A lack of
transparency
Both the Senate
and National Assembly have raised pertinent questions over the decision to send
almost a division of Pakistan army troops to Saudi Arabia without taking
parliament into confidence. Senate Chairman Raza Rabbani has summoned Defence
Minister Khurram Dastgir to appear before the upper house and deliver a policy
statement on the issue on February 19. The National Assembly in parallel has
asked the foreign ministry to provide a detailed reply to the question why
Pakistani troops were being deployed in Saudi Arabia and under which bilateral
agreement. It is pertinent to note that the army announced the decision on
February 16, citing a bilateral security pact. This announcement came in the
wake of the meeting between COAS General Qamar Javed Bajwa and Saudi Ambassador
Commodore Nawaf Saeed Al-Maliki, which reportedly discussed the regional
security situation. This interaction itself came after General Bajwa’s recent
three-day visit to Saudi Arabia where he met Crown Prince Salman and Saudi
military commanders. The Senate expressed alarm that such unilateral decisions
were being taken while bypassing parliament and arguably to the detriment of
the country’s interests, without delving into the grave consequences that could
flow from them. Senate Chairman Raza Rabbani argued that the complex Yemeni
civil war had been further complicated by Saudi Arabia’s allies in Yemen
falling out and at each other’s throats and Saudi Arabia’s air campaign in that
conflict provoking a backlash against the kingdom itself from the Houthis. The
army’s announcement was vague on the number of troops being dispatched, but it
appears the contingent will comprise almost a division. The recent deliberately
nuanced foreign ministry statement condemning Houthi missile attacks against
Saudi Arabia was read as providing justification for the deployment. Both in
the Senate and National Assembly, parliamentarians reminded the houses that a
joint sitting of parliament had passed a unanimous resolution on April 10, 2015
that Pakistan will remain neutral in the wars in the Middle East or within any
Arab state. Questions therefore rang in the air seeking answers to why that
resolution was being ostensibly violated.
It may be
recalled that the April 10, 2015 resolution upset Saudi Arabia and the UAE and
evoked some rude remarks about Pakistan from the latter. The sense of the
resolution then was that Pakistan should not insert itself into the sectarian
conflict in Yemen, given that Pakistan has some 20 percent Shias and wishes to
strike a balance between its relations with the Gulf states and Iran. To those
original misgivings could now be added the disintegration and mutual infighting
in the pro-Saudi camp in the Yemen civil war, a development that promises the
conflict could get messier. While the military may be pandering to our Gulf
neighbours given their financial help to Pakistan in dire moments, the
reservations voiced in parliament deserve thought. For one, ignoring parliament
blatantly on a matter of such importance and in the face of the resolution
referred to above highlights the long road yet to parliament’s empowerment as
the supreme fount of authority in the state. Admittedly, our politicians have
not always acquitted themselves in a manner that could advance this cause. For
example, when General Bajwa, in an unprecedented first, addressed the Senate
acting as the Committee of the Whole about security issues, the briefing and
deliberations being leaked to the media by parliamentarians provoked the ire of
Chairman Senate Raza Rabbani. Be that as it may, surely there is no impediment
in the military and foreign ministry briefing a select committee of parliament
in-camera on sensitive issues that do not allow public exposure. Two, the move
smacks of the military ‘surreptitiously’ succumbing to the unremitting pressure
from the Saudis for the deployment. Three, and perhaps of greatest concern,
despite the reassuring noises that the troops would be restricted to Saudi
soil, engage largely in training activities and not be sucked into the regional
conflict/s, the increasing spillover of the Saudi-Houthi conflict onto Saudi
soil by means of missile attacks suggests the Pakistani military contingent may
be inadvertently put in harm’s way and be forced to at the very least defend
itself. This presents a slippery slope of escalation without anyone being able
to predict the end. For all the reasons enumerated above, it behoves the defence
and foreign ministries to brief and if possible satisfy both houses of
parliament about this ‘bolt from the blue’.
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