Pervez Musharraf believes Nawaz Sharif committed treason
Headlines, Politics Sunday, August 30th, 2009Former President Pervez Musharraf has no plan to return to Pakistan any time soon unless Pakistan needs him and the political milieu permits his homecoming.
He is evaluating his political options but is not ready to jump in Pakistan’s muddy and tricky politics in the near future.During a short visit to London, I met Musharraf. He was ready to talk, though much withdrawn and inhibited contrary to his past stance. The meeting took place at his apartment on the ninth floor of the Castleacre, Hyde Park Crescent.
The cost of the accommodation certainly runs into millions of pounds. Musharraf would not talk much about how he mobilised funds to purchase this because the money was ‘pooled’ by his own lecturing resources, his US-based son, Bilal, and the assistance from a friend that was not named.
It is the same locale, a few meters from the picturesque Hyde Park, where fabulously rich Pakistani politicians like Nawaz Sharif, still have or had apartments. As I reached the high security multi-storey plaza twenty minutes before the appointed time, I was greeted by a well-built Pakistani, wearing the traditional Safari suit of the same colour, and was told that Sahib has just finished his physical exercise, spanning one and a half hours.
Since a cautious Musharraf was not willing for a formal interview with the apparent aim of playing safe, perhaps thinking that this was the proper time for a blunt and open talk, there were many aides who had a lot to tell me. Describing Musharraf as a ‘realist’, not an ‘idealist’, they said he was engaged in wait and see policy about taking a plunge in Pakistan’s politics, if at all he would do that. “Let’s see how the political situation develops and emerges,” is his view according to them. “I will sacrifice my life if Pakistan needs me because this is what we are taught at the Pakistan Military Academy. But it has to be seen whether Pakistan really needs me otherwise I will not go back to Pakistan.”
One aide said that Musharraf would not publicly comment on how President Asif Ali Zardari was performing or messing up but he did realise that his successor did not have the grip and control that he used to have.
But, he added, Musharraf feels when Nawaz Sharif talks about high treason charges against him, he should also know that by dismissing two chiefs of the Army staff (COASs), treating them worse than even a peon, he had also committed violation of the Constitution because the Army chief’s office was constitutional having a three-year tenure. He points out that legal formalities like issuance of show cause notice, right of appeal etc, are always observed in taking action against a government servant so that the employee has all the rights to avail, but Nawaz Sharif treated Army chiefs worse than section officers and was thus liable to be tried for high treason under Article 6 of the Constitution.
Elaborating Musharraf’s views, the aide said the Army Act provided for actions like even the dismissal of the military chiefs. To a question about the former president’s views on the Nov 3, 2007 proclamation of emergency, declared unconstitutional by the Supreme Court on July 31, that no legal or constitutional consultee was taken into confidence about this strike, an aide said that Musharraf was abundantly clear that it was a corporate decision with the stakeholders of the time on board, and this is what is reflected in that declaration. “Read that proclamation and everything will become clear.”
About the dragging of feet by the Musharraf regime with Maulana Fazlullah’s militants arming themselves for two years in the Malakand Division, another aide said the former president’s view was that the Army would have moved only if the government had issued instructions to it. The requisitioning of the military was then somewhat delayed because of Maulana Fazlur Rehman’s government in the NWFP, he admitted.
But at the same time, according to the source, Musharraf feels that the militants were served a blow by the government’s policies, and it was because of this that the Awami National Party swept the 2008 general elections and the Maulvis supporting the militants were routed. Even the religious seminary of Fazlullah in Matta was razed to the ground by the local people, he said.
Another aide said the serving Army officer, Colonel Ilyas, who was on secondment to police, continued to be the security officer of Musharraf. These days he has gone on leave to Pakistan to meet his family since he has been with Musharraf for the past few months at a stretch. He will soon be back in London to resume his duty of ‘administrative’ work for the former president.
Musharraf will visit 17 cities of the United States from Sept 15 to Oct 20 to deliver a series of lectures to different organisations. On the last day, he will co-chair a seminar with Henry Kissinger in Boston.
Musharraf is getting high fee for every lecture, which is not less than any other dignitary of any country of the world. “I telicies. We have to be straight and blunt to tell realities to the Englishmen.”
Aides said that Musharraf was not averse to meeting people and his doors in London were open to all and sundry. Musharraf wants unification of Leagues, no splintering or division, for the greater good of Pakistan.
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on Aug 30 2009. Filed under