When Pakistani president Gen. Pervez Musharraf declared a national state of emergency and suspended the country's constitution on Saturday, the instability hit close to home for Pakistani students at the University.
Hamza Masood '10, who stayed in the United States over Fall Break, said he was disappointed to discover what had occurred in his country while he slept Saturday night. Masood said Musharraf's steps were "a huge setback for Pakistani democracy ... it's now obvious that all Musharraf cares about is his own power."
Wilson School professor Robert Finn described Musharraf's action of disbanding Pakistan's Supreme Court as "a coup against his own government" in an interview yesterday. Finn served as the U.S. Ambassador to Afghanistan in 2002 and 2003.
But not all students agreed with Masood's and Finn's analyses of the events in Pakistan.
Maryam Khan '08, for example, supported Musharraf's actions. "I think that what he is doing is necessary given the circumstances," she said.
Khan said she knows she is in the minority of students by backing Musharraf's actions. "I'm the odd one out amongst my Pakistani friends," she said, "[but] I have a lot of faith in [Musharraf's] intelligence. He needed to avoid being cornered."
The declaration of a state of emergency came just before the Pakistani Supreme Court was "likely to rule that Musharraf could not continue as both President and Chief of the Army," Zia Mian, a Wilson School physicist who studies Pakistan's nuclear policy, said in an email.
"The Supreme Court was the only branch of government that Musharraf and the army did not control," Mian added.
Musharraf's actions were not unexpected. "There was little surprise," Mian said. "There has been widespread speculation for some time about the possibility of Musharraf staging a second coup."
Musharraf's move came several months before Pakistan's next scheduled parliamentary elections, the status of which is now uncertain.
Operating under this state of emergency, Musharraf's government has reported arresting 1,800 protesters including lawyers, activists and judges. Musharraf also has taken control of the state's television stations and attempted to limit communications by cutting phone lines.
The United States must now balance the competing interests of maintaining Pakistani cooperation in fighting terrorism and taking a stand against Musharraf's civil liberty infringements, Finn said.
"We're over a barrel," Finn said, "because we didn't push him earlier on relinquishing military control."
Mian added that "Islamabad expects Washington to wring its hands, offer platitudes about restoring democracy and a token slap on the wrist, and keep supporting General Musharraf."
Since Sept. 11, 2001, the U.S. government has given Musharraf's military $10 billion in aid to fight terrorism. The Bush administration, Mian said, "will not want to write this off" and won't take a stand against Musharraf.
Secretary of State Condoleeza Rice lived up to this prediction at a press conference Sunday in the city of Ramallah on the West Bank. "We believe that the best path for Pakistan is to quickly return to the constitutional path and then to hold elections," she said.
"Washington's response has been predictable and disappointing thus far. General Musharraf's aides told The New York Times that there had been no phone calls from President Bush or other leading U.S. officials about the coup," Mian added.
Masood said the U.S. response "leads one to doubt whether they're really concerned about democracy promotion." But he was similarly unsurprised, noting that the United States has supported every Pakistani dictator since the 1960s.
Khan, however, feels that Musharraf is justified in curtailing civil liberties "given the threat of extremists."
"I don't think democracy is what's best for Pakistan," she said. "It's not what the people want." Nonetheless, she does not support all of Musharraf's actions. "I disagree with him disbanding the judiciary."
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