Prime Minister Stephen Harper's trip to Afghanistan underscores Canada's role as a supporter of basic freedoms and security. Given the presence of Canadian troops in Afghanistan, Mr. Harper's focus on Kandahar is understandable. But as the Prime Minister experiences for himself the harsh realities of Afghanistan in the Taliban's former capital, he will also be reminded of the most basic political reality of the region -- the road to peace and security in Afghanistan goes through Pakistan.
And yet the values of human rights, democracy and security that Mr. Harper espouses are not to be seen across the border in Pakistan, where the "war on terror" has led to an over-reliance on a single general, President Pervez Musharraf, presiding over an ideologically unreliable army. Mr. Musharraf, who came to power in a 1999 coup, is in trouble and has been for some time. He faces armed rebellions in two of Pakistan's four provinces, resentment over the mishandling of earthquake relief in Kashmir and, for the last month, protests over the publication of caricatures of the Prophet Mohammed.
Yet most of Mr. Musharraf's troubles are of his own making. He is reaping the consequences of his support for Islamists used as a bogeyman to gain Western support in the war on terror and to keep moderate and popular political parties on the outside looking in.
It was Mr. Musharraf and the army's powerful Inter-Services Intelligence agency that created and nurtured the Muttahida Majlis-e-Amal (MMA) alliance -- a group of Islamist parties -- immediately after 9/11. The MMA does not appear to believe in basic freedoms such as equal rights for women, freedom to worship according to one's conscience, or freedom of expression. Its members schooled and trained the Taliban and it wishes to impose sharia, or Islamic law, as the basic law in Pakistan.
Now the MMA seems to be turning on Mr. Musharraf by spearheading a campaign of strikes and protests aimed at destabilizing him. The MMA appears to have concluded that its electoral support peaked in 2002 and the only way to achieve its goals is to isolate Mr. Musharraf by signalling to the army that he has become a liability. The MMA is effectively rolling the dice, trying to force a change in the army's leadership -- and therefore the presidency -- in hopes this will lead to a new leadership more advantageous to Islamists.
Efforts to destabilize Mr. Musharraf are being led by the Jamaat-e-Islami (JI) -- a major part of the alliance -- which has enjoyed deep roots within the Inter-Services Intelligence agency. The JI has undermined virtually every elected government in Pakistan's history, but never without active intelligence agency support. That support is likely to be extremely covert and extremely limited in this instance. Hence Mr. Musharraf's overthrow is unlikely. Nevertheless, the JI senses blood and wishes to maximize its own political advantage by capitalizing on the widespread revulsion at the cartoons, deep resentment at U.S. military adventures in Afghanistan and Iraq, and antipathy towards U.S. President George Bush, seen as an abuser of the rights of Muslims after the Abu Ghraib prisoner abuse scandal in Iraq and the mistreatment of detainees at the Guantanamo Bay detention centre in Cuba.
It is time for Mr. Musharraf to stop playing with fire -- in other words, with radical Islamists. He should remember that Pakistani voters are moderate. The two biggest, mainstream, moderate parties received more than 80 per cent of the vote in the last election. Compare that to the MMA, which controls the North-West Frontier Province bordering Afghanistan. The alliance polled only 10 per cent of the national vote in the 2002 election. Islamists may have "street power" in Pakistan and be able to organize large demonstrations against unpopular cartoons and set off bombs, but they have little popular appeal. That said, so long as moderate political parties remain effectively marginalized, the Islamists will present themselves as the only effective platform for anti-military protest.
It is worth noting that Pakistanis generally tolerate direct military rule for a decade or so. Into his seventh year in power, Mr. Musharraf has come to personify the Pakistani military's arrogance, dubbed the army's "god complex" by local commentators. Hence, public resentment is increasingly being directed at Mr. Musharraf personally.
Pakistan needs to return to democratic government. Mr. Musharraf must commence a constitutional transfer of power followed by free elections in which Pakistan's political parties are provided a level playing field. These elections need to be conducted by a neutral caretaker government as allowed under Pakistan's constitution and supervised by an independent election commission, without interference from the military, and in the presence of international and national observers.
As the contradictions of the Musharraf government come home to roost, neither Mr. Musharraf nor his patrons in the West can afford to ignore this crisis. A Pakistan respecting human rights, run by a genuinely elected government, is the best guarantor of security for the entire region.
While in the region, and after he returns, Prime Minister Harper is uniquely placed to deliver this message to all concerned -- unequivocally, effectively and with authority. By doing so, he will only enhance Canada's stature in the world.
Ali Dayan Hasan is South Asia researcher for Human Rights Watch.
