Who will fall through?
What was common knowledge is now official. Going by the replies filed by the Army Chief General Ashfaq Pervez Kayani, ISI Director General Lt-Gen Shuja Pasha and the federation with the Supreme Court in the Memogate hearing, the civilian government and the military leadership are not on the same page.
When the apex court hears the petition filed by Nawaz Sharif on Monday, the stage is set for the memo scandal to inject further uncertainty into the already highly charged political atmosphere. The government has taken the plea that the parliament has the supremacy to take up the matter and hence the Court should dismiss the petition.
The military leadership, on the other hand, has pressed for a thorough investigation of the memo. Neither Kayani nor Pasha has named Zardari as the author of the memo in their affidavits.
General Pasha after meeting Mansoor Ijaz in London in October explicitly states in his reply that he is satisfied about the authenticity of the memo to the extent that Husain Haqqani is its author. He has also demanded that the Court take the Blackberry and laptop computer belonging to the former ambassador to Washington for forensic examination.
Ijaz, the unabashed publicity hound, has thrown another spanner in the works by stating that Pasha had visited Saudi Arabia to seek approval for a coup against Zardari. Interestingly, the federation has appended The Independent’s story filed by its Pakistan correspondent which made the fantastic claim. The Supreme Court should examine the authenticity of this claim as well if it considers claims about the memo ostensibly written by Haqqani to be prime facie worthy of a probe.
Usually calm and unflappable, PM Yousaf Raza Gilani while addressing the Senate a day earlier to the filing of the replies to the apex court hit back at, “conspirators who took the memo issue to the Supreme Court”. The prime minister also warned that “if democracy was uprooted, we would not see another election in our lifetime.”
The basis of the prime minister’s premonition that the government is being sacked and the parliament sent packing is not known. However, even if one discounts the ‘après moi, le deluge’ syndrome which generally afflicts our ruling elite, why does Gilani perceive the democratic system to be under grave threat?
Whatever the facts about the memo and events surrounding it, it underscores a deeper malaise – the ever widening chasm between the civilian and the military leadership. General Pasha shopping around Arab capitals preparing grounds for a coup d’état, if true, is equally condemnable and abhorrent as writing a memo to a foreign government about our own military.
The PPP-led government has been meticulously careful not to ruffle feathers in the GHQ. Zardari, perhaps conscious of the fate of previous civilian governments, including that of Zulfikar Ali Bhutto and those of Benazir Bhutto and Nawaz Sharif, has ostensibly given the impression that the khakis’ wish is a command for him.
Whether it was the issue of giving extensions of service to General Kayani or Pasha or following the security paradigm of the military, diktats were slavishly followed. Or so it seemed to the ordinary observer.
Efforts to bring ISI under civilian control in the aftermath of the Mumbai carnage in November 2008 were abandoned. Similarly, whether it was the Raymond Davis case, the Abbottabad incident or policies towards the USA, India or Afghanistan, the military had its way.
Then what has gone wrong? Plenty it seems if Mansoor Ijaz is telling the truth (which is yet to be determined). It is obvious that although the accompaniments of democracy – a free and vibrant media, independent courts and a functioning parliament – are in place, the democratic ethos is still missing.
Philosophically speaking, the military shies away from accepting civilian supremacy. Nor are the civilians capable or willing to assert it. The army mistakenly thinks that security and foreign policy are its domain and keeping an eye on politicians is the business of the ISI. Dabbling in strictly civilian affairs follows from this.
Nawaz Sharif believes that the ISI is meddling in civilian affairs and trying to engineer the political system. He has openly laid this charge in the presence of senior journalists more than once that Imran Khan is being heavily funded and propped up by the ISI, much more so now than he was once upon a time. Imran has vehemently denied the charge.
It will not be setting a bad precedent if the apex court summons the ISI record for a forensic examination to determine which politicians and media persons have been funded by the premier intelligence agency in the past and present.
Those who are talking about a coup should realise that a soft coup has already taken place. A weak and maladroit civilian government is crumbling under its own weight. The military does not need to dismiss it and impose the much discussed Bangladesh model, a model which General Kayani himself acknowledges has failed in Bangladesh.
The manner in which the government has kowtowed to the army chief to forcefully defy the US is also a manifestation of its efforts to please the military leadership. Whether our present strategic defiance is sustainable will be known in the not-too-distant future.
President Obama desperate to resolve the Afghan imbroglio in his election year will have to soon decide which course to take. With the Pentagon and the CIA headed by an influential retired general calling the shots, the State Department has been marginalised. How indispensable is Pakistan to US strategic goals in the region will determine Washington’s future course.
President Zardari, recuperating in Dubai after his recent episode of bad health, is gravely disappointed with Washington. According to reliable accounts, senior US diplomats told him that since Memogate was an internal affair for Pakistan to resolve, Washington was not in a position to rein in Mansoor Ijaz.
According to some observers, this could be construed as Washington abandoning its support for Zardari. As a US analyst recently wrote, this could be the Ayub Khan moment for the president. Under General Ayub Khan, Islamabad was the closest ally of the US until abandoned after the Sino-Indian conflict in 1962. In its aftermath, he wrote his autobiography, Friends Not Masters.
The writer is Editor, Pakistan Today
Pakistan Today : Mansoor ijaz is playing with our military establishment which has created differences b/w Govt. & army .On one way nawaz sharif accusing ISI supporting IMran but same time he did act as proxy of establishment by filing memo petition to SC by pasing parliment supremacy. End of the day it will hurt Pkaistan moving towards democracy.
You nailed it Hashmi….everyone is bending over backwards to serve army…and chanting slogans of 'long live democracy'.
Arif Nizami sahib. First time I liked your comments. Mr. Zardari is the pivot of democracy and PPP at present. Enemies of democracy donot like him. Mian Nawaz Shariff getting too desperate and seeing no future in parliament for his party even in coming election is seeking the shelter of SC. After all he claims to bring CJ in power with his street power.
My friend, I don't care about who is what but PPP must at least make railways operational and concentrated on other basic issues like electricity etc. This is a big failure. Now information is coming that Pakistan have been paying in billions to rental powers who have not delivered any electricity. If this money was used for circular depth we would have been in a much better shape. The non delivery of PPP is the major threat to government and not anything else. Zardai decided to bent over in front of establishment when he could have played smartly.
Good analysis of the crisis that Pakistan faces with an incompetent and corrupt government in the saddle that has lost its credibility. The Khakis must also have to understand that they have no credibility at all, nor any support amongst the people of Pakistan.
The treason case must be against General Pasha if it is true that he went to Saudi Arabia to seek "their" approval for a coup. The country would be in mess if Generals this time around try to become "Mama" of the country. Supreme Court as well be able to read between the lines. If it does not and continues to act as biasedly as we seen it so far against the President then only God will save us from falling down. Nawaz Sharif, hungry to come into power, must wait and have some patience. Otherwise no one will get anything.
SHAHID HUSSEIN QABOOLPURIA,
LAHORE, PAKISTAN
Unlike civilian government in which people may do things without permission or knowledge of their superiors, the system in Army is different. Pasha cannot dream of going to Saudi Arabia to make efforts to topple democratically elected government of Pakistan without blessings of Kayani. Kayani and Pasha consider Mansoor Ijaz as reliable. So, they must be fired immediately. Our Army command is not in safe hands. Kayani & Pasha are security risks. This is all the more significant because of the fact that they are in league with an American neocon known for being a lobbyist for Israel & India. Pasha had no right to meet such a man alone and that too in a foreign country without anybody else's presence. Who knows what conspiracies were hatched in London? Perhaps another London Plan!!! They must be sacked & tried for high treason and all wealth looted by them from the people of Pakistan in the name of perks like lands, residential & commercial plots reclaimed.
the author has left the readers thirsty, although he knows a lot more.
Biggest problem of Pakistan is revenue generation. Corruption is at it's peak and tax to GDP ratio is lowest in world. These problems can only be solved by a honest man like Imran Khan, not by corrupt tax defaulters like zardari and Nawaz.
Imran used to live in a small house in Zaman Park inherited from his father dismissed on corruption charges. After collecting zakats and sadqas for Shaukat Khanum, he lives on a 300 kanal palatial estate in Islamabad. Speaks a lot about his credentials. We do not need playboys like Imran Khan. His sons are being brought up by half Jew half Christian ex-in-laws and another daughter (from Sita White) is being brought up in USA whom he refuses to accept. If he accepts going through DNA test, this fact can be confirmed. We have so many problems. The last thing we need is a playboy gambler with no moral scruples.
PTI will field 1000 candidates in next elections. Uptil now only 58 ex MNAs and MPAs from other parties have joined PTI. Majority of PTI candidates in next elections will be new.
How revenue could be engineered and investment is made when there is shouting from the very 1st.day that govt. is falling.Moreover judiciary should show its partiality beside being Azad,
powerful and free judiciary, not fair and impartial judiciary
I wish we had a Dogar Court instead of a Chaudhry Court. Compared to Chaudhry, Dogar was an angel.
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