Nawaz Sharif's sense of political timing is baffling. After lying low for nearly two years over Asif Zardari's numerous misstatements, unfulfilled promises and procrastination, he has issued a definitive negative statement against the President by calling him a danger to democracy.
This at a time when wisdom demanded that he keep on the sidelines and let the tiff between the President and the judiciary, play itself out. By speaking out now so strongly against the President, Nawaz Sharif has given a helping hand to the PPP leadership to mobilise and motivate its workers to come on streets in a show of strength.
If its protests were only directed against the judiciary, the PPP would not have been able to muster much popular support. By his unnecessary and untimely provocation, Nawaz Sharif has provided an unexpected opportunity to the PPP to activate its street force more effectively - something which the PML-N chief apparently failed to anticipate and could not have wished for.
As for President Zardari, it is not too difficult to see why he has chosen to precipitate in a quarrel with the judiciary. With several cases pending against him and only the debatable "immunity" hanging between him and personal and political disaster, he probably read the situation as getting gradually, but inexorably out of hand for him with each passing week.
Why not confront the inevitable now when he has a pliant and obedient Prime Minister on his side and he himself still armed with almost all presidential powers enjoyed by Musharraf and with his party enjoying sizeable presences in the Parliament and the provincial assemblies? PM Gilani and Information Minister Kaira tried to defuse the situation by promising that in any case the government would abide by the final decision of the judiciary, which begs the question: what was the point of all the fuss. One suspects there is more to it than that!
I was actually planning to use today's article to Spotlight various political and judicial matters (loose ends), which have been held in abeyance so long that they are getting to be quite forgotten. However, as these line were being written, the above big story has burst upon the political scene with such force that I was forced to devote part of the column to it and leave out some of the loose ends for a later date. So be it.
DEATHS IN KARACHI This is the most lethal loose end! It has a tendency to appear again and again as an unresolved and little understood enigma. Same beginning, same sequence, same result! The only difference is that, as the latest incident ends, hundreds of families are left in mourning over the loss (through targeted killings) of a father, mother, son, daughter or sibling for no explainable reason.
In most cases, the murdered men were ordinary people eking out a marginal income through self employment or on wages at or below subsistence level. For the rulers, this is another happy ending and business as usual after another bone of contention among the ruling allies has been settled behind doors. Suddenly there is no more talk about the killers or the killed, no more talk of whodunit, no arrests, "no nothing"!
That is the short hand story of gruesome murders and target killing sprees, which have become the bane of life for the common man in Karachi. In a much talked about speech in the provincial assembly recently, Zulfiqar Mirza made the point in an emotional outburst that but for the "reconciliation" phenomenon (obviously referring to the PPP-MQM relations), he would apprehend and punish all the wrongdoers within three months.
At the moment, there was a serious rift brewing between the coalition partners, PPP and MQM, on the subject of payment of considerable amounts to the CDGK from the funds collected from builders and property owners for issuance of building plans.
On an average, the KBCA (under the Sindh government) had been transferring Rs 500 million annually to the CDGK as development of land and infrastructure or betterment charges. But it started avoiding any communication on the subject or paying money to the CDGK since August 2009 and in a tit-for-tat, the city government (under MQM) started withholding approval of building plans cleared by the provincial government.
There is also the backdrop of a long term controversy between the two main coalition partners in Sindh on the subject of city government's future. A similar sequence of events in which political differences are followed by apparently pointless target killings followed by settlement of the issue and the cessation of killings only then, appears to have become a familiar pattern in Karachi. Will the matter be ever taken to a conclusion so that all facts are brought out and killers are apprehended and punished?
BLACKWATER Rehman Malik, our security man for the whole country, keeps telling us every day in the same monotone that Blackwater does not exist in Pakistan. Other people have weighed in with their observations and firm opinion to the contrary. But every time Malik lost no time in contradicting those statements and promised, rather unwisely, that he would resign if Blackwater presence in the country were proved.
But then, the US Secretary of State acknowledged the existence of Blackwater operatives in Pakistan, and also indicated the nature of the services performed by them. I quote from a press report: "US Defence Secretary Robert Gates confirms that American security firms Xe Services LLC, formerly known as Blackwater, and DynCorp have been operating in Pakistan.
The two firms are operating in private capacities, Gates said on Thursday, adding that the companies were abiding by Pakistani laws." When Federal Information Minister Kaira was confronted with the contradictory statements, he had also, at first, confirmed the existence of the infamous organisation in the country.
After the definitive testimony from the horse's mouth, end of the matter, every one thought, Malik would apologise and retract all his earlier statements to the contrary and might even resign, the unthinkable coming to pass for once! Not a word of it! Malik stood his ground, and said something about Gates not having been understood properly.
If sticking to one's statements irrespective of what is correct is a virtue, Malik is surely one of the most virtuous men in government today. Now comes a statement, as late as last week, from no less than the NWFP senior Minister Billour (whose party is aligned with the PPP both at the Centre and at least two provinces), which says that Blackwater guards were present in the province to provide security to the US officials, the international non-government agencies and the US embassy staff in the province. Would you tie up this loose end Rehman Malik including the little matter of your resignation? We are on tenterhooks!
1997 ATTACK ON SUPREME COURT Finally, this long-time loose end is getting judicial attention. Back in 1997 when Sajjad Ali Shah was Chief Justice of Pakistan, there took place on November 28 an unprecedented (even for unruly Pakistan) attack on the Supreme Court of Pakistan.
Hundreds of Pakistan Muslim League supporters allegedly led by the ruling party member from Punjab Sardar Naseem and Colonel Mushtaq Tahir Kheli (retired), Sharif's political secretary, stormed into the Supreme Court, chanted slogans against the Chief Justice Shah, forcing him to adjourn the contempt of court case against Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif.
Cameras installed at the Supreme Court filmed part of the action. Now after some 13 years, the matter has come before the court in an unexpected manner. Acceptance of nomination papers of Nawaz Sharif's for contesting projected National Assembly bye-election from NA-123 has been challenged in the Lahore High Court. One of the grounds relates to the 1997 attack on Supreme Court.
Orakzai, described as a free lance journalist, who is the petitioner in the case, has argued that among the details of criminal cases against Nawaz Sharif provided by the PML-N chief at the time of filing the nomination papers, the case pertaining to the attack on the Supreme Court was not included which omission renders him ineligible to fight the election and his nomination papers should not have been accepted. The Lahore High Court has issued notice in the matter to Nawaz Sharif on 16 February 2010. The ghost of the long standing loose end might finally be laid to rest.
WEAPONS IN KARACHI AND ELSEWHERE Last month the Senate Standing Committee on Interior, summoned State Interior Minister Tasneem Qureshi to explain the sale of 5,986 prohibited-bore licenses in just two recent months. Shockingly, the committee was informed that the corrupt officials were instrumental in issuing 26,000 fake licenses to unknown people. The committee was also informed that each Senator, MNA and MPA was allowed 25 non-prohibited weapons licenses each year which they availed in 75 % of the cases.
Early this month, the National assembly was informed that the Interior Ministry issued 29,000 licenses for both prohibited and non-prohibited bore weapons during the last two years. According to a newspaper report, the Interior Minister issued 255 prohibited bore licenses to himself.
Information Minister Kaira, Railway Minister Ghulam Bilour, Minister of Power Raja Parvez Ashraf, Senator Rahat Hussain, MNA Rana Tanveer Hussain, MNA Malik Azmat, Tourism Minister Moulana Attaur Rehman and Defence Minister Mukhtar managed between them the issue of licences for some 600 weapons while other ministers and parliamentarians conveniently distributed some 7,200 weapon licences between themselves.
Interestingly and inexplicably 713 licences of prohibited bore weapons were issued to four individuals, whose names the Interior Minister refused to divulge, as reported in the press.
In the backdrop of recurrent target killings in Karachi, we keep hearing about proposals both from the government and from opposition people about bringing arms' sale into some kind of control, if not banning them altogether for civilians. We think people have a right to know if the government intends to take any action at all in the matter. We should also know the specifics of the government's policy in this connection and also, in the first place, if such a policy exists at all.
These loose ends are an indication of the authority's lack of sincerity and resolve the matter. The government is welcome to prove the popular perception wrong by moving vigorously in this vital matter in the directions indicated. Let this lethal loose end be tied up soon.
BB'S ASSASSINATION This is the mother of all loose ends! Asif Zardari, husband of assassinated Benazir Bhutto put his foot into his mouth by declaring that he knew who the assassin was. The rash statement keeps coming back to haunt him with a challenge to name the assassin.
On the top of that was taken the strange decision to refer the matter to the UN, which appeared in retrospect to be less than enthusiastic to oblige by taking on a first-of-its-kind task for the UN. It agreed to begin its probe from July 2009 and to complete it by end December 2009. The date was subsequently revised to March 2010.
UN spokeswoman Michele Montas said at the outset that the UN commission would only enquire into the facts and circumstances of Bhutto's death, and that further action against the perpetrators would only be taken by the Pakistan government. She added that "the duty of determining criminal responsibility of the perpetrators of the assassination remains with the Pakistani authorities". Big deal!
So this is the result of the unheard of decision by a sovereign government to refer the investigation of the assassination of one of its most prominent leaders to a foreign organisation and that too with very vague terms of reference. The result is a foregone conclusion. One could not do better if one wanted the matter never to reach conclusion! Will this loose end be ever tied up convincingly?
MONEY LAUNDERING AND SURREY PALACE CASES Is it not strange that the Presidential immunity snag prevents the government and people of Pakistan from recovering the sizeable sum of nearly Rs 6 billion, which belongs to them but which is presently laying somewhere in the Swiss and other banks? At a time when our leaders are going round, begging bowl in hand, and not making much headway, this money could be more than useful if finally brought home.
I quote the relevant parts of a story printed in The Times of August 29, 2008, under the heading, Asif Ali Zardari's $60 million returned as court case is closed: "A money-laundering case against Asif Ali Zardari has been dropped by a Swiss court, leading to the release of millions of pounds.....The case was closed and $60 million (£33 million) handed back to Zardari after the Pakistani government withdrew its requests for judicial assistance from Switzerland, and said it had no claim on his assets.
It said that he had not done anything illegal and that the charges had been politically motivated. The decision may enrich Zardari, the widower of Benazir Bhutto and frontrunner to replace Pervez Musharraf in elections next month, but it also embroils him in renewed controversy about his financial dealings.
His contested accounts were frozen in 1997 at the request of Pakistani authorities investigating allegations that Zardari had received kickbacks and commissions on deals with foreign companies while a minister in his wife's second government". Will the matter ever come up for a final decision, which would either bring home Rs 5 billion or clear Asif Zardari of all the charges as politically motivated?
On the famous Surrey Palace case, I quote from Pakistan Times of 18 August 2004 under the heading "Zardari's surprise admission to Surrey Palace Ownership!" A government spokesman said here Tuesday that it now stands proven that true owners of the multi-million dollars Rockwood Estate (Surrey Palace) are former Prime Minister Benazir Bhutto and her husband Asif Ali Zardari".
This also supports the government of Pakistan's (GoP) earlier contention that the Rockwood properties had been purchased by Benazir Bhutto and Asif Ali Zardari with the proceeds of corruption, the identity of the true purchasers being deliberately concealed behind a network of trusts and companies.
The GoP has consequently contended, and still does contend, that Pakistan is entitled to recover the properties, or the proceeds of sale, for the benefit of the people of Pakistan, the spokesman added. The property was sold on July-16, 2004 for a sum of 4.35 million Pounds in consequence of GoP claim towards its legal and financial ownership. Will these money laden loose ends be ever tied up?
(owajid@yahoo.com)