EDITORIAL: One can wonder all one wants about the timing of the Director General (DG) Inter Services Press Relation’s (DG ISPR’s) press conference, just when the Supreme Court is deliberating the legality of civilians’ trials in military courts, but the army’s point of view is very clear.
It has wrapped up its own internal investigation and subsequent cleansing action regarding the May 9 “incident” – sacking three senior officers, including a lieutenant-general, and initiating proceedings against another 15 officers, which include three major-generals and seven brigadiers. It’s also made it very clear that even family members of serving and retired officers who were involved in the execution of attacks on military installations will not be spared.
And now it will go after all the “planners and facilitators” of that “incident”. It named no names, of course – the military hardly ever does – but it wasn’t hard to read between the lines at all, to understand that the senior leadership of PTI (Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf), or what is left of it, especially its chairman, Imran Khan, seems in very serious trouble. There were also enough hints at the presser to give the impression that the military is in possession of evidence proving that, despite recent claims to the contrary, the party was in fact directly involved in identifying sensitive military installations and also planning and executing the attacks that came immediately after Imran Khan’s arrest.
Ominously, it was also revealed that military trials of 102 suspects are already underway and will reach their conclusions no matter what. This contradicts the chief justice’s wishes – that these trials be put on hold till the Supreme Court reaches a conclusion – very sharply. Some are also interpreting the army’s stern warning against all facilitators and helpers as a red flag for all people, parties and institutions that might want a legal injunction against military trials of civilians. Hopefully, this will not result in a direct clash between two of the country’s top and most respected institutions and the Attorney General for Pakistan’s categorical statement before the court to the effect no trial of a civilian has commenced in military courts as yet will be honoured.
Amid all the confusion only two things are known for sure. One, PTI did, after all, have a part to play in the agitation that crossed the line on May 9. It just remains to be seen how deeply and directly it was really involved. And two, the army will make a lesson out of this one way or the other. If it is penalising its own officers, low and very high ranking, including family members who took the law into their own hands on that fateful day, there’s no way it will spare anybody on the outside; especially if it turns out that a particular political party banked a little too much on its popularity and over-played its hand by really trying to spark a munity in the country’s armed forces so one person could benefit and become prime minister again.
There are still some hurdles to be crossed before the nation knows for sure how these trials will really be conducted and what is to be expected of them. But this process should at least produce new ground rules that no political party would want to, or be allowed to, break. Politics in this Islamic republic has already degenerated into a zero-sum game with only room for power players who will go to any length to satiate their lust. The only thing worse can be allowing this rot to spill over and contaminate other institutions as well.
We came perilously close to something just like that in May. And the military, for one, will not take anything for granted any longer. The best thing the judiciary can do, once it wraps up its hearings about the military trials, is end its infighting, set its own house in order and do something about its horrible backlog so it can be taken seriously once again and there would be no need for a debate about military courts in future.
Copyright Business Recorder, 2023
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