Posts
By Kamran Shafi
DID I say last week that I was on an up because the news was that the country was progressing towards the restoration of the illegally and unconstitutionally removed judiciary? This despite the fact that we Pakistanis were still strapped to the rickety roller-coaster that we have been tied to ever since the birth of our country? A roller-coaster that has given us the ride of our lives for every one of those 60 years, losing us half our country during its mad progress?
Well, one week later I am on a down because the roller-coaster is hurtling downwards so fast that it can only spell doom for all the hapless souls trapped in it. We must note that whilst the controls were in the hands of the establishment heretofore, they are today in the hands of the newly-discovered leadership of the PPP made up mainly of Ms Bhutto and Mr Zardari’s personal lawyers.
These people simply do not understand, and if they do they surprise one with their attitudes, that the astute politician Benazir Bhutto is no more. That there is not much time left for little pranks and littler too-clever-by-half moves. That if they let the Commando off the hook on which the people of Pakistan have strung him up the country would have lost and they will have won a very short-term, very Pyrrhic victory.
They simply must understand that the main aim and objective of the establishment for the last four decades has been, and remains to this blessed day, the destruction of the People’s Party. That it was only the popularity of Zulfikar Ali Bhutto and of his beloved daughter that has thus far prevented its unravelling despite dictators doing their damnedest.
That by playing their foolish little games they are playing right into the hands of the Commando who retains the position of grand-daddy of the establishment (read army) because of overt American support. They simply do not realise that in the absence of the truly benazir Benazir they are sure to fall flat on their faces, taking the party down with them. That for them it will only be a short joyride enjoying government planes and plush limos and fragrant offices before they are kicked off/out of them.
They should be made to realise by those who have been with the party for far longer that the present time is a great time for the PPP with the second-largest party in the country, the PML-N, a former adversary, sincerely on its side. The parties together can get a lot done, especially with the country in the mess it is in. Just look at one aspect: the lies told by the previous government about the economy and the fact that subsidies granted just to win votes have now to be withdrawn. Is it not a boon for the PPP to have Ishaq Dar as finance minister who is not only a brilliant man but also has to take all the hard decisions?
Let’s see this another way: what happens if, say, the new brilliances of the People’s Party succeed in scuttling the judges’ full reinstatement according to the Murree/Bhurban accord? What happens if, as a consequence, Nawaz Sharif walks out of the coalition because he has a promise to keep? Does the PPP think it will be able to stay on in power by coming to an arrangement with the PML-Q and the MQM?
Think again, boys. Quite apart from the fact that it will be well nigh impossible to run any kind of halfway government with a large, and by then an even more popular party like the ‘N’ sitting outside the government, do the bright sparks who are taking the party to the edge think the PPP/PML-Q/MQM/Commando combine will last long? That the MQM will not demand its several kilograms of flesh in Sindh, to the chagrin of the majority, for support in Islamabad?
No sirs, no. Get off that cloud you are riding and realise that the brilliant Benazir who might have pulled the party out of the problems into which you are forcing it has departed this earth, she is no more. Don’t, for God’s sake, try and become cleverer than half. Keep the promise made in the Murree/Bhurban declaration; for, after all, you did sign it!
While all this argy-bargy goes on with new and ever newer PPP tamashas being reported every single day, the PML-N goes about doing the right thing. The Punjab government is already feeling energised: as you get off the motorway at Thokar Niazbeg you see the petrol and CNG stations being moved back from the land they had encroached upon.
Apparently, these encroachments prevented the contractor from working on the flyover that was to connect to the motorway. It took the new government just one night and one day to remove the encroachments and get the work going, but at a high cost to the exchequer. Construction delays cost more money due to escalating prices and Punjab will now have to fork out Rs800m more to complete the project just because of the corruption of the previous government. And yet the Commando has the gall to say things are bad because the present government is not giving the country good governance!
By the way, there was no earthly reason for Gilani throwing a lavish dinner for the army’s formation commanders, and then to add insult to injury, to regale his guests with a musical evening. Is this the time for fancy banquets and music when the poor are struggling to survive? Why, I bought flour for the house five days ago for Rs980 per 40 kg, up Rs340 inside of three months.
There was even less reason, or call, for Gilani to say that the army also had to defend the ‘ideological frontiers’ of the country. For God’s sake, prime minister! Fifty years have we tried to disabuse the army of its arrogating this duty to itself! And yet you go and do this! What the devil are ‘ideological frontiers’ anyway? Seeing the ugly, hateful place our country has become, hasn’t it had enough of ‘ideology’? An aside here. It appears Sharifuddin Pirzada is still a frequent visitor to the presidency. Asked quite recently why he represented military dictators, he replied that he was a lawyer (gun?) for hire, simple as that. So, who is paying the man now? Has the Commando apportioned massive funds for the presidency’s ‘secret fund’ of which there is no accountability? Or is one of Musharraf’s wealthy arms-dealer friends footing Sharifuddin’s surely considerable bills?
Bushism of the week: “The United States has suffered terrorist attacks on its soil, as have Russia” — President George W. Bush; Sochi, Russia; April 6, 2008
kshafi1@yahoo.co.uk
Tuesday, April 29, 2008
Tuesday, April 22, 2008
The (great-grand) mother of drug visas – II
By Kamran Shafi
AS I slowly reveal the twin cases of ‘The FO That Doesn’t Give a Damn’ and the ‘Equatoguinean Shyster and Crook Who Made Monkeys of the FO (Or Did He?)’, our most honourable senators will realise what a very big crime it is not to read the papers every morning. For these two cases have been written about for years now. By none other than I.
Here are this week’s titillations then: The drug smuggler, Santos Pascual Bikomo Nanguande, who made a monkey of the FO and its many ‘core-professionals’ and Mandarins (Or Did He?) and got nine years in a Spanish jail for his pains, was given the status of ‘official guest’ because, in the words of our then ambassador to Spain he was “accompanied by Alogo (no first name, no family name, just Alogo, please note senators) who was known to have visited Pakistan earlier in an official capacity”!
I ask you.
But who in heaven’s name was Alogo, Nanguande’s referrer to the Pakistan Embassy? He was none other than Joaquín María Alogo de Ondo Edu, the son-in-law of the president of Equatorial Guinea, President Teodoro Obiang Nguema! Alogo too was arrested as Spanish investigations into Bikomo’s activities widened in 1997, but was later released. In September 1998, his body turned up in Medellín, Colombia. (courtesy: Global Witness).
Shortly before his death, however, Alogo wrote a confession, subsequently passed to Global Witness, in which he claimed that his “luxury house in Madrid was used as a base for drug trafficking, document forgery and trafficking in Equatoguinean passports!” Quite a beauty, what, this Alogo?
So there you are, sirs, Nanguande’s referrer to the Pakistan Embassy, Madrid, and who himself had once enjoyed ‘official guest’ status to the Citadel of Islam, was a character vile enough to not only be arrested and investigated for drug dealing himself, but who was later bumped off in the world capital of drug smuggling, Medellin, Colombia. Fine company our FO keeps, what?
Nanguande too made a written statement while in jail, effectively nailing his own country’s name to the mast of iniquity and impropriety and the worst possible criminality imaginable. He said that EG was a ‘plaque tournante’ (a revolving door) in a narcotics trafficking network that was based around its foreign missions and use of their diplomatic bag to transport drugs. He also named senior regime figures who, he said, headed and ran the trafficking network. (courtesy: Global Witness).
As if all of this were not enough, a short look at EG’s president, Teodoro Obiang Nguema, in his own words: “I am the one who arranges things in this country because in Africa there are a lot of problems of corruption, the diversion of money. If there is corruption, diversion of funds, then I’m responsible.
“That’s why I’m a hundred per cent sure of all the revenue because the one who signs is me … I find myself forced to personally assume full responsibility as Sole National Paymaster General — even though many people are against this — in order to exercise the necessary control, since as president of the republic, the constitution holds me responsible for the proper functioning of all state institutions.” I ask you.
Incidentally, President Obiang is the nephew of the nation’s first president, Francisco Macías Nguema, whose oppressive regime is estimated to have exterminated or exiled one-third of the country’s population during his 11-year rule and who was tried and executed by his own nephew. They are all beauties are they not?
More juicy bits in the coming weeks, Excellencies, especially on EG the country which is a criminal enterprise if ever there was one. Proving the point that it was, indeed, the Great-Grandmother of All Drug Visas.
Meanwhile, back at the ranch, the despair I had spoken about last week has turned into hope as we Pakistanis ride, courtesy the Commando, a rickety roller coaster that can go off the rails any time, hurling us to our respective fates. This time the good vibes one felt during the prime minister’s visit to Mr Nawaz Sharif and the Punjab chief minister’s interview with Talat Hussain make one hopeful about the future. The body language of Yousuf Raza Gilani and Nawaz and Shahbaz Sharif was perfect; the things they said in the press conference were what one was waiting to hear.
CM Dost Mohammad Khosa impressed one no end. He was clear-headed, well-spoken and frank, looked his interviewer in the eye, and said all the right things. He was especially good when he defended his party leadership’s input in decision-making and when he repeatedly referred to his and the federal government as ‘coalition governments’. Very well done, young man, and may God keep you in His care.
And now, many felicitations and mubarak to the Sindh government and the federal government, respectively for returning the Hindu Gymkhana to the Hindu community, and considering to convert the death sentences imposed on prisoners to life imprisonment. In the first case, the building should never have been taken over; and in the second this country’s police investigations are just too unfair, too archaic, and one in which money talks too loudly.
Might one say here that Sarabjeet Singh too should be spared the death penalty as just another inmate on death row — his being an Indian national should make no difference. It is no good to leave his fate in the hands of an evidently bamboozled Commando.
In the end, may I once again urge the government to reconsider the appointment of General Mahmud Durrani as adviser to the prime minister on national security? If he must be appointed to a cabinet post for reasons that escape most of us, let him be adviser to the Commando on whatever. Why should someone who is so evidently in the American camp — one who has referred to the well-known American neo-con Shireen Taherkheli as the ‘mother-hen’ who made and then inducted him into the ‘Balusa Group’, an American-funded think-tank — be privy to what the prime minister says to, say, the Chinese or the Russians?
If there has to be an adviser on national security, why not the tried and tested General Naseerullah Babar who knows the tribal area and its norms and customs and sensitivities, and the people who live there, more than he knows the back of his hand? (Please, I have not met the general, nor spoken to him, in at least eight years, even 10).
Bushism of the week: “Let me start off by saying that in 2000 I said, ‘Vote for me. I’m an agent of change.’ In 2004, I said, ‘I’m not interested in change — I want to continue as president. Every candidate has got to say ‘change.’ That’s what the American people expect,” — President George W. Bush; Washington, D.C., March 5, 2008. n
kshafi1@yahoo.co.uk
AS I slowly reveal the twin cases of ‘The FO That Doesn’t Give a Damn’ and the ‘Equatoguinean Shyster and Crook Who Made Monkeys of the FO (Or Did He?)’, our most honourable senators will realise what a very big crime it is not to read the papers every morning. For these two cases have been written about for years now. By none other than I.
Here are this week’s titillations then: The drug smuggler, Santos Pascual Bikomo Nanguande, who made a monkey of the FO and its many ‘core-professionals’ and Mandarins (Or Did He?) and got nine years in a Spanish jail for his pains, was given the status of ‘official guest’ because, in the words of our then ambassador to Spain he was “accompanied by Alogo (no first name, no family name, just Alogo, please note senators) who was known to have visited Pakistan earlier in an official capacity”!
I ask you.
But who in heaven’s name was Alogo, Nanguande’s referrer to the Pakistan Embassy? He was none other than Joaquín María Alogo de Ondo Edu, the son-in-law of the president of Equatorial Guinea, President Teodoro Obiang Nguema! Alogo too was arrested as Spanish investigations into Bikomo’s activities widened in 1997, but was later released. In September 1998, his body turned up in Medellín, Colombia. (courtesy: Global Witness).
Shortly before his death, however, Alogo wrote a confession, subsequently passed to Global Witness, in which he claimed that his “luxury house in Madrid was used as a base for drug trafficking, document forgery and trafficking in Equatoguinean passports!” Quite a beauty, what, this Alogo?
So there you are, sirs, Nanguande’s referrer to the Pakistan Embassy, Madrid, and who himself had once enjoyed ‘official guest’ status to the Citadel of Islam, was a character vile enough to not only be arrested and investigated for drug dealing himself, but who was later bumped off in the world capital of drug smuggling, Medellin, Colombia. Fine company our FO keeps, what?
Nanguande too made a written statement while in jail, effectively nailing his own country’s name to the mast of iniquity and impropriety and the worst possible criminality imaginable. He said that EG was a ‘plaque tournante’ (a revolving door) in a narcotics trafficking network that was based around its foreign missions and use of their diplomatic bag to transport drugs. He also named senior regime figures who, he said, headed and ran the trafficking network. (courtesy: Global Witness).
As if all of this were not enough, a short look at EG’s president, Teodoro Obiang Nguema, in his own words: “I am the one who arranges things in this country because in Africa there are a lot of problems of corruption, the diversion of money. If there is corruption, diversion of funds, then I’m responsible.
“That’s why I’m a hundred per cent sure of all the revenue because the one who signs is me … I find myself forced to personally assume full responsibility as Sole National Paymaster General — even though many people are against this — in order to exercise the necessary control, since as president of the republic, the constitution holds me responsible for the proper functioning of all state institutions.” I ask you.
Incidentally, President Obiang is the nephew of the nation’s first president, Francisco Macías Nguema, whose oppressive regime is estimated to have exterminated or exiled one-third of the country’s population during his 11-year rule and who was tried and executed by his own nephew. They are all beauties are they not?
More juicy bits in the coming weeks, Excellencies, especially on EG the country which is a criminal enterprise if ever there was one. Proving the point that it was, indeed, the Great-Grandmother of All Drug Visas.
Meanwhile, back at the ranch, the despair I had spoken about last week has turned into hope as we Pakistanis ride, courtesy the Commando, a rickety roller coaster that can go off the rails any time, hurling us to our respective fates. This time the good vibes one felt during the prime minister’s visit to Mr Nawaz Sharif and the Punjab chief minister’s interview with Talat Hussain make one hopeful about the future. The body language of Yousuf Raza Gilani and Nawaz and Shahbaz Sharif was perfect; the things they said in the press conference were what one was waiting to hear.
CM Dost Mohammad Khosa impressed one no end. He was clear-headed, well-spoken and frank, looked his interviewer in the eye, and said all the right things. He was especially good when he defended his party leadership’s input in decision-making and when he repeatedly referred to his and the federal government as ‘coalition governments’. Very well done, young man, and may God keep you in His care.
And now, many felicitations and mubarak to the Sindh government and the federal government, respectively for returning the Hindu Gymkhana to the Hindu community, and considering to convert the death sentences imposed on prisoners to life imprisonment. In the first case, the building should never have been taken over; and in the second this country’s police investigations are just too unfair, too archaic, and one in which money talks too loudly.
Might one say here that Sarabjeet Singh too should be spared the death penalty as just another inmate on death row — his being an Indian national should make no difference. It is no good to leave his fate in the hands of an evidently bamboozled Commando.
In the end, may I once again urge the government to reconsider the appointment of General Mahmud Durrani as adviser to the prime minister on national security? If he must be appointed to a cabinet post for reasons that escape most of us, let him be adviser to the Commando on whatever. Why should someone who is so evidently in the American camp — one who has referred to the well-known American neo-con Shireen Taherkheli as the ‘mother-hen’ who made and then inducted him into the ‘Balusa Group’, an American-funded think-tank — be privy to what the prime minister says to, say, the Chinese or the Russians?
If there has to be an adviser on national security, why not the tried and tested General Naseerullah Babar who knows the tribal area and its norms and customs and sensitivities, and the people who live there, more than he knows the back of his hand? (Please, I have not met the general, nor spoken to him, in at least eight years, even 10).
Bushism of the week: “Let me start off by saying that in 2000 I said, ‘Vote for me. I’m an agent of change.’ In 2004, I said, ‘I’m not interested in change — I want to continue as president. Every candidate has got to say ‘change.’ That’s what the American people expect,” — President George W. Bush; Washington, D.C., March 5, 2008. n
kshafi1@yahoo.co.uk
Tuesday, April 15, 2008
The (grand) mother of drug visas
By Kamran Shafi
OUR senators have been much incensed at the Pakistani mission in Nigeria particularly, for issuing what they call ‘drug visas’ to spurious businessmen and women who come to this country to become carriers of drugs, even heroin.
This contraband they then attempt to carry to other countries, obviously on behalf of drug lords, some of them getting through and making unbelievable wages, some indeed getting caught in countries such as Saudi Arabia which has a zero tolerance policy on drugs and getting their heads lopped off.
The honourable senators have been going blue in the face trying to get the Foreign Office ‘core-professionals’ to admit wrong; the ‘core-professionals’ have as usual parcelled the blame elsewhere, an ingenious babu even putting most of it upon a now deceased counsellor.
Indeed, the senators are so riled and exasperated that one of them, Enver Baig of the People’s Party, is reported to have beseeched the FO with folded hands to desist from aiding and abetting drug smugglers because it gives such a very bad name to the country.
But this lot of Nigerians they talk about are small fry, little people who get visas by hook or by crook (if American consular officers in the Land of the Pure can issue visas to Amreeka Bahadur after extorting bribes, why can’t Pakistani consular officers in Nigeria?) and then attempt to smuggle small amounts of heroin in their stomachs or other parts of their anatomy. I am surprised that the senators do not know about the Mother of All Drug Visas.
Sometime in the fourth week of June 1997, a fellow called Santos Pascual Bikomo Nanguande, then said to be the information minister of Equatorial Guinea, turned up on the doorstep of the Pakistan Embassy in Madrid, Spain, accompanied by a man called, simply Alogo.
Lo and behold, and before you could say ‘Charlie’s Aunt’ Nanguande was not only issued a visa to visit the Citadel of Islam but was also anointed as an ‘official guest’ of the government of Pakistan, may God bless her and all who sail in her. Kindly note immediately please, that whilst Pakistan did not have an embassy in EG, our mission to Nigeria was accredited to it. The Pakistan Embassy in Spain had nothing whatever to do with EG.
From June 28 to July 6, 1997, Nanguande was feted right royally by the GOP, calling on then President Farooq Khan Leghari, Information Minister Mushahid ‘Mandela’ Hussain, Foreign Minister Sartaj Aziz, the presidents of certain Chambers of Commerce and Industry, and sundry mandarins of the ministries of foreign affairs, commerce, finance, et al.
On July 7, 1997, the shyster and crook was arrested at Madrid airport carrying high-grade heroin worth $13m in his briefcase. It is reported that a Pakistan Embassy car was at the airport to meet the flight but the official who was to receive him made tracks as soon as he saw the man being led off by the police.
Note also that when questioned why Master Nanguande was raised to ‘Official Guest’ status, one of the answers was that when he applied for the visa, he was accompanied by the Alogo chappie who too had once been an ‘Official Guest’ of the GOP! I ask you, senators!
Note too that when the scandal broke, the government of EG announced that Nanguande had been dismissed as the minister of information a few days before he approached the Pakistan Embassy in Madrid for a visa, and that the Note Verbale that he carried with him was fake too!
If the senators who have been investigating scams to do with smuggling drugs out of our country are even halfway serious, they should ask the FO the following questions:
* Why did the Pakistan Embassy in Madrid take it upon itself to step onto another mission’s turf anyway?
* Why did the Pakistani Embassy in Madrid not get clearance from our high commission in Nigeria before issuing the smuggler a visa?
* If indeed it was imperative that the crook simply had to be issued a visa because of great affairs of state, why did the Pakistani mission in Madrid not ask the EG embassy in Madrid if the man was for real?
* Why did the Pakistani mission in Madrid make a recommendation to the GOP to give Nanguande ‘Official Guest’ status?
* Who approved this recommendation within the FO?
* How could Nanguande make contact with heroin drug lords during his stay in the country as an ‘Official Guest’ of the GOP? Did he go about unescorted?
* Since the FO was the driving force behind anointing the crook with ‘Official Guest’ status, was an FO official deputed to be his conducting officer? And if not, why not?
* Who saw him off at Islamabad airport at the end of his ‘Official Visit”? And even if he used the VIP lounge, why did customs/ANF anti-drug smuggling controls not come into play?
Ask these questions, senators, if you really want to get to the bottom of this whole racket.
Meanwhile, back at the ranch, hope has given way to despair mainly because too many people are saying too many things, the People’s Party third-tier leadership in particular saying very bad things indeed.
There is no ambiguity whatsoever in the wording of the Murree/Bhurban declaration. “Thirty days after the formation of the federal government” is not a very difficult passage in very easy English. I mean it is not as if we were trying to decipher Chaucer, that we need Sherry Rehman to explain what exactly he meant in a certain context, or in the mealy-mouthed words of our FO what the nuances of a certain verse really were: 30 days is 30 days.
Keep things simple is my advice to the PPP. And please put several halters (and reins) on Babar Awan, Khosa and Naek, in that order. The more they open their mouths the more they land the party in trouble. Remember too that the people who put you where you are, are getting restless; more than anything else remember that they have rejected the Commando out of hand. So please understand that this is no time for being cute.
In the end, kudos to Nawaz Sharif for standing firm as a rock.
kshafi1@yahoo.co.uk
OUR senators have been much incensed at the Pakistani mission in Nigeria particularly, for issuing what they call ‘drug visas’ to spurious businessmen and women who come to this country to become carriers of drugs, even heroin.
This contraband they then attempt to carry to other countries, obviously on behalf of drug lords, some of them getting through and making unbelievable wages, some indeed getting caught in countries such as Saudi Arabia which has a zero tolerance policy on drugs and getting their heads lopped off.
The honourable senators have been going blue in the face trying to get the Foreign Office ‘core-professionals’ to admit wrong; the ‘core-professionals’ have as usual parcelled the blame elsewhere, an ingenious babu even putting most of it upon a now deceased counsellor.
Indeed, the senators are so riled and exasperated that one of them, Enver Baig of the People’s Party, is reported to have beseeched the FO with folded hands to desist from aiding and abetting drug smugglers because it gives such a very bad name to the country.
But this lot of Nigerians they talk about are small fry, little people who get visas by hook or by crook (if American consular officers in the Land of the Pure can issue visas to Amreeka Bahadur after extorting bribes, why can’t Pakistani consular officers in Nigeria?) and then attempt to smuggle small amounts of heroin in their stomachs or other parts of their anatomy. I am surprised that the senators do not know about the Mother of All Drug Visas.
Sometime in the fourth week of June 1997, a fellow called Santos Pascual Bikomo Nanguande, then said to be the information minister of Equatorial Guinea, turned up on the doorstep of the Pakistan Embassy in Madrid, Spain, accompanied by a man called, simply Alogo.
Lo and behold, and before you could say ‘Charlie’s Aunt’ Nanguande was not only issued a visa to visit the Citadel of Islam but was also anointed as an ‘official guest’ of the government of Pakistan, may God bless her and all who sail in her. Kindly note immediately please, that whilst Pakistan did not have an embassy in EG, our mission to Nigeria was accredited to it. The Pakistan Embassy in Spain had nothing whatever to do with EG.
From June 28 to July 6, 1997, Nanguande was feted right royally by the GOP, calling on then President Farooq Khan Leghari, Information Minister Mushahid ‘Mandela’ Hussain, Foreign Minister Sartaj Aziz, the presidents of certain Chambers of Commerce and Industry, and sundry mandarins of the ministries of foreign affairs, commerce, finance, et al.
On July 7, 1997, the shyster and crook was arrested at Madrid airport carrying high-grade heroin worth $13m in his briefcase. It is reported that a Pakistan Embassy car was at the airport to meet the flight but the official who was to receive him made tracks as soon as he saw the man being led off by the police.
Note also that when questioned why Master Nanguande was raised to ‘Official Guest’ status, one of the answers was that when he applied for the visa, he was accompanied by the Alogo chappie who too had once been an ‘Official Guest’ of the GOP! I ask you, senators!
Note too that when the scandal broke, the government of EG announced that Nanguande had been dismissed as the minister of information a few days before he approached the Pakistan Embassy in Madrid for a visa, and that the Note Verbale that he carried with him was fake too!
If the senators who have been investigating scams to do with smuggling drugs out of our country are even halfway serious, they should ask the FO the following questions:
* Why did the Pakistan Embassy in Madrid take it upon itself to step onto another mission’s turf anyway?
* Why did the Pakistani Embassy in Madrid not get clearance from our high commission in Nigeria before issuing the smuggler a visa?
* If indeed it was imperative that the crook simply had to be issued a visa because of great affairs of state, why did the Pakistani mission in Madrid not ask the EG embassy in Madrid if the man was for real?
* Why did the Pakistani mission in Madrid make a recommendation to the GOP to give Nanguande ‘Official Guest’ status?
* Who approved this recommendation within the FO?
* How could Nanguande make contact with heroin drug lords during his stay in the country as an ‘Official Guest’ of the GOP? Did he go about unescorted?
* Since the FO was the driving force behind anointing the crook with ‘Official Guest’ status, was an FO official deputed to be his conducting officer? And if not, why not?
* Who saw him off at Islamabad airport at the end of his ‘Official Visit”? And even if he used the VIP lounge, why did customs/ANF anti-drug smuggling controls not come into play?
Ask these questions, senators, if you really want to get to the bottom of this whole racket.
Meanwhile, back at the ranch, hope has given way to despair mainly because too many people are saying too many things, the People’s Party third-tier leadership in particular saying very bad things indeed.
There is no ambiguity whatsoever in the wording of the Murree/Bhurban declaration. “Thirty days after the formation of the federal government” is not a very difficult passage in very easy English. I mean it is not as if we were trying to decipher Chaucer, that we need Sherry Rehman to explain what exactly he meant in a certain context, or in the mealy-mouthed words of our FO what the nuances of a certain verse really were: 30 days is 30 days.
Keep things simple is my advice to the PPP. And please put several halters (and reins) on Babar Awan, Khosa and Naek, in that order. The more they open their mouths the more they land the party in trouble. Remember too that the people who put you where you are, are getting restless; more than anything else remember that they have rejected the Commando out of hand. So please understand that this is no time for being cute.
In the end, kudos to Nawaz Sharif for standing firm as a rock.
kshafi1@yahoo.co.uk
Tuesday, April 8, 2008
The vultures have landed
By Kamran Shafi
ANYONE who has any doubts that the Commando has really lost his marbles, and that those who surround him — his toadies and flunkies and sycophants and hangers-on — live in cloud cuckoo land should read a story in this newspaper of April 7 instant. ‘Official sources’ are the source of the story.
‘Americans to attack Fata if Musharraf steps down’ says among other things that only Musharraf’s ‘strong personal links’ with Dubya are keeping the Americans from attacking Fata and taking Dr A.Q. Khan ‘away’ for interrogation. Also that if Musharraf hadn’t worked ‘behind-the-scenes’ the ‘positive change’ in the MQM’s ‘outlook and role in national issues’ would not have happened.
While one will leave it to the MQM to answer the grave charge that it would have behaved negatively had the Commando’s sobering influence been absent, the point about the Americans not attacking Pakistan only because the Commando has ‘strong personal links’ with Dubya should get the moron (Dubya, here) impeached even now.
For the American voter would be much incensed if it became known to him or her that the commander-in-chief was not taking a certain action to the benefit of the United States (if a completely mad exercise such as an all-out attack on Pakistan could ever be considered a beneficial action for the US) merely because of friendship. They would physically kick the fellow out of the White House.
The story makes other silly assertions too, such as if the Commando resigns China would be annoyed because Gwadar (which the Americans didn’t want anyway!) would not be completed, etcetera. And of course that the Commando’s decision “to stay in office was more in ‘national interests’ than in his own”.
All one can say is that the man’s shamelessness quotient is higher than one thought. Which reminds me. Why in the world is he going to China on an official visit at all when the elected government in Islamabad already, and in ALL the provinces soon, will not even give him the time of day?
The Chinese are of an ancient culture; they are wise and courteous to a fault; and of course they will roll out the red carpet for him because of China’s long friendship with Pakistan. But why does the Commando insist on embarrassing them when they know perfectly well that he is a much despised person in the country he will pretend to represent? And, that time has moved on for him?
Indeed, Finance Minister Ishaq Dar has taken a principled stand and is not accompanying him because the PML-N wants to have nothing to do with him, a fact not unknown to the Chinese. (Why is Shah Mahmood Qureshi going, may one ask?). So why is the Commando going at all? Even now a convenient bout of ’flu should save all and sundry loads of embarrassment.
And now for the vultures. You can see them in every five-star hotel, and some wannabe five-star hotels; the vultures who land in Islamabad the Beautiful at every change of government dressed to kill in their designer suits, their feet adorned in Ferragamo shoes, Tumi briefcases held in beautifully manicured hands.
They move into suites that cost in the hundreds of dollars and hang around the hotel lobbies being obsequious, and trying to attach themselves to whomever they think has a chance of being thrown some scraps from the high table.
The faces are the same, with some few exceptions, as those one saw operating under the last lot, their modus operandi scarcely changing. These are the shysters and the deal-makers and the commission agents; these are the vultures out to make a quick buck or two (millions and trillions if possible, but anything will do).
They meet you with much familiarity even though you might never have met them, ever. Some who you might recognise from days gone by will say things like, “Yaar, you never call me when you come to Karachi”, as if they had called you whenever they were in Islamabad the Beautiful, every single week, making deals with the previous lot.
Their antennae are sensitive, so sensitive that they would put cockroaches to shame. For in no time at all — give them a night or two — they know who is who; who will be what; and who will not. Who they should give time to and who deserves the immediate cold shoulder. For time is of the essence to them and who knows what tomorrow might bring?!
I am reminded here of an amusing incident. I was the late and much lamented Benazir Bhutto’s press secretary in 1989 when a friend of a friend called from the airport to say he had just come in from Karachi and wanted to see me. I said sure, and sent my office person downstairs to the kitchen to get some hors d’oeuvre the PM House bakery used to provide for special occasions.
He came in, sat down, and asked if I could do him a ‘favour’. The request was not quite proper so I said that I did not think I could help him. “Achha,” he said, “to Bhai mein chalta hoon,” and walked right out of my office ignoring my pleadings to him to at least have a cup of tea that had just been brought in!! He wasn’t about to spend an extra minute with a useless character, so off he went!
May I end by saying that while Attorney-General Malik Qayyum’s shamelessness is almost, but not quite, at par with the Commando’s, he should be sacked forthwith. Not only is he an insalubrious character, his staying on is sending entirely the wrong signals.
Bushism of the week: “I want to thank my friend, Senator Bill Frist, for joining us today … he married a Texas girl, I want you to know. A West Texas girl, just like me” —President George W. Bush; Nashville, Tennessee; May 27, 2004. n
kshafi1@yahoo.co.uk
ANYONE who has any doubts that the Commando has really lost his marbles, and that those who surround him — his toadies and flunkies and sycophants and hangers-on — live in cloud cuckoo land should read a story in this newspaper of April 7 instant. ‘Official sources’ are the source of the story.
‘Americans to attack Fata if Musharraf steps down’ says among other things that only Musharraf’s ‘strong personal links’ with Dubya are keeping the Americans from attacking Fata and taking Dr A.Q. Khan ‘away’ for interrogation. Also that if Musharraf hadn’t worked ‘behind-the-scenes’ the ‘positive change’ in the MQM’s ‘outlook and role in national issues’ would not have happened.
While one will leave it to the MQM to answer the grave charge that it would have behaved negatively had the Commando’s sobering influence been absent, the point about the Americans not attacking Pakistan only because the Commando has ‘strong personal links’ with Dubya should get the moron (Dubya, here) impeached even now.
For the American voter would be much incensed if it became known to him or her that the commander-in-chief was not taking a certain action to the benefit of the United States (if a completely mad exercise such as an all-out attack on Pakistan could ever be considered a beneficial action for the US) merely because of friendship. They would physically kick the fellow out of the White House.
The story makes other silly assertions too, such as if the Commando resigns China would be annoyed because Gwadar (which the Americans didn’t want anyway!) would not be completed, etcetera. And of course that the Commando’s decision “to stay in office was more in ‘national interests’ than in his own”.
All one can say is that the man’s shamelessness quotient is higher than one thought. Which reminds me. Why in the world is he going to China on an official visit at all when the elected government in Islamabad already, and in ALL the provinces soon, will not even give him the time of day?
The Chinese are of an ancient culture; they are wise and courteous to a fault; and of course they will roll out the red carpet for him because of China’s long friendship with Pakistan. But why does the Commando insist on embarrassing them when they know perfectly well that he is a much despised person in the country he will pretend to represent? And, that time has moved on for him?
Indeed, Finance Minister Ishaq Dar has taken a principled stand and is not accompanying him because the PML-N wants to have nothing to do with him, a fact not unknown to the Chinese. (Why is Shah Mahmood Qureshi going, may one ask?). So why is the Commando going at all? Even now a convenient bout of ’flu should save all and sundry loads of embarrassment.
And now for the vultures. You can see them in every five-star hotel, and some wannabe five-star hotels; the vultures who land in Islamabad the Beautiful at every change of government dressed to kill in their designer suits, their feet adorned in Ferragamo shoes, Tumi briefcases held in beautifully manicured hands.
They move into suites that cost in the hundreds of dollars and hang around the hotel lobbies being obsequious, and trying to attach themselves to whomever they think has a chance of being thrown some scraps from the high table.
The faces are the same, with some few exceptions, as those one saw operating under the last lot, their modus operandi scarcely changing. These are the shysters and the deal-makers and the commission agents; these are the vultures out to make a quick buck or two (millions and trillions if possible, but anything will do).
They meet you with much familiarity even though you might never have met them, ever. Some who you might recognise from days gone by will say things like, “Yaar, you never call me when you come to Karachi”, as if they had called you whenever they were in Islamabad the Beautiful, every single week, making deals with the previous lot.
Their antennae are sensitive, so sensitive that they would put cockroaches to shame. For in no time at all — give them a night or two — they know who is who; who will be what; and who will not. Who they should give time to and who deserves the immediate cold shoulder. For time is of the essence to them and who knows what tomorrow might bring?!
I am reminded here of an amusing incident. I was the late and much lamented Benazir Bhutto’s press secretary in 1989 when a friend of a friend called from the airport to say he had just come in from Karachi and wanted to see me. I said sure, and sent my office person downstairs to the kitchen to get some hors d’oeuvre the PM House bakery used to provide for special occasions.
He came in, sat down, and asked if I could do him a ‘favour’. The request was not quite proper so I said that I did not think I could help him. “Achha,” he said, “to Bhai mein chalta hoon,” and walked right out of my office ignoring my pleadings to him to at least have a cup of tea that had just been brought in!! He wasn’t about to spend an extra minute with a useless character, so off he went!
May I end by saying that while Attorney-General Malik Qayyum’s shamelessness is almost, but not quite, at par with the Commando’s, he should be sacked forthwith. Not only is he an insalubrious character, his staying on is sending entirely the wrong signals.
Bushism of the week: “I want to thank my friend, Senator Bill Frist, for joining us today … he married a Texas girl, I want you to know. A West Texas girl, just like me” —President George W. Bush; Nashville, Tennessee; May 27, 2004. n
kshafi1@yahoo.co.uk
Tuesday, April 1, 2008
Why, pray, Agha Shahi Avenue?
By Kamran Shafi
THE Capital Development Authority of Islamabad the Beautiful has done what only the brilliant Capital Development Authority of Islamabad the Beautiful can do: name one of the main avenues in the city after an arch bureaucrat, someone called Agha Shahi!
What was so special about Agha Shahi? The fact that he served a military dictator, particularly one that had hanged his own former minister and president and prime minister, Zulfikar Ali Bhutto?
If Ninth Avenue simply had to be named after a foreign office functionary, why not the good Aziz Ahmed who has only recently been remembered as a most refined and graceful gentleman and who too was Shahi’s boss as foreign minister? Or Jamshed Marker, voted the best diplomat in the world? But why in the world Agha Shahi, please, who is not noted for anything other than longevity in office?
Indeed, there is no road in Islamabad the Beautiful named after Zulfikar Ali Bhutto, Pakistan’s most brilliant leader, elected at that, who till today commands a nationwide following unmatched by any other politician barring his own daughter, the horrifically murdered Benazir Bhutto.
There is no road named after Benazir either, despite the fact that she was a twice-elected prime minister of the country. Whose party is the majority party in the federation and in two provinces, and which will be part of governments in all the provinces. There is no road named after her, the brightest star on Pakistan’s political firmament.
Indeed, there is no road named after Nawaz Sharif, also twice elected Prime Minister of Pakistan and whose party today has the most seats in Punjab and is at number two in the National Assembly where his party is in a coalition with the People’s Party. So why Agha Shahi?
Last week I had made some suggestions to the new leadership. Here are some more: Adding my voice to that of famous columnist Ardeshir Cowasjee, let me ask that the prime minister immediately send his military secretary and ADCs back to their respective services. The parliamentary system simply does not allow uniformed officers hovering around parliament.
Indeed, why should a uniformed officer attend meetings of the prime minister with high functionaries from abroad such as the duo of Negroponte and Boucher most recently? Why should the PM’s deliberations with anyone for that matter be heard by officials who owe their loyalty elsewhere?
In any case, the political parties which have been kicked in the teeth by the army for too long now should realise that the trappings of state power such as military secretaries and ADCs never had anything to do with their ascent to power through elections.
I mean, Yusuf Raza Gilani did perfectly well fighting his election with his own civilian team of a private secretary and other aides: why should he need an MS and ADCs now? Why should he not select and groom his own personal staff from among those he knows and trusts? How difficult is it to connect telephones?
This is not all. The guards for the PM’s residence and offices should not be drawn from the army either. As we well know they are troops from the notorious 111 (Coup) Brigade, and all they have to do once the top hierarchy of the army decides they are taking over the country is to turn their guns inwards, towards the person they were ostensibly ‘defending’ a minute earlier, and put him or her in chains.
The police can be asked to specially train a battalion strength of specially selected policemen under the command of an SP to provide guards for the PM and, once the Commando is a memory, the president. These troops could have a new salary structure like the motorway police so that the best are inducted for this most sensitive of jobs.
And now to the visit of M/s Negroponte and Boucher. By golly, what brass to come a-calling when the future government hadn’t even come into office. What made matters infinitely worse was that the prime minister hadn’t even been sworn-in when the two rolled in, like very bad pennies indeed.
Also, might one ask why the Deputy Secretary of State of the United States called on the COAS? Isn’t the State Department supposed to interact with the government in the FO, and not directly with department heads? Was there a note-taker from the FO recording what was said?
A word about the appointment of Siraj Shamsuddin as principal secretary to the PM. Much is being made about his Grade-20. Well, if he hadn’t been hounded out of the country for no good reason he would have been in Grade-22 long hence!
I met Siraj just once while he was in exile in London and that too by accident. Let alone looking like someone living in luxury, my heart broke when I saw the condition he was in. Recompense must be made for the way in which the (quite grotty) State of Pakistan has treated him. He is an extremely efficient officer and a good man and I wish him well.
As an aside, the news has just come in that Major General Mahmud Durrani has been appointed national security adviser to the PM, ostensibly to be a bridge between the US and Pakistan, and between GHQ and the Pentagon. He is well known to the Americans, we all know that; but it is a bad idea, a very bad idea. Not only are he and the Commando thick as thieves, he is a rabid People’s Party hater.
To end I must point to yet another political statement of the COAS, this time on March 23 in front of a gathering of retired army officers, to the effect that the army will live up to the ‘expectations’ of the people.
Let me repeat myself: no army in the world has the means of ascertaining the expectations of the people. The very best any army can do is to follow, truly and loyally, the dictates of the properly constituted government of the day which alone is the repository and the arbiter of the people’s ‘expectations’. I daresay an Indian COAS would have been sacked, at the very least rapped hard on the knuckles for making such a statement.
P.S. The PM has ordered that henceforth federal ministers will only use 1600cc motor cars, but sleek, black BMW 7 Series limousines are often seen in corps commanders’ motorcades. Are they the personal property of the officers concerned or army issue? Would the army please clarify? And my friend Tariq Aziz ‘Babloo’ cruises in a latest model and huge Mercedes something-or-other: what about that when ministers will ride Toyota Corollas?
P.P.S. I never thought one such as poor old I would one day feel sorry for our macho Commando but I did feel deeply sorry for the pathetic figure he cut at the PM’s swearing-in. May I suggest the Commando ask Rashid Qureshi to whistle up a recording of the event and look at it? My bet is that he will cut his losses and just go away. (And we haven’t even seen the minister’s swearing-in yet(!) — I write this on the morning of Monday, March 31.)
kshafi1@yahoo.co.uk
THE Capital Development Authority of Islamabad the Beautiful has done what only the brilliant Capital Development Authority of Islamabad the Beautiful can do: name one of the main avenues in the city after an arch bureaucrat, someone called Agha Shahi!
What was so special about Agha Shahi? The fact that he served a military dictator, particularly one that had hanged his own former minister and president and prime minister, Zulfikar Ali Bhutto?
If Ninth Avenue simply had to be named after a foreign office functionary, why not the good Aziz Ahmed who has only recently been remembered as a most refined and graceful gentleman and who too was Shahi’s boss as foreign minister? Or Jamshed Marker, voted the best diplomat in the world? But why in the world Agha Shahi, please, who is not noted for anything other than longevity in office?
Indeed, there is no road in Islamabad the Beautiful named after Zulfikar Ali Bhutto, Pakistan’s most brilliant leader, elected at that, who till today commands a nationwide following unmatched by any other politician barring his own daughter, the horrifically murdered Benazir Bhutto.
There is no road named after Benazir either, despite the fact that she was a twice-elected prime minister of the country. Whose party is the majority party in the federation and in two provinces, and which will be part of governments in all the provinces. There is no road named after her, the brightest star on Pakistan’s political firmament.
Indeed, there is no road named after Nawaz Sharif, also twice elected Prime Minister of Pakistan and whose party today has the most seats in Punjab and is at number two in the National Assembly where his party is in a coalition with the People’s Party. So why Agha Shahi?
Last week I had made some suggestions to the new leadership. Here are some more: Adding my voice to that of famous columnist Ardeshir Cowasjee, let me ask that the prime minister immediately send his military secretary and ADCs back to their respective services. The parliamentary system simply does not allow uniformed officers hovering around parliament.
Indeed, why should a uniformed officer attend meetings of the prime minister with high functionaries from abroad such as the duo of Negroponte and Boucher most recently? Why should the PM’s deliberations with anyone for that matter be heard by officials who owe their loyalty elsewhere?
In any case, the political parties which have been kicked in the teeth by the army for too long now should realise that the trappings of state power such as military secretaries and ADCs never had anything to do with their ascent to power through elections.
I mean, Yusuf Raza Gilani did perfectly well fighting his election with his own civilian team of a private secretary and other aides: why should he need an MS and ADCs now? Why should he not select and groom his own personal staff from among those he knows and trusts? How difficult is it to connect telephones?
This is not all. The guards for the PM’s residence and offices should not be drawn from the army either. As we well know they are troops from the notorious 111 (Coup) Brigade, and all they have to do once the top hierarchy of the army decides they are taking over the country is to turn their guns inwards, towards the person they were ostensibly ‘defending’ a minute earlier, and put him or her in chains.
The police can be asked to specially train a battalion strength of specially selected policemen under the command of an SP to provide guards for the PM and, once the Commando is a memory, the president. These troops could have a new salary structure like the motorway police so that the best are inducted for this most sensitive of jobs.
And now to the visit of M/s Negroponte and Boucher. By golly, what brass to come a-calling when the future government hadn’t even come into office. What made matters infinitely worse was that the prime minister hadn’t even been sworn-in when the two rolled in, like very bad pennies indeed.
Also, might one ask why the Deputy Secretary of State of the United States called on the COAS? Isn’t the State Department supposed to interact with the government in the FO, and not directly with department heads? Was there a note-taker from the FO recording what was said?
A word about the appointment of Siraj Shamsuddin as principal secretary to the PM. Much is being made about his Grade-20. Well, if he hadn’t been hounded out of the country for no good reason he would have been in Grade-22 long hence!
I met Siraj just once while he was in exile in London and that too by accident. Let alone looking like someone living in luxury, my heart broke when I saw the condition he was in. Recompense must be made for the way in which the (quite grotty) State of Pakistan has treated him. He is an extremely efficient officer and a good man and I wish him well.
As an aside, the news has just come in that Major General Mahmud Durrani has been appointed national security adviser to the PM, ostensibly to be a bridge between the US and Pakistan, and between GHQ and the Pentagon. He is well known to the Americans, we all know that; but it is a bad idea, a very bad idea. Not only are he and the Commando thick as thieves, he is a rabid People’s Party hater.
To end I must point to yet another political statement of the COAS, this time on March 23 in front of a gathering of retired army officers, to the effect that the army will live up to the ‘expectations’ of the people.
Let me repeat myself: no army in the world has the means of ascertaining the expectations of the people. The very best any army can do is to follow, truly and loyally, the dictates of the properly constituted government of the day which alone is the repository and the arbiter of the people’s ‘expectations’. I daresay an Indian COAS would have been sacked, at the very least rapped hard on the knuckles for making such a statement.
P.S. The PM has ordered that henceforth federal ministers will only use 1600cc motor cars, but sleek, black BMW 7 Series limousines are often seen in corps commanders’ motorcades. Are they the personal property of the officers concerned or army issue? Would the army please clarify? And my friend Tariq Aziz ‘Babloo’ cruises in a latest model and huge Mercedes something-or-other: what about that when ministers will ride Toyota Corollas?
P.P.S. I never thought one such as poor old I would one day feel sorry for our macho Commando but I did feel deeply sorry for the pathetic figure he cut at the PM’s swearing-in. May I suggest the Commando ask Rashid Qureshi to whistle up a recording of the event and look at it? My bet is that he will cut his losses and just go away. (And we haven’t even seen the minister’s swearing-in yet(!) — I write this on the morning of Monday, March 31.)
kshafi1@yahoo.co.uk
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