Pakistan's coup is not a bad move

Mr. Sarkar's Wild Ride
    By Saurav Sarkar

The latest chapter of South Asian history—think Mets versus Braves, but with nuclear weapons—caught me unawares. One moment, there was a headline telling me that General Musharraf's Pakistani army had surrounded the nation's airport and shut down its television stations, and the next, there was that word, "coup." I didn't quite know what to think eight days ago, despite having taken all one of Yale's undergraduate history courses on South Asia. The destruction of a democratic institution is not necessarily a tragedy, after all, for the Afghani women who were suffering under the Pakistani-abetted Taliban, for anyone who was fearing an escalating South Asian nuclear arms race, and especially for ordinary Pakistanis who didn't share in the personal benefits of corruption. But was this an action undertaken for the benefit of an overzealous military with a few power-hungry commanders, or was it a patriotic act by the only institution with the integrity, power, and chutzpah to save Pakistanis from their own government?

When asked, most Pakistanis covered in the Western press expressed the second opinion. "I don't think there should be any elections...there should be a strong dictator," one man told the New York Times [10/16/99]. Even accounting for the fact that the guy is an elementary school principal, such authoritarian sentiment is more than a little frightening. Some people were less enthusiastic about the prospect of an extended Musharrafarama; a business student told ABCNews.com [10/16/99] that he thought Pakistanis would tolerate military rule for no more than six months.

What does it mean when an entire country "votes" against democracy? Well, for starters, it means that a people long familiar with military rule, interrupted only occasionally by bouts of ineffective and corrupt government, aren't so bound up in democratic ideology that they won't lash out when they're getting shafted. According to the New York Times [10/16/99], "Two-thirds of the country's wealth goes to the military and to paying its debts. Three-quarters of the aid Pakistan receives from the International Monetary Fund (IMF) goes to pay off IOUs to the IMF." Add to this the rampant governmental corruption that led some publications to label this coup a "rage against kleptocracy" [Australian Financial Review, 10/15/99], and it's a little less surprising to hear elementary-school principals saying that those who were formerly running the government "should be behind bars or hanged" [NYT, 10/16/99].

The so-called democratic government of Pakistan was so bad that even Western governments can't muster the ideological gumption to call for its restoration. The United States, the European Union, and the British Commonwealth—of which Pakistan is a member—have all called for a restoration of new democracy. However, displeased with the absence of concrete plans for how Pakistan might establish a real democracy, the United States has cut aid to the nation—despite the fact that the United States already has little invested in Pakistan due to nuclear-weapons-related sanction. Not surprisingly, it's the privately administered health program, not the anti-narcotics money, that is getting cut.

Thus far, one has to admit that Musharraf's government-type-thing has not been brutal. Bank accounts of former government associates have been frozen and armed guards at the airport are on the lookout for the corrupt. Musharraf has pledged to set up a technocratic council to run the government for now until "true" democracy can be established. Until events take their course, there's really no way to tell whether this latest coup marks an opening for real democracy or just another addition to a long line of military dictators that have set the tone of Pakistan's entire existence. In the meantime, if they're looking for something to do, American politicians might want to start taking campaign finance reform a little more seriously.

Recent Herald Columns by this Columnist:
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• The Reform Party: America's laughingstock, 10/8/99
• A call for global responsibility, 9/24/99

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