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

The last whimper

By Kamran Shafi

SO then, the Pakistan Day Parade was held after all, within the confines of the Sports Complex, Islamabad the Beautiful.

Never mind that athletics and sports camps set up there for several upcoming international games including the Olympics had to be closed down, never mind that the Tennis Academy admirably run by Mushaf and where my Zainab and tens of other children go was displaced.

The last whimper of a dying dictatorship simply had to be sounded, and what a last whimper it was! There were, as predicted, something like two thousand spectators, mostly officers, JCOs and their families trucked in from Rawalpindi and of course the caretaker ‘prime minister’, he reminding us all of the iniquity of appointing the sitting chairman of the Senate and a member of the (now deceased) King’s Party to this post.

The funniest was the sight of the hugely truncated mechanised columns, hiding behind the curve of the main stadium waiting for their turn to roll past the dais. Parades are noisy, colourful, hugely (and widely) attended affairs held in the open; not, as I wrote in this same space last week, held cowering in fear, behind fences and barbed wire.

The Commando too was a much-subdued commando: just going through the paces of what his advisers must have told him was a most essential part of telling all and sundry who is boss. Gone was the swagger and the jaunty flick of the shoulders; gone was the petulant, stern glare.For the days of swagger are long gone, indeed. With everyone and Charlie’s aunt including please note, Mushahid ‘Mandela’ Hussain, ready to axe 58-2(b), what else? And this is only the beginning of the end. What if the government only extends the Commando the security and protocol laid down in the Blue Book, no more no less?

There is news too that, as suspected by everyone AND Charlie’s aunt, the barricades (much shame on you, sirs, the lot of you — even those who acquiesced to the illegal, shameful orders) around the judges’ colony will be lifted. What then, especially after My Lord Iftikhar Chaudhry starts to tour the Bars around the country, and the expected fallout of those visits?

There is still time. Yes there is. But is there no one who has made use of Musharraf’s stay in absolute power to his/her own benefit who will now talk some little sense to him? Is there no one to tell him that there is still time to say sorry for his government’s heavy-handed and completely shameless and highly stupid actions against the superior judiciary?

And to reinstate it with honour, the Commando saying he did not want the confrontation to go on any longer; that he wanted Pakistan to embark upon its democratic journey unfettered with his baggage, and that he would always wish the country and its people well.

So saying he could resign his so-called ‘office’ and drive his Humvee to Chak Shehzad and his upcoming villa. We are a highly emotional lot; I can bet people will come out onto the streets in joy and wish him well (and good riddance!). Even now.

However, the Commando is a great big commando and the epitome of machismo. I do not think he will listen, but can his friends at least give it a try?

And now to the future. First, a big welcome to the newly elected members of the National Assembly; and to Madam Speaker for being elected by a thumping majority of votes which should have sent several shivers down the spines of those that inhabit the house next door.

It was great to see this woman politician who has been in successful electoral politics for many years take the Speaker’s chair in the National Assembly. It was as if a breath of fresh air had blown through that glittering chamber. More strength to her.

It was good to see too that the one or two times that she spoke, she spoke strongly and with conviction, and in no uncertain terms. It seems that Madam Speaker will not mince her words; will not shilly-shally and utter inanities such as those we are used to hearing. And will always do the right thing.

Because of which I address her first in this my first piece after her election.

Madam, first off please require members of the National Assembly to not carry plates announcing ‘MNA’ on their cars and SUVs. These plates not only look cheap, they add nothing to the fact that the owner of the vehicle has been elected by the people, a very great honour in itself.

Announce that, leave alone slapping policemen, you will immediately suspend any member who is reported for having been rude to the police, any committee’s investigations notwithstanding.

Require that all members use the normal check-in and arrival procedures, and departure and arrival lounges, whenever they are travelling. And ask PIA to remove the check-in counters that are solely for the use of parliamentarians and say so too. (I have seen one at Karachi airport.)

For the coming prime minister and chief ministers I have the following to say:

If you MUST have flags on your cars — not flying flags takes nothing away from the British prime minister and those of European countries, or indeed from members of the US cabinet — please ban their use on motor cars for all but the president, prime minister, the governors and the chief ministers.

Voluntarily give up the executive jets that are in the use of all the provincial chief ministers and governors and take commercial flights instead. It may be essential to use helicopters to get to remote areas now and again, so the money that will come from selling the jets could well be used by the Cabinet Division in beefing up their helicopter fleet.

It was great reading just yesterday that Shahbaz Sharif has announced that the Chief Minister’s House, extended hugely and tarted up in bad taste by Pervaiz Elahi at great public expense, will be given over to an IT university.

This is excellent, but may one request Mr Sharif to please also order the opening of Club Road where it meets Golf Road, and which was closed off and included in the grounds of the CM’s House, before the House is handed over? Where in the world would anyone close off existing roads by fiat but in the Land of the Pure?

While one is on the subject, there is another property in Rawalpindi known as the DCO’s House abutting Fatima Jinnah Women’s University which too could be handed over to the university with the DCO finding alternative accommodation elsewhere. It will give the university another hostel.

We will have a new prime minister today. Here’s wishing him well. I pray that the Almighty keep him on the right path and to guide him to always do the right thing.

Bushism of the Week: “And so, General, I want to thank you for your service. And I appreciate the fact that you really snatched defeat out of the jaws of those who are trying to defeat us in Iraq” — President George W. Bush, meeting with Army Gen Ray Odierno; Washington, DC, March 3, 2008.

kshafi1@yahoo.co.uk

What don’t we know?

What don’t we know?

By Kamran Shafi

WHAT is it that Gen (retd) Musharraf knows that we don’t? There must be something, lots of something actually, considering his actions and that of his junta of the past few weeks. Consider:

It’s been a full fifty-three days since His Lordship the Chief Justice of Pakistan and sixty other judges of the Supreme and High Courts were thrown out of office by the chief of the army staff using emergency powers bestowed upon himself by abrogating whatever we had left of the Constitution.

Fifty-three days later, with the exception of a few judges, the majority of them including the CJ continue to remain under house arrest. The arrest is so all-encompassing that even their children — the CJ has a young family — are not allowed out of the house lest they indulge in nefarious activities such as going to school, taking exams, etcetera.

Fifty-three days later, Islamabad the Beautiful still gives the look of a city under siege: there are barricades everywhere you look, manned by rude and offensive and loutish personnel of some ‘agency’ or the other.

Fifty-three days later, Aitzaz Ahsan, Justice Tariq Mahmood and Ali Ahmad Kurd are under arrest in their own homes, Munir Malik only getting his release when his health deteriorated to such an extent that the junta had to get him off their hands lest it be charged with murder. The latest on Aitzaz is that he was manhandled and re-arrested on the motorway while on his way to Islamabad the Beautiful with the approval of the authorities.

The worst moments during the re-arrest of this eminent barrister, former many-time member of both houses of parliament; former interior minister; presently president of the Supreme Court Bar Association, came when the goons in civvies pointed a cocked weapon at his young son’s midriff. Way to go, Gen (retd) Musharraf!

It’s been 53 days since he ‘sorted out’ the CJ, and yet Gen (retd) Pervez Musharraf does not tire of saying the nastiest things about him, his latest tirade coming at a dinner thrown by PAK-PAC, going to the extent of accusing the CJ of common theft and repeating the ludicrous charges that were laughed at by most of the country when the reference was being heard.

For example about the CJ summoning “senior officials” of the government to appear before him for little infringements. The retired general little realises that for a populace that has been kicked about by government officials for well on 60 years it is sweet revenge to see someone, in the instant case the CJ, kick the “senior officials” about for a change.

He has also carped again about how the CJ was conspiring against him. The facts of the matter are that the CJ recused himself from the bench hearing the petitions against Gen (retd) Musharraf and appointed a judge considered ‘friendly’ to him and who has now, by the by, been appointed Chairman of the Press Council or whatever it is called, with salary and perks commensurate with that of a judge of the Supreme Court. So let’s get off that one!

Gen (retd) Musharraf should take a quick course in the judicial history of Pakistan. He will find that judges have sat on benches despite the accused declaring no confidence in them as in Mr Zulfikar Ali Bhutto’s case before Maulvi Mushtaq.

When Mr Bhutto complained about Maulvi’s partiality, Maulvi addressed the former president and prime minister of this luckless country in words to the effect: “Shut up, you are an accused” and when Bhutto protested: “I can even have you whipped in jail.” “Remove his chair,” Maulvi thundered to the court staff. He then made Mr Bhutto stand for two days during his hearings before the LHC bench which subsequently sentenced him to hang. This is what Pakistani justice is about, General Sahib (retd). My Lord Iftikhar Chaudhry proved his impartiality as a judge by removing himself voluntarily from all the cases to do with you.

May I, in passing, make a suggestion? Since the CJ has so got under Gen (retd) Musharraf’s skin, why doesn’t he challenge the CJ to a TV debate, no holds barred, on any TV channel, even PTV? Why, even a foreign channel, say CNN, could be requested to host it (which any of them would give their right arm for!).

Gen (retd) Musharraf is very well spoken; he looks extremely well-presented and handsome in his designer suits as Mushahid ‘Mandela’ Hussain has always assured us. Let him then level any accusation he might, and let the CJ defend himself. Most people including my readers and I are simply up to here with hearing the same, tired allegations over and over again.

This reminds me. Whenever I refer to Mushahid Hussain as ‘Mandela’ I get a huge number of emails castigating me for even taking the man’s name in the same breath as the great Nelson Mandela’s. Every time that happens I explain that it has nothing to do with the man sharing any of Nelson Mandela’s great attributes of head and heart.

The reason I refer to our own ‘Mandela’ now and again is because he had the temerity to compare his own three-month imprisonment after Nawaz Sharif’s government was overthrown, in what could only be an Army Officers Mess, with Nelson Mandela’s long incarceration. In his own words:

“About a year earlier, I had been assigned as minister-in-waiting to Nelson Mandela … I had asked him, as the 20th century’s most celebrated political prisoner (Mushahid being the second-most?), what were the most difficult moments of his 27 years in detention. Without a moment’s hesitation, he replied, ‘solitary imprisonment’.

“My time in solitary imprisonment would be much shorter, my experience far less harrowing. But I was to learn something of what he meant … I scheduled my day. I would study the Quran with concentration for a stretch of two hours, take a break, walk the 22 paces I had marked out in my room, do some stretching and then resume my Quranic reading”. Twenty-two paces marked out in his “room”? I ask you!

What effrontery is the man’s! For 20 years, the over-six-foot Nelson Mandela was kept imprisoned in a six-foot by seven-foot cell on Robben Island with barely enough space to lie down. He was supplied just one bucket in which he defecated, and after cleaning it out, in which he had to wash too. All day, every day, he was put to work in a rock quarry breaking rocks. And Mushahid ‘Mandela’ Hussain “marked out” 22 paces in his “room”? By golly the man has brass.

Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year to all.

Mushism of the Week: “We issued a code of conduct and asked them to sign it. It’s as good as you have in your own country.” And when told that there was no ‘code of conduct’ for the media in the US, “No, the code of conduct is there in most countries of the world. Why should we compare the United States to Pakistan?” — Gen (retd) Pervez Musharraf; Washington Post, Dec 16, 2007

P.S. Musharraf has even held on to Army House — what does he know that we don’t?

kshafi1@yahoo.co.uk