Congressional Statements

Rep. Brown supports House resolution condemning coup in Pakistan

Statement in House
October 27, 1999

Mr. Chairman, I rise in strong support of this resolution and wish to commend you and Mr. Gejdenson for ensuring this subcommittee sends a strong a message to the Pakistani military that the United States will not tolerate its contempt for the rule of law. As I have said before, no matter how unpopular he was, Nawaz Sharif was elected by the people of Pakistan to lead their government.

If General Musharraf was unhappy with his Prime Minister, he should have resigned his commission and entered the political arena. That's how democracy works. It works for us, it works for Taiwan, and it works for India. At the same time General Musharaff's storm troopers were deposing their government, about 370 million people in India were electing their government without the help of their military. Think about that -- if a nation of one billion people with more Muslims than all of the people that live in Pakistan can hold an election, then we ought to be using India as an example of how the rest of the world should behave.

On the other end of the spectrum, the Pakistani military has once again toppled an elected government, and we find ourselves wondering how we should engage a nation of 140 million people that -- thanks to the People's Republic of China -- now possesses a few dozen nuclear weapons.

Mr. Chairman, I don't think it's too much of a stretch to suggest that the current crisis in Pakistan came to be because we've placed too much emphasis on building military ties and not enough emphasis on respecting the rule of law. For the last four decades we have armed and trained the Pakistani military, and placed little emphasis on building a stable government. The results have been all too predictable.

The Cold War is over -- there is no more Great Game, because there is no more Soviet threat to southwest Asia. As such, we need to stop providing military know-how to governments that show no interest in respecting the human, religious, and political freedoms of their people. That's why even though I intend to support this resolution, we need to focus our efforts on implementing legislation that would prevent the Administration from having the authority to waive military sanctions against Pakistan. We shouldn't be dangling F-16's in front General Musharraf in exchange for his halfhearted commitment to step aside and restore democratic government. This carrot and stick approach with the Pakistani military hasn't helped sustain democracy in the past, and it won't happen now.

So while I urge my colleagues to support this resolution, I also ask that you consider taking stronger action than the legislation that we're considering today.