by Richard S. Ehrlich
LAHORE, Pakistan -- Behind the polling booths, but not far from the campaign's fray, two often unwelcome forces loom in this month's national election: America and Pakistan's military.
Copyright by Richard S. Ehrlich
Richard S. Ehrlich's Asia news, non-fiction book titled, "Hello My Big Big Honey!" plus hundreds of photographs are available at his website http://www.oocities.org/asia_correspondent
November 1988
America and Pakistan Behind the Scenes in Election
Pakistanis who want their fledgling democracy to be free of those twin manipulative influences, insist that whoever is elected as the nation's next leader will, nevertheless, be strictly beholden to both.
Washington uses Pakistan as a front-line state against the Russian occupation of next-door Afghanistan.
As a result, US backing has mutated Pakistan's military into a powerful, politicized, pro-American force, which many find incompatible with independence and civilian rule.
But most politicians running in this month's National Assembly elections agree -- enthusiastically or reluctantly -- that a leading role by Pakistan's military, with US support, is necessary for this South Asian nation's survival.
The top candidates for the new leadership include Benazir Bhutto, who is the fiery daughter of executed prime minister Zulfikar Ali Bhutto.
Ms. Bhutto says she wants to install a liberal democracy based on human rights, and end the past 11 years of US-backed military dictatorship and harsh Islamic law.
She faces several potential contenders, including powerful Acting Punjab Chief Minister Mian Nawaz Sharif, rebellious former prime minister Mohammad Khan Junejo, ex-Bhutto loyalist Ghulam Mustafa Jatoi and other right-wing or Islamic fundamentalist leaders.
In a fragile marriage of convenience against Ms. Bhutto, they formed the Islamic Democratic Alliance (IDA), comprised of the ruling Pakistan Muslim League (PML) and smaller parties.
The mismatched alliance includes many pro-military men who want to continue the policies of the late president, Mohammad Zia ul-Haq, who died when his apparently sabotaged plane crashed in August.
US-backed Zia's 11 years in power included martial law, a military-led regime and "Islamization" of laws and behavior inspired from the Muslim holy book, the Koran.
Since the early 1950s, the military has ruled Pakistan with a heavy hand, even when backing civilian leaders.
As a result, many Pakistanis and foreign diplomats were surprised when the new army chief, General Mirza Aslam Beg, agreed to an immediate election after Zia's death, despite strong chances Zia's enemy, Ms. Bhutto, could be victorious.
Ms. Bhutto, who leads the centrist Pakistan People's Party (PPP), acknowledges she needs the military's blessings.
So, she is attempting to woo them with promises that she will not take revenge on the army for helping Zia repress political activity.
She has also assured the United States that the PPP will continue to allow Washington's support for the anti-communist Afghan guerrillas, Western diplomats say.
Ms. Bhutto is also promising voters she will not nationalize businesses -- which her father did during the 1970s.
But she continues to trumpet her late father's support for the impoverished masses, from whom she draws much of her backing.
Pakistan's wealthy, feudal landowners are carefully eyeing both the PPP and the IDA before ordering their multitude of landless peasants to vote one way or the other.
Ms. Bhutto abandoned the PPP's earlier demands for quick land reform, meanwhile, because she knows that without the landowners' vote block, her campaign will flounder.
Her shying away from the PPP's traditional leftist policies have disheartened many of the party's idealistic followers, who now see little difference in Ms. Bhutto and the rival IDA.
Muslim fundamentalists, meanwhile, have vowed to vote against Ms. Bhutto because they oppose allowing a woman to rule this male-dominated, staunchly religious society.
Islamic fundamentalism increased during the Zia's reign, and the clergy's views now dominate much of society.
Led by the rightwing Jamiat-i-Islami party, they also see Ms. Bhutto's promises to remove many Islamic laws and courts as dangerous moves towards Westernized decadence and hedonism -- reminiscent of her late father who enjoyed discos, alcohol and other un-Islamic behavior.
They instead want Pakistan to become even more fundamentalist than it was under Zia, and point to Pakistan's escalating corruption, heroin smuggling and violence as proof of what happens when the Koran is not enforced.
Amir Ahmed, the Jamaat-i-Islami's religious head, reportedly blasted Ms. Bhutto for being close to the "enemies of the country," which he perceives as Russia, the United States and India.
Ahmed, inspired by the Afghan rebels' ability to oust the Russians from Afghanistan, wants Pakistan to kick the Indians out of New Delhi's chunk of Kashmir state, which was partitioned between Pakistan and India.
Ominously, much of Pakistan's real power these days is wielded by the secretive, US-backed, national security agency, the Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI).
As a sign of its escalating power, the ISI oversees Pakistan's lucrative channeling of much of America's aid to the Afghan guerrillas.
The ISI handles much of Washington's unaccounted Central Intelligence Agency cash, weapons and supplies which are meant for the Afghan rebels, who operate camps in Pakistan along the Afghan border, according to Western diplomats.
Critics say this has fueled widespread corruption among Pakistani officials, who have created fiefdoms beyond the reach of the law.
Such unbridled influence by America and the Pakistani military has also caused divisions within the government.
One Western diplomat said in an interview, "Pakistan's Ministry of Foreign Affairs would like to reassert its authority concerning Afghanistan, over the intelligence groups which have advocated a strong Zia policy" of backing Islamic fundamentalist guerrillas instead of more moderate rebels.
The ISI backs US-financed Afghan guerrilla leader Gulbudin Hekmatyar, who wants to turn Afghanistan into a fundamentalist Islamic nation where women must be veiled and all laws conform to the Koran.
Other moderate, US-financed Afghan guerrilla leaders, who want a more modern Islamic nation, are in deadly dispute with Hekmatyar.
The splits among US-backed Afghan guerrillas threatens to push Afghanistan into chaos after the Soviets withdraw their troops on February 15.
Of equal potential danger, the ISI is also blamed for splitting Pakistan's military into two groups.
One military group includes officers who support democracy, and want the army to get out of politics, because the military has fallen into widespread disrespect for blocking civilian rule.
The other military group supports the ISI's right-wing perception that the armed forces are the only disciplined force to run the nation, amid frequently violent domestic political turmoil.
Analysts warn that the late prime minister, Zulfikar Ali Bhutto, relied so heavily on the ISI that he followed its advice and named Zia as head of the army -- which allowed Zia to topple him in a 1977 coup.
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