Zaheer Bhatti
PERVEZ Musharraf has been convicted for acting in violation of the Constitution of Pakistan; the first time a Court verdict has been handed down against a military dictators though in indecent haste and for the wrong reasons. The Constitution of Pakistan framed by an elite group of the country’s parliamentarians boasting to have finally ironed out a unanimously adopted document in 1973, has suffered from infirmities and lacunas from day-one because before its ink dried it started to be tampered with for narrow personal considerations than furtherance and strengthening of system, which continues till date. This only shows how inadequate the instrument has been which was supposed to have been followed in letter and in spirit by State but one which is beginning to sound irrelevant today.
After mulling through the detailed Judgment the split verdict which otherwise appears to be well-reasoned given the scope of the trial, unfortunately suffers severely from absence of morality and has been rendered unworthy not just because of the inherently flawed phraseology of Article 6 of the Constitution under which the accused has been tried, but drawn unprecedented flak mainly due to the horrendously inappropriate language used by the Presiding Judge of the Special Court, which has not just smeared the good name of Pakistan’s judiciary but prompted India to offer a tongue in cheek asylum to Gen Musharraf.
The very fact that a Pakistani soldier who is under oath of martyrdom in defence of its sacred soil can never be a traitor, which is not just the view of Pakistan’s Armed Forces but that of the entire nation, the Article of the Constitution of Pakistan ought to be re-phrased forthwith. There ought to be nevertheless, and I reckon must be a Provision of Capital punishment in the Army Act for any officer or rank found selling his soul to the enemy. Pervez Musharraf was not guilty of this heinous crime against the motherland.
Application of the charge of High Treason is something which ought to have been addressed and rationalized much earlier by the Constituent Assembly if not by the two military dictators who followed to rule and fashioned some sort of Assemblies of legislators in a quasi-democratic order. Pervez Musharraf whose rule had been legitimized by the Superior Judiciary and even allowed to modify the Constitution neither himself nor his loyalists thought of addressing a specifically directed Article which may have been right in its intent as a deterrent but whose purported substance was grossly flawed.
Article 6 of the Constitution of Pakistan propounds its self-assumed definition of ‘High Treason’, and explicitly aims at gunning for military dictatorship, chastened by the fall of East Pakistan which it attributes to military adventurism, conveniently exonerating civilian responsibility in the debacle which to my mind was principally to blame. Treason is an act which should be punishable through a summary trial since it constitutes disloyalty to the State whoever commits it. But unfortunately in Pakistan, the two glaring examples of treason have if anything been rewarded instead; Sheikh Mujeebur Rehman with East Pakistan now Bangladesh and Altaf Hussain the MQM supremo who has not once but incessantly challenged the writ of the State and sought enemy assistance against it, and rolls in billions in his British exiled comfort.
It is unthinkable that out of all the people, an Army General and that too from the Pakistan Army which is not just under oath to defend his motherland with his blood and committed to martyrdom, would commit disloyalty amounting to treason against the State which he happened to accidentally administer. Musharraf’s behaviour and conduct though, in acquiescing to the US over its so-called war against terror was not only grave miscalculation of the aftermath from which this nation is suffering till date, but an act unbecoming of an Army commando leave alone the Chief who also happened to be the head of the State of Pakistan. If any of his acts were treasonable it is his mercenary role for a friendly-sounding foe.
Musharraf’s three biggest crimes besides toppling a duly elected Government which by no stretch of imagination makes him a traitor, was lying prostrate to American diktats and bartering away Pakistan’s sovereignty in providing NATO with the foothold and launching pad against Muslim neighbour Afghanistan which nearly two decades earlier, it had defended against the Soviet invasion. His other two glaring crimes which have been totally glossed over, are signaling completely free hand to MQM during his tenure culminating in the 12 May 2007 bloodletting in Karachi which took place under Waseem Akhtar’s supervision; the then Home Minister of Sindh to prevent an opposition showdown in support of Musharraf-deposed Chief Justice of Pakistan Iftikhar Choudhry.
No wonder Waseem Akhtar has gone and met his benefactor to offer sympathies and support as a quid pro quo. Equally disgusting if not more, was taking no action against washing of the scene of crime of Benazir’s murder, allowing her to be buried without autopsy and not bothering to pursue her appalling assassination, which made him suspect if not complicit in the heinous crime. But even these heinous crimes would not render him pronounced a traitor.
Musharraf from Day-one has been wrongly framed and now convicted for the wrong reasons; only to be eventually let off one suspects. Reaction of the Armed Forces is justifiable only to the extent of the stigma of treason attached to the judgment and the foul language used in describing its administration. Military take-overs which have largely been caused by Pakistan’s politicians themselves, can at worst be termed as adventurism by ambitious Generals, who ironically in hindsight have delivered much more to the common man than the civilian leadership which including the present one continues to fail its electorate; bringing the nation to a point where civil disobedience which had become a thing of the past, may well be on the cards sooner if life of the common man stays as miserable.
—The writer is a media professional, member of Pioneering team of PTV and a veteran ex Director Programmes.
