The State Equilibrium of Pakistan

By Archen Baloch 

The State Equilibrium of Pakistan

Original article at BalochWarna | October 8, 2010 

The patience of the Punjabi military of Pakistan is wearing thin. The reasons are obvious: Pakistan has become a bedridden man and all its vital organs have ceased to function properly. But its inept PPP rulers are insisting that they can fix it with the help of foreign aid.

The Pakistani army has never been in love with democracy; it has always enjoyed foreign support whenever it took the reins of power directly, or played behind the scenes.

But this time around things have changed tremendously; either way, Pakistan’s existence is at stake. If it imposes martial law or emergency, either will be catastrophic for Pakistan. And for this reason, it is certain that Pakistan’s military establishment is exploring a third way of how to take over and save Pakistan from disintegration.

The Pakistan army, because of its composition, is also called the Punjabi army, as 78 percent of its personnel are from three districts of northern Punjab with 20 percent being Pashtun ethnic. The remaining 2 percent are Karachiite Muhajirs. Baloch and Sindhi are all together excluded from this composition. This is the weakness of the Pakistani military, where its top brass have often been seen characterizing their army as a national army. For any adventure, given its Punjabi composition, it has to resort to Sindhi Wadiras, Baloch chieftains, and religious Pashtuns for political support.

External complications--the overbearing demand of the world community to do more against terrorism--has left the Pakistani military with no option other than to revert to taking covert control of the “political” affairs of the state. With respect to democracy, the current Zardari government is totally dysfunctional. Both India and Afghanistan are constantly reminding the international community that Pakistan is indeed the epicenter of terrorism from where all evils of terrorism are emanating. When it comes to diplomatic niceties, the French in their talks are far more outspoken than their fellow European nations; as French have never been seen beating around the bush. The head of foreign affairs in France, Bernhard Koushner, says “Taliban leaders have been given shelter in Pakistan. I'm not revealing anything new.”

But it isn’t only external pressures that have plunged Pakistan into a precarious state of isolation. The existential threat to Pakistan has deprived the omnipotent Punjabi military leadership of its cozy sleep in Rawalpindi. The internal threat is so significant that the majority of top international intellectuals have openly declared that Pakistan is indeed a failed state. It has lost its legitimacy as a viable state. It is likely that one of the most troubled countries (near Pakistan) in the world is going to file a case against Pakistan in the Security Council or in the UN General Assembly for revisiting its status as a viable member state of United Nations.

The American policy towards Pakistan is that of a carrot and stick. But it is not working now and the Americans are exhausted; the shuttling of American officials between Washington and Islamabad and then Kabul is bearing no fruit regarding the Tailban’s “sophisticated onslaughts” on allied forces in Afghanistan. And this ubiquitous relationship between Pakistan and America has now come to a head.

The Indian and Afghan pressures are a great irritant to Pakistan, as well, because in return they pay nothing for it, while America and its allies are pouring billions of dollars into its coffers. It is this American money that has sustained not only the Pakistan economy, but also Pakistan itself.

An extraordinary crisis meeting took place earlier this month between the army and political establishment. Pakistan’s finance minister Hafeez Sheikh, in the presence of Zardari and the PM Gilani administration, briefed the top brass of the Punjabi military leadership that Pakistan's economy is so precarious that it is not likely to have money to pay salaries to its employees in the next two months.

Troubled Pakistan is constantly being bailed out by American.

Karachi is the main port city of Pakistan, where it conducts its import and export business. But Karachi is now in the constant grip of ethnic conflict, where Pashtun and Urdu speaking Muhajirs are at each other’s throats. The land-locked Pashtun are seeking a share of control over Karachi for commercial and trade needs. And the Muhajirs are hellbent on dislodging them from Karachi. For this, they are constantly creating unrest in Karachi and labeling all Pushtuns as Taliban, so that the migration of the Pushtun is stopped with the backing of Pakistani military. The apprehension of the Muhajir community is that the influx of Pashtuns would upset the Muhajir demographic and turn them into a minority. So far, a level of restraint has been maintained and no one dares to cross it. But now it has become a volcano that could erupt any time soon. Each warring ethnic group, disguised in the love of Pakistan, is set in a race against time to secure control of Karachi. This tension has severely disrupted Pakistan’s economic activities and now poses a security risk.

Eleven years of ruthless campaigns of bombardments, arrests, tortures, enforced disappearances, and diversionary propaganda attributing the Baloch Resistance Movement with trivial demands and characterizing them as Taliban has failed to suppress the resistance. Balochistan has already spiraled out of Pakistani state control. The irreversible liberation movement of the Baloch nation has left Pakistan in a moral crisis where it has lost its statehood equilibrium. The 63 years of its cruel containment policy, maintained behind the smokescreen of an “Islamic Pakistan,” is based on the severe punishment of Baloch youths. The heinous crimes that Pakistan is committing in Balochistan consist of abducting youths and denying them access to justice and/or killing them in detention.

Pakistan has already lost political control over Balochistan; all it controls are its military cantonments and the garrisons across the Baloch homeland, manned with Punjabi soldiers and a number of Pashtun mercenaries.

In 1991 the USSR’s head Mikhail Gorbachev admitted that Soviet Russia had lost its political control over its union republics.

During the Senior Bush era, the James Baker team refused to bail out the Soviet Russia during its economic meltdown.

The ripple effects of a Soviet collapse, however, were far more severe than the fears conceived by the world community over Pakistan’s potential disintegration.

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