Emperor's new clothes

By Simon Tisdall (THE GUARDIAN, 31/10/06):

Prince Charles' visit to Pakistan this week is intended to repair relations strained by problems ranging in severity from last year's London bombings and the Prophet Muhammad cartoons scandal to alleged ball-tampering during the Oval Test match. But even if further controversy is avoided, the royal tour will dramatise the dilemmas closing in on Pakistan's unelected leader, General Pervez Musharraf.Charles and Camilla's expected side-trip to Pakistan-controlled Azad Kashmir, scene of last year's devastating earthquake, is a case in point. Tens of thousands of displaced people are still struggling to rebuild their lives there.

The mountainsides around Balakot, a town levelled by the quake, remain dangerously unstable, their tottering homesteads and ruptured roads prey to sudden lethal landslides.

Equally uncertain is the political situation. A new report by Human Rights Watch lambasts Gen Musharraf and the military for a "blundering and ineffective response" in Azad Kashmir that, it claims, failed to make saving the lives of civilians a top priority. That was because the army was more concerned with rescuing its own people and maintaining control of a territory disputed with India, it says.

The government, army and intelligence services continue to deny Kashmiris the freedom to reconstruct their communities as they wish, Human Rights Watch says. "Though Azad means 'free', the residents of Azad Kashmir are anything but. It is a land of strict curbs on political pluralism, freedom of expression, and freedom of association; a muzzled press; and arbitrary arrest and torture [by] military and police."

The report also claims that use of Azad Kashmir as a base for infiltrating armed Islamists into Indian Kashmir is continuing, albeit at a reduced level. Given the presence of the Islamists' camps, "it was no accident that militant groups were the first on the scene dispensing relief and other aid after the earthquake ... the Pakistani military apparently saw an opportunity to craft a new image for the militants".

To Indian guffaws, Gen Musharraf denies any state sponsorship of militants. But rebranded or not, it is unlikely that the royals will be introduced to them.

Yesterday's meeting between Prince Charles and the Pakistan leader, and an anticipated trip to Lahore, will also refocus attention on questions of political legitimacy seven years after Gen Musharraf seized power in a coup. His self-made mandate expires next year, with democratic elections promised thereafter. But the leaders of the two main opposition parties, Benazir Bhutto and Nawaz Sharif, are in exile.

They face arrest if they return. And Gen Musharraf is again expected to conjure up the spectre of an Islamist menace to justify continuing his rule.

In a recent analysis Frédéric Grare of the Carnegie Endowment noted that after 9/11 "much of the international community, especially the US, was grateful to have Musharraf remain in power behind the façade of civilian rule". While perceptions had gradually changed, US acquiescence to Musharraf's staying in office "remains the most likely scenario" with or without free and fair polls, he said.

"Remaining chief of army staff and rigging elections are the two conditions under which Gen Musharraf can retain power," Mr Grare said. "Rigging elections has undoubtedly reached new levels under Musharraf."

Lt-Gen Asad Durrani, former head of Pakistan's Inter-Services Intelligence Bureau, warned this month that past attempts to send the army back to barracks had proved problematic. "The exit usually occurs only when there is a war, an accident, or an abdication."

Prince Charles, who has succession issues of his own, will likely keep mum on this subject. But the last minute cancellation of his visit to Peshawar, gateway to the Khyber Pass and Afghanistan is a loud reminder of more uncomfortable, unfinished business - notably, repeated claims by British commanders in Helmand and by the Afghan government that Pakistan's lawless western badlands are knowingly being used as launchpads for Taliban attacks on Nato troops, thwarting the western mission to rebuild the country.

Gen Musharraf imperiously denies it all. But the king-in-waiting may decide the emperor has no clothes.