Pervez Musharraf

Pervez Musharraf پرويز مشرف
12th President of the Islamic Republic of Pakistan
Incumbent
Assumed office October 12, 1999
Preceded by	Muhammad Rafiq Tarar
Personal details
Born	August 11, 1943 Delhi, British India
Nationality	pakistani Indian Immigrant to Pakistan
Political party	None
Spouse	Begum Sehba Musharraf

Pervez Musharraf (Template:Lang-ur; born August 11, 1943) is currently the President of the Islamic Republic of Pakistan and the Chief of Army Staff of the Pakistani military. He took power on October 12, 1999 after a coup d'état and assumed the title of President on June 20, 2001.

Family background

Pervez Musharraf, the second of three brothers, was born in Daryaganj in Delhi, India on August 11, 1943. After the partition of India and Pakistan, his parents immigrated to Pakistan and chose to settle in Karachi. He comes from a middle class family, his father having worked for the foreign ministry as a clerk in the Pakistan embassy in Turkey. He spent his early years in Turkey, from 1949 to 1956. Musharraf is married to Begum Sehba Musharraf, who is from Okara; they have one son, Bilal Musharraf, and a daughter, Ayla, and have four grandchildren, two from each child. Bilal is settled in the United States and is a green card holder.

Early life

Musharraf attended Saint Patrick's High School, Karachi, graduating in 1958 before going on to attend Forman Christian College in Lahore.

Military career

In 1961, he entered the Pakistan Military Academy at Kakul, graduated 11th in his class and was later commissioned into the Artillery Regiment. A graduate of the Staff College, Quetta, and the National Defense College, Rawalpindi, Musharraf also a graduate of the Royal College of Defence Studies of the United Kingdom.

Musharraf participated in the Indo-Pakistani War of 1965 as the 2nd Lieutenant in the Field Artillery Regiment and later on in the Indo-Pakistani War of 1971 as a Company Commander in the SSG Commando Battalion. He later admitted that he "literally wept" when he heard the "disgusting" news of Pakistan's surrender to India. Later he commanded Regiments of Artillery, there after an Artillery Brigade and then went on to command an Infantry Division. In September 1987, heading a newly formed SSG at Khapalu base (Kashmir), he launched an unsuccessful assault to capture the Indian held posts of Bilafond La in Siachen Glacier.

On promotion to the rank of Major General on January 15, 1991, he was assigned the command of an Infantry Division. Later, on promotion to Lieutenant General on October 21, 1995 he took over command of the I Corps. In 1998, following the resignation of General Jehangir Karamat, he was personally promoted over other senior officers by Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif, as an obedient General and took over as the Chief of Army Staff. In 1999, he led the Pakistan Army during the Kargil Conflict. Gen. Musharraf also attended SSG and was the trainer of Pakistani commandos.

Role in Kargil Conflict

Main article: Kargil War

From April to June 1999, Pakistan and India were involved in the Kargil Conflict in which Musharraf was Pakistan's Army chief. This conflict resulted in eventual mistrust between civil and military leaderships and this division ultimately saw the demise of Sharif's government.

Coup d'état

Musharraf became de facto Head of Government (using the title Chief Executive and assuming extensive powers) of Pakistan following a bloodless coup d'état on 12 October 1999. That day, Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif attempted to dismiss Musharraf and install Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI) Director Khwaja Ziauddin in his place. Musharraf, who was out of the country, boarded a commercial airliner to return to Pakistan. Senior Army generals refused to accept Musharraf's dismissal. Sharif ordered the Karachi airport closed to prevent the landing of the airliner, which then circled the skies over Karachi. In the coup, the generals ousted Sharif's administration and took over the airport. The plane landed with only a few minutes of fuel to spare, and Musharraf assumed control of the government. Sharif was put under house arrest and later exiled. He and other democratic leaders have subsequently been prevented from entering Pakistan. Reportedly, the disagreement between Musharraf and Sharif centered around the democratically elected Prime Minister's desire to find a diplomatic resolution to the conflict.

The existing President of Pakistan, Rafiq Tarar, remained in office until June 2001. Musharraf formally made himself President on June 20, 2001, just days before his scheduled visit to Agra for talks with India.

Presidential elections

Shortly after Musharraf's takeover, several people filed court petitions challenging his assumption of power. On May 12, 2000, the Supreme Court of Pakistan ordered Musharraf to hold general elections by October 12, 2002. In an attempt to legitimize his presidency and assure its continuance after the approaching restoration of democracy, he held a referendum on April 30, 2002 to extend his presidential term to five years after the October elections. However, the referendum was boycotted by the majority of Pakistani political groupings, which later complained that the elections were heavily rigged, and voter turnout was 3% or below by most estimates. A few weeks later, Musharraf went on TV and apologized to the nation for "irregularities" in the referendum.

Musharraf also forcibly removed many of the Supreme Court Justices who had voted against his usurpation of power. These included Justice Taqi Usmani, a world authority on International financial law and Constitutional law. Newspaper editors who were critical of Musharraf, such as the editor of the Balochistan Post, have also been exiled.

General elections were held in October 2002 and a plurality of the seats in the Parliament was won by the PML-Q, a pro-Musharraf party consisting of feudal landlords whose power and hold on politics Musharraf had promised to destroy. However, parties opposed to Musharraf effectively paralysed the National Assembly for over a year.

The deadlock ended in December 2003, when Musharraf made a deal with the Muttahida Majlis-e-Amal party, an alliance of Islamic parties sympathetic to Talibans agreeing to leave the army by December 31, 2004. He subsequently refused to keep his promise. With that party's support, pro-Musharraf legislators were able to muster the two-thirds supermajority required to pass the Seventeenth Amendment, which retroactively legalized Musharraf's 1999 coup and many of his decrees.

Electoral College elections

In a vote of confidence on January 1, 2004, Musharraf won 658 out of 1,170 votes in the Electoral College of Pakistan, and according to Article 41(8) of the Constitution of Pakistan, was "deemed to be elected" to the office of President until October 2007.

Role after 9/11

Support for the War on Terror

Following the September 11, 2001 terrorist attacks in the United States, Musharraf sided with the United States against the Taliban government in Afghanistan after an ultimatum by the United States. Musharraf agreed to give the United States the use of three airbases for Operation Enduring Freedom. Secretary of State Colin Powell and other administration officials met with Musharraf. Musharraf's reversal of policy and help to the U.S. military was necessary in the U.S. bombing that rapidly overcame the Taliban regime. On September 19, 2001, Musharraf addressed the people of Pakistan and stated while he supported the Taliban, unless Pakistan reversed its support, Pakistan risked being endangered by an alliance of India and the USA.. In 2006, Musharraf testified that this stance was pressured by threats from the U.S.

Relations with India

Musharraf was Chief of Army Staff at the time of Pakistani incursions into the Indian-held Kashmir, in the summer of 1999. After suffering many reverses, the Pakistani Army was ordered to retreat. Some reports suggest that Musharraf retreated after huge pressure from the former Pakistani Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif from the American President, who feared the conflict could turn into a nuclear catastrophe.

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Musharraf with Atal Behari Vajpayee, former Prime Minister of India at the Agra Summit during 2001

However, in Battle Ready, a recent book co-authored by ex-CENTCOM Commander in Chief Anthony Zinni and novelist Tom Clancy, the former alleges that Musharraf was the one who pushed Sharif to withdraw the Pakistani troops after being caught in a losing scenario. According to an ex-official of the Musharraf government, Hassan Abbas, it was Musharraf who planned the whole operative and sold the idea to Nawaz Sharif. The view that Musharraf wanted to attempt the Kargil infiltrations much earlier was also revealed by Former Pakistani PM Benazir Bhutto in an interview to a leading daily newspaper, where he had supposedly boasted that "he would hoist the flag of Pakistan atop the Srinagar Assembly" if his plan was executed PML(N), a leading Pakistan party added that Musharraf had planned the Kargil intrusions but panicked when the conflict broke out with India and decided to brief then Pakistan premier Nawaz Sharif. As the Kargil incident came just after the Lahore Peace Summit earlier that year, Musharraf was viewed with mistrust in India.

On December 13, 2001, a group of militants attacked India's Parliament with bombs and guns. India, who blamed Pakistan for the attack, mobilized for a potential war. Musharraf denied any Pakistani involvement with the attacks. Intense pressure from Washington followed. The Washington Post (Jim Hoagland, January 17) said that "the United States extracted promises from Gen. Musharraf that Pakistan's intelligence service and army will cease giving food, weapons and other logistical help to infiltrators who carry out raids into India and Indian-controlled Kashmir. The army will no longer provide mortar fire to cover the militants, who have been cut adrift by Musharraf".

In the middle of 2004, Musharraf began a series of talks with India to solve the Kashmir dispute. Both India and Pakistan have the tactical capability to launch nuclear strikes on every city within each others' borders. The two countries are continuing to aggressively increase their nuclear capabilities by actively producing even more nuclear weapons and perfecting their missile technologies by routinely conducting tests of ever more sophisticated missiles.

As well as discussing the Kashmir dispute, both leaders discussed the following issues: Wullar Barrage and Kishangaga power project, Baglihar Dam on the Chenab River being built by India in Jammu and Kashmir, Disputed Sir Creek estuary at the mouth of the Rann of Kutch, Siachin glacier, Issues of Gurdaspur and Ferozepur's status, Hindu-Muslim Relations, Autonomy for the Sikhs in Indian Punjab, Minority rights, Indian contentions that Pakistan is sponsoring "cross-border" terrorism.

Denouncing extremism

On January 12, 2002, Musharraf gave a landmark speech against Islamic extremism. He unequivocally condemned all acts of terrorism, including those carried out in the name of freeing Kashmir's Muslim majority from Indian rule. He also pledged to combat Islamic extremism and lawlessness within Pakistan itself.

He has also used it to ban funding of madrasas and mosques from outside the country. At the same time as banning foreign funding of Islamic educational institutions, he made it compulsory for them to teach a whole host of additional subjects such as computing. This meant that many had to close due to the halt of funds from Pakistanis working abroad resulting in not being able to teach the additional subjects that he had made compulsory. Musharraf also instituted prohibitions on foreign students' access to studying Islam within Pakistan, an effort which began as an outright ban but was later reduced to restrictions on obtaining visas. On December 7, 2004, Musharraf denounced the Hijab calling it "a backward view of Islam".

Assassination attempts

On December 14, 2003, General Musharraf survived an assassination attempt when a powerful bomb went off minutes after his highly-guarded convoy crossed a bridge in Rawalpindi. It was the third such attempt during his four-year rule. Eleven days later, on December 25, 2003, two suicide bombers tried to assassinate Musharraf, but their car bombs failed to kill the president; 16 others nearby died instead. Musharraf escaped with only a cracked windscreen on his car. Militant Amjad Farooqi was apparently suspected as being the mastermind behind these attempts, and was killed by Pakistani forces in 2004 after an extensive manhunt.

Richard Armitage comments controversy

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Cover of the UK edition of In the Line of Fire: A Memoir

During a September 24, 2006 interview with CBS News's 60 Minutes program (interviewed by Steve Kroft), Musharraf described how then-U.S. Deputy Secretary of State Richard Armitage had called Musharraf's intelligence director shortly following the September 11, 2001 attacks and threatened military action if Pakistan did not support the U.S.-led War on Terror. According to Musharraf, Armitage warned: "Be prepared to be bombed. Be prepared to go back to the Stone Age." Furthermore, during an interview with Jon Stewart of The Daily Show on September 26, 2006, Musharraf stated that then-Secretary of State Colin Powell also contacted him with a similar message: "You are with us or against us." Musharraf refused to elaborate further, citing the then-upcoming release of his book, In the Line of Fire: A Memoir (ISBN 0743283449). Armitage has denied that the U.S. used such harsh words to threat Pakistan whereas President Bush has restrained from publicly acknowledging the possibility of the exact wordings being used. However, according to the press statement he said that "I was taken aback".

Dual-office controversy

A pro-Musharraf party, the PML-Q, won a plurality in the elections of October 2002, and formed a majority coalition with independents and allies such as the MQM. Nevertheless, the opposition parties effectively deadlocked the National Assembly, refusing to accept the legitimacy of Musharraf's authority. In December 2003, as part of a compromise with the main Islamist opposition group, the Muttahida Majlis-e-Amal, an alliance of Islamist radicals including the Jammat Islami whose leaders have known links to bin Laden, General Musharraf said he would step down as Army Chief by January 1, 2005. In return, the MMA agreed to support a constitutional amendment that would retroactively legalize Musharraf's coup, and restore some formal checks and balances to Pakistan's system of government. In late 2004, Musharraf ordered pro-Musharraf legislators to pass a bill allowing Musharraf to keep both offices.

Qadyani controversy

Pervez Musharraf has consistently been accused of belonging to the Qadyani sect by Sunni Muslim leaders. These accusations are due to the fact that he lived in Okara (the Qadyani center of Pakistan) once, that his wife Sehba Musharraf is a native of that district, and that his policies are allegedly Pro-Qadyani. Pervez Musharraf has responded to the accusations of being pro-Qadyani by having the religious leaders from various sects who accused him arrested.

Views and perceptions of Musharraf

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General Pervez Musharraf, President and Chief Executive of the Islamic Republic of Pakistan, addressing the UN General Assembly on November 10, 2001

Musharraf is considered a moderate leader by Western governments. Many believe that Musharraf is sincere in his desire to bridge the Islamic and Western worlds and has previously spoken strongly against the idea of the inevitability of a 'clash of civilisations' between them. Furthermore, he has coined the phrase of "Enlightened moderation" and is believed to be an ardent promulgator of the same. Musharraf's emotional ties to the United States may be conjectured to be significant since at least two close members of his family live there: his brother, a doctor, lives near Chicago, Illinois, and his son, who lives in Boston, Massachusetts. Musharraf's son Bilal runs a venture funded high-tech startup in Boston. Musharraf's only other child, a daughter, is a graduate of the National College of Arts in Lahore and is an architect. Musharraf's elder brother, Javed Musharraf, a Rhodes Scholar at Oxford, was a CSP officer in the Government of Pakistan prior to retiring from the International Fund for Agricultural Development (IFAD) in Rome, Italy.

Support for the War on Terror

Since his involvement as a senior officer of Pakistan's special forces during the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan, Musharraf has had excellent personal relations with several sections of the US security establishment.

It is widely believed that Musharraf was coerced by the United States into turning his back on his former allies, the Taliban government of Afghanistan. Certainly his speeches on national television expressed his belief that he 'had no choice' but to act in unison with the United States.

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Musharraf with United States President George W. Bush at the Presidency in Islamabad, Pakistan

Musharraf's support for the USA was indispensable in defeating the Taliban in Afghanistan with the ease that it was routed. This was done after his swift and strategically sound decision to cease Pakistan's long-running support of the Taliban. Pakistan cut the Taliban's oil and supply lines, provided intelligence and acted as a logistics support area for Operation Enduring Freedom. It has also allowed US forces to operate inside Pakistan, and Pakistani forces especially the military controlled Inter-Services Intelligence Directorate have been implicated in the use of torture on suspected militants.

Under U.S. pressure, Musharraf has launched a major military offensive in the tribal region of Wana, displacing many resident families in the hunt for militants, and has caused a national insurgency movement made up of disaffected militants and former residents of Wana whose homes were demolished by the army in its heavy bombing campaign.

However, after the more recent resurgence of the Taliban, the United States is taking a harder look at Pakistan's continuing role in the Taliban insurgency, according to reports in the New York Times Seth G. Jones, a political scientist at the RAND Corporation, said that there was increasing evidence that Pakistani intelligence agents had been financing, training, providing intelligence and assistance to Taliban insurgents. Whether the orders come from General Musharraf himself is not clear, Mr. Jones said, but he said it was clear that he knew about the support, and that he so far had failed to stop the militancy.

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US President George W. Bush and President Musharraf answer reporters in the East Room of the White House in late 2006.

Musharraf speaks fluent English and has given many interviews and speeches on various US and European TV channels and other media. He is also known for giving contrasting views in his interviews. He has spoken at think tanks such as the RAND Corporation in Santa Monica, California, in June 2003. His support for the US-led War on Terror has been a cause for increasing public support for right-wing Islamic parties in Pakistan. The US's image in Pakistan has suffered ostensibly after the war in Iraq without an authorising UN resolution. Musharraf has bluntly refused to send any Pakistani troops to Iraq without a UN resolution and also due to public pressure in Pakistan.

After lengthy talks with his Afghan counterpart, Hamid Karzai, he said on September 7, 2006 he was committed to crushing the Taliban, their al Qaeda allies and "Talibanisation", a reference to the spread of hardline Islam. "The best way to fight this common enemy is to join hands, trust each other and form a common strategy," he told reporters in Kabul, days before the fifth anniversary of the September 11 attacks that prompted the US-led invasion of Afghanistan. "Any militant activity will be addressed with force. No Talibanisation. No Taliban activity on our side of the border and across the border in Afghanistan," Musharraf said. The issue of cross-border movement clouded President George W. Bush's visit to Islamabad early 2006 and Musharraf's pledge comes ahead of a trip to the United States and Cuba and an expected meeting with Bush.

Elections during Musharraf's administration

On 12 May 2000, the Supreme Court ordered Musharraf to hold national elections by 12 October 2002; elections for local governments took place in 2001. Elections for the national and provincial legislatures were held in October 2002, with no party winning a majority. In November 2002, Musharraf handed over certain powers to the newly elected Parliament. The National Assembly elected Mir Zafarullah Khan Jamali as Prime Minister of Pakistan, who in turn appointed his own cabinet.

On January 1, 2004 Musharraf won a confidence vote in the Electoral College of Pakistan, consisting of both houses of Parliament and the four provincial assemblies which are dominated by the landed elite of the country, most of whom have been given governmental posts under Musharraf. Musharraf received 658 out of 1170 votes, a 56% majority, but many opposition and Islamic members of parliament walked out to protest the vote. As a result of this vote, according to Article 41(8) of the Constitution of Pakistan, Musharraf was "deemed to be elected" to the office of President. His term now extends to 2007.

Prime Minister Jamali resigned on 26 June 2004. His resignation is widely believed to be on the command of General Pervez Musharraf. Jamali, in the first place was appointed by Musharraf, who controls the PML(Q). He formed PML(Q) by horse-trading with different parties (largely the PML(N) and the PPPP). Most of the ministers of the cabinet were senior members of other parties, who joined PML(Q) after the elections just because Musharraf promised them important offices in the government. Musharraf replaced Jamali due to his poor performance and in his place Musharraf appointed Shaukat Aziz, a former Vice President of Citibank and head of Citibank Private Banking as the new prime minister. Musharraf choose Shaukat Aziz due to his successful measures in revitalizing Pakistan's economy as the Finance Minister. The new government is mostly supportive of Musharraf, who remains the President and Head of State in the new government. Musharraf continues to be the active executive of Pakistan, especially in foreign affairs. Although whether he stays the president after he gives up the post of Chief of Army staff is still to be seen.

Nuclear proliferation

Recently, Musharraf has come under fire from the West after the disclosure of nuclear proliferation by Dr. Abdul Qadeer Khan, the metallurgist known as the father of Pakistan's bomb. Musharraf has denied knowledge of or participation by Pakistan's government or army in this proliferation despite deep domestic criticism for singularly vilifying Khan, a former national hero. Musharraf continues to enjoy strong support of the White House and Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld. AQ Khan has been pardoned in exchange for cooperation in the investigation of his nuclear-proliferation network. The fate of those who were found to have conspired with Khan is yet to be decided.

Musharraf in the media

In the Time 100 Poll 2006 of "The People Who Shape Our World", he is currently ranked at number thirteen. In September of 2006, he became the first sitting president of a country to appear on the The Daily Show.[1]

Musharaff on question and answer. http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=5546807296660038256&pr=goog-sl&hl=en

See also

• In the Line of Fire: A Memoir
• List of national leaders
• Politics of Pakistan
• Line of Succession to President of Pakistan
• List of dictators
• Nawaz Sharif
• Musharraf view on Enlightened moderation

External links

Official websites

• Official Presidential website
• Official Repository of Presidential Speeches

Biographies and profiles

• Biography on storyofpakistan.com
• Time magazine cover story on Musharraf
• Profile in 2001 by the BBC
• Biography, 25 December 2003 by the BBC
• Profile in September 2004 by the BBC
• Unofficial biography at pervez.musharraf.net

Articles by Musharraf

• "A Plea for Enlightened Moderation", by Pervez Musharraf, Washington Post opinion piece

Interviews

• An hour with Pervez Musharraf, Charlie Rose (video)
• Address by Pervez Musharraf to U.S. Institute of Peace (text, audio & video available) June 2003
• The Telegraph, United Kingdom, 20 June 2004
• Time magazine, United States, 25 September 2005
• Washington Post, United States, 29 January 2006
  • Musharraf: "There is no milk and honey flowing after you get these two people", referring to Osama and Zawahiri and that military might alone cannot defeat terrorism.

Referendum

• Referendum report
• BBC report on referendum
• Speech on national TV, in which Musharraf apologizes for "improper" voting in the referendum
  • "...at lower level due to unnecessary enthusiasm and carelessness, inefficiency and ignorance there might have been some improper case of voting in some areas. If this is true I regret it from the core of my heart. I feel sad and sorry for it," said Musharraf.

Electoral College vote

• "Pakistan Gives Musharraf Confidence Vote as President"; New York Times; January 1, 2004]

Other articles

• President Clinton's statement regarding the 1999 coup
• "US threatened to bomb Pakistan back to 'the Stone Age'"

Surveys

• Survey by The Gallup Organization
• Report by Washington-based Pew Research Center

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