Mushrraf once called BB the most corrupt PM in the history of the country. Now, he is ready to dance with her. It can’t get better than this.
http://thenews.jang.com.pk/daily_detail.asp?id=72579
Tuesday, September 18, 2007
Anjum Niaz
The writer is a freelance journalist with over twenty years of experience in national and international reporting
None had heard of it before. It slipped in like a thief at night onto our radar screens. Remember the wintry days earlier this year when we first came upon the word ‘deal?’ Musharraf’s men floated the idea; Benazir’s team screamed baloney. The people were left guessing. Desire was in the air. We could sniff the flirtation between Musharraf and Benazir bungeed by international babble-athons conducted in Dubai, London and Washington. Meanwhile, the wicked old corruption cell at the National Accountability Bureau (NAB) was wound up and the ‘big bad wolf’ wanting to eat up little Red Riding Hood banished from Islamabad. His talents were put at the disposal of the Chief Minister, Pervaiz Elahi.
The ‘deal’ had begun. Benazir Bhutto won the first round by silencing Hassan Waseem Afzal, the super sleuth who amassed a fortune of damning documents proving the corruption of the former prime minister and her spouse. Doggedly, NAB had busted the international network and cracked the code that contained details of the ill-gotten wealth of the former first couple. It had cost the taxpayer millions of dollars to follow the money trail. As we well know, after President Farooq Leghari sacked Benazir in 1996 on corruption charges, her successor Nawaz Sharif gave the Ehtesab Bureau a one-point agenda: to nail the couple. And the man tasked to scale the Himalayan heights to track down the couple was the handsome, Hassan Waseem Afzal. When Nawaz Sharif got the boot from General Musharraf, Ehtesab Bureau got a new name (NAB), but continued with the services of Afzal, who was now handed a two-point agenda: go get Benazir as well as Nawaz Sharif!
Presently, the ‘deal’ is a dirty secret between an embattled general and a desperate woman wanting to return and rule for the third time. Public posturing by sodden mouthpieces in the government and the PPP heightens as time for Benazir Bhutto’s arrival draws closer. Truth, as usual is the first casualty. The talking heads on television are in a heck of a pickle, figuring out the specs of the ‘deal’.
Are Benazir and Musharraf an item finally or bi-polar adversaries still?
The answer could well lie with the National Accountability Cell. Just as its corruption cell was wound up one fine morning last spring on the behest of Benazir, the likelihood of its rebirth cannot be ruled out. Perhaps, it’s being activated as we speak. Why? Have we not been duly informed about the freshly filed corruption cases against the Sharif brothers in courts after Nawaz’s forced foray into Pakistan?
Common sense dictates that if the courts can be given a soaped-up version of Sharif’s corruption, what’s holding General Musharraf from reviving Benazir’s cases – all ready and bound in official folders, the colour of which is pink, set to be presented before the courts. Should she try double-crossing the general? Hassan Waseem Afzal is just a phone call away and can zing back into his old job.
“NAB unearths BB’s illicit connection with the UN controlled oil for food program and her connections with the Saddam regime in Iraq” is one such document that has been dusted up and readied for the courts. The first paragraph ends with the sentence “Corruption, manipulation, kickbacks and commissions appear to be common between the former Prime Minister of Pakistan and the oil for food program.”
Citing the Oct 27, 2005 report of the ‘Independent Inquiry Committee appointed by the UN’, the NAB alleges “Petroline FZC, an offshore company of the former Prime Minister of Pakistan, Benazir Bhutto, who paid two million dollars as kickbacks to the defunct Iraqi regime of Saddam Hussain in violation of UN sanctions and violating all norms of international law.” Its findings are based on the 623 pages of the UN report in which Petroline FZC (Free Zone Corporation) paid kickbacks to an Italian MP called Paolo Folloni; a Frenchman named Michel Grimard, a Lebanese national named To’ma; the Romanian Labour Party and the Yugoslavian Leftwing Party. “In total, Petrozine FZC purchased Iraqi oil worth 150 million dollars. The surcharge paid to the Iraqi regime amounts to two million dollars, which was paid into the bank of Jordan. Petroline FZC was financed by an American oil trading company called Bayoil, which is facing prosecution in the US for its dealing in the oil-for-food-programme.”
In April 2006, vice chairman Afzal held a press conference and gave out copies of NAB’s investigations nailing BB. According to him, Petroline FZC was registered in Sharjah, UAE on December 10, 2000. “Its owners were/are Benazir Bhutto with 34 per cent shares shares, Hassan Ali Jafferi 33 per cent and Rehman Malik 33 per cent shares. HAJ (Hassan Ali Jafferi) is the nephew of BB and RM (Rehman Malik) is a fugitive from justice,” he said.
Afzal’s boast to the reporters was that Benazir Bhutto, Rehman Malik, the former FIA additional director, and Hassan Ali Jaffery, her nephew will be charged and sentenced. “The Pakistan government will prosecute these three Pakistanis under UN guidelines.”
Today Afzal’s investigative files bite the dust as he’s told to zip up while PPP jiyalas prepare to give a “rousing” welcome to their leader on October 16.
At the press conference last year, Afzal bared a second company called Tempo Global Gains FZC owned by Bhutto and her three children. “This company appears to be the ultimate destination of all money siphoned off by Benazir and her aides,” he said, adding that NAB would ask the UAE government to freeze these companies’ accounts.
Afzal succeeded in convincing the Spanish judicial authorities in the state of Valencia, Spain to freeze the bank accounts belonging to the two offshore companies, Petroline and Tempo Global Gains FZC that were operating in Spain. They also confiscated the Bhutto villa in Valencia.
That. however, was last year. Pakistan was firmly in General Musharraf’s grip. The dictator could ask for anyone’s head. So power drunk was he, that at every opportunity, the president pounded the two former prime ministers with a promise to put the kibosh on their future.
Who then, do you think is laughing all the way to the bank today? Benazir Bhutto, of course! Musharraf has promised to withdraw corruption cases against her. That hapless instrument called NAB has further been emasculated by the appointment of a pliable ex- bureaucrat. The former secretary-general Finance, Navid Ahsan, was given the charge of chairman NAB last month. The file pusher will kowtow to his military benefactor.
NAB’s clumsy website that had once proudly posted proof of BB’s corruption, has become a wet rag today. In a press clipping dated May 31, 2007, it defends the withdrawing of corruption cases against BB by saying that it has run out of money to pursue the Spanish case: “Since the case is primarily a Spanish Prosecution, therefore NAB could be allowed to quit as Civil Party as GOP Exchequer is not going to benefit from the outcome of the case, and further NAB shall be available for any help for the Spanish Prosecution in the future, which could be attained on a simple request of International Mutual Legal Assistance.”
NAB’s wantonness fits perfectly into the description of a hooker: with a sly wink, long gaze, flip of the hair, lips pursed, furrowed brow and finger tap, the lady is a tramp! With its moral compass directed towards the Army House, NAB today has lost all its credibility.
And so has General Pervez Musharraf. He has lost our respect by bartering away Pakistan’s independence and allowing the Saudis, Brits, Yankees and Lebanese to choose our leaders. President Bush, with his bogus axis of evil theory looks like an apparition – white face, white hair and white lips. Having led his nation into a fraudulent war with Iraq, he is now directing via long distance, a disaster waiting to happen in Pakistan.
General Musharraf must reboot his exit strategy or take responsibility for an epic tragedy.