General Pervez Musharraf’s “address to the nation” last Wednesday was full of sound and fury signifying nothing. At the very least, we hoped he would enlighten us about his compulsions in letting Nawaz Sharif off the hook. After all, hadn’t he assured us that he would pursue the crooks of Pakistan to the ends of the earth and bring the loot back? Didn’t he lecture the British and the Americans about allowing their countries to become havens of refuge for the plunderers of the third world? In the event, however, he desperately tried to make virtue out of necessity and failed.
Nawaz Sharif is supposed to have been exiled on the basis of “an appeal” signed by him and three others. But we still don’t know whether this appeal was a political mercy petition, a cast-iron legal plea-bargain or merely a request to translate imprisonment into exile? Most people are now likely to believe Mr Sharif when he says he did not beg a pardon or make any compromising promise. In fact, by naively admitting that the government does not have any evidence of Mr Sharif’s plundered billions stashed away abroad, General Musharraf has inadvertently painted his accountability sleuths as bumbling fools in comparison with Saif ur Rehman who did such a hatchet job on Benazir Bhutto not so long ago.
General Musharraf says that several countries are pleased with his decision to reprieve Mr Sharif. He claims that this has served to reduce the “negative” image of Pakistan abroad. In fact, he has gone so far as to assert that certain economic benefits are likely to accrue to Pakistan’s ailing economy in its wake. None of this can be disputed. But the logic of the argument is quite perverse. The whole world has been telling General Musharraf that he can curry favour if he reveals a road-map for the restoration of democracy. Yet there is no hint of that. Sign the CTBT and stop proliferating if you want to be molly-coddled, they have repeated ad nauseam. Nothing doing, responds the general. Stop chumming-up with the notorious Taliban and clip the budding fundamentalists and sectarianists in Pakistan if you want to improve the image of the country, they have pleaded, to no avail. Create an enabling environment of regional peace and confidence for foreign investors, they have begged, only to be countered with the assertion that “jihad” is a state-legitimized expression of territorial “national interests”.
General Musharraf’s blithe disregard for matters of principle or bipartisanship is also quite astounding. What is sauce for the goose is apparently not sauce for the gander. But if a deal with the Punjabi, Nawaz Sharif, is politically opportune and diplomatically “correct” in the “national interest”, one with the Sindhi, Benazir Bhutto, would appear to be even more deserved. Corruption apart, Mr Sharif is a political Frankenstein created and nurtured by the army while Ms Bhutto is the democrat who was twice nipped in the bud by the army and all its Frankensteins. Indeed, if there are dozens of stinking cases of misappropriation and misuse of power pending against Mr Sharif and his cohorts, the few against Ms Bhutto and her spouse smell like roses in comparison. Yet, there was not a single word of similar comfort from General Musharraf on this score.
General Musharraf’s contemptuous reference to “drawing-room” gossip is no less revealing. When political leaders thunder about the “chattering classes” and flog them as scapegoats for their own failures, it is a sure-shot sign that they are out of touch with the reality in the streets and bazaars of the country. Equally, when they begin to thump on the table or sing their own praise, it is a sign of nagging doubt and insecurity rather than renewed vigour and confidence. In fact, General Musharraf could not have chosen more ominous words to describe his own frame of mind: “I am not a deserter and I don’t panic. I will accomplish my mission. I will never let you down. I am not afraid of death. God alone is my protector and guider…” The un-typical, repeated references to God Almighty suggest a man in trouble rather than one in command.
General Musharraf has been badly served by his advisors. For a politically sensitive matter such as this one, they should have adequately prepared public opinion for the mother of all retreats. Now they have now compounded their original sin by allowing their leader to look like a rambling, anxious, and lost man. If conspiracy-theorists have now concluded that someone is setting up General Musharraf as the fall-guy of this regime, who would blame them in view of the hollow explanations and half-truths on sale?
Fortunately, however, the situation may still be retrieved. General Musharraf should stop overplaying his “sincerity” card. He should open the route to bipartisan, party-based elections, as early as possible. And he should prepare the people of Pakistan to accept the same international compulsions of “national interest” followed in the Nawaz Sharif case in most other pending cases also — whether pertaining to Benazir Bhutto or to the economy or to the image of the country. The sooner we all accept the truth of our national predicament, the better we will learn to cope with it.