Talk:Pakistan Army

Involvement in Pakistani society, politics and economy

On 8 August 2023, Wikiking123454321 added the following to the section on Involvement in Pakistani society, politics and economy. His/her edit summary was: Incorporated additional information into two pre-existing relevant sections, due to them being repeatedly removed despite Wikipedia's policy of a separate controversy section in case of substantial information.^[1] AD2917 reverted this without explanation on 15 August.^[2] And Wikiking123454321 reverted back on 19 August.^[3]

The army has, over the course of Pakistan's history, been accused of illegal intervention in politics, human rights violations, atrocities as well as major corruption at an individual as well as institutional level.

Since its inception, there have been 4 periods of military coup in Pakistan, with the country spending 33 of it 76-year existence under military rule. In times of democratic rule, the army has repeatedly interfered in democratic processes such as rigging elections and illegal abductions of political representatives, which former Chief of Army Staff Qamar Bajwa admitted. Shehbaz Sharif, in March of 2023, claimed that Bajwa offered him Prime Ministership of the country in 2018, months after then Prime Minister Imran Khan came into power.

The army has carried out atrocities in the Pakistani province of Balochistan for decades, leading to hundreds of illegal abductions, killings and various human rights abuses including sexual abuse and the murder of children. Brad Adams, director of the HRW Asia Branch, alleges that the Pakistani government has not done enough to stop the widespread human rights abuses in the region, which include torture, forced disappearances of those suspected of either terrorism or opposition to the Pakistani military, ill treatment of captured combatants or criminals, and extrajudicial killings.

During the war on 1971 with India and separation of then East Pakistan (Bangladesh) into a separate state, the army took part in several atrocities in Bangladesh before the eventual separation which started with the abduction and killings of intellectuals, professors, students and political representatives and included crimes such as an estimated 200,000-300,000 cases of rape and 300,000-3,000,000 murders.

The Pakistani establishment has denied the existence of these atrocities even though they have been accepted by the international community. Instead, the state has supported propaganda and hate towards the Bengalis, labelling them as traitors and has referred to the atrocities in Bangladesh and Balochistan as Indian propaganda. The state has gone as far as to ban books from the nation's curriculum that have mention of the genocide in Bangladesh or the military's intervention in the 1965 elections. Due to this widespread propaganda, a majority of the Pakistani people still deny the atrocities happened and rather blame the Bangladeshi people for siding with India and betraying their country.

The military is increasingly encroaching in the civilian sphere, taking up more and more bureaucratic roles with retired officers taking key appointments in several government organizations as well as heads of educational institutes. A senior officer of Pakistan National Shipping Corporation (PNSC) filed a constitutional petition in the Sindh High Court against Vice Admiral Mansurul Haq of the Pakistan Navy who was the PNSC chairman in May 1993. The issue emerged following a conflict between the Nawaz Sharif regime and the Pakistan Navy over privatization of the PNSC. While Nawaz Sharif favored privatization, the naval lobby opposed the move. Such a situation clearly underlines how the military lobby's vested interests have a tendency to override national economic interests.

The military is blamed for consuming a large part of the already financially-struggling country's budget, which the institution has denied. However, as of the 2022-23 budget brief, the funds allocated for the military forces were Rs. 1,563 billion, which is around 18% of the country's total expenditure of Rs. 8,709 billion, or 32% of the total budget once interest payments have been factored out. This is the sixth highest in the entire world according to the World Bank. However, the percentage of government expenditure of military has been much higher in past years. In the 1993-94 fiscal year, the government spent 30% of its total expenditure (Rs. 89.1 billion out of Rs. 288.7 billion) on the military, which amounted to 53% of the government's total budget once debt servicing had been factored out as reported by the Ministry of Planning, Development & Special Initiatives.

References

@AD2917: please could you explain your reasons for reverting the above text.-- Toddy1 (talk) 22:05, 19 August 2023 (UTC)