Musharraf's Cadmean Victory

Only time will tell if General Syed Pervez Musharraf will ever become Cadmus of Balochistan and will succeed in building the port city of Gawadar into another Dubai on the north coast of the Arabian Sea. There still lies an ocean of fire, blood, disfigured and rock-crushed bodies with spilled guts and broken bones between his ambition and his economically throbbing and pulsating Eden.

But, no doubt, one thing he has already achieved: a Cadmean victory.

Cadmus was a prince of Phoenicia, present-day Syria and Lebanon. He founded in ancient Egypt, on the Nile, the great city of Thebes, on the site of modern Luxor and Karnak. The city flourished from circa 600 BCE until its destruction in 336 BCE.

But Thebes was not his only contribution. He also enriched English language by leaving behind an idiom connected with his name: a Cadmean victory - a victory won with great losses to the victor. They say he killed a dragon and sowed its teeth in soil from which grew many armed men who fought each other, until only five left to help him build his city.

Musharraf is a man who loves to keep his grudges well-fed. Cities are not built without harboring grudges and squelching opponents.

However, there is a problem. He does not know how to deal with a contentious situation except the only way he has been trained as a military man: by using force - overwhelming force - when and if he perceives to be confronted by a force that is only very much inferior to his own.

Since he was a major serving in the army's previous war against the Pakistanis of Balochistan he had been itching to settle scores with the Sardars and Nawabs of Balochistan and their ignorant followers and to teach them a lesson for not letting him build a road without interrupting him. It did not matter if his adversary this time around was Nawab Akbar Khan Bugti - army's erstwhile supporter and collaborator against other Sardars and Nawabs in that Buhtto era war.

In his confrontation with Bugti, who was demanding share in his province's wealth and opportunities for him / the Balochis, Musharraf screwed in every which way he could possibly screw. From the get go he made it a text book example of turning a political dispute into a big time brutal, barbarous and bloody fiasco.

He called Bugti names, rattled sabers, and tried to humiliate him and other proud sardars and people of Balochistan. He never called him Nawab even, he says. He threatened him and the other two members of his own local version of 'axis of evil' with dire and disastrous consequences reminding them what Bhutto had told them a couple of decades earlier: with the grace of America the army has so sophisticated, lethal and sneaky weapons in its arsenal that they will not even know what hit them. They didn't.

In the high voltage atmosphere after Bugti's tragic death, he could not restrain himself from showing another layer of the dark side of his character when he congratulated the armed forces for incinerating an arthritic, invalid octogenarian politician who had been for 40 long years, off and on, a loyal state minister, governor, and chief minister. Musharraf also kept the holy tradition of the armed forces of Pakistan of not handing over the dead bodies of the politians they murder to the bereaved families.

Musharraf and his Nau Ratan, accomplices or partners in crime – or you may call them Nine Corps Commanders - did not expect this much brouhaha from the people of Pakistan in reaction to Bugti's death or the death of a bunch of his rough, rowdy and ragtag medieval followers in a cave who they had killed with the help of a “friendly state’s satellite signals and intelligence”. Before operation the incomprehensible Chaudhry of Gujrat must have mumbled in their ears what he muttered in public about the limits of Bugti’s influence in the country. Their military intelligence must also have given them to go ahead and shoot.

After the flare up, they started recanting what they had gleefully announced first. The cave that was claimed to be bombarded into extinction had, instead, all of sudden crumbled and imploded on itself under its own weight mysteriously. The naive warriors had taken off their rings, watches and eye glasses and neatly lay them down with crores of rupees and about a hundred thousand US dollars at a convenient place where the brave Jawans and able offices of Pakistan’s great army could easily retrieve them intact.

Has he gotten what he wished for? No. It is just a Cadmean victory.

For some time, there will be some contrived huffing and puffing, some vociferous groaning and moaning, some vehement whining and complaining along with some sheer hypocrisy. A few dogs will not bark. Some will want to eat their cake and have it. Some will be conspicuous in their absence. A few will offer paltry resignations, or give never-meant-to-be-fulfilled threats to do the same. After a flurry of mob-like rallies, defanged resolutions, toothless protests, senseless burning, killing and mayhem people will have their pent up anger vented and will head home to worry about feeding their families. The grumbling hunger of the belly will win over the anguish of soul eventually.

But the teeth of the slain dragon Musharraf has sowed in the barren soil of Balochistan will give rise – sooner or later - to some armed Pakistanis who will train their guns against their own motherland and brethren who have no power or means to cover all bases as military men have since 1947. Some will kill, others will die.

When it is time to reap the whirlwind, Musharraf and some of his Nau Ratan will have their plane ready in the compound of a “friendly state’s “ embassy and their mansions waiting in Chicago or Boston suburbs where they will join their already-there family members and cool their heels. One of their own kind who is waiting in the wings will come forward and in the interest of national security will take over in a “bloodless” coup and once again the dark night of military rule will extend its long and grim shadows on this miserable land called Pakistan and will engulf its poor people.