Musharraf's NA visit   Zaigham Khan   President Musharraf's visit to the Northern Areas last week was an important occasion in many respects. It was after a long time that he, as the country's most powerful decision making authority, visited the troubled region. The visit was also associated with the Diamer-Basha Dam, though he could not lay the foundation stone due to bad weather. The work on the dam starts at a time when people from all over the country are becoming restive over horrible power shortages and want to know why the president's all encompassing vision failed to foresee this situation in the past seven years. Last but not the least; the visit became important for some political statements he chose to make during the visit. A rare high profile visit of the head of state is bound to raise expectations in an area where people are losing patience after waiting for their fundamental rights for six decades. It was in this respect that the visit was a huge disappointment. Some of the remarks made by the president showed that he was not properly briefed on the political situation in the region and did not fully appreciate the sensitivities of the people he wanted to reach out to. An important highlight of the event was the president's address to a public meeting in Gilgit on July 5. The president asked the gathering to elect the people who support him. This remark almost amounted to black humour. I am not saying that there is anything wrong with the advice per se. All patriots, not only those sensitised by NAB, should support the political party headed by the country's chief of army staff-cum-president. There is perhaps no better way to achieve national unity. The dilemma that the Gilgiti audience faced was a bit different. The people of the Northern Areas don't have any representation in Pakistan's parliament and government, made clear by the fact that none of the eighteen ministers attending to him during the visit belonged to the Northern Areas. To be more specific, the Northern Areas have no constitutional status in the state of Pakistan. The region is neither a province nor a semi-autonomous state like Azad Kashmir. Condemned to remain in a constitutional limbo since 1948, this area is governed by federal bureaucracy and, of course, omnipotent secret services. In the name of representation, the people in the area enjoy a Northern Areas Council, headed by the Federal Minister for Kashmir and Northern Areas. It is no secret that the city council of Timbuktu carries more influence in Islamabad than that strange creature called the Northern Areas Council. Naturally, many people in the Northern Areas expected some package of political reforms from the president who had promised to reconstruct the whole nation. The president, however, chose this occasion to promise something bigger and brighter --development. No one doubts the president's commitment to development, which is clear from his choice of the prime minister, considered a brilliant economist but not much of a politician. In a prophetic way, the president has promised development to the whole nation, even to those who are baying for his blood, such as the Bugtis, Marris and Waziris. Unfortunately, development is not a solution to all problems. In many cases, it creates as many problems as it solves. The Northern Areas, in fact, are not a development starved region like Balochistan or the Tribal Areas. In the last two to three decades, the region has been transformed from one of the least developed areas of the country to a fairly developed part of Pakistan, both in human and physical terms. Apart from the commitment of successive governments, credit also goes to the efforts of the Aga Khan Foundation. In the meantime, people of the area have only got angrier with Islamabad. During my visits to the region as a journalist, I have witnessed curfews and violent protests. On one occasion, I saw almost all official buildings being gutted at the hands of angry mobs. While observing the people of the Northern Areas, I learnt that development has never been, and can never be, a substitute for rights. Delivering development in place of rights is a colonial argument that does not cut much ice with the people demanding what they consider their due as citizens. I will not debate the merits or demerits of the Diamer-Basha dam here. As a small time environmental activist, I do not support such monstrosities. The president made great promises to the people of the Northern Areas regarding the dam and I have no reason to doubt his sincerity in this regard. I want to bring out just one point here, that of land acquisition for the dam and compensation to the affectees. The record of the Pakistani state in this regard is shameful. The people displaced from Tarbela were not fully compensated till 2003, some twenty-five years after the dam was completed. And even then the final settlements were not made out of a sense of justice or love for the people who had sacrificed everything for this project, but because of a World Bank conditionality, which demanded payment of compensation money to over 1,700 families as a precondition of the $350 million loan for the Ghazi Barotha Hydropower project. Also due to a World Bank conditionality, Ghazi Barotha became the first large scale project in the country through which people were compensated "generously". Later, when the project had been completed, NAB arrested a number of affectees for taking more money from the state than they deserved. I am not aware of what happened to them. Perhaps, they joined the Q-League and everything was settled. The president must be reminded of an ominous omission here. The draft of the National Resettlement Policy, prepared with much fanfare in 2002, is gathering dust somewhere in the bureaucratic cabinets and in its absence the poor are becoming victims of development and are at the mercy of powerful interests, mainly within the state and allied to the state. Land acquisition for this dam must start with adoption of this policy. The president also used the occasion to make some interesting statements. He said he is a solider, and therefore, he cannot contest elections. The question is why not? The apex court of the country has vindicated his action as a solider to dissolve an elected government and parliament. As a soldier, he has won a referendum and the nation's parliament has endorsed this referendum. He chairs meetings of a political party, which he has mid-wifed and of which he is a de-facto head, again as a soldier. What stops him from contesting elections as a soldier? Maybe, it will bring him down to the level of a politician, and he is indeed, above politics as a soldier. The president also said he will quit office the day people withdraw their support. As Chaudhary Shujaat Hussain and Syed Mushaid Hussain, flanking him left and right during the public meeting, must have reassured him, is an impossibility. We, the Muslim masses, are not a thankless lot like our former rulers, the Brits, who threw out their legendary wartime leader, Sir Winston Churchill, in an election in 1945, just after he had won the greatest war in human history. Our war heroes keep winning. Saddam got 99 per cent votes in 1999 and a full 100 per cent in 2002. Other great Muslim leaders like Hosni Mubarak, Muammar al-Qaddafi and Bashar al-Assad have also shown similar performances. Pakistanis love their leader no less. In 2002, General Musharraf won the referendum by securing 98 per cent votes in his favour. I bet it will be even better next time. We pray for our president to live till eternity and may he rule till he lives. Maulana Fazlur Rehman sahib, please lead us in this prayer. The writer is an Islamabad-based journalist and development consultant. Email: [email protected]