Pak armed forces come under the spotlight for past misdeeds

The habit of power comes easily to Pakistan's military. It has ruled the country for 25 of the last 50 years, and in the 1980s was the country's biggest industrial enterprise.

In 1988, when Pakistan's last general-turned-president was killed in a mid-air explosion, the generals returned to the barracks, but their business fortunes remained intact. The 'Fauji', 'Shaheen' and 'Bahria' foundations, of the army, air force and navy respectively, are still powers to reckon with.

No questions were ever asked about how these so-called charities for ex-servicemen had come to be the country's biggest producer of sugar, produce liquid petroleum gas, run an oil and gas field on the Baluchistan border, fertiliser plant, packaging unit, polypropylene bag plant, and other businesses.

Now nine years after the return of democracy, the military is being asked to explain its expansion into non-military areas by a prominent Islamabad-based lawyer who has petitioned the Lahore high court to restrict the army's involvement in business.

Responding to lawyer Wahabul Khairi's petition that the army was being distracted from its professional duties by its business pre-occupations, the court has issued notices to the government and the defence secretary.

Khairi cites the Companies Ordinance 1984 and the Trademark Act 1940 which say that no company can use the name of the founding father, Mohammed Ali Jinnah, and the armed forces of Pakistan.

Khairi points out that a large part of national resources are being spent on defence every year, and its personnel should concentrate on the defence of the country -- implying, in his petition, that they stay out of business.

In addition, there is also the risk of the military's business involvement being made use of by ''unscrupulous elements'' to ''mint money,'' he said, referring to a housing project in Bahria town, Rawalpindi, whose brochures give the impression that the project is undertaken by the Pakistan navy. In fact, the navy's Bahria Foundation has only a nine per cent stake in the scheme, but most people would not know because soldiers have always had their allocation of cheap plots in Pakistan.

The military are clearly unhappy with the interference in their matters. A piqued army chief general Jehangir Karamat complained in April of a ''trial by the media'' after an air force officer was picked up at New York airport on drug smuggling charges. Newspapers ran the story for days, speculating on the extent of the drug connection in military ranks.

Last month, the media again gave full publicity to the tribunal report on the murder of Murtaza Bhutto, the previous premier's brother. The report, the first to be made public, blamed unnamed ''higher authority'' for the extrajudicial killing -- which could even implicate the military.

Said the Dawn newspaper in an editorial: ''While terming the murder as an extrajudicial act carried out at the behest of higher authorities, it shies away from identifying such authorities.''

Earlier, a test audit of $ 2.5 billion spent by the military in 1994-95, that revealed financial irregularities to the tune of nearly $ 120 million, was in all the media. The report by the auditor general of Pakistan gave details of over 400 cases which showed reckless spending of public money.

To top the military's woes, the country's highest judiciary, the supreme court, has asked the government to rein in the Inter-Services Intelligence, the military intelligence wing, and lay down parametres for the working of its political cell.

The ISI, which used to be in charge of external intelligence and counter-intelligence, became involved in internal intelligence and in charge of the Afghan guerillas in the 1980s under General Zia-ul Haq.

The court observed that 'prima facie', the ISI's political cell operations were in conflict with Article 17 of the constitution which guarantees that ''every citizen shall have the right to form associations or unions, subject to any reasonable restrictions imposed by law in the interest of sovereignty or integrity of Pakistan, public order and morality.''

Most politicians of the country accuse the ISI of political meddling, and in the case before the supreme court, a former chief of the air force, Air Marshal (retd) Asghar Khan quotes the former interior minister General (retd) Naseerullah Babur saying in the Pakistan senate, or upper house of parliament, that the ISI had collected $ 4 million and distributed it among various politicians before the 1990 elections.

Air Marshal Khan also claims that in the 1993 elections, the election results were compiled in the military headquarters before being announced and that he had raised the matter with former army chief, General (retd) Abdul Waheed Kakar.

The ISI could be cut down to size. A former army chief, General (retd) Aslam Beg, who paved the way for the return of democracy in Pakistan by stepping aside after General Zia's death, has deposed in the Supreme Court on the need to close the political cell of the ISI, as it ''interferes in politics.''

If Nawaz Sharief's government teams up with the judiciary, Pakistan's military, which turned into a political party during years of martial rule, could find itself stripped of all power of interference in civilian life.

UNI