Posts
By Kamran Shafi
I HAVE to start this week’s piece by alluding to the reaction to last week’s article in which I had criticised the army’s indulging in the retail business. A correspondent writing in the letters’ section even accused me of ‘army-bashing’.
Not true, not even remotely. I have been writing in the national press for over 25 years now, and have always acknowledged the army as my second mother: I did join it as a very young boy of 19 after all, and spent some of the best years of my life in it, learning some great lessons that made officers and, hopefully, gentlemen of us.
I hasten to add that I was always in thrall to the Pakistan Army Act unlike the Commando; I always had the utmost respect for my commanding officers unlike the Commando; I was in no way as macho as the Commando. I was just a run-of-the-mill officer who tried to follow the dictates of good order and military discipline at all times. And when I failed I jolly well said sorry, again unlike the Commando.
That is why old soldiers like I get saddened and dismayed, indeed enraged when we see the army running real estate agencies and marriage halls, and bakeries and tikka and fast-food joints out of army officers’ messes. We are ashamed when we see officers’ messes renting out part of their premises to commercial organisations like banks, and when we see poultry and fish farms within unit lines.
We are astonished at the extent of the all-pervasive greed, for what else can one call it, and the free-for-all way in which the army high command has allowed it to grow. Go to the local flyblown bazaar at Marala Headworks near Sialkot and you will see a shop run by the local unit selling biscuits and toothpaste and what have you, a uniformed soldier standing behind the counter; go to Skardu and you will find a pastry and cake shop run by the Northern Light Infantry (once upon a time the Gilgit Scouts of legend, and the courageous Karakoram Scouts), a havaldar and two sepoys serving the customers.
As to the criticism that I wrote about the Mardan tragedy so close to its happening, the whole point was to bring into stark relief the fact that if the army was not into the retail business in such a big way that it was running its own marketplace where all comers were welcome and the more the merrier, mayhap the bombers would have found it slightly more difficult to do their dastardly act.
The point has to be made that all over the world, the armed forces stay within their own barracks and forts and, in the case of the subcontinent, cantonments. The United States; the United Kingdom; China; Russia; India; you name it, and units of the armed forces live and work within a secure environment. They do not sell merchandise in open markets and expose themselves to easy attack.
Just outside Washington DC is Fort Myers, among hundreds of other defence installations across the country, which you enter after only the most stringent checks. In the UK, there is the area of Salisbury Plain with its no-go areas for non-military persons. Even the Chelsea Barracks in the heart of London are off-limits to all except defence personnel, as are the Horse Guards and Household Cavalry. I must add here too that none of the above lend their premises for wedding receptions; none of their messes serve burgers and fries and fish and chips to the general public.
No army in the world sells state-owned land to its officers at throwaway prices, who then make a killing selling it to civilians in so-called Defence Housing and ‘General’ colonies. No army in the world runs banks (with the sole exception of the Thai Army which too is a state within a state) and travel agencies and security companies either.
It simply is not enough that the army withdraw some of its senior officers from high-profile civilian jobs. It must disengage itself from all commercial activities, particularly at this dangerous time when it is in the vanguard of the so-called war on terror, and is consequently the target of those that feel wronged by America’s not-so-sensitive attitude towards collateral damage.
A word about the leak in the papers about the possible sacking of Ashfaq Kayani. No one takes it as merely ‘malicious gossip’ please, for it comes from a ‘renowned defence analyst’, my old friend Ikram Sehgal. Ikram does not write carelessly, especially about such high-profile matters. There simply has to be some fire there somewhere. Perhaps set by an increasingly beleaguered Commando, thinking there was no harm in testing the wind by indulging in a little kite-flying.
For we are in the middle of sorting ourselves out: the political forces are trying to chart their way through the maze put into place by the Commando, a maze that has his own agents hidden within it. There are implied threats being made by the Commando and said agents, and so on. Why can the Americans not leave us in peace at this time so we can try and salvage whatever we can of this blessed country in our own way?
As to the threats, I am one of those that want the Commando to act NOW, not tomorrow. Let him dismiss the assemblies for all I care; let him sack the army chief and appoint his own relative (as ‘maliciously’ rumoured) for all I care: let the Commando do whatever he wants. For therein lies our salvation. For it is only then that the true and very ugly face of the state of Pakistan will really stare the people in the eye. And it is only then that we shall truly transform this country from a dictatorship to a true democracy.
Some weeks ago, I had counselled the Pakistan People’s Party to keep it simple and to do what it had promised to do, not once, but twice, both times going back on its word: restore the judges wrongly removed by a chief of army staff. It is imperative that this be done in accord with advice from the best legal brains in the country, through a simple executive order. The party will hurt itself very deeply if it continues to obfuscate matters.
Bushism of the week: “The folks who conducted to act on our country on Sept 11 made a big mistake. They underestimated America. They underestimated our resolve, our determination, our love for freedom. The misunderestimated the fact that we love a neighbour in need. They misunderestimated the compassion of our country. I think they misunderestimated the will and determination of the commander-in-chief, too.” — President George W Bush, Langley, Virginia, Sept 26, 2001.
kshafi1@yahoo.co.uk
Tuesday, May 27, 2008
Tuesday, May 20, 2008
Shame, all around
By Kamran Shafi
Sadly, a suicide bombing targeted the Punjab Regimental Centre bakery in the PRC market in Mardan, killing upwards of 14 people, most of them soldiers, and leaving many injured seriously, some maimed for life.
How many reams have been written about the complete inappropriateness of the army indulging in the retail business? What in heaven’s name have we made of this army? Rather than making political statements might one ask Ashfaq Kayani to please shake it awake, pull it out of the shops and the bakeries and the tikka joints and the real-estate agencies, and train it to do the job the nation pays it for? And while he is at it, to please initiate the shelving of the grand plans to build a new GHQ in Islamabad, an utter and huge waste of the country’s very meagre resources?
While we are on the subject of the army, may one ask the Punjab government to reclaim Birdwood Barracks in Lahore, which are up for auction by the Military Estates Officer for a reserve price of Rs500m being of no further use to the army, and turn it into a park for the citizens of the congested city of Lahore?
And may one ask the cabinet division to immediately issue a notification to the effect that no ministry can do as it pleases with lands under its present use. That all lands in the use of the various ministries are lands belonging to the GOVERNMENT of the country/of the province concerned, merely lent to the particular ministry for use. When that use is over it is the government that must decide what to do with the land, e.g., sell it for providing clean drinking water to, say, Karachi city.
It is preposterous that such lands are considered the ownership of the service concerned particularly of the all-powerful army. As an aside, when pressure built up on the Commando not to go ahead with the new GHQ, he had the gall to say the army would finance the costs by selling ‘land of the army’ (such as Birdwood Barracks)! He even had the effrontery to say that the army would give 25 per cent of the sale price to the government! I ask you! Is the Pakistan Army a department of the GOP or is the GOP a department of the Pakistan Army?
Let’s go elsewhere and spread the shame about. Shame, too, on those who have been advocating for some time, even before the coalition was formed at the centre, that the PPP make a compact with the PML-Q — or ‘Qatil’ League, as it was named by Asif Zardari after Benazir’s horrific murder — and such other independents and odds and you-know-whats who are amenable to pressure, and cobble together a government in the Punjab to the exclusion of the majority PML-N.
And on those that advocate the forming of a coalition between the PML-Q, the MQM, the ANP and the JUI-F at the centre too, to the exclusion of the PML-N which is the second-largest party in the National Assembly. In both enterprises, the dirty hands of the former Army House, now the President’s Lodge, and of the Mother of All Agencies are more than visible.
Well, much shame on them, and if the People’s Party is even thinking of such an arrangement, on it, too. For, does it not remember how it and its workers felt when its majority in the 2002 Sindh Assembly was stolen by the Commando and his sidekicks and a government of odds and you-know-whats was imposed on the people of Sindh?
Has the People’s Party forgotten so soon the travails visited upon its workers by the criminal enterprise that was rudely cobbled together, and which ruled Sindh for well on five years, ignoring the mandate of the people? Does it so easily forget its own democratic roots just because the Commando and his underwriters want it to travel on the undemocratic course?
Does the People’s Party forget that, again in 2002, when the Commando and his handmaiden, the corrupt and venal state of Pakistan, conspired to steal the slot of leader of the opposition from it and gift it to the then mullah-military alliance, a whole lot of us protested repeatedly, that the dictator and the ISI should stay out of the National Assembly such as it was?
Does it not recall that at the time, it was fully supported by most of us who write on politics in the national press, and that the Commando was criticised for the ill-intentioned dictator that he was, keeping the people he could not abide out, by hook or by crook, and bringing in his buddies in their place?
The PPP should remember its own travails, and always do the right, not the expedient, thing, if it is to survive — and be respected — as the national asset that it is. It must set an example for others to follow, not do things that have been done by autocrats and which have failed those that did them. Witness the 2008 referendum against the Commando and buddies please.
To end I have to say that to explain a matter in the simplest terms is to understand it in a flash. A reader who calls himself simply Ali explains the judicial tamasha (for what else can one call it?) thus:
“The dismissal of judges is like a dacoit occupying a house on gunpoint which has no legal or constitutional status. The PPP’s formula of restoring the genuine judges and keeping PCO judges is like the government saying that while it wants to give the house back to the real owner, it doesn’t want to disturb the dacoit and that the real owner should show flexibility and share the house with the dacoit.”
Are you listening Asif Zardari and Farooq Naek?
Bushism of the week: “I’ll be long gone before some smart person ever figures out what happened inside this Oval Office” — President George W. Bush; Washington, DC, May 12, 2008
kshafi1@yahoo.co.uk
Sadly, a suicide bombing targeted the Punjab Regimental Centre bakery in the PRC market in Mardan, killing upwards of 14 people, most of them soldiers, and leaving many injured seriously, some maimed for life.
How many reams have been written about the complete inappropriateness of the army indulging in the retail business? What in heaven’s name have we made of this army? Rather than making political statements might one ask Ashfaq Kayani to please shake it awake, pull it out of the shops and the bakeries and the tikka joints and the real-estate agencies, and train it to do the job the nation pays it for? And while he is at it, to please initiate the shelving of the grand plans to build a new GHQ in Islamabad, an utter and huge waste of the country’s very meagre resources?
While we are on the subject of the army, may one ask the Punjab government to reclaim Birdwood Barracks in Lahore, which are up for auction by the Military Estates Officer for a reserve price of Rs500m being of no further use to the army, and turn it into a park for the citizens of the congested city of Lahore?
And may one ask the cabinet division to immediately issue a notification to the effect that no ministry can do as it pleases with lands under its present use. That all lands in the use of the various ministries are lands belonging to the GOVERNMENT of the country/of the province concerned, merely lent to the particular ministry for use. When that use is over it is the government that must decide what to do with the land, e.g., sell it for providing clean drinking water to, say, Karachi city.
It is preposterous that such lands are considered the ownership of the service concerned particularly of the all-powerful army. As an aside, when pressure built up on the Commando not to go ahead with the new GHQ, he had the gall to say the army would finance the costs by selling ‘land of the army’ (such as Birdwood Barracks)! He even had the effrontery to say that the army would give 25 per cent of the sale price to the government! I ask you! Is the Pakistan Army a department of the GOP or is the GOP a department of the Pakistan Army?
Let’s go elsewhere and spread the shame about. Shame, too, on those who have been advocating for some time, even before the coalition was formed at the centre, that the PPP make a compact with the PML-Q — or ‘Qatil’ League, as it was named by Asif Zardari after Benazir’s horrific murder — and such other independents and odds and you-know-whats who are amenable to pressure, and cobble together a government in the Punjab to the exclusion of the majority PML-N.
And on those that advocate the forming of a coalition between the PML-Q, the MQM, the ANP and the JUI-F at the centre too, to the exclusion of the PML-N which is the second-largest party in the National Assembly. In both enterprises, the dirty hands of the former Army House, now the President’s Lodge, and of the Mother of All Agencies are more than visible.
Well, much shame on them, and if the People’s Party is even thinking of such an arrangement, on it, too. For, does it not remember how it and its workers felt when its majority in the 2002 Sindh Assembly was stolen by the Commando and his sidekicks and a government of odds and you-know-whats was imposed on the people of Sindh?
Has the People’s Party forgotten so soon the travails visited upon its workers by the criminal enterprise that was rudely cobbled together, and which ruled Sindh for well on five years, ignoring the mandate of the people? Does it so easily forget its own democratic roots just because the Commando and his underwriters want it to travel on the undemocratic course?
Does the People’s Party forget that, again in 2002, when the Commando and his handmaiden, the corrupt and venal state of Pakistan, conspired to steal the slot of leader of the opposition from it and gift it to the then mullah-military alliance, a whole lot of us protested repeatedly, that the dictator and the ISI should stay out of the National Assembly such as it was?
Does it not recall that at the time, it was fully supported by most of us who write on politics in the national press, and that the Commando was criticised for the ill-intentioned dictator that he was, keeping the people he could not abide out, by hook or by crook, and bringing in his buddies in their place?
The PPP should remember its own travails, and always do the right, not the expedient, thing, if it is to survive — and be respected — as the national asset that it is. It must set an example for others to follow, not do things that have been done by autocrats and which have failed those that did them. Witness the 2008 referendum against the Commando and buddies please.
To end I have to say that to explain a matter in the simplest terms is to understand it in a flash. A reader who calls himself simply Ali explains the judicial tamasha (for what else can one call it?) thus:
“The dismissal of judges is like a dacoit occupying a house on gunpoint which has no legal or constitutional status. The PPP’s formula of restoring the genuine judges and keeping PCO judges is like the government saying that while it wants to give the house back to the real owner, it doesn’t want to disturb the dacoit and that the real owner should show flexibility and share the house with the dacoit.”
Are you listening Asif Zardari and Farooq Naek?
Bushism of the week: “I’ll be long gone before some smart person ever figures out what happened inside this Oval Office” — President George W. Bush; Washington, DC, May 12, 2008
kshafi1@yahoo.co.uk
Tuesday, May 13, 2008
Despair and despondency
By Kamran Shafi
YES, yes I know. But first something that I wrote on the spur of the moment last week, on the day that the by-elections were postponed, and saved for this column:
“How in God’s name did Rehman Malik even dare to, on his own, think up a scheme such as the one he smacked the country in the face with just today? How the devil did the secretary of the Election Commission dare to order a postponement in the by-elections for two months on his own? Why, for goodness sake, did the collective leadership of the Pakistan People’s Party not know what its interior czar and de facto interior minister, pizzazz and all, was up to? But wait. Where, pray, was the chief election commissioner; where were the members of the Commission while all this argy bargy went on?
“Whilst we are well aware of the man’s extreme audacity already, could Rehman Malik have been as impudent and as presumptuous to, on his own, cook up what he did: lying to the Frontier chief minister about the other three provinces requesting a delay on grounds of bad law and order, and then instructing the Frontier government to write to the Election Commission to request a postponement too? And asking the federal interior secretary to follow up with telephone calls to the chief secretary, Frontier?
“Asif Zardari says he did not know about the bolt out of the blue that hit the country. Could Rehman Malik be so impertinent as to not even tell his benefactor that he was about to turn everything on its head, most particularly something that concerned very critically the chief minister of Punjab-in-waiting, Shahbaz Sharif, who too was participating in very same by-elections? And who had actually submitted his nomination papers from constituencies in Sialkot and Lahore on the very day that Master Malik was turning his tricks?
“And remember, Shahbaz Sharif, more than anything else, is the president of the Pakistan Muslim League-N which is in a coalition with the PPP (of which Rehman Malik is now considered a ‘central leader’, mark), both in the Punjab and in the centre. Indeed, in a strong coalition in both governments, particularly in the centre where its Ishaq Dar is finance minister at this very fraught time.
“So, what the blazes was Rehman Malik thinking when he went on his one-man demolition spree? Was he not aware that the coalition was already under extreme stress on the judges’ restoration issue, made worse by the vacillating and shifting stands of the, you guessed it, his very own PPP of which he is now, let us repeat, a ‘central leader’?
“Or was it, simply, a back-handed slap to the PML-N, warning it to stay within its boots, that the final arbiter on all matters was the People’s Party? For if it was, the coalition does not have much time.
“To show that it was nothing of the kind, that it was simply a case of an arrogant little man out of his wits in the giddying heights he occupies, Asif Zardari should take the most stringent action against Rehman Malik (such as despatching him back to London from whence he came, and where Malik, reportedly, sits atop a personal business empire worth gazillions), remembering that even Mushahid ‘Mandela’ Hussain who joint-led his party to a crushing defeat only three months ago, even he is laughing up his sleeve. To say nothing of the loud-mouthed Sheikh Rashid ‘Tulli’ who even lost his security deposit in the last elections; even one such as he is laughing up his sleeve!
“Save the coalition to save the party, Mr Zardari. And do it immediately if not sooner. Otherwise ‘THEY’ will devour you one by one.
“Let me add that tears well out of my eyes as I write this. I am heartbroken as I write this. For I have seen the establishment-driven politics of the late eighties and the early nineties up close and personal. What a sad, sad time it was, when two promising political leaders in the prime of youth were pitted against one another by those same forces that are doing their all to derail democracy once again.”
This, ladies and gentlemen, is what I wrote on the day that Rehman Malik did what he did. A week later, negotiations between the PPP and PML-N concerning the restoration of the judges sacked by the then COAS of the Pakistan Army, now retired General Pervez Musharraf, have broken down spreading despondency and despair across the land.
Was Rehman Malik’s crude action a precursor to this? Had the PPP already made up its mind that rather than going along with political forces opposed to military dictatorship, it preferred to follow the dictates of the former Army House, now the President’s Lodge, Rawalpindi Cantonment? More so because the illegal occupant of the Lodge is underwritten by the US government? And that a slap had to be administered to the PML-N so that it got the message?
It is most critical to note too, that of all the very good, bright people the party has, elected representatives all of them, people like Raza Rabbani and Khurshid Shah and Naveed Qamar and Qamaruzzaman Kaira among a host of others, who does Asif Zardari take to London for final talks with Nawaz and Shahbaz Sharif? You guessed it. The self-same Rehman Malik, bolstered by none other than that rather well-known personality Hussain Haqqani, the Islamic Republic’s ambassador-designate to the Land of the Free and The Home of the Brave.
While the PPP leader was assisted by these non-elected factotums, the PML-N leaders were in the company of the good Khawaja Asif and the very bright Ishaq Dar, one of whom sits in the National Assembly and the other in the Senate. Both are also ministers in the federal cabinet.
What was the message here then? That far from Rehman Malik getting sacked he was still the most important advisor to the PPP co-chairman? And that the PPP is metamorphosing into a more undemocratic entity so watch out everyone? Everyone should jolly well watch out if Rehman Malik was even halfway serious when he allegedly told a TV presenter that he’d match the media “punch for punch”.
It is ironical in the extreme, nay a tragedy of unimaginable proportions, that the Pakistan People’s Party which has suffered by far the most at the hands of the establishment — its founder cruelly murdered on the gallows, his daughter cruelly assassinated in broad daylight, Asif Zardari himself locked up for years on end, its workers lashed mercilessly — is playing right into the hands of its mortal enemy. Ours is an ill-starred country, folks. Mainly because so few of us stand up to be counted. So serve us right I suppose.
PS. It will be a wonder if the PPP can weather, on its own, the storm about to be unleashed by a newly rampant (because of the establishment’s, read the PPP’s, arrogance towards My Lord Iftikhar?) Supreme Court’s locking horns with the media. The fun begins, everyone, so hold on to your seats.
kshafi1@yahoo.co.uk
YES, yes I know. But first something that I wrote on the spur of the moment last week, on the day that the by-elections were postponed, and saved for this column:
“How in God’s name did Rehman Malik even dare to, on his own, think up a scheme such as the one he smacked the country in the face with just today? How the devil did the secretary of the Election Commission dare to order a postponement in the by-elections for two months on his own? Why, for goodness sake, did the collective leadership of the Pakistan People’s Party not know what its interior czar and de facto interior minister, pizzazz and all, was up to? But wait. Where, pray, was the chief election commissioner; where were the members of the Commission while all this argy bargy went on?
“Whilst we are well aware of the man’s extreme audacity already, could Rehman Malik have been as impudent and as presumptuous to, on his own, cook up what he did: lying to the Frontier chief minister about the other three provinces requesting a delay on grounds of bad law and order, and then instructing the Frontier government to write to the Election Commission to request a postponement too? And asking the federal interior secretary to follow up with telephone calls to the chief secretary, Frontier?
“Asif Zardari says he did not know about the bolt out of the blue that hit the country. Could Rehman Malik be so impertinent as to not even tell his benefactor that he was about to turn everything on its head, most particularly something that concerned very critically the chief minister of Punjab-in-waiting, Shahbaz Sharif, who too was participating in very same by-elections? And who had actually submitted his nomination papers from constituencies in Sialkot and Lahore on the very day that Master Malik was turning his tricks?
“And remember, Shahbaz Sharif, more than anything else, is the president of the Pakistan Muslim League-N which is in a coalition with the PPP (of which Rehman Malik is now considered a ‘central leader’, mark), both in the Punjab and in the centre. Indeed, in a strong coalition in both governments, particularly in the centre where its Ishaq Dar is finance minister at this very fraught time.
“So, what the blazes was Rehman Malik thinking when he went on his one-man demolition spree? Was he not aware that the coalition was already under extreme stress on the judges’ restoration issue, made worse by the vacillating and shifting stands of the, you guessed it, his very own PPP of which he is now, let us repeat, a ‘central leader’?
“Or was it, simply, a back-handed slap to the PML-N, warning it to stay within its boots, that the final arbiter on all matters was the People’s Party? For if it was, the coalition does not have much time.
“To show that it was nothing of the kind, that it was simply a case of an arrogant little man out of his wits in the giddying heights he occupies, Asif Zardari should take the most stringent action against Rehman Malik (such as despatching him back to London from whence he came, and where Malik, reportedly, sits atop a personal business empire worth gazillions), remembering that even Mushahid ‘Mandela’ Hussain who joint-led his party to a crushing defeat only three months ago, even he is laughing up his sleeve. To say nothing of the loud-mouthed Sheikh Rashid ‘Tulli’ who even lost his security deposit in the last elections; even one such as he is laughing up his sleeve!
“Save the coalition to save the party, Mr Zardari. And do it immediately if not sooner. Otherwise ‘THEY’ will devour you one by one.
“Let me add that tears well out of my eyes as I write this. I am heartbroken as I write this. For I have seen the establishment-driven politics of the late eighties and the early nineties up close and personal. What a sad, sad time it was, when two promising political leaders in the prime of youth were pitted against one another by those same forces that are doing their all to derail democracy once again.”
This, ladies and gentlemen, is what I wrote on the day that Rehman Malik did what he did. A week later, negotiations between the PPP and PML-N concerning the restoration of the judges sacked by the then COAS of the Pakistan Army, now retired General Pervez Musharraf, have broken down spreading despondency and despair across the land.
Was Rehman Malik’s crude action a precursor to this? Had the PPP already made up its mind that rather than going along with political forces opposed to military dictatorship, it preferred to follow the dictates of the former Army House, now the President’s Lodge, Rawalpindi Cantonment? More so because the illegal occupant of the Lodge is underwritten by the US government? And that a slap had to be administered to the PML-N so that it got the message?
It is most critical to note too, that of all the very good, bright people the party has, elected representatives all of them, people like Raza Rabbani and Khurshid Shah and Naveed Qamar and Qamaruzzaman Kaira among a host of others, who does Asif Zardari take to London for final talks with Nawaz and Shahbaz Sharif? You guessed it. The self-same Rehman Malik, bolstered by none other than that rather well-known personality Hussain Haqqani, the Islamic Republic’s ambassador-designate to the Land of the Free and The Home of the Brave.
While the PPP leader was assisted by these non-elected factotums, the PML-N leaders were in the company of the good Khawaja Asif and the very bright Ishaq Dar, one of whom sits in the National Assembly and the other in the Senate. Both are also ministers in the federal cabinet.
What was the message here then? That far from Rehman Malik getting sacked he was still the most important advisor to the PPP co-chairman? And that the PPP is metamorphosing into a more undemocratic entity so watch out everyone? Everyone should jolly well watch out if Rehman Malik was even halfway serious when he allegedly told a TV presenter that he’d match the media “punch for punch”.
It is ironical in the extreme, nay a tragedy of unimaginable proportions, that the Pakistan People’s Party which has suffered by far the most at the hands of the establishment — its founder cruelly murdered on the gallows, his daughter cruelly assassinated in broad daylight, Asif Zardari himself locked up for years on end, its workers lashed mercilessly — is playing right into the hands of its mortal enemy. Ours is an ill-starred country, folks. Mainly because so few of us stand up to be counted. So serve us right I suppose.
PS. It will be a wonder if the PPP can weather, on its own, the storm about to be unleashed by a newly rampant (because of the establishment’s, read the PPP’s, arrogance towards My Lord Iftikhar?) Supreme Court’s locking horns with the media. The fun begins, everyone, so hold on to your seats.
kshafi1@yahoo.co.uk
Tuesday, May 6, 2008
Do the right thing
By Kamran Shafi
SO where’s the problem? You want to get rid of about five dozen what you consider ‘troublesome judges’ including the chief justice, and elevate your buddies’ buddies in their stead?
All you’ve got to do is to seek an appointment with the chief of army staff, go see him at his pleasure, be very nice to him and ask him politely like the good boy (or girl) you are, and abracadabra! Where’s the problem?
He will, at his pleasure, declare emergency in the country; suspend the Constitution; forcibly evict the unwanted judges and lock them up in their residences along with their families; oversee the swearing-in of the new judges, and then give the president of the country, probably himself considering the precedent set by the Commando, the authority to lift the emergency. The president will do so in short order and life will go on as theretofore. So where’s the problem?
No problem at all, sirs, none whatsoever. Is this why we see the shenanigans we see: the ‘elected’ government cosying up to the establishment; much bonhomie and camaraderie as our various Guderians and Rommels are feted by the elected prime minister in the salubrious environs of Islamabad the Beautiful? The sounds of music and singing wafting through the cool of the evening, even reaching the dark hovels of the desperately poor, barely a kilometre from the PM’s palace’s backside?
This is good and well as my friend Ashraf Khan Afridi used to say, keeping everyone and Charlie’s aunt happy, never forgetting Her Excellency the US ambassador who is keeping close tabs on what goes on in the Land of the Pure. Why, she even deigned to call on Asif Zardari at his own residence instead of summoning him to her deputy’s villa as heretofore. How delighted must Her Excellency be with what’s going on!
As more proof that all is well in the Citadel of Islam for them, yet again have the Americans called for an independent judiciary in Pakistan whilst quite absurdly saying, again, that the restoration of the sacked judges is an internal matter for Pakistanis to decide. And making it clear that come what may the American administration is adamant that the judges, particularly My Lord the Chief Justice, are not restored.
Why else would she herself be going around making offers to his friends to get him to accept various jobs such as judge of the International Court of Justice; such as Pakistan’s ambassador to wherever? Since when did the plenipotentiary of the United States of America become an employment exchange working on behalf of a Pakistani dictator?
Yet again, the Americans, those great champions of democracy and freedom and equal rights for all, refuse to accept that the actions that the Commando took on November 2 were so unconstitutional and so illegal that they would have shaken the very foundations of a country less resilient, one less inured to shocks than the Land of the Pure. Yet again, they continue to help him destabilise the elected coalition government by repeated and highly visible statements and more statements in his favour.
Not to be left behind, and as if on cue from his tight buddies, the Commando cooks his witches’ brew, summoning the two stalwarts of the House of Zahoor just as soon as there was a sort of deadlock between the PPP and the PML-N on the judges’ restoration issue, and egging them on to jump onto the PPP bandwagon just as soon as the N left the cabinet.
None of the above is any good. But let’s leave the shenanigans of the dictator who clings to the President’s Lodge formerly Army House, for dictators will do as dictators do, and look closer to home. How good is the PPP’s vacillating and shifting stand on the restoration of the judiciary to the position of November 2, 2007? How right is it for its leader to say most nonchalantly that the Bhurban Accord was merely a political statement, not a hadith. Meaning what, sir? That it is quite alright to renege on political promises? That they are made to be broken?
What message is the leader of Pakistan’s largest political party, a great national asset, a party that is popular and has a following in all the provinces of this hapless land, sending out? That the People’s Party is an unreliable party that does not mean what it says, that its leaders say what they want at a particular time to fool other people for temporary gains? No sirs, not good at all.
While on the subject of the People’s Party let’s look elsewhere too: Makhdoom Amin Fahim certainly overdid his bid to become prime minister many times over, even saying uncomfortable things not only in the press but in parliament too. But it is time to make up with him as one who has stuck by the party through thick and thin. It is good to hear that the leadership’s contacts with him are ongoing and friendly.
Similarly for Aitzaz, who too has over the years fought a valiant battle not only for his own party, but also for the illegally and cruelly sacked judiciary. If anything, his spearheading the movement for the restoration of the judges and his brilliant handling of the case in court earned the party plaudits too. I have been closely linked to the movement to restore the judges and often came into contact with him. Not once have I heard him say anything detrimental to his party. And please, he has nothing to do with what I write here: I have not met or spoken to Aitzaz in at least three months.
In the end, for those who insist on retaining the PCO judges: they will far outnumber those who will be reinstated. The Commando’s friends have leaked the following through a rather large organ coming out of Lahore: “The sources said the president was likely to agree to a proposal to dilute his discretionary powers to dissolve the assemblies. However, they said Article 58-(2)(b) would stay.”
Specifically: “The president’s powers to use Article 58-(2)(b) would be made stringently subject to the approval of the SC and some guidelines may also be recommended for the apex court in case such a situation develops,” the sources said.
Well, what if judges beholden to the Commando for his illegal and unconstitutional steps are in a majority? What then? Just do the right thing! Right the grievous wrong done to our Constitution. Otherwise the country will simply implode.
PS. It is scandalous that bye-elections are being postponed for two whole months just because the Frontier chief secretary says that the law and order situation is bad. Well, was it ‘good’ when the general elections were held? Is this another conspiracy to derail democracy by keeping the leadership of the PML-N out of politics? Will the PPP now stop being cute and isolate the Commando before it gets ‘sorted out’ in its turn? Beware!
kshafi1@yahoo.co.uk
SO where’s the problem? You want to get rid of about five dozen what you consider ‘troublesome judges’ including the chief justice, and elevate your buddies’ buddies in their stead?
All you’ve got to do is to seek an appointment with the chief of army staff, go see him at his pleasure, be very nice to him and ask him politely like the good boy (or girl) you are, and abracadabra! Where’s the problem?
He will, at his pleasure, declare emergency in the country; suspend the Constitution; forcibly evict the unwanted judges and lock them up in their residences along with their families; oversee the swearing-in of the new judges, and then give the president of the country, probably himself considering the precedent set by the Commando, the authority to lift the emergency. The president will do so in short order and life will go on as theretofore. So where’s the problem?
No problem at all, sirs, none whatsoever. Is this why we see the shenanigans we see: the ‘elected’ government cosying up to the establishment; much bonhomie and camaraderie as our various Guderians and Rommels are feted by the elected prime minister in the salubrious environs of Islamabad the Beautiful? The sounds of music and singing wafting through the cool of the evening, even reaching the dark hovels of the desperately poor, barely a kilometre from the PM’s palace’s backside?
This is good and well as my friend Ashraf Khan Afridi used to say, keeping everyone and Charlie’s aunt happy, never forgetting Her Excellency the US ambassador who is keeping close tabs on what goes on in the Land of the Pure. Why, she even deigned to call on Asif Zardari at his own residence instead of summoning him to her deputy’s villa as heretofore. How delighted must Her Excellency be with what’s going on!
As more proof that all is well in the Citadel of Islam for them, yet again have the Americans called for an independent judiciary in Pakistan whilst quite absurdly saying, again, that the restoration of the sacked judges is an internal matter for Pakistanis to decide. And making it clear that come what may the American administration is adamant that the judges, particularly My Lord the Chief Justice, are not restored.
Why else would she herself be going around making offers to his friends to get him to accept various jobs such as judge of the International Court of Justice; such as Pakistan’s ambassador to wherever? Since when did the plenipotentiary of the United States of America become an employment exchange working on behalf of a Pakistani dictator?
Yet again, the Americans, those great champions of democracy and freedom and equal rights for all, refuse to accept that the actions that the Commando took on November 2 were so unconstitutional and so illegal that they would have shaken the very foundations of a country less resilient, one less inured to shocks than the Land of the Pure. Yet again, they continue to help him destabilise the elected coalition government by repeated and highly visible statements and more statements in his favour.
Not to be left behind, and as if on cue from his tight buddies, the Commando cooks his witches’ brew, summoning the two stalwarts of the House of Zahoor just as soon as there was a sort of deadlock between the PPP and the PML-N on the judges’ restoration issue, and egging them on to jump onto the PPP bandwagon just as soon as the N left the cabinet.
None of the above is any good. But let’s leave the shenanigans of the dictator who clings to the President’s Lodge formerly Army House, for dictators will do as dictators do, and look closer to home. How good is the PPP’s vacillating and shifting stand on the restoration of the judiciary to the position of November 2, 2007? How right is it for its leader to say most nonchalantly that the Bhurban Accord was merely a political statement, not a hadith. Meaning what, sir? That it is quite alright to renege on political promises? That they are made to be broken?
What message is the leader of Pakistan’s largest political party, a great national asset, a party that is popular and has a following in all the provinces of this hapless land, sending out? That the People’s Party is an unreliable party that does not mean what it says, that its leaders say what they want at a particular time to fool other people for temporary gains? No sirs, not good at all.
While on the subject of the People’s Party let’s look elsewhere too: Makhdoom Amin Fahim certainly overdid his bid to become prime minister many times over, even saying uncomfortable things not only in the press but in parliament too. But it is time to make up with him as one who has stuck by the party through thick and thin. It is good to hear that the leadership’s contacts with him are ongoing and friendly.
Similarly for Aitzaz, who too has over the years fought a valiant battle not only for his own party, but also for the illegally and cruelly sacked judiciary. If anything, his spearheading the movement for the restoration of the judges and his brilliant handling of the case in court earned the party plaudits too. I have been closely linked to the movement to restore the judges and often came into contact with him. Not once have I heard him say anything detrimental to his party. And please, he has nothing to do with what I write here: I have not met or spoken to Aitzaz in at least three months.
In the end, for those who insist on retaining the PCO judges: they will far outnumber those who will be reinstated. The Commando’s friends have leaked the following through a rather large organ coming out of Lahore: “The sources said the president was likely to agree to a proposal to dilute his discretionary powers to dissolve the assemblies. However, they said Article 58-(2)(b) would stay.”
Specifically: “The president’s powers to use Article 58-(2)(b) would be made stringently subject to the approval of the SC and some guidelines may also be recommended for the apex court in case such a situation develops,” the sources said.
Well, what if judges beholden to the Commando for his illegal and unconstitutional steps are in a majority? What then? Just do the right thing! Right the grievous wrong done to our Constitution. Otherwise the country will simply implode.
PS. It is scandalous that bye-elections are being postponed for two whole months just because the Frontier chief secretary says that the law and order situation is bad. Well, was it ‘good’ when the general elections were held? Is this another conspiracy to derail democracy by keeping the leadership of the PML-N out of politics? Will the PPP now stop being cute and isolate the Commando before it gets ‘sorted out’ in its turn? Beware!
kshafi1@yahoo.co.uk
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