Daily Times

“All is confounded, all!

Reproach and everlasting shame

Sits mocking in our plumes.”

William Shakespeare: “Henry V”

It is mind-boggling to scan through over 250 pages of virtual indictment of the Sharif clan that the Joint Investigation Team (JIT) has produced. It contains a plethora of hard evidence secured from multiple sources to unravel the sickening canard of lies and deceits that they contrived so shamelessly over 30 years of their blighted rule in the country.

Add to that the false statements, fabrications and forgeries that they enacted to hide a myriad of their crimes.

Top that with the shamefacedness with which they are trying to divert the attention away from the damning indictment by taking refuge behind building a mega-conspiracy syndrome which, they allege, has been hatched to dismantle their government.

Now shake the variegated potion vigorously and out comes the poison known as the godfather and his attendant mafia, dripping profusely with the putridity of their corruption which can be smelt from a million miles away.

In a doomed effort to link the cycle of crimes with some conspiracy, the Sharifs appear more like solicitors seeking mercy at the altar of their grave transgressions:

“A shamefaced man makes for a bad beggar.”

Homer: “The Odyssey”

In a clinical dismantling of the entire edifice of deceitful espousals of the godfather and his clan, it has been confirmed:

By the Financial Investigation Agency, British Virgin Islands that Maryam Nawaz is the beneficial owner of companies including Nielson Enterprises Limited and Nescol limited;

By Jabel Ali Free Zone Authority (JAFZA) that Nawaz Sharif is the chairman of another off-shore company by the name of FZE Capital, UAE where, according to another document, he has been employed as the Chairman of the Board drawing a salary of AED 10,000;

By the Ministry of Justice, UAE that the sale/purchase agreements submitted to the Supreme Court (SC) by the respondents (Nawaz Sharif and his clan) are fictitious, and

By a forensic expert, UK that trust deeds submitted by the respondents in the SC are false and tampered with.

Imagine the utter bankruptcy of their intellect and character that one of the fabricated deeds dated 2006 was drafted using the Calibri font which was commercially marketed in 2007. When the fabrication became public knowledge with the JIT report, there were thousands of attempts to change the features on the Wikipedia page which had to be blocked for editing purposes by the authorities:

“O shame! Where is thy blush?”

William Shakespeare, “Hamlet”

Travelling through the stifling maze of Gulf Steel Mills to Avenfield Apartments, Qatari letters, Hill Metals Establishment, Flagship Investments, NAB and FIA cases, Hudabiya Paper Mills and assets beyond means, it makes one awfully sick in the gut.

But, there is this stubbornness that it is all a wicked conspiracy woven by the enemies, that the JIT report was not put together in sixty days but four years, that the real JIT will be the vote of the people, and an ascending crescendo of waffled noises made by the croaking aspirants to the coveted ministerial slots.

It looks like the Sharifs are suffering from some epileptic seizure or an abnormally delusional bout about their prospects as, otherwise, how would they block the incontrovertible evidence of their prolonged wrong doings? Yes, the prime minister may resort to misusing his public office which is amply demonstrated by the letter written by the foreign office to the Embassy of the United Arab Emirates requesting for an urgent telephonic contact for Nawaz Sharif with Sheikh Rashid al Makhtoum, the vice president and the prime minister. Let’s not forget that UAE is one of the countries which have provided substantive evidence regarding the Sharifs’ corruption and forgeries:

“A man without shame stops at no vice.”

Procopius, “Day’s Collaco”

This possibly is also the reason why the prime minister is refusing to resign. With absolutely no sensitivity to having lost the moral base for continuing in office, he is insistent on staying so that he could somehow manipulate this to his advantage.

Additionally, instead of fighting the case legally by providing his own evidence to nullify what the JIT has submitted before the apex court, he appears to be planning a political confrontation by projecting the corruption charges as a conspiracy. Initially, his bootleggers were pointing fingers at the military and the judiciary. But, now, they are also raking up the demon of unnamed outside forces.

In the event PMLN turns this into a political battle, violence is a likely outcome as there are other parties which have reiterated to stand by the SC if the government opts to indulge this wild extravagance. In that event, the battle may be fought on the streets of the country which may force the constitutional intervention by the military in support of the state institutions.

The challenge haunting the godfather is the sustenance of the oligarchic despotism that he has so guilefully erected in the country. That preordains that Nawaz Sharif stays to manage the flow of events. With that prospect having greatly receded, he sees real-time danger in handing over charge to someone else from within his party to complete the constitutional term.

These are the constituents of the poisonous potion that Pakistan has been administered for a good thirty-five years, reducing it to a skeleton of its real self. It appears to be a cancer-stricken entity tottering on the brink. But, hope is not completely lost:

“In the depth of winter, I finally learned that, within me, there lay an invincible summer.”

Albert Camus

The accountability process against the Sharif mafia should not be the end but the beginning of an all-encompassing effort to root out corruption from all echelons of the national body politic. Let the likes of the Zardar is, Khursheeds, et al not hide behind the veneer of support they appear to be extending to the process at this juncture. Every criminal need to be brought to justice to herald the advent of an invincible summer!

The writer is a political and security strategist, and heads the Regional Peace Institute — an Islamabad-based think tank. Email: raoofhasan@hotmail.com. Twitter: @RaoofHasan

Published in Daily Times, July 18th, 2017.