Condoning corruption

Step back and just think. It had to happen. Sooner than later. How could the Americans, British and Saudis with the blessings of Benazir Bhutto, ISI chief General Kayani and Musharraf’s man Tariq Aziz ever condone corruption? And yet they did. In the summer of 2007 Washington was the watering hole where the group would meet to manufacture the National Reconciliation Ordinance or the NRO as it’s known.

Surely they must have taken into account that if Benazir Bhutto was killed her husband would be her natural successor. Or were they that naïve to assume that some feckless leader like Amin Fahim would be her heir? All knew Asif Zardari. The US intelligence agency like the CIA and British MI 6 also called SIS (Secret Intelligence Service) had enough evidence of his corruption as did our own ISI. Did they not think that it was a given that Asif Zardari would one day be sitting in the Prime Minister’s House or the presidency if his wife was assassinated? After all, everyone knew, including BB herself, that she was a marked woman by the Islamic jihadists.

Did they not think what would happen in case their reprehensible NRO was made null and void?

Surely they must have known that the Swiss courts money-laundering cases of Asif Zardari will crop up? Did they expect him, as the sitting head of government, to return the alleged billions ‘looted’ from Pakistan? Did they think that he would say sorry and admit to this alleged crime? How can a head of state ever remain in place after he’s admitted ‘stealing’ millions from the national treasury his late wife as the prime minister was morally responsible for?

The NRO was a devilish instrument. It should never have been allowed to come to life. Never mind about democracy. This is no democracy where the president, his powerful ministers and envoys in important western capitals are alleged to have committed financial crime. The prime minister narrowly escaped the NRO net by having an out-of-court settlement with NAB. His wife, Fauzia Gilani, was a big bank-defaulter. We’re told the couple has paid up. How much of the money they ‘borrowed’ to set up businesses got returned by them will must be made public.

Prime Minister Gilani is another Shaukat Aziz. He follows the dictation given to him from Zardari. Aziz, as we know, was just a sidekick of Musharraf. We never thought that Gilani would follow Aziz’s way. He’s in full defiance of the December 16 judgment on the NRO by the 17-member bench of the Supreme Court. How long he can get away by pulling all kinds of rabbits out of the bag to protect Zardari’s billions and stop them from coming to Pakistan is not rocket science.

Corruption can never be condoned.

Notice all the old faces sitting in the presidency – with Syeda Abida Hussain, husband Fakhr Imam and Aitzaz Ahsan taking the front row to show their support for Zardari and his corruption. Aitzaz felt no discomfort seated with his former sworn enemies Babar Awan and Latif Khosa! We’re done with this kind of façade. We need new, honest, clean leaders to lead us.

Senator Kerry is in town. He’s back to do some fire-fighting. Either prop up or dump Asif Zardari. We’ll have to wait and see. As the chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, Kerry owes it to Pakistan to rectify the damage the NRO has done. Other than doling out a few millions, which this corrupt government will gobble up, I don’t see the Americans really pushed about our long-term political stability. They couldn’t care less. All they want is to contain terrorists entering their space and Kayani making sure that they don’t cross the Atlantic to ‘attack’ America.

The battle against corruption that the people on the street should have waged against this government never happened. Once again the burden fell on the Supreme Court to challenge the corrupt. Why didn’t the people play their due role? All I can say is that they have been misinformed; misled and misguided. Aitzaz Ahsan, Ali Ahmed Kurd and human rights activist Asma Jehangir, the three legal luminaries, were our heroes. We expected them to lead us the way, not defend the corruption of Asif Ali Zardari. Fortunately stalwarts like Justice (r) Tariq Mahmud, Athar Minallah and Justice (r) Fakhruddin G Ebrahim have come out strongly in favour of the supremacy of the Supreme Court, though in the beginning they too were lost in the fog of words.

In a widely circulated email, Justice (r) F G Ebrahim (FGE) writes, “being of the view that more harm is done by ignoring seniority, which opens the door for exercise of discretion in principle, I am against seniority being ignored, particularly in (the) judiciary. My first reaction, therefore, was that the appointment of the chief justice Lahore High Court to the Supreme Court and elevation of the next senior-most judge as the Lahore High Court chief justice was justified. I had assumed that in accordance with Article 177 of the Constitution, these appointments were made by the president after consultation with the chief justice of Pakistan, and that the president was bound by such consultations.”

Was the chief justice of Pakistan even consulted? Asks FGE who is shocked that the two highest authorities in the land – the president and the chief justice of Pakistan — have conflicting statements to make.

“The president’s spokesperson asserts that the consultation took place and is denied vehemently by the honourable chief justice of Pakistan,” continues FGE. “There must be some documentary evidence to prove that such consultations took place. But much to our regret the people have been kept in the dark creating further controversy. With a poor credibility score of the government, the latter’s version will not be acceptable to the people. Without consultation, these appointments, in contradiction to the binding recommendations of the chief justice of Pakistan remain invalid, being in violation of Article 177 of the Constitution.”

Let the people decide. This is democracy, isn’t it? Why should a handful of self-appointed TV hosts and their guests be given the right to condone corruption? Why should editorial writers be given the right to declare that the court of Chief Justice Iftikhar Chaudhry is stabbing democracy by demanding that the corrupt cough up the money? Why should a bunch of columnists be defending President Zardari’s well of wealth by calling him the victim of judicial activism?

Why this is being done will not come to light until the matter comes to its logical end.

Beware too of the beards. They have all come out of the woodwork to support the judiciary. Some circles have expressed concern with the clique, once again, being formed by Nawaz Sharif and the fundos. God forbid should this happen, the Taliban-like leaders will be back in the saddle. In the end the battle is between the suited-booted PPP leaders, in their shiny suits with dandy ties and kerchiefs versus the shalwar kamiz wearing PML-N and their partners, the clergy.

Just for the sake of saving one man, Asif Zardari, today battle lines are being drawn. Is he worth the cost?