A Commando Who Is Nervous Of Commandos

In a second instalment of a major reshuffle of the senior officers of theArmy carried out on October 10,2001, Gen.Pervez Musharraf, Pakistan'sself-reinstated Chief of the Army Staff (COAS), self-styled Chief Executive andself-promoted President, removed Lt.Gen. Jamshaid Gulzar from his post as the Corps Commander of 10 Corps at Rawalpindi and appointed him as the Adjutant General, Pakistan Army.  Maj.Genl Syed Arif Hasan, Vice Chief ofGeneral Staff, was promoted as Lt.Gen. and appointed Corps Commander, 10 Corps,Rawalpindi,

Maj.Gen.l Khalid Ahmed Kidwai, Director-General, Strategic Planning andDevelopment, was promoted to the rank of Lt.Gen in the same post.

 Maj.Gen. Shahid Aziz, General Officer Commanding, Murree, was promotedas Lt.Gen. and appointed as the Chief of the General Staff (CGS) in the GHQ. In that capacity, he would be supervising the work of the Directorates-Generalof Military Intelligence and Military Operations.

The 10 Corps, Rawalpindi, and its crack 111 Brigade are considered the mostimportant units of the Pakistan Army in the power equation in Islamabad. The conventional wisdom in Pakistan is that no Army General can stage a coup andsustain himself in power thereafter without their support.  All Pakistanimilitary dictators, therefore, ensure that these units are commanded byhand-picked officers enjoying their total confidence.

The following four officers staged  the coup of October 12,1999, whichpaved the way for the take-over of power by Musharraf after the plane bringinghim from Colombo landed in Karachi:

• Lt.Gen.Mohammad Aziz, then CGS, GHQ.
  
• Lt.Gen.Mahmood Ahmed, then Corps Commander, 10 Corps, Rawalpindi.
  
• Maj.Gen.Jamshaid Gulzar, then Comanding Officer, 111 Brigade of 10 Corps.
  
• Lt.Gen.Muzaffar Usmani, then Corps Commander, 5 Corps, Karachi.

After assuming power as the Chief Executive, Musharraf appointed Ahmed as theDG, ISI, and Gulzar, on promotion, as the Corps Commander, 10 Corps, Rawalpindi.

Of the four officers, who overthrew Mr.Sharif and seized power, Aziz, Ahmedand Gulzar had served with Musharraf as Commandoes in the Special Services Group(SSG).  Musharraf and Aziz had served together in the Northern Areas (Gilgitand Baltistan ) too.

Many Pakistani observers, therefore, termed the coup the "commandoes'coup".  On October 7,2001, Musharraf had forced Ahmed to seekpremature retirement after superseding him for promotion as a full-fledgedGeneral, kicked Aziz, after promoting him as a General, upstairs as the Chairmanof the Joint Chiefs of Staff Committee and now has shifted Gulzar to the post ofAdjutant-General Till then.  Aziz was posted as the Corps Commander, 4Corps, Lahore

Thus, of the three commandoes, who staged the coup and paved the way for theelevation of the fourth commando (Musharraf), one has been prematurely retiredand two have been transferred to posts, where they would not have direct commandof any field formation, without which they may not be able to stage a coupagainst Musharraf.

While briefing his Cabinet on the reshuffle on October 10,2001, Musharraf wasreported to have claimed that these changes were of a routine nature and hadbeen decided upon by him three months ago and had nothing to do with reports ofdifferences in the Army over his assisting the US in crushing the Taliban andOsama bin Laden's Al Qaeda.

Despite his claim, these changes are viewed in Islamabad as a move by anervous Musharraf to pre-empt a possible coup against him by these officers byremoving  them from the active command of field formations.  Since theserious anti-US and anti-Musharraf disturbances at Quetta on October 8,2001,Islamabad has been rife with unsubstantiated rumours of plots and counter-plotsinside the GHQ.  There have also been rumours of a plot by somefundamentalist officers at the middle level to assassinate the Corps Commandersand seize power.  Musharraf has appealed to all his colleagues and Cabinetmembers not to believe these rumours. 

(The writer is Additional Secretary (retd), Cabinet Secretariat, Govt. ofIndia, and, presently, Director, Institute For Topical Studies, Chennai)