An Agenda for National Survival
by Mohtarma Benazir Bhutto
August 28, 1998

It is a mater of great concern that the Nawaz Administration has opened a third-front against Pakistan. By putting all its eggs in one basket in Afghanistan, it has annoyed our brotherly neighbor Iran and the Central Asian republics. Due to the Nawaz regime's muddle-headedness and mishandling, the threat to national security has increased three-fold: One, from India on Kashmir; two, from US-led G-8 on non-proliferation and terrorism; and three, from Russia, Iran and Central Asia who are concerned about Pakistan's backing for Taliban.

Given the objective economic and strategic constraints, Pakistan should have confined itself to its historical front, i.e., Kashmir and India. But, as if international isolation and economic sanctions were not enough, the rulers have continued to expand hostile fronts against Pakistan which we can least afford, especially at this critical hour of economic collapse.

In the last 18 months the government has proved that it is clueless about running a foreign policy aimed at achieving national objectives or keeping national security in the right direction and proportionate to economic sustainability. Pakistan was established and recognized as a bridge between the democratic West and the Muslim East, since it followed a moderate policy of a democratic modern Muslim state, committed to the emancipation and development of the Muslim world and looking towards 21st century as a global trading partner under the PPP governments. Now, thanks to the Nawaz regime's blunders and reckless approach, Pakistan has lost all friends from Iran to Central Asia and its traditional allies in the West which sympathized with our principled position on the occupied state of Jammu and Kashmir, failing to persuade Taliban into forming a broad-based government as a lasting solution to the civil war while involving the international community to share the burden of reconstruction.

The dangerous fall out is now wide open. If the efforts at turning Pakistan into a warrior state ideologically attuned to an extremist creed of political war or jehad against the whole world are not reversed then there is a great danger of Pakistan being declared a rogue state accused of sponsoring terrorism. 

Islam poses no threat to the West. It is a faith of peace. Our God is the God of all worlds (Rabul-il-Aalamin) and our Prophet Mohammed (PBUH) is the fountain of benevolence for all, not just Muslims (Rehmatul-il- Aalmin). Those who profess barbaric version of Islam, indulge in terrorism, kill innocent, segregate women, brutalize people and spread sectarianism do not represent Islam, but a tiny extremist minority. 

While violating international laws and sovereign territories, the US has actually strengthened the isolated extremist groups in the Muslim world. There are perceived causes for resentment among the Muslim masses against the West for having followed double-standards in dealing with the problems faced by the Muslim world, such as the Palestinian issue, the delay in seeking an end to the civil war in Bosnia, the inability to resolve the Kashmir dispute despite security Council resolutions. But the struggle for a just world order can't be promoted by acts of terrorism such as those committed against the civilian targets, the US embassies in Kenya and Tanzania being the latest example. The US retaliation against a pharmaceutical target in Sudan and now cruise missile attack on Afghanistan while violating Pakistan's sovereignty, has inadvertently served the purpose of supposed terrorists. Both terrorism committed by alleged terrorists and the cruise missile attack on two sovereign nations are violative of democratic and human norms and international law. 

We are left with no choice but to abandon the role of a warrior state engaged in adventurist course of a holy war against innumerable targets. The time has come for the review of what national security means within the given economic parameters and international constraints. It seems that the Nawaz regime has made it its sole mission to get Pakistan totally isolated while helping India to form a broadest united front against Pakistan. Nawaz has pushed Pakistan into a very dangerous situation in which our trusted allies such as Iran, are being pushed to align against Pakistan. It is in the interest of Pakistan to keep one front to find an amicable solution to the Kashmir dispute while strictly avoiding to annoy allies and the international community. The Pakistan Peoples Party appeals to Taliban to respect international law and human rights and ask both the government of Pakistan and Taliban administration to cooperate in getting Iranian diplomats immediately released. It reiterates its support for a broad-based government by including all ethnic and religious minorities on the basis of consensus. 

The UN must be allowed to play a mediating role in finding a lasting solution. Pakistan is faced with an unprecedented crisis of survival which now threatens its independence and sovereignty What is quite exceptional about the current crisis is that it is a total crisis of economy, institutions, federal structure, governance, state and society when, thanks to a regime of consistent blunders, nodal points of all dimensions have concurred at one point of time. The crisis can be summed up as follow: 

a) The imperatives of a fragile dependent economy have come into an irreconcilable conflict with an over-extended national security state. The economy has finally refused to take this burden. A heavy super structure of the state neither evaluated nor acted in consonance with the imperatives of dependent economy and aspirations of its hapless people. The burden of quite ambitious and bigger than Pakistan's size security missions have exhausted the fundamentals of the economy.

b) By defying metropolitan powers and cosmopolitan finance capital (by squeezing the IPPs) simultaneously, the Nawaz Sharif government has actually exposed the imperatives of a peripheral economy. The precarious bases of this social formation have been devastated by defaulting on $ 11 billion worth FCAs, keeping an overvalued rupee, eroding the exchange rate by keeping three exchange rates, maintaining high interest rates, refusing LCs for imports without 50 percent hard cash, squeezing out savings, creating the conditions for an imminent default on external account and total erosion of confidence of the domestic market in the regime.

c) A four-D trap of debt, devaluation, deficit and demography, has brought the doom closer, leaving little space and time for survival.

d) While facing a real threat to its security from India, the regime continues to react to India and has isolated Pakistan amongst the international community.

e) The structural crisis has continued to exacerbate beyond redemption and now all institutions are in disarray, than to a personalized absolutist rule imposed by Mr. Nawaz Sharif in his self image of Raiwind fief.

f) The crisis of governance has continued to intensify at hands of a distorted democracy, degenerated bureaucracy, an institutionalized system of corruption, qabza groups, varied types of Mafia, tax-evaders, defaulters, manipulation of all last five elections, arbitrary dismissals of popular governments and, most importantly, parasitic huge structures of a big government.

g) Due to Raiwind based fraudulent heavy mandate and all federal powers/offices grabbed by a small coterie of plunderers and usurpers, the very existence of the federation has been shaken. Unfortunate imposition of the will of a small qabza group from one area on all other provinces, by imposition of emergency and arbitrary announcement to build Kalabagh Dam against the wishes of the other three provinces, have threatened both the unity of federation and solidarity among the people of big and smaller provinces, who actually suffer equally. A strong-centre can no more impose a kind of internal tyranny under whose suffocation the people of all federating units suffer.

h) The regime has exhausted all safety valves, missed all opportunities and floundered at all escape routes. It has become a big problem itself. With each passing day the crisis is becoming more and more unmanageable. The more the Raiwind regime remains in power, the greater the danger to the national existence. It can, at best, mess up a bleak situation, as it has already, and, at worst, leave nothing to fall back upon.

The present crisis is just not a simple government crisis. In so many ways, it is much more dangerous than the 1971 crisis. The state seems to have paralyzed since its pivotal institutions can’t think above their narrow self-interest. Similarly, a marginalised civil society and an undermined democratic opposition have been so much besieged that they cannot bail out the nation from its enigma in the given situation.

The time has been wasted and the state as it is, on objective parameters, has more or less failed. Yet quite difficult choices are to be made since they can’t be postponed. It is a Catch-22 situation. But the transcending self-interests and showing greater understanding of history, one can still make a choice to survive as a people and defend our beloved motherland.

The options between the stark choices are:

1). Between the demands of a sustainable economy and a national security state living beyond its means. The revival of a sustainable economy will have to be preferred over the extended national security mission. Without an economic base and investing on your people, no security is viable, despite atomic bombs.

2). Between the non-proliferation and disarmament intimately linked to the financial solvency and a destabilizing proliferation course attached to other ambitious security agendas, Pakistan must take lead on India by agreeing to sign the CTBT while negotiating a quid pro quo to get off the sanctions and isolation. 

3). Between a small, efficient and good government and a huge, inefficient and unresponsive bureaucratic state. If the potential of civil society is to be fully realized and the energies of the masses are to be unleashed, the government must be reduced and power transferred to local councils.

4). Between devolution of power to the grassroots level and centralized autocratic structures. Given the diversity and disparity of our people and regions, a radical devolution and decentralization will have to be undertaken to make people really sovereign and ensure and equal participation of all the regions of Pakistan.

5). Between a pluralist popular participation and a closed-door elitist club of misrepresentation. The system of representation will have to be restructured to allow peoples’ participation at every level and without discrimination on the basis of creed, region, gender, class and caste.

6). Between all-sided structural reforms and fossilized institutions. All sided structural reforms, including public sector corporations, civil service, judicial system, banking and corporate sector, social services and above all the reforms to develop human resources while eradicating poverty will have to be undertaken to avoid a total breakdown and receive the dynamism of an enterprising system.

If we take these decisions and in time, a vibrant Pakistan can still emerge out of the ashes of a moribund state. Any formula for the resolution of the governmental crisis must first address the above mentioned issues, and this can be done by the cooperation of all segments of society, federating units and all institutions of the state and by rising above pectoral, fictional, regional and institutional interests, The popular federalist PPP is ready to play its role to save the motherland, empower the people, build an equal and dynamic federation and enter 21st century as a progressive, democratic modern Muslim state.

Go Back

Biography - Speeches - Articles/Interviews - Kashmir Policy - Letters - Audios/Videos - Poems - Photographs