On Musharraf

The more funny, less tragic, and undoubtedly equally offensive part of Musharraf’s ‘revelations’ is his allegation that the judiciary was acting under the government’s pressure in acting against him. Not a high level of common sense is required for us to be able to scoff at the lie. But things become more serious when he directly names General (r) Raheel Sharif as the one who pressured both the judiciary and the government into letting him off the hook. All this goes to show the contempt that this man holds for those bound by law to hold him accountable for his crimes. Unfortunately, it is difficult to maintain complete disbelief when ‘pressure’ is talked of as the decisive factor in Musharraf’s leaving the country, ostensibly for medical treatment for a fractured vertebrae, in March this year. As was predicted, Musharraf, who throughout his tenure bragged tirelessly of his own courage, has shown no willingness to return and face the charges against him for the self-serving and brutal emergency in 2007, for the abrogation of the constitution, for removal of sitting judges and for involvement in other cases which include murder. The government has responded by denying that it was under pressure of any kind to let Musharraf off the hook. But the painful fact is that it does not take a very high level of familiarity with the history of this country to concede that such statements will convince few. In any case, not too long ago, and before Musharraf had even spoken so openly, Federal Minister Gen (r) Ghulam Qadir had conceded that there had been pressure on the government. We should also note the perception that during the time leading up to the removal of Musharraf’s name from the ECL, the government had been systematically weakened by Imran Khan’s dharna in 2014.

And then there are sycophants – both politicians and self-proclaimed analysts – who insist that the cases against Musharraf were some kind of personal vendetta on the part of Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif. In their zeal to please the top brass in the military, such people shoot all sorts of arrows in the dark. They will bend over backwards and make the most uncomfortable contortions to earn as many points as possible. We have seen how many of them have repeatedly called on the army to intervene or step in, and how some of them have tried to pave the way for such intervention more sophisticatedly by warning the government and the polity against those who would ‘push the government on an adventurous path’. We repeat here our consistent stance that the case against Musharraf was significant. It could, it should, have made history. The conviction of a former military dictator who stood accused of the most serious crimes under the constitution would have set a much needed precedent. Of course this did not happen because of what is euphemised as institutional imbalance, the betrayal by politicians, be they in opposition or in power, of their proclaimed principles and because of the ‘push’ provided to them by the above-mentioned wiseacres. Those who chose not to do so and paid a price for it were not under any illusion and knew better than to assume that history would really be made in this country whose docks, prisons and death cells seem only to have been constructed for civilians and their elected leaders – innocent or criminal. They only hold that it was still a better, nobler choice than the shamelessness of justifying, on the one hand, a retired general escaping justice and calling, on the other, for civilians accused of – or really involved in – corruption to be given the most severe punishment. Gen Raheel Sharif has rightly been praised highly for resisting calls to overthrow a civilian government when he was at the helm of the military affairs. But a former military dictator has clearly implicated him in a case – quite openly suggesting a nexus that ultimately thwarted the delivery of justice. The suggestion made in the media – that the general needs to respond clearly and not allow his name to be exploited by a now frustrated former military adventurer – is not entirely without weight.