General (retired) Pervez Musharraf is a free man in Dubai despite the fact that he is being concurrently tried in several cases of high treason and murder. No civilian can ever hope to get such extraordinarily lenient treatment from the government, opposition and courts of Pakistan.
General Musharraf was a successful coup-maker. As such, he had clearly committed high treason against the constitution. Yet the Supreme Court, which included Iftikhar Mohammad Chaudhry, legitimized him by some dexterous judicial acrobatics in 2002. Then all the parties, including the PML, participated in elections under him and formed governments loyal to him. When elections rolled round again in 2007, the PPP did a deal with him – in exchange for an unsavoury NRO, it agreed to let him remain an all-powerful president. After the elections, all the parties allowed their ministers to be sworn in by him. After he agreed to relinquish office in 2008, the PPP gave him a guard of honour and no party, not even the PMLN, demurred. For five years, he roamed Pakistan and the world, lecturing and posturing, but no party charged him with high treason and no court took notice.
Then, in a grand display of high opportunism on the eve of the 2013 elections, the Senate – not the National Assembly — passed a unanimous resolution against him, demanding a trial for high treason. The Supreme Court now stepped in, contributing to the façade, and added all the legal reasons why he should be tried for treason and ordered a caretaker government to put him on ECL. When the PMLN formed government, the SC duly ordered it to lodge a treason case against Gen Musharraf. Suddenly, the SC under Iftikhar Mohammad Chaudhry, the PMLN under Nawaz Sharif, and PPP under Asif Zardari, had all woken up to take cognisance of the general’s treason.
From Day One, the treason and other trials have been a farce. The judges have been too scared to even order the government to produce Musharraf in court. The hospitals have been too scared to deny him medical certificates of ill-health. And the government has been too scared to treat him as decreed under law. Even as a prisoner, he has led a charmed life, never once tasting the inside of an ordinary jail. Now he has been allowed to leave the country for “medical treatment” even though everyone and his aunt, knows there is nothing seriously wrong with the cigar chomping, bridge playing, spirited general who likes to party.
The Sindh High Court ordered the government to take him off the exit control list but cunningly “stayed” its own order for fifteen days so that the government would have no excuse not to challenge it in the SC and take responsibility for letting him off the hook. The SC sat on it for a year and then passed the buck back to the government on the excuse that its orders of 2013 to put Musharraf on ECL were “interim orders” conditional to approval and sanction by the federal government.
The wretched PMLN government, which didn’t want to be caught with a hot potato in its hands, kept muttering that it had done so only because the SC had ordered it to do so, and begged the SC to order it to hold on or let Musharraf go. But the judges would not be caught with a hot potato in their hands either, so they ordered the government to take an independent decision without regard to the courts.
In June 2013, CJP Iftikhar Chaudhry and PM Nawaz Sharif jointly determined to teach Musharraf a lesson for their personal trials and tribulations and also send a message of deterrence to budding coup-makers. But after judge Chaudhry’s exit, Mr Sharif got a fresh dose of real politik in Pakistan.
First, regardless of who is army chief, the military as an institution will simply not allow civilians to put any general, let alone an army chief, in the dock for whatever reason, let alone for making a coup. Second, both army chiefs Ashfaq Kayani and Raheel Sharif personally owed General Musharraf and were bound to protect him, the former for paving the way to his succession and the latter for long standing “family” relations which allowed him to be promoted to three stars.
When this message was lost on Mr Sharif, the army destabilized him to the point of almost kicking him out, then humiliated the government and judiciary by stopping them from dragging Musharraf to the courts. Eventually, Mr Sharif learnt his lesson and stopped resisting the military for his own political survival.
It was a foregone conclusion that Musharraf would eventually be a free man and the cases against him would die a slow “natural” death owing to neglect and lack of interest. It can also be safely predicted that Musharraf will return to Pakistan and leave Pakistan at will in the future.
General Musharraf was a successful coup-maker. As such, he had clearly committed high treason against the constitution. Yet the Supreme Court, which included Iftikhar Mohammad Chaudhry, legitimized him by some dexterous judicial acrobatics in 2002. Then all the parties, including the PML, participated in elections under him and formed governments loyal to him. When elections rolled round again in 2007, the PPP did a deal with him – in exchange for an unsavoury NRO, it agreed to let him remain an all-powerful president. After the elections, all the parties allowed their ministers to be sworn in by him. After he agreed to relinquish office in 2008, the PPP gave him a guard of honour and no party, not even the PMLN, demurred. For five years, he roamed Pakistan and the world, lecturing and posturing, but no party charged him with high treason and no court took notice.
Then, in a grand display of high opportunism on the eve of the 2013 elections, the Senate – not the National Assembly — passed a unanimous resolution against him, demanding a trial for high treason. The Supreme Court now stepped in, contributing to the façade, and added all the legal reasons why he should be tried for treason and ordered a caretaker government to put him on ECL. When the PMLN formed government, the SC duly ordered it to lodge a treason case against Gen Musharraf. Suddenly, the SC under Iftikhar Mohammad Chaudhry, the PMLN under Nawaz Sharif, and PPP under Asif Zardari, had all woken up to take cognisance of the general’s treason.
From Day One, the treason and other trials have been a farce. The judges have been too scared to even order the government to produce Musharraf in court. The hospitals have been too scared to deny him medical certificates of ill-health. And the government has been too scared to treat him as decreed under law. Even as a prisoner, he has led a charmed life, never once tasting the inside of an ordinary jail. Now he has been allowed to leave the country for “medical treatment” even though everyone and his aunt, knows there is nothing seriously wrong with the cigar chomping, bridge playing, spirited general who likes to party.
The Sindh High Court ordered the government to take him off the exit control list but cunningly “stayed” its own order for fifteen days so that the government would have no excuse not to challenge it in the SC and take responsibility for letting him off the hook. The SC sat on it for a year and then passed the buck back to the government on the excuse that its orders of 2013 to put Musharraf on ECL were “interim orders” conditional to approval and sanction by the federal government.
The wretched PMLN government, which didn’t want to be caught with a hot potato in its hands, kept muttering that it had done so only because the SC had ordered it to do so, and begged the SC to order it to hold on or let Musharraf go. But the judges would not be caught with a hot potato in their hands either, so they ordered the government to take an independent decision without regard to the courts.
In June 2013, CJP Iftikhar Chaudhry and PM Nawaz Sharif jointly determined to teach Musharraf a lesson for their personal trials and tribulations and also send a message of deterrence to budding coup-makers. But after judge Chaudhry’s exit, Mr Sharif got a fresh dose of real politik in Pakistan.
First, regardless of who is army chief, the military as an institution will simply not allow civilians to put any general, let alone an army chief, in the dock for whatever reason, let alone for making a coup. Second, both army chiefs Ashfaq Kayani and Raheel Sharif personally owed General Musharraf and were bound to protect him, the former for paving the way to his succession and the latter for long standing “family” relations which allowed him to be promoted to three stars.
When this message was lost on Mr Sharif, the army destabilized him to the point of almost kicking him out, then humiliated the government and judiciary by stopping them from dragging Musharraf to the courts. Eventually, Mr Sharif learnt his lesson and stopped resisting the military for his own political survival.
It was a foregone conclusion that Musharraf would eventually be a free man and the cases against him would die a slow “natural” death owing to neglect and lack of interest. It can also be safely predicted that Musharraf will return to Pakistan and leave Pakistan at will in the future.