Legal eye

The writer is a lawyer based in

Islamabad.

Corrupt and non-performing politicos might be an explanation for the military’s bloated role in our polity, but not a justification. In the backdrop of the Panama leaks, which directly implicate the prime minister and his family, the army chief has elected to release a statement on corruption.

Not only is he wrong in forging a causal link between combating terror and eliminating corruption, but him volunteering to support “across-the-board accountability”, his timing and populist undertone suggests that our civil-military imbalance has increased.

That the army chief was wrong in issuing an ISPR release doesn’t mean that the PM is right or deserves support over Panama. The problem of credible investigation and building a prosecutable case against an entrenched ruler aside, the PM’s story doesn’t add up. The Park Lane apartments have been in his family’s use for almost two decades. Hassan Nawaz stated on record in 2000 that he was renting them. But the explanation of who owned the apartment he was living in was such that even the village idiot could tell he had something to hide.

The same offshore companies that owned the apartments back in 2000 own them today. The PM’s other son Hussain conveniently volunteered a month before the leaks that the Sharif children have owned the apartments through offshore companies since 2006. If the Sharifs aren’t lying, the only logical explanation can be that they continued to rent prime property in London for a decade and loved it so much that they decided to purchase it. They hit gold while in exile in Saudi Arabia, cashed it out and bought the offshore companies that owned the apartments.

If they have nothing to hide why not release the transaction details? Someone must have owned the offshore companies before the Sharifs, and must have been the landlords while they (the Sharifs) were renting. There must have been a dated share-purchase agreement with the prior owner. Money must have changed hands and would have left a trail. Why wouldn’t the Sharifs throw in the faces of their detractors documents that establish that the purchase took place in 2006 with legitimate funds/assets that moved from Saudi Arabia to London via Panama?

Public figures don’t have the luxury to plead their right to privacy. The PM has been in public life since the early 1980s. He is being accused of having made dirty money by abusing public authority which he ought to have exercised for peoples’ benefit as their trustee. The Panama leaks are being cited as proof. While a private citizen can claim that his assets are his business, a public office-holder can’t. If he takes the innocent-until-proven-guilty defence without disclosing details of the offshore transactions, everyone will rightly draw an adverse inference.

Opposition leaders, civil society, media and citizens all have the right to ask the PM to account for Panama, but not the army chief. Before the army chief waded in and linked corruption to terror, there already was broad public consensus that Panama must be investigated and anyone found guilty be punished. But once he weighed in, many began to recall other ills that hold Pakistan back – a flawed national security policy that has claimed over 50,000 lives so far, political witch-hunts in the name of accountability and civil-military imbalance etc.

The army chief linking terror and corruption is worrisome. These are two very different problems. Corruption is neither the primary factor that explains the evolution of terror into the existential threat that it has become for us, nor is it the main hindrance in fighting terror. It is the state that still hasn’t fully cured itself of its inexplicable love for ideologically driven groups. It is the state that is still refusing to clamp down on radical extremism that feeds terror. And this part of the state falls within the jealously guarded domain of the military.

So when the army chief hitches the fight against terror to corruption, it raises worrying concerns. After declaring Zarb-e-Azb a success is he telling us that the military has finished its job and the next time terror strikes it will be the corrupt politicos to blame? Or is he telling us that national security falls within the military’s province and given that terror is inextricably linked to corruption, the latter will also be part of the expanded khaki domain? Whatever the reason, the linkage is either too naïve or intellectually dishonest.

We saw the Rangers get embroiled with corruption in Karachi. There were raids here and there. We were told that Dr Asim Hussain might have ‘aided and abetted’ terror. The proof of that was suspected terrorists having been treated in his hospital! The primary issue with the khakis trying to clean up corruption along with terror is not that corruption is good, but that corruption is a hydra and addressing it not only falls beyond the military’s domain and competence but can also distract military focus from the crucial fight against terror.

Then there is the issue of timing. Why did the army chief wake up to the idea of promoting accountability seven months prior to his retirement? There can be three explanations.

One, that as a patriot he wanted to address an issue critical to Pakistan. But he is no ordinary citizen. He heads the most powerful institution that has ruled the country directly for almost half its life and has a chequered history of interfering with politics and trying to control it from behind the curtain during civilian rule. The military understands command and control and the propriety of when to speak and when not to. Here it is the army chief’s theoretical boss in hot soup. And the statement is no off-the-cuff remark. It is a formal release.

Two, the khakis want to keep the government unsettled, the political pot simmering and re-emerge as the kingmakers of the 1990s in a divided polity. The PM can be ousted in three ways. A), genuine public outrage and mass protests over Panama forcing the PM to quit. That hasn’t happened and isn’t likely to. B), a credible investigation finding evidence of wrongdoing against the PM and the judiciary throwing him out. If such due process happens (a big if), it will take time. And C), a dharna-repeat, with proactive military sponsorship, leading to early elections.

And three, General Sharif has no political ambition or desire to play kingmaker, but can’t let go of a golden opportunity to promote the military’s institutional interests, build the khaki brand further and expand the military’s domain of activity and influence even beyond the bloated role it currently enjoys. It has exclusive control over internal and external security and foreign policy. Here is an opportunity to contrive a veto over even the circumscribed areas of civilian governance that politicos and babus reign over. Should he just let it go?

The army chief must have Pakistan’s best interest at heart. But this ‘us’ versus ‘them’ approach toward civilian institutions hasn’t served Pakistan well. The military-sponsored narrative of patriotism, national interest and security is just that: one narrative. Even if it is objectively the best articulation of our interests, it needs to be subjected to critical analysis. There are other competing narratives out there. But they have been crowded out because the military’s stranglehold over the polity leaves no room for their articulation.

For Pakistan to survive and prosper we need all our state institutions to be in a functional state. One overgrown institution cannot fill the gaps that have been created by others and left underdeveloped. Leading by example was all that was required of the army chief and not an ISPR release or the promise of being a saviour. By dismissing senior officers on grounds of corruption, he has broken new ground and done his job. It is now for the civilian institutions to salvage their moral credentials by initiating self-accountability – and for the people to push them.

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