The Musharraf shemozzle

Musharraf himself is setting the ball rolling by saying to the foreign press that "the whole army is upset".

What else but the Commando’s antics this week (why should I be left behind?!), and those of his defence team, seemingly a well-rehearsed tamasha both inside the court where they maintain an overly aggressive posture against the prosecution, and outside, where particularly, the great legal brain Ahmad Raza Kasuri intimidates the press with threats, and calls them ‘Indian agents’.

This is not all: from the Commando himself setting the ball rolling by saying to the foreign press in an interview given at his fancy ‘farm-house’ on December 30 2013: “I would say the whole army is upset. Certainly, they wouldn’t like anything happening to their ex-Army Chief,” to his legal team travelling up and down the country addressing 50 or 60 or 100 retired senior officers in Islamabad, Lahore and Karachi (who form the membership of the ‘Pakistan First Forum’), talking about a sub judice matter in irresponsible terms, such as questioning the special court’s setting up, and demanding his trial in a military court and egging on a virtual revolt in the ranks.

Indeed, this newspaper of record of January 12, ’14, reported Dr Khalid Ranjha’s talk to the assemblage thus: “Defence counsel Dr Khalid Ranjha appealed to ex-servicemen on Saturday to request the military to issue a statement that General Pervez Musharraf be tried under the Army Act and not by the special court.” Former servicemen gathered in Lahore under the platform of ‘Pakistan First Forum’.

Most dangerously and irresponsibly, he also asked the assemblage to appeal to the sitting generals and lower cadre to stand up in favour of Musharraf. Ask ‘lower cadre’ to ‘stand up in favour of Musharraf’? How imprudent and reckless, not only of the eminent lawyer but even the senior officers present. For they well know this sort of speech can encourage vigilante action by a hot-head who might do harm to someone senior in the country. Sad.

I have long had an entirely different view on all of this shemozzle. Consider: Writing in this same space on June 6,2013 in my article “Coming full circle”:

“… the so-called Commando, now a sorry figure who actually escaped from court (when his bail was cancelled by the IHC) — I ask you — a man who once also threatened Nawaz Sharif and Benazir Bhutto in the following words: ‘The last punch will be mine’, has punched himself out cold. There he sits, surrounded by luxury and 20 batmen and official cooks and gardeners and chauffeurs and telephone operators (being a former full general) with nowhere to go, no one to call.”

A month or so earlier I had suggested in “What goes around, comes around” on April 25, ’13: “So, I say … what goes around comes around. Personally, I abhor unfair behaviour towards anyone, and will always stand up for those who are dealt with unfairly.

“Which brings me to the matter of the Commando wishing to go to Dubai to meet his dear mother, a lady I have admired … may she have good health and may these days of peril for her son go easy on her. Indeed, may the Commando himself stay safe.

“But we could all do without Ahmad Raza Kasuri’s histrionics on live TV when he pretended to cry … pleading for Musharraf … to see his mother. May I remind Kasuri of the time when his leader (until 1976, when Kasuri stood in line for a PPP ticket for the ’77 elections despite having registered a murder case against ‘Saab’ — his word for ZAB — in 1974!) was the victim of judicial murder and his wife and daughter were not even allowed to attend his funeral rites by an army dictator?

“ … That Nawaz and Shahbaz and (the late) Abbas Sharif were not allowed … to bury their father? …That Asif Ali Zardari was not allowed to visit his mother … because he was in the Commando’s prison? What goes around, sirs, comes around, remember that.

“As to the Commando being allowed to go to Dubai to visit his mother, I am all for it … if he doesn’t come back to face the charges against him, good riddance: he could be tried and sentenced in absentia if found guilty. The country could very easily do without him and his malevolent influence … ”.

Much has happened since then, however: His quite evident overstating illnesses that anyone his age would have — and he is a lot fitter than 90 per cent of them: his pulse is that of an athlete, Masha’allah — has further weakened his position and shoved him unceremoniously into the ranks of the has-beens. Time we too forgot all about the man.

So, let a date be given for his appearance before the special court six months down the line, during which he can visit not only his dear mother, but also the best heart doctor in the world who, too, has submitted a letter on the (God forbid) bad state of the Commando’s health, and mayor of Paris, Texas, to boot, Dr Arjumand Hashmi. Let him then return to the country to a rapturous welcome by his millions of supporters and appear in court like many others before him! Rs100 says he will not return.

A word to the retired senior officers of the armed forces who form the Pakistan First Forum (please note that the two associations of retired military personnel, PESA and PESS have a far larger membership than this lot): I hope you gentlemen, some of you who used to boast at the time of Zulfikar Ali Bhutto and Mian Mohammad Sharif’s funerals: ‘Dekha kese door rakha hai unn ko’; ‘Chirrya bhi nahin urrnay dee’, now understand the beauty of democracy, and of the right to free association and assembly. They who prevented others (with extreme force sometimes — lathi-charging Begum Bhutto/lifting for hours Begum Nawaz’s car on a forklift in the height of a Lahore summer), can meet where and when they want, and say anything that comes to mind; even the most incendiary.

It is important that you do understand, for the country is at a most dangerous place, many crossroads having been passed in the wrong direction.

Published in The Express Tribune, January 24^th,  2014.

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