http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/south_asia/4733180.stm
Guest journalist and writer Ahmed Rashid reflects in his latest column for the BBC News website on President Pervez Musharraf’s political future.
Last year President Pervez Musharraf’s game plan seemed to be clear - conclude a peace settlement with India over the disputed region of Kashmir and start building the mammoth Kalabagh dam which he says will benefit farmers across Pakistan.
Then, go to the people as the greatest builder since the Moghul emperors and the one who ended the 50-year-old conflict with India.
The game plan never played out. India refused to respond to Gen Musharraf’s peace plans as long as the army keeps in reserve large numbers of Kashmiri jihadis who the army helped re-emerge so dramatically after last October’s earthquake.
Meanwhile angry protesters marched in Sindh province voicing their opposition to the Kalabagh dam which they say will leave the south of the country short of water. Now Gen Musharraf faces worsening problems elsewhere in the country.
The military has been sent in to Balochistan province to curb an insurgency by Baloch separatists.
According to Shahid Bugti, a spokesman for the Bugti tribe, in five weeks since the end of December, 75 civilians, 62 security personnel and an unknown number of insurgents have been killed in the heavy fighting centred in the Marri and Bugti tribal areas. The army has given no casualty figures.
Cabinet members and the ruling Pakistan Muslim League (PML) are openly wondering why the military did not endorse a peace agreement reached last year between PML leaders Chaudhry Shujaat Hussain and Senator Mushahid Hussain and Baloch leader Nawab Akbar Bugti, that would have given Balochistan enhanced autonomy.
The painstakingly negotiated deal followed a report prepared by the PML leaders which has been praised by the Baloch. For the first time, this official report admits to long standing discrimination against the Baloch.
The report gathers dust.
Now the fighting has escalated dramatically as the Baloch vent their anger at the Frontier Corps which is hated in Balochistan because it comprises of non-Baloch militia and stands accused of brutality, corruption and the use of indiscriminate reprisals against civilians.
According to the Human Rights Commission of Pakistan, the Corps has carried out 12 extra-judicial killings, something the government denies.
Opposite effect In the tribal areas adjacent to Pakistan’s border with Afghanistan and the North West Frontier Province the Pakistan army was deployed to catch al Qaeda and Taleban fighters, win over the tribesmen with lavish development projects and offer them a political future.
But just the opposite has happened.
After nearly three years of action, the army is confined to its barracks unable to patrol the mountains or apprehend anyone, while much of Waziristan is now in the hands of the Taleban. The Taleban have killed 90 tribal leaders who had sided with the government.
There are areas where the army should be patrolling, but the Taleban now maintain law and order.
There is also discontent in Sindh province where the army’s alliance with the Urdu-speaking Muttahida Quami Mahaz and its curbs on the secular Pakistan Peoples Party has alienated Sindhis.
Now the fundamentalist Islamic parties have seized the controversy over the Danish cartoons and are mounting daily street protests.
The demonstrations are rapidly turning into an anti-Musharraf show of force rather than focussing on the original target of the cartoons.
Despite this large scale unrest in the provinces, senior politicians from Punjab, the largest province and from where 70% of the army is drawn, are more concerned about how to secure Gen Musharraf’s second term as president.
If the game plan had gone as expected, he would seek election for a second term after the general elections in 2007, which would throw up a new parliament.
However with his popularity now collapsing that is now deemed by some to be too risky a course. So now the army and some politicians are seeking a way to delay the elections until 2008, so that Gen Musharraf can secure his second term in 2007 by votes from the present parliament. They may succeed in doing so but prolonging military rule is not the answer to Pakistan’s growing myriad of problems - political, economic and regional.