Ahsan Premee
Associated Press Service
ISLAMABAD: The civil-military imbalance is a critical political issue that has made Pakistan a security driven instead of a welfare oriented state that can be addressed only collectively by the Parliament, the government, the political parties, the media and the civil society. No government in the past had succeeded in correcting it nor is likely to succeed in the future without the backing of political parties and the Parliament across the political divide.
This was stated by Senator Farhatullah Babar today at a symposium on parliamentary oversight of the security sector in Islamabad offering also a set of suggestions on how to do it by invoking the available parliamentary instruments.
He said that it was widely believed that policies in critical areas of foreign relations and national security were made by the security establishment without the oversight by the parliament and the political forces. Indeed the security establishment seemed to have struck with a vengeance whenever the civil-political forces tried to shape foreign policy.
Elaborating, he said that General Zia, using Islam as the facade, dismissed Prime Minister Junejo when the latter tried to take political parties on board on Geneva Accords on Afghanistan.
Nawaz Sharif’s bold move to normalize relations with India was not only scuttled through Kargil misadventure but the former proime Minister was also punished with dismissal, a court case seeking death penalty and a decade of exile.
It is widely believed that in her first government Mohtarma Bhutto was not allowed to have a foreign minister of her choice. It demonstrates the refusal of the establishment even to share the foreign policy formulation.
During second tenure, according to her account, she refused to acquiesce into misadventures like Kargil and resultantly was hounded and dubbed security risk, he said.
He said that when some years ago the Parliament asked for a copy of the law that governed the state security agencies, it was bluntly told in writing to keep its hands off because it was a ‘secret and sensitive’ issue.
He said that during successive military rules the civil-military imbalance had deteriorated from bad to worse through such instruments as National Security Council and numerous Ordinances that specifically altered the balance and were got indemnified from the Parliament at the time of lifting the military rule. In this connection he referred to the successive DHA ordinances and the National Command Authority Ordinance.
Farhatullah Babar said that the discussion in the joint sitting of Parliament starting from Monday on the guidelines proposed by the Parliamentary Committee on National Security on Pak-US relations was the first major step in the direction of parliamentary oversight of the security and foreign policy.
He said that the issue of imbalance had also been addressed both in the PPP manifesto and the Charter of Democracy signed between Mian Nazwaz Sharif and Shaheed Mohtarma Benazir Bhutto in May 2006.
He said that some achievements had been made but much more needed to be done.
The Defence Budget had been placed before the Parliament for the first time. It was now for the MPs to make use of the opportunity and use it as an instrument of oversight.
The Nuclear Command and Control Authority had been transferred to the Parliament as required under the CoD, he said.
Farhatullah Babar recounted the parliamentary instruments available for oversight. These were the Question Hour, Call Attention Notices, Adjournment Motions, Resolutions besides use of relevant Committees of the Parliament.
He said that the MPs should endeavor that replies to their questions were not denied behind he façade of ‘national interest’, ‘secret’ and ‘sensitive’.
Disallowing parliamentary instruments without offering cogent reasons in writing compromised the oversight power of the Parliament, he said.
He said that the MPs should work for rooting the legal and organizational foundations of state agencies in legislation rather than executive order. These are doable things and will take parliamentary oversight and democratic accountability of the security sector to a new level, he said.
Pakistan has made important strides on the road to establishing democratic and Parliamentary oversight on defence and national security but there remains a long and arduous struggle for establishing a constitutional equation of Civil-Military relations, believed experts and Members of Parliament, analysts and media representatives at the PILDAT Public Forum on Democratic Oversight of Defence and National Security: An Account of 4 Years. The initiative has to be taken by the Parliament with support from citizens and media.
Speakers at the Forum included Hafiz Tahir Khalil, Bureau Chief, Jang, Senator Mushahid Hussain Syed, Secretary General PML, Senator Farhatullah Babar, Spokesman President of Pakistan and Senator Mian Raza Rabbani, Chairman Parliamentary Committee on National Security.
Hafiz Tahir Khalil said that while other committees of the Parliament are generally open for media coverage, regrettably Defence Committees mostly hold in-camera meetings. He demanded that this should change barring sensitive security issues.
Senator Mushahid Hussain Sayed said that Pakistan has, for the first time, given an institutional response to Pak-US relations. This has defined new rules of the game that the Parliament will discuss and approve. Looking ahead, he recommended that the concept of National Security must be re-defined from a security-specific definition to include important civilian components such as Constitution, Parliament, Political Parties, Judiciary, Education, Food, Energy, etc. He praised the work of the Parliamentary Committee on National Security (PCNS) and recommended that the Committee must be institutionalised. Working to define a comprehensive National Security strategy of Pakistan for every two years should be a major area of focus of the PCNS. Defence purchases and defence equipment should also be part of this strategy.
Addressing the forum, Senator Raza Rabbani said that he does not share the optimism of other speakers that Pakistan is moving towards changing civil-military relations according to the Constitution. The changes that are apparent are cosmetic and due to regional and international scenario. The apparent "progress" is just to let off steam for the moment, he said. When we discuss civil-military imbalance, it is important to understand that this is essentially to change the mindset in which a civilian's patriotism is always suspect and only a uniformed person can grant a certificate of patriotism. According to this mindset, civilians and politicians are not even competent to deal with issues of national security and foreign policy and can not be trusted with it. Disagreeing with Senator Farhatullah Babar in only one instance he said that the levers of power were not changed through ordinances from civil to the military but these changed when the concept of Pakistan was changed from a welfare state to a national security or a garrison state. All earlier Constitutional amendments were to consolidate powers for the military and military rulers. In a crude language, this is a turf war in which functions that have been in the domain of civil and military bureaucracy, now we are asking for Parliament's oversight on those. He said that oversight will bring accountability and transparency in its wake that will go against ideological, institutional political and financial interests also.
Senator Rabbani said that fixing the civil-military imbalance is not an easy task and it requires a change in mindset. With just a change in the situation, we should not assume that we have changed the mindset. Important developments have taken place since March 2008. Military leadership has been called at the bar of the Parliament not just for briefing but for a gruelling question and answer session as well.
He said, however, that just because he is pessimistic, it does not mean he is without hope. The recommendations of the PCNS presented to the Parliament on March 20, 2012 mark a milestone in Pakistan's Parliamentary history signifying that foreign policy, which has been considered a domain of civil and military bureaucracy, now has a collective Parliamentary ownership. These recommendations are open for debate and must be improved. Fixing civil-military imbalance in Pakistan is an issue of the survival of Pakistan and not of partisan interests. There is a long and arduous struggle for establishing a constitutional equation of Civil-Military relations, a change that will yield most painfully, said Senator Rabbani.
In his opening remarks, Mr. Ahmed Bilal Mehboob said that PILDAT has set a tradition of reviewing the performance of various government and Parliamentary forums on democratic and Parliamentary oversight of defence and National Security. PILDAT believes that civilian supremacy in interpreting national interests will only be possible only through effective forums for developing national security policies. Parliament's oversight and accountability of the security sector will serve to strengthen Pakistan's national security and public trust in security institutions. National Security should not be used as a pretext for avoiding accountability.APS news agency Islamabad
Associated Press Service
ISLAMABAD: The civil-military imbalance is a critical political issue that has made Pakistan a security driven instead of a welfare oriented state that can be addressed only collectively by the Parliament, the government, the political parties, the media and the civil society. No government in the past had succeeded in correcting it nor is likely to succeed in the future without the backing of political parties and the Parliament across the political divide.
This was stated by Senator Farhatullah Babar today at a symposium on parliamentary oversight of the security sector in Islamabad offering also a set of suggestions on how to do it by invoking the available parliamentary instruments.
He said that it was widely believed that policies in critical areas of foreign relations and national security were made by the security establishment without the oversight by the parliament and the political forces. Indeed the security establishment seemed to have struck with a vengeance whenever the civil-political forces tried to shape foreign policy.
Elaborating, he said that General Zia, using Islam as the facade, dismissed Prime Minister Junejo when the latter tried to take political parties on board on Geneva Accords on Afghanistan.
Nawaz Sharif’s bold move to normalize relations with India was not only scuttled through Kargil misadventure but the former proime Minister was also punished with dismissal, a court case seeking death penalty and a decade of exile.
It is widely believed that in her first government Mohtarma Bhutto was not allowed to have a foreign minister of her choice. It demonstrates the refusal of the establishment even to share the foreign policy formulation.
During second tenure, according to her account, she refused to acquiesce into misadventures like Kargil and resultantly was hounded and dubbed security risk, he said.
He said that when some years ago the Parliament asked for a copy of the law that governed the state security agencies, it was bluntly told in writing to keep its hands off because it was a ‘secret and sensitive’ issue.
He said that during successive military rules the civil-military imbalance had deteriorated from bad to worse through such instruments as National Security Council and numerous Ordinances that specifically altered the balance and were got indemnified from the Parliament at the time of lifting the military rule. In this connection he referred to the successive DHA ordinances and the National Command Authority Ordinance.
Farhatullah Babar said that the discussion in the joint sitting of Parliament starting from Monday on the guidelines proposed by the Parliamentary Committee on National Security on Pak-US relations was the first major step in the direction of parliamentary oversight of the security and foreign policy.
He said that the issue of imbalance had also been addressed both in the PPP manifesto and the Charter of Democracy signed between Mian Nazwaz Sharif and Shaheed Mohtarma Benazir Bhutto in May 2006.
He said that some achievements had been made but much more needed to be done.
The Defence Budget had been placed before the Parliament for the first time. It was now for the MPs to make use of the opportunity and use it as an instrument of oversight.
The Nuclear Command and Control Authority had been transferred to the Parliament as required under the CoD, he said.
Farhatullah Babar recounted the parliamentary instruments available for oversight. These were the Question Hour, Call Attention Notices, Adjournment Motions, Resolutions besides use of relevant Committees of the Parliament.
He said that the MPs should endeavor that replies to their questions were not denied behind he façade of ‘national interest’, ‘secret’ and ‘sensitive’.
Disallowing parliamentary instruments without offering cogent reasons in writing compromised the oversight power of the Parliament, he said.
He said that the MPs should work for rooting the legal and organizational foundations of state agencies in legislation rather than executive order. These are doable things and will take parliamentary oversight and democratic accountability of the security sector to a new level, he said.
Pakistan has made important strides on the road to establishing democratic and Parliamentary oversight on defence and national security but there remains a long and arduous struggle for establishing a constitutional equation of Civil-Military relations, believed experts and Members of Parliament, analysts and media representatives at the PILDAT Public Forum on Democratic Oversight of Defence and National Security: An Account of 4 Years. The initiative has to be taken by the Parliament with support from citizens and media.
Speakers at the Forum included Hafiz Tahir Khalil, Bureau Chief, Jang, Senator Mushahid Hussain Syed, Secretary General PML, Senator Farhatullah Babar, Spokesman President of Pakistan and Senator Mian Raza Rabbani, Chairman Parliamentary Committee on National Security.
Hafiz Tahir Khalil said that while other committees of the Parliament are generally open for media coverage, regrettably Defence Committees mostly hold in-camera meetings. He demanded that this should change barring sensitive security issues.
Senator Mushahid Hussain Sayed said that Pakistan has, for the first time, given an institutional response to Pak-US relations. This has defined new rules of the game that the Parliament will discuss and approve. Looking ahead, he recommended that the concept of National Security must be re-defined from a security-specific definition to include important civilian components such as Constitution, Parliament, Political Parties, Judiciary, Education, Food, Energy, etc. He praised the work of the Parliamentary Committee on National Security (PCNS) and recommended that the Committee must be institutionalised. Working to define a comprehensive National Security strategy of Pakistan for every two years should be a major area of focus of the PCNS. Defence purchases and defence equipment should also be part of this strategy.
Addressing the forum, Senator Raza Rabbani said that he does not share the optimism of other speakers that Pakistan is moving towards changing civil-military relations according to the Constitution. The changes that are apparent are cosmetic and due to regional and international scenario. The apparent "progress" is just to let off steam for the moment, he said. When we discuss civil-military imbalance, it is important to understand that this is essentially to change the mindset in which a civilian's patriotism is always suspect and only a uniformed person can grant a certificate of patriotism. According to this mindset, civilians and politicians are not even competent to deal with issues of national security and foreign policy and can not be trusted with it. Disagreeing with Senator Farhatullah Babar in only one instance he said that the levers of power were not changed through ordinances from civil to the military but these changed when the concept of Pakistan was changed from a welfare state to a national security or a garrison state. All earlier Constitutional amendments were to consolidate powers for the military and military rulers. In a crude language, this is a turf war in which functions that have been in the domain of civil and military bureaucracy, now we are asking for Parliament's oversight on those. He said that oversight will bring accountability and transparency in its wake that will go against ideological, institutional political and financial interests also.
Senator Rabbani said that fixing the civil-military imbalance is not an easy task and it requires a change in mindset. With just a change in the situation, we should not assume that we have changed the mindset. Important developments have taken place since March 2008. Military leadership has been called at the bar of the Parliament not just for briefing but for a gruelling question and answer session as well.
He said, however, that just because he is pessimistic, it does not mean he is without hope. The recommendations of the PCNS presented to the Parliament on March 20, 2012 mark a milestone in Pakistan's Parliamentary history signifying that foreign policy, which has been considered a domain of civil and military bureaucracy, now has a collective Parliamentary ownership. These recommendations are open for debate and must be improved. Fixing civil-military imbalance in Pakistan is an issue of the survival of Pakistan and not of partisan interests. There is a long and arduous struggle for establishing a constitutional equation of Civil-Military relations, a change that will yield most painfully, said Senator Rabbani.
In his opening remarks, Mr. Ahmed Bilal Mehboob said that PILDAT has set a tradition of reviewing the performance of various government and Parliamentary forums on democratic and Parliamentary oversight of defence and National Security. PILDAT believes that civilian supremacy in interpreting national interests will only be possible only through effective forums for developing national security policies. Parliament's oversight and accountability of the security sector will serve to strengthen Pakistan's national security and public trust in security institutions. National Security should not be used as a pretext for avoiding accountability.APS news agency Islamabad