Articles of the year 2015
Published on February 19th 2015
At last, after much suspense the all important conference was called by the Prime Minister, attended by the Chief Minister, governor, important functionaries of Sind, under the orchestral eye of the COAS. The meeting marks the beginning of assertion of the Army’s control over the corrupt state of Politics in Pakistan. To see Zardari extremely uncomfortable for the length of the meeting, glum, wincing at each word being thrown at the Sind Government by the Prime Minister, who was conveniently distancing himself from his coalition partner. Words like corrupt, inept, incompetent, were being used about the Sind Government, at the Chief Minister, who pretended he was not listening, or that the remarks were aimed at Zardari, who was the de facto head of the Sind government.
The road map was laid out, and it was made obvious that there would be no deviation, and an apex committee would effectively govern. That evening anchors had a field day adding their spiced comments. The MQM did not even try to interrupt, nor put forward any viewpoint. Zardari was made to sweat in front of the complete Sind establishment. This is the beginning of the COAS’s taking control of the downward slide of governance in the country, and the next stop will be the Punjab, where the situation is equally bad, the only difference being the very powerful spin doctors used by the Chief Minister Shabaz Sharif, to add a gloss to the rotten state of governance. The Model Town massacre is being treated as a closed chapter but it is unlikely that Imran will let matters rest, or that the Army Comittee will not investigate. Without the protection of the Shabaz bureaucracy all will be exposed. The action to be taken will then depend on the apex comittee who will have to decide according to the law, without preferences. It will soon be evident, if the enquiry into the Baldia massacre is started, that the much awaited action into the reining in of the criminal activities of the political parties would be carried out by the impartial COAS. This has now commenced and the high level meeting called by the COAS was the formal opening. The whole nation now awaits the next steps.
We are sure that cases of blatant corruption, example the purchase of the APCs by the Sind government at 12 crores per piece, over which the MNAs standing comittee on finance has already refused clearance, due to alleged overpricing of Rs 10 crores rupees ten per piece but the Sind government is insisting that the deal goes through. Surely this falls under economic terrorism? The entire population is looking towards the Chief for his action in this instance, for it is a direct challenge to his attempt at cleaning the mess. He would certainly not tolerate any such criminal act on his watch. The serious fallout is on the state of governance. The laws of Nature are quite clear. If one obeys the laws one is rewarded, if not, one is punished. In Pakistan no politicians are punished, and continue providing protection to their cohorts. And so it has been with the current crop. The Pakistani people would wish to see the criminals punished, whatever their political affiliations, especially the lawmakers, for they have been voted into power to make laws that ensure the wellbeing of the people. Their honesty is thus more sacred than the normal citizens.
The laws given to us by the British are comprehensive, and would give us a good life, even by the Koranic standards. The politicians starting with Bhutto began by first ignoring the laws, and then amending the laws to ensure that his followers escaped the net. General Raheel has the opportunity to halt this slide into anarchy, and restore the supremacy and obedience of the laws of Pakistan. It is imperative that these criminals be removed from their seats of power, for the State of Pakistan can never progress with these criminal elements holding the reins. By all accounts we are retrogressing and the imminent collapse can be blamed on the corruption of the politicians, as indeed was the loss of half the country. The Hamoodur Rahman commission has still not been published (written when Bhutto was still Prime Minister).
It has been published in India, and smuggled copies are available in Pakistan in the grey market. It makes good reading for it allows the reader to judge for himself the scale of corruption and criminal acts that divided a country. This again exposes the political leadership, and in this case charges of treason could be framed. Definitely against some of the members of Bhutto’s cabinet, or Yahya’s cabinet that are still alive. This may set a good precedent. To stop any other adventurers from such moves, and perhaps disallowing the ‘doctrine of necessity ‘ which was used in the past to prevent the prosecution of these criminals for these violations of the constitution.