Brilliantly expressed by Angela Williams!
:lajawab:
http://dailytimes.com.pk/default.asp?page=2007\09\17\story_17-9-2007_pg3_3
**Lest we forget **
By Angela Williams
Nawaz Sharif and Benazir Bhutto are being hailed as returning heroes, the gallant saviours of democracy, and Asif Zardari is being referred to by some as the Pakistani Nelson Mandela! Has everybody lost their marbles?
Friday, November 28, 1997 should surely be indelibly printed on the minds of all those who respect and believe in the rule of law in Pakistan. This was the day on which members and supporters of the second government of Nawaz Sharif stormed the Supreme Court and brought to a halt, with their violence, the contempt of court proceedings against the prime minister which could have led to his disqualification from office. I remain, to this day, open-mouthed at the outrageousness of that act, caught on CCTV so that the shock troops could actually be identified, and testified to by respectable witnesses that included Ardeshir Cowasjee and Zahid Hussain.
Mr Hussain corroborated the testimony of fellow journalist Fakhar Rehman who was beaten up by PML leaders; he also stated that some of the cadres were overheard saying that their task had now been accomplished and that they should go back to Punjab House where Shahbaz Sharif was waiting for them.
Fifteen days after the outrage, Mr Cowasjee addressed an open letter to the Acting Chief Justice, requesting that “it be accepted as a petition and that he take suo moto action for the gravest contempt committed in the face of the court, against those who stormed the Supreme Court on November 28, 1997 as well as those responsible for organising them to so do, and that severe deterrent punishment be handed down to all of them. Collectively responsible and guilty is the entire federal cabinet and the primus inter pares.”
After the storming, the same bench could never hear the case, as Chief Justice Sajjad Ali Shah was removed from office by an order passed by a ten-member bench declaring that his appointment three years previously had been illegal! Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif was later exonerated of the contempt charges by another bench.
Deliciously ironic, is it not, that upon being unceremoniously bundled off to Saudi Arabia last week, Nawaz Sharif immediately applied to the courts of law! Lest we forget, please note also that Sharif it was who, in 1998, incurred economic sanctions against Pakistan for testing nuclear devices (just what the malnourished, illiterate masses needed, of course), and thus poisoned the land for ages to come. And just as a footnote, I can’t forgive that large hoarding near Lahore’s Kalma Chowk which trumpeted Nawaz Sharif’s landslide electoral victory in February 1997 with the words: “Congratulation to the nation On Good change”. God save all English teachers from death by cringing.
But now, let us move on to the other honourable contestant in the competition to bring what Sharif last week called ‘undiluted democracy’ back to this long-suffering country, the lady who has been referred to as a ‘political genius’. Prior to her first premiership, she had no administrative or parliamentary experience. Although she had done fairly well in the elections, she was short on majority having been defeated in the Punjab, the most populous province, by Sharif. After a mere 20 months in office, she was dismissed by President Ghulam Ishaq Khan on allegations of corruption and owing to widespread kleptocracy (I hope you were paying attention last week when I defined kleptocracy!).
Nothing daunted, the Pakistani electorate saw fit to re-elect her in 1993. But again she was dismissed, this time by her own appointed president and party member, Farooq Leghari, in 1996. The dismissal came amid accusations of having stolen hundreds of millions of dollars via the kind offices of her husband Asif Zardari by demanding ‘commissions’ on government contracts and tenders. The New York Times, not noted for unsubstantiated scandal-mongering, published an article in 1998 claiming that a network of bank accounts had been uncovered, all linked to the Zardari-Bhutto family lawyer in Switzerland, with Asif Zardari as principal shareholder in the corporations involved. There’s more, much more, but it gets rather repetitively monotonous.
Institutionalised corruption aside, Bhutto promised, during her election campaigns, that the Hudood and Zina ordinances, an affront to the humanity of women, will be repealed. Upon election to office, she did no such thing.
Lest we forget it should also be noted that the unfortunate Mir Murtaza Bhutto, Benazir Bhutto’s brother, had accused his sister of corruption in 1995 and had formed a group which split from the ruling PPP. He and six other party activists were gunned down in a “police encounter” on September 19, 1996. It was less than two months later that Bhutto’s government was dismissed on corruption charges for the second time.
Now in 2007, Nawaz Sharif and Benazir Bhutto are being hailed as returning heroes, the gallant saviours of democracy, and Asif Zardari is being referred to by some as the Pakistani Nelson Mandela! Has everybody lost their marbles? Are these power-and-wealth-crazed creatures the only viable candidates that their demented parties can throw up? Have all their truly shocking acts of the past couple of decades been forgotten? Does none of this matter? Pakistanis are actually going to vote for them? Hey out there! Is there a principle in the house?