If the Sharif government had deliberately set out to distract people from its failure to provide quick fixes to bread and butter issues, or to erode Imran Khan’s bid to ignite mass passions against the federal government over the continuing US drone strikes, it could not have manufactured a better device than General Pervez Musharraf’s treason trial that has hogged headlines for the last two weeks. Will Musharraf be brought to court and indicted or not? Is he really ill? Has a deal been done by the Sharifs with the generals and judges to whisk Musharraf out of Pakistan on some pretext or the other so that he is not a cause of embarrassment any more?
The Sharifs had committed themselves time and again to trying General Musharraf for treason under Article 6 of the constitution if and when they came to power. He was guilty of doing the 1999 coup that removed them from office and subsequently exiled them to Saudi Arabia and the UK. Much in the same fashion, ex-CJP Iftikhar Mohammad Chaudhry and his brother judges wanted to hold General Musharraf accountable for imposing a state of emergency and ousting them from office in 2007. Interestingly enough, the Sharifs had no problem contesting the general elections of 2008 and swearing themselves into the parliaments that later flowed from General Musharraf’s 2007 proclamation in the same fashion as Iftikhar Mohammad Chaudhry et al had had no difficulty earlier in legitimizing the coup of 1999. Curiously, neither the Sharifs nor the judges have ever countenanced the possibility of trying General Musharraf’s aiders and abettors for treason on both occasions as ordained by the constitution.
In short, this treason trial is not about protecting and upholding the constitution (as argued by the Sharifs), nor indeed of foreclosing the possibility of any coup in the future (as held by the judges). It is essentially about political revenge and settling scores by the Sharifs and the judges.
General Musharraf’s motives for returning to Pakistan are equally transparent. He was deceived by his million-strong Facebook/Twitter followers in Pakistan and his million-dollar royalties from book sales and fees from lecture tours in the West into believing that he had a significant political constituency at home and abroad. So he launched his own party and returned to Pakistan expecting huge crowds and adulating supporters. Instead, he was isolated and charged with conspiracy to murder Benazir Bhutto, Akbar Bugti, and Lal Masjid jihadis. He was also charged with the sacking of the CJP and six fellow judges in 2007. So he was compelled to acquire armoured vehicles and security and rush from court to court posting bail instead of readying to contest elections. And when he thought he had run the gamut and could slip away abroad to lick his wounds, the wily Sharifs and rampant judges sprung a treason case upon him. Stunned, he implored the army high command, the Saudis and the Emiratis to rescue him from the clutches of the wicked civilians who were conspiring to string him up, conveniently forgetting that General Ahmad Shuja Pasha, the former ISI chief, General Ashfaq Kayani, the COAS, and Saudi and Emirati emissaries had all advised him not to venture back to Pakistan.
The Get-Musharraf-Out-Of-Pakistan operation is now in full swing. The Sharifs have handed responsibility to the special court and the military, effectively washing their hands of the affair. Once bitten, twice shy; they recall the Raymond Davis affair in 2011 when they were first advised by the ISI to charge and hold Davis in Punjab and then, when anti-American passions were running high, ordered to let him go in the dead of night amidst mass censure by the media. This time they have deftly dropped the baby in the lap of its stepmother. The military is now contriving ways and means of protecting its own in the blinding glare of the media.
Some people say the Sharifs are treading on thin ice by launching a treason case against an ex-army chief and risking a rupture in civil-military relations. This is not correct. The military is acting in its own interest and not against the Sharifs by protecting General Musharraf. The last thing it wants is for the trial to drag on and rope in other top military officials. No one wants to open a Pandora’s box by trying the coup-makers and their aiders and abettors – generals, judges and politicians – of 1999 any more than their counterparts of 2007. Therefore this is a joint operation to get rid of someone who poses problems for everyone. General Raheel Sharif, the new COAS, is as much in the loop as General Kayani, the ex-COAS, was months earlier. That is why Imran Khan is silent, and the Chaudhries of Gujrat and the MQM, the biggest beneficiaries of the 1999 coup, are squarely lined up behind General Musharraf.
The treason trial is fated to wither on the vine in the same manner as the Memogate case.
The Sharifs had committed themselves time and again to trying General Musharraf for treason under Article 6 of the constitution if and when they came to power. He was guilty of doing the 1999 coup that removed them from office and subsequently exiled them to Saudi Arabia and the UK. Much in the same fashion, ex-CJP Iftikhar Mohammad Chaudhry and his brother judges wanted to hold General Musharraf accountable for imposing a state of emergency and ousting them from office in 2007. Interestingly enough, the Sharifs had no problem contesting the general elections of 2008 and swearing themselves into the parliaments that later flowed from General Musharraf’s 2007 proclamation in the same fashion as Iftikhar Mohammad Chaudhry et al had had no difficulty earlier in legitimizing the coup of 1999. Curiously, neither the Sharifs nor the judges have ever countenanced the possibility of trying General Musharraf’s aiders and abettors for treason on both occasions as ordained by the constitution.
In short, this treason trial is not about protecting and upholding the constitution (as argued by the Sharifs), nor indeed of foreclosing the possibility of any coup in the future (as held by the judges). It is essentially about political revenge and settling scores by the Sharifs and the judges.
General Musharraf’s motives for returning to Pakistan are equally transparent. He was deceived by his million-strong Facebook/Twitter followers in Pakistan and his million-dollar royalties from book sales and fees from lecture tours in the West into believing that he had a significant political constituency at home and abroad. So he launched his own party and returned to Pakistan expecting huge crowds and adulating supporters. Instead, he was isolated and charged with conspiracy to murder Benazir Bhutto, Akbar Bugti, and Lal Masjid jihadis. He was also charged with the sacking of the CJP and six fellow judges in 2007. So he was compelled to acquire armoured vehicles and security and rush from court to court posting bail instead of readying to contest elections. And when he thought he had run the gamut and could slip away abroad to lick his wounds, the wily Sharifs and rampant judges sprung a treason case upon him. Stunned, he implored the army high command, the Saudis and the Emiratis to rescue him from the clutches of the wicked civilians who were conspiring to string him up, conveniently forgetting that General Ahmad Shuja Pasha, the former ISI chief, General Ashfaq Kayani, the COAS, and Saudi and Emirati emissaries had all advised him not to venture back to Pakistan.
The Get-Musharraf-Out-Of-Pakistan operation is now in full swing. The Sharifs have handed responsibility to the special court and the military, effectively washing their hands of the affair. Once bitten, twice shy; they recall the Raymond Davis affair in 2011 when they were first advised by the ISI to charge and hold Davis in Punjab and then, when anti-American passions were running high, ordered to let him go in the dead of night amidst mass censure by the media. This time they have deftly dropped the baby in the lap of its stepmother. The military is now contriving ways and means of protecting its own in the blinding glare of the media.
Some people say the Sharifs are treading on thin ice by launching a treason case against an ex-army chief and risking a rupture in civil-military relations. This is not correct. The military is acting in its own interest and not against the Sharifs by protecting General Musharraf. The last thing it wants is for the trial to drag on and rope in other top military officials. No one wants to open a Pandora’s box by trying the coup-makers and their aiders and abettors – generals, judges and politicians – of 1999 any more than their counterparts of 2007. Therefore this is a joint operation to get rid of someone who poses problems for everyone. General Raheel Sharif, the new COAS, is as much in the loop as General Kayani, the ex-COAS, was months earlier. That is why Imran Khan is silent, and the Chaudhries of Gujrat and the MQM, the biggest beneficiaries of the 1999 coup, are squarely lined up behind General Musharraf.
The treason trial is fated to wither on the vine in the same manner as the Memogate case.