Abdul Waheed Kakar[a] (born 23 March 1937),is a retired senior officer of the Pakistan Army who served as the fifth chief of army staff,appointed by Prime MinisterNawaz Sharif on 12 January 1993 after the controversial death of his predecessor General Asif Nawaz. Upon the completion of his three-year tenure,Kakar retired in 1996.
After the war,Major Kakar was selected to attend the Command and Staff College in Canada,where he stood first in the examinations and qualified as a psc.:85–86[9] He was later selected to attend a staff course program.[12] Upon returning from Canada,he continued his education when he was selected to attend the National Defence University (NDU) where he studied and attained graduation in War studies degree at the Armed Forces War College of the National Defence University.:4–5[7] He has commanded 27 Azad Kashmir Regiment as Lieutenant Colonel in Azad Kashmir region before war studies.
In summer of 1993, the MoD announced the names of retiring army generals who were due retirement, and such list included Lt-Gen. Kakar as he was also seeking the retirement.:572[15]
Among these listed army generals, the CGS, the QMG, and the DG ISI, opted to stay to serve on their assignments despite being overlooked for the promotions.[18]
After his appointment, a member of the National Assembly who belonged to PMPA was quoted: "the era of the Pakhtoons has begun. The president belonged to the Frontier province and so did the new Chief of Army Staff."[6]
Portrait of General Abdul Waheed Kakar 5th COAS Pak Army
General Abdul Waheed Kakar 5th COAS Pak Army In The Field With Tanks On Both Sides
In September 1995, General Abdul Waheed Kakar played a crucial role in sustaining the democracy by having discovered a plot by a group of army officers headed by Major-General Zahirul Islam Abbasi, acting in complicity with the Harkat-ul-Jihad-al-Islami a militant group, to assassinate him and Benazir Bhutto, to capture power.[21] This plan was foiled by the Military Intelligence and the Military Police who initiated the operation to have those involved captured and arrested.[21]
In 1996, General Kakar reportedly declined the extension of his service and there was no public statement on the matter.[21] After his retirement, he never appeared in public and lives a very quiet life in Rawalpindi.[21]
Reception
An image of General Abdul Waheed Kakar 5th COAS Pak ArmyKakar 5th COAS Pak Army Riding A Black Stallion
General Kakar had an imposing and robust personality that brokered no nonsense. :160[22] In the military, he was popular among his colleagues as a flamboyant rider and a mountaineer.:40[23]
His reception as an army chief was hailed and celebrated by the Pashtuns nationalists when Mahmood Achakzai, then-MNA, reportedly remarked in the news media in 1993: "This is not a General from the Sandhurst colonial brand. I welcome an enlightened man from the rigid mountain ranges of Loralai. He has the professional skills for improving the war performance of the Pakistan Army. But more than that, he is intelligent enough to comprehend politics and will promote the democratic process. General Waheed is not a religious extremist."[6]
Published writer/author Ikram Sehgal mentioned the following in his article for Bol News, "Emulating The Kakar Model": Can the Army itself avoid its prime responsibility to confront any development endangering national security by remaining aloof from politics? The so-called “Bangladesh model” created by the then Bangladesh COAS Gen Moeen U Ahmed on June 11, 2007, was totally modelled on General Waheed Kakar's 1993 model where not one single soldier went into civilian administration. Rescuing the political process from sliding the country into anarchy kept the army out of politics and the civil administration.
In July 1993, the then COAS Pakistan Army General Waheed Kakar calmly and peacefully saw off both the President Ghulam Ishaq Khan and Prime Minister Mian Nawaz Sharif who both were endangering national security by creating conditions that could have led to civil war. Instead of taking over power himself, the then COAS moved the Chairman Senate Waseem Sajjad constitutionally upwards to be the interim President and formed an interim government of capable technocrats, retired bureaucrats and ex-servicemen to successfully govern and oversee free and fair elections.
While the “Kakar Model” went beyond what the 90 days the Constitution allows, no one ever challenged this move, because it was done in good faith. Such was the respect for General Kakar and the Pakistan Army.[24]
↑ Kiessling, Hein (2016). "§The Down Fall of Nawaz Sharif"(googlebooks). Faith, Unity, Discipline: The Inter-Service-Intelligence (ISI) of Pakistan. London, U.K.: Oxford University Press. p.310. ISBN9781849048620. Retrieved 19 December 2017.
↑ The foreign policy of Pakistan: ethnic impacts on diplomacy, 1971-1994. By Mehtab Ali Shah.
The list including the superseding six senior army generals by seniority:
1 2 "Superseded generals resign". asianstudies.github.io. No.4/40. Dawn Newspapers. DAWN WIRE SERVICE. 10 October 1998. Retrieved 19 December 2017.
1 2 Jaffrelot, Christophe (2004). "Chronology"(googlebooks). A History of Pakistan and Its Origins (1sted.). Anthem Press. p.300. ISBN9781843311492. Retrieved 19 December 2017.
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Pakistan Army 
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Nishan-e-Imtiaz (Military) 
Hilal-e-Imtiaz (Military) 
Sitara-e-Basalat 
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