Sharif the victim

Or, guilty as charged?

Zulfiqar Ali Bhutto was hanged by dictator General Zia ul Haq through pliant courts that is now generally acknowledged even by the former prime minister’s worst opponents as ‘judicial murder’

History was created when an incumbent prime minister was made to appear before a joint investigation team (JIT) – a product of the highest court of the country-to answer questions about his enormous wealth and assets abroad. It can, however, be convincingly argued that Sharif’s predecessors (including perhaps himself) in the past have faced the worst kind of persecution at the hands of the ubiquitous establishment.

Zulfiqar Ali Bhutto was hanged by dictator General Zia ul Haq through pliant courts that is now generally acknowledged even by the former prime minister’s worst opponents as ‘judicial murder’. Bhutto’s daughter, Benazir Bhutto, was twice hounded out of office and ultimately assassinated on the streets of Rawalpindi.

She had to face corruption cases of all sorts while in the opposition, instituted by Sharif’s hatchet man, Saif Ur Rehman’s Ehtesab (accountability) Bureau. Notwithstanding the credibility or otherwise of the charges, they were generally considered to be politically motivated.

Benazir’s husband Asif Ali Zardari was incarcerated for eight years, mostly in dismal conditions, during the same period. Even former Prime Minister Yousaf Raza Gilani was made to resign on charge of contempt of court by a hostile apex court headed by Justice Iftikhar Muhammad Chaudhry.

The present inquisition of Sharif and his family is much more civilised than in the past. But does ‘the lady doth protest too much?’ Yes and no!

The prime minister looked quite confident when he went in for interrogation at the judicial academy by the JIT. But perhaps a little less when he came out. In politics for the past 35 years, being chief minister of the largest province once and prime minster for the third time, he is no spring chicken.

He knows how to hold his own. He was quite composed while reading his carefully calibrated written statement in front of the reporters gathered outside the judicial academy.

The prime minister obliquely referred to a vast conspiracy being hatched against him. He declined to be more specific leaving the matter for another day.

He argued that the probe was about his personal wealth, and did not relate to his long stints in government where he presided over apportioning of billions of rupees. This claim is spurious and rather self-serving.

By the very act that every MNA including the prime minister has to declare his or her assets to the Election Commission means that by being a public representative there is no red line between the public and the private. Mash Allah according to the latest declarations made with the EC both Sharif and his nemeses, the Khan, are billionaires who have seen an exponential increase in their wealth since 2013.

Perhaps the prime minister is convinced that he and his family is a victim of a witch-hunt that has been the norm against virtually every elected government in the past. The JIT’s report, submitted to the special bench of the Supreme Court monitoring its probe, has given impetus to this impression.

According to the eight-page report, government departments including SECP (Security and Exchange Commission), the FBR (Federal Bureau of Revenue), NAB (National Accountability Bureau) and the FIA (Federal Investigation Agency) have made attempts to hamper and hinder their investigation.

It has even accused the IB (Intelligence Bureau) the civilian intelligence agency and the prime minister house of witness tampering. Obviously, all these allegations have been denied.

On the other hand the NBP (National Bank of Pakistan) president Saeed Ahmed, Sharif’s son Hussain Sharif and cousin Tariq Shafi have complained to the apex court of mistreatment by the JIT.

A body probing a white-collar crime should be careful about not treating those accused and witnesses like common criminals. To add insult to injury a photo shot of Hussain Sharif in the dock was surreptitiously leaked to the media.

The apex court promptly took notice of the matter but ominously chose to keep its judgment reserved. It has been alleged that the JIT premises is infested with sleuths. According to some unconfirmed reports the representatives of the ISI (Inter Services Intelligence) and MI (Military Intelligence) dominate the proceedings.

If true this negates the very principle that justice should not only be done but also ‘seen to be done’. The JIT is the investigation arm of the apex court. Hence the special bench monitoring its activities should make it doubly sure that its credibility is maintained at all costs.

Sharif, immediately after his appearance in front of the JIT, could not resist playing the victim card. According to him the ultimate JIT will be of 200 million people next year. Obviously he was referring to the general elections due next year, whatever the verdict of the forensic probe against him.

The prime minister claimed that the country had already paid dearly for conspiracies and intrigues…the time of the hidden hand is long gone; now puppet masters can no longer play their games, he reckoned. Was this a rhetorical question or an oblique hint that real puppeteers, just like the past, are intriguing against him?

The probe against the Sharifs has brought into sharp relief double standards being practiced by those who unabashedly hold politicians accountable but let those military strongmen who trampled over democracy literally get away with murder

Nonetheless he should keep in mind that the Panama leaks are not a figment of the imagination of his opponents. They have engulfed many a leadership around the world who held undeclared assets through off shore accounts disclosed in the leaks.

Some of them had to resign while others were made to go through street protests. Sharif also had the option to resign but he chose to stick on claiming that he had done no wrong and the assets belonged to his progenies.

The probe against the Sharifs has brought into sharp relief double standards being practiced by those who unabashedly hold politicians accountable but let those military strongmen who trampled over democracy literally get away with murder.

General Ayub Khan, who sowed the seed of secession through his centralised rule and policies that accumulated wealth in West Pakistan, and his handpicked successor General Yayha Khan, who presided over the breakup of Pakistan, died peacefully in their homes. Zia, who introduced an ideological dictatorship in the name of his skewed version of Islam and jihad, died in a mysterious plane crash.

But only recently Musharraf, the proponent of ‘true democracy’, managed to get away thanks to his protégé former COAS General Raheel Sharif. The interior minister Chaudhry Nisar Ali Khan, soon after coming to power, had announced with much fanfare the former dictator will be tried for high treason.

But General Raheel Sharif saw to it that ‘the commando general’ landed in a military hospital instead of presenting himself in front of the courts. Ultimately, Musharraf was whisked away to foreign lands to escape prosecution. And the poor ‘democratic’ government and ‘independent’ courts were rendered helpless.

This is the supreme irony of democracy Pakistani style, that some institutions are more equal than others. But this does not mean that Sharif does not meet his nemesis, if guilty as charged.