Why do Martial Laws fail?

This article was published in The Nation, Pakistan, 12 years ago on June 29, 1995, but bears relevance to present times

by IKRAM SEHGAL

As a lucid and (generally) honest account of the Zia [Ziaul Haq of Pakistan] decade, the authenticity of "Working with Zia" is guaranteed by the extremely close working (and personal) relationship between the late dictator and the author, Gen (Retd) KM Arif. An exposition of the inner circle of a Martial Law cabal at Ground Zero, the document makes interesting reading, even though it omits far more than it brings to print. According to Henry Wilson, telling the whole truth would be like blowing a police whistle on oneself, therefore Gen Arif's need to take the Fifth Amendment (of the US Constitution), by delicately skirting sensitive issues. However, six country-wide Martial Laws in South Asia, four in Pakistan and two in Bangladesh, provide material enough to analyse why martial laws fail.

Martial Laws fail because the initiators of all extra-Constitutional rule ride into town on  tanks with the lofty Aim of saving the country, relying on that platonic national purpose to make themselves credible but they soon adjust the Aim to more material (and less patriotic) reasons of self-perpetuation. The original Aim which remains publicly the same, becomes an exercise in self-delusion. The primary principle of war (and peace) is the Selection and Maintenance of the Aim, this diversion of Aim means that one individual or group is simply replaced by another or others, instead of being a transition mechanism that provides for and facilitates the process of the democratic system being renovated to reflect the real genius and aspirations of the people. As the only civilian Martial Law Administrator, Bhutto was quick to recognize this and replaced ML within 8-9 months with an Interim Constitution in 1972 till the final draft of the Constitution was agreed to by all the political parties and came into effect in 1993. Those who impose Martial Law are supposed to be trustees of the people's confidence and cannot become beneficiaries of the Martial Law they have imposed in the first place. Whether the time period is 90 days or three years, it must be clearly spelt out and adhered to. Gen Ziaul Haq could never live down his ill-fated failed promise to hold elections in 90 days. The predilection of the Martial Law leaders to see themselves as God-ordained leaders of their respective countries and their crude attempts to perpetuate their rule by force, fraud or rigged elections is self-contradictory and counter-productive. It fails at the touchstone of credibility that must be the bedrock of any Martial rule. Ayub Khan turned to Basic Democracy for a legitimate transformation to civilian President but remained in uniform technically as Field Marshal and as President was the Supreme Military Commander. Ziaul Haq became President through a controversial referendum but never shed uniform as COAS, a contradiction in terms. Both Ziaur Rahman and Ershad symbolically left their posts as COAS after taking part in presidential elections, but while both were popular leaders, particularly in the countryside, could they have won without the crutch of the uniform? Martial Law leaders who are sincere about their aims and objectives in coming to the succour of the nation must establish credibility by declaring themselves ineligible for subsequent democratic office, at least till one successor democratic administration has taken office and completed its term.

Martial Laws fail because a lot of lip-service is given to self-accountability but there is no real will to ensure that those who misuse their powers will be brought to similar summary justice as they are prescribing for others. It is no secret that many people have made millions due to Martial Law and its derivatives. The most recent example is that of the scions of late Gens Ziaul Haq and Akhtar Abdur Rahman. It should be interesting to publish the Income Tax and Wealth Tax returns of those two General officers through the years as they rose in rank and reconcile this with the fabulous wealth that their children possess. Rumours abound about diversion of clandestine funds meant for the Afghan war. While this can never be directly proven, unexplained wealth can and should be questioned for the sake of the credibility of the Armed Forces. While late Gen Ziaur Rahman was known as one of the most honest third world leaders in history, this reputation was beyond Gen Ershad whose friends and relatives took great advantage of his boundless largesse as a big-hearted chief executive of the country. Martial Laws fail because they become consumed by the same nepotism and corruption they have come to eradicate in the first place. Unless the integrity of those involved in the Martial Law Regime remains above question, the reason for imposition of draconian military rule collapses. Early in the Ziaul Haq regime, one well-known Corps Commander and Zonal Martial Law Administrator, who as a Brigadier in early 1971 in former East Pakistan robbed millions from a government treasury and stopped a bullet in his backside later during the war, is rumoured to have taken millions to allow late Jam Sadiq Ali safe passage.

Martial Laws fail because the Armed Forces get themselves involved in mundane, routine duties they are not supposed to be involved in. Martial Law Complaint Centres start handling individual petty complaints about property, water disputes, etc. This leads to nepotism and corruption. Armed Forces personnel are not equipped to deal with these except in rare civil or criminal cases exceptional circumstances where they may have to. Martial Laws have to set up Committees to act as monitors to ensure is that those whose duty it is to carry out civil administration are going about their duties honestly and expeditiously, i.e. they must run those who run the government. Those Committees or Tribunals should also take action against those who do not come up to the standards expected of them. In this respect one fails to understand why Summary Martial Law Courts were headed or comprised of serving Armed Forces Officers when retired Judges and magistrates, retired civil or military officers could have been inducted to make up the composition of these Courts, invariably headed by a former Judge instead of the practice of using serving armed forces officers. Great care could have been given to the selection of these retired personnel lest justice becomes compromised, preference being given to persons already resident in the area and region where they have to carry out their duties. Their working in turn must be monitored by higher tribunals of senior retired civil and military officers with all the concerned individuals accountable for their actions.

Martial Laws fail because the officers who form the core of the regime are at the bottom of the rung as far as professionalism or personal integrity is concerned. There is a marked tendency for units which are asked to send officers and men for Martial Law duties, to earmark those whom they feel are dispensable to their own needs. Unit commanders usually keep their best and brightest away from ML duties, while this may be good for the professional army, it is counter-productive to the stated Aim of imposing Martial Law as it gives a wrong impression to the civilians who come in touch with such officers. It is the duty of unit commanders to ensure that contingents that are sent out to go and serve on ML duties must be well balanced in composition.

Martial Laws fail because of the lack of understanding of economies. Does anyone remember any military officer involved in the Ministries of Finance, Commerce and the CBR? With Armed Forces and civilian  officers nowadays much better briefed in economics through education at various institutions, they along with men of proven integrity from private sector must be made part of oversight committees that look at the working of financial developments and institutions on a day to day basis. While nationalisation by Bhutto set the economy back many years it was not till Ghulam Ishaq Khan made the nationalised sector a fiefdom for bureaucrats to live off the fat of the land that the economy was well and truly destroyed. A man of limited economic intelligence, he was the Economic Czar of this country from 1977 to 1985, it is during this period that millions were milked from productive manufacturing units by inefficiency and corruption from the nationalised units. Like "war is too serious a subject to be left to generals", to quote, the economy is too fragile a discipline to be left to bureaucrats in the guise of so-called "technocrats". To keep the military happy, the Finance Ministry kept increasing the Defence Budget through all MLs, making funds available for TA/DA for Internal Security (IS) Duties. In return for this "bribe" the state of the economy and its direction, which should be a primary area of concern for any ruler, was left at the mercy of civilian bureaucrats and never questioned by the Martial Law Regime. It may be amazing but it is true that military rule in all cases in Pakistan and Bangladesh did nothing to monitor the economy. In contrast Martial Laws in Indonesia, Taiwan and South Korea transformed the countries into economic tigers because in each case the military fully inter-acted with bureaucrats and business executives in managing the economy.

In the end, Martial Laws fail because those who impose Martial Laws never do their homework properly. They do not have correct knowledge about the working of the State or the individuals who run it. As such Martial Law Regimes are soon surrounded by sycophants who are usually holdovers from previous governments. Taking any dissent to be something to be stamped out and closing a door to possible accountability, those imposing Martial Law become easily susceptible to flattery and manipulation. In power, they attract such adventurers and adventuresses like bees to honey. The worst case scenario was that of Yahya Khan, but every one of ML leaders could not shake off leeches in one form or the other who undercut the integrity of the Martial Law Regimes, making them worse than the political and/or civil rule they had come to save the people from.

One should remember that the worst democracy is still better than the best martial law. However, when a democracy becomes a farce, there is sometimes no alternative to Martial Law.

II

Distributing largesse at public cost

Public sector performance is often associated with indolence, inefficiency corruption and wastage, but the sector still has a major role in the developing economies. Even the first world cannot do without it, in developed economies their public face is disguised better. If every utility or service was left to the mercy of market conditions, a vast mass of the population could not afford it. Because the public sector cannot be entirely eliminated, the pragmatic solution has been to staff entities with successful executives from the private sector, and/or recruit them directly from Business Schools. At times private entrepreneurs also take up management slots in the public sector in trying to turn the corporate entity into economic viability. This is true not only in Pakistan but is the same all over the world, the major examples being in UK and Europe.

Unlike in the first world, where qualifications are scrupulously proportional to performance, in the third world appointments are mostly based on connections. Once you bring nepotism and favoritism into management, the chances of a public sector entity becoming economically becoming viable is muddied. One has to be very careful in choosing only those executives who have shown above par managerial performance, for the top-most positions the managers so selected must have shown hands-on leadership managing corporate entities successfully in the private sector. To make someone who has not been a successful head of a private sector entity into a head of a far bigger public sector entity is at best a gamble, not even a calculated risk. Not only in Pakistan but in many countries of the third world, and even in developed economics, this gamble is made at public expense.

During the period from 1974 onwards bureaucrats were put into nearly all the public sector management slots in Pakistan. This was an unmitigated disaster.  Barring a few exceptions, the bureaucrats ran riot in the government and semi-government corporations, driving profitable units into the ground mostly by mismanagement, maladministration, inefficiency, corruption, etc but also because they did not have the necessary commercial background to manage commercial entities.  For the most part the Musharraf regime has chosen excellent corporate executives, some of whom sacrificed better terms and conditions abroad to come back to Pakistan. Public sector performance has certainly improved considerably after the induction of corporate executives from the private sector. From time to time managerial appointments are still made on the basis of influence and personal likes/dislikes, albeit some on the basis of perception far removed from reality. Commercial losses associated with such appointments are inevitable because of bad commercial decisions. This is force-multiplied when the individual proceeds to spends public money on himself and his own comforts. However far more dangerous is the image-building of self that the “favoured one” indulges in at public sector cost. There is always the joker in the pack, the person who glorifies his own reputation on someone else’s performance.

An executive could be personally corrupt, or he could have other negative traits. There is need to closely check his corporate and personal antecedents.  Foreign forms regularly use the qualified companies for this purpose; a “due diligence” is done whereby personnel of the research cell speak privately to his colleagues and subordinates to find out traits that may not be apparent on any CV or during interviews. Above all what was the real evaluation by his former employer, some in No 1 position in Pakistan presently were labelled as “NOT FIT” to be No 1 by their former multi-national employer.  This “soft” enquiry could further discover whether the executive has a penchant  for misusing authority for illegal gain, for using the company facilities for personal comfort, eg have more vehicles than authorized to him, employ more domestic staff than allowed, misuse telephones, entertain friends at company expense,  in short the big life, cigar and all, at public expense.

In Pakistan the favourite ploy for contract employees is to take their salary in advance for the contract period. Some take out loans for house construction on easy terms, rent out their own house to the Corporation at exorbitant prices, employ servants at the house who are shown in other appointments etc.  A casual enquiry from the vendors will reveal as to whether the executive favours a transparent process or favours a favorite.  His lifestyle will also easily disclose whether the person concerned is living within or beyond his means. A discreet survey of the “entertainment” done by an executive in a public sector corporation in Karachi as far back as the 80s showed that 80% of the lunches he hosted in a year were for friends and colleagues coming from Islamabad.  Similarly on Friday evenings one could not get seats on PK 308 to Islamabad from Karachi and PK 309 in the way back. It seemed all the meetings for those living in Karachi were scheduled for Saturdays in Islamabad and vice-versa to enable the executives to have a long weekend home at public expense. 

In third world countries like Pakistan one most remember that perception rather than facts is nine-tenths of the law. It is easy to separate perception from reality by making discreet enquiries from the Public Relations or advertising agency that the corporations use.  While image-building may be closely guarded confidential information at higher levels, low-level executives will easily disclose if the emphasis by the management was on propagation of an individual or the corporate entity.  The media is particularly vulnerable if the corporate entity has large budgets. They can be blackmailed if there is any hint of dissent.  Some do it in a sophisticated manner. In the third world corporate executives can be very brazen about promoting their own image at the company’s expense. This makes them more “market-worthy”.  They can than apply for another job, leaving their present corporation near bankruptcy.

One can quote Augustus Caesar to best describe the penchant of public sector executives to distribute public largesse as if it belonged them. Talking about Marc Antony in the Roman Senate he said, “Anthony says that all he has belongs to Rome and then proceeds to give away to his Egyptian mistress all that of Rome that does not belong to him”, or words to that effect. Even the private sector does not accept such excess.  In a recent case the No 2 of a major international bank was fired for such excess, this included a marble fireplace in his office suite in Manhattan.

There is no doubt that more exacting standards have been set for selecting personnel for both government and semi-government corporatives.  However the standards are often bypassed to oblige some patron. Pakistan has not shed itself from the client-patron syndrome.  While giving credit to Pervez Musharraf, and by extension his very “first” corporate executive, the present PM Shaukat Aziz, the fact remains that many executives are still appointed on the basis of personal like/dislike, or to satisfy some influence or obligation.  This must be stopped forthwith; this country cannot afford largesse being distributed at public expense.