The Soft Option

#495

I`m sorry I dont get it, is this post serious or humorous?

Bilal Ahmad #502: I agree with you that bribery might have also been involved in the deal for NS release. Without knowing the truth and blanket secrecy from the junta, all possible guesses are valid-outrageous or not. As you mentioned 6 possible reasons in one of your previous reply and my suggestion of undue influence of Saudis in the internal affairs of Pakistan, large number of additional possibilities exist.

Bilal, my problem is not with NS release because current rulers are also guilty of corruption of different kinds. My problem is with the underhandedness of the whole affair. Then Gen. Qureshi, stating on record, about confiscating 80 percent of the Sharif family`s property in Pakistan without proving that 80 percent of their properties resulted from corruption. The family was filthy rich even during Z. A. Bhutto`s time with Ittefaq Foundaries. Moreover, there is no justification of confiscating properties belonging to a large number of people belonging to a family when there is not a single corruption case against Shahbaz Sharif. As it appears that he was not even part of the deal and kind of pushed into accepting it. He may soon be returning to Pakistan. Keep an eye on him because he is smarter and more liked than his brother, and does not have the corruption baggage with him.

Here is my theory.

Abbaji (NS father) was able to trick military by agreeing to a deal while keeping Shahbaz Sharif intentionally out of it. With Shahbaz Sharif as the new heir of political fortunes of the clan, they will have a big foot in Pakistani politics and Chaudharys, Mian Azhar, Ejaz Ul Haque can not out smart Shahbaz Sharif for PML leadership. Shahbaz does not have to pay or answer for the cowardice and weaknesses of his brother because he can easily maintain a distance from NS in Saudi Arabia. I think military was unable to figure out the Abbaji`s strategy. Now after realizing their mistake, a new spin is applied, i.e., the deal includes everybody in the clan. There is no law stipulating the deeds and deals of a father applied to a grown-up son who pledged nothing, nothing verbally or written.

And for those who are still not convinced, that a NS in Saudi Arabia is better for Pakistan than an NS in Attock:

``KSE records boom of 42 points

December 12, 2000

KARACHI (FP) - Amidst buying frenzy at Hubco and PTCL, 100-index recorded an impressive boom of 42 points or 3.15 per cent at Karachi Stock Exchange on Monday. Emphatic trading also boosted volume by 40 per cent that also crossed the base line of 200 million shares.

The real factor behind the boom attributed to the stunned, behind the screen political development held within last couple of day, which resulted exile of entire family of Mian Sharif and his entourage to Saudi Arabia and thus a powerful opponent of the present set-up disappeared from the political scene of the country.

Unconfirmed news that another ‘deal’ of the same nature is in offing with the chairperson of a major political party about exile of her detained husband has also created a positive sense among the investors. They think that now on the present governemnt will concentrate much on economic field as fear of agitation under the garb of Alliance is averted, at least for the time being. Another major cause of boost in index as well as volume was the positive report about fresh signal for restoration of talks between governemnt and Hubco officials, which steered the market into top gear.....

``Market Capitalization injected another impressive dose of Rs. 8.73 billion when it closed at Rs. 361.65 billion.`` (www.paknews.com)

I am all for any decision that increases the market cap of a Pakistani stock exchange by 8.73 billion ruppees in a day. I wonder how much the market cap would increase by, if Zardari is shipped out? Pakistanis need to start thinking on these lines, rather than on dramatic and theatrical lines of, ``betrayals,`` ``revolutions,`` ``doomsdays,`` ``hero-worships,`` etc. Leave these sentiments for the Greek tragedies. The Karachi Stock Exchange is a much better barometer for figuring out the advantages and disadvantages of exiling CTBT (Choti Tind, Bari Tind a.k.a. Nawaz Sharif, Shahbaz Sharif).

Another very accurate analysis of NS exile, as well as the hopes and desires of the ARD

``Interesting exile

By A. Rashid

December 13, 2000

The news of consigning Nawaz Sharif to a Saudi brokered exile, by Pervez Musharraf`s government, came as a complete surprise to the nation. The event is bound to influence the future course of polity in Pakistan for a substantial length of time. It is pretty easy for a sitting government to dump its opponents, convict them, even on orchestrated charges and hang them or let them languish in jails indefinitely. More often than not, with the passage of time, such under dogs are generally turned into heroes and martyrs and act as a constant thorn in the flesh of the rulers. But it is a matter of great dexterity and application of critical discretion to mastermind the neutralisation of significant political opponents by debasing them in the public eye and consigning them to the dustbin of history, as trash. This is what Pervez Musharraf has done to Nawaz Sharif who has so willingly and gleefully fallen in the trap.....

To the good fortune of General Pervez Musharraf, the signals of unconditional surrender were already trickling in from the house of Sharifs. To top it all, the custodians of faith, the Saudis, took it upon themselves, to ensure implementation of surrender terms, by Sharifs. It is said that late General Zia ul Haq ordered the execution of Mr Bhutto, after rejection of his mercy petition against a split Supreme Court decision, by the President, immediately after finishing his morning prayers. He thus stained his hands with the gore of an elected Prime Minister and earned the opprobrium for life. But in this case General Pervez Musharraf, without offering any prayers and without staining his hands with the blood of an elected former Prime Minister, gave the go ahead signal of accepting his request for clemency. Thus the Sharifs boarded the luxurious special Saudi plane and went away to the holly land, in mirth and festivity, as witnessed on the electronic media.

For the last twelve years, there have been three regular players of the musical chair of power in the country, namely the PML, the PPP and the army. Today, after the departure of Nawaz Sharif, after Benazir, to where he is, only the third player is left who gets a walk over as a right. It is good to win a war after practical fighting but it is still better to win one without fighting. That is what General Pervez Musharraf has achieved.....

An objective assessment would reveal that the country would not gain much, with Nawaz Sharif languishing in prison indefinitely, nor the heap of pending cases of his corruption could have been successfully concluded for optimum prosecution, in the existing judicial system. The development will raise odd fingers here and there, yet, due credit must therefore be conceded to the CE for resorting to an unconventional and per se unorthodox method, to achieve higher national objectives. The development will also go a long way in educating the electorate of the country, not to get swayed, with a mob mentality, while choosing their leaders, during the ensuing electoral scheme. ``To kill two birds with one stone``, the CE has achieved the content much beyond the phrase, as he has virtually killed numerous nuisance birds by hurling that one stone.`` (www.paknews.com)

Remaining article at http://www.paknews.com/cgi-paknews/paknews.cgi?articles=100/December/articles13-12-11&key=exile+rashid

A very accurate analysis of the motivitations of the ARD

``Democracy minus economy

By Syed Mohammad Tariq Pirzada

december 14, 2000

Calls for an early return to democracy - the obvious manifestation of a strong desire, ingrained in the psyche of our feudal class and urban intelligentsia that always seek to be defined, judged, and affirmed by the western political culture - represents a mind-set that overlooks the fundamental need for economic revival and eventual survival of Pakistan as a sovereign and independent state.

The pressure, for an early return to democracy as opposed to an early return to our economic revival largely demonstrates the choice of the corrupt and the incompetent leaderships in both the political parties that triggered and oversaw the economic debacle of Pakistan in the 90s-one that doubled the debt of the country since 1990, and brought the nation to it`s knees. The shattered structure of today`s economy is a living testimony to the dismal and devastating working of the feudal democracy as practised in the last decade. What served as a vehicle of stability and progress in the West became an instrumentality of political theatrics and economic degeneration. The state resources as squandered or invested in either absolutely sham or unrealistic projects have simply left behind a Pakistan under siege and it`s future mortgaged to the West as is evidenced by the everyday dictation from the major creditor nations and the international lending institutions.

Consequently, the decade of a feudal, corrupt, and wasteful democracy gave birth to a break-down of civil and economic order in the country, setting the stage for the only alternative -the assumption of power by the military. The option, thus, presented is not that of the simultaneous restoration of both the democracy and the economy under the circumstances but only that of the revival of economy in the present context.

This time, unlike any other time, the regime in power has, therefore, the heavy obligation and the historic opportunity to build anew the crumbled economic defence of the country. There is a rare consensus that there is no other priority more pressing today than reviving the demolished structure of the national economy.

The corrupt, and barren political thinking that is still endeavouring to fuel the hysteria of restoring feudal democracy as an indispensable option, has the proven history of decimating the economic edifice of Pakistan. Their pressure - campaign for the immediate transfer of power through the so-called electoral process or an interim civil rule is designed simply for the sake of quickly regaining their lost access to the reins of power in order for them to be able to, re-stage their filthy political drama. These feudal barons , lately joined by a select group of industrialists, now represented by Nawaz Sharif and his like, have found democracy as the easiest means of achieving a meteoric rise to power.

To these insensitive few, poverty and ignorance among the masses are the guarantors of a secure and permanent place for their presence both in the coliseum of power, and when out of power, in the arena of feudal opposition - politics. Also, it needs no substantiation that their wealth, amassed by them from their stay in power, gets massively spent to buy and promote the appearance of their political existence in the minds of the people around the country.....

Not only that this angle should not be lost sight of, the reality is that the General is not here to pass a popularity-test among a group of likely voters. His prime job is to take the country out of it`s present economic chaos. The steps he has taken to this effect must be effectively and fearlessly executed. Until the economy begins to show visible signs of recovery, a return to their so-called democracy can only lead to re-open the flood-gates of greater misery. Do the Armed Forces want that.? Certainly not as one would like to believe. In the interim, let the West and our politicians wait, as for Pakistan, democracy minus economy.``

Remaining article at http://www.paknews.com/cgi-paknews/paknews.cgi?articles=100/December/articles14-12-12&key=democracy+economy

Re: ahmadb #502

Your analysis is quite plausible. Cutting a deal with NS to save its own skin is certainly not beyond the ability of the regime.

shankar #500: ``All I read was some senseless bigotted Pakistani propaganda that nobody else, not even the OIC, buys. Maybe the idiot class in Pakistan believe it. I doubt most intelligent Pakistanis buy it.``

I think the point was that it was for ylh`s consumption, shrink!

Tibor # 495,

Thanks for that cut and paste. To be quite honest I dont know whether it is hilarious or frightening.....

I think the author is suffering from complete dementia

regards

Harpreet

Tibor

Thanks for your article... let us not try to understand each other and each other`s perspective and admit that both our perceptions are equally true from our own perspectives? And that anything can be argued, but let us see both sides of the coin. Everything has pros and cons.

Let us agree to disagree on what they are.

Sorry about my earlier outbursts...

Yasser Hamdani

As far as Nawaz Sharif`s `exile` goes, its my understanding that, in exchange for a Presidential pardon, he went voluntarily into exile. No question of the Army packing him off as such.

PS: Prof. Ahmad, didn`t Chairman Mao say that all political power flows out of the barrel of a gun? And who has most, though far from all, guns in Pakistan?

Re: Ahmadb #492

Gen. Pervez Musharraf can call himself anything he wants to. As far as the `self-appointed` tag goes, I refer you to Mr. Chief Justice Munir`s famous ruling that a successful coup, by virtue of its success, is not treason. This is a paraphrase of course. His actual words were something like a coup d`etat is an internationally recognized method of changing governments. You have to love the Chief Justice`s creative mind! Actually, I do admire the man. His Munir Commission report on the anti-Ahmadi riots correctly spells out the danger of the Islamic parties to Pakistan. If the Army had hung Maulanas Maududi and Niazi and then firmly stamped out the Jamaat-e-Islami and Jamiat-e-Ulame-Islam, we would be so much better off.

Regards.

Re: Fairdinkum #501

Didn`t there use to be a `Zia himmayat tehrik` also? I suspect its the same sort of people.

NAWAZ-MUSHARRAF DEAL?

Most critics of the Musharraf regime and/or Nawaz Sharif seem to believe, without any evidence, that the military segment of the current dictatorial regime was bribed (most probably monetarily) to cut a deal (written or otherwise) for the release of Nawaz Sharif and his family. In a country where bribery is a quintessential part of the state functioning, most thinking minds cannot avoid the exchange of paper money or money in kind.

However, there is another possibility. I suspect that Musharraf was getting pretty nervous about the formation of the Alliance for the Restoration of Democracy (ARD). A powerful ARD movement could have disturbed the current-level of peace and have thus imperiled the forthcoming local body elections, at least. The military bloc of the Musharraf regime thus decided to cut a deal with Nawaz Sharif with the help of the Saudis thinking that it would: (1) demoralize the Nawaz Sharif loyalist; 2) weaken the ARD; and (3) ultimately strengthen the pro-military political parties.

What Musharraf and his military advisors failed to understand that this deal may seriously delegitimize his regime in the eyes of most politically and ethically conscious Pakistani people. But, Musharraf knows well that most Pakistanis forgive and forget very easily, particularly when an appeal is made to protect the imaginary, perceived, or real ``national interest.`` Comments welcome!

Sincerely,Bilal Ahmad

Apparently a political movement/party called “The Support Musharraf Movement” has been launched in Pakistan… People belonging to this movement are contesting “local government polls under the supervision of former MPA Chaudhry Farrukh Javed Ghumman.” [Daily Dawn 14 Dec]

Does anybody know more (details) about this movement/party?

Tibor

#495

What was the point of this cut & paste? All I read was some senseless bigotted Pakistani propaganda that nobody else, not even the OIC, buys. Maybe the idiot class in Pakistan believe it. I doubt most intelligent Pakistanis buy it.

In response to fairdinkum (Reply # 497)
Dear fairdinkum:

“There is no provision in the constitution which empowers the government to force any citizen to live in exile in another country. Barrister Aitzaz Ahsen said that exile of any citizen is illegal and unconstitutional and the president has no power to convert imprisonment into exile” (Dawn, December 12, 2000)

Comment: What constitution? The suspended one? The de facto constitution is “Military dictatorship,” while the de jure constitution is the PCO. If there is no law to support any action, a new ordinance could be imposed without delay. Isn’t the military a major source of Pakistan’s problems?

Sincerely, Bilal Ahmad