pakistan army

Many believe the Army should be defenders of the country.  The question we are attempting to answer however is: Has the Pakistani Army defended the nation?  The answer is anyone’s guess, but we have tried to show both sides of the picture. 

The Army came into being with the existence of Pakistan in 1947.  At the time it was created, Pakistan was supposed to be given 36% of the armed forces of India (Previous India).  In reality, they were given a third of what was decided upon.  With that, they are today the seventh largest army in the world.    It was not until 1958 that the power of the Army was given to a General (General Ayub Khan).  It was his predecessor who first enforced Martial Law (General Yahya Khan).

The second Military coup took place during the reign of President Zulfiqar Ali Bhutto by General Zia-ul-Haq.  Many people blame the current state of the nation on the actions of Zia-ul-Haq (Extremism).  The Third Military coup took place in 1999, with General Musharraf. [1] Since his rule, the nation has largely been dominated by the Army.  Army officials now hold senior positions in schools, factories, hospitals, public services, etc. 

It is interesting to note, that being a democratic nation, the Army is the most powerful institution in Pakistan. It has been actively repelling concerns, both externally and internally.  The internal issues have to a large effect been blamed on Zia-Ul-Haq (Extremism, Lal Masque)[2]

There have largely been 2 problems with the Army.  They are the following:

1.      Control all aspects of society by Army (Politics, Economics, Social, Judiciary, and Government.)

2.      70% of the National Income is spent on defense, whereas the army doesn’t produce any GDP cash inflow.

The Army controls much of Pakistan, such as policies being passed, the economy, the social life of the people, the judiciary, and the government.  If at any point, there is a point of concern in society which may in any way hurt the army, the army performs a coup, and finishes off the threat.  They have a large influence on the economy, owning more than 96 businesses.[3]    By controlling the economy, they control the amount of money people can spend.  They also control the judiciary; take the example of the Supreme Court being dismembered during the time of President Musharraf[4], he had told the people that it was for security reasons rather speaking the truth. Second point to look into, is that 70% of the National Income goes into Defense.  They do not however bring in any Cash Inflows when it comes to GDP.

Whenever the army see’s there is political instability in the nation, it comes in and overthrows the standing government.

Let’s look into the positives and negatives of the Pakistani Army:

Positive side

The primary role of the military is to defend the country against all internal and external threats. It is trained, organized and equipped accordingly. However, its strength in manpower, discipline and flexible organization, makes it a suitable force for employment in developmental projects. Many armies in the recent times have tried to share the economic burden of their country by undertaking nation-building projects. Noteworthy among them are the Peoples Liberation Army of China (PLA) and the Malaysian, Iranian and Royal Thai Armies. Several Pakistan army organizations performed functions that were important to the civilian sector and contributed Rupees 179 billion in last five year in term of revenue/taxes. Pak Army helps the nation almost everywhere .Some of its major services for nation building are as under:

In times of natural disaster, such as the great floods of 1992, army engineers, medical and logistics personnel, and the armed forces played a major role in bringing relief and supplies. The army also engaged in extensive economic activities. Most of these enterprises, such as stud and dairy farms, were for the army's own use, but others performed functions beneficial to the local civilian economy. Army factories produced such goods as sugar, fertilizer, and brass castings and sold them to civilian consumers.

National Logistic Cell: Several army organizations performed functions that were important to the civilian sector across the country. For example, the National Logistics Cell was responsible for trucking food and other goods across the country; the Frontier Works Organization built the Karakoram Highway to China; and the Special Communication Organization maintained communications networks in remote parts of Pakistan.[5]

Anti Narcotics Force (ANF): ANF combated narcotics in a manner that today Pakistan is almost getting free of this ugly disease. The Pakistan army stands today as the most organized, potent and influential institution in the country. It has a cohesive and task-oriented profile with a strong esprit de corps. Military leaders, both retired and serving, take an active role in the country's administration and economy.
Rescue and Relief. Earthquake Pakistan Army was spread out at 80 key points in the quake zone, its engineers opened vital routes including the one from Abbotabad to Muzaffarabad through lightening overnight efforts, medical teams and relief supplies reached out to people in the remotest areas to provide food and medical treatment. 50,000 troops of Pakistan Army were moved quickly[6] in the immediate aftermath of the catastrophe and they restored communication infrastructure in the difficult mountainous region through round-the-clock work, therefore providing (867627) tents, (5569803) blankets, (7348) tons of ration, (1803) tons of medicine and (30941) tons of miscellaneous items.[7]

Army Engineers: FWO restore all roads in flood-hit Balochistan, Sindh. Troops of Pakistan Army Engineers and Frontier ‘Works Organization (FWO) after relentless efforts have restored all road links in flood hit areas of Balochistan and Sindh which were badly destroyed due to pre-monsoon rains in June. Repair of Jumani Bridge in a very short span of time by Army Engineers was another herculean task which helped the restoration of traffic flow on the main highway between Quetta and Karachi.
The army points to the lack of capacity to respond effectively, claiming that it is the only viable institution in the country that can cope with disasters on a large scale. It asserts that there are no comparable civilian institutions which could complement or supplant it. While this is true, it ignores the behavioral context where the army itself has eroded civilian institutions. Ergo, it cannot invoke institutional and administrative lacunae when it created them in the first place. The absence of alternative coping mechanisms has given the army carte blanche and has raised concerns about governance and institutional sustainability. As affectees and as recipients of assistance, the communities are best placed to comment on issues of transparency and accountability. What follows is a distillation of views obtained from focus group discussions with communities and key respondent interviews.[8]

Negative side

Dr. Ayesha Siddiqa’s book Military Inc – Inside Pakistan’s Military Economy provides an insight into the vast and expansive empire that the Pakistani Military has set up in Pakistan over the past six decades. Not surprisingly, the book, published in June 2007 is banned in Pakistan.

The book estimates the military’s share of the economy at over 20 billion dollars, besides owning 11.58 million acres.

What has happened in Pakistan is that any sector which could be monopolized, has been attempted by the military. The military is entrenched in the corporate sector. The list of industries where military or ex-military were in charge included steel mills, sugar factories, cement factories, fertilizer factories, cereal factories, banks, logistics companies, construction companies, utilities, even universities and other higher education institutions.

Milbus or military business

Dr. Siddiqa uses the term Milbus or military business to describe the vast economic empire of the army. Milbus is found in other countries as well. However, Pakistan’s Milbus signifies internal political and economic predation of the military, she says.

Today the Pakistan military's internal economy is extensive, and has turned the armed forces into one of the dominant economic players. The most noticeable and popular component of Milbus relates to the business ventures of the four welfare foundations: the Fauji Foundation (FF), Army Welfare Trust (AWT), Shaheen Foundation (SF) and Bahria Foundation (BF). These foundations are subsidiaries of the defense establishment.

Retired and serving officers run secretive industrial conglomerates, manufacture everything from cement to cornflakes, and own 12m acres (4.8m hectares) of public land, says Dr Ayesha Siddiqa. Of the 96 businesses run by the four largest foundations, only nine file public accounts. The generals spurn demands by parliament to account for public monies they spend.

Since the four foundations were established under the Charitable Endowment Act 1890 or the Societies Registration Act 1860 as private entities, the accounts of these foundations are not audited by the government's prime accounting agency the Auditor- General of Pakistan.

Siddiqa’s research indicates that the military businesses thrive, thanks to invisible state subsidies in the form of free land, the use of military assets, and loans to bail them out when they run into trouble. Given the lack of transparency of the military-controlled companies, it was not possible to access updated financial information. From a technical/legal standpoint, the welfare foundations are not liable to provide information regarding their operations to the public.

The Army Welfare Trust (AWT)

According to the book: "The Army Welfare Trust (AWT) asked for a financial bailout worth five billion rupees in 1997 and was given relief worth two billion from the national exchequer by the Sharif government. A bail out was again requested from the Sharif regime in February 1999. The finance ministry referred the matter to the parliament’s cabinet committee of economic affairs with the request that it approve a guarantee of Rs2.5 billion which would be used to redeem the earlier guarantee of four billion rupees. The AWT had sought a fresh loan to pay off part of the earlier financial liability. A fresh financial guarantee was sought from the government despite the fact that the army welfare trust was declared to be a private sector entity which could not get financial aid from the government as the latter was not responsible for its debt repayment. The AWT also borrowed from local national and private banks and the international financial market. Approximately six and a half billion rupees out of a total of fifteen billion rupees deficit was borrowed from the National Bank of Pakistan, Allied Bank Limited and ABN-Amro against official guarantees. In addition, AWT owed one and a half billion rupees to a foreign financial company Laith Ltd which had filed a recovery suit against it in the United Kingdom."

The Fauji Foundation

The Fauji Foundation does not fare dramatically different. One learns from reading the book that the Fauji-Jordan Fertilizer Company secured four foreign currency loans. This comprised US$30 million from the Canadian Export Development Corp, US$ 53 million from Kreditanstalt fur Wiederaufabau of Germany, US$ 57 million from a consortium of French banks and a US$ 40 million facility from the Export-Import Bank of the United States. The money was used to purchase a second hand ammonia plant from the United States worth US$ 370 million. This did not turn out to be a wise investment as in 2001 FJFC's stock fell by 21.1 per cent within thirteen weeks. This compelled President Musharraf to ask Fauji Foundation to improve the profitability of certain projects. This advice was given along with financial help from the government. The government's economic survey shows that Fauji Foundation was consistently subsidized to the tune of over one billion rupees annually. No such help has been extended to other private sector organizations.

Frontier Works Organization

The book also talks about the Frontier Works Organization. According to Audit Report 179 for the financial year 1999/2000 there was a deficit of Rs4,076.868 million. The organization's receipts for the financial year were Rs4,191.365 million and the expenditure was Rs5,171.391 million. The difference of Rs980.026 million represents deficit expenditure that was borne by the state.

The book cites Special Audit Report 187 on the accounts of the cantonment boards of Clifton in Karachi, Walton in Lahore, Sialkot and Gujranwala pointed out a loss of Rs1,006.083 million as a result of illegal conversion of military residential land for commercial use and another Rs129.700 million because of the commercialization of land originally meant for the army's operational use. It is important to mention that the military land manual forbids the use of military land for any purpose other than the defense force's operations, the book says.

Army Generals are neo-land barons

But the biggest and the most visible perk is the rural and urban land given out to serving and retired officers. They also get subsidies and other benefits to develop the land. A major-general can expect to receive on retirement a present of 240 acres of prime farmland, worth on average 1.1 million dollars as well an urban real estate plot valued at 1.4 million dollars. The Pakistan military, as a single group, owns more land than any other institution or group, amounting to about 12 per cent of total state land. And unlike other state institutions, the military can convert this land for private usage.

The military is a significant stakeholder in agricultural land. Out of the 11.58 million acres that is controlled by the armed forces, an estimated 6.9 million acres, or about 59 per cent of the total land, is in rural areas.  Out of the 11.58 million acres that is controlled by the armed forces, an estimated 6.9 million acres, or about 59 per cent of the total land, is in rural areas.

Of the 11.58 million acres of land under its control, more than half is owned by individual members of the armed forces, mainly officers. Ms. Siddiqa argues that the “monopolization” of land by the armed forces is aimed not just at increasing the financial worth of individuals or groups within the army, but also to increase its social and political worth. “The military owes it authority to change the usage of land to its phenomenal political clout. The land redistribution policy has an impact on the relationship between the powerful ruling elite in the country — of which the military is a part — and the masses.”

The military has also begun to act in the manner of a feudal landlord. When landless peasants in central Punjab complained in 2001 that the army had changed the status of the land on which they depended for their subsistence (forcing them to pay rent in cash, rather than working the land on a sharecropping basis) the army cracked down, beating many and leaving eight dead. At one point, Dr Siddiqa quotes a naval officer who questions why landless peasants should have any rights in relation to the land they till. ‘They do not deserve land just because they are poor,’ he says.

The subsidiary foundations, the FF, AWT and BF, are all beneficiaries of the defense establishment's land grant policy. The FF farm in Nukerji in Sindh covers 2,498 acres.23 Located close to the foundation-owned sugar mills, the  farm is used to experiment in trying to develop new varieties of sugar cane. The AWT's main ownership of agricultural land is in the form of its partnership with the army in controlling the Okara farms. The BF's farms are used mainly as dairy farms to provide milk and other dairy products at subsidized rates to serving naval officers.

The military has acquired about 6.9 million acres of land for further redistribution to individual officers and soldiers. The entire concept of land grants to the military is mired in the larger and redundant colonial tradition of buying allegiance in exchange for land. As part of the policy pursued after 1857, the British rewarded their loyal subjects with land and access to water sources for irrigation. [9]

Army in high civilian positions

Not only on economy, have the armed forces had penetrated deep into Pakistan’s civil service. The military was granted a quota of 10 per cent of civil service positions at grade BPS-17 and above. During Zia ul Haq's regime the government agreed to reserve 10 per cent of all public-sector vacancies for former members of the armed forces.

In 2003, as many as 104 serving and retired Lieutenant Generals, Major Generals or equivalent ranks from other services were among the 1,027 military officers inducted on civilian posts in different ministries, divisions and Pakistani missions abroad after Oct 12, 1999 military takeover. The number of army Brigadiers or their equivalent ranks from the Navy and Air Force is even higher at 160, according to an annexure placed before the Senate. There have been 14 ambassadors and a high commissioner from the military ranks during this period. In the Foreign Affairs 13 Lieutenants and Major Generals were appointed as ambassadors in different countries, while one Brigadier and a Major also got ambassadorial positions. [10]

While the role of Pakistan army is to be solely the defenders of our Currently, Pakistan Army is currently involved in almost every sector of Pakistan. With political unrest in Pakistan, we see the army threatening the democratic governments to take things into their own hands. Therefore, their over involvement in every sector of Pakistan needs to be reduced. Here are some of the recommendations that can be implemented to disengage the army from internal affairs of Pakistan:

1. Doctrine of necessity should be removed: The term Doctrine of Necessity is used to describe the legal basis for a controversial 1954 judgment in which Pakistani Chief Justice Muhammad Munir validated the extra-constitutional use of emergency powers by Governor General, Ghulam Mohammad[11]. It is through the doctrine of necessity that all the martial laws imposed on this country have been validated by the Supreme Court. Recently, efforts have been seen by Chief justice Iftikhar Muhammad Chaudhary bury the doctrine of necessity and not to follow it at any cost. However, it is important that the successive Chief Justices follow this as well as other political parties to maintain a stance of not involving or asking help from the army
2. Army budget should be presented in the parliament & gradually decreased: The general practice has been to dismiss the defence budget in a cursory manner, without providing any details. The excuse given, year after year, is that it is not in the national interest to publicly discuss the defence budget[12]. Hence a breakdown of where the money is spent should be presented in the parliament so that there is transparency in what is being spent where. The Asghar khan case is the prime example of the lack of transparency in our system where the army had distributed Rupees 140 million to anti-PPP political candidates before the 1990 general elections[13]. Thus, when the army budget will be presented in the parliament in detail, it will be easier to reduce the expenditures of the army. However, the budget should be decreased gradually in order to avoid any repercussions that may come from this step.
3. Trichotomy of powers: With 3 military coups in our 65 year history and army officials penetrated in every sector of Pakistan; the sole power lies in the hands of the army. Thus, the powers of the country should be divided amongst the army, government and the judiciary. This is important so that no one institution in the country can derail the entire country’s process. It is also important to divide the powers so that there is a system of accountability amongst these institutions and no one power can do whatever they want in the country.
4. Independent judiciary: The Provisional constitutional order is used by the army to legitimize their military coups[14]. General Zia-ul-Haq and Parvez Musharraf took oath of office under the PCO which made them president of Pakistan in their respective time periods. Thus, the judiciary should be independent so that Army chiefs cannot extend their tenures of leading the country.
5. Legal tenures should be followed: Army officials on high posts are offered extensions in their tenures to strengthen their grip of the positions they hold and the powers they have on those posts. Recent examples include DG ISI Ahmed Shuja Pasha given an extension for the second time in his tenure[15] as well as Chief of Army Staff kayani being given a three-year extension in 2010. These extensions lead to penetrations of these high rank officials in the government leading to their over involvement in our system.
6. Merit promotions: officers that have been promoted out of turn have subsequently intervened in political affairs of the country. Zia-Ul-Haq was promoted out of turn by Zulfiqar Ali Bhutto as well as Musharraf was promoted out of turn by Nawaz Sharif. This act of promoting officers on the basis of personal ties subsequently leads to army leaders doing more than their duty allows them to, which in turn leads to their involvement in internal affairs.

REFERENCES

http://www.defence.pk/forums/pakistan-defence-industry/122186-pakistan-s-defence-budget-cloaked-secrecy.html

http://blogs.reuters.com/pakistan/2010/07/22/pakistans-general-kayani-given-three-year-extension/

http://www.paperpk.com/news/index.php/gillani-offering-extension-in-services-of-dg-lt-isi-ahmed-shuja-pasha/

http://expertscolumn.com/content/role-pak-army-nation-building

http://pkpolitics.com/discuss/topic/pakistan-the-asghar-khan-case

Doctrine of Necessity-Application in Pakistan by Muhammad Nasrullah Virk

http://absarahmed.wordpress.com/2009/04/30/doctrine-of-necessity/

Military INC. – Inside Pakistan’s Military Economy by Dr. Aysha Sidiqa

http://www.journalofamerica.net/html/pak_army.html

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[1] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Military_coups_in_Pakistan

[2]Naveed Butt. “Pakistan: A dream gone sour by the Fascist Army” < http://www.fascistarmy.org/>

[3] Military Inc.: inside Pakistan's military economy by “Ayesha Siddiqa”-Agha - Pluto Press – 2007

[4] Zeeshan Mansoor. "GlobalResearch.ca - Centre for Research on Globalization”. 2007. Web. 14 May 2012. <http://www.globalresearch.ca/index.php?context=va>.

[5] http://www.pakistanarmy.gov.pk/awpreview/TextContent.aspx?pId=365

[6] Saloni Salil. “Role of Pakistan Armed Forces in 2010 floods”< http://idsa.in/system/files/jds_6_1_SaloniSalil.pdf>

[7] Noorillahi. "ROLE OF PAK ARMY IN NATION BUILDING." ROLE OF PAK ARMY IN NATION BUILDING. June-July 2010. Web. 14 May 2012. <http://expertscolumn.com/content/role-pak-army-nation-building%20>.

[8] http://www.pakistanarmy.gov.pk/awpreview/TextContent.aspx?pId=365

[9] Abdus Sattar Ghazali. "Pak Army." Pak Army. 15 June 2011. Web. 14 May 2012. <http://www.journalofamerica.net/html/pak_army.html>.

[10] Military Inc.: inside Pakistan's military economy by “Ayesha Siddiqa”-Agha - Pluto Press - 2007

[11] Absar Ahmed. "Doctrine of Necessity - a Portal to Martial Law?" My Distinguished Sense, 30 Apr. 2009. Web. 14 May 2012. <http://absarahmed.wordpress.com/2009/04/30/doctrine-of-necessity/>.

[12] http://www.defence.pk/forums/pakistan-defence-industry/122186-pakistan-s-defence-budget-cloaked-secrecy.html

[13] Sultan M Hali. "The Asghar Khan Case." Daily Pakistan Observer. Web. 14 May 2012. <http://pakobserver.net/201202/24/detailnews.asp?id=141736>.

[14] Khalil Afridi. "New Emergency or Provisional Constitution Order(pco)." New Emergency or Provisional Constitution Order(pco). Web. 14 May 2012. <http://www.forumpakistan.com/new-emergency-or-provisional-constitution-orderpco-t2904.html>.

[15] http://www.paperpk.com/news/index.php/gillani-offering-extension-in-services-of-dg-lt-isi-ahmed-shuja-pasha/