IS THIS A NEW DAWN FOR PAKISTAN OR YET ANOTHER MIRAGE?

IS THIS A NEW DAWN FOR PAKISTAN OR YET ANOTHER MIRAGE?

By

 

 Saeed Malik

 

 

 

Gen R.Shariff
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
Asif Zardari’s recent round of yelping is a sure sign of pain issuing from the realization that the cycle of immunity from prosecution for multifarious acts in an unending saga of unchecked criminality might finally be coming to an end.
The possibility that the bonding partnership in crime and immunity between  the political parties, established by the unwritten lines of the “Charter of Democracy” is finally about to be dismantled, andthat mega corruption may at last find itself a place among the lowest depths of ultimate dishonour in our society, as also being recognized as the ultimate  existential threat to us as a country.
 

And if, as is rumoured, Gen Raheel is also holding the corrupt generals  to task, Pakistan will surely get a second lease of life. And if this happens it will be due directly to honest and dedicated leadership, which Pakistan has not been acquainted with, from the time that  Jinnah was lowered into the ground.

​ 

It is all a matter of throwing the book at 400 people to save 200 million. Thus there should be no fear, and all the incentive, in doing so.

 

As long as the people of Pakistan FEEL that an era of justice for them, and accountability for the high and mighty who have done little but to rob them of hope and their dreams is about to dawn, they will back Gen Raheel and the army in all that it is doing. And the army should draw great confidence from the fact that its approval rating among the people already stands at over 80%.

 

The danger in all this is that as more and more of the filth of the current political leadership is revealed, the more strident will the calls for the imposition of martial law. These calls have to be resisted. Falling into the trap of martial law will cost the army its professionalism and its credibility, as has happened often in the past.

And while resisting such calls, it should be kept in mind that immunity to PML should under no circumstances be a given. All of them are birds of a feather, and they are brothers in crime under the terms of the Charter of Democracy. It is only the willfully blind who cannot see this even now.As crime after crime is being uncovered and exposed by the Rangers and the agencies, is there even a whimper of disapproval, much less outraged condemnation of such crimes coming from the likes of such stalwart democrats as Mulla Fazal, Asfandyar Wali, Achakzai, Aitzaz Ahsan, Reza Rabbani, Ishaq Dar, Khawaja Asif, Khawaja Saad Rafiq, and the great Sharif brothers? Are they all not acting as if they are positively miffed at the army for attempting to retrieve the fortunes of the country from their unholy claws?

To effectively charge the corrupt so that they pay back their dues to society, and to ensure their reservation in the clink,the law will have to be changed, whereby the mega thieves should be considered guilty unless they can prove themselves innocent. All their assets, [minus their proven inherited wealth] need being added up; the authenticity of their declared earnings should be examined;  and  a quantification [in monetary terms] of their living expenses should be made. Their assets and living expenses should then be weighed against authentic, proven income, and these should be weighed against the taxes they have given. And if there is an imbalance between their assets and proven income, or between their assets and the taxes they have paid, they should be held to be guilty, and jailed till they have returned the thieved amount plus back taxes, plus an additional fine in proportion to the scale of their theft. And their terms in jail should not be eased by conferring upon them a class of confinement reserved for the common criminals which they undoubtedly are.

And there is nothing new nor “undemocratic” about this. The IRS in the U.S moves more or less precisely this way.

It is the call of the hour to save the country from the ravages of its

so called​

“democrats” who, with few exceptions, have gutted their motherland. And if Gen Raheel starts with the generals, he will have the people raving for him as he moves ahead.

By now, it is quite clear, that the army has tons of evidence of theft, of robbery, of extortion,of murder, of prostitutes [some now pregnant] being used to launder billions of rupees, of qabza and auction of thousands of acres of land, of government auctioning off positions in officialdom, and of outright treachery [witness the memogate affair and related issues.]

Has there ever been such a coordinated effort at eroding the very foundations of the state by the people who have been “voted” in to safeguard and strengthen these very foundations, and to provide good governance and justice to its people??

Armed with all this evidence, the following needs to be done, to recover the country from the fatal gift of Musharraf’s NRO:

– The generals need to meet to assess the sheer gravity of the situation as regards national security, brought about directly by the ravages of the very people sworn to serve the country and its people.

-To formally resolve to put this situation right, through direct intervention, but not by imposition of military rule, and as far as is possible to avoid recourse to this extreme measure.

-Every general should sign this resolution so that each is personally vested in it, and also so that should they veer from it and allow themselves to be swayed away for considerations of personal power, they could one day be held accountable.

-Make a reference to the Supreme Court for an in- camera hearing, with a plea to find the government, at the very least, criminally negligent in the discharge of its duties, so that it is dismissed, and an interim set up  takes its place, and fresh elections are announced.

 

The following ordinances need to be enacted immediately upon investiture of the interim government:

  • ​To put the country under emergency rule with the army brought in, in aid of civil power till new elections are held, and the new parliament is firmly settled.
  • ​No one charged for corruption be allowed to stand for elections unless first cleared of such charges.
  • All the people so charged, be considered guilty unless the taxes they have paid are in proportion of the wealth they have garnered; and the assets they hold are in proportion to the income they can justify…..such people be tried by military courts, where it is a question of comparatively simple tabulation of wealth accumulated against taxes paid, so that the usual objections of competence or otherwise of military courts is not brought into question.
  • ​Police and civil servants are granted statutory guarantees such that never again is there a danger of their status falling to that of becoming personal servants of those in government. And having done this, to ensure that the best of them are then given the most important assignments. If need be the finest of such officers who have been wasted out of service in the recent past, should be recalled to service, to heal the decimation which these services have suffered at the hands of the “royalty” which has passed itself off as elected democrats. It must be realized that the best of our civil servants and police officers are in no way inferior to our better army officers. And but for the protection that the institution affords the military officers, they themselves  would have fared no better than their brothers in the civil. Such officers properly placed and supported by the army will imporve governance and make martial law redundant.
  • Immediately after fresh elections, the 18th amendment, this monstrous piece of legislation thought out by Raza Rabbani to imperil the unity of the country, should be sent to the trash heap.
 
The bottom line in our recovery from terminal illness as a society and a country lies in the hope that the arch criminals at the helm of the state be dealt with by the same fearlessness, with which they have prostituted their powers in the destruction of all that is sacred and valuable about their country.
 
Ultimately it is a question of bringing a few hundred people to the book so that the future of 200 million is redeemed. The army has promised this four times earlier and failed. It failed because the promise on the back of which it came to power each time, was never meant to be kept. If this time finally the intent is different, so will be the results. And if this is so, this batch of generals will have earned the undying gratitude of millions today, and many more who are to follow. All they need to ask themselves is whether giving their last full measure of devotion to their country will be worth the toil or not.
 
P.S.
At the first opportune moment the government should be forced to disclose all the secret clauses of the LPG deal with Qatar. But before doing this, they should all be put on ECL. I have a suspicion that when such a disclosure is forced on the government, there will be a mad rush for the exits.

 

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