waseemmanno
Councller (250+ posts)
Alternating between civilian government and military government has been on going issue in Pakistan. Military governments have been in power for 33 years of Pakistans 62-year history. Pervez Musharraf commanded 9 of those years.
Pakistani Army Chief General Musharraf seized power in a 17-hour military coup on October 12 1999, when then-Prime Minister Nawza Sharif fired Musharraf and attempted to stop his plane from landing at the Karachi airport. Musharraf soon ordered his army to take control of the airport and he successfully landed with only 7 minutes of fuel remaining. At 10:15 pm that day, Musharraf dismissed Sharifs administration and took power.
Musharraf is and has been a controversial figure. He is sometimes regarded as a tough dictator, and sometimes a great leader. In 2006, he published an English-language autobiography entitledIn the Front Line. The book had many readers questioning his political performance.
But how does Musharraf himself feel about his time in office? What are the former leaders views on Sino-Pakistan relations?
Guest profile
Pervez Musharraf is the former president of Pakistan. He was born in India in 1943, and moved to Pakistan in his childhood with his family. In 1961 he entered the Pakistan Military Academy. Musharraf took power in October 1999 when he dismissed the national and provincial legislative assemblies. In June 2001, he took the position of President, and was successfully re-elected in 2007. One year later Musharraf resigned from the post.
PART I
Q: Hello and welcome to the Main Talk, Im your host Qin Yi. This week we are very honored to be joined by General Musharraf, former President of Pakistan. General Musharraf, welcome to the Main Talk.
R: Thank you very much.
Q: By looking back, what are your contributions to Pakistan in which you were involved?
R: My contribution to Pakistan, I feel very proud, that I contributed to every sector of development in Pakistan. We started with the economic stability, and not only stability. In 7-8 years, we took Pakistan from a failed state, a dilapidated state to an eleven-state. There are 4 countries in the world which are calledBrick Countries, Brazil, Russia, India and China. And then they came out withN-11and Pakistan was included in theN-11, the rising eleven. That is where we rise in seven years, from absolute crash and that was the success. And then, in every socio-economic sector, you take health, you take education, you take development projects, communication and infrastructures, rules, all that we built rather together improving the railway line, the airports, and the water dams and the canals. So we looked into all the even cultural sides, the heritage of Pakistan. We progressed on that even. So I think we took a very holistic view of all need to be done because I made a definition for any government in the world, it applies to all governments, especially the Third World, or any country in the world I would say: there is no definition and it has been not being modeled by anybody. I believe the responsibility of any leader in any government is to ensure the security, this is primary. No security, no nation. Security has to be ensured totally. Ensure security, progress and development of the state. For Pakistan they are agriculture, water project, communication, infrastructure etc. And welfare and well-being of these people, and there it is education, health, poverty alleviation. I tried to set this definition for myself. I think I focused on every element of the countrys requirements and did something, the degree of success varies, more successful in some areas, less successful in some areas, those which were less successful disappointed me but that is how life is, you know.
Q: If you can only pick one of those failures? What is your biggest regret?
R: I would say that extremism from our society. I think that is the area where I did make a strategy, how to check and reduce extremism and it was a five-point strategy which I was executing like controlling the issues of the religious places, like Mosques, people using loud speakers to encourage people toward extremism and militancy, and teachers writing pamphlets and books, so sectarian hatred, religious hatred. Clamp down on people who print, write and the sellers, the bookstores, and then also ban the extremist organizations, and clamp down on them, then improve or change your syllabus, because some parts of the syllabus were leading to religious and sectarian hatred. And then the Madrasah reforms, Madrasah is a reality in Pakistan, it has school elements because it provides free boards and lodge to about one million youngsters. They should be mainstreamed, you cant close them down, the positive should be encouraged and lets mainstream them and ask them to teach more than religion alone, so they can join any other professional life. So this is for my strategy of reducing extremism in the society. The other of course, the core area, if you can give economic well-being to people, that is the core towards fighting extremism. If a man has money, feeds himself, his children, security for his family, security for his future, he will be happy, he will not go for extremism. It is only poverty and illiteracy, which lead to these things. So I will have taken a holistic view but the successes in certain areas were limited, it was, but limited.
Q: In your biography you said,leaders must sometimes face a strong feeling of loneliness, what does that mean? What is that loneliness? When did you feel it?
M: Loneliness is when you have to discuss how to handle the situation and everyone comes to different views, they come with many different solutions. That is the time and if you ask them,What do you think should be done?they wont tell you, they just give you,this could be done like this. Now what to do? They will keep quiet. At the final, you are lonely, you are alone. It is a buck stopping at you; you feel you are the person to blame. So the loneliness comes in, ultimately because the buck stops at you.
Pakistan is an agricultural country. Textile is traditionally its main industry, but in recent years, Pakistan has seen rapid development in energy and telecommunication sectors. Its GDP growth was steady at 7% under Musharrafs reign. In 2005, Pakistan was ranked the third fastest growing economy in Asia after China and Singapore.
Q: Although you said you are not an expert in economy, when you were the President of Pakistan, you were able to grow the countrys economy at a steady rate, and only from a military background, how are you able to achieve that?
R: Yes. I realized that the economists sometimes use jargon to confuse others, when I used to ask them what is the problem? At the beginning I didnt know anything about economics, I never bothered to learn. But then I realized that it is your expenditure verses your earning. This is it.
Q: This is that simple?
R: You just find out, make sure that your earnings are very close to your expenditures, dont match them, because your have to borrow to develop fast. If it just match you will only, own that much and spend that much, you will develop very slowly. So you have to borrow money. So your expenditures will always remain higher than your earnings and that is no problem and there is the formula for that, this is the debt to GDP ratio which should not exceed 60%, that is the common rule. If you have 100 in your pocket, you owe 110, it is not good. But if you have 100 and you owe only 30, 40, 50, thats okay. So it is just a matter of expenditure, in local currency and in foreign currency. I went into more details, the revenue you earn in local currency, you generate and we will spend. We spend the earnings on the government establishment, that is the maximum, and then we will run on the Defense and also the subsidies to the various government departments which we run at a loss. So I tried to improve the expenditure and increase the earning to revenue, so revenue got increased by 300% in 6 years, and the expenditures were brought down, so we were happy and we could devote much more money, we could devote about 6 times, 600% more on development, because of this change. On the foreign currency side, I asked where is the expenditure? Where did you spend on? We were spending on the services, because our taxes were high, we were spending on imports, you cant reduce imports, your factories are running, and mainly these were the two areas in which we were spending and where we earned from increasing exports and investment. So we multiplied the input about 5 times I think, more than 5 times, 500% increase in these years, and we checked the expenditure through doing away with heavy interest rates, and also reduce the debt liability. So we managed it again, from 5 billion dollars deficit, we went to 2 billion dollars surplus in 2004. So anyway it was a long answer, to control expenditure and earnings and that will bring about all the changes in the macro-economic picture.
Q: That is General Musharrafs simple philosophy on economics.
R: Yes.
The South Asian Association for Regional Cooperation (SAARC) is an economic and political organization comprised of eight countries in South Asia. SAARC has made significant progress in integrating with the rest of the world; however, intra-regional trade remains very low due to the continued conflict between India and Pakistan.
Q: There are people saying that the free trade zone in South Asia would have little meaning if Pakistan and India do not participate in or get involved in it whole-heatedly? Do you agree?
R: Yes, I agree. I agree because SAARC is the only organization representing South Asia from the beginning. It was quite important as an organization only because of the Indian-Pakistan conflicts because these are two big countries in the region. As one leader in South Asia remarked, when two elephants fight, the grass gets stampeded, so that was the problem and it still remains the problem. Unless Pakistan and India resolve their disputes, and the part of the whole economic activity in this South Asian region, nothing much can be done.
Q: you also mentioned the well being of the people in the region is the biggest challenge faced all these countries in South Asia. How will Pakistan be benefited it if he participates more actively in the free trade zone?
R: Pakistan will benefit certainly, but at the same time I would say that there are certain areas in Pakistan industry was fledgling, it would be then coming up. In the past seven years, we industrialized and we were encouraging local industries coming up into Pakistan. One has to guard its own interest. We can not allow that kind of free economic activities, a free trade zone, where your own industry starts suffering, that I am sure no other country will allow that.
Q: But is that still the main concern, the fledgling domestic industries?
R: Yes. It always remains the concern. You dont want to get this country to just an agricultural country. I think it is the goal for any country to develop and for the well-being progress of the people, you need jobs, and where do the good jobs come from? You have an industry functioning but get unemployed. If it is not the case, certainly, we will suffer, we will go back. If the industries are only importing goods, we are only basing on agriculture whatever we have. That is not a wise thing to do. So I said it shouldnt be taken in any agreement. We will support, obviously, we will be a part of that. But we will make sure that our interests are guarded. India also does that. They are giving us more MFN status, most-favored-nation status, but impose such heavy duties on our textiles. Why? They are guarding their own textile. So this happens with everyone.
PART III
China and Pakistan have had a lasting and comprehensive relationship. In 1950 Pakistan was the first Muslim country to recognize China. One year later, Beijing and Karachi established diplomatic relations. In the 1960s, the two countries reached their first formal trade agreement. In 1971, a Pakistani flight taking off from Islamabad brought US National Security Adviser Henry Kissinger to China starting his secret but historical visit in China. Chinese President Hu Jintao described Pakistan as agood neighbour, good friend and good brother. Pakistans President Asif Ali Zardari countered during his visit to China this year saying the Pakistan-China friendship is higher than the peaks of Himalayas.
Q: What is your outlook for Sino/Pakistan relationship?
R: My outlook has always been very positive.
Q: We are neighbors.
R: Yes. We are neighbors and I always believed that we should get more integrated. I have always proposed that we are linked by a road along the mountains, the KKH, which is a symbol which people say it is the eighth wonder of the world. But I used to tell to President Hu Jintao that we needed to create the ninth or the tenth wonder of the world. Lets put a railway line through, and lets put an oil and gas pipeline through coming from the Gulf, from ports or from anywhere, going on to China. That will be the integration of the two countries really.
Q: You have told us some of the projects that your vision for Sino-Pakistan collaborating in the future. How many of those are really feasible at this moment?
R: They are feasible. If it was not feasible, somebody said me you cant take a railway through such a high place but you took it to Tibet. I am really admirable about that, which goes on this thermal frost region, and more than half of that area is thermal frost. And nothing was blocked on this route. So I am very sure that it is possible. When we talk of the oil and gas pipeline, I also spoke to some experts and they said yes, taking it upwards but when you enter our border, it is downward, this is all the advantage.
Q: You have all these wonderful projects in mind. If you are asked to prioritize them, how would you say? Which project? It is the railway or is it the gas pipeline?
R: I would say the railway because I think the railway will integrate the whole region. Because if it takes a railway from Pakistan to Northern China, then Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan, all can link up with this. They are all land locked. They are looking for reaching the sea. Even China, look at the route to the Gulf, you go from the Gulf, link Gulf, you go all around India, and then go to the Malacca strait and then come to your eastern coast. Here look at the distance, I have never measured this, but I think it is very less, from Guada port which we built together. Lets realize the full potential of this port, then for this whole region to be integrated. It would be a win-win for everyone. When I said this in Central Asian Republic and to its President, they were excited that we must to it! So I think China is the main country which can make it reality and I still believe that it can be done and that it should be done.
Q: Last question, you said when you were leader that you felt lonely. What about life now? What is your life now? How do you feel now?
M: Oh, I feel very easy. I have a lot of time. I never came to China for more than 3 or 4 days because it was just job and then back. Now I come here for eleven days. Im relaxed.
Q: Are you happy?
R: Yes, I am happy.
Q: Thank you very much for staying with us.
R: Thank you.
http://english.eastday.com/e/ICS/u1a4438394.html
Pakistani Army Chief General Musharraf seized power in a 17-hour military coup on October 12 1999, when then-Prime Minister Nawza Sharif fired Musharraf and attempted to stop his plane from landing at the Karachi airport. Musharraf soon ordered his army to take control of the airport and he successfully landed with only 7 minutes of fuel remaining. At 10:15 pm that day, Musharraf dismissed Sharifs administration and took power.
Musharraf is and has been a controversial figure. He is sometimes regarded as a tough dictator, and sometimes a great leader. In 2006, he published an English-language autobiography entitledIn the Front Line. The book had many readers questioning his political performance.
But how does Musharraf himself feel about his time in office? What are the former leaders views on Sino-Pakistan relations?
Guest profile
Pervez Musharraf is the former president of Pakistan. He was born in India in 1943, and moved to Pakistan in his childhood with his family. In 1961 he entered the Pakistan Military Academy. Musharraf took power in October 1999 when he dismissed the national and provincial legislative assemblies. In June 2001, he took the position of President, and was successfully re-elected in 2007. One year later Musharraf resigned from the post.
PART I
Q: Hello and welcome to the Main Talk, Im your host Qin Yi. This week we are very honored to be joined by General Musharraf, former President of Pakistan. General Musharraf, welcome to the Main Talk.
R: Thank you very much.
Q: By looking back, what are your contributions to Pakistan in which you were involved?
R: My contribution to Pakistan, I feel very proud, that I contributed to every sector of development in Pakistan. We started with the economic stability, and not only stability. In 7-8 years, we took Pakistan from a failed state, a dilapidated state to an eleven-state. There are 4 countries in the world which are calledBrick Countries, Brazil, Russia, India and China. And then they came out withN-11and Pakistan was included in theN-11, the rising eleven. That is where we rise in seven years, from absolute crash and that was the success. And then, in every socio-economic sector, you take health, you take education, you take development projects, communication and infrastructures, rules, all that we built rather together improving the railway line, the airports, and the water dams and the canals. So we looked into all the even cultural sides, the heritage of Pakistan. We progressed on that even. So I think we took a very holistic view of all need to be done because I made a definition for any government in the world, it applies to all governments, especially the Third World, or any country in the world I would say: there is no definition and it has been not being modeled by anybody. I believe the responsibility of any leader in any government is to ensure the security, this is primary. No security, no nation. Security has to be ensured totally. Ensure security, progress and development of the state. For Pakistan they are agriculture, water project, communication, infrastructure etc. And welfare and well-being of these people, and there it is education, health, poverty alleviation. I tried to set this definition for myself. I think I focused on every element of the countrys requirements and did something, the degree of success varies, more successful in some areas, less successful in some areas, those which were less successful disappointed me but that is how life is, you know.
Q: If you can only pick one of those failures? What is your biggest regret?
R: I would say that extremism from our society. I think that is the area where I did make a strategy, how to check and reduce extremism and it was a five-point strategy which I was executing like controlling the issues of the religious places, like Mosques, people using loud speakers to encourage people toward extremism and militancy, and teachers writing pamphlets and books, so sectarian hatred, religious hatred. Clamp down on people who print, write and the sellers, the bookstores, and then also ban the extremist organizations, and clamp down on them, then improve or change your syllabus, because some parts of the syllabus were leading to religious and sectarian hatred. And then the Madrasah reforms, Madrasah is a reality in Pakistan, it has school elements because it provides free boards and lodge to about one million youngsters. They should be mainstreamed, you cant close them down, the positive should be encouraged and lets mainstream them and ask them to teach more than religion alone, so they can join any other professional life. So this is for my strategy of reducing extremism in the society. The other of course, the core area, if you can give economic well-being to people, that is the core towards fighting extremism. If a man has money, feeds himself, his children, security for his family, security for his future, he will be happy, he will not go for extremism. It is only poverty and illiteracy, which lead to these things. So I will have taken a holistic view but the successes in certain areas were limited, it was, but limited.
Q: In your biography you said,leaders must sometimes face a strong feeling of loneliness, what does that mean? What is that loneliness? When did you feel it?
M: Loneliness is when you have to discuss how to handle the situation and everyone comes to different views, they come with many different solutions. That is the time and if you ask them,What do you think should be done?they wont tell you, they just give you,this could be done like this. Now what to do? They will keep quiet. At the final, you are lonely, you are alone. It is a buck stopping at you; you feel you are the person to blame. So the loneliness comes in, ultimately because the buck stops at you.
Pakistan is an agricultural country. Textile is traditionally its main industry, but in recent years, Pakistan has seen rapid development in energy and telecommunication sectors. Its GDP growth was steady at 7% under Musharrafs reign. In 2005, Pakistan was ranked the third fastest growing economy in Asia after China and Singapore.
Q: Although you said you are not an expert in economy, when you were the President of Pakistan, you were able to grow the countrys economy at a steady rate, and only from a military background, how are you able to achieve that?
R: Yes. I realized that the economists sometimes use jargon to confuse others, when I used to ask them what is the problem? At the beginning I didnt know anything about economics, I never bothered to learn. But then I realized that it is your expenditure verses your earning. This is it.
Q: This is that simple?
R: You just find out, make sure that your earnings are very close to your expenditures, dont match them, because your have to borrow to develop fast. If it just match you will only, own that much and spend that much, you will develop very slowly. So you have to borrow money. So your expenditures will always remain higher than your earnings and that is no problem and there is the formula for that, this is the debt to GDP ratio which should not exceed 60%, that is the common rule. If you have 100 in your pocket, you owe 110, it is not good. But if you have 100 and you owe only 30, 40, 50, thats okay. So it is just a matter of expenditure, in local currency and in foreign currency. I went into more details, the revenue you earn in local currency, you generate and we will spend. We spend the earnings on the government establishment, that is the maximum, and then we will run on the Defense and also the subsidies to the various government departments which we run at a loss. So I tried to improve the expenditure and increase the earning to revenue, so revenue got increased by 300% in 6 years, and the expenditures were brought down, so we were happy and we could devote much more money, we could devote about 6 times, 600% more on development, because of this change. On the foreign currency side, I asked where is the expenditure? Where did you spend on? We were spending on the services, because our taxes were high, we were spending on imports, you cant reduce imports, your factories are running, and mainly these were the two areas in which we were spending and where we earned from increasing exports and investment. So we multiplied the input about 5 times I think, more than 5 times, 500% increase in these years, and we checked the expenditure through doing away with heavy interest rates, and also reduce the debt liability. So we managed it again, from 5 billion dollars deficit, we went to 2 billion dollars surplus in 2004. So anyway it was a long answer, to control expenditure and earnings and that will bring about all the changes in the macro-economic picture.
Q: That is General Musharrafs simple philosophy on economics.
R: Yes.
The South Asian Association for Regional Cooperation (SAARC) is an economic and political organization comprised of eight countries in South Asia. SAARC has made significant progress in integrating with the rest of the world; however, intra-regional trade remains very low due to the continued conflict between India and Pakistan.
Q: There are people saying that the free trade zone in South Asia would have little meaning if Pakistan and India do not participate in or get involved in it whole-heatedly? Do you agree?
R: Yes, I agree. I agree because SAARC is the only organization representing South Asia from the beginning. It was quite important as an organization only because of the Indian-Pakistan conflicts because these are two big countries in the region. As one leader in South Asia remarked, when two elephants fight, the grass gets stampeded, so that was the problem and it still remains the problem. Unless Pakistan and India resolve their disputes, and the part of the whole economic activity in this South Asian region, nothing much can be done.
Q: you also mentioned the well being of the people in the region is the biggest challenge faced all these countries in South Asia. How will Pakistan be benefited it if he participates more actively in the free trade zone?
R: Pakistan will benefit certainly, but at the same time I would say that there are certain areas in Pakistan industry was fledgling, it would be then coming up. In the past seven years, we industrialized and we were encouraging local industries coming up into Pakistan. One has to guard its own interest. We can not allow that kind of free economic activities, a free trade zone, where your own industry starts suffering, that I am sure no other country will allow that.
Q: But is that still the main concern, the fledgling domestic industries?
R: Yes. It always remains the concern. You dont want to get this country to just an agricultural country. I think it is the goal for any country to develop and for the well-being progress of the people, you need jobs, and where do the good jobs come from? You have an industry functioning but get unemployed. If it is not the case, certainly, we will suffer, we will go back. If the industries are only importing goods, we are only basing on agriculture whatever we have. That is not a wise thing to do. So I said it shouldnt be taken in any agreement. We will support, obviously, we will be a part of that. But we will make sure that our interests are guarded. India also does that. They are giving us more MFN status, most-favored-nation status, but impose such heavy duties on our textiles. Why? They are guarding their own textile. So this happens with everyone.
PART III
China and Pakistan have had a lasting and comprehensive relationship. In 1950 Pakistan was the first Muslim country to recognize China. One year later, Beijing and Karachi established diplomatic relations. In the 1960s, the two countries reached their first formal trade agreement. In 1971, a Pakistani flight taking off from Islamabad brought US National Security Adviser Henry Kissinger to China starting his secret but historical visit in China. Chinese President Hu Jintao described Pakistan as agood neighbour, good friend and good brother. Pakistans President Asif Ali Zardari countered during his visit to China this year saying the Pakistan-China friendship is higher than the peaks of Himalayas.
Q: What is your outlook for Sino/Pakistan relationship?
R: My outlook has always been very positive.
Q: We are neighbors.
R: Yes. We are neighbors and I always believed that we should get more integrated. I have always proposed that we are linked by a road along the mountains, the KKH, which is a symbol which people say it is the eighth wonder of the world. But I used to tell to President Hu Jintao that we needed to create the ninth or the tenth wonder of the world. Lets put a railway line through, and lets put an oil and gas pipeline through coming from the Gulf, from ports or from anywhere, going on to China. That will be the integration of the two countries really.
Q: You have told us some of the projects that your vision for Sino-Pakistan collaborating in the future. How many of those are really feasible at this moment?
R: They are feasible. If it was not feasible, somebody said me you cant take a railway through such a high place but you took it to Tibet. I am really admirable about that, which goes on this thermal frost region, and more than half of that area is thermal frost. And nothing was blocked on this route. So I am very sure that it is possible. When we talk of the oil and gas pipeline, I also spoke to some experts and they said yes, taking it upwards but when you enter our border, it is downward, this is all the advantage.
Q: You have all these wonderful projects in mind. If you are asked to prioritize them, how would you say? Which project? It is the railway or is it the gas pipeline?
R: I would say the railway because I think the railway will integrate the whole region. Because if it takes a railway from Pakistan to Northern China, then Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan, all can link up with this. They are all land locked. They are looking for reaching the sea. Even China, look at the route to the Gulf, you go from the Gulf, link Gulf, you go all around India, and then go to the Malacca strait and then come to your eastern coast. Here look at the distance, I have never measured this, but I think it is very less, from Guada port which we built together. Lets realize the full potential of this port, then for this whole region to be integrated. It would be a win-win for everyone. When I said this in Central Asian Republic and to its President, they were excited that we must to it! So I think China is the main country which can make it reality and I still believe that it can be done and that it should be done.
Q: Last question, you said when you were leader that you felt lonely. What about life now? What is your life now? How do you feel now?
M: Oh, I feel very easy. I have a lot of time. I never came to China for more than 3 or 4 days because it was just job and then back. Now I come here for eleven days. Im relaxed.
Q: Are you happy?
R: Yes, I am happy.
Q: Thank you very much for staying with us.
R: Thank you.
http://english.eastday.com/e/ICS/u1a4438394.html
