Frontline Pakistan : The Struggle With Militant Islam - Arz-e-Pak

Frontline Pakistan
command’s decision to rest content with dominance, rather than direct
intervention, was based on a careful calculation of the advantages and
disadvantages of playing arbiter in Pakistan’s highly polarized and
conflict-ridden political scene.
A hamstrung Benazir Bhutto found herself directly clashing with the
army when she removed General Gul from the ISI. The General, who
was the architect of the IDA, had never reconciled himself to even
restricted civilian rule. Benazir was never trusted by the establishment
and many generals made it a point not to salute her. It was in February
1990 when I met General Gul in Multan, where he was posted as
the commander of Pakistan’s main strike corps, after being sacked
from the ISI. It was the period when the army had just concluded a
major war exercise called ‘Zarb-i-Momin’. The General accused Prime
Minister Benazir of trying to make peace with India and questioned her
patriotism. ‘By conducting the exercise we have blocked her designs
to undermine Pakistan’s defence,’ he said.
It was apparent that the generals were looking for an opportune
moment to remove Benazir from power. The clash came to a head
when the Prime Minister tried to retire the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs
of Staff Committee, Admiral Iftikhar Ahmed Sarohi, and gave a year’s
extension in service to Lt.-General Alam Jan Mehsud, a senior general
believed to be close to her government. The army top brass saw this
as blatant interference in the army’s internal affairs. Eventually, on 6
August 1990, President Ghulam Ishaq Khan dismissed her government
on charges of corruption and dissolved the National Assembly.
President Khan, a former top bureaucrat, was the central pillar of
General Zia’s military rule and represented his legacy.
Benazir’s party met a humiliating defeat in the following elections,
losing the government even in her home province and political
stronghold, Sindh. The military leadership did not want to take any
chances that time. To ensure the IDA’s electoral victory, the ISI financed
the election campaign of many top Alliance leaders. 25 The list, which
was published in national newspapers, contained the names of some
leading politicians, including Nawaz Sharif. Most of them later held
important posts in the new government.
In 1988, the long-simmering political discontent in Kashmir exploded
into a popular uprising against Indian control. Thousands of young
Kashmiris crossed over to the Pakistani side of the Line of Control
to receive guerrilla training as the Indian authorities tried to crush
the insurgency by brute force. Essentially an indigenous rebellion, it