Asia-Pacific, Civil Society, Headlines

POLITICS-PAKISTAN: &#39Inter Services Intelligence Interferes in Polls&#39

Amir Mir

ISLAMABAD, Feb 24 2008 (IPS) - A former top official of Pakistan&#39s shadowy but powerful Inter Services Intelligence (ISI) has called for the political cell of the agency to be shut down and &#39confessed&#39 to having manipulated the 2002 general elections at the behest of Pakistan President Pervez Musharraf.

Ehtesham Zamir, who headed the ISI&#39s political cell in 2002 and was a serving major general in the Pakistan army at that time, told &#39The News&#39 daily on Saturday that he was ordered by Musharraf to help the &#39king&#39s party&#39, the Pakistan Muslim League – Quaid-i-Azam (PML-Q), to come to power.

Zamir blamed the rout of the PML-Q in the just concluded elections as a ‘’reaction of the unnatural dispensation&#39&#39 that he helped install in 2002. His confessions follow the disclosures of another retired high-ranking army officer Lt. Gen. Jamshed Gulzar Kiyani that Musharraf ignored the advice of his corps commanders that he stop patronising the PML-Q.

Importantly, Zamir, the former second-highest ranking officer in the ISI has called for the closure of the political cell in the agency, saying it was ‘part of the problem’ for its involvement in forging unnatural alliances that were contrary to public interests.

Zamir told The News that the 2008 elections were &#39fairer than 2002&#39 because there was less interference from the ISI and other intelligence agencies. &#39&#39I am of the view that the ISI&#39s political cell should be closed for good by revoking executive orders issued in 1975," he was quoted as saying.

Although Musharraf&#39s successor as chief of army staff, Gen. Ashfaq Pervez Kayani, has promised to take steps to depoliticise the army, these do not cover the ISI that has come to be regarded as a &#39&#39state within a state&#39&#39 for its extraordinary power and influence.

After assuming command of the 600,000-strong Pakistan army in December 2007, Kayani ordered his officers to refrain from meeting politicians, saying they were expected to heed their primary professional responsibility – safeguarding the geographical frontiers of Pakistan.

In February, Kayani ordered the withdrawal of 3,000 army officers – major generals down to captains – from postings on deputation to various civilian departments. However, neither directive was made applicable to army officers in the ISI.

Pakistan army spokesman Maj. Gen. Athar Abbas has been quoted in the national media as saying that the directives excluded the ISI because it maintained a political wing and, therefore, could not be depoliticised. "Pakistan army had no plans to withdraw its officers working in the ISI, contrary to the policy it had adopted for civilian departments. Who will work there if we call them back from the ISI?"

In Pakistan the army has directly or indirectly managed the country&#39s affairs for more than half the years since independence from British colonial rule in 1947 and it is an open secret that much of it has been through the ISI.

Hasan Askari Rizvi, author of the volume ‘The Role of Military in Pakistan Politics,’ told IPS: "Having tasted political power, the army in Pakistan had ceased to be apolitical. Despite the withdrawal of the army officers from civilian postings and directives not to indulge in politics, the army will continue to play a decisive role in politics through ISI due to the fact that successive army chiefs have preferred to trust it more than any other spy agency like the Intelligence Bureau, as it is a part of their military brotherhood."

Not long ago, the ISI was accused of manipulating the 1990 elections in favour of the Nawaz Sharif-led Islami Jamhoori Ittehad (IJI), an alliance of rightist and Islamist parties, and a case in this regard, filed by former air chief marshal Asghar Khan, is still pending in Pakistan&#39s Supreme Court. Among the respondents in the case was former army chief Mirza Aslam Beg who said, in a written reply to the apex court, that it was routine for the ISI to support favoured candidates in elections, under directives from chief executives.

Lt. Gen. (retd) Hameed Gul, the then chief of the ISI who had actually formed the IJI alliance, told IPS: "I admit my role and seek formal apology from the Pakistani nation. And I am ready for any punishment – even a trial.’’

Former high-ranking military officials feel depoliticisation of the ISI is a prerequisite if the army is to be distanced from politics. "If Gen. Kayani sincerely wants to depoliticise the army, he should not only ensure that the charter of the ISI is amended to exclude unrelated matters like domestic politics, a mechanism should be evolved to ensure oversight by the parliament to keep it within its charter and limits", Asghar Khan told IPS.