ISLAMABAD, Oct 29: Opposition Senators on Friday made an impassioned appeal to the treasury to reject the twin-office bill, branding the piece of legislation "unconstitutional, immoral and anti-democracy".
On the third day of debate on the bill, the opposition lawmakers rejected the grounds put forward by the bill's authors that President Pervez Musharraf's retaining the post of army chief was necessary for the good of the country and warned that insistence on the 'unconstitutional' step could result in a countrywide mass movement.
Treasury senator Allama Abbas Kumaili created quite a stir by challenging the opposition to cite a single Quranic verse or Hadith which barred the head of state (Amirul Maumineen) from keeping the office of the commander-in-chief (Salar).
Allama Kumaili said the Holy Prophet Muhammad (PBUH) and his Caliphs were both heads of state and commanders-in-chief. He said opposing the uniform amounted to opposing jihad. The opposition reacted sharply to this line of argument, some even calling it blasphemous.
Prof Ibrahim of the MMA said no Caliph had captured power as they all were elected by the people, so no parallel could be drawn between them and "our army generals who grab power at gunpoint".
He said the first Caliph, Hazrat Abu Bakr (RA), had appointed Hazrat Khalid Bin Waleed as chief of Islamic forces who was sacked by Hazrat Umar (RA) and replaced by Hazrat Abu Ubaida Bin Jarrah.
On the contrary, he said, President Musharraf had captured power by using the army's might. Prof Khurshid Ahmed of the MMA said if the government went back on any article of the 17th Amendment, which was a social contract between two parties, then the whole exercise would become redundant.
"The movement launched as a result of this grave constitutional deviation will no more remain confined to ousting of an individual but will ensure that the army does not capture power in the future," he said.
He alleged that General Musharraf had cheated the nation by going back on the provisions of the amendment, which was passed only after he had agreed to give a cut-off date for shedding his army uniform.
Subsequently, he had confirmed this in his address to the nation that he had decided to quit the COAS office before Dec 31, and had congratulated the nation on that decision.
He said it had been decided that a 12-member committee would be constituted with the prime minister at its head to review various laws on which provinces had some reservations. That part of the agreement had also not been implemented, he said.
He referred to the contents of a book written by veteran lawmaker S.M.Zafar, the architect of the 17th Amendment and a witness to the MMA-government accord. He said Mr Zafar had written that the army chief's office was the only irritant which delayed the agreement and which both sides negotiated for so long.
He said with the going back on a settled matter the General had lost credibility, "and when credibility goes, the legitimacy also departs". He also quoted from a recent article of Lt-Gen (retd) Asad Durrani, an ex-ISI chief and a diplomat, in which he had written that breaking the commitment on the COAS office would lead to chaos, disorder and upheaval of everlasting proportions.
Similarly, Gen K.M.Arif had also narrated in detail the negative effects of military interventions on the performance and prestige of the armed forces, he said. He alleged that President Musharraf, through his recent interviews, had uttered derogatory remarks about the working of his own handpicked prime minister, cabinet and even parliament, implying that he had no faith in the democratic dispensation.
In such a scenario, Prof Khurshid said, parliament "becomes a house of cards". "The constitution has fixed parameters of working for parliament, the executive, the judiciary and the armed forces and whoever trespasses them stands criminal in the eyes of law."
The president is a symbol of federation but within certain limits as he had to work on the advice of the prime minister except where he had discretionary powers, whereas the armed forces were supposed to defend the homeland against foreign aggression and were meant to support civil administration under Article 243,244 and 245 of the Constitution, the MMA senator said.
Despite all this, if the house passed this bill it will tantamount to its own suicide, he said. Dr Abdullah of the PPP Parliamentarians contended that the country had not achieved any good under the army rule but civilian rules had brought laurels to the nation.
He criticized what he called a "U-turn taken by General Musharraf on Kashmir and Afghanistan" as he had started classifying as terrorism what was used to be called jihad in the past.
He said those who had supported dictators in the past "are now repenting" while those giving a helping hand to the current dictator would rue their folly in the future. He asked the house to give up 'political expediency' and reject the bill by majority, if not by consensus.
He said he was guilty of feeling good for Gen Musharraf when he had assumed power in 1999 in the hope that he might deliver but, "to my horror", all bad things of previous regimes were legitimatized.
He asked the treasury members to search their souls before taking a decision. Other speakers were Sajjad Hussain Bokhari of the PPP Parliamentarians and Nighat Mirza of the MQM.
On a point of order, Prof Khurshid drew the attention of the house to reported serious ailment of Dr A.Q.Khan and urged the government to take care before a stroke or paralysis struck him.
Dr Ismail Buledi lamented that the investigation into the murder of prominent ulema, including Mufti Jamil of Karachi, was slow. While those who had made attempts on the lives of President Musharraf and Prime Minister Shaukat Aziz had been nabbed, those who had murdered the ulema were still at large, he added.
