Say ‘no’ to national security council
By Asif Saleh. Courtesy New Age 2/2/08
In countries where strong democratic institutions exist and where the military has never offered any threat to take over the state machinery, NSC has been used to deal with external threats and coordinate defence strategies. However, in countries where the military has been a dominant force in internal politics, NSC has been used to institutionalise the military’s role in politics, writes Asif Saleh
Jillur Ahmed, Channel I host of Tritiyo Matra: So is National Security Council coming?
General Moeen U Ahmed: Well, we have been hearing about it since last year. Let’s see. It’s there in
A SPECTRE looms large in
At the height of tension with
A National Security Council was brought to life again by General Musharraf in 2004. As the military was directly establishing control over many facets of the administration, the formation of NSC institutionalised the power of the military. From offering ‘advice’ to the national assembly to forming its own laws via official gadget notification, the NSC in Pakistan has been given sweeping powers, expressed in its mission as: National Security Council to serve as a forum for consultation on matters of national security including the sovereignty, integrity, defence, security of the State and crisis management;
In a country where the military has played a dominant role in politics, this almost gives them a free reign on poking their collective nose on virtually any internal matter where they see fit.
The difference here from the Indian NSC is clear. While the Indian NSC clearly focuses on external threat,
The
The National Security Council in the
Under the strict authority of the civilian president who is also the commander-in-chief of all armed forces of the
The creation of the MGK (as NSC is known in
The MGK’s role was further strengthened with the 1982 constitution which was adopted by the military junta in the aftermath of the 1980 military coup, before transferring power to civilian politicians. From then on, its recommendations had to be given priority consideration by the cabinet. Furthermore, the number and weight of senior commanders in MGK increased at the expense of its civilian members.
From this discussion, a pattern is clear. In countries where strong democratic institutions exist and where the military has never offered any threat to take over the state machinery, NSC has been used to deal with external threats and coordinate defence strategies. However, in countries where the military has been a dominant force in internal politics, NSC has been used to institutionalise the military’s role in politics. The side effect of it has been disastrous. The democratic institutions, as a result, have also not prospered. In countries where institutions are weak and politicians are fearful of the armed forces, NSC is used by the military to exert its authority and parental role over the politicians. Keeping that in mind, let’s look at
The main reason that is being touted for NSC is crisis management: we need coordinated strategy to encounter internal threat to stability like that of pre-1/11 reality.
This runs the risk of being a direct call to army to get involved in politics whenever they would see it fit. This risk is too high to bear if we want democracy to flourish and mature in our country. If, however, we are talking about natural disaster management, experience shows that the army is ever ready to help the civilian administration, and hardly has had an issue with coordination in the past. In cases of law enforcement issues, we can not and should not forget enforcing law enforcement in a country is the job of the police and the judiciary and not that of the armed forces. The armed forces are trained to handle external threats only.
There is another reason that is sometimes suggested which is the argument of having checks and balances in the power structure. The idea is to provide a countervailing power to that enjoyed by the elected prime minister under our constitution. While the idea of checks and balances to the power of the prime minister is important in its right, given the side effects of NSC, it’s not clear that this is a particularly good way of ensuring such checks by giving such a power to a group of unelected individuals with no mandate or accountability. In the history of military’s involvement in internal politics of a nation, there is hardly an example where the military has wanted to remain a junior partner for long. Their involvement through NSC runs the risk of undermining the civilian government.
No matter how free and fair the election, there is a risk that it will not be meaningful as the government will constantly be dictated in the name of ‘advice’ by NSC. The risk is there that democratic institutions will always remain subservient and weak, leading to prolonged de facto military rule in the country. This concern about military’s increasing role in the administration already is widely shared as the Amnesty International in its recent statement expressed its concern about the ‘the creeping role of the armed forces in a range of functions, with no clear rules of accountability, that should rightly be carried out by the civilian administration’ (www.amnesty.org).
Most importantly, such important policy decisions need to be left to be decided by the elected representatives of the parliament. Caretaker government without any mandate should not take such a major policy decision. For the sake of maintaining the army’s professionalism and image, the army needs to say no to NSC. For the sake of the growth of democracy in
Asif Saleh, executive director of Drishtipat – a global human rights organisation, recently visited Bangladesh as part of a high-level mission of Amnesty International
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