ISLAMABAD: It’s both unbelievable and unfortunate. Prime Minister of Pakistan issues order to three concerned ministries for implementation of recommendations of an Inquiry Commission but the DG ISPR, in a tweet, publicly disputed the PM’s action and rejected it too.
The wording of the tweet: “Notification on Dawn Leak is incomplete and not in line with the recommendations by the Inquiry Board. Notification is rejected” -- clearly undermines the office of chief executive and gives the impression as if military is a supra-constitutional body.
On this dilemma of Pakistan, the best comment came from Interior Minister Chaudhry Nisar Ali Khan, who said that tweets are fatal for democracy, and insisted, “Institutions do not talk to each other via tweets”.
The military might be unhappy with the prime minister’s order dated 26th April, 2017 for any reason, right or wrong. But it does not mean that the reaction should be through tweet how it did on Saturday. The best course of action for the GHQ would have been to contact the PM’s office and convey its reservations.
For rating hungry TV channels, the tweet provided all the ingredients to cause political chaos and fuel misunderstanding between the civil and military. Readily available analysts also contributed to this without going through what the government had issued earlier in the day.
The PM’s order was totally misread and misunderstood. The order was neither the reflection of the findings of the Inquiry Committee on the Leak nor it was meant for public consumption.
The PM order simply conveyed that the chief executive has approved the Committee’s recommendations and thus directed the concerned ministries to do the needful for the implementation of these recommendations.
The order was addressed to the secretary interior with its copy forwarded to secretaries of establishment, cabinet and information and broadcasting for “information and necessary action”.
After highlighting the four recommendations, the order clearly read in para 2, “Further necessary action may be taken accordingly by the concerned Ministries and Divisions”.
As per the rules and following the approval and direction of the PM, the concerned ministries will issue the notifications to implement the order. For example, the cabinet division will de-notify Special Assistant to the PM on Foreign Affairs Syed Tariq Fatemi whereas the Establishment Division will initiate disciplinary proceedings against Rao Tehsin Ali, Principal Information Officer.
The information ministry has to take up the issue with APNS both for taking necessary disciplinary proceedings against the Dawn editor and the reporter besides developing code of conduct for the print media, especially when dealing with issues relating to security of Pakistan.
There are reports that the military was upset as the PM’s order did not talk about Pervez Rashid. In actual, since Pervez Rashid was already de-notified, therefore, there was no reason to mention Pervez Rashid in the implementation order meant for the ministries concerned.
The Leak report endorsed the action taken against Pervez Rashid. It could not be reflected in the PM’s order and direction for four ministries/divisions because there was no action required in the case of Pervez Rashid.
Without going into the merits of the PM’s order, here the question arises whether such reaction through tweet should have come even in case of genuine reservations to the PM’s order? The answer is precisely “No”.
The tweet has embarrassed the government and created humiliating situation for the chief executive of the country.
The situation arising out of the tweet was duly exploited by the foreign media, particularly the Indian, to focus on the division between Pakistani civilian and military leadership. It also caused political uncertainty within the country and created serious doubts in the mind of the people.
This situation tends to undermine the civilian supremacy as guaranteed by the Constitution and gives the impression as if the military is acting like a supra-governmental body even over and above the country’s chief executive. In case of any difference of opinion, the best course of action for both sides should be to discuss such matters behind closed-door meetings.