Brij Nath Betab
Pakistan has plunged into deep crisis, once again. General Pervez Musharraf may not be put to gallows as he is not living in Pakistan and he may not be deported from Dubai , but handing down death sentence(in absentia) to him has given origin to another deep crisis in Pakistan.
‘The villain of Kargil’, Pervez Musharraf, who had seized power in a “Bloodless coup d’état” on 12th October 1999 has many options available including challenging the court verdict. This is fait accompli for him as he did not impose faith in the country’s judicial system when he declared emergency in the year 2007 and issued a proclamation suspending not only the constitution but also the judiciary; now he has to kneel down and present himself before those whose seniors he had put behind bars saying that the judiciary was ‘Working at cross purposes with his Government’.
In Pakistan there always has been a tussle of preeminence between the army and the civilian Government but during his own rule Musharraf had undermined the judiciary to the extents that he even suspended the Chief Justice after the later refused to accept the dictator’s dictate to resign. He had put scores of judges behind bars giving ‘judiciary’s conduct’ as one of the main reason for suspending the constitution. Today the wheel of justice has moved full circle. Judiciary has found Musharraf, “guilty of high treason”.
Pakistan is in deep trouble as this time the question is not only about the legality of the judicial decree but also about the loyalty of the army towards it’s generals on one side and the constitutional jurisprudence on the other. Unfortunately for Pakistan the incumbent Prime Minister has not displayed any skill of political maturity till date that he could deploy to mellow down the warring sides. It is obvious that he has succumbed to army pressure and decided to ‘defend the self exiled Musharraf’ in the court but he does not have the option to deny his 2007 remark that “Musharraf be hanged by Bush administration as they hanged Saddam Husain”.
Born in Delhi and brought up in Karachi, Musharraf on the other hand still has his clout at the General Headquarters at Rawalpindi. Taking a cue from the spontaneous if not the impulsive reaction in the form of a statement by the office of the Director General of Public Relations of Pakistan Army, one infers that it may not be easy for the country to emerge from this crisis without some serious fallout.
The tussle rather the fight for supremacy between the judiciary and the army has come out in the open. The case in question relates to charges of high treason against Musharraf initiated against him by Nawaz Sharif’s party in which a three judge special court handed down death sentence to the former military dictator who had shun his military valor and fled Pakistan many years ago fearing his arrest. The infuriated army has challenged the judiciary to hold a referendum to find out how the former President and the Army Chief had served the country for forty years. The crux of the statement issued by the army is that they are not going to take this decision lying down. They shall find loopholes in the judgment and harp on them. Judiciary has already exasperated present army chief Gen Bajwa by scuttling his ambition to stay put. Now enraged by judicial verdict in this case, the army has fumed through statements that “they stand by Musharraf and have received the verdict with lot of pain and anguish”. While on the one side the army says it stands behind its former chief, on the other hand the Judiciary also seems resolved to take a strong stand. The verdict has become a point of prestige for both and the judicial, administrative and political melee that shall establish the supremacy of whosoever triumphs.
With army openly coming to Musharraf’s support the standoff between the two is going to escalate. An army spokesperson saying that “the due legal process seems to have been ignored” reflects army’s frame of mind to not accept the verdict so straightforwardly. As the full judgment is out, the army and a section of the legal fraternity are up in arms but people of Pakistan have been rejoicing and hailing the judgment. Opinion makers in Pakistan have termed the decision as ‘Momentous’ and ‘path breaking.’ Some have termed the judgment as a deterrent for future military rulers to not suspend the constitution and deny common citizens their constitutional rights and instead also allow the judiciary to function independently. Some hail this as the supremacy of judiciary. Whatever the outcome, one thing is clear that Judiciary in Pakistan has a score to settle with the army. Attorney General of Pakistan Anwar Mansoor Khan had dropped many hints about that on the very day when judgment was out by expressing reservations about the “Rush in the case”. He claimed that during the trial the Court rejected many pleas including the request to form a commission and record Musharraf’s statement in Dubai. He alleged that the courts had acted “outside the scope of the law”. The remarks in the judgment by a judge that” if Musharraf is dead by the time of execution, his corpse be hanged for three days’ only confirms the Judiciary’s venom against the dictator.
The issue dates back to March 2007, when Musharraf as head of a military regime asked Chief Justice to resign and ultimately arrested him and sixty other judges after declaring state of emergency in the country in November that year. Since then the judicial activism in Pakistan has seen many progressions. How touchy the judges in Pakistan are about their mandate was recently exhibited by the Chief Justice, Justice Asif Saeed Khosa who took exception to Prime Minister’s utterances terming Judiciary as “Powerful”. Imran Khan as usual in an off the cuff remark about allowing Nawaz Sharif to travel out of the country for treatment had ‘taunted judiciary as powerful’. Justice Khosa in his speech at a function rebutted him by saying that for the judiciary only the law was powerful. So the powerful law has taken its ‘rightful course’ and the wrongs done to law by a dictator have been revenged.
Whatever be the fate of this backstabber of India, one thing is crystal clear that politicians in Pakistan do not have a safe Future. Zulfiqar Ali Bhutto was hanged. Zia -ul -Haq was killed. Benazir Bhutto was assassinated. Her husband Asif Ali Zardari arrested and put in Jail more than once. Nawaz Sharif was put behind bars from where he had to be shifted out of the country for better treatment. (His wife passed away while he was in jail.) In our neighborhood this has happened in the recent years and this has been happening in the bygone years. Khan Abdul Jabbar Khan, the elder brother of Bacha (Badshah) Khan was assassinated way back in 1958. Chaudhary Elahi was assassinated in 1981, Syed Njeeb Ahmed a leftist student leader fondly called Qaid-e-Talib was murdered in 1990. Nawab Akbar Bugti, the undisputed leader of Baluchistan was killed in 2006. Raza Haider a member of Sindh provincial assembly was killed in 2010. First federal Minister for minorities Shahbaz Bhatti was assassinated in 2011.Soran Singh, Minister for minorities in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa was killed in2016.Salman Taseer, Governor of Punjab was killed in 2011. (26 bullets pumped into his body by his own body guard).These are only a few examples to exhibit how the culture of silencing opponents is embedded in the psyche of politics in Pakistan. The trend seems to be barbaric as no wing of the state endures another wing getting its roots strong. In the present case it is evident that in Pakistan Judiciary is preparing itself to halt Army from becoming a state within the state. In this grinding, Imran Khan has to be the causality. Thus if anyone had any misgivings as to why Pakistan is called a failed state, the assassinations of political opponents and now the death sentence handed to former military ruler, 76 years old Pervez Musharraf only elaborates that why. Had this country of “Punjabi Feudal Lords” ever bothered to put the social, economic and political rails on right tracks, today Musharraf would not have had to face the death sentence. His execution may not happen overnight but a lot many people of different shades of opinion shall rejoice the verdict. And if anyone has the last laugh it would be former Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif whose democratically elected Government Musharraf was overthrown in 1999.
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