Tahir Mustafa
The men in khaki may not have stormed the corridors of power, but since all power resides in their grubby hands, Pakistan is under de facto martial law. The rapists, murderers and mega-thieves installed in power follow orders that come directly from the GHQ in Rawalpindi.
The rest of the world also knows that real power resides in Rawalpindi, not Islamabad. That is why every visiting official meets the army chief, a practice unheard of in other countries. It is the army chief and a small coterie of generals around him who call the shots. Civilians are used merely as decoration (if that is possible at all) to create the illusion of civilian rule.
What is currently underway in Pakistan demonstrates the criminal nature of the army. It is hell-bent on preventing the most popular politician in Pakistan—Imran Khan—from returning to power. The army top brass knows that if elections are held, Pakistan Tehreek-e Insaf (PTI) led by Imran Khan would sweep the polls. Why are the generals so terrified of his coming back to power whose ouster they had engineered on April 9, 2022?
The generals, like the criminals they have installed in power, are thoroughly corrupt. Imran Khan has vowed to go after the crooks and deal with them according to the law. The generals are terrified of this prospect, hence their determination to not allow elections until Imran Khan has been removed from the scene either through assassination or a long-term jail sentence on concocted charges. He has survived two assassination attempts and faces more than 150 charges, all of them bogus.
Aware that these charges will not stand in a civilian court, the army announced on May 15 that those involved in the May 9 attacks on military installations will be tried in military courts under the Official Secrets Act.
It is revealing that the National Security Committee (NSC), the highest security body in the country, met a day later to “approve” the army’s decision. Under what constitutional authority does the army make such decisions? The fact that it has the guns does not give it the right to dictate state policy or boss over civilians.
The same holds true for other state institutions whether the judiciary, bureaucracy or the police. The army’s heavy boot is present everywhere. It is akin to a person hiring a chowkidar to protect his house but takes over the entire house, starts dictating to the owner how to conduct his affairs and who he should have as friends.
The army has a long sordid history of interfering in politics. From the first martial law imposed in October 1958 to the current mess created by the army, it has indulged in the worst kind of political engineering to make and break political parties. It is different now because Imran Khan has changed the country’s political dynamics. He has created awareness among the masses who have realized what dirty role the army has been playing.
The army has responded with viciousness never before seen in Pakistan’s tortuous history. People who dare to question the army’s illegal actions have been targeted and some physically eliminated. Journalists like Arshad Sharif forced to flee Pakistan was murdered in Kenya. Other journalists—like Imran Riaz Khan—have simply disappeared. Yet others have been threatened and tortured.
The worst act perpetrated by the army is to grab political activists’ daughters, wives and mothers and threatened them with rape. Some have suffered such degrading acts. There are more than 10,000 political prisoners in Pakistan today. Videos have appeared on the Internet of the kind of torture they are subjected to.
The Pakistan army is subjecting its own people to the same kind of torture, rape and humiliation that the Indian occupation army is doing to the people of Kashmir. For decades, the army has abducted young men from Balochistan and the Khyber Pakhtunkhwa Province (KPK) falsely accusing them of being “terrorists”.
Even young children have not been spared. Hundreds of young men have simply disappeared in what are called “missing persons”. Mothers are provided no information about their sons despite knocking on many doors.
The army has used the same tactics against leading members of the PTI. Under the threat of raping their daughters or wives, PTI members have been forced to make public declarations to condemn the May 9 attacks on army installations and to quit the party.
The implication is that it was the PTI and especially Imran Khan who instigated these attacks. Videos from multiple sources show the attackers were agents provocateurs, sent by the army and the criminals installed in power to carry out these acts of vandalism. Imran Khan was under arrest at the time.
He was kidnapped from the Islamabad High Court premises on May 9 by hundreds of armed Rangers’ personnel, a paramilitary force under the command of the army. This was an illegal act. Has anyone been held accountable for such criminal activity?
Besides, Imran Khan has called for an independent judicial inquiry to identify the culprits. No such inquiry has been held because if carried out honestly, it will expose the army’s role in the attacks on its own installations for a very sinister purpose.
Instead, it has unleashed its dogs in the media to peddle the army’s narrative about Imran Khan’s alleged misdeeds. The latest army order is that his name should not be mentioned on any TV channel or in any newspaper. The army wants to blank him out of the picture. Thanks to social media, Imran Khan’s message is getting through but barring media coverage in Pakistan, it will be limited in its reach.
After forcing members of the PTI to abandon it, a new party, Istehkam-e Pakistan Party (IPP), commonly referred to as the ‘king’s party’ has been created. This is led by Jahangir Tareen Khan and includes such other ‘lotas’ as Aleem Khan, Aun Chaudhry, Aamir Mehmood Kiani, Imran Ismail, Fawad Chaudhry, Ali Haider Zaidi and a host of others. The new party has been dubbed “Zaleel Tareen Party” (the most disgusting party!)
The army thinks creation of the new party would undermine the PTI support base in elections. Not very bright, the generals do not understand the current political situation properly. They are still living in the past assuming that just as they undermined political parties by breaking their members in the past, they will do the same with PTI and succeed.
They do not appear confident though. If they believe the creation of a new party would undermine the PTI, they should have no hesitation holding elections. So, what’s holding them back? They want to eliminate Imran Khan first before embarking on that venture.
This betrays the generals’ nervousness. They have also gone berserk targeting such Vloggers outside Pakistan as retired army officers Adil Raja, Haider Mehdi and Akbar Hussain, senior journalist Shaheen Sehbai, Dr Moeed Pirzada, Sabir Shakir and Wajahat Khan. The Pakistan High Commission in London, and no doubt the High Commission in Ottawa, have been mobilized to go after these individuals.
What the morons in uniform do not understand is that Britain and Canada are rules-based societies. Making allegations against individuals have to be proved in a court of law, not enforced at the whim of a general or even a bureaucrat. One feels sorry for Pakistani diplomats in London and Ottawa forced to carry out the orders of morons who do not know anything about law or how politics works.
Their bloody-mindedness has turned Pakistan into a laughing stock of the world while its economy has been run into the ground. Is there any hope for Pakistan’s survival with these morons in control?
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