A month back at a dinner after the NRO had come out a friend and I were discussing the situation at home and my friend suggested that if things don’t calm down pretty quickly the President has the powers to come out with another Ordinance saying 'not withstanding the provisions of any other law, Pakistan does not have a Supreme Court' this was considered a joke by everyone. But this is what has actually happened, and what do you call this new ordinance? The PCO.
It was almost amusing to listen to his speech and the way he tried to explain his actions to the nation and the international community. We all know that prior to 9/11 nobody was willing to befriend his military government but since the so-called 'War on Terror' started because of Pakistan's strategic geographic location and un-conditional cooperation by the regime, Musharraf became an important stakeholder, and since then he has very smartly played the western-extremism-paranoia to keep himself in power. He has tried it one more time by attempting to justify his 'Martial Law / Emergency' by using his half-hearted efforts against extremism. As everyone knew that the major casualty of this Martial Law was the Judiciary so he had to come up with an elaborate link between his efforts against terrorism and how the judiciary was hindering the process. The other casualty could be the Civil Rights of the Pakistani people, but anyone who has lived in Pakistan even briefly knows that there was no such thing as civil rights even before the Martial Law.
He claimed in his speech that government officials are being punished by the Courts and there are more than 100 suo moto cases pending against the government, the terror suspects arrested by the government are being released by the Supreme Court putting the country at risk.
Ludicrous as it is, you don’t need to be a genius to figure this one out. The government officials who are being asked to defend their positions in the courts are the ones who have never been accountable for any of their actions in the past, most of them consider themselves modern day Pharaohs. Some of the cases where the Supreme Court has called government officials were:
- the Missing Persons, more than 400 Pakistanis have gone missing since 2002, most of them were journalists, scientists, and ex-army officials. (This figure does not include the lawyers and social activists who have been abducted in the past 4 days).
- the Steel Mills case, where a strategic state owned industrial unit was sold allegedly for much less than its worth, our learned banking Prime Minister was one of the alleged beneficiaries of this transaction.
- then there are cases involving other high profile government officials profiting at the expense of common man playing tricks in Stock markets and other Commodities.
- Man-handling of the then suspended Chief Justice in March.
As per the Suspended Constitution the apex Court does have the powers to ask anyone in its jurisdiction (which is the whole of Pakistan) to appear in court and hold them accountable. I can not think of a logical way the government can reason the facts that 400 men are actually missing, there was high profile corruption in the Steel Mills Privatization, Prime Minister Aziz has close ties with the Stock and Money market players and that the Chief Justice was man handled by the police after his forced suspension.
For the suspects released by the Courts, if any, the question would be that why was prosecution unable to produce evidence against them? Anyone who knows the policing system in Pakistan knows well that Pakistani Police is very good at arresting innocent civilians with little money and presenting them in courts whenever they deem fit, so if any suspects were released by the Courts it was a failure of the prosecution and not the courts because any court can not and will not release a suspect if there is evidence against him.
In his speech he made references to Lal Masjid, once again it is impossible to accept that a group of few thousand militants were organizing themselves in the heart of the Capital and the ever so powerful intelligence had no information about them? We all remember that Lal Masjid events were happening at the time when the then suspended (now sacked) Chief Justice was leading his movement and the way Lal Masjid was used to down play the Lawyer's movement is not a secret.
Musharraf pointed out that extremism has increased in the country, and left us all wondering that isn't that because of his half-hearted yet valiant participation in the war on terror and the way his policies have imported an American war onto Pakistani soil? And how would that be fixed by firing the Chief Justice?
He talked about Foreign Direct Investment in the country, which like all other state produced figures is a misleading number because that has two major elements, one, the defense related aide which was linked directly to the war-on-terror, and two, the privatization money, selling your profitable / strategic units such as PTCL to foreigners and spending the inflows on administrative expenses is not the smartest move anyways.
So it has been very obvious all along that he was only concerned about ensuring that he stays in power for the next five years. He was worried that the brilliant National Reconciliation Ordinance would be made ineffective by the court because even before you refer the Constitution it is common sense that the law is discriminatory and you can not treat ex-public office holders differently from common people. He was also worried that the court might question his eligibility to contest the presidential elections as the uniformed army chief. To resolve the issue what do you do? Musharraf's answer is you start a civil war and throw the Chief Justice out.
All of this is not new to Pakistanis and Musharraf has not been innovative at all about his moves as a dictator he has done exactly what all others have done so far. However, Musharraf needs to realize that 'the media' he claims to have empowered has made the people much more aware and I am sure when he would get a chance to speak to Late Zia-ul-Haq he would tell him that it would be considered a mistake at the School of Dictatorship. And forcefully shutting them down was an even bigger mistake people are now used to knowing events as they happen and hoping that they would just watch entertainment channels while the news channels are off air is wish full thinking this treatment would only create massive unrest.
Embarrassing as it is for Pakistanis across the world, it can be a blessing in disguise if Pakistanis rise as a nation and refuse to accept this edition of the Martial Law and shut the doors on Military involvement in politics because lets face it Musharraf is not the first General to have done this and will not be the last one either if he gets away with it. We must understand that Musharraf is the current face of the problem but he is not the problem itself. The people will have to prove that they will not accept anything less than proper democracy in the country.
We have witnessed that Pakistanis back home are not happy with the situation but so far we have not seen large numbers turning up to protest because there is no platform for them to stage a protest, the political forces are making strong statements but are unwilling to do anything practically. We all know that the democratic Ms. Bhutto and the brilliant Mr. Fazlur Rahman are still trying to meet the General and sell the situation in their favour.
It was almost amusing to listen to his speech and the way he tried to explain his actions to the nation and the international community. We all know that prior to 9/11 nobody was willing to befriend his military government but since the so-called 'War on Terror' started because of Pakistan's strategic geographic location and un-conditional cooperation by the regime, Musharraf became an important stakeholder, and since then he has very smartly played the western-extremism-paranoia to keep himself in power. He has tried it one more time by attempting to justify his 'Martial Law / Emergency' by using his half-hearted efforts against extremism. As everyone knew that the major casualty of this Martial Law was the Judiciary so he had to come up with an elaborate link between his efforts against terrorism and how the judiciary was hindering the process. The other casualty could be the Civil Rights of the Pakistani people, but anyone who has lived in Pakistan even briefly knows that there was no such thing as civil rights even before the Martial Law.
He claimed in his speech that government officials are being punished by the Courts and there are more than 100 suo moto cases pending against the government, the terror suspects arrested by the government are being released by the Supreme Court putting the country at risk.
Ludicrous as it is, you don’t need to be a genius to figure this one out. The government officials who are being asked to defend their positions in the courts are the ones who have never been accountable for any of their actions in the past, most of them consider themselves modern day Pharaohs. Some of the cases where the Supreme Court has called government officials were:
- the Missing Persons, more than 400 Pakistanis have gone missing since 2002, most of them were journalists, scientists, and ex-army officials. (This figure does not include the lawyers and social activists who have been abducted in the past 4 days).
- the Steel Mills case, where a strategic state owned industrial unit was sold allegedly for much less than its worth, our learned banking Prime Minister was one of the alleged beneficiaries of this transaction.
- then there are cases involving other high profile government officials profiting at the expense of common man playing tricks in Stock markets and other Commodities.
- Man-handling of the then suspended Chief Justice in March.
As per the Suspended Constitution the apex Court does have the powers to ask anyone in its jurisdiction (which is the whole of Pakistan) to appear in court and hold them accountable. I can not think of a logical way the government can reason the facts that 400 men are actually missing, there was high profile corruption in the Steel Mills Privatization, Prime Minister Aziz has close ties with the Stock and Money market players and that the Chief Justice was man handled by the police after his forced suspension.
For the suspects released by the Courts, if any, the question would be that why was prosecution unable to produce evidence against them? Anyone who knows the policing system in Pakistan knows well that Pakistani Police is very good at arresting innocent civilians with little money and presenting them in courts whenever they deem fit, so if any suspects were released by the Courts it was a failure of the prosecution and not the courts because any court can not and will not release a suspect if there is evidence against him.
In his speech he made references to Lal Masjid, once again it is impossible to accept that a group of few thousand militants were organizing themselves in the heart of the Capital and the ever so powerful intelligence had no information about them? We all remember that Lal Masjid events were happening at the time when the then suspended (now sacked) Chief Justice was leading his movement and the way Lal Masjid was used to down play the Lawyer's movement is not a secret.
Musharraf pointed out that extremism has increased in the country, and left us all wondering that isn't that because of his half-hearted yet valiant participation in the war on terror and the way his policies have imported an American war onto Pakistani soil? And how would that be fixed by firing the Chief Justice?
He talked about Foreign Direct Investment in the country, which like all other state produced figures is a misleading number because that has two major elements, one, the defense related aide which was linked directly to the war-on-terror, and two, the privatization money, selling your profitable / strategic units such as PTCL to foreigners and spending the inflows on administrative expenses is not the smartest move anyways.
So it has been very obvious all along that he was only concerned about ensuring that he stays in power for the next five years. He was worried that the brilliant National Reconciliation Ordinance would be made ineffective by the court because even before you refer the Constitution it is common sense that the law is discriminatory and you can not treat ex-public office holders differently from common people. He was also worried that the court might question his eligibility to contest the presidential elections as the uniformed army chief. To resolve the issue what do you do? Musharraf's answer is you start a civil war and throw the Chief Justice out.
All of this is not new to Pakistanis and Musharraf has not been innovative at all about his moves as a dictator he has done exactly what all others have done so far. However, Musharraf needs to realize that 'the media' he claims to have empowered has made the people much more aware and I am sure when he would get a chance to speak to Late Zia-ul-Haq he would tell him that it would be considered a mistake at the School of Dictatorship. And forcefully shutting them down was an even bigger mistake people are now used to knowing events as they happen and hoping that they would just watch entertainment channels while the news channels are off air is wish full thinking this treatment would only create massive unrest.
Embarrassing as it is for Pakistanis across the world, it can be a blessing in disguise if Pakistanis rise as a nation and refuse to accept this edition of the Martial Law and shut the doors on Military involvement in politics because lets face it Musharraf is not the first General to have done this and will not be the last one either if he gets away with it. We must understand that Musharraf is the current face of the problem but he is not the problem itself. The people will have to prove that they will not accept anything less than proper democracy in the country.
We have witnessed that Pakistanis back home are not happy with the situation but so far we have not seen large numbers turning up to protest because there is no platform for them to stage a protest, the political forces are making strong statements but are unwilling to do anything practically. We all know that the democratic Ms. Bhutto and the brilliant Mr. Fazlur Rahman are still trying to meet the General and sell the situation in their favour.
Everyone saw the way the lawyer's movement completely lost its momentum when Ms. Bhutto came back and supported the President in his elections, and Mr. Rahman made sure that the N.W.F.P assembly stayed in-tact till presidential elections. Q league is still loyal as ever (they don't really have a choice), and poor Mr. Shareef is jumping from a land far away trying to attract some attention.
MQM is trying to play both sides so far and Tehreek-e-Insaaf's big mouth was commenting on Pakistan Cricket team's tour of India on TV this morning, good for him. Mr. Qazi is aggressive but he is still not prepared to divorce Mr. Rahman since that would mean the end of MMA at the verge of elections. So we practically have no leadership.
But we must see this is as a chance for the nation to wake up and rally for democracy and not let the politicians betray them again, we must not lose optimism and our drive because situations like these create movements and produce leaders.
GOD BLESS PAKISTAN !!
But we must see this is as a chance for the nation to wake up and rally for democracy and not let the politicians betray them again, we must not lose optimism and our drive because situations like these create movements and produce leaders.
GOD BLESS PAKISTAN !!
