In a 2014 interview with Al Jazeera, former Pakistani president and army head Pervez Musharraf said strongly, “Not at all,” when asked if he had any regrets about his time in office.
“I contributed so much to Pakistan,” The four-star general proclaimed, “I done so much for my country and my people,” a remark he would later repeat.
But for many Pakistanis, Musharraf leaves behind a gloomy legacy that is mostly defined by human rights abuses and the US-led so-called “war on terror” following a protracted illness that was declared on Sunday.
After gaining control in a military coup in 1999, Musharraf, who passed away at age 79, controlled the nation for almost nine years.
He passed away in the UAE, where he had been residing ever since he was accused of treason in Pakistan in 2014.
Musharraf, who was born in Delhi in 1943, and his family emigrated to Karachi, Pakistan, in 1947 as a result of the division of India and Pakistan.
He enlisted in the army in 1961 as a student and quickly advanced through the ranks, eventually being chosen in 1998 as army commander by Nawaz Sharif, a former three-time prime minister and leader of the Pakistan Muslim League (PML-N).
On October 12, 1999, Musharraf overthrew Sharif and took his place as president when Sharif refused to let a commercial airliner carrying a four-star general land in Karachi.
For months, there had been a lot of tension between the two men, especially because of the Kargil battle with India.
Musharraf deported Sharif to Saudi Arabia as a result of mounting international pressure; he eventually came home in late 2007.
Pro-Musharraf parties won the most seats in the general elections in 2002 after Musharraf was elected president in 2001 following a referendum clouded by allegations of widespread cheating.
Asad Rahim, a well-known columnist and attorney, observed from Lahore that Benazir Bhutto and Nawaz Sharif’s exiles provided Musharraf a “open field” to win the 2002 elections.
He continued, “It was a hotchpotch combination of former PML-N lawmakers, a façade of civilian democracy devoid of genuinely genuine political engagement.
Following the 9/11 attacks, Pakistan under Musharraf made the decision to join forces with the US and assisted the fall of Afghan Taliban allies of al-Qaeda.
This included permitting the presence of US air bases, opening land routes for NATO forces to invade landlocked Afghanistan, and dispatching Pakistani troops to northern tribal areas to combat al-Qaeda and its allies.
The 9/11 attacks, according to Arif Rafiq, president of the political risk consultancy firm Vizier Consulting, helped Musharraf “legitimize” his government on a global scale.
He added from New York, “He was a very reliable ally when it came to combating al-Qaeda, to the extent that he put the security of his own country at risk, as well as his own personal protection.”
He continued, referring to the rise in violent attacks, that “His cooperation with the West also sparked what was basically a civil war in the country,” and said that Musharraf was under “tremendous pressure” to act from the US.
Enforced disappearances, a long-standing problem in Pakistan, increased during the “war on terror,” most notably in the western province of Balochistan and the former tribal regions of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa.
Numerous political activists, students, and alleged armed fighters had their whereabouts forcibly taken away.
In his memoirs, Line of Fire, Musharraf acknowledged detaining alleged members of al-Qaeda and turning them over to the US, where some of them wound up in the Guantanamo Bay jail while receiving “bounty payments totaling millions of dollars.”
Enforced disappearances continue to be “an indelible component of Musharraf’s legacy,” according to Rafiq.
He said that the US and Pakistani counterterrorism initiatives “also generated perverse incentives for the Pakistani state to efficiently arrest and kidnap those it suspected of terrorism.”
While it’s vital to recognize that hindsight is 20/20, Rabia Akhtar, head of the Center for Security, Strategy and Policy Research at the University of Lahore, stated that Musharraf’s decision to join the war [on terror] had “devastating” consequences for Pakistan.
Akhtar wrote in an email that “Pakistan under [Musharraf] might have bargained and drawn red lines in a manner that maximized its strategic interests.”
Iftikhar Muhammad Chaudhry was the former chief justice of Pakistan when Musharraf dismissed him in March 2007. This action sparked a fierce public outcry and gave rise to the lawyers’ movement, which later staged a series of protests against Musharraf’s rule.
Four months later, the general became involved in yet another controversy over the religious extremists’ week-long siege of the Lal Masjid (the Red Mosque), which resulted in Musharraf authorizing a military assault that resulted in the deaths of some 100 people.
The incident served as a fuel for Tehreek-e-Taliban Pakistan’s ascent, which has so far been responsible for dozens, if not hundreds, of deadly attacks.
He declared a state of emergency and suspended the constitution in November 2007, which sparked new demonstrations.
Later that month, he announced his resignation as army chief, but it had no impact on his political standing because the killing of Bhutto in December sparked even larger demonstrations and acts of violence. He was charged with intentionally failing to provide for her security.
His PML-Q party’s bad poll results in February 2008 led to his resignation from his position a few months later.
Musharraf has garnered appreciation for certain of his internal programs, including as women’s rights and local government reforms, as well as some of his foreign policy decisions, despite analysts’ claims to the contrary.
One of his “greatest” foreign policy accomplishments, according to Akhtar, was the improvement of relations with India while he was president.
With the four-point formula he had offered, which was at least seriously studied for what it was worth, “[he] was able to make ground on the Kashmir issue and that was the last time there was hope on Kashmir front,” she told the reporters.
Demilitarization, self-government, and a cooperative system agreed upon by India and Pakistan for the supervision of Kashmir were all part of Musharraf’s four-point plan.
Musharraf is also credited with liberalizing Pakistan’s media environment.
Vizier’s Rafiq continued, “There was only one state-owned channel [Pakistan Television] before [his tenure], [after] there were thousands of commercial news networks that blossomed under him.
He cited the negative coverage that followed his removal of Chief Justice Chaudhry and “non-stop coverage of the lawyers’ movement” as examples of how the freedoms given to the media became a “double-edged sword” and significantly contributed to Musharraf’s demise.
Many news outlets had to go off the air when the 42-day emergency rule was implemented.
While Musharraf passed laws promoting women’s rights and showed greater tolerance for press criticism than his predecessors, according to attorney Rahim, “all the promises of liberalism, moderation, and media freedoms went out the window when his authority was fundamentally challenged for the first time in 2007.”
After leaving office, Musharraf spent several years dividing his time between London and Dubai while giving speeches and lectures.
He declared the creation of his own party, the All Pakistan Muslim League, in 2010 and later returned to lead it in the 2013 general elections.
While his old foe Sharif was elected prime minister for the third time, his party only received one parliamentary seat.
A few months later, Sharif filed treason charges against Musharraf, accusing him of instituting emergency rule in 2007.
The trial, which had been scheduled to start in 2014, was postponed due to Musharraf’s amyloidosis, a disorder that causes an abnormal buildup of the amyloid protein in vital organs, as well as other legal concerns.
Critics assert that because the military did not want to see its former head found guilty, it impeded the legal process.
In 2016, he finally relocated to Dubai.
But in 2019, a special court executed him in his place; this judgment was later overturned.
Musharraf leaves behind his wife and two kids.
