Pakistan: Musharraf’s fate

Interior Minister Chaudhry Nisar Ali pulled another rabbit out of his hat of ‘tricks’ to announce in a press conference on Sunday that ex-president General (retd) Pervez Musharraf would be tried for treason under Article 6 for the Emergency he clamped on the country on November 3, 2007. For this purpose, the government would have recourse to the Supreme Court (SC) with a request to set up a trial court (not a ‘commission’ as the minister erroneously said) comprising judges of the high courts. The government also committed to appointing a special prosecutor to conduct the trial. On Monday, the Ministry of Interior reportedly sent a letter to the Ministry of Law to implement the government’s decision. These moves followed the receipt by the government of the investigation by the FIA into the matter, a report Chaudhry Nisar said would be submitted to the SC along with its application. The announcement set off a virtual storm of comment and speculation as to the procedure adopted by the government and its intent. Some rejected the path being taken as unconstitutional, unnecessary, an attempted distraction from the fraught sectarian situation in Rawalpindi and elsewhere in the country, and an attempt to shift the responsibility from the executive (where it belongs) to the judiciary to avoid any adverse fallout from the military. There were also questions raised about why only the November 3, 2007 Emergency charge was to be pursued and not the (arguably more serious) October 12, 1999 coup in which an elected government was overthrown. To the response to this by some circles that the coup was endorsed by parliament and therefore was a closed matter, the objection could legitimately be raised that a parliament packed with the King’s Party and Musharraf’s political collaborators lacked the inherent legitimacy to provide immunity on the treason charge to the coup maker, apart from such an endorsement falling foul of the constitution. While Musharraf’s spokesman expectedly trashed the move as vengeful (denied at some length by Chaudhry Nisar earlier), a distraction, and likely to annoy the military, at the time of writing these lines an interesting development was expected in the Sindh High Court (SHC), which had ordered the institution of a treason charge on Musharraf, and where the latter’s application for his name to be taken off the Exit Control List (ECL) was up for hearing on Monday. A contempt of court petition had also been filed against the prime minister and the government for their failure to implement the SHC’s order to file a treason case against the ex-dictator. In a first in the country’s history, a military coup maker and dictator is being charged with treason. In the only other instance in our history, Yahya Khan was declared a usurper by the courts only after his death. Musharraf on the other hand is alive and kicking, out on bail in the four serious cases of murder, etc, instituted against him so far. Were the SHC to grant Musharraf the relief of removing his name from the ECL, some are inclined to believe he would fly straightaway to Dubai, ostensibly to visit his ailing mother, and perhaps never return (although some of his gung-ho supporters are vociferously denying he would leave Pakistan). Musharraf’s return to the country earlier this year in a quixotic effort to enter politics clearly backfired, and even his parent organisation, after he ignored advice to stay away, was unable to prevent the ignominy of a former COAS being dragged through the courts. However, no one should take lightly the possible reaction of the military to a treason case carrying a possible death sentence being pursued against its former chief. Whether GHQ would be inclined to swallow such humiliation in a country dominated almost throughout its existence by the powerful military remains an open question. That may be one reason why the charge of shifting responsibility from the executive to the judiciary and putting the ball in the latter’s court by the government rings credible. Nor should the influence of the Saudi monarch be ignored, who is believed not to be in favour of pillorying Musharraf and who is widely regarded as enjoying a lot of influence over the present PML-N leadership. So while in principle the idea of a treason trial (and for the 1999 coup too) appears the correct thing to do, the sceptics are still understandably unconvinced that the government means what it says and that some other way out may not be in the offing.