Islamabad: Pakistan Prime Minister Imran Khan is “calling the shots” while the military is playing a supporting role as the government confronts challenges from the Covid-19 pandemic to threats from neighboring India, a government minister said in a statement.
The remarks by Shireen Mazari, the minister for human rights in Khan’s cabinet, came in response to a Bloomberg News report this week detailing the military’s heightened profile in battling the virus in Pakistan, the most infected nation in Asia after India. Any notion the military was in charge “seems based more on hearsay than facts and an arrogant ignorance,” she said.
“The Prime Minister is calling the shots in accordance with the powers mandated unto him by the Constitution,” Mazari said in the statement. “The military and security services are in a supporting role.”
The army is Pakistan’s most powerful institution and has long directly ruled the country for large parts of its seven-decade history. Khan — who heads the Movement for Justice party, or Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf — has long dismissed allegations that he was too close to the military.
At least 12 army loyalists now in the cabinet also took part in dictator-turned-President Pervez Musharraf’s administration, which ended in 2008. Retired lieutenant general Asim Saleem Bajwa is now Khan’s communication adviser and also oversees the implementation of about $60 billion in Pakistan projects as part of China’s Belt-and-Road Initiative.
Mazari said analysts should stop viewing Pakistan “as being in a constant struggle between civil and military forces,” while drawing comparisons to administration of U.S. President Donald Trump. She also said the military is on alert due to threats from Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi and the Hindu group Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS) after India scrapped seven decades of autonomy in a region Pakistan calls Indian-Occupied Kashmir (IOK).
Modi’s office didn’t immediately respond to an email seeking comment. Ariel Pollock, the U.S. embassy spokeswoman in India, also didn’t respond to an email and text message.
Modi has long accused Pakistan of fomenting terrorism in Kashmir and elsewhere. He said the move in Kashmir was designed to bring progress — a goal that has yet to be realized nearly a year later.
“Civil-military relations are being redefined because there is no conflict between the civilian government and the military,” Mazari said. “Clearly that disturbs the international media and foreign analysts pre-conceived and more comfortable notions of a constant civil-military disconnect in Pakistan.”
Here are some other highlights from Mazari’s statement:
On India:
“Given the rise of Hindu fascism in India, indirectly aided and abetted by the powers in the U.S., Fuhrer Modi and his storm troopers of the RSS are terrorizing the Muslim population in India, have illegally annexed IOK, and are making threatening overtures against Pakistan emboldened by US arms exports.
“Thus Pakistan is facing a possible existential threat from India and Pakistan has had to raise the level of its national security posture. Hence, the military has been instructed by the PM to implement all necessary measures to thwart any military threat from India and to execute an overwhelming response in the event of any aggression mounted by India.”
On Pakistan International Airlines Corp.:
“Under the current government and the CEO appointed by the PM, the airline is slowly returning to normal by ferreting out pilots, engineers and others with fake licenses and qualifications, implementing modern cost-efficient reservation system, returning to service costly planes that had been cannibalized for parts, etc. The tragic recent crashes are a lingering legacy of past mismanagement and corruption that is in the process of being cleared up.”
On the Covid-19 response:
“Under the Constitution the provinces are responsible for health care and mandated to call in the military in aid of civil authority, which is the case in some provinces. This is no way reflects the military ‘controlling’ the federal government.”
“President Trump has said that the U.S. is in a war against Covid-19, well so is Pakistan. In war time, government communications involve military communication channels — hence, there is nothing out of the ordinary in military officials being part of the government’s communications team.”
On retired military officers:
“While indeed the military is a respected organization in Pakistan, it is not in Pakistan but it is in the U.S. that military officers in uniform get priority boarding at airports and at privileged access at other places. It is in the U.S. that the public, media and Congress cravenly fawns over the military and covers up their war crimes and excesses in the various places globally where the U.S. military is shooting up civilians. Fortunately, this has never been the case in our country – one does not see military officers traveling in uniform on planes or in shops, they do so in civilian dress, as obviously we are a more civilized country in this aspect.”
On the China-Pakistan Economic Corridor:
“CPEC is a major infrastructure project, and just as the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers has the responsibility in the U.S. of mega infrastructure projects, it is not unusual that the military has a role in the implementation of the CPEC enterprise.” – Bloomberg
Also read: If Pakistan wants cure to Covid economy, it can’t define itself as national security state