BY FAROOQ TARIQ
In a dramatic political move, the ruling military government has allowed ex-prime minister Nawaz Sharif to leave Pakistan for Saudi Arabia with 19 family members. Sharif had been sentenced to 21 years imprisonment for trying to hijack a plane carrying military leader Pervaiz Musharraf on the day of the coup, October 12, 1999.
There is nothing "humanitarian" in this episode, as the regime's chief spokesperson General Rashid Qureshi claimed. Nor does it have anything to do with Sharif's deteriorating health, as the military have shown little concern for it during the past year. The decision is a political and class decision — by this deal both parties have taken safe refuge, either external or internal.
Nawaz's Muslim League has played dirty, joining the Alliance for the Restoration of Democracy and hosting its first meeting in their base of Rawalpindi a mere week before Sharif's December 10 release. Military spokespeople have confirmed that Musharraf had received requests from the Sharif family "for some time" to allow them to go abroad for "medical treatment" — the Muslim League's decision to join the alliance was clearly intended to pressure the military into offering a deal.
The reason the military regime let Sharif go was its fear of the potential power of the Alliance for the Restoration of Democracy to launch a mass movement. For the regime, the release is a considerable retreat.
The military had been building a strong case against Sharif as the corrupt leader who had looted the state's wealth and brought the economy to near-collapse, thereby justifying its takeover. Its "accountability process" had produced thousands of pages proving the corruption of the Sharif family — he was even sentenced to a further seven years imprisonment for one such case.
By releasing him, however, the military has proven that the whole accountability process was a cruel joke, a tactic to prolong the military regime and nothing else.
The decision to release Sharif is the second retreat by the regime in the last few months, following its abandonment of the controversial Kalabagh Dam after sustained protests by three nationalities, the Sindhis, the Baluchis and the Pushtoons, that the dam would deprive them of their share of water from the Indus river.
The military regime has also brought down on itself the hatred of the masses by agreeing to conditions imposed by the International Monetary Fund and the World Bank, which have brought a large-scale retrenchment of public sector workers and an unprecedented price hike. The December release of another installment of the IMF's promised loan package has given the regime some financial breathing space but at the expense of further conditions.
Musharraf has lost what he gained after the October 1999 coup — a sense of relief from the masses after the unpopular and authoritarian rule of Sharif. They have learned the hard way about the realities of running a crisis-ridden declining economy.
The formation of the Alliance for the Restoration of Democracy had raised the hopes of many that it was the only alternative to the military regime. Momentum was building for a confrontation with the regime.
Until yesterday, Sharif was boosting the fight for the restoration of democracy. His wife Kalsoom had led a bitter struggle to kick out of the party those who had suggested a compromise with the military regime. Instead she advocated an alliance with former prime minister Benazir Bhutto's Pakistan People's Party — "to launch a mass movement against the regime", she said several times.
The sudden capitulation of Nawaz Sharif will give the military some breathing space. But it is he and his Muslim League that will bear the burden of unpopularity; they will pay an even heavier price than the military regime.
Traditionally the conservative party of the rich, the Muslim League has a long history of compromise with every ruling class and military regime, right back to the time of British colonialism. Sharif's capitulation is but the latest exposure of the real nature of capitalist politicians in the neo-colonial countries. "Do not trust the rich politician" will be the main lesson that the working class will learn from this affair.
This dirty deal has made the lives of the Nawaz family and the military generals somewhat easier, but not those of the millions in poverty. The deal is but a temporary blow to the struggle for democracy and the recently formed Alliance for the Restoration of Democracy, which will continue to pick up support.
Some of the alliance's prospects for the future also rest on whether Bhutto's PPP avoids, or repeats, the Muslim League's performance. Bhutto's husband Asif Zardari has been in jail for the last four years on corruption charges — the military might be tempted to offer a similar deal and the PPP might be tempted to accept. If it does, it would also lose the opportunity to pick up its lost support.
In contrast to these capitalist parties, the Labour Party Pakistan has opposed the military regime from day one. It will continue its campaign for the restoration of democracy no matter what, linking it with the need to change the capitalist system with a genuine democratic socialism.
[Farooq Tariq is the general secretary of the Labour Party Pakistan, <http://www.labourpakistan.org>.]