The ISPR handout consequent to the Formation Commanders’ Conference as carried by the press on June 07, 2023 was a barrage of extraordinary anger and a formal declaration of the final assault on PTI. The rage this encapsulated was supposed to have erupted consequent to events of May 9. This conference was called to give formal expression to this rage. After this assault on PTI, it is clear, that the party will now exist only in the form that the army wants it to.
The rage sparked by the events of May 9 was as natural as it was justified. My immediate reaction was disbelief, and I could not understand why the hooligans were not shot out of hand! But then video footage of events began coming in. And as more and more of them came, so anger began giving way to astonishment and incredulity. One question began reinforcing itself: where the hell was all the bloody security?
Specific to the Corps Commander’s House in Lahore, the following questions came immediately to mind.
- As Adjutant of my unit, we often had to mount guard at the house of GOC 11 Div, and less often at the Corps Commander’s House. The strength of guard detail used to be 2x 12 i.e 2 NCOs and 12 men. After being mounted, half the detail used to return to the unit lines, while the other half stood duty for 12 hours, whereafter it was relieved by the other half.
In none of the videos could I see more than two members of the guard. There should have been at least 7 on duty at any one time. So, where the hell were the rest?
- And where were vehicles with armed soldiers who are on round-the-clock patrol covering Lahore Cantt?
- Where were the additional details earmarked to meet emergency situations? After all, there was no suddenness about the miscreant attack on the house. The despicable drama of arson and destruction obviously took a lot of time being enacted, but no additional security details seem to have been dispatched to the relief of the besieged site.
- And when I called friends in Lahore Cantt, I was amazed to learn that the check-posts at various points were either not manned, or were very lax and were allowing people to go through without any check. Why had this laxity been shown?
This was absolutely amazing. They knew when Imran would be arrested. They also knew the type of public reaction this arrest would engender. And yet, instead of bolstering security at sites likely to come under threat, they decided to denude them!
And therefore, many like me came to the conclusion that if indeed this was hooliganism, then it was “hooliganism by invitation”. And who but the army could have arranged this invitation?
But if the army could send out this invitation, what was there to stop it from arranging the whole drama itself by provoking this hooliganism by agents provocateur? And as it is now clear even to the blind that May 9nth was stage-managed to furnish grounds to destroy PTI, there is little doubt left in many minds that this was indeed the case.
Because of this the May 9th narrative of the army stands vitiated. And if the high command had any credibility left among the people, that has been totally eviscerated by the utter incompetence of the people who took their own sweet time building up a lie, and this lie could not stand beyond a couple of hours.
This lie was born of the mother lie of Apr 9, 2022 i.e that the army was neutral and had nothing to do with operation regime change. With the installation of the thugs in government, overnight the army lost the reverence of the people which had been its monopoly for a good 75 years. And in the process, there appeared a clear divide between the generals and those whom they command. This situation could have been mended had Gen Bajwa either walked Pakistan back to status quo ante, or used the army’s considerable heft to push for immediate elections. But neither course was opted for, because the risk of Imran’s return to power was not acceptable under ANY circumstance, and if in the process the army was to lose the support of the people of Pakistan and suffer internal fractures, so be it. In between the monumental lies of Apr 9, 2022 and May 9, 2023, there began to grow a roster of crimes either abetted by the army or initiated and executed by it–crimes of kidnapping, torture, murder, blackmail, massive theft, and the shredding of the constitution.
The real elephant in the room is, why was it so important to keep Imran Khan out of power even if it cost the army the support of the people, without which it would lose its very reason for existence, while laying open the possibility of the unraveling of the state?
It is my belief that Bajwa had promised his mentors that he would denuclify Pakistan. I think that Bajwa has delivered on that commitment and our bombs are now only for the counting, and not for the using. And that is the principal reason why Imran’s return had to be blocked at ALL COST, because, had he returned, a lot of martial heads would roll.
We are now seeing the end game of that sordid drama of arch treachery, and the beginning of rule by the Burma Model.
Whether Pakistan would be able to withstand what it has been subjected to, only the Almighty would know. But the puny little bemedalled peacocks who have decided to play gods obviously think that they know better.