‘Pakistanis will miss a uniformed Musharraf’

* Report predicts Washington may regret pushing for civilian rule

By Khalid Hasan

WASHINGTON: “For all the opprobrium (Disgrace arising from exceedingly shameful conduct) heaped on President General Pervez Musharraf now, Pakistanis will come to miss the all-powerful commando ruling over them,” according to a report monitored here.

A dispatch in The Scotsman, an Edinburgh newspaper, says Musharraf has delivered “stellar economic growth, less corruption and a series of liberalising reforms”. Washington may well regret pushing for civilian rule in Pakistan, the report maintains, while pointing out that the military-led Musharraf government took the fight to Al-Qaeda and, for the first time, sent the Pakistan army into the country’s tribal belt, “a lawless haven for terrorists”.

People to remember Musharraf: “Pakistanis are desperate to go at Musharraf’s throat right now. But they’ll remember him very quickly when former premiers Benazir Bhutto or Nawaz Sharif are back in charge,” the report quotes columnist Ikram Seghal as saying. The report notes that the lampooning of Gen Musharraf on a national TV channel illuminates a paradox: this military man is a liberal who has allowed more freedom of expression than any democratic government in Pakistan. Says the report, filed form Islamabad, “His administration pushed through a women’s rights bill against stiff opposition from the country’s powerful mullahs. In the 1990s, the Pakistan government had backed the Taliban in Afghanistan, a regime that gave sanctuary to Osama bin Laden and Al Qaeda. It was Musharraf who turned on the Taliban, albeit under massive American pressure. He made himself so indispensable to Washington that nuclear-related sanctions were lifted and billions of dollars of debt relief and aid flowed. Between 2001-6, economic growth was around 7 percent a year, leading a consumer, stock market and property boom. Following the devastating earthquake in northern Pakistan in 2005, homes, schools, hospitals and lives have been rebuilt to an extent that would put the US government’s response to hurricane Katrina to shame.”

According to the correspondent, “Critics of Musharraf have no trouble pointing to failings, starting, of course, with lack of democratic legitimacy. They say he has entrenched the army into all aspects of Pakistani life and secretly encouraged Islamists, to counter mainstream parties. But Musharraf, 64, seems to genuinely believe he is the saviour of Pakistan.”