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Oct 13, 1999
WHAT a shrewd way to get rid of a powerful general, Pakistan's PM must have thought. Sack him while he is out of the country. Make sure his plane does not land in the country. And his biggest irritant is wished away. But Mr Nawaz Sharif did not get this fairy-tale ending. Instead, army strongman General Pervez Musharraf came back "despite the plane flying on low fuel". In return, he ousted the PM and took the country back into military rule. A dramatic power play that started with General Musharraf's sacking ended in an anti-climatic fashion with the army chief's triumphant return to his country. As the new big boss. And this is what the new big boss had to say to his people over TV of the life-and-death situation on board the plane: "On my way back, the PIA (Pakistan International Airlines) commercial flight was not allowed to land at Karachi but was ordered to be diverted to anywhere outside Pakistan, despite acute shortage of fuel, imperilling the lives of all the passengers. "Thanks be to Allah, this evil design was thwarted through speedy army action." The army action came in the form of a bloodless military coup that turned the general's sacking on its head. About 10 hours before Gen Musharraf's TV speech, Mr Sharif had "retired the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Committee (JCSC) and Chief of the Army Staff, General Pervez Musharraf, with immediate effect", an official announcement had said. The announcement gave no reasons for the dramatic dismissal, which came only two weeks after Mr Sharif had confirmed that Gen Musharraf would complete his stint as head of the army and chairman of the JCSC, until Oct 6, 2001. But to observers, it probably came as no surprise as there had been persistent reports of differences between the PM and his army commander. Gen Musharraf was on his way home by air from Colombo, where he attended Sri Lankan army celebrations, when the state-run television reported his sacking in a Kashmiri-language news bulletin. Special bulletins then followed, showing the new army chief Lieutenant-General Khawaja Ziauddin meeting Mr Sharif. But the sacking didn't last very long. In fact, television and radio services went off the air around the time Gen Musharraf landed in Karachi under heavy security. At first, the general's family was restrained but was later allowed to meet him. Then came signs that the tables could be turning. The general was given a full protocol welcome and met the local military commander. Quickly, the military went into action. Troops entered the state television building, witnesses said, and mobile telephones stopped working in Islamabad and in Mr Sharif's hometown, Lahore. Troops were seen climbing over walls into the state-run PTV centre and shots were heard in a suburb of the capital. "I can hear what appear to be shots or the sound of gunfire," a witness told Reuters in London by telephone from Islamabad. The military was also deployed at airports in major cities and seized key facilities around the country. Government leaders in the provinces were confined to their residences by troops. Soldiers also surrounded Mr Sharif's official residence in Islamabad. A senior police official said troops had told Mr Sharif not to leave his residence, and the police at his home had been disarmed. The military takeover was soon complete when Pakistan television, in a statement issued several hours after troops surrounded the prime minister's official residence here, said: "The government has been dismissed." So ends Mr Sharif's two-and-a-half-year-old government and Pakistan's brief experiment with democracy. The old and powerful master is back in power. The question is: What next for Pakistan? All eyes watch Pakistan anxiously
PAKISTAN'S dance with democracy ended last night in a military takeover. And the big powers are worried. India has placed its troops on high alert. The US has expressed concern. It says Pakistan cannot expect "business as usual" unless democracy is restored. The main reason for concern: That the nuclear weapons in Pakistan's arsenal may fall into the wrong hands. But Pentagon, Defence Department spokesman Ken Bacon indicated that there is no immediate danger of that. Pakistan's nuclear arms programme is normally under army control anyway, he said. The biggest dent from the coup would however be to the Pakistani economy. Pakistan is heavily dependent on financial aid. It receives more than US$2 billion ($3.3 b) in loans a year from rich nations and the International Monetary Fund (IMF). State Department spokesman James Rubin said: "Clearly we would not be in position to carry on business as usual with the Pakistani authorities as our laws indicate." The US is an influential donor nation. |
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