Making best of detention

It is difficult to conclude whether to write on the unimportance of Pakistan’s former ruler, General (retd) Pervez Musharraf, detained on charges including murder and treason, and yet daring the United States and attacking India in his many interviews, or his importance to the government that is allowing him to do so.

Past military rulers have utilised the services of politicians to air their views. But here, the government utilises his ‘services’ even as it is lambasted by him. Why, he has even asked the Supreme Court to dismiss the federal government, saying Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif, his bête noire, is incapable of running the nation’s affairs.

For good measure, last week he reminded the court of the “doctrine of necessity” under which seizure of power in the past was justified by military rulers and upheld by the apex court. His speaking from the cozy confines of his farmhouse outside Islamabad, or his daughter’s home in Karachi keeps him in limelight and enables him to keep afloat his All Pakistan Muslim League. It also helps him to join forces against the government.

The Army that he once led has the upper hand in the nation’s affairs. The Sharif government narrowly survived a major political crisis last September, widely perceived as having the military’s backing, by Imran Khan-led Pakistan Tehrik-e-Insaf (PTI) and Pakistan Tehrik-e-Awam (PTA) of Canada-based Pakistani cleric Taherul Qadri.

The change has come gradually. Musharraf’s troubles, as the first general to be brought before a civilian court, which he fled once to evade arrest and where he faced slogans by hostile lawyers, are long over. The government now finds it expedient to let Musharraf speak to media at home and abroad to convey messages unofficially.

Musharraf confirmed to The Guardian what is well-known: that on his orders, the ISI had ‘cultivated’ the Afghan Taliban, helping them to work against the government of Hamid Karzai. He timed it after the US withdrawal from Afghanistan when Pakistan is poised, yet again, to play a key role in determining the course of Af-Pak developments. Last week, talking to the Wall Street Journal (WSJ), he justified nurturing the Haqqani network inside Afghanistan to counter India’s alleged help to Baloch groups working against Islamabad. His lament was that “US and its allies have consistently failed to consider Pakistan’s concern.”

Haqqani network that attacked the Indian embassy in Kabul was an instrument to counter India’s influence on the ground in Afghanistan. So, the Army’s inter Services Intelligence (ISI) nurtured them. “There are enemies of Pakistan that have to be countered.” The WSJ said: “Given his close links to defence and intelligence officials, Musharraf’s remarks offered a window into official Pakistani thinking on the (Afghan) peace process, a policy that was often obscured by careful diplomatic language.”

Musharaf wants to promote the Afghan Taliban that he nurtured and sheltered (along with Osama bin Laden) in the Afghan peace process. He told WSJ that Afghanistan must “share power with the Taliban and block Indian influence if it wants peace in the country. The world must realise that we may not like the face of Mullah Omar…but that is how life is, that is what Afghanistan is.”

Dismissing his allegations against India, Syed Akbaruddin, spokesman for India’s Ministry of External Affairs, told WSJ: “We don’t need to respond to voices from the wilderness. Such voices just try to occupy news space.” Musharraf is having a good time speaking on issues that the Pakistan government would not contradict. The man who returned from self-imposed exile to “save Pakistan” in March 2013, is making the best of his time under detention. Most analysts believe the government now lacks the will to offend the military and not push for Musharraf's prosecution.

Musharraf told The Guardian (February 13) that his problems are nearly behind him, and that he has the Army to thank. “I’m very proud of my institution. Whatever they are doing to help me, to protect the honour and dignity of their ex-chief, I’m proud of that,” he said. His lawyers routinely submit a medical certificate and get him exempted from personal court appearance. Courts ignore the prosecution’s plea that a person who gives speeches and interviews and travels around the country cannot be deemed unfit to appear.

The government should come to terms with his ‘reputation’ in the Pakistani military even after retirement, a confident Musharraf told Samaa TV. Calling for “a third political power” to emerge, he makes his preference known for all political forces that are against the ruling Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz and the main opposition party Pakistan People’s Party should unite.

His woes with the judiciary are not over yet. On January 14, an anti-terrorist court indicted him for the 2006 killing of rebel Baloch leader Akbar Khan Bugti, whose hideout in a cave was bombed on his orders. But after the verdict, a confident Musharraf told Samaa TV, wind had been taken out of the Bugti murder controversy.

The charges “are unlikely to cause any immediate problems for the 71-year-old, who has not attended a single hearing in the case since it began in 2013,” Samaa TV surmised. He was previously indicted for treason in March last year for imposing emergency rule in 2007, “but proceedings have stalled since then as the country's civil authorities and judiciary appear to lack the will to take on the powerful military,” it said.

He is on bail in four other major cases including the 2007 assassination of opposition leader Benazir Bhutto. The courts, still angry with him for having dismissed scores of judges when he was in power, try him and even indict him. But they no longer hound him. Gone are the days when his presence in the court sparked slogans among lawyers.

A court on February 14 ruled that he remains “not qualified” to contest an election, reiterating an earlier verdict. Another court has ruled against his leaving the country. He remains on the list of Pakistanis who must take permission before travelling abroad. He was not allowed to visit his ailing mother in Dubai and to attend funeral of the Saudi King Abdullah.

But he has been free to give interviews to foreign media. It is not difficult to surmise that the caged parrot is the civilian face of the Army, and an effective antidote to Nawaz Sharif, with whom Army Chief Gen Raheel Sharif can continue to cooperate.

By: Mahendra Ved