Pakistan_ A Hard Country - Anatol Lieven [214]
Rather than the old British strategy, this then is closer to the Roman approach of making smaller local tribal chieftains into local officials, and bigger ones into Roman senators. By making them responsible for tax collection, these local leaders were also given a share in state revenues. The Romans, though, had the advantage of representing not just overwhelming military force and an efficient state bureaucracy, but also a great state-building idea, summed up in the values of Romanitas.
It would be quite a stretch to suggest that there exists a civilizing concept called Pakistanitas – if only because Pakistanis differ so radically over what it is or should be. However, sitting in Quetta and looking at the alternatives does bring home the fact that there is at least a certain kind of modernità alla Pakistanese. In Balochistan, this is to be found above all in three places: among the Hazara; in the gas fields and mines; and in the army. The last element in a way embraces the other two. The Hazara are both deeply attached to the armed forces and proud of their prominent role in them, and look to those armed forces for protection; and the gas fields and mines also depend wholly on the army for protection. Inevitably, therefore, and despite a determined effort on their part to pretend otherwise, the responsibilities of the Pakistani army in Balochistan go far beyond the purely military.
This appeared strongly from my interview with the Pakistani general commanding in Balochistan, Lt-General Khalid Wynne. I am not qualified to judge his qualities as a general; but when it comes to relative modernity, I must confess that I was greatly prejudiced in his favour by his daughter – whom I have never met, but who is studying for a PhD in molecular biology in the US. The general admitted disarmingly that ‘my wife and I wanted to arrange her marriage but she insisted on doing research instead, so we gave in, and sold some property to pay for her education. Then she won a top scholarship, which makes us very proud.’
My interview with General Wynne illustrated the way in which the Pakistani army is repeatedly drawn into managing wider areas of the state. This is not always because the generals want this, but because of an iron logic proceeding both from the fact that the armed forces constitute by far the most efficient and coherent institution of that state, and that in the NWFP and Balochistan economic development has a critical security dimension. It has to be protected from insurgency, and it can contribute to defeating insurgency.
Thus our conversation began with the usual ritualistic declaration on the part of the general that the army has no interest in once again becoming involved in politics and government, and wishes to concentrate on its core tasks of defending the country against external aggression and defeating domestic insurgency. He said that while the army is ultimately responsible for internal security within Balochistan, it is not involved in operations against the present insurgency, which are the business of the Frontier Corps.
The interview ended with the general describing how the army is closely involved in the management of the big coal mine being developed at Chamalang near Balochistan’s border with Punjab and Sindh, which in 2007 – 9 produced around 1 million tons of coal. This is in a mixed Pathan – Baloch area, where Marri tribesmen have traditional grazing rights, and a violent dispute broke out between them over access to benefits from the mine, which for many years held up its development. In 2006 the army was invited to settle this dispute, and