Justice Iftikhar Mohammad Choudhry had this most disarming squint. When he was looking at you, you’d think, he was looking at the other fellow. Before he was exposed, it was believed that this was the only thing crooked about him, and but for the outing of his son by Malik Riaz Hussain, he would have receded into retirement with his rectitude intact. But Malik Sahib’s sole act of real mercy towards his unfortunate country [apart from building Bilawal House for our poverty stricken President] was that he made certain that this did not happen and the Choudhry went out in disgrace. Thus, with his reputation ravaged, by the time the Chaudhry slunk into the shadows, he did so as a man of whom it could be said, that if there was something straight about him, it must be a secret.
For obvious reasons such people do not lightly forsake the shadows to step out into public glare. But yesterday the Chaudhry did just this. Ostensibly he did so to keep the “independence” of the judiciary from being curtailed. According to him, such curtailment would result from constitution of military courts to try the terrorists.
In a nutshell he was advocating the cause of courts which were “independent” but ineffective, against those that could be effective but not independent. Coming from a crooked man, this is indeed a principled position; so principled in fact, that if asked to vote, every terrorist would vote with him on this! But the question that must finally be addressed is whether those who have lost their near and dear ones, or those who are in daily fear of losing them i.e. the people of Pakistan, also have a dog in this game–the game of mayhem by the terrorists, and the cowardice of the judiciary, and its collusion with the politicians.
In light of the record of the courts of which the Chaudhry was the Supremo, numbers alone are sufficient to prove that for the last few years we have had the most cowardly and terrorist-friendly, “independent” courts. Indeed, the Chaudhry and his fellow judges did their best to de-fang the special courts formed to try terrorists, by overloading them with non-terror related cases according to their whims. Chowdhry would remember how he took suo moto notice of Shahzeb Khan’s murder case and handed it over to a court which was constituted to try only terror related cases.
Stripped of the “principle” which the Chaudhry has fallen back on, his position translates into advocacy for letting the terrorists go free. I therefore strongly suspect that this “principled” knave did not emerge from the shadows voluntarily, but was trotted out by his masters with the specific intent to making controversial, that which finds near unanimity among the people of the country i.e. the constitution of military courts to try terror related cases.
And why should his masters, the present government, feel so desperately the need to be retrieved by one as thoroughly discredited and disgraced as the Chaurdhry?
For one thing, this government fears change, any change.
The constitution of military courts means many things to them. It means change. It means the first formal handing over of the baton to the army, which must betoken their incompetence and failure in the eyes of the fools who elected them, if indeed they are so benighted as to believe that this is not widely known already.
But they cannot possibly live with the downstream possibilities these courts will open up. The first and immediate threat that could emanate from these courts may be the exposure of government ties to terrorists. And this could lead to the prospect of them dangling by the same ropes, by which the terrorists may swing. This is not a pretty thought for anyone, least of all for those, whose undivided commitment to theft of national assets created the mis-governance, which created the hate against the state. And this in turn created those whose only mission is to take down this state, and which is symbolized by inequity and injustice and prostitution of all that is good.
But all politicians, or at least all parties, are surely not tied in with the terrorists. So why does it appear that all of them in some measure, seem to be withdrawing their support to the formation of these courts? The reasons are many. Some may genuinely fear that these courts will allow the army a near permanent place on the “democratic” turf.
And then there are those that have an intellectual and principled objection to army courts, led by, on the one hand, Justice Chaudhry, and on the other, by such luminaries as Raza Rabbani, and Asma Jehangir.
But even ex-President Zardari has lent his voice to these objections. Why do you think that might be? It is good of Mr Zardari, being the honest man that he is, to have explained his position. He has made it quite plain that he fears that these courts may eventually encroach on “democracy.” And who could blame him for loving democracy so? Without democracy what would he own, but a rundown Bambino Cinema, and a worn-out wife 6 years his senior, and now dead. What else but a “democracy” would give him endless lines of hypocrites waiting to kiss his hand and calling Benazir, an equal partner in his crimes, a “shaheed”? But that, and his hand in her murder, is another issue.
Yet all credit to Zardari for having clarified matters which no other could have done. If formed and run with dedication, military courts do not only threaten terrorists. They also threaten those who have been giving them succour, and those that have killers in their pay, and those who sponsor sectarian violence. And those who fund any of these activities. There is a large overlap between these activities and linkages established by the net of corruption. And corruption is the life blood which courses through their veins. If the supply of this is staunched, they cannot live. So they cannot countenance the faintest shadow of the law falling over them to disturb their torpor.
Only if this is understood, can you understand their opposition to military courts.
But what most people in the country understand quite clearly is that without the rule of law, this country will not survive. And law must start working first on those that are the most immediate threat to the very existence of the country in which their kids will come up, and then the law must start radiating outwards. But most importantly, upwards as well.
It is good for Pakistan that General Raheel Shareef has thus far evaded all temptations and provocations and calls to impose military rule. He MUST avoid this course. But he must not forget to bend to the call of duty if and when he realizes that there is no course open to him to save his country, except direct action. But even then, the best course open to him will be to force fresh elections from which a maximum of the choicest 50 crooks are kept away. And then he must fully support a national government in every way, but only if such government is committed to taking the war of national survival to its logical conclusion.
Concurrently, he must push for and ensure the formation of military courts to try terrorists, as the next phase of the war of national survival.
But he must also go further. Simultaneously he must start weeding out the corrupt among his generals, and impose on them the same unofficial one error policy, that has long been the army culture with regard to promotions to the senior ranks of the army. These people are very easy to identify. And whatever their strength in numbers, they are very fragile.
And then he must court-martial them. After that he must requisition the services of those generals who have retired, and who are now living in the clover of ill-gotten lucre. He must put them back uniform, and court martial them. They are far too well looked after to justify theft.
General Raheel must put his own house in order first, and know that if the uniform retains any sanctity among the deprived of the nation, it is only because these poor benighted fools believe that this uniform is free of taint. So he must begin with removing the taint that there is, and which is so easy to find.
He must get rid of holy cows. If he can put his hands on the necks of these cows, and decides that the country’s cleansing can only be started with own house cleaning, all the snorting bulls will submit.
This is eminently do-able. What is needed to be done to take this path is to first find faith in doing what is right, and then to anchor this faith in destiny, and fatalism.
Surely, there should be nothing more sacred than the land which has given one all that one has, and the commitment to the generations which follow, that they can hope for good and glorious days to come. Surely if all others fail, it must rest on the most powerful institution in the country to come to its rescue, with the fervid hope that it will not rescue it the way the generals of earlier generations botched their efforts.
If this is not done now, it never will be.