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NEW JERSEY, JUN 1 - I met Dr Ayesha Siddiqa in Washington
DC, for the first time in July 2005. On my request she gave an online interview to
me for despardes.com. The subject was her
upcoming book "Military Inc", and post 9/11
scenario.
With the text and tone of her answers to my probing
questions, her interview turned into an expose on
Pakistan's huge military empire - its massive economic
and financial peccadilloes.
Her argument was that this is neither good for Pakistan nor
the military.
Dr Ayesha's two-part interview became an instant hit, but
not without problems though.
Several reputable news outlets carried the story and content
of her interview.
Thereafter, she started getting "phone calls", and
received "messages", she told me later.
Dr Ayesha was on
fellowship in Washington, to do research for her book - its most controversial subject,
the Pakistan army's economic interests. It has finally
been published now with an impressive book cover - which is
a statement by itself, and a tell-tale title "Military
Inc - Inside Pakistan's Military Economy", which
many will agree may be an understatement.
I have yet to read the book, but drawing on my memory bank
of her 2005 interview to me, coupled with the immediate reactions
her book launching has drawn from powerful people in Islamabad, I can
already predict it will be a
runaway success. In fact, I had predicted it to Ayesha and
advised her to have it translated not only in Urdu but in
Bengali also.
South Asians, particularly the Pakistani and Bangladeshi
nations need to have access to important information no
matter how raw they may be. For quite sometime, their
destiny were controlled and managed together, by men in
boots, until they let it slip. The rest is history as we all
know.
Ironically, no body understood,
no one knew what was going on, said Dr Mubashir Hasan about
the East Pakistan debacle specially, in an interview I conducted
in 2005 on his "out of the box"
Kashmir solution.
The Military Inc's subject matter and data presented
in it will surely answer a lot of
unanswered questions which have kept many of us bewildered and
confused for quite some time now. The author had said that her interview
(to me in 2005) was only the
tip of the iceberg.
Dr Ayesha's interviews:
Part 1:
A full General is worth Rs 500 million+
Part 2:
Nukes deterred Indo-Pak war
Even though Gen Musharraf is only a dispensable part of
Pakistan's massive indispensable military-commercial empire called
by Ayeha the Military
Inc., he presently gets to bear the brunt of all the
criticisms and brouhaha her book is producing fortunately or
unfortunately.
The timing is bad too. The general and his team already have
enough on their plates.
Dr Ayesha is a defense analyst and a former
Pakistani navy research director, having been able to gather
enough data and critical information to make her effort
serious. Her book takes the lid off business dealings by the
armed forces and estimates their holdings at more than
$72billion, as one newspaper commented.
So-called "Fauji" (soldier) foundations set up by the
army controlled industrial conglomerates, provide consumers
with banking, cement, fertilizers and even breakfast
cereals. It is a conglomerate of unprecedented investments
and returns, said one financial analyst.
The book was to have been launched at the Islamabad Club.
But the publisher, Oxford University Press, said the
government-controlled club cancelled the booking of its
auditorium for the event without giving any reason. Dr
Siddiqa's book was launched instead in the crowded rooms of
an NGO based in the capital Islamabad.
Dr Ayesha claims that the Pakistani military controls a
third of all heavy manufacturing in the country and 7 per
cent of private assets. These enterprises thrive because of
heavy state subsidies. She maintains that its control of
politics allows these businesses tax breaks, while only a
few such businesses file public accounts.
Profits from the army's business enterprises are supposed
to be returned to members of the military through the
provision of schools, hospitals and other amenities. But
there is little public supervision of accounts and no clear
indication about where the profits go. In short,
transparency is non-existant.
The government-controlled Associated Press of Pakistan
has called her book "a plethora of misleading and concocted
stories" aimed at giving the military a bad name.
The Defense Minister , Rao
Sikandar Iqbal, lashed out at her, saying her book "reflected
her hidden
agenda and vested interests, and contained
distortion of facts, conjecture and personal bias which were
misleading in nature, and a deliberate campaign to malign
the image of the Army".
The Corps Commanders meeting Friday, which was moved ahead by six
days, an unusual act according to some observers, came as General Musharraf blocked
the publication of her book, said AP in a news report.
Meanwhile, two TV channels, AAJ TV and ARY
One World, have had their live broadcasts suspended. These stations are among those that have
given considerable coverage to the issues around the
suspension of the chief justice, Iftikhar Chaudhry.
Some say, the government feared Dr Ayesha's book would add
fuel to the fire.
They do not want the private TV channels to get another
chance to make a hot potato out of her book, said one
analyst.
At the end of the Corps Comanders meeting in Rawalpindi
Frday, the
top generals issued their warning. Correspondents say
it is highly unusual for the army to issue press statements
after such meetings, reported BBC.
The military press statement warned that "any attempt by a
small minority to obstruct the aspirations of vast majority
would only derail the nation from its path of progress and
prosperity."
Actually they meant the "military", not the "nation", said
one Pakistani-American who requested not be named here.
Meanwhile, the highly vocal and independent private TV
channels have their wings clipped now. They are no longer
allowed to transmit live coverage of events.
Also read:
 Benazir
Flaps Her Wings and Beyond
Not
Again We Hope!
Avenging
Mullah Dadullah's Death
Has
the Countdown Begun?
Benazir
Bhutto - stuck between the two
The
Big Picture and its Pixels
Benazir-Musharraf
pact a done deal!
US
lawmakers favor return of Pakistan's exiled leaders
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