Apparently the only way left to export democracy is to support military dictatorships. On the 8th of October, General Pervez Musharraf, the dictator of Pakistan for the last 9 years won another rigged presidential election. Half of his parliament boycotted or resigned in frustration. General Musharraf still enjoys the United States undivided support as its most important partner in the war on terror.
Without U.S support, Musharraf could never have maintained illegal military control over a democratic country for so long. The U.S has a strategic interest in having a friendly government in Pakistan, as it shares a border with Afghanistan and has become the new front line for the war on terror. Sadly, where strategic interests are involved, promoting democracy and respecting sovereignty take a back seat.
The people of Pakistan have had to live with the consequences of America’s foreign policy, facing the ever present threat of bomb blasts and attacks by extremist organizations which see Pakistan as a proxy for the American government. More than 700 Pakistanis have been abducted by their own government’s intelligence organizations and the FBI. The fortunate ones get detained and tortured by the ISI (Pakistan’s version of the CIA) while the unluckier ones get sent off to Guantanamo and other secret U.S prisons where the Geneva Convention doesn’t apply and human rights magically cease to exist. No evidence or warrants are necessary, cash rewards offered by the U.S government for the arrest of suspected Al-Qaeda sympathizers are enough to circumvent any due process that may have existed in this once democratic country.
The government has played to the population’s anti-U.S sentiments by officially denouncing America’s slaughter of the people of Afghanistan, while secretly launching a military offensive against some of its own citizens in the Taliban sympathetic Northwest Frontier of Pakistan, because of U.S demands. These clashes were the result of mounting U.S pressure on Musharraf to deliver on their investment in diplomatic and monetary support. As a result, thousands of Pakistani citizens living in the tribal belt and at least 2000 Pakistani soldiers, by some unofficial estimates, lost their lives while fighting each other in order to satiate U.S demands.
The General, in order to stay in power has also had to take measures previously thought impossible. In order to garner support in the Sindh province, The MQM, an organization heavily involved in organized crime and held responsible for many incidents of terrorism in Karachi, was allowed control of the provincial government. Individual’s against whom active murder cases were pending, were allowed to take office and the MQM openly massacred any political opposition in the province resulting in massive bloodshed in Karachi on the 12th of May 2007, that left more than 200 opposition political workers dead. All this happened under the watchful eye of government security personnel that refused to intervene.
Another consequence of America’s continued support for the “General President” has been the complete undermining of Pakistani institutions such as the Supreme Court of Pakistan. Earlier in the year, Musharraf “fired” a Supreme Court justice when he questioned the constitutional basis of him holding power. This caused massive upheaval in the country and the people of Pakistan rioted and rallied behind the deposed Chief justice until the government had to reinstate him. Many people, including lawyers, lost their lives in the riots, others were injured and maimed. Throughout all these events, the U.S never once officially condemned the draconic measures that Musharraf was taking in order to stay in power.
One can argue that America shouldn’t care about what happens in other countries, that it can write these things off as someone else’s domestic problem. If only that were the case, there would never be situations like the one that prevails in Pakistan today. In a country like Pakistan, burdened by debt and reliant on foreign Aid, the U.S has a lot of say in who takes power as it controls the purse strings for foreign aid and provides much needed military equipment and technology.
Any General taking power in Pakistan needs the blessings of Pakistan’s U.S masters, otherwise his regime would be overthrown by a more favorable candidate. This alone goes against promoting democracy, not to mention the heinous acts perpetrated by the puppet governments on behalf of the puppet masters in order to maintain the status quo. All the while the people, who are supposed to elect their own leaders, suffer under tyrants chosen by foreigners sitting half the world away who have no stake in their country’s destiny, only selfish short-term strategic interests.
This isn’t anything that the world hasn’t seen before. The Shah of Iran, The Saudi Royal family, Hamid Karzai in Afghanistan are a few other examples of the U.S putting strategic interests before its ideal of exporting democracy. The only difference between how Myanmar or Pakistan are perceived internationally is how vital they are to U.S interests, and that is injustice in a nutshell. One can only hope that the U.S wakes up from its self induced moral slumber and once more realizes its true role as a defender of democracy instead of an exporter of Tyranny.
2 comments:
Ahh, proxy wars...another U.S. specialty.
Also, you said earlier that Musharraf's government often has to play to the Pakistani's anti-American sentiments for leverage. But do the citizens of Pakistan actually know that Musharraf is backed by the U.S.? Or does the Pakistani president just do a good job of hiding/spinning this fact?
Do you know of an ways that the U.S. may have helped in rigging the elections - other than monetary methods under the guise of "foreign aid" ?
p.s. I hope your family is safe and doing well over there.
The U.S earmarks a suitable candidate. Once people in the hierarchy in Pakistan become aware of the U.S having chosen a certain general to back, they all fall into line because they know they cannot oppose that support and risk turning off the foreign aid tap. A certain portion of the population, the more educated elite and upper middle class is usually aware of the dirty po;litics at work. The mob can be seduced by whatever story of Patriotic responsibility or religious zeal the dictator wants to spin. The Election rigging is done domestically by intimidation and sometimes outright violence, not many people can oppose a general in Pakistan, let alone one thats been earmarked by the American's for the throne. One such example of American manipulation is the "Pressler Amendment" and multiple F16 fighter Aircraft that were ordered and paid for by the Pakistanis more than a decade ago, according to an agreement on the sale of military hardware, but still havent been delivered by the U.S. Now imagine the same thing happening to monetary aid that the country desperately relies on and the picture becomes clear, its not an option.
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