Army chiefs tried to oust President: report

Pakistan's powerful military has actively worked to undermine efforts by the elected Government to improve human rights in the country, according to a new report which says it also tried to destabilise the Government and force out President Asif Ali Zardari.

In a damning critique of the military establishment, Human Rights Watch said the armed forces had opposed HRW's efforts to end their intervention in the political and judicial process. The military had also resisted attempts to locate some of the scores of people who "disappeared" in restive Baluchistan province during General Pervez Musharraf's rule.

"The Pakistani military continues to subvert the political and judicial systems in Pakistan," said Ali Dayan Hasan of HRW. "After eight years of disastrous military rule and in spite of the election of a civilian Government, the Army appears determined to continue calling the shots in order to ensure that it can continue to perpetrate abuses with impunity."

The travails of Baluchistan represent one of Pakistan's darker but seldom-told narratives. Musharraf's regime responded to a long-active independence movement with swift brutality. A veteran leader, Nawab Akbar Bugti, was assassinated and untold numbers of suspected activists were either jailed without process or else disappeared.

Musharraf was considered an ally in America's "war on terror" and his actions were overlooked or even helped by the West.

After the election of a civilian Government in 2008 headed by Zardari's Pakistan People's Party, the authorities vowed to end the violence, withdraw troops and release political prisoners.

That has not happened. Worse, last April three Baluch leaders were murdered, allegedly by the military-controlled security forces, delivering a damaging blow to the relationship between Zardari's Government and the local community.

Hasan said the military continued to hold sway over the province, muzzling local media and undermining reconciliation.

"The military needs to recognise that it no longer runs the show."

The report also highlighted how the military worked against Zardari last year over a United States aid bill "in an apparent attempt to ... force the resignation" of Zardari. The Kerry-Lugar bill offered US$7.5 billion ($10.5 billion), but was opposed by the Pakistani military because of conditions the US attached, in particular that it needed to be satisfied that the armed forces were fighting terrorism and not "subverting the political or judicial processes of Pakistan".

Zardari said no one who supported democracy could oppose the objectives of the conditions attached to the aid.

Rasul Bakhsh Rais, a Lahore analyst, said Pakistan's military - which has directly ruled the country for half its existence - had become more subtle in the way it intervened. For instance, it had been building a relationship with Prime Minister Yousaf Gilani as a way of trying to isolate the President.

- INDEPENDENT