Our Announcements
Sorry, but you are looking for something that isn't here.
Posted by Dorab in CORRUPT ROGUE NAWAZ SHARIF, ISHAQ DAR:THIEF OF PUNJAB, Kulsoom Nawaz:Pholan Devi of Pakistan, NAWAZ SHARIF BUZDIL KARGIL BHAGHORA, NAWAZ SHARIF FAMILY TURPITUDE, NAWAZ SHARIF LOAN SCAM, Nawaz Sharif Malcontent, Nawaz Sharif Massive Corruption, NAWAZ SHARIF US CIA ASSET IN PAKISTAN, Nawaz Sharif's Petrol Hoarding Money Making Scam, Nawaz Sharif-The Prime Minister from Hell on February 9th, 2017
He has remitted around Rs20m to the country and his other assets and cash are worth Rs45m. Ishaq Dar, the Leader of Opposition in the Senate, has 15,779 dirhams in banks, owns a house worth Rs45m in Gulberg, Lahore, and six acres of land valued at Rs14.5m in Punjab.Mar 29, 2013
Oh, that moment of weakness if only it could be forgotten when Isaac called for pen and paper and in his own hand and at considerable length penned down the saga of money-laundering allegedly associated with the house whose top accountant he had been for so many years.
The tell-all tale was spread over 43 pages, no detail spared, everything about how fake bank accounts in international banks were opened in the names of the Qazi family, long known to Dar. Money from mysterious sources then came into these accounts before being transferred to the Hudaybia Paper Mills.
The Sharifs are a religious family and the choice of this name testifies to their religious zeal. That this did not prevent the things being done under the rubric of this near-sacred name is, of course, a different matter.
We are more secular than we care to acknowledge, rendering unto Caesar and Mammon what is theirs, and to Allah what is His. Prayers, fasting and other religious obligations we keep for the uses of the Hereafter. For the here and now we tend to be more pragmatic.
But returning to the confessions, the National Accountability Bureau (NAB) had to extract no forced signatures from Isaac’s hands. He wrote the entire account himself and put his signature to it. And also, again in his own hand, he asked for leniency. Since he had out-performed any canary in singing, his name was removed from the list of the accused and he was made an approver…in other words, the prime witness for the prosecution.
The money-laundering charge was but one case against the Sharifs. There were several others. But all of them were put on hold when through the intercession of their Saudi benefactors the Sharifs were taken from their prison cells and flown to the Holy Land. When in the twilight of the Musharraf era the so-called National Reconciliation Order was promulgated and Benazir Bhutto returned to Pakistan, followed by Nawaz Sharif’s own return – this too being the result of Saudi pressure – the national landscape changed.
Bhutto’s assassination rocked the Musharraf regime and in the elections which followed his King’s Party, the Q – League fared poorly. The PPP took power at the centre and Nawaz Sharif’s PML-N, with no small help from Asif Ali Zardari, formed the government in Punjab, the nerve-centre of Pakistani politics. The PPP and the PML-N having come close to each other, no one was interested in pursuing the old cases, including the Hudaybia case based on Ishaq Dar’s confession.
Both the Sharifs and Asif Ali Zardari were quick to approach the courts to quash these cases. Dar did the same and his confession was quashed, it being declared as of no ‘evidentiary value’. Because all of this was being played on a friendly wicket, NAB did not go into appeal against this friendly decision.
We can imagine Isaac’s sense of relief. Incarceration under the Musharraf regime was not so much a nightmare as the statement he had given. Now seemingly the nightmare was over, the albatross around the neck of the former approver finally cut loose.
Remember also that Musharraf being a coup-making general, the charges brought by his regime against the Sharifs – quite apart from whether they were true or false – never elicited any great moral outrage on the part of the intelligentsia, the political class or so-called civil society, all of whom were more obsessed with denouncing dictatorship and celebrating the restoration of democracy, these being the flavours of that time. Corruption and accountability constituted a forgotten agenda.
Zardari was clever but the Sharifs outplayed him, successfully pulling a veil of obfuscation over their own financial exploits and keeping the spotlight on the PPP, an endeavour in which they received powerful assistance from the restored chief justice, Iftikhar Chaudhry, who could only see the mote in the PPP’s eyes, never the glint in the eyes of the PML-N.
Small wonder, the PPP was branded as an irredeemably corrupt enterprise while the Sharifs were seen as exemplars of good governance and champions of development, a perception paying them handsome dividends in the 2013 elections.
True, Gen Raheel Sharif’s ascendancy became a problem for them because no one likes to walk in someone else’s shadow; and the 2014 dharnas came near to toppling their government. But the general in his winter no longer the commanding figure he was and the dharnas a receding memory, this was a time to savor their triumphs and think calmly about the future.
But everything has been upended by that bolt from the blue, the Panama papers and the hearings in the Supreme Court triggered by them. Uncomfortable questions are being asked for which there are no ready answers and demons long thought to have been laid to rest, like the confessions of St Isaac, are once again on the march, leading to fresh nightmares. When Dar’s lawyer said before the Supreme Court that Dar’s statement could not be used against him, it was suggested to him that could it not be used against the prime minister?
We don’t know what becomes of it or what value is put on it. But the Sharifs have reason to be worried because the money trail leading to their offshore accounts and rich London properties is right there in this statement, backed by evidence in black-and-white: dates, bank accounts, deposits, and transfers, etc.
The defence the PML-N is mounting rests on one word, duress – the contention that Isaac’s confessions were extracted through coercion, the word gunpoint also being used. Significantly, however, no one is saying that what is in the confessional statement, the details of money-laundering, are false. Shouldn’t that be the real burden of the PML-N’s argument?
It should really be a simple matter. The accounts opened in the names of the Qazi family may be fraudulent but the Qazis are real, living people. Why don’t they come up and say that what is being said about them is baseless, with no truth to these charges?
Why go on about duress when what Dar and his defenders should be saying is that the contents of the confessional statement are false – that there never were any Qazi accounts and so the question of mysterious funds being deposited in them simply does not arise?
If they were to do this nothing would be left in the Panama case except sound and fury. And Dar’s nightmare would be finally over. But saying not a word about content they are giving the entire nation a sob story of extraction under pressure. If they debunk the contents of the confession the duress charge is automatically proved. But if they go on about duress while not touching the substance of the story who is to believe Isaac’s protestations?
People retract confessions all the time, not only claiming coercion but roundly denying what they are accused of. Here the funny thing is that in a case which could well have a bearing on the country’s future a person indirectly involved is beating about the bush while saying nothing of the charge against him…and by extension, of the damning charge against the Sharifs.
Email: bhagwal63@gmail.com
Posted by farrukh in CORRUPT ROGUE NAWAZ SHARIF, Kulsoom Nawaz:Pholan Devi of Pakistan, Nawaz "Badami Lassi Kim Barker Thurke" Sharif, Nawaz Dangerous, Nawaz Sharif Dangerous Man, NAWAZ SHARIF LOAN SCAM, Nawaz Sharif Malcontent, Nawaz Sharif Massive Corruption, Nawaz Sharif's Petrol Hoarding Money Making Scam, RAW SPIES IN NAWAZ SHARIF EMPLOYMENT, Western Intelligence Agents-Nawaz Sharif & Pervez Rasheed on February 6th, 2017
1. SUPPORTING ZARDARI (2008-2011)
2. Giving Mujahidin List to India (1997)
3. Secret deal with Musharraf (Copy available on BBC Urdu website)
4. Corruption of 55 Arab Rupees to London (BBC News Documentary)
5. Money laundering 43 Arab Rs to Saudi Arab (Capitalism’s Achilles Heel Book)
6. Corruption of 40 Arab Rs in Motorway (BBC News documentary)
7. Corruption of 25 Arab Rs in Sasti Roti (Daily Express 13.03.2013)
8. Corruption of 13.5 Arab Rs in Yellow Cab Scheme (Daily Jang 29.04.2013)
9. Corruption of 29 Arab Rs in Metro Bus Scheme (Off the Record 05.03.2013)
10. Corruption of 18 Arab Rs in Karachi Shipyard Scam (1998)
11. Attack on Supreme Court (1997)
12. Beating Chief Justice with Shoes (1997)
13. Hudaibiya Paper Mill scam (1996)
14. Corruption of 22 Arab Rs reserved for Electricity Production (Punjab Budget 2012)
15. Secret Deal with Zardari
Posted by admin in CORRUPT ROGUE NAWAZ SHARIF, CRUSHING OF PAK AWAM BY PML(N) & NAWAZ SHARIF, KASHMIRI NAWAZ SHARIF & PMLN MNA/MPA KANJAR KHANA, Looters and Scam Artists, Nawaz "Badami Lassi Kim Barker Thurke" Sharif, Nawaz 's Dauphin, NAWAZ SHARIF & PROSTITUTES, NAWAZ SHARIF BUZDIL KARGIL BHAGHORA, NAWAZ SHARIF LOAN SCAM, Nawaz Sharif Malcontent, Nawaz Sharif Massive Corruption, NAWAZ SHARIF MUZZLES PRESS, Nawaz Sharif US Agent, NAWAZ SHARIF US CIA ASSET IN PAKISTAN, Nawaz Sharif Womanizer, Nawaz Sharif's Petrol Hoarding Money Making Scam, Nawaz Sharif-The Prime Minister from Hell, RIGGED ELECTION 2013, SCAMMER & FRAUDIAS, Tax Choor Ministers & Nawaz Sharif on June 24th, 2016
Posted by admin in Abid Sher Ali, CORRUPT ROGUE NAWAZ SHARIF, Corruption, Corruption in Islamic Countries, CORRUPTION OF SHAHBAZ SHARIF, CORRUPTION-PAKISTAN SUPREME COURT, Criminals, CROOKS, CRUSHING OF PAK AWAM BY PML(N) & NAWAZ SHARIF, DAMAGE TO PAKISTAN BY NAWAZ FAMILY, Election Fraud, ELECTION FRAUD 2013, ELECTION TERRORISTS, ENERGY SCAMS OF NAWAZ SHARIF, KASHMIRI NAWAZ SHARIF & PMLN MNA/MPA KANJAR KHANA, Nawaz "Badami Lassi Kim Barker Thurke" Sharif, Nawaz 's Dauphin, Nawaz Dangerous, Nawaz Sharif & Kashmiri Biradari, NAWAZ SHARIF & PROSTITUTES, NAWAZ SHARIF BUZDIL KARGIL BHAGHORA, Nawaz Sharif Dangerous Man, NAWAZ SHARIF DICTATOR, NAWAZ SHARIF LOAN SCAM, Nawaz Sharif Malcontent, Nawaz Sharif Massive Corruption, NAWAZ SHARIF MUZZLES PRESS, NAWAZ SHARIF SAGA OF ABSOLUTE & CHRONIC CORRUPTION, Nawaz Sharif US Agent, NAWAZ SHARIF US CIA ASSET IN PAKISTAN, Nawaz Sharif Womanizer, NAWAZ SHARIF'S ISLAMIC REPUBLIC OF PAKISTAN, Nawaz Sharif's Petrol Hoarding Money Making Scam, Nawaz Sharif-The Prime Minister from Hell, NAWAZ SHARIF: THE LOOTER, Rana Sanaulla, RAW SPIES IN NAWAZ SHARIF EMPLOYMENT, Serial Killers Nawaz Sharif, Shahbaz Sharif, Western Intelligence Agents-Nawaz Sharif & Pervez Rasheed on June 21st, 2016
June 19, 2016
Is a corruption-free Pakistan possible?
A few days back, an old acquaintance asked me about the future pattern of Punjab politics in the wake of a scam as big as the Panama Leaks. I told him nothing is likely to effect any change in the existing pattern of Punjab politics. Not a single parliamentarian has raised a voice or threatened to depose the current rulers because ‘the first family’ has off-shore companies and the source of capital invested is shrouded in obscurity.
Of course it is corruption. But then isn’t that the way of life in the land of the pure? If it is an art, we have perfected it; if it is a science, we have excelled in it. More worryingly, we have accorded legitimacy to corrupt practices. In fact, we celebrate both corruption and the corrupt.
In the Victorian era, man was defined as a symbol of masculinity, white (read Caucasian) and rational with values derived from the Christian faith. If we try to define Pakistani ‘man’, corruption has to be an essential trait that he is bound to carry in order to qualify as ‘man’. He also has to be yaran da yar, (friend of friends) which means a real ‘man’ shows no respect for any law or regulation when it comes to his friends, cronies or sidekicks.
Thus in our case, violating the law or even constitution for that matter symbolises how powerful someone is. For the poor, corruption may be a means of climbing the social ladder but for the rich and affluent, corruption is the means to express power.
Another acquaintance jestingly said the other day that he has tried to make a payment of a few dollars to get his name included in the list that has emerged out of Panama Leaks. I asked him why he did that, knowing he wasn’t serious. He replied that it was a sign of ‘respectability’; it becomes damn easy to marry off a daughter to a boy from a good family if you can affirm your wealth.
Historians (particularly Edward Gibbon) have inferred from the past that when wealth becomes the principal determinant of the values that society respects, the fall of that society becomes inevitable. The same happened with the Romans and they fell, never to rise again. The generation of wealth and even more so its distribution should be carried out through mutually agreed regulations, which the Romans started flouting with impunity, and hence their fall.
For the poor, corruption may be a means of climbing the social ladder but for the rich and affluent, corruption is the means to express power.
Indeed, it needs no less than a miracle for any nation/civilization to rejuvenate itself. China can be put forth as one rare example. But it too will have to go a long way to match the sole super power, USA.
Another of my friends says, “corruption and Pakistan are like two peas in a pod”. His observation seems sweeping, yet it cannot be easily denied. The first and foremost cause of corruption was embedded in the cataclysmic event of Partition. This is depicted in the relevant chapters from the works of Ilyas Chattha, Urvashi Butalia, Yasmin Khan and Vazira Zamindar. Such events as the partition of India are no less than the upheavals of history bringing about the tectonic shift in the established norms of sociology and culture.
As a consequence of an event of such magnitude, usually a break from the past (though selective) is intended which causes rupture in the centuries-old tradition. The process of evolution which is usually gradual and steady is markedly disrupted. Such disruptions tear the affected people apart from the socio-cultural norms and practices which have hitherto defined their collective ethos. Every one, in such a scenario, is running for life. En masse relocation and genocide, such as were concomitant to partition, gave a big blow to the sensibility that binds people together.
Many living the life of relative deprivation in united India saw Pakistan as a land of opportunities, and came to the newly-founded country for economic gains. In the newly established state of Pakistan, regulatory structures were not in place to check any arbitrary practice aiming to amass wealth or to grab property. Thus the people who could, did all that was possible to secure wealth. Partition catapulted many from rags to riches. These sort of sudden changes contravene the smooth and gradual process of evolution, which people find really hard to come to terms with.
Another cataclysmic event was secession of East Pakistan, which gave a big jolt to the morale of the people. The trust in the future of the country was considerably undermined, a ripe situation in which corruption could proliferate.
Unfortunately Pakistan’s politics, right from the outset, was marred by inconsistent transitions. One political order was substituted by the other, with the two having hardly anything in common. Hence, the transition was abrupt and instantaneous. Political compromises of the oddest kind were made merely for personal gains. Characters like Ghulam Muhammad, Iskander Mirza and Ayub Khan did not allow institutions to germinate and blossom. The will of the people was not sought, in the first place; if and when elections were held, non-political actors wielded more power than the elected ones.
Therefore, institutions remained weak and their fate uncertain. Religious ideology was deployed for self-legitimisation with disastrous consequences. In such a scenario, when state institutions were weakened beyond measure, corruption flourished rampantly.
Such political choices made by the Pakistani elite conjured up a social fabric which was amenable to practices which were corrupt to the core. I do believe that a social movement spearheaded by the intelligentsia can stall that trend. But Pakistan’s history fails to register the existence of any social movement aimed at raising awareness among the people about such an issue of wider significance. So, thus far, there is no hope for a corruption-free Pakistan.
Posted by admin in Abid Sher Ali, CONF-- -- USED, CORRUPT ROGUE NAWAZ SHARIF, Corruption, COWARD OF KARGIL NAWAZ SHARIF, Criminals, ENERGY SCAMS OF NAWAZ SHARIF, KASHMIRI NAWAZ SHARIF & PMLN MNA/MPA KANJAR KHANA, Nawaz "Badami Lassi Kim Barker Thurke" Sharif, Nawaz & Shahbaz Sharif's Business Scams, Nawaz 's Dauphin, Nawaz Dangerous, Nawaz Sharif & Kashmiri Biradari, NAWAZ SHARIF & PROSTITUTES, NAWAZ SHARIF BUZDIL KARGIL BHAGHORA, Nawaz Sharif Dangerous Man, NAWAZ SHARIF DICTATOR, NAWAZ SHARIF FAMILY TURPITUDE, NAWAZ SHARIF LOAN SCAM, Nawaz Sharif Malcontent, Nawaz Sharif Massive Corruption, NAWAZ SHARIF US & SAUDI AGENT, Nawaz Sharif US Agent, NAWAZ SHARIF US CIA ASSET IN PAKISTAN, Nawaz Sharif Womanizer, Nawaz Sharif's Petrol Hoarding Money Making Scam, Nawaz Sharif-The Prime Minister from Hell, NAWAZ SHARIF: THE LOOTER, Nawaz US Agent, Rana Sanaulla, Serial Killers Nawaz Sharif, Western Intelligence Agents-Nawaz Sharif & Pervez Rasheed on May 31st, 2016
© 2024, All Rights Reserved by Pakistan Think Tank.
