Too Much for One Man a Survey of Pakistan L July 8Th 2006
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Too much for one man A survey of Pakistan l July 8th 2006 Republication, copying or redistribution by any means is expressly prohibited without the prior written permission of The Economist The Economist July 8th 2006 A survey of Pakistan 1 Too much for one man to do Also in this section Changing its stripes Under General Musharraf the economy has turned more tigerish, but foreigners remain wary. Page 2 Parliamentary puppetry The messy business of Pakistani politics. Page 4 The future looks bearded Islamist militancy is alive and well. Page 6 Tribal troubles A small war on the Afghan border. Page 7 Kashmir dreaming Peace has become a little less unthinkable. Page 8 Pakistan needs more democracy to make it a less dangerous place, No quick x says James Astill To resolve its dreadful problems, Pakistan HINK about Pakistan, and you might radical Islamic schools. Osama bin Laden needs judicious support. Page 10 Tget terried. Few countries have so is widely believed to be in Pakistan. much potential to cause trouble, region- When General Musharraf launched his ally and worldwide. One-third of its 165m coup in 1999, it was notor not princi- people live in poverty, and only half of pallyto clean up this mess. Instead, he them are literate. The country’s politics wanted to save his career, having been yo-yo between weak civilian govern- sacked as army chief by Nawaz Sharif, ments and unrepresentative military then the prime minister. Mr Sharif had onesthe sort currently on oer under Per- tried to subordinate the armywhich in vez Musharraf, the president and army Pakistan is a parallel state, some say the chief, albeit with some democratic wallpa- only stateto civilian rule. But however pering. The state is weak. Islamabad and unpromising his start, General Musharraf the better bits of Karachi and Lahore are or- has generally proved much better at run- derly and, for the moment, booming. Most ning the country than either Mr Sharif or of the rest is a mess. In the western prov- Benazir Bhutto, Pakistan’s other elected ince of Baluchistan, which takes up almost leader in recent times. He also remains half of Pakistan’s land mass, an insur- more popular than either of them, though gency is simmering. In the never-tamed tri- his support has recently been slipping. Acknowledgments bal areas bordering Afghanistan, the army For their help and hospitality, the author would like espe- cially to thank the following people: Javed Afridi, Samina is waging war against Islamic fanatics. General Musharraf’s shopping list Ahmed, Sarfaraz Ahmed, Alizeh Ali, Javed Akhtar, Khaled Nor is that all. Pakistan has nuclear General Musharraf inherited an economy Aziz, Manuela Ferro, Irfan Ghauri, Jamshed Gulzar, Kun- weapons, and until recently was selling in crisis. Shackled by sanctions and war Idris, Iqbal Haider, Sayed Arid Hassan, Akmal Hussain, Javed Khan, Iqbal Khattaq, Adnan Kehar, Talat Masood, their secrets to North Korea, Iran, Libya and parched of capital, Pakistan had defaulted Jugnoo Mohsin, Rana Qaisar, Nadeem Qamar, Ali Tariq, Na- maybe others. During its most recent big on foreign debts. He ensured that the coun- jam Sethi, Hafeez Shaikh, Shaukat Sultan, Hameed stand-o with India, in 2002, Pakistan try did what the IMF told it to do, and Soomro, Nadeem ul-Haq, Salman Taheer, Charles Vyvyan, Declan Walsh, Rahimullah Yusufzai. gave warning that, if attacked, it might ended the crisis. Thanks partly to contin- nuke its neighbour. Mostly, however, in ued scal prudence and some sensible re- A list of sources can be found online Kashmir, Afghanistan and its own unruly forms, Pakistan has notched up average cities, Pakistan has used, and perhaps still growth of 7% over the past three years, www.economist.com/surveys uses, Islamist militants to ght its warsin- about the same as India. An audio interview with the author is at cluding the confused lot it is ghting, at It also helped that after the attacks on www.economist.com/audio America’s request, in the tribal areas. Sev- America on September 11th 2001, General eral thousand armed extremists are swill- Musharraf decided to stop supporting the A country brieng on Pakistan is at ing around the country. Thousands more Taliban government in next-door Afghani- www.economist.com/pakistan youths are being prepared for holy war at stan and grant America access to airbases1 2 A survey of Pakistan The Economist July 8th 2006 2 from which to ght it. The benets have posal to India here, a promise to reduce the not been conned to a surge of American CHINA army therethat never got o the ground aid dollars that boosted the growth gures. MENISTAN TAJIKISTAN or zzled to nothing for want of the gen- Having joined the war on terror, the gen- XINGJIANG eral’s attention. eral reined in Islamist militants ghting In- NORTH-WEST KASHMIR And even if he had unlimited time, he FRONTIER (administered dia in the disputed Kashmir region. He by Pakistan) has limited understanding. In army fash- Kabul then surprised many by throwing himself JAMMU & ion, he considers Pakistan’s problems to be into peacemaking with India. Peace on the TRIBAL AREAS KASHMIR mostly practical. But they are invariably Islamabad (administered subcontinent is still hard to imagine, but it AFGHANISTAN by India) political. To deal with a mounting water may be more possible than at any time Lahore crisis, for example, General Musharraf has since British India’s bloody partition. PUNJAB decreed that three long-stalled dams will This is encouraging. But a bigger con- PAKISTAN be built in Punjab and North-West Frontier cern for most Pakistanis is the state of their BALUCHISTAN Delhi Province. In Sindh province, the lower ri- broken and predatory institutions, which IRAN parian, this has caused uproar. Sindhis say INDIA have helped to make Pakistan unstable SINDH their water supply will be diminished by and prone to extremism. General Mushar- the dams; General Musharraf says it will raf pledged to x them, and to promote lib- Karachi not. He has no patience for the Sindhis’ dis- Arabian Sea 500 km eral values, or enlightened moderation. trust of the Pakistani state. They complain, If he were to make serious progress to- with good reason, that it is dominated by wards either of those goals, history would nowhere. With the same intent, he pan- Punjab, Pakistan’s most populous prov- smile on his coup. dered to Taliban-friendly Islamic parties, ince, where most of the army is raised. But this survey will argue that General helping them win unprecedented power. Sindhis make up about a quarter of Pak- Musharraf is unlikely to deliver on these Moreover, General Musharraf has clung istan’s population, but hold only a couple crucial promises. He has introduced many on to his job by the same undemocratic of the top 50 jobs in the water ministry. If sensible reforms, such as making the low- measures as his predecessors: by manipu- General Musharraf wants the dams built, est level of the judiciary independent. But lating the institutions he had vowed to he should start by increasing that number. they have almost all been implemented clean up. Only, unlike any civilian leader, Pakistan is torn by such grievances. only partially and corruptly. Part of the he has the army behind him, which means Where people feel unprotected by their problem is that General Musharraf does he can do that much more damage. government, regional strife and Islamic not rule Pakistan by at, though he often Whereas Mr Sharif and Ms Bhutto packed militancy have bred. The longer they are seems to think otherwise. He rules behind the supreme court with their supporters, allowed to fester, the more unstable Pak- a façade of democracy. Thus, for example, General Musharraf sacked half its judges istan will become. Neither General Mush- he has rewritten the constitution in his fa- for refusing to swear allegiance to him. arraf nor his obvious rivals for the leader- vour, allowing him to sack the govern- Pakistan is too big, too fractious and too ship, Ms Bhutto and Mr Sharif, could heal ment and impose martial law; but he complicated to be ruled so overwhelm- these rifts. But then Pakistan does not need needed political allies to vote through ingly by one man. General Musharraf has a saviour to become stable and well. It those changes. Such alliances have led to been lucky to survive three assassination needs a sustainable political system, repre- paralysing compromise. attempts, and his succession is unclear. He senting the majority of its people. General To sideline the mainstream parties, has, moreover, limited time at his disposal Musharraf has had some successes. But by whose leaders he fears, General Mushar- to get to grips with an unlimited number sabotaging Pakistan’s fragile democracy, raf has sought support from religious con- of problems. His period in oce has been he may well have made the country even servatives, so his liberal reforms have gone littered with initiativesa diplomatic pro- more dangerous. 7 Changing its stripes Under General Musharraf the economy has turned more tigerish, but foreigners remain wary HORTLY after his coup in 1999, General mid-2005 it grew by 8.6%, the highest g- In retrospect this newspaper’s verdict S Musharraf unveiled a seven-point ure for two decades, followed by a 6.6% of six years ago looks too harsh, but agenda to save the nation. He vowed to rise in the nancial year just ended (see mainly for a reason that no one could have do all the right things: revive a sick econ- chart 1, next page).