Pakistan: A Hard Country (88 page)

1994 Taleban capture Kabul.

1996 President Farooq Leghari dismisses PPP government on charges of corruption. Elections lead to a sweeping victory for the Muslim League of Nawaz Sharif.

1997 – 9 Second government of Nawaz Sharif. The government carries out important economic reforms, but becomes increasingly autocratic. The Chief Justice is forced from office and opposition journalists are targeted.

May 1998 India explodes nuclear devices. Pakistan fol ows suit, leading to intensified US sanctions.

April 1999 Benazir Bhutto and her husband, Asif Ali Zardari, are convicted of corruption. Ms Bhutto stays abroad. Mr Zardari spends several years in jail.

May 1999 After Pakistani forces occupy positions across the Line of Control at Kargil in Kashmir, India counter-attacks. Pakistan eventual y withdraws under heavy US pressure.

October 1999 After Nawaz Sharif attempts to dismiss the Army Chief of Staff, General Pervez Musharraf, he is overthrown in a military coup.

Musharraf takes power.

1999 – 2008 Musharraf administration. Musharraf institutes stern measures against corruption, and rol s back some of the Islamist laws passed by Zia and Sharif. He liberalizes media laws, al owing a vast growth in private television channels, and institutes policies intended to improve the position of women. However, like previous military rulers, Musharraf becomes increasingly dependent on the existing political elites.

September 2001 Al Qaeda launches terrorist attacks on New York and Washington. Musharraf given ultimatum by the Bush administration to support US invasion of Afghanistan. Musharraf agrees to al ow two US air bases in Pakistan and to al ow supplies for the US forces in Afghanistan to cross Pakistan.

November – December 2001 Backed by massive US airpower and some special forces, the anti-Taleban warlords in Afghanistan overthrow Taleban rule. The leadership of the Taleban and Al Qaeda escape to Pakistan and go into hiding.

December 2001 Pakistan-based Islamist militants launch a terrorist attack on the Indian parliament in New Delhi. India masses troops on its border with Pakistan.

January 2002 Under heavy US and Indian pressure, Musharraf bans the SSP and LeJ, together with Lashkar-e-Taiba and Jaish-e-Mohammed, Islamist militant groups formerly sponsored by the Pakistani military. Over the next years, violence in Kashmir diminishes greatly.

February – March 2002 Muslim activists in India attack a train containing Hindu nationalist pilgrims to Ayodhya, kil ing fifty-nine. In response, some 2,000 Muslims are massacred in the Indian state of Gujarat by Hindu militants linked to the ruling Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), and encouraged by the local BJP government.

May – June 2002 Terrorist attacks in Karachi against French technicians and the US Consulate.

October 2002 National elections. The pro-Musharraf Muslim League (Qaid-e-Azam) wins most seats and forms a coalition government. The MMA Islamist coalition wins the elections in the North West Frontier Province and Balochistan and forms the governments there.

November 2003 India and Pakistan announce a ceasefire in Kashmir. Pakistan and India resume air links and other ties.

March 2004 Under US pressure, the Pakistani military launches a major campaign in Waziristan, on the border of Afghanistan, against local al ies of the Afghan Taleban. In this and subsequent offensives, hundreds are kil ed, including many civilians. Increase of support for militancy in the tribal areas. In April 2004, after the military campaign reaches stalemate, the Pakistani government makes a peace deal with the local Islamist leader Nek Mohammed. This is abrogated by the militants in June when Nek Mohammed is kil ed in a US airstrike. The government goes on to make a similar deal with his successor, Beitul ah Mahsud.

January 2005 Start of a new insurgency in Balochistan, initial y by members of the Bugti tribe.

October 2005 Massive earthquake in Pakistani Kashmir leaves tens of thousands dead. Islamist groups lead the relief effort.

January 2006 A US missile strike on suspected Al Qaeda members at Damadola in the Bajaur Tribal Agency of Pakistan kil s seventeen people, including civilians. This marks the beginning of intensified US

strikes from unmanned aircraft against suspected Al Qaeda and Taleban leaders in the Pakistan tribal areas which kil many senior figures but also infuriate the local population.

August 2006 Baloch rebel leader Nawab Akbar Bugti is kil ed in mysterious circumstances, together with Pakistani troops. Baloch insurgency intensifies, partly led by his grandson, Baramdagh Bugti.

January – July 2007 Islamist radicals turn the Red Mosque (Lal Masjid) complex in Islamabad into an armed base and begin enforcing Shariah law in parts of the capital. In July, security forces storm the Red Mosque, in a battle in which (according to official figures) 154

people are kil ed. In protest, militants in the tribal areas abrogate their peace agreement with the government.

March 2007 Start of clash between Musharraf and the Chief Justice, Iftikhar Chaudhry, who demands that the government account for Pakistanis who have ‘disappeared’ at the hands of the security forces in Balochistan and elsewhere. Many Pakistanis believe that suspected Islamist militants have been secretly and il egal y transferred to US

custody. The Chief Justice also chal enges other measures by the Musharraf administration. Musharraf dismisses the Chief Justice, who then leads a protest movement of lawyers, with increasing mass support.

May 2007 Several dozen people kil ed in Karachi when activists of the Mohajir Qaumi Movement (al ied to Musharraf) block a visit by the Chief Justice to the city.

September 2007 Formation of the Pakistani Taleban (Tehriq-e-Taleban Pakistan, or TTP), a loose al iance of mainly Pathan militant groups. Militants in the Swat District of the NWFP increasingly threaten local government.

October 2007 Musharraf wins a presidential election general y thought to be rigged.

November 2007 Under increasing pressure from the Lawyers’

Movement and other public protests, Musharraf declares martial law, but is soon forced to withdraw this under US pressure. Musharraf is forced to resign as Army Chief of Staff. Nawaz Sharif and Benazir Bhutto are al owed to return from exile. The US promotes an al iance between Musharraf and Ms Bhutto.

27 December 2007 Ms Bhutto is assassinated at a public ral y in Rawalpindi, apparently by the Pakistani Taleban. According to the al eged terms of her wil (which is, however, not made public), her widower, Asif Ali Zardari, succeeds her as co-leader of the Pakistani People’s Party, in tandem with their underage son Bilawal, a student at Oxford.

February 2008 Parliamentary elections. The PPP wins most seats and forms a coalition government at the centre. Yusuf Raza Gilani becomes Pakistani prime minister. The Muslim League of Nawaz Sharif wins a majority in Punjab and forms the government there. The moderate Pathan nationalist Awami National Party (ANP) forms the government of the NWFP.

July 2008 The Pakistani army launches an offensive against the Pakistani Taleban in the Bajaur Tribal Agency.

August 2008 Musharraf resigns as president.

September 2008 Zardari is elected president by members of the national and provincial assemblies. He breaks his promise to re-appoint Iftikhar Chaudhry Chief Justice.

20 September 2008 The Marriott Hotel in Islamabad is badly damaged by a car bomb, in the first major terrorist attack in the capital.

Over the next eighteen months, terrorist attacks by the Pakistani Taleban and their al ies intensify across Pakistan, becoming increasingly indiscriminate and claiming thousands of victims among civilians as wel as among Pakistani troops and police.

November 2008 Relations between India and Pakistan worsen drastical y again after terrorists from the Pakistan-based (though official y banned) Lashkar-e-Taiba carry out terrorist attacks in the Indian city of Mumbai, leaving 185 dead. Pakistan is forced to take intensified measures against LeT, but refuses Indian demands to extradite suspects to India.

February 2009 The national government and the government of the NWFP reach the ‘Nizam-e-Adl’ agreement with the Pakistani Taleban in Swat, providing for the extension of Shariah law in the province in return for the Taleban abandoning their campaign of violence.

March 2009 The Zardari administration ousts the Sharif government in the Punjab, after the Supreme Court (appointed by Musharraf and Zardari) declares the election of Nawaz and Shahbaz Sharif il egal.

The Muslim League leads a mass march on Islamabad. Zardari is forced to back down, al ow Iftikhar Chaudhry back as Chief Justice, and al ow the Muslim League to resume the government in Punjab.

April 2009 The Taleban in Swat take over the neighbouring district of Buner, closer to Islamabad.

May 2009 The Pakistani army launches a massive offensive to retake Swat and Buner. Hundreds of Taleban are kil ed or captured, but hundreds of thousands of civilians are also forced to flee their homes.

August 2009 Pakistani Taleban leader Beitul ah Mahsud is kil ed in a US airstrike. He is succeeded by Hakimul ah Mahsud. Hamid Karzai is reelected president of Afghanistan in elections which are widely seen as deeply flawed by rigging and corruption.

September 2009 The US Senate passes the Kerry – Lugar Bil , providing for greatly increased US assistance to Pakistan. However, it causes great offence to many Pakistanis by the strict conditions it sets concerning Pakistani action against the Taleban, and Pakistan’s nuclear programme.

October 2009 The Pakistani military begins a major offensive against the Pakistani Taleban in south Waziristan.

10 October 2009 Taleban militants attack the headquarters of the Pakistani army in Rawalpindi, kil ing ten.

December 2009 US President Barack Obama announces a ‘surge’ in US troops in Afghanistan, and intensified operations against the Taleban there. The Supreme Court declares il egal an amnesty passed by President Musharraf giving Zardari and other leading PPP

figures immunity for prosecution for corruption.

31 December 2009 National Finance Commission Award, agreed between the national government and the provinces, rebalances the al ocation of revenue in favour of Sindh, the NWFP and especial y Balochistan.

1 January 2010 More than ninety people kil ed by Taleban suicide bomb at a vol eybal game in Laki Marwat district of the NWFP.

14 January 2010 Jamaat-ud-Dawa condemns the kil ing of Muslims by suicide bombing as unislamic and says that such attacks ‘played into the hands of the US, Israel and India’.

19 April 2010 President Zardari signs into law sweeping constitutional reforms transferring powers from the President to the Prime Minister, thereby reversing changes introduced by Presidents Zia-ul-Haq and Musharraf. In accordance with a longstanding demand of the Awami National Party (ANP), the North West Frontier Province is renamed Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa. This move sets off violent protests in the Hindko-speaking area of the province in which several people are kil ed.

1 May 2010 Faisal Shehzad, a Pakistani-American, attempts to detonate a car bomb in Times Square, New York. US Secretary of State Hil ary Clinton subsequently warns Pakistan that there would have been ‘very severe consequences’ had the bomb exploded.

1 July 2010 Suicide bombers kil more than forty worshippers at the shrine of Data Ganj Baksh in Lahore.

29 July 2010 The heaviest monsoon rains on record cause catastrophic floods in Pakistan (starting with Swat and the northern mountains), which eventual y leave 1,900 dead and more than 20

mil ion displaced. The Zardari administration comes under strong criticism for failures in the relief effort.

September – October 2010 Pakistan temporarily blocks NATO

supplies to Afghanistan via the Khyber Pass in protest against a US

helicopter attack that kil ed Pakistani soldiers on the Afghan border.

November – December 2010 WikiLeaks reveals details of Pakistani cooperation with the US including the presence of limited numbers of US special forces in Pakistan. Leaked cables also record unflattering US opinions of President Zardari, and the diversion and misuse of US

military aid to Pakistan.

4 January 2011 Salman Taseer, liberal Governor of Punjab (appointed by President Zardari) is assassinated by one of his own bodyguards, a Barelvi conservative Muslim outraged by Mr Taseer’s criticism of Pakistan’s harsh blasphemy law and its use to persecute religious minorities.

Appendix Two: Pakistani Statistics Population growth

1951 census:

33,816,000 (17.80 per cent urban)

1961 census:

42,978,000 (22.46 per cent urban)

1972 census:

65,321,000 (25.40 per cent urban)

1981 census:

84,254,000 (28.28 per cent urban)

1998 census:

130,580,000 (32.51 per cent urban) 2010:

180,000 to 200,000 (estimate)

Annual rate of population growth (2010 estimate) 2.2 per cent (down from 3.1 per cent in the 1980s)

Infant mortality (2009 estimate)

62 per 1,000 births

Age distribution (2008)

0 – 14 years:

42 per cent

15 – 64 years:

55 per cent

65 and over:

4 per cent

Life expectancy (2007 estimate)

Men:

66.5 years