decade of 1950s, Pakistan's economic and security situation would  have become truly desperate. The Mutual Defense Agreement (MDA) which  became highly meaningful after 1958 had greatly relieved the pressure on  Pakistan's fiscal resources. The nominal value of this assistance was around  $100 million annually for ten years, but this definitely understated the real value  of this assistance because the prices at which the military equipment was being  transferred were deliberately kept depressed. In fact most of the military  equipment which Pakistan received during the period between 1958-65 was almost free of cost. One whole armored division was raised during this period  when Pakistan received a huge quantity of second world war vintage Patton tanks. During the same period the country also received a large number of  squadrons of F-86s. One entire military cantonment was established in Kharian with the help of the US aid during this period. The US military assistance had the  effect of increasing the effective defense budget by at least 50 per cent in the  second half of 1950s. The budgetary defense spending in the same period had  been reduced to about 25 per cent of the total central government expenditure,  thanks largely to the US military assistance.

The US support for Pakistan's industrialization effort consisted of expanded  capital assistance for infrastructure development, increased technical aid to ease   'skill shortage' and PL 480 concessional sales, which generated local currency for public investment and made it easier for Pakistan to finance industrialization  by keeping agricultural prices low and thereby extracting an investible surplus  from agriculture. Thus it is not surprising that the US bilateral programme reached a zenith during  the rule of General Ayub Khan. The US committed almost $3 billion or nearly 60 per cent of its total commitment to Pakistan in this period. Within the second  five- year plan (1960-65) the US provided 55 per cent of all aid received by Pakistan, covering 35 per cent of government's development budget and 45 per  cent of its import bill.

The next time when Pakistan received massive assistance from the world was  when it was being ruled by another general. When the Soviets moved into  neighboring Afghanistan, the so-called free world forgot about Pakistan's  nuclear program and the fact that it was under martial law and came up with  its billions to help it fight its war. Taking into account its " potential role as an important element in the defense of  the Persian Gulf region", the Carter administration expressed the desire to  resuscitate the alliance with Pakistan in some form. Admiral Robert Long, Commander of the US Pacific Fleet, said in a congressional testimony that "  Pakistan's strategic location requires us to strengthen our security relationship."

As a result, a $3.2 billion five-year package, divided almost equally between  economic and security assistance, was announced on June 15, 1981. A measure of the frontline state's revived strategic value was the US readiness to sell  Pakistan forty F-16 fighter-inceptors for its air force. In approving the aid, the  Congress granted Pakistan a six-year exemption from the US non-proliferation law (Symington amendment). A second six-year package of $4.02 billion for Pakistan was announced by  Reagan administration in March 1986. Soon thereafter, a " special national  intelligence estimate" had concluded that Pakistan had crossed the nuclear threshold. But President Reagan certified in October 1986 that Pakistan did not  "possess" a nuclear explosive device. Pakistan received the necessary certificate  in 1988 (Reagan) and also in 1989 ( Bush). But suddenly in 1990 the certificate was withheld. Between 1981 and 1990 Pakistan perhaps had received as much as $50 billion  in concessional assistance from the entire free world plus China and the Islamic  countries.[5]

PRIVELEGES

As the army tightened grip over the government apparatus, the military regimes rewarded senior officers in the defense establishment with top positions in the state structure as well as semi-government and autonomous organizations. In addition, Pakistan's military dominated state has at each step awarded its principal constituents with the land grants, defense contracts, permits, licenses and ambassadorial appointments. Apart from the monetary perks and comforts that come from being the trustees of a security conscious state, military personnel and their families have enjoyed access to the best health and educational facilities Pakistan has to offer. Service hospitals and garrison schools dignify the landscape of a country, especially in the province of the Punjab, with a dismal record on providing basic educational and health facilities to the bulk of its population. [6]

Military personnel, generally speaking, are better educated than most of the other segments of civil society. Sharply deteriorating educational standards, suffocating curbs on the press and the deliberate neglect of the arts, have done much to reduce the knowledge differentials between military personnel and the small pockets of a civil intelligentsia Pakistan possesses. [7]

Yet most impressive result of more than forty years of dominance over the state apparatus has been the military establishment's extensive tentacles throughout the economy. Each of the three defense services in Pakistan have trusts and foundations with large investments in the national economy. The Fauji Foundation, the Shaheen Foundation and the Bahria Foundation are operating in the country on commercial basis and making high profits, but they do not pay taxes. The Fauji Foundation, run by the army, has eight manufacturing units, including sugar, fertilizer, cereals, liquid gas, metals and a gas field, as well as transportation companies, schools, hospitals and investments in defense production industries. The largest private sector group in industry has assets worth 50 per cent of the just four units of Fauji Foundation. The incomes from these units are exempt from taxation and legislation regarding the manufacturing sector. They do not, for instance, have to disclose their assets or make their shares available for public subscription. [8]

So it is the entrenched interests of the non-elected institutions, the military in particular, within the state structure and the opportunities this affords for legal and extra-legal privileges which justifies labeling Pakistan and Bangladesh as the political economies of defense. A political economy of defense by its very nature encumbers the state's development activities, especially when economic resources are scarce and the appetites of the non-elected institutions insatiable. [9]

Prior to the October 1999 take over, the army ruled the country for 25 years. One could quote extensively from the books of two distinguished soldiers - Air Marshal (retired) Mohammad Asghar Khan's Generals in Politics and Lt-General (Retd) Faiz Ali Chishti's Bhutto, Zia Aur Mein for  pointed and repeated references to the role the autocratic military rulers had played in the past. The former Chief of Army Staff, General Aslam Beg's disclosure, in February 1993, that he influenced Supreme Court's judgment which refused to restore the Junejo assembly was another example of army's supremacy. [See details in Subversion of the Basic Law]

After the death of General Zia the military establishment did not impose martial law inspite of the insistence of some caretaker Chief ministers, particularly that of Punjab. However, this was not out of the love for democracy and will to surrender itself to civilian control, but because it found the international and national political climate hardly conducive for another martial law. The elite, who have ruled Pakistan in a series of shuffled combinations since the early 1950s, reached the lowest ebb of their ability to govern sometime in the 1980s. By the beginning of the 1990s their pathetic inability was no more a state secret. Consequently, the major factions of the ruling elite who have ceaselessly quarreled among themselves for about four decades, opted for a political truce. This had happened because the accumulated consequences of the past misrule had so unhinged the elements of society that no single faction of the ruling elite (the feudal aristocracy, generals, bureaucrats and an assortment of influentials)  can, by itself, even hope to put them all together again. However, the truce, was not between equals as the army is not only the first among equals, but also the sole arbiter. [10]