Monday, August 31, 2009
Once a Brig. Imtiaz Always a Brig. Imtiaz
Brig. Imtiaz former DG IB has done a great job adding another interesting yet annoying episode to the Pakistani political drama.
Brig. Imtiaz was an army intelligence operative who was forced to retire after being held responsible for the infamous “Operation Midnight Jackals” designed to destabilize the first Benazir Bhutto administration. He was put in charge of the Intelligence Bureau by the first Nawaz Shareef administration in 1990. He has allegedly been involved with numerous high profile scandals of the 80’s and 90’s most of which are well documented. He was convicted on corruption charges in 2001 and was sent to jail. On August 23 he went on a live talk show joined on the phone by Lt. Gen. (Rtd.) Naseer Akhtar who was the Corps Commander Karachi overseeing the 1992 military operation against MQM. The two made several confessions and retracted past claims and eventually closed their double act by concluding that MQM never had any separatist designs and maps of the alleged independent state Jinnahpur were fake and were never found from MQM headquarters in Karachi. The MQM representative then put in a weak 
melodramatic performance and the show ended.
Since then Brig Imtiaz has been on every talk show on Pakistan’s news media. The matter has been spiced up by another former DG of ISI Lt. Gen. (Rtd.) Asad Durrani who has re-launched his story about bribing politicians.
This has taken over most of the air time on Pakistani news media, the little time remaining has been dedicated to sugar, flour, electricity and other ongoing crisis.
MQM’s response so far has been off the mark by miles, since they chose to launch a political attack on Nawaz Shareef who was the Prime Minister at the time of this Operation and have completely ignored the Military establishment for its role. They have also decided not to talk about the much more vicious operation led by Lt. Gen. (Rtd.) Naseerullah Babar during the second Benazir Bhutto administration.
As a Karachiite I understand that there are reasons to believe that MQM did not have separatist designs, as a Pakistani who believes in Democracy as the way forward for Pakistan I cannot think of a reason to believe in anything that Brig. Imtiaz has to say.
Then on August 29 Brig. Imtiaz squared off against former Governor of Punjab Ghulam Mustafa Khar on another live talk show to debate him on his alleged involvement with the “London Plan” of 1983, Brig. Imtiaz re-launched this controversy during his August 23 interview. The debate was almost 90 minutes long during which both men aggressively stuck to their previously stated positions and former Gov. Khar managed to fit in some insulting comments about Brig. Imtiaz. We as a nation don’t really know how to debate, we just get angry and raise our voices, so I don’t blame former Gov. Khar for his foul mouthed aggression. During the whole time the flustered moderator kept turning from side to side struggling to pronounce the word “conspiracy”. All in all a complete waste of time.
The stories from Brig. Imtiaz and his former (or current?) colleagues further enforce the following points I made on December 20, 2008:
“- Pakistan has never had a real run of democracy, those who use the 90’s as evidence of incompetence of the political forces overlook the fact that just like now the elected governments back then were not free to make decisions they did not have the powers to run the country and the decision making process was blatantly influenced by a certain organization which should be working for the government.
– Elected representatives of the people were arrested, exiled, deported and disgraced in every possible manner, the dictators in all cases got safe passages or glorious funerals with no accountability.
– There is a well defined system in place to derail every democratic government within the first year of its formation.”
Brig. Imtiaz and his kind are the system that derails democracy.
We can further analyze all of this and try to understand all that is being disclosed but one has to stop and wonder why are these being discussed now, a failed plan from 1983, a military operation from 1992, and formation of IJI from 1990?
We have also got to think what is not being discussed? Trial of Gen. (Rtd.) Pervez Musharraf.
I have no doubt in my mind that all of these controversies are being created or re-launched to distract the media and the general public from the issue of holding Gen. (Rtd.) Musharraf liable under Article 6. Brig. Imtiaz is not doing the nation any favors, he should remove himself from public eye and may be write a book or consider gardening. Once a Brig. Imtiaz always a Brig. Imtiaz – a mere distraction. I believe Pakistanis are smart enough to see through all of this and bring the focus back on the real issues. In the meanwhile I choose to remain optimistic and passionate about Pakistan.
