Alternating between civilian government and military government has been on going issue in Pakistan. Military governments have been in power for 33 years of Pakistan’s 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 Sharif’s 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 entitled‘In 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 leader’s 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, I’m 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 called“Brick Countries”, Brazil, Russia, India and China. And then they came out with“N-11”and Pakistan was included in the“N-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 country’s 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 can’t 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 won’t 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.

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