What a country we have become, bereft of all moral values, completely unaware of the need to follow a principled approach in life, where sincerity and honesty have become irrelevant and corruption of all kinds has become the order of the day. Human dignity and respect have lost their meaning and human life has no value, rule of law does not exist and disputes are resolved with a gun. The only things that matter to the people who matter are power and riches, regardless of the means they have to adopt to achieve these ‘sacred’ goals. Whether they be politicians, feudals, military officers, bureaucrats, businessmen or others, they have and are continuously playing cruel jokes of the most heinous kind on the people.
About half of Pakistan’s history has been under military dictators. Ayub Khan ruled for ten years before his removal by a popular people’s movement in 1969. He had the good sense not to push his luck further and did not attempt a comeback. General Yahya imposed Martial Law in 1969 and in 1971 collapsed into the cesspool of defeat and surrender and could never have even dreamt of a comeback. General Zia usurped power in 1977, murdered Prime Minister Zulfikar Ali Bhutto in 1979 and vanished into thin air in 1988, most probably at the hands of some of his colleagues. Then came the latest and hopefully the last military dictator on the stage — General Musharraf. He chose to seize power in 1999 and having illegally saddled himself as President for a second term in 2007, lost the parliamentary election in 2008 and under the threat of impeachment was forced to resign in August 2008. The retired General then slinks out of the country into self-exile and basks in the sunshine of his western masters who provided him well paid opportunities to disseminate their philosophy on terrorism. Now he is back with us as a self-proclaimed democrat and saviour! The only one of the four military dictators daring a comeback, I daresay I am reminded of the saying, “Fools rush in…”
Emerging from the luxury of the VVIP lounge at Karachi airport, the General spoke to a motley crowd of under two thousand. According to media reports, he said that he “cries tears of blood” for the present state of the country and wants “to restore the Pakistan I left”. He also stated that his mission was to save and change the country. After a ten minute speech this saviour of the people, this dictator-turned-democrat hurried back to the comfort of the VVIP lounge and thereafter was whisked away in a heavily guarded motorcade never before witnessed for a private citizen.
No other ex-president or ex-prime minister has ever been accorded the protocol, the usage of the VVIP lounges, the security or a motorcade of the kind as was laid out for this retired General who has been declared a usurper by the Supreme Court in 2009. Who ordered it and who authorized it? The people have the right to know.
When we all saw this charade, many could not hold back tears for Benazir. She had informed Musharraf’s government of threats before she came in October 2007 but no real steps were taken. As a result over 150 people died in the attack on her arrival in Karachi. Thereafter not to protect her adequately was a criminal act on the part of all in authority, including the then president. Why did Musharraf not provide her with the kind of security he now demands of us? Benazir, an elected leader, supported by millions, twice prime minister, deserved much more protection than him or anybody else for that matter. What a tragedy that in our country the military has always believed itself to be superior to the civilian leaders while universally it is an accepted fact that the armed forces are under civilian control. Our constitution also demands such subservience from the armed forces but unfortunately the reality is very different. Until they learn to accept this universal truth, progress and prosperity will continue to elude us.
We need to look at the retired General’s record while in government; shall we also include the debacle of Kargil as part of his self-professed military genius’s outcome? He took power by force, dismissed an elected government and arrested its prime minister and other members. He then proceeded like his other military predecessors to browbeat a docile judiciary to legitimize his illegal actions. International condemnation followed, the military’s actions turned the country into an object of ridicule, and we can never forget how President Clinton insulted the General and Pakistan on his short and rude visit. Any self-respecting person would have refused a visit under those conditions, but not our grovelling General. For furtherance of his own personal aims he preferred to sit at the feet of his US masters to do penance for his illegitimate takeover and made a laughing stock of a sovereign nation.
Does our ‘saviour’ remember that he tried to destroy the judiciary in 2007 by trying to force the resignation of the Chief Justice of the Supreme Court? The Chief Justice’s refusal, house arrest and reinstatement in July 2007 are history. Then Musharraf’s shameful order of Nov 3, 2007 declaring an emergency and asking the judges to take a new oath was resisted. The subsequent house arrest of numerous judges showed his true colours. Would you want to be saved by such a dictator whose only purpose in these unconstitutional actions was to save himself and destroy the country?
We need to analyse the General’s and his fiscal wizard’s much touted claims of creating an economic miracle during their eight year stint. In order to make a fair comparison it is necessary to compare with the economic performance of the immediate past and the post-Musharraf period. The GDP rate of the decade of civilian governments between 1989 and 1999 was a mean of 4.5 percent. As compared to this, during the period 2000-2007 the mean rate of growth was 5.5 percent.
(To be continued)
The writer is a businessman and a former chairman of the National Textile Foundation. He can be reached at [email protected]