Daily Times

On October 12, 1999, General Pervez Musharraf, chief of the Pakistan army at the time, was travelling from Colombo to Karachi. According to his own version of events, he was given to understand that Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif was instructing the pilot to land not at Karachi but at an airport in the interior of Sindh where the General would be arrested. He consulted his corps commanders on the telephone. They authorised him to seize the government and send Mr Sharif to prison. Mr Sharif was convicted of attempting to hijack the General’s airplane, sentenced to imprisonment, and on the subsequent intervention of the King of Saudi Arabia, released to reside in Jeddah for the next 10 years. General Musharraf appointed himself as the country’s chief executive and later the president, an office he held until 2008. He took some progressive measures during his rule. He enlarged the National Assembly and increased the representation of women and minorities in it. He was not accused of using his authority and power for his own personal advantage.

The Supreme Court attempted to restrain his government’s inclination to arbitrariness. On November 3, 2007, in a rejoinder as it were, he imposed a state of emergency, suspended the constitution, and dismissed several judges in the Supreme Court and some 50 judges in the provincial high courts. This move turned the community of lawyers, political leaders, and organs of civil society against him. Elections had to be held in March 2008. The resulting National Assembly threatened to impeach him. Rebuffed and rejected he resigned, took refuge in the Army House for a few months, and then went away to live in London where he remained for about four years.

General Musharraf did exceedingly well in London. He may have taken some money from Pakistan but he made a lot more of it while abroad. He came to be very much in demand as a public speaker. He spoke on the threat the Taliban posed to the western systems of governance and social order. He lectured in the United Kingdom, eastern and western Europe, Canada, and the United States. Reports have it that he charged more than $ 100,000 for each appearance and became a very wealthy man.

Even the wise and insightful among us, and surely including the wealthy, will occasionally make errors of judgment. That was the kind of error that the General made. The success of his speech making went to his head. He began to think of himself as a great guy. He was having a fabulous time in London — fancy food and drinks, living space, and as much of companionship as his system could handle. Flatterers convinced him that his talents were needed back home. The country would find in him the saviour it had been awaiting. It was possible that he would confront lawsuits that unfriendly parties would file against him, but these could be handled to his advantage. The army in Pakistan reportedly cautioned him that it would not be able to protect him if he got into trouble. Against the better judgment of his well-wishers he returned to Pakistan. He was arrested and placed in confinement in his own mansion in Chak Shahzad outside Islamabad.

While Mr Sharif waited for the elections that would return him to power, he said that he had no antipathy towards General Musharraf and had forgiven him for ousting him from power on October 12, 1999. There was then also the matter of the state of emergency that General Musharraf had imposed on November 3, 2007. In both cases he had disrupted and set aside the constitution, Article six of which lays down that anyone doing so would be treated as guilty of treason. The first of these violations can be ignored because it was condoned by the higher judiciary and parliament but the second one remained staring at him. Having become prime minister, Mr Sharif has changed his mind. In an address to the National Assembly a few days ago he declared that he had sworn to protect and preserve the constitution, and that it was the his government’s bounden duty to prosecute General Musharraf for his deed of November 3. His plan had the judiciary’s implicit support. The Supreme Court has asked the Attorney General to state how his government intends to proceed in this matter.

The future of General Musharraf has become a lively subject in the ongoing political discourse. One school of thought insists that the rule of law must be the same for all, the high and the mighty as well as the lowly, and that it must prevail. Others call attention to the stipulation in Article six of the constitution that all those who assist the usurper in disrupting it are to be treated as equally guilty of treason. That opens the proverbial Pandora’s Box.

General Musharraf’s action in imposing a state of emergency on November 3, 2007 should be seen in an appropriate context. He set aside the constitution. Tens of thousands of persons broke laws made in its pursuance and thus set it aside. Included in this group are members of the National Assembly. We do not hear the demand that they should all be treated as guilty of treason. Many public officials, including lawmakers, evade the constitution in a variety of ways. It is the present government’s prerogative to prosecute them or leave them alone. An external agency cannot force it to prosecute the violators. In the same vein it may be said that it is up to the present government to prosecute General Musharraf or leave him alone. He has already been punished enough for his indiscretion. Not only is he on trial in a court of law, he has been debarred from running for public office. He has fallen low in public esteem. Considering that he is a former chief of the Pakistan army and a former head of state and government, it may be good politics to let General Musharraf be. In this connection it may be recalled also that his decision to impose a state of emergency could not have been taken without consulting the other Generals and higher officials, all of whom would then have to be treated as accomplices and, therefore, equally guilty of treason. Its declarations to the contrary notwithstanding, I think Mr Sharif’s government will eventually decide to leave General Musharraf alone and possibly provide him a safe exit from the country.

The writer is professor emeritus at the University of Massachusetts and can be reached at anwarsyed@cox.net