Pakistan Army , the parasite on the country’s econmy and society as a whole

Pakistan was not the product of the mass struggle of the people against the british colony in British India, but a few British Agents like Mohammand Ali Jinnah, Liaqat Ali Khan and their stooges along with thee Punjab army , judiciary and civil-miltary establsihement , conspired with the British and founded Pakistan in the name of Islam, which destroyed the religious and social integrity of India .

The partition of India was a catastrophy for millions of people and that taumatic times persist to this day. And the terribole consequences of the Partition which may not become clear for decades to come.However, Islam did not save Pakistan from its own partition in 1971 and futher disintegration is also not so far.

That’s why there was no political culture in Pakistan in 1947. The Pukhtus, Baloch , Bengalis and Sindhi politicians who were involved in Politics before partition were put into jails after partion.

Mohammad Ali Jinnah , was calling his fellows the fake coins, the first president of Pakistan Major genral Iskandar Mirza called the politician the illiterate and irresponsible, His succesor President General Ayub Khan was calling them, the political dogs, His successor President General Yahya khan Qazalbash was calling them the political wolves.

And after him Army Generals have been calling the politicians the bloody civilians till to date.

So Pakistan Army has not only destroyed the growing political culture in Pakistan since 1947, But at the same time the Army also destroyed the economy of Pakistan.

That’s why I will try to explain , how Pakistan Army , has been plundering the national wealth of the country in the name of the security of Islam and Pakistan.

To justify the expenditure and the personal benefits of the Generals in Pakistan Army, it invaded Kashmir in 1947. Pakistan Army entered Kashmir to legitimize the looting of the National wealth .

After the cease fire in 1948, there was an article in DAWN newspaper , which was the mouth piece of Muslim league, that we need guns not butter.

Pakistan’s first so called politicians including Mohd Ali Jinnah and Liaqat ali khan made military expenditure their top priority under the pressure of Pakisan Army.

Just after two weeks of the creation of Pakistan Jinnah had asked US for 2 billions dollars where there were 510 millions dollars only for Army . During his first visit of United state , liaqat Ali khan Also requesed America for Army assisstance. Because he knew that the real owner of Pakistan is the Pakistan Army.

Between 1947 and 1959 up to 73 per cent of Pakistan’s total government spending was devoted to defence. In 1960s an average of 48.8 per cent and so on. And the luxurious lives of Army Generals started since 1947 and continue till to date.

Prime minister Liaqat Ali also held the defence portfolio, but had to rely extensively on his secretary , Iskandar mirza , an ex army man trained in Sandhurst Royal Militriy Academy United Kingdom.

In spite of these expenses , in the wars of 1947 , 1965 , 1971 and 1999 , the Pakistan Army has consistantly failed to achieve its military objectives. And specially in the humiliating defeat in 1971 where from 90 to 93000 Pakistan Army men surrendered to Indian Army and handed over more than half of Pakistan. However, all those wars were initiated by Pakistan.

Pakistan Army with the support of civil-military establishment and judiciary, has always been a major player in the Pakistani economy.

The two biggest army busineses , the Fauji Foundation and the Army welfare trust are two of the biggest conglomerates in the country.

The Fauji Foundation assets include sugar mills , chemical plants and fetilizers factories.

In the energy sector it owns a gas company and power plants.

To generate funds, the Fauji Foundation runs its own welfare programms.

It owns over 800 educational institutes and more than 100 hospitals. But about all of these institutions are in Pnnjab.

That’s why Punjab has been exploiting the Pukhtuns, Baloch and Sindhies on each and every front.

The Army Welfare Trust has assets worth nearly one billion dollars, including one of the Pakistan’s biggest financial intittutions, the askari bank. It also owns farms , real estate businesses , sugar mills and plants which are manufacturing petrochemicals, pharmceuticals and shoes. All its profits are sent to GHQ. ( generral head quarter of the Army).

In addition to the Fauji Foundation and Welfare trust there are other organizations like Fronteir works organizations, the National Logestics Cell and the special communication organization.

The Fronteir works organization is a road construction company which since 1966 , has undertaken the vast bulk of the government’s road projects. it has subsidiary business, sending mining clearers around the world which earned in 1990s 10 millions dollars per year.

The Special Communication Organization is responsible for supplying telecommunication services to the people of Pakistan and in held Kashmir.

The National logistics Cell is a transport company which has also been involved in road and bridge construction. It has 7279 staff including 2549 serving military personnel.

Another group of comapnies includes the Pakistan Ordinance Factory at Wah , the heavey defence industries and the heavy Rebuild factories at Taxila. All these organizations work for the military which appoints the officers who run them and which buys most of their products.

Although the Army enjoys the Lion’s share of the military’s economic activities but at the same time, the air force and navy have also tried to get involved as well.

Air Force has a number of commercial operations icluding Air Force’s Shaheen Foundation , its actitivities include Pay TV, knitwears and air cargo.

The Navy has Navy’s Bahria foundation , amongst many other things , its activities includes paints, fishing , bakeries, ship breaking and a university.

At a local level , military units run smaller enterprises such as road toll collection operations, fuel stations and even shopping malls. In all these cases serving personnel are used to make money which does not get accounted in the defence budget.

But when the civilian were criticizing these activities , The Generals including the ex- President general Musharaf dismissied all criticism of these activities as close to unpetriotic.

All these organizations are in a good position to lobby for tax exemptions and subsidies. The military enterprises also benefit from free start up capital.

There is also another commerical activity that corrupts far larger numbers of senior officers. They receive generious , personal allocation of plots and land , both urban and rural.Officers also use insider information and tax breaks to benefit from Defence Housing Authority schemes. The military starting acquring desirable land , saying it was needed for military purposes and then using it for commercial development.



In 1976 , a Pakistani Lieutenent general , M , Attiqur Rehman wrote in his book” our defence cause” that under Ayub Khan’s period of military Rule , officers had been exposed to opportunities for making money.

Bruce Reidel writes in his book Deadly Embrace that allegedly Ayub Khan’s family had stolen 20 millions dollars from the state.



Army officers see themselves the saviours of the country. however they couldnt save the country in 1947 , 1965 , 19971 and 1999 wars. But they dont feel shame and even then they say that they are the saviours of the country. In the real sence they are the saviours of the interest of the punjab dominated army, bureacracy , judiciary and Punjab province as a whole. And Punjab is very happy to make the Pukhtun, baloch and sindhi its hostage through Army , bureaucray and Judicialry.

Pakistan Army has been just like parasites on Pakistan’ economy and society . They are preventing expenditutres on health and educatoin and it is in the interest of the Army to keep the people illiterate specially in Pukhtunkhwa and Balochistan.

Due to its size and nature , Pakistan Army has a large impact on the country’s economy.

There has always been a confict between the development and defence but always the conflict had been won by the powerful army and inter intelleignece service ISI , supported by Judiciary.

The armed forces always remain a key element in Pakistan’s economy . They are power full and well entreched to do that. Even during the civilian regimes , the power of the country reside in the hands of Army, not in the Parliment.

The army and elite live in luxury while the masses live in squalor.

When after General Aslam Beg, General Asif Nawaz became the chief of the Army staff , he was CEO of a huge indutrial conglomerate with annunal turnover in 1991 of 14 billions rupees, ranging from small arms , ammunition, electronics, , telecommunication , banking , breakfast cereals , cotton ginning, plastics , real estate, automobile ‘ engineering, cooking oil , transportation of goods and so more. He was also controlling the operations of Frontier work organization , , the national logistic cell, the special communication organization, the Fauji foundation and Army welfare trust .

As a result , Army is taking away the resources and oppotunities from the other competing governmental and private activities. Army has preferential access to the state controlled resources as compared to the private entities.

Among the most visible results of the military’s intervention in the market place were the rising number of defence Housing Authority DHA schemes. Heavily subsidized plots garnered multiples of their purchase price in the free market and then these plots are being sold in the market price.



Army is inquiring the land for Army purpose free and then are used for these housing schemes.

When the Government intenteds to contain the activities of all these organziatons , the relationship between the Government and Army detriorats which follows the overthrow of the Government. So the Government cant do any thing and keeping itself away from it just not to be overthrown from the government.

On account of all these activities of the army ,the mayhem in Balochistan, the bloody conflagration in Khyber Pushtunkhawa, the killing spree in Karachi, the lynching pogroms in Sailkot and Tando Adam, the heinous bigotry making the lives of women and religious minorities a nightmare, the sectarian slaughter , scourging , the terrorist slaughter, and the vicious intrusion of religious vigilantes in the private lives of people, are suffocating the society thoroughly .

The blasphemy law is in full swing.

The Pukhtuns, Baloch and Sindhies are in melancholy and in deep depression.

The rocketing prices, escalating unemployment, drastic collapse in living conditions, agonising deterioration in health, education, transport, housing, water, sanitation, electricity and deeply upset and agitated social relations have destroyed the society as a whole.

The dominant intelligentsia with its constricted outlook, is now the merchant of doom. With this mindset, it can only envisage the horrific scenarios of bloodshed , destruction, disintegration and a gory civil war.

Pakistan Army and Punjab dominated Pakistan , steeped in plunder, paint a false picture of achievements they themselves do not really believe in. To cover up the disaster they have wrought, the political, military, judicial and media elite , churn up frivolous issues, to divert the attention of the masses from the devastating tormenting society.

David Sanger of The New York Times in his recent book, Confront and Conceal wrote that Barrack Obama told his staff that his biggest single national-security concern was that nuclear armed country Pakistan might disintegrate and set off a scramble for its nuclear weapons.” And he also could not control the scramble for Pakistani nukes that this disintegration would cause.

The Pakistan military elite indulged in the process accumulating massive black wealth in billions through the drug trade devised to finance the Afghan jihad and Jihad in Kashmir and India.

The Chinese are employing the Pakistan army for their control of Gwadar seaport and the lust for mineral wealth in the rugged mountains in Balochistan .

The Pakistani ruling classes both military and elites and their state have miserably failed to resolve the national question and create a modern nation state. A breakup of Pakistan on national lines cannot be ruled out, but a more likely scenario is that a mass revolt eruption can take place at any time.

In Punjab dominated Pakistan , the subjugation of the oppressed nationalities , women and religious minorities has intensified.

The integrity, solemnity and sovereignty of the state are rhetoric of the Army and elites that own and plunder the state of Pakistan.

But such deceptions cannot last long. The real concern is the well being of the inhabitants of the state. If a state, like Pakistan , cannot deliver the masses decent conditions of life then It has no right to exist.

US officials still fear , that things could rapidly spiral out of control if Pakistan ever imploded and it cant be handled with better training and equipment”.

All the institutions, including the MI, Rangers, ISI, police and other law enforcement agencies, have failed to provide protection to the people. These scenarios are symptoms of the profound problems , tugging the country apart.

“The fundamentals of the state are either failing or questionable, and these both applies to the idea of Pakistan, the ideology of the state, the purpose of the state, and also to the coherence of the state itself,”

Pakistan has lost a lot of its “stateness,” that is the qualities that make a modern government functioning effectively. So there’s failure in Pakistan on all counts. I wouldn’t predict a comprehensive failure when will it take place but the direction in which Pakistan is moving is going down the road of disintegration. And no one can prevent Pakistan from disintegration, even the united states of America.

The World Community should prepare for the failure of Pakistan, which could happen at any time.

But the nuclear weapons and the country’s organized terrorist machinery do make it quite serious.

On the other hand China’s influence in Pakistan is much greater and deeper , but in the long run, it will be a problem for China too. Now the Chinese have only one concern in Pakistan and that is the training of Chinese militants and extremists inside Pakistan. China has taken the Gwadar sea port to bost up its own purposes both economically and stratigically.

A turning point was the Iranian revolution of 1979, [which] showed a lot of Pakistanis that standing up to the Americans, embarrassing the Americans, humiliating the Americans felt good. That’s why whether they were Sunnis or Shiites ( shee eyts) in Pakistan, it felt good.

Pakistan is a house under water. there is not much in Pakistan that is of benefit to anyone. Pakistan failed to take advantage of globalization. They use terrorism as an aspect of globalization, which is the negative side of it. Go down the list of factors, they are almost all negative. There is not one that is positive. And it is irreversible. If some one hopes that it can be reversible, but hope is not a policy.

In Pakistan there exists no rule of Law but compromises and concessions.

Due to the dirty role of Army and ISI , the future of Pakistan is threatened by a combination of poor leadership, weak institutions, inter-ethnic rivalry and fierce extremist rebellions.

Pakistan military cannot govern Pakistan. They’ve tried it three times in the past and each time failed but even then they are involved directly and indirectly in the politics. They interfere the civilian governments all the time to come into power again and again to loot the national wealth.

They were wise enough to handle the bags full of american, saudi and united emirates dollars which were continuously pouring in their villas in the name of war money.These Generals families were happy but pushed soldiers and the next generations into the hell of miseries, gloom and depression amidst showers of blood and arson.

Pakistan army also pushed the country into the hell of kalashnikov culture and durgs but it is ok for Pakistan Army . The main thing is that the army generals are happy.

Pakistan slipped perilously close to being a rogue state.

Pakistan Army spent hell a lot of unaudited money to make nuclear weapon but now spends more money to protect it. In other countries bombs are built to protect the country , but the Army is plundering the national wealth in the name to protect the bomb. With Islamabad’s ever-closer links to international terrorism, Pakistan’s nuclear materials could more easily fall into dangerous hands.

For the last 67 years, the army and ruling elite have been invloved in to make and defend ill-gotten wealth and privilege. And the poor bear the burden.

Pakistan has reduced to the level of a stagnant and treacherious swamp .

In Pakistan only patronage and bribery are the only trump cards.

US and Pakistani Interests diverge on nealy all accounts. But in case of India , india’s fast growing economy , its booming inforamtion- technology sector , and its position as a stable, democratic , neclear power has a lot to offer to United States of america and other countries but Pakistan can only offer terrorism which is well entrenched in Pakistan foreign policy, creating big problems for India and Afghanistan.

So U.S. Decisions regarding Pakistan certainly will be made with Indian and Afhanistan sensitivities in mind.

Pakistan Army continues and strenghthen its links with extremists and the militant movements which are flourished day by day in Pakistan under the cover and sponsorship of Pakistan intelligence organization ISI which is drowning the country in the sea of blood.

The army backed the militants organizations and encouranged thousands of Pakistani youngsters to fight in Afghaistan , Kashmir and India . Global terrorism , nuclear proliferation and drug epidemic is the every day business of Pakistan as a state policy.

Armed with nuclear weapons and fueled with by Jehadisim , the military is capable of creating a perfect storm of circumstances and events that could plunge the region even in greater danger and chaos and undermine Pakistnan’s very existance. Then what about the nuclear weapons? So the world community must think about the existance of the terrorist state of Paksitan whether it should exist or not.



The society of Pakistan is riddled with deep ethnic , social and economic fissures.The Khyber Pukhtunkhwa , Balochistan and Sindh provinces could divide the nation at any time as Benglies nationalism did in 1971.

Pakistan has become the sate equivalent of a bionic person, held together by aritificial parts , like external alliances , foreign aid and financial assisstnace.

Pakistan needs soft balanization , for instance the detachment of Pukhtunkahwa and its merger with their motherland afghanistan.

The minority provinces will defect soon any way and leaving Punjab alone.

The oppressed, Broken & depreesed, Dejected & subjugated , Demoralized and Disheartened Pukhutns, Baloch and sindhi are continously being exploited for the last 67 years by Punjab , in the name of Islam and Pakistan . The Pukhuns, Baloch and Sindhi areas are burning.

But in Punjab there are music & fashion shows , dance parties and other entertainments. Punjab is enjoying its happy life to the fullest.

The Pukhuns, Baloch and Sindhis face a much darker future. A genuine national liberation of the oppressed nationalities can only be successful on a revolutionary basis. It can overthrow the state and system that crushes the masses and intensifies the national oppression to fulfil the lust for ever-increasing rates of profit of the ruling classes Army and elites.

So they should join hands to get rid of Pakistan and make it a part of history before it will destroy them thoroughly.

From Indus River to Amu River , is the historical land of the Pukhtuns

Writer:

Mashal Khan Takkar

Editor in Chief

THE VOICE TIMES