Mansoor Ijaz balloon punctured

EDITORIAL:DAILY TIMES

The central character in the so-called Memogate affair, Mansoor Ijaz, has refused to come to Pakistan just one day before he was supposed to appear before the judicial commission investigating the matter. The reasons for his refusal, according to Mr Ijaz and his counsel Akram Sheikh, are that he fears for his safety and life, there is a security threat to both from the authorities in Pakistan, and apprehensions that the body of evidence he claims is in his possession to prove his allegations against ex-ambassador to the US Husain Haqqani and his ‘boss’ may be destroyed if it falls into the ‘wrong’ hands. Mr Sheikh has been at pains to assert that the assurance s extended by the Attorney General (AG) and the instructions of the commission in its hearing on January 9 that Ijaz’s security would be handled by the army have not been adhered to. At one point, in an apoplectic rage, Mr Sheikh went so far as to assert that both the COAS and the AG would be in contempt of court if they did not follow the orders of the commission. Now, however, that Mr Ijaz has decided not to show, it would not be out of place to remind Mr Sheikh that he is on record as having told the commission that if his client did not appear on the date agreed (which the commission was generous enough to extend at least three times), he would not trouble the commission any more. Now, instead, his client wants the commission to travel to London or Zurich and record his statement there. In the first place, the commission’s instructions notwithstanding, security under the law for any citizen or visitor is the responsibility of the interior ministry, which not only appointed a senior officer to take charge of Mr Ijaz’s security in Pakistan, the authorities went so far as to announce that an army officer had been attached to help with the security duties of Mr Ijaz. This too proved insufficient for ‘viceroy’ Ijaz. The authorities’ bending over backwards to accommodate Mansoor Ijaz’s concerns has only yielded the damp squib at the end of the day of a cop-out by monsieur.

In response to this latest twist in the tale, Haqqani’s counsel has moved the commission not to allow the absconding Mansoor Ijaz any further chance to record his statement after he failed to live up to his commitment to appear. The no-show has eroded whatever was left of Mansoor Ijaz’s credibility. The only surprise in this for knowledgeable observers is the amount of time and space devoted to this ‘drama queen’ at the expense (almost) of destabilising the government and arguably democracy per se. Both Ijaz and Sheikh have quoted Interior Minister Rehman Malik’s statements to justify their apprehensions about Ijaz’s fate if he lands on Pakistani soil. These statements have landed Mr Malik with a summons by the parliamentary committee on national security that is also seized of the memo matter to clarify the content and purpose of his remarks that have so spooked Mansoor Ijaz. As if Rehman Malik’s statements were not enough, PPP Punjab leader Raja Riaz wants to be made a party to the commission’s proceedings since he wants to bring up Mansoor Ijaz’s revelation that he was part of efforts to topple Benazir Bhutto’s government in 1989. Raja Riaz wants Article 6 to come into play. Both Mr Malik and Mr Riaz are doing a first class job of scaring the ‘scarecrow’ away. These efforts notwithstanding, Mansoor Ijaz has lived up to his track record of shifting the goal posts whenever things get sticky or uncomfortable. Those seeking to take advantage of the whole affair to score political points, such as the Punjab chief minister, must be ruing the ‘champion’ they picked for the purpose.

It is not clear at the time of writing these lines how the commission will respond to the latest developments. The sensible jurisprudence would appear to be to drop the whole thing and leave it in the lap of the parliamentary committee (where, arguably, it always belonged, the penchant of the Supreme Court to take up any and all matters irrespective of potential embarrassment notwithstanding).