Straight Talk
Why Not Musharraf?
By Karamatullah K. Ghori
Toronto, Canada
I’m getting a little concerned about the soundness of judgment of some of my friends.
They are otherwise quite sound, viscerally, and articulate. But the Musharraf factor has obviously clouded their thinking faculties to an extent where reason is becoming a rare and elusive commodity for them.
Some of these ‘well-informed’ friends have been pestering me that I should pen a no-holds-barred column in defence of their idol, Musharraf, and warn PM Nawaz Sharif to back off in his, what they deem to be, ‘witch-hunt’ against Musharraf.
So persistent and annoying has been their pressure on me that I’d, finally, to take leave of my timidity and tell them, frankly, that I saw absolutely no reason to waste whatever little talent I’ve for creative writing on defending a man I believe deserved to be consigned to the dungeons of rogues of history who — smitten by crass hubris and monumental arrogance of raw power — have damaged Pakistan beyond estimation.
When he was in power as Pakistan’s undisputed czar one could understand —though not necessarily appreciate — the Musharraf mania of some of our ‘chattering classes.’ Musharraf had a fan club, o.k. one could understand. Kowtowing at the altar of power is a known disease of a feudal society like Pakistan. But what could possibly explain the Musharraf fans beating their chests now that his crimes are coming home to roost and the gay cavalier — who thought Pakistan was God-given stage for him to strut his stuff on with swagger and conceit for all times to come — is feeling the heat of the laws of the land finally catching up with him?
What comes to mind is an old — but very pertinent, in this situation — adage of Urdu: Oont pahar ke neechey aaya hai to bilbila raha hai. Which roughly translates as, one crying uncle when facing a harsh reality.
What a coincidence that while Musharraf is desperately trying to paint himself as a victim of Nawaz Sharif’s vendetta his erstwhile bosom ally, Don Altaf of the MQM, is also crying uncle. Faced with the wrath of the British law for his possible involvement in the murder of Dr Imran Farooq, three years ago in London, the MQM supremo has started bleating like a corralled sheep. The drama he staged for his minions and party aficionados a few days ago only brought home the fascist traits of the man and his fetish to seek cheap publicity even in the jaws of a looming Waterloo.
Altaf’s goose seems as good as cooked and roasted. His sins are plenty and he must be made to pay for the most heinous of them, if not all. And to the mounting dismay of him and his purblind minions and loyalists (Fidayeen of Bhai, as slogans in Karachi and Hyderabad go) he’s up against the long arm of the British criminal law and justice that can’t be counted upon to make concessions to Bhai’s status of being the Don of the foutfit that masquerades itself as a ‘Movement’ on behalf of those of the Karachi walas who have been made hostages to its fascist proclivities.
Musharraf’s Fidayeen , on the other hand, think they’re on solid grounds and insist that he should be allowed to go free, because… Because of what, one might ask.
The litany of their argument in support of their ‘hero’ runs something like this.
One: Musharraf is not guilty, alone, of whatever ‘errors of judgment’ he’s accused of; there were others, cohorts and advisers of his, involved in the decision-making. Therefore, the pathetic line of reasoning continues, if Musharraf is to be hauled up so should those ‘others’ too.
But this is a patently absurd and spurious argument.
Musharraf wasn’t a democratically elected president, or leader, obligated to consult his cabinet or close confidants before taking a decision. Musharraf was too much of a pharaoh to deem it necessary to take his minions — page boys, at best — into confidence on major decisions. As Lt. General Shahid Aziz — a trusted colleague and confidant of Musharraf from the military brass — has disclosed in his recently published memoirs, Musharraf didn’t consult anyone before casting the die in favour of his American master’s command to open Pakistan’s skies for the lethal drones that have since been wreaking hell on innocent Pakistani citizens.
Didn’t Musharraf take credit for himself, and himself alone, in whatever ‘favours’ the pharaoh showered on his people — the hapless Pakistanis?
Did he consult his minions, or take them into confidence, while threatening Nawab Akbar Bugti of Doomsday scenario? Didn’t he say, with a chuckle, that Bugti wouldn’t even know what hit him and from where? Poor Akbar Bugti was eventually murdered in a military operation. So who bears the guilt of serving a death warrant on Akbar Bugti other than the boasting commando — who did this in the glare of television cameras?
Was it a clone of Musharaf, or his second, who strutted on to the stage at a public rally in Islamabad in the evening of that fateful and bloody day of July, 2007, in Karachi, and hectored that his ‘allies’ in Karachi had given its people a taste of his power?
What Musharaf was taking pride in was the blood-letting of innocent people—scores of them—on the barricaded streets of Karachi at the hands of the goons and mercenaries of MQM, who had been unleashed that day to ensure that Chief Justice Iftikhar Chaudhry wouldn’t enter Karachi.
Two: The Musharraf aficionados next offer the argument that if Musharraf is to be made accountable for his omissions, why should the axe fall on him alone? They say that all others who preceded him and made a mockery of Pakistan’s laws and the Constitution should, likewise, be put in the dock.
Well, for argument’s sake, all those Bonapartes who performed on the Pakistani stage, have long been dead and buried, including the one-and-only civilian CMLA (Chief Martial Law Administrator) Zulfiqar Ali Bhutto. You want to put them in the dock? Do it, by all means. Dig their graves, if you must, and haul up their carcasses, if you wish to be so vicious and crass.
But where does it say that if you can’t try a dead man so you shouldn’t also try a man alive?
And, by the way, the acts of commission and omission of all of Musharraf’s predecessors have been indemnified by the Parliament. You will have to amend the Constitution to try the dead rogues.
Musharraf, too, got indemnity for his crime of October 12, 1999, when he overthrew an elected PM and crowned himself as its new king. But he never could get indemnity for his second abrogation of the Constitution, which he did on November 3, 2007. Zardari did his best to force the National Assembly to extend that favour but failed because he didn’t have the numbers.
Three: When running out of steam on all other reasons for their illogical campaign to allow their idol to escape accountability, they lament that punishing Musharraf would enrage the military, which in turn, might rock the boat and snuff out the democratic order!
Nothing could possibly be more preposterous and perfidious than this line of thought.
Musharraf was a Lone Ranger, a solo flyer, obsessed with power. He had become a huge embarrassment to the military brass. The celebrated TV anchor, Hamid Mir, has brought to light — in his just published book, Qalam Kaman – what a hard time the brass had in convincing the besotted Musharraf to step down following the parliamentary elections of 2008.
General Kayani and his men are not morons living in a world of their fanciful imagination. Unlike Musharraf’s feckless aficionados the generals know that it’s a different Pakistan from the one that had welcomed Musharraf’s gate-crashing into power in 1999. Pakistan, in the years since then, has undergone a sea-change. Kayani & Co. are no fools to play the devil’s advocate for Musharraf and go out on a limb for his sake. They know that the days of Bonapartes in politics of Pakistan are over; period.
The whole argument of those who think of Pakistan before anything else boils down to this: Pakistan can no longer afford to have the duality of laws: one law for the privileged and another for the underdogs.
Much of what afflicts Pakistan can be traced to our hypocrisy and cynicism. More than anything else our shameless double-standards in the application of the law of the land is at the crux of making Pakistan a laughing stock in the comity of nations. We don’t tire of flaunting our credentials as the standard bearers of Islam. But we do exactly the opposite of what the canons of Islamic justice have laid down so very lucidly and categorically. We, the pious believers in the ‘Land of the Pure’, don’t flinch from sending a weak thief to the gallows while crowning a big thief with accolades of power.
The New Pakistan that so many of our current political movers-and-shakers flaunt of hammering out from the jaws of adversity will never come into being unless we give primacy to the rule of law in its absolute sense. And the very first dictate of the rule of law is its uniform application to all, the high and the low.
Take a bow, Musharraf’s aficionados. Your man’s jig is up. It’s pay-back time for him. - K_K_ghori@yahoo.com
(The author is a former ambassador and career diplomat)
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