Pakistan Foreign Policy
Crossing the ‘red lines’?-Ikram Sehgal
For Asif Zardari, Lahore’s Governor’s House has bad vibes. He was taken into custody from there on charges of corruption in November 1996 when Benazir Bhutto’s government was thrown out by President Farooq Leghari. Almost a decade-and-a-half later, when the Supreme Court released the detailed judgement that will most probably make him ineligible for presidency on charges of corruption, it is an amazing coincidence that he is staying in the same room at the Governor’s House.
President Reagan was the "Teflon President," to whom nothing adverse would ever stick. Prime Minister Gilani has beaten him by a mile! Ruling out a constitutional clash with any state institution he confidently told the National Assembly last Monday: "We do not want to transgress into each other’s fields. I want to assure you that we will not do anything that is contrary to the Constitution, that is contrary to the interest of this house and contrary to (the principle of) trichotomy. The Constitution has ‘red lines’ for all the three pillars of the state." In the next few days the prime minister will be tested as to whether his words about not crossing "red lines" were true or the comment was simply rhetoric.
In March 2007 one of the pillars of the state tried to destroy another state institution in the quest for an individual’s survival. Since President Musharraf was concurrently also Chief of the Army Staff, the two institutions seemed to have ganged up against the Supreme Court represented by Chief Justice Iftikhar Chaudhry. Another institution, the National Assembly (as well as the Shaukat Aziz government thereof), was simply a rubberstamp for Pervez Musharraf. To reinforce the public perception about the army being solidly behind him, Gen Pervez Musharraf wore the uniform and had the director generals of the ISI and Military Intelligence in attendance in a "show of force" when the chief justice was summoned for his resignation.
People believe it was Shaukat Aziz who goaded Musharraf down the Reference path because the chief justice was adjudicating issues like the Steel Mills and the Stock Market scam. With Musharraf’s intelligence chiefs reporting that the chief justice was against his standing again for presidential elections without giving up his uniform, Musharraf needed no convincing. The tragedy is that the army’s fair name was needlessly tarnished in the process.
World democracies do not take kindly to the spurning of superior courts’ orders. Blatant attempts were therefore made by the incumbent president’s inner circle to somehow link the army to the Supreme Court’s short order on the NRO, although nothing can be further from the truth. Moreover, the world is not that gullible! The detailed judgement has confirmed that it is the Presidency and the superior judiciary that are on a collision course, not only over the NRO verdict but mainly because of it.
When he did not prostrate himself before an absolute dictator as others had before him, Chief Justice Iftikhar Chaudhry got the support of both his fellow judges in the courts and the lawyers in the streets. The Supreme Court moved very deliberately to regain public confidence and re-establish its stature as a bastion of justice. The credibility of the judiciary down to the level of the provincial High Courts was consolidated. The detailed judgement on the NRO highlights how far down the road Pakistan has travelled in restoration of rule of law, at least in the upper levels of the judiciary.
Meanwhile, 2009 saw the army regain its image in public perception. The return to professionalism process started when Musharraf shed the uniform in November 2007. For their counterinsurgency successes in the battlefield, extraordinary sacrifices have been rendered by the rank and file. Three infantry divisions were engaged in Swat, another three are now fighting in FATA (I am proud that those in and around South Waziristan include my own unit, 4 Sindh). Mostly five brigade divisions, instead of the usual three, the troops engaged in combat are equivalent to that of eight or nine infantry divisions – i.e., almost one-third of our total fighting strength.
That is a tremendous battle inoculation. Hopefully, other units and formations will be rotated into the battle zone to take good advantage of this adverse situation. Soldiers need to hear shots being fired in anger!
Nobody has disfigured Pakistan’s Constitution more than Sharifuddin Pirzada, the hired legal gun for every adventurer on record. The review of the NRO judgement sought by the government seems to be his brainchild. One feels the old fox was outsmarted by the Supreme Court, which probably war-gamed his possible moves and did not make public the detailed NRO judgement until after the 30 days mandated for Review had elapsed. The government waited until the last day before filing. Most of what has been sought by the government in the Review has been virtually rendered infructuous by the detailed judgement.
Zardari finally left the presidential bunker to visit Pakistan and try and shore up public support for his beleaguered presidency. This is an exercise in futility. It is now simply a question of time. The NRO having been declared void ab initio, the detailed judgment will throw upon the doors of justice to make him ineligible to having become president in the first place. Prime Minister Gilani is a nice man. Some of his ministers are not the sort to listen to nice men, they march to a different drumbeat. After the Supreme Court’s short order, Zardari’s inner circle had already crossed the "red line" many times.
Democracy gave the late Ms Bhutto a thumbs-up by giving her party enough votes to lead the coalition, and that allowed her controversial husband to manoeuvre himself into the Presidency. The army’s neutrality was manifest in that they did not interfere, despite the fact that Zardari is universally hated by the rank and file of the army. And in the face of deliberate provocations, they have kept their cool and stood by their constitutional oath.
In 1993 when the Supreme Court overturned President Ghulam Ishaq Khan’s ill-motivated dismissal of the Nawaz Sharif government, democratic hope had broken loose. However, the restored prime minister found himself politically and administratively hamstrung by presidential manipulation, and was ultimately forced to resign.
Brokering the calming of the resulting political tensions, then-army chief Gen Waheed Kakar did two things for which this nation must always honour him: nudging President Ghulam Ishaq Khan gently out of office to stop further political and bureaucratic manipulation by him and his advisors; and, more importantly, refusing the keys of the Presidency offered on a silver platter. Democracy stayed alive in 1993 despite the best efforts of motivated persons to derail it. What an irony that one of Ishaq’s closest gung-ho advisors, Roedad Khan, is now a holier-than-thou petitioner against the NRO, and a very vocal one at that.
One does not doubt the "red lines" will be crossed and that all the dirty tricks in the world will be used. Notwithstanding the concept of trichotomy, in Third World countries like Pakistan there is a fourth state institution and, as Chairman Mao said, "power flows through the barrel of a gun." When the "red lines" are crossed the Supreme Court will need such assistance under Article 190 of the Constitution. The question is, will the court be able to fine-tune this before the country goes up in flames?
The writer is a defence and political analyst.
http://thenews.jang.com.pk/daily_detail.asp?id=219827
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