Opinion

Our Funny Ex-Generals and Bureaucrats
By Humayun Gauhar
Islamabad, Pakistan

Today there is a growing list of jobless generals and some bureaucrats who have become self-styled ‘analysts’ on television and newspapers where they declare their belated love for democracy.
Retired bureaucrats and generals (and some untainted but naive ‘intellectuals’ who should not be seen in such company) have been writing letters to President Musharraf asking him to resign.
It’s a transparent attempt at populism, to somehow make history forget their past.
The latest is a letter from ex-servicemen whose president is none other than Lt. General Faiz Ali Chishti of the Bhutto execution fame, which should tell you something. If even one of these belated lovers of democracy had resigned while they were serving tyrants, they would have had great credibility.
Look at these guys. Their latest meeting was chaired by an air marshal, otherwise a great gentleman who diminished himself in politics, who was deputy chief martial law administrator during our first martial law.
He discovered democracy only after retirement, but not entirely, for he is most remembered for writing a letter to soldiers not to obey the unlawful commands of their superior officers. To save whose government were those commands given? Bhutto’s, who was the opposition’s fiercest adversary. Neither did he issue a mercy appeal against Bhutto’s hanging when the Supreme Court’s judgment was so divided.
Back in the early Eighties, I went to the Royal Free Hospital, London, to call on our ambassador Brig. F. R. Khan who was suffering from cancer. Lt. General Chishti arrived to a full waiting room and rhetorically asked: “Do you want to see the man who hanged Bhutto? You are looking at the man who hanged Bhutto.” It was appalling. The silence was deafening.
Then there is the pompous retired army chief who ordered the then ISI chief to illegally disburse Rs. 140 million from a private bank to buy our eminently purchasable politicians.
They formed the IJI to defeat the PPP in the 1990 elections. Talk of democracy.
Another former ISI chief had the decency to apologize unreservedly, so I will not recall his glorious deeds.
Yet another, having served at least one martial law regime, has become the best spokesman America has in Pakistan. In television circles he is known as ‘The man who knows everything’.
Many of these retired generals and bleeding heart ex-bureaucrats willingly and unconscionably held very senior and sensitive positions during General Yahya Khan’s genocide of East Pakistan that broke the country. Objective? To deny the Bengalis their democratic rights and nullify their will.
These fellows’ hands are stained with so much blood that it doesn’t bear description. They should see annexure of the Hamoodur Rahman Report which lists the girls that a ‘tigerish’ fellow general raped or had raped. It will make your head swim. These are the guys who, along with their commanders, played a stellar role in breaking Pakistan. I can tell you so much about such people, many, many of them, that I dread the day I decide to write my autobiography.
If these guys really were democrats they would say that all PCO judges are illegal, regardless of under which PCO they took oath. Amazingly, some of them are asking for the deposed chief justice of Musharraf’s first PCO to be made president. Next they will say that since India is a great democracy, we should ask Atal Bihari Vajpayee to be our caretaker prime minister and old Sinha to be the chief election commissioner. Why don’t they just put a torch to what they have left of Pakistan and be done with it? Haven’t they done enough damage already?
Many of these old dodderers celebrated when Musharraf took over, for they started dreaming of cushy jobs. Every dictator needs them, for trained assassins are not easy to find. I personally know some who moved heaven and earth to join his team, begging all and sundry who had Musharraf’s ear to the point of embarrassment. When they didn’t get any job they turned democrat and turned on Musharraf. Methinks all this noise and bluster is to catch the next prime minister’s eye, that they are still available, able and willing. I bet if even now Musharraf offered them a glittering enough job, many would take it without batting an eyelid.
We would listen to the members of this ‘Old Minions Club’ if they did a public taubah and started their letters by saying, “We who have worked for elected and unelected dictators offer our profound apologies to the nation and ask for forgiveness. We are asking you to learn from our misdeeds, of which we are ashamed, so that you may not repeat them.”
They would have got not only our attention but also our forgiveness. The late great Akhtar Hameed Khan was the only bureaucrat I can recall who resigned because he was against the system. There were a few others. People respectfully listened to his every word.
These ex-servicemen are not the only ones to have damaged Pakistan. The judiciary takes pride of place, for having sanctified every military takeover.
Only once did the Supreme Court show some gumption when it reinstated Nawaz Sharif’s dismissed government in 1993. But he was made to resign by the then army chief. Where were these gentlemen then? Where was the Supreme Court Bar Association? Where were the lawyers? Where was civil society? Benazir rightly asked: where were these people when the judiciary was doing all those vile things to her father by the SC? Where were they when the Supreme Court was attacked and an earlier Chief Justice forced to resign by bribing his fellow judges.
It was only last year that the Supreme Court went hyperactive because of a hyper-ambitious chief justice. The Supreme Court didn’t even have the guts to allow the Supreme Judicial Council to hear the reference against him. Was his position so weak? One would develop respect for the sacked chief justice if he insisted that the reference be heard so that he can clear his name, not hide behind the coattails of his brother judges who wouldn’t even allow a constitutional procedure to proceed.
Instead of praising them, the current president of the SCBA, Mr. Aitzaaz Ahsan, mocked the 1997 Supreme Court judges for reinstating Nawaz Sharif, suggesting that their ‘lordships’ had been swayed by the glitter of his gold - chamak.
The gentleman’s understanding of democracy is such that after having lost his election in 1997, he sneaked into parliament via the Senate’s backdoor, making a mockery of the people’s will, the cornerstone of democracy. Then he became leader of the opposition in the Senate, and because Benazir was absconding, the leader of all of the opposition in parliament!
Today ‘Mr. Democracy’ is calling for a boycott of all PCO judges. Would the gentleman like to clarify which PCO he means? Musharraf’s first or the second?
He wants an independent judiciary. Yardstick of independence? Those who took oath under Musharraf’s first great PCO.
Most depressing of all, he is prepared to play second fiddle to the other great democrat in today’s Pakistan: Asif Zardari.
(Mr. Gauhar is an Islamabad-based columnist. This is an edited version of an original column appearing inThe Nation, Lahore)

------------------------------------------------------------------------