Congratulating the nation on the completion of second five-year tenure of national and provincial assemblies on the eve of second elected civilian transition, the military has made a fervent appeal to our more than reckless and less than prudent politicians: please do not drag military into politics. “You know the environment prevalent in Pakistan right now: this is an election year. The year 2018 is a year of change. Political parties are fighting for power, and this fight has to be at each others’ expense. You should not drag security forces into this,” army spokesman Maj-Gen Asif Ghafoor told a press conference where he not only covered a variety of subjects, including the current status of Pak-Afghan and Pak-US relationships, the issue of missing persons and the ongoing inquiry into the controversial publication of a book jointly authored by two former spymasters of Pakistan and India, but reiterated his institution’s commitment to promote and strengthen participatory democracy in a country that has an unfortunate history of military takeovers. Dismissing several criticisms of the military, including references to it as the khalai makhlooq (celestial beings) that subvert the democratic process and accusations that it backs or supports militants, he has made it clear that the army would continue to exercise restraint till the criticism was limited to the institution, but would take action if people started targeting the state.
Speaking about Indo-Pak relationship, he has pointed out that Pakistan’s offer to India for dialogue always remains on the table and underscored that any progress towards normalisation is dependent on the attitude of the two sides to the process. The recent special contact between the two DGMOs suggests that the stalled peace process between the two countries is going to come under greater focus anytime soon, although Maj-Gen Ghafoor did not make any forecast about a possible breakthrough in this regard. According to him, “Pakistan may not even respond to the first bullet as long as it does not cause any casualty, but the second one would not go unresponded.” His remarks do contribute towards hopes when he points out that there is no space for war between the two nuclear-armed neighbours.
Explaining the army’s position on the historical Fata-KP merger, he has openly conceded the fact that the historical merger development is not the result of 100 percent consensus. He therefore deemed it necessary to explain his institution’s position in this regard: “… we need to understand that the decision has been made, it is a done deal. The army chief advised the pro-merger factions that they now need to take the people who were not entirely sold on the idea on board as they move forward. Fata is now a part of KP, and we need to work together for its development.” It is good to see that the army spokesman spoke about the challenge of Pashtun Tahaffuz Movement (PTM) and clarified that the security forces were not using any force against the PTM activists. “They are Pakistanis too. If they have some grievances, till such time [that] they are genuine and within the four corners of the Constitution, then we have to deal with them,” he quoted Gen Bajwa as saying. The army’s anger towards social media is more than plausible when he states that the army can tolerate tweets against itself, but “when it comes to the state, we share these with the relevant authorities and we work on those cases too.”
Last but not least, it is therefore heartening to note that although the ISPR chief did not speak about Egypt, the largest Arab country where Gen Sisi has consolidated army’s power through his “re-election”, he made it clear that Pakistan’s military is nursing no ambition to encroach upon a space that constitutionally belongs to civilians.
