Battered beyond recognition by a dictator named Zia ul Haq, the Pakistani constitution has taken another thrashing, this time at the hands of a democratic prime minister named Nawaz Sharif. The twelfth amendment was rammed through last week in a manner which has left us all reeling with despair and dread. Despair because no public airing of the draft proposals was allowed and the opposition was gagged from uttering a single parliamentary word in protest. And dread because the new amendment sets up yet a third confusing, parallel system of laws (the Shariat bill being the second) without provision for due process or checks and balances against the arbitrary exercise of power by government.
The drastic constitutional amendment originally envisaged was meant to control terrorism. But, leave alone the screaming opposition, even the IJI was in no mood to let Mr Sharif get away with murder No wonder the PM had to backpedal furiously to save his skin.
The 12th Amendment will remain on the statutes for three years. It empowers the government to establish “speedy courts for heinous crimes” in any area where, in the opinion of the executive, law and order is threatened. Such courts will deliver their judgements in thirty days and there will be only one appellate court of appeals which too must decide within the month. The police can now arrest or detain anyone in an “affected area” without being challenged.
As the new laws stand, there are serious misgivings. How will they effectively combat crime when countless existing special courts, armed with terrifying powers to order public hangings, have failed to do so in the past? Does the PM think that he can get away by accusing Sindhi political workers of terrorism and hanging them in the local town square? Or is he trying to throttle dissent? As it is, the Sindh IGP has admitted arresting over one thousand alleged terrorists only in one district of Sindh; yet dacoities, kidnappings and ethnic strife are rampant and the province remains as ungovernable as ever.
Naturally, suspicions abound that Mr Sharif’s real motive may have been very different from his avowed objectives. Was he, in fact, trying to send a message to the “undemocratic forces” he alluded to in his address to the nation last week? Was he telling them that his government was strong and united, that he wouldn’t be a pushover because he could demonstrate a two-thirds majority in parliament? If so, the concessions he has had to make and the conspiratorial, almost autocratic manner in which the amendment was rammed through, leaves much to be desired. Certainly, the message, if any, could already be lost.
Of course, there is something downright sinister about the fashion in which opposition politicians, of all persuasions, appear to have hitched up their shalwars for a spot of action, much as they did in 1977 and 1990. The PM’s panic also lends a degree of credibility to the rumours that certain “powers” may well be urging the unruly bandwagon on.
Who, conceivably, might these invisible patrons be? Everyone suspects that Gen Aslam Beg doesn’t exactly relish the thought of having to take off his uniform and head into the Brunei sunset. He might have been happier presiding over a more powerful Chief of Staff Committee. Also, for a successor, he might have preferred Gen Shamim Alam or even Gen Hameed Gul. Certainly, if he had been given an extension of at least one year, an ambitious soldier like General Hameed Gul might have had better long-term prospects. The President, on the PM’s advice, said no on all counts.
General Beg remains as hawkish as ever on relations with America and couldn’t possibly be too pleased at Mr Sharif’s recent overtures to Washington. Now, the Chief if warning of war clouds over Kashmir: “In sheer desperation, India might launch an adventure against Pakistan”. As proof, he is pointing to the massing of Indian troops along the border with Pakistan in Sindh and exhorting his soldiers to be “prepared for any eventuality”.
Hopefully, fears of Indian designs will prove to be misplaced. Hopefully, too, suspicions about Gen Beg’s presumed ambitions are not grounded in facts. But it is still three weeks to go before the army affects a change in guard. Until then, at least, Mian Nawaz Sharif cannot afford to relax.