The difference between Pakistan's Generals and Politicians

There is a widely held belief among the general public in Pakistan that the army is the ultimate arbiter of what happens in Pakistani politics. It is thought, for example, that most election results are predetermined by the 'agencies' - an oblique reference to the secret service apparatus of the Pakistani defense establishment. The agencies decide who will win and who will lose. And important government decisions especially those related to foreign policy and internal security cannot be made without the army's tacit consent or approval.

Does the army indeed exercise this level of control over Pakistani politics? It is difficult to affirm or refute this with any reasonable level of confidence. But the more interesting question, and one that perhaps can be answered, is: Why would the army want to interfere?

To understand this one has to understand two sets of people: Those who run the army - the generals. And those who run the civilian administration - the politicians. Politicians first: This is a motley set. They include feudal landlords, hereditary 'pirs'- the descendants of long deceased holy men, urban mafiosi, and a spattering of mullahs. This whole set is not usually associated, in the public eye, with integrity, honesty, decency, competence or for that matter patriotism.

The army on the other hand recruits its soldiers from across the social spectrum. The selection process - especially for the officer corps - is competitive and demanding. Only the best survive. In some sense the army is a complete meritocracy - it is 'up or out'. If you meet the cut you are promoted to the next rank. If you do not you retire. Hence those who run the army - the top generals - get to where they are on the basis of their merit and competence. Remember also that the army inculcates patriotism in all its soldiers - enlisted men and officers. The message that their raison détre is to defend Pakistan to the last breath is hammered into their minds again and again. In the end, whatever else you say about these men, you cannot say that they are not patriotic.

So on the civilian side, running the country, you have a set of politicians of dubious competence and integrity who get to where they are because of inherited privilege or deception, or coercion, or other even less savoury methods.  Ask the general public what they think of their politicians' patriotism and the response, stripped of expletives, would be that they will happily sell a close family member for a foreign passport.

On the other side, running the army, are a group of generals who have come up through the ranks based on their competence and professionalism. And etched in their conscience, by virtue of their training, is the paramount importance of protecting Pakistan from any perceived threats.

Now back to the question of why the army would want to interfere in politics: The generals, professional and competent patriots, do not trust the politicians, people of questionable competence, integrity and sincerity, to be faithful to the country. They believe, perhaps not without reason, that if these politicians are left to their own devices they would pose a real and present threat to the integrity and security of Pakistan. And since direct interference for the army is not an option they resort to other means - the agencies - to keep the politicians from doing too much damage.

This is clearly a dysfunctional way to run a democratic country. The politicians should be running the country with the generals focusing exclusively on the army. Running a six hundred thousand man army is difficult enough without the added involvement of keeping a set of dubious politicians in check. The generals would be happy to focus on their own domain and leave the running of the country to elected representatives of the people. But they will not do this until they have confidence that the peoples representatives have the integrity, competence, experience and sincerity to do so.

So we as a country need to try harder to bring into politics people who do have the qualities needed for national leadership. And once we succeed in doing this the army, reassured that the country is in safe hands, will no longer need to be involved in minding the minders.

Could a Fukushima happen in Pakistan?

On a quiet Friday afternoon in March 2011 something was stirring in the Earth deep under the waters of the North Pacific Ocean. Unknown to people preparing for their weekend on the North Eastern coast of the Japanese island of Hokkaido they were about to be hit by one of the largest earthquakes ever to be recorded in human history.

What is now known as the Tohoku undersea megathrust earthquake struck at 2.15pm Japanese time. It’s hypocenter was 70 km off shore and it registered a magnitude of 9.0 on the Richter scale. A few moments later a tsunami with wave heights reaching 100 feet washed ashore on the North Eastern coast of Hokkaido. The waters penetrated up to 10 km inland razing just about everything in their way. In a few minutes some 18,000 people had lost their lives.

But they were not the only casualties of that tragic day. At a nuclear power plant on the coast in Fukushima Prefecture the tsunami cut power to pumps supplying cooling water to the reactors and submerged backup emergency generators. With no cooling water the cores of 3 operating reactors overheated resulting in core meltdowns, explosions, and loss of radioactive containment. Radioactivity was released and continues to be released into the soil, air and water. A mandatory exclusion zone banning people from coming within 20 km of the plant remains in effect.

Three hundred tons of toxic highly radioactive water from the site continues to leak into the Pacific Ocean every day. The plant operator - Tokyo Electric Power Company - admitted recently that it has “lost control of Fukushima”. Radiation in the vicinity of the plant is so high that it would kill a human exposed to it in 4 hours.

The Fukushima incident is emblematic of the problem with nuclear power. A serious accident results in the release of radiation into the environment. And this is the good news. The real problem is that nuclear fuel and waste products generated in nuclear reactors remain radioactive from 10,000 to tens of millions of years. For example the half life - a measure of the rate of natural decay of radioactive materials - of the waste product Plutonium 239 is 24,000 years, and that of Neptunium 237 is two million years. When these waste products are released into the environment in an accident they are there to stay.

While the Fukushima accident was triggered by a natural disaster similar accidents have occurred at other nuclear plants as a result of human error or equipment failure. The most notable of these was the Chernobyl disaster of 1986 in the then Soviet Union. The reactor containment vessel exploded due to operator error. The environment was contaminated. Over the years 4000 people died of radiation induced cancer. The cities of Chernobyl and Pripyat were completely abandoned. A 30 km permanent exclusion zone remains in effect around the accident site. And it may well remain in effect for hundreds if not thousands of years.

Fukushima has had a chilling effect on the global nuclear power industry. In Germany, Chancellor Angela Merkel, a physicist by training, understood immediately. Within days of the accident 8 of Germany’s 17 reactors were shut down permanently. The remaining 9 are all due to be closed by 2022. The Italian parliament voted to cancel all contracts awarded in the past few years to build nuclear power plants. Switzerland with 5 operating reactors announced that the reactors will continue to operate but “will not be replaced at the end of their life span”. Even China, with ambitious plans to build nuclear capacity suspended approvals for all new plants as it sought to review safety issues.

Pakistan, despite a few palliative statements of concern, seems unmoved. We have three operating nuclear power plants. One near Karachi at Paradise Point on the coast of the Arabian sea. And two at Chashma on the banks of the Indus River in Punjab. Disturbingly, two more reactors are under construction at Chashma and a third is planned. By the time the Chashma site reaches its planned capacity in 2020 it will have five operating reactors on the banks of the Indus River.

Imagine the consequences of a nuclear accident at Chashma: Contaminated radioactive water starts to leak into the Indus River. It is carried downstream to hundreds of cities and villages. Irrigation canals then carry it to most arable areas of the land. Within a few weeks much of livable Pakistan is contaminated.

Building the plants at all was a bad idea. But building them upstream on the Indus verges on suicidal negligence. If Japan, one of the most technologically advanced nations in the world, is unable to cope with a nuclear accident, can we?

The plants at Chashma need to be shut down, and contracts for those being built cancelled. A disaster at Chashma will make our most intractable problem of today - terrorism - seem like a walk in the park.

Nadeem M. Qureshi is Chairman of Mustaqbil Pakistan